by Schow, Ryan
Carver had the feeling she wasn’t trying to earn brownie points with the transhumanist Hitler; rather he felt like she was trying to stop what was about to happen between them.
“Good job, One,” Maria said.
Yeah, good job, One, he thought.
“I think I want to be called Sally now,” One said. “If that’s okay with you, Miss Maria.”
Smiling, she said, “You can be called whatever you’d like, my dear. So long as it makes you happy.” Looking at Carver, she said, “See how lenient I can be?”
“I’m going to take the truck and Myron with me to search outside the area, if that’s okay,” Carver said. “That’s what I’d like to do, now that you’ve become lenient.”
Chewing on the notion, she replied, “We’re best when we’re together.”
“I need a break from you,” he said, no pretense in either his tone or his words. “It will make me less defiant if I get some space. That way, when I come back to you, I can be more accommodating to your manner of rule.”
“Shall we sleep together tonight?” she asked, pushing the issue. “Perhaps invite Ruby up with us and make it an affair?”
“Sex in the apocalypse is not even an afterthought. Not for her, and not for me. I’ve only been appeasing you to see where this heads.”
“So suddenly you’ve gone sterile?” she teased. “Maybe even impotent to your emotions? Your needs? Isn’t sex as important as breathing, or sleeping?”
He just shook his head and said, “I sleep here, or there, or on the floor or anywhere. I honestly don’t care anymore, Maria.”
She made a pouty face, then smiled bright and said, “Why are you being such a silly goose?”
“Just wired wrong, I guess,” he replied. He held out his hand to her, dipped his chin and raised an eyebrow. Then, giving a light snap, he said, “Key please?”
She waited a beat, then went to the nightstand, took the Ford key off the wood and tossed it his way.
“If you leave me, I’ll find you and tear you to pieces with my bare hands,” she said, her smile perfectly intact.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he replied, sarcastic.
“On the contrary,” she said, “should you force my hand, it will only be good for me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Carver and Myron climbed in the truck, started it up, then pulled out into the silent city streets. At first, it was eerily quiet outside, but then they passed several people pushing wheelbarrows with dead bodies in them. The corpses’ limbs hung over the front and sides of the metal pan, their heads flopped down over the back, nostrils to the sky, their dead and decomposed faces sallow and haunting.
Those pushing the one-wheeled body transports wore masks over their faces. They looked strong, full of vigor. One glance in their eyes, however, and Carver felt like he’d get some of that yuck on him. The feeling of them stuck to Carver, fed off him, almost convinced him that this was his fate, that one day he’d be in that barrel, being pushed down the street by that guy, dumped into a burn stack and set on fire.
They passed four more people pushing their one-wheeled body bins, an ant-like procession carrying not food to the colony, but the dead to an unceremonious fate.
He finally pulled the truck to a stop next to one of these workers and said, “Excuse me.”
The person set the wheelbarrow down, stepped toward the truck, pulled her mask down. She was a woman who looked old before her time, but she was maybe the same age as Carver.
“Heard there was a truck running out here,” she said, looking in and around the cab before focusing on Carver.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked. “Burning all these bodies?”
“Cleaning up,” she said.
“For what?”
“Just in case,” she said. “Besides, it beats doing nothing.”
“Do you live around here?” he asked.
“Naw, no one really lives around here anymore. Squatters, passerby’s, but most resources are gone now.”
“Then why clean up?” Myron asked.
“There’s a bunch of us all over the city. We call ourselves The Zombie Prevention Squad, even though there’s no such thing as zombies. Thought it best to not have the dead decomposing out here. When the lights come back on, if they ever get the power restored, we need to make sure the city’s not ruined by the rot of a million corpses.”
“That’s very noble of you,” Carver said, not understanding the point at all. The lights were never coming back on. There would never be power here again, not in their lifetimes.
