Hollowmen (6 page)

11.

Boden had smartly suggested that we stay off the main roads and away from any cities. We’d followed the highway to the compound because it was the only way I knew how to get there, but if we were just going north, it didn’t really matter what route we took.

Main roads meant more cities and towns, and more cities and towns meant more people, which meant more zombies.

We met up with Nolita, Teddy, and Daniels at the house, and Ripley was already there, waiting for us. Max had actually been happy to see Daniels, and he even tried to hug him, but I put my hand on Max’s shoulder and wouldn’t let him. I didn’t care if Daniels was trying to save the human race. I’d never forgive him for nearly killing my brother.

We followed an old dirt road out of town and eventually cut through fields. No crops had been planted in them for a very long time, so they were overgrown with weeds, but they still had the patchwork appearance of cornfields.

Stella wanted to hang onto to Max the entire time, even when she started lagging. Eventually she got tired enough that she was willing to let someone carry her, and Teddy toted her on his hip.

Sometime in the afternoon, we came upon a semi-tractor and trailer tipped over onto its side. The cab door was open, and from the ground, I could see the blood splattered across the windows.

The name on the side of the door said it was for a major big-box store, which meant that the trailer could be filled with things we could use.

“Should we see what’s inside?” Bishop asked.

Boden thought it over, then shook his head. “Anything inside it would be spoiled.”

“You don’t know that,” Bishop said, disagreeing with him. “It could have something useful, even if it’s not food. We’re running out guns.”

“I’ll check it out,” Daniels offered and went around to the back of the truck.

Boden shrugged. “Do what you want.”

He set down his gun and duffel bag and went in to inspect the cab. He climbed up the side of it, so he stood next to the door, and peered in.

I followed Daniels around the back. Teddy and Bishop stood off to the side with the two kids, which was probably good since we didn’t know what was in the trailer.

The handles and lock were rusted, and Daniels couldn’t get them by himself so I helped him. It still took a lot of pushing and grunting, but we managed to get the door. As soon as it fell open, we regretted it.

The scent itself was repugnant. It was all rotting flesh, sick and  sweet. The whole trailer echoed with the sound of buzzing flies. Maggots were crawling over everything, covering the patches of brown and green blood like snow.

“Holy shit.” Daniels gagged and stepped back, covering his mouth.

I crouched down, trying to see what had been inside. I pulled my shirt up over my mouth so I wouldn’t have to breathe it in directly.

It was too dark in the trailer to get a good look of anything, but from the mess, I doubt there had been any food or anything useful. At least not for a very long time. This all looked like torn up people, dismembered corpses, with dried blood splattered all over the walls.

Then I heard a low rattle, and the lit glinted off the yellow in its eyes. A zombie was only a few feet from the door, and it started crawling toward me.

“It’s alive!” I yelled and jerked back.

I tried pushing up the door to close it, but the zombie was on it, scrambling much faster than I thought something that emaciated could do. It was literally a skeleton with patches of brownish flesh hanging off it. Its shriveled intestines hung out through holes in its stomach.

It crawled crazy fast though, leaving a trail of greenish slime behind it like a slug. I let go of the door and jumped back away from it, not wanting something that gross touching me.

Daniels had been crouched by the door, gagging, and he fell back onto his ass. He pushed himself back on his butt, but the zombie was on him, gripping Daniels’ leg with its bony fingers.

Then Nolita shot it, its head exploding in a mass of rotten brain and bone fragments, and it fell onto Daniels’ lap. Daniels kicked it off and scooted back from it.

“That thing nearly got me,” Daniels said, his voice shaky. He stood up and tried wiping the blood and slime from his pants.

“What the hell?” I asked and walked over to where the zombie corpse lay. I touched at it with my foot, and it was all bones. “How the fuck was this thing alive? How is this even possible? Why didn’t it starve to death?”

“They can’t starve to death.” Daniels seemed to calm a bit, but he kept wiping at his pants.

I turned around to face him straight on. “What do you mean they can’t starve to death?”

“That’s what I mean,” Daniels said. “At first, we thought they would, and that’s how the virus would kill itself out. But we were comparing it too much to rabies, and this is unlike anything else.”

“How do you stop them?” Boden asked, and I glanced up to see him standing on the back of the trailer, staring down at us.

“I don’t know.” Daniels shook his head. “Nobody does. I mean, other than the obvious ways. Destroying their brain or their heart seems to do the trick.”

“But everything starves,” I said, grasping to understand this. “It’s not possible. Everything has to eat.”

