The Famished Trilogy (Novella): Bailing Out into the Dead Read online

  16

  Then

  Looking down at the map in my hands, it was time to use it, but Jules was taking her happy time.

  More gunshots sounded in from the west. Additional people dead, I suspected. Michelle flinched into Marie’s arms as Dex tried to scramble from mine. I finally stuck him in a deep bag. I hated to do it to him, but he had to be in there for now.

  We were all a little subdued by Taylor getting shot in the kneecaps and thrown outside the gate yesterday. It was horrible as we sat there, helpless, and listened to him scream, as he was just an example to us all. Marie seemed more devastated than the rest of us. I think they had a thing.

  “Where the fuck is she?” I managed through clenched teeth and looked through the trees, searching for a light blond head.

  Marie swallowed. “I don’t know.” Her tone sounded worried but she tried to stay calm. As did I. “Maybe you should go get her?”

  “And leave you two here? No way. She’ll be here.”

  Marie glanced toward the opening in the thick brush. “We haven’t heard a walkie-talkie sound in a while. I think we’ll be okay.”

  I shook my head, not saying anything because I was afraid of scaring Michelle. My blood boiled the longer we waited. I had a truck from my last looting trip parked a good few miles away, but it was full of gas and things were already in it that could be used if need be.

  “Rudy, I don’t think we should wait too much longer. I don’t want to be out there when it gets dark.”

  Running my hand over my head, I jerked my bandana off. Sweat covered my forehead and brow. I peered at Michelle. Her bottom lip trembled.

  “This is what we are going to do. I want you to get to the truck and lock yourselves in. You have enough arrows?” Marie showed me the quiver full of them. “Perfect,” I said, as she strapped it on her back and gripped her bow. She’d been practicing the skill for the past few years.

  Ripping a piece of paper from the map, I drew a few for them. One led to the truck and another one matched the map Mac gave me. “Get to the truck. I’ll be there with Jules soon.”

  I bent down to Michelle, looking into her eyes. “Will you take care of Dex for me?”

  Her chest puffed out, and she shot me a stern look. “Of course.”

  I grinned. “Thank you.” I glanced back to the other side to another trampled down spot. “Go through there. You’ll come to a locked double fence. It’s not a gate, but just an opening Mac and I rigged. Open with this, but close it back.” I handed Marie a key I kept around my neck. “You’ll come to a dirt path. Following it will take you to the road.” I pointed to the road on the map. Marie nodded and pushed Michelle forward. She was obviously in a hurry to get out. As more gunshots fired and echoed through the sky, I didn’t blame her.

  I watched them until they were no longer visible and took off in the other direction, leaving my duffle and guitar behind. I had about three hours until sundown, and I’d spend the whole three hours thinking of new ways to irritate Julie.

  Watching out for…well, anyone, and it was a loose term for the fact I didn’t know who to trust at the moment. Taking to the backyards, there were several wooden fences I had to jump, but when I came into Julie’s backyard most of the lights in her house were on.

  My hand was on the wooden handle of the sliding glass door when I heard a man pleading. Looking through the door and seeing straight into the living room, a man was on his knees in front of Julie, sobbing into her stomach. My breathing stopped as blood rushed into my brain. Fire burned its way through my system as my neck and face erupted with heat, my blood molten.

  Her hands ran through his hair. An awfully familiar movement. Tears streamed down her face. I moved out of the doorway and slid down the brick wall, clutching my stomach. My compound bow fell to the side. Thinking back, I had seen it all coming. She never really changed… never wanted to work on anything except to use me when it suited her. After all this time, after all we’d been through, she still hadn’t grown up.

  I gritted my teeth as a memory bombarded me.

  I unwrapped the grape lollipop and bit off the top edge. It did taste like grape. Curtis grinned. “Hey, that’s mine.” His arm reached out, pawing for it. “Gimme my drugs, boy!”

