The Scattered and the Dead (Book 2)
Page 42
His eyes fought his attempts to open them, but he overpowered them. His eyelids peeled apart, the insides opening first, pulling the rest open bit by bit like they were being unzipped. Something about the tackiness he felt there made him think of Venus fly traps, little sticky edges fastening together to kill. They even had eyelashes pretty much, he thought.
He sat up, and a lightness flooded his skull, a weightlessness and a prickling sensation like something was tickling his brain. Like the sunlight itself was entering his head and making him dizzy. He plopped back down. No need to rush this.
“Where are we?” he said.
He saw Ruth peer over the seat to get a look at him, a little smile curling the corners of her mouth. Then she disappeared.
“Good morning to you, too,” Delfino said. “How’s that severed appendage treatin’ ya?”
“Hurts.”
“I figured as much. We’ve got a little pain medication. Probably better to start with some aspirin and Tylenol. When that gets unbearable, we’ve got stronger stuff. Not much. Maybe enough to help you sleep.”
Ruthie reappeared with four pills in one hand and a water bottle in the other. Baghead took them.
He downed the pills all at once, his neck shaking under the strain of holding his head up long enough to do so. His head bounced off of the seat upon landing this time. And things seemed to be spinning just a little. It made him picture bats circling the spire of a building, though he didn’t know why.
“Had to cut the hand loose,” Delfino said. “Had to do it.”
“I understand. There was no saving it. That’s for sure.”
After a beat he added:
“What did you do with it?”
“The hand?”
“Yeah.”
“Thought about making a sweet necklace out of it, but we were pressed for time on account of your bleeding out, so I tossed it in the fire just after we gave it the snip.”
Baghead laughed a little, picturing Delfino attaching a small chain to the hand and sporting it around his neck, the severed end still wet with blood. The laughter made him lightheaded, so he cut it short.
“That was the Butcher, you know?” Delfino said. “This little girl killed the Butcher. Shot him right in the face.”
Baghead had heard the stories about the Butcher like everyone else. He’d been a killer long before Father started sending out his teams of assassins.
“How can you say for sure it was him? You seen him before?”
“Well, no. I just figure machete and crazy eyes. This is our guy. Plus, he has burned a town or two in his day. Or so the stories say. Anyhow, he had the drop on us, but he biffed it. Not that I’m complaining, but what a fool.”
Baghead nodded. After a moment he remembered that Delfino wouldn’t be able to see his nod, but he was too tired to amend it with a verbal response.
His eyelids drooped, and he almost felt himself fall into the dark they lowered upon him. A straight drop. A freefall into nothing. It was scary in a way, that prospect of falling forever, but he wanted it, too. He wanted to take the leap.
“Probably best for you to sleep a while yet,” Delfino said. “You know that, right?”
That woke him back up for the moment, plucked him from the dark descent. He almost nodded again and caught himself.
“Seems weird,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t know that getting my hand chopped off would be so exhausting. I can barely stay awake.”
Deflino chuckled.
“Well, you took a wallop to the head, too. Do you even remember that part?”
Baghead thought about it.
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“You were bleeding awful bad, too, so we jammed your arm into the fire to stop it. I don’t know if you were… I mean, I tried to explain it to you, but it was like you were staring straight through me.”
“I remember. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah, well, you were screaming bloody murder. Scared the hell out of Ruthie. She took off running. Not that I blamed her with the way you were carryin’ on. Unsettling. Made the hair on my arms stand straight up.”
They trailed off for another long moment, and just as Baghead begin that dip into slumber, Delfino spoke again.
“Anyhow, it’s over now, and we’re still here. Look at the bright side. That’s two out of five down, my man. No matter how you want to look at the thing, that’s two out of five down.”
Baghead thought about saying something about how these assassins were costing him an arm and a leg, but he decided not to tempt fate. Better to at least maintain possession of both legs if he could.
Teddy
Moundsville, West Virginia
266 days after
Just as he was about to finish her, broken glass rang out in the next room. Right away, he knew this wasn’t right, and the memory of the burning basement steps popped into his head, goose bumps creeping over both of his arms.
The girl was out, so he released her neck, his hands all cramped and stiff. He flexed and unflexed his fingers as he stood to investigate.
It almost sounded like it came from the pen holding the dead, but that couldn’t be. Could it?
He unlatched the door, hatchet out of its holster and in his hand. The door was free now, ready for him to fling it wide, but he hesitated just a second, stretching his fingers a few more times.
As soon as he pushed into the room, the smoke and flames and clawing arms assaulted him. He gasped, breathing in a lungful of smoke and hacking like crazy, his abdominals quaking. He beat back the zombies the best he could, clubbing at them with the back of the hatchet, but his eyes locked onto the pool of fire on the floor before him.
How? How could this be happening again? It made no sense. He could smell the fuel. Gasoline. Could his gas and lighter fluid out in the shed have just gone up on its own? He’d heard of that idea, though the words “spontaneous combustion” would never come to him.
