Controlling the Dead (6 page)

A gunshot erupts, and a thud lands at my feet. Looking down, I realize it’s Joseph, or maybe it’s Joshua. I can’t tell, but there’s a big hole in his head. His blood spreads out on the sidewalk, slowly reaching the toe of my boots. I lift my arms. They shake when I notice the blood on them, too.

Smoke billows from a fire and a bitter stench reaches my nose. The haziness is hard to see through. I can’t move my body. In fact, I can’t feel my body.

“Ah. Miss Moore. There you are.” A familiar, dark face comes out of the fog, and he smiles. Despite my misgivings of him, he’s a handsome fellow. The smile turns into a belly laugh. “The intricacies of your mind are astounding! Listen to me carefully—”

A stab in my shoulder makes me grunt, and the amusement on Mago’s face turns to aggravation as his eyes narrow. “Unfortunately, the epitome of idiocy is waking you.”

The dream dissipates. “Chickie chicka! Yew wake up, now.” Something is brutally poking me and the strangest sense of déjà vu hits me. My eyes do not want to open. I lift my head and peep out of one eye. Guido stands there with his stupid cane and gives me another poke. The sun streams in harshly through the window. Rudy is nowhere in sight.

Realizing I’m in the bed and not on the couch, I groan, pulling the pillow over my head. “Seriously? What?”

“Yew and me needs to chat. Yeah? Got biz, yew and me.”

“Later.”

“Yew needs to figure out whut yew doin’? Yew stayin’?”

“I told you yesterday I was, Guido. Now go away.”

He ignores my last comment. “Fine with me. Whut yew contribute? Everybody contributes.”

Great. I sit up. Guido gets a good look at my eyes.

“Damn, chickie.” He grins his mossy teeth at me.

“Fuck. You,” I quip. “What would you have me do?” I ask, getting to the subject faster to get him out of here.

“Find Mac boy.”

“No, not that. I need to be here when Mago shows up.”

“Yew can always pay rent.” The cane taps the floor, “Yew think on it. Let me know. Today, hear?”

“What can you tell me about Mago?”

“Yew already know whut I know. Voodoo man, he is. He don’t want no one knowin’ ‘bout ‘im. I don’t want no one knowin’ ‘bout ‘im. Those weird ‘ems from the base, yew call it. They keepin’ to themselves. No trouble with them. Keep it to yerself.”

We stare each other down. He doesn’t want the survivors talking about Mago. By the way he looks at me, he blames me for having them here. Rightfully so. Sort of.

“Don’t blame me. I was only helping Rudy and
you
,” I emphasize. “You got your famished, didn’t you?”

He confirms with a nod.

“You can always send them to the Coalition.”

His lips harden then turn to a small smile. “Need Mac boy fo that, chicka.”

Just then Rudy makes an appearance in his favorite jeans and T-shirt combo, eyeing Guido with suspicion.

Guido nods and walks out. Is he right? Would they send them back here? A boom starts in my brain at the things I don’t want to think about. I put the pillow over my head, but Rudy has other ideas and plops down beside me, grabbing my pillow.

We end up having a tug of war, and he finally gives up. “I guess you don’t want any of these.”

I peek out as he shoves something in his mouth. A sweet aroma hits my nostrils. “Savage,” I call him, and he smiles with full cheeks. Sitting up, I steal a pancake out of his container. Blueberries dot the fluffy batter. A grumble releases through my stomach.

“What did he want?” Rudy inquires, lifting his leg onto the bed, and his knee pokes out of its frayed hole. The dark circles under his eyes have diminished somewhat, as if he got some much-needed rest. His face is free of bruises and cuts, so he hasn’t been in the betting ring. For some reason, he likes asking me questions when my mouth is full of food.

“He wants me to find Mac.”

Rudy takes a keen interest in his food, studying it. “What do you want to do?”

“I need to—” I start.

“I didn’t say
need
. What do you
want
to do?” he questions, knowing our definitions of what I need aren’t the same. His gaze is steady on mine.

“I was going to say I need a shower.”

“I agree, but that’s not what I meant.”

Continuing to ignore his question, I say, “You didn’t have a problem with my hygiene status when putting me in this bed.”

