by Haga, A. H.
Shadia stopped and turned, taking in the trail and shaking her head to get rid of a few more drops before she turned and started running across a lawn to our left. The uneven ground made me jostle up and down on her back, my grip almost slipping multiple times. It hurt, and I could only imagine it did the same for Shadia.
She continued without complaints, heading back the way we had come, but making sure to keep multiple houses and fences between us and the road.
At one point, we heard male voices again. They must have found the crash and would be following our trail soon. Hopefully, Shadia’s plan worked, and they would search in the wrong direction.
I would have expected my adrenaline to dissipate, but the strain of holding on to Shadia kept it pumping, making me jittery and restless. I stayed as still as I could and trusted in my wife. She knew what she was doing.
After about five more minutes of steady jogging, Shadia was panting and stumbling.
“You need to rest,” I said in a low voice, but she shook her head. I squeezed with my legs, and she winced, her left leg almost giving out. “Yes. Now, get behind those bushes up ahead, and we can take a break.”
I was afraid she would run right past them, but at the last moment, she turned into the driveway and walked alongside the tall bushes. At the other end of the garden, well hidden from the road, was a trampoline, and she stopped beside it and let me lower myself to the ground. The bushes were low and thin, but the trampoline hadn’t been visible from the road, so we should be safe for now. Shadia crawled beneath it, and I followed.
Untangling the bags and rucksack, I pulled them off Shadia before I found drink, food, and pain killers. Handing one bottle to Shadia, I drank some of the water and took a pill before I ate one of the small bags of nuts and fruits we’d brought. It sat heavy in my stomach, but at least I wasn’t getting sick and throwing it up. I could deal with heavy.
I sat there, staring at the grey world, trying to breathe deeply, and wasn’t sure I could move. Everything was heavy now that I had time to relax. I could hardly even lift my arms to find my bandana in my messenger bag and drench it with water. When I held it over my mouth and nose, it made it a little easier to breathe in the smoky air, but not much.
I looked across my wounds, covering the visible ones with band-aids to keep them safe.
Beside me, Shadia’s breathing was shallow and raspy, and I lay my wet bandana over her mouth and nose. She jumped at the touch, then took her first deep breath since we climbed out the window. I found her bandana and drenched it before tying it around my own face, then I looked over all her wounds, cleaning them and putting on band-aids. The head wound was still bleeding a little, so I left the t-shirt for now. It was already blood-soaked, so no use ruining another bandage.
I don’t know how long we stayed there, or if we fell asleep or into a kind of waking coma, but the scent of rotting flesh was what woke me again. It had come creeping, hardly noticeable at first, until it felt like it wrapped around me, getting ready to smother me.
My heart beating too fast in my chest, I grabbed Shadia’s hand. It twitched, and she sat up, poking her head against the underside of the trampoline before crouching. Grimacing, she grabbed the bandana that had fallen off her face and held it over her mouth and nose, looking around. Moving until I sat on my knees, I looked around as well.
The source of the smell had to be close, as there was still no wind, but at first, I couldn’t hear anything. Then, finally, came the shuffling of feet on gravel. Leaning on one hand, I looked toward the thin hedge at our side.
A shape was shambling its way up the path.
Soundlessly, Shadia reached for my ax. It was strapped to her rucksack, the head wrapped in fabric so it wouldn’t hurt us by accident. She moved as fast as she could to have it ready.
I crawled to the edge of the trampoline and watched the shape as it moved. Any moment now, it would turn toward us.
Shadia came to my side and handed me her knife. I took it, not looking at her. The zombie didn’t even seem to notice us as it walked along the fence on the other side of the hedge. It strained to get through, but couldn’t, so it just shambled onward until it was out of view again, clothes and flesh tearing on the sharp branches.
After a glance at Shadia, I crawled to the other side of the trampoline. Shadia hissed my name, but I didn’t stop before I could see the road. I waited, feeling Shadia’s eyes on me. The zombie shambled on, making straight for the orange glow of the fire.
Blinking, I sat back on my haunches and looked at the fire. It must be so big that we didn’t make a blip on the zombie’s radar. The fact registered in the back of my brain, but I was too elated at the thought of us being momentarily invisible to the zombies to consider what it meant. We could use that.
I crawled back and told Shadia what I’d seen and surmised from it. She didn’t argue but instead started wrapping up the ax again.
“We should get going,” she mumbled, her eyes jumping around now that she was awake.
I wanted to argue, wanted to tell her we should stay here a little longer, but I knew she was right. Fighting while carrying me would be near impossible, so we should use the distraction of the fire as much as possible. But I did force her to slow down enough for me to check her head wound again. It had stopped bleeding, so I tossed the soaked t-shirt to where I’d left my own ruined clothes and cleaned the area off dried blood. I put band-aids over the scabbed-over wound and finally allowed her to leave the safety of the trampoline.
25
We spent the night in a two-story building that had been the home of a family of five. We stayed in the master bedroom, sleeping in shifts, and eating sparingly. The house only had potato chips–so many bags of potato chips–and baby food, so we ate the chips and were happy with that.
