Zombiemandias (Book 2): In the Year of Our Death Page 3

  “I don’t want to take sides,” Bailey said. “I just want to leave.”

  “There’s only one way to leave.”

  The bald man raised his gun and fired. The leftmost member of the trio dropped to the ground. The other two raised their guns and fired back.

  The whole mass scattered like flies. Some ducked behind streetlights and post boxes. Some had nowhere to go. Bailey crouched in her doorway, hardly protected from the crossfire.

  The leader of the trio had a rifle, and he was good with it. Two members of the larger group went down, then he took aim at their leader, who was still out in the open, crouched low, not bothering to hide. He let his friends do that.

  Maybe that’s why she did it. Maybe it was his nice face or nicer voice. Whatever it was, Bailey would often look back at it as the biggest mistake of her life. She darted forward and pushed the large group’s leader. The bullet that would’ve hit his head instead hit her shoulder, barely grazing it.

  The man she saved took aim and fired, and the trio’s leader hit the ground. His last companion took aim at Bailey. She dove and grabbed a handgun from a fallen member of the larger group, but she hadn’t intended to use it, and it didn’t make her feel any safer. She saw another doorway ahead of her, one that might provide cover, and ran for it. Bullets filled the air from both directions. Bailey couldn’t hear much else.

  Then it was over. The last member of the trio took a bullet to his face, and his limp body plopped on the ground and didn’t move. Everyone emerged from their hiding places and gathered in the street. Bailey stayed crouched in the doorway.

  “Is everyone all right?” the leader asked.

  “Fuck me,” a girl said, “they got Matt.”

  “Guess no one will be doing that now,” the bald man said.

  “Gerald,” their leader barked. The girl looked at Gerald, but couldn’t find anything to say.

  “Come on, man, this isn’t a joke,” one of the other men said.

  “Are you all right?” the leader said to Bailey. She wasn’t, but she nodded because she didn’t know what else to do.

  “You motherfuckers!”

  Everyone turned. The trio’s leader was still alive. He was bleeding from a shot in his side, slowly crawling backward. The group approached him. Bailey followed. She should’ve run. She wouldn’t have gotten very far, but perhaps she would’ve been better off for it.

  “You made your choice,” the group’s leader said. “Now look. You’re dead, and she’s alive.” He tipped his head toward Bailey, claimed her whether she liked it or not, but that wasn’t when she knew she was trapped.

  “I’ll die a better man.”

  “We’ll see,” the leader said. “Come here, please.”

  Bailey realized he was talking to her. She stepped forward. Her feet were shaky, but she made herself do it, still afraid.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bailey.”

  “That’s a pretty name. I’m Mike. You’re one of us now.”

  That wasn’t when she knew, either.

  “I hope you rot in hell,” the man on the ground said. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger, but it only clicked.

  Bailey looked around. All eyes were on her, even those of the dead men on the ground. She looked at the man before her, about to join them. His eyes were the worst.

  Bailey raised the gun and fired. That’s when she knew.

  4

  In the Living Quarters

  Keely let out a small moan as she finished. She leaned up slightly and pressed her head into Katie’s chest, right below her shoulder. She lay her arm across Katie’s stomach, placed her hand on her side.

  Katie put one hand on Keely’s shoulder and pulled her close, and worked the other one through her hair.

  “It’s gotten longer,” Katie said.

  “I hate it.”

  Katie smiled. It was dark, but Keely could tell.

  “Garrett and Vince are going out tomorrow. We can ask them to get batteries.”

  Keely kissed her neck twice and then closed her eyes. For a while, neither said anything.

  “Do you remember what I said earlier? About wanting a baby?”

  Why’d she have to bring that up? “Yeah.”

  “What do you think?”

  It was the first time she’d actually asked Keely’s opinion. And Keely wasn’t sure what to think.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What kind of world is this? To bring a child into?”

  “The perfect one. The world needs them… I need them. And we’re safe here. We’ve been here forever, no one has gotten hurt in months.”

  You sure about that?

  “How?” Keely asked. It was the biggest question, the one on her mind the most.

  “I’ve thought about that,” Katie replied. She sounded embarrassed. “I love you, and I can tell you anything because I love you. I think Layne would do it.”

  Because I’m not.

  “He probably would.”

  “Would you be okay with that?”

  Keely thought about it all for a long time. “I want you to be happy.”

  “I want you to be happy too.”

  What could she say? If she said yes, she’d be unhappy. If she said no, Katie would be unhappy, and that made Keely unhappy, too. But could she lie about it? She’d never lied to Katie before. Even a small secret could lead to a large fissure, and it was only a matter of time before it tore them apart. She’d seen it in so many people around her, and swore it would never happen to her and Katie. Better to let someone down than give them false hope, tear it away later, and leave them feeling worse than they would’ve at the start.

  But this... This was too hard.

  “I don’t know,” Keely said. “Can I think about it for a while?” Thinking about it was among the last things Keely wanted, but she owed Katie that much.

  “Of course. I want us both to be absolutely sure before we decide either way.”

  What if one of us is sure one way and one is sure the other? “Okay.”

