Moriah (25 page)

They prepared a meal and ate it. Kevin borrowed Dee’s minocular several times, focusing on the water tower, squinting against the glare as the sun sank on the horizon. Bruce’s figure was lost to them on the other side of the structure. No glow sticks shone.

When Kevin gave him back his minocular, Dee swept it from the tower to the house across the grass from them. A little kid’s face loomed large in the eyepiece. Dee lowered the field glasses, the child clear to him from this distance. He waved to the boy, who raised a hand tentatively in return before disappearing inside the house.

Riley asked the question that was on all their minds. “What are we going to do if the uncle doesn’t want to let us use his boat?”

“We’re going to have to take it,” replied Dee.

“I’d hate to have to do that to Elmore.”

“We can always ask them to come with us.”

“You two,” scoffed Kevin. “Inviting everyone along. What is that about?” Then, soberly, “We need to get Bruce looked at. He’s not doing well.”

“We will,” Riley vowed.

Shortly after the moon rose, the first zombies appeared. Dee, seated at the window, eyeing the terrain, spotted them first.

“I’m going downstairs.” Kevin picked up a section of pipe discarded on the floor. “Take care of this.”

“Don’t go alone.” Riley stood to join him.

“You sure?”

When she nodded, Kevin held out another length of piping to her. She took it, noting it was the longer of the two, which meant she wouldn’t have to get as close to the things as he would. She thanked him.

“Be careful,” Dee told them.

“You sure you’re up to this?” Kevin asked her as the rickety staircase creaked under them. Riley assured him she was.

They stepped out into the night with the dead things in it. The zombies were clearly visible, the moon showing all. Kevin raised the pipe and pointed with his index finger, indicating the zombies he would dispatch.

Riley crouched down in the grass and approached the two undead she had been allotted. Neither seemed aware. The closest of the two was looking elsewhere and she thought about calling out but did not. It wore a barber shop’s backward cape. Riley’s pipe connected with the back of its skull. It staggered forward a step and began to turn towards her, obviously bothered. Now she had its attention. The other’s, too.

Riley swung harder, knocking the zombie to the ground.

She walked to the next beast, which was doddering towards her, its arms extended. Side stepping its reach, she cracked it in the face. Its nose caved into its head and it hit its knees, an undead penitent. Riley struck it once more, leaving a visible dent in its skull. The zombie slumped over in the grass and shuddered. Riley prodded it with the pipe. It shook but did not rise.

Kevin joined her. He’d taken out his three targets and was breathing heavy, holding his side.

“You okay?” she asked him.

The creature Riley had first laid out was crawling towards her on its elbows and forearms. Kevin bee-lined to it and braced a foot on either side of its torso, bringing his pipe up over his head. “Sometimes—”
whack
“—these things—”
whack
“—are pretty tough—” he bludgeoned it a third time and it lay motionless. “There.”

Riley looked away from its demolished head.

“No wonder,” Kevin remarked, staring into the mess atop its neck. “Thing had a steel plate in its skull.”

Riley’s second zombie had stopped trembling.

“It’s dead,” she said as Kevin put his foot on the back of its neck.

“Better safe than sorry.” He crushed its skull as he had the first. “While we’re out here,” Kevin said as he stepped away from the corpse, “I’d like to talk to Elmore.”

Riley called out to the house, hailing the boy. He came out into the night with his rifle.

“What you want?” It was a question, not a threat.

“They’re coming now,” Kevin warned him. “Thought we should tell you.”

“Yeah, I saw.”

“You stay inside with your sisters and brother,” said Riley. “Don’t go outside for anything, okay?”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“We might have to come out here once in awhile,” Kevin added, “deal with these things.” When the boy nodded, Kevin asked him, “What’s out there? On the water?”

“Some islands a ways out. Nothing between here and there but a bunch of wrecks.”

“Any of the islands inhabited?”

“You mean do they have people living on them?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“There’s one, old woman lives on it with her dogs.”

“An old woman and her dogs? She all alone?”

“For years now. Her family’s all gone. My uncle used to go out there, check on her once in awhile. Make sure she was okay.”

“No zombies out there on that island?”

The kid didn’t answer immediately and when he did—“She’s an old lady, but she knows what she’s doing”—his answer didn’t seem to address Kevin’s question.

Riley asked him if there were zombies out on the islands.

“Not that I know of.”

“Then how come you guys stay here? Why wouldn’t you have moved out to one of the islands by now?”

“My uncle prefers the mainland. Zombies ain’t so bad when you know how to deal with them.”

“Hey, Elmore, listen up,” Kevin’s voice grew very serious. “You remember what I said about someone following us, right? You keeping an eye on those kids?”

“Yeah. And thank you for that food. They enjoyed it.”

“You’re welcome.” Kevin unfastened his pack and retrieved several more freeze-dried pouches. “Here,” he offered. Elmore stepped forward this time, accepting the packages from Kevin’s hands.

“I thank you again,” Elmore said. “My uncle should be back in soon. He never stays out past dark too long.”

“Well, we’ll talk to him later on then. Or tomorrow. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” His blackened tooth clear in the moonlight, Elmore smiled before returning to his house and his wards.

* * *

Dee observed their melee with the undead and their conference with the kid from the window. He had not been able to hear the conversation so they related the salient points mentioned. When they told him about the island and the old lady, Dee said, “Her dogs, huh?”

“The kid’s all right.” Kevin dismissed what had earlier posed itself as a possible threat.

