The Zom Diary (33 page)

     I put the roach in my mouth and light it with a stick laying half out of the coals of the fire.  The smoke is acrid and thick.  I exhale a thick plume of yellowish smoke. 

     Bryce walks over, AK still in his hands, he leans over beside me and looks at my face, trying to catch my eyes.  I turn my head and stare back, he asks me worriedly:

     “Are you OK dude?” 

     I nod.  “So, what happened?” He asks again, and Molly is there leading him away.  I sit and can’t make out what she says to him, but he gives up and walks over to the pump, inspects the corpses.  Molly comes over and stands to my side. 

     “Take your time, Kyle,” she rests a hand on my arm, “it’s ok.”

     I feel a sudden anger burn inside me and I yell.  “I locked him out!”  The weed starts to reach my senses just then, turning the morning light a brighter shade of sunny.  I don’t feel any trace of anxiety or of the fear.  “I locked him out.  It was an accident.” And it was.  I know this as I say it.  I had no ill will towards the guy, I had just locked the damn door automatically, the same as I had on thousands of other evenings.

     He is still dead, though, and it bothers me.  I liked the guy.  He had had the conviction to fight back against all the evil shitheads who had ruined our world.  He had stepped out of his life and fought for the trees, while I had just checked out and hidden among them.  I decided right then and there that he had passed out at the fire and gotten himself killed.  That’s what I’d believe.  Done.  Quick and easy.  No more guilt. 

     I take another pull on the roach and offer it up to Molly.  She takes a hit.  I feel I should say something.

     “Sorry,” I mutter, “I just woke up and this kind of freaked me out.  I’m ok now.  Shit happens, right?”

    She nods.  I get up and walk over to Bryce.  He’s checking the pocket of one of the zombies; there is a wallet.  He hands it to me.  California driver’s license.  A boring looking guy, like he should be in a catalogue, modeling sweaters.  Eric J. Collins.  Age 34.  Organ donor.

     I toss the wallet in the grass and look at Bryce.  He’s shaking his head and rocking on his heels.  “Damn,” he whispers, glancing over at Molly “can we pull this off without Dirty?”

     “I think so,” I say.  “I was kinda paying attention back at his place.  Propane tanks, C-4, flares, hobby wick--yeah, I can set that up”

     Bryce blows out a huge breath and shrugs.  “Alright,” he points to Eric, “grab an ankle?”

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     We drag the bodies back to the long trench and toss them in.  When we get to Dirty, Bryce insists that we cover him, so I get a blanket to roll him up in and we drop him in the far end, away from the others and cover him with a few feet of soil.

     I feel really good.  Kind of the wrong time for it, but I can’t help it.  I feel pretty stinking good.  Sucks about Dirty, but hey, that’s the way the world is these days.  Keep sharp or die.

     Molly is back at the barn sitting in one of the chairs by the fire looking at the wallet I had tossed.  I pull up a chair and Bryce wanders off to get some firewood.  She’s looking at the guy’s driver’s license, a blank look on her face.

     “Someone you know?”  I joke.

     She nods her head.

     “Hey,” I start in sympathetic tones, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t--”

     She cuts me off.  “Don’t be sorry!”  She tosses the wallet onto the smoldering coals of the fire.

     “Oh.” I say dumbly.

     I am at a loss.  I watch the edges of the wallet turn black and smoke.  She goes on talking.  “Yeah, well it’s alright.  He got his.  Just wish he hadn’t gotten Dirty.  Even dead he was a creep.”  She fishes a smoke out of a fresh pack, one of Dirty’s and offers me one.  I thank her and begin wondering about splitting the rest of his possessions between us and if I should say something when she interrupts my thoughts with a sharp nod towards Bryce.  “Don’t say anything.”

     I won’t.  Bryce gets the fire going and we three sit there as the smoke rises and curls into the morning sky, outlining the first golden bars of light that break over the roof of the barn.  It’s mid-morning.

     Bryce breaks the silence, addressing us both.  “Are we going to head out today?”

