300 Miles to Galveston (3 page)

As Kurt and Sophie walked down Preston Road, he repeated an old story.

“Preston is the oldest road in Dallas.”

Sophie nodded. She knew telling him that she knew all this would irritate him. She kept walking. He spoke in bursts, in timing with their fast pace.

“Used to be a cattle trail. We’ve pretty much lived near Preston Road for the last three generations. Just kept moving north. From granddad’s place near SMU. To dad’s place in Plano. To our place in Frisco. Used to like going all the way down, where Preston turns into Oak Lawn. Gay part of town. Cool part of town. Great place to take a date. Don’t have to worry about guys hitting on her.”

He nudged Sophie.

And so it went, for the two mile walk.

The Frisco-Plano corridor, at least along the north-south Preston Road, was usually safe. Most of the people who had not been felled by bullets or botulism two years after the first dead rose were cautious folk.

In the 20th century, people gravitated to their own ethnic groups and worked vigorously to keep them distinct. In the mid-21st century, there were so many mixed marriages that people returned to an older tribal structure, defined by blood, marriage, and faith. No one assumed social status purely by skin tone. Strangers approached each other on equal and polite footing.

In this area, a mix of white, Mexican, Guatemalan, black, and Filipino formed into clans of 50 to 200, sometimes raiding each other, but usually trading livestock, jewelry, homemade booze, and musical instruments peacefully.

In the first few months after the Leonids, no part of town was safe. Terrified and well-armed men did most of the killing and dying. At the peak of the tech boom, many Dallas men had gun collections that would impress a Nigerian mercenary. One of Kurt’s best friends had over 300 guns, from 18th century black powder rifles to 19th century revolvers to 20th and 21st century semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles. The prize of the collection was a fully-automatic M16, purchased in the early 1980s before they were banned.

When Bill died of food poisoning, Kurt took two of the .40 caliber pistols and a Plano® Zombie Max Ammo Can with 1,000 rounds of ammo, and went home. He couldn’t behead him, and he didn’t want to see him rise; whether he came back happy or angry, it wouldn’t be him anymore.

Kristine and Sophie, who were 12 and 9 then, loved the ammo can – a rectangular black plastic box with a green handle – because it had a cool sticker on the side: “ZOMBIE MAX... Just In Case,” written in fat green letters with dripping blood. They wanted to put the puppy in it, but the look on Kurt’s face said no in a way that they never asked again.

When Kurt went back to Bill’s place two days later, his friend, the guns, and ammunition were gone.

Most of the gunfire happened in the first six months. The young male gangs killed themselves off quickly. You’d see them after rising, staggering around in their sagging pants and $300 NBA shirts with bullet holes in them, but no visible wounds. If their clothing was still in good shape, it was hard to tell the before-and-after difference until they wandered into traffic or fell into a ditch.

The young female gangs lasted longer, but broke up and joined neighborhood clans before completely killing themselves off.

It was during these early days that an important discovery was made. There was a way to truly kill someone.

A risen gang-banger, somewhere in Pennsylvania, had stumbled into a construction pit and been decapitated by falling onto a rough-cut four-foot diameter metal pipe, left standing vertically. With his head inside the pipe, and his body outside, he never rose again. His body simply rotted away.

The follow-up experiment was a YouTube sensation. The video, “Banga Be Headin 2,” opened with a still photo from the first dead gang banger, and some text that explained the event. Then mobile phone video showed another risen banger of the same height and weight being guided toward the pit by a snickering teenager. The risen banger walked off the ledge and was likewise decapitated, to the delighted groans of the cameraman.

Cut to the next scene. The video makers pushed the giant metal pipe over, picked up his head, and set it within an inch of his open neck. The body was still pumping blood, though it was down to a trickle. A pool of blood six feet in diameter had formed around the neck in the rough depression of limestone where the body lay.

