Rocky Mountain Die (28 page)

I shake off the pain and look up. Stella grunts and stands there for a second, looking down at her belly. I don’t see what’s wrong at first then I realize that her hands are wrapped around something.

“Stella?” I mutter.

She looks at me, but I have no idea if I’ve said her name or if I’ve made a farting noise. I’m too shocked by the blood that starts pouring from between her fingers to know the difference.

“Hey there, Long Pork,” a familiar voice says.

Cassie walks up to Stella, her eyes locked onto mine, and yanks out the knife that she threw into Stella’s gut. My wife cries out and falls to her knees. Cassie gives her a little push then shoves her out of the way with her feet in order to get the door open.

Before she walks back to the holding cells, she wags a finger at me.

“Don’t start screaming for help now,” she says. “I hear one peep from you and I’ll kill you both when I get back. Right now, I think I like you alive. It makes the world more interesting. I realized that after thinking about our last talk.”

“You crazy fucking cunt ass bitch whore piece of shit,” I snarl.

“No,” she says. “None of those sounds were words. I’m guessing your brain has finally gone bye bye. Which is exactly what I plan to do in just a few minutes. Need to grab something first.”

She walks back to the holding cells and I concentrate on keeping pressure on Stella’s bleeding belly. She looks up at me, pain and fear in her eyes, and all I can do is look back. Anything I say, no matter how soothing I intend it to be, will be idiotic gibberish and only make things worse.

It’s a couple minutes before Cassie is back. She has an unconscious Kramer over her shoulder.

“Good for you,” she says. “You were quiet as a moron could be. Now, I’d appreciate it if you stayed quiet for a while longer so I can get away.”

She starts to walk off then stops and frowns.

“Hmmm,” she says as she comes back to me. “You really have no motivation to stay quiet, do you? Oh, well.”

Her boot meets my face.

“Loyalty above all else,” she says just before it all goes dark.

Chapter Eleven

They say we were gone for three hours before someone came to find us. I was collapsed over Stella, my weight keeping pressure on her wound the whole time. It’s the only reason she didn’t bleed out right there and then.

Not that it makes much difference.

Stella won’t wake up and her condition keeps getting worse.

I’m sitting next to her side in the hospital, her hand gripped in mine, as she slowly slips away from us.

I say us because not an hour has gone by where the hallway outside her room hasn’t been packed with people. Dr. Stenkler and Dr. McCormick tried to fight it at first, but it became evident that no one was going to listen, so they made a rule that only immediate family was allowed inside.

That is me by the bed, Greta asleep in a chair, Charlie pacing back and forth incessantly at the foot of the bed, and Elsbeth standing by the window, her eyes looking out as jumbo snowflakes start to fall.

“I could track her,” Elsbeth says. “I could track her in this snow and find her and kill her.”

“No,” Charlie snaps. “You don’t get to kill her. I do. We do. You bring her back and we all get to cut a part off.”

I grunt and let go of Stella’s hand long enough to grab a pad and pencil from the bedside table.

N
o
, I write
.
Everyone stays here. Cassie is long gone. She had hours to get away. They still haven’t found the sentries’ bodies. You think you can find her and Kramer if she doesn’t want to be found?

“I can find her,” Elsbeth snarls.

No. We need you here. Stella needs her family here. You don’t want to be gone if she

I stop writing. I don’t have to say it.

The lights flicker and we all look up. There’s an old generator hooked to the hospital’s power system, but it hasn’t been maintained well. I’d blame Amy and her crew, but I am so sick of blaming people. Just fucking sick of it.

We don’t know how this nightmare started, and we probably never will, but it doesn’t matter. We can figure it out and then what? Blame them? Why? It solves nothing.

And we sure as fuck can’t blame the Zs. They don’t know what they are doing, even the newer ones. All they want to do is eat. Eat human flesh. I fucking hate them for that, but that’s like hating a great white shark for munching on surfers. Pointless.

The lights steady and I sigh with relief as the machines keeping Stella alive continue to whir. As long as her chest rises and falls, I am okay. So I stare at her chest, I watch the slow rise, the stop, then the slow fall, and I pray to whoever is listening for my wife to come back to me. I pray with all of my might.

***

A week is how long she lives. One last week with the woman that meant everything in the world to me.

One fucking week.

