Eddie shakes his head no. “We got this other stuff. I like spray cheese. The canned meat is pretty gross though.”
The others pass things around and dig out mouthfuls with their fingers and crackers and forks and spoons. I eat beef stew out of a packet that I don’t share. I wonder if I’m contagious, if I’ll be able to touch other people again. Karen sits beside me. She’s already kissed me and touched me. It felt nice at the time, but the more I think about it, the worse I feel about it.
There are two Snickers bars on the bed. I tell Eddie to take one to Dawn. She’s going to need her strength. I tell him to keep the other one for himself. He shrugs and breaks off a piece of his candy bar, handing it to Karen. They pass it all around so that everyone gets some.
I take the last piece and chew. Karen gently places her hand on my arm and talks to me in a whisper. “I don’t want to stay in here. I don’t think I can stay in here. Not for much longer anyway.”
“We’ve got water,” Ray says as he reclines onto his bunk. “Wayne had it all figured out. Mostly. I think he ran water from the bathhouse down here. We could stay in here… I dunno. For a shit long time.”
“There’s an acetylene torch set up out in the other room. I’ve been working on how to cook with that. Lots of rice. Beans,” Tyler adds. “Composting toilet in the back if you need it. Once you get rehydrated anyway.”
Karen kisses my cheek and whispers into my ear, “I don’t want to stay in here. I don’t care how I get out. I just want out.”
“What’s the last thing anybody heard outside?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Ray says. “Haven’t heard a thing. No moaning and groaning, no gunshots, no helicopters, no storms. Rains a lot still. But it’s like, crazy quiet out there.”
Eddie walks over to the bed where I’m sitting, pulls the .45 out of his pants and puts it into my hand. He doesn’t say anything. I pop the magazine out and check to see that it’s full. “Nobody’s even looked out there?”
“Nope,” Tyler says as he sits down across from me. “I thought about it but we can’t open the outside door without making a bunch of racket. I figure if they’re moving past us, then we just need to be quiet for a while. If they figure out we’re still in here, we may never get out.”
I nod and think about it. “But at some point, somebody’s gonna have to go out there.”
“I can still feel where my hand was,” Little Dawn says from the back of the room. “It hurts so bad, but I keep trying to wiggle my fingers.”
“That’s going to screw up your sex life,” Ray says with a laugh. That laugh. The loneliest laugh in the world.
“Jesus Christ,” Tyler says and covers his eyes with hand.
“Well,” Ray offers with raised hands. “I was just trying to add a little levity. And you know, since you guys are…”
“It’s alright,” Big Donna says. “We’re used to Ray. And we’ve dealt with a lot worse.”
Little Dawn is staring at me as Big Donna talks. She still looks like she hates me. Or maybe she’s just terrified. She wraps her good hand around the stump of where her other hand used to be and leans back on a pile of pillows. A small para-cord noose hangs down from the upper bunk and Little Dawn attaches this to the end of her bandage to keep her arm hanging above her heart.
“I don’t guess we have any cigarettes left,” I ask. Eddie throws a half a pack of Salems in my lap. “What are you doing with these things?” He shrugs but watches as I light one up. “They’ll stunt your growth you know. Don’t let me catch you smoking these things.”
“Can you stand?” Tyler asks. I don’t know if I can. I move my leg slowly waiting for the pain but it isn’t too bad. “After you passed out, I took the scalpel and cut out the stuff that looked infected. We washed it all out with iodine and put some more antibiotic cream in there. It wasn’t as wide as it was deep. but it is still a pretty long cut.”
I bend my knee down over the side of the bed and everything in my thigh complains. But I can move. I limp across the floor a few times and practice straightening it and bending it. “I’ll be alright to walk in a couple of days probably.”
That night, Karen slides in next to me and leaves Eddie to sleep on the bunk above us. Sleep has become our new drug as we while away the hours, waiting to emerge from our cocoon. Karen snuggles up next to me and her hand finds its way to my crotch. I feel her pulling my belt loose and unbuttoning my pants. “Sure you want to do that?” I ask her.
