When the Dead (22 page)

Molly
felt her loneliness ten-fold when she was surrounded by the others. Edward had
Moira. Isobel and Ben had each other’s company. Jeff and Markus were able to
create something new together. Vaughn had Hayden, even though it was wrong. Rob
had his son. Staring out the window after everyone else had crept back to their
own apartments, still fearing her own death, she realized that she had no one.
Would it matter if she lived? Would it matter if she died? She was so stunned
by her depression she couldn’t even cry.

            “Hey,”
Rob said. She thought she was alone and his voice made her jump. “Are you
alright?”

            “Yeah,
why?” Molly asked.

            “You’ve
been staring out that window for almost an hour.”

            “No,
it hasn’t been that long,” she said, but she knew it had been. She could see
that the light was different outside.

            Rob
held his arms out and Molly welcomed his attention and his embrace. “I know
you’re mad that I haven’t spent any time with you.”

            “Did
Hayden say something?” Molly fumed.

            “No,
no! You are easy to read. I want to tell you that I’m sorry. Gabe’s mental
health has become an all-consuming thing for me.”

            “What
do you mean his ‘mental health’?”

            “Something
is changing inside of him. He is a darker version of himself.”

            “Aren’t
we all?” Molly said solemnly.

            Rob
didn’t answer, choosing instead to enjoy a quiet moment with her in his arms but
mostly because he feared that she was right.

The
whole building was asleep except for Vaughn. He was so distracted and antsy
from the event with the anarchists earlier that he’d even pushed Hayden away. He
spent an hour cleaning and reloading a handgun and shotgun. He sharpened his
machete. He could have chosen to slip out quietly and return before the others
woke up but he felt the need to let someone know he was leaving.

            He
went to the second floor and knocked on Isobel’s apartment door.  Ben answered
with his eyes still closed.

            “Isobel
here?” Vaughn asked.

            “Of
course she is. Where else would she be. Don’t think she’ll want to see you at
this hour. What hour is it anyway?”

            “Three
or so in the morning,” Vaughn guessed.

            “Jesus
Christ. What do you want?”

            “Isobel.
I already said that.”

            At
that moment Isobel came to the door. “Who are you talking to Ben?”

            “Isobel,
it’s me, Vaughn. I just came by to tell you that I’m going out.”

            “That’s
all you had to tell her?” Ben asked, miffed. “I could have told her that.”

            “You
always leave without telling anyone. Why now? Why me?” Isobel yawned.

            “I
don’t know. It felt important.”

            “Ok.
Well, have fun? Watch out for those asshole communists.” She wasn’t sure what
he was looking for from her.

            “They
were
anarchists
, Isobel,” Ben pointed out knowledgeably.

            “I
know. I’m tired. Anarchists. Watch out for
them
. I’m going to go back to
bed. Bye Vaughn.” Isobel waved half-heartedly and stumbled back to her bedroom.

            “She
doesn’t like you,” Ben felt the need to inform Vaughn.

            “She
doesn’t like you either man.” Vaughn shrugged and walked back to the stairwell.

The air
outside still smelled of the burned out mall which only fueled Vaughn’s anger.

            “Where
did you go, you bastards?” Vaughn crept through the night, cursing the
anarchists with every other breath. The loss of the mall was a heavy blow; a
blow alone that he wouldn’t overlook. But then they came nearly to his front
yard, killed people on his street, put fear into the eyes of his neighbors. His
hatred of the anarchists was very personal because their destructive entrance
into his life felt equally so.

            He
knew they had traveled east down Northgate Way because they had listened
earlier to the blonde leader’s fading voice as it echoed off buildings in that
direction. He picked up his pace to a light jog and found himself making good
progress down the thoroughfare. Vaughn wanted to see the mall up close so he
took a sharp right when he reached the parking lot of the bank on the corner of
the shopping complex.

            The
middle of the mall had been opened up where the arched wooden roof had burned
away. It was as though he was looking down another road lit by stars. He walked
carefully through the hole where the North entrance had been and stood there
for awhile. All the clothing was gone and left in its place were the twisted
metal skeletons of racks that used to hold it.

            “No
more new shoes then,” Vaughn said in farewell as he exited the fallen structure
and re-launched his pursuit of the blonde and her dirty cronies.

            He
was nearing more residential areas and the blanket of dead on the streets was
growing heavier. It was almost so difficult to move forward without trouble
that he was going to admit defeat in his search and turn home but then he heard
a gunshot.

