Reckoning in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  “There’s got to be some sort of caretaker residence, or at least a check-in gate, before we get too far along,” Skye said.

  “Here’s hoping.”

  As he leaned into Skye for a kiss, he heard the first moan. Low and guttural, it sounded so full of hunger that the hair on Doug’s neck stood on end. It was quickly followed by another. Doug whirled around, trying to locate which direction it came from.

  Skye stepped closer, head cocked. “I think it’s coming from the other side of the bridge.”

  “Mario, Tessa, let’s go,” Doug said, pitching his voice to carry without raising it. “We’ve got company.”

  Not for the first time, Doug wished that just one more of them repelled zombies. If they had two people who were repellers, they could hold hands around the rest of the group. It would be tight, and moving through zombies that way would mean setting a glacial pace, but it would be safe. Skye could move through zombies easily enough, and run interference with a small group of them, but not much more when they were confronted with a larger horde. The moans skipped from one location to the next, like embers of a wildfire blowing across the treetops to ignite the whole forest.

  “Is it monsters?” Violet whimpered.

  “It’s okay,” Tessa said, hoisting the girl to her hip.

  Doug looked farther down the road on the far side of the bridge just in time to see a cadaverous figure stumble into view. Several more followed, lurching awkwardly, only five hundred feet away. Flies buzzed around the zombies like electrons around the nucleus of an atom.

  Silas stuck close to Mario, his eyes as big as saucers. He clutched the handle of Mister Bun Bun’s carrier in his tight fists.

  “Give me that, Silas,” Doug said, reaching for the carrier.

  Silas shrank behind Mario, pulling the carrier closer to his body.

  “Give it to Doug,” Mario said. “I need to carry you. He’ll keep Mister Bun Bun safe. I promise.”

  Silas looked at Doug, then released the handle of the carrier and scrambled up onto Mario’s back. Doug gripped the carrier in one hand, the familiar heft of his machete in the other.

  “Skye, take point. I’ll bring up the rear, with Mario, Tessa, and the kids between us.”

  Hisses came from the direction they’d just traveled. What started as a single faint moan was now like noisy ocean surf. Skye plunged into the overgrowth of the road, shoving her way through. She hacked only what couldn't be pushed aside. Tessa and Mario flinched away from branches that flexed back at them like whips.

  Doug looked over his shoulder. He could see figures struggling into the woods behind them. A yelp from Silas snapped his head forward in time to be slapped across the face by a whipping branch. A bright, shiny sting tingled across his cheek. Silas held a hand to his face, a smothered sob caught in the boy’s throat. He buried his face against Mario’s neck, his thin shoulders shaking.

  A flicker of movement flashed in Doug’s peripheral vision. To his left a few zombies stumbled down the hillside, banging into trees like pinballs or falling to the ground like actors in a slapstick routine. If not for the heavy forest slowing the zombies down, they’d be screwed. He cast another glance over his shoulder, felt his foot stick, then crashed to the ground. Mister Bun Bun’s carrier twisted to the side, causing his arm to bend awkwardly. The rabbit squealed, a piteous shriek of fear that grated on Doug’s ear.

  “Doug! Are you okay?”

  He looked up to see Mario starting to come his way.

  “I’m fine,” he said. He pulled the carrier to him, checked quickly to make sure its door was still secure, then lurched to his feet. His ankle throbbed a little with the first step. He suppressed a wince. “Keep going.”

  “I see something,” Skye cried.

  Doug kept his focus on his footing, on the whipping branches knocking against the hard plastic pet carrier with hollow thuds, on the ache in his wrist. The thicker trees gave way to a small clearing of high grass and spindly saplings deprived of sunlight by the redwood canopy overhead. A long, low building—caretaker’s cottage of bricks and stucco with sturdy wooden shutters covering its windows—was a hundred feet away. They picked up speed as the terrain cleared, racing toward the house.

  The door cracked as Skye kicked it open. She barged inside, then pinwheeled backwards, knocking into Tessa. Zombies poured through the open door, one after another. Skye slipped, then crashed backwards onto her ass. Doug heard the breath rush from her lungs and Tessa’s cry of surprise, followed by a thin high-pitched scream.

