by Pete Aldin
“What the hell?”
The young man had taken bolt cutters from the clutter of stuff Elliot had thrown into the SUV's cargo space and was working at the single strand of barbed wire along the top of the fence. It gave way with a dull click and he went to work on the straight wire below it. Inside of thirty seconds, Lewis had cut all four layers and started yanking them aside from the gap he'd made. When there was enough space for a car to fit through, he stood to the side, put the bolt cutters to one shoulder like a sentry and stared back at Elliot.
“Well? You gonna gawk at me all day or drive the car?”
He stalked through the gap he'd made and around the tree, readying the cutters.
“I'll be damned,” said Elliot and closed his door against the rain. He maneuvered the car around, and bumped his way through the gap and through the grass to where Lewis was making a new gate on the far side of the tree.
After he'd tossed his tool in back, Lewis got in the passenger seat, sweeping the map onto the floor. He clipped his seatbelt on, put his head against the rest and closed his eyes. “You wanted to get to the island,” he said. “Let's get to the island.”
IV
River Crossing
15
The last deader in the pack was slow of foot, lagging behind his mates who crowded the bridge downhill. Because of this, he disappeared beneath the SUV as it slewed to a stop on the wet road.
Satisfied the crunch beneath his left front tire was the thing's head, Elliot reached back for his rifle and slid out the door. On the opposite side, Lewis followed, nursing the 9-mil Elliot had left in the console. The car's position was perfect for a firefight: the gentle slope below it overlooked the bridge with an open killing ground between them. The group of Asians occupying the narrow viaduct had it blocked each end, first with white camper vans and then with pallets and wooden beams and even a portable cement mixer—all presumably pilfered from a building site somewhere. The sandstone bridge was maybe thirty car lengths across and they'd pitched three tents in the middle held firm by what looked like small sandbags and gym weights. At the far end, two moms and two girl children about six or seven frantically stowed gear into the campervan there. Three men defended the end closest to the SUV, standing up on a pile of pallets, slashing and hacking with two shovels and a cricket bat.
Elliot aimed at the ones half-running down the hill toward the action, fired a round and another, pleased with the results. The rifle felt good—and all the better for ridding the world of more pusbags. “That's it, baby,” he whispered and squeezed off another.
Three shots. Three deadheads had fallen between him and the makeshift barrier spread below. He glanced across the hood, grudgingly impressed with the way Lewis anchored himself in a spread legged posture and held his weapon the way Elliot had taught him. The young man fired, re-aimed and fired again, lowered it to assess the situation. Five shots and they'd taken out four between them, leaving fifteen harrying the Asians. He caught Lewis staring at him, challenging, the SIG forgotten.
“What?”
“You're gonna leave them, aren't you?” Lewis brushed his fringe from his eyes then lifted the handgun again.
Elliot made a quick decision. It was three hundred feet down to the bridge. Way too far for Lewis to fire accurately that close to friendlies. “Cease firing. Keep that for close encounters.” He raised his own weapon, picking targets carefully. He kept catching glances from the men at the barrier, perhaps worried he was going to hit one of them. He concentrated on thinning out the pack from the back to the middle, leaving the closest to them. One of them disappeared from his post; at first Elliot worried that he'd hit him with a ricochet, but then he saw the spade swinging up and down from behind the van: evidently some of the dead had gotten the idea to crawl under.
With only three left and taking a battering from the bat and shovel, he got back in the car, placed the hot rifle behind Lewis's seat and eased the car down the slope. He parked it at the very edge of the mess of bodies, killed the engine and watched the end of the show. When the last zombie toppled and the three men stood panting on their precarious perch, he and Lewis opened the doors and stood on their running boards to avoid the mess on the ground.
“Hey,” Lewis called to them. “How ya going?”
The three men nodded and lifted hands to shoulder height, up and down, quick, tired. They were dressed in almost identical tracksuit pants, sneakers and rain-jackets over black t-shirts. One had a baseball cap on. It had stopped raining. The sun peeking through the clouds was strong enough to make Elliot wish for his lost Shell cap.
