by T. S. Ward
It makes me uneasy. It makes me nervous.
I can’t think of anything to say to dispel the unease in the air now, other than, meekly, “I don’t have a phone.”
“What?”
“A phone. For your number.” My leg is shaking and I am squirming in my skin. What the hell are you doing here, kid? “I would give you my number but I don’t have one. But you know my address, anyway. And if you are going to kill me, please don’t sneak up on me. Just knock. I’m dumb enough to let you in and I already hate being alone in that place and I don’t want to be nervous thinking someone’s about to break into my house—”
“Okay, hey,” he holds a hand out. “I’m not going to kill you. Honest to god, swear on my mother’s grave, I’m not. I’m just giving you a ride. There’s a gun in the glovebox, if you feel better having that.”
“That makes it worse, actually.” I press against the door a little further. “Aren’t you trained to disarm someone in similar situations?”
He works his jaw for a second and then nods. “I’m just trying to make you feel a little more comfortable, now that I’ve fully brought the mood down.”
“And what was the mood?” I can’t help talking. We’re close enough now that I could get out and walk and it might only take me a few hours.
“I asked for your number, didn’t I?”
“…In a roundabout way, yeah.”
He glances at me. “I meant…”
“I know what you meant. I’m just electing to ignore it at the moment. Not to say that I wouldn’t, you know, just… It’s not like—”
A car horn just ahead interrupts my nervous rambling, and then the sound of shattering glass and metal on metal startles me. Two cars sit in the left lane, smoke erupting from their crushed hoods.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
I slip out of my seatbelt while the soldier is distracted, pop the lock, and open the door.
“See ya, Soldier.” I offer a salute as I jump down with a sharp twinge of pain lancing through my spine.
He leans toward me, waving his hand for me to get back in. “Ghost, I wouldn’t—hey! What are you doing? It’ll take hours, and there’s—Ghost!”
It should be the last time I see Soldier, looking over my shoulder as I cross the ditch to limp across the field. He’s pulling the door shut and hitting the lock again, watching me as I go, and I’m breathing some sort of sigh of relief as I make a beeline straight for home.
It should be the last time.
It really should.
Day Two
The next day feels like waking up from a bad dream.
Nothing feels real, my body aches, and the scar up my back is on fire. I am stiff. I can barely move. I’m not sure how long it took me to get home, but it was dark by the time I made it.
The house was dark, too. No one home.
I still walked in calling out for someone, anyone, to answer. Even though I hoped no one was there so I wouldn’t have to deal with the inevitable shitstorm my arrival would bring. Where the hell have you been? Why the hell didn’t you come see me? What do you mean Eli tried to kill you? Why don’t you care?
But it was empty and cold and it took everything I had left to drag myself inside, to get the wood stove going, grab a snack and some water, and lie down on the couch.
When I wake up, there’s still no one here.
Maybe they all fled with the other idiots.
For a second, I find myself wondering if that guy ever made it out of that gridlock. And then I’m dragging my hands down my face and groaning. I’m surprised I even made it home after that.
“What the fuck!” I shout, dragging the word out.
The house answers in echoes. Hollowness. Nothing new.
I spend all day in it.
Day Seven
I swear to god this house creaks and groans more without everyone running and stomping around and slamming shit all over the place. I’m jumping at every small thing, thinking someone’s here trying to slash me like some low budget horror film.
There’s nothing left in the cupboards anymore. Nothing except the coveted last can of ravioli, and it’s already seven in the afternoon. I haven’t eaten a single thing all day, and I’m really not looking forward to butchering a chicken. And the bastards haven’t even laid any eggs yet.
I hack open the ravioli and grab a fork. Can’t even be bothered to heat it up. I’m too hungry to, just as much as I’m too lazy to.
How can something be so goddamn delicious and horrifically revolting at the same time?
I stand over the kitchen sink, staring out the window, shovelling ravioli into my mouth. The lights are all off inside, but outside, the light shines dim across the front yard and the driveway, cuts across the trunks of the closest trees.
I don’t want to leave the light on. There’s some ounce of belief in me that this infection is like what Soldier said. That the undead will come crawling towards the light like fucking moths.
But I leave it on. For my dad. In case he comes back. Or my brother, coming to check for us. Why is there hope in me for that when I was gone for a year and no one gave a shit?
How long can they stay gone, anyway?
Whatever. Whatever. None of it matters. I am alone, I am alone, I am alone. I am—
I am not alone.
A shadow separates from the trees in the front yard, and my stomach nearly drops through the floor. That damn Soldier coming to kill me? An infected? No. No.
“Son of a bitch,” I snarl, dropping the can in the sink and rushing to the door. I pull the lock in haste, force the door open, and run outside. “You son of a bitch! You really thought you’d done it, huh? Fuck you, Eli. Fuck you!”
He slows down as he comes up the driveway. He’s holding a rifle. I feel sick seeing it in his hands.
“Keep your voice down,” he tells me, like he didn’t leave me for dead a year ago. Like he’s my friend or something. “Come on, kid, they’re everywhere. Don’t attract them.”
