The Ark (Life of the Dead Book 3) Page 9

  He charged forward like a bull, holding the lid in front of him and knocking zombies to either side. A gangly teenage boy in a plaid shirt and skinny jeans grabbed onto the mop as Saw passed him. Saw jerked it from the lad’s grasp and then thrust the spear forward, puncturing the teen’s skin just below his eye socket. The boy careened backward and the spear pulled free. Saw kept running.

  He muscled by a fat man in a tank top and jean shorts, then came upon a skinny woman in bunny rabbit scrubs. She avoided the end of his spear, so Saw slammed her in the face with the lid. He felt her nose and cheek bones shatter under the force of the blow but, before he could even take a moment to enjoy it, he was grabbed from behind.

  Whatever had him was tall and heavy and it had a hold of his shirt and wasn’t letting go. Saw lurched forward and heard his shirt tear, then felt it come free of his body. His chest, which was covered with hair so dense it almost looked like he was still wearing clothes, was cloaked in sweat. He saw the man that had grabbed him, a policeman that must have been six and a half feet tall, staring down at the now empty shirt it still held in its hands.

  Saw stabbed it with the mop handle, catching it just below the breastbone. The spear went in deep, poking out the other side. The zombie staggered a step back, but recovered in an instant and came at Saw again. He tried to get the spear loose but it had impaled the zombie like a shish kabob skewer.

  “Fuck it then.”

  Saw spun away from it and came across a woman who didn’t have a spot of skin remaining on her face. He could see up the holes where her nose had been, her teeth biting up and down with no lips or cheeks to conceal them. Saw raised the toilet lid and brought it down over her head. She collapsed.

  Ugly bitch. Did you a favor, I did.

  But there were more zombies ready to take her place. Dozens of them. Each time he turned in a different direction there were more and more and more. They had swarmed like bees and he had no way out.

  Solomon Baldwin wasn’t the type to go down without a fight. He destroyed two more zombies with the toilet lid and was swinging for the third when he was hit in the back. The lid fell from his hand and broke into three pieces on the pavement.

  He grabbed the biggest piece - it had a nice, sharp point - and used it to puncture the eyeball of an elderly woman with her hair rolled up in curlers. He was about to stab a boy who looked to be no more than four years old when he heard the horn.

  It was loud, aggressive, and very familiar. The zombies looked toward the sound of it. Saw did too.

  His dump truck came barreling in. The first of the zombies were punctured by the steel rebar he’d welded to the front end. More followed. And more after that. They were stacked on the long poles five or six deep by the time the truck was within ten feet of Saw.

  He found Yukie behind the wheel. He could see her plain, round face was full of determination even though blood had splattered the windshield. He was so caught up in the sight of her that he almost let himself get run down. He dove to the ground at the last minute, making himself as flat as possible.

  Christ, I hope that bird can drive a straight line.

  The engine of the dump truck roared as it rolled over him. He covered his head, not that it would do a bit of good if Yukie was even one foot too far in either direction, but he could still hear the bones being crushed under the oversized wheels. And then it was past him.

  Saw didn’t waste any time. He jumped to his feet and found a clear path behind himself, like the red sea after Moses had parted it. This path too was very red, very bloody. Several smashed corpses littered the path, but Saw ran over them, paying them no heed. He almost slipped in the gore but kept moving.

  The beeping that signified the truck had shifted into reverse began. Saw turned back and watched with admiration as Yukie made a three-point turn, running over more zombies and catching others in the razor wire that lined the vehicle’s sides. She steered the truck a few feet to the right, widening the path, then stopped when she reached him.

  Saw jumped onto the sideboard, flung open the door, and joined her in the cab.

  “I sure am happy to see you, love.”

  She grinned, her chipmunk cheeks puffing out with glee. “Bet you’ll be more careful where you take a shit from now on.”

  “Hell, I might never shit again.”

  There was no great hurry now and Yukie took her time running down the rest of the zombies, leaving behind a new kind of red sea, this one comprised of mangled and smashed bodies.

  Yukie looked downright gleeful throughout the process and Saw thought again how glad he was that he’d found her. He even thought he might love her a little and hoped she’d end up being more loyal than his slag of a wife, but that was a low bar.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sun was hot on his back and Aben could feel sweat soaking his shirt. He wanted to move into the shade, away from the rays that beat down on him, but first he needed to get the dog to come to him.

  “Come on, dog. Let’s go inside and get you some water. Some for me too.”

  The dog ignored him. It was more interested in sniffing around a hedge of mountain laurel that was so thick it could serve as a wall. He’d been trying to get the dog’s attention for almost ten minutes and his patience was almost up.

  “Damn it, dog. Come here!”

  The dog’s only response was pushing its upper body further into the bushes.

  “Son of a bitch!” Aben kicked the ground, splashing up a cloud of dust that rose and hit him in the eyes, further annoying him. “Goddamn!” He wiped at his face with his remaining hand.

  “Smooth move.”

  Aben turned and through bleary eyes saw Mitch watching from a few yards away. He wondered how long the kid had been spying on him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching you make a fool out of yourself.”

