Cage The Dead

by Gary F. Vanucci

  It smelled dank and musty in the basement, on the opposite side of the entrance, was a set of stairs leading up to a walk out set of doors. She entered the room, again flicked on the fluorescent lights above, and checked the generator. It looked like it was in good shape to her, but she wanted to test it. She shoved the first of the fifty-gallon drums and it barely moved. It was full and ready to go. The second drum was also full. It seemed that perhaps other than the occasional testing, it had never been used in any capacity.

  Gaia was pleased with her findings and figured that the amount of gasoline available would last at least a few months in an emergency. She made her way to the overhead doors, proceeding up the steps and threw the latch, opening the doors wide. They opened out, swinging on hinges that creaked and she exited the basement to stand in the back of the facility, which was almost backed up to one of the fences along the outer borders of the zoo,

  Gaia heard a blood-curdling scream and instantly ran out the iron doors toward that sound.

  Rounding the near side of the building, she saw Justin and Solomon coming toward her along the path. Gaia removed her pistol and leveled it in the direction of where they were coming from. She waited for several long heartbeats, but nothing materialized. It was then that Justin yelled again and Gaia realized that the two of them were merely playing. It took several minutes for her heart to resume a normal pace once again.

  Then she saw smoke coming from the far side of the house and her heartbeat raced once again,

  “Gaia! Look!” Justin yelled, pointing toward the rising smoke.

  “What now?!” Gaia whispered rhetorically, racing toward the far end of the house. Smoke billowed into the sky as she rounded the corner and she saw that the kitchen side of the house was on fire.

  Did I leave something on?! Gaia thought as she raced around to the back of the house, thankfully finding a hose attached to the side. Justin and Solomon were suddenly right there with her, the silverback pounding his chest against the flames and Justin looking at her with wide eyes.

  “Gaia, what do I do?!” the boy yelled to her.

  “Unwind the hose and turn it on!” Gaia yelled, taking the front end of the hose and dragging it around to the side of the house. She turned on the nozzle and water rushed out, dousing the flames.

  She continued this action for at least another half an hour, Justin running back and forth to make sure the hose had enough slack for Gaia to move it. Solomon continued pounding his chest against the flames, clearly not liking the fire.

  By the time the flames died out, they were standing in darkness.

  Gaia was exhausted, hungry and beyond frustration as she made her way into the house, collapsing on the sofa in the living room for a few moments. She forced herself up and began checking the damage in the kitchen, seeing that the outside of the refrigerator was burnt, as were most of the cabinets on that same side of the kitchen against the far wall.

  She looked more closely and believed that the fire originated from the outlet in which the refrigerator was plugged. It also appeared that the stove was unusable. Everything along that wall was charred, and most of the appliances were burnt and soaked.

  As she looked more closely, it appeared that half the kitchen cabinets were useless, which contained mostly the spice rack, along with the majority of the pots, pans and dishes.

  She quickly grabbed some cookware that remained intact, and noted with some satisfaction that the microwave appeared unscathed. She brought whatever dishes and a few pans that she could salvage into the living room along with the microwave and tossed them onto a coffee table for later.

  The room stunk to high heaven. Smoke and water damage was everywhere in the kitchen.

  Gaia instinctively opened the windows and then closed them just as quickly, unsure of how to proceed, and understanding that zombies could arrive at any moment. She came to realize that leaving windows wide open was not a great option. She did crack the windows ever so slightly, unable to deal with stench and coming to a reasonable compromise.

  Gaia went around downstairs locking the doors and windows, except for the windows in the screened in porch, which she opened wide, but left the blinds covering them in the hopes that zombie would not be smart enough to tell the difference.

  “Come with me upstairs,” Gaia instructed Solomon and Justin, the pair following her obediently up the steps, though it was quite a tight fit for the massive gorilla.

