Zedtopia book 3 of the z.., p.1
Zedtopia: Book 3 of The Zed Files Trilogy, page 1
Zedtopia
Book Three of The Zed Files Trilogy
by
David Andrew Wright
Copyright ©2016 by David Andrew Wright
They say you write to one reader. And though we have never met, I have been fortunate to have the support and help of one reader from the very beginning. This book is dedicated to
Kristina Pigg.
“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me. ”
― Fred Rogers
Zedtopia Chapter 1: Breaking Camp
“You know how if you don’t wash for a few days, your balls smell like pussy?” Harry pulled his hand from beneath the sleeping bag and smelled his fingers. “I may never wash again.”
“I’d come to believe that you had never washed in the first place.” Jack spoke with his palms hanging over his mouth as he smoothed out his eyebrows. The wool blanket across his bunk remained smooth and tucked in as he pushed up against the pillows behind him. “I thought maybe you belonged to some secret society of feral, mysophilic, dirt worshippers who viewed washing as a sin against God or something.”
Harry responded by letting out a long burst of flatulence from deep within the goose down cocoon. “I am God, Jack.”
Jack pushed back the corner of the camper’s gold curtain and looked out at the first light of day. “It’s snowing. We need to go today.”
Harry stretched both arms over his head as he yawned. “We could stay another winter up here. There’ll be more people coming through. We just need to move down in elevation. Find a better spot to camp.”
“Aren’t you even curious?” Jack stared out the small window. “We’ve been up here for a year now. For Christ’s sakes, aren’t you tired of this?” Jack waved his arms around the small space. “Living in a tin box on wheels, squatting in the woods to shit, always looking for something to eat, something to do, something to read, freezing to death. Don’t you even want to know what the world looks like down there?”
Harry sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed just missing the small lump wrapped in a blanket on the floor beside him. The lump stirred slightly.
The hair on Harry’s calves had grown through the yellow brown cotton of his long underwear. The elastic cuffs around his ankles, an even darker brown. The smell of the emancipated fart quickly filtered out into the cold air of the camper. “I’m sure whatever’s gone on down there, people like us probably still ain’t welcome. Not wanted. Not… free to do as we damn well please like we do up here.”
Jack stared at the ceiling. “All those years ago, back in the sixties. My god. Literally up to my ears in young girls. Fresh off the bus. So open and trusting.” His eyes focused on a faraway past. “A little shot of smack, a ditch house to flop in. Nobody cared. We never killed anyone. Not anyone who was missed.” He turned to Harry. “If I’d of known it was all this fleeting… that someday I’d end up in the mountains, in a camper... living like… this.” He waved it away with the back of his hand. “Well. I think I might have just spiked my way out while I was on top.”
Harry stared straight ahead into the crinkled aluminum finish of the camper door. Small bits of food and twigs hung from his beard. “I’m hungry. We got any left?”
“Just enough. If we cook the rest now, pack it up and head out, we should have enough to last for a few days. Maybe trade for some real food when we get back to civilization.”
“It’s all real food, Jack.” Harry yawned again. “I wonder if there’s anyone left to trade with.”
Harry stepped into his duct-taped boots and out into the cold October morning. Small dry flakes of snow settled onto the rust colored pine needles of the forest floor as he walked the short distance to the fire pit. Curls of smoke danced up from smothered coals before being extinguished by the wind. Patches of blue sky mixed with gray clouds as the front moved in bands overhead.
At the top of the hill, a few hundred yards from the encampment, the outline of the old Dodge four-wheel drive was just visible through the lodgepole pine. Parked facing out, ready to go. Other cars were pushed back into the undergrowth around it. Both the vehicles and their passengers long expired.
To the west of the camper, a makeshift latrine of plastic sheeting and pallets stood at the end of a well-worn footpath defined by piles of clothing, shoes and empty luggage. In the frozen mud all around the camp, tracks of small scavengers showed signs of night passing; curiosity as pressing as any hunger. A bloodied and broken tequila bottle sat jagged in the snow next to a set of false teeth. A baby’s blanket held to the side of a sapling by rough bark slapped in the breeze.
