,“ read the graffiti.
Jenny ducked under the concrete overpass. Huddling against the cool stone, holding her knife with both hands, she tried not to breathe. She stared at the three-foot-high letters scrawled in sloppy red paint, afraid to move, willing her heart to slow. It was beating so hard in her ears that she could barely hear the dozen or so rotters stumbling across the road above her. They were old, which was lucky, but she still couldn’t take that many at once.
PRAY TO THE 13. She had seen the tag before. The Thirteen were a myth, everyone knew the stories. They were supposed to be a brave cult of superhumans looking for a miraculous cure. It was a fairy tale. Some said they were rotters who were somehow still living. Most said it was all bullshit. Jenny tended to lean toward the latter; people would believe anything if it gave them hope, but as it was, she thought it was probably better to be realistic. No one was going to save them. No one ever had.
She stayed still as the wave of rotters passed overhead. A few stopped to sniff the air above her, but they continued on in their odd, shambling gait up the street, a few tripping and falling over their own feet.
Jenny looked down at her Righteous dress, covered in rotter guts, and the bowie knife in her grip, dripping with dark, coagulated blood. She stank as much as they did. But that wasn’t why they had passed by. They were going toward Expo, and the scents of hundreds of Heathens was overpowering, all their blood and flesh like a buffet.
The vendors at Expo had ways of dealing with the Undead. There was a strict no-violence rule inside the walls, but outside, anything could happen. The vendors were probably the safest people on the planet because, generally, they spent every waking hour inside the walls. They hired prowlers to lurk around Expo twenty-four hours a day. It was a shit job, being a prowler, but loners were willing to work for food or car parts when they didn’t have anything to trade.
There always seemed to be an abundant supply of people with nothing to lose.
Jenny could hear the prowlers now, tearing the rotters apart, not more than a block away, and she cringed when she heard a scream far too human to be Undead. She ran toward the sound of fighting. Rotters littered the ground. They had been old, frail. The prowlers had made short work of them as she had been cowering like an idiot. But one of the prowlers had gotten unlucky. He was sitting on the ground, two other prowlers holding him upright. He had a cloth stuffed over one of his hands, but blood was soaking through it. He lifted the rag to inspect the wound and Jenny could see that his pinkie finger had been nearly torn off. Blood spurted out of the wound and he quickly stuffed the cloth back over it, sucking air in through his teeth as he did so.
The four other prowlers were busy pulling the fallen zombies to the side of the road, away from the tall wooden fence that stood around Expo. Doing their jobs while the poor bastard sat bleeding to death. If he was lucky. If not, it would be a slow, agonizing death and then he’d turn. Jenny had seen it happen. It wasn’t pretty.
She crouched in front of him. One of the guys propping him up was talking.
“I don’t know, man. Maybe if we amputate your hand you’ll be all right.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” Jenny said. “It’s already in his system.” She looked at the bleeding guy. “You can feel it already, can’t you? You’re already infected. You can’t stop it.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he nodded.
“Yeah. Yeah, I feel it.” He kicked at the ground with a spiked black boot. “Fuck!”
“Who the fuck are you?” said the other prowler. “I don’t listen to no Righteous bitches.”
“Hey, shithead,” she said, looking at him. “Why don’t you go help these guys clean up. You’re clearly too fucking stupid for this conversation.”
He scrunched up his face in anger and reached for something in his ratty, dirty jeans but Jenny had her knife at his throat in an instant.
“I’ve been busy, too,” she said. “This blade is covered in rotter blood. One scratch, motherfucker. You want to take that chance?”
“Crazy bitch,” he said. But he stomped off, throwing her a dark look. She sat down next to the doomed prowler.
“You ain’t no Righteous,” he said through gritted teeth, “are you?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
She used her knife to tear a strip of fabric off a clean part of her dress. She handed it to him. He was wearing a leather jacket in the heat. Leather was thicker and could usually withstand even a young zombie’s teeth. But it was hot as hell and he must have been dying in the thing. His hair was short and choppy, like he’d cut it off in chunks with a knife or a dull pair of scissors. He had a big metal ring through the middle of his nose like a bull. Jenny looked at the other prowler holding him up.
“Hey,” she said. “Take a walk, would you? I want to talk to your friend.”
“Fuck that,” said the guy. He had his hair in a ragged knot on the back of his head. Stringy, greasy strands of hair had fallen down and hung around his face. “We have to get him inside. Doc can fix him up.”
Jenny looked at the injured man.
“You know that’s not true, right?” she said as gently as she could.
He swallowed. “Yeah. I guess.” He looked at his friend. “Do what she says.”
The last companion reluctantly joined the other prowlers, busy stacking bodies, occasionally glancing over, curious. The red bands they had tied around their arms seemed to glow in the sunlight. The strips of fabric identified them as prowlers instead of just common Dregs. It let people know they were hired.
