by Ponce, Jen
“Watch out, Dee,” Alex says and Dee slows, watching the group of dead things turn their way. They’re blocking the street, packed in from building to building on either side. No way around except to backtrack.
When she puts the SUV in reverse, she’s halted by another group pouring in from a side road. “Shit.”
“There. Take that alley,” Alex says. “We have to get out of here before they have us surrounded.”
In one of her son’s favorite video games, Jackson could drive right over the zombies without much worry. Oh, eventually the car would give up the ghost and explode if not repaired, but it could plow through hordes with ease. In reality, hitting even a few dead things or getting them caught up in the underside of a vehicle was bad. Dan taught her that.
She swerves to avoid the grasping, greedy hands and stares down the long, narrow stretch of alley before taking the SUV in. She doesn’t want to get trapped between buildings. She thinks it would be a particularly claustrophobic way to die. She wants to be in the wide open if she’s killed. She wants to be able to gaze up at the sky as she shuffles off her mortal coil.
The alley dumps them near a storage center. She cuts through the parking lot and then takes the SUV off the road completely and into a field that stretches between the street and a thick bank of trees in the distance.
It’s bumpy and they all bounce around as she cuts across the grassy expanse to another road. A glance in the rearview tells her they’re being followed, but slowly. It doesn’t really matter how fast or slow they go. If they don’t catch up to the SUV, other hordes will.
Zombies are relentless. Once they have a meal in sight, they push on until they eat. She thinks they should use them if they get to a point in this apocalypse where they’ve settled enough to need electricity. The zombies can pull a turbine around and around in circles all day long. They didn’t need food, they didn’t tire.
Maybe they can be used as wagon pullers too.
More and more dead things are spilling into roadways as they drive, their eager mouths snapping as they anticipate a meal. Dee wonders how long it’s been since some of them have eaten. There can’t be too many people left. The Complex might be the only one of its kind or it might be one of thousands all over the country. She wishes she knew.
“What do we do now?” Gloria asks as they slow. Ahead of them, hundreds of dead things mill about, most not having seen the SUV idling a few hundred feet away. “There are too many to drive through.”
“We need a distraction,” Dee says, thinking of the gas station she blew up before she got into town. “Something that will draw them off the road. Something without danger to any of us in this vehicle,” she adds when she sees Pete ready to jump in. “No sacrificing ourselves today. Ideas?”
“What about hitting a car? Sideswiping it, I mean,” Gloria adds when we all look at her like she’s crazy. “We can set off a car alarm or three. That should distract them, at least, maybe mask our engine noise somewhat. Worth a shot?”
“Sure. Nudge carefully, Dee. We don’t want to get bumper-locked.” This from Alex, who is grinning, of all things. Grinning, which makes Dee want to grin too though she doesn’t know why. Perhaps this is what happens when you face death over and over again. You get used to it. It becomes funny.
So close to home. I’m coming boys.
38
Then
We were trapped for almost two weeks. It was both terrible and good. Dan and I both wanted to get back on the road to see if we could find Lana and Owen and the others, but it was peaceful here in a way none of us had experienced since this whole thing started. We had heat, we had food, we were safe from the dead things. I wondered if they were frozen or stuck in the snow. I wondered if the snow would kill them, maybe freeze their brains and keep them from tormenting us ever again. Too much to hope for, but I hoped for it anyway.
While we were there, I read at least a book a day. It was great sitting by the window in the kitchen while a pot of tea boiled on the stove, soup bubbled in a pot, and bread baked in the oven. We even had a cherry pie for our last dinner there, and everyone looked … well, happy. If any of us felt guilt over it, no one showed it.
The next day we packed up all our gear and stowed it in the truck along with a couple snow shovels Isaac had found on the back porch, some bags of sand in case we got stuck, and as much of the food from the house we could stuff in the back after we’d loaded up five Culligan water bottles filled from the tap.
Food, water, gear to stay warm. I was optimistic things were only going to get better for us.
The road wasn’t terrible. A couple days worth of sunshine had melted a lot of the snow and Dan kept the truck at about forty to make sure we didn’t slide right off the road and dump all our good shit.
Paisley and Isaac sat in the back talking about Jude. That was all he wanted to talk about and Paisley let him. I wondered if she would get angry again, but her resolve to live for only herself seemed to have been forgotten. She was a sponge, soaking up his attention, and he seemed to be tireless in his need to discuss his brother.
It annoyed me, him using her that way, but if I had a willing ear, would I be talking non-stop about Lana? Maybe. Her absence was a hollow ache in my chest that never went away, even when I felt okay. I was sure Dan had the same feeling about his kid.
We were all amputees, having lost vital pieces of ourselves, and were now trying to deal with their phantom remains.
It sucked balls.
We drove about twenty miles, passing farmland and hills covered in snow. Farmland gave way to pine trees, their green tops dusted with snow and looking like something out of a fairy tale. On our right, a wind turbine still spun, presumably suppling power to the buildings that sprawled beneath. A sign proclaimed the sight to be the Pine Ridge Job Corps. In front of the turn off there was a car in the road. I clutched Dan’s arm as he slowed. “Is that—”
I felt him tremble under my hand. He slowed even more and then pulled into the parking lot, which was full of cars, two white vans with the Pine Ridge Job Corps logo on the side, and an abandoned UPS truck. A long building on our right looked to be administrative offices of some kind and more buildings sat further into the area, down a steep, winding road.