  Katie kissed her head. Keely could feel Katie’s heartbeat rise, so slightly, so she pressed tighter and started moving her leg again.

  ****

  “Anyone else need anything?” Garrett asked.

  The others were gathered in the main room. They exchanged glances.

  “Coffee,” Dex said. “We’re low.”

  “All right,” Vince said. Katie looked at Keely. She still needed batteries, she knew, but for some reason, the words caught in her throat. She thought of the way the dead batteries had rolled from her hand. How many more batteries were left in the world? When would they run out?

  There are so few children left in the world.

  And besides, Keely didn’t need batteries. She wanted them, but she didn’t need them. It wasn’t fair to ask Garrett and Vince or anybody to risk their life for something she didn’t need.

  “I want to go with you guys,” Keely said. Katie’s look turned into a very different one.

  “Sure,” Garrett said. He didn’t hesitate, as she figured he wouldn’t. “Never hurts to have another set of eyes and ears and hands.”

  “And firearms,” Vince said.

  “Keely, you can’t go,” Katie said.

  Keely looked at her. “Can’t?”

  “I don’t want you to, I mean.”

  “I know. But I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m going too,” Katie said. Everyone was staring at them, but Keely didn’t care.

  “There’s no reason for us both to go,” she said. “I just wanted to grab a few things and I didn’t feel right asking other people to do it for me.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “I don’t need your help!”

  There was silence, and a few stares Keely did care about.

  Garrett grunted. “Maybe it’s better if Vince and I just—”

  “I’m going,” Keely said, and that was the end of it.

  ****

 
They walked the empty streets of Los Angeles. Keely hadn’t seen much of them since the early days, shortly after they’d arrived in the city and begun barricading various blocks and clearing the roads. Their city-within-a-city was empty of any lifeless bodies, but their images were burned into Keely’s mind, and she still saw the corpses when she looked at where they had been.

  Most of the barricades where solid walls, but some were jury-rigged doors to let the inhabitants of New Los Angeles come and go as needed.

  “Well, shit,” Garrett said when they were within sight of the nearest exit. The large wooden barricade had a small door carved into it, and the door was wide open. The metal latch was securely shut, but had been ripped from the barricade wall. A small chunk of wood still hung from it.

  “Think it was a zombie?” Vince said.

  “I hope so,” Garrett replied. “A zombie I can deal with. It’s other people I’m worried about.”

  “Should we go looking?” Keely asked.

  “Yeah. Vince, go tell Layne to get someone out here to fix this. Keely and I will search the immediate area. And tell everyone to watch out. It never hurts to be cautious.”

  Vince departed, and Garrett looked around. He reached into his duffel bag and handed Keely a handgun.

  Keely took it. “Have any of the doors been broken before?”

  “Yeah. Once or twice. Both times it was zombies, and both times we found them pretty quickly.”

  “Did you use this door when you went out the other day?”

  “Yeah. This breach is new.”

  They listened for a moment and didn’t hear anything. The streets were still, nothing moved. The only cars were the ones the group had been unable to move out of New L.A., the only movement the occasional paper floating on the wind. Garrett started down the street.

  “How far are we going to look?”

  “Not too far,” Garrett said. “If it’s just one zombie, then getting supplies is more important.”

  “What if it isn’t just one zombie?”

  “We’d probably know. The whole damn wall would be gone, not just a lock on the door.”

  Keely couldn’t imagine why a normal person would want to break in. New Los Angeles was barely safer than anywhere else out there. The entire city covered only a few blocks, and power wasn’t exclusive to them. Still, Layne didn’t like talking about the place on the air. People might think it safer than it was, he had said. They might come looking for hope… and they might not react well when they found out there wasn’t much in New L.A.

  She was surprised nobody had tried. Surely people passed through L.A. from time to time, saw the barricades, and wondered how they got there. And that military kid had shown up after only a few weeks, though he’d had the help of another radio station picking up their signal. Still, it was very possible to find New L.A. They couldn’t hide forever.

  “There.” Garrett pointed ahead, and Keely saw a figure turn into an alley. The two of them picked up their pace and stopped at the entrance. Garrett pointed his shotgun at the shape ahead of them. It had long hair and a big, bushy beard, and what little remained of its clothes hung from it in loose strings. “Hey!” Garrett said.

  The zombie’s head turned. His vacant eyes glazed over them, seeing but unseeing. His mouth curled up, and he let out a growl. Garrett pulled the trigger, and the eyes and the mouth were gone. Garrett and Keely turned back.

  “Think there are more of them?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Guess I shouldn’t have shot it. I should’ve beaten it to death or something. The gunshot might attract more.”

  “Maybe we should wait a few days before going out.”

  “Nah,” Garrett said. “We should go out anyway. Either I didn’t attract more and we’ll waste our time waiting, or more are coming and us leaving will lure them away.”

  Vincent and Dex were back at the barricade. Dex was nailing a piece of wood over the hole in the barricade door.

  “You got this?” Garrett asked.

  “Yeah,” Dex replied.

