by T. W. Brown
We resumed our trek to the end of the alley and talked in a low whisper. By the time we reached the end, I knew a few useless bits of information about Joshua. He had been married before all of this and worked at the local jail as a dental assistant. He had never been outside of La Grande in his life.
“I never even made it to Portland,” he sighed as we came to a stop.
“Yeah, well you probably don’t want to go now. The neighborhoods have all gone to hell.”
We both laughed at my lame attempt at levity and then peered around the corner. The majority of the herd had continued on past the Dumpster, but a few were pawing around at the thing like they expected something to fall out.
“Only a couple dozen,” I whispered. “We should be able to move in and take them down with no trouble. After that, we can angle around the herd and get out in front of them.” I paused and scanned the area, then pointed. “See that house on the hill across that big field? If we can get there and maybe create a racket, bust some windows and such, we should be able to bring at least most of those things to us. We can slip out and be gone before they get there. Knowing zombies, they will stay packed in around that house for weeks…hell, maybe forever if another sound doesn’t eventually distract them.”
“You been out in this a lot?”
I glanced over at Joshua. He was genuinely curious. I guess to somebody who had spent the entire apocalypse in a fortified portion of his hometown, I had to seem a bit strange.
“Since the ugly beginning.”
“You will have to tell me about it some time.”
“Sure.” I gave a shrug. I didn’t feel like I had much to tell. I was not much of a story teller. My mom used to go crazy when she would miss a game and then ask how it went. My one word answers did not give her the details she was seeking. Usually Jamie or Joseph would have to give her the down low.
I started for the closest zombie of the bunch that was gathered around that Dumpster. It never even knew I was there as I stepped up and drove my KA-BAR into the back of its head. Of course, when the body hit the ground with a thud, the element of surprise was gone. The zombies all turned their attention my way. It wasn’t until I had dropped the fourth one that I realized that I was alone.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw Joshua standing halfway between the opening of the alley and me. A zombie managed to grab me in that momentary distraction and I felt pressure on my gloved fingers. It had not broken the leather, but that cracking sound and jolt of pain let me know that at least one finger had cracked. I drove my blade home and threw an elbow into the face of the next one just as it was leaning in to try and grab my other arm.
“You wanna lend a hand here, Josh?” I hissed between gritted teeth as I yanked my blade free from one skull and plunged it into another.
I’d been on a few hunting trips growing up in the Pacific Northwest. Usually it was Jamie, Joseph and I with one parental leader or another. On a few occasions, we had brought along somebody new. That is why I knew Buck Fever when I saw it; or at least the zombie version. Joshua was frozen in place. It wasn’t like he was just abandoning me, I doubt he would have been able to move if one of the undead suddenly came at him. I would have to bring that up with him later.
Now that I knew I was in this alone, I shifted my battle plan. Grabbing the undead version of some poor granny, I slung her around and at the trio of walkers that were closest. Ducking under the outstretched arms of another, I came up and planted my back firmly against the Dumpster.
From there, it was pretty anticlimactic as I was able to spike each zombie as it closed in. Sometimes I would have to kick one away to make room and give myself the space that I needed to finish off another, but it was nothing I hadn’t done a hundred times before.
At last, the final zombie was dispatched. It turned out to be the granny I’d used earlier. It had taken the poor creature this long to finally climb to its feet.
“Rest in peace,” I whispered as I ended its pathetic existence once and for all.
Turning, I saw that Joshua had broken free from his spell at some point and retreated to the alley. He was looking at me like I was a crazed animal. I looked down and realized that I still had my blade drawn. It was dripping with black gore and I had a good splattering of it all over my gear. I probably looked pissed.
“You okay?” I asked. It felt like a stupid question, but it was the best thing I could think of to break the ice. Joshua just looked at me with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“How many zombies have you actually killed?” I threw that follow up question out after a long silence. He shook his head and dropped his gaze.
Now it was my turn to be dumbstruck. How had anybody survived this long and not killed at least one of those things? Also, he had been on this scout team, he was one of the individuals who had been basically spying on my group since we’d come to La Grande.
“Not one?” I had to get confirmation just to be sure there was no misunderstanding. Again I got a shake of the head.
“I always managed to just get away from them or stay hid,” he said at last. “I just can’t bring myself to…” His voice had faded to nothing and he looked absolutely mortified that his secret—at least I am supposing it is a secret since he is on this team—had been discovered.
“You know they aren’t people, right?” I asked. I knew that a lot of folks had gotten killed in the beginning because of making that very mistake. They still saw these things as human, as their friends, their family, not the mindless monsters that they were in reality.
“I know,” he said, peeling himself away from the shadows of the alley and making his way to me. “I just can’t do it. I know it is stupid, but nothing I’ve tried brings me to the point where I can end one of them.”
I thought about it for a minute before I spoke. I was not going to blow his cover, but I insisted that he remove himself from the patrol team as soon as we got back to La Grande. I didn’t care how he did it or what he did afterwards, but I would be damned and dipped in cow pies before I would go out on a run with this guy ever again.
