Mountain Man - 01 (24 page)

“Look at this, though.” He held up the ninja hoods. He tossed one to Scott and pulled on his own, struggling to tuck in his chin whiskers. Once done, he turned to Scott with the hood and mask in place. “Huh? How’s that? Great, eh? ”

Scott was wearing his, too. “Jesus, this is great. It’s warm.”

“And I bet it’s fireproof, too.”

“Or fire retardant.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One can burn if it’s exposed to open flame long enough. The other can’t.”

“Oh.” Gus pulled off the mask and rubbed his bald head. “That’s going on when we head back down. This, however…”

He pulled out the fireman jacket and pants and put them both on. “Heavier than the leather.”

Scott tried on his. “Yeah. Warmer, though. Especially with a sweater on underneath. Thicker, too.”

“Won’t need the heat on in the van with these things on.”

“Nothing going to bite through these things.”

“Heavier armor,” Gus remarked, checking himself out. “But it’ll slow us down.”

“A trade-off.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Gus, how much ammunition do you have here?”

He thought about it. “Left? About, maybe, somewhere between a thousand and two thousand rounds. Remind me to get a few boxes to put in the beast.”

“All for twelve gauge?”

“Yeah. I got most of them in the storeroom of a gun shop a long time ago. Someone took a lot of the other stuff, but the place was well stocked. The places in the malls were cleaned out. And I found some in basements, sheds, yada, yada.”

They went through the rest of the goods, stashing one of the first-aid kits and a fire extinguisher in the beast, as well as the remaining crowbar. The rest of the gear they placed in the lockers.

After unloading the van, eating, then cleaning their shotguns, they bundled up in sweaters and doubled up in track pants before retiring to the deck. They lounged outside, drinking only water, which lasted until mid-afternoon when Gus broke out two bottles of Canadian Club whiskey. They toasted their fortune of being alive, drank, and respectfully regarded the quiet cityscape stretched out in the distance. They talked and relaxed in the lawn chairs.

“What time is it?” Scott asked at one point.

“Hmm?”

“What time is it?”

“Why? You have to be somewhere? I don’t know. I don’t wear a watch.”

“Just like to know what time it is.”

“Look.” Gus pointed to the city with his bottle. “Time was left behind in the old world. Nothing around here is concerned with the time of day anymore. You think this mountain cares about time? Any animal? That is if they even exist ’cause I ain’t seen any. There is nothing down there that is nine to five anymore. Nothing. There’s just you and me and…” Gus belched. “You and me and… and this.”

“This?”

“This moment.”

“Thought you said there was no time anymore.”

“There isn’t.”

“Well, if there’s no time, how can you directly reference one moment in it?”

“Huh?”

“You,” Scott pointed at him, “just went on about how time doesn’t matter, but then you said that this moment—which is a part of present time–– does matter.”

Gus made a face. “I said that?”

“You did. Just now. I heard it.”

“I’m full of shit,” Gus slurred.

Scott broke out laughing.

“I think it’s December tomorrow,” Gus added.

“You think the mountains care if it’s December? The animals? God knows I haven’t seen any,” Scott said with a sly gleam in his eye.

“Fuck off.” Gus smiled and took another drink. “Tomorrow we go back down there. We gotta stay on course. Winter is here, man, and we aren’t ready yet. I’d like to find more food. If there’s any left.”

Scott nodded. “Think there’s any down there?”

“I do, but how much is the question. There’re two of us now. We’ll be okay,” Gus said, studying his bottle. “We’ll be okay.”

When dark came, they went back into the house and drew the curtains over the windows. They ate beans and wieners from cans and continued drinking straight whiskey. They got out the Scrabble board, but abandoned it when Gus pointed out he was “too shit-faced to spell anything.”

They loaded up a copy of John Carpenter’s
The Thing,
then rounded out the night watching old Benny Hill comedy shows.

Somewhere before midnight, both passed out.

And were spared dreams.

Gus woke up and thought he was still in the attic. He flailed on the sofa where he’d fallen asleep, looked over, and thought for the briefest of time that the snoring figure in the recliner was the gold-toothed deadhead. He rubbed his eyes, then his hairless scalp, and took a deep breath. He needed to piss and get a drink of water, in that order. He looked toward the TV and saw that it had been turned off. Scott must’ve done that at some point. He had turned off the lights as well and draped Gus in a blanket before settling back in the recliner and covering up himself. He watched the blond man sleep, mouth open, displaying a slight overbite. Light snores emanated from him.

Gus went to his chamber bucket and relived himself, covering it when done. Then, he headed to the kitchen. He filled two pitchers with water, staring out at the clear pre-dawn sky. He drank half of one pitcher before going back downstairs and placing the second pitcher on the coffee table for Scott, hoping he’d see the thing before coming upstairs.

Coughing lightly, Gus went back up and stepped outside. The biting December air cut around the corner of the house, grazing his face and making him shiver. He listened to the morning. The evening star, or at least he thought it was the evening star, shone right next to the bare face of the full moon. Gus stood for a moment and simply studied it.

Then, he heard the engines.

The noise hooked him by the jaw, a roar of motorcycles speeding away, their mufflers gone. The raucous sound ripped through the morning quiet and made him look in the direction of the dark city, the moon causing some of the rooftops to look like dull slabs of silver. The sound faded in the distance, and Gus willed it to happen again so that he could get a better sense of where it was. It had been at least a year since he’d heard another engine. One as loud as the one he had just heard went against all he practiced when he went into Annapolis. Almost as if it wanted to be heard…

Nothing. The wind smothered any other sound and left him cold. After lingering for a few more moments, he retreated back inside to the warmth of the house.