  Violet still clung to Tessa’s back, her shrieks of terror almost as unearthly as the zombies moaning around them. Zombies poured through the open door to lunge at Skye, only to recoil. Some pulled away upright; others fell on the ground, leaving Skye in the middle of putrid melee. The unexpected obstacle she presented caused a bottleneck at the door.

  Mario shook Silas from his back, pointing at the far corner of the house. The boy obeyed instantly, running where Mario had indicated. Mario darted forward, attacking the zombies staggering in their direction. Skye got to her feet.

  “Take her,” Tessa shouted at Doug.

  Doug shoved his machete blade between the top of the carrier and his knuckles clutching the handle. He snaked his now free arm between Violet and Tessa, yanking the screaming child free. Tessa ran, her machete already in hand, to skewer a zombie through its open mouth. Doug retreated to where Silas stood rigid, quaking with fear. Silas pointed to the woods they had just emerged from. Four zombies were breaking free of the tree line.

  “We’ll be inside before they get here,” Doug said, not sure if Silas could hear him over Violet’s screams.

  “Violet, it’s okay, we’ll be inside in a minute. You have to be quiet!”

  Violet kept screaming, either unable to hear him or too hysterical for his words to register. Silas huddled close to Doug, as silent as his sister was loud.

  “Doug, let’s go!”

  Skye beckoned him from the doorway. At least a dozen zombies lay outside the door of the house, their heads hacked or stabbed. Before he could say anything to Silas, the boy pulled the carrier from his hand.

  “Careful,” Doug cried, catching the machete falling from the handle.

  Silas ran to Skye, lopsided from lugging the pet carrier. Doug dropped the screaming and wriggling Violet as the door thudded shut behind him. Violet barreled across the room, running into Mario with such force that he almost lost his balance.

  “Woah… Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Mario said, crouching in front of the sobbing girl. “You’re okay, it’s okay.”

  Violet kept screaming.

  “Violet, look at me; look at me.”

  Mario snapped his fingers in front of her face, repeating the command. She finally looked at him, no longer screaming, but blubbering loudly. Mario held up his hand, fingers splayed, and pulled hers to it. Then he moved her finger along his index finger, tracing its outline.

  “Watch your finger,” he said. “Breathe in on the way up, and out on the way down. Like this.” Mario inhaled deeply, while her finger moved up the side of his middle finger, and then out through his mouth as it traced down. “You try, c’mon… Big breath in. Now out. Breath in…keep going.”

  Silas, who clutched Tessa’s hand and worriedly watched his sister, relaxed. Mario kept inhaling and exhaling along with Violet, moving her finger along and whispering encouragement. By the time she worked her way back to his middle finger, she’d quit crying. When she reached his thumb, she was tracing his fingers on her own. They went back and forth again, beginning and finishing at Mario’s thumb.

  “Good job,” he said and hugged her close. “Feel better?”

  Violet nodded into his shoulder, her face tear-streaked, but calmer.

  “The house is secure. Just a crawl space above,” Skye said, putting her hand on Doug’s arm. Her blue-gold eyes were filled with concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Doug said, nodding. “You?”

 
“Aside from falling on my ass?”

  “That’s one way to bottleneck them at the door.”

  Skye shook her head, chagrined. She hooked her thumb to a long table beside the door. “Help me move this?”

  By the time they had shifted the table against the door, Mario held Violet in his arms. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, like he was rocking a baby. Tessa sat with Silas, who lay on his stomach beside her. He had opened the door of Mister Bun Bun’s carrier, arm stuck inside to his elbow, his gaze intent on the rabbit.

  Silas lifted his head and said to Tessa, “Mister Bun Bun’s okay. He’s not shaking as much since I’m petting him.”

  Tessa murmured something in reply. Doug leaned against the wall, then slid down. The adrenaline draining from his system made every tweaked joint ache. The welt on his face itched. Skye sat down beside him as the first zombie banged against the door. Everyone startled. The door didn’t budge, even as more zombies gathered outside, banging on the shutters and walls.

