by Brian Keene
Paul moaned a third time, breaking her reverie. She glanced down and noticed that another one of his fingernails had fallen off. She couldn’t stop him from decaying, but when he ate, it seemed to slow the process down.
She reached into her pocket, pulled out the plastic baggie, and unzipped it. Richard’s piggy toe lay inside. It was still slightly warm to the touch. She fed Paul the toe, ignoring the smacking sounds his lips made as he chewed greedily.
“We’ll have something different tomorrow.” Her voice cracked. “A nice finger. Would you like that?”
Paul didn’t respond. She hadn’t expected him to. Gina liked to think that he still understood her, that he still remembered their love for each other, but deep down inside, she knew better.
Eventually, Gina grew tired. Yawning, she went around the house and snuffed out the candles. Richard was still passed out when she examined his newest bandage. She double-checked the barricades on the doors and windows. Finally, she said good-night to what was left of the man who had captured her heart, while in the other room, her captive awoke and cried softly in the dark.
STORY NOTE: An editor approached me at a convention in Las Vegas and asked me if I’d be interested in contributing a story to a paranormal romance anthology. The theme was zombies. The idea intrigued me—not writing a zombie story (I’ve written four dozen of those)—but of trying my hand at the paranormal romance genre. This story was the result. It takes place in the same ‘world’ as my novels Dead Sea and Entombed (also the setting for several other short stories).
JOHNSTOWN
Everything you are will be washed away.
That’s what my grandma told me the day I was baptized. Like a lot of Protestants, I got baptized twice—once when I was a baby and again when I was fourteen and became a member of our church. That’s what was expected of me, and here in Johnstown, you do what’s expected. I didn’t care much about being a Methodist. Didn’t care much about God, either. Oh, I believed in Him, in the same way I believe in Budapest or Mars. I’ve never seen either of those places but people tell me they exist, so I take them at their word. That’s how I was with God. Not my folks, though, and especially not my grandmother. They ate that religion stuff up. So I went through the motions.
The day of my second baptism, Mom straightened my tie while Dad took pictures and Grandma sat on the sofa and cried. When I asked her why she was crying, she said because she was so happy.
“You’re born again, today.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “You are washed in the blood of our Savior. We are born into sin, and we are sinful creatures. But not anymore. After today, everything you are will be washed away.”
I didn’t understand that then, but I pretended to so she’d be happy. We went to church and had a ceremony, and me and the four other kids who were becoming members all got baptized. When it was over, my family took me to the diner. I had a hamburger and fries. I’d already forgotten Grandma’s words.
But I remember them now, and I understand them.
She was talking about us. Me and Cindy.
• • •
The only two things I was ever good at were playing harmonica and falling in love with Cindy.
We met during our senior year. I’d seen her around before, and knew who she was, but we’d never spoken. I was pretty much a loner, and she hung out with a big group. She wasn’t the homecoming queen or the head of the cheerleading squad, but she had a lot of friends. It was my opinion that while Cindy might not have been the most popular girl in school, she was definitely the prettiest. I’d never talked to her because I figured she was way out of my league.
Until the day she talked to me.
We were in between classes. I was rummaging around in my locker, making sure my little Ziploc bag of weed was still there. It was mostly stems and seeds, but back then, that didn’t matter. You smoked whatever you could get. When I shut the locker door, Cindy was standing there. I jumped, surprised.
She smiled. “Hi.”
I nodded because I couldn’t speak. Had I tried to, my heart would have probably jumped right out of my throat. My face felt hot and my ears rang. All the moisture vanished from my mouth.
“I saw you this weekend,” Cindy said. “At the movies.”
I nodded again. I wasn’t sure what was happening. Thought it might be some kind of trick. Girls like Cindy just didn’t walk up and start talking to me. I was a shop guy. I spent my lunchtimes smoking behind the gym. Dating shop guys didn’t improve a girl’s social standing—especially a girl as beautiful as Cindy. Most people around here are from German or Swiss descent, but Cindy was Italian and Irish. She was tall and slender, and her straight, black hair hung almost to her hips. She smelled like lavender and lilacs, and when I looked into her warm, brown eyes, it felt like I was falling. I would have been happy to stay like that forever—in eternal freefall.
I tried to think of something funny to say, but couldn’t, so I just said, “Huh?”
“The movies? The Sunday matinee? You were there, right?”
“Yeah, I was there. Young Guns II was playing.”
“I know. I sat a few rows behind you.”
“Oh.”
I glanced around, looking for snickering jocks or sneering preppies—any indication of who was behind this practical joke. But the halls were empty, except for us.
“Did you like it?”
“W-what?”
“The movie,” Cindy said. “Did you like it?”
“It was okay.” This was an understatement. In fact, I’d felt a strong enough kinship with Billy the Kid that it had frightened me a little bit.
“I liked the soundtrack. And I liked Keifer Sutherland. How about you?”
“He’s okay, I guess. I... I liked the part when the guy asks Billy if he has any scars.”
Her expression grew serious. “Yeah. That was pretty deep. I could tell that you liked that part because of the way you were sitting. You leaned forward and seemed drawn into it.”
