This Plague of Days, Season Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (19 page)

The man walked up to driver’s side of the van and smiled at Jack. When that didn’t encourage her to roll down her window, he stepped back and showed his hands were empty.
 

When Jack failed to respond, the man turned in a full circle slowly reciting the
23
rd
Psalm
in a clear, musical voice.

He was starting his second circle and saying, “He leadeth me beside still waters” when Jack rolled down her window a few inches.

“Daniel Chester,” he said, pointing at his chest. “My friends call me Chet. You doing okay?”

“We’re out of gas. We have big gas cans but, do you have any gas to spare? We’re worried those soldiers, or marauders, will come up behind us while we’re finding gas.”

“Marauders? Heh. Never heard that word outside of old movies. I wouldn’t worry. If those soldiers were going to chase us this far, they’d have caught up by now, don’t you think?”

They both turned to look back down the road and waited a few heartbeats before breaking into low chuckles.
 

A little girl holding a plush unicorn stepped out of the BMW. “Daddy?”

“I’ll be there in a sec, honey,” Chet said. He turned back to Jack and nodded his head toward his daughter. “Nope, none to spare,” he said. “But yours is a good kind of problem to have. There’s lots of gas in most any wreck that isn’t burned up. I’ll show you. Y’all want t’come on out?”

Jack unlocked the door, hopped out and locked the door behind her quickly. “Our man is still recovering,” she said warily. “He’s okay now but he was very sick.”

Chet gave a quick, disinterested nod.

Jaimie brought his face close to the windshield to get another look at the cowboy’s bright blue boots.
 

Jack glanced at her son and waved him back from the window. “Don’t worry,” Jack said. “None of us have Sutr. We’re all good.”

“You’ll need your cans.”

Jack went to the back of the van and began shifting their supplies around to pull out the tall plastic cans.

Chet walked to his car and quickly returned with a garden hose. He took a long knife from his boot. Jack stepped back and reached for the long flashlight she had tucked in the rear of her waistband. She only relaxed when she watched him saw a length of the hose away and demonstrate his gas-gathering technique on an empty station wagon.

“You stick one end in a gas tank, suck on the other end and get out of the way when it comes up. It’s something awful for your teeth,” he said. He smiled wider this time and Jack saw that his teeth were brown. A few looked like old corn kernels.

She tried to smile back.

“You got a knife, too?” he said.

“Several,” she said, trying to sound confident.

“Good,” Chet said. “Tell you what.You cut up a water bottle or something. Make a funnel out of it. Makes the whole thing less of a chore. Siphoning all this gas is playing hell with my girlish figure,” he said, patting his immense belly.
 

“Some say the easiest way is to puncture the gas tank with a screwdriver and toss a tub under the car to collect the fuel. I find puncturing gas tanks ain’t as easy as some might think. Plus, I’d be paranoid of sparks.”

The little girl stepped around the back of the BMW again and smiled at Jack.

“I told you to stay in the car, Charlotte,” he said lightly. The girl climbed back into the car without a word. Chet handed Jack the length of hose. “No charge for the hose today,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” she said.
 

“You’re very welcome.”

“Mr. Chester?”

“Chet,” he said.

“Chet. We’re very glad and grateful you decided to run that roadblock back there. It helped us get away, too.”

“I do like the chaos.” He dipped his head.

“One other thing, Chet. How did you know saying that psalm would work on me?”

“A little prayer works for everybody, don’t you think? It worked on the guy who was driving this pretty BMW,” he said. “Leastwise, just before I bashed his brains out with a rock and took his fancy car from him. I always wanted a BMW and now I can have as many as I want.”

Jack’s smile went flat.
 

Chet glanced sideways to the girl in his car. “Be careful out here, ma’am. Some people got stuff and some people didn’t ever think it would get this bad. People with children to protect…you know. Like us? We’ll do things we never thought we would.”

He stepped close enough that Jack could smell candy breath over decaying teeth. He kept smiling at Jaimie in the van, but Jack could feel a shift in his demeanor.
 

