The Zed Files: The Hanging Tree Part 7

Or nice.

I hear a human voice up by the front gate. Daisy is leaning over the rail of the catwalk, swaying in the steady rain. She's holding a mostly empty bottle of Jim Beam in her right hand. Beneath her, pieces and parts of our target practice session are being trampled into the mud by the gathering crowd. A long string of drool hangs from her lips and dribbles onto the Zed directly below her. "What're you look'n at?" she asks the Zed. He looks to have been in his mid-30's and still has a 'Ford' hat stuck to his decaying head. His brown canvas jacket is torn at the sleeve as is the arm inside. He looks up at her and snaps his lipless mouth.

I approach slowly and take the bottle out of her hand. "Maybe you should get inside, get warm. Drink a little water."

"Maybe you should shut the f.u.c.k up and go away," she says without looking up. "See that one?" she asks as she points at her admirer. "I've seen him before. I seen him and a thousand more just like him."

A small clap of thunder rolls overhead. She grabs onto a rope that swings from the framework of the front gate. "Yeah, we've all seen thousands of them," I tell her. "And there's a lot more come'n."

She shakes her head no without turning around. "No. I mean I seen him before. At the club. I'd spin around on the pole and let all of them look at my p.u.s.s.y and then they'd just stare at me. Just like that guy." The Zed below continues to stare upwards. Daisy raises her s.h.i.+rt for him; her perfectly shaped fake b.r.e.a.s.t.s hang pale and unnatural in the dying light of the evening. "How you like that now, f.u.c.ker?" Her voice changes to that of a little girl's. "Are you in from out of town? Where's the party at later, baby? $50 for a private dance after my set."

Tyler calls up from behind me, "What are you doing?"

Daisy turns and leans out over the back edge of the catwalk. "Look. It's my boyfriend. The last man on earth."

Tyler turns and leaves.

"Bye, baby," Daisy calls out in her baby doll voice. "Hurry back soon, okay honey? G.o.d knows I can't live without you." She hangs him the finger and turns back to gaze over the wall. "Oh sorry, baby. Don't be jealous. You're the only fella for me tonight," she pouts to the Zed.

She winds the rope around her wrist and tries to hoist a leg up on to the wall. "Look, baby, I'll do a special dance just for you."

She jumps at the sound of the shot, falling backwards onto the rope she's holding. The Zed slumps forward into the wall with a thud, the small hole in his forehead funneling out to the much larger hole that sits where the back of his head used to be. Another Zed steps on his body and takes his place at the front. This one has on a golf s.h.i.+rt and chinos. He clacks his teeth up at me. "Shows over," I tell him and re-sling my rifle. I look at Daisy and smile.

"I don't like you," she tells me.

"You're probably not alone," I tell her as I turn and leave.

Kevin and Tyler are standing in the doorway of the main house when I get there. "Problems?" Kevin asks.

"You might wanna go pull her down off of there. Gravity's a harsh mistress."

Tyler starts to head out but Kevin catches him by the arm. "You'll get what you want if you don't sulk. b.u.t.t-hurt feelings are for people with time. You ain't got time."

Tyler looks at me with a blank stare. "What the f.u.c.k do either of you know?"

Kevin lets go of Tyler's arm. "You know, I was fish'n years ago with my dad. Neither of us was catching anything. I asked him, 'Which lure are you use'n?' And he said, 'Son, you never ask a man who ain't catch'n fish what lure he's use'n. Cuz it don't matter.'" Tyler's brow wrinkles slightly into a question. "I'm catch'n fish. You ain't."

Almost on cue, Betty brushes past Kevin without saying a word to anyone. She heads to the front of the compound to get Daisy. Karen emerges from the main house after her and slides her arm through mine and pulls me towards the bath house. I wonder as I walk, how far down you can swallow a hook before you can't spit it out again.

Chapter 14: Arriving and Departing.

My arm is asleep. I start to move it but there's something heavy pressing down on it. My eyes open to the first gray tones of the morning and find Karen's head on my shoulder. The rest of her is curled up next to me, hand on my chest. She stirs slightly as I try to reposition myself a little without waking her up.

