Notes From the End of the World

by Donna Burgess

  Sylvia notices. She touches my arm. “This will pass. All things do. We’ve had these halls filled with cases of flu and I thought we’d never get to everyone. Sometimes people die and that’s the tough part of this job.” She sighs. “But you’re here because you want to help, right?”

  “Yes,” I answer, wondering if I’m just saying what I know people want to hear.

  “Good, because we need you.”

  We need you. I almost want to look around and see who this woman is talking to. Either way, I put on the mask—it’s one of those that cover my nose and mouth and has the clear plastic shield over my eyes. I feel like I’m playing dress-up.

  That’s until Sylvia leads me back down the packed corridor. She pulls me to her and relays commands into my ear. “We here for comfort only, Cindy. At this point, all we can offer. These people are frightened. Because of the news, they know what they’re in for. Don’t get too close. Adjust their blankets, talk to them a little. The incubation period can vary, depending on how much exposure these people have had. We have no way of knowing which of these people are in the last stages.” She looks me hard in the eyes. “You understand what I mean by ‘last stages,’ don’t you? That when they become dangerous. That’s when we need the guards to come in and handle things.”

  I nod and move to the first gurney closest to the entrance of the E.R. An elderly man lies there, staring straight up at the ceiling. Realizing I’m at his side, he turns his rheumy gaze to me.

  “The mailman bit me. Can you believe it, dear? I thought he was handing me my mail and he just grabbed my hand and …chomped down.” He laughs shakily and holds up a bandaged hand between us.

  He says something else, his mouth moving slowly, deliberately, but because of the constant moaning and crying, I can’t hear him. I smooth his blanket, tell him the doctor would get him in soon, and pat his shoulder.

  I move on to the next bed, taking a moment to look around at the scene that spreads before me. These are my people. That sounds silly, but it’s true. My people. The ones I bump into at the supermarket or at the mall. Parents and grandparents of my friends. I don’t know their names, but I know them. They are me and my family.

  My stomach starts to ache. My heart starts to ache. The crying and writhing is so troubling, I wanted to just find Dad and leave.

  Instead, I step over to the next bed, occupied by a woman who might be my mother’s age. She doesn’t notice me. Her eyes have grown as pale as dish water and her skin is the shade of the beige blanket that covers her. Her soccer mom hair cut is flattened to her head, her sensible makeup smudged around her eyes like bruises.

  “The doctor will get to you in a few moments,” I tell her, feeling like a liar. “Can I get you anything?”

  No response. I don’t touch her or pat her shoulder like I did the old man. Something tells me not to trust her. The stink of illness comes off of her in waves—perspiration, foul breath. I think she’s soiled herself and am thankful she’s covered with a blood-splotched blanket.

  I’d start away from her when she suddenly sits up, her blanket falling away to expose the upper part of her body. What I see make my stomach tighten and for a moment, I think I’ll be sick. It’s becoming apparent I’m not as immune to the horrors of the E.R. as I thought. The woman’s entire left shoulder and the crest of her left breast have been chewed away. Dark, gnarled meat glistens like wet paint through her tattered blouse. Blood has soaked all the way through her blouse. I take a deep breath hoping to calm myself.

  The pillow that was supporting her head has fallen to the floor and I stoop to get it. I want to get away from this patient. Sylvia made me understand none of these poor people have a chance, but this one is farther gone than the rest.

  There’s a feather-like caress on my shoulder and I jump and pull away. To hell with the pillow, the virus-victims and this hospital. But I’m going anywhere. The caress on my shoulder morphs into a vice-grip in my hair. My head jerks back, the tendons in my neck scream, and I suddenly have an upside-down, close-up view of the chewed-up woman. Her white lips pull back into a wolf’s snarl, bearing her nicotine-stained teeth. She rips away my mask, her putrid breath wafting into my face making my throat close up for a moment.

  I can’t speak. I can’t move. Her pale eyes have me hypnotized, nearly. But the young woman who’s sitting on the gurney across the narrow hallway from us does scream. She springs up and latches her hands around my attacker’s throat and begins to shake her hard, which isn’t a lot of fun, as my attacker still has hold of my hair. I’m being thrown from side to side by my hair, my scalp screaming.

