Dead Meat

The Future of Dead Meat

2011-09-10T07:56:00.001-04:00

Hello, Dead Meat fans!

Hopefully, you haven’t forgotten about us, especially since we have some nice news to share. Permuted Press, our longtime sponsor, will publish Dead Meat for the masses. We’ve worked with a wonderful editor (Felicia A. Tiller-Sullivan) and hopefully churned out a great version of the text that still holds true to our take on the zombie apocalypse.

It’s been a long process: the composition, revision and editing. We spent years working on the text, as life didn’t make collaboration super easy, and we’re happy that we’ve come to this point. If it weren’t for the support of the readers and fans, we don’t know what would have happened with the manuscript.

As of now, Permuted Press should release Dead Meat in early 2012. No exact date has been set as Permuted has been handling a slew of books lately. We’re happy to be a part of the Permuted family, and we’re happy to finally release a copy we feel is worthy of putting on a shelf.

We’ll keep you updated on other projects that may surface soon, especially since Chris and I have been kicking around some good ideas, primarily a collection of small novellas, so stay tuned!

Thanks to all of you.
Chris & Patrick Williams

Finally, an update

2011-06-16T21:35:00.005-04:00

Ok, ok so we haven't been posting much. Mostly cause we haven't had any real news. That's going to change though. Things are happening, we just can't yet say for sure. As you can see though the sites NAV bar is gone and made much simpler. We've also done away with The River's Edge blog. Mainly because no one went to it. But Lets get to the real news and updates. We Have begun to make use of our Twitter accounts, @DeadMeatNovel and @deadmeat2 so be on the look out for tweets. We are also going to make better use of our Facebook page as well.

Now...

We are looking to make a trailer and are in need of fans who have the ability to record voice overs and can get a voice for each character. Also a photographer who can get a model for each character and get props, ex. truck, aluminum bat and zombies! If you feel you can do this send some sample work to us via email. Another post will be coming soon. But untill then spread the word about and the story! the more readers the better!

Peace out!

A quickie

2011-02-10T05:24:00.002-05:00

Chris here,

First off, I'd like to say "Sorry!" Sorry we haven't posted updates nearly as much as we'd like. I feel a bit guilty about it. It makes me feel like a bad blogger. Anyway, on to the good news.

Pat and I have been flying through the book lately. working on it a minimum of maybe four nights a week. It's great to know we are going to finish this thing soon. We hope to be done revising the small stuff within a couple of weeks if not less. After that we rewrite the major changes. So hopefully (fingers crossed) we can have this thing sent in by the end of the month so. We both cannot wait till this is done.

Thanks to all you great reader for being patient.

Chris.

At the river

2010-12-13T18:27:00.002-05:00

It's been a few weeks since we posted, but that's only cause we just now have something worth posting.

We are now at the river. All corrections have been noted and will be soon dealt with. Patrick will be freed up from work for a bit soon and I'm expecting us both to hammer out a great deal of the fixes. We've cut a lot of unnecessary bits and added more details. I really can't wait to get into the Rickett and Henry scenes. I really think that's it for now. Just letting you know what's up.

Chris.

A long long time ago.

2010-11-15T18:42:00.004-05:00

Chris here.

As you can see we are gonna start posting updates here on the site. The story's still here. All chapters are to your right and the "Beginning" button is up at the menu. We've been away for a bit and for that we are sorry. I feel as if we are letting you down by not updating you guys on the book and its progress. But this post is all about doing that.

First off, Pat and I tried working together face to face on it and that's not working to well because of Pat's work schedule. To keep a consistent pace, I'm working on our notes and revising/editing/rewriting. On our "Dexter Sundays" I bring the new version to him and we will polish it up make needed changes and make it sound good. Now I'm guessing you would like to know our progress?

The first thing we did was decide to combine chapters. So the first chapter "Benny" Will contain chapters 1-6.We did this because those are the chapters that most focus on Benny himself. We have also cut way down on Benny's harsh language and almost totally rewritten the girl and the glass scene. If you remember they were on the roof looking down at her as she broke the door. After reading and rereading that part, we decided to have them stay inside the store. It's a first person story and we can only see what Gavin sees. From the roof, if she fell in then he would only be able to see her legs. Having them on the inside gives him a full view and maybe some interaction with her. we are also changing how they get into Wondermart. For now that is what I will leave you with.

If you guys have any suggestions on what changes should be made and where or just have some ideas you think we could add, let us here them. I'm sure we will get a kick out of them and hey, they might inspire us. I hope to update often and have lengthy posts as well.

chris.

Last Call

2010-06-07T17:09:00.003-04:00

“I said open the door, old man!” Blood and saliva froth from Benny’s mouth. “Fucking open it!” Benny, the rabid coyote.

“Christ,” Henry whispers and Benny snaps his gaze to her.

The metal door looms before us as we huddle at the end of the hall. We gather our nerves for the next run, the final run. Every single action, every push and every shove have all led to this moment.

Anticipation. Anxiety. Adrenaline. All of it pumps through my body, making my fingertips tingle and my mouth dry.

“Open the door,” I whisper. I swallow to moisten my throat and say it again, this time much louder. “Open the door.”

Rickett pushes Henry and Benny back a step and kicks open the door.

Darkness. Shadows groan and moan until the emergency lights shine on their decaying features. Rickett raises the 9mm and fires a few rounds and kicks the falling bodies backwards, pushing other bees farther back as well.

“Go! Go!” Rickett yells over and over and he forces the bees back. Benny pushes himself from the wall and tries to steady his body. He slowly limps, barely making any progress as Henry moves around him and exits the door. The door starts to close, but Benny falls forward and uses the door for support, holding it open wide enough for me to hobble through.

Now that the sun has set, every third light post spread throughout the campus illuminates the grounds, offering patterned pockets of light to help us navigate the darkness. While the light is a refreshing welcome, it shows the steady flow of bees moving towards us. Decaying men and women, gaunt and shambling, move across the grounds, their tongues eager to contact our flesh. Their tattered clothes and festering wounds show the length of their survival.

These fuckers have been here for a while.

Rickett snatches the bat from my wounded left hand and uses it to clear off the few remaining bees that gathered around the door. “Got to save some ammo,” he says between deep breaths.

“Uh oh,” Benny whispers, still leaning against the door.

“What?” I respond.

He points to the next building, Gibbons Hall, and says, “Someone beat us to the punch.”

Tattered plastic covers the entrance. Partially bent chain-link fencing outlines the building, though the gate has been removed, leaving a wide opening for people to enter and exit. Yellow caution tape marks the area and orange construction barrels line the pathway leading to the entrance.

“No. . .no,” I mutter, slowly moving towards the building, not paying any attention to the approaching bees.

“Gavin!” Benny yells, and I look back to see Rickett hand the bat to Henry and attempt to help Benny move. Benny struggles at first and yells “Fuck off, old man,” a few times before Rickett starts dragging him towards me. Henry runs past me with the bat and heads towards Gibbons Hall.

“Addison...”

“Gavin!” Benny yells again. “To your right!” I look and have to open fire as the closest bee staggers just a few yards away. The rotting shell of a woman collapses, but slithers towards me. I pull the trigger again as I move closer to the large, five story building.

Gunshots rip the night sky behind me. Henry carves a path, shattering bees of all shapes and genders in front of me. Bees converge from all sides and my knee scorches the rest of my body. Each step, each movement sends a sliver of pain from me knee into my hip. But the heat, the pain, all but side effects of the journey that’s about to come to fruition.

Behind me, Benny cusses at Rickett, yelling for the old man to let him be, to let him walk the rest of the way. But Rickett won’t have it. He’s seen too many people die, and he probably understands my hunger, the pounding in my chest, the void in my gut. Maybe he felt the same when he drove off that morning to find his sister and returned empty handed. How he knows my struggle all too well.

Henry’s at the fence, waving for us to hurry. She’s too fast, running ahead of us all. I hobble closer to the fence while Benny yells, “Hurry up your slow fuck! Damn gimp!” followed by wicked laughter.

I push the pace, endure the pain, because if I don’t, then I’m dead and I can’t save Addison if I’m in the belly of a bee. Soon I hit the fence and push off it to help project me to the steps of the brick building. Henry grabs my shoulder and helps me steady myself while we wait for Benny and Rickett.

******

The smell of smoke and decay follows us through the plastic curtains and into the lobby, or what’s left of the lobby. Sanded and patched walls. Supplies litter the floor next to erected scaffolding. Renovations. The plastic, the supplies. It’s not scene of death and destruction, yet. Another plastic curtain rests between us the large building’s hallway.

Pushing past the second curtain, we enter a clean hallway. Well, clean of bloodshed at least. A few of the renovations material, such as paint trays and spare scaffolding equipment rest in a corner near the first stairwell. Rickett lets go of Benny and takes a few steps into the hall. “Look clean,” he says. “Clean, but empty.” He looks to me.

“At least they didn’t get to her,” I say, motioning towards the bees. And hopefully, the pirates didn’t get to her either. I pull my wallet from my back pocket and take out the card with her address.

“But the pirates, or maybe even the exterminators.” Henry takes a few steps. “Hell, what if she was in the other building?”

“Shut up!” I yell, trying to decipher her room number on the smudged card. “Second floor,” I say. That’s all I can make out. “She lives on the second floor.”

“We got two stairwells,” Rickett says, pointing down the hall. “A bigger building with more people means there has to be more emergency routes.”

“But we don’t have a door to keep our neighbors out,” Benny snickers and nods towards the plastic curtains. The bees could be entering any minute.

“So what are we doing?” Henry asks for clarification.

“Running up the stairs and kicking in doors until we find her,” I answer with confidence.

“And what if she’s not there? What if she hasn’t been here the entire time?”

“You ask too many questions,” Benny wheezes as he stands from the chair. “Run your pretty little legs up the stairs and smash some doors. Be useful. And you, old man,” he says with a smile, “help me prop open the door to this stairwell. This should at least direct them all into one confined area if they enter. Let’s give them an entrance and a scent, eh?” Rickett nods, and as they work on propping open the door, Henry and I head up the stairs.

Henry moves to force open the first door, but I stop her. “Look, there,” I say, pointing to the broken molding next to the door. “Someone’s already busted through once.” I ready the 9mm and she tightens her grip on the bat and she kicks open the door anyway.

She backs off to the side and I enter the room first with the firearm raised to find, well, nothing. No one. It looks like a typical dorm room. Bunk beds pressed against the far wall to accommodate two desks and bookshelves. Clothes hang from the backs of chairs. Pictures, posters and calendars line the walls. Books, mirrors, cosmetics and more pictures sit on the dressers. But here, in the middle of the floor, luggage containers opened, partially packed with clothing and toiletries.

In the next room, it’s the same thing: a previously busted door opening to a student’s living quarters with a hint of emergency evacuation. But in this case, it looks like the students weren’t able to fully evacuate. We find cell phones, jewelry, and even contact lenses. But we don’t have enough time to snoop through each room. Addison could be here, somewhere, waiting to be rescued.

Two, three, four more doors later and nothing. But behind door number 206, we find something familiar: A picture of my parents. A purse. A cell phone.

My heart aches and beats too terribly fast in my chest.

“Addison!” My lungs cramp under my shoulder blades, my throat closes. “Addison!”

Nothing. No response until Benny yells from the hall. “Find her?”

Rickett helps carry Benny into the room. I can only assume it’s Addison’s luggage half packed in the middle of the floor.

“My parents were supposed to visit her,” I say, taking a seat on the bottom bunk bed. I push my palms into my eyes, rubbing realization from them, hoping that when I open them again, I’ll see Addison. But it doesn’t work. I see a dying friend, a bruised and bitter woman, and an old man. “She was supposed to be here.”

I want to sob, to scream and yell and throw a fucking fit, but I’m drained. I’m done. “For nothing,” I whisper. “All of it.”

“Dude, Gavin,” Benny says gently, “maybe she got away. Maybe your parents rescued her.”

“And maybe it was the exterminators, Benny,” I say sarcastically. “Maybe they fucking cooked my sister. Maybe they tossed her naked corpse into a fucking oven.” I want to vomit. I want to die. I want to do anything but feel.

“Gavin,” Rickett says softly, “he’s right. There are too many possibilities for us to even fathom.”

“Then why did you come with me? Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because I did it too, Gavin. I needed to know. I strove to know and when I found that they were dead, I came back for you and Benny.”

Benny sits next to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “And now you’ve got to come back to us. Rickett came back and saved our lives. Now you need to do the same.”

They’re right. They’ve always been right. Benny and Rickett are the reasons I’m here. They taught me, even in their sick and twisted ways, to be a survivor, to weather any storm that comes my way: emotional, mental or physical. We can survive them all.

“Keys,” Henry says.

“Keys?” Benny asks.

“Yeah, keys,” she says again. “Here, on the desk next to this picture of Gavin with—”

“Addison,” I say bitterly. “You’ll rarely find a picture of me without her in it.”

“Are y’all fucking deaf or something? We have a set of keys in front of us.” Henry’s voice projects a sudden urge to leave which, after finding that Addison isn’t here, isn’t such a bad idea. “Volkswagen,” she says. “VW.”

“Bug,” I say, nodding and rising. “She drives a VW bug.” Rickett helps Benny stand. “It was a graduation gift from my parents: a yellow, convertible VW bug.” I move across the room to peer through a short set of blinds. “Parking lot is on the other side of the building,” I say as Henry scoops up the keys.

“I’ll take those,” Rickett says, snagging them from her hand. I think he knows that we trust him a bit more than her, seeing that she tried to leave us behind in Fairmount. She reluctantly hands the keys over to Rickett. I limp across the hall, hearing bees groan and shuffle in the stairwell. I pray they don’t know how to climb steps and balance their weight effectively to get up here, but who knows what they’re capable of.

I shoulder through the door, using my left side so I don’t put all my weight on my right leg. I cross the room and open the blinds, revealing a poorly lit parking lot. “If her car’s here, it’s in that parking lot.”

“Right outside the building?” Henry asks.

“We take the other stairwell and head out the emergency exit and we’re right around the corner from our exit route.” I say with conviction. Addison’s absence may not be bearable, but at least I know we have a possible way out.

******

“Man, this sucks shit,” Benny says at the bottom of the stairwell. “I’m sorry, man.”

“For what? You didn’t do anything but get me here. I should be thanking you, I guess.”

“Nah. I’m not sorry for that. I’m sorry I can’t leave with you. Because, you know, if I could, we’d have a fucking blast.” He takes a deep breath, rubs his chest under the collar bone and slowly exhales. “Game over man. The game is over.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask as Rickett opens the door from the stairwell to the first floor hallway. There’s already a large enough void in my guts. I don’t need anymore. I don’t want anymore. Everything was taken away from me on the second floor. I’ve come down; I want to start this shit over, to move on. And now Benny wants to bail on me, again. But this time, at least it’s not to save his own ass. It’s to save mine.

“I can’t do it anymore, man. But you, you got a fucking chance. Your knee may eventually cause you to get eaten, but the damage won’t fucking kill you.” He smiles. Not a sinister grin, not baring his shattered teeth, just a small, quaint smile. A friendly smile.

“You’re a pussy,” I say. “A fucking pussy. Running away every chance you get.” I won’t let you go, Benny. I need you. I don’t know this world without you. He simply shakes his head and continues to smile.

“You’ll understand one day.” He pats my shoulder. “One day,” he repeats.

“Hurry,” Rickett barks into the stairwell. He holds the door open with his heel and waves for us to get into the hallway.

“It’s all for you, buddy,” Benny says, stumbling into the hall.

The groaning and scuffling echo through the hall, and when I enter, I see a wall of decay: the hive pours into the building from the entrance, the majority of bees still sniffing into the stairwell that we left open while upstairs. Almost like a wave in the ocean they turn, crest, and crash over each other, rolling straight towards us.

“Well,” Henry snaps, “whatever the hell you’re doing for him you better fucking do it soon.”

That bitch! Does she even know what she’s done? Sending Benny off to his own demise? “No!” I yell and reach for him, but he stumbles back, still smiling.

“Got to, bro. I got one last fight to pick. And I’m going to make it a fucking epic one.” He kisses his knuckles. “Bare knuckle style.” He turns from me and, grimacing, stands tall and walks slowly towards the bees, the pain making him groan and cuss under his breath.

I move to grab him again, but Rickett grabs my shirt collar to stop me. “Let him,” he whispers. “He’s dying. Like he said, Gavin, he’s choosing to be a hero for once.” There’s a bit of a crack in Rickett’s voice. “He deserves this. He should go out on his terms.”

I raise the 9mm and before I can fire, Rickett forces my arm down. “Don’t waste the ammo,” he says. “If you have any left.”

The bees pick up speed, tumble over and trample each other, snapping bones, tearing skin, clawing to get to Benny first. Benny stops halfway between us and them. He clinches his fist, takes a deep breath and yells, “Eye of the tiger, mother fuckers!” before barreling into the oncoming wave.

He swings, knocking a bee backwards, smashing his fist into its skull. But it’s not enough. They press on Benny, and he tries to stand tall, swing, cussing, reveling in the blood and bile. I jerk free from Rickett’s grasp and make a run for Benny.

I need him, I scream in my head. Even though I know he’s gone, we can still spare his being devoured. We can at least bury him. Properly. Like humans fucking do, damn it! “No!” I yell.

He turns his head, and I can see the pain in his eyes. But he grins before he roars, “Go! You son of bitch, go!”

It’s not his words that stop me and force me to turn around. It’s the crack of gunfire. The eruption of blood from Benny’s face. The shattering of his cheek bone. His collapse into the hive.

Henry holds the dead pirate’s revolver in her extended hand. She must’ve taken it when we were arguing with Rickett. She hid it from us. She...she fucking shot him.

“You!” I scream at her. Spit dangles from my mouth and tears pour.

“We need to go! Now! It’s what he wanted!” She screams hysterically. Rickett just stands emotionless, possibly in shock or awe, watching the bees destroy Benny.

“That wasn’t what he wanted! You took the fight from him. You stole his heroism. You fucking made him bait! You had no right to do that, to take him from me!”

“It doesn’t matter now, Gavin! Let’s go!”

Wrong answer. I lift up the 9mm and before I can squeeze, I feel a pop. A burst.

My throat explodes, burns, and pulses. I let two gunshots rip as I fall, both hitting the wall, sending dust into the air.

I see Rickett’s wide eyes and desperate look. I see Henry’s look of horror and shock. And then I realize that it’s all true. The pain is real. She killed Benny and now she’s shot me.

“You bitch! You fucking traitor!” I want to scream, but only gurgles leave my throat.

I point the gun at her again and squeeze. Click. Click. Out of desperation, I throw the gun at her, hoping to hurt her, to kill her. The 9mm glances off her thigh.

I open my mouth and gulp air, trying to find words that can fix this, that can solve the problem.

I wrap my hand around my throat and try to stymie the blood flow, using the palm of my hand to cover the wound. Still gulping. I don’t think my throat would let me speak even if I could find the words.

My palm keeps slipping from its position, the blood pumping out in quick bursts in rhythm with my pulse. I can feel life racing through my body and escaping at the same time.

An expanding pool of my blood covers the floor. I slip, collapse, and Rickett and Henry just watch with their eyes wide, frozen with disbelief.

Help me! I want to scream. I’ll forgive you, Henry, if you’ll just fucking help me!

I roll over to watch bees devour Benny. I hope he’s dead, that he can’t feel what’s happening to him. Benny the coyote, Benny the hero, dead Benny. They crawl over him, feasting, grabbing and eating anything the can tear from his body.

As I roll back to over to plead for help, to have one of them do something, anything, another gunshot roars in the hall. Rickett stands with his arm extended, his body a statue, 9mm pointed directly to where Henry’s head was. Henry’s body gingerly slides down the wall, leaving a bloody trail behind her.

I can barely hear the groans, the chewing, as the gunshots and shock deafened me, but I can feel the claw-like nails and decaying teeth pierce my skin and dig into muscle. Part of me pops and rips as their hands tug, pull, and jerk my body from left to right. I’m too weak to fight them off, to pull myself away from them.

Rickett looks at me and I see the sorrow in his eyes, in the tears. He looks older now, much older. He mouths something, “I’m sorry,” perhaps. I let go of my neck and try to use both hands to reach towards him. He stoops down and pulls the revolver from Henry’s hand and the bat lying next to her body. He’s sobbing, the old man. He shakes his head and keeps repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” to himself.

I can’t feel the hurt anymore. I can feel the tugging, the jostling, and I can hear the slurping, the grinding of teeth. For a moment, everything is crisp and clear. The texture of my blood mixing with the dust and dirt on the floor, the sound of Rickett’s sobs and heavy breathing, the cracking of Benny’s bones as the bees devour him all the way to the marrow. Everything is so real, so definitive. Everything but the pain.

And before I close my heavy eyelids, I watch Rickett kick open the emergency exit and look back to me. I reach for him again. He hangs his head, turns, and walks over the threshold.

The door shuts and its clank is last sound I hear.

Benny, I’m right behind you. A bullet or a bite. All that work we did and now we’re both dead meat.

And, oddly enough, amidst all the pain and the loss, I smell rain.

Open Doors

2010-05-26T16:16:00.001-04:00

Broken and bloody, Benny rises to lead the charge from Vantes Hall. The bees continue to push themselves through the shattered window, cutting themselves apart, snapping their jaws and tonguing the air. We walk towards the emergency exit, Benny leaning on my left side. We both limp behind the others as my knee swells and aches with each step. We’ve never had time to heal, and we probably never will.

But we must press on. I must press on.

“Who’s going first?” Henry asks, eager to leave the hallway.

“Me,” Benny volunteers. He moves from my left and uses the wall to support himself.

“There’s no way you’re going first,” Rickett says and steps in front of Benny. “We don’t know what’s out there. You’re not capable right now.”

“Fuck that, old man. Let me out.”

“No,” I say to Benny, grabbing his arm and getting his attention. “Rickett can go first; he can swing and make a path if necessary” Rickett nods and turns to open the door.

“Whatever the case,” Benny says before Rickett pushes open the door, “don’t you go dying on us.”

“You got it.” Rickett smiles, takes a deep breath, turns and kicks the metallic handle, forcing the door open with a loud, echoing clank.

And some how—some way—when I hear that clank, I forget how to breathe.

Rickett takes one step out and immediately swings back and forth. The door almost closes before Henry pushes it open wide and runs out into the fray to help Rickett. She pulls the level on the rifle and pulls the trigger.

Click.

Nothing. No bullet, no eruption of blood. She works the lever again.

Click.

And again.

Click.

“Damn it!” She yells into the smoke filled dusk. She flips the rifle, holds it by the barrel and swings it like a bat, cracking a shambling bee across the jaw and cheekbone. Again and again she swings until her and Rickett have cleared out the nearest bees. Partially bloated, decaying bodies twitch and writhe on the ground.

“Most must be at the front of the building. The solid door probably threw them off,” Rickett says. “Maybe they think it’s a wall or something.”

“Not for long,” Benny says, pointing. “Looks like they caught a whiff of the good stuff.” Bees come from around both sides of the building, their mucus glazed eyes and flicking tongues point in our direction.

“There’s a building in between this one and Gibbons.” She points across the once manicured lawn that’s now overrun with weeds and corpses. “We need to get to there first.”

A three story brick building, similar to Vantes Hall, stands about 100 yard away. “Race you there,” Benny snickers through his shattered smile. I only shake my head in response and put his arm around my neck. “You can’t carry me everywhere, you know.”

“Just shut up and move.” Step and drag. My knee burns. My hand throbs. Blood still slowly rolls down my cheeks and neck. Benny wheezes and grunts with each step. Together, we might make one healthy being, but separate, we’re on the brink of catastrophe, of falling behind and being left for dead.

Even though we’re putting the fires behind us, smoke still tumbles across the campus, some patches thicker than others. The smoke burns my nostrils, but it’s better than the smell of rot and the taste of blood.

50 yards left, halfway, and Benny starts running his mouth again. “Remember Maria?” He asks.

Step and drag. “Shut up” I say.

“Dead meat, dead weight.”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

Henry swings the rifle, knocking a bee to the side. As it rises, I fire the 9mm, forcing it back to the ground. Rickett swings, batting another bee away from us. Benny, firing with his left hand, puts a bullet in its head.

“At least if we go out, we go out with guns blazing.” More wheezing. More dragging. I just wish he’d shut up. There’s only about 35 yards left, but I’d rather listen to the swarming bees than Benny doubt himself and our survival.

A tearing sensation cramps my leg and searing pain erupts in my knee; my knee twists and I stumble to the ground, pulling Benny down with me. “Shit!” It’s the only word that escapes my open mouth. I say it again and again, over and over as I clutch my knee. There’s so much smoke, so much pain.

“Rickett!” Benny screams.

Gunshot.

Feet trample next to my head.

I roll and start rising, doing my best to avoid putting any extra pressure on my right leg. “Rickett!” He screams again and grabs my shirt, pulling me up as he groans and grunts. “Just jokes, man, just fucking jokes,” he whispers through clenched teeth. “Ain’t no one going out. Not you. Not me. No one, yet.”

Rickett makes it back to us and grabs Benny by the arm to carry him the rest of the way, but Benny pushes him away. “No, not me. Gavin, carry Gavin. Give me the bat, old man, and take this.” Benny hands over the 9mm and grabs the bat, tearing it from Rickett’s hand. Benny points to the 9mm and says, “You’ll need that more than me anyway.”

“The hell with that!” Rickett barks back. Rickett Grabs both Benny and me and squeezes us against him. He drags us through a thick cloud of smoke and when we emerge, Butler Hall is less than ten yards away. Henry holds the door open and waves towards us.

“It’s unlocked!” She yells. From the outside, the building looks identical to Vantes Hall, only the emergency lights are of a duller hue. “Hurry!”

Rickett heaves and drags us towards the door. Huffing, he lets us go once he crosses the threshold. Benny and I stumble into chairs in the lobby. I clutch my knee and Benny wraps his arms around his chest, breathes heavily, and spits more blood from his mouth. He looks over to me, tries to grin but the pain overcomes his chaotic humor and he cringes, coughs, sputtering blood from his mouth and his nose. The smell of rot is thick, nauseating, but I figure that’s to be expected by now. No place is safe. No land is sacred except for the exterminators’ ovens. That’s the only place that can purify and burn all of this taint away.

Not even a solid minute passes before Henry whispers, “My God.”

The emergency lights are dim, yes, but their lights shine on and reflects off blood smeared walls and floors, giving the hallway and lobby an eerie, orange glow. Handprints, splatters, puddles and streaks. The only thing not apparent is where the blood came from.

“Just like a fucking Chinese Buffet, man. Eat all the lo mien and fried rice and then flee to the next one.”

“There’s just no way anyone could survive this.” Unable to break her stare away from the stained walls, Henry just shakes her head and whispers “Just no way.”

But there has to be a way. Vantes Hall wasn’t like this. It was pristine, untouched by the vile hive lurking outside. No blood. No guts. They got out, or maybe they holed themselves up in the building. Hell, maybe we let the bees in to feast on them. We never checked; we only thought about ourselves. Someone could have pulled the same stunt here. They find a way inside to get away from the bees, but the bees get inside and start eating every living thing they can get their hands on.

But this isn’t her building, I have to tell myself over and over as I try to swallow some of the pain. She’s another hundred yards or so away from this mess. Her dorm could be pristine for all we know. I can’t give up now, even though it would be so damn easy.

Benny’s coughing fit brings me back to the room, the blood, and the overwhelming stench of death. “Fuck!” He yells as loud as possible. He roars and grinds his teeth.

“You got to do something,” I say to Rickett and point to Benny. “He’s coughing up and snottin’ blood everywhere. Some kind of internal damage. You got to do something.”

Rickett turns to me and coldly replies, “What do you expect me to do?”

I stutter but finally say, “You can do something, anything. Help him.”

“There’s nothing I can do, damn it!” He snaps at me, his stern eyes reinforced by a daunting scowl. “Look at this place!” He points to the walls and the blood on the floor. “Even if I could do anything now, there’s no telling what infections he would get.”

“I’m fine,” Benny rasps. He spits his own blood to mix with the blood on the floor and leans back in the chair. “You worry too much, Papa Bear.”

How can I argue this? The only voice that doesn’t challenge me is Henry’s, but she already professed her hatred for Benny. I’m alone. Benny’s going to fucking die, but no one wants to admit it.

“Fuck this!” I yell and grab the bat leaning next to Benny. Using the bat as a cane, I put some of my weight on it and stand. “If you won’t do something, you son of a bitch, I will!”

Rickett pushes me back into the seat, sending another wave of pain from my knee to my hip. “What are you going to do? Kick in every door with your bum leg? Find a first aid kit covered in blood and bacteria and use it to save Benny’s life?”

“At least I’d try,” I fire back at him. “At least I’d try to save him.”

Rickett leans in close, his eyes taut and he coldly states, “You can’t save something that doesn’t want to be saved, boy.”

I look to Benny, but he stands and walks towards the emergency exit at the other end of the hall. He leans against the wall, cradling his chest, coughing up blood and mucus.

“Where are you going?” I yell to Benny, watching him almost slip in a puddle of blood.

“I don’t know about you,” he responds without turning around, “but I’m going to try and find some girl named Addison. I don’t have time to waste, you know.”

“But we don’t know how many more bees are out there,” Henry says. “We’re walking blindly into the center of a hive and no one gives a damn?”

“I give a damn, but right now, I have no choice,” I say to her. We make eye contact briefly before she turns her bruised face away.

“And how are you planning to save someone without an exit strategy?” She says with a hint of bitterness in her voice.

“Not now, Henry,” I say. “Like Benny, I don’t have any more time to waste.”

Henry curses under her breath as she steps around a pool of blood on the floor. “Is it worth finding her if you can’t really save her?”

I don’t answer. I clinch my fist and my teeth, wanting to lash out and strike her down. Instead, I move on, focusing on my anger in hopes to ignore the overwhelming pain in my body. Hell, when haven’t I hurt? A void in my guts, pellets in my hands. Is surviving really worth all this pain?

Yes. If I can find Addison, then yes.

We make it to the emergency exit. “This is it,” Benny wheezes into the door, leaning against the cool metal. “The last stretch of road. The final fucking part of the journey.”

“Until we escape,” Henry adds. “Until we make it out.”

“Sure,” Benny acknowledges. “If you have hope.”

“Open the door, Benny,” I say anxiously.

Benny turns to Henry and looks her dead in the eyes. She tries to turn her head, but he cups her chin in his hand. She flinches. “This is where we find out if you’re a hero or if you’re just a survivor.”

“Now’s not the time for your shit, Benny!” Rickett scolds.

“Then open the fucking door, old man, and make a hole.”

A Subtle Breath

2010-05-15T07:44:00.002-04:00

Each deep breath Benny exhales pushes more blood from his mouth and nose. The blood runs over his jagged teeth, outlining the creases around his sinister grin. His teeth make him look like a monster, a monster ready to devour, ready to kill and maim anything it comes across. He closes his eyes, clinching them shut and attempts to get up.

He roars in pain—a roar louder than the fires, louder than the bees’ chorus of groans and gnashing teeth.

A gunshot echoes Benny’s painful cry. The hive’s coming, pressing, ready to feast.

“Fuck!” He screams and he pushes himself to one knee. His chest heaves rapidly and strings of bloody saliva dangle from his mouth as he spits out tooth fragments. His breathing’s so fragile, so rapid that he sounds like a snake hissing at its prey.

He looks up at me, and for the first time, you can see the hurt in his eyes; you can see his battle to rise and survive in his scowl.

“Gavin,” Ricket yells, “we need to get moving!”

“I know! I know!” I respond on my way to stand. My own pains surge back through my body, reminding me that I never had a chance to heal anything, minus a few of the pellet wounds in my hand. But I swallow it down and will it away. I have to.

I step towards Benny and his hissing gets louder, more violent. “Damn it. I don’t need your fucking help. I ain’t a pussy!” He pushes himself up, only to fall back to one knee, the pain causing him to growl ferociously.

“Let me help—”

“No!” He screams at me.

“Damn you, Benny!” I can’t watch him suffer. He’s hurting himself trying to stand, and he’s hurting our chances of getting out by being too slow. “You remember back in the Edge? Back when you wanted me to prove myself to you? You sent me out in the fucking dark and you were going to leave me behind to save your own ass!”

“So what?” He hisses. “Can you blame a guy for wanting to make it out?” His lips are almost purple and blood still trickles down his face, dripping from his chin.

“No,” I say, “but you came back.”

“Minor stroke of conscience. Won’t happen again.” He coughs while trying to laugh. More blood. More saliva.

“I owe you one, whether you like it or not.” I bend down, grip his left arm and slide it over my neck. I hear pops and tears when I stand up, pulling him upright with me. He wants to scream, but only gurgles and whimpers escape his wide open mouth.

Meanwhile, the smoke thickens and the amount of bees steadily increases. After passing the rifle off to Henry, Rickett fishes into the car to retrieve the two 9mms and the bat. With his right hand, Benny motions for one of the guns. Without hesitating, Rickett hands him one.

“If we don’t go now,” Henry screeches, “we won’t make it out.”

“There’s a building ahead,” Rickett says, looking at Benny. “Think you can make it?”

“Do we have a choice?” I ask, taking the other gun from Rickett.

“Fuck, old man. You’re slowing us down with all your yapping. Move it!” Benny’s voice is as ragged as his breathing. You can hear the hurt and pain in each syllable.

Rickett nods and grins. “That’s my boy.”

******

“Straight ahead!” Henry yells and points with the rifle. We move towards the large, three story brick building. White pillars reflect patterns of light from the declining sun and the surrounding fires. “Hurry!” The bees advance from our left as if they were emerging from the fires.

Benny grunts with each movement. Step and drag. Step and drag. The rhythm becomes all too familiar. I think of Maria and her bum leg. I think of our escape from the Edge and her disappearance. But the most important thing that comes to mind is that through all the smoke, all the blood, I swear I smell rain.

Benny moves, quickly, raising the gun and firing on a lone bee shambling towards us from the right.

“Hurts,” he says, bringing my focus back from the past. “Real fucking bad.”

“What?” I ask, feeling either warm sweat or blood roll down my neck and under my shirt collar. “What hurts?”

Step and drag. Step and drag.

“The irony,” he says, firing another round into a shambling bee.

“The what?”

“The irony of the situation.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time, but what the hell are you talking about?” Are we really talking about irony as a hive of bees descends upon us?

Step and drag. Step and drag.

“Of all the shit we’ve been through, of all the bees we’ve fought and killed, I’m the one who does the most damage to myself.” His laugh turns into a coughing fit followed by blood bubbling from his nostrils. “I fucking waltz through a hive, slicing and dicing, bait an entire hive by myself, jump from a speeding truck into a hive and survive all of it.” His brief chuckle ends with him spitting a large chunk of bloody phlegm onto the pavement. “But I take my eyes off the road for one fucking second and wham. I’m done for.”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“Yet,” he echoes.

Rickett and Henry lead the way to the double door entrance. Blood, ash, and dirt scar the once bone-white pillars. Above the pillars, black letters spelling Vantes Hall label the building.

Step and drag. Step and drag. Benny fires another round. Another decaying body falls to the ground only to be buried by the knee high layer of smoke drifting through the area.

“Look,” Henry says as she turns to face us. “There are lights on inside!” Benny smiles at her and she quickly diverts her eyes from his bloody, shattered grin.

“I think she’s finally falling for me,” he wheezes. He raises the gun across my face and fires. The loud crack temporarily deafens me.

“Jesus man,” I yell, shaking my head, trying to get rid of the ringing. “Save some ammunition.”

“Why? So I can put one in my head if things don’t go our way?” Benny smiles his wicked grin.

I hope it doesn’t turn out that way, but in my mind I’m saying yes, save a bullet. No, save two bullets: one for each of us. But we have to make it inside first, and the constantly increasing number of bodies creeping near us lets us know that if we don’t make it inside, we won’t need those two bullets.

But that’s Benny for you. Take the worst situation, turn it into a joke, and have the truth be the punch line.

******

Rickett swings the bat one, two, three times before glass cracks and breaks. The loud crash echoes down the vacant hallway. He reaches in and unlocks the right door as the left is latched and stabilized. I help drag Benny in after Henry enters and Rickett closes and locks the door behind us. Emergency lights highlight the walls in the hallway every 20 or so feet. No one sits behind the main desk in the lobby, but broken items, blood spatters, and the smell of death suggest that either the exterminators or the pirates have been around these parts.

We step into the hallway and notice the doors numbered in a manner akin to apartments. “This must be a dorm. One I’ve never been in,” I say, maneuvering Benny to a short cushioned bench about halfway down the hall. He lets out a long sigh as if he’s deflating. “You going to be alright?”

“Probably not,” he says, using his shirt to wipe some of the blood from his face. “But hey, ain’t nothing been right since the Edge and I refuse to believe that anything will be ‘right’ ever again.

The bees continue to advance towards the building, some banging on the glass door, some reaching through the other door. The narrow hallway from the lobby to the emergency exit amplifies the groans, clicks, and smell of rot.

“Henry,” I say and motion towards the service desk in the lobby, “see if you can find a campus map.” I shove my 9mm into my waistband and fumble for my wallet. I pull out the old, battered business card that has Addison’s address. She must be close by. We’re at the dorms, but this is one building I don’t recognize.

“Got it!” She yells from behind the desk. She runs back over and we stand under the emergency light closest to the bench and try to decipher the small, lightly printed images.

“We’re in Vantes Hall right now,” I mumble and search through the map’s key to locate the building’s number. “17, 17,” I repeat to myself while tracing my fingers over the buildings until it lands in the campus’ southeastern quadrant. “OK, got it.” Henry and Rickett peer over my shoulders and Benny stares at the decaying bodies trying to enter though the opening Rickett made in the door. I hold the card next to the map. “Gibbons Hall,” I mutter. “She lives in Gibbons Hall.”

“There! There!” Henry squeals and jams her finger into the map. “Two buildings over!” Rickett and I smile at each other. “Holy shit! We made it. We actually made it!”

But the loud, piercing echo of a gunshot prevents anymore excitement. Benny sits, his arm stretched out the right, heaving with each breath he takes. “Sorry,” he sputters, blood still coating his lips. I follow the line from the gun to the floor and halfway between us and the door twitches a decaying corpse in a pool of blood, bile, and probably partially digested human.

“Holy shit.” Bees are pushing and pulling themselves through the hole in the door. Large shards of glass protrude from the frame, but that doesn’t stop the bees. They wiggle, climb, and pull themselves through, catching their skin, their stomachs, and even their throats on the glass, literally ripping themselves apart to get to us.

“I think it’s time to go,” Benny mumbles to himself as he starts to rise.

I put my hand on his shoulder to keep him seated and he looks up to me. His face is worn and the hurt remains in his eyes. “We can hide you, keep you somewhere safe until we check for Addison and come back for you. It won’t take long at all.”

“No,” he answers without hesitation.

“Benny, please, you need rest—”

“Fuck no.” His chest heaves, and his whisper turns into a low, guttural growl. “I started this with you, and I’m sure as hell going to finish it right by your side.”

My heart tells me to decline, to keep him here, hidden, where he can be safe. Maybe we can come back with something to help make him better: first aid kits, pain medicine, maybe a renegade survivor doctor. Something. “Benny—”

“Do you really want to waste some more fucking time?” He says, grimacing and cringing as he rises to his feet.

The Pursuit

2010-04-30T17:56:00.002-04:00

In the side mirror, the headlights speed closer then fall back, like a cop intimidating a driver. The smoke from the fires makes its way to this road, rolling over the asphalt and giving the headlights behind us an ominous glow.

Benny’s knuckles whiten as he tightens his grip on the steering wheel. He nervously eyes the rearview mirror and softly mumbles something to himself that slowly fades into a hum. “I hope it’s a short drive.”

“We’re almost in Lincoln,” I respond. Benny nods, glances at the side mirror and pushes heavily on the gas.

“Let’s get there faster,” he says, accelerating around a wide curve. Momentarily, the trailing lights are gone. Benny doesn’t slow down; instead, he continues to increase the speed. In the back seat, Henry shifts uncomfortably.

The headlights reappear in the side mirror. Behind them, another pair of headlights emerges from the smoke.

“Damn it,” I curse. I’m not sure if it’s the presence of these fuckers or the smoke that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Just go away, I want to tell them. Just leave us the hell alone. But then I think about how they could have Addison. “We got others on our tail, too.”

“Figured,” Rickett says and clears his throat. “They probably won’t be the last either.”

