“I gotta pee too.” She kept looking over at Ben. It was obvious as hell at this point that something no good was going on.
“Hey, come over here.” She was smiling and motioning to Cooper. “I want you to protect me.” She was being flirty, beckoning with her hands. “Come on, Ben’s cool with it.”
Fuck this!
he thought as he looked back at Ben to keep tabs on him. Ben watched him. His head was turned, but his body still faced the tree. Cooper thought about running, but Ben was hiding his hands, and if he had a gun he stood a better chance rushing him. If he held a knife, Cooper was better off running away. But the decision wasn’t his anymore.
He heard quick footsteps and looked back. Willow was charging him, holding a large kitchen knife above her head. Her face was a mask of hate. She was moving fast and would get to him before Ben could, so he dealt with her first. He calmly watched her as she closed the last few feet, wondering what her plan was.
Did she think this through? Maybe she assumed I swallowed the pill and would drop soon.
In any case, he could see that she clearly planned to stab him.
As she closed in, he swept his arm up and blocked her knife-wielding right arm. His right arm was cocked back and ready. It shot forward and hit her square in the face. Normally he could never hit a female, but with a weirdo behind him doing who knows what and a murderous skank running at him with a knife? He had no regrets and no hesitations. He didn’t pull the punch one bit but committed fully to taking her down.
Her head whipped backward as her feet flew forward and out from under her. She hit the dirt hard, landing on her back, and Cooper was facing Ben as she landed.
Ben held a gun on him with both hands, arms locked straight out, and Cooper noted that the gun shook and Ben looked scared as hell.
You should be
, he thought as he charged him.
It’s called the element of surprise, bitch.
The bad feelings Cooper had about these two had grown so strong that he was ready for a fight. He decided he would rather be shot than handcuffed in the back of their van. He covered the distance between him and Ben in two large steps.
Ben was so freaked that he threw the gun away and tried to raise his hands. He was trying to surrender, but it was too late. Cooper didn’t stop. He ducked low at the end of the last step and took Ben in the gut. Ben folded in half, and the breath was knocked out of him as he shot backward. He hit the ground with Cooper on top of him. Cooper knelt on Ben’s groin as he tried to stand, aiming to crush a testicle or two. He seemed to have missed both balls, but it kept Ben on the ground.
There were twigs and leaves stuck in Ben’s dreads, and somehow that made Cooper feel more powerful. He kicked Ben in the ribs before he could gain his feet, sending him on his back. He reached down and grabbed two handfuls of his shirt and dragged him to his feet. He threw him against a tree.
He knew he should have run, but he was pissed and wanted to get a few good shots to this shitbag’s face. He punched Ben in the face as hard as he could, aware that he was messing up his hand. He could feel teeth cutting his flesh and wouldn’t have been surprised if he broke a bone or two. After a few solid hits, Ben was missing teeth and blood flowed down his chin and chest. Both his eyes were already swollen shut, but Cooper hammered him a few more times and was about to stop when a boom startled him. Tree bark hit him in the face.
He grabbed Ben by the shirt and lifted him up to his feet, swinging his leg around him and stepping behind him. He held Ben by the neck and used him as a shield.
Willow was holding the gun. Blood ran from her smashed nose down her face and the front of her body. She staggered and wailed in anguish.
“Why’d you hurt him? Why did you hurt Ben?”
Ben hissed and burbled, “Shoot him.”
Willow wailed and pointed the gun, but Ben was blocking any clear shot she had of Cooper.
“Shoot him…” Ben said again. Cooper pulled his arms tight around Ben’s neck in a hold that would kill him with the slightest pressure, or so he had heard. He really didn’t know. But it seemed to do the trick. He held Ben mute and incapacitated and squeezed against his struggling. Ben’s eyes rolled back, and his face was turning purple as Cooper dragged him backward.
“Throw the gun into the woods and I won’t kill Ben.” He was dragging Ben out of the clearing and the light.
“I’ll fucking shoot you,” she screamed.
“OK, three seconds. One, two…” Willow flung the gun into the woods and ran toward them. Cooper let Ben go and pushed him back into the clearing at Willow as hard as he could. The two collided and fell to the ground.