  She opened all the windows upstairs and shooed Solomon and Justin into an unused bedroom on the far end of the house, where the odor wasn’t as strong. She gestured for Justin to take the bed but he shook his head. “No, I want to sleep on Solomon.”

  Gaia watched in amazement as Solomon took a seat against the wall and Justin climbed into his lap. It was as if the gorilla understood exactly what the boy had just said. She was about to give that further consideration when she felt fatigue overpowering her once more and she closed the door, opened a pair of windows, and fell onto the bed, still fully clothed. She lethargically removed the gun, binoculars and her keys, placing them next to her on the bed as she felt the slumber calling for her.

  She would get to cleaning up around the house, revisiting the lab to clean it up and further inspect the generator, and she intended to put the hose away tomorrow.

  Those thoughts repeated in her mind incessantly until the undeniable fatigue claimed her weary bones.

  Her dreams were beleaguered with nightmarish visions.

  Chapter 14

  Gaia awoke with a cough. She had slept for several hours in the smoke-laden area, not having many options to choose from, but trying to make the best of her situation. She sat up, weary and haggard from terrible sleep patterns, but smiled as she noted Justin sleeping comfortably inside the gorilla’s massive arms and torso, as if Solomon would allow nothing in the world to harm the boy.

  She held that smile for a long time against the lethargy that continued to overwhelm her and slid out of the bed. She frowned at the mattress, which must have been fifty years old and smelled unmistakably of mothballs. Its rigidity was reminiscent of a multi-layered sleeping bag placed over a hard floor.

  A cigarette was quickly in her hand, despite the nauseating smoke that lingered in the house from the fire. She lit the cigarette and smoked it absently as she gathered her belongings and crept slowly down the steps to inspect the damage in this new day that dawned.

  As she hit the bottom step, the smoke hit her like a punch in the face and she winced. She walked into the kitchen and decided that it could have been much worse. It appeared as if there was some faulty wiring or something, she couldn’t tell for certain, but it seemed there some kind of surge in the refrigerator that caused the fire.

  And so, cigarette in mouth, she began cleaning.

  As she did so, she found a banana and, despite knowing she had placed it aside for Solomon or Maye—who she hadn’t seen since yesterday sometime, she realized!—ate it with an immeasurable hunger that only worsened upon finishing the fruit. She quickly looked about and located a bag of peanuts and began devouring that too, plopping herself into a chair that was complete with waterlogged cushions.

  But, Gaia didn’t even care.

  She finished gorging herself on the bag of nuts until her hunger faded, lit another cigarette and went outside to check the perimeter.

  She heard moaning around the side of the house and slowly crept to the source. Peeking around the corner, she saw a trio of zombies in terrible shape. They were missing limbs and two were charred, from the barn fire most likely. She removed her pistol, rounded the corner and fired off three rounds, putting each of them down. She looked around, waiting to see if more would come and after a few moments of silence, replaced the pistol in her belt. It was then that she realized that she hadn’t even equipped the machete for a few days and would probably need to start using it again if she wanted to save ammunition. she did not like using the blade, as it was a barbaric weapon in her estimation, though she did admit that
it was a practical method for dispatching zombies without the expenditure of ammunition.

  With that thought in mind, she climbed the stairs and recovered the blade, picked up and stared at her cell phone, but the fought the urge to go through the photos again, and went back downstairs to stare at the wreckage. An involuntary sigh escaped her lips as she realized the full scope of the workload ahead of her. But, she wanted to do a perimeter check first.

  Gaia made her way outside and, as she began her route around the house, found the backpack she’d taken from the dead child-zombie yesterday. It was resting on top of a bush where she must have absently tossed it in her haste to put out yesterday’s blaze. She slung it over her shoulder and continued along around the outer limits of the house.

  The sounds of a monkey’s chirping invaded her senses next, causing Gaia to freeze and remove her gun before realizing the source. She looked down to see that Maye stood by her side. She holstered the pistol, listening to the capuchin, who was no doubt gibbering for something to eat. Again, she laughed at the monkey’s one-track mind. What she wouldn’t give to be Maye for one day, she supposed.

