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valarltdThis is from the collection Adventuresses, available at Amazon or here
Adventuresses ebook from Inkstained Succcubus
Still Rolling
Get on up here and shut that door fast! Yeah, you just sit there and breathe a minute, mister, and I'll get us the hell outta here. Damn lucky I saw you and luckier that I could stop in time. Another minute and they'da had you. Nah, I wouldn't ever leave anyone to get eaten by those things, but still, you better say a thank-you prayer to God, Loki, St. Jude, Coyote, Hermes and St. Christopher, and mean it. And check your pants. Not too many folk stay clean and dry in a zombie attack.
Welcome aboard my girl. Yeah, she's pretty. I bought her because you just don't come by purple Kenworths too often. I added the flowers on the side of the sleeper myself. Shoulda seen her before all this got going. She was a lot prettier before the Change, but we're all looking a little battered these days. The cow-catcher kinda ruins her lines, but gotta have it. I'm one of the last still rolling.
So how'd you end up on foot, carrying a small arsenal, out here on the back-ass side of Nowhere, Kansas?
Ah, yeah. Gas is getting to be a problem. Diesel's no better, but I make that my clients' worry. They have to fill me up and load me. I usually run food from the agri-fortresses out around Wichita into the university compound up in Kansas City. UMKC sends medicine and equipment back.
So where you been, mister?
Heh. A bunker? For real? Kinda had you figured for one of them weekend-warrior survivalist types, what with the camo and the guns.
Okay, sugar butt, put the boom-stick down. You shoot me here and this eighteen-wheeled bitch of mine will roll just to badass you.
Think this through. If you shoot me, not only will you have a corpse behind the wheel of eighty thousand pounds of steel rolling along at seventy-five, you'll have a big old hole in the driver's window. You really think you can shoot me, unbuckle my seatbelt, get my corpse out of the seat I just made a mess of and drive the lady before she crashes? That's assuming I don't kick the brake or clutch and turn off the cruise. You don't even know how to drive a rig and your fucking male pride ain't worth losing your life.
And that hole in the window? Zombies aren't smart but they can climb stairs. You're gonna wake up being digested before you knew you fell asleep.
That's better. We were getting along fine until you went macho and stupid. Didn't your mama ever tell you not to shoot the piano-player or your driver?
'Sides, it ain't like you got any ammo. Will you get that fucking shotgun out of my face? You aren't going to shoot me. If you had ammo, you'd have been shooting zombies, not running from them. Now be good or I'll put you off out here.
Brace yourself. Ah shit, I'm gonna be washing that off for a week. Stupid undead.
They weren't always this way, you know. The zombies, I mean. You don't know? Heh. Lots of folks seem to think we're out here in a fucking George Romero movie, with no good reason for it. Well, get comfortable. We got time before Kansas City, even as fast as I'm running.
Hunh? Oh hell no, I don't ever shut up. Jaw-jacking keeps me awake. I talk to Alice. I talk to any other drivers on the CB, though there ain't so many anymore. I talk to myself. So, lucky you. You get Yolanda's Tale of the End of the World and Theories of What Comes Next all to yourself today.
Started down in Louisiana, where else? Some of the companies started using zombie labor, must be ten years ago now. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Zombies, they aren't smart but they're strong and they work steadily and for no pay. They weren't dangerous, either. Real popular on the loading docks and with the accountants. Turned a nice profit, saving all that payroll.
Nasty when they start to rot, though, and they do it fast in the deep south summer heat. Nothing like getting out of your cab on a hot August afternoon, when there ain't no air from St. Louis to the Gulf, just hot wet thickness you can't hardly breathe, and then getting hit with zombie-stink from the dock.
Speaking of, hold on tight, fella. Here we go again. They're thick today.
There. Damn, I hate it when they're little kids. Makes me feel guilty about running over 'em. But that baby girl had been dead about a year, if her skeleton arms and poor little dress are anything to go by. Dead, sure, but her body's still up and walking around. She ain't in it no more. So it's better that way. You know, the longer they shamble, the worse their clothes and skin get. Down in Mississippi and in wilder country, I've seen 'em bare-ass naked and some down to skeletons. And believe me, fella, once you've seen moldy ribs through zombie tits, it's almost enough to put you off live ones.
