Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (20 page)

Eddie figured they were just sitting
in traffic. The first few days no one really knew what was
happening. The media was as confused as the people listening and by
the time anyone knew how serious a situation they were in, it was
too late.

He could see a family trying to get
home. A wife trying to get to her husband. A young man going for a
job interview. Eddie passed a shattered window and pictured a woman
being dragged out by her hair, kicking and screaming while someone
rushed to help her only to be bitten or scratched and end up the
same way. Eddie could see it happening like a domino effect. He
thought about what he would’ve done had he not known all he knew
now. He’d probably try helping someone in the same scenario he
played out in his head only to meet the same fate.

“
I’m tired,” Stacey called
out.

“
And now it starts,” Scott
said, turning to his wife.

“
Scott, can I sit on your
shoulders?”

“
Okay, but only for a few
minutes.”

“
Okay,” Stacey
smiled.

After Scott lifted her onto his
shoulders the other kids instantly became just as tired of walking.
Jon-Jon, Abdul, and Joseph joined Scott in sacrificing their
shoulders.

For a moment they all had smiles on
their faces. For a moment they forgot that they weren’t parentless.
They were high in the air smiling as the last hours of daylight
made the sky look like a melted Popsicle. They forgot about never
seeing their mommies. They forgot about daddy never coming home.
They forgot about home entirely.

Then Yussef pointed at a deader
walking towards them and they forgot they were having a good
time.

33 YARD WORK IS HARD
WORK

(back to
top)

All the bodies near the house were
piled atop one another. It was a disgusting mass of twitching
limbs.

“
I can’t believe we had
this many bodies around the house.”

“
Believe it. Let’s go get
some of these branches laying all over the place and then let’s
light ‘em up.”

“
Do you think the fire will
draw more of them here?”

“
The thought has crossed my
mind.”

“
What will we
do?”

“
Just what we’ve been
doing.”

“
What if it’s a
lot?”

“
Doesn’t change anything.
We have our contingencies. We’ve talked about all this
before.”

They threw fallen branches onto the
pile and then Jeff started to douse the bodies in gasoline. He
circled around a few times till the container was empty. Then
Walter made a torch with a piece of branch and a rag dipped in gas
and walked around igniting the gasoline.

First the clothing started to burn and
then, so did the rotting flesh. The flames seemed to move slowly
but within minutes the pile of bodies was a raging bonfire. The
smell was obscenely revolting, and yet a pleasing scent reminiscent
of honey-glazed ham was intermingled.

“
I’m getting kinda hungry.
Let’s go see if your mom is cooking anything up.”

“
How the hell are you
hungry?”

“
How are you not? This was
some hard work.”

“
Gross dad.”

By the time the three of them entered
the house and cleaned up, Laura and Maria had put together a lunch
for the kids. Which consisted of jelly bread sandwiches, watered
down juices, and the last of the applesauce.

They ate quickly and scampered off to
play, as Walter, Jeff, and Barbara took a seat at the
table.

“
You three look exhausted
already.”

“
That’s not nice, ma, dad
always looks like this.”

“
Funny. Dear, please tell
me we have something other than jelly sandwiches for lunch
today?”

“
Well, you kids can have
peanut butter and jelly. And I’ll even make you all triple-deckers
if you want.”

“
Yes please,” Jeff said
with a smile.

“
Only if you cut mine into
squares.”

Walter only grumbled, and Laura smiled
as a result.

“
It’s not just kid-food,
Walter, it’ll do you good on these hard days. It has a lot of
calories, a lot of fat, and a lot of protein.”

“
So does a
hoagie.”

“
Well, when you go back
out, swing by the deli and pick up some cold cuts.”

“
Are you done for
today?”

“
Yeah, I think so. I can’t
do anymore. I thought it best if we all wash up today. Empty out
the open containers of water and replenish them with fresh water.
See if we can store any more if we have any more empty bottles or
anything.”

“
And tomorrow?”

“
Tomorrow we’re going to
hit a few more homes. Run over to Gupp’s and look for fencing.
Hopefully we can start putting up some kind of fence tomorrow
‘round this time.”

“
Yeah, then we can start
taking the kids out regularly.”

“
That’d be
nice.”

“
For a bit at least. I for
one cannot wait until winter. The colder the better. The more snow
the better. Slow them things down.”

“
It’ll slow us down too.
But snow is a long ways off.”

“
You never know. Anyhoo,
we’ll just worry about the fence for now. Just keep doing one thing
at a time and try to make ourselves better off for the next day,
and the next day, and the day after that.”

Laura cut each sandwich down the
middle from corner to corner and slid a plate over to each of
them.

“
Thanks mom.”

“
Ditto.”

Grumble.

“
Oh, Walter,” Laura
smiled.

Then she tilted her head and looked
out the window at the large bonfire blazing in the front of the
house.

“
Makes me think of some of
your war stories.”

“
It feels like a
war.”

Jeff and Barbara kept their mouths
quiet and full. Their father rarely ever spoke of his time at war,
not that he wasn’t proud of his service, he was, but he related
talking about it to the feeling of pulling scabs off of wounds. It
was an itchy, raw feeling and was best left alone.

Walter much preferred to talk about
tomorrow. He didn’t have a lot of use for yesterdays, and he sure
didn’t want to waste today talking about them. His children knew
this; Laura did too, perhaps more than anyone. So when Walter
mentioned the war, even in brief, they kept quiet in the hopes that
more talk of his time in it would be revealed.

