“You said you were a man of God. Well I’ve been talking to God a lot over these last few days, and he’s not answering,” Cutter said. “I’ve never prayed before in my life, but over the last week it seems like all I’ve been doing. I keep asking him why I’m still alive and my wife and son are cold and buried in the ground. I need answers, dammit. Maybe he will hear me through you.”
Father Bob began to nod his head with slow understanding.
“You called me a Samaritan when we first met,” Cutter went on. Then shook his head bitterly. “Well I’m not,” he said. “I’m not a Samaritan at all. I didn’t come to help you because it was the right thing to do. I came to help you to give God another chance to kill me,” he admitted. “I did it yesterday, out on the street too. I tried to save a man – but not to help him. I tried to get him to safety when I knew it was impossible… because I wanted to give God the chance to kill me, like he killed my wife and child. And that’s what I did again today,” Cutter’s voice began to rise with his anguished pain. “That’s what brought me here to you. That’s why I risked my life – not because of any noble or Christian gesture. I’m not that good a man. I did it because I wanted to know whether I’m supposed to be alive at all.” He turned away suddenly. He could feel the sudden sting of tears in his eyes.
Father Bob’s voice suddenly became gentle and compassionate. “Would you like to tell me what happened?”
Cutter nodded. “That’s what I want,” he said. “That’s my price for taking you and your daughter to safety. I want to know why God let me live, when I’m the one who is responsible for the death of my wife and boy.”
* * *
Cutter and Father Bob left Samantha standing in the doorway of the apartment armed with the revolver, and strode down the darkened passage.
“I don’t suppose you have keys?” Cutter asked when they were out front of 3B.
Father Bob shook his head.
Cutter shrugged. He backed up and took three paces towards the door then lashed out hard with a sidekick aimed an inch below the worn brass lock. The timber door splintered, but the frame was metal. Cutter felt the impact jar through his boot and all the way up his leg. He kicked again. The door began to sag. The timber around the lock fragmented. On the third kick, the timber finally gave way and the heavy door slammed back against its hinges.
The two men stood in doorway and stared into the gloomy opening.
“Mr. Walker was a lawyer,” Father Bob explained for no apparent reason. Cutter frowned.
“And he was living in a little up-town apartment?” It made no sense. His eyes swept around the interior. The layout was a mirror image of the pastor’s tiny unit.
“A divorced lawyer,” Father Bob added, and then glanced at Cutter as though that explained it all.
They went in cautiously. There were rats in the kitchen. The refrigerator door had been left open and the thick stench of rotting food filled the air. Dark scurrying shapes skittered away into deeper shadows. Cutter’s eyes swept the room quickly. There were cockroaches in the sink, feasting on food scraps and the floor was sticky with spoiled food the rodents had dragged from the refrigerator. He checked the cupboards and found a dozen cans of soup and packets of instant noodles – but not much else.
He went back into the tiny living room.
Father Bob was rummaging through a chest of drawers.
“Anything?” Cutter asked.
The pastor shook his head. Cutter nodded. “I’ll check the bedrooms and bathroom.”
The first bedroom was empty. No furniture, no bed. Just a small curtained window in the wall opposite and faded, peeling wallpaper that was brown with water stains. The second bedroom had an unmade double bed, a wardrobe and a narrow set of bedside drawers. The air was musty and damp. Cutter found a dozen expensive suits and just as many silk shirts in the wardrobe. He also found a stack of old tattered porn magazines.
The bed was unmade. Cutter lifted the mattress but found nothing. In the small set of drawers he found reams of paperwork, a couple of packets of cigarettes and a lighter. He put the lighter into his pocket.
The bathroom was just a narrow cubicle large enough for a bathtub and a small washbasin. On the wall above the sink was a slim mirror-fronted medicine cabinet. There were dirty unwashed clothes on the floor and a damp discarded towel. Cutter went to the sink and looked inside the cabinet. There was the usual collection of medicines, a couple of bottles of expensive cologne – and a gun. Beside the gun was a box of ammunition.
Cutter reached for the weapon. It was another Glock, similar to the one he had taken from Hos’s dead body. He stuffed the weapon inside the waistband of his jeans and snatched at the box of ammunition.
When he came back into the tiny living area, he found Father Bob sitting on a straight-backed chair. He was reading.
“What did you find?” Cutter asked.
Father Bob held up the book. “The Koran,” he said with a look of puzzled surprise on his face. “It appears our Mr. Walker was a Muslim.”
Cutter shrugged. “So?”
Father Bob made a face. “So nothing,” he said defensively. “It’s just something about the man I never knew.” Then he noticed the box in Cutters hand. “Ammunition?”
Cutter nodded. “And a gun.”
Father Bob heaved himself wearily from the chair. He looked past Cutter’s shoulder, back into the kitchen. “What about the food you found?”
“We take it,” Cutter said. “We take it all.”
* * *
The night fell like a heavy shroud, hunting away the last flaming rays of sunset and plunging the world around them into a place of darkness and dangerous shadows.
Cutter stood by the window and stared. The city street was dark now. The fires had burned themselves out during the afternoon, and a stiffening breeze had swept the smoke into a hazy scar on the horizon.