  Laughing, I handed him the morphine candy as a hospice nurse fiddled around with whatever she fiddled around with. My laughter didn’t continue. It hardly ever did, and of course, he noticed. “Don’t look at me like I just drowned your puppy.” Half his sunken cheek stuck out from the sucker. I watched the nurse start an IV to keep him better hydrated since he hardly drank anything. She peeked at me and smiled in a shy manner.

  “I’m not,” I finally said to him.

  “You’re giving too much credit to this old man.” His eyelids drooped from the quick effects of medicine.

  “You’re not old, and certainly not old enough to…” I trailed off, not saying it.

  “Die.” He chuckled. Something he did when he was uncomfortable. “It’s my time.” He went to sleep soon after that, and I leaned forward as my eyes burned. The nurse placed a quick hand on my shoulder and left me alone. They didn’t expect him to last the rest of the week.

  Jules and I took off from work and school for that week to make sure he was comfortable and to spend as much time with him as possible.

  It was a hard week, and even harder when that week turned into two with Julie requesting a new hospice nurse every other day for some reason or another, and it always pissed me off. Our emotions were running high, and arguing seemed to let off steam, so that was what we did.

  “Would you stop with the nurse shit already? There’s no reason for it, and it only interrupts our time with him.” I asked her in the hallway while we waited for a new nurse to arrive.

  She pursed her lips. “She stabbed him too hard with a needle.” Tears erupted from the corners of her eyes. “I just want him comfortable.”

  “Stabbed? Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?”

  “Sure you see it that way! All you probably think about is fucking them.” Now she was whisper yelling and completely out of her mind. Sometimes her thought process was dumbfounding. I’d never understand how she could be so insecure. I’d never given her a reason to be.

  “What? That’s the last god damned thing on my mind!”

  “Hey!” Curtis said from his bedroom. Julie’s face paled, and I shot her a glare as I headed for the bedroom to tend to him. “I don’t know how you’re going to make it without me. You two fight like…” A cough emitted from his throat and he clutched his chest. I grabbed his upper body to hold him straight, rubbing his back. He groaned in pain, and I felt it in my bones as I hugged him to me. Moaning still, he whispered something I couldn’t hear. Tears prickled behind my eyes. When his fit was over, he pointed to the sucker box. “Hand me one of those bad boys, would ya?”

  “Yeah, after you drink some water.” Grabbing his cup, I held the straw. He didn’t drink as much as I wanted, but it was something. His eyes seemed vacant for a moment staring at his TV. I unwrapped another lollipop and handed it to him.

  “Listen, Rudy. We both know how catty Julie can be. Especially when it comes to you, but you love her? You’ll take care of my baby girl, right?”

  He weakly grabbed one of my hands in both of his as if to punctuate his point. “You know you don’t have to worry about her.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He died the next afternoon.

  Our relationship hadn’t been the same since he died. My stomach ached as my throat wanted to close in on itself.

  I heard words coming through the door. Can’t live without you. You’ll die. Love. Love. Love. Blah, blah, blah. A bitter laugh escaped from deep within my chest when I thought about the bite mark. A mark I hadn’t remembered doing and felt incredibly bad about leaving when it wasn’t me at all.

  It took me a long time to be willing to give it another chance.

  “Fuck this.” I lea
ped from the wall, gripped my bow and hurdled over the fence.

  Now

  That time and promise have haunted me for the last eight months. More often than not I think about how I left Julie at the base in the way I did, and the guilt settles in the pit of my stomach.

  The guilt is more than just that, it’s about a lot of things. I watch as Kan strides her way up an aisle. She doesn’t make a sound but looks around as if she’s on a Sunday shopping trip. There’s a red tinge to her cheeks. Worry causes me to glance away. The gash on her head is bad. Real bad. She acts like it’s a minor bump in the road and all we need to do is stop and change the flat.

  There’s this subtle confidence to her like she doesn’t overthink things. When she makes a decision she rolls with it. It’s a confidence I immediately recognize because I’ve always envied people who have it. It’s like she knows who she is, so there’s no apology for it.

  She gasps and her hand flies out, grabbing a bottle of Coca-Cola and sticking it under her arm.

  “Want me to get you a shopping cart?”

