Zombies - Encounters with the Hungry Dead Part 51

Chet ignored them. He ambled over to the pile of bodies and squatted over one, lifted a neatly bisected hemisphere of a woman's skull and slurped at it like a slice of cantaloupe. Snopes smashed Bamberger's grill in when he put on the muzzle, so the s...o...b..ring hole he chewed his food with had no teeth in it.

Somehow, this only made him more repulsive, more threatening. His crumbling gray hide was pocked with burns and brands, and carved words. A Camel Filter b.u.t.t jutted out of his left ear, and his right ear was melted off. With no TV and no Indian casinos down the road, Connie had been forced to take up a new hobby, but n.o.body had filed a complaint, so who was he to judge?

The jingling music of the approaching chow wagon echoed through the streets. "Music Box Dancer" today, thank G.o.d. Snopes didn't know why, but if he heard "Do You Know The Way To San Jose" one more time, he was going to eat somebody's brains.

Chet's eyes were pointed at Snopes, but they were as vital as soft-boiled eggs, and was there any remorse in them, any horror, at what he'd become? Was there any spark of anything worth saving, in the rancid mayonnaise behind those dead eyes? Had there ever been?

Snopes drew his gun and shot Chet Bamberger through the left eye, and then, because it wouldn't close, through the right.

The chow wagon pulled up in a cloud of dust. Something about the old ice cream truck always creeped Snopes out, even when it still sold ice cream. Now, with racks of chainsaws, baling hooks and flamethrowers and a wood-chipper in tow, and all the Rocket Pop and Dove Bar stickers slathered in sun-baked blood and clouds of ecstatic flies, the chow wagon only brought relief; somebody else to clean up this mess.

"Murderer! f.u.c.king murderer!" Fists drummed on Snopes's back, ineffectual against his bulletproof vest, but knocking him off-balance when he tried to help Bas...o...b..get free.

Connie Bamberger kicked Snopes in the crotch. He tripped and fell on the body pile. His hand snagged in a body cavity and half a baby spilled down the back of his neck.

"Murderer! Arrest him, Doug! I want justice!"

They grabbed him when he came into the courtroom. It was dark, but he recognized the deep-fried roadkill smell of Torres, who ran the Indian Skillet across the street, and Sturtevant's livestock stink, McBride by the whiskey on his breath. Bas...o...b..unsnapped his holster and took his gun.

Connie Bamberger sobbed uncontrollably on the witness stand. Judge Dooling sat at the edge of the lampglow with his hand on the revolver. "Now, Mrs. Bamberger has given her testimony, and her complaint has been reviewed."

"What is this s.h.i.t?" Snopes shouted. "Get off me, it was self defense."

"Witnesses say otherwise. Mr. Bamberger was not aggressive, and the illegal aliens' refuse was going to be processed for feed, in any event. You took a citizen's life in cold blood, Deputy. You broke the law, and it is very clear."

"That's not the real G.o.dd.a.m.ned law! It's not murder! Chet was already dead!" Snopes struggled in the arms of the other men, but Bas...o...b..jabbed him in the back with his own gun. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the gloomy courtroom was packed with people, half the surviving town gathered to watch.

"All of us are equal before the law, Mark. I can't sentence you to death, but you've shown that you cannot be trusted to wield force in our defense. We'll have to ask for your badge."

Someone ripped it off his uniform. "Fine, take it and f.u.c.k you all."

"Excellent. And now, Doctor, tie off his arms."

Snopes bucked backwards, throwing Sturtevant into Torres, and driving Bas...o...b..back into the door. His gun went off into the ceiling. Snopes jumped for the door, but Bas...o...b..was quicker, and smashed him across the back of the head. The lamplight turned into a golden lava lamp glow, and he collapsed on a plastic tarp.

Dr. McBride was a veterinarian and a drunk, but he was Ocotillo's only medical authority, so he tied Snopes off at the elbows, and pumped him with a syringe that made the trippy light into a pointillist cloudscape.

