The First Year

by Jeff Rosenplot

  I salvaged what I could carry from the pile of supplies I’d removed from the Kia. The car hadn’t caught fire, after all. The smoke from the engine had cleared away by the time I got back to the road.

  The backpack is heavy. The weight of it should be uncomfortable. Instead it feels like warm arms around my shoulders.

  Made it to Lima on my first day. I walked straight through, stopping only to pee a few times by the side of the road. I-75 makes several weird turns around the small city. I passed a cluster of motels and restaurants and stopped for the night in a Hampton Inn. There were no cars in the parking lot and no stink of bodies inside. Sleeping in a bed was kind of wonderful.

  A Sam’s Club was nearby and I scavenged it the following morning. Picked up some new shoes, thick-soled and much more comfortable than my torn secondhand Converse. I changed my socks and underwear and put a few spare pairs of each in my backpack. Never let anyone tell you that a clean pair of underwear can’t change your life. I stocked up on energy bars and trail mix and water and baby wipes. The wipes are particularly valuable. I’ll let you use your imagination on that one.

  Made it to Sidney by nightfall, Dayton by the next. Each day I traveled lighter and lighter. My ability to resupply has become more dependable. Stores and hotels and gas stations are everywhere.

  So here we are, four days later and I’m in the outer suburbs of Cincinnati. The eternal farmland that’s marked most of my journey has given way to a maze of megastores and housing additions. After walking past mile after mile of identical civilization, I’m homesick for the empty space of the farmland. This suburban sprawl is claustrophobic.

  The highway circles around the city of Cincinnati. Gonna’ take me miles away from a direct route. Take a break, spread the map of Cincinnati out on the empty highway. I picked it up at a gas station. Jesus, the city itself looks like it was laid out by crazy people. It’s a jumble of roads that seem to lead off in a thousand directions. Guess I’m not going through. The interstate will take longer but maybe I’ll avoid getting all turned around.

  The water I picked up at the gas station is warm, but I’m used to that. The hills around Cincinnati, though, they’re unexpected. The map says that somewhere south and east is the Ohio River. The trees along the highway were farther along in their spring growth than I saw seen in Detroit. Green life of any kind is invigorating. The highway takes a sharp turn south just past where I’m sitting. Pick up my backpack, keep walking.

  The cars on the highway as I round the corner extend so far into the distance that I can’t see if there’s been an accident. Does there even have to be? Tens of thousands of people trying to escape General Tsao had probably just overwhelmed the highway system. I saw it to a lesser extent outside Detroit, but not like this. People too sick and weak to abandon their cars, they died where they sat. I know they’re dead. It’s the stench, even four or five months later. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever smelled.

  Throwing up by the side of the road doesn’t help much. The foulness in the air is like a living thing. The drone of flies feels like a rumble under my feet. Still, now, even so long after everything has ended, there are still bodies. And they’re still decomposing.

  Being alone is making things get all jumbled up. I know it’s been four days since I left the farmhouse, but it’s like time has taken to skipping rocks across a pond. One minute I’m on the road studying my map, the next I’m throwing up along the shoulder.

  The sea of cars and trucks and SUVs and school buses looks like a mirage. The sun glints off the hoods and bumpers, making the whole scene shimmer like ripples on a pond. I pull off my backpack, sit down on the highway.

  “Decision time. We go through or we go around.”

  I say it out loud. I imagine you’re sitting here with me.

  I unfold the Ohio map I picked up from the rest area and lay it out on the road in front of me. I-75 circles Cincinnati, eventually taking me across the Ohio River into Covington, Kentucky. My perception of distance has become much more refined. Walking has provided a crash course. If I follow I-75 all the way around, I’ll probably be at the river by mid-afternoon. Cross into Kentucky and find another empty motel in which to spend the night. But that, of course, means walking through the death cars.

  “Death cars. Sounds like a video game.”

