She rubbed her face and stared at the street around her. Everything looked so different from the wonderful times she remembered. Her ideal life had been replaced by a never-ending nightmare, one that she couldn’t seem to escape from. But did she truly want to escape? Bear’s words came back to her now, even though she tried her best to block them out.
I’d give anything to see my wife and step-daughter again, but I know they’d want me to keep fighting. I’ll see them again someday, but for now, I’ll be here doing my best to make them proud.
She couldn’t deny the truth behind those words. Chris would never want her to give up. He’d encouraged her throughout her entire life, urging her to always try her hardest and never give up. If he could see her now, he’d be so upset with her. She hated the thought of disappointing the love of her life, but it was so hard to live without him. The last few days had been pure torture; she couldn’t imagine living the rest of her life this way.
Carla sat on the edge of the curb for hours, not moving when her stomach growled, or when she had to use the bathroom, or even when the sun began to go down. As it began to get darker, she heard a commotion from the next street over. It was a sound that she was all too familiar with these days, and it sent a chill down her spine. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she knew she couldn’t stay here or else the choice would be taken from her and she would end up like Chris, stuck here and never having a chance to see their babies again.
I don’t need to make this decision now. I can always decide tomorrow, or the day after…
She got to her feet, feeling the muscles in her legs cramp and protest at their lack of use in the last few hours. She winced but pushed herself to move, cutting across the unkempt yard to find the next street over. She had to pass through a gated fence that nearly refused to open, but she found herself staring at a green house a few down from where she stood. The bike was out front against the curb, but the house was dark and it looked deserted.
Carla nearly smacked herself for forgetting that every house looked deserted, whether they were lived in or not. Nobody had power anymore, and with nobody around to bring life to the neighborhood, she may as well be living in a ghost town. She stared at the house for a moment, trying to will her feet to move. Finally, the house began to get closer, and she saw a curtain pull back and a grizzly face peeked out at her. Bear smiled when he saw her, but she couldn’t help but notice the sadness behind it.
The front door opened, and Bear welcomed her inside. He closed the door behind her and led her into the living room. It was dark like the rest of the house, except for the light of thick white candles clustered together on a long coffee table, giving out a faint amount of light. It was just enough to see by, and Carla found herself sinking onto the couch, enjoying the simple comfort of cushions under her butt after a long day of sitting on the sidewalk.
Bear began rummaging around his knapsack, and after a second he produced a bag of fresh apples. Her stomach growled hungrily at the sight of it, and he handed it over to her. There were about seven of them left, and she reached a hand into the bag and pulled out a large one, not even caring that she couldn’t wash it before eating it. She took a bite and felt juice roll down her chin, and it was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. She knew that if things didn’t get better—which they most likely wouldn’t—she wouldn’t be able to eat all of the things she was used to. But there would hopefully always be fresh fruit growing, ready to be picked and eaten.
Bear brought out a block of cheese and some crackers, along with a package of pepperoni slices. The cheese was warm and she tried not to think about what kind of bacteria might be growing on it, but she reminded herself that things hadn’t been too bad for too long yet. The power had only gone out a few days ago, at the height of the zombie infestation. Until then, things had still managed to run for the most part, including refrigerators. So she sat in the dark with Bear and enjoyed cracker sandwiches, neither of them saying a word as they ate.
Bear was the first to break the silence, choosing a topic that Carla was hesitant to talk about with herself, let alone a complete stranger.
“A man took my wife and step-daughter from me,” he said, staring down at the food in his hands. They clenched, crushing a cracker into crumbs. “I was naïve; I thought everyone was good like me. But I was wrong, and it cost me their lives. I was beaten until I could no longer move, and all I could do was lay there helpless on the floor and listen to the things he did to them. They were so close, calling out for me to save them. I should have been able to, but I was weak.”
Carla didn’t know what to say. Bear had suffered a tragedy, something some might consider worse than death. What did someone say to that? She knew Bear was trying to show a sense of companionship, but she really did not want to talk about this. Finally she ventured, “I’m sorry for your loss. If you all suffered so much, how do you keep going? I know you said they’d never want you to give up, but how do you fight the grief and the guilt?”
“It’s simple. Before I met my wife and our daughter, I was an alcoholic traveling from bar to bar, drinking away my paycheck until they kicked me out and I moved on to the next one. I was close to ending up in the gutter, or perhaps even the morgue, but they turned my life around. The two of them made me a better man—the man I am today. They inspired me to never give up, no matter how bad life gets. I’ve been to rock bottom, more than once in my life these days. But after everything they did for me, giving me a purpose and reason to live, I can’t give up. Not ever. Not if I’m going to continue making them proud.”
Carla was surprised to hear him speak so calmly about his deceased wife and child. Thinking about Chris and the boys made her feel numb, like an empty shell that was on auto-pilot. Yet somehow Bear seemed cheerful as he remembered his dead loved ones, when her memories only caused Carla to retreat farther into her numbness and pain. If she thought about all of the good times she and Chris had had together and all the wonder their boys had brought to them, she would have been a catatonic mess.
