by Morris, Jacy
The dead were thin here. The survivors had room to breathe. This wouldn't all be so bad if this was how many there were at any one time. Maybe the beach would be a good thing. Or maybe they should hole up right here, take their time.
He began to wonder about the future, about his place in it. Ever since they had decided to leave the Burnside Bridge and follow the survivors that left before them, he had seemed to have a purpose. It was all they could focus on, putting one foot in front of the other in order to get to a destination. Now that the destination seemed attainable, he was forced to ask himself the question, "What came next?"
What would he do when he could settle down—when he could live in one spot and not have to worry about dying on some forgotten road? He used to write poetry, scrawling in notebooks about all sorts of things, drinking, women, the state of the world. But ever since the world had gone to shit, he found his well of motivation had completely dried up. It was hard to write when you were concerned about your life.
He turned around and laughed as the little boy hucked snowballs at Rudy. The big man and the child laughed quiet laughs, not making too much noise as they bent down, scooped up a handful of snow, shaped it into a ball, and threw it at each other. It was a fine interlude between walking and slaying the dead.
Allen noticed that the little girl didn't take part in all the fun. She stood off to the side, nervously looking left and right, scanning the area for Annies. Amanda stood close by her. Amanda never left her side now, and the little girl stuck with her at all times. There was some damage there in Allen's mind. Where D.J. seemed to be a normal kid, robust, energetic, and pleased with everything that he saw, Hope was the complete opposite. She was sullen and serious, far more serious than a girl her age should be. As he watched, the little girl coughed into a gloved fist and scanned the horizon.
Now, there was a person that could use a lesson in appreciating the finer things in life. And just like that, he found it. He found a drop of inspiration in his dried-up well. A story. A story of the way it was before, and the way it still could be. The ideas whirled in his head, and for a few minutes, he only existed halfway in the real world. The rest of him was somewhere else, conjuring up a tale for the girl, something that would help her cope with reality, something that would give little Hope a little hope.
They began walking at Tejada's signal, their message left clearly on the side of the gas station in red paint. "Headed west on highway 26 – Hope and D.J." Allen began to cobble together a tale. He would tell it to the little girl around the campfire.
He watched as the little girl latched onto Amanda's hand and trudged purposefully through the melting snow, coughing into her glove.
****
Amanda had to admit that things were better out here, away from the city, away from the tombs of the dead. The air was cleaner out here. The stench of death was not so present. Even in the frigid air of their long, cold winter, you could still smell the dead. It wasn't as bad as it had been in the summer and fall, but the smell was something that she hated, no matter the intensity. But out here, the air was clear; you could take a deep breath and not smell rot.
She never thought she'd be so happy to be outside the city. She was not a country girl, had never fallen in love with horses, and didn't know shit about camping, but she thought she could get used to it.
"Alright, lemme hear your ABC's," she said to Hope.
Amanda had taken to quizzing Hope and teaching her as they walked. The girl, despite her obvious intelligence, didn't seem to know half the stuff that she expected a five-year-old to know. She supposed her parents had been forced to be lax in their education of her. It's hard to take the time to teach a kid when you constantly have to scavenge just to keep them alive.
Hope, in her tiny little voice, ran through the ABC's quickly. She knew the song and didn't miss any letters.
Ahead of her, Amanda caught a snatch of a conversation between Gregg and Masterson. "Listen, man. The rebellion is the bad guys. The empire is the good guys."
Gregg scoffed at him, wiping at the sweat in his beard. "You're crazy. They were blowing up planets."
"So would you say America is the bad guys for dropping atom bombs?"
"All I'm saying is that you can't go around busting up planets and call yourselves the good guys," Gregg said.
Masterson laughed, "But what if you can end the whole battle with that one weapon? What if you could stop all wars just with the threat of blowing up another planet?"
"That's just like being held hostage, man. No one wants that."
"All I'm saying is what the hell were they rebelling against in the first place? Cool outfits? A little order, a little structure? The rebellion comes off like a bunch of pissant terrorists in my book."
"They were fighting for good!"
"They were religious fanatics. The force, Jedi. Come on now. That's just some crazy cult shit right there."
"What are they talking about?" Hope asked.
"They're just talking about an old movie," Amanda said.
"Oh, I remember those. I used to watch Shrek. That was my favorite."
Amanda only half-listened as Hope went through the plot points of Shrek with a focus on the finer points of the film that only a child's mind could point out.
The road ahead of them was long. To their side, grass fields buried under snow raced away to meet the edge of the forest. Above the treetops, they could see the shadow of mountains in the distance, purple in the haze. There were a few houses dotted about, but they were set far back from the road. For now, the road was open, with nary a stalled vehicle in sight.
There were no dead out here, and they could just walk. The sun shone down on the snow, melting it. It only came up to her ankle now, but she wondered how far the sun's power would reach. As they climbed in elevation, at what point would the heat of the sun stop being strong enough to melt the snow? Would they come to a point in the mountains impassable with snow?
