Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End (30 page)

38

South of Rubicon, the savages are just arriving home.              They rode in silence, sulking for miles. Rocky heads straight to the room she shares with Killer B but stops in the hall when she hears Kenny call her name behind her.

“Rocky, can I see you in my office?” he asks from the front desk of the hotel. He heads into the manager’s office before hearing her answer.

She groans and can’t help thinking that this is just like being in school all over again, being sent to the principal’s office. It seems like every time she goes out with the group she winds up having to have a talk with Kenny. Rocky trudges to the door as if her feet weigh a hundred pounds each.

“Have a seat,” he tells her from his desk. As usual he’s shuffling papers around as if he’s busy, having an actual office to lead from has gone to his head. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Rocky humors him, taking a chair across from him and waiting while he jots down a few things on a memo pad, then grabs a manila folder which he opens on his crossed legs. “First, let me start by telling you it’s a privilege to work with you. You never cease to amaze me.”

Like a boss fresh from a management seminar he begins the meeting with a positive thing about her work.

“I would like to applaud you on your actions back there at the junkyard, and again at the pudding house. Your co-workers were out of line, though I would have loved to have taken the pin-up girl as my queen, if she would have me, I cannot condone rape. It’s just bad business. So, kudos!

“That being said, I don’t think you had to go as far as you did. You broke Blake’s nose, fractured Phil’s wrist,” he says peering into the file before him as if it holds the details. “There have been many complaints about you ever since you came on board. I recently went through the suggestion box, honestly most aren’t very constructive, but all of them are about you. A lot of the men think you should be demoted back to female status.

“This is a phallocratic society, ruled by the dick. I bestowed upon you an honorary dick when we met because of how impressed I was with you. Now, you’re rubbing that dick in my face.”

Dealing with Kenny is easy for Rocky, he never picks up on her sarcasm. “I know, I know,” she begins with a nod. “I have been given a lot of dick in my life, the one you gave me is the only one I cherish and will continue to cherish for years to come. I hold it close to my heart,” she points to her chest. “I think we can come to a compromise,” she says getting his full attention. He responds positively whenever she uses managerial lingo, or words from the inspirational posters that decorate the walls of his office as well as the break room. “I will dial back my aggression toward the team if they promise to keep their urges in check. I don’t think I’m out of line when I prevent one of them from raping a woman, or peeping at one of the single ladies in the shower, am I? Can’t we come to some sort of accord?”

“You are not at all out of line,” he agrees with a wave of his hand that erases any wrong doing on her end. “I’ll have a talk with them.”

She’s about to leave the office, yet again victoriously shifting the blame from herself, but before she can rise to her feet Kenny leans back with his hands behind his head. “We have another problem,” he says, freezing her in place. “The Rubies keep moving closer. We have the Army south of us somewhere, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about with the zombies... We may need a place to fall back to should we lose this sweet fort of ours. As we speak we are bolstering our defenses and keeping eyes looking in both directions should one of our neighbors decide to pull something. It’s like the Cold War all over again.”

Rocky hasn’t budged, she remains frozen half off her chair, waiting to hear where he’s going with this.

“I have a mission for you.”

After hearing what Kenny has planned for her, Rocky is finally able to enter her room. She has been looking forward to some peace and quiet, time away from the boys, and of course a stiff drink. Her flask had run dry not long after her and the team arrived at the house in Rubicon territory, she feels the onset of sobriety creeping in and it feels awful.

“Rocky!” Killer B says rushing to her friend before the door is shut.

Without alcohol to dull her senses everything is painful, Killer B’s voice is an ear-shattering siren. “Shhh-shit!” she makes a gesture with her hand to indicate that her friend needs to turn down her volume.

“I saw you guys pull up,” Killer B whispers. She follows Rocky around their room, right on her heels, desperate for some hopeful news. “What took you so long.”

Rocky sheds her clothes as she makes her way to the bottles of booze on their shared dresser. With Killer B practically becoming her shadow she had to swing her elbows and nudge her friend away just to be able to move comfortably. Before answering the question she unscrews a tall square bottle of whisky and takes a long swig. “We ran into trouble. The Rubies chased us off.”

“Oh,” Killer B is surprised by the answer, she had meant ‘why did it take so long to get to the room after arriving home’. She has heard only bad things about the people of Rubicon, that they are bullies and thugs. “How’d that go?”

“Not as bad as I thought it would,” Rocky shrugs. She’s much more relaxed having had a few pulls off the bottle. She dumps herself onto their bed. Posing as a married couple Rocky claimed them a single to keep up appearances. “I actually met their leader.”

“Brass?” Killer B’s eyes go wide with horror when she utters the name. The man is talked of as a merciless tyrant that rules his army with an iron fist. “Oh my god!”

“He wasn’t that bad, shorter than I thought he’d be,” Rocky says with a chuckle. “I think the stories we’ve heard are greatly exaggerated, and completely fucking wrong.”

“I don’t know, Deirdre says…”

“That Stepford bitch?” Rocky nearly chokes on a sip from her bottle. “I told you not to talk to her! She loves this shit, serving her man, tending to chores. You’re gonna say the wrong thing to her one day and get us killed.”

“Well, I have to talk to someone!” Killer B snaps back. “There’s only four of us, Michelle is literally bare foot and pregnant, and all Haley does is cry.”

“We almost had some more Sister Wives for you to play with,” Rocky tells her.

“I almost wish you did,” Killer B responds sadly. She wouldn’t want this life for anyone, but it is awful lonely and monotonous. All day long she tends to chores around the camp, feeling eyes upon her every step of the way, hearing whispers from the men that long for wives of their own.