“Carla, the fact that you’re here with me right now tells me your desire to take your life isn’t as set in stone as you think it is. There’s a part of you, however far down it may be, that wants to keep fighting. A part of you wants to face a new day and the horrors that await, and I’m guessing you don’t understand why. Well, that right there is why. You don’t want to disappoint your family. You know they’d want you to keep fighting. That’s why you spent all day out on that sidewalk instead of finding a way to kill yourself.”
“That’s not true,” she argued weakly. “I just didn’t have any way to do it. I can’t let myself be eaten or I’ll never see my children again, and I don’t have a weapon to finish the job myself. I just need time to plan it out.”
Bear reached into his knapsack and pulled out a gun. It was black and sleek, like something out of a movie. He held the end of it and offered it to her, grip first. She stared at it for a moment, before reaching out to take it, her hands trembling so badly she almost dropped it. Her eyes locked on the weapon in her hands and everything else seemed to fade away. She could feel her palms grow sweaty and she was worried the gun might slip from her grasp. Reflexively, her fingers curled tighter around the grip.
Chris had taken her to a gun range on two occasions, and even though she seemed to have a knack for it, she had had little interest in learning more. Her decision to not take up gun stuff had been their first big fight as a couple. Chris had wanted her to be able to protect herself if anything happened while he was away, but she just couldn’t picture herself ever needing to be so violent. They had lived in a peaceful place with a low crime rate, and she had zero interest in hunting.
But now she wished she had listened to Chris when he insisted. If she had had her own weapon, she might have been able to help Chris fend for their family. He might have still been alive, and their children as well. If she had known how to use this thing in her hands better, her life might be different right
now. It’s not too late to learn…
Tears burned her eyes at the thought. She had felt useless while Chris went out and did what needed to be done, and she hadn’t been able to protect her own children without him by her side. Even though she had been useless, she didn’t have to stay that way. Chris had told her she was a natural and could pick it up in no time. If that was true, she might actually have a chance to survive without him. She might be able to survive long enough in this world for nature to take its course and for her to die naturally. She wouldn’t have to commit the sin of suicide and there might still be a chance for her to get into Heaven, even after what she had done to spare her innocent children.
She looked up and found Bear watching her, his face devoid of any emotion. She realized he was waiting for her to pull the trigger if she wanted to. Carla wasn’t sure what had changed since this morning, but she realized she would never be able to pull do it. She would never want to pull the trigger. Chris had believed she could be strong long before there was ever a need to, and she aimed to prove him right now. She was going to outlast this world, and she would see her children again someday when the time was right.
“Does your offer still stand?” she asked, her voice steady, even if it was quiet.
He nodded. “It does. I’m going to be leaving first thing in the morning, and you’re welcome to come with me if you think you can keep up. Did you make up your mind?”
“I did,” she said, her voice growing in strength. “I’m going to live as long as I can, for my husband, my children, and for myself. I’m going to beat them all. Just you watch.” She was going to learn how to shoot, how to survive, how to live. There was a fire in her belly now and a desire to be the strongest she could possibly be. And nothing and nobody was going to take it from her.
The End.
After: Corey
He wasn’t sure how he came to be. One moment there had been nothing, and the next, everything suddenly exploded into brilliant focus. He had opened his eyes once again and taken in the world around him, as if for the first time. He saw it all differently than he had before. Where there had been vibrant life before, now there seemed to be nothing but dull, muted grays and death. And red, so much red it seemed like a field of blood surrounded him.
He could still see colors of course, but they simply didn’t affect him like they used to. The green grass beneath his feet and the blue sky above him were nothing more than blips on his radar as he walked through an endless sea of gray. Buildings burred into the next as he passed them by, and he could only faintly recall what some of them were. He recognized the school where he had played basketball with his friends after class while his sister had her track meets, and he recognized the bakery where he had just gotten his first part-time job at fourteen, off the books.
His feet were numb as they carried him through the city where he had grown up. He was searching for his home and his family, though he could hardly recall their names and faces. He tried to conjure up an image of his mother, but could only manage her eyes—so dark and warm that it melted his heart and made him feel like everything was going to be okay in the end. His brother was a mystery to him, nothing more than a name. There were no memories and no feelings attached, just a simple truth that he had at one point existed.
But Naomi…she alone could be recalled with vivid clarity. It was as if she were standing right before him, with that scowl on her face that never seemed to go away. When he had asked her about it once as a kid, she had simply told him, ‘Just you wait and see. See what it’s like growing up in a world that hates you for the color of your skin.’ He hadn’t understood then, but he came to learn years later as his understanding of the world around him grew and so did his experiences.
He smiled at the thought of her now, taller and more powerful than most girls he knew, with a smile reserved just for him and their brother. As he stood alone in the middle of the street, startled to find others in a similar state of confusion, he longed to see that smile. Hell, he would have gladly taken the scowl if it meant seeing Naomi. He didn’t know where she was or what she was doing, but she was the one he was most looking forward to seeing when he got home. She was the one who would make everything okay when the world around him was wrong.
