CHAPTER 42

“Where do you suppose they’re coming from?” Billy asked.

Ed and Billy were on top of the perimeter fence near the main entrance, making repairs. So far, Jasper and his cronies hadn’t made a big deal of it, but every morning, when the work crews went into the fields or worked on the buildings near the perimeter, they saw more and more zombies gathering at the fence, trying to claw their way inside.

“I don’t know,” Ed said. “Maybe they were on their way for the same reason we were. They saw the signs Jasper’s people put up, same as we did. They just didn’t make it.”

From where they sat atop the fence, they could see dead bodies out in the grass. And there were two more zombies staggering toward the main entrance out on the road. Ed could see them dragging themselves along on ruined legs.

Billy scanned the prairie and shook his head.

“But there’s so many.”

“There’s gonna be more still, is my guess,” Ed said. “All those people on the road, headed here. It’s like leaving a trail of bread crumbs.”

“You think they’re following the garbage on the road, the abandoned cars, stuff like that?”

“Could be.”

Billy looked down at the damage they’d been tasked with repairing and sighed. Ed knew what he was thinking. They were in for an all-day job. Last night, about twenty zombies had beat on the fence, and they’d done a fairly respectable job of breaking it down. There was a large section that had been pulled away from the posts, and it would have to be reinforced with new wire mesh and bolstered by razor wire. What neither of them said was that it would only get harder from here. A few weeks ago, there had been only a few zombies. Now, it was every night. They woke up to the crack of rifle shots echoing across the prairie. And sometimes, when the wind shifted, they caught the foul odor of burning bodies from the disposal pits to the north of the compound. If things continued the way they were, eventually they’d reach a point where the fences wouldn’t hold the infected at bay. It was only a matter of time, he knew.

“You okay, Ed?”

He’d been daydreaming, Ed realized. Not a smart thing to do while they were fifteen feet above the ground. He smiled and slapped Billy in the shoulder.

“Great,” he said. He heaved a skein of razor wire up onto the top rail and picked out the loose end. “Here, grab the skein,” he said.

Billy took it from him and pulled it back and out of the way, so that he could feed it out to Ed as needed. They’d spent a lot of time together up here, and they’d gotten good at this. Ed enjoyed his time up on the fences with Billy. He’d actually grown really fond of the boy, despite their rough start. Julie Carnes had joked with him that he’d finally found the son he never had, and while he didn’t think it was as much as all that, he still liked talking to the boy.

And now they were up here again, working easily together, and their conversation turned, as it usually did, back to Kyra Talbot.

Lately, she was all Billy thought of.

“She’s working in the radio room,” Billy said. “The way she explained it to me, she sits in this little room outside of where Jasper monitors the radio. When he needs her, he calls her in, tells her a message to take over to the office, and she delivers it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. She probably gets him coffee and stuff like that, but I think that’s about it.”

“I guess it beats freezing up here, doesn’t it?”

“Or being one of those poor bastards out there.”

Ed nodded. They were silent for a time, and Ed noticed Billy’s attention drifting back to the center of the compound. “Hey,” he said.

“Hmm.” Billy looked at him. “What’d you say?”

“I didn’t say nothing. I didn’t have to. You got it bad for her, don’t you?” Billy didn’t answer. “You ought to be careful there.”

“Careful?”

“I’m old, Billy, but I was your age once. You don’t seriously think you’re the first guy to go nuts over a girl, do you?”

Billy smiled. “Doesn’t do any good to try to lie to you, does it?”

“Not really. But I’m wondering if you’ve thought this thing through. She’s tight with that guy from California, from what I can see. What’s his name? Colin?”

“Yeah, Colin. He’s an asshole.”

Ed cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” Billy said. “But he is.”

“It’s okay. I happen to agree with you, actually.”

“Really?” Billy looked up at Ed, and the expression on his face was hopeful, like he’d found an unexpected ally.

Ed recognized the look. It wasn’t the message he’d meant to deliver. “I think he’s desperate, Billy. That’s never a good thing. All of us are dealing with a world that has completely fallen apart, but some of us aren’t handling it as well as others.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t think he’s stable,” Ed said. “I’m saying he’s holding on to Kyra because he sees her as an element of this new world that he can control. You take that away from him, there’s no telling how he’ll react. Just be careful, okay?”

Billy didn’t answer.

“What does she think about life here in the Grasslands?”

“She likes Jasper a lot.”

The way he said it, the enthusiasm, the sudden brightening of the eyes, bothered Ed. Billy was smart about so many things, and yet there were times when he just didn’t think a thing through. First the girl, then this place. Damn, it was frustrating.

Ed put a nail in his mouth and clenched it while he hammered another into the section of wire on which he was working.

“Easy there, partner,” Billy said. “Pounding on that thing a little hard, aren’t you?”

Ed just grunted.

Billy put his hammer down and pushed himself up to a sitting position, his legs dangling over the side of the fence.

“What’s up, Ed. You all right?”

“Happy as a pig in slop.” He took the nail from his mouth and set his own hammer down. No, it wouldn’t do any good to lie. “I thought this place would be safe, Billy. That’s why I brought us here.”

Billy looked at him strangely. “What are you talking about, the zombies?”

Ed started to speak, then stopped himself. There was a lot he felt he needed to say, but couldn’t. He hated feeling so helpless. He tried to smile but couldn’t make himself do it. He turned away and scanned the surroundings instead, the green prairie that stretched off to the horizon everywhere he looked.

Finally, he said, “I don’t know, Billy. This place…”

“What about it? You don’t like it here?”

“Do you?”

“Well, yeah,” said Billy. “I mean, sure. What’s not to like?”

They had Billy working in the kitchen most mornings, and in the laundry in the afternoons, both jobs he’d held as a trustee in the Sarasota County Jail. He seemed to enjoy the work, at least as far as Ed could tell, but Ed wondered how much longer that would go on.

“Jasper’s good at making people feel useful,” Billy said. “You got to give him that.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Ed said. And it was. He had built schools for the kids and organized activities for those too old or feeble to work. There was plenty to eat. Medical care was more than adequate. But still, Ed felt uneasy.

“So what’s the problem?” Billy said.

“What do we know about the world outside these walls, Billy? Answer me that.”

Billy thought for a moment. “Well,” he said. “Jasper says that—”

“Stop there,” Ed said. “We’ve been here, what, about three weeks? In all that time, have you seen a radio? A TV? A cell phone? Nobody gets word from the outside but Jasper. Doesn’t that concern you?”

“Well…”

“It concerns me. Billy, I want to find out what we’re missing.”

“I don’t follow you. You think he’s lying to us?”

“I don’t know one way or the other,” Ed said. “But I’d like to know that for myself. Wouldn’t you?”

Now it was Billy’s turn to look troubled. He fidgeted on the fence for a moment, suddenly uncomfortable, like new thoughts were just now occurring to him.

Ed said, “Hey, look there.”

He was pointing off to the horizon, down the main road. Far off in the distance, the sun was dancing off the roofs of three large brown RVs.

“Looks like newcomers,” Billy said.

“Yeah,” Ed said. “Wonder where they’re from.”