“The Rubies saved them. They almost saved me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Brass. He offered to take me to Rubicon, said I didn’t have to come back to this shit.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You, ya dumb cunt,” Rocky rudely explains. “Without me here, these good ole boys would have you fulla jizz in seconds. You’d be sooo full of jizz.”

“Gross!” Rocky’s proclamation is disgusting, but true.

“I’ve told you a billion times to try and look un-fuckable, and you can’t even do it,” Rocky nit-picks. “Even without make-up and in sweats, all these guys see is a cute, cozy screw.”

“Are you done?” She’s heard the same tired complaints about her appearance so much she’s numb to them. The truth of their situation sets in and makes Killer B bitter, she is an anchor that keeps Rocky here. “Maybe you should have gone for it,” she says, not meaning for it to come out as snippy as it does.

“Maybe I will next time the opportunity comes around!” Rocky bickers back. Then the room is silent, tempers flare between them.

They wallow in the tension, wishing the other would make the first move to ease it, neither wishing to be the one. Killer B rises from the bed and walks over to the mirror on the dresser, not that she wants to see herself, just for something else to do besides stare at the floor and wait.

In a surprising twist, Rocky breaks first. She holds her friend from behind in a tender hug. “I just worry about you, that’s all. The thought of these animals…” she can’t even finish the sentence without seething with anger and squeezing harder. This is a side of Rocky Killer B hardly ever sees. “I’m sorry.”

“I try to look my worse for you,”

“I know. I only say what I say for your own good. Take it as a compliment. What’s my theory?”

“Do I have to?” Killer B asks with a groan of protest.

“C’mon, what do I say about this?” Rocky asks again and playfully tickles her friend into laughing. “What’s my theory?”

“Hot chicks get more licks.”

“Yeah they do!” Rocky releases her friend and plops herself back down on the bed, the mood in the room much lighter now. “Hell, if I was a dude I’d be cleaning your clock on the reg.”

“I worry about you too,” Killer B reciprocates. “I never know if you’re coming back to me or not.”

Killer B’s sentiment reminds Rocky of her upcoming mission. She has a bad feeling about this one. Instead of talking, Rocky takes another sip.

“Just tell me everything will be ok,” Killer B beseeches.

Rocky has trouble easing her mind with her own so unsettled. Tomorrow she will be leading a small team to the coast in search of a fallback position, possibly a new home for them all. Kenny will not be going on this one, though she made him promise to watch out for Killer B, Rocky fears who may get in his head with her not there to manipulate him. Though it would be over-run with zombies by now, she ponders if they would have been better off staying in Waterloo. Instead of clearing the air about what’s to come she simply recites her motto, “We’re gonna be great.”

39

The warm spring sunshine had melted away the snow and ice of winter. The city of Waterloo slowly came to life, figuratively. The dead began to move once more. The sun thawed the muscles of Donny DePonte, the ice encasing his tissues weakened until he was able to move, the remaining crystals crunching in his joints. As soon as he was able to walk he was on the search for food, starved. The hunger hadn’t abated all winter, though frozen solid the zombie’s mind thought only of eating, now fully defrosted he still hasn’t found the flesh he desires.

He and his dead peers circle the city without aim. The hunger drives them, propels them in their quest. Their eyes scan for signs of life, their ears are ready to detect the sounds of the living, but there’s nothing for them to find. It’s a primitive version of hope, the same hope a shark may have in the ocean of smelling blood, or spotting its prey on the surface above.

Donny, like many of his ilk, occasionally veers from their familiar hunting grounds without provocation. A glimmer of a memory stirs in their decaying brains, the proteins break down chemically and then are forever gone. One such whisper steers him through Shepard Park and into ‘the Hills’. He takes lefts and rights until he is standing before Memorial Hospital.

He does not enter the dark cavernous hole in the front door that had been opened by a car long ago and remains abandoned. He stands, staring at the building, not for the fact that he was told by his old boss, Freeman Wilkes, to never set foot in the place again, but simply because there is no food to pursue. The place holds meaning for him that he will never comprehend, memories long forgotten. This is the place where his career ended, and all he knows now had started. Almost as fast as it appeared, the memory dissipates. It decomposes, releasing him from his trance and setting him to wander once more.

Miles upon miles of city streets have been walked, he has walked more these past few months than he has his living adult life. He’s shuffled down the same streets more than once without notice, now he joins a group in their shared quest. They walk day and night, without rest, patrolling the city of Waterloo.

The hunger drives them, Donny’s stomach would growl if it had the ability. It would be easy to hear since it remains exposed, his thoracic cavity is still splayed open by a gleaming rack of steel. Even if Donny saw food, he’d be unable to reach for it. Even if his arms had the required muscles, his pectorals and sternum are separated thus negating the range of motion needed to bring his hands to his mouth.

A sound stops the group. The wandering dead cease to wander almost at once. A rumble in the distance grows louder with each passing second. The ground under their feet begins to shake as the rumble becomes a deafening roar. The corpses take strides on the quaking streets, heading toward the noise that draws near. Donny cannot see what is heading their way, his view is obstructed by his brethren and tall buildings. Had he been able to, and alive, he’d run from the impossible sight as far and as fast as he could, and it still wouldn’t be enough to save him. What comes their way is a force of nature, devastatingly destructive.

A wall of water floods the city, picking up everything in its path like mere bath toys. Donny and the rest of the zombie population are no exception. They find themselves flushed down the streets of Waterloo like waste down the drain. The churning river juggles them within it. They find themselves on the surface then on the bottom, being smashed into anything in their way. Being battered and bashed with no up nor down, and no way to stop it from happening even if they had the capacity.

Their abuse comes to a peaceful end many miles away. Donny and the others that rode the flood south and hadn’t been casted along the new river bank as it was carved are rewarded. They drift lazily in the Gulf of Mexico, where they slowly sink to the bottom.