“You stupid bitch!” Ben yelled with the lisp of missing teeth and the splatter of a blood-filled mouth. Willow was trying to hold him, but he pushed her away as he stood. Cooper was several feet into the woods and turned to look at Ben to make sure he wasn’t chasing him.
“You are dead!” Ben yelled.
Cooper ignored him and turned to leave. The gunshots and the screaming had attracted the dead. He could hear them closing in. They were close by and seemed to be all around as they thrashed through the woods. From the sound of things, they would be at the clearing very soon. He had to get moving so he wouldn’t run into them. But then he heard a sound that froze his blood—human voices.
“Ben! Willow! Are you guys OK?” There were many voices yelling the same, or similar, questions. Ben threatened Cooper, and Willow screamed directions to the wood-thrashing crowd trying to catch him. The woods came alive. The thrashing increased in tempo and volume—flashlights and lanterns were popping on just yards from him. It was dark, and he had no idea where he was. If he ran, he could break an ankle, fall off a cliff, or a hundred other things that would lead to great misery or death.
A lantern popped on just in front of him. The clearing was behind him. He was surrounded.
8.
A rumble, low and distant, stopped Sal in his tracks. The city had been so silent, so empty and still, that the sound was significant to him, but only briefly. At first he wondered if he had even heard anything, but then the rumble got a little louder before fading away. He was still walking aimlessly with no plan, but now he wanted to live, or was closer to it.
The place was a ghost town. He wondered where everyone was who lived in this area. There must have been thousands of people living in the apartments in just the few blocks around where he stood. He heard no screaming, fighting, or dancing. He passed a few wrecks, really bad ones. He saw corpses, evidence of the same things that had happened in Monterey, but nowhere near the same number of bodies. Maybe they had all wandered somewhere else. He kept looking for signs of life but saw none.
He stayed on the 17, which turned into the 880, and by noon he was approaching the San Jose Airport. Along the way he’d seen several massive clumps of bodies, streets filled with a carpet of dead bodies for miles—then nothing for a long time. As he got closer to the airport, he started seeing people walking. From the raised highway he could see large groups of people in the distance.
He came to a mall and walked to the edge of the elevated freeway to take a look, and he was shocked at what he saw. Below him there was an ocean of people crammed together in every single space available, and the crowd stretched on for miles. He stopped to watch, as there was something clearly wrong with them. He would have thought that they had died standing up, but they were all moving, swaying slowly together in an odd ripple effect that crossed the crowd.
He walked on and was soon tired after only a few hours. He drank the rest of his water on the elevated freeway. All was quiet. He’d gotten past the large crowd of people that seemed to center on the mall. As he approached the airport, things thinned out as far as dead bodies went.
He liked San Jose. It was a vast expanse of strip malls, massive apartment complexes, and office parks. He loved coming up here. It had a lot Monterey didn’t, but he could never move here, even after he was offered high-paying jobs at several body shops. It was never a question, no matter how much money he was offered. His entire family, his friends, and all of his memories were in Monterey. Now all of that was converted into one massive source of pain, and the loss of his wife dwarfed all the other losses combined.
He came to an off-ramp where he saw a few people on the street, stumbling and walking around, but not dancing or acting happy. He knew something was wrong and planned to stay away from them no matter what.
He finally left the highway to find food and water. Walking down an off-ramp, he was heading toward a large intersection that looked promising. Big signs and evidence of good landscaping spoke of food and comfort to him. He saw a few slow walkers coming toward him. He had no weapon and no idea what was wrong with these people, so he cut to the right and through some tall grass. He made it to a fast-food restaurant off the highway and continued down the street. The slow walkers were following him. More were coming in from every direction. It was creepy, scary really, to have all these people just quietly shuffling after him like this. He didn’t feel comfortable with them, but since they were still a ways off, he wasn’t too worried.
As he walked, the people grew in number. There must have been close to a hundred now, and they were starting to come closer to him, some a little ahead of where he walked. He would be surrounded soon. He walked quicker to pass those ahead of him to keep from being closed in. He passed several looted stores and crossed another large street. The slow walkers were still behind him, and there were even more of them.
