by Oliver Atlas
This is my first close encounter with a zombie in ten years—the first since I broke up with Chelsea, drank too much vodka, and ran half-suicidally through a pack out by the oil fields. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous to feel any empathy for the living dead. Sure, it was understandable. They had once been people, after all—even loved ones. But ultimately empathy for them was a wasted emotion—like regret or vengeance. That’s how I felt.
I feel differently now. Maybe it’s simply my age. Maybe it’s my stubborn desire to keep from becoming hardened. Maybe it’s the last forty-eight hours with a woman who really believes in the Cure. Whatever the reason, as I watch the crawler come hissing at us, my heart suddenly sinks and I groan.
“It’s okay,” assures Yarely, but he misunderstands. I’m not afraid of the zombie. I’m afraid if I had to, I wouldn’t be able to blow its brains out.
A shot from above solves my problem. Half the crawler’s head disappears and its body flops down.
Its body?
A minute ago I’d seen the zombie as a he. Well, well. That’s evidence of some really helpful desensitizing progress on my part.
One of the Sentinels calls out, asking if we’re ready for the final gate to open. Yarely hollers up, yes. Inside, I’m yelling no. I’m ready to go back to Texas and forget Oregon exists. In Texas I felt a distance between myself and the world’s brokenness and darkness. Evil and despair were somewhere out there. But here . . . here I sense the line that determines out there doesn’t run in front of me or behind me—it runs straight through me.
I gulp. I really gulp—not for fear of what zombies could do to me, but for fear of what zombies could do to my illusions. An old memory leaps to mind, my mother holding my baby sister on a swing set under a full moon. The muggy air smells of gunpowder and barbeque. Fireworks pop and whiz nearby, crickets fiddle up a gentle storm, and among them my mother’s reedy voice sings a Paul Simon lullaby: I’m heading for a time of solitude, of peace without illusion, of peace without illusion.
I must be nine or so . . . Jenny’s age. And there’s something in my mother’s voice . . . something in the words of the song . . . I’d grown up hearing forceful people insist that only the strong could survive, only the steel-eyed and ruthless, that hope of a world saved and set free from pain and horror was too good to be true . . . but during that song . . . under the fireworks and the moon with the creaking chains of the swing . . . I become convinced the forceful folk have gotten it all wrong.
A world without horror isn’t too good to be true.
A world full of horror is too bad to be true.
And now that old conviction—bedrock to who I’ve been and become—has arrived at the one place it can be truly tested. I stare out at the piles of bodies along the wall, at the crawler who just had half his face blown off, and I’m curious if my hope will survive longer than I do.
“Good luck,” shouts a Sentinel.
The gate clicks opens and our wagon creaks out onto the lonesome highway.
Yarely is a different man on the road, still kind, but quiet and tense. Or maybe he is simply respecting my own mood. In any case, we ride along in silence, sweating and staring out at the shimmering strip of road.
The highway is lined with electromagnetic pylons. Yarely tells me they’re meant to work on zombies the way Mozart works on human minds, or the way David’s harp worked on King Saul. They create a field in which the brain’s anger centers struggle to function. When the living dead approach the road, he says, they often start spinning in circles, suddenly confused. Most run away, but the few that come near typically lie down on the side of the road and stay there, even when people walk by. Yarely crosses himself and declares it’s as close as the living dead get to either living or dead. He then tells me the pylons even work on humans.
“Try it,” Yarely dares me. “Try and get angry.”
We’ve been driving in silence for a few hours and I’m ready to talk. Plus, I love a dare.
