The Zed Files Trilogy (Book 1): The Hanging Tree (9 page)

“Mum’s the word,” I say and offer him a cigarette.  He refuses.

“We better get up to the house,” Kevin says.  “Although I ain’t crazy about teach’n any of them bitches to shoot.  They’re all nuttier than a truckload of PayDay bars.”

As we head into the house, I stop and grab some food. 
A couple of MRE’s, canned peaches, canned sausages, a packet of freeze-dried strawberries and a Coke.  I can replenish my pack in case I need to split in a hurry.  Of course, the mystery can is still rolling around in my pack.  I should open it now, chuck it out or give it away if it’s lima beans.  Or sauerkraut.  I could use the space.  I could stand to lose the weight of it. 

Outside the
gate, a Zed opens up with a long low howl.  The others join in and a chill runs up the back of my neck.  Maybe I will keep the mystery can and leave the surprise for later.  Without a later to think about once in a while, I might not be able to withstand the now.

Chapter 13: 
Shoot’n and Fish’n

“You’re not aiming,” Kevin says from behind Betty.  “And ya ain’t squeezing the trigger.”

“I am too
squeezing the trigger
,” Betty mocks, “or it wouldn’t be going off.”

“You’re
jerk’n the trigger,” Kevin says in a calm voice.  “When you jerk the trigger, it jerks the end of the gun.  The end of the gun where the bullet comes out.  If you squeeeeze the trigger, the end of the barrel doesn’t move and you hit what you’re aiming at.  If you decide to start aiming.”

“I look through which part again?”

We’re up on the wall beside the gate.  Betty and Kevin are on the bowling scaffolding on the east side of the gate while Tyler and I are standing on the west side.  All around the perimeter of the compound, big hinged sheets of plywood and metal all swing out on poles to form a catwalk.  Below us, at the gate, about fifty or so Zed are stacked up waiting for a meal or a bullet.

Tyler pulls out both pistols and cocks the hammers.  “I’d start with one gun,” I tell him with an arched eyebrow.  “Do as
ya like.  But ya ain’t gonna hit anything.”  On the other side of the gate, a round from Betty’s gun hits a rotting, middle-aged woman in her right shoulder, spinning her around and making her howl at a deafening level.  I turn with my AR-15 and zip one into her head to shut her up.  The kid standing behind her drops also.  His skull is missing from the eyebrows up. 

Tyler dumps a few rounds out of each pistol into th
e crowd below.  One poor shuffler takes it in the knee cap, another loses a finger.  An ear from a farmer is lying on the shoulder of a nun.  Black fluid leaks out of a little old man’s chest.  He looks like a zombie Gandhi with suspenders and pants that come up high enough to cover his bellybutton.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop,” I tell Tyler as I hold up my hands.  “I don’t think these things really feel pain. 
And fuck’em.  But.  You’re just making a mess out of everything and you’re not really learning.  Give me one of’em and I’ll show you what to do.”

Tyler tosses me the piece in his left hand.   “Great.  Thanks.  Next
time, put the safety on before you hand it to me.  It’s not a Frisbee.  This ain’t the movies.”  I hear Kevin laughing on the other scaffolding.   “Shut up over there.”  He laughs some more.  “Anyway, hold it in your left hand… you’re right handed, yes?  Good.  The left hand supports 70% of the weight.  Cock your wrist forward; put your right thumb over your left one.  Good.  Use just the tip of your finger on the trigger, keep both eyes open, look at the front site, put the dot on one of their heads and squeeze.”

A teenager with amazingly bad skin takes a slug through the bridge of his nose and drops to the ground.  A smile crosses Tyler’s lips as he lines up the next one.  On the other scaffolding, I see Kevin pull out a .45 like mine and follow the instructions I gave Tyler.  An obese woman with no top on takes it in the teeth.  The back of her neck explodes and she falls forward trapping two other
Zed beneath her.  Betty leans forward with the rifle and frees the two trapped zombies.

I see Daisy and Karen walk up in the courtyard behind us.  Karen has a lever action rifle.  Daisy has a glass of something and a handful of candy wrappers she’s braiding into a bracelet.  I motion them up onto our side of the wall but only Karen steps forward.  “Come on up,” I tell Daisy but she shakes her head no. 

“What’s with her?” I ask Tyler. 

He shrugs and finds his next target.  “She must be outta guys to blow for candy.”  Two more
Zed fall as his gun barks twice.

