Survive (28 page)

“Well hell, that’s good news!” John smiled, ignoring Douglas’ redundancy in his excitement. He saw Sara wipe her eyes. “We’re not alone.”

The festivities continued, food and drink flowing freely. A few of the survivors had pulled out battered old guitars and other instruments and played for awhile, making everyone smile. Finally, Sara stood up on the mismatched stage she’d had built out of old pallets and plywood. The music died down as she raised her voice.

“We have a special treat tonight. The children have made something they’d like to share with us. I have no idea what it is, but they’re very excited about it, so let’s see what they’ve made.”

Scattered clapping and laughter bubbled up from the crowd of happy party-goers as Sara stepped down and found John in front of the stage. Several of the children, dressed in makeshift costumes resembling everything from animals to clowns to things no one could identify, pushed a tall, tarp-covered contraption on wheels up onto the stage. John looked at the three children they’d taken in with pride as they pushed and pulled the lumbering object into place. Finally, they seemed happy with its location.

One boy, about twelve years old, blond with bright blue eyes, walked up to the tarp, reached under it, and came back with an old wooden Louisville slugger in his hand. He yanked the tarp down with the other hand as the children cheered wildly.

The adults in the crowd became silent.

On stage, the tarp fell completely to the ground and revealed a life size, papier-mache Zed, complete with tattered old clothing. Its face leered eerily, pale and marred by blood-red scars and bone-white teeth. Pieces of black coal glittered in deep eye sockets. Stringy hair hung limply from its head. The Zed hung by a noose, tied to a wooden frame the enterprising young children had somehow built in secret.

As the adults looked on in silent horror, the children formed a circle around the wooden frame. Each of them held a stick or bat of some kind. The circle began rotating around the frame as the children laughed. As they passed behind the Zed, each child swung at it before moving on so the next child could take a turn. They hooted and howled wildly as they hit it.

Then, as one, the children began chanting as they took their turns hitting the Zed.

“
Dead man, dead man,

shamble along,

dead man, dead man,

what went wrong?

dead man, dead man,

we are few

dead man, dead man,

but we’ll kill you.”

Sara muttered, “Oh god.”

Many of the adults began to whisper to each other. A few were openly weeping.

“Shhh...I think they need to do this,” John whispered back, hugging Sara to him.

With a final howl of glee, the children attacked in unison, splitting the Zed apart. Candy burst from the paper body like rainbow colored blood, spilling all over the stage. The children dropped their bats and scrambled for the plastic wrapped booty.

Adults gasped as the Zed split open.

John and Sara held each other quietly, tears in their eyes, as the children laughed with joy as they claimed their sugary treasures.

The party continued even after the Zed piñata had been cleared away. Sara had left John to see to the children and to make sure that none of the adults would interfere in their fun, no matter how bizarre they found it.

John stood with Emmet Stoltz around a small fire. They sipped cool dark beer from brown bottles with labels printed in German.

“The last scavenging party we sent out said they didn’t see a single Zed out there.” He raised his bottle and looked at it. “They were able to bring back quite a few...necessities.” John grinned.

“Funny, I never would have bought this stuff if the world hadn’t fallen to shit.” Emmet drawled, taking a long pull from the frosty bottle.

“Here’s to the world falling to shit, then.” John raised his bottle and clinked it with Emmet’s. They both chuckled as they drank.

Down the pathway, from around a bend, Jose walked, clad neck to ankle in mottled brown plastic covered with leather straps and bright silver buckles. He wore high off road motorcycle boots that went over the plastic armor on his legs, and had a motorcycle helmet under his left arm. He pulled a big net sack with his right arm. He was mumbling loudly as he dragged the bag behind him. “Come on, you could help a little, you know? It’s not my fault you got clumsy.” He stopped talking as soon as he saw John and Emmet staring at him. He straightened up and looked at them.

“What do you think? I told you I’d finish it tonight!”

“Yeah, but you were supposed to make it for me, not you. I’m not letting you out there in that, Jose.” John walked toward his brother-in-law as he spoke.

“Duh. I made one for you too, in size Extra Dorky.” Jose grinned at his own joke.

John looked down at the net sack and saw an identical set of plastic armor, spray painted in matte black.

“I finished yours first. It’s got a little extra something in it. I went for speed on mine, though.”

“How’d you know my size?” John asked, curiosity getting the best of him.

“Dude, Sara told me. She knows your body disgustingly well, and I’d like to never talk about that again. Or else, you know, I’d have to kill you.”

Chuckling at such a protective brother sort of answer, John and Emmet began pulling pieces of armor from the sack. Flat black pieces of plastic had been heat-molded into tubular shapes that slid over John’s arms and legs in segments. Each piece consisted of a hard outer piece of plastic with a soft, thick fabric inside. The joints were made of the same fabric covered by thick leather.

Emmet picked up a piece and looked inside. “Is that...”

“Bullet proof? Yep! I sewed pieces of those vests we got from the police station in town inside yours. I left them out of mine, cause I want speed.”

“Do you think the Zeds are going to start shooting back?” John said, as he pulled a thigh section up his thick right leg.

“Hey, you’re the one that pissed off those guys at the Guard base.”

“That’s true, but I doubt that this stuff you sewed together would hold up to something like those guys could deliver.” John raised his arms as Emmet helped him into the chest piece. It was actually two segments, a front and back, that opened at the bottom like a clam shell. Emmet fastened it together with the provided belts and buckles, pulling it tight. John was surprised at how much movement it allowed him, while still seeming to cover everything with either the hard plastic or thick leather.

“Relax, John. I had help designing it.” He flicked his eyes quickly toward the path he had just come from. John noticed the glance.

“What do you mean? Other than Sara telling you my dimensions? Who helped you?”