“Just means we need to make it to the school faster.” I shuffle the map and scan the way to the city’s main roads. “Meyers Road isn’t too far from here.” I mark the road with the highlighter, smearing pink across the paper when Benny accelerates through another turn. “Might as well take main roads if we can. We’ll get there faster and should have just enough gas.”

“Where’s Meyers Road?” Benny asks anxiously.

“It’ll be your third right,” I answer, tracing my finger along the pink path. “That’ll take us to James Street.”

It’s hard to keep from looking into the side mirror where the headlights loom in the distance. No matter the turns, hills, or sporadic pools of smoke, those headlights remain at a steady distance.

“Take the next right. Then you’ll take a left onto James Street.”

“You better be right about all this shit,” Benny says. “It won’t be pretty if we have to turn around. I got a feeling those dicks behind us won’t let us pull a three point turn.”

******

Why are the lights hanging back? Why aren’t they closing in?

Orange and white striped barrels lead the car from the shoulder and turn a two lane road into a one lane road. “Good call on the construction,” Benny says as he quickly glances to me, the car slightly swerving as he does so. “Now find us a way around all this bullshit.”

“I’m working on it,” I mumble as I pin the highlighter between my teeth as I shuffle the map around, trying to find a network of back roads to get us to campus as fast as possible.

I’ll find a way out. I have to. We made it this is far with all of our wounds and struggles, both mental and physical. I’m not giving up now.

I’m coming Addison. I’m coming.

“Turn! Turn!” I yell at Benny and he rips the wheel to the left. The car leans and I grab the handle hanging from the roof of the car. For a second, the car lifts and every muscle in my body tightens. A collective sigh of relief and deep breaths fill the car when the wheels reconnect with the asphalt. “Sorry” seeps from my lungs as I try to remain calm.

“Jesus, man. You almost made me shit my pants.” Benny’s chest heaves up and down and he stares at the road.

The roads remain clear. Only a few vehicles remain on the shoulder, casually, as if parked there with a purpose. “It’s so clean. So organized.”

“What is?” Rickett asks.

“This whole place. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

“It looks like they’ve been doing this for a while,” Henry says. “Like they’re making the city functional.” In the mirror, her swollen, emotionless face is pressed against the window. And behind her image, the headlights creep a little closer.

“You think it’s almost over then?” Benny keeps the conversation going.

“No,” Rickett quickly answers. “The city’s functional, but not for civilians.” He bends down to light a cigarette, hiding the flame from the wind rushing through his shattered window. “Judging from what the bearded corpse said, seems like this is turning more into a home base for the exterminators than a city for the living.”

“Litchfield?” Henry asks.

“Best bet,” Rickett confirms, the smoke from his cigarette pouring out the window.

“Take a left up here,” I tell Benny, pointing to a two lane road branching off Meyers Road.

Benny takes the turn and less than two miles down the road, he releases a low, guttural growl. “Damn it! I can’t catch a fucking break!” Benny shouts as smoke thickens and collects in pools on the road. The white and yellow clouds part as the Toyota rolls through them.

We must’ve made it around some of the fires, one way or another. The headlights creep closer, leading me to believe we’re doing something right. Maybe we’ve found a way out, or we’re getting closer to a key area.

“Shit,” I say, my heart racing. “We’re actually almost there.”

“Keep feeding me then, you ass.” Benny turns to me quickly, showing me his wicked grin.

I can’t help but return his smile.

******

Patches of construction line the roads, but not enough to hinder our progression. Turn after turn, we weave through the town of Lincoln, making our way closer and closer to the campus. My chest tightens and aches from the anticipation. The wait’s almost over.

“Holy shit!” Henry screams. “You lost them! You lost them!” She belts a high pitched squeal.

“What the hell?” Benny looks in the rearview mirror.

“Calm the hell down, Henry,” Rickett scolds.

Benny laughs and bangs the steering wheel. “Holy hell!” He laughs wickedly. “Are you fucking serious?”

The headlights are gone. But why? It wasn’t speed or maneuvering, was it?

Tufts of smoke emerge from the vents as the level of smoke rises in the street. “We must be nearing more fires,” Rickett notes.

Bingo, I think to myself. Similar to the highway from Fairmount, a fence of fire lines the road. Benny decreases the speed to steady 45 miles per hour.

“Shit,” Henry whispers.

“They’re back,” I confirm her worry. I see the headlights float above the smoke. They hang back at a distance, but they’re still behind us.

“I can’t see shit,” Benny says, turning to look between Henry and Rickett.

“Benny!” Rickett hollers. “Benny!” He bangs the seat. But it’s too late.

It starts as a jolt, and I see Benny jerk back around, facing the road again. The car lifts, and the heat rises. It’s bright, the fire. Orange. Yellow.

The smoke thickens as the car flies.

My guts rise into my chest, paralyzing my diaphragm.

The fire wraps around the car we fly through the wall.

The asphalt comes closer.

Brace for impact. From the backseat, Henry wails violently. Benny slings curses.

I close my eyes, clinch my teeth and push my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

Glass shatters. Slicing my face. Scraping across my forehead and cheek.

Breathing is impossible. The anxiety and fear suffocates.

Blood. I taste it. I smell it. I feel it rushing over my face, my throat.

My vision’s, watery, blood-filled. My throat and chest hurt. After disengaging the seatbelt, I fall from the seat, realizing the car flipped and we’re upside down. I see smoke, glass, blood, and asphalt. Glass slices my neck as I wiggle through the window. Henry’s freeing herself from the back of the car, cutting her hands and arms on the glass covered ground. Rickett’s hand emerges from the other side of the car. No blood, no cuts. The glass on that side was already gone, already shattered in the previous gun fight.

“Benny!” I yell, dropping to the ground and looking for him. “Benny!” I yell from the passenger side.

No answer. The seatbelt hangs loose and his body’s compressed against the roof of the car with all his weight pushing down on his neck.

“Fuck,” I roar, rounding the car. Rickett’s finally out and not as bloody as myself or Henry. “Benny!”

Glass and blood pool around the driver’s side door. I bang on the door, spraying and smearing blood against the car. Rickett grabs my shoulder but I push him off.

“No! Benny!” Henry circles the car to the driver’s side as I drop to the asphalt again to see Benny.

“Hurry,” Henry shouts. “They could be here any moment.”

“Fuck off!” I yell back at her. “Screw them. Screw you!” I focus on Benny. “Benny,” I whisper, reaching out to him, softly patting his shoulder. The seatbelt entangles his twisted body. Blood trickles from his mouth and his nose. I pat harder, even push him. “Benny” I say with a stern tone. “Wake up.” A slight wheeze escapes, purging more blood from his mouth and nose. He groans an indecipherable word.

I want to cry, to weep. But the world took that from me a long time ago.

“We need to help him.” I say, standing up quickly and getting light headed in the process. “He’s barely alive. We have to do something.”

Rickett nods. Does he feel the same way I do?

“I’ll pull the lever,” I tell him, “and you pull the seat back. That should take some pressure off his neck.”

Benny’s body slides limply, his head turning, pushing more blood from his mouth and his nose.

“We need to pull him out.” Rickett motions to Benny’s limp body and moves to the front door.

“But if his neck is hurt—”

“Then he’s dead one way or another. Broken neck or pirates lurking. But if his neck isn’t broken, then it would be best to get him out and move on from this place.”

I haven’t even taken the chance to look around, but I can’t. Benny could be dying in front of me. I’ve seen enough death.

“Let’s do it then,” I agree. I just hope there’s not too much damage.

It takes some maneuvering, but we get Benny halfway out. We straighten his body, knock away some of the excess glass and pull the rest of his body free from the car.

Rickett and I crouch next to his body. “Benny,” I whisper. No response. A steady stream of blood drains from a cut above his right eye. Blood seeps from his nose and mouth and runs down the side of his face. He takes in short, wheezy breaths. Benny, the coyote, wounded, possibly crippled. Benny, the hero, fallen, broken.

“They’re here,” Henry says between coughing fits and points to the fires.

Rickett slowly rises and approaches Henry.

“No, that’s not the pirates,” he declares. He limps back to the car and grabs the rifle. “That’s the reason the pirates fell back.” He pulls the lever, aims and fires one round. A groaning body tumbles to the ground in the distance. “Fucking bees,” Rickett says. “Looks like we might have crashed right into a hive.”

I try to ignore it all. I try to focus on Benny, the one guy who’s been with me through all of this—the reason why I made it this far. “Benny,” I whisper directly into his ear.

The silence swells and consumes me. Benny’s all that matters. “Say something, damn it.”

He coughs, sputtering blood. “Am I alive?” More blood erupts from his mouth as he gulps air.

“Yes,” I snap excitedly. “Yeah you’re alive. Always, man.” There’s no telling how much damage he’s taken, but he’s alive. “Always.”

And before the world around us comes back into focus, Benny’s carnivelesque grin emerges, this time marked with blood and broken teeth.

Benny the coyote. Benny the hero. Benny the survivor. Always.

Into the Fires

2010-04-17T00:20:00.001-04:00

It’s just more blood on my hands, I think to myself. Another bullet wound, another corpse, another pointless victim in the whirlwind of our lives. But this fellow here remains nameless. Maria and Clyde were entities; there were more than a speed bump on the road to Lincoln.

But this man, this bleeding body, embodies all that we’ve come to hate. The exterminators, the bees, and now these pirates. Of course, I understand you need to be selfish to survive, to take what you can get and run away with it. But stealing another person’s chance to survive for sexual gratification is beyond the scope of survival; it’s down right malicious. Hell, some of those women might’ve preferred for bees to devour them to prevent being a sexual commodity passed from scumbag to scumbag. Fucking filthy.

“What happens if the other comes back?” Henry’s bruised face almost hides her concerned look.

“What?” Rickett asks. “I thought you wanted him to come?” He lights a cigarette. “Weren’t you just saying to leave the body in the road to send a message?”

“But I didn’t think it through all the way.” She sounds ashamed. “I just don’t think we’re prepared, you know, to handle that type of confrontation. I mean, what if they come back with more people?”

“Then we kill them,” I respond without hesitating.

“But we’re almost out of bullets,” she adds.

“Then we bash their heads against the pavement. Crush their throats. We do what we have to do.”

“That’s so fucking rad,” Benny says and bobs his head; his shit eating grin reveals either his amusement or his desire to kill.

“Benny,” I say, flicking my cigarette butt at the corpse. “You’re driving. I’ll ride shotgun. Let’s get the fuck out of here, before I murder that body again.”

“Yeah baby,” Benny says, his voice quivering similar to an orgasm. “I like it when you talk murder.” He cackles. “You get it? Eh?” Benny looks to us all waiting for our raucous laughter. “You know, like it’s a turn on or some shit.”

“Yeah, we get it,” Rickett says. “Now shut up and drive.”

******

There’s an ache inside. A cramp in my guts that’s not from seeing the gore or smelling the rot of everyday life. It’s an ache of anxiety, of realizing that every thing I worked for and my reasons for pushing forward could be gone, eaten, burned, or raped.

Killing the nameless man wasn’t enough. He was the harbinger, the visual messenger I didn’t want to see. And now my guts tell me only bad can come from each step into Lincoln. But if I would have listened to my guts before, I sure as hell wouldn’t be where I am now. My guts are what made me weak; they’re what wanted me to step aside, to quit pushing and to give up. So why the hell would I listen now?

“Dude, are you going to tell me where the hell I’m supposed to be going?” Benny snaps his fingers a few times. “Am I supposed to turn anytime soon?”

“No,” I respond. “This is a highway that’ll take us into Lincoln from the southeast side. “Before I moved, they were planning on buying up all the land out here and building some strip malls and more suburbs.”

As we drive, the two columns of smoke to the west billow into the sky. Vacant cars, some stripped, line the road, as I’m sure the pirates already cleared their important routes.

“So you’re saying we could run into a strip mall or some major stores or something?” Henry asks eagerly. “We can stop and get some rest, maybe some more supplies. More weapons.”

“That is if the pirates hadn’t taken it all first. But knowing this town, at least when I lived here, it would take years upon years before anything new was actually built. Politicking is more fun around these parts. They want to debate how to spend money instead of actually spending it.” I remember the fond memories of Lincoln, the college parties and dive bars, but I also remember the inefficiency of city council members and how construction was everywhere. “Shit.”

“What?” Benny asks, pressing the brakes and looking around. “Did I miss a turn or something?”

“No, no,” I say, calming him down. “It’s just, well. . .construction.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Benny brings the car to a complete stop.

“This town is known for its inability to function without chaotic construction pissing everyone off.”

“So what?” Henry asks, almost perturbed.

“We could run into a few snags ahead, if the town was in the process of building. Also, it might make it more difficult to navigate through the town. Things might look a bit different.”

“Gavin,” Rickett says in his fatherly tone, “the whole state, if not the region or country, has probably changed at this point. Things are going to look different one way or another, whether it’s construction or destruction.”

******

“I just really think we should do something to prepare for those people when they come back for us.” Henry hasn’t stopped prattling on since we discussed the construction issue. She mentions returning to the house we left, finding some place to hide out, finding more weapons. Although she’s right about the weapons; we could definitely use more.

“Henry,” Rickett says with exhaustion, “if we run away, then we killed for no reason. Not to mention, the patrols would be heavier and more often. We have to go forward.”

“But who’s to say we can’t find another way. Look, I’ve gone along with you since the first step of this plan, but it’s bogus. It’s weak. We need something that’ll work.”

“It will work. It has to work.” I respond, grinding my teeth. “I gave you the option to stay or go. You didn’t go, so don’t blame us.”

“Yeah, girl.” Benny uses the rearview mirror to look at her. “Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.”

“There are no other options.”

“But—”

“Henry, if you want to have a chance to live through this, shut the fuck up. Otherwise, I’ll leave you on the side of the road if you want to go your own way.”

Henry looks to Rickett for support, but he’s cleaning his shoulder again, taking his time to create a reliable bandage to cover the wound. She crumbles back into the seat, sinking into herself, lowering her head and pulling her hat down over her face. Sometimes, lately, I’ve felt more that she’s not defeated or weak, that she’s built stronger than she appears. However, the ache in my guts is too much for me to think about Henry.

Silence ensues for a few miles before Benny says, “So what do we do?” He shrugs. “You know, what if they’re alive?”

It takes a minute to register what he says. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we aren’t quite ready for it. I mean,” he hesitates to choose the right words and continues, “we can’t fit everyone in this car, you know?”

It’s a dream, I guess, that my family’s safe. This whole hunt has been a push to find them, to save them. But we haven’t really planned for it. Have I subconsciously accepted their death? Is this just for closure?

“We’ll do whatever it takes to work,” I say, urgency fills the hole in my stomach, twisting and turning my guts in the process. “Just drive.” Benny scratches at his bandage and nods.

No. They’re alive. They have to be. I couldn’t just make this trip and think they were dead. I’d give up, right? But why haven’t we prepared ourselves for it? Why haven’t we done more? How do we get them out of Lincoln?

Shit.

Benny’s right, except for we’ll need a lot more than a car; we’ll need a way out. But first, we need to make sure we can get in there.

It’s the smell that first draws my attention from the map and highlighted routes. It sizzles my nostrils, a smell of burning pine.

“Should’ve turned back,” Henry mumbles.

Benny looks into the rearview mirror. “I’m going to cut out your fucking tongue if you don’t quit bitching,” he says, surprisingly calm. She sinks further into herself as Benny slowly applies the brakes.

Swirling grey and white clouds tumble across the street. “Just keep it slow,” Rickett says from the backseat. “If it gets too thick, reverse it.” The smoke clouds swell against the sides of the car as Benny coasts ahead.

The second smell creeps into the car. Burned, rotting flesh, a smell we’re all too used to. Benny inhales and deeply. “Sweet, sweet memories,” he says, chuckling to himself. Rickett doesn’t react and Henry’s throat releases a slight gurgle.

The smells foreshadow the sporadic fires, key signals letting us know that we’re close to Lincoln. “I bet the pirates keep those fires burning,” Benny concludes. “They’re the closest—”

“That we’ve seen,” I add. For all we know there’s so much more hidden behind the smoke and fire.

“Do you see them?” Henry asks.

“Who?”

“Them. The bees. Off to our right.” There’s a quiver in her voice. Fright or disgust, I’m not sure. “Jesus, there’s so damn many.”

Hands, arms, torsos and faces weave between slow rising waves of smoke. You can see their jaws snap, their tongues kiss the smoke, causing them to recoil in shock.

“Benny,” I get his attention by slapping the back of my hand against his shoulder. “Stop the car. Turn it around.”

“But—”

“We won’t get though this way. It’s done. Too much fire.” I swallow. “Too many bees for my taste.”

“He’s right, Benny,” Rickett says, reinforcing my point. “Ain’t no point in driving through smoke and into a kennel of bees. I’d at least like to see what I’m fighting.”

“You think there’s a better solution?” Benny, shifts the car into reverse. “You want to drive some more just to hit another batch of bees and fire?” At least he’s backing up as he yaps.

“Why the hell are they trapping bees?” Henry asks.

“Good question.” Using my finger, I trace the pink highlighted road back to where we previously turned, making sure I get us to the right roads.

“For fun,” Benny answers with confidence. “Remember back in the Edge? Exterminators used to bait the bees for shooting games. I remember that night in,” he hesitates, “uh. . . Maria’s bar. I drank a little whiskey as they shot down bees throughout the night.” After a few seconds of quiet, Benny adds, “Whiskey would be good right now.” He turns the car around and heads back the way we came. “Crown and ginger. Jack and coke. Damn it, I miss my old life.”

We all silently agree. Nothing more needs to be said. Only my directions pierce the silence. A left back onto the previous road. A left onto another side road.

It’s not until Benny speaks up that the conversation starts again: “Fuck.” A classic Benny statement. His eyes shift between the road and the rearview mirror as he squeezes the wheel. “Headlights.”

“Don’t stop,” I say immediately. “Just keep going.” I’m running out of time, out of chances. “We’ll kill them later.”

Benny smiles wide. “You promise?”

Gunslinger

2010-04-02T19:49:00.001-04:00

“So we have two options,” Benny says as he scratches at the clean dressing on his forearm. The Jeep creeps towards us and Rickett slows down to prolong our confrontation. “Option one: these knuckleheads are exterminators and we off them. Option two: these knuckleheads are of some other piss poor faction and we off them.”

“So you’re meaning to kill them regardless?” Henry asks. You can hear her nervousness when she pronounces the words. Each syllable bounces; her volume wavers and she follows the words with slight hesitation.

“Better them than us,” Benny confirms. “What are they doing?” The Jeep stops and flashes its headlights at us.

“I don’t know.” He stops the car and puts it in park. “But they’re getting out.”

“Two of them,” Benny adds.

“Then why the hell have we stopped? Let’s get out of there. Just drive off.” She speaks hastily. “Put the car in drive and—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Benny turns in the passenger seat and raises hand as if he plans to swing at her.

“Benny!” Rickett yells to stop him.

Benny turns and huffs. “Should’ve left her,” he mumbles as he pulls the lever on the rifle and looks through the windshield at the two men exiting the Jeep. “Fucking burden.”

“Quit your bitching and follow my lead,” Rickett says, positioning the pistol for a quick draw by sliding the gun through the interior door handle. “Get out slowly but keep the rifle out of sight. Only move on my signal.” Rickett turns in his seat and points to Henry and me. “You two stay still and don’t do or say anything. Got it?”

“Got it,” I answer and Henry nods.

“Let’s go.” Rickett opens the door slowly, making sure not to jostle the pistol. By this time, the two men from the jeep have covered half the distance between the two vehicles. Both men look like mechanics in their black pants and dark, buttoned shirts. The man who takes the lead has short brown hair and a long, wooly beard. His shirt’s short sleeves reveal tattoos covering his forearms. The other man, a clean shaven blonde who shadows the other, has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Keeping the door open, Rickett raises both hands to show he’s unarmed. “Howdy,” he yells to the two men.

“Stop right there,” the brunette says, brandishing a revolver that was hidden in his waistband.

Benny opens the passenger door and holds up his hands. The blonde takes a step back and draws a 9mm from the back of his waistband. “Whoa, guys, is it necessary? The guns?”

“Shut up!” The lead man shouts to Benny. He looks to Rickett. “Who else is in there?”

“Just my other son and his friend.” Rickett says. From only seeing his profile, I can tell he doesn’t blink, and he doesn’t show a hint of nervousness. No two better people to handle our situation than Rickett and Benny.

“Boy or girl?” The blonde man asks.

“Boy,” Rickett responds immediately. It’s a damn good thing that Henry always wears that hat.

I can only see Benny’s back and how his left arm drops as he and Rickett talk to the two guys. With each second that passes by, Benny’s hand gets closer to the gun.

“What are you doing here?” The brunette points the gun at Rickett and glances in Benny’s direction.

“Shelter. We need it and we see a whole town full of it.” Rickett doesn’t stray more than a foot from the door panel where he wedged the pistol.

“Bullshit. What’s in the car? The trunk? You got weapons?” With the gun, he motions towards the car.

It all happens so fast. The gunfire. The yelling.

Rickett moves to the left, pulling the gun free of the door handle. Three shots sound. Rickett tumbles to the ground, and I fall into Henry’s lap when the back window shatters into my face. Benny takes cover behind the passenger door and grabs the rifle, two more shots sound. More glass shatters and rains over Benny. “Old son of a bitch!” He yells, over and over again. “Fuck! Fuck!” He stands up and fires two shots. One man releases a short cry while another wails in the background. A door slams and the Jeep speeds off. Benny fires one more shot at the fleeing vehicle.

I climb over the glass and open the door. Rickett picks himself up holding his shoulder and cussing. “Damn it!” He winces and grimaces. Blood rolls from under his cotton short sleeve.

Benny walks around the front of the car. “What the fuck was that, old man?” He yells at Rickett. “I’ll put a bullet in you if that’s what you really want!”

“I guess I’ve slowed a bit,” he says, looking at his shoulder. He removes his hand from the torn sleeve. “Could’ve been worse.”

“What the hell were you doing?” I ask. “I almost took a bullet in the face for that shit you pulled.”

“Hey! If it wasn’t for me, they’d be raping Henry and taking our weapons. I wasn’t going to let that happen.” So that’s why he mentioned that Henry was a guy. “Two things are important right now: power and sustenance. And if I hadn’t done something, we would’ve taken bullets anyway once they found out I lied about Henry’s gender.”

“The least you could have done was give that damned elusive signal you mentioned,” Benny responds. “You ain’t a gunslinger in the fucking wild west, Rickett. You’re an old vet and a hermit at that.”

“No one was in any real danger.” He tries to rationalize what happened. “The way the man held his gun showed his lack of experience. Not to mention he couldn’t keep it still.” He winces again. “Gavin, grab that bag of medical supplies from the trunk, will you?”

“So you try to be Quick Draw McGraw?” Benny shakes his head in disbelief.

“Hate to you interrupt your bitch party over there, but what are we going to do about this guy?” Henry stands next to the bearded man lying in the road. He holds his stomach and breathes and grunts in sporadic bursts.

“Oh shit,” Benny says, sliding on the asphalt as he races to the body with the rifle still in his hands.

I attempt to help Rickett clean and dress his wound, the wound from a grazing bullet, but he shoos me away. Instead, I follow Benny over to the bleeding body. Benny hovers over the body and simply watches the man as the puddle of blood under him slowly expands.

“Losing a little blood, aren’t you?” Henry asks.

“Fuck. . .you,” he says between gurgling breaths.

“Shot in the guts.” Benny shakes his head and crouches next to the man. “That just sucks shit.” His carnivalesque grin shows and the man can only groan and turn away.

“Who are you?” I ask, but the man doesn’t answer. He closes his eyes, shows his teeth when grimacing, and tries to roll over. He gives up and falls back to his original position.

“What are you doing here?” Henry leans over him and waits for an answer.

“Fuck you!” He screams and spits at her feet. Her bruised face and crooked nose accentuates her scowl. She kicks him in the ribs and he howls in return.

“Seems like he doesn’t want to chat,” Benny concludes, shaking his head.

“So then we’ll use him as bait.” Rickett joins us to tower over the dying man. Blood seeps through the gauze covering his wound. “He can either answer a few questions and die as a man, or he can die as a notch on the food chain. What will it be?”

“They’ll come for me,” he says, breathing heavily. “And you’ll be dead. All of you.”

“But see,” Rickett says, “you’re going to die, one way or another. No matter how fast they come, they’ll only gather your corpse if we’re nice. If you don’t answer our questions, there won’t be a corpse for anyone to find.” Rickett lights a cigarette. “Your choice. Be a man, or be a dead man’s meal.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “You’re dead whether I survive or not. They’ll kill you, one way or another.”

“Who?” I ask.

“The soldiers for one, that’s if my people don’t scalp you first.”

“Why haven’t the soldiers killed you?” Rickett asks.

“Because we defended ourselves. We took charge when shit hit the fan. We were able to hold off for a good three days. Killed about a dozen of them.”

“But how did you get out here? Why would they let you roam around?”

“Because we’re smart, unlike you. We cut a deal: we bring in the loot and they get 60 and we get 40. We split the females evenly.”

“Split the females?” Henry curls her lips in disgust.

“Yes,” he grunts. “You’re a little banged up, but they wouldn’t care. They’d make a meal out of you.” The thick beard and mustache partially hide his smile.

The gun in my hand goes off. It’s an automatic reaction to what he says. Square in the forehead. His head bounces against the asphalt and rocks back and forth. Blood forms a red halo around his head and his smile lingers long enough for my brain to capture the image.

Addison. My mother. Both could have been subjected to these fuckers’ savagery. There’s a moment of awkward silence, and before it can be broken, I turn and walk back to the car.

The nameless man is my first real victim; the first living person whom I chose to kill. I had a purpose. I wanted vengeance for what might’ve happened. I wanted to kill who could’ve hurt my sister and mother. But I only did him a favor. That bullet I put in his head just ended his misery. I finished what Rickett started.

I felt guilty for killing Clyde, for letting Benny kill Maria. But I won’t feel guilty for this man. I can’t. Hell, I’m not even sure if I know what guilt is anymore.

I make it halfway before Benny calls my name. “Gavin,” he says nonchalantly. I return his tone is an emotionless stare. “Dude. That was fucking awesome!” His eyes are almost as wide as his wicked grin. “Fucking modern day pirates over here,” he says with a chuckle, “pillaging from the dead. And to think, we were scared of these fuckers last night. You were right, Rickett. They aren’t very good at what they do.” He checks the man’s pockets but comes up empty handed. “So what do we do now?”

“We could leave him in the road,” Henry answers. “It’ll be like a message to the others.”

“What kind of message?” Rickett asks. “The other man got away. The message has already arrived at its destination. There’s nothing more we can say.”

Leaving Sanctuary

2010-03-26T21:31:00.002-04:00

“Seriously, don’t go out there, Benny. You don’t know how many are out there.” Benny answers my plea by picking up the bat. “Benny, listen to me, man!” Rickett watches Benny twirl the bat and set it on his shoulder. Benny opens the door, smiles and winks before closing the back door behind him.

“Shit.” It’s all I can say.

“Best start packing up some goods for the road,” Rickett says, getting up from the chair and stretching.

Henry stares out the window. “It’s moving, slowly. But it’s not like the others—you know—the brittle ones.”

“There’s probably more food around these parts,” I respond. “I’m just worried about the rest of the hive. There out there somewhere”

I join Henry at the window and watch as Benny enters our view from the right. He picks up one of the small stones bordering the walkway from the driveway to the front door. He lobs the small stone towards the bee, hitting the decaying body on its hip. It’s head moves surprisingly fast as it snaps its attention to Benny.

Benny faces his audience. He smiles and pushes the bee and it stumbles backwards, wobbling as it tries to maintain its balance. Benny twirls the bat, slowly at first. He increases the speed of his swinging as the bee moves forward again. The bat connects and the bee’s forehead collapses.

Henry cringes and snaps. “How can you let him do this? This isn’t fucked up to you?”

“We have to let him do this. It’s his way.” He needs this release. We saw what happens when he can’t absorb the violence, visually or physically. I don’t think Benny knows how to survive without brutality. And, I think, I’m finally OK with it.

“It’s his way?” She asks, throwing her hands into the air. The walls and window between us and Benny mutes the hellacious beating in the street. “His way of doing what? Going completely insane?”

“Henry, sometimes you must accept what people become. He’s not hurting us.” He takes a sip of coffee. “In his mind, he’s saving us.”

“You guys are sick. Just plain sick.” Henry shakes her head. Rickett and I simply shrug.

Benny enters the house from the back, locking the door behind him. He leans the bat handle up in the corner next to the door. “Whew,” he says, rinsing his hands in the sink and drying them on a towel.

“Are you done?” I ask, only to be pushed aside by a raging Henry.

“You disgusting fuck!” She screams. Rickett grabs the back of her jacket and shirt and pulls; her throat makes a low gurgle sound as the next few words are cut short from Rickett’s strong arm. He spins her around and pushes her from the kitchen back into the dining room. She falls into the chair where Rickett previously sat.

“Settle down, damn it!” Rickett yells. “It’s over and done with, and I’m not going to waste what little life I may have left listening to you two shits scream at each other.”

“Patrol will find that,” Henry says after rubbing her throat. “And they’ll come for us.” She keeps her eyes on the floor when Rickett glances her way. Frustration and exhaustion have added more wrinkles to his face.

“Guess we all have to go then,” Benny says and shrugs. He pulls a package of snack crackers from one of the cabinets and eats a few.

“I hate you, Benny.” Henry takes a deep breath. “I honestly think I hate you.”

“Good he says. Pack some shit and use that hatred as motivation to kill some bees next time they come around.” Crumbs fall from his mouth and onto his gray shirt. “Funnel that hatred into something productive.”

******

“I wonder what stopped them from leaving.” Benny packs one of the small luggage containers we found in the master bedroom’s closet. “I mean, the shit hit the fan and these people apparently planned on holing themselves up.”

“It’s home,” Rickett says in passing. “Hell, if I hadn’t meet you two twerps, I would’ve stayed home myself.”

“I’m not sure how to take that,” Benny says to me after Rickett’s moves a safe distance away.

“He’s right though. It’s the same thing with me searching for my family. I don’t want to let go of them. I’m not ready. Maybe these people weren’t ready to leave the memories. Maybe this house kept them as a family.”

“Or maybe the exterminators stopped them. There’s only blood. They could’ve been murdered in the night for all we know. Maybe they were planning to leave the following morning but the excessive bleeding and dying part put an end to that idea.” He shrugs and continues packing some spare clothes. Clean clothes are definitely a rarity lately. “All I’m trying to say is that they weren’t prepared to leave. If you’re going to stay somewhere or do something, to me it seems like common fucking sense to have a damn back up plan.”

“You’re right.”

“Damn straight.”

“Let’s get this shit together. I’ve got some ideas.”

******

After pulling a map from the glove box, I close the Toyota’s passenger side door and the small garage amplifies the sound, making me wince. I spread the map out on the hood, looking for our location. I guess that’s the good part of this trip: I’ve lived here, in Lincoln, at least for a short period of time.

“Alright. We’ll need two plans, thanks to Benny’s reminding me of preparation.” He smirks and winks at Rickett. Henry leans against the trunk of the car, the bill of her hat hiding the majority of her swollen, bruised face.

“Bout time you’re productive, boy,” Rickett snickers and lights a cigarette. He exhales a deep wheeze and a cloud of smoke.

“Are you serious?” Benny asks as I uncap a pink highlighter.

“What? It was the only one I could find in the house.”

“That’s so gay, bro. Really.” Benny points to the highlighter and laughs. He looks to Henry for comedic approval; she simply shakes her head.

“Are you done?” I ask, waiting for Benny’s stand up show to subside before I map out two destinations—both hopefully leading to survival. “OK, so it seems like we’re about four or five miles out from the main suburbs of Lincoln.” I mark our location with a small, pink circle.

Rickett leans over and asks, “And where’s the school?”

“You’re shitting me, bro. It’s in the middle of the city?” Benny points to a spot on the map.

“No, that’s a satellite campus.” I point to an area to the northwest part of Lincoln. “It’s here.”

“Well that sucks even more shit! That’s all the way through town.” He takes a deep breath and asks, “So we’re expected to drive through an entire town of exterminators, bees, and some other patrolling creeps?”

“In short,” I respond, “yes.”

“Bad idea,” Henry says, shaking her head. “If the pointless killing machine hadn’t mutilated that bee, we would still be inside running the AC and enjoying some hot food.”

“Fuck that,” Benny says. “Ain’t no adventure in there. Hell, I’d rather be out on the streets fighting for something instead of rotting in some dead family’s house.” Maybe Benny finally found his calling, his destiny or whatever people call it. “Shit. What’s the point of spending your life trapped in someone else’s memories?”

“Anyway,” I interrupt, trying to get his attention back to the plan. “If we find two routes, and a way to move from one to the other, we’d be able to head out and have a solid back up plan.”

“And what happens when a patrol comes cruising down the road towards us?” Rickett asks. He exhales another cloud of smoke and pushes his glasses up from the tip of his nose.

“We highlight all the roads between the two routes in case we need to make a run for anything.” Let it be the right answer, because it’s all we have.

“Could work, I guess,” Rickett responds while looking over the map. “Let’s get started then. We’re burning precious time.”

It takes us close to an hour to develop two clear routes: one via main roads and the other via back roads. “The key,” I say, “is to get near the campus. Once we’re around the campus, I can get us around without the map.” I poorly fold the map to keep our route exposed. I pull the keys from my pocket and Rickett grabs my hand.

“I’ll drive,” he says with his gruff voice. “You need to rest that knee some more.”

The anxiety from reaching the edge of Lincoln forced the pain to the side. While the swelling receded a bit, the ache still pulses in the background. “No. I’ve got this.”

“Gavin,” Rickett says. He doesn’t let go. “No one’s going anywhere without you. You can trust us.” But Benny wanted to leave me. And Henry just tried to run away. I was bait for both of them. “You can trust me.” Can I? The only thing he’s done to hurt me was shooting my hand, but that was called for. We entered his land unannounced. He’s never betrayed any of us; he’s only protected us, healed us and guided us. “Trust me,” he says again. He can feel my racing pulse.

There’s only one person whom I can’t trust—at least who hasn’t earned it—and that’s Henry.

Rickett opens his hand. The keys easily slide from my sweaty hand, landing in his with a small clink. While Benny opens the garage door, Rickett pats my shoulder and I feel slightly ashamed. “Alright, let’s get rolling,” he says.

“Shotgun!” Benny yells and opens the front passenger side door. I take a seat behind Rickett and Henry reluctantly gets in the car.

“We’re driving into a fucking death trap,” she mumbles. I ignore the comment.

“Should we close the garage door?” I ask as Rickett backs downs the driveway.

“Why?” Benny asks in response. “Are you afraid someone might break in?”

******

“I just hope we don’t have to drive through another hive,” I say, reminding the others that a hive must be close. “You know they don’t isolate themselves.”

“Well, we didn’t know they’d be brittle either,” Benny says. We don’t really know much about these things, even though we’ve dealt with them for a while now. The closest we got to a bee was before we met Rickett. I can still remember that bee’s single eye staring at me and its rhythmic wheezing.

“Rickett, let’s stay on the main drag just long enough to turn onto our secondary route. If we stay on the main drag too long, we may run into a checkpoint. That’s what they did at River’s Edge. The exterminators watched main entrances and exits like hawks.” I fold the map over. “Just keep straight and we’ll turn on McMillan Drive.”

Between scattered, abandoned cars, small fires line the road; tendrils of smoke reach up, but a slight breeze pushes the smoke down and drags it across the road. There are no signs of exterminators, so we creep just a little closer. Benny lays the rifle accross his lap and Rickett reaches for a 9mm and places it on his thigh.

“There’s your hive,” Benny says, pointing past the fires to our left. Through the smoke screen, their ashen bodies stumble around and lick the air. A few look like they’re dry heaving. “What the fuck, man? Just when you think you’ve seen it all.”

“Maybe it’s the smoke,” I respond. “The smells, you know. Maybe the taste of the smoke and smoke inhalation is getting to them.”

“They look like cattle.” Henry speaks for the first time since we left. “Cattle grazing in a pasture behind a fence of fire.” Some walk close to the fire but fall back, seemingly hissing, once the heat hits them.

“Sometimes, I feel like we don’t know even ten percent of the stuff that goes on around us,” Rickett adds and continues to drive.

“Take a right here,” I say after a mile of silence and awe. For the entire stretch of road, fires contained sporadic pockets of bees—small, fractured groups probably from one large hive.

The tension dissipates after driving for a few miles on a lesser known highway. But only for a limited time.

“Damn it,” Rickett pipes up. He steers the wheel with one knee and pulls the 9mm’s slide and hands it to me. Benny readies the rifle and Rickett pulls the second 9mm from a bag next to Benny’s feet. Henry looks around nervously.

All of the commotion sets my nerves on edge; I lean up and position myself between the two front seats. In the distance, a Jeep flashes its hazards and closes in.

“Dad,” Benny says while looking ahead, “are we there yet?”

The Outskirts of Lincoln

2010-03-12T22:41:00.001-05:00

My heart flutters; swift, sudden palpitations steal my breath. I lie on my side, my back pressed to the wall under the window. I can feel the engine’s heavy hum run through the wall and into my body. Shadows move as bodies pass through lights. I hope they didn’t see us; I hope Benny made it to Rickett in time.

Bright, yellow lights add to the blue light filling the room. Shifting, moving in and out of the room, the lights dance across walls and suddenly stop.

One—no—two gunshots. A muffled voice outside calls “Cribbs” over and over, yelling louder each time. A few other words are scattered about in random conversation, but nothing as audible as Cribbs. Doors slam, but the yelling continues. Numerous feet trample across the lawn next to my window. Damn. How many people are out there?

More gunshots come in spurts; three, maybe four shots sound at a time. Various voices yell into the night. Commands. Demands. Doors slamming, shadows crossing, engine humming. It’s all too much. I close my eyes, clench my jaw and wait for the noises to end.

There’s no telling how much time passes before the yelling and gunshots stop. Only the engine’s hum remains. I open my eyes. No lights. No shadows. The world is at peace, at least for this brief moment.

“Benny?” I whisper into the darkness. “Benny?”

While waiting for Benny, I peel myself from the wall under the window, pull a curtain to the side and take a peek into the starlit neighborhood.

Idling a few houses down, the large SUV shines its lights across one property’s lawn. Armed beings shine flashlights into the house and circle around the building. Two gunshots echo in the night and lead to more yelling.

“Man, that was a close call.” Benny’s sudden, quiet arrival startles me and he smiles at my flinching. He looks over my shoulder and through the window. We watch two people carry a body from someone’s back yard.

“Think it’s a bee or a human?” Benny asks, still peering over my shoulder. The two men carrying the body toss the victim into the street. The engine’s hum covers any sounds from the body landing on the asphalt. “Either way, it’s dead.”

“But bees are humans,” Rickett reminds us when he walks into the room, staying out of view from the window. “They are people, or were people, like us.”

“But that was a long time ago, pops,” Benny responds. “Those fuckers, those bees, they aren’t human anymore.” Benny lets a few moments pass before he continues. “And those exterminators,” he points his finger at the figures down the road, “they ain’t much more human than the bees. They’re all fucking scum.”

“Those aren’t exterminators, though,” Rickett says to Benny.

Benny scoffs. “What they hell do you mean those aren’t exterminators? They’re doing what the exterminators do: killing everything they can get their hands on.”

“Benny,” Rickett lights a cigarette and continues, “I know what I’m talking about.” Rickett takes a drag and offers me a cigarette.

“You think smoking is a good idea right now?” I hesitate before taking one.

“They won’t come back to this house. We’re fine as long as we don’t make any drastic noises or turn on the generator.” Rickett takes another drag. “Benny, why don’t you grab us all some of those cheap beers you two found.”

“You can’t be serious. These fucks are right outside and you want to smoke and drink?”

“Benny, the exterminators had plans. They knew what needed to be done. These morons out there have no clue what they’re doing.”

“How do you figure that?” Benny stubbornly asks Rickett.

“Will you get me and Gavin a beer if I tell you?”

“Sure. But you’re wrong.”

“First, the exterminators set perimeters, which obviously mark areas that handle a large volume of traffic, whether by vehicle or on foot. This means bridges, overpasses, main highways. That way they can concentrate their forces in few areas while being able to accommodate some crews for patrols, similar to what we see outside.”

Benny smiles. “So now you admit these are exterminators! You lose, bitch!” Car doors slam and the engine’s hum recedes.