     Both sets of eyes turn to me.  “If we get walking soon, we can camp where Bryce and I stayed the last time and not be cutting it too close.”

     No one argues with that, so we set about getting ready.  Bryce and Molly each grab a propane tank from the barn.  The rest of their gear is at the shack, and they set off to get it.  I agree to meet them there in an hour.

     The bucket that Dirty used for the cement yesterday is still by the pump, rinsed out, but for a few grey streaks.  I fill it dutifully and dump it over the chair where he died last night.  I fill it again and clean up the steps and entryway.  I watch the bloody puddles seep into the earth. 

     Once I’m satisfied that the filth is gone, I set about fixing a pack for the trip.  I pack most of the usual stuff, but leave room for the bomb parts.  It’s kind of exciting, carrying around enough C-4 to turn myself into a stain.

     I strip and clean the Glock.  It takes me three seconds to get it completely apart.  One minute to wipe it out with an oily rag, and thirty seconds to get it back together.  I pull the slide back, chambering a round.  Loaded, it goes back in the holster.  I feel ready.

     I lock up and grab the last tank.  It’s kind of heavy and cuts into my hand as I carry it, but there is no helping it.  The steps are starting to dry, patches of dry stone like islands in the stain.  How many times have these rocks been covered with blood?  My zom altar.  I’ll kill ‘em all, I think, given enough time.  Sacrifice them to the Barn. 

     I cross the yard and cut through the trees toward familiar paths.  I pause once, looking up and plucking a dewy orb of fruit--breakfast.  This is Eden.  Just watch out for all the snakes.

     I’m ahead of schedule when I step out at the shack, but Bryce and Molly are ready and waiting.  Silent, we start off through the brush, snaking our way up toward the hills, faces painted with uncertainty.

Chapter 34

     My feet find purchase on the loose detritus that gathers between the scrub, wind through clumps of thick grass, around tipping rocks and all the while the same thought repeats through my mind.  “What will come of all of this?”  It creates a rhythm, resonates and reverberates.  Step, step, rocks etc. and then the thought.  As occupied with this question as I am, I don’t expect a reply, however:

     “Nothing good will come of this, Kyle.”

    The thought is too clear, almost audible.  No one else reacts to it though.  I glance over my shoulder at Bryce and Molly.  They have their heads down, watching the trail.  What the hell?

     “They can’t hear me, Kyle, only you can.  Turn back.”

     This longer string of communication makes me pause.  I feel my blood chill.  Have I lost my mind?  It was bound to happen one of these days...  God.  I stop and reach out, steadying myself on a too-thin sapling.  It bends with me, but then holds.

     Again the voice, “You are no less or more sane than ever, friend.”

     Bryce and Molly pause.  Their voices overlap with the one in my head, asking if I’m ok and passing a water bottle between them, brows furrowed.  It is disorienting, and I feel some dizziness from the effect of it all.  I wave off my companions questions and pose one myself toward this mystery voice:  “What’s going on?”

     “You are making a mistake.  Nothing good will come of this.”

     “From what?  Who are you?”

     “They called me ‘Prophet’, to mock me.  I am whole now and sane in this place” Then, “turn back.  Now.”

     “You are dead and gone.  I saw your body.”

     “Yes, that was necessary.  I had to release my essence into the pool to become whole.  I didn’t understand everything at that moment, there was so much confusion, and my mind was damaged.  I am whole now.”

     “What about the townspeople that were killed when you left?”

     “I was sick, driven mad by the lure of the pool.  This place effects us all differently, but it can also offer healing and enlightenment, for some.”

     “The zoms don’t seem very enlightened to me.  Does the pool heal them?”

     “No.  They are truly dead, ruled only by the desire to spread the contagion.  An imperative, but some of their essence remains, memories, I suppose.”

     I get my bearings and start walking again.  Bryce nods, screws the cap on his canteen after I refuse to drink any and he and Molly follow me from behind.  We gain altitude slowly, as I’m still a little touched by vertigo.  I continue the conversation in my mind, not truly convinced that I’m not just playing games with myself.