“They can’t die,” Daniels tried to explain. “It doesn’t seem possible, and it shouldn’t be. They can rot, but their heart will just keep beating. The virus does something to their brains and their hearts. It won’t let them simply give up and die, the way ours would.”

“So basically what you’re saying is that the only way to stop the zombies is for us to individually kill each and every one?” Boden asked.

Daniels nodded reluctantly. “Right now, yes, that seems to be the only way.”

It suddenly hit me, and I could barely breathe. I felt dizzy and nauseated, and I rubbed the back of my neck. I stared down at the zombie skeleton in front of me and realized that this would never end. There would be no way we could ever kill them all.

“This is never going to be over,” I whispered. “The zombies are never going to be gone.”

“What?” Daniels asked, leaning in to hear me better.

“This will never end!” I shouted, and since I had nothing better to do with my newfound rage, I stomped on the zombie, crushing its gelatinized bones beneath my foot. “They will never fucking die!”

“Remy!” Daniels reached out to me, trying to pull me off the zombie, but I slapped his hands away.

“Shut up,” Bishop hissed and walked around to the back of the trailer. “You’re scaring the children.”

“They should be scared!” I yelled, but immediately regretted it.

I stepped away from the zombie and ran my hands through my hair. I took a deep breath and stared up at the sky. Heavy gray clouds were coming in, blotting out the sun. It would rain soon, and for so long, I’d been certain that I’d never see or feel the rain again.

I exhaled deeply and tried to remind myself that I had things to live for, things to be grateful for. I just couldn’t let myself get overwhelmed by this.

“Sorry,” I apologized to no one in particular.

I went over to shut the door on the back of the trailer, just in case there were more zombies back there. And even if there weren’t, I wanted to contain the smell. I couldn’t get it myself, so Daniels came over and helped me jam the lock back in place.

The crackle of static suddenly came from the cab of the truck. This was followed by a voice saying, “Can anyone here this? Over.”

Boden raced down the trailer to the cab, to the CB radio where the voice was coming from. Something sounded familiar about the voice, but I couldn’t place it until I heard it come again a moment later.

“Is there anyone out there? Over.”

I’d know that voice anywhere. It was Lazlo Durante.

12.

“This is Sergeant Boden, over,” Boden was saying into the radio.

I climbed up onto the cab and hung down through the open door. Inside the cab was a bloody mess. The zombies had apparently climbed in to eat the driver, and parts of his body were lying all around.

Boden had one foot on the dashboard and one on the passenger seat, pinning himself up, with the mic in his hand.

“Give that to me,” I said, reaching out for it.

“What are you doing?” He pulled it out of my reach.

“Just give it me.” I almost fell into the truck, nearly knocking him down in the process.

“Remy!” Boden growled.

When I still persisted, he finally handed it over to me. Probably just because he didn’t want to fall down into the blood and rotting flesh at the bottom of the truck.

While we’d been fighting over the mic, I could hear the voice crackling through, introducing himself as Lazlo and asking where we were.

“Lazlo?” I asked, sounding out of breath from running to get the mic and wrestling with Boden. “Lazlo?”

There was nothing. Not even static. And my heart dropped.

“Lazlo?” I asked again, sounding panicked.

“You have to let go of the button when you’re done talking so you can hear him,” Boden said dryly.

“Oh. Right.” I let go, and instantly, I heard Lazlo’s response.

“Remy?” Lazlo asked. “Is that you? Over.”

“Yes!” Relieved tears wanted to fill my eyes but I swallowed them back. “Are you okay?” I let go of the button, then clicked it again and said, “Over.”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Lazlo said. “How did you get out? Are you okay? Over.”

“Yeah, I’m good. It’s too long of a story, but I’m fine,” I said. “Where are you? Over.”

“I don’t know,” Lazlo said. “We’re going to Canada, but I don’t know where we are now. Over.”

“Who’s with you?” I asked. “Is everyone in your party okay? Over.”

“There’s about eight of us, and we’re all okay,” Lazlo said. “We found an abandoned militia base and got a couple guns and this CB radio, so that’s good. Over.”

“How’s Harlow?” I asked. “Over.” There was a long silence, so I asked again. “Laz? How’s Harlow? Over.”

“She didn’t make it,” Lazlo responded finally. “Over.”

I let my arm hang down for a second and swore under my breath.

“Remy? Did you hear me?” Lazlo asked.

“Yeah, I heard you,” I said. “Where can we meet you? Over.”

Boden put his hand over the mic and shook his head. “We shouldn’t meet them, Remy. We split off into smaller groups for a reason. That’d be almost twenty of us. That’s harder to guard and feed, and zombies are more likely to find us.”