But he had nothing more to say about
it, as usual.

Laura watched the fire and the room
was full of chewing and an occasional grumble. The sounds of the
kids playing was a faint noise in the background.

34 THE BRIDGE

(back to
top)

The dead man was wearing a necktie and
nothing else. His body was shredded as if a hundred hands had
clawed at his body trying to rip his insides out. His bottom ribs
were exposed and what intestines he had left were draped over his
genitals. His nose was bitten off and his eyes were gone, replaced
by two ragged holes. He opened his mouth and a throaty gurgle
poured forth.

Frankie, gripping a pry-bar, stormed
over to the dead thing and swung violently at the dead mans head,
sending him into a car and then sliding down. Frankie kicked it as
it tried to get back up and swung again into the dead mans face. He
swung again and again till his face resembled a jack-o-lantern
that’d been kicked in and left on the porch far too
long.

The group continued forward, unimpeded
by the violence. Frankie rejoined them once he caught his breath,
looking around like a wild animal for another dead thing to
pulverize. Frankie loved the adrenaline rush. It was the only time
he didn’t feel run down and tired. It made him feel alive, strong,
and he wanted to stay that way.

“
There’s the bridge,” Scott
pointed.

“
We’re making okay time,”
Judy added, “Still got daylight too.”

“
Not for long,” Eddie
said.

“
No, but hopefully long
enough to light our way across the bridge.”

“
In a perfect
world.”

“
How’s everybody looking
back there?”

“
The kids are still riding
high. They’re probably putting a hurting on the fellas’
backs.”

“
I’ll swap someone out,”
Joseph offered, and then fell back and did just that.

“
Stacey? You want to ride
on my shoulders for a bit? I think Scott is getting
tired.”

“
Are you getting
tired?”

Scott chuckled, “Yes, Stacey, I’m
getting a bit tired. Uncle Scott could use a break, whattya
say?”

“
Okay. You can take a
break.”

They moved over to the side for a
moment and switched off.

“
Thanks Eddie.”

“
Don’t mention
it.”

Eddie couldn’t help but think of his
little sister as Stacey sat atop his shoulders. It took everything
in him to not break down and cry. He searched the roadway and hoped
to see a deader or two, anything to get this kid off his back and
his mind off of his dead siblings. The memories were far too
painful. If he could bury them all in the dirt and walkaway he
would. He’d love to forget it all and wander around without knowing
whom he was or where he’d come from. Dead family, dead friends, and
a dying world were the things you needed amnesia to
forget.

The daylight was being dragged down
across the horizon and the sky was cooling in color and
temperature. As the group made their way through the rows of
abandoned vehicles the shadows grew longer and deeper. The air grew
chillier, but not by much, just enough to cool the sweat off the
backs of everyone walking.

Judy found herself in the lead and was
walking quicker and quicker. Scott and Judy used to walk for an
hour or more every morning. Judy loved hiking, and walking. She
wasn’t an outdoorsy kind of woman and she wasn’t super concerned
about staying in shape she just liked to walk. It always made her
feel better. Early in their relationship Scott tagged along on her
walks just to spend time with her, but after awhile he appreciated
it in equal measure.

Her years of walking came in very
useful nowadays and she felt herself gaining energy from walking
whereas the others just grew tired. She had to make an effort to
keep her pace in line with the others but it was getting harder the
closer they grew to the bridge. Her and Scott were now a few car
lengths ahead of everyone else and the bridge felt like a beacon of
hope as opposed to the act of disparity it had been made out to
be.

Frankie dropped back from the group
and hung around the tail end, making small talk with Chuck and
Chung-Hee before falling behind them as well. He lingered around
the cars now, taking longer and longer to get through them. The
blood smears started to look like letters. It was a language
Frankie wanted to learn. Some of the smears and spatters looked
like paintings in a modern art exhibit and he even started touching
the dried smears as he went by. Following them as if they were his.
He looked drunk, uninhibited as he continued. Chung-Hee looked back
to see where he was and at a quick glance it only looked as if
Frankie were running his hands along the cars as you would a wall
just to feel the texture.

Frankie caught back up with the tail
end of the group and as he did a few deaders presented themselves.
One crawling out from underneath a truck, another getting up from
the side of the road, and another falling over the concrete
divider. Frankie smiled and walked over to one of them, pry-bar at
the ready.

Chung-Hee went after one, and Chuck
the other.

Chuck was still very much squeamish
about fighting the dead off. He kept his distance and hated having
to get close at all to them. Regardless he got in and dispatched
the dead thing, as did Chung-Hee who saw it simply as a task. He
went about killing the dead as he did taking out the garbage. He
just went and got it done. There was no joy in it, or trepidation.
He just did it.

Frankie on the other hand was still
hitting the thing in the head. The body bouncing from the force of
each blow. As Frankie walked away the body continued to convulse
and twitch.

It was near dark now. The group had
made it to the foot of the bridge. The tollbooths were clogged with
cars, trucks, and buses. The scene before them was an absolute
nightmare, and the bridge beyond it looked only slightly
better.

Scott turned to the group, “Any of you
ever see the movie The Gauntlet, with Clint Eastwood?”

“
Yeah,” Jon-Jon said, “but
didn’t he at least have a fucking bus?”