“Oh, uh, I mean, I read some books. It’ll work, you’ll see.” He handed John a motorcycle helmet from the bag. It was a full faced helmet with a piece of the heavy plastic covering the visor with a narrow slit for viewing. The neck had been covered with heavy leather, which slid down inside the chest piece. A row of short spikes dotted the top of the helmet like a mohawk. The padding inside the helmet had been replaced with the Kevlar fabric, two or three layers thick.

John stood in the armor, with the helmet on and fastened down and looked at Emmet. Emmet looked between John and Jose, noticing the differences in the armor.

“You look like a tank, John. I like the spikes on the arms. For punching?” Emmet asked Jose, as he rotated one of the spikes on John’s arm. It lay pointing backwards along the outside of the arm, on a hinge. Jose nodded to Emmet, his helmet wobbling with his head. Emmet pulled the spike out and swung it around so it pointed towards John’s hand. It locked into place, the point laying about eight inches past John’s hand. He pulled on it but it didn’t so much as budge.

Emmet raised his eyebrows in appreciation of Jose’s craftsmanship. “That’s some good, solid work, kid.”

“I told you, it’ll work.”

John walked over to Jose, surprised at how easy it was to walk in the suit of armor. It fit him like a glove, and not a single piece wobbled or felt loose.

“Jose, you’re a good man, and you’re smart, but how on earth did you make this so...perfectly? Not the size, but how it works. How’d you do it?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jose quipped.

“Try me.”

“Fine. I had help.”

“From?”

“Eddie.”

John blinked. “Eddie? Your friend Eddie? Dead Eddie?”

Emmet looked back and forth between John and Jose, the utter strangeness of two men in plastic armor and motorcycle helmets lost in the face of the conversation.

“Yeah, that Eddie. He’s not dead. I mean, he is dead, but he talks to me sometimes.”

“Jose... what are you talking about?” John lowered his voice, not wanting any nearby party-goers to overhear the conversation if they happened to wander by.

“He talks to me sometimes. Like, I don’t know. I... god, I don’t know. Like that movie you like with the...crap, you know.” He made his voice sound raspy and kind of British. ‘If you kill me I’ll just be more powerful when I come back.’”

John shook his head. “That’s Star Wars, A New Hope, and you mangled it a bit. Are you saying Eddie’s a Jedi?”

“No, I mean like a ghost. Like, he comes back to help me and told me some things to make the armor better.”

John stared at Jose for a moment. “Jesus. I’m... I don’t know what to say.”

Emmet stepped in and slapped Jose on the back. “How ‘bout for starters, say ‘Nice job, kid.’”

John nodded inside his helmet. “Nice job, kid. We’ll talk more about this later, though.” He looked down at the wicked spike extending from his forearm. He flexed his fist inside the thick leather glove he’d slipped on.
How am I supposed to explain this to Sara?
he thought to himself. Aloud he said, “Damn nice job.”

* * *

Later, after the party had quieted except for a few die-hards, John finished hanging the armor up in the little cabin. Sara lay in bed, watching him.

“Do you really think that’s going to work?” she asked. “Will it keep you safe?”

John kept his voice low so as not to be heard by the others in the cabin. “I think it will. It’s solid, far better than I ever thought Jose could do. It’s tough, it’s flexible, and he even made it bullet resistant.”

“How did he know how to do that?”

“Sara, I don’t know. Honestly, he shouldn’t have been able to make anything this...complex.” John scratched his head as he stood there in just his boxers, looking at the armor.

“I have to tell you something, sweetheart. He thinks his friend, Eddie, came back as a ghost and helped him make it. I overheard him talking to himself tonight. He thought he was talking to Eddie’s ghost.”

Sara frowned at John. “That’s so not funny.”

“I wish I was joking. I don’t know what to do about him. I’m worried that he snapped down in the basement of that church.”

Sara’s eyes welled up with tears. “Who could blame him? I should have been there.” John watched as his wife pulled herself out of her guilt before it consumed her. “John, what do we do?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t argue with the results. Whatever happened, whatever he thinks is happening, he may have just helped save a lot of lives. If he can make more of these...well, first, we have to make sure it works. We’ll use it in a test run before we make any more. Hell, if it works, who knows. Maybe the kid really is seeing ghosts.”

“Damn it, John, this is serious!” Sara said, her voice cracking as she spoke. “He’s my little brother,” she said quietly.

“Baby, I know that. But who knows? The dead don’t stay dead. Why not ghosts?” He shook his head at the thought. “Not like we don’t deserve a little help from anywhere after what we’ve been through. Do you know why we’re still alive?”

Sara looked at John. “Because of you.”

John blinked in surprise. “What? No, no, that’s not what I mean.”

“Well, okay then, why are we still alive?”

“Because we not only rolled with the punches, we threw them back. We accepted what was happening and went with it as best we could. Maybe this is one of those situations where we need to just roll with it and see where it takes us.”

Sara shook her head but didn’t say anything, worry for her brother evident on her tired face.

John shucked off his boxers and kicked them into a corner.

“Fuck. I need sleep.” He crawled into bed and pulled Sara close to him.

“Hmm,” she murmured, “that isn’t what I was hoping you needed.” Smiling, he kissed Sara softly on the back of her neck as he pressed against her. She moaned as she felt his lips pressed on her skin. She turned to him, her smooth, hot skin a contrast to his rough, cool flesh. She pressed her lips against his in hungry, love-fueled need. They made sweet, gentle love under the thick blankets, careful not to make too much noise while still making sure the other heard their heated whispers in the dark. When they were done, Sara lay on John’s chest, breathing softly in his arms as she drifted into the deep, uninterrupted sleep that only an orgasm could provide. He kissed her head, completely satisfied, and listened to the sounds of the last few party-goers outside as they finally moved off to their own quarters.