by Неизвестный
He sighed. That had been much too close. He couldn’t afford to linger.
There would be other ranches.
There would have to be.
He listened for a moment to the rumble in his belly, and then moved on.
During the day, as he picked his way through the willows that lined the banks of the Salinas, hoping that it would cover his tracks and knowing at the same time that hope was pointless, he hunted for food. During the days, he could. That was when the things, and most importantly, the thing (though it hurt to call him that) which hunted him could not.
He was hungry, but even so, he hesitated when he saw his first rabbit that morning. Daylight or no, the flood of the reanimated had taught him to be wary. And there’d been so many of them killed over the years. His friend had been clumsy that way. Who knew how long they would keep coming, the parade of the damned? So his first live one of the day got away. But then, spurred on by the increasing volume of the rumbling in his gut, he shook off his close call at dawn and was able to bring himself to bring one down.
And he needed to. He had to keep up his strength, and the cans of beans he’d borrowed—he preferred to call it that rather than use the word “stolen”—had only lasted so far. He’d thought events had taken a bad turn in Weed, but on the night when he’d had to make that horrible choice, to do that terrible thing to the friend who’d trusted him more than anybody else in the world, they’d gotten worse. As worse as he thought it was possible for a life to get.
He’d been wrong. He’d been wrong about a lot.
He worried that, warm meat settling in his belly or no, he could only go on so far.
But he would have to try.
He reached the next ranch in the late afternoon, when almost all of the men were still out in the fields. He’d done that sort of thing before, shown up too late for work and gotten a meal without having to toil for it, but in the old days, that action had been a choice, and he hadn’t been alone.
Of course, however it seemed, he really wasn’t alone now. That’s why he had to keep moving. But he’d grown wearier than usual these past few days, and had to take the risk. At least briefly.
He entered the bunkhouse and found one lone ranch hand begrudgingly sweeping the stained floor. The hand paused, leaning against his broom, and eyed the intruder warily.
“Well, aren’t you the special cuss,” he said. “Waltzing in here like this with the day’s work just about done.”
“No, I ain’t nobody special. Name’s George. George Milton.”
George held out a hand, but the man refused to take it, keeping his fingers wrapped around the broom handle.
“Sorry,” he continued. “Hitched a ride, and meant to be here early, but I got dropped off one ranch over. Had to hoof it from there. Mighty impressive spreads in these parts. Took a mess of hiking to get me here.”
“You’re damned lucky we’re down a few hands, otherwise the boss would send you on your way like that.” He snapped his fingers, and that action somehow broke his resolve. His grimace blossomed into a smile, and he held out a hand. “Name’s Willie.”
“Pleased to meet ya, Willie,” said George, as the two men shook.
“So how come you’re short?” asked George, after the pleasantries were done. “Times like these, no one just walks away from a job without a good reason.”
“You’d think so,” said Willie, his brow wrinkling. “Only, that’s what done happened. Three guys just took off in the middle of the night during the last week alone, one at a time, without even the decency to say why or goodbye. Lucky for you, they didn’t take any of their stuff, so since it don’t look like you’re carrying much in the way of supplies, you’re welcome to their leftovers.”
Normally, George would be grateful for that spot of good luck. There was only so much he could carry, so he’d had to leave a lot behind. But he didn’t like the sound of this. Turning your back on three squares and a cot was crazy, with what the you ess of ay was going through in the ’30s, with both food and work so scarce. Just wasn’t done. Not by anyone. And certainly not by three from the same ranch, so close together.
But he didn’t have time to think much further on the puzzle, because that’s when the men returned from their long day in the fields.
They were glad to see him, or made a show of being so anyway, because being down a few men, their routine had become even more brutal than usual. And he was glad to see them, too, because in those few minutes of exchanging names and slapping backs, in the midst of a dozen or so men laughing, cursing, spitting, he felt almost normal. By the time the introductions were over, he had trouble remembering most of the names, but it didn’t matter that he couldn’t keep them straight, because he knew their types well.
Maybe they’d been bucking barley. Maybe they were just back from haying. It didn’t really matter. Guys like that were the same all over.
Here was the joe who blamed the world for all of his problems, there the silent one who might be stupid or might not, but since he rarely opened his mouth, few could tell for sure (George quickly moved on from that one for fear of remembering too fully once more), here the one with the tripwire temper who was quick to anger, there the lazy bastard who hoped no one would notice but knew everyone did . . .
There the calm and steady one, the one George could tell people listened to. That last one’s name he’d make sure to remember. Jackson. He was the rarest type of all, the peacemaker, a sort not always found in the muddle of men on ranches and farms. And he might come in handy.
Then the dinner bell rang and George met the boss around a long table as plates of tough meat and tougher rolls were passed around, and the men gobbled them down like candy. The meat tasted like horse—it was a sign of the times that he could identify the flavor, for once he’d never have been able to do that—but he was glad of any meal he didn’t have to kill for himself.
