Free The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden

shift, I can tell he’s sizing me up - seeing if I break the stare to track his lunger, to see if it’s green as the green-green St Patty’s Day grass.
     
    Copper’s lawn is perfect, always perfect, the only cut and green lawn on the block, and Copper’s lungers won’t change that a whit. His eyes stay icy, but I can tell he’s a bit amused by all this.
     
    What they say, clear as crystal, is what he won’t say.
     
    ‘—you know, we watch out for one another.’
     
    He says it later, just to clear the air.
     
    Later, when we get to know one another a bit, when we are in the basement waiting for T.
     
    Later, when he tells me about how the cold sunk its choppers into his wrists, about Korea, about ’Nam before it was ’Nam, about his wife Becca before she was gone, about his calico cat Hank before T took Hank down into the cellar and did the deed, before all that shit hit all those fans.
     
    He says later what his eyes say now loud and clear, and I hear just fine. He says it later just to make sure there are no hard feelings.
     
    What do I need you for? What do I need you to watch out for me or mine for? What could you possibly offer me that I don’t already do or have done or was or am or will be?
     
    I’m home, always home.
     
    Later, he says all that.
     
    Not now, not on the porch.
     
    Not today.
     
    He says, ‘I remember you, kid.’
     
    I look at him.
     
    ‘You lived over on Spruce and James. Your mom raised you.’
     
    Now, he just glares at me, giving up nothing.
     
    ‘I remember you.’
     
    Copper sits on his rocker.
     
    We just stay like this for a long, long time.
     
    From now to now, then to now.
     
    That’s when I know Copper’s our man.
     
    That’s when I know we get along just fine.
     
     
    It’s Fetus who suggests I pay the visit, take in the old man’s mettle.
     
    It’s Stout who says fuck that, who needs Copper.
     
    Stout grew up around the block from Copper and his wife Becca.
     
    Stout left for boot camp before the cancer took her. I left a week after.
     
    Stout and I were in Baghdad together. Good times. Bad times. OIF 1, the invasion, no food, one MRE per day, nothing too heavy, got to shoot back.
     
    Then Thunderdome.
     
    Ate Alaskan king crab every night for months at FOB Shield. Weird. Mayberry in the shit.
     
    Stout took fire; RPG in the pipeline between Kuwait and Iraq. HMMWV limped away with Stout in it.
     
    Stout lost an arm, part of his chest, but all that’s left works. Home he went.
     
    Found him here, back home.
     
    Stout says fuck Copper.
     
    Stout has no use for the old man, never did, but that too changes that night in the basement.
     
    Stout wouldn’t brook any ill word about the old lady.
     
    Becca babysat for him and his sister, back when they needed sitting.
     
    He speaks of it, once, only once.
     
    That I remember.
     
    Stout’s smile bares his black broken teeth.
     
    It’s an occasion whenever Stout smiles.
     
    I remember.
     
    Stout says the army promised him dental. That was before.
     
    The army didn’t take care of dental or much else. The U.S. Army took Stout and took him and his and all he ever was and never was, all he ever had and all he ever might have been but wasn’t and will never be.
     
    The U.S. Army took him and left Stout to Stout and left Stout to us.
     
    Stout says fuck that, who needs the U.S. Army?
     
    Stout says fuck Copper, who needs the old man?
     
    Still, it’s Fetus and me who reckon the old man is all right, that we need him.
     
     
    There’s T.
     
    T drives by Copper’s house.
     
    I see T drive by Copper’s house.
     
    T doesn’t turn to look at Copper.
     
    Copper doesn’t look at T.
     
    T drives toward the Baker digs.
     
    T looks at the Baker house.
     
    T glares at the Baker house.
     
    I watch T drive away.
     
     
    I sit in the basement at the Baker house.
     
    I like it here in the basement.
     
    Safe. Like in Baghdad.
     
    We used to sandbag all the windows.
     
    It was