     “This is foolish.  You are a figment in my head, and I am cracking up.  Thank you for the entertainment.”

     “Ask Bryce about Carolyn’s tattoo, the one on her back.”

     I struggle with the idea.  If I stop and ask, then it is as if I am giving in to this madness, but the possibility that I am having a real psychic conversation with our dead nemesis is just as terrifying, I suppose.  What the hell and why not?  I think.

     I stop and turn to Bryce.  He looks around as if to see some reason for stopping before looking to me.

    “Ok, this might sound crazy, but do you know a Carolyn, and does she have a tattoo on her back?”

     He looks puzzled, brows knit together and slowly shaking his head.  Molly is unfazed by our strange dialogue, by now she’s used to our crazy banter about feelings and premonitions in our minds, but takes the chance to sip at her water bottle and light a cigarette before crouching next to a boulder some five feet away muttering obscenities about our slow pace just loud enough for us to both hear clearly.  He ignores her and answers me.

     “No.  Not that I can think of.  Why?”

     The voice inside my head chimes in, “Ask him about the last conversation that I had with him. Ask about the garbage.”

     I fire back, “Why don’t you ask him?”

     “He dismissed me, he’s too logical of a soul to talk to fancies in his mind.  No offense, besides he hates me completely.  Even I can sense that.”

     I focus on Bryce again. “Just humor me.  I’m sure it’s nothing.  What was the last conversation you had with the prophet?”

     He shrugs, “I don’t know.  I think I was getting after him for not doing his jobs.”

     “Like what?”

     “Well, he was our street sweeper and sanitation agent.  He also did odd jobs that I could trust him with.”  He frowns.  “Wait, I do know a Carolyn, the prophet’s lady friend, I think that is her name.  What’s going on?”

     The confirmation comes as a mild relief.  I was sure by now that I wasn’t going crazy, but I wasn’t happy at the new development.  Bad enough to be stuck in this fucked world, bad enough to feel the dead coming for me and now talking to a dead man.  What’s next?  I accept a cigarette from Molly and make up my mind on one course of action that I will see through, no matter what.  I also decide to come clean with the rest of the group about the morning’s conversation.  

     “I think the prophet is communicating with me somehow, in my head.  It’s been going on for the last half hour or so.  He’s alive, or conscious at least, in that cavern.  He doesn’t want us to destroy it.”

     “Thank you.  Now, can—”

     Again, the voice coincides with Bryce’s words.  I shake my head and concentrate, ignoring the prophet’s comment and listening to Bryce.

     “I believe you,” he smiles for a moment, “it makes a kind of sense to me, I’ve had weird dreams in the past and feelings that were intrusive or just obviously not my own.  I won’t be surprised if we discover lot’s of changes in our minds now that they have been affected by the illness.”  He screws the cap on his water bottle and runs his hand, covered in condensation, through his damp hair.  “If you can, tell him I’m glad he’s still around.  I was ever so disappointed that I didn’t get to kill him.  I’ll get that chance now.”

     Molly looks bored.  She sits and lights another butt.  I withdraw into my mind and relay Bryce’s sentiment.

     “I’m sorry.  You can’t understand how I’ve changed; the beauty of this experience.  You can join me.  You and Bryce.  You have the ability to transcend your living bodies and come to this place.”

     In my mind the prophet sounds increasingly concerned, almost fearful.  I focus on Bryce again, he looks at me expectantly.  “Yeah.  He says he’s sorry and he wants us to come and join him.”

     Bryce flushes angry for a moment.  “Tell him to go to hell, and then let’s get moving.  We are wasting light.”

     My mind is washed over with waves of frustration and rage.  Then the voice.

     “I understand.  If you come for me, I will kill you.  Tell Bryce that he was wrong about his wife’s work and the sickness.”

     I consider this then reply to the voice, “No. I won’t goad him or relay any more messages.  He’s right about you.”