Rotten (22 page)

Less than thirty seconds after we pulled onto the road we passed a deadhead going into town, it turned and followed us.  “We’ll have to dig fast,” Highland said, glancing in the rearview mirror.  “It should take him a while to get there.” 

“I was thinking we’d put them in the garden, Mom spent a lot of time there, and the ground will be soft,” Rebekah said, holding the door of the Jeep open for Sarah to slide out.

We all stepped inside while she retrieved a quilt to wrap her parents, and then Rotten, Highland, and Moonshine started digging in the garden.  Princess, Rebekah, and I wrapped up the bodies while Sarah watched.  Princess removed the wedding bands and a necklace from their mother and slid them in her pocket.  “We’ll clean these later,” she said. 

“My parents were odd and good people,” Rebekah said, as we stood around the grave.  “They were hippies that were born to late to enjoy the sixties culture, but kept it alive anyway.  They made our childhood fun and magical and full of new ideas and old ones.  They made sure we were self-sufficient, but also encouraged us to use our minds and imagination.  I don’t think we could have asked for a better childhood.  We love you, Mom and Dad.” 

“Amen,” Sarah said, her arm wrapped around her sister’s waist and her face wet with tears.

“Amen,” we said solemnly. 

We took turns shoveling the dirt over the grave and then went through the house again to see if there was anything we needed.  Rebekah filled a bag with personal items and pictures from her parents’ bedroom and then retrieved the headphones and ipod, while Princess found a couple more rolls of duct tape and grabbed the toolbox. 

Sarah announced the monster was close as we pulled to the end of the driveway and we saw the deadhead in the distance, still headed in our direction, and we turned toward the roadblock.  “We’ll get him on the way back,” Highland said.

We stared into the back seat of the black sedan watching the zombie writhe and snap, while it beat its handless arms against the glass.  The decomposition had set in so well that its restrained hands had simply popped off, although its feet remain bound.  “Should have killed it the last time we were here,” Highland said and walked across the road to the other sedan, opening the door.  “The keys are here.”  He sat down on the seat and turned the ignition.  The engine sprang to life and the girls covered their ears.

“The radio!” Rebekah yelled.

Highland reached down, turned it off, and looked back to us.  “Well, well, they had it on a preset.” 

“I bet we can put it on the PA too.”  Rotten opened the passenger door and studied the in-dash radio.  “Yep.”  

“There’s no keys in the zombie-mobile over here.”  Moonshine peered into the window as the zombie pounded with its stumps.

“Must be in the pockets of one of these things.”  Princess walked to the partial body lying in front of the sedan and patted the pants pockets.  “Not here, must be on that one.”  She pointed down the road to where a black clad figure lay in the grass.  While she and Rotten ran down the road, I helped Moonshine unload the gas cans and we walked over to the BMW. 

“Sweet ride, too bad we don’t need it.”  He pulled a leather jacket from the back seat and handed it to me.  “Someone can use this.”  He slid a hose into the fuel tank and sucked, spitting gas onto the street and quickly sliding the hose into the can.  “God, that’s gross.”  He spit again. 

“This tank is full.”  Highland cut the engine and walked around the back to open the trunk.  “Jackpot!”  He held up a shotgun.  “Got riot gear back here, too.”  

Moonshine moved the hose to the next can, and I carried the filled one to the back of the truck, setting it on the bed as Rotten and Princess returned with the keys.  He filled up all our containers from the BMW and then stood staring into the back seat of the sedan.  He opened the passenger door of the car, the stench poured out and he ran around to open the driver’s door while we stepped away.  “Damn!  That’s thick!”  He gagged, but kept it down, and joined us in the road. 

“The smell is never coming out of that car, you know that, right?”  Princess said. 

“Well, it will lessen, and Rotten took all those air fresheners from the convenience store so I’ll hang like twelve in there,” Moonshine replied.

“Great, then it will smell like pine trees and dead people.”  Princess wrinkled her nose.

“Better than just dead people,” he insisted.

“Okay, I think someone should open the door and run, and a couple of us will shoot,” Highland said.  “It’s likely to spring out of there when the door is opened, so we should stand out of reach.” 

I volunteered to open the door, and Highland and Moonshine stepped about fifteen feet away with their pistols ready.  “One, two, three!”  I counted, yanked open the door, and ran. 

The zombie of Bryson Capps sprang out of the door landing in the grass, and Highland and Moonshine fired, both hitting their target square in the head.

“That’s Bryson, all right,” Rebekah said.

“Well, it was,” Rotten said.

“Okay, let’s get out of here.”  Highland looked at the girls.  “Y’all put on the headphones and ride in the Jeep with Dove.  I’m going to put the tone on the PA on the way back and that should freeze the deadhead, Rotten you ride with Princess in the truck and shoot it as we drive past, Dove, you follow Princess, and Moonshine, you bring up the rear with the stink mobile.” 

Moonshine nodded.  “Well, bulletproof or not, those windows are staying down for a few days.”

“That smell is never coming out, Moon Man.”  Princess climbed into the truck. 

“Can y’all hear it,” I asked, as I pulled into line behind the truck.

Rebekah nodded.  “Not so bad back here and even less with the headphones.”

“Rotten said once the ipods are charged and you’re listening to music you won’t hear it at all.”

“I get an ipod,” Sarah sing sang from the back seat.  “Monster coming up.” 

