A bald old man who was somehow well-dressed yet simultaneously filthy stepped out from behind the lichen-covered trunk of the tree, hands held aloft as if someone were filming a post-apocalyptic episode of COPS. “Easy there, chief. Like I said, no love lost for Frankie-boy. Just want to know what your deal is.”
“Who else is out here with you?” Jonah demanded. He glanced at Ben so he didn’t lose track of him.
“Just me, chief,” the old man croaked. He appeared to be unarmed.
No one wandered into the woods unarmed unless he was surrounded by a troop of guardians, and one shirtless goober with a couple of hatchets didn’t qualify.
“Who else?” Jonah repeated. “Where are the others?” But even as he asked, he knew it didn’t matter. Ben hadn’t eaten in three weeks. They hadn’t seen another living human since Gettysburg.
He was going to have to risk it.
He rose and took three steps closer to the old man, lowering his rifle’s barrel.
The old man smiled, sending creases rippling across his bald head like water. He put his hands down—
—and Jonah pulled his revolver from behind his back and shot him, right below the belly. Shattered his pelvis into God knew how many pieces.
Between the sound of the gunshot and the old man’s screams, there was enough noise to wake the dead. Or at least get their attention. Ben reversed course and shuffled toward them. Jonah knew zombie speeds intimately; it would take Ben over a minute to arrive, so Jonah divided his attention between the old man, in case he had any hidden weapons, and the surrounding woods, in case the old man’s friends were close by.
Neither seemed to be the case, which stunned Jonah.
How about that. An honest man still walked the Earth. Well, not so much walked as lay bleeding all over it, but the basic concept applied.
The old man’s screaming abated quickly; he was now breathing shallowly and rapidly through the pain, clutching his belly as if giving birth.
An honest man. Maybe the last one left in this world. Jonah felt he owed this honest man something, some sort of recognition before Ben slurped his brains out through his hairy ear.
“Do you think there’s anything left of the people that zombies used to be?” Jonah asked, kneeling next to the old man and speaking loudly enough to be heard over his Lamaze-like breathing exercises. “Do you think there’s any piece of their mind—their pre-zombie mind—that still lives?”
“You. Can’t. Believe. There’s. Hope. For.” The old man gasped his incredulity one word at a time. But his mind was going in the wrong direction.
“Good Lord, no,” Jonah corrected him. “Hope? For what? A cure? I’m not hoping for a cure. I pray every night to God—a God who I know full-well doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us—that the man who used to be Ben Peterson is still awake in there, fully aware of what he’s become. That he’s aware and suffering and tormented, knowing exactly what he is and what he’s doing. I want Ben Peterson trapped for all eternity in his own personal Hell, unable to stop himself from killing.” He pushed the emotions away, but his voice still trembled. “If there’s even the remotest chance that he’s still in there somewhere, I want his misery to last as long as possible, and I will protect him with my last bullet, with my last breath, to see that his Hell does not end one second too soon.”
The old man’s breathing was slowing, more like fish-gasping now. “That’s. Really. Twisted.”
Jonah stepped back to make room for Ben, who was almost upon them. “Feels like justice to me,” he replied flatly.
“Fucking. Twisted.” the oldster said even as Ben descended noisily upon him.
Jonah shook his head, reclaiming his composure. Anger was not a luxury he could indulge in for long; it was too distracting. “You really ought not to cuss like that,” he said, even as Ben bit into the old man’s face. “There’s no call for that kind of language.”
Out of respect for the about-to-be dead, Jonah stepped around to the other side of the thick-trunked oak. He didn’t feel good about shattering the old man’s pelvis and turning him into Purina Brand Zombie Chow. He just didn’t see as he had much choice. Zombies needed to eat, too.
***
Ten minutes later, Jonah studied Ben as the zombie shuffled off, sated for the moment. That zombie bobble-head business needed attending to.
Jonah had lived with the undead long enough to know that a decapitated zombie stayed awake and alert for quite a while, but eventually any zombie—headless or otherwise—that didn’t eat some brains would go into a coma-like state, nearly impossible to re-awaken from. And unless he wanted to be reduced to hand-feeding a zombie-head, Jonah had to find a way to keep Ben’s noggin in place.
He looked at the old man’s corpse. Where had he come from? It couldn’t have been too far away; he obviously wasn’t passing through. That meant a home base. It meant supplies.
The old man—
No.
No, the answer was not the honest old man. The answer was Frank, the shirtless, hatchet-wielding idiot.
Frank had been coming up over that small hill, moving in a straight line, very purposefully. He was either coming from or heading toward something. If it wasn’t his home base, it would be something that might at least provide a clue.
Frank was the answer.
Jonah smiled as he walked toward the bullet-riddled corpse. He had only taken three steps when something smashed into the back of his head, smashed it so hard that he barely had time to register the pain before he blacked out and pitched face first...
***
Jonah awoke tied to a wooden chair, head throbbing, sitting beneath a single, bare bulb in a supply closet that was stacked to the ceiling with cans of food. He hadn’t seen this much food in one place since before the D Plague broke out, back when supermarkets were still an ongoing part of reality. Big cans, small cans, family-sized cans; peas, corn, carrots, baked-beans, tuna and chicken; with labels from every brand he had ever heard of. The wealth of food was almost inconceivable.
