Dead Wrangler (16 page)

Now, there had been about two million zombies in that horde. By the time we were done, maybe a hundred thousand remained. They didn't make it to Columbia.

The herders had learned their lesson that day; they did not have the power to traipse around the planet at will. They, like us, needed to worry about being seen. They needed to be scared of us too. The Whiteman raid changed the dynamic of the war forever.

The herders' reaction came quickly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sioux City

He looked at her expectantly. She gaped at him, exhausted.

"Name is Pete. We should probably be going. Only got two hours of sunlight left. Can you ride a bike?" He asked. She stared, then broke into tears. He seemed annoyed, then shrugged. "Looks like you had a real bad day. We got food and a safe place to sleep if you come with me. But we need to hurry. Always got to hit the road when you make noise like this."

Janet nodded and forced herself to move.

"Can you ride the bike?" He asked. "We've got five miles to go, it should be easier for you." She nodded and tried to climb on. It took her a few tries; her legs were sore and she just couldn't move. After a few struggles she got on and started pedaling. At first it was like death; her legs revolted, and Pete was walking beside her looking concerned. But after a few minutes he was jogging beside her and the pain began to subside to a deep low groan, though her legs felt dead. She'd never been this tired before.

Five miles. Not so bad. There was a little computer on the handle that said she was going six miles per hour. Fifty minutes until food. She could hang on that long.

Pete jogged alongside this woman whose name he didn't know. He deciphered the clues and wondered at what he couldn't figure out. This lady had friends, he could tell that. She had a place to stay. All her dirt was fresh. If she had been on her own for long she would be coated in dirt and she would smell to high heaven. He thought he could smell laundry soap. How she had gotten out here alone with such a fine firearm and not enough ammunition, and with such a horde after her puzzled him. Well, he thought, I'll find out once she gets some hot food and about sixteen hours of sleep.

Five miles later she was utterly gone. Her mind contained nothing but a desire for sleep, and she couldn't understand what he said. Pete gently pulled her from the bike and guided her down some stairs. A sleeping bag and a pillow sat on the concrete floor of a basement. She was in it in a heartbeat, but he wouldn't let her sleep until she swallowed a glass of water. She heard concerned voices muttering. She couldn't understand them, but turned over to voice her incredible annoyance that they were keeping her up. Before she could say anything she was gone into a black, dreamless sleep.

When she woke up every muscle in her body screamed at the slightest movement. She lay there not wanting to move until the smell of food started to penetrate her consciousness. Pancakes, with a hint of–my God–maple syrup? She forgot about her muscles and struggled out of her sleeping bag. Everything was sore but she was soon upstairs giving the cook a look of insatiable greed. They even had sausage grilling on a propane stove. The cook was a gaunt middle aged man.

"I heard you might just be hungry. Help yourself. Name’s John, by the way."

"Janet," she said, as she stuffed a sausage whole into her mouth. It was the most delicious thing she'd ever eaten. John smiled a toothy grin at her and watched her wolf down sausages until she decided to tackle the pancakes. Maple syrup! Not real maple syrup, but still. She gobbled a whole stack of pancakes covered in the magical stuff. When she looked up, John and Pete were sharing wide eyed looks of amusement. She realized her whole face was covered in syrup. John threw a moist towel at her.

"Don't want to get close or you might eat my hand," he guffawed.

"Thank you," she said as she toweled off her face.

"So. I'm Pete. I never got your name."

"Janet."

"You wouldn't happen to have a daughter named Diane, would you Janet?"

She stared at him in shock. She had been too absorbed in breakfast to think about them.

"How'd you know that?"

"Well, got on the radio. Seems like you came across three of our guys who had decided to get some ducks instead of doing their job. When you ran they figured you came from up the road and found your family. They had been out until sunset looking for you. Sick to death. Were quite relieved when I told them where you were."

"Thank you so much for everything. I'm so stupid, I just had cabin fever and wanted to be outside for a while."

"Well, it certainly sounds like an unfortunate series of events, but it worked out. Your family is ok, they're with my guys heading north. Once they heard you were safe there wasn't a reason to stay."

"But, what? That cabin was so perfect!" Janet exclaimed. Now that they were gone she wanted nothing more to be back there with them.

