by Fuchs, A. P.
Gripping the bar as tight as he could, he slowly aimed the X-09 at the head of the zombie clawing at his right leg. He shot; the creature’s face exploded. Its body fell.
The other dug into his skin with its sharp nails. Joe’s hand began to slip.
Fingers aching, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on.
The zombie bit into his boot and was greeted with a mouth full of steel.
Pa-toompf!
A nail appeared dead center of the zombie’s forehead. Its mouth dropped open. Joe kicked it in the face and the thing tumbled to the ground.
The weight of the undead suddenly gone, Joe thought he could pull himself up. The moment he tried, his sweaty fingers slipped on the metal of the ski.
He fell.
35
Grief
A pair of small hands locked around his wrist and clung on with everything they had. Joe looked up. Billie was squatting at the edge of the side door of the helicopter, a smile on her face, her glasses slipping down her nose.
Joe tried pulling himself up with his left hand, but couldn’t lest he risk pulling too hard and yank Billie out of the chopper. Still holding the X-09 in his right hand, he carefully pulled that arm up and tossed the weapon into the helicopter. Hand now empty, he latched onto the helicopter’s ski and simultaneously pulled himself up with that one while using the hand Billie held for support. Once he was no longer dangling from the ski, he searched for a better place to put his hands.
“Let go,” he told her, eyeing the edge of the side door.
Hesitancy flashed across her face.
“I need my other hand,” he said.
There seemed to be a debate going on behind those big blue eyes of hers.
“I’m serious. Let go!”
Behind the roar of the helicopter blades, he heard August yell, “Help him in. Hurry!”
Billie pulled up on his arm. Her grip was slipping and his body’s position was awkward. Her fingers suddenly went from being around his wrist to clasping onto the cuffs of his sleeves till all that she held was leather between thumbs and forefingers.
The weight was too much and her hands snapped back when she released the fabric and tumbled back onto her behind inside the helicopter.
Gravity swept in and Joe dropped. His left hand caught the edge of the ski, but his arm and shoulder took most of the blow and the muscles strained from the sudden jerk against them.
“Joe!” August shouted from within.
Billie was at the side door’s edge, leaning over, panic written across her face.
Joe dangled there, wind whipping at his legs and blowing him toward the back of the chopper.
Grunting, he leaned into the wind, trying to straighten himself, and got hold of the ski with both hands. The helicopter slowed a little, but it was still moving up and forward at a good clip.
The weight was too much and Joe’s arms straightened.
Taking heavy, deep breaths, he tried to calm himself. To slow down. He closed his eyes and purposefully ignored that his body was slowly being pushed by the wind toward the back of the helicopter again.
Growling, he held the ski tight and tried pulling himself up again.
For April, he thought.
“Puuuulllll . . .” His voice gurgled at the end and his head dipped. The city streets were a maze of rooftops and ruler-straight lines far below.
Something grabbed the back of his coat and began pulling him up and forward.
Up. Go. Pull!
Grunting, he slowly worked his hands up off the ski and onto the side edge of the helicopter. He then grabbed hold of something plush and leathery. A seat. Then something bony. A leg? Billie!
The tug against the back of his coat persisted until finally he was inside the chopper, lying on his stomach, up to his knees, feet hanging out.
He lay there panting, the icy wind whipping against his legs sending sweet shivers up his body, cooling down his sweat-soaked skin.
Throat dry, he forced himself to swallow, then used the rest of his strength to finish the job and get himself fully into the helicopter.
Billie grabbed him and helped him into the seat next to hers.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You okay?” August asked over his shoulder from the pilot seat.
Joe waved at him, signaling he was fine.
Billie looked at him with glazed eyes.
“Thanks,” he whispered, still out of breath.
She bit her lower lip, nodded, then turned and faced the window.
* * * *
Through tear-covered eyes, Billie watched the roof of the Richardson building drift away, the moving bodies of the undead milling about its top seeming less and less dangerous as the helicopter ascended.
Des was down there, somewhere inside that rooftop entrance, broken, bloody, beaten. She had to fight to keep the mental image of his blood-soaked face and torn flesh from invading her mind. Was he completely gone or was he one of them now? She would never know.
August hadn’t said anything since she had pulled Joe inside the chopper. Instead the old man sat in the pilot seat, hands on the cyclic and collective, eyes fixed forward. Joe sat in the seat beside her, hunched over his legs, forearms resting on his knees, head down. She didn’t have to see his face to know he was grieving, too, and that a million thoughts of failure were piercing his heart.
Des. The goofy kid with brown hair and a skinny frame.
Des. The young man she had known the longest throughout all this mess, the one person she could count on if she ever needed an ear, a terrible joke or just a cup of milk.