  Stare out at the shimmering cemetery in front of me. My other option is to climb down off the highway and wind my way through the city. Cincinnati itself looks maybe half the size of Detroit, if you take away Detroit’s suburbs. Wouldn’t be a bad walk, but the twists and turns mean I’ll lose the daylight before I hit the river. Which means finding someplace to stay in the city. Which probably means cleaning out bodies. I could get lucky, but probably not.

  The smell is threatening to make me throw up again. I guess nausea is the deciding factor. Old iron guts has finally met her match. Pull on my backpack and climb over the highway guardrail and onto a patch of fresh green grass. Check the map again. Ludlow Avenue looks like the most direct route into the city. Clifton Avenue south and then wind my way through downtown. Easy-peasy, as Dad says. Used to say.

  Ludlow Avenue crosses over the interstate about a half-mile ahead. Cut through a thick woods, emerge in the parking lot of a police station. A half-dozen white police cars dot the lot. The police station is empty. Has to be, doesn’t it? But I can’t help feeling a tiny burst of hope. If anyoneis still alive it’ll be the cops, right?

  The sun is still behind my left shoulder, getting higher in the sky but still on the morning side of noon. If I allow myself a few more hours of walking, I’ll still have time to find and clean out a place to stay tonight. And who knows, I might make better time than I’m thinking. I walk across the parking lot toward a set of double glass doors.

  Press my face against the dirty glass of the double doors. It’s dark inside and the sun is casting a glare. The police station is a rectangular building. The doors are in the middle of the longest side of the rectangle. A corresponding set of doors lies on the opposite side of the building, visible through the glass. A bit of ambient light gives a clear look inside.

  A part of me is hoping to see movement. Maybe some sort of command center where a ragtag band of survivors had gathered. Even as the thought forms in my head I know it’s nonsense. Half the city is turning into automobile compost just over the hill. Any band of survivors, no matter how ragtag, would have left a long time ago. I take off my backpack and set it on the concrete beside the door. Tug on the door handle. It opens.

  The smell is strong but not nearly as bad as what I just inhaled on the highway. But it means there is most definitely no one home. Nobody alive, at least. The hinge on the door squeaks. The sound echoes through the building.

  “You don’t need to do this. You already know what’s in there.”

  Yeah, I do know, but I step across the tile floor anyway. Walk toward a door on the left side of the hallway marked “AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY”. Pull it open, step inside. It’s an office with desks in the center, file cabinets on either side, and several smaller offices along the far wall. A large whiteboard at the back of the room is filled with notations. The words “CONTAINMENT” and “EVACUATION” are most prominent, with lots of other scribbles that looked like some kind of coded shorthand. The death smell is stronger in here but I can’t see its source. This room is empty.

  Enough sun shines through the windows that I don’t need my flashlight. Stop for a moment to stare at the hieroglyphics on the whiteboard. It’s a complex collection of numbers and letters and lines connecting the various elements. They knew what was happening. Containment and evacuation was their battle plan. How long had the people in this office tried to fix things? Had any of them had to bury their families? And what happened to these people? Did they all die?

  Turn to the nearest office door. A plaque beside it reads “CAPT. D. REYNOLDS”. Turn the handle, open the door.

  Captain D. Reynolds is dead. His body lies back against his desk chair. His
hands have fallen to his side. In his right hand he holds a gun. The wall behind his head looks like a paint can has been thrown against it. The stains on the wall were once red, but time and oxidation has turned his blood a rusty brown. The man shot himself. I can still see the bullet wound in his forehead, even through the oozing goo he’d turning into.

  I see all of that in a quick instant, like the flash of photographs one right after the other. The last photo I see is the actual photo Captain Reynolds has laid across his chest. It’s a woman and three teenaged boys, older than Grace but not by much. Close the door.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Not sure who I’m talking to, but I am truly sorry. I’ve learned my lesson, I guess. Don’t open doors. They’re closed for a reason. I’ve become acutely aware that these places, the police station, the farmhouse, the homes in my neighborhood in Detroit, they aren’t buildings anymore. They’re gravesites. Every time I’ve stepped inside one I’ve been disturbing their resting places. It’s just as disrespectful as if I picked up a shovel and started digging up a cemetery.