  Finally, I find my voice and scream for my Dad, for Sylvia, for whoever can hear. Dad materializes at my side like my guardian angel, seemingly sensing that I’m in danger. I can’t tell what he’s doing, but in an instant, the hold on my hair relents and I fall on my ass to the floor. A shrill scream rings out and is quickly muffled. I jump to my feet and turn around. Dad has pulled the woman’s blanket over her face, then twisted it into a knot at the back of her head. The fabric is drawn tight over her, but I can still make out the hollow of her open mouth, the bump of her squashed nose and the shallower indentions of her eyes.

  Just then, a guard I don’t recognize bursts through the doors at the end of the hallway, his belly swaying as he runs, his gun already drawn.

  He trains it on the young woman who has helped me.

  “Wait! She’s safe,” I cry, jumping in front of her and pointing at the screaming woman.

  Dad pulls the woman to the floor, the blanket still wrapped around her head. He rolls her onto her belly and places a knee on the middle of her back. She’s still trying to fight, but Dad’s too heavy for her to do any more damage.

  “Help me, will you?” Dad snaps at the guard.

  For a moment, the guard only stands there, staring stupidly, until Sylvia nudges his shoulder.

  “We can’t let her get away. She’s contagious,” she tells him.

  I help the young woman, my savior, back onto her gurney.

  “Thank you,” I say as I pull her blanket back up. My hands are still shaking, my heart still thumping in my chest like a flat tire.

  The young woman doesn’t have any visible bite wounds, so I wonder how she contracted the N-Virus. Her pallor is still good, but her eyes are beginning to grow pale and dull. I’m learning very quickly that the whitish irises are the most telling symptom of the early stages of the virus. I feel so bad for her—she could’ve been me or Audrey.

  “Can’t I get you anything?”

  She smiles. “A cure, maybe?”

  “I wish I could,” I tell her. “More than anything, I wish I could.”

  She senses I’m looking for a bite mark. She holds up her arm and removes a small bandage that’s taped to the underside of her bicep, partially hidden by the sleeve of her black t-shirt.

  “It’s right here,” she says, pulling back the bandage and showing me the small wound. It’s a ragged little hole, maybe as big around as a silver dollar. “A kid did it. A fucking little girl.” She laughs bitterly. “I don’t know where came from or where she went. She chomped down on me in the parking lot of the Starbucks. All I wanted was a mocha Frappuccino before I started my shift at the restaurant. I work at Applebee’s on seventeen.”

  I nod, suddenly wanting to cry. This girl goes out for a coffee before work and now this. She’s going to die. Worse, she knows she’s going to die. I swallow hard and give her a quick, timid hug before Dad notices. “Thanks for saving me.”

  She sinks back onto the gurney and turns her head. “It was nothing. I have nothing to lose, now, anyway.”

  Dad comes over and wraps his arm around my shoulders. He leads me away before I can let the woman see me crying, out into the bright daylight. The sun hurts my eyes and his fingers burrow into the flesh of my upper arm painfully.

  Outside is strangely silent compared to the noisy commotion of the E.R. Finally, Dad lets go of me and I rub where gripped my arm. I�
�ll discover bruises there when I shower later. At first, I think he’s angry with me, but when I get a good look at his face, I know otherwise.

  “Are you bitten?” he asks, his voice cracking. “Did she scratch you?” He takes my face in his big hands and stare into my eyes. He’s crying, his face streaked and shiny with tears. My dad. Crying.

  “N-no. That girl stopped her. I’m okay.”

  He tilts my head this way and that, examining my throat, then lifts up my hair and checks the back of my neck.

  “I don’t see any blood. You’re sure?”

  I nod. I laugh a little, unable to stop myself. Dad’s always as cool as a cucumber, as they say. His reaction is worrying, to say the least. I’m not sure I understood the gravity of what’s happening around us until now.

  “I’m fine. Really, Dad.”

