The Zom Diary (32 page)

Chapter 32

      It was a hot and restless night.  I woke up at three a.m. and felt disoriented and thirsty, full of booze and still drunk, but not drunk enough to fall back to sleep easily.

     I recall getting up and rinsing the whiskey glass and filling it with water from the tap.  I stumbled over to the chair by the window and smoked a couple butts, bathed in that sickly-yellow sodium glow from the flickering lights below.  My mind drifted and settled on a more serious contemplation of the world and the things that had come to pass.

     Some events are so big that the mind just can’t contemplate all of the outcomes at once.  So, you end up half drunk and numb on a random any-night at three a.m., slammed mentally with all these realizations, some small and disappointing, such as:  “Now I’ll never get to go sky-diving.”  All the way on up to the big ones, the ones that make your heart sick, like: “My whole family and everyone I love are dead.”

     Last night I thought a lot of both, different little thoughts jabbing at me from the dark-mind racing void, until I was just worn out.  A thought did come to me at the end, a peaceful one that carried me off to sleep.  It’s my choice, how long I’m here, how much I can take.  I’d fallen asleep right then, hand on my Glock.

     So, when the heat of the day slowly invades my small apartment the next morning and light touches my eyes, waking me, I find myself content and smiling.  I lie there for a long time, just beaming.  There is a knock at the door.  It’s Dirty.

     “Hey, man, Bryce sent me to get you.”  He tries to look over my shoulder into my apartment, “Uh, you ready to go?  It’s getting late.”

     I open the door all the way and let him in.  “Yeah, hang on a sec, we can go down together if you want.”  He comes in and grabs a seat at the small table, my dining area, I suppose.  I hear the cap come off the bourbon.  I turn from my task of straitening up the kitchen, annoyed.

     “Help yourself.”

     “Thanks.”

     I put on my boots and belt on the Glock.  I take a couple of moments to close windows and make the bed.  The rest of my stuff is down in the truck.  I look around one last time, grab the bottle from Dirty and place it back in the cabinet over the counter.

     “I’m ready.  Let’s go.”

     We walk down and out toward the truck.  He looks hung over.

     “So, where’d you end up last night?”

     “Slept in the bar.”

     “Oh.”

     Bryce is at the truck and he looks agitated.  I unlock the cab and he starts to load up the back seat.  I look over at Dirty, but he ignores us and sits on the curb lighting a cigarette.  I chat up Bryce.

     “Hey, sorry I’m late.  Rough night.”

     Bryce stops loading and looks over at me.  “Well.  You’re here now.  Are you ready?”

     “Yeah, I’ll start up the truck; you go get Molly.”

     His gaze sharpens, “She’s not here.”

     “I thought she was coming along.”

     “Yes.  Well, she wasn’t around this morning.”

     “Oh, are we waiting for her?”

     “Not anymore.”  He motions to Dirty, who stands and flicks his cigarette to the ground.  Bryce grabs his AK from the tailgate before taking his position in the bed of the truck as our lookout-sharpshooter.  “Let’s get going.  We’ll have to camp at your place anyway.  Maybe she’ll turn up.”

     “Right.” I say, lamely.

     Dirty climbs into the passenger side and immediately starts flipping through my little CD collection.  I start the truck, roll down the window and pull toward the gate.  The guy on duty is the same surly fellow from yesterday.  He walks up to the side of the truck and I hear him tell Bryce that Molly left early this morning on foot.  Bryce smacks the roof hard and I see the guy motion for the gates to open, a worried look on his face, obviously mirroring the one he got from Bryce.  I pull the truck onto the road and wait for the gate to shut before driving off.  I decide to take it slow just in case we catch up to Molly, and we creep off at fifteen mph.

     Not more than a quarter mile down the road, right before the first turn that will take us back around town and headed east, I feel a contact.  I stop the truck and open the little sliding back window.  Bryce leans down and I nod toward the direction of the pressure.

