The Rising Dead (2 page)

Clearly, she sensed the danger. After all he had seen, Matt knew she had good reason to be afraid, so he found himself agreeing to spend the night. The bed was comfortable, but Matt didn’t sleep well with the trio nearby. During the night the mother snuck into the spare room and settled into a chair near him. He pretended to be asleep. She began to snore within minutes, as if she hadn’t slept well for quite some time.

At breakfast the next day, Dmitri sat down with Matt and put his scabby bare feet up on the kitchen table. Then he grinned, showing his rotting teeth and black tongue. The man’s breath was rancid, like rotted meat. On Matt’s other side, Nadia and Chloe went through cigarettes and drank coffee. Matt held his breath and put down his fork. He loved scrambled eggs and hash browns, but these were ruined for him. Chloe began demanding the mother’s car keys so they could go to class. The mother scurried out of the kitchen as she refused, saying her daughter had a suspended license and had already wrecked her brother’s car. Chloe hurled a mug of coffee toward her. Fortunately, the mother had cleared the corner a second before and it just smashed against the wall.

The cold sore on Nadia’s face was growing. “Dmitri does not ride bus.”

A shiny green worm dangling off Dmitri’s lower lip squirmed helplessly until it fell onto the kitchen table. While it started wiggling across the surface, Chloe began
calling her mother names. Matt didn’t know whether the mother loved her car or whether she was trying to protect her daughter from arrest, but he was convinced she wasn’t being smart. When Dmitri’s fingers inched towards a knife, Matt stood and offered to drive the mother’s car. It seemed a good way to get the bastards out of the house.

The mother’s old Ford was boxy and noisy, but the V-8 engine had plenty of strength left. With all the windows down to air out the car, Matt was enjoying the drive until he felt the cold metal of a gun barrel on his face. Dmitri pushed the pistol against Matt’s cheek so hard his teeth hurt.

“Let me guess: we’re not going to school.”

“She take student’s place.” Dmitri nodded towards Nadia. “Student visa and a free place to stay. Is good. Five thousand euros.” He held up his hand to show five fingers just in case Matt didn’t understand what a good bargain he’d made.

“Is not good. House is ugly. Food is terrible. Like making to live in Minsk. Why you waste time? Shoot him.” Nadia was almost growling.

“While he drives?”

They squabbled in Russian, pausing only to give Matt directions. As they fought, Dmitri pressed the gun harder and harder. His finger was on the trigger. Matt hoped he wouldn’t get any more excited.

“I hate it when you guys talk Russian! Let’s just get the money so we can go to the mall. We can kill him later.”

In the rearview mirror, Matt saw Chloe roll the one eye that still moved.

Ten minutes later, Matt was standing in a dingy alley next to a Dumpster while Dmitri and Nadia wrapped his wrists and ankles with duct tape.

“Shoot him. Is easier.” Nadia’s cold sore now covered the lower half of her face, and one cheek was so decayed that her yellow teeth were exposed.

Anther Russian argument broke out. Matt had a feeling he was alive only because Dmitri wanted to prove that Nadia couldn’t boss him around.

Before Nadia covered his eyes with duct tape, Matt glimpsed gloves and black ski masks in the backpack. It looked like a bank was about to be robbed. Dmitri’s face had transformed into a Halloween mask of decay. Chloe’s gray, cracked skin had shrunk around her skull, and amber pus oozed from the fissures. They shoved Matt face-first into the trunk, took his duffel, which contained his grandfather’s ax, and sped off. Whoever was driving hit a speed bump and several potholes. Each impact was followed by maniacal laughter from the front of the car.

The trunk was, at least, large. Among the reusable grocery bags and flashlights there was also a small pink tool kit. It was the kind sold in hardware stores around Valentine’s Day just in time for husbands to disappoint their wives. When his fingers found pliers, screwdrivers, and a small utility knife, Matt was grateful to hopeless husbands everywhere. When the car came to a rough stop, he rushed to cut the tape, and gripped the blade, ready for whatever came next. Instead of opening the trunk, the trio walked away. After the sound of Nadia’s stilettos faded he kicked out a taillight. A bag lady who noticed Matt’s hand waving from the hole gently opened the trunk, standing behind her shopping cart like she was afraid something was going to spring out at her.

Matt did jump out, utility knife in hand. “Thanks.”

“Why…”

“You should get out of here.” Matt handed her a twenty. The woman seemed to know good advice when she heard it because she tucked the money in her blouse and continued on.

As soon as he grabbed his duffel, Matt knew the ax was gone. The bag was too light. The idea of the ax being used for a robbery made him much angrier than having his lips ripped up by duct tape. This was the ax that had saved him and others over and over. It was solid and true, and it held good memories in its smooth handle. Across the street was a bank. Assuming the robbers were already inside, he pushed through the door of the closest business with the idea of asking the owner to call the police. But there was Dmitri, waving Matt’s ax in the face of an elderly man who looked like a skinny Santa Claus. All around him, display cases full of jewelry sparkled under the light. Matt’s first thought was,
Oh shit.
He didn’t normally stumble into things, but losing the ax had thrown him off his game. Nadia, easy to spot in her tight T-shirt and black pants, leveled a gun at him.

Dmitri grinned, and yellow pus dribbled down the black ski mask. “Look who has come. I tell you stay in car.” He started to laugh. The elderly owner saw an opening, grabbed a shotgun from under the counter, and blasted Dmitri in the back.

