“I don’t get it,” John stood over the dying man. “They just… fed her to those things…”
“This is the best humanity has to offer,” Vega said. “These are the people who’re left. They’re not much different than us, John.”
“You’re wrong about that,” John mumbled. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”
Griggs crossed his arms over his chest and laughed. “We done here? We got places to go, people to shoot.”
“This is
bullshit
,” John turned on them, angry as if it was their fault. “I’m not going to sit back and watch this. Where’s the decency? The law?”
Vincent was standing beside her. Only she could hear him say, “I gotta feeling Griggs would’ve been doing the same thing.”
“And you?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.
He didn’t answer. Instead, they watched John kneel next to the dying man, who was begging for help. A bullet had found his stomach and his arm, and he bled over the remains of the woman he helped murder.
“Why?” John asked, swallowing back hard sorrow, the disbelief that his faith and hope were being crushed, despite all he’d witnessed in the field, despite all the fighting and horror he’d seen all over the world. This moment mattered more than all the rest, somehow.
“Because we fucking could, asshole,” the man smiled at John.
John Charles sighed and checked his sidearm. He changed his mind and stood. To Griggs, he said, “You’re right, your gun’s better. Bigger mess.”
Griggs didn’t need to be told twice. He walked up to the man and erased his face.
***
Griggs stopped in front of an adult novelty store, with iron bars in front of the windows, the front door painted in graffiti.
“I thought I saw something inside,” Griggs said without any hint of the old humor in his voice. “I need to… go in.”
The former detective acted like they had all the time in the world to go shopping for vibrators and dildos. They couldn’t wait in the middle of the street for Griggs to finish what he was doing; part of her wanted just to leave the guy.
John Charles glared at her. “I’ll check it out. I suggest you hit that gas station across the street and see if you can rustle up some water or energy bars. I’ll even take some caffeine, at this point.”
He wanted her to wait. The sergeant had a “good guy” mentality that would’ve annoyed her a couple days ago.
“Red Bull and candy bars,” Vega nodded and looked at Vincent, who seemed willing to follow her through Hell, and she didn’t know why. Despite how well he proved himself against zombies, he was still nothing more than a mindless street thug. His odd silences and willingness to stick with them were signs something was going on in his head, and she preferred he share it with the group before it was too late.
But why would he share his thoughts with strangers?
Even if a handful of zombies saw them run into the gas station, they could always leave through the back door. They jogged over to the Sunoco and heard the jingle that would’ve signaled to the cashier a new customer had entered.
“Nothing here,” Vincent stated the obvious. “A few rubbers and some fiber bars.”
She ignored his comment and continued to scan the empty shelves and aisles that were littered with stray potato chips and health magazines. The coolers were empty except for a couple bottles of Boone’s Farm, and there was some chewing gum to go along with the condoms. No dead people.
“Not much difference between Boone’s Farm and water,” Vega said, realizing she was alone with Vincent and they weren’t fighting a horde of undead monsters.
He must’ve read her mind.
“I could take whatever I want,” he said, his voice just above a whisper.
She looked at him. They both had guns in their hands.
“Why don’t you try?” she asked.
Their eyes remained locked for what seemed like eternity, but he looked away first. His posture relaxed.
“Don’t make sense for us to be afraid of each other,” he said. “I acted out of my mind, crazy, out of control. My mind is always focused on business, but I saw my business get taken away and I got myself lost.”
“I don’t understand how that keeps you from wanting to make a move. I thought a businessman like you takes advantage of weak markets.”
“Are you a… weak market?”
“You obviously have an answer already,” Vega said, “otherwise, we wouldn’t be talking.”
He surprised her. Instead of letting a macho attitude get the best of him, he said, “I’m in the business of staying alive.”
A soft chuckle from the back room brought their weapons up. How could they be so careless? They distracted themselves while there was a survivor hanging around in the back.
“You can drop them hand cannons of yours,” a scratchy voice followed the shadow that stepped out of the back. “I see a brother and sister trying to find a way to get along.”
His skin was so dark his face was hardly visible. Vega glanced away from him and looked through the door to see a small group of corpses stagger between the pumps outside.
The stranger’s face was leathery, his broad smile equipped with a few jagged, yellow teeth. His beard was salted with white hairs and his shoulders sloped in a tattered camouflage jacket and pants that sagged over a thin body. He wore a green army shirt and a cap on his head with two stars.
He plopped a severed head onto the counter.
“At ease, soldiers,” he said, “you’re in the jungle. I’ve always been here, waiting for others to see it for what it really is.”
Vega and Vincent shared a look.
“Way to get a head of the curve,” she said to the stranger. “Is this your joint? We’re not looters, and we’re not interested in hurting civilians.”
“That’s good, ‘cause I ain’t a civilian,” he replied. “You ain’t heard my name because we lost that war in the jungle, but they thought I was crazy, see. They thought I didn’t know how to win. Name’s General Masters.”
Vincent lowered his gun, and Vega followed suit.
“Is anyone else with you?” Vega asked.
“Came here for my medicine, you see. I don’t exist. I’m dead, but I see the dead come back to life. Chavo and Hector always used to say hi to me, always used to share the news. Nobody ever robbed this place. I told ‘em the general keeps his eye out. Chavo… he was a good man. His brother… I ain’t seen him.”
“That must be Chavo,” Vincent pointed to the head.
“He’s got a teenage son. But he ain’t been in the jungle. The only way to win that war was to kill everybody. Napalm the brush until nothing’s left. The jungle’s always creeping. Once you’ve been in the jungle, you ain’t leaving. Every soldier knows it. The jungle changes, but it’s always there. Sometimes it looks like sand…”
A thump on the front door commanded their attention. A zombie pressed its face against the glass, a boy who used to be someone’s son.
