Cayo Elina 43

Gus came back to them down in the courtyard, where Elina had chased the cool temperature before the sun gained complete control of the climate.

One minute he was gone, a thin rivet of drool edging down one side of his mouth, the next he was wiping his face and staring at the mess hall windows.

“Welcome back.” Elina said. Hector smiled tentatively, the three of them weren’t the only people in the courtyard, but the other small groups were giving them a wide berth.

“Did I miss anything important?” Gus asked, squinting up through the haze towards the sun.

“You never do. Did you figure out the problems of the world?” Elina asked him back.

Gus shook his head, “I never do.”

“I think the meeting pretty much ended when you checked out. We haven’t seen Ricardo since; I hope Perry doesn’t send him on his way without so much as a ‘goodbye’ to us.” Elina said.

“He wouldn’t do that. Besides, even if he did, Ricardo would find a way to get down here.”

“Maybe before I got him shot a dozen times, sure. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“I am.” Gus said with confidence.

“You two bonded then?”

“We had a decent talk, got a few things ironed out. In a way I owe him one.”

“Yeah? What for?” Elina said, with the raise of one eyebrow.

Gus stared up at the giant tree growing in the courtyard, it looked like it was a popular place for people to gather, the grass around it stopped well shy of its trunk and a lone bench beneath it was carved and tagged with words. Shifting back to his friend he said, “I don’t think he meant to, but he sort of showed me what it was like to be me again.” Gus waved his hands to encompass the surrounding building and city, “Before any of this happened. When I was normal.”

“He made you feel weak? I knew you and he came to blows!” Elina said half rising off of the bench where she was sitting.

“No, no, well, I mean yeah, but not what you’re thinking in either respect. Just calm down mujer and let me explain it the best I can.”

Gus never used Spanish, he wasn’t Hispanic, just an over tanned, gringo living in a mild climate, the few times Elina had heard him use a word or two of the most common language on the key she had been surprised. He claimed he could get by in the language, but she hadn’t seen any evidence to back that statement up. “Okay, go for it.” She finally said, “Explain the blows first.”

“Why would I start with the thing that means the least?” Gus asked her perplexed.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Just explain it your way, Moley! Before we die of old age!”

“He did hit me, more to get my attention than anything, and to prove he is worthy of being listened to.”

“I’ll have to give that a try sometime…” Elina said with a grin.

“It’s gonna take longer if you keep interrupting me.” Gus waited a moment and Elina finally nodded, so he continued, “We’re more durable and recover more quickly from anything you toss at us. We both know it and so does Ricardo, he is the same as us, only the ying to our yang; death to our life. He made me get out of my rut about thinking that the future is a forgone conclusion. Well, wait I still think it is a foregone conclusion, but he made me see that I lived fine before I ever knew what was coming.”

“That’s it?” Elina asked.

Hector nodded and spoke softly, “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I can’t see what’s coming, but when it gets here I react to it and so far I’ve overcome it pretty well.”

“Exactly!” Gus said with enthusiasm, “I can’t control what’s coming, but I can roll with it when it gets here and when I go on my trips into what may be I’m pre-disposed to looking for how to avoid me or you or Hector dying.”

“I don’t see a problem with that.” Elina confessed.

“I’ve been too focused on this problem, on what is going, or rather could, happened at Max’s in the not too distant future. To the exclusion of the bigger picture.”

“I still don’t see why that is a concern, I mean if we’re  together then we look out for each other, you can dip into the foggy future and pull out bits and pieces of it for us to use.”

Gus shook his head impatiently, “Look at it this way, if all I want to know about is my death, then I’m steering myself towards it by only looking at the paths that lead to it. I’m trying to find a solution to a problem I’m creating.”

“So you’re going to live?” Elina asked.

“Who knows? But it doesn’t matter, I’m free, liberated from a downward spiral of thoughts that was taking me nowhere productive. All thanks to Ricardo.” Gus nodded his chin towards the door, where they say Ricardo appear a moment later.

“Show off.” Elina said, eliciting a smile from Hector “So, what’d he say?” She asked Ricardo as he approached them.

“I’d tell ya, but then I’d have to kill ya. Or bring you with me and you’ve got your own mission.”

 “Not fair, you already know our mission.”

Ricardo shrugged, “Perry asked me to keep it quiet, specifically towards you three, because if things go tits up no one can beat it out of you. Lucky you. I don’t have that option, Phil could wrest control and just drain the information out of me if he wanted to.”

“You don’t think he will?” Gus asked, a little surprised.

“No.” Ricardo shook his head, “He’s a left wing hippie at heart, only taking control of the mindless grunts or traitorous subordinates after there is undeniable evidence. And then only if the person in question is trying to run away or hurt someone else.”

“No shit…that’s interesting.” Elina said. The others saw her brow furrow in thought.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking now, that all that crap Perry said about being American and stuff might have a chance.” Ricardo shook his head, “But I told you he was a hippie; he hates the military, that’s why he has to destroy it.”

“And to do that he needs an army. Hippie logic.” Gus said, nodding. The other’s burst out laughing, but stopped when Ricardo raised his hand.

“He isn’t the most logical of people, but he gives everyone a pretty fair shake and as he says there is no denying the state of the world today, you have to fight to carve out a niche just to live. All those apocalyptic crazies before the outbreak got a big fat Christmas present, didn’t they.”

“Christmas in August maybe.” Elina mused.

“Was it August? I thought it was more Septermber.” Gus said.

“It was August, or even earlier, whoever started this, started it all over the world and that takes time and planning.” Ricardo said.

“Have you ever met one of the first zombies?” Elina asked him.

“Yep.”

“What was he like?” she asked.

