American Revenant (Short Story 2): Dead South

by John L. Davis IV

  An old chemical toilet, pulled from a wrecked RV on the junkyard lot sat on a pedestal of cobbled-together boards and cinderblocks, over an open manhole. Next to the set-up a beat up metal mail-box was mounted to a wooden pole.

  “It isn’t much, and it’s always been just me here, so I never really rigged up a curtain or door or anything like that. I can find something today, set it up for a little more privacy. Toilet paper and a bottle of hand sanitizer are in the mailbox.”

  “Ok, that works for me. Now, if you don’t mind…”

  Matthew nodded, “I’ll go make us something to eat. You mind Spam?”

  “Food is food.”

  Matthew turned, heading back toward the shack, and said, “Don’t get lost on your way back.”

  “If I do I’ll just shout for my hero!” she called to his back.

  ***

  “Wow. That actually smells really good. What is it?” Casey leaned on the doorjamb of the shack, watching as Matthew stirred a skillet of food over a small fire he had set inside a wheel rim.

  “Spam, scrambled eggs, with onion and a little salt and pepper.”

  Casey’s eyes widened in surprise. “Scrambled eggs? Really? You have chickens here?”

  Matthew looked up at her from where he crouched beside the fire. “Don’t I wish. I found a case of these powdered eggs a while back, some sort of prepper thing. Just add water and, bam, you got eggs. The onions are dehydrated, you know, the kind you’d get at the store.”

  “I’m impressed. You’re a little Chopped Junior chef aren’t ya?” Casey smiled and winked.

  “Ha, yeah, well, you work with what you’ve got.”

  Casey turned and gazed about the junkyard. “You’ve got a pretty cool place here. I noticed a couple of your traps, and what looked like a stack of cars ready to fall over.”

  “Yeah, I spent a lot of time setting all that stuff up. That stack of cars is basically a huge deadfall. I’ve got it rigged so that if the tripwire is hit, it’ll come over, either landing on who or whatever set it off or blocking their path.”

  “You’re just full of all kinds of surprises. In all your infinite wisdom, did you ever make a shower?”

  Matthew scraped and stirred the skillet once more. “Actually, yeah, I did. It’s a pretty neat set-up, if I do say so myself.” He lifted the skillet, tilting it to divide the food between two plastic plates. Setting the skillet aside, he handed one of the plates and a fork to Casey. “I even broke out the fine china; you know, you being a guest and all that.”

  “My, you’re such a gentleman,” she said smiling.

  “I try.” Matthew stood while eating, watching out through the door. “How is it?”

  “As good as it smelled. I haven’t eaten anything like this in a long time. Mostly just cold stuff out of a can.” She wrinkled her nose, remembering.

  Matthew found it adorable. “Hey, did you want a drink? I have plenty of water, some warm soda and tons of sports drinks.”

  “Warm soda? You mean to tell me that you haven’t built some wild contraption to keep your drinks cold?”

  “I have a cistern for water. If I dunk bottled drinks in it and weight them down to the bottom, they usually get pretty cool. If you want I can put some in for you, they’ll be cold by later today.”

  “I think I’ll be ok,” Casey replied. After a moment’s thought, she said, “You know, a cold soda does sound really, really good.”

  Gesturing at the stacks of water and drinks with his fork he said, “Pick out what you want. We can dunk them when we go wash these plates up and I show you the shower.”

  Casey handed Matthew the plate and fork she was holding and went into the shack, returning several minutes later with an armload of bottles of various soda and sports drink flavors, along with several waters. “This ok?”

  “You plan on being thirsty?” he asked with a smile.

  “You have no idea how long I’ve craved a cold drink.”

  “Oh, I can imagine. Took me a while to figure it out. It was a head-slapping moment, something that simple, with dunking them in the water. My dad used to do that with six-packs of beer when we’d take our boat out.”

  Matthew led Casey to a spot about thirty yards behind the shack. The shower, like the toilet, was nestled into the corner of stacks of junk cars and parts, creating a two-sided barrier.

  “I can find some stuff to hang up something, to give you privacy here as well.”

  Casey just nodded, admiring Matthew’s shower set-up.

