Dead Chaos by April Brookshire

CHAPTER THREE

  The Eden residents had either fenced, or barricaded in the area surrounding the hot springs and lodge directly across the street. It made a nice setting for the hedonistic community. Not that a majority of them weren’t nice people, but sometimes they got a little too friendly. When I was seventeen I’d visited with dad and Viktor to trade supplies and had never felt more uncomfortable in my life.

  The guards at the front gate had worn tie-dyed shirts, beads and moccasins. It seemed they were unarmed except for a single hunting bow between them. They’d made us relinquish our weapons at the gate and I remembered thinking that if I were a bandit, this would be the place I’d attack. One of the guards had led us through a barbed wire overpass that crossed Intersate 70. We’d passed dozens of naked residents wading in the warm sulfur pools, some of them participating in less than wholesome acts. It was at that point they’d made me close my eyes for much of the duration of the stay.

  We were on our way out, and I’d finally felt safe from moral corruption, when a fifty-something couple caught up to us. Her name was Sunshine and his was Coyote. She’d gotten a little handsy with Viktor and my dad, which had been oddly both creepy and amusing.

  Meanwhile, Coyote had smiled at me in an assessing manner and told my dad, “Gee, this little plum is almost ripe!”

  This was one of the few times I’d seen my dad so quick to violence. He’d decked the audacious hippie and kicked him twice before his gentler self prevailed. I hadn’t been allowed back since. No loss there.

  Kyle shifting brought me back to the current situation just as we entered the mountain valley in early afternoon. We parked our cars right at the front gate. The entrance to Eden seemed better barricaded than before and there were signs that read GO AWAY and IF YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU’RE IN RANGE. It seemed Eden wasn’t so pure any more. This time the guards actually looked menacing. They wore assault rifles and carried themselves like trained soldiers.

  One of them called down at us from his post, “What’s your business here?”

  Apparently they weren’t all that smart, however, considering Justin and Alexi were on either side of Kyle, clearly helping to support him. I thought maybe the blood soaked bandages might’ve been another giveaway.

  “We need your doctor’s services. One of us has been shot!” I yelled back, running short on patience.

  “Nothing is free. Do you have supplies to trade?” barked the soldier.

  “We do!” answered my father before I could retort.

  The gates swung open and four guards descended on us, weapons raised as if they were expecting us to jump them. I found myself wanting the tie-dyed archers back. We were told to give up our guns and patted down. The guard doing so must have seen me as less of a threat because he missed the pocket pistol in my boot. I wasn’t giving up the gun unless I had to.

  From the restaurant to our right came a little hippie with a wheelbarrow. I thought I recognized him as being on gate duty four years ago, but perhaps he’d been demoted from guard to gopher. “Hi there, folks, the name’s Catfish, you can set the wounded in here,” he cheerily stated.

  The boys gingerly set Kyle down in the homemade gurney and we followed as he was wheeled across the street toward the hot springs. A silent guard escorted us, walking a few paces behind our group. Marijuana smoke and sulfur increasingly filled my nostrils as we neared the lodge. Clearly the residents of Eden hadn’t lost all their principles. We entered the pool area and a familiar sight met us. Viktor pounced and was blocking Riley’s view before she could see any scandalous behavior.

  “Cover your eyes, mijitos!” screamed a very offended Paulina.

  “Hey, you’re not my grandma,” argued Alexi, who was enthralled by what he saw. After all, not every resident of Eden was old and wrinkly.

  I refused to look at my dad, afraid to see him also eyeing the voluptuous brunette who bounced around as if she were on a porn set. I was suddenly and guiltily happy that my boyfriend was too hurt to pay her any attention. Always surrounded by our friends and family, I knew our relationship wasn’t what it would’ve been had the world not ended. We were happy, though, and I never doubted his love.

  Paulina smacked Alexi with all the force of her stout little frame. He laughed at first, but when she raised her hand again, he sure flinched. I hid my smile, not wanting to be scolded also. Justin was deliberate in his attempt not to watch the peepshow, but from the stiffness of his frame, the effort was murder on his teenage boy sensibilities. As if those two didn’t have dirty magazines stashed somewhere.

