Lost and Found

by Trish Marie Dawson

  The only other room in the house was an office/hoarding room full of decades' worth of papers, unopened mail, recyclables, bags of clothing, and miscellaneous junk. Since neither of us wanted to spend any time in the dolled-out master bedroom, we opted for a fitful night of tossing and turning in the living room instead.

  The cobwebby curtains did little to block out the impending light of day. By the time I returned to the living room, the darkness outside was unfurling around the edges, streaking the sky a violescent color. Rubbing the chill off my arms, I stood behind the curtain, looking through the gauzy fabric at the changing sky, marveling at how quickly the streets and buildings came into shape. Almost like someone above us was turning a dimmer switch, lighting the world up below with the flick of a massive wrist.

  Of course, I knew there wasn't really a universal dimmer switch but I liked to imagine things like that, especially when nothing made sense in the new world. The sound of Drake stretching turned me away from the window in time to see him untangle from his blanket and sit up with a groan.

  "Morning," I said quietly. He only nodded.

  After his bathroom break and tossing me a bottle of water, we ate a modest breakfast of peanuts and fruit cups before saying goodbye to our overnight haven. The air outside felt fresh on my face and smelled of dry earth, with a lingering scent of dead things that I was sadly growing accustomed to. Dead trees, dead flowers, dead grass, dead bodies - all emanating the same dried-out and overripe odor that filled the sour streets with a fetid tang. Before I threw myself off a cliff and landed in the ocean to drown in an endless supply of sea-foam, I intended on burning the cities of California to the ground. It wouldn't take much; one spark here, another there and the decomposing buildings would burn like fireplace timber. The fire would spread where the wind took it, which in the southern parts of the state meant the fire would eat up everything it touched from all four points of the compass.

  Just as it should be. Burned to the ground, wiped out so life can start again. A rebirth from the ashes. Maybe then, the dead would finally leave and give the living a chance to survive.

  Retracing our steps from the day before, we left the residential street and turned to follow one of the main roads toward the freeway and the large shopping area that was across the street from the warehouse. It was dark enough that we hoped to slip through the landscape unseen, choosing to think that anyone on the other side of the freeway was still clueless about the events of the previous day. I was relying on luck again.

  Not in the mood for small talk, we walked side by side with at least five feet of space between us. Before making it even a block up the street, we both stopped in our tracks as an image formed, still shrouded in the shadowy remnants of night. I peered hard ahead of me, at the small figure that stood in the center of the inclined road. As my eyes adjusted to the changing surroundings, a peek of sunlight lit up the road and we were able to clearly see that it was a boy standing in the distance. He was young, maybe five years old, wearing loose pants and nothing else. Unable to control it, my chest began to heave up and down as I fought to keep the panic and fear at bay. Spinning around, I saw no one behind us, but that didn't mean they weren't coming.

  "Oh God, not again," I said to myself.

  "Jesus - that's a kid!" Drake made a move to run after the boy but I yanked on his arm, pulling him close to my side.

  "Don't," I warned.

  "What? It's a kid," he repeated.

  "No. It's not."

  He turned to look at me, his face slack with shock and pulled free from my clingy grasp. "What the hell's wrong with you, Riley? We can't just leave him there!"

  I shook my head at him and begged him to stay. Not to walk up the street toward the small child that stood motionless and eerily quiet in the car-cluttered road, but it didn't stop him. At first, he walked, then he jogged, and when he was almost there it finally happened. It must have been what it felt like for Connor - to see no one and then dozens of bodies come out of the shadows and surround me. I finally understood how terrifying it must have been to see that from the outside.

  Drake was leaning down toward the child, but something must have spooked him, since he jumped backwards and cursed, gripping at his backpack straps as if he was ready to bolt. He didn't realize there was nowhere to run. Small misty shapes began moving toward him, merging into little people as they got closer. Children. Only ten at first but then twenty, thirty, fifty. All in their bed clothes, all the color of death - pale grey skin with bloody faces. Scraggly blooms of burst veins shimmered beneath the skin like fireworks - the signature calling card of the virus.

