by Brown, TW
“Sheesh, what kept you guys?” Jim mouthed.
From our new vantage, we did not even dare whisper. We could see the man I had to figure to be Blake. He was on his knees. The man standing over him wore an oversized burlap glove that actually looked heavy like it was weighted with something. The two other men standing around were scanning the area in the direction we’d last heard the mysterious Chelsea.
“C’mon, Skins, give me a turn,” one of the men practically begged.
The man doing the beating up to this point—presumably Skins—stepped back and let this Blake person fall flat on his face. He began to unlace the glove; quickly confirming my suspicion that the bulbous fist portion was indeed weighted.
I didn’t need that much prompting to know this was our time to act. With as much stealth as I could manage in the tall, dry grass, I brought my crossbow around and slid the stock against my shoulder with a degree of comfort that was like hugging an old friend.
I felt Jim tap me and glanced his way. He gave me a stern look that I was not sure about. Since I did not know what he was trying to say, I just smiled and then sighted in on the one who was currently putting on the glove.
I felt Jim inhale and hold it. I did the same, and as soon as I felt him exhale, I pulled the trigger. My bolt zoomed through the air, nearly invisible as the shadows of dusk all met to bring darkness to the world as evening fell.
There was a yelp from my target as my shot was off by just a fraction and caught the man in the gut instead of the center of his chest. Before I could ask what we should do next, Jim and Jackson were on their feet, rushing in to meet the one man who was uninjured. That just happened to be the one we knew as “Skins.”
I scrambled up and hurried in as well, drawing the long knife at my belt. I rushed in just as Jackson tackled Skins and the two went tumbling into some of the nearby blackberry bushes. Jim had stopped over his guy and toed him with his boot. My guy was on his side.
I hurried over and put my boot in his side to flip him flat onto his back. He looked up at me and I took a step back. He could not be any older than I was, but he looked like hell. He had scars on his face and his nose had been busted so many times that it sort of laid on his face because it had no place else to go.
“P-p-please,” he begged, throwing his hands up.
“Finish him off.” Jim had stepped over beside me and was standing there with his hands on his hips.
“What?” I spun, but he grabbed my shoulders and turned me right back to the boy on the ground.
“Don’t ever take your eyes off of an enemy!” Jim barked. There was not an ounce of the mirth and humor I knew so well.
“He’s not—” I started.
“You shot him. That makes him an enemy. And since we don’t have the resources to take care of his injuries, you need to kill him. He will suffer horribly if you don’t.”
In a rush, I recalled our little conversation about killing a living person. He, Billy, and Paula had told me that it was not the same as killing a zombie.
I turned and looked down at this person. Everything else in the world seemed to fall away. I knew that Jackson and Jim were dealing with the situation around me. I thought that I heard crying and wondered when they had brought the mysterious Chelsea out of hiding.
Then I realized that it was me!
The man was staring up at me with a gaze that saw nothing. There was a bolt through his left eye that I did not remember firing. Feeling strangely numb, I reached down and pulled the bolt free. When I did, there was a gout of dark red blood.
I turned as quick as I could so that my vomit would not douse the corpse of the man that I had killed. That would have been extremely rude. When I finished being sick, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stood up despite my legs feeling like they were going to refuse to support my weight.
“You okay, cupcake?” Jim put an arm around my shoulders.
“Not really,” I admitted.
Jackson was over with the strangers, Chelsea and Blake. I could not hear what they were saying, but the stern expression on Jackson’s face told me that it was probably not good.
“There’s no going back,” Jim whispered. At first I thought that I might have imagined it. But then he continued. “I wish I could take it all away, but once you have killed a living person, justified or not, it changes you forever.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked weakly. In truth, I was actually hoping that he had an answer I could cling to that would pull me out of the aching feeling that I felt in my heart and soul unlike anything I had ever experienced.
I knew what sadness and depression felt like. They are natural and normal. This was something of its own ilk; there was really nothing that I could compare it to in my limited experience. It was sort of like I had lost something that was a vital part of me.
“The only thing that you could have done is to never step foot outside the walls of home,” Jim answered.
At first, I thought that he might have been making a poorly timed wise-crack, but his eyes were so cold, his lips so tightly pressed together.
“We have to go!” Jackson announced as he walked up, breaking the momentary spell of guilt and pain that I feared might never diminish.
“What’s up?” Jim instinctively flipped open the cover to his pack where he kept his array of improvised explosives.
“That army is in fact moving in to settle the area. I guess they sent advance teams to Island City as well as the larger tribes in the valley. It seems they were down in Oklahoma or something. A massive drought wiped out their crops and put them on the verge of starvation. Apparently, they had some active trade with the folks in Island City. Since it was apparently the largest settled area in a location that was sustainable, they simply decided to take it for their own.”
As I listened to Jackson explain things, I was at first confused, then I was angry. Was that actually their only option? To take what other people had worked hard to create and just claim it as theirs?
