The Missing

by Gary Chesla

  “Please sit down,” I said as I stood up.

  “I don’t have the time right now,” Charlie replied. “Just tell me what you have to say and let me get back to work.”

  “Just sit down,” I said impatiently. “Because if you don’t sit down, I’m afraid you are going to fall down when I tell you what I have to say.”

  Charlie looked at me for a moment, but finally relented and sat down.

  “You too, Bill,” I said.

  When the three men were seated, I took a deep breath and looked at them.

  “Gentlemen, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I have found your wives,” I said. “The mystery as to what has been happening here at the fort is over and what I found out is not good.”

  “You found Susan?” Charlie asked, his face confused but hopeful.

  “Is Connie OK?” Bill asked. “Where is she? What happened to her? Why did she leave?”

  “You found Betty too?” Fred asked, jumping to his feet.

  “Yes, I found all of your wives,” I replied. “But I’m afraid the girls are all dead.”

  “How?” Charlie asked, his eyes filling with tears. “Where is Susan?”

  “The girls are all inside Ed’s quarters,” I replied. “But you don’t want to go in there right now.”

  “What are they doing in Ed’s quarters?” Charlie asked then thought for a minute then asked again. “Has she been in there this entire time?”

  “I believe the girls have been in there the whole time,” I replied.

  “Why?” Bill asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “From what I can piece together, Ed was the one who kidnapped the girls,” I replied.

  “He kidnapped the girls, killed them and kept them in his quarters?” Fred asked. “Why did he do that?”

  “You have to be wrong about this, Ed wasn’t a violent person,” Charlie said. “He had a lot of problems but being violent wasn’t one of them.”

  “Let me tell you what I think happened,” I said. “I can’t say for sure, but from Ed’s last words and the things he said to me over the last few days, and from what I saw in his quarters, I think I know what had happened. I believe when Ed’s little girl was bitten and died, that Ed’s wife was also injured and infected. The infection didn’t affect Cheryl right away like it did his daughter. I believe that Cheryl didn’t die until sometime later that night. Ed didn’t want to accept the fact that he had lost both his wife and daughter in the same day and thought he could save his wife somehow.”

  “But we all know that is impossible,” Charlie said.

  “I agree, but all I can think is that Ed’s mind must have snapped,” I said. “He had asked me when we were up on the wall a few days ago that if I thought it was possible for the dead to return back to what they had been before they had become infected. I also remember him asking me what the dead ate. I believe that Ed had kidnapped your wives to feed them to Cheryl in the hopes that would keep her from completely turning into one of the dead. I believe he felt that if he kept her body supplied with nourishment, that she would recover.”

  “You mean he killed Connie and fed her to his wife?” Bill asked looking horrified.

  “No, I don’t think he did that,” I replied. “From the looks of the wounds on the girl’s bodies, I believe he put them in the same room with Cheryl and Cheryl attacked them herself.”

  “Do you mean that Connie was turned into a zombie?” Bill asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” I replied. “When I went in to tell Ed that I was leaving, I found him on the floor near death, bleeding from the bite wounds that covered both his arms. The girls must have attacked him when he went in to check on Cheryl. After Ed died, I still hadn’t figured out what had happened. It wasn’t until I went into Ed’s back room that I discovered the girl’s bodies staggering around that all the pieces fell together.”

  “Are the girls still walking around in Ed’s place?” Charlie asked.

  “No, I put them out of their misery before I came back outside,” I replied. “I did it to protect myself when they came rushing out of the room at me, but mainly I did it before they would get out and attack anyone.”

  “Can I go in and see Susan?” Charlie asked.

  “You can if you want, but I don’t think you want to see her like that. I don’t think you would want your last memory of your wife to be what you are going to see inside that room,” I replied.

  The men sat quietly, almost like they were in a sate of shock, which I could understand after what they had just heard.

  “How was Ed able to take the girls without any of us knowing what he was doing?” Fred finally asked.

  “That I don’t know,” I replied. “He never said anything that would have helped me to understand how he had done it. All I can think is that Bear knew Ed and wouldn’t have been suspicious when he saw him out at night. Ed was on watch at night, knew the girls and their habits, so he would have had the opportunity to take them without making anyone suspicious. I would have never guessed that our kidnapper was Ed unless we would have caught him in the act.”

  “We almost caught him the other night when he tried to take Janie,” Bill said.

  “We almost did,” I replied. “Again, no one suspected Ed because he was supposed to be out in the courtyard that night and since Ed was always falling asleep on the job, no one questioned where he was that night when he claimed to have fallen asleep on duty again. And Charlie, I guess I owe you an apology because I thought the kidnapper was you.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Charlie replied sadly. “I might be mad about that later on, but right now I’m too shell shocked to give a damn about it.”

  I gave Charlie a sympathetic smile.

  “If you will get me a blanket or a sheet, I’ll wrap them around your wives’ bodies and help you bury them. If you want to see your wife’s body, that’s your right, but I think you will regret it if you do. But I can’t make that decision for you, that is a decision that only you can make.”

  “I want to see Betty,” Fred said. “I need to know that it is really her.”

  “OK,” I replied. “I’ll go in with you. I would hold a towel or a rag over your face before we go in, the smell is horrendous in there.”

  Fred nodded, took off his shirt and held it over his face, “I’m ready.”

  I led Fred up to Ed’s door.

  I opened the door and Fred stepped inside. He had only been inside for a few seconds before he came running out into the courtyard, tears ran down his face as he dropped to the ground and threw up.

