Pocalypse Road

  “Ain’t gonna be a next time, Mark.” Because she wasn’t gonna sit around waitin, that was for damn sure. If Carline and Mandy could survive on their own just fine, and bash in zombie skulls, what was there to stop Steph from takin’ matters into her own hands? And Miz Ginny, too, standing up to Mr Lee like it was no big thing. Steph suspected Miss Ginny could have handled even Daddy in one of his his bull-roarin rip-snorts, too.

  “What the hell you talkin about?” Mark’s voice bounced off the concrete wall but fell dead into the snow.

  Carline appeared with an armful of rolled-up sleeping bags, the employee door swinging almost-closed behind her, hitting the wedge they put to keep it from latching. The redheaded girl glanced up, and almost dropped the bags in their bulky waterproof sleeves. “Steph?” She had a high, light, pretty voice, and her hair was coppery in the morning light. “You okay?”

  There were a lot of things that could mean, from is he hassling you to do you need rescuin?

  “Fine.” Steph waved, to make it official, and pasted a smile on. Carline didn’t smile back, just stood there with her arms full, watchful, a slight blush on her smooth porcelain cheeks. Even her eyebrows glittered a little, and the same old familiar popped-balloon feeling filled Steph’s chest. It wasn’t nice or right or proper to feel bad now that there was a prettier girl around, but there it was. “We’re just talkin.”

  “No, you’re just tellin me I ain’t good enough to shine your shoes.” The fringe of dark hair across Mark’s forehead, pushed down by his hat, almost hid his eyes. Especially since he dropped his chin and stared at the ground. “I thought you was different, Steph.”

  Good Lord and Sonny Jesus, as Mama would say when exasperated. “If that’s what you wanna turn this into, fine. Go ahead.” She pushed past him, her shoulder striking his since he didn’t move, and her eyes blurred a little. Stupid of him to get all boy, when all she was doing was trying to talk to him. He’d started it, anyway, acting like she should be all grateful or something, and for what? Just because he’d punched Carty didn’t mean his shit didn’t stink.

  Carline let her take two of the sleeping bags. “Thanks,” the redhead said, gazing past Steph, steadily. Her blue eyes, lighter than Steph’s and fringed with thick coppery lashes, were prettier, too. “You sure you okay?”

  “Fine. He just gets that way sometimes.” Chip on his shoulder, Mama would call it.

  It was Mark who had banged Mama on the head with the cast-iron, too. And held Steph in her bed afterward, not trying anything mean or crazy. Just…held her.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. But it bothered her. How could he be so good some ways, and then just stand there when Mr French…said what he said, did what he did?

  “Boys do.” Carline made a little motion, like tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Where do these go?”

  There was work to do. She could worry about Mark later. “In the truck. I’ll show you.”

  Two Conversations

  Gettin’ through the snow wasn’t the problem. The four-by was a little lower than the truck, which meant Lee plowed ahead and they stopped to clear the grilles every so often, but that was to be expected. The freeway was even relatively clear, and the snow was wet and clumping, falling in on itself as the temperature crept above freezing in the afternoon. They made it to the outskirts of Louisville just as clouds began threatening from the north—if the weather would make up its mind, Lee could settle his own.

  No, the problem was completely different, and it wasn’t one he had any goddamn answer for.

  With Ginny in the four-by with Juju and the girls, Lee was left with Mark and Traveller. Neither were ideal companions, between the boy’s morose silence and the dog’s slobber. At least with Ginny in the car Lee could have tried to undo some of the damage. He hadn’t meant to snap at her, but dear Lord, what was the woman thinking?

  You have a responsibility, she kept sayin’. Well, he was out of the Army, and his responsibility was what he damn well wanted it to be. That was what mustering out meant, and he’d been looking forward to it all his life. Now that he had it, she just wanted to what? Send him off with a pat on the head? While she took herself off through hostile territory infested with God-knew-what, into the teeth of winter?

  “Women,” Lee muttered, squinting at the melting snow. It was getting easier to goose the truck through, though this long shallow curve heading into the city had just enough of a slope to be troublesome.