  “Okay.” He puts his arms around me and clutches me to him like he’ll never let me go again. I feel completely safe.

  Later I’ll remember this was one the last times I felt that way. For an instant, I’m six years-old again, having woke with nightmares. Dad always made the monsters go away.

  “You’re finished volunteering until we get this virus under control,” he says.

  The sense of relief that washes over me is overwhelming and surprising. I’ve never quit anything—it’s one of my quirks, I suppose--and I’ve been determined not to quit volunteering, either. But how I want to be away from this hospital. I want to stop pretending I’m afraid of the dying and the undead. Dad is my out and I love him for it.

  “Dad, I can’t breathe,” I say after a moment, my words muffled against his chest.

  “Sorry.” He lets me go, but not before planting a kiss on top of my head, just like he used to when I was small. I’ll never volunteer again. However, this isn’t the end of my visits to Palm Dale Memorial.

  Chapter 6

  October 3

  Cindy

  School’s a mess. For most people, especially people like me, who’s gone to the same schools in the same community, with the same people their entire lives, school can become the only constant, the only comfort. It can be the only connection to a normal world when the world around them goes to hell.

  I remember once, when I was in the eight grade, a terrible thunderstorm came up over the school. For a while, it felt as though we were at school at night. There were warnings of tornadoes in the area and the teachers grew as nervous as cats with the shits.

  Either way, school was my constant, until now. Now, every day is like that dark day in the eight grade. The school is on continuous lockdown, from the morning bell until dismissal. Armed police officers escort us to and from our cars or the buses. We’re no longer allowed outside for lunch or even gym class. The track team is running laps in the gymnasium. Some of the dads stand guard around the fields during baseball and soccer practice, pacing back and forth like soldiers in golf shirts and boat shoes, armed with expensive hunting rifles and shotguns.

  Dad says something terrible will eventually come of that arrangement. Someone is going to be shot and it isn’t going to be a Shambler. It’ll be over football or maybe it will be an accident. Either way, tragedy is so close—from the virus or from our own doing.

  Attendance is noticeably down. The hallways are empty. People I used to see every day seem to have vanished. I wonder if they’ve contracted the virus. Did they turn? Most of my best friends are still coming, however, and as annoying as they are, I’m thankful they’re okay.

  Still, the notion of girls just like myself wandering around, dead, but not quite dead, hungry for flesh… It’s a horrible thing to think of.

  ***

  The evening unfolds like most other evenings. It’s one of those nights that ends up a “family” night. I sit on the sofa, reading my Kindle one moment and watching the tube the next. Audrey keeps her phone in her fist, texting constantly. There’s something stupid on television about the N-Virus. Mom drinks her glass (or glasses) of wine and Dad pretends he isn’t worried.

  The atmosphere is heavy with tension and there’s this unspoken urge to be together. We’ll probably be over it by breakfast, but now it’s there and it’s real. If we we’re all together, we’ll be okay. We’re safe. Nothing, not even a virus, can touch us.

  Everyone turns in early. I climb into bed, exhausted, despite the light soccer practice. I feel as if a stone has been placed on my back and the only relief is getting into my bed and pretending everything is normal for a few moments before I drift into sleep.

  It’s soothing to hear my parents through the walls of my bedroom while I wait for sleep to come. After what is unfolding, just knowing they’re only feet away is comfort. Just like when I was very small and I fell asleep to the low sound of their voices. Whispers, a laugh. Sure, it’s voyeuristic and probably weird, at my age, but I’m not sure I care now how weird it is.

  A person comes to learn what things spell comfort for them—the smell of their grandmother’s house, the sound of rain against the window, sunshine painting a soccer field in light and warmth. Christmas. The voices of your family.

  Silence isn’t precious. It’s smothering and troubling.

  But back to my parents. Like I said, I’m not a perv, but sometimes I want to know what they’re saying. Both Dad and Mom have a thing where they still want to protect me and Audrey from the truth. Still, it’s easy to regret listening sometimes.