“What’s your name?” Jenny said.
“They call me Bloody.”
“That’s appropriate.” He almost smiled, but it came out a grimace.
“It’s a stupid nickname,” he said. “My real name’s Adam.”
“I’m Jenny. You got anyone, Adam?”
“No one,” he said, a hollow tone to his voice. “It’s just me now.”
“It’s not going to be pleasant,” she said. “It’s going to hurt.”
“I know,” he said woodenly. “I seen it before. My girlfriend went last week.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That sucks.”
“And our son last year. I guess I’ve come full fucking circle.”
“We all get there eventually,” she said. “Maybe the Righteous are right. Maybe there is a Heaven.”
“You believe that?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “From what I’ve seen, if Heaven’s full of Righteous, I guess I don’t want any part of it.”
“Ain’t nobody in this world could get into Heaven right now,” said Adam. “Every single one of us has done bad shit. But you know, everything I did was for them. And I did it as long as I could. I got nothing to protect any more. There ain’t no point with nothing to protect, you know? Don’t matter what it is, but you got to have something that gives you a purpose. I’ve lost everything. Ain’t no point to me anymore.”
“You have a choice,” said Jenny. “Slow or fast. Slow gets you killed by your friends over there. Fast gets you killed, too, but without the long, drawn-out grand finale. Vomiting and pain and helplessness.”
Adam snorted. “Those aren’t my friends.”
“Whoever they are,” she said. “They’ll kill you as soon as you turn. But no one’s going to let you into Expo. Not with a bite like that. They have rules. So you won’t get to the doc, you won’t get a cozy bed, and you won’t get anything for the pain. You’ll die sitting right here. You might die of dehydration before the infection kills you.”
“And the fast way?” he said. His eyes were green, Jenny saw. He had a tattoo of a rose in the middle of his throat that moved when he swallowed.
“I think you know what the fast way is,” she said. “Either way, you’re going to turn. But it won’t be you any more.”
“What if you do it?” he said. “You could just kill me like a rotter. Just pretend I’m one of them. One stab in the back of my head. Or up under my throat. You wouldn’t even have to look at my face.”
Tears were filling his green eyes. He blinked and wiped at his face with the back of his good hand.
“I won’t come back if you do it right.”
“Could you do it?” she said. “If it was one of these guys, or me, or any Living, could you do it?”
Adam was quiet for a while. He frowned.
“Once, someone tried to take my kid. It was right after the shit started hitting the fan and the whole world was going crazy. He ripped my boy right out of Larissa’s arms and ran off with him. Guess he thought he’d get some money on the Black, or maybe he was just a fucking sick pervert. But I chased after him. He was scrawny as hell and he was panting when I caught up to him. He gave my son back to me. My one-year-old son was crying so hard his face was purple. Then I looked at the guy and I just shot him. I just fucking shot him while I was holding my son, and left him there. I didn’t even think about it at the time. But that motherfucker has been in my dreams ever since. He deserved to die. He tried to steal my kid. My goddamn son. But now I can’t forget him. I never have. It’s been three years and I think about him every day.” He shook his head. “I’ve done it. Maybe I could do it again. But it ain’t right to ask someone else to do it.”
He inhaled deeply and exhaled sharply through his mouth.
“How should I go?”
“A few years ago I’d say, blow your brains out,” Jenny said. “But I’m guessing you don’t have a gun.”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said with a dry laugh. He wasn’t leaning against her anymore. The blood from his hand seemed to be slowing. It still had to hurt like hell. “A guy inside said if I work this gig for a month, he’d give me an old pistol. Bullets, too.”
“A month? As a prowler?” Jenny said. “No one prowls for that long.”
He shrugged. “Not like I got anywhere to go.” He nodded at something on the ground by his feet. “Hand me that, would you?”
Jenny picked up the blade, a sword replica that had been sharpened. It felt cheap, but it would do the job. It was black with slime, she guessed from the rotters. She wiped it on her already-disgusting dress and handed it to him.
“I don’t want you to see it,” he said, taking his blade.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. You’re the only one who’s told me the truth in a long time. And you kind of remind me of her.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Larissa. She was sweet like you.”
“I’m not sweet.”
“Yeah you are. Promise to go inside. Don’t watch.”
Jenny nodded. “Okay, Adam.” She stood up.
“Just tell me one thing,” he said. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“Because I’ve been living with the Righteous for three days,” she said.
“Why the fuck would you want to do that?”
“I’m looking for someone,” Jenny said. “Someone I left behind.”
“Family?” said Adam.
Jenny nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then you should do whatever you have to do to get them back.”
“I will,” she said. “It was nice to meet you, Adam. If there is a Heaven,” she smiled, “I’ll see you in Hell.”
He nodded. “Look me up when you get there.”