I never got to say goodbye because she never woke up. Her chest just didn’t rise again one morning and that was that.

I wrote the eulogy for her funeral. I couldn’t say it, which nearly killed me, but it was probably better that Critter got to say it anyway. He cried, but he wasn’t a blubbering mess like I was. Shit, I was worse than both the kids combined. He did a great job. That old man is a cantankerous bastard, but damn if he didn’t respect my wife. That all came through as he read my words then said a few of his own.

Everyone was there. Everyone that had survived the trek from Asheville, that we picked up along the way, and that we found here in Boulder.

James “Don’t Call Me Jimmy” Stuart. Melissa Billings. The Fitzpatrick brothers- Buzz, Gunga, and Pup. Dr. Laura McCormick. Landon Chase, that pompous asshole. Lourdes Torres. Medical Sergeant Alex “Reaper” Stillwater. Weapons Sergeant Sammy “John” Baptiste. Mr. Flips and the cannies. Dr. James Stenkler. Amy Lowden. Nick Henshaw. The twins, Bo and Luke. That Crumb guy (never did find out whether that is a first or last name).

And the sisters- Antoinette, Brittany, Steph, Belinda, Audrey, and Marcie.

There are more people, but I either don’t know their names or I’ve forgotten them. That seems to be happening quickly these days.

Someone that wasn’t there was Elsbeth. The day Stella died, she took off. No one has seen her since. Not even John. He says he woke up and her stuff was gone, all her weapons and supplies.

I have a feeling I know where she’s going.

The days go by fast, a blur to my addled brain. People come and go, talking to me and telling me how much they miss Stella. I nod, I smile, I cry with those I feel comfortable crying with. I grieve. I don’t think that will ever stop.

On a completely different note, and it may seem insubstantial, but it means a shit ton to me, is I finally get to see who the fuck Boyd is. All this time and the mysterious Boyd is revealed. It takes a few months, not until spring and the world begins to warm up, but I finally see him.

Who is that with Stinkler
?
I write as I sit with Greta on the porch of one of the campus buildings.

We can hear the far off sounds of hammers and equipment getting a protective wall in place. Charlie is out there overseeing that since I can’t. Not that I’d be much help. Whatever damage has been done to my brain is not healing. I’m slipping away fast. A lot faster than I will admit to anyone.

“That’s Boyd,” Greta frowns. “And don’t call Jimmy ‘Stinkler’. It’s mean.”

I don’t like the guy.

“Why?”

Because.

“Because you think he wants to get in my pants?” Greta laughs.

Yeah.

She laughs harder and I start to get mad as Stinkler and Boyd walk by. My legs don’t work for shit anymore, but damned if I won’t get off this porch and go kick that guy’s ass.

Then as they are about a block away Stinkler grabs Boyd in an embrace and they kiss.

Greta laughs even harder at the look on my face.

Fuck you.

“You are so damn cute,” she says.

Fuck you again.

She gets up and stretches then heads for the front door. Right now we’re all in dorms. We have individual rooms since there is plenty of space, but it’s still living in dorms. Eventually we’ll have our own houses once we get the area secured. But for now we’ve learned to figure it all out.

“I’m going to take a nap before the work crews get back. You staying out here?”

I pat the stack of notebooks next to me.

“Going to start on those journals?”

I nod.

“Okay. I guess someone has to write it all down and tell what has happened to us. Promise me you’ll make Mom the hero, okay?”

I nod again.

“I’m going to read those, so you better keep your promise.”

I frown and flip her off.

“Love you too, Daddy.”

***

I try to write for hours and hours, ignoring Greta and Charlie when they come to tell me it’s time to turn in, but the words won’t come. Someone finally leaves me a light and I think there are guards posted as I stare at the blank paper. I search my mind for everything we’ve been through, but it’s just a blank.

No, that’s not true. It’s a blur. It’s like I need to twist it into focus except I don’t know how. Frustrating as fuck, is what it is.

“Come on,” Greta says as she finally puts a stop to my useless staring and helps me inside. We walk slowly down the hall to my room, waving and nodding at folks as they go about their night routines.

It’s a nice room. On the first floor with my own bathroom and everything. I think it may have been the RA’s room way back when the dorm actually housed students.

It doesn’t take long for me to drift off to sleep.

It doesn’t take long to wake up either when I feel someone’s presence in my bedroom.