Ah, don't look at me like that. You had me pegged for a big ol' diesel dyke the minute you figured out you hadn't pissed yourself. Guess what. I am. Now hush up, you're gonna wake my Alice. She's not feelin' too good. I ain't either. That's why you're not getting me at my cheeriest.
Yeah, she's my wife. Married all legal-like back in Iowa. Back when there was an Iowa and when things like that mattered. Now all that I worry about is keeping us alive on a run.
Nah, Alice doesn't drive. I'm married to the most beautiful woman in the whole damn world. We were just like one of those truck-driving songs. Trucker, waitress and met at a roadhouse in Texas and all that jazz. Only thing different was we were both girls and we're both still rolling. Half the trucking songs are about being in love with waitresses and the other half are about dying on the road.
Saw her twice a week on my dedicated route. Long story short, I saved her from a pushy guy, she decided to come along. We got married. She's the brains of the outfit, my navigator, tax accountant and bookkeeper.
Yeah, sorry. Guess we shouldn't talk about brains since yours almost got eaten. Where were we? Oh yeah. Loading docks and zombie labor.
Anyway, Alice pointed out, after a few months, how the towns that were using zombie labor started dying. No, not literally. The zombies weren't hungry then. The towns just sorta shut down.
Fewer workers pulling a wage means less stuff getting bought at the stores, which means they fire cashiers and stockers and don't have as much call for drivers. And fewer workers making money means more people having to leave and live with relatives. The truck stops stayed open, but the little towns pretty much dried up and blew away in the space of a couple years. Just like a lot of 'em did when the interstates came through.
Factory folks had it better, since they had to think on the job and zombies can't. But the idea of zombie labor just kept creeping on northward. Everybody loves to save money. Started in Louisiana and branched into Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas first. Then Memphis, which is a major transportation hub. Fed Ex loved it. They let about half their workforce go. And when Big Purple cuts staff like that? A city, even a city big as Memphis, can be in a world of hurt.
In three years, I was seeing zombies in the Caves up in Kansas City. They got moldy in there instead of having great chunks just fall off like blue-green rotten meat. And out in Texas, they dried out to leathery mummy-things in the dry air.
Hang on.
Ick. That one spattered. Sorry about the smell, fella. Kinda like a skunk, it never quite comes out. I know, not too fragrant in here, either. I had a shower in Lawrence yesterday, but there aren't many safe rest areas anymore. Personal needs? I got a coffee can.
Look out there, a whole pack of 'em just kinda moseying along. Heh. Herds of zombies instead of buffalo on the great prairie. Never seen quite so many at once and headed...oh shit. Nothing personal, but are you sure you aren't injured or bit? They can smell blood, you know, just like human sharks. And they can smell one of their own.
Hang on, mister. We're goin' for a ride and it's a bumpy one.
Shhh. Alice, honey, go back to sleep. We'll be in the compound soon.
No, she doesn't sound good. Toldja she was sick. Bad fever and some pink-eye on top of it. Think I'm catching it. That's why she has to stay in the sleeper, gotta keep it dark. Can't wait for her to get well.
She's so pretty, fella, you should see her. She's half-Cherokee, you know. Lotsa long black hair. I'm crazy about women with long black hair. Blondes don't do it for me, really. But anyway, she's real pretty and I miss her sitting in that seat talking to me. I hope she gets better soon.
So what happened with the zombies? That's the question, ain't it, why they got a taste for people? Nobody really knows, but I got a few ideas.
Sure, could be demons, why not? If you believe in such things, I can see how you'd think it. Maybe it's like I heard that radio preacher saying, “Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust. Your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Yeah, creepy. Or maybe the voodoo gods got angry at having so many people yanked back out of the spirit realm and decided to teach us a lesson. Me, I don't buy any of it.
I think something went wrong in the concoctions. I don't know what they were mixing up to make the dead walk again and take orders but you know it had to be hella potent. Shit like that, you slip once, even a little bit, and everything goes bad.
Somebody fucked it up royally. The zombies came back all right, but they came back hungry. Regular zombies, they have to eat to keep the energy flowing, but they eat gruel, thin oatmeal, with no salt or sugar or spices. That stuff makes 'em remember they're dead, y'see?
