Borderline, page 7
The church building set apart from the rest. The balance of the town had been slapped together, and like most pine board towns it had been done rough and slip shod. The term pine board town, or Piney as some said, had been coined to call these towns collective like. It did not mean they was pine, or even wood. It was a term only, because they was built with scavenged materials, and most of that was pre-apocalypse pine plywood. There was miles of the stuff in warehouses all over the south. There for the hurricanes that ripped through so often. The other favorite was tin roofing sheets. This town had favored chipboard. A substance that would not be long for this environment at all. A cheap alternative to the plywood. They had wrapped that with tar paper. It looked as temporary as it had turned out to be.
I carry with me some necessaries in my saddle bags, and I took them out and set up the little town before nightfall rolled all the way out.
It was a soft evening, and I could tell why those that still lay dead in the streets had favored it. The air rolled fine and cool off the desert working at the sweat on my brow that had risen as I had worked on the town. I sat in a wooden chair on the porch of the church and looked out at the wide sandy street and the desert that rolled away from it. Calm like. I waited for the dead that I knew would be coming for me to finish what they had started with the horse. They had cut me afoot for a purpose.
The blue moon had rose and she had begun to sail when I spied them comin'. I would love to say you could hear them, but it ain't that way at all. They is quiet. Not like the livin'. The livin' take noise with them wherever they go. The dead take quiet. It is goddamned unnerving. They can be where they were not just a second ago.
I had pulled both pistols and crossed them on my lap. Fingers through the guards, lightly caressing the triggers like they was a woman I favored, but I will tell you, in some ways, these were favored more and more by me over women. It seemed I got into trouble with women, out of trouble with these guns. Two of the men I had killed had been killed over women. Part of that jacket I spoke on. I believe that once you begin to kill it don't take much to cross a border. And I have crossed borders easy.
I saw one. That one slipped just a bit out from the shadow. Another man mighta thought it was just a heat shimmer. The days heat leavin' a buildin', I've seen that too. It looks alike, but this was not that. Something told me this was not that and I took from that small look the speed of the zombie, and tracked slow like: And then another ripple come; and Another. So they was there then, I told myself. They was there.
I marked that first one and began to look in earnest for the others I knew had to be there, but I could not spot them, and so I went back to trackin' the single one, askin' myself if it could maybe be just the one. If it could. It warn't though.
When the one that I was trackin' slipped up the next time I let it begin. Best to have the odds on your side than them have them. The shadow slipped I fired. I heard the impact as the body flew back into the side of that building. Cracked the wood. That started round two.
I had left that chair and took to the darkness at that first shot and I kept to it. If they like the dark and make it their tool you got to take that away from them. Make it your tool. Bring the fight to those godless bastards and stick it right down their goddamned throats too.
I crossed the sandy street and made my way into the shadows of that alley. If they had been there I mighta been done for there, but they was not there, and I had figured with close reasoning how they would not be there. It didn't fit. It was too exposed for them. They like to sneak until they got to fight. When I made the alley they came out in the street, and the plan they had, had to catch me flatfooted backfired. I had them in the bright moonlight and took a dozen out before they could turn and fade. Four in the street was not dead, but I taken my time and introduced them proper. Then we began to wait again, and the night wore on.
It was no more than a handful of minutes when I heard a noise over by the building where I had dropped the first one. A deep intake of air, and I knew I had lung shot a man. I could hear it, and zombies do not breath. They got no need for air in that way. I think they suck air in through their skin. I don't know. But I do know they don't breath, and ain't no lung shot going to make no zombie sound that away. I had shot a man. And although that man was not dead yet, I had killed him. What remained for me was the mystery of what that man had been creeping on me for. And had I knowed it, I woulda killed him fast like, because a man will and can use a gun, unlike a zombie. God forbid those bastards ever overcome their fear of fire and pick it up. We are done for then.
A minute or two after I heard the man, I saw a fast blur to my right, the other side from the church, and I blazed that whole building, dropped my clips, reloaded the ones I had emptied while I listened and waited. I listened to the lung shot man's breathing and it was not good. I allowed my head to get lulled by that yearning to hear that man pull his breath so much that I almost missed it when they came at me.
