by Lorch, Jeff
My ears ringing from the blast, I stood and tore the dead woman's hands out of my hair and wiped my eyes clear.
I ran through into the dining-room in time to see Jamie firing his pistol twice into the chest of the infected man standing in the doorway. The impact blew him out the doorway, his corpse collapsing onto the deck outside.
Beyond his body, out in the open of the deck, was another body, still moving.
I saw Kevin, my husband, lying on his side in a massive pool of blood.
Screaming his name in denial, I ran forward, throwing myself down on my knees in front of him.
His lifeblood was pumping out through his fingers, a warm stream surging in time with his heart, pouring from his neck down his arm, down to the stained deck beneath him.
“No! No no no no!” I screamed, pressing my hands to his throat, trying to stop the flow of blood.
I looked down at him and saw him looking up at me, shaking his head, his face pale with loss of blood. He looked at me and smiled, his lips turning blue, blood from inside his torn throat bubbling up and out his mouth.
He tried to speak, but coughed and spattered blood across his lips and chin instead.
“I’m sorry,” I cried, tears pouring down my face, my hands twined into his, “I’m so sorry baby!” I cried as I wrapped my bloody fingers into his, pressing my forehead to his.
I saw him trying to speak as he lay on his back beneath me, dark blood pooling across his neck and chest, and running out of the corners of his mouth.
“What, baby, what?” I asked, pressing my forehead to his, feeling the cold of his fading life sucking the heat from me.
“...ve you….” he gurgled beneath me, twice, coughing on blood pouring from his throat.
I pulled back, and stared at him, eyes wide.
His eyes looking at me were clear, and warm, and full of love. I saw him, clearly, for the first time in a very long time.
… love you?
… forgive you?
With a gurgle of blood and a hard cough, his head fell back against the deck, and his eyes lost their focus; then they closed for the last time.
“Noooo!” I cried, beating my hands against his chest, “nononoooo!”
♦♦♦
It took a while, but after some time I finally became aware of Jamie and Alex standing in the dining room, still panting from the adrenaline pouring through their systems. Behind them, the house looked like the scene from a horror movie. Broken glass and blood was everywhere, corpses of the infected lying in heaps. The boys stood, their pistols loose in their hands, their shoulders heavy, and they watched me. Their faces were white with shock, and I could see tears in their eyes.
I knelt on the back deck, blood pooling around me, and used a corner of my shirt to wipe the blood and grime from my dead husband’s face.
The sun was full up above the horizon now, shining brightly across the water. I turned my face into the light, my eyes closed, and let the same warming rays of the autumn sun fall across both our faces, mine and my dead husband’s. I realized this would be the last thing I would ever share with him, and the tears started flowing anew.
I let them.
♦♦♦
I came out of the bathroom, wiping my face dry. Jamie had found a plastic pail under the kitchen sink and had gone out to the shoreline to fill it with cold, clean water. Not bothering to warm it, we took turns cleaning up with the frigid lake water. I embraced the cold, I let it scrape me raw. I wanted to be clear, I wanted to be awake.
I looked at my bandaged hand. Six or seven deep slices cut across my palm and the base of my fingers. Alex had grabbed one of the first aid kits from the van and had done as best he could to sterilize the cuts and bandage them. They were bad, and without doubt should have stitches, but he did what he could.
While I had been washing, the boys had loaded the van, keeping their eyes open for any infected that might be wandering in the area.
The hardest part had been deciding what to do with Kevin’s body.
In the end, I decided we should put him in his sleeping bag and close him in one of the bedrooms upstairs. That would hopefully keep any scavengers from getting to him, and once this craziness was behind us, assuming it ever was, I could come back and get him taken care of properly.
I was going to do it, but Alex and Jamie took care of him for me.
I was going to leave his backpack with his clothes behind. They were just clothes, nothing that mattered to me, but Jamie suggested we should take it just in case. We had the space, he said, and we may run into someone who needs them. The thoughtfulness in that gesture made me tear up again.
The only thing of any sentimental value Kevin always carried with him was his little Swiss Army pocket knife, so I had taken it, almost reverently, from his pocket and placed it in my own.
We closed up the house as best we could, but it was pretty obvious that the back-patio doors were beyond repair.
I climbed into the van, the boys already both in the back seat, neither of them feeling right about sitting up front. I looked over at the empty spot. I wiped away a tear, started the van, and drove away without looking back.
♦♦♦
The drive was quiet. No-one felt like speaking. The boys sat quietly looking out their windows, and I stared at the road ahead, but I saw nothing.
The beauty of the drive was lost on me. The sunlight sparkling on Lake Huron when we could see it off to the south looked dim. The breeze blowing the rainbow of leaves in gusts left me cold.
With every breath the weight of guilt pressed down on me.
… the guilt of having the camp stove burning in the kitchen without thinking of covering the window to block the light.
… the guilt of him having to come to my aid in the kitchen and dying as his reward.
… the guilt of being apart from the rest of our family during this crisis because he felt we needed this trip to salvage our marriage.
