Sorrow: A Novel Written by Brian Wortley

by Brian Wortley

  Connor started a song to Val but had to break to inform Andrea on where to place her fingers for the next chord. With her fingers on the right strings, Connor once again looked up proudly and strummed until the next chord change. The whole scene brought a smile to Val’s face.

  Half way through the song, Connor heard a snarling noise off to his right. When he turned, he saw a zombie quickly approaching from an alley. Connor looked at Andrea who drew her weapon and shot the zombie through the head. This made Val laugh out loud. Connor was thrilled.

  “Ah, romance!” she yelled down to him. Connor’s heart soared.

  When the song ended, Connor stood there awkwardly as if awaiting an invitation. She smiled and waved him up. As soon as he stepped onto the tarred roof, he said, “No deep discussions!” With that, he raised his hands in a position of surrender.

  “Thank you for that.” She invited him to sit next to her. “As much as I’ve hated myself for it, I’ve missed you.”

  “The stars sure are bright tonight,” he said looking up.

  She looked up to see the usual haze that covered the sky veiling the stars. “What bright stars?” she asked in a confused voice.

  “Oh,” he said awkwardly, “you know - I was trying to avoid deep topics.”

  “Again, thank you.” They sat together looking up into the night haze. Connor’s heart pounded when she silently slipped her hand into his. He grabbed it tightly. Before they went in for the night, her head rested on his shoulder. The flame, Connor feared had been extinguished, was rekindled.

  The next morning Sara woke up first. Immediately she could tell death filled the air. She walked to a window to be greeted by a dim morning. On the roof, she found the watchman alert with nothing to report. The strange feeling haunted her until she woke Val and Moses and the morning got underway.

  Sara, now a bitter-looking somber thing, sat in a chair by the window. Her arms stretched forward to grasp the ends of the chair arms. Her eyes callously darted back and forth as she enviously watched others move freely about the room. At Val’s request, Sara had restricted her movements. This gave the bandages time to heal the wounds gouging her belly. Sara watched carelessly as Val came and redressed the wound for the first time that day.

  When she considered it, Sara was surprised she didn’t miscarry from the trauma and lack of food. Her motherly instincts fought her when she secretly hoped for it. She thought it would be better for everyone. She could fight again. She didn’t have to worry about a zombie child eating her alive. And she wouldn’t be such a drag on the team.

  After Val finished and returned to the kitchen to eat, Sara slumped back into her chair sulking. Only then did she notice a significant amount of the troops remained asleep. Sara looked up as if to verify the clanging noises from the kitchen were Val. Sara thought such a loud noise should wake the men. Sara knocked over a lamp letting it crash to the floor only a foot away from one of the soldiers. She then took an ashtray from a nearby table and leaned forward to fling it at one of the men. The object landed directly on his back but still the man’s eyes did not open.

  Sara leaned back in the chair and whispered, “Shit.”

  When Val came in to bring Sara her breakfast, Sara pointed to the men, “They’re dead, Val.”

  This stopped Val in her tracks. For a moment, Val thought Sara made some sort of off color joke. In disbelief Val tried to wake them and found Sara’s words to be accurate. Val examined one of the soldiers and located a handwritten note.

  Val showed Sara the piece of paper. Sara read the simple words: Death is Better than Life. More searching revealed several empty bottles of medicine.

  “I saw them go last night to the store across the street,” Val said. “I didn’t know-” Val stepped out of the room without finishing her sentence.

  “What a bunch of cowards!” Connor pronounced harshly. “I can’t believe they’d all take their own lives when we’re so few already.”

  “We should leave,” Sara announced grabbing for Moses’ hand to help lead him out.

  “I’m going to burn the building,” Connor said moving towards the kitchen by leaning against the wall and hopping towards the doorway. “No way I’m leaving their bodies for food.”

  Connor set the curtains on fire and hobbled out of the building on his crutch. They all stood silently for a moment to watch the flames consume the building.

