by Fuchs, A. P.
Des looked lost. “No.”
“It means that your joy comes out of seeing someone else benefit from your helping them without thinking about what it’s doing for you, you know? Even if that ‘doing for you’ is being happy about doing the right thing.”
Des clicked his tongue three times, as if counting the seconds until she was done. “Sooo . . . why’s this such a big deal, again?”
Billie plopped her head down on the pillow then screwed her lips to the side. “I guess it’s just . . . you know I’m not really an open person. I’m—”
“You’ve always been straightforward with me.”
“That’s because you need a good kick in the kahoohoos now and then.” She smiled. “Anyway, it could just be because I’m tired and maybe I’m on a different wavelength as a result, but this whole ‘Joe thing’—and I’m thankful for him saving us, don’t get me wrong—but this whole ‘Joe thing’ bothers me because—”
“Because?”
“Can I finish?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“It bothers me because . . . I’ve known guys like him before.”
“You have? How many zombie killers do you know?”
She closed her eyes. Des could be really clueless sometimes. “Not that. The kind who put on a mask of ‘being a good guy’ or ‘being the hero’ when, really, there’s something else beneath all that.”
“Who?”
She rolled over onto her side, no longer facing him. A pinch grabbed at her heart. She had resolved not to bring Drake to mind anymore, but right now, sleepy and emotionally drained, she didn’t care that Drake’s face haunted her memory. “I knew this guy for about seven months prior to the rain.” The bed rocked as he scooted closer, presumably so he could hear her better. “We dated, went all hot an’ heavy and all that stuff.”
“What was his name?”
“Drake. I don’t know if I loved him or thought I did or what because even now, when I think about him, I really miss him but not in the way I think I should, you know?”
Des just listened.
She continued. “Anyway, he was always there for me. Listened to me go on and on when I was having problems with my folks. Listened to me complain about some of the garbage going on at school. He even helped me with my homework. Every time we hung out he always picked up the bill, held the door open for me. Drake talked about the volunteer work he did at Winnipeg Harvest, how he worked the prayer lines at Trinity Television, how he went to see his grandma in the nursing home twice a week. The list goes on but you get the idea. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, what a guy. Wish I wasn’t so selfish that I could donate a handful of hours a week to a soup kitchen or something.’ That was another thing on his list, by the way. A soup kitchen. Did it once a month. Point is, after my initial awe of him waned, I started to notice little things, things that, in hindsight, should have been a lot clearer than what they were. But at the time, I only found them kind of odd and that was it. He used the word ‘I’ a lot when he talked. He mentioned his do-goodings a lot more often than a person really should. He was always quick to step in and offer advice about how he dealt with something, say, something similar to what I was going through with my parents.”
“What happened? Did the rain . . .”
“I’m assuming so. I really don’t know. After the rain fell I thought maybe he was still out there and I should connect with him, you know, the whole ‘all-for-one’ thing humanity had going there for a while. But the way things worked out and winding up here in the Haven, I didn’t see him nor have I bumped into anyone online that I think might be him.”
“He would use a handle, like you? The punk girl thing you use?”
“Probably. I don’t know.”
“So what happened? Between you guys, I mean?”
She closed her eyes, expecting a tear or two to leak out. Instead her heart just ached even more. “What happens to most girls, Des, when they think they’ve found Mr. Wonderful? He dumped me for someone else. Didn’t know who.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. Had a real good thing going. Well, I thought so, anyway. What sucks about it was there was no lead-up to it. No time of things going downhill or things getting shaky. Just one day, ‘Oh, hey, Billie. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.’ ‘Really, Drake, why?’ ‘Well, I found someone else. Been seeing her for a while, actually. Sorry I didn’t tell you.’”
“Sheesh, he really said that?”
“No, dummy. But something like it. I don’t remember his exact words. All I know is he found someone he liked better and blew me off.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” A tear had rolled down her cheek. She only noticed it now. She wiped it away. “Let’s get some sleep. Who knows what time Joe wakes up or how long he’ll let us stay here.”
“Maybe if he really is Mr. Hero, he’ll let us stay for as long as we need.”
“Right. And we don’t live on a planet of the dead.”
* * * *
Joe stood outside the bedroom door, leaning up against the wall.
He had heard everything.
11
If Just for a Good Night’s Sleep
The scraping had stopped a few minutes ago, but August wasn’t convinced that whatever it was was gone. He lay there listening intently, ready to point his gun at a dead-yet-moving target.
Silence.
Dark.
Just him, the safe and his gun.
He dared not shine the flashlight lest whatever might be behind the door see it and be alerted to his presence.
He slowed his breathing and made an effort to lay absolutely still, any little thing he could do to shut off all sound.
The bank was silent just beyond the safe’s door. The tiled floor was cold. A shiver ran through him.
