by Joe McKinney
“How’s your leg? You gonna be able to crawl?”
“My leg’s fine,” she said. “Quit stalling.”
“Alright,” he agreed. He flashed a smile. “You’re a crazy, beautiful woman, you know that?”
“And you’re a dirty old man.” She gave him a shove. “Now go on, move it.”
He took one last look through the gap in the weeds and pulled himself out from under the bridge. This was suicide, he thought. All it took was one zombie to spot him and the moaning would start. Within seconds they’d have an army of the things hunting them. But Gabi had a point. They were dead if they stayed under that bridge. Better to go down swinging.
So he crawled through the tall weeds toward the humid reek of the river. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Gabi crawling up behind him. There was pain in her eyes, and he knew her hip and knee were bothering her again. At night, she’d frequently get out of their bed to stretch it, unable to sleep because of the pain. Too long in any one position and it happened, and they’d been under that bridge a good long while.
She nodded for him to move. Don’t wait for me, I’m alright, the gesture seemed to say.
He nodded back and continued to pull himself toward the verge. A moment later, they reached the edge of the tall weeds, where the water lapped against the muddy, algae-covered bank.
He spotted a pile of ruined lumber that had broken loose from the main part of the pier and that could probably provide some cover as they worked their way into the water.
He motioned at it: That way.
She nodded.
The salty dank stench of the algae hit him a moment before he put his hands in it, and his face wrinkled in a grimace. The water here was sluggish and the algae had grown thick. It grew all along the banks of the slower moving parts of the river, but it was usually a vibrant, healthy green. Not gray, like this stuff. Nor did it produce the soap-scummy foam that this stuff did. He could only assume that the Red Man’s compound was responsible for this. Poor sewage management; wasted food; garbage indiscriminately dumped; they all did their part to turn the water into this. It was disgusting.
He tried not to breathe in through his nose as he slipped under the water. He swam around the ruined pile of lumber and over to the little wooden boats that were tied up along the shore on the downriver side of the pier. Here Jimmy popped his head up and waited for Gabi to surface behind him.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, you?”
He nodded.
They still had another thirty feet or so to cover, but most of that was through wrecked and partially submerged boats, leftovers from back before the outbreak, when the hotel was a functioning tourist spot. Most of them were sun-bleached and rusted, squatting deep in the water, hulls turned up to the rain. Jimmy figured they could pick their way through the ruined hulls without having to go back under the water, and that, with luck, they could get all the way to the pier that way.
Getting aboard the Sugar Jane would be more difficult, though. There didn’t seem to be any way to do it that didn’t put them in plain sight of the Red Man’s soldiers. Maybe the rain would offer them some cover.
He glanced back to check on Gabi.
She was staring straight ahead at the Sugar Jane, and if she was scared, her face didn’t give her away.
But she wouldn’t be, he thought. Not his Gabi. No way.
They moved slowly through the wrecks, and eventually reached the shelter of the pier. The rain was picking up now, making a sizzling roar on the water. That was good, he thought. It’d cover a lot of careless footwork climbing aboard.
“How’s it look?” Gabi asked, gesturing toward the Sugar Jane.
Jimmy checked the starboard side first, then the port. It was only tied off in one spot, and she’d been rubbing up against the pier on her port side, but there were no bullet holes down her length. No new ones anyway.
“It looks okay,” he said.
She nodded.
“Any idea on how we’re going to handle this?” he asked.
“You mean getting Sylvia and the others out of there?”
“Looks to me like we’re locked down.”
“Yeah,” she said, and looked back toward the hotel. “I wish we had some way to contact them.”
He could just barely see the first few rows of zombies up on the hotel’s lawn. The rain was getting heavy out there and didn’t show any signs of letting up. Zombies didn’t care about the rain, of course, but the Red Man was no ordinary zombie. Surely he had a plan. Why else would he have ordered his soldiers offshore?
“We ought to get aboard,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll have long to wait. Whatever’s gonna happen is probably gonna happen soon.”
“You think the soldiers will go back ashore?”
“Either that or they’re about to go out on some other mission. But if they dock again there’ll be too many of them crawling around this pier. We’ll never get away at that point.”
“Okay.” She gestured toward the boat. “After you.”
A few rough planks had been nailed across one of the beams holding up the pier, forming a crude ladder. He climbed up it, then threw his legs over the Sugar Jane’s gunwale and slid onto the deck. Jimmy leaned back over the railing, extending his hand for Gabi.
“I got it,” she said.
She was at the top of the ladder when they heard one of the soldiers yelling.
Jimmy looked over his shoulder. A young man was leaning over the railing of a nearby boat, pointing at them through the rain.
“Over here!” he yelled. “I got two of them over here.”
Through the blearing rain Jimmy could see soldiers gathering around the younger soldier, squinting into the rain.
“Oh shit,” Jimmy said. “There goes stealth mode.”
Gabi looked up at him. “Okay, I’ll take that hand now.”
“Right.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her over. Once aboard she quickly unwound the rope that held them fast to the pier, while he slipped into the cabin, pulled the mattress off the bed, and removed two rifles and their last box of the M67 fragmentation grenades.
