The Zom Diary (35 page)

     Bryce and Molly follow behind me, dropping the dead, as we go.  We cover the distance much more quickly, now that our shooters are unburdened.  We follow the curve of the arroyo, silent except for the sound of the guns.  When I spy the boulder, the one we stashed our gear behind last trip, I turn and descend into the channel.  I stop at the rock and turn to them.

     “The tunnel opening is right around that bend,” I whisper to no one in particular, it’s as if I’m talking to myself again.  “This is it.  You guys head back.  Make for the ledge camp.  If I’m coming I’ll be coming in the next day or so, if not… Keep an ear out for the explosion.”

     Bryce starts to say something, but seems to change his mind.  He shakes his head and then shakes my hand before he focuses on the path back, raising his AK.  Molly hands me my Glock and says, “It’s out.”  I nod, squeeze her shoulder and turn away from them.  I exchange the empty clip for my last full one that I had secreted away.  Thirteen rounds.  I load it, chamber a round, and holster it before picking up my burden.

     I feel them standing there, waiting, and I call out as I walk away, “Get the hell out of here.”  I look back, and they are scrambling up the side of the arroyo.  Bryce reaches down to help her up and over.  Molly waves at me lamely.

     I come upon the tunnel just as a zom is teetering out.  He is missing his left foot, stumbling along on a bony stump.  I walk toward him and we lock eyes.  At arm’s distance, I feel the resistance in my mind and manipulate it.  He turns, retreating down the arroyo away from me.  So far, so good.

     At the entrance to the tunnel, I stop and reach into my right cargo pocket.  My headlamp is there.  I put it on and click the button twice to turn on the spotlight function.  My lighter is in my right pant pocket.  I flick it once to make sure it lights.  OK.  The road flares, all three, I have jammed into my left pocket.  I take a deep breath and head in.

     The shade of the tunnel is welcoming and at odds with the nervousness that I feel.  I tell myself to relax.  A few paces past the collapsed opening in the ceiling, I set the first tank down figuring it a likely spot for a cave-in.  I place it against the wall, long fuse facing towards me.  I switch the other free tank to my left hand, leaving my firing hand free.  The headlamp gives off good light, but it is weaker than I remember.  I pull out the first flare, remove the cap, and strike it against the top.  Red light hisses into existence.  I hold it before me, careful to keep it away from the blue wicks.

     The pressure from the cavern fills my head with fuzz.  I walk on, straight-backed, stiff legged and with a quicker step now that I can see further.  Suddenly, shambling forward, nude, long black hair, she reaches out to embrace me, and I turn to her, her fingertips inches from the flare.  She spins as I know she will and I follow her stink, deeper into the tunnel.

     I stop at the first cross junction and backtrack about ten feet before I place the other TNT encrusted tank of propane against the wall.  I figure that detonating it here will seal off the whole complex even if the tank at the entrance doesn’t go off.  That one is the last back-up, this is the second to last… hopefully the C-4 will do the job and these will just be redundant.  Less encumbered, I walk to the four-way stop, pause and drop the half-burned flare.  I light flare number two and continue on my way.

     The psychic resistance increases and more zoms come out of the dark to greet me.  I turn them with no trouble, feeling encouraged as the act becomes more familiar to me.  A small cadre leads me deeper into the tunnel now, an honor guard of sorts.  I reach the second cross junction and drop flare two, only a third of it has burned.  I light flare three and continue on, the light from the dropped flare fading behind me.  The smoke stings my nose, and my eyes water.  Deeper now, I notice the incline of the path.  I’m getting closer.

     New arrivals wrestle past the ones that I have turned and try for me.  I’m trying right back, and soon the ones that oppose me are trampled and turned by the mob that I drive before me.  The effect is thrilling, as if I’m riding a great wave.  A thought occurs to me as I near the end of the tunnel, perhaps fifty feet to go before things open up and get wet.  I take off the pack and check the fuse, raising the assemblage before me and I wait.  A lone figure stumbles through the throng, a tall thin man, ruined face, long black beard.  I let him come.  As he nears me, arms raised, I loop the straps of the pack over his arms and turn him, just as his fingers begin to grip my shoulders.  He turns, pack hanging from his chest.  I jog beside him and light the fuse before turning and running like hell.  I start to count.

