by D C P Fox
He fired the shotgun into the air above the dogs. They scattered.
He reached his target neighborhood after a few more minutes of walking. By now he was sweating underneath his new ski jacket.
Canvassing for firewood would be a tough slog. Since firewood piles are typically at least several feet behind a house, he had to search behind each property he came across. Every front door was open in one fashion or another. It seemed the zombies had done their own canvassing.
The fifteenth house was a log cabin with a pile of firewood in the side yard, too close to the house. They should have thought about carpenter ants or termites, not that it mattered now. The wood was wet, as he expected, but there had to be some dry wood in the house to at least get a fire started before trying the less-than-ideal damp wood. He hoped whoever lived here was long gone. He couldn’t steal a living person’s firewood. Or could he? No, he wasn’t that desperate yet.
The front door lay broken on the floor. He walked in and called out “Hello,” and, unfortunately, he got a weak response from a nearby bedroom on the first floor. There on the bed lay an old, emaciated woman with medical equipment all around her, including a blood pressure meter, an IV dispenser, and an oxygen monitor, among other apparatuses. None of it functioned, and neither did the TV across the room from her. The head and tail of the bed were raised, no doubt permanently.
“Hello, young man,” she said.
“Hello,” Vin echoed grimly.
“My caregiver only stepped out for a minute two days ago but never returned.” She picked up a TV remote. “This told me why.”
She looked like she should have died days ago. Vin stared at her.
“Yes, I’m dying,” she said. “I have an inoperable brain tumor that has spread everywhere.” She smiled. She actually smiled. “Not that anyone could operate now, anyway.”
Vin recovered. “Why hasn’t a zombie come in to kill you? The front door was knocked down.”
“One did. But she stopped short of the bed, sniffed the air, and unceremoniously turned her back and left.” Her speech was slow and stilted. The dying woman shook her head. “So disappointing.”
“Disappointing?!”
“Didn’t I say I was dying? I’m in so much pain . . . Can you please kill me? Shoot me in the head with that shotgun? If you shoot me point-blank at my skull, I’m sure I won’t feel a thing.” She smiled again.
“But I . . . I’m sorry, I just can’t do that.”
She smiled yet again. “But you can, and you must. If you’re here, if you’ve survived with that gun, you’ve probably used it on the victims before. Am I right?”
He nodded, noticing the scattering of wet snow that covered the only window in the room.
“Then you’ve already killed innocent victims. What’s one terminally ill person wanting to end her misery?”
“All right, I’ll do it,” he whispered.
“Oh, don’t get all bent out of shape,” she said. “The rules of society have changed. Clearly, you see that?”
He sighed. “What is your name?”
“Agnes. Agnes Crabapple.”
“I’m Vin Scoggins.” Tears stung his eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Vin. Now can you hurry it up? I’m in a lot of pain here. And I’m sooo cold.”
“You might die of hypothermia? That’s not a bad way to go.”
“And if I don’t? I’ll starve to death. Did I mention I’m confined to this bed without food? I’m really very hungry . . . And I hear starving to death is really horrible.”
He was despondent but determined to carry out her wishes, if only to prove to himself that he was no coward. He looked down as he said, “In the mouth would be more certain to be painless and effective.”
“Yes, yes, fine. Do it now before you change your mind.”
She tilted her head back and opened her mouth, closing her eyes. Before he could overthink it, he placed the shotgun in her mouth, said, “Goodbye, Agnes,” and pulled the trigger.
Her diseased brains splattered against the wall.
He stood there still for several seconds. Then he retracted his shotgun and left the room. He vowed not to tell a single soul about what he had done.
Trudging through the wet snow to the house where Vin found the firewood, Janice gained a newfound respect for Jize Chen. She always respected him as a musician, but she never got to appreciate him as a person. She forgot his precise age, but she remembered from his bio online that he was in his late sixties. And yet here he was, braving the falling snow and the wind and the several inches of slush, all to help carry firewood for the group.
Although he probably felt he had little choice. Alexander couldn’t carry firewood because he was resting his wrist—Janice insisted upon that. No one would let Emily do it. And the sheriff needed to protect those two, plus the store, as he and Vin were the only ones with shotguns and the training in how to use them.
And Vin needed to protect those carrying the wood, and to do that well, he couldn’t carry it himself.
That left Janice and Jize to carry the firewood.
Janice looked back to see Jize struggling to keep up. Janice herself was several yards behind Vin.
“Slow down!” Janice called.
Vin turned around with a scowl on his face. As he approached her, shotgun in his right hand, he looked menacing, almost frightening and intimidating, despite his absurd wet navy-blue sweat pants with the white stripes.
“I thought I told you no loud noises.”
Janice looked around. “Here? There’s no one out here.”
“You don’t know that. People could be watching us. And I scared off a pack of wild dogs with this.” He stuck his shotgun out at her.
“People who need our help could be watching us. Should we turn our backs on them?”
Jize caught up to them. He took off his gloves and blew on his hands.