It grew even quieter, so much so the thudding of his heart pounded in his ears. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to relax, but even now, after all he’d been through, relaxing was something that wouldn’t come easy.
I could really use some help right now, he thought, eyes gazing upward. He only hoped the Big Guy upstairs was listening.
The seconds ticked by. He waited, and was sure several minutes had passed, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that maybe only one minute had gone by, if that.
Maybe God was listening? If He wasn’t, maybe something would have already tried to shove open the vault door, search out the dark, and gorge itself on aged flesh.
The scraping didn’t return.
August closed his eyes and stared at the blackness, his ear nearest the door searching for sound.
Darkness prevailed, and August slipped away into sleep.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg. The low, monotonous tone jolted him awake. Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg. Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
He lay still, eyes searching the dark, the hollow sound of the incessant drumming charging his insides with an electric throbbing pulse he last felt the night he slaughtered his family.
August got to his feet, not bothering to check his watch to see what time it was. Odds were he had only slept a few minutes and to verify that with the clock would only make his heavy eyes worse.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
He stepped up to the safe’s door, waited a moment to check for any sound other than the low drumming and, not hearing anything else, slowly pushed it open.
Hesitantly, he pressed the flashlight’s button, just knowing he’d see some monstrous form ambling its way toward him. The beam lit up the dark. Nothing but the dead that were already there. He shone the beam around the room. The bank was empty.
Carefully, he made his way to the entrance doors and shone the beam up and down the hallway. Satisfied the coast was clear, he stepped out into the hallway and listened once more.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
It was coming from upstairs.
If I stay here, whatever it is might come down. If I go up, what
ever it is might see me and I’ll be dead. He hated moments of indecision. The right choice would be to get back inside the safe, close the door as much as possible without risking locking himself in, and just wait it out.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
He glanced toward the bank, his eyes settling in the direction of the vault door. Even with the dim light of the flashlight shining on it, it still looked forbiddingly dark, as if suddenly it had become a separate world of endless night and deadly despair.
“Oh, man . . .” he breathed.
His old legs refused to budge.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
The noise beckoned him.
He was already moving before he realized it and the next thing he knew, he was over by the inactive escalator that led up to the Richardson building’s lobby.
He shone the light around, searching for moving shadows. The carpet-rimmed tiled hallway was empty.
Putting the flashlight in his mouth, he got his rifle ready, brought it high, and slowly ascended the escalator, his breathing short and shaky, puffing out on either side of the flashlight. Some drool leaked from a corner of his mouth. He ignored it, too terrified to stop and wipe it.
At the top of the escalator the lobby was charcoal black.
Until he was about three quarters up the escalator did it seem normal it would be so dark, but then he remembered that ever since the rain came, the sky remained washed over in dark gray with brown shadows whether it was day or night. There should be at least some light coming through the windows in the lobby, and there wasn’t any.
Maybe someone boarded them up while they were stuck here and left it that way when they took off? If they took off. A shiver ran through him at the thought of more dead bodies, ones that died from no food or water, lying around upstairs.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
The droning beat was louder here on the escalator. Whatever it was that was making that noise, he was getting real close to it.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
He took another few steps up.
Drunngg, drunngg, drunngg.
A few more.
Drunngg, drunngg, DRUNNGG.
Drunngg, drunngg, DRUNNGG.
Almost at the top. One more step and . . .
DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG.
It was near deafening and it was coming from his left.
He dropped the rifle. What he saw locked every muscle in his body.
* * * *
Joe lay on his back on the couch, arms folded behind his head. April slept on his feet, keeping his toes warm.
Billie was right. He was trying to be something he wasn’t. The problem was, he couldn’t help himself. Ever since losing April, he couldn’t seem to get things back on track. No matter how hard he tried to get it together despite the evil the rain brought upon the world, he just simply couldn’t. He had tried everything—ignoring his feelings, suppressing them, distractions, denial, chanting things like, “She never existed. She never existed. It’s all in your head. It’s all in your head”—none of it worked. He even started a new manuscript, something he hoped that would be cathartic and get the frustration and pain and anger and anguish out of him.
Forget it. It was nothing but one step forward and twenty steps back.
For a brief time he thought about suicide, something he never thought he’d consider, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He imagined it, sure. Even imagined stepping out into a horde of the undead and offering himself to them as some sort of pathetic sacrifice. He watched in his mind’s eye as they tore off his limbs, reached their gray fingers into his abdomen and pulled out the long, noodle-like tubes of his intestines, the blood splattering on their faces, his skull being smashed into bits of bone and brain and blood and skin and—but he couldn’t bring himself to do that either. He didn’t know much about the afterlife and didn’t know what the consequences for suicide were, if any. Yet he also thought that if he were to spend eternity in a place called hell that whatever torments it offered would be nothing compared to what he was feeling and the physical agony he’d undergo would be a pleasant relief from the emotional torment within.