     “Detour?”

     He nods.  Dirty looks curious.  “What’s up?”

     I tell him that there is a zombie up ahead somewhere.  He shakes his head and turns up the volume to some old reggae CD that he’s found and that I had forgotten about.

     “So, you’re one of ‘em too, huh?  You can feel the zombies coming?  Must be nice.”

     “Yeah, I guess.”

     He continues, “What’s it like?”

     “I’ll tell you if you tell me why they call you Dirty.”

     He looks at me, dead serious before answering.

     “I honestly don’t know.  So, what’s it like?”

     “For me, it’s kind of like a finger tip pressing into my mind.  The closer they are, the stronger the feeling, tells me which direction, too.”

     “Wow.  Trippy”

     “Yeah, I guess.”

     I’ve turned down into a little neighborhood, the zombie should be coming from behind the small boarded up white ranch to our left.  I wait and point at the house so Dirty can watch.  It shambles out from where I had pointed and turns toward us.  She/it is in pretty good shape.  Fresh.  As it gets a little closer I let out a small internal sigh of relief.  It’s not Molly.  It shambles closer, and I can make out more details of her face.

     She looks like she was in her twenties when she was bitten, not more than a few days ago by my guess.  Brown hair, fair skin, now ashen, wearing a big green army coat covered with patches.  She’s maybe fifteen feet away when the AK goes off and what was once a head is no more, a floppy red mess of hair and black goo falls around her shoulders as she drops to the dead lawn. 

     “Where the hell did she come from?”  I wonder out loud.

     “I never saw her before, ask Bryce.”

     I call back through the window again, “Bryce, we all set here?”

     “Yes.”

     “Anyone you know?”

     “No.”

     I pull slowly past the body and make a u-turn at the next driveway, coming around again to get back to the main road.  As we pass the girl, I catch a flash of movement from Dirty and hear the barest tink of metal on cement.  He buttons his pocket and rolls up the window.

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     The rest of the ride is pretty uneventful.  Dirty fills me in on his life before the end.  He was an eco-terrorist.  He states it so matter-of-factly, that it almost slips past me as I concentrate on the road ahead.  He has my full attention.

     “So, like spiking trees and pouring sugar in gas tanks?”

     He laughs, “Sure, at first.  I ended up making friends with some heavy people in Oregon after I dropped out of school.  Earth First, ELF, you name it.  Out of necessity, my team distanced itself from any organization but we always had a place to crash and information on what was going down.”

     “So you were like a hippy Delta Force?”

     “Something like that.  I think we always preferred the term ‘Activist’.  Right before shit went down, we were camping out in an old growth, getting ready to zap a clear cut operation.  Serious shit.  We had a fucking stinger missile for their helicopter and everything.  I mean this place was remote, they’d fly the lumber cutters in on bi-weekly rotations, predictable, anyway, we show up to fuck with them, and the place is deserted.   

     “We watched it for almost a week, thought maybe we were in the wrong spot.  When we went down to check it out, we found an old newspaper, you know, the one with that picture of the army shooting that lady who brought her kid to the hospital after it was locked down?”

     I shake my head.  “I never saw it.  I was kind of off the grid myself…”

     “Really?  All right.  Well, we put two and two together and decided to call it off, head home.  We got in our boats and made for the sound, but everywhere we went to put in ‘they’ were waiting for us.  Those were a hard few days.  Eventually, we got desperate and split up.  My friends headed to Seattle to check on their folks.  I just headed South and hoped for the best.”

     I didn’t ask “and then what?”  I know what.  Whatever it took to get by.  So many people end their story here, where it gets painful.  I bet he had an easier time at it than most, it sounded like he was used to roughing it.  I glance over and he’s looking out the window, smoking a joint, brow furrowed with pain.  I had just one question for him.

     “What happened to the stinger?”

     He laughs, “I shot it at one of those Chinese bastards dropping leaflets.”

