The truck occasionally passed people going about their business on the streets, although few gave the truck and cage a second glance. Those that did often did a second take as they saw Edward in the back with the zombies, and he kept hoping that someone would realize what a horrible mistake had been made, that a human had for some improbable reason been mistaken for a zombie and was being unjustly kept where the undead could kill him at any moment, but no one said anything. They just stared at him.
The zombies, for their part, thankfully didn’t look like they were going to be attacking him anytime soon. Often they would try to stand up in the cage only to fall all over each other when the truck hit another bump in the road. They treated Edward no differently than they treated each other, which made Edward more disquieted than comforted. He knew he wasn’t a zombie, but no one else here seemed to realize that, not even the real zombies. He wondered if he could get Ringo or Charlie to give him a mirror when they got to their destination, for no other reason than to see what everyone was seeing about him that he couldn’t.
Even though many of the places they had passed looked like they were thriving despite the apocalyptic scenario outside of the city, the truck ended up pulling into the driveway of a run-down two story home with its paint chipping and its roof sagging. The world had managed to continue on just as it once had, apparently, right down to being divided into haves and have-nots. Both doors of the truck opened at the same time to let Edward in on the middle of an argument.
“What’s to discuss?” Charlie said as he jumped out of the passenger side and slammed his door. Edward couldn’t help but notice he had his pistol out again.
“Absolutely nothing. Because again you seem to forget that I’m the one who’s in charge,” Ringo said.
“Bullshit you’re in charge. You’re the one with the truck. That don’t give you the right to be making that kind of decision.”
“That’s right. My truck, but also my zed prod and my cage and my gas and all kinds of other shit. If you don’t like how I decide to do this then you can just find another partner. Go ahead, just try. You’re not going to be making the same amount of cash with someone else, not with how scarce zeds have become. I’m the one who finds them. You just help haul them into the cage.”
“I’m also the one who can shoot this motherfucker’s head clear the fuck off,” Charlie said, raising his gun at Edward and pulling back the hammer.
“Jesus Christ!” Edward yelled as he ducked down, expecting a bullet to fly right through where his head had been. When there was no shot Edward looked back up. Charlie was walking briskly down the driveway and onto the sidewalk, cussing under his breath and waving his gun the whole way.
“What the hell was that about?” Edward asked Ringo, but Ringo didn’t answer. He was too busy rooting around behind the seats for the prod again.
“Damn it,” Edward said. “Answer me! I have a right to know what the hell is happening here!”
Ringo closed the door, the prod now in his hand. He looked unnerved and shook a little as he spoke. “You don’t have any rights what-the-hell-so-ever. You’re a fucking zed.” Ringo shook his head. “Jesus, I must be losing it. Arguing with a fucking zombie.”
“I am not a zombie,” Edward said. “I know I must look…strange, and I have no idea what’s going on with me, but I’m not a zombie. I’ve seen them in action. They’re mindless and just kill and eat anything in sight. Have I done anything that would make you think that about me?”
Ringo paused, and for the first time he looked Edward in the eye. “No. No you haven’t. That’s the weird part. And that’s why I’m not taking you with the others. You’re getting out here.”
“You’re letting me go?”
“Hell no. But I need to put you somewhere while I take the rest to the Jamboree. I don’t know if they’ll want to buy you when they see you or not, but I don’t want to take that chance. I don’t know how the hell you’re able to talk and think, but I don’t think most people around here would appreciate just how different that makes you. Maybe you’re not really a zombie, and if I ever find that out for certain I’ll gladly let you go. But if you are? Aw hell, I could make way more money off of you than I ever would by selling you to be shot at by a bunch of tourists at the Jamboree.”
Edward nodded, and Ringo shocked the other zombies through the bars before he went around to the back of the cage and fumbled with the keys. Edward wasn’t sure exactly what the Jamboree was, but he had already come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to go there. Ringo sounded like he was just going to lock Edward up somewhere else, but that was probably a better fate than any of the zombies would get.
Ringo kept the prod out and ready to use on Edward if he made any sudden moves, but Edward didn’t need the man upset. What he really wanted to do was rush the damned man and beat the hell out of him for locking Edward in a cage, but Ringo would likely only take that aggression as a sign that he really was a zombie. It would be better for now the keep calm and let everything happen.
“Can you at least tell me how long it’s been?” Edward asked.
“How long what’s been?” Ringo asked. He gestured for Edward to move back behind the house into the overgrown back yard, and Edward did as he was shown.
“How long it’s been since… well, since all this. The zombies, the abandoned parts of the city, the weird bulldozed area and the wall, all that. It looks like the world ended.”
Ringo paused before answering. “How the hell could anyone not know that?”
Edward continued to move, but he couldn’t resist the urge to be sarcastic. He had to have some sort of way to release all his tension. “Gee, maybe because I’m a zombie and I’m not all that smart. Please, just tell me.”
“The Uprising was over fifty years ago. Old news.”
Edward didn’t say anything. Fifty years. It no longer seemed so likely that he could find Dana after all.
Chapter Six
Ringo locked Edward in a storage shed out back and then left. Edward could hear the truck rumble to a start and then drive away, leaving him alone to try to piece together everything he had learned so far. He sat back against the shed’s far wall and tried to concentrate, but everything that had happened today had completely drained him and he drifted off to sleep instead.
There was nothing restful about his slumber. Even unconscious, he could feel the odd tingling and pain in his body as all the festering wounds continued to mend. He twitched and fidgeted as he slept, and strange red-tinted dreams came to him, dreams that were part bizarre incomprehensible images and part memories. The memories didn’t tell him much, just visions of walking long distances through ruined neighborhoods and streets with occasional blood-spattered violence that his mind wasn’t quite ready to show him in total. When he woke up these dreams stayed at the corner of his thoughts, just waiting for a time when his mind might be willing to deal with what they needed to show him.
He stretched his arms after he came to and stood up to stretch his legs, but that caused its own share of pain and a few cramps. He’d slowly been getting used to it all now, and rode out the agony as well as another bout of nausea. It was only when he was certain that he could keep the contents of his stomach down that he realized there wasn’t anything in there to begin with. The hunger in his stomach was minor pain compared to everything else, which struck him as odd. He didn’t know when the last time was that he had eaten, especially since he wasn’t sure how long it had been since he first woke up in the store, but it had to have been hours. He would have thought he would be hungrier than this. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure when he had last needed to use a bathroom. He hadn’t felt the need to urinate at all, although from the scratchy and uncomfortable feeling of his underwear in back he suspected he might have had an accident at some point in the past. He didn’t want to think too hard about that for now, though.