Fire Birds (18 page)

There were a total of one hundred and thirty-two zombies on the property at that time, not counting any that might be hiding in the barns. There were a few more on the road and some stragglers around the perimeter. Most of them were naked, and this had become the norm. There were still a few of the undead out there that were fully clothed, but they weren’t as common as they had been. In some cases, the body had shrunk and the clothes just fell off. In other cases, the clothes rotted off. I’d still see some elastic waistbands and plastic raincoats and some jewelry on the naked ones, but that was usually all that remained.

In the light of day, I could see the damage done to the cistern. The spigot had been pulled out, and the cistern tank itself had been shifted from its original position, which resulted in the pipe from the barns having been broken loose. Also, it was empty. All the water had leaked out through the hole left by the missing spigot.

There’d be no way I could live in the house again; there would be too much to clean up. All of my hard work was ruined. I took another drink.

“She sure brought the shit storm, didn’t she?!” I yelled.

The creatures howled and moaned in reply.

I took another drink. “Oh,” I said as I held up my bottle to show them. “And I’m probably an alcoholic now! Ain’t that awesome?”

I slid off the chimney then looked down inside it.

“Just awesome sauce.”

I dropped the bottle down the hole and grabbed the two rifles. I was going to walk along the ridge to the other end of the house, but the liquor wouldn’t let me. I change my mind and just sat. I lifted the hunting rifle to my shoulder and tried to put the crosshairs of the scope on one of the things in the garden. I couldn’t hold it steady, so I put it down.

I needed to sober up so I could shoot and think straight. I opened the bug out bag and pulled out a bottle of water. After drinking half of it, I stretched out with my head on the ridge of the roof.

What did Sara mean when she said she was “fixing this?” She’d left the gate and front door open, so she hadn’t fixed either of those things. Did she plan to find Bruce Lee and finish the thing she’d left unfinished in Hattiesburg? Was she trying to fix something by getting out of my life?

I’d seen her execute “bad” men, and even though I thought it was unnecessary, I understood her decision; after all, I had done the same. Also, I was a little jealous about her additional boyfriends, but I understood that too. However, there was something about her that seemed different to me. She seemed cold. I didn’t understand how she could so easily have sex with this stranger she’d met in Memphis then, with a lack of emotion, attempt to take his life. What had he done that had shifted him from lover to “unredeemable?” I didn’t know what her criteria were that made a man worthy of death. I didn’t know her definitions of “good” and “bad.” I thought I did in the beginning–I had thought we were on the same page–but every time one of these new things popped up, it unsettled me a little more. I was sure I had disappointed her and angered her in the past. At what point would I shift over into her “bad” column and be intentionally trapped with the infected and left to die?

I put my arm across my eyes to block out the bright sunshine. It was going to be another hot day.

“Well, at least I won’t have to weed the garden today.”

I awoke from a bad dream that I couldn’t remember and sat up, startled. The sun hit me in the face, and I skidded down the roof. I bent my legs and put my feet flat against the shingles to stop myself then put my hands over my face to block out the sun again.

“Ugh…shit.”

I had a horrible headache. I rolled over to my elbow and took a look at my watch. It was almost 10:30. My arm was red. Then I noticed my lips hurt. I had slept on the roof for more than three hours.

“Sunburn. What a perfect addition to my day.”

Then I remembered Pastor Andrew. He was supposed to be nearby around noon to talk to us on that little radio. I crawled back up to the peek, got a drink of water from the bottle in the backpack, and then crawled down the other side to the ladder. I looked over the edge of the roof before I started down. Christine had been eaten from the bottom ribcage down. Her breasts were gone too. Her open eyes stared up at me.

Without warning, the contents of my stomach spewed out of my mouth and splattered on and around her. I lay back on the roof and wiped my mouth. Tears blurred my eyes. When I had pulled myself together, I went back to the edge and climbed down the ladder without looking down.

