Euphoria-Z (34 page)

Ralph gave Henry the date, and he had to repeat it a few times. It took a while for Henry to accept that he heard it correctly. It had been almost eleven years since his last memory, and his mind was awhirl with questions, sorrows, and some anger. He must have looked as stunned as he felt.

“What date did you think it was?” Ralph asked.

Henry told him the last day he remembered in great detail and all he had just heard from Jeeter.

Ralph looked at him with a concerned expression. “We have a lot to talk about, and I am afraid much of it will be hard for you to hear, and even harder to believe than an eleven-year fugue state.”

Ralph was Dr. Ralph Foles, an ear, nose, and throat specialist. The two spoke for several hours, and Ralph tried to explain the past ten years, then the asteroid, the Euphoria-Z virus, and everything that he knew up to the present moment.

Ralph had trouble explaining the horrible things he’d witnessed when the virus first started to spread. Watching loved ones do things he’d never thought possible. One image he couldn’t shake was a fat kid eating and eating and vomiting and eating again until he was gagging on the food that filled his throat.

Finally, Ralph stopped talking and Henry stopped asking questions. Henry found it hard enough to come to terms with a decade-long fugue state, the effect it had on his body, and the deaths of his father and grandfather that, to him, had happened only yesterday, but now the end of the world was added to the list.

“So, in less than a month the population of the world is almost entirely gone, replaced by zombies?” Henry said in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

“Well, I’m not sure they’re dead.” Ralph was tired of talking about it, but this young fellow deserved answers. “I didn’t see anyone die and haven’t been able to give one of them a physical exam. I don’t know if they’re dead or if their hearts are still beating. I haven’t had much of a chance to observe them, but their behaviors don’t match up at all with any logical answer I can come up with.”

“What about the government?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re fine. They’ve always been good at taking care of themselves.” Ralph smirked. “The emergency broadcast system was still running last time I checked, so apparently there is some form of government still intact. But a few hundred people living in a bunker below the earth with no population to govern isn’t a government; it’s a group of cowards hiding in a hole.

“What’s being said on the emergency broadcast?”

“It’s a repeating message of crap we already know better than the people broadcasting it. They’re telling us that we’re on our own, the infected are everywhere, stay safe, and we will rebuild one day. Horseshit! I’ll be damned if I help rebuild a system that tells me I’m on my own when I really need them. They hide in a bunker our tax dollars built and expect us to help them rebuild the system so they can tax us again. Do you think if we knocked on the front door of that bunker they would let us in?” They both fell quiet.

After a rest, Ralph told him what the bikers, Fats being one of them, had done to the people in the warehouse. Ralph hadn’t witnessed Fats do anything other than come into the building. But still Henry wondered what he had been doing for eleven years that allowed him to survive in a biker gang.

Henry was hot. The office was stuffy. He was thinking of the biker Jeeter and the vest he wore. It occurred to him he must be wearing one too. He pulled off the thick leather vest and dropped it on the table. It was well worn, scuffed and old. It looked to have been made from a light-colored leather jacket with the sleeves cut off. It had several patches on it. A Nazi flag jumped out at him. There was a small arched patch with the word “original” embroidered on it. There were a few other patches that made no sense to him, various letters and numbers. He turned the vest over, and sewn to the back, in the dead center, was a large embroidered patch.

This patch depicted a very curvaceous nude woman with devil horns, a tail, and a pitchfork. She also had a large set of angel’s wings that created a circular shape to the large patch as they arched above and down and around her body. She was doing something clearly pornographic. It was then that Henry noticed the tattoos on his arms. It just kept getting worse.

Ralph wanted to retell the story of what had happened at the warehouse. What the one they called Banjo did, and just how evil it was given the state of the world. How Jeeter killed a good man and continued to pulverize his corpse with a can of dog food. He wanted Henry to know who and what these men were and why he’d stayed behind in the warehouse, not so he wouldn’t die outside, but because he wanted to exact revenge on the bikers when he was able.

