CHAPTER 38

There wasn’t a table big enough for all of them to sit down, so some of them had to eat standing up, their plates on the kitchen counter. Nobody seemed to mind, though. It was a party, and they were all feeling good.

The wine helped, Billy thought.

They’d found the good stuff at Costco and brought home three cases of it. He’d never cared for wine, but then, he reminded himself, he’d never had wine like this. The stuff in a box was no match for this fancy French shit he couldn’t even pronounce.

They’d also brought back a ton of food—and Margaret O’Brien and Jeff Stavers immediately found in each other kindred spirits of the kitchen. They made a huge meal of buttermilk fried chicken and biscuits with sweet cream butter and honey, oven-roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes, and steamed broccoli with a butter, white wine, and shallot reduction. They had loads of potato chips and pretzels and bread. And for dessert there was a raspberry-chocolate-and whipped-cream swirl.

Their plates were piled high, their faces shining with the promise of the first real meal any of them had had in over a week. Billy and Ed both had pieces of chicken halfway to their mouths when Kyra suddenly stood up and bowed her head.

“Dear Lord,” she said, and though she spoke quietly, her opening words managed to make everyone go silent. “There is so much we do not understand. So much has happened, and so many good people have died. Everyone here has wondered why these things had to happen. We mourn for the lives we had and the comforts that are gone. We wonder if we are lost forever. But in your mercy you have given us each other. We give thanks, Lord, for bringing us together with these fellow travelers who share our destination. We give thanks, Lord, for their company and the strength they bring us and for the bounty you have set before us tonight. Please, bless this food, and bless each of us in the time to come. In your name we pray. Amen.”

A very sober round of Amen answered her.

It was at that point, while looking around the kitchen at the others, that Billy realized he was in the middle of his first real Thanksgiving dinner.

They even had a kids’ table. Robin Tharp, the incredibly beautiful brunette who Billy was certain he recognized from somewhere, had taken an instant shine to the two kids, and they to her. She was sitting at their table now, making them giggle over something.

The sound of their laughter was contagious, and it spread smiles around the room.

The wine started flowing.

But it wasn’t the food or the good spirits or even the sense of security he had here with these people that convinced him he was having his first real Thanksgiving dinner. He looked across the kitchen at Kyra and saw her cover her mouth with her hand as she laughed at something Colin had said, and he realized that this dinner was different because it was the first time in his life that he was truly thankful for the skin he lived in.

“So what do you think of the old-timers?” Colin asked.

Kyra said, “I like Ed. And Margaret’s sweet.”

“Yeah, Ed’s cool. Did you hear him say he used to be a federal marshal? Those guys are hardcore.”

“I like the way he tips his hat at me when he says hello.”

That stopped Colin. “Wait a minute,” he said. “How did you know he wears a hat? And how did you know he tips it when he says hello?”

She laughed, a bubbly sound.

“You forget where I grew up,” she said. “He’s a West Texas cowboy. I’ve known men like him all my life. They’re all a bunch of crazy rednecks, but they’ll always tip their hats to the ladies.”

He shook his head in admiration. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I don’t know much about West Texas, but I do know it gave you the cutest accent I think I’ve ever heard.”

She blushed. “I think I’m a little drunk,” she admitted.

“You’re doing fine,” he said.

They stumbled. He caught her, and her giggling dried up.

Colin leaned against the wall, his arm around her waist. She felt good in his arms, like she belonged there, and he didn’t want to let her go. She turned her hips in his arm so that her belly was against his. He could feel her breasts pushing against him, small, but firm, the nipples erect.

He leaned in to kiss her. She backed away with a gasp, but then slowly came back and touched her lips to his.

She was trembling.

He said, “Where are you gonna spend the night?”

Her breath was sweet from the wine. “Colin, I’ve never—It’s always been so scary for me.”

“I want you to come to my room,” he said.

“Colin, I—”

He silenced her with a kiss. “Come to my room with me.”