  She peeked inside the bag and found some tablets of paper, pencils, books about animals and a few choice sugary snacks. And, as luck would have it, a banana and a granola bar was found tucked away in a paper bag.

  Gaia handed the capuchin the banana and began to eat the granola bar, but then she stopped and saved the other half for Justin. .She got up and rewrapped the hose, replacing it neatly back into its coiled housing.

  Then she felt the dull ache resonating from her injured foot, removed the pill bottle and stared at it. She thought long and hard about that, recalling that she had just taken one last evening. She replaced the bottle in her jacket pocket and headed back into the house, thinking that perhaps it was a good thing to allow the pain to continue. Maye followed right behind her.

  Solomon and Justin were both downstairs staring at the wreckage, Justin’s eyes full of sorrow and understanding of Gaia’s plight well beyond his minimal age. Solomon stood by somberly, shifting back and forth and snorting against the overwhelming stench that remained.

  “I heard a loud noise outside,” Justin said, referring to her gunshots no doubt.

  “Sorry, little man.”

  “I guess we need to clean all this up?” Justin said, understanding the daunting task for what it was. Gaia simply nodded.

  The pair, along with occasional help from Solomon, went about cleaning up the debris, scooping it up with shovels and placing in in a trash can and walking it outside, dumping it into piles. Before Gaia knew it, darkness came calling.

  Her belly rumbled and she realized that poor Justin probably hadn’t eaten anything substantial other than a handful of peanuts she’d seen him chewing on earlier in the day.

  “I need to see if the stove even works,” Gaia mentioned absently, as if that important question was so far down the list of priorities that she was surprised that she hadn’t checked it yet. She slowly and wearily entered the kitchen, which at this point, had not smell of smoke at all—or more likely, that she had become so used to it that it didn’t faze her anymore.

  Gaia went to the stove and fired it up, but nothing happened. She then checked the refrigerator and realized that everything in there was going to spoil soon too.

  She spent the next few hours gathering everything that hadn’t spoiled yet or thawed completely out of both the refrigerator and freezer. She closely scrutinized the foodstuffs, and then she began to make her way to the storage freezer outside to begin transferring all of the good food there for safekeeping. She grabbed a flashlight that was in one of the cabinets in the bedroom, tested it, and then began taking the food out to the freezer.

  Justin agreed to help her move the food while Solomon disappeared onto the porch to eat and sleep, as he had done often this day.

  As she entered the shed, the beam of light caught and highlighted a pair of feline eyes in the darkness. This was followed by a low growl. Gaia froze, holding her hand out for Justin to stop, which he had already done based on Gaia’s peripheral vision.

  She placed the bundle of perishables down and slowly removed the gun from the small of her back and chambered a round. The tiger uttered another low growl and stood.

  ”Please don’t make me shoot you,” she whispered to the tiger, which had evidently made this its domain. Gaia switched on the light in the storage area, revealing a partial zombie corpse on which presumably the tiger had been feeding.

  As the big cat stepped into the light, Gaia recognized some very specific markings on the tiger’s stripes, particularly a ‘V’ shaped stripe just beneath the neckline that identified him as one of Nick’s favorites. She had seen this predator on more than one occasion, and his name was Theo.

  Gaia turned around and Justin was nowhere to be found. He had left her alone with the tiger, she believed, which left her both relieved and frightened beyond measure at the same time. Before she could give any more thought to that, however, she had to deal first with the big cat that stood before her.

  Theo crept closer to her and she bent low and slowly rummaged through the bag, finding a thawed hunk of chicken breast and tossing it in front of the tiger, wanting to do anything to avoid any confrontation. Theo sniffed at the meat and began chewing it. He was extremely hungry and looked very thin and frail, despite eating a good portion of the zombie in the corner of the barn, against the wall.