"Well, yeah, it sounds like you had it really good. We've relayed its position for later, but right now everybody needs to get the hell out of East Iowa for a while.

"Why?"

"The Chicago horde is coming through. Got about three days before about a million zombies come right through here from the east. Seems like you found what was left of the Des Moines horde. Where did you find all of them?"

"They were all bathing at the hot springs next to the Cabin," she said.

Pete's eyebrows shot up. "You serious?"

"Yep. All thirty of them were just sitting in the spring. I walked right up to them."

"Never heard of them doing that. That's worth reporting."

"Reporting to who?" Janet asked.

"The government," Pete said.

"But... there's been nothing for ages. On the radio."

"It's not much of a government, I'll give you that. But there's a bit left. We work for them."

"Doing what?"

"Foraging for supplies, rescuing the occasional survivor like you. Scouting."

"For what?"

"Well, the Chicago horde for one."

"What's that?"

"There were about ten million people in Chicago before the apocalypse. When all those zombies got bored after everyone died, they start walking, looking for people. They don't move too fast, especially in winter, but they still come. They sweep through and kill any people who aren't fast enough."

"How far away is this?"

"They start getting thick about twenty miles to the east. Right now it's still mostly native zombies, but they're about to join up with the horde. In short, it's time to get going. Your family is breaking north into Minnesota, but we've got to head west, and see what is to be seen. Locate the Omaha horde, maybe see if the Kansas City horde is in Iowa in numbers yet."

"How can you tell where they are from?"

"Kill a few. One’s usually got a wallet on them. Their drivers license tells you. Find a few wallets and you've got a good idea. Might not be peer reviewed but at the end of the day a zombie’s a zombie so it's not like you need to be that certain."

She didn't have much to say about that. Only one sausage was left. Pete smirked at the look in her eye. "All yours. We all ate hours ago. This is all for you."

She gratefully ate the last one, though she forced herself to nibble on it.

"If you're going to stand on manners, you should probably use the fork."

She glared at him and shoved the remaining sausage in her mouth. Then she blushed and they both laughed.

"Alright John, we need speed so I'll be riding with you today," Pete said. "Rest of us are packed up and ready to go. C'mon."

She washed her hands on the towel and went. Outside was a convoy of vehicles. She sensed annoyed looks aimed at her direction. When she looked no one seemed to be paying her any attention. Pete guided her to a U-Haul truck. She got in, and he shooed her to the middle seat. He got in one side and John got in the driver's side. Soon they were heading west at a solid forty miles per hour. They seemed to know when obstacles would appear. They had a tow truck/snow plow that either pushed or pulled the obstacle out of the way. They carefully noted each cleared obstacle on an iPad that displayed some kind of complicated map. Six hours later they were in Clarion, Iowa. The passed a junkyard full of old cars and abandoned semi-trailers and came across a grocery store. The town was utterly empty.

"This area should be pretty safe, but stick with me, ok?"

"Where's my gun?"

"It's in the back of this truck."

"Can I have it back?"

"Sure. But now let's just go see what can be gotten food wise. Should be quiet."

And he was right. It was quiet. It was so quiet that that was a little scary. There should be something here; people, or zombies, or both. But this place was really and truly dead.

Someone had cleaned the place out. All that was left was a whole lot of Nutella and a few cans of mushrooms. John was pretty happy.

"You know, people don't like Nutella for some reason, but I love it. Better than peanut butter any day." He greedily dumped all of it into a shopping cart.

"Never had it," Janet said.

"Oh, you'll be sick to death of it by the time we get to New City," he replied.

"New City?"

Pete glowered at John.

"Uh, I said Sioux City," he said, and walked off.

"What's New City?"

"Sioux City. Famous for its sarsaparilla and root beer," Pete said. He walked off to the mushroom isle.

Janet pursed her lips, and then noticed a can of cashews that had been kicked behind a cash register. She forgot all about Sioux City and munched on the cashews long after they had gotten back in the truck. John and Pete both grabbed a few nuts from time to time. Aside from the occasional shambling figure the whole area was quite peaceful.

"Can I talk to my family?" She asked as she sucked salt from the bottom of the can of cashews.

"Probably out of CB range, but I can check later when we set up the big radio," John said.