Jack followed Harry out of the camper, rubbing the back of his neck with a washcloth. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”
Harry shrugged. “I still think we ought to burn all of this as we’re leaving. Get rid of any… sign.”
“That’s just stupid,” Jack shivered and folded the cloth. “We get down the road and figure out we can’t leave for some reason, we’ll have to come back here. It’s always good to have someplace to come back to.” He looked around at the garbage and waste and parts. “And besides, they’ll never find this place. Not in our lifetime.”
“Hope not,” Harry smiled. “There’d be no good way to say we’d been up to something else.”
Jack put the cloth over a branch to dry and moved towards the fire. “I’ll cook up what’s left. You get what you want and put it in the truck.” He stacked kindling on the fire and blew on it through a section of pipe that tapered down flat at the end. The hush of air forced through the slit brought more smoke and finally flame. An iron grill flipped over onto the rocks around the edge of the pit. A kettle of water set to warm, a cast iron skillet placed beside it to heat.
“How do you want it?” Jack yelled at Harry’s back as Harry made his way to the latrine, a tattered and ripped phone book under his arm. “What do you think will travel best? Roasted or fried?”
“You killed it, you fucked it, you cleaned it…” Harry yelled back over his shoulder. “You cook it however the hell you want.”
Jack took the long bladed folder out of his front pocket and flicked it open with a snap. The blade was curved and thin, the sharp side ground up into the softer metal of the spine. With a few short strokes, he released the hanging hind quarter from its perch on a branch. It landed hard on the frozen ground below, the trash bag wrapper now frozen onto the flesh like a second skin. Jack pulled gingerly at the material to reveal the dead white derma and red meat beneath.
“Prime rib, filet mignon, T-bones,” Jack muttered and ran the blade the length of the thigh. Beneath the fat and the skin, the meat had not frozen solid yet. Jack worked the knife in long slices to cape the leg and remove the hide. “Young and tender. Sweet, sweet, sweet.” Another cut lengthwise along the bone. “Nice thin steaks, should do.” The blade moved easily in short draws across the grain.
He felt above the skillet with the palm of his hand before tossing in a spoonful of fat from a large glass jar. The fat sizzled and popped and began sliding around the black surface. An old stock pot lid kept the ever increasing snow from cooling the pan. Jack poured some of the warming water over his hands and knife to wash away the quickly drying blood. “I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it,” Jack said to himself with a smile as he scraped away a spot with his fingernail.
“Don’t be all day out there,” Jack yelled to Harry. “We need to leave as soon as possible.”
No answer came from the latrine. A gust of wind blew hard against the camp, the flakes of snow changing over to pellets. “Corn snow,” Jack said as he looked over the leg bone one last time. “Corn and steak.” The bone went into a stock pot. The meat was mounded up next to the skillet ready to fry. He picked up the wad of skin and stretched it open like a scroll. The tattoo of a dolphin dancing on tribal waves sat in the middle like artwork from a treasure map. “Huh. She didn’t strike me as the beach loving type.”
Behind him, the door to the camper swung open slowly. The girl, no more than ten, stood blinking against the day as she pulled her purple and pink blanket tighter around her bone thin chest. She regarded Jack’s back as he cooked. The hatred apparent in the length and flatness of her stare. She stepped down silently and wrapped her small hand around the stained hardwood handle of the hatchet lying near the camper door.
Jack remained on his haunches, sliding each cut of meat into the hot fat. He looked up and away into the woods and snow before speaking in a sing-songy voice. “Lots of bears in these woods. Mountain lion too. But I’d take those any day over starving and freezing to death.” He prodded one of the steaks with the tip of his knife. “Especially starving. Terribly painful way to go, as I understand it.”
