Those Who Lived

by Poss, Bryant

  “Shit,” his whisper broke the silence in half. Grabbing the radio, he placed his earpiece in his ear and started to press the button to give Alice the news. That’s when the rustle of the comics and magazines on the floor, feet dragging through trash, snatched his head around fast.

  14

  Two—count em two—pokies were almost at the swinging gate. So consumed by loathing, he’d let them get nearly to him before he heard their feet. Two females juxtaposed each other, one a skeleton wrapped in skin, the other what seemed to be an anomaly of physics how the rotund body stayed upright on the tiny feet. They approached at what must be maximum speed, which was blessedly slow, but they approached nonetheless. Making his way to the office door in back of the pharmacy platform, he grimaced a little, and his heart skipped a beat when he found it was locked. An ever-shrinking space remained between the gate and the high counter, and he stepped forward to make a dive for that space when reality took over. There was no way through the opening or past the big poky at this point without serious risk of being grabbed. Thinking back to what happened to Lo when she fell into the clutches of the poky back at the high school, falling into such a grasp even for a second was not an option.

  Giving the door a couple of blows with his narrow shoulder, he quickly discovered it wouldn’t budge under his weight, which meant there were only two options left. Either go over the counter and past the two pokies through the front glass door and into the parking lot on the far side or jump through the glass-riddled window of the drive thru to the right. In another few seconds the decision would be made for him and he’d be forced to take the latter, but it didn’t seem to matter at this point. A third poky, what used to be a man, groaned from the very window he was contemplating jumping through helped him make up his mind. Cillian looked into its face, one eye gone, cheek hanging off, leaving its straight teeth visible from the side. It looked around with its good eye, grinning through the hole in its cheek like a preacher at the church door, trying to walk into the room with him despite the wall that separated them. At least they were stupid; there was that. In response, Cillian made to jump over the counter but quickly saw it was too late. The fat poky was nearly upon him, the thin one just on the other side of the counter, looking far shorter than it was not being on the raised platform. His heart hit the wall of his chest with a thud. Whatever he thought he’d known of fear at this point, it was a shadow of the truth. Death was here. This is what fear was. The room slowed down, the pokies slowing even more with the hyper awareness his jacked-up adrenalin gave him, but it didn’t matter. Once this poky laid a hand on him, it was over.

  It was close enough now that the rattling in its lungs could be heard with every breath. The scattered pills were crushed under its feet, some empty bottles slid along, and Cillian found himself crawling behind one of the fallen shelves that used to house the medicine that he so desperately sought. Squeezing his smaller body behind the shelf, he watched as the poky reached through the slats, its smell overwhelming, its flesh putrid and puss-filled at every wound. This is it he thought cornered by something about as slow as bacteria itself. Way to go dumbass. The fingertips grazed his cheek, but no matter how hard he pressed his head back against the wall he just couldn’t get it to go through the sheetrock. How long before the skinny one figured out to come through the swinging gate? How long until the idiot outside made its way in? He couldn’t’ shift in every direction. They’d get to him eventually, and if they didn’t, then what? He’d starve to death, thirst most likely, fall unconscious into its grasp, right here in the corner of what was left of the apex of western civilization, the corner drug store, an eight-fingered kid trying to get some bacteria killer for his friend, but he couldn’t manage not being consumed by killers in slow motion. Awesome. Another scrape of the finger, this time drawing blood. He wanted to cry out, needed to, but he wouldn’t let himself. If he was going to die like this, might as well muster as much dignity as he could.

  Snick

  The sound of the blade entering the bone of the skull was something different for Cillian, something he wasn’t accustomed to, but something he would grow used to, something he would hear more times than his own heartbeat on quiet, lonely nights. The sound came from the other side of the counter, and there was nothing seen from his vantage point, but he heard the body drop. Not five seconds later, he watched as the eyes of the fat female in front of him rolled up into her head with another snick another sound of the skull coming into contact with something far harder. The poky fell forward into the shelf, its face not far from his, and it was then that the focus fell on the figure behind it. A man stepped up, wiping the blade of his knife on the shirt of the poky, and spoke in a low voice, just above a whisper.

  “I take it you’re not armed.”

  “If I am then I really suck,” it came out of his mouth without thought, drawing a chuckle from the new figure.

  “Can’t argue with that, kid,” the third poky groaned at the window, and the figure took two steps, thrusting his shoulder into the office door. Cillian heard the splintering of the frame giving way to his weight. “Let’s take a breather, shall we?”

  “I’m just glad to still be breathing,” accepting the figure’s hand to help him out from behind the shelf. “You saved my life.”

  The man slid a filing cabinet in front of the newly broken door then the end of the couch between the cabinet and the wall. There was no way to open the door now, no matter which of the living tried. Cillian slid his pack from his shoulders, but it was then that he became defensive about his new situation. Who was this man, and why had he helped him?