Oh yeah. I remember now. All this is happening.

The last few still frames of a dream flutter away out of my conscious mind. I shut my eyes and run after them before they are gone. I'm on horseback, riding hard through an autumn woods with other riders in pursuit. Sunlight comes through yellow leaves as the chestnut colored mare works her way across the hilltop. We're going fast, leaving the rest behind. The woods break into a clearing. We're high above on a finger of land that drops away on three sides. The riders behind me are coming. I dismount, pull my rifle from the scabbard, slap the mare on her a.s.s and send her running. She'll find me later. Walk to the last tree, raise the gun and squeeze the trigger as the first rider approaches...

I jump as a shot sounds from the front gate. Engines rev, voices shout and more shots roll through the morning. Karen jerks awake too and we both set about dressing quickly. I reach for a boot and start to haul it onto my foot when she suddenly turns, grabs my head and kisses me deeply. And then she's up and out the door, rifle in hand.

I shake my head and lace up my boot. "Too G.o.dd.a.m.ned early in the morning for all of this s.h.i.+t." I can see the others milling around in the courtyard, signaling to each other and talking quietly. I grab my gear, my AR and my smokes and walk slowly out of the bath house.

"Well," Kevin says quietly as I walk out. "Whadya reckon?"

A stray round zips through the flimsy metal on the gate and ricochets on the ground by my foot. I keep talking while I brush the splattered mud off my leg. "I reckon we oughta get out of the middle of the open ground." We all move up behind the rain barrels at the front of the compound. A live human hand is reaching through the hole in the gate trying desperately to open the lock. Behind the gate and behind the hand, exhaust rolls black into the sky as something large moves along the wall of the compound.

I move up to the catwalk on the west side of the gate and quietly climb the ladder. Karen is behind me as is Tyler. Kevin and Betty are on the bowling scaffolding. Daisy is nowhere to be seen. From the other side of the wall I can hear a man's voice above the drone of the engines and gunfire. "Whadya mean, locked? Just open the G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing." After a couple seconds, the man's voice comes in again as though he's shouting through cupped hands, "Bob! Chuck! It's us. Open the gates. Bob?"

I steal a glance over the top of the logs. There's a man standing in the back of the black and yellow pickup I saw at the hanging tree. He's waving a big revolver around, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. His hair is greyish-white, long and wild. I make him out to be in his late 40's if only because of the dark mustache that sits above his lips. The rest of his face is clean shaven giving him an Albert Einstein appearance. I raise my head a little higher to see what's going on directly below me. A tractor with a front-end loader is scooping the pile of Zed bodies out from in front of the gate. A tractor. Red and white International Harvester. Jesus. Almost the same exact identical f.u.c.king tractor as...

The man in the back of the pickup has spotted me and I duck back down. s.h.i.+t.

"Cut it, cut it," the man yells and all of the engines switch off. Everything is quiet for a minute. A high pitched laugh sounds through the silence. Kevin looks at me from across the gate with a raised eyebrow. "Um," the voice starts still laughing, "Well... I don't know. Whadya say now? I don't know what you say with..." His voice drops into a mock seriousness. "Um, yes. h.e.l.lo in there. We'd uh, like to come in now. If that's okay." A long pause. "h.e.l.lo?"

Another voice sounds from over the wall. It is much angrier and serious. "Open the gates now or we will kill all of you when we knock the gates down. You have thirty seconds to comply."

"Thirty seconds?" the first voice asks. "What kind of... uh, ignore him. Ignore that. We're not going to... we'd just like to come in and get the h.e.l.l out of this zombie infested woods." The voice drops down in volume. "We could hang out, play some cards, have a few drinks. I dunno."

I stand up and look over the wall. They could easily take the front end loader and knock the gate down like a playing card. Karen stands up beside me. Everyone else remains crouched down. The scene below me is not what I expect.

