by D. J. Molles
It was strange. He would have thought the amount of violence and bloodshed he’d witnessed would have inoculated him to the shock of it, but it sometimes felt like it was only making him more sensitive. Like every time he saw someone ripped apart, or when Shumate or Aaron shot some poor hobo, it took off a layer of his skin. Until he felt flayed. Laid open. Every dust mote a piercing needle. Every breeze a wash of acid.
Then other times it didn’t affect him at all.
Honestly he didn’t know which was worse.
He breathed heavily, and it carried across to the window, fogging it for a second before it dissipated. He closed his mouth, breathed through his nose. Fog behind the glass could’ve been a giveaway if someone watched the window.
Though he couldn’t see the street below, he could see just a sliver of the sidewalk on the opposite side, and the window was wide enough that he had a fairly panoramic view. Far to the right, he saw the murky flutter of two shapes, one quickly following the other, disappear around the corner of a building and blend into the darkness.
It made his heart jump, though he knew it was Shumate and Aaron. If you didn’t jump when you saw things sneaking around, you probably wouldn’t last long. Paranoia is an ally when it seemed the world was out to kill you. Plagues. Madmen caused by the plagues. Dangerous men caused by the collapse of law and order…
He almost scoffed at himself.
Hated cops when they were around. Disliked Shumate for being one before the collapse. Felt like they were out to get him. Never took a moment to consider that there were worse things than paying fines and going to jail. Things that had somehow been kept at bay by all those self-righteous motherfuckers with their badges and guns.
I can take care of myself, he used to say. And it was true. He didn’t need a fucking cop to defend him. But what he wouldn’t give now to be able to hop in a truck and take a drive without worrying about running into some rednecks at a roadblock and taking a bullet. What he wouldn’t give to meet a girl and be able to have a normal conversation because she knew he wasn’t going to put a gun to her head and rape her.
That got him thinking about Shelley, and that made him drop the whole damn subject. He wouldn’t shed a tear for the bitch, but there was something undeniably shitty about how it ended for her. How miserable the last months of her life had been. How she just deluded herself into thinking that it was okay. Like an addict. Except she never did it for drugs, she did it for safety. She was addicted to feeling safe.
And now she was just a pile of bones.
A bloodstain on the road.
Few patches of hair and skin.
Maybe some teeth.
Just drop it…
Across the street and slightly to the left, the two shadows reappeared. They looked up at James, hiding behind his window, their faces blue in the twilight. Shumate gave him a nod, and then the two began to move towards the door to the shop that they’d seen Captain Harden slip into. The door that now hung open, shattered by the horde that had come through, looking for flesh. Looking for food.
They slipped into the darkness.
James swallowed hard, watching them enter that place.
Like a dragon’s lair. Like a spider hole. You go in. You don’t come out.
Funny how after all those mental gymnastics to turn Captain Harden into Donald Weathers, to minimize him to the level of an alcohol-addled bum, he couldn’t get rid of the knot in his stomach.
James squinted slightly, waiting for the muzzle flashes to light up the interior of the antique shop. Waited for the rapid pop-pop-pop of a gunfight. Bullets whizzing everywhere. Shattering through Grandma’s old rocking chair. Shumate and Aaron trying to hide behind musty old wood while Captain Harden moved like a ghost and tore them apart with the use of some strange, field-expedient weapons he’d constructed from old cedar chests and glass figurines.
James puffed his lips out. “Bullshit,” he mumbled. “That fucker’s almost dead already.”
He felt a slight prick on the back of his neck.
First thought: Spider! And he almost reached up to swat the little bastard, but then all at once he smelled the smell of strong, rank body odor—someone else’s body odor—and felt the cold, iron-like grip on his shoulder.
The voice was barely a whisper, but it held all the substance of an anvil falling. “Don’t move.”
A million options, a million thoughts.
Terror screeching like locked tires.