  Outside the double glass doors, I sit down on the concrete steps and start bawling. I haven’t done this in a long time. Not even when I said goodbye to my family. Tears feel good, natural, but when they’re finally done I’m exhausted. The sun is now on the after side of noon. Dammit. The police station was a waste of time. All I got out of it was sadness.

  “No, that’s not all. It gave me some respect.”

  I walk through the north side of Cincinnati, following Ludlow to Clifton as I’d planned. Pass a sign for a zoo. I didn’t know Cincinnati had one. Briefly consider making another detour, but figure it’ll end in one of two ways. First, the animals have been locked in their cages and have starved to death. Or two, someone released the animals and they’re now running free through the grounds. Either way, I don’t need to see that. Besides, if the animals are free, they’d find me, right?

  I’m still thinking about Captain Reynolds. What did he know that made him kill himself? Had he buried his own family? Watched his friends die? Or was he just afraid that he’d have to do so? Had he even been sick? His body had deteriorated so badly that I couldn’t tell. If he hadn’t been sick, did that mean was a survivor, just like me? Like the guy in Detroit, the one who broke into my house? Just like you?

  “That’s what I am, isn’t it? I’m a survivor.”

  Surviving is a responsibility. Just like taking out the trash or cleaning my room. It’s a chore. Not just in the physical stuff, having to find food and a place to sleep and new shoes, but in a more intangible way. Survival demands from me that I survive. That seems straightforward enough, but that’s a lot to put on my short little shoulders. Everyone who got sick and died, Mom and Dad and Grace and Gabe, the thousands of people decomposing in their cars, I’m their legacy. I’m the thing that crawled out of the shadows, alive for no other reason than the fact that I didn’t die. Captain Reynolds, he died. He’d killed himself. Faced with this same duty, he’d chosen to say no.

  “Which means I have a choice, too.”

  Yeah, I do. And I made that choice the moment I walked away from the mounds of dirt in my backyard. Survival is a duty and it’s a choice. It isn’t the easiest path. The ache in my legs and the rumble in my stomach tells me as much. What made Captain Reynolds make that choice? Why haven’t I?

  Clifton Avenue ends at McMillan Street. McMillan runs east and west, both ways leading me farther away from the bridge that’ll take me into Kentucky. On the right, an enormous old building that looks like a castle looms over me. I’m getting closer and closer to needing a place to sleep, but it sure as hell won’t be this place. It gives me a serious case of the creeps. It’s a high school, according to the sign out front. The most ridiculous high school I’ve ever seen. Sorta’ like Dracula’s alma mater. Go, Fighting Bloodsuckers!

  Keep walking south, past a church, a handful of boarded-up businesses, and then a bunch of tall, thin houses. The street ends and I turn right, and then left again, winding my way in a crazy zigzag pattern that I hope is taking me eventually south. I dearly wish for GPS. Actually reach for the cell phone in my pocket. Old phone, hasn’t been charged in months. It’s a pay-as-you-go phone, given to me for emergencies only, and I don’t even know why I brought it. No, I know why. Photos. Hundreds of them. And music. It’s a frivolous thing to pack, but it doesn’t weigh much and takes up even less space. Maybe someday the power will come back on.

  The sun is vanishing behind the trees. The hills around Cincinnati aren’t helping. Houses, bars, restaurants, a few schools, nothing really looks like an ideal place to spend the night. Pulling bodies out of houses has lost its appeal, as if it had ever been appealing in the first place. Everywhere I look seems like hallowed ground now. Nothing is preventing me from dragging bodies out of buildings, of course. The rotting bags of bones and flesh lying in the beds and on the sofas behind the miles of empty windows are just hollow shells. They aren’t people anymore. Whatever had once made them so, a soul or a brain or a personality, it’s long gone. I’m pretty sure none of them will care if I haul them outside. ButI’ll care. Because that essential thing that made all of these people human, the thing that has deserted their bodies, I still have mine. I can still feel and think and care. Cemeteries aren’t for the dead, after all. Corpses have little use for them. Cemeteries are there to give the living a place to remember. I don’t know any of these people. The hollow houses that hang like empty laundry on either side of the winding streets, they’re all graves. For days I’ve walked past nothing but barren fields and now, here, among street after street of dead civilization, I suddenly feel alone.