“Hello?” I say, but know the words mean nothing.

“Hello,” Elsbeth says.

I switch on a light and stare at her. She looks rough. She’s coated in dirt and grime and there are wounds, fresh and old, up and down her arms. I grab my pad and start writing.

Where the fuck have you been?

“Hunting,” she says.

For what?

“Don’t you see?”

That’s when I hear the muffled sounds of kicking and thrashing. I had thought it was the wind in the trees outside the dorm.

Is that who I think it is
?

I look at the squirming bag by her feet. It’s a big bag. A human-sized bag.

“Yes.”

We stare at each other for a couple of minutes.

Then let’s do this.

“Good,” Elsbeth says and smiles.

We need Greta and Charlie.

“Yes, we do,” Elsbeth says.

She disappears quickly and is back even quicker with both of my kids hurrying behind her. Charlie locks the door as Greta stands over the bag. No one says a word as Elsbeth drags the bag into my bathroom and throws it into the shower stall.

To her credit, when Elsbeth pulls the bag down and we see Cassie’s face, the woman looks as defiant as ever. She glares at us and doesn’t even try to scream or curse us around the considerable gag El has jammed in her mouth.

“Who goes first?” Elsbeth asks as she pulls one of her blades and holds it out.

My kids look at me.

I nod to Greta.

She takes the blade and walks over. Without any hesitation, she stabs the woman in the gut. Cassie doubles over as Greta yanks the blade free then hands it to Charlie. He moves forward, not missing a beat, and stabs her in the gut too. Blood pours everywhere. Good thing the bitch is in the shower.

“Jace,” Elsbeth says as Charlie hands the blade to her.

I furrow my brow.

“I already done and said what I need to,” Elsbeth replies to my confusion. “You finish this.”

I nod and take the blade. I limp over to the shower and look down at the mortally wounded woman. A part of me doesn’t want to stab her. I want her to suffer. I want her to sit here for days and bleed out. But I know that can’t happen.

Where would I shower?

I put the tip of the blade under Cassie’s chin and lift it up. She stares at me, but I do nothing. When her defiant eyes finally turn to fear, I shove the blade through her throat and yank to the side. Blood spurts against the shower walls and I step back to avoid any spray.

We all stand there and watch, waiting until the last spurt is done and we know the bitch is dead.

Then we leave the bathroom and grab each other, hugging and holding on for dear life as we all cry and weep. We are like that for hours, until the sun comes up. Elsbeth tries to apologize for letting Cassie live when she could have killed her back in the Barnes and Noble. We tell her to fuck off because it’s not her fault.

Finally, the kids leave, taking whatever peace they can with them after the night’s events.

Is it over?

“I don’t know,” Elsbeth says. “I haven’t found Kramer.”

You will.

“How do you know?”

Because you’re a Stanford and we never quit.

She puts her head on my shoulder as we sit on my bed and watch the sun come up out my window. At some point I lie down and go to sleep. When I wake up, Elsbeth is gone. I don’t worry about where she is because I know she’ll be around.

***

Elsbeth and I sit together a lot when she’s home. We hang out on the porch every afternoon, the torturous stack of empty notebooks by my side. Silence is our thing. Elsbeth excels at it and I am learning. But that enigmatic silence is easy for her. For me?

I’m about to lose what little mind I have left.

Elsbeth finally sighs. “Here.”

I look at her and she’s holding out a piece of paper. I frown, but she shoves it at me.

I take it, unfold it, read it, and the world is back.

It says
:
blowfish carton toe
s
.

My conditioning trigger words.

The blur whips into focus almost immediately and I cry out as memories flood back. They aren’t easy memories. There is plenty of pain, but it’s pain I embrace. It’s my fucking pain.

She smiles at me and stands up, kissing me on the forehead.

“Do what you do best, Long Pork,” Elsbeth says. “Tell our stories.”

She’s gone and I stare at the stack of notebooks.

I grab one up, open it, and set my pencil on the first line. It takes me a while to figure out where to start, but after a few minutes I know exactly how it begins.

People that move to a subdivision do so for only a couple of reasons. Ours were price and location. Great price for the size of the house and great location since it was just on the edge of Asheville, NC, down by the French Broad River. Once the dead began to walk the earth, the price didn’t matter so much anymore. It was all about location.