This Dark Earth (25 page)

The shamblers are closer now, moaning and making wet, phlegmy sounds.

He gives me a look that’s half pure hatred and half self-disgust. The blood is coming now from his jaw. I might’ve slipped the knife all the way into his mouth. No way to tell, really. “Yeah. There’s around sixty women. And they’ve started luring men into camp with promises of food, booze—” He glances from me to Keb to the shamblers getting closer and
louder every second. “I ain’t got nothing to do with that! I don’t. I’m just a scout.”

“You’re taking men now? What do they do?”

“Latrines. Bait for the murderholes. Labor.”

About what I figured.

“And you’re coming for us to get more? Is that right? You need more slaves?”

“They need more workers to build walls. Without ’em, they’ll be stuck with just layers of chain-link.”

Yeah, buddy. Say
they
all you want, but you’re still a goddamned slaver.

“One last question.”

Jasper waves. “Hey, gents! It’s time to move. You got maybe a minute.”

“Last one. You fuck any of the women?”

He looks into my face and his eyes go all shifty. “Yeah. Couple of times. It’s how they keep us in line. Reward us. If we work hard, we get to visit the whoreho—the women’s tent.”

I hold up the knife. “It’s a good thing you told the truth. Otherwise I would’ve staked you, you filthy little shit.”

I spit in his face.

Then cut him free.

Keb looks at me like I’m crazy, and Jasper shakes his head like I’m a retard. Maybe I am.

The slaver wastes no time racing off. He’s favoring one leg, but he clears the interstate and the trees before I can get back to my bike.

“That was a motherfucking mistake, Lil Prince.”

“Probably.” I don’t know what I’m becoming. It’s too hard
to think with the cocaine making my head pound and my heart hammer. “I gave my word.”

To Knock-Out, not some worthless slaver
.

“Who the fuck are you, man? Why’s your word so important? Huh?” He waves his hand behind us. The zombies are maybe fifty yards away. “Look at this shit. You ain’t got the luxury of having pride, man. Your word ain’t shit.”

“I don’t expect you to understand this, Keb. But if we don’t act human, we won’t be human.” I twist in my seat, look back at the horde of zombies shambling toward us. “Without that, without something like honor, or commitment . . . fuck . . . without knowing something sure other than we’re going to die, what the hell are we? We’re just like them. Just hungers running crazy.”

“The zeds are real. The slavers are real. Pride don’t matter when you’re shambling. All that other stuff is make-believe bullshit, Lil P.”

“Maybe, Keb. But if we don’t act like it’s real, then it never will be.” I slam down my visor, kick start the bike, and roll, south.

Eyes bright, tails
bushy, thanks to the blow. Starting to consider divvying up the remainder between the three of us so we can each snort to our own heart’s content, but I don’t know what we’d put it in. Or if Keb has any more of those hundred-dollar bills. We make another pit stop, snort some lines with an efficiency that comes from habit, and roll on down I-40, southwest. Taking it slow. But it’s hard. With my heart racing, cocooned in the roar of the motorcycle, I want
to gun the damned thing. Put this mass of undead far behind and breathe fresh air.

But we can’t. We watch the road, we watch the zeds shamble after us. And we have to roll slow.

Flash of light to my left.

The explosion takes out Jasper and his bike in a blossom of yellow fire and smoke and for an instant I’m lost and then I’m ripped from my bike and tumbling head over heels through the air. Something tears at my back and my helmet hits the ground, hard.

I have, burned into the undersides of my eyelids, a vision of Jasper in three pieces, spraying blood, each piece of him twisting away from the others.

No clue about Keb.

I lie in the grass, on my back, looking at the sky, watching the smoke rise above me. All I can think of is getting up, moving away from the zeds coming for us, but I can’t seem to get my arms and legs to move the way I want them to. They move, but there’s a lot of pain, and I’m so clumsy, I feel like I should just lie here until I can get my limbs to move together. But the zombies are getting closer.

I push my body up and a big bloody chunk of Jasper is right next to me. Or it might be Keb. I don’t know.

I look back at where we came from. The wind blows smoke from the burning wreckage across the interstate and into the tree line, obscuring the undead. Maybe it will keep them off me, distract them.

