Ashton Memorial (28 page)

“Crazy bitch!” he yelled.
He snatched the rifle away from the Keeper next to him.

Angie moved to put herself in between Lee
and Dalton. Lee leveled the rifle at her chest before she could
turn around the rifle she'd grabbed.

“Now,” said Lee, cocking
the rifle. “Let's see you go beddy-bye.” Blood ran from his nose,
pooling inside his bottom lip.

“Bastard!” yelled the older
man in the crowd. He flung a rock at Lee, knocking him in the
shoulder. Lee fell back a few inches. The older man bellowed and
ran at Lee.

Lee aimed at the older man and fired. A dart
shot from the rifle and thudded into the old man's chest. He fell
down face first, sprawling in front of Lee.

“You shot him!” Angie
yelled, moving to knock the rifle from Lee's hands. Lee snapped his
attention back to her, pointing the rifle her way.

“You, lady, are way more trouble than you're
worth.”

He cocked the rifle and kept it leveled at
Angie. More blood pooled in his lips. He trembled slightly, his
stare furious and crazed.

Finally he let out a long,
slow breath and lowered the rifle. “Now, give me the gun and get
the fuck out of here. And we'll see how lucky you are when lunch
comes around.”

Angie stared at Lee as Dalton clung to her side. She
considered swinging her rifle at him, knocking him upside the head
and running into the Bites to get her and Dalton some food.

Then she dropped the rifle, half hoping the
impact would break it. It clattered to the pavement. She reached
down and slipped her hand into Dalton's. Then she turned and led
him away.

* * *

Maylee rubbed her eyes as she looked around.
She blinked away raindrops as they slowly ran down her face.

“This is taking way too
long,” said Ella as she stepped up next to her. They stood at the
top of a hill overlooking an intersection of different paths
through the zoo. Large friendly arrows pointed to different
exhibits.

Corpses filled the intersection. They
wandered around, groaning and stumbling. They hadn't noticed Maylee
and Ella on the hill above them. At least not yet.

“Way too long,” Ella
repeated. “We should have been able to get back to the office last
night. At this rate we won't get there until tomorrow. Especially
if we have to hole up for the night again.”

Park stepped up beside
them. He sniffed, looking down at the throng of corpses. “Yeah,
well, it's been crowded around here.”

“We're gonna have to take
the long way around. Again,” said Ella, not taking her eyes off the
corpses.

“Don't worry,” said Park.
“We'll get there.” He put a hand on Ella's shoulder.

Ella spun, snapping her shoulder away from
his grasp. She glared at him.

“The fuck, Ella?” said
Park.

“Not now,” she said, then
made a big show of looking back at the corpses. She frowned, then
nodded sharply down a second path, winding and more obscured.
“We're going this way.”

Park looked at Maylee and Maylee looked
back. He looked like someone who'd tried to pet a dog and gotten
bitten. He looked confused, hurt and angry.

“Guess we're going this
way,” said Maylee, shrugging.

Park shrugged back and they both followed
Ella. Maylee was a few feet behind Ella. Park was at the rear.

Ella glanced back at Maylee. At first she
looked angry and confused. Then the look was gone. She smiled.

“What's your bat's name?”
she said.

“What?” said
Maylee.

“Your bat,” said Ella,
nodding down at the bat bouncing in Maylee's hand as they walked.
“What do you call it?”

“Um...bat.”

Ella chuckled and pushed
her hair out of her eyes. “You should name it. It's
fun.”

Maylee frowned down at the
bat, then shrugged. “I guess.”

“It is,” Ella continued. “I
name everything. It makes things interesting.”

“You mean like the birds?”
said Maylee, then immediately felt stupid and sorry as a pained
look flashed across Ella's face.

“Yeah,” she said, silent
and sad for a moment Then she looked back at Maylee and smiled. “I
name all the animals. Been doing it since I was little. I imagined
they were my friends. Sometimes they seemed to recognize me. It was
fun.”

