The Queen of the Dead (27 page)

Jeremy swallowed a gulp of air and took a step back from Vincent. The guy didn’t know what he got himself into. Being rescued wasn’t what it was cut out to be.

“He killed Stacy,” Jeremy said. “She was bit, but we don’t know for sure what happens. We just don’t know. That guy’s a fucking murderer, man.”

“What’s your point,” Vega asked, “you going to do something about it?”

“I think he’s trying to figure this out,” Father Joe said. “We believe someone who’s bit turns, but that doesn’t explain why they stay away from me, or Mina.”

“This ain’t no flu bug,” Vincent said. “Ain’t no bug want to make people eat each other.”

“I already told you what it is,” the general added his two cents.

That was it. That was enough. They were going to sit and argue this crap until the end of time, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Everyone was a damn philosopher.

“
I don’t give a shit!”
Vega stopped them.

Their eyes focused on her.

“You want to go get Griggs and take care of it, that’s between the two of you,” she said to Jeremy. “Having these talks over and over again doesn’t get us anywhere.”

They all seemed to look at each other for the first time. The humming electricity borne from a power grid that hadn’t yet been turned off didn’t belong. They were pale, forlorn shapes splattered in blood and dirt. Their faces were caked with ash; their shoulders sagged beneath the terrible weight of survival in a world where everyone they knew was gone. They were gory strangers who’d stepped out of the abattoir that their reality had been reduced to.

Vincent’s empire had been reduced to nothing. Vega never had a permanent home. The general was a bum. They didn’t grow broad-shouldered, Mickey Rourke-Mexican crossbreeds in the convent, so the priest had his own story, and like every good Catholic, his own guilt. Jeremy might have a lawn to mow and dogs to let out, but he was the only one among them who didn’t fit. As for John Charles, he was being chased by ghosts straight into the arms of death.

Covered in the blood of the dead and the living, they were the survivors, when so many others were gone. Good people. Taxpayers and people who watched reality TV shows and had barbecues on all the right summer holidays with beer, family, and a pool. People with diapers to change and family reunions to attend. People with something to lose.

“He just fucking shot her in the face,” Jeremy said quietly. “I know it was a bad idea, the party I mean, but… it should’ve been me.”

Father Joe put a hand on his shoulder. Ever the healer, like any good priest. More silence. Jeremy sniffled and adjusted his glasses. The general’s leg pounded up and down, up and down. Vincent stood there, waiting for someone to say something important.

“I don’t have a whole lot of time,” John Charles looked up at them. “I’d like to do what I can to help.”

What could he do? He could fight. That’s what he wanted. What any soldier would want.

It was out of her hands. She was never any kind of leader, but it seemed like the mantle of leadership had been draped over her shoulders. Bob would know what to say. Maybe something along the lines of: “Let’s kick some ass and collect our beer money.”

“Father here would like some guns,” Vega explained. “He’s thinking about a finder’s fee for keeping ‘em warm for us. He and the general want to be heroes and save some lives.”

“Is it on the way to the base?” Vincent asked. “They can roll with us. Anybody who’s survived this long knows how to keep shit together.”

“They’re not coming with us,” Vega said.

All eyes were on her.

“I’m not giving up,” she said. “This is a war like I’ve never seen. Something nobody’s seen before. It’s not two armies, or even two ideas. It’s not us against terrorists. No bad guys. Just the living and the dead.” Her head was confused. Nothing made sense anymore. She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t have a headache, or she wasn’t sweaty, or covered in blood.

She and Vincent were two people who’d been fighting as far back as they could remember, and this was their hell. Their struggles against themselves would never yield a winner, and this conflict was no different. There was only one way it would end.

“I don’t want to drag anyone else into this,” Vega said. “We’re all living in our own nightmares, and I don’t need to invite you in. I don’t need to know any of you to keep doing what I do. I’ve never been much of a team player.”

No more blood on her hands.

***

She could sit in the silence forever. Watching through a window, explosions adding temporary color to an otherwise colorless sky. The window wasn’t secured against the dead, but Vega didn’t feel unsafe; she didn’t care. She was content to sit on the floor in a corner of the office and do nothing, to feel the pain in her bones, to stare at the slow burn.

Better to soak in the quiet, let her hands rest on her thighs, lean back without thinking, and her finger on the trigger of a gun.

The door to the office opened and closed behind her. She knew who it was without turning around.

“Another counseling session?” she asked.

Vincent ignored the question. “Gave a couple guns, sent them on their way. Jeremy went with them. The priest said something about a battle-axe, and the guy was all ears. Didn’t know how to use a gun.”

“It’s not a bad thing to choose how we die, is it?” Vega wondered.

“You think we get a choice?”

“No. I don’t.”

“The priest bothered you.”

The treetops outside swayed in the darkness, thick shadows in the apocalyptic glow.

“Me too,” he said. “Funny thing is, I ain’t never been too religious, but I respect it. One thing I learned from my Momma: taking the Lord’s name in vain meant an ass-whuping that would turn my black ass white.”

It took a second for Vega to chuckle. “That almost… didn’t make sense.”

“I know,” he said.

How good was it to laugh again? She tried to remember the last time she laughed, and remembered hugging Bob after slaughtering a horde of those dead fuckers outside of the asylum before Crater was graciousness enough to open the doors. Bob had blood in his beard.

“Still wanna go see the Wizard?” Vincent asked.

“We’re not in Kansas, Toto,” Vega said. “Just us now, partner.”

“They’re fighting across the street. Getting themselves killed trying to save each other. I guess we did the same thing.”

