The Zed Files: The Hanging Tree Part 5

"Yeah," she says in a daze. "On the floor behind you."

I pull out of her and retrieve a bottle of shampoo. She moves back into the warm water and brings her arms up around herself covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I pour a dollop of soap into my hand. "I'm not sure which is more gentlemanly," I say. "Not sure if I should let you go first or if it would be more polite to get some of the stink off of me."

She doesn't answer. The confusion and pain in her eyes searches my face for some sort of explanation. I lather up while she hogs the hot water. I wash quickly and then move into the water, nudging her out of the way.

"Why didn't you do it?" she asks as I rinse off. The scent of the shampoo is wonderful and clean like I never thought clean could be.

I smile. "Cuz." Her hands trace the tiny scabs of the shotgun pellet wounds on my shoulder. "We just met each other." I look down at the b.l.o.o.d.y and bruised shoulder she's inspecting. "And I don't kill on the first date."

I smile and wink at her. She shakes her head and the tears return. She squeezes my wounded shoulder tightly. "I don't want to be here," she sobs and tries to collapse into my chest. I raise an arm to rinse my armpit and move away from her all in one motion.

"There are worse places," I tell her. "Worse times, worse circ.u.mstances. h.e.l.l. I've had worse s.e.x." I toss her the shampoo bottle as I head back into the shed.

Back inside, I crawl clean and washed into the makes.h.i.+ft bed. I pull one of Kevin's joints out of my s.h.i.+rt pocket and light it. Karen comes in after a few minutes and I offer her a drag. She takes it without looking at me and lies down next to me. "I wasn't for sure whether you smoked or not."

"Not much point in abstaining," she says under an exhaled cloud. "You never know when some idiot is going to forget to lock a gate and get everybody killed."

I take the joint back. "I wouldn't worry about it. None of us are going to die happy or old." I take a long drag on the joint and hold it in. I have no idea why. I think it is mostly oregano and foxtail. "How did you meet up with this crew? I get it that Betty and Daisy were strippers and Kevin and Tyler were at the club. You don't seem like the dance'n type though."

"You mean I'm not pretty enough."

"No," I exhale a large plume. "They're too shallow to be as f.u.c.ked up as you are. Which I guess is saying something."

She rolls over and puts her head on my shoulder. "I was near the club. I lived downtown. I was going to school at the University."

"This is where I ask your major, right?"

"Psychology."

"Of course." I can't help but smile. What the f.u.c.k else would she be studying?

"It all seems like a bad joke now." She is completely morose and withdrawing inside herself while reaching out to touch my physical body all at the same time.

"It is all a bad joke now," I tell her as I put my right arm around her. We say nothing for a while.

"What did you do?" she asks in a very soft voice.

"Killed a woman I was showering with once. Used a cleaver."

I roll over on top of her. "f.u.c.ked her twice and then cut her head off," I tell her and begin working her legs apart.

She drapes her arms over my shoulders and lets me inside her again. "We might as well get it over with then." Even the zombies on the other side of the wall have more emotions.

"You're so romantic." I smile and lift her legs up onto my shoulders and drive deep until I hit the bottom. She closes her eyes and brings her hands up to her t.i.ts. As I pound away, she bites her bottom lip and rolls her head to the side. She's f.u.c.king somebody other than me in her mind. Which is probably just as well.

"I guess if I don't eventually kill you, you'll keep trying to kill me. Yeah?"

Her legs slide down and her hands come up around the middle of my back. "I don't know." She sounds far away.

"Sure you do," I tell her and put my hand up around her throat.

Her eyes lock into me as I apply pressure around her throat. I could crush the life right out of her. But there is no life in her.

The rain has stopped and the sporadic sound of gunfire echoes up from down the road. Lightning flashes against the sky as the candle burns low. I am exhausted but there is no point in sleeping. Sleep will come forever soon. I pound into Karen as another o.r.g.a.s.m builds. I drop her legs back down. She kisses me and bites my lip hard enough to draw blood. I explode inside her again.

Chapter 11: Take Some, Leave Some.

The pumpkin pie filling and groundhog stew get me up early. The bathroom is a simple farm outhouse over a pit. It's even got the half-moon cut in the door. h.e.l.l, there's even real toilet paper.