"This is the life!" Brown said off to her right. He walked with his hands on his head, stretching his shoulders and his back. "Ain't got no dead things breathing down my neck. I got food in my bag, bullets in my gun, and nothing but open road for miles to see."
"It ain't gonna last, you dumb sumbitch," Whiteside said.
"Why you gotta be like that?" Brown asked, genuinely annoyed with Whiteside.
Whiteside looked at Brown, and for once, he actually seemed to understand that he was being a dick. "Sorry," Whiteside said.
Brown marched on, sullenly.
Hope finished her recital of the movie Shrek, and Amanda tried to figure out how to teach her math. She didn't know how important it would be. She had never really found much use for it. The only real math she had ever needed was simple addition and subtraction, and how to figure out a tip. But there was no tipping now, no restaurants or waitstaff to tip. If the world ever came back, she didn't think tipping would come back with it. In the end, she held out her hands to Amanda, and they played a simple game of addition and subtraction with their fingers, Hope coughing occasionally.
D.J. looked on. Rudy had taken a liking to the boy, and he frequently picked the child up and carried him on his shoulders. They went well together. For Amanda's part, she felt like she was pulling teeth getting Hope to like her. The little girl didn't dislike her, but she tended to stay where her brother was, watching over him, making sure he didn't do something wrong. She was like a sheepdog watching after a flock of one. She supposed the behavior had been instilled in her by her parents. If Amanda were to bet money on it, she guessed it would always be like that for her, even once they were grown and strong enough to stand on their own.
It took her a second to realize that there was another sound besides the chatter of the soldiers and the crunch of slushy snow underneath boots. "Do you guys hear that?" Amanda called out.
They stopped and listened. Then they all heard it—the sound of a motor.
****
"Get off the road," Tejada snapped, "i
nto those ditches."
Tejada pulled his handgun from its holster and scanned the area around them. He watched Rudy and Amanda snatch up the kids like they were spare baggage. He ran behind them, his head turning left and right as the noise grew louder. It wasn't just one engine; there were multiple. He could pick out the distinct sounds. They were loud, frightfully loud in the quiet of a world that had gone to sleep.
He reached the edge of the road and dove into the ditch that paralleled it. His men scanned the horizon, and then they spotted them on the other side of the highway, three ATVs splashing through the wet snow. There were men on the backs of the ATVs, dressed in camouflage, their faces covered by gaiters with monstrous mouths drawn upon them. He could see the barrels of long hunting rifles outlined against the snowy backdrop.
"Get ready. Nobody fire until I say so. We got 'em outnumbered. Gregg, keep an eye on our six."
They all went quiet, waiting as the vehicles drew closer. They pulled to a stop on the other side of the road, the men dismounting and taking defensive positions in the ditch on the opposite side of the highway.
"Hello there!" a voice called.
"Hello, yourself!" Tejada shot back.
Tejada saw the barrels of the rifles disappear from the men's backs as they flopped in the snow, their rifles pointing in the direction of his men. He didn't want to lose anyone today, and he also didn't feel like killing a living person if he could avoid it.
"Been a while since we heard from anyone to the east," the man called. His voice was deep, level.
"I expect it'll be a lot longer after we leave."
There was silence, and then the man asked, "Where you headed?"
Tejada mulled the man's question over. His men looked at him, waiting for their cue to open fire. He supposed it did them no harm to answer the man's question. "We're headed to the coast."
"What for?" the man asked.
"No particular reason. We got friends headed that way some time ago. We'd like to see 'em again."
They stopped talking, and the tension was back, hovering over the surface of the road between the two ditches.
"If we put our guns up, will you put up yours?" the man asked.
"Sounds like a good deal to me," Tejada said. "Sling 'em," he commanded his men. Everyone put their guns up, and the men across the way did the same. The men on the other side of the road stood awkwardly, like deer caught out in the open when a human walked by. They looked ready to bolt. Tejada stood and dusted the cold snow off of his jacket.
He walked cautiously out to the middle of the road, and the man on the other side did the same. The man pulled down his gaiter to reveal his bearded face. He looked normal enough. The men to his sides did the same, and they stood that way for a while, just smiling and basking in the presence of other living people.
"How is it back there?" the man asked, cocking his head to the east.
"It's a shitshow. Cost me quite a few of my men."
"You military?" the man asked.
"Used to be. Ain't no military anymore," Tejada said.
"Yeah, me too," the man said. He held out his hand, "Corporal Ron Moseley, 82nd Airborne Division."
"Sergeant Tejada, 1st Infantry," he said as he shook the man's hand.
The man went to salute him, but Tejada waved it off, saying, "We don't have to do that anymore. It's bad enough these guys still call me, sir."
Moseley nodded at the rest of Tejada's group, who stood with their arms hanging loose, hovering near their rifles in case anything went to shit.
Moseley waved behind him and said, "We got a place up this way if you want to stay a while. Got a fire, not much floor space, but it keeps us alive."
"I'd just as soon keep moving," Tejada said.
