The fire, of course, had attracted the attention of every freshy and rotter within miles. In a world that now only knew the darkness of night, a world where the Milky Way could finally be seen over the crumbling skylines of Los Angeles and New York, this blaze was a beacon.
They came lurching and staggering and running across the twenty-some acres of property; like waves of putrefied flesh, the carcasses rolled across the landscape from all sides. Before the roof had even collapsed, Sadie and Watchmaker had found themselves surrounded: an island of life amid a roiling sea of decay. But the raging fire had also drawn the attention of others....
They hadn't really known why they'd been drawn to the blaze: they knew that the area would surely be swarming with the undead and any supplies that may have existed would already have been reduced to nothing more than cinder and ash.
“Hell,” Carl had joked during the telling of the story, “I just reckoned someone was having themselves a barbecue, that's all.”
Whatever the reason, by the time they'd arrived Sadie and Watchmaker had holed up in a little storage shed in the backyard. The heat from the burning house had seeped into the corrugated walls and they could hear flesh sizzle like frying bacon as the zombies outside pounded and grabbed at the metal walls.
“It was like being trapped in an oven.” Watchmaker had said. “But I figured it was worlds better than what laid outside those doors.”
At this point, Doc had taken over the story and Carl began to look like a kid who had been called to the front of the class to recite Jabberwocky. His face was slightly flushed and he found any excuse to look away from the group as he rearranged the cards in his hand again and again.
“We knew there had to be something alive in that shed.” Doc said. “Otherwise those damn things wouldn't have wanted in so badly. Only question was, how the hell do you get them out?”
Luckily for Sadie and Watchmaker, though, Carl had some kind of plan.
“No matter what happens,” Doc had continued, donning a pretty accurate imitation of his friend, “you get those people outta there. Don't you worry 'bout me. And I couldn't argue with him. He wasn't having it.”
So Carl started yelling at the top of his lungs, his voice cutting through the banging of fists on metal and the roar of the blaze while Doc crouched in the shadows. No one could remember exactly what he was saying, but his words drew the attention of the zombies away from the shed.
“I remember thinking that he was a dead man.” Doc said. “I saw all those things turning to face him, saw the freshies lunge forward, pushing rotters out of their way. Didn't think there was anyway a single person could survive that kind of attention.”
“And he didn't even know us.” Sadie cut in. Her voice quivered as she spoke and I could see her eyes glistening as if a tear were about to roll across her wrinkled cheeks at any moment. “He could've met his maker out there. For perfect strangers.”
Carl squirmed in his chair and seemed to study a framed sampler on the wall that had the words They may be crazy, but they're still my family stitched into the fabric.
“Hell, I was thinkin' there might be some sorta lonely, supermodel in that shed. If I knew it was just your wrinkled old asses, woulda been a different story.”
Carl winked and we all laughed, but I found myself wondering why he did that: anytime someone said even the smallest thing about him, anything that showed him in a positive light, he was so quick to turn it into some kind of joke. He would make a quip and, while everyone else was distracted by laughter, a shadow would pass across his face; it was the same infinite sadness I'd seen before. An expression of sorrow and regret that somehow made me just want to take him in my arms and whisper Everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to be alright.
Anyhow once Carl had the full attention of the crowd of zombies, he took off running; being the single-minded creatures they are the undead followed, forgetting the people in the shed as quickly as children distracted by a newer and flashier toy. And he made sure he kept their attention, too, continuing to yell and whoop as he disappeared behind the burning house.
As soon as Doc thought it was safe, he slipped out from his hiding place and scurried over to the shed.
“We heard this man whispering,” Watchmaker said, “telling us to stay quiet, that they were gonna get us out of there.”
And they could hear gunshots echoing through the night. So many shots, they said, that at the time they'd assumed a small militia had come to their rescue.
“Never dreamed it was just one man makin' all that racket.”
“Hey,” Carl said, “ I thought if I popped enough of them I was gonna win a kewpie doll. No one told me there weren't any prizes involved.”
By the time Doc had freed the elderly couple from the shed, Carl had reappeared around the other side of the house. Behind him was a mass of flames that writhed and twisted in human-shaped forms as they continued to stumble forward.
“We later found out all the shooting had been Carl picking off the freshies first. Which was smart. After the freshies were all gone, he simply made zombie torches.”
I raised my eyebrows in a silent question and Carl, for once, chose to answer.
“You get a bunch of rotters all clustered together,” he said, “and then you just toss some fire right in the middle of 'em. Once they've been dead a while, they're pretty dry. Go up like kindling. Zombie torches. Don't need no gasoline or nothing.”
“What he's not telling you,” Doc interrupted, “is that he burned the hell out of his hands lighting those fuckers up. Damn fool took a timber from the burning house.”
“Only one end was on fire. I didn't think the wood on the other end would be so damn hot. Shows how much I know.”
“Anyways,” Sadie added, “that's how we met these two fine boys. And they've been looking out for us ever since.”