“No,” Rickett responds, “I don’t lose. I said what passed us by was a patrol, not exterminators. It’s a patrol, and it’s a poorly operated patrol. First off, when dealing with some type of outbreak or contagion, it wouldn’t be wise to cram corpses into the back of a SUV while you have healthy people in there as well. There’s evidence A: these morons are possibly cross contaminating without thinking twice.”

“Do go on,” Benny says, fueling the fire.

“Evidence B would be the fact that there’s no structure or rigidity to the way these people handle their patrol. If you have a concern that someone or something is infiltrating a structure, you wouldn’t just shine a flashlight across a window; you’d actually enter the building. You also would have teams with assigned tasks, not people running around and shooting bees or survivors on a whim.” Rickett takes a pull from the cigarette and Benny’s smile dissolves. “And evidence C, the last piece of the puzzle: if the exterminators, or a military organization, were handling this project, we wouldn’t have even gotten this far. We’d be in these ovens you two talk about.”

“Fuck,” Benny says before turning and walking into the kitchen.

“So who are they if they’re not military or the exterminators?” I ask while lighting a cigarette.

“Not sure. It could be a simple group of survivors or could be a local militia, poorly organized and trained, but a militia none the less.” Benny brings in the beers. Cracks and hisses resonate throughout the room.

“Benny, that was a damn good idea you had about moving the car into the garage.” Benny nods and Rickett takes a swig of beer. “Probably saved our lives. I have a feeling that these patrols are primarily looking for anything out of the ordinary.”

“What makes you think that, old man?” Benny asks.

“It’s a plain Jane neighborhood; anything too different would stick out like a sore thumb,” I cut in for Rickett while he downs some more beer. “This neighborhood almost looks staged. Even the lawns seem to be maintained. I wonder what these people are waiting for.”

Benny shrugs. “Whatever.” He takes the last sip from his can. “I think it’s our time to catch some shut eye, Gavin. Wake Henry and make sure you don’t close any blinds or curtains that were purposefully left open.”

******

Shortly after our first hot breakfast and a fresh pot of coffee, Rickett dives right into the next part of our journey. “So where exactly are we going?” He asks as Henry adds more sugar to her coffee. The spoon’s clanking against the ceramic cup hides the brief moment of awkward silence.

I fumble for my wallet, surprised that it’s still in my back pocket and that I never really thought about it before now. I unfold the beaten leather and extract a creased, cream colored card with a smudged address. I hand the card to Rickett.

“Addison?” He asks, adjusting his silver rimmed glasses. “Who’s Addison?”

“His sister,” Benny says, leaning against the wall and looking out the window. He glances my way. “Addison is Gavin’s sister.” He rubs his jaw.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your sister?” Rickett asks. Henry takes the card from his hand and investigates it.

“I did,” I say after a long sigh. “I mentioned her back in your cabin. I didn’t think discussing her in detail was important. I mean, it is important to me, but I didn’t think anyone else would care.”

“Look,” Rickett says, obviously shocked. He lights a cigarette and takes a drag. “You’re telling me that we’re here to find your sister with only a smudged address?”

“You all knew finding my family was the first priority. I don’t have closure like you did. We’ve been through this.”

“What about Benny?” Henry asks. “Don’t you think he needs closure?”

“Me?” Benny asks, pointing to himself. “Aw, hell no. I don’t need closure; most people from home thought I died a long time ago.” He laughs. “We came here for Gavin and planned to enter Lincoln from day one.”

“But,” Henry quickly adds, “that was before we knew this place was infested with bees and the exterminators chasing them.” She shudders. “I can’t deal with the damn butchers again.”

“You don’t have to come. I can do this myself.”

“What’s your plan of action?” Rickett asks, knocking ashes from his cigarette into his makeshift ashtray. “Have you thought about it while getting to this point?”

“Yes, and no,” I have to admit. “I know where I need to go, and I don’t have too many options other than driving into the city, most likely by a back road.”

“This is a bunch of horseshit,” Henry spits. “There’s no way you’re going there, with or without us.” I have to fight the sudden urge to damage her face further.

“This is my decision, my choice.”

“You’ll need help,” Rickett says, “whether you admit it or not.”

“Yeah, dipshit,” Benny says, still looking through the window as if the patrol was right around the corner. “You need me.”

Henry’s swollen face shows frustration as she slowly realizes that our stay in this house could be limited. She looks down, grinds her teeth and says, “And when are we going?”

“Today. I’m going in there—”

“I still think we should stay at least for a little while,” she says, interrupting me.

“But Henry,” Rickett says in an attempt to console her, “we’ll be coming back—”

“But we’ll be better prepared for the patrols now that we know they’re around.” She keeps going, stumbling over words, looking down into her cup of coffee, continuously stirring, clanking the spoon against the cup. “There’s no telling how long we can last here. It doesn’t make sense to—”

“Just shut the fuck up!” Benny yells across the room. “And quit the damned stirring!” He barks at her, spittle flying from his mouth. “The decision’s made. We’re going. You either come with us or you stay here; I don’t give two shits either way.”

Benny’s outburst doesn’t shock anyone, but Rickett’s abnormal acceptance of the outburst surprises me. Normally, he shuts Benny down, scolds him or degrades him. But this time, he simply drinks his coffee and takes a pull from a cigarette.

“Damn it!” Benny yells one more time, huffs, and then returns to his post at the window.

“I would appreciate it if you all went with me,” I say, attempting to bring us together again. “But I understand if you choose not to.”

There’s the silence again. Always waiting, always lingering.

“And bingo was his name-o,” Benny says a few moments later as he moves from the window to the back door.

“Where are you going?” I ask. “I didn’t mean we leave right this minute.”

Benny turns to me and, with his carnivalesque grin, says “I spy something. . .dead.”

Shadow of the Dead

2010-03-01T18:22:00.003-05:00

It doesn’t matter where we go; the pillars of smoke remain visible. Those dark towers remind us of what we should expect: bees, rotting civilians, and the exterminators burning everything they can get their hands on.

“Fucking exterminators,” Benny mumbles as we turn into a cookie cutter neighborhood a short distance from the main highway. “Can we report them to the Better Business Bureau for not cleaning up Fairmount?” We all laugh and Benny winks and shows his wicked grin. “Just a thought,” he says. “Just a thought.”

“Pull into the driveway on the left,” Rickett says, reaching from the back seat and pointing to a white ranch style house with a one car garage.

“Why this one?” Henry asks.

“Clear yard and it has the most distance between itself and the others. The last thing I need is not enough space to move around if we run across anything.”

“Good point,” I say, pulling into the vacant drive way. The landscaping is plain, leaving the lawn open and green. No bushes or shrubs.

“I bet we can definitely find some food around this place,” Benny says, stretching his arms out wide as he gets out of the car. “And maybe a few corpses too.”

Before we move to enter the house, Benny stops us. “What about the car?”

“What do you mean?” Rickett tilts his head, not quite sure of Benny’s intentions.

“Well, if the exterminators have been here, and if they come back, don’t you think they’d realize there’s a new car in front of the house?”

If there’s anything good about the exterminators, it’s that they can help keep the bees away. We still anticipate the ravenous beings around every corner, but the level of tension and stress drops and smiles appear more often. The only downside is that there’s no one out there to keep the exterminators away from us, and the last thing we need is to leave any hint of our arrival.

Moments like these help me rationalize the importance of defending Benny at all costs. He could have just saved us from a future problem.

******

One broken window later and we’re inside and checking out our latest place to sleep. The back door leads right into a small kitchen that opens into the living room and dining room. I wipe my feet on the mat before entering.
Benny runs over to the fridge and grabs the handle. “I wouldn’t do that—” Rickett starts, but Benny’s already jerked the door open and the smell of mildew and decomposing food sweeps across the room, burning my nose and making Benny gag.

“Hoy shit, man,” Benny says, gagging and laughing at the same time. He moves to rifle through the cabinets. He pulls out a box of white rice and kisses it. Next, he removes canned beef stew and canned ravioli from the cabinets.

“Looks like someone was prepared,” Rickett says as Benny opens another cabinet to reveal shelves covered in canned goods. “Let’s see what else is around before we get too comfortable.”

Posters of teen heartthrobs cover the walls of two bedrooms. Pictures of the two daughters cover the dressers and desks. Both rooms have queen size beds covered in down comforters and numerous pillows. “No more pawnshop floor and I’d rather have these douche bags staring at me than some hungry fucking bees staring at me like I’m filet mignon.”

The hallway bathroom’s linen closet holds numerous towels, cosmetics, first aid supplies, and a large amount of toilet paper.

Everything we’d been lacking, everything we’ve been missing, turns in this house. A weight lifts from our shoulders and a feeling of accomplishment settles in its place. This one day makes the entire fight worth it. The struggles since River’s Edge have finally paid off.

But that feeling of accomplishment tapers when the door at the end of the hall opens.

Inside the master bedroom, a taste of the outside world remains. Blood sprays and splatters decorate the light green walls. The disorganized sheets, comforter and the dried blood tell us that someone suffered some type of fate, most likely not self inflicted since the evidence in the house shows that whoever lived here was well prepared for a disaster. This family was simply waiting for the end of the world to knock on their door. They were probably thinking locusts or World War III, not bees or exterminators.

They don’t matter, beliefs or anxieties. One way or another, death comes in the shape it wants and it doesn’t guarantee a pretty ending.

There’s an awkward silence that fills the room, regardless of who enters. Not even Benny says anything. Maybe there’s a difference from seeing a corpse on the side of the road to seeing bloodshed on cotton sheets in someone’s home. Out on the road, you can’t really differentiate one corpse from the other outside of physical traits. But here, in this house, you can recreate a family’s lifestyle from the pictures displayed. Here we have two young girls who were active in sports and their community. Trophies decorate the dressers in the second and third bedrooms. Awards for community services line walls. Small wooden crosses hang over doorways and a picture of Jesus rests above the buffet in the dining room. The father was an avid fisherman and little league baseball coach. The mother, she was a member of the PTA and volunteer for the Red Cross. All of this told through the still images and decorations. But here, in the master bedroom, the disheveled bed tells of that family’s destruction. Of struggle and pain. These images form the family’s conclusion, and we’re not ready to erase their story.

We quickly check the master bath and walk-in closet for clothes and supplies, grabbing toothpaste, spare toothbrushes from under the sink and most of the father’s wardrobe. We toss the items into the hallway and close the door behind us. No one says anything as we move the items into one of the other rooms.

“Let’s check the garage and see if we’ll have room for the car,” Rickett says and leads the way. Although no one mentions it, the emotions from what we just saw still make conversation a bit awkward. We’re living in the shadow of the dead, their remnants, what they’ve left behind. Not by choice, but by circumstance.

I lift the door to the empty garage and we move the car inside. We grab a small scrap of wood, some nails and a hammer from the work bench and move to patch the backdoor window.

“What’s that?” I ask Rickett, pointing to an isolated unit near the other side of the house.

“I figured that would be an AC unit or something of the like.” He responds, hammering between words as I hold the wood.

“But it has gas tanks hooked up to it. That’s not AC.”

“Gas tanks? Like for a grill or something?”

“Yeah.”

He bangs in the final nail and walks over to the unit. His eyes light up. “It’s a generator.”

“You’re shitting me, right?” Benny asks. “That’s bullshit. No way.”

“Way. If we have gas, we’ll have power.” He lifts the tanks to check the weight. “There’s not much, that’s for sure.”

“We can find more, right? We can get some while you get everything reared and ready to go.” Excitement forces me to speak faster than normal. “We could have a hot meal for once, right?”

“Well,” Rickett says as he stretches after exiting the car, “a hot meal would be nice. We have plenty of time to find what we need. Get what you can and be back before dusk.”

******

We make it back to the house a little while before the sun sets. We were able to get our hands on six tanks of fuel by finding and taking them from grills around the neighborhood. We look for gasoline, too, and can only scrape together a gallon or two by emptying lawnmowers, weed eaters, and other gas powered items. It almost seems like someone came through and siphoned most of the gas from the cars in the neighborhood.

For food, we found plenty of canned soup and vegetables. We were able to get plenty of water, soda, and even some cheap domestic beer, which made both Benny and I smile with delight. Not to mention, we found two cartons of cigarettes, which would surely make Rickett a happy man.

Rickett has things running and explains to us the importance of not running too many items at once. It would pull too much from the tanks, and we need to reserve what we can in order for it to last.

Inside the kitchen, the icemaker growls to life and makes Benny’s eyes shine with excitement. “Shit man, how long has it been since we’ve had ice?” He stands in front of the fridge, basking in the slow drone penetrating the awe inspired silence.

Technology: we fear it’s departure and pray for its return. But when we’re struggling to live, a desire for the internet or a television goes away. Images of a home cooked meal supplant images of wealth and materialism. A shower supplants the image of a weekend at the beach. We long for a simple lifestyle now. That simplicity is gold to us. Materialism doesn’t exist, especially if there really isn’t a use for the materials. What good is a TV if you don’t have electricity? What good is a Mercedes Benz if you don’t have gas?

What it boils down to is this: the first ice cube to shoot out of that machine has more worth than an American dollar, Euro, or other monetary unit. Ice is something we can use. Money, hell, the looters took that before the hives and exterminators took complete control. Not to mention, it’s good to see Benny excited over something other than killing.

“Shower works as well,” Rickett yells from the hallway. “Hot water, too.” We scramble from the kitchen to see the steam billow from behind the curtain.

“First dibs!” Henry yells, rushing Benny, Rickett and me out of the bathroom.

“Need your back scrubbed?” Benny shouts down the hall, only to get a middle finger extending from the room as a response. He shrugs, turns to Rickett and me and says, “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

******

After we each take a hot shower and don some of the dead family’s clothes, Rickett whips up our first hot meal since we ate at his house so long ago. It’s your basic ravioli meal poured from a can, but it’s hot and not cheap canned meat.

“We’re going to do watches in twos now.” I’m determined to make sure no one runs away. If we’re pulling through this, it’s together and that seems to be the only way out.

Henry looks over her bowl of steaming ravioli. “Why?”

Benny and Rickett continue to chow down, savoring eat bite and grunting and moaning at the presence of hot food. “The exterminators and bees,” I say. “We don’t know how many of each are out there and when they might come close.” I take a bite and enjoy the flavor before swallowing and wiping my mouth.

Benny and Rickett nod their heads as they eat, mumbling “agreed” as they chew. Henry looks back to her bowl and continues eating.

“Benny and I will take first watch and you and Henry can get some sleep.” I sip my ice water before taking another bite.

Later in the evening, we sit around and let the window air-conditioning unit remind us of what we’ve missed. Benny flips through the snowy channels a few times before shutting the TV off. “So, what are we going to do when we head into Lincoln?” Benny lies down on the floor under the window unit.

“Lincoln?” Henry looks from Benny to me and then to Rickett. “You’re not still seriously thinking of going in there, are you?”

“Yeah. I’m going into Lincoln.”

“But why? We have an entire neighborhood to ourselves! We have food, bedding, water, electricity. Why the hell do you want to abandon it?” Henry’s voice carries anger, frustration, and a hint of desperation. She doesn’t want to leave this place, even though there’s a room covered in blood down the hall.

“I have my reasons,” I respond.

Rickett lights a cigarette inside the living room and uses the ravioli can with a bit of water in the bottom as an ashtray. “Just because he wants to head in doesn’t mean we’re abandoning anything, Henry.”

“But who says we’ll come back?” She retorts.

“Damn woman, that’s like saying ‘how do we know bees won’t get us?’” Benny sits up and shakes his head. “There ain’t no telling until we try. There’s only one thing you can guarantee, and that’s your own damn actions.”

“Might want to go ahead and get some sleep. Would be best since we don’t know how long we’ll be here.” Rickett rubs his freshly shaven face. Of course, the pork chop side burns remain. “Cut the generator in a little bit.” He drops the cigarette into the water. A short sizzle sends one last puff of smoke into the air. “Don’t want to leave any random noises going at night.”

******

There’s not too much to talk about on a night like this. We’re all clean, full, and able to sleep in actual beds. The question of Lincoln still looms over us, but for now, I’m thankful that we’re healing. My knee feels better, Benny’s arm looks better, and my hand’s not infected anymore. Maybe I can even get some of these stitches out soon.

“Do you hear that?” Benny taps my knee, bringing my attention to a dull hum vibrating in the distance. “What the fuck, dude?” Benny walks over to the window looking over the intersection.

“But there’s no one else in this neighborhood,” I stutter. The hum’s volume fluctautes.

“Well, apparently there’s someone, dumbass. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

There’s not fear or nervousness. Frustration cramps my body. “Jesus Christ! Can’t we get a fucking break for a day or two?”

“Lights.”

“What?” I ask and walk over Benny and the window. “What lights?”

“Through those houses over there,” Benny says and points to the houses across the intersection. The hum grows louder. I peel the curtains to the side just enough to see out into the street. Lights flash between the houses and cover the street with an eerie blue.

“Shit!” I grab Benny and pull him down to the floor with me. A wave of blue crashes into the room and brightens as the hum draws closer.

“Think they saw us?” Benny whispers, the lights and hum feel like they’re right outside the window waiting for us to make a move.

“Get Rickett. Stay away from the windows.” Benny slithers across the floor and into the hallway.

Now there’s nervousness.

The light intensifies. The hum drones on.

Now there’s fear.

Shadows dance in the light. Full body apparitions float across the wall, passing over family pictures and the portrait of Jesus.

“Shit,” I whisper. “Here we go again.”

Haste Makes Waste

2010-02-14T18:08:00.000-05:00

“I spy something. . .dead,” Benny says, clicking on the flashlight. The bright, yellow beam shines over the bees trying to cram themselves between the wrought iron bars blocking the front entrance. “This shit’s crazy, dude. I mean, the fuckers are killing themselves to get to us.” An orchestra of cracks and pops increases when he illuminates the room. The scent is enough to attract them, but the sight of us enrages them.

If you take away the groans and the teeth scraping against the wrought iron bars, the world would seem at peace. How many people out there are thinking the same thing? How many people are suffering the same situation as us?

“I guess even the dead have to eat,” I say, referring to how brittle the bees are in this town.

“So what did you mean when you said you know the truth?” Henry’s asleep; I need to take advantage of the time to learn what Benny knows. Why did he step between Henry and me?

He clicks on the light and shines it in my eye. “I spy something. . .curious,” he snickers.

I squint and block the light with my hand. “Seriously. What did you mean?”

He shines the light over Henry and Rickett, both bodies sleeping heavily. After a deep sigh, he asks, “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes,” I respond. He sighs and clicks off the flashlight.

“Well, Rickett and I bailed from the truck, you know.”

“Yeah, and he rolled. I got that part down. What the hell happened with Henry? I mean, how the hell did she find you?”

“She didn’t.”

“Then how—”

“We found her. Or rather, I found her.” He turns on the flashlight and shines the light over the bees. A large flap of skin hangs from a bee’s forearm reaching between the bars. “I don’t know exactly where we were, but I was staked out in a small shop, taking a break from carrying Rickett. Didn’t know or didn’t care what kind of shop it was. It didn’t have shit for defense. Real open. Lots of windows.” He stretches out, crosses his legs and puts one arm behind his head. “I didn’t hear nothing for a while. Must’ve been a couple hours or so. I was trying to figure out what to do and Rickett was all concussed and shit.

“I think I fell asleep after that; I’m not sure.” Benny yawns. “But something woke me up. It wasn’t the bees. There wasn’t a noise. It was a feeling. Like when you wake up and you think you’re late for something. You know, your heart’s racing, your brain’s out of it, you can’t focus, but you know something’s wrong.”

“But what the hell does this have to do with Henry?” I grow impatient.

“It was her, man. She was that feeling. I woke up all sweaty and shit, heart pounding, and I saw her.” He clicks on the light again, waving it over the bees and then turns it off. “She was creeping around. The sun was coming up and that bitch was just creeping around, baseball bat in one hand and rifle in the other.”

“So what did you do?”

“Nothing, at first. I just watched her. Trust me, man, she wasn’t looking for anyone. She was trying to avoid everyone.”

“Why?”

“Running away. Why else?” He scratches his bandage. “So I flagged her, got her attention. She was startled, and that’s why I tell you I know the truth. She was booking it, bud.”

“Then why didn’t she just run from you? Why did she help bring you back to me?”

“Hell if I know. Chicks do crazy things all the time.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” I acknowledge. “Unless she felt safer with you two than she did with me.”

******

My eyes flutter open to the rhythm of the music. Music? Where the hell is the music coming from?

Propped up against a counter, Henry plucks the strings on an acoustic guitar. Her face has stopped swelling, and the black skin has turned a dark purple. She sniffles lightly and randomly to accommodate her crooked, broken nose. Blood stains mark her shirt and jacket, and her baseball cap sits on the floor next to her. She hums softly to herself.

“Is that the Beatles?” I ask, startling Henry and throwing off her rhythm.

She takes a deep breath and returns to playing the song. “I don’t know. It was a song that my dad used to play when I was a girl. He used to play for our family every night when I was little.” She hums a little more to herself. “He never sang, though.” She chuckles and slight whistle escapes her nose. “He wasn’t a very good singer.”

Who’s the real person here? The escaping Henry or the subtle, reminiscing Henry? The heroic Benny or the coyote? Hell, even I don’t know who I am anymore: the scared, idiotic boy or the survivor. Rickett seems to be the only person with a consistent character. But even then, who knows what he may be hiding.

This is too much. All of it. But all that matters are the keys in my pocket. No one is leaving me behind, and I’m going to make sure of that.

Rickett enters the main room through the doors leading to the back. The sunlight creeping through the windows highlights his features: the pork chop sideburns, the strong jaw line, the sharp nose, the fissures in his brow, the bags under his eyes. He looks older now. When we first met him in the woods, he was strong, rugged. Now he looks aged, weak.

“Where’s Benny?” Rickett asks, looking around the room.

Henry puts down the guitar and says, “He’s on the roof. Said he wanted to check out the current bee situation.”

“And you let him go out there alone?” Rickett’s voice is stern. At least that hasn’t changed.

“He wanted to go alone. I’m not going to tell him he can’t do what he wants. As long as it doesn’t jeopardize us, I don’t see a problem with it.” She picks up the guitar and Rickett just shakes his head.

“We need to get moving,” I say, drawing the cues from Rickett’s body language. “The sun’s rising and daylight’s precious.”

“I’ll get Benny,” Rickett says, casting a glance towards Henry and then moving through the doors leading to the back.

******

It doesn’t take long for all of us the pile into the Camry. Benny and Rickett both offer to drive, but I refuse to let them. I don’t say it to them, but these are my keys. This is my way out. After being left to die in that pawnshop cage, I won’t leave my life in another person’s hands.

Benny sits shotgun and Rickett rides in the back with Henry. Benny searches through the static for someone else, for a way to connect to the outside world. Behind us, in the rearview mirror, I watch as the bees slowly shrink and disappear, becoming just another marker in our journey, another memory, another nightmare.

Ahead of us, we see open road, which is odd. Dead or abandoned automobiles line the road as if someone’s already made a path to the next town. Could it have been Litchfield, whoever that is? Could this be an evacuation route? No one acknowledges the oddity. No one really wants to say anything, but everyone wants a voice to come through that static.

While the sky is a bright, cloudless blue, and the earth around us blossoms in various colors, the road to Lincoln seems black and ominous, full of decay and void of hope. Benny’s on his third cycle through the radio, thinking that as each mile passes, something might come through.

This is the truth: what’s around us can’t change what’s in us anymore. The birth of new seasons, the world still revolving and moving on without a solid civilization—or at least we’ve come to believe. But inside, the bees control us. Their actions, their movement, their desire to consume; that’s our world now.

While survival may change a man, survival also kills what’s inside that man.

“So, again, why are we heading into Lincoln?” Henry asks. I ignored her the first time she posed the question. “It could just happen to be the largest infested town, you know.”

I turn down the radio’s volume while Benny enters his fourth cycle through the stations. “It could also be the town with the largest number of survivors,” I shoot back. “But if you must know, the first priority for me is to find my family. Both you and Rickett know your families are dead. Mine, well, there’s no telling if they’re dead or alive.”

“And what if they’re dead?” She asks in a neutral tone.

“Then they’re dead and we move on,” I say without hesitating. I’ve thought about this enough; I know that if they’re dead there is no point to hang around unless I want to join them.

“Who knows,” Benny adds, jumping into the conversation and finally leaving the radio alone. “We might actually find something out when we get to Lincoln.”

“Like what?” Rickett adds.

“You know, stuff about the Litchfield people or why I have to run to avoid being eaten by some crazy ass fuckers.” He chuckles. “I’ve been trying to figure out the latter part the entire time, and I haven’t found a damn clue.”

******

It starts as silhouettes just above the tree line. My palms sweat and my heart beats rapidly. This is it. This is everything I’ve fought for, everything I’ve dreamed about. This is what I’ve longed for since the beginning and now I’m here.

You hear that, Addison? I’m here.

And as the drive continues, the silhouettes take shape as the tree line eventually turns into pastures waiting to be developed. But those silhouettes aren’t buildings like I initially think. They are pillars of smoke. Dense clouds tower into the sky forming a thick layer of darkness that hovers over the city.

Makes sense now. We haven’t seen any bees or corpses for miles upon miles.

“Exterminators,” Benny mumbles. “Fucking exterminators.”

“We can at least drive closer to the city,” Henry says, the lisp from her swollen face still lingers. “Once we see something is amiss, we can go a different route.”

“I don’t care,” Benny says, “as long as we stay the hell away from the dicks in hazmat suits.”

“Agreed,” I say. “I didn’t come all this way to be incinerated.”

We drive closer to the city, and it starts to look like River’s Edge. Cars line the road and signs warn of a checkpoint further ahead. Tension saturates the air and the only noise in the car is a slight whistle randomly generated by Henry’s nose.

“Stop the car,” Rickett says, breaking the awkward silence caused by my driving straight into the exterminator’s oven. I brake and some of the tension evaporates. “We can’t do this. We can’t just drive into a town with nothing but an idea of what we’d like to find.”

“You’re right,” I admit. “We can’t be in too much of a hurry to get away from everything.”

“Haste makes waste, they say.” Benny scratches his bandage. “I don’t want to be that fucking waste.”

The Brittle Hive

2010-02-02T21:32:00.001-05:00

The bright sunlight makes my eyes water just enough to slightly blur my vision. I blink rapidly to help my eyes adjust, doing my best to follow Benny’s outline as quickly as possible. My thigh burns as the muscles help to compensate for my defective knee. I step lightly, but quickly, limping as I make my way through the parking lot, my eyesight finally clearing.

The groans that once filled the inside of the pawnshop now round the corner of the building. The sweat from anticipation and adrenaline must have set them off. Clicks and cracks followed by grunts grow louder, closer. I limp faster, clenching my teeth so hard my jaw and throat ache.

“Holy fuck balls, man,” Benny says, looking behind us. I don’t follow his gaze. Instead, I clutch the keys in my sweaty hand, thumbing the Toyota emblem. I squeeze them so hard that their ragged edges dig into my fingers, leaving tiny bite marks on my skin.

We get to the champagne Corolla and Benny circles around, putting himself between me and the horde of bees. “Fuck man!” Benny yells. “Hurry. Jesus. You better hurry!” I hobble to the driver’s side door, lifting the handle and when it doesn’t open, I jam the key into the lock, scratching some of the paint from the first few misses.

Benny heaves and swings, grunting when the bat shatters the closest bee, brittles bones crunching like potato chips. Benny turns around. “What the fuck, man?” He huffs. “What’s taking so long?”

“It—” A gunshot erupts from behind us, ripping through a bee and hitting the back window of the Toyota. Benny and I both take cover. “It doesn’t fit.” I barely get the words out.

“What?” Benny yells at me, looking over his shoulder to the next wave of bees heading our way, stopping to sniff and lick their dead.

“I said it doesn’t fit! This isn’t the fucking car!”

With a roar of anger, Benny stands and steps into the closest cluster of bees swinging the bat like an ax, smashing faces, skulls, forcing the bat through the heads and into chest cavities. I rise, but before I can stand up, Benny turns and swings. Evading his attack, I fall down the ground as glass shatters and falls over me.

“Try again!” He barks, turning back to fight off the bees.

I scramble up the side of the car, not caring to knock the tiny fragments of glass from my body. I unlock the door from the inside and fling it open, quickly attempting to plug the key into the ignition.

A gunshot rings in my ears and I flinch. Benny struggles with the increasing number of bees, sporadically looking back to me in the car.

It doesn’t fit. The key. This isn’t the car.

Sweat rolls down my face, catching in the corner of my eyes. Henry’s voice thunders from above. “What the hell? Hurry up! Hurry up!”

Everything slows down. The sweating. Benny’s swinging. Even the realization that we’re fucked comes slowly.

This is what thousands of people have experienced: the impending doom, the sudden loss of hope.

“Damn it, Gav!” Exhaustion shows in Benny’s yell. “What are you doing?”

Another gunshot sounds and another bee falls a few feet away.

If the owner’s car was this close, why would he shoot himself? Why wouldn’t he just make a run for the car and do his best to escape?

“Holy shit!” I yell, launching myself from the driver’s seat, spinning around. There’s not another Toyota out here, nor was there one out back. It must be in front of the store or further down the road near the truck Henry torched.

One way or the other, we have to go through the bees.

“What are you doing?” Benny yells again, his voice cracking.

With the 9mm in one hand and keys in the other, I climb onto the car’s hood. Looking over and past the horde of bees lets me know there’s nothing in front of the store.

“We got to go!” I wave to get Henry’s attention. “We’re moving to the front of the building.”

“What? Why?” She yells down, the rifle still perched on her shoulder.

“Just keep us in your sights.” I quickly climb off the car’s hood, my knee tightening from all the movement. “Follow me, Benny.”

“To where? There ain’t much more space to give these fuckers,” he yells, capping off his sentence with a nice angled swing that crushes a bee’s skull, dislocates its jaw and collapses its throat.

“Trust me,” I say. “Just trust me and follow me.”

He swings to catch one more brittle bee in the face, sending it back into the crowd, causing a few more bees to tumble. “Alright then. Move it!” Benny backs away from the bees, following me around the hood of the car. As one licking and frothing mass, the bees turn and follow, moving around the car on both sides.

I raise the 9mm and fire at the closest bee. Its forehead collapses quickly while the back of the head explodes outwards, showering brain matter and bone onto the bees behind it. Again and again I fire at the closest bees, knocking down enough to make space for our getaway. Benny shoves the end of the bat into a nearby bee’s mouth, sending brown teeth and blackened strips of gums flying. The bee falls backwards and the bees behind it lick the body’s skin as it lands on them. Realizing the dead meat, they let it finish its fall and step on it, crushing more bones as they press forward.

“Jesus, man,” Benny says between deep breaths, “Nothing stops these fuckers.” He raises his bat again, barely having a chance to rest his arms and shoves the end into a bee’s forehead, the cracking and the sloshing are louder when he extracts the bat from the crushed skull. “Nothing!”

We make it around the car, out of the parking lot, and into the street without having to fire anymore shots. That’s the key: save the ammo. Henry keeps the rifle pointed in our direction in case any surprises come our way. I’m scrambling around, partially jogging, partially limping. The pain hurts but I do like I’ve always done: push it all aside in order to survive.

I’m not crippled. I’m not dead or dying. I can do this. Those three sentences fuel me more than the adrenaline. But nothing fuels me more than finding out if my family is alive. And to do that, I need a fucking car.

Benny walks at a fast pace behind me as we cross the street to put some distance between us and the hive. Bees still gather in front of the pawnshop, but most of those bees are broken and unable to move from the immense pressure caused by the bodies piling on each other. Some bodies lie still while their tongues grope the air. One bee hovering before the door catches our scent and turns around. As it turns, the shift in weight causes its pivot leg to break right above the knee, sending the bee to act as another layer on the pile of fractured, paralytic bodies.

There are only so many ways to voice your disgust or awe: “Holy shit! Fuck! Did you see that? Oh my God!” But after all of this, there are not really any new ways for us to say we’re shocked. In fact, there aren’t many things that shock us anymore. You come to expect the unexpected; hell, you pray for normalcy. So we watch the body fall, its tongue licking in our direction, its hands reaching for us, but we move on. And the hive slowly follows, some staying in front of the store smelling Rickett and Henry, but the vast majority follows the most accessible meat: Benny and me.

“Keep your eyes peeled, Benny,” I say, reminding him to look for the car.

“Toyota, right?” He asks, his breath not coming in heavy gasps anymore.

“Yeah,” I say. We exchange weapons, the bat for the gun, and I use the bat to help support my weight.

“How do you know it’s down here?”

“It just hit me. Why the hell would the dude blow his brains out if his car was right outside?”

“So then why would it would be out here? He could have still made it,” He says, questioning our current mission.

“I didn’t think about it, but some business owners park away from their businesses if they can. It leaves an extra space in the lot for paying customers,” I respond. “If he parked too far, he may have given up hope before he even chanced it. Some people just don’t think during traumatic times.”

“And some people think too much,” he counters.

A few cars line the intersecting street, but none of them are Toyotas. “It’s got to be on the next block.”

“Are you saying that to me or to yourself?” Benny asks with skepticism.

“Trust me, Benny. Just trust me,” I say. He shrugs and follows me across the street to the next block. Our normal pace puts a decent amount of space between us and the groans and snapping jaws. We walk in the center of the road to check the parked vehicles on both sides.

Finally. A navy Camry sits parallel parked between two SUVs, almost hidden from out sight. I slide the key into the lock and twist. A slight giggle emerges with a reassuring click. I open the door. I slide into the driver’s seat and start the car. Benny smiles when I rev the engine.

“You know,” Benny says with a bit of cynicism, “you would think a business owner could afford a remote control to put on his key ring. That would have made this whole situation a hell of a lot easier.”

“Maybe it’s a valet key,” I say, laughing a bit from the relief of finding the car. “Alright, let’s bait these bitches to get them away from the store. We’ll get in the car and drive around the block, park it, and head back inside. We should be victorious within ten minutes.”

******

With the car parked next to the side door and facing the street for a clear, easy exit, we head around back to help Henry down while the bees still roam the street searching for Benny and me. Back inside, we’re able to finally sit, relax, and reflect on how well we worked together.

“You should have seen him, Rickett,” Benny says in dramatic fashion. “He pulled some Dirty Harry shit, blasting those fuckers point blank in their glass heads. No expression on his face.” Benny’s theatrics have always been amusing, but more importantly, they’re comforting as well. It’s refreshing to know that he takes pride in what I’ve done to help us. “Like a damn epiphany, man. A light bulb popped on and he just ran off and sniffed out the car. I was thinking the car was a lost cause but he proved me wrong. That’s for sure.”

Rickett smiles and nods his approval. Even Henry makes eye contact with me.

“What’s more important,” I say with humility, “as that we’re all OK. One more night and then we can get the hell out of this hole.” Although the bees returned to the front doors, reaching in, piling on top of the bodies crushed by their previous efforts, their groans and efforts go unnoticed because of our recent victory.

“I’m telling you, a burger and a beer. My treat,” he says and licks his lips. “A burger and a beer.”

A Plan of Action

2010-01-27T21:43:00.002-05:00

“So what do we do now?” Henry’s crooked nose and swollen face gets blacker by the minute and a slight lisp accents her words, a side effect from the swelling.

I close my hand around the keys and put them in my pocket. “We think before we act.” I look around the room, noting the consistently increasing number of hands reaching through the bars. There’s a chorus of cracks, pops and groans as the entire hive collapses against the front of the building, crushing its members in hope to reach us, to devour us.

Benny swings open the door separating the back rooms from the showroom. “Holy hell, that dude definitely shat his pants.” He scrunches his nose. “Of all the damned smells we’ve run into, the shit smell still makes me gag the most. Just something about shit, and then throw that on a dead body; the world’s worst combination of smells.” He tosses a small, white bottle into Rickett’s lap. “There’s your glue, old man.”

“Benny, are you done talking about shit?” I ask with a hint of impatience.

“I suppose so,” he says, grinning. “Why?”

“Let’s take inventory. What do we have left for weapons?”

Benny takes two of the three 9mm’s from his waistband and sets them on a cracked pane of glass on the nearest counter. “We have those, the bat, the rifle, and that knife you keep wrapping your fingers around.”

“Where’s the other gun? The third 9mm?”

“That got lost when Rickett jumped and rolled around like a senile geriatric. The gun slid into the hive.” Benny scratches at his dirty, loose bandage. “I didn’t particularly think about reclaiming it.”

“So we’re only down one firearm,” Henry says. “That’s not too bad. We didn’t even use any rounds from the rifle.”

Rickett opens the white bottle and spreads some glue onto his fingers, checking to see how fast it dries. Within a few seconds, he has to scrape a thick film of hardened glue from his fingertips. He combs through his hair again, finding the wound, and then applies the glue, wincing with each step of the process. “That ought to do it.” He caps the bottle and tosses it into the pile of medical supplies. “So,” he starts, “we have weapons and a car.” He stands up and stretches, rolling his shoulder the entire time. “What kind of car is it?”

“I’m thinking it’s that champagne sedan out in the parking lot beside the building.”

“Through the door we came in?”

“Yeah,” I respond.

“But you’re not sure?

“Sorry, I didn’t really have the time to go out and check. I kind of had some people banging on one door while bees were trying to cram through the others.”

“Ouch. So cynical, Gavin.” Benny says, chuckling.

I ignore Benny’s snide remark and continue speaking to Rickett. “All I’m saying is that I didn’t see any other Toyota’s out there.”

“What we should do,” Rickett says, “is find out exactly what car it is before we all go out there and pile in. But first, I could use a good nap.”

******

The sun pulses high in the sky and Rickett’s been asleep for quite a while now. “Seriously, how can the man sleep with so much moaning?” Henry shakes her head in disbelief.

“You haven’t been around it enough. You dealt mostly with exterminators, or the butchers as you say, right?” Benny says, scooping the last little bit of food from a can.

“Yeah.” She answers, lightly touching her crooked nose and grimacing.

“Well, the groaning turns into a simple noise, kinda like the wind blowing. The only thing bothering me about this group is the constant bone cracking as they push on each other. I’ve never seen bees this brittle. I didn’t know it would be possible.”

“Not to mention, Rickett’s a veteran,” I add. “God knows what he could sleep through.” Benny nods in agreement and Henry still refuses to make eye contact with me.

I watch the pile of bees at the door thicken and compress; the few bees against the bars have no choice but to groan and push their arms through as the mass amount of bodies forced upon them prevents any tope of movement. If it weren’t for the two barred windows on the sides of the building, the bees would block all of the sunlight.

But as the time passes, ribs crackle and shoulders dislocate by force as the pressure builds and shoves the bees’ appendages into the gaps between the bars, trying to squeeze the bodies through at all costs. One face rests between the bars, the force of the hive acting upon pushes it. The bars tear the skin from the face as it tries to make its way into the building. Brown spotted gums, decaying teeth and a cracked jaw bone scrape against the wrought iron while the bee’s tongue furiously lashes into the air.

“Jesus,” I say, goose bumps raising the hair on my forearms. “We need to get the hell out of this place.”

******

“Look, if we’re going to do anything,” I say to the three, “we need to either do it now or wait until dawn.”

“Agreed,” Rickett nods. “The only problem is that we only have two bottles of water and three cans of food left. So if we stay overnight, we need to ration.”

“And I’m fucking tired of that crap meat,” Benny says. “Man, a real burger or something would make surviving worth the struggle. A burger and a beer.” Benny sighs.

“Well, the bees are gathered at the front door and two side windows,” I say, pointing as if the other couldn’t see them. “They seem to crowd were they can get the closest whiff of us. I think, if we are quick enough, we can move around them without too much trouble by going through the back door. The side door is too close to a window.”

“Look,” Rickett says, gathering everyone’s attention with his coarse voice, “I think we need a little more rest before we bounce out of here. Gavin, think about your knee. Benny, you need to clean your wound, or at least change the bandages.” He shakes his head and rubs his face. “Hell, we aren’t invincible. If we keep going and never stop to catch our breath or sleep, we’re going to get killed, whether we have the best plan or not.”

“That’s all fine and dandy, Rickett,” Benny says, scratching at his dirty bandage. “However, we have an ass-load of bees attempting to squeeze between those bars and dwindling supplies. We don’t have the time to stop and smell roses. All we smell is rot. And that smell sucks shit.”

“I agree with both of you guys,” I say. “One way or another we need a plan of action before we rest in case anything happens. With everything we’ve seen lately, there’s no telling what time brings as it passes.”

