Survivor Song(50)
Luis says, “Is that Josh?” His question is both rhetorical and incredulous.
At the edge of their vision, emerging from a bend in the road, a person rides a bike toward them. It is clearly Josh in his black helmet and too tall for the bike, one end of the staff in his pack rising up over his head. He pedals furiously, standing up for better leverage.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Luis veers his own bike left, away from Natalie, and he wobbles to a stop using his outstretched sneakers rubbing against the pavement as brakes.
Ramola searches the road beyond Josh for an ambulance or a car, anything, hoping the teen is the head of a cavalry, that he’s a fabled dog leading rescuers to Timmy in the well.
She and Luis simultaneously speak to, at, and over each other: “Where’s the ambulance?” and “Why is he riding by himself?” Neither one answers the other, nor do they dare acknowledge the implications of their questions.
Natalie finishes recording and puts her phone back into her sweatshirt pocket. Ramola urges her to stop walking, to wait a moment, to hear what Josh has to report.
Josh sprint-pedals until he’s with the group, skidding to a stop in front of Luis, their front tires almost touching. He dramatically hunches over the handlebars, head dropped, back rising and falling as he pants for air.
Luis knocks hard on Josh’s helmet. “Hey, where’s the ambulance?”
Between gasps, he manages, “I didn’t make it . . . all the way . . . to the clinic. How’d you get out here? Why aren’t you guys back—”
Luis interrupts, “Wait. What do you mean you didn’t make it to the clinic?”
“Guy. We are in the shit. The shit. Like, a half mile from here, maybe less, there’s a big group, at least ten, headed this way—”
“I knew it. A fucking zombie herd.” Luis’s mouth drops open, a can-you-believe-it almost-grin. He rubs his hands together as though he can’t wait to see it.
“Nah, guy. They’re not zombies. It’s worse. They’re like a militia or mob or something. Not the National Guard or police or anything official like that. Some of them are just weekend-warrior dads, you know, wearing khakis and beer bellies, but most had weapons and there were two ginormous dudes in head-to-toe army fatigues, faces painted, crossbows, scary-ass—”
Luis interrupts. “I don’t get—”
Ramola says, “Let him finish.”
Josh continues. He tells them the group didn’t see him coming and he hid behind some trees next to an old graveyard to watch what they were up to. There was a slow-rolling red pickup truck following behind the men on foot, and they fanned out and knocked on doors of the houses on both sides of the street. No one answered as far as he could tell.
Ramola breaks in with, “Hold on. Did I hear you correctly? They have a pickup truck. Did you ask them if they could give Natalie a ride?”
“Fuck no. When they got close to the graveyard I booked it outta there. Rando militia types are always way worse than zombies. I’ve already seen this movie a zillion times.”
Natalie laughs, says, “Too young to live, too dumb to die.” Her laughs turn into coughs.
“Bloody hell, you watch too many movies. This isn’t a movie!” Ramola shouts.
Luis piles on. “Seriously? You didn’t talk to them, didn’t go to the clinic? You just came back here?”
“I’m telling you, they’re bad news. When I was riding away they yelled after me and it wasn’t like, ‘Hey bro. What’s up? How can we help you?’ They angry-yelled at me. They were all like, ‘Stop right there!’” Josh gives a deep-voiced, mocking impersonation of male authority. “Let me translate that for you. It’s not hey-guy-we-want-to-help-speak. It’s give-us-your-supplies-and-maybe-we-won’t-wear-your-skin-speak.”
Luis groans and says, “I knew I should’ve gone.”
“Guy. I can’t believe you’re not with me on this.”
Ramola says, “Both of you be quiet for a moment, please.” She spins herself in circles, her hands on top of her head, too tired, angry, scared to do anything more.
Natalie mutters to herself and walks past the teens, tracking the yellow double lines. Her inefficient gait is deteriorating and is more painful to watch, a robot doomed to shake itself apart. Her previously upright posture is melting; left shoulder is slumped and not level with her right.
Josh says, “Where’s she going? We gotta hide. Or up ahead, before they get to us, we might be able to take a left down Lincoln Street, head toward the center of town, get help there.”
Ramola says, “No. We’re going to the clinic. There is no other option.”
“Facts. Natalie has to get there, and, like, now,” Luis says to his friend, as though he’s sharing bad news.
Ramola is about to suggest Luis bike ahead to ask the group for help and/or go on to the clinic if they decline, when she spies the metal pegs sticking out from the axles of their rear wheels. Earlier, when the teens suggested they hitch rides on their bikes, she hadn’t seriously considered it, given Natalie’s pregnancy. But that was before Natalie’s hydrophobic episode and her infection became inarguable. The clock moves in triple-time now. The pegs jut out perpendicularly from the axle, are essentially sections of pipe of a two-to-three-inch diameter, and are at least five inches long, certainly longer than their feet are wide. They would make adequate footholds. Standing astride the rear wheel while the bicycle is moving would be a fall risk for Natalie, obviously, but Ramola doesn’t want to risk sending Luis ahead and have him come back without any help, losing both time and shortened distance to the clinic in the process.