     “Fucking litter, man.”

Chapter 33

     With that said, we come to the driveway.  I pull in and wait for Bryce to hop down and open the garage.  Once I back in and kill the engine, we all hop out and start unloading.  Dirty steps out into the driveway and stretches, looking around.  His gaze lingers on the burnt farmhouse.

     “Nice place.”

     I ignore him and grab my gear and one of the tanks.  Bryce grabs an armload and yells over at Dirty, snapping him back to reality.

     “Come on, maybe Kyle will show you around.”

     He grabs his satchel of bomb parts and his small bag, adjusting the hammer as he hurries to catch up.  I set my stuff on the steps and begin my usual inspection of the perimeter.  The weeds are getting tall.

     Back at the barn, I open the door to the entryway and make a pile of our gear against the wall where a cabinet had once been.  Poking around and satisfied with the state of the barn, I grab a few jars of hooch.  The supply is dwindling, but the new batch that I put down should be done in a few more weeks.

     Bryce is stacking some wood in the fire pit, and Dirty is crouched next to him offering some pointers on maximum efficiency of camp fires.  I listen in:

     “Yeah, that’s fine, but the whole thing would do better with the sides built up like an oven, or at least a reflective wall.  It would use way less fuel.”

     I pass Dirty a jar of pear hooch and set one down for Bryce, offering to take over construction of the fire and turning to Dirty. 

     “I’ve thought about that, I even have a sack of cement laying around somewhere, but I really like the light.  I’d lose it if I built it up.”

     He opens the jar and sniffs it before taking a sip. “Nice.  Have you thought about just building a smaller fire for cooking?  I could help you brick off a nice oven.”

     I had thought about it, but I didn’t really want to make any commitment for a future visit.  Dirty laughs at my attempts to be polite about this, and then firmly raises his hands in mock surrender.

     “Hey, dude, I’m not trying to move in.  Besides, it will take me no time.  Hell, I’m bored, let’s do it now.”

     “Seriously?”  I ask.

     He nods, “Yeah, man, won’t take any time at all.  Just show me where you want it and point to the cement.”

     I look at Bryce and he shrugs.  “You guys do what you want, I’m going to boil some water and hang out here.”

     I lead him back across the drive to one of the old sheds and we grab a sack of cement and a spade.  Behind it lies a small pile of rocks that I had been collecting from my various excavations, for just such a project.  Dirty seems pleased with the selection.

     Back in the yard, we agree on a spot about ten feet away from the fire and clear it.  He and I make a dozen trips or so between the shed and the spot, dropping a nice little pile of rocks, some flat and others round.  He spies one of my five gallon buckets and starts to mix the cement.

     He rolls up his sleeves and gets to it, laying some cement down in a rough circular pad about two feet across and starts to stack rocks.  Every few minutes, he sends me to hunt for a particular sized rock, giving me a rough idea what he’s looking for.  After a couple hours, it’s done.  He sits back on his heels, and we both admire it.

     It sits like a low circular chimney, or maybe a wishing well, about two feet high.  There is an opening down low to feed wood into it and a couple of air holes.  The top tapers to an opening about ten inches across.

     “There you go, man.  Let it dry for a week or so before you use it. The top should support that kettle just fine, and if you come across some slate, you can wedge it here (he points to the open side) and then cover the top for making bread or tortillas or whatever.”

     “Thank you.”

     He smiles, “you’re welcome” and I offer my hand to help him up.  Back at the fire, Bryce has purloined a couple of fresh jars of hooch.  I had told him which shelf was safe, apparently the vinegar incident was fresh in his mind.  We all sit around the fire as the afternoon creeps along.  Bryce tries to put a good face on things but I can see that he is agitated.  I imagine he must be going out of his head over Molly.  She’s really gotten to him.  I lean over and mutter:

     “Why don’t you go back and check the road, we’re ok here and there’s still a couple of hours of daylight.”

