His and Richards step mothers were both trophy wives, more than twenty years younger than their husbands. The brothers were in constant competition and never let a chance go by to one up each other. Gordon’s mom had passed away under suspicious circumstances but the grand jury could find no wrong doings on his dads’ part and he was remarried six months later. Richards’ dad, not to be outdone, had divorced his wife and his shrewd lawyers had made sure she didn’t get a dime. His new mom was twenty-two, only a few years older than him. The new wives were gold diggers who knew their place and knew how to keep the men happy. They had won the lottery; they knew it and would do whatever it took to stay in their men’s good graces. In return, they had huge allowances and spent their days shopping and looking down their noses at the working class. The brothers had been born into money and grew that money by buying and selling companies, real estate developments and stock trading. They were ridiculously wealthy, and their ventures had increased their wealth to the point that none of their children would ever have to lift a finger to make ends meet.
Richard was a jock and a bully. He was famous for his parties and popular with the girls. He was the goalie on his high school hockey team and a minor celebrity in the Minnesota town where he played as well as the star pitcher on the baseball team. Tall with a bodybuilder’s physique, rumors of illegal steroid use lingered around him but were ignored by coaches and faculty. He’d taken them to State three years in a row.
He had a reputation as a trouble maker and was always in some predicament with the law. Poaching, drag racing the Dodge Hellcat he’d received on his eighteenth birthday, possession of stolen goods, drug trafficking and the list went on. The rules didn’t apply to him and Daddy’s money always made the problems go away, including two different underage girls who claimed Richard was the father of their children. The claims were silenced when the large checks cleared the bank and Richard carried on. He was invincible on the streets and a hero on the ice. Before the outbreak, he’d been courted by all of the prestigious colleges, playing them against one another to see who promised the largest compensations if he blessed them with his athletic prowess.
Gordon stripped out of the colorful ski jacket he’d scrounged, tossed it aside and adjusted his armor. His jeans were ripped from the possum and his bloody hand was wrapped in a rag. His hair was a lot longer than it had been the last time he’d seen Richard and he was a lot thinner. Working like a slave at the Park had toned him and put on muscle. He’d never appreciated it before; he was always the laziest and the slowest and the weakest of the kids but here it was different. From the looks of things, they’d been drunk and stoned since day one. They looked sloppy and soft. He’d bet money they’d never been outside the wall. Here he could be a bad ass. He adjusted the gun in his belt as he considered the story he would tell.
36
Gordon
Gordon found his cousin Richard sitting under an outdoor propane heater by a covered swimming pool, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and his other swatted at the ass of a girl who danced drunkenly around him. A blue haired girl sat on a stool beside him. Tattoos covered nearly every inch of her skin and she had oversized gauges that formed large holes in the lower earlobes. She was tattooing a hockey mask with a joint in its mouth on Richards’ heavily muscled exposed chest.
Richard took a long swig of Jack and looked up at the newcomer. He spit liquor and laughed as he recognized the disheveled boy standing in front of him. “Gordy!” Richard started making oinking sounds. The crowd gathered around the pool laughed with him as Gordon’s face tightened.
Gordon hated that nickname. It came from some stupid kids’ movie Richard had watched too many times about a talking pig. Gordon was heavy when he was younger and Richard would oink every time he saw him. He’d terrorized Gordon and his other cousins whenever they were together.
Gordon wasn’t laughing along like he usually did and Richard took a long hard look at him. He was dirty, trail worn and wearing plastic armor that had seen some real-world abuse. A bloody rag was wrapped around his hand and he was lean and muscled. He wasn’t chubby Gordy anymore. Not a little piggy. In fact, he looked a little intimidating.
“Take a break Tasha,” he told the tattooed girl, pushed her away and stood.
“Sasha,” she corrected him. Richard waved her off, threw his arm around Gordon and offered him the bottle. He motioned to a dreadlocked guy to turn the music down.
Gordon took it, pulled a long swig and felt the burn as the liquor made its way to his stomach.
“You look like hell, man.” Richard said. “Welcome home, cuz.”
The drunken teens wandered outside to see what was going on then turned their attention to Richard.
“Everybody, this is my cousin Gordon.” Richard said. “We thought he was lost but now he’s found.”
Cheers went up and one drunk girl flashed her chest at him. Catcalls and laughter echoed in the night as he was welcomed by the group.
He was introduced to the dozen or so guys and the four girls that were at the party. They had ridiculous names like Jester, Maggot, Trish the Fish, Pole, Gargoyle that Gordon didn’t try to make sense of. The ATV rider he’d seen from the front entrance and the girl with him were Skull and Squirrel. Cause she’s nuts, Richard had whispered. They were all either high or drunk or a combination of both.
“You’ll meet the others later.” Richard said. “The light weights are already passed out.”
Moaning drew Gordon’s attention to the covered swimming pool.
“What’s with that?” he asked and Richard made a flourish with his hands then hit the remote to retract the cover.