That night, after the others had drifted off to sleep in the warm glow of the fireplace, Carl and I sat up late into the night. For the most part, we talked about movies we'd seen, books we had read, people we'd known. We sat side by side with our shoulders touching, snuggly wrapped in blankets, and whispering so as not to disturb the others.
There were times when we laughed, times when we bordered on tears, and occasions when we simply sat in silence, enjoying the closeness of each other's company and stealing glances like two smitten teenagers.
But at one point, once the fire had burned down to nothing more than glowing coals, I touched his shoulder lightly and made sure he was looking into my eyes. I had to ask him, had to know.
“Carl, why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
He had seemed genuinely perplexed, as if I had just asked a question that couldn't be answered.
“Why do you put yourself out there like that? Taking risks for people you barely even know?”
He tried to look away and I moved my hand to the rough stubble on his cheek, guiding his gaze back to my direction.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “it's the right thing... ”
“No, it's more than that. I can tell. There's something else. Something I can't put my finger on.”
He seemed agitated, as if his blanket had suddenly become coarse and itchy, and the half-grin melted from his face.
“I swear,” I coaxed, “you tell me and we never have to talk about it again if you don't want to. But I have to know.”
And I did. I can't explain why it was so important for me to understand this man, to know what made him tick so to speak; but it was and I would be as relentless as a rotter on the trail of the living if I had to be.
After what seemed to be an eternity, he managed a weak smile as he sighed.
“Atonement. Plain and simple. I gotta put things right again.”
And that was the last I ever heard him say on the matter. Far from sating my curiosity, though, his answer only served to fuel it: what had he done that was so bad he felt he had to risk his life time and time again simply so others c
ould live?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE CHILD
I'm with the blurry people again and I can see dark clouds in the sky that flash with lightning like a storm's on the way. I know there's wind and I used to like the way it felt blowin' through my hair and stuff, but for some reason this wind makes my skin hurt. It's almost like there's invisible acid in the air and it burns and stings and hurts so bad that I wanna scream but can't. So I just keep walkin' but even the bottoms of my feet hurt with every step and I just wanna sit down for a while until the pain goes away but for some reason I just can't. So I just keep walkin' with the other people.
But something's different now. Everyone else seems to want to just keep going straight ahead, but I feel like something from the woods is pullin' me. I don't wanna walk toward the storm clouds in the distance and I don't wanna stay with the others. I wanna split off and go into the trees, I wanna go toward whatever is drawing me and not stop 'til I'm there.
There was this one time that Mommy had a little piece of metal and she put it on top a sheet of paper. Then she took a magnet in her other hand and held it underneath. Wherever she'd move the magnet, the piece of metal on top would follow and that's exactly how I feel: like there's this giant magnet under the ground and every time it moves it pulls me along after it.
Once the blurry people see me headin' off into the woods though, they kinda stop for a moment and then start followin'. I wonder if they feel it too or, if for some reason, they think I might actually know where I'm goin'?
The wind is blowin' harder now and it makes my skin hurt so bad that even my teeth feel like they've been cracked into a million bits. But I still can't scream and I still can't cry and all I can do is just keep walkin' and it's not fair, I shouldn't be feelin' like this, it should be him not me. I never did nothin' to deserve this... all I ever wanted was to stay with my mommy in our little apartment and color and play baseball when I got old enough. He should be the one in all this pain, he should be the one hurtin' so bad that all he wants to do is just lay down and die. Not me....
I'm back in the room with Mr. Carl and the lady now but the pain is still kinda there. Just not as bad. The lady keeps lookin' from me to Mr. Carl and then back to me again and I can tell she's thinkin' 'bout somethin' but she's not sayin' nothin' so I don't know what. But she looks so sad that it makes me start feeling lonely and kinda lost inside, if that makes any sense. Something about the look in her eyes makes me think about Mommy and I just wish she was still here, that she would hug me and kiss me and tell me it had all been a bad dream and then ask if maybe I wanted some cocoa.
But I know that's not gonna happen. I remember how Mr. Carl had carried her through the woods after they saved me from the monsters at the cave. How she kept trying to reach her hand over her shoulder and I kept trying to reach back. But Mr. Carl was so tall that even if I could stand on tiptoes, I probably still wouldn't have been able to hold her hand.
Besides, we were movin' real fast through the trees and bushes and Mr. Carl was cryin' and told me to try to keep up as best as I could, that he was tryin' to find somewhere we could rest and help my mommy.
I tried not to look at the place on his shoulder that my mommy was layin' over 'cause there was so much blood now that it started almost lookin' like Mr. Carl was bleedin' too. Only I knew he wasn't. I knew all the blood was Mommy's and I knew she was hurt real bad.
We finally came to this big, white house and Mr. Carl kicked the door open with his foot like the cops do on TV. He went running into a bedroom and dropped Mommy on the bed and then told me to stay there with her, to keep talkin' to her and tellin' her how much I loved her and stuff. And then he ran outta the room and I thought he was probably leaving us but I didn't care.
I climbed on the bed and snuggled up to Mommy's side like I used to when it was cold and we'd watch the snow falling outside together. Only back then she was always warm and toasty, but now she was so cold that I could feel her shiverin'. So I tried to get up and go get a blanket for her, but she put her arm around me and started talkin' to me.