She nodded, her hair falling over her face. He brushed it aside with his fingertips and kissed her again. Then, leading her by the hand, he took her down the hallway to his room. The house was old, and they could hear the wind howling outside and the sounds of the others coming from different parts of the house. Kyra was still trembling. Colin found it incredibly exciting. He was sweating. He could feel it under his shirt and on his face.

But when they reached his door he stopped and let her hand go.

“Colin?” she said.

“What the hell?”

“Colin, what’s wrong?”

He stood there, looking at the wall. There had been an old black-and-white picture of the family who used to live here on the wall. It was smashed now on the hardwood floor. In its place, in large white letters, somebody had written AS SOON AS LIBERTY IS COMPLETE IT DIES IN ANARCHY.

“Colin?”

“Hold on,” he said. He went down to the next door, Jeff’s door. He pounded on it with the side of his fist until Jeff opened. He was wearing a white T-shirt and boxers. Behind him, in a long white T-shirt, was Robin.

“Colin, what’s going on?”

Colin grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him out into the hallway.

“Hey, what the hell?” Jeff said, slapping Colin’s hand away. But he didn’t say anything else. He saw the writing on the wall and stared at it.

“What does that mean?” Colin said.

Jeff leaned back against the wall and wiped a hand over his face.

“Jeff?”

“It means we’re fucked, Colin.”

Downstairs, Ed Moore finished off the last of his wine and started back to his bedroom. He had a three-week-old copy of the Chicago Tribune under his arm, and he was looking forward to reading in bed.

A door thudded closed from somewhere down the hall. It was dark and he couldn’t see very far into the gloom, but the sound stirred something inside him.

It was probably one of the others, he told himself. Margaret and the kids had taken the master bedroom at the far end of the hall. Julie and Barbie had taken a smaller bedroom that shared a bathroom with the master, while he and Billy were sharing the office across the hall from the master. But something didn’t feel right. The alarms in his head were ringing full tilt.

He set the paper down on the edge of the couch and started walking down the hall. In the dim light, he saw the outline of a man rounding the corner that led to the bedrooms.

“Billy?”

The man disappeared around the corner without saying a word.

A moment later, Ed heard a scream.

Ed rounded the corner at a full sprint and ran right into the back of a zombie. The impact sent the zombie sprawling face-first onto the floor of the master bedroom. Beyond him, deeper in the room, Margaret O’Brien was standing in front of her grandkids, trying to shelter them from another zombie that was already in the room. Margaret had a wooden chair in her hands and she was brandishing it like one of P. T. Barnum’s lion tamers.

Off to his right, Julie and Barbie were dealing with trouble of their own. A female zombie in ragged clothes was staggering toward them, pushing them back toward the far corner of the room. Barbie was standing in the middle of the room, babbling happily at the approaching zombie, while Julie was pulling on her arm, trying to get her to move.

“Ed,” she shouted. “For God’s sake, help us.”

He was stuck. His guns were in his room, locked up. Without them, he knew he could save one set of friends, but not the other.

“Ed!”

“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Kyra said.

Colin took her hand and looked at Jeff. Robin came out of the bedroom. She was wearing her jeans now. She looked at the writing on the wall and her eyes grew large.

“Jeff, what is that?”

“It’s Gaines,” he said.

“Gaines? You mean the biker from Van Horn? The one who killed…”

He nodded.

“But that’s impossible. How could he have found us?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “This is him, though. That’s what he said to me right before he threw me into the cage.”

“What does it mean?” Colin asked.

“Yeah, Harvard, why don’t you tell him? I’ve come a long way to hear your answer to that question.”

Jeff turned around and saw Gaines leaning against the wall, a toothpick in his mouth. The man was covered head to foot in dust. It rained down off his clothes with every movement, however slight. There were dark, damp circles around his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Harvard?” he said. “No witty retort?”

Colin was backing up, away from Gaines. He let out a high-pitched, almost girlish squeak of a scream. At the same time, a chorus of groans erupted from around the corner. The smell hit Jeff right afterward. So did the sound of feet dragging across the wooden floor.