  At last Connor remarked callously, “I wish I could leave them to rot in the sun.”

  At Connor’s words, Sara’s emotions swelled in her. Whether it was the pregnancy hormones getting the better of her or the sting of Chuck’s death, she just hated to see death treated so carelessly. Though she had not foreseen this, Sara felt the passing of the dead deeply. The hands of her mind reached out with dripping emotions to touch the places these souls once inhabited.

  “Connor!” Sara rebuked, “don’t be so callous. You can’t judge them. Will you rightly weigh how much a heart can take?” Connor made no answer. “War is not for everyone. Especially not this kind of war. Its bitterness not all can stomach.”

  Sadly everyone started moving onward. Sara, alone, remained behind.

  Connor turned to speak, “Are you ready to get going?”

  Sara stood hypnotized by the growing flames. She said without turning her gaze from the fire, “Death seems to be my closest friend. Leave me alone with him.”

  “I can’t do that,” Connor said. “Not after what you did.”

  “I’m not going to kill myself, Connor.”

  Sara took a few steps away from him and towards the fire. Connor leaned in against his crutch preparing to grab her if needed. To his surprise, she danced. A slow, somber rhythm pulsed through her body. Without a shred of elegance, she bent over to grab a handful of dust assembled by the sandstorms. To the rhythm, she threw the dust into the air in poetic fashion.

  Connor watched in awe as she spoke softly words he could not hear. Her large belly hung from her withered frame seeming altogether alien to it. Her clothes clung to her skeleton waving as she danced. By the extra light of the fire, he saw her in a completely different way. She seemed mystical as if some magical fairy danced before him. Her sadness seemed crowned with a wreath of life drooping down to rest upon her ears. Nature, itself, seemed to swirl as if dancing with her.

  Connor watched until she stopped and returned to him. His eyes remained fixated on her. In him, a new respect for her began to grow.

  Sara stood before him with eyes darting to each member of the company. She counted them to find only eight.

  Val noticed Connor and Sara lagged behind. So she ran back to not leave Sara alone with Connor.

  “What were you singing?” Connor asked just as Val joined them.

  Sara looked up to his face and scanned his eyes. “Something a friend taught me at my sister’s funeral. I memorized it. ‘Even though you make me see troubles, many and bitter, you will give me life again. From the bottom of earth you will call me. You will comfort me once again.’”

  “That’s beautiful. Is it from something?” Connor asked.

  “I don’t know. I think it’s a poem.” Sara looked back to the flames and said, “It seemed fitting.”

  “I didn’t even know you had a sister. I must not have known you then.”

  “That was before I even met Brady.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. Seems like a totally different life now.”

  “We need to get moving,” Val thought it a good time to interrupt. “I’m afraid this fire will attract the zombies.”

  The three started moving to join the others. “Val, do you remember anything from before?” Sara asked.

  Val had to think before answering. A part of her didn’t want to answer something so personal in front of Connor just yet. But he’d asked this question before and she told him then. So there seemed no vulnerability in retelling it. “Well, before they rescued you, I told Brady and Connor that I had lived in Seattle. I gave th
em this whole story of how I was engaged but my fiancée died. But in reality I remember almost nothing. The Zombie King gave me that story in case anyone asked.”

  Val thought deeper before continuing. “Brady seemed to think I was Romanian.” Only after she shared, Val remembered she wasn’t going to share intimate details with Connor present. So she quickly followed it up with, “But that could have been all lies. I honestly don’t remember. My first recollections are the terrible experiments done to me to make me like a human again. I don’t even know where those took place. I guess it could have been the Nex. Anyway, they hacked up my brain pretty good. That’s probably why I don’t remember anything.”

  “Does it make you sad not to know?” Sara asked.

  “No, it doesn’t make me sad. I figure the person I was then is dead now.”

  “Do you want to know?”

