THE SAGA OF THE DEAD SILENCER Book 1: Bleeding Kansas: A Novel Of The Zombie Apocalypse (19 page)

I open the blinds in the kitchen, let in the morning light, green and pleasant through the leaves. Plenty of time later for the harsh unsheltered glare even the dead prefer to avoid. For now I hold this mug to my nose, draw in the bouquet of this fresh-ground coffee. If this isn’t the last time, it’s close enough. What beans are left h
ere will mold and rot before we can use them. And that will be it. Hell, we’re probably done with bananas already.

And everything that was made in China will stay in China and so fucking what? I won’t be making red-of-fang-and-claw love to young steel-eyed blond
es any time in the foreseeable future, either. Adapt and overcome, chump. ‘Tis better to have indulged and lost than to never have indulged at all.

Besides, I think as I open the heavy wooden blinds one at a time, comfortable in air conditioning, a pretty house in a pretty neighborhood makes damn near anything tolerable. God, what
a difference shade trees make!

I flip the blinds near the corner by the patio and a girl’s dirty, mascara-streaked face looks at me from the other side of the window. She waves her hand frantically, looking towards one side, mouthing the word
 
Help
, her eyes squinting tears.

I expect her to meet me at the back door, but she crouches where she is, cryi
ng. I go outside to meet her. I squat beside her outstretched leg. The wound is scabbed over but blood and serum still leak out of it.

“At least it’s not a bite,” I say. “How’d you get this?”

The girl, barely of legal age to drink by the looks of her, looks up at me. “You don’t know?”

“Would I be asking if I knew?”

“You’re not, you don’t—? Oh, God!” The girl begins sobbing. “We were dancing, it was no big deal, we’re out in the country, right? They told us it’d be okay. They said move closer to the golf course because old man Kerch goes to sleep at sunset. It’s really nice, all that food, stuff to drink....”

She catches her breath. “Then those people-things came out of the woods. Everywhere! Like one for every tree around the golf-course, they came out of the trees;
they came out of the trees!
”

She grabs the front of my shirt. “We
’re running back towards the house. Okay? Someone said, Shoulda known, no DJ, the bar’s half-gone, no bartender…but if they wanted to kill us they could have just shot us! 
Why didn’t they shoot us in our heads?
”

“That’s a bullet wound, then?”
It’s a long, scabbed-over tear, and by the looks of it, deep. The wider exit wound is where most of her bleeding-weeping is happening. A filthy, brownish-pink sheet of dried matter cracks and flakes around her calf and ankle.

“They aimed
their guns at our legs! Jeff was right next to me, he fell down. Katy and Jenny were in front of me; I think I caught the one that went through Jenny’s… Jenny was all bloody in the back, she just fell—!”

The girl catches herself.
She wants to scream, scream as hard and as loud as she can. She keeps looking around though, her jaw half-open and quivering.

“Did you used to live out here? Where’s your family?”

“Oh, please! They’re gone, okay! It was me and Jeff staying at his place. We lived in Northampton.” She glances up at the house, resentment brimming in her eyes. “We were 
nice 
families, too!” she says. “My dad’s place was bigger than most of these houses; we just didn’t have the yard and all these stupid trees!”

“So what are you doing out here with us poor white trash, then? Why didn’t you run home?”

“Evans sent out a text message about a herd walking through the neighborhood. I barely got away from the ones on Mr. Dougherty’s back lawn! What used to be his back lawn...why didn’t Mr. Kerch just shoot us all in the head? I mean, seriously, who lets someone fall to get eaten alive? You know him, why didn’t he?”

“No idea. I just met him yesterday.” Which is only half-true, of course.

“You didn’t hear Jeff scream when they caught up to him! I turned around and one of them was chewing his arm off at the shoulder! The arm, that other one was pulling on it, it came—oh God!”

“Are you the only one who got away?”

