by catt dahman
“What will happen? Wonder if she’ll rot, dry up, or sit there untouched for a hundred years?”
Rev shivered, goose bumps covering his arms. “I don’t know; that’s depressing though…”
He looked in the car behind her and felt she had been going somewhere when she finally died of the bite; maybe she had been staying inside the car to keep safe from the zeds. Now, she was one of them.
Even behind the glass, she was scary to look at. She rolled her milky eyes at him with hunger, drooled and spat while she moaned, clawed at the glass. That wasn’t going to stop. Ever. Death was no release.
They had to leave the road, as the cars were right up against the concrete barriers, some piled as high as they could see.
Like Deanna, Josh, and Polly had done before, they wound around and under the bridge to go around the pile up, listening for moans, spooked by the dimness. They had been warned, but Rev was horrified by the sight of countless bodies stacked to the sides, so they walked a kind of gauntlet with the stench almost driving them mad. Who had stacked them here and why? On the other hand, why not? It wasn’t as if there were funerals anymore.
Josh said there were more bodies, by far. The new ones had gunshots to the heads and hearts, and the survivors all thought these people had been human and healthy before someone coldly shot them down and stacked them here.
Rev knelt to look at a pool of dried blood. Josh said it hadn’t been there before; they couldn’t have missed the huge splash. Jake pointed out another and then another big pool with drag marks and footprints all around it. “Zeds don’t bleed like this.”
Deanna kept Polly’s face hidden against her shoulder, murmuring reassurances that it was almost over.
Josh pointed to a diesel in the road. As they walked around it, they stared at the crude picture drawn on its side, but the message was unmistakable.
It was a wolf.
Pan told them to be alert. “It isn’t in our heads or just in nightmares…”
“It’s real, but what does it mean? What is it?” Jake asked.
“Right here, it’s a call to others like them…a message, or maybe it’s a warning to us or a warning to the other ones, the bad ones. Maybe those people were ones they killed when they didn’t choose the other side.”
“Other side? We have sides?” Rev asked.
“I feel like we do. I feel like we are the good guys, not the bad ones, killing people and stealing from them.”
They sat in the cover of a different truck, drinking water and trying to calm their nerves. Pan stretched his arms wide, tilted his neck, rolled his head, and rubbed at his tense muscles; trying to relax after all they had seen.
“Why not have sides? In all the myths, good and bad had sides, and good and bad are in most religions.”
“God and the devil?” Josh asked, laughing.
“I don’t know anything, but I know things have an opposite. You dig a hole; you have empty space, black and white, positive and negative, good and bad.”
Polly had been listening. “Are we good, ‘Nanna?”
It was the cleanest that Deanna had ever felt. She radiated happiness as she smiled, “We are very, very good. And the good guys always win.”
“Those didn’t,” Jake mumbled, motioning with his head to where the bodies lay.
“Sometimes the good guys meet a bad end, but they still go out good.”
“But what is the purpose of this…the dreams? Why?Why this on top of everything else? I mean a virus, zombies, bombs, and now dreams of good and bad guys?” Josh shook his head in disbelief. “It’s over-kill.”
Pan chuckled as he got them back to their feet, “Why are you assuming they are all different events? The virus, the zombies, the bombs, all very bad things aimed at humiliating us, wiping us out with cruelty and torture of the spirit and body.
It looks like it took a lot to take us out, too…all that…and now, maybe it’s our turn…our move. Maybe we, humanity, have been offended enough, and we can fight back soon.”
“Like a game?”
Pan shrugged, “I know nothing. But I can imagine it that way.”
“Playing games isn’t a good thing.”
Pan laughed now. “Why are you assuming the good side chose the game? I figure the bad side chose the game, but we have a chance to play hard and at least let them know we played well.”
Rev sighed, thinking about all the bodies beneath the bridge.
Beneath.
He rolled the idea over in his brain. Beneath: under. Above: what?