     He nods quickly and gets up, grabbing the AK.  “Yeah, maybe that would be good.  There is a zombie about a mile and a half back.  It might be following her, I know I would feel better if I check it out.”

     “OK, you want us to come along?”

     “No.  Stay here in case she shows up.  I told her how to find the place, just in case.  She shouldn’t have any problems.”

     I could hear the worry in his voice.  Dirty comments on it as Bryce walks down the drive and disappears.  “Man, that’s why I stay single.  This world is too messed up to have anybody else to worry about.”

     “Oh yeah?”

     “For sure.  Best to travel light.  From what I hear, that one’s got a ton of baggage.”

     “Who Molly?  They are an odd pair.  I think they do all right, though.”

     The conversation fizzles and so, I pay more attention to my drink and wonder about the composition and attainment of dinner.  I leave Dirty poking the fire with a stick he found somewhere and head over to the smoke house.

     The smell is powerful, as always, but not unpleasant.  I grab down an old leg that I had set to cure and bring it back over to the barn.  Once inside, I set it down on the work table in the big room and clean it up for supper.  Once I scrape away some of the mold, the meat looks serviceable.  I decide to boil it.

     I make one more trip to the cellar for booze and grab a mason jar of herb while I’m down there.  I hand it to Dirty, back at the fire.

     “Here,” I say as I plop the jar of weed on his lap, “a gift for your help with the oven.”

     He unscrews the top and takes a smell, inspecting a plum-sized neon green bud in the long and golden afternoon light.  After a while he begins to grind some of the herb with the palms of his hands, mulching it carefully and collecting the loose smokable crumbs.  He looks up from his reverie and makes a face at the ham.

     “What the fuck is that!”

     “Dinner.  I’m guessing from that look that it’ll be just for me and Bryce?”

     He shrugs.  “I eat meat, but I’m not that brave…”

     I point out a couple rows of different trees and tell him to help himself to the fruit.  He rummages in his bag, producing a tiny pan, claims some fire-space and dumps a handful of red beans in it before wandering off.  A twig snaps behind me.

     I whip around, hand on my Glock, cursing the red-orange blob on my vision, campfire and twilight...  I blink away the image and squint into the creeping dimness.  A figure rounds the left side of the barn.  Molly.

     She sees me and walks over to the fire.  “Hey, where is everyone?”

     “Bryce is out looking for you.  Dirty is out in the orchard.  Where were you?”

     She shrugs.  “I had an errand to run and decided to catch up with you guys on the road.”

     “You could have said something.  Bryce got worried.”

     She smiles.  “Oh, yeah?”

     I sigh internally.  I have no desire to get involved in her game, whatever it may be.  I leave her there sniffing at the kettle with a wrinkled nose.  I need to visit the privy and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the company, and not sensing any zoms close by I decide to egress.

     The sun has almost set, but I enjoy the long grey twilight.  It’s just bright enough to read by, and I still have a chapter left in my paperback.  It’s nice to be alone.  Just me and the shit-house spiders.

     When I return to the fire, I see that Bryce is back.  He looks upset and Molly looks freshly yelled-at.  I poke at the kettle and ask if he found that zom.

     “No.  I felt it disappear and assumed that Molly took it out, so I started to head back.”

     Molly makes a gun with her thumb and forefinger as he talks and makes sound effects, pew-pew.

     “Good, well, at least it’s taken care of.”

     I glance at Molly.  She’s acting strange.  Bryce points at the orchard and mimes smoking a joint.  Molly laughs.

     Dirty wanders back over at some point, and we all kind of fend for ourselves dinner wise.  The meat ends up being ok, or maybe by the time it’s done, I’m drunk enough to think so.  I offer the shack up for Bryce and Molly’s accommodations.  He accepts, leading her off through the trees.  Dirty and I sit up watching the fire.

