Life Among The Dead (66 page)

Bruce has a fast bike, but no jump. There isn’t that much water in the basin either. He is guaranteed to die on impact.
The bugs will eat me, and the sun will bleach my bones,
he thinks.
I will be no more, just dust
.

He revs the engine and speeds towards the ledge. As he races he sees visions of his past. He sees much younger versions of Wallace and himself exploring the caves and tunnels below him. He sees himself and Rosie napping in a hammock one summer afternoon, a gentle breeze lovingly rocking them. The hammock is no longer there. Everyone is gone.

“
Worm food.” Bruce says against the gust of air rushing at his face. “Just dust in the wind.”

He can see the vast gorge coming up fast. A few feet from the cliff he brakes hard and turns. Gravel sprays over the side instead of him.

Through the tapestry of memories he has a revelation that forces him to stop and laugh harder than he has in years. He looks into the gaping wound in the Earth’s crust and laughs even harder still for what he almost did.

“
It can’t be that simple.” He revs the motor and pulls away from certain death. He can’t end his life until he gets word back home. He has to tell his nephew about his new theory.

“
Oh, no!” He exclaims. “The fucking bird!”

Bruce looks to the sky and sees his gray pigeon, still climbing high into the air heading west. He almost falls on his face trying to get off the bike. He chases after his messenger.

“
Stop! Come back!” He waves his arms, but knows it is hopeless. He slows to a halt and hangs his head low. He realizes he will have to make the trek after all. His brief burst of energy chasing the fowl has made him even more tired. His muscles quiver, and he has opened some of the scabs on his chest
. I’ll have to haul my old ass all the way back,
he sighs. “Fuck me hard.”

Bruce loads all of his weapons into the sidecar, glad no one is alive to see him cruising around with one of these. He always felt it was like having training wheels on a mountain bike.
Then again,
he thinks.
Who would say shit when the thing is crammed full of assault rifles and shotguns?
It actually looks very bad ass to him now.
The only way you can make this dorky accessory cool is to fill it with firearms, or a really hot chick in a bikini.

The muscles between his shoulder blades are sore as he guides the motorcycle down the sloping hairpin road to Main Street. He has the engine killed in his descent.
I don’t want to alert the zombies who are crammed nut to butt down there.

At the bottom he discovers the town is clear. Just a few hours ago it had looked like an undead block party. Now, not a creature is stirring. He starts the machine and slowly rides through his hometown. He begins to pick out what has kept him away for so long.

He told Rash a white lie, he has no bad memories in Vermelho, all of his memories are wonderful. The bad part is what has become of the things he cherished in his mind.

He used to take Rosie to a malt shop they both loved. They would sit for hours talking, and listening to the jukebox, it’s now a nail salon. The burger joint where they had their very first date is a Mongolian hibachi.

“
Whatever the fuck that is.” Bruce spits in its direction. They had their first kiss at a drive-in that had been snuffed out and turned into a strip mall. The bowling alley remains a bowling alley, but Bruce just knows that probably sucks now too. It has signs advertising black light bowling, and league nights.
League nights?
Bruce scoffs.
The regular Joes are confined to just a couple of lanes, so a bunch of assholes in matching shirts and their own bowling shoes can act superior. Who the fuck owns their own bowling shoes?

He continues through town nearing the city limits, trying not to observe the things he hates about Vermelho that he once loved. He hasn’t seen a zombie until now. He turns off his motor and walks his bike closer for a better look.

The dead are bunched together at the entrance to the quarry. They follow one another in. Bruce can just imagine them, still falling off the ledges like lemmings. He laughs quietly, not wanting to draw their attention away from their stupidity.

The king of the road takes one last look at the house on the cliff. His childhood home burns to the ground. Black smoke belches into the air. He speeds out of town feeling better with every foot he puts between him and his past. It’s for the best that he is heading home. He still has to give Dan back his M-16, and the bad luck locket. He can tell everyone that he has found the cure for all of this. Above all, he is happy that he isn’t letting Mother Nature win.

15

“
I can see the head.” Someone in the crowd says. “It’s a boy.”

A crossbow makes a thwip sound as it releases one of its bolts. A split second later and the crowd outside the gates of the New Castle cemetery cheer. The dead are still rising from their graves. Once spring was in full bloom they became restless in their coffins.

The first of them to rise had died two months prior to the plague. According to county records there had been a car accident around that time. The older zombies are a little slower in finding their way out of the moist soil, sprouting like death lilies.

“
How old was that one?” Dan asks Carla who has been overseeing the event.

“
5 months prior to the outbreak. Overdose.” She responds.

“
What’s the oldest so far?”

“
6 Months prior. Cancer.” The stripper turned sheriff says, having to look it up on her clipboard.

There had been some debate as to what to do about these subterranean zombies. Some wanted to exhume every grave, another suggestion was to pave over the whole thing. Dan decided to just shut the gates and deal with them one at a time. They would have no way out of the yard and it gave people something to do. Dan also feels it might be important to know how old the oldest riser is. It might lend some sort of clue to when whatever had happened, happened.

“
What are you doing in town?” Carla asks. “I thought Heather asked you to take some time off?”

“
We came to town together.” Dan looks around for his wife. “She wanted to help Lindsey and Barb with planning the memorial wall. She asked me to come see you.”

“
Since you would probably come to see me anyway.” Carla says coyly. “You just have to know what’s going on, don’t you?”

Dan has no defense to the accusation. He is looking around the town, trying to see if there is anything he can do. He’s having trouble taking time off, having turned into a complete workaholic in a world where you don’t need to punch a time clock.

“
What did she want?” Carla asks.

