The Zed Files: The Hanging Tree Part 12

"So what now?" Eddie asks. He's leaning against Karen and looks exhausted.

"Dunno," I tell him. "Anybody got any ideas?"

"I know what happens now," Ray begins. He sits up straight and looks around the room. "It's over. All of it. It took these things, what? Three weeks? Four weeks? From the time of the rock in the ocean to the first infection to getting here and turning into appetizers? Maybe a little longer? I don't have a clue. But this is it. The cycle is over. All of the chaos and the terror and the freedom... gone, poof." He makes a pinching motion with his hand to punctuate the thought. "And now," he continues, leaning back with his hands intertwined across his legs, "Now it starts all over again. They'll rebuild the factories, they'll reestablish the government, all the rich and powerful m.u.t.h.e.rf.u.c.kers who've been hiding all this time will come out and take over and all the other countries out there who aren't up to their armpits in semi-dead people will try to come over here and Jesus Christ, it just makes my f.u.c.king head hurt."

Kevin laughs and points at Ray with his thumb. He doesn't say anything, just shakes his head.

"You think everything will go back to normal?" Karen asks from my side. The hope in her sentence is only detectable if you're listening for it.

"Normal?" Ray asks. His arms begin to flail again. "What was normal? Jobs we hate to buy gadgets that f.u.c.king text and talk and pop popcorn and wipe our a.s.ses and everybody has to work 60 hours a week just to be able to afford rent and groceries and we all have debt up to our ears. You mean that normal? They've got beagles that glow in the dark now."

"What?" Kevin is laughing. "What in the h.e.l.l does that have to do with anything?" He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye and takes another drag off the joint.

Ray is smiling now too. "They did. These scientists in South Korea or someplace made beagles that glow in the dark. And we 'genetically modified' our food to look perfect and taste like c.r.a.p. It just goes on and on and on. They're trying to supercollide this molecule with that molecule and start up a black hole and there's a floating island of plastic in the ocean the size of Texas. We were just f.u.c.king it all up before this happened. And now we're going to go back to f.u.c.king it all up."

"What did you do before all of this?" Betty asks. "Were you some kind of scientist or journalist or what?"

Ray clears his throat. "I uh," he clears his throat again. "I drove an ice cream truck."

Kevin's head hits the table and rocks there for a moment in silent laughter. Betty snorts and even Karen is smiling.

"Ice cream," Eddie says wistfully.

"Yeah," Ray says with a fake seriousness. "It's the only thing I could think of that let me sleep at night. Can't be a cop, they're all taught it's 'us against them' now. Firefighters are all a.s.sholes; doctors are completely incompetent stooges for the pharmaceutical companies. Dentists are s.a.d.i.s.ts; bankers should all be dipped in boiling acid. Can't have a small farm anymore. I dunno. Everything is just too... psychically... marginalized. There's karma to all that s.h.i.+t."

"What about fat people?" Tyler chimes in from the back of the room. He's smiling too.

"Well," Ray says and fakes another cough. "I always made the fat kids run to catch up with me." More laughter rolls through the room. "Seriously. It may be the only exercise the little porkers got. They may not run for the gym teacher but by G.o.d, they'll chase a f.u.c.king ice cream truck for about three blocks."

My sides hurt from laughing. It's been a long time since I had a good laugh.

The only one not laughing is Little Dawn. She just looks miserable as she stares at her hand. "I'm tired. I want to go to bed," she says in a weak voice.

"I guess we can all sleep down in the bunker," I offer. "At least it's free of brown stuff. Maybe tomorrow we can get the tractor pulled up somehow. Maybe take the Jeep over there and try to get it up and moving. Then we can use the front end scoop to clear the compound. I guess just try and clean the place up tomorrow. Then start going out looking for food." Everyone nods at my plan.

"I don't want to sleep down there again," Karen says quietly.

"Me neither," Eddie chimes in.

Everyone looks around at the main house. Brown stuff is everywhere, on every floor. The path upstairs is lined floor to ceiling on the sides.

"We can check out the bath house I guess." Karen and Eddie stand up to leave with me. "What are you guys going to do?" I ask.

"f.u.c.k that," Ray says as he gets up. "I'm sleeping underground. I don't want to take any chances of having one of those things chewing on my leg when I get up. Next thing you know, you'll be cutting my f.u.c.king arm off and he'll be eating it." Ray points at Kevin to finish his sentence. Kevin laughs some more and ends in a tired sigh. Dawn breaks down sobbing.

Karen, Eddie and I start weaving our way through the alien landscape of the compound. I keep the cleaver out front and Karen and Eddie behind me. The footing is tricky and I stumble several times. I trip and fall over something solid. A horrible smell fills the air. It is the smell of death. The bar of a chainsaw is sticking up.