“All right,” I say, absently fingering the Ranger pistol at my side. “How about this? I can’t believe Milly got upset with me back there. I can’t believe what she said before we parted. Did you hear her? ‘It’s all an overblown chemical reaction.’ Bah! She was talking about attraction, Yarely, she was talking about love. She was saying it’s all only chemicals anyway. So why sweat it? And that was meant to cut me. No doubt about it. When we were in the hotel room, I wouldn’t give her a kiss. I said it was because I wanted more than the average romance, more than the age-old, predictable story of pop bang fizzle. I didn’t make it about detached moralisms or social taboos. I didn’t explain it like ‘I’m a Montague and you’re a Capulet, so it can’t happen.’ No. I explained myself in terms of desire. I told her I’m not afraid of desiring too much, but of desiring too little. I hoped that resonated with her. I hoped she would add her desire to mine. I was trying to give us a chance at a bond stronger than passing infatuation. And then she makes it a point to say she thinks that chance is basically delusion.”
Yarely listens carefully, nodding now and then, a sad smile on his dry gray lips. I’m trying to put anger in my voice, to let the self-righteous momentum of my logic carry me into feeling wounded. I’m trying to do what people normally do when they want to get angry, aiming to bypass calm description by skipping straight to self-centered evaluation. But I can find no traction. Everything I say feels as though it’s simply summarizing the perception of some distant third party.
“Ha! And right before trying to cut me, she made that remark about how we hadn’t yet talked about deeper desires. Why would she pick that moment to mention it?—the moment when she knew she’d never need to have that conversation?—the moment before implying it was a fool’s conversation anyway? Was the loss of that conversation really part of her sadness, or did she know it would be part of mine and wanted to make sure she poured some salt on the wound? But here’s what gets me: why wouldn’t she have a burning interest in having that conversation for herself—for herself, Yarely—with someone who cares about her? Why would she—why would anyone—be slow to talk about learning to desire more deeply? I don’t get it!” I take a deep breath. “Do I sound angry yet?”
Yarely chuckles and shakes his head. His eyes flick to the ten foot silver pylons lining the road.
“When I decided to start wearing this cross—” I feel at my chest and realize the necklace is still in my pocket, so I put it on—“my friends all acted afraid. Agnostics, atheists, new agers, deists—they all warned me that I’d be mistaken for a believer and give myself a bad name. Even the believers warned me I’d be mistaken for a believer—that I’d give them a bad name. But no one asked my why I was wearing it. Not a single person. Everyone assumed they knew. Everyone was ready to be my counselor and judge. No one was ready to be my friend and ask me that simple question: why? Why are you wearing it?”
Yarely offers me a brown-toothed, sheepish grin. “Well now! Why?”
The little man’s words warm my heart and I reflect his grin back at him. After a minute’s thought, I have to laugh. “Well, in part, because I knew no one would ask! I knew everyone would presume to know already. No one would ask ‘Why the cross?’ because no one wants to hear another person’s answer. When it was a life-sized torture device, the Romans didn’t want to hear someone ask, ‘Why the cross? Why are you brutalizing humans in this way?’ They didn’t care, because they already had their answer, their logic, their justice, their imperial world laid out in the way that suited them. Likewise, Christians don’t really want to hear people ask ‘Why the cross? Why do you think one person can die for all?’ They already have their creeds, their metaphysical systems, their ordered pens for boxing up mystery. The same holds for my materialist friends. They won’t ask me ‘Why the cross?’ They’ve already decided it’s an overblown religious symbol that expresses an evolutionary hangover of psychological ignorance and primal fear. If I agree, there’s nothing to talk about. If I don’t, I’m not worth their time. And
that, Yarely, is the beauty of the cross. It’s the kind of thing that exposes everyone’s tendency to tell why without asking why. It reveals what mini mental Caesars we are, always ready for the chance to grow into global imperialists.”
Yarely strokes his beard.
“What do you think?” I press. “Does that make any sense?”
The little man scrunches up his face. “Well, I don’t know that it makes sense. But it makes me think. Maybe you’re saying the cross can make anyone think who will actually think about it, no matter what they think they know . . . ”
I clap my hands. “That’s brilliant, Yarely. That’s exactly what I’m saying, with one point to add: a thing like the cross gives us a chance to get caught in the act of thinking in ways we don’t think about. And getting caught like that helps us to think about those ways, and then to think about how those ways shape everything we are and do.”