He backpedaled from the fire without thinking, but one of the dead grabbed him around the wrist and pulled him further into the room.
He twirled the hatchet and hacked at it, the weapon missing the skull and getting it in the neck. The head lolled down all limp, and the freshly sliced zombie stumbled backward from the force of the blow, bashing into the others.
That knocked a couple into the fire, and they went up right away as though they too had gas on them. The things writhed faster after that, screaming all dry and shrill.
Christ. He really needed to remember to latch this door behind him. Now more than ever. He’d forgotten once before.
After that, water. He needed to get a bucket of water to put the fire out. He could still fix this.
He turned just in time to see one of the zombies stumble out of sight, moving out of its cell and into the house.
Decker
The Compound
1 year, 26 days after
He sat by himself in the cafeteria, sipping juice, watching people eat. They shoveled potted meat into their faces, cramming the wads of pâté between their teeth and chewing and talking and laughing. It made him nauseous. He wasn’t sure if it was the canned meat product itself or the mouths on these people.
He watched teeth and gums and lips flap around for too long, and they started to look different. Sharp little bones set in pink flesh, lining some hole in a creature’s head. The jaw flexed, moving the bones up and down, grinding up bits of animal to swallow down another tube of skin. The tongue, a wedge of muscle that writhed around during all of this, forming a bridge between the front of the hole and the curved spot where it dropped off into the throat.
And what were they eating? Some indistinct mushed-up meat product they’d found several cases of. He’d tried it once, back in his apartment. Exactly like cat food in taste, texture, and smell in his experience. He didn’t want to eat in the same room as this product, let alone put a morsel of it into his mouth.
And there she was. Lorraine. Still beautiful to him despite the plastic surgery strangeness. Maybe in some way that made her more exotic. More striking. He wasn’t sure. Either way, she was kind to him as well. One of few here who he could say that about. She did not sit with him today. She sat across the room with Dalton, jamming cat food into her mouth like all the rest. She stroked the preacher’s thigh with her hand in between bites. He watched it for a long time. A bite of meat. A hand slipping under the table, inching closer and closer to Dalton’s crotch.
On the way home, he vomited between a couple of shacks a few doors down from his. Fruit punch sprayed out, violent spurts of red flecked with chunks of green beans and corn.
Still hunched over, he caught a whiff of the puke. Though he hadn’t eaten any of the meat, his puke smelled like road kill. Like death itself was inside him, fighting its way out. He took another sniff, but now he smelled only sickly sweet juice. Whatever it was, it had passed.
For now.
Erin
Moundsville, West Virginia
266 days after
It pulled her close, hissing its foul breath in her face. Erin teetered forward, off balance, but she caught her shoulder on the side of the door and shook free. Before it could grab her again, she remembered the hammer in her hand. She swung once, the claw end taking a chunk of decomposing flesh with it when it struck the zombie’s face.
She tried to get a hand on the door, tried to close it, but it was too late. There were too many, and they were in a frenzy. Burning and screeching and writhing in the flames.
She stumbled backward into the larger room. The smoke blotted almost everything out now. The door for this room stood open, and Erin pushed it closed. It had a latch same as the others but no padlock she could find. Not that she was super eager to lock herself in here with the flames and the smoke. But nor did she want to leave the door wide open so the dead could follow her in.
An old mop stood next to the door, propped against the wall. She picked it up and slid the stick through the door handle, wedging the end behind a pipe on the other side of the door. She doubted it would hold for long.
The sound of metal clanging into cement spun her around, raising the hammer in front of her chest. She could barely see three feet in front of her face.
The noise was coming from her right. She took a stumbling step toward the sound. And then another. Squinting, she saw him through the smoke. He straddled something — or rather someone. Something made of wood and sharpened metal raised over his head. A hatchet, poised to greet flesh and bone with great force. Without thinking, she scuttled forward and swung the hammer into the side of his head.
He toppled over with a groan, hands opening and closing rapidly. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to get the hatchet back in his grasp or if it was some kind of reflexive movement from the blow to the head. She kicked the axe away from his reach, the metal skittering over the basement floor.
She got a look at the person he’d been fighting. Black blood oozed from its battle wounds. Another zombie. It did not stir. At least she didn’t have to feel guilty about not saving its life.
A series of wracking coughs took her then, bending her double. She pulled her t-shirt back over her nose and spun around, searching desperately for any kind of exit.
There. A point of light ahead. Moving toward it, a window wreathed in flame came in sight. Despite the fire, she thought she might be able to get through it. But as she limped closer, the heat grew more intense. She felt it on her face, starting to burn the way her hands used to if she kept them too close while she stoked the fire in the wood burning stove. She turned away and went in search of a different escape route.
Glass shattered and a new point of light emerged in front of her. Another window breaking. She hobbled toward it. She couldn’t actually see outside. The smoke billowing out of the opening blocked the view. Were the windows exploding from the fire or had someone broken it on purpose?