"Oh my G.o.d," Karen says and covers her mouth. "I think I'm going to barf."

I kick the chainsaw free and see the skeleton of a decomposing hand just beneath it. The hand belongs to someone from the wall, someone who didn't make it to the bunker, didn't change over into a Zed. The horrible smell of rot and death is almost too much stand. I give the saw to Eddie and we push on through.

"That was so bad," Karen says, still covering her mouth.

"Cycle of life," I tell her. "Everything eats everything."

The bath house looks to be relatively free of brown stuff. Eddie and I block the door shut and put boards over the windows, while Karen readies a place for all of us to sleep. Across the other side of the compound, the smell of something frying wafts across to us from the main house again.

Chapter 23: If You Love Something.

We buried Little Dawn in the s.p.a.ce at the back of the compound next to Daisy. She had gone in her sleep as quietly as the snow that now falls. Big Donna wept uncontrollably beside the grave and the only person who could comfort her was Tyler. They both remain behind as we walk away with our shovels.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Ray asks, hands shoved in his pockets. He hadn't done any digging but had come along anyway. Everyone had come except Karen. Ray shakes his head as he walks. "She was fine. No infection. Nothing... I don't get it."

"Well," Kevin begins slowly, "some people just, I dunno, man. They give up." Ray nods and watches his shoes as he walks. The ground is muddy and slick where the front end scoop of the tractor had peeled away a path. "They just ain't got it in'em to go on. Her arm was fine but something inside her broke. Can't do nothing fer it."

The sound of Big Donna sobbing fades into the distance as the big, wet snowflakes fall in a curtain of silence. Little Dawn had never seemed to forgive me. I didn't know her and never cared to know her. I had done what I thought was right in the moment and had even considered my actions to be somewhat heroic. But it appeared on this morning that I had simply prolonged what was inevitable.

"There wasn't anything we could have done, then?" Ray continues in his effort to understand.

"Had me a beagle dog one time," Kevin says as we walk. "Just a regular beagle dog, not a glow in the dark beagle dog." Ray looks up and smiles. "Well, this here beagle got his foot caught in a c.o.o.n trap. Most dogs, h.e.l.l, they'll just chew the leg off and get home. But when I found this'in, it was just sitt'n there, s.h.i.+ver'n and scared. So I took it to the vet, got a cast put on its leg. Paid a s.h.i.+t load of money. Took it back, put it in the kennel in the house. Little blanket, nice and warm. Next morning, dead as a hammer. Just... dead."

"Huh," Ray thinks for a moment. As we approach the front door of the house, Ray finally asks, "So, what does that have to do with this?"

"I dunno, man" Kevin answers with a shrug. "I just thought it might help."

From the main house, I can see Karen walking slowly back into the bath house. She's wiping her mouth and holding her stomach. Kevin sees me looking and watches with me. When I look at him, one eyebrow is c.o.c.ked up into a smiling question. "She sick again this morning?" He nudges me with his elbow. I kind of feel like throwing up myself.

"Noooo way," Ray says and snaps his fingers at me. "Holy s.h.i.+t. She's not... you know... knocked up? Is she? She is. I knew she was. She is, isn't she?"

I shrug my shoulders this time. But we all know. I head back up to the bath house to find her sitting on the bed, crying uncontrollably. The inside of my chest burns hot and I have trouble drawing a deep breath. She sits looking at the ground with both arms wrapped around her. Part of me thinks I should go put my arm around her. The other part is just flat. And dead. Like Daisy and Dawn in their graves behind the house.

"I don't want this," Karen says with a big, snotty s...o...b..r. "I don't want to live in this f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t-a.s.s world and I don't want to bring a baby into it." The mention of the word baby is like a kick in the stomach. I swallow down some of the acid that's bubbled up into my mouth. "You could have ended this. You could have just..." she lets the thought go but the weight of it hangs in the air.

I hear the door open behind me and I know without looking that Eddie is standing there. The door shuts again softly and I turn to see him heading up to the main house, one hand in his pocket and the other grasping the little Ruger. Two squirrel tails hang out of the pouch across his shoulder. If it wasn't for him, I don't think we'd ever have any meat to eat.

I turn back to the drama in front of me. "Well," I say with a deep sigh. "What do you want me to do?" She shakes her head and doesn't say anything. But I can see another hysterical crying fit coming, so I move to the bed and put my arm around her.

She collapses against me and then punches me hard in the top of my thigh, the undamaged one. I move my wounded thigh away from her. "G.o.d d.a.m.n you," is all that comes out but she doesn't move away from me. I give her a squeeze and kiss the top of her head. She rolls my hand in hers and in a small, cracking voice asks, "What do you think of me? What do you feel about me?"

