Beyond the playground, the land rises up to an overgrown wooded knoll, where a small windswept cemetery sits in the pale sun.
Brian notices that Penny is talking to Nick, grilling him about something. Brian wonders what the two of them are talking about that has the girl looking so worried.
* * *
“Uncle Nick?” Penny’s little face is tight with concern as she slowly turns on the merry-go-round. She has called Nick “Uncle” for years, even though she knows very well he is not her real uncle. The affectation has always given Nick a secret twinge of longing—the desire to be somebody’s real uncle.
“Yes, honey?” A leaden feeling of doom presses down on Nick Parsons as he absently pushes Penny on the merry-go-round. He can see the Blake brothers in his peripheral vision, arguing about something.
“Is my dad mad at me?” the little girl asks.
Nick does a double take. Penny looks down as she slowly spins. Nick measures his words. “Of course not. He’s not mad at you. Whaddaya mean? Why would you even think that?”
“He don’t talk to me as much as he used to.”
Nick gently pulls the merry-go-round to a stop. The little girl jerks slightly back against the bar. Nick tenderly pats her on the shoulder. “Listen. I promise you. Your daddy loves you more than anything else in the world.”
“I know.”
“He’s under a lot of pressure. That’s all.”
“You don’t think he’s mad at me?”
“No way. He loves you something fierce, Penny. Believe me. He’s just … under a lot of pressure.”
“Yeah … I guess so.”
“We all are.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure none of us have been talking all that much lately.”
“Uncle Nick?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Do you think Uncle Brian’s mad at me?”
“God, no. Why would Uncle Brian be mad at you?”
“Maybe ’cause he’s gotta carry me all the time?”
Nick smiles sadly. He studies the look on the girl’s face, her little brow all furrowed with seriousness. He strokes her cheek. “Listen to me. You are the bravest little girl I ever met. I mean that. You are a Blake girl … and that’s something to be proud of.”
She thinks about this and smiles. “You know what I’m gonna do?”
“No, honey. Tell me.”
“I’m gonna fix all them broken dolls. You’ll see. I’m gonna fix ’em.”
Nick grins at her. “That sounds like a plan.”
The little girl’s smile is something that Nick Parson’s wondered if he would ever see again.
* * *
A moment later, on the other side of the rest area, among the picnic tables, Brian Blake sees something out of the corner of his eye. A hundred yards away, beyond the playground, amid the crumbling headstones, long-faded markers, and tattered plastic flowers, something moves.
Brian locks his gaze on three distant figures emerging from the shadows of the trees. Shuffling along in haphazard formation, they approach like lazy bloodhounds smelling the kill. It’s hard to tell at this distance but they look as though their clothes have been fed through a reaper, their mouths hanging open in perpetual torment.
“Time to get our asses in gear,” Philip says with very little urgency, and he starts toward the playground with a kind of heavy, mechanical stride.
As he hurries after him, it occurs to Brian, just for an instant, that the way his brother is walking, his muscular arms limp at his sides, the weight of the world on his shoulders, he could very easily—from a distance—be mistaken for a zombie himself.
* * *
They put more miles behind them. They skirt small towns as empty and still as dioramas in a vast museum. The blue light of dusk starts pulling its shade down on the overcast sky, the wind turning bitter against their visors as they weave around wrecks and deserted trailers, working their way west on 85. Brian starts thinking that they need to find a place to spend the night.
Perched on the saddle behind Nick, his eyes watering, his ears deafened by the wind and the roar of the Harley’s twin-cam engine, Brian has plenty of time to imagine the perfect place for the weary traveler in the land of the dead. He imagines an enormous, sprawling fortress with gardens and walks and impenetrable moats and security fences and guard towers. He would give his left nut for a steak and French fries. Or a bottle of Coke. Or even some of the Chalmerses’ mystery meat—
A reflection off the inside of his helmet visor interrupts the flow of his thoughts.
He glances over his shoulder.