  He didn't know what to do; the circle closed on Drake so quickly. Some of the children holding hands, others reaching up to touch him, pulling at his clothes, tugging at his shirt, as small children like to do and all he could do was panic. With his hands fused over his eyes, he saw little of this but I could hear his distress. It was my name he yelled over and over.

  I ran for him. Even before I knew what to do, I ran. I plowed right into the group, barreling into the shoulders, heads and backs that barely came up to my hips. So young; they were all so young. Hands reached out for me, and I felt their cold and slimy fingers through my clothes. I kept my momentum going, even after something snagged my sweatshirt, tearing the seam open. Gagging to avoid choking on the smell, my eyes watered with the memory of my dead children's faces before I burned their bodies. Not bothering to slow down, I collided into Drake and we clutched at each other, our eyes sealed shut to block out the horror. We crumpled to the ground in a muddled mess of limbs, bringing our bodies as close together as they would fit. My head was beside his, jammed into his chest, leaving my neck exposed. Small hands continued to touch and grab at us, but it was different than my first experience with the dead - the sensations felt less angry and more eager. Almost impatient, exploring rather than trying to cause harm and fear.

  It's not real, it's not real, it's not real, I chanted in my head over and over until I almost believed it. I might have been saying it out loud, Drake might have been saying it too, but my knowledge that the tiny dead bodies would eventually vanish into thin air did little to stifle my screams. Especially, when something warm and sticky dropped onto my neck, sliding off my skin and landing at my side with a wet plop. It's not real, it's not real.

  We shivered, cursed, screamed and shivered some more, until the air went still and sunlight warmed the place on my neck where some sort of flesh had fallen off one of the children. Fighting to calm my stomach, I kept my eyes closed while running my trembling hand along my skin, feeling nothing but my own sweat. Funny, even after no physical trace of the dead was left on our bodies, the lower hem of my sweatshirt hung at an awkward angle, torn clean along the seam.

  "It's over." My voice wavered and creaked like an old board.

  Drake's soft brown hair brushed against my cheek with each shake of his head. Such a strong man, an arrogant, independent man, and he was kneeling on the asphalt, refusing to let go of a woman half his size. After muttering something I hoped sounded soothing into his ear and pulling away from him, I looked quickly around us. We were alone again. The street seemed massive then, as if the lanes spanned one hundred miles wide and we would never be able to reach either shoulder before the road cracked in half and swallowed us whole.

  I imagined the waves of the ocean as they lapped around me. What the salt water would taste like as it filled my mouth and drained into my body. I was not going to die on that dirty street; that wasn't how I was supposed to go.

  ***

  We didn't talk for the next hour. It took a considerable amount of urging on my part to get Drake up and on his feet. We sat on the sidewalk next to the bumper of a dusty Audi with bird crap dotting the hood. I glanced inside just once; it was long enough to see the dead family of six partially huddled under an array of different colored blankets. Like so many other people, they died in their cars trying to drive away from the virus. But you can't run from the air you
breathe. I doubted they got far before the driver lost control of his bodily functions and the passengers, too sick to notice, died beside him soon after. The first words spoken after the early morning event that nearly made me pee my pants came from Drake.

  "Holyfuckingshit." It came out in one breath, strung together like a solitary word. He said it over and over until I placed my hand on his knee and gave him a friendly squeeze.

  "It's over," I told him again. Knowing full well my words didn't matter, I tried to smile anyway.

  "Holyfuckingshit," he said again, staring at one of the Audi's flat tires. His short hair just barely grazed the top of his tanned ear. It blended effortlessly into his centimeter long beard that he hadn't once shaved off completely the entire time I knew him.

  "Yeah," I agreed. After draining the water I handed to him, he stood up too quickly and swayed a bit.

