Rise of the Governor (29 page)

“It's busy out there,” Nick mumbles to no one in particular as he rolls the massive two-wheeler toward the side exit, where a small vertical garage door faces the parking lot along the side of the dealership. He straps on his helmet.

“Element of surprise,” Philip says, pushing his black Harley over to the door. His stomach growls with hunger and nerves as he puts on his helmet. He hasn't eaten in nearly twenty-four hours. None of them has. He shoves the iron rod from the bus into a seam between the handlebars and windscreen (for quick and easy access). “C'mon, punkin, hop on,” he says to Penny, who stands sheepishly nearby with a kiddie helmet on. “Gonna take a little spin, get outta this place.”

Brian helps the child climb up onto the rear seat, a padded perch above the black lacquer luggage compartment. There's a safety belt in one of the side compartments, and Brian snaps it around the little girl's waist. “Don't worry, kiddo,” he says softly to her.

“Gonna head south and then west, y'all,” Philip says as he mounts the iron beast. “Nicky, you follow me.”

“Copy that.”

“Everybody ready?”

Brian goes over to the door and gives a nervous nod. “Ready.”

Philip kicks the Harley to life, the engine howling and filling the dark showroom with noise and fumes. Nick kicks his bike on. The second engine sings a noisy aria in dissonant unison with the first. Philip revs the throttle and gives Brian the high sign.

Brian jacks the manual lock on the door and then throws it open, letting in the wet wind. Philip kicks the gear and takes off.

Brian leaps onto the back of Nick's bike and they blast off after Philip.

*   *   *

“OH SHIT! OH GOD! PHILIP! PHILIP! LOOK DOWN! LOOK DOWN, MAN! PHILIP, LOOK DOWN!”

Brian's frantic wail is muffled by his helmet and drowned by the noise of the cycles.

It happens mere moments after they slam through a mass of Biters choking the intersection, the ragged bodies bouncing off their fenders. After making a hard left turn and zooming south on Water Street, leaving the throngs in their dust and fumes, Brian sees the mangled corpse dragging along the pavement behind Philip's bike.

The bottom half of the thing is torn away, its intestines like electrical wiring flagging in the wind, but the torso still has fight left in it, its moldering head still intact. With its two dead arms, it clings to the rear fenders, and it starts pulling itself up the side of the Harley.

The worst part is, neither Philip nor Penny seem to be aware of it.

“PULL ALONGSIDE HIM! NICK, PULL UP!” Brian screams, his arms clutched around Nick's midsection.

“I'M TRYING!”

At this point, roaring down the deserted, wet side street, the bike hydroplaning on slick pavement, Penny notices the creature stuck to the bike, clawing its way toward her, and she starts screaming. From Brian's vantage point, thirty feet behind her, the child's scream is inaudible—like an exaggerated gesture of a silent-movie actress.

Nick opens up the throttle. His Harley closes the distance.

“GRAB THE BAT!” he screams over the din, and Brian tries to root the baseball bat out from beneath the luggage carrier behind him.

Up ahead, almost without warning, Philip Blake notices the thing attached to the back of his bike. Philip's helmet cocks around quickly as he gropes for his weapon.

By this point, Nick is within five or six feet of the black Harley's taillights, but before Brian can intercede with the bat, he sees Philip drawing the iron rod from its makeshift scabbard on the front of his bike.

With a quick and violent motion, which causes the black Harley to veer slightly off course, Philip twists around in his seat—one-handing the handlebars—and thrusts the hooked end of the metal rod into the zombie's mouth.

The skewered head of the monster gets stuck inches below Penny, the rod wedged between the gleaming exhaust pipes. Philip draws his right leg up and—with the force of a battering ram—he kicks the corpse (rod and all) off the bike. The thing tumbles and rolls, and Nick has to swerve suddenly to avoid it.

Philip increases his speed, staying on course, heading south, not even bothering to look back.