Two sides at once, and damned if I didn't get them all as they were comin'. All but the one that took me in the back and flattened me out right there in the street.
I managed to flip onto my back, but I was no better off. I had lost both guns and that walker knew it. She was on me hard and fast. Hissing, biting at me, clipped the end of my finger, had me scared for hours because of that. I got my sticker and drove it up fast through her chest and into her backbone. She arched hard, her back bent like a bow, mouthing wide, teeth flashing, and I was trying to pull that knife free when her head blew apart and she flew off the side. I got my eyes closed, but I still grimaced as I felt cold chunks of her head splatter against my face. I held my vomit, but barely, rolled off to my right, pulled my shirt up, buttons flying and cleaned off my face as best I could. It was then I thought to look for the lung shot man I knowed had to be there.
She was some tore up when I saw her. She had sagged to the ground just about where she had stumbled to and managed the shot.
I got my face as clean as I could and then got to my shaky feet and went to her. I was looking over that finger, worried as I went. It was bit bad, but the skin did not break.
She was most dead when I got there.
“What was it that bought you creeping on me like that,” I asked?
Her eyes were bright. The bottoms of those lids filled up to overflowin' with tears, probably from the pain. A lung shot can hurt powerful. I seen a man or two go that way. For a woman, she was holding it down good. “Kin you hear me?”
She breathed it. “I... Can... Hear... You.” Spittin' blood. A flood at the end.
I pushed her shirt aside and looked at the hole. It was bad enough. Close to the heart and suckin' air. Blowing out little bloody bubbles when it wasn't suckin' air. “You...” she started and that was that. Her eyes fluttered and she was gone. I caught her head as she fell back and laid her gentle into the sand. Around me was death. All around me. I couldn't look nowhere without seeing a body. And here another one that I had also caused and had no idea about. But when a man kills for a livin' it has its own answers sometimes. It does. I laid her out, stood and then bent low and said a prayer as best I could. I don't know God. I ain't never met him, although I know some day I'm going to. I guess it just pisses me off that the man sits up there pullin' my strings and ever body besides me too. Never mind it though, there ain't no one else you can say a thing like a prayer to. And she would turn, I didn't have the luxury of time. If she had creeped on me in life, what is it she might do in death? Maybe, I told myself she had closed those eyes for the last time thinkin' 'I'll be back for you in a few minutes, Mister.' Maybe... May be... I mumbled the prayer words I knowed, and I wasn't near so eloquent or flowing as I hoped, as I was afraid she was on her way back. I stepped back and put one in her head and damn if she didn't jump and hiss at me when I did.
I had thought about burial, but I did not figure a burial would do much. And there was too many. Where did you stop? Did I only bury her? No, I dragged them bodies, all them bodies into the buildings. The ones the dead had killed, the dead, and the woman too.
I thought as I dragged her in, that she had to have come to be there some way. I may never know the reason she come, but I did know she had had to have got there some way.
I stepped back and then pulled a hand cloth from my pocket. Earlier I had taken a small can of lighter fluid from my saddle bags. I had located a small bottle in the church. For what it was used I could not say. I used it to hold the lighter fluid, and now I dipped the rag into it and pulled it through the hole I had jacked into the bottle cap with my knife.
It was all dry. The church would maybe survive, dependent on the vagaries of the winds, but the balance of the town would go. Maybe the fact that I had not purpose burnt the church would set well with God. There was a hope for it. I lit the cloth and tossed the bottle into the nearest doorway. I stood, cool air at my back, heat at my face, and watched as it caught. In a minute she was burning and catching in both directions. I walked away on the road out of town. I walked in the brightness of moonlight, wonderin' why it was she had made to kill me, yet saved my skin when a zombie had the best of me. Made no sense to me. Had it been me I had let the dead take her. Easier to kill the dead than it is the livin'.
