Living With the Dead: Year One

by Joshua Guess

  He seemed drained after that speech, as if he’d been holding it in a long time. I still didn’t know exactly how I fit into this new reality, and part of me envied that he seemed to be figuring it out. “That’s wonderful, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Not really.”

  “Yeah, it does.” His gaze intensified, and I started to get more uncomfortable again. “I don’t know why, but I notice you. I want to get to know you better.”

  I looked away. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched, and I thought I detected the hint of dimples. “Oh, it might be a terrible idea. You might find out you don’t like me at all. But I want to find out.”

  This was so totally the opposite of a conversation I wanted to have. I shook my head slowly, preparing to tell him to forget it. I wasn’t anywhere near ready.

  He wasn’t about to give up the topic. “Listen, Ellen, I know what you went through…”

  The high-voltage switch to my rage was triggered at the mention of ‘what I went through,’ and I almost took a step toward him. Through gritted teeth, I said, “You have no idea what I went through! Maybe you were in prison, but I bet you were never completely helpless. You have no fucking clue what that’s like!”

  “So tell me.”

  “No!” I was gasping, panicked. I didn’t want to even think about it. I went out on the fortified front porch, slamming the heavy, reinforced door. It took a lot of effort, but my anger allowed me to produce a nice, satisfying thud. When Quinn left about twenty minutes later, I refused to look at him, reentering the house only after he had crossed the street.

  ***

  It was impossible to avoid Quinn. I saw him during his shifts on the wall, or hauling wood when I was working in the gardens. Whenever he seemed about to approach me, I fled. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. In the time before, Mason would have been a harmless character on the periphery of my life, zombies would never exist, and Quinn would have been the monster who murdered me in my bed. But everything was inside out now, and I no longer knew what was real.

  Melissa still hadn’t spoken. I wondered if she’d had emotional problems even before being captured, but doubted it. I’d heard whispers from some of the other former captives that her mother had been killed the same day she was taken. I wondered if her mother’s dying cries were the only reason Mason had known her name. She performed simple tasks around the house we shared with a few other women, and I tried to spend as much time with her as possible. There were some books left in one of the bedrooms, and I read her Anne of Green Gables and Island of the Blue Dolphins. The latter had some interesting parallels to our own survival situation. She no longer looked quite as haunted, but she still couldn’t bear to be in the presence of men, and her silence dragged on.

  One night, I was heading home after organizing a new stash of books on herbal remedies, and I passed by the gardens. Melissa rarely went out, but our housemate, Bethany, had apparently decided they needed some fresh air. I saw Bethany on the far side of the garden, talking to a man, while Melissa stood with her back against a storage shed, three teenage boys in a semi-circle in front of her, like a pimply pack of wolves. Her arms were drawn to her chest, her head down, and she was clearly terrified.

  I shouted for them to get away from her. I could hear their taunts, things like “retarded,” and “dumb,” and “only good for one thing.” When I heard that last comment, a red haze clouded my vision, and I began to run. Before I could get there, though, two of the boys were scrambling away, and the largest of them was hoisted off the ground by a very large, very strong hand. Quinn.

  I skidded to a stop on the loose dirt, frightened by the scene before me. Quinn held the struggling boy, looking like some dark avenging angel. There was a wildness to his eyes that chilled my blood. He held his adolescent prisoner by the collar, almost strangling him. His other hand was clenched in a massive, potentially deadly fist. I went to Melissa and put an arm around her before turning my attention back to Quinn. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “Let him go.”

  Quinn continued to give the kid his death-glare for a moment before turning to me. With a deep breath, he lowered the red-faced kid to his feet, but didn’t release him. “Did you hear what he was saying? And he was scaring her.”

  “You’re scaring all of us right now.”

  Quinn bent toward the boy’s ear, and I heard the deep rumble of his voice. He was undoubtedly saying things that started with “If I ever catch you near her again…” I decided I didn’t want to know the specifics. I was glad the situation had been resolved without bloodshed, but I was worried about Melissa.

  When her tormentor scrambled away, Quinn turned toward Melissa. “You should stay back,” I told him. “She’s still afraid to have men too close to her. I don’t know what Bethany was thinking, leaving her alone like that.” I caught the negligent housemate’s eye across the yard and glared. She looked away, obviously aware that it was a bad time to try to explain herself to me.

  Quinn stopped a couple of yards from the quivering teenage girl. He kept his focus to one side of her, rather like you’d look at a skittish dog you were trying to coax to come to you. “It’s okay, Melissa. I won’t hurt you. Did those boys do anything to you?” She didn’t answer, as I’d known she wouldn’t.

  “I appreciate your help, Quinn, but I should get her home now.”

  “I hate that she’s scared of me.”

  “It’s not you. It’s not anything you did.”

  “I know, but…” His voice caught, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t see the shimmer of tears in his eyes. “Before, I had a sister just a little bit older than her.”

  Looking at the two of them, I saw how that could be. Their dark hair and high cheekbones were similar, though Melissa’s eyes were a soft gray to Quinn’s nearly black ones.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We’ve all lost so much.” I thought again of Matt, and Skip, and my unsuccessful attempts to reach my parents. So close to the epicenter of the outbreak, I had little hope they were still alive.

