Kody Boye - Sunrise

“Yes, Jamie, you’ve made that more than clear.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Desmond said, looking down at his feet. “I was just wondering if I could bum a place on your couch.”

“Go ahead,” Erik said.

“Desmond,” Jamie started.

The boy made his way toward the couch. “Really, sir, it’s ok. I…I just don’t like being alone, that’s all.”

“What’ve you been sleeping on for the past two nights?”

“A mattress.”

“So at least you haven’t been completely uncomfortable,” Erik said, rolling onto his stomach.

“You can stay here,” Jamie said. “You want to sleep in my bed?”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” the boy said. “Thank you, Jamie.”

Desmond stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Jamie’s chest.

When the boy set his head against his shoulder, Jamie wrapped his arms around him.

If his life amounted to nothing more than helping this boy, that was enough for him.

“Fuck,” Dakota breathed. “It’s hot.”

“What do you expect?” Steve asked. “It just rained.”

“We shouldn’t be getting warm fronts in September.”

“We’ve been getting a lot of things we shouldn’t’ve.” Steve stopped in the middle of the road. He raised his hand and shielded his eyes to peer down the street to their east.

“What?” Dakota asked.

“I’m trying to figure out where to go.”

“We’re not going to get anywhere without a car.”

“Huh?”

Dakota shot his friend a dirty look. “You heard me.”

“Don’t start.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to take the bus. We were perfectly capable of taking them just down the road, but no. You said it would draw too much attention.”

“It would!”

“At least we’d be high up. They couldn’t break the windows.”

“And if we got stuck? They’d swarm the bus and we’d still be dead.”

“That’s not the point, Steve.”

“Then what is the point?”

“Never mind.” Dakota turned and started up the road.

“Where are you going?”

“To find something that’ll help us!” Dakota said, turning to face his friend. He spread his arms and continued walking backward, flushing his fingers to gesture Steve along. “Are you coming, or are you just going to stand there like an idiot? We can argue all day and still get nothing done, Steve, so we might as well just—”

“DUCK!”

Dakota threw himself forward.

Steve fired his gun.

A moment later, the telltale signs of a corpse falling to the ground echoed throughout Dakota’s ears. “Fuck!”

“What?” Steve asked, falling to his side.

“Nothing! I’m ok! I’m ok!” Dakota cried, pushing himself to his knees. His throbbing elbows dripped fresh blood onto the rocky road below him. “Shit. It hurts.”

“Let’s get you away from there,” Steve said, pulling Dakota to his feet. “You didn’t get any blood on you, right?”

“No. You shot it pretty far back.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can still get blood on you.”

“I didn’t.” Grimacing, Dakota brushed the rocks and dirt off his elbows as best as he could. “Sorry for being such an asshole.”

“Happens to the best of us.”

“What’re we gonna do, Steve?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Steve said, setting a hand at his side. “Right about now, your bus idea is sounding like a good one.”

“So why not do it?”

“I’m just not too sure about anything right now.”

“Look,” Dakota said, taking hold of his friend’s arms, “I get where you’re coming from, Steve, I really do. But there’s nothing here for us anymore. We’ve been walking the streets all morning and we haven’t seen a single person, we’ve had to dodge around or avoid at least ten zombies, all the stores are raided and most of the buildings that were probably safe aren’t anymore. There’s nothing left for us here.”

“Nothing,” Steve mumbled. “Nothing at all.”

“Exactly! Which is why I say we go for it now, while we still have a chance. We’ve got supplies, we know where the bus depot is, we can get supplies from the store across the street. Let’s go for it. We’ve got nothing to lose, right?”

“I guess not,” Steve sighed. He turned to face the direction they’d just come from. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s go,” Dakota agreed, “and get the hell out of this town.”

After procuring supplies from the hardware store, Dakota and Steve cut the lock on the bus depot’s gate and stole into the parking lot. Once inside, they broke into the garage and went to work on the highest bus they could find—an ice-blue, five-aisle vehicle that appeared to have made its way from one of the bigger cities only to be left behind.

“Big fucker,” Steve said, pulling himself out from under the hood.

“Yeah,” Dakota said. “It is.”

He looked at the machine and imagined it wrapped in barbed wire. A beast, it would be, were its sides equipped to eviscerate the bodies of the undead, as would its grill if it bore fangs, but such enhancements would only serve to further complicate its purpose. The bus need not take hold of its enemies and rip them apart—it need only push them aside should they get too close.

“Hey, Koda? What’re you thinking about?”

“How much barbwire we should put on the side. I think we should stick to putting it under the windows and along the underside.”

“What if the wire comes loose and pops one of the tires?”

I didn’t think of that. Dakota frowned. “Good point,” he said.

“I think the wire under the windows is a good idea,” Steve said, slamming the hood into place. “I also think it might be good if we put some metal mesh over the windows.”

“Can we get that here?”

“I don’t see why not. Then again, it might not be the best thing for the front window. Might want to stick to something rubber for that. Don’t want it caving in and hitting one of us in the face.”

“I can’t drive this thing. It’s a boat.”

“It’s actually a bus,” Steve laughed. “Why can’t you drive it?”

“Because I haven’t been in anything bigger than a town car before. Put me behind the wheel of this and I’ll probably plow into a house.”

“It’d probably survive it.”

“Still, we don’t want to find out.”

Chuckling, Steve slapped Dakota’s back and circled the vehicle, checking any nooks and crannies he found that might be detrimental to their process. Once, he stopped and peered at something so closely that Dakota thought he might actually sink into it, but Steve rose shortly after and continued checking the tires. While he did this, Dakota pulled the door open and stepped into the vehicle, sighing when he took note of the leather seats and the welcome, inviting interior.

Won’t ride one of these to town. He settled down in the driver’s seat and ran his hand over the steering wheel, only briefly looking up when he saw Steve’s head pass across the back window in the rearview mirror. Ah well. Can’t do much about it.

“Hey, Steve!” he called. “What all do we need to do?”

“Start pounding the nails in. We’re gonna lace some wire.”

When night fell, along with their worries, chains snarled below windows and sweat marked the passage of their effort, snaking its way down their faces, tracing the curve of their cheeks and crossing the bridge of their noses. The silence whispered that all was well, that nothing was unaccounted for and that nothing would disturb them in the depths of their sleepy hollow. Even once, when a bird cried out bloody murder as something outside startled, then ate it alive, neither of them jumped. Instead, they slept blissfully in the cold aftermath of a day’s work, silently dreaming of things that wished them no ill and a world where the dead did not walk.