The Age of Zombies: Sergeant Jones (18 page)

With a killer headache that wasn’t going away, Jones disembarked from the Boeing 737. He rented a Dodge Charger from LAX. By by the time the sun had set over the City of Angels, Jones made it to his motel room in South Gate.

This particular district of Los Angeles was an absolute mess of the human condition. But Jones found some solace in the decay. As he unpacked his car he couldn’t help but notice the old man pushing a cart full of corn on the cob that he hawked for a buck apiece, the mother with a stroller and five kids in tow, the pack of
vatos
 that mobbed in unison down the boulevard.

The whole scene was a vivid display of poverty and pride. The neighborhood was a backdrop for people who scrambled just to survive. Everybody here lived fully, even if they lived on the edge. Honor was still practiced in South Gate, and Jones could see it in the stride of the
vatos
 with their clean shaven heads and neatly starched clothes. The mother didn’t dote on her kids but she exercised pure patience and love as they chattered on in Spanish, tugging at her shirt. The man selling corn on the cob had a shiteating grin spread across his face as he hawked the food. He loved what he did.

And somewhere in this jungle of concrete and palm trees was a man that would help Jones find the people he loved.

He checked into the motel and threw his bag onto the ground. The first thing he did was unpack his weapons. He brought two pistols, a shotgun, and six grenades. Jones had a connection that was able to smuggle military ammunition into the United States on the black market. Jones figured that a grenade might be helpful when face to face with a pack of giant cannibals.

The second thing he unpacked was a bottle of bourbon. It was cheap stuff, but it’d do the job. He twisted the plastic lid from the bottle and threw it straight back. After a swig or two his muscles relaxed and he sprawled out on the bed cover. The booze didn’t touch his headache.

The bedding smelled like stale cigarettes. Jones turned onto his belly and stuck his face deep into the covers. The smell wasn’t bad enough to keep him from the edge of sleep. In the past three days Jones had only caught five or six hours of shut eye. Sleep, he realized, was the only refuge from the headaches.

He took another couple pulls from the bourbon and fell back onto the bed. Just when sleep was on the verge of taking him in, Jones got a call. He picked up his iPhone and looked at the screen. It wasn’t a number he recognized. He let the phone ring and go to voicemail. He figured it was a telemarketer.

Sleep was within reach when the phone rang again. Same number. Jones let it go to voicemail, and tried for sleep again. But whoever was trying to get a hold of Jones wasn’t going to give up easily. All Jones wanted was a little rest. The phone rang a third time. He picked up the device and answered.

“Who’s calling,” he said.

“God damn, Sarge,” a familiar voice on the other end of the line said. “I’ve been trying to call you all day. We’ve got to talk, man. We’ve got to talk.”

Hearing the voice brought Jones back to a place he had tried to put behind him. “Damn it, Wimpy,” he said. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“Yeah, Sarge,” Wimpy said. “You too. Man, I’ve got a lot to tell you. A whole lot. You might want to sit down for all this.”

Jones was happy to hear from Wimpy, but he didn’t have much patience for him at the moment. Sleep was what Jones needed. He could hardly think with his head throbbing, let alone communicate everything that had happened up until this point. There was no way he could confide in this grunt right now. “I’m actually in bed,” Jones said. “I was trying to get some shut eye.”

“You’re gonna wanna be up for this,” Wimpy said. He took a deep breath before continuing. “They got Roddy. They got Roddy, man. It’s so whacked out. They got Roddy.”

Jones couldn’t respond. He felt lower than dirt for not being able to do anything to save his friend. He had put the whole event in the back of his mind, burying it beneath the will to save his own family. He wasn’t planning on grieving until his own objectives had been met. But now Wimpy’s reminder had Jones feeling real low. “I know Wimpy. I already know. I heard everything. I heard them kill my friend.”

“No Sarge, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Roddy’s not dead. They just arrested him in D.C. Man, you’re not gonna believe this. It’s over the top. Way too much.”

Jones ran the call through his mind. He replayed the agonizing screams, the tortuous howls that were unleashed by Rodriguez and his family. There was no way that anybody survived that attack. Roddy was dead. He had to be. If he wasn’t, he would’ve got back in touch with him. There was no way that his friend was still alive.

