“I think so too.”
“Bye, Truman.”
“Bye, Lou,” Truman said. “Goodbye, Ramona.”
“You take care,” she said over her shoulder as she and the one they called Lou walked away. Her eyes weren’t as dull as other dead people’s, and her smile flashed again. It was a funny thought, but Will couldn’t help admiring how Truman got all the prettiest dead ladies to like him. Sometimes being nice did pay off, he supposed, though he wished Truman were being nicer now, like he used to be.
Will rummaged in one of the bags they’d brought. “Guys, I know this isn’t nice,” he said, “but I think if we’re going to get past the guards, it should look like you are restrained. I got some rope, a couple belts. You can put them on loosely. It’s just until we get on the boat.”
Truman glared at the restraints, but Lucy stepped forward and took them from Will. “Good idea,” she said as she put the belt around Truman’s neck. He acquiesced to her touch, but still stole angry glances at Rachel, who stood farther away. She was partly turned away from them, but it looked to Will like she was crying.
Lucy turned her back to Truman so he could put the other belt on her. She paused and considered Rachel for a moment.
Lucy turned her attention back to Will. “You got a knife in there?” she said.
“Sure.” Will pulled out a thin boning knife with about an eight-inch blade from the bag. “You want it?” This had to be the first time he’d felt better about Lucy having a weapon, rather than Truman.
“Yes,” Lucy said as she took it, slipping it under the sleeve of her sweater. She turned to tie Truman’s hands together.
Will saw the handle of a Beretta in the bag as well. “You want a gun, too?” he said, offering it to Lucy. Maybe if he showed he trusted Lucy, Truman’s mood would soften.
Lucy smiled and extended her hands toward Will, with her wrists together. “No,” she said. “Thank you for showing me how to use one before. I needed to know. But I don’t want one now. Tie my hands, please. Loose, like you said.”
Will stuck the Beretta under his belt in back, then started tying Lucy as she’d asked. He looked up at her as he worked, and she leaned her forehead against his again, as she had when they were on the boat, weeks before. This time it felt cold against his, but still oddly reassuring. They were as ready as they were going to be to try to make it to the boat.
The four of them neared the dock, passing among ruined buildings along the river bank. Lucy walked alongside Rachel, with Will and Truman ahead of them. The two living people held ropes tied like leashes to their dead companions’ collars. Will was right—they needed to do at least that, if they were going to pass as tame dead people and get away. But the charade seemed pretty thin, and Lucy didn’t put much faith in its success. Ever since she’d seen Rachel and Will coming toward her that morning, however, she knew she wanted to be with them and not wandering in the wilderness.
Truman had been right, of course, when he’d argued for leaving. He was right now, as she saw how angry and full of blame he was for their living friends. But for some reason that morning, those things didn’t matter to Lucy. At first it had been an almost aesthetic, sensual response—the two living people were so beautiful and alive, it just felt good to be around them, and an eternity of the dullness of the dead seemed so unappealing and dissatisfying to her now. But then, as she looked in Rachel’s eyes when she admitted her guilt to them, Lucy realized something more. She saw that in some way, the city had harmed the girl more than it had Lucy. Lucy could live with all the cruelty and brutality—though she now suspected that it had done much more damage to Truman than it had to her, and she didn’t know what to do about those wounds. But Rachel had been subjected to some more insidious contamination, and all Lucy could feel now was a need and a longing to cure her from that, remove the girl from the source of the disease and restore her innocence. That was a much better, more worthy goal than slinking off into the woods, and choosing it gave Lucy only joy and confidence.
Lucy made Rachel hang back a bit, so she could speak without the men hearing. She leaned closer to Rachel, who looked at her with wet eyes but didn’t try to pull away.
“Don’t mind Truman,” Lucy said. “He thinks too much.”
“He’s right,” Rachel said softly, looking down.
“He is, but it’s not always about being right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” Lucy blamed herself—she wasn’t the right person to offer rationalizations, so she felt a bit foolish to have begun this conversation. “I can’t explain it. Just don’t feel so bad, is what I mean.”