  Little smart ass. Aben didn’t like him much but had a modicum of admiration in the way the kid so clearly had no respect for anyone.

  “How about helping me instead?”

  Mitch strolled toward him but rather than lending a hand, he sat down in the grass. In the shade.

  “Thanks,” Aben said.

  “Sit down. The dog isn’t going anywhere.”

  Aben wondered what made the teenager an expert on canines, but his own attempts to cajole the animal were doing no good so he followed suit, moving into the shade where he flopped down beside Mitch. “So, what’s your plan?”

  “Don’t have one,” Mitch said as he watched the dog. Only its hindquarters were visible now against the sea of green foliage. “How long has it been with you anyway?”

  Aben did the math in his head. “Three weeks now.”

  “And you’re still calling it ‘dog’?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. What was the big deal about names anyway? The only thing names were good for were remembering people when they were gone. While they were alive, you didn’t need to use their name, you just looked at them and spoke.

  “How about Prince?”

  Aben raised an eyebrow. “Seems a little pretentious. It’s just a mutt, after all.”

  “When I was around ten, me and some friends were playing kickball at the playground. One of them kicked it into the woods at the far end of the field and I went in to find it. But before I found the ball, I almost tripped over a little black dog. I think it was a cocker spaniel. It had those long, floppy ears. It had its foot stuck in a rabbit trap, the snare kind. I thought it was going to bite me when I set it loose but it didn’t. It hung around and watched us and seemed kind of lost so when we were done playing, I went back over to it and petted it for a little while.”

  Mitch reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of mostly smashed cheese curls. He took one of the more intact ones and lobbed it toward Aben’s dog. Soon after, the dog popped free of the mountain laurel, its nose twitching. In less than two seconds it homed in on the orange treat and gobbled it down. Then it looked to the men and began to am
ble toward them.

  “It stank bad. Like old potatoes when they go bad. You know the smell?”

  Aben nodded.

  “Looking back, I guess it had been eating out of trash cans, getting by on whatever it could find. Its fur was all knotted and clumpy and as I tried to get my fingers through it I found its collar. It was just one of those cheap plastic ones, the ones that are supposed to keep fleas away, and there wasn’t a license or vaccine tags or one of those ‘If lost, please return to 123 Elm Street’ badges. But someone had written on the collar. It was so faded out I could barely read it. But I worked it out anyway. It was his name.”

  Aben watched as Mitch tossed another cheese curl toward his dog. It wagged its tail as it ate the snack.

  “I pulled one of the shoelaces out of my shoes and tied it around its collar and used it as a leash as I took it home. I was all excited because I’d always wanted a dog but my parents were totally against it, especially Senator SOB. He always said, ‘You’re not responsible enough to care for a dog, Mitchell. I don’t believe I’d entrust you with a gerbil.’ But I figured, if I found a dog, not just found but rescued one, saved its damn life probably, how could they say no? I was practically a hero after all.”

  Aben’s dog lumbered into the shade and Mitch fed it another cheese curl, scratching its ear with his free hand. After eating, the dog licked orange coloring from Mitch’s fingers.

  “No one was home when I got there so I filled up a bowl with water and another bowl with some leftover chicken alfredo and we sat in the kitchen playing and eating all afternoon. And when my father got home I was a proud little fucker. I was all, ‘Sir, I found this dog on the playground. I saved him from a bear trap’ because I always tended to bullshit a little and I don’t know why but I really expected to get a pat on the head like I was a good boy. Like I’d done something he’d approve of for once. Something moral and noble. The kind of shit he always preached.”

  “Instead he flipped his fucking lid. How dare I bring some bug infested stray dog into his home? How could I be so careless? All that horse shit. He drew back his hand and I knew he was going to smack me. It wasn’t like a rare occurrence or anything. But when he pulled back, that dog must have known what was coming too and it ran over on its little legs and can you believe that dog chomped down on Senator SOB’s ankle?”

  Aben could believe it. From the look on Mitch’s face, the boy took great joy in remembering the event.

  “Bit right through his fucking cashmere dress socks and drew blood. And my father squawked like a baby. You’d of thought he got bit by a timber wolf. Fucking asshole.”

  “Well, he started screaming about rabies and grabbed the dog and took off for the garage. I watched him drive away and saw the dog standing up on its hind legs and looking out the window like it was going for a ride. All excited. And that was the last time I ever saw it. Don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know what happened, right?”

  Aben wasn’t sure, but he thought Mitch’s eyes looked wet but he only saw then for a moment because the teen looked down and dumped the remaining cheezies onto the ground for the dog to eat. When it finished, it looked up expectantly and Mitch held up his empty, orange hands.

  “Sorry, pooch. I’m all out.”

  “So that dog’s name was Prince, huh?” Aben said.

  “No, it was Jerome. Now that’s a stupid fucking name for a dog.”

  Aben couldn’t help but laugh. Mitch grinned too. Maybe the kid wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Prince is a much better name.”

  “I still think it seems a little pretentious.”

  “Maybe. But have you seen any other dogs?”