“Don’t you wanna know what happened?” Wimpy said. He was surprised that Jones wasn’t all over this. He knew Sarge to be a man who fired on all pistons. “He stormed Capitol Hill. He didn’t get far, but he did some damage. He was like a monster, man. He was biting and scratching anybody he could get his hands on. They say he was ripping chunks of flesh and eating it. About thirty five people were mauled before they shot him.” Wimpy started to laugh. “And you know the funny thing about it? The cops shot him about eight times before he fell. The funniest thing? He’s not dead, Sarge. The fucker’s still alive and kicking. They’ve got him at some military hospital. They won’t say where. And the craziest part? When they found him, he was covered in worms. Fat, white worms.”

The pieces started to come together for Jones. Roddy was attacked and kept alive. Shortly after this, he went on his own rampage. He attacked as a cannibal. The thought that this was some sort of zombie phenomenon crossed his mind. It was foolish to think that zombies were real. But Jones was prepared to leave plausibility at the door. Less than two months ago he been on a transport mission in Afghanistan, and his fireteam was ambushed by two giants. They were cannibals. Nothing like Jones had seen before. They left evidence of consuming hundreds of US soldiers. And now that Roddy had turned to cannibalism himself, the prospect of zombieism seemed very close and real.

Jones was facing a threat much bigger than he originally imagined. It was a threat that was much greater than he, or the world, was ready to digest. He knew he couldn’t face it alone. Wimpy had always been a loyal grunt, ready to move and fight at the drop of the hat. But he was a wild card. “Wimpy, none of this surprises me,” Jones said. “These damn monsters have hit my own family. I think they’re after us. And I think they’re zombies.”

“Damn, I was afraid of that,” Wimpy said. “But there’s more, Sarge. You know that shit that went down in Kansas with the kids going to church camp?”

“Yeah, the bus incident.”

“Big Boy’s sister was there. They got her and her whole family. They’re after us, Sarge. I know they are. It’s those giant freaks we found out in the mountains. They’re after us.”

“I know it, Wimp,” Jones said. “We need to work together. Where are you right now?”

“I’m in Colorado. Outside of Denver.”

“Get your ass to Los Angeles.” Jones reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his pack of cigarettes. He lit one up. The smoke was warm and calming as it entered his lungs. “That’s a direct order.”

Jones ended the call. He had a pounding headache now. Every thought was an exertion that inflamed the throbbing, dull pain that radiated from the inner core of his brain. Jones tossed his phone onto the nightstand and plopped back down on the bed.

He was out cold until a car backfired and abruptly disturbed his sleep. The haze of fatigue and pain, coupled with the trauma of combat, caused an error of judgement. Jones mistook the car backfire for a flash of gunfire or an IED. His brain kicked into danger mode. He shot up out of bed and went straight to his shotgun. He aimed it at the motel’s steel door, waiting to blast anything that moved.

Nothing was there, of course.

He threw back some more bourbon. He sat back on the bed and turned on HBO. A rerun of
Game of Thrones
 was on. He watched it until the end, sipping the bourbon as the show progressed. Once his nerves were calm again, Jones prepared to find the man he was looking for. He packed up his weapons and gear, and dialed the number that Cockroach gave him. Jones jotted down the instructions to his house.

Casper didn’t live more than a half mile away. Jones thought that his motel’s neighborhood was gritty, but this one was much worse. Broken glass and crack fiends littered the sidewalk. The only commerce in the neighborhood involved guns, liquor, or payday loans. There were several spots along the street where bouquets of flowers were placed, along with pictures of young men, forty ounce bottles of malt beer, and candles with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe painted on them.

Fallen soldiers, Jones thought.

He made it to the right house, which was neat and tidy compared to the others around it. The lawn was well groomed, and hosted several flower beds, which were blooming with tulips, daffodils, and poppies. There were a couple red rose bushes on the side of the house.

Jones knocked at the door and waited. After a minute or two, the door creaked open.  

“Hey brother, I’ve been waiting for you. Come on in.”

