Innocence Ends

by Robinson, Nikolas P.

  The place turns out to be an empty sanctuary. For the time being, the chapel is the safe and peaceful place its builders intended it to be.

  None of the three of them consider themselves particularly spiritual or religious individuals, but both Miles and Mariah silently whisper their own sort of prayers, whether to some potential deity or to the universe itself, hoping that something might be listening but knowing that they’re all alone in this. Hewitt silently reflects on the fact that this will more than likely be his last day on Earth and he finds himself struggling to make peace with that fact. As many times as he’s passively waited for death to find him or entertained the thought of going out looking for himself, he’s not ready and he certainly doesn’t want his friends dragged down with him.

  The chapel bell has been updated to an electronic control but, as Hewitt hoped when concocting this plan, there is a manual control for the armature that gets the bell swinging so the clapper can do its job.

  “Do you really think this will work, buddy?” Miles asks, looking over the bell controls.

  “It’s the best suggestion I’ve got,” Hewitt shrugs. “There’s no reason this shouldn’t work and if we don’t get them all in one place, it’s pretty fucking unlikely we’ll ever get them all.”

  “Seems risky, you know, drawing 100 or more of those things to us here.”

  “No more risk, I figure, than trying to hunt them down house by house, room by room. At least, assuming this works, we’ll have an open space to work with, none of that bullshit with them sneaking up behind us and no hidden corners to account for.”

  “It’s a good plan, baby,” Mariah says, walking up from behind him and taking Hewitt’s hand. She squeezes tightly, tighter than Hewitt thinks she realizes. He can tell from the pressure that she’s just as scared as he is. Miles may mask it better, but he suspects they’re all about equally terrified with what they’re about to do.

  The three stand there in silence for a few minutes, taking in the illusory tranquility and peacefulness, no remnant inside of this place of the horrors they’ve experienced, nothing intruding on the space they’re in; nothing but the emotional scars and haunted recollections they’ve carried in with them.

  Hewitt cranks the arm and gets the bell ringing. Inside the building, it is a jarring onslaught of noise, even for ears that will likely be experiencing permanent ringing from being unprotected in the presence of so much gunfire only a couple of nights before.

  Even through the din inside, they can hear the bell’s clanging resounding through town and echoing back from buildings and the valley walls surrounding the place.

  Hewitt swears he can hear the groans and hungry moaning of the damned revenants rising to add their own dissonant chorus to the awful tune sweeping through the dead place that once was their home.

  It’s a haunting sound that none of them will ever forget, whether they live long lives or, more likely, they reach the end of their respective journeys today.

  At the mouth of the mine, staring out over the handful of rooftops that appear through the dense tree growth, Ben hears the bell and the moaning that picks up to accompany it. The sounds carried to him on a breeze that chills him far less than the tuneless song itself.

  For the first time since watching the others depart, Ben worries that his father’s friends will not be returning.

  47

  “Holy shit,” Hewitt whispers in awe, terror causing every muscle to tense up in mortification. “If only Romero was still around to witness this. It’s like that opening scene from Day of the Dead.”

  Miles chuckles, having had similar thoughts of his own over the last few days.

  “Yeah, but we sadly do not have a chopper to fly us away to safety,” Mariah points out, concerned that the men aren’t taking the situation seriously enough.

  “Assuming anywhere is safe after this,” Hewitt remarks, giving voice to fears he hasn’t been able to shake since Gale had shared his plans with them. His fear is that the rest of the world will be no different when, or if, they ever leave this place.

  New voices keep adding their own off-key baritone to the awful dirge outside, and though he knows better, it sounds to Hewitt as if there are more of the zombies heading their way than there had been people in the mob a couple of days before. He knows he’s wrong. He did the math himself and the math added up. The dead aren’t rising from their graves, these aren’t actually zombies. There can’t be more than 150 to 200 total people left moving in town.

  He has to keep reminding himself that they are ready for this and that they’ve been through worse already; though the profound smell that continues making him want to gag has him feeling like he’s been lying to himself.

  “They’re slow but unrelenting,” Miles offers as encouragement and warning all in one. “On the positive side, we don’t need to aim exclusively for the head like they do in the movies. Center mass does the trick just as well.”

  The sound from outside continues growing louder as the remaining residents swarm toward the source of the noise that may as well have been a dinner bell.

  “Center mass gives you a shot at heart, lungs, or even the spine and if you hit any of those it should knock any of these shambling fucks out of commission,” Miles continues.

  “One hell of a pep talk there, Miles,” Mariah says. “Practice that one in front of the mirror this morning?”

  “Why yes, my dear, I did, how kind of you to notice. I stood naked before the mirror, beholding myself as I went through the whole speech, and then I jerked off into the eggs we had for breakfast.”

  Hewitt barely stifles a snort, and just like that the tension in the air is lifted and the weight of what’s coming suddenly feels less unbearable and beyond their abilities. He’s not confident about the odds, but he’s not ready to give up either.

  “Fuck you both,” Mariah says. Her tone is stern, but a glance over his shoulder and Hewitt is rewarded with a shit-eating grin.