“Yeah,” Henry adds, “the least we could do is prepare for departure before we settle in for the night.” I look to her and nod, but once my eyes hit hers, she looks to the floor.

“OK, OK,” Rickett agrees. “First, we find the car and park it right next to the door for a quick escape. Do we have access to the roof?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure. What exactly are you thinking?”

“Sharpshooting,” he quickly responds.

“Someone to keeps those bastards away if necessary,” Benny clarifies.

“I can find a way up there,” Henry says. “I think I saw a dumpster out back. If I could get a boost from there, I don’t think it would be too hard to climb up.”

“Good, good,” Rickett mumbles, scratching his growing beard.

“Just make sure,” she adds in a sharp tone, “to let me get down before anyone leaves.”

“Not a problem,” Benny says. Henry glares at him in a skeptical manner. “Scout’s honor.”

“Someone will have to stay inside in case we need to retreat. We won’t be able to open the doors from the outside, and we shouldn’t leave any doors propped open with this many bees about. Gavin?”

“No,” I answer hastily. “Hell no.”

“But your knee—”

“I don’t give two shits about my knee right now,” I snap, cutting Rickett off. “The keys stay with me, whether you like it or not.”

“Gavin, you need—”

“How many different ways do I have to tell you before you understand?” Benny stares at me with a raised eyebrow, probably curious as to why I’m being so defensive. “I can move. I can walk. I may not be the fastest, but I will not be pushed to the side.” I keep it to myself that this is the best way I know to control my position in our group. With the keys in my hands, I can ensure my escape. I won’t be left again. Ever.

“Fine, fine,” Rickett concedes. “I’ll stay inside. But Benny has to go with you. You’ll need some protection.”

“That’s fine,” I say and Benny nods to agree.

“So,” Benny says, “just to be sure, we have a sharpshooter, a driver, a body guard and a door man.”

“Guess you could put it like that,” Henry notes.

“So let’s do it then.” Benny grabs the flashlight and Henry takes the rifle. “We’ll get her in ‘position’ first.” He snickers and raises his eyebrows.

“Really?” Henry looks like she’s close to belting him with another right hook.

“Sorry,” he says, still snickering. “The time was ripe for a comment.”

“Ass,” she says, shaking her head as they move through the door leading to the back exit.

“Gavin,” Rickett tries to convince me one last time. “You really should stay off that knee and—”

“And you should understand that I need this. I’m not going to be coddled. I’m a survivor. I’ll do what it takes.” He nods.

“Told you,” he says.

“Told me what?”

“Survival changes a man.”

“And it’s time to accept the changes. We all have to.” He nods again.

Some shuffling and scraping on the roof lets us know that Henry’s ready. Benny saunters through the back door and, throwing his hands into the air, says “Well hell, nice of one you guys to follow us back there so I didn’t have to prop open the door. Damn, it hasn’t even been five minutes and we’ve already fucked ourselves. Did any bees get in?” He gasps in a melodramatic fashion.

“Toss me the damned light,” Rickett snaps. “Just get your ass out there and find the car.” He reminds me of a pissed off father who was just proven wrong.

“You got it,” Benny says with a chuckle. He grabs the bat and hands me a 9mm. “Don’t forget to let us back in, old man. Remember, the third knock’s the charm.”

All three of us gather at the door, taking deep breaths, readying ourselves to put the last phase of the plan into action: acquiring the wheels for our getaway.

“Ready?” Benny asks.

“Ready,” I answer without hesitation.

“Let the games begin!” Benny kicks the door open and runs through the door with the bat in hand. I take one last deep breath, prepare myself for the coming pain, and step out into the blinding sunlight.

A Broken Nose, a Broken Man

2010-01-23T12:41:00.002-05:00

Benny helps Rickett to the floor and Henry stumbles to a corner.

“You asshole!” She yells between sobs and coughs, blood spurting from her nose and mouth. “You broke my nose!”

The anger rises in my throat like warm bile. “Fuck you!” I take a step forward, my vision tunneling around Henry. My scalp tingles and the seething words fly from my mouth. “You bitch! You left me here. You left me!” My hand tightens around the knife.

Rickett groans and Benny mumbles, “What the hell?”

“I told you not to go. To wait. That they would come to us. But you didn’t listen did you?” She closes her eyes and grimaces while she attempts to reduce the blood flow from her nose. “Answer me!”

“Yes I left!” She snaps, blood and saliva fly from her lips. “Damn it! I had to. Someone had to do something around here. I can’t just sit when people are out there trying to survive.”

“And what the hell was I supposed to do with no gun, no bat, and no light?”

“Yeah,” Benny adds. “Why would you just leave him like that?” Henry glares at him.

“Shut up, Benny,” I say without even having to look his way. “I don’t need your help for this. I don’t need anybody’s help!” I roar, slamming the knife hilt into a counter, shattering the remaining glass.

I take two more steps towards Henry and she moves into a defensive stance. “Listen,” I say through clenched teeth. “You don’t fuck with anyone’s life ever again. Not Benny’s, not Rickett’s, not mine.”

“Alright, Gav,” Benny says, stepping between us. “That’s enough for now. All this yelling ain’t doing shit for us now. We got to get Rickett to his feet and get the hell out of here.”

I try to step around him, but he puts his arm around me, stopping me from approaching Henry any further than I already have. I turn and walk away, only to face her again, Benny still in the way. “Hell, who’s to say you even went looking for them and weren’t just trying to get away from the fucking cripple.”

“I was only trying to help,” she responds. Not a plea, not an apology. A flat statement. No emotion.

“Sure you were.” The anger recedes, little by little. “Next time, think about exactly who you’re helping. Yourself or someone else?”

******

Benny stands in front of the wrought iron bars that substitute for front doors. The bees stretch their arms and wiggle their fingers, attempting to touch Benny. His carnivelesque grin emerges as he watches the bees’ futile struggle. The amount of bodies pressing against the doors stops the clanking; the bodies push the doors open into the building just as far the chain allows them. An entire hive does its best to catch the latest whiff of fresh meat, and Benny gives them the pleasure, standing just out of their reach.

Henry leans against the back wall, cleaning her face with an alcohol wipe. Rickett groans as he slowly recovers from whatever injuries he’s suffered. And I sit against the front wall, keeping my eyes on everyone and holding on to the keys, my keys. No one will ever leave me behind again. No one.

“Jesus, man,” Benny says, shaking his head in disbelief as bees struggle to grab hold of him. “This is some fucked up shit. These things are literally crushing themselves against the iron to try and get a taste of me.” He shakes his head and lightly chuckles. “Fascinating.”

An awkward silence follows Benny’s words until Rickett’s coarse voice gets everyone’s attention. “Where are we?” He asks, sitting up and rubbing his face. His pork chop sideburns have transitioned into a short beard from his lack of shaving, and dried blood cakes the right side of his face. “This place looks like hell.”

“And he’s back, ladies and gentlemen!” Benny claps a few times and says, “Gavin, fill the man in on our current residence.”

“A run down, looted pawn shop,” I say after hesitating briefly.

“A good place, if I may say so,” Benny tells Rickett. “The only way in is through wrought iron doors chained by your boy over there.” Benny nods my way. “But there are two emergency exits, in case we feel the immediate need to flee, which probably won’t be too long from now.”

Rickett slowly rolls his left shoulder and winces. “Damn,” he says. “At least we got through that mess.” He looks around, still rolling his shoulder. “Where’s Henry?”

“I’m over here,” she says, “cleaning up from a broken nose.”

The anger comes and goes in waves, spiking when she speaks. “One that you rightly deserve,” I immediately respond. “Better than dying.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Rickett asks in demanding tone. “Can we not cooperate for more than ten minutes at a time.

“What do you expect me to say?” Henry asks in response. “This asshole broke my nose on purpose.”

“First off,” I snap, “it wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t know you were behind the door. I thought you all were bees when you were banging on the door.”

“Fair enough,” Benny says. “I would have thought the same.”

“Damn it, Benny. Let me talk!” Benny holds his hands up and backs up a step, quickly realizing he almost backed into the open hands longing for his flesh.

“She left when she wasn’t supposed to. According to her, she went looking for you two, but only after we discussed staying together,” I say and Rickett eyes both Henry and me suspiciously. “She took everything but your hunting knife and left when I was asleep.” The rage boils my blood. “When I was asleep!”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she says to Rickett. “I wouldn’t do something like that.” I rise to my feet, ready to charge her but Benny intercepts me before I can take more than a few steps. The pain in my hand and knee only fuels the fire more and more.

“Fuck you!”

Benny tightens his grip around me, whispering “Chill out, bro. Chill out. I know what the truth is. I know. Chill out.” Somehow the words bring my blood to a low simmer, but the rage doesn’t subside.

“I told you,” she says, pointing my way. “I told him, Rickett. He just doesn’t remember. I swear I told him.”

“Knock it off,” Rickett barks at us. “This is some damn idiotic crap. Regardless of what happened, we’re here now. We’re all alive. Let’s try and keep it that way. The last thing we should do is kill each other. That won’t solve any issues.”

Benny still clutches me around my chest. “It’s OK, Gav. I know it. The truth. Calm down. Save it for later.”

“There might not be a later,” I whisper back.

******

“So what happened out there?” I ask, watching Rickett clean his face and check his scalp for wounds. “One second you guys are in the back of the truck, the next you’re gone.”

“We jumped,” he responds, wincing as his fingers roll over a spot on his scalp. He pulls his hand away and blood covers his finger tips. He opens an alcohol wipe and cleans the wound. A trickle of blood rolls down his brow and he wipes it away. “And landed hard.”

“Why did you jump?”

“We figured jumping and the right time would be better than being thrown from the truck.” Still fingering his scalp, Rickett looks to Benny. “Benny, quit screwing with the bees and see if you can find me some super glue.”

Benny turns from teasing the bees at the door. “You guys should see this one in the middle. Its hand is almost split in half and it’s literally breaking its own bones to try and squeeze through.” Benny’s grin shows his enjoyment. “You can hear its ribs popping and cracking. It’s crazy.”

“Benny. Super glue. Please.”

“Super glue? What the hell are you going to do with that? Glue this bee’s hand back together?” Benny chuckles.

“No. I’m going to glue my head back together.”

“Check the back rooms,” I say, tossing Benny the flashlight that Henry brought back. “There are a couple of rooms back there.”

“If there’s not any super glue, find some duct tape. I’ll be damned if I let either one of you people sew my head closed.”

Benny walks through the door leading to the back rooms, still chuckling to himself.

“How did you get hurt?”

“Gavin,” Rickett says with a light sigh, “I’m old. My age does show from time to time.” He keeps his hand on his scalp to remember exactly where the tear is. “My legs buckled when I landed. I rolled a few times, banging my head and shoulder. Hell, if it weren’t for Benny, and I hate to admit it, I wouldn’t be here.” He laughs softly. “As much as I may not like his attitude, the kid’s got a heart in there somewhere.”

There’s an air of relief once Rickett announces his new view of Benny. “Does this mean you’re going to quit giving him shit all the time?”

Rickett breaks out in raucous laughter. “No way. The boy needs it. It keeps him grounded in some type of reality.”

Benny the coyote; Benny the survivor; Benny the hero. But, most of all, Benny’s no longer Rickett’s target. Maybe Rickett finally understands why I’ve always been defensive when it comes to Benny’s character. As twisted as he is from time to time, he’s still human at the core.

“When we’re done with the bonding, can we figure out a way to get out of here?” Henry emerges from her isolation, only making eye contact with Rickett. Her eyes are puffy and almost black, her upper lip swollen and her crooked nose mars any type of beauty that was previously there. I wish I could say I’m sorry for destroying her good looks, but frankly, she deserves it.

“Good point,” Rickett says, ending his fit of laughter with a few deep breaths and groans. “Feels like I bruised a few ribs, too.” He shakes his head in frustration. “How’s the truck?”

“Gone,” I respond.

“I torched it to help our get away,” Henry adds.

“But,” I say, getting Rickett’s full attention, “I have some good news.” I dangle the keys in front of him and thump the only one with a Toyota emblem. His eyes widen and his smile takes over his face. “There is a way out.”

Somewhere in the Darkness

2010-01-18T21:53:00.002-05:00

I wake up to the starlight creeping through the bars—stripes of dim light running across the store.

“Henry?” I ask the darkness. No response. I swallow—my mouth suddenly dry—and ask again. “Henry?” I grope the dark for the flashlight only to come up empty handed. I roll over our makeshift camp area. No light, no gun; all that I come up with is Rickett’s hunting knife, the knife I pulled from the glove box before the truck broke down. She even took the bat. “Henry!”

In the starlight, a few details come to life: the outlines of the counters, the dark corners where the light can’t penetrate, and the large EXIT sign above the door leading to the office and utility room. There’s enough light to catch the general layout of the room.

“Henry!”

Abandoned. Is this where it all ends? In a broken down pawnshop? The pain in my body resurges but I swallow it down with pain relievers and some more penicillin. This isn’t the end. I won’t let it be the end. I’ve come this far.

I grab the backpack, obviously much lighter than before. Most of the socks remain, and some canned food and a two bottles of water remain. She went through the bag before she left. Adrenaline erupts and speeds through my body. “That bitch!” I hiss into the darkness. The knotted muscles in my shoulder burn and my fingers and legs tingle.

“Henry!” I yell again and again. I even throw a can of meat against the far wall. “Henry!” Frothy spit runs down my chin, a side effect from the anger and excessive yelling. I wipe it off with my arm. I move to stand, but my knee aches too much. Better to stand only if necessary. I can yell from here on the floor.

Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe. Back to basics. Return to the broken down car. Before there was a Benny, before there was a Rickett or Henry. Cling to that hope you had the day you tried to get away: find your family.

I’m coming, Addison. I’m coming.

But there’s not much I can do now. I’ll have to wait till morning.

******

The sun rises, and so do the bees. I see them shuffle along, smelling the air and licking towards the sky. They look worse than yesterday. Clumps of skin dangle from faces and arms. Knees crack and buckle. Bees collapse without impact, but they get right back up, stumbling to find a new center of gravity, doing their best to stand and walk. I think they can smell me, but they can’t find me. They look lost but not alone. They weren’t left to die like me. The taste of anger rises in my throat; not vomit, not bile, just pure anger. But I have to swallow it down, save that anger for another day.

The sun slips its light through the bars illuminating the interior of my self-made holding cell. There are only two ways out: the back door and the emergency exit on the side of the building.

I limp to the side door and prop it open just enough to look out. A few sedans fill some of the gaps in the parking lot. Two Honda Accords sit next to each other, one a dark blue and the other a light green. A champagne Corolla rests a few spots down from the sedans. I open the door a little wider, only to let in a wave of rot followed by a series of clicks, cracks, and a loud groan as a body collapses and drags itself across the ground. I see an outstretched, partially decayed hand reach under the door and, instinctually, I stomp. Not once, not twice. It’s more like six or seven. The first few stomps easily expose and shatter the bones; the remaining stomps reinforce a point: “I’m not your fucking meal.” I make note of where the cars are parked and close the door.

I move into the dark hallway in the back, heading straight for the emergency exit. I crack the back door slightly, perusing the scene for exit routes. A gravel driveway leads to a service road for trucks delivering goods for stores down the street. No cars block the way. Just a rotting corpse dried by the sun. I pull the door shut behind me and head back into the office.

I enter the office to the smell of a lone body soaking in fecal matter, blood and brains. Just to make sure, I check the gun on the floor next to its right hand. An empty revolver. I yell and throw the gun across the room, knocking a picture off the wall. Damn you, Henry. Damn you.

Back in the main room, I gather the water, socks, meat, and medical supplies and shove them all into the backpack. I pull the keychain from my pocket and cycle through the keys. It only takes a brief second to see the key bearing the Toyota emblem. “Bingo,” I say to myself, smiling briefly. I’m half tempted to kiss the key, but a rattling sound steals my attention.

The dead’s hands reach through the wrought iron bars, blocking some of the sunlight, making a slow swishing sound as the decaying skin rubs across the surface. Two bees caress the iron, shoving their tongues between the bars, tasting the air inside the pawnshop. Thick saliva hangs in strings from their tongues and jaws. They see me; they smell me. “Damn it!” The anger surges again and I limp to the bees, drawing the hunting knife from its sheath.

The hands reach for me, extending their fingers to try and get as close as possible. I stand just out of reach with the bars on my right, and when the closest bee opens its palm to try and grab me, I strike. The blade pierces skin as thin as saran wrap and breaks through brittle bone. I pull the blade to my left, ripping it through the skin, tissue and bone, splitting the hand between the middle and ring fingers. The bee groans and snaps its jaw at me, licking the bar and continuing to grasp for me as if nothing happened.

I need bait. I see others outside, slowly migrating towards the bars guarding the entrance to my hole. I walk back and forth in front of the doors, thinking and observing the two bees before me. They want food. I open a can of meat and wave it in front of them. No reaction. I move the can to my left hand and spoon some of the meat from the can with my right. Their eyes widen when I chew the meat. But it’s not the meat that riles them. Their mucus filled eyes follow my left hand.

The wounds. My pockmarked, mutilated left hand is what draws attention, and probably the wound on my face, too. When I move my hand closer to the bars, the bees act more frantic, licking furiously and waggling their fingers towards the bandage. If only they could move as fast as the isolated, smaller parts of their bodies. We all would have been dead a long time ago.

I move back to the pack on the floor and pull out some gauze, ointment and alcohol wipes. I remove the dirty, crusting gauze from my hand, expecting the pain that comes from when I have to tug the gauze free from the stitches and dried blood. I rub my hand down with a couple of alcohol wipes, spread some ointment and reapply fresh gauze.

I move over to one of the counters with a broken glass case. I use a shard of glass to prick a series of small holes in my left index and middle fingers. I squeeze the tips of the fingers, pushing as much blood from the tiny wounds as I can. The smell of fresh blood should excite them, at least for a second or two. I use the alcohol wipe to clean the pricked finger. I shove the supplies back in the bag and head over to a window on the backside of the building, across the room from the emergency exit. As I pass the front door, I swing the bandage towards the bees and they groan and stretch for the bait. I hurry to the window and tie the bandage around the bars, noticing the increasing number of bees adding to the swarm outside of the building.

I head across the room after I see a hand grasp for the bandage. I scoop up the pack and throw one of the straps over my shoulder, grunting from the waves of pain flowing from my knee—knowing that its only going to get worse as I move more and more. I head towards the emergency exit leading to the parking lot, trying to ignore the heavy clanking coming from the chained door. But the loud bang that vibrates the metal door is something I can’t ignore.

I stop.

I look back to the heavy clanking and see more hands and more tongues reaching into building. I take another step towards the door and stop at the force of more banging. I clutch the keys in my left hand and I grip the knife in my right. One way or another, I’ve to move through that door and the bees surrounding the building.

Clanking.

Banging.

I step towards the emergency exit and take a deep breath. I can feel the vibrations from the door as they shake the guitars on the surrounding walls. I brace myself against the counter on my right, relieving the weight from my knee. I lift my left leg and kick the door open as hard as I can.

Something blocks the door but the sunlight pouring into the room temporarily blinds me. I kick and kick again until the door gives way. A wail sounds from behind the door and before me stands Benny holding the bat and supporting a wounded Rickett, both bodies spattered with blood. They step inside and from behind the door, Henry stumbles, covering her face with one hand and holding the rifle in the other. Blood pours between her fingers and I grab her jacket, yank her into the pawnshop, and pull the door shut.

Onward

2010-01-11T22:38:00.002-05:00

The cracking bones. The snapping jaws. The thick mucus and coagulated blood splattering across the hood and windows. Wheels grinding the brittle bodies into the asphalt. This is what awaits us as Henry slams on the gas. We roll towards a hive of anywhere from 30 to 40 plus bees—a hive much smaller than what we just evaded.

The supplies in the back of the truck slide from side to side while Benny and Rickett hold on for the imminent impact. Was it the best idea to drive over a hive? Hell no. But there just isn’t time for finding other options.

The setting sun and the dull yellow headlights highlight the decaying, fragile bodies. Henry’s forearm muscles twitch and strain as she holds tight to the wheel. I check and make sure there’s not a passenger side airbag and grab the hunting knife from the glove box before I use my good leg to brace myself against the dash. I look behind us to see only Benny’s and Rickett’s legs and all that runs through my head is “We’re fucked.”

Henry screams “Shit! Shit! Shit!” as we make impact. He arms rattle as the truck’s speed drops dramatically from 35 mph to 15 mph and continuing to spiral downward. The truck jerks from side to side and thuds come from the back as Benny and Rickett try to maintain balance, eventually moving to crouch down behind the cab. In a flash, we’re five to six bees deep into the hive. Hands bang against the truck, dragging their nails across the window.

The “Hail Mary” I used to say a long time ago, the one that my first baiting experience rejuvenated, finds itself on the tip of my tongue again. I mouth the prayer to myself as I clutch onto the handle above the door and the center console.

I watch the bodies pass the window, slowly, one by one as they fight the hulking machine trampling them. They can smell the meat. I see those off in the distance, the ones highlighted by the dying sunlight, tonguing the air and swinging their ragged, decayed faces back and forth to find the newest food source.

And again, in my brain, the words “we’re fucked” echo endlessly.

There’s a click, a pop, and a hiss and Henry’s thrown back; the white bag billows to save her life from the destruction and flings her hands from the wheel. I pull the knife from its sheath and slice a hole to release the air. She screams and flails her arm, grazing my head and my hand with the knife and she pushes the deflating bag from her blotched face. I help pull the bag down so she can resume the chaotic drive. I turn to make sure that both Benny and Rickett are still the bed and they are.

Henry knocks the windshield wipers into motion to push the gore to the side. Thick streaks of mucus, blood and bile merge together to settle as a light but blurry film of death covering the windshield.

Halfway through and we’re not dead yet. The engine revs and a high pitch whistle accompanies the sound when Henry accelerates. When she turns the wheel, a droning grumble comes from below my feet. We may be alive for now, but this truck sure as hell won’t last long.

“We’re going to make it! Holy hell!” Henry yells, slamming her hand again the wheel. Just a few bees stand before us and an open road. The gas station we visited earlier is on our left, just past the bees. In front of us lies the road through Fairmount bordered by old, run down buildings on each side. Rusted, beat up vehicles line the road at sporadic intervals. As Henry accelerates the truck over the last few bees, steam erupts from under the hood, burning what flesh is left on the rotting bodies. We pass the bodies but the truck sputters for twenty or so yards, jerks for a bit and then stalls.

“We need to move.”

“Huh?” She asks, shocked that we couldn’t go further.

“We need to get the hell out of here!” I look behind us to see a vacant bed. No Benny. No Rickett. Most of the supplies were thrown from the truck. I climb from the passenger seat and limp to the bed to see what’s left: our backpack, the bat, loose water bottles, scattered canned food and the small box of medical supplies. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the bottle of penicillin. I grab the backpack and shove some food, water, and the medical supplies into it.

Henry stands next to the truck and stares into the massive burial ground she created. Limbs, organs, and bodily fluids decorate the road and the truck. Maybe 15 or so bees remain and shamble through their splattered hive towards us.

“Grab the rifle,” I say to Henry. She doesn’t break her stare from the devastation. “Henry!” I finally get her attention. “Grab the fucking rifle and let’s go.”

“But Rickett? Benny?” She reaches inside the cab to grab the rifle. I just hope it’s fully loaded, because that’s all we have.

“Let’s just go!” I put one of the backpack’s straps over my shoulder and use the bat as a makeshift cane and head down the road. “C’mon!” Henry adjusts her baseball cap and jogs the short distance between us to catch up.

“What about the others? You think they’re dead?”

“Hell no,” I scoff and wince from the pain in my knee. “Not if they’re together, that is.”

“We need a distraction, don’t you think? To keep them away longer while we run?”

“Run?” I laugh at the thought. “Not with this knee lady,” I respond, continuing forward.

“Well then we definitely need something,” she says before running off. I don’t look back. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this it’s that once a hive is behind you—keep your eyes forward and your feet moving.

Moments later she comes racing back. “That should do it,” she says, breathing heavily.

“What did you do?”

“Torched it.”

“Torched what?”

“Rickett’s truck,” she says. I turn and see the truck idle in the middle of the street, flames pouring from the windows in the cab. It’s not much of a barrier, but it will at least make the bees slow down a bit as they pass.

“We need to find a place to hide. I can’t keep moving like this.” I can feel my knee ballooning and the pain increases with each step. “Keep your eyes peeled for bees and an open door.”

******

Shards of glass from shattered windows line the sidewalk in front of the small, decrepit building. Wrought iron bars run vertical every few inches to help secure the store. An old neon sign reads “Ron’s Pawns” and hangs over the entrance. “Perfect,” I say and limp to the front doors.

“What the hell happened here?” Henry asks as she surveys the scene.

“Looters, I bet.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We enter and hope it’s vacant.” I tug on the door frame with wrought iron security measures and the doors open right up. “Looks like these bars don’t really help all too much.” I step carefully to avoid the shards of glass, but before I can enter, Henry grabs my shoulder.

“Maybe I should go first, you know, since I have the rifle.” I nod and she readies the rifle.

After entering the pawnshop, my eyes adjust enough to see the outlines of objects, such as the main counter and some of the shelving. The only noise comes from us stepping on random items.

“First things first,” I whisper. “We need some light.” I check the bag, one of the only constant things we’ve had since the beginning of this adventure. I sift through the socks, canned meat, water bottles, extra shirts to find a flashlight and a pack of C batteries. “Hell yes,” I grunt after installing the batteries and turning on the flashlight.

I shine the light ahead of me to see a wall holding a few guitars. Henry still has the butt of the gun pressed into her shoulder, ready to fire if necessary. We take a quick tour around the front area, noting where the emergency exits and a door to another room. The wall behind the register houses broken glass cases with gun racks. “Shit.”

“What?” Asks Henry. I nod towards the empty cases. “No weapons, eh?”

I walk behind the counter, stepping lightly on the glass. “Nothing.”

“Ammo?”

“Only a few scattered bullets. Not the kind we need.” I want to pull my hair in frustration. I thought we might have hit the jackpot, a place we can guard until these weak bees die off—if they die off—or we find another way out of town.

“So what now?”

“First we lock the front door and figure out all the ways in and out.”

“How do we lock this thing? The doors are torn to all hell.”

“We need to find something to chain or tie the doors together. The bees can’t fit through the gaps in the bars, so that’s not a problem.”

“How do they lock their jewelry here? Every pawnshop has jewelry.” Henry shrugs. “May not be of the best quality, but it’s there.”

“Good thinking.” We walk over to the next counter. The countertops in this section of the store are smashed and shattered and what jewelry was once there is missing. “A lock in the casing. No good.”

“Is there an office?”

“Let’s head through the door in the back to find out.” We move through the store, watching our steps and noting the lack of items but the vast amount of destruction. We open the door and enter a small hallway that ends with an emergency exit. On the left seems to be an office while the open door on the right of the hall houses a utility room.

I fling open the door on the left and shine the light while ducking in case Henry has to fire. The smell of rot slaps me in the face and Henry chokes back vomit before turning to hurl. The beam of light rests on a man, or what used to be a man, sitting in a chair with a wall of blood behind him. Half the face is missing from either a gunshot or some other means of destruction. The bloated body’s two arms hang freely. A blood soaked shirt and tie match the black suit jacket.

“Holy shit,” Henry gags. “That’s just wrong.”

“Cabin fever or something. Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with this shit.” I stand up and enter the room.

“Are you serious?” She asks with a tone of disbelief. “What the hell do you want with a dead man?” I fumble through the pants pocket, grimacing from the dried, caked blood and the smell of feces and decomposing flesh. I pull out his wallet and a set of keys, making sure to jingle the keys in front of Henry.

“What the hell do you plan to do with those?”

“I don’t know yet, but they may come in handy.”

******

While searching through the utility room we were able to find a small chain and lock, probably used as a back up security measure for locking the doors or chaining a bike outside. Who knows? Who cares? We can’t unlock the lock since there isn’t a key for it on this key ring, but we were able to chain the doors together, and every other exit can only be opened from the inside.

“Done and done,” I say, finally taking a seat next to the backpack to relieve the pressure from my swollen knee. I open a bottle of water and take some penicillin and pain relievers. Henry takes a seat as well and I toss her a bottle of water and some canned meat.

She pulls the tab on her can, breaking the seal. “So what about Rickett?”

“And Benny,” I add.

“Yeah, him too,” she says. “Think they’re still around?”

“I can only hope,” I respond. “But we can’t go back for them now. Not with the way I am.”

She shrugs. “I can go back for them. I’ll be fine by myself.”

“No,” I snap, shaking my head while jamming the food into my mouth. “We stick together and wait,” I say while chewing. “At least give it a few hours. You never know. They may come this way.”

“Or they could already be gone. Dead or alive.”

“Just eat and get some damned rest. I’ll keep an eye out while you sleep. Then we’ll switch.” She shrugs again and eats a little bit of the meat before tossing the can aside.

I stare through the bars and into the street. Dim starlight outlines the buildings across the street. I light a cigarette and take a pull. Between drags I hold my breath, counting, waiting to see two shadows run across the building on their way to our door.

Waiting.

And waiting.

Into the Hive

2010-01-04T21:35:00.002-05:00

Henry looks to Benny’s outstretched hand and chuckles. “That was good,” she says, smiling. Benny winks at her and, in response, Henry throws a right hook, surprising Benny. Her knuckles crack against his jaw, whipping his head to the side. “But that was better,” she says, winking at him as his head returns to face her. His shit eating grin surfaces and he nods at her.

“I like a girl with some sass,” he says. The red outline of her first bears itself as seconds pass.

“Knock it off,” Rickett snaps.

I move to take a seat on the tailgate to relieve the pressure from my knee. I roll my jeans up to check my right knee and see the immensely swollen joint. Realizing the significance of pushing on that knee for two miles awakens the pain surging from all of my wounds: my damaged and infected left hand pockmarked with stitches, the bulging skin surrounding my eye, and now my enlarged knee. Survival never hurt so much before, especially not when I needed a release from all the pain in order to press on.

“There’s a problem here, fellas,” Rickett cautiously looks over us. I rummage through some supplies in the back for pain relievers and penicillin.

“Yeah?” Benny asks while still rubbing chin. “What’s that?”

“You can’t just drive over a ton of bodies. You’re begging for the truck to break down, to fall apart when we need it most.” Rickett steps away from the truck and lights a cigarette. “We can’t drive around them, and we can’t necessarily drive through them.”

“Well, whatever the case is, we need to put something in motion,” I say, rubbing my knee. “They’ll be here very, very soon.”

“I second that motion,” Henry says while moving to the truck’s cab. “If we’re going to think of something, let’s do it now and do it fast.”

Benny eyes Henry for a few seconds and then takes a step towards the road. He stretches his hands above his head, scratches the bandage on his arm, turns and says, “Give me a gun, old man.”

“What?” Rickett responds.

“We gotta thin the herd,” Benny says, holding out his hands.

“Wait a minute.” Rickett shakes his head. “Last time you had a gun you were going nuts. I don’t know about giving you one now.” He takes a drag from the cigarette burning between his fingers and tells Benny, “You give me a good reason to arm you, and we’ll see about that gun.”

“We spread them out and clear a path. It’s pretty damn simple.” Benny points down the road. “You have about a hundred or so bees slowly making their way to eat us. Down the road they’re wedged between trees. We wait for them to clear the trees and we bait, spread them out, knock a few down, and drive right on through.”

“How do you even know that will work?” Henry asks.

“Damn it!” I yell. I can’t take it anymore. They act like we’re idiots, like we’re a burden. “I understand Benny and I have made some dumb decisions, but we’ve been dealing with this shit longer than both of you. We’ve killed more, fought harder, and survived longer than you two have.” Benny’s shit eating grin surfaces once he sees he isn’t fighting this battle alone.

“Rickett, you didn’t even know this was happening until we walked into your life. God knows what would’ve happened to you. And you,” I say, pointing to Henry, “You’ve dealt with the exterminators or butchers, whatever you want to call them. How many bees have you killed?”

“Well, if I had to count,” she looks down, letting the hat’s bill hide her face.

“Exactly my point. Benny and I couldn’t even count how many we’ve killed and how many others we’ve run across.” Maybe it’s the pain all funneling into my guts that makes me so pissed. “So, now that we’ve established this premise, why do we have to prove ourselves to you? Doesn’t our being alive offer enough damn evidence?” All three pairs of eyes are on me: the partially crippled man sitting on a truck’s tailgate since he’s too beaten to stand.

“For the love of Christ, Rickett. Benny’s the reason I’m here. You’ve seen it for yourself. Yeah, maybe he’s a bit off from time to time, and maybe you can’t wholeheartedly trust him. Either way, it’s his actions that have brought us to this point, so for fuck’s sake, give the man a damn gun and let him do it. It’ll work. Everything he’s done so far has worked, and I doubt it’ll fail now.”

Benny stands with his carnivalesque grin and says, “Well, I didn’t want to be one to toot my own horn, but thanks, buddy,” he says to me with a nod. Rickett moves to the cab, pulls out the rifle and approaches Benny. Benny shakes his head and says, “No. A real gun, old man.”

Rickett turns to me, his brow furrowed with concern and his pork chop sideburns shift as he grinds his teeth out of frustration or anger. With water draining from my swollen eye, I nod, pull the 9mm from my belt and hold it out to Rickett. He unwillingly passes the gun from me to Benny. “If this doesn’t work, I’m going to gut you before they get the chance. You got that?” Benny simply nods and smiles.

Before Rickett can walk off, Benny grabs his wrist and says, “I’ll need your help this time.”

“Why?”

“Because Gavin’s had enough. He needs to rest and let his leg relax a little. And I can’t clear enough with just one gun. I know you have two more hand guns. Bring them out and let’s get to work. They’ll be here any second. I can smell their rot.”

******

It doesn’t take long for the hive to rear its ugly head as the intense smell of rot crashes over us, a smell so heavy that I can actually taste the decay in the air. Now it’s clear how the bee’s tongues separate the living from the dead.

Sitting in the passenger seat with the rifle on my lap, I see Benny, Henry, and Rickett talking off to the side. Rickett tosses Henry the keys to the truck and then puts his two hand guns in his waitband. Benny seems to be waiting patiently. He does well to hide his anticipation for the oncoming violence. If there’s one thing I know about Benny, it’s that he doesn’t shy away from killing the dead, or the living.

Henry hops into the driver’s seat and Benny and Rickett climb into the bed. “See that pasture off to the right?” I nod. “We’re going to circle around over there and drop Benny off. We’ll drop Rickett off on the other side of the road.” Makes sense: two people baiting instead of one. Benny plans to spread them out as wide as he can by using two bodies. The shambling hive in front of us is Benny’s Red Sea.

“Once we drop them off, we’ll pull back a bit and let them work. If this doesn’t work, Gavin—” She hesitates. “If this doesn’t work, it’ll be me and you speeding through these things.”

“It’ll work,” I respond, not even looking her way. She starts the truck. “Baiting has worked everytime—that, and head trauma. So if you ever have to kill any of bees, aim for the head, in case you didn’t know.”

Benny slides the back window open and says, “Henry, remember to drive slow. I doubt these fuckers could break glass, but if they do, hit the gas and hit it hard.”

“I know,” she says in a disgusted tone. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Gavin, we’ll keep them off the truck as long as we can, and we should be able to easily catch up and jump in the bed if we need to. Shoot through the back window only if you have to. Don’t roll down your window for any reason. Got it?”

“Got it,” I respond, and he slides the window shut and bangs on the cab’s roof. The hive shambles along at a smooth pace, their tongues whipping into late afternoon sky, fishing for our scents. And they catch those scents.

Henry accelerates and the closer she gets to the hive, the faster the bees seem to move, even if it is still at a slow pace. I can almost see their intense hunger when they snap their heads from side to side, looking for the source of the smell. Their tongues sling mucus and saliva as they furiously lick the air.

About 50 yards away from the hive, Henry pulls off the right side of the paved road and Benny jumps from the bed. He pulls the slide on the gun and starts ranting at the dead walking towards him. Almost immediately, a fraction of the hive turns towards him as the others continue to focus on us and the trailing scents passing right under their noses. Henry drives across the rode into another small area of open land. Rickett climbs out of the truck and readies his firearms. He bangs on the side of the truck, letting us know to pull back and wait. Henry accelerates again, this time to get us away from the havoc that’s about to begin.

I turn around as we drive off a hundred yards or so. Benny and Rickett yell and wave their arms, doing everything they can to get the hive’s attention without wasting any bullets.

“Is Benny always an ass?” Henry looks to me for an answer.

“Yeah,” I confirm. “It’s his way of coping.”

“Great,” she says, turning the truck around so we can watch the baiting process.

“He’ll treat you like shit, but he’ll also save you. I haven’t figured it out, and I have pretty much quit trying to figure it out. All I know is that he’ll save us, one way or another, if we need it. And you probably will, at some point in time, need saving.”

“Let’s hope not.” There’s that damn word again.

The first bullet leaves Rickett’s gun and drops one bee. The hive can’t make up its mind on which way to go, so the concentrated center of bees falls apart. They begin to go their separate ways. Those closest to Benny navigate towards him, while the same goes for the others closest to Rickett. The only ones remaining in the middle are the ones too slow to keep up with the rest.

“How many do you think there are?” Henry asks.

“More than enough,” I respond.

Benny fires. Once. Twice. Two bees collapse and he waves us forward. Henry puts her foot on the gas. My stomach churns. What if they turn on us as we pass? What if the bees all converge on us when we get to the middle?

“It’s working,” she says excitedly as we move towards the fractured hive.

“I told you.” A wide smile accentuates her sharp cheekbones.

75 yards.

50 yards.

30 yards and more gunshots. The slowest bees turn back towards the road, towards us. Heads shatter and explode, sending brain matter and bone into the air. The gunfire continues.

15 yards. Henry runs over her first bee. The bones snap and organs squish as the wheels roll over the body. More turn on us. Benny and Rickett run to the truck and the bees follow. More gunshots and a few of the bees fall.

Benny makes it to the truck and jumps into the bed as Henry simply coasts down the road. In the mirror, I see the hive collapse and press towards the truck. Benny fires a few rounds into the crowd, dropping those who are closest to Rickett. He knocks the tailgate down and steps forward, extending his arm to help Rickett into the truck.

My heart slows down and my stomach grumbles and settles itself.

We made it. Holy shit; we made it. Benny and Rickett jump up and down in the truck’s bed, celebrating a victory where we worked as a team. We all saved each other this time. Leaving the bees behind, I roll down the window and light a cigarette, enjoying the thought of Benny and I not having to prove ourselves anymore. I close my eyes and let the cool breeze coax the pain from my body.

“Oh fuck me,” Henry says, tapping on the breaks.

“What?” I open my eyes to blurred vision from the water saturating my swollen eye as she cuts on the headlights to accommodate for today’s sunset. Benny and Rickett bang on the roof.

“More,” she says timidly.

“More what?” I ask, rubbing the water from my eyes.

“Bees.” I squint and blink a few times as she stops the car. Benny and Rickett spit curses from behind us.

Another hive, another wave of decay and death coming to a crest before us. Sandwiched between two hives. There’s no room for baiting. There’s no time for planning.

From the back of the truck I hear, “Go! Go! Go!”

I toss my cigarette out the window and close it. “Floor it,” I urge. “Run these fuckers into the ground.”

Theories

2009-12-28T20:42:00.001-05:00

The ragged pain shoots from my knee, up my thigh and into my hip with each step. I grimace and grind my teeth when my right heel lands on the asphalt over and over.

The first half mile took us from the quasi business section to Fairmount’s countryside. Once we hit the countryside, the road twists and turns, lined by an alternating pattern of trees followed by pasture. Benny hovers right next to me, chattering away, cussing, yelling, doing whatever he can to try and get me to focus, to get me to speed up.

“Can you fucking believe it man? All these bees? I mean, shit, if people knew this was going on, you think some would leave, right?” He spins around to check on the hive following our scents. “Damn, bro, give me your gas. We gotta speed up. We might be able to lose them if we can get far enough, but that gas jug is weighing you down.” I pass him the gas and he hands me the bat. Relieving the weight from my right side enables me to walk with less pain. After a few steps, I use the bat to help carry some of my weight, leaning on it when I take a step to avoid those pains from time to time.

Benny’s muscles flex with each step as he lugs the two jugs. I glance behind us a few times to make sure the bees are, for the time being, behind one of the bends and out of sight. The aluminum clanks when it hits the asphalt. Everything feels so slow, so isolated. The noises. The walking. The bees lurking.