“We saved Stacy to get her killed. John’s fading, and Jeremy’s out there… I’d say it was worth it.”

He sat down on the desk beside her and looked through the window.

“You see what I see?” he asked, his voice low as if acknowledging the peace borne of silence.

“I don’t know if there’s anything to see,” she whispered. “This is a bad reality show and the cameras keep rolling. It’s funny, you know, people like action movies, they like killing and violence and war. This was the only way it could end.”

“It had to end?”

“I guess not,” Vega replied. “I’ve been a fighter since I was a little girl. I moved here from Spain after my father was killed, and I used to beat the shit out of American boys and girls. Didn’t have many friends because I didn’t want ‘em. Didn’t want to join a gang; got a lot of invites.” She chuckled at the memory. “Tried out for soccer once and beat up the captain in my first practice. So I’ve always been like this. This is me. A few hours ago, I had the genius idea that maybe it didn’t have to be that way anymore, that I could save a little girl and… I don’t know what else after that. Nobody else has to follow my road.”

Vincent sat down next to her on the floor and rested his gun against the wall.

“I didn’t invite you to sit close,” she told him. “You smell like ass and church.”

“You’re used to me by now,” Vincent said.

“Maybe not.”

“You know me. I’m that nigger trying to keep his business together, but it’s not there to keep. No different than the Wall Street white boys who’re putting bullets into their heads right now, because they worked their whole lives for something that ain’t there. Everything I worked for might be gone, but I’m still here, and I worked my ass off to be here, to stay alive.”

“You mean you didn’t do it for the money?”

“Of course I did. Enough is never enough. If you find enough, you might as well die, just like Wall Street. Money is like oxygen, but I wasn’t always breathing. I never blamed nobody for the way I come up; my Momma did right with four boys. She was a survivor. I like to think I’m like her. Brothers need me to keep their shit together so they can breathe, so they can get the oxygen, and I take care of it.”

“They’re all dead, so now what?”

“I’m still taking care of somebody,” he said.

“Bullshit. You want to be such a nice guy, but people get killed with your guns. I’m not that dickhead’s biggest fan, but Griggs had a point about you.”

“And he knew what I would say back. The price of business. Man who makes the coffee don’t care if you burn your tongue, long as you pay him. Man who comes up with new potato chips with chemicals and shit, don’t care if you get a heart attack. You gotta be a criminal to make it to the top, but the rules apply to only a few people. Always been that way.”

“I don’t need to hear this crap. You said you were still taking care of someone, but you’re doing a shitty job.”

“You won’t let me.”

“No wife, no kids running around anywhere?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

Her automatic response didn’t appear, but she knew what it was. There was no playing hard to get; if she trusted this man with her life, she trusted him with her flesh. The blood on his rain poncho had been shed by her hands, too.

This moment was safe. This moment was real. For just these few breaths in time, she could forget about bullets and violence, cannibalism and ghosts. If she surrendered and broke herself down for him, the nightmare would fade.

She wanted it. Needed it more than she ever needed it before. Just to have his hands on her, to let her feel something else besides anger, fear, or sorrow.

“I don’t play games,” she said. “I want to be held. I want arms wrapped around me, and I want to be told everything’s going to be okay when I know it won’t be. I want my body to feel alive.”

He threw his arm around her shoulder and brought her close. He didn’t smell at all; she grew used to him a long time ago, and he kept his shit together. He knew who he was and he lived it. He protected her when he didn’t have to, and he fought when he didn’t have to. There was more to him than he let on, but she didn’t care, nor did she want to guess. He could remain a mystery until he died; his touch was all she needed from him. Hide from the gunfire and the blood, slip into human flesh and experience the needs of the living. There wasn’t anyone who could rescue her; she was always alone.

When she opened her eyes and saw the trees on fire, she remembered Miles and the shock she experienced when he sacrificed himself.

A new day was approaching.

WORLD WITHOUT END

Their plan was simple, and Jeremy was thankful for that.

Father Joe was parking cars on one side of the street near a police barricade that had been overrun; the priest had witnessed it firsthand.

Most of the corpses were lingering near the front of the retirement home. Thousands of them hanging out in the street. Jeremy shuddered and looked away.

Father Joe wanted to save a few people, and Jeremy needed to make himself useful. He wanted to help, to do his part, since there was nothing left for him. It was a suicidal idea; they would have to draw thousands of corpses away from the retirement center and toward the barricade, where they would blow it up. Father Joe believed he could slip through all the dead people, but the people he wanted to save wouldn’t be able to get out, unless the horde had been moved, somehow.

He felt safer in the company of the dying sergeant, the wacked-out general, and the weird priest. That Vega woman seemed to have a serious death wish, and Griggs had blown Stacy’s head off.  Despite how useless his martial arts training had proven to be, he didn’t want to sit around and do nothing. The priest was a pretty chill dude, so the decision was easy. Besides, the man hadn’t lied: the zombies stayed away from him.

Jeremy would head over to the shopping center with General Masters and Sergeant Charles to collect wine bottles, a hose, some rags, and a handful of lighters. Father Joe led them to the police barricade, where he stopped over a corpse that was outfitted in full plate mail. A bloody, double-sided battle-axe rested beside the body.

“As promised,” Father smiled when he picked it up and handed it to Jeremy. “You sure you wouldn’t rather have a gun?”

Jeremy nodded, testing the weapon’s weight with practice swings. If he was going to have to fight for his life, he wanted to go down like a badass. He held no illusions about what was at stake. He didn’t care they were about to risk their lives to rescue four people from the nursing home; like the two soldiers, he was a fighter.

He should’ve fought harder for Stacy.