Sal felt a little panicked and started a slow jog. He saw bodies on the ground that appeared to have died in a variety of ways. There were crashed cars, trash everywhere, and silence. He was heading toward a large grocery store. The windows had been busted out by looters. A great deal of the looted goods were scattered across the parking lot. He thought he could find something there to eat and drink and headed straight for the front door.
There was a smattering of vehicles in the lot. The slow walkers were still following him, and he worried about going into the massive store with them on his tail. He wasn’t sure if they were a threat, and he knew he was going to have to lose them soon. Their behavior was so odd it worried him that he might have to face them and maybe have to fight them.
He walked between a van and a delivery truck. A hand grabbed his shoulder, another his arm, and he felt something sharp and jagged scrape his neck. He almost messed himself he was so startled. He didn’t move for a few seconds, and the hands kept pulling violently. More hands grabbed him and pulled even harder.
Sal wasn’t sure what to do. Was that a gun at his neck? He was waiting for someone to talk, to tell him to put his hands up—something. He was just about to ask a question when he heard a male voice.
“Shit, this guy’s a fucking boulder!”
“So much for the element of surprise,” said another in a flat tone.
“Turn around. Hurry.”
All the hands released him. Three men crouched in the open door of the van. One held a gun and wasn’t smiling. The other two looked amused.
“Shit, man, what the hell are you made of? Lead?” a black man asked. He was smiling and held a fireplace poker. Sal noticed the end looked wet.
“Get in, hurry.” A young white kid was waving him in. “You’re drawing them over here. Get in.” The kid wore a dark trench coat and a woolen cap on his head.
Sal crouched and sat-rolled into the van.
“Jeez, this van is suddenly way too small.” The older white guy holding the gun kept it aimed at Sal’s chest. “Sorry about the gun. We’re actually trying to help you. Sit tight and we’ll talk, unless you want to get out. Try anything and I blow a hole in you.”
The black guy stood and looked out the sliding side door of the van and ducked quickly back in. “Shit, there’s a lot of them out there. We have to move.” He got behind the wheel and started the van.
Sal sat on the floor of the van; old gun-guy stayed seated. The kid climbed up front into the passenger seat. A box of food and a few cases of water next to Sal held his attention.
“Help yourself,” old gun-guy said.
Sal didn’t wait for a second invitation—he grabbed a bottle of water and downed it.
“My name’s Bill, the kid is Jeff, and the other guy is Ron.” Bill was about Sal’s age but had gone gray. His short hair looked almost military but with a bit more style.
“Yeah, the twenty-three-year-old kid.” Jeff looked at Ron with a bemused expression.
“Well, a kid relative to me and Bill.” Ron was driving and occasionally looked in the rearview mirror at them. Jeff turned and stared out the window. Ron continued, “Better known as Grumpy, Sleepy, and Doc. I’m a dentist so—Doc. Jeff’s a thinker, a reader, he can fall asleep anywhere so—Sleepy. And Bill’s just an asshole.” Ron laughed out loud at his own joke. Bill cracked a smile.
“I’m not an asshole, until you get to know me.” Bill smirked. “Look, we’re trying to stick together, seeing that none of us have anything better to do. If you like us, we like you, you can join our little group here. Don’t worry, we’re not really doing that seven dwarves thing.”
Sal didn’t say a word. He ate, drank, and wondered if he should stick with these guys or keep walking.
“Man, are we going to have to call you Dopey!” Ron chuckled.
“Why not Bashful?” Jeff quipped.
Sal grunted. “What happens when we reach seven?”
“If there’s that many people left in the world, we’ll figure something out,” Ron said, looking into the rearview mirror.
“Not so fast,” Bill barked. “Let’s get to know each other first. And stop with the dwarf names.”
§
After driving clear of the dead, they stopped in a quiet parking lot and opened the van door. They pulled out the food and water and several folding chairs. They all shared their stories, save Jeff, who remained quiet on the subject. Ron and Bill were longtime friends who had grown up together in San Jose and hung out in high school. They lost track of each other for about ten years and then ended up neighbors. For the last five years they had been socializing a little. They both liked football and bowling and recently were trying to brew beer in Ron’s garage. They had met Jeff just a few days earlier as he was running from a horde of the dead. He was coming out of a grocery store with an armful of food.