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He never got there, of course, to where the s south bu north This is what reo, what looked the saering north back then had been pale, skin white like ghosts, even the brothers and sisters They looked like the dead, their eyes these dark and unblinking circles They pawed at their own faces, groaning, holding shoulders to see where they were going, just like the undead did now
Jeffery remembered how they cried and ging whoever was there, was closest, didn’t matter Jeffery reet lost He picked Jeffery out of the don crowd, could tell that he was different, didn’t belong Jeffery’s skin glistened with sweat fro run, his eyes ith curiosity, ith all he hadn’t seen They were different than the look from those who had
"My daddy’s down there," he tried to tell the cop
"Then your dad’s in a world of hurt," the officer had said
Jeffery had been pissed It was a shitty thing to say But he realized later that the cop was just like hi a stranger He hadn’t seen Hadn’t seen a thing Was just reacting Drafted into a war, not asked
His father, Jeffery would learn, was not in a world of hurt He was helping that world The ferry had run back and forth across those cold Septe aboard from the seawall like an ar, crowding aboard pale as ghosts and shaking like grocery bags caught on a clothesline And Jeffery’s dad, hands rough fro those people aboard
27 • Jeffery Biggers
The duainst it, and Jeffery nearly fell on his ass He steadied himself and held the extended alu elbows for balance More bangs, and the du, the hollowHoly shit, it orking!
Jeffery spread his feet, his knuckles pale as he gripped that cool alu the thing out as far as he could
They’d done this in boot camp, he remembered It was a form of punishment Made theround, the heavy butts dipping toward the earth Joints and eant ca theain The baby wailed Beneath it, dozens of hands pawed at the air like drunken fans at a concert, like kids lining a parade, hoping for so they craved swung from one of those yuppie backpacks It was looped over the crusty paint roller, the pole bending under the strain The alley had collected abeneath the kid Others crowded frohed and shuffled his feet on the unsteady plastic lid It was fucking working If he got out of this shit, he’d have a helluva story for the next group he bu it as the du as they worked free The body of thearet up fro to cli in the air over their heads One crowd pushed and the other did nothing, and the du kid, a tall fucker Jeffery bit his lip and steadied the pole Godda the kid over their heads anda dash Hell, he didn’t have to risk his neck to be down there in the first place
The du in its harness, Jeffery letting go with one hand and swinging his free aruide some of the chompers between the dumpster and the brick wall behind him They followed like sheep As they crowded in and scrambled for the prize, the du, and more of the the kid around and steered the biggest crush of foul undead toward the other side of the alley, getting the hang of it There was an urge to glance up at his audience above, the boy in the , to shout out that he was gonna be okay, but there was so ave his other one a shake, fingers tingling The plastic lid buckled so his platfor told him this would happen next The worst shit possible would always happen next And there would be a goddaht away That’s not how this was going down He was already telling the story to the next group, telling the his bones picked clean He was gonna make it
A few inches at a time, the dumpster crept across the alley More of the fuckers squeezed in around the wrecked van, joining the pack Jeffery worried it would be too et so dense that the du He was already out in the center of the alley, an island in a shark-infested sea Man, this would be a story He laughed with nerves, theof all the tiood story back home Fuck, he shoulda re-upped Another tour, and he’d be safer over there than he was now
One of the undead et its ar over some of those that’d fallen down Jeffery kicked hies of the lid where it washis boots Shit, this was tenuous Tightroping this motherfucker Six feet away from the nearestFour feet Al The bastards on that side of the dumpster wouldn’t clear out They were like a buain and tried urging the kid, but more took their place from the other side Jeffery was fucked He looked back at the kid in the , needing to see so soul, and the boy’s wide eyes and slack mouth confirmed his own fears: well and truly fucked
He pulled the kid back in The cho into the du ra their way to the top Jeffery pictured the on the insides of the reeking container, being eaten away at frouts
Fuck Fuck
He loosened the backpack froh the straps "C’roans and the stench were everywhere This was it This was it He twisted the knobs on the handle again and extended it all the way, really cinched theht Another fucker was up to her arry one Jeffery stepped away and concentrated on the"C’ it through panes set in place in the 50s, maybe earlier Several ood He used the pole to slap the glass out of the frame--thank God they didn’t have them damn bars on the after his boots Fuck Fuck Chooddarid between the panes of glass were all that was left Like an e stick, but how sturdy could they be? Jeffery pulled the stick back, used it to push a cho toyed with by its food The plastic lid faintly buckled The banging and groaning were like dru some sort of crescendo Even the kid had fallen quiet, ainst a body,what Jeffery was sensing: that the end ell fucking nigh