I sigh heavily before answering. "I don't know really." She nods slightly and I watch her shoulders start to shake. "It's not you," I tell her. But this sounds like bulls.h.i.+t. Even though it is true. "I just," I search the wall and the floor for the right way to put it. "I don't feel things like I used to feel them. Which doesn't make much sense but after I had to shoot my father..."

She sits straight up and looks at me with shocked and shattered blue eyes. "You had to do what?"

I tell her of the tractor and the morning that Dad's muddy boot slipped off the right rear brake as his sleeve hooked the accelerator. How I was coming back from rabbit hunting and got to the feeder pen just as the big International Harvester walked up on the feed trough and flipped over, the arm rest square across his back, his leg sticking out an impossible angle from the rear tire. "I saw the whole thing and I still don't know how he ended up pinned like that. It was like the whole thing was spring loaded."

Her face is blank now. She's overwhelmed by her condition and my story. I haven't told her the worst part yet but I can't stop now. My body feels weightless and I can't feel my pulse as I go back into the memory. "It is hard to talk about without sounding like I'm fis.h.i.+ng for sympathy or trying to make it more dramatic. But some things are just f.u.c.ked up."

"So you shot him?" she asks when I can't decide how to go on.

"Yeah," I answer with a big exhale. "I was coming back from hunting, like I said. Got a couple of rabbits, a quail. Had that single barrel 12 gauge. It just looked like it was unbearable and G.o.d knows I'd put enough cows and dogs down when they were hurt'n. So I thumbed the hammer back, lined up and just... let him have it."

Her hand comes to my shoulder but now she doesn't know what to say. "So then the sheriff had to come out. And there was an investigation. Coroner said Dad was pretty much dead when I shot him. Even with a full medical team and a surgery room right there, he wouldn't have made it. So they didn't press charges. But everybody else seemed to make up their own minds. Small towns ain't a great place to live when your life blows up all to s.h.i.+t."

I chew on the inside of my cheek while she digests my story. This still doesn't go too far in figuring out what to do. I finally clear my throat and tell Karen, "I think if I felt stuff like most people did, I'd say I loved you. That's what I oughta feel. And maybe I do. It's just kinda f.u.c.ked up and hard to tell."

I forget my eyes are as dead looking as any Zed that ever walked. She tries to look at me but it's been different since the fever. She still can't look. And my lackl.u.s.ter emotional state leaves her more confused than before. I still have my arm around her but I'm holding onto nothing. She's still suffering. "I do care," I tell her at last. "That much I know. I don't want to see you hurt. And it's like Ray said, the world will start over again. We're not gonna be stuck out here in 'Fort Wayne' forever. And, you know," I swallow hard before the lie, "you'll make a good mother."

She cries some more and finally lies down to take a nap. I step outside into the slow falling snow and light one of my few remaining cigarettes. The tobacco glows ash and the white smoke rolls out and away against the snow.

Big Donna and Tyler are walking into the house. Tyler looks at me but doesn't wave. He still sulks most of the time. Now his misery has company. The two disappear into the warm house and I walk out into the compound to weigh my options.

In the late afternoon, I walk back to the bath house and open the door quietly. Karen has cried herself to sleep but the fire in the woodstove is crackling hot and warm. She looks peaceful in her sleep and her pale skin barely shows above the edge of the wool blankets. Deep inside me, I feel something stir and I realize I do care about her. She carries my child and we have been through so much together. I stand and think about what I should feel and what those feelings might have me do.

I watch her sleep. And I can feel my eyes getting moist. It's what she wants. And I should love her. I think the words without saying them but there is no need to say them since she'll never hear them. I pull the .45 slowly out of my waistband and quietly thumb the hammer back. My hands sweat against the metal and wood, but they do not tremble. It just has to be done.

I move forward quietly to get as close as possible without waking her. The floor is solid and doesn't creak. A glowing coal in the woodstove leaps with a snap and a trail of orange sparks extinguish in midair. To just go to sleep and not wake up. It is a gift. It is all I can offer her.

I bring the .45 around and hold it a few inches away from her ear. But this seems mean for some reason and I move the gun to her temple. One in the head there and then another one if she needs it. She can't suffer anymore. The life inside isn't far enough long to survive for long without her. Maybe I should shoot her down low afterwards to send them both out.

"What are you doing?" Eddie was asleep on the floor behind me. He's watched the whole thing. There's no way to say that I was doing something else. There's no way to explain what I'm doing.

"I..." the words completely leave me. But I leave the gun where it hangs. "I have to help her," I finally tell him. "I can't really explain it to you and have it make sense."

"Then maybe you shouldn't do it until you can explain it and have it make sense." I turn to look at him. His face is calm and free of alarm or judgment. "My dad used to say that just because you feel like doing something, doesn't mean you ought to do it. He used to say, unless you could explain what you were doing and have it make sense, then chances were, it didn't make sense and you shouldn't do it. He used to say that things get twisted up in people's minds and that's why the world was so messed up. He said that people always trust what they feel, but they ought to also listen to what they know."