Strange. For the briefest instant there, at the precise same moment he saw a dark blot blur across the inside of his visor, he thought he felt something on the back of his neck, a faint sensation, like the kiss of cold lips. It might just be his imagination, but he also thought he saw something flicker across the side mirror. Just for an instant. Right before they began banking to the south.
He gazes over his shoulder and sees nothing behind them but empty lanes tumbling away, receding into the distance and then vanishing around the curve. He shrugs and turns back to his rambling, chaotic thoughts.
They venture deeper into the rural hinterlands, until they see nothing but miles and miles of broken-down farms and unincorporated boonies. The rolling hills of bean fields plunge down steep moraines on either side of the highway. This is old land—prehistoric, tired, worked to death by generations. Carcasses of old machinery lie dormant everywhere, buried in kudzu and mud.
Dusk starts settling into night, the sky fading from pale gray to a deep indigo. It’s after seven o’clock now and Brian has completely forgotten about the peculiar flash of movement reflecting off the inside of his visor. They need to find cover. Philip’s headlamp comes on, flinging a shaft of silver light into the gathering shadows.
Brian is about to shout something about finding a hideout when he sees Philip signaling up ahead—a stiff wave, and then a gloved finger jabbing to the right. Brian glances off to the north and sees what his brother is pointing at.
Way off in the distant rolling farmland, rising above a prominence of trees, the silhouette of a house is visible—so far away, it looks like a delicate cutout of black construction paper. If Philip had not pointed it out, Brian never would have noticed it. But now he sees why it has sunk a hook into Philip: It looks like a grand old relic of the nineteenth century, maybe even the eighteenth century, probably once a plantation house.
Brian sees another flicker of dark movement out of the corner of his eye, flashing across the side mirror, something behind them, passing just for a fraction of a second through the outer edges of his vision.
Then it’s gone, vanishing as Brian twists around in his seat to gaze over his shoulder.
* * *
They take the next exit and boom down a dusty dirt road. As they close in on the house—which sits all by its lonesome at the crest of a vast foothill at least half a mile off the highway—Brian shivers in the cold. He has a terrible feeling all of sudden, despite the fact that the closer they get to the farmhouse, the more inviting it looks. This area of Georgia is known for its orchards—peaches, figs, and plums—and as they roar up a winding drive that leads to the house, they see that it’s an aging beauty.
Surrounded by peach trees, which spread off into the distance like the spokes of a wheel, the central building is a massive two-story brick pile with ornate garrets and dormers rising off the roof. It has the flavor of an old, decrepit Italian villa. The porch is a fifty-foot-long portico with columns, balustrades, and mullioned windows choked with vines of brown ivy and bougainvillea. In the fading light, it looks almost like a ghost ship from some pre–Civil War armada.
The noise and fumes of the Harleys swirl in the dusty air as Philip leads them across the front lot, which is bordered by a massive, decorative fountain made of marble and masonry. Apparently fallen into disrepair, the fountain has a film of scum across its basin. Several outbu
ildings—stables, perhaps—lie off to the right. A tractor lies half-buried in crabgrass. To the left of the front façade sits a massive carriage house, big enough for six cars.
None of this antique opulence registers with Brian as they cautiously pull up to a side door between the garage and the main house.
Philip brings his Harley to a stop in a thunderhead of dust, revving the motor for a moment. He kills the engine and sits there, staring up at the salmon-colored brick monstrosity. Nick pulls next to him and snaps down his kickstand. They don’t say a word for the longest time. Finally, Philip lowers his stand, dismounts, and says to Penny, “Stay here for a second, punkin.”
Nick and Brian dismount.
“You got that baseball bat handy?” Philip says without even looking at them.
“You think there’s anybody in there?” Nick asks.
“Only one way to find out.”
Philip waits for Nick to go around the back of his Electra Glide and fetch the bat, which is sheathed down one side of his luggage carrier. He brings it back and hands it over.