  Amazingly, that broke Mark’s silence. “Amen.”

  Now just what do you know about ’em, son? That was probably the wrong thing to say. Lee hadn’t missed Steph sidling away from the boy. Well, girls got clannish, and she was probably liking talkin’ to her own kind after so long without. “Somethin on your mind, Mark?”

  “Nosir.” It only took another thirty seconds before it burst out, since Mark had been sitting and stewing all damn morning. “How do you deal with ’em, sir?”

  “Deal with who now?” Lee had a sinking sensation he knew. He turned the defroster up a notch, even though the windshield was perfectly clear.

  “Women, sir.” Mark cracked his left knuckles, a nervous movement and one Lee hoped wasn’t going to be a habit. That noise was annoying as fuck. “Girls.”

  “Never had much luck, myself. They a different species.” A pretty one, though. One that could make even a closed-up oyster feel like singing.

  Or drive Job himself mad with the galloping conundrums.

  “Aliens.” Mark pulled his cap off, running his fingers through dark hair. It stood up like it was full of shortening. Now that he’d said something about the burr in his saddle, he couldn’t sit still. “You think they like you, then alla sudden wham they turn round and you ain’t even good enough to shine their shoes. Daddy was right about ’em. He said they’re all…well, you know.”

  “Hold up now.” I don’t think I’d trust anything Kasprak Senior said about anythin other than beer, kid. “No call for that kind of talk, young ’un.”

  “Yessir.” Mark shot him an uncertain glance. “But Miz Ginny this mornin—”

  Trust a kid to put an elbow right into a sensitive spot. “She wasn’t tellin me I ain’t fit. She got an idear in her head, that’s all.” Lee found out he believed it as soon as it left his mouth. “Thing about women is, they get those idears, and a man goes along if he knows what’s good for him.” Well, that wasn’t the whole truth. Lee eased off the accelerator, and the hill leveled out a little bit. The chains bit packed snow, and he steered into the slide that wanted to happen. It straightened out right quick, and at least he could do that without screwing up. “Unless he can’t. Then there’s some sparks.”

  Sparks could start a forest fire, if you let ’em. Best just to not give ’em any fuel, that was all.

  Mark ket chewin’ at the rough spot, just like a hound. “You ever been married, Mr Lee?”

  That made two people asking him about it lately. “You know I ain’t, kid.” Once or twice, he’d thought maybe he might want to…but it never seemed like there was any prospect. He was used to being invisible, and sometimes it was easier to buy what you needed rather than get foolish.

  Especially because of Lee Senior. No reason to risk bad blood coming out, even if Big Q and Nonna both told him he wasn’t like his daddy. Lee’s daddy was held to have a certain mean streak, all the more potent because it was kept bottled until that one rainy night.

  Don’t you talk to me about that boy, Big Q had said once, when Nonna mentioned taking Lee to visit his daddy. He done turned mean.

  That was one way of puttin’ it.

  “Well, you was in the Army. Figured sometimes guys get married, you know, in other ports. And stuff.” Was Mark blushing? It certainly sounded like it.

  “That’s the Navy.” Lord, how did he get into this conversation? More importantly, how did he get out?

  “Oh.” Mark sat on it for another half-mile, absently petting Traveller’s head. The dog sprawled between them snori
ng peacefully, drool bubbling at the corners of his lips. “Steph’s mad at me because I didn’t punch Mr French. When he was mean to Mr Thurgood.”

  Now that was interesting. Lee filed it away for further thought. “I’ll bet Ginny’d be mad if she knew I did.”

  “You did?” Damn the kid, he didn’t have to sound so impressed.

  Lee squinted against the snow-glare even behind his sunglasses. “He was fixin to hit me.”

  “But you punched him?” Mark’s voice cracked on the last word.

  “I did.” I’d be lyin if I said it didn’t feel good, too. The only thing that would’ve felt better was hitting the yellow-ass sonofabitch twice.

  “Oh.”

  Good Lord, now he was a role model, and had to say something wise. “Don’t you get the idea punchin’s the way to go, son. It ain’t.” Made more problems than it solved, sometimes.

