Crusade (Eden Book 2) (34 page)
Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
“Damn.” She had forgotten.
“You gotta go?” The disappointment in his voice was obvious.
“Yeah.” She felt the same way he did. “Hey, one last question before I go.”
“What’s that?”
“One thing you miss, about the world I mean.”
“That’s easy. All those things I said I
didn’t
miss, things I couldn’t stand?”
“Yeah?”
“
Those
are also all the things I do miss.”
“Let’s go, Lore.” Eva looked impatient.
“Damn. Hold your horses. We’ll continue this game some other time, okay?”
“You got it.” He nodded.
Lauren waited until they were out of ear shot and then turned to Eva. “You have to be a bitch about it?”
“We’ve got work to do. It is what it is.”
“You had to stand there and wait for me while…?”
“Look, let’s do this then you can get back to your little boyfriend there, okay?”
“
Bitch
. You know who you are? You’re the female Steve.”
“I’ve been called worse. Not much, but worse.”
“They’re hitting on your friend, aren’t they?” Sonya asked Julie. Julie laughed because for a blind woman Sonya didn’t miss much.
“Yeah, I guess they are.”
Gwen was talking to Isaak.
“How’d you know that?”
“I’m a woman. You’re a woman. They’re men. I may be blind, but the pheromones are overpowering in here. Let me guess which ones.”
“Go ahead.”
“Steve.”
“Yep.”
“Well, that was a given. Who’s she talking to now?”
“One of the younger guys. I don’t know his name. She’s been talking to Singh a lot too.”
“Hmmm.” Sonya nodded. “Good for the doctor. And good for your friend, Gwen, right?”
“Yes, Gwen.”
“Well, a few more weeks,” Sonya gestured at Julie’s belly, “they’ll be hitting on you.”
Time passed and the alcohol flowed. Several people bid their farewells and left, having to get up early for work. Someone had turned the stereo off.
A loose circle formed. Bear’s frame swallowed a chair next to Julie. Chris, in his Ultimate Warrior garb, was on Bear’s other side. Steve, with a couple of six packs in him, noticed Gwen was sitting next to Singh and considered this a challenge. Steve was sitting between Biden and Brent, and Tris was next to Sonya. Nicole slept on a chair aside her mother and had her head in Sonya’s lap. Sonya stroked her daughter’s hair. Hayden and Danny were part of the circle as well.
Victor was fast asleep on the other side of the room in his pack and play. Nelson had curled up on a bench and had his eyes closed. Torrie was knocked out on a couch, her little dress ridden up over her flowered purple bloomers. Panas remained standing, holding a fifth of vodka by the neck of the bottle. Isaak and Sonny stood on either side of him.
Remarkable
, thought Mickey, seated next to Buddy, how children were able to sleep through so much noise. He figured it probably wasn’t that noisy. He was just tired.
“I knew an old man, before this,” Sonny was saying. “World War 2 veteran. Pacific theater.”
“Pacific thee-a-ter.” Danny was drunk and happy.
“Told me once he was in a foxhole with a few other guys. Grenade lands in the foxhole—”
“Hey, Danny,” everyone ignored Steve, “How’s your man hole?”
“—told me they’d trained them to grab the grenades and throw them out. But this one guy in the fox hole with him, he jumps on the grenade.”
“Yikes,” said someone.
“Yeah, but the grenade don’t explode right away. It doesn’t detonate for a few seconds. So this guy is hunkered down on it, waiting. He looks up, into the eyes of the old man I knew. And the old man told me, the look on the guy’s face… He knew he should have thrown it. He knew he didn’t have to die. Then it detonates. He’s gone.”
“That’s a messed up story,” Brent said.
“You know what I wish we had?” Isaak said. “Some marijuana.”
“Hey, Bear,” Panas asked. “You still carry bud?”
Bear reached into one of the pouches on his web belt and withdrew a small baggie with marijuana in it.
“Oh shit!” Isaak’s face lit up.
“Bear.” Panas laughed approvingly.
“I knew you was alright, big man,” Chris said.
“That was a messed up story, Sonny,” repeated Brent.
“You want to hear a messed up story?” Tris had a few too many in her. “That story ain’t shit. I’ll tell you a messed up story.”
Mickey, Gwen and Julie looked intently at the woman.
“Tris—”
“No, Sonya, let me tell the new guys my story. I was stationed down in Bragg when all this started. My husband was at home, in Raleigh, with the kids. I jumped ship. I’m not ashamed to admit it. A.W.O.L. I wanted to get home to my babies.”
Bear had rolled a fat joint and Mickey reached over to an unresponsive Buddy, pulled the Zippo lighter from Buddy’s pocket, leaned forward, lit Bear’s jay.
“Well, I got home. My kids, my husband, they’d all been bit. They were all lying around together in one room, waiting, dying. And there I was, come all those miles, unharmed.”