To fight? To give up? The hand was incredibly strong, the voice resolute. He had snuck up on him good, took him by surprise. A nightmare of how Donald Weathers might have been had he not been pass-out-drunk that night in the woods.
The spider bite was a knife—had to be. Right at the base of his skull, and James just thought about his skinny neck, the fragile vertebrae just underneath his skin, such a weak defense for his spinal column, now that he thought of it. One shove, and he’d be gone.
Strangely, he felt the fear, but also something else. It was not peace. It was more like just…stopping. Like the zebra in the nature films when three lions are dragging it to the ground. The look in the animal’s eyes after it realizes that no amount of kicking and screaming and scratching and biting is going to get it out of the situation it is in. The inevitability of it. And somehow, the strange release. The freedom of no longer having to think about your next step.
The look in that zebra’s eyes.
Like, Well…shit…
James took his hand off the AK. Took his finger off the trigger, and realized in a split-second epiphany that that was all Captain Harden wanted him to do. Just take that finger off the trigger so that when the knife severed the spinal column, he didn’t pull off a round and alert the others.
Well…shit…
CHAPTER 22: GONE
Lee plucked the knife from the back of the man’s head. Man was a generous term. Boy was more like it. But a boy with an AK-47 wasn’t a boy at all. He was a hostile. A threat. A target to be neutralized.
He looked down at the figure, lying there, face to the ground. Just a small drip of blood coming from the wound in his neck where the knife had slipped in between the vertebrae with a fatal scrape of bone. He did feel pity. Pity like you might feel for an animal that had stepped out in front of traffic. Stepped out and tangled with things it didn’t understand.
Stupid, Lee thought, remembering hazily the way the kid had talked. The tough guy, always trying to impress the others and failing miserably. And that was the extent of the thought that he gave to the kid he'd known as James. He wiped the blade off on his pants, like he was wiping away what little emotion he could muster.
He slipped the knife back into its sheath.
Nausea roiled, the room swam.
He closed his eyes, breathed deep. When the swirling feeling went away, he blinked a few times, then looked around to see if perhaps they’d had some supplies they’d carried with them into the attic. But there was nothing. Just dusty old pieces of outdated sports equipment, languishing in the corners. Perhaps saved as memorabilia. Who knew.
Lee bent down, grabbed the AK-47 up off the ground, then backed up a few paces. He stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Staring out the half-moon window in front of him like a high diver might stare at the pool below him. Planning it out. Going through the motions in his head. Knowing he only had one chance to get it right.
He realized his eyes were closed. His mind wandered into some half-light dream state, then jerked back, still holding the threads of whatever his subconscious was weaving. Something about money. Something about bullets being currency. He rode out a wave of sickness, then refocused himself.
Almost there.
He pulled the M4 he’d taken from Kev off his back and set it on the floor by his feet. He would need to make a fast transition from the AK to the M4. From his current vantage point, he could not see the street through the window, but he could see the front door of the antiques shop where he’d been. And he could see the r
oof. Where Deuce was still probably pacing about, wondering why he’d been abandoned by yet another human.
“I’m comin’ back, buddy.” The words came out of his mouth in a slurry.
He was in bad shape. How he’d managed to sneak up on the kid, he didn’t know. He could barely remember coming up the stairs into the attic space. Remembered slipping down through the buildings and across the street a few blocks down, working his way towards the building where he now was. He remembered seeing Shumate and the Quiet Man slip out the front door of the shop and scurry down and across. He’d been in the shadows not thirty feet from them.
Then the space between when he’d entered the door they’d left open, and when he stood behind the kid in the attic space was kind of a blur. Like he was drunk. Bits and pieces left out. The chronology of it skewed.
Bad shape, but still operating.
Good to go.
With the M4 at his feet, he shouldered the AK-47 and pointed it towards the rooftop, but slightly down and to the right—didn’t want to accidentally shoot Deuce. His only hope was that his position inside the building would muffle the sound of the gunshots enough so that they didn’t draw the attention of the infected.