“If the people in Island City couldn’t defend against these monsters, then how can we hope to keep them from taking us out?” I asked what I considered to be an obvious question.
“For one,” Jim smiled, “the people of Island City did not have me.”
“Plus,” Jackson was much more serious, “they might not even know that we exist, and even if they do, there is really no reason for them to come up into the hills and try to root us out.”
“They only want the valley,” a man’s voice rasped. At first, I thought that it was the man Blake that we had just rescued. “They don’t know anything about you, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. We had plenty of smaller communities in Oklahoma that we traded with before the drought.”
It was the man called “Skins.” I peered around Jackson to where the man was lying on the ground, his wrists and ankles bound securely. I could not really make out his features that clearly considering that it was now almost completely dark.
“How could you even think to do something like this?” I pushed past Jackson and stood over the dark figure on the ground.
“When it comes to survival, it is you or them.”
His answer was so simple, said with no malice, anger, or any real sort of emotion. It was simply said as a statement of fact. This man saw nothing wrong with wiping out an entire community in order to further his own survival.
At first, I just stood there staring down at Skins. I could not see his face. I guess that is why it was so easy. Yanking my knife free, I plunged it into the center of where I guessed to be the man’s chest. I think I heard Jackson and Jim both yell at me, but it was really nothing more than background noise.
“How’s that working out for you?” I hissed as I leaned down and put my face right in the man’s.
I could smell his sour breath as it came out in a final rattle. A hand grabbed my shoulder and jerked me back roughly, tossing me to the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jackson
bellowed.
I didn’t know. That was the problem. So much was swirling around inside me that I wanted to scream, cry…
“Well, so much for being able to question him,” Jim said.
At some point, camp was made. Blake and Chelsea would return to their people in the morning. I was told that I would not be standing watch. Any time that I approached Jim or Jackson, they got quiet.
When I finally fell asleep, the nightmares came fast and vivid. Maybe it was that reason that the screams did not wake me right away. There were plenty of screams in my nightmare, so all I could figure was that they masked the real ones; that is, until somebody grabbed me.
14
Vignettes LIX
Juan sat quietly. Both the girls were in with their mother. This would be goodbye. Mackenzie had managed to hang on for two days. Over the years, the infection had slowed in its ability to turn, but it had not stopped being lethal. It was horrible watching her change from the vibrant, beautiful, energetic woman that he loved into this frail and sick shell of her former self.
They had spoken just moments before, and she had asked to see her daughters one last time. Juan could hear the harsh rattle of each cough as Mackenzie struggled to speak. He felt his heart turning to frozen stone, and he was helpless to stop it. He knew he had to be present for Della and Denita, but he could not find the strength.
“Daddy,” Della called as she came out of the tent, “I think you need to go in there now. Mama is done talking.”
Climbing to his feet, he entered the tent. The smell was a physical presence that coated his throat and nostrils in such a way that he almost believed that he would never be clean of it.
Mackenzie was on her cot. The bindings that secured her in place acted as a stinging but unnecessary reminder that the woman he loved would turn into a mindless eating monster, and therefore, she must be bound like the dangerous thing she could become at any moment.
“C-c-come sit beside me,” Mackenzie coughed.
Juan took one of the small folding chairs and moved next to the bed. He saw Mackenzie’s fingers wiggle slightly and he reached down to hold her hand. He winced at the coldness of her grip. He knew he should probably be wearing his gloves, but he would not miss the feel of her skin against his no matter how it felt.
“I just want you to know that I love you with all my heart, Juan Hoya.”
Each word came with obvious pain. It almost sounded like the words were being ripped from her throat. He half expected to see blood start to trickle from her lips.
“I need you to look at me,” Mackenzie rasped.
Juan brought his eyes up to hers. It was a struggle not to let the horror of what he was seeing show through in his expression. Her eyes were a nightmare and her skin was a waxy greenish-gray that looked like it would slough off her body. Her cheeks had gone hollow and her lips were nothing more that afterthoughts.
“I need you to promise that you will make it quick…as soon as I have taken my last breath.” That entire sentence took what seemed like forever as Mackenzie had to stop more than once when she was wracked with harsh, hacking fits of coughing that were almost painful to hear. “I would ask you to just end it now, but I know that you won’t.”
“You can’t be serious.” Juan struggled to maintain his last shreds of humanity. If he did not snap out of this, his daughters would basically be orphans. He had to pull himself together.
Not for the first time, he wished that he could go back in time—hit a rewind button. He knew deep down that he should have done away with Rufus when the dog showed signs that he was reaching a point where he could die. In the past, hadn’t people simply taken their pets to the vet and had them put down? Why had he allowed this risk to exist?
“Stop it!” Mackenzie managed through shallow, rapid breaths. “This is not your fault. If it is anybody’s…it is mine. I told you we could handle Rufus when the time came.”
Juan gripped Mackenzie’s hand tighter. In his imagination, she squeezed back, but the truth was that she was simply too weak. He sat there with her in relative silence. The only sound was that of her ragged breathing. Sometimes it was in rapid pants, other times there were long pauses that made him sit up straight.