She fell silent, plodding on through the
light rain. Maylee plodded along behind her. She heard Park sniff
and cough. Maylee eyed a vending machine as they passed it. The
glass was smashed in and the inside stripped bare. They all walked
along silently.

They all stopped when a grunt came from
around an approaching corner.

“Shit,” said Ella. Maylee
gripped her bat. Park walked around to stand in front of them. He
pulled out his knife and held it down at his side.

Another grunt came from
around the corner. Followed by a soft “thud”, like something heavy
hitting the ground.

“Shit,” came a voice from
the same place as the grunt. “Missed.”

“I'll try again,” came
another voice. Then the voice grunted. A few seconds later came
another soft “thud”.

Park slipped the knife back
into his pocket. “The hell?”

He walked toward the corner. Maylee and Ella
followed.

Rounding the corner, Maylee saw to the left
two young men standing outside the exhibit for a creature that
looked like a large boar with a hamster-like face. One of the young
men, tall and fat, was lugging a large rock over to the exhibit,
holding it down in front of him and struggling with the weight. The
creature snarled from behind the wooden fence separating it from
the rest of the zoo. Two other large rocks sat inside the exhibit a
few feet from where the creature stood.

“Tara!” yelled Ella,
rushing forward.

The two young men stopped as they noticed
Ella. The fat one with the rock held back, uncertain. The other
one, thinner than his friend, stepped forward, looking scared and
angry.

“Back off, kid,” he said.
“The pig's ours.”

“She's not a pig!” yelled
Ella. “She's a capybara and her name is Tara!”

“Her fucking name,” said
the young man, “is fucking lunch!”

“Dude,” said the fat one
with the rock. “Aren't capybaras big rats?”

“What the fuck do you know,
genius?” said the thin man, turning on him. “It's a pig. And we're
eating it!”

Park stepped between Ella
and the thin man. “You wanna tone that shit down, ass crack? That's
my kid you're talking to.”

“You back off too, buddy,”
said the thin man. The fat man shuffled back and forth, struggling
with the rock. The thin man ignored him. “You ain't getting any of
our pig either.”

“She's a South American
rodent,” said Ella.

Park stayed focused on the
thin man. “No one wants your fucking rat!”

“This is heavy,” said the
fat man, shifting his grip on the rock.

The thin man spun to face
him. “Well quit jerking off with it and kill the fucking
pig!”

“No!” yelled
Ella.

The fat man carried the rock over to the
fence. The capybara growled and clawed at the dirt. The fat man
heaved the rock over, grunting as he did. The capybara shuffled out
of the way as the rock thudded to the dirt.

“Stop it!” yelled
Ella.

The capybara snarled and
wheezed from behind the fence. It shook its head and huffed through
its snout. The fat man jumped back. “Rat's pissed.”

“It's not a fucking rat!”
yelled the thin man. “It's a pig and I'm fucking
hungry!”

Ella dug around hurriedly
in the pockets of her jacket. She pulled out a half-eaten candy bar
and flung it down at the thin man's feet. “There! Eat
that!”

The two men stared at her.
The thin man pointed. “The kid has food!”

Ella stepped back, raising
her hands. “Wait, no!”

The two men stepped toward Ella.

Park stepped toward them,
shoving the closest one back. “Back off, son. She said she didn't
have any more.”

“It was left over from
school,” said Ella. “We ate the rest for breakfast this
morning.”

Park whipped his head back
to Ella. “It's okay. You don't have to explain shit to this
inverted-dick-having piece of fuck.”

“Breakfast!” said the thin
man, sounding more crazed by the minute. “How nice for you all. Did
you have tea with your fucking breakfast? We're
starving!”

The capybara ran side to side in its exhibit,
stamping its feet and snorting.

“I'm sorry,” said Ella.
“It's all I have.” She looked near tears. Maylee stepped over to
her.

“Don't, Ella!” yelled Park.
“Don't you dare say you're sorry for anything to this
shit-fuck!”