The compound is quiet. Even the Zed outside the gate have given up their incessant howling. It's like Christmas morning to be able to s.h.i.+t in peace.

Another shower afterwards. Another c.r.a.ppy smoke. I slip back into the bath house and Karen is still sleeping. I'd go through her purse but she doesn't have one.

Actually, I wouldn't go through her purse. You can't unknow things. And I don't want to know anything about her. I don't want to hear about how f.u.c.ked up her family was. Don't care that her childhood was a disaster. I don't want to hear the long horrible story of how she got here. We've all got that story. Looking back has nothing to do with what's ahead. Ahead is like nothing that's ever happened before.

Or perhaps this is the mistake that I keep repeating.

"Morning," I tell her as she stretches into the waking world. The blanket slides down and she sits half naked in the cool, humid air. She looks good but what I really want is a nice shot of bourbon. I'd kill someone for a drink this morning. And a cigarette. I'm staring at her t.i.ts but thinking about how much I'd like a cigarette when she says, "You'll have to wait till later for that. I'm not a morning person."

Claws sc.r.a.pe the door to the bath house and I get up and open it. Archie bounds into the room and dances in a circle, before jamming his nose into Karen's panties on the floor. Karen s.n.a.t.c.hes them away from Archie and mutters, "...are all the f.u.c.king same," before sliding them on. Archie moves to sit beside me so that I can scratch his ears while Karen gets dressed. We both watch her with different appet.i.tes.

"Archie," someone calls from the main house. "Where are ya, buddy?" Archie moves to the door and I open it up to let him out. A Zed by the front gate starts the day's caroling by letting out with a low moan. The other carolers join in.

Chuck. Idiot. If he'd a kept quiet for a while, so would the monsters at the gate. He's too stupid to hate, though.

Karen brushes by me on her way out and hands me my cleaver. "In case you change your mind later". The sheath for the cleaver is on my belt and I slide it home. Karen heads to the main house as Chuck and Bob are heading out. Her a.s.s swings from side to side as she walks. She knows I'm watching. It's a game now because she thinks I won't do it.

She ignores Chuck's 'good morning' and stomps into the house. I duck back in and get my .45. Bob and Chuck are headed somewhere with a purpose.

Kevin stands, leaning against the front porch post, banging his pipe against the railing as I re-emerge from the bath house. I give him the nod and we follow Bob and Chuck.

As we catch up to them, they are arguing just over the edge of a big mound of dirt on the southwest corner of the compound. "Well, I didn't know," Chuck is explaining.

"Just dump the water AWAY from the doors, Chuck. Unless you want to spend the morning bailing out the bunker with buckets." The two of them are struggling to tip over another full rain barrel. The water splashes up and Chuck dances around in his loafers, trying to keep his feet dry.

"Need a hand?" I ask them as I round the corner. I've got my hand on the b.u.t.t of the .45 that rides tucked into my belt in the small of my back. Chuck spins around like a kid caught stealing candy. Bob doesn't bat his one good eye.

"We got it," Bob grunts and tips over another barrel. There are 12 barrels and they are sitting on steel plates. The water pours out of the rain barrels and down into a ditch. Bob's boots make a clanging hollow sound as he moves around on the steel.

"We'll show ya," Chuck says with a big smile and points at the ground. "We were supposed to wait but... to heck with those guys. We'll join up with you."

"Great," I mutter without moving my lips.

As the last rain barrel rolls away, Bob picks up a spud bar and slides the flat end into a slot in the metal plate. Prying down, he lifts the edge of the plate and Chuck sticks a wooden block under it. "Not the best design," Bob says. "But I didn't design it."

The plate is only about a quarter of an inch thick and the two of them easily stand it up and toss it aside. Beneath the plate are two metal cellar doors sitting at an angle. Bob removes a key from his necklace and inserts it into the lock of one of the doors and opens it up.

"Gentlemen," Bob says with the first smile I've seen on him, "let's go shopping."

"There better be some G.o.dd.a.m.ned chocolate in there," Daisy says as she and Betty walk up. Tyler walks up behind where I am standing. He looks tired and p.i.s.sed off.