Wandering around the bottom of the dry pool were four of the undead. Only one of them could stand, the others were mangled and torn so badly they could only crawl and snarl at the teens gathered around the rim above them. Empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts littered the bottom of the pool. Raucous laughter erupted as the guy called Gargoyle stepped to the end of the diving board, unzipped his fly and whizzed a golden arc on the zombies.
“Battle trophies.” Richard said and as the music cranked back up he pulled Gordon away from the crowd. He was stumbling drunk and kept his arm around his shoulder for balance and support.
“Where you been man? Honestly, I hadn’t given you much thought, figured you were like the rest of them outside the gate, just moaning and wandering around looking for a handout.” he laughed at his own joke.
Gordon told his story leaving out the bad parts, exaggerating the good parts and made himself out to be a double-crossed hero. A handful of the more sober teens came over to listen, Gordon was the first outsider they’d met. As it turned out, the fires and lights weren’t a beacon to help others, to show them a safe haven. They were just burning stuff and as far as the lights, how were they supposed to party without lights? As they listened and passed around a bottle, he told them how he had saved a bunch of kids from a horde. He led them out of town, fighting the undead the whole way and found them a sanctuary at the animal park
“I lost a lot of them.” Gordon said with feigned remorse, his voice dropping so they had to lean in to listen. “It got real bloody and I couldn’t save them all.”
There were murmurs of approval and they raised toasts to him.
“I showed them how to live.” he continued. “I had them start training the animals but one of them got jealous. A punk named Cody. White trash. I had a lion who was a savage, a huge beast, but he poisoned him. Killed him because he wanted my girl.”
Gordon went on to describe the battle that ensued where they turned their animals loose on him and without his Lion, he had no choice but to flee. He told them about Harper and the other girls and the teens were really interested in them.
“We should go get them.” somebody said. “Get Gordon’s girl back and the rest of them, too. Teach that jerk Cody a lesson.”
“They sound a little young.” Gargoyle said.
“Old enough to bleed, old e
nough to breed.” Maggot said and everyone snickered.
Gordon heaped praise on Richard for all he had accomplished and spread the compliments around to all the others. As he spun his tale and listened to their responses, he realized they had been drunk and stoned since the outbreak. They never sobered up, they were aimless and didn’t have any plans for the future. They were partying at the end of the world and from everything he’d learned during his time at the park, he knew it couldn’t last. If this bastion of hope were to survive, there would have to be some changes made. The way they looked at him, with respect and a little bit of awe, made him start thinking he could be their leader. First, he had to get Harper. She’d see he was right and she could help him turn this community into something better, not just a drunken free for all quickly running out of supplies. It could be a great place if he was in charge.
Everyone nodded along to the story, interrupting to raise drinks to Gordon or spit curses at the ones who had wronged one of their own.
“Somebody needs to teach those kids a lesson.” Richard said as he wound up the tale of how he fought his way north to find them. “We could really use some new girls. If you haven’t noticed, we have a serious shortage of female companionship. We could use some fresh meat around here for me and the boys if you know what I mean. Tell me more about this harem that bastard Cody is trying to keep all to himself.”
Gordon described each of the girls, detailing their looks and ages, exaggerating a little on the size of their boobs. The rest of the survivors joined them and listened raptly as he spun a story of how good it would be if they captured all of them and made them do all the hard work.
“They could keep this place clean.” he said. “They could fetch water and cook and whatever else we wanted them to do.”
More nods, more drunken cheers.
“You mean like slaves?” Tasha or Sasha asked
“Nah, they’d be like hired help.” Richard said. “Instead of money, they get paid with a roof over their head and protection from the zombies. Sounds like a fair trade.”
“And like any good servant, we can do whatever we want and they can’t say a damn thing about it.” Skull said to the laughter of the others.
He and his father were known for forcing themselves on their cleaning staff. Mr. Abelson only hired illegal aliens who had no choice but to comply or have immigration called on them.
The party kicked into high gear when one of the girls brought out a bottle of tramadol stolen from someone’s medicine cabinet. She crushed it on the coffee table and they gathered around to snort long lines of it.
Richards step mom and another one of his crew came out of a room and joined them. He had a big smirk on his face as she adjusted her mini skirt, pulling it down to cover most of her thighs. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey and gargled then swallowed. A moment later, Gordon’s step mom came out of the same room, spotted the lines on the coffee table and made a bee line for them.
Richard winked at the stupefied look on Gordons face and explained it away. “They didn’t want to leave.”
“But that’s Misty. She’s your mom.” Gordon said. “And my mom, too.”
“No, they’re not, Gordy.” Richard said harshly. “They were both gold diggers and they still are. Hell, both of them are young enough to be our dads’ kids, not their wives. They made their choice, they’re free to leave anytime if they don’t like it.”
“That’s not a choice.” Gordon said.
“You’re still young.” Richard said and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll figure it out. There aren’t any rules anymore.”
“Where is your dad?” Gordon asked. “He wasn’t out of town on business, was he?”
Richard pointed to one of the creatures crawling along the bottom of the pool.