“I don’t know. They were even killing their own people! Those two big black guys who were watching the front door and the steps? They came down in the yard, waving us back with their pistols. They shot that one guy in the back of the leg. He started shooting back and that was good because I could run….” The girl’s face contorts in pain.

“Honey, I don’t know what to tell you except let’s try and get that cleaned up.”

“Can I stay here?”

“I don’t know about that….”

“It won’t be long! I’ve got relatives in Topeka!”

“I’ll bet they’ll love you for dinner,” says Rebecca. She’s maybe three steps behind me. Clean, pressed and sharp in her black dress and chau
ffer’s hat. The touchscreen of her phone beeps beneath her thumb.

A shrill squeaking noise strains from the girl’s wide mouth. “She’s…that mean bitch is Kerch’s driver! You—these aren’t good people! They killed those guys! They kill their own! You don’t think they’ll kill you if they decide they don’t like you anymore?”

“Mr. Grace’s eyes are wide open, parasite!” Rebecca says.

The girl looks around as the sound of an approaching vehicle fills the warm, early morning air. She looks at me, frantic. “I can’t run anymore on this! I think it’s infected!”

“If it isn’t, it’s definitely getting there,” I say. I feel sick. There wasn’t a lot I could do for her two minutes ago; there’s nothing I can do for her now. The phone in Rebecca’s hand is now a small .22, and she’s standing in the classic shooter’s stance, legs shoulder length apart, the barrel of her gun trained just over my shoulder at the girl. I step away.

A large white pickup stops in the driveway just behind Kerch’s black SUV. I hadn’t thought to look and see if it was still here; I’d presumed Rebecca was long gone. I realize now she was working this straggler detail.

Two young men come up the drive around the SUV. I recognize one of them from the cleanup job yesterday. They grin as they sight the girl on the side patio, her legs splayed beneath her, no longer able to even stand. “Hey, ‘Becca!” says the one I don’t recognize. “I see you and your new boyfriend are on the job!”

“
Shut up and take her away,” Rebecca says.

“All right!” says the one from yesterday’s cleanup crew. “
Gonna get us some of that hot rich-girl action!”

“I’ll bet she’s shaved down there!” says the other. Both take an arm and pull her roughly to her feet. A fat tear rolls over the girl’s cheek, smacking audibly on the concrete by her bare, bloodied feet. She looks up, meets my eyes. I look away.
 

“Goddamn it, bitch, stand up!” says the cleanup crew guy.

“She’s definitely not gonna be able to walk when we’re—”

A sharp firecracker
 
pop!
 Rebecca lowers her arms. The girl gapes forlornly at Rebecca. The blood pools in her jaw, spills over the corners of her mouth. The young men nearly drop her. “Shit, ‘Becca, what the hell!”

Rebecca’s arms come up in a smooth arc. The complaining one drops, his right eye a red-black hole. He pulls the girl down with him, and the other young man on top of them.

Rebecca looks down at the survivor. “You have anything to add?”

The young man shakes his head slowly.

“You sure?”

He nods.

“Can you take these bodies to processing? No more bullshit, and keep your dick out of the dead girl?”

He nods.

“Mr. Grace!” says Rebecca.

“Yes?”

“Take out your phone. Go to the menu. Go to Tools. Click on the Clock feature. Go to Stopwatch.”

I take out my phone. I get to the feature.

“Let me know when a minute is up. That’s how long Brian here has to get both bodies into his truck and out of here before I call in another crew to come get his.”

I click the virtual stopwatch. “Let’s see what you got, son.”

Brian already has the girl over his shoulder and is running with her to the truck. The blood pumping from her head soaks his backside when it’s not slapping and splatting along the driveway. He shrugs hard by the truck and the girl’s body flips over his shoulder, clunking into the flatbed. He’s three steps into a sprint back up the driveway when he slips in the gore and bellyflops. His entire front is covered in blood and dirt; he almost looks the part of a rough-and-tumble deader just back from lunch.

