Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (22 page)

“
Fuck!”

Frankie tugged away, but the
slithering upper half of what was once a very heavy woman didn’t
let go. Frankie fell to the ground. Eddie ran to him, tire iron
held high, and smashed it into the woman’s head, smashing her face
into the street.

She was wedged in between and
underneath two cars that were bumper to bumper. Her intestines
trailed behind her and there was no sight of her lower half. Yellow
chunks of fatty tissue decorated the street around her and behind
her.

Eddie hit her again as Frankie pulled
his foot away. Joseph helped him get to his feet.

“
One of your old
girlfriends?”

“
What can I say? I like ‘em
big.”

Joseph smiled and patted off his
back.

“
She fucking stinks. Either
of you hear anything else?”

They paused, listening.

“
Nothing.”

Eddie waived them forward and the
three of them continued to lead the way through the
wreckage.

37 ENDURANCE TEST

(back to
top)

Abdul was starting to sweat now. The
incline of the bridge coupled with the additional forty or so
pounds on his shoulders was starting to take its toll, but Abdul
refused to give in to his weakness. He would push on and block out
the urge to slow down or take Chris off his shoulders. He would
endure, and in the end he and Chris, and even the others would be
better for it. If Abdul didn’t carry the burden, someone else would
have to. That was weakness. Abdul wasn’t weak.

“
Close your eyes,” he told
Chris as he approached the dead whale of a woman.

Chris cupped his hands around his
eyes.

“
Can I open them
now?”

“
Yes, but keep looking
ahead.”

Scott held Judy’s hand and she gripped
it back fiercely, “How you doing?”

“
Okay,” she said. “Just
absolutely terrified.”

“
We’re doing good. Just
stay positive.”

“
I don’t want to die on
this bridge. Remember when I was working in Manhattan?”

“
Of course.”

“
Well, I never really said
anything then, but I was always afraid I’d die on my commute. It
seemed like everyday there was an accident. Not usually fatal, but
you know, with my anxiety I always thought it would be my
turn.”

“
I thought you liked
commuting.”

“
I hated it. The only thing
I liked was being able to read on the bus, but half the time I just
stared out the window biting my nails.”

“
Well, you don’t work in
the city anymore and we’re not going to die on this bridge, if
anything I’ll throw you over the side and you can drown in the
Hudson.”

“
Already considered it.
Suicide fencing.”

“
Shit, I didn’t even notice
that. Looks like we could climb it though.”

“
What the hell are you guys
talking about?”

“
Double suicide. Want
in?”

“
Are you fucking
serious?”

“
No, actually if you jumped
with us, it would be a triple.”

Jon-Jon stared at them
disbelievingly.

“
We’re not considering it.
Relax, we just noticed the fencing—in case, you know, we had to
jump.”

“
There’s something wrong
with you two.”

“
We know,” Judy
smiled.

“
Hey, what do you think the
cause of death was with the fat lady?”

“
In my expert opinion, I
think she ran faster than she ever did in her life, and when she
stopped, her upper half had gained so much momentum that it kept
going. Essentially she ripped herself in half.”

“
See what I mean? You’re
twisted.”

“
No, what’s twisted is that
we still have yet to see her legs.”

Before the group had realized it, the
fading sunlight was gone. The sky was black and blue once again,
but pierced with the pinpricks of starlight, grey clouds, and the
thick sliver of moon that sat in the sky, shimmering on the
water.

It didn’t fully register till they
were at the peak of the bridge, when the rest of their journey
would be shrouded in darkness and slashed by deep obsidian shadows.
There were no beacons of light. No streetlights in the distance. No
lit buildings. Just darkness and dim moonlit forms.

“
Let’s be careful,” Eddie
said as he began to walk down the decline.

“
Legs like jelly
yet?”

“
Not too bad,
you?”

“
Starting to feel it. I’ll
probably collapse as soon as we can.”

“
No shit. How you holding
up Frank?”

“
I’m jelly. Feel like my
legs are wobbling.”

“
Want to take a
break?”

“
Fuck no. We need to get
off this bridge as soon as possible. The longer it takes us the
longer we’re putting ourselves at a huge risk.”

Eddie understood. He didn’t want to
take a break either, but if people needed to catch their breath
while there was a moment to do it, he saw no reason not to oblige
them.

Alexis turned to Stacey, “You okay,
little lady?”

Stacey looked at her with wide
terrified eyes, “I’m scared.”

“
Me too, but we’ve gone
through worse, right? Just hang in there. We’re almost done. Then
maybe we can get on a boat. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“
I don’t know how to
swim.”

“
We don’t need to swim. See
Chuck over there. He knows how to drive a boat, so all we have to
do is find one.”

“
Okay.”

Alexis and Dawn shared a look. They
were both as scared as Stacey, but they knew they had to be strong
for them. Janice walked with a renewed vigor. Her maternal
instincts took over and she walked with Yussef, making him feel
safe in her company. She let him know she was there for him and
would protect him. As much as it hurt her heart to hold a child’s
hand that wasn’t hers she held firm and kept repeating to herself
that she’d want someone else to safeguard her children had she lost
her life and not theirs.