            “Stupid
fuckers. Lead me right to you.”

He traveled the remaining five blocks and ended up at the back corner of
the QFC grocery store lot. He could hear the anarchists on the other side of
the building. A Jiffy Lube sat even with the front parking lot of the store.
Vaughn let himself into the small office of the vehicle maintenance business to
plan his next move. He sat on the dirty floor, out of sight of anarchists and
zombies alike. The smell of the grease and engine oil gave Vaughn a sort of
high. He missed his truck and would give a lot just to sit in its cab again and
drive around the city.  It sat parked and untouched in the small parking lot of
Willow Brook. Shaking himself from his daydream, he looked for a way onto the
roof and he found a narrow staircase behind the counter that led to it.

            He
army crawled to the edge and lay flat, overlooking the entire lot of the
grocery store. The anarchists had somehow found keys for enough of the large
abandoned vehicles to form a semi-circle of them in front of the entrance. It
had proven effective in keeping the dead away from them.

“Like a fucking wagon train laager.”

Vaughn laughed, mostly at the fact that he remembered the term for it.

From this vantage point Vaughn
spotted one of the anarchists outside the protective half-circle. He was in the
bushes, maybe urinating, and playing with a lighter. Vaughn watched as the man
repeatedly flicked the lighter open and closed. It ticked him off. He climbed
back down from the roof and made a large circle around the outside edge of the
lot until he was right behind the man.

“You like to start fires, huh?”
Vaughn spoke softly and the man jumped. “Don’t say anything. I’ve got my
shotgun pointed at your back. If you want to live, you’ll stay quiet.”

“Who the fuck are you?” the man
asked in a whisper.

“What does it matter who I am? All
I can figure is that lighter in your hand looks like it could burn down a mall.
My
mall.”

The man turned around and came out
of the bushes. Vaughn could just make out a large dirty beard on his face. “
Your
mall? Me and my friends own this fucking city now. We’ll burn what we want,” the
bearded man said as he flicked open his lighter once again.

“No, you won’t. Not after tonight,”
Vaughn said, his shotgun still trained on the man’s core.

“Whatcha gonna do? Steal my
lighter?” the bearded man giggled. Vaughn could smell the sweet scent of
alcohol on his breath.

“Much worse than that,” Vaughn said
as he pulled his silenced handgun from his belt.

The man put his hands up like he
was being arrested. “You got a lotta guts walking into this. What do you have
that you are protectin’? A bitch? A family?” The man smiled and his eyes lit up
at the thought of women.

“Neither of those. Just me. My
right to live. Look, I’m tired of talking. I’m going to kill you now.”

The smile disappeared from his face
and fear took its place. He dropped to his knees. It reminded Vaughn of the
survivor that the anarchists had killed earlier that day, the one who had
begged for his own life.

“Please sir. I’m just trying to
survive, just like you. I’m just like you,” the man cried out.

“You’re nothing like me.”

Vaughn raised his silenced handgun
to aim for the man’s heart.

“See you soon.”

“Ple-” the man tried one last time to
save himself but Vaughn had already pulled the trigger passed the point of no
return. The lighter fell from the man’s hand and to the pavement with a clink.
His body fell too, only quieter. Vaughn took a length of rope and tied one end
around the man’s neck to drag his body to the back of a nearby car. He tied the
loose end of the rope to the bumper.

“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back,”
he said to the corpse that had yet to reanimate. “So will you.”

Hayden couldn’t fall asleep. She’d been nauseous before
breakfast and again after dinner that day. She didn’t feel sick otherwise but
she did feel different and she’d definitely missed her period. She had to
accept the fact that she was pregnant and hope that the others would welcome
the idea when she decided to share it. She lay awake on Tom’s couch, waiting
for him to return and cursing herself for coming to Willow Brook. Something
felt wrong about the place but it was too late to leave. She couldn’t be a
single mother on the streets of an infected city, running from house to house
with a hungry baby. Surely they would die the first time the child cried aloud.

Isobel
had tried to fall back to sleep but Vaughn’s short visit had left her
concerned. Ben saw Isobel’s concern and wouldn’t go back to bed while she was
awake.

            “Do
you want some tea or something, Iz?” Ben asked, his hand resting on her
shoulder as she sat in a chair in the living room.

            “I
don’t like being called ‘Iz’,” Isobel said bluntly.

            “Vaughn
calls you ‘Iz’,” Ben said to prove a point as he removed his hand and went to
turn on the camp stove on the balcony to boil water.

