Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory (25 page)

“You know, you can’t make progress if you’re
always looking back.”

“The hell I can’t. Way I see it, we’re all
hurtling blindly into the future. So I might as well enjoy the
view.”

A calm settles at half-court as the three
recruits stop resisting the zombies and play dead themselves. The
corpses lose interest in the motionless masses and search for the
voices in the dark.

“Back to one!” Brass calls out.

Soldiers emerge from dark corners with long
pool cleaning nets. They are the chaperones to the dance. These
handlers capture the dead and escort most off the premises, leaving
three. The three are held at bay so the recruits can get to their
feet.

“Good work!” Brass’s voice cuts in over the
techno loop that fades out and changes to a slower, more danceable
song. “Let’s go again. This time really dance with them. I want you
to make me think you’re in love while still respecting the six-inch
rule. 5,6,7,8.”

The zombies are released, free to track the
wobbly legged recruits that remain in the center circle. Uneasy
footing aside, the remaining pupils find a partner for the slow
song. The music reminds Vida of her fifteenth birthday, her
quinceanera. As with the tradition of her culture, she became a
woman at this elegant ball. She remembers feeling like a princess
that night. She reflects back to the dances, waltzing with her
father, grandfather, relatives and friends, as she takes the cold
hands coming at her. Vida is more relaxed now than during the first
onslaught, when heart beat so fast she thought it might explode
through her chest.

“That’s the spirit, Vida!” Brass sounds
elated as his voice overpowers the gentle music.

She holds her dead partner back so he bites
only air. Every jolt of his body, every twist he attempts, is
countered. She gracefully moves them over the painted lines and
boot scuffs on the gym floor, letting her clumsy suitor lead. The
other pupils follow her example, taking their living dead partners
for a twirl.

“Good work, Malcolm! You too, Kickapoo!”
Brass says. “Oh, Kick, you may want to change your alias… You don’t
need to take the name of your hometown like they do in the
movies.”

Abby says something to Brass that distracts
him.

“…I’m just offering him some advice,” Brass
says. “Yeah, it’s his choice, but it’s a horrible name. Oh! Look
what you made me say!” Brass realizes these private thoughts are
amplified over the speakers. “No, Abby, you’re a child!”

The couples are allowed to waltz for a while
as these recruits move with the advances of the dead rather than
against them. A macabre spectacle results as the mismatched pairs
rotate within the circle of light.

Brass wipes a tear from his eye. “Beautiful.
Just beautiful.”

“We should wrap this up,” Abby says.

###

Back on the bus, the recruits are sent to the
top level with Abby so Brass can console those who quit. They sit
in the back in the bottom section, looking sullen. Brass never
knows what he’s in for when he has these talks. Sometimes he is met
with anger. People accuse him of hazing or being sadistic. The
farther he walks down the bus aisle, the heavier the air feels.
Brass gets a taste for the tension and realizes the anger these two
hold is directed at themselves.

“I’m sorry,” one of them apologizes. The
other nods in agreement, unable to form words.

“For what? You tried, we learned your
limitations, and there’s always next time, right? We have other
soldiering jobs: wall archers and snipers. Some of our outposts are
completely contained so they don’t require the full training. We
just can’t in good conscience send you out with a group. That’s
all.” Brass sits next to them and signals Lady Luck to take the
group back to Ruby.

“I think I’d like to be a wall archer,” one
of the men says. “I’ve always liked bow hunting.”

“There’s another job you can do! Just don’t
mix your hunting arrows with your zombie killing arrows, ’kay? Keep
it kosher.”

“Would it cause the change?”

“Fucked if I know. I just think it’s
gross.”

While Brass does his best to cheer the pair
with his humor, Abby helps the others out of their helmets so they
can get some air. He lets the lessons they have learned sink in as
he slowly unwraps thick layers of duct tape. The biggest lesson is
the simplest to grasp, even without words: never abandon the team.
The first to bug out left the numbers skewed in favor of the dead.
The second’s departure lead to Vida’s downfall. A corpse left stag
will just seek another partner.