  "Don't you dare pass out on me - you're too heavy to carry. I'll just leave your ass here on the sidewalk," I joked half-heartedly. But I felt creases digging deeply between my brows as I watched him with concern.

  With a curt nod, he let go of my shoulder and bounced his empty water bottle off the roof of the dirty Audi. It slide down the windshield and topple off the other side of the car. It rolled to a stop somewhere in the street - just another piece of litter for me to feel guilty about.

  ***

  "Do you want to talk about it?" I finally asked. It had been twenty minutes of silence - me following Drake along sidewalks, in between houses and over freeway walls.

  We were slowly moving our way east through the bumper-to-bumper cars. The sun was already warming the day, and though I wasn't sweating yet beneath my layers, I knew that by noon I would be. If I were still alive at noon.

  "Do I look like I want to talk?" he grumbled without turning around.

  "Hasn't that happened to you before?"

  I accidentally stepped on his foot as he abruptly stopped walking and whirled around to glare at me. "What did I say? Don't."

  Blinking up at him, I tried not to feel offended and nodded. We crossed the rest of the highway in silence, reaching the other side with our hands and knees dirty from crawling over the hoods of cars and trunks. With a final glance back at the vehicles before following Drake down the shoulder of an exit, I wondered how long it would take the cars to break down and rust. A lot longer than it would take their occupants to turn into skeletons. I shivered. The image wasn’t a pleasant one.

  When the highway wall dipped down low enough to hoist ourselves over it, we landed feet first into the backyard of a private residence. The yard was an open and weed-filled lot with brown grass. In one of the corners, there was a large doghouse. Lying on its side, still attached to a thick and heavy looking chain was a dead dog. Something had eaten most of the soft organs out of the body, exposing the dried out ribcage and spine. The animal was so badly decomposed and disturbed that it was impossible to tell what color, sex or breed of dog it had been. I yanked a starched and sun-bleached towel, rigid as a board, off a nearby clothesline and rested it on top of the corpse. After crying over the body, I joined Drake at the side gate, where he patiently waited with his hands in his pockets.

  "Is there something wrong with me, that I feel worse for that damn dog than I do the men that we killed yesterday?" I nearly sobbed.

  Drake reached out and swiftly pulled me into a rough hug, releasing me almost as quickly as he grabbed me and planted a dry kiss onto the top of the head. It was a brotherly act and I sighed in thanks for the gesture.

  "No. There's nothing wrong with you," he said.

  We walked through the quiet neighborhood. Me avoiding looking too closely at the yards that looked as if a pet had lived there, and Drake scanning every corner, peering into every window with caution. The warehouse was only two neighborhoods away, according to him.

  Whispering so I could barely hear him, Drake pointed to the houses on the south side of the street, "Behind there is a newer apartment complex. It's the one I told you about, the one they sort of took over. At least, that's where they were. The warehouse is just on the other side, close to the shopping center. It's new too. Or it was."

  "Are we circling it?"

  "Yeah. We'll go all the way around, come up on the warehouse from the north side where the delivery docks are. I don't think they'd expect that." He scratched at the side of his scruffy face, lost in thought.

  It was a gamble. A risk - but then again there was no right or wrong anymore. Just survival of the fittest. Everything I had been was gone, not much of me would be left in the end. The way it should have been from the beginning. Why not risk what little was left?

  Drake stopped just before a major intersection, stepping off the cracked sidewalk to lean against the wall of a three-story office building. I stood next to him in semi-baggy clothes that didn't quite fit right, my hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. We stared across the street where dozens of medical tents stood, cordoned off from the street by a slew of haphazardly placed military vehicles. Even from hundreds of feet away I could hear the flap of plastic as the breeze moved through the tents with a lazy kind of lull. A separate area inside the barrier was partially obstructed from my view, but a single story tent with a white dome top had a rip down one of its long sides, exposing the contents to the elements.