He let his eyes rest just below the bridge so his peripheral vision caught a slight movement. It could be a zed or anything, but he knew. “Get down,” he yelled, “get to cover.”
Bernie, a man with them, fell to his face, his back blossoming with blood. They heard the shot a split second later.
Deanna fell from the weight of her pack, the cat, and Polly, scraping her knees painfully. Rev yanked her to her feet as they ran for cover. He tried to grab Polly and the cat, but Deanna had too strong a grip on them.
Josh and Jake fired back, but Deanna went down again, this time, shot. Two men shot at them with bullets, pinging all over like scattering hail.
Using her body as a shield, she rolled with her precious bundle, protecting them from the pavement; then, she stumbled up, bleeding from her back and chest, yanking off her pack, and grabbed the girl and cat, and dove behind a car.
Jake cheered as a man in a blue jacket toppled off the bridge, landing with a loud splat on the road. One down.
Troy, behind a car already, scored another hit at the man on the bridge, and the gunfire stopped coming at them. It was over. Except that Troy was screaming.
Jake raced over and found Troy beating at a zed with his rifle stock, but the zed had obviously been beneath the car, had no legs, but was gripping Troy with its claws and teeth buried and chewing in Troy’s calf. Troy kicked it hard, and it flew backwards, where he blew it apart with a gunshot, splattering its remains all over.
Before Josh could say or do anything and without making eye contact or thinking it over, Troy reached down to his belt, pulled out a .45, and fired it.
Josh absently brushed brains and blood off his arms.
When Josh got his bearings again and had breath back in his lungs, he found that Deanna had bled out and that Polly had probably been dead from a shot to her head, even as Deanna had grabbed her and gotten them to cover.
If Polly were gone, it was better for Deanna to have gone with her. He sat down. He had depended on the girls to keep going, to give him a purpose for living. He had liked them a lot. He was tired, and little pinpoints of black danced at his vision.
Josh awoke on the ground with a shirt under his head. Jake and Rev patted his arm kindly as Pan gave him a drink of lukewarm water.
It took the rest a long time to bury all their dead. Mr. Doody meowed over the grave, and Josh cried as he mourned Deanna and Polly. Only Josh, Pan, Jake, and Rev were left of their group now, and it really seemed like an awful waste to have humans killing one another when the zeds were perfectly willing to do it.
Pan insisted on making a cross for the graves, and said religious or not, it sent a universal message right back to the bad guys that they may have won this battle, but not the war.
That night, no one had any nightmares, and Pan cryptically said that maybe it was because they had more than made their side known. To whom was it known? He didn’t say what he thought, but the idea somehow made them feel a little better.
Josh thought about how much pain it had caused Deanna to tell Josh about her past and how she had redeemed herself many times over.
When they first met, she had told him stories about her life that incorporated characters and events from Twilight, which he found hysterically funny, but was careful never to laugh about. In that story, the wolves were the good guys, too; it did his head in even to think about. He would have liked to ask her about some characters.
His heart hurt.
They met the three prostitutes soon after: Kyleisha, a chubby, black girl with dimples, pink short-shorts and halter, and a sweet, feminine disposition, despite having been on the streets for years.
They had holed up with them a few days while Kyleisha finished detoxing, after giving up drugs which had left her exhausted and weak, but crazily proud of herself.
Crystal was a pixie blonde, tough and untrusting, sarcastic and rude at times, brutal with zeds, but one of the most loyal, honest people with her friends that they had ever met. Had her big blue eyes not been dark circled, angry, and tired, and had her face not had scars from bad acne, and had she not worn the tight denim leggings, tube top, and spiked heels with a thick paste of make-up, she might have been normal looking.
Natalie wore boots with a short skirt and tight top, had short butched hair and a masculine manner, but also had the prettiest smile and a mothering nature.
