The Walking Dead (27 page)

Philip is in a state of shock, his heart racing, his skin clammy and cold. He feels like a broken mirror, as if a shard of his own soul has fractured off and reflected back the face of a monster. What did he just do? He knows he did something wrong. But it almost feels like somebody else did it.

“Got a little carried away there,” he says at last, after many minutes of terrible silence.

She doesn’t say a word. He glances over at her, and sees her face in the darkness, reflecting the liquid shadows of rain streaming down the sides of the glass walkway. She looks semiconscious. Like she’s having a waking dream.

“Sorry about that,” he says, the words sounding tinny and hollow in his own ears. He shoots another glance at her, trying to gauge her mood. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Her voice has a mechanical quality to it, completely colorless, barely audible above the noise of the rain. Philip is about to say something else when a volley of thunder interrupts his thought. The rumbling reverberates through the iron framework of the walkway, a teeth-rattling vibration that makes Philip cringe.

“April?”

“Yes.”

“We ought to get back.”

*   *   *

The return trip is shrouded in silence. Philip walks a few paces behind April through the deserted lobby, up a staircase, and down the empty, litter-strewn corridors. Every now and then, Philip considers saying something, but he doesn’t. He figures it’s probably best to let it ride right now. Let her work through it. Anything Philip says might make it worse. April walks ahead of him with the shotgun on her shoulder, looking like a tired soldier returning from a rough patrol. They reach the top floor of the accounting firm and find the gaping window, the rain blowing in past jagged, broken glass. Only a few words are spoken—“You go first” and “Watch your step”—as Philip helps her climb out and cross the rain-swept fire escape. The pounding wind and rain that lashes down on them as they shimmy across the treacherous makeshift catwalk almost feels good to Philip. It braces him and wakes him up and gives him hope that maybe he can repair whatever damage has been done here tonight with this woman.

By the time they get back to the apartment—both of them soaked to the bone, exhausted, and dazed—Philip is confident he can fix this.

Brian is in the office bedroom with Penny, putting her to sleep on her cot. Nick is in the living room, working on his map of safe zones. “Hey, how’d it go?” he asks, looking up from his papers. “You guys look like drowned rats; you find any Home Depots out there?”

“Not this time,” Philip replies, heading for the bedroom, not even pausing to take off his shoes.

April says nothing, doesn’t even meet Nick’s gaze as she heads toward the hallway.

“Look at you two,” Tara says, coming out of the kitchen with a surly expression and a lit cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth. “Just like I thought—a wild fucking goose chase!”

She stands there with her hands on her hips as her sister vanishes without a word into her room at the end of the hall. Tara gives Philip a look, and then storms away, following her sister.

“I’m going to bed,” Philip says flatly to Nick and then adjourns to his room.

*   *   *

The next morning, Philip stirs awake just before dawn. The rain still pounds the streets outside. He can hear it drumming off the window. The room is dark and cold and dank, and smells of mold. He sits on the edge of the bed for the longest time, looking at Penny, who slumbers across the room on her cot, her tiny body all balled up in a fetal position. The half-formed memories of a dream cling to Philip’s woozy brain, as well as the sickening sensation that he doesn’t know where the nightmares end and the episode with April the previous evening begins.

If only he had
dreamed
those events in the pedestrian walkway instead of actually acting them out. But the hard, sharp edge of reality comes back to him in that dark room in a series of flash frames in his mind, as though he’s watching someone else perpetrate the crime. Philip hangs his head, trying to push the feelings of dread and guilt from his mind.

Running fingers through his hair, he talks himself into being hopeful. He can work through this with April, figure out a way to move forward, put it behind them, apologize to her, make it up to her.

He watches Penny sleep.

In the two and a half weeks since Philip’s little cadre joined up with the Chalmers, Philip has noticed his daughter coming out of her shell. At first, he detected little things: the way Penny had begun to look forward to concocting their god-awful dinners, and the way she lit up every time April walked into a room. With each passing day, though, the child has become more and more talkative, remembering things from before the “turn,” commenting on the strange weather patterns, asking questions about the “sickness.” Can animals get the disease? Does it wear off? Is God mad at them?

Philip’s chest hitches with emotion as he gazes at the slumbering child. There has to be a way to make a life for his daughter, make a family, make a home—even in the midst of this waking nightmare—there has to be a way.

For a brief instant, Philip imagines a desert island and a little cottage nestled in a grove of coconut trees. The plague is a million light-years away. He imagines April and Penny on a swing set, playing together out by a vegetable garden. He imagines himself sitting on a back porch, healthy, brown from the sun, happily watching the two ladies in his life sharing contented moments. He imagines all this while he watches his daughter sleep.

He gets up and pads over to her, kneeling and lightly putting a hand on the downy softness of her hair. She needs to bathe. Her hair is matted and greasy, and she has a faint body odor. That smell somehow reaches out to Philip and pinches his gut. His eyes well up. He has never loved anyone other than this child. Even Sarah—whom he adored—came in second. His love for Sarah was—like that of all married people—complicated, conditional, and fluid. But when he first laid eyes on his baby girl as a blotchy little newborn, seven and half years ago, he learned what it means to love.

It means to be afraid, to be vulnerable for the rest of your life.

Something catches Philip’s attention across the room. The door is half ajar. He remembers shutting it before turning in. He remembers that very clearly. Now it’s cracked open about six inches.

At first, this doesn’t really make much of an impression or worry him all that much. Maybe he accidentally neglected to latch the door, and the thing drifted open on its own. Or maybe he got up to piss in the middle of the night and forgot to close it. Or maybe
Penny
had to pee and left it open. Hell, maybe he’s a sleepwalker and doesn’t even know it. But then, just as he’s turning back to continue gazing down at his daughter, he notices something else.