… but by far the worst was the guilt of having broken his trust; of having dishonoured our wedding vows, of selfishly and thoughtlessly throwing away my family for a fling that, in the harsh cold light of day, had meant nothing. Worse, it had meant less than nothing; it had been sex and nothing else, and it had cost me everything.
I felt dead inside.
My injured hand throbbed in agony, and I relished the pain. I wanted it, I deserved it. It was the only thing I wanted to feel.
The road from Thessalon to Sault Ste. Marie traced west and north, and then south, as the highway followed the contour of first the lake, and then the river that joined Lake Huron and Lake Superior, but that separated Canada from the United States. I slowed as we came into town.
Almost immediately we saw a huge billboard with flashing orange lights on it erected on the side of the highway telling us to follow the Highway 1 evacuation route and to not deviate under threat of law.
Seeing that sign lifted a weight off us a little. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the boys smiling for the first time that day. I allowed myself a brief smile, cheered by their youthful enthusiasm.
As we drove along, according to the signs the highway became Trunk Road and then turned into Wellington Street East. We drove with what looked like waterfront commercial developments on our left, and train tracks on our right. We passed a couple more signs reminding us to stay on the posted route.
We came to an intersection at Bruce Street which had been blocked off, signs directing us to turn left. We did so slowly, now heading south towards the waterfront.
Two blocks ahead, I could see activity and a blockage of sorts, and through our open windows, we began to hear engines and voices yelling in the distance; not screams of rage or terror, but of people communicating.
I heard laughter.
I heard sounds of life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Day 5
A steel wall made up of shipping containers, the kind you see stacked up to the sky on cargo ships, blocked off our vision. Th
e containers had been placed end-to-end, like giant LEGO blocks, forming a solid wall eight feet high. It was topped by a tall chain link fence complete with razor wire strung along the top, and this wall stretched across the road left and right as far as we could see. As I looked down along the wall in both directions, I saw soldiers carrying rifles walking slowly, or standing watching the roads and the city beyond. At several points along the top of the wall were stations with sandbags stacked up, behind which I could see the long black barrels of machine guns mounted on swivels.
In front of us across the road was a barricade marked with flashing orange lights in front of a closed chain link gate. Behind the fence I could see a guard station surrounded by a wall of sandbags and more razor wire.
Three soldiers in camo outfits stood to meet us, waving us up to them then signaling me to stop.
Behind the soldiers mounted to the steel wall were two huge signs, one printed in English and the other in French.
Please turn off your engine and remain in the vehicle.
Please do not make any sudden movements.
If you are armed, please do not reach for your weapons.
YOUR COOPERATION IS MANDATORY.
USE OF DEADLY FORCE WITHOUT WARNING HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED.
My palms were sweating, and I turned off the van’s ignition. One of the soldiers approached us, carrying a clipboard. The other two soldiers stayed back by the gate, their rifles held ready.
The soldier coming up to my window was quite tall, maybe almost as tall as Kevin had been, and was built like a tractor. He had a thick neck and what my mother had used to call a barrel chest. His short dark hair was hidden under a green bandana tied over his head. He wore a short-trimmed soul patch beneath his bottom lip, and he wore dark sunglasses covering his eyes. His movements were very precise, his tone leaving no room for argument. For some reason he looked very familiar to me, and suddenly it came to me: my son David loved playing video games, and one his games, Gears of War, had a character that looked just like this guy.
“Good afternoon ma’am, boys. Are any of you sick?” he asked, leaning down to look into the car, staring at each of us in turn, I’m sure looking for any sign of the sickness. We all shook our heads no. He nodded.
“Do any of you require immediate medical attention?” he asked, looking at my bandaged hand. While my hand hurt like a bastard, I thought I could wait to have someone look at it and said so.
“Outstanding,” he said, relaxing a little. “My name is Corporal Kelley. Before we go any further, I’m going to ask you all a couple questions and get you to do a few things for me, then we’ll get you inside where it’s safe, sound good?”
The boys and I nodded the affirmative.
“First things first,” he said, “if you have any firearms on your persons, I’m going to collect them before we continue, this is for your safety as well as ours. Do you have any firearms?”
I confirmed that we had a few on us, plus a few in the back with our gear. He waved one of the other soldiers to come over to our van.
“Alright, the firearms you have in the back we can deal with in a minute, for now let’s deal with the ones you’ve got on you. I want you all to keep your hands where I can see them, and one by one, I’m going to ask you to take each of your weapons, keeping your hands clear of the grip and fingers away from the trigger, I’ll get you to grasp the firearm by the barrel, and hand it out here to Private Reed okay?”
We all nodded.
“Ma’am we’ll start with you first.”
“I don’t have any guns on me, they’re all back there,” I said indicating the boys in the back seat. “Are we going to get them back?” I asked.
“Yes ma’am, any personal possessions that are removed, including firearms. It’s temporary only and will be given back to you.”
He moved to the back window and looked in at Jamie.
“Alright son, I’ll get you to reach to your belt with your left hand please and with two fingers please remove that pistol, then with your right hand grasp it by the barrel and pass it out here to Private Reed,” This whole time Corporal Kelley had his right hand on the butt of the pistol holstered at his waist. Jamie did as he was told.
