Amo slipped down the railing to slump awkwardly on the second bar down.
"Oh, brother," he said, a sad little wheeze.
"Damn right," Cerulean said, though the second blush of anger was fading already. He was panting lightly. The two looked at each other in the quiet, broken by the lapping of the waves.
"You were really there," Amo said quietly. "You saw me do that? God, I thought finding Sophia was bad. But to see that?"
Now there were tears in Cerulean's eyes. This day was crazy. Plus his nose was stuffed up and he was getting sick, so he could hardly breathe. His face was just leaking everywhere.
"And my brains, they hit you?" Amo asked, his voice very weak. He looked up, half-sickened, half-curious. "In the face?"
"Right in the face," Cerulean said. He mimed the splash with his hand. "Sploosh. It was disgusting."
Amo shook his head. "God damn. Brains in the face. That's a new one."
At that the tone changed.
"Don't laugh," Cerulean said.
Unbelievably, Amo had started laughing. "Ah, I'm sorry Robert, really. Oh God, brains in the face, it's so horrible. Right on you? I can hardly believe it."
"Stop saying it!"
"I don't think I can." His color was coming back now, and his slump was growing less feeble. He was definitely laughing harder.
"It's not funny."
"Then why are you laughing too?"
He wasn't laughing, but perhaps he was smiling? He tried to straighten his lips but couldn't.
"It's funny," Amo sighed, "oh, it's sick. That's black humor. What a shot! But how could I know? Ah, I'm sorry. Sploosh."
Now they were both laughing. Probably it was more relief than humor, some ridiculous reaction to shock and violence and horrible truths, but it took hold of him and wouldn't let go.
"Oh God, to see that," Amo said between gasps. "What a mess, you lying there with brains on your face in the middle of all that carnage, you poor bastard!"
"I couldn't even climb up the ladder to see you. I wanted to bury you."
"Bury me!" Amo hooted, gasping for breath. "Ah, Robert, I'm sorry, that's so awful. I had no idea."
They laughed a while longer, until they stopped and a slow silence fell between them. The sun was closing its long descent to the sea, leading the zombies into the water.
It was good to laugh.
It was good but it didn't change the fact that he'd beaten Julio to a pulp, or that his blood-smeared arms were shuddering in his lap now despite the summer heat. The more he looked at them the stranger they seemed, as foreign as his legs when he'd first seen them under the covers, wearing their cartoon character socks.
What did that make him now?
"You'll have to punish me," he said, looking up. His head felt cleared out and free.
Amo watched him.
"You're right that it's the wrong signal, and even worse because it's from me. You can't be seen to play favorites. There have to be rules, and they have to bind all of us equally."
Amo nodded. "Julio too. Unless we go back and kill him now, we have to deal with him. We can't crush him, you know, not completely. Obviously we keep him away from Anna; you just can't talk to a child like that. But in other ways, he is useful. We should be more cautious, he's got a point. Don was real. Your gun tower was real, and we'll have to deal with those things at some point. Not everyone out there is friendly."
Cerulean sighed. He couldn't believe he was walking himself into this, but it did have to be done, and he'd never shied from doing hard work.
"So what punishment? It has to bite."
Moments passed as they considered. To the left a group of gray floaters ambled down the sand, their dull footfalls crunching on brittle shells. Cerulean watched them walk together into the water.
"Banishment," he suggested, at last.
Amo met his eyes.
"It's the only thing. We can't start corporal punishment, and imprisonment is just a waste. You send me away and I go, something public for everyone to see. I don't know how long. I can't leave Anna behind, though, not with him here."
"You could take her."
"If she'll come. We'll go make a cairn together."
Amo nodded. "Somewhere nearby," he mused. "San Francisco? It had a high population, so there may be people. Those are risks too."
"It's all risks."
Amo sighed. "True. You could go and be back in a week."
Cerulean shook his head. "Better make it a month. We need systems for things like this. You can work on them, and you can work on bringing Julio into the group while I'm away, if you think it's possible."
"It's not ideal," said Amo, "and I hate to lose you so soon, but you're right. It's all we've got."