            “I
don’t like it when he does it either,” Isobel said out the open slider. “And
can you close that door? It’s freezing in here already.”

            Ben
frowned at her but she wasn’t looking at him to see it. He got the water set up
and came back inside, closing the slider behind him. He sat across from her and
waited for her to start a conversation. He was tired of trying to please her.
After almost ten minutes of silence the water was boiling outside so Ben
brought it in and made them both a cup of tea.

            “Maybe
Vaughn isn’t coming back,” Isobel said after she’d sipped her tea a few times.

            “He
didn’t have a whole lot with him. In fact he looked kind of like Lara Croft equipped
with only rope and weapons.”

            “She
has nicer breasts,” Isobel laughed.

            “I
believe Lara was better educated too,” Ben laughed with her. “But seriously,
he’ll be back. I think he enjoys feeling like the guy in charge. You can’t be a
king without a court.”

            “Hmm.
You’re right. We’ll just have to wait for him to return to us lowly commoners.”
Isobel blew on the surface of her hot tea and watched as the steam rose in
delicate tendrils.

Vaughn
moved right up to the semi-circle of vehicles. He climbed into the bed of a
truck that was parked dead center in front of the store entrance. The
anarchists had lit the front of the building with two torches, highlighting
their location and inviting the dead to join them. The blonde leader sat in a
folding camp chair smoking a cigarette and taking swigs from what was probably
a room-temperature beer. He was ready to take her out when she stood up and
went inside the QFC. She came out less than a minute later with two men that
looked a lot like the bearded man he’d already killed. He could hear her easily
as she spoke to them.

            “Garrison
went out to piss and he hasn’t come back. One of you needs to go find him.”

            “I’ll
go,” the skinnier bearded man volunteered. His arms were covered in tattoos
that suggested a former membership with a gang.

            “What
about me?” the other man asked. He was fat and sweaty, like the pregnant woman Vaughn
had wasted a rescue mission on some time ago.

            “Brick,
the dead will overwhelm us here if we don’t do something about it. Take some of
them out.”

            “On
it,” the fat man said as he pulled a machete from behind his back and lumbered
off out of the glow of the torches and into the dark of the lot.

            Vaughn
was growing angrier the longer he was with the anarchists. He went to look for
the skinny gang banger but instead of following him he just went back to the
body of ‘Garrison’ and waited for the living to find the dead. Maybe they’d
designated this area as the urinal. Garrison had already returned from the dead
and was struggling to get off the ground. Vaughn had tied the rope short though
and the zombie was stuck in a kneeling position.

            The
gang banger showed up a minute later and saw Garrison but not Vaughn who was
hiding in the bushes.

            “Oh
shit, man. What happened to you?” the skinny man asked his undead friend.
Vaughn stayed in the bushes and pulled the trigger again, killing the gang
banger. Another shot to the heart. Vaughn: 2, Anarchists: 0. He stepped out of
concealment, smelling faintly of piss, and walked up to the body.

            “You
picked the wrong friends,” he said as he tied a length of rope to his second
catch. “As in life, so in death.” He left the tattooed man there to rise beside
the bearded man and went to find the fat one. He was starting to have fun.

            “Here
little piggies!” the fat man snorted, mocking the zombies. “All you do is eat,
eat, eat.” And then he hit one in the head with the machete.
Thunk
.
Vaughn could see that he’d already successfully killed around twenty of the
dead in the short time he’d been working at it.

            As
impressed as Vaughn was with Brick’s ability to put down the corpses in one
hit, he was boiling with rage. The anarchists weren’t practicing what they
preached. Their crowd control methods directly violated their zombie majority,
no-kill policy.

            “Fucking
hypocrites,” Vaughn whispered. He waited for Brick to kill a few more to make a
clear path, then he pulled out a roll of duct tape from his cargo pants. He
pulled slowly on the tape to keep the noise down. Selecting a length that he
thought could wrap once around Brick’s fat head, he cut it with a pocket knife
and ran up behind the thick man. As quickly as he could he covered Brick’s
mouth with the tape and grabbed his wrists, forcing his arms behind his back.
He used rope to tie the man’s wrists together.

            Brick
bucked back and forth, giving Vaughn a workout as he pulled him around the back
of the QFC. A semi-truck was still parked in the loading area. Vaughn tied
Brick to its bumper and stood in front of him. Brick’s eyes were wide in terror
and he struggled to get loose but Vaughn’s knots were tight and out of reach.

            “You
can hear me still, right?” Vaughn asked him.