"Son, I'm sorry as h.e.l.l," McBride whispered in his ear. "We all know why you did it, but there's gotta be law, and the law's gotta be blind. My son, he's dead, but he's walking, so who's to say he won't get better? If we let you go on like you done-"

Judge Dooling banged his gavel. "Don't badger the prisoner, Walter. Deputy Bas...o...b.. proceed."

Bas...o...b..still bled from divots the razorwire gouged out of his neck, scalp and arms, but he did not hesitate to drag his partner's right arm out across the floor and step on the wrist, heft the axe and slam it into the inside of Snopes's elbow.

From head to toe, he was bathed in lightning. Screaming blood and vomit and streaming tears, Snopes tried to fight, but he couldn't even get the breath to scream for mercy when they tugged the other one away from his chest and chopped it off, as well.

A little blood oozed out of the tourniquets, but Dr. McBride cauterized the stumps with a blowtorch and p.r.o.nounced him sound.

The gavel banged again. "Court is adjourned. Deputy, leave the defendant where he is. I'd like a word. No, touch nothing-"

Snopes lay there, watching the silhouettes of the people he'd sworn to protect and serve file past the tarp. The sight of his severed arms, splayed out in front of him like spare parts from a model kit, was very unsettling; but he couldn't remember why until he reached out to touch them.

He still couldn't scream, but he found it very easy to cry.

When the courtroom was empty, Judge Dooling rose from the bench, shuffled over to Snopes, and knelt beside him.

"I know you think this is very cruel and unusual, Mark, but we all have to learn to submit to something bigger than ourselves."

Snopes's response was garbled, even to himself.

The judge sighed, touched his shoulder. "You think this is insane, but you are fortunate not to be able to understand. You probably won't remember this, but I wish you would, so you could see how wrong you were, as time goes by, about the risen population of Ocotillo.

"The dead are not wholly incapable of recovery, Mr. Snopes."

Dooling brought his face down closer to the deputy and picked up his severed left forearm. He stroked Snopes's face with his own fingers, then took a bite out of the meaty belly of the exposed muscle, just above the clean cut at the elbow.

"We are getting better," His Honor said around a mouthful of flesh. "Order has been restored. We will rebuild our town, and it will be better than it ever was, with equal liberty and justice for all its citizens."

Snopes had all but blacked out. His last clear memory was of the Judge: wiping his blood-slick lips, taking the scorched stumps of his arms in his hands, and licking them with his gray, ulcerated tongue, just like a stamp.

But he heard him get up and call for Bas...o...b.. "You're free to go."

28/ Lisa Morton Sparks Fly.

Upwards.

My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.

Job 17:1.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection...

Revelation 20:6.

JUNE 16.

Tomorrow marks one year ago that the Colony was begun here, and I think just about everyone is busy preparing for a big celebration. We just had our first real harvest two weeks ago, so there'll be plenty of good things to eat, and as for drink-well, the product of George's still is a little extreme for most tastes, so Tom and a few of the boys made a foray outside yesterday for some real liquor.

Of course I was worried when Tom told me he was going (and not even for something really vital, just booze), but he said it wasn't so bad. The road was almost totally clear for the first five miles after they left the safety of the Colony, and even most of Philipsville, the pint-sized town where they raided a liquor store, was deserted. Tom said he shot one in the liquor store cellar when he went down there to check on the good wines; it was an old woman, probably the one-time shopkeeper's wife locked away. Unfortunately, she'd clawed most of the good bottles off to smash on the floor. Tom took what was left, and an unopened case of good burgundy he found untouched in a corner. There are 131 adults in the Colony, and he figured he'd have a bottle for every two on Anniversary Day.

It's been two weeks since any of the deadheads have been spotted near the Colony walls, and Pedro Quintero, our top marksman, picked that one off with one shot straight through the head from the east tower. It would be easy to fool ourselves into thinking the situation is finally mending... easy and dangerous, because it's not. The lack of deadheads seen around here lately proves only one thing: That Doc Freeman was right in picking this location, away from the cities and highways.

Of course Doc Freeman was right-he's right about everything. He said we should go this far north because the south would only keep getting hotter, and sure enough it's been in the 8o's here for over a week now. I don't want to think what it is down in L.A. now-probably 120, and that's in the shade.