"Not much up that way, not within a day's march in the snow. Gonna find yourself sleeping under the stars. You might be able to handle it, but I don't know about the little ones."
Tejada eyed the kids. They were a complication, a good one most of the time, but Moseley was right. There was no rush. The beach would still be there whether they slept in a house or in the woods.
"Lead the way," he said.
****
Walt didn't trust these men. They were too nice. He sat in a farmhouse about a mile off the road. Fortifications ringed the house. There were barbed wire fences with tin cans hanging from them. An eight-foot trench lined with wooden spears encircled the property. The only way across was a wooden bridge that they pulled away after everyone had crossed, leaving a moat of deadly spikes to cross.
The whole set-up reminded him of the medieval castles he had learned about in social studies class. He remembered making his own model when he was a child, crafting it out of cardboard, painstakingly painting it. He had been proud of it. At the bus stop that day, the local boys, led by Will Haynes, the dumbest motherfucker he had ever met, had knocked it out of his hands and stomped on it. His mother grounded him when his report card came.
He understood how quickly best intentions could go to shit. He didn't like sitting in their farmhouse. It was theirs, and something felt not quite right. Maybe he was being paranoid. Maybe he needed to just sit back and enjoy the fire the way the others were doing.
Though everyone else had their socks clothes-pinned to a wire hanging above the fire, Walt still kept his boots on. If he wanted to make a run for it or needed to kick a little ass, he didn't want to have to stop to put his boots on.
He watched as Moseley and Tejada traded stories. The soldiers were on their own, with the exception of Moseley's daughter. In ordinary times, she would be considered homely. But to Walt, right then, and right there, despite the fear he felt in the pit of his stomach that these people were going to turn on him at any moment, she seemed about as lovely as a piece of warm pie.
Walt listened half-heartedly to Moseley's story of escape from Denver, of how he rode a horse across the countryside with his men to get back home to his daughter. Walt asked the fair-skinned girl how old she was. Her chapped lips moved, and she said, "21." Her wrists were delicate, small. They weren't made for the current times. Those wrists couldn't swing a sledgehammer or a bowling ball. Despite the delicacy of her wrists, Kristen was thick. Maybe her wrists would grow the way the rest of her body had. But then it hit him. She had probably weighed more when this all began. No one gained weight anymore. There wasn't enough food for that. Even with a steady diet of junk food, the days were filled with exercise, and Walt never quite felt full, even after he allowed himself a full can of something. No, Kristen was most likely shrinking and becoming the person that had hidden underneath all of her weight. She was probably like Rudy in that respect.
He turned and looked at Rudy. He sat with his arms wrapped around D.J. as the two listened to a story that Allen was telling about a pair of wolf cubs. He almost felt himself smile, but he resisted the urge. He needed to stay on guard. These people might have everyone else fooled, but not Walt. Walt knew the score. Still, he marveled at the transformation in Rudy. He seemed to be losing weight every day. His clothes were baggy, his rope belt had been trimmed twice already. It wasn't good to have loose strings on your person when fighting the dead. If it wasn't for his backpack, Walt wouldn't have any straps on his person at all. He also had the rope cradle for his bowling ball, but, in a worst-case scenario, he could drop the rope and go to the hatchet in a moment's notice.
He was listening to Allen's story, a thinly veiled allegory for the two kids, when he felt a presence sit next to him. It was Kristen. He took in the smell of her. She smelled clean, and then he realized how he probably smelled.
"You're quiet," she said.
"Don't got much to say."
"I find those with nothing to say tend to have the most interesting thoughts."
Her words made him want to squirm. He felt a pressure to be interesting for her. But who was he? He was a no one who was lucky to be alive. There was nothing inherently interesting about him, but for the fact that he still breathed. She smiled at him. "
I'm not a big talker, either."
She placed a hand on his hand, and his mouth went dry. Was this some sort of trap?
She stood, pulling him to his feet by his hand. Whiteside looked at him with squinty eyes, clearly pissed that the girl had chosen to spend time with Walt over him.
His breath caught in his throat as she stood, pulling him to his feet. She led him down a hallway, and the sound of muted conversation grew quieter. She led him into a bedroom, and he thought, Oh Lord, this is where they kill me.
Instead, he stepped into a dark room, small by all measurements, made even smaller by the bed against the wall and the dresser at the foot of it. Soft moonlight bounced off the snow and filtered in through the open window.
"What are you…" he began to ask, but he was interrupted by a mouth on his lips.
They kissed then, and he found he liked it. He really liked it.
Their hands fumbled, their mouths tasted each other, and he looked at the pale light reflecting off the white skin of her naked body. He had been wrong earlier. She was beautiful already. He just hadn't known it. He knew it several times that night.
****
Tejada eyed the boy walking with Moseley's daughter, and he interrupted the Corporal's story. He hiked a thumb at their disappearing forms and asked, "Is that going to be a problem?"
Moseley looked at where Tejada was pointing, thought for a second, and then said, "It's a dying world. Let them find joy while there's still some to be found."