Cahill found it hard to talk. He hadn’t talked to anyone in weeks. Usually someone like LaJon Watson would have driven him nuts, but it was nice to let the tide of talk wash over him while they walked. He wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t regret it, but he took LaJon back to his place. LaJon admired his alarm system. “You gotta show me how to unhook it and hook it back up. Don’t they see it? I mean, has one of them ever hit it?”
“No,” Cahill said. “I don’t think they can see.”
There were scientists studying zombies, and sometimes there was zombie stuff on Fox News, but LaJon said he hadn’t paid much attention to all that. He really hadn’t expected to need to know about zombies. In fact, he hadn’t been sure at first that Cahill wasn’t a zombie. Cahill opened cans of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Dumplings. LaJon asked if Cahill warmed them over a fire or what. Cahill handed him a can and a spoon.
LaJon wolfed down the soup. LaJon wouldn’t shut up, even while eating. He told Cahill how he’d looked in a bunch of shops, but most of them had been pretty thoroughly looted. He’d looked in an apartment, but the only thing on the shelves in a can was tomato paste and evaporated milk. Although now that he thought about it, maybe he could have made some sort of tomato soup or something. He hadn’t slept in the two days he’d been here, and he was going crazy, and it was a great fucking thing to have found somebody who could show him the ropes.
LaJon was from Cincinnati. Did Cahill know anybody from Cincinnati? Where had Cahill been doing time? (Auburn.) LaJon didn’t know anybody at Auburn, wasn’t that New York? LaJon had been at Lebanon Correctional. Cahill was a nice dude, if quiet. Who else was around, and was there anyone LaJon could score from? (Cahill said he didn’t know.) What did people use for money here anyway?
“I been thinking,” LaJon said, “about the zombies. I think it’s pollution that’s mutating them like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Cahill decided it had been a mistake to bring LaJon. He picked up the bottle of whiskey and opened it. He didn’t usually use glasses but got two out of the cupboard and poured them each some whiskey.
LaJon apologized, “I don’t usually talk this much,” he said. “I guess I just fucking figured I was dead when they dropped me here.” He took a big drink of whiskey. “It’s like my mouth can’t stop.”
Cahill poured LaJon more to drink and nursed his own whiskey. Exhaustion and nerves were telling: LaJon was finally slowing down. “You want some frosting?” Cahill asked.
Frosting and whiskey was a better combination than it had any right to be. Particularly for a man who’d thought himself dead. LaJon nodded off.
“Come on,” Cahill said. “It’s going to get stuffy in here.” He got the sleepy drunk up on his feet.
“What?” LaJon said.
“I sleep outside, where it’s cooler.” It was true that the apartment got hot during the day.
“Bro, there’s zombies out there,” LaJon mumbled.
“It’s okay, I’ve got a system,” Cahill said. “I’ll get you downstairs, and then I’ll bring down something to sleep on.”
LaJon wanted to sleep where he was and, for a moment, his eyes narrowed to slits and something scary was in his face.
“I’m going to be there, too,” Cahill said. “I wouldn’t do anything to put myself in danger.”
LaJon allowed himself to be half-carried downstairs. Cahill was worried when he had to unhook the alarm system. He propped LaJon up against the wall and told him, ‘Just a moment.’ If LaJon slid down the wall and passed out, he’d be hell to get downstairs. But the lanky black guy stood there long enough for Cahill to get the alarm stuff out of the way. He was starting to sober up a little. Cahill got him down to the street.
“I’ll get the rest of the whiskey,” Cahill said.
“What the fuck you playing at?” LaJon muttered.
Cahill took the stairs two at a time in the dark. He grabbed pillows, blankets, and the whiskey bottle and went back down to the sidewalk. He handed LaJon the whiskey bottle. “It’s not so hot out here,” he said, although it was on the sidewalk with the sunlight.
LaJon eyed him drunkenly.
Cahill went back upstairs and came down with a bunch of couch cushions. He made a kind of bed and got LaJon to sit on it. “We’re okay in the day,” he said. “Zombies don’t like the light. I sleep in the day. I’ll get us upstairs before night.”
LaJon shook his head, took another slug of whiskey, and lay back on the cushions. “I feel sick,” he said.
Cahill thought the motherfucker was going to throw up, but instead LaJon was snoring.
Cahill sat for a bit, planning and watching the street. After a bit, he went back to his apartment. When he found something good scavenging, he squirreled it away. He came downstairs with duct tape. He taped LaJon’s ankles together. Then his wrists. Then he sat LaJon up. LaJon opened his eyes, said, “What the fuck?” drunkenly. Cahill taped LaJon’s arms to his sides, right at his elbows, running the tape all the way around his torso. LaJon started to struggle, but Cahill was methodical and patient, and he used the whole roll of tape to secure LaJon’s arms. From shoulders to waist, LaJon was a duct tape mummy.
LaJon swore at him, colorfully, then monotonously.
Cahill left him there and went looking. He found an upright dolly at a bar and brought it back. It didn’t do so well where the pavement was uneven, but he didn’t think he could carry LaJon far, and if he was going to build a fire, he didn’t want it to be close to his place, where zombies could pin him in his apartment. LaJon was still where he had left him, although when he saw Cahill, he went into a frenzy of struggling. Cahill let him struggle. He lay the dolly down and rolled LaJon onto it. LaJon fought like anything, so in the end, Cahill went back upstairs and got another roll of duct tape and duct-taped LaJon to the dolly. That was harder than duct-taping LaJon the first time, because LaJon was scared and pissed now. When Cahill finally pulled the dolly up, LaJon struggled so hard that the dolly was unmanageable, which pissed Cahill off so much he just let go.
LaJon went over and without hands to stop himself, face-planted on the sidewalk. That stilled him. Cahill pulled the dolly upright then. LaJon’s face was a bloody mess, and it looked like he might have broken a couple of teeth. He was conscious, but stunned. Cahill started pushing the dolly, and LaJon threw up.
It took a couple of hours to get six blocks. LaJon was sober and silent by the time Cahill decided he’d gone far enough.
Cahill sat down, sweating, and used his T-shirt to wipe his face.
“You a bug,” LaJon said.
Bug was prison slang for someone crazy. LaJon said it with certainty.
“Just my fucking luck. Kind of luck I had all my life. I find one guy alive in this fucking place, and he a bug.” LaJon spat. “What are you gonna do to me?”
Cahill was so tired of LaJon that he considered going back to his place and leaving LaJon here. Instead, he found a door and pried it open with a tire iron. It had been an office building, and the second floor was fronted with glass. He had a hell of a time finding a set of service stairs that opened from the outside on the first floor. He found some chairs and dragged them downstairs. Then he emptied file cabinets, piling the papers around the chairs. LaJon watched him, getting more anxious.
When it looked like he’d get a decent fire going, he put LaJon next to it. The blood had dried on LaJon’s face and he’d bruised up a bit. It was evening.