“One million, five hundred thousand, Eli,” I shout at him. I feel more confident confronting him when I see headlights coming up through the trees, even if it might just be his friends. I get closer, even though the gun makes my heart beat faster than anything. “That’s how much you and your idiot friends cost me. A year with a broken spine, two months in a coma, and not a single goddamn one of you ever gave two fucks. Would have been better if you’d just killed me. Why are you even here? What do you think you’re going to milk out of this place now? There’s nothing here. You’ve already taken everything. Now fuck off.”
He scratches his chin and looks over his shoulder at the truck that’s driving up real slowly. “You’re brave, coming back here. Or just plain stupid.”
Oh, shit. I hope to hell it’s my dad in that truck. “Where is he?”
He holds the rifle up to his shoulder and I start walking backwards. “Daddy? Louie’s gone and gotten himself bit. Infected. But don’t worry about him becoming one of those things, kid. I took him out. Saved our asses.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I scream at him, “Where’s Grandpa?”
“Dead in the woods, little girl.”
I scream at him. Less words, more rage, more cussing. Wouldn’t be me if there weren’t curses thrown in between every other word.
The truck comes to a stop and the driver side door opens. A head pokes out, an arm resting over the top of the door, and an object that looks small in the hands that hold it.
Soldier. Goddamn Benjamin Daniels.
“Put down the gun,” he warns Eli, and I hear a faint click. “Put it down, or I shoot you, and I’ll have you know I’ve got real good aim. Ghost, get in the truck.”
Eli lowers the gun.
I walk past him, nervously, put distance between us as fast as possible without running. My knees are weak and shaking. My hands can barely grasp the door handle. But I pull it open and haul myself up, pull the door shut, and slide down against the seat.
<
br /> Soldier doesn’t get back in the truck.
He steps down, moves around the door, his gun never wavering from my uncle’s head. “Put it on the ground.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Eli turns around, waving the rifle carelessly, and I yelp as Soldier doesn’t hesitate to shoot. Eli swears, doubles forward with a hand clutching his shoulder.
“I told you to drop the gun. Do it now.”
Eli points a finger toward the truck. “You screwing my niece or something?”
“Oh, fuck you,” I say.
Soldier doesn’t flinch. “Way I see it, you were about to shoot her. That tells me you’re probably the one who put her in the hospital. That tells me you’re a no-good piece of shit no one’s going to miss. So drop the gun, or I will shoot you where you won’t recover from it.”
Eli casts a look at me through the windshield. Swears, spits on the ground, and then he drops the rifle. He kicks it toward Soldier, backs away with a bloodied hand held up.
Soldier steps down from the truck and grabs the rifle without lowering his own gun or taking his eyes off the man. He moves back to the truck and tries to pass it to me, and when I don’t move, he sets it down against my seat. Then he’s in the truck. Then Eli’s running to the house.
“There’s another gun in the house,” I whisper.
Soldier pulls the truck up, backs up toward the chicken coop, and starts to drive forward. “Goddamn it.”
Eli’s back outside.
He’s got the shotgun, shoving shells into it. He’s standing in front of us, Soldier shouting at me to duck as he raises the shotgun and aims it at the truck.
A loud bang batters my ears as the shells burst against the hood of the truck.
Soldier rips the steering wheel around, slams on the gas, kicking up dust as the wheels spin on the dirt. Another shot hits the back of the truck.
“You alright?” Soldier asks, reaching down to the rifle where it rests against my leg. He fixes something on it and straightens up.
I sit up fully and look out the back window as the driveway and the house become enveloped in the darkness of the surrounding woods. Out of all the thoughts I could have, the first one is that I’m glad I couldn’t chop more wood for the fire, that I just put on my jacket and my boots and wore some blankets around the house.
At least I’m not barefoot. At least I have my favourite jacket, because I’m leaving. I decide it right then.
I’m never going back to them. That house.
But I don’t count my brother in that. I don’t count my little sister in that. They got out as best as they could.
“He killed them,” I croak out. “My dad. My grandpa.”
Soldier looks at me. “You saw that? Or he told you?”
“Told me,” I nod, press my hand to my mouth as tears start flowing, as I start shaking uncontrollably.
He looks at me again, and then back to the road, and then again to me. He reaches a hand out to my shoulder briefly. “Hey. I’m sorry. I uh… I’ve lost family, too. If—”
“You should have shot him,” I say, wiping back the tears, straightening my back out.
“I did, technically.”
“Yeah, but not in the right spot,” I mutter, peering into the darkness at all the abandoned cars along the back line. He drives slow, but without hesitation. Trying to get as far from here as he can. “I shouldn’t ask this of you. I don’t mean it. But we see him again, you shoot him right in the damn skull, okay?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Why me?”
“Because you’re a really good shot, I hear.”
“And I’ve got real good timing, I guess,” he laughs lightly. “You sure you’re alright?”
“Never said I was.” And that’s the last thing I say to him.
Eventually I fall asleep, head on my hand against the window.
Day Eight
Something startles me awake.
At first, I have no idea where I am, hand reaching for the button that turns the light on in the hospital room, but—I’m in a truck. In Soldier’s truck.