"John can't make any promises about that, but we'll try. Even though we're in civilian clothes this is a military operation. We've got people to answer to, and one of their pet peeves is too much radio chatter. If my superiors feel like their dicks are too small today they'll shoot it down on general principles."

"But, my daughter is probably worried sick... I need to apologize for putting them through this."

"Well, from what I understand yeah what you did was not the smartest thing, but look at this way–if you hadn't fucked up we wouldn't have found your cabin. If we hadn't found you, in two days your whole family would be Alamoing up in that cabin. So as far as fuck ups go, it worked out so well you might think it was divine intervention."

She didn't have much of a response to that, although it did make her feel a bit less guilty.

"I shouldn't tell you this, but if they are making good time they will probably be in Fort Wineca by sunset, so they'll be quite a bit safer than us," John shot him a look. Pete looked right back at him and John flinched a little.

"Fort Wineca?"

"You never heard of Fort Wineca, ok?" Pete said.

"Ok, but..."

"Your family will be about as safe as it is possible for a human being to be these days. That's all we can say." Pete said.

She let it rest. They drove and drove. She was about to burst before they stopped in the middle of the road. The men just pulled it out and went. She looked around while also trying to shield her eyes. It sounded like bacon frying.

"Just, I dunno, wait till they're done and then go by a tire," John said with a bemused look over his shoulder. So that's what she did while they set up camp for the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cyaxares

A few weeks after they found the guns James was at the commissary. It was stew night. Cabbage and mystery meat stew, with a side of stale rye bread. By contemporary standards it was great. James and his guys were on the last meal shift, sitting with about a hundred other soldiers.

"Normally I hate this shit, but this garbage is like something my mother would make when she was pissed at us. So, pretty good I guess. By local standards," Todd said. Jesus barked.

"This is five star cuisine. Hell, when was the last time you had a vegetable that wasn't from a can? I can't remember," Jesus said. "This is gen-u-wine hydro cabbage. Just don't ask where the fertilizer came from."

"The night before I went to jail, my mom took me to Ruth's Chris. I don't even know what I ate now, but my God, it was delicious. The steak–I'd never had anything so good. The mashed potatoes melted. I'd just swab it around my mouth just to taste it before I swallowed. We went through a whole lot of wine and then we had cheesecake," James said.

"Shut the fuck up James. Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to get us to kill ourselves? Ruth's Chris. Talking about Ruth's Chris while I try to convince myself I like cabbage stew. Army cabbage stew," Todd said, half laughing but half serious. He stuck his spoon in the stew and made a face. "I got something big in here." He put his fingers in. He pulled out a desiccated human hand. He stared at it as cabbage juice dripped off its ragged fingernails, then vomited cabbage stew all over himself. The rest of the soldiers turned and saw. A chorus of vile cursing almost drowned out the sound of vomiting. James stuck a finger down his throat as he staggered away from the table. Ones who didn't vomit on their own did the same. The hall was a disaster. Everything was covered in vomit and the disgusted screams and groans of the unwilling cannibals were so loud no one could understand anything.

The military police descended on the hall, getting everyone in the vicinity on the ground. Major Hendrix appeared a few minutes later, pale and disbelieving.

"What in the fuck is going on?" he shouted. Shaking hands pointed at the dead hand, which was still moist. Leafs of cabbage clung to it. Major Hendrix approached it, staring at it as if he looked long enough it would turn into something else. He poked it. It remained a hand. He turned and went to the kitchen. He picked up the twenty-gallon pots of steaming stew and turned them over one by one. Once the liquid had drained away he took a spatula and started searching the clumps of cabbage.

More body parts appeared. The other hand. What looked like an eyeball, though it was hard to say for sure. Each piece brought fresh groans and retching. Even the police were looking seasick. Hendrix picked up a green chunk of meat that looked like a Jalapeno pepper.

"What the fuck is that?" he muttered.

"Gallbladder," someone said, voice thick and raw from their stomach acid. The retching resumed.

"What kind of sick prank is this? Who is responsible for this?" Hendrix screamed. The cooks, already pale, flinched. He pointed at the staff. "Arrest all of them and find out who fucking did this. Is this infected? Is this zombie meat?" He bellowed. The cooks shook their head and didn't answer. The MP's herded them off at gunpoint. Hendrix stared at the pile of parts for a while, then sprayed vomit onto the pile of steaming cabbage. He wiped his mouth, then turned to the remaining police.