A laugh comes from him and wraps around me. “You said it, not me. It didn’t cross my mind.” I place my fingertips on his cheek while he is still grinning. His beard feels soft as my thumb finds the indention of his dimple. The smile never slips from his face as if he knows what I’m doing, but his eyes are serious. The fact I’m able to bring some comfort to him after being gone means a lot to me, but something is bothering him.

“What?” I inquire.

To my surprise, he picks up a strand of my hair and answers me, “Reece told me about Mago. About everything. It’s…”

My hand slips from his face, and I rub my own. “I know. Everything is so fucked up.” Letting out a puff of air, I ask, “How’s Julie?”

A short scoff erupts from him. “She’s charming as always.” The dry tone in his voice makes me smile. “And pregnant. Very fucking pregnant.”

“I’m starting to think you have a thing for crazy bitches,” I joke.

“You’re not crazy, Kan.”

I glance away from him. “I was talking about Julie.” When he starts to respond to that, I cut him off. “What if we can find her husband? I think we should at least find out if he’s d-dead or not.” My voice chokes up, and hiding the guilt is impossible, but he doesn’t respond.

Going on, I say, “I want to help everyone that can’t help themselves. I need to. There are people being taken advantage of, and they don’t even know it.” I sniff, but continue, “How many did we help from the base? More than that, how many died? I think we should do some better planning, better resourcing, and just…do it.”

“Kan, as good as that sounds, where would we take those people? We don’t have the means to take care of them.”

“We’ll come up with something.”

“It’ll take time and there’s a lot you don’t know.”

The elephant in the room gets stung and makes itself known by crashing around. The anger I’ve been trying to stuff down and get over rears its ugly head. “Exactly, Rudy. I don’t know why I’m sitting here talking to you about this. You’ve deliberately kept me in a bubble before and look how that turned out.”

“I don’t know the details because you haven’t told me.” This comes out of him quickly, as if it’s been weighing on him. I move to crawl over his lap to leave, but he immediately wraps his arm around my waist. “And I’m not asking you to. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for whatever happened to you. If I could, I’d take it away, but I’m not sorry for trying to keep you out of it, for trying to protect you. And if you keep dabbling with what you don’t know—”

The door bursts open in a light pink blob of sweater. “Suga!” Glinda cheers, but she pauses, catching sight of our predicament. Her face starts to light up even more, but when she notices the tension she blinks. “Oh. Neva mind me. I’ll catch up later.” She goes to shut the door.

“Glinda, wait!” I call.

Glinda pauses before stepping out, “I’ll just wait in the hall.”

As the door closes behind her Rudy leans close to my ear. “Kansas, don’t leave this room mad,” he warns. I mentally struggle with this for the split second it takes for my mind to flash him as a zombie. The hold he has on my waist loosens.

I hop out of the bed, grabbing my sunglasses, but freeze when I see the picture of my dad and me at Christmas. A picture Rudy asked about before, and now it sits on a little table beside the bed.

Grabbing my pack, I open it up and pull out all the cords and laptop. Rudy watches me, but doesn’t say anything. I plug it in a power outlet to charge before slipping my pack on and gripping my crossbow.

Rudy sighs, “I’ll help with Mac. I— ”

“I don’t want any part of looking for him. He can take care of himself. Although, I should hunt him down to lock him in a damn box so he can know how it feels to be left in the dark.”

Surprise crosses Rudy’s features, but he quickly covers it.

“I get it, Kan. You’re mad. You have every right to be, but you shouldn’t hold yourself responsible for what happened because it’s not your fault,” Rudy snaps at me.

My breath is ragged, but I try to control it. “Damn right, I’m mad.” I lean down so I’m face-to-face with him. “About so much, I can’t think straight! And yes, it is my fault. I should have stayed underground!”

His eyes flash but he says nothing. “Besides, I can’t do this,” I blurt, getting it out there.

“Do what?” he asks with reluctance. My tongue feels thick in my mouth, so I gesture between us. A humorless sound comes out of him as he crosses his arms. Rudy tenses much like I feel, his jaw working overtime. “I’m not asking you for anything. To be anything.” He stands up to loom over me and continues, “I’m not saying I don’t want it, but the last thing I want to do is drag you down with my problems when you obviously have your own. Especially with Mac still in the equation.”

