This Dark Earth (19 page)

The captain has woken up
. The thought skittered crazily in her head and then was gone.

He gibbered a little—or maybe that was her, trying to scream—and bit deeply into her neck. It was pain unlike she’d ever known before, blossoming outward. She could feel the tendons stretching and then ripping and the blood coming now, hot, down her chest, darkening her skin and spilling between her breasts.

The captain jerked her roughly back, into his lap, and worked his head back and forth like a lover nuzzling his beloved, but with hideous strength and gnashing teeth. Blackness pushed in around the edges and everything was going
away when there was a tremendous boom and a flash of light and the captain’s head rocked back, taking more of her flesh with it. His mouth fell open, and something dropped from the bloody maw. A piece of herself.

She couldn’t scream; that part of her throat where speech came from was gone now. Tessa raised her eyes and looked into the smoking bore of the pistol that loomed at her like the mouth of a well. Beyond the pistol, the boy’s face swam into focus, framed with smoke, frowning. His eyes were gray, Tessa saw, and his cheeks were smooth and fair.

She closed her eyes.

Cass. She could see her standing in the sun, radiant.

The captain was dead. Hugh Mozark was dead.

“Holy shit.” That was the man.

“We’ve got to stop the blood—” The doctor’s voice was strained and panicked. Tessa hoped the boy knew what to do. He was a smart boy. She prayed he’d know what to do.

Tessa opened her eyes one last time.

Then there was another flash, and a boom, and her pain disappeared and she felt herself pitch forward, into the well, and she fell into darkness.

They buried the
captain in the median of 540 the next morning. A chaplain as well as an officer, Wallis said some words and commended young Gus on his vigilance. Then Wallis recited a short verse from memory. The men remained subdued, casting furtive glances at the doctor, her companion, and the strange boy.

On Jasper’s insistence, they placed Tessa’s body in the grave with Mozark.

“She was a good girl. A real good girl. She should sleep with the captain. For company,” Jasper said. “They can keep each other company.”

Keb groaned and began shoveling dirt onto the dead. Jasper joined him, tears streaming down his face.

“What you crying for, you stupid motherfucker?”

“I’m sad, Keb.”

“Sad?” Keb jabbed his shovel into the mound of dirt and leaned against it. “That skeeze killed the captain. Why you blubbering for her?”

“I’m sorry she died. She was a good girl.”

“Goddamn, you as dumb as they come. She was a ho.”

“Don’t talk like that about her.” Jasper’s face turned red. “She did what she needed to do to survive, man. That’s all. Same as you. Same as me.”

Keb sniffed, shook his head, and began to shovel dirt into the grave.

The doctor and her burly companion stood by the grave long after the men had returned to the Bradleys and begun to strike camp. The sun rose over the tree line, casting long shadows behind them on the dewy ground, and for the moment, the only dead within sight were those at their feet.

Slowly, Lucy’s hand reached out and took Knock-Out’s. They didn’t look at each other, but their bodies grew closer until they were leaning against each other.

The boy stood a little ways apart from them, staring into the distance.

“What’re you looking at, kiddo?”

Gus turned and smiled at his mother. His eyes flicked over her, over Knock-Out, taking in their clasped hands.

He turned back to where he’d been looking and pointed.

“See that bridge?”

In the distance was an overpass long devoid of traffic. Weeds grew high in the cracks of the asphalt, and at the interstate’s edge, saplings rose and stirred in the slight morning breeze.

“Yes. Sure. I see it.”

Knock-Out said, “What about it?”

“We need to talk to the lieutenant. I’ve got an idea.”

Gus turned and walked back up the interstate toward the camp.

Lucy and Knock-Out put their heads together and then turned to follow the boy.

The world loves the tomato because it is red. The apple is red too. But the tomato’s flesh is the flesh of mankind.

Do the dead love the flesh of man because it is like a tomato? We’ll never know. But I have my suspicions.

Not working the
Garden today. Working the Wall. Five of us on the south side of the Bridge and five on the north, manning the murderholes. A cush detail, the South Gate, if you’ve got to man the Wall. Cush is relative, I guess. On the north side you’ve got what’s left of Tulaville, Arkansas. Population zero. Living, that is. Beyond that, the interstate.

