Apocalypse Of The Dead (30 page)

“You got rid of the zombies in Van Horn?” Colin said. “All by yourself?”

The biker laughed. “Wasn’t that big of a deal. But yeah, we did it all by ourselves. The town’s pretty much quiet now.” He looked at the other bikers and a wicked smile passed between them. He said, “Well, it ain’t exactly quiet.”

Jeff groaned inwardly. This was going downhill fast.

“So you guys are running things there now?” Colin said. “In Van Horn, I mean.”

The biker turned to Colin. “Yeah.” The word wasn’t exactly a question, but even still, he didn’t quite seem to know what to make of Colin.

Jeff did, though. Colin the deal maker. He knew what was about to come out of Colin’s mouth, and he hoped it wasn’t going to get them all killed.

Colin nodded at Jeff and said, “My friend and I were on our way to Las Vegas when this started. We were planning on heading into the desert and partying with our girls until it blew over.”

“Yeah,” the biker said. Again the word was not quite a question.

“Well, listen, if you guys are running things in Van Horn, maybe you can help us. Maybe we can help each other.”

“How are you gonna help us?”

Colin smiled. He was gaining speed now, in his element. “When was the last time you and your friends did some serious high-grade acid? I’m not talking that bunk shit some idiot cooks up in his basement. I mean the real stuff, pharmaceutical grade.”

“I’m listening,” the biker said. “But boy, you’d better start getting to your point real fast.”

“We’ve got enough top-shelf dope on this bus to keep you and your friends tripping for the next week. I got fifteen sheets of acid with a hundred tabs apiece. And I’ve got six hundred hits of X, too. I see you like that Grey Goose. I can even sweeten the deal with four cases of that.”

A grin was spreading across the biker’s face. He had been carrying a shotgun across his shoulder, but now he swung the gun down and fingered the safety behind the trigger guard.

“And you want to trade me what for all this righteous dope?”

“We need supplies. Enough groceries and water to get us up near the Panhandle.” Colin paused for a moment, just long enough to let it sink in. “What do you say?”

The biker stared at him. The smile was gone now. He said, “Where’s this dope at?”

“In my bag over there,” Colin said. “The red one. Behind the bar.” He nodded at a red nylon duffel bag near the biker’s feet.

The biker reached down and picked it up, put it on the bar, and opened it. Inside were several large sheets of acid sandwiched between pages of aluminum foil and a couple of Ziploc baggies of ecstasy. Then he pulled out a pillow-sized baggie of marijuana and whistled.

“You didn’t say nothing about this.”

“I figured if you guys were down around Acuna, you probably had some of that already.”

The biker opened the baggie and stuck his face inside and took a deep, nasally breath.

“Damn,” he said. “We’ll take this shit, too.”

He stuffed everything down inside the duffel bag and walked back to the front of the bus.

“Okay,” Colin said. “Sure. Do we have a deal?”

“Possibly,” the biker said. “For now. One of you guys get behind the wheel. You can follow us into town.”

Jeff drove. Colin sat beside him. Two of the bikers had gotten out of the pickups and were riding behind them. They were both armed with shotguns and pistols.

IH-10 split off just ahead, with the main road continuing to the east while a smaller surface street jogged slightly to the north. They were being caravanned into town, flanked to the front and the rear by the pickups, while the motorcycles swarmed all around them. Jeff slowed the bus to keep time with his escorts, and together they rode into the main part of town.

At first, Van Horn looked just like every other desert town they had passed through. There were a few shabby, dusty buildings huddled into the dirt, and row upon row of worn-down-looking trailers off in the near distance.

But that was where the similarities stopped.

The street was lined with poles that had been jammed into every available patch of dirt. Each of the poles had a severed head impaled on it.

“Oh, Jesus,” Jeff said. The bile rose in his throat, but he closed his eyes and forced it back down.

When he opened them again, the impaled heads leered back at him with gaping mouths and wide, surprised eyes.

“What in the hell happened here?” Jeff said.

“I don’t like this,” Colin said.