I hold up a finger, stepping back. “Mac isn’t the problem. I’m sick of being lied to and sick of being sought for atrocious, chauvinistic purposes!” The cracks in my voice make my words harsher. This isn’t how I wanted this to go, and when I chance a peek at him, his eyes are wide. His mouth opens to speak, but I cut him off. “You’re right. You should focus on your own problems.” With that, I take myself out into the hallway.

When I shut the door behind me, Glinda lets out a gust of air. “Woo! I need a drank!” She snakes her arm through mine. A familiar gesture that brings me solace.

I shoot her a smile. I’ve missed her sassiness. “Me too.”

Before we make it halfway down the hall, something smashes inside Rudy’s room.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

Between everything going on, my emotions spiral to new depths without my permission. The trauma lurking within the barriers of my mind isn’t going away on its own. I need to pull myself together, but that can wait until tomorrow. Right now, I’ll drink it down and play cards.

Cheers rise from Guido’s recently acquired mechanical bull, drawing our table’s attention. There is a famished buckled to it, and the bull throws it around in a monstrous form. People stand around watching as its head bounces back and forth. Drool slings every which way. Its limbs flail in time with the bull that goes faster and faster by the second. I look away in disgust.

Everyone at the poker table watches the bull as it tosses around the zombie. “Banjo Bo is going to make it for another round,” a guy a few seats to my left muses as he takes a peek at his neighbors cards with a look of disappointment.

“Banjo Bo?” I ask.

The guy nods and another one chimes in, “Yeah, the whole community will be sad when he finally kicks the bucket. He’s been the only dead ‘em to take that thing without losing any limbs.”

Enlightened at this development, I steal a glance at Reece, but he’s giving the zombie his rapt attention with a joint hanging out of his mouth.

Banjo Bo is a hearty zombie with a thick, white bird’s nest for a beard. His body jerks back and forth, coming loose from his bindings. Onlooker heads bob in sync with his motions. “Why do you call him Banjo Bo?”

The cheater sits up straighter and laughs. “He showed up here with a banjo still strapped to him, beating against the fence and wearing a work shirt with the name Bo on the pocket.”

I shoot him a smirk and take a long pull on the dusty bottle of Everclear Reece and I share before walking over to get a better look. The community uses zombies as a commodity and it never ceases to repulse and amuse me at the same time.

The crowd around the mechanical bull tenses in anticipation. Banjo Bo makes a final yank as he slings from the restraints. A leg catches on a strap, ripping from Banjo Bo’s body. A juicy thud lands on the surrounding mat and jeers go up from the crowd. An argument immediately commences between a few men. Banjo Bo still wiggles on the mat trying to get to someone. The disgruntled men pay him no mind as he slithers around like the flesh-eating maggot food he is.

I grip my crossbow and take aim as Banjo Bo’s hand wraps around an ankle. The arrow goes into his skull and he goes limp. Upon jerking the arrow out, I notice the shirt really does say
Bo
above the pocket in stitched letters. Gore splatters the mat when I shake the arrow off. As I stride to the poker table, I feel icy glares in my back the whole way.

After a while, the fuzziness of alcohol narrows my world to the guy in front of me. Nick, known to the community as the guy with the nightstick, tries bluffing his way out of a paper bag. Nick keeps raising me, and I keep calling. With the cards on the table he could have a flush, but he’s bluffing. Uncontrolled, dark stubble covers his face. Shaggy blond hair does nothing to cover his anticipation as he flips his cards over, showing pocket twos. Underneath the light his flyaway hairs float around.

“Thanks for your money.” Nick stands up to leave. “Bye,” I sing and watch the dealer shuffle the cards.

“Bitch,” he spits.

“Dumb ass,” I retort. He should know by now I don’t play unless I have something, or if I’m a blind. He wants to catch me bluffing.

“Go back to your hole in the ground.” Nick leans over the table in my face. His breath could make a car putt a couple of miles. Who am I to judge?

I blink at his statement. Reece puts his hand on my arm in a conciliatory manner. I jerk it away and sweep it across my space, tossing money into my pack.

“Wait, Kan. He’s leaving,” Reece says so Nick can hear him. Sure enough, Nick stomps away, taking his flyaway hairs with him. Reece leans over, “You could have just given it to him at the beginning. You won’t have anyone to play with, if you keep taking their hard earned money.”

I shrug, “What did he mean by my hole in the ground?” I know what he means—I don’t know how he found out. “Who?”