  “How many do you think are out there?” Doug said to Skye.

  She shrugged. “Don’t worry. We’ll sit tight, let them settle, and then come up with a plan for me to herd them away so we can get back on the road.”

  Doug sighed. “We need two of you. It would make this a lot easier.”

  They lapsed into silence. Doug pulled off his gloves and took Skye’s hand in his before holding it to his lips. Her skin was soft, and even though it smelled of sweat and wood and very faintly of zombie, it smelled alive. With few trees directly overhead, the hot, stuffy air of the house was infused with the sharp stench of rot and the rancid reek of decaying flesh. It permeated everything—the carpeting, the furniture, probably the stuccoed walls. Opening anything to air their refuge out was out of the question.

  “This place smells like a charnel house.”

  Skye’s nose wrinkled. “It’s better than being eaten.” She paused for a moment, then said, “How did he do that?”

  “What?”

  “Mario,” she said. “How did he settle her down so quickly?”

  “Anthony, his son, used to have panic attacks. He and Emily did that with him.”

  Doug looked over to Mario. He sat on a moldering couch. Violet was curled in his lap, fast asleep. Silas had left Tessa’s side to sit next to Mario, too. He held Mister Bun Bun in his thin arms, the rabbit’s rump in his lap, the rest of it nestled against his torso. Its ears lay back against its body as Silas slowly stroked its fur. Doug couldn’t catch what Silas was murmuring to the bunny, but the cadence was reassuring. Mario looked tired, as if they’d spent all day dodging zombies, not just the last fifteen minutes. But he looked peaceful, too.

  Doug said, “I think they’ve decided he’s their person.”

  Softly, so only he could hear, Skye whispered, “It’s such a shame about him and Miranda. They were so happy. They would’ve been great parents. He looks so content with Silas and Violet.”

  Doug didn’t say anything, because it wasn’t required. And because Skye didn’t have it quite right. Miranda and Mario had been happy, the happiest Doug had ever seen them. He knew that letting herself want the baby had been an emotional risk for her in a way it just wasn’t for other people. It had devastated her to lose Tadpole after admitting, after allowing herself, to want him in the first place. If she hadn’t been so intent on driving them all away and doing anything but feel how much it hurt, Doug knew they could have gotten through it together, maybe even had another child. To have seen them so happy, and to see how miserable both of them were now, broke Doug’s heart. Mario and Miranda would have been great parents—the best. In that at least, Skye was right.

  But Mario and these kids…content was not the word Doug would have chosen. Conflicted was more like it. Doug could see the push and pull Mario seemed to be caught in since they’d found Silas and Violet. It seemed to Doug that Mario didn’t want to get close to them. But when it came down to caring for them, protecting them, his heart trumped his head. Mario did what he’d do with his own kids, without thinking. But after he’d quieted the hysterical child, or saved the rabbit, or kissed the scraped knee, he became uneasy. It was only after he was already cradling Violet, or with Silas snuggled against him holding the combo rabbit/security blanket, that Mario seemed to realize that they were right there. It was when they got up close and personal that he was caught out by how much he cared about them, despite his attempts to protect himself by being aloof.

  It didn’t matter that it had only been… Doug had to think about it. Today was September twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth, so they’d only had Silas and Violet with them for four weeks. Just four weeks… That can’t be right, he thought, but when he did the math again, he realized it was. It didn’t matter that it had been so short a time—they all cared. Doug even cared about Mister Bun Bun, for crying out loud. He could see the fear in his friend’s eyes. Fear of letting these kids down, letting them die, letting himself enjoy being with them when he felt so guilty about leaving his own kids behind in San Jose. Or maybe it was something else, something that Doug couldn’t see and didn’t understand. Whatever it was, Doug could see the conflicted feelings that Mario didn’t want to talk about roiling beneath the steady facade that he presented to the rest of them.