The boss, a barrel-shaped man named Dix, didn’t question him much, so George didn’t have to explain what had happened in Weed, or what happened not so very much later a few miles south of Soledad. George wasn’t a very good liar, so he wasn’t sure how well he would have been able to hide the truth, but the boss seemed too needy to go hunting after possible distressing facts anyway.
After the meal, the guys pitched a few horseshoes, and smoked a few cigarettes, but they were all too worn out for much more fun than that, the men from their work, George from his long hike and close escape. Only after he’d crawled into bed did he remember that he’d intended to ask about the men who’d vanished, find out what kind of people they were, if there was a simple reason why so many workers would have gotten skittish enough to bolt so close together.
But then sleep overcame him, and he was off in dream, telling the same old story again, the story his friend had always treated as new, the one about a little house on a couple of acres, and a vegetable garden, and the rabbits.
Always the rabbits.
George jerked awake at dawn, when the sun’s first rays crept into the room. He had learned what that first light meant. He’d survived another night, and nothing could get at him until another one fell. The work to come that he would normally have cursed as backbreaking would instead be a relief, because it would tell him that he was alive. Even a poorly cooked breakfast, with bits of shell mixed into the scrambled eggs, didn’t dampen his mood, and when he leapt with the other men into the wagon and headed out for the barley, he was filled with as much happiness as his present life could muster.
As he worked that day, watching the sun track across the sky, he found himself wishing it would move more slowly. Ever since he’d done what he’d done, there was no end of things out there looking for him.
The big lummox had snuffed out so many of them. Only they hadn’t stayed snuffed out. He couldn’t even get that right.
But George must have made a mess of it big time as well. He’d shot Lenny, seen him fall. He’d shot him in the sweet spot, right where he was supposed to, supposed
to so that his friend’s long troubled journey would all be over.
Only it wasn’t.
When he got back to the bunk house at the end of the day, he discovered that a rope had been stretched between two trees out front, a sheet tossed over it to hang limply.
“What do you suppose that’s about?” asked George.
“I don’t rightly know,” said Jackson. George had attached himself to the man, hoping to borrow some of his calm. “Been here a piece but never seen it done before.”
They shrugged and passed the setup by, heading in for another overcooked meal. When they pushed back from their plates, Dix stood up, and leaned forward with his palms flat on the table.
“I have a treat for you fellers tonight,” he said. “As soon as it’s fully dark, we’re going to have ourselves a picture show.”
The men chattered excitedly as they rushed outside.
“What do you think it’s gonna be?” said one.
“I hope it’s a dancing picture,” said the quiet one, who surprised them by speaking up at such length. “I like them dancing pictures.”
“Don’t matter to me much,” said George. “As long as it takes me away from here.”
“Oh, it ain’t so bad here,” said Jackson. “We got food, a place to lay our heads. And sure, Dix can be tough at times, but believe me, I’ve seen worse. Who could want anything more than that?”
George could, and he wasn’t the only one. He could think of a few others who would want more as well, and he knew exactly what it was they’d want. How he was the one who’d made them want it. And how he had gone ahead and ruined it for them all.
You couldn’t blame the big lummox. He didn’t know what he was doing. But George . . . he was supposed to know better. All that came after. That was his own damn fault.
Dix directed the men to set up rows of crates in the wide space between the bunkhouse and the stables, and then they sat there, working at their toothpicks, spitting in the dust, waiting for the purple sky to turn black. George didn’t like being exposed out in the open like that, but he couldn’t figure any way around it. He pressed himself into the center of the men. The boss carried out a projector and fussed with it, not letting any of the others help him with the delicate machine. That didn’t stop him from cursing at Willie as the hand played out a length of cable that ran from the small generator which usually kept the boss’ house lit.
“Settle down, men,” shouted Dix. “I don’t exactly know what we got ourselves here, but from what they tell me, it’s supposed to be a doozy.”
George shifted uncomfortably on his crate, and was relieved when the utter darkness was broken by a beam of light. One of the guys nearest the screen laughed and jumped up, throwing his silhouette on the sheet, but a shout from Dix returned him to his crate. Soon the night was pierced by a beating of drums, and the words WHITE ZOMBIE stretched before them.
“Hey, look,” someone shouted, as Bela Lugosi’s name appeared, “it’s got that vampire guy in it.”
George didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He wasn’t much for picture shows, at least not lately, not when he’d had more important plans for his money. But not just with his money . . .
Best not to think of it. Best not to think of any of it, the missed picture shows, the skipped visits to fine parlors, all sacrificed in pursuit of—
Forget it. Forget it all.
Maybe this movie, whatever it was, would take his mind elsewhere. But based on how it began, it served only to refocus him more fully on his problem. Off in a country not really so distant and yet as far away to him as the moon, dead men walked, dead men who were at the same time somehow undead.