“You two stay with Penny,” Philip says, and starts toward the portico.
Brian stops him, grabbing his arm.
“Philip—” Brian is about to say something about dark shapes flashing across his side mirror back on the highway, but he stops himself. He’s not sure he wants Penny to hear this.
“The hell’s the matter with you?” Philip says.
Brian swallows air. “I think there’s somebody following us.”
* * *
The former occupants of the villa are long gone. In fact, the inside of the place looks as though it’s been sitting empty since long before the plague broke out. Yellowed sheets cover the antique furniture. The many rooms are empty, dusty chambers frozen in time. A grandfather clock still ticks stubbornly in a parlor. Niceties of a bygone era festoon the house: ornate moldings and French doors and circular staircases and two separate and massive fireplaces with hearths the size of walk-in closets. Under one sheet sits a grand piano, under another a Victrola, under another a wood-burning stove.
Philip and Nick sweep the upper floors for Biters and find nothing other than more dusty relics of the Old South: a library, a corridor of oil paintings of Confederate generals in gilded frames, a nursery with a dusty old cradle dating back to Colonial times. The kitchen is surprisingly small—another holdover from the nineteenth century when only servants dirtied their hands with cooking—but the enormous pantry has shelves brimming with dusty canned goods. The dry grains and cereals are all mealy and crawling with worms, but the array of fruits and vegetables is staggering.
* * *
“You’re seeing things, sport,” Philip says under his breath that night in front of a crackling fire in the front parlor. They found piles of cordwood in the backyard by the barn and now they’ve managed to warm their bones for the first time since leaving Atlanta. The warmth and shelter of the villa—as well as the nourishment of canned peaches and okra—caused Penny to instantly doze off. She now slumbers on a luxurious down comforter in the nursery on the second floor. Nick sleeps in the room next to her. But the two brothers have insomnia. “Who the hell would bother following us anyway?” Philip adds, taking another sip of the expensive cooking sherry he found in the pantry.
“I’m telling you, I saw what I saw,” Brian says, nervously rocking on a bentwood chair on the other side of the fire. He’s got a dry shirt on and a pair of sweatpants, and he feels almost human again. He looks over at his brother, and sees that Philip is staring intensely at the fire as though it holds a secret coded message.
For some reason, the sight of Philip’s gaunt, troubled face, reflecting the flicker of firelight, breaks Brian’s heart. He flashes back to epic childhood journeys into the woods, overnight stays in pup tents and cabins. He remembers having his first beer with his brother, back when Philip was only ten and Brian was thirteen, and he remembers Philip being able to drink him under the table even then.
“It might have been a car,” Brian goes on. “Or maybe a van, I’m not sure. But I swear to God, I saw it back there just for a second … and it sure as hell seemed like it was tailing us.”
“So what if there is somebody following us, who gives a rat’s ass?”
Brian thinks about it for a second. “The only thing is … if they were friendly … wouldn’t they, like, catch up with us? Signal to us?”
“Who knows…” Philip stares at the fire, his thoughts elsewhere. “Whoever they are … if they’re out there, chances are, they’re as fucked up as us.”
“That’s true, I guess.” Brian thinks about it some more. “Maybe they’re just … scared. Maybe they’re like … checking us out.”
“Ain’t nobody gonna be able to sneak up on us up here, I’ll tell you that.”
“Yeah … I guess.”
Brian knows exactly what his brother is talking about. The location and position of the villa is ideal. Situated on a rise that overlooks miles of thinning trees, the house has sight lines that would give them plenty of warning. Even on a moonless night, the orchards are so still and quiet that nobody would be able to creep up on them without being heard or seen. And Philip is already talking about setting booby-trap wires around the periphery to alert them to intruders.
On top of that, the place offers them all sorts of benefits that could sustain them for quite a while, maybe even into the winter. There is a well out back, gas in the tractor, a place to hide the Harleys, miles of fruit trees still bearing edible albeit frost-shriveled fruit, and enough wood to keep the stoves and fireplaces going for months. The only problem is their lack of weapons. They scoured the villa and only found a few implements in the barn—a rusty old scythe, a pitchfork—but no firearms.
