Death and Biker Gangs (Grave New World)

by S. P. Blackmore

  We reached the end of the warehouse, and Graybeard pulled open a narrow door set into the wall. “Get moving. Where are you headed?”

  “Hastings.” Tony stepped outside and gestured to us to follow. Dax had to shove Evie through; she still wanted to go after Frederick. “Any recommendations?”

  “Stick close to shelter. Avoid the open road. Most of the living out there doesn’t seem friendly. And try to stay quiet. Some of these fuckers…they hear things, I swear. Maybe even your thoughts.”

  A biker gang with superpowers? Damn, some guys get all the luck.

  The door shut behind us, and we began our long, exhausting trip from one part of the empty world to another. Tony pulled out his map and studied it as we walked, making disappointed noises every now and then.

  “We’re going to have to cut over this way,” he finally said, pointing at a random street. “Maybe spend the night over there, especially if this Blair is going to be looking for trouble.

  “So we have the pharmacy biker gang, and then two guys named Blair and Rattler who are fighting,” I said. “So that’s three so far.”

  “Four,” Tony said. “The old guy told me Root Canal’s gang wasn’t affiliated with them. He also mentioned an Arthur, but did not elaborate.”

  My temple throbbed where the revolver had struck it, and I was pretty sure no amount of ibuprofen was going to take the edge off tonight. “And these guys are afraid of Blair and his gang,” I said. “I thought bikers were tough.”

  Dax tapped my shoulder. “These guys keep dead things as pets. If they’re scared of someone, we probably should be, too.”

  EIGHT

  After several hours of hard walking and harder thinking, I could sort of understand Graybeard’s reasoning in using revenants as guard dogs, but I still couldn’t entirely support it.

  “The only way to control them is to tie them up,” I said, following the boys up to what had once been the skeeziest massage parlor this side of Vegas. A faded eviction notice was posted on the front door, and the building seemed to have escaped any sort of looting or general pillaging. “I mean, they’re basically giant assholes.”

  “Are they assholes, or just hungry?” Dax asked.

  “A lot of guys turn into assholes when they’re hungry. The blood sugar plummets,” Tony said. He jiggled the front door, then made an aggravated sound. “I can try to shoot it…”

  Dax shoved Evie’s leash at me. “Here, hold this.” He crouched down in front of the lock and started fiddling with it.

  I passed Evie’s leash between my hands, trying to ignore my nausea. “And what happens when they really start decomposing?” I asked. “It’ll reek in there. And what if they start dropping off bits, maybe leave a trail of ooze…”

  “Like a zombie snail,” Tony said. “You okay? You usually don’t…fixate…like this.”

  “It means my brain is working.” At least, I thought it meant my brain was working. My ears were still kind of ringing, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could keep from retching. But I figured if I was going to succumb to pistol whip-induced trauma, I would’ve keeled over already. “You can’t teach them anything. They don’t really do any tricks.”

  “Well, it’s not like we’ve tried to make friends with any,” Dax said. The lock clicked, and the door swung open. Dax tucked something back into his jacket pocket as he straightened up. I forgot about the undead and my hurting skull long enough to stare at him, which prompted a thin smile. “Yes, I can pick locks.”

  Tony pried my rifle out of my hands and poked his head through the open door. “I didn’t realize that was a merit badge,” he said over his shoulder. “Is there a reason you didn’t share this talent with us earlier?”

  “You always start shooting before I can say anything.”

  Dax and I stood outside together, shivering slightly in the cold. Dax peered at my face, where I warranted I was developing a nice-sized bruise. “So what the hell happened in there?” he asked.

  “The old guy pistol-whipped me. My molars hurt.” I probed the side of my head cautiously, but it wasn’t like I’d be able to detect a fracture, anyway. “Do me a favor. Don’t let me sleep for a few hours.”

  He frowned. “What if you have a brain bleed?”

  “Then I’m fucked.” I stretched a hand down to the dog, and her tongue rasped against my palm. “Unless you can prep for surgery.”

  He snickered, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Damn, I was working toward that badge when I dropped out.”