  “I looked for her before I came here, but I never found her.” He glanced at Melissa, who seemed to be listening intently. “Our dad drank a lot. When he’d get bad, Sabrina would hide in her room, curled up with a blanket between the bed and the wall. I only knew one way to calm her down.”

  “What was that?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Take her home. I need to talk to somebody, but I’d like to come by later. I have an idea.”

  I started to argue, but Quinn strode purposefully across the yard and around the corner of the house, out of sight.

  I was reading to Melissa when a knock sounded at the door. I opened it to find Quinn, holding a battered acoustic guitar.

  “Two of the guys in the house next to mine had guitars, so I asked to borrow one. I had to promise to scavenge some new strings next time I’m out, but it’ll be worth it if it makes Melissa feel better.” He stepped inside, and it felt as if the oxygen level in the room dropped sharply.

  “Okay,” I said, “but not in her room. Out here where there’s more space.”

  He sat on the couch. At first, Melissa stood across the room, but soon moved to the opposite end of the couch as he strummed softly on the old guitar. I recognized a few 60s folk songs and country ballads, but it wasn’t until he began to sing that I saw Melissa respond. It took me a moment to identify “Imagine,” John Lennon’s soulful plea for peace, and my first reaction was shock that someone so large and imposing could play something so gentle and beautiful. Then I chastised myself, looking at Quinn through newly-opened eyes.

  Melissa was looking at him, really seeing him, as his thick hands moved over the fret board, making the guitar’s neck seem impossibly fragile. I silently implored him to keep playing. He started the song again, and Melissa inched closer. By the time he’d played the song a third time, she was sitting right next to him, her head lightly resting below his right
shoulder as his fingers plied a makeshift pick over the strings. When he got to the final chorus, I realized Melissa was singing, barely more than a whisper, but singing along with him.

  I was flabbergasted. This might be the scariest-looking man in the Compound, and she’d just seen him on the verge of beating the hell out of another person. Yet he’d gotten more of a reaction from her than anyone else since we’d been freed from the hotel. I supposed the fact that his anger had been in her defense made a difference, even if it had been frightening at the time. I needed to think about that later.

  He played a while longer, and sometimes Melissa sang along in her small, sweet voice. I let the tears flow down my cheeks without shame. When he rose to leave, I followed him to the door. I didn’t think about it, but I leaned into his strong chest and lifted my arms to rest my hands at the back of his neck. I felt him tense for an instant, before his arms wrapped loosely around my waist. My heart raced, being so close to him, to anyone, and I whispered “Thank you.”

  I felt his lips brush over the top of my head, and then he was gone. I took Melissa back to her room and read to her until she fell asleep.

  ***

  Quinn came by often to play for Melissa. After one visit, he asked if I’d noticed the way her fingers sometimes moved while she sang. I hadn’t. He said he had a hunch, and asked me to give him ten minutes, and then bring Melissa to a house down the street.

  When we got there, he led us to the living room where an upright piano gleamed against one wall. “I saw it when I was working on the windows. I asked, but none of the people who live here know how to play.” He smiled at Melissa. “I bet she does.”

  I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right. Melissa stared at the piano for a moment, a look of wonder spreading across her face, before approaching it reverently and seating herself on the bench. Her fingers hovered over the keys, and she began to play. I recognized hymns, among some more recent popular songs, and a few of the house’s residents appeared to listen. After a while, Quinn ushered them to the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later with a huge smile on his face.

  “The piano is hers. I’ll get a couple of guys to help me move it tonight.”

  “Really? How did you talk them into that?” I could barely contain my happiness for the frightened, damaged, but healing girl seated at the keyboard.

  “No big deal. I’m going on a scouting trip tomorrow, and I promised to look for a few things for them.”

  I couldn’t help it. I burst into tears and gave him another hug, this one even tighter than before.

  ***

  Quinn left on his expedition the next day, looking for tools and parts he needed to help maintain the various pieces of machinery at the Compound. He took four men with him, but I was still worried. We withstood attacks almost every day, whether small groups of zombies or looters, or larger zombie swarms, and I’d seen Quinn fight many times. That’s why it was so hard for me to get past my underlying fear of him. He fought wildly, with deadly accuracy and little regard for his own safety. If an attack came when he didn’t have advance notice to put on his makeshift armor, you could see that demon tattoo on his back, glistening with sweat and splashes of blood.

  He’d never been anything but kind to me, and he’d shown incredible compassion for Melissa. Still, I retained enough foolish stereotypes from our fallen society to make me equate “men like him” with danger.

  After allowing myself to touch him those two times, for those hugs that I probably needed more than he did, I wondered exactly what danger he truly posed to me. I found myself both anticipating and dreading his return. I was doing better interacting with the general male population. They were all very respectful, and even though I knew that could just be the face they chose to present to the world, none of them struck that chord of menace in my core that Quinn did. I got more confused when I realized that probably said a lot more about me than it did about him.