Colin dropped Kyra’s hand. Fear gripped him instantly, and he fell backward against the wall.

“No,” he said. “No, please, stay away.”

And the next instant, he scrambled past Kyra, pushed his way past Jeff, and ran screaming into his room.

The zombies rounded the corner.

Kyra moved her head from side to side, like she was trying to locate the source of the moaning—but in the narrow confines of the hallway, that was impossible.

A zombie closed on her.

Jeff lunged forward, caught her by the arm, and pulled her back from the corner just as the zombie collapsed against the wall where she had been standing.

He turned, expecting to see Gaines blocking the hallway, but instead saw nothing but a clear shot to the stairs. Still holding onto Kyra’s hand, he motioned to Robin, and together they pulled Kyra toward the stairs.

“What about Colin?” Kyra said.

Jeff looked behind them. There were four zombies in the hallway now, moving past Colin’s door.

“There isn’t time,” he said. “Come on.”

She fought them. She screamed that she wouldn’t leave without Colin. Jeff caught her fingernails across his cheek and gasped in pain. But he didn’t let go of her. With her fingers clawing for his eyes, he managed to get an arm around her and he half pushed, half carried her down the stairs.

Ed made his decision in a snap.

The zombie he’d pushed to the floor was still trying to get up. He didn’t give it a chance to do so. He hustled forward, stopping next to the zombie’s shoulder, and brought his boot heel down on the back of the zombie’s neck. There was a fierce snap, and the zombie lay still.

Margaret swung the chair she’d been holding and hit the second zombie in the shoulder, knocking him off balance, but not to the ground.

Ed grabbed the zombie by the back of his soiled shirt and slung him toward the bed. The zombie went tumbling over the bed and landed head-first in the gap between the bed and the wall.

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand to Margaret.

They ran out into the hallway. Ed turned off at Julie and Barbie’s room and saw the zombie had already pulled Barbie to the ground. He was on top of her, his fingernails digging into her arms, his teeth snapping at the wrinkled folds of her neck.

He saw Barbie rolling with terror. Alzheimer’s or not, she was aware enough to know the thing on top of her was trying to kill her. The zombie got his teeth on her neck and she let out a terrible scream that seemed to shake the whole house.

Ed could feel his blood run cold.

He stepped forward and grabbed the zombie by the hair on the back of its head and yanked it away from Barbie. The zombie felt as stiff as a piece of furniture in his hands. He reached forward and cupped a hand under the zombie’s jaw. Then, before the thing had a chance to scratch at him, he twisted as hard as he could, snapping the zombie’s neck.

Instantly, the body went limp, and he threw it to the side.

Barbie was on the ground, looking up at him, gasping and coughing. Dark blood filled her mouth and stained her teeth.

Beyond her, Julie was staring at Barbie in horror. Slowly, her eyes came up and she met Ed’s gaze.

He looked away.

Jeff and Robin managed to get Kyra to the bottom of the stairs. She was screaming for Colin, still fighting them with everything she had, completely unwilling to listen to what they were telling her.

There was a moaning at the top of the stairs.

Jeff glanced up and saw the first zombie step off the top stair. She lost her balance and rolled halfway down the stairs, then rose and extended a gray and freshly broken hand toward them.

Jeff grabbed Kyra by the shoulders and shook her. “Stop fighting me,” he said. “They’re coming down the stairs, Kyra. We can’t go up there.”

“What about Colin?”

“We can’t go up there.” He turned to Robin. “We need to get to the truck,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

She nodded.

Kyra started to object again, but Gaines’s voice cut her off.

“Jesus, Harvard. You’re some friend, ain’t you? Leaving a man behind like that. Of course I don’t think less of you for it. I’m just pleased you’re coming around to my point of view.”

“What view is that?” Jeff said.

Gaines smiled graciously. “You mean to tell me you don’t know by now? Harvard, how come you can be such a dumb-ass? It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. There ain’t no man, and there ain’t no institution or religion or idea that’s worth a man’s loyalty. You give something or somebody loyalty, and you give up your liberty. And you know me, Harvard. Liberty’s everything to me.”