"Yeah. There's chocolate," Chuck says and nods quickly. "Chocolate, booze, cigarettes, guns. Everything."

"Good," Daisy says. "If I blew you for nothing last night, I'm gonna cut your d.i.c.k off."

I can hear Tyler grinding his teeth behind me. Karen joins us and we all move towards the opening.

The cellar doors open to a set of steps only about ten feet long. At the base of the steps is a concrete pad that has been poured in front of two big metal s.h.i.+pping containers. The s.h.i.+pping containers, which are about eight feet wide, have been welded together. The doors are also welded shut except for the one on the end. Construction foam has been sprayed around the outside of the joined containers before they were buried. Bob picks up a flashlight from a rack by the door and starts winding up the hand crank on the side. The rest of us join him. It looks like a ba.s.s fis.h.i.+ng tournament at an insane asylum.

Bob quits winding and clicks his flashlight on. He flashes his light up above the door to show a plaster figure of Jesus on the Cross. Below the statue is a sign with the words, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had pa.s.sed away; and there was no more sea. Revelations 21:1." He pans down to find the latch and throws open the door to the container. We all quit fis.h.i.+ng and move into the bunker.

Near the door are several cans of fuel and a gas generator. I nudge one of the cans with my toe and it is solid and full. The edges of the bunker have been lined with shelves and cabinets. A door in the middle leads to the other container. There are two gun racks with a wide a.s.sortment of shotguns, rifles, pistols and crossbows. One shelf is all liquor. One is all cigarettes. This is like the new bank system and the currency spends only once. I take a carton of Camel filters and stick it under my arm. I get a bottle of Wild Turkey while I'm at it. I'd buy a lottery ticket except I've already won.

Canned goods line another shelf, freeze dried food, big jugs of oil, spices, multi-vitamins and first aid kits. A shelf of chainsaws and axes sits towards the bottom. Big barrels marked RICE and FLOUR sit in front of the shelves. It is Zed-Mart.

I spot a light brown piece of plastic hanging over the edge of one of the top shelves. I nudge Tyler and point at it without saying a word. Tyler reaches up and pulls the package down. "Snickers." He slides it into his rucksack and reaches up to feel for more packages.

Chuck is babbling away. "This whole place belonged to Wayne. He was one of our congregation. Everybody always knew he was a little extreme and a little...I dunno... weird. But when all of this stuff started going sideways, he told us all that G.o.d had told him to build this bunker... kinda like Noah. So we all headed out here. But then we got two steps outside the church and that was it... Wayne got bit. Ray shot him dead as soon as the zombie jumped on him."

"Well," Daisy says in a flat voice from the back corner, "was Wayne a f.u.c.king diabetic?"

"Oh, no. Here...uh..." Chuck's flashlight bounces around the walls of the container. Up and down, back and forth. It is probably close to ill.u.s.trating the random path of the one lone neuron bouncing around in his head. "Here we go." He holds a big orange bar up to his flashlight. "Baking chocolate."

I hear Betty laugh in the background. Even Tyler is smiling.

Kevin has a Rambo knife and a bottle of tequila. Karen is picking through the medical kit and bottles of prescription medicine. Bob is quietly moving towards the door in the dark. The click of the hammer coming back on my .45 is very loud in the metal room and everyone stops moving. "A smart guy would get us down here and then lock us in until the cavalry arrived."

Bob jumps behind the door and tries to swing it shut. I guess he's seen too many movies and thinks the metal will stop a .45 round. The gun is so loud that no really hears it. My ears are ringing and the smoke from the gunpowder hangs in the air. A blue spot flashes where the muzzle erupted in the dark of the container. I don't see Bob crumple and fall or hear his body hit the cement, but the door slowly starts to creep back open under its own weight.

No one says anything. All of the flashlights trained on Bob didn't leave many questions. When he jumped for the door of the container, he jumped straight through h.e.l.l's front door and I opened it for him. Or Heaven. Who the f.u.c.k knows.

"Bob?" All of the lights in the room s.h.i.+ne back to Chuck's face. His mouth is open and his eyes are wide. He blinks once and then falls forward. Tyler is standing behind him and looks just as scared. The screwdriver handle juts out of Chuck's head right at the base of his skull.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it," Kevin says and runs a finger in his ear.