No, here they come, through the smoke. Close. Thirty feet, maybe.

I stand. It’s really hard to move and my ears ring, like when the big guns on the Bradleys fire. Deafening. I thought the Harleys were loud.

What the fuck caused it? An RPG? A mine?

I walk. Away from the zeds and the burning wreckage. Something’s wrong with my ankle and the pain is starting to come through now, bright and shooting and in the end it’s gonna kill me.

Might be shambling just a little faster than the shamblers.

There’s a buzzing and I don’t know if it’s my ears still ringing or it’s something else.

I walk. I hear the shamblers behind me. Soon I’ll be able to smell them.

A crackle.

My helmet muffles everything, so I pop the visor. Gunfire. The buzzing of motorcycles.

I trip on some debris, hit asphalt, and roll. The hatchets dig into the meat of my pecs and abs but stay attached. Joblo will be happy to learn his Velcro did the trick. Doesn’t look like I’ll get the chance to tell him, though.

I tumble down the shoulder into the high grass and force myself onto my hands and knees.

The shamblers stand above me, on the pavement. Some look my way and slump down the hill. Others peer ahead, in that blind, fumbling way the zeds have, toward the highway. I put a hatchet into my left hand and, with my right, rip a .9mm from the Velcroed holsters. The sound isn’t much of a concern right now.

I take aim, fire. Aim. Fire. Aim. Fire.

I miss one before the end of the clip. Most of the shamblers peeling off the road to gobble me are prone now, but there’s a thousand more where they came from. And the pistol reports have alerted them that I’m being scrumptious over on the interstate shoulder.

Maybe two hundred more turn and begin to shamble toward me.

I run. My ankle is screaming, and I’m having trouble keeping my balance, but I can handle the pain. It’s better than the alternative. I feel something tearing down there and know I won’t be able to run for very long. Maybe a few more seconds. In that time I can get far enough away to at least eat a bullet.

I won’t shamble. I won’t turn like Dad.

I’m away from the shamblers, and they don’t look too happy about the situation. If they could run, they’d be hauling ass to eat me. But all they can do is gimp along, gnashing black teeth.

I rip the other .9mm from its holster and place the barrel in my mouth. The gunmetal tastes oily and I remove it on instinct, it tastes so bad. I don’t want to die. But I won’t shamble. It’s hard to put it back in my mouth.

I’m looking at the mass of zeds when the zombies start to dissolve and the air around them fills with a black mist. It’s like tea bags being dunked in steaming water. Then I hear big chain guns, .30 caliber or larger.

A pair of motorcycles pulls in front of me. The riders hop off and have pistols out and in my face faster than I know how to deal with. They’re yelling something but I’m still looking at the zeds behind them. Tea bags in water.

Maybe I should let them shoot me. At least I wouldn’t have to taste the gun oil again.

Knock-Out wouldn’t approve.

I drop the gun and they knock me down, truss me like a hog, and sling me over the back of an ATV.

Looks like I’ve found the slavers.

It’s an hour
or two ride, and we’re going fast, leaving the zeds behind, the thousands of dead, to mill around and look for someone else to chomp on.

I hope no survivors wander through that area. That stretch of interstate is gonna be kinda rough for years. If you think about all the individual lives those zeds represent, each one with a life and a history and a bank account and family up until the Big Turnover, it’s like a whole town on the hoof, and I feel a great loss as the sound of their lowing diminishes and passes away. There go ten thousand aces in the hole.

When we pull into the slavers’ camp, I twist uncomfortably to check out their fortifications. Chain-link, mostly. Piled-up cars too. If we had gotten here with the zeds, the fences would have crumpled under the weight of the horde. The zeds would have wiped out the slavers.

A thought strikes me. What about the women? They would’ve been zombie-chow too. At least that didn’t happen. Silver linings and all that.

They drive through many layers of chain-link fencing until we get to the bridge. They’ve set up tenting, much like we have at Bridge City.

Everything looks a little disordered here. All the men are in fatigues and armed, heavily. They look at me with cold, uncaring eyes.

Yeah, well, fuck you too, gentlemen.

The ATV rolls to a stop outside a big tent like the one Mom, Wallis, and Knock-Out operate from. Two slavers snatch me up under the armpits, hoist me into the air, and bring me into the tent.