  A massive, old claw-foot tub rested on a poured concrete base. A drain pipe led from the drain to the side, where the grey-water would simply pour out and away from the tub. Hung from a pole mounted to the concrete pad was a fat water bag, with the words “Camp Shower” printed in watery looking lettering.

  “Well, impressive. I thought you’d have some boiler or something set up, build a fire to heat your water and pump it through or something.”

  “Nah, that’s just too much work for one person to get a warm shower.” Matthew pointed out various items as he spoke. “The bag is tied to this rope. You loosen it here, let it down, fill it in that cistern, then haul it back up and tie it off. After you let it hang for the day in the sun, you get a pretty warm shower. If you want really hot water you have to boil up a bunch and just take a bath.”

  “You know, a hot bath sounds good, I mean, really good.” Casey looked at Matthew, her eyes watery and glistening. “It’s been so long…” She let the sentence hang.

  He directed her attention to a kitchen sink resting on stacked bricks. It, too, had a pipe trailing from its drain to the side. “I wash up here,” he said, setting the plates and utensils inside the basin. He picked up a bottle of dish soap, dripped a couple of blue drops onto a scrubbing brush, and began cleaning the plates. Scooping a cup full of water from the cistern, he poured half over the dishes, scrubbed again for several seconds, then used the rest of the water to rinse them clean.

  “This is a pretty cool place you’ve got here, Matthew.” Casey looked around, then back at Matthew with a smile. “I think I can understand why you’d rather be out here than inside a house somewhere.”

  Matthew nodded. “Cool.”

  “So what are we doing today?”

  Matthew thought for a moment before replying, then he gave her a big, goofy grin and said, “Well, I really don’t need to go shopping, and the movie theater is closed today, so I figured we just hang out here. I’ll get to work on putting up some privacy screens on the toilet and the shower, other than that, not much else.”

  Casey winked, and gave the grin back. “Well, let’s get busy then, because the more I think about it, the more I really want that hot bath.”

  They worked for the rest of the morning scavenging materials for the privacy screens, breaking for an hour to make a lunch and rest. They spent the next few hours assembling a wall with a curtain pulled from the same RV the toilet had come out of in front of the toilet stall, then, using several pieces of sheer plastic, a can of spray primer and several cables taken from cars, they rigged a long curtain that went around the tub, spraying the plastic with primer to make it opaque.

  Standing back, both dirty and tired, they admired their handy-work.

  “Not too damn bad, if I do say so myself.”

  Matthew grinned at the girl. “I totally agree. If you want, I can help you get some water boiling for your bath.”

  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  “Ok, I’ll get a fire started. Fill the tub about a third full with water, we’ll add a bunch of boiling hot water to it and it should get you to a really nice, comfortable temperature.”

  “Sounds good to me, water-cooker. Let’s get this thing going.”

  Matthew could hear the delight in her voice at the thought of a hot bath being so close at hand.

  While Casey bathed, Matthew sparked a small fire outside the shack, banking hot coals as he waited. The stacked bricks of the outdoor fireplace emanated warmth, the coals g
lowing brightly as Matthew absently stirred them, lost in thought.

  As the daylight began to wane, Casey came around the side of the shack and caught her tongue just as she was about to speak. She stood there, watching Matthew in an unguarded moment. His face, even in profile, was warm and open. Fire-light glinted in his eye, and she smiled at the faint up-tilt of the corner of his mouth, as if he were thinking of something pleasant.

  Clearing her throat, she walked toward him, toweling at her damp hair. “Hey, dude. What’s for dinner?”

  Matthew turned and smiled at her, and Casey couldn’t help but notice how his broad face would open up and brighten every time he did.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I figured I’d let you pick it out while I grab a quick shower, then we can cook it, ya know, together.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good.” She angled for the shack and Matthew stood, watching as she walked in the brand new jeans and t-shirt she had pulled from the stacks of clothing he kept. She had even found a pair of slip-on swimming shoes that he couldn’t remember collecting.

  He waited until she was in the shack and out of sight before calling, “I won’t be too long.”

  “Yeah, ok. Man, you have a ton of stuff in here! You should really have some shelves or something, a system,” she called back.

  “We’ll work on that,” he said with a laugh as he turned and made for the shower.