Close up of the neck. The rest of the video was edited for time. At three minutes, a jelly formed. At five minutes, the gaps and bubbles disappeared. In an hour, the head was being pulled slowly towards the stump, like a flower closing at sunset. In 12 hours, the camera had changed to ten feet away, and he was standing – just as dumb and smiling as before. Except for the blood stain on his shirt, and a scar all the way around his neck, he was no different than before the fall.

“Banga Be Headin 2” was the most popular video on YouTube when the internet finally timed out. Whether you saw it yourself, or heard it from friends, you knew how to truly kill people. Everyone knew. No one could keep such knowledge to himself.

However, having knowledge and knowing was not the same thing. Those who had done it confessed that it was brutal. A human head doesn’t pop off like in a zombie movie. It’s attached with bones, joints, tendons, and thick muscle, even on fat kids. You needed serious metal and accuracy to sever a head gracefully, and no one was skilled with swords anymore. Even the iaido club at a local private school, which kept traditional Japanese swordsmanship alive, didn’t practice cutting through muscle and bone, because cutting up prisoners or goats like in the old days would have been inhumane. Mostly they cut air, but sometimes they cut straw rolls before bowing and sliding their $20,000 swords back into their scabbards.

When striking a real body, machetes got stuck. Axes got wedged. A spurting neck got blood on the blade which dripped to the handle. There was the spasming and screaming. Many victims, even the mindless Angels, crapped their pants. Beheading someone was an unpleasant experience for all the senses.

After “Banga Be Headin 2,” people took hatchets, butcher knives, and hacksaws to people they never wanted to see again, but they had to be ready to get warm blood on their hands. Even with the world collapsing, few people were willing to do that, so the population of risen grew. The Angels didn’t bother anyone, and most of the Devils were locked up. Their legal status was unclear – yes, they were dead, but most people had enough humanity in them that they did not like the idea of abusing them for sport.

Only the ones who were truly loved in Kurt and Sophie’s Frisco clan were beheaded, with the head kept separate so they could rot away. The rest, the world was stuck with.

Plano® Ammo Cans were great for head transportation, once you were out of bullets. It didn’t have to be the “Zombie Max” model. The more modest Plano® Ammo Can Field Box, grey with a black latch and a small yellow logo, was more appropriate. Though a little narrow, there was an advantage to that. For most people’s heads, the ears wedged in and held the head firmly in place so it didn’t roll or shift when carried. Since a head was round and weighed 10 pounds, this was helpful.

“What are you thinking about?” Sophie asked.

“My friend, Bill.”

“You know what I liked about him? He never talked to me like I was an idiot, even when I was little.”

“Yeah, Bill was a good guy.”

“Were you with him when he died?”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He nodded.

“What was it like?”

“He had food poisoning – this was before we were used to not having electricity to run refrigerators anymore – so he was pretty miserable. I’d found a bottle of Advil, but he couldn’t keep anything down. He just moaned and tried to sleep. Then, there was this moment, where he kinda held his breath, then let it all go, like his air went out all the way down to his toes. I’d never seen anything like it. Well, I’d never seen anyone die before.”

“How many people have you seen die now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe... twelve?”

“Do they all die like that?”

“No. Some, you can’t even tell. Some struggle. Some talk. Some, it’s like their cord got cut, and they just stop. I remember this one guy saying, ‘Man, I’d like a grilled cheese sandwich.’ And that was it. He was dead. His last thoughts were not of a loved one or Jesus or regrets. Grilled cheese. And you know what I thought? He was right. A grilled cheese sandwich sounded good.”

They smiled and walked a bit farther. Kurt said, “I think that guy was your first funeral at the park.”

“Ohhh yeah! That was neat. I mean, I don’t like people dying or anything, but that was special. I could tell. And I felt kinda grown up ‘cause I got to participate.”

Kurt paused at the intersection, holding Sophie’s shoulder, and they waved their right arms in an arc, one big wave. Clan areas were divided by streets, and they were entering a new one. These folks along Stonebrook Drive were not violent or to be particularly worried about; it was just a sign of good manners to pause and pay your respects before entering. Maybe someone saw it, maybe not, but it set the right tone, and seemed to bring luck to their journey.