The tractor driver is sitting casually with one arm on the steering wheel of the tractor while the man in the back of the truck is leaning over the cab. The big pistol he was holding earlier is lying on the metal roof in front of him. His hands are folded across his chest and he bounces a little on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. Next to the truck, a big man with an athletic frame and closely cropped black hair is pointing a rifle at me. Behind the Ford pickup sits the jeep with the mounted .50 cal. A young red-headed boy of about 13 mans the gun. He peers intently down the barrel as he aims at my head. I hear a bolt close directly beneath me but I decide not to look over the wall straight down. I already know they are standing there with weapons pointed upwards.

Karen has her rifle ready. I lean mine against the wall and take out a cigarette. "How's it going?"

The man in the truck pushes out his bottom lip and nods. "Well, you know. Kinda hectic. Little chaotic. Not bad, though really."

I light up my cigarette and drop the lit match straight down. One of the voices below me quietly says, "s.h.i.+t," and I hear the squishy sounds of feet moving on very wet mud.

"I'm Ray, and uh..." he sweeps an upturned hand around in a half circle, "these are my merry men." He lets out a short laugh at his own remarks. "I see you've moved into our little home away from home."

I nod slowly and suck in a lung full of smoke. The hot-head with the rifle is still concentrating very hard on aiming at my head. The kid on the .50 looks back and forth from him to Ray to me. "Nice digs," I tell Ray and exhale. "I'm Billy. This is Karen."

A tree branch thrashes wildly behind Ray as another Zed appears. The men on the ground that we can see all look behind them quickly just in time to see a slug from Karen's rifle tear the Zed's bottom jaw down and off. The Zed slumps into a pile. Angry guy flinches the hardest and moves up behind the truck to aim at Karen. Karen racks the slide and lowers her rifle.

Ray lets out another quacking, high pitched laugh. "Wow. Hey, I like her." He picks up the big pistol and shoves it into his holster. "Listen, why don't we come in, introduce ourselves properly? We've lost about half our guys in the last couple of days, and you know, h.e.l.l, we could just hang out in there. Whadya think?"

I look at the others crouched behind the wall. Kevin has sat down and fired up a bowl. Betty sits beside him dangling her legs off the scaffolding. Tyler has both Berettas out and is breathing heavily. I take another drag off the Camel. "Yeah, sure. Why not? But tell Laughing Boy there to calm the f.u.c.k down. And quit pointing that G.o.dd.a.m.ned rifle at us."

"Tom," Ray says with a parental air, "you can relax now. Deep breaths, buddy. In with the good air, out with the bad. We talked about this."

Tom lowers his weapon slightly and jogs to the gate, still in full combat readiness. His arm bulge from years of working out and every vein in his neck sticks out. He must be some kind of Special Forces guy. Or just some other kind of a.s.shole.

"Get the gate," I tell Tyler.

"Why me?" His voice is a little high and squeaky.

I flick my cigarette b.u.t.t out in the compound. "Cuz you're the only one who knows how. Bob showed you and now Bob's dead. I don't know how to work the f.u.c.king thing."

Tyler safeties both pistols awkwardly and puts them in his waistband before turning to crawl down. As he steps, they both fall out of his waistband and into a puddle. I hear Kevin laugh from the other scaffolding. Betty is covering her mouth pretending not to laugh.

Tyler retrieves them and throws a few levers on the gate to open it up. All of the engines outside start up and the tractor rolls in first with the scoop raised high. Tom walks in nervously beside it checking all around. Ray enters next and points to the driver, telling him where to park. The jeep with the mounted gun pulls in last followed by about a half a dozen people all carrying various kinds of rifles and shotguns. They look around uneasily and move towards the pickup.

Ray dismounts from the back of the truck in a small hop and walks towards me. "Billy, right?" I nod. "Well, William," Ray begins but then pauses and looks around with a big smile. "It's someth'n ain't it?"

I nod and offer him a cigarette. He holds up his hand and shakes his head, "No, no thanks. Those things will kill ya." Again with the laugh. He runs his thumbs around on the inside of his waistband and looks around the compound. "I uh," Ray mutters while clearing his throat. In a very quiet voice he leans forward and asks, "What do we do now?"

