by Max Danzig
“Such as?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Want to take a guess?”
Rachel seemed reluctant. She wasn't at all certain about what she was saying. She was improvising.
“I'm not sure,” she sighed. “It’s instinct I suppose. They have no comprehension of identity or purpose anymore, they just exist. They move because they can. No other reason.”
Conscious that she had become the center of attention, Rachel walked away from the SUV towards the row of stores to her right. She felt awkward. In the eyes of her two companions her limited medical experience and knowledge made her an expert in a field where no one knew anything.
On the ground in front of the convenience store lay the reanimated body of a frail old man. He was face down in a pool of dried blood on the pavement, his arms flailed uselessly by his sides, but his twisted, spindly legs remained still.
“What's the matter with it?” Steve asked, peering over Rachel's shoulder.
“I don't know,” she mumbled.
Peter, who followed the other two, nudged Rachel's shoulder and pointed at an upturned wheelchair which lay a few feet away from the body.
“See,” she said. “It doesn't even know it can’t use its legs. Poor bastard’s probably been using a wheelchair for years.”
Disinterested in the crippled body and feeling uneasy, Steve wandered away. He walked along the front of the silent store gazing into the window of the building as he passed. There was a bench at the far end of the store and on it sat a motionless corpse of an elderly woman resting there for all time. Steve turned back to the front door of the store and entered the dark building,
Inside, the store was dank and musty. The stench of rotting food tainted the damp air. The smell acted like smelling salts serving as a reminder of what had happened.
Nightmare images of Derry and losing his family invaded Steve’s thoughts. He felt exposed, vulnerable and unsafe. Constantly looking over his shoulders, he filled cardboard boxes with all the non-perishable food he could find in the little store.
Rachel and Peter entered the store less than a minute later. In a quarter of an hour the three of them transferred much of the salvageable stock to the back of their truck. In less than an hour they were back at the farm.
Chapter 32
Peter and Rachel sat opposite each other at the kitchen table. It was almost four o'clock. Steve had been working on the generator outside for the better part of the afternoon. The back door was open. The house was freezing.
“There's got to be something driving them,” Rachel mumbled. “I can't understand why they keep moving and yet...”
“What does it matter?” Peter breathed, “Why should we give a damn what they do as long as they're not a danger to us? I don’t give a shit if there are a hundred of those fucking things standing around the house doing a line dance just as long as they don't come near me.”
“Okay,” she snapped, “you've made your point. Sorry if I don't share your short-sightedness.”
“I'm not short-sighted,” Peter protested.
“Yes, you are. You don't give a damn about anyone but yourself...”
“That's not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn't. I'm looking out for you and Steve too, and we need to face the facts, that's all.”
“What facts? We don't know a damned thing.”
“Yes we do,” he sighed. “For starters, it doesn't matter what's happened to the rest of the population as long as nothing happens to us. It's a fact that it doesn't matter why millions of people died. What difference would it make if we knew? What if we found a fucking miracle cure? Then what? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives trying to cure millions of the walking dead?”
“No, but...”
“But nothing,” he snapped.
“I can't help it,” Rachel whispered, resting her head in her hands. “It's the medic in me. I was trained to...”
“I understand, but forget all that,” he pleaded. Peter stared at Rachel. She sensed his eyes burning into her and looked at him.
“Listen,” he continued. “Forget everything. Stop trying to figure out what's happened and why. I'm not short-sighted and I'm not selfish, I'm a realist, that's all. What's gone is gone. We have to make the most of what's left, and to hell with everything else. Now it’s up to us to try and build a future for ourselves.”
“I know,” she sighed, “but it's not that simple, is it? I can't just turn away and...”
“What the fuck’s the point,” he said, pounding a fist on the table and raising his voice. “Jesus, how many times do I have to say it? Put the past behind you. We can never change it. It's gone for good.”
“I'm trying. I know I can't help anyone else, but I don't think you've thought about this like I have.”
“What do you mean?” Peter asked, sitting up in his seat. There was an equal mix of concern and annoyance in his voice.
“I want to make sure we're safe, the same as you do,” she said. “But have you stopped to wonder whether it's really over?”
“What?”
“Who says what’s already happened is the end of it? Who says the bodies getting up and walking around is the final act?”
Peter realized what she was saying and a sudden cold chill ran the length of his spine.
“What are you saying? What do you think might happen?”
“I don't know,” she admitted, slouching forward again. “You're right Peter; we need to look after ourselves now. But we also need to know that whatever happened to the rest of the population will not happen to us. Just because we've escaped so far doesn't mean we're immune, does it?”
“And what do you think we should...”
Peter’s words were cut short by a loud crash from outside echoing through the otherwise quiet house. He jumped up from his seat and ran out to where Steve was working. He found him sitting on the grass with his head in his hands. Through the half open shed door he could see a tool box on the ground which had been kicked over in anger.
“Okay?” he asked.