The car in the road had a big red D spray painted on its side.
“Where are they?” I asked, aware my voice shook as I spoke.
Dan didn’t answer. It wasn’t like he knew the answer, after all.
“Come on, Lana. Give us another sign.” And then there it was. Another D painted on a building to our left that sat on a small rise.
We sat in the truck, engine idling, and waited for them. This many cars here, there had to be quite a few of the dead things wandering about, but despite waiting, we saw no movement.
Maybe the zombies had frozen to death … to permanent death.
Dan took the truck over the curb and onto the wide sidewalk, driving us right up to the steps. He killed the engine and again we waited, watching.
Nothing.
If Lana and Owen and Ivy and the girls were in there, surely they would have heard the engine. If they were alive …
My stomach clenched and I was pretty sure I was going to toss my breakfast. I opened the truck door, ignoring Dan’s hiss of warning, and puked into a snow drift. When my stomach was done expelling its contents, I wiped my mouth and went up to the door, hand shaking as I raised it to knock.
Knocked again.
Again.
Just as despair clawed its ugly way into my brain, I saw movement from one of the hallways. I knocked again and called, “Lana?” More movement and then a figure appeared. For one heart-stopping moment, I saw my wife, and then she walked into the light. Ivy.
She shuffled to the door looking almost as bad as the dead things and I reeled back, wondering if maybe she was one of them. She stared at me through the glass of the door as if she didn’t recognize me. Then she spoke. “Dee? Is that you?”
I sagged in rel
ief. No inane, creepy children’s song. No cracked cry for help.
Ivy unlocked the door and swung it open. The smell was awful. Sweat, dirt, body odor. I wrinkled my nose before I could stop myself. “Where’s Lana? Owen? Lizbeth and Olivia?”
Ivy nodded.
I frowned, not understanding. “Ivy, where are they?” Please don’t tell me they’re dead. Please don’t tell me that. Please.
“We … uh … got separated. Your wife, she was mad at me for wrecking the van. I thought I saw …” She wiped a hand down her face, smearing the dirt there. “Thought I saw my daughter. I know it’s crazy. I was the one who shot her, but I thought I saw her there in the road and I swerved. Did something to the van. I don’t know what but it wouldn’t move forward, wouldn’t go back. She got the kids out and …”
I wanted to slap her and when I heard the grunt behind me, I knew Dan was there, was hearing this, was angry too. “Where did they go?” I asked in as sane a voice as I could manage.
“They … there was a family in a farmhouse nearby. They got in with them. She told me to come. Swore at me to come but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I fucked things up and I didn’t want to go on.” She sniffed and looked over her shoulder. Another person had filled the doorway while we talked, a hulking body with a child’s face. “I walked a while, then Richie here picked me up. The spray-painted ‘D’ was already there when I got here. She stopped here. Left a note.”
“She did?” Hope swelled again in my chest, not unlike water as it freezes. Just like water when it freezes, hope widens the cracks. It means well, but when it recedes, it leaves space for the pain to flow in. “Can I see it?”
She nodded and shuffled away, looking more like a Romero zombie than any of the dead things we’d seen so far. She brought back a grubby, battered envelope and handed it to me. I ripped it open and held it for Dan to see because I hoped Lana would mention the kids too.
“Dee, if you’re reading this, thank the goddess. I didn’t want to leave you behind—that wasn’t our intention—but the van died and a pack of those things were after us. I hitched a ride with a family getting out of town, me and the kids. Dan, Owen is with me. He’s freaked but he’s okay. Olivia is too but … I hate even putting this in writing, but Lizbeth is gone. She wandered off and got … I can’t. We tried saving her but …
“Dee, my love, I’m going to stay with this family as long as they’re headed in the right direction. Safety in numbers. I’d stop and wait, but what if you passed me by? What if you are, goddess forbid, dead? I have to get to the boys. I hope you understand. I love you. I’ll spray paint a D whenever I can. I’ll try to stick to I-90 as we planned. But I’m headed to our boys. Tell Dan I’ll keep his son as safe as I can. Be careful. Please. I want to see you again.”
I swiped away tears as I handed the letter to Dan to read. He touched his son’s name on the paper almost reverently, then handed it back to me. I pressed it to my chest.
“They’re alive,” he said with a fierce joy. “They’re alive.” He one-arm hugged me, and I squeezed him back.
Lana was alive and she had a head start. I just had to catch up. Or join her at home.
Silence fell as Dan and I basked in happiness. When I thought I could speak without sobbing, I said, “Ivy, you want to come with us?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure? It’s … we have food. Water.”
“We got stuff here. Richie and me, we are making do. And anyway, I don’t think I could make myself get back out on the road again. Not anymore.”
I held out my hand, not really wanting to touch her because she was so filthy but unwilling to leave her without that much consolation. She took it, squeezed once, and let go.
“You should go.”