  We walked into the lodge and found a very convincing military hospital ward; several people in wheelchairs and some patients in beds, looking too injured to move. Women I assumed were nurses from their attire, buzzed around in every direction. My eyes strayed to a closed door with the word Quarantine painted on it.

  One of the nurses stopped long enough to bark orders. “Fish, put him in an empty bed, the doctor will make rounds in a minute.”

  On the opposite side of the room was a man wearing a turquoise necklace, colorful billowing robes and a stethoscope. I wondered if he purposely grew out his hair and beard to look like Jesus. The brown leather sandals added just the right touch to his elegant messiah style. Someone needed to let him know that the apocalypse already happened and, with hell on earth, we were no longer in need of a prophet.

  The doctor held a metal clipboard in his hand and it seemed a nurse was filling him in on the status of the wounded. He wore a pensive expression, nodding his head every few moments. The man didn’t exactly inspire confidence in me, looking like a rainbow Jesus. It was times like this I missed our former family pediatrician. I’d like to think that Dr. Amin had survived, possibly overseeing the healthcare in a settlement such as this one. Well, maybe not exactly like this one.

  I asked myself why we brought my boyfriend to the shaman at the military-run swingers club, but it wasn’t like we had many options. Gathered around Kyle’s bed, we waited as the doctor moved from patient to patient.

  Kyle looked up at me and smiled, trying to reassure me. He was pale and sweating profusely, so the smile didn’t work very well. I brushed his brown hair off his forehead, attempting to return his optimism with a smile of my own. My dad walked over a couple beds and started chatting with a bedridden man wearing an eye patch and gauze wrapped around his head. I squeezed Kyle’s hand and followed him, listening in on the conversation.

  “What happened here?” asked my father, indicating the abundance of patients.

  “We were attacked by raiders six days ago at dawn,” said the man wearily. “They rode into town and started firing without warning. We’re not violent people. They could’ve taken whatever they wanted without hurting anyone.”

  “I’m so sorry. Where’d the new guards come from? They seem well-trained,” offered my father tactfully. I’d been wondering the same thing.

  “The council voted and we sent an emissary to Colorado Springs. We needed protection and they came through for us. They get a percentage of our goods and we get peace of mind,” he explained with evident relief.

  “Peace of mind, that’s the rarest of commodities nowadays,” my father mused.

  “Do you remember me?” he asked both of us quietly. I did, a person didn’t meet many new faces anymore. We were talking to Coyote, the man who’d incurred my father’s anger the last time we were here.

  I spoke up first, wanting to alleviate any awkwardness. “I remember you. Where’s Sunshine?”

  “They . . . they killed her,” he replied faintly, tears growing in the one eye we could see.

  “Oh god, that’s terrible,” whispered my father with genuine compassion. I was hoping this scene wouldn’t later put my father into one of his funks. Those episodes usually occurred only on days that had been special to my parents. Their anniversary, my mother’s birthday and the birthdays of their children sometimes made my dad incredibly sad and he’d go off to be by himself or shut himself in a room. I wouldn??
?t want anyone to see my grief either if I’d lost my soulmate.

  A nurse took notice of Coyote’s tears and ushered us away from him. The poor man was broken inside and out. We returned to Kyle and saw the doctor was only a few people away now. Everyone agreed it would be best to explore the settlement as a way to get their minds off today’s excitement, while I stayed with Kyle. Plus, our large group was crowding their already teeming hospital. For some reason, an adamant Alexi insisted on staying with me for moral support. It seemed like Alexi had grown up a little bit today, or so I hoped.

  The group left and we waited together in silence, with me holding Kyle’s clammy hand. I stared at our laced fingers, so grateful that he wasn’t hurt worse and that my family was safe. Bandits were a way of life now, along with the undead. It seemed as if one or the other were always coming at us, wanting to take our supplies or our lives.

  Kyle closed his eyes and I felt myself doing the same. I was exhausted in more ways than one. Dropping the nearby zombie population always wore me out. The sandwich and chips helped, but I needed more food fuel and sleep to totally recharge.

  Finding out I could control the dead in such a way had been both frightening and exhilarating. It was just months after the outbreak began and we’d already lost my mother, along with others from our initial group. The little bit of organization and relief that the government was trying to give was failing. We first found shelter at an army facility in Yuma, Arizona, but that fell when a massive amount of undead crossed over from Mexico. When the fences fell, we knew better than to flee west to the more densely populated California. The forts there were overrun in the first weeks of the outbreak.

