Odium (The Dead Saga.)

by Riley, Claire C

  “What?”

  I realize that we’re both whispering. I’m not sure whether it’s to not draw any attention from outside or from upstairs.

  “No can opener. Keep looking.” I go and check all the drawers in the kitchen, but still come up short. Seems the owners weren’t so savvy when it came to packing their stuff up after all. What good is canned food if you can’t get into it?

  A sharp bang interrupts my thoughts, and I poke my head back into the living room. Emily is stabbing the top of the can with the penknife she found earlier. I’m about to tell her to stop before she stabs herself when the knife finally pierces the can. Juice splutters out of the top and she lifts it to her mouth and swallows it down.

  I’m so jealous, I’m about to see red. Fortunately, Emily stops swallowing and hands me the can with shaky hands that can barely contain her excitement.

  “You want some?” She licks her lips greedily.

  A little shiver of appreciation works its way up my spine, and I take the can without even acknowledging the question and swallow the rest of the prune juices down. I’ve never tasted anything so good in all my life, and I don’t even like prunes.

  “Where’s your knife? I need to get these bad boys out.”

  I take the knife and am about to stab a bigger hole in the can when Emily tells me to stop and hands me a can opener from the bottom of one of the boxes. I smile and quickly attach it and cut the lid off, popping the circular metal ring inwards and then prying it back out. Oh dear god, they look like shriveled up old man parts, but I still shove one in my greedy waiting mouth and groan loudly as the explosion of flavors dances over my taste buds.

  I snatch another one out, spit out the pit from the now devoured one, and reluctantly hand the can back to Emily. She fills her mouth with a couple and closes her eyes, moaning and savoring the taste. There’s nothing but silence as we both chew and think about the flavors in our mouths. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, just like our can of prunes. Emily wipes her fingers along the inside of the can to get any remaining juice out, but none remains by the look on her sullen face. She looks into it longingly and then discards it to the floor sadly.

  “Hey, chin up, Emily. There’s more cans in the box, right?”

  “Yeah,” she replies with a frown. “I never even liked prunes before, you know? Kinda reminded me of…”

  “Yep, totally know what you mean, say no more,” I interrupt with a snort of hushed laughter.

  She looks at me, her head cocking to one side. “I was going to say giant lumps of dog poop. What were you going to say?”

  “Uh, yeah, that’s what I was going to say too.” I shrug and look away. “Come on, let’s open up something else.”

  She hands me the can of baked beans and I shudder—yet another thing I despised pre-apocalypse. I open it quickly and sniff at the insides, my stomach doing a little flip at the lumpy contents. Spoons are at a shortage, so it looks like I’m going to need to drink from the can. The sharp edges don’t help with the appeal of the lumpy cold mess that lies within. I chug it back and swallow a couple of mouthfuls of the cold beans. This is worse than I thought. It seems the apocalypse has done nothing to alter my taste buds on baked beans.

  I shudder again and hand it to an overeager Emily. I feel strangely full. Or maybe my stomach is closing up shop for the day, in the vain hope that I won’t try and force anything else disgusting into it. Emily doesn’t seem too bothered by it, though, and is swallowing it down with great eagerness. I burp in my most ladylike fashion into my hand and continue sorting through supplies.

  It doesn’t seem quite real to catch this sort of a break—especially after such a shitty start to the day. I probably shouldn’t question it, and yet I do. We should just hang out here for a couple of days, catch up on some sleep, and fill our stomachs with food. Who knows when we are going to get this opportunity again? The doors are locked, the windows partially boarded up, and barring Mr. Deadman walking upstairs, the place seems relatively safe. I pull the curtains to one side and check outside. Zombies are roaming the streets in their masses. I say masses, but there’s probably only a handful of them. Still, a handful is a handful, and we are just one young girl and a woman who doesn’t know her north from south. I snort to myself. Yeah, maybe once upon a time we were those people. Not now, however.