Steve grunted something under his breath before getting up and disappearing into the shed again.
“Is he okay?” Rachel shouted from the safety of the back door.
Peter turned round and walked back towards her.
“I think so,” he sighed. “It looks like he’s having trouble with the generator.”
She nodded and went back inside the house. Peter followed her into the living room. She took a seat at the back of the room next to a large window and gazed out onto the back yard. It was a bright, sunny afternoon and she could see the shed from where she was sitting. She saw Steve's tired form sitting in the doorway of the shed.
Cautiously, not sure if he was disturbing Rachel, Peter sat down on the arm of the sofa behind her. He picked up an old magazine from a nearby coffee table, flicked through a few pages and then threw it back down again.
“Let’s assume we're immune and we survive all of this.” he began.
“Yes...” Rachel mumbled.
“Do you think we'll be able to make something out of what's left?”
She thought for a moment. “I don't know. Do you?”
Peter got up and walked to the other side of the room and leaned against the wall.
“We can be comfortable here, of that much I'm sure. With a little work we can turn this place into a fortress if we wanted. Everything we need is out there somewhere. All we need to do is get off our butts and go find it.”
“Kind of overwhelming isn't it?” she interrupted.
“It won't be easy.”
“The most important thing is deciding whether we want to survive, not whether we can.” She turned around to face Peter. “I know we can have anything - hell, we can live in the White House if we wanted.”
“Once we'd cleared out the bodies.” Peter added.
“Okay, but you get my point. We can have whatever we want, but we need t
o ask ourselves if there's anything that will make any of this easier to deal with? I don't want to break my back building something if we're just going to end up prisoners here counting the days until we die.”
Peter sighed. Her honesty was painful. “I agree. So what do you want? We've lost everything that ever mattered to us, so what's worth surviving for now?”
She shrugged her shoulders and turned to look out the window again. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I'm not sure.”
Peter’s mind was racing. He never stopped to consider the future because until yesterday there didn’t seem to be much chance of any of them having one. Ever the loner, he realized there was little he needed. Shelter, food and protection, that was about it. The big question remained if time would heal his, Steve's and Rachel's mental wounds and allow them to make a new life.
The silence was again interrupted by another sudden noise from outside. There was a roar of machinery followed by a low, steady mechanical chugging, followed by shouts of delight from Steve.
Rachel smiled. “Listen to that!”
Peter left the room and was halfway to the back door when Steve appeared running the other way.
“I did it!” he puffed breathlessly. “I fucking did it!”
He slowed down, strode into the kitchen and flicked the light switch on the wall. The fluorescent lighting flickered and jumped into life, filling the room with harsh and beautiful electric light.
Chapter 33
The three survivors continued to work around the house until after nine o'clock that evening. The presence of electric light extended the length of their useful day. Once their supplies were stored and the truck and house made secure for the night they stopped, exhausted. Rachel made a meal which they ate as they watched a video they found.
Just after eleven, Peter was sitting on the floor resting with his back against the sofa, watching the movie. He looked over his shoulder and saw both Steve and Rachel had fallen asleep. For a few moments, he stared at their peaceful faces as the flickering light from the television cast unnerving shadows across them.
It had been a strange evening. The normality of sitting and watching a movie troubled Peter. Everything seemed so ordinary when they started watching the film an hour and a half earlier. Each of them was lost in thought and not paying attention to the movie. They were remembering a time not so long ago when the population of the country was in the millions, not hundreds; and death… was final. Sitting there just watching a movie felt so strange and wrong for that very reason.
Gone were the days when he could enjoy a cheap comedy film, like the one he'd just sat through, as a temporary feel-good distraction. Now everything he saw or heard sparked memories of a world that no longer existed.
His thoughts wandered so much, that he hadn't noticed the movie had ended until the credits rolled up the screen for a couple of minutes. Preoccupied with dark thoughts he sat there waiting for the disc to end. As the music faded away and was replaced by a gentle silence, he opened a bottle of beer and stretched out on the floor.
For a while, he lay still listening to the world around him. Steve was snoring lightly and Rachel fidgeted in her sleep but other than that, the two of them were quiet. Outside was the thrumming of the generator in the shed and the gusting wind through the tops of the tall pine trees along one side of the farm. Beyond that Peter could just about hear the ominous rumble of a distant, but a fast approaching storm. Through half-open curtains, he observed the first few drops of rain as they pattered against the window. The noise startled him at first and he lifted himself up onto his elbows. For a second he saw something outside move.
Suddenly nervous and pumped full of adrenaline, Peter jumped up, ran to the window and pressed his face against the glass. He peered out into the darkness. Peter hoped the noise of the generator acted like the music did in Derry, attracting the attention of survivors to the farm. He couldn't see anything. As fast as he cleared the glass, the rain outside and the condensation inside obscured his view again.