The girl stood for a moment, staring at Jack. The axe remained at her side. As the wind shifted, the smell of the meat cooking drifted to her. A gurgling sound rumbled from somewhere inside the blanket.
She blinked against the cold and wet, then quietly sat down on the steps of the camper. The snow fell harder; tiny white kernels mounded without melting against her coldness. She folded her chin down into the thick cotton quilt, staring at the pile of twigs at her feet. Without a sound, she returned the small axe to where it had been lying and retrieved a twig.
She turned the small pine branch over in her hands inspecting the thin bark and spindly features. It forked at the bottom giving it legs. Two smaller
She jerked slightly when she noticed Harry standing beside the camper watching her. His expression blank. His figure completely still. Eyes unblinking even in the cold.
Pulling the blanket tighter, she moved without sound back into the camper.
Zedtopia Chapter 2: Homeward Bound
“I think we stayed up there too long. We’ve gone native.” Jack smiled across the bench seat of the pickup truck at Harry. Harry stared straight ahead and twisted a thin, short segment of black braided hair around his fingers. One end of the braid had been tied off with a yellow strip of plastic. The other still sported red and white check cloth tied neatly into a bow. “We’ve gone feral. We’re mad dogs now. Like some kind of fucking Disney movie gone completely sideways.” He spoke to the girl who sat between them, knees drawn up to her chest. “We’re like that cat and two dogs that had to travel across the country together in search of our owners,” he laughed. “But we never had owners because no one in their right mind would have us.”
Harry smiled dumbly and held the braid under his nose. The black follicles pushed into the matted hair of his beard and mustache. His eyes closed as he inhaled dramatically. “Snow White.” He smiled back across the seat at Jack. Long yellow teeth the color of his faded canvas coat, the color of his hair, the color around the pupils of his eyes. “Snow White. And the seven dead dwarves.”
“Were there seven?” Jack asked worriedly. His eyes blinked rapidly as the old Dodge plowed through a snow drift blocking part of the abandoned forestry road. Overgrown limbs slapped at the mirrors. The dirt path in front of them showed no other tracks. “I didn’t even count. There were the two little ones. The mother, the father. The oldest girl you’ve got there. Her friend. My god. That girl…” He sucked in as he pursed his lips. “She was just exceptional. And that bitter old hag of a grandmother. Holy shit. There really were seven.” His blue eyes shone bright against the deep creases of his face. Even after a year in the wilderness, he was clean shaven. His shirt neat; buttoned and tucked in. “They weren’t very nice people, were they?” he asked the girl. She remained staring straight ahead. “All of the mean things they had to say. You should’ve heard what the oldest girl said about you.”
The small girl looked up at Jack. Her eyes narrowing and the corners of her top lip moving up almost imperceptibly.
Harry rubbed the black strands over each other, grinding them between his thumb and forefinger. Jack glanced nervously at the source of the grating sounds and readjusted himself in his seat. “That sound doesn’t bother me. That sound doesn’t bother me.” He shook his head back and forth and opened his mouth wide to scrape his tongue across his lower teeth. “Fingernails being clipped. Whistling. Fluorescent light bulbs humming. Those sounds make me want to fucking murder somebody. But that sound’s alright. I can deal with that sound.”
The truck bounced high and hard over a swell in the road. Harry stopped scraping the hairs together long enough to brace against the roof of the PowerWagon. “I think we’re getting out just in time. Another winter up there and we’d be playing rock, paper scissors to see which one was going to get to eat the other.” His voice boomed deep and slow, vibrating against the metal cab.
“Well, if it came to that,” Jack said and gunned the truck up a hill, “we wouldn’t have to play any fucking rock, paper, scissors.” He fought the steering back and forth while working his heel and toe. “I can tell you what would happen. You could just eat me. Cuz there’s no amount of hungry in the world that would ever cause me to eat somebody as disgusting as you.” Jack pushed the old truck gingerly over another rise. “You’re one of those guys whose name fits them perfectly. I mean, Harry Hyde. They couldn’t have possibly picked a better name for somebody as hairy as you.”