Josh hadn’t known prostitutes before, but he now had known four, and despite knowing Crystal would slice someone for a buck fifty or steal like she breathed, he found them all strong contenders against the zeds and pleasant traveling companions. Kyleisha joyfully adopted Mr. Doody.
Then, they met Cinder Montaine’s daughter, Jilly who was with a pale, nervous man named Mike and a few others. It was a bit interesting to meet someone famous, or her daughter, rather.
This caught the story up except for adding they had met Teeg and been separated for a while and were now all back together.
Kim said he was glad they had all shown up and invited them to join in the big group that was going to the compound.
Jilly smiled at all the new faces. “Be vigilant, be true, and aim for the heart; it’s the wolf’s hour…” she quoted from one of her mother’s movies.
“Remember the other night when I had that bad dream?” Beth reminded Kim who nodded. “I remember howling, but that’s all.”
“I had one like that, but it made me mad,” Earl admitted, “I felt like it was threatening.”
Several people agreed.
“What do you think it means?” George asked Pan.
He blushed, unnerved at being put on the spot about something that made no sense to him. “I think it’s a threat, too. Kind of a ‘join us or else’.”
“Who’s us?” Earl asked leaning forward, as Jake scooted over to give him more room.
Pan didn’t know. “Isn’t that the scary part?”
“People like Frank and Roy, the bad ones who are dancing on the grave of our world,” George said.
When the newcomers looked perplexed, he and Beth took turns telling them briefly what had happened with the raiders turning cannibal.
Teeg shuddered, “So we have sides now?”
“Didn’t we always?” Kim asked.
“I don’t think the wolf is the enemy,” Kim said quietly.
Jilly, however, disagreed with that, “He fights as a coward, the wolf does, under the cover of darkness and guilt,” Jilly quoted again.
12
Gathering
It took hours, once back at the hospital, for everyone to trade shortened stories and catch up, but despite some of the horrors they heard, having survivors join together made everyone feel a little more hopeful. Len used more erasers off of pencils as he arranged his lists, but managed to add more to the teams.
The newcomers were amazed and pleased when it was time to eat since the cooks had gone all out on this meal.Savory, thick chicken with dumplings, along with tuna and salmon cakes; several kinds of beans and peas; several different types of vegetables, and an abundance of salads all sat on a serving table.For sweets, they had the choice of chocolate pudding dancing with an assortment of nuts; pistachio pudding mixed with pineapple and marshmallows; plates of shimmering pears in a glaze; and large bowls of a tapioca dessert, surrounded by syrupy cherries and plums.
Len warned the others, “We don’t always eat this well, but we do eat.”
Rev took seconds of every dessert, his stomach already straining, but unwilling to stop filling himself with the delicious food. “I’m stuffed,” he said as he put another bite in his mouth.
They were still sharing stories as they ate, George and Pan in deep conversation about their theories. Aware of the children, they didn’t go into the more worrisome aspects.
After they ate, Len okayed all of them having a few drinks, reminding them to stay sober and vigilant as rum, whiskey, and vodka were poured. Johnny supervised, saying nothing when the few bottles were emptied.
Len had noticed Maryanne fidgeting all evening, but waited until all the children were tucked away, except for Hannah, who was rarely seen as a child.
Word was, she had spent the day inventorying at ten times the speed of everyone else, helping to lay the plans for transport of supplies and mapping possible routes. Len suppressed a grin, just thinking about how bossy she must have been.
“What’s on your mind, Maryanne?” he asked.
“The dreams…”
Maryanne was young, and although blind since birth, she had a special gift for reading the hearts of people and some precognition that had saved lives more than once. George explained it quickly to the new people, despite a few glances of disbelief, noticing that Pan leaned closer to hear her.
“Do you dream?” Pan asked.
She blushed furiously as she nodded, “I promise, I’m not a crank.”
“Me either, and I dream, so did Rev and others.”
Many said they dreamed of the wolf. Some had been afraid, but some had just been troubled with the other parts of the dreams.