I found her vehicle just a few miles out. I had hoped for a horse, but the truck would have to do. It would get me to a horse, and that was enough. I settled my saddlebags into the open back, flexed my aching back, and then climbed in. I had not thought to look for no keys, but a funny thing about keys was that they had fallen into disuse after the world changed up. I had the truck runnin' a minute later, and turned her away into the desert. Behind me I saw the flames lightening the skies behind me as I drove away.
MISTER BOB
The Middle of the night: Lisa
She awoke suddenly in the darkness of the bedroom. Panic rode tightly in her throat, but nothing in the silence told her anything she needed to know.
The clock read 2:38 AM, green numerals lighting the bedroom in eerie, fairy half light. Spooky light, she decided. It was adding to her sense of something wrong. Would red be better, she wondered. She would pick up a new clock... Make sure it had red numerals.
Don slept on beside her, apparently undisturbed, but the sense of panic, touch of fear, would not leave her.
“Mommy...!” Alandra, sobbing, calling her name. She threw the covers aside and nearly leapt up, out, and to her feet in one motion: The cotton night shirt fell to her knees as she ran for Alandra's bedroom. Behind her, Don grunted in surprise, but she barely heard him: Her mind had kicked into a higher gear; suddenly working overtime.
...Nightmare? … Kidnapping? ...Killers? … Burglars? … My baby! …
And why is it, she thought, as her mind threw all the worst possibilities at her, that your mind does exactly that? Why?
She pushed it all away as she pushed the bedroom door open to find Alandra sitting up, staring at the closed window that looked out over the back yard.
She reached the bed and gathered Alandra in her arms... “What, baby? … Bad dream?”
“No,” Alandra sobbed. “Not a dream. You have to stop them, Mommy. They were killing Mister Bob... He told me.”
Lisa let her eyes fly quickly to the window, and then flit around the bedroom, alighting here and there, in case there was some wack-job standing in the shadows... Closed window... Tree limbs outlined outside it in moonlight... Closed closet door... She thrust one foot at the darkness under the bed.
“Baby, there's no one here.” She pulled Alandra's head away from her breast which was already wet from her tears.
“Honey, Alandra.” She waited until she turned her tear stained face up to her own. “Baby, there's no one here... See?” She turned her eyes to the empty room.
“Mommy, Mister Bob,” Alandra said. “Look at the window.”
Lisa looked more closely at the window, but saw nothing more. “Honey, are you saying that Mister Bob was at the window?”
Alandra nodded solemnly.
Dan was supposed to take care of getting the tree outside the window trimmed. Lisa had been concerned of just this thing: Someone climbing that tree and having access to Alandra's bedroom window. A spike of fear lodged directly in Lisa's heart. “Stay here, baby, okay?”
Alandra nodded once more. Lisa gathered herself, rose from the bed, and went to the window, wishing she had thought to grab her pepper spray. Better yet, her mind supplied, Don's 9 mm. The window was closed, but the thumb lock was off. She eased up next to the window, holding herself in the shadows, and scanned the back yard. … Nothing … The bedroom door opened suddenly and she turned quickly, her heart hammering hard against her rib-cage.
“Whatzit?” Dan asked.
“Jesus, Dan,” Lisa said. One hand went to her throat.
“Sorry...” He turned to Alandra. “What's wrong, honey-pie?”
“She said someone was at the window,” Lisa supplied.
“Christ,” Dan muttered. He walked across to the window: A big man who moved fast. His eyes scanned the yard.
“Well... I don't see anyone now,” he said.
“I don't either, but I thought...”
He nodded. “Tomorrow morning, noon at the latest. It's spring... He's backed up.” Dan shrugged helplessly. “I've been on him, Lissy. I have.”
“Dan.”
He held up a hand. “Or I'll take the day off and do it myself... Promise... I'll call him in the morning before I leave.” He sighed.
Lisa yawned.
“Honey, you want to sleep with Mommy and Daddy,” Dan asked?
“Uh, uh. What if Mister Bob comes back?” Alandra asked.
“Mister Bob?” Dan asked.
“He told her that was his name,” Lisa said.
“Were you dreaming, honey?” Dan asked.
“She wasn't dreaming, Dan,” Lisa warned.