  ***

  It was nearing dusk a little over a week later when a commotion broke out near the main gate. It was more fortified now, but remained a regular target of attack by both zombies and what we now called marauders. Though I’d been trained in basic battle skills, I wasn’t a regular combatant. I was getting stronger from all the physical work, but my resolve was still too unpredictable, and when I explained this to the council, they’d agreed that I would better serve in a supporting role. That evening, I went to find out what we were facing, and if there was anything I could do to help.

  I was shocked to see Quinn and his party racing toward the gate, with a small, mixed group of zombies and marauders converging on them. I surmised that the marauders had staged an ambush, and the zombies had been nearby and attracted by the noise and motion.

  Quinn was running, carrying a large cloth bundle, when the first marauder reached him. He placed the bundle at the base of a large tree, and I thought I saw it move. Dismissing the thought, I watched Quinn fight, whirling, swinging his machete. He took on three of the marauders, killing them all, before the first zombie reached him. His team was also fighting, and I watched one of them fall, a large slash wound to his thigh. Quinn came to his defense and swung his machete, spilling the marauder, and most of his entrails, to the ground. I was sickened, but couldn’t turn away until the last threat had been dispatched. Quinn returned to the tree to get his bundle while his friends raced for the gate, only to have one more zombie emerge from the cluster of trees and lunge for him. He swung a final time, sending the zombie’s head flying. I didn’t know what was in that bundle, but it had nearly cost Quinn his life.

  Once the team was safely within the Compound’s walls, we learned that they had hit a booby trap in the road a mile or so away, blowing two of their tires. The marauders who had set it were foolish. If they’d done it farther away, they would have had a better chance to kill the team and take whatever they’d found. But so close, our guys were able to run to the Compound. A retrieval crew was sent out immediately, since they determined that most, if not all of the marauders had been killed as our team made their way to the gates. The zombies, well… those were just a bonus.

  Quinn’s gaze swept the growing crowd, searching. When he saw me, he broke into a grin and began forging a path in my direction. I found an open spot in someone’s side yard and waited, my entire body trembling. When he emerged from the last group of people, I couldn’t help it. I launched myself at him. He saw me approaching at warp speed and quickly placed the bundle down, just in time for me to fly into his arms. He swept me up, and I buried my face against his neck. Then I leaned back and smacked him on the shoulder.

  “You almost got killed! Whatever’s in that damned pack isn’t worth getting bitten or shot!”

  He opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment a tiny, thin whimper drifted up from the bundle at his feet. I froze. Had he been hunting, but his prey had recovered from its near-death experience? No. It couldn’t be.

  Quinn set me on my feet and bent to unfasten one end of the makeshift pack. A brown and white head appeared, and I fell to my knees. It was Skip. Quinn had found my dog. I started to grab for him, to pull the pack away, but Quinn put a hand on my arm.

  “Go easy,” he said. “He’s hurt.”

  Time slowed as I gently tugged back the canvas folds. When fully unwrapped, I saw an ugly, oozing wound on Skip’s right shoulder. He held that foreleg tucked up against his chest. But his tail thumped on the ground, communicating his recognition and pleasure at our improbable reunion.

  We rushed him across the street to our medical clinic, where the man with the leg wound was being stitched up. Skip was examined, and the verdict was that he’d taken a bullet, deflected by his shoulder. There was some damage to the joint, but after the wound had been cleaned and debrided, and he’d received a thick bandage and hefty dose of antibiotic, everyone thought he’d recover, though he might have a bit of a limp if he had scar tissue or bone chips interfering with free movement of the joint.

  I didn’t care. Skip was
alive, and we were together. He was a precious piece of my life from before, and I could scarcely believe it. Quinn had done this for me. He’d remembered my plea, and made a point to find him, and to bring him home. I knew Matt was gone, and my parents likely were, too. But now I had Skip, and Melissa, and maybe even Quinn.

  While I waited for Skip to come out of the light sedation, Quinn went to Josh’s house to get some extra dog supplies. He brought some food and two battered stainless steel bowls, and an old pillow he thought would make a comfortable dog bed. I could kiss him, I thought.

  So I did.

  I don’t know which of us was more surprised. His arms tightened around me during the initial impact of my celebratory kiss, then loosened as if to give me space to escape if I wanted. As our mutual surprise abated, the kiss turned less wildly impulsive and more deliberate and exploratory. He was careful, I could tell, to let me set the pace, and I was grateful. When I drew back, I could feel the heat in my face. I could also see the warm, slightly awe-struck expression on his.

  ***

  We took Skip to my house and settled him on the pillow beside my bed, and put full bowls of food and water nearby. While I sat there, stroking the velvet of those much-loved beagle ears, Quinn told me how he’d found him. His team had followed voices to a small, ragged band of hunters. Some stealthy observation indicated they’d spotted a dog, which was becoming known as easy prey to some of the less scrupulous survivors. Quinn sent one man to misdirect them, claiming to have seen the dog headed in the opposite direction, while Quinn pursued the trail the hunters had been originally following.