Going through the pantry, Gus decided on instant oatmeal with dried apples and cinnamon for breakfast. He boiled the water and sat at the kitchen island, listening to the growing huff of the kettle and thinking about the motorcycles. He was certain they were motorcycles with the mufflers gone, raising hell on some car-littered street no less, but just before the crack of dawn? The question hung in his head. What could they have been doing?

Or had they just arrived in Annapolis?

That thought had merit.

He ate his breakfast while mulling over who was in the city. The idea that there were others around had never left him, but rather got pushed to the back of his mind in his day-to-day foraging. Scott was the only person he had met who wanted to be found, it seemed to him. Others kept to themselves for whatever reasons. Or… His next thought made him pause with his spoon in his mouth. Maybe he was the one avoiding contact. He’d always thought it was better to be alone, but Scott saving his ass had gotten him to think otherwise. Civilization had to rebound at some point, and people, not the dead, would eventually band together to do it.

“Morning,” Scott muttered as he came around the corner, looking like a huge, fluffy bear just emerging from his cave. “Thanks for the water.”

Gus nodded.

Scott pointed to the second bowl. “This for me?”

Gus nodded again. “Just add water from the kettle.”

Scott did so and settled down for his first bite of the day. “This tastes so good,” he muttered between bites.

Gus let him finish before informing him of the noise. “Heard it this morning.”

“Who could it be?” Scott asked.

“Don’t know,” Gus admitted. “But once you finish, let’s go take a look.”

*

With the sun partially obscured by thick clouds, they drove the beast down into the city. They passed intersections and even the turn-off leading to old Port Williams, but didn’t see any sign of motorcycles or any other moving vehicles. Zombies, moving slower with December’s chill, spotted the roads like dark sores and looked up at the sound of the approaching van. These dead posed no threat and were soon left behind. They continued into the downtown section of what was once known as Kentville, the office buildings blocking the sun even further and making the streets feel like unearthed tunnels of a tomb best kept sealed.

There, Gus spotted the brother to the beast.

“Stop and back up,” he said and pointed a thick glove. Both men had clothed themselves in the firemen outfits recovered from the station. The ninja masks were tight, but warm, and they made their motorcycle helmets fit even more snugly, although Gus found himself shouting more often to be heard.

“What? Oh.” Scott slowed the beast and stopped before an alleyway between a vandalized outboard motor shop and a gutted supermarket. Far back from view and partially hidden by a rust-coated dumpster gleamed a red SUV, a tinted windshield eyed them while the grill bared metallic teeth.

“Oh my,” Scott said.

“Been down this way, but never spotted that before.”

“It’s far enough back from the street that you’d have to be looking straight down there to see it.”

“I’ll check it out,” Gus said.

“You sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Scott didn’t add anything else. Gus supposed he didn’t have to. “I’m fine. Wouldn’t have come here today if I didn’t think I was.”

“I’ll back in.”

“Not all the way, just enough to see what’s coming down the street.”

“Fine.”

Gus got up and slung his scabbarded bat across his back. He took down his shotgun and clomped to the rear of the van, feeling the weight of the fireman boots.
Steel-toed nastiness
, he thought. Scott backed the beast in blindly, opening his door to gauge where he was at times.

“Don’t be long,” Scott shouted when he finished parking.

Slapping down his visor, Gus threw open the rear door and jumped out. He closed it behind him and walked down the length of the alley, noting the fire escapes on each building and the metalwork’s rust. He approached the SUV, looking like a firefighter that had forgotten his proper helmet. He felt his breath on his face, hotter than before because of the ninja mask, and for an instant, a stab of fear stopped him in his tracks. Jesus. He was
out
of the van. Gus felt a cold sweat break out over his face. His breath quickened. He blinked, and the visor-tinted form of the old fuck with the gold teeth hunched over him, the zombie’s jaw
clicking
open.

Grunting, Gus pressed against the side of the alley and gripped his shotgun. He opened and closed his eyes. The old dude disappeared. The alley was just an alley. He took a deep steadying breath and calmed himself, fighting the impulse to rip the tight helmet from his head.

I’m fine
.
I’m fucking better than fine
. Another breath and he continued forward, hoping to God that episodes like the one he’d just experienced were only a passing thing––some residual by-product of freaking out, and not regular.

He just didn’t need it.

Easing around the dumpster, Gus moved to the passenger side of the vehicle and, holding his shotgun one-handed, yanked open the door.

And grimaced.

He could smell the body, but thankfully the corpse behind the wheel wasn’t the re-animated kind. A man—Gus could tell by the light rugby shirt and jeans—sat behind the wheel as if listening to a tune on the stereo. The bare flesh was decomposed black, but because of the SUV’s seals, no insects had found the chunk of meat.

“Shit,” Gus whispered, studying the face and the shrivelled eyeballs. An empty blue plastic prescription bottle rested on the floor. Gus leaned in, smelled a faint whiff of long-dried fecal matter, and picked up the bottle.
Seconal: 100 mgs
was typed on the label in bold-faced lettering. It meant nothing to Gus, other than the ripe bastard behind the wheel had taken enough of it to end himself. He studied the man’s dead face, the slumped position of the body, and shook his head.
Smarter than you look
, Gus thought.
Braver, too
.

Gus closed the passenger side and moved around the SUV. He opened the driver’s door, and pulled the body out from behind the wheel. Dried up as it was, the body was easy to drop unceremoniously into the dumpster, making Gus glad that he had taken the precaution of wearing all the new gear, right down to the new gloves with whole fingers.

The key fob dangled from the dash, and two keys jingled against it. The third key was in the ignition. The SUV was a hybrid, a Dodge Durango. He studied the plush black leather interior and decided the dead guy must’ve been rich. The dash gleamed with information controls. Checking out the interior in the rear, Gus saw that there were a few containers in the back. He would check those out later, but at the moment, it was enough to know that the thing was free of corpses.