He agreed, thanking me way too much for promising to keep his secret. Spotting the herd, I knew we would have to really hoof it if we were going to get wide and past the zombies. My idea remained the same, but now I would need to adjust my level of awareness. I was out on my own for all that this guy would help.
We started off at a fast jog and I could not help myself. “So what the hell are you doing out on these runs? Why not take a job inside the walls?”
There was a bit of hesitation in his voice when Joshua finally spoke. “Jessie.”
“What about her?”
When I didn’t get an answer, I glanced and saw Joshua’s face flushed red from more than just the exertion of our run. I stifled the inappropriate laugh that tried to explode from my lungs.
“And when you two hook up, you don’t think she will find out your secret?”
“Actually, the rules of the compound say that only one member of a family or household can be on external duty. I know Jessie, she won’t want to be the one to stay behind the walls. She gets off on making these runs. It is like she needs that rush of adrenaline.”
“Actually, I think she just likes being in charge,” I snarked. That earned a chuckle of appreciation from Joshua.
“Yeah…that too,” he agreed.
The rest of the way, the two of us kept quiet and stayed hunched down in order to avoid catching the attention of the zombie herd too soon. When we reached the house, Joshua pulled up at the base of the steps that led inside. I jogged up the steps and checked the door, smiling big when I discovered that it was unlocked. I pushed it open and peeked inside at the dusty, dank, and gloomy living room.
“What are you doing?” Joshua hissed. “I thought that the plan was to bust a few windows to draw that herd and then make a run for it to catch up with the rest of the group.”
“Sure,” I looked over my shoulder, unable to suppress a big grin, “but
it wouldn’t hurt to see if there is anything worth grabbing while we are here.”
“What’s the point?” Joshua challenged. “We have everything we need back home. Why risk poking around in a house that may or may not be empty? Isn’t that always how people died in the old horror movies? They just had to go down the stairs to the dark and creepy basement.”
“Sure,” I nodded, “but if you want to dredge up tired old movie stereotypes, I am also pretty sure that people always made a stronghold they thought was permanent. Eventually, a group of evil bikers or military types would show up and ruin things. Maybe you feel safe back behind that wall, but I will always make sure that I have a well-stocked bug out bag. And if I am out and about, I will never stop poking around to see if I can find something that may be useful. The moment that I relax and allow myself to feel safe will be the day I end up dead.”
“You are awfully pessimistic for somebody so young.”
“Yeah…my generation was a pretty gloomy bunch.”
Without another word, I stepped inside the house and gave a sniff. No telltale smells of the undead, but plenty of mustiness and an underlying rot. I took in the furniture and decided that the former residents were probably a stereotypical redneck family. In the summer, the little ones would be running around outside in sagging diapers; I was willing to bet that dad was blue collar and mom was a chain-smoker who was not stingy with a backhand. It was kind of fun imagining the lives of the people that had once called this place home.
Rounding the corner that allowed me to peer down a long dark hallway, I saw pictures hanging amidst the cobwebs that covered the walls and were in fuzzy clusters in the corners. I paused at the first picture and felt a tug on my heart.
A man with slicked back thinning hair smiled big; he wore a suit that looked a few decades out of style, including a wide, paisley tie. His wife outweighed him by half. Her orange, curly hair was almost clownish it was so bright. Her skin was milky white and splattered with an incredible amount of freckles. Her smile was of the tight-lipped variety and she clutched a child under each arm with a protective fierceness that only a mother could exude so visibly. The two children were sporting their mother’s orange, curly hair. The boy was maybe six—Thalia’s age—and the girl was ten or eleven. They had freckled faces and the girl’s smile showed a large gap where a tooth had yet to grow in.
Shaking off the sudden surge of melancholy, I stopped at the first door and opened it with slow caution. It was the boy’s room, the walls adorned with Transformer posters. However, there was one poster that made me pause and step in for a closer look.
“Well, I’ll be,” I sighed, a touch of appreciation made me feel kind of warm inside.
The poster was of a man riding a massive bull. The face of the man atop the raging beast was a younger version of the man in the family photo hanging in the hall. Grabbing a few things from the top of the dresser and stuffing them into my bag, I exited the room and shut the door.
“Are you trying to get us killed?” Joshua hissed from the front door. The man had not stepped a foot inside. I was really struggling with the urge to dislike this guy.
“Just a few minutes,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. If he wanted to stand in the doorway the entire time, that was fine. Without waiting to hear a reply, I ducked into the next room.
“Jackpot!” I whispered a bit loudly. I moved about the room as quick as possible, stuffing my bag full of all sorts of things just lying about in the room obviously belonging to the daughter in the picture.
I made a sweep of the parent’s bedroom and pocketed a few more trinkets. All in all, I had not found anything particularly useful, but I had found a few treasures none the less.
“About time,” Joshua hissed as I stepped past the human doorstop and out onto the porch.