Ahead of them, the town opened up into a small square. There were motorcycles parked along the curbs and a bonfire burning on the lawn. Bikers were milling around the square, drinking and laughing. Beyond them, a crowd had gathered around a gazebo, and it looked like that was where they were being led. In a way, it reminded Jeff of the giant keg parties he’d attended at CU Boulder before he’d dropped out of law school.

“Colin, this sucks.”

“I know. Just keep going, okay?”

“You don’t sound very sure.”

“I’m not, Jeff.”

One of the bikers was waving them over to the curb. Jeff turned the wheel and coasted into position, the brakes squealing as they came to a stop. Someone else beat a fist against the door, and the bikers behind them spoke for the first time.

“Showtime, fellas. Let’s go.”

They were led to the gazebo. Someone had secured barbed wire around the outside of it so that it was completely enclosed. Inside was one of the infected, a woman in a blue dress that was shredded on the top so that only a scrap of it still went over her shoulders. The rest draped down over her hips, wet and crusty with dried blood. There were cuts and bite marks all over her chest and face.

The bikers stood around the edges of the gazebo, teasing her. As she tried to reach for them, they were throwing cigarette butts and beer cans at her.

Somebody had backed a cattle truck up to the far side of the gazebo, and Jeff could see more of the infected inside it.

“What in the hell are you guys doing here?” Colin asked.

The bikers assigned to guard them just laughed.

“Just having a little fun,” one of them said.

Suddenly, a cheer went up from the bikers surrounding the gazebo. Jeff and the others turned to see what was going on and saw a man being pulled along a path to the front of the gazebo. He was wearing a cop’s uniform, and he had been beaten badly. A thick rope of bloody spit hung from his busted mouth, and his eyes were bruised and puffy. His hands were secured behind his back with handcuffs.

“Oh, no,” Jeff said.

One of the bikers opened a door to the gazebo and they threw the cop inside. He tripped and fell, landing on his face.

Another cheer went up from the bikers.

The cop seemed to grasp what was happening, but he was having trouble getting to his feet. Jeff groaned at what he knew was about to happen.

Slowly, the cop rolled over onto his knees.

The zombie in the blue dress turned toward him and moaned. Her hands came up, the fingers clutching at him. The cop seemed to be having a hard time lifting his head, as though the bikers had tied an anchor around his neck. He lifted his blackened eyes up toward the approaching zombie, and the sight of that blood-soaked woman must have been enough to wake up his last bit of strength, for he managed to get one foot under him, and he rose to his feet. Then he ducked his head and rammed his shoulder into the approaching zombie’s chest, knocking her backward into the gazebo’s wall. They both fell to the ground as a cheer rose from the bikers.

The cop rolled onto his back, his face twisted in pain and rage. But the zombie was unharmed. She flipped herself over onto her stomach and slowly got to her feet again. The cop tried to crawl away from her, but he was too badly hurt, and when she fell on him, his screams didn’t last long.

Colin turned and threw up in the grass next to Jeff.

Jeff looked away.

The biker they’d tried to deal with on the bus was standing over by the gazebo crowd. He had Colin’s red duffel bag open on a bench in front of him and he was showing the contents off to some of the others. One of them said something and they all laughed. Then the biker turned to Jeff and smiled. One of the others opened the aluminum foil and took out a black perforated gelatin sheet. He tore off a big corner of the sheet and handed it to the biker from the bus.

A moment later, the biker was standing in front of Jeff and Colin. He looked at both of them in turn before finally settling on Jeff. He held up the corner of the gelatin sheet. It looked like about ten hits. “This shit’s pretty good, huh?”

Jeff didn’t answer.

“Let’s see how good it is. Open your mouth.”

Jeff didn’t move.

Something hard bumped up against the back of Jeff’s head. He turned just enough to see that it was the muzzle of a shotgun.

“Open up,” the biker said.

Jeff opened his mouth and the biker jammed the sheet inside.

“Close your mouth.”

The shotgun bumped Jeff’s head again and he closed his mouth around the tabs.

“Swallow it,” the biker said.

Jeff forced it down.

“Good boy.” Then he pointed to Colin. “I want this one right up front where he can see.”

The guards pulled Colin away, and Jeff was left standing on the grass next to the biker.

“Why are you doing this?” Jeff said. “It makes no sense.”

