The First Days: As the World Dies (15 page)

1. Other Voices

    

    Juan sat in a chair in the Mayor's office, slumped down, hands folded on his flat stomach, twiddling his thumbs, and seriously considering going and smacking Jenni a few times. Yeah, she was hot. Way hotter than the blond chick, but she had been a fucking annoyance ever since Travis and the blond had rode into the sunset together.

    It had only gotten worse when Jenni heard that Katie was very sick and Travis was worried the zombie blood and guts on the trucks lining the perimeter had contaminated her. Jenni had become downright hysterical at that news.

    "I have to go to her! I have to! I'm her best friend, don't you see! We're sisters now!"

    Juan had to pry Jenni's fingers off the Mayor's shirt and had helped Jason carry her out of the communication center so that they could actually hear what Travis was saying over the CB. Jenni had fallen apart completely as soon as they laid her down on her cot. As far as he knew, she was still there with her son watching over her.

    He studied his thumb for a moment. He had accidentally chopped the tip off on another construction site years ago. Every once and awhile it would start throbbing. He often looked at its mutilated nail and gnarled skin when he was nervous. He was a nail biter by nature, and that deformed, bizarre half nail called to him.

    Just as he stuck the tip of his finger in his mouth, he was delivered a deft smack across the back of his head.

    "Don't do that. You look like a baby." His mother, Rosario, Rosie for short, stood in the doorway next to him. She was a very tiny woman with dark gray hair and very pale amber eyes. They were very sad eyes, the eyes of a woman who had lost her husband just recently to cancer.

    "Sorry, Mom."

    "Where's the Mayor? I have that list for him."

    "Not sure. He told me to wait here."

    Rosie sighed and held the clipboard tightly to her chest. Juan had lived in the small town all his life. Well, except for the two years he had lived in Houston with his "big, black, beautiful" wife, Candace. But that marriage had failed when he had moved back home to be with his dad in his final years of life. Candace couldn't take the small town living and he couldn't blame her.

    They parted friends and he still talked to her every other day.

    Candace…where was she? Was she okay?

    He took off his cowboy hat and ran a hand over his hair to smooth it. It was long and curly and the heat had it frizzing terribly. He shoved the hat back on and frowned.

    "I have the list of all the people in the fort just like the Mayor asked,"

    Rosie said and sat down next to him.

    "Let me see." He took the clipboard and read over the names. Since he both worked on the site and was from the town, he knew just about everyone on the list. Forty-two names, including Travis and Katie, who technically weren't in the fort anymore. Fifteen construction workers, five city workers, That left twenty civilians, mostly family members of local construction workers or the city workers. Well, excluding Chuck the truck driver and Jenni and Jason. And the dog.

    He liked the dog.

    "It's sad we don't have more people here," he sighed and handed it back.

    "Well, the way I see it, people went to where they thought it was safe and where they could stay with their families. My family was here, so I came here."

    Juan smiled at his mom and leaned over and kissed her cheek. She gave him a pat on the back of his hand.

    "We're a diverse group," Rosie said after a moment. "Statistically, it came out just like the town population. Sixty percent under the age of sixtytwo, forty percent over sixty-two. Forty percent white, forty percent Hispanic, twenty-five percent black and five percent other."

    "What the hell is other anyway?" Juan snorted with a smirk.

    "Raymond Gutierrez is actually Navajo Indian." Rosie gave him a wide smile. "Now, where do we put the dog? Do we add him as other, because he is another species or as white, since he's German." She sighed slightly.

    "Though the demographic between men and women is really off. Women only make up thirty percent of those here."

    "Guess I won't be dating any time soon," he said with a grin.

    "It's just sad that we were so ill prepared. The city can only plan for things that seem plausible." She waved a hand. "Zombies have never been a part of city planning."

    "You were city secretary way too long, Mom," Juan decided. Her head was always full of facts and figures on the town population. "This isn't your fault. No one could have planned for this."