I spotted the herd a good distance away as they trudged along just waiting for something to redirect their course. I shot the man beside me a look that I imagine only hid most of the disgust I felt.
“Risking your life needlessly does not make you a hero,” Joshua said with an edge of hurt to his voice. I guess he had read my expression pretty well.
“I think we have different definitions of the word needless,” I retorted, patting my full pack.
“Can we just get on with whatever plan you have and return to the group?”
I stepped down off the porch and paused by the driveway. Reaching down, I picked up a stained and worn out baseball. Tossing it up and down a few times as I made my way a few yards back from the front façade of the house, I could not help but begin to whistle “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Joshua ran to catch up, his eyes never leaving the not-too-distant herd of zombies moving across the horizon. Looking around, he picked up a golf ball-sized rock and joined me as I gave the house another look. I had walked in and created a mythology about the residents. That had all changed the moment that I saw the family photo hanging on the wall. This was a family. For all I knew, and based on the probable odds, they were all dead. Or at least dead-ish, I thought. However, now I saw the house in an entirely different light.
I could not really explain or fully understand it, but now I saw a house that would be forever haunted by the ghosts of laughter and bedtime stories. It was a house where the wife called the husband “Daddy” and he called her “Mama”. Funny thing, but for all I knew, the guy could have been a raging drunk who beat his wife and kids, but I was basing this new perspective on images that I had seen.
That made me realize just how conditioned I had become growing up. Everything had become nice, neat stereotypes. Everything was based on flimsy ideas, but if somebody wanted to escape the box of preconception, they had to struggle against the idea that I already had in my head.
“We gonna do this?” Joshua interrupted my unusually deep and definitely abnormally reflective thought process.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted.
Joshua looked at me with confusion. I blew a deep breath out and tried to explain. “As soon as you told me that you had lasted this long without killing a zombie, and how you were unable to take one down…I judged you as less of a person. That wasn’t fair.”
Joshua was looking at me now like I’d grown a second head. Slowly, his expression softened and he smiled.
“Then I guess I owe you an apology as well.”
This should be good, I thought.
I never saw the blow that came to the back of my head. I was on my knees for some reason, and everything was blurry. Another blow came and I was face down in the grass.
“How are we going to explain this when we get back to town?” I heard Joshua’s voice, but it sounded like it was at the end of a long tunnel.
“Considering we will be coming back minus three other individuals, I would say it should be fairly easy to explain.”
It took me a second to remember who owned that second voice. Jessie.
“We just gonna leave him there?”
Funny, but Joshua actually sounded concerned. His next sentence cleared up any confusion.
“He ain’t dead yet. We can’t have him coming back.”
“Of course not.”
I heard the gunshot, but it was miles away. Funny, but the pain in my head had suddenly been replaced by a nasty wrench in my gut. This was not how I wanted to die.
***
“He’s coming to,” a voice that I did not recognize spoke.
I tried to open my eyes, but the light was too bright. When I went to shield my eyes and discovered that my wrists were cuffed to something, panic came in a flood. Of course that was amplified a great deal by the memory of my last moments of consciousness.
“Take it easy, son,” a man said in a voice that was like a male version of…
“Dr. Zahn?” I managed through dry, chapped lips.
“What did you say?” Now the man sounded almost as frantic as me. “Is she okay?”
Something about this guy’s voice was familiar; only slightly, but fa
miliar in some way that I could not pin down. It was making my head hurt as I tried to force the memory to the surface that would reveal this person’s identity.
“Billy Haynes, right?” the man asked. And then it came to me.
“Grady?”
“He must be getting better if he can remember my name,” Grady said to whoever else was in the room. I had managed to open my eyes a little, but everything was still nothing more than blurry shadow.
“Water,” I croaked. If we were going to talk, I needed to wet my throat. Also, my lips felt as if they were splitting in a hundred places.
Somebody placed a cup against my lips. I started to drink, ignoring the pleas that I “take only small sips”. Screw that, I thought, my throat feels like it had been rubbed with heavy duty sandpaper and then braised with a blow torch.
Ten seconds later, I puked up everything I’d just gulped down. Now my throat was even worse, and I was soggy all down my chest.
“Get him another cup, maybe he will listen and just sip this one,” I heard Grady speak as I felt him stand and move away from me. “When he is awake and gets cleaned up, somebody come get me.”
I could now see faces. Grady had a look that I am sure he stole from Dr. Zahn. Nobody can manage that degree of disapproval to show in their face like that lady, but Grady was a close second. Maybe it is a “doctor thing”, I thought.
A woman stepped up beside me, and after a slight tug and the sound of metal on metal, my wrists were free. She disappeared from view as I felt the head of my bed start to raise me to a sitting position.
This time I took the proffered cup and sipped very slowly. I used that few minutes to look around. I was getting really tired of waking up in strange places. The room was non-descript and my bed was the only one in here. At least it wasn’t some sort of hospital ward or something.
“You feel up to talking?” Grady Jones asked as he pulled a stool up beside my bed.
