“You don’t get it, do you, Chase? You’ve made these last few days all about you. Where you need to go. What you need to do. I get it, man. I got it. Your kids are important to you. They became important to us. All of us. Even Jason was on board. But you didn’t see it. Never saw it. Thought everyone was against you. Or that every one of us was some kind of obstacle bent on preventing you from saving your kids. Even the way you treat Allison,” he said.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I said between grit teeth. My eyes couldn’t have been open more than narrow slits. I felt my face grow hot, hotter.
“You think I’m just some adult dummy, some retarded guy that has to have his brother looking out for him all the time. You might even be right. I suck at math, keeping a job, getting by at most regular things that people like you take for granted, but you know why Josh always had my back? Because if anything, I know people. I have . . . had a ton of friends. Good friends. The reason for that wasn’t because they felt bad for me, because I was slow, it was because I knew what it meant to be a friend. To put other people’s needs before my own, assface. I think once you figure that out, you won’t be such a dick all the time. You might even start to figure out who you really are. I think I caught a glimpse of you here and there. You’re not that big a dick. Be nice to see someday, to meet the real you. Now, excuse me, I’m headed back that way.”
His forearm swept me aside, and he walked back toward the tree, toward Josh’s corpse, and to where Allison stood with arms folded. She’d been watching the exchange, no doubt. She’d want to know what was said. Someday, if we got out of this, I might even tell her.
We knelt around the shallow grave. Dave was a mess. His tears streamed freely. He made no move to wipe them away. Somehow, we’d managed to dig quietly for the better part of an hour. The roaming zombies stayed outside of the fenced area. At one point, Allison took out a female monster with her hedge clippers. Stabbed it through the chest, and then spread the blades wide like the jaws on a shark before taking of its head.
“My brother could have done a lot with his life. Could have been anything he wanted. I held him back. Because of me, he sacrificed all he could have had. I told him all the time how much I appreciated everything he did for me. I never let a day go by that I didn’t thank him for sticking by me, and he’d punch me in the arm, and,” Dave stopped, lowered his head. He brought an arm up and dropped his eyes onto the sleeve. “He’d punch me in the arm, and he’d tell me he loved me. He always told me he loved me.”
It got me. His love. His openness about the love they had. It hit me hard. I closed my eyes. I felt like I’d been spying on an intimate and private moment between family. I didn’t belong. Dave made it clear to me, and I realized now how right he’d been, that I was an outsider. Selfish. A dick. This wasn’t about me. I was in it. But it wasn’t about just me. I’d made it that way. Made it appear that way.
“I love you, Joshua. I miss you already. I still want you to be here. I don’t want you to be gone,” Dave said.
Allison moved closer, put a hand on Dave’s shoulder. It was all the initiative he needed. He pulled her in tight. His arms wrapped around her. He had his face buried in her neck. I could hear the both of them crying.
And being the dick that I am, that I still am, I felt left out. This was Dave’s moment. Dave’s time, and I felt left out.
My apartment was just east of the I-390 overpass. We couldn’t have been more than a quarter of a mile away. We were spent. We had nothing left to give. Walking even a quarter of a mile seemed an impossible task.
Dave and Allison sat leaning against the tree until they fell asleep, and I let them sleep. I kept watch.
For whatever reason, not one zombie entered the cemetery all night. Perhaps the smell of death permeated from the ground. Maybe that dissuaded their attention.
I fisted a small handful of loose dirt. “I don’t know if you’d want this, but I’ll keep an eye on Dave for you,” I said, and sprinkled the dirt back in place over Josh’s grave. “I’ll do my best to see that he gets through this. He’s a pretty good guy. He’s taught me some shit. It isn’t so much a favor to you, or to him as much as I like the guy. I don’t deserve him as a friend, but, in time, I hope to. To be worthy of that.”
“You mean that?”
I jumped back. “Are you serious right now?”
Dave was behind me. He hugged me. “I am your friend, Chase.”
I almost shrugged his arm off. Instead, I patted his massive forearm. “Thank you, buddy. Thank you.”
“We’re going to find your kids, Chase. I promise you. We’ll find them.”
When Dave finally let go, I just stared up into that sky, at all the stars and wondered where on earth my kids might be.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When Char woke up, first thing she noticed was sunlight from the slightly parted curtain filling the room. She shielded her eyes with the back of one hand, as she threw off the bedspread and sheets. With bare feet planted on icy hardwoods, she shivered. She thought she’d seen slippers before going to bed, but wasn’t sure where. Right now, she needed to use the bathroom more than she felt the need to search for slippers.
Cash still slept. It had to be after seven. She wanted to be up before daybreak and on the move. Something about the room must have tricked them into getting a good night’s rest. Sleeping had been rough the last two nights. Last night was not only refreshing, it was appreciated.
Before Char could remove the desk she’d slid in front of the door to block it, she needed to un-stack everything she’d piled on top. It didn’t really make the desk heavier, it just ensured things would fall off and wake her if anyone, or anything, tried pushing their way in.
As she pulled off dolls, snow globes, books and dirty clothing, trophies, a lamp and crystal unicorn shaped knick-knacks, she listened. It sounded quiet beyond the bedroom. No feet shuffled. No grunts. No moans. Most of all, no smell.
The dead smelled. There was no explaining it, and more importantly, no mistaking it. She often felt like a wolf when walking the streets with her little brother. Her nose raised, nostrils flared, head cocking from one side, then the other. She wasn’t trying to see the dead. She was trying to smell them. Thing is, you see one, it’s obvious. They don’t hide. They don’t wait to attack you. One spots you, you spot it, and you run. And they chase. And the dead can run. Fast. Hunger drives them, no doubt.
But if you smell them, you can avoid them. Avoid being chased.
Chases are bad. It’s how they’d gotten sidetracked. The plan once leaving her mom’s house had been simple. Go find dad. She knew how to get to his apartment on the main roads. The zombies forced her and Cash to find alternate ways the last day and a half.
In this house, whatever house they were in, she did not smell the dead. At least not upstairs. Not near the still shut, still mostly barricaded bedroom door.
She cast a look at Cash as she pushed the desk away from the door. By the bed, leaning against the mattress was her pick-head axe. It was thirty-six inches long and just under fifteen pounds. Swinging it was not a problem. Crushing a dead’s head, simple enough.
Char needed strength freeing the blade or pick side once embedded inside a skull. She hated having to step on the dead’s neck and yank every time, especially when more dead were around, and there was only little time to retrieve the weapon currently impaled in a dead’s brain.