“Haiti is full of nonsense and superstition,” said one character to another, but to be either of those, a thing had to be untrue, didn’t it? George understood all too well the truth of his situation, that there could be life after death, though not much of one, and as the movie went on, his skin prickled with recognition. And when, about fifteen minutes in, the camera closed in tight on a huge bull of a man, his eyes wide, his soul gone, looking as if he could crush you with one hand, it all became too much. He leapt up from the center of the men, almost knocking a few of them over, ignoring the boss when he shouted at him to stay.
He fled, circling to the opposite side of the bunkhouse, cursing. He crouched down there, leaned his back against the wall, and with shaking hands rolled himself a cigarette. He could barely steady his hands to bring match to tip, and it wasn’t until he’d smoked it halfway down that his trembling stopped.
Jackson was suddenly there with him.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked.
George shook his head, and waved with his free hand at the patch of ground beside him.
They sat there quietly for a while. George wanted to say something, anything, to cover the sound of the movie which whispered at them around the corners of the bunkhouse, but he couldn’t think of a damn thing.
“So what was that all about?” Jackson finally asked.
George had half a mind to tell him everything. He remembered another man like him, one who took George under his wing after the deed was done. He got George stinking drunk, and made him think that life could go on after what he’d had to do.
Life went on all right, but not the way either of them had thought. Now Slim was dead, George was on the run, and there was something after him, which though no longer capable of running, seemed pretty much unstoppable. But how to begin to tell something like that?
Before George could speak, a shuffling sound came from out of the desert, one which could barely be heard over the movie’s buzz on the other side of the bunkhouse. George noticed it first, his senses having been made more alert to such things due to his recent situation.
Jackson noticed him squinting, and followed his gaze.
“What are you looking at?” he asked. “I don’t see anythi—why, would you look at that!”
A small dog crawled toward them in the darkness, one of its front legs broken. Even so, it managed to close the gap between them quickly. George pressed his back more forcefully against the wall of the bunkhouse, unable to move any further, even as Jackson stood up and took a step toward it.
“Jackson, no!” George shouted.
But before Jackson could heed George’s warning, he was on his knees beside the thing, reaching out to stroke it. It responded by biting hard into the meaty part of the man’s thumb. Jackson yanked back his hand, but the animal wouldn’t let go, and so was pulled into the air as he jumped up. He leapt around in pain, flinging his hand about, snapping the animal this way and that to no avail. It clung to him with the hunger of another world.
Jackson’s yelps finally propelled George to action. He slid his work gloves from where they were tucked into his belt, and grabbed the thing by its hind legs, angry memories flooding back. He knew who had broken that one leg. He knew who had killed it. And yet not even those injuries, sudden, foolish, and fatal, had been enough to stop its vicious hunt. It had still kept coming, tracking him, sensing him out, and if George didn’t act quickly, it would turn the man who’d come between them into another victim of his unwise choices.
He pinched at the hinge of its jaw, forcing it to release its grip, and hurled it to the ground. He brought down his heel, catching it in the midsection as it made to escape, flattening it as surely as if it had been run over by a wagon wheel, but though it burst, intestines spilling out, that wasn’t enough to stop it. It still struggled for them. He slammed down his heel again and caught it near one ear, while Jackson continued to yowl in pain, cradling his arm, unable to help. George could hear a crunch of bone, but because of his angle he didn’t think that had been enough to take care of it.
Though its lower jaw now hung at an ugly angle, he could see that he hadn’t yet finished it. It moved away from the two men, more quickly than George thought would have been possible, and he had a choice. He’d always had choices. Wasn’t that what had brought him here? Too
many had died because of him, and so he knelt beside Jackson, held him as the creature vanished into the night.
“What the Hell was that thing?” said Jackson, puking. He slumped against George. “Oh, I don’t feel so good.”
George helped Jackson to his feet, and saw that they were still alone. Good. The fact that they were still by themselves meant that thanks to the sounds from the movie and the whoops of the men, no one had heard anything. There was still time, time to save Jackson and time to keep his secret.
But not much. Jackson’s eyes were dilated. His tongue lolled in his mouth.
“Do you want to live?” asked George. Jackson jerked his head, but George couldn’t tell whether the man was nodding or shaking it. “Jackson, listen to me. You want to live, don’t you?”
Jackson was beyond answering, so George answered for him. He dragged him into the bunkhouse through the back door, and laid him down on his cot. He got a knife, a candle, and a bottle of whiskey, and then took a brief furtive look out the front door.
The men were still mesmerized, not giving a damn that two of their comrades were gone. George pulled back from the door, avoiding even the slightest glance at the screen. That would be too much, even now. White Zombie be damned.
George lit the candle, and held the blade of the knife over the flame. He poured the whiskey, first on the heated knife, then down Jackson’s throat. The man hardly had the power to swallow, and barely even had the power to choke. George crushed one corner of the bed sheet and jammed it in Jackson’s mouth.
George held the knife against the base of Jackson’s thumb, which by then was almost black, and oozing a foul pus. He held the knife an inch below the bite marks, pressed it against the part of flesh where the skin was already turning from pink to gray.
“There’s no other way,” said George. “I wish there was, but there ain’t.”