Des. Self-proclaimed zombie wrangler, at first only in video games but then in real life.
Des. Her hero.
He had been there for her in the early days, back when the rain first poured and the world went to hell. They had met online, both frequenting the same message board, each leaving messages like “Is anybody out there?” or “Who else is left?”
ZW1. Zombie wrangler.
Yeah, you are, she thought. She wiped the tears from her eyes and buried her face in her hands. She half-expected Joe to reach over and offer some sort of condolence, but instead she was left to sit there alone and think about the one who had laid down his life for her.
Des had been the only person she had really confided in after the rain.
One night, he had come over to her place to help her install some extra RAM into her PC. Once the task was completed, he was about to go but she had asked him to stay. She didn’t know why, at first. Perhaps because the weeks of lonely nights were finally getting to her. Perhaps it was because she was getting tired of no longer being able to hear a human voice and only read them on a computer screen.
Perhaps because all she needed was a friend.
He stayed. She’d never forget the way he sat on her couch, legs drawn up, hands folded around his shins, thumbs twiddling. She wasn’t surprised when later, during the one and only night they got drunk together, he told her that he thought she had wanted him to stay over for sex. It had been the last thing on her mind, at the time, but she couldn’t blame the poor kid. It was a lonely world and the gentle caress of human touch was something folks hardly came by. Chat on the message boards had it that none of the girls wanted to risk the chance of getting pregnant and bringing a baby into this mess. As far as everyone was concerned, they were the last generation.
But it had been on that night, as he sat there on her couch, expecting her to come on to him, that she had poured out her heart and told him the story of how she lost her family. The haunting images of her sister, her blood-soaked face and rain-slicked skin. She had been standing across the room at the time, pacing, sobbing, hands shaking. She’d never forget the way he stood from the couch and slowly came over to her, extended his arms and drew her in. His embrace had been warm and sweet and for that night she found shelter in his small frame.
He only said two words that whole night: “I understand.” That was it. He never
went into detail about how he lost his own family or what happened to them. Even the next day when she asked him if he wanted to talk about it, he simply sat there at her kitchen table, smiled, shook his head and said, “It’s okay.”
For a time she worried about him, thought that he was bottling it all up inside and that one day, given the right trigger, he’d explode and break down. That never happened. But she could see it though, the pain, lurking there behind his green eyes. Even after the few times she prodded him and asked him to open up, Des resolutely refused. Said that he missed them but had accepted they were gone. His only regret, he said, was that he was unable to join them. That, despite his gratefulness at still being alive, a part of him wished the undead had taken him away from a life of always falling short, of being the brunt of jokes, of utterly low self-esteem. Billie supposed that was why he often said the wrong thing or made inopportune jokes. It was his way of dealing with the pain whether he knew it or not.
Billie glanced out the window. Downtown Winnipeg was far away, a mere blur on the horizon against a misty gray and brown sky that hung over the earth like a blanket of death.
36
The Storm
It was happening all over again: the aftermath of having to make a choice.
Loss or gain.
Sentiment or judgment.
Life or death.
August chose life.
But Des was still gone. If he or even Joe and Billie had stayed, none of them would be flying now, high and away from the city. There hadn’t been time to stop and try and save Des. Sure, an effort could have been made. Perhaps even a heroic effort. But no one would have been left to remember them. Heroes were nothing without the memories of those who were there and lived to tell about it.
As he flew, August’s heart ached and his mind drifted back to that night when he pulled the gun on his family. A choice had to be made then just like now.
Good or evil.
Life or death.
August couldn’t let evil have its way. Not then, not now.
But You still let it happen, didn’t You? Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re in control. You know everything. We’re supposed to just simply trust You and call it good. Well, I’m sorry. That’s fine in sermons and in commentaries, but this is real life. How can You possibly expect a human being—and, yeah, believe me, I know where I stand—how can You possibly expect a human being to look at a world ravaged by the depths of hell and simply say, “God is in control?” Grimacing, he squeezed the cyclic and collective. “Nonsense,” he whispered. I can talk the talk, that’s for sure. But walking it out is easier said than done. You even said as much about that Yourself.
He had promised himself that, for now, he’d keep God at arms length. Let Him come to him. Still, he couldn’t help but vent it out mentally. There was no other way to try and come to terms with what just happened, and there was no way Joe or Billie would understand where he was coming from. To them, life was life. No God. No devil. Just life.
An ache swept through his heart. Now I wish I knew differently.
