The Coalition: Part 1 The State of Extinction (Zombie Series) (11 page)

Inside the
shop,
a zombie put its blue, infected fingers to the glass and raked at the smooth surface. It had been a young woman in its time. The blonde hair that hung in clumps from the reeking scalp seemed to hint at the beauty that had once been its own. Inside, unable to reach Cutter, the thing grimaced and gnashed its teeth. He could hear her moaning in frustration, even
through
the thick glass that held her at bay. The thing slapped at the glass and then staggered back, as if to take a better look at Cutter. She was wearing what had been a nice evening dress and would probably have been comely before life had fled. Cutter could see what had done her in: a series of nasty bites on her upper arms and two on her thigh, which showed soft and
rotting
through the torn bits of the dress.

“No soup for you,” he whispered to the dead thing, his breath fogging the glass.

Despite
everything, despite the horror of her presence, she reminded him of the fact that he hadn’t been with a woman—he hadn’t had sex—in almost a year. The last time had been with a survivor named Adele Sorkin. At least
,
that’s what she’d told him her name was.
They had
shared a fortified apartment about a mile from the center of downtown.
They had
been together there for less than two weeks.
Just long
enough for loneliness and frustration to have them end up making love. It was, he supposed, just something to do.

He couldn’t even remember exactly what Adele had looked like.
He had
caressed her, seen her naked, kissed and held her.
However,
all he could really remember was that she had been short—no more than five feet four inches tall—and that her hair was very red. A real red, and not dyed that way.

However,
she hadn’t been cut out for this situation.
He had
known that when
they had
been thrown together through chance.
One
day she unlocked the doors to the apartment and
she
had fled. Just like that. He hadn’t seen her since, although he’d tried to find her a few times. If she was still alive, she didn’t want to be found, and staying lost was not hard these days.

“Screw this,” he told himself. He looked to see that the frustrated zombie had wandered back into the clothes racks, leaving him alone. So he hefted the tank again and started moving back down the street, walking now instead of trotting. It was really hot and humid and he just did not want to push himself unless forced into it. He could always ditch the propane and come back for it later. It wasn’t as if a zombie had any use for it. There were a hundred cars where he could stash it for later retrieval
, but
he wanted to get it done in one trip if he could.

He hadn’t taken a dozen steps when he saw movement ahead. Cutter halted and took another look. It was someone moving deliberately, so he picked it out for a living person and not one of the shamblers. Standing tall, the figure came toward him, stopped when it saw him,
and then
came his way again. Behind it were three others. A woman and two children were tagging along.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “It’s the Lunds.” He lifted a hand in greeting to the man and began to trot toward him.
Generally,
he was cautious around other survivors, but
he had
spoken to Mr. Lund before and he liked the man. He was the only fellow
,
Cutter had met in the past year and a half
,
who had been able to keep his family together.
Certainly,
Cutter had failed at that, even preceding the zombie apocalypse.

Setting the cylinder down, Cutter moved toward
Lund
who motioned to his family to hold back. Cutter thought that was strange, but who was he to second-guess the decisions of a man who had kept himself and four others alive for so many…

Then
Cutter stopped. He counted two kids
, but
the Lunds had three children. Two boys and a girl. The oldest boy…Cutter looked and realized that the oldest son was not there. He was about twelve years old, Cutter recalled. Maybe eleven. Tentatively, the two men approached one another; with
Lund
constantly looking
back,
to make sure his family was safe.

“Cutter.”
Lund
spoke first. The fellow came to within six feet of Cutter and turned so that he could easily watch his wife and children and at the same time glance aside to address Cutter.

“
Lund
,” he replied. “I was actually hoping to run into you guys.”

“What?” There was suspicion in the other’s pale blond features.
Again,
Cutter noticed that some things had changed.
Lund
had always been very clean when
he had
appeared.
Most of the time, his
hair had even been cut and combed
,
and his face was
always
shaven close. Now his hair was long, disheveled, and he wore at least three or four days’ growth of beard.

Cutter hesitated a moment and tried to decide if he should go on.
Now
Lund
was staring at him, and Cutter could almost feel the man’s suspicion. Quickly
,
he glanced at
Lund
’s family who were standing at attention nearby, just out of earshot. Something was different, but Cutter couldn’t figure out what it was.

“I asked you what you wanted,”
Lund
said, an edge to his comment.

“I…I wanted to ask you about that boy. Oliver. You know him, right?”

At
that
,
the look in
Lund
’s face went from suspicion to something as near to rage as Cutter was likely to see.