Things are missing from the room.

Philip’s heart starts thumping. He left his backpack—the one he was wearing when he arrived here over two weeks ago—leaning against the wall in the corner, but now it’s gone. His gun is missing as well. He left the .22 pistol on top of the dresser with the last magazine of bullets beside it. The ammo is gone, too.

Philip springs to his feet.

He looks around. The gloomy dawn is just beginning to lighten the room, the window shade projecting tears of rain, the ghostly reflections of water sluicing down the glass outside it. His boots are not where he left them. He left them on the floor by the window, but now they’re gone. Who the hell would take his boots? He tells himself to calm down. There has to be a simple explanation. No reason to get all jacked up. But the absence of the gun is what troubles him the most. He decides to take this one step at a time.

Silently, careful not to awaken Penny, he crosses the room and slips out the open door.

The apartment is silent and still. Brian dozes in the living room on the pull-out bed. Philip pads into the kitchen, lights up the propane stove, and makes himself a cup of instant coffee with some rainwater left in a bucket. He splashes some of the cold water on his face. He tells himself to stay calm, take some deep breaths.

When the coffee is hot, he takes the cup and walks down the hallway to April’s room.

Her door is also ajar.

He looks in and sees that the room is empty. His pulse quickens.

A voice says, “She ain’t here.”

He whirls and comes face-to-face with Tara Chalmers, who holds the Ruger pistol, the muzzle raised and aimed directly at Philip.

FIFTEEN

“All right … go easy, sis.” Philip makes no move. He just stands there, frozen in the hallway, with his free hand raised, and the coffee in his other hand, jutting out to the side like he’s interested in offering it to her. “Whatever it is, we can work it out.”

“Really…?”
Tara Chalmers glowers at him with her painted eyes flaring. “Ya think?”

“Look … I don’t know what’s going on—”

“What’s going on,” she says without a trace of nerves or fear, “is that we’re changing the lineup around here.”

“Tara, whatever you’re thinking—”

“Let’s get something straight.” Her voice is steady and flatlined of emotion. “I need you to shut the fuck up and do what I say, or I will blow you the fuck away and don’t think I won’t.”

“This ain’t—”

“Put the cup down.”

Philip obliges, slowly setting the cup on the floor. “Okay, sis. Whatever you say.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now we’re gonna go get your brother, your friend, and your kid.”

Philip buzzes with adrenaline. He doesn’t think Tara has the balls to do any real harm, and he considers making a move for the weapon—a distance of six to eight feet lies between him and the barrel of the Ruger—but he resists the temptation. Better to comply at this point and try and get her talking.

“May I say somethin’?”

“MOVE!”

Her sudden cry shatters the stillness, loud enough to not only awaken Penny and Brian, but probably be heard up on the second floor where Nick—an early riser—is likely already up and about. Philip takes a step toward her. “If you’d just give me a chance to—”

The Ruger barks.

The blast goes wide—maybe on purpose, maybe not—chewing a divot in the wall eighteen inches from Philip’s left shoulder. The roar of the gun is enormous in the enclosed space of the hallway, and Philip’s ears are ringing as he realizes a particle of the plaster wall has stuck to his cheek.

He can barely see Tara through the blue smoke of cordite. She is either grinning or grimacing, it’s hard to tell at this point.

“The next one goes in your face,” she tells him. “Now, you gonna be a good boy or what?”

*   *   *

Nick Parsons hears the gunfire just after opening his Concordance Bible for his morning read. Sitting in bed, with his back against the headboard, he jumps at the noise, the Bible flying out of his hands. It was open to the Revelation to John, Chapter 1 Verse 9, the part where John says to the church, “I am John your brother who shares with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and patient endurance.”

Leaping out of bed, he goes to the closet where his Marlin shotgun is supposed to be resting against the wall in the corner, except it’s not there. Panic vibrates down through Nick’s spine, and he spins, and he looks around his room at all the missing gear. His knapsack—gone. His boxes of shotgun shells—gone. His tools, his pickaxe, his boots, his maps—all gone.

At least his jeans are still there, neatly folded over the back of a chair. He yanks them on and charges out of the room. Through the studio apartment. Out the door. Down the corridor. Down a flight of steps and out onto the first floor. He thinks he hears the sound of a voice raised in anger but he’s not sure. He rushes toward the Chalmers’s apartment. The door is unlocked and he pushes his way inside.

“What’s going on? What’s going on?” Nick keeps repeating as he slams to a stop in the living room. He sees something that doesn’t make any sense. He sees Tara Chalmers with the Ruger pointed at Philip, and Philip with this weird look on his face, and Brian standing a few feet away with Penny drawn close to him, his arms around the little girl in a protective posture. And weirder still: Nick sees their belongings piled on the floor in front of the sofa.

“Move over there,” Tara says, brandishing the gun, and directing Nick toward Philip, Brian, and Penny.

“What’s wrong?”

“Never mind, just do what I say.”

Nick slowly complies but his mind is swimming with confusion. What in God’s name happened here? Almost involuntarily, Nick looks at Philip, looks into the big man’s eyes for answers, but for the first time since Nick has known Philip Blake, the big guy looks almost sheepish, almost blank with indecision and frustration. Nick looks at Tara. “Where’s April? What happened?”

“Never mind.”

“What are you doing? What’s the idea putting of all our stuff in a—”

“Nicky,” Philip chimes in. “Let it go. Tara’s gonna tell us what she wants us to do. And we’re gonna do it, and everything’s gonna be okay.”