“We have enough people to deal with,” Vin said, scowling again.
“We are just a burden to you,” Jize said in between breaths on his hands.
“I didn’t say that. You’re helping me carry firewood.”
“So we’re pack mules, then?” Janice asked. “You know what I think? I think you care about no one but yourself. You judge everyone by how useful they are to you.”
“So what would you have us do? Take in a whole town of survivors? You realize, don’t you, that not the best ones of us will survive this.”
Janice clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “You don’t trust anyone, do you?”
“I’m trusting each of you with those handguns, even though you barely know how to use them.”
“So,” Jize said. “We are your pack mules, and our worth is determined by how good we are with a handgun.”
Vin clenched his jaw and scowled once more. “I won’t have this conversation in the middle of a snowstorm, out in the open like this. You two need to face the reality that the life you once led, the society you lived in, is over. And the first thing we need to do is to get some god-damned firewood so we can all keep warm, dry these wet clothes, and maybe cook some food. I’m worrying about our survival—”
“Your survival,” Janice said.
“Enough,” Vin said through closed teeth. “Follow me and keep up.” With that, he turned around and waded through the slush. Jize hastily put on his gloves and followed.
Janice looked at the first house on the road that Vin walked toward. She still believed the best thing to do was canvass all the houses in town, looking for survivors, and bring them back to the supermarket.
Nonetheless, that idea frightened her. The sheriff had said the zombies were impervious to every weapon except a shotgun. Until she had one, she would never feel safe. What if not all the zombies traveled north? What if some remained behind? To finish the job?
Janice shuddered in the icy wind and then jogged in the slush, her legs wet and cold above her boots.
Chapter Twenty
Day Eight
&nbs
p; Jocelyn jerked her body with a start. Splashing her wrists out of the water, she looked at them in a panic, expecting pain and gushing blood. Her wrists were perfectly clean. No blood. No cuts of any kind.
Was it all a dream?
No. The water was pink—some blood but not as much as expected.
No more voices. She faced the terror of another psychotic break. Thank the Lord it was over.
She dared not trust her memories, at least not entirely. Maybe she hadn’t slit her wrists?
She stood up, sending waves and splashes of pink over the side onto the floor. Inspecting her body for other sources of blood, she couldn’t find any, anywhere, not even in her vagina, so she wasn’t menstruating.
She remembered healing after George’s bite. Without a scar. Smooth skin.
She looked around for the knife and spotted it at the bottom of the tub. Sitting back down, she put her right arm in the water and cut a small sliver, drawing blood. Then she watched as the blood stopped flowing. Her wound closed seconds later, with no sign of a wound seconds after that.
Holy shit.
What was happening to her?
“Why didn’t you tell me I’m a draugar?” Jocelyn asked Saint Michael from inside her Inner Temple. She was furious at him.
His face betrayed bewilderment; Jocelyn had never seen him look bewildered. “But you are not a draugar. You could not meditate if you were. You would not be here speaking with me. My child, what makes you think you are a draugar?”
“Because of this.” She extended her fisted hands, her wrists on top.
“The suicide attempt. Your healing. It is a puzzle.”
“A puzzle? I would have killed myself!”
“You know I do not possess the power to intervene. You know I can only speak with you on the astral plane, and only when you call on me. Many of my followers perished, Jocelyn. You would not be the first. You would not be the last.”
She did not expect this callousness from Saint Michael. It made her feel betrayed in a way. Wasn’t he supposed to look out for her? “But . . . but you said I was immune? That I was special?”
“I do not recall using those exact words. I said God would forgive you if you found your medication. But, in a manner of speaking, you are indeed special. I—”
He stopped speaking and tilted his head.
“Understand that you are not a draugar, and you need to get medication. Leave at first light. You are prone to a psychotic break at any time.”
“But how do you explain the healing?”
The waterfall in her Inner Temple was too distracting. She shut it off.
“I cannot,” he answered. “It is a puzzle. Perhaps it has to do with your immunity.”
“Does that even make sense?”
“All I can say is you are not a draugar. You are lucid. You are here. You do not have the sores. You do not want to eat brains. Or do you?”
“Ugh!”
“Then you are not a draugar.”
“But draugar do heal, right?” she asked. “George healed as soon as I thrust my sword into him.”
“Yes, there is that.”
“Wait.” A sense of horror came over her. “What if I’m a part draugar? Not fully draugar, but not fully human, either?” She shuddered.
“An interesting idea. This seems to bother you more than being a full draugar.”
That was logical, she wasn’t sure why it bothered her. “It’s creepy, I suppose.”
“Perhaps. But you need to focus on getting properly medicated.”
“So I should ignore this?”
“Of course not,” he answered. “Your chances of surviving until you get medication have increased considerably. But if you dwell on it, if you hesitate or get distracted, then the next time you kill someone due to psychosis, we shall not be very forgiving.”
She nodded. “One more thing. Is there US military in control of Colorado Springs? Some type of air base?”