“I believe he is, Kev. But if the uncle doesn’t want to work with us, we’re still going to have to take the boat.”

“Dee, if we just take their boat, these people are screwed.”

“So hopefully the uncle will be willing to work with us, Riley.”“Wonder how Bruce is doing.” Kevin stood looking out the window. “Better view of the water tower in the room next door.”

“There many Zed under the water tower?” Riley found herself wondering if the undead could climb.

“Can’t really tell from this distance.” Dee motioned futilely with the minocular. “Even with this.”

“Better view in the other room.”

“You want to move to the other room, Kev?”

“Yeah. Let’s move over there. Have a better bead on Bruce, still be able to see the house.”

“Somebody give me a hand?” Dee asked. “Please?” Riley went over to him, reaching down and helping him up. He braced himself against his FN-FAL until he could stand, then propped the rifle with its under-barrel chainsaw against the wall near the window, toothed blade up. He draped his arm around Riley’s shoulder, his other hand around his minocular and hobbled along on one leg as she supported him from the room.

Kevin gathered up their packs and rifles but was unable to lug Dee’s assault rifle on top of all he already carted. He left the room, thinking he’d come right back and get it.

The store they moved into occupied a corner of the strip mall and—as Kevin had promised—provided a better view of the water tower while the house across from them remained easily seen. They placed their gear down and spent some time at the windows, scrutinizing the night.

* * *

Kevin was snoring quietly and Riley found herself entertaining morbid thoughts. Her mind wandered back to the first city she had visited here in the Outlands, the numbers marked on each façade speaking to the corpses within. The adult skeletons on either side of the child’s bones, all in the bed. The man or woman alone in the port-a-potty. The barn.
The
barn
. She sat up, banishing that show of horrors from her mind.

Moonlight shafted over Dee’s features at the window where he kept watch.

“What is it?” Riley asked him, aware that it was later than she had thought.

“The uncle came back,” he responded quietly.

She looked over at Kevin on his back.

“Don’t wake him, Riley.”

She joined Dee at the window. His voice was hushed. “He stood there talking to Elmore, looking this way.”

“How’s he look?”

“He doesn’t look like trouble, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Aren’t those the ones you’ve got to watch?”

“Yeah. Like you.”

She brushed aside the compliment. “How long were they out there?”

“A few minutes. We’ve got Zed on the premises.”

“Do they know we’re in here?”

“They know we’re around here somewhere. They’re not going anywhere.”

“Dee, what do you think Bruce is thinking?”

He handed her the minocular and she moved to the next window, set in the wall at a ninety-degree angle to the first.

“He’s probably spooked,” Dee guessed as Riley glassed the water tower. Even on a night as well lit as this one, the tower was an indistinct outline against the dark blue sky. “I would be. Wouldn’t you be?”

“I would be, too.”

“I think they’ll come over in the morning,” Dee said of Elmore and his uncle.

“Do you think Bruce is cold up there?”

“I think Bruce is all right. Bruce is a tough son of a gun. We’ll get him somewhere where someone can take a better look at that shoulder tomorrow. Go and get yourself back to sleep, Riley.”

“I don’t know if I can. You want to lie down? I’ll stay up.”

“Nah, I’m tweaked.”

Dee listened to her settle back down on the floor. In a few minutes her breathing had changed, deeper, rhythmic. Riley was asleep.

The smell of the ocean was strong here, salt and brine. A zombie sounded outside, a lugubrious cry. Dee glanced from the dark shadows in the room about them, to the house across the way, silent and still.

He studied the water tower.

He’d told Riley that Bruce would be okay, that they’d get him the attention he needed. And he’d meant it. They’d
take
the boat if the uncle wasn’t accommodating. Dee wouldn’t want to have to, but he would if he needed to.

For Bruce. For them.

* * *

“Dee. Wake up.”

Kevin hailed him out from the dream realm.

“W-what is it, Kev?”

Kevin beckoned. Dee got up on his one good leg and limped across the room, joining him at the window. “Look.” Kevin passed him the minocular.

Dee scrunched his eye shut before affixing it to his face. He almost immediately removed it, wiping sleep from his eyes. Through the lens, the sky to the east was lightening, a blue-ish tint foretelling the day. Stars dotted the sky to the west. Even with the magnification device, the water tower remained an outline in the distance.

“What am I looking for?”

“I thought I heard something, Dee.”

“What’d you think you heard?”

“A scream.”

Dee studied the water tower, a tenebrous shadow against a darker night.

“Can’t see much,” he remarked.

“What is it?” Riley was sitting up, blinking.

“It’s nothing.” Dee watched the volume of his reply. There were many things outside now. “Get your stuff ready.”

He panned the vast stretch of grassland, dusky in the moonlight. He scanned the strip of land between the water tower and the street above which they took refuge, forbidding umbrae faltering about in the gloom.

Screams sounded from across the way. Three children ran out of Elmore’s house. Melissa, gripping the little girl’s arm, ran in one direction. The third child, the boy Dee had seen through the window, ran off in the opposite direction, towards the pier and the boat.

“Oh no,” Riley whispered.

“It’s here,” stated Dee.

Kevin was looking out another window.

“Kev.”

The other man did not reply, lost in his reverie of the water tower.

“
Kev
!”

“Right, Dee,” his attention returned to their room. “You’re right.”

“Riley. Kev. You guys get out of here. Get down to the dock. Get the boat ready.”