There’s one of those folding chairs set up and they dump me into it, hands still tied.

A man, small, with short-cropped hair brushed forward like Caesar, pulls up a stool and sits down in front of me, puts his hands on his knees, reversed, so that his elbows stick out at sharp angles. He’s hard with muscles, and he’s angry.

He’s scary angry, really, like he’s never been happy ever, not once.

“This him?” he says over his shoulder.

In the shadows of the tent behind him, a wavery voice says, “Yes. That’s the one. The Prince.”

Oh. Our old friend. The blubbery slaver who spilled it all.

And I let him go.

Caesar puts his face right in mine, like he wants to bite off my nose. His breath smells like peppermints and aftershave.

“Okay, young man. My name is Konstantin. Captain Konstantin.” His eyes search my face. “I’m merely a captain. Not a prince. So forgive me for speaking harshly.”

“I’m not a prince. That’s just a stupid—”

He holds up a finger and shushes me.

“Tell me about your defenses. Tell me everything about your community—”

“I don’t think tha—”

The blow, when it comes, totally surprises me. Catches me on the ridge of my eye. Zygomatic . . . Mom tried to teach me the human bones.

My zygomatic is fucked now. I felt something crack when he hit me and I can’t see anymore from that side.

The pain is just outrageous. The human body shouldn’t be allowed to feel this much pain. I’d cry if I could, it hurts so bad, but I think I’ve pissed myself instead.

With my good eye, I can see when Konstantin raises his fist and shows me the brass knuckles.

“Let me ask again.” He brushes an imaginary fleck of dust from his fatigues. He’s not looking at me at all now. “Tell me everything about your community. Everything. And let’s start with the king.”

“The king? We don’t have—”

He spares my head this time. So I’ve got that going for me. This time he slams his brass fist into my chest. Something goes crunchy in there too.

I didn’t think I could feel more pain than my fucked-up face but . . . well . . . as Mom always says, the human animal is an amazing creature.

Konstantin motions to his goons, and they move me to a wooden table.

“Okay, little prince. This looks like it might take a little while. So why don’t we all get comfy? Yes?”

One of the men takes my arms, puts them on the table,
and feeds zip ties through the holes I’m just now noticing in the tabletop. They splay my hands flat.

“Are you right- or left-handed?”

“I’m . . .” It’s hard to talk. I make my mouth move. I don’t want him to hit me again. “I’m left dominant.”

“Hmm. Nice.” He cocks his head and nods at me, like he’s appraising something a tiny bit more interesting now. “I am a leftie too. We’ll focus on the right, then, for starters.”

When he takes out pruning shears, holds them in front of my face, just so I get the idea, clamps them down on the tip of my pinkie—
snick!—
and that little bit of
me
detaches itself and rolls across the table, leaving a trail of blood, I scream. I scream.

I scream.

I’m sorry, Mom, Knock-Out. I’m sorry, Ellie.

I’m so sorry.

“So, tell me about your king, little prince. Tell me about your home.”

I tell. Everything. Everything I know.

And some things I don’t.

I pass out
a few times.

This man, Konstantin, it’s hard to believe that he really is here, that he exists. How can another human be this . . . this . . . inhuman?

Above the pain, beyond it, I think of Frazier. I shouldn’t have thrown you away, Frazier, like you were useless or something. I shouldn’t have killed you. I thought you were a shithead and that seemed to matter and be enough.

God, I’m an idiot.

Why did I let the slaver go? Principle? There’s no such thing as principle as little bits of
you
, of yourself, are being cut away.

When I come
to, there’s not much left of my hand. Just index and thumb, giving it the look of a bloody claw.

Konstantin had pruning shears and questions. And he questioned and pruned. Down to my palms.

You think of yourself as tough. You think of yourself as different. All it took was three fingers for me to tell him everything. Everything I knew. By the second finger, I was brainstorming with him, trying to figure out the best ways to enslave my family. My home.

Like: focusing fire on the gates, RPGs, big-caliber weapons.

Dislike: finding barges upstream, setting them adrift, knocking all of Bridge City sideways.

Dislike: catapult with zombies.

Like: targeting the Motor Pool gas reserves.