South, you’ve got migrant zombies from Little Rock and Hot Springs and even Pine Bluff. A little more traffic, but it comes in spurts. Not too much trouble manning the murderholes on either side.

And
man
is the right word. Most women don’t chip in on the zombie disposal units, except for Sarah. Barb Dinews sometimes. They prefer scavenge units, which I’m not old enough for yet, even though I’m the tallest man here except for Jasper. But he’s freak-show large.

Only fifteen or twenty women in all of Bridge City, so it
makes sense, I guess, having so few on the Wall. They work the Kitchens and the Garden usually, grow tomatoes and basil and squash and cabbages and cucumbers. Shoot crows and seagulls and whatever other flying creatures pass overhead, looking for food.

Always a line of men waiting to help the women, to tote and carry, fetch water, and just be near them. Reminds me of dreams. Dreams of school. Boys and girls. Recess.

“We’ve got a damily, ten o’clock.” Blevens. Hurt his leg on the last scavenging trip, resigned himself to working the Wall, but not without a lot of bitching.

Damily: a little undead foursome (or moresome) that clings together. Scary, really, that they group like that—two adults, two children, all dead, coming for us. Almost as if there’s something in them that they remember about being human.

This damily is a nuclear damily—one zombie charred beyond recognition.

Nuclear damilies are the worst. You get the stink of the dead
and
old charred meat smell.

A twofer. I think that’s what they used to call it.

Today, the damily shambles up and joins the twenty or thirty others gurgling and moaning. The smell is bad, but the sound is worse: gargling, moaning, gibbering, glugging, clicking, slobbering. Nasty things, always hungry and totally without table manners.

We would set the table, years ago. Fork on the left, knife on the right. Napkin left. Glass left.

Now I have a bowie knife on the left hip.

“You think we can take out this bunch now? We’re gonna
be at about capacity,” says Ellroy. That’s what all the men call him, but his name is Montfredi. They say he looks like a cartoon character, but I don’t remember the character, or even the cartoon. I think. Years since I’ve seen a television with electricity running in it.

Working on something that might change that. I remember liking TV.

Blevens waddles up to the outer rampart, favoring his injured leg, looks out at the group of zombies trying to get in. Wrinkles his nose, sniffs, and then gives a nod.

“Let ’em in. There’s another damily on the highway. We’ll take care of these poor fuckers and leave them out here to gobble.”

Me and Lindy move to the inset gates. No winches, the steel plates would be unmovable. As thick as my pinkie, they weigh almost five hundred pounds each, taken from the nearby foundry. I hate the weight, and the sharp steel edges can cut to the bone, but it’s better than the plywood and tin stuff we had before. Too flimsy. Sounded like a drumhead when the zeds really started pounding.

Winch back the gates and the zombies shamble into the murderhole. They don’t notice when we move the gates back into place behind them, lock them down with pins, and pick up cudgels.

I like a weighted ax handle for wet work. Lindy’s partial to a Louisville Slugger, its business end full of screws and bent-over nails. Used to have the nails sticking out, but they kept getting caught in the craniums, and when the brain-crushed zombies fell down, they nearly pulled him off the ramparts.

The murderhole is a twenty-by-twenty space between the inner and outer gates, ringed by a walkway about six feet above the ground and connected to the rampart. The zombies’ heads are right at our feet level.

This was all my idea. Some days I’m not too happy about it. Messy business, life. Unlife. Death.

Smashing skulls while the dead try to grab your feet is definitely an art. The dead dead slump to the ground, and the living dead stand on them. So smashing skulls gets easier but more dangerous as you go along.

This is why we’re all sweating our asses off in motorcycle armor.

Takes somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour to smash all their skulls. Lindy and me are dripping at the end, and Ellroy brings us water while Frazier and Blevens—our elders—watch.

Spring has sprung, they say. Think of it like a revenant. Eventually it’ll change, unless something is done. It’ll change. Seasons are like that.

“Hotter than shit out here, boys.”

“Least we don’t have to worry ’bout global warming anymore.”

It’s hot. Feels like we do.

