Chapter 10
THE URBAN district of Joshuah Hill covers roughly two square miles and, due to the ineffable wisdom of our founding fathers, somehow got mapped into the rough shape of a lumpy pear on its side with a worm climbing out the bottom. We came in on foot from the west, parallel to the old railway farther north and Joshuah Creek to the south, following River Street past the remaining suburban homes until the familiar sight of the town park crawled into sight on our left. The hot sun beamed down just behind us, pooling our shadows onto the pavement under our feet and making me sweat. Rivet lifted his safety goggles to his forehead and wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. I was getting thirsty, but didn't want to bother stopping until we'd got what we came for.
Ahead, River Street continued into the fat bottom of the pear and became Joshuah Hill's main street. I think its name was supposed to change to 1st Street somewhere in there—we had a 2nd and 3rd streets—but I guess someone forgot to mention that to the sign-makers, so it was River all the way through. Of course, there wasn't a river within fifty miles of us either, so it's possible that nobody gave a shit either way when it came to naming the avenues and byways of our quaint little community.
The park began on the town side of Carrborough and ran about a block along the northern edge of River Street. On the edge of the park closest to the road was a small duck pond that cut under Safehaven Road and nudged all the way up to Collins Hardware, and behind the pond were several dozen green sugar maples, pecans, poplars, and white ash that provided shading for the manicured lawn below. Normally, a few elderly couples walked the mulch pathways or people-watched on the hickory benches, but today the place was silent. Even the ducks and squirrels seemed to have taken refuge.
We trolled up River past the park, somehow back in the middle of the road, astride the double yellow lines. By now we should be seeing the murmur of activity that kept downtown Joshuah Hill alive during the work week, but as with all else, the place was draped in silence.
On the other side of River, opposite the park, was a steep gully that led to a runoff ditch, then rose up again to a patch of woods. It runs through a cement culvert under Troutman Boulevard, then falls away from the road to make room for a row of small shops and businesses—a barbershop, a delicatessen, a nail salon. Just past the salon and the hardware store, 3rd Street cut up from the south and turned into 2nd on the north side of River. Beyond that, we had the graystone courthouse followed by the sheriff's department on our left, and The Antiquey Torch, Dinkins Pharmacy, and H.R. Gibson & Sons Law Firm in a pretty row on our right.
Parked cars hulked in angled spaces on either side of River, and Collins Hardware's little lot was packed to its four-car capacity, yet not a single person was in sight.
"It's like a ghost town," Jennie said. "God, I wish we hadn't left Titan. This is creepy."
"It's hot enough to bake a duck," Rivet said. "What is this, August?"
"July," I corrected, not really thinking about it. Rivet's head was usually weeks ahead or weeks behind, but rarely in the present. I was used to it.
I could see the courthouse about two hundred yards farther up now, and I knew Dinkins was just opposite. Almost there.
Maybe it was the heat, making me sweat. The walk, pumping my blood faster. I stumbled. Jennie caught my arm and hauled me up, never breaking stride.
"Whoa there, cowboy. You're cut off," she joked. "All good?"
I nodded, blinking away sweat. The domed top of the courthouse dimmed, then came back, then seemed to topple, and my knee hit the pavement again. The road tilted sideways. Was that a person ahead? Walking up a wall? No, not a wall. Just River. My head lolled straight, and Joshuah Hill corrected itself. Yeah, a person. I squinted. God, I was sweating. Heat stroke? We'd only been out here fifteen minutes, couldn't be.
Dimly, I heard Jennie calling out, heard my axe clatter to the hard ground. Her voice sounded so sweet, a spoon dipped in honey. Calling my name. Calling...calling Rivet's name. Helping Rivet. I forced my head to turn as if it were encased in cement, and saw Rivet on his knees, one hand against the graytop, one hand pressed to his forehead.
Vitalaaaa.
What was Jennie saying? Why was she whispering? When had the sky gone cloudy? It was sunny just a moment ago. I shut my eyes, then snapped them open in horror. A streak of painless white flashed across my vision, followed by shadow, eroding the sunlit day from its frayed edges and seeping across the buildings.