* * *
They left the next day. The other five were standing nearby, watching as he packed the RV. Julio was in hospital, unconscious still. Masako had asked to come, but he'd said no.
"Why can't I come?" she'd demanded.
He'd held her hands gently and looked into her eyes. "Because it's supposed to be a punishment. If you come, then…" He trailed off, letting her fill in the gaps. He knew he didn't feel what she felt, but he had no desire to hurt her.
It worked. She smiled. She kissed him. "I'll be waiting," she said.
"Why is it just you and me?" Anna asked as he packed a few final bits: a charger for her phone, some candies, stock for the next cairn.
Cerulean smiled at her. His hands were both bandaged heavily, limiting what he could do. He'd broken one knuckle and slit the skin badly in three places, requiring stitches. They ached, now that the last of the anesthetic's effects were wearing off. He hadn't got them sewn up until past midnight, after Cynthia had finished work on Julio's face.
She'd talked little throughout the operation, in one of the back rooms which they'd rigged with running hot water. Julio's blood was splattered on the seat.
"You want this?" she'd asked at the start, holding up a syringe. "I'd like to do it without, so you feel every stitch, but Amo told me to offer."
He gave a wan smile. "I'll take it, thanks."
She injected him then got to sewing, not making any effort to be gentle.
"You wish I'd killed him?" Cerulean asked. "Is that why you're angry?"
She grunted. "You still will. Or him you. One of you's going to die."
The certainty in her voice had haunted his dreams that night. He'd woken up with water in the back of his throat, terrified he was drowning. He felt pale and shaky, like the world was coming apart again.
Anna was looking at him now, standing by the RV. The air was hot and close, the armrests of his chair slick with sweat. Perhaps it was truly this simple. He smiled. If there was no Anna, would he stay?
The answer came easily. No.
But she didn't owe him a thing. His life shouldn't be balanced on her presence. She was wearing her Alice uniform. That's how he'd remember her.
"Robert, why is it just you and me?" she repeated.
He cleared his throat. He owed her the truth, even if it drove her away.
"It's a punishment, honey," he said. "For me, not for you. You remember the things Julio said to you?"
She frowned. Cerulean went on. "He shouldn't have said them- it wasn't fair. Amo told me, and I got angry. I hurt Julio a lot." He held up his bandaged hands. "I hurt myself too. But now I have to go, because we can't do that kind of thing here. It's not all right. So I'm getting punished, and I have to go away. You can come with me, but you don't have to. You can stay here, if you like."
She stared at him, unreadable for a long moment. He felt a wave of emotion rise up in him. "It won't be for long," he lied. "If you want to stay, it's OK. I'll be back soon."
She stared a moment longer, then her face seemed to collapse in on itself in misery. Her eyes screwed up began to cry, deep rolling sobs that wrenched her from within.
"I'm sorry," she said, barely audible over her gasping. She hugged her hands around her middle. "I told Amo not to tell you. I didn't mean it, Robert. I'm sorry, please don't leave me."
Tears welled in his eyes as soon as she started. He hadn't expected this, and it punched a sickening hollow into his gut. He'd done this, and now he was now hurting this damaged little girl even more.
He rolled over and wrapped his arms tightly around her little convulsing body, trying to smooth away the pain with his touch. He pressed her sobbing face against his shoulder, stroked her tangled hair as she wept and gulped for air, and whispered furiously in her ear.
"I'm sorry, Anna. I'll never leave you again, I promise. I promise."
He kept his promise.
Ten years later, Anna left him.
TAKEN
19. TEN YEARS LATER
Ten years after the zombie apocalypse destroyed humanity, Cerulean sat at the edge of the pier off Muscle Beach in his stripped-back Murderball wheelchair, looking out over the lapping Pacific Ocean as the winter sun set, thinking about Anna.
She'd been gone for four months now, headed off alone in a catamaran to the west, punching a massive hole in his life. For so long he'd done everything for her; she'd been his adopted daughter for ten long, hard and wonderful years as they rebuilt the world together. His every decision had been dictated by her needs and what it would take to keep her safe.
Now she was out there somewhere, alone, and with her gone nothing was clear.