  Aben shook his head.

  “Exactly. Makes this guy pretty damned special then, doesn’t it?”

  “What about us? Are we special too?”

  Mitch stood up, clasped his hands together and raised them over his head while he stretched. “Shit yeah we are. Look around this world, man. We’re not princes, we’re fucking kings!”

  Mitch jogged away, toward wherever he’d come from. When he disappeared, Aben returned his attention to his dog.

  “Prince? You like that name?”

  The dog stared at him and panted.

  “Prince,” Aben said, raising the pitch of his voice to an almost cartoonish level. The dog’s ears perked up. “Prince! You want that to be your name? Prince?”

  The dog cocked its head sideways. Aben would have preferred a bark but supposed that would have to do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Stop the car, please.”

  Juli almost ran off the road upon hearing the voice from the back seat. It was too light, too gentle to belong to Mitch. Aben was beside her and it certainly wasn’t the dog. That left but one option.

  Grady. The man who hadn’t said a word the entire time she’d been around him. The man who was as close to catatonic as she’d ever seen in person. She spun in her seat and looked behind her. Grady’s eyes were no longer the empty pools that looked ahead but saw nothing. Now, they were alert, focused.

  She felt the car swerve and realized she was still driving.

  Shoot!

  She smashed her foot against the brake pedal, thrusting them all forward in their seats as the car came to a sudden halt. The dog flopped off Aben’s lap and landed on the floor with a ‘woof’ that sounded startled, if a dog can sound startled.

  Aben had found an old rust bucket Impala while looking for guns in a storage barn behind the house. He’d said it probably wouldn’t run, but it did. Then he said the tires were probably dry rotted, but they weren’t. The car looked like a jalopy, but as far as Juli was concerned, it beat walking. They’d been on the road for about an hour, when Grady interrupted the drive.

  “Thank you,” Grady said.

  “Holy shit! You said the gork couldn’t talk!” Mitch said, his voice high and excited. Juli really didn’t like the teen. His presence made her think of her own son, Matt, who she’d left locked in their perfect, suburban home. Matt was a zombie but he was still better than this foulmouthed, self-involved young man. But she couldn’t allow herself to be concerned with Mitch now, not when Grady had seemingly returned to the land of the living.

  Grady paid little attention to his companions in the car. Instead he opened the door and stepped outside. Juli quickly followed and heard the other doors open too. The dog bounded out, ran a few yards then stopped to urinate.

  “That looks like a good idea, boy,” Aben said, then he turned his back toward the others and did the same.

  Juli ignored them both. All her attention was focused on Grady who strode softly almost like he was floating, toward a small, clapboard building. The paint peeled off the walls in thick chunks and the setting sun transformed it from white to a brilliant orange that almost made the building look like it was on fire. Faded block letters above the door labeled the building “Church of God with Signs Following.” Grady pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  “Wait.” Juli chased after him but he continued.

  She looked back to Aben who had zipped back up and looked on. “Help me, Aben! There could be zombies in there.”

  Aben snapped to attention. He grabbed his maul hammer from the car and chased after.

  Sunlight spilled through the windows, drawing irregular rectangles across the dusty interior. Juli’s eyes scanned the building, scared and nervous, but it appeared empty. More than empty, it looked like it had been abandoned since long before the zombies.

  There were no ornate stained-glass windows, no murals of Christ and his disciples, no oversized crosses mounted on the walls. It looked as simple as a summer camp mess hall, with six rows of flat benches for seating and a small lectern which looked as if it might have been fashioned out of used barn wood front and center. Grady stood at that modest pulpit.

  “God is in this house. He’s called us here.”

  Julie went to him. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. He seemed completely norma
l. Like someone had flipped a switch and brought him into the light.

  “Please sit, Juli. And you as well, Aben.”

  Juli turned and saw Aben standing in the open doorway, half in, half out of the church. He stayed there, but Juli followed instructions and sat in the first row of pews.

  “How do you know our names? You’ve been in… something like a coma, since they found you.”

  “I was with God. And he told me everything.”

  Grady looked toward Aben who remained on the precipice of the sanctuary. “Thank you for caring for me during my time away.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Aben said.

  “This is our home until God instructs us otherwise,” Grady said. “Here, we will be safe in the arms of our Lord.”

  Juli heard the door close behind her and when she looked, Aben was gone.

  “He’ll understand, in time,” Grady said.

  “Will I understand too? Because right now this looks like— “

  “A miracle.” Grady’s lips turned up in a serene, almost angelic smile. “It is. The first of many to come.”

  Grady picked up a bible from the lectern and opened it sending a cloud of dust soaring into the air. The light caught it and made it look like a million diamonds glistening around his head.

  “Let’s start with the book of Isaiah, chapter 26. ‘Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.’”

  Juli had questions too. So many questions that she didn’t know where to begin, but she had a feeling now was not the time to speak. It was the time to listen.

  Chapter Twenty

  Aben cooked Spam on a propane grill and he was certain it was one of the best damned things he’d ever smelled. He’d put on four cans, which he felt would be more than enough for them and the dog.