Will shushed them, and Lucy looked and saw a figure up ahead. She pulled away from Rachel and put on more of a pretense of shuffling, as well as trying to look as stupid as possible. As they got closer to the man, she recognized him as the cute one from the boat. He still had a shotgun and looked even more nervous than before.
“What the hell are you doing out with those two things?” he challenged them. “There’s all kinds of talk on the radio about trouble. So get the hell outta here.”
“We didn’t hear anything,” Will said. Poor guy was a terrible liar. If Truman hadn’t upset Rachel so much, she would’ve been a lot better at it, Lucy figured, but there was nothing to be done about that now.
“I should call CJ,” the cute one said as he reached for a walkie-talkie at his belt. God, he sounded like he was going to cry.
Fuck this. Will should’ve made a move by now. Lucy remembered CJ was the only one who looked competent in the bunch, anyway, and if he showed up with a couple more, there was no way they’d get to the boat. Lucy shoved past Truman and was on the kid before he could react, batting the shotgun out of the way and knocking him backward to the ground. She had the knife out and was about to give it to him across the neck before he could make a sound, when Truman grabbed her shoulder from behind.
“Don’t,” Truman said. “He wasn’t so bad. The other ones were worse.”
The kid’s eyes were wide as he stared at the knife. This just wasn’t a good day for killing, apparently. Things kept getting in the way. Lucy pressed the blade against his neck anyway, and lowered her face close to his, relishing the look and feel as he squirmed and whimpered under her.
“No?” she said. “What do you want to do with him?”
Will knelt beside her. “Turn him over,” he said. “I’ll tie him up. We just need for him to stay here a couple minutes while we get away.”
As Will tied the kid’s hands behind his back, Lucy leaned down closer to him. “Hey,” she whispered, breathing heavily in his ear. Unlike the guard earlier that day, this one’s revulsion didn’t seem to diminish as much when she touched him more. That almost made Lucy angry enough to do something more violent, but she contented herself with touching her teeth to his ear—not enough to break the skin, just enough to make him squeal incoherently. She pulled back a little and let him calm down as Will finished tying him up.
“You can talk,” he said finally. “What are you?”
“I’m a person, you dumb ass. And I can do lots of things. Like eat your fucking heart right now. But I didn’t. You understand?”
“Yes, yes,” he whimpered.
“Remember that the next time you point a gun at someone.”
“I will, I will.”
They continued after this encounter, Lucy more confident they might pull it off. At the gate to the dock, she saw two of the other guys who’d been there when they first arrived—the one with the big mustache, CJ, and the other young one who had gone off with Truman. They had both seemed like pretty big dicks, and Lucy really didn’t feel like sparing either one. Though they eyed her, neither one seemed too scared. Good.
“Hey, it’s the hill people again,” CJ sneered. “And you got your zombies back. You must’ve paid a bunch for them.”
“Yeah, we did,” Will said, making Lucy wish again that their spokesperson were a better liar. “But we got some left. We just want our boat back.”
“Oh?” CJ sounded a little more interested and cooperative at the mention of money.
“Yeah. Here. We just want to leave, so we won’t need this anymore.” He offered some bills.
Taking them, CJ gave the wad a quick inspection, before turning toward Rachel. “What about you, missy?” he said. “You sure look a lot better than when I saw you last. You bring some money, too?”
Rachel handed over some more bills. Lucy didn’t like how long this was taking. CJ stepped back, putting all the money in his pocket. “Good,” he said. “That’s a lot.” He smirked. “I got that. Plus all the money I got for you two a few weeks ago—guess I won’t get the bonus for you still being in the City Patrol, but this oughta make up for that. Oh, and maybe there’s a reward for turning you all in to the cops now. Paid three times for a couple crazy people and their weird pets—isn’t that something?”
“Yeah, it sure is,” his companion agreed as they both started laughing.
“It’s just like I told her—she’d always be somebody’s bitch.” The two laughed harder.
