The Zombie Letters (27 page)

              They left that afternoon. The bottoms were easy enough to navigate, but when it got to the city limits, they’d have to think about finding a means of transportation other than walking. They found the bike shop. It still had quite a few bikes hanging on the wall displays. Dennis’ bike had a busted chain. He had no idea how the hell he got home and when it broke. Shit, a bullet probably hit it. It appeared that a few others saw the bikes the same way Dennis did. Most of the choice ones were gone, but thank god there were at least three left that they could use. It was about evening when they got to the base at the edge of Mayfield. The second they saw it, they knew that no living person was there. Ana Garner sat on her bicycle, keeping an eye on the place as Dennis and Christian went inside. Before all this hell happened, the night was her favorite time. The world used to sing lullabies to its inhabitants. Such a peaceful time that Ana would just sit out for hours and stare at the stars. Now, the darkness meant something different. Every rustle in the trees, every snap of a twig or rock knocked about by the wind was potential death. Trash blew all over the streets in between the abandoned cars. Bodies were black and bloated, lying face-down everywhere. The stench was inescapable. The death would slip out of the black and take the closest person into it. Then it would cover itself up again, leaving the streets to the empty cars, fires, garbage and bodies. The creatures were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Waiting outside of the base was the point when she had been the most frightened. The men could come out partially eaten and brain dead. They could come out alive, but every normal sound Ana heard around her could have been the things that surrounded the base by the thousands . . . their teeth yellow and rotten, their eyeballs discolored. All the drowning victims would be bloated and purple. Some would be walking around from morgues mid-autopsy. Others would be carrying their limbs with them like suitcases . . .  walking skeletons with their burial clothes still on.

              Ana looked up at the moon. That one crater . . . the dark one. The Sea of Tranquility. Truly the loneliest place in the universe. When she looked at it, it felt like a filtered reality. She could pretend. Up there, the whole place was untouched while Earth fell to pieces. If someone were up there right now looking back at Earth, they would have no idea that they were looking at a place soon-to-be more desolate than the lunar surface itself.

              Ana gasped as the men emerged from the base. She’d literally been holding her breath. Warm tears filled her eyes. She ditched the bike she sat on and ran to embrace her husband. He simply stood there, not returning the hug. Not one kiss. He stood there, stiff and wooden. She slowly pulled back from him. A commanding tone was always taken with her, yet he spoke quietly and carefully around Dennis. On the way to the base, they stopped for a moment to allow Dennis to rest his legs. A stray cat came up to Christian and started rubbing on his leg. Christian picked up the cat and carried it with him as they searched around for people. Anyone. Christian held that cat the whole time, even breaking open a vending machine so he could feed it something. Dennis always had a well-calibrated shithead detector, but this one was a hard nut to crack. Christian Garner looked like one of those oppressed-types. Maybe the wife had done something to
him
and he resented her for it. Who knows. Some marriages have some unforgiveable moments, but strangely, they keep going on . . . like someone wearing a broken watch because they like how it looks. There are just people like that. They aren’t necessarily bad; they just always find themselves arriving to the Party of Life after closing time.

V

              The three of them hit it off pretty well, especially Vic and Frenchie; and why wouldn’t they? French was rich (not that it mattered much now), extremely good-looking, highly intelligent even by a doctor’s judgment and he knew how to fly a plane. Even when the world had turned to shit, he was still the most eligible male. As they sat around talking . . . actually, Vic and Alvin did most of the talking. Most of Darin’s toppings to the conversational salad were just a series of forced smiles and a shitload of nods. Alvin asked
her
if she’d like to see the plane. Her asked
her.
Not
them.
Doctor Miles liked the guy. He was polite and courteous, gracious and not douchey like rich people tend to be. He hated that twinge of jealousy he felt when Victoria’s eyes light up every time French spoke.

              “You coming, Doc?” she said, already beating their new friend out the door. “Never been in a plane before.”

              “No thanks . . . gotta make sure I guard all the food.” They both looked at him as if he’d sprouted antlers. “It’s a joke, guys . . .” Miles said. They chuckled a bit. Probably more out of pity than humor. Vic ran to the plane, yelling back at Alvin to join her. This was truly the first time Darin had seen her act totally safe and alive. Frenchie walked after her, fumbling in his pockets for his keys, not failing to turn around and give Darin a smile that suggested he knew he was going to fuck her.

Miles turned around and found himself a lukewarm diet coke in a busted vending machine. It was probably already expired and as flat as tap water by now, but who gave a fuck anyway.

“Darin?” Alvin’s voice said behind him. His voice was quieter than normal. He sounded concerned. Sincere.

“Yeah, French?” Darin said, trying to mask the growing contempt in his voice.

Alvin walked in closer and put a soft hand lightly on the doctor’s shoulder. He placed his hand there like that shoulder was fragile or something. Like it was made of fucking glass. Alvin knew, though. Miles had told him the whole story. Alvin did this because those shoulders had the weight of the world on them. He knew. “Darin . . . just tell her how you feel.”

Darin stopped. Even his heart seemed to hold up a beat. He wasn’t sure how to process what he’d just heard. French smiled and gave Darin the slightest of nods. He meant what he said. “I’ve tried, my friend. Trust me.”

Alvin nodded and walked to the door.

“Frenchie?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a good guy. You’d make Vic very happy.”

“No, pal . . .” he said. “Everything I had that made me special once is useless now. You need to realize just how truly wealthy
you
are. Wealth and success have nothing to do with money. I’m just lucky to have more paper in the bank account, man. That’s all it is now. Paper. You outshine me any day of the week. I don’t care what your hand was in all this. She don’t either. You’re blameless because your intentions weren’t bad like your partner’s. Let it go.”

