He retrieved his rifle and checked for damage as he cleaned the gore off with some rags. It looked fine, so he slung it over his shoulder, found the radiator hose he’d dropped and started looking for one that would match from the selection of belts and hoses hanging on one of the walls.
It was late afternoon when he was finally satisfied with his repair. The hose was on, the car had been running for twenty minutes, the pressure had built up, and there were no leaks. He’d had to use more pond water to fill it, but it would be okay until he found some antifreeze to put in. Jessie remembered when he was little he’d been with his dad once when he bought a gallon and was grumbling about the price. He asked him why they even needed some, it hardly ever got down to freezing in Georgia. He said it was also anti-boil. Without it, you might melt your motor down. The Aluminum heads on the Mercury had cost him two thousand bucks, and two thousand bucks were hard to hide from your mom. So, he bought the antifreeze and then his dad had bribed him with a banana split so he wouldn’t let the price of the heads slip out. A man’s gotta know how to keep quiet about some things, he told him as they spent the afternoon in the garage, listening to music as they tinkered with his bicycle.
He debated taking off after them, but there were only a few hours of daylight left. It would be best to wait until dawn. No more mistakes. No more close calls. No more wasting good bottled water washing that disgusting zombie blood out of his hair and clothes.
He was getting used to the big back seat of the Mercury. He felt protected, like he was in a safe place where nothing could hurt him. He was inside a moveable cage and if things got bad, he could leave. They couldn’t get to him. If he did get stuck, he had enough food to last a month and enough ammo to kill thousands. He curled up, rifle on the package shelf, pistol on the floorboard, knife in his hand. He had the radio turned down low, listening to the repeating loop of his father, still broadcasting they were going to Lakota.
“We urge you to make your way to us.”
He had a light blanket for the October chill and wrapped it around him as he gently probed the mostly healed wound on his face. He wiped away a bit of drool from his cheek and told himself it didn’t matter. Chicks dig scars. Besides, when he got a little older, he’d just grow a beard.
He slept fitfully, but he slept. He awoke at dawn, something he never would have done a few months ago on a day he didn’t have school. On the weekends, he usually didn’t stumble upstairs for breakfast until noon, if his parents didn’t make him get up for church. He listened before he moved, making sure he wasn’t awoken by a sound. By danger. After a minute, he was satisfied and sat up to check his surroundings. He needed to get into a habit, needed to start doing this same procedure every time, not get lazy and step out of the door one morning into the waiting arms of some undead horror. Making a list and checking it twice, he told himself. No more stupid.
He circled the building again before he relaxed and grabbed a power bar for breakfast. He folded his maps so the area of Alabama he was in was on top and he had marked the route he figured they would go. There were a million ways to get there, but only one or two that made practical sense if they were trying to get there fast. If they were going to stay off the main highways, avoid big towns and cities and cross rivers, especially the Mississippi, in lightly populated areas, the paths they could be taking were clear. He figured he had a fifty-fifty shot of going the right way. If he spotted a dead zombie or two along the way, run down by the bus, he’d know he had chosen right. He opened the garage door, got back in his car and fired it up. His eyes automatically went to the instrument cluster checking for oil pressure. The only gauge that was important on startup, his old man had said more than once. It jumped to 80 pounds, then started creeping back down to normal after the oil warmed up. Satisfied, Jessie dropped it in gear, eased out of the garage and started winding it out, quickly reaching cruising speed.
26
Jessie
Jessie took the most direct route down the two-lane country roads and was occasionally rewarded by a broken zombie crawling along. There was no guarantee it was chasing the bus, but he hadn’t seen any so mangled up before they set off, so he was pretty sure he was on the right path. He avoided them, for the most part. He didn’t need to tear something else up on the car or knock it out of alignment. It already handled a lot different with the off-road tires, he didn’t need it pulling hard all the time and wearing out tires.
It was late afternoon when he pulled into a little town called Munson near the Tombigbee River. This had to be where they crossed, it wasn’t far out of the way and it was definitely the smallest town at any of the bridges. Jessie went in slow and stopped at the first house he came to near the railroad tracks. There was a newer Ram truck in the driveway and he idled up behind it before he killed the engine. He sat watching for a while, listening for the screams of the undead. The tiny little burg was quiet. He could see the quarter mile to the downtown area and the old bridge, there was nothing moving. Satisfied that they had all wandered off, or more likely chased the bus across the bridge, he grabbed his gas cans off of the mount he’d made on the rear bumper. He pulled the funnel, the dishpans, the hammer, and the nail punch out of the trunk, then crawled under the truck, finding the lowest part of the gas tank. He punched a hole in the bottom and slid one of the plastic dish pans under the stream. He rolled out and watched for movement as it filled. When it was half full, he swapped them out and poured the gas in one of the jerry cans. It was quick doing it this way, and he only had to hit up three cars to get enough to top off his tank and fill both cans. He strapped them back on then went up to the house, tapped gently on the door. No screams, no keening hunger growls came from the other side, so he tried it. He toed the door open with his rifle at the ready then called out in a stage whisper, wanting to draw the attention of anything in the house, but not anywhere else. He needn’t have bothered; the town was utterly devoid of the undead. All were gone or destroyed.