I saw one, once, get hold of a soda. It drank the pop like it was water. Then that dead face got a real funny look and the zombie ambled off the dock, around to the grassy side of the building. I watched it dig itself back into the ground if you can believe it. Just dug in, laid down and pulled the hole in after it. Shoulda heard the foreman swear too.
This new batch, they wanted blood and salt and brains and flesh and didn't give a damn about the fact they were dead. Salt, sugar, spice? None of that was going to make them go back in the ground. Only thing that puts them down is destroying the head.
Yeah, gotta be the head. You ever seen a dead guy with no legs, no ass, his guts dragging out the lower half of his body, pulling himself along on his hands? Coming after you? Lucky you. Pray you don't. Wish I hadn't.
I hear the trouble started up around Ohio or West Virginia. Heh. Maybe one of them hillbillies got to fancying himself a hougan and tried using white lightning or some shit to raise some workers. Put a little kick in the revivification serum and instead of working faster, they just got the munchies.
I know. I know. I'm being bad. But if you don't joke about this stuff, you go crazy, man.
Believe me, I saw enough crazy in the early days, when we were still figuring it all out and before the fortress perimeters all got set. Now, crazy tends to take the shape of someone just walking out into the night and getting eaten. Then, oh hell. You should have seen it. Straight out of horror novels. People crucified on telephone poles. Lots of religious crazies, including a couple cults of zombie worshipers. Yeah, that lasted about as long as it took for them to all get eaten. Lots of places decorated with zombies impaled on spikes or their walls as warnings. Autodueling.
Almost lost my rig to a bunch of road warrior wannabes on that last one. Alice got a real nasty scar on her pretty face from it. They wanted to play road warriors. Well, we went Mel Gibson on their little four-wheel asses. I don't like killing live people. Don't do it unless I gotta.
Shhh. Alice baby, we're almost to Tonganoxie. We'll be there in an hour. You sleep, darlin'.
I hope they got something there for that fever, fella. I really do. Not like I can just pop in and buy a bottle of Tylenol at Wal-Mart anymore.
So yeah, the new batch came back hungry and they came back contagious. And pretty soon there wasn't much of anything left of the old batches, or of people, or of the whole damn country.
Hang on. Perimeter checkpoint. We're getting close.
Yolanda and Alice and human guest en route from Wichita to UMKC. We got pork and beef and veggies. Now move us on through. I got an hour's worth of gas left in the reefer.
Easy as pie. And I lied. I got two hours, so they'd better unload me fast. But I gotta take a quick break soon, even if we are almost there.
Where's it all gonna go from here? Not a clue. I think the fortresses are probably going to be city-states for a while yet. That's both good and bad. They can set their own rules, but I betcha it won't be long before weirdness starts there, too. I've heard some of the places are already using women as currency. That could get ugly fast. Especially when some fortress decides to declare war on another.
What? Oh yeah, when. There is no question at all in my mind that humans, once they get their numbers up a little, will start trying to kill each other, and much more effectively than by biting faces off one at a time.
What's gonna happen went some bright boy gets the idea of smuggling a few zombies into an enemy fortress and letting them loose? That ought to give you a few nightmares, hunh?
The zombies are going to rot out, eventually. I think there will always be a few and we'll just have to treat them like any other predator. Unless someone takes to breeding them as an army. Yeah, ain't I cheerful today? Or maybe, just maybe, the docs will find a cure.
I know, no cure for death, right? But maybe they can come up with something that helps the bitten not become zombies. Maybe a shot or something, inoculate everyone.
Yeah, that's gonna be bad for a while, too. The vaccine stores all went over a couple years ago. They're working on it. I hear we lost a lot of diabetics and other medically fragile folks in the collapse. They got measles in Warrensburg, the CB says, and we lost Omaha to typhoid last winter. We're already getting afraid of disease again. But in this dark age, we know what causes it.
Dark age, yeah, with feudalism and all. We were Rome for a while, standing astride the whole world. Now, Rome has fallen again. And we're picking up the pieces into little fiefs, walled cities and monasteries of science.
I'm pulling off here, hang on.
This is one of the last safe rest areas left and I gotta go. No, your little iron penis-waving display didn't cause it. Needed it for a while now and I sure ain't gonna use the coffee can in front of you. That'd be plain embarrassing for both of us.
