by Eddie Austin
The second flare is almost burned out when I come to the junction. I light the fuse on the tank-bomb and begin to sprint, a new surge of adrenaline coursing through me. I don’t bother to count this time, I just run.
The next explosion is less intense, but still has a staggering force. I hear a rumble and see an orange glow behind me. I keep running, though my legs feel like lead. The light behind me intensifies, then recedes. Before me, the yellow rectangle of a setting sun. I make my way for it hard.
The last tank is still there as I left it and I pause long enough to light the fuse with the flare and then I toss it aside. I stagger out of the tunnel and head right, toward the stash-rock. I walk past it and turn left, up to the pan. I take a dozen more steps and collapse. The last explosion is loud. I feel dirt and rocks raining down on me.
I lay there at the edge of consciousness and notice that the oppressive pressure from the cavern is fading. Another sending comes to me and I am too weak to block it.
Rage, and the voice, the same as before:
“There is no sweeter taste than the flesh of your enemies, none more bitter than their kiss…”
“I guess this concludes our friendship.” I send the thought out with equivalent of a mental shrug.
“You can’t kill a thought, or put smoke back in the jar. We’ll remember your face and you will despair.”
There is a brief pressure on my throat, but it fades away as the voice dies. I try to stand, but my legs are exhausted. My back feels tight, and I just now realize that the odd smell that had been following me is that of burned hair. I collapse.
I realize that I have passed out, but it seems not long before the world comes back to me. Like nodding off at the wheel. The sun is down, casting the last of its glow around the shoulders of the hills behind me, an after-thought of light. Staring up into the sky, I notice wisps of black smoke drifting about me, rising to the void. I hear footsteps.
I don’t feel any pressure in my mind, but I can’t trust that sense any more. I strain to roll over and see my assailant. I get myself onto my hands and knees and look up to the direction of the sound. My head will only rise so far, it feels like the worst sunburn ever on the back of my neck, and then the first thing to cross my vision is a silhouette, formed by the presence of a tall individual.
A voice breaks the silence, masculine and quavering, “Kyle?”
The footsteps quicken, and I can see that it is one of my companions. So much for sticking to the plan, I think, as I sink back to my chest. I feel hands gently pull at my side, and I am rolled onto my back. I wince at the pain, my body’s weight at odds with frozen muscles in my back, and Bryce stares down at me from the side.
“So, I guess it worked?” I speak.
“Yeah, I guess so.” His eyes look vacant.
I try to get up again. No luck. “Yeah, not bad Bryce, thanks for asking. Just really stiff, maybe if you give me a hand?”
I raise mine weakly, and Bryce pulls. I am able to get to my feet, though my head suddenly feels light from the change of position. I stagger, and he supports me, one arm across my chest. “Where’s Molly?” Bryce looks through me and his voice cracks softly.
“Gone.”
“Oh.”
I feel bad that I don’t know what to say, so I just let the silence hang there. I’ve never been good at these kind of talks, and I wasn’t sure about the nature of their relationship in the first place. It had all seemed so out of character. We’re just standing there, the both of us, trying to breathe around the wisps of tar-smoke.
“Can we turn around? I want to see.” We do.
Before us is the pan, and perhaps quarter mile distant, a great column of fire, glowing in the dim light through a thick cloud of black smoke. A doomsday plume drifting east. It reminds me of CNN images from one of the Gulf wars. After a while he helps me turn again, and we start the long shuffle toward the hills. The silence starts to get to me. Imagine that? After all these years? I ask Bryce what happened after they left, when I went into the tunnel. He tells me plainly, without emotion and I can tell that he really needs to tell someone, but that if I hadn’t asked he never would have. I feel guilty about that.
“We started to make for the camp, but had to stop once or twice when the zombies got thick. We cleared most of them out towards the hills, it was going fine. Molly kept on saying that we should go back for you, that it was wrong to leave you out here. We were taking turns with the AK, but we were almost out of ammo. I kept it, with only a few rounds left. I said we could just avoid them, make for rough terrain and lose them. She kept saying that we had to clear a path for you, in case you were coming back hurt. She was checking a dead soldier for ammo or weapons and he… got her. Came up all of a sudden and tore out her throat. I wasn’t even paying attention. Just like that, she was gone. Then I heard the explosion and saw the smoke, so I turned back.” He stops and offers me some water, I accept gratefully. I’m standing on my own now, weakly. His voice starts to get emotional. “I just don’t want to be alone right now.”
“I’m sorry Bryce. I don’t know what to say…”
“I need you to do something. You’re strong enough to get on by yourself right?”
I nod, feeling the burnt remains of my beard falling off the right side of my face. I reach up to feel at it and wince. The heat singed my eyelashes, making them all curly and they tangle when I blink. I feel like hell, but it all seems cosmetic, the machinery still works.