“Thank you,” they said in chorus.
The baseball capped one—the least wary looking of the trio—added, “You came along at a perfect time.”
Up close, Elliot could see the people were south-east Asian, maybe Laotian or Cambodian, dark skinned with short shiny hair and strong wiry bodies. The man who spoke had the makings of an Aussie accent.
“Someone saved my friend yesterday like this,” Lewis said, “so we were just paying it forward.”
Elliot looked at him, said quietly, “I'm your friend now?”
“Shut up,” Lewis said out the side of his mouth.
“Where are you heading?” the spokesman asked. One of the others climbed down and headed back toward the women and girls who had stopped to watch but ventured no nearer.
“The coast,” Elliot said. “You?”
The man smiled experimentally. “Nowhere really. We've been here since the day before yesterday. Seemed like a good place to defend ourselves. We were totally wrong,” he added. The smile turned wry. “Haven't seen that many zombies together for a few weeks. Maybe they came from one of the farms near here?”
Elliot glanced among the bodies. Four were children, dressed in shorts and expensive sneakers. Another had a big-name watch that would have cost him a mint if it was genuine. “More likely from the city.”
“You see more on your way?”
Lewis and Elliot exchanged serious glances. “Not for a day or so,” said Elliot.
Lewis added, “But there's plenty west of here. Thousands.”
The cap-wearer's face fell.
“You hurt us?” asked the other man. He was older than his comrades, much older Elliot noted now he was closer, his consonants chopped short, his t-shirt yellow where the others wore black beneath their coats.
The cap-wearer backhanded his companion in the chest, exchanged words in their language and turned his smile on the newcomers again. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.”
Elliot shook his head. “Not gonna hurt you guys. Just spent a lot of bullets saving you.” He indicated the bodies blocking the bridge. “But as we'd like to get through here, any help you can give us clearing the road would be much appreciated.”
Lewis slapped the car's roof. “You can have one of our chickens.”
“Lewis,” Elliot growled.
“That leaves us two,” Lewis said.
“Well, just don't give them away too. We might need some good will when we reach the island.”
They kept the conversation quiet, smiling at the bridge defenders.
“We help you,” said the older man. “You give us chicken. And some egg too.”
Elliot opened his mouth but Lewis added, “Deal.”
The two men smiled.
“Sonofabitch,” Elliot murmured as he went around back to find some gloves among Jock's crap in the cargo space.
*
Elliot was three bodies into clearing a way through when he noticed Lewis wasn't helping. He heard his voice and then children's laughter. He and Heng—the taciturn wearer of the yellow tee—heaved a body onto the siding and Elliot climbed up onto the bridge stonework to see past the van.
Lewis had planted himself outside one of the tents with a notebook in his lap and pen in hand. The girls sat cross-legged in front of him, the women flanking him, squatting. They all leaned in, rapt with whatever he was producing on the page. He said something, tapped
the book and the girls dissolved into giggles. The women exchanged glances, beaming. One of them picked up a white bowl from beside him, insisting he eat from it. He plucked something, popped it in his mouth and nodded thanks, returned to his drawing.
“The boy not helping,” Heng complained, shaking his head. The lower half of his face was hidden behind the kind of face masks Elliot had seen people wearing in China against pollution. The other men had one also. They had given Elliot a strip of cloth to filter his breath.
“He's not a boy. But yeah, he's not helping. I'll kick his ass later.” He got down carefully, glad when the tender ankle didn't give way under him. “Let's get the last few out of the way.”
The younger men, Rit with the baseball cap and Kim without, lugged a body to dump on the pile, wiped their gloved hands on the grass siding where the slope plunged toward the river.
Kim indicated the gap they'd made in their barricade by moving the cement mixer. “It's not so bad. Three more, maybe, then you can squeeze the car through.”