“He was one of men who tried to take over. Tried to tell us what to do. Tried to lay down some rules. There are no more rules, Gordy. You can do whatever you want to whoever you want. That’s the new reality.”
He hit the remote on the pool cover to hide them away again then walked over and to grab his step mom. He pulled her towards the bedroom and she followed along, wiping the dust from her nose.
Gordon mingled, stayed mostly sober and when Richard came out of the bedroom an hour later, he learned why there were only a bunch of jocks and a few girls left inside the gates.
Most of Richard and his teammates had been passed out at his house after a wild post-game party. The mansion sat well off the road and had its own gate at the end of a long driveway. Decorative shrubbery hid the fencing and the undead ran past it, following the sounds of screams or racing engines. The outbreak started early as it did everywhere else with breakfast and it didn’t take long for most of the gated community to be affected. The first minutes of the outbreak had neighbors stepping outside to see what the noise was all about or rushing to aid bleeding neighbors. Those staring in horror out of the windows and trying to call the authorities were seen and the growing horde crashed through to bite and rend and add to their numbers. Some managed to get in their cars and flee with hundreds of undead chasing them. The sensors kept the exit gate open until most of the zombies were gone and before any of the teenagers woke late in the afternoon, the battle for Smiths Landing was over.
It took the hungover teens a long time to come to grips with what had happened but Richard rallied them, kept them in booze and drugs for days until it became their new normal.
Wake up whenever. Take a pill or two to dull the pain. Bloody Mary’s for breakfast and start the party again. When the electricity went out the generator kicked on automatically and the party continued for another week until the fuel was gone. After that, they had to be careful and turn off some of the electrical things like the hot tub and space heaters. The solar panels couldn’t keep up with the demand.
When the booze and his pill supply ran out, some of the undead were still inside the fences of the Landing and outside the gates of his home. They took his fathers guns and killed them. When they started raiding the other houses for more party supplies, they found other survivors huddling inside. Men who tried to shame them for their behavior and tell them what to do. Men who tried to take the guns away and demanded they stop pillaging everyone’s house. It was so long ago Richard claimed he could barely remember it; the whole incident was a hazy half memory. He didn’t know who fired first, it may have even been an accident, but when the shooting was done, a dozen people were dead. They drank more, smoked more and took more pills to erase the ugly afternoon from their minds. Their blood lust was up and they took the women by force. Outnumbered and outgunned, they ran the men out of the gates. The women and girls who stayed could have followed, they weren’t guarded or kept in chains, but chose not to. They grabbed a bottle and joined the party. It was better than being dead.
The houses were loaded with food and valuables. Prescription meds and stashes of weed and cocaine the upstanding citizens of Smith’s Landing hid from their neighbors behind closed doors. Liquor cabinets were filled with the best booze. Freezers were full of steak and lobsters, all there for the taking. During a moment of clarity, Richard had organized a gathering of all the food and made sure the perishables were stored in freezers of the homes with solar panels. They had a lot when the job was finished. Entire rooms full of canned and boxed goods, deep freezers full of meat and case after case of booze.
Richards house remained as their main residence, there was plenty of room for them and it had more solar panels than all the others, except for maybe Gordon’s place. With the big banks of batteries charged from the sun providing the power, running water and hot showers were available for all. From the unwashed smell, Gordon didn’t think most of them were taking advantage of the opportunity. He would kill for a hot shower. The memory of weeks of washing in cold well water from the pump in the kitchen of the old house were still fresh in his head.
The party was winding down near dawn and as Gordon was rewrapping his hand with a fresh bandage Richard wander
ed over and sat beside him.
. “Who’s in charge?” Gordon asked.
“Nobody, everybody, hell who cares,” Richard said, shrugging his shoulders. “You wanna be in charge Gordy?”
Gordon bristled at the nickname. “Don’t call me that.”
“Ok, bro, don’t be so uptight. You wanna be in charge? You wanna run this band of miscreants and delinquents?” Richard laughed.
“Somebody has to.” Gordon said. “You can’t keep this up.”
“Why not?” Richard asked. “It’s working out just fine. We got you here, now. A zombie killing badass. When we run out of booze, you can get us more.”
“Maybe.” Gordon said “But there are other things to consider. Where is the water coming from? When is it going to run out?”
“You worry too much but that’s okay. Maybe we need that. Hey everybody!” Richard shouted to get their attention. “Gordon is in charge!”
Tired whistles and whoops rang out as everyone cheered and then they went back to whatever it was they were doing. For most of them, it was going back to sleep.
37
Gordon
Everyone in the Landing agreed they needed to go and teach the brats a lesson and get themselves some new servants but no one wanted to actually do it. Maybe tomorrow, man, was the answer whenever he brought it up. They were too busy having fun and besides, there were zombies out there. They had everything they needed and so far, no one had dared venture outside the fences. It was too risky. The quads were fast on the roads, pretty good in the fields but there were long miles of deep woods along the road. They couldn’t plow their way through the underbrush and fallen trees. If they met a horde, they might be in trouble. A big pack of four wheelers couldn’t get turned around fast enough. They would get overrun.
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