Two miles, I remind myself. Two fucking miles.

Breaking the awkward, tense silence, Benny belts out one of his many theories, much like he used to do a long time ago. Or was it a long time? Shit, I can’t remember. “So, dude, when Rickett tied me up, I started thinking.” It was me who restrained you, but I choose not to say it. “What if this was like some middle school science fair project that backfired? What if some 13 year old tried to genetically mutate rats or some shit and they got loose and just started another plague? That would suck shit.” Heavy breathing soon muffles his laughing.

“Man,” Benny continues, “this shit could be anything from some fucked up new wave STD to some new crazy mad cow disease or something like that.” More heavy breathing. Sweat rolls down Benny’s face and into the black stubble on his cheeks and chin. Hell, we’re both growing beards now, I guess. The pain in my body has been too much for me to even consider hygiene. Regardless, even with the stubble, Benny’s shit eating grin shines through.

“None of that really explains the Litchfield company. But hell, they could be some crazy special ops military branch that just whoops ass and kills off massive amounts of people when needed.” He rolls his shoulders and bends his arms to relieve some of the tension from the jugs. Keep talking, Benny. Keep talking. Your lunatic banter makes me not look back. It helps me to temporarily avoid the inevitable horde of flesh eating bees looming behind us. Damn, this is the longest two fucking miles of my life.

“But then why would Rickett and Henry react the way they did? I specifically remember her saying something along the lines of ‘I never said anything about the military.’ That line still rings in my ears. And why won’t Rickett ever answer questions?” Benny looks to me, shaking the jugs in front of him. “Why the fuck won’t that man answer anyone’s damned questions? I mean, seriously, it disgusts me. Always bossing people around, telling us what to do and calling me—”

A noise coming from the woods breaks Benny’s rant. I keep walking but Benny turns. I’m not turning. I refuse to turn because I know what’s back there. I can smell the rot.

“Mother fucker,” Benny says with frustration. “Can’t even get one more mile in peace. Honestly.” He drops the jugs and takes a few steps to catch up to me. “Give me the bat,” he says, motioning for my temporary cane.

“Can’t we just keep walking, Benny? We can easily outrun these things.”

“No,” he says adamantly. It’s like Wonder Mart all over again. Benny thrives in the violence. Dead meat is food for the coyote. I sigh and wince at the same time, handing the bat over to Benny before turning to see what exactly he plans to accomplish. He takes the bat and smiles.

One bee. One single bee shambles behind us. Its jaw cracks as the bee opens its mouth to flick its tongue in our direction. The face of a man who once lived now looks ragged, infected, and partially decayed. This is the worse I’ve seen the bees. Normally, they just look ashen and a bit emaciated, but this guy looks plain dead. Benny could actually be right on when he said they might be out of food. The bees of Fairmount are starving.

“You’re wasting time,” I say as Benny takes a few steps and twists his hands on the bat’s handle. He stops and holds the bat to his face as if he’s investigating it. His smile widens and he turns to face the bee. “We could be walking right now. I can’t carry this shit on my own.”

“This will keep them busy for an extra minute or so.” He looks back over his shoulder as he speaks.

“And how is that?”

“Don’t you remember? They investigate their own because they want to make sure the meat’s not edible.” He takes a practice swing. Oh I remember Benny: six hungry bees headed our way and you toss a cadaver at them, a cadaver you mutilated. I wanted to run away, to move around them but you wanted the bloodshed. “We just haven’t had the chance to put this theory to use.” He swings again, rolls his shoulders, pauses, and then looks back to me one more time and says, “It’s kinda like baiting, but with their own.”

Benny stands a few yards in front of the bee as if it’s a duel. The bee reaches its hands out slower than other bees I’ve seen. Benny chuckles. “Benny, now’s not the time to be testing theories. What if this doesn’t work?” I try one last time to pull him away so we can press forward.

“Gavin, quit squealing like a pussy, man. I ain’t asking you to do it.” He readies a swing. “Besides, it’s for our own good. Trust me.” Jesus, Benny. Trust. Much like hope, that word leaves a sinking, empty feeling in my body. “Just have to make a big enough mess to keep those others occupied.” And with those last words, Benny sidesteps the bee and swings towards its knee, the impact forcing splintered bones through the bee’s jeans, the denim immediately sponging what blood comes from the wound.

“Damn,” Benny says, stepping around the collapsing bee, “he’s a brittle little fucker.” The bee flails its arms while falling to the asphalt with a thud, shattering teeth and visibly breaking its jaw for the jaw to hang, unhinged, when the bee raises its head in a futile attack. “That just takes the fun out of it.” Benny shrugs and raises the bat to strike again. I turn away before the Benny forces the bat through the bee’s fragile skull. The sick, splattering sounds of tissue sliding across the road is all the confirmation I need to know that Benny’s made his mess, that we can now more forward.

I grab a gas jug and start walking, the pain in my knee resurging with each step. It takes Benny a few seconds before he scoops up the second jug and catches up. He takes the jug from my right hand and passes me the bat covered in blood and tissue. “I saw the first few bees from the hive coming around the bend, but that piece of abstract art smeared back there should take their attention from us for a few. It’ll buy us more time.”

******

“You’re back, finally.” Rickett snatches the gas jugs from Benny as Henry exits the store with a couple cartons of cigarettes and some beef jerky.

“Nice to see you, too,” Benny says, stretching his arms and then scratching his bandage. A little bit of his blood stains the gauze, but it’s nothing of concern.

“Was there more gas?” Henry asks, readjusting her baseball cap after tossing the smokes into the cab. Rickett pours the gas into the truck’s tank and I step away, pull a cigarette from the pack in my pocket and light it, taking a deep pull before I say anything.

“Yeah, there’s plenty more,” Benny says with a chuckle, “but the gas we brought should get us somewhere other than there.” Both Rickett and Henry look to Benny.

“What do you mean?” Rickett asks with a scowl.

“Well, to start—”

“Get to the point,” Henry interrupts.

“Bees,” I say, gathering everyone’s attention. “A shitload of them. They caught our scent and were following us here.”

“You mean you lead them here?” Rickett looks to me with worry instead of a scowl creasing his brow.

“Hey, we didn’t have much choice, old man. We got you your fucking gas. Don’t blame us. Blame the shitty situation. There ain’t anymore food in that place, so the first sniff of fresh meat got them all excited. Ain’t no way we could shake a hive that size. But we sure as hell can out walk them if we have to.”

“Yeah,” I say, “apparently if they don’t eat, they weaken, get brittle. These bees are slower than I’ve ever seen—”

“And they break a lot faster,” Benny adds.

“Great,” Rickett says, pouring the last of the gasoline into the tank. “We’re stuck.”

“What?” Benny scoffs. “I just said we can go around them. They’re slow. Open your ears, old man.”

“Henry,” Rickett says with a sigh, “Tell them.”

“There isn’t a way around Fairmount anymore,” she says, leaning against the truck. “Traffic’s worse further up the highway. There is no way through. I’ve tried.”

“The hell with sitting on our asses; we go through them,” I urge. “I’m not going to sit here and just hope they pass by. We need to get the hell away from this place and go somewhere bigger. Somewhere like Lincoln.” Benny nods in agreement. Flashes of Addison’s face replace Henry’s for a few seconds as she stands upright and takes a step forward. I blink the visual away and refocus.

“And how do you suggest we do that?” She asks.

“We all cram in the cab and go. No one’s left out to dry in the bed. Those bees are probably too weak to break glass.”

“I agree,” Benny says. Rickett and Henry look to each other. “I like the idea.” Benny holds out his hand to Henry and says, “Nice to meet you. Name’s Benny. I’ll take a bullet for the team and let you sit on my lap.”

The Trail of the Dead

2009-12-21T21:28:00.001-05:00

“At least the truck could coast into a place for shelter, you know?” I look to Benny who twirls the bat in circles with his right hand.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s better than dying on the highway.” Benny spits onto the road. “So, where to next, bud?”

“You mean once we get some gas?” I look to Benny and he shrugs.

“Sure,” he says. “And after that. I mean, what the hell are we going to do?”

“Well, I guess we’ll head where Rickett and Henry—”

“And when the hell did Rickett decide he was the boss of me? Of us?” His random outburst shocks me, but he doesn’t skip a beat, except for when he moves the bat from his right hand to his left, only to start twirling it once again.

“Uh. . .”

“Fuck this man! He blew off your hand, tied me up, and God knows what shit he injected into me. And now he wants to tell me what to do from this point on?” He continues to swing the bat at the same pace. “Maybe he’s got some weird shit going on where he thinks we’re his sons or something. All I know is that it ain’t kosher.”

“OK, I get it—”

“No, Gav, you don’t get it. And this Henry chick. He’s gonna give her the gun over me? I can’t believe it. He’s gonna arm someone he’s never met before when I’ve saved your ass. And you don’t even stand up for me?”

“I did, but that was before your ass went ballistic! You were going to get us killed, smart ass. Then all that saving you did would have been pointless.” I drop the empty gas can and fish the cigarettes and lighter from my pocket. “Besides, the main point is for us to get as far away from this shit as possible.”

“Really?” He stops and faces me. “If that’s the case, why are we following a trail of it?”

“A trail of what?” I light a cigarette. “What are we following?”

“The trail of the dead, man. Everywhere we go, things seem worse.”

River’s Edge and the slow, sporadic bees. Brightmoor and the hive. What’s next? Hundreds of bees spilling blood and guts across the streets of Fairmount?

“So what’s your point, Benny?”

“My point, Gav, is where the hell do you want to go?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s pretty black and white,” he says, chuckling. “Where the hell do you want to go? From this point on, where would you want to be?”

“Lincoln.” I respond. No hesitation needed. No thoughts. The option’s there again. The chance of seeing my family dwindled when Rickett came back. Hope was leaving us, and the thought of seeing my family left too.

“Addison?” He asks. He remembers her name, probably because of the gun I shoved in his mouth.

“Yeah, and my parents. That’s where they were, or at least where my parents were headed.” A sinking feeling in my gut matches all the pain in my body. I tried so hard to push it all away, to focus on the now, the survival aspect of life. But it all burns to the core eventually. Rickett saw his family and Henry saw her parents. I need to see something; I need to know if they’re alive to get closure.

“Then let’s go. Forget the whole Litchfield Company crap. Let’s go to Lincoln like we planned when we left the Edge.” His carnivalesque grin emerges.

“We can’t right now,” though the offer is tempting. But this is Benny we’re talking about. He’s saying just enough to get control, to assume the lead position so he can have his authority back.
But then again, Lincoln and Addison. My Parents. Damn he’s good, that Benny.

“Let’s just get the gas and head back to the truck.” I knock the ashes from the cigarette.

“Yeah,” he says, still twirling the bat in his left hand. “Think about it and get back to me.”

******

“This ain’t the most economically fruitful areas, I’m assuming.” Benny squints and looks around. “I think there’s a reason why you always drive around this place and never through it.” Large brick buildings with peeling, cream colored paint line the road. A few rusted cars lie in the gas station’s parking lot.

Benny scratches at the bandage on his arm. “Let’s go check out the store. I could use some gum.”

“Gum?”

“Yeah, you know, Big Red or Juicy Fruit. Gum.”

We enter the dark, mildew scented store. Benny scratches at his bandage again and resumes twirling the bat. Aisles of cheap snacks, stationary, and magazines fill the center of the store. The store lacks the hum of working coolers, which lets me know to avoid opening any of the refrigerated areas.

“Dude,” Benny starts, “I don’t know about you, but that Henry chick seems like a bitch.” Benny walks behind the counter and starts hitting switches and looking for working lights. He opens the cash register and slams it shut. “I think it’s her anger that makes her so hot.”

“What?”

“You don’t think she’s hot?”

“Yeah, she’s cute. But it’s not her anger. I think it’s her looks.”

“You’re missing it bud. First off, she’s not cute; she’s smoking hot. Cute’s for eighth graders.” More clicks. Same darkness and silence. “And the anger is just there to top it off. You know, like she’d slap you around in the sack.” He laughs and I shake my head, letting out a little chuckle.

“You’re a dumbass, dude,” I respond and he peers through the blinds behind the register. “What is it?”

“What do you think?” He asks, letting the blinds close and hopping over the counter. He points to the two, two gallon gas jugs we sat by the door. “Fill them.”

“Bees?” I ask, already knowing the answer to the question. “How many?”

“I think I saw three,” he says, opening the front door.

“But I can’t carry both of these if they’re full,” I yell after him. “My hand!”

Damn it, I say to myself. I prop the door open with my foot and grab the two jugs. I run to the nearest pump. Thuds and clanks come from behind the building. I look to the pump and see blank screens. Shit. Everything’s digital. I run to the back of the store, wincing the entire distance from the pain in my knee.

Mutilated bees. Bloody pulp and organs spread across the pavement. “Jesus man! Did you have to gut them?”

He cleans the bat with ragged clothing pulled from one of the bodies. “Those?” He asks and points to the intestines stretched out on the ground. I nod. “Oh, that wasn’t me. The bees were grubbing on, well, the shopkeeper I assume.” He shrugs and drops the blood covered rag. The intestines look a little dried out and the smell finally hits me, causing my stomach to tumble a bit. Benny kicks the rotting shopkeeper’s corpse and the smell intensifies. “Damn!” He yells, scrunching his face.

“How long do you think it’s been here?”

“Hell if I know,” Benny says. “At least a few days. Maybe they’re running out of fresh meat.” He looks to me. “Did you gas up already?”

“No. It’s all digital and I don’t know how to get around that.” Benny looks around, finally dropping his shirt from his face. He points. “Generator. I’ll start it while you head back to the pump.”

Benny cranks and the lights above the pumps flicker. He runs back into the front of the store and hits switches behind the counter. I choose the “pay cash” and “unleaded” options and smile when the machine beeps to let me know it’s ready to pump. I open the caps on the two jugs and put the handle into the first one. Relief greets me when the gas pours into the container. At least we’ll be able to ride out of Fairmount and maybe into Lincoln.

The monotonous bell rings as Benny exits the store, running towards me. “Hurry!” He yells, grabbing the second container from me and moving to the next pump. “Hurry! Hurry!”

I look behind me and down the road. I look into the mouth of Benny’s trail, the trail of the dead. There’s no point in counting. The only thing I can see behind the bees is the sky. So many clicking their teeth and licking the air. With each taste and gulp of air, they seem to pick up a little speed, though still shambling along.

“Go!” Benny yells as I’m twisting the cap onto the jug. “Go!” He yells, waving me away. I head back the way we came, lugging two gallon container with my right hand. My knee pinches with each step. Only two miles or so, I think to myself. Two miles.

Benny runs up to my side, the bat in his left hand and the gas jug in his right. “Can’t you go any faster?” He asks, frustrated.

I shake my head. “No. Hurts too much.” Benny grabs my arm and I jerk it away. “Two miles,” I say to him. “It’s only two miles.”

The Remains

2009-12-14T21:52:00.002-05:00

“So, what is it?” I ask. Rickett and Henry look to me and then back to each other. Rickett balls up the paper and tosses it aside.

“Yeah, can we get some answers here?” Benny asks, fiddling with his latest bandage. Two crippled and mauled bodies still pressing forward, still surviving. But Rickett’s right: we would easily be dead without him.

Rickett bends down and looks Henry right in the eyes and says, “Don’t fuck up.” Simple and stern. He slices the seat belts restraining her and stands up. “Do what you have to. We leave in ten.”

“Wait,” Benny says as Rickett walks to the truck. “Don’t we get a right to know what the fuck’s going on? Who’s this company?” Benny points to Henry. “Why the hell is she romping around and burning down these towers?”

Rickett stops, turns, and spreads his arms wide, pointing towards the towers’ smoldering remains. “There’s nothing left, Benny. No matter who says what, there’s nothing left, so now we move on.” He drops his arms. “Anything else?”

Obviously frustrated, Benny shakes his head. Rickett looks to me and then Henry. “Any other questions or can we get the hell out of this place?”

Henry stands and dusts off her clothes. She looks around for a bit, finds a baseball cap and puts it on. “Ready,” she says as she walks towards the truck.

“Whoa whoa. . .where do you think you’re going?” Benny holds his bandaged arm out.

“With him,” she points to Rickett.

“Nah, girl. There ain’t room for you.” He spits to the side. “Besides, you didn’t want anything to do with us anyway.”

“She comes,” Rickett says from a distance. I reach down and scoop up the crumpled piece of paper and pocket it.

With the rifle and handgun, he walks back towards us, ignoring Benny’s glare. “You know how to use a gun, Henry?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Used to hunt with my dad when I was younger.”

“Good,” he says, handing her the rifle. Benny’s jaw tightens and he squeezes his fist until his knuckles whiten. Rickett hands me the 9mm and I put it in my waistband.

“What the fuck, man?” Benny looks at Rickett with disgust. “Are you serious?”

“Can’t trust you right now, Benny,” Rickett responds.

“But you trust her?” Benny asks with shock. “You just untied her—”

“But I never did anything wrong,” Henry snaps.

“She fucked up Gavin’s face—”

“In self-defense,” Rickett interrupts. “Look, if she can help, she can come.” Rickett looks from Benny to Henry. “And I never said I trusted her. But I bet she won’t do anything to screw up a free ride out of here.” Henry nods and Benny stands in shock, his mouth wide open.

“Just forget about it. Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say as I pass Benny. “It’s been too quiet here, and I don’t know if I like it.”

******

TO: Sector A Officials
FROM: The desk of COL. Willis
SUBJECT: Finalize and Report

Cleansing of Sector C is in process. Cleansing of D, E and L to begin soon. The projects are now routine and should not take longer than two weeks each.

Once Sector A is cleansed, report to CPT. Batton at Base 17 to receive your latest orders.

******

I pass the paper off to Benny as we ride in the truck’s bed. Henry sits in the cab with Rickett as he drives to the nearest gas station to load up on fuel and possibly a few more supplies.

“What does all this shit mean?” Benny asks, pointing to the paper. We have to huddle behind the cab so we can hear each other through the wind. “I mean, Base 17? Cleansing? What the hell, man?”

“I’m as lost as you, bud. I’m trying to wrap my head around it,” I respond. Rickett found the memo in Henry’s pocket, but she could have found it anywhere. And he didn’t really react to it. Does he know something about this Litchfield company whose small logo rests pressed into the header? Why doesn’t he have questions? “All I know is that we needed to get the hell out of that place. There wasn’t anything left for us.”

“There hasn’t been anything left for us since the Edge. Those first few days of being in that place and then climbing out of that shit hole and away from the exterminators and the bees. There wasn’t really anything left then and there’s definitely nothing left now.”

“Maybe River’s Edge was one of the mentioned sectors?” I ask as Benny hands me back the memo.

“Maybe. Don’t really matter anymore because we won’t ever go back.”

“Think the exterminators are with this group?”

“Kind of makes sense, don’t it? She mentioned the ovens and hazmat suits. We’ve seen it all before.”

“Well, next time we come across a place like that, we make sure she doesn’t burn it all down,” I say, watching the woods, sparse fields, and signs pass by.

“You expect to run into more of that shit?”

“If they’ve got sectors up to L, then I definitely expect it. And more bees too.”

******

“Empty?” Rickett asks.

“Yeah,” I respond, and he lets out a long sigh. I look to Henry who leans against the truck and I ask her, “Where’s the next station?”

With the bill of her hat covering her face, she shrugs and tilts her head down the road we were heading, “A couple miles that way.”

“Where the hell are we anyway?” Benny sifts through the supplies in the truck’s bed. He’s been looking for something since we pulled into the station.

“Bout halfway to Fairmount,” Henry says.

“Fairmount? Never heard of it.” Benny finally gets his hands on what he was looking for: the blood spattered aluminum bat. His signature grin stretches across his face. Memories. That bat has been through it all; it’s what allowed us to survive in the first place. Benny rubs his hands over the handle and then takes a few practice swings. His smile grows wider with each second that passes.

“I’ve only been around Fairmount, never through it,” I add. I’ve passed around it via the highways on my way to and from Lincoln. It’s almost the halfway marker.

“Well, get familiar with it fast,” Rickett says. “If we’re going to be driving out of anywhere, we’ll need to go deeper into the town.”

“How big is this place?” Henry looks at me and shrugs. The majority of her face still hidden by the bill and its shadow.

“Bout the size of River’s Edge,” she responds to me. “Maybe a little bigger.” That’s refreshing. River’s Edge isn’t, or wasn’t, too big. Maybe we can get in and out of here fast and finally head to Lincoln.

“I’ll get the gas,” Benny says, grabbing everyone’s attention. “And I’ll take Gavin with me.” Rickett looks from Benny to me, and from the gun in my waistband to the bat sitting on Benny’s shoulder. “You guys can stay with the truck. I need the exercise anyway. I spent too much time relaxing.” Benny’s grin remains wide as he winks at Rickett. Put a weapon in the man’s hands and the coyote returns. Just when you think you’ve figured him out . . .

Rickett snaps me out of those thoughts. “Whatever you do,” he says, “keep an eye on him and use that gun if you have to. Remember, you’re a survivor.” I nod. Never a hero. Just a survivor. I’m fine with that now.

“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing the only pack left from the truck and shoving some water into it. I check the 9mm’s clip and make sure it’s full. Benny waits patiently as Rickett enters the store and returns with two red, plastic gas jugs. I pop some penicillin and pain relievers, check my bandage and feel the tenderness on my face, draining some of the water from my eye.

“It’ll be like old times,” Benny says as we turn to leave. I don’t look back. I don’t hesitate.

“Yeah, like old times.”

Brown Eyed Girl

2009-12-07T20:16:00.002-05:00

“Both of you,” Rickett says, “shut your mouths.” He takes a drag from the cigarette and flicks the cigarette against a neighboring car. Embers burst and send a shower of orange to the ground as he says, “I’ll do the talking.”

I massage the wound above my eye, checking the level of swelling. “Dude,” Benny says as checks his restraints, “she busted your face up.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Does she even have a clue as to what’s going on?” Benny asks.

“Shhh...” I motion for Benny to stop talking and watch the silhouette in the truck’s cab slowly move. The drug must not have completely worn off yet.

The truck shakes slightly, but then more and more as Rickett swings the passenger side door open amongst thuds of legs slamming against the dashboard.

“Damn it!” Rickett yells. “Stop!” Rickett reaches into the truck’s cab, grabbing the girl’s legs. Benny tries to turn around to catch a glimpse of what’s going on. Rickett pulls the girl from the truck, and she falls to ground, unable to stand as her legs are bound near the ankles. She screams, cusses, and even spits in Rickett’s direction. He stands, shaking his head. I hop down from the truck’s bed, ignoring Benny’s pleads for release. Rickett sees me and he holds up his hand, motioning for me to stay back.

“Your name, girl.” Rickett crosses his arms and waits through the cussing and yelling. After a minute or so, he repeats, “Your name, girl.”

“Henry!” She screams. “Let me go!”

“Henry?”

“Henry,” she says to Rickett. “My fucking name is Henry!” She flops around on the ground, kicking up dirt. “Let me up! Let me go!” The fires are dying out and the darkness begins its takeover.

“Not until it’s safe,” he says.

“Safe?”

“Yeah, Henry. I said safe. I don’t normally enjoy letting pyros run loose.”

“That’s crap, old man. Let me up and I’ll let you live.”

I can’t take that talk, not after what he’s done for us. “Listen, Henry,” I say. She rolls over to see me walk up from behind. “You’ll do as the man says, or you’ll lay there till the bees come.”

“Who the hell are you?” Henry barks at me. “How many more of you are there?”

“I’m Gavin, and we’ve only got one more, Benny, who’s in the truck.” I can only see sharp cheekbones and a small chin highlighted by a dying, burnt orange.

“This is bullshit.” She looks to Rickett. “Let me go, now.”

“Girl,” he responds, “you’re in for a long night with that attitude.”

******

“She’s been lying there for quite a while now, Rickett.” We both sit idle on the tailgate, waiting for Henry to talk, to give us as reason to let her go. “Think she’ll eventually ease up and give in?”

Rickett looks from her to me and shrugs. “I don’t know. But I do know that there’s something more to this.”

“You gonna untie me yet?” Benny asks from the back of the truck.

I light a cigarette and Rickett responds, “No. Not yet.”

“Can I at least get some water or something?” I tear the plastic on a case of water, pull out a bottle, and twist off the cap. Benny’s emotionless face watches me the entire time. I raise the bottle to his lips and he drinks, his eyes still focused on me.

“Yeah,” Henry yells, “water would be great about now.”

Rickett slides off the tailgate and saunters up to her. “Once you tell us what these dying fires are about, I’ll give you a cap full of water. And then once you tell us what you’re doing here, I’ll give you a second cap full. Once I feel that I can let you go, knowing that you’re no harm, I’ll give you an entire bottle.”

“Screw you, old man.” She spits in his direction. “And you,” she says, looking in my direction. “Screw all of you.”

“Just to let you know, girl. When that sun comes up, we move out, with or without you.” Henry’s gaze follows Rickett as he walks back to the truck.

******

I wake up from my small nap. The sun rises and Rickett sits on the tailgate and smokes a cigarette. “Coffee would be great right now,” he says, watching me stretch. “Next town we get to, we need more supplies. Clothes. Bedding. And coffee. Lots of it.”
Benny’s out cold and I wonder if Rickett’s sedated him again. He sits against the cab of the truck—the same position he was in last night.

“She talk yet?”

“Nah,” Rickett says. “She fell asleep.” He takes a drag from the cigarette. “Your eye looks like shit.”

“Thanks,” I respond, smiling. “It feels like it. My whole body feels like it.” I ache. I throb. But I’m walking, and that’s all that matters at this point in time. I’m alive, which makes all the pain worth it. “I’ll be alright though.”

Rickett nods. “As long as you stay clean and take the penicillin I gave you.” Penicillin and pain relievers. I eat more of those pills than anything else.

“Alright,” he says, sliding from the tailgate. “It’s either she talks or we go.” The sun’s arrival barely creeps over the tree line. Rickett walks over to Henry and slightly nudges her with his foot. “It’s time.”

“Huh?” She slowly wakes, but suddenly remembers she’s bound and the attitude’s back. “What do you want?” She snaps at Rickett.

“Tell us everything you know. Now.”

“No, old man. Just let me go.”

“That’s not how these things work. Tell me what you’re about, why you’re burning things, and why you’re the only survivor in this area, if that’s even true.”

“You’re probably with them, those butcher bastards. I ain’t telling you crap.”

“First off, we aren’t ‘butchers,’ if you haven’t noticed. Two dumb males and an old man with a truck of supplies. Nothing military about that.” He takes a drag from his cigarette. “But have your way.” He looks to me and nods. “Pack up the truck, Gavin.”

“That’s fine. Untie me and we’ll go our separate ways,” she says.

“That’s not what I said,” Rickett responds. “It was either tell me everything you know, or stay here, bound.”

“You’re going to leave me to die?”

“If my life may depend on it, then yes.” He flicks his cigarette of to the side. “Good luck.”

“Wait, wait,” she pleads as Rickett walks off. “Let me go and I’ll tell you want to know.”

“You’ll talk before I untie anything,” he responds.

Henry lets out a long sigh of defeat. “Fine. But at least sit me up and let have some water.”

“That’ll work.”

******

“Name and age,” Rickett demands.

Although she seems defeated, Henry keeps her poise and continues to project strength. She looks up, swings some of her shoulder length brown hair out of her face and looks directly into Rickett’s eyes and answers, “Henrietta Lynn Jones. 26.” Rickett pours a cap full of water into her mouth.

“Where do you live?”

“I come from Lincoln,” my ears perk up, “but I was raised in Brightmoor.”

“Why did you come here?” Rickett asks after giving her another cap full of water.

“I came back for Easter. It was always something we did as a family.” Another cap full, another question.

“Where’s you family?”

“Dead.” Henry doesn’t seem to show any emotion when she answers. Her and Benny might get along well.

“How do you know? A lot of people are probably missing family members right now. It doesn’t mean that they’re dead.”

“Listen, I saw my parents in a pile a few days ago. I was away from the car for a bit. I saw them come, the butchers. They were just shooting. I was scared. I just stayed there in the trees. They had masks and body armor, and some wore hazmat suits. The butches shot people, drug bodies, took cowering men, women and children and separated them into rows. I thought I was watching a holocaust video.” I move from the truck and Benny’s sleeping body to creep a little closer so I can better hear her story.

“What were you doing in the woods?”

“I had to piss,” she says. More water. More questions.

“Continue. Finish telling us what you saw.”

Henry sighs again, takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and continues. “The sun was setting. It was dark but the butchers were working their ovens. They even were taking the Red Cross people. They were taking anyone who wasn’t a part of their group.” She motions for water and Rickett gives her as much as she needs. She gulps it down, nods, and continues. “Anyway, once things settled down, I got the nerve to head back to the cars. I don’t want to say I was looking for my family exactly, because I don’t really know what I was doing. Some of the bodies piled were near where we had the car, so I guess I was heading back to the car.”

“Shock. You must’ve been in shock,” I blurt. She snaps her head to the right to see me in her peripheral. I swallow hard.

“Yeah, shock, or whatever.” She turns back to Rickett. “It doesn’t matter now. I just remember the smell of gasoline and then the sight of my father’s cold, dead face and my mother’s lifeless arm hanging out of a pile.”

“We saw some of the same piles back in River’s Edge. How many bodies did they have in the piles?” My adrenaline pumps. She’s seen it just like we have. She can tell us what we already know, reaffirm everything we’ve experienced and our actions.

“I’m sorry, Gavin, but when I see my dead parents, I don’t count the bodies.”

“Sorry,” I stutter.

She asks for more water and Rickett gives it to her. “What happened next?” Rickett asks as I light a cigarette.

“They came. The diseased. Like a wave of plague rats or something. Just a ton of them swooped in on the piles of bodies. It started as moaning and clicking teeth. When the noises got too loud to handle, I climbed into an unlocked car and locked the doors. I hid.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough to hear the shots, to the see piles of bodies ignite into large bonfires. They were burning everything. They were killing everyone and using the bodies to bait the—”

“Bees,” Benny says from the truck. He must have recently woken to understand what she was saying. “We call them bees. Since they swarm and shit. We saw one by itself once and—”

“Benny,” Rickett interrupts. “Shut up and let the girl talk.” Benny scoffs.

“Bees,” she says, continuing her story. “They were baiting the bees. But I don’t know how long I was in there. I slept and slept. I don’t know how I could sleep through gunfire and the smell of burning bodies that seeped into the car. It was atrocious, but I got used to it I guess. It must have been almost an entire day. When I finally got the nerve to get out of the car, everything was finished. It was all done. There were only a few bees left. The sun was bright and the butchers were cleaning up. It was bad, but I watched their rotations, the way they stood guard. I was hungry and thirsty, but I couldn’t sneak off too far. At times, I had to piss and shit into a container I found, throwing the waste out of the car when the butchers weren’t around.” I cringe at the last detail, but she doesn’t skip a beat. “I was able to scavenge a little bit of food from the Red Cross tent when there was time.”

“When did they leave?” Rickett asks, not fazed by any of her answers. He still stands above her, passively, with the water bottle in his hands.

“Who? The bees or the butchers?”

“The butchers,” he says. The military. When did they leave?”

“I think the last of them left a little more than 24 hours ago,” she says. Rickett scratches the stubble on his face. His pork chop sideburns mesh with the slow growing beard. “Will you untie me now?”

Rickett turns to me. “Grab the hunting knife from the truck,” he says, “and cut Benny’s ties. Bring it here when you’re done.” He turns back to Henry. “I’ve got to pat you down first. I need to make sure that you’re not armed.”

“Fine,” she says with a huff.

I cut Benny loose and he rubs his hands and checks the bandage on his right arm. The first thing he grabs is a bottle of water and chugs it down. I hop from the truck and I carry the knife to Rickett. He stands above Henry with a piece of paper in his hand and wearing his silver rimmed glasses.

“What’s that?” I ask, holding the knife’s hilt towards him. Henry silently watches us.

“It’s a memo.”

“A memo? From who?”

“From the Litchfield Company,” he says, taking off his glasses.

“I never said anything about the military,” Henry says, eagerly awaiting her release.

New Rules

2009-11-29T20:40:00.000-05:00

“You dumb son of a bitch.” Rickett pokes and prods around my swollen eye. “Both you and Benny.”

“I’m sorry. I just,” I swallow hard as he inserts the needle for the sutures, “I just blacked out or something. I can’t explain it.” My body aches. All of it. From head to toe. My face throbs; my hand burns and sends pulsing waves of pain to my elbow. This is too much. It’s got to stop.

“I think you channeled Benny’s stupidity. That’s what I think.” I can tell he’s pissed by how hard he jerks the thread and by the bitterness in his voice.

Smoke and fire, that’s the bulk of what I remember. A shadow waltzed across my vision. A swift shot of flame. Muscles tensed. An urge I didn’t fight. An urge I’d never had before.

“Where’s Benny?”

“Sleeping still,” Rickett responds, tying off a suture. “He’s got probably another 30 minutes or so.”

“Did you catch it?” All of this talking on top of smoke inhalation makes my throat even sorer.

“It?”

“The shadow.”

“You mean the girl?” He asks, eyebrows raised.

“Girl?”

“Yes, the girl with the wicked right hook that cut you above the eye.” A girl. Here? Setting fires to the exterminator towers? I must have been really out of it.

“Well, where is she?” He stops tugging and cleans my face with an antiseptic wipe. My nose welcomes the smell of alcohol. This is our only bit of cleanliness amongst the decay and filth.

“Incapacitated,” he answers, cleaning his hands. My swollen eye waters a bit, but with my good eye, I see the fires still burning behind us. Rickett got us through the exterminator area. “She’s resting in the cab of the truck. Bound, of course.”

“Did you pump some meds into her too?”

“Didn’t have to at first. When I tackled her, my shoulder whacked her jaw. Breathing with you mouth open makes you susceptible to the knockout.” He lights a cigarette and takes a drag—as if the smoke from the fires weren’t enough. “But she woke after I just finished tying her up. That’s when I had to sedate her.” He takes another long drag and offers me a cigarette. I shake my head in response and point to my throat. “Benny will be up before her. So I need you to quit your bullshit and step up to help me out. I can’t handle three little shits starting fights, fires, and trying to kill each other.”

“I know.”

“No, Gavin, you don’t know. And Benny doesn’t know because I’ve been stitching both you boys up since I met you. You want to survive, that shit ends here. You can’t let this break you.”

“Well how they hell do I do that? Huh? Everything I know is either dead or dying.” My family included, at least the memories I have of them are dying. The dream of Addison’s open eye and the bees’ flicking tongues and decaying bodies swarming around me encompass my thoughts constantly. “How?”

“You have to remember that this isn’t a personal battle, but it’s a war. It’s war where other people are involved. The more you try to solve things yourself, the more at risk everyone else is. That’s why Benny is such a time bomb. In fact, we need to decide what to do with him.”

“We can’t leave him, right?” Rickett face is cold and stable. “I mean, seriously. We can’t. We can keep him bound for now and keep all weapons away from him.” I motion for a cigarette. “He’s been too much help for me. Even though you don’t think so, I owe him.”

“We can hold on to him a little longer, but he needs some strong supervision.”

I light the cigarette and slowly slide from the tailgate to stand on my feet. My right knee hurts a little more than the other parts of my body. You fucking idiot, I think to myself. I’m letting Benny get to me too much. I’ve got to figure this all out and decide when it’s been enough. If he can’t shape up, we will have to do something about it. I take a few steps, trying to judge how much weight I can put on my right knee. I won’t be able to run for a bit, but I can walk with a little limp.

Damn it. We say a bullet or a bite will kill us. We just forgot to add ourselves to the equation.

******

The dying fires spread a dim red over Benny’s waking body. Smacking his lips, he tries to stretch. In less than a second, he’s flopping like a fish out of water, knocking our supplies around in the bed of the truck. “Get him; pin him!” Rickett yells from the front of the truck. I climb into the bed to see Benny’s glassy eyes open wide as he yells and cusses at me. I straddle him, pin his bound arms to the truck and he lashes his head around, cracking the glass between the bed and the cab.

“Fuck you! What are you doing?” He hisses at me.

“Calm down, man. Calm down,” I say as I have to fight my aching body and Benny’s rage-fueled strength to keep him pinned. God knows what would happen if he wasn’t bound. I see Rickett prepping another syringe. “Just calm down and we can talk about this.”

“What is there to talk about you fucking traitor?” He snaps at me. “Fuck you!”

“Ain’t no traitors here, boy” Rickett says in his gruff voice, catching Benny’s attention. He climbs into the bed and sits on a case of water, the syringe in his hand pointed at Benny. “But we won’t let you go until you quit fighting and relax. Once you calm down, then we can settle this.”

Benny turns his eyes back to me and for a flash I see concern, a look of pleading, a possible look of fright—and then it’s gone. Benny, the wounded coyote—the wild animal caught and bound. His heavy breathing subsides but he doesn’t turn his eyes from me. Instead, his look hardens and turns into a scowl. A look of vengeance in waiting? But I don’t bite on his bait. I keep my swollen face emotionless. I won’t let him see concern or care because that’s what he preys on.

I’m figuring you out at last, Benny. I’m learning.

“Fine,” he says, one last hiss before Rickett gets on his soapbox about survival.

“No more,” Rickett says. “No more of this bullshit, or I’m gone.” Those words knock the air out of both Benny and me. I now realize he’s been waiting to say this to the both of us. “I’m not your keeper. I’m a survivor too. Except the difference between you two and me is that you didn’t see the remains of a half-eaten family. You didn’t see the corpses of your loved ones rotting in their front yard. You still have a purpose to fight. I fight without a purpose, but I’ll still outlive you at this pace. Motivation doesn’t mean shit if you’re a screw-up.”

I remove my weight from Benny and sit on a case of water opposite of Rickett. Behind his silver rimmed glasses, Rickett’s eyes move back and forth between Benny and me as he continues his rant.

“No more running off like an idiot,” he spits, point the syringe at me and I flinch. “No more killing just to kill.” He points the syringe to Benny. “From this point on you ask me for permission. I’m not tagging along now; I’m running this ship and if you don’t like it, leave or I’ll remove you myself. Both of you if I have to.” He jumps down from the truck, capping the syringe with a piece of plastic. “And chew on this, both of you,” he says, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “At this rate, how do you two plan to stay alive without me here to save your asses?” He lights the cigarette. “Hell, if it weren’t for me, you’d both be dead,” he says through a cloud of smoke.

Inside the cab, the body stirs. Benny raises an eyebrow and says, “What the fuck is that?”

“A girl,” I answer.

“A girl? Where the hell did she come from?”

“She’s the one who lit the fires. I tried to catch her, but I caught her left jab and right hook instead.” I point to my swollen eye that’s been consistently watering since Rickett stitched the cut above it.

“Who is she?”

“We’re about to find out,” Rickett says, knocking the ashes from his cigarette while moving to open the passenger side door.

The Two Towers

2009-11-23T22:25:00.000-05:00

Benny’s body lies limp on the tailgate as Rickett quickly works on stitching and bandaging Benny’s arm. The blood rolls from four ragged cuts in his right forearm: three on the underside and one on top. Just when the two deep scratches on his left arm were clearly healing, Benny goes and shreds his other arm.

“The boy’s a damned idiot,” Rickett barks in frustration as blood quickly seeps through the bandages. “Find something to tie him up. The last thing we need is Benny waking up and starting more trouble.”

“Do you have a knife?” I ask, wondering how else I’d cut items since we lost most, if not all, of our bladed weapons.

“There’s a hunting knife in the glove box.”

After grabbing the bat from the truck’s bed, I open the glove box and pull the hunting knife from its sheath. I run to the next car, a four door sedan, and shatter the driver’s side window with the bat. I cut the seat belt from the front and back seats.

The tower of fire paints the field of abandonment a rusty hue. The night makes the fire grow larger and I head back to Rickett and Benny’s limp body. While Rickett finishes bandaging Benny’s arm, I wrap the first seatbelt around Benny’s legs a few times before tying it off. Once Rickett finishes, we roll Benny into the bed of the truck before tying his hands together in front, making sure we elevate his arms after the knots are tightened.

“Think we can make it through?” I ask, motioning towards the fire. “We cleared a little ways up, and it seems to open up towards the towers.”

“Of course,” Rickett says. “Soldiers wouldn’t let anyone block their escape routes.”

