Fermata: The Winter: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series (The Fermata Series: Four Post-Apocalyptic Novellas Book 1)

by Harper, Juliette

  We locked ourselves in on July 1, 2010. The evening of July 4, we witnessed a full-scale massacre in the park — in living color — on the flat screen, the one we were still paying off. The signal wasn’t a newscast. The images came from an abandoned camera lying on a gravel path.

  It was hard to deny what we were seeing. So hard, in fact, that when I looked up, Bruce was wedged between the sofa and the wall clutching his rosary beads and mumbling one “Hail Mary” after another. By this time, I was losing patience with him.

  With no disrespect to the Blessed Virgin, I wasn’t interested in anyone offering prayers at the hour of my death. I was not ready for that bell to toll. I had already made up my mind that whatever was happening, I intended to go down fighting. If I lived, it would be a better story. If I died, it would be a better death than what I was watching on that TV.

  What happened next made us pack our bags and leave the “safety” of the apartment.

  Dead Mrs. Gonzales started moving around upstairs.

  Chapter Three

  January 2015: The Cabin

  Abbott scratched his whiskers thoughtfully. “I’m not doubting your word, but in my experience, the dead don’t get up and walk around.”

  Lucy turned haunted eyes toward him. “If moving around was all they did, we could have handled it.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They attacked anything living that got in their way.”

  “Why?”

  “For food.”

  The old man’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “Are you telling me that the dead rose from their graves to consume the living?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the stuff of cheap horror movies, Lucy.”

  “It was horrible,” she agreed, “but it was no movie. And it hasn't been cheap. We've all paid dearly.”

  “How many people did you lose?” he asked gently.

  Lucy’s lower lip trembled, but her voice was strong. “My parents, my brothers, Bruce. Pretty much everyone I knew.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this,” he said, laying a hand on her knee.

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “Because if I don’t tell it, it’s like they never existed.”

  June 2011: Boston, Lucy

  I thought Bruce was going to die the night we heard Mrs. Gonzales. But eleven months later we were both still alive. But not because Bruce didn’t try to get us killed every chance he got. Mr. Genius’ first idea was to go to Castle Island because it’s a fort. I shot that one down real quick.

  We survived by moving from building to building across the city, staying ahead of the dead. They walked a lot in those days. Every sound brought them right to you. So we didn't make any sounds.

  Bruce began to slowly lose his mind, retreating farther and farther into superstitious faith. I can still see him praying, on his knees in a shaft of dusty sunlight. We were in a basement with a high window. Bruce knew better than to make any noise, but his lips moved as he stared earnestly up into the light. I guess he thought if he kept trying, God would listen.

  I knew we were on our own. If there was a God, He was doing something else. But I didn't say that to Bruce. He needed there to be a God. He needed to believe we were going to be saved. Gradually an idea formed in his mind. He became obsessed with the new “calling” to lay hands on the “lost” and “return them to the fold.” So one night he answered the call. He put out one of those hands and drew back a nub.

  In typical Bruce fashion, he picked a dead biker covered in tattoos. Alive, this guy would have had Bruce for lunch. Dead, he just took one massive, decaying paw and snapped Bruce’s hand clean off at the wrist.

  Bruce just stood there staring at the dripping stump. I hope being that dumb was a painkiller. The dead biker ripped Bruce’s throat out. I watched from my hiding place.

  It all happened on Huntington Avenue. We were scavenging in the abandoned restaurants. The dead biker was out in front of a trashed Starbucks. There was nothing I could do to help Bruce. I ducked down some stairs leading to a lower level and stayed out of sight. I had my own plan for personal salvation — staying alive.

  Two hours later, Bruce rose from the dead. That’s when I made my mistake. I tried to put him down. I wasn’t in love with Bruce anymore, but we’d been through a lot. I didn’t want to leave him like that, but I didn’t count on how many new friends he had. Six of them backed me down an alley. My only weapon was a tire iron.

  When my back hit the brick wall, I knew I was going to die. Then, I did talk to God. I asked him to let me kill Bruce on my way out. Why? I was pissed. For the past 11 months I had desperately needed this guy to man up. What did I get? Terrified religious gibberish.

  She came out of nowhere. One minute I’m trapped, and the next, the alley erupted in gunfire. The six dead guys went down one at a time. Behind them stood a little woman holding a big gun. She said, “Are you coming or not?”

  January 2015: The Cabin

  Abbott glanced over his shoulder. “That woman who saved you in the alley was her? She doesn’t look capable of doing anything like that.”

  In spite of everything, Lucy chuckled. “Don’t ever make the mistake of underestimating Vick.”

  “She is the leader of your little group?”

  “Yes. She’s kept us alive all this time.”

  “You can’t possibly have been on the run for five years,” he said.

  “We haven’t been,” Lucy said. “Back then, we had a pretty good handle on things. We were doing okay.”

  June 2011: Boston, Lucy

  The woman walked out of the alley. I looked down at Bruce. She'd shot out one of his eyes. His throat was just a tangle of raw tissue. Around him slick, wet things covered the pavement. I didn't know who she was, but I couldn't stay there and I didn't have any place else to go. I followed her. It was the best decision I’ve ever made in what would otherwise have been a very short life.

