ZWD: King of an Empty City (31 page)

                  Shaun was the first to notice me and he came over to see how I was doing. Andy passed the body he carried off to Ashley and her people and followed Shaun over to me. As the onlookers from the lobby started tending to the kids, my girl, Eddie, Donny, and Joseph gathered around me. I nodded at the bundle and asked, “How many?’

              “Five more. They got scared at the end. None of them should have been bitten.”

              “That one?” I asked.

              “She ran, got to the stairs, and tripped. Broke her neck falling down the stairs.”

              “Is Steve. . .” Eddie trailed off. I nodded.

              “Get them together,” I said, rubbing my red eyes. “I’ll take them to Mount Holly and . . .” I trailed off. How do you announce you’ll take five kids to the cemetery and execute them?

              Andrew’s voice rumbled from his chest as he spoke up. “You stay here and take it easy. I’ll go do this.”

              “No!” insisted Eddie. “They’re my people, I should be the one to. . .” He trailed off.

              “It’s not easy,” I told him.

He turned to Andrew. “Uncle Andy, will you come along?” He’d gotten into the habit of calling Andrew “Uncle Andy” for a while and others were picking up on it.

Andrew’s voice rumbled low. “Yes, sir, Mr. Future President.” And he placed a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

              “Everybody else go home and get some rest. We’ll finish up here and meet you at Trinity in the morning,” the Commander told the bystanders, and they all started getting ready to leave. Eddie and Andrew led five kids out the door. The oldest didn’t look more than twelve.

              “Let’s go home,” I said, standing.

              “You have to make a speech,” she said.

              “What?”

              “We’ve never had so many people from the neighborhood together at once. You have to talk to them while they’re here.”

              “What do I say?”

              “Talk about how this is a great day, a step forward in taking back the neighborhood. Tell them we need their help now to finish what we started. Give them a time to meet and tell them to be there. Let them know you’re in charge.”

I went into the heart of the lobby and stood on a table so everyone could see me and I talked. I have no idea what I said in that speech, I just talked. I remember a few people applauded and everyone seemed to think I had a plan worth following. But I hoped someone else wrote down what I said, because for the life of me, I couldn’t remember. Most of the time, I felt like I was talking out of my ass. During the speech, I’d asked for someone to get me a list of names of those who fell tonight and I finished with that.

             
They were:

Steven William Trenton, age 17. Survived by Jamie Lasite, girlfriend.

Doug Jones, age 15. Survived by sister Annette, whereabouts unknown.

Marvin Smith, age 10.

April Mathews, age 8. Survived by sister Liz and brother James.

Karen Baker, age 13. Survived by mother and father, whereabouts unknown.

Pete White, age 9. Survived by brother Bobby.

We went home to the base house and stripped, then threw our clothes in the washer. She went upstairs and took a shower. When I got in the shower, I stayed there till there was no more hot water. She was already in bed when I got out. I felt very empty inside, so I went downstairs and put on a pot of water for hot tea.

              While I was waiting for the pot to boil, I heard noises at the back door. I got my gun and was going to check it out when the door swung open and Jr. peered cautiously into the house. I lowered the gun, breathing a sigh of relief.

              “What the hell are you doing here?”

              “She insisted,” he said, leading Jamie into the house.

              “And why didn’t you knock? Like normal people? Why did you pick the locks?”

Jr. shrugged at my questions, setting down a small backpack and taking a seat at the kitchen table. Jamie looked like she’d been crying non-stop since I left her at Paris Towers. I gave her a long hug and sat her down at the table, then got out two more cups. “Let’s go to the living room where it’s more comfortable.” Leading them in there, I took the big wing-backed chair in the corner and flipped on the reading lamp that stood next to it, bathing the room in warm, rich shadows. She took a seat in the middle of the couch.

              “I’m sleepy,” announced Jr.

              “Well, you know where the bedrooms are and just about everything else in this house,” I said.

He grinned sheepishly at that and said, “I’ll be in the one on the right. We still doing that stuff in the morning?”

              “Yep.”

He nodded once then looked at Jamie, who was hugging herself on the couch. He came over and gave her a hug, then gave me an awkward wave and headed upstairs. “Goodnight, Jr.,” I called after him.

              “G’night.”

              “Goodnight, Jr., and thanks,” called Jamie. Jr. stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at her, then nodded once and went up. We sat in silence listening to him till he got inside the room.

“That’s the problem with that boy, he just doesn’t know when to shut up,” I said and Jamie chuckled.