“I just have feelings about it:in any condition or situation that goes badly, some bad people get together and do more terrible things. We saw that right here with some people and the raiders. We’ve seen it before: the Katrina hurricane in Louisiana. Some people did bad things then, and some were heroes,” she said.
“Like the nuts in the September 11 tragedy and the heroes who helped that day,” Rae said in her thick Middle-Eastern accent, getting quiet appreciation that she didn’t even notice.
“Why be honorable when we can rape, steal, kill, and have no police or courts to stop us? So we run wild and maybe like-minded people get together, right?”
Maryanne sighed. Pan understood. “I think those people want to get all the liquor and drugs, women and young people to use for slaves, and do awful things to people for fun…or like the cannibals did…to eat.”
“Is it a group, you feel?” Len asked her.
“Yes. I see the wolf…unhappy, howling…crazed, and I see him, the bad man with one eye leading them, enjoying the bad things, but he’s not like a fallen angel or a god. He’s just a bad person with some talent.” She had trouble explaining, “He’s not…”
“Not omnipotent?” Pan said.
“Exactly. I think he…he fears the wolf…not is the wolf. They draw the wolf because they fear it. He has a lot of fear…the one-eyed man does; he is very scared of Beth.”
“What?” Beth almost yelled it. “Me? I’m the last one anyone should fear with my terrible aim.”
Kim hugged her closely, worry crossing his brow. Fear often leads to violence, and he was dedicated to caring for Beth, his wife now, and their adopted daughter, Katie. “Why would he fear Beth?”
“I have no idea…and that worries me, and I know we are better off moving from here at the hospital…and will do better somewhere else. But it won’t be easy.”
Maryanne took a deep breath, “I see the bad ones hurting people, cutting them and burning them for food and fun. I see a tunnel, a long one that’s not here…that people in cars are in, trying to reach us, dreaming of here, but they are stuck and died from the fumes, and others are where the sun was blocked out, and they froze to death.”
Everyone sat listening, unable to move or say a word.
“I think Florida is flooded; people drowned there as swamps took over…mud, filthy water, alligators crawling around…disease in slime. People starved, unable to g
et food or find clean water to drink. Everywhere, blood, infection, and rotting bodies ruined the water.”
“I dreamed of evil people throwing the infected into wells to rot and into lakes, rivers...poisoning water; it was a nightmare,” Hagan said.
Maryanne went on, “In some places, diseases killed many… diseases we have forgotten here in the US, but people tried to get out and maybe come here…or to the other side…they tried.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “Some were burned or had accidents. Some killed one another, and always the zombies followed the people…corralling them, infecting them.”
“Both sides?”
“What?”
“Do the monsters bite both sides…the good, the bad, and the ugly?” Johnny asked Maryanne.
“Yes.”
“Good.” Johnny was satisfied with that much.
“And the zombies are getting more organized, but they aren’t being like controlled, right?” That was Andie’s biggest worry.
“No, they are changing; it’s the virus though.”
“Adapting? Flocking like birds?”
“Yes, Kim, I think so,” Maryanne said, and George agreed.
“Maryanne, why do I feel you are holding back?” Len asked gently. Someone handed her cool water to drink.
“I’m scared.”
Len took her hand while Julia took her other hand.
It was quiet.
“Passel,” George blurted, making several jump. “You think I don’t dream of him, too? The bad man? You who jumped in fear when I said his name, you dream of him and shake, weeping, while you try to sleep and not dream; you are just as terrified of him as I am…even to say his name. He’s worse than any zed or raider; he’s having the time of his life because he’s waited for this time.”
“Pascal. I think.”
Kim looked at Len, and they saw faces going pale with fear.
“Pascal then. The bastard. The fucking bastard.” George ground his teeth with fury, “He enjoys our fear and misery, this is his time, and I’d like a chance to just fill his ass full of lead. I’m not going to be afraid to say his name or what he deserves.”