“I think I’ll manage. What do you need?”
“She’s,” his voice cracks, he takes a deep breath and continues but I’m dreading what he’s going to say, that I’ve already guessed, “she’s out there. I couldn’t do it.”
I reach for the AK and he lets it go weakly from his fingers as he collapses to the flat, flat ground. Crouching there, bouncing on his heels, the tears come for the first time. “That way,” he points ahead of us, “you’ll feel her when you get close.”
I pop out the clip and check the ammo. Four rounds plus the one in the chamber. “I’ll be back, just stay here.” He’s nodding. All I can hear is the wind ahead of me, clean for the first time in a while and buffeting my ears.
She’s right where I knew she’d be. A bright spot on my tender mind. I think about that last comment from the Prophet and wonder about what he’d said. Had he known?
She is a bloody mess. God! The front of her clothes are slick to her body, and still her gaping wounds drip. It is her, and it isn’t her. Same as any other time I’ve seen a friend after life had left them. If you’ve ever been there, you know. I try not to dwell on it too much. She needs me this one last time, and I’ll be that friend for her, same as she’d have been for me. I do it as clean as I can, and afterwards I roll her on her back, set her legs strait, cross her arms and cover her face with my bandana.
Bryce is sitting cross legged when I get back, smoking a little cigar he’d gotten from somewhere. His fingers are steady, he looks at me from his red-tinged eyes.
“So?”
“She’s taken care of.”
He nods, stands and thanks me again. Some measure of control has come back to his voice and he sniffs loudly before continuing our talk.
“After the explosion, some of the far off ones started to wander away. Did you feel that? I think we got the rest. What happened down there?”
I tell him about turning the zombies ahead of me, setting the bombs, and even the last conversation with the Prophet. This seems to satisfy Bryce. That man’s existence, in any form, had been an irritant to him for some time. I feel that there was more to that story than I knew, but I just don’t care, torn and exhausted as I am. We walk on for some time, coming to the hills in total darkness.
We cross the hills the next day without much incidence. I am beyond sore, but I knew a longer, if less strenuous, route over. We take it. Neither of us notice or feel any of the dead, all the way over and out to the orchard.
He tells me that he is fine, but I insist that he stay f
or a few more days with me. I don’t think he is the suicidal type, but I’ve seen such an array of emotions over the past couple of days. Plus, I think he wants to be around someone. He sleeps in the shack and spends his meals at the barn with me. After the second day, I feel like a healing has settled upon me. I feet stronger every morning and after I shave I feel better on the outside too. Still, all that either of us do is eat, drink, sleep and stare off toward the hills, before cutting our eyes back to the ground. I can tell things have changed. After a week, he leaves without saying anything. And as I sit on my steps watching him walk down the driveway, I feel the first tinge of loneliness that I can remember in a long time.
It’s all overwhelming, in a strange anti-climatic way. Sitting there, alone, I feel the weight of the mountain I have climbed and realize now that it is behind me. The excitement, the weird psychic warfare, bombs, death—all done. There is nothing more to occupy me than tending my fruit, getting smashed, and shooting the odd trespasser. Fine.
As I’m sitting there, I run my hands down my legs, feeling the fabric of the old fatigues, my favorite pants for roaming the country, and I prepare to get up to find something to eat. My fingers encounter an odd shape in my left cargo pocket. It crinkles as I press on it, and I realize that it is paper or thin plastic. I pull the small folded bundle out and examine it.
It’s Bill’s mail, from before. I had checked his mailbox after returning from Salem that first time, and stuffed it in my pocket without thinking. I flip through it, noting the credit card junk mail with the plastic window and a flyer for lost persons, yellowed after sitting in that box for almost three years, and then the last piece, a letter. My heart pounds. It is addressed to me. I recognize the handwriting as my father’s.
The other mail falls to the grass as I tear at the side of the letter and pull it out, one sheet, lined and written with blue ink in my father’s blocky script:
Hello Kyle,
I don’t know if you will get this. The mail can’t last much longer, but I had to try. Don’t be mad at your brother. He respects your wish for privacy, but this situation we find ourselves in trumps anything.
Those of us that are left are heading to your uncle’s camp. I won’t mention more for our own security, but I know you know what I’m talking about, and will make your way here if you are able. We love you very much and pray for your safety.
Sincerely,
Dad
I read the letter again, and then fold it carefully and place it back in my pocket. I gather the litter around me and carry it to the fire. My mind races. It’s far, very far, but I might make it, especially with my new talents to guide me.
I stare into the fire for some time. Thinking. The letter is three years old. A lot can happen in three years. They could be dead. They could have given up on me and left camp for some reason. No. Even if they left, they’d leave a clue for me to follow. I know that I might not like what I find. Then again, if anyone could survive a zombie apocalypse, it would be my dad. I have to find out.