I'd never heard her voice so soft before, not even when whispering, and she kinda seemed like she was havin' trouble making some of her sounds. Kinda like Stutterin' Johnny at school only when Mommy did it, it was scary instead of funny.
“J-Jason, b-baby... I love you... I love you, s-s-so much. N-never forget that, s-sw-sweetie.”
By this time I was cryin' again and I felt like a giant ice cream scoop had come along and dipped out everything inside me. I pressed myself against her as tight as I could, thinkin' that maybe my body could help keep some of the blood inside.
“Y-you listen to... to C-Carl. Okay, baby? Listen to Carl.”
Her voice was getting more and more quiet with each word and I started shakin' my head back and forth.
“I don't wanna listen to Mr. Carl, Mommy, I wanna listen to you. I just wanna listen to you…”
“Shhh... it's okay, b-baby. I love you. Always re... always remember that. Always remember how much I loved you.”
Mr. Carl was runnin' back into the room now and he had all these towels in his hands and he was sayin' something but I couldn't tell what.
All I could think about was how somethin' was different, how somethin' had changed. I couldn't feel Mommy's chest moving up and down against my back anymore and her hand had stopped petting my arm and was just kinda layin' there.
I rolled over and started shakin' her and I don't really know what I was sayin' but I know I was cryin' and hollerin' for her. But she wasn't movin' at all and she was just looking up at the ceiling and not blinking or anything.
Next thing I know, Mr. Carl was trying to pull me away from her and I kicked and scratched and fought and all I wanted was for him to leave me and my mommy alone, to just let me lay there beside her and hold her and keep her safe from all the monsters in the world.
But he was so much stronger than me and he just carried me out into the hallway and then slammed the door real quick in my face. I remember pounding on the door, yelling at him to let me in, that I wanted my mommy and didn't want to be alone and he better open up right now.
When he didn't I dropped down to my knees and peeked through the keyhole, just wanting to be able to see Mommy again.
Inside the room, Mr. Carl was standin' at the foot of the bed and he had his face pressed into his hands and I could tell he was cryin' but nowhere near as much as me.
But then I felt my heart kinda skip a beat or two and I began smilin' real big and I was cryin' then because I was happy, happier than I had ever been and happier than I ever knew I could be.
“Mommy!” I hollered. “Mommy, I'm out here!”
Mommy wasn't dead after all, the monster's hadn't got her. As I was peeking through the keyhole, I saw her fingers start movin' like she was trying to grab something that wasn't there. And then she was sittin' up in bed and she looked like she was really, really sick but at least she was still alive. At least I had my mommy back and would never have to be alone again.
But as I watched, I saw Mr. Carl take a step backward as he pulled out his gun. I started bangin' on the door again and started yelling for Mommy to look out, for Mr. Carl to leave her alone.
And then he shot her. Just like that. He didn't say nothin' or anything. He just shot her.
I squeezed my eyes shut but it was too late. I'd already seen the way the hole just seemed to open up in her forehead, the way the blood splattered against the wall behind her as her body fell onto the bed again.
Just like that, he killed her. Just when I thought everything was gonna be okay. Just when I thought I had my mommy back and things would go back to the way they had always been.
But I knew then that things would never be the same again. No matter what happened, he'd taken my mommy away from me.
He had killed her.
And I wanted so badly to bust down the door and take that gun from him and do the same thing to him.
Mommy always said I shouldn't hate.
<
br /> But she'd understand.
I know she would.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: CARL
Doc has pulled up a chair and sits beside me, leaning slightly forward with his hands folded in his lap. Was the chair there just a minute ago? I'm not sure... I don't think so. I thought this little shack was pretty much empty except for me and my belongings. But it must've been, right? Otherwise, where would the dang thing have come from?
“You've messed yourself up real bad, my friend.”
I always liked the sound of Doc's voice: it has kind of a scratchy quality to it, like a blues singer the morning after a gig in a smoke-filled club.
“You're telling me.... ”
I try to manage a weak laugh, but even that small act sends streaks of pain racing outward from my wound like baby snakes fleeing the nest.
“I'm dyin' here, Doc. Fuckers bit me bad.”
Doc leans back in the chair and studies me for a minute. He looks me straight in the eye and chews on his bottom lip, just like he always did when something was on his mind.
“I wasn't talking about your injuries.”
We're silent for a moment, each of us looking at the other, feeling like there's so much to say but too few words to express it all. This man was like a brother to me and I've missed him so damn much since we parted ways. More than I'd ever let on.
After what could have been half an hour or just a few minutes, he clears his throat and speaks again.
“You remember the time we saw that tornado, Carl? Somewhere in Iowa maybe?”
It hurts too much to talk, so I simply nod my head. How could I not remember something like that?
We were standing on the roof of an old music store, tryin' to get the lay of the land so we could figure out where we wanted to head next; lightning flashed to the south and the horizon was covered with clouds so dark and low it almost seemed as if they had grown too heavy to stay aloft and were sinking like leaky dirigibles toward the ground.
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