"Got anything to eat?" Amanda asked. "We're starving."

Jake didn't answer right away. He was wondering if he should share his newfound source.

"I'll suck your d.i.c.k for food," she said, dropping her voice just a tad.

"Jeez, Manda," said Todd.

"You ain't gotta suck n.o.body's d.i.c.k," Jake said. "I'll get you something to eat. There's a place a few miles ahead where I've got a stash. Barbecue joint, owners dead and gone off to find food that ain't dead yet. Lost their taste for barbecue. I been on this stretch of road since yesterday, popping deadheads quick as they pop up. Shoot em in the mouth so that they can't eat n.o.body. Only reason I hung around is 'cause that barbecue is so good. I coulda been in Florida by now."

"We saw a few of those back there, with messed-up mouths," Todd said. "Wonder if they can starve to death."

"Seeing as how they're already dead, I'd say no," Jake said.

"You sure you don't want me to suck your d.i.c.k?" Amanda put a hand on his thigh.

"G.o.d a'mighty, girl, I'm sure. Okay? How old are you anyway?"

"Seventeen and a half."

"Six months short of legal."

"What's the difference?" Todd asked. "Laws ain't s.h.i.t anymore."

"You got a point there, I reckon," Jake said. "What that means though, is that you got to have your own moral code to live by. Know what's right and wrong and try to do the right thing whenever you can."

"What's wrong with sucking somebody's d.i.c.k?"

Jake gave her a look. "d.a.m.n, girl. You get your teeth in something you don't let go, do you?"

"I wouldn't bite it."

"That ain't what I mean. You can't go around offering to suck strange d.i.c.k. No telling what you might catch. Radio said the plague is coming out of Arizona now. Folks that ain't zomboids are just as likely to be carrying the Black Death if they ain't already dead from it."

"If you die of the plague do you turn zombie?" Todd wondered aloud.

"I don't see why not," Jake said. "I sure wouldn't want to meet up with one of them bad boys. That's got to be some nasty s.h.i.t. Still and all, I reckon they could be carrying the plague, spreading it everywhere they go. Radio didn't say. h.e.l.l, they don't know. n.o.body does. Government can't do s.h.i.t no how. Whole shebang's gonna come crashing down. I'll drink to that." He turned up the tequila. Didn't offer the kids any.

Todd seemed to shrink into the seat a little. "I don't see how we can survive all this stuff. Don't hardly seem worth it. The zombies don't get you, the plague will. And that's if you don't starve first or get murdered by bad guys who're alive."

"Sad words of wisdom, little bro," Jake said. "But as long as I can ride and shoot, I'll keep plugging away. If the Good Lord put me on earth for a reason, I reckon this must be it. Beats any d.a.m.n video game."

"We met a man who said he saw an angel," Amanda said.

"Is that right," Jake said, thankful that she'd stopped talking about d.i.c.ksucking.

"Him and his wife. Back in Amarillo. They said she glowed with heavenly light and swore she could show them the way to salvation. Her name was Magdalena and she was a cripple. Or had been."

"Ain't that a wh.o.r.e in the Bible?" Todd said. "Magdalena?"

"Nah," Jake said, "that's Mary Magdalene and she wasn't no wh.o.r.e. She was possessed by devils until Jesus called em out. Then she became a disciple."

"You know a lot about the Bible, Mr. Snake," Todd observed.

"A little. And just call me Jake." Before his hippie parents turned G.o.dless Marxist, they went through a Jesus-freak phase and he'd learned a lot of scripture then.

"Anyways," Amanda went on, "they said she died and came back from the dead, but not as a zombie. The Holy Mother brought her back and told her she's supposed to lead the people that aren't d.a.m.ned through the Tribulation. That's what all this mess is, and that's where we're going. To find her. They said she'll be by the sea in Savannah, Georgia, because that's holy ground. Todd don't believe in any of it but I do. I have to."

Jake slowed and turned off the highway at Tewey's Okie Barbecue. He said, "Sounds like a plan, Miss Amanda, but if you do hook up with them holy folks, don't offer n.o.body a b.l.o.w.j.o.b. That'd be what you call shooting yourself in the foot."

He killed the engine and shoved the keys in his jeans. "Let's have lunch," he said as he stepped out of the car with the Magnum in his hand. "Stay close and keep your eyes peeled. Deadheads pop up when you least expect em to."

28.

Little Sister by the Sea

Magda stands in the sand to receive the dead from the sea.

Her followers have taken to calling her Little Sister because she is small and because they each feel a special kinship with her. One by one they fell in with her growing band of ragtag pilgrims as they made their way to the seacoast, drawn by something none could name. (Magda named it for them: the Holy Spirit.) One by one they were in some way healed or spiritually reconst.i.tuted.

Now they are gathered on the sh.o.r.e behind her to witness her welcoming the dead as the sea gives them up.

She glances over her shoulder at Randy Riggins, who is standing immediately behind her and a few feet to her left. He wears denim overalls and no shirt and he is holding a very old scythe in his hands. On the way here Magda spent a night in his barn and he has been with her since then, stubbornly devoted to her. The ever-present scythe has earned him the nickname, Randy the Reaper.

Just behind and to her right is Levy Cohen, bushy-bearded and wearing a black hat with a round crown and a wide brim. When she feels the need to consult scripture, she turns to Levy. He is a self-taught scholar of the Old Testament, though he calls it the Hebrew Bible, or more often the Torah. Levy stops short of calling himself a Jew for Jesus, but Magda knows that his heart has been opened to Christ.