“The way it is,” the man said, “if you’re desperate enough, it doesn’t matter how ill-prepared you were before the plague. You’ll do anything for your kids. I’ve learned. I used to be a God-fearin’ man. That’s fine, but in these times, I’ve found it’s better if I keep an eye to makin’ men fear me.”

His eyes shifted to Jack. “I’ll leave you the hose and the siphoning lesson for free, but I’ll be taking that full jerry can with me. Now smile and nod so nobody in your vehicle kicks up a fuss.”

“Please!” Jack said loudly. “We don’t need
two
gas cans! Take it for you and your daughter! Thank you so much!”
 

Chet dipped his head and gave a wide brown corn-kernel smile. “You’re very welcome, ma’am!”

When the BMW roared away, she stood in a cloud of dust. Her grip was so tight, the heavy flashlight’s textured steel bit into her palm.

As she hurried for the other gas can, she slipped into chanting the 23
rd
Psalm. Before the gas can was full, she gave it up. The psalm wasn’t comforting anymore. Jack coughed up gasoline and curses.

A
PPLE
SAUCE
AND
ONE
LAST
PINK
LEMONADE

W
hipped by rotor wash, Dr. Sinjin-Smythe’s knees felt like jelly as he leaped down from the helicopter. Apart from a solitary fishing boat chugging from the harbor in the dawn light, the city of Reykjavik, Iceland appeared empty.
 

It was the ocean that drew the virologist’s attention. Captain Paul had told him that Shiva had been obliterated aboard the container ship. Somewhere nearby, ocean currents and deep water denizens were pulling apart what was left of the family he was supposed to have.

As the helo pulled into the sky and away, the empty hill above the city went quiet. The doctor felt alone, despite his companions. “It feels like a tomb,” he told Aadi.

“That’s a busy brain talking, mate,” Aadi said. “We stay here for a couple of days until the American submarine arrives and soon all will be well.”

“You sound chipper. I hate chipper.”

Aadi clapped a hand on the doctor’s shoulder and squeezed. “We have reason to be. You got me, Dayo, Desi and two beautiful little girls to keep you entertained and,” he tipped his head toward the four Royal Marines who served as their escort, “big badass security for the little problems I can’t handle.”

“So what do we do now?”

Lance Corporal Stewart Pendle stepped forward. “You stay together and tight and we go into town. We’ll find someone in authority and — ”

“Claim this land in the name of the Queen?” Desi suggested.

One of the Marines, a beefy fellow named Dysart, grumbled at the policeman. “Bad form, Guard. We’ve got a
king
now. Parliament’s wiped out. We’re going back to the old ways until we can set things right.”

“The return of the monarchy’s high stature? That’s a fret.”

Pendle sighed. “Box formation, gentlemen. Go!”

Dayo slapped Desi’s shoulder. “Don’t mess with them. They’re in serious man mode.”

No one came out to greet them. No curtains moved as the group made its way down the street.

“Aadi,” Sinjin-Smythe said, “when your children were born, how did that make you feel? I mean, besides marvelous. Tell me what it was like deep down.”

The little brown man did not answer immediately. His eyes went to Aasa and Aastha who walked behind two of the Royal Marines. Dayo held their hands, swinging arms slightly as if moving to music only they could hear.

“No matter what I say, I’ll sound like a prick for telling you the truth.”

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Okay. Besides feeling marvelous, it’s scary as hell. When Aasa was born, I walked down a hospital corridor with her in my arms. Imagine holding a billion dollars but it’s made of crystal. That’s what it felt like. I had to think about how to walk, like I was so overwhelmed, I’d almost forgotten how.”

“What else?”

“When Aastha was born, the moment I held her, she locked eyes with me and I thought, here’s another precious little girl who will break my heart some day when she grows up and moves away. For a while there, when they’re two and three, they still think you’re cool and they want to be with you forever.”

“Must have been hard, going back to work and leaving them.”

“I couldn’t miss a shift! I had to pick up extra shifts. Still, parents all believe one thing they can’t ever tell anyone who isn’t a parent.”

“But you’ll tell me because I asked for it.”

“Because you want to know what you’re missing, right?”

“Tell me.”