He could hear scared chatter all around him as people wondered aloud what he was only thinking. What happened to us? He couldn’t remember much from before. There was fear and desperation, and he could remember his mother’s frightened pleas to stay with her, to stay alive, but he couldn’t fathom what could have frightened her so much. Had it been an invasion? Or maybe a terrorist attack of some kind? But then if that had been the case, why couldn’t he remember much of anything? And why did he have this sudden and intense feeling that something was just wrong?
He couldn’t explain it, but he could feel it deep in his bones. Something was just not right. Something about him was off, different than he remembered. He felt stiff and clumsy, as if he had spent his entire life on strings only to have them be cut, leaving him flimsy and uncoordinated. He noticed something else, a deep, ravenous hunger in his gut, a feeling so intense it was as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, perhaps longer. His hand went to his stomach as it cramped and he cried out, dropping to his knees. As the pangs continued, he tried to fight it, but his body was against him. He heaved, violently spewing vomit all over the sidewalk.
As the pangs stopped, he sat there on the sidewalk, gasping for air. His stomach felt better, and he figured that whatever had been making him feel awful was gone now, expelled from his body. He opened his eyes and froze at the sight in front of him. More red splattered the sidewalk than before, this time wet and tacky, not like the dried crust that had covered it before. This was fresh and dark, and there was no mistaking that it had come from inside of him. Fear gripped him, and he dug his nails into the concrete as an image flashed across his mind—a child running in terror, screaming for a mother that was long dead…and him. He chased the child down, pulled him to the ground, and began devouring him while the child kicked and screamed beneath him, thrashing and struggling to get away. He could feel the life fading from the child as its blood poured over the grass, and eventually it went still.
He sobbed as the guilt overwhelmed him. Tears poured down his cheeks and snot dripped from his nose, making it hard for him to breathe. He tried to clear the memory from his brain but it was burned in, forever imprinted in his mind. Around him, he could sense others having similar reactions, some becoming violently sick as their own sickening memories flooded back to them in pieces. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was clear to him that they had all suffered the same experience, like a shared nightmare.
A few yards away, a woman choked, and his eyes flitted over to her. She was lying on her side in a nearby parking lot, her eyes narrow slits as she struggled to draw in a breath. Slick blood coated her bare arms and chest, and it poured from a jagged wound in her throat, covering the ground around her as well. Her eyes fluttered closed as she took her last half breath, and her body went still. It took him a minute to process what had just happened, and when he realized he had just watched a woman die before his very eyes, he felt the sickness returning.
People were dying all around him, people who bore the obvious signs of assault. Some were missing limbs and parts of their faces, and others looked like they should have been dead and in the ground for six months, decomposing into nothingness in a darkened box. But yet, there they were, up and moving around despite looking like something out of a horror film. He listened to the sounds of wailing and screaming with closed eyes, trying to transport his mind anywhere other than this hellhole. As the sounds grew and he couldn’t block them out, he got to his feet and ran down the street, trying to get away from it all.
Somehow he instinctively knew where he was going, and he only hoped he would find someone there waiting for him, someone to welcome him with open arms and comfort him. Someone to explain what had happened, why he felt so wrong now. It took him ten minu
tes longer to run the short distance than it normally did, but at last he found himself in front of the white porch with the yellow door. He was out of breath and shaking from head to toe, but he had made it.
Only, it wasn’t the same house he remembered. The mailbox was busted and lying across the ground, the last of their mail scattered in the grass. Blood smeared the once white porch, drying in pools across the steps. The windows had been broken and only jagged shards of glass remained in the frames. He felt his body go cold at the sight of his home, and a feeling of dread began to grow inside of him. He had been hoping to find his family here, but it was clear this was not a house capable of living in. Wherever his family was, they were no longer here.
I’ll keep looking, he thought. I won’t stop until I find them and we’re together again.
He hesitated at the steps of the porch. He knew there wouldn’t be anyone inside, but he had a deep longing for something that was familiar to him. He couldn’t bring himself to turn away, and he began to climb the steps, his tattered sneakers squeaking as he made his way to the front door. It was open a crack and he nudged it open further, allowing sunlight to filter into the hallway. The house was covered in dirt, and cobwebs hung from every corner of the ceiling, their lonely spiders the only living occupants of the house he had lived his whole life in.
He made his way through the silent house, his shallow breathing the only sound. He passed through the kitchen and the living room, finding chairs overturned, broken dishes strewn on the floor, and the stench of rotting food leaking from the fridge. He put his dirty and torn sleeve over his mouth, trying not to inhale the foul smell, but flinching at his own odor. It smelled like he hadn’t bathed in over a year, like he’d spent the time rolling in all kinds of filth.
Tales of Terror from Survivors (Zombie Apocalypse #3.5) Page 5