You are one.
Whispers, billions of them filling my skull with demon flutters. A pit so deep and black it seemed to take form, falling away inside me, pitching me into it.
"Ahhh!" I cried out and dug my thumbs into my eyeballs, willing the pain to bring me back. My cheek was on hot asphalt, rough and gritty. Feet were coming toward us up ahead, shambling in our direction. I couldn't focus on them. Jennie was shouting, at me, at Rivet. She hefted my head off the pavement and shoved something into my mouth. I spat it out and caught her thin wrist. It wriggled in my grasp, and I stared at the veins pulsing blue under Jennie's white flesh. Ripe, juicy. Imagined the blood pulsing beneath, the way it would taste, sticky in my throat. The colors of her flesh grew brighter. The world beyond muted into gray.
Vitala.
A nibble. A taste, and I'd be on my way. Hadn't eaten in hours. Just a taste. I brought Jennie's palm to my lips and something smashed into my head from the side. I let her go and toppled onto my back, stared into the full glare of the sun, blinded. Hands tore my chin down and shoved small, soft pebbles into my mouth. I gnashed at the hand and bit through the pebbles. They crumbled, flooding my mouth with bitter chalk. I breathed in and some kind of dust sucked into my lungs, making me cough. I forgot the hand and rolled to my elbows, hacking into the street, and the sudden motion brought me back into a glimmer of sanity.
Pills. Swallow. It was all dry grit on my tongue, but I slathered as much saliva as I could and gulped down the thin paste. Gagged. CONSUME. Swallowed again. My brethren were close. Gotta warn Jennie. Have to join them. I could feel them coming as if they were a part of me, streaming out of all the dark shops and stores. I squinted when they squinted in the sudden light, saw Jennie and me and Rivet as if through their eyes. Jennie was an old, and must die. Of course, it was so clear. Jennie is an abomination. She must be rendered. Nothing must remain.
I lunged out at Jennie's ankle, but the bitch was too quick and skipped away, then kicked me in the head. I couldn't come to grips with myself, my body felt foreign, alien, robotic. Useless. Why was my mouth so dry? I spit, snarled. Rose to my feet. The old was in front of me. It held a knife, no matter. Consume the flesh. Live in Vitala. I am one. Behind the old, another of my brethren stood and reached out. The old was unaware. It focused on my approach. Jabbed with the knife. I felt none of it. Hunger, nothing more. Hunger to rend the abomination. Only then will I be sated.
Another flash cut across my vision, and this time I did fall back. A searing pain tore through my side. I touched the pain and saw blood on my hands, brought my finger to my lips, licked it. Then spat it out. Fuck, what was I doing? The clouds rolled away from the sun and heat coursed back into me.
Jennie... The thought was frantic but slurred, far away. The old (Jennie!) jabbed at me with the knife just as my brethren (It's Rivet, shithead!) clamped his hands down on her shoulders and sunk his teeth into her bicep. She screamed, shrill and piercing, and the sound carried me swooning out of the abyss.
Oh shit, Jennie! I lurched forward to stop Rivet. More brethren—zombies, not my fucking brethren, why did I think that?—were stumbling down River in our direction, some running, others jerking spastically, as if unsure how their limbs worked. I caught Jennie on the arm and she screamed again.
"Get off me, fucker!" She slashed out with the knife and I barely deflected it from its collision course with my neck.
"Issme, Jennie. Issme. It'sme. Fuck! It's me." Why was it so hard to talk? Jennie stared at me, wide-eyed, judging, making a split-second decision, then turned awa
y from me and shoved Rivet back. His teeth ripped the fabric on her shirt, but he hadn't gotten a solid hold on her arm. She cocked the hand with the knife, but I caught it before she could plunge it into Rivet's chest.
"Give'm time," I said. "You dose him too?"
"Of course I fucking dosed him. Dosed you too, before you tried to eat me."
"It's the drugs. It takes a few minutes. He swallow?" My head was clearing like the burn-off of a thick morning mist. I looked down the street, sucked in a breath. At least twenty of them, the closest just a few dozen steps away. I knelt and scooped up my axe from the pavement. Hefted it, felt the weight.
