Him being a large man with an assault rifle, they obeyed, though they glanced at each other nervously.
“I’ve watched you cross the fields to the south,” he told them as they walked. “I thought what an extraordinary thing, four children so determined to stay hidden. What times we live in, eh?” Eric thought the man was trying to sound English, like his friends imitating Monty Python. “Ordinarily, I would have nothing to do with strangers, not in these times, but something about the four of you was so pathetic, I thought I should do my utmost to assist you.” He turned back to them. “Babes in the wilderness, you understand. Not good.” He led them across the town and into a gully where there was a campsite next to a Land Rover.
Eric had only seen a Land Rover a few times in his life. Shaped like a rugged block of granite, it was light green with a white top. The windshield was outlined in white. There was mud spattered on the sides and on the little, square grill at the front. It looked unstoppable.
“Where are you headed?” he asked, hanging his gun on a rack in the Rover. Eric noticed that a samurai sword was beneath it, a gentle, smiling curve beneath the grave line of the gun.
The group looked at each other, uncertain. Doyle frowned.
“You have nothing to fear,” he said. He held up his hands. “I assure you I mean you no harm.”
Eric cleared his throat. Although Brad glared at him, Eric said, “We’re going to Cuyahoga Valley.”
“I know the place,” he said. “Quaint. Hop in, all of you.” When they didn’t move, he laughed again. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you there in no time.”
When they were all inside, Brad up front and the rest of them piled in the back, Birdie tugged on Eric’s shirt. “I don’t want to go with him,” she said. Eric blushed, her voice was so loud in the Rover, but Doyle did not seem to notice. Eric whispered to Birdie they would be all right, though he too felt unsure and nervous in the Rover. It smelled strange, sweet and metallic. When he looked in the back, he saw the source of the smell. Two skinned deer, bright red.
The Rover roared to life and then hurtled up the road.
“The problem with the Snakes,” said Carl Doyle as they drove North, “is that they have no sense of order.” Doyle drove with one massive hand, his right, resting upon the top of the wheel. “That has been my experience of all the gangs. The Buckeyes are the same. They fail to understand that strength of leadership is not everything. One needs order. And the gangs care nothing for order.” He reached into a bag on the Rover’s dashboard, filled with dried strips of deer meat. “You see, the gangs are cowards at heart. They group together not for mutual benefit but because they are frightened. Like cows.”
“We’re all afraid,” said Sarah.
“Do you know what Winston Churchill said?” Doyle asked, glancing in the mirror toward Eric. He didn’t seem to have heard Sarah. “He said that courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all others. That is what the gangs lack. Courage. And that is why they lack everything else. They have no justice, no dignity, no concept of humanity. They have let fear overtake them like savages.”
Suddenly the Rover swung to the side, and, squealing tires, came to a stop in the midst of the road. Eric clutched at Birdie, holding her to the back of the seat.
“Bloody hell!” cried Doyle. He looked at them with glittering eyes. “I almost missed the bugger!” Smiling widely, he lunged into the backseat and grabbed his gun. Eric had a momentary smell of sweat, wool, and mud. Then Doyle lunged out of the Rover. Eric and the others looked outside, confused.
On the road was a Zombie. A young woman in a filthy yellow dress. Half of her hair was gone. Some Zombies clawed at their own head, perhaps in an effort to remove the worm that had burrowed in there. One side of her face was mostly gone, and was nothing but a raw mash of red muscle and gleaming white bone. Black drool escaped from her mouth and swung down in front of her as she lurched forward.
“The gangs do have one thing right,” Doyle said, leaning on the hood of the Rover, aiming his assault rifle. “They do rid the land of vermin.” The assault rifle cracked loudly and jumped in his hand, and Birdie let out a cry. The Zombie stumbled. Doyle shot again. Her head vanished in a red cloud. Her body tumbled to the ground. Doyle smiled and then climbed back into the Rover.
As they drove away, Birdie, clinging to Eric, wept quietly.
Carl Doyle grew up in Ohio. After high school, he got a job at a tire factory and lived with his mother, who was sick. He worked in the warehouse. Over the years, he developed a fascination for the British. At night, after he had taken care of his mother, put her to bed, and then locked the door to make sure she could not wander off during the night, he went to his bedroom, the same bedroom he had used as a baby, then a child, then a teenager, and, finally, a man. He read. When the Vaca B hit, his mother had been dead for eight years.
He told them this as they sat about the fire. A haunch of deer roasted on a spit. They looked at it hungrily.
Carl Doyle had stopped short of Cuyahoga Valley, saying that it was dark and they should go in the morning, in the honesty of daylight.
“When the worm came,” Carl Doyle said, crouched by the fire with his massive hands dangling down to the ground, “I knew my time had come. What the world needs in times like these is order. Know how. Integrity. And I have that. I can instruct and aid.”
“I think what we need is fucking food and shelter,” Brad said. “People will be ordered when they’re full and warm.”
“Like the Snakes have order?” Doyle asked and then gave out a rumbled laugh. Then he eyed Brad and said, “And we don’t really need to use that kind of language, do we? It shows a small mind, young man.”
“I don’t give a—” Brad began hotly but Sarah put her arm on his shoulder.
“What kind of order do you mean?” she asked.
“Churchill said that courage is the bedrock,” Carl Doyle said. “We need to fashion that bedrock upon which a new and brighter civilized man can be built. That is what must be done. Bravery and courage and the mind.” Carl Doyle tapped the temple of his head with a fat finger. “What do you think about that?” he asked, swatting at Eric’s feet.
Eric grimaced, his feet being very sore still. He was glad he didn’t cry out. “I like it,” he told Carl Doyle.
“Jolly good,” Doyle responded with a laugh. He brought out from his back pocket a mirror-bright flask that glittered from the fire. He took a long drink, exposing the roughness of his freckled throat. Then he sat back with a long sigh and held out the flask to Eric who shook his head. Doyle laughed again. “Good show,” he said. “Good show.”
Doyle drank while the venison cooked. When it was done, Sarah brought out the salt and they passed it around. Then they became engrossed in eating the hot, salty meat. While they ate, Doyle talked about the power of the mind and the importance of order. “That is what they teach in the army,” he said. “I would’ve gone. I could’ve gone, but mother was. She was too sick. I could’ve been.” He waved his arm to stop himself. “That’s what they teach. Order and dignity. That’s what we need now. Bloody gangs don’t know nothing.” Having finished his leg of venison, he dropped the bone into the earth and rose to his substantial height. “My father,” he began, “my father was of a metal. A metal, a metal that is rarely seen in this world. He fought in World War Two. He saved a dozen men.” Doyle reached into his pants and took out what seemed a golden coin. “He saved a dozen men.” He held out the coin and they could see it was a medal. “He was a man of dignity and order. A great man.” Doyle looked at the medal. “Great man,” he mumbled. Then his voice rose. “And that is what we need now. Great men.” He smiled at them and then wiped his mouth of the deer grease that shined on his red lips. “I have to pee,” he said suddenly and then turned and stalked off into the bushes.