by Tony Urban
I tumbled forward, crashing into Aben, bouncing off him, and falling into the snow. And then the dog was on top of me. I felt the heat coming off it as it snarled and growled, baring every one of the bright, white teeth in its jaws.
I crossed my arms in front of my face and the dog latched onto my forearm with a shocking amount of pressure. It whipped its head back and forth, shaking my upper body. If I hadn’t been suited up, that tan mongrel would have been having a Mead-burger.
Any time now, I thought. Call off your damn dog, Aben.
As if he read my mind, Aben appeared beside the dog and put his hand on its back. At his touch, the dog released me. It flinched, cowering away from the man. Its body was tensed, ready to run.
“Prince. It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. I’ll never hurt you again.”
He eased his palm down the dog’s back scratching its hind quarters, massaging it gently. I thought some of the fear left the animal and risked uncovering my face.
“You’re such a good boy, Prince.”
I realized he was crying, I felt like crying too and I didn’t even know what the hell was going on. But Aben had his dog back and I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d found new friends. And at the moment, that was all that mattered.
15
December 3
“It still boggles my mind that you came along when you did. If we told anyone that story, they’d be apt to disbelieve it and I wouldn’t blame them.”
We’d been driving south as quick as the roads allowed. By the time we got to Maryland the snow was a thing of the past and the temperatures were gradually rising and the more he warmed up, the more talkative Aben grew.
“It’s like you were sent there by God.”
I cast him a sideways glance. “I don’t know about that. I doubt God has much use for people like me.”
Aben looked at me. His eyes so intense I couldn’t hold his gaze longer than a moment. “I wasn’t even sure there was a God. But now, after that, how could I deny it?”
“Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m glad I found you.”
Aben eventually told me his tale, starting with getting arrested not far at all from my former home in Johnstown to losing his hand, to the various survivors he encountered along the way. There were soldiers and sacrifices, secret government bunkers and island villages.
The culmination, of course, was how he ended up almost bare ass on the roadway, while being stalked by zombies. It was quite a tale and from a different man I might have suspected much of it was made up, but Aben seemed honest almost to the point of embarrassment, and I didn’t get any sense he was lying, or even exaggerating, his tale. I shared my story as well, but might have massaged the facts a bit. Some things didn’t need repeated.
We were on the same page that heading west was the best option, but three days into our journey we had our first spot of trouble. We’d stopped at a grocery store to restock when I noticed Aben had forgone filling his cart with food and instead had a mixture of medical supplies. Gauze, antiseptic, bandages, and pain killers. I was still getting to know this man, but thought it wasn’t outside the realm of collegiality to inquire.
“Care to tell me what’s up?”
He looked to the supplies in the cart, then back to me. “Think I got a bit of a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The frostbite kind.”
He took a seat on a metal bench and took off boots we’d nabbed at a thrift store a few days earlier. I saw right away that the ends of his white socks were stained a orangish brown, the color of pumpkin pie. The toe end was also much larger than it should have been, and I could smell the infection.
I knew this wasn’t going to be good and, as he peeled off the socks, I was tempted to shout at him to stop. I didn’t want to see this. But saying so would have been impolite.
Sometimes it’s okay to be impolite.
The horror show that was reveled when those socks came off was unlike anything I’d ever seen. The front end of his right foot was swollen twice its normal size and the skin was a deep, chocolate brown. And that was the better of the two.
All the little piggies on his left foot were jet black, as was the skin on his foot a third of the way back. Where the skin transitioned from black to tan, there were a series of festering sores which leaked putrid ooze. Two hideous blisters that looked like small water balloons ready to burst rose up from his flesh.
“Oh… my.”
Aben grunted. “That’s little worse than I expected.”
“A little worse? Jesus Christ, that’s the most horrible shit I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some horrible shit. What the fuck are we gonna do?”
Aben leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. “I am going to sit right here. Being that I’m impaired and all. You, on the other hand, are going to head to that hardware store over there abouts.” He pointed down the street.
“And why am I going there?”
He looked back to me, his face emotionless, his voice flat. “Well, to start off, we’re going to need a saw.”
I followed Aben’s instructions to the letter. I also killed three zombies, two on the way to the store and one on the way back.
Upon my return, I saw Aben had taken a pair of medical scissors and cut open the blisters. He pressed down on the with gauze and thick, rust-colored infection drained onto the tile floor and had formed a small puddle.
He looked up at me as I approached. “I decided to commence the party without you.”
“I’m not even mad.”
I sat across from him and displayed my haul. A battery powered angle grinder with a cutting blade, some bungie cords, and two road flares. “I couldn’t find the torch thing you asked for. The burnzomatic?”
Aben nodded. “I reckon those should suffice.”
“Are you sure you can do this?”
Our eyes met. “No. That’s why you’re going to.”