Casper stood in the doorway extended his hand out to Jones. They shook. Casper stood five foot six inches and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck fifty soaking wet. He wasn’t the cartel hitman that Jones envisioned, but he vaguely fit the part. He was incredibly pale. He wore a wife beater and a pair of gray sweatpants, along with some navy blue house slippers. He wasn’t intimidating at first glance, but the more that Jones studied his features, the more this guy looked like a killer. It’s hard to mistake the face of a killer. Something’s taken from a man when he kills. His own vitality is sapped, and some new spirit, a shadow’s touch, grafts itself onto one’s face.

Casper had this sort of face. It was sunken in, shadowy, and mean. He rolled his tattooed neck, letting out a couple nice pops. “Cockroach says you and I have a lot to talk about.”

“That’s right,” Jones said. “The name is William Jones. Most folks just call me Jones.”

Jones stepped into the house and sat down on the sofa. He felt prepared for this meeting. The nap had grounded him. Jones was well aware of how sleep could make or break a man when entering high intensity situations. The service taught him that. And he had a hunch that whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be much, much worse than what he ever had seen in the battlefield.  

Jones offered Casper a cigarette. The two men lit up. “The monsters got my family,” Jones said. He wanted to get right to the point. He respected Casper for welcoming him into his home to find a solution and rescue their families. He figured that he’d cut to the chase. “And I have experience with them. Back in the service, my fireteam was running a mission. It was an important transportation operation.”

Casper lifted his eyebrow. “What were y’all carting around?”

Jones didn’t talk about classified information. But he wanted to make an impression on Casper. More importantly, Jones needed to gain his trust. Missions of high importance are only delegated to soldiers who can do the job right. Jones was that kind of soldier. He needed to gain Casper’s confidence  in short order. They had to work together as a team to find their families. “Four and a half billion US dollars,” Jones said. “Cold hard cash, meant for the government in Kabul.”

Casper shook his head and furrowed his brow in humored disbelief. “Damn homie,” he said and blew a couple smoke rings. “I don’t even wanna know who you were fucking with over there.”

“Sometimes it’s best not to know,” Jones said enigmatically. “I’ve seen a lot of shit over there. Spent eight years. Not planning on going back. At the same time, I always knew I wasn’t cut out for civilian life. Ever since I was a kid I remember a voice telling me that I was meant for the warrior’s path. It’s funny man. Something in me dreaded coming home to my family. Whenever I was out in the forsaken lands, the barren deserts and the bald mountains, I felt at peace with myself. Even when war raged all around me. Afghanistan and Iraq are places that aren’t of this earth. When you’re over there, you feel closer to heaven and hell.”

“That’s some spooky shit,” Casper said. He kicked back on the couch, cracked open a Pepsi, and took a sip. “But I feel you, man. It’s the same way with me and the streets. I was raised right. Both of us brothers were. Our father was an astrophysicist for Chrissake. Mom was always home. She was a painter. Watercolors, oils, acrylics. You name it. And look at me. All tatted up. Prison tats, man. This one right here,” he pointed to a wild demon painted on his left forearm with red tattoo ink. “I earned that on my first kill.”

Jones shook his head. “We’re fated to kill.”

“And to be killed,” Casper said.

“Not before we find our families first.” Jones reached into a black leather bag he had brought with him. “This is a picture of my family. My wife here, her name’s Vanessa. I loved her.”

“Hey, don’t give up hope,” Casper said. “We don’t know what’s happened with her.”

“No man,” Jones said. “I know she’s alive. I can feel it.”

Casper bobbed his head up and down with approval. “That’s love man,” he said. “Feel the same thing with my wife, wherever she is.”

“I don’t love Vanessa,” Jones said. He thought back to coming home early from deployment. How innocent things felt then. Picking up Emma Jo and tossing her in the air. Taking her to Dairy Queen. Sleeping in with Vanessa, and waking up and watching Saturday morning cartoons. All of it spoiled the minute he walked into his own bedroom to find his wife grinding her ass on some jogger dick. “I don’t lover her, man. But I am gonna rescue her. She’s the mother of my daughter. And she’s about to give birth my son.”