Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand

by Cotton, Daniel

  “My mom died early on, when the dead first started walking. My father passed away during the winter,” she tells him. Tears flow down her cheeks, and Dustin wishes he could wipe away for her. “He went out to get me a Christmas present. I told him not to go, but he insisted. He said it was safe since the things were frozen… He forgot that the stores would be warm.”

  She looks at her dad where he lay, half in the antechamber used to decontaminate people and objects using UV light. The short hall doesn’t make things completely sterile, but clean enough to be outside the seals of her airtight door and shorten the lengthy process required to give Eve an item. Treating them with ethylene oxide at 140 degrees for days now only takes hours.

  “As soon as he was bitten, he began to rush around to make sure I had everything I would need for a while. After everything was sterilized, he put his suit on so he could hold me one last time. I begged him to stay, but he couldn’t. He said he would be one of them soon. He hoped to be able to get out of the house before dying… He didn’t make it.

  “I’m sort of glad for that. I liked the company. But it’s better that he’s at rest now.” The delicate girl sniffs back her sorrow. Eve gives Dustin a brave smile. “So how have you survived?”

  7

  Gloved hands drag the bodies by their ankles; the survivors make piles along the road on their way back to the trailer park. A few stragglers are found, crawling corpses that still have the hope of eating human flesh but have arrived late for dinner. They dig into the earthen street with their cold fingers and stumps to no avail.

  “Ma’am,” Dan calls to Eric’s widow over the high fence. “It’s safe to come out now.”

  “Where’s my husband?” she asks through a crack, after she opens door.

  “I’m sorry, the dead got him… He’s gone,” Dan tells the woman, who begins to break down.

  Dan has no idea how to console Bethany. Words escape him, and the seconds feel like an eternity of awkwardness. He looks to Carla for suggestions, but she just shrugs while biting her nails. The sheriff still thinks it’s wrong to leave the woman in the dark about her husband’s deplorable and inhumane actions.

  Between sniffs and wet sobs, Bethany speaks. “He was so brave… My Eric was a hero.”

  At that, Carla storms away.

  Oz mutters next to Dan, “Not much of a pain tolerance for a hero.”

  “Not helpful,” Dan whispers. “Bethany, Eric’s last wish was for us to come and get you.”

  The use of her name coaxes the woman from her home and onto the porch. She shields her eyes from the sun, having not seen it for so long. She’s a frail slip of a lady in a long nightgown. Dan tells her the dead are gone, but that she should stay put until the cleanup is over as a precaution. He feels bad for her, but she must stay inside for a bit longer, at least until her husband is really dead.

  After being doused with accelerant, the piles become pyres, casting long ropes of black smoke into the air. Dan asks Oz to call for some help while he and the other men pull bodies from the buildings on Main Street. There are many homes in the woods they need to clear out, and more corpses to dispose of. Soon King Eric will become one more for the fire.

  Carla is in her Attack Track with her head resting on the steering wheel. She doesn’t stir as Oz radios New Castle. “You all right?”

  “Just pondering things,” she says. Then she raises her head and stares at the massive wall of timber that encloses Raleigh from the world. “You’re a guy, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why aren’t you and all the other men from town out raping bitches?”

  “I can only speak for myself on this one. I’ve just never really had a hankering for ‘bitch raping.’ I think it might be an acquired taste, like liverwurst… maybe it’s just how I was raised. At least we stopped him.”

  “It doesn’t erase it. It still happened. Probably happening somewhere else right now… It makes me sick.”

  Oz feels the same way. He’s never had a violent thought about a woman, not even about his wife who left him, taking their son in tow. He has had plenty of impulses about the bastard that stole his family, however. Never about the woman he married, pledged his undying love to.

  Carla has been after Oz to have a drink with her for some time now, and she looks like she could use one now more than ever. He believes they both could.

  “The kids are doing that camp thing tonight. Camp Zombatombie… Some pajam-boree. It’s a Barbara thing… Perhaps, we can cash in that rain check? Have a few?”

  “I gotta pick Becka up from at the station when we’re done here… After?”

  “Sounds good.” He nods. “It’s a date.”

  8

  Dustin’s recounting of his experiences among the dead are a feat of storytelling. He omits many details, and exaggerates the time he spent in the army. He tells Eve that in the country’s time of need he had ‘stepped up to the plate.’ He spins yarns about the lives he saved while the base fell to the enemy around them.

  Eve listens with rapt attention. The wide-eyed young woman has never been outside, has never been lied to or known dishonesty or subterfuge. She is pure and uncorrupted by society.

  “I know how you can help me!” she says excitedly, obviously figuring that such an altruistic person would be happy to be given a task. “My air is scrubbed by four filters. There are two in here that I can do myself, but there are two on my roof that are overdue to be changed. It’s getting a bit stuffy in here.”

  “Yeah!” He readily agrees to aid the pretty damsel in distress. “Just tell me how.”