     I’m anxious about the trip out to the desert.  I’m anxious about how many people now know about my place.  I’m just plain anxious, but at the same time I’m too drunk to care.  We pass a silent hour or so and then I decide to get some rest.  My legs still ache from the last trip. 

     Dirty promises to lock up when he’s done being outside.

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     I settle down to a calm rest and remember dreaming of water.

     I float through huge subterranean caverns.  Slick grey granite as if polished by some underground current and lit by a profusion of soft blue light, florescent fungi surrounds me.  I swim and breathe; an aquatic troglodytic being of spirit substance, dying but never unaware or unconscious of being.  I’m pulled from these rhythms of dream and darkness by a noise and I come back to awareness.

     My head is pounding.  It is early.  Earlier than I had planned on waking.  My mind feels off balance.  Pounding.  A sound?  I am awake now and rolling out of bed.

     I continue to hear the pounding from below and outside.  Had I locked Dirty out?  I might have, by accident, out of habit.  My head pounds!  No.  It pulses.  A multitude of sensations assail me.

     Foremost, the feeling of fingers, pressing into my mind.  Four?  Four dead beings, clawing and banging at my home, tearing at the wood, mouths agape, testing and trying for entrance.  The next sensation is a rising dread.  Dirty!

     I peer over the railing at the big green couch below, unoccupied, blanket still neatly folded on the arm.  Shit.  I bend and peek out of the small row of windows to my right, seeing the small crowd of raggy, bloody fiends assembled.

     I fly into my pants, stomp on my boots, forcing myself to pause and check my sidearm.  I drop the ladder and adjust my gun belt before stepping down.

     I am almost to the door when the first shot goes off.  I hit the deck.

     The fire increases, reminding me of microwave popcorn noises from times before.  I hear the bullets hit the barn and splinter wood on their way through.  Under all of this, almost imperceptible through the din, I hear cursing—loud and high pitched.

     The popping of rounds slowly ceases.  I can hear the newly inanimate bodies sliding to their rest on the other side of the door, and then the sound of one lone hand still beating at the door.  One last shot, then a stillness.  My name is called from outside, in unison.  Bryce and Molly’s worried voices.

     I lift the bar up off the door and open it slowly.  Damn, I had locked it last night.  I step aside as one of the zombie’s upper halves slumps through the doorway, a mass of blood soaked clothing beneath the shredded remains of a head.  Well-chewed, gore splattered and sporting a blond ponytail.

     “On, no.”

     My voice sounds to my own ears as if from someone else’s mouth.  I’m standing there looking down at Dirty, his bottom half buried under the body pile, they’re covered in his guts and blood and they all look frozen in their pose.  Like a still shot of a bunch of skunks caught ripping through the garbage.  I can’t stop staring at it, the sun-caught drops of blood, how they glint and gleam, mixing in a mercury-like way with the black ooze.  It runs down the side of Dirty’s cheek, pausing on the edge of a ragged hole where face should be, before dripping onto the copper painted floor—red on green.

     A shadow falls across the scene and I realize lamely that someone must have been talking to me, gently and in a concerned way, but I don’t look up until a sharper tone enters her voice.

     “Kyle?” 

     I look up and meet her gaze.  There is concern there, and shock, but not anger.  All the while burning from behind her eyes, that look that says it all.  What the hell happened?

     I step around the pile and through the door, hanging onto the doorframe to balance myself and walk back to the fire following a gore trail to the scene of the crime.  I stand before the chair that he’d sat in last night, now blood soaked.  Had he passed out and then been attacked?  Did he try the door and give up, deciding to wait it out all night?  I had a feeling of certainty that I would never know.

     Something white catches my attention as I poke around next to the chair.  It’s a half smoked joint.  The paper has gone translucent from resin at the tip, where it had been allowed to go out.  Was he smoking this when they got him?  Did it fall and hit the ground, slowly going out, like the spark in his eye as his throat was chewed out?