Pray To Stay Dead (9 page)

For reasons that she or anyone else may never know, the dead were getting up and society was falling apart. By providence or blind and meaningless coincidence, they were in the middle of nowhere when the shit hit the fan, miles away from any major population center, not home in Fresno. And they were safe.

They’d heard no news regarding their home town, but she knew it would vary only in small, inconsequential details from the news coming out of every major city on the face of the earth. She wondered if she would ever see her house, and again came the thought of her mother, not really dead and not really alive, lying in darkness six feet beneath freshly churned dirt.

Sam helped unload their luggage, which he placed in the dim entry room of the squat brick house he apparently shared with his father and brother. The place looked nicer on the outside than it did inside. The tile floor was dirty. To the left, just inside the front door, an old umbrella leaned in the corner, a heap of dirt-crusted boots lying before it, their laces splayed and entangled. The walls were bare. An empty vase sat atop a featureless little table. It was one of those quiet houses with a loud clock. A bead curtain obscured the dimly-lit room beyond the vestibule.

They followed Sam through the beads and into a large living room that smelled stale like the inside of the confessional at St. Anthony’s. Sam clicked on a lamp. The place hadn’t been redecorated since the fifties. With its boxy art deco cabinet and nearly round screen, the television sitting atop four skinny legs across from the stained and sprung couch looked to Colleen like it may have been older than the house.

“
That thing work?” Daniel asked, reading her mind.

Sam made a face. “Not so great, man, but we never watch it all that much, anyway.”

There was a low coffee table between the couch and the television, its surface furry with dust.

“
You can all crash here, I guess,” Samson said. “No one really stays here anymore, not since mom died. Dad lives in his workshop, mostly, but he still comes down here when he misses her. It’s pretty sad.”

“
Where do you and your brother stay?”

“
My dad built us all a little place further up the road. I’ll show you later.”

The place felt like a frozen moment, a fading memory grown soft around the edges and losing definition.

“
I think I’d just as soon set up our tents and enjoy the fresh air,” Guy said, and Daniel murmured his assent. “We really don’t want to impose.”

“
Sure,” Sam said. “I don’t blame you. The place is a mess. You can’t camp out forever, though, so maybe we can clean up a bit later on, right?”

“
Maybe so,” Guy said. “Is there a phone here?”

“
There is, in the kitchen, but it’s disconnected.”

“
Okay,” Guy said, after a moment. “Is there a phone that isn’t disconnected?”

“
Up at my dad’s workshop, yeah, but I don’t think you’ll reach anyone. I think they’re all dead now.”

“
I’d still like to try.”

“
Oh, yeah,” Sam said. “We’ll head up that way in a bit. Last stop of the tour. Come on.”

“
Wait,” Colleen said. “Can I use the bathroom?”

Sam looked uncertain for a second, uncertain and maybe a little worried, and then he brightened. “Of course.” He indicated the hallway at the other end of the living room. “First door on the right.”

Three of the four bulbs were dead, and the remaining one burned weakly behind frosted glass, offered little light. A dingy shower curtain concealed a claw-foot bathtub that seemed out of place even here, and the toilet bowl was dry, the water having long since evaporated, leaving behind a brown ring as the only evidence that it had been there at all.

Colleen pressed the plunger and watched as the bowl filled with the stagnant contents of the toilet tank. Pipes gurgled and knocked. She waited for the tank to refill completely and then flushed again.

In the cabinet beneath the sink, she found a roll of toilet paper and a stack of neatly folded face-cloths. She placed the toilet paper on the counter and took one of the towels from the middle of the stack. She thought about it for a second, took four more, and pressed them into her pockets. She removed a fifth towel and wiped down the toilet seat with it.

A few minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom, having disposed of her bloated and leaking pad and replaced it with one of the face-cloths.

In the living room, Sam tried to get the television to work. The screen displayed only a dim haze of snow. He battered the side of the old beast and tussled with the rabbit ears, and a voice and face emerged from the snow, another grim network newscaster.

“…
dent Nixon is urging Americans to cooperate with local and state law enforcement. Sources close to the President say that tonight’s speech will outline his administration’s ‘plan of attack’ regarding the current situation, in addition to addressing concerns over recent statements by Russian President Nikolai Podgorny that—”

The rabbit-ears tipped backward and rattled to the floor behind the television, and the blizzard returned.

“
Eh,” Sam said, turning off the television. The circle of snow shrank to a small wavering point of light. “We’ll get it working later, come on.”

They followed him out of the house and up the trail.

“
He’s got a few hundred unfinished doors in there,” Sam said, indicating one of the sheds. “Some of them are good, but most of them are no good for anything but a nice big bonfire. We do that sometimes.”

They passed another shed, and Sam droned on about his father’s doors and windows, but Colleen tuned him out. Daniel moved close and tugged her shirt once.

“
What?”

“
How are you?” He asked, giving her his best puppy dog face.

“
I’m fine.”

“
Still mad at me?”

“
What do you think?”

“
I’m sorry, okay,” he said, and she rolled his words over in her mind a few times. Not the words themselves, but the tone in which they were uttered. He sounded like he meant it.

“
Okay,” she said.

“
So what are you going to do?”

“
I already did it.”

“
Did what?”

She nodded toward Sam. “Stole a few facecloths from his bathroom.”

Daniel laughed, and things were okay between them again. Maybe things wouldn’t stay okay between them for long, but they were okay between them for now, and that made her happy. Guy looked back with confusion on his face, and she stepped away from her brother.

“
What’s funny?”

“
Just patching things up with my idiot brother, is all.”

“
He is an idiot,” Guy said. “But that’s good.”