“Well …” I wanted to protest, but Lazlo interrupted me.

“I’m sorry, Remy,” Lazlo said. “We can’t wait for you. I want to, but it’s too dangerous. But maybe we can meet in Canada. Over.”

In the background, I could hear someone talking over him, saying that Lazlo shouldn’t be wasting the CB battery making a date with his girlfriend.

I swallowed hard, knowing then that we’d probably never meet again. He had to keep moving, and so did I. Canada was an awfully big place, and the odds of us running into each other were pretty slim.

“Sure,” I said, trying not to let him hear the doubt in my voice. “That sounds good, Lazlo.”

“It’s a plan then,” Lazlo said. “Over.”

“Is there anything we should know about?” I asked. “Are there any places we should avoid? Over.”

“Avoid the cities,” Lazlo said. “They’re really bad. And just… avoid zombies, I guess. Be careful. Over.”

“That militia base you found, did they have any guns?” I asked.

“Not a lot,” Lazlo said. “And we took what they had. Sorry. Over.”

“No, don’t be. You did what you should’ve done.” I held the mic away from my face for a minute and shook my head. “Listen, Lazlo, I should get going.”

“Will you have the CB with you?” Lazlo asked.

“No, I won’t. I won’t be able to radio anymore,” I said. I closed my eyes. This would probably be the last time I ever talked to him. “Take care of yourself, okay, Lazlo?”

“I will,” Lazlo said. “And you do the same. You have a date you have to go to in Canada, remember?”

“I won’t forget it.” I took a deep breath. “Bye, Lazlo. Over.”

“Bye, Remy.” There was a long pause. “Over.”

I handed the radio back to Boden, in case he could think of somebody he wanted to radio. Then I pulled myself all the way up onto the cab and stood up. I jumped from the cab to the trailer. When I was out in the middle, I sat down, dangling my legs over the edge.

From here, I had a view of everything, and the ground was flat and grassy, with no zombies in sight.  Teddy was standing by the cab, and he looked like he’d been listening to me talking to Lazlo. Bishop was below me, setting up lunch. Max was playing with Stella, or at least trying to. She giggled some, but she still seemed freaked out.

Daniels and Nolita were at the end of the trailer, sitting on the tires and talking. Their voices were hushed, and they leaned into each other. I don’t know what they were saying, but Nolita’s hand was on Daniels’ thigh.

Ripley was quite a bit away from us, lying in the grass. She’d been following us, but she kept her distance. Her affection yesterday wasn’t her usual behavior. She usually preferred to have space between her and humans.

I looked at everyone around me and wondered how long it would be before they were dead. I tried so hard to protect Blue and Harlow, and they were both gone. I didn’t know where Lazlo was, or how long it would be until he was gone.

The zombies weren’t dying. It would only be a matter of time until they killed everyone, including me.

Boden’s boots on the trailer interrupted my thoughts, but I didn’t look over at him. Not until he shoved a piece of paper in my face.

“Here,” he said, so I took it from him, and he sat down next to me.

“What is it?” I asked, but I could already tell that it was a map.

“I got it from the glove box,” Boden explained. “It’s a map of North America. I figured we’d need that if you want to meet up with that guy in Canada.”

“I’m not really gonna meet up with him.” I set the map down between us. “Even if we make it to Canada, I’ll never find him. And the zombies are probably going to get us first.”

“It’s colder, and they hate the cold,” Boden said. “We’ll fare better up there than we will staying down here. It’s our best chance of surviving.”

“But for how long?” I asked him honestly. I turned to look at him, his soft gray eyes meeting mine. “How long can we really hope to survive?”

“As long as we can.” He smiled simply. “That’s our only option, Remy. Unless you want to give up and die here. That’s it.”

“No.” I sighed. “I don’t want to do that either. I just …”

“I know.” He stared out the storm clouds rumbling in the west. “It’s a hard life, but it’s the only life we have. And sometimes – ” he pointed to a bright flash of lightening, its jagged light stretching from the sky to the ground, “– it’s still beautiful. Sometimes you find something that makes this all worth it.

“And when you do, you hang onto for it as long as you can.” He turned to me, shrugging one shoulder. “That’s the best you can do.”

I looked down at Max, who’d gotten Stella to laugh. Boden was right. The zombies might end up winning this war anyway, but I’d fight for Max, and even Stella, for as long as I could. I’d go on until I couldn’t anymore. And that was the best I could do.

“Come on,” Boden said, getting up. “We should go eat before the rain comes.”