Now the street below was silent.
The zombies had drifted away from the apartment doors, shuffling into the night, and the only light was from the first stars and a thin slice of moon that rose behind the high buildings on the opposite side of the deserted street.
Samantha and her father came into the room from the kitchen carrying three plates and bottles of water. Father Bob muttered a brief prayer of thanks, and then they sat together on the lumpy sofa eating canned ham and three-day-old bread.
Candles burned, filling the room with soft flickering light, and Cutter watched the shadows leap and play on the wall opposite, his mind drifting, his body leaden and weary.
He felt wrung out: as though the tension and stress had burned through the last reserves of his energy. He felt his eyes getting heavy and it took a defiant act of will for him to resist the urge to slump over and sleep.
He dragged his hands across his face and blinked his eyes wide. “We had a deal…” he said to Father Bob.
The pastor nodded gravely. He handed his plate to Samantha. “Take these into the kitchen please, honey. And then I want you to do an hour of bible study in your room. I need to talk to Mr. Cutter, and it’s a conversation we need to have in private.”
Samantha’s eyes flicked from her father’s face to Cutter’s, and a shadow passed behind her eyes. But she stood obediently and left the room without a word.
Father Bob sighed. “It’s been hard on her,” he said sadly. “She lost her mother just a year ago. And then a month later I found out I had cancer. She’s a good girl – but she’s a pastor’s daughter – and that means she’s not prepared for what the world has become. If anyone can be prepared…”
Cutter said nothing for a long moment. The girl had the flare of hip and breast of a fully-grown woman. It was only in her face that he had seen the suggestion of naïve innocence. “How old is she?”
“Twenty,” the pastor said. “She’ll turn twenty-one next month.” He sighed heavily. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s the one thing that has kept me alive,” he confessed. “I promised her I’d be there for her birthday
…”
Cutter slumped back in the sofa and sighed. He thought about what the world was becoming and the realization made his despair even darker. Once, a man like him could dream of a future, and of a family, and of watching his son grow up. And once a man like Father Bob could dream of his daughter’s birthday and plan for her future.
Once – but not now.
Now there was no future. Plans were pointless. Life was too temporary. Then he realized it had always been that way – fate had always shattered futures.
But what was happening to the world now was something very different. It was brutal and ruthless and merciless… and inhuman.
All a man had now was the very next moment, because beyond that was only uncertainty and peril.
Cutter closed his eyes. He felt the waves of drowsiness beating at him, dragging him towards sleep. He felt himself beginning to drift, and he jolted upright in the sofa.
Father Bob was watching him.
“Do you still want to talk?”
Cutter nodded. He got to his feet. He went to the window and stared down at the street for long moments, then turned back to where the pastor was sitting. In the flickering weak light of the candles, Cutter’s face was shrouded in shadow, and he stood like that, gathering his thoughts until the words simply began to spill from him and he could not stop them.
“My wife – Christina – she was a good woman,” Cutter said, his voice faltering. “We had been high-school sweethearts, and when we married we bought a little farm out west of here. We were happy. We were in love, and then when we found out she was pregnant, life just seemed to get better.”
Cutter started to pace the room, keeping in the shadows. He felt his hands bunch into tight fists and the tension began to rise up through his back and shoulders. “When my son Scotty was born, we left the farm and moved closer to Newbridge,” Cutter said softly. “He was ill as a baby, and we needed to be closer to town, but as he started to grow, he got stronger. I had been a farmer, just like my father before me. But now we were living in the suburbs and I needed a new profession. So I started painting,” he shrugged. “Don’t ask me why – I just don’t know how it happened. Christina thought I had some talent so I stuck at it. Eventually I broke into some commercial galleries, and then a publisher in New York asked me to design a cover for one of their authors.”
Cutter stood against the far wall, his eyes unfocussed, and behind his blank gaze his mind was imagining a time and place beyond the tiny little apartment.
“I did well. Things were perfect. Christina started studying law, and Scotty turned six. I was living the dream,” Cutter said, but there was bitter anguish in his voice now. “Until last Sunday when we came into Newbridge…”
Cutter stopped talking, and Father Bob let the silence hang in the empty space between them. He watched the tall dark stranger move restlessly in the shadows and he felt the man’s despair.
“Did something happen?”
Cutter nodded. “Yeah,” he said harshly. “Yeah, something happened on the road into the city.”
“What, son? Tell me what happened?”
Cutter looked up. There were tears in his eyes and he shook his head sorrowfully. “We were in Christina’s beat-up old Ford,” Cutter began, but now there was a wavering tremble in his voice. A heartbroken sound of regret. “I was driving. Scotty was in the back seat. We had just bought him his first baseball mitt…” his voice drifted wanly for a moment then came back stronger. “I was driving a little too fast. We were getting closer to the city. I leaned over to change the music on the radio – and somehow missed a set of traffic lights,” Cutter said. There was another long moment of dead silence, and then his voice somehow became blank and devoid of all emotion. “We went through a red light. A truck was coming out from the intersection. It was already into the intersection when we drove through. The car slammed into the side of the truck. I saw it too late. I tried to brake and swerve, but all I did was turn the car sideways. Christina and Scotty were crushed to death. The side of the car folded in. The impact killed them instantly. Somehow I survived. Untouched.”