Sonya had heard the story before and pulled her sleeping Nicole closer. As Tris talked, Sonny walked over and smoothed Torrie’s dress down over her purple flowered panties. The joint made the rounds. Only Julie and the sleeping children did not partake.
“One by one, they turned,” Tris spoke slowly and quietly. “And one by one, I did what needed to be done. I knew, from Bragg, from the road, from what we’d seen on the TV while the TV was still working… I knew what had to be done. And I did it.”
Panas stared at the glowing tip of the joint.
“Anyway,” Tris finished, “from what I hear, Bragg didn’t last much longer.”
Gwen got up to go get herself another drink.
“What about you, big man?” Chris said. “Where were you when it happened?”
“Yeah, big man, what’s your story?” The way Tris said it came off as a challenge.
Bear thought for a moment then spoke.
“I was working in a nursing home.”
Buddy mumbled something and Mickey leaned closer to him. “What’s that Buddy?”
“A nursing home?” Chris asked.
“…C.H.U.D., Mickey…”
“Yeah, Buddy, C.H.U.D..” Mickey was drunk and high and happy, remembering an old conversation with Buddy.
“Let the man tell his story, Chris,” Brent said.
“Yeah, I was working in a nursing home. I went home one afternoon and by the next morning…things had gone to hell. I’d watched the television, listened to the radio. I had a pretty good idea what was going on out there.”
“…who was in that Mickey…”
“Well, John Goodman, before Roseanne, before he became famous…”
Chris looked at Bear, all expectant, waiting to hear some story about Bear battling scores of zombies.
“So, I got up and went to work the next day. I stuck to the side streets and when I saw groups of people that looked, looked like they might not be people any more, I stayed away from them. Anyway, there was this old couple I used to visit every day up on the third floor, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan.
“The old man, he liked to read the
Post
. The woman liked the
Daily News
. I used to pick the papers up for them, in the morning. There was a newsstand across the street from the home. Well, that day I show up for work, the newsstand is shuttered. But the papers are lying outside, bundled up. So I grab a
Post
and a
News
, and I cross the street, and as I cross the street I see them, standing in the windows, all those old people…”
“Mickey,” Buddy whispered.
“What’s that?”
“Adlard. I saw him one night.”
“Okay.”
“At first, I think to myself they’re zombies. They’re bit and they’ve changed,” Bear unfolded his tale. “But they’re not. They were old people, and they were scared, and they were staring out the windows just to see what was going on. No one had evacuated them....
“So I cross the street, and I’m walking to the front door, and some of them must recognize me, because they’re waving to me, and I think to myself, what am I going to do? That place must have had, I don’t know, a hundred elderly? The whole city, the whole country, is falling apart around me. There was no one else on that street with me, no one living. Only one zombie, standing all alone, in front of the doors…like...like it was guarding the place. It looked up at me and screamed as I got closer.
“I’m crossing the street, and I’m thinking I could wait it out with them, in the facility. But, you know what I did?”
“What’d you do?” Chris asked.
Tris nailed Bear with her gaze.
“I turned and I walked away. I left that zombie standing there. I left those old folks in their home. That’s what I did.”
“Well, you didn’t have no other choice,” Chris tried to rationalize.
“
No
,” Bear answered quickly. “I had a choice. And I made my decision. And those people died in there because of me.”
“You don’t know that—”
“I know it. When I was walking away, I refused to turn around and look at them in the windows. You know why? Because I was scared. Because I was ashamed.”
“It’s okay.” Julie put a hand on her friend’s arm.
“No, it’s not okay. Those people are dead because of me. I live with that. I’ll always live with that. That zombie… I’ll never forget what that zombie looked like.”
“Then live with it, big man,” Tris said. “If that’s what keeps you going, fucking run with it. The man I saw outside, yesterday, killing Zeds? I didn’t know better I’d swear you were born to kill zombies. And I got news for the rest of you—” Tris addressed the circle.
“We’re going back, aren’t we?” Biden asked.
“Spread the word, ya’ll. We’re going back down to the city, back down to this place these people are from, place Biden and Panas told us about. We’re going to find this Eden and if there’s any people left there, we’re going to bring them back here with us.”
“Hell yeah!” Danny said.
“Let’s go and kick some motherfucking zombie ass!” Chris pumped a fist in the air, the tassels on his arm flying.
“You’re drunk, Tris,” Singh said.
“You are,” Sonya agreed.
“I’m drunk, yes. And I got my head up behind this weed, true, but I know what I’m saying and I mean what I say.”
“I’m in, Tris,” Biden said.
Isaak nodded. “Me too.”
“And me,” Brent added. He looked at Steve but Steve looked away.
“You guys are crazy,” Julie said. “Listen to me. I’m
from
there. There’s no way you’re going to get—even if you make it to Queens—”