Why don't you come along? There might be a Coke or something. UMKC is trying to get the bottling plant running, but it's all fits and starts and sometimes the taste is weird. Cola nuts and coca leaves are hard to come by these days. They do better on the root beer. Lots of sassafras trees around and they can make their own syrup.
Nah, don't lock it. We're the only ones here. Yeah, the pop's in the cooler in the old vending house.
Uh-hunh. And so is the snare. Nice trap checking there, Rambo.
Now you hush, mister weekend warrior. You sealed it when you drew on me, even if you weren't loaded.
Tell me one thing, while you hang there upside down. Have you ever loved, I mean really loved someone? Loved 'em enough to walk through the fires of Hell and demand the devil give 'em back? I thought not. Then you aren't gonna understand what comes next.
Yeah, that's a chainsaw. I'm sorry, I don't have time enough to make this painless, just quick. See, I didn't lie about Alice being sick or me catching it. She got bit last run. I got her muzzled and tied up before she came back.
She's still smart though. Maybe the zombies aren't as brainless as we think. She knew what it took to get me infected. And this morning, she got me with a tear when I kissed her cheek.
I don't have much time, mister. I'm gonna get us to the lab and offer us for experiments. UMKC has scientists working on the zombie problem. We'll be safe in a lab.
Like I said, I don't like killing live people and I'm sorry about the pain, but Alice and me, we come first. And the folks at UMKC ain't too picky about whether their pork comes on four legs, if you follow me.
It'll all be over in a minute.
Shhh, Alice baby. It's me. Yeah, I got something for you. Let me get that muzzle, sugar. Hey, hey, be nice. You don't need to try to bite. Look at me, Alice. Look. I know you're still in there. Already got me, honey, see? All pale and sweaty and sick-looking. I'll be with you soon.
Sit up. There we go. See? A nice fresh brain. Now, how about you enjoy your lunch while I finish the run? You want some music?
We're almost safe and still rolling. Oh, hey, sing it with me, darlin'. Our words, not old Buck's.
I helped her aboard my old semi
Then like a flash we had flown
Got them old truck wheels a turnin'
Heading for a wedding in Des Moines.
This originally appeared in the Lambda Literary nominated anthology Zombiality: a Queer Bent on the Undead.
Adventuresses ebook from Inkstained Succcubus
Still Rolling
Get on up here and shut that door fast! Yeah, you just sit there and breathe a minute, mister, and I'll get us the hell outta here. Damn lucky I saw you and luckier that I could stop in time. Another minute and they'da had you. Nah, I wouldn't ever leave anyone to get eaten by those things, but still, you better say a thank-you prayer to God, Loki, St. Jude, Coyote, Hermes and St. Christopher, and mean it. And check your pants. Not too many folk stay clean and dry in a zombie attack.
Welcome aboard my girl. Yeah, she's pretty. I bought her because you just don't come by purple Kenworths too often. I added the flowers on the side of the sleeper myself. Shoulda seen her before all this got going. She was a lot prettier before the Change, but we're all looking a little battered these days. The cow-catcher kinda ruins her lines, but gotta have it. I'm one of the last still rolling.
So how'd you end up on foot, carrying a small arsenal, out here on the back-ass side of Nowhere, Kansas?
Ah, yeah. Gas is getting to be a problem. Diesel's no better, but I make that my clients' worry. They have to fill me up and load me. I usually run food from the agri-fortresses out around Wichita into the university compound up in Kansas City. UMKC sends medicine and equipment back.
So where you been, mister?
Heh. A bunker? For real? Kinda had you figured for one of them weekend-warrior survivalist types, what with the camo and the guns.
Okay, sugar butt, put the boom-stick down. You shoot me here and this eighteen-wheeled bitch of mine will roll just to badass you.
Think this through. If you shoot me, not only will you have a corpse behind the wheel of eighty thousand pounds of steel rolling along at seventy-five, you'll have a big old hole in the driver's window. You really think you can shoot me, unbuckle my seatbelt, get my corpse out of the seat I just made a mess of and drive the lady before she crashes? That's assuming I don't kick the brake or clutch and turn off the cruise. You don't even know how to drive a rig and your fucking male pride ain't worth losing your life.
And that hole in the window? Zombies aren't smart but they can climb stairs. You're gonna wake up being digested before you knew you fell asleep.
