Rotten (19 page)

“Felt like five,” Sarah sighed. 

We then filled in the rest of the group on our experience at the roadblock, and abbreviated the part with the partial torso for the child’s sake. 

“If it was a silver BMW then that was probably Bryson Capps, his dad owns the tire plant on the other side of town, Daddy said he thought it blew up after the earthquake.  Daddy said Bryson was an a-hole.”  Rebekah glanced at her little sister.

“Daddy said asshole,” Sarah corrected and yawned.

“But we’re not supposed to say that, it’s an adult word.”

“We saw the explosion when we were on the river and wondered what it was,” Rotten said. 

Sarah yawned again and Mrs. Williams suggested we all get some sleep.  Sarah asked Princess to stay with them until they were asleep and she followed the girls into the loft.  While Will stood watch in the main room, the rest of us went downstairs, and gathered around the radio.  It had become our nightly ritual to sift through the bands each night to see if anyone was broadcasting.  Jason Adams always came in loud and clear, but a couple times we had heard others.  Once from Minnesota and once from New York and each of them were hunkered down like we were, raiding houses for supplies, and trying to stay alive and both had doubts with trusting Jason Adams and his new town of Bliss. 

After scanning the bands Rotten turned it back to the man from Texas as he was happily announcing the arrival of four more families in the community and the completion of the third house.  “These houses are not your typical three-bedroom, two-bath ranch, of course, but each house gives some privacy and a sense of family that is sorely missing these days.  Has been missing for a long time.  Now, I know I have my detractors, I hear them on the radio just as you do and when you are following the Lord’s word you will be hated, I know this, and I accept this.  My only fear is that my enemies will lure some good wholesome people away from safety.”  We listened for a bit longer as the man described what they had for dinner, the garden plots being prepared for spring, and how the community would increase in the summer as one of the new members was expecting. 

“That guy,” Sully shook his head, “I just don’t trust him.  He’s too polished, too greasy, and I don’t mean his appearance.”

“I’ve always gotten that feeling myself, but you know people are sheep, they seemed compelled to follow whoever steps up as a leader.  But we should start looking for a place to put a garden.”  Rotten looked at Moonshine.  “You know about gardening and stuff, don’t you?”

“I’ve hoed more rows than I want to talk about, but we need seed and we’ll have to fence it off so the rabbits and deer don’t eat everything.  And we’ll probably have to cut down some trees, this place is too shady and gardens need sun.  Or maybe we could use that field by the driveway.” 

“Well, we’ll add seed to the list of things to pick up in Arlington.” Highland yawned.  “Who’s taking watch after Will?”

“I got it.” Moonshine pulled a flashlight from his pocket and headed to the stairs.  “Night, y’all.” 

Day Eight

Thursday

December 18, 2014

I awoke, suddenly alert, and looked around the big master bedroom trying to figure out what disturbed my sleep.  I was a little irritated because I was dreaming that I was at home in my apartment eating ice cream and my biggest concern was a term paper.  I glanced over at Rotten sleeping on the other side of the king sized bed and snoring softly, and pinned the blame on him.  I flipped on my stomach and heard Rebekah calling down from the loft. 

“Whoever’s on watch, Sarah said there’s a deadhead coming!”

I shoved Rotten and jumped out of bed.  “Get up.”  I met Rebekah as she came down the stairs.

“She said over there.”  She pointed to the river.

Moonshine was on his feet, gun in hand, and then Will sprang up from the reclining chair he’d taken to sleeping in every night.  “The floodlights!”

Will leapt down the stairs and flipped the switch to the power in seconds.  The front of the cabin lit up and the trees left sharply defined shadows in the yard.  Moonshine stepped onto the deck, and I followed.  Princess stood in the doorway, her arm around Sarah, and Rotten slid past them with a high-powered flashlight in his hands.  Rotten scanned the dark spots behind the trees as well as he could and then moved the light out further into the band of growth separating the yard from the river.  Highland, Will, and Sully stepped onto the deck carrying rifles and Mrs. Williams stood with her arms around both Princess and Sarah. 

We waited, a minute passed, and we were beginning to think that Sarah was wrong, and then we heard the tinkle of one of the fishing bells.  Rotten shined the light on the trail leading to the water and we heard a crash of pots and pans slapping together.  “It’s tangled in the line,” Rotten whispered.

Sully stepped up to the railing beside Moonshine and raised his rifle, focusing on the opening of the trail.  A figure appeared, bloated and bright white in the spotlight, with muck and water running down its bare rotting legs.  It had lost its pants somewhere along the journey, but still wore a suit jacket over a collared shirt.  It moved toward the cabin in the obvious gait of the undead and Sully fired, knocking it to the ground in an explosion of moist gray tissue. 

“I’m pretty sure that was Grady.”  Will pulled the binoculars away from his eyes.  “That jacket looks like the one they wore at the car lot.” 

We turned to look at Sarah and she yawned.  “That’s it.” 

“We’ll have to find a way to deal with the body in the morning,” Sully said, and we returned to the house and went back to bed, almost like we were getting used to our new lives as zombie killers. 

