Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (26 page)

“
Yo!” He yelled, overly
excited. “ I found a set of keys,” he said much quieter.

“
Go see if they work,”
Jon-Jon said, still looking around in case they weren’t the right
ones.

Joseph grabbed the coats and ran
outside. He tossed the coats to the group, “If you’re cold, grab
one. Check the pockets too.”

He hopped into the truck, trying to
fit each key into the hole. Eventually one of them slid right in.
He turned the ignition and the truck roared to life. He slapped the
steering wheel and as he was about to honk the horn, Scott, Judy,
and Jon-Jon came running out of the building.

“
Fuck yea!” Jon-Jon
shouted.

“
Everyone in,” Judy
yelled.

Scott and Judy ran to the front
seat.

Jon-Jon ran to Dawn, “Come on, let’s
get in the back.”

***

Joseph spun the truck around, being
mindful of the passengers in the back, and pulled around as his
brother and the others came down from the bridge.

“
About time, get the fuck
in.”

They climbed in and Joseph started
driving away.

Jon tapped on the window to the back
of the cab and Scott opened it up. “We need to follow the train
tracks up the Hudson to get to the marina. Go towards the water and
make a right.”

Scott gave him a thumbs-up and relayed
the message to Joseph.

“
Guys,” Jon said, “it’s
going to get real bumpy once we get to them tracks so we all need
to hold on tight.”

46 THAT SAD
SMILE

(back to
top)

Joseph slowed the truck down as it
bounced on the rocky terrain. The moonlight on the water lit the
area well and Joseph was able to see the train tracks without a
problem. The tracks ran underneath the bridge and they reminded him
of all the times he’d gone drinking down by the tracks back
home—when he had a home.

He then drove the truck along the
tracks following them toward the marina Jon had spoke about. Which
couldn’t have been too far away considering he could see the sails
of some of the boats in the water, but he guessed those could just
be adrift.

“
I like the idea of being
on a boat.”

“
Me too, I always wanted
one.”

“
Well, now you can get one
okay?”

“
Better late than
never.”

“
Did you have a boat
Joe?”

“
Me, no…my, uh, my dad used
to have one when we were kids. I don’t remember what happened with
it exactly, but he got rid of it. I think it was too expensive and
he wasn’t using it much. He wanted to get another one when he
retired.”

“
Oh, I’m sorry
Joe…”

“
It’s okay. Maybe he’s got
that boat now.”

“
I bet he does.”

“
He’s probably got himself
a Mojito and a line in the water.”

“
Yeah, man, he’d love that.
Just kicking back…finally.”

After a quite moment, one of
reflection for Joseph, and one of trepidation for Scott and Judy,
Joseph asked, “So how long do you think it’ll take us to get out of
here once we’re on the water?”

“
Hours. The longest part
will probably be getting out of the Hudson, but once we get into
the open waters we can just follow the coast up and be near Maine
in a few hours.”

“
Cool. I just want to sleep
for a few days.”

“
That sounds
good.”

“
I want a nice hot bath
first, and then to sleep.”

Janice held her hand around her ankle
as she sat cross-legged in the bed with Yussef in her lap. She
didn’t think the scratch would’ve been enough to turn her into a
deader, but she could feel something wrong inside her. She stared
at her son and smiled, trying not to cry.

Eddie smiled back, thinking she was
just happy to get off the bridge, but he knew that smile. He knew
that wasn’t a happy smile. There was something else in it—sadness.
It reminded him of the day his grandmother died. She smiled at him
that day. She was happy to see him, but she had the bad news to
deliver. It was that same smile.

“
What’s wrong?”

She didn’t want to say anything. Not
around the others. “You’re all grown up, Edward.”

Her eyes were wet and her lips were
dry.

“
Mom…”

“
I remember when you and
your brother were small. The two of you were joined at the hip,
always playing with your toy guns, and all those little figures.
You’d leave them all over the place. I used to hate stepping on
them. They hurt like hell, and it must’ve took ten years for you
two to ever pick them up on your own. Probably seems like a
lifetime ago to you doesn’t it. Well, it seems like yesterday to
me. It all went by so fast. Too fast, sweetheart.”

“
We’re fine mom, everything
is going to be okay, you’ll see.”

“
I know. You remember the
boat your father used to have?”

“
Of course.”

“
He used to love the smell
of the water. We used to be able to sit out there all day. I would
read, and you three would do your fishing. You probably don’t
remember, but your father and I started talking about having other
children back then. It took a long time to happen, but that’s kind
of where…”

Eddie moved over to his mother and
held her as she broke down into tears, “It’s gonna be okay, Mom,
it’s gonna be…okay.”

Janice put her hand on her son’s face
and looked up at him, “You keep your brother safe. Keep him close,
just like you used to be. You hear me?”

“
I will.”

“
It’ll just be the two of
you soon.”

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
I’m dying, sweetheart. I
can feel it.”

“
Wh—how?”

“
On the bridge. When that
thing tried to get me and the boy.”

Eddie tried to hold it all in. He
didn’t want to accept what he was hearing, “No. No, fuck no. You
weren’t bit.”

“
It scratched my ankle, I
didn’t even know it right away. Then I started to feel it. It kinda
feels like being hungry, but I’m not.”

“
Does it hurt?”

“
No baby.”

“
Are you
scared?”

“
Not really. I’ll get to be
with our family again. Your daddy’s probably waiting for me. The
kid’s are probably driving him nuts, especially if there’s no beer
in heaven.”