  She got into a banged up, seriously high-end SUV. I climbed in the passenger seat and said, “I’m Lucy.”

  “Vick,” she said, starting the engine.

  She pulled into the empty street. We rode in silence until I asked. “Where are we going?”

  “My place,” she answered, steering around a shuffling dead man in a crosswalk.

  “Why not just plow him down?” I asked curiously.

  “They get caught in the wheel wells,” she explained. “It’s a real pain to clean the mess out.”

  “Oh,” I said, blinking a couple of times. “Um. Where’s your place again?”

  “York, Maine.”

  “But that’s in another state!” I protested.

  She glanced over. “And exactly what’s keeping you in Massachusetts?”

  It wasn't so much that anything was keeping me there. It was just that I'd never counted on anything taking me away. I figured I'd live and die six blocks from my folks right there in Southie. We had their wakes at the L Street Tavern. If everything hadn't gone to hell, mine would have been there someday, too. But that was all in another world. There wasn't anything to say, so I just stared out the window. She kept driving.

  We came to a toll booth. To my surprise, Vick stopped and lowered her window. I looked past her and saw a dead attendant still at her post. The woman wore garish earrings that dangled under the fraying edges of a crooked blond wig stuck on her rotting head.

  “Hiya Thelma,” Vick said pleasantly. “You’re working late.”

  The corpse hissed and lunged. I shrank back against my door.

  “Don’t worry about Thelma,” Vick said, reaching behind the seat and bringing out some kind of collapsible pole. “She’s stuck in there.”

  I craned my neck around to look. A piece of rebar wedged in the door handle kept the woman from escaping. “Who shut her in like that?” I asked

  “I have no idea. I found her the first time I headed north out of the city,” Vick said, guiding the pole into the booth and bumping the switch.

  “And you just l
eft her there?” I asked incredulously.

  “She stayed at her post while the world was ending,” Vick answered, putting the pole away. “I like that about her. Bye, Thelma,” she added. “See you next time.”

  “Lady,” I said, “you are seriously crazy.”

  “Lot of that going around.” She accelerated into the night. I looked over my shoulder at Boston. Even knowing that walking horrors filled the city, I felt sick to my stomach leaving it behind.

  We made good time. Every few miles the headlights picked up one or two of the dead on the side of the road. Vick steered around wrecked cars with practiced ease. I gave in to my exhaustion and drifted off, waking only when she pulled the SUV into a garage.

  I followed her out into the moonlight, but other than hearing the ocean to my right, I couldn't tell much about where we were. The real shock hit me when we went inside. Vick turned on a light switch. I just stood there staring stupidly at the fixture.

  “What’s the matter?” Vick asked.

  “I haven’t seen a light on in months,” I answered numbly.

  “Come in the kitchen,” she said. “I need something to eat.”

  While I watched, she made coffee. Honest to God coffee. It smelled incredible. The machine transfixed me like a caffeinated lava lamp. When Vick put the warm cup in my hand, everything hit me at once. I was sitting at a table. The house was clean. There was electric light. I started babbling about that Will Smith movie, I Am Legend. A scene just jumped into my mind. The woman he finds cooks some bacon he’d been saving. He loses his temper and scares the little kid.

  My hands began to shake. I stuttered out a rapid fire staccato of incoherent words. Images of Bruce fired across my consciousness, that one sad eye looking up from the pavement. By the time she slipped a blanket around my shoulders, I was well on the road to an hysterical breakdown.

  She knelt beside me and said, “Stop it.”

  I looked at her fearfully, but she wasn’t angry. Compassion filled her eyes. She repeated, "Stop it.” And added, "Don't give them your power. We’re alive. I plan to stay that way. You want to stay alive with me?”

  When I nodded, she smiled and patted my knee. “How do you like your powdered eggs?”

  That night the dead chased me down the dim corridors of restless sleep until I awakened sobbing. She was there, soothing me with quiet words, telling me I was safe. Hours earlier, this same gentle woman slaughtered half a dozen monsters in an alley. In the coming weeks I came to appreciate the deep goodness she buried beneath a contained economy of style.

  Vick held the ragged world together for us both, hiding what I soon recognized was bone-deep pain.

  Somehow she stays human in a world where humanity is in short supply. She's my friend and I love her, but I also respect her. The dead may kill her some day, but they'll never make her a victim.

  Chapter Four

  January 2015: The Cabin

  “Your friend sounds remarkable,” Abbott said, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe.

  “She is,” Lucy answered simply.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes as Abbott continued to smoke. Finally he said, “That’s quite some story.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I believe you’ve been through something terrible,” he said turning toward her. “And I believe you’re telling me what you think is the truth.”

  “I wouldn’t believe me either,” Lucy said, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

  “The point, my dear, is that I don’t disbelieve you.” He tapped out the pipe ashes against the grate and stood. “And we don’t have to sort this out tonight. Or even tomorrow. Your friend is going to need a long time to recover, and no one is going anywhere in this weather. Why don’t you get some rest before you make yourself sick?”