*   *   *

They continue on, zigzagging through the south side of town, avoiding the congested areas. A mile down the road, Philip manages to find another main artery that's relatively clear of wreckage and roaming dead, and he leads them down it. They are now three miles from the Atlanta city limits.

The horizon line is clear, the sky lightening slightly to the west.

They have enough gas to get four hundred miles without refueling.

Whatever awaits them out there in the gray rural countryside has to be better than what they suffered through in Atlanta.

It
has
to be.

 

PART 3

Chaos Theory

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

—Mary Wollstonecraft

 

SEVENTEEN

Around Hartsfield airport, the rain lets up, leaving behind a scoured, metallic sky of low clouds and dismal cold. It feels terrific, however, to get this far in less than an hour. Highway 85 has far less wreckage blocking its lanes than Interstate 20, and the population of dead has thinned considerably. Most roadside buildings are still intact, their windows and doors battened and secured. The stray dead walking about here and there almost seem like part of the landscape now—blending into the skeletal trees like a ghastly fungus infecting the woods. The land itself seems to have turned. The towns
themselves
are dead. Riding through this area leaves one with more of an impression of
desolation
than the end of the world.

The only immediate problem is the fact that every abandoned filling station or truck stop is infested with Biters, and Brian is getting very concerned about Penny. At every pit stop—either to take a leak or to forage for food or water—her face seems more drawn, her tiny little tulip lips more cracked. Brian is worried she's getting dehydrated. Hell, he's worried they're
all
getting dehydrated.

Empty stomachs are one thing (they can go without food for extended lengths of time), but the lack of water is becoming a serious issue.

Ten miles southwest of Hartsfield, as the landscape begins to transition into patchworks of pine forests and soy bean farms, Brian is wondering if they could drink the water from the motorcycles' radiators, when he sees a green directional sign looming up ahead with a blessed message:
REST AREA
—1
MI.
Philip gives them a signal to pull off, and they take the next exit ramp.

As they roar uphill and into the lot, which is bordered by a small wood-framed tourist center, the relief spreads through Brian like a salve: The place is mercifully deserted, free of any signs of the living
or
the dead.

*   *   *

“What really happened back there, Philip?” Brian sits on a picnic table situated on a small promontory of grass behind the rest area shack. Philip paces, sucking down a bottle of Evian that he wrested from a broken vending machine. Nick and Penny are fifty yards away, still within view. Nick is gently spinning Penny on a ramshackle old merry-go-round under a diseased live oak. The girl just sits on the thing, joylessly, like a gargoyle, staring straight out as she turns and turns and turns.

“I told you once already to give that a rest,” Philip grumbles.

“I think you like owe me an answer.”

“I don't owe you shit.”

“Something happened that night,” Brian persists. He isn't afraid of his brother anymore. He knows Philip could beat the shit out of him at any moment—the potential for violence between the Blakes seems more imminent now than ever—but Brian doesn't care anymore. Something deep within Brian Blake has shifted like a seismic plate changing with the landscape. If Philip wants to wring Brian's throat, so be it. “Something between you and April?”

Philip gets very still and looks down. “What the fuck difference does it make?”

“It makes a big difference—it does to
me
. Our lives are on the line here. We had a pretty fair chance of surviving back there at that place, and then, just like that … poof?”

Philip looks up. His eyes fix themselves on his brother, and something very dark passes between the two men. “Drop it, Brian.”

“Just tell me one thing. You seemed so hell-bent to get outta there—do you have a plan?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Do you have, like, a strategy? Any idea where the hell we're headed?”

“What are you, a fuckin' tour guide?”

“What if the Biters get thick again? We basically got a piece of wood to fight 'em with.”

“We'll find something else.”

“Where are we going, Philip?”

Philip turns away and lifts the collar of his leather bomber, staring out at the ribbon of pavement snaking off into the western horizon. “Another month or so, winter's gonna set in. I'm thinking we stay moving, heading southwest … toward the Mississippi.”

“Where's that gonna get us?”

“It's the easiest way to go south.”

“And?”