  I ruffled the dog’s fur. The faint sounds of Tony stomping around looking for trouble reached us, but it didn’t seem like anything exciting was going on. “So where’d you learn to pick locks?” I asked.

  “My bandmates.”

  Of course. You couldn’t be in a band called the Blood Nuts and not learn some sort of deviant behavior.

  The dog stuck her snout under my hand, and I played with the purple collar around her neck. She was the only one of our group who couldn’t really tell her story. Where had she come from? Did her owners set her loose, or did something get them? She didn’t seem mentally scarred by all that had happened.

  At least that made one of us.

  Tony reappeared in the doorway. “I think we’re in the clear for tonight. Vibeke, come inside and sit down. Dax, bring the dog.”

  Sit down? Am I supposed to sit down when I have a head injury? But it was easier to follow directions than ruminate over whether they were correct or not, so I took his flashlight and felt my way into the Happy Back Massage n’Go, which had probably hosted more than its fair share of happy endings.

  I kid. I’m sure it was a perfectly legitimate establishment.

  I swung the flashlight around, picking out several rickety-looking massage tables covered in dusty white sheets. The air smelled heavy and stale, like the carpeting in my grandmother’s attic. There were a couple of repurposed pedicure chairs leaned up against one wall, and I dropped into one without even trying to dust it off first. Evie bustled around, sniffing everything within reach.

  Dax went further inside, pausing in front of a pitch black hallway. “Tony, did you check back there?”

  “Two bathrooms, an office, and a store room. All clear. Couple bottles of water that I stuck on the front desk,” Tony said. He dropped his stuff in the center of the room, then walked back to shut the front door. “And even better…hang on a sec.”

  He disappeared down the hallway.

  Dax crouched down next to me. “You want some water or something?”

  “Yeah. Toss me the ibuprofen.”

  I shook three pills into my hand, thought better of it, and added a fourth. I washed them all down with a gulp of water, trying not to snort it out my nose when Dax’s eyes bugged out. “It’s just eight hundred milligrams. It’ll take the edge off when I try to sleep.” I held the water bottle out, and he reluctantly accepted it. “You don’t need to look so horrified. I know this stuff.”

  “Eight hundred milligrams sounds like a lot. Mariah took two hundred for her cramps…”

  “Pistol-whipping is not the same as cramps. That’s like comparing…a stubbed toe to getting kicked in the balls.” It took me a few seconds to filter through the rest of his statement. “Who’s Mariah?”

  He hesitated. “She was—”

  “Look what I found!” Tony trundled back over to us, his arms full of red, purple, and blue candles. “They’re scented, too. Just like you like ’em, Vibby.”

  He stuck one right under my nose to prove his point, and I recoiled too sharply, bashing my head into the cushioned headrest. “Don’t call me Vibby.”

  Tony lit a row of candles and set them on the front desk, then created a wide semicircle where I supposed we’d eat and sleep. None of the massage tables looked particularly comfortable, and they were all too narrow, anyway; with my luck, I’d roll off and really give myself a headache.

  It hurt to look too long at the flickering lights, so I closed my eyes. “Dax?”

 
; For a moment, all I heard was the lighter snapping as Tony lit more candles. Then, “Mariah was my girlfriend. She lived in Los Angeles. So did pretty much everyone else I knew.”

  The soft snaps of the lighter paused. Evie nosed around under one of the beds.

  Los Angeles. I had thought about Los Angeles recently…why?

  We think the city fell…

  Oh, hell.

  His girlfriend had lived there, and I’d gone and cracked a joke about it. A few zombies might be an improvement. Shit. I sat up straight, opening my eyes. “Dax, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Dax’s lip curled into as close as he got to a smirk. “When has there been time to say anything? When we were freaking out over the dead getting up in Astra, or running for our lives?”

  “You could have—”

  “Could have what? Cried over it? It’s the end of the fucking world, Vibeke, and everyone’s got someone—everyone’s lost someone, or a lot of—” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, turning away from me. “We all have our sob stories now. Why the hell should we dredge it all up when it’s the same story repeating everywhere? What good does it do?”

  Shit, shit, shit. What the hell could I say to him?