I feel her head nod yes against my shoulder. “I don’t care. Even if I switch over, I’ll be free of all of this. Just promise you’ll take care of me if I do change. Make it quick. Make it painless.” Her hand pulls me free of my pants and I lift my ass so that I can pull them down a little. Her head moves down from my shoulder and her hand moves to the base of my cock. It seems like it has been a long time. Her lips take me into her mouth and I rest a hand on the top of her head. She works silently in the complete quiet of the bunker. Only the sound of my breathing could give us away. I grit my teeth as orgasm builds.
If I’m contagious, she’s killing herself. If I’m the cure, she’ll live through all of this, regardless of whether or not she ever gets bitten. If I’m neither, then it is just a wonderful blow job. My toes curl inward as the first few spurts of death or life or nothing fill her mouth. I hear her swallow. My breathing slows and she remains there for a long while, lying still as a suicide victim with an exhaust hose from a car snaked through the driver’s window. My eyes become heavy and I can feel myself shrinking. She brings her head back to my shoulder and kisses my neck, a tooth grazing the sensitive skin. Little Dawn lets out a moan in the darkness and Ray sighs and turns in his sleep. Eddie mutters something and I have the feeling Tyler is listening.
Karen begins to snore softly and I wonder again if I’ve killed us all.
Chapter 21: Walk’n in a Wonderland
“You can’t see anything?” Karen asks. I shake my head no. Her eyes are just as blue as the day we met out by the cornfield. The only change has been from anger to panic. “I just thought for sure that…” She lets the thought trail off without finishing it.
It hasn’t been for lack of trying. We’ve been going at it like teenagers ever since I could get out of bed. In the back of the supply container, outside the container doors, at night when everyone else is asleep. It has become her way to try to step through without being at fault; the gun to the head that she can later claim wasn’t loaded if there is anyone to inquire on the other side. Something more pleasurable than an overdose, more subtle than cut wrists. A perfect form of suicide for the indecisive and afraid. But her eyes show no sign of looking like mine.
It feels like morning, but I can’t tell. I’m awake anyway. And spent inside her. I pull out and move to the side of the bunk. I pull on my pants by the light of the flashlight and then my socks. “I’m going outside today.”
She is so quiet behind me I have to wonder if she is still there. A voice from above answers instead. “I was thinking it was about time also,” Tyler says.
“Anything is better than listening to you two screwing all the time,” Ray says from his bed. Quack. “But seriously, you’re really going out there today?”
“Yeah,” I tell anyone who is listening. “It’s past time we had a look. What time is it, Tyler?”
“Time for you to buy a watch,” he replies. I see a green glow from his bunk. “Little after 10 in the morning. I’ll start the generator.”
The fluorescent tubes overhead blink to life and everyone squints in the harsh white light. The long sleep is over. “So who all is going?” Tyler asks.
“I’ll go,” Eddie says. He’s holding the little Ruger I gave him and turning a full magazine over and over again in his other hand.
“I’m going alone,” I tell him and anyone else. “But I ain’t going far. If I see my shadow, it’s going to be six more weeks of winter.” No one laughs. Not even Ray. I take the last Salem out and light it. “I’m just going to poke my head
out. If it looks alright, I’ll try and make my way to the main house, see if there’s anything in there we can use. Just have to wait and see when we pry the door open.”
I’ve got the cleaver back on and the .45 ready to go. I’ve taken the ammo for the big pistol and reloaded my AR-15 with it. Only about twenty rounds left. Shouldn’t matter once I’m outside. I’ll either have way too much ammo or not nearly enough.
Karen picks up her Winchester and checks the chamber. I guess I don’t really even have to ask. “It’s not open for discussion,” she says flatly before I can say anything. “I’m getting out of here today.”
“Suit yourself,” I tell her and we all move towards the doors beyond the doors, past the big black spot on the ground where the Zed whale had brought Kevin inside. The bullet holes in the cellar doors show light passing through. I quietly push my eye up next to one to see if there is anything to be seen. The view is obstructed about four feet away by something brown and porous. I shift my head around to see if I can see past it, but it looks like a giant chunk of coral has landed from outer space.