    The present city secretary strolled in just then. Peggy was her name and Juan liked her. She was a late in life mother and her small six-year-old pressed against one leg as she moved. He couldn't blame the kid for clinging to his mom. Lord knows he had wanted to cling to Rosie a few times.

    Behind Peggy came Tobias, the city manager, and a tall black man in his late fifties. The Mayor, real name Manny Reyes, filed in last. He looked tired and worn around the edges. He moved over to his desk and sat down. All his Spanish blood made him fair and very "gringo", but he loved Tequila as much as Juan did. But whereas Juan knew what the hell was up, the Mayor did not.

    Manny was way too centered on being logical and finding exact answers.

    Juan knew that what was going on was not that easy to fit into a neat little box Manny could understand.

    Tobias sat down in a chair, his brow furrowed, his gaze distant. His wife was in the fort. Juan had seen her name on the list, but Tobias’ children and grandchildren lived in the town. They were not on the list.

    Curtis, looking pale and very tired, walked in and took a seat near the door. Juan felt bad for him. The rookie on the force was the last man standing. It couldn't be easy on him.

    The Mayor leaned back in his chair and his fingers picked up a pen from his desktop. He studied it and looked up. "Well, I called all of you in here to talk about the present situation. Peggy, are you sure you want Cody in here for this?”

    Peggy gently tried to pry her child off her and he only grabbed on tighter. "He won't budge."

    The Mayor nodded. "Okay. Anyway, Travis says Katie still has a fierce fever. He told me in no uncertain terms he plans to stay until she's better or if she is infected to make sure she is at peace."

    "He has it bad for her. Too bad she's gay," Juan said grumpily. Travis was his best friend, but had this bad tendency to fall for unattainable women.

    His mother smacked him upside the head and he knew he deserved it.

    The Mayor blinked. "Oh, then Jenni…" He sat still for a moment, his fingers twisting the pen. "Oh, that makes sense now. How's she acting? " He shrugged. "Anyway, we need to prepare for their return."

    Tobias slapped the palms of his hands against his knees and leaned forward. "How do we do that? The infected are filling that street. Most of our townspeople are out there. What we need to do is get ahold of the army and get them out here to treat those people!"

    "They're dead. You can't treat them," Juan said. He couldn't believe they were still having this conversation after all this time. Some people took denial way too far.

    "That is a ridiculous statement. The dead do not just get up, become rabid and attack people. It has to be a virus like the CDC said in the beginning of all of this," Tobias said firmly.

    "They can't be alive," Curtis said softly from near the door.

    "And why do you say that?" Tobias settled a fierce look on him.

    Curtis shrank under it, but answered, "Because some of them are dragging their innards on the road."

    "Adrenaline does strange things to people. If they have large amounts coursing their system like the CDC said in the-"

    "CDC took it back and called them reanimated dead," the Mayor pointed out.

    "Which is a fancy term for zombies. We are dealing with zombies. You know the living dead. They want to eat us. I thought we all knew that by now." Juan shook his head and folded his arms over his chest. People were so stupid.

    "I do not believe we should give into hysteria and superstition," Tobias responded.

    The city secretary's kid started to cry, loud and desperate and she tried to shush him.

    "Daddy tried to eat us! He kept banging on the window!" The boy was near hysteria. "His guts were hanging out!"

    Tobias flinched and said, "Now, son, maybe you shouldn't be in here."

    "He's in this, too, Toby," Rosie said softly. "You can't shield a child from this."

    Peggy snuggled her son up to her and kissed him on the forehead. He continued to cry softly, his tiny body shivering.

    Curtis sat in the corner, hunched in on himself with his arms folded high on his chest. "Let's get back on topic. We need the guns. We can't keep killing them with spears."

    "Yeah, blades aren't much help with these kinds of zombies," Juan said grimly. "The handbook did not have these running zombies in it. This is a whole other ballgame, but the basics are the same. We need to make this place as safe as possible and think before we act. We missed out on the whole being prepared thing, so we gotta do the best we can now."