“I have not heard of this. But, regardless, Jocelyn, I do not want you to distract yourself from retrieving medication that will stop these psychotic breaks. Find your medication, and then we can talk about Colorado Springs.”
He clapped his hands, abruptly ending her meditation.
The road to the highway was unpaved dirt and a little dusty. The hills were lush and green, but the mountains, two thousand feet above narrow valleys, were sparse and brown above the tree line.
About two to three hundred feet from the paved highway crossing, Jocelyn felt a strange tingling on the back of her neck, like the pins and needles that came after numbness, though not uncomfortable. Maybe her lack of discomfort was related to how she could heal?
She didn’t know what to expect. Would she encounter a lot of draugar once she reached civilization? Could she fight off all of them by herself, even with her sword and a shotgun? How many survivors were there? When would she meet any? She couldn’t bear the thought of being in this situation alone for much longer.
Carrying her backpack over her sword and shotgun on her shoulders, it didn’t take long for Jocelyn to reach the highway. It was a beautiful, warm, windy late summer day—not a cloud in the sky. She looked around at the crossroads. It was early afternoon, but not a soul was about. Modest one- and two-story wood buildings were spread apart. Then she spotted the smeared blood on a white SUV parked in a tiny lot across the street. In the same lot as the car, staring her right in the face, her eye caught a sign over a storefront that read AREA MAPS.
She couldn’t believe her luck.
She ran across the road.
The building was actually a realtor that also sold maps of the area. She reached the realty office, and found the door slightly ajar. The door jam was broken off—it had been busted open.
She drew her shotgun in both hands, pushing the door with a nudge of her shoulder.
“I mean no harm,” she called.
No response.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
She shifted her shotgun to one hand, opening the door fully. The place was deserted.
She tested the knob and found the door was still locked. Had the draugar done this? Broken open a locked door? Maybe the zombie apocalypse had hit here during non-business hours. The hours sign said it was closed Mondays. Maybe it had hit on a Monday? How long ago? Monday was the day before the snowfall.
The tingling on the back of her neck continued.
She searched through a rack of maps and took a map of Beaver Park. It was one of those colorful, not-to-scale ones with drawings of buildings with labels on them. On it included a brewery/pub, a liquor store, an arts council building, a well-known coffee-house chain, and a supermarket, among other buildings. But there was no pharmacy marked on the map. She also took maps of: Bitter Creek; Denver area streets; Colorado Springs area streets; and Ella and Deaver area streets (just north of Beaver Park).
After she left the realtor, a sign caught her eye. It read:
THIS FRI.
BINGO at 7
POT LUCK at 6
TOWN HALL.
She wondered what a draugar pot luck would be like.
“I’ve made sautéed brains, care to try some?”
“Ewww, I don’t like my brains cooked.”
“Sushi brains! Now that’s the way to go . . .”
She giggled despite her dire situation.
She looked up the road, to the north. There were houses all along this road, although they were spaced much farther apart than in California.
To the South, a few buildings on the edge of town stood silent.
She spotted a general store, a hotel, and a bar.
A sense of escalating danger set in. Shattered windows dominated the town. Every single door was broken open. Could someone be lurking in the shadows? In the darkness of the buildings?
But she needed supplies, at least better food, and as she walked toward the store, her fears were confirmed.
A man walked through the shattered window of the bar.
&nbs
p; He looked like a man in his fifties, with gray hair and hints of wrinkles on his face, which bore a large pustule.
A draugar.
But he didn’t chase after her, like George had. He could have been any ordinary man with a pustule on his face.
About to draw her sword, a shot rang out, and the draugar’s neck exploded.
Chapter Twenty-One
Day Three
The next day, when Vin announced he would build a fire, and that the sheriff would guard him, Jize realized that helping them would be a good chance to get to know them both.
Jize put on his gloves and picked up the shovel they had told him to bring. He gripped the handle tight, feeling a rarely experienced tautness in his knuckles. He normally refrained from manual labor, for fear it would damage his hands.
The other two were already outside, and he followed through the vestibule, pushing hard on the automatic doors so they would swing open. Although the snow had stopped the day before, the air, while warmer, was still raw and biting.
The sheriff insisted on shoveling the snow that had drifted underneath the overhang with Vin at the guard. They would swap roles for building the fire.
“Is having a guard really necessary?” Jize asked as he pushed his eyeglass frames up the bridge of his nose. “There isn’t a soul in sight, and there hasn’t been since we first got together at this market.”
“We don’t know what’s out there,” the sheriff said while moving the snow with his shovel.
“Nothing,” Jize said. “Nothing is out there. They’ve all become zombies and left. And we should leave, too.”
“With what vehicle?” the sheriff asked. “Yours won’t start, mine won’t start, Janice carpooled, et cetera. We have no vehicle. Besides, where would you have us go?”
Jize shrugged. “Denver. There may be more survivors there.”
“Or more zombies,” the sheriff said as they finished up the shoveling.
“What do you think, Vin?” Jize asked. “Should we go to Denver or remain here?”
“Remain here. Too much uncertainty out there.”