I couldn’t find the little radio. I searched through the drawers of my dresser. I looked in the pockets of a dirty pair of jeans. I went downstairs and searched the living room and kitchen. Finally, I gave up on it, thinking that I must have left it in my pickup.

I dug around in the cupboard and pulled out a bag of corn chips, then went back into the living room and looked out the front window. They were on the front lawn, in the garden, and in the driveway. More surrounded the house to the side and rear. Killing them all would take a while, but it wouldn’t be too difficult. I could just shoot as many as I could from the first floor windows, then move up to the second floor and roof for the rest.

I collected all of the guns I had stored downstairs and brought them into the living room. I put the four handguns on the coffee table and propped the two shotguns and the rifle by the window. If my aim was good enough, I should be able to put them all down without using too much ammunition.

I killed the ones close to the house without a problem, but there were others that were in the front pasture or near the road that I couldn’t quite hit with a kill shot. I was confident I could take care of them with one of the upstairs guns; I didn’t have a scope on the downstairs rifle, but the AR-15 had one. Once I felt I had done all I could do on the first floor, I moved upstairs.

The upstairs windows faced only the backyard. There weren’t any guns left in my room, so I decided to do my shooting from Sara’s bedroom window. Christine’s things were still in there. I turned her duffle bag upside down and emptied the contents on the bed. There wasn’t anything too interesting in there. It was just clothes, a couple of magazines, a candy bar, and a small bottle of perfume. There was also a little digital camera in there, and I was surprised that it powered up when I turned it on.

There were several pictures of Julio and Christine together, taken with the camera held at arm’s length. There was a picture of Grant and Sara sitting next to each other on the hood of a car. Behind them were eight lanes of gridlock that went on for miles. There was an out-of-focus picture of a penis. There was a picture of Sara smiling and looking out of the corner of her eye at someone or something out of the frame. She was standing with a rifle, and there were three dead zombies hanging upside down from a tree as if they were her trophies. Another picture showed a pile of dead bodies in an urban environment. Sara was posing next to them with a rifle, a bottle of wine, and a big smile.

Next.

Julio and an older man posed next to a tank on a city street.

Next.

Christine, Sara, and an older woman straddled the cannon of the same tank.

Next.

Grant and Sara kissing.

Next.

A pile of dead bodies on fire.

I turned the camera off and put it in my pocket.

I went over to the closet and pulled out the guns I had stored there. Then I went to the bathroom at the end of the hall to get the shotgun I kept next to the toilet. That’s when I found Pastor Andrew’s two-way radio. It was down in the bowl sticking out of a glob of wet, dirty toilet paper. There was an inch or more of dark yellow urine in there too.

“Crazy bitch.”

I didn’t touch the radio. I went back to the bedroom, and after eating Christine’s candy bar, I opened the window and shot as many as I could from there. Then I moved back up to the roof. It took me another half hour to put down most of the rest with the .30-30. Picking them off from the safety of the house was cathartic. The sound of the gun and the sight of their heads jerking back when I made the kill let off steam in a way that alcohol could not. Alcohol suppressed the feelings by making me feel good, but watching that .30-30 punch holes into skulls and working that lever between rounds made me feel better. Christine and Grant had the right idea about parking themselves next to the fence and shooting zombies all day; it was good therapy.

There were only six remaining, and they were down by the road. I traded the .30-30 for the AR-15. This is so much better than a video game, I thought as I put the crosshairs of that scope on the head of a woman by the mailbox. I felt a twinge of guilt for it. I actually hesitated a moment to analyze it. Does this make me as bad as Bruce Lee or Corndog? I was allowing myself to enjoy the kill. Bruce Lee and Corndog enjoyed playing with the undead, which might be considered torture. I let the gun barrel drop a couple of inches and stared out into space while I thought it over.

“Nah. I’m better than them.”

