Slowly We Rot
Page 29
Cynthia nodded, gulping from her whiskey glass. “She never got her head straight after she came home. Girl was sullen and bitter. When she wasn’t screaming at me, she was threatening to run away to Tennessee and be with you again. Or sometimes it was the opposite. She would stare into space or just zone out. We figured that’s what happened when she had the accident. No way to ever know for sure, I guess. Except for it being your fault. That we do know. She wasn’t like that before you.”
Noah thought, Maybe you didn’t know your daughter as well as you believed.
He didn’t say anything.
Cynthia drank more whiskey. “So it’s like I said. You ruined everything. It’s your fault she’s like she is now. And that’s why you’re gonna stay and help me take care of her. You owe it to me. It’s the very least you can do.”
Noah stared at her in silence for a long time before saying, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Cynthia grunted. “I’m glad you have at least some shred of common decency. My God, I deserve a break after all these years of tending to her. I love her, but I’ve come to hate her, too. She’s a full-time goddamn job. Cleaning up after her, feeding her. It’s like having to take care of a two-hundred pound baby forever. Does that sound like fun to you?”
Noah eyed the glass of whiskey in front of him. For a brief instant, he considered tossing the booze down his throat and filling the glass again. Instead, he pushed it back across the table and said, “I don’t drink anymore.”
Cynthia rolled her eyes. “Right. I’m guessing you’ll be hitting the bottle pretty hard after a few days of wiping pimply, diarrhea-smeared ass.”
“Can she hear us from in here?”
Cynthia chuckled. “Doubt it. She wouldn’t understand what she was hearing if she could. She’s too simple in the head.”
Noah took a look around the little kitchen, his gaze eventually settling on a white refrigerator in a corner by the back door. He could hear its low, steady hum from where he sat. Rising from his chair, he said, “Anything good in the fridge?”
Cynthia shrugged and sipped more whiskey. “Some meat. It’s mostly dog and cat. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got to eat, don’t I? That’s mostly all I can easily trap and kill around here.”
Noah moved away from the table and started in the direction of the fridge. “We all do what we have to do, I guess.”
She nodded. “Damn right. In fact--”
Noah held on tight as Cynthia Thomas pushed up out of her chair and flailed against him. He’d veered away from the fridge, slipping up behind her to apply a chokehold. She was stronger than she looked and he struggled to keep his footing as she drove him backward. The retreat stopped when his ass slammed into the edge of the kitchen counter. Her hands slapped at his face, nails scratching bloody grooves in his skin. He ignored the pain and kept holding on as he increased the pressure. She tried stomping at his feet and he grimaced in agony when the heel of a boot slammed down on his toes.
But he continued to hold on and eventually her struggles lessened in ferocity. He kept his arm tight around her neck and dropped to his knees as she sagged to the floor. At last, she went limp in his arms and he knew she was dead. He eased her onto her back and felt for a pulse at her neck for confirmation. Then he put a knife through her temple.
Satisfied that she was gone, Noah got to his feet and walked out of the kitchen. He paused in the living room to spend a few more minutes admiring the old pictures of his only true love. His eyes again filled with tears and for a brief time he didn’t think he would be strong enough to do the thing he meant to do.
But then he wiped the tears away and went to Lisa’s room.
She was asleep on her side as he opened the door and stepped inside. He went about it fast, knowing any hesitation in the face of something so horrendous would be his undoing. After kissing her very lightly on the forehead, he eased out one of the two pillows under her head and placed it over her face. She stirred minutely beneath the pillow as he took the .357 Magnum from its holster and placed the muzzle of the gun against the pillow.
“I know the real reason I came here now, Lisa. I came to rescue you from this miserable existence. I love you.” Tears were flowing in unceasing streams down his shredded cheeks now. “Goodbye.”
There was a soft, confused mumble from beneath the pillow.
Noah squeezed the trigger.
Lisa died.
Noah staggered backward into the center of the room, where he first dropped to his knees and then fell over onto his side, the gun sliding from his hand and thumping on the hardwood floor as he curled into a fetal ball. He howled and screamed for a long time, the intensity of his anguish such that it felt as if it would tear him apart from the inside. There were times when he thought it was subsiding, but then it came at him again in fresh waves, his lungs and throat becoming raw from the sheer physical force of it. He beat at the floor until his fists were bloody. He cursed the God he’d never believed in and screamed the word “why?” seemingly thousands of times.
After a seeming eternity, the expression of raw grief eased enough that he was able to get to his feet, grab the gun he’d dropped, and stagger out of the house. He sat down on the top step of the porch and stared blearily out at the street. Though he’d ceased screaming, the tears were still coming. He set the gun down next to him so he could wipe them away. When the grief intensified again, he covered his face with his hands.