Then he turned to Robin and put a hand on her chin.

“Of course, right about now, my dick’s thinking it’s pretty damn excited to be sharing the end of the world with the hottest porn star of all time. Ms. Blaze, I’ve seen what that pretty mouth of yours can do. If there’s a person anywhere who could make me give up a little liberty, I bet it might be you.”

She pulled away from his grip. “You’re trash, Gaines.”

“Maybe so. But hey, you’ve fucked worse, right?”

Jeff threw a huge right-handed haymaker at Gaines’s face. Gaines ducked it, came up fast with a hard right jab to Jeff’s gut, doubling him over—then brought his knee up to meet Jeff’s mouth and nose on their way down.

Jeff’s head snapped back and for a moment he couldn’t see. The world was a swimming blur of purple. He tried to keep his feet, but everything was spinning, and he tilted to the side and fell over the edge of the couch.

Gaines laughed as Jeff fell.

Jeff rolled over onto his back. Gaines stood over him, a blurry mass. He barely saw the fist coming down on his nose. There was an intensely bright explosion of pain, and a moment later, he was out.

Gaines watched Harvard slump to the floor like a wet towel. Then he turned to the blind girl and Bellamy Blaze. But mostly Bellamy Blaze. Imagine that, he thought. Of all the fucking luck! Who’d have thought he’d have this for a reward? He was getting hard just thinking of the things he was gonna do with that girl.

But first things first. The zombies were nearly at the bottom of the stairs, and he still had the other folks to deal with. After that, after the others were out of the way, then he’d have some fun with Ms. Bellamy Blaze here.

Still, there was time for a little feel.

“Do that look you do for me,” he said. “You know that one where you put your finger to your mouth and look all innocent, like you don’t know if you’re gonna be able to take the whole thing. I love that look.”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, you’re gonna do plenty of that, girl. Don’t you worry about—”

Something hit him hard from behind and sent him sprawling into the banister. He felt a man wrapping him up, trying to get a grip on the back of his head. Gaines ducked down and grabbed the man’s foot and yanked it up as hard as he could. The female zombie was right above him now, the others a few steps above her, but he ignored them. He wheeled around and saw the young Jewish-looking kid who had rode in with the old folks.

“You wanna play, too, huh? Okay, come on.”

He advanced on Billy, who scrambled to his feet just as Gaines closed on him. Billy threw a hard left jab and managed to connect with Gaines’s chin.

Gaines’s head snapped back, but he wasn’t hurt.

He looked at Billy and smiled.

“That all you got?”

He came at Billy and feinted with a left jab. Billy put up an arm to block the punch—but it never came. Instead, Gaines swept Billy’s feet out from under him, dropping him onto his butt on the hardwood floor.

The next instant, Gaines was on him. There was no time to react. One after another, Gaines pounded short, hammer-like right jabs into Billy’s face. Blood flew in the air, splattering the floor and the walls. Billy fell limp under the blows, but they continued just the same.

When Gaines stopped and looked up, he saw Bellamy Blaze pushing two of the zombies away from Harvard.

So that was the score, was it? Bellamy Blaze was giving it away for free to Harvard.

Well, fuck. We’ll just have to see about that.

And he was right about to do just that when the old dude in the cowboy hat walked in.

Ed took in the scene right away.

Billy Kline beat to shit on the floor, blood everywhere.

Jeff Stavers and Robin were over by the couch, the girl trying to pull her boyfriend to safety from the zombies coming down the stairs.

Then he saw Gaines.

He reached for his gun, but Gaines was on his feet already and coming at him with a left hook.

Ed moved back, stepped right. The left hook went wide, and Ed came up behind Gaines.

Ed slapped him in the ear.

Gaines, his head ringing from the slap, turned around in time to get four hard left jabs in the mouth. He fell back against the wall, stunned. His head lolled on his shoulders. He sagged noticeably, like his legs had grown suddenly weak.

