“Good,” the driver, presumably Ringo, said. “Now knock these three fuckers out before the get over to me and chew on my fucking skull.”
Charlie ran around to the other side of the truck, and one of the three undead did a slow turn and came toward him while the other two continued their slow march on Ringo. Charlie didn’t waste any time in sticking the business end of the prod in the creature’s gut. The air crackled and hissed, and the undead thing collapsed to the broken blacktop. The thing shook uncontrollably for several seconds with thick mucus-laced foam forming at the corners of its mouth, then stopped.
The other two turned to Charlie as well, but they weren’t anywhere near quick enough to get him before he shocked them, too. Ringo took the key and stuck it in the lock as Charlie pushed the end of the prod through the cage’s bars and shocked the captured one. The first one he’d taken out was twitching by then, but it didn’t look like it would be mobile again for another minute or so. Ringo opened the cage as Charlie set the prod against the truck, and they both grabbed one of the undead’s arms to raise it up and throw it in the cage.
The two of them worked swiftly, working as a team that was obviously well-practiced in this sort of thing, but Charlie had to stop a couple times to re-shock the undead things. When all four creatures were in the cage Ringo locked it back up, but they didn’t immediately get back into the truck and leave. Instead Charlie fiddled with the prod, trying unsuccessfully to twirl it like a baton while Ringo stared into the store’s entryway. He didn’t look like he could see Edward in his hiding place, but Edward tried to make himself smaller behind the claw-grabber machine anyway.
“Hey,” Ringo said, “did that fresh zed seem odd to you?”
“All zeds are fucking odd,” Charlie said as he barely managed to catch the prod before it fell. He stared at it a moment, as if debating what to do with it, then leaned it against the truck again before moving to Ringo’s side. “Why? See something weird?”
“You didn’t think that motherfucker was moving a little fast?”
“If it was fresh then of course it would move a little faster.”
“Not that fast. And another thing. How the hell did a fresh zed get this far out from civilization? If someone had been bitten recently it would have been closer to town.”
“Maybe it was bitten and just walked out here after it died.”
“Wouldn’t have looked that fresh.”
“Then maybe someone else came out here looking for zeds to sell and got bit by one of the other three.”
“Yeah, maybe. Still seems weird, though.”
“You think too much.”
Ringo snorted. “Or maybe the rest of humanity doesn’t think enough. Come on, let’s go in after it.”
“Go into the dark cavernous building after something that likes to eat human flesh. Yeah, that really sounds like you’re thinking good.” Despite his words Charlie didn’t hesitate to go back and grab the prod.
“Here, give me the cattle prod,” Ringo said. “You get your gun out and cover me just in case.”
“Whatever happened to you not wanting me to shoot it?” Charlie asked.
“Whatever happened to you shutting the fuck up and just doing what I say?” Ringo said, then walked through the entryway.
Edward didn’t have time to think of what he should do. The time to try running to hide in the store had long since passed, so he merely stayed where he was, hoping the two men would be so anxious to get inside and find him that they would walk right past without even noticing him. But Ringo’s eyes moved to look at everything, and as soon as they turned to look at Edward, Ringo yelped and jumped back to step on Charlie’s feet.
“Sweet Jesus, it’s right there!” Ringo pointed, and Charlie pushed him aside to get a clear shot at Edward.
“Don’t!” Edward yelled. “Don’t shoot!” He instinctively put both hands in the air, but in his crouch he couldn’t keep his balance without holding onto the tipped over machine, and he again fell backward onto his butt.
All three of them stayed exactly as they were for several moments. Edward didn’t dare move while Charlie had the gun pointed at him, but for now it didn’t appear like he was going to use it.
“Holy shit,” Charlie said. “Did that zed just speak?”
“I don’t know what a zed is,” Edward said, although he could make a good educated guess by now, “but I’m not one. Please. Something is wrong with me. I…I think I need a doctor.”
Neither of the two men moved for several more seconds. Edward took that as a good sign and slowly lowered his arms. They weren’t going to shoot him, or at least he hoped not, and maybe he could get them to stop freaking out long enough to give him some idea what was going on. There was far too much he didn’t understand, and no way for him to piece it all together on his own. He needed friends right now.
That thought didn’t last long. As he tried to stand back up, Ringo rushed forward and jabbed him in the chest with the prod. Edward would have screamed if the electricity didn’t set his jaw tight. The current running through him was still a relief compared to some of his earlier pain, but it was enough to knock him unconscious again.
Chapter Three
The Ford hadn’t been originally designed to fit a cage with five people inside in its bed, so the cage was terribly cramped. Edward didn’t think Charlie and Ringo ever cared whether their zombie passengers were comfortable. Edward woke in the cage to find one of the creatures’ arms jammed at an awkward angle in his armpit and a foot pressing uncomfortably in his crotch. As soon as he became fully conscious again he screamed, certain that at this proximity one of the zombies would finally decide it was time to make him their snack. But other than the barest acknowledgement of his screaming, none of the zombies paid him much mind. Charlie in the passenger seat was different, however. He turned around and looked at Edward through the back window, bit his lip, and then looked out again at the road in front of them. No matter how much Edward screamed and begged to be let out, neither of the two men acknowledged him again for the rest of the journey.
When Edward finally calmed down and realized he wasn’t in any immediate danger he took a deep breath and tried to think this all through. The first conclusion he had to come to was, despite his memory suggesting that the Fourth of July cookout had only been a day or two ago, the actual amount of time that had passed must have been much greater. Years, maybe even decades had gone. He could see the proof in the state of the city as the truck passed through it. The Walmart was on the northwest edge of Fond du Lac, past Forest Mall and a large number of smaller strip malls. None of these looked like they were used anymore. The truck drove past them all, going an unsafe speed over a road broken up by years of neglect. A few of the stores and fast food restaurants they passed were boarded up, but most simply looked abandoned. One or two looked like they had burned down. Edward’s initial thought was that at some point the Apocalypse had come upon the world, and the more he thought about the day the undead attacked the more he realized he wasn’t far off.
Although he tried to avoid the thought, memories of Julia and Dana came to him unbidden. He didn’t know how long it had been so he had no way of knowing how old they would be or if they were still alive, but he felt some hope. After all, here he was, stricken with some strange disease yet still very much alive. If it had happened to him, it could have happened to them. They could still be out there somewhere.
The farther the truck went into the city the smoother the ride became. They had to take an alternate route around a collapsed overpass at the freeway, but the road after that point looked like it might have been repaved in recent years, although not very well. The buildings continued to look rough and derelict for a time, but after they had travelled about five miles all structures suddenly came to a stop and gave way to a wide expanse of open ground. Edward sat up in the cage and leaned against the bars, trying to get a better idea of what he was seeing. He remembered this area. It had been a few businesses, a couple of factories, and the start of a residential area, but it looked now like it had been all been bulldozed. A half-hearted attempt had been made to clear the open space, although garbage and occasional wood and rubble littered it all. Looking out further down the road he saw that the empty zone was about half a mile wide, and on either side of the road it continued on in a slight curve. He suspected that if he were able to see the entire thing from a bird’s eye view, the no-man’s land would have formed a rough circle.