He’s got his arms resting on the steering wheel, his forehead resting against his arms. He’s cursing quietly under his breath, a string of profanities that impresses me.
“What’s wrong with you?” I grumble.
He sighs long and hard as he leans back. “The fuel line is trashed.”
“Ah,” I hum, “Sorry.”
“I can’t fix it without…” he groans. “Another ten minutes and we’d have been there.”
I frown. “Been where? I realize we never discussed that, but anywhere is better than wherever Eli is.”
“My place. Unless you have somewhere else to go, but it wasn’t sounding like that.” He rolls his head against the headrest to look at me.
I don’t protest. It’s not like I do have anywhere else to go, and it’s not like the truck is rolling forward. Soldier looks too tired to continue driving anyway.
“How the hell did we end up here?”
I shake my head. “A string of bullshit misfortune. Sure you were fine before you met me.”
“No, not at all. But it was boring. Zero curveballs.” He hits his palms against the steering wheel. “What do you say, Ghost? Spend the night in the truck on the side of the highway, or walk the rest of the way?”
We sit in silence while I ponder the options.
Sit in here and destroy my back, or walk, and be stiff and sore for days after? Spend this apocalypse with a stranger or go it alone? And I look at Soldier in the dull light of the highway, Benjamin Daniels, going AWOL while I don’t pay my medical bills, and I think: fuck it. What the hell do I have to lose?
I breathe out. “I’m going upstate, to see how my brother and my sister are doing. Maybe my mother but she… But I’m not getting anywhere on my own. I don’t drive. Don’t like guns. Can’t even defend myself for fuck’s sake. I think until you get sick of me, or are actually planning on killing me or something possibly worse, we’re stuck. How long will it take to walk from here?”
“Thirty minutes to an hour, maybe,” he shrugs.
I undo my seatbelt, reach for the door handle. “I’ve done worse.”
—
It takes two.
Soldier lives in a rental unit in a house out in new development, the kind of place I could only dream of living in. A huge upgrade from a double-wide trailer heated by a wood stove on well water and septic.
I almost wish I could have met him under different circumstances, but he filled me in on what I’d missed the past week—everything’s gone to shit.
The entire country has had its knees shot out and its face ground into the mud and it sure as hell ain’t getting any better.
Looters have ransacked everything they can get their hands on.
It’s not clear where exactly everyone thinks they’re going to when they leave the city—cottages, maybe, the mountains, the border, because I’m almost certain it’s only this bad here. Other countries can and have handled shit like this and continued on, but us—no, we’re too self righteous and proud and free to be told what to do and how to do it for the good of other people.
Because god forbid you help out someone other than yourself.
Soldier carries all the supplies he had in the truck bed in his rucksack the entire way without a single complaint, even arguing against my attempts at help and citing my recent learning-how-to-walk-again bullshit as a reason.
I don’t complain, even though I feel slightly guilty about it, but the guy is pretty much three of me with added muscle. I’m sure he can handle it.
It’s eerie how empty this little suburbia is, especially with the pink of dawn peeking over the rooftops. As soon as he lets us in, I find the couch, collapse, huff out a long sigh.
“You don’t have—”
“Stopping you right there, buddy,” I hold a hand up toward the sound of his voice, eyes closed. “I am couch potato. Leave me be.”
He drops his bag on the
floor, double checks all the locks on the doors and the windows throughout the house, closes all the blinds and curtains, and then comes back to me.
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving you down here. I’ve seen these idiots dive through windows just to attack people.”
I open one eye, glance toward the bay window and the other three around the room and the kitchen windows just past the entrance. “They do that?”
“All that and more,” he says quietly.
“I’m a bit of a little bitch when it comes to horror movie type shit,” I say, forcing myself to sit up with a wince. “I will, without hesitation, spoon a stranger for safety.”
He shakes his head and holds his hands up. “No, I don’t mean—there are three bedrooms upstairs.”
I nearly laugh. “Sorry I ain’t used to castles such as these, Lord Farquaad.”
“You’re weird.”
“And you’ve gone and gotten yourself stuck with me, idiot.”
I would stand up, go take him up on the offer of upstairs, less danger, but my back is rough from all the walking and I haven’t been doing the exercises I’m meant to. I’ll have to, if I’m going to get to my brother and sister. I know it helps. It’s how I learned to walk again.
I do a light stretch.
“Question,” I ask him as he sits on a chair. “You’re telling me these bastards are diving through windows just to attack people, to eat flesh as it were, and we walked all the way here?”
He takes in a breath. “I thought you might have known already. Figured you’re either very brave or very stupid.”
“Stupid, yes. In fact, quite idiotic most times, but I also don’t watch the news or have internet.”
“My god, how did you live?” He feigns horror, and he looks dumb doing it, just like some big ass puppy, which only encourages my dumb ass to keep acting up.
“Chasing chickens and kicking cans, mostly. We’re basically Amish but with guns and drugs and rampant alcoholism. But not to ignore the fact that there’s a crucifix above the door, as if any of us actually cares about that.”
