The Walking Dead (14 page)

They hurry out of the switchyard.

*   *   *

A row of boarded storefronts and burned-out buildings stretches down a perpendicular cobblestone road.

They move quickly along, staying tight under a row of awnings on the south side of the street, their shoulders brushing graffiti-stained doors and Rust-Oleum-flecked windows. The dusk is closing in and shadows are lengthening, burying them in gloom.

The sense of being surrounded is overwhelming, although at the moment they don’t see any creatures, just a long corridor of shitty, obsolete businesses once serving this corroded, forsaken part of Atlanta’s outskirts: pawnshops, currency exchanges, bail bondsmen, auto parts places, taverns, and junk shops.

As they move along the scarred storefronts, huffing and puffing with the weight of their loads, not daring to speak or make any unnecessary noise, the urgency of getting inside somewhere begins to work on them. Night is falling again, and this place will be the dark side of the moon in less than an hour. They have no map, no GPS, no compass, no sense of where they are other than the misty landmark of the skyline miles to the west.

Brian feels the anxiety on the back of his neck like a cold finger.

They turn a corner.

Brian sees the mechanic’s shop first, but Philip sees it a split second later and motions toward it with a nod. “Up there on the corner, see it?”

Nick sees it now. “Yeah, yeah … looks good.”

It does
indeed
look good: On the southwest corner of a deserted intersection one block away, Donlevy’s Autobody and Repair appears to be the only business in this godforsaken area that has any life still in it—although it currently appears closed for the season.

They hasten toward the building.

As they approach, they see that the half-acre lot is recently repaved. The two islands of gas pumps out front, clean and apparently operational, sit under a giant Chevron sign. The building itself—lined with columns of new tires, fronted on one side by a pair of massive double garage doors—is a gleaming slab of silver metal siding and reinforced glass. There’s even a second floor, housing either an office or more retail space.

Philip leads them around back. The rear of the place is tidy, with newly painted garbage Dumpsters shoved up against the cinder-block back wall. They search for a door or window but find neither.

“What about the front door?” Brian says in a breathless whisper as they pause next to the Dumpsters. They can hear the congregation coming down the street, the shuffling, groaning chorus of fifty-plus zombies.

“I’m sure it’s locked,” Philip says, his gaunt, hard face shiny from the labors of carrying his daughter and his duffel. Penny is compulsively, nervously sucking her thumb against his shoulder.

“How do you know?”

Philip shrugs. “Guess it’s worth a try.”

They creep around the far side of the building, and they stay in the shadows under the Chevron awning, as Philip sets Penny and duffel down and hurries up to the entrance door. He yanks the handle.

It’s open.

EIGHT

They huddle for some time inside the repair center’s front office, under the cashier’s counter, next to a spinner rack of candy bars and potato chips.

Philip locks the door and crouches next to the others in the shadows, watching the parade of undead out on the street, passing by the shop, oblivious to the whereabouts of their prey, stupidly scanning with their button eyes like dogs hearing high-pitched whistles.

From this vantage point, gazing through the meshed, reinforced windows, Brian gets a chance to scrutinize the dead clergy and ragged parishioners as they awkwardly promenade past the service station. How did this church full of true believers turn en masse? Did they gather as frightened Christians after the plague had broken out, cleaving to each other for succor and comfort? Did they hear fire-and-brimstone sermons from the preachers about the Revelation to John? Did the pastors furiously cant warning parables: “‘And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit!’”

And how did the first one turn? Was it somebody in a back pew having a heart attack? Was it a ritual suicide? Brian imagines one of those old black ladies—her system clogged with cholesterol, her plump, gloved hands waving with the spirit—suddenly clutching her massive bosom at the first twinge of a coronary. And minutes later—maybe in an hour or so—the woman rises, her porcine face full of a
new religion,
a singular, savage faith.

“Fucking Holy Rollers,” Philip grumbles from across the cashier’s counter. Then he turns to Penny and swallows contritely. “Sorry for the language, punkin.”

*   *   *

They explore the repair center. The place is spotless and secure, cold but clean, the floors swept, the shelves well ordered, the cool air redolent with the odors of new rubber and the vaguely pleasant chemical fragrance of fuels and fluids. They realize they can stay here for the night, but it is not until they investigate the large repair garage that they make their most fortuitous discovery.

“Holy crap, it’s a tank,” Brian says, standing on the cold cement, shining a flashlight at the black beauty parked under canvas tarps in one corner.

The others gather around the sole vehicle standing in the darkness. Philip whips off the tarp. It’s a late-model Cadillac Escalade in cherry condition, its onyx finish gleaming in the yellow light.

“Probably belonged to the owner,” Nick ventures.

“Christmas comes early,” Philip says, kicking one of the massive tires with his muddy work boot. The luxury SUV is enormous, with huge molded bumpers, giant vertical headlights, and big, shiny chrome wheels. It looks like the kind of vehicle a secret government agency would have in its fleet, the sinister tinted windows reflecting the bloom of the flashlight back at them.

“There’s nobody inside it, right?” Brian shines the beam off the opaque glass.

Philip pulls the .22 from his belt, clicks a door open, and points the muzzle in at the empty, showroom-clean interior, with its wood trim, leather seats, and console that looks like a control center for an airliner.

Philip says, “Bet you a dollar to a doughnut there’s keys in a drawer somewhere.”

*   *   *

The whole incident with the cop and the church seems to have pushed Penny into a deeper stupor. She sleeps that night curled into a fetal ball on the floor of the repair area, covered in blankets, her thumb in her mouth.

“Haven’t seen her do that in a coon’s age,” Philip remarks nearby, sitting on his bedroll with the last of the whiskey. He wears a sleeveless T-shirt and filthy jeans, his boots sitting next to him. He takes a sip and wipes his mouth.