              “How are you holding up, kiddo? What brings you here in the middle of the night?”

“I miss him so very much,” she said, trying to hold back tears. “And I miss my parents.” She started to cry again. I took a big sip of tea and moved over to the couch beside her, where she collapsed into me. Her head rested on my shoulder and she sobbed as I stroked her hair. I tried to comfort her. I tried to think of things to ask her like, “What were your parents like?” and “Tell me your favorite Steve story,” but they all seemed the wrong things to ask to get her mind off her sorrows, so I just let her cry and held her next to me. I pulled a throw blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her and she practically crawled into my lap.

“Daddy used to hold me like this whenever I was sad, when I was a little girl,” she said into my chest. I hugged her more firmly. It wasn’t long after that that she fell asleep.

             
I managed to stand up, keeping her in my arms without waking her, and carried her up the stairs. For a sixteen-year-old girl, she wasn’t very big, but she was heavy. About forty pounds heavier than she looked, or at least that was the way she felt. Perhaps I was just tired. I opened the door to our room and my girl sat up in bed, gun in hand. “What is it, what’s wrong?” she whispered, wide awake.

“We have a heartbroken little girl here who misses her parents,” I whispered back, setting Jamie’s limp body on the bed. “Do you mind if she sleeps with you tonight?”

              “Ooooh, poor baby girl. It must be so hard on her. Where are you going to sleep?”

              “Well, Jr. has the bedroom on the right, so I’ll take the other one.” As we pulled the covers over Jamie, she snuggled up against my girl, who tucked her gun back into its hiding place and wrapped an arm around her. I kissed them both goodnight and went down and double-checked the locks again. I figured I didn’t have much to worry about this time since Jr. was asleep upstairs.

             
In the other bedroom, I arranged my weapons the way I liked them when I sleep and collapsed onto the bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day and I hoped it ended well.

ZWD: King of an Empty City Chapter 29

ZWD: Dec. 24.

I wonder looking at the zombies below, "Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?"

“Good morning, ladies,” I sang cheerfully as I swung the bedroom door open. The two women, who were still sleeping, stirred and sat up. I danced my way into the room with my best Fred Astaire imitation, which wasn’t very good. At the side of the bed, I gave my woman a long kiss, long enough to make Jamie blush.

                “Mmmmm, do I also get breakfast in bed?” my girl asked.

With a big smile I said, “No. Not with our guest in the room.”

“Gross,” chided Jamie.

“Out, kid,” my girl pointed to the front of the bed, demanding in mock authority. “Mama’s hungry!”

              “That happy meal will just have to wait,” I said to her as Jr. brought in a tray of food. Breakfast was a small thermos of instant coffee, English breakfast cookies (which never seem to go stale), and a jar of apricot jam.

They were delighted and surprised to be served in bed and after she had her first bite of jam and toasted cracker, she raised an eyebrow at me and asked, “So, what’s the occasion, what’s going on?”

“That’s all part of the surprise. Can you two occupy yourselves today? Jr. and I have some things we need to take care of.” I gave her another kiss that spread a smile on her face from ear to ear and then went around the bed and gave Jamie a dozen all over her face before Jr. and I headed out the door. I stopped long enough to say, “Find yourselves something fancy to wear, because
tonight’s the night
,” I sang.

              “Oh God, no! Not with the Rod Stewart songs,” my girl chortled around a mouthful of food. “Not with the,
‘if you think I’m sexy,’
no!” I winked at her from the door.

                 
  
I sang it as I headed down the hall. “Be ready by seven o’clock, I’ll meet you at Trinity. Love you,” I called over my shoulder.

              “What kind of fancy are we talking about here?” she called after me from the bed.

“Dancing shoes and a .45,” I yelled as I went down the stairs.

Jr. and I geared up, then locked the house up and I went to the shop in the backyard. The wind was blowing hard today. It was blowing so hard it looked like it was snowing. Today was the first clear day we’d had in a while. The sky was a brilliant blue and the sun felt wonderful on my skin. But that wind was something else. I imagined we were cave men dressed against the ice age as I walked across the yard to the shop’s door. Inside I found two sets of safety goggles for us and we put them on to keep the stinging wind out of our eyes. On the wall there was a hatchet hanging in its outlined designated place and something told me I needed to grab it today, so I did and locked the shop back up.