“I—“
“You saved me on the road. Once you save a man’s life, you’re responsible for him.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Mead, if the dead parts of my foot don’t come off, it’s going to be a matter of days before the infection goes up my legs and then I’m really gonna be in a pickle. I’m pretty sure I can get by on one and a half feet. But losing my legs…” He took a long swig from a bottle of wine and tilted it toward me.
“I think I better keep my head on straight.”
“Probably wise.”
I wanted to be drunk. Hell, I wanted to run off and leave him there to do this himself. He’d done it before with his own hand after all. He should be a pro at self-amputation by now. But after losing every friend I found on the road, I figured I should do my best to keep this one alive.
“Anything else I need to do before we start?”
Aben pointed to Prince who laid beside a bag of kibble from which he’d been eating. “Take him to the other side of the store and tie him up. He doesn’t need to see this and, if I react poorly, he’s liable to do the same.”
I did as told, giving the dog an extra piece of beef jerky for listening so well. “You really are a good boy.” I scratched his ear and his tail thudded against the floor. “I’ll do my best not to hurt your buddy, okay. I promise.” He panted, happy and oblivious.
When I got back to Aben, he’d taken a brand-new leather wallet and held it to his mouth, ready to bite down. “One last thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Once you start, don’t stop until it’s done, okay?”
“No coffee breaks in between?”
“I’d appreciate it if you not.”
I knelt in front of him, almost like I was preparing to shine his shoes. If only.
“Ready?” He asked.
“Shit no.”
“That’s good. If you thought you were ready for this, I think I might begin to worry.”
He smiled. I don’t know how he worked out that expression knowing what was
to come. Maybe it was the wine. Or maybe he really was that tough of a son of a bitch. Either way, it didn’t make much sense to delay the inevitable.
We’d decided to try to treat his right foot, to hope that the nearly dead skin would somehow survive, but a good one third of the left foot needed to be excised. Aben had even taken the time to draw a dotted line and above it, in small, neat printing, wrote, “cut here.”
“Really now?”
He didn’t respond. He put the wallet in his mouth, bit down and tilted his head toward the ceiling. No words were needed. It was time for me to do my job.
I jumped when I turned the saw on. The blade whirred fast and loud and the sound reminded me of a dentist’s drill. I almost stopped but knew dragging it out would only make it worse on Aben. And me.
The blade sliced through the skin on top of his foot with ease. A mixture of blood and infection as thick as cake batter drained out.
I didn’t even have to push, only maintain light pressure and the blade sunk deeper into his foot, through the tendons, and then it hit the bone.
Smoke rolled from the wound and a dust containing minuscule particles of bone clouded around the surgery site. I could feel the grinder heating up due the increased friction. And then downward movement stopped.
I looked. The foot was still there.
I panicked, confused until I realized the four-inch blade only had two inches of clearance before hitting the center hub. I’d gone as deep as possible and the only solution was starting all over again, this time from the bottom up.
I glanced up at Aben. Sweat dripped down his forehead and I could see his teeth digging into the wallet. I needed to finish this, fast.
Cutting from below was awkward and I had to get on my belly to see what I was doing. Blood and pus and bone kicked back from the blade and splashed against my clothes and face. I thought I might puke but held it in because the dead part of Aben’s foot was almost severed.
I pushed the grinder into the cut, using as much force as possible. The whirring, cutting sound as it sawed through the bone was unlike anything I’d ever heard before and I felt another wave of nausea wash over me.
You can do it, I told myself. You have to do it. There’s no going back now.
Once final push and the frostbitten part of Aben’s foot tumbled to the floor. The black toes poked up at the air like some kind of Halloween prop. I dropped the grinder and it kicked and spun before coming to a stop.
There was blood and pus everywhere and more blood gushed out of Aben’s wound by the second. I searched the area around me, trying to find the flares, but I’d lost them. I didn’t know how it happened, but they were gone. I knew he could die if the wound wasn’t cauterized and it was going to be my fault. Again. Another death on my head.
I looked upward, toward Aben, just as a red glow filled the area around us. He had a flare in hand and the striker in his mouth. He spit that part free. “I got this now.”
He held the flame toward the surgical site and the fire cooked the skin. The smell was even worse than the cutting and that time I did puke, but at least I managed to dash a few yards to the side before doing so.
When I returned, Aben was examining his new half-foot. He turned toward me. “Not too bad for your first time.”
The end of his foot was charred black, but it had stopped bleeding. And somehow it looked better than before.
“Why’d you take the flares?” I asked.
“I suspected you might pass out on me and didn’t want to bleed to death,”
“But I didn’t.”
“You did not, and I much appreciate that. So much that I’ll overlook the vomiting.”
I glanced at the pile of puke in the corner. “I’ll clear that up if you can handle…” We both looked to his severed foot and the gore surrounding it.
“Sounds like a plan.”
16
December 13
We remained in the store for over a week while Aben recovered from his amateur surgery. It was slow going and he hobbled around with crutches most of the time so as not to put weight on the foot and break open the wound, but there were no signs of infection. His right foot also seemed to be on the mend, with some normal color coming back into the extremities.