That's better. We were getting along fine until you went macho and stupid. Didn't your mama ever tell you not to shoot the piano-player or your driver?
'Sides, it ain't like you got any ammo. Will you get that fucking shotgun out of my face? You aren't going to shoot me. If you had ammo, you'd have been shooting zombies, not running from them. Now be good or I'll put you off out here.
Brace yourself. Ah shit, I'm gonna be washing that off for a week. Stupid undead.
They weren't always this way, you know. The zombies, I mean. You don't know? Heh. Lots of folks seem to think we're out here in a fucking George Romero movie, with no good reason for it. Well, get comfortable. We got time before Kansas City, even as fast as I'm running.
Hunh? Oh hell no, I don't ever shut up. Jaw-jacking keeps me awake. I talk to Alice. I talk to any other drivers on the CB, though there ain't so many anymore. I talk to myself. So, lucky you. You get Yolanda's Tale of the End of the World and Theories of What Comes Next all to yourself today.
Started down in Louisiana, where else? Some of the companies started using zombie labor, must be ten years ago now. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Zombies, they aren't smart but they're strong and they work steadily and for no pay. They weren't dangerous, either. Real popular on the loading docks and with the accountants. Turned a nice profit, saving all that payroll.
Nasty when they start to rot, though, and they do it fast in the deep south summer heat. Nothing like getting out of your cab on a hot August afternoon, when there ain't no air from St. Louis to the Gulf, just hot wet thickness you can't hardly breathe, and then getting hit with zombie-stink from the dock.
Speaking of, hold on tight, fella. Here we go again. They're thick today.
There. Damn, I hate it when they're little kids. Makes me feel guilty about running over 'em. But that baby girl had been dead about a year, if her skeleton arms and poor little dress are anything to go by. Dead, sure, but her body's still up and walking around. She ain't in it no more. So it's better that way. You know, the longer they shamble, the worse their clothes and skin get. Down in Mississippi and in wilder country, I've seen 'em bare-ass naked and some down to skeletons. And believe me, fella, once you've seen moldy ribs through zombie tits, it's almost enough to put you off live ones.
Ah, don't look at me like that. You had me pegged for a big ol' diesel dyke the minute you figured out you hadn't pissed yourself. Guess what. I am. Now hush up, you're gonna wake my Alice. She's not feelin' too good. I ain't either. That's why you're not getting me at my cheeriest.
Yeah, she's my wife. Married all legal-like back in Iowa. Back when there was an Iowa and when things like that mattered. Now all that I worry about is keeping us alive on a run.
Nah, Alice doesn't drive. I'm married to the most beautiful woman in the whole damn world. We were just like one of those truck-driving songs. Trucker, waitress and met at a roadhouse in Texas and all that jazz. Only thing different was we were both girls and we're both still rolling. Half the trucking songs are about being in love with waitresses and the other half are about dying on the road.
Saw her twice a week on my dedicated route. Long story short, I saved her from a pushy guy, she decided to come along. We got married. She's the brains of the outfit, my navigator, tax accountant and bookkeeper.
Yeah, sorry. Guess we shouldn't talk about brains since yours almost got eaten. Where were we? Oh yeah. Loading docks and zombie labor.
Anyway, Alice pointed out, after a few months, how the towns that were using zombie labor started dying. No, not literally. The zombies weren't hungry then. The towns just sorta shut down.
Fewer workers pulling a wage means less stuff getting bought at the stores, which means they fire cashiers and stockers and don't have as much call for drivers. And fewer workers making money means more people having to leave and live with relatives. The truck stops stayed open, but the little towns pretty much dried up and blew away in the space of a couple years. Just like a lot of 'em did when the interstates came through.
Factory folks had it better, since they had to think on the job and zombies can't. But the idea of zombie labor just kept creeping on northward. Everybody loves to save money. Started in Louisiana and branched into Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas first. Then Memphis, which is a major transportation hub. Fed Ex loved it. They let about half their workforce go. And when Big Purple cuts staff like that? A city, even a city big as Memphis, can be in a world of hurt.
In three years, I was seeing zombies in the Caves up in Kansas City. They got moldy in there instead of having great chunks just fall off like blue-green rotten meat. And out in Texas, they dried out to leathery mummy-things in the dry air.
Hang on.