The first stop on our agenda was my old house. I knew it had been vandalized, but I was hoping nobody had touched the computer stuff. Out of habit from traveling with my girl, I took a few steps then started trotting down the street, fully expecting Jr. to keep up with me. It wasn’t till I’d gone a block that I realized he was running behind me, trying to catch up. “Do I need to slow down?” I asked.

“No, maybe . . . just a little. . . would be good,” he huffed alongside me. I slowed to a walk and apologized. After a few steps he asked, “Sir, why do you two run everywhere?”

“We don’t run everywhere.”

“Yes, sir, you do,” he said in his customary flat manner. “I was assigned to follow you when we first knew about you, and you run. Everywhere!” He said the “everywhere” with an emphasis that made me glance at him. “It made it hard to keep up sometimes.”

I knew we ran a lot, but I didn’t think it was that much. I didn’t have an answer for him; I just knew I felt safer when I ran. “Come on,” I said, “It will do you good to run a little, keep you warm,” and I started to jog again. From behind me I heard “Ugh.” He quickly fell into step beside me. We’d run a block and walk a block. I didn’t want to wear him out too quickly. On the blocks we walked, we talked about different things. I tried to find out what he liked and what he was like, what made Jr. tick. What I got was a bunch of almost cryptic monosyllabic answers. Jr. was very tight-lipped about himself. I was able to find out he liked puzzles and got him to admit that was why he was good at locks. His favorite superhero was Beast from X-Men and he’d taken the Straight Edge pledge in school once. And that was Jr. in a nutshell.             

              Despite the wind blowing like a gale storm, it felt good to be in the sun. It seemed like every day for the past month it had been rainy and foggy or snowing. That kind of weather can get you down, and after yesterday, we were all pretty down. If what I had planned was to work, I needed today to come together. My only problem and the one I hadn’t worked out yet was how it was going to end. I wanted this night to have a beginning and an end that was spectacular, the way all parties should end with a grand finale.

              At my house, I pulled out the keys and we went inside. This was the second time I’d been back since this all started. Someone else had been in the house and gone through everything. There were photos on the floor, the furniture was torn up, and the kitchen was a mess. The whole house was just generally vandalized. I went to the back bedroom that served as my office. My computer was smashed on the floor. I’d learned a long time ago to save and back up everything on the computer, so I went to the closet and opened the door. My lockbox safe was still there. I opened it and pulled out a portable hard drive marked MX, a terabyte of music in one small package. I checked the computer and it powered up. The screen was cracked, but that wasn’t an issue; I could get a screen from almost anywhere. I put everything together and tested it using some adaptors and an older computer screen I had in the room. Everything still worked. It was a lot to carry, so I decided we were going to find a car and hot-wire it, then drive to our next destination.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed.

Jr., who was in the hall, charged into the room, a knife held above his head. His eyes darting around ready to strike whatever threat alarmed me. I was staring at the floor, at one of our photos on the floor, to be exact. I put the old monitor down and picked up the photo. Jr. put down the knife. I stared at the photo for a little while before Jr. joined me and looked at it over my elbow. It was a photo of my girl and me standing in front of a sky lodge we used to go to in Colorado. It was from shortly after we got married. The photo brought back some wonderful memories, but it wasn’t the photo that excited me.

“Can you drive?” I asked Jr.

“Nope.”

“Today’s your lucky day. You’re going to learn,” I told him.

“Ok.”

I opened the frame and pulled out the photo and stuffed it in my pocket. We loaded a car from across the street and I hot-wired it. While it was heating up, I went over the basics of driving with Jr., what each pedal did and how to handle the car on the ice. I told him not to go fast so he didn’t lose control of the car and he nodded at each instruction, taking it all in with a furrowed brow.

“So you're going to tell me all this again as we’re driving?” he asked.

“No, I need you to go pick up Ste. . . Joseph and Roland. Take them with you and set everything up, then meet me at Trinity. From there, we have one more stop before we’re done for the day.” He nodded confidently at me as he looked at the car.

“When do you want me to pick you up?”

“Let’s say two hours, I don’t know how long my next thing is going to take.”

“What’s your next thing?”

“I’m going to see if I can get some answers to a few questions.” He looked up at me quizzically. “I’ll be alright, trust me.”

“Famous last words,” he muttered, getting into the car.

Jr. wasn’t a tall kid. He had to sit on the edge of the seat to get a clear view over the hood of the car and reach the pedals. It helped when I scooted the seat forward so he’d be more comfortable.

“Remember, go slow so you don’t lose control.”

“What if I run into trouble?”

“I don’t think the cops are going to be a problem.”