He rifled through cabinets, looking for something good to eat. He didn’t really need anything, but he was craving chocolate and was hoping to score a box of Ding Dongs or Zingers. He wasn’t confident enough to go barging into a store and get them, not after the last time he tried that, too many people might be wandering around and if he had to use his gun, it would only draw more. This was an ‘old peoples’ house, though, and it was apparent they didn’t have kids. He grabbed a few cans of soup to toss into his pile but left all the gross stuff. The corn and peas and all the rest of that junk.
He was pretty sure he was on the right path now, almost positive of it, and if he kept hustling, he might catch up with them by the time they made it to Lakota. It depended on if they stopped, or just kept on driving straight through. It would be smart to keep rolling, the two nuns could swap off when they got tired, and it was a lot less dangerous than trying to spend the night somewhere.
Jessie was ready to put another few hundred miles behind him as he climbed in and fired up the Merc. He had a spot picked out in Arkansas that looked like a good place to get an hour or two of sleep, and he should make it by midnight. He backed out of the drive and headed for the bridge, not noticing the scattered bodies or the flapping sheets a few thousand yards down the track. He did see the stacks in the Methodist Church parking lot, though.
Jessie hit the brakes and turned to stare at the carnage. At first, he only saw the piles of bodies being picked over by the crows and vultures and assumed there must be some serious, bad ass zombie killers in this town. As he started to let out on the clutch, to put this place in his rear-view mirror, he noticed the pile of heads. He did a double take, then shut off the car. He ignored his rule of always checking the surroundings before he left the safety of the Mercury and jumped out to stare. The crows took flight, cawing noisily at him, but the vultures continued their grisly meal, just eyeballing him as they tore loose strips of flesh. There were stacks of bodies, most were headless but quite a few had been shot, like somebody had gotten tired of hac
king with the sword. Jessie stared around, his mind trying to refuse what he was seeing. Who would chop off zombie heads? Did they think that was the only way to kill them? He was just about to turn and get back in his car when he noticed the school bus on the far side of the parking lot. The one with Saint Sophia’s Orphanage stenciled on the side. Jessie swung back to the piles of bodies, looking for little ones. Looking for James Robert Jones. Looking for Slippery Jim. He saw the two nuns laid out on the lawn near the church steps, their shattered hands crossed over their chests and their black veils covering their faces. The children were all laid out in neat rows, their heads placed back with the bodies they belonged to and he could see where someone had started digging a grave. It was a small grave, only a few feet deep, the shovel standing in the fresh pile of dirt.
Jessie's mind was reeling. How did this happen? How could they all be turned into zombies so fast? And why chop off their heads? He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and swung, bringing the rifle up fast, his finger finding the trigger instantly. He paused before he pulled it, and saw Jimmy coming out from the crawlspace under the church. He stood and nodded his head once then walked back over to the shovel to continue his impossible task. His clothes were filthy, stained with blood and dirt. One side of his face was bruised and puffy, his eye black and nearly swollen shut, dried blood below his nose.
“Jimmy,” Jessie said as he came near, watching the boy struggle with each scoop of dirt.
The boy ignored him and continued with his task. His battered face determined and grim. Jessie could see the streaks of blood on the handle where his little hands were raw and blistered and bleeding.
“Jimmy,” he said again and reached out to touch his shoulder. “You can’t. There are too many.”
The boy stiffened at the words and the touch, but after a moment, his shoulders drooped.
“I know,” he said, his voice low. “But I’ve got to bury Jenny. She was my sister. I can’t let the birds eat her.”
Jessie glanced over at the nearest little body lying by the grave. A girl of five or six. Her torn dress had been put back together, her head placed carefully where it should be.
“I’ll help,” Jessie said and reached out his hand for the shovel. Jimmy slid it over to him and climbed out of the shallow hole. He sat beside his younger sister, adjusting her ripped dress, talking softly and smoothing her hair.
“She was all I had,” he finally said after Jessie had been digging for a while, his recently healed hands breaking open and mixing his blood with Jimmy’s on the handle.
“She was so scared somebody would adopt her and not me and we’d be apart. I told her I wouldn’t let them, we’d always be together.” Tears were silently coursing down his cheeks and Jessie just listened, ignoring the cawing of the crows fighting over their feast.
“I told her I’d always take care of her and when I got big and got out of the Home, I’d get us a house and she could come live with me.” He sat quietly for a time, remembering as Jessie finished the grave.