“I’m sorry.”
Juan jumped and looked down to see Mackenzie staring at him, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes. They were wide but unfocused. He doubted that she was seeing him, and when he leaned down and her gaze continued to stare past him, he knew. He kissed the top of her forehead and looked over his shoulder. The tent flap was closed.
A tremor rippled through Mackenzie’s body and her legs began to twitch. Juan stood, his eyes unable to tear away as the woman he loved with all his being began to go into the throes of death. Reaching down, he pulled the pillow out from under her head and placed it over her face that was now an unrecognizable rictus of pain.
“God, if you exist, you know that I have been a screw-up my whole life. I doubt you got a place for me up there, but please, if you are real…forgive me.”
Drawing his knife from his belt, Juan placed the tip where he figured Mackenzie’s forehead to be and shoved down hard. There was initial resistance, and then the blade slid down.
Turning, Juan felt his heart leap to his throat. Denita was standing in the entrance to the tent, her mouth in a perfect tiny “O.” In her hand were a few straggly-looking wildflowers.
“Sweetie…” Juan’s mouth tried to work, but he found that there were no words forthcoming. His brain had locked up.
“Has mama gone to be with Antonio?” Denita asked, stepping forward and trying to peer around Juan.
Juan shifted his body to block her view as he reached back and felt around for the hilt of his knife. Pulling it free, he kept his hand behind his back as he knelt before his daughter.
“You’re talking,” Juan blurted, unable to come up with anything better to say to his daughter.
“Mama said you would need me and Della after she went to Heaven to be with Antonio.” Denita walked up to Juan and held up the wilting flowers. “Can I put these on her bed?”
Juan could only nod. He watched with tears in his eyes as his daughter who had not spoken in years stepped past him and stopped at her mother’s bedside.
“Give Antonio a hug and kiss for me, Mama. Tell him I am sorry. If I was watching out like I was s’pposed to and not playing with my doll by the water, he wouldn’t have had to fight that dirty deader. He wouldn’t have slipped in the mud and got bit and then had to go to Heaven and wait for us.”
Juan felt his throat tighten. He wanted to cry openly, but he knew that at this very moment, his daughter needed him. It had never been known how the zombie that bit his and Mackenzie’s son managed to fall prey. His throat torn open, he had died from blood loss before Juan and Mackenzie had even managed to get to him.
Kneeling beside his daughter, he bowed his head as Denita recited the only prayer she knew.
“Now I lay me, down to sleep…”
***
“Gemma,” the dark-skinned woman said softly, not rising from her seat.
“What…h-h-how?” the other woman stammered.
“I came here like you said,” Chaaya replied with a slight bow of her head. “They took me in without hesitation. I have married, he shares my immunity, and we have a beautiful son.”
“So you two really were together…” Vix stepped back from Gemma suddenly. “Then I need you to answer a question.”
Gemma sighed, her shoulders slumping. With tired eyes she looked up at Vix. “Yes, I am the Black Widow. I have killed over thirty men in the past several years…however many it has been. So I guess my invitation has been rescinded.”
Gemma turned to leave, but a hand on her arm stopped her. She turned to see an odd expression of her former travelling companion’s face.
“I was going to ask you if you might be willing to share the story of how you survived this long on your own, and if there would be any hard feelings between you an
d Chaaya. Considering that she deserted you, a point she admits and has made public knowledge practically since she arrived.” Vix gently steered the woman back to the boat.
Now Gemma was totally confused. Had Vix missed the part where she said that she had killed over thirty men? Not only that, but Chaaya had told people about her. So, at the very least, they knew about those first men that she killed. Yet, she was not only being welcomed, she was being asked if she had any problems with Chaaya in such a way that she honestly believed that the woman would incur some sort of imposed restriction or some such nonsense.
“I can share. Not much of a storyteller, but I can at least remember most of the details.”
“Then it is off to New England!”
And just like that, they were rowing back across the channel. Gemma actually took a moment to enjoy the light mist on her face as they cut through the water. She could not believe her fortune. After all that she had done, she was being accepted into this society with open arms. If she was able, Gemma might have cried. As it was, her throat was threatening to seize up.
They were less than halfway across when Gemma noticed the first people starting to gather at the dock in anticipation as to her arrival. Her anxiety was building once more.
She glanced back at Vix and saw that the woman was all seriousness as she watched the land get closer and closer. As for Chaaya, she had her eyes on her feet. Gemma would have to talk to her later. She had not done anything wrong, they would be able to clear the slate and start fresh.
Yet, as she looked from Vix to Chaaya to the crowd gathering on the shore, she could not shake the feeling in her gut that something was wrong. When a hand touched her arm, Gemma just about tipped the boat.
“Are you okay?” Vix asked with a furrow creasing her brow.
“Something is wrong,” Gemma whispered. Actually, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She looked plaintively at Vix. Her hands began to twitch and she could not stop her feet from bouncing.