  Eve directs him to grab the walkie talkie her father has clipped to his suit and go to the back yard; her required supplies are all stored in the barn. Eager to please, Dustin rushes out the front door, racing around the dwelling. On his way to the old weathered barn, he glances over his shoulder to the backside of the home where the lovely girl resides. The sight of the enormous RV slows his stride.

  Eve’s father may have refused the double-wide, but they were given far more than a mere recreational vehicle. The girl’s private abode is a custom made semi-trailer. The impressive mobile home sits on a foundation of radials.

  The barn yields an assortment of supplies one wouldn’t expect to find judging from the outside. Instead of the usual farm fare, Dustin’s gaze dances over pallets containing tanks and jugs of sterilization fluids and gases, replacement gaskets, protective clothing, and a variety of filters. Everything is packaged together in great supply and labeled. The adhesive endorsements not only tell what the items are, they also declare that they were donated by the Rosie Parson’s Project.

  She had told him what size and permeation to look for, so he grabs what is needed and runs back to the house. The combined width of the rectangular filters strains his fingers. They are the size of boogie boards and he must hold them to his side so as not to kick them with his knees. As he returns, he searches for the girl through the windows of her solitary home. The attention to detail is remarkable, and the trailer looks like an actual house. It even matches the rustic charm of the larger residence.

  He finally spots her in the farthest left window, and they wave to one another. The radio she told him to acquire squawks on his belt. “Hello, Dustin. It’s Eve.”

  That’s so cute, he thinks. Anyone else saying such a thing may have earned a sarcastic remark from him. “I’m here.”

  “The ladder is around this way.” She points, indicating he must round the next corner.

  Dustin climbs a white steel ladder that is attached to the home, next to an ivy covered lattice. Eve appears in a window beside him, parting the white curtains to wave. He returns the gesture with the stack of filters and almost falls. Smiling through his embarrassment, he crests the slightly pitched roof.

  “I’m up.”

  “Good,” her voice cheers. “The intake should be somewhere up there.”

  “Ok.” He surveys the shingled surface, but the only structure he sees on the
roof is a steeple. He cautiously approaches the protrusion, since the slight angle he walks on worries him.

  The steeple is in fact the objective; the construction shrouds the air filtration unit he seeks. “I found the intake.”

  “That’s great!” Eve says back.

  Dustin awaits further instructions. He inspects the humming device, and then looks around the property. He can’t help but notice the girl inside hasn’t told him what to do yet. “Eve, how do I do this?”

  “I don’t know.” Her words break his heart. “My dad always did it.”

  Uh oh, he thinks. He opens the steeple’s false wall panel and inspects the grey box within, but finds no instructions. The filters also get a frantic look over. The packaging states that the unit needs to be turned off before any maintenance can be performed. “I think we need to shut it off to change this out, right?”

  “Yup,” she confirms. After a few seconds of searching for a kill switch, Dustin hears he voice again. “Oops! I do that on my end.”

  The units droning ceases, and the gentle breeze it creates by sucking in air disappears.

  He finds all the tools needed for the job stored behind the false wall. I can’t half-ass this, he thinks to himself as he follows what the packaging tells him to do, first by removing the external filter, and then the internal. The workspace is tight, but he gets them replaced and double checks each one before proceeding to the next. The final steps calls for the device to run in reverse for a full minute, then Eve is instructed to utilize her controls.

  Dustin counts the seconds, putting the word ‘potato’ between each one. “How’s that? Better?”

  “Much! Thank you, Dustin.”

  “Not a problem,” he tells her while he crab crawls to the edge of the roof with the empty packaging.

  Dustin had seen spare units in the barn, along with several of everything the girl may need. An entire new enclosure could be built from the spare parts. She has redundancies and backups to last her a lifetime, and from what she had told him about her condition, he knows that’s usually a very short span.

  9

  “He was just being nice,” Carla tells Becka. “He saw I was all tore up over what went on in that town and asked me for a drink.”

  “You don’t know that.” Becka consoles her friend as she sets a playlist to fill the dead air now that she has signed off for the day. “Tonight you should just tell him how you feel. Lay it all out.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Be aggressive.”

  From his first days in New Castle, Carla knew Oz was different. She saw that under his steel exterior was a great guy. She couldn’t think of many men who would willfully take on the task of caring for and raising two dozen kids that aren’t even his own. They had offered the man an out, foster services. They promised to relocate each boy and girl to a good home with suitable parents. Oz said he could handle it, even volunteered the male nurse, David, he had arrived with or the task as well.

  “Last night I asked him to grab dinner with me,” Carla says. “He said he had to help David move. That wouldn’t take too long. The guy can’t have that much shit, right?”

  Eye contact between them is quickly broken off by Becka, who then fiddles with knobs and dials on the sound room’s control board. Carla knows the station is broadcasting a recording, and that her friend's arbitrary actions are just a show. “You know something.”

  “Me? I don’t know anything.” The girl nervously laughs. “You should see my SAT scores.”

  “Spill it, Becka.”