Harry smelled the braid again. “Head and Shoulders. Or Pert. I bet she used Pert shampoo last. That’s what it smells like. Jack. Jack Lynn. What kind of fucking last name is Lynn? Is that your real name or your stage name down at the drag bar?”
“I knew a drag queen once back in San Francisco,” Jack answered ignoring the insult. “My god, he was the ugliest fucking human that ever drew a breath. But the most magnificent voice.”
“Cigarettes. Coffee. And a burrito. A big fucking burrito covered in green chili. That’s what I want when we get into town. If there is a town.” Harry’s hand curled into a claw with the black strand held between his fingers like a smoke.
“Cigarettes.” Jack shook his head. “You spend a whole year living up in the mountains like some kind of fucking animal and when we decide to go back to civilization, you want cigarettes. That’s just ridiculous. We might as well be risking our necks for a diet soda. Or a… or an ice cream cone. You can get those things anywhere.” He patted the girl’s leg. She flinched and curled up tighter. “We’ll get Harry some cigarettes and we’ll get you some ice cream.”
Jack maneuvered carefully around the burned out hull of a camper. His bottom lip curled in slightly and pinched between his teeth. “But if we’re going to risk leaving the mountains and seeing what’s become of the world, it’ll have to be for something more than truck stop treats. It’ll have to be for something special. Something singular in its rarity and beauty. Sublime tenderness and innocence wrapped in a fragile, trusting shell. Porcelain and moist. Delicate and thin. Like that last one. Those big expressive eyes over the little freckles on her cheeks. That smooth white skin stretched tight so you could make out every rib in her back. Long straight hair. Pulled tight over that perfectly formed skull.”
A tear ran down the cheek of the little girl. She sniffled quietly into her blanket. “Oh don’t you worry,” Jack said and tried to pat her knee again. “It’s not your fault you’re ugly and no one else wants you.”
The two-track beneath them spilled out suddenly onto a wider gravel road. Jack stopped at the intersection and looked carefully in both directions before easing out across the frosted washboards. “Coffee will be nice. We haven’t had any since our last visitors.” Jack smiled again as he drove. “There is something to be said for a good cup of coffee.”
More campers and trailers and pop-ups began to dot the surrounding high plains. Broken sage brush tops jutted from beneath car and truck tires like trampled and buried victims of some mechanized volcanic flow. RVs nearest the tree line remained submerged under a glacial pack of ice and snow. A door to a Silverstream hung open in a black rectangle against the empty cavity inside.
The wind pushed against the side of the truck as it crawled through the mobile ghost town. A bead of slobber slipped from Jack’s lower lip as he started to speak, landing with a plop against the erection straining beneath his blue jeans. He dropped his hand to subtly cover the dark circle and abandoned the topic he was considering.
Harry stared straight ahead and didn’t say a word. The truck rocked again and the three occupants swayed in unison.
Zedtopia Chapter 3: Mountain Fort
Jack pulled the truck to the side of the highway and studied the structure a moment before speaking. “Well, I suppose we’re going to have to stop and talk to somebody sometime. And we’re nearly out of gas.”
A pile of wood and abandoned cars sat on the opposite side of the road. Largely unnoticeable save for the tire tracks leading around it and the yellow school bus parked sideways across the front.
Tendrils of vapor danced in waves across the black tarmac beneath as the sun warmed the snow on the highway. Harry sat staring vacantly ahead. His focus remained unfixed, his voice flat. One foot in the daydream, one in the conversation. “It’s all downhill in another mile. We could skip this place. Make for the bottom.”
“They might have everything we need right here, Harry. Could be easy pickings,” Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We can find out if any of the stuff in the bed of the truck is worth anything these days. It might be that we’re just hauling around junk that isn’t worth anything. I mean, what do we have? A few guns, some jewelry… camping gear. Better to know if what we’ve got is worth something or if we’re going into town like penniless vagabonds with our hands out.”