Ick. That one spattered. Sorry about the smell, fella. Kinda like a skunk, it never quite comes out. I know, not too fragrant in here, either. I had a shower in Lawrence yesterday, but there aren't many safe rest areas anymore. Personal needs? I got a coffee can.
Look out there, a whole pack of 'em just kinda moseying along. Heh. Herds of zombies instead of buffalo on the great prairie. Never seen quite so many at once and headed...oh shit. Nothing personal, but are you sure you aren't injured or bit? They can smell blood, you know, just like human sharks. And they can smell one of their own.
Hang on, mister. We're goin' for a ride and it's a bumpy one.
Shhh. Alice, honey, go back to sleep. We'll be in the compound soon.
No, she doesn't sound good. Toldja she was sick. Bad fever and some pink-eye on top of it. Think I'm catching it. That's why she has to stay in the sleeper, gotta keep it dark. Can't wait for her to get well.
She's so pretty, fella, you should see her. She's half-Cherokee, you know. Lotsa long black hair. I'm crazy about women with long black hair. Blondes don't do it for me, really. But anyway, she's real pretty and I miss her sitting in that seat talking to me. I hope she gets better soon.
So what happened with the zombies? That's the question, ain't it, why they got a taste for people? Nobody really knows, but I got a few ideas.
Sure, could be demons, why not? If you believe in such things, I can see how you'd think it. Maybe it's like I heard that radio preacher saying, “Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust. Your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Yeah, creepy. Or maybe the voodoo gods got angry at having so many people yanked back out of the spirit realm and decided to teach us a lesson. Me, I don't buy any of it.
I think something went wrong in the concoctions. I don't know what they were mixing up to make the dead walk again and take orders but you know it had to be hella potent. Shit like that, you slip once, even a little bit, and everything goes bad.
Somebody fucked it up royally. The zombies came back all right, but they came back hungry. Regular zombies, they have to eat to keep the energy flowing, but they eat gruel, thin oatmeal, with no salt or sugar or spices. That stuff makes 'em remember they're dead, y'see?
I saw one, once, get hold of a soda. It drank the pop like it was water. Then that dead face got a real funny look and the zombie ambled off the dock, around to the grassy side of the building. I watched it dig itself back into the ground if you can believe it. Just dug in, laid down and pulled the hole in after it. Shoulda heard the foreman swear too.
This new batch, they wanted blood and salt and brains and flesh and didn't give a damn about the fact they were dead. Salt, sugar, spice? None of that was going to make them go back in the ground. Only thing that puts them down is destroying the head.
Yeah, gotta be the head. You ever seen a dead guy with no legs, no ass, his guts dragging out the lower half of his body, pulling himself along on his hands? Coming after you? Lucky you. Pray you don't. Wish I hadn't.
I hear the trouble started up around Ohio or West Virginia. Heh. Maybe one of them hillbillies got to fancying himself a hougan and tried using white lightning or some shit to raise some workers. Put a little kick in the revivification serum and instead of working faster, they just got the munchies.
I know. I know. I'm being bad. But if you don't joke about this stuff, you go crazy, man.
Believe me, I saw enough crazy in the early days, when we were still figuring it all out and before the fortress perimeters all got set. Now, crazy tends to take the shape of someone just walking out into the night and getting eaten. Then, oh hell. You should have seen it. Straight out of horror novels. People crucified on telephone poles. Lots of religious crazies, including a couple cults of zombie worshipers. Yeah, that lasted about as long as it took for them to all get eaten. Lots of places decorated with zombies impaled on spikes or their walls as warnings. Autodueling.
Almost lost my rig to a bunch of road warrior wannabes on that last one. Alice got a real nasty scar on her pretty face from it. They wanted to play road warriors. Well, we went Mel Gibson on their little four-wheel asses. I don't like killing live people. Don't do it unless I gotta.
Shhh. Alice baby, we're almost to Tonganoxie. We'll be there in an hour. You sleep, darlin'.
I hope they got something there for that fever, fella. I really do. Not like I can just pop in and buy a bottle of Tylenol at Wal-Mart anymore.
So yeah, the new batch came back hungry and they came back contagious. And pretty soon there wasn't much of anything left of the old batches, or of people, or of the whole damn country.
Hang on. Perimeter checkpoint. We're getting close.