He took them away when he heard the sound of an engine idling out in the street. A red compact car that looked vaguely familiar was parked at the curb. The car was missing some windows and its red paint job was badly faded. In a moment, it hit him where he’d seen it before. He couldn’t see the rear bumper, but he knew that if he got up and went to take a look, he’d see a Bile Lords sticker.
The car was the one he’d seen in the driveway of that house outside Jackson.
Noah’s father waved at him from behind the wheel. Seated next to him was Noah’s mother. And in the back was Aubrey. They were all alive and healthy. Aubrey had somehow age-regressed to her mid-teens. She had earbuds in and was listening to something on her phone.
Noah’s father honked the car’s horn and called out to him. “Hey, son! Come get in. It’s time to go home.”
Noah shook his head and said, “Go away.”
There was a look of vague disappointment on his father’s face, an expression Noah had seen many times. But this time it didn’t wound him the way it had in the past. This was because he knew his father wasn’t really there. The man had been dead a long time. This was just another case of his mind trying to shield him from something difficult, but Noah was no longer interested in the comfort of illusion.
The car at the curb disappeared.
But now something else was outside the gate, which Noah realized too late he’d failed to properly latch. The dead thing he’d spotted in the street outside that convenience store was on the sidewalk. As Noah watched, it pushed the gate open and started up the path to the porch. There were two more dead things behind it. Noah had the sense the other two somehow knew the first one had a lead on some food and had followed it here.
Noah glanced at the gun sitting next to him on the porch. The zombies were decrepit. Dispatching them and properly securing the gate would be easy. But he did not pick up the gun. Because he was thinking about what he might do now that all his dreams had come to nothing. Now that he’d done the worst thing he ever could have imagined. It’d be easy enough to set up house here and keep on going through the end of his natural life cycle. Thanks to those solar panels, the house had power. In some ways, life here would be even easier than it’d been through all those lonely years up on the mountain.
But it would be just as empty.
He didn’t want to drink ever again. The very idea of it sickened him. But he knew something undeniable about himself. The need was too strong. He wouldn’t be able to resist it forever. Sooner or later, he would surrender to it. It might be today or it might be next w
eek or next year. But it would happen again. That was an absolute fact.
The dead things were closer now.
The one in the lead was just a few lurching steps away.
Noah didn’t move.
The zombies came closer. He could smell the putrid breath of the one in front. It was so foul it made his eyes water.
Noah let out a breath, suddenly feeling calmer than he ever had.
The lead zombie came yet another step closer. It was within grabbing range now. Its blackened fingers were inches from Noah’s face.
Noah picked up his gun and he used it.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
About a third of SLOWLY WE ROT was written before season five of AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD began. I’d selected the name of my protagonist, Noah, before a character of the same name was introduced on the show. I considered changing my character’s name to fend off comparisons, but in the end I said “fuck it” and decided to keep the name. I’ll tell you a secret. My life is a long, long series of “fuck it” moments. The name just felt right and I didn’t want to change it, so here we are.
I have one other thing I need to discuss before I let you go this time, and that’s the matter of what happens to Noah at the end part two and throughout part three of this novel.
Long crippled by a frail psyche, Noah suffers a psychotic break at the end of part two. This happens as a result of the traumatic events that are described and other, even more traumatic things his mind suppresses. In the case of the latter, these things are hinted at later in part three. The information is mostly there, though not quite all of it. For some of it, you’ll have to fill in the blanks, much as Noah must do. From this point forward, his perceptions become untrustworthy. As the thing that may or may not have been Luke Garraty puts it in chapter 49, Noah spends a lot of his time talking to ghosts. That’s not to say that everything he experiences in part three is illusion. In my mind, quite a bit of it did happen, even some of the more seemingly fantastical parts. But they are all twisted and embellished by his fractured imagination. Hell’s Lost Mile, for example, is “real”, at least in the context of this novel.
Finally, I have never visited either Ventura, CA, or Henryetta, OK, and have taken some liberties with both locales.
Until next time…
Bryan Smith
March 5, 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bryan Smith is the author of numerous previous novels and novellas, including Depraved, Depraved 2, Go Kill Crazy!, 68 Kill, The Killing Kind, Strange Ways, House of Blood, The Freakshow, and The Diabolical Conspiracy. Depraved 2 was named the second best book of 2014 by Brian Keene in his annual top ten books of the year list. Bryan lives in Tennessee, where he spends the bulk of his non-writing time drinking an astonishing amount of beer and watching horror movies on Netflix. Visit his home on the web at www.thehorrorofbryansmith.blogspot.com.
Unofficial SLOWLY WE ROT soundtrack playlist on Spotify:
http://open.spotify.com/user/bryandsmith/playlist/1JfndZY7uxmBJlTEMkIOoj
SLOWLY WE ROT
This one is for Lashon Miller.
PART ONE: UP ON THE MOUNTAIN
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PART TWO: OUT IN THE WORLD
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PART THREE: PURPLE SKY COUNTRY
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: