Amazombia

  Chapter 25.

  We all three sit in the radio tower, none of us sleepy. Actually, they're chatty Cathy's, I try to catch some sleep. Dodge and the girl talk for a while, all slurry talk, like drunk Spaniards that Portuguese sounds. The girl and him gibber-jabber and their talk is easy to nod off to. Then I hear the word "paddle" and I wake up.

  When I open my eyes, they're both staring at me. "Go ahead, that's right. You're talking about me, ain't ya? Go right ahead. Don't stop on my behalf. All along, Dodge, this girl does nothing going down stream. I even tried singing nursery rhymes, 'Row, row, row...' nothing. I can't figure her out, when we were talking at her house, things were OK. I fed her, got water, blah blah blah. And she was cordial. We get in the water, she turns into a cold fish. Paddle."

  "You were calling her a bitch, you idiot," Dodge says. Then he speaks that slurry talk, and she laughs.

  She clumsily calls me an, "Ee-dee-oot."

  "Hey, Dodge, Dodge. If we're going to do one thing moving forward, OK. From now on, you do the translating. And another thing, I don’t curse. So what's the word for paddle?"

  "Remar. What you were saying was 'bitch.' You could have just said paddle, genius."

  "Hey, who's the genius that figured out the carriage engineering, huh? Let's watch who's calling who a genius, genius."

  I apologize to the girl, and she's still distant. Works for me. I've learned not to make friends with anyone. Saves me tons of time. All the reciprocation. I ask Dodge what he and the girl were talking about, and he tells me.

  "The same man who killed her family and left her for dead is the same one that came into the village and caused havoc."

  "One man? How does one man cause so much havoc?"

  "Not one man, slave traders. He came in started rounding up the useful people, killing off the ones that didn’t agree with him and his friends. Chopped up the old useless people. Off they went."

  "Ah," I say. "So how come he let you live?"

  "For once my lack of legs was beneficial. I just smeared some blood on my legs, and lied still. He walked past me. The victims bleed out. It gives him time to operate before they die and zombify."

  "Dodge, there was a guy, a Mexican. Big guy, you couldn't miss him. He came down here to kill the village leader, it was a bounty. Though now, I'm not too sure what to believe. He told me these slave traders hired him to kill the leader, only he didn't."

  "I don't know what you're talking about. I was out East when you say he was here."

  "Huh? I didn't say when he was here, because I don't know when that was exactly."

  "Either way, I wasn't here. A Mexican that big sounds hard to miss though, wouldn't you say?"

  "Well yeah..." I say, “It's late, I'm real tired. Hey Dodge, wake me up when it's time to clear out of here."

  I sleep. I have morbid dreams of running free; only at the finish line they give me an award for “Fastest Slave, South America.” It’s not a gold medal or anything. It’s just a small paper plate scribbled on with magic marker.

  When I awaken, it's just me and Dodge in the radio tower.

  "Hey, where's the girl?" I ask.

  Dodge is just waking up. We look outside, she's mulling about with the zombies below, her face half chewed off. She looks up at us and hisses. When they hiss, that's pretty bad. She's a feisty zombie. Pushes the deadbeat zombies that walk around clueless and she grabs at the sides of the building.

  BANG!

  My ears ring. Dodge is on the ground near me, holding a high powered rifle. Scope and everything. The place takes on the familiar smell of illegal fireworks burning during my youth in New York. The gunpowder smells patriotic. I hate it.

  "What a way to wake up...what the hell happened to her?"

  "I don't know. Fell out the door, maybe leaned too far over to urinate. She may have some type of UIT. I'm no doctor, but that sounds plausible."

  "Wow," I say. "Just a shame. Bye Dena. It was...well, I knew you!"

  Dodge dispatches with several of the zombies below. "OK," he says, "Going down there. What you do is-"

  "Me?" I ask.

  "Well you don't expect me to do this work alone, do you? Look, it's simple, and I'll be covering you from up here. I have contingency plans. See in the rafters?"

  I look up, there's a rope ladder.

  "There," says Dodge, "You throw that down; I'll pull it up and throw it down if you need to run to safety. Just keep everyone at arms distance and in sight. They can't hurt you as long as you don't lose sight of them."

  "I've been around zombies before, Dodge. There's no need to talk to me like an idiot. What I need to know is how to use the dog catchers."

  "Simple. A zombie is more like a snake, then a dog. They let you slip the noose over their head real easy. Now beyond that barn is where I parked my wagon. It's real light weight. You just wheel it under this door, and I will show you how to harness up the zombies."

  "Yeah, but don't you have to rearrange the carriage? I mean, I just came up with the idea last night. I assumed we'd be doing some kind of welding, maybe some screwing things together...what gives?"

  "No, my design is robust. You'll just knock off the cage in front, and then when you go to harness up the zombies, instead of starting from the carriage and working your way out, instead you will start at the furthest end of the team pole and work your way in. Make sense?"

  "What's a team pole?" I ask.

  "It's the part that has the cage dangling from it. Another cotter pin holds it in place. It will make more sense when you're down there and have a look at the thing, I assure you."

  “Dodge, I got to thinking. What happens if we run into zombies when we’re out and about? We can’t exactly outrun them.”

  He pats the rifle.

  There's a bunch of zombies shambling around the field, and a few directly below, but not a crowd. And thankfully, none of them smell too off. They still have that fresh zombie scent.

  I go down the ladder, and Dodge quickly draws it back up. He also shoots some of the zombies real close to me.

  "Watch it!" I say. I make it to the barn, and the cows must think it is milking time. They start mooing real painful. Some fresh milk would really go nicely right now. "Hey Dodge, after we get the team of zombies hitched up, what do you say we have a nice breakfast and some milk?"

  "Sounds good," he shouts from the radio tower, and fires several shots off in the field, dropping the zombies like a mechanic.

  I go around to the side of the barn, and there's the wagon. A little bird cage in front. Looks uncomfortable, like it would be almost too small for a child. The carriage itself has outlandishly big bike tires on it, nearly as tall as I am. It's all aluminum and PVC and has a little scaffolding for covering the carriage, but the cloth covering is all tucked away in by the body of the carriage. I go to move it, but it won't budge.

  I'm about to call up to Dodge, when I see the handbrake. He already thought of that, and was just being facetious with me, the jerk. I release the brake, and pull the carriage around just as this hideous old zombie native waltzes around the corner. I push her down, and one of the legless zombies climbs over her as she tries to get up.

  I push the carriage under the doorway, close to all the debris from the steps. Dodge has been playing cowboy the whole time.

  "Hey, you gotta save some of those for hitching up, don't you?"

  "You're right. Coming down. Catch this." He throws down my kit, then his rifle, then the shotgun. Then he throws down some ammo, and finally a blanket. He climbs down like a human crab, and he shuffles over to the other side of the tower and hops into his chariot.

  I offer to help him up with the wheelchair, but he waves me off. He gets down and lifts the chair up onto the carriage by himself, and again climbs around like a spider. Big difference some sleep will do for a guy. He climbs up, unfolds his wheels, and he looks like a legless Roman warrior up there.

  "Hand me up the guns," he orders. I pass them up.

  "OK," he says, "Yo
u see those poles with nooses around them?"

  "Yeah, you want me to take them off?"

  "Only the first four. Then take that cage off, and put the poles at the end of the team pole."

  It takes a little figuring out, but the bird cage comes off easy enough. The dog catchers are also easy to attach. They're about five feet long.

  "So do I take one of these and go out there and catch them now?"

  "Not with those. In the front of the team pole, on the bottom."

  I look and there's a pole strapped underneath the heavier team pole.

  "That's the one. Yes, pull that out. That's the big dog-catcher."

  I pull out a pole that's about fifteen feet long. It has a thin bike wire cable running through it, and forms a noose when you slide the cable in and out with a wooden stick jammed into the end of the pole.

  "Don't pull it too tight when you snare them," Dodge says, "Or you'll just pop the heads off."

  "You know, Dodge, the canoe is a much easier affair, goes about the same speed, no zombies. Just paddles. Even you could use one."

  "This will take us where we need to go; your river just empties out into the Gulf of Mexico north of here eventually. We’re going east."

  "So what if it does? We get in a sailboat when we hit the gulf and go east. Zombies don't like water, I'm just saying."

  He waves me out to the field. I snare my first zombie, and it's not a difficult thing after all. I catch a tall native zombie, taller than me, at least. And feisty, too. I bring him over to the wagon, and other zombies from the field start following me over.

  "You have to work quicker," Dodge says. Then he points at the zombies in the field, and he picks off two with his rifle. Real Mo Green shots, right thru the eye. I'm not surprised at his marksmanship. Anything he touches (except maybe sneakers) turns to gold in his hands.

  "This would really be easier with two people, Dodge," I say. I pull the zombie thrashing at the end of my pole over to the wagon, and bend him over and snake his head into a waiting noose. When I let go with the one dog catcher, he lurches after me and the noose on the wagon tightens around his neck and he's trapped. Immobile.

  I do this over and over, and it becomes more a chore than a life endangering exercise in futility.

  "I feel like a fish out of water, Dodge. I mean, come on. Canoe. Fresh fish. Cool water when you're thirsty."