She stands barefoot in the waves that lap the sand and her ankles. The sun is pleasantly hot on her skin. Her disfiguring wounds have all but healed, steadily and miraculously, by virtue of her single encounter with the Holy Mother.

"My G.o.d," Randy says, "look at that thing."

The sea gives up the first of its dead. It comes crawling out of the waves on seaweed-green bones wearing the mottled leather of old skin rotted or eaten away in spots. Once human and now long dead, it crawls forward, new musculature forming on facial bones and everywhere beneath the old skin as it comes. Another miracle.

It rises on two legs as flesh fills out its manly form.

"Holy s.h.i.t," Randy Riggins says. Then: "Sorry, ma'am."

Little Sister holds out her welcoming arms. By the time the walking dead man reaches her, his skin has been renewed and his face is an animated mask of confused emotions. She takes both his hands in hers. "G.o.d bless you, brother," she says in her charmingly accented English. Then she pa.s.ses him off to Levy, who leads him to join the others.

"Here comes another un," Randy says as a second figure comes walking out of the waves.

This one is a badly bloated woman, her skin gone greenish black. Not so long dead. She is completely naked. Chunks of flesh have been nibbled away by sea creatures. She plods out of the water, her fat feet stiffly thumping the sand.

Magda tries to tamp down the repulsion she feels as the hideous creature comes close enough to smell.

The drowned woman reaches out with stubby fingers and swollen arms as she bares her greenish teeth. Her eyes resemble cloudy-gray pustules surrounding beady blackheads: zit eyes.

Randy swings his scythe. It sings against the wind and slices off the corpse's head as smoothly as if it were slashing through rotten fruit.

Magda looks at Randy with raised brows.

He gives a slight shrug and says, "Wheat from the chaff. She meant to hurt you."

Levy quotes scripture: "'His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.'"

Randy ponders this a moment, then barks an order to the others to gather wood for a big fire there on the beach.

"Here come two more," Levy says.

Magda says a silent prayer to the Holy Mother, asking for the strength to do her Son's bidding. Then she steps forward to receive more of the sea's rising dead.

29.

Meat and Greet

"Mmm," Amanda said.

"Um-hm," Todd said.

Their mouths were bright red with dripping sauce.

"Y'all look like a couple of fresh zomboids feeding," Jake said as he wiped his lips with a napkin. "Use your napkins. Just 'cause the world's gone to h.e.l.l don't mean we have to eat like pigs. It's up to us to maintain good manners and such. If we're lucky enough to live through these times, we'll need to make a good restart."

"Reboot," Amanda said, belching into her hand.

"There you go." Jake took a swig from his bottle of pop. "We're not in Kansas anymore but we're still in America. It'll be up to folks like us to keep it someways alive."

"We ain't been to Kansas," Todd said with a mouthful of barbecue.

"He means like in The Wizard of Oz, dummy," said Amanda, delicately dabbing her lips with her napkin.

Jake winked at her. He dropped his napkin in his plate, leaned back in his chair, took his pistol off the table and stuck it in the hand-tooled leather holster on his right hip. He sucked on his teeth with a whistling noise and said, "What we'll do is put the rest of the meat in a cooler and head east. Ain't that much left no way. If I hadn't found that deepfreeze in their bas.e.m.e.nt next door, we wouldn't a had any. Joints like this get looted right quick with so many survivors on the move."

"We ain't seen that many," Todd said, finally using his napkin.

Jake nodded. "Me neither. Not really. But enough to where restaurants get raided right off the bat. Everybody left alive knows what's coming. And it ain't gonna be pretty. Only the strong will make it. And the lucky. So, children, be strong and make your own luck. And don't forget to say your prayers."

Amanda smiled for the first time since Jake had met her. It was a pretty thing to see. "So," he said, lacing his fingers over his flat belly, "you kids hooked up for the duration or what?"

"What now?" Todd said.

"You in love?"

Amanda quickly said, "No."

"Hey," Todd said, jerking backward and making his chair legs screech on the floor.

"Whoa," Jake said. "That ain't no reason to-"

Todd raised his arm and pointed his finger like it was a gun. "Dead guys walking."

Jake turned his head and looked out the eatery's storefront window. Three men in suits and ties were crossing the street, coming toward the entrance. He stood, drew his Magnum and said, "Stay here." Then he went outside to wait on the sidewalk for the well-dressed trio to get close enough to shoot without wasting ammo.

The tall man in the middle raised his hand and said, "Hold on there, friend, we ain't dead. We're Christians."

Jake kept his gun out. He said, "Reckon you must be pretty p.i.s.sed you didn't get raptured up to heaven already."

"There's no reason to be insulting," the tall man said. "We come to thank you for the work you've been doing and to ask you to join our church. Right down the street there. Church of the Holy Ghost."

"The work I've been doing?" Jake c.o.c.ked his head.

"Disabling the dead. So they're not so dangerous."

"h.e.l.l, that ain't work. That's too much fun to be work. Besides, I just stayed for the barbecue. Fixing to move on. But thanks for the invite. How many you got holed up in that church?"

"Ain't but thirteen of us," said the short guy with tinted gla.s.ses.

"Lucky you," said Jake. "If it was me, I'd be moving on. Get as far from Arizona and her bordering states as possible. No offense but this little town ain't no more than a b.u.mp in the road. Got to be greener pastures somewhere else."

"Not according to what we heard on Luther's shortwave radio," the tall one said. "That's why there's not any more TV. Things went bad fast all over. We heard that even the president turned zombie. And the plague virus is spreading like wildfire. Ain't nowhere to hide. Only thing to do is pray and get right with G.o.d."

Jake was about to make an unkind comment about the president turning zombie when Amanda screamed inside the eatery.