Tom answers his question with a shot towards the front gate. A large teenage girl with only a partial arm drops down by the still open gate. "Alright, listen up." He holds his rifle pointed straight up with the b.u.t.t cradled in the crook of his elbow. "You and you, close that gate. You three over there, I need a list of resources. I want sentries on all four corners of the compound up on the catwalk. We need to work out s.h.i.+fts..."

The unsmiling and filthy members of Ray's merry men all begin to move towards the bunker. Ray dismisses Tom with a swatting motion. "You guys didn't drink all the booze, didja?" Tom jogs off disgustedly to close the gate. Kevin, Karen and Tyler all head to the bunker as well. Betty heads back in to check on Daisy.

"Nah. We didn't find it till yesterday afternoon when Chuck and Bob showed us."

"Hey," Ray says perking up and pointing his finger and thumb at me, "Yeah, Christ, I forgot all about those two for a second. Where the h.e.l.l is One-Eyed Bob and Dumb Chuck?"

I pause for a minute and slowly suck in a hit of cigarette smoke with my left hand while moving my right hand around to rest on the b.u.t.t of the .45. "Dead."

Ray nods slightly and sizes me up. He wants to ask but doesn't. "Well. s.h.i.+t happens, I guess." He shrugs but it looks more like a flinch. He pauses and then brings his eyes down into slits and points at me again.

"Bob thought it would be a good idea to lock us up in the bunker. I decided it wouldn't be a good idea."

Ray's mock serious expressions gives way slowly to a smile. "Ya see? Those two f.u.c.king guys. I caught Bob talking s.h.i.+t the other night so I told them, 'You wanna go on up there, go. Get out. Good luck. If you know so d.a.m.n much... '" He leans in again. "Bob kinda thought he should be running things and then this other yahoo," Ray points his thumb behind him to Tom, "This f.u.c.king guy shows up yesterday." His eyes roll up into his head. He steps back away from me again. "You know, I'm just trying to have a little fun with all of this. Ride around, take what you need. We don't have to work anymore, no more G.o.dd.a.m.ned television, no insurance, no taxes. No traffic. These are great times if you think about it. Kind of a dream come true. We just need to you know, relax with it all a little."

Tom approaches us. "You the C.O.?" he asks me.

I almost suppress a smile. Ray's eyes roll into his head again. I shake my head no. "We're an autonomous collective."

Ray lets a "ha" slip. Tom remains unfazed. He stares into me with dark little lumps of coal. "We've got a s.h.i.+t-storm rolling in on us. There are more of these f.u.c.king things coming than you can even begin to wrap your mind around. If I hadn't lucked into a crotch rocket with a tank of gas, I'd be as stone dead as the rest of my brothers."

Ray's eyes dart back and forth between us like he's watching a tennis game. I blow a plume of smoke at Tom. "And?"

His head c.o.c.ks to one side. "And? What the h.e.l.l do you mean, 'and'?"

"Well, we're in a walled off compound. We've got food, water, shelter, ammunition. We got a bunker to crawl into if everything goes wrong. What do you propose that we do that we ain't already done?"

"We need a chain of command," Tom says through gritted teeth. "This isn't going to work as some f.u.c.king hippie commune." He looks over at Ray. "And since there is no clear leaders.h.i.+p here, I'd say we're going to do things my way." To emphasis his point, he brings his rifle up and points it at my stomach.

A high pitched wail comes from the main house. We all turn to look but none of us move right away. Tom waggles the end of his rifle at me, "Go check it out."

Ray and I enter the house with Tom behind us. We can hear a clucking noise coming from the back room followed by a huge gasp of air. Betty sits on the floor crumpled into a pile beside Daisy's lifeless body. Her eyes are closed and she looks more peaceful than I have seen anyone look in a long time. A bracelet of candy bar wrappers adorns her ashen wrist, an empty bottle of pills sits open on her stomach like the shed skin of a poisonous snake. Betty's body shakes silently as the grief pulls her down.

"What the f.u.c.k is this?" Tom asks. His voice draws something cold down into my chest.

"Well, genius," Ray answers with his arms held out to his sides, "what the f.u.c.k does it look like?"