She took the box and one of the rifles from him.
“Only eight left,” she said, looking into the box.
He forced a smile and shook his head. “I guess we better make ’em count.”
CHAPTER 23
The black shirts handed Sylvia and Avery off to a third man already in the bed of the pickup. He was carrying a pistol and made them sit with their backs against the cab. The third guard looked exhausted, but right away Sylvia sensed a nervous tension coming off him, like an animal waiting for a hunter to pass it by. He went down on one knee, the pistol resting across his thigh. Sylvia noticed he tried to stay as close as possible to the middle of the bed. Though there were wooden railings extending upward from the sides of the pickup’s bed, and a protective layer of chicken wire strung over the wooden rails, this man didn’t seem to trust it. He watched the zombie crowd pressing up against the truck out of his peripheral vision, and it occurred to Sylvia that he was probably as scared as she was.
The other two black shirts, the ones who had taken them prisoner on the platform, climbed over the cab and dropped down into the bed. They slapped the roof of the cab and the vehicle slowly reversed, knocking down zombies as it cleared the bay and emerged into a steady rain that had turned the landscape a watercolor smear of gray and green and ochre.
Sylvia looked up at the sky, blinking the rain from her eyes even as she savored the taste of it on her lips. It was cool, and her lips were cracked and dry. It felt good.
The soothing coolness of it gave her an idea. She looked at the guard directly in front of her, the one with the pistol. “Why do you serve him?” she said.
He looked at her dully, not answering.
She looked at the other two. “Why do any of you serve him?”
“Shut up, lady,” said one of the guards, an older, battle-scarred
man leaning against the railing. He refused to look at her.
“Sylvia, what are you doing?” said Avery.
Sylvia flashed an It’s okay; I’ve got this under control smile.
She turned to the first guard, the scared one with the handgun. He was staring at her from under the brim of a cowboy hat. She could hear the rain striking the brim, like finger taps on a sheet of cardboard. His mouth was set in a deep frown. But there was something sad in those heavily lidded brown eyes of his, something tragic, and she thought: His spirit’s broken. That man is soul-sick and rotting inside, and he doesn’t have the guts to admit it to himself.
“I don’t see how any of you can do it.”
“Lady,” the older guard said, “I’m warning you: You know what’s good for you you’ll shut your mouth.”
“Sylvia, please . . .” Avery said.
But Sylvia pressed on. “Is it so horrible in your world, so empty, that this is what you’re willing to call your life? I’ve seen the fakers trying to pass for zombies, and you’re just like them, except that the fakers don’t pretend they’re still human.”
“That does it,” the guard said.
He grabbed her by her hair and threw her facedown in a pile of old oily rags.
“Sylvia!” Avery shouted.
“No!” Sylvia answered, turning her head enough to see Avery trembling against the far side of the truck, a guard holding her down. “No, baby, it’s okay.”
“Like hell it is,” the guard on top of her said. Rainwater channeled off the brim of his hat and fell into the pile of rags next to her face. “You want to know why we work for him? Do you? Well, you’re about to find out.”
A few moments later the truck trundled to a stop. The women were pulled to their feet and pushed out the back of the truck. Sylvia took a look around and gasped. There were zombies everywhere, hundreds of them standing absolutely still in the falling rain. The smell of rot and mud caused her to gag, but despite the retching noises she made, not a one of them moved. They stared out toward the verge of the river, where a metal platform two stories high stood facing the hotel. Beyond the platform, floating just offshore, were dozens of boats. Black shirts stood on the decks, watching in silence.
I’m going to die here, she thought. Right here. This is the end. But with the same mental breath she thought: No! I can’t let the fear show. Not in front of Avery.
But it was hard. She was so scared.
She looked at Avery to see how she was holding up. Avery’s behavior since losing Niki in St. Louis had been troubling her—troubling her a lot. She’d become so quiet, a lot like she’d been all those years ago, when a much younger Niki Booth had led her into the compound and stood watch over her like a mama bear does her cub, nearly ripping the hands off anyone who tried to touch her, even though it had been obvious they needed help. The two girls had been nearly feral, though Niki had come around soon enough. Even thrived. But Avery had taken a lot longer. Reaching her had been hard. Even as a kid she’d been scary-smart when it came to maps and knowing the lay of the land. So much so that for a while Sylvia thought she might be autistic. Eventually, though, she came out of her shell, and Sylvia was able to see the bright, kind, fragile young girl that a blighted world had nearly destroyed. She blossomed.
But then, when they lost Niki back at St. Louis, it had done something to her. It caused her to rewrap herself in the same protective shroud of silence and despair she’d worn after her father died, and throughout those early years at Union Field. Thinking of the child Avery had been nearly overwhelmed Sylvia’s resolve and she could feel a sob rising in her chest. She forced it down as best she could, for Avery’s sake.
Those were her thoughts as the old guard stepped around the side of the truck and out of sight and the rain continued to fall in her face.
His radio crackled.
“He’s coming,” said a man’s voice. “Bring them up.”
“You want us to bring the truck?” said the old guard at Sylvia’s right, the one with the scarred face.
