Loose Ends: A Zombie Novel (12 page)

To my dismay, Chef slowed down to a near crawl, so he could look.

Chef said, “It could be patient zero for this town. They got a call about a domestic disturbance, murder, and mayhem. The police surrounded the place to get them to surrender and give up the hostages. In the end, everyone got eaten and it spread to the next town.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” Short Order said as we idled.

Doc said, “This is quite a historic site, then. You guys want to go in and have a look around? I’ll stay here and wait for you to scream three times.”

Chef said, “No, thanks.”

Short Order added, “I don’t like history anymore.”

We sped up and drove on down the road. I kept looking out my window as we went.

“What if that was the first one?” Short Order said. “Can you imagine if they had just shot him in the head back then and we could have avoided this whole thing?”

Doc said, “The world would probably be better, if they had.”

Chef said, “That’s not how this started.  It was-”

“I know,” Short said. “I was watching T.V. too and then I was running from it like everyone else. I’m just saying.”

***

We struggled along driving on the shoulder of the road. There was traffic packed in both lanes heading toward the town we were leaving and away from whatever we were approaching. That didn’t seem promising.

We had lunch at a clearing off the road beyond the town. We didn’t manage to shoot anything. Short Order studied the atlas, but none of the roads coming off of this one seemed to lead anywhere. He also admitted he wasn’t a hundred percent sure where we were. I waited for Doc to jump in with a miraculous suggestion the way he “happened” to see the park yesterday, but he stayed silent.

We continued up the shoulder feeling like we were going to slide off the road at any moment. Then, traffic thinned out again. We weaved between the cars until all the abandoned vehicles were in the grass beside the road. Eventually, the gauntlet of stranded cars disappeared and we were on open road again.

We passed a few lone zombies and small packs off the road. They would turn and follow us, but soon they were gone behind us. We knew from experience that they were still coming.

We passed a few roads that went off in other directions, but we stayed with the main road now that it was all ours.

Then, we hit another snarl of traffic. This time it was pointed in the direction we were going in both lanes and sometimes on the shoulders too. It looked like people were scrambling to escape in both directions and had failed. This wasn’t promising either.

Sometimes we had to swing way off the road and bound over debris hidden in the grass, but we hugged the shoulder most of the way as we crept along the sides of the crumbling vehicles.

I kept watching for the dead to sit up in one of the cars.

“This is going to be a terrible place to have to stop,” Chef grumbled from the front seat.

“So don’t stop,” Doc barked from the back.

“It’s getting late,” Chef said. “We’re going to have to do something, if we don’t want be sitting in here out in the open at night.”

Doc said, “If we have to, we have to. We know to set a guard now. We won’t get surprised like last time … hopefully.”

Chef kept driving deep into our “look for a place” time.

Short Order looked at a burned out gas station and a crumbling billboard for a radio station with a cartoon dog giving a thumbs-up. There was a narrow dirt road leading out into a field of weeds under the board.

He said, “Oh, man, I know where we are.”

“Please say, whorehouse. Please say, whorehouse,” Doc clinched his fists and repeated in the back.

“Doc, please,” Chef snapped. “What are you talking about, Shaw?”

“Go up this dirt path, I think,” Short Order said.

Doc moaned. “Shaw Porter, please, don’t send us up a one-lane, dirt path that even these dead maniacs in this traffic didn’t want to try unless you are sure.”

“I’m sure,” Short said. “Go up the path under the billboard.”

We did.

There was a farmhouse, but the wood had collapsed in a heap on the foundation.

“Not good,” Doc said.

“Keep going,” Short said. “I’m positive.”

We passed by three tall, white crosses in a field. No one said anything. The path turned to grass between collapsed barbwire and posts on both sides. We could hear the grass scraping along the bottom of the truck. We finally came up on a paved road again that was clear.

“Okay,” Chef said.

Short pointed to the right, “There will be some places this way and water we can purify.”

We drove by a number of houses and buildings right off the road. Most had the roof lying inside the walls or entire sections had collapsed in on themselves.