"Put these men under quarantine. Put everyone who ate out of those pots tonight on quarantine. I don't know what the fuck the point of this was, but put them under quarantine. I never heard of anyone eating zombie before." The wailing went up in volume, as well as anything left in their stomachs. A couple of MP's joined in. The smell of vomit almost overpowered the smell of the cabbage as they were led away to the quarantine blocks.

James paused. "Major," he said without thinking.

"You have something to say Private?" Hendrix said, dangerously cold. His tone suggested he was expecting a confession.

"No sir. Something occurred to me is all, sir," James said.

"Oh, and what was that, private?"

"Well, sir. We're the last meal shift. Pretty much everybody who isn't a commissioned officer ate from those pots tonight." The MP's glared at him as they went paler.

"Then we're gonna quarantine everyone," Hendrix said with finality.

Maybe that was the idea, James thought. But he let himself get led out and put in a cell. The MP's spent the rest of the night herding most of the soldiers into cells. When they were done they locked themselves in.

James watched it all in passive quiet, his mind churning. Who had access to the pots? Who had access to corpses? What would motivate them to do something like that? Because James was quite sure that if whoever did it got caught, they weren't going to live to see a court martial. The people who had lived this long had already spent months scared to death that they were going to catch the bug. Anyone who made them feel that way again was going to lose a lot of teeth when they got caught. He spent the night stewing and dry heaving when the memories came on too strong. He was pretty sure he'd eaten something. The more he thought about it the more convinced he was it had been part of a kidney. It just tasted like kidney. The more convinced he was, the more he retched. He wanted to take a shower for hours, and then eat nothing but white rice for a week. Being locked back up because he was the victim of a vile prank made him want to scream and bend the bars back.

The night passed without sleep, just a constant gnawing. James felt dirty in a way he had never felt before, not even at his worst moment. His insides felt scoured and raw and filthy, and a sour taste clung to his mouth. Morning dawned, and hours later a guard appeared with a cart load of MREs. The prisoners groaned.

"You wanta eat anything those cooks make?" The guard asked with a look of disbelief. The majority of the prisoners seemed to take that as a fair point, and the groaning diminished to mumbled curses and groans. Many of these men had lived for a long time on MREs. They did not look forward to returning to the stuff, which made frozen TV dinners look like haute cuisine.

The bulk of the packages were "Veggie Burger w/ BBQ sauce," a universally loathed variety. The curses grew louder as each guy got their meal shoved through the bars. James got a Buffalo Chicken meal. It came with a Butterfinger bar and a bag of powder that said "Green Tea." A liter of water followed the MRE. He pulled the package open and was greeted by a livid red mass of sauce and chicken chunks. The stench of hot wings was overpowering, and for a minute he held it as far away as possible. As hungry as he was, he was still sensitive. He held his nose with one hand and slid the mass to the top of the package, where he used his tongue to scoop bits of the sauce into his mouth. When he had too much he pulled back and breathed through his mouth. Even with his nose covered the taste was overpowering and sent him to puking again. He chugged the water to get rid of the taste, and went to the other corner of his tiny cell for a while to let his stomach settle. After a long struggle, he got the thing down. The Butterfinger was quite a bit better, and he nibbled at it, trying to make it last as long as he could. When he was done he swigged the rest of the warm water, then laid back and felt tears well up.

He was used to prison food, and that was still the worst breakfast he'd ever had. Especially after last night, the last thing he needed was such a flat, weird, and just wrong buffalo chicken meatpile.

A few hours after that Major Hendrix appeared.

"I thought you gentlemen would like to have an update. We've gotten a confession. The cook responsible is Peter Melville."

"That's the asshole we found in that house!" Jesus exclaimed, with an excited glance at James.

"Yes. The rest of the cooks have been cleared of any wrongdoing. I understand that you were fed MRE's today for breakfast, and I apologize for that. I promise you hot meals until you are out of quarantine."

Shouted questions echoed around the cells. Finally the Major raised a hand. "One at a time please." He pointed at one man.

"How long are you going to quarantine us?"

"Procedure says three days. I plan on sticking to that to be safe," Major Hendrix said.