Jessie had questions, he wanted to know how they got ambushed by the horde, who did the head chopping and why did they even stop the bus in the middle of a town, but that could wait. The kid was hurting and Jessie knew exactly how that felt. He could still remember the taste of gun oil in his mouth on those dark days after Doug, Gary and Sheila were killed because of his dumb ass mistakes. They’d get his sister buried and then he’d get him to Lakota. He was fighting against the ugly monster in his head, the one that was quietly whispering that if he hadn’t helped them get out of the orphanage, they would all still be alive. They would have found some food, they would have been just fine if he hadn’t stuck his big nose into their business. The wolf in his head was snapping right back, though. They died because they got stupid and stopped in the middle of a town. How dumb could you be? Were they planning on going on a picnic? Why didn’t they just keep going? They couldn’t have been so hungry they stopped to raid a store, they were only a day away from Lakota and all the food they wanted. It wasn’t his fault the wolf demanded and declared. He freed them from dying slowly of hunger. They shouldn’t have stopped. It was their fault they got themselves killed, not his. He didn’t have control over other people’s dumb actions.
Jessie stood by as the voices raged in his head and Jim packed the last of the dirt in a mound over his sister.
“I’ll pay them back,” he swore to her. “I’ll kill them all.”
Jessie knew the helpless feeling, but it was no use swearing revenge on the undead. They were less than animals, they didn’t kill out of meanness or hate. Might as well be mad at the ants for invading your sugar bowl. It’s just what they did.
On the way back to the car, Jimmy veered off to spit on a black rag lying on the ground then angrily wiped his feet on it.
“What’s that?” Jessie asked and Jimmy picked it up, let it unfurl and held it up so he could see.
“The people that did this,” he said, voice hard and full of too much venom for a twelve-year-old.
Jessie stopped and stared at the flag. It was an Isis flag, the black one with all the squiggly writing on it.
He looked back at the pile of bodies and the chopped off heads.
“You need to tell me what happened here,” he said as they climbed into the car. “There’s a whole lot that isn’t making any sense.”
Slippery Jim laid out the whole story and after a while, curled up to sleep. Jessie just drove, his headlights cutting through the night and the monster in his head telling him over and over that he’d gotten them killed. It was his fault. He should have made better plans. He should have told Jimmy to stay at the orphanage until he came back, he shouldn’t have goofed off for days after they left, he should have given them a bunch of guns. He should have helped them.
He should have been there.
The pacing wolf in his head kept his counsel to himself. He remained silent and angry, seething with rage, wanting revenge.
Jimmy said they had been making good time, everyone was cheerful, they’d been singing songs as Sister Mary drove through the little town on her way to the bridge. There were only a few of the monsters chasing them and even though they were hungry, they knew they’d be in the new city of survivors in less than a day. Sister Andrea kept counting down the miles and the hours for them. They got stopped before they made it to the bridge, though. Some trucks were blocking the road, forcing them into the church parking lot to get around. As soon as they had slowed and were going through the lot, a bunch of men opened fire with machine guns and flattened all the tires. The kids were all screaming and the Sisters were yelling at the men to stop, but they kicked open the door and swarmed the bus. They drug them all out and the Sisters were screaming and told everybody to run, and Jimmy had grabbed his sister's hand and they tried. One of the men caught up with them and grabbed her. When Jimmy tried to fight him, he’d been knocked nearly unconscious with a punch to the face. The man was dragging him back when he bit him as hard as he could. When he let go and reached for his gun, Jimmy ran. They were shooting at him, but he got away by slipping under the church. They fired a bunch of shots at him but he hid behind a concrete pillar that held the floor up. After a while they stopped, they thought he was dead. He couldn’t get out without them seeing him, so he lay in the dirt all through that long afternoon as they kept bringing in more prisoners. The shooting went on for hours and in the end, everyone that was still alive was brought to the church parking lot and had their heads chopped off. They did other things to them too, especially the girls, and Jimmy couldn’t watch. He couldn’t listen to their laughing voices and the screaming of his friends. He got out and ran, not even caring if they saw him and shot him, but no one did. He ran and ran until he couldn’t anymore and slept in a barn, up in the loft.
He woke up much later when a train went by. It was far away, but it had been so long since he’d heard such an ordinary sound that it pulled him up out of a deep sleep. After that, he snuck into a hous
e to get something to eat and then came back to see if he could find his sister. He said it was hard to match the heads up with the bodies. He was pretty sure he got them right, but people looked different without their heads.
Jessie could only imagine. It wasn’t something he would ever want to do.
He drove, eating up the miles, replaying the story in his head and filling in the parts that Jimmy hadn’t seen or understood. He’d seen the blood smears running down the inner legs of the girls, the holes in the hands and feet of the nuns and the bloody patches on the church doors. His mind filled in the details and the guilt kept building. If he had done just a few little things differently, it never would have happened. He needed to make it right, somehow. He needed to get revenge as much as Jimmy did.
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