The girls and Matt dove for cover. Matt already knew how much bullets hurt. He crawled to Dmitri, who was twitching on the floor, and picked up the ax, which Dmitri had dropped when his spine shattered. While Matt used Dmitri’s pant leg to clean the blood off his ax, the owner fired again and took Nadia’s head completely off. Matt wondered if Chloe had the sense to stay down. She didn’t. Her run for the door was stopped when Matt used his ax to trip her. She went flying into the glass door and
bounced off. A heavier person might have shattered it, but there wasn’t even a crack. Swinging the ax a second time, he knocked the gun out of her hand. Matt turned to the kind-faced senior, who was aiming the shotgun at Matt’s forehead. “You should call the police now.” Matt pointed to Chloe. “This one’s just a kid.”

The jeweler chewed his lip for a moment before lowering the shotgun. Something in his eyes convinced Matt that he had enjoyed shooting the robbers and he wanted to plug Matt, too. When the owner reached for his phone, Matt headed out, hoping the man wouldn’t mow down Chloe if she tried to escape. He might be fine with killing a girl. This Santa had a mean streak.

The cops described Matt as a person of interest. He supposed the store owner had told them that the robbers recognized him. The little gang had destroyed the obvious cameras, but one of the two hidden ones caught Matt’s startled profile as he dove behind the engagement ring counter. He’d been hiding in the woods ever since.

Matt blinked awake, gripping his ax before he was fully conscious. He wasn’t sure what had woken him up—the state park was quiet. He heard some crackling twigs, an owl calling, and then a human moan. It was a sound of pleasure. He tried to sleep, but he couldn’t, because even though the lovers were trying to keep their moans and giggles quiet, they might as well have been screaming. Long after they went to sleep, he was awake, missing Janey and wondering again why he’d been brought back from the dead.

In the morning he spotted the couple. She was a shapely blonde with small tattoos on her shoulders. He was a lean, young man with a classic army hair cut. Matt
wasn’t intentionally spying on his neighbors at the camp. He was keeping an eye out for rangers and cops, just as he had done everyday for the last few weeks.

Hours later Matt was lying on a boulder letting the afternoon sun burn his face while the wind whooshed through the aspens, sounding like water rushing in a stream. He liked Colorado, but winter was coming, and without gear he couldn’t continue at the park. Over the sound of the trees he heard the blonde laughing. She had been at the campgrounds for only a day, but Matt knew the sound of her laughter.

The warm rock was not only comfortable, it was a fine perch for viewing the road into the park. Matt sat up and continued his surveillance. A moment later, the woman’s laughs became shrieks. Rolling off the boulder, he ran toward the screams and found her backing away from two small brown bears that were staring intently at the sandwich in her hands. She lobbed the sandwich, but they kept coming as if they believed she had more food. The bears were maybe a year old, just teenagers really, but they were still strong enough to cause damage. Next she threw her water bottle at them. It was all she had left. The half-empty bottle bounced off the larger bear. It sniffed the plastic and swatted it. The rolling bottle became a toy as the bears batted it back and forth. When one of them chomped down on it, the game was over and they continued advancing.

Matt leapt in, waving his arms and the ax at the bears. They looked at him with curiosity, and the smaller one backed up. When he threw a rock and hit the larger one, it growled at him, but as Matt advanced with more rocks, both of the young bears slowly retreated. There was a quick stop to tussle over the sandwich before they trotted into the woods. The woman had gathered more rocks, but they were unneeded. Because she was
trying to help even though she was shaking from fear, Matt took her rocks and threw them after the bears anyway. It seemed the right thing to do.

“Oh, thanks! You saved my life!” She grabbed him with a big hug. “I’m Cheryl.”

“I’m Matt. I don’t think they were out to kill you. They’ve been scrounging around the garbage containers so long that they think that’s what bears do. Maybe we scared them off for a bit.”

When her husband, Jeff, returned from the river with a couple of trout, Matt found he had a new friend. Pan-fried trout and beer for lunch was a treat compared to the way Matt had been eating. He had a bit of money, but there were no stores out here. The animals weren’t the only ones foraging for food. While they ate, Cheryl told Jeff she wanted to move on in the morning. He tried to coax her into staying, but she was more interested in finding some indoor plumbing. When Matt asked for a ride, they couldn’t have been happier to help him. He offered to sit in the back of the camper, but Cheryl laughed at that idea, so Matt pulled a baseball cap down over his head and slouched until they crossed the Colorado border.

Cheryl was a looker. Her wide-set blue eyes gave her face a doll-like quality, but her toned and curvy body was all grown up. A few exuberant curls framed her face, while the rest of her fine blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When she told Matt that she was a dance teacher—ballet, hip-hop, Latin—he wasn’t surprised. Her dream was to open a dance studio in San Bernardino and teach kids. Jeff, who was driving the truck with a contented look on his face, didn’t seem to be listening. If Cheryl noticed that he had tuned out, she didn’t care. With her left hand resting on her husband’s thigh, she focused
the rest of her attention on Matt, twisting so she could see Matt’s face. “You’ll probably think this is funny, but I used to coach cheerleading.”

Matt imagined her bouncing around in shorts teaching silly rhymes and shaking pom-poms.
Funny
was not the word he would have used. Sometimes her voice got high and squeaky when she was excited, but Matt figured Jeff had no trouble putting up with that. He knew because he’d been like them once. At first Matt thought his second life was chaotic and random. Now he had a strong sense that he was building toward something. Although, when things went sideways, like they just had in Denver, he had doubts.

However, for the moment, he was watching Cheryl demonstrating her moves in the truck cab. Matt could think of worse ways to pass the time. Usually he caught rides from truckers who were either lonely and talkative or silent. Matt wasn’t picky if the ride was free. Cheryl continued, telling him how she and Jeff met at a friend’s barbecue in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Then Jeff proposed and suggested they move to San Bernardino, where his uncle lived. Cheryl was thrilled about getting married and leaving snowy Columbus for California, even if it was just San Bernardino.