Sometime around midnight, my adrenaline-rush stopped. My body was plunged into a seizure so fast I didn’t even have time to wake Shadia. She woke when I fell out of my chair by the window from shaking so hard. When she tried to help, my arm smacked her in the face. After a lot of back and forth, she was able to get me onto the bed, and to take a double dose of pain pills. I slipped into a restless sleep filled with nightmares, and woke with dancing limbs, but at least I slept.
The next morning, we debated whether to stay in the house or not. Shadia wanted to give me time to rest and recuperate after the events of the day before. I argued that it would make it easier for Nicholas to find us. We left around lunchtime, after I had gotten a few more hours of drug induced sleep.
The air smelled of smoke, and if we turned to look back, we could see the yellow light of fire against the sky, as well as smoke billowing above it. It seemed the fire had spread over night. Again, we had to take multiple breaks so Shadia wouldn’t exhaust herself, and we ate and drank a little at each of those breaks. We didn’t have enough food to be completely satiated, but the constant snacking kept the worst of the hunger at bay.
Around dinner time, we reached the top of the hill we’d been climbing for hours now. The houses had fallen away a few meters behind, but the top of the hill was dominated by a retirement home.
Shadia made a humming sound before walking around the corner of the E-shaped building and stopped in front of a bench by the doors.
“What’re you doing?” I asked as I crawled from her back.
“I just need to take a quick look inside.”
“Why?”
She pushed her face against the glass doors. “Because we need supplies and a place to sleep.”
“There’s still many hours until dark. We should use them.”
Shadia turned to me, chewing her bottom lip for a moment before she sighed. “You’re right. I still want a quick look, though.”
“Why?”
“As I said, we need supplies. And if any place has a wheelchair, it’s here.”
“Oh. Good point.”
I watched as she got my ax and used the blade to break the glass in the door. I might have argued that someone
would hear us, and what if there were anyone inside the building, dead or alive? But I was pretty sure we would have heard them by now.
I waited as Shadia climbed through the door with my ax, followed by the sound of more glass breaking. When the building swallowed the sound of her steps, I turned toward the road, keeping watch.
I looked through our bags until I found a pack of gum. I’d chewed through a lot of it while André was sick, trying to relieve some stress, but had managed to squirrel away one last pack in Shadia’s rucksack. I found it now and popped a stick in my mouth.
Those were some of the longest minutes in my life, but finally, the sound of footsteps from within the building reached me, shortly followed by Shadia backing out the doors, pulling something after her.
“This view is ass-some!” I said as I looked at her behind.
She turned and stuck her tongue out at me before finally pulling a wheelchair through the doorway. It was a community chair with a red steel skeleton and thin, black fabric to form the seat. Shadia had filled it with stuff, and some of that stuff looked like pillows. She was keeping something behind her back, out of my sight, and I leaned over to try to get a look.
“What is that?” I asked as she turned on the brakes for the chair, turning her body to hide the object.
“A gift.” Her grin was scaring me.
“What kind of gift?”
“Close your eyes.”
“Sha?”
“Come on! Just do it.” I did as she asked and almost jumped out of my skin when I felt her hands remove the bandana from around my face. Then she pushed something on top of my head, and my world grew a little darker. “OK, open them.”
I did so, immediately seeing the rim of a hat at the top of my vision. “You found a hat?” I asked, reaching up to touch it.
“Yes. It’s not as edgy as yours, but it’s still a hat that will shade you from the sun. Don’t make that face.” Her grin grew even wider as my hands moved around the hat and felt what I was pretty sure were silk flowers. “You look so cute! Now, let me help you up so we can get moving.”
I looked at the things in the chair. There was a closed bag of something, another ax, and two pillows.
“You brought another ax?” I asked.
“Thought it might be smart if we had one each. Just in case.”
I grinned up at her, and Shadia rolled her eyes and pulled away from the bag. “Just get in your chair, granny.”
“Oy!” I grabbed one of the pillows and tried to hit her, but she jumped back with a giggle. Mock-scowling, I put the pillow back into place.
The chair was sharp and uncomfortable, way too wide for me, and the armrests too high. We did what we could with the armrests, and the pillows filled in the leftover space and helped support me, but it only made me miss my own chair. It had become a part of me, had given me so much freedom. To just leave it behind like that … it made me strangely sad.
As we got ready to leave, we took a look at the map, noticing that we would reach a town if we continued on this road. There was a chance it wasn’t as bad as Oslo had been, but we didn’t want to risk it, especially with us being more tired now. So we decided on a back road. It would take somewhat longer, but would keep us away from any big settlements for a little while, so in theory, we should be safe.
We’d spent almost an hour at the retirement home before Shadia gripped the handles of my chair and we moved out, leaving the building a little emptier than when we found it. I noticed that I didn’t feel bad about stealing this stuff. While it hadn’t been a big problem for me to begin with, I didn’t care at all now. I wondered if Shadia cared. She’d always been the more law-abiding of us, but she showed no sign of regret. She did what she had to do to survive, and my respect for her grew even more.