    "How do we figure out how to get Travis back in, that is the question," the Mayor said softly.

    "Travis suggested we find out what everyone's skills are and figure out how to use them," Rosie said. "Maybe someone on this list has the experience we need to figure that out."

    "Like someone has experience with zombies," Curtis muttered.

    "The infected people out there deserve better than to be murdered and run down. I do not think murder should be an option to any plan we implement," Tobias declared. "We have been murderers for days now."

    "They are not infected!" Curtis voice almost sounded shrill. "They are eating people, Tobias!"

    Tobias' eyes were swimming with tears, but he fought to keep his voice steady. "My family needs help. Not to be butchered!"

    "They were already butchered! They are dead!" Curtis' face seemed younger now that he seemed close to cracking.

    Juan stood up and tried to break some of the tension. "Look. We got construction equipment. We got that much. Now we need to get creative."

    "Build a corral," the little one said.

    Juan looked at him for a second. "Huh, kid?"

    "His name is Cody," Peggy said softly.

    "Build a corral. Like I do with my Lego's. When Daddy and I…" He started to blubber, but pushed on, "played with my cowboys and my Lego's, we built corrals for the cows."

    The Mayor looked at Juan. "A corral?"

    "Fuck me," Juan said and took a step back.

    "Juan!"

    "Sorry, Mom. I think we can actually do that…yeah…from the mouth of babes…from the mouth of babes!"

    Juan didn't even wait to talk this out. He just headed out the door.

    Loca was standing near the door, spying of course.

    "I want to help," Jenni said, her big dark eyes so beautiful and so nuts.

    "No."

    "I can help!" She rushed after him.

    "You're loca."

    "Maybe, but I can still help. I have to help!"

    She grabbed his arm and they stared at each other for a long moment.

    She was nuts, yeah, but she looked determined.

    "How?"

    "I used to play with my kids with Lego's all the time and build all sorts of-"

    "We're not using Lego's," Juan pointed out.

    Now the Mayor, Curtis, his Mom, Tobias and Peggy and her kid were pooling around them.

    "Yeah, I know that!" Jenni stomped her foot. "I'm saying that I know how to make plans to make things work a certain way. My kids and I built entire cities with Lego's"

    "Me, too," Cody said.

    Juan looked at both of them.

    The Mayor was still twisting his pen in his hands. "Listen to what they have to say. It won't hurt."

    Juan hesitated. Well, he actually wasn't sure how he would build a corral, was he?

    "Okay, fine."

    "I have some Lego's!" Cody ran down the hall.

    "It won't hurt," Peggy said to Juan.

    Juan looked at everyone gathered around him. They were all loco, he decided. Hell, the world was loco. And for some reason, this made him smile.

    "Fine, fine, the kid has a good idea."

    An hour later, on a conference table, Jenni and Cody had constructed the fort with its wall and its buildings and the surrounding streets. The older kid with the hair hanging in his face had come in with the dog and started to help out. Juan just sat there, flipping through a magazine, not really paying attention.

    "So the zombies are all here," Jenni said and put tiny little Lego men in front of the wall and into the street the truck had run out of gas on.

    Curtis wandered in and looked it over. "They are all in the front, spread across from here to here."

    "It's like they feel that is our weakest point," the older kid said and the dog whined.

    Cody, looking more like a little kid than a scared rabbit now, picked up several blocks of Lego's that he had attached together and made a big noise as he dropped it down between two buildings. He made very effective sound effects of the zombies being crushed. Now that he was playing, he was having as much fun as a little boy can with his toys.

    Juan leaned forward watching the kid, then glanced up at Curtis. Curtis lifted his eyebrows.

    Cody picked up another stack of Lego's and dropped it down between two other buildings. Now all the fake little zombies were trapped between the first line of defense and two large barriers hemming them into a t-shaped area.