I'd never been much of a lumberjack, but now was as good a time as any to practice. My earlier reservations didn't seem as important as they had. Maybe my head was still reeling from nearly crossing over, or maybe the quick-release hydrocodone Jennie had fed me was affecting my judgement. Suddenly, I wanted these things to die.
"He swallow?" I repeated urgently.
"Yes! Yes...I think so." She grunted and I glanced over to see Rivet locking his fingers over her neck. I rammed the blunt edge of the axe handle into Rivet's forehead. He stumbled back as if he'd been shot. I reared back again, but the axe caught on something.
"Don't kill him," I shouted. "Feed him again. I'll keep them off you."
I swiveled to see the zombie that had caught the axe head. "Oh, Christ," I murmured. It was old, white-haired Mr. Collins, my former boss at the hardware store. His eyes were milky pink in the bright sunlight, and he held the axe tightly up in front of his gaunt face.
I rammed it forward against his nose and heard the gristly cartilage snap out of place. He moaned and let go of the axe. I let the steel head drop without thinking, then used the weight to carry it around in a full circle that came back around on the top of his head. The tapered blade bit through three inches of skull before coming to a stop and, almost as an afterthought, a thick rivulet of soupy blood bubbled up out of the gash and ran down his forehead.
I stumbled back, horrified at the sight. The blood continued to run, as if pumped by an underwater spring that disgorged itself through this fallen man's body. It was inconceivable that he carried that much inside him.
But I didn't have much time to dwell on it. Even as Mr. Collins fell, I heaved the axe free with a gutwrenching schlurrp and swung it sidearm at the zombie stumbling up behind him, thanking the holy hosts that I didn't recognize him. The axe struck him dead at the crease where his neck became a shoulder, but the blade was too dull to go through the soft tissue. It bounced away, and the impact sent the zombie sprawling sideways. Its head cracked the road, and I skipped closer and heaved all my weight into the downward swing, intent on putting the blade through his ear. At the last millisecond, though, just before the axe crunched through his skull and split the top half away in a shower of red and white, jigsaw bone shards, leaving his heart to pump away the rest of his blood onto the street, I heaved my shoulders sideways and let the axe blade skip into the pavement.
The impact jarred my arms, made my bones ring. The zombie gasped up at me, blood pooling under its matted hair from where it had struck the asphalt surface. It grasped my ankle weakly, unable to lift its head, just reaching, scrambling, peripherally blind, drawn to my flesh by some force it didn't understand. All it knew was that it must kill me. I was an old, an abomination. I backed away from it, watched its chest heave, each breath forcing unyielding tissue against sticky phlegm, rasping, clawing, rasping. I watched it languish in the agony of a death that would not come.
These were just the first arrivals, the fastest. I could hear the others shambling toward me, still distant, but closing the gap.
"How's it going back there?" I called over my shoulder, and I nearly cried when I heard Rivet say thickly, "Walk in the park, Rayman."
I risked a glance. He was sitting on the pavement, staring at the ground and shaking his head. Jennie knelt next to him, urging him up.
"Gonna need some help," I said, turning back to the approaching zombies. They were twenty, thirty feet away. "This is a three-man job."
"Two-man," said Jennie, coming up beside me. She'd pulled the fireplace poker out of Rivet's belt, leaving him with the shovel. "And one hell of a woman." She held out her hand. There were two Vicodins in her outstretched palm. I plucked them up and dry-swallowed. Sugar never tasted so good.
"Quick thinking back there," I said, looking at her. "I owe you one."
She wrinkled her nose, then tucked the poker between her thighs and pulled an elastic hair band off her wrist.
"Make that a thousand and we've got a deal," she said, scrunching her brown hair back into a ponytail.
"Deal," I said, forcing a smile. On the other side of Jennie, Rivet shuffled up, then dipped back and returned with the shovel. "Let's kick some zombie ass," he said.
"Let's," Jennie agreed, and rammed the fire poker through the soft part of someone's stomach.