Cutter sagged, as though the telling of the tragedy had somehow left him deflated and broken. He stood, silent in the shadows and cuffed brusquely at his eyes.
Cutter saw Father Bob nod, and then reach for his battered bible. He held the book in his hand as he spoke, and his voice was deep and resonate.
“Son, sometimes we wonder why God does the things he does. And sometimes we wonder why life can be so cruel. We ask ourselves why would a compassionate God take the innocent and the ones we cherish and leave us – the unworthy – here to suffer,” the pastor said solemnly. “There are different reasons for us all, but for you, the reason is clear. Your wife and son died before this holocaust. They died living life to the fullest, never knowing fear of terror. Be grateful for that. They were released into His arms before the horror. That’s a blessing.”
Cutter said nothing. He stood as a darker shape amongst the shadows, silent and unmoving.
“And you have been spared because your task is not complete,” Father Bob went on. “He needs you. He has work for you in these troubled times. That’s why He saved you, and that’s why He sent you to Samantha and me. You can call it coincidence, or you can call it fate. Either way, God led you to this place at this time for just one reason. Because your work is here… with us.”
* * *
Samantha came from the hallway holding a candle in front of her, the soft golden glow lighting her face and hair so that she appeared almost angelic.
She sat quietly on the sofa beside her father, and Cutter came from the shadows. He dropped to his haunches before them both.
“We need to leave here in the morning,” he said, watching their eyes carefully. “We can’t wait for the zombies to drift away from the city. There could be other pockets of people like us in a hundred buildings like this. That’s going to be enough to keep them interested – and lingering. Our only hope is to get to a place that is less populated. It’s our best chance of survival.”
Samantha stared into his eyes. “You’re coming with us, Mr. Cutter?”
He nodded. “I am,” he said.
Samantha said nothing. She glanced at her father and her expression was serious as she seemed to look an unspoken question. Father Bob took her hand in his and nodded.
“How do you propose we get away from the city?” Samantha asked him. Her tone was level, and Cutter had the bizarre feeling that he was being interviewed for a job.
“We find a car,” he said. “Preferably a SUV. If not, something sturdy that will take a beating.”
“Just like that?” Samantha asked.
“Pretty much,” Cutter said, and then realized it wasn’t enough. He sighed. “Last night I was trapped in the bookstore with a group of women and a couple of other men. You saw us when we made our break this morning. We lost a woman, but the other three escaped. You saw it. I figure the same kind of plan will work again.” He got to his feet and strode to the window. He looked down. The night was black. “When daylight comes, we’ll pick a vehicle and go for it,” he said. “We have the advantage of height here. That means we’ll have some kind of warning – or at least some idea of what the undead are doing before we break for the street.”
He went back towards the sofa. “If we need to we can create some kind of distraction. It might buy us enough time.”
Father Bob nodded his head, but he knew it would not be as easy as Cutter was making the plan sound.
But it was a plan, and he noticed how the man’s voice suddenly had become resolute and determined. He sensed Cutter was rising to the challenge.
“Where will we go?” the pastor asked. “What was the plan you had when you escaped with the other women?”
Cutter shook his head. “I didn’t have a plan then,” he confessed. “Once we made it to a car, we were just going to get out of the city.”
“And go where?” Samantha asked.
Cutter shook his head again. “I didn’t know, then.”
“But you do now?”
Cutter smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Now I know.” He reached into his pocket and found the wallet he had taken from Hos’s dead body. He pulled out the man’s driver’s license and held it up to the candle-light.
“This man was killed,” Cutter said. “He was with us in the bookstore. He was a survivalist. He told me he had been preparing for a disaster situation like this for years. He told me he had a compound –a remote property away from the city that had a generator, six months of food and water, and a supply of weapons,” Cutter explained. “That’s where we are going.”
He looked at the license and read the address, and there was another eerie moment of fate as he said softly:
“He lived at 34 Eden Gardens, Guthrie.” Cutter looked at the pastor and then to Samantha. There was the faintest hint of an ironic smile at the corner of his lip. “The garden of Eden…” he said.
Cutter knew the area. Guthrie was a rural community about forty miles north-east of Newbridge. He had a vague childhood recollection of rolling fields and leafy tree-lined roads with clustered mailboxes, and dirt trails that led to remote farmhouses.
Father Bob glanced from Cutter’s face towards the ceiling and muttered another heart-felt prayer of thanks.
Four.
Escape.
They were up at sunrise.
Cutter awoke in an awkward tangle of limbs, curled up on the sofa. He had dragged the three-seater across the door as a barricade and had slept fitfully. Now, as he stared at the living room ceiling, he felt the grip of seized muscles he never knew existed.
He got up and stretched. Dragged the sofa away from the apartment door. Then he heard noise in the kitchen.
Ground Zero: A Zombie Apocalypse Page 10