Even as his mouth watered, his mind raced, assessing the meaning of it all.
First, there had to be a lot of people here. There was no way a small group could have collected this many cans.
Second, these people were highly organized and under the control of a particularly strong-willed and insightful individual. Without potent leadership, this kind of ready food-supply would have been consumed in no time by desperate, short-term-thinking people.
And third—and most importantly—that ‘honest old man’ had lied to him.
Jonah strained and heaved, pulling against his bonds with all his strength.
Lied!
There was no greater sin. No greater offense imaginable.
Jonah tried to straighten his legs so he could drop down heavily, trying to smash his way free from the chair. If this rotten old chair crumbled as easily he thought it would, he could get himself free of the ropes. He’d... He’d...
In his Hulk-smash rage, Jonah doubled his efforts and then doubled them again. He had opened up to that old man. He had repaid honesty with honesty. He had confided in him, told him things he had only ever told two other people in the entire world and it had been based on a lie!
Except Jonah couldn’t straighten his legs out far enough, couldn’t get high enough to put any real oomph into his attempts to shatter the chair.
He strained and jumped, but bunny-hopping around the supply closet wasn’t enough to break the rickety old thing. It was enough to get someone’s attention, though, because thirty seconds after Jonah began his futile attempt to destroy the chair, the closet’s metal door swung open. A guard leaned into the room holding a revolver—his revolver, Jonah realized.
Jonah instantly shifted his attention and his demeanor. He didn’t like showing emotion to others. “Where is Ben?”
“Who?” the guard a
sked.
“The zombie I’ve been following around,” Jonah explained. “He looks like Alex Rodriguez, though not quite as attractive. Have you seen him?”
“What are you, fucking queer?” The guard’s disdain dripped from every word like drops of water from a tree after the rain.
Jonah took a deep breath, trying not to get drenched by the guard’s foul demeanor. The guard immediately went on his short list of people to feed to Ben.
Composed, Jonah replied. “Neither cursing nor homophobic slurs are necessary.”
The guard raised the butt of the revolver threateningly. “Well then how about if I just smash your head in again? How about I—”
“How about you get the fuck out of my interrogation room?” snapped a slender young man in a faded camouflage jacket, standing in the doorway, filling it with his presence in a way he couldn’t possibly fill it with his slight frame. He was so slim he could have been sixteen or twenty-five or anything in between.
The guard raised the butt of the revolver even higher over Jonah’s head, then spun and stomped away, wordlessly closing the metal door behind him with a sharp clang.
“Greetings,” said the man-boy, extending his hand, as friendly as he had been harsh just seconds earlier. “I’m the voice of reason in this insane asylum. Name’s Martin, but most folks around here call me Robin—as in ‘Robin Hood.’”
Jonah nodded. “Nice to find someone civilized enough to offer a proper greeting...” He paused a moment before adding, “As you can clearly see I’m not in a position to shake your hand.”
“Right, right,” the man-boy said, putting his hand in his pocket. “Force of habit. My apologies.”
They stared at each other in silence.
Stared.
Silently.
Until finally Martin spoke. Martin—not Robin. Jonah refused to think of him as a medieval comic book character.
“So...you want to tell me why you murdered my grandfather?”
“I didn’t,” Jonah replied automatically.
Martin stared at him like a parent assessing a lying kindergartner. He raised one eyebrow.
“Wait a minute. Your grandfather?” Jonah said. “And the other guy—”
Martin shook his head dismissively. “A troublemaker and a buffoon. Grandpa hated him.”
“Well they were both about to be eaten alive by a zombie. Shooting them seemed kinder than allowing them to be...you know. I hardly think that qualifies as murder. I did them a favor.”
Martin shook his head, disappointed. “Too convenient by half. The world isn’t that tidy. At least offer me something original; God knows how many times I’ve heard that lie before.”
“Look,” Jonah said. “I can’t help it if the truth happens to be ‘tidy.’ Those two were about to be eaten. Period. I could have watched it happen. But I didn’t. I took action.”
Martin leaned against the closed door. “Oh, so you’re one of those.” He nodded. “Okay. We can play it that way. I’m curious to see how far you’ll take it.”
“I’m not playing,” Jonah snapped. He was fed up with this kid, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his frustration from bleeding out. “One of what? What are you talking about?”
“So they were about to die, were they?”
“Yes,” Jonah replied, calming himself. He would remain in control.
“And there isn‘t anything else you want to add to that story? Or change? Or...whatever? Did they stumble over a root and find themselves face down in the dirt? Did that zombie just catch up to them because it was faster than they were? Give me details.”
The boy was trying to trap him. Trying to trick him. Most likely looking for an excuse to execute him.
“I don’t recall the details. I was fighting for my life, not keeping a diary.”
Martin nodded again. “Okay, this is helpful. Very helpful indeed. A temper, but controlled. Sells his bullshit like it was Biblical Scripture, but smart enough to refrain from making stupid mistakes. I think I’m getting a picture of the kind of man you are.”