Truman surprised Lucy by snarling and lunging for CJ at that moment, and it gave her a clearer dive for the other guy. He’d barely raised his shotgun at all, and she had the knife up to the hilt between his ribs. Lucy twisted the blade as she bit into his cheek. The blood running down the knife handle to her arm was hotter than that on her lips, but all of it was sweet and satisfying, the life of some bastard who didn’t deserve it, spurting out onto her cold, dry flesh. His shriek turning all wet and gurgly just made it even more delightful, as did that stupid, shocked look in his eyes. Why’d people always look surprised at dying? It was infinitely more unbelievable that anything should be alive in this ugly, fucked-up world. But people overlooked the most obvious things, all the time.
Lucy turned just as she heard the blast of CJ’s shotgun. Shit. Truman hadn’t been quite fast enough, and he’d gotten shot in the stomach. Lucy lunged now in that direction, but as she brought the knife down into CJ’s neck, she saw he had a pistol in his left hand.
Lucy heard the bang and a howl from Truman at the same moment. Oddly, though she keenly felt the knife slashing into the wet flesh and more hot blood on her hand, the impact of the bullet under her chin was nearly imperceptible. Her already imperfect vision shut down immediately, though her other senses drained away much more slowly. She felt more tendons and muscles tearing as she pulled down on the knife with both hands, and a greater, more wondrous flow of blood down both of her arms. Then she felt the man’s body falling on top of hers as they both collapsed. Then someone’s hands on her face. She assumed they must be Truman’s, they felt so cold and rough.
He was the only object of regret and concern for her at that last moment. Everything else had been accomplished, and Lucy felt sure she did not have a shocked look on her face as she died a second time—everything was far too clear and certain for her to look like that. She would’ve liked to say something to comfort Truman, but her hearing was now gone, and she could not draw in more breath, so she only rasped, “Finished,” in a voice she hoped he’d realize contained nothing but joy.
Truman sat by the table in the main cabin. He wasn’t reading like he used to. Just sitting and staring. That was pretty much all he’d done since Lucy had killed the guards at the dock, and they’d dragged her body back to the boat.
“Truman?” Rachel said quietly, walking up beside him. He didn’t turn or acknowledge her. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Truman?” she tried again. At least he didn’t turn away. Rachel hadn’t decided what she was going to say, but knew she had to try. She’d betrayed him, left him and Lucy to suffer in that hellhole of inhumanity, put herself ahead of him and Lucy like they were nothing. It didn’t matter if he didn’t know every detail of it, he knew enough to blame and hate her for it. She knew enough not to fault him for that, too. Rachel knew she didn’t deserve his forgiveness and didn’t plan on asking for it, but she had to say something to express her regret, admit her guilt, at least. But you couldn’t just say that stuff without the other person acknowledging your presence.
“Does it hurt, where you got shot?” Rachel was pretty sure it didn’t, and was positive that wasn’t what was bothering Truman, but maybe making small talk would help.
Truman drew himself up. If he were still alive he might’ve taken in a breath at that point, but he just silently lifted his head and squared his shoulders. Then with a speed Rachel had never before seen from him, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward. She gave a little yelp, but not enough to alert Will outside at the helm. It was more just an involuntary gasp from being pulled off balance. Truman had pulled her hand across his body and now pressed it against the table, holding her there with her shoulder and arm right in front of his face. By his mouth.
He put his left hand on her shoulder, though his grip there was nowhere near as tight as on her wrist, which was painfully strong and spiteful. He craned his neck a bit, moving his mouth closer to her bare triceps, but still didn’t say anything.
Rachel stared at him as the shock wore off. She put her left hand on the table to steady herself, but didn’t try to pull away. “Truman,” she whispered. “Let go of my arm. You’re frightening me.”
“Good,” he said finally. “People should be frightened. There are lots of scary things in this world.”
Rachel’s mind raced. Oh God. He’d wigged out and gone feral. They should’ve known this would happen, especially after the shock and grief of losing Lucy. But he had a hold of her right hand, so going for the .38 at her hip was a non-starter. And besides—this was Truman. Rachel wasn’t sure she could draw a weapon on him anyway. He was distraught, and she was partly to blame for it—how could she think of killing him, on top of how she’d already treated him? So they remained there a moment, Rachel staring at Truman but unable to see his eyes or intuit exactly what he was thinking.