“It’s really frickin’ stupid is what it is,” Myron said. He had a flat faced scowl. The woman looked at him, dead eyes to dead eyes, then she turned and made a hard snorting sound. Carver curled his nose, looked away. The woman then turned and launched a loogie right past Carver, one that smacked the side of Myron’s face.
Taken aback, jaw sitting in his lap, he just stared at her in surprise and shock. She put her mask back on, then picked up the wheelbarrow and began pushing it down the street.
Carver couldn’t help laughing at Myron.
He deserved that.
“Disgusting wench,” Myron mumbled as he cleaned his face.
Putting the truck in gear, he got going, but not before Myron could yell “You whacked out hussy!” out the window at the woman as they passed her.
“This is sad,” Carver heard himself say.
“Buncha spitters ‘n quitters,” Myron grumbled, over-wiping the spot where he’d been hit, just to be sure.
Carver glanced over and said, “Those were once people with lives, dreams, family, a history. The dead people, not The Zombie Prevention Squad.”
“Ain’t no sweat off my balls that they’re gone,” Myron said. “More air for the rest of us.”
“Well I hope you enjoy all that extra air,” Carver said, disappointed at what a douchebag Myron was turning out to be.
Turning to Carver, the bucktoothed redhead said, “You a softie?”
“Didn’t used to be,” he answered. But when you see such low value put on human life these days, it kind of makes you wonder if all the good ones are gone and we’re all that’s left.”
Carver smelled the faint aroma of cooking meat drifting through the open window. At first, it smelled good.
Smiling, his two front teeth like little ivory tombstones protruding out of his mouth, Myron said, “Ain’t no room for the weak in this world.” He ran a hand through his shaggy red hair, then turned that pale, freckled face on him and said, “Kill or be killed, brother.”
“You sound like Maria,” Carver said, slowing the truck at the intersection of a road that looked as wasted and desolate as the last.
There were two more people with wheelbarrows turning down this street. From a six or seven story building, he thought he saw a body fall out the fourth story window. There were a few corpses on the ground in front of it. Just then another body made its way out of a window. When it was far enough over the side, it dropped lifelessly to the ground and hit with a thud Carver couldn’t quite hear. Someone then popped their head out of the window and called to someone below. That person wore a white mask and pushed a wheelbarrow. She began collecting the bodies.
“Would you look at that…” Carver said, his voice trailing off.
There was a long row of burning bodies and men tending to them with shovels and hoes, moving them around to let in the oxygen, to strengthen the burn.
“Smells like barbecue, but rotten,” Myron said. “Makes me hungry.”
Carver eased off the brakes, unable to look away from the burning piles of people. He couldn’t get it out of his mind that every one of those bodies was once special in their own kind of way. They loved and they were loved. They had jobs, homes, families, pets.
He worried about tears leaking from his eyes as he continued on.
“Jesus dyin’ on the cross,” Myron said with a touch of humor in his voice, “you really are soft.”
<
br /> Ahead he saw a guy with a dog at his side, walking with the same defeated gait as his owner. The man turned to the sound of the big V8 and walked out in the road.
“Don’t stop the truck,” Myron told Carver.
“Shut up,” he grumbled.
Myron slid a revolver out of his pocket, held it at his side. Carver didn’t know this guy had a gun. Maria said she checked them for weapons.
Did she lie to me?
Myron cranked the window down and the guy sidled up to the truck. For a second, Carver thought he looked familiar.
“Hey, thanks for stopping,” the bearded, slightly unkempt man said, his voice teeming with gratitude. “Haven’t seen a running car for forever. Well except for the guys in the FEMA trucks and Humvees.”
“How long ago did you see them?” Carver asked.
“Been some time now,” he said, pulling off a knit beanie and fixing his messy hair, almost like he had a reason to be presentable.
“How’s the dog doing?” Carver asked.
“Good so long as I can keep him from eating dead people. Don’t know what his problem is. Too dumb to be alive without me, I guess.”
“Say mister, you look familiar,” Myron said.
“Not sure why,” he replied, glancing down and away, and then back up with a sheepish look on his face.
