-44-
“Lucas, we’re leaving,” Danni said. She shuffled around the bunker throwing supplies into her backpack. Jared was busy doing the same. He hadn’t uttered a word since I climbed onto my bunk.
Kara: Daddy, I don’t think me and Mommy can wait much longer. Are you gonna be here soon? I miss you. I think Mommy does too!
I stared at the phone. Its dark keys mocked me, a dark lighthouse as I was lost at sea.
“Lucas, I said that we’re leaving,” Danni repeated. “You need to come with us.” She had obviously recovered from the shock of getting attacked by a horde of husks.
“I need to?” I asked without looking at her or Jared. “I don’t need to do anything other than see Lisa and Kara again. That’s all I need to fucking do. You want to leave? Go ahead, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“What about those people?” Jared asked, breaking his silence.
“What about them?” I snapped. “Just stay off the major roads. It looks like they’re traveling in large trucks and there’s a lot of them. It should be easy enough to avoid them. There’s a radio and maps in the Hummer. The preset channel is programmed to Senator Heathway’s frequency. Radio him if you need help or get lost.”
“Isn’t there a radio in your truck?” Jared asked.
“What’s your point, kid?” I asked.
“Shouldn’t one of the preset channels be programmed for your radio too?” Jared glared at me. He asked a simple question, but his words were loaded and sharp.
“Channel 2 is.” I stared at my phone. “Call Heathway if you get lost.”
“Lucas, please come with us,” Danni said.
“I already told you! I’m not going anywhere!” I rolled away from them. With my back turned, I didn’t see Jared leap for my bunk. Before I knew what he was doing, he had snatched my phone.
“It’s blank?” Jared asked. He pushed the keys and buttons on the side. “It’s dead. Lucas, this phone is dead.”
I leveled my pistol with the center of Jared’s head. I wasn’t proud of it. In all honesty, I didn’t even really think about it. I just wanted my phone back.
“Jared? Honey, let me give Lucas his phone back. It’s probably just the battery.” Danni slipped the phone from her son’s hand. She passed it back to me, but not before she looked at the screen and dark keys. “Here, take it. We’ll go.”
“But it’s blank, Mom,” Jared protested. “How can Lucas talk to his daughter on a phone that’s dead?”
“You must be mistaken, Jared. Now stop,” Danni said. Her words were sharp and caught Jared by surprise. He opened his mouth, slammed it closed and shouldered his backpack.
I watched Danni and Jared walk up the basement stairs. The floorboards creaked as they made their way out of my house. I listened to the back door slam. The Hummer rumbled to life. My phone vibrated.
Kara: Daddy, did you get my last message? Are you coming to see me and
Mommy? You know where we are, Daddy. We’re waiting at our spot. Hurry up,
Daddy.
It wasn’t dead. The phone worked. Jared was pissed off and scared, that was all. The message was right there in front of me. The keys were broken, but the phone worked. Jared didn’t know what he was saying. Fear had gotten the better of him.
“I’ll be there soon, baby girl,” I whispered.
I closed the phone and slipped it into my pocket. My own bag waited for me in the corner by the door of the bunker.
I threw the bag over my shoulder and took the stairs two at a time. Once I was out the back door, I cast a quick glance at my house. This house had meant so much, had protected the things I held precious. None of that mattered anymore. I was going to see my family.
Deep tire tracks cut across my yard leaving deep furrows in the ash. I could hear a few husks groaning behind a section of fence that hadn’t yet collapsed. It would fall soon enough. None of this mattered either.
I threw my bag onto the passenger seat of the Bronco II. I was leaving.
-45-
There had been so much blood – more than I would have thought a human body could hold and still he was breathing. The human body truly was an amazing machine. It could be abused and destroyed, but would still keep working, could still heal and rebound from whatever had been done.
A wet cough gurgled in his throat. Red bubbles burbled and frothed around the edges of his mouth. He rolled to the side and vomited blood onto the pillow. The stark contrast of the blood on starched white pillowcase almost looked artistic, something that could be framed and hung in a New York museum. Pollock would have approved.
I wondered if he would be able to heal, not that I cared. This man, whoever he was, didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was what this person had done. What could never be undone.
I barely knew this man’s name, had only recently learned that this person even existed. How could I hate someone so completely when I had only recently learned of them? When only a few words had been uttered between us? It had been less than a day since this person entered my life. In those few hours, he had irreparably altered everything I thought to be true, everything that I held dear. Still, I hated this man with such clarity – such resolve that it should have scared me. It didn’t.
Outside of the room, nurses and other hospital staff rushed past the room. A police officer was supposed to be stationed outside the room. He must have stepped out to use the bathroom. It would have been much harder to get in here if he had been where he was supposed to be.
The television was on, the sound leaking out of the tinny speaker attached to the bed controls. I couldn’t hear it. Some housewife that was more plastic than human staggered around in a cheap glittery dress spilling wine on her children and laughing. The kids look traumatized. How could anyone sign a kid up for that? Anyone who would didn’t deserve to be a parent.
Maybe I didn’t deserve to be a parent either.
Someone shouted outside of the hospital room. Muffled footfalls rushed down the hallway. I could hear someone yelling at me, commanding me to do something. Pain exploded in the back of my skull. A blinding burst of stars exploded from the corners of my eyes. It was dazzling, almost beautiful.
Handcuffs clicked around my wrists and pinched my skin. More people rushed past me as I was pulled from the room with my hands locked behind my back.
The stars flickered and faded under the sickly neon lights of the hallway. I watched them blink out of existence. I had watched too many things do the same earlier tonight.