  She smiles at me over her shoulder but doesn’t say anything. The pharmacy we’re in is rundown. I suspect it had been rundown before. The pharmacy part of the place is barred with crisscrossed steel. The window won’t even allow Kan to crawl through it. She doesn’t even pause her step and goes straight to the side door. Jiggling the handle, it’s locked, and she drops to the floor on one knee.

  Placing the bottle of soda to the side like treasure, she digs in her pack before she begins to pick the lock. “We might find something here,” she says.

  I wish I could feel as optimistic. When she gets it open, she flashes me a wide grin as her hand pushes the door open. The grin changes her whole face into something that can give me heart palpitations if I’m not careful.

  She peers into the darkness, taking in a huge breath through her nose. I click on a small flashlight and swing it around inside.

  “No death in there,” she says as if it’s obvious. I nod, trusting her nose, which must have some kind of super smelling power because she sniffs things a lot and uses it to her advantage. Strange, but I don’t think she’s aware that the rest of us can’t smell like she can.

  My flashlight bounces off mostly empty shelves, and my shoulders slump. As she puts her little tools back into her bag, I know I’m going to have to take her to the community. We can try a hospital first, but those are full of putrids. Hordes of them. Not that I’ve been in one in years, but Mac has told me stories of looting medical supplies and equipment from them. It’s best to stay away.

  Is it worth trying? Or worse, taking her to Mac? She’s exactly the kind of person he’s on the lookout for. Kan, oblivious to my inner debate, searches bottles and slams some back down.

  “Could use a smart phone right now,” she mumbles. This one little sentence is all I need to get myself in a panic. Who thinks of these things now? Four years later? Like she hopes everything will go back to the way it was. She’s someone willing to throw themselves into a big mess to help me, but for what? It has to be she has someone there. Malachi, maybe? I’m sure whoever she’s after, she doesn’t have a fucked-up, unhealthy relationship with.

  She sees my face and hesitates for a second. When she smiles brightly at me, I know she’s trying to make the best of this situation. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

  Then

  I didn’t look back as I ran into the woods. My breathing picked up, and I faltered when hearing the squawk of a walkie-talkie.

  “Just a duffle bag and a guitar,” a man said into his radio. Shit.

  Squawk. “It’s his. He went back. Sending someone now. Any sign of the woman and girl?”

  Another squawk. “Nope. I’ll wait out of sight.”

  It was hard to move around with all the dead leaves but too bad he told me his plan. I maneuvered through a couple of trees behind him and strapped my bow on my back. He startled when I grabbed his rifle from behind. A wet crunch met my ears when I hit the butt of it to his chin. He fell backward, groaning. Jerking the rifle off him, I throw the walkie into the woods. “Where are they sending someone?”

  He spit blood at me. “Fuck you. You made me bite my tongue, asshole!” His words slurred into one another. Blood dribbled from his mouth, and I had to wonder if he didn’t bite it halfway off. Using my fist this time, I punched him. He grunted and tried to roll over, holding his nose. I stuck my boot on his stomach, but he kept fighting, and it was growing weary. I finally just knocked him unconscious with the rifle. He deserved more, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill him.

  I made quick time in grabbing my stuff and making it to the fence where famished were clustered. Their dirty fingers tried clawing through the thick steel. A couple of dead ones scattered the ground with arrows sticking out of them. Marie. I could only hope they made it to the truck.

  I killed a few from this side of the fence with a hunting knife and slipped through the opening. They came at me from all sides, but I ran, using my elbow to knock some out of my way. Hands grabbed my duffle and swung me around. I used the momentum to slice at it with my knife. Cold dots of congealed blood landed on my skin, but I kept running with dried leaves crackling under my steps. My heart pounded and my lungs burned for air. Panicking was out of the question.

  I tripped on a hidden branch. Now the panic did set in, as I turned to fall on my back into the leaves. The guitar made a hollow sound as I landed. The rifle slid from my hands at some point, but I held the knife as a zombie pounced on top of me. The knife caught its neck, and thick fluid hit me. I kicked and slid the few inches to the assault rifle. It shot with rapid succession, startling me, but I got over it quickly and smiled at several dead zombies.