“Holy swinging cow balls,” Myron said. “You’re that guy. On the TV.” Snapping his fingers, twisting his head like this might dislodge the memory from his head and get it out of his mouth, he looked at Carver and said, “It’s on the tip of my tongue.” Shoving a hand out, palm to the face of the man, he said, “Don’t tell me, I’ll get this…”
Carver had no idea who this man was that Myron was fretting over, but he let it play out because it looked like maybe Myron was about to get it.
Finally he clapped his hands hard, then in a dark, menacing voice, he turned and said, “Oh my God, I know you.”
Smiling, his eyes hangdog, his expression one of hesitation—like he wasn’t sure if he was going to have a friend or an enemy—he said, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“You screwed us all,” Myron said, his jovial tone gone.
Now the vagrant’s smile fell away, fast like it had no business being there. And those hangdog eyes? They overflowed with shame.
“I…I…it was a different time—”
Myron whipped the pistol out and shot him point blank in the forehead. He dropped like a sack of rocks, the dog barking and running off, his leash dragging behind him. Myron leaned out the window, looking down to where the body had fallen, and screamed, “Burn in hell you freaking cockroach!”
Carver took a deep, consternated breath, unsure of how to react. Moments later, Myron sat back up, head in the car, bouncing like a kid with ADHD who had to piss himself. But this guy was giddy, laughing.
“Oh my Gawd!” he said. “Right in the FARGIN’ kisser!”
Horrified, Carver stared blankly at him.
“What Mr. Softie?” he said, gun on his lap again, but scratching his pecs, right over his nipples, real fast, like he was trying to start a friction fire on them.
“I killed in self-defense before,” the ginger said, his eyes lit with insanity, “but never out of defense of humanity. That man was a STAIN!”
Carver let his foot off the brake, held his tongue. About a block down, he turned to where he knew there were more apartment towers. That’s when he said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Whatchu talkin’ about?!” he said, looking like he was high as a kite, hopped up on meth and thrashing under his skin.
“He was just a guy,” Carver said. “No different than you or me.”
“That guy was the DEVIL,” Myron argued. Now he had the gun in his hand. “Always on TV selling them lies, acting like we were dumb. We weren’t, Carver. We aren’t!”
Concerned, Carver looked for a place to pull over.
“You seen the things he said,” Myron rambled on. “He and his fellow sellouts lied by OMISSION. Meaning they didn’t tell us everything, only what they wanted us to know.”
“He was just a guy,” Carver said again, softer.
“How are you even hanging with her?” Myron asked with disgust in his eyes. “Because that wasn’t no guy. That wasn’t no guy!”
The gun was suddenly in his hand and out of his lap. He was waving it around like it was a laser pointer, he was a professor and his class was in session.
“She’s a beast, Carver. A righteous freaking dragon slayer! But you, you big softie?”
“I’m assuming you’re talking about Maria,” he said, pulling up on the curb in front of a three story building with an entrance that looked shut. Maybe there was food in there, water in the toilet tanks, bedding, clothes, medicine…something.
“Hell yeah, I’m talking about Maria!” the ginger barked, bouncing in his seat, thrusting the gun at him like he was pointing his finger at Carver. “She socked my friend in the face so hard, it crushed him in.” When he said this, he made little squeezing claws with his fingers. “His fargin’ nose, it like…it like blew blood everywhere. Like punching fruit, you know? God, that woman! Sexy and violent, a dream combination.”
Carver had concerns far greater than this guy could imagine, but Myron couldn’t just be normal. Then again, were any of them normal?
Am I?
They got out of the truck and Myron said, “Man, I know you don’t get it, but that felt good. Liberating. Those people were the ruination of everything good, honest and fair in this world. Especially in this cuck infested state of fruits and friggin’ nuts.”
The sad thing was, Carver couldn’t disagree with him. Nevertheless, he turned, ripped the weapon out of Myron’s hand and started beating his face in with it.