"Why'd that cocksucker do it?" Another shouted.

"He won't say. He just says he did it alone."

"Major Hendrix," James said. "I think you might want to interview me. I knew there was something wrong with that guy when I found him in that basement–I think I can help figure out why he did it."

Major Hendrix eyed him. "Why do you think that?"

"There was something wrong with the whole thing," James had no idea what exactly had been wrong with it. Just a sense of unease. So he made something up. "I think he may be a mole."

Major Andrew's eyebrows rose. "Bring him to my office." He turned and left.

His neighbors looked at him with suspicion. Perhaps they suspected he was bullshitting just to get out. There was enough truth to their suspicion to make James keep his eyes down as he walked out. They brought him to Major Hendrix office without fuss. He stepped inside.

"So what is this bullshit? I'm letting you talk only because I don't want anyone to think I'm not pursuing all leads," Hendrix said.

"I'm on a salvage crew. Last month we come on this house. Just packed with zombies. Forty of them in a fifteen hundred square foot house. So we clean them out, go in. The garage is full of food, and everything is in good order. No zombies in the garage even though they must have been bouncing off each other in the rest of the house. Door is still closed. There's some stairs down to a basement–the door is unlocked, and at the bottom is this Melville guy. He'd been in there for who knows how long, with nothing but two unlocked doors to protect him, and the zombies never found him. I mean, the smell of his shit and piss alone should have been enough, but they didn't bother him."

"What's your point?"

"At the time we thought it was just weird, you know. One of those weird miraculous things you hear about. Three dudes and a chick holding off ten thousand zombies in a shopping mall. Comatose dudes waking up in a dead hospital a month after everyone else died. Stuff like that. But now..."

"Get to the point."

"What if the zombies left him alone because he's working for them?"

Hendrix starting laughing, a deep belly laugh. "Get the fuck out of my office," he said between guffaws. James clenched his hand and continued.

"Why else would you put bits of zombie in the food? To infect us, that's why."

"The doctors assure me that the boiling and the digestive acid would prevent the disease from spreading that way."

"They why in the fuck did you make me eat a Buffalo Chicken MRE in a jail cell?"

"Procedure dictates anyone exposed be quarantined for seventy-two hours, no exceptions."

"Maybe Melville didn't know that it wouldn't work."

"If he didn't know that it's because he's just a nut. Maybe he convinced himself that if he helped the zombies they wouldn't eat him, and somehow he got lucky. Zombies are fucking stupid. Stooopid stupid. I don't know what you're on, but the man’s just a nutter. Honestly, I feel sorry for him. How fucked up would you have to be to think you were working for the zombies?" Hendrix said with certainty and a bit of sympathy. "Who knows where your mind would go if you spent a month with nothing but two unlocked doors between you and forty of them, too scared to even sneak up the stairs to lock the door."

James didn't have much of a response to that; it made too much sense. Occam's razor told him the simplest explanation was what Hendrix thought-- the man had gone straight crazy. The zombies he knew were stupid, and he had no evidence of any other kind. Nothing besides rumors so crazy and second hand that if he believed them he would have to believe in Bigfoot. But his gut was pulling him another way.

A man, wretchedly thin, grabbed his eyes and screamed as the light hit his eyes. He scrambled away from the light and hid in the corner.

"He screamed," James said.

"Who screamed?" Hendrix asked, in a tone of voice saying the conversation was not going to last much longer.

"Melville. When we opened the door. He screamed at the flashlight."

"Who wouldn't?"

"If you'd spent a month terrified that the slightest noise would get you eaten alive, would you scream?"

"You are reaching very far."

"Have you ever been in solitary?" James asked.

"Of course not," Hendrix said.

"I know what it's like to see light for the first time in a month. It hurts. It really hurts, but you don't scream because you don't want to show weakness ever around here. I know what it's like to be Melville a lot more than you think. You don't scream when you are surrounded by predators. He screamed. He wasn't as afraid as you'd think," James said.

"Look, thank you for trying to help, and we're certainly not going to let Melville loose to do any kind of harm. The quarantine is an annoyance, but it's not the worst thing that's happened to any of us."

James' mind was racing, running in circles, playing with the clues and jangling them together. Hendrix was not going to wait for him to grind his thoughts into a theory.