“You should move your barricade back along the bridge about thirty feet. Leave some room around this mess. Think about burning the bodies to deal with bacteria.”
“Good idea,” said Rit.
Kim pointed past the van. “It's a good thing Lewis is playing with the children. Good for all of them.”
“Better things to do these days than play.”
Kim shook his head. “It's even more important these days. I haven't seen my daughter laugh in a long time.”
“Me too,” agreed Rit.
“Boy should help,” Heng insisted.
“Boy should be a boy,” Rit said and punched Kim's shoulder cheerfully. The two returned to the spread of bodies to pick a new one. He glanced up at a fresh bank of grey clouds creeping their way. “If we're lighting them up, we should hurry. Might rain again soon.”
“You and me, Mr Heng,” said Elliot, trying not to limp as he slowly followed them. “I think we're the only ones here gonna agree on matters like this.”
“Heng. Not Mister. Just Heng.”
Elliot almost said whatever and only just caught himself. “But you need to treat the boy like a man,” he said instead and bent to the next body.
“What are you eating?”
Lewis peered up at him, squinting because Elliot had chosen to come in at him from sunside, like a Battle of Britain Spitfire.
“Riceballs they call them.” He waggled the bowl, put it back on the asphalt without offering any to Elliot. And Elliot didn't want any. The golfball sized clumps of rice were speckled with something that might have been vegetable matter or even insects. Or poison. The girls watched the exchange fascinated by Elliot rather than frightened. On seeing him approach, one of the women had hurried back to the van and now tried to press a similar bowl with six of the tidbits into Elliot's hands.
He shook his head and waved it away. “No. No thank you.”
“You need to eat.”
“I'm good. Not a fan of rice.”
“Not a fan of manners,” muttered Lewis, biting into one and returning to his sketch. Elliot could see now it was a pretty good image of a horse frolicking with a young girl. Both figures had big round eyes like those on Japanese cartoons. But the grass and the tree he'd sketched looked pretty lifelike.
The woman pushed the bowl at him and he stepped back out of reach.
“Talk to you for a sec.”
Lewis sighed, handed the notebook to one of the girls. “Maybe you could get your crayons, and color this in?”
The girl squealed and dashed back to the van with the book clutched to her tummy while her friend or cousin or whatever chased her.
“What?” Lewis demanded. He hadn't moved.
Elliot asked the two ladies, and the men who'd now crowded closer, “You mind if we talk in private for a minute?”
“No, no, all good,” said Rit and flicked his hands at the women, waving them away.
“He should eat,” said the one with the bowl.
“Shhh, leave him alone.”
Kim and Rit herded them back to the van, enduring a barrage of displeasure in their language while Heng pottered past, nodding in approval. “Kick boy's ass,” he said.
When he was gone, Lewis said, “You're going to kick my arse?” He stuck the pen behind his ear and leaned back on his hands. The SIG lay four feet away. Elliot squatted and pointed to it, then the bowl.
“How do you know they don't want that? And aren't poisoning you with this to get it?”
“Seriously? Because they're not.”
“Man, you have to stop trusting people. How do you know they're okay? If anyone knows the world is full of bad folk, it's you.”
“My parents weren't bad.”
“No, but they might have gotten desperate enough to turn that way. To protect you.”
“Birdy wasn't bad. Jock wasn't bad.”
Elliot swallowed. “And those women at the train looked like ordinary chicks—ordinary people like these folk—but they weren't. They were desperate. And desperation broke them bad.”
“Maybe you're bad folk then.”
“Sure I am, but I'm on your side. Maybe these folk are too, but what if they decide they want what we've got and hurt us for it. Like the railroad chicks.”
“What do you care? You want to get rid of me. So now is your chance.”
“You don't get off the hook so easy, pal.”
“But you're taking me to some island. There'll be people there. Maybe they'll be bad.”
“Sure. But we get to check them out carefully before we start trusting. Same as these folks. Someone gives you food, you have them eat it first or you watch them make it from starters.”