“Well if that’s our way out, we need to move it!” I take one last look at Benny and hop into the passenger side seat as Rickett starts the engine.

Rickett weaves the truck through the various paths between cars. The fire brightens and flames launch themselves from the left tower to the surrounding objects. Is this a ploy? Is this the exterminators’ latest homing beacon? If so, it’s working.

Rickett stops the truck and cuts the engine. “We need to move a few more cars before we can get through.” And here we stand between two exterminator towers separated only by a hundred or so yards of empty cars. The towers stand about 20 feet high, just high enough to see any oncoming bees or civilians.

“We need to get this shit done quick!” I yell. The fire drowns out a lot of the sound. “We have to get out of here before the woods catch.” Only about 50 or 60 feet separate the left tower from the tree line. Smart. Embed the towers in the woods and who would see the military waiting to snipe from an elevated distance.

I grab the bat and move to shatter windows and push vehicles as quickly as I can. The heat increases, wood pops, and smoke settles around us. The threat of not being able to see bees coming from a distance always lingers, but the smoke at least lets me know they can’t taste our scent.

Rickett and I work as a team, shattering, grunting, pushing, sweating, and coughing while engineering a path around vehicles to get to the open area between the two towers. The throbbing in my hand matches the rolling waves of heat sprouting from the fire. With everything going on, the pain had subsided until now. It’s when I realize the little snippets of pain that everything leaves it mark. A single touch, a slight push, letting it hang uselessly all hurt in their own specific ways. The throbbing, taut skin from fresh stitches. The dull ache of mutilated fingers. Everything funnels into the pain.

A shadow enters and exits my peripheral from the right. I stop pushing the last car in my way. Benny? No, it can’t be. There’s no way he got loose from the seat belts. Rickett? Could be, but he’s closer to the left tower, the burning tower. Fuck. Exterminators. I should have brought the gun.

Again it enters and vanishes shortly after. A bee? No, no way. Entirely too fast for a bee. I squint into the consistently thickening smoke. The shadow weaves in and out. I don’t hear Rickett, and I don’t see anything but the cars and the shadow. This is it, I think. Like Benny wanted. I can get to them, the exterminators, before they can get to me.

The adrenaline burns but it feels so fucking good for once. I’m on the prowl, the hunter. I can’t help but smile and squeeze my tongue against the backs of my teeth out of excitement. I can get to whatever it is before it can get to me. I crouch low and wait for it to pass again. I count to the rhythm of the wood popping. I wait patiently, slowly making my way around the vehicles towards the passing shadow, towards the second tower.

The shadow sways in and out, as if on cue. I watch the pattern as it happens again, almost as if the figure is circling the base of the tower. “I’ve got you, you mother fucker,” I growl under my breath and move towards the tower. Like the hunter I stalk, making sure to stay crouched while I move when the shadow moves, letting the smoke and roaring fire mask my actions.

And the shadow stays. It doesn’t leave this time; it simply waits—stable—an entity of patience. But why now? Is it waiting for someone? It’s time. I must take it before it can take me.

I move quickly with the bat ready to swing, my feet thudding against the ground. I want to yell, to throw some raging battle roar into the sky, but the thick smoke steals the moisture from my mouth. I launch myself onto the hood of a car behind the shadow and land with a loud thud. The shadow moves and faces me before it runs off to the side. I jump from the car’s hood to follow, but in mid flight, a wave of heat rolling from the tower strikes my side and thrusts me back into the car with a loud bang. I roll across the ground to discover the second tower now in flames and the shadow rising from a few yards away and moving towards the road.

I grunt and get up to follow. My left side burns and my right arm aches from where the explosion flung me into the car. I move as fast as I can, slightly limping as my right knee sends jolts of pain with each step.

This is necessary. I need you, shadow. You know something. You know the exterminators. You know the bees. You’re burning it all down for a reason. Are you cleansing the area of sickness, or are you erasing the area of life?

I close in on the shadow as it glances back and tears through the smoke. I push myself faster, passing the sleeping Benny, the truck to lead us to safety—leaving it all behind for a shadow. I see a rolling car near the first tower off to my left. Rickett’s working, still clearing a way.

The shadow runs but its speed dwindles and I catch up, sticking my hand out to grab the shoulder of the hooded jacket and I catch the nylon fabric and jerk. The body falls back but turns at the same time and before I can swing with the bat, thunder strikes across my right cheek, sending a bolt of pain spreading throughout my skull. Unexpected, another first follows and transfers its pain into my face. My nose explodes and my eyes water as I tumble to the earth, the cold dirt next to the road smelling of blood and ashes.

In my fading, blurry vision, I see another figure tackle my shadow. I reach out with my mangled hand and my mouth slowly fills with blood and dirt. “Mine,” I whisper. “Mine.” The firelight dims as my eyes close.

“Mine,” I whisper one last time.

A Smoke-filled Sunset

2009-11-15T22:34:00.001-05:00

“Our destruction is the gag of the century.” Benny rubs the frustration from his eyes.

Rickett pulls the truck around some of the abandoned cars and parks to the side of the white, canvas tent. “Let’s load up, boys. Once we have the goods in the bed, we can move on and clear out of this place.”

“Fuck that. I’m staying right here. Damned exterminators are lurking about.”

“Benny,” I say, “we just rolled up in a moving truck. If the exterminators were going to notice anything, they would have noticed us already.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Rickett says. “Let him sit there. He needs to cool down.” Benny shakes his head and releases a long sigh.

“Alright.” I shrug and follow Rickett to the tent. We pass through the blood spattered flaps and head to the food and water supplies. I grab a case of bottled water, carry it to the truck and place it in the bed. Benny sits in the passenger seat rubbing his eyes and mumbling. Before he has a chance to see me or say anything, I head back to the tent. Rickett separates medical supplies into piles: pills, bandages, alcohol and ointments.

“I think he needs to sleep or something.”

“Why do you say that?” Rickett looks over his silver rimmed glasses to me before returning to his organizing.

“He’s mumbling and just acting wierd—”

“Acting weird by crushing and mutilating corpses?”

“Rickett,” I put the water down and walk over to him. “We don’t know what’s going on with him. He’s been through a lot, but he goes through these phases where he—”

“Goes over the edge?”

“Not, not exactly. He just gets overwhelmed with anxiety and paranoia. I mean, I honestly can’t blame him for what he did out there in the field.”

“But you can blame him for killing an innocent person,” he says.

“But I’ve done the same.”

“Purposeful and accidental—murder and falling under friendly fire—are two different things.” He puts pill bottles in one small box, ointments and alcohol in another. He wraps the gauze in plastic bags before placing them in another small box.

“Look, all I’m saying is that he doesn’t need all the pressure and us ganging up on him.”

“No one’s ganging up on him, Gavin. But we do need to make sure we’re safe, too.” Rickett moves on to looking at small bottles filled with chemicals, antibiotics, and other medicines.

“He just needs to sleep.”

“Sleep? He’s going to need more than that. He’s slipping, Gavin. He’s cracking. He’s falling into fear and hopelessness.” He puts the bottles and syringes into another box. “All we can do is keep an eye on him and hope he snaps out of it.” He grabs all of the small boxes and heads towards the front of the tent. “Make sure to grab some of those cases of soup and canned meat. It might be a long drive.”

******

With the bed of the truck crammed full of water, food, and medical supplies, Rickett and I step off to the side to smoke a cigarette. Benny mumbles while he flips through various radio stations, possibly looking for another station that has some news, some update of what’s happening outside of our area.

“Are we ready?” Rickett takes a drag from his cigarette and waits for my response.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “So the towers are past those trees, right?” I ask, pointing to the thick tree line that borders the road where the vehicles bottleneck. Rickett nods, knocking the ashes from his cigarette. “When should we tell him?” I tilt my head towards Benny.

“Does it matter? He knows they’re coming right?”

“I think so. You think he’ll be alright?”

“Gavin,” he says, smoke rolling from his mouth, “I’m not sure if he’ll ever be alright again. How’s your hand?”

“Good.”

“Then let’s go.” I hop in the bed and Rickett climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the truck.

******

Gas and break. Twist and turn. Rickett weaves the truck through the path we made earlier until we get closer to the tree line. The towers are barely visible through the trees and my nerves twinge as I watch Benny scan the area, obviously anticipating the exterminators to pop out at anytime and strike.

Rickett stops the truck and speaks through the rear window. “Gavin,” he says, “we don’t have enough clearance up to the road. We need to move some more cars in order to get around.”

“Alright,” I say. “Benny, give me a hand, will you?”

“No way, man. Fuck that.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Look, Benny, if exterminators were here, they would have done something by now.”

“That doesn’t mean shit,” he says. “How do we know they aren’t waiting in their towers with their gun sights ready, waiting for us to walk into the line of fire?”

“Hey, girls,” Rickett snaps, “we don’t have enough gas to sit here yapping and wasting time. You two move some cars and trucks and keep an eye out for some gas tanks, whether they’re empty or not. And if you find a hose, grab it.”

“C’mon, Benny. The sooner you get your ass out of the seat and help me out, the sooner we pass those towers and leave this place.”

“Fine, but if anything goes wrong, I’m taking you down with me.”

“Deal.”

Rickett cuts the engine and exits the car. “I’m going to scout ahead and check for gas as well. If we can find a means to siphon gas from some of these cars, that would be great.”

I show Benny how to bypass the gear shift on the automatic transmissions to shift the cars into neutral—a trick Rickett showed me. Little by little, we push the cars to clear a small path. But as the sun sets, Benny gets a little more turbulent. His paranoia amplifies and he mumbles here and there. When I ask him what he mumbles about, he shrugs and says, “Just talking to myself, bud.”

As we get closer to the tree line, the towers expose themselves a little more. “Fucking exterminators,” Benny mumbles. “I can’t believe we’re sitting out in the open like this, waiting for these dicks to slaughter us and use us as bait.”

“Benny, seriously man, we’ve been out in the open for hours. No one’s here.” But what happened? That’s the question. No bees around, only a few corpses litter the ground here or there. No noises. No exterminators. Nothing. Even the wind is absent.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, damnit!”

“Then what’s that flicker of light over there?” He points and his voice quivers with either anger or fear. I follow his finger and see the small, orange light that pulses through the trees.

“Oh, shit!” We drop low, taking cover behind a four door sedan.

“I told you, you son of a bitch!” Benny punches his fists into the car. “That’s it. I hope you’re happy, dragging us out here to die.”

I look over the hood of the car to watch the light as it grows and brightens. Dark smoke towers over the tree line. “They’re burning something.”

“Yeah,” Benny snaps, “innocent bodies and bees. Anything covered in flesh that they can get their hands on.” But there’s not the smell of burning bodies. There’s not the shuffling of people, the hooting and the hollering that filled the streets of River’s Edge.

“Damn it, Damn it!” The words start Benny’s cussing fit and he slams his hands into the car, denting the driver’s side door. He stands, swings one final time, slamming his right fist and arm through the driver’s side window, shattering the glass and gouging his flesh. He yells and yells, cussing and spitting his words to me and the fire, back and forth, back and forth. He kicks the car. I try to calm him, but he pushes me out of the way as he runs back to the truck. The sky darkens as the rising smoke blankets the sun’s descent.

I race behind Benny, looking at the fire and it increases in size with every passing second. Something’s not right, not just with Benny, but with this whole scene. Where are the exterminators? What exactly is burning? Who started the fire?

Who’s going to stop Benny?

Benny makes it to the truck and I rush up behind him. He swings the passenger side door open and reaches for the rifle. He spins to face me, but I’m on top of him before he can do anything else. Knowing that he’s going to point that gun at me the first chance he gets, I swing and connect above his eye. He stumbles back and I grab the gun but can’t pull it away from him fast enough. We struggle together, but he catches me off guard by swinging the stock towards me, sending a sharp flash of pain across my jaw and neck.

“Let go!” He yells through clenched teeth. But I can’t let go. I won’t.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

“I’m gonna kill those fuckers. I’m not gonna be their fuel! I ain’t burning tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. They won’t take me. They won’t!”

“Benny, calm the fuck down!”

“Let go of the gun, Gavin. We can finish this now. Get rid of them. We can take them first!”

“Are you fucking nuts? Benny, don’t do this!” He turns to the left quickly—too quick for me to follow—and I fall to the side, empty handed.

“It’s time, Gavin.”

But he’s wrong. Rickett’s left hand slips under Benny’s jaw and over his mouth, jerking his head back. With his right hand, Rickett sticks a syringe into Benny’s neck, forcing some liquid into his throat. Benny doesn’t stop, though, and slams the butt of the rifle into Rickett’s side, knocking him back. Rickett breaks his silence with a grunt, still holding on to Benny as Benny turns to face him. The needle breaks from the syringe, and Benny swings and yells, oblivious to the needle spurting blood and protruding from his neck. His swing misses though, badly, and he struggles to balance, teetering to the left and to the right before falling to the ground.

Between gasps and panting, Rickett says, “I told you so,” and we both look to Benny: a sleeping, passive Benny. A Benny who looks peaceful for the first time since I met him.

Thunderstruck Live

2009-11-12T19:36:00.002-05:00

“. . . Oh that was flippin’ hilarious. Oh, man. Welcome back, people. This is Jess and Pauly on Thunderstruck, channel 231 satellite radio.”

“Jess, you definitely have to spread the word on this.”

“Oh my God. . .I don’t think I can handle talking about this much longer. My stomach’s cramping from laughing so hard. Whew, you run it while I catch my breath.”

“OK, OK. So here’s the deal. There’s a video out on Youtube and, wait, how old is this thing?”

“Uh, let me check. . . four days old.”

“And how many hits?”

“Holy smokes, over 300,000! That’s pretty damn good. Anyway, three, no four days ago, someone uploaded this video a little early for Halloween.”

“I’d say. What about five or six months? Retards.”

“Such endearment, Pauly. Anyway, so in this video, they’ve got these dead looking people just walking around. . .

“It’s pretty good special effects. I mean, if you think about it, they’ve got good make up on and when the blood starts flowing, it’s pretty realistic. It seems like the bleeding would be real, not any simulacra or anything.”

“Simula-wha?”

“Simulacra. It’s when—”

“Oh, shut it. Damn you and your vocabulary. Simu-la-crap-tastic or whatever. We get it. Moving on.”

“Sassy.”

“Anyway, basically, the video shows these decayed looking people eating other people. It’s exactly three minutes and 42 seconds. And I would say that people eat others the entire time. Most of the clip focuses on this one old woman swatting at one. Eventually, the thing or whatever it is claws open the woman’s back and she goes down, still swinging.”

“It’s absolutely hilarious. Gory, but it’s still hilarious.”

“It’s possibly one of the better hoaxes I’ve seen. I mean, even the voice over is a little creepy.”

“Can we play the audio?”

“Yeah, yeah. Let me get it rolling.”

“God, I hope I don’t piss myself laughing when that woman goes down. She’s a fighter, and she’s got to be, what, maybe 65 or something?”

“Probably. It’s almost cliché now to have an old woman fighting. For some reason, elderly women beating the crap out of stuff is just flippin’ hilarious. You know? It’s kind of like the commercials where animals talk—people eat this stuff up.”

“We got the audio cued and ready to go?”

“Yeah. Let me set the scene hear folks. Here we have a kid, probably 16 or 17 years old. It’s somewhere round mid afternoon and the boy’s commenting while filming through what looks like a window pane or something.”

“That might be some visual trick or something to make things a little less focused. I don’t know, but it seems you could get away with some tricks that way—shooting through glass that is.”

“Jesus Pauly, you’re ruining it for me. Quit being so damn analytical so we can freak people out with this creepy kid has to say.”

“Hah, yeah, you’re right. Here’s some early April horror for you. These kids couldn’t even wait a month after Easter. Yeah, let’s resurrect the savior then film a short about the damned.”

“Damn, I never thought about that. Well now it just seems like maybe a retaliation prank or something. Maybe some kids are bitter about not getting Easter baskets.”

“Mommy, that cadaver out there ate the Easter Bunny!”

“OK, let’s roll it. Here’s the kid’s monologue over some gory beat downs.”

“—Oh my God. Jesus. They’re eating her [bleep]ing eating her! This is it. This is the end. We are the last living. Her guts, oh Jesus her guts. Ripping—”

“This is the part where the kid vomits. You actually see a bit of it on the floor when the camera moves around. Jess, you have to admit, they do a good job with the special effects for the vomit and the gore.”

“Yeah. It’s alright. Could be a leaked trailer for some film’s summer release. Must be a low budget film. This kind of stuff would never survive as a summer blockbuster. The rest of the clip is almost indecipherable since the kid’s sobbing and hyperventilating.”

“—This . . . going to end. We’re all dying. Food…[bleep]ing. . .the bodies stacking higher and higher. . .so much smoke. . . [gunshot] save . . .help [gunshot]. . They’re killing. . .and. . .us—”

“And, after a few more gunshots and some more crying, it ends. The whole time the kid’s talking, the cadaver or whatever is devouring the old woman.”

“You know what this reminds me of?”

“Let me guess, something from the new wave of hand held recording, like Blair Witch or some crap, right?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say that, but yeah. What I’m really thinking, though, is that maybe it’s some kind of neo interpretation of Anne Frank. I mean, the kid’s holed up in a home trying to avoid the outside because of the impending doom brought forth by the invaders—”

“Stop. Just stop. You lost me when you said forth, Shakespeare.

******

Benny clicks the radio off and slams his hands against the dash. “That’s bullshit, man! They’re laughing at this? People are fighting for their lives and these jerk-offs are laughing about it? You got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Benny,” I say, “chill out man. People haven’t ever seen this stuff before. I mean, honestly, if it’s that big of a cover up, I’m surprised that a video was leaked.”

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Rickett asks. “It means that this is far bigger than we originally expected.”

This is it, I think. It’s everywhere. “What if we got our hands on a phone that worked?” The words spill from my mouth before I’ve thought anything through. “We could call the station and let them know this is real, that we’re stuck in the middle of it.”

“The phones haven’t worked for days. No signal. No landlines. Nothing. Completely cut from everything around us.” Benny slams his hand against the dash one last time. “Fuck!”

I shake my head. “Just when you hoped for escape—”

“Hope?” Benny interrupts. “Hope? You know, if hope was a person, I’d use that fucker as bait.”

Decisions

2009-11-12T19:21:00.001-05:00

“We’ll have to get the truck,” Rickett says, looking at all the supplies spread throughout the tent. “We should be able to find a way to get it here.”

“Where are those two towers?”

“The guard towers?” I nod and Rickett shrugs and says, “Those are about another mile ahead. I’m telling you, this place is vacant.”

“We’ll just have to convince Benny to go past them.”

Rickett shakes his head. “You know, you can’t please everyone. We just have to find the best way to leave, and whoever wants to be a part of it will follow. Surviving is about making sacrifices.”

“I know. I’m just trying to rationalize everything and make sure everyone—“

“Screw that,” Rickett snaps. “Get your head up, kid. This isn’t about everyone. Do you think Benny’s out there wondering if we’re OK? He’s probably thinking, if he’s still around, ‘how long do I have to wait before I bail?’”

“You’re right.”

“That’s not the point. The point is that all you should wrap your mind around each and every day is where to piss, shit, eat, sleep, and what direction to head. Not, is everyone else OK?” I feel like a child being scolded. I lower my head and stare at the ground while he stands on his soapbox shouting down at me. “Once you’re able to take care of yourself, then you can worry about the needs of others.”

******

Our trip back to the truck doesn’t involve much conversation. Instead, we focus on finding a way to get the truck as close to the tent as possible. Luckily, we only have to spend a couple hours pushing cars out of the way in order to clear a path from the asphalt road to the tent.

“Not too bad,” Rickett says.

“Yeah. We might be able to leave town this way after all. Well, as long as we don’t run into any exterminators.”

“You know, I wish you wouldn’t call the military that. They don’t—“

“I don’t care what you have to say in this matter, Rickett. This isn’t war. It’s not defending our country’s right to freedom. This is about killing us off to save their asses. This is about cleaning up after one of their messes.”

“You got a point, but still.”

“Surviving is all about sacrifices,” I say, smiling. “This might have to be one of yours.”

Rickett chuckles. “At least you’re learning.”

******

“What the hell are you doing?” Rickett yells across the sea of vacant automobiles.

With his back to us, Benny stands above a decaying corpse and places his left foot on its head. He raises the aluminum bat into the sky, preparing to swing. Before he releases, he says, “Just gotta make sure, man. Can’t be too careful nowadays.” Benny swings, and with a dull thud, a jaw flies into the air, leaving an arc of thick sludge trailing behind. Benny laughs and Rickett explodes into a hard run. I run after Rickett to catch up.

“You sick son of a bitch!” Benny turns to face Rickett and reveals his shit eating grin. Using his momentum, Rickett slams Benny into the nearest SUV and pins him there. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to make sure nothing goes sour over here while ya’ll are gone.” Benny’s still smiling and Rickett’s chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath. “You know, you run pretty fast for your age.”

Rickett slams him against the SUV again. “You twisted fuck,” he barks, spittle flying from his mouth.

“I had to make sure that they wouldn’t come for me. You were gone. You wouldn’t understand sitting here in a field of these shits all alone.” I scan the bodies around us. As if their decay wasn’t enough of a disgusting sight, Benny apparently went to the next best option: complete and utter bodily destruction. Shattered skulls, concave chests and broken faces. Benny’s handiwork displayed everywhere I turn. Blood, puss and bile spill from mutilated bodies and Benny’s still smiling.

“These people are dead, man,” I say.

“And if they weren’t before, they are now,” he responds, glaring at Rickett.

“You don’t mutilate the dead, boy.” Rickett’s calmed down some, but he still has Benny pinned.

“Oh, no, I think we do. It’s the only way to make sure. You said it yourself: the bees are dead. That right there says that I need to make sure what is dead stays dead. And I’ve done that. Can we move on now or do ya’ll still wanna bitch and moan? Besides, I’ve got something to show you.”

After one final slam against the SUV, Rickett lets him go. “I’m not done with you, boy.” Benny laughs in response.

“What do you have?” I ask him as he straightens his clothing.

“Tunes.”

“Tunes?”

“Yeah, but not your average tunes,” Benny says as Rickett walks off towards the truck. “These are tunes from space.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I found it in one of these little fancy sedans. Like a portable radio with adapter or something. I was just checking things out and found it.”

“Does it work?” I’m curious to see this contraption. “Where is it?”

“I haven’t tried it yet,” he says, pointing to the truck where Rickett stands and watches us. “It’s in the passenger seat. I figured I’d wait for you two before I tried it.” Benny walks towards the truck but before he can take more than a few steps, I grab his arm.

“Wait.” He turns. “Why all of this?” I ask, looking at the surrounding bodies.

“I told you. I had to make sure they were dead.”

“Why couldn’t you wait for us—”

“Because the dead don’t wait for us, Gavin. They come when they want. They kill when they want. It’s called a preemptive strike. I get to them before they get to me.” He shrugs my hand off his arm.

“You alright? I mean, you could use some rest, you know?”

“I’ll get some rest when I know there aren’t any bees nearby.”

“That could be a long time from now, Benny.”

******

Back at the truck, Benny sits in the passenger seat with the door open and the adapter plugged into the FM radio, navigating through the touch screen interface on the portable device. Rickett leans against the back of the truck and smokes a cigarette.

I swallow a few penicillin tablets, light a cigarette, and say, “It’s time. We need to get out of this mess before it’s too late.” Rickett nods to me and I look to Benny.

“I agree,” Benny says. “Which way are we heading?”

“Through the towers,” I respond.

Benny chuckles, still fiddling with the device. “No, really, which way?”

“I’m serious. We cleared a path. We head out towards the military posts and we can stop at the Red Cross tent to get some supplies, which we need.”

“I told you, we can’t go that way,” Benny says to me, putting the device in the seat as he stands. “We can’t get anywhere near the exterminators.”

“Benny, we’ll make sure it’s vacant before we get there. We won’t stumble upon the exterminators like we did last time. Now we know what to look for.”

“I’m not doing it,” Benny says, shaking his head. Rickett nods to me again.

“Then you can stay here.” Benny snaps his head in my direction, glaring at me. “It’s the only way out without heading back into the hive we just left. We don’t have a choice.” I stand firm. “Take it or leave it.”

Benny looks from me to Rickett. “You want to escape from one beast and then head into the belly of another?” Benny looks confused, shocked. “You want to willingly put yourself out there for what? For the hope of finding your family?”

I think of Rickett and how he found his family: devoured and destroyed.

“No, Benny. I’m doing this for us, for survival. It’s all we have left now.”

Secrets Don’t Make Friends, Part 2

2009-11-12T19:18:00.001-05:00

The cars seem to line up for miles and miles. Eventually, we come upon the white tent standing above the scattered vehicles, its canvas flaps stained with blood and dirt. Once inside, Rickett directs me to a chair next to a card table covered in medical supplies. “We’ll clean the hand here and we’ll grab some supplies for the road.”

Rickett moves throughout the room, slowly gathering supplies and piling them on the card table: tape, gauze, alcohol, atraumatic needles with sutures, and whatever else he can grab.

The tent smells like rubbing alcohol: a smell so strong that its burning sensation is a relief compared to the smell of rot looming outside the tent. A little protective bubble of sanitation. A place of healing amongst a field of death and destruction. I feel protected and safe, that is, until Rickett starts the cleaning process.

The crackle of hardened bandaging caked in dried blood. It sounds like Rickett’s crumpling leaves when he removes the top layer of gauze from my hand. I cringe and grind my teeth in anticipation of what my hand looks like, not the impending pain.

Rickett stops after undressing half my wound and dons the silver rimmed glasses he pulls from a thin case in his pocket. My adrenaline pumps and my legs and arms are already shaking. I know this experience will be worse than the last time I cleaned my hand. I don’t want to feel the pain, and I definitely don’t want to see how damaged my hand is after all the fighting and banging it around. He undresses the wound a little more and then lights a cigarette, passes it to me and lights another for himself.

“Take a drag,” he says. I take a deep drag, and as I pull the cigarette from my mouth to inhale the smoke, Rickett jerks on my hand and I hear more leaves crumple and wracking waves of pain flame through my arm, causing me to cough up the smoke from my lungs.

“Fuck!” The word tumbles from my mouth with the cigarette smoke. Tears well in my eyes and I stomp my foot as a feeble attempt to transfer the pain to the ground.

“All that dirt, blood, and whatever else you got glued this gauze to your hand. It’s brittle and black down here on your skin.” The cigarette dangles from his lips as he speaks, and smoke flows from his mouth in tiny bursts. “Take another drag; it helps if you inhale as I pull on this.”

I inhale and we repeat the process. Little by little, through waves of pain and cussing, Rickett gets down to my skin. My hand feels cold and clammy as the fresh air greets my skin. The feeling prompts me to look down.

Purple, swollen and twisted. My ring and pinky fingers look useless. Mangled pieces of meat hanging from a palm that looks like it was never whole to begin with. This isn’t my hand, I want to tell myself, but the pain says differently. My palm bleeds from the stitches that came undone when I smashed my hand around in the dark. “Fuck,” I whisper, realizing that it’ll be a long time until my hand even has a chance to heal, if it heals.

“Damn,” Rickett says. “Just think if I’d hit you right on.” He douses cotton balls in alcohol and presses them to my hand. I squeal in pain. The tears that once welled in my eyes stream freely down my cheek. The lit cigarette falls from my left hand and Rickett stomps it out. I growl and cuss, spit and yell. This pain is more intense than anything I’ve ever felt before. “Shit,” Rickett snaps.

“What? What’s wrong?” I manage to ask between sobs.

“Infection.”

“Huh?”

“Your hand. Your palm is infected.” Rickett stands and moves around the tent, searching through items, tossing bags to the floor and knocking over bottles.

“Is it bad?”

“Infection is bad, yes. But this seems like a run of the mill infection. Maybe you didn’t clean it well enough. It doesn’t take much when you have multiple holes in your hand,” he says. I clear my throat and wipe the tears from my face.

“Well, how do we fix it?” Rickett turns to face me and shakes a bottle in my direction.

“Penicillin.”

“That’s it?”

“For now,” he responds. “And if this doesn’t work, well, better hope we find a doctor who’s survived.” Those words sound so ominous: a doctor who’s survived. After all the hundreds of homes and business we’ve passed, we’ve only seen a handful of living, breathing people. What are the chances we will find a doctor?

He returns to cleaning my hand, and I see the yellow sludge and puss seep from the holes. Watching the cotton absorb the blood and puss makes me nauseas. Seeing the liquids pour from a bee is totally different than seeing a little bit of my life run out of my body. After the cleaning, Rickett prepares to re-stitch my hand. Before the needle pierces my skin, something rises in my throat.

“I shot him.” It just spills. I don’t know why.

“What?” With the needle right above my palm, Rickett looks into my eyes. “What did you do?” His face is cold; his eyes focused. Emotionless. Is this what Benny and I will turn into?

“I killed him, Rickett. I fucking shot him right in the eye.”

“Who?” He puts out his cigarette.

“Clyde, the guy who became the bait. He was right behind me and then I turned thinking he was a bee and I just pulled the trigger. I was scared and I didn’t—” Rickett interrupts me by digging the needle into the tissue to start his sutures. Puss bubbles as he continues to sew shut the holes. My jaw hurts from grinding my teeth

“And Benny, he—” I squeal as more puss leaks from the wound. “He chopped up that girl. Murdered her. Murderers. We both are.” All of my muscles tighten.

The burning. The bleeding. Everything falls apart. The world spins and tumbles down, suffocating me.

“And what do you want me to do about it?” He asks, continuing his sutures.

“I just thought you should know what we are, what we’ve done.”

“Listen, son,” he says, spreading ointment on my hand. “What you are now is nothing compared to what you will become.” He wipes his hands on his jeans and lights another cigarette. “But that Benny. . . there’s something that just ain’t right about him.”

“What do you mean?” I get defensive. “He just saved me, again, for the third time or something like that. He may not be the nicest guy, but he’s always there when I need his help.”

“Convenient,” Rickett says, “that he’s always there to save you, but he’s never the one who needs saving. Keep an eye on that boy. He ain’t what he seems.”

Secrets Don’t Make Friends

2009-11-12T19:14:00.001-05:00

“There he is,” I say, pointing down the road. “I guess he was checking what caused the traffic to back up.”

“Really?” Benny asks, sarcasm saturating his words. “I can tell you what caused the problem,” he says, waving his hand and the rifle at the surrounding dead bodies.

“I wonder what’s up there.”

Benny shakes his head. “Same thing in River’s Edge and the same thing in Brightmoor: chaos.” Rickett heads our way, checking out the cars he passes, looking through the front and back windows. He stops at a small sedan about 30 yards out and reaches inside. He pulls out a cell phone, opens it up and, with a grimace, tosses the phone back into the car.

He walks a few more yards and stops again. This time, he looks into an open space between two SUVs. He raises his handgun and fires. He looks our way and resumes walking.

“What was that?” I ask Rickett when he’s about 15 yards away.

“Dead cell phone. No reception,” he answers.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “What did you shoot?”

“A crippled bee.” As soon as Rickett says this, Benny looks at the surrounding corpses and takes a defensive stance.

“So, what did you see up there?” I’m eager to know. I want to get out of here, to leave all the massive amounts of gore behind.

“Well, the traffic bottlenecks pretty good. We’d most likely have to find a new way out of this place. Lot’s of bodies.”

“Shocker,” Benny says, and Rickett glares at him in response.

“Anyway,” Rickett continues, “there’s a Red Cross tent up about two miles. We need to get your hand cleaned up.” My bandages are almost black due to the dirt and dried blood covering them. I don’t want to see it, my hand that is. I know I reopened some of the holes. I felt them pop when I was scrambling for the bullets in the back of the truck.

“Yeah,” I agree. The dull ache that pulses from the wounds is a normal feeling now. Sometimes I can’t remember what my hand felt like without the pain. Pain comes with normalcy lately.

“Anything else out there?” Benny keeps his eyes on the bodies while he waits for Rickett’s response.

“I only went as far as the tent. There were two military posts—”

“What?” Benny’s eyes widen.

“Military posts. Two of them,” Rickett repeats.

“Fucking exterminators.” Frustrated, Benny kicks the closest corpse.

“They looked abandoned,” Rickett says as a poor attempt to calm Benny.

“Don’t matter,” Benny responds, laying the rifle on the tailgate. “Those shits just want to lure the living in there to kill for fun. What else is there to do in this place now?” Rickett and I watch Benny as he starts pacing. “We can’t go that route, whether it’s abandoned or not. We can’t do that. They’ll kill us. We saw it before. Like fucking shadow puppets man. Remember?” Benny points to me. “Don’t you?”

I remember. How could I forget? Blood misting and rolling through the streets like fog. A shadowy theater of death and destruction spread against brick walls.

“The exterminators used the living to bait the dead,” he continues. “Piles of bodies to lure the bees so they could drop them. They killed people in front of us. They watched the bees slaughter a young girl. They were never there to help; they were only there to contain us, to kill us—”

“Calm down, boy,” Rickett says, putting his hand on Benny’s shoulder.

Benny swipes at Rickett’s arm, knocking Rickett’s hand from his shoulder. “I ain’t your boy, old man, and I won’t calm down! You weren’t there. You didn’t see it like we saw it! You haven’t lived it like we’ve lived it!”

“You’re right,” Rickett responds, keeping his cool. He rolls the sleeves on his navy blue sweater. Benny continues to pace, taking deep breaths. “I wasn’t there. I haven’t lived it like you have. But none of that matters right now. Right now, we’re all living it together, whether we like it or not.” Benny stops pacing and raises his eyes from the ground to glare at Rickett. “Now isn’t the time to talk about what was. It’s the time to talk about what will be.”

“I’ll tell you what will be,” Benny says. “Look around at the bodies, at the silence. That’s what will be.”

“Either way,” I interrupt the banter, not knowing how to respond to their arguments, “my hand could use a good cleaning before we move out.” Benny snaps his glare to me and then relaxes.

“Fine. Go to the tent. But I ain’t going with you two.”

“Benny,” Rickett says, “there’s no one there. I’m telling you.”

“That’s what they want you to think, Rickett.” Benny hoists himself onto the truck’s tailgate. He puts the rifle on his lap and pats it. “I’ll make sure no one takes the truck.”

“We need to stay together,” Rickett says in a scolding manner.

“No,” I interject, not wanting this to go on anymore. “Let him stay.” I put the 9mm in my waistband. “He’s right. He should wait and keep an eye on things. We’ll be back before too long.”

“If we aren’t back by sundown,” Rickett says, “you know what to do.” Benny nods.

******

It’s awkward silence for the first twenty minutes or so. We dodge cars and corpses. I look through car windows to see evacuations gone foul. Dirty clothes, spoiled food, empty gas cans. So many objects revealing the last seconds of numerous lives. Crumpled mail, dead cell phones, cracked GPS systems. They all thought they would get out. Maybe they thought their evacuation would be successful. Maybe the lies from River’s Edge gave them hope.

But the exterminators made them think twice. I imagine the hundreds of victims, whether infected or not. Whether they were living, dead, or dying. Doesn’t fucking matter. The exterminators probably burned them all. Benny’s right. They were there not to help, but to contain.

“What’s got you so quiet?” Rickett’s question brings my attention back to our current task.

“Just thinking about all this.” I motion to the surrounding destruction. “It just makes me think that there’s no escape. And, in all honesty, that sucks shit.”

“Bingo.” He stops and leans into the passenger side of a four door sedan. He pulls an unopened pack of cigarettes from the car. He opens the pack and hands me a cigarette and takes one for himself. We light them and both of us take a long drag before continuing on our way.

“So what happened yesterday?” I can’t help but ask. Why was he gone for so long?

“Well,” he takes a drag and exhales with a long sigh. “I went to my sister’s house and didn’t find much. So I came after you boys.”

“Didn’t find much? So your sister and her family made it out?”

“No. I mean I didn’t find much because there wasn’t much of them left.” I stop and he takes a few more steps before he realizes I’m not beside him anymore.

“They’re dead?” He stops and turns to face me.

“I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.” My stomach sinks. He’s so calm about this. “But there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“I’m sorry, Rickett.” I don’t know what to say in these situations. I don’t know how to console. I’ve never really had to.

“It’s nothing you should apologize for. That’s life. You take the bullets as they come and hope that they don’t knock you dead.” For some reason I feel compelled to tell him everything about Benny’s encounter with Maria and my encounter with Clyde. I feel he should know that we’ve killed innocent people and that Benny and I have fought each other. I want him to teach me how to take it all, how to be so calm in the face of danger and depression.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“Because,” he says, flicking his cigarette butt to the ground, “it wouldn’t change a God damned thing.”

How the Dead Can Solve Our Problems

2009-11-12T19:08:00.003-05:00

We ride steadily through the darkness; Rickett’s dull headlights only show the road ahead while the brake lights paint the road behind a deep red. The chilled wind rolls over us, drying the blood coating our bodies and clothes.

“His name was Clyde,” I say, “and I—”

“Thought he was kind of alright guy,” Benny interrupts. He looks straight into my eyes and shakes his head. He knows. He has to know. Or does he just want to forget about Clyde? “He really didn’t do much besides sweat and pop his knuckles.”

“Well, whatever the case,” Rickett says through the window, “you should definitely feel damn lucky to be alive at this point. That was a pretty ballsy move, putting yourselves out there among all those bees. Talk about walking into the lion’s den; you boys walked right into a hive.”

Benny wears his shit eating grin and lets out a small chuckle. “Yeah. We don’t claim to be the brightest, but we make it through.” It’s been a while since Benny’s talked about us together. He makes it sound like we’re a team again.

I almost killed you, I keep thinking to myself. I pulled the trigger and heard the click that could have led to a boom and blood raining down. But it didn’t, and the only blood on my hands now is Clyde’s.

But I’m alive because of Clyde’s large mass. If it wasn’t for him falling, I would have easily died. I couldn’t have stood on my own against each hungry mouth.

I think of how they opened his chest to get to his innards. How they tore open his body to set up a buffet for others to join. Thinking of it all makes me shudder and chew back vomit. I feel the acidic sludge slide down my throat and I lean towards the window to ask Rickett for a cigarette. He passes me one and punches the car’s cigarette lighter, letting it heat before he hands it to me.

I light the cigarette and take a deep drag. Benny’s still smiling, and since his eyes are closed, it almost looks like he’s smiling in his sleep.

The smiling. The blood. The bodies. My conscience. I’m so fucking confused right now. Not to mention the only dream I’ve had involves me mutilating Addison. It’s the only dream I remember, but I that doesn’t matter. It was just a dream, and it will only be a dream.

I inhale the smoke and watch Benny talk to Rickett, but the wind takes his words before I can hear them. Benny’s lips curling around his teeth when he talks reminds me of the carnivorous jaw snapping at me, the bee’s tongue flicking towards me to lick the vomit from my body. My hearts flutters and my stomach rolls.

******

I open my eyes and see Benny loading the rifle. He wears a new outfit, probably pulled from my bag. The sun is close to rising. “What happened?”

“You fell asleep.” Benny points to the half burned cigarette filter in my right hand. “Might wanna finish your smokes before you pass out, bud. Smokey the Bear would have a field day with you.” He finishes loading the gun and sets it to the side. We’ve pulled over to the side of the road somewhere and decaying bodies line the shoulder. The smell reminds me of River’s Edge.

“Where are we?” Abandoned vehicles decorate the road and surrounding fields.

“Brightmoor, still.” Benny hands me the 9mm. “I picked up the scattered bullets and loaded it for you.”

“Thanks. Where’s Rickett?”

“He’s off somewhere. He’s either scouting ahead or dropping a deuce.” Benny chuckles to himself and digs through my pack. He tosses me a white, long sleeve thermal shirt, jeans, and some fresh socks. “No offence man, but you reek.”

I hop out of the truck’s bed to stand and change my clothes. While putting on my shoes, I say, “About Clyde—”

“He’s dead.” Benny interrupts as he jumps from to the truck to the ground. He puts the rifle on his shoulder.

“I know, but I mean—”

“You did what you could. That’s all that needs to be said about the matter.”

“But I killed him. I shot him. I’m the reason he’s dead.”

“So then we’re even,” he says, smirking. “I took out Maria; you took out Clyde. Dead meat, dead weight. There’s only so much we can do.”

“Maria was different—”

“No,” Benny snaps, “no she wasn’t, Gavin. Both Clyde and Maria are the reasons we’re alive. That makes them the same. They served their purposes. You need to understand that it wasn’t your fault, that killing an innocent person may have been the best thing to happen to you.”