Tomorrow will be a tribute to Doc Freeman as much as an anniversary celebration, If it hadn't been for him... well, I suppose Tom and little Jessie and I would be wandering around out there with the rest of them right now, dead for a year but still hungry. Always hungry.

It's funny, but before all the s.h.i.t came down, Doc Freeman was just an eccentric old college professor teaching agricultural sciences and preaching survival. Tom always believed Freeman had been thinking about cutting out anyway, even before the whole zombie thing, because of the rising temperatures. He told his students that agriculture in most parts of the U.S. was already a thing of the past, and it would all be moving up to Canada soon.

When the deadheads came (Doc Freeman argued, as did a lot of other environmentalists, that they were caused by the holes in the ozone layer, too), it was the most natural thing in the world, I guess, for him to a.s.semble a band of followers and head north. He'd chosen the site for the Colony, set up policy and government, designed the layout of fields, houses and fences, and even a.s.signed each of us a job, according to what we were best at. It had all been scary at first, of course-especially with three-year old Jessie-but we all kind of fell into place. I even discovered I was a talented horticulturist-Doc says the best after him-and in some ways this new life is better than the old one.

Of course there are a lot of things we all miss-ice cream, uncalloused hands, TV-Del still scans the shortwave radio, hoping he'll pick something up on it. In a year, he has only once, and that transmission ended with the sound of gunshots.

So we accept our place in the world-and the fact that it may be the last place. Tomorrow we do more than accept it, we celebrate it.

I wish I knew exactly how to feel.

JUNE 17.

Well, the big day has come and gone.

Tom is beside me, snoring in a blissful alcoholic oblivion. Tomorrow he'll be in the fields again, so he's earned this.

Jessie is in her room next door, exhausted from all the games she played and sweets she ate. Tom actually let me use a precious hour of videotape to record her today.

And yet I wasn't the only one crying when Doc Freeman got up and made his speech about how his projections show that if we continue at our present excellent rate, we'll be able to expand the colony in three years. Expand it carefully, he added. Meaning that in three years there'll be probably forty or fifty couples- like Tom and me-begging for the precious right to increase our family.

I know Doc is right, that we must remember the lessons of the old world and not outgrow our capacity to produce, to sustain that new growth... but somehow it seems wrong to deny new life when we're surrounded by so much death.

Especially when the new life is in me.

JUNE 24.

I've missed two now, and so I felt certain enough to go see Dale Oldfield. He examined me as best he could (he's an excellent G.P., but his equipment is still limited), and he concluded I'd guessed right.

I am pregnant.

Between the two of us we figured it at about six weeks along. Dale thanked me for not trying to hide it, then told me he would have to report it to Doc Freeman. I asked only that Tom and I be allowed to be there when he did. He agreed, and we decided on tomorrow afternoon.

I went home and told Tom. At first he was thrilled-and then he remembered where we were.

I told Tom we'd be seeing Doc Freeman tomorrow about it, and he became obsessed with the idea that he'd somehow convince Doc to let us have the baby.

I couldn't stand to hear him torture himself that way, so I read stories to Jessie and held her until we both fell asleep in her narrow child-sized bed.

JUNE 25.

We saw Doc Freeman today. Dale Oldfield confirmed the situation, then gracefully excused himself, saying he'd be in his little shack-c.u.m-office when we needed him.

Doc Freeman poured all three of us a shot of his private stock of Jim Beam, then he began the apologies. Tom tried to argue him out of it, saying a birth would be good for morale, and we could certainly handle just one more in the Colony... but Doc told him quietly that, unlike many of the young couples, we already had a child and couldn't expect special treatment. Tom finally gave in, admitting Doc was right-and I'd never loved him more than I did then, seeing his pain and regret.

He went with me to tell Dale we'd be needing his services next week, and Dale just nodded, his head hung low, not meeting our eyes.