     At thirty seconds, I see the first dying flare abandoned at the junction and hop over it.  I continue jogging, breathing hard, my lungs burn.  Somewhere along the way I get distracted and lose count, but keep running.  The explosion finally comes, knocks me flat and I slide face first along the tunnel floor.  A panicked thought enters my mind, but I shut it down when I realize that it is not mine.  I pull myself up and jog forward weakly, bleeding from somewhere on my head.

     The second flare is almost burned out when I come to the junction.  I light the fuse on the tank-bomb and begin to sprint, a new surge of adrenaline coursing through me.  I don’t bother to count this time, I just run.

     The next explosion is less intense, but still has a staggering force.  I hear a rumble and see an orange glow behind me.  I keep running, though my legs feel like lead.  The light behind me intensifies, then recedes.  Before me, the yellow rectangle of a setting sun.  I make my way for it hard.

     The last tank is still there as I left it and I pause long enough to light the fuse with the flare and then I toss it aside.  I stagger out of the tunnel and head right, toward the stash-rock.  I walk past it and turn left, up to the pan.  I take a dozen more steps and collapse.  The last explosion is loud.  I feel dirt and rocks raining down on me.

     I lay there at the edge of consciousness and notice that the oppressive pressure from the cavern is fading.  Another sending comes to me and I am too weak to block it. 

     Rage, and the voice, the same as before: 

     “There is no sweeter taste than the flesh of your enemies, none more bitter than their kiss…”

     “I guess this concludes our friendship.”  I send the thought out with equivalent of a mental shrug.

     “You can’t kill a thought, or put smoke back in the jar.  We’ll remember your face and you will despair.” 

     There is a brief pressure on my throat, but it fades away as the voice dies.  I try to stand, but my legs are exhausted.  My back feels tight, and I just now realize that the odd smell that had been following me is that of burned hair. I collapse.

     I realize that I have passed out, but it seems not long before the world comes back to me.  Like nodding off at the wheel.  The sun is down, casting the last of its glow around the shoulders of the hills behind me, an after-thought of light.  Staring up into the sky, I notice wisps of black smoke drifting about me, rising to the void.  I hear footsteps.

     I don’t feel any pressure in my mind, but I can’t trust that sense any more.  I strain to roll over and see my assailant.  I get myself onto my hands and knees and look up to the direction of the sound.  My head will only rise so far, it feels like the worst sunburn ever on the back of my neck, and then the first thing to cross my vision is a silhouette, formed by the presence of a tall individual.

     A voice breaks the silence, masculine and quavering, “Kyle?”

     The footsteps quicken, and I can see that it is one of my companions.  So much for sticking to the plan, I think, as I sink back to my chest.  I feel hands gently pull at my side, and I am rolled onto my back.  I wince at the pain, my body’s weight at odds with frozen muscles in my back, and Bryce stares down at me from the side.

     “So, I guess it worked?”  I speak.

     “Yeah, I guess so.”  His eyes look vacant.  

     I try to get up again.  No luck.  “Yeah, not bad Bryce, thanks for asking.  Just really stiff, maybe if you give me a hand?”

     I raise mine weakly, and Bryce pulls.  I am able to get to my feet, though my head suddenly feels light from the change of position.  I stagger, and he supports me, one arm across my chest.  “Where’s Molly?”  Bryce looks through me and his voice cracks softly.

     “Gone.”

     “Oh.”

     I feel bad that I don’t know what to say, so I just let the silence hang there.  I’ve never been good at these kind of talks, and I wasn’t sure about the nature of their relationship in the first place.  It had all seemed so out of character.  We’re just standing there, the both of us, trying to breathe around the wisps of tar-smoke.

     “Can we turn around? I want to see.”  We do.

     Before us is the pan, and perhaps quarter mile distant, a great column of fire, glowing in the dim light through a thick cloud of black smoke.  A doomsday plume drifting east.  It reminds me of CNN images from one of the Gulf wars.  After a while he helps me turn again, and we start the long shuffle toward the hills.  The silence starts to get to me.  Imagine that?  After all these years?  I ask Bryce what happened after they left, when I went into the tunnel.  He tells me plainly, without emotion and I can tell that he really needs to tell someone, but that if I hadn’t asked he never would have.  I feel guilty about that.