The next morning we stood around the body of Grady Goodall, well everyone except Sarah and Rebekah who were gathering the eggs from the shed, and decided he had been in the water a very long time.  “Could he have swam up the river from Arlington?” I said, turning away from the swollen white skin pocked with deep black holes of putrefaction. 

“He used to boat down to the dam and fish, so he knows this river,” Will said.  “We should bury him.”

“Let’s talk about that.”  Sully sipped coffee from a travel mug.  “We should protect ourselves, gloves, masks, long sleeves, the whole deal.  We don’t know how this spreads anymore, although we can assume Grady was part of the original group, and we don’t want to take any chances.”  

“We should roll him up in a tarp or something, that should keep most of the mess off of us.  There’s a stack of them in the shed.”  Highland decided.

We dug a grave in a small field set along the driveway where the roots of the trees weren’t as thick.  “So much for planting a garden here,” Moonshine said, and then he, Rotten, Highland, and Will donned burial suits made out of a cut up t-shirt for masks, sun glasses for goggles, and gloves duct taped to long sleeves. We made sure they had no skin exposed and stood back as they rolled Grady into a large well-used tarp.  They tied the ends of it tightly and then set his body onto a modified boat trailer attached to the back of the truck and towed him to the field. 

They rolled him into the grave and we stood around uncomfortably not knowing what to say and finally Will spoke.  “Grady was a good man and a good friend, he laughed a lot and as my dad used to say, he never met a stranger.  Thank you for providing the house and the food for us, we really appreciate it, Grady.  Amen.”  

“Amen,” we muttered awkwardly and then each helped with the shoveling. 

When we returned to the house, Rebekah and Sarah sat down at the table with their schoolbooks and Mrs. Williams looked at Will.  “Maybe we should see about you doing some school work also.”

Will shook his head.  “No, ma’am, I figure I’m done with school.  Never liked it much anyway and in this world I don’t really see how I’m going to need to learn social studies and algebra.  I know how to read, write, and do math, can’t see how I’ll need much more than that.  I’ll take watch now.”  He picked up a rifle and stepped out the door.

Mrs. Williams looked at Sully and he shrugged.  “He has a point, the world has changed and not everyone is cut out to be a scholar.”  He stepped to the table to look at what the girls were working on. 

“It doesn’t seem right, he’s only twelve,” she said, moving around the counter into the kitchen.

“I know I haven’t learned anything in school to prepare me for this,” I said. 

Rebekah, after explaining an assignment to Sarah, stood up and stepped into the kitchen where Mrs. Williams was washing dishes.  “I was wondering if y’all could help us bury our parents.  It doesn’t seem right to just leave them there by the house.”

“Oh, honey.”  Mrs. Williams dried her hands and pulled the girl into a hug.  “Of course you want to bury your parents.  I’m sure we can arrange that.”

“I’ll talk to everyone now,” I said, stepping out onto the porch.  Princess sat in one of the rocking chairs she just had to have and I told her of Rebekah’s request.

Will was standing watch at the railing.  “I would have liked to bury my dad too, I think we should help them.”

“Of course she does, we should have thought of it ourselves,” she said, following me down the stairs into the yard.  We found Highland and Moonshine staring into the tree line at a rooster pecking at the ground.

“We never made a decision on the roosters,” Highland said and the rooster crowed.

“He knows you’re talking about him.” Princess laughed.

“They’ve been crowing since this morning and no zombies have showed up,” I pointed out.  “Where’s Rotten?”

“He’s down making sure the noisemaker didn’t get torn up when Grady got tangled.” Moonshine swung a hatchet through the air.  “One hit and no more rooster.” 

“We need to talk.”  Princess headed toward the trail leading to the river and we followed. 

Rotten stood looking down at the line of fishing wire stretched across the path.  It was intact, but had bits of white and mottled flesh hanging off it from Grady’s bare legs. 

“We’re talking about burying Rebekah’s and Sarah’s parents, what do you think?” I said and we stepped over the line and moved down to stand on the floating dock.

Rotten nodded.  “It’s not right to leave them rotting there, but I suggest for the sake of time we only dig one hole and bury them together.”

“Makes sense.”  Moonshine bounced, making the dock move up and down on the water. 

“I was also thinking about those sedans with the bullet proof glass the men in black had down at the roadblock, those might come in handy,” Highland said.  “We could bury their parents and then go get the cars.”

“We’d have to kill the zombie in the back seat and who the hell wants to drive that stinking car?  I don’t.”  Princess closed her nose with her fingers.

“I’ll do it.” Moonshine bounced.  “Highland’s right, we might need them and we could siphon the gas out of the other cars while we’re there.” 

“Good idea, let’s plan to do it in the morning and I was thinking since we have a few more hours of daylight, we should take the Jon boats out and go down river and see how close we can get to Arlington.  Who wants to go with?”  Highland said.

“Hell, yeah!”  Moonshine bounced the dock harder.

“I’ll go.” Rotten jumped down to the sand.  “We should dress for zombies though, they may be in the water like Grady was.”

Princess grabbed my arm to steady her footing.  “Damn it, Moon Man!  I’ll stay here.”