Aadi took a deep breath. “When they were born, I really thought somebody should send me a check just for adding something so lovely to the world. I shouldn’t have to work and I could spend all my time with my kids, the way it used to be before the world became what it became. In ancient days, you had a farm and you spent all your time with family. Before tiny pay checks and punching a clock and all.”

“I think we can safely refer to that era as our peak. The Dark Ages are back. You will get more time with your kids, now.”

Aadi smiled. “The truth that no one wants to say aloud to anyone without kids is, having a child redefines love. I thought I knew love. For my wife, I’d pull her out of the path of an oncoming train. But for my kids? I’d lay down on the tracks if it helped them.”

The doctor and Aadi bumped shoulders as the group moved into a narrow street. Sinjin-Smythe checked Aadi with his hip. “You’re right! That
does
make you sound like a self-absorbed, preachy prick.”

Aadi smiled. “There you go! Give as good as you get, Doctor!”

“While we’re at it,” Sinjin-Smythe said, “What’s with your names? For God’s sake, the ego on you! Couldn’t your wife have said no? Which do you love more, the letter
a
or yourself? I once knew a chap named Arnold who called his poor daughter Arlene, but you? Aadi, Aasa, Aastha? You went overboard —”

The zombies attacked the group from alleys on either side of the street in two running packs. They took down their first two victims before a snarl was uttered or a single shot was fired.

T
HESE
ARE
THE
THOUGHTS
THAT
KEEP
US
AWAKE

I
f she had to, Jack thought she could pry open a locked gas tank panel with a flat screwdriver. However, she didn’t want to take the time. Every moment they stayed still was another moment of exposure.
 

The first two cars she tried were parked neatly on the left shoulder. They were locked up as if their owners expected to return. Jack thought it likely, before the bulldozers or tanks came through, that this stretch of highway had been a hopeless traffic jam.
 

The government had commanded everyone to stay home and wait for help. When that help didn’t come, people finally disobeyed and fled. Unfortunately, many had found themselves at the Brickyard Refugee Camp. Jack shuddered. They would have done better not to depend on the government at all.

Just minutes before, Jack had trusted a dangerous man because he knew a bit of bible verse. Theo had trusted Douglas Oliver because — why? Proximity? Need? But that wasn’t fair. She had trusted the old man, too.
 

Oliver had wanted to fill up a van with gas cans and make a run for Maine with them. It might have worked out if not for Lieutenant Carron’s rogue militia.

She had been wrong to trust Chester, but the man with the long knife and the stolen BMW had taught her something important. She’d overestimated her ability to judge people. Life and death situations make English majors with unfinished masters theses in Elizabethan poetry feel awfully stupid.

She found a blue Toyota on the far side of the ditch. It was smashed up and the driver’s door hung open, but the gas hatch release worked when she pulled it. She sucked on the hose but made sure to get out of the way before the fuel hit her lips. She stood stiffly, arched her back and rubbed sore lumbar muscles.

Jack had worried her children would die from Sutr-X. Now she worried they’d be murdered for their supplies. That seemed a more legitimate concern since they had all been exposed to the virus through Theo and no one had a cough or a sniffle.

Worse, Carron or the thing from the Brickyard, might be hunting them. She had to assume the military would be searching for them so they could use Jaimie. Or perhaps they’d demand vengeance for the monster he’d unleashed.

Back at the Brickyard, Merritt and the doctor on the computer had spoken of zombies, as if this was a silly B movie. From where she stood and from what she’d seen, that didn’t feel so silly.

The sick man with bright, white eyes had sent Ogilvy and two more men flying before throwing Dr. Merritt through a glass wall. She would never forget the bedlam reaching up from the pit of the refugee camp.

Jack could not guess what the white-eyed man really was, but — her eyes shifted to Jaimie — somehow her son had known. He’d released that thing on the camp. She hoped the army had contained the threat, but it hadn’t sounded like they’d succeeded.

As she glanced up and down the narrow highway littered with steel, the enormity of the plague hit her again. She wanted to cry. “Should have bought more test tubes,” she said. “Sutr is far more powerful than Al Qaida ever was.”