They both looked up as the people started shouting. The girl without the horse picture was running back with a fresh notebook and some pencils in her hands. She ignored her guardians' protests. Rit waved apologetically. Lewis waved back and Elliot growled as the girl bobbed down by Lewis.
“Can you draw me a dog? I used to have a dog. A labrador.”
Lewis made a face. “I'm good at beagles. Is a beagle okay?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Can I name it?”
“Whatever you want,” he smiled, taking the pad. “As long as you look after it.”
She giggled. “It's a picture, silly.”
“No, it'll be a dog. Until you get a new dog, it'll be your dog. And you have to look after it. So you'll have to draw food on the page after I've finished, so he doesn't get hungry.”
“I can't draw food. I can't draw anything.”
“I'll teach you.” He raised his eyebrows at Elliot. “Is there something else?”
Elliot put a hand to his stubble and rubbed at it, stood up. “Sure there is. But I'll wait until there's no kids around before I say it to you.”
“Mr Grumpy Pants,” Lewis told the girl and she laughed and gazed up at Elliot unabashed.
“Mr Grumpy Pants here wants to get to the coast,” he said through gritted teeth. “He's so close to it, he can smell the surf.”
“Then go, I'm not stopping you.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the little girl was prevented from hearing a bunch of foul language by the lady returning with the bowl.
“Please. You have lunch with us. You saved us.”
Elliot turned his back and headed for where he'd parked the SUV. “I've got my own,” he said over his shoulder. He knew it for an insult in any Asian culture, just as Lewis had sensed. But it was no more insulting than them mollycoddling Lewis, letting him be soft, encouraging him to draw goddam children's pictures.
He stomped past the SUV and climbed the barrier, M4 swinging at his shoulder. He watched the clouds covering what remained of the blue sky, erasing the light. He was almost as far from the western highlands as he could get and not be swimming. It was going to be one long journey back there, though the SUV would help.
He turned at the sound of more laughter. The little girl had the pad on her lap, penc
ils in her hand, pointing at something for her mother who knelt down and hugged her and nodded while Lewis gave her a thumbs-up for the piece of lettuce or the dogbone or whatever the hell she'd drawn with her crap-brown and piss-yellow crayons. Heng had come over too and he picked up the bowl meant for Elliot, wandered to the side of the bridge and started eating, watching the river below. The rest of them—he still didn't know what country the adults were originally from and didn't really care—had clustered by the side door of the far van, sharing a meal and discussing something while the second girl sat in the passenger seat coloring in. She called to the adults and they looked at the picture she was holding up and made cooing noises.
Elliot eased himself down the outside of the barrier and bent over one of the dead still lying there. The guy was in business shirt, a tie hanging skewiff and too tight around his neck. Defintely no farmer. He wore an expensive Citizen multifunction dive watch, silver and sapphire color scheme. It was still ticking.
The girls and Lewis shared another laugh, the girls' squeal of delight rising up and up like a violin played well. One of the men, said, “We have three artists here now!”
Elliot put one foot on the deader's forearm and grabbed its hand. He pulled hard, wrenching it off like a drumstick from a Christmas chicken. He slipped off the Citizen and turned it this way and that. “Nice watch,” he said and headed for the river to clean it.
16
The SUV's cargo seat made a half-decent bed when the junk in the cargo area had been pushed to the side and the rear seatback pushed forward. He sat cross-legged in there while a light rain set in to depress the afternoon, cleaning his M4, eating spaghetti straight from the can and sipping bottled water. The Cambodians—he'd heard them explain as much to Lewis at one point—fussed over Lewis who had taken his pack into what appeared to be Heng's tent. As the gloom curdled into nightfall, the young man sat with the other men on camp chairs while they stirred a large wok over an open burner. The women had vanished into another tent with the girls. No one was watching the perimeter. No one but Elliot, who kept checking out each window, watching the road, the river banks, the far side closest the coast.