“See anything?” Ray asks from behind me. I shake my head no and turn the handle of the door. I give it a small push but nothing happens. I put my foot against the bottom of the door and push again. Nothing. A harder shove and the door flexes and bangs, but doesn’t open.
“Oh my god,” Karen says crying. “We’re trapped in here. We can’t get out.”
“Relax,” I tell her and put my rifle down. I put both hands against the door and shove as hard as I can. Ray and Tyler join me and the door begins to move at the top. I kick the bottom over and over with my boot and a small crack appears. Like a car stuck in the mud, we start rocking it back and forth, slowly opening the door.
“What the fuck is out there?” Ray asks gasping for air. Tyler is bent over with his hands on his knees. I lean against the wall and wish I didn’t smoke. Through the space at the bottom, more of the brown spongy material is visible. It should move easier than it does. “I’ve got an idea,” Ray says and walks towards the acetylene torch. He takes a length of half inch rebar out of the rack beside it and begins ramming it under the brown stuff. “Leverage,” he grunts. “We just need more leverage.”
The rebar bends too easily but the stabbing motions seem to work. Tyler and I push on the door until we can work my cleaver through enough to swing it. The brown stuff cuts easily, but there are long pieces of hard wood or something embedded in the brown stuff. A broken piece clatters back in through the door after a big swing. I pick it up and look at it. It’s bone.
And it must be a leg bone at that. I continue cutting and finally the door pushes open enough to slip through. The world outside is not as we had left it.
Karen squeezes out behind me. She makes it two steps before she is struck as speechless as I am. Eddie follows next, then Tyler, then Ray. Even Little Dawn is up and ducks out into the cool morning air. Big Donna’s exit is less graceful but she finally manages to get out. So much for going it alone. We all stand there, transfixed, unable to comprehend what we are looking at.
“Jesus,” Ray finally says. “What the fuck?”
Tyler takes a tentative step across the brown stuff and sinks slightly into it. Eddie starts to bend down and touch it with his hand when Tyler stops him. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you. Not yet, anyway. Could be psychotropic, could be poison. I’d advise no one touch it with bare flesh until we find out more about this…stuff.”
The brown stuff is everywhere. Every spot on the ground is covered by it and large, five to six foot tall lumps of it dot the field. Brown stuff up on the catwalk in places, across the front porch of the house. Two clumps of it hang from the lower windows of the house, the arms and head of each clump still plainly visible as human forms. Shoes and boots and clothes and coats stick in and out of the fungus making them look like lumpy scarecrows and shit brown snowmen.
Ray lets out a long whistle as he inspects one of the lumps. He points at the reading glasses looking out from under the brown stuff. “You mean to tell me…”
A roaring moan cuts him off as a half-rotted Zed charges from behind one of the clumps. Ray tries to move, but his foot drags in the brown stuff and down he goes with the screaming, clawing, rotting bastard nearly on top of him. The Zed is a middle-aged man with no shirt and torn pants. His eyes bulge and his grey skin is freshly dead-ish; probably one of the last ones to get infected by a bite. Ray kicks him from where he is lying and knocks him off to the side. The Zed knocks over one of the brown clumps. A nearly skeletonized lower leg bone sticks up from the broken clump.
Eddie steps up before anyone else can act and puts several rounds into the Zed. Another low moan and the sound of something running comes from the right. Karen catches the Zed with a shot through the neck. The second one stacks up neatly on the first one.
“We need to get higher up,” I yell and we all make for the corner of the compound. It is like running through a labyrinth inside a pinball game. As one person hits a dead end, the one at the back has to turn and become the new pathfinder. Where the path opens up, we move forward in twos and threes.
Just as we reach the corner, a small child Zed pops up around the corner of a clump and runs at us, lipless teeth bared and hands swatting the air in front of her. I go to pull the .45 but it hangs up in my belt, the hammer caught in my jacket. I grab for the cleaver but I’m going to be too late. She’s got me.