“Well... Cops... Should we?”
“There's nobody... What do you say exactly? No... Just make sure it can't happen again,” Lisa finished.
“Okay... Okay.” He turned back to Alandra. “Come on, honey. Sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight. Tomorrow we'll make sure Mister Bob can't wake you up in the middle of the night again.”
“Mommy will stay in here with you,” Lisa countered.
Alandra nodded.
Dan looked from Alandra to Lisa. Lisa shrugged.
Dan frowned and then turned and left the bedroom. A few minutes later he was back.
“Here,” he said as he handed Lisa her pillow. His own pillow and a wad of blankets were tucked under his other arm
“We'll have a camp out,” Dan said. He looked at the floor, yawned deeply and then spread out the blankets and tossed the pillow to the floor.
Alandra giggled as Lisa climbed into the narrow bed and pulled her close.
~
Dan was already softly snoring and Lisa was sure that Alandra was sleeping too. Her own thoughts were getting farther and farther away from her. Her mind free falling into the spiral of sleep when Alandra whispered.
“Mister Bob is my friend, mommy.”
She came up from the edge of sleep just that fast.
“He talks to me every night.”
Lisa pulled her closer. “When, baby?” she whispered back.
“All kinds of times... Sometimes when I'm awake, sometimes he wakes me up. He's not mean, mommy. He's my friend.”
“But, baby, a man shouldn't be climbing a tree to talk to you,” Lisa told her.
“But he doesn't, mommy. He's already there. Mister Bob is a tree. My tree.”
“Oh, baby... A tree? The tree in the back yard?”
Alandra yawned. “Uh huh. My friend, Mister Bob.”
Lisa nodded.
“He talks to me... He said... He said, they're going to kill me, sissy. Don't let them kill me.”
Lisa's heart leapt in her chest. Sissy had been Alandra's nickname until she had discovered that she liked her real name better in Kindergarten and had solemnly told she and Dan not to call her Sissy anymore. Lisa yawned in spite of herself. She pulled Alandra closer. Maybe it had been a dream after all.
“He calls you Sissy?”
“I told him I'm not a baby.” She yawned again and the rest of what she said was lost as she began to drift into sleep.
The fear that had been rising in Lisa's heart bled out just that quick. Her own lack of sleep caught up to her. She yawned too, and a few seconds later she drifted down into sleep thinking about talking trees that spoke to little girls and called them by their nicknames.
Morning:
She heard the alarm from her own bedroom. Dan had turned over, pulled the covers over his head and balled the pillow up under his head. He slept on, oblivious. She recalled a dream of her own. Must have been after all that had happened, she thought. She had dreamed that she had awoken briefly to hear Alandra holding a conversation with Mister Bob. Something like, “I told her... She'll make sure you're okay.” And the impression of another voice. Deep, resonant. She couldn't understand it. A weird dream provoked, no doubt, by what had happened earlier and what Alandra had told her. She looked down into Alandra's sleep eyes.
“Want to sleep a little longer, honey?” Lisa asked her.
Alandra nodded.
Lisa kissed her forehead, got out of bed and then tucked her back in. She turned to Dan.
“Do you want to sleep in a little longer too, honey,” She asked.
The wad of blankets surrounding his head nodded.
“Well, you don't get to sleep in. Come one. Get up.”
Dan groaned. He struggled briefly with the wad of tangled blankets that surrounded his head. Alandra looked over the edge of the bed and giggled. Lisa looked at her.
“You're not going back to sleep are you.”
“Nope,” Alandra agreed.
“Well come on then. We'll get breakfast and coffee going while Daddy gets his shower.”
Late Morning:
Lisa shifted through her email: Nothing too pressing. She closed the browser and popped open her scripting editor. She worked for the next three hours straight after she had gotten Alandra off to school. The website she was writing a script for was nearly done. She had written the site, incorporated the graphic elements, and was finishing up the scripting that would load the cart system for the site and control purchases. She had one small script to write yet, and a few graphics to tweak and that would be it. She reached for her coffee cup, found it was empty, and headed for the kitchen.