  The thought of knowing intrigued Val but only for a moment. “No, there’s no point in drudging up the past. Look if you want to, but I don’t care. Unless you find out I’m royalty or something. Then you can let me know and I’ll have all you peasants treat me the way I deserve!”

  ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙

  In the following week, the team came close to the coast. As they did, they started encountering large fingers of water jutting in from the ocean. This made Val think the region suffered from earthquakes that sank the land. Many times the company came to impassable bodies of water that forced them to travel miles inland.

  A few days after that, they came to the beginnings of a city.

  “That’s New Orleans!” Andrea blurted out.

  “I’ve been impressed,” Connor replied, “at how quickly we can move now that we’re following the coast. At first I thought these inlets of water would slow us down, but we’re still making headway.”

  “Is that smoke?” Val asked.

  “Maybe there are humans there fighting off the zombies,” Andrea replied. “It would be nice to have some more friends.”

  “I hope so,” Val said. She gestured to everyone and said, “Not that I don’t love you guys, but your personalities are getting a little stale.”

  Connor and two others scoped out the suburbs finding little resistance and so everyone entered the city. By now they were in need of supplies again.

  Connor hoped to find an overlooked vehicle somewhere in the city they could get working. A part of him wanted to see what became of New Orleans. He always had a fondness of the city ever since he visited it as a younger man. He felt a magical energy there he found nowhere else.

  Upon entering the city, a strange calm overshadowed them. Connor smiled when he saw the second story balconies now overgrown with plants and weeds. He came to an intersection and encountered the clichéd image of New Orleans. There on the sidewalk laid the musical instruments of a street band long abandoned. They laid in perfect arrangement as if zombies grabbed their owners mid-song. Like a cartoon, Connor saw the zombies snatching the band members from behind while the instruments hovered for a moment before falling. This made him laugh outright.

  ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙

  While they waited for Connor and the other scouts, the team of five remaining humans sat on a nearby rooftop overlooking the city.

  Sara watched them as they engaged each other in casual conversation. Carlos, a skinny man with an excitable personality, sat beside Moses. Carlos fiddled with the baseball bat he’d used to kill countless zombies as the two discussed their mutual cravings for coffee. Val talked to Andrea. Sara did her best not to care but overheard them speaking about the expected level of resistance in the city.

  Sara let her mind wander. Her eyes came to rest on the mist floating through the streets below her. Like moving lampposts, she watched aimless zombies stumbling around as the dim sunlight streaked through the mist drenching the dead in a sea of orange.

  “Corruption is cheap,” Sara blurted out ending whatever conversations took place around her. “It’s easy. That’s why it’s so common. Entropy and all that.”

  The four looked at each other unsure of how to respond.

  “What’s going on Sara?” Val asked.

  “Left to itself, humanity had to come to this kind of end. Chaos. Nukes and mayhem. The proud have always dominated the weak.”

  Sara brought up her knees to the sides of her large belly and folded her arms across them. Val moved next to her but Sara refused Val’s comforting arm.

  “It’s orderly and fitting things that take effort,” Sara continued. “Beauty doesn’t just happen. It’s expensive and takes intention.” Sara started to speak again but struggled to find the words. “The more I see, the more I’m convinced evil is just twisted good. There’s nothing original about evil. It just takes what already is and corrupts it. It’s cheap and common.”

  Carlos and Andrea restarted a conversation but Moses sat silently listening in his usual fashion. Val sat next to Sara listening.

  Sara continued without looking up, “There are any number of forces within humans that if unchecked will completely destroy them. It’s so easy to let any of those go. But it’s difficult to intentionally fight them and keep them from gaining power. But if you don’t, I’m not sure your life is worth living. We all know what people unchecked looked like. They were the ones on the news doing unspeakable deeds. They were the drug addicts desperately seeking an escape from all this. They were the ones hurting so badly they lashed out violently against those they loved. Men and women more like walking monsters than human beings. We all knew those terrible roads.