Myron was no pushover, though. He fought back.
Lifting his hand after three ruthless shots to the face, Myron’s fear gave way to terror. Blood was pouring out everywhere, soaking his lily white skin, drowning all those ugly freckles. Carver then drove a shot into Myron’s stomach, bending him over. Even though Carver was no fan of people like the guy Myron killed, the apocalypse or not, you don’t just go around indiscriminately murdering folks. At least, those were his thoughts.
“Looks like you ain’t so soft after all,” Myron said, his voice sloshed around in blood, his eyes dripping with sweat and gore. He swiped a dirty shirt sleeve over his face, but it only smeared the blood, making his vision worse.
Carver aimed the weapon at him, thumbed back the hammer and realized there was no place in the world for this man. Moving his finger off the trigger guard and onto the trigger, he said, “You mistook kindness for weakness.”
“Pull that trigger, boy,” Myron said. He was a red mess, spitting out blood, his eyes crazed. “You go right ahead and show me what kind of a man—”
He pulled the trigger.
The cylinder dry fired with a click and that’s when Myron charged him. Carver squeezed it again to the same result.
Myron hit him low, picked him up off his feet and launched them both into the air. They landed on the dirty concrete sidewalk, Carver on bottom, suffering the worst of the impact.
For a second, he couldn’t breathe.
The instant he realized he had the wind knocked out of him, he was on the taking end of an unrelenting spasm of violence. All he could do was cover his body with his arms, same as last time. Last time, however, he’d been knocked out.
Not this time.
Myron gassed out fairly quickly. Pushing himself off Carver, talking an endless stream of garbage, he kept at him with the kicks. He struck Carver in the sides, legs, butt and shoulders. He tried to kick Carver in the head, but the shots went wide. Before long, Myron was too exhausted to stand and Carver was getting up, hurt, not injured, but anxious for retaliation.
Myron’s countenance sagged. He stepped backwards, like he wanted to run. Like it was the smart thing to do with what was coming.
“You are
n’t getting away,” Carver said.
“Well go on then,” he replied with the wave of a hand. “Do your magical thing, softie.”
Carver bent over and picked up the revolver. When he went after the ginger, there was no glamor in his assault. He was tired, whooped, hurting. Still, he managed to sink a decent shot into the man’s liver. A sloppy uppercut to his chin wobbled him, but didn’t knock him out.
He drew a huge, gulping breath, then let it out and stared at the man.
He had one last burst in him.
Spinning the revolver in his hand, he gripped both the cylinder and the barrel and pistol-whipped Myron with the bottom of the stock. Instead of braining him, though, Carver smashed him in the mouth with all his might.
The two front “Bugs Bunny” teeth shattered, much to Carver’s relief. The pair of them dropped on the concrete, ticking as they bounced away from each other.
“Hated those things the second I saw them,” Carver grumbled, stumbling sideways. Myron’s eyes lit up, and then he started crying. “You want me to be a saint and let you live, or man up and punch your ticket?”
Myron looked at his bloody knuckles, at the arm that swiped the blood off his face, down on the sidewalk at both teeth. They sat there, broken, just the two pieces of them. He reached a shaky hand to his mouth, felt the open space where before there were teeth.
He went after Carver, but the fight was already over. Carver had won. He grabbed Myron in a chokehold, lowering him to the ground, but instead of sitting down, he knelt down.
“I can knock you out and leave you here to deal with life, or I can finish it now, your choice,” he said. There was only gurgling. Not letting up, he said, “Thumbs up to stay, thumbs down to go.”
The ginger lifted a hand, made a fist, then a thumb, and then he turned it down. Still on his knees, Carver both knelt forward and lowered himself over the man, cranking the chokehold as hard as he could. He felt Myron’s spine lengthening, the vertebra pulling apart.
The squelching pain was a sound that would forever haunt him, but then again…this creep just shot a relatively innocent man in the face. Regardless of the news anchor’s sordid history, he’d been a person, a survivor like anyone else.