  Before she agreed to stay in the main room, Lucy checked on Vick. Hettie sat beside the bed in the same chair Lucy had occupied for the last week. When Lucy raised a questioning eyebrow, Hettie shook her head and mouthed, “You need sleep.” Lucy was too tired to argue.

  Abbott brought her a pillow and blankets, apologizing all the while that there was no extra bed. He insisted she settle close to the fire to stay warm. He retreated to a corner of the kitchen near the cook stove. Silence fell over the cabin, and Lucy, cocooned in the covers, stared into the fire until she finally slipped into an exhausted sleep.

  As the days passed, the little group in the cabin developed a routine. Hettie and Beth had long ago formed a partnership, and Lucy could never decide if the adult was caring for the child or the other way around. Abbott always had something in his hands. Repairing, cleaning, creating. In the evening, if he could find nothing else to do, he sat in front of the fire and carved stray bits of wood into things both useful and fanciful.

  In a way, that described the man himself. He’d lived alone for years in this remote wilderness, but there was none of the eccentric squalor of a hermit that might be expected of such an existence. Well-worn books filled his shelves, sitting beside framed photos of himself as a younger man taken in spots all over the world.

  “What did you do before you came here, Abbott?” Lucy asked him one afternoon.

  “Precious little a man might care to admit,” he said cryptically.

  A few days later, while he was out chopping wood, she stood at the window watching him heft the ax and repeated the words to Vick who lay propped in bed against a mountain of pillows. Her face was drawn and pale, but her eyes were alert and engaged.

  “That’s all he said?” she asked.

  Lucy turned away from the window. “That’s all.”

  “Can you tell anything from the photos?”

  “He hunted big game in Africa. He knows how to fly a plane. He rides horses. He reads books like the ones you read.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Literature, history, biography. Like in your library at the house in Maine.”

  A shadow crossed Vick’s face at the mention of her childhood home, but she dismissed her own sentimentality with a shake of her head. “Do you trust him?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Lucy answered. “He could have done anything to us he wanted while you were out of it. He said he wasn’t going to hurt us. And he hasn’t. He carried you here. And the way he took that bullet out of your chest, he has to be a doctor or something.”

  Vick shifted against the pillows and winced. Lucy walked to the bed and put her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Are you in pain?”

  “Not so much. Sometimes I just move wrong.” Vick saw the look in her eyes. “I’m okay, Lucy. If anything, I’m mad at myself for my own stupidity. After all of this, I manage to shoot myself tripping in the woods.”

  “You were exhausted. We’d been moving for days, there was a cold north wind blowing, and you were trying to find us some shelter.”

  “And I still nearly killed myself for no other reason than I got my feet tangled up. I survive the apocalypse and die of clumsiness,” she said.

  “Naw,” Lucy grinned, “you weren’t going to die.”

  “And why is that?” Vick asked.

  “Because if you died, you know I’d never let you live it down.”

  Vick cracked up at the non sequitur, which was what Lucy intended. They laughed together, and then Vick caught the younger woman’s hand. “I’m sorry I put you through this.”

  “You were the one who took the bullet,” Lucy answered, looking down at the floor and swallowing against the lump that rose in her throat.

  “Somehow, I think you had the worse part of it,” Vick said softly.

  “We gotta find someplace we can dig in and stay,” Lucy said, her voice strained. “We can’t keep running like this. Somebody is gonna die. You. Me. Both of us. We get ourselves killed, what are Beth and Hettie going to do?”

  “Have you seen any sign of the dead?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I think it’s too cold this winter."

  “They’re walking corpses, Lucy. They don’t feel the c
old. It's never affected them before.”

  “This is the hardest winter we've had since 2010. Unless they have anti-freeze in their veins, they have to at least be slower than usual. Besides, the drifts out there are deep.”

  Vick looked thoughtful. “If that's true, we could rest until spring. Do we have any idea what month it is?”

  “I asked Abbott a few days ago. It’s January.”

  “So we could have three months before they really start moving again.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Will Abbott let us stay here with him?” Vick asked.

  “Yes,” Lucy said, “I think he will. Just the way you let me stay with you.”

  June 2011: York, Maine, Lucy

  Lucy opened her eyes. Sick panic immediately flooded through her. Where was she? What had she missed? Was she safe? What was that sound?

  Her gaze settled on something turning on the ceiling. She stared at it for several seconds before she realized it was a fan. The sheet beneath her hand felt smooth and crisp, and she realized she was comfortable.

  She sat up and looked out the large window at the foot of the bed. The Atlantic Ocean and a clear sky filled the pane. Framed by the gleaming wooden trim, the scene looked like a serene painting.

  A robe was lying across the foot of the bed, and Lucy's feet came down beside a pair of slippers on the scarred, but polished hardwood. Her head dropped into her hands. Silent tears fell through her trembling fingers. Safe. How long had it been since she'd felt this way?

  Cautiously she walked into the hall, peering over the stair railing before descending. She stopped halfway down. The windows weren’t boarded up. The ground floor was light and airy, with a view as open as the one upstairs.