“It makes me wonder what sorts of things I have done over the years,” Henry said.

“You cannot think of it that way, Henry. You have effectively been in a coma of sorts for years. This Fats was a creation of Jeeter’s sick mind and bears no relation to you. Fats was a mimic, a puppet that mirrored Jeeter. It’s as if he stole your car and ran someone down with it. He hijacked your body.”

Henry raised his eyebrows and nodded. “That does put it into a different perspective, thanks.” He picked up the vest and looked at it. He couldn’t believe he had absolutely no memory of the past eleven years of his life. He dropped the vest on the table.

Ralph stood. “That thing stinks and, no offense, so do you.” He picked up the vest carefully like it was a dead rat. “I’m going to get rid of this.”

“No. Wait.” Henry took the vest back. “They still think I’m part of the gang. I can use that to help you.”

“It seems dangerous.”

“No, I don’t think it will be. I can just lie back down and listen to what they have to say. It will help you, and me for that matter, with revenge.” He put the vest back on and walked as quietly as possible down the stairs.

36.

Cooper rode Tug’s tailgate, looking for a place where he could drop off undetected. He was also hoping to find a giant pot of boiling water he could throw himself into. Even with all the dangers around, he had trouble thinking of anything but a very hot bath with a case of soap and a gallon of shampoo.

Tug crept slowly through neighborhoods. The dead were close, but none came close to Cooper. After what felt like forever but was probably twenty minutes, Tug drove through the giant parking lot of a huge strip mall. When Tug passed one of the landscaped islands in the lot, Cooper dropped off the bumper, but he didn’t roll. He didn’t want to make any movement that might draw the eye of the driver.

He lay on the ground facedown, right next to an oil stain that smelled like gas and grease. It was the best smell ever. He inhaled the fragrant beauty of used motor oil and concrete. The truck’s brakes squeaked. He looked up but only moved his eyes to do so. He kept his head perfectly still, hoping he hadn’t been seen.

“What the hell?” Tug had seen something drop off the back of his truck and stopped. Dale stuck his head out the window and looked back. It was the guy. Holy crap, had he been back there the entire time? The guy was looking at him, but not moving. Dale pulled his head back in.

“Nothing but garbage. Onward to page eighty-two!” Dale tried to get him going, but Tug squinted his eyes at the rearview mirror.

“Nah, that’s not garbage. It’s a body, looks like.”

“That’s just a deadhead that was stuck to your bumper. You plowed through about a million of them.” He smiled.

“Seems like.” Tug put the truck in drive.

“Wait.” Dale stopped him. Tug was going to drive off just as he wanted, but Dale had changed his mind. He already knew what he had to do to Tug, and he wanted to talk to the guy on the ground behind them. There were so few people in the world. He would either be a decent person or another Tug. Either way, Dale needed to know.

The truck sat idling, and for two extremely long seconds Dale didn’t move, knowing his next move would upset the apple cart. He was taking a chance on the guy behind the truck, and he didn’t really know how Tug would react. In addition, the dead were seeping between buildings and coming from the street behind them. They had limited time to leave free and clear.

“Back in a sec.” Dale got out of the truck and left the door open. Tug sat, passively staring straight ahead.

§

The truck was sitting too long, and Cooper was getting ready to run when the passenger-side door opened. The one called Dale came out, looking right at him and signaling for him to stay down with his hands. Cooper stayed put, but nervously.

Dale squatted and motioned for Cooper to stay down.

“I’m Dale.” Now that he was close, he could see that this guy was still mostly a kid. He had to be about twenty. Dale couldn’t believe this kid had held on to the back of the truck and how quickly he’d read the situation and then acted. He would have been great on the force.

“Cooper.” He poked one index finger toward the truck. “That guy’s a murderer. He was raping a girl, and I stopped him.”

“You must be the asshole that hit him in the head.” Dale smiled.

“That’s me.”

“He left out the part about rape and murder.” Dale shot a glance back at Tug.

“Why are you with him?”