“
There better be, or he’ll
be pretty pissed off.”

“
If I survive the boat
trip, son, I want you to do something for me.”

“
Anything.”

“
I want a funeral. I want
you to cremate me and I won’t really care how. Scatter me somewhere
nice if you can. Just don’t leave me walking around or mangled up
somewhere.”

Eddie simply nodded and held her
tight.

Yussef had moved off of Janice’s lap
and nuzzled up to Alexis. They, along with everyone else in the
back of the truck, watched as Janice continued to cry into her
son’s shirt. It should’ve been an intimate moment, but there was no
privacy to give. Even those who looked away still heard every
word.

Joseph could see the marina. There
were plenty of boats docked, rocking gently on the silvery black
water.

“
We’re so fucking close,
babe.”

Judy kissed him hard and bounced with
excitement, ready to open the door and run out to any one of the
boats out there.

47 IT’S ALWAYS
CROWDED

(back to
top)

Walter, Jeff, and Barbara drove around
town, weaving through the familiar streets. Deaders staggered about
like they were tumbleweeds blowing in the wind. The sound of the
truck alerted them, and as they found where the noise came from,
Walter drove on past.

They drove past a car with bloodied
handprints and streaks all along the windows and doors, but no one
was inside. They past homes boarded up but appearing bare of life.
Storefronts were adorned with broken windows and the streets were
littered with signs of the living dead.

“
Maybe there isn’t anyone
left,” Barbara suggested.

“
It does look pretty dead
out there, pardon the phrase,” her father replied.

“
Let’s just head back
toward home,” Jeff said, “we can get back to scavenging for
supplies.”

“
I don’t want to just give
up like that,” Walter said, “there just has to be a few people
left. They’re probably just too scared to go outside.”

“
Well, it’s your gas, I
guess,” Jeff said, eyeing the gauge which Walter never let go
further than halfway before refilling.

***

“
I ain’t feelin’ so hot
anymore,” said Clem, sounding like a bullfrog.

“
You’ve got a heck of a
fever, and your sweating.”

“
I don’t know how much
longer I got. Starting to feel like I got the flu or
something.”

Danni was about to break down again,
but she held strong. Not for herself, but for Clem. He’d been a
rock throughout everything. He needed her to keep her shit together
now and she was determined to do so.

“
What can I do?”

“
Nothing you can do kiddo,
except to get the hell out of here.”

“
Do you feel like you’re
turning into one?”

“
Not yet, but I can’t
imagine it’s far behind. Topher…come here, will ya?”

“
Whattya need,
Clem?”

“
Can you help me get
covered in that shit?”

“
What? Clem no.”

“
Danni, I got to get you
out of here. I’m dying. I can feel it tearing me up inside. Way I
see it is I’m so close to death those things won’t want to bother
with me. If Topher can cover me from head to toe in that filth than
maybe I can get you out of here. Give my death a little more
purpose. Hell, maybe I can see daylight one last time.”

“
And what if it doesn’t
work. You shouldn’t have to go out in pain like that. Them
eatin…”

“
Shhh. I want to do this, I
don’t want to die in here, okay?”

“
O-okay.” She said, hugging
him so tightly he began to cough. She then kissed him on the
forehead and turned to Topher.

“
You ready?”

“
No, but let’s get on with
it.”

“
Clem…I’m…I’m
sorry…”

“
Don’t sweat it Sheriff.
You just make sure she gets out of here and we’ll call it even. If
that thing didn’t bite me, we might all have died in here
anyway.”

Topher knelt by the twitching corpse
in the middle of the cell. Clem, ushered over by Danni, stood just
behind him.

“
You care if I stand? Not
sure if I take a knee that I’ll be able to get back up.”

“
That’s fine, want to hold
out your hands?”

Clem stood there with his hands cupped
together as Topher dug into the dead man’s body. He piled clumps of
grey matter and goo into Clem’s hands and Clem started to rub it
onto his body. Danni backed away and started dry heaving. Had she
eaten anything it would’ve certainly come up.

The dead man’s head was pretty much
cleaned out but Topher scooped out what he could and dropped it
into Clem’s hands. The man’s stomach was ripped to shreds and most
of his guts were already on the ground, but Topher managed to pull
out fatty tissue and clumps of coagulated blood that clung to the
inside of his body.

His mind was somewhere else but every
once and a while it came back and wondered just where and what his
hands were doing. It felt like he was watching himself do this as
opposed to doing it.

Topher wrapped his hand around what he
guessed was the man’s lower intestines and began to pull it out of
the widening whole in the large man’s stomach. It smelled terribly
and once he saw his hands pulling out more than a foot of intestine
he vomited all over the corpse. He couldn’t believe how many feet
of intestine were still inside as he pulled it out, still vomiting
as he did so.

Danni was retching again in the corner
and now Clem was starting to heave as well. Davis just sat and
watched in some disconnected state of reality.

Clem took the rope of intestine from
Topher and it almost slid out of his hands. He pulled it up and
draped it over his shoulder. Topher ripped into it with his
fingers, and Clem draped it around his neck like a scarf. Topher
pulled out more and more and Clem continued to drape it atop
himself.

By the time they had Clem covered in
gore everyone had vomited several times over. The floor was one
giant puddle of blood and vomit and Clem stood like some sort of
monster covered in ropes of intestine, blood, and chunks of random
gore. Aside from the whites of his eyes there wasn’t a clean spot
on him.