  “But a person alive!” Sara looked up and focused on something before her. “They take the path unknown. They embark as pilgrims to an uncharted land. The winds lift them up and they know not where they fly. Some land on the highest of places. Some step inside mountain temples and become the very embodiment of beauty and grace. This is no accident but the very deliberate and intentional consequence of their great efforts.

  “Then, and only then, can you truly love yourself. Not in a prideful or selfish way. But an honest way in which you are thrilled to see what you have become and are becoming. You look forward to the rest of your life with gladness because you love your own company!”

  After a moment of silence, Val felt she should speak. “And do you love yourself?”

  “No!” Sara replied quickly with tears beginning. “No. But I think-” she hesitated for a moment and drew in a deep breath before continuing, “I think I want to be done with corruption. There is enough of it in the world without me adding to it. Will you be my witness to this? I want to change, Val.”

  “Sure,” Val answered. “Is this where you’re going to do something weird?”

  Sara rested her head on her arm looking away from Val. There she softly cried. In her heart, Sara knew her words were misunderstood – a feeling she knew more intimately than her friends.

  ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ • ∙ ∙

  Connor returned with the other two, Ian and Owen. Val looked at Connor and thought she detected a slight smile on his lips. His contagious attitude had infected the others for they all seemed uplifted. Val was glad to see the company in higher spirits.

  “The enemy is minimal,” Connor reported. “The zombies seem aimless in a way I haven’t noticed in large groups before. I’ve seen individuals ones stumbling about but never large masses. I’m not sure what’s going on, but we moved about the city pretty freely. We killed a few and those around didn’t even seem to notice.”

  “Well, then let’s move in,” Val replied. “No sense in waiting here any longer.” Val extended her hand to Sara but quickly let it fall limp. Sara looked up at her friend with eyes drenched in meaning. Val’s heart sank knowing it could mean anything.

  “What is it?” Val asked but Sara would not say.

  As Connor said, the zombies proved easy targets. Val had a heyday getting more than her daily quota of headshots. They moved quickly to a grocery store and stocked up on nonperishable food. Val sat first in the entryway of the store an
d whipped out her trusty can opener. Carlos sat on the top of an aisle where he could look out into the street easily.

  “What do you guys think of finding the beach?” Val suggested. “New Orleans has a beach, right?”

  “Yes, New Orleans has a beach,” Connor answered.

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Andrea replied.

  The company moved through the city to the waterfront. Something changed in them as soon as the ocean came into view. Even though they’d seen it before, they never stopped to relax and take it in. Relaxation seemed like such a simple idea it struck them. The company looked out to the ocean and realized it was one of the only things they knew that hadn’t physically changed. The distant sound of the waves against the shore calmed them in a way they had forgotten was possible.

  For the briefest of moments, they set aside a dying world and basked in the beauty of the ocean. Several sprawled out upon the sand while others ran along the water in bare feet. All laid down their sadness for a moment except Sara. She watched their merrymaking with brooding envy.

  Sara removed her shoes and walked slowly into the waves. She proceeded until the water washed over her feet, legs, knees and thighs. The waves pressed up against her body pushing her gently backwards. Sara glanced backwards seeing everyone else paying her no attention.

  The waves almost hypnotized her and she thought, It would be easy. Hopefully they won’t find my body until it’s too late.

  A single tear fell from her eye to join the ocean. Her body almost followed it, if someone hadn’t mentioned Sara to Val.

  “Is she supposed to be in the ocean when she’s pregnant?” Andrea asked Val.

  "How should I know?" Val watched Sara for a moment and replied, "I’m just worried about what Sara might do.”

  Val ran out to join Sara and the two moved to a nearby sandbar. Sara said she wanted to be alone and so Val moved back to the close shoreline and watched her.

  When the darkness descended, Val forced Sara to move back to the shore to join the others. The company undauntedly built fires on the beach. They laid out their food in picnic style and sat watching the waves. Seeming twice its normal size, the blood moon loomed over the ocean half eaten by the horizon. A crimson landscape covered the water top as it reflected the red orb.