“You okay?” Brian says after a long stretch of silence.
“Fit as a fucking fiddle.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Grandma.” Philip stares into the fire. “We’re all gonna be fit as fucking fiddles after a few days in this place.”
“Philip?”
“What is it now?”
“Can I say something?”
“Here it comes.” Philip doesn’t take his eyes off the fire. He wears his wifebeater and a dry pair of jeans. His socks have holes in them, his big toe showing through one of them. The sight of this in the firelight—Philip’s gnarled toenail sticking out—is heartrending for Brian. It makes his brother seem, maybe for the first time ever, almost vulnerable. It is highly unlikely that any of them would be alive right now if it weren’t for Philip. Brian swallows back his emotion.
“I’m your brother, Philip.”
“I’m aware of that, Brian.”
“No, what I’m saying is … I don’t judge you, I never will.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is … I appreciate what you’ve been doing … risking your ass protecting us. I want you to know this. I appreciate it.”
Philip doesn’t say anything, but the way he’s staring at that fire begins to change a little bit. He starts gazing beyond it, the flames making his eyes glimmer with emotion.
“I know you’re a good person,” Brian goes on. “I know this.” A brief pause here. “I can tell something is eating at you.”
“Brian—”
“Wait a minute, just hear me out.” The conversation has crossed a Rubicon, now beyond the point of no return. “If you don’t want to tell me what happened back there with you and April, that’s fine. I’ll never ask you again.” There’s a long pause. “But you can tell me, Philip. You can tell me because I’m your brother.”
Philip turns and looks at Brian. A single tear tracks down Philip’s chiseled, leathery face. It makes Brian’s stomach clench. He can’t remember ever having seen his brother cry, even as a child. One time, their daddy whipped a twelve-year-old Philip unmercifully with a hickory switch, raising so many welts on Philip’s backside that he had to spend nights sleeping on his stomach, but he never cried. Almost
out of spite, he refused to cry. But now, as he meets Brian’s gaze in the flickering shadows, Philip’s voice is drained as he says, “I fucked up, sport.”
Brian nods, says nothing, just waits. The fire crackles and sizzles.
Philip looks down. “I think I sorta fell for her.” The tear drips on him. But his voice never breaks, it just remains flat and weak: “Ain’t gonna say it was love but what the fuck is love anyway? Love is a fucking disease.” He cringes at some demon twisting in him. “I fucked up, Brian. Could’ve had something with her. Could’ve had something solid for Penny, something good.” He grimaces as though holding off a tide of sorrow, tears welling up in his eyes until every time he blinks, they run down his face. “I couldn’t stop myself. She said stop but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop. See … the thing is … it felt so goddamn good.” Tears dripping. “Even when she was pushing me away, it felt good.” Silence. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” More silence. “I know there ain’t no excuse for it.” Pause. “I’m not stupid … I just didn’t think I would ever … I didn’t think I could … I didn’t think…”
His voice crumbles until there’s nothing but the crackle of the fire and the huge dark silence outside the villa. At length, after an interminable period of time, Philip looks up at his brother.
In the dancing light, Brian sees that the tears are spent. Nothing but barren anguish remains on Philip Blake’s face. Brian doesn’t say a word. He simply nods.
* * *
The next few days take them into November, and they decide to stay put and see what the weather does.
A freezing sleet sweeps across the orchards one morning. On another day, a killer frost grips the fields and takes down much of the fruit. But for all the signs of winter rolling in, they feel no compulsion to leave just yet. The villa might be their best bet to wait out the harsh days on the horizon. They’ve got enough canned goods and fruit—if they’re careful—to keep them going for months. And enough wood to keep them warm. And the orchards seem relatively free of Biters, at least in the immediate vicinity.
The Walking Dead Collection Page 23