            “Fuuuuuhhh
uuuuuuu,” Brick managed through the tape on his mouth.

            “You
got a lotta meat on you big boy. And as you said, these zombies love to eat,
eat, eat. Y’all want them to be well fed, don’t you? So they stay majority,
right?”

            “Nuuuuuhhhhhho!”
the man yelled through the duct tape.

            “So
you
don’t
want them to stay the majority? That’s why you were killing
them? I’m really confused. Tell you what; I’m going to leave you here to sort
it out. ” Vaughn smiled, picked up Brick’s machete and threw it into a garbage
bin. “It’s time to go talk to the head bitch.” Vaughn left Brick to die and
walked the short distance back to the front of the grocery store.

            “Brick!
You dumbshit, where are you?” the blonde yelled from the safety of her
semi-circle. “Guys?”

Vaughn could see that she was unarmed but he didn’t know how many dirty,
bearded men were hidden within the store. There were too many unknowns but
Vaughn was growing impatient. He was ready to play with this mouse before
killing it. He took out his bowie knife and walked the outside arc of the
vehicles, puncturing the tires as he went. He waited for her to turn her back
and then he slid underneath the truck, stood up and positioned himself directly
in front of her.

            “What
the hell is that hissing noise?” she asked no one as she turned around and saw
Vaughn.

            “The
air leaving all your outside tires. I hope you didn’t plan on going anywhere.”

            “Who
are
you
?” she asked, crossing her arms.

            “Why
does everyone need to know that?” Vaughn sighed. “I’m from a building on the
other side of Northgate, from earlier.”

            “I
thought we got all of you.”

            “You
missed me,” Vaughn smiled.

            “Well,
the offer has expired. We aren’t taking any more people on so unless you want
to die I’d recommend you leave before I get a gun in my hands.” She uncrossed
her arms, readying them for a weapon to appear.

            “Call
me a lone wolf if you like but I don’t need your company unless it’s for a
fuck.”

            “I’ve
got plenty of men if I need one. Speaking of men, what did you do to them?” the
blonde accused and inquired in one breath. Her eyes looked beyond him, waiting
for the shapes of the men to appear out of the dark.

            “Gave
them a new life; helped your majority out a little bit. You are
very
welcome.” Vaughn bowed mockingly.

            Just
then three men came out of the store entrance, all armed and angry. One man
carried an extra rifle.

            “Rachel!”
he yelled as he tossed the gun to her. Vaughn knew the war had begun. He hopped
into the bed of the truck and back out of it on the other side of the circle.
Two of the men walked closely together in his direction. As soon as they
reached the truck and started over the bed he raised his shotgun and killed
them both.

            “They’re
as dumb as the fucking zombies!” Vaughn yelled. Seeing the undead coming from
the other side of the lot he ran to an R.V. that was parked in the laager. The
door to its inside was on the outside of the circle. He opened it and climbed
inside. There wasn’t a safe place to dodge bullets inside the vehicle’s
thin-walled living space but he could take one of them out if they followed him
inside. The door handle moved and another brainless anarchist displayed his
body for Vaughn to fill with bullets. The body fell on the hideaway bed and
Vaughn exited the camper.

            While
inside he hadn’t seen if more men had come out of the grocery store. The
leader, Rachel, was nowhere in sight. He could see movement in the aisles of
the store, torches being carried back and forth. He was reluctant to go into
the building. He didn’t know the layout very well and there were too many places
to hide, but he wanted a victory.

            Vaughn
walked slowly to the front door of the darkened store. He opened it and the
smell of rotten food hit him unexpectedly. He coughed and a bullet whizzed by
his head. Dropping to a crouch he made his way to the checkout lanes at the
front and waited for someone to make a poor decision. A soft glow was
approaching from the back of the store. Someone with a torch was coming for
him. He took out the silenced handgun and aimed for their head. He didn’t need
any zombies in the enclosed space. The body dropped and the torch fell against
a shelf full of chips. The plastic, engulfed in flames, melted and filled the
air with thick smoke. Vaughn could hear coughing from the next aisle to the
right of the fire. He moved to his right and lay on the floor, dragging his
body on the smooth surface of the market. An anarchist sat in the aisle, his
back against the shelf, coughing and wiping his eyes. Vaughn took him out with
another silenced bullet. The man’s head slumped on his chest and a tear fell
from his eye.