He took a breath and pulled the trigger. Five shots, randomly spaced. The rounds punched jagged holes in the window—one, two—and then the window shattered completely. If Lee could have heard the crashing glass over the ringing in his ears, he would have winced at the racket, but there was nothing else that could be done.
He was committed.
He dropped the AK and picked up the AR. The smaller cartridge would be quieter, and the rifle was more accurate. He brought the rifle up and he pulled himself into a shooting stance, then he mustered his energy for the next part. For the physical strain of it, and the energy to make it sound legitimate. In the most excited and boyish voice he could manage, he screamed, “I got him! I fuckin’ got him!”
Then he sighted down the rifle, put it on the front door, and waited. His heart pounding in his chest. A trapper with his hand on the tripwire. Close to grim success. Waiting for the prey to enter the kill box.
His vision puckered along the edges.
Righted itself with a few blinks.
Hold it together just a bit longer, Lee.
Movement. Dark shadows. Pale faces.
Slow is smooth…smooth is fast…be accurate…conserve your ammo…
The ring of the AR’s rear sight encircled one of the faces, just covered up the top of the head. The post of the front sight bisecting the body. Breathe out. Wait for the natural respiratory pause. There it is. Slow, steady squeeze on the trigger. Hope he doesn’t move…
The crack of the rifle. A body pitching backwards, and then Lee transitioned, vision blurring slightly for some unknown reason. Couldn’t worry about it now. Just focused on the target, put that front sight post on it. On the Quiet Man. Moving right, towards the cover of a mailbox. Lead him just a bit. Maybe one body-width.
Fire.
The Quiet Man stumbled, dropping the shotgun, catching himself from hitting the pavement with one hand, barely shoving himself off, and then rolled into cover behind the blue box.
“Shit…” Lee inched closer to the window.
He could see the legs partially sticking out from behind the mailbox. They moved, but only slightly. The shotgun lay several feet away. Far out of reach. Lee considered putting another round straight through the mailbox—the little tin can probably wouldn’t stop a rifle round.
He scanned left, saw Shumate lying, curled in the fetal position at the front steps of the antique shop, his back to Lee. He didn’t move.
Dead?
Maybe. Possibly just dying.
Lee ported the rifle and moved to the stairs. He stumbled a bit, caught himself and forced himself to go a little slower than he wanted. His body was slow and unresponsive. He made his way down the stairs to the main level. To the front door. Stood there again, looking out from behind the bars that covered the doors and windows, his feet crunching mutely in a sea of glass shards, trying to listen past his own heartbeat for the sounds of infected.
Outside the shop, there was only silence. That big, empty sound of an abandoned place. All the nearby highways that would have filled the air with background noise, the white noise of trucks downshifting, the river-flow sound of cars passing, all of it silenced now. Just a hush like fresh-fallen snow.
At the antique shop door, Shumate’s body had not moved. Between it and the mailbox, Lee could still see the Quiet Man’s shotgun. Still in the same spot it had been when he’d spied it from upstairs. And then to the mailbox. The shadow of a man leaning up against it. Dead or alive, there was no way to tell. Very still, though.
He could still put that round through the mailbox, but he felt like he’d been lucky enough to manage to get both men with two shots. And maybe those two shots hadn’t been quite enough to get the infected out of their den, if they’d heard it at all. But he felt that the third one would be pushing it.
Had he not been uncomfortably close to the edge of his body failing him, and had he been alone, he might have put an extra shot in both men and hopped in the van to make his escape. But he still had to get Deuce from the roof, and he knew it would be a mistake if he drove out of this town without water and medication.
Maybe none of that made sense.
Maybe it was just delirium talking.
He pushed open the door to the sporting goods store, stepped out onto the sidewalk. He swayed. Found himself standing in the middle of the road. Looked both ways, then shook his head to clear it and continued on. He stopped at the curb and looked left, where the body of Shumate lay on its side, still facing away. Like he’d rolled over in his sleep. No rise and fall to his chest. No breath pluming in the cold air.