  Between throwing up and gasping for breath, Fred kept repeating the words, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”

  Bill looked at me and asked, “You’re sure that is Connie?”

  “I’m sure,” I replied, then I looked at Charlie and said. “I’m sure that is Susan.”

  “I’ll go get a couple blankets,” Charlie said and slowly began walking across the courtyard.

  Chapter 18

  I helped the men bury their wives. I buried Ed and Cheryl next to their little girl.

  It was difficult to do what we had to do, to relive the worst day of my life. Even though that day had been a year ago, today made it seem like it was only yesterday.

  Bill and Charlie, I thought, had held up fairly well. The only reason I felt that they had held up so well was because I believe they had come to terms with the death of their wives a few days ago. They understood that anyone missing for more than a day in today’s world would not be coming home alive.

  Fred was a wreck and I knew what he had seen in Ed’s house would haunt him for years to come.

  Bill and Charlie would have second thoughts and wonder if they had made the right decision to not take that one last look at their wives. It would nag at them for as long as they lived, but I feel it will torment them far less than the last memory they would have had of their wife if they had gone into Ed’s place. Either way, we would all be tormented about some part of what had happened to
day. Some of us more than others.

  The morbid discovery had put a damper on the excitement I had been feeling about leaving the fort this morning. However, it didn’t lessen my desire to get away from this place. If anything, I almost felt like starting to run and get away from here as fast as I could.

  But I didn’t run, instead I waited for Bill to finish saying his final goodbye to Connie.

  A small group gathered at the back gate as Bill and I left.

  The long sad faces that waved goodbye reminded me of the long sad faces that had greeted me the day I arrived.

  The pathetic expression on their faces and the longing looks in their eyes as they stood there, waving their hands, made a tinge of guilt run through my mind. But I quickly pushed that feeling out of my mind, I just couldn’t do this anymore. I needed to get away from here and let my mind recover.

  Bill and I started on our journey.

  After we had walked beyond the cemetery, we soon came to the campgrounds and the lodge parking lot.

  Tom stopped and looked at a big yellow school bus parked in the parking lot.

  “Our bus is still here,” Bill said. “I wonder if it will still run?”

  “I doubt it,” I replied. “Even if it would, with all the dead still traveling on the highway, we wouldn’t be able to drive it anywhere. Besides, I’ve gotten used to walking and taking my time. When you have nowhere to go, you don’t want to get there too quickly.”

  “That’s funny,” Bill said as we walked on. Despite just discovering what had happened to his wife, Bill seemed to be enjoying his new-found freedom.

  As we walked by the parking lot, I glanced at the bus Bill had pointed out. I stopped and stared as I read the name on the side of the bus. It read, “Cincinnati Asylum.”

  “Bill?” I said. “This bus is from the Cincinnati Asylum.”

  “Yeah,” Bill smiled. “That’s where we’re from.”

  “You’re from the Asylum?” I asked again.

  “Yeah,” Bill replied. “We were on a field trip.”

  “Why was the asylum on a field trip?” I asked, as the wheels began to turn in my head, very loudly.

  “Because Charlie thought a field trip would be good for everyone,” Bill replied.

  Oh shit, was all I could think at the moment.

  “Who was Charlie at the asylum?” I asked.

  “He was in charge of the fifth floor,” Bill replied.

  “He was a doctor at the asylum?” I asked warily. “Was everyone else on this trip his patients?”

  “Most were patients,” Bill replied as if he was answering common questions like what time of the day it was. “But some were orderlies, nurses and people that worked there and their husbands or wives.”

  “What did you do at the asylum?” I asked as I began to think maybe it wasn’t too late to tell Bill that I had changed my mind about taking him with me.

  “I was a janitor,” Bill replied. “Charlie asked if I would like to go on the field trip as some kind of chaperon. Since I had never been on a field trip before, and after he told me that I could bring my wife and daughter, I jumped at the chance. I wish now that I would have just stayed home.”

  I just shook my head.

  Now Charlie, the group at the fort and the “System” all began to make sense. Well, it didn’t really make sense, but it sure explained a lot.

  Forgive me if I sound insensitive, but around the time the apocalypse began there had been a lot of uproar about how some people were insensitive when they spoke about the problems other people had, and I don’t mean to be insensitive.

  But my entire time at the fort, I was amazed and couldn’t understand how those people had managed to survive for as long as they had. Now it was perfectly clear to me, in order to survive in what the world had become, you had to be lucky or crazy. It appears that those people had hit the jackpot and had all the qualifications they needed to survive in this new world, because from what I could tell, they were both lucky and crazy.

  I would have to keep a close eye on Bill for the next few days, because suddenly I didn’t know what to believe. He wasn’t the smartest guy I have ever known, but I also wasn’t sure if he had really been the janitor back at the asylum either. Maybe he was just crazy enough to think he had been the janitor.

  Then again, maybe I was just crazy enough to believe him.

  “OK, Bill,” I said as I looked at the smile that spread across Bill’s face. “Let’s pick up our pace. I would like to get as far as we can up into the hills before we make camp for the night.”

  “OK, I can do that,” Bill smiled.

  “How does it feel to finally be out of the fort?” I asked.

  “This is great,” Bill grinned. “This makes me feel like I’m going on another field trip.”

  Thanks for reading The Missing

  I hope you enjoyed it.

  If you have the time, I hope you will take a look at some of my other books. Below are a few of my favorites. You can find many more on Amazon.com

  Thanks Again.

  Gary Chesla