     “We started to make for the camp, but had to stop once or twice when the zombies got thick.  We cleared most of them out towards the hills, it was going fine.  Molly kept on saying that we should go back for you, that it was wrong to leave you out here.  We were taking turns with the AK, but we were almost out of ammo.  I kept it, with only a few rounds left.  I said we could just avoid them, make for rough terrain and lose them.  She kept saying that we had to clear a path for you, in case you were coming back hurt.  She was checking a dead soldier for ammo or weapons and he… got her.  Came up all of a sudden and tore out her throat.  I wasn’t even paying attention.  Just like that, she was gone.  Then I heard the explosion and saw the smoke, so I turned back.”  He stops and offers me some water, I accept gratefully.  I’m standing on my own now, weakly.  His voice starts to get emotional.  “I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

     “I’m sorry Bryce.  I don’t know what to say…”

     “I need you to do something.  You’re strong enough to get on by yourself right?”

     I nod, feeling the burnt remains of my beard falling off the right side of my face.  I reach up to feel at it and wince.  The heat singed my eyelashes, making them all curly and they tangle when I blink.  I feel like hell, but it all seems cosmetic, the machinery still works.

     “I think I’ll manage.  What do you need?”

     “She’s,” his voice cracks, he takes a deep breath and continues but I’m dreading what he’s going to say, that I’ve already guessed, “she’s out there.  I couldn’t do it.”

     I reach for the AK and he lets it go weakly from his fingers as he collapses to the flat, flat ground.  Crouching there, bouncing on his heels, the tears come for the first time.  “That way,” he points ahead of us, “you’ll feel her when you get close.”

     I pop out the clip and check the ammo.  Four rounds plus the one in the chamber.  “I’ll be back, just stay here.”  He’s nodding.  All I can hear is the wind ahead of me, clean for the first time in a while and buffeting my ears.

     She’s right where I knew she’d be.  A bright spot on my tender mind.  I think about that last comment from the Prophet and wonder about what he’d said.  Had he known? 

     She is a bloody mess.  God!  The front of her clothes are slick to her body, and still her gaping wounds drip.  It is her, and it isn’t her.  Same as any other time I’ve seen a friend after life had left them.  If you’ve ever been there, you know.  I try not to dwell on it too much.  She needs me this one last time, and I’ll be that friend for her, same as she’d have been for me.  I do it as clean as I can, and afterwards I roll her on her back, set her legs strait, cross her arms and cover her face with my bandana.

     Bryce is sitting cross legged when I get back, smoking a little cigar he’d gotten from somewhere.  His fingers are steady, he looks at me from his red-tinged eyes.

     “So?”

     “She’s taken care of.”

     He nods, stands and thanks me again.  Some measure of control has come back to his voice and he sniffs loudly before continuing our talk.

    “After the explosion, some of the far off ones started to wander away.  Did you feel that?  I think we got the rest.  What happened down there?”

     I tell him about turning the zombies ahead of me, setting the bombs, and even the last conversation with the Prophet. This seems to satisfy Bryce.  That man’s existence, in any form, had been an irritant to him for some time.  I feel that there was more to that story than I knew, but I just don’t care, torn and exhausted as I am.  We walk on for some time, coming to the hills in total darkness.

     We cross the hills the next day without much incidence.  I am beyond sore, but I knew a longer, if less strenuous, route over.  We take it.  Neither of us notice or feel any of the dead, all the way over and out to the orchard.

     He tells me that he is fine, but I insist that he stay for a few more days with me.  I don’t think he is the suicidal type, but I’ve seen such an array of emotions over the past couple of days.  Plus, I think he wants to be around someone.  He sleeps in the shack and spends his meals at the barn with me.  After the second day, I feel like a healing has settled upon me.  I feet stronger every morning and after I shave I feel better on the outside too.  Still, all that either of us do is eat, drink, sleep and stare off toward the hills, before cutting our eyes back to the ground.  I can tell things have changed.  After a week, he leaves without saying anything.  And as I sit on my steps watching him walk down the driveway, I feel the first tinge of loneliness that I can remember in a long time.