I look down at Karen. She is awake and listening but hasn't moved. Her eyes track back and forth from me to Eddie. "Your dad sounds like he was a pretty smart guy," I tell him.

"He was," Eddie says. "He told me lots of things and even though he isn't here anymore, I still remember the things he used to say and they help me. The thing I remember the most is when he told me that doing the right thing is almost always the hardest thing."

I nod slowly and safety the pistol. I feel kind of stupid standing there holding it. Especially in front of the kid who had to kill his Zed father with an axe. Karen has removed the blanket from her face but she isn't crying anymore.

"Is this the hardest thing?" Eddie asks me. I shake my head no. "Well, whatever the hardest thing is, you should probably do that. And you'll be fine."

I see Karen move under the blanket, her arm outstretched. I take her by the hand and leave my pistol lying on the table. I curl up next to her and hold her close to me. It is warm in the bed beside her. And crus.h.i.+ng. And horrible. And d.a.m.n near impossible to breathe. She moves my hand down to her belly and smiles back at me. I want to tear out my teeth with pliers and run naked into the night. It must be the right thing to do.

Chapter 24: Compound Interest.

"Hear that?" Ray asks. His mouth is open, ready to take a bite of pan fried brown stuff. "That sounds like..." We all get up from the table of the main house and move to the windows and doors. No one rushes outside. The noise from above is unmistakable. The chopping air and the low rattling can only be a helicopter.

"Should we signal it?" Betty asks, her arm wrapped tightly around Kevin's.

"Or run away," I mutter.

"Nah, we don't need to do nuthin," Kevin says and continues chewing on a piece of squirrel. "They see the smoke coming from the chimney. I reckon they'll stop whether we want'em to or not." He steps just outside the front door and looks to the sky. "They's two of'em."

We all lean out of the house as far as we can to see them. Both helicopters hover over the compound for a moment. It is impossible to see what color they are; only black silhouettes framed against the gray midday sky.

"It's blinking," Ray says from his perch at the side window. "Look at that, right under the thing there. Now look at the roof of the bath house." A bright green laser pulses on the roof of the bath house. Another appears over the ground covering the bunker. "What the f.u.c.k are they doing?"

One of the helicopters drops down closer and a package is shoved out of the side door. A gunner is now visible, the barrel swinging back and forth. The package jerks a few feet below the chopper's skids and a flurry of different colored paper begins to drift down on us. The helicopters hover for a moment and then quickly move off out of sight beyond the tree line.

"Well that's a fine how do you do," Kevin says and tosses the squirrel bone he's been chewing on out into the mud. "Ain't seen hide nor hair of n.o.body in forever and then they fly over and drop a bunch of garbage."

Tyler steps out into the courtyard and grabs one of the hundreds of leaflets falling from the sky. He stands and reads it for a moment before bringing it back into the house.

"Well," Betty demands. "What's it say?"

Tyler is smiling. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." He looks almost happy. "I'm packing. And getting out of here. You guys can make up your own minds." He hands the flyer to Ray and is off to his room upstairs.

Ray holds the paper out at arm's length and begins to read: LEGAL NOTICE.

Any and all persons in receipt of this LEGAL NOTICE, as issued by The Bank, are hereby advised of their legal obligations under the Summers Act of 2012, which are to wit: a) All persons notified of the aforementioned act are to a.s.semble for collection at the place of notification 24 hours after receipt of said notification for transport to processing facilities located in the Safe Zone.

b) Individuals will be a.s.sessed for exposure to infection and contamination and provided with free medical support.*

c) It is ILLEGAL to remain in the Infected Zone. All persons found trespa.s.sing in the Infected Zone, now property of The Bank, will be deemed infected and subject to fine, imprisonment or removal by whatever means necessary.

d) All a.s.sets, properties and items of any value located within the Infected Zone are now the property of The Bank and any persons found in possession of said a.s.sets, properties or items will be prosecuted under the provisions of the Summers Act.

THERE WILL BE NO SECOND OPPORTUNITY. ALL PERSONS ADVISED OF THIS NOTICE ARE TO a.s.sEMBLE AT THIS COLLECTION POINT WITHIN 24 HOURS OF RECEIPT. ALL PERSONS REMAINING IN THE INFECTED ZONE AFTER RECEIPT OF SAID NOTICE WILL BE VIEWED AS HOSTILE AND/OR INFECTED.

*Free Medical Support available up to $500. All balances above $500 are to be paid by the patient.

THE BANK AND YOU.

WORKING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER TOMORROW.

Ray stops reading, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. "You've got to be f.u.c.king kidding me."