  I might not be Lara Croft yet, but the desperation to live can fill you with a hell of a lot of enthusiasm for surviving, and if that means fighting hand to hand with a walking corpse when you need to, then so be it.

  I pull the curtains back in place and take another look around. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust, and I can’t understand why this place hasn’t been picked clean. There doesn’t seem to be that many deaders outside, and Lee’s men were always going out to scavenge and coming back with just the bare minimum of supplies. This town isn’t too far from the wall—surely, armed to the teeth they could have had the pickings of the place. I repack some of the stuff into the backpack as I think it through. There’s an iPad and iPhone in here. Seriously, what were these people thinking? What were they going to do, play Angry Birds to keep the boredom at bay? How long would this thing even hold its charge? And a phone, really? I tut to no one in particular, but attract Emily’s attention nonetheless.

  “What? What is it?” She throws the can into the same pile as the empty prune can.

  “People! People are just idiots.” I throw the phone to one side. “The stuff they were packing, some of it is just useless crap.”

  She comes over and joins me, looking through the growing pile of junk. Her hand stops on a pile of photos, and she lifts them, inspecting each one with a sad smile.

  “This isn’t crap, Nina. This is their life.”

  “This was their life. They’re dead now, and all this,” I snatch the photos back from her, “is crap. This doesn’t help anyone to survive. Not me, and obviously not them either. This just reminds us all of what we have lost.”

  “It reminds us of what we can have again,” she replies softly.

  I shake my head. “No, Emily, things will never be the same again. Who knows how many people actually survived the first attacks, and since then? Pfft, anyone left out here is more than likely a deader, too, now. For all we know, those big-assed walls that we were supposedly being protected by…that is life, and the people behind them are all that remain, and we all know how wonderful those fuckers are. Those that aren’t control freaks and rapists are cowards.” Anger and frustration bubble to the surface, threatening to open the floodgates to my tears. I swallow them down, and control it as best I can. “No, this is how it is now, and this—this hellhole we’re in, this is life for us now. So yeah, take a good look at some family photos, keep those memories alive, and see if it inspires you. Me? I’m a realist.”

  “They’re not cowards, they’re just scared and trying to protect their loved ones,” Emily whispers.

  “Well, aren’t you the forgiving one? Would you be still singing the same tune if I would have left you to go on your own?”

  “Stop it,” she sobs.

  I clench my teeth and try to stop any more words from spilling out of me. I know she’s right. The other people behind the walls, what they had to do to survive was just as bad as what I had to go through, but I hate them just the same. I hate them for never helping me, I hate them for watching me suffer, and I hate them for having someone to protect. A family.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart beating against my ribs and threatening to break them. I can’t control the ambush of anger and pain any longer. I open my eyes and throw the photos up in the air in disgust. I see Emily’s eyes fill with more tears, and I turn and storm up the stairs. Mr. Deadman starts banging on his door again like a noisy neighbor.

  “Oh, fuck off to you too.” I kick his door as I walk past, and he retaliates with a long throaty groan.

  My cheeks feel hot and flushed from my little outburst. Or maybe it’s from the memories of my life—m
y real life, and not this awful existence—that are swelling to the surface and causing me to freak out. I want to cry, I want to shout, I want to kill something. I have a good mind to storm in on our little friend and kill him, but there’s no real point in taking that risk other than to sedate my wayward temper.

  I sit down on the end of the big double bed and pick up yet another happy photo from the bedside table. The couple in it look happy and in love. They’re standing on either side of a man, who I presume must be Old Man Riely. He stands in the middle of the couple, an arm draped over each of their shoulders and a smile on his face. Crazy Old Man Riely, it seems, lived with his daughter and her husband. The pain is suddenly unbearable, and I find myself curling up in a ball on the bed, clutching the photo to my chest as I try to contain the flood of tears that threatens to overflow at any minute.

  Six.