  The three of them begin laughing, and for just a moment it drowns out the noise growing in intensity outside. For Mariah, it feels like a symbolic victory, the sort of symbol she focused on in her teaching.

  This moment is representative of their little band of misfits being greater than the throngs of monsters ushered their way by the base, animal desire to kill and to devour.

  “I suppose it’s time to go,” Hewitt says, slipping earplugs into place and feeling like he might just be wasting his time with the precaution, judging by the constant ringing in his ears since the other night. The others do the same and similarly wonder if they’re maybe just a bit late to the party in considering ear protection.

  Miles is the first through the door, seeing two dozen of the nearly dead residents crossing the church lawn from the park, and there are so many more behind them. Taking a weaver stance, he begins firing at those to the center.

  Hewitt and Mariah follow him through and take up positions to the right and left of Miles, focusing their fire on their respective sides of the field. The plan in this, as Miles explained it, is to minimize any risk of wasting rounds on anyone else’s target.

  Miles and Mariah begin by making a good show of it, mostly managing single-shot kills.

  Hewitt takes a little longer getting a handle on things, wasting two or even three rounds on the first few targets, emptying the magazine without much to show for it.

  The next magazine goes much further, and the bodies begin piling up in his kill zone as well. The earplugs aren’t much help, but he recalls how much worse it had been the other night and he’s grateful for anything that might take the edge off.

  Miles can’t help but wish the odor of primer would be a little more potent, the acrid scent of gunfire being largely lost outdoors, anything would be better than the smell of sickness and human waste that barely masks the rot hanging in the air already. In fiction, there’s always that overpowering scent that accompanies a discharged firearm and he has never, in all his years before now, wished more for that t
o be true. Sadly, nothing is ever likely to wash away this awful smell, and certainly, nothing will scrub his mind of the memory of it.

  They just keep coming, crawling over the rising obstruction formed by the truly dead. In a semi-circle around them lay dozens of dead, haphazardly stacked and scattered as they’ve fallen or been shoved aside by their oncoming comrades. Stumbling and slipping their way forward, the newcomers show no fear or awareness of those who came before them.

  Miles’ handgun jams, and rather than bother with clearing the action he grabs another, switching them out in the holster. He’s impressed that this is the first, considering they’ve fired more than 100 rounds between them. His guns were always well-maintained, but with circumstances like this, he almost expected luck to be working against them.

  There is no marking the passage of time, but the longer the onslaught lasts, the more they can take their time. The zombies aren’t graceful or dexterous and the obstacle course of corpses provides some respite as arms and shoulders begin to feel numb, especially after the strenuous night they only just recovered from. Even as lightweight as the guns happen to be, the strength to keep firing with any accuracy is limited.

  Finally, though, the wretched groaning of the horde is done as the final echoes of gunfire bounce through the town.

  “So,” Mariah begins, “Which of you big, strong men is cleaning this shit up?” She slumps exhausted to the ground and the others follow her lead.

  “I say we make the kid do it,” Miles says, laughing until the dryness of his throat turns the laughter to a coughing fit.

  “I’m sure his dad made him do chores, right?” Hewitt adds.

  None of them have the energy left to laugh, but they all sit there smiling until the smell finally forces them to move.

  Ben throws his arms around Hewitt as the three return to the lab, smelling awful and somehow looking worse. Hewitt returns the embrace, having been just as uncertain that they’d see each other again as Ben had been when he heard the bells followed by the reports of gunfire.

  Miles pats the boy on the shoulder as he passes. “I’m taking a long fucking shower in the hottest water possible. I might just go through decontamination while I’m at it.”

  Mariah closes the door to the lab and walks to where Ben and Hewitt are still hugging, putting her arms around both of them.

  The three of them discussed on their way back up the hill, and Hewitt had been nominated as the one to talk things over with Ben. He is the one most bonded with the boy. Mariah insinuated this was due to Hewitt being a child himself even though he was approaching 40.

  “Ben,” Hewitt begins as soon as he and the young man had parted from their embrace, “we’ve got a lot of work to do down there, as I expect you know.”

  The boy only nods in response, still feeling overcome by his relief at knowing he wasn’t going to be alone.

  “Taking inventory of supplies and resources in town is going to be a long project and we will need your help.” He pauses, trying to find a gentler way to tackle the next part and deciding that he’s better of just powering through. “You worked with your old man a lot, on job sites and whatnot. Right?”

  “Yes I did,” Ben replies proudly.

  “That’s good! Have you ever handled heavy equipment at all?”

  The boy affirms that he has and proceeds to go into detail telling Hewitt and Mariah about driving front-loaders, backhoes, and even handling a crane once. Hewitt wants to cry, hearing so much of Abraham in his son’s voice and the way he talks about these things.

  Mariah shares similar sentiments as she turns away and tries to wipe at her eyes inconspicuously.

