In the Lone and Level Sands (32 page)

The closest thing he could relate the
feeling to was that of a lawnmower. His hands vibrated wildly, so
much that he could barely see if he was hitting anything. Sure
enough, the zombies fell in rows, also like mowing the lawn. This
thought had a calming effect on him.

Just mowing the lawn, Max. That’s all this
is, just mowing the lawn.

The minigun stopped firing. The zombies
faded from view, but Max didn’t see any actually give up running.
They just got farther and farther away.

“Hang on,” Ortiz said. He reloaded the
minigun, then tapped on the top of it.

Max started firing again. The Humvee
swerved, and so did Max. The bullets went off toward nothing, and
Max forced himself to let go of the trigger.

They took an exit and headed through a
residential area. They were moving much slower. Max figured he was
probably wasting hundreds of bullets, firing at least fifty for
every zombie, but he had no way of knowing and Ortiz wasn’t telling
him to stop, so he continued.

As the Humvee slowed to navigate the
streets, the zombies were getting much closer. Max fired away, and
Ortiz took out his own gun and started shooting. The Humvee came to
a near stop to squeeze between two cars, and a zombie climbed onto
the back of it. Max pointed the minigun down at the zombie, but
couldn’t reach. He hopped up and pushed the trigger. A flurry of
bullets entered the zombie’s back, red mist sprayed into the air,
and the zombie screeched and fell into the street.

Another zombie leaped onto the side of the
Humvee, behind Max. Max started to turn, but was restrained by the
minigun.

“I got it, keep shooting!” Ortiz said. He
shot the zombie as it was struggling to get a better hold, and it
fell away. Max focused on the road, he had to trust Ortiz to watch
his back. Max kept firing.

The Humvee entered an area with more trees
and fewer houses. There were also far fewer zombies. Ortiz took
care of most of the stragglers.

Finally, the Humvee came to a halt. Max
struggled to see what was going on. Ortiz noticed this, and turned
to him. “We’re at the school.” He helped Max unstrap from the
gunner seat.

Max climbed out and saw a sprawling campus
with several buildings. There were a few zombies afoot as well.

“You did a great job, Greenwald,” Johns said
as he hopped out of the Humvee. Lou was already out, and he tossed
Max an assault rifle, which Max barely caught.

“But the party’s just getting started,” Lou
said.

37

In Al and Ruth’s House

Angus sat in his warm woolen bed, licking
himself by the fire. The flames danced, warming the people and the
dog on this strangely chilly summer day. Angus stopped licking when
he heard a slight tapping from a room somewhere in the back. His
pointy ears twitched, and he cocked his head to the right. The
tapping repeated, and Angus shot out a bark, jumped up, and
scampered down the hall.

“What’s that dog up to?” Al said. He stood
up from the worn leather couch. Across from him and Ruth sat Fred
and Sarah. Fred took the pipe from his mouth and set it in the
ashtray on the end table.

“Not too sure,” he said. “I’m going to take
a peek real fast, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Al said.

Fred stood up and headed for the shotgun
he’d left on the long, narrow table in the hall. He picked it up,
cocked it, then headed after Angus. The hardwood floor below
creaked with every step Fred took. Angus was madly pawing at a
brown, peeling door.

When Fred arrived, Angus stopped pawing and
looked up as if to say
Do you hear that? Let’s go check it
out!
He turned his attention back to the door and hunkered
down, pressing his snout against the bottom, almost as if he were
trying to get under it. Fred chuckled at Angus’s vigor, and turned
the knob. Angus pushed against the door and practically leaped into
the room. His ninety-pound frame shot like a bullet to the
cushioned seat in front of the window.

Like most of the ones that faced the back
yard with its high fence, the window was not barred. For safe
measure, there was a thick blanket over the window. Fred moved the
blanket out of the way. The sound that had spurred Angus from his
tongue-bath was nothing more than a branch of a small flowering
tree tapping against the glass. Angus barked once at it.

Fred rested an aged hand on Angus’s back and
whispered, “Quiet boy. It’s only a branch. It’s those things beyond
the fence we need to worry about.”

A big, sloppy, wet tongue hung from Angus’s
jaws; the dog panted and attacked him with a hug. Fred laughed, and
patted Angus.