  When I open my eyes, it’s dark outside. Shit, it’s dark inside. Pitch black. I’m momentarily freaked out until I remember where I am. The house is silent; even the dead dude next door has gone quiet. Maybe he’s gone to sleep. Do zombies sleep? I shake my head. I know the answer to that: No, zombies don’t sleep. They don’t tire and they don’t give up. They are the worst type of enemy—and only decapitation or destroying the brain somehow can stop them from coming back again and again.

  I go back downstairs to find Emily snoozing on the sofa. She’s lit a couple of little candles on the table, and they cast playful shadows across her face. She’s curled up with a coat over her, snoring quietly and looking peaceful. Her face seems younger now that she is asleep, now that the worry lines have smoothed out with the onset of sweet dreams. I lean over the back of the sofa, staring down at her pretty face, and sigh, jealous of her contentment. Her eyes flutter and open, and she jumps up from her position in shock at me staring down at her. I fall back on my ass, landing in something soft and sticky that I don’t dare look at.

  “Jesus, Emily!” I stand back up, touching my backside with a grimace. It’s covered in whatever I just fell in. And whatever it is, it’s lumpy and gross. Just great. And that’s the second time that she’s made me fall in less than twenty-four hours.

  “Sorry, Nina.” She looks sheepish, biting down on her bottom lip.

  “It’s okay. Kinda my fault anyway, I guess.”

  “What were you doing?”

  Now I’m embarrassed. “Uh, well, nothing. I just came down and was checking on you. Hey, you never mentioned that this dude lived with his daughter and her husband.”

  She shrugs and sits back down with a yawn. “Hardly ever saw them, they were always away on business or something or other. He was pretty much here on his own all the time, from what I could tell anyway.” She pauses and continues. “Probably why he was so cranky all the time.”

  The thought of him being all alone when the world went to shit is way more upsetting than I would have thought. My thoughts stray to who else might have been alone when the dead rose up. Old people, half senile and not understanding why the only people who come to see them anymore want to eat them; sleeping children confused as to why Mommy isn’t smiling down on their little cherub cheeks anymore, and instead is reaching in with dead fingers and ripping their tiny, fragile bodies apart. A shudder runs through me, cold trickling into my spine.

  “I found some more food, and a bottle of vodka...some other bits and pieces too. You wanna see?” Emily breaks me from my dark thoughts and I nod with a grimace.

  She pulls another backpack over to the side of her and begins to pull things out, placing them on the coffee table before her. There’s a lot of what I would call crap, but some really useful stuff too: more matches and candles, a flashlight, a Swiss army knife—one of those really cool ones with all the things sticking out of it, some more painkillers and Band-Aids, even some antibiotic cream, and the bottle of vodka. I’m impressed that she kept it packed with the important stuff. It is important; I haven’t had a drink in years.

  I grab it, unscrew the top, and take a long swallow. It burns on its way down, but damn that’s the sweetest thing of all. The burning. It reminds me that I’m still alive.

  “Can I have some?”

  I look at her with a raised eyebrow, the bottle still poised at my lips. “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re like twelve.”

  “So? And I’m like…fifteen, actually. Mom used to let me have a drink on special occasions.” She looks at me hopefully.

  “Does this look like a special occasion?” I take another swig with a raised eyebrow.

  Her shoulders slump, like only a teenager’s can, and she continues scrounging through the things she has found. I’m still in a little bit of shock that we have been so fortunate. Maybe fortunate is the wrong word. If nobody else has found these things, then it must be for a reason. Maybe this area was completely overrun? Maybe other people never made it to this town because they were eaten first? Maybe...?

  “So what’s the plan, Nina?”

  “Like I said earlier, I have no clue.” I peek through the living room curtains out onto the front lawn. It’s amazing how dark it gets when there aren’t any streetlights or house lights to illuminate things. The moon and stars seem to shine brighter than they ever have before. It would be pretty if it weren’t for all the zombies out there. Shit, a lot of things would be prettier if it weren’t for their rotting sorry asses.

  What are we going to do? Maybe we can go up to Ben’s parents’ cabin after all? That’s secluded. Before I can think it through any more, Emily’s voice interrupts my inner ramblings once again.