“You sound like you’re a pretty smart guy,” the biker said. “You go to college?”

Jeff nodded.

“Where?”

“Harvard.”

“Harvard? No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Wow. Hey, that’s something. Me, I didn’t go to school. I got my GED while I was doing ninety-six months in Huntsville for check washing. You know what that is?”

“No idea.”

“It’s where you use a chemical solution to wash the ink off people’s checks. After that, you change who it’s made out to and the next thing you know you got yourself a check made out to whoever your ID says you are. Simple. Course it doesn’t really matter now, does it? Nobody’s gonna be writing checks anytime soon, right?”

“I guess not.”

“Nope. Not for a long while. And that’s where I come in. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Jeff Stavers.”

“Jeff, I’m Randall Gaines.”

Cheers erupted from over at the gazebo. Jeff let his gaze slip that way, and through the crowd he saw the cop rise to his feet. Now there were two of them staggering around inside the gazebo, getting beer cans and cigarette butts thrown at them.

Gaines said, “I probably ain’t read as many books as you read at Harvard, but I did read this guy named Will Durant. A historian. You ever read him?”

Jeff nodded.

“Yeah, he was cool. You know what he said about anarchy?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.’ I’ll tell you what. I sat in my cell at Huntsville for nearly a year thinking about that. I’d be interested to hear what you think that means?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t want to play, huh? Well, I’ll tell you. See, people talk about liberty, and what they think they mean is the freedom to vote and shit like that. But that’s not what real liberty is. Not even a little bit. You see, liberty is the most personal thing a man has got. It’s like your soul. It’s something that belongs to each man as an individual. Ask any prisoner. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

Over at the gazebo, a sort of chant had gone up. Jeff could see Colin getting pushed up against the barbed wire, his hands forced inside the cage.

Colin looked like he was crying.

Gaines coughed once. He said, “Now think on this. Think what it would mean if every man achieved true liberty. True freedom. Every man is free to do as he wants, no laws, no religion, no obligations to anyone but his own desires and higher impulses. Can you imagine that? True liberty. That’s the root of anarchy right there. And that’s what them zombies represent. They are a means for the rest of us to achieve true liberty. They made me, Harvard, not the other way around.”

Jeff wanted to tell him that he was insane, but his tongue was feeling as thick as a shoe in his mouth. It was hard to breathe. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes the world seemed to be tilting on him.

“Got nothing to say, Harvard?”

With effort, Jeff shook his head.

“How about that acid? It startin’ to work yet?”

Jeff said nothing.

“Here, let me see your eyes.”

Gaines grabbed Jeff’s face and gave him a clinical once-over.

“Jesus, that’s some good shit your friend’s got. Look at those pupils. Man, you’re tripping hard. Okay, come on.”

He pulled Jeff toward the gazebo. Jeff resisted, or tried to, but nothing seemed to work right. He was dizzy, and every step sent a confusing flood of signals to his brain. Gaines let go of his arm for a second and it was enough to send him off balance. He staggered sideways, tried to right himself, but only managed to fall flat on his face.

The biker called out to some of the others and a moment later Jeff was being hauled up to his feet and carried over to the gazebo.

They parked him in front of the gate. Inside, the zombies were staggering around aimlessly. Off to Jeff’s right, Colin was trying to say something to him, but his voice was lost in the cheers and laughter of the crowd. The faces all around him were a blur.

Gaines appeared by his side.

“You ready for this, Harvard?”

Jeff grunted. He felt something forced into his hand and looked down and saw a knife there.

He blinked at it, unsure if it was real.

“Good luck, Harvard.”

The gate was thrown open in front of Jeff, and a moment later he was pushed inside. He landed face-first on the wooden floor. The knife skittered out of his hand. He reached for it, but his arm wouldn’t obey. It tingled, like it had fallen asleep.

A few feet away, the zombies began to moan.

The morning after they buried Art Waller was cloudy and cool. The sun had just broken over the trees to the east and most of the sky was still a golden-gray. Smoke-colored rain clouds were moving in from the north. The breeze smelled vaguely sour, like garbage. People were already gathering outside their tents, getting ready for the day or talking to their neighbors.