I safety the .45 and put it back in my belt. Chuck exhales a long slow final breath into the dark of the container. Tyler steps back from the body and looks at his hand. "I was just acting like I was going to do it and then I jumped when..." Chuck's arm twitches slightly and his foot spasms against the floor knocking off one of his mud-covered loafers. A small pool of red is slowly leaking out below the screwdriver handle. The look in his wide open dead eyes doesn't seem all that different from his normal expression.

Good-bye Kitty.

Betty and Daisy walk out quietly with armloads of booze and baking supplies. Daisy stops to take the bar of baking chocolate out of Chuck's hand. The girls figured out how to take care of themselves long before rocks from outer s.p.a.ce landed in the ocean.

Tyler follows but doesn't say a word. Karen walks to my side and stands there.

"Can't trust n.o.body, I guess," Kevin says.

Small rapid footsteps fall on the wooden planks leading down. Archie bounds in tail wagging but stops to smell Bob's dead body. His tail goes motionless and he looks up at me. "He's a good dog," Kevin begins.

"Poor little guy," Karen starts.

I pull the .45 out again and put the front sight on Archie's head.

"No, no, no, not yet..." Kevin shoves the tequila bottle between his legs to get fingers in both of his ears.

Karen drops her flashlight and does the same. "What are you..."

The gun rocks in my hand again. Archie drops down next to Bob.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it," Kevin says again.

Karen leaves the bunker at a run taking the steps two at a time.

"Hate to see a dog suffer," I tell Kevin. A box filled with disposable lighters is sitting on the shelf next to me. I take one and slide it into my pocket. "He was a good boy."

I start to walk out of the bunker. Kevin doesn't follow. "You come'n?" I ask and motion towards the cellar doors. Kevin looks slightly bewildered but shrugs it off and collects his wits and his fortune. "We'll drag these guys out later. They'll be easier to drag when they've gone stiff."

"Yeah," Kevin says but it sounds more like a question. "Reckon so."

In the bath house, I sit at the little table and light up a cigarette. The smoke is like an old friend. The fire from the whiskey settles into my belly as the rain beats harder against the window. I wonder what the girls are baking, but I figure it's easier if I stay out here for now. I think they all need to talk about me for a while. I look at the paw prints that are all over the dirty floor of the bath house. I nod to myself and take a deep drag. The smoke is filling and warm in my chest like the ghost of a feeling that might have once lived there.

I always hate putting a dog down.

Chapter 12: House Cleaning.

Daisy sits at the big table in the main house waving a piece of chocolate at those seated as she chews. "This... this is the best G.o.dd.a.m.ned chocolate I've ever had in my entire f.u.c.king life." It's one of the Snickers bars that Tyler had. Chuck's unsweetened baking chocolate is nowhere to be seen. Daisy's eyes roam around the table but she won't look at me. Or Tyler. She's trying to do the tough girl act but she just looks scared. Circ.u.mstances have surpa.s.sed her ability to manipulate her reality and those rubbing up against it. Her black hair runs in matted clumps that lie somewhere between a Rastafarian and a burn victim. Betty sits next to her; the blonde version in equal disarray.

Tyler is sitting off by himself trying to drink warm cheap whiskey. He'll puke soon. Karen's had a handful of muscle relaxants and a gla.s.s of red wine. She's gone. Out cold on a couch in the back of the room.

I stand in the doorway and light up another cigarette. G.o.dd.a.m.n these things are good. "Their friends down at the end of the road aren't going to be terribly happy with us when they get here," I tell them all. "We should probably be giving that some thought."

I should leave. Pack up now and slip out without saying a word.

"Yeah?" Kevin yawns. "Whadya reckon we oughta do?"

"Lots of guns down there in that bunker. Wouldn't hurt to get everybody better armed." Kevin nods. There is no good reason for me to stay here. I stood outside for a long while before coming in. They're all freaked out that I shot Bob. They're not ready to kill yet. At least not kill living people. Except for Tyler I guess. And he's just as liable to kill us all as he is the people down the road.

"You figure we should just kill these guys when they pull up? Er maybe... I dunno... see if maybe..." Kevin lets the thought drift off into nothing.