I put my sights on the woman again and squeezed the trigger. I did that five more times and tried not to gloat for the sake of my conscience.

I still had to go down and shut the gate, and then do a thorough search of the property and barns, but before all that, I planned to go out and look for Grant and Sara. It was fifteen minutes after 12 o’clock by that time. Pastor Andrew and/or Dan were probably parked nearby talking to the piss in the upstairs toilet. They’d likely heard the gunfire. I wondered if they’d do another flyover.

I took the bug out bag and guns down the ladder one at a time, put them in through the bedroom window, then I climbed in and took them downstairs. I kept forty-eight hours worth of supplies in my truck, so I didn’t see any need in bringing the bag to go search for Sara. I did bring the Kevlar helmet and vest on the off chance that I ran into Bruce Lee. In addition to my two side arms, I brought a 12 gauge and the AR-15. There was also another 9mm in the glove compartment of the truck.

There was a crawler behind the truck. Its legs looked fine to me, but it was dragging itself around on its belly. My guess was that it was weak. It didn’t look like it had fed in a while. I propped the guns against the truck, knelt down, and stuck my hand out.

“What’s the matter?” I said to the creature. “Aren’t you hungry or are you just lazy?”

“Gaaaah…” was the sound that came out of its throat.

“Is that all you can say after what you did to my place?”

It dug its bony fingers into the gravel of the driveway and pulled itself closer to me. I pulled my hand back a little to stay just out-of-reach.

“I just ate some Fritos. Want some Fritos?”

“Gggaaahh…”

I reached over and poked the top of its head. The skin felt oily and loose.

“Hey, asshole, do you want some Fritos or not?”

It stretched out and the tips of its fingers brushed my knee.

“Freeee-toes. Fritos,” I said, poking it again.

“Ghaahh.”

I stood and put my boot on its head and pushed the side of its face into the rocks.

“I’m talking to you, you son of a bitch.” I pressed down harder and twisted my foot as if I was trying to stomp out a cigarette. “You want some fucking Fritos?!”

The thing grabbed my ankle with both hands. I twisted harder. Then it let out a noise that startled me. It sounded so close to a whimper that I jerked free and stumbled back. It did it again, and I would have sworn that it was crying…or pleading?

“Shit.”

I picked up the guns and loaded them into the truck. I looked over at the creature, and it lay in the same position like a submissive dog.

“Dammit, stop!” I yelled at it.

I took off my helmet and put it on the seat of the truck. I looked over again and caught the thing looking at me. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw it notice me looking, and it ducked its head, cowering.

“Hell no,” I said. “You’re not going to do this. You’re not a person. You’re not even an animal. You’re nothing. You’re a monster.”

It just lay there.

“Act like a monster, dammit!”

It didn’t move.

“Fucking act like it!” I pulled my 9mm and shot it. Then I shot it four more times.

I stared at it a moment then climbed in my truck. When I pulled out onto the road, I got out and shut the gate. There were a few out on the road, but I had enough time to do what I needed to do before they shambled up to me.

When I got back into the truck, I turned on the air conditioning then opened the center console. I dug around in the CDs until I saw something that interested me in that moment. Leon Russell looked good right then. I slid the CD into the slot and tapped the buttons for the track I wanted. Hummingbird started. I cranked up the volume and stomped the gas. The tires squealed and smoked.

As I approached the bypass on Braggusberg Road and entered the Clayfield city limits, Leon Russell was a Stranger in a Strange Land, just like Robert Heinlein’s Mr. Smith, just like me. No…correction…I was not a stranger. I was a citizen of a strange land.

I stopped in the middle of the intersection and let the song finish. I was still unsettled by the not-quite-mindless display I’d seen from the crawler. A few zombies were in view nearby. They watched me enjoy the song. I felt a little sad that they’d never enjoy music again. I suppose after a while, I wouldn’t be able to play these songs anymore, either. Eventually, the bulk of human artistic achievement would disappear.