“
Huh?”

“
Your wife.”

“
She wants to know if you’re playing cribbage tonight. That reminds me, she wants to know what kind of snacks you might want.”

“
I am definitely coming over tonight, and any snack is fine.”

“
Great.” Dan says. He is looking towards the south gate where a group of citizens are assembled. He thinks he sees folks with the illegal machine guns from the arsenal. He had enacted an open carry policy, but such weapons aren’t allowed. Those are only to be used for special occasions. People could walk around with a pistol, and have a couple rifles at home. Anything more is unnecessary and must be secured. “Are they using my fine china?”

“
I knew you’d see that.” Carla laughs. “I broke out a few M-60s because we have zombies at the south wall.”

“
Why wasn’t I informed of this?” Dan asks.

“
You’re supposed to be off. I have it covered.” She is a little insulted that he can’t leave the town in her hands for so much as a day. “All they are doing is standing there, looking at the wall. They can’t get in. It isn’t so much a threat as it is creepy.”

“
Can I make a suggestion? Grab a few buckets of water.” Dan starts his solution. “Go to the hardware store and pick up a couple bags of quick lime, or go to the craft store and get some lye…”

“
I see where this is going.” Carla nods. “This is going to be a little gross, huh?”

“
If my theory is correct it should be very gross.”

“
I’ll get Mike to do it.” Carla makes a notation on her clipboard.

“
Who’s Mike, one of your deputies?”

“
They’re all my deputies.” Carla says referring to all the men in town. It’s true. Though she takes her role as sheriff very seriously, she still uses tricks from her old profession to illicit volunteers. Today, her uniform consists of brown police pants that someone must have taken in for her. The slacks hug her thighs and flare at the bottom. She wears a sheer white tank top that clings tightly over her ample, possibly artificial, breasts. She topped it all off with a large sheriff hat.

She definitely turns heads in town. Dan had seen one guy break his own thumb with a hammer because he was too busy watching her ride by on horseback. She often patrols on horseback since they are trying to conserve gas.

“
Are you going to watch the cribbage tournament?” Carla asks. Dan is looking around in the sky towards the east.

“
I promised Heather I would. You two are really getting into the competition, huh?”

“
We have to after all the shit talking Lindsey and Becka have been doing. She wasn’t mad that you wouldn’t be her partner.”

“
She pretended to be,” Dan says. “But she wants to win. I think she’s actually relieved. I just never had a mind for the game. You two make a good team.”

“
We both like to play.” Carla says. “Everyone has to have their thing, you know. Except you.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
All you do is work and worry. Even when you’re with your family, you run off and do shit that really anyone can do.”

“
I love spending time with my family.” The interim King is defensive.

“
I know. But, you need to get your head out of things. You need a hobby.”

“
A hobby?”

“
Yeah, Heather said you used to draw. Draw her a fucking picture. You need to relax. This place is supposed to be boring. Think about it, if it isn’t boring then we’re doing something wrong.”

She is right. He can’t argue with that. Dan just feels like he has to step up his game since Bruce left. He feels he has to be everywhere at once, and have a hand in everything. The last pigeon he received from his uncle, five days ago, troubled him. He keeps looking up to the sky for another messenger.

“
We all think you’re restless.” Carla says. “It just seems like you’d rather be out there having an adventure. Isn’t that why you commissioned Vendetta?”

Ven-Dead-A, as Dan wants it spelled, is his pet project, a team of vehicles to be used for reconnaissance. They will be able to extract any survivors and supplies, if they happen to find any. Heather is afraid he’s going to explore nearby towns. She doesn’t want him going out there.

“
I’m not going on an adventure.” Dan says like a child telling his mom he isn’t doing something naughty.

“
You can’t, you’re the king. You aren’t expendable enough.”

Dan is listening to her, but looking at the sky again.

“
Still bird watching? Didn’t the last one say it was the last one?” Carla asks.

“
Yeah, it’s weird.” Dan replies sounding worlds away.

“
The bird was weird?”

“
No, what Bruce said was weird. He said everything is fine out East.”

“
That’s great.” Carla says.

“
He said he met a girl and they had a romantic squab dinner. He also said he wasn’t coming back, and I shouldn’t go out there.” Dan had only told Heather the full message.

“
Hmm.” Carla doesn’t know what to make of it. “I guess you’re the official king now.”

“
Why would he say that though?” Dan ponders. “I keep thinking it’s a joke, and he’ll send another bird to retract the last one.”

“
You’re also thinking about going out there.” Carla says knowingly. Dan doesn’t say anything. She has caught him. He is thinking about it. He had even mentioned it to his wife who wasn’t happy at all when she heard it.

“
The part that really gets me is that he met a girl. Who the hell could he meet out there? What girl would fall for him?”

“
I don’t know…” Carla smiles. “He can be quite charming.”

“
No way.” Dan can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You have met the man?”

“
Look,” Carla says. “Half the guys in this town have seen me shake my tits at the Flag Pole. I was kind of the main attraction down there. Bruce was the only gentleman of the bunch, always kind and never got handsy.

“
I remember there were these two Marines in the club from some base around here. They started to say the rudest things to me while I was dancing. They pulled me off of the stage. We’re talking about a small town strip joint, there are no bouncers. Bruce steps in without a word and knocks them around. He tosses, literally tosses, them out the door.

“
Those jarheads had left a pile of cash on the table and it wasn’t for tipping. They had come all the way to the Pole to proposition me. They got pissed when I said ‘no’. Bruce scooped up all the cash, two hundred to fuck the both of them. He helped me up and gave me the money. He said it was ‘asshole tax’.