  “Everything is moving quickly. The virus is spreading at a faster rate than we anticipated it would here,” Dad says, and follows it with a tired sigh. “The hospital has become overwhelmed. And it’s only going to get worse.”

  “How long do we continue to pretend life is normal?” Mom asks.

  “As long as we can remain safe while doing it, I suppose.”

  I hear the clink of Mom’s bracelets as she undresses for bed. “I doubt that will be very much longer.” A pause. The creak of the bed. “Still. It’s awful, don’t you agree? Especially what Johnson’s is planning to do with that cemetery,” she says.

  “The Pastures is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s already happening in other areas. Besides, what would we do, if it were one of us? They’re still walking around. Are they alive? I don’t believe so. But they are not dead as we understand death. The patients I’ve seen were clinically dead, but…” Dad adds something else, but it’s too muffled to hear, and then, “…like another state altogether. Do you want to be the one to ‘pull the plug,’ so to speak?”

  “Maybe they’ll find a cure and bring them back,” Mom says, briefly hopeful.

  I strain, listening, hoping for the response I want to hear. Instead, I’m rewarded with silence. It hangs for a long moment, like a weight suspended in air.

  “But what if there’s not? Do we just allow them to wander around, mad with rage and hunger until they rot away?” Dad’s voice grows more forceful. This is something I’m not used to hearing. The only person around our home who raises her voice is Audrey. I can almost see his face, his brows together, his mouth in a tight line. “You have to understand something, Meg. This isn’t a fucking cold.”

  I decide not to hear any more. I’m sick to my stomach. I really should move my bed to the opposite wall, but then I’ll hear Audrey on the phone or Scype with her bitchy girlfriends or sweet-talking Nick because that’s what she does to get her way. Worse, I’ll hear her with Tommy Barker and that makes me sicker than anything else. Maybe I’m just stupid, but how is it so easy for some people to lie? Sure, everyone tells small, harmless lies. But lies like the ones Audrey tells Nick hurt.

  Typically, the nights in Palm Dale are insanely quiet. I’ve had people who’ve moved here from other cities comment that the silence is disconcerting and something they have to grow used to. But the past couple of nights have been different. Somewhere close by, a police siren wails. A dog starts up, trying to compete. Before long, it sounds like a dozen dogs chiming in, each one trying to out-do the other.

  Tired of the noises and the talk, I grab my
Kindle, wedge the earbuds into my ears and listen to an older Muse album I’ve stored in my cloud. I scroll through the newest books I’ve downloaded. I’ve purchased every “realistic” zombie novel I could find, if there’s any such thing. Jonathan Maberry, Courtney Summers, Amanda Hocking. I even have Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide. I’m not sure what I stand to gain from these books—these people didn’t write stories anticipating an actual zombie apocalypse—but maybe I can get an idea. I tried video downloads a few nights again, but it was a brief experiment. The Night of the Living Dead is slow and cheesy and not especially interesting. Others, like the newer Dawn of the Dead and The Walking Dead are just so much like the real thing (I can’t believe I’m writing this), that I can’t watch, even though I know it’s a lot of makeup and syrupy blood. All I can think of is how horrible it would be to become one of those “things.”

  I close my eyes and let the music fill my head and my mind. Soon, I drift off into a light sleep. I dream.

  Nick’s outside, wandering around the front yard.

  I tap on the window, excited to see him. He looks up at me.

  He’s changed.

  I wake, the earbuds tangled in my hair. My face is feverish and wet with slick tears.

  Chapter 7

  October 11

  Cindy

  I usually try to sleep late on Saturdays when we don’t have a soccer game, but this morning I wake as soon as the sunshine touches my window. I lie still for a moment, a rail of sunshine warming my face and my arm. The house is still quiet. Mom and Dad are still in bed. For a few moments, I listen to the nothingness that fills the house and pretends things are perfectly normal. Outside, I think I can hear little kids playing.

  Audrey trudges in, just out of bed. It’s something she never does and in that moment, when the sun’s too orange through the window and the shadows too heavy to make things pretty, she looks beautiful, anyway. For this instant, I’m in awe of my sister.