Something about her posture, her tone, worried me. “Are you okay here? Is he treating you okay?” I didn’t bother whispering. Let Richie get pissy. If he was being mean, holding Ivy here against her will, we would take care of him.
“Richie? Of course he is. We’re just … it’s been a hard few weeks is all. There used to be seven of us, but we lost five when we tried getting into the cafeteria to get food. It’s … it was lunchtime, I guess, when things went bad here.”
“If you’re hungry—” I tried again, but she shook her head.
“No. We have food and we can always go to town to get more. We’re just adjusting to the new normal. You guys go on and get down the road. Find your families.” She itched at her arm, then crossed both over her chest. “Go on now. Be safe. Don’t let them bring you down.”
I nodded and we left, switching drivers so Paisley could take her turn. I watched from the back window as we drove away and Ivy stood on the steps, arms still held tight to herself, her face almost disappearing in the dirt. She didn’t wave a goodbye to us, but I rolled down the window and stuck my hand out anyway.
Then we turned back onto to road and drove out of her life for good.
39
Now
Car alarms blare behind them as they ease around another mob. The alarms work to a point. Either these zombies are dumber than the other dead things by the Complex, or they haven’t had any of the living around to motivate them to evolve. The survivors manage to get another couple blocks before the next big problem: cars packing the road so tightly they don’t have a prayer of getting past.
More backtracking, more car alarms. Dee is tense and tired and worried. She remembers that first moment she walked up to the door and knocked, waiting to find out if Lana was inside or not, whether she was dead or not. This feels like that, but not as intense. Sad to say, she’s had many moments when she’s gotten her hopes up only for them to be thoroughly dashed on the concrete. She’s inured. Good word, bad thing to be. It makes her feel guilty, like she should be as on-edge as she had been at the start.
But being on-edge was tiring. It was a drain on resources.
Now all she can be is a bit sick to her stomach and grimly hopeful.
Please let them be alive.
They get within two blocks of her home and get stuck again, this time by a mob so big they can’t see the end of it. It’s too big to go around. They’ll have to backtrack for days and they can only do so much—her house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac. If the entrance is blocked, if cars clog the roads …
No, she won’t think that way, she can’t.
“Can we lead them away? Down the road to the west and then double back?” Gloria asks.
“It’s worth a shot,” Alex says. “What do you think, Dee? Peter?”
“Might as well try, though we won’t draw them all off with our horn or a car alarm. We’ll need something big.” Dee thinks again of her explosion that allowed her to get to the Complex. She tells them and they exchange glances.
“I know a place,” Peter says. “And it’s on the way. Plus, there’s a place we can hole up and plan. We’ll need to be sure we know where we’re going once the mob starts moving. You girls game? I know you wanted to get to your house today but—”
“I’m game if you don’t call me a girl again,” Alex says.
Peter gives her a salute. “Sure thing, boss.”
Dee nods and Peter backs us up, taking them onto a road heading west. They don’t get far before he’s having to lane-jump because of a bad wreck, but then they’re clear and free for a couple miles.
The place he takes them has two gas stations right across the street from one another. If they manage to blow them both it will make a hell of a racket. As long as they can get the hell away before the mob converges on the area, they’ll be okay.
It gives her a headache just thinking about it.
“Where are we going to stop and plan, Peter?” Gloria asks.
“Around the corner and up the hill. There was a building up there for lease. For lease means empty, I hope. It has a garage, it’s several stories tall.” He chugged them up the hill, sighing when he saw it. “There.”
It was silver, the For-Lease sign still on the
front. Neither garage Is open, which means breaking in. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gloria asks.
“Yes,” he says. He pulls them around the back and parks, then they sit for a long while watching for them. It’s quiet.
“Maybe it’s because it’s on a hill,” Alex says into the silence.
Everyone nods, not because they agree, but because it makes as good a sense as anything in a world gone mad.
“Look,” Peter says. He points to the fire escape that sits just out of their reach. “We pull the SUV up there, climb on the roof, and voila.”
He makes it sound easy, but Dee can’t help but remember another time when another companion climbed on top of the SUV. Heart in her throat, she watches as Peter, then Gloria, then Alex gain the fire escape with ease. The pounding doesn’t ease when she’s safely over the metal rail. Too easy, her brain insists. It’s too easy. What’s waiting for us inside then? Because things are only easy when the universe is waiting to spring its trap.
They each have their backpacks and they climb to the third floor, tapping on the window and waiting. Waiting. Nothing comes to investigate the noise, so Peter holds a folded shirt against the window and smacks it with a hammer. The glass tinkles to the floor and then he knocks away the rest of the glass.
They pair up and search the building top to bottom, then trade and do it all again. None of them want to wake up to a dead thing eating their faces, so they take care and make absolutely certain they are alone.
Unless they figure out how to climb, the survivors will be okay.
“All right,” Peter says after they are in the room they’ll sleep in for the night, the door barricaded with a stack of pallets. “Tell us how you blew the other station.”
Dee gives them the full story, detailing the rope, the gas, the prayers to deities she didn’t believe actually existed. “Since there are three stations, I think we should blow all three,” she finishes.