Afterwards, in our own bungalow, Tom and I argued for hours. We both got crazy, talking about leaving the Colony, building our own little fortress somewhere, even overthrowing Doc Freeman... but I think we both knew it was all fantasy. Doc Freeman had been right again-we did have Jessie, and maybe in a few more years the time would be right for another child.

But not now.

JULY 2.

Tomorrow is the day set for us to do it.

G.o.d, I wish there was another way. Unfortunately, even after performing a DC three times in the last year, Dale still has never had the clinic's equipment moved to the Colony. It's ironic that we can send out an expedition for booze, but not one for medical equipment. Doc Freeman says that's because the equipment is a lot bigger than the booze, and the Colony's only truck has been down basically since we got here.

So tomorrow Tom, Dale, and I will make the eighteen-mile drive to Silver Creek, the nearest town big enough to have had a family planning clinic. Dale, who has keys to the clinic, a.s.sures me the only dangerous part will be getting from the car to the doors of the clinic. They can't get inside, he tells me, so we'll be safe-until we have to leave again, that is.

Funny... when he's telling me about danger, he only talks about deadheads.

He never mentions the abortion.

JULY 3.

I didn't sleep much last night. Tom held me but even he dozed off for a while. It's morning as I write this, and I hear Jessie starting to awaken. After I get her up, I'll try to tell her mommy and daddy have to leave for a while, and nice Mrs. Oldfield will watch her. She'll cry, but hopefully not because she understands what's really going on.

It's later now-Jessie's taken care of, and Dale's got the jeep ready to go. Tom and I check our supplies again: an automatic.38 with full magazine, an Uzi with extra clips, a hunting rifle with scope and plenty of ammo, three machetes, and the little wooden box. Dale's also got his shotgun and a Walther PPK that he says makes him feel like James Bond. Everyone teases him about it, telling him things like the difference is that Bond's villains were all alive to begin with. Dale always glowers and shuts up. It's time to go.

We climbed into the Jeep. Tom asked why I was bringing you (diary) along, and I told him it was my security blanket and rabbit's foot. He shut up and Dale gunned the engine. We had to stop three times on the way out to exchange hugs and good luck wishes with people who ran up from the fields when we went by.

We're about 15 miles out now, and it's been the way Tom said-quiet. After the gates swung open and we pulled onto the dusty road, it must've been ten minutes before we saw the first deadhead. It was lumbering slowly across a sere field, still fifty yards from the road as we whipped by.

A few miles later there was a small pack of three in the road, but they were s.p.a.ced wide apart. Dale drove around two of them; they clawed in vain at the Jeep, but we were doing 60 and they just sc.r.a.ped their fingers. The third one was harder to drive around-there were car wrecks on either side of the road-so Dale just whomped into him. He flew over the welded cage at the front of the Jeep and landed somewhere off to the side of the road. We barely felt it.

We'd just reached the outskirts of Silver Creek when Dale slowed down and cleared his throat. Then he said, Listen, Sarah, there's something you ought to know about the clinic. He asked me if I'd talked to any of the others he'd already escorted out here.

Of course I had, but they had only a.s.sured me of Dale's skilled, painless technique, and that they'd be there if I needed to talk. None of them had said much about the clinic itself.

I said this to Dale, and he asked me something strange.

He asked if I was religious.

Tom and I looked at each other, then Tom asked Dale what he was getting at.

Dale stammered through something about how the deadheads tend to go back to places that were important to them, like their homes or shopping malls or schools.

We nodded-everyone knew that-and Dale asked if we'd ever heard of Operation Soul Save.

I swear I literally tasted something bad in my mouth. How could I forget? The fundamentalists who used to stand around outside abortion clinics and shout insults and threats at people who went in. I was with a friend once-a very young friend-when it happened to her.

Then I realized what he was saying. I couldn't believe it. I tried to ask him, but my words just tripped all over each other. He nodded and told us.

They're still here.

Most of Silver Creek was empty. We saw some of them inside dusty old storefronts, gazing at us stupidly as we drove by, but they probably hadn't fed in well over a year and were pretty sluggish. Either that, or they'd just been that way in life-staring slack-jawed as it pa.s.sed them by.