  Some of the Yuma survivors headed north to a military proving ground in Utah, but we settled along the way in a religious community in Southern Utah. All was good there until a horde came through and overwhelmed the residents. I remember standing in the middle of a hopeless situation. Something came over me and, on a panic-fueled scream, I emitted a burst of energy that caused the fighting stopped. I just knew I’d done it, made a hundred or so zombies drop to the ground mid-frenzy. At only fourteen, my first thought was freak.

  When the zombies started to reanimate an hour or more later, the residents were able to take them out, but questions were being asked. Most people were confused, never seeing such a thing in their past experience with the undead. Unfortunately, there’d been a few residents who realized the phenomenon had coincided with my scream. Paranoia and plans of exploitation ensued, so two nights later we left under the cover of darkness.

  My eyes popped open and I came out of my reverie when I heard the doctor’s voice. “Hello, I’m Dr. Rivers. I hear you’ve been shot. Can you show me the wound?” he asked in a deep tone which surprisingly made me feel everything would be alright.

  Kyle weakly nodded and gestured for the doctor to go ahead with the examination. I surveyed the room and saw Alexi sneaking back toward the hot springs. The little pervert had conned us all. If Paulina caught him, he’d be in for it. Sometimes I wish he’d find a girlfriend the way Viktor found Melanie just so some of his eagerness would wane. Not that I could imagine any female putting up with him.

  “We pulled as much of the bullet out as we could, but there are still pieces in there,” I told the doctor.

  “We need to remove what we can and clean the area,” responded Dr. Rivers. “A little shrapnel never hurt anyone and antibiotics should prevent infection.” He nodded to a nurse, talking in a low voice gave her orders and turned back to me. “Why don’t you go for a walk or enjoy a swim? I’ll have someone come find you when we’re done.”

  I kissed Kyle on the forehead, walking out of the hospital and into the equally surreal confines of the hot springs. On the other side of the pool Alexi was flirting with a topless woman in her late thirties. I could just imagine how the conversation was going.

  Hey, nice boobs.

  Thanks, nice peach fuzz.

  She didn’t seem to mind his advances and before I knew it he was taking his shoes off in a hurry.

  “Alexi Donovan! Put your freaking shoes back on!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  He looked up at me in shock, blood rushing to his face. The woman glanced back at me with an expression somewhere between amusement and resentment. My brother reluctantly put his shoes back on and booked it toward Main Street. The walk to the town store was particularly enjoyable for me after thwarting my idiot brother’s plan to hook up with a cougar.

  My family was sitting around a table in the restaurant now being used as a dining hall by the town. Melanie and Viktor seemed to be getting along and she sat on his lap. Justin and Alexi were quietly whispering to each other at one end of the table, no doubt trying to think of some new dimwitted plan to each lose their virginity. Paulina was lecturing my dad about how Riley needed a firmer hand in her upbringing and discipline. Zeke was eyeing a girl close to my age who was sitting with her family a few tables over. Just what the family needed, another deviant set on repulsing me at every turn.

  I hastily ate some slop substance that resembled a potato casserole, but at that point anything would have tasted good. Maybe if this settlement was less focused on feeding their sexual appetites, they could serve something edible. The small pot farm I’d spied in a lot down the street proved they had the skills to do better.

  Paulina was a whiz in the kitchen and we’d made an effort throughout the years to become knowledgeable enough amateur farmers and ranchers to grow and raise the ingredients needed for good eating. Our isolated cabin was our haven and, in my opinion, more of an Eden than this place could ever be.

  A man built like a linebacker with the face of a bulldog walked up to our table and addressed my father. “Levi Donovan. Come with me,” ordered the behemoth.

  My dad nodded to Viktor to come along, eyeing the man suspiciously. He got up and I could almost see him walking on his tiptoes beside the huge guard. “You too, Anya,” my dad threw over his shoulder after a few steps. So I was being included in the decision making now, like a real adult. This was a welcome and long-overdue development.

  We were led past the kitchen into an alleyway, through a nearby doorway and found ourselves in a perfect replica of army barracks. Set against the back wall was a small metal desk. Sitting behind it was a medium-sized blonde man cleaning a sniper rifle.