“What the hell, man? How can you think that?”

“First, it was an accident, not premeditated murder or anything like that. But now you have a second chance. We can learn from these experiences. As twisted as they are, they have helped us stay alive. If you hadn’t killed Clyde, someone you really didn’t care for in the first place, you wouldn’t have this second chance to get to your family.”

It makes sense, but I won’t let myself feel that killing an innocent person is a good thing.

Blood and dirt cover the bandages on my left hand. A dull ache moves through my fingers, palm and arm. I put the tailgate down, grab my bag and dig for medical supplies. Nothing. I must have left it all in the store since we were in a hurry to get out of there. “Damn it,” I mutter. I pull some cigarettes and a lighter from the bag, close it and toss it back into the truck. Sitting on the tailgate, I light a cigarette and look out over the devastation that envelopes us.

Benny takes a seat next to me and shakes his head. “Clyde dies so you can live, and then you still smoke. I’m sure wherever he is, he’s pissed off.”

“Fuck off.”

“Just jokes, man. Just jokes.” He takes a deep breath and after a few minutes he says, “It’ll be better once you can laugh about it.”

“When do we tell Rickett?”

“When? I figured we wouldn’t tell him. It’s over and done with.” He pushes himself from the tailgate and stands in front of me. “That’s your problem man; you dwell on everything. Get your head out of your ass. Now is not the time to be a hero; we haven’t been heroes since day one. Remember, we’re survivors. We’ve gotten this far by looking ahead. Looking behind us can kill us. Remember, you looked back when you fired at Clyde and what happened?”

“I fell.” The teeth. The blood. The cannibalism. Images seared into my memories.

“Exactly! If you would just think about your next move instead of what you can’t change, I wouldn’t have to come behind you and drag your ass out of trouble every time.”

“But I almost killed you. If there was a bullet in that rifle, you would have been dead.”

“And you’d be dead too, smartass. You think I’d give a guy suffering shock a loaded weapon? You couldn’t even answer me. You fought me while I was trying to save you. The only good thing about that situation was you grew some balls. You acted on what was happening.”

Again, Benny’s right. So is this why he changes so much? Is our situation the cause of his inconsistencies? Will I ever know who or what Benny is? I take a drag from the cigarette and knock the ashes off, watching them float through the air and land next to a partially devoured corpse, the head and face completely crushed and half of the flesh stripped from the body.

“I thought you were using me as bait.”

“Gav, Clyde was enough bait for the both of us. You know that.” He laughs for a few seconds, but then returns to sounding sincere. “Look, Gav. You’re a tough guy. You’ve whooped my ass and killed a shitload of bees. But that toughness won’t do shit for you if you can’t cope with what’s going on. It’s a game we’re stuck in, man. The only thing left to do is to finish the game. We make the right plays and survive this shit. Together.”

Why, all of a sudden, is he playing the role of “big brother”? Has he always cared this much? He has saved me numerous times. But doesn’t that show that he can’t cope with this himself since he needs me? If he didn’t need me, he would’ve left me for dead days ago.

“We did whoop some ass, didn’t we?” I laugh as I say it.

“Damn straight. And I’ve been meaning to say, sorry about the shit with your sister. I didn’t know you were that touchy.”

“Hey, I warned you at the river not to do that. But, seriously, did you mean what you said about being scared at the gas station?”

“Being scared? Yeah, I’m a bit scared about all this shit. But that’s starting to die off.”

“A bit? Dude, you were sobbing.”

“Someone had to make you grow up. If I didn’t play the role of the sloppy weakling, you would still just go with the motions. Now you know you’re capable of making decisions and doing what needs to be done.” Benny the coyote; Benny the catalyst for realization and action.

“Even?” Benny extends his hand.

“Even,” I respond, shaking it. His shit eating grin surfaces.

It’s amazing that we’ve reconciled over the death of an innocent person. Clyde did serve his purpose. He showed me that whoever is too slow becomes bait, dead meat and dead weight, and that I should thank the bait for the second chance.

Among the decaying corpses, after reminiscing over killing innocent people, the world seems right again. If I didn’t have this throbbing pain in my hand, I might feel invincible.

I stand and turn to face the way we were heading. With the sun still rising, I use my hand to shield my eyes. Hundreds of cars. Hundreds of corpses. Carrion birds hover over the area but refuse to touch most of the dead.

“Now where the hell is that old man?” Benny asks.

A Bullet or a Bite

2009-11-12T19:05:00.001-05:00

The yelling. The gunfire. The Bees.

My elbows grind against the asphalt as I scramble for a weapon, and a sea of legs blocks Clyde’s body from my sight. I put the 9mm in my waistband and grab the bloody hatchet, immediately swinging at the closest pair of legs as I rise. The blade thuds and vibrates as I chop downwards into a bee’s leg. I chop again and again, shattering its knee. The bee groans in protest as it crumbles to the ground. I waste no time in moving to the next bee, chopping and swinging, severing heads, cracking skulls and chopping directly into faces. The ground is slick from blood, and I have to concentrate to avoid falling. I continue to move towards the truck, trying to hack my way to salvation.

There are too many hungry mouths, too many bodies uniting against me. I slip amongst the blood, falling to my knees, still swinging. I want to cry out for help, but Clyde’s death stole my voice.

I rise, only to slip again and catch myself with my left hand. The rapid flashes of pain blur my sight and burn my arms and chest. The clap of gunfire sounds off near my ears.

This is it. A bullet or a bite. One way or another, the running ends here.

My knees hit the asphalt again. My eyes can barely penetrate the darkness now and the hatchet clanks as it’s knocked from my hand.

My head jerks back and my shirt wraps around my throat. I swing and claw at the force. Gunfire claps again. “Fuck, man! Quit squirming!” It’s Benny and he’s dragging me somewhere.

Shit, I think to myself, I’m his latest bait. I kick my legs, splashing them in blood pools, and grab his arm. He fires again and I can feel the vibrations from the recoil through his arm. I can’t see anything but silhouettes and the occasional hand clawing my way. Teeth click and clatter; bees snort and groan. “Hold this!” He yells, putting the rifle against my hands and I grab it. I point the rifle behind me, aiming for Benny.

Click.

I won’t let him take me. I won’t be his bait. I work the lever and pull the trigger again.

Click.

Shit! Benny’s going to feed me to the bees to save his ass!

I swing the rifle, cracking the stock against his hand holding my shirt and backpack. He jerks on his hold, blatantly choking me and I gurgle and squirm. “Fuck man! Cut it out!” He demands.

Benny’s body turns sharply and the sound of a splitting watermelon comes from the left. Benny turns his body the other direction, pulling my shirt tight against my throat, almost choking me. A dull thud comes from the right. His body twists and turns back and forth, back and forth. My shirt burns a mark into my throat from the neckline rubbing against the skin.

Moving beams of light coat the approaching bodies in a wave of dull yellow. Rickett, save me. If that’s you, if you’re fighting for us, don’t let Benny feed me to these things. Gunfire and thuds. My ears ring and all the sounds merge into one long drone.

Benny’s body continues its dance of destruction. He swings and swings, clearing a way out. Bodies crumble left and right, and one falls backwards, landing on top of me, blood spilling from a tear in its scalp. It spins over slowly, grabbing my shirt to pull itself up, its face highlighted by the yellow light. Pale eyes covered by a film of clear mucus investigate my body, looking me up and down. Its tongue lashes out at me, targeting the pool of vomit soaking into my shirt. Blood rolls down its face and I scramble to get out from under it, swinging with the gun, hitting the wound with the stock and ripping it wide open. I swing and swing, and it tongues the vomit and acid, almost sucking it off my shirt. I hear a fatal crack but continue to swing until it I see the fractured skull clearly in the yellow light.

All the while, Benny continues to drag me, swinging left and right, toppling any bees that come between him and escape.

I kick and squirm to get the bee off me, and Benny jerks my shirt to stop my squirming. “Oh shit!” He yells, finally recognizing the bee on top of me. He lets me go, swings the bat down, pushing the force of his swing through the bee’s head and neck and into my abdomen, knocking the wind out of me. He kicks the bee off me and immediately gets back to defending the area by knocking the bees back and to the ground with crushing blows to their heads. Blood covers us like we’re fording a river of it.

I rise to my knees, fending off bees with the butt of the rifle. And then I see them: two headlights not even ten yards away. I’m not the bait. He’s saving me, again. Benny, the coyote; Benny, the killing machine; Benny, the most twisted hero I’ve ever seen.

I stand and swing the rifle. The backpack on my shoulders makes it hard to maintain my balance, and my left hand pounds and sends jolts of pain into my armpit. The stock cracks into a jaw and I swing it the other way. My sweaty palm almost causes me to lose the rifle as the barrel slides in my grip. My blows connect again and again, sending bees stumbling backwards into the crowd. Benny and I circle each other, battling the opposition, delivering head wound after head wound. All the while, the headlights creep closer.

“Get to the truck!” Gunshots follow Benny’s yelling. One, two, three and a bee’s head explodes; teeth, gums, mucus, and brains spread like shrapnel. I make my way to the truck, swinging the rifle, trying to locate where the gunfire comes from. Two arms stick out of the driver’s side window firing two handguns, dropping as many bees as possible.

“Jump in!” Rickett yells to me, his voice as loud as the gunfire. “Jump in the back!” I toss the rifle into the truck’s bed, climb in and drop the backpack. I scramble to open it, looking for the ammo. I open the box of bullets, pull the 9mm from my waistband and eject the clip. My hands shake. The gunfire continues and I fumble the bullets; they clank and roll across the truck’s bed. I scramble and bang my left hand while trying to scoop up loose bullets.

“Fuck!” I pound my hands against the truck in frustration and stitches pop open. “Damnit!” I grab the rifle and stand in the truck’s bed, swinging at the nearest heads. Rickett inches the truck closer to the blood covered Benny who seems to be untouchable. And to think, I was going to shoot him. I crack the butt of the rifle into a jaw and throat, hearing the bee wheeze as it falls to the ground. I killed Clyde and I tried to kill Benny.

Benny swings and swings again while the yellow headlights spotlighting the swarm of bees crowding him. He looks back at the truck and delivers two more swings, letting the bat slide from his hands on the second swing. He spins and jumps onto the hood and climbs over the cab into the truck’s bed. He lands next to me and falls down. Rickett shifts the truck into reverse and I drop to my knees and grab onto the cab to avoid falling into the horde of bees.

Benny lies on his back and breathes heavily. I sit down and lean against the back of the cab as Rickett fires a few more shots into the swarm and then slams on the gas, rolling over bees. Hands protrude from the darkness, trying to reach us with no luck as the truck knocks their bodies down, crushing bones and spraying blood. Rickett then knocks the truck into first gear and floors the gas pedal, roaring through the sea of bodies, running the windshield wipers to sweep the blood, guts, and hair from the windshield. He shifts into second as he breaks through the bees and into open space, climbing over the curb separating the parking lot from the main road that penetrates Brightmoor. Tires screech as we hit the road and Rickett floors it.

I almost killed you, I want to say to Benny. But I can’t.

Rickett slides open the reader window and says, “This place is crawling with these things!” He shifts gears. “I thought I saw a third person, a guy following you, Gavin. What happened?”

“He, uh...” I stutter, not knowing how to answer the question. Should I tell him I shot Clyde and left him for dead? Should I tell him that I’m no better than Benny?

“The bees,” Benny says, sitting up and putting his head next to the window. “Fucking bees, man. They ate him up.” He looks at me. Does he know I shot Clyde? Does he think I did it on purpose?

Does he know the clicks from the rifle were aimed at him?

Fresh Bait

2009-11-12T18:54:00.001-05:00

“Jesus,” Clyde says, following it with a long sigh. The headlights shining in the night seem so far away and as they move about, the number of bees only seems to increase. All three of our jaws hang open and my stomach cramps and slowly succumbs to nausea.

I light a cigarette and watch the headlights travel around the parking lot, dodging the closing bees as the lights move towards the black truck we parked in the back of the lot. “It’s got to be Rickett,” I say.

“Well, he ain’t gonna do much by just circling around,” Benny notes. “How the fuck are we getting over there?”

“I’m not sure just yet.” We’re done, I think to myself. This is it. We’re going to die after how hard we fought to get to this point; all of it was for nothing. I shake my head and take a drag from the cigarette. “It’s not over. It can’t be.”

“What?” Benny turns from the bees to face me.

“It’s not over yet,” I respond.

“I dunno guys; we can’t make it through that. They’ll kill us all.” Clyde cracks his knuckles as he talks. His voice fumbles over the syllables and his sentences fade into mumbles. Benny grabs his arm.

“Clyde,” Benny snaps, “we ain’t gonna get far with that attitude. It ain’t over till we’re dead. And as far as I can tell, we ain’t dead. . .yet.”

“Clyde,” I say, taking his attention from the bees. “Go grab me the flashlight I had next to our sleeping bags.” As he passes me, I tell him, “Be quick about it.”

Benny and I hover over the ledge, watching the bees stagger towards the constantly moving headlights. Their bodies move slowly and they pause every few steps or so to taste the air and smell the surrounding scents. The bees, to me, aren’t humans anymore. Gender and race don’t apply anymore. It’s like they’re a new species, and I see this species as my biggest threat. Well, biggest threat second to Benny.

“What are you gonna do?” Benny asks, finally breaking the awkward silence.

“I’m going to use that light to see if I can get Rickett’s attention. Maybe there’s something we can work together to do.”

“You think we’re fucked?”

I look to Benny’s emotionless face. “Oh, we’ve been fucked since day one. But I think we can survive this. We just have to come up with something. Any ideas?”

I take a few drags from the cigarette as we think about the situation. He runs his hand through his hair and finally says, “Baiting.”

“What?”

“We can bait them,” he answers.

“No.” I shake my head in refusal. “No way in Hell. One person won’t be able to bait a swarm this size. Are you getting stupid on me now?”

“Look at them,” he says as he points to the swarm. “They form a single group. The same shit grabs their attention. Ya know? It’s like a yellow jacket’s nest: you fuck with one, and they all are coming after your ass.”

“Benny, seriously.” I can’t believe he thinks this will work. “We baited on purpose before and it almost killed me.” I take a drag and wait to exhale before I add more to this argument. “And that group was nowhere near the size of this.”

“Any other ideas?”

“I can’t believe you.”

“So then baiting it is,” he confirms.

“I’m not baiting. I refuse to.” Clyde returns as I finish my closing statement. He tosses me the flashlight and I back away from the edge of the roof in an attempt to not garner any unwanted attention. I turn it on and point the beam to the sky. I click the light on and off, trying to simulate some type of beacon.

The headlights flash their high beams in our direction. Adrenaline surges. “Hell yeah,” I say, “he knows we’re here!”

“Shhh,” Benny says, motioning for me to keep the volume down. “Well then, it’s decided. We gotta get to Rickett and baiting is the only way.”

“What’s baiting?” Asks Clyde.

“What’s the best way to explain this?” Benny scratches the stubble covering his throat and chin. “Baiting is when one of us purposely puts our guts on the line for another. It draws them away. It’s worked before, though we ain’t tried it on a swarm this big.”

“So one of us has to sacrifice himself for the others?” Clyde’s nervousness is apparent from the sweat soaked clothes and the fact that he’s cracked his knuckles so many times lately that they won’t crack anymore.

“Benny,” I interrupt, “we can’t bait this many; it won’t work. Besides, as soon as any of us leave the store, they’ll smell us. Hell, I don’t know why they haven’t smelled us from here yet.”

“Maybe we’re too high up,” Benny responds. “Look, something has to be done to clear a path to Rickett.” Once he mentions the name, I look back and signal the moving headlights yet again and he returns the signal with a few more flashes of his high beams. He hasn’t stopped the truck yet, and the bees just seem entranced by the lights. “I’ll bait them.”

“You’ll bait—” I stammer. “Wait, we may not have to. See how they follow the lights? What if we cut on all the lights in the store and use those lights like some kind of magnet for them?” Benny peers over the edge of the roof again to watch the bees slowly making their way to the headlights. “We can use the lights and then bail through the back door.”

Benny shrugs. “Could work I guess.”

Clyde’s made his way over to the ledge that hangs above the store’s loading dock and rear exit. “Umm . . . I’m not so sure of that.” Benny and I rush over to see what makes Clyde doubt the plan. Bees converge towards the back of the store as they attempt to make their way around the building. Some simply stand and lick the air that swirls around them while others shamble along.

“Fuck me,” I say. My stomach drops and I take a deep breath. It’s not Benny who worries me now, nor is it Clyde. It just seems like every time hope shows up, something comes to scare it off. “Baiting it is,” I say, finally agreeing. Benny’s signature grin reveals itself.

“Let’s go then,” he says.

******

Back in the store, we empty out the two large duffle bags and put a few change of clothes in our backpacks. We throw some more canned food and some bottled water into them as well. Clyde returns from cutting on the lights and dons Benny’s pack.

Benny moves constantly, shadow boxing, hopping up and down, stretching his arms and rotating his head from side to side, preparing himself for what could be the end of Benny. He stops to take in deep breaths and slowly exhales. He bends down and grabs a bat and the rifle.

The bees gravitate towards the light. A few drag their ashen hands across the glass that separates us from them. “Like fucking moths, man,” Benny says.

I hand Clyde a hatchet and the other bat, and I make sure the 9mm is fully loaded. “This is it. Are you ready?”

“I have to be, don’t I?”

“Good answer,” I respond.

“Benny, you ready?”

“Fuck yeah man. Let’s do this.”

We walk to the rear exit. I put the key into the lock and make eye contact with Benny and then Clyde, and both nod in return. I turn the key. My heart’s racing and my hand’s throbbing. This is it, I think. Here is where it all ends. I pull the door open and see bees scattered about. At least it’s not a tight cluster like the ones in the front parking lot.

Benny pushes me from the door, turns and says, “Give me a head start and then go around the side of the building. I’ll meet you at Rickett’s truck.” With a deep breath, Benny moves through the doorway.

I keep the door ajar and Clyde looks out over my shoulder. Benny bangs the bat against the side of the building and shouts, “Warriors, come out to play!” I can’t help but let out a chuckle as Benny starts the baiting process with his shit eating grin smeared all over his face. But the immediate situation snaps me back to reality.

The bees gravitate towards Benny as he hoots and hollers, banging his bat against the building and asphalt. I wait until Benny pulls them away from the building. Under my breath, I count to thirty and say to Clyde, “Let’s go!”

We run.

I pull the slide on the 9mm and make sure Clyde stays behind me. I keep my left hand against the wall, dragging it and taking the pain to make sure we don’t wander too far off into the darkness. Clyde huffs and puffs behind me as we make it to the corner. I peek around and see only a few bees. “We have to outrun these,” I tell Clyde. I see his towering figure nod.

We run: harder and faster.

The bees groan when we pass. I can hear their jaws popping and their tongues slapping against the backs of their teeth as they taste our scents. I let the fading sounds of their footsteps confirm our getaway.

We round the next corner into the main parking lot. I see Rickett’s truck off in the distance, still circling the far side of the parking lot. “Damn it,” I mutter to myself as I run, trying to stay to the bees’ flank. I left the flashlight inside the store. I could be flagging him right now and he could come pick us up. “Damn it,” I mutter again.

“What?” Clyde yells, alarming the bees that fresh meat is about.

“Shit, Clyde!” I angrily snap at him, trying to keep my volume down. “Look what you’ve done.” At least a third of the swarm turns our way, blocking our path to Rickett. “Quickly, before more come. Follow me.”

I run forward, hearing Clyde follow. We have no idea where Benny is, or even if he’s still alive. That doesn’t matter; he knew what he was doing. All that matters is getting to that pick up truck off in the distance.

I shoot the first bee that gets too close. Its nose explodes to leave a gaping hole in its place and a thick stream of blood with chunks of bone and brain flows down its cheeks and chin. I hear Clyde’s hatchet crack into a chest; the sound of the hatchet’s second chop mimics that of wood snapping and popping in a fire. I shoot again, dropping another bee, leaving yet another head wound. Some bees stop to look at the falling bodies while others continue their advance.

And I fire on them. Again and Again.

Off in the distance I hear more gunfire. Rickett’s in on the action. Maybe he sees us; maybe he’s coming to help us. I can’t see beyond the bodies anymore. I can only hope I’m headed the right way and not deeper into the large swarm.

Behind us I hear yelling. Benny? Is he making his way back to us? I can’t stop to turn and see. But the noise. The bees. The blood. Chaos consumes everything.

Death is but a bite or a bullet away.

Bullets penetrate skulls and bees crumble. Two, three, and then I just stop counting. It doesn’t matter how many fall since more fill the gaps. I feel pressure on my back and turn.

I pull the trigger.

Blood billows from the wound.

Knees hit the pavement.

Clyde’s remaining eye stares at me. A river pours from the hole in his head. His mouth remains stretched to show his shock.

My heart pumps in dramatic fashion, skipping two to three beats.

The hatchet and bat clank against the asphalt; his hands reach for me. Bees grab his hair and shoulders and drag his body to the ground.

I can’t move. My knees, they just won’t work. Gunfire increases and I hear screams. I fire at the bees that close in on me and I stumble to the ground.

“No! No!”

They start with gouging his face to catch the blood running from the wound. There are so many, each swatting and grabbing for the body, hoping to get something. They pull the skin from his cheeks, throat and shoulders. I vomit all over myself; the warmth of my dinner soils my shirt and jeans.

“No!”

They beat on his chest, cracking ribs and grabbing the bone shards to rip open the cavity, pulling his lungs and heart to the surface of the body. Bees scoop their hands into his wound, tearing pieces from the organs. Two bees shove their heads into Clyde’s chest, gnawing at the bones and muscles while other hands claw at his stomach to expose his intestines, tugging them, causing them to spill from the carcass. Clyde’s body twitches and convulses. His blood coats the bees like war paint; red covering ashen bodies, soaking into tattered clothing.

I fire at the bees closest to me. It snags some attention away from Clyde’s body. I yell and continue pulling the trigger. Some fall, resulting in others stopping to investigate the bodies to see if they’re edible or not.

My vision blurs. Colors bend and shift until all I see is the darkness highlighted by various shades of red.

After a few shots, the only sounds I hear are the repeating clicks from a gun fresh out of ammo.

The Waiting Game

2009-11-12T18:44:00.001-05:00

“One more time,” I say, frustrated that Clyde won’t answer; he just shakes and breathes rapidly. “Do you want to die? Do you want get us all killed?”

“No,” he barks. “No—I don’t!”

“Put the fucking gun down, Gavin!” Benny’s yell echoes throughout the building. “That’s enough man. He probably shit his pants already! Is that what you want?”

“No, Benny,” I yell back, “I want him to realize what he’s done. He needs to know that we’ve earned our survival, and that he’ll have to earn his as well.”

Benny and I stare each other, locked in a battle egos and wills. I don’t want—no—I can’t move a muscle. I need to prove to him that I will not revert to what I was.

Benny tilts his head towards Clyde. Wait—is this acceptance? What’s Benny doing? Did he just submit to me? Maybe he really is willing to let me lead us out of here; maybe he wants me to make the decisions and take action. . .

No—it can’t be. Benny the coyote. Benny with his shit eating grin. Benny who chopped up a gimp woman. The broken Benny at Rickett’s. Shit—who is Benny?

My head thumps. My hand burns and pounds its pain into my arm. I grimace and turn to Clyde. “Don’t screw up again. Ever.” I lower the gun.

I walk past Benny and, in a pragmatic tone, say, “I’m double checking the rear exits and cleaning my hand. I’ll be back. I’ll take first watch.”

On my way to the back, I hear Benny and Clyde talking. Benny, the ever caring man consoling a weak willed person. Why is this so familiar?

******

The back doors are secured and I found a way to the roof via stairs in the stock room. But the joy of knowing there’s a way to escape won’t sugarcoat the pain of peeling the bandages from my hand.

Fresh meat, I think, when I expose my swollen, mangled ring and pinky fingers to air. Dried blood and ointment cake the gauze Rickett placed on the wound yesterday. Black stitches cover my hand and fingers, marking the areas where Rickett meticulously extracted pellets, accidentally damaging a nerve. A splash of rubbing alcohol and all the pain my body’s felt over the past few days resurfaces: the hit from Maria, the shot from Rickett, the pain of segregation and isolation and never knowing if you’ll survive the next minute, the pain of feeling absolutely alone when others surround you.

I blame the pain for all the tears I’ve held in. It’s the pain’s fault I’m crying.

Another splash and I grind my teeth and pound my right hand against the sink. I’m crying so hard that I don’t even notice the snot pouring out of my nose until I taste it running over my lips. My hand and arm shake uncontrollably from the searing alcohol and my thighs burn from fighting to keep me standing.

It takes me close to ten minutes before I can gather enough wit and strength to apply some ointment to my hand and wrap fresh gauze around it. I clean my face with my right hand, washing the snot and tears away, pushing the pain and emotion to the side to focus on what lies ahead: Benny, Clyde, and a night where I eventually have to sleep.

******

“Where the hell have you been?” Benny looks annoyed, impatient.

“I told you. I had to clean my hand.” He looks me over as if he doubts me. Is this what we’re coming to? Are we both thinking that the other is ready to kill if threatened? The tension is only thickening. “Where’s Clyde?”

“Sleeping. Why?”

“We should know where we all are in case anything happens,” I quickly respond.

“Are you gonna take watch now?”

“Yeah. Go get some sleep.” If he and Clyde trust me enough to watch over their lives, maybe their intentions aren’t to hurt me. Maybe. I’ll keep my finger on the trigger just in case.

******

Clyde snores ridiculously loud and Benny’s so quiet I can’t tell if he’s really asleep or not. Nothing’s happened for hours now. No Bees, at least that I’ve seen, and no Rickett.
I don’t want to wake either of them up, but I could use some sleep to at least get over the residual pain from cleaning my hand.

Truth is, I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. Neither Benny nor I have slept well over the past week or so. Christ, I don’t even know how long it’s been. Either way, I need some sleep in order to focus.

With my foot, I nudge Clyde’s hulking, snoring frame and he groggily stretches and falls back to sleep. I nudge him again and again, finally saying, “Clyde, wake your ass up.”

He slowly opens his eyes to look at me before he closes them again. He can’t look me in the face. Whether it’s disgust or fear, I don’t know. I don’t care. “It’s your turn to keep watch. We need to rotate watches so we each get a chance to rest.”

He yawns, stretches and says, “Yes, sir.”

“And Clyde, this means our lives are in your hands. Don’t screw up.” I climb into the sleeping bag a few minutes after Clyde gets up and downs a few sips of a soda for some caffeine. Hidden under the sleeping bag, my finger rests on the 9mm’s trigger, ready to fire if and when anything goes wrong.

******

“Kill me,” she whispers, “you know you have to.”

“I can’t; I won’t!” I scream while she convulses and the blood spits from the wounds in her arm and shoulder. I can taste the vomit in my throat, making it hard to swallow and breathe.

“Then who will die next? I’m finished, Gavin. You can still do this. You can still make it out. You need to—for me.” For her. Everything I’ve done lately has been for her and my parents. But I can’t kill her. I can’t take my sister’s life. I’ve killed enough. Maybe it’s time for me to finally give up and surrender to the bees. Let the disease have me. I’m done fighting. But she says I need to go on.

My hatchet’s all I have. I see blade and I see her, already drenched in blood, and her eyes won’t break from mine. She wants to watch me kill her, to know that I’ll do what she says: press on, survive for the both of us.

“Please,” she says in one last ragged breath. I close my eyes.

I’m crying when I lift the hatchet above my head. I’m crying when I swing it down. “For you,” I scream. I sob with each forced swing. “For you,” I scream again. “Everything for you!” Swinging and screaming, crunching and cracking. This is what my whole search was for: murdering my sister because I couldn’t get to her in time. After all I did, I was still too late.

I open my eyes.

Addison’s face is a pile of pulp and bone, her brain exposed and her teeth shattered. I vomit so hard that some spills from my nose. Her eyes are still intact, still staring at me. She watched me the entire time.

She watched someone who wanted to save her become her murderer.

******

A shove, a push. I throw the sleeping bag cover to the side and swing the gun up and open my eyes. Benny flinches and falls back. “Holy shit,” he yells. I look for Clyde, and find him sleeping where Benny was a few hours ago.

Still pointing the gun at Benny, I demand, “What? Why are you pushing me?”

“Christ man, put the fucking gun down! You’re not some crazy ass vigilante cowboy in a movie. You’re not an expert with that thing. You’ve barely used it. You could have killed me!”

I put the gun down but disregard the rest of what he says. “So what do you want?” By this time, Clyde’s rustling in the sleeping bag.

“We got a problem.”

“Bees?”

“Yeah,” Benny says, nodding and looking to Clyde, “apparently they caught the scent.”

“I told you.” Benny rolls his eyes in response.

“That doesn’t matter now, man; they’re here.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Maybe 15 or so. It’s still dark and hard to see and I don’t plan on stepping out there with a flashlight to count.” Clyde cracks his knuckles and the hiss of carbonation seeping from a bottle follows. “Right now, they’re just hanging around the dead ones.”

“Grab your gun,” I say. “We’re going to the roof.” Benny retrieves the rifle and we walk back to the stockroom and climb the stairs to the roof. Once we stand on the old, battered roof, we truly see the darkness of an ill-lit town. The remaining dim lights from the shopping center only stretch 20 yards or so into the parking lot. After that, the dark takes over. Peering over the edge, I make out about 20-25 bees sniffing and licking the air near the two I shot earlier. Benny has the rifle ready to fire, and I have to remind him not to waste bullets. I put my hand on his gun and push it down, forcing him to lower it. “We only kill if we absolutely have to. If we kill more, the scent will probably only get stronger.”

Benny looks at me and asks, “So what do we. . . .” He trails off and I look to see what’s got his attention.

Headlights. Two bright lights roaring down the main drag and slowing once the beams reflect off our truck. “Holy shit,” I say under my breath. I have to remind myself of the bees. Now is not the time to be loud.

“Rickett,” Benny says, “you gotta be shittin’ me. He made it. You were right.”

I’d respond, but something else catches my attention: Rickett’s headlights illuminating the dark we couldn’t see into, revealing a horde of at least 60 to 70 bees roaming through the parking lot.

And just like we do, the bees turn to face the lights.

Who’s to Blame?

2009-11-12T09:47:00.001-05:00

The sky darkens as the sun sets and our moods turn dour. The largest swarm ever lurks nearby and here we are, three lone men standing in a grocery store where windows and automatic doors line the entire front.

“Clyde,” I say, “disable the automatic doors and find a key to lock them up. There should be one somewhere in either the service desk or in the management offices. We also need to cut a majority of the lights and lock all rear exits.” He seems taken aback by the direct demand but nods his head anyway. With a final crack of his knuckles, his large frame takes off in a hurry. Benny watches Clyde go to work on finding a way to seal us into the building. He looks back to me, his grin washes away and his face turns to stone.

Now is not the time for weakness.

Now is not the time to care.

“You,” I motion to Benny with my bandaged hand, “I want you to clear an area where we can set up some a semi ‘camp,’ so to say.” He nods. “We might have to move some crap around, and we should probably stock some food and water so no one wanders off in the night.” He starts moving towards the center aisle. “And Benny,” I say as a look of complete disinterest covers his face, “we need to save every bullet. We only fire at what harms us—not for personal enjoyment.”

This is it. Everything now rests in my hands. If anything goes wrong, I’ll have to right it. I can only count on myself and I need to focus on my survival, not on appeasing others.

Clyde disables the automatic doors and manages to find a key in one of the offices to lock them. All that’s left now is to manage our battle field, to put ourselves into a position where nothing can sneak up on us.

And then it hits me. Our bags and reserve ammunition are in the truck and the sun has set. Bats, hatchets and hunting knives all sit in the truck’s bed. One of us needs to go out there and retrieve the items if we plan on surviving if the swarm hits. Between Benny and myself, we have around 20 or so rounds—not even half of what we would need. If we don’t send someone out, we may be fighting bees with kitchen knives and spatulas.

******

Benny picks the center aisle because of it’s the widest. He moves some stationary displays out of the way to open up the area. After stacking two cases of water near him, I get his attention: “Benny, we got to do something.” He stops what he’s doing and turns to me, his face void of emotion. “We need our bags from the truck.”

“Shit, I ain’t going out there.” He turns back and continues rearranging the area to make more space. “You can go if you want.”

“Screw that. I’ll send your puppy,” I respond, walking away. I head to the front of the store to find Clyde.

Clyde stands and stares out the window, his fingers fidgeting out of anxiety. “Hey.” Obviously startled, he jumps and spins to face me. “Need you to do us a favor while we finish setting up.”

“Sure. Anything.” His voice quivers.

“We need you to run to our truck and grab our stuff. We have extra ammunition in the cab and we have backpacks, sleeping bags and more weapons in the bed.” I toss him the keys. He catches them and keeps his head down. He takes a deep breath and then asks, “Can’t I just drive the truck back to the doors?”

“No,” I shake my head, “that’s impossible.”

“I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. . .”

“I said no, Clyde. That’s it. I don’t want you to drive the truck. We only need the items.” I need the truck to stay right where it is. Rickett’s going to come; I can feel it. If we move the truck, he might not see it. But then again, if he doesn’t come, then we might have to fight our way through a swarm to get to the truck. And then there’s the chance the swarm won’t even show. All the different possible outcomes churn in my brain, resulting in a headache. I rub my temples to try and relieve some tension.

“But wouldn’t it be safer for me. . .”

“Damn it,” I interrupt. “Can’t you listen? I said no!” I’ll take my chances if the swarm shows. “Do not move the truck. It needs to stay there if we want help in the future.” He looks crushed, scared and completely lost. A little puppy that just happened to follow Benny to a new home. “Welcome to survival, Clyde. You’re going to have to do a lot of shit whether you like it or not. Get used to it. If you want our help, you’ll do as I say. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

I grab him a flashlight from the small house wares aisle and load it with some batteries. “Only use this if you absolutely have to. Bees have eyes too, and the last thing we need is a great visual beacon.” He spins the flashlight around in his hands as I unlock one of the automatic doors. “Don’t worry, I’ll be watching. Just grab everything you can and hurry back.” I point to where the truck is and he nods again. After two deep breaths, he bolts through the doors and into the night as fast as a man his size can. I close the door behind him, light a cigarette and watch. This is Clyde’s chance to prove himself, to show that he really does want to work with us for the greater good of survival. The most important thing, though, is that this time I won’t promise to help; I’ll help as long as I deem it necessary.

I can hear Benny’s footsteps approaching from behind. “So you got him to do it?”

“Yep.”

“I guess it’s better than one of us.” He looks through the windows to the parking lot.

“How’s the center aisle coming?” I don’t take my eyes from Clyde’s destination.

“Got it cleared out and put some food near the water.” Our conversations now consists of brief comments and questions. We don’t look at each other often. We don’t joke; we don’t laugh. That’s between Benny and Clyde now, but how long will that last? Knocking my thoughts away, Benny asks, “We leaving at dawn?”

“At the earliest. I’m just hoping Rickett comes through.”

“If he’s alive,” Benny says, bluntly and without hesitation.

A flicker of light in the parking lot captures my attention. “What the fuck is he doing?”

“What do you mean?” Benny answers. “He’s probably just trying to see.”

“Fuck, man! I shouldn’t have given him that light!” The light flicks on and off again, briefly highlighting the truck. “We got a huge swarm and he’s bringing attention to us.” Benny shrugs his shoulders like it’s not a big deal. The light flicks on one more time and I step through the door. “It’s bad enough we got these lights in store, but now the bee’s can see that someone’s here, and one of us is right outside in their territory.” Angry, I pull the 9mm from my waistband and ready myself to tear into Clyde, but he and the light stop in the middle of the parking lot. “Damn it, Clyde,” I mutter under my breath. The light circles around twice and stops. Clyde drops the flashlight and runs to the door as legs cross through the flashlight’s beam.

“Shit!” I flick the cigarette butt away and take a few steps from the door. With baseball bats clanking together and bags hanging from his shoulders, Clyde barrels past me and into the store as I yell at him: “Damn it, Clyde! I told you only to use the light if you have to.” I see Benny scrambling for his rifle. I pull the gun’s slide with the good fingers on my left hand and raise the gun. I fire three rounds, dropping two male bees in ragged clothes and decaying flesh. Thick streams of blood run from their heads to cover the pavement. I step back in the doors and lock them behind me.

I run over to Clyde who sits on the floor behind one of the cash registers. Huffing to catch his breath, he rocks back and forth, cracking his knuckles and fidgeting with his fingers. “Shit, man, shit!” He says, over and over.

“You!” I yell, pointing the gun in his direction. Benny watches from a distance with the rifle in his hands. I put the gun to Clyde’s head, hearing a thud as the barrel connects with his skull. “Do you want to fucking die?” My blood pumps so hard I hear it in my ears and my left hand feels like an extra thumping heart. Clyde squeezes his eyes closed and Benny finally speaks up.

“Damn, Gavin. It was only two. It wasn’t his fault.”

“No, Benny. It is his fault. Like a fucking lighthouse to lead them here. You know how they are. They can taste the dead and the living in the air. Now the others will recognize the new scent. They’ll recognize that there are new corpses lying around. It won’t be long before those fuckers descend on us.” I look back to Clyde and slide the gun across his temple. “I asked you a question, asshole. Look at me!” He opens his eyes and turns them up to meet mine. “Do you really want to die?”

Who’s Next?

2009-11-12T09:37:00.001-05:00

How long have I been buried under fear? Was Benny always the stronger one, or did I simply hand him the role because I was too scared to step up and take charge? Jesus, he killed a woman to escape. He didn’t leave her to die; he murdered her. Am I capable of doing the same? Did I cause Benny to become what he is? Did I even ever allow him to be scared? To worry? It doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is that I’m the one to push us forward for a change.

I flick the cigarette butt into the air and watch the ashes and embers scatter when the butt hits the ground. “Ready?”

Clouds slowly dim the afternoon’s daylight, bringing a cool breeze with them. Using his shirt, Benny wipes the blood from his face and spits more blood onto the asphalt.

“Smells like rain,” he says. The last time he said that was after he murdered Maria. His eyes are closed as he takes a few deep breaths. How long will it be before I wake up and he’s got a knife to my throat or a barrel in my mouth? Hell, will I even be able to sleep with Benny around?

After we climb into the truck and turn onto the main drag leading to town, the first few raindrops of the day thump against the windshield.

“Told you,” he says. “I can always smell when it’s gonna rain.” Even after he blurts out his immense fear of the world around him, Benny can still leave anyone unsettled. I’ll have to learn how to sleep with my finger on the trigger. Now I must be prepared to battle not only the bees, but a man who is very capable of taking a life—and he has already proven it.

******

Bingo. I don’t think I could find a better spot to sit and wait for Rickett. I pull into a parking lot housing only a few cars. I park Rickett’s truck as close to the main drag as I can. If he comes this way, there’s no way he can miss it.

The best part, though, is that the parking lot wraps around a grocery store, a clothing store, and a few other obscure businesses. The clouds release a light mist instead of heavy rain. We exit the truck, ending a drive saturated with awkward silence and we grab our weapons. When the breeze flows by, the smell of rot sweeps through. Dark stains and what look to be a few areas of bodily remains lie scattered about the lot.

“I’ll go get us some new clothes and see what else that place has to offer. You check out the businesses on the other side of the grocery store. We’ll meet up at the grocery store’s customer service desk. And keep your eyes peeled for bees. They’ve been here recently. Got it?” Benny nods and quickly moves without even looking my way.

As I walk to the clothing store, the mist thickens back into raindrops. I keep and eye on Benny, who, after a majority of the parking lot divides us, seems slow his pace and appear more relaxed. He straightens his back and leans the rifle against his shoulder. In less than a minute, the old Benny has emerged. The master of illusion. Benny, the coyote.

Mental note: always keep gun loaded with finger on trigger. You must do this, Gavin. If Benny presents a threat, fire at will. My stomach churns at the thought of firing at Benny, but if I have to, I need to.

Hell, I could just hop back in the truck and be on my way before Benny ever makes it out of the stores. I could be gone with no worry of who might kill me, someone who I once thought of as a friend or the bees who could be anywhere. But then, what if Benny was serious? What if he doesn’t want to kill me but truly wants to survive? Fucking morals and ethics. Maybe Benny’s right again: maybe it’s not about what’s right and wrong anymore. Maybe it really is about who dies last. Rickett, please hurry. I need someone whom I can count on, someone who could help make this situation more manageable.