  Jumping up, I noticed most of my arrows scattered in the leaves, but I took my loss and ran.

  I was able to get ahead of the majority. Gunshots went off in the distance, so I used the rifle again to kill off zombies running at me from my front.

  By the time I made it to the truck, I was covered in gore. Sweat seemed to pour out of every orifice of which my body deemed capable. My throat stung from breathing heavy for so long, but my heart dropped when I found I was alone.

  Now

  I swing the side door to the Clap Trap open, automatically searching for Mac. My eyes come to rest on Glinda. She stands with her head ducked, watching and waiting to see what I’m going to do.

  The place booms with pumping music and streaking lights. I ignore catcalls and everything else this place conjures to get on my nerves. Mac is nowhere to be found, and I suspect he might be sleeping or at least trying to. That only means he’ll be one grumpy motherfucker. I sigh.

  I turn to go to his room and bump right into Guido. He smiles. “Need somethin’?”

  “Not from you.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ go on without me, boy.”

  He stands there firm, and I don’t have time to waste with Kan lying in the truck on her deathbed.

  It’s always good to pick and choose your battles. “I brought back someone real sick. She needs help.”

  “She?” He laughs, pointing toward a cage. “I’m sure we could make gewd use of ‘er.”

  I grab him by the stupid lapels of his stupid jacket, jerking him to me. I laugh. A toneless, mirthless, deadly sound if I do say so myself. “I could fucking break you in two.”

  Something slithers through his pupils. Dark and just as deadly. He doesn’t like me jolting him around in front of everyone. A small click brings my attention to the .22 caliber he’s got in the palm of his hand.

  He sniffs as if I don’t bother him in the least. “Might be small, but I ain’t scared ta put one in yer fuckin’ brain.”

  I narrow my eyes, knowing I could have him but that wouldn’t help Kan. Plus, his breath is enough to make anyone stay out of his face. I let go, resisting the urge to knock him backward. “Fix her.”

  “Yew know whut I need then?”

  “After you fix her, and I get some sleep, n
o fucking problem.”

  “Now.”

  I freeze. Our stare down has already garnered a lot of attention, but I feel a hand on my arm. Samantha. She looks a bit healthier since the last time I saw her.

  She barely shakes her head. “Resisting won’t help your friend.”

  “I have ta agree, Rudy doll.” Glinda switches her stern bitch face from me to Guido. “We’ll put ‘er in tha girls hall. I can lookout fer ‘er there.”

  I unclench my jaw and look to Guido, making sure he sees my resentment. “Fine. I’ll take you to her.”

  He snaps his fingers and Jocko appears beside him. “Git yer boys. Go git tha sick chick so he can leave fo’ some mo’ dead ‘ems.”

  There is no way I’m leaving until I know she’s in safe hands. I stomp out to the truck, jerking off my bandana. Glinda follows me but stands back. Hopping in the back, I tie the banana around Kan’s hair, knowing Mac will know I had something to do with bringing her here. Maybe it’ll signal him to wait to talk to me before he does anything drastic.

  I shut the door and lean against the truck to wait on Jocko. “You’ll make sure nothing happens to her?”

  Glinda’s voice floats through the darkness. “Yew know I will.”

  I nod. “Just let Mac do his thing. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Laughter cuts through the parking lot, signaling Guido’s guys’ arrival. I sigh. Kansas has already weaseled her way under my skin. I smile. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

  Read on for a sneak peak of Living with the Dead, The Famished Trilogy Conclusion

  Living with the Dead

  Chapter One

  In the apocalypse life gets weary. It’s hard to keep hold on what’s important, like the food in your stomach. Especially when trudging through a pit of dead bodies. Someone pukes about fifty yards behind me as if to punctuate my point. The pit emits a low hum through my sixth sense that tells me we have to be careful of living famished. The stench torments my nostrils, but almost ten years after the end of the world as we knew it, I’m used to it.