Sara stood up as Fred entered the living
room, weapon in hand, loyal friend at his side.

“Angus just heard a branch tapping the
window in that room back there, nothing to worry about.” Fred set
his weapon against the wall and rubbed between Angus’s ears.
Angus’s tail thumped against the floor as he wagged it. “Just a
tree, isn’t that right, boy? Just a tree!”

“Are you sure there was nothing else?” Sara
asked.

“Honey, I scanned the entire yard, and the
area just past the fence. There’s nothing out there that can get to
us.” Charlotte watched as they kissed briefly, and then looked to
her right. There Ben sat, petting Angus. Ben looked at her and
smiled.

“Hey, Charlotte,” he said. He looked away
almost immediately.

Charlotte leaned in close to him and said,
“Ben, can we talk in private?” He nodded. She stood up.

“Charlotte, honey, where are you going?”
Ruth asked.

“I think I’m going to rest,” Charlotte said.
Then she looked longingly at Ben, who wrung his hands and looked
around the room. The pieces of the puzzle were as jumbled as ever,
and some were still missing. She had hoped that coming to Bangor
would be the key to unlocking his memory, but nothing had
improved.

“You look like you could use some shut-eye
yourself,” Al said after clapping a hand against Ben’s back. Ben
looked at Al with a grin, then followed Charlotte into their
bedroom. Charlotte faced the window for a short time as Ben closed
the door, quietly.

“Something wrong, Charlotte?” Ben said.

“No, I’m fine. I was just hoping we could
talk. Alone.” She sat down on the cushioned seat that was built
into the wall. Ben took a seat next to her.

“I think I have a good idea about what,” he
said. He sighed.

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“I don’t want to push you into anything… I
just really need to know where we stand.” She leaned against the
wall, and gave a heavy sigh. “It’s on my mind constantly, Ben. I
see you, the way you look at me, you’re sending me signals. It
feels as if we’re like
this
again.” She raised her right
hand, the index finger and middle intertwined. “But sometimes, it’s
like you see me as a complete stranger.” Charlotte lowered her gaze
to the reddish-brown rug in front of the window seat.

“I don’t mean to, Char. It’s just been hard
to concentrate with all that’s happened. Everything that led us
here, you know what I mean?”

“I do know. I just want… I just want us to
be back together.”

“Look, I’m doing the best I can. I think it
might just be easier another way, though.”

“What do you mean?” Charlotte said. Ben
leaned in, laid an arm around her, and kissed her. Charlotte leaned
back against the royal blue cushion and exhaled slowly. She wasn’t
sure how to feel. Ben pulled away.

“If it won’t come back on its own, maybe it
wasn’t meant to, and we can just kind of begin again, you know?”
Charlotte didn’t respond.

A bolt of lightning and rumble of thunder
jolted the couple out of their awkward silence. Ben looked out the
window.

“Shit, that was loud,” he said. He wrapped
his fingers around one of the iron bars as he peered out at the
growing storm. The rain was picking up.

“You don’t think it will get really bad, do
you?” Charlotte asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and
see, and hope for the best.”

There were two light knocks on the door,
startling the couple.

“Come in,” Charlotte said.

Ruth entered and said, “Charlotte, Ben?”

“Hi, Mom.”

Ruth smiled. She approached the two, gazing
out the window. “Hey, there. It’s looking nasty out there, isn’t
it? I hope it doesn’t get much worse. The last thing we need is a
storm in addition to those… creatures.”

“Are you all right, Mom?”

“Yes. I’m fine. Tired, is all. Dinner is
just about ready, if you both want to go ahead and get something to
eat. You must be starving.”

“I could go for something to eat,” Ben
said.

“I made spaghetti,” Ruth replied. “I always
have the ingredients for a good spaghetti dinner, even in the midst
of utter chaos. When you two are finished in here, go ahead and
come to the kitchen.” She gave a kind smile among subtle wrinkles
around the corners of her mouth, and then left the room as quietly
as she’d entered.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Ben said.
He stood up and looked at Charlotte. She smiled and followed Ben
out of the room, still worried about their standing on their
relationship.

****

Everyone sat around the living room as
before, but with TV trays, forks, and plates piled with heaping
mounds of spaghetti. Fred and Sara sat near each other, their trays
pushed together; Sara nabbed Fred’s half-eaten slice of garlic
bread off of his plate and took a bite.