On Aben’s request I’d made a few more trips to the hardware store. He wanted a double-bladed axe and more blades and batteries for the grinder. I watched as, over the course of a few days, he removed the sharpened edges of the axe head, grinding them down and smoothing them out until what remained looked like an oversized egg.
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” I asked.
Aben ran his hands over the hard end of the tool “The Native Americans used to fasten rocks to the end of tree branches. I decided to put my own spin on that.”
“But why cut off the edges?”
“The problem with bladed weapons is that they sink too far into the body and can become stuck. In hand to hand combat, you might not have time to extract said weapon. A blunt edge causes considerable trauma without that risk.”
“Really?”
“That’s the theory.”
“Whose theory?”
“Mine.”
Who was I to argue?
When it came time to leave, I was so focused on getting Aben to the Jeep without falling that I was oblivious to the presence of an approaching zombie until it was with a few yards of us. If it hadn’t been for Prince growling, I likely would have missed it even then, but the dog’s low rumble alerted me that something was amiss.
I turned and spotted a middle-aged woman in a hotel maid’s uniform. Her nose had been chewed away as had her upper lip, giving me a good look at her crooked teeth. Thick, yellow drool ran out of that wound and dribbled onto her shirt.
“Wait here,” I said to Aben. “I’ll get one of the spears.”
“That’s not necessary.” He pushed me aside with ease, then took a wobbly step toward the dead woman. She tried to snarl but it lost much of the effect since she was missing her lip.
“Believe me, darling. I’m doing you a favor.”
Aben had no weapons on him, or so I thought. It turned out, he didn’t need one. When the woman got close enough, he swung his crutch like a bat and hit her in the temple. It connected with so much force that she wasn’t just knocked sideways, she flew a good five feet before crashing into the street.
The man looked back to me. “Problem solved.”
17
December 30
We were nearing Arkansas when we came across a motorhome sitting at the edge of a campground. That wasn’t the most unusual sight, but nine zombies clawed at the side of the RV, trying clumsily to gain access.
“Think there’s someone in there?” I stopped the Jeep ten yards from the scene.
“Someone or something. Odds are that it’s just more zombies.”
“Yeah.” I watched the creatures as they banged against the motorhome. If the carrot red hair was any indication, four of them were members of the same family. Mom and dad zombie were both beanpoles and their two brats, girls who looked to be about ten and wore their hair in matching pigtails, were equally slim. Even though they were dead, their freckles still stood out against their pale, gray flesh.
The other zombies were a mismatch. An elderly man in shorts that were much too short for his age and a pinstriped polo shirt. A beefy fellow in a jogging suit that clearly didn’t get enough use. A woman with the kind of short, no fuss hairstyle that always made me think the wearer was a lesbian. A teenage boy in a scouting uniform.
Rounding out the group was a little boy who couldn’t have been more than four or five. That one got to me a little because he was close the age of my own son. The kid was barely tall enough to reach the body of the RV and his grubby paws scratched at the underside of the frame, desperate.
“We could keep on driving,” Aben said.
“Yeah.” I watched as one of the pigtail twins bumped onto the fat jogger. The larger zombie turned and smacked
into her, knocking her to the ground where stirred up a cloud of dust when she landed. She staggered to her feet, then returned to trying to get into the RV.
“We could. But then I’d always wonder,”
“Curiosity’s a bitch.”
“That it is.”
‘They’re too close to the motorhome to use the wings. I’d be afraid of hitting it and breaking one off.”
“You want to do this by hand?”
“I think that’s for the best.”
“Okay then.”
I looked at him as he began to exit the Jeep. “You don’t have to do this.”
Through his wild, patchy beard, I think he smiled. “Now where’s the fun in that?”
Aben ordered Prince to stay and the dog obeyed as we left the safety of the Wrangler and went to the zombies. I was armed with a spear. Aben limped along with his club in hand, but he also had a pistol tucked into his belt.
We weren’t exactly quiet, but the zombies were preoccupied by whatever was inside the motorhome. I noticed it had, ‘Born Free’ painted on the side in looping, delicate script.
The scout was closest to me and when I got within striking distance, I rammed the spear into his ear so hard it poked out the other side. He hung there for a moment, skewered in midair, then his legs gave out and he fell.
With that, the other zombies realized there were easier targets than those inside the RV and they came for us.
I tried to pull the spear free but only dragged the scout toward me. The jogger was getting close and I jerked again, but the scout’s shish kebab head moved in sync with the motion and the spear remained stuck.
I began to panic and wished I’d have went with a sword, or better yet kept driving, but Aben came up beside me, passed me by and strolled up to the jogger. He didn’t say a word as he swung the club.
The weighed end smashed into the jogger’s skull in a sound like an egg cracking, only about a million times louder. I watched as the side of the jogger’s head collapsed inward, pieces of bone and brain careening through the air as he dropped.