  Stacked on top of each other in tight rows were thousands of white body bags. Just iridescent enough that even from beyond the street and across the parking lot, I could make out the brunette, blonde and occasional redheaded bodies through their milky-colored plastic wraps. It wasn't the first time I saw a medical quarantine zone but the sheer volume of people sickened me. The way each body, no matter the size, was piled neatly on top of the next, meant there was a system in place on how properly to store infected human remains. Someone with a title wrote up a plan, pointed at a pile and said, 'That one goes over there'. It was depressing and sad and made me want to puke.

  "Sure is something, isn't it?" Drake said in a hushed tone. His eyes were glazed over, like he was looking through the death across the street, rather than at it.

  I glanced between him with his stoic and faraway gaze and the parking lot turned military base with a numb feeling. It should hurt to see such a thing - thousands of dead people - hundreds of dead families. It should hurt every time, like a knife straight into the heart, seeing a body bag with a person half my size rotting inside. But it was only a detached and numb feeling. A feeling of 'been there and seen that'. A crappy feeling.

  Drake cleared his throat to bring my attention back to him. "Warehouse is just over there," he nodded down the street, beyond the vacant office building.

  I stared at the side of his head, wondering what the story was behind the closed hole in his earlobe. A random thought for a fractured mind, made sense.

  "So, when do you want to do this?" I asked, still staring at the tiny hole in his ear where a piercing used to be.

  "No time like the present." He grinned the wide Joker smile that creeped me out.

  Sighing, I knelt to the ground in a small patch of brown grass, letting the moisture from the night before soak into the knee of my jeans. Mudding up my pants wasn't a concern. Being dirty was a normal part of my new life. Besides, the jeans would be easy to replace when needed. Stain your clothes and break a shoelace? Pilfer new ones from the closest mall. Lose your brush and run out of shampoo? Pilfer more from the closest mall. Of course, that philosophy wouldn't last forever. Eventually even the malls would dry out just like the bones from the bodies under the dome tent.

  My pack was full of weapons, handguns, clips and knives of different shapes and sizes. Most of them pulled off the dead men from the day before. My own knife was strapped securely to my leg, just like Drake's was. A gun was tucked into the back of my jeans, loaded and ready for action. The day before, I didn't even bother to take one of the long-range rifles. My shoulder wouldn't tolerate the kickback. Drake was the only one with a rifle draped across his torso like a pageantry ribbon. />
  All we needed was a little bit of greasy paint to streak our faces and those cool lace-up combat boots and we would fit right in with the thugs we were conspiring to kill. Well, maybe the camouflage paint was a bit much, but the idea struck me as a funny one and I imagined Drake's face covered in hunter green, mine in black. The image of our thirty-something year old faces in paint was so appealing at that moment that I almost dragged my fingers through the mud and rubbed them under my eyes.

  Instead I sighed, doing it over and over, filling my lungs with air as rapidly as possible. Sort of like a swimmer would, right before launching their body into the water for a race. When my head felt efficiently light-headed and cleared of all the gunk that lingered around in there like the day old smell of skunk, I tightened my pack straps and nodded at Drake that I was ready. Of course, all he had to do to prepare was hitch his jeans up half an inch or so. Men were easy that way.

  "Ready?" he asked, gun in hand, muscles taut and eager.

  "Ready enough," I said with a smile. If we were going to die in five minutes, I wanted a smile to be the last expression we shared between us.

  CHAPTER twenty-one

  Only one doubt went through my mind before we edged around the corner of the office complex and ran down the buckling sidewalk from tree to tree for cover: If I did die, will Zoey ever forgive me? I could have turned around right then, leaving my morbid and stupid curiosity right there on the street corner and fled out of the city, back south into San Diego. But I didn't. The crazy inside me had been unleashed.

  There was no sign of life outside the warehouse - not even the wind wanted to touch the squatty bushes lined around the building. The little things stood as still as rocks, rigid and dried out like an old skeleton. They seemed like shrubby versions of suspicious garden gnomes to me. I almost expected them to shudder and move out of the corner of my eye and end up five feet away from where I swore I last saw them. They didn't of course.