  “I’m Ben,” he said as if reading Cillian’s mind. Waiting for a response as long as he could, he nodded his head and continued. “I just figured that I should introduce myself since we’ve never been around each other while both conscious. I see Lo got the medicine I was able to retrieve for you. Please tell me she’s alright. Is she alive?”

  “Yes,” he managed to mumble.

  “Thank God.”

  Cillian just looked at him dumbfounded, his chin nearly touching his chest. His heart beat faster now than when the poky scratched his face, moments if not seconds from death.

  “You came out of the back of the truck,” Cillian’s voice was welcome to his own ears after the past couple of hours.

  “Oh, so you saw that?” Ben replied. “Well, I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me what the hell just happened, so I can know why I’m all of a sudden free and back in the company of old friends. What was all the commotion from the front of the truck? It sounded like badgers fighting or something.”

  Cillian continued to stare at the man as if trying to figure out a magic trick he’d just seen. I’m Ben such simple words to come from a mouth, but words so strangely devastating, he didn’t know how to respond. But, he was afraid of the words before they’d even been uttered. Didn’t he know those were words about to escape? Such a trivial thing, really but such a surreal moment. It’s as if Cillian had imagined him saying the words just before they came forth, and to hear the man say them almost seemed as if it hadn’t happened. But, it had happened. He couldn’t remember how the man looked from the images he held of him lying with Lo and sitting up with Lo while they performed in front of him. He’d never really paid any attention to him. It was her, always her. But he gave the man attention now. He gave him the same attention he’d give a thief come to take away his only glass of water in the desert. Here it came to him now. That is how he was all right. That is how he was upright and not dead or insane. His parents dead, and his little brother an infected inside a sealed car, no doubt dead from starvation long ago, trapped and unable to get out, his only nourishment the dead parent and two fingers he’d taken. There was no way to think through that. At least, he’d never really tried. It was her from the moment he awoke. It was her who lay with this man in front of him, who stared at him from underneath her arm, stark naked at the sink inside the pizzeria. She was his sanity and his eve
ry thought, especially now since it was him she lay with, not this man. Not this man who’d left them. No, he’d been taken. Nearly killed trying to get medicine to get him well because of his fingers. Twice he’d saved the boy’s life. That had to be remembered, shouldn’t it? Didn’t that make a difference? So conflicted. Cillian was so conflicted that it took him a moment to realize how long he’d been staring since the man spoke. In a panic, he began talking. He began talking in order to quiet the sounds in his head, to quell the thoughts suffocating him.

  Cillian found himself spewing everything. He told him about the four soldiers he’d seen at the truck, about the female poky and the male that attacked her, but he kept going. He told him about the spazzo at the car that nearly killed Lotus, making the school their own, finding Devon and Alice. He didn’t know why he felt so compelled to tell this man these things, but it all came out so easily, and it was such a comfort, like vomiting his anxiety. Maybe he just needed this, an adult to tell everything to in order to take the burden off his shoulders. He’d grown up a lot in the past few weeks, but it felt so good to have someone, especially an adult, to unload. It kept his thoughts at bay at any rate, regardless if it was the cause of all his need to release. He understood the irony, but it didn’t stop him. He told him almost everything, keeping that which was most blessed to him, most obsessed by him. Cillian didn’t think he should tell him that, not out of shame, but out of anger. He didn’t want this man to know. It had nothing to do with him. Animated in his speaking, he threw his hands around, gesticulating wildly, making eye contact only briefly, and Ben just sat there listening patiently until he stopped. After he’d finished, he went back and explained everything about the school, everything they’d done to protect it. Why not? He owed this man his life, twice over. He recognized that, but he owed his life to Lotus every day, his very existence. The conflict was more than he could bear at present, so he stopped himself finally, panting for breath.

  “Lo’s sick then?” the first words out of Ben’s mouth after the rant, and to Cillian’s dismay, they seemed quite genuine.

  “She was bitten,” Cillian responded. “She’s on the other end of this radio.” He held up the earpiece in his hand. “Well, Alice is. I think Lo’s asleep. Ever since the bite, she’s been going downhill.”

  “It’s good Alice and Devon are safe,” Ben lowered his voice and shook his head as if thinking of something disturbing. “Who else is with you? What about Doug?”

  “Doug—” he hesitated but only for a moment. It didn’t take long to remember the state of the world. “He didn’t make it. He got them to us, Alice and Devon.”

  “That would have been worth it for him.”

  “Yeah.” Cillian felt the need to respond. For some minutes they just stared at the floor awhile before Ben nodded and continued.

  “We cleaned this building out,” he held his head down, picking at his thumbnail with the point of the cutlery knife he’d procured and killed two pokies with to save the boy’s life. “I say we, but I mean the unit. They had us clean it out, every pill there was worth taking, and all the others too. Everything is gone. You won’t find a pharmacy within an eight to ten-mile radius that hasn’t been stripped. The only way to get Lo medicine—” he turned to the side as if he would vomit “—is to get it from the base.”