“I couldn’t kill him on a hunch, but I couldn’t let him run free. I’ve been keeping an eye on him.”

“Now what?” Cooper tried looking up.

“I’m going to call him out and pull my weapon. Don’t move until after I draw on him. Then…ah, we’ll be improvising.”

But before Dale could stand, Tug opened his door and slid out.

“What’s going on, Dale?” He was walking toward the back of the truck.

Dale thrust his hand down the front of his shirt, popping a button, and pulled his hidden revolver. He spun and faced Tug.

“Don’t move.”

Cooper stood up, expecting some sort of reaction from Tug.

Tug stopped short and put his hands up. He had that creepy smile on his face, and he was staring off into nothing. He seemed frozen in place. He didn’t look at Cooper, didn’t seem to recognize him.

“Come on, hands higher. Turn around and put your hands behind your head.”

Tug complied. No dirty look, no resistance, no spitting or cursing, no questions, bargaining, or proclamations of innocence.

“Knew it was too good to be true,” Tug said as he turned around.

Cooper held both pistols on Tug as Dale patted him down. He found a buck knife and a piece of folded paper. He unfolded the paper. It was page eighty-two.

“What’s too good to be true?” Dale asked but thought he knew the answer.

“A friend. They were right. I can’t have a friend.” He smiled and looked on. “I know what comes next.”

Dale felt a pang of sympathy for Tug. Even though he was a sociopath and probably had not a shred of sympathy for his victims, Dale thought it sad that the poor man had probably spent his entire life without a friend. He’d probably never heard a word of kindness, encouragement, approval, or affection. It sucked, but in Dale’s experience most criminals had similar stories, and they were almost always beyond change. He still had no other option.

“I want it.” Tug was staring off into space. “I want to go.”

Cooper relaxed and lowered his pistols.

Dale looked Tug in the face. “It will be quick, painless.”

“Can I ask something of you?” For the first time, Tug made eye contact with him.

“Sure, Tug,” Dale said, addressing him as a friend might. Knowing these were Tug’s last moments on earth, he saw no reason to be mean to the guy.

“Can I go out with my cue, over there, fighting them?” He motioned with his head to the spot between stores where the dead were thickly pouring into the parking lot.

“Sure, but you know I will shoot you if you try anything.”

Tug nodded. “For a while you were…my friend.” He smiled. “Page eighty-two.”

Dale backed up, retrieved the cue from the truck bed, and handed it to Tug. Tug took it and walked toward the mob of advancing corpses, looking relaxed. His motion drew all their focus, and they came for him.

It occurred to Dale that Tug probably thought he was simply being robbed. Dale had never explained any of it to him.

He and Cooper watched as Tug fought the dead. He was smooth, graceful even, as he rapidly dropped one after another. He lasted an unbelievably long time. As Dale watched, he felt something he’d never felt before for any criminal, especially one as cruel as Tug. He felt sorry for him. Despite all the terrible things he knew about Tug, he saw the kid who was beaten, molested, made fun of, and never given a shred of kindness from which he could produce his own.

Tug began to tire. His blows grew weaker and less accurate until he was simply overwhelmed. He sank down in the writhing mass of rotten flesh, without a sound they could hear, and was gone.

Dale put the truck in drive, and they were gone too.

37.

The parking structure looked the same from the outside, boring and empty. But the last day or so had been productive for the small group. Sal and Ron had built a platform for Jeff’s elevator mechanism. They cut a door in the wall surrounding one of the ramp openings and remounted Jeff’s winch-powered elevator on the second level. The elevator could carry a good deal of weight. They painted the bottom of the platform black so it would blend in with the surrounding walls, and when it was brought all the way up, it was virtually invisible from below.

In the past few days, they had managed to cart a fairly impressive amount of supplies to their new home. They built several basic rooms and painted the outer walls flat black to disguise them. They still used the area in the front corner, near the door to the stairwell, as a sort of living room. It was sheltered by two sections of cement wall that were each about twenty feet long. They occupied very little of the space the structure had to offer, but they had big plans for the use of it.