  Without looking up from his task he said, “Welcome to Eden, hopefully our doctor was able to patch up the injured young man. My name is Sergeant Davies. I have to ask, how exactly did he suffer a gunshot wound?” He looked up at us with a face that was simultaneously friendly and terrifying.

  “We were ambushed by another group that demanded our supplies,” replied my father, much to Viktor’s and my chagrin. He could’ve made something up, but his trusting nature prevented this. Even after years of dealing with assholes, his creep-radar didn’t detect as well as the rest of us. He still wanted to believe in the goodness of humanity. He thought we would one day band together, cure the virus and rebuild civilization into a utopia. Not likely. I often wondered if the best of humanity was now stumbling around craving living flesh.

  “That’s just bad luck, isn’t it?” remarked the sergeant. He was clearly trolling for some piece of information. “You must have been out in the open to invite such attention.” He was working toward the point now. Just what that was, I wasn’t sure.

  “We were trying to gather supplies at a store,” my father replied unsuspectingly.

  “That’s incredibly brave. Oftentimes those places are the most infested with zombies. Did you have to fight your way in?” It was at that moment my father realized what the questioning may be leading to.

  “Yeah, we had to unload several clips to make the place safe enough,” my dad answered shrewdly.

  “You’ve got a tough group there, Mr. Donovan. Most of them are just kids, too. At any rate, one hears things, legends of sorts. There’s a tale some travelers from Utah told me a few months back about a girl who coul
d blackout the dead. Incapacitate them, if you will. Not sure I believe it, but they were so certain, so absolute. Supposed to have been witnessed around the time this all started. To ignore such a tale entirely would be foolish. A weapon like that would be priceless in this new world.” He ended his speech leaning back in his chair, with a cheerful expression that was intended to indicate camaraderie.

  Negative there, sergeant.

  “Indeed, that’d be quite an asset in these times,” agreed my father stoically. Nice to know my value. I wondered if he mentioned this zombie-girl legend to all new acquaintances, hoping one day someone could corroborate the story, lead him to the treasure. Rumors of my prowess with the undead could lead to problems for me and my family.

  “Sure would,” Davies intoned slowly. “Now to the real business, how will you be paying for this visit?” the sergeant inquired with a hard edge. The image flashed through my mind of us having to do manual labor to pay off Kyle’s medical bill. Picking weeds in the weed farm or working in the kitchens scrubbing pots.

  My father reluctantly opened his backpack and took out a bottle of Viagra, a couple packs of condoms and the ivory handgun we’d only acquired earlier that day. Thank god for the allure of “keeping it up” for hours and not making babies in the process. Oh, and a Texan’s exotic taste in weaponry. It was the Beretta that caught the sergeant’s attention. His eyes gleamed greedily as it was set on his desk. Davies restrained his excitement and I could almost see his mind churning out a plan.

  “That’ll do nicely. Now, you guys enjoy your stay here. Be wary of bandits on the way home.” Sergeant Davies opened a drawer to place the items inside and an awkward silence filled the room. With the shakedown he was giving us, I was wary of him. Not that we hadn’t been through worse.

  We stood there unsure of what came next, but thinking he was done with us.

  Just to clarify, Viktor asked, “Are we dismissed?”

  The sergeant nodded arrogantly, hands already set to work cleaning his new firearm. Grateful the negotiation was over, we followed the ogre back to our waiting group. When we returned, Catfish was chatting with Paulina and Melanie. He smiled as we neared and told us the doctor had fixed Kyle up good as new. I needed to see him to determine that for myself.

  But first, there was a more pressing matter. “Restroom?” I asked Catfish, trying not to fidget in my urgency.

  He started to point when Melanie interrupted. “I’ll show you.”

  Getting off Viktor’s lap, she led me to the back of the restaurant and through the “employees only” area. The public bathrooms must’ve been out of service. An elderly lady was stirring a pot of something and with a sour glance dismissed us. No wonder the food was tasteless if those kinds of vibes were going into it.

  The employee bathroom was single use, but spacious enough for us to both squeeze in. Most settlements maintained a septic system unless they wanted to do their business in nature. And no one wanted to risk getting bit on the behind by a zombie. Far past being uncomfortable around each other in these situations, Melanie used the mirror to fix the scarf over her curls.