The world had become a scary place.
Scary for adults, scary for children. Jon-Jon couldn’t decide who
had more to fear. He felt that at least the children were too young
to really grasp the entirety of the situation. Being a child and
having no parents, essentially being raised on the road by a group
of strangers was an awful way to live. Realizing that humanity was
on the brink of extinction, however, was an entirely different kind
of awful. One that made him think if any of this even
mattered.

Cancer killed his mother and father.
She fought it till the bitter end. His father tried to kill himself
slowly with alcohol after that, and when he was diagnosed himself
many years after his wife died, he fully gave himself over to it
and longed for its final embrace. He’d given some consideration as
to what he would do had he ever have to face the same demon—fight
like his mother, or go quietly like his father. In the end it
didn’t matter. Not in any way that Jon could see. How was this
world not like cancer?

38 THE CELL

(back to
top)

“
What time is
it?”

“
You don’t want to know,”
Keith said.

“
How long has it
been?”

“
We’ve been in here at
least two days, now,” Davis noted.

“
It doesn’t look like any
of them have lost interest,” Topher said, as he looked about the
room.

“
I think I’m losing my
fucking mind. They just keep looking at us, reaching for
us…”

“
Easy Keith, it’s better if
you don’t look at them,” Davis suggested, keeping his eyes toward
the ground.

“
How can you
not?”

“
Just stare at the
floor.”

“
Oh, and the smell, and the
sounds will just go away? How about the fact that we’re all going
to fucking die in here? How about that Bruce?”

“
There is nothing we can do
about that now is there? What we can do is try to stay calm, and
bide our time. Hope that someone will find us…that something will
get the attention of these friggin’ things and maybe we’ll get out
of here.”

“
You’re asking for a lot of
hope.”

“
That I am, but if we don’t
stay calm we’ll just end up killing ourselves in here.”

Clem looked at Davis, “Sheriff, if it
came to that, do you…do you have enough bullets for all of
us.”

“
Clem…no…”

“
It’s okay. I’m good with
dying. Here is just as good as anywhere else. My soul will go
on.

“
Old timer, if you’re
asking me what I think you’re asking me, I just don’t know if I
could.”

“
I’d do it. I’ll do it for
any of you,” Keith said.

“
Well, this conversation
just got about as dark as it could get. Tell you the truth I
thought about offing myself early on, before you found me Mr.
Sheriff,” Topher said, recalling his days squirrelled away in his
musky Control Room.

“
I think we can stop
calling me Sheriff, now.”

“
Okay, Bruce. Well, the
only reason I didn’t do it was because what was the rush? It looked
like my days were numbered anyway. So I just kind of hung out, made
my piece with dying and now I’m here—making piece with it all over
again.”

“
So what the hell are you
saying?”

“
What I’m saying is you can
put that gun up to your chin and pull the trigger, or you can sit
back and think about some of the good things you’ve had in your
life and let whatever happens happen. Just let it go, if you die
you die, but what’s the rush?”

“
What’s the rush? Look
around you?”

“
Don’t look around. Think
about a good moment, a good memory--”

“
That’s enough just shut
the fuck up already.”

“
Keith, please.”

“
Topher, I’ll give it a
shot,” Clem said.

Too afraid to say any more Topher
simply nodded at Clem and then closed his eyes. He pictured himself
sitting by a fire drinking a hot chocolate. His ex-wife was sitting
on his lap. She was sorry for being such a bitch.

Clem closed his eyes and thought of
Lorraine.

Davis, Danni, and Keith looked around
the cell. Cement walls on two sides, bars on the other, with the
dead desperately trying to grasp at them from the other side with
no loss of vigor and no lack of effort.

Danni tried to close her eyes and
think of something good, but everything she thought about just made
her hurt more.

Bruce turned to Keith, “Want to go
fishing tomorrow?”

Keith smiled and closed his eyes. The
water was still. Cold beers were in the cooler. The fish were
biting.

39 DON’T LOOK IN THE
CAR

(back to
top)

There was a patch on the bridge where
it looked like all the vehicles tried to move to one side of the
lane and as the group took advantage of this opening by moving
quickly through it, they found out why the vehicles were pushed
over. An ambulance was in the distance; it’s reflective surfaces
standing out in the moonlight. Its back doors were open and the
front of it was smashed into another vehicle.

Frankie led them to the ambulance.
They slowed on approaching it to examine the interior and after
seeing the gurney covered in dried blood they moved away. The
ambulance had caused such a jam that the group had to climb over a
car in order to continue moving.

The bridge grew congested. The cars
and trucks were inches apart, many bumper to bumper, and others
adorned with damage from ramming into each other.

There were noises in the distance that
sounded like gunfire. Single shots with a steady pace, like someone
with a rifle.

“
Think that’s a sniper?”
Jon asked.

“
Could be. Could be a
hunter.”

“
I can’t tell where it’s
coming from.”

“
Could be
anywhere.”

“
Maybe it’s good for us, if
someone is shooting, don’t you think?”

“
I was just thinking that.
If anything is nearby, maybe the sounds would draw attention away
from us.”

Frankie ran his fingers along the
cars. Feeling the cool steel on his fingertips.

Thump.

Frankie jumped.

“
What? What is
it?”

Thump.

“
A noise…”

Thump.

Joseph signaled for the others to hold
up. Eddie and Frankie tried to pinpoint the sound. It was coming
from inside one of the cars.