“I don’t mean that.”

“Then use your best judgment and remember, you’re more important than the car or any of this stuff. Get to safety and fast.”

He nodded again. As he drove off, a grin spread across his face. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen Jr. smile. My guess was he never got the car above twenty.

I went back into the house and started gathering up photos that used to hang on the walls. I searched the living room for our photo album and sat down on the couch thumbing through them. At first there were some fantastic memories that came with each picture. Occasionally, I looked around the room at the destruction this new world had brought to the people who once lived here, and I felt sad for us. When I got to the photo of us in our second year of marriage, I stopped and took a really long look at the people in the shot.

We’d just come to Arkansas and bought this house. I’d been offered a job here just weeks before and we were settling into life in the south. She still hadn’t found a job, so everything was on me financially. We ate a lot of Ramen noodles that first year. The people in the photo weren’t the people we were today. They were different, foreign. She was frumpy, sweaters with blouses and bleached white collars sticking out, matching jewelry that went with the shoes. A soccer mom look that would have fit right into any modern southern-living magazine. She was a little heavy back then and I remember she was taking spin classes and something else they offered for free at the YMCA that was supposed to get her figure back to its college shape.

Me, I wasn’t much better. My stomach was starting to lap a little over my belt. I wore this stupid moustache that made me look like a seventies porn actor in khaki pants. And dress shirts in every color of the rainbow. My idea then of casual dress was a golf shirt with stripes.

              I didn’t know those people anymore. I looked at them in these photos and I kind of hated them. They seem superficial now. Their biggest concern was if they could get the condo in Bermuda for the first week in March, and that always seemed to be a drama. I could tell him a thing or two about drama today. 

I thought I’d gather these photos up and give them to my girl as a present, but now they were depressing me. The woman in those photos was this matron who had trouble making a decision about lunch and was lumpy-looking naked. My girl now made decisions fast and looked great naked, a tiny Amazon warrior princess. Why would I remind her of what used to be? In a weird way, I kind of liked the way things were now.

 I pulled out the photo from my pocket and looked at it again, then pulled out the photo of Maggie and Patrick and looked at it. Time to move on. I took the pile of gathered photos and put them on a shelf. I kept the one I stuffed in my pocket. I’d show it to her tonight and if she wanted, I’d go back and get the rest of them. Locking the house up, I headed to the raccoon’s meth house, or Patrick’s house, because I remembered that I’d seen his face in one of the frames on the mantle, and he wasn’t with his family.

I stopped running a block from
A
shley
’s
house and walked the rest of the way. I needed to catch my breath; these strong winds were biting into me and sucking the energy from me at the same time. Plus, in the driveway of the raccoon house there was a station wagon parked, backed in, the back gate dropped. The front door to the house was open. I walked around the car. From the tracks in the snow, it looked like there was only one person with the car. The hood was still hot, so they’d only just gotten there. I crept to the front porch and was thankful the steps were concrete. I crouched down at the foot of the little stairs and listened. From inside the house, there was a bumping and rattling sound like someone was trying to find something in the kitchen.

              I remembered the house’s layout. There was a living room that led to an L-shaped hallway. The short branch led to the kitchen and the long one down to the bedrooms. From my vantage point, I could see through the living room and clearly see the fridge through a small sliver of the open door leading into the kitchen. Someone moved across my line of sight and I crouched down, hoping they didn’t see me. I pulled out my hatchet and checked my grip on it, then crept across the porch. Inside the living room, I followed the single track of snow he’d trailed in from his shoes before it disappeared on the carpet.

I’d crept probably halfway across the living room when a young guy stepped into the hallway. He was probably twenty, wearing overalls and a long john shirt. He was a big guy, built like a lineman. His round face was covered with a beard that covered his chin but not his upper lip. His cheeks were beet red from the cold. In his right hand he was carrying a large plastic yellow bucket that had some kind of greenish stuff hardened on the side from where it had once dripped down. The other hand was holding a gallon tin can like you’d buy paint thinner in. On his hip was clipped a holster that held a gun.

I surprised him. When he stepped out into the hall, he looked up and I could see confusion spread across his face. He looked at the hatchet raised above my head and dropped the bucket and can and tried to pull his gun. I threw the hatchet at him first. The hatchet struck him square in the center of his chest, handle first, and fell to the floor. But seeing a hatchet hurled at you from ten feet away has a psychological effect. Instead of grabbing his gun and drawing, he threw his hands up in from of his face and waved them about as he squealed in panic.