We drove by a Lutheran Church on the driver’s side that was boarded up. The church sign was blown all the way through with only the metal shell still standing. There was black paint over the front walls and boards under the rusted and broken rain cover. The paint had “X’s” and crude skulls and crossbones. I knew what that meant. Someone told me it used to mean pirates or poison. We still had some of both of those too. The message between the black skulls read, Dead Inside. Stay Away!

There was a cemetery next to the church.

Short Order said, “David, pull up this dirt road just past the cemetery.”

“Are you sure?” Chef asked.

“Am I the only one that read the sign on the church?” Doc asked.

“We’re not going to the church,” Short said.

Chef turned.  We rode alongside the tombstones for a few feet until we came to another dirt path veering away from the graves.

Short said, “Turn up this way.”

“How do you know this?” Chef asked as we turned and moved through thick trees and brush on both sides.

“My mother is buried back there,” Short answered.

“Who is buried up this way?” Doc asked.

Short answered, “The caretaker’s house was up this way. It was secluded and built like a log cabin. My dad knew him.”

“Let’s hope he’s not home,” Doc said, “so we don’t have to shoot him in the head.”

***

He wasn’t. The cabin was fairly well preserved. There were a lot of food stuffs that we could still use. Doc cooked and Short threw his hands in the air in frustration at the luck of the other two on their cooking nights. Chef said he was changing the challenge anyway.

There was a lake between the property and the cemetery. Short walked the trail back and sat on one of the graves near the center after dinner. We stood on the porch and watched for trouble. It was actually a beautiful view when taken in isolation. Doc turned around and sat on the railing with his back to the lake.

“We’re too close to that church full of God knows what,” Doc mumbled looking over his shoulder at an angle past Chef at the steeple.

He looked away back at the plain, cabin door again.

Chef said, “They’re everywhere.”

“Doesn’t mean we should sleep next to a church full of them,” Doc said.

“Strange coincidence, finding this place … It’s a small world,” Chef said.

“Naw,” Doc said, “We came mostly north because you guys lived up here. It was bound to happen. The world is full of ghosts. It’s just a world; we’re creeping around a small piece of it chasing our tails.”

I stared at Short’s back in the growing darkness and didn’t look at Doc.

“Still is interesting, I think,” Chef said.

Doc asked, “You ever have sex in a cemetery?”

“No,” Chef answered flatly.

“Me either,” Doc confessed, “I got to second base once in one with a girl named Terry.”

I shivered thinking about the bodies in duct tape on the floor in Doc’s secret hideout with his secret folders. He had called one of them Terry as I was sneaking out the window.

Doc continued, “I got my ass kicked in a cemetery too.”

“Really?” Chef asked. “Tell me that story instead.”

“Not much to tell,” Doc laughed.

“John,” Chef said, “Yesterday, I couldn’t get you to stop telling me about taking a shit in the woods. Now, you tell me you got beat up in a cemetery and you think that story isn’t interesting. Come on, man, spill it!  Lie to me and tell you won, if that helps.”

Doc laughed. I just stood still.

He said, “It was three guys that followed me in a pick-up truck. I had stopped to take a walk and clear my head. They pulled up to my car and were waiting for me when I got back. It was a pretty bad beating. They left me on the ground and drove away.”

There was a long silence.

Chef said, “Sorry, Doc, I didn’t realize it was that kind of story. Why were they after you?”

There was another long silence. Doc ran his hands back through his white hair trying to smooth it down again.

Doc said, “Small town justice … They thought I did something I didn’t do. Later, I was acquitted. The cops strongly suggested that I put it behind me and move on.”

“That’s … Well, there’s no words for what that is,” Chef said. “I’m sorry, John.”

“They’re all dead now,” Doc said. “I didn’t even have to kill them all myself. Even Terry and her B-sized titties are dead. It’s no good digging up bones like Shaw is doing out there. No good at all.”

Doc was facing away from the lake and Short when he said it. Short just sat with his back to us. Stars were reflecting in the lake and it was almost too dark to see him.  I was afraid.

“We need to go get him,” Chef said.

