THE SAGA OF THE DEAD SILENCER Book 1: Bleeding Kansas: A Novel Of The Zombie Apocalypse (26 page)

“So w
hat do you need from me? You know I don’t mean harm or disrespect. I just want to be on my way.”

“So do
we, Mr. Grace! So do we! We need your help to—wait.” Gitmo holds up a hand for everyone to be quiet.

Holy shit, I hear it, too.

Gitmo says, “Did you see which way
el jefe
Paulson was turning we he came out of Oak Blossom Lane?”

“No. But
it is funny how he waited to make his move after we’d made our first turn out of sight.”

“We
gotta get outta here!”

“It’s what I’ve been trying to do all along!”

“We need a fighter to help us get our families out!”

“
Oh, goddamn it. Explain it to me on the way!”

We run to the Big Yellow Truck. Gitmo and his right hand man slide in
the passenger side. These are smaller men, thank God, so it’s not so crowded.

The flatbed thumps and rocks as half a dozen young Latinos jump in. “Don’t you
guys have your own cars and stuff?” I ask.

“We keep a lower profile if we don’t drive so much. Everybody sneaks around like ninja commandos. And again, I tell you, it’s the problem—we need to move houses out of here!”

“Houses?” I start the truck. “Where am I going, by the way?”

“Go straight, take a left at the second light,” says Gitmo. “We got entire families of people—well,
not entire, everybody’s lost somebody—but we got little kids, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers. They can’t stay here. Nobody can stay in the cities and towns. If the
muertos
don’t get them, those people in Army BDUs—I can’t call them real Army!—will come back and clear it out all over again.”

“Again?
These people haven’t been back, have they?”

“I was talking to my c
ousin in San Ysidro, in Cali. He says they came through the barrio three times already. That was before I stopped hearing from him.”

I make the left. “Keep going,” says Gitmo.

“By ‘clear it out,’ I guess you mean they got the
muertos
, too? I can’t get over how empty these streets are.” As far as Dr. Hearn was concerned, that’s what they were here for, but I don’t dare mention that.

“
Turn right here. Yes, they took out all the
muertos
, too. I dunno ‘bout you, man, but it makes me wonder if they couldn‘t have done this in the first place. How hard could it have been? Shoot them as they rise and be done! But you notice at the mass burials how they had these young kids—the real Army, black and Latino and poor white—running the show. They were told there ‘might be trouble’ and nothing more, and when our people started coming back they just freaked out. Meanwhile you had these squads putting down the ghettos, the barrios. Even trailer parks. Section 8 houses. These
chingados
took class warfare to the next level!”

Up ahead I see two tractor trailers standing nose to nose as they straddle the lane street. Cars of various ma
kes and models stand parked in front of the trailers and various heavy items put in front of the cars—an old clothes dryer, a refrigerator, etc.—against the hungrier dead who would crawl under those. I see a few desiccated corpses on the sidewalk. Funny how the scavengers, even the bugs, avoid human bodies now. “So who set this up?” I ask.

“Building on the work of the Big Red 1
, or whoever that was who came through here. We packed in most of the stuff at the bottom. They got it like this on the other side, too. It’s just a channel they’ve worked out. I’m thinking they might close it off soon and burn them out, like with that fire they got going now, but there’s still a lot out there in town walking around. Forty-nine thousand people might not make a big city, but it’s still a lot of people. They’re lucky if they got half of that in the street on the other side.”

And half of them would still be too much, I think.
I take a right and drive on, giant abandoned warehouses to my left, Section 8 projects to my right. Three blocks later: “Stop here,” says Gitmo.

We stop in front of a five-story building with wide black streaks tapering out of the first-story windows. It looks burned out and uninhabitable.
Gitmo has his phone out. “One of the boys should have called ahead. They all understand we have to move today.”

“That fire to the east will get you if the dead don’t.
” I look over the building. “You got your people living here?”

“They burned it once,” Gitmo says, phone to his ear. “Figure they won’t come back. Besides, it’s only bad on the first floor and we don’t have—
hola!
”

Gitmo speaks
rapid-fire Spanish into his phone. He begins to ease his way out of the truck as he talks. When he and his henchman are out, I lean into the back cab to see what’s left. All the food is gone, along with my crossbow. At least they left my suitcase and clothes, but not before someone opened it and went through it. I put the suitcase up on the back seat, settle everything in as best I can. I had stuff packed in pretty tightly to begin with, though, and I’d have to repack altogether if I’m going to get it.

It’s one thing to take m
y weapons, my ammo, even my bag of vitamin supplements and over-the-counter meds—but to put your grubby hands all over my clothes? I back out of the truck. I slam the door and lock it with the remote.

“Why you locking that?”
Gitmo laughs. “We’re—“

I reach down and grab him by the hair and pull him to me. I’ve got the barrel of my 9mm jammed beneath his chin. “I want my crossbow. I want my ammo
. And I want Marta. Now!”

I hear the clicking and sliding of many a firearm around me. “
Nice to know you’re all armed to the teeth,” I say loudly. “You know what else I hear? Listen!”

The knocking of the diesel echoes loudly through the
streets. The low moaning of the dead is just becoming audible behind it. Paulson has to drive slowly. But he’ll get here soon enough.

I look at the men holding guns on me. One is not holding a gun. “Tell me, is there a reason you haven’t tried going north out of here towards I-70?”

The man nods at Gitmo. “He knows.”