  “We found a zombie. There might be more.” Dex didn’t say anything, but reached behind where he was kneeling and gave two soft pats to a shotgun on the ground. Garrett laughed. “Take care, man.”

  Garrett, Keely, and Vince left the barricade and entered the streets of Old Los Angeles. If New L.A. was creepy, Old L.A. was a nightmare. Dead cars littered the streets, almost as numerous as the bodies. There was more trash out here, and it was difficult to walk without kicking or stepping on bullet casings.

  “Where’s our car?” Keely asked.

  “Hidden,” Vince said. He pointed ahead, and Keely didn’t see it at first.

  “The red one,” Garrett said, then she saw it: A small red car parked in the middle of the street. It was hidden in plain sight; among the other cars, it looked like another long-forgotten vehicle that wouldn’t even work. There was newspaper on it, and Keely could see a rusted tin can on the dashboard.

  “We have a few,” Vince said. “We always put a tin can on the dash. A passerby would think nothing of it, but it’s our sign. If there’s a tin can, it runs.”

  They got into the car and Garrett started it up. He slowly navigated the crowded streets until they opened up. He had gone north. Keely assumed they were headed for the suburb, where there would be fewer zombies and more supplies.

  “How much do you think is left?” she asked. Vince looked at her in the rearview. “Supplies. Clothes, food… batteries. How much is still out there?”

  “Who knows,” Garrett said. “We usually go north. There are a few small towns out that way. But unless we want to start driving for hours at a time, we can’t keep it up much longer.”

  “What about south?”

  “Farther into Old L.A.?” Vince said. “Terrible idea. It just gets worse and worse.”

  “What will we do then?”

  “You’re thinking too far ahead,” Garrett said.

  “I don’t think it’s possible to think too far ahead,” Keely replied. “And I think you feel the same.”

  Garrett smiled. “We’ll go south if we have to.”

  “Maybe we should move. Find another city.”

  “Another city with a radio station and a building we can live in right next to it? What are the odds?”

  “Better than they’ll be if we’re dead.” Garrett laughed. Keely found his laugh comforting.

  “You got that right, girl. But I don’t think we should move.”

  “Then what?”

  “We expand the city,” Garrett said. “Truth is, you’re right. I think about this all the time. Just waiting for the right time to bring it to Layne. He’ll hate it, I know he will, but I think he should get on his radio and tell people where we are. They got a military base up and running in South Carolina using graffiti on buildings. Think of what we can build with a whole damn radio station.”

  Keely did think about it. If they had more hands, they could expand New L.A. from a few blocks to a few miles, start taking back areas they couldn’t risk scavenging now. If they got enough help, hell… maybe they could take back all of L.A. and create a city for survivors, and give the rest of the treacherous wasteland that was the United States to the zombies.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” she said.

  “Well thank you,” Garrett replied.

  “When are you going to talk to Layne?”

  “Don’t really know. Honestly, if we keep trekking north, we’ll probably be fine for a few more years. Not a decade, but a few more years.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to start early?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then we should do it soon.”

  “Maybe. But there is another side, you know. Giving the whole rational world our location isn’t risk-free.”

  “There are zombies out there,” Keely said. “Who the hell would want to hurt us?”

  “Couldn’t say. I just have a bad feeling in my gut. It’s a crazy world. You just never know what�
��s out there.”

  Keely looked out her window. Cars lined the sides of the road, but beyond them was a field, empty except for some construction equipment and vehicles long abandoned. She thought about what it would be like to have Los Angeles back, a city safe enough for people.

  A city safe enough for children.

  5

  On a Bicycle

  Georgie had never been a smart man. All his life he had heard people talk about him, saying things like he wasn’t clever or fast or the brightest tool in the shed, whatever that meant. At least he was strong, they’d always add. He was held back in school twice, but had never gotten anything less than flying colors in gym class. It came naturally to him, mostly; no matter what he ate or how little he exercised, he only seemed to gain muscle.

  He was tall, too. Not particularly attractive, but that didn’t matter; he was shy anyway. Nobody was ever mean to him, and he didn’t care if it was because they liked him or because they were afraid of him. His mother had loved him, but she was gone now. Most things were gone now.

  What wasn’t gone was his bicycle. His mother had bought him one when he was young, and he had fallen in love. He liked the way the light shined off the steel paint (his first one was blue), and he loved the sound the chain made as it moved around its tread.

  It took him so long to learn to ride it. He had no father to teach him, and his mother was always busy at work, leaving him to try for himself.

  It was frustrating. There was a group of kids who often cycled around his town, but they weren’t his friends. One day he had asked them to help him learn. They’d looked at each other funny and said no, but after they went home, one of them stayed behind. Georgie couldn’t remember his name anymore, but he had made Georgie practice day and night until, finally, he could ride. Georgie had hoped to be part of their group after that, but he wasn’t. Whenever Georgie tried to talk to them, even the one who had taught him to ride, they’d just look at him funny or pretend he wasn’t there. After a while, Georgie stopped trying. He didn’t need them anyway; the little blue bicycle was his friend, the wind in his hair was his teacher, the distance he could cross was his father.