The Apocalypse

Chapter 31

Ram

The Western Desert



With the M16 pointed at them from a mere thirty yards, Ram couldn't chance heroics of any sort. Slowly he raised his hands and asked Julia, “What makes you think she's the one in need of help? She's got the gun.”

“I studied to be a psychologist,” she said, looking more pale than normal. “Got a degree and everything. Though at the moment I wish I had gotten bullet proof glass instead of a degree.”

“Yep.” There wasn't much more to say as Cassie came up to the car with the gun still pointed. The girl stared with hard, black eyes and gritted white teeth. “Would you like a lift?” Ram said with a bit of smile.

“Why did you come for me?” she asked as the gun dropped from beneath her chin just a fraction of an inch.

Julia leaned close to Ram so that she could see Cassie's face and said, “So we could be together in this. Ram and I made a mistake in not including you last night.” Cassie and Ram looked at each other, both with raised eyebrows. Just then Julia realized her choice of words were poor so she added, “I should say we didn't include you in our plans and in our thoughts. It was a spur of the moment thing, but that does not excuse us from ignoring how it might have affected you.”

“Oh,” Ram said.

“Oh,” Cassie agreed, dropping the gun a few more inches lower. “But what good would it have done? You wants him. He wants you. Where do I fit in? Nowhere that's where.”

Cassie took a step back and Julia leaned even closer saying, “You can be with us in a platonic manner. As friends. As allies. You need people you can depend on and so do we. Otherwise none of us are going to make it.”

“Well that's just it,” Cassie said, raising a finger. “You gots him already. You can depend on him now, but I can't. What if he gots to chose between you and me in a life or death situation? He gonna chose you. You see? It ain't fair or equal or none of that shit.”

“And if we cease having a physical relationship?” Julia asked.

Ram raised his hands to his ears as if the words pained him. He then climbed out of the car, ignoring Cassie as she threatened him with his own M16, and walked away, looking out at the nothing of the southwestern desert.

“And when do I get a say so in all of this?” he asked, still turned away. “Shouldn't I get to decide who I save, or not save or sleep with, or any of it?”

Julia got out of the car on her side and answered him, “Of course. We're just talking right now.”

“Then I'll tell you straight, Cassie. I won't be saving your ass, not because we are or aren't sleeping together, it's because you're immature. This is the second time you brought zombies down on us because you can't control yourself. And you,” he said to Julia, shaking his head. Wasn't this the same girl that he was just kissing so passionately a minute before? “I guess I was a bigger mistake than you counted on.”

“I don't look at it as a mistake, but I do see that my pleasure was at someone else's expense. Do you see? Right now we are all vulnerable and hurting. I don't want to be the cause of any more pain. I hope you can understand that, Ram. And I'm not saying we can't renew our relationship later. We don't know what the future holds or who we will meet on our road. Who knows, you might find someone you like more than me.”

Ram felt it in his bones that it was a mistake to bring Cassie back in.

He knew her type better than some psychology book ever could. Just like he knew that Julia wouldn't be dissuaded from this path; she had decided that this wasn't necessarily the best course of action, however in her mind it fell firmly on the “good” side of the moral equation. This was how her type usually went about deciding things.

He knew this about them because he was of the streets and yet not of them as well. He was a cross over, a bridge between America and the underbelly of America. His father had been a doctor, while his mother had been a migrant worker for most of her life. He could play poker in the basement of a brothel, where an inadvertent look could mean drawing a gun, or he could discuss theology or the political structure over brandy at The Hamilton near his alma mater Georgetown University.

His life had been spent in both worlds and it was why he had chosen the Drug Enforcement Agency after college. Despite that he had been educated to believe that all cultures were equal, he knew better. To him moral equivalency was for pussies. Anyone with any sense or who had spent any time in the barrio of East L.A. could not equate it to middle America. In truth the barrio could not even be equated to the Mexico of fifty years ago, where manners and a sense of right and wrong was the order of the day.

This was why he looked hard at Cassie, trying to delve into her motivations and her mind. Julia's motivations were all too clear: letting Cassie come back, even though she was a danger to everyone, was what a good person would do.

“Cassie is right,” Ram said finally. “If I had to make a choice, I would save you, Julia. That's not likely going to change.”

“That's cuz you trying to be all white,” Cassie stated. “It's true so don't try denying it. You might have fooled them bangers but you ain't never fooled me. But that's what I like about you, Ram. All men are dogs, but white boys are like them Labradors, all loyal and shit.”