Gaines touched his fingers to his pulverized lips and said, “Holy shit, old man.”

He leaped forward then, leading with his right.

Ed ducked under the punch and hit Gaines in the solar plexus. Gaines fell to one knee. He reached up and tried to grab at Ed’s shirt, but Ed hit him again, dropping him to the floor.

Behind him, Robin screamed.

She had a zombie on either side of her, closing fast. Jeff Stavers was nearly comatose in her arms. She was bent under his weight, trying to move out of the way, but running out of room fast.

Ed closed the distance between them, pulled his pistols, and fired. The zombies on either side of Robin were knocked backward with two perfect head shots, and she was left standing there, panting in fear but untouched.

“You okay?” he said.

Robin nodded.

Ed turned and fired left-handed at the two remaining zombies. One of them flipped backward over the stair rail. The other staggered forward and landed facedown on the floor.

“Ed, behind you!” Robin shouted.

Gaines was getting to his feet. There was a nickel-plated .45 semiautomatic in his hand. Ed saw the flash of it coming up and behind it Gaines’s wild eyes, and he reacted. He fired both guns, emptying them into Gaines, then went over and kicked the nickel-plated pimp gun from Gaines’s lifeless hand.

“Anybody see anymore zombies,” he said, as he opened the cylinders on his pistols and emptied the shell casings onto the floor.

“Colin’s upstairs,” Kyra said.

Ed turned to the blind girl as he fed a speed loader into each pistol. “Was he bit?”

“I don’t think so,” Robin said. “He went into his bedroom.”

“Okay,” Ed said. “I’ll go check on him.”

Ed made his way upstairs. He saw the writing on the wall, frowned at it, then went into Colin’s room.

“Colin, you in here? It’s Ed.”

Silence.

He looked around the room and figured a teenage boy had lived here once. Probably went off to college a year or two before. It had that look, like it’d been empty for a while.

“Colin?”

No answer.

Ed had done this kind of thing before, plenty of times, searched the house of somebody who didn’t want to be found. He closed his eyes and listened. Heard frightened breathing coming from under the bed.

He lifted up the sheets and looked under the bed. Colin was back there, huddled into a ball as far away as he could get.

“You can come out now.”

Colin was shaking badly. He looked at Ed, and there were tears in eyes.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Those things…they scare me so bad. I can’t…”

“They’ll all gone, son. Now come on out of there.”

“No. You don’t understand.”

Ed sighed. “I understand there ain’t no shame in being scared. Hell, we’re all scared. The only shame’s in how you handle it. Now come on out of there.”

Sobbing, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his hand, Colin slowly pulled himself out from under the bed.

Ed helped him to his feet.

“You won’t tell them how you found me, will you? Promise me you won’t.”

Ed looked at him. “Sure,” he said. “I promise. Now clean your face up and let’s go downstairs. Blow your nose while you’re at it.”

Margaret was holding a wet towel to Billy’s face when Ed and Colin came downstairs. Billy and the others were in the living room now, waiting for them.

Ed looked at Billy. “How you feeling, kid?”

Billy tried to smile, but his lips felt like two busted peaches. Everything hurt. All he could manage was a painful grunt.

“Everybody else okay?” Ed said.

He looked around the room. Julie was sitting on a barstool at the far end of the living room, crying quietly to herself.

Billy watched Ed go over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at Ed, and Billy couldn’t quite decipher the look on her face. Was she pissed at him? Was it something else? He wasn’t sure.

She said, “What about Barbie, Ed? You can’t leave her back there like that. You have to make sure she doesn’t come back.”

He nodded.

Billy and the others watched him slowly pull a pistol from his waistband and open the cylinder and check the rounds he had left there. Then he snapped the cylinder shut and made his way back down the hallway toward the master bedroom.

Robin looked at Billy. “What’s going on?” she said.

He shook his head, then took the towel from Margaret and looked down at his lap, waiting for the sound.

It came a moment later, a single pistol shot. They all flinched.