“I need
to talk to somebody who isn’t going to waste my time with bullshit. Look, I’m sorry you guys got fucked over here. But I had nothing to do with it. All I want to do is get home to my kids, and the next thing I know some lying whore is drawing me into a trap. Then you go through my truck and steal my stuff. You guys wanna cap me for disrespect—shit! The ultimate goddamned disrespect is I’m trapped here with you, between the fire and a mob of hungry dead!

“Thing
is, I can get us out of here! But you’re going to have to get your heads out your asses and work with me. And work fast, because I’m guessing we have ten more minutes before Paulson and his crew show up to picnic!”

There’s a brief pause where we hear the diesel snort a little as Paulson gives it the gas to take a corner.

“I sent scouts north to the highway,” says Gitmo. “They haven’t called back. It’s just a big open pasture before the Interstate. I guarantee you they got snipers waiting for us to cross into their sights.”

“That’s what’s happening, then. Paulson is coming this way. He
’s driving us into the final ambush.”

“Not even trusting the fire Brick s
tarted to finish us off,” says the man without a gun.

“We’re fucked, then, eh?
” says Gitmo. “Think you can let me go?”

“
No we’re not. And we have some things we need to understand before I let you go.”

“Come on! You know we don’t have time for this!”

“First, I resent—really, really resent—that I was brought here under false pretenses only to be delayed—again!—and robbed.”

“Look, man
—“

“
I want my vitamins, I want my crossbow, I want every little thing your thieves took, and I want them at that barricade. Now. Or you and I are riding out to meet Paulson and his crew. By the way, did you know the dead routed into Kerch’s place are now following him? That’s a lot of dead people.”

“Looping them back on us,” says the man without a gun.

I shove Gitmo away from me. “You’re smart,” I say. “Why the hell aren’t you in charge?” The man doesn’t answer. “Paulson has to drive slow to lead them here but he’ll be here in ten minutes, maybe less. We can let Chuckles down there make speeches. Or we can get organized and get out of here. But we’re on the clock. Whatever we do has to be done now!”

“So what do
you
think we ought to do?” says Gitmo, getting to his feet.

“We can’t go north for snipers. We can’t go east because that part of the neighborhood is on fire. We can’t go south because we’ll run into Paulson and all the dead they routed through Kerch’s place.
That leaves west.”

“That’s a big,
flowing river of dead on the other side of that barricade!” Gitmo says. There’s no way we’re getting through it!”

“My concern is the barricade,” says the man without a gun.
“Even with the grenade launcher we’ve got, we’re not getting through those semis.”

“There’s got to be some construction equipment around here somewhere. Earth movers. Snowplows.”

One of the gunmen runs down the front windshield of the car he’s standing on. He jumps to the street and disappears around the burned apartment building.

“Berto works on a crew,” says the man without a gun.

“
Good. We need to get everybody at that barricade. We got to be ready to go in five minutes, maybe less. Nobody’s got time to move households. It’s just like when some of you got here—you’re going to have to move with nothing more than the clothes on your backs!”

Another
vato
runs away, this one into the building.

“Are we going to help each ot
her?” I ask the man. “Can I get your name?”

“Tracy.”  That’s what it sounds like, and it seems absurd given his hard features.

“Like the number 13 in English,” I say.

Tracy can’t help but raise an eyebrow.
“
¿
Habla Español
?”

“No. I just know how to count.”

“You have a plan?”

“Nothing more sophisticated than busting through that barrier with the heavy equipment, firing whatever you picked up from the National Guard when they got overrun, and crossing that river of dead people until we get away.
Where’s that auto dealership Gitmo was saying you needed to get to?”

“Half a mile on the other side of that street you want to bust through.”

“Then we have a destination. Me, I’ll find the Interstate from there, and you guys enjoy shopping.”

“All we got from the Guardsmen are their guns. They didn’t bring much in the way of heavy weaponry with them.”

“We got that one M203 on the M4!” says Gitmo.

“With all of two grenades
!” says Tracy.

“M433s! You’ll flatten everyone in the intersection!
At least long enough to bust through the other side!”

I have no idea what on earth Gitmo is talking about. I can only hope they really have stuff
like this. “Got any of those tear gas grenades that burn things up?”

“Let’s get down there and find out,” says Tracy. He nods to one of the gunmen. He drops his aim at me and they go to a little white pickup parked by the curb.

There’s nowhere else to go and not much time. I run to the Big Yellow Truck. I noticed Gitmo coming up behind me. “Oh, no,” I say. “I’m done with you.”

“My family’s using my truck. They’re carrying two more families with them.”

“Ride with Tracy.”

“I’d rather not
, if it’s okay.”

“Goddamn it, politics is going to be the death of us all!” I say. My eye is caught by two
vatos
carrying my crossbow and bag of vitamin supplements. Coming my way. They hand them off to me. I nod. They turn and run away.

“Now that’s what I call timing!” I say. “Go ahead, get in!” I
have to shift my burden to one arm to get my keys to unlock the truck. The locks click and we climb in.

23

Women and children emerge from the burned apartment building in groups of three and four, assisted by at least one young man whom I presume is somewhat related. This started shortly after we’d pulled up; I was counting on their presence inspiring restraint in the gunmen. So far, so good.

One of these women looks like she’s a hundred years old.
She’s moving slow as Christmas. Nor will she let the young men pick her up and carry her as they’ve already done with so many far less needful.

Gitmo rolls down the window and yells at
the young men. It’s in Spanish, which I understand only slightly better than his Army terminology. He yells at the old woman, who waves Gitmo off contemptuously.