  Seven years older than me and two years older than Viktor, we’d met Melanie a few months after we’d first gotten to Colorado. She’d fled Denver and was surviving with the group at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. They weren’t as organized as they were now and when she and Viktor hit it off, she left with us. Six years later, they were still together and she’d become family.

  She wouldn’t talk much about her own family, but Viktor had told me once that she couldn’t find them after the virus invaded the city. She’d been sharing an apartment with two other nursing students downtown and when she finally made it to the suburbs and her childhood home, they were gone. She could sometimes be serious like my brother, but she also had a playful side. Four inches taller than me, at five foot ten, she had light brown skin and eyes. She often wore her curly black hair in a scarf of bun, not wanting it in her face, but not willing to cut it either. She was beautiful and I’d often teased Viktor that the two of them would make some adorable giant children, with him being a few inches over six foot.

  Melanie moved to let me wash up and I studied my appearance in the mirror. A few strands of my blonde hair were starting to come out of my ponytail, so I pulled out the hair tie and ran my damp hands through it. My ponytail redone, I wiped under my eyes to clean my smudged eyeliner. Thankfully, unopened eyeliners from the luxury cosmetic companies were still okay to use. Along with unopened powder, lipstick, lip liner and eye shadow. Something about staying sealed from oxygen. A few years ago, mascara and foundation were kicked out of the usable category. When I wanted to make the effort, fake eyelashes were an option, though. I rarely made the effort.

  The whole group set off to check on Kyle when we got back to them. My father ordered us to all stay together for the rest of our time in Eden, not trusting the sergeant and his questions about the mythical blonde zombie puppet master. For now they were just rumors, but if they turned into suspicions about me, we’d probably be forced to leave the area. Leaving our ideal setup in the mountains would mean starting over somewhere else.

  Sunset was hitting the peaks around us and the temperature was dropping with a cool breeze. We’d have to set home soon if we wanted to avoid spending the night here. The setting was almost beautiful if you could ignore the military police and free love mentality. For the third time that day I had to pass the hot springs, noticing this time that Alexi’s long lost love found someone else to occupy her time. Upon entering the medical center we were met by a dim glow of candles illuminating the dreary room.

  Kyle was in a great mood at our arrival, as if he’d not been shot and operated on all in one day. The doctor walked up and told us everything had gone well and they’d given Kyle THC Jello to help numb the pain. That explained his carefree, smiley attitude. The doctor continued by telling us Kyle should stay for several days in order to heal up.

  The thought of being subjected to the whims of Sergeant Davies made me anxious. I mean, if we had to trade all the condoms to pay for our stay, that would leave Alexi without, making teen fatherhood a possibility. If, he ever got laid. I heard a commotion behind me and turned to see Viktor struggling with an unruly Zeke while Riley looking bored with the whole situation. Alexi and Justin were standing in the doorway, gazes on the hot springs. Paulina had found a chair to sit in, eyes on the teenage boys.

  As my dad was telling the doc that we’d need that wheelbarrow again, since we were definitely leaving now, I took a seat by Kyle’s bed. “Hey, honey.”

  He turned his head to give me a droopy-eyed smile. “How’s it going, babe?”

  I laughed at his cheerfulness. “Not as well as it’s going for you, obviously. We’re going to bust you out of this joint.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, reaching up to touch my cheek. God, my boyfriend was cute. Maybe he wasn’t the most handsome of the last men on earth, but since the day he’d moved down the street when we were in the third grade and we’d bonded over all things sci-fi, he’d been my other half. Plus, his dimples always made me want to kiss him.

  Through loss and survival, we’d only gotten stronger. If early bloomer Stacey Larken chasing after him in the eighth grade couldn’t tear us apart, the end of the world hadn’t stood a chance.

  “Love you, honey,” I whispered back.

  “Beautiful,” he repeated.

  “High as a kite,” I responded.

  “Fuck yeah,” he drawled lazily.

  Running a hand through his thick brown hair, I was about to tell him it better not become a habit when rapid fire sounded from nearby. Our guard went into immediate action and whipped his weapon up at us. We all froze, not wanting to provoke him into a massacre. At first the noise coming from his walkie-talkie was garble, but when it cleared the word “raiders” was coherent enough.

  It seemed Eden was once again under attack.