But he didn’t want to face the possibility of that either.
So he stayed alive, drifting through the motions of living day to day in a world gone mad, hoping that somehow an answer would present itself.
It wasn’t until the night he decided to truly end it did everything change. He would give himself to the undead. He put on the only suit he ever owned, stepped outside and searched the night for any walking corpse that would have him.
Except he never found any. Not for hours.
He couldn’t believe the only dead he found were those who’d already fallen prey to the zombies and were missing their heads.
Close to dawn, he came across an abandoned military vehicle, a soldier’s headless and armless corpse half hanging out of the side door. Joe went over to it, studied the body. The nametag read dane. On the seat beside Dane’s body was an automatic. Military issue or not, he didn’t know. He’d never been one for war or army movies. He rounded the vehicle, picked up the heavy weapon, then wrapped his fingers around the handle, index finger on the trigger, and aimed the barrel at the ground.
RAT-A-TAT-TAT!
The barrage of bullets jolted his insides as they plowed into the cement, sending up shards of concrete.
Tears running down his face, he was about to press the barrel under his chin when a deep wheezing to the side made him turn his head.
A man, short and stocky, with gray skin and white eyes was limping toward him, one of his feet missing.
Without thinking, Joe fired off an onslaught of bullets, blasting the man’s chest and face to smithereens.
The body hit the street with a thud. Black blood ran from its body and head. Joe stood transfixed on the corpse, somehow mesmerized by it.
The pain that had been in his heart for so long went away.
Now, lying on his couch, Joe understood himself in a way that he hadn’t in years. Billie was right.
He was living a lie.
He wasn’t a killer. Just some guy looking for a way out of misery. Just some pathetic, self-centered miscreant who couldn’t deal with the past.
No matter how he painted it, he wasn’t acting like the person he’d been all his life.
For a second his heart opened and he thought about living again and letting things go.
Thought about being Joseph again.
Then his heart shut and fell into a rocky hole, a boulder rolling into place on top, sealing it within.
Joseph was dead.
* * * *
Mouth hanging open, August slowly lowered himself and, not taking his eyes off the windows that bordered the lobby, picked up the rifle and removed the flashlight from his mouth.
“Wh-wha—Oh . . .”
The windows were smeared top to bottom in inky red blood, spread on thick in places, thinner in others.
No wonder the light was barely getting through. There were only a few places where it could get through.
Each step took several seconds, his feet feeling as if they were filled with sand.
DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG.
DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG.
The ultra-thick windows shook in their frames.
Mouth dry, his swallowing difficult, August moved for a spot on one of the windows where the blood wasn’t so thick. He turned off the flashlight and brought up his rifle.
DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG.
At the window, he leaned up sideways against it then jumped back a step when more DRUNNGGs shook the glass.
Heart hammering, the pulse so rapid and thick it raced up the side of his neck and into his skull, he forced himself to get close to the window again.
DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG.
He kept his body a safe enough distance away, and slowly leaned his head closer to the glass so he could see outside.
>
The undead surrounded the front of the building and, he assumed, the remaining three sides as well.
Some stood at the glass, banging on it with their palms, smearing the blood from their latest kill over the windows. Others kept walking into it, bouncing off the glass then trying again. Some threw corpses at the building but not hard enough to break through. The bodies, slicked with blood, splat on the glass then slid down, only to be picked up again for another round, usually not before the undead took a fresh bite of flesh for themselves.
DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG, DRUNNGG.
August moved back several paces, rifle aimed at the windows. They know I’m in here. “Are their senses really that keen?” His voice was just a whisper. He doubted it. Yet they were displaying otherwise. “Or maybe they’re so desperate for food and they haven’t gotten in here yet?” Then why are they tossing the dead at the glass?
He stood there for a long time, losing himself to the endless din of meat slamming against glass, thinking maybe at some point they’d realize they couldn’t get in and give up.
The undead never stopped.
12
Peaches
Joe always had trouble sleeping. Back before the rain, he had spent his nights writing, both as his job and as a way to exercise the relentless bursts of imagination that stormed his mind. He’d sleep for a few hours shortly after the sun came out, then get on with his day, which usually consisted of watching Seinfeld and Smallville reruns. Now, sleep was still an issue. As much as the old Joseph was gone, his creativity was not and he’d lie there night after night, formulating stories and watching make-believe scenarios play out in the cinema of his mind. Sometimes April was in them, sometimes not. Usually when she did appear in the tales he spun, he’d either write her out or just simply ignore her. If he didn’t, all the stories ended the same way: April, dead, covered in blood and gnawing on the neck of an old woman.