“You were watching me?”
Blushing, Cindy turned away. She sighed, and I was mesmerized by the rise and fall of her breasts. When she turned back to me, we were both red.
“I’ve been watching you since the eighth grade. I’m Cindy.”
“I know.”
And that was how we met. I’m not going to call it love at first sight, because that trivializes it. What we had was a lot more than that. It was something that most folks spend their lives dreaming of, and never get. We had it. Trying to recount it now doesn’t do it justice, because it was a young man’s story and a young man’s feelings, and I’m almost forty now. At this age, you forget the depth of a young man’s emotions. But that initial spark burned bright and true, like the furnace at the steel mill, and like that furnace, it was never supposed to go out.
Cindy and I used to come to the river all the time. It was cheaper than going to the movies or out to eat. Quieter, too. On Friday night, I’d pick Cindy up and we’d drive past the city limits. Pavement gave way to green trees and fields of multi-colored wildflowers, which was special, because Johnstown was the color of rust and grime. In winter, the snow was a dirty shade of gray.
The Conemaugh River started at the juncture of the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek rivers, but compared to the city, it was a whole different world—our own private Heaven. We spent as much time there as we could. Even played hooky a few times as graduation loomed and the days grew warmer. We’d strip down to our underwear and go swimming. Sometimes, we stayed there all night. Our parents didn’t care. We’d spread a blanket out along the riverbank, and lie there together, listening to the radio and watching the stars and talking about everything and nothing. I’d play my harmonica for her—Supertramp, Bob Dylan, maybe some John Prine. She’d never listened to any of them, but she liked it when I played, just the same. Sometimes, Cindy fell asleep in my arms.
It made me shudder back then and it makes me shudder now.
One night, when we were lying
there, Cindy turned to me and said, “I hope you’re happy.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I hope that some part of you is truly happy, because in all the years I’ve watched you and wondered if you’d ever notice me, I don’t know if I’ve ever really seen you happy.”
“Nobody’s ever told me that before.”
“Most people probably never noticed, but I did.”
I shrugged. “Sure I’m happy.”
“Are you? I hope so, because it matters to me. Remember when you said you liked the part in Young Guns II when Billy talks about his scars? That made me sad, but at the same time, I understood it. Sometimes you seem like you’ve got this desperate need to find something that eludes you. That scares me, a little. For you, and for me, because I’m searching, too, and I’m scared that if you find what you’re looking for, then you’ll leave. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to lose you. Or maybe I’m wrong, and I’m putting my own feelings on you. Maybe I just don’t want to believe I’m the only one who feels that way.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I mean, I used to feel that way... I guess. But not anymore. I found what I was looking for. I found you.”
“And you’re happy?”
I kissed her head, closing my eyes and breathing in shampoo, and beneath it, her clean, fresh scent.
“I’ve never been happier,” I whispered.
That was the first time I told Cindy that I loved her. And it wasn’t the only first that night. It was the first time either of us made love. And it was the first time in my life I’d ever been happy. I hadn’t known I was unhappy, until then. Never really thought about it much. But I liked how Cindy made me feel. She made me dream.
That was important, because this town isn’t much on dreams. There’s no time for them. There’s work to be done. Back in the Eighties, we had three choices—the steel mill, construction, or the military. These days, the opportunities are even worse. A few steel fabrication jobs. Healthcare. Telemarketing. Temp agencies. Folks have to go all the way to Pittsburgh or Altoona for a job that pays well.
About a week before I met Cindy, the guidance counselor called me to his office. He asked me what I wanted to do after graduation. College wasn’t an option—not with my grades and my parents’ income, and he knew that. I told him I didn’t know. He pressed me, insisting I must have some idea. But I didn’t. And I think he knew it. He was just going through the motions. Just doing his job. I had no doubts that after graduation, I’d go to work in the steel mill just like my father. That’s how we’re brought up. You join the union, you support the union, you have some kids, you retire, and then your kids join the union.
After a few weeks with Cindy, I had an answer for that guidance counselor. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend the rest of my life making her happy. Making her feel the way she made me feel. That was my dream.
But like I said, this town is hard on dreams. Around here, dreams get washed away with everything else. They call us ‘Flood City’ for a reason. Founded in 1800 in the center of these three rivers, our port was a key transfer point along the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal. Charles Dickens even visited once, during a ferry stop. But that’s not what we’re famous for.
We’re famous for our floods. Every so often, the river breaches its banks and engulfs the town, and all that we are is washed away—our hopes, our fears, and our dreams.
And then we have to start all over again.
We know a lot about starting over. When they completed the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1854, we abandoned the canal because the trains took our business away. We turned to iron, steel, and coal, instead. We became the largest steel producer in the country. Then, on May 31, 1889, a flood came along and destroyed it all. It was one of the worst disasters in American history. Folks don’t remember it these days, not in the era of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. But that 1889 flood nearly washed the town away.