“No,” Doc said, “That’s no good. He’s going to have to come back up himself.”

We waited and eventually he did.

***

The next morning after breakfast, I walked down the dirt road and tried to locate Short’s sitting spot. I found several Browns, some Sharps, there were some Traskers, some Bakers, and even a Lynnard. Finally, I found the tombstone for Emily Porter.  She left behind a husband and two children. It was a double marker with a space for Shawn Donald Porter, but the husband had no death date. At least he had no death date listed on the stone.

I was relieved to see Short seemed to be who he said he was. I turned around and saw Doc staring at me from the porch, through the brush over the lake. I didn’t want to go back, but I slowly walked up the path back to the cabin. The entire way I was praying a zombie would come busting out of the brush to give us something else to focus on, but none did.

Doc was still waiting when I reached the porch. I tried to walk past him.

He asked, “You digging up bones, Mutt?”

I shook my head and kept walking looking down at my feet. He grabbed my shoulder and stopped me before I could get to the door.

He said, “Look at me, son.”

I forced myself to look up at his gristly chin. I couldn’t hold his eyes. I just looked at his mouth and thought about duct tape chewed through and duct tape wrapped around heads.

Doc said, “That’s Shaw Porter’s business out there and no one else’s. He didn’t really invite us into it and it’s not our place to snoop. Everyone has his own burden to carry. Unless we are asked, we don’t try to take it from him or open his sack to see what it is.  Do you understand, Mutt?”

I nodded my head. I wondered if he really knew how much I understood. Chef came out the door and Doc dropped his hand from my shoulder. At that moment, I wanted the man that was connected to the house surrounded by police cars to leave in the night and never come back.

Chef said, “If anyone needs to drop a possum before we go, do it now. I used the downstairs toilet already and it doesn’t flush, so you may want to go somewhere else.”

Short Order followed him out, “Chef, don’t let Doc rub off on you. You are too good for that.”

“It was nice to sit for a while and pretend the world was normal,” Chef answered. “I’m making this a thing.”

As they walked away leaving me alone with Doc again, Short Order called back, “Dear God, Doc, we are going to need more of those queer, purple ponies you found.”

Doc laughed at them and nodded at me. He stepped off the porch walking away without looking back. I imagined myself driving the hunting knife into the back of his skull just above the knob and wondered who the real monsters were.

I would find out soon.

We left circling back out around the boarded up church the other way. We continued on past the painted sign, Dead Inside. Stay Away!

Chapter 5: The Day We Buried the Pasta

We stayed in a cabinetry store the night after the church and cemetery. It had all the showcases for fancy home kitchens. They were just empty shells and none of them were as nice as the one we left back on the fourth floor of building three.

We dug into our supplies and Chef decided to have “The Perfect Cup of Tea” challenge. Chef and Short argued back and forth about whether hot tea or sweet, iced tea was better. Doc got tired of it and went outside to sleep in the truck that night. That was fine with me as long as Chef had the keys.

I started to wonder what we would do, if something happened to Chef and he had the keys. We were going to find out eventually.

Since there was no refrigeration, Chef won out on the hot tea argument. He also made a better cup of tea than Short Order.

Short Order went out and stood by the truck smoking while he talked to Doc. Chef sharpened his razor and shaved in long, slow strokes. Short snuffed out the cigarette and came back in about the time Chef was finished, but Doc stayed in the truck. I slept well that night.

The next day we reached the outer edge of another town. Chef started having Short pass him the atlas. Chef was anxious and Short kept asking what was wrong. We kept skirting around roadblocks and circling around packs of walkers. We passed our normal lunch break time as he compared the surviving street signs to the maps and we pressed deeper into the town. Doc kept asking him for what he was looking specifically.

Chef said, “I’ll know when I find it.”

“Will we all survive it when you find it?” Doc mumbled.

Chef barked, “Take it easy, John. Everything is fine; we’ll all be fine.”

The truth was we were going to bury David Sharp’s eaten body and exploded skull before dinner that night. We wouldn’t be the same after that. Nothing would be the same.