  “I was at school, you know, when the people started…when they started hurting…” Her voice trails off and I turn from the curtain to look at her. She’s sitting and staring into the air in front of her, her face a tormented picture of pain as the memories invade her.

  “What did you do?” I take another swig of the vodka and then hand it to her. Underage drinking laws don’t apply anymore, I guess; besides, she sure looks like she could use a drink. I sit down next to her, ready to listen. I don’t want to, not really. I’ve listened to more than enough of these horror stories to last me a lifetime, but the kid needs to spill, and I’m the only one listening.

  “I was in Math. I freaking hated Math; my teacher, Mrs. Marrion, she was a real bitch.” She smiles. “The school fire alarm went off, and I was happy at first, thinking I was getting out of doing algebra, but as we all started to pile out into the halls in an orderly line like Mrs. Marrion told us to, someone started pushing, then more people joined in, until—until the screaming started.” Emily wipes her eyes. “God, there was so much screaming, Nina. Then everyone started pushing and shoving even more, and I didn’t know what was going on. I just ran like everyone else and headed for the tennis courts where we were supposed to line up for fire drills, but when we got outside, it was like—everyone was like, you know…now what? What do we do? Where do we go? We didn’t know what everyone was even running from, so we all just stood there looking at each other. Then they started coming out the doors.”

  She takes a swig from the bottle and starts coughing. I pat her on the back, leaving my hand in place long after the coughing subsides.

  “I didn’t understand—I didn’t know what they were, or what they could do.” She shakes her head, and the tears that had been pooling in her eyes spill down her face. “It was my gym teacher, Mrs. Turion, she was the first one out. She was hissing and um…she didn’t look right. She was just standing there, staring at everyone with blood and…” Emily’s face scrunches up at the pain of the memory. “I would have loved to be doing algebra right at that moment,” she laughs and sniffs at the same time.

  My hand moves in comforting circles over her back. I pull her into my arms and rock her, hushing gently while she sobs.

  “Amy, a girl I used to talk to in the lunch line, she went over to Mrs. Turion. Amy was so brave.” Emily looks at me with such an endearing smile that even though I know what is coming, I can
’t help but smile and nod. “Amy was crying, but she still went over to her to see if she was okay. I could never have done something like that. Before Amy could even say anything, though, Mrs. Turion grabs her and bites her.” The crying gets louder, and Emily reaches for my face to mimic what happened. I dodge her touch—I do not need to feel that. She withdraws her hands and continues. “She bites down on her face—her face! Amy starts screaming and trying to pull away, and there’s so much freaking blood, Nina, and no one—not even the other teachers were trying to help her. They were just standing there like statues. Amy finally pulls herself free of Mrs. Turion, and there’s a huge hole in her face and half her nose is just missing, and blood is spraying everyone who’s too close to her. I think I’m going to be sick, but before I can, Mrs. Turion growls, like a dog or something, and reaches for Amy again. And then everyone else is screaming, but still none of us are moving.” Sobs wrack Emily’s skinny body, and I think her story is over until she speaks again.

  “My friend Adam was standing next to me, and he whispered to me…um, something like, ‘we have to go, Emily-Rose,’ but I couldn’t stop watching Mrs. Turion. Adam pulled me by my elbow, and I stumbled back, and he kept pulling me and pulling me until I looked at him. He had blood on his face, Amy’s blood, and then I looked at everyone else, and we were all splattered in it. I freaked out then, wiping at my face and crying, and stumbling backwards as Adam pulled me. It seemed to get everyone moving. Slowly, we all started to move away. Mrs. Turion didn’t like that. She let go of Amy and started coming for us, and me and Adam ran and ran until I thought I was going to throw up.”

  Emily cries even harder and I coo into her ear, rocking her in my lap. I’ve never been the motherly type, and since the world went to hell, I seem to have lost any part of me that gave a shit for another human being. That was beaten out of me at some point or another, but I feel something for this poor girl. Whether it’s pity or actual concern, I’m not sure yet.