Just like that, Lee thought, with a mental snap of his fingers. You thought your buddy popped the dude you were looking for and you come running out like a moron, and then a split second later you’re a goner. Just like that.
He looked right. Saw the two eyes staring at him, dark and moist. The Quiet Man leaned up against the mailbox, his legs splayed out before him, one hand hanging loosely on the pavement like he’d made a half-hearted effort to reach for his shotgun, and the other hand was wrapped around his midsection, glistening.
Chocolate syrup, Lee thought. They used to use chocolate syrup for blood in old black and white movies, because in black and white, you couldn’t tell the difference.
A random fact. Something floating around his disjointed subconscious.
The Quiet Man made a movement with his head, like he was about to lurch to his feet and try to run, but then he seemed to give up and laid his head back onto the mailbox with a huff. He grumbled something, his voice strained, but Lee couldn’t make out what it was.
Lee took a few strides in the man’s direction, then stopped again, standing about five or six feet from him. The pavement underneath the mailbox was bloody, the Quiet Man sitting in a puddle of it. Lee eyed the man’s hands, saw that they held no threats, then was glad he’d even remembered to do that.
The Quiet Man looked up at him. “You gonna shoot me?”
Lee thought it was an odd question. “You gonna die?”
The Quiet Man looked down at his wound. “Well, I’m gutshot.”
The world felt surreal. Like Lee was dreaming it up. “How’s that feel?” he asked, not out of sarcasm or malice, but because he was genuinely curious. And dream conversations are always brutally honest.
The Quiet Man shut his eyes. Tears ran out of them. “Feels like…someone’s got a hot poker in my guts.”
“I’m sorry,” Lee said, absently. “You should have left me alone.”
“Yeah.” The Quiet Man opened his eyes again, looked skyward.
Lee looked up and down the street again. It was very still. If the infected had heard the gunshots, they would have been there by now. He looked back down at the man. “You want me to kill you now?”
The Quiet Man gave it thought. Shook his head. “No.”
Lee swayed. Closed his eyes, then jolted them open with the disorienting sensation that time had passed, though it had only been a second or two. He refocused. “Where’s the medication?”
The Quiet Man breathed heavily, clenched his teeth. “Shumate’s got it…in his pocket.”
“Okay.” Lee turned away. “I’ll leave you alone.”
“Wait…”
Lee forced down a fever chill that shook his whole body. He looked back.
The Quiet Man still stared into the sky, like he was counting stars. Both hands clutching his belly now. He let out a sigh, almost like a sound of relief. Like perhaps shock was finally leaking its way into his system. “It won’t take long…”
Lee was so taken aback by it that he just stood there and stared. There was something about it that beleaguered him. Broke him down in the hardest parts of his heart. The sadness of it. And part of him envied the Quiet Man, because Lee was incapable of giving up, and so had sentenced himself to a lifetime of pain. Earning the scars brought on by “fighting the good fight.”
He knelt down beside the man. “What’s your name?”
A hitched breath, then, “Aaron.”
“What did you do before all of this, Aaron?”
Aaron’s mouth twitched in a weak smile that couldn’t quite break through the pain. “I was a landscaper, if you can believe that.”
Lee tucked his cold fingers under his armpits. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah…hard work…but…”
“What did you like about it?”
“The sun,” Aaron’s voice grew faint. “Working outside.”
“Well, you think about that for now.”
“Okay.”
Aaron’s breath slowed deliberately, like he was meditating.
Lee hoped it wouldn’t be long. He was cold. He hurt. He needed water. But he seemed to have already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to leave the man to die alone, wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to do it. It wasn’t guilt. More like…responsibility. Strange, because he’d never felt like that before, and even in his hazy, fever-clouded brain, he still realized that he might not be thinking clearly.