By nightfall, we were both exhausted and practically asleep on our feet. I actually did fall asleep a couple of times. Shadia let me slumber, but by the time I woke up, we’d slowed to a crawl. Ahead, a white farmhouse surrounded by tired cars stood alone in the dark, and we agreed to use the house for the night. Shadia didn’t even bother knocking, but walked around and ruined the back door to get us inside. We left the wheelchair outside, hidden among the other scrap in the garden before she carried me and our stuff inside, and we passed out on the empty bed in what must have once been a guestroom and office to whoever lived here before. They didn’t need it now.
Excerpt from Medical Notebook
Through some mutation, the worm has two brains. One focuses on eating and keeping it alive through instinct, and one has a much more sinister plot in mind.
As it grows, the second brain moves the back end of the worm slowly and steadily along the esophagus. When it reaches the mouth, it moves to drill its way into the spine. This is when the flu symptoms start, as the body tries to fight it off. When reaching the brain, it somehow takes control of the subject. How, we never learned.
Meanwhile, the bottom half feeds on the flesh its twin provides and continues to lay eggs. These eggs make it to the mouth through the bloodstream, which continues to flow through some manipulation of the worm. When a host bites another host, the eggs move into it.
If the host is dead, the eggs die with it, but if the host survives the bite, the eggs hatch, and the process starts all over again.
We didn’t know that in the beginning.
26
There were some simple food-stuffs at the farm that we ate for breakfast before leaving. Besides stealing the food, we also took the big knife that hung on the wall by the fireplace. Shadia thought I needed a knife, just in case I lost the ax.
We knew we had to pass through a town eventually, but we wanted to avoid it as much as possible. So, with the map in my lap, we headed along a forest road. Every now and again, the woods would give way to fields of wheat or corn, then a farmhouse in the distance. It was a weird experience, seeing these areas that were usually bustling with life this time of year stand so still and quiet. There were no zombies in our path. Most people had gone to town for help before they died, or died in their beds in closed up houses. It only made the lonely feeling hanging over us even heavier.
Around lunchtime, we had to turn onto a more maintained road that led to the freeway. We’d discussed how to avoid the big-ish town, but neither of us could think of anything. We had to keep to the better roads, or the uneven ground might bring on another seizure. The humping and dumping made me chew through my pain pills like they were candy, and my hands kept shaking on and off.
After eating, we headed into the sunlight and toward a more populated area. To get to the road we wanted, we had to walk across the freeway. Seeing as we were still pretty close to Oslo, there was a fair bet the road would be crowded with cars, making it hard to cross, and we were both on edge.
Houses appeared along the road, some still with cars in their driveways. I closed my eyes, listening. I told myself it was for the sound of shuffling feet, but really it was for the scraping of claws on doors and the whining of dogs. I didn’t think cats would have any trouble getting out, but dogs couldn’t use windows in the same way. Max had burned himself into my memory, and I couldn’t help but think that other dogs were in the same situation. But there was no sound of scrabbling claws, no whines or howls, so I opened my eyes after a while. Even if they were safe from the parasite, they would have died of thirst a long time ago.
Shadia must have sensed my sadness, for she squeezed my shoulder with one hand without stopping. I leaned my chin against her hand before she pulled it back and sped up a little. The wind blew the scent of rot in our direction.
Finally, we found the crossing point, which thankfully turned out to be a tunnel running beneath the freeway. The road would bring us into a much more populated area, but for now, it was one obstacle less for us to deal with.
We followed the road until we could see houses rising ahead. The scent of rot was stronger now. We both wanted to move on, but neither of us wanted to traverse a town in the dark, not knowing where
the sick had gone or where they might have died, so Shadia picked a house for us to spend the night in.
The house was a small, squat two-story building, and Shadia left me in the driveway while she headed around to find a way in. It turned out there was no other door, so she broke a window and climbed inside, using me as a step-ladder to do so.
Sitting in the driveway, alone, I gripped my ax and scanned the street. We’d seen no sign of Nicholas or his men since they burned us out, and we could only hope they’d given up on us and gone back home. Not that we had any idea what we would do if we saw them again. I didn’t think we would be lucky enough to run away a third time, and I didn’t like relying on luck. The other option was to fight, but that only made me more afraid. I could still taste Nicholas’s blood in my mouth when I thought about him. I felt how it was to cleave through a living person’s arm with my ax, and hear his screams and the sudden thud of the blade hitting bone. The memories made my stomach turn, and my eyes warm with unshed tears.
The scent of rot was even stronger now, and I pulled up my bandana for some cover before I rolled to the door and used the handle of the ax to knock. I didn’t want to yell for Shadia in case there were any zombies nearby that could hear me. We still didn’t know how they tracked us, and I didn’t want to take any chances.
Finally, Shadia unlocked the door and pulled me inside, chair and all. The house smelled of mildew and some kind of animal musk. There was a layer of dust everywhere, so thick that everything was grey except for Shadia’s footsteps, leaving clear proof of her passage.
“There’s a basement,” she said. “I think we should sleep there tonight.”
I didn’t argue. The steadily growing smell was making me jumpy, and I wanted to be as out of sight as I could. Shadia locked the door and pushed an old telephone-bench in front of it before she rolled me into the kitchen and showed me the trapdoor leading into the basement.