A few more tinkling sounds answered her question as someone cleared remaining glass from the frame. And then the light flickered, and she watched as two feet swung through the window. Following the feet were two skinny legs. She knew that sun-browned skin. Those knobby knees.
It was Izzy. The kid gagged on the smoke immediately, and Erin rushed forward.
Izzy recoiled at first, and Erin wondered at how bad she must look. Recognition came a beat later, and Izzy threw herself on Erin, clinging to her like a tick.
“Erin!”
Erin stumbled, but caught herself on the work bench in front of the window before they both toppled over.
“What are you doing?” Erin said. Her voice came out strange. Wheezy and scratchy. Each word felt like she was trying to swallow a mouthful of glass shards.
Izzy coughed again and grinned.
“Rescuing you, duh.”
Erin nudged her toward the window.
“Go.”
Izzy slithered back through the opening, and then it was Erin’s turn. Just climbing up on the work bench was proving to be difficult with her bum leg and hand. She knelt on top of it, steadying herself against the wall.
Izzy’s upper body poked back into the smoky chamber, one arm snaking in to grasp at Erin.
“Come on!”
Erin’s voice croaked. “I’m trying.”
She released her vice-like grip on the hammer, setting it down on the bench top. She reached up with her good hand, letting Izzy pull her closer to the opening.
The sound of wood cracking came from behind, and it took a moment for Erin to register what it was. The mop handle. The dead had broken through the door.
She felt a new surge of adrenaline. She stood on both legs despite the pain, and Izzy yanked on her arm. Erin’s head cleared the window.
“OK, I got it.”
Izzy released her, and Erin dug her fingers into the grass. She took a deep breath of the clean air, and then there was a vicious tug on her hair. It whipped her backward, cracking her head into the top of the window frame, and then she was tumbling back into the smoke-filled basement.
Decker
The Compound
1 year, 26 days after
He scooted his cot across the room to watch the world out the window of his shack. Streams of people walked by, several toting buckets of water back to their rooms. A lady balanced a basket of clean laundry on her head, her young son walking behind with his arms out, zigging and zagging, pretending to be an airplane. An old man put a match to the pipe between his teeth as he passed, those first puffs of smoke wreathing around his beard and hair. You had to know people to get ahold of tobacco at this point, and apparently he did.
He wished that he had popcorn to eat as he watched the people walk, wished he could wash it down with a giant Coke, pushing the straw down through the ice cubes and siphoning the sweet nectar up through the tube. He wished he could go back for discounted refills forever, wished he could never stop watching and eating.
This was as close as he got to people, he knew, a sheet of glass between him and them, a closed door between him and them. He could watch them like they were projected up on a screen, images to consume like any other piece of entertainment, but he didn’t know how or what to do from there. He thought he had made some breakthrough after the confrontation with the soldiers. For better or worse, that cemented a change in him, or so he thought. Maybe he was wrong about that, or maybe he had regressed in the months since then, morphed back into his old self in most ways.
Commotion outside shook him back to the moment, chatter and hollers roiling up and down the path. It seemed to be coming from the south, which would make sense since the cafeteria and most of the other buildings
were that way. He angled himself to try to get a peek down there, but he couldn’t see much.
But soon the crowd appeared before his window, people backpedaling, some shoulder to shoulder, some walking coiling paths that wound around each other. All of them seemed preoccupied, not looking where they were going, watching something further back in this procession that he couldn’t quite see yet. It looked like a parade, the stream of people, everyone excited, smiling, upright postures, a bounce in their step.
Without realizing it, he held his breath as the crowd swelled, filling the full width of the dirt path now, people brushing right up against the aluminum siding of his house along their way. The anticipation grew tighter inside of him, like the tension clenched his intestines into a ball.
And there he was, the preacher himself just on the other side of the glass. He and Lorraine walked arm in arm. They never came down here, never traversed into the endless rows of cabins where the common folk lived.
The people packed in tight circles around them, everyone stumbling, colliding, almost like a mosh pit, but they gave the preacher his space, everyone spontaneously staying clear of him like he really was a magical being of some kind. They reached their hands out, though, and he shook them all, touched them all. The gasps from the crowd were almost sexual, people falling all over themselves to touch a man’s hand.
A little girl broke the ranks just then, running up and hugging the preacher around the knees. Everything got quiet for a beat, but he just laughed and patted her back. Everyone laughed along with him, an uproar of cackling and backslapping. He scooped the girl up, brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
Lorraine looked on him with such a loving expression on her face.
Decker pulled the curtains closed, blocking it all out. He didn’t want to be sick again.
Shade filled the place where the light from the window had been, and he scooted his cot back into the full dark toward the back of the room. He lay on it and stared once more at the ceiling he couldn’t quite see all the way, his jaw flexing and releasing over and over again.