Jonah fumed. All he wanted was get out of here so he could find Ben and fix him. What was this man-boy babbling about?
Martin leaned in close, putting his hands on top of Jonah’s bound and still-tacky forearms, his nose inches away. He was so close that Jonah had trouble focusing his eyes on the boy’s features.
“I know everything,” Martin breathed hotly on him. “I know how easily you climbed up and down that tree, even while holding your rifle. I know how quickly and precisely you shot Frank. I know all four places you shot him. I know which hand you used when you drew that pistol and shot my grandfather.” He smiled. “I don’t care, by the way. About Frank, I mean. Grandpa was right: Frank was a piece of shit.” He paused. “I do care that you killed my grandfather, though, but if it makes you feel any better, he has—excuse me, he had—brain cancer and volunteered for every suicide mission that came along. I was prepared for him to die a long time ago.
“You know,” Martin continued, “in a funny way, you told the truth and didn’t even know it.” Tears appeared in his eyes and he apparently had no qualms about letting Jonah see them. “You did do him a favor when you let that zombie kill him. Of course, you also let your zombie BFF eat a brain that was riddled with cancer. I’ll be very interested to see how that affects him.”
Jonah’s thoughts pinballed wildly. Brain-cancer? Four shots? Suicide mission? The relevant pieces clicked into place. “You were watching me the whole time.”
Martin stood up straight and impossibly tall, let out a hearty laugh. “No, dumb-ass, I guessed. Made the whole thing up to see if you would confess.” The man-boy laughed again, though there was little humor in it. “Of course I was watching you. No one comes into Sherwood Forest without my knowing about it. And before you ask a stupid question, yes, I just called it Sherwood Forest. It goes with my nickname.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Jonah demanded.
Martin stepped back and, without ever breaking eye contact, banged his fist against the metal door. The door rang out like it had been a gong in a previous life. It opened immediately and the guard with Jonah’s revolver poked his head into the room.
“We’re ready,” Martin said.
“Okay, Robin.” His head disappeared behind the door again, only to reappear seconds later when the door was pushed open by a tall, narrow cage sitting atop a dolly. The wheels squeaked noisily as the guard rolled it into the supply room.
It was Ben, his bobble-head still flobbing around like it was attached to his shoulders with a slinky.
These bastards had caught Ben. Caged him.
When Jonah got loose, Martin would die. Everyone in this compound would die. Every single one of them. Dead.
Martin snapped his fingers a few times. Jonah realized he was staring at Ben. He turned to look at the boy. “You really have an unhealthy obsession with that thing, don’t you?”
Jonah looked at him silently, vowing not to speak another word. Everything he had said today had been turned against him.
“Not talking, eh?” Martin said. “That’s okay. You’ve said plenty. It never fails to amaze me how much you can learn about a man when you know he’s lying. What you need to do now is listen, because believe it or not, I’m going to offer you safe haven here. I think we could use you. No, I know we could use you. You’re better with a gun than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Jonah listened to Martin, but he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wouldn’t believe what he was hearing. No one had reached out to him in years. No one had asked him to be a part of anything since...Ben. Ben Peterson had made an impassioned speech about the importance of family and the power of teamwork—and Jonah had bought into it wholeheartedly.
“You’re screwing with me,” Jonah said. “Don’t do that.”
&nbs
p; “This is on the level,” Martin replied. “I know you’ve done some awful things, but I’ve got sixty-three people here, including eight children. I need all the help I can get, and your skill with guns makes you worth ten of Frank.”
“Stop,” Jonah hissed. “Stop messing with my head. You’d never trust me after what I did. Never.”
“Well...” Martin began. Slowly, carefully. “I might. But you’re not going to like what I ask in return.”
Jonah’s gaze flicked from Martin to Ben and back to Martin again. He knew instantly what the boy would require.
“No,” Jonah answered. “I won’t kill him.”
Martin eyed him. “It’s the only way to be sure you won’t betray us.”
As if he knew what was going on, inside his cage Ben began rocking and moaning. Ben hadn’t made a sound since Gettysburg. Jonah had assumed he was too weak. Was he stronger now, now that he had fed? Or was he responding to what was happening around him?
If he was responding—whether to convey a desire for life or a desire for true death—either way, it would be the proof that Jonah had been seeking all along. Proof that somewhere, deep down in his zombified self, Ben was still aware. That he understood what was happening.
On the other hand, Ben had just eaten. Maybe he was simply more energized, in his own undead sort of way. Maybe it was nothing more than animalistic hunger.
Jonah had no idea—and he suspected he never would.
“Say it,” Jonah said softly.
“What do you want to hear me say?”
“I want you to tell me exactly what you want me to do. I want to hear you say the words.”
Martin nodded gently, thoughtfully. “Okay.”
Ben moaned again, aggressively, a throaty, whispered roar. He thrust his arms out as if to grab someone, but the bars of the cage were too strong. No one in the room flinched. They had been around too many zombies for too many years to be startled by something like that.
The Big Bad II Page 20