Karen hands me the rifle she’s carrying.  It is an old Winchester 30-30.  “Annie Oakley, I presume,” I say as she climbs up.  I start to offer to show her how to use the lever gun but decide to just wait until she asks.  She smiles a little bizarre smile and pushes a round into the side of the gun.  I raise my eyebrows and watch as she works the lever and brings the gun up to her eye.  A big hairy guy in overalls loses his hat and everything in it when she touches the trigger.  A quick rack of the bolt and one more goes down.  A late comer is about 75 yards away and crossing the road and she puts one neatly into his gourd as well.  I let out a long whistle.  “Nice.”

“It’s about an inch to the left on that last shot,” she says and turns to climb down. 

“I’m glad you didn’t have that when we met.  I’d have to learn to wipe my ass with the other hand.”  She actually smiles as she walks away.  All the light of the day seems to crowd around her and I suddenly feel cold and horrible inside.  I turn around and spend a few more rounds.

“Well,” Kevin hollers, “they won’t be drive’n in.  We done got the road blocked.”  He points at the mound of bodies below us.  A Zed trying to get to us trips and falls into the pile.  I put one in the back of his head and the pile grows taller.

A shot echoes up from down the road.  We all look at each other as several more hollow booms sound in the distance.  A chainsaw starts and we all start to climb down.  I give Tyler back his other 9mm and show him where the safety is.  It’s only a matter of time before he gives himself an extra ass crack.

Inside the main house, Daisy is mixing another drink.  “Mmmmm hmmm,” she says as she pours.  “Warm Jack and Coke.  Just the way I like it.”  She’s wasted and slurring.

“Make me one,” Betty tells her as she parks her rifle in the corner and sits down.  Kevin’s got a carton of some kind of orange flavored kid’s drink and his tequila.  Tyler’s found a can of Dr. Pepper to make his cheap whiskey go down.  I’m not sure this is a good idea right now.  I’m also not sure that it isn’t.

I leave them to it and head back to the bath house.  Which I guess is our house.  A chill rides down my neck and twists my head around in a slight circle as the thought passes.  Our house.  Jesus.  I should get my stuff and leave now.

Karen’s inside arranging her pack.  She sits on her knees with her feet folded under her as she folds a pair of pants.  She’s got a new handgun sitting next to her, looks like a .357.  It dwarfs the little .25 that she tried to kill me with last night.  The Winchester is leaned up in the corner.  She’s also packing food and a few medical supplies.  “Going somewhere?”

She looks up for a moment and places her hands on her thighs.  “Are you?”

“
Dunno.  Maybe.  It’s like they say,” I sit down and light a smoke.  “We all gotta go sometime.”

“You don’t have any family, friends?” she asks and keeps putting items into her pack.  I shake my head.  “No mother, no father? 
Brothers, sisters, friends?  Nobody?”

“Mom left with my aunt and uncle to go to Missouri.  Dad’s dead a long time now. 
Never had much use for friends.” 

“So.
  Only child.”

I start laughing.  “
Gonna figure me out.  Fix me up.  Do I tell you about my dreams now or do I stare at ink blots?”

“What happened to you?”  I shrug and raise my hands but that question always gets me.  It is the question everyone wants to be asked.  Some people talk like they are being interviewed on television by someone off screen all the time.  They start sentences with, ‘I really feel’ and ‘I’ve
always thought’.  We’d all like for someone to ask us what happened so we can spill our guts out in a Reader’s Digest abridged version of horrific events and unjust acts.  We want that look of incredulity on the face of the asker.  It’s so hard-wired and inescapably human.  “Something must have happened,” she says and tucks a bottle of pills into a side pocket.  “I’m guessing you were like this even before all… this.”

“So where are you headed?” I ask her.  The best way to not talk about yourself is to ask questions about the person you are talking too.  It also removes any chance of giving in and opening up.  Most people are more than happy to tell you everything.

“Nowhere,” she says and pulls the zipper across the top.  “Not yet.  But I want to go with you whenever you go.”

“Why?”  The question is out of me before I find the sense to not ask it. 

She shrugs.  “People need people.  I guess the less you need people, the more others want to be around you.  I don’t know.  But I want to be with you.”

“Want or need?’ I ask and take a deep drag. 
Needs get met.  Wants are never satisfied.  I don’t really want her to want or need me.  This whole conversation is making my head hurt.  I take another sip of the bourbon and try to think of a way to steer myself out of this mess.