They walked a bit more, and Colleen’s thighs and calves burned. The incline was gradual, but it was taking its toll on her underused leg muscles.

“
Where the hell are we going?” Richard asked, stopping to reach down and massage his right calf. Colleen wasn’t the only one feeling it.

“
Just a little more. I want to show you something.”

A little further along, they came across the first of the doors: thick metal beasts with small glass windows inlaid with wire mesh, rust-spotted and stacked three or four thick and leaning against several of the young redwoods that made up this part of the forest.

“
What’s this about?” Daniel said, stepping up to one of the doors and touching the small window placed into the door at head height. Beneath the window, the number 17, now faded from exposure to the elements, had been painted. “These come from a prison or something?”

“
You’d think so,” Sam said. “I thought the same thing, too, but they’re just from a school. Dad got them cheap, but now they’re rotting out here.”

“
This what you wanted to show us, man?” Daniel said. “Some doors leaning against trees?”

“
No, no,” Sam said. “I mean, yeah, I wanted to show you this, but I really want to show you where I live.”

“
How far is it?”

“
Not much. And when we get there, we’ll tighten our wigs, okay? All of us.”

“
Okay,” Daniel said, sounding less annoyed.

Kimberly looked back at Colleen and, eyebrows raised, mouthed the words: “Tighten our wigs?”

Colleen pinched her thumb and forefinger together before her lips, sucking in her cheeks.

“
Oh, yeah,” Kimberly said. “Good.”

The ground leveled out again, and three small cabins came into view, one in the center, at the end of the road, and one on either side of the path. There was a pick-up truck parked next to the cabin on the left.

Colleen took Guy’s hand and stopped. Kimberly looked back at them, and Colleen waved them on.

“
We’ll catch up.”

“
What’s on your mind?” Guy asked, stroking her cheek.

“
I miss you,” she said, trying to gather together everything that was on her mind and say it in some way that made sense.

“
You want to rest here a little while and then hit the road?” Guy said.

Colleen was momentarily confused, unsure if he meant here, in the middle of the road, or here, at Sam’s father’s place.

“
I don’t know,” She said, after realizing he’d meant the latter. “I don’t think so. I don’t like Sam, but I think we’re safe here for now.”

“
And then we’ll go home.”

“
Home,” she said, and just like that, she needed him. She needed his mouth on hers, his arms around her. She needed to touch him and to be touched by him, and she cursed her body for betraying her with its poorly-timed reliability. She had friends who didn’t let their periods stop them—they’d fuck while lying naked on the grass somewhere or they’d spread a beach towel on the bed, or something, but that wasn’t for her and it wasn’t for him. It hadn’t been for her before, anyhow, but now?

In the face of what was happening, did it make sense that she was suddenly horny? That she wanted to find a clearing somewhere and bloody fuck like her nasty friends or, if Guy refused, simply pin him against a tree somewhere and suck his cock? She needed him inside her, one way or another, needed the comfort of that wet and awkward act to confirm that some things were as they should be, and there was happiness to be found.

“
I can’t stop thinking of Chris, and I want to scream,” he said, and unknowingly shamed her. “He must be so scared. And my mom, God.”

“
Your dad will take care of them.”

“
I know,” he said, his eyes losing focus. He blinked several times, and she saw that he was crying. They pulled each other close and stayed that way until Guy told her that they should catch up.

Daniel and the others were in the clearing, laughing over something. Richard rubbed his calves, and Kimberly was doing squats.

“
Damn good workout,” Guy said.

“
I’m used to it,” Sam said, putting his fists on his hips like Superman.

“
I’m not,” Richard said, sitting down in the dirt.

The curtains in the window of the cabin to their right fluttered. Colleen opened her mouth to say something, and her words became a scream. The door leading into the center cabin burst open, and a man with a shotgun rushed at them.

“
Get down,” he screamed, sweeping the shotgun left and right and kicking Richard in the face. Head low, Sam walked over to the man and stood behind him, pulling the cowboy revolver from his belt. “Get the fuck down, all of you.”

Colleen screamed and Kimberly screamed, and though she held onto Guy, strong hands pried her away and pressed her to the ground. Richard rolled in the dirt, his hands pressed to his face, blood flowing between his fingers.

More men appeared, each brandishing a shotgun, and Colleen screamed and screamed, and someone punched her in the stomach. She tasted dirt and rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.

“
God,” someone screamed. It might have been Guy or it might have been Richard, but it wasn’t Daniel, she knew that much, because she heard him crying. Kimberly’s squeals became pained and inhuman, and their attackers laughed and taunted and roared with animal pleasure.

“
Hold him down,” someone said, and Colleen heard what sounded like the hollow-metal thud.

“
No, no, please—” It sounded like Guy.

“
Why the hell are you—” Daniel.

“…
going to fucking kill you, you son—” It was Guy.

“
Going to what, man?”

“
Whose is he?”

“
Right there.” This sounded like Samson.

Kimberly’s screams crumbled into sharp, muffled gasps, and now someone’s fist balled into Colleen’s hair and wrenched her head back.

“
Open your eyes.” A growl.

“
You’re
going to kill
me
?”

The
whoof
of exhalation that could only come from a blow to the stomach, and still Daniel wept somewhere, between blows.

“
He said open your eyes.” Hot breath in her ears and large hands on her face, fingers prying open her eyes. She jerked her head left and right, thrashing, slamming it backward in the hopes of busting a lip or smashing a nose. No luck, and through the tear-streaked flicker of her eyelids she saw two men pinning Guy to the side of the truck while another knelt before him, a shotgun resting in the dirt beside him.