  “But Steph said—”

  “I ain’t sayin don’t fight. Man’s got to, one way or another.” Given current events, there was a lot more coming sooner, Lee figured. He feathered the accelerator, chains digging in to get them over a slight hump. “What I’m sayin is, don’t start one. Finish it if you gotta, but don’t start nothin.”

  “Okay.” Mark nodded thoughtfully, mashing his hat back on, crushing his hair. “So Steph don’t like that I didn’t punch him, and Miss Ginny wouldn’t like that you did.”

  “I ain’t sayin it makes sense.” Because women don’t, my granddaddy told me often enough. “It’s just the way it is.”

  “But how do you talk to them?”

  Wasn’t that an age-old question. “Same way you do to anyone else.” With a heavy helping of shutting up when you could, and keepin’ it short when you couldn’t.

  “Aliens,” the kid muttered darkly, staring out the windshield like there might be an answer somewhere on the snowbound highway. “What am I gonna do?”

  Lee might have offered a suggestion or two, despite the inherent risk of such things where women were involved, but he was saved from an unlikely quarter. A sudden, roiling, ugly stench filled his nostrils and made his eyes water. “Good God,” he blurted, and his hand darted to roll down his window.

  “Jesus!” Mark said at almost exactly the same moment, and reached for his.

  Traveller, supremely unbothered by either their conversation or its subject, snored, shifted his hindquarters a little, and farted again.

  “Forty years,” Juju answered darkly, squinting. The four-by crept in the truck’s wake, and the glare off melting snow was dazzling even with sunglasses on. “That’s how long.”

  “What’s syphilis?” Carline wanted to know, leaning forward and peering out at the windshield. She wore a faint powdery perfume, pleasant despite the close quarters.

  “A sexually transmitted disease.” Ginny’s of-course-your-request-is-normal librarian voice was coming in handy all the time, now. The Merck Manual’s thin pages fluttered a little in her lap, heat coming through the vents since one or two bullets had punched all the way through the car’s hard shell. A cold draft every once in a while was a reminder she did not need of how far off-course the planet was veering.

  “Ain’t just any disease, it’s the mother of ’em all.” Juju shook his head, the pompom on his cap bouncing. “Makes you insane, makes parts of you fall off—”

  “Which parts?” This was the most interesting discussion Steph had been party to in a while, and it was obvious by the way she leaned forward too, almost breathing in Ginny’s hair.

  I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. “Your nose, for one. There can be lesions on your, ah, your genitals.” Ginny kept her tone level. “It can also be passed to babies when the mother gives birth. Congenital, that’s the word. It’s very nasty.”

  “And they didn’t treat it?” Mandy’s disbelief spiraled up into almost-supersonic from the window seat behind Juju. “For forty years?”

  “Oh, maybe they treated some.” Juju’s knuckles stood up as he gripped the wheel, the burn scar on his left hand shining. He’d taken his gloves off, to feel the road, he said. “But mostly they wanted to know what happened if you didn’t. Since it was only black men.”

  A short, breathless, pained silence filled the four-by-four’s cabin, broken only by soft static from the radio as it scanned endlessly, searching for a signal, and the faint whistling of cold air from somewhere.

  “That’s fu—uh, that’s effed up.” Carline leaned back, sandwiched between Mandy and Steph. Her left hand, caught in Mandy’s right, tensed. “They just let it happen?”

  “Ain’t the first time.” Mandy stared out her window, her snub-nosed profile thoughtful and oddly serene. “Been experimenting on brown people since they met ’em, really.”

  Ginny’s head throbbed, and her throat ached. The Merck manual on her lap had started this whole thing, really. Trying to find a disease that fit what they’d seen, however loosely, was difficult. The current subject wasn’t helping her concentration, either. She hadn’t gone after an education degree, but it looked like she was about to have a teacher’s duties thrust upon her anyway.

  “You got that right.” Juju’s frown deepened, if that were possible. “What you want to bet this whole thing ain’t some gummint crap that escaped the test tube, huh?”