  “We have to go there?” Cillian found himself saying before he could think.

  “I wouldn’t go back there for anything in the world, especially since I just got free of it. But, I would for her,” he brought his eyes up to Cillian’s. An extreme sense of sincerity in those eyes that made Cillian envision ripping them out. He shook his head at the thought. “I would for Lo.”

  It was then that Cillian knew that he hated this man, that he respected him and hated him more than anything that he could think of in his entire life.

  “I need to go now,” Ben said in a low, exhausted voice like he’d gladly cut off an appendage rather than go back there. “Once they get back they’ll go looking for me. If they didn’t get back, they’ll go out looking for the truck. This is the time to do it.”

  “Lead the way,” Cillian said, brushing his hands on his pants as he stood.

  “You can’t go,” the tone was confused and his face matched, like this was not even a matter of discussion. “There’s no way you can risk being taken by these people. I only call them people for lack of a more appropriate term, especially around a kid.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t go the kid route. I haven’t been able to be a kid since this started.” Cillian’s voice was as stern as he could manage.

  “Fair enough,” Ben replied with pursed lips. “I won’t go that route, but let’s take the logic road. If we both go to this place and get caught, Lo’s as good as dead. If I’m not at the school within a few hours, you’ll know you’ve got to find another pharmacy or hospital. Remember, there are doctors’ offices too. Pharmacies aren’t the only places with antibiotics.”

  Cillian stood looking down at the seated man for several minutes. Not wanting to seem cowardly, he was perfectly willing to go to the military camp for the medicine, but there was really little argument to be made against the man’s logic.

  “Why not go find a doctor’s office?”

  “Come on, dude, I’m not trying to argue here.” Ben sighed. “We’ve cleared those too. I was just trying to make you understand. You’d have to try and find a private practice we missed. There’s no way around this. I have to go back. If her illness is anything like yours when you lost your fingers, then she’s bad. It must be the bites that do it. I don’t know.”

  “How long should I wait?” Cillian finally asked, accepting the decision.

  “The camp is about three miles from the school, about a mile and a half from here,” Ben sat thinking, using a stick to draw in the dark soil underneath the leaves. “Give me three hours minimum, and I’d say five max.”

  “So until sundown?” Cillian asked, and Ben looked up at the sun that hung about midway in the autumn sky.

  “That’s about right,” Ben said nodding. “So give me until tomorrow morning because you can’t go anywhere after sundown. Does she have enough pain medication for that? I was able to get quite a bit last time I saw you guys.”

  “She has enough,” Cillian dug in the ground with the toe of his shoe. “Should I try to find something else in the meantime? It seems like such a waste.”

  “I don’t have time to explain right now, but that’s what these people have us do. They stockpile all nonperishable food, medicine, clothes. There’s nothing around here. If there are survivors around this town—and I know there are—these assholes are making a bad situation worse. It’s amazing they haven’t thought of raiding the schools, but they don’t see them as having anything of value. No the best thing for you to do is go back and wait. You’re not doing the easy thing; you’re doing the smart thing.”

  Cillian dropped his head and nodded. “Three hours minimum?”

  “If all goes well.” Ben got up and brushed himself off much the same way Cillian had and extended his hand. “Stick to the edge of the woods beside the road, but always listen for spazzos. We know now why there’s usually only one around is because they seem to hate each other. Probably territorial or something. Never would’ve guessed that, but maybe we can use it somehow.”

  “Maybe,” Cillian turned and began walking back toward the edge of the woods then stopped and turned. “Hey, don’t you think you should take the radio?” Silence while the two looked at each other.

  “What if you get in a bind on the way back?” Ben asked.

  “Then I call two kids who won’t have any idea how to help me,” Cillian replied shrugging his shoulders. “You take it, and you’ll be able to talk to me.”

  “Hard to argue with your logic,” Ben said, holding out his hand.

  He fitted the earpiece in his ear and hooked the black walkie to his belt. “You know what the range is on this thing? I know we never had a problem with them whe
n we were together.”

  “We’ve never had a problem,” Cillian replied. “But we’ve never really tested them.”

  “Should be fine, thanks.”

  “Just get that medicine,” the boy said then started to walk away. “Hey!” Digging into his pocket, he pulled out luck and tossed it toward Ben.

  The air was cool, cleaner than it used to be even in so short a time. The warmth from the sun wasn’t enough to cut the cool air by much, but it was welcoming, like a comforting father at peace. There were three pokies not thirty yards from where the boy and man stood looking at each other. Roaming, waiting for stimulus. The boy was not glad to have found the man. Grateful, yes, but not happy. Very apprehensive. The man was glad to be free and to see the boy, but he longed for something else. He was weak and thirsty.

  Ben’s hand shot up and caught the white ball, looking at it and smiling, laughing out loud as he turned it over in his grasp.

  “I never thought I’d be so happy to see a damn golf ball,” he said gripping it and nodding to Cillian.