Orpheus (28 page)

"And if I do?"

"You first."

"Fuck you."

"You're really going to clam up? For the guys who left you to die at the school?"

"I don't give a shit about them. I just don't want to give you anything."

"Why not?"

"I was military intelligence. I'm not going to crack for some punk kid. That's why. I will tell you one thing, though...we had all of those zombies confined to one place, according to plan. You had to go and put them some place we couldn't use. But the show must go on, right? All of those dead people in the gym? Your fault, not mine."

Ethan had already considered this, and had mostly made peace with it, though some guilt still gnawed at him, however undeserved it was. He nodded slightly. "Okay." More nods. "Okay. You know something, Trent? You were right about me." Ethan let that hang for a moment, and he could tell that Trent was curious. He waited the other man out.

"Right about what?"

"You told me that you thought I was bluffing in the church, that I wouldn't throw those two to the wolves. You were right. I wasn't going to leave without them."

"Hooray for me. So?"

"So, the reason is that it became us vs. them in a hurry. Humans against those things. I wasn't going to kill another human being. There really are so few of us left."

On the last syllable, Ethan raised his pistol and pressed the barrel to Trent's forehead. He pressed hard, and the metal dug into the flesh even as his head was pushed backwards and down over the chair back. "But you...you're not human."

"Wait, wait! Stop! I was bluffing! I wasn't military intelligence! I worked in the motor pool!" Ethan responded by pressing even harder. The angle constricted Trent's airway a great deal, and he struggled to breathe. "I'll tell you what you want to know!"

"We'll manage," Ethan said coldly. "Bye."

"Don't...!"

"Ethan," a soft voice said from the doorway. "Ethan, you don't need to do that. You don't want to do that."

Ethan turned his head slightly to see the rest of his diminished band of survivors in the doorway, Ann at the forefront. "Yeah, Ann, I think I do."

"No, you don't. We're all grieving for our friends. But this would be murder. That's not a step worth taking."

Ethan flexed his finger around the trigger and clenched his jaw.
Do it...they'll forgive you,
the spiteful part of his mind told him.
Do it.

The rational part, however, forced him to turn his head and look at Rachel. What he saw in her face was fear. Whether it was for him or of him was irrelevant (he suspected it to be a bit of both). It wasn't a look he ever wanted to see again. He pulled the gun away from Trent's head. Instead, he drove his fist into Trent's mouth. "You are the luckiest motherfucker alive."

Trent, wisely, said nothing. He only breathed and looked anywhere but at another person.

"Are we loaded up?"

"Any more and someone will have to ride on the roof rack." Harold said. "We kind of anticipated that he wouldn't be accompanying us any longer."

Ethan walked out of the office and into the market area. It only took him a few seconds to find what he needed: bottled water, a bag of sliced white bread, and some dog bowls. When he got back to the office, he tore open the bread and poured the water into a bowl. He placed everything on the desk where Trent could reach it, even considering his limited movement.

Trent stammered something in gratitude, but Ethan cut him off with another punch. "Now you have a chance, which is more than you gave all of those people. Fuck you, and I hope you die screaming."

They all left the store and took up places in the SUV. Harold hadn't been exaggerating; food and other supplies were stacked, quite literally, to the roof in every spot that wouldn't be occupied by a survivor.

Just before Ethan turned the ignition key he asked, "Anyone have to pee?"

"Oh, I do," Jason said.

"I was kidding."

"Well, I'm not. Sorry."

"I'll come with you," Harold offered.

"That's not necessary, sweetie. I'm a big boy now. Two minutes."

Jason turned on his flashlight and headed back inside.

* * *

Jason really did have to go to the bathroom, but that wasn't the main reason that he went back inside. He walked into the bathroom and relieved himself. He heard Trent asking, "Is somebody there? Who's there?" over and over again. He zipped up, grabbed something off of the counter, and headed into the office.

Trent jumped when he walked through the door, probably thinking that Ethan had come back to finish the job. He physically and mentally relaxed when he saw who it was.

Jason knew that he didn't intimidate a guy like Trent. Truth is, he'd always been the intimidated one. Always. But Harold loved him, anyway. Loved him, protected him, stood up for him.

And this man had tried to kill him.

That wouldn't do.

"What the fuck do you want?" Trent asked, fully back into character.

"It's so quiet in here. I thought you could use some music to keep you company." He placed the battery powered radio and CD player on the far end of the desk. He popped in a Pavarotti CD that he'd lifted from the SUV and hit play. He listened for a few seconds. "Now this is nice." Outside, the rain intensified a bit, but a far-off thunderclap signified that the storm was moving elsewhere. Still, Jason turned it up louder.

Trent grew wary. "What are you doing? I don't need any music."

"Sure you do," Jason said, and he maxed the volume. The little boombox packed a wallop, and the high notes were ear-splitting.

"Turn that shit off!" Trent yelled over the tenor.

"Turn it off yourself," Jason yelled in return. He walked to the office's back door and turned the lock. "Some fresh air might do you some good, too."

Trent was confused until he saw the doorstop. Then his confusion turned into fear. "Don't do that. Please."

Jason mimed deafness. "Can't hear you! The music's too loud!" He opened the door as wide as it would allow and jammed the doorstop in.

The wind drove the rain a few feet into the office, but the elements weren't what had Trent worried. "Come on, those things might be out there!"

Jason looked at him quizzically. "You think?"

"No! Hey, quit playing around, you homo! Wait! I'm sorry I called you a homo!"