Philip turns and looks at Brian, a mixture of purpose and anguish crossing Philip's deeply lined face, as though he doesn't really believe what he's saying. “We'll find a place to live—long-term—in the sun. Someplace like Mobile or Biloxi. New Orleans, maybe … I don't know. Someplace warm. And we'll live there.”

Brian lets out an exhausted sigh. “Sounds so easy. Just head south.”

“You got a better plan, I'm all ears.”

“Long-term plans are like a luxury I haven't even thought about.”

“We'll make it.”

“We gotta find some food, Philip. I'm really worried about Penny getting some nourishment.”

“You let me do the worrying about my daughter.”

“She won't even eat a Twinkie. You believe that? A kid who doesn't want a Twinkie.”

“Cockroach food.” Philip grunts. “Can't say I blame her. We'll find something. She's gonna be okay. She's a tough little thing … like her mother.”

Brian can't argue with that. Lately, the little girl has shown miraculous spirit. In fact, Brian has started wondering whether Penny might actually be the glue that's holding them all together, keeping them from self-destructing.

He glances across the rest area and sees Penny Blake dreamily spinning on that rusty merry-go-round in the little scabrous playground area. Nick has lost his enthusiasm for turning it and now just gives it little incremental nudges with his boot.

Beyond the playground, the land rises up to an overgrown wooded knoll, where a small windswept cemetery sits in the pale sun.

Brian notices that Penny is talking to Nick, grilling him about something. Brian wonders what the two of them are talking about that has the girl looking so worried.

*   *   *

“Uncle Nick?” Penny's little face is tight with concern as she slowly turns on the merry-go-round. She has called Nick “Uncle” for years, even though she knows very well he is not her real uncle. The affectation has always given Nick a secret twinge of longing—the desire to be somebody's
real
uncle.

“Yes, honey?” A leaden feeling of doom presses down on Nick Parsons as he absently pushes Penny on the merry-go-round. He can see the Blake brothers in his peripheral vision, arguing about something.

“Is my dad mad at me?” the little girl asks.

Nick does a double take. Penny looks down as she slowly spins. Nick measures his words. “Of course not. He's not mad at you. Whaddaya mean? Why would you even think that?”

“He don't talk to me as much as he used to.”

Nick gently pulls the merry-go-round to a stop. The little girl jerks slightly back against the bar. Nick tenderly pats her on the shoulder. “Listen. I promise you. Your daddy loves you more than anything else in the world.”

“I know.”

“He's under a lot of pressure. That's all.”

“You don't think he's mad at me?”

“No way. He loves you something fierce, Penny. Believe me. He's just … under a lot of pressure.”

“Yeah … I guess so.”

“We all are.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm sure
none
of us have been talking all that much lately.”

“Uncle Nick?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Do you think Uncle Brian's mad at me?”

“God, no. Why would Uncle Brian be mad at you?”

“Maybe 'cause he's gotta carry me all the time?”

Nick smiles sadly. He studies the look on the girl's face, her little brow all furrowed with seriousness. He strokes her cheek. “Listen to me. You are the bravest little girl I ever met. I mean that. You are a Blake girl … and that's something to be proud of.”

She thinks about this and smiles. “You know what I'm gonna do?”

“No, honey. Tell me.”

“I'm gonna fix all them broken dolls. You'll see. I'm gonna fix 'em.”

Nick grins at her. “That sounds like a plan.”

The little girl's smile is something that Nick Parson's wondered if he would ever see again.

*   *   *

A moment later, on the other side of the rest area, among the picnic tables, Brian Blake sees something out of the corner of his eye. A hundred yards away, beyond the playground, amid the crumbling headstones, long-faded markers, and tattered plastic flowers, something moves.

Brian locks his gaze on three distant figures emerging from the shadows of the trees. Shuffling along in haphazard formation, they approach like lazy bloodhounds smelling the kill. It's hard to tell at this distance but they look as though their clothes have been fed through a reaper, their mouths hanging open in perpetual torment.