Mark the Place

They bury the dead when they can. It's a civilized thing to do. They bury their own, those they would recognize without identification, and they bury anyone who has ID on them. If they don't have any data, they let Alana or Plenette burn the bodies as bait. They bury the dead in whatever boxes they can find, and carve little wooden plaques with names and dates and a line of something. The out-of-towners carve too, remembering those they left behind. Like everything else of theirs, the epitaphs are scavenged scraps: song lyrics, lines of poetry, Bible quotes, a few heartfelt words. It's like grabbing for normalcy in this world gone completely mad.

And when it's mostly over, at least close enough to over that everyone else is pretending it's over, at least over enough that they can start to rebuild, then they unearth the dead. This too is a civilized thing to do. They raid antique stores for elegant urns and fine boxes for ashes and bones, and for more proper coffins there are enough funeral homes.

They receive reinforcements, since apparently the threat of the walking dead and the destruction of the government in Washington was grounds enough for what was left of the general staff to order withdrawal from Iraq. At least some good seems to have come of this whole mess. They have guns, lots of bullets, really good aim, and an urge to kill things. They sweep through cities they know to have survivors, especially New York, in order to make sure they save who can be saved, before they head into the cities of the South to discover the horrors there.

When they leave New York, Alana and Plenette go with them. The fight's become too important to them. Catch hitches a ride, too, heading back to Indianapolis to spearhead the cleanup there. Ann tries to talk her out of it, but the next time a Lady Vol takes a Husky's advice will be the first time, and Catch has the look of a woman with unfinished business, or maybe it's just the look of a woman who doesn't care whether she dies. In a quiet way, it's more disturbing than Plenette's bloodlust or Alana's lingering habit of setting things on fire.

Phoenix comes in a small brigade, dropping off an unmarried widow in Indianapolis and a photo negative in Washington, bearing a double dose of guilt and warm hugs that the survivors accept with steely stiffness. Welcome but unwelcome. It's an awkward situation.

They have to split Columbus up: part to Indiana, part to Detroit, part leaving New York with a big pine box to take home. Ivory spends an hour on the phone with Grand Rapids, giving detailed directions, and when she's done, she spits, "If it really were a fuckin' miracle, she'd still be alive."

Kirkland and their quietly accusing gazes almost faze Ashley and nearly break Erin's heart, but Stevens Point is the worst, leaving Erin curled up in a ball and crying for hours. At the other end, Carson is the easiest, since Erin can tell them honestly that their daughter never was a monster, that she never terrorized the living; she doesn't have to tell them anything else, it's none of their concern.

New York doesn't have international phone calls to make, but Indianapolis does, and boxes head out to Markham and Perth. There are probably scenes at the post offices. The New Yorkers are just grateful they don't have to worry about boxes, although at least boxes have stopped moving and aren't actively trying to devour them.

And there's more waiting. There always seems to be more waiting.

No one comes from Hot Springs or Stone Mountain. No one comes from New Orleans or Duncanville. No one comes from Hartsville or Monroe. They check in with Indianapolis and DC. No one has come from Tupelo or Acadiana, Riceboro or Roseboro.

It hits home then, hits home like an arrow to the heart, or maybe a shot to the head. There's no one left to come. If anyone has survived from the South, they have more important things to do than claim dead bodies. They're seeing enough of them without adding any more to the list. It's as if everything south of New York and east of the Mississippi has just ceased to exist, along with a few other stray parts of the country. It'll take years to reclaim it, if anyone even dares.

It might actually have been easier if the world had come to an end, if everything was destroyed, if everywhere was overrun, if everyone were dead or undead, if every reason and every way to survive had proven to come to nothing. Rotting brains can't remember, stopped hearts can't break, and if everyone's dead, there's neither a world of the living to tend to nor anyone expected to tend it. No wants, no needs, other than flesh and blood, and even that would fade in time. It's disgusting, but it almost sounds like a break.

But the good guys won the battle, because that's what they always do in the end. If this were a fairytale, everything would have come to a halt at the happily ever after, and even the heroes of gritty action/adventure/horror movies have only to look out at the devastation they have to repair before the screen goes black. They never actually have to deal with what they've had to do. It doesn't sell.

Part of the beauty of the game, they say (or perhaps now it's said), was the way it brought people together from different backgrounds to make one cohesive team. But this tendency has left the cities with dead they never asked for, dead that don't really belong to them, dead left buried in foreign soil that could at any moment be expected to melodramatically reject them, since they already seem to be in a horror movie of some kind. Women who should be among their families instead find rest in strange cities, their presence barely marked by crude wooden markers and disturbed earth.

It's not right. And yet it just is.