Carah twirled a clump of noodles onto her
fork and lifted it to her mouth, a couple of strands hanging awry.
Here and there, a few signs were thrown. Richard’s napkin fell from
his knee to the floor. He leaned forward and picked it up.

Al took a loud sip from his beer can, then
set it on a coaster. Before he took another bite, he covered his
mouth, his cheeks puffed outward, and a burp came roaring out. Ruth
flashed him the evil eye, which was followed by a smirk.

“You get that one, dear. All others after
are punishable by law.”

“What woman doesn’t like it when a man
compliments their cooking?”

“Hardy har har.”

“When you really think about it, what law is
there anymore?” Richard said, with a challenging smile.

“Wife Law,” Ruth said. “That’s the law that
all husbands must follow, and it supersedes even the end of the
world.” She made eye contact with Sarah, who nodded.

“That’s right,” Sara said.

“Hell, I’ll take that over the Zombie Law
any day, no questions asked,” Fred said.

“Yes, at least we won’t be eating you
anytime soon,” Sara replied.

Carah signed something to Richard, and he
turned to Ruth. “Carah says this is the best spaghetti she’s had in
a long time, and I have to say I agree with her. This is great
stuff!”

Carah smirked, and began to actually speak,
signing as well.

“It is, but that is not what I said, Rich!”
She laughed. Richard laughed harder.

Ruth laughed. “Thank you so much.”

“Very, very good, indeed,” Fred said.

“As always,” Charlotte said.

“My goodness!” Ruth leaned back. “I do try,
but I must pay credit where it’s due. It’s my mother’s recipe
and—”

A house-shaking clap of thunder erupted, and
the lights flickered.

Fred’s eyes widened. “God sure is pissed
about something!”

“That’s for sure,” Ben said as he shoved his
fork into his mouth. His eyes were glued to the window, at least
until the sound of Charlotte coughing caught his attention. “Are
you okay?” She nodded.

“God should be pissed about a lot of shit,”
Al said with a coldness that no one had heard from him before.

“This can’t end well,” Charlotte said.

“No, this is good, Charlotte,” Al replied,
pointing his fork at her. “We’re just being punished for our sins,
and the dumbest guy in a moron convention could figure that
much!”

“Al,” Ruth said, “leave it alone.”

“Please don’t take offense to this, Al, but
I never really pegged you as a religious man,” Fred said.

“Yep, born and raised. All my life, I’ve
tried to be a good person. And I sorta waited—not looked forward
to, mind you, but waited for something really bad to happen. I
waited for
God’s punishment
. Those fuckers out there are
God’s way of purging His planet of the filth that’s gotten so used
to living here.”

“Al, please,” Ruth said.

Al ate the last of his spaghetti. Silence
blanketed the room. To Ben and the others, it felt like a few
eternities went by, and then Richard spoke up.

“‘God’s Punishment’, huh? I don’t know if
it’s a punishment or not, but I plan to live on anyway.” Carah
smiled at him, and they hugged. Once they broke from the hug, she
signed. It was a one-handed symbol like the one frequently seen at
rock concerts, except with the thumb extended.

“
I love you, too,
” Richard said.

A sharp crack outside startled Angus out of
his bed. He sat, almost leaning, against Fred’s legs. Fred leaned
forward and rubbed Angus’s head.

“Aww, poor Angus,” Charlotte said. “I’ve
never seen a dog more afraid of storms before.” It was a sight to
see, the shepherd shaking like a leaf. “He’s not going to sleep
through the night, I would imagine.”

“Not a wink, no, unless the big guy upstairs
quiets down a little.” Fred caressed the spot between Angus’s ears.
This seemed to take Angus’s mind off the storm a bit, and his torso
was no longer shaking.

“I sure hope this storm shuts down,” Ruth
said. “Just look at that rain!”

Everyone in the room turned to look; they
were mesmerized by it, if only for a few moments.

“Hope those fuckers are drowning out there,”
Al said. He stared out the window with a frown on his face.

Out in the downpour, those in search of
flesh were not drowning. They were, however, soaked to the bone,
and their attempts at finding a bite to eat had been for
naught.