I was a kid, someone told me it was cow and pig shit and the methane from the shit that caused global warming. I laughed—it was so silly. But then the dead rose. So anything is possible. On a summer day, when there’s forty, fifty of them banging on the gate, pushing to get in, to eat you . . . well . . . you can see the stink. You can see the gas
rising from their bodies. Don’t see why they shouldn’t be like cow shit.

Question is, why don’t they rot away? It’s been three years now. Why haven’t they rotted into nothing?

I should ask Mom, but I doubt she could answer. Hell, Knock-Out could give me just as good of an answer, really. Her answers are always missing something. His answers don’t make sense, but they feel better. And the baby? Well, it’s nice having some family. Wish she could watch TV like I used to.

I plan to give Ellie that. Television.

Blevens opens the inner gate and begins to double-smash all the skulls. I drop down, pull on my smock, the rubber gloves, and grab the ones he’s double-smashed. You can’t be too careful. Everyone has a headknocker in their belt and a pistol on their hip. Pistols are a last resort. The noise makes the zeds flock something fierce.

As fierce as the grave. They used to say that at weddings, I think.

No weddings anymore. Not enough women. Or maybe nobody’s falling in love anymore.

Teeth first. It’s horrible, looking into undead mouths, seeing the flesh hanging from black molars, but the metal, the gold and silver, are needed in Engineering, or so Joblownski says. Sometimes you have to smash a jaw with a hammer, just to loosen stuff up, and then pull out the goodies with pliers.

The naked zeds go right over the wall, into the river, to float or sink downstream. Not the best solution. But there are six billion of them and probably a hundred of us.

The clothed zombies, we take wallets, jewelry. We look at
tags in the clothing. Wallis wants info about zombie migration, and unless we plant tracking beacons on shamblers, looking at wallets is the best we can do.

“Got one from Jonesboro here. He’s one of that damily that came calling.” Lindy holds up an Arkansas driver’s license. “Man, that sucks for you, Mark Watkins.” He waves a wad of bills our way. “This sonofabitch has about three grand on him. He was fucking loaded. How bad does that suck, getting zombiefied holding three grand? Hope he got laid first.”

Don’t say anything. What do I know about getting laid? Of the few women here, none of them seems ready to let me devirginify myself all over her.

“Check his other pockets.” Frazier finally speaks up. He’s fat and pockmarked and doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.

“I doubt he’ll be holding any drugs,” I say. Frazier’s hair is long and braided into a white Viking.

He looks at me and scowls. “I don’t give a shit what you think, you inconsequential little sparrow fart. Lindy, check the other pockets.”

Feel like tossing the little troll over the side—and I’m big enough to do it now—but Blevens would try to stop me. My hands itch to do it, really. Mom and Knock-Out wouldn’t be too pleased, though.

Huh. Guess it would be murder if I did that. Never really thought of it that way, but there it is.

I could snatch him up and toss him over, easy. I’m six feet now, and I spend every day knocking skulls and sliding around steel gates. Or hoeing and lifting bags of dirt. Just
yesterday, I split the seams of my old work shirt helping Keb move a flat bottom on the docks. Keb laughed and asked me if Mom had dated Jasper before I was born.

I don’t really know what I look like now—I remember wiping steam from the mirror in my bathroom, a lifetime ago, and peering into my reflection, waiting for facial hair, and now I have it, peachy, fuzzy, all over. I hope I’m ugly enough to scare the shitbag, Frazier.

And how do you get fat on the Bridge? We eat good, but there’s never any seconds.

I stare back at him as long as I can. Think about tossing him and try to let that come through.

“Forget him, man. He’s just an old, dried-up hippie.” Lindy wads up the money and stuffs it into a sack slung around his shoulders. For some reason, even though it’s worthless, he can’t bear to throw it away.

I let reason win out. Reason. I feel like Mom.

Anyway, I’ve never actually been in a real fight before. At least not with someone living. Not before the Big Turnover and definitely not after. That’s just wrong. But throwing Frazier off the Bridge might be fun. I’d like to see him splash.

“Hey, guys. You need to see this.”

I drop a zed over the side of the Bridge and then hike myself onto the rampart.

“Holy shit.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

The damily on the way wasn’t a damily at all.