“I’ve been in the jungle, General,” Vega said, playing to his insanity and forgetting John Charles’s maxim that they weren’t a rescue team. “There’s nothing but pain. You don’t have to do it alone. Come with us.”
He seemed to be inside her mind, speaking in drunken metaphor about her own nightmare-reality.
“He he he he he,” General Masters cackled, “gotta burn the jungle down. It’s the only way.” He removed the severed head from the counter and backed into the darkness, slipping into the back room from whence he came.
They heard the gunshot and saw Griggs and John run out of the porn shop. It was time to get their asses moving again.
***
When they found the suburbs, the four of them jogged over the daffodils of unkempt lawns. Vega felt the emptiness in her stomach; only hours ago she’d been here, racing the other way with Vincent in tow, hopeful at last for a shot at redemption, a chance to save someone’s life. Such compassion seemed to belong to another woman, as if Vega knew the story but hadn’t lived it. It would be nice to feel such purpose, such need. Even though John Charles had helped re-instill a sense of urgency and hope, she began to feel the emptiness of the slate-gray clouds, which strangled the blue sky’s purity. If the others felt this way, it was only a matter of time before they fell apart, before the hopelessness closed in. Even alongside three other survivors, she felt alone on that field of dead where the empty houses were nothing more than reminders of an opportunity to live forever squandered.
When they approached the lawn of the same house where Vincent had made his stand, the chair still sat in the squared lot, and in the grass, she might find the remainder of his blunt. Corpses littered the pavement along the street, and clouds of flies flitted about.
Right here, she had separated from Bob and gave him a chance to die alone for his mission. She abandoned him for a symbolic crusade to save the little girl she used to be, to save the little girl she never could be, to save a life she never had.
John Charles whistled at the piles of dead. “Someone knows what they’re doing.”
There were no other zombies lingering on the street, as if they found some other realm to haunt.
“That’s your buddy,” Griggs pointed to Vincent, who headed for the front door. “The next Wesley Snipes.”
Inside, Vega found herself wondering if she had actually been there before. Vincent had brought her inside to gather up some ammo for their near-suicidal episode, but she’d been in a daze. Only a few hours ago, she stood in the living room and stared at the morning light, and believed in her heart that God wanted her to save Shanna.
There was no furniture in the living room, only scattered garbage and broken lamps.
“You said you lived here?” John asked.
Vincent ignored the question and turned on the sink in the kitchen. Running water gushed out of the faucet. An oasis in the middle of the Sahara.
“Nice,” John remarked. “I’m thinking maybe we get ourselves cleaned up, and take a minute. From here, we’ve got ourselves a hike to Selfridge. Way I see it, there’s no reason to hurry.”
“We can stay anywhere we want,” Griggs tried to argue.
“You want the Marriott?” Vega shot him a look. “It’s in the damn street, with everything else. This setup is quiet and nothing’s happening out there. This is as good a place as any.”
“Damn,” Griggs said, “did someone shit in your bowl of Cheerios this morning?”
“Toys are downstairs,” Vincent said, his shoulders slumping, his dark forehead layered in sweat, his soaked tank top hanging over his wiry frame.
They stomped into the basement and immediately felt a bit of relief from a slight drop in temperature. Vincent turned on a light to reveal an armory of weapons and ammunition spread around the room on crates.
In the center of the room, a bloodied black man sat in a chair.
Griggs aimed his weapon, and Vincent turned around sharply. “Drop that shit. I know him.”
They hung back at the foot of the stairs while Vincent approached his associate. The man’s lips moved and hoarse words tumbled through the basement.
Vincent straightened and stood over the dying man. “Give me a minute,” he said.
Griggs sighed.
“You heard the man,” John said. “Let him take care of it. This might be something we have to get used to.”
As they turned to go back up the stairs, Vincent said, “Vega. Hang back.”
She stood in the shadows while they both waited for the others to tromp up the steps. When silence resumed its reign over the room, she watched the exchange.
“Louis,” Vincent said.
The man coughed. “Came back. Came back for you. Chanell, man, she loved you. The house, you know… shit… I guess it started in Grosse Pointe. We didn’t have a chance.”
“Tell me about Chanell.” There wasn’t a single hint of emotion in Vincent’s voice, as if he faced a firing squad.
Vega felt her heartbeat accelerate and she didn’t know why.
“Loved you, man.” Louis managed. “I saw Fireball on the way over…”
“Yeah,” Vincent said. “Were you bit?”
Louis coughed again. “Neck, shoulder, arm. It hurts so much. It really hurts. I’m scared, V. Can’t feel my hands. It’s cold, you know? Lost a lot of blood, but I waited. I made sure I waited…”
“Why’d you come here?” Vincent knew the answer, but wanted to hurt himself with the truth.
“For you. Came looking… for you. Figured we’d make our stand, like we always talked about. Everyone on the street comes out with guns blazing, take down the pigs; only it wasn’t no pigs did this. Wasn’t no pigs…”
Vincent knelt and grabbed Louis’s bloody hands in his own. “You know what we do next.”
“Yeah,” Louis coughed, “I’m cool. I’m not ready. Not ready for this. What if there’s nothing? For everything I did, I’d go to Hell… I don’t know… I just don’t know…”
“You go there and I’ll pull your ass out,” Vincent said. “You was a loyal nigga. To the end. I respect you. I want you to know that. You earned my respect. I counted on you so many times, but I never told you.”
“Thank you. I always wanted you to say that.”
“Did I make you into a monster?” Vincent asked. “We never done nothing right, nothing good, but I gotta know if you were bad all along, if it was in you. I see a man, but that’s what I see outside on the street. Men who are monsters now, but I got to know if we already were.”