Tom turns to say something to Ray but the words never leave his mouth. The .45 is fast and loud and accurate as all h.e.l.l from two feet away. The bullet tears a great b.l.o.o.d.y hole under Tom's ear and snaps his strong jaw line. His neck, as big around as my leg, folds to the side and the left side of his head leaves a red and blue spray in the dark room. His body collapses to the floor with his nose leading the way.

Ray's mouth is still open as he very slowly turns to look at me. His eyes are wide with fear and shock and surprise. I safety the pistol and return it to the small of my back.

The ringing in my ears is louder now, louder than it was even after killing Bob. I can only partially hear Betty as she begins screaming. She's still screaming when I leave the house.

Chapter 15: Two Tickets to Paradise.

Tyler didn't say much. He had simply come in, scooped up Daisy's body in his arms and carried her out. Or tried anyway. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He barely got through the door of the house before he had to stop and set her body down. She was too heavy. He was too skinny.

"You want some help?" I ask him. Tyler remains on his knees in the mud, head down, getting soaked in the pouring rain. He finally looks up to the sky before shaking his head 'no.'

"Ah, h.e.l.l," Kevin says and walks forward. Kevin is about three times as big as Tyler. He scoops her up in his arms like a load of limp firewood and asks Tyler where to go. They head around the corner of the main house away from where we buried Chuck and Bob. Betty follows them, eyes puffy and cheeks red.

"What happened?" Karen asks as she walks up. The newcomers stand in a group away from us and talk quietly to each other. The red-headed boy who was on the .50 stands apart from them and speaks to no one.

"Daisy checked herself out," I tell Karen. "And Tom," I put another cigarette in my mouth, "Tom's not giving orders anymore."

Ray approaches with the man who had been driving the tractor. "This is Hank," Ray says and points with his thumb. "He's our tractor expert. I had him dig a grave over in the corner. We can just load what's-his-nuts in the front scoop and dump him over there. I mean, if that's alright with you. Don't wanna p.i.s.s you off. You know..." Ray is smiling as he says it but he still looks scared. Hank doesn't seem to give a s.h.i.+t one way or the other.

"Good idea. He's a big b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Hate to have to carry him. Let's drag him out."

Inside, I roll Tom over with my foot. He's got a nice tactical vest on. A good knife. Lots of ammo. I start pulling his vest off as Ray holds his arm. We take his rifle, a pistol, three knives, a lighter. Something heavy sits in the front pocket of his vest. I pull out two metal b.a.l.l.s with handles and pins.

Grenades.

"Not much good for zombies," I tell Ray. "Wann'em?"

Ray takes them; his eyes are wild like a kid at Christmas. "You don't want these? I mean, I kind of figure you're the uh," he pauses for a short laugh. "Well, I kinda figure you're the head honcho now. You might want these."

I put Tom's zippo into my pants pocket as I stand up. "I ain't in charge of s.h.i.+t. I just don't like being told what to do. Especially by idiots like that guy."

"I can see that, I can see that," Ray says quickly. He rolls the grenades around in his hands. "So what happens if you and I disagree? Or you know, not even me, just anybody. Like Hank here."

Hank's a big guy. But I don't think he even has a pulse he's so calm. "Then we disagree," I tell Ray. "But if you're going to point a gun at me, you better pull the trigger while you've got the chance."

It takes all three of us to haul Tom out and throw him away; throw him away like garbage into the scoop of the tractor. Ray leans over as we watch Hank haul him away. "I'm glad you did that, by the way." His tone is conspiratorial. "You know, that f.u.c.king guy. I just..." The uneasy, off-kilter laugh again. "We've got a good deal going here. If we can uh, just... well. I think this arrangement is pretty good."

Ray's people have come in out of the rain and into the house. All but the kid. The kid remains standing outside in the rain, unsure of what to do with himself. He watches Ray talk with me talk but doesn't approach.

"What's his story?" I ask Ray.

"Oh yeah, yeah. Opie. I have no idea what his real name is. We just have been calling him Opie. He barely talks. In fact, the only people he'll talk to are Dawn and Donna."