But she runs right past me. The little Zed squares up on Eddie who walks a line of rounds up from her chest to her head. She falls face first into the brown stuff, her arms motionless at her sides. I manage to get the .45 out finally and join the others as they set up a ladder to get up onto the catwalk.
Eddie stands looking at the dead girl. He reloads mechanically and I hear him say, “It’s okay. You’re free now.”
From up high we can see all around us, hundreds of yards in every direction both inside the compound and out. The brown stuff covers everything. Here and there a Zed stumbles through but they are as lost and uncoordinated in the spongy maze as we were.
“Holy shit,” Ray gasps. “Look at this shit. It’s… everywhere. And on everything. It’s just like all of those things stopped and put down roots and…sprouted.”
“I wonder how much ground it covers?” Tyler says as he looks around. “It could be countless square miles, counties, states...”
I catch Eddie staring at me instead of the puzzle surrounding us. “She ran right by you,” he says quietly. “Like you weren’t even there.”
“Who?” Ray asks.
“Her,” Eddie says and points at the now completely dead little girl below us. “It’s like she couldn’t see him. Like he was one of them.”
They all look at me for only a moment but then look away.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Ray finally says. “Hard to tell anything from anything in this mess.”
“I smell something cooking,” Little Dawn says and points with her stump at the house. “There’s smoke coming out of the house. Someone’s in there.”
“Nah,” Ray says. “It’s just… yeah. I smell it too. They’re frying something.” He brings his hand up onto his stomach and several gurgling sounds can be heard between us. “Somebody’s in there fucking frying something.”
“You gonna go check it out?” Tyler asks. I look to see who he’s talking to. It’s me. “Yes, you. They can’t see you or smell you or whatever. So you can cover all the open ground between here and there.”
I shrug and hand my rifle over to Ray. “I guess I’ll go check it out. Try to keep me covered from here just in case we’re wrong. At least give me warning if you see one coming. And Ray…” Ray looks at me and raises both eyebrows. “Don’t shoot me.”
“Wha… I wouldn’t. Just because of the thing with the grenade doesn’t mean that...” He stops and puts his hand on his hip. “I won’t shoot you. Just go. Before I eat my fucking shoes. Do you guys smell that? It’s like… fried potatoes or something
.”
Karen turns to come with me. I push her back slightly and shake my head no. “I’ll be right back. No worries.”
I descend back into the brown stuff and take out the cleaver. I put the .45 in my left hand and begin to pick my way through. I can see the roof of the house over the brown clumps but finding a way to it is difficult.
“Go to your right,” Tyler yells. “And watch out for the Zed that’s about 10 feet in front of you.” I stop moving and bring the cleaver back. “No, you’re not close to him yet. Just keep moving. I’ll let you know when he’s close enough to worry about.”
“Ten feet sounds plenty fucking close,” I mutter and start working my way through the clumps.
“He’s on your left now,” Tyler yells. “But he doesn’t seem to know you’re there.”
I take a right turn looking to my left and practically step on the short Zed that is blocking the way. It is a short, pot-bellied Zed with a stained wife-beater shirt and no pants. His eyes look like mine and his breathing is labored. His shoulders rise and fall in angry breaths and he stares straight ahead without moving.
I freeze where I am and wait for the familiar charge. The snapping teeth, the clawing hands, the howling, moaning frenzy and the blood lust that all of these things have. But nothing happens. The short Zed just stands there. Staring. And panting. With no pants.
I take a slow and careful step towards him but he doesn’t move. I hold the .45 up and push it into the gray, rotting skin that covers his forehead. Nothing.
“You alright?” Ray yells from the catwalk. “We can’t see ya down there.”
“Yeah,” I yell back. “I’m alright. I guess.” I take the cleaver and bring it down into the short Zed’s head, slicing it cleanly into two halves. He slumps against the brown, porous walls formed by the clumps before falling onto his back. Black blood pools in the divots of the brown stuff. I wonder if he could see me. I wonder if he was thinking clearly somewhere on the inside but was unable to say anything or obey his own will. A cold chill rolls through me. What kind of hell is it, being one of them?
The Zed Files Trilogy (Book 1): The Hanging Tree Page 15