“Perfect, now please with only your left hand, reach down to your feet and grab that shotgun by the barrel and pass it here to Private Reed.”
Jamie was reaching for the gun to comply when the soldier standing at the gate swung his rifle up to his shoulder, pointing it down the road behind us.
“Contact twelve o’clock!” he hollered, sighting down the barrel of the gun.
“Ma’am, you may want to cover your ears,” said Kelley as he set his clipboard down on the roof of the van, drew his pistol from his belt, and took a step back.
I looked out the window behind us and saw a crowd of infected, maybe a dozen or more of them, sprinting towards us down the street we had driven in on.
Suddenly everything seemed to happen very quickly.
Private Reed dropped the guns Jamie had handed over and swung his rifle clear from his shoulder.
The sound of gunfire tore through the morning air, and I pressed both hands over my ears, ducking my head down in fear. I saw soldiers on the top of the wall firing their rifles back behind us. Shot after shot rang out.
Seconds later, it was all over.
I slowly lowered my hands and turned to look in horror out the van window behind us.
A dozen or so bodies lay strewn in the street; two of them were still moving. Private Reed walked over to where they lay in the street, and methodically put two bullets into each of the moving ones. They stopped moving.
Kelley motioned to get the attention of the soldier standing back by the gate and told him to call this in and get a cadaver removal crew out here on the double.
“Clean-up on aisle six,” chuckled Private Reed, walking back over next to our van, earning himself a smack on the side of the head from Kelley. Reed glared at Kelley, then checked himself, nodded to his superior, and nodded to us.
“I’m sorry ma’am,” he said, looking somewhat contrite, “that was uncalled for.”
Kelley collected his clipboard from the roof of the van, and continued where he had left off, as if nothing had happened.
After gathering the firearms we had near at hand, he had me climb out of the van, open the rear door, and hand them the other guns we had in the back.
Kelley inspected each gun and wrote on the clipboard, I assumed he was recording the model and serial number, and then Reed carried them back to the station beside the gate. Corporal Kelley handed me the clipboard and had me double-check the information. Two pistols, one shotgun, and two rifles. I signed it where he indicated and returned it to him.
Next, Kelley asked each of us for our personal information, including name, age, birthdate, and home address.
When he got different last names and addresses from me and the boys, he remarked on it.
“No relation?” he asked.
“No,” I replied, “we were on the same flight when we landed in Toronto and decided to try to get home together.” I gave him a brief explanation of our experience at the airport, including the theory that, since we had been aboard during the terrorist attack, it meant we were immune to whatever was happening here. Then, without going into too much detail, I explained what had happened this morning with Kevin, and that we were all trying to get back home to our families. Despite my best efforts no to, I began to cry. Alex reached forward from the back seat and gave my shoulder a squeeze, which only made me cry harder. It was exactly the type of thing Kevin would have done.
Kelley nodded through this, making notes on his clipboard.
“My condolences, ma’am,” he said quietly, sounding like he meant it. As much shit as we had seen in the last five days, I had no doubt these guys had seen much worse, so I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see these guys come across like emotionless robots. Like Private Reed, I thought to myself, looking over at him in
distaste. He stood beside the other soldier near the gate, grabbing his crotch and laughing, likely at some off-colour joke. The soldier beside him didn’t seem all that amused.
Dickhead, I thought to myself, scowling.
If Corporal Kelley saw my reaction, he was polite enough to not mention it.
♦♦♦
An hour later, I was sitting in a hotel room in the Days Inn only a block away from where Corporal Kelley had processed our entrance into the compound. Jamie and Alex had a room adjoining mine, and at the moment we had the door between the rooms propped open.
Both rooms had two twin beds each, plus my room had a kitchen suite as well, which was nice. We had been allowed to keep our supplies, including our food, so we had stacked it all in the kitchen area.
Jamie and Alex had each kept their own packs, and all the extra gear was stacked on the empty bed in my room.
After collecting our firearms and taking our personal information, Corporal Kelley had motioned to the other soldiers to open the front gate, and saying his goodbyes to us, handed his clipboard to Private Reed and instructed us to drive inside and follow instructions, which we did. Private Reed followed us in and showed us where to park.
Immediately inside the gate, to the right of us was a large stadium and to the left was a Holiday Inn.
The hotel had what seemed to be a cell phone tower behind it. Up in the tower I saw a soldier had been positioned with binoculars and a long rifle. A lookout or a sniper, I guessed to myself.
The hotel appeared to have been converted to be used as a headquarters of sorts, I saw a few soldiers walking in and out of the main entrance. In the parking area a large tent had been set up to serve as a medical station.
A soldier came out to us and took the clipboard from Private Reed, who then returned to his position at the front gate. The new soldier double-checked the information written on his notes and led us into the tent.
We were given a quick physical by a nurse (which basically consisted of temperature, blood pressure, and a sniff test to make sure we weren’t showing any signs of nasal congestion), then told to wait off to the side. A short time later a doctor came in and inspected my hand. He frowned and shook his head as he peeled the bandages off, several of the cuts opening and washing fresh blood across my hand. The pain shot up my arm, and I took it somewhat gratefully, since it was mine and Kevin’s.