  He ignores me.

  I attach the last zombie, and the whole carriage looks like it can tip over at any moment. Dodge smiles up top. Then, it dawns on me. He doesn't care so much that it's cumbersome. In his own way, he probably feels like he has legs again. Even if he's just in a souped up giant wheelchair.

  "Hop on board, pardner," he says with an exaggerated Texan drawl. Again, he's not very funny. But I reports it as I sees it.

  I climb up and the zombies all start lurching towards me.

  Dodge locks in the brakes on his wheelchair, and releases the handbrake to the cart, and we're off. We're actually racing a zombie chariot! It's exhilarating. The breeze is immediate. I look behind me and the zombies are all shambling after me and Dodge at a decent pace.

  "How fast do you think we're going, Dodge?"

  "Hard to tell, been so long since I ran. We'll know in an hour. See that line of trees ahead? That's about seven miles away. I don't think they can run that fast, but you entice them enough, and I bet we get up to about five miles an hour."

  So that's what I do. Sit there and every now and then lean back and feel the carriage lurch forward. The zombies are tireless. And we make it to the tree line in about an hour fifteen minutes, according to Dodge. I don't really know how accurate that is. Neither of us has a watch.

  We stop at the tree line. There's a bunch of cows by the trees, resting peacefully. A cow with stretched out udders comes over, and I never milked a cow before. Dodge climbs down effortlessly off the carriage, and shows me how to do it. The milk sits heavy in our bellies.

  The zombies moan and groan tirelessly, and it's a little disconcerting having them nip at my heels. I don't tell Dodge this; I won't give him the satisfaction.

  We come up to a well-worn footpath that heads right into the morning sun. At midday, we stop near a rickety bridge overhanging a bubbling brook. We drink up, and Dodge is mildly impressed with my fishing skills.

  "I'd had pegged you to be a cricket eater," he says.

  I shrug. If only he knew. "I prefer fish," I say. A half-truth. To be honest, I couldn't think of eating bugs and lizards anymore.

  We put up the wagon cover, and Dodge makes me fill some plastic bottles with water.

  We walk (I don't need to tell you Dodge walks on his hands all the time, it's hard enough watching him waddle around. Just assume he's waddling and acting smug, and I'll owe you a description of a crane flying down towards the high grass along the brook).

  "How do they not knock that thing over, with just the brake stopping them?" I ask.

  "Physics. No leverage. With that brake engaged, they're like horses, or sled dogs, working against each other. Release the brake, and off we go."

  "Yeah, but Dodge, even horses run off with their carriages now and then, out of control."

  "I have no problem shooting zombies," he says wryly (wryly and smug...two totally different attitudes. Here, Dodge is a bit cocky. See, he knew back near the barn that I have a distaste for guns the way I grimaced as he handed them to me. He's rubbing it in, but I won't bite).

  "Then what?” I say. “Look around...there's not a soul for miles. You shoot all of them? Then what?"

  "We really only need one to pull us," he says.

  "I'd like to just go back to the canoe, you know. You head east your way, I'll do mine just fine, thank you very much."

  "Go right ahead. I won't stop you. Of course, I would be honor bound to send out word of a runaway slave paddling down Orinoco River."

  "You wouldn't."

  "Or maybe I'll just practice target shooting?" He's smug, and he's waddling, and forget what I said before about the smug little duck-man walking on his hands, furrowed brow, smiling up at me. He's a class act jerk.

  "Oh yeah? What's to say I wouldn't shoot you?" I ask.

  "Again, go right ahead. The rifle has the safety off. The shotgun...you have to re-chamber that. You have chambered a shotgun, haven't you?"

  "I could just as easily run up to that carriage right now and leave you out here. It's not a far crawl back to the massacred village," I say.

  He pulls out a small Saturday night special he had hidden in his pants. He cocks it and has that stupid smug look.

  "I think you need to save your words. You have a lot of running to do."

  "So it's like that, Dodge?"

  "Yep. Like that. Now move."

  He pokes at my leg with the little pistol, and I make my way back towards the zombies. I make a dash for it, and a bullet ricochets inches from my feet. He puts the gun in his mouth and fishes out another cartridge from his pants. I stand still. He's too good a shot for me to risk running.

  "Hey, hey," I say. "I was just limbering up my legs."

  "Limber up your legs what?"

  "You heard me, limber up my legs."

  He gives me a look and cocks the hammer of the little gun back.

  "Limber up my legs...my lord."

  "That's better. Now get out in front of them, we're heading East. Just follow the trail."

  I shake my head and pull down my hat as I watch him climb aboard his cart.

  I start running.