Yolanda and Alice and human guest en route from Wichita to UMKC. We got pork and beef and veggies. Now move us on through. I got an hour's worth of gas left in the reefer.
Easy as pie. And I lied. I got two hours, so they'd better unload me fast. But I gotta take a quick break soon, even if we are almost there.
Where's it all gonna go from here? Not a clue. I think the fortresses are probably going to be city-states for a while yet. That's both good and bad. They can set their own rules, but I betcha it won't be long before weirdness starts there, too. I've heard some of the places are already using women as currency. That could get ugly fast. Especially when some fortress decides to declare war on another.
What? Oh yeah, when. There is no question at all in my mind that humans, once they get their numbers up a little, will start trying to kill each other, and much more effectively than by biting faces off one at a time.
What's gonna happen went some bright boy gets the idea of smuggling a few zombies into an enemy fortress and letting them loose? That ought to give you a few nightmares, hunh?
The zombies are going to rot out, eventually. I think there will always be a few and we'll just have to treat them like any other predator. Unless someone takes to breeding them as an army. Yeah, ain't I cheerful today? Or maybe, just maybe, the docs will find a cure.
I know, no cure for death, right? But maybe they can come up with something that helps the bitten not become zombies. Maybe a shot or something, inoculate everyone.
Yeah, that's gonna be bad for a while, too. The vaccine stores all went over a couple years ago. They're working on it. I hear we lost a lot of diabetics and other medically fragile folks in the collapse. They got measles in Warrensburg, the CB says, and we lost Omaha to typhoid last winter. We're already getting afraid of disease again. But in this dark age, we know what causes it.
Dark age, yeah, with feudalism and all. We were Rome for a while, standing astride the whole world. Now, Rome has fallen again. And we're picking up the pieces into little fiefs, walled cities and monasteries of science.
I'm pulling off here, hang on.
This is one of the last safe rest areas left and I gotta go. No, your little iron penis-waving display didn't cause it. Needed it for a while now and I sure ain't gonna use the coffee can in front of you. That'd be plain embarrassing for both of us.
Why don't you come along? There might be a Coke or something. UMKC is trying to get the bottling plant running, but it's all fits and starts and sometimes the taste is weird. Cola nuts and coca leaves are hard to come by these days. They do better on the root beer. Lots of sassafras trees around and they can make their own syrup.
Nah, don't lock it. We're the only ones here. Yeah, the pop's in the cooler in the old vending house.
Uh-hunh. And so is the snare. Nice trap checking there, Rambo.
Now you hush, mister weekend warrior. You sealed it when you drew on me, even if you weren't loaded.
Tell me one thing, while you hang there upside down. Have you ever loved, I mean really loved someone? Loved 'em enough to walk through the fires of Hell and demand the devil give 'em back? I thought not. Then you aren't gonna understand what comes next.
Yeah, that's a chainsaw. I'm sorry, I don't have time enough to make this painless, just quick. See, I didn't lie about Alice being sick or me catching it. She got bit last run. I got her muzzled and tied up before she came back.
She's still smart though. Maybe the zombies aren't as brainless as we think. She knew what it took to get me infected. And this morning, she got me with a tear when I kissed her cheek.
I don't have much time, mister. I'm gonna get us to the lab and offer us for experiments. UMKC has scientists working on the zombie problem. We'll be safe in a lab.
Like I said, I don't like killing live people and I'm sorry about the pain, but Alice and me, we come first. And the folks at UMKC ain't too picky about whether their pork comes on four legs, if you follow me.
It'll all be over in a minute.
Shhh, Alice baby. It's me. Yeah, I got something for you. Let me get that muzzle, sugar. Hey, hey, be nice. You don't need to try to bite. Look at me, Alice. Look. I know you're still in there. Already got me, honey, see? All pale and sweaty and sick-looking. I'll be with you soon.
Sit up. There we go. See? A nice fresh brain. Now, how about you enjoy your lunch while I finish the run? You want some music?
We're almost safe and still rolling. Oh, hey, sing it with me, darlin'. Our words, not old Buck's.
I helped her aboard my old semi
Then like a flash we had flown
Got them old truck wheels a turnin'
Heading for a wedding in Des Moines.
This originally appeared in the Lambda Literary nominated anthology Zombiality: a Queer Bent on the Undead.