The zombie froze in the road about thirty feet from Highland’s car, he passed it and stopped while Rotten shot it from the open window of the truck.  Highland turned off the signal, called back on the hand held radio to let us know, and we continued on to the cabin. 

When we pulled up the driveway we saw Sully on the porch talking to a man we didn’t know.  We climbed out of the cars slowly and Will approached us from beside the shed.  “There’re more survivors, they showed up a couple hours ago.” 

“How’d they get here?”  I looked around and didn’t see another car.

“They came up river in a beat-up canoe.  There’s three of them, him,” he nodded his head toward the porch, “his wife and an older woman who they met along the way.”   

“So what’s the plan?”  Princess looked up at the man standing on the deck with a beer in hand and turned to Will.

He shrugged.  “He talks a lot.” 

“What’s his story?”  Rotten said, unloading the speakers and stereo.

“His name is Ron, his wife is Beth, and they sent their daughter off to Sunday school on the bus, but she didn’t come back until the next day after she turned into a zombie.  He killed her.  They stayed at their house for a while and then a couple days ago decided to leave, they had to take the river because they couldn’t get their car through because the roads are filled with cars and zombies, they met up with the other lady along the way.  His wife doesn’t talk much, and the other lady, her name is Connie, used to own a dress shop in town.” 

The man waved down at us, and we waved back, I think we were all uncomfortable having new people, but what were we to do?  We couldn’t send them back out with the zombies.  We entered the house through the downstairs door and Rotten plugged in the ipods to charge and dropped the speakers and stereo off in the office and we all went upstairs together. 

“Did everything go okay?”  Mrs. Williams asked, stepping around the counter to hug the girls.

“Yes, ma’am,” Rebekah said, and Sarah nodded while staring at the woman sitting at the table.

“As you can see we have guests, that’s Connie in the kitchen and Beth at the table.  I hope you don’t mind, Dove and Princess, I let them borrow some of your clothes.”

“Not at all, we borrowed them ourselves.  Nice to meet you.”  Princess said, as Mrs. Williams introduced us all. 

The woman glanced up from the table, her eyes held deep, dark circles, and she nodded.  “Nice to meet y’all,” she said softly. 

Rebekah looked at the woman in the kitchen.  “You own the dress shop?  My mom used to go in there.”

Connie smiled.  “I remember her, hard to forget that red hair, you look just like her.”

“Rebekah looks like Mommy and I look like Daddy.”  Sarah climbed onto a barstool. 

“Then your daddy must have had wonderfully curly hair,” Connie said, and smiled.

“He did, just like mine.”  Sarah nodded. 

Sully and the man, Ron, stepped in from the porch and introductions were made again.  “Y’all sure lucked out with this place,” Ron said, looking all of us over.  “And it looks like the United Nations are here, we got Africa.” He nodded at Moonshine. “Asia,” He smiled at me. “Are you a feather or a dot Indian?” He laughed and smiled at Rotten.  “We also got some Irish, I see.”  He looked Rebekah up and down.  “And we have a lesbian and a Jew.” His eyes moved over Princess’s hair and then focused on Highland’s face. 

There was a very long awkward silence as we looked at each other with wide eyes. 

I realize now as I’m writing this that I haven’t mentioned much of what we look like, I suppose because I don’t think much about it, plus I know what my friends look like, so why describe it?  But as Rotten pointed out this may be the only written record of the zombie apocalypse and future generations may be curious about our appearance, so here goes:

Rotten is tallish and slim, he has long dark hair that he wears in a ponytail or braid most of the time, except when he is on stage, and brown eyes. He usually keeps his facial hair trimmed in some cheesy style that I hate, like a skinny line where his beard should be or that piece of fuzz on his chin.  This day, though, he was freshly shaven.

Highland is the smallest of the guys in both height and weight, he has curly dark hair that always seems a little out of control, and he’s one of those men who seem to have trouble growing facial hair.  His eyes are brown and wide and thoughtful, as though his brain never slows down, and he often looks surprised.  His nose is sharp, hawkish would be the term if I were writing a novel, and he’s always on the pale side even in the summer. 

Moonshine is tall and muscular; he was the quarterback in high school and played on the baseball team.  His eyes are green, his skin is caramel colored, and he wears his dark hair in short braids.  And he is extremely good-looking, but not at all conceited.  He is also a self-professed token redneck, and laughs when good ole boys accept him as one of their own.

Will is on the small side, about my height and weight, just inching toward the adolescent growth spurt that will probably see him turn into a tall man.  His hair is close cropped, and dark, and his eyes are a cool shade of hazel that are sometimes green and sometimes brown. 

Rebekah is petite, a couple inches shorter than I am, and very thin.  She has bright red/orange hair that she wears down to her waist and usually in a braid.  Her eyes are green, and nearly translucent, and she has dimples when she smiles. 

Sarah is little, as you know, and has a mop of dark curls that fall to her shoulders. In the sunlight the highlights in her hair are a dark red and I knew people in school who paid a fortune to achieve the same results.  Her eyes are a deep cool green that remind me of still swampy waters.

Princess is my size, about an inch taller, and as you know she used to have dreadlocks, she also has several tattoos, large ones, on her arm, back, and thigh.  Her hair is golden blonde like you would imagine a surfer girl to have, and her eyes are also green.  Princess is just Princess and no words seem adequate to describe her, she’s eclectic and odd and wise.