******

I found two large duffle bags in the luggage section and stuffed them full of jeans, boots, socks, tee shits and hoodies. The bags sit on the linoleum next to a dull, laminate covered circular desk. A sign reading customer service hangs above and I drink a soda I pulled from a cooler next to one of the cash registers.

Quite a bit of food remains on the shelves, even though people have obviously been to this place in search of provisions. The cash registers have been stripped of all money. A majority of the canned items are gone. Produce is slowly rotting away but the coolers and freezers are still running, prolonging the life of frozen goods and dairy products.

Since I’ve stood here and looked out through the windows lining the front of the store, I’ve seen no animals, no people and no cars drive by. I should be used to this by now.

The swish of the automatic door grabs my attention. “Benny?” No answer. A wall separates the customer service station from one of the main entrances. I wait to see him walk around the corner and instead I hear an unfamiliar cackle. I crouch and place my finger on the trigger.

Rounding the corner is a large man finishing off a laughing fit with an elongated sigh. He stands about six feet tall and has broad shoulders and a large gut. Short black hair, a few days worth of stubble and a goatee outline his face. Benny saunters up to stand behind the man and looks around. “Gavin?”

I stand, raise the handgun towards the unfamiliar face and look at Benny. His shit eating grin reappears and he raises his eyebrows. The man takes a few steps back and raises his hands. “Clyde, meet Gavin. Gavin this is Clyde.”

Without moving the gun, I ask, “And what exactly might Clyde want?”

Benny looks to Clyde. “Well, that’s a good question. Clyde, what exactly do you want?”

“Help,” he says. “I just want help.”

“Where did you find him?” I ask Benny.

“In the deli a few doors—”

“I asked Benny,” I interrupt, “not you.” The gun still points towards the newcomer.

“In the deli,” Benny says. “C’mon man, put the gun down. It makes for a little awkward tension. Please.” I lower the gun but I keep it exposed with my finger on the trigger. “So, think we can help him?”

“We’ll see.” I’m not sure if I want another person other than Rickett around. I’m not sure what exactly might happen when I turn my back. “Let’s hear the story first. I want to know exactly why he wants help.” I walk behind the customer service desk, lay the gun on the counter and grab a pack of smokes. Lighting a cigarette, I say, “So, Clyde, let’s hear it from the top.” Before he even speaks, the dull throb in my hand increases when I realize I’ve been using it to support my weight while leaning on the counter. I keep it there, though. Now is not the time to show any weakness.

******

The repeated cracks of Clyde’s knuckles popping rival the furious sound of the rain pouring down and banging on the store’s roof. It seems that not even five minutes can pass before he flexes both hands, wrapping them together to systemically crack each knuckle to ensure a vicious case of arthritis in the future.

“Well, I work in that deli, you see,” he starts off, “and we had heard about River’s Edge and a few other spots gettin’ all sick and stuff.”

“Other spots?” I ask.

“Well, there was a few down and around River’s Edge. One of them was Hampton. It had similar problems with some spreadin’ diseases.” Hampton. Was it Hampton that infested River’s Edge, or did the bees we saw escape in all directions?

“After a few days of hearing the news about the outbreaks and evacuations, soldiers started treadin’ through town on their way to help out the towns.” Benny snickers at the idea of exterminators actually helping the towns. They only came to wipe us out, to end the chance of our government’s mishap getting out to the masses. “Anyways, the soldiers brought a pretty nice boom to our business over at the deli. It was just my boss, me, and two other guys running the joint throughout the week. The soldiers ate so much that my boss had to hire a few more hands. But eventually the business died down and the shifts went back to two staffers at a time.” He pauses to crack his knuckles and grab a soda from the cooler. When he turns away, I move my left hand from the counter to stop the throbbing pain from all of the pressure I placed on it for so long.

Clyde opens the soda, takes a long swallow and continues his story. “So anyways, it was me and my boss working two days ago and business was pretty slow. We was just sittin’, shooting the shit ya know, until these freaks starting huddlin’ together in the lot outside. We could tell it was the diseased type, as they had some pretty gnarly wounds and were actin’ all weird. At first we thought they was some junkies or somethin’ havin’ a get together, but it turned out that wasn’t the case. We saw one randomly lunge after a bird, catch it and immediately bite into its wing. Once that little bit if blood was shed, all hell broke loose.” Benny’s smile remains and Clyde cracks his knuckles while I light a cigarette.

“It seemed like a wave of customers from the grocery store barreled out for some reason—I guess maybe to try and race away from the freaks—and quite a few of them, well, most of them actually, got caught. I mean,” he cracks his knuckles again, “these people, ya know, the diseased ones, just started wailin’ and beatin’ on the clean ones. Shit fella’s, I ain’t seen nothin’ like it. I mean, one minute you got a little crowd and the next minute you got people beatin’ each other for no damned reason!” The pouring rain turns back to mist.

“How many were there?” Benny finally speaks up.

“Oh man,” Clyde responds, shaking his head, “I would easily say about 20 at first. The tricky thing is that the disease spreads fast, and a few hours later, there was almost twice as many. Eventually, cars would pull into the lot and turn right back around. It didn’t hit me until my boss, who was shiftin’ with me that day, said, ‘Damn, Clyde, their eating each other.’

“I was hard to see, ya know, since there was so many of them. But then we saw that so much blood covered the lot that somethin’ just wasn’t right. People was turnin’ from the crowd, chewin’ on arms and legs and whatever else they could get their hands on. I mean, shit man, I’d heard of cannibalism, but I never thought I’d live to see it. What kind of disease does this?” He hesitates like he expects us to answer. After a minute of silence he continues, “So my boss figures to be the hero. This was before the disease spread to the others, so there was still about 20 or so. He grabs a pistol that I never knew he had and he just marches out into the crowd and starts firin’. He gets about six or seven of them to drop and I guess he did save a few lives because he was able to let a few normal people escape, but then all the freaks turned on him. He looked back to the store, fired a few more shots and then put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”

Benny’s enjoying this. You can see it in his smile. He hasn’t budged since Clyde started telling his story. The old Benny is still in there, whether he reveals it to me or not.

“So what did you do?” I’m curious to see what happens next.

“Well, Gavin, I, um. . .I locked the door and I’ve been there since.”

“What happened to the bees?”

“Bees?” He responds, tilting his head towards me.

“Yeah, bees. The diseased ones. They travel in groups so we call them bees.”

“Ah,” he says, cracking his knuckles again. “I’m not quite sure.”

“Not sure? What do you mean?” Benny just watches as Clyde and I exchange words.

“Well, I locked myself in the office too, just for safe measure, so I can’t really tell you what happened.”

“So we could have a swarm of over 40 some bees floating around this place?” I ask and Clyde simply shrugs and nods.

Fuck me, I think to myself. Not only do I have to watch out for Benny, but now I’ve got the biggest swarm yet breathing down my neck.

The Dentist Is In

2009-11-12T09:32:00.001-05:00

“Damn, that sucks shit.” Benny climbs into the truck and closes the passenger side door. “That dude was the only good host around these parts. He was one of the only ones who could actually make me laugh each and every time I heard his show. I mean, back in River’s Edge, he was the only thing worth listening too other than some classic rock.”

“Yeah, he was pretty good,” I add. I’m not as heartbroken as Benny, but it does sting a little. Our situation was easier to deal with knowing that others were equally struggling with all the physical and mental stress that River’s Edge caused. But Benny seems heartbroken like his first love left him for another man.

“This just blows.”

******

“Brightmoor, 20 miles.” Benny reads the green sign as we pass it. “Wonder what kind of chaos we’ll find in there.”

I shrug and continue driving. “Who knows?” I’m hoping Rickett shows up soon after we arrive. There’s something comforting about his presence. I’m not sure exactly what caused it, but Benny was calm and submissive when Rickett was around. Maybe it was Rickett’s tone or actions. But now that he’s off somewhere else, Benny’s back to being a loose cannon.

Pasture eventually replaces forestry. Farmland lines the highway as we close in on Brightmoor. “Shit, looks like we’re gonna step into some hick town or something,” Benny says.

“We didn’t really come from some palace, you know,” I respond. “Beats the hell out of seeing a ton of dead people every where you turn.”

I pull off onto the first exit leading into Brightmoor, merge onto a town road and pull into the first gas station I see. “No traffic,” I say to Benny.

“You know what that means.”

“Let me guess your next line: ‘Fuckin’ Bees.’ Is that right?”

“You got it,” he responds and nods. I shake my head and park the truck next to a pump.

“It’s prepay. You got a card?”

“Is there even a clerk?” He asks as he exits the car.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you get check, smart ass.”

“If there’s not a clerk, I know how to bypass it from when I worked at a gas station. Probably the same style computers as we had for this shit.” He heads into the store.

Brightmoor’s awkward silence has my thoughts rolling. There are no birds and I haven’t seen any animals out wandering in the miles of pasture we passed. No traffic. And when Benny walks out with a 40 ounce beer and some beef jerky, I figure there’s no clerk either.

The pump beeps at me, asking me to choose which type of fuel I’d like. With his mouth full, Benny yells across the parking lot, “Dude, get the premium shit since it’s free.”

******

We lean against the truck, facing the road, drinking beer, eating beef jerky and chips and I smoke Marlboros from a carton I took from behind the counter.

“So if Rickett doesn’t show, where are we headed?” Benny asks while shoving some Doritos in his mouth.

“I told you,” I say, “that I’m heading north. I’m going to see if my parents got out of River’s Edge fast enough when they left to visit my sister at the city college in Lincoln.”

“Sounds good. We pass through my hometown if we get onto the interstate and take that route. We’ll stop there first. I wouldn’t mind checking on my mom.” He doesn’t even ask. He’s back to asserting his control. Benny closes the bag of chips and puts it in the truck’s bed. He takes the last swig of beer and tosses his bottle into the parking lot like a grenade. The silence hanging over Brightmoor amplifies the sound of the bottle’s explosion.

“Your sister goes to the college in Lincoln?”

“Yeah. She decided on that college because I used to attend it years ago.”

"So your sister, Addison, is she like a sorostitute or something? You know, in a sorority? Does she tongue other chicks and rub tits with them and shit?" Benny laughs and gestures as if he’s groping a pair of tits.

As he laughs, closes his eyes and smears on his shit-eating grin, my knuckles rupture his bottom lip. Without hesitating, I swing again and again as he’s stunned, connecting with his jaw each time. He stumbles back, his eyes still closed and his head wobbling. I swing with my right one more time as he falls, dragging my knuckles across his optical bones and crunching into his nose. Blood runs freely down his face in tiny tributaries.

I pin his shoulders down with my knees and grab the 9mm. I pull the slide. My finger curls around the trigger. I put the barrel in his mouth, sending a shudder across my skin as I remember the feeling when Rickett stuck the rifle in my mouth. I know how this feels, I think to myself. I know how the gun rubs against your teeth, tongue and gums. How the oil and residue make you gag.

“How does it feel?” I scream my question at him. “How does it feel? You fucker!” He squirms and I shove the gun further into his mouth. He settles down, his eyes wide with shock and his irregular breathing forms blood bubbles over his nostrils as the blood continues to flow, covering his face from his cheeks down to his throat. “Fuck you,” I yell. I want him to feel what I’ve felt. I want him to suffer like I’ve suffered.

He closes his eyes and goes limp. “I told you never to let that name cross your lips in the wrong manner!” He doesn’t budge. “Open your eyes, mother fucker! Look at me when I’m talking to you.” As his eyelids flutter open, tears escape. Benny’s crying. Benny’s fucking crying. “Are you shocked someone fought back? Huh?” He shakes his head and the gun clanks against his teeth.

“I told you! I warned you.” All I need to do is pull the trigger. It’s OK. Rickett would understand. The necessity to survive changes a man. I’m tired of being this way. I can’t be the meek one anymore. Fuck, who’s to say Benny would even stick around? Who’s to say he wouldn’t eventually use me as bait?

Oh Benny, Benny, Benny. What to do with you?

His tears stream down the side of his face parallel to the blood from his nose. “You don’t fucking shut up! You don’t ever close that damned mouth of yours. I’m sick and tired of your shit!” I jam the gun further into his mouth, feeling the barrel hit the back of his throat, causing Benny to dry heave. He mumbles something. “Shut the fuck up! Can’t you understand me?” He nods. “I’m not your fucking pet!”

This feels so good. My blood pumps faster than ever before. This is better than killing bees. I’m scaring the shit out of someone who once appeared to be so much stronger than me. I can’t believe he’s crying. Part of me wants to laugh in his face.

“You killed Maria. I could see it in your eyes when you came back to me in the woods. You called her dead weight. You chopped her up with your fucking hatchet, didn’t you, you sick shit?” He clinches his eyes shut and nods his head.

Everything I thought is right. There’s no telling who this maniacal fucker will kill next to save his own skin.

“I’m not going to let you take me down. You remember when you said that? You said it before you tried to bail on my ass.” He nods again. “The feeling’s reciprocal, asshole.”

Is this happening? Is this a dream? Things I’ve wanted to say for so long pour out uncontrollably. My mutilated hand is numb. The stress is gone. For once, among all of this turmoil and chaos, I feel happy. Now I’m the one showing a shit-eating grin.

I pull the gun from his mouth and he gasps for air. I stand and move to the side as he curls into a fetal position like a baby ready to be born. “This is it. I’m done. I’m not your weak little bitch anymore. I’m not going to bite my tongue and hold back my actions. I’m done.”

“I’m sorry,” he sputters, spitting blood from his mouth onto the asphalt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I couldn’t help it. I’m scared shitless man. I don’t want to fucking die. I don’t want to get eaten.”

“If you’re going to plead, do it right. Look me in the eye.” He rolls over and opens his eyes. I use my shirt to wipe his spit and blood from the gun.

“I’m sorry, man. I just don’t know how to deal with this shit. I figure if I try to be bigger than it, bigger and stronger than all the shit that can kill us, I’ll be alright.”

“You have two choices. Option one: I leave you here with the rifle and you can be ‘your own man’ like you’ve always wanted. Option two: give up your bullshit. Listen to me and do as I say and we can get through this shit together.”

“I don’t know if I can do this shit on my own, man.” He sits up. He wipes some of the blood from his face with the back of his hand. “I’ll chill out. I won’t be a dick anymore.”

Rickett, thank you for making me feel that this is OK. You’d be proud of me. I’m not afraid to do what it takes anymore. For now, I don’t feel any fear.

“Fuck, man.” Benny sticks his fingers in his mouth, pulls out a tooth and holds it out for me to see.

“Sucks for you,” I say. “Now we need to find a good spot to wait for Rickett.” When I light a cigarette, I notice Benny’s blood covers my hand and knuckles and I don’t bother to wipe it off.

This Is the End, My Friends

2009-11-12T09:28:00.000-05:00

“This is it. I’m done. Kaput.

“You’re probably sitting there, scratching your heads and asking, ‘Why, Mav, why?’ Well, let me tell you why.

“Reason one: I’m hungry and out of food. I’m thirsty and my tap water tastes like piss. I need nourishment in various manners and I have no ladies to help me out with that. Three basic, primal needs and I have run dry.

“Reason two: I’m oblivious now. There is no communication with the world outside of my small chamber. No callers. No other ways to access information. Everything I know is only what I’ve experienced lately.

“I’ve watched the world decay through a small window. I’ve watched these diseased pricks slaughter and eat the wildlife around my studio. Intestines, fur, bones and God knows what else litters the ground. So now these pricks just stand around like they’re waiting for something, sniffing and licking the air like it has a distinct flavor. And I’m afraid that this flavor is the taste of the end of it all, my friends. These pricks taste the end of the world.

“It’s a shame, too, that my voice and cynicism will die out soon. Once I shut everything down, what you know about the Mav—if any of you are left—will turn to dust over time. My thoughts, actions, and voice will disintegrate and the people of River’s Edge—if the town survives—will return to the status of ‘Government Drones.’ No voice will be here to raise awareness; there will be no one to push the town to action.

“Let’s be honest here, people. The world has changed—drastically. That’s something we all should agree on. River’s Edge became the butt of a government joke, a cover up gone sour. Did you see the newspapers? Do you understand the world doesn’t know what happened? Both liberal and conservative media outlets have stuck with the cover up and that’s huge. Liberals and conservatives working together. If that doesn’t scream apocalypse, I don’t know what does. The men upstairs don’t want others to know; they don’t want people to see how they screwed up and led a town to slaughter. The world is ending and America is the catalyst for it all.

“This is crap—all of it. It’s ridiculous that all we can do is sit and try to wait everything out. I’m tired of waiting. Sitting behind a microphone and pushing buttons for sound effects won’t solve any problems; it won’t make these pricks and soldiers go away. It won’t bring our town back from the dead.

“And the soldiers. That’s another point I want to touch on before I leave you all. Our government sends soldiers to help us—supposedly. But here we are, stuck in a town when the media says we’ve been evacuated, we’re saved and that we’ll be reimbursed. All lies. Shocker. Every single pinch of hope sprinkled into a toilet and flushed away.

“They point their guns at us and whistle like we’re dogs. They shoot us; they herd us like cattle. They burn our loved ones, our hated ones—they’ll eventually burn us all. Why? Because someone on their team screwed up.

“We aren’t the registered voters anymore. We’re the registered scapegoats. That’s right. We sign a piece of paper to accept blame for our politicians, our government. We fill in the bubbles and punch the holes next to the names of people who will eventually hide the truth from us, oppress us, sentence us to our own economic and social doom. And when these things do happen—when the corruption surfaces—people point their fingers to the voters and say, ‘It’s your fault. You’re the ones who elected them.’ Liberal or conservative—it doesn’t matter anymore people. Do you understand? All politicians are scum. All of them.

“It sickens me to the core of my being, but I can’t be the lone voice anymore. For years I’ve sat here and spouted my words and thoughts to entertain and educate you all. Thank you for your ears, minds and hearts. May you find peace and solace among the filth we trudge through. Unfortunately, this is your local Maverick, host of ‘The Underground Sound,’ signing off for the last time.”

On the Road

2009-11-11T23:21:00.000-05:00

Laying my left hand over my lap, I steer the truck down the road to Brightmoor. The drive from Rickett’s cabin to the highway was only about a mile, and my hand still burns from all the bumps and holes scarring his dirt road.

Benny combs through the radio stations one more time to see if he can find something hidden behind the static. Tilting his head towards the closest speaker on the passenger door, Benny twists and turns the knobs on the old stereo as if they were combination locks to a great treasure. “I think I got something,” he says, still tuning. Seconds later, Aerosmith’s “Dream On” pours through the speakers and Benny immediately sings along.

Once the song ends, Benny starts chatting away. “Damnit, man, that old prick pissed me off. Chopping wood and grabbing his smokes and getting this and that. I ain’t a damned errand boy, you know? I’m a man who can handle his own.” Benny rolls his window down and hangs his hand out to let the passing air roll over his knuckles and arm.

Zeppelin’s “Over the Hills and Far Away” follows Aerosmith.

I let Benny rant and bitch. There’s no point in trying to convince him of the good that came from the situation. We have guns and ammo now. We have a higher chance for survival because one man decided to help us—well—after he shot me of course.

“That dude turned your hand into fucking pulp and you still kissed his ass.”

“Hey, I didn’t kiss anyone’s ass,” I snap. “He may have shot me, but he made sure I’d heal. Can you blame him for shooting someone trespassing on his land with all the shit going on?”

“Gavin, how are your morals gonna help your hand get better?” He chuckles and shakes his head. “I’m not so sure it’s about what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask.

“Yeah. I think it’s more about who dies last.”

“You mean who survives,” I say.

“No, Gav. It’s really about who dies last. We all die. That’s the only primary truth out there. One way or another—natural causes, gunshot, bees grubbing our guts, airplane crash—we all fucking die.” He looks so casual as he talks about all of this despair. He squints into the sun, randomly leaning his head out of the window to let the wind comb his hair.

The song dies down and two male voices broken by bits of static spill from the speakers. “That was Zeppelin with a little Aerosmith before it and you’re listening to Rick and Vance on K 101.3.” The radio immediately cuts to another classic rock song.

“Anyway,” Benny says, “we need to figure out what the next move is.”

“We’re heading to Brightmoor. That’s what Rickett said to do,” I respond.

“Fuck that old man. Let’s just roll right through and then we’ll figure out the best route to my old town from there.”

“Benny,” I’m getting pissed. “We’re stopping in Brightmoor, even if it’s only for a few hours or so. I told him we’d do that, and I’m not going back on it.”

“Dude, you’re such a puss.” Benny stares out the window. “Fine, we’ll stop and get some grub or something. But we ain’t waiting 24 hours, that’s for damned sure.”

Sometimes I want to push him out of the car, to get him away from me. But then where would I be? Alone, stuck on a highway. I could leave him in Brightmoor but a part of me feels guilty for even thinking about abandoning him.

We listen to some tunes for a while, letting the music fill our silence. Eventually, my curiosity gets the best of me and I ask, “What do you think we’ll find when we hit the next town?”

Still staring out the window and the passing forestry, Benny shrugs his shoulders. “Probably find the same thing we found everywhere else: some bees or some exterminators, maybe even someone dead or dying.”

I was hoping he’d say something more upbeat, more promising. Instead, he says his thoughts and looks out the window, picking at the medical tape on his bandage. Once the tape is up, he slowly unravels the gauze. I move my eyes from the road to his arm and back systematically, waiting to see the scratch marks. He finishes unraveling the gauze and tosses it out of the window. I watch the bandaging flutter through the air in the rearview mirror. The two scratches that run parallel down his arm are completely covered in thick, black and brown scabs. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of infection, which is a damn good thing seeing how Rickett’s the only person I know of with any formal medical knowledge. Benny pokes at the scabs and runs his right palm over the rough texture. He catches me looking at the healing wound and smiles his carnivalesque grin. “Getting better,” he says, smiling and then returning to gaze out of the window, continuously rubbing his scabs.

Watching Benny caress his wound reminds me of my throbbing hand. I hoped having to focus on the road and driving would be enough to push the pain into the back of my mind. Instead, the resurging waves of pain flow through my arm and into my chest.

Benny suddenly turns to me and says, “Stop the car.”

“Why? We’ve only been on the road for about 45 minutes. You need to piss or something?”

“Just stop the fucking car! Pull over!”

I pull the car onto the shoulder and put it in park. Benny smiles at me and says, “Target practice.” I look around him and through the window to see three bees slowly emerging from the tree line.

“Benny, we don’t need to waste any bullets.”

“Yeah, well, I need the practice if I’m gonna be sniping bees.” He removes the rifle from the gun rack and exits the car. He walks around the front to the driver’s side and puts the gun on the hood.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m gonna take position here and blow some fuckers away.” He plants his elbows and leans on the hood.

“You look like a cop in a shootout,” I tell him.

“That’s the point. Rickett said to do it like they do in the movies, so here I go.” He smiles and hums the tune from Cops. He braces and aims, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself.

The gunshot echoes and Benny works the lever to put another bullet into the chamber. “I missed,” he says. “I told you I need the practice.”

For his next shot, he doesn’t hum. He braces himself and fires and the closest bee jerks a little but continues to move at the same pace. “Damnit,” he says, pumping the lever again. He fires a third time and the bee crumples. “BLAM! Motherfucker!” He pumps his fist and looks to me. “Did you see that? Hell yeah! One down and two to go.”

It takes Benny three more shots to get the other two to fall. Excited with himself, Benny yells and cusses as the corpses, banging on the hood and patting himself on the back. “This is awesome, man. I’ve never felt this kind of rush before. Now I know why the exterminators would bait these bastards. Let’s go check it out.”

I hesitate before getting out of the truck. I make sure to take the 9mm with me just in case more bees come from the woods. Benny grabs some more ammo and reloads the rifle as we walk towards the corpses. Two females and one male lie amongst the grass and weeds that fill the 80 or so yards that separate the trees from the road.

“Look at the poor sons-a-bitches.” Benny shakes his head at the bodies, still loading his gun. He’s put about four rounds into the cartridge when one female bee moves and tries to push herself up. Blood pumps from the two bullet holes in her stomach and her chest. We can see where she was bitten by something as her jeans are torn around her thigh, showing a massive chunk of her leg missing, revealing bone and muscle. “Shit man!” Benny tries to load faster. I take a few steps forward and point my gun into the woman’s face and squeeze the trigger. The gun recoils and blood splatter billows and then falls to the ground, settling on the grass like dew. The body tumbles down as the other two begin to move.

Benny loads the final bullet and works the lever, points the gun to second female bee’s head and squeezes. I shoot the male in the forehead. Both bodies tumble down. There’s a sense of protection that comes with being able to kill with the squeeze of a finger. I realize I didn’t hesitate or think twice about pulling the trigger. Rickett’s right: the need to survive does change a man.

Benny and I look at each other. “This shit ain’t right,” he says, catching his breath from the shock of what seemed to be moving corpses.

“I don’t know, man. You just got to remember this isn’t your normal stuff. We don’t know what disease this is or maybe it is some conspiracy like Maverick and Rickett said.”

We head back to the truck and wait a few minutes to see if the bodies decide to move again. Benny turns on the radio static and starts tuning again, trying to find something since the classic rock isn’t coming through. “I think it’s safe to declare that a shot to the head does the job,” I say.

“Holy shit, man,” Benny says, “check this out. The Mav is still broadcasting.”

Pulling Triggers

2009-11-11T23:05:00.002-05:00

“Kill it?” Benny holds the shotgun and seems confused. “But—”

“What’s the problem, boy?” Rickett asks, stopping on his way to the kitchen.

“I haven’t really, uh, used one of these before.” Rickett raises an eyebrow and shakes his head.

“Well then what the hell you been doing to survive?”

“Running,” I say, “and using things we knew wouldn’t blow up in our faces.”

“We almost thought about it when we were looking at the guns in Wonder Mart,” Benny adds.

“Wonder Mart?” Rickett laughs. “You mean air rifles? You think you just waltz into any old department store and snatch a rifle or shotgun?” He walks down the hallway and into the kitchen. Benny and I shrug our shoulders at each other before walking onto the porch.

“What the hell is this guy doing drinking coffee when the sun ain’t up?” The sky is pitch black and the conversations between crickets and frogs match the rhythmic throbbing from my hand. I’m longing for Vicodin or something of the sort now.

The porch light turns on and announces Rickett’s entrance to the scene. He sets a steaming cup of coffee on a stool and lights a cigarette. He bends down, scoops up a maglite, turns the light on and pans the beam across the porch and into the brief clearing. “Hmmm,” he says, walking down the steps into the clearing, “it couldn’t have gone too far.”

He swings the light out past the two trucks and down the dirt road. “Bingo. There you are, boys. Is that one of those bees you mentioned?” Benny and I nod our heads as an emaciated figure in tattered clothes snarls and shambles our way.

Rickett returns to the porch to grab his cup of coffee and takes a few short sips. He finishes his cigarette and throws the butt into the flowerpot ashtray. “Sure you’ve never done this before?” He points to the gun and Benny nods. “Well, just hold it like you see in the movies, pump it and pull the trigger.”

Benny pulls the gun up and rests the stock partially on his right shoulder. I stay focused on the bee slowly making its way to us while Benny takes a few deep breaths before closing his eyes and pulling the trigger.

The thunderous clap makes me flinch and a loud, painful ringing fills my ears. Rickett laughs and Benny drops the gun, shaking his right arm and hand. “Holy shit, man! Damnit that hurt!”

“Next time you don’t know how to do something, ask someone.” Rickett laughs some more and almost spills his coffee in the process. Benny looks ridiculed and broken as he hangs his head and rubs his shoulder. “You didn’t even hit it!”

The figure still moves at a slow pace towards Rickett’s house. Every few feet, the bee tastes the air. Rickett sets his coffee down on the stool again and picks up the gun. He pumps it and says, “Gavin, you ever handled one of these?”

“No, sir,” I respond, shaking my head.

“Well, you two boys need to learn something besides bats and knives if you want to survive.” He steps down from the porch into the clearing. I take a cigarette from his pack on the stool and light it, eagerly waiting to see how Rickett’s first confrontation with a bee will go.

He simply walks off into the darkness, leaving the maglite on the porch. I grab the light and shine it down the dirt road just in time to see Rickett stop about 50 feet or so from the bee. He points and fires. The bee’s throat explodes and its body crumples to the ground. Rickett shoulders the gun, pivots and says, “Bring that light down here. I want to get a look-see at this thing.”

The bee continues to move towards Rickett, dragging itself, a large hole in its throat pumping blood onto the ground. Rickett approaches it until he stands only a few feet away. The gun discharges again and the maglite’s beam highlights an orange cloud billowing from Rickett’s ankles to his knees.

******

“If I didn’t know any better, this thing looks like it’s been dead for a few days.” Rickett talks as we three hover over the bee, its fragmented head barely connected to the body. The bee’s blood mixes with the dirt around it, creating a thick sludge. Rickett takes the light and pans over the body from head to toe, toe to head.

“But how is that possible?” It’s the first thing Benny’s said since his failed attempt to kill the bee. “I mean, something that’s dead doesn’t walk around, right?”

“Only in your nightmares,” Rickett answers. “That’s the only time the dead are supposed to haunt you.”

“So now we have cannibalistic dead people walking around?” I’m either scared, confused or exhausted. I can’t quite tell the difference anymore.

Rickett doesn’t take his eyes off the body. “I’ve seen a lot of dead shit, and this thing, before I shot it of course, looked dead.”

Benny takes a step back. “So what do we do?”

“I don’t know about you boys, but in a few hours, I’m going to head over to my sisters to assess the situation. I want to make sure she’s alright and that these things aren’t messing with her.” I like this man, putting his family before himself.

“Well, like we told you earlier,” I say, “these things normally travel in swarms. We’ve only seen one that was solo. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more around here right now.”

“Get inside,” Rickett shines the light around the yard and woods, “now!”

******

“First things first,” Rickett says, slapping a rifle and a handgun down on the dining table in the kitchen, “you need to learn how to kill from a distance.” Pointing to the rifle, he says, “This here is a 30-30. It’s your basic hunting rifle.” He lights a cigarette and points to the handgun. “This here is a 9mm. Good for one hand. Just don’t drop it,” he says, looking to Benny. Benny looks away.

He shows me how to fill a clip, load a clip and to pull the slide before firing. He teaches Benny how to load the rifle, to work the lever, and to brace for recoil.

Rickett takes us outside, shows us how to stand when firing and shows us how to aim. After a few practice rounds, he takes us inside and watches us reload the weapons, making sure we point the muzzles away and that we put the ammunition into the magazines correctly. I try to reload the weapon fast, but I keep fumbling bullets and the clip itself. My hand throbs and steals my attention as I bang it on the table when trying to load the clip and catch falling bullets. Benny looks proud as he waits for me to finish.

When I finally insert the clip into the gun, Rickett sets down two boxes of ammunition and asks, “You two understand now?”

“Yes, sir,” we answer. Rickett leaves the room and we look at the weapons before us. The sun has finally risen and its light spills into the kitchen.

“Here,” Rickett says, walking into the kitchen and tossing us a pair of keys. “Those go to the black truck outside.” I sip from a cup of coffee and Rickett takes a drag from his cigarette. Benny sits and fidgets impatiently.

“Where are we going?” Benny asks.

“We?” Rickett looks at him with an arched eyebrow. “I’m heading to my sister’s place to see what’s going on over there, to make sure everyone’s alright.” Any time he mentions this, I think of my family and how I’ve done nothing to help them, nothing to save them. “I want you two to turn left on the highway and head about two hours northwest. You’ll hit a place called Brightmoor. It isn’t anything fancy, but it’s better than sitting out in the woods and waiting.”

“Are you going to be alright by yourself?” I don’t want Rickett to leave, and I’m not sure how stable Benny will be when it’s just us two again.

“Gavin, I think it’s you two who need the help. I can handle my own.” He walks over to the sink and uses the faucet to extinguish the cigarette. “When you hit a gas station, fill up and see what’s going on. If I don’t see you in Brightmoor in less than 24 hours, keep moving—”

“North,” I say, “we’ll keep moving north.”

“North it is then,” Rickett says, nodding his approval.

******

“I’ll drive,” I say, snatching the keys from the table.

“It’ll be easy for you since it’s an automatic. Used to be my youngest son’s truck.” We follow Rickett outside.

Benny tosses our bags into the truck bed, hops into the passenger seat and sets his rifle on the gun rack mounted in the back of the cab. Rickett locks up the house and then heads to the green truck. “Remember, 24 hours,” he says. “If I don’t find you in 24 hours, keep moving. Let’s just hope this isn’t as serious as we fear it may be.” I nod and he gets into the other truck. Rickett leaves a cloud of dirt behind him as he barrels down the path through the woods, eager to see to the safety of his sister’s family.

“Let’s go sunshine. I’m done with this place. I need something with some music and cable.” I start the truck and head down the path towards the road, driving past the rotting corpse that Rickett shot early in the morning as we head to the highway. Benny clicks on the radio and starts tuning through the static.

“Think we’ll see him again?”

“Shit,” Benny says, “if we do, I’m gonna make his ass chop some wood.” My Benny, the old Benny, resurfaces. “Now where’s the fucking music?”

Rickett’s Logic

2009-11-11T22:27:00.001-05:00

“No, I can’t say that I have.” I have no logical reasons, no real knowledge of rabies. I never paid attention to the world outside. I never cared enough.

“Yeah, me too. I mean, no, I haven’t.” Benny looks to me then to Rickett before refocusing on his plate. I sip my beer.

“Is it clicking yet?” Rickett takes a few more bites and pushes his plate to the side.

“Are you saying this is some type of conspiracy?” He’s got my curiosity peaked now.

“I don’t care if it’s a conspiracy or not. I don’t work for the government anymore. I could give two shits what they’re hiding if they’re hiding anything. The point is that it ain’t rabies.” Rickett lights a cigarette and leans his head back to exhale the smoke up into the rotating ceiling fan. I watch the blades catch and disperse the smoke.

“What else could it be?” Benny shoves the last piece of his pork chop into his mouth and chews.

“The hell if I know. But if you boys are telling the truth, then it sounds like it’s a hell of a lot worse than rabies. Could be terrorism, chemical warfare, some virus. Who knows?” He laughs. “Hell, I didn’t even know anything was going on until you boys showed up. It’s a perk of being a recluse.”

Rickett offers us second helpings of pork chops and green beans and we gladly take them. “Eat up boys. I’m gonna finish up my smoke on the porch. We can chat out there when you’re done. And Benny, bring me a beer on your way out.” He puts his plate on the kitchen counter next to the two compartment sink before stepping out of the kitchen. We hear the front door open and close before we even say a word to each other.

“This dude’s fucking nuts, Gav,” Benny whispers, leaning over his plate. He sits back and cuts his chop. “He’s got me chopping wood for Christ’s sake. Damned bees everywhere and I’m fucking chopping wood. Ain’t that some bullshit?”

“We did get dinner—”

“Jesus, Gav. He blew your fucking hand off!” Benny’s reminder brings back the pain, the discomfort and the slow, pulsating flame from my pinky to my elbow.

“Damnit Benny, you killed the last person we talked to! C’mon man, we need to talk to someone, we need some human contact. He can help us. He already helped me.”

I need this, more than I needed Maria, more than I need Benny right now. This moment, these events make me believe that it’s not as bad as I thought. Maybe everyone else is safe. Maybe Addison and my parents aren’t in danger.

But I can’t wait too long.

“I told you it was the bees, Gavin.” Benny’s words push my thoughts to the side. “But you know what? I don’t need you to believe me. First chance we get, we need to bail.”

“Benny, we don’t even know where the hell we are.” I take a sip of beer and cut a slice from the chop. “We should sleep a night, at least. Then we can go. But we could use some decent rest and maybe a shower or something.” I eat the slice. “Besides, I would love to wash these clothes. We smell, man. We fucking smell bad.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. One night. Then we leave.” He pounds the rest of his beer. “But if he keeps calling me ‘boy’ and making me do work, I’m gonna snap.”

I’m afraid we’ve both snapped, Benny. We snapped a long time ago.

******

There’s a nice breeze that flows across the porch. Rickett sets up another stool for Benny. I take the bench, and drape my injured hand along the back, letting it rest and stay elevated. The throbbing isn’t so bad when I’m thinking about other things. Things like my family, surviving, or taking a shower.

To try and strike up conversation, Benny asks, “So how did you end up out here, Rickett?”

“Family land,” he says. “This land’s been Rickett land for generations.”

“How long were you in the army?”

“Long enough.”

“What about your wife? Your sons?”

“Wife went away after my sons died.”

“They died?” Benny asks, frustrated by Ricketts consistently short answers. “Both of them?”

“I told you they saw a lot of chemicals.” He talks with a straight face, looking up into the sky every few minutes or so and taking a drag from his cigarette here or there. “Got a sister bout twenty miles east. She’s got some farmland. Makes me not have to go to the town too often.”

“What are you like a hermit or some shit?”

“Boy, when you deal with as much death and destruction as I have, the last thing you want to be a part of it a ‘so-called’ civilization. When I walk into a town, I see how I fought for nothing, that my sons died for people who complain about not having enough freedoms. So I stay out here. ” He points to the woods around him, his cigarette leaving a trail of smoke behind it. “Look around. This is what I fought for. This is my America. Here I have my peace.”

He asks us about ourselves. There is so much that people can learn when someone else asks the questions. I learn Benny’s an only child whose father died when he was around ten years old. He never went to college. Never wanted to. He moved to River’s Edge to get a job at the mills. He couldn’t hold it down, so he bounced around from employer to employer. His only care was to pay the bills, to be his own man, to survive.

I tell him how my family was normal: high school lovers for parents and only one sister. She’s in college up north, a college I attended for three semesters. College wasn’t for me, but neither were the mills. I didn’t know what I wanted when I left home or college, and I still don’t know what I want—especially after everything that’s happened.

We take turns telling the story of how we met. My car breaking down, Benny just hanging out on top of a building. We discussed the ups and downs, the emotional shifts between us. We talk about the girl at the Quick-Stop, the Wonder Mart’s employee, how Benny picked a fight with a swarm and received two scratches on his arm. Benny left out how he tried to bail, and to keep things smooth, I left it out too.

I talk to Rickett about Maria, only discussing her good qualities: how she wanted to survive and how she lead us to safety. Towards the end, Benny speaks up to discuss the onslaught of bees that ran him and Maria down and how he “valiantly” tried to save her. My brain says, “Tell Rickett how things really went down. Tell him Benny murdered Maria. Tell him Benny wanted to leave you.” But my gut says, “Shut the fuck up,” and the conflict between my body and mind overpowers the pain from my hand.

This is too much. It hurts too much. All of it. The world is one big throbbing wound in my life.

“Sounds like you boys been through a hellstorm and back,” Rickett says after returning from the kitchen with a few more beers in his hands. We have another round. “You’ll learn.”

“Learn what?” I light the last cigarette from Maria’s pack.

“You’ll learn that the necessity to survive changes you. Whether you like it or not, you boys have changed.” He lights a cigarette and takes a deep pull. “And if everything you say is true, this is only the beginning.” We look at the sky, all three of us, almost as if it was choreographed. “The world is fucked,” he says, “And we are all just a few of the parts that make it that way.”

I don’t want to believe he’s right, but everything I’ve seen and done to this point just reaffirms his comment.

******

The bright light and door slamming wakes me up. Benny murmurs and I can’t make out what Rickett says. My hand sends its pain coursing through my body in rhythmic beats. Even the slightest movement cramps my arm and I wince and cringe. I open my eyes but can’t much through the tears from the pain. I push my face into the pillow, letting the cover pull the water from my eyes.

“I said get up!” Rickett moves to look out the window. “Something’s outside.” He carries a shotgun in his hand. I look around the spare bedroom, the room where his sons once slept. Benny sits on the other twin bed, rubbing his eyes and muttering something. I jump up and put on the clean clothes that Rickett gave us.

“What’s out there?” I don’t see anything but darkness.

“I think it’s one of those bees you mentioned.” Rickett stands in blue jeans and a white undershirt, shotgun propped on his shoulder. “I saw something when I was drinking some coffee on the porch. It was someone just wandering through the woods. It stopped near the trucks and started flicking its tongue out like a frog and then crouched down.”

“We’ve seen them do that before.” I say as Benny jumps up and quickly dresses. “They were doing that when there were others around. But those others were already dead or hurt or something.”

“Well, we’re about to give them another reason to flick their tongue: to taste a bullet coming.”

Rickett hands the gun to Benny and says, “Kill it. I’m gonna pour myself another cup of coffee.”