“Thanks,” Ram said. He meant it sarcastically, but Cassie missed it. “So what are we going to do? Take a vote?” The three looked from one to the other until Ram added, “I think it's a mistake to include her. I vote no about her coming along, however I will abide if it's two to one.”

Cassie smirked and said, “That's funny since I gots this…” She was about to threaten them with the M16 again, but she had let it slip so that it was pointing at the ground. Ram pulled the .44 magnum before she could finish her sentence and he had the hammer half way back. “Damn, boy,” she said in admiration. “You is fast.”

She let the gun drop to the desert floor and Ram blew out angrily—it wasn't how you treated a weapon. Before he could gripe anymore, Julia spoke, “I vote she stays. Three people have better odds of surviving than two, though you would be wise to listen to Ram concerning certain matters of security.”


“Oh you think that wise?” Cassie asked with a bitterness that had Julia blinking and looking to Ram. Cassie dropped her eyes a moment later and said, “Sorry. I left without getting no water and now my head is pounding. I just need to know if I'm going to be treated as an equal before I say yes. Before it was all Cassie do this, Cassie do that.”

Ram didn't remember it quite like that, but Julia was quick to apologize for any unintended slight.

“And before I say yes. I wanna know where we going?” Cassie added.

“We're going to Atlanta,” Ram replied immediately, patting the inner pocket of his jacket where a glass vacutainer filled with blood sat in a plastic tube that had once held a fat cigar. “There's a lab called the CDC; the Center for Disease Control. Hopefully they either have a cure for the virus or they're working on one as we speak.” He certainly hoped they were. Ram had taken three vials of blood from the dead terrorist and had forwarded two to his supervisor. A nagging doubt made him hold back the last one, just in case.

“I could do that,” Cassie said agreeing.

Julia beamed at both the suggestion and Cassie's acceptance and then went out of her to give in to every little demand that Cassie made. Cassie rode in the front seat for the rest of the day. Cassie got the largest portions of food and extra water. And Cassie made sure to put herself between Ram and Julia at every opportunity.

“It'll die down.” Julia said in a whisper when they were exploring a motel in the dusty berg of Peach Springs, population three. At some point someone had tried to hold out there against the zombies. Every door and window was boarded up and there were bodies here and there shot through the head. The person had made a final stand in the far back of the kitchen where there was a walk-in freezer. The bodies were piled high and the stink so atrocious that Cassie had to leave.

In the freezer itself was only a single body, dead of asphyxia, which was sad, but also several large cans of tomato paste, olives, and anchovies, which wasn't great but would do.

Sadly there were no springs to the spring and they had to settle for using boiled water they hauled from a little place called Mud Creek. The same kitchen provided ten-gallon pots that they used over an open fire. These took forever to boil and as they waited, Julia slept in the shade while Ram stood guard.

It wasn't long before Cassie came up. “You aren't going to start in again,” Ram asked. “Didn't we just go through this?”

“I just want to talk some sense into you is all,” she said. “We can talk without being overheard.” He just stared until she went on, “You think she ever been with a latino dude before? Cuz I don't.”

“What's your point?” he demanded.

“Birds of a feather is my point,” she replied. “I betcha there ain't too many people look like us left. Black folks and you Mexicans lived in the city, and where's the first place this all break out in? The city. Where were all the Q-zones? The city. All the white folk in the middle of the country gots to go here and there, but not us.”

“Again, what's your point? Are you suggesting that Julia is going to dump me for the first white guy that we come across? I very much doubt it.”

“I very much doubt it,” Cassie mocked. “Then you don't know shit about history. And you don't know shit about the human mind or white people at all.”

“Then teach me,” Ram said. “Show me the terrible racism in Julia. She's the one who wanted you to stay, when I wanted you gone. What have you to say about that?”

“Easy, you a self hater. You kilt all those bangers no problem cuz you hate your own race. The whites got you brain washed. And Julia kept me around only cuz of her guilt. It wasn't anything for me. It was cuz she felt bad that I was upset. You saw me workin her guilt today, right? Everything I asked for I got, because she feelin guilty about something.”

Ram couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You're real messed up in the head. You better straighten yourself out.”

“And you better get to learnin how they like it: yes, suh—no suh. Can I kiss your ass suh?”

He thought she was the one in need of learning a lesson but he was wrong. She would be the one teaching instead.