Darin sat still, saying nothing.

“Sure you don’t want to come with us?”

“Yeah. I was one of the most prominent doctors in my field, partner. I’ve seen more planes than most plane manufacturers have. You guys have fun. Take ‘er up if you want to. She’d enjoy that.” Darin called Alvin’s name as he walked away. He didn’t hear it. He just kept walking. The plane could be seen from the doorway of the small airport eatery and he could see Vic waiting by the pilot’s door, smiling. She caught Darin’s eye for a moment. In an unparalleled act of uncharacteristic guts on his part, he blew her a kiss. Her smile dropped for a moment and already, Doctor Miles could feel his face flush.

Fucking moron. Why the hell did I do that?

Her smile slowly returned and she pretended to catch it in mid-air, right in front of her face. She clasped her hand around it and placed it into her jeans pocket. Giving him a cute wink, she patted her leg where the invisible kiss was and returned to her imminent tour of the Cessna. For a moment, Darin thought he heard something shuffle in the room behind him. He quickly dismissed it and resumed to devour his half-open bag of stale Sun-Chips.

A loud click interrupted the empty space behind him. A cold, metallic ring pressed up against the back of his neck, but it was too late to react. Whoever pressed the firearm to his head had beaten him to the punch. “Don’t move, man. Don’t make a sound.”

“What do you want?” Darin said, letting the bag of chips fall to the floor.

“That ticket outta here your friend arrived on. Now . . . do exactly as I say.”

VI

              “What kind of airplane is this?” Vic said. She moved her hand along the outside of the plane like a blind man would.

              “It’s a 2004 Cessna 350. Just your run-of-the-mill single engine plane you get from diluting shares of stock away from twelve old farts who can barely walk to their cars, but can sell the hell out of my silly little smartphone apps.” The sound of a glass shattering made them both turn around. It came from the restaurant. Darin wasn’t in his chair anymore and the glass was lying in shards at the entryway. “Doctor Miles?” Frenchie said. He leaned into the plane and reached for the handgun. The gun he wanted . . . and the spare assault rifle in the back seat were missing. “Darin?” Alvin called out to him again. No answer. Alvin opened the cockpit door and reached under the pilot’s seat. Holstered to the underside of the seat was the Godfather . . . as it always was. The Godfather had gotten him out of a couple scrapes in the past. It was always smart for a man with his amount of corporate enemies to have a little special hidden away somewhere. “Guaranteed that whoever took my guns missed
this
one.”

              “What kind is that?”

              Placing the loaded gun into the waistband at the back of his pants, Alvin whispered, “Smith and Wesson 642 Airweight.”

              Vic looked at it cautiously. “Six shooter?”

              “Five.”

              “It’s tiny.”

              “Yeah . . . the Godfather can still pack a punch, though. That’s what I like about guns. No matter which one you have, they all work the same way.”

              “Why do you call it Godfather?” Victoria asked with her head craned to the doorway. No more sounds were coming from the eatery anymore. She trailed off . . . listening for something and hearing nothing.

              “Guy sold it to me . . .” Alvin lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “. . . at a firearm convention in Chula Vista, California. His last name was Brando. Godfather, get it? I thought that Godfather would be a fitting name for the little gun.”

              “I don’t hear anything.” She lowered her voice too. Vic sounded shaky and nervous. She wanted to call out to Darin, but she decided against it. Something was happening. Someone was waiting for them.

              “Just stay behind me,” French said. He walked to the restaurant with Victoria behind him. “Wait . . . I have an idea.” Taking the small, rubber-gripped silver pistol out of the back of his pants, he walked ahead of Victoria and looked into her eyes. “Do you trust me? When I say that you
will
be alright, do you trust me?”

              “Yes . . .”

              Alvin walked behind her and placed the gun barrel-first into her back pocket, leaving the handle sticking out. “I’ll walk behind you. When the big guy with the rifle points it at you, put your hands in the air. I will do the rest.”

              “How do you know it’s a big guy with a rifle?”

              Last night I saw what I thought was a light on in the control tower. I waited until about two in the morning and I ran over there to see what the hell it was. There was a big black guy standing at the door with a gun.
My
gun. Thank God he didn’t see me.”

              “And you were going to fucking tell us this
when
?” she said . . . doing that kind of scream-whisper women know how to do so well. “Darin could be dead in there. If something happened because of you not saying anything, I’ll . . .”

              “We were going to leave tonight. Right after we ate, I was going to mention it. I swear, Vic. We
had
to eat, you know.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned with her back to him and shrugged it away. “Listen . . . the rifle I always keep on me is always loaded. The other one, in case someone wants to get a little antsy, is always loaded . . . with blanks. A little trick I learned from a Vietnam vet friend I knew.”

              “Really . . .” she said, huffing under her breath.

              “Yeah . . . really. We still need to assume that
he
had ammo, though. You won’t get hurt. I promise.”

              She walked ahead slowly. Her eyes darted to the tall tower at the end of the airport. It loomed over them like a watchful giant. From somewhere within the highly-reflective windows up there, she saw a shadow shift. Then . . . movement on the ceiling. All shadows. Like liquid.

              Candlelight.

              They walked inside and immediately saw Darin. He was standing at the far end of the room by the register on the counter. A large, dark-skinned man was holding a single-barreled, old bolt action rifle that Alvin had on the plane.
That
rifle wasn’t the one that had blanks in it. “Who the hell are you?” Alvin said, inching closer behind Victoria. She’d already had her hands in the air.