  Content wasn’t the word Doug would choose to describe Mario, not by a long shot.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. They needed to eat something, all of them, and set up a watch so everyone could rest. They needed to survive this journey. There were so many things Doug had to make happen to get his friends safely to San Jose, and he did them gladly, but he didn’t know what Mario needed, or how to help him. He was worried for Mario…worried that he might slip away, just like Miranda had.

  13

  Violet looked up at Mario, only a slit of brown iris visible from her squinted eyes. Her face was a collection of smudges and smears from the fine, dry dust that puffed up from the path. It stuck to the sheen of sweat on her upturned face.

  “Mawree,” she said. “When are we getting bicycles?”

  Mario groaned, cursing himself for the millionth time. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, but no. That would have been too easy.

  “As soon as we find some.”

  “But when?” she persisted.

  A few steps behind him and Violet, Mario heard Doug snort. Not an impatient snort, but the amused kind that didn’t quite succeed in smothering the laugh that banged against the inside of the snorter’s teeth.

  “We just gotta keep looking.”

  “But we’ve looked everywhere,” Silas chimed in.

  Silas skipped past Mario and tagged Tessa, who walked at the front of the group. Then he turned back, skipping past Mario again. He was heading to Skye, at the rear. He played this game from time to time, tagging between the first and last member of their small party as they walked.

  Violet made a soft sound in her throat, the kind that conveyed that Mario’s answer was unsatisfactory. “I liked the canoes better. This is boring.”

  “I liked the canoes better, too.”

  The day after they fled to the cottage at the campground, Skye had scouted the site. She’d come back grinning, with news of canoes. She’d paddled two to the bank of the Mattole River just a few hundred feet from their refuge. After huddling around the road atlas, they figured they could probably take the river as far as Ettersburg before they would need to start walking again. Thirty miles in a canoe beat thirty miles on foot. They left early the following morning, paddling against the current, but the river was placid and rarely deeper than ten feet. The nice thing about California weather was its predictability. It was the end of September, so now that they were inland it was dry—cool in the shade of the forest and blazing in the sun. The dome of sky above them was a deep blue with the occasional scrap of wispy white clouds.

  Twice they’d needed to portage around rapids that looked a little too dicey to try in a canoe. Doug would have gone for it if he’d been on his own; Mario was s
ure of that. It was just the kind of slightly dangerous, bordering on foolish, challenge that he liked, but they had two kids and a rabbit. Even if they hadn’t, Mario was burned out on adventure for adventure’s sake.

  When they’d left the canoes for the road again, the journey proved uneventful. The hamlet of Ettersburg was devoid of people and zombies, and that’s when Mario mentioned bicycles. Everyone agreed bicycles would be great, even if some of the inclines were punishing, but so far they had not found any. It was almost as if they’d entered a parallel world where bicycles were never invented, or the entire town had evacuated on them. They’d found a few tricycles, but no bicycles that they could use. So on they trudged. Or in Silas’ case, sometimes skipped. And Violet and Silas asked when they were going to find bicycles—repeatedly. Mario’s mother had been fond of saying that people make their own hell. He’d done it with the bicycles.

  An hour ago they turned north onto twisty, two-lane Briceland Road, which hugged the ascending ridge. The morning’s stated goal—the town of Redway—had been revised to whatever suitable structure they could find for the night.

  “There’s a building ahead, around the bend,” Tessa said, turning back to the rest of the group. “I can see it through the trees. It’s on the right, one-story, I think.”

  “I see it,” said Doug, just as Mario saw it, too.

  By unspoken agreement, everyone picked up the pace. They passed a dusty track on the left that wound up the hillside, then the building came into full view. It was long and low, set about a hundred fifty feet from the road. The weedy overgrowth between the building and the road was dead, burnt yellow and brown from the combination of full sun and no rain.

  “Will there be bikes?” Violet asked, looking up at Mario.

  Mario shared a weary smile with Tessa over the girl’s head. “Maybe.”

  Excitement shone in Silas’ eyes, despite his obvious fatigue. He peeked inside Mister Bun Bun’s carrier. “I think we should stop here,” he said, squinting up at Tessa, then Mario. “Mister Bun Bun is tired.”