I start to make a packing list in my mind and plans for the farm. There’s got to be someone in town that Bryce could send out to keep it up. Just in case I ever come back. There is also one more thing to do before I leave. Something I’ve put off for too long. I resolve to start packing the truck tomorrow and then I’ll see Bryce on the way out, and from there, the camp. What the hell, why not?
POSTLUDE
Mary pauses in her morning chores, straightening from the freshly tilled beds of peas and corn and knuckling the small of her back roughly. Scraping out an existence on five acres of fenced in plot was hard work, easier now that Isaiah was getting bigger, but still a lot more labor intensive than her old job.
That thought is unexpected. It has been a while since she has thought about her old life and the comforts that her salary had afforded her. Real estate law was lucrative in L.A. and she had pampered herself lavishly. It seems so foolish now. She could have bought a lot of seed and supplies with that money, but who knew what was coming? She thinks of her other comfort, her husband, Mikey. She knew she’d end up thinking about him, always did when she daydreamed like this. Right now a day at the spa would outweigh a night with her dead husband. Dead. So much death. She shakes her head to scatter the thoughts and leans back into her work.
The soil is rich and dark, almost like clay. She pulls furtively at the tiny clumps of grass and weeds that grow between rows, pausing every foot or so to wipe a tickling trickle of sweat from the tip of her very cute and expensive nose. A slow sound draws her attention, familiar and out of place at the same time.
It grows louder, a soft rumbling and mechanical whir, the whine of a fan belt? A truck rolls past the chain link fence in front of her, going slow, window down, soft music blowing out of the window. Jazz. The truck pulls up to the gate next to the house, and she watches as it stops. After a minute, the door to the house opens and Jerry walks out, cautiously, holding his shot gun. A man gets out, empty handed and waits at the gate.
He’s shorter than Jerry, maybe 5’8” tall with a forgettable face partially covered by a five o’clock shadow of a beard. Dressed in army fatigues and with a straight posture, he waits to be greeted. He makes her nervous.
Jerry stands at the gate and listens to the man speak for a few minutes, Jerry lowers his gun, but does not invite the man in. The man is pointing to the bed of the truck and spreading his hands before him. Jerry holds up his hand, and the man nods. He turns to the truck and pulls out something. A duffle. He sets it down and unzips the top. Jerry leans closer and looks in. He shakes his head and then opens the gate.
The man sets the bag inside the gate, then grabs another smaller pack and a rifle. He sets these next to the first bag. Mary reaches down and checks the holster at her side. She sees that the man’s rifle has no clip in it, but she’s suspicious of this visitor. Too many bad people left alive and trying to take what your hard work has got you.
Jerry comes back with Isaiah in tow. The boy is shy, peeking out from behind Jerry’s tall frame, but Jerry pushes the boy forward in front of the man. He shouldn’t be so rough with the child. The boy was sweet and eager to please his new parents, but for a kid his age, he had the simple mind of one much younger. Mary watches.
Isaiah walks up to the man and puts out his hand awkwardly. The man reaches down and shakes it, then drops his arms to his sides. It’s too far to make out expression, but she sees the man’s head hang low as he speaks. After a minute, he’s done, and he looks up at Isaiah. The boy just stands there, then runs back to Jerry, hugging his waist. The man starts to walk closer, but Jerry waves him away. With that, the man gets back into his truck, the bed heavily laden with some cargo covered with a tan canvas tarp. The door slams, and the music from the cab is heard again. Soft, mournful jazz, an odd choice for such a bright, sunny morning.
Mary looks up as the man drives by, cigarette now lit in his mouth. He waves, but no warmth touches his expression. She leaves her work and walks through the rows of plants still hung with dew from last night. When she gets to the gate, Isaiah is still holding Jerry. He sees her approach and sends the boy running off to the shed.
“Who was that?” she says.
“He said that he was the guy that killed Isaiah’s father.” Jerry walks over and closes the bag. “He thought the boy needed an explanation, and he wanted to pass on the remains and his gear.”
“Oh, God!” She licks her lips, “Should we tell Bryce?”
“No. Bryce knows. Says that he’s squared his debt to the community. What good would it do anyways? Dead is dead.”
Mary walks over and looks at the bags.
“So, he’s in the bag?”
Jerry nods. “Sent the boy for a shovel. We’ll bury him over in the east corner, by the rock pile, not much planned for that piece.”
She walks over and squeezes Jerry’s hand, suddenly remembering her new husband’s friendship with Isaiah’s father. It must have been hard to see the inside of that bag. Lo
rd. Jerry was a hard man, but even hard men can get worn down, especially in this world. He looks into her eyes, and just for a moment, she can see that hardness melt, but it returns in an instant.
“Better get back to the garden. I’ll come over and help once I’m done with Isaiah.”
She nods, another quick squeeze, and then she turns to the field and the rows of new plants.
THE END