Kurt wondered how the Stonebrook clan honored their dead. He knew each clan had its own way doing it, but had only seen his own clan’s ritual.

In his neighborhood, if a loved one had made it clear that he didn’t want to come back as an Angel or a Devil, the evening after the deed was done, there would be a candlelight procession where the person closest to the dead carried the ammo box with the head in it, and everyone else carried a big rock. If it was windy, they used flashlights.

In the early days, they read a variety of Bible passages. Consensus was they were all sick of the twenty-third Psalm, partly because their everyday lives felt like the shadow of the valley of death, and partly because everyone had a different, modern Bible translation which had sucked all the poetry and mystery out of it. NRSV, NIV, NAS, it was like a collection of government agencies, each with its own agenda.

Finally, they said, “Screw it – we’re going back to the King James,” and settled on this passage.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go, ye know, and the way ye know.

John 14:1-4

After the passage was read, they all threw the big rocks, and as they showered into the pond, the head was tapped out from the ammo box with three solid smacks. There followed a moment of silence, and the box was washed out three times.

Throwing rocks covered the sound of the head rolling into the pond and drove the two-foot diameter snapping turtles to the bottom, where they made short work of the head as it came to its final rest beneath the mossy black water.

That was how Kurt learned that all lasting rituals have a symbolic and a practical side.

One candle was left in a hurricane lamp, or one crank flashlight was left pointing its beam straight up into the night sky until it died, to be retrieved the next morning.

It grew dark as Kurt and Sophie climbed the slope towards Lebanon Avenue. To the west, the sky was blue as African fruit, while everything eastward blackened around an orange slice moon.

* * *

The Frisco branch of the Richardson Bike Mart was an ugly box of a building, set back so far from Preston Road that you wouldn’t know it was there if you weren’t looking for it. That seemed to suit the mood of most people who had worked or shopped there. For them, bikes were not fun. They were serious machines, and if you just wanted a pink metallic bike for your four year old daughter you might want to go up the road to Wal-Mart, thank you.

They walked in opposite directions around the building. Kurt had learned the hard way that if you walked around a building together, the other guys could just circle opposite, and you’d never know.

Their flashlights were also their primary weapons; with long aluminum tubes, heavy batteries and recharging mechanisms, they made good clubs. Kurt had taught Sophie to yell out, keep the beam on the attacker’s eyes, then club him if he got near. She’d never had to do it.

Kurt had. That’s why he now held a knife in his other hand. Sophie had a knife, too, but he didn’t tell her to use it, because he was afraid it would get used against her. Maybe that was silly now. After all, she had fought off two boys with a mop handle. No, not fought off.
Killed
.

“Sophie.”

“Yeah, dad?” She paused before going around the corner.

“Knife.”

She nodded, moving her flashlight to her left hand and holding it high, thumb up, like a baseball bat resting on her shoulder. She unfolded her knife with her right hand, clicking it locked. She kept her knife hand low, then, not liking the feel, raised it halfway, to guard her middle.

Kurt watched her disappear around the corner, and nodded to himself.

They met at the back. The solid metal doors there were locked, the trashbin was full of flattened boxes, and a service truck with flat tires squatted on its final resting place, facing two yellow stanchions.

“OK, let’s try the front door.”

In the beam of the flashlight it was easy to tell that there was no front door – just an aluminum frame that no longer held glass. Past that, the next set of doors had been propped open with plastic wedges.

Kurt folded his knife back and clipped it to his pocket, and Sophie followed his example.

“Hello? My name is Kurt, and this is my daughter, Sophie. We’re just here to get a couple of bikes. Is that OK?”

They waited for a reply. Kurt had found that giving his name made strangers less likely to attack him, or at least dialed down the aggression a notch.

“We just want to find two bikes that fit us, maybe get some tire patches and an air pump and we’ll be on our way.”