  At the end of the next block is a small convenience store. A faded Pepsi sign hangs over the door and blows back and forth in the gentle breeze. If I’m gonna’ find shelter before dark, my options are dwindling. Maybe I can keep walking, head for the bridge and into Kentucky through the night.

  “What exactly am I afraid of?”

  Instantly a parade of images sail through my head, every scary movie I’ve ever seen, every book I’ve read, every nightmare I can remember. They’ve all suddenly come for a visit. I’ve always had problems with the dark. Mom said it was because my brain never stops working. When there’s nothing to worry about, ol’ Hannah will make something up. I can explore that question at some point, but standing alone on a strange street in Cincinnati, Ohio is probably not an appropriate location in which to confront my irrational fears.

  The front door of the convenience store is locked, but a side door around the corner affords me access. The store is crowded and dark, but there’s no telltale stench of human decay. The prevailing smell is of spoiled milk, but even that has faded. Turn on my flashlight and look around. The shelves are still mostly stocked. I’ve discovered that in most of the stores I’ve scavenged. I expected more looting, like I used to see on the TV news during bad storms or riots or disasters. I saw the aftermath of looting in Detroit. The second wave of General Tsao moved so quickly that most people didn’t have time to misbehave.

  Find a small cubby behind the cash register counter and unfold my sleeping bag. The material smells stale. To be fair, so do I. Mental note, figure out some way to take a bath. My baby wipes only go so far.

  The store is a treasure trove of supplies. Restock my flashlight batteries, pack up bottles of water, energy bars, more baby wipes and the like. I still fight the urge to over-pack. My backpack is already too heavy. And there’ll be plenty more places to resupply.

  All of the refrigerated items have long expired, but I help myself to some of the canned stuff. Mini ravioli is my favorite. Find a can opener and a package of plastic spoons and eat dinner. I didn’t realize how hungry I am. Three empty cans later and I feel the kind of calm that comes from a full stomach. The wind has picked up outside. I hear the Pepsi sign banging against the storefront. It’s a lonely sound.

  Snap awake. It’s dark, maybe the middle of the night. Don’t remember falling asleep
. The darkness leaves me disoriented.

  Feel around for my flashlight. Panic for a brief second before my fingers find its familiar metal handle. Turn it on. The convenience store looks the same as I’d left it. No zombies shuffling toward me. Take a breath.

  BANG!

  It’s a metallic sound, and it’s coming from outside. Stand up cautiously. Turn off the flashlight, feel my way toward the front window.

  The moon has risen and its light gives me a clear view of the intersecting streets outside. Everything is painted blue. Movement across the street. Something big, dark. The shadows of the alley concealed whatever itis from view.

  There, again, another loud metallic bang. Heart racing. Itis zombies, isn’t it? Has to be. There are so many dead bodies around here that some of them are bound to —

  Two small bears emerge from the dark alley. I don’t consider them small at first, until a moment later a huge bear joins them.

  “Mama and her cubs.”

  The bears shuffle across the street. Mama Bear sniffs the air again and again. The bear’s nose moves independently of its long snout. It snorts and the cubs run back over toward their mother. The big bear leads the cubs down the street. Whether Mama is aware of my presence or not, the animal gives no indication. I watch them lumber slowly down the street, toward downtown Cincinnati.

  I stare out the window long after the bears disappear. Aside from the birds I saw in Detroit and the the ones I heard outside the barn, as well as the guy who broke into my house, the bears are the only other signs of life I’ve seen. I’ve simply assumed General Tsao has killed everything, human and animal. I’ve seen enough dead dogs and cats during my scavenging through Detroit to give me that impression. But maybe everythingisn’t dead. The bears certainly aren’t. The dead house pets in Detroit had been domesticated, entirely dependent on their human owners to feed them. Maybe Tsao hadn’t killed them, after all. Maybe their well-intentioned owners had.