A pause, and then the radio crackled to life again.
“He says no. Walk ’em up.”
Sylvia heard the man mutter a curse under his breath, but when he looked back toward her and Avery he was all business again.
“Alright, we’re walking ’em up. Let’s move it.”
Rough hands grabbed Sylvia. Next to her, she heard Avery let out a yelp. The mother instinct rose up in Sylvia then and she started to thrash.
“Damn it,” the old guard said, grunting as he struggled to regain control.
A ripple of interest spread outward through the zombies standing around them, but they held their positions. Sylvia could see their dead eyes following her as she struggled with the man. She could see their hands wanting to come up, their mouths working slowly in involuntary chewing motions.
“Let her go,” Sylvia demanded.
The man threw her against the truck and she hit the back of her head against the wooden extension on top of the bed. For a moment her vision turned purple and her legs buckled, but the man grabbed her arms again and wouldn’t let her sink to the ground.
He put his face close to hers, his breath hot and smelling of stale tobacco and meat. The urge to gag nearly overwhelmed her again, but she fought it down.
“Please don’t hurt the girl,” Sylvia said.
Her voice was a whisper, spoken through sobs.
The man locked eyes on hers, his stare narrowing in menace.
“Please, she’s just a child. You know what they’ll do to her. She’s too young to suffer like that, to become one of those things.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. The silence went on and on, so long that she actually let the thought enter her mind that she had reached him and that the shred of humanity that must surely remain within him had been stirred to pity.
But instead he said, “Too young don’t make any difference anymore, lady. The world’s too far gone for that.”
He peeled her off the truck and shoved her toward the river.
She staggered through the motionless crowd of zombies in a haze. This close, she could hear the faint, rhythmic moaning the zombies made under their breath, almost like religious zealots murmuring their prayers. It raised gooseflesh on her arms, despite the oppressive heat.
She slipped trying to step up the curb from the parking lot to the grass, sending another restless wave through the nearby zombies. The old guard stepped up behind her then and his grip on her arm was surprisingly gentle as he helped her back up.
“I’m sorry for this,” he said. “I had a kid about her age, long time ago.”
She looked back at him in surprise. His face was a hard mask without a trace of pity or compassion. Sylvia opened her mouth to speak, but he nodded for her to turn and face the platform.
She did.
Something was happening up there. She couldn’t see what, not at first, but there was an agitation spreading through the zombie crowd. They remained standing in their spots, though now they were shifting from one foot to the other, low moans rising here and there throughout the crowd.
And then she saw him, the Red Man. He limped up the grass toward the raised metal platform and slowly climbed the switchback staircase to the top level. The red paint all over his body looked dark as rust in the morning light. The river behind him seemed to boil. The smell of heated vegetation and mud mixed with the rotting bodies, and everywhere she looked she saw water running down ruined, blistered faces. Uneven moans rose from the crowd, and it occurred to her then that this was some kind of hell. It had to be. Nothing like this could exist in a sane world.
One of the Red Man’s guards slogged his way through the mud over to her captor, rainwater dripping off the bill of his cap as he met the older man’s gaze.
“He wants ’em up there, with him.”
“I’m not walking ’em up there,” Sylvia’s guard said.
The other guard, a much younger man, but nonetheless th
e one in charge, said, “Yeah, I don’t want to, either.” He looked up at the platform, then back at the guard and shrugged. “Fuck ’em, they can walk up on their own. He wants all of us on the boats.”
“Right now?”
“He ever give you an order you could wait on if you want to?”
“ No.”
“Then get ’em up there.”
The older man nodded, then turned to Sylvia. “Alright, you and the girl get up there.”
“No way,” Sylvia answered.
“You need to move it.”
“We’re not moving. I heard you. You’re scared to death of him, aren’t you? Admit it. You’re so terrified you’re willing to do things that make no sense. Don’t you understand there’s a better way? You can fight. Isn’t that better? Isn’t that what you would want your kid to see? It can’t be this.”
He leaned in close, and once again she could smell the stale tobacco on his breath. “Lady, you and the girl need to get your ass up there. Right now.”
“We won’t,” she said. She raised her chin high. “You’ll have to carry me up.”
“Lady, you’ll go.”
“I tell you I won’t.”
“That little girl behind you, the fat one? If you don’t go, I’ll cut her.”
He looked down. She followed his gaze to where his hand was fingering the hilt of a small utility knife.
“Climb those stairs,” he said.
“You bastard.”
He didn’t respond.
Sylvia turned around and took Avery’s hand. The fear in Avery’s eyes broke her heart all over again. “Come on, baby. Let’s go up. We’ll be together the whole time. I promise you that.”
Together, they climbed the stairs.
The Red Man watched them climb the last few steps, his eyes never leaving Sylvia’s, his lips parting slightly, exposing teeth the color of dingy bathroom tile. Rainwater ran down his bald head and dripped from his nose, his chin, his ears. The water looked red next to his skin, like blood.
“Where do you want us to stand?” Sylvia said with a forced calm she most certainly did not feel.
The Red Man’s parted lips melted into a frown.