Jason ignored him. When he got back to the car, he jumped in quickly and slammed the door against both the rain and the music inside the office.

"What took you so long?" Harold asked.

"Number two," Jason said, his usually sheepish self.

Trent had just begun to loosen the bonds on his left arm when Chappy, who hadn't wandered far after all, returned to his store.

* * *

Mary-Lou's Drive-In and Bar-B-Q was mostly deserted (the survivors had to clean up a few random zombies who had strayed there, but the drive-in itself had been closed the night of the infection), and Rachel had known it. She was the only one who'd actually read the fliers for Casino Night at the school; it was both sponsored and catered by Mary-Lou's. It was remote. They could escape in, quite literally, any direction through the packed dirt lot. Food was, again, plentiful. The meat would no doubt be spoiled by now, but they had a ridiculous variety of snacks to choose from.

Once the entrances were secured...heavily...the group relaxed a bit.

*   *   *

Several weeks passed in relative comfort.

"Rachel, this was a real stroke of genius," Sister Ann said. "Wasn't it, Ethan?"

Ethan didn't respond right away, because he was staring at a stack of the informational fliers that would have been handed out to incoming vehicles. He thought that he might be forming an idea, but he didn't want to jump the gun, just in case he was wrong.

"Ethan?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. It's a nice pull, babe. I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

"I want to move the truck closer to the door. Just in case we have to run. Again."

Rachel either bought his explanation or thought that he just wanted a few minutes alone, which was also true. "Oh. Okay."

He looked out every available window to make sure the coast was clear. When he got outside, he lifted his face to the sun and let it beat down on him a little. It reminded me of the basketball game with his father, and that seemed like years ago. He willed himself back to the present and got in the driver's seat. He started it up and moved the truck where he wanted it, but not before he ran through the AM radio stations one by one.

He'd gotten the idea from the fliers. If you wanted to listen to the movie, you had to turn to AM 570, WZXQ. Harold had intercepted the transmission from Trent's cronies about meeting up at 830. What if that didn't refer to the time of the meeting, but the place? The last that Ethan knew, AM 830 was an unused frequency since the island station WJZZ folded.

What did it mean? Up to AM 810 (Your Favorite Swing!), it meant nothing. All of those stations were static, as he expected.

At 830, it meant everything. That frequency had no static. More than that, it had nothing. He turned up the radio as loud as it would go. He thought that maybe he could detect a faint pulse at a frequency at the edges of human hearing, but he wasn't sure. It could just be the blood pumping through his ears, for all he knew. What he was sure of was that every station on the dial, AM and FM, had static, save for AM 830. That couldn't be a coincidence.

Ethan wasn't sure exactly sure what he was going to do with this information, but he knew that, whatever it was, it would be tonight.

* * *

Rachel stirred a little as Ethan slid out of their "bed" on the floor behind the snack bar. He hesitated as her arm brushed lightly against his thigh, and waited until he was sure she was asleep again. He slid his sneakers on, grabbed a set of keys for one of the spare catering vans, and walked to the door and the silhouette looking out of the picture window.

The silhouette whirled around at the sound of footsteps behind him. "Ethan! You scared the crap out of me."

"Sorry."

"What are you doing up?"

"I have to check on something."

"Check on..." Jason noticed the keys in Ethan's hand. "Where are you going?" he almost yelled.

Ethan waved his hands downward. "Would you keep your voice down?"

"Where are you going?" Jason repeated in a stage whisper.

"Checking on a hunch."

"What hunch?"

Ethan made a dismissive sound.

"Tell me or I start screaming like a girl. And you know that I can."

Ethan tried to make up a suitable lie on the fly, but he really couldn't come up with anything, so he told the truth.

"That's weird," Jason said. "What do you think it means?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. But I don't want Rachel coming with me, in case it goes really bad."

Jason said, "I don't like it. But I doubt you'll let anyone stop you." He surprised Ethan by sliding the table aside and unlocking the door. "Just be careful, okay? We've lost enough."

"I will. Thanks."

"Take this." Ethan accepted the radio. Jason thought of something else. "And this. Just in case." The gun went in Ethan's pocket.

Jason opened the door for Ethan.

Ethan was on the main road by the time Jason slid the table back in place.

* * *

The abandoned WJZZ building looked, as Ethan had expected, abandoned. The radio tower rose against the night sky like a monolith, though the blinking red light that warned approaching aircraft was dormant. He turned off his headlights and crawled to the edge of the parking lot farthest away from the entrance. His survival instincts told him to pull all the way to the front door, and that was logical if he was only concerned with the zombies, but he had at least a few human enemies now, and with them he would absolutely need the element of surprise if they were in the building. He parked, killed the engine, lowered his window, and listened for any signs of activity, undead or otherwise. He heard nothing, and hoofed it the front door, his gun at his side.

The glass doors were locked. By itself, that wasn't out of the ordinary. The station was, after all, defunct, and the last person to leave had probably locked it out of habit. The faint humming sound coming from within, however, piqued Ethan's interest. It sounded like a motor, or maybe a generator. He looked around to make sure he was still alone. He popped out the magazine from the pistol and ejected the shell in the chamber. He pocketed these and grabbed the pistol by its barrel, ready to use it as a hammer. He flashed back to the time on the roof when Rachel suggested the shoe over the knob to lessen the noise. He took off his jacket, held it up tight against the glass, and proceeded. The first strike fractured the glass; the second punched all the way through. The jacket did a good job muffling the noise, but if anyone was inside and close, they probably would have heard it, so he moved aside, reloaded his gun, and waited a couple of minutes.