“Both,” she says after a while.  “You still need people or you wouldn’t be here. 
Even if it’s to drive away the boredom of living.”

She makes scary sense sometimes.

“Come on,” I tell her as I get up.  “Let’s go see what everyone else is up to.”

She smirks. 
“Out of easy answers?”  She stands and pushes her pack off next to mine. The .357 goes in a holster she’s attached to her belt.  It’d be nice to have a holster.  Save a lot of wear and tear on my gun.  “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.  I don’t have to come with you.  But I think I’d like to come.  And I think you’d like me to come with you.  Think about it.  We’ve got a little time.”

She walks out and leaves me standing there looking like a jackass.  She’s bright that one.  Fast on her feet.  I watch as she walks up to the main house.  She’s got a great ass too.  This would be so much easier if she was fat and ugly. 
Or stupid. 

Or nice.

I hear a human voice up by the front gate.  Daisy is leaning over the rail of the catwalk, swaying in the steady rain.  She’s holding a mostly empty bottle of Jim Beam in her right hand.  Beneath her, pieces and parts of our target practice session are being trampled into the mud by the gathering crowd.  A long string of drool hangs from her lips and dribbles onto the Zed directly below her.  “What’re you look’n at?” she asks the Zed.  He looks to have been in his mid-30’s and still has a ‘Ford’ hat stuck to his decaying head.  His brown canvas jacket is torn at the sleeve as is the arm inside.  He looks up at her and snaps his lipless mouth.

I approach slowly and take the bottle out of her hand.  “Maybe you should get inside, get warm.  Drink a little water.”

“Maybe you should shut the fuck up and go away,” she says without looking up.  “See that one?” she asks as she points at her admirer.  “I’ve seen him before.  I seen him and a thousand more just like him.”

A small clap of thunder rolls overhead.  She grabs onto a rope that swings from the framework of the front gate.  “Yeah, we’ve all seen thousands of them,” I tell her.  “And there’s a lot more
come’n.”

She shakes her head no without turning around.  “No.  I mean I seen him before. 
At the club.  I’d spin around on the pole and let all of them look at my pussy and then they’d just stare at me.  Just like that guy.”  The Zed below continues to stare upwards.  Daisy raises her shirt for him; her perfectly shaped fake breasts hang pale and unnatural in the dying light of the evening.  “How you like that now, fucker?”  Her voice changes to that of a little girl’s.  “Are you in from out of town?  Where’s the party at later, baby?  $50 for a private dance after my set.”

Tyler calls up from behind me, “What are you doing?”

Daisy turns and leans out over the back edge of the catwalk.  “Look.  It’s my boyfriend.  The last man on earth.”

Tyler turns and leaves.

“Bye, baby,” Daisy calls out in her baby doll voice.  “Hurry back soon, okay honey?  God knows I can’t live without you.”  She hangs him the finger and turns back to gaze over the wall.  “Oh sorry, baby.  Don’t be jealous.  You’re the only fella for me tonight,” she pouts to the Zed.

She winds the rope around her wrist and tries to hoist a leg up on to the wall.  “
Look, baby, I’ll do a special dance just for you.”

She jumps at the sound of the shot, falling backwards onto the rope she’s holding.  The
Zed slumps forward into the wall with a thud, the small hole in his forehead funneling out to the much larger hole that sits where the back of his head used to be.  Another Zed steps on his body and takes his place at the front.  This one has on a golf shirt and chinos.  He clacks his teeth up at me.  “Shows over,” I tell him and re-sling my rifle.  I look at Daisy and smile.

“I don’t like you,” she tells me.

“You’re probably not alone,” I tell her as I turn and leave.

Kevin and Tyler are standing in the doorway of the main house when I get there. 
“Problems?” Kevin asks.

“You might
wanna go pull her down off of there.  Gravity’s a harsh mistress.” 

Tyler starts to head out
but Kevin catches him by the arm.  “You’ll get what you want if you don’t sulk.  Butt-hurt feelings are for people with time.  You ain’t got time.”

Tyler looks at me with
a blank stare.  “What the fuck do either of you know?”

Kevin
lets go of Tyler’s arm.  “You know, I was fish’n years ago with my dad.  Neither of us was catching anything.  I asked him, ‘Which lure are you use’n?’ And he said, ‘Son, you never ask a man who ain’t catch’n fish what lure he’s use’n.  Cuz it don’t matter.’”  Tyler’s brow wrinkles slightly into a question.  “I’m catch’n fish.  You ain’t.”