Keep Busy

26.

Roy ran into a bit of trouble when it came to organizing the remaining six zombies. They didn't want to listen. They were too busy adjusting to being walking corpses and all that entailed. And they were very preoccupied with their insatiable hunger for brains.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned American revenge? Roy pondered as he paced back and forth near the rekindled fire pit as the sun set beyond the trees. His hands were firmly planted on his hips, his mouth pinched up in a mean grimace.

How does this happen? How do these decent, god fearing folks succumb to the ways of the Devil? Revenge is in the bible. Eating fuckin' brains is not.

There were bigger epistemological questions to ponder but like the confusing parts in the good book, Roy had very little trouble redirecting his focus to things of a simpler nature. Like finding Jane and tearing her guts out.

He looked back at his zombie comrades as they scooped the last remaining chunks of viscous glop out of broken skulls with shaking fingers. They looked like the frenzied crack heads from the city. Roy shook his head disparagingly. It was a sad sight to behold.

Finally, after multiple attempts to get their attention Roy understood he was just going to have to wait it out. He sat in a creaking lawn chair and gripped the arms, his knuckles going whiter.

Once all the bodies had been consumed, and there were no more brains to feast upon, Roy clapped his hands rapidly like he was assembling a dance troupe and asked everyone to gather around. It was time to lay the groundwork.

"Okay. So... to begin, everyone feeling fed? You guys full? You're not going to go wandering off while I'm trying to talk looking for another mouthful of brains?"

The group looked unsure but nodded as they glanced at each other.

"Y'all fuckin' sure? Jed's dead so I'm in fuckin' charge now and I need you fine people to pay-a-fuckin'-tention. Can ya do that?" Roy was feeling a little heated and impatient.

More nods.

"Okay. Good. So that demon cunt needs to die. The zombie girl."

"But why do we care about her? We need food," one of the zombies named Billy whined. The sentiment was shared by way of half intoned, "Yeahs" and "Why do we cares."

"You just told me you were fucking full. Can y'all focus for a second?" Roy seethed through gritted teeth. "We care because she has somehow swayed the minds of the living. This is some seriously evil shit happening here. She's already corrupted that guy she was with—the hipster asshole with the beard. Now I don't know what their deal is—maybe they're trying to start a new race and make half-zombie babies or something, (muffled gasps) but what I do know is if we find her, we'll find food." Roy was standing and using his hands a lot as he spoke—the way he'd seen politicians do.

"Yeah, but that's only one guy. We can't all eat that one guy." Billy said. More supposition from the group.

"Now, that's true but she might lead us to more humans."

"Yeah, but she might not."

Roy glared at Billy. "Okay, there is that chance but..."

Earl, a fat man in blood-stained overalls stood up, "Look y'all, I been thinking—I'm not sure this is what God's intended for us. I mean, we're all dead now and eating our loved ones and things, which doesn't feel very Christian. And it seems a bit contradictory to go searching for that girl so she can lead us to humans when Jed was saying that's exactly what she was doing. Wouldn't that make us just as bad as her? Now, I don't know 'bout y'all, but that just don't seem righ..." He was cut short by a bullet tearing off the right side of his shiny bald head. Chunks of meat and blood splashed on the other's faces and splattered the dirt.

"Holy shit, Roy!" Billy exclaimed. Roy was holstering his gun. "You shot Earl."

"He was blaspheming."

The group stared at him.

Roy held his hands out in a calming gesture. "He was questioning the work of our Lord. It seems to me God does have a plan for us. It seems to me, he wants us to hunt this whore down and sanitize her in the name of Jesus Christ, so she cannot spread her evil seed across this once great land." Roy put his hand to his neck—a noble, beard-stroking gesture—but ended up catching a finger in his torn skin, then awkwardly yanked it out with a popping sound which was neither noble, nor commanding.

Billy scratched his temple. "But like Earl said, wouldn't we be doing exactly what she was doing?"

Roy crossed his arms. "Look, the Lord works in mysterious ways and all that shit. We can't deign to understand his methods. God saw fit to bring this plague upon us—to punish the sins of man—but he kept us alive...ish."

"Not Earl," Billy said. Roy ignored it and continued.

"Those of us that survived have outlived almost the whole of the human race. Now...now..." He was making it all up and needed to think fast—they were nearly on the hook. "Now, we've entered the next stage of service to our Lord. He's made us immortal, now." Yeah, that's good, immortality. "Like his son, Jesus Christ almighty, we are immortal. We have risen from the dead—like our Lord and savior—at a time when all the other zombies are nothing but walking bags of bones. They're falling apart. Now, God wants us... us, to rebuild. But we cannot let sin flourish," He heard someone say an Amen. "No! We have to stamp out the unclean. And that means that demon bitch, Jamie...or Jean or, whatever the hell her name was..."

"Jane, I think," someone said.

"Yeah, Jane! But to us... she is Jezebel. And I don't know how to say it any simpler, but it is our duty...our holy duty to make sure that bitch dies...like, really dies... in the most horrible way possible."

The remaining five were still grumbling—kicking at the logs in the fire, drawing circles in the dirt with the toes of their boots. Billy dipped his finger in Earl's exposed and smoking brains, cautiously bringing it up to his mouth. He made a sour face.

"And she'll lead us to food," Roy said.

"Well..." Billy spat in the dirt, looking at the others. "What the fuck else are we gonna do?"

"That's the spirit," Roy grumbled.

And that was that.

"But how are we gonna find her?" one of the zombies asked.

"Well, before Jed passed, god rest his soul, he and I saw fit to strap up our vehicles with homing devices. Each one of our cars, yours too, has one bolted on the underside—including Jed's Suburban. I got a tracker that the contraptions are linked to in my trailer that works on batteries. We can take it with us, and it'll lead us right to her."

Roy, in his anticipation had already checked the monitoring system earlier and watched as a little yellow dot inched slowly down route 39.

"Now, what we do is load up our cars with all the guns we got, a couple changes of underwear and we get on the goddamn road. If we're gonna start rebuilding this country, we gotta start now."

"But it's night."

"You tired, Billy?"

"No."

"Then shut your goddamn word hole and get packing." Jesus-fucking-Christ, he thought, I go all outta my way to give these morons a sense of purpose and they keep whining and whining and whining...