  Becka’s and Carla lock gazes. Although she was able to easily fool her old classmates into thinking of her as just another absent minded cheerleader, an arrogant A-lister in their minute little universe, she can’t fool Carla. They have become true friends, and there’s no tricking her. “Oz was with me last night.”

  ##

  ‘Living with survival’ is the name of a support group, a safe place where people can talk about their experiences beyond the wall. Folks can expunge guilt they may harbor over out-living their loved ones, or confess the drastic means they had taken in the name of survival. Becka runs the group. It was actually her idea, having her own demons in need of exorcism. Though no oath was taken, she keeps the group anonymous. Everything one may hear from another in the circle is to be kept strictly confidential. Becka broke her own vow by telling Carla of Oz’s attendance, but was able to retain everything the man has shared.

  Carla promises herself that she won’t pry as she knocks on the man’s door. He had given her an overview of his time out there, just not the whole picture. Oz answers the door in a pair of grey sweats; she had taken the time to get cleaned up and changed as well. She stands before him in jeans and a braless tank top, her hair is still damp from her shower.

  “Hey,” he greets his guest. “Come on in.”

  “Gladly,” she enters, squeezing past him where he holds the door open.

  This is the first time she has been in Oz’s house without the kids. It’s surprisingly immaculate. No toys strewn about or spills, as she had encountered on the previous visits. Above all, it’s quiet. With twenty-four children, Oz and David had been given one of the largest homes in town, second only to the Williamson ranch.

  “With the kids gone for the night, and David no longer here, I would have probably wound up drinking alone,” he tells her.

  “Me too,” she says. Her brother Sid is helping Barbara with the little campers and is also gone for the night. “We might as well drink alone together.”

  They sit in silence, watching the fire in the fireplace, intermittingly sipping their Jack and Cokes.

  Carla speaks first, “Crazy day, huh?”

  “Yeah.” The large man nods. “Really fucked up situation. It makes me think…”

  Carla coaxes him. “About?”

  “After I was done with that monster…” He stares into his beverage, having trouble opening up without the safety of his group. “I realized that I’m no better than he is. I’m a monster too.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Who am I to be a moral compass? I saw what he had done to those… I broke every bone he didn’t need to live simply because I didn’t like what he was doing… Because I could and no one could stop me.”

  “Your options were limited; death, imprisonment, or exile. Killing that man was the most humane thing you could have done… Well, maybe not your method. Those of us that remain seem to be divided into two categories; sinners and saints. We’re the heroes.”

  He’s used the same sentiment before, but can’t quite justify his actions today. “The world was a pretty sick place before it fell apart, but what I saw in that basement… I needed every last painful breath he took to be a reminder of what he did. Make him die watching those reanimated newborns he had tossed down that laundry chute squirm.”

  “It’s getting late,” Carla says, standing.

  “I’ll show you out,” Oz begins to rise.

  “No need.” She waves off the custom, taking Becka’s advice about being aggressive. “I didn’t say I was leaving. I’m not planning on getting much sleep tonight, and I hope you aren’t.”

  Carla straddles the man in his recliner, kissing him deeply. The two decide to take a break from being saints.

  10

  Dustin and Eve share a meal together, separated by a pane of glass. The girl has set a small table on her side of the oval window that gives the illusion of a nice family setting once it is aligned with the longer dining table. This is how she always ate with her parents.

  A similar window is found in the adjoining room, the kitchen. The girl has her own smaller cooking space that allowed her and her mother to prepare meals together. Dustin had to pass through another UV vestibule to reach the kitchen. Among the standard appliances and charm is a large flat screen television and a pair of comfortable recliners that enabled the family to watch TV and movies together.

  The two watch a movie with the lights dimmed to r
educe the glare on the transparent barrier between them. Eve falls asleep before long, and Dustin just watches the angel for several minutes. Curiosity pulls him from his vigil, though. Since he expects to be staying here for a while, he figures he should get to know the place.

  The same rustic motif is found on the upper level, without the accents of science fiction. Modest bedrooms and a full bath all contrast the downstairs in their advanced state of disarray. The sink and vanity of the bathroom are splattered with old blood; the fancy decorative bar of soap in the dish nearby is encrusted by it as well. A ring of grime stretches around the tub walls.

  The king sized bed in the master suite is unmade and smells musty. Dustin kicks his way through piles of old laundry to get to an antique dresser. He wants to find some clean clothes, anything but the rough fatigues in his car. But he has no luck finding a thing to wear, except clothes that belonged to Eve’s late mother. All her dad’s garments are buried in the dirty laundry piles.

  I could do some wash, I think. Dustin has never done a load of wash before--not once in his nineteen years of life. Since moving out of his parents’ home, he had just brought bags of laundry to his mother every week. The arrangement was perfect, because not only did he get his clothes cleaned and folded he also got a free meal. But now he figures he has many chores in store for him. If it means having a safe place to stay, and getting to spend his time with the beautiful captive angel, he’ll do anything. He will protect her and make this place a home.