“Those creatures down there created an opportunity. One by which we’d change the world, transforming us into a population of strength and prosperity.
“I created something, I created something.”
Lifting the gun back up toward me, he paused for a moment before cocking his head.
“You’ve got a son, don’t you, John?”
Nodding my head, I didn’t reply with words.
“I wonder what it’s like raising a child in this world. Not a great place to grow up.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Plenty of good ways to die out there.”
“Yeah, I suppose there are,” I finally said, almost rhetorically.
“You think he’ll make it without a father, John?”
I didn’t respond, but looked directly at the barrel of the gun. So many things flashed in my mind at that moment. Tyler, Jenn, my childhood home, my parents. I think a person’s mind does that so that they aren’t focused on the inevitable, like a coping mechanism just before death.
The trigger on the gun was nearly audible as I watched Gordon start to squeeze the weapon.
Closing my eyes, my entire body tensed just before the shot rang out. However… I didn’t feel a thing.
Opening my eyes, my mouth dropped as I saw Gordon on the ground, screaming, holding his leg. Spinning around, I saw Kyle, who was propped up on one arm holding his rifle.
Pulling my hammer out, I rushed toward Gordon.
The old man rapidly filled his lungs as he looked up in pain.
I expected him to plead for his life, to try to mind fuck me into letting him live. But he surprised me. Looking from me over to the field, Gordon didn’t say a word as he rose to his knees, overlooking the death and destruction he’d created down below. Maybe he realized this was it. Maybe he knew it was time to pay the ultimate price for his actions.
Shaking his head, as if trying to erase a bad memory, he turned his attention back to me and started to open his mouth to speak when a sound thundered in the distance. I saw the reflection of a shadow in Gordon’s eyes, now wide with fear, as he looked into the sky to try to find the source of the noise.
The sound itself was familiar in a way that took me back to the life we used to live. A noise as out of place as a prostitute soliciting business in church. It simply shouldn’t have been there, yet above us it rang out, echoing in the Yard.
My gaze drawn to the ground, I watched as a cross-shaped image crept across the bloody, death-littered field. Like the Grim Reaper himself, the shadow floated over the Zs and the fallen bodies, flying directly toward the inner walls of Avalon.
None of us said a word as the noise grew louder. We all knew what it was, but none of us knew who it was. For now, it was a distant plane just barely hidden behind the dark clouds.
The shadow of it started to circle to the right just as it hit the Yard, the dark edge of the wing seeming to slice through my hammer which was held to Gordon’s neck. At the peak of its circle, we heard a sliding metal on metal noise, then what looked like a metal box dropped from the sky, causing the clouds to circle in the same way a rock dropped into a calm pond would cause rings of water to spiral outward.
Falling fast at first, its descent was quickly slowed as a large orange and white parachute shot out from the top, causing the box to twist in the wind as it headed downward directly toward the middle of the Yard.
Making eye contact with Gordon, his face told me that he was as confused as I was as the box made contact with the ground. Turning to the right, the box thumped to its side, splashing bloody mud up against one of the nearby cinderblock walls in the Yard.
A number of survivors from the onslaught cautiously circled up around the crate as Mr. Gate stepped forward and used his good hand to pull some sort of red tape off of a seal and slid a two-foot metal lever up and to the left.
Jumping back as the door from the box fell with a splash into the mud, Mr. Gate then stepped forward into the darkness of the box. Emerging a moment later, he held a container in his arms as he dug his nails into the edges of the brown cardboard and tape with the eagerness of a lion on its prey.
Peering into the opening, as if not believing what he saw, he reached in and his hand emerged with a white plastic bag. Giving it a shake, he dropped the rest of the box and tore into the plastic with both hands.
“Crackers! They’re crackers!” he shrieked to the crowd.
Not moving a muscle, I looked down at the dirt with the realization of what that meant.
We weren’t alone. There were others out there.
Shifting my shoulders, I faced Gordon, peering down at him through my eyebrows. In the sunlight coming up through the horizon, I saw an old man kneeling in front of me. Defeated, and lost, his expression just shy of utter despair.
I recalled what the crazy old Stripe had told us in the tree fortress.
They severed the disease like a festering wound.
Maybe New America had. Maybe we were cut off while they had regained order, while they pulled the world back together on the other side of a wall.
Those of us still living amongst the dead were nothing more than an experiment growing in a life-sized petri dish. A rapid example of how quickly we’d all turn on each other without order—without rules—without leadership.
If they were helping now, it wouldn’t be long before we’d be pulled back into the system, their government, their monetary system, their rules, their everything. Perhaps it would go back to normal on the other side. A place where a businessman could do business, sit back in his leather chair daydreaming through meetings. Put up with his boss’s bullshit. Go back to the mundane.
We were here, fighting over NOTHING. Killing over NOTHING. Dying over NOTHING. The man sitting before me was the catalyst of it all.
“You did all this for nothing,” I let slip out.
Gordon couldn’t hurt anybody now. He was broken, and we’d won. The cavalry had shown its face. We’d be on our way out of this, back to civilization.
I knew it. I knew it all, even then.
I could have let him live. I could have killed him. Neither option would have made a bit of difference… to most people.
Gordon knew it was coming. He realized it before I did. His eyes were begging for mercy. Lowering my shoulder, I let my hammer fall from under his chin for just a moment, before I heard someone call to me.
“Do it. End it, John.”
I saw Kyle adjusting himself against the side of the chopper, putting pressure on his chest with his right hand. His voice was low and grave.
“End it, John. He needs to die.”
I once heard that people don’t change. You put them under enough pressure and you find out who they really are. I didn’t realize who I was until I stood there on that rooftop.
I am a killer.
In one swift motion, I stretched the hammer above my shoulders and swung with both hands. Gordon’s head hit the rooftop with a thud, followed by his lifeless body. His eyes were still open, blankly looking up at me, as if surprised I actually did it.
Watching the blood spill out over the concrete, I couldn’t help but think one thing.
A stain. It’s all that’s left of us when we’re gone.
Bonus Content:
To read a letter from Tyler, John’s son, visit this page: www.zombiebook.net/tylersletter
Acknowledgments:
Many of my best friends and family members were subjected to the early drafts of 900 Miles. Whether they read it, commented on it, or were simply a sounding board for me during its creation, I want each of them to know that I really appreciate every second that they spent with me on this journey to publish.