We rebuilt and started over again. Things were good. Johnstown embodied the American Dream. We made much of the nation’s barbed wire. Our population swelled and our public transportation system was considered one of the best in the country. Then the river rose up again, on St. Patrick’s Day, 1936, and put an end to all that prosperity. More than two dozen people lost their lives and the city was gutted.
Once more, we rebuilt and started over, striving to obtain that American Dream. By then, the coal veins had run out, but we still had the steel industry. In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt announced the federally-financed flood control project, and we were finally flood-free. Oh, the rains still came, on occasion. But they didn’t wash us away. Johnstown grew, providing more than thirteen-thousand jobs in the steel mills. We were more prosperous than ever, and all of our dreams came true.
Then, in 1977, despite Roosevelt’s control project, the river flooded again, killing more than seventy-five people and washing away our economic growth.
The dream died, as all dreams eventually do.
Cindy and I didn’t know that back then. We were young and in love, and dreams were meant to last forever. We spent our nights making love down by the water and the flood never touched us. My dream of making her happy came true every day.
Then Cindy got pregnant.
Our parents were pissed, but an abortion was out of the question. They wouldn’t have allowed it, and Cindy didn’t want it. She cried for a few nights, and I did, too, because I was scared. But despite her fears and misgivings, Cindy was still happy.
“As long as I have you,” she said, “everything will be fine. Together, we can get through anything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. All I want in life is to spend it with you—a little house, enough money for us to be safe and warm and content, a healthy baby, and to grow old together. That’s what I dream about.”
Then we kissed each other’s tears away, and there in the darkness, with the sounds of the water whispering in the night, I promised Cindy that I’d make all her dreams come true.
The next day, I applied for a job at the steel mill.
We were broke, and our parents refused to pay for a wedding, so we had the Justice of the Peace do it for us. Cindy wore her Prom gown. I wore a suit I’d bought at K-Mart. I forgot all about getting her flowers, so I picked her some dandelions outside the building. When it was over, we climbed into my car. In place of tin cans on strings and a ‘Just Married’ sign, we had a bad muffler and four bald tires. Instead of a honeymoon, we went to our spot along the water. I serenaded her with my harmonica. The moonlight shined off the river’s mirrored surface, and we pretended that we could see our future reflected in it—two kids, a dog and a cat, two cars, and one day, lots of grandkids. No sickness, no stress. No death.
We moved into a second-floor apartment downtown. It was drafty and damp and smelled old, but we filled it with warmth and hope. Filled it with our dreams. The traffic was loud at night, and the toilet leaked when we flushed it. But it was home. Cindy had an afghan her grandmother had made for her when she was a little girl, and we sat together on the couch with it wrapped around us and watched television, or just talked. We bought a crib and changing table at the Salvation Army store, and tried to save as much money as we could. I worked long hours at the steel mill. Got up at six in the morning and came home after six at night, tired and dirty and sore. The tub turned black when I took a shower in the evening, and my muscles ached so badly that sometimes all I could do was lie on the couch and watch TV. But that was okay, because Cindy laid there with me, in my arms, and we were together. I used to tap on her belly and the baby would kick back. We’d laugh and I’d say he or she was doing Morse Code.
• • •
And then the laughter faded.
The baby was stillborn.
I remember it clear as day. The delivery room smelled like antiseptic, and the lights were so bright that I had to squint. Cindy gasped and pushed; they’d given her an epidural for the pain. The baby’s head came out and I hollere
d with joy and Cindy’s grimace turned into a smile and then the doctor had the baby in his hands—and the room went silent. The doctor didn’t say anything. The nurses were quiet. And the baby...
The baby made no noise at all.
“What’s wrong?” Cindy kept asking, over and over again.
Still, they didn’t say anything.
I tried to speak and couldn’t.
Then Cindy began to wail.
• • •
It was a girl. My parents paid for the baby’s funeral plot, and the union sent flowers. I got two days off work with pay.
That night, as we lay in bed together, I reached out to touch her. My fingers gently traced the smooth skin of her shoulder.
Cindy stiffened. “What are you doing?”
“Just...” I wasn’t sure what to say. “Trying to be with you. Giving you some comfort.”
“I’m tired. Let’s just go to sleep.”
My hand lingered and Cindy went rigid. I remembered when she’d softened to my touch, and I longed for those days.
The next few months were hard, but we got through them together. Cindy cried a lot, and when she wasn’t crying, she slept. Her smile—the smile I remembered from that day at my locker—was gone. I wondered if it would ever return. I lost myself in work, trying to clock in as much overtime as I could, letting the industrial noise drown out my dead daughter’s silence. I started drinking, and developed a taste for it.
Eight months later, we tried to have another child. Cindy miscarried halfway through the second term. After that, I got a vasectomy and there was no more talk of children. We moved down to the first floor apartment when it became available, trying to get away from the memories on the second floor. The first floor apartment had a little fenced in yard—room enough for a barbeque grill and a plastic wading pool that would never get used.
Years passed. I got a potbelly and lost a lot of hair. Cindy stayed beautiful, but sad. She got a single white streak in her hair. The rest of it stayed black, even if it didn’t shine like it once had.