The wind cools Vida’s skin, and she smiles as
her wrappings are unraveled. Abby checks various points on the
armor and she realizes he’s inspecting for openings and the
possibility of bites.

“Nice work today. Pick up new tops, bottoms,
and gloves before you head home, guys,” Abby says. “Bring these
back to the armory to be cleaned. At this point, people sometimes
decorate their helmets. There are art supplies in the market.”

The three have a lot to be proud of after
passing the first stage of training.

On the way in and out of the school, Vida
glimpsed a clock on the wall. What felt like an eternal dance with
the dead hadn’t even lasted a full two hours. She and the others
stink of their corpse partners, and she’s eager to change out of
her camouflage uniform that’s smeared with bodily fluids and scraps
of skin. Now exhausted, her muscles twitch from the intense
workout. She doubts she’ll bother to paint her helmet tonight and
just get some rest for tomorrow.

Waking to an alarm is a hard thing to get
used to again. Vida arises with a groan, moving despite her stiff
joints and soreness. Parts of her hurt that she wouldn’t have
expected, since she spent most of yesterday’s training on the floor
being mauled. She sits on the edge of her bed, preparing for the
agony of heading to the kitchen for a breakfast of coffee and
Motrin.

Standing inflames her inner thighs, and it
takes time to straighten her back but she forces herself. During
the lesson, her body had reacted instinctively to protect itself,
countering every twist and fighting for freedom. As she heads down
the hall, Vida takes comfort in the fact she was told the first day
is the hardest. Slow calculated steps are taken to minimize the
burning every muscle contraction creates.

“Good morning,” a voice greets her in the
dining area, which is adjoined to the living room of her trailer.
The quick look up to see Gabe at the table aggravates her neck. She
expected him to be asleep this early in the morning.

“Morning,” she says with a smile as she
continues to the coffee pot, where her bottle of pain relief waits.
She returned yesterday and found Gabe wasn’t home, so she laid down
to rest and the next thing she knew her alarm went off.

After she swallows her pills and prepares
coffee, he asks, “Harder than you thought?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Today should be
better.”

“So, you’re going to continue?”

“Yup, I got through the hardest part. I even
think I learned a few things.”

“I do wish you’d reconsider. There are other
ways to help out around here.”

“This is what I want. I’ll be fine.” She
touches his hand. “It’s all about teamwork. As long as the group
stands their ground, there’s no way to get hurt out there.”

###

“The armor you wear is bite and blade proof,
but it is not bulletproof,” Brass tells the three recruits in the
armory. They stand amid the weapons in full gear, except for their
helmets and tape. “We can add Kevlar plates to reduce the risk of
getting shot, but they aren’t always effective. A straight shot can
penetrate it.”

“Who would shoot at us?” the newbie formerly
known as Kickapoo asks. The helmet he holds under his arm is
painted blue with white lettering across the back.

Before answering, Brass points to the
headgear, indicating he wants to see the new name the recruit
chose. “Player 1!” he reads with delight. “Like a video game. I
love it! Much better, very clever. To answer your question, Player
1, other survivors.”

He doesn’t go into detail about who these
survivors are or why they’d open fire upon the people of Rubicon.
Before they can question further, Brass moves on.

“Who has taken out a zombie?” Brass waits to
see who raises their hand.

Player 1 readily admits to the act, while
Malcolm shifts uncomfortably on his moleskin bandaged feet.
Obviously his inexperience embarrasses him to the point he wishes
he could just lie.

“It will surprise you to know that quite a
few folks have survived the apocalypse without taking down a single
zombie, so don’t feel bad if you haven’t. That changes today.”
Brass gives Malcolm a nod of assurance, and then another of
approval over his helmet’s paintjob--a storm of blue lightning
bolts along the crest.

Brass holds the attention of his students as
he casually strolls in front of the racks that store hundreds of
firearms of varied size. He continues all the way to the assembly
line of volunteers who are busy loading bullets. The only sounds
they make come from cranks on their presses.