He picked at a fleck of dried paint on the pier railing with his thumb. The sun was already halfway sunk over the waves, smearing the horizon with pink and orange like a sticky, melting candy, and he wondered if she was looking up at this sky too, perhaps waiting for this receding sun to dawn over her.
He sighed.
Two months earlier she'd set sail in search of her father, following clues a decade old: an ID chip in her father's belly, swallowed when he ate their pet puppy, linked to a tracking app in his phone. She'd kept that phone ever since, clutching it like a talisman at times, dreaming of the day she would go hunt him down.
Now she'd found him. She'd crossed the Pacific, circled Hawaii and Japan, driven up through China and ultimately found him in Mongolia.
"They were piled up like cairns," she'd said over the long-wave radio connection three days ago, the last communication they'd received. Despite the many thousands of miles separating them, the sense of excitement in her shaky voice had been palpable.
"Tens of thousands of zombies in these great pyramids," she'd gone on, her voice coming through scratchy, "and at the heart of every pile there's a giant red one, like a demon. They're the real killers. The zombies piled up their bodies then turned to stone, locking them in."
Here she'd paused, perhaps because she was crying. They'd tried talking back to her but the signal was too weak and she didn't seem to hear. He'd been crying too, just to hear her voice. He'd hardly left the radio room for months since she'd left, just waiting to hear she was OK.
"The zombies sacrificed themselves to save us," she'd said. "And Cerulean, I found my father! He was alive still, not frozen like the others. He was waiting for me, I think. And he saved me from the red demon. He sacrificed himself all over again."
On the pier, Cerulean turned a fleck of paint over in his fingers, like a poker chip. Finally she'd found her father, who was a gray-skinned, white-eyed zombie, and that brought up a welter of emotions. He was glad that her months-long solo voyage around the world had not been in vain. He rejoiced that she was alive and had finally found some of the closure she so badly needed.
At the same it was a knife in his heart. She was nearly sixteen and every day for the last four years she'd spent pulling away, drawn toward the memory of her father, the zombie. It had hurt more with every snub and snide comment, piling up inside, as she answered all his kindnesses with growing cruelty.
That was the apocalypse, perhaps. That was people. That was a great gaping wound trying to seal itself over, using other people as bandages and stitches and tossing them away when they were done.
He sighed again. Regret was infectious, like self-pity.
Still, it was hard. He missed her, and sometimes now he dreamed of the demon from his past, pouring fluid down his throat. He'd wake terrified he'd lost everything, and there was nothing left but an endless crawl through the rotting ruins of the dead.
It was hard, at those times, to remember why he was still alive. Only Anna's voice on the radio, come at random, broken moments over the last few months, reminded him of the man he'd become as her father.
He sighed a third, self-indulgent time.
"Reminiscing about Krispy Kreme donuts?" came a voice from behind him. "Or maybe a fresh can of Bud Lite?"
Cerulean turned to see Amo standing there, the Last Mayor of America, looking the same as always; a hipster without a cause. He wore light brown sandals, baggy khaki cargo shorts and a loose white shirt, despite being 37 now. His dark hair was pulled back in a loose knot, and his warm brown eyes were light and free as ever, dancing in the sunset.
"You walk too quietly, Amo," Cerulean said. "I could have shot you."
Amo laughed. "You're not even holding a gun. When's the last time you carried one?"
Cerulean shrugged. The answer was simple enough; the day they shot and killed Julio, but what point was there in bringing up that?
Amo sat on the weathered bench nearby. They were the oldest friends left alive in the world, pre-dating the apocalypse by six months, and Amo could read him like an open book.
"You're moping," Amo said.
Cerulean couldn't stop the smile from inching across his face.
"I know what this is," Amo went on. "The usual survivor's guilt, beating yourself up for outliving the world, feelings of unworthiness, not feeling real, and now you've got that empty nest syndrome too."
Amo could be a real pain sometimes. "I shouldn't have told you any of that stuff."
Amo frowned. "Come on, Robert. It's a real thing, and I'm forever glad you told me. I'm just thankful I don't have it too."