“You assume it was a dude…but you’re right it was. Guy claimed to be one of the first and he had the cajones to back it up too.” Ricardo said.

“Story time?” Elina asked, clapping her hands and pulling her legs up onto the bench like an enamoured child.

“Uh, just a short one, I’d hate for this one not to be told, in the even I don’t make it back. We were slogging through the Everglades, don’t ask me why, it was a pretty messy affair getting the dumb ones to move along through there. We’d stopped for a couple of days to let the people who had fallen behind catch up and there was an incident.”

“An incident? Do tell!” Elina said.

“It was dawn, pretty chilly for South Florida, just a few months ago. I was sitting on a log trying to clean out this old rifle I’d found and get it working and the sentries put up an alarm. Like a physical yelling sort of alarm.” Ricardo let that sink in as they all realized that zombies didn’t need to yell at each other, typically the master zombie could use his underlings as his or her eyes and ears, in some cases miles away. “Yeah, they were making actual noise. I couldn’t sense anything and I’m usually good out to mile or more, but swamp and water kinda dampens my ability a little.” This got a chuckle out of Gus, who nodded for Ricardo to go on.

“So onto the one patch of dry ground we’ve found in three days marches this middle aged guy, looks like a mall rent-a-cop, kinda pudgy with short hair, and he looks alive…but he’s not. I mean the colors were close, but still muted, I’ve never seen any zombies that look that close to a living person. I could have fed off of him. He marches up to Phil, who is shaking in his boots at that point and they have a little tet-a-tete Phil told me later they spoke directly into each other’s minds, he can sort of do that with me, but talking is easier for us. Anyway this guy, I think he said his name was Dan, had been wandering around Florida a long time, just checking up on things. Said he had a plan, but wasn’t interested in interfering in local problems. That’s what he said, ‘local problems’, he said if Phil could clean this area up and get it working again, then that was fine with him, that he’d be in touch once the dust settled.”

“That’s it?”

“Mostly. We couldn’t touch him mentally and being that close to him was like I bet the villagers felt it was like being close to Jesus back in the day. He didn’t demand worship; we wanted to give it of our own accord. I tell ya, when he left I was on my knees to the guy and I wasn’t the only one. Phil changed after that too, seemed more, I dunno, human. He was a little more compassionate and a lot more forgiving. We headed deeper south too, all the way to Key West, when our original target had been Miami, ‘cause we knew you flesh bags were there.”

“Nice, but we weren’t.” Elina pointed out.

“No, ya’ll were the ninja pirates living on haunted island.”

Elina laughed, “That didn’t stop him from sending people against us, though, did it?”

“Not Phil, probably the zombies we pushed ahead of us, they were just looking for living space too and if they didn’t join us they had to move on.” Ricardo said.

“We know Phil sent some zombie out there.” Elina persisted.

“Okay, yeah, probably, he had to know how bad the situation was so he…”

“He what?”

“Well I told you how he is reluctant to get in and control zombies directly, that really started after meeting Dan. And he had to do something with the malcontents who kept breaking the rules.”

“Are you telling me he sent malcontents towards us? We were fighting the dregs of his society for him? Acting as his executioners?”

“Technically they weren’t the dregs; they were a threat to him, sure, but most of them probably weren’t beyond salvation." Ricardo shrugged his shoulders and gave her a half grin, "Phil said anyone who could go and take the island would be redeemed in his eyes, and if they wanted to join back into his group after wiping you out he would consider it. Every few weeks we’d send the next lot off to try their luck. I was always hoping someone would succeed, just to see the look on his face when they game back. No offense or anything, I mean now that I know you, you seem like good people.”

Elina’s mouth hung open and her face slowly took on a scarlet color, “All our dead…all the people we lost over the years…”

Gus raised his hand, “No Elina, that’s not true, Phil has only been in the area a few months, whoever came before him was sending those boat loads.”

She calmed herself with an effort and asked, “How many did he send our way?”

Ricardo didn’t seem fazed by her anger at all, “Probably forty or fifty of the worst offenders. If it helps, it wasn’t my call and if you remember I didn’t grab you, or report you, when I could have.”

“Yeah, I remember. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to work with…with this…Phil! Anytime soon.” Elina said in a tight voice.

“Amen, sister, amen. My feelings on the matter are stronger than yours; at least you have it easy, I gotta go talk to the fucker and broker this deal. Speaking of which, I’d better get moving.”

“Isn’t Perry just going to drop you off with the helicopter when it takes us?” Gus asked.

“No way. First Phil isn’t in Key West, he’s way closer than that. When they beat the crap out of me and fed me my own intestines he was there and ‘there’ in this case means southwest Miami. We still control the bridges so I’m taking a vehicle and driving over. I’ll probably be back by supper, you poor souls will be gone by then, so Godspeed my friends.” Ricardo stood up and shook each of their hands, Elina only hesitated slightly and he smiled and pulled her into a half hug against her will.

“God damn it, Ricardo!”

“I know, you didn’t like how the story ended. Don’t kill the messenger, just be thankful you have a better idea of the bigger picture now.”

“You seem to have a talent at getting people to see the ‘bigger picture’.” Elina said, casting a sideways glance at Gus.

“It’s a gift. Good luck.”

Ricardo walked off and Elina caught Gus looking at her, so she turned to face him squarely and asked, “What?”

“Well, I’m sure Phil wasn’t the only one dumping his political dissidents off on us, you know?”

“You think the Cubans were too?”

Gus nodded, “Yeah, I think they might have been, what a better way? Send us your poor, you untrustworthy, your troublemakers…”

“And we’ll kill them for you.” Elina finished with a look of disgust.