Waking Up Dead

“To Texas?”

“Exactly. It’s like forever away. It’ll take months, maybe even years to walk it, and I asked him what the hell could be so important.” She shook her head. “What could possibly make that walk worthwhile? I thought that maybe it had something to do with the heat. You remember in the early months people said that it affected them, that it made them slow? And it seemed to me that they are slower when it’s summertime.”

“Only summer doesn’t last long enough,” Luke pointed out.

“That’s true.”

Silence fell as they passed through a car filled street. Luke noticed that Jackson’s knuckles were white against the hilt of her blade. That, even though she was so small, she slid over the hoods of cars without waiting for him to help her. A strange feeling began to gnaw in Luke’s gut, more important than the information about Tye’s goal, and once free of the car jam he took a deep breath before asking, “You’re wondering why I didn’t save the dog?”

Jackson turned to him with a start. “No.”

“Because I’m kind of feeling a little like Robin here.”

“Robin?”

“Yeah with you being Batman and all.”

She laughed, though it was tinged with something he couldn’t quite identify, and shook her head. “I’ve never been called Batman before.”

“Superwoman, maybe?”

“How about just Jackson?”

“Look I didn’t save the damn dog because what happened would have happened anyway,” he said.

“The zombie eating it?”

He shook his head. “No, it dying. They always die, Jackson. Always. Zombies always get ’em in the end, and it’s not like we could have taken it to the bunker even if they didn’t.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.”

“So I was thinking more about us than it, you know. Thinking to get us safe.” Why did he feel like he had to explain himself to her? Luke frowned as they jogged across the street. He didn’t know, only that he wanted her to realize that he wasn’t a fucking wimp. That he could take care of both of them, given the chance. Yeah, you’re off to a great start there, his mind said. He ignored it.

“I know you were,” Jackson whispered. “I get that.”

He frowned some more. “But you just jumped in without thinking. Like in the pool room.”

“I always jump in without thinking. Impulsive you know? Gets me every time.”

They paused at an intersection and Luke’s eyes swept the area. He pulled in close to Jackson as they crossed the open expanse of road and was pleased to see that she did not move away.

“And going down south?” he asked when they were on the other side of the road. “Following Tye’s plan? Is that also impulsiveness?”

“No,” she said. “It’s all that’s left. A world without zombies, that’s my plan. Call me squeamish but I’d rather not see one covered in dog fur again if I can help it.”

“There is no such thing as a world without zombies.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Luke,” she whispered. “So wrong.”

Luke almost stopped in the middle of the street, shock punching him straight in the gut. “What the hell are you saying?”

“That there is a camp down there, a group of survivors,” Jackson said. “It’s not many, a few hundred maybe, but it’s some.”

“A camp of people?” he breathed. “You’re not serious?”

“I am.”

“But…” Luke paused and shifted. “Those rumors were just wishful thinking in the earlier days. There aren’t any big groups left. Not even the ones the army tried to set up. We’d have heard about them otherwise. I’d have heard about them. I have a radio in my bunker,” he added. “I check it every single night. I’ve heard nothing on it for months.”

Jackson sped up, probably in an effort to encourage him to do so. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “That nothing was left. But Tye came across another group in Indiana—they’d fortified a huge hospital. They weren’t as big, but they knew about this other group, gave him directions.”

“But why didn’t Tye just stay with them?” Luke asked, trying to wrap his mind around the idea. “If he was looking for a group, why not stay with the one he found?”

She shrugged and stepped over a broken laptop. “Tye used to be a cop. He said that he didn’t approve of the way that group was…ordering themselves. That they were…off. He didn’t want to stay there.”

“And they told him about this group instead. How did they know about one another?” Luke shot the questions out quickly, aware that he sounded skeptical but was that any wonder? The prospect of a group, groups, of people still living their lives with some kind of normality was staggering.

“They were in contact. Don’t ask me how,” she added. “Because I don’t know, and neither did Tye. But they are there, we just need to go west on the highway and pick up I-35 and go south all the way to Laredo, Texas. Apparently it ends there, just by the border crossing.”

“This supposed camp is next to the border?”

“I don’t know about that. Even Tye didn’t know where it was exactly. The other group said there are signs directing any survivors.”

“And you really believe this?” Luke asked. “You’re going to travel thousands of miles based on information from a group you’ve never met?”

“Based on information from Tye,” she said. “My friend. If he believed it, that’s good enough for me.”

“But—”

“Otherwise what’s the point?” she demanded. “What do we do? Keep on surviving and hiding? What about in ten years or twenty or, hell, forty, assuming we live that long? When we’re too old to go looking for food or too old to run away? When it’s our limb being shoved down a zombie’s mouth as we try to crawl away? That’s no life. I’m happy to risk mine on the assumption that there’s something else out there. The faint possibility of getting something back. And think about it, maybe this group will know things we don’t. Why the zombies are changing, maybe even a way to deal with it all. Hell, they might even have found a way to kill them a lot quicker than we can.”

“That really is wishful thinking, Jackson,” he said. “Dangerous thinking.”

“More dangerous than the way we’re living our life now?”

“No…but what if you travel all that way—assuming you even make it—and there’s no camp there. What then?”

She shrugged one tiny shoulder. “Then I’ll know, won’t I? And I’ll be down south. If the thing about the heat is true then maybe there’ll be fewer dead people to fight, at least.”

Luke shot her a look, trying to read her, to see if she really believed in the impossibility of what she was saying. It seemed to be her driving force and Luke knew a thing or two about that. In a world where nothing made sense anymore and all hope was sucked away, a person had to find something to hold onto. Something, no matter how little, to provide a reason for waking every day. His own motivation was the desire to kill as many fuckers as he could. He relished taking out packs and had even hoped that one day he could clear the area, I Am Legend style. It was probably a futile hope. After all, every time he killed a pack, another moved in, but it gave him some comfort, and more importantly stopped him from going crazy. Because what else was there for him? Unlike Tye, he’d never heard of the possibility of another group, and he had radio equipment in the bunker! If there were any left, surely they’d have broadcast something on one of the frequencies he constantly checked? But they hadn’t and striking it out on a vague hope would be beyond stupid. Maybe when his resources ran out…he’d thought maybe then, but for now he was safe, warm, comfortable. Why risk all that?

“You could come with us, you know,” she said softly. “I’d really welcome the company.”

His heart thumped. “Serious?”

“Yeah. Though you might want to really think about it. I’ve had two companions and they’re both missing… or dead, so I’m not exactly a lucky charm.”