-46-
Errant gusts of wind scattered ash across my windshield. I pulled the handle back to spray washer fluid, but it only created a thick paste for the wipers to smear and made the problem worse. I tried a few more times to clear my view and cursed as it continued to get worse.
The CB radio that hung from the underside of dash crackled and a garbled voice drifted through. I reached over to turn it off, but found myself unable to turn the dial all the way to the left. I never should have even turned the stupid thing on. Who was I going to talk to? Senator Heathway was a moron that had made his own fucking bed and I sure as hell was in no rush to make it mine. Danni and Jared knew what they were getting when they teamed up with me. My goal was never a secret. But then why had I turned the radio on in the first place?
“Damn it,” I grumbled.
Danni and Jared were okay, I’m sure they were. I had given them supplies, directions, guns and a truck. That was more than anyone else had going for them. And they could easily avoid those assholes from the auto plant that were heading towards Senator Heathway and his people. Besides, from what I had seen, those guys weren’t in good shape and probably would keel over before they got too far.
“Lucas?”
It was Danni.
I shook my head. I should have turned it off. I never should have turned it on.
“Lucas, are you there? Please, Lucas.”
Why was Danni radioing me? They left hours ago and should have been getting close to being out of range. With all the crap in the air, they shouldn’t have been able to radio me at all.
Reaching for the radio, I took my eyes off the road. The Bronco II bounced and pitched to the right as something smashed into the front bumper. I wrenched the steering wheel back in the other direction and fought to keep the truck on the road.
Through the greasy gray smear of ash that caked my windshield, I could see a husk clawing its way across the hood of my truck. The damn thing must have been wandering around on the edge of the street and leapt for my truck when it heard the noise. The husk was missing everything from the waist down, the impact having severed its legs. A thick, black ropey tangle of intestines dangled from the lower half of the husk like the tentacles of a jellyfish, leaving zigzagged trails in the ash. It beat skeletal hands against glass and repeatedly lunged for me with broken, brown teeth.
My NBC mask sat on the passenger’s seat. As I reached for it, a second and third husk scrambled onto the hood of my truck. The mask slid to the floor and wedged itself under the seat. I was eye to milky eye with three reanimated leathery corpses.
Small cracks spread across my windshield like the weavings of invisible spiders. One husk never would have gotten through, but three focused on one spot were a problem.
I stopped my truck and put it in park. I tugged on my mask, but it snagged on something. The husks continued to beat on the glass. I couldn’t risk going outside without my mask and firing through the glass was out of the question. A few seconds was all I needed. Just a few seconds to get my mask free.
An idea, a stupid, stupid idea bounced through my head. A dry laugh echoed strangely inside the cab of my truck as I turned on my windshield wipers. Thin lengths of rubber and plastic whipped back and forth on metal arms slapping the husks’ hands and faces. I couldn’t stop laughing and momentarily worried that I had finally snapped, but crazy people never worried about being crazy. Right?
One husk lunged for a wiper, missed and slid off the hood of my truck. The remaining two zombies clung to my truck. Glass creaked as they both pressed in on the same area.
My mask came free. I slipped it over my head and rolled down the driver’s side window. The smear of ash across the glass provided cover. The husks continued to attack the glass and wipers, completely unaware of my shotgun. I hung out a little further and pulled the trigger.
Spoiled black gel splattered across the hood and windshield of my truck, glistening in the ash like fresh droplets of fresh tar. I let out a strange laugh as my wipers continued to smear the disgusting mix across the glass. My laugh was cut short.
The world tilted and I watched as my feet slid out from the driver’s side window and pointed towards the sky. Pain exploded in my back as I crashed onto the pavement. Stars danced and hot pangs of stabbing pain radiated through my body.
The smell of blood and the sound of the car wreck would call to the husks. They would be here soon. I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be. I tried to push myself up, to bring my feet beneath me so I could stand, could flee. My legs felt heavy and useless.
“Lucas, please pick up! We need your help!”
Danni sounded panicked.
“Stop looking at your stupid phone!”
Jared sounded angry.
“Lucas, it’s broken. I don’t know where your family is, but they aren’t on the other end of that phone. No one is. I saw the screen. It’s blank. Please, we’re here and we need your help.”
My head rolled to the side. A hill rose at the end of the street, an island breaking through the ash and destruction that surrounded it.
The phone in my pocket vibrated, but I didn’t need to answer it to know who was calling me. Lisa and Kara were waiting for me at the end of the street.
-47-
GUILTY. I don’t remember hearing the word. I don’t remember the expression on the judge’s face. I did remember Lisa and Kara. They were all I could think about as I was handcuffed and escorted out of the courthouse. I was placed in a van, and two hours later, I was sitting on a wooden plank bench in the intake room of my new home.
The prison had a name, but does that really matter? No matter what name you gave the place it was still a prison. I think it had some former warden’s name honorably tacked on before the words ‘Correctional Facility.’ I never understood that phrase. How was locking all of the worst people together with nothing to do beyond getting worse going to correct anything? Don’t get me wrong, most of the people in here deserved to be locked up and had no business being loose in society. But if it was going to be called a Correctional Facility, one would think they would at least make an attempt to correct the things that had landed us there in the first place.
I didn’t need to be corrected or fixed or whatever. I wasn’t like the other inmates. My crime wasn’t about money or respect or being crazy. What I did was justice.
My first night in prison I couldn’t sleep. There were too many people around me, too much wasted life crammed into one place. Sleep and me had never really gotten along, not until I met Lisa. Then Kara was born and I never really slept again. I spent the entire night thinking about them. It was the worst feeling I had ever experienced.
I never wanted to be away from them ever again.