  “Would you be able to teach me how to use the equipment here in town?” Hewitt finally asks, getting to the big question. In response to the boy’s quizzical look, Hewitt explains that they need to dispose of the bodies somehow, and as much as they have tried to think of an alternate solution because they want to be respectful, they have no choice but to be practical about it. He takes his time telling Ben that they want to bury his father, Kateb, Deputy Weber, and even Gale the right way, but that doing the same sort of thing for the more than 1,000 people who lived here in town it simply wouldn’t be possible.

  “It’s going to sound terrible,” he continues, “but we want to dig a mass grave at the edge of the existing cemetery near the chapel. We’re going to burn the bodies in the grave to keep scavengers from finding them and to keep other diseases from popping up. To do this, I need you to teach me how to use the tractors and heavy equipment I’m going to be operating.”

  “I can do it,” Ben says without hesitation, taking both Hewitt and Mariah by surprise. “It’s what my dad would do if he was still here with us. It’s what he would want me to do too.”

  “I don’t think your dad would want anything like that,” Mariah says, stunned by the boy’s mature response.

  Ben looks at her and cracks an altogether too familiar smile. “Dad always worked hard and he expected it from everyone else around him. If there was a job to be done and someone who could do it but didn’t, it would disappoint him, even if he didn’t say it. He didn’t have any use for people who disappointed him.”

  Hewitt can’t resist but to crack a smile, knowing at that moment how much his friend still lived on through the young man in front of him. There was no question as to just how proud Abraham would be.

  “You’re right about that,” Hewitt acknowledges. “Your old man pushed me to work harder on plenty of occasions.”

  Hewitt pauses, thinking things over for a minute, weighing the options before continuing. “You are welcome to help, but this is not going to be fun work and if you lose the stomach for it, we all understand and no one will blame you. I still need you to teach me though, because you aren’t going to be doing this work alone.”

  Ben agrees and they shake on it with an exaggerated caricature of making a deal.

  A shower is in order for Hewitt and Mariah and they choose to do so together after Miles is finished.

  Neither of them feels any urge for intimacy beyond simply being close and holding each other tightly, thankful that they’ve managed to survive all of this together, against all odds. They stand there for ten minutes, beneath a steady stream of nearly scalding water that they wish could somehow make them feel clean after everything, holding onto one another as if each is afraid the other might float away if they let go.

  Finally, they wash one another with tenderness and care before drying off and retreating to the room they’ve been sharing, skin wrinkled from the water.

  48

  Everyone sleeps through the night for the first time since the fateful evening of Kateb’s death and there is no rush to get moving the following morning. Once they’ve all gotten up and moving they fall into an unspoken routine, knowing the first thing they need to do.

  The early afternoon finds them, sweating and covered in dirt and mud, standing before four fresh graves with crude markers displaying only the names of their fallen friends and nothing more. There are no words to say over the resting places and there have hardly been any words spoken between the four of them since waking. With the same unspoken connection, they turn away from the graves and prepare to get started on the work that can’t be put off any longer.

  While Ben helps Hewitt maneuver heavy equipment from the Emergency Services Building, Miles and Mariah begin to load bodies onto a flatbed trailer, thankful that the lab was fully equipped with HazMat suits so that they could dress appropriately for the occasion.

  It’s an exhausting and emotionally taxing day, but they make progress and with Miles’ systematic approach, he and Mariah manage to remove the dead from close to half of the town, only encountering one remaining zombie, trapped in a fenced yard and dragging a useless broken leg behind it as it digs claws into the earth to move itself toward them.

  The hole for the grave completed, Hewitt and Ben join the other two the following morning for more of the same cleanup, from dawn until d
usk. The more they clear out the dead, the more they find themselves alone in what is feeling more and more like a ghost town.

  Day three of the cleanup is the hardest for Hewitt by far. Having to do something he has been dreading since the talk of a mass grave had first come up, he feels unclean. Using the diesel-powered front-loader, he scoops bodies from the festering, insect-ridden piles and drops them into the pit already filling with the bodies they’d hauled in by trailer.

  When it concerned the remnants of the final defense, they all knew it wouldn’t make sense to transport the dead, body by body. This is the gruesome chore he’d had in mind when he asked Ben to walk him through operating this beast, and this is a chore he left for himself as penance for the guilt he knows he shouldn’t be feeling.

  The work is worse than he imagined it could be, but it needs to be done.

  As he lifts and deposits the dead into their final resting place, the other three go home to home, collecting what they need and making note of anything they aren’t loading into the bed of the massive Chevy truck Miles picked out for the task.

  While their work is time-consuming and certainly exhausting in its way, none of them would trade their labor for what Hewitt is doing.

  Evening comes and the other three join Hewitt at the park where he’s finished dousing the pit and its contents with gasoline and kerosene since he had both in ready supply and he wants to get this over with quickly and doesn’t want to take any chances with the final stage of the job.

  Standing together, at what they hope is a safe distance from the grave, Hewitt hands Miles one of the road flares while keeping the other for himself. “You want to share this dubious honor with me?” He asks.

  Miles nods solemnly and the two ignite the flares in unison.

  They toss the flares to opposite sides of the hole and at first nothing happens, leaving Hewitt feeling like he’d fucked something up somehow.