            A
man dressed in a hastily-buttoned white shirt and dirty khaki pants emerged
from the depths of the deli department on the left side of the store. His arms
were up in surrender. “I’m not with them. I’ve been held prisoner. Please, take
me with you,” the clean cut man said.

            “Take
off your shirt.” Vaughn said.

            “What?”

            “Do
you want to live? Take off your fucking shirt!” Vaughn said with more force.

            The
man looked behind him for a second, as though he was taking commands from a
hidden individual. He started to unbutton his shirt and just as Vaughn saw the
beginning ink of a large chest tattoo he heard footsteps running up behind him.
Still on the floor, Vaughn pulled his bowie knife out and flipped onto his
back. A teenager in combat boots and a wife-beater jumped on top of him and
onto the large blade of the knife. Vaughn rolled the teen off of him and
withdrew the knife from the boy’s chest. The boy put a hand to the wound.
Vaughn put the silenced gun to the teen’s head and shortened his dying time.

            “He
was my only son! You killed him!” The man with the khakis had removed the white
shirt altogether and a large Mexican gang tattoo covered his chest. “Rachel,
where’s my gun?” the man yelled.

            A
golden handgun slid across the floor and the man bent down to pick it up.
Vaughn got to his feet and ran back behind the registers. A bullet grazed his
shoulder.

            “You
can’t aim very well with that bedazzled thing;
looks
better than it
works,” Vaughn taunted the shooter. He put his handgun away and took his
shotgun from his back holster. “I’ve got some extra gems if you want to
decorate it some more. Forgot my glue gun though.” Vaughn heard no response
from the man so he moved back carefully to where he’d left the body of the boy.
There he found the khaki pants man, holding his son and crying. His golden gun
lay on the ground and he didn’t move to grab it.

            “Kill
me. I want to be with my boy. I’m not staying in this world without him.”

            “I’m
not going to waste my bullets on someone who wants to die. Kill yourself,”
Vaughn pointed to the golden gun on the floor.

            “I
won’t go to Heaven.”

            “You
think your son is there?” Vaughn scoffed.

            “He
was a good boy. You didn’t know him,” the man cried more over his son whose
white tank top had become red with his blood.

            “I’m
going to shoot you now. But only because I hate hearing men cry. I don’t
believe in Heaven.” Vaughn withdrew his silenced gun once again and ended the
man’s life.

            “I’m
tired and I’m ready to go home. Can you all just come out and we can get this
wrapped up?” Vaughn yelled into the aisles of the store. He heard the blonde
leader laugh somewhere near the back.

            “Lower
your weapons,” she yelled back. “I’m coming up there.

            “Lower
yours,” Vaughn said as he saw her coming out of the soup aisle.

            “They
are. You’re outnumbered anyway so I only see one end to this affair.” Rachel
wore a smirk on her face. It didn’t matter to her that so many of her men died.
She was still breathing.

            “I’m
not sure of the count. Maybe I still have a chance.” Vaughn packed his guns
away and shrugged.

            “Everyone
out!” Rachel yelled at the top of her lungs. A giant blonde-haired man appeared
from behind the floral department counter, he had a crossbow and he looked like
he could be Rachel’s brother. He came to join her at her side. No one else
appeared.

            “How
many goons did you have? ‘Cause I killed, like, ten of ‘em.”

            Rachel’s
face turned white. The man at her side raised his crossbow. She placed a hand
on it and made him lower the weapon. “You killed them all?” she said quietly.
“Are you special forces or something?”

            “Nope,
just special. Now, can we end this?” Vaughn asked.

            “I
can’t let you walk out of here after tearing apart everything I’ve created.
You’ll have to fight Hans. No weapons, man vs. man, hand to hand combat.”

            Vaughn
laughed at the man’s cliché of a name. “Like in the movies?”

            “Just
like in the movies. Otherwise we’ll be here all night dodging each other’s bullets.”

            “Let’s
go outside then, shall we?” Vaughn said as he backed up towards the entrance.
Once outside he bent down to set his guns on the ground. Hans did the same with
his crossbow, taking an extra moment to tuck his long blonde hair back behind
his ears. Vaughn didn’t have time for games like this. He pulled a grenade he’d
stowed in a pocket of his cargo pants out and pulled the pin, chucking the
small explosive at Hans as he was still standing back up. Vaughn prayed it
worked and prepared for the explosion by running to the pickup truck one final
time to slide underneath it. The explosion rocked every vehicle in the
semi-circle and shattered the windows of the grocery. Vaughn dared to raise his
head above the truck to look for Hans but he could only find a few harmless pieces.