  Ginny nodded, slowly. “It would make sense.” But that doesn’t help me treat it. Were there any doctors left capable of figuring this out? What would happen when the current stock of antibiotics behind pharmacy counters or tucked away in hospitals ran out? Was there an antibiotic that worked against this thing? If there was, why hadn’t anyone hit on it—or had they by now, and lacked the means to deploy it? How many medical professionals were left, after all? Once she got started on that mental merry-go-round, it was goodbye to her calm, and hello to steadily mounting anxiety. “I just wish I could figure out what this illness might have mutated from, or where it started.”

  “Why?” Carline wanted to know.

  It’s certainly not for my own amusement. “That would give me some idea of how to treat it, the forms it’s likely to take, how to deal with the sufferers.”

  Mandy snorted, a very teenage sound. “Sufferers? They’re zombies.”

  “That’s what we call them, yes.” Be patient, she reminded herself, and took a deep breath. “A lot of times though, with diseases, if you catch it early you can treat it. In this case, once the seizures start…” She almost lost her train of thought, staring down at the page.

  “Yeah, my daddy threw himself all over the room when the shakes hit him.” Mandy shuddered. “Mama thought he was possessed.”

  It was Carline’s turn to laugh. “Your mama thought everything was possessed.”

  “So did yours.” Both girls cracked up.

  Steph smiled uncertainly, a stranger to their in-jokes. “My mama made my daddy go and get a flu shot with her. Funny, they got ’em and…and died anyway.”

  “My daddy said flu shots were just a way to make money off’n you.” Mandy sobered. “He said that about a lot of things.”

  “Insurance?” Carline piped up. “I remember him talking about that.”

  “Yeah, and magazines.” Mandy’s tone was thoughtful.

  Steph had to know more about this. “Magazines?”

  “Subscriptions, you know. Pay good money for something you end up wiping with.”

  Steph, of course, took it one logical step further. “Did he think toilet paper was a scam?”

  All three girls laughed, like bright birds. The sound was a tonic, but it also made Ginny’s head hurt more.

  “You okay?” Juju glanced at her, his eyebrows almost meeting over the top edges of his cat’s-eye sunglasses. They had heavy tortoiseshell rims, and suited him immensely. “You lookin a little peaked.”

  “I didn’t sleep well.” That was the understatement of the year. “And this morning wasn’t…pleasant.” It was, in fact, a downright mess. Lee was probably furious at her, especially after the second round of not-quit
e-argument outside.

  It was hard to tell, he was so quiet. If he’d simply get mad she could deal with it, but his silence was…uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, well.” Juju’s right hand twitched, like he wanted to reach across the intervening space. He didn’t, but the gesture warmed her. “Lot of that goin around.”

  Carline began telling a long involved joke about toilet paper, two grandmothers, and a traveling salesman. Ginny did her best to concentrate, paging through arcane diseases and contraindications. The vehicle bumped, her head throbbed, and she wished, suddenly and with uncharacteristic viciousness, that she hadn’t stopped for coffee on her way out of Cotton Crossing.

  Looking Up

  “It’s okay.” Brandon French kept his hands up and tried a nice, easy smile. He hadn’t shaved—what was the point? Except now he wished he had, looking good was the secret to success. “I’m human, all right? Human.”

  “You been bit?” The grey-haired woman—she was clearly in control here, from the way she stood in front of her group bunched in the dark hotel foyer and held the shotgun in her capable little paws—eyed him mistrustfully behind her steel-rimmed glasses. “Answer me!”

  “No ma’am.” Oh, he knew what was necessary now, in this brave new world. More of the smiling and scraping he hated in the old one. “No bites, no sniffles, no fever.”

  Why had he stayed at the hotel? Well, it was at least familiar, and he had the pleasure of pissing in the bed that hick motherfucker had slept in. That particular room was was looking a little worse for wear, but Brandon could use a different one each night. There was no shortage.

  There was no shortage of anything, really. Except women. He’d had a chance with Ginny, but she apparently liked hicks, inbreds, and affirmative action better. Who needed a cougar when there was fresh meat around, anyway? This group—not all white, but all female, mostly under twenty and only two of them fat—was much better.