Yet he still has 2
5 seconds to go by the time he gets back to his companion. He’s halfway down the driveway in his truck when his time is up.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Derek,” Rebecca says.
“I’ll call the cleanup crew and get that mess taken care of.”

“I just hope I have enough time for coffee before Evans gets here.”

“There’s a travel mug in the cupboard. Use it.”

“Great. Thanks
.”

“I’ve got to get to work. Take care.”

“You, too.” I watch Rebecca walk away, her heels clacking smartly on the driveway around the pump-splatters from the unfortunate girl’s head.

I go into the house.
I pull the take-out box from the fridge. The shrimp and the lobster are gone, along with half of one steak. Well, shit. It’s the least I owe her for doing the laundry.

18

Evans is running late. At least I’m able to get some coffee in me. I’m sitting with a cup on the front porch, listening to the flies buzzing over the mess in my driveway when he pulls up.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” I ask, climbing into the Big Yellow Truck.

“I’ll be all right,” he says.

“For the sake of everyone planning on walking away alive today you’d better be.”

“It’s like Mr. Kerch said yesterday.
Real quick. In and out. Our job is to make sure these hammerheads we’re wrangling do their jobs. Which, after the example we set last night, shouldn’t be all that hard. By the way, can you tell me something?”

“What?”

“How is it we’re down another man as of this morning?”

“We’re down a lot more than that
after last night, I imagine.”

“
No!” he says sternly. “I’m talking about what went on after that fugitive got captured. I want you to tell me exactly what happened.”

“
The fugitive? You mean that little girl barely older than my own daughter with the gunshot wound on her leg? That barefoot waif who escaped getting eaten alive only to—?”

“I’m not asking about the girl,” he says angrily. “I’m asking what happened to—”

“Evans, I don’t like your tone and I’m not telling you shit!”

Evans keeps his eyes on the road but it’s clear he’s rattled. I just want to ke
ep pushing his buttons until his fat head explodes. He was annoying enough before but for some reason I really fucking hate this stupid, strutting rooster. 

It’s one thing to talk to
me like I’m the help who has no choice but to suffer for his bad day. But this is
my
bad day. What happened this morning was fucked up. Worst of all, there wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do but turn my head and look away like a common citizen chickenshit who doesn’t want to die either.

I knew better than express outrage in front of Rebecca and her aim with that little .22. Hell, I knew so well I didn’t even
 
feel
 that outrage until now. Which pisses me off even more. So congratulations, Evans. Your soft Veteran-of-the-Global-Tour-of-DoD-Golf-Courses ass is mine for the flogging until I can make peace with myself for being a pussy in the face of simple mean-ugly bullshit.

After a while, Evans sighs heavily and says, “I asked a simple question.”

“Why don’t you ask Mr. Kerch why he decided to kill his own personal security people?”

“Why don’t you?”

“I already know.”

“You do, huh?”

I look out the window on my side of the truck and pretend to be interested in the scenery. Seriously, I need to snap out of this. I’m getting into some serious mission creep. All I need to do is pack my bags and slip out of here. That’s all.

We’re taking that turn the red Caddy might have taken last night if it hadn’t been so important for the Good Families of Oak Blossom Lane to see how far Kerch would go to enforce obedience.
Out from the shelter of the trees I’m reminded of North Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs where it crosses the railroad tracks from the Old North End. You go from genteel old houses and shade trees to pawn shops and crumbling motor courts in less than 100 yards. Except the houses and lawns are considerably larger here, and the trees are so thick it’s like coming out of a cave. You’d never know what was back there.

A
trash-strewn tallgrass lot on either side, the road ends at a commercially zoned four-lane street. Beneath the naked bulb of the sun the cool shade of Oak Blossom Lane seems an unimaginable fantasy. We’re rolling through the Real America, that hellscape of fat blonde weeds pushing through sun-bleached blacktop, of litter nesting in the corners of empty storefronts. Now fully owned—by popular uprising!—by the very people who used to live and (sometimes) work in the flat-roofed buildings squatting along the stained and broken concrete.