  “Theo, I know you probably don’t remember me, but I know you. And I really want you to leave this place, okay, buddy?!” she asked the tiger in a veritable panic. But, she watched as the cat continued to do what it instinctually does, which was to eat and hunt to survive. She certainly couldn’t expect the beautiful creature to go against all of its instincts. Maybe attracting some zombies and bringing them to the tiger, the hyenas and the wolves would be a win-win, she considered. But how would she even go about getting that done?

  She heard commotion coming from behind and leveled her gun in that direction only to see Solomon and Justin behind her.

  “I went to get help,” Justin said meekly.

  “It’s okay, Solomon,” Gaia said, gesturing to the silverback that all was okay. “He is not going to hurt me,” she added confidently to Justin. “But keep back. I am going to feed him some more. You can go on and put the food in the freezer. I’m gonna feed him my pile here. He’s just hungry, got it?”

  Justin nodded and began placing his food pile into the freezer while Gaia led Theo back to the rear of the storage shed and dropped more of the meats that she found in the huge freezer inside the house.

  Theo followed her without incident as she tossed the food down for him. He continued to eat in silence as Gaia and Justin made a few trips back and forth carrying what they could. The three walk-in freezers were stocked well with frozen meats, and with her being a staunch vegetarian, she did not recognize their sources unless they were labeled. Gaia believed that would be plenty to keep the wolves and this tiger fed for at least a little while.

  After they finished, Gaia left Theo alone in the shed and followed the exhausted Justin and Solomon back into the house, where they collectively found their sleeping quarters, Gaia’s eyes closing as soon as she hit the pillow.

  She thought she heard the high-pitched voice of Justin whisper, “good night, Gaia,” but she couldn’t be sure.

  ***

  The sounds of Justin’s excitable voice woke Gaia that next day. She looked at the clock on the wall, which appeared stuck at 2:30—no help there. Seeing that it was light out, she assumed it to be morning. Feeling fully rejuvenated, she got up and wandered into the other room, the master bedroom where she had slept until only two days prior because the smell of smoke was so bad, and saw that it was 1:00 pm.

  “Is that right?!” she asked aloud, looking around and confirming that it certainly could be. She had slept into the afternoon. The pain in her foot had all but subsided and the lack of pain was evident.

&
nbsp; .”Justin, did you feed—“

  “Already fed the animals, Gaia!” he called excitedly as Maye and Solomon both chased him around the upstairs halls and bedrooms.

  “And Theo? The tiger?”

  “I left him a big piece of meat, but Solomon yelled at him. They almost got into a fight but I made Solomon come with me,” he explained very enthusiastically, waving his hands about as if trying to act it out enthusiastically. Gaia couldn’t help but snicker, but covered her mouth, not wanting to show levity here.

  “You should come get me when you go into the storage shed, Justin! That tiger is very dangerous and I don’t want you to get hurt, you got it?”

  “Theo won’t hurt me,” he said with utter confidence.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because Solomon was with me and he protects me,” Justin explained with irritability in his voice, evidently frustrated that he had to explain that to her again.

  “Okay, hon. I should have known that,” she said in an attempt to alleviate the young man’s dissatisfaction. ” I have something for you downstairs,” Gaia called, making her way down and into the living room. The smell of smoke seemed to have dissipated for the most part, but again, she couldn’t tell if she was used to it, or if it was completely gone, or if the cigarette’s she’d been smoking dulled her sense of smell. She walked to the window and opened it, taking in a whiff of the fresh air. Then she confirmed that the odor was still there and yet it remained fairly strong, despite her earlier notions.

  Justin arrived and Gaia handed him the backpack. “There are books and papers and pencils in there if you want to read and do some drawings,” she said, drawing a frown from the boy.

  “Homework?!” he asked.

  “Not home-work, really. More like…home-fun, I guess. You should probably do—can you read?” she asked him, truly unsure.

  “Yep,” he answered, pulling out the books in the bag and looking at them. “Math and history books…yuck!”