“Today is basic weapons training. We are
going to head back to Jasper and put you three in a controlled
setting to take down a few corpses. How’s that sound?”

Vida and Malcolm nod, while Player 1 responds
with an enthusiastic, “Great!” He steps out of line and takes a few
strides towards the stored rifles and handguns.

“Player 1,” Brass says calmly. “I believe I
said ‘
basic
weapons training.’ You won’t be shooting
today.”

Player 1 returns to the line, looking
worried.

A sweeping gesture from Brass ushers them out
to where the Gunship awaits.

Vida leads the way, feeling much better than
when she awoke. Her thighs only bother her when she steps up to
enter the bus. It’s her abdominals that really hurt. They feel
tight when she sits. as if there’s something stuck between the
muscles. After boarding, she realizes that while running from the
dead, and after all she’s been through, she hasn’t taken a zombie
down herself. Gabe and Mike had tended to the ones that wandered on
to the property.

“Good to see you all again,” Lady Luck gazes
specifically at Vida in the long rearview mirror.

The woman is dressed as if she’s going to a
beach clam bake, if she could only find a ride back to the 50s.
Vida tried to figure out how old Lady Luck is, but between the
makeup and retro-look it’s hard to gauge. She estimates she’s in
her mid to late thirties, but she certainly won’t ask the timeless
beauty.

Noticing the stiff movements of the trainees,
Brass suggests they head topside to limber up. He runs them through
stretches while they fight to maintain their balance on the moving
tour bus during the short jaunt to Jasper. By the time they arrive,
the three feel much looser. They cruise past the school they had
visited yesterday and head deeper into town, all the way to the
cemetery.

Still on the top deck, everyone including
Brass must duck when the double decker squeezes under the stone
archway with barely enough clearance. The sight of today’s training
grounds gives the students a chill. Gnarled trees and weathered
tombstones surround them within the stonewalled field.

“At first we tried to clear this graveyard,”
Brass says. “But the dead kept rising like weeds, so we figured
it’d be a good place to practice.”

The three recruits look out over the gentle
hills of overgrown grass. Between the willows that seem to mourn
for the occupants, zombies walk among the headstones, heading to
the bus at a hurried pace, as if they don’t want to miss their
ride. Others linger in the distance, having not noticed the arrival
of food. These dead resemble sleepwalkers wandering with their
heads low.

“These corpses are freshly sprouted from the
ground,” Brass says. “They’ve never had a bite to eat. We’ve
noticed the longer they go without eating the faster they are.
Needless to say you’re in for a work out.”

“We don’t get guns?” Player 1 asks.

“Nope,” Brass says as Abby quickly gets them
ready with their helmets and tape. “Don’t be that guy. You’ll
appreciate this more if you have to work for it, actually feel what
you’re doing out there. Pretend it’s a video game, Player 1. Your
objective is to neutralize the enemy. Scattered around the level
are weapons of opportunity, like power-ups.”

The students descend the narrow steps of the
bus slowly on their way to the next test. It begins under the shade
of a willow. Around the trunk of the tree are granite benches where
they find their first selection of melee devices.

Malcolm chooses a machete. Player 1 selects
an axe. Vida opts for a blunt instrument over the remaining
weapons. She picks a baseball bat for its length and heft, leaving
a hammer and set of brass knuckles behind.

The dead are in such a rush they practically
skip to the area where people once met fellow mourners to visit
buried loved ones. They give feral moans as they draw near.

“Don’t be afraid to initiate,” Brass says.
“Go get some! 5,6,7,8!”

Hesitation isn’t uncommon. To fire a gun at a
corpse is the easy way, but the three will readily feel the damage
they inflict, the sickening resistance their weapons will meet in
the zombie’s flesh, the sloppy devastation they’ll leave
behind.

Vida steps up to the plate first. She greets
a man whose burial clothes drape in front of him. The split up the
back allows them to swing like an untied apron, revealing his ashen
skin below. He lunges at her with bared teeth. Instead of biting
down, he receives a mouthful of wood. All he winds up eating are
his own canines.