The way Des looked at him after he glanced over his shoulder that one final time, that look of fear and shocked abandonment behind the grim expression of determination—it reminded him of Eleanor, the one who was dead even before he squeezed that trigger back at the cabin. Her blood-caked lips opened up and her gaunt cheeks seemed to sink into her face beneath white eyes that, for an instant, seemed to recognize him. There had been pleading in those eyes, a simple begging for one last chance before he let her go. Eyes that read nothing but bewilderment at the man who had forty-one years before swore to love her in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death would they part. Who could have known death would come like it did?
No, not death, August thought. Death is when your body can no longer endure what’s been handed to it. Doesn’t matter how it comes. An accident, cancer, heart attack or simple old age. Death is when you finally raise your hands, let go, and say, “I’ve had enough.”
He punched the side of his seat. He felt the two in the rear seats stir, their eyes resting on him, but he didn’t care. He knew they knew what was going on. Though he hadn’t known the lad all that long, Des had begun to grow on him.
You just let him die, no problem. And where is he now? Did he know You? Or did he descend to the depths of the earth? Or is he one of them?
Eleanor. The kids. Jon junior, Bella, Finch, Katie and Stewart. All gone.
Just like Des.
How much longer until Joe and Billie would be gone, too, and he’d be alone once again? To care for them . . . . He didn’t want that responsibility. Not now. He already had a family. And they were dead.
There was a tap on his shoulder. It was Joe.
Clenching his teeth, he simply whispered, “I’ll deal with You later.”
August tilted his head back, giving him his attention.
“Call me ungrateful,” Joe said, “but do you know what you’re doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I just find it amazing that you know how to fly this thing.”
“I was in ’Nam.” Then, with a smirk, “Would you like to talk about it?”
Joe sank back into his seat.
“Hm, that’s . . . that’s interesting,” August said.
“What?” Billie asked, leaning in.
“I should have checked it before, but I didn’t. Too busy just wanting to get out of there.”
“What?”
“The fuel gauge is on empty.”
Joe leaned forward in his seat. “Then how are we . . .”
A sharp dagger pierced August’s heart. He checked the gauge again. Sure enough, it was on empty. “Looks like Somebody is on our side.”
* * * *
They flew on.
Joe sat in his seat, arms crossed, wondering where this bird would take them.
The tank had been on E.
And they were still flying.
Could the gauge be wrong? Broken?
Doesn’t matter, he concluded. As long as we find safe ground and have a chance to regroup, we can figure out what our next move is.
He glanced over at Billie. She sat with one leg up on the seat, bended at the knee, her forehead resting against the palm of her hand. She was no doubt thinking about Des.
I should have saved him. But there were just too many of them. I didn’t really know him, but that doesn’t matter. Never knew anyone else I helped get away from those things. His heart sank. April would hate me right now. He wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that, but April always had a way of bringing out the best in him, helping him reach deep down and dig out his full potential. It was one of the things that he loved about her: her ability to make him feel like he mattered. And now he felt he had let her down. That, wherever she was, she was somehow counting on him to make right the wrong that had been her death by preserving the lives of as many as he encountered.
“I miss you,” he whispered.
He imagined her saying the same thing to him. Even though their relationship had been left up in the air and she had gone back to Dan, he knew he had impacted her, had pulled her out of the drudgery of “just another day.”
If I could do things over again, April, I would. I would have called. Would have gone back to your apartment. Would have found you somehow. Maybe then we could have faced this together instead of . . . Her blood-soaked face filled his mind. He glanced out the window to banish it from view and stroked the X-09, which was now back in its holster, through his coat.
Nothing but gray clouds with coffee-brown.
Joe peered further out the window. The world below was gone.
He quickly leaned forward in his seat and tapped August on the shoulder. The old man was checking the gauges.
“Why are we flying so high?” he asked him.
“We’re not. At least, according to this thing.” August tapped his index finger against the altimeter. They were only at about five thousand feet.
“Hey, where did everything go?” Billie asked, dropping her foot off the seat and sitting up straight.
“I don’t know,” August said. “We were just flying along and the air started to get hazy. I didn’t think anything of it. Maybe a really low-hanging cloud or something. But it got thicker.”
“Go lower,” Joe said.
August worked the controls and Joe felt the helicopter begin to descend.
But the cloud wasn’t going anywhere. Its light gray began to dim and soon deep gray washed over with a light charcoal embraced them.
The altimeter read three thousand feet.
“Try again,” Joe said.
August repeated the maneuver.
Two thousand. The gray grew even darker.
One thousand.
It was impossible to see anything through the glass. Just dark cloud.
It had been so long since Joe had seen anything like it. For the past year, the sky had been washed over in misty gray dotted with brown.
These clouds were different. These were storm clouds.
And the altimeter read only five hundred feet.
“I don’t want to take her down anymore. Too dangerous. Might hit something,” August said.