“That’s all straightforward enough, isn’t it?” says Yarely with a wink. “Any more reasons for your cross, Blake? And remember: you’re trying to get angry, not dizzy.”
“Ah, right. Well, like I was saying, the other big reason is desire.”
“Desire?”
“You bet. Desire. If you search the world and history for records of desire, you’ll find grand love stories, you’ll find tales of golden cities and divine harems. You’ll find maps to utopia or formulas that unlock nirvana. But one way or another, they’ll all offer you a language of control or escape. They’ll invite you, in essence, to imagine a heaven you can make by power or reach on your own. But the cross insists—whether you connect it to fact or myth—that any single person or people content to be in heaven alone, will never be in heaven. The cross radiates a desire that rejects zero-sum visions and clannish economies. It rejects mountains of peace built upon an ounce of injustice. It brazenly pushes to confront us with the poverty of what we have yet desired next to the possibility of all we might desire. Maybe you’ve heard it said that our worst problems will never be solved if we remain at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. But I tell you our worst problems will never be solved if we remain at the same level of desire we were at when we created them. So who cares if a symbol can be misunderstood? Who cares if I could get killed for wearing it? We need things that will open our eyes to the open secret of our proud apathy. And if it takes getting pinned to a real cross to raise a little hell in this world, then I say bring it.”
“By golly,” says Yarely, grinning. “You might not have managed to sound particularly diplomatic just now, but I think you almost managed to sound mad.”
I sigh and grin back. “Thanks, Yarely. That’s probably too kind. I feel about as ornery as milk toast.”
Yarely is suddenly frowning. He must really hate the thought of milk toast. “You know what I think, Blake?”
Only one thing comes to mind. “I ought to go back and find Milly.”
“Er, no. Not quite. At least, not quite yet.” He twists in the seat and squints north. “I think your morning’s heroics are about to catch up with us.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Lord Loves a Hangin’
Now I can hear them: riders approaching at a furious gallop. To the north of us stand a pair of hills covered with scrub oak and sage, a small creek running between them. The little canyon has captured the sound from the hills and shot it out to us. Someone is definitely coming fast. But I don’t see any reason to assume they’re from the morning’s mob.
Apparently, Yarely does. Before I can ask what we ought to do, he’s down stuffing the horses’ ears with cloth strips and fastening blinders on their heads. He then digs behind the buckboard and produces a double barrel shotgun, which, for all his claims about being a lousy shot, sure seems natural in his grip.
“You’d better get your rifle ready, Blake. When they get into sight, use your pistol and fire a shot over their heads. We want to give them cause to hold up before they get close enough to circle us.”
“But what if they’re not after us?”
“Then a warning shot will stop them. We’ll yell back and forth for a while, and when I’m satisfied about their intentions, we’ll all go our respectable ways. But we’re not taking any chances. Don’t forget, we’ve got Kaite’s medicine. If we don’t get it to her . . . I’m not sure who will.”
“And what if they are after us? What if they don’t stop?”
Yarely considers for a moment, combing out his beard tip with a few fingers. “I guess you’ll have to make a quick choice between the well-being of Kaite and her baby or the outlaw who’s trying to get the drop on us.”
“Crap,” I mutter, unslinging my rifle and drawing my new pistol. “These boneheads know I can shoot. Maybe that will be enough.” Yarely is giving me the stink eye. “What’s the matter?” I ask.
He pulls a flask from his corduroy jacket and takes a swig. “They also know you’ve got a conscience,” he says, wiping his lips with a sleeve. “And there’s nothing more enticing to such reprobates. Or threatening.”