“What? You want us to take him in? Is that it? You fucking want to see if he can replace Daniel, right? You think that
,
because Danny is dead now
,
we’re just aching to bring another boy into our family? That what you’re thinking?”
With
that,
Lund
’s free hand shot out like an arrow from a bow and his iron fingers latched onto Cutter’s biceps. The power in that grip was impressive, the fingers digging into his flesh even through the layers of cloth.
At
the same instant
,
Lund
turned his body slightly so that he was all but hiding Cutter’s torso and face from his family.

“
Lund
. No.” He winced, feeling the pain as
Lund
’s hand gripped even tighter. “I didn’t know your son was…had…I didn’t know.”

Lund
drew in close. “You keep your fucking voice down. Don’t you fucking upset my family. I swear to fucking God
,
if you ask my wife to take in that boy
,
then I will fucking rip your head off and shit down your fucking throat. Do you understand me?”

Only when Cutter nodded did
Lund
release the pressure on his arm.
Lund
was not a man
he had
ever seen in such a state. In every meeting
he had
ever had with him,
Lund
had always seemed the picture of moderation. He was going to bring his entire family through this apocalypse and out the other side in one piece. He was
cool, he was calm,
and he was calculating
, but
that was the old
Lund
. This was something else; this was a man
,
who had
been torn up
,
chewed up
,
and
then
spat out.

“I understand you,” Cutter told him. “I didn’t know you’d lost Daniel,” he swore. “
I wouldn’t
have bothered you if I’d known.”

Finally,
Lund
completely released Cutter’s arm. It seemed to be a relief as much for one man as the other. “Just leave us alone,” he hissed. “I’ve got my own family to preserve, and that’s all I can stand. I’m here to watch for me and mine, and that’s it.

“You feel so strongly for that kid, you fucking take him in. You fucking do it!” With that,
Lund
turned sharply on his heel
,
and all but trotted back to his wife and children.

Cutter walked back across the street to where
he had
placed the canister and picked it up, hoisting
it
once more to his shoulder. By the time he turned to look back toward the Lunds, they had vanished like a passing beam of sunlight through
a
break in a fast-moving cloud.

**

By the time he got back to the building where his safe house was located, the sun was fading in the sky, but the temperatures were not falling. It had to be well over ninety, but he had no way of knowing until he got back to the rooftop
to
check his little weather station. He drew out the key to the outer door of the stairwell and unlocked it. It slid open easily
,
and he carefully pulled the door open, revealing the staircase rising up steeply. Looking up, he made sure that nothing was there, hiding in wait. When he was certain that nobody, or no
thing
,
had crept in, he stepped inside and pulled the door after him, locking the door. He paused, putting the heavy canister on the concrete
,
and once again
untied
the bandana from his neck. Drawing the cloth across his face, he wiped the sweat from his skin, mopping his brow, his eyes,
and his
chin. He was certainly due for a shower.

With the heavy metal burden once more raised, he began the long march up the stairs. Every few steps
,
he paused to listen. The undead never breathed, of course, so you never heard that.
Nevertheless,
sometimes
,
if they were standing or even lying in wait, they would
shift. Some of them would stand just so in
the
darkness, waiting for one of the living to pass within striking distance.
Then
they would
move out deceptively quickly and make their move.
He had
seen them do it a hundred times. They would be rooted in one spot, waiting like statues.
He
was sure that some of them knew that’s what they were doing—waiting like some kind of ambush predator. You just never knew, and all you could do was
never to
let your guard down.

The only bad thing about his favorite safe house was the climb. Twelve floors up this isolated stair well.
At least part of the way he
could also go up the fire escape, but he preferred staying out of the line of sight of either the shamblers or of some of his living fellows. Not everyone was just going along to get along. There were some real bastards out there. Most of them had been killed off over the course of the past two years, but not all of them. Even
now,
there were people within a mile of his hideout
,
who would just as soon cut his throat as talk to him.

At each
floor,
Cutter stopped to check the locks of the doors leading into the main building, ensuring that they were solidly barred. A few of them
,
he had
welded shut, never wishing them to be opened, no matter the situation. At a few of them
,
he sometimes heard shuffling sounds from the other side, knowing that at least from one day to the next the odd zombie had found its way into the building
,
and up the unobstructed stairways
that
he’d never bothered to block. At this
point,
he doubted if
he would
ever block them. It seemed too risky for the benefit
that he would
get from it.
Anyway
, sometimes a few zombies around was almost like a little extra security. They kept out the casual busybodies, and if some nosy snooper did encounter one
,
he would
likely hear whatever struggle might ensue.

Finally, he was at the top of the stairwell. This door was the only one he could lock from both sides. It was an optioned
that he had
added. His little hideout was a kind of blockhouse sitting in the center of the roof, and he had to stroll across the gravel to the front door. Again, it was just a minor thing that
he had
weighed and felt worth the risk.