“Do what?” Brian is sitting cross-legged, bundled in his blood-spattered coat, on the other side of the little girl, careful not to speak too loudly. Nick dozes over by a workbench, zipped in a sleeping bag. The temperature has plunged into the forties.

“Suck her thumb like that,” Philip says.

“She’s dealing with a lot.”

“We all are.”

“Yeah.” Brian stares into his lap. “We’ll make it, though.”

“Make it where?”

Brian looks up. “The refugee center. Wherever it is … we’ll find it.”

“Yeah, sure.” Philip kills the rest of the bottle and sets it down. “We’ll find the place and the sun’ll come out tomorrow and all the orphans will find good homes and the Braves will win the fucking pennant.”

“Something bothering you?”

Philip shakes his head. “Jesus Christ, Brian, open your eyes.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Philip stands and stretches his sore neck. “Now why the fuck would I be mad at
you,
sport? It’s business as usual. No big deal.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing … just get some sleep.” Philip walks over to the Escalade, kneels down, and looks under the chassis for something.

Brian climbs to his feet, his heart racing. He feels dizzy. His sore throat is better, and he stopped coughing after a few days of rest and rejuvenation in the Wiltshire house, but he still does not feel a hundred percent. Who does? He goes over and stands behind his brother. “What do you mean by ‘business as usual’?”

“It is what it is,” Philip mutters, checking the SUV’s underbelly.

“You’re mad about the cop,” Brian says.

Philip stands up slowly, turns, and comes face-to-face with his brother. “I said go to sleep.”

“Maybe I have a harder time shooting something that was once human—so sue me.”

Philip grabs Brian by the nape of the T-shirt, spins him around, and slams him back against the side of the Escalade. The impact nearly knocks the breath out of Brian, and the noise wakes up Nick, and it even makes Penny stir. “You listen to me,” Philip growls in a threatening, husky voice that’s both sober and drunk at the same time. “Next time you take a gun from me, you make sure you’re ready to put it to good use. That cop was harmless, but who knows about next time, and I ain’t gonna be the one babysitting you with nothin’ but my gonads in my hand, you understand? You read me?”

Brian is nodding, his throat dry with terror. “Yes.”

Philip increases the pressure on Brian’s shirt. “You better get past your namby-pamby bullshit sheltered life and start carrying your weight around here and stoving some heads in because it sure as hell is gonna get worse before it gets better!”

“I understand,” Brian says.

Philip doesn’t let go, his eyes glinting with rage. “We’re gonna survive this thing, and we’re gonna do it by being bigger monsters than they are! You understand? There ain’t no rules anymore! There ain’t no philosophy, there ain’t no grace, there ain’t no mercy, there’s only us and them, and all they wanna do is
eat
our ass! So we’re gonna fucking eat
them
! We’re gonna chew ’em up and spit ’em out, and we’re gonna survive this thing or I will blow a hole through this whole fucked-up world! You follow me? You FOLLOW ME!”

Brian nods like crazy.

Philip lets him go and walks away.

By this point Nick is awake and sitting up, and staring agape.

Penny’s eyes are wide and she furiously sucks her thumb, watching her father storm across the repair floor. He walks over to the massive reinforced garage doors, pauses, and stares out at the night though the slatted burglar bars, his big gnarly fists clenched.

Across the floor, still pinned against the side of the Escalade, Brian Blake wages a silent battle to keep from crying like a namby-pamby-bullshit-sheltered-baby.

*   *   *

The next morning, in the lambent daylight filtering into the shop, they hurry through a breakfast of cereal bars and bottled water, and then pour the contents of three five-gallon jugs of gas into the Escalade’s tank. They find the keys in a drawer in the office, and they pack all their belongings in the SUV’s cargo area. The tinted windows are fogged with condensation from the cold. Brian and Penny settle into the backseat while Nick stands at the garage door awaiting Philip’s signal. Since the power is down—seemingly everywhere now—they are forced to spring the manual latch on the automated door opener.

Now Philip climbs behind the wheel of the Escalade and fires it up. The huge six-point-two-liter V-8 hums. The console lights up. Philip jacks it into gear and edges forward, giving Nick the signal.

Nick yanks the closest garage door, and the casters squeak, as the thing rises on its tracks. The light and air of the day explode through the windshield, as Nick hustles around to the passenger side door and climbs into the shotgun seat. The door slams.

Philip pauses for a moment, looking down at the dash.

“What’s the matter?” Nick says in a shaky voice, still a little nervous about questioning anything Philip does. “Shouldn’t we maybe get moving?”

“One second,” Philip says, reaching down to a pull-out drawer.

Inside a spring-loaded map case he finds about two dozen CDs, neatly organized by the former owner—Calvin R. Donlevy of 601 Greencove Lane S.E. (according to the registration in the glove box). “Here we go,” Philip says, rifling through the discs. Calvin R. Donlevy of Greencove Lane is apparently a lover of classic rock, judging by all the Zeppelin, Sabbath, and Hendrix in his collection. “A little somethin’ to help with the concentration.”

All at once a Cheap Trick disc goes in and Philip puts the hammer down.

The gravitational thrust of four hundred fifty horses pushes them against the seats, as the wide-body Escalade blasts off through the opening, barely making it through the gap without sideswiping the metal trusses. Daylight floods the interior. The buzz-saw guitar intro of the party anthem “Hello There” leaps out of the Bose 5.1 surround sound system, as they boom across the lot and into the street.

Cheap Trick’s lead singer asks if all the ladies and gentlemen are ready to rock.

Philip roars around the corner and heads north on Maynard Terrace. The street widens. Lower-income homes blur by on either side of the vehicle. A wandering zombie in a torn raincoat looms off to the right, and Philip veers toward the thing.