Over the top of the wagon, we see the riders come into sight, rounding down the side of the eastern hill. There are five of them, pushing their horses fast, pistols in hand. When they spot us, they spur their horses faster. When they reach a hundred yards’ distance, I fire a warning. None so much as pause. They reach level ground at seventy-five yards and plunge onward, straight for the wagon. I fire another warning. Nothing.
“Want me to do it?” asks Yarely. “It’s a hard thing to spare your enemies around here.”
I shake my head and take aim at the closest rider. “There’s a reason God gave us all shoulders,” I quip, before squeezing the trigger.
The lead rider rocks back in the saddle, swivels, and tumbles into the brush. I’m confident my shot didn’t kill him, but I’m not so sure about the fall. I forgot about that likely possibility. The other riders slow to a trot. I fire another shot at the hooves of their new leader.
“You just shot an innocent man!” yells the leader, a man I’m sure I recognize as Panzer’s dirty faced friend from this morning. “We was comin’ to offer the town’s new hero an escort to Monty, since there’s been talk of the Banshee between Pokey and there. But now we’re gonna have to take you in on a citizen’s arrest and see you hung.”
“It’s ‘hanged’,” I inform him.
“Damn you and your damn syntax, heretic. It’s whatever I say it is. And I say the Lord loves a hangin’, so we aim to see a rope ‘round your neck.”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” I yell.
“And why the hell not?”
“Because,” I say, holding up my dark-glowing badge, “I’m a Ranger.” I pause to let that sink in. “Your bungling cavalry charge has already slowed down an important mission. So I suggest you head back to town while you still have heads.”
“Ha! You ain’t got the balls to kill anybody. You shot Panzer’s hand. You blasted Bertie in the shoulder. You’re as much a Ranger as I am a platypus. You’re a bluffin’, blabbin’ pussy.”
“Maybe that’s true,” I say. “I don’t like the thought of killing folks. Then again, have you ever traveled the Main Road? These pylons have the most uncanny calming affect. They really force you to relax. All the stuff you normally worry over—like whether or not to shoot a man in the shoulder or in the head—it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.”
The four riders huddle up. They’re soon gesturing and arguing.
“Not bad,” says Yarely, taking another swig from his flask. He offers me a pull but I decline. “Teetotaler?” he asks.
“No. But I think I’d better dispatch the bozos before the booze.”
The riders break huddle. “Hey!” shouts the leader. “There’s only one problem with your threat.”
“And what’s that?”
“We’ve got another ten riders coming not far behind. So we’ll just wait until they get here.”
I raise an eyebrow at Yarely. “Think they’re bluffi
ng?”
“Hard to say,” he shrugs. “It’s hard to know the mind of such a man. Although . . . I don’t see what they’d gain by bluffing. They’re the ones out there in harm’s way.” Yarely points behind the riders to where six zombies have come lurching out from a patch of nearby trees. The living dead charge across the field in their awkward, menacing slog. It takes the men a surprising amount of time before they notice. But when they do, it only takes a few seconds for them to mow the zombies down.
“Sure, sure,” chides Yarely under his breath. “But if those had been Screamers, you’d all be dead right now.”
“Listen,” I yell to the riders. “I’ll give you each a hundred dollars to ride away. One of you can come over unarmed and pick up the money.”
“A hundred each! Thanks, Mr. Fatty Pants Ranger,” shouts the leader. “But we’ll just wait for our buddies to arrive. Then we’ll take the money out of your wallet ourselves.”
That makes me sigh. It seems as though I’ll need to shoot a few more shoulders before the day is done. I have one picked out and sighted when a horrible sound fills my ears: riders to the south. A quick glance is all I need. Ol’ dirt-face was telling the truth. A dozen riders are coming fast, across the flat brush at our backs, already no more than a quarter mile away. I can probably pick off four before the rest are in range to fire. They’re on horseback and would probably miss one out of three, and that’s if they’re any good. That means I could probably get another three before they shot down one of us. And that’s not counting the four to the north. They’d be Yarely’s. Who knows what would happen there.