The thin man stepped forward and shoved
Park. Park turned and stared at him.

“Seriously?” he said, then
punched the man across the face.

The thin man stumbled back, shock and anger
spreading across his face. For a second everyone just stared at
each other in silence. Maylee thought she heard groans coming from
somewhere nearby.

“Guys,” she said, looking
around for the source.

Everyone ignored her. The thin man's face
turned red and he rushed at Park. He punched clumsily at him. Park
stepped to one side and let the man stumble past.

“Just let it go, asshole!”
he said.

The man straightened and looked at Ella.
More groans came from somewhere. The rain picked up, getting
heavier.

“Guys,” said Maylee, still
trying to pinpoint the source of the groans.

Again, no one noticed.
“No!” said the thin man, responding to Park. “I say we search her
for food first!” He jabbed a finger at Ella.

Maylee forgot the groans for a moment. She
stepped between Ella and the man. Park grabbed the man by his
pointing finger and bent it sideways. The man grunted in pain as
Park spun the man around to face him.

“How 'bout not?” Park said.
He let go of the man's finger and grabbed his shirt with both
hands. He tossed him back, toward the fat man. The fat man stood
there, looking uncertain and worried. He bent down to pick up the
candy bar Ella had thrown.

“Hey, man,” he said to the
thin man. The thin man didn't turn, staring at Park while he panted
and grew redder. The rain pelted down on all of them.

The fat man coughed. “You
know, man, maybe we should just go.”

The thin man turned on him. “Maybe you should just
go! Or even better, how about you drop out of pussy school and help
me beat this redneck's ass! Then we can fucking eat!”

“Hey, man,” said the fat
man, stepping toward the thin one. “I'm just saying...”

“Fuck you and your saying!”
yelled the thin man. He shoved his friend backward, into the arms
of a corpse that had just stumbled out from around a
corner.

“Shit,” said the thin
man.

“No,” was all the fat man
managed to say before the corpse, a large woman with one eye
missing and most of the skin on her left shin gone, bit into his
neck. He jerked violently as blood shot out across the woman's face
and across the paved ground. The blood immediately streaked and ran
in the rain.

“Fuck,” said Park, pulling
the knife from his jacket and rushing toward the corpse. Maylee
rushed forward with her bat.

The thin man reached his friend first. He
pulled at his arm to no avail. The fat man's head lolled as blood
spurted from his neck. His eyes opened and closed sleepily as blood
leaked from his mouth. The corpse moaned and chewed, pulling the
fat man to the ground.

“Oh shit, man, hold on,”
said the thin man, tugging and kneeling. “Hold on!” More groans
came from around the corner.

Park held up his arms to
block Maylee and Ella. “Whoa! More coming! We gotta get out of
here.”

“He have to save him!”
yelled Ella.

“He tried to fucking hurt
you, Ella,” said Park, slipping his knife back into his
pocket.

“He's a human being, Dad,”
said Ella.

Park blinked. “Wait,
what?”

“I said he's a human
being.”

Park opened his mouth to speak, then shut
it. He looked back at the thin man. The thin man was tugging at the
fat man. The corpse chewed on the fat man's neck from the other
side.

“Well, shit,” said Park. He
ran over to grab the thin man's shoulder. He tried to pull him
away.

“No!” said the man, pulling
back and clutching his friend. “It's gonna be okay. We're gonna
find some food.”

The corpse chewed at the fat man's neck,
oblivious to the thin man for the moment. The fat man's head lolled
back. The fat man was still.

“Look, buddy,” said Park.
“Sorry about the punching and all, but we gotta move.”

More corpses came around the corner. Ella
screamed. Maylee readied her bat.

Park, kneeling beside the two men and the
corpse, pulled his knife from his pocket. The thin man grabbed his
wrist. Maylee could see in the thin man's eyes that his mind was
gone.

“What are you doing?”
yelled the man. “Get away! All of you get away!”