  Dax wiped his nose against his sleeve, ignoring Evie as she walked up to him. “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom.”

  “Tissues are on the left,” Tony said.

  Dax flashed him a thumbs-up—or was that his middle finger?—and trudged into the hallway. A door clicked shut a moment later. The dog followed, pawed at it, then looked at us, whimpering.

  “C’mere, Evie,” Tony said. “Leave him be.”

  Christ, I hoped he’d brought a flashlight. Sitting there in the dark with all those thoughts would be horrible.

  The seconds stretched into minutes, and I finally scrunched my eyes shut, resting my head in my hands. “I’m an asshole.”

  “Yeah, that was kind of a dick move on your part.”

  Am I always this much of a bitch? I pulled my legs up close to my body. “Did you know?”

  “About his girlfriend? No. But since he never mentioned anyone he was trying to get to or anyone he thought about, I figured they were gone.”

  My roommate used to talk about the human brain’s habit of compartmentalizing under periods of stress. I’d compartmentalized as an EMT, and I’d seen myself doing it in the weeks since the meteors came, pushing away thoughts of those I couldn’t reach and might never find.

  I guess Dax had been compartmentalizing, too, by locking his family and friends in a little segment of his brain, where he’d never have to think about them or talk about them. You’d be surprised at how easy that is to do when you’re just trying to survive. My parents and roommate and all the people I had loved and wondered about made their way into my dreams, but that was as close as I got to grief.

  And I’d brought it all back to the forefront for Dax.

  I stood up too fast, and my head spun. “I gotta go apologize.”

  “Vibeke, sit your ass down.”

  “He needs a hug or something.” I took a step forward, wobbled, and almost went down. Tony was at my side in an instant, his arms sliding around me. He helped me wobble closer to the center of the room, where he’d thrown our gear. “Tony…I don’t feel so good…”

  “We’re gonna sit down, okay? Don’t worry about your legs, I got you. One, two, three…”

  I wound up leaning against him. He stank of sweat and ash and the undead and the road itself, but he still felt strong and sturdy, and his arm around my shoulder was somewhat reassuring. Goddamn, though, my head hurt. “That fucker hit me with a gun.”

  “Yeah, he didn’t hold back, either. Kinda surprised you got up as fast as you did.”

  I closed my eyes again, trying to pretend he didn’t smell like the apocalypse. “How do I apologize to Dax?”

  “You don’t. He’s not one of your girlfriends. He doesn’t want to talk it out or snuggle or do any of that warm fuzzy crap girls do. Just leave him alone and don’t mention it when he comes back out.”

  I couldn’t decide what was worse: the nausea or the actual headache. “You don’t talk about going back to anyone, either,” I said.

  He was quiet for so long I figured I’d managed to insult him. “Sorry. None of my business. I get it.”

  He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “There’s no one waiting for me to rescue them,” he finally murmured. “My folks were in Florida, and finding out about them is…well, it’s not in the cards right now. After them, there wasn’t anyone else. Just you. The Boy Scout, too.”

  Great, now I’d gone and made Tony feel bad, too. “I’m an asshole.”

  “Kinda. But everyone needs an asshole.”

  I figured that was his way of telling me it was all right.

  “I know what’ll make us feel better,” he went on. I felt him lean slightly away from me, and he started rummaging around in his backpack. “I’ll read from the book of Ezekiel.”

  I stifled a groan. “If you do that, I’m going to strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger.”

  “Not that book of Ezekiel, but good job on the movie reference.” He pulled out Dead Mennonite Walking. Evie trotted over and sniffed the cover, then settled down in front of him when she decided the book wasn’t food. “How about some fine literature before bedtime?”

  “I don’t know if that’s going to help me sleep, but…”

  “Sure it will. Dax! We’re having storytime!”

  Dax shuffled out a moment later. I smiled queasily at him.

  Tony cleared his throat and angled his flashlight over the book. “Ezekiel smited the undead goodwife and dropped her from the rooftop, and looked over what his angry God had wrought. The sun had grown red, and brown, rotten hands waved from the fields, all of them needing his help to return them to the sanctity of the grave. He lifted his scythe and swung it over his shoulder, aye, verily, and thought it would be a fine day to do the Lord’s work…but only after he made a cup of coffee.”