The others were still asleep. Thinking quickly, Peter ran to the kitchen and picked up a flashlight they had left on the counter in case of emergencies. The flashlight beam was bright, and he followed the unsteady circle of illumination through to the back door of the house which he cautiously opened. He stepped out into the cold evening air and looked around, ignoring the heavy rain which soaked him.
There it was again. Closer this time. There was definite movement around the generator. With his heart thumping in his chest he made his way further into the garden towards the shed and stopped when he was just a couple of feet away. Gathered around the walls of the small wooden building were four disheveled figures. Even in the dim light, and the noise of the approaching storm it was obvious the figures were victims of the plague that decimated population last week. Peter watched with curiosity and disquiet as one corpse collided with the door. Rather than turn and stagger away again as he expected it would, the bedraggled creature instead worked its way around the shed, tripping and sliding through the mud.
Something wasn't right.
It took Peter the better part of a minute to decide what was wrong, and then it hit him, they weren't going anywhere. The things were moving constantly, but they weren't going anywhere. The movements of these corpses were as uncoordinated and listless as the hundreds of others they'd seen, but these were definitely attracted to the shed.
When three of the corpses moved to the back of the shed, out of the way, Peter pushed past the other one and opened the door. He slipped inside. Struggling to think over the deafening noise of the generator, he found the control panel that regulated the machine and turned off the switch.
After wiping his face and hands dry on a dirty towel and pausing to catch his breath, Peter exited the shed. By the time he'd shut the shed door he was alone. The four shadowy figures had drifted away into the darkness.
Chapter 34
Despite having gone to bed exhausted, Peter was up and dressed early the following morning. He spent another uncomfortable and near sleepless night tossing and turning on the hard wooden floor at the side of Rachel's bed. He was glad he woke up before she did. She said nothing to make him think she minded him being there, but he was concerned about what she thought his reasons were. Regardless, it made him feel better not to be sleeping alone.
Even though his thirtieth birthday was two weeks away, Peter had spent the last few dark hours curled up in fear like a frightened child. He sat bolt upright in the darkness, certain something terrible was coming up the stairs for him.
In his heart he knew these were nothing but silly thoughts. The sounds he heard were just the creaks and groans of the old house but it made no difference. The fear was impossible to ignore. As a child there had always been the safety of his parent's room to rescue him from his nightmares but not today. Today there was nothing and no one to help and the reality beyond the door of the farmhouse was worse than any dark dream he'd ever had.
As soon as the morning light crept into the house, he felt more confident. The uncomfortable fear he'd experienced was replaced by the embarrassment of being so frightened during the night. At one point in the night, when the wind was howling through the trees, he covered his ears and screwed his eyes shut. He hoped with all his heart he would fall asleep and wake up somewhere else. Although no one else saw or heard him, he was ashamed that he had allowed a chink to appear in the armor of his arrogant exterior.
It was a strong, safe and sound house and Peter didn’t need to worry. In spite of his imaginings in the darkness, nothing and no one entered the farm. Still sleep-sluggish he stumbled into the kitchen and lit the gas stove. The low roar of the burner was a soothing and comforting change from the heavy silence of the early morning. More relaxed now, he boiled a kettle of water and made himself a mug of strong black coffee. He made himself breakfast but couldn't eat more than a few bites.
Bored, tired and restless, he needed to find something to do. An open door from the kitch
en led to a large utility room which Peter entered. In the furthest corner of the room was a pile of empty cardboard boxes and other trash. This was the least important room in the house, and they were using it as a temporary storage area. Peter thought about trying to organize the room but decided not to bother with it. He wanted something to do, but it needed to be something interesting. He needed more than a distraction; he wanted something that would grab his imagination and hold his attention.
High on the wall opposite the door he'd just walked through was a wood shelf. Little more than a warped plank of wood held up by three gray rust flecked brackets and piled high with junk. Curious, Peter dragged a chair across the room and climbed up for better access to the shelf. On first glance there seemed to be little of any interest; some old gardening tools and chemicals, faded, yellowed books, newspapers, glass jars full of nails, bolts and screws.
Then he came across an unexpected and unmistakable shape. It was the butt of a rifle wrapped in an oil cloth. He carefully pulled the gun free and removed the cloth to find the rifle in remarkably good shape. Peter stood there, balancing precariously on the chair, admiring the weapon.
He reached up again and felt his way along the shelf, first to the left and then to the right of where he found the rifle. With his fingers stretched he grabbed hold of a dusty cardboard box and dragged it closer. Now standing on tiptoes with the rifle wedged under his arm he pried up the lid of the box and saw it was full of ammunition. Like a child with a new toy he picked up the box, jumped down and carried everything back to the kitchen.
When Rachel and Steve rose and came downstairs, they found Peter sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning the rifle. He'd been working on it for over an hour and the job was almost complete.
Peter glanced up at Rachel and noticed she looked tired. He wondered whether she'd had as little sleep as he had. Although they'd only slept a few feet apart he hadn't dared disturb her in the darkness of the night.