  Some people hug you when you admit you’ve screwed up. Tony reads to you about a zombie-hunting, caffeine-guzzling Mennonite while you’re in the middle of the actual zombie apocalypse.

  I guess it’s the thought that counts.

  NINE

  “Motherfucking son of a goddamn shit on a fucking stick!”

  Well, that’s one way to wake a person up.

  I pulled my jacket-turned-blanket over my head, mournfully aware that I probably hadn’t died from a brain bleed and was, in fact, listening to Tony bellowing at what was doubtlessly an ungodly hour in the morning. “What?” I mumbled. “Did you finish the book? Does Ezekiel die at the end?” We’d left him in a tight spot last night, facing down an undead werewolf who had once been his brother-in-law. Or had the undead werewolf been his mother?

  “Shit!” Tony slammed the front door hard enough to rattle the glass, and something thumped against the floor. The dog yipped in concern. I sat up and wiped some of the morning glop out of my eyes, and Tony, the dog, and a large blue box hazed into view. Evie sniffed at the box, then whined uneasily.

  I did a double-take. “Is that a cooler?”

  “Great detective work there, Vibby.”

  Dax sat up in his bedroll, stifling a yawn. “Why do you have a cooler?”

  Tony all but breathed fire. “Someone left it at the front door.”

  I stretched my hands over my head, cringing as my back creaked. “So we have secret admirers?”

  “Vibeke! Who the fuck leaves coolers at the door during the goddamn apocalypse?”

  It didn’t sound like something a zombie would do. I tried to push my hair out of my eyes. “Do I get points for answering correctly?”

  “What’s in it?” Dax asked.

  “Who cares? I’m not opening it. What if it’s a bomb?”

  “Why the hell would you bring it inside if you thought it was a bomb?” Dax demanded.

  Evie bared her teeth at the b
ox while the boys scowled at each other. I wrapped my arms around my knees, not bothering to suppress a grin. “Maybe it’s a severed head.”

  After a moment, Tony pried off the lid and peered inside. “Huh.”

  Dax leaned forward. “What is it?”

  Tony reached inside and pulled out…a severed head.

  Evie barked and skittered backward.

  We sat there staring at it for several seconds. I can say with confidence that none of us had ever received a severed head before, even during the golden age, when the USPS or FedEx were around to deliver such things.

  “Vibby?” Tony glanced at me. “Want to explain this?”

  I could swear the head was glaring at me. Aside from the possibility of my concussion leading to clairvoyant powers, I wasn’t quite sure how to account for my lucky guess. “Wow, what are the odds?”

  “Think fast, Vibby!” Tony chucked the head at me.

  I didn’t think, I just reacted—I caught the damned thing.

  It snarled at me, and I promptly dropped it into my lap. “Holy shit, it’s alive!”

  “I don’t think alive is the term we should really be using,” Dax said. He snagged the dog’s collar to keep her from charging the head.

  The reanimated head gnashed its teeth together, scowling up at me. This one looked angry, and hell, who could blame him? I’d be pissed off, too, if I were just a head. I lifted him up by his hair, trying to hold him a decent distance away. He couldn’t have been dead all that long; his features were still pretty much intact, right down to the spiderweb tattoo along his neck.

  Oh, fuck. I’d seen that tattoo before. “This is one of the guys from the drugstore yesterday.”

  Tony sighed. “Well, I guess we know who left us the cooler. Maybe the old guy was right to be scared of that other gang.”

  Dax pointed inside. “There’s a note.”

  Evie strained toward the head, all traces of our gentle pet gone. “No, Evie,” I said sternly. “No. Not while I’m holding it.”

  Dax held onto the dog with one hand and picked up the note with the other, clearing his throat before reading aloud. “We gave Eccleston to Fredrick, and now you can have what’s left. Smiley face. This is what happens to those who trespass. Smiley face. You’re next. Smiley face. Love, Blair. Smiley face.”