  He returned ten minutes later to find Casey poking at the coals with several cans of food on old folding tv-tray beside her.

  Together they fixed a simple meal, laughing and chatting, enjoying the closeness of another human being. As the night began to draw down heavily, Casey started to fidget, her discomfort at the falling dark visible.

  “You ok?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I just really don’t like the dark. You must think I’m a child or something. I mean, I’m fifteen years old and afraid of the dark.”

  Matthew stood, the ancient metal lawn chair he sat on creaking in protest. “Not at all,” he said. “Everybody’s scared of something. Me, I’m scared of those guys ever finding us again. Why were they after you , anyway?”

  “They had food, I needed food. I thought I could get in and out pretty easy. Most of them weren’t very quick in the head, ya know? Didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, as you saw.”

  Matthew nodded. “So, uh, have you been on your own, like me, since everything turned to crap?”

  “Nah, I met up with some people by accident one day, stayed with them for about a year, until a couple of the guys started fighting over who was going to claim me. I bolted in a hurry. Hooked up with a husband and wife for a bit, but the wife, she started getting weird, jealous and stuff. People are strange, even worse now.”

  Casey stood as Matthew doused the fire with a bucket of water. The hiss and steam and smoke clouding the air between the two, making each a vague and indistinct shape to the other until the warm breeze pushed it away into the night.

  Inside the shack, Matthew closed and locked the door, releasing the safety catch on the axe trap, like he had done every night for over two years.

  Casey settled onto her sleeping bag, sitting cross-legged, watching. “Don’t you ever worry that thing’s going to just let go one day and thunk you right in the back of the head?”

  Matthew chuckled. “I used to, when I first made it, but not anymore. Besides, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, you know?”

  Casey sat silent as Matthew settled onto his sleeping bag. “I’ve had the same kind of thoughts. I can’t though. My family, my mom, would have wanted me to survive.”

  Matthew nodded, looking at Casey in the flickering candlelight. He had no reply, and did not answer.

  After several long breaths of silence, Casey said, “About a year after, well, the power went out and the zombies came, my mom and I were hiding with my Uncle Mike and his son, Daniel. Daniel was five at the time. We were inside this old house on the edge of New Roads. I can’t really remember why we ended up there. You’d be surprised how long it takes to get that far from Shreveport when you’re walking and hiding with a five-year-old.”

  Matthew simply grunted, afraid to interrupt her story.

  “Well, we ended up in this house, and Daniel had wet his pants and he was hungry and started crying. No matter what, he just wouldn’t stop crying. Uncle Mike and Mom did everything they could to quiet him, but it was too late. A bunch of zombies crashed in through the windows and the door. I mean, it was a whole huge pack of them. Everything seemed to happen so fast and I can’t remember most of it, it’s all just kind of a blur, but Mom grabbed me up and slung me, literally slung me into a closet and slammed the door.

  Then it was just darkness and screaming. Oh, God, Matthew, the screaming. I heard Mom yelling, ‘Not my baby you fuckers, not my baby!’ over and over. Something slammed against the door of the closet. Bunch of blood came under the door, I could feel it.

  I heard Daniel scream, and Uncle Mike sounding like he just lost it, just screaming ‘No!’ Like forever, just screaming it, but it couldn’t have been for long, because things got really quiet right after that. I could hear shuffling feet and the occasional moaning, and… and… eating.”

  Casey’s head was hanging, her hair a curtain in front of her face, she looked up at Matthew through her hair, tears falling quietly down her face. “Three days. That’s how long it took them to all finally just go away. I was in that dark closet for three days. I couldn’t move. I…I messed myself. I lay there in my own piss and my Mom’s blood for three days. I know it was her blood. When I finally came out I had to push hard to get the door open. What was left, what those fucking things hadn’t eaten, was still pressed up against the door.”

  Matthew pressed his hands against his face and wiped his own tears away, somehow stifling the sob building in his chest. He scooted forward, across the sleeping bags, until his knees pressed against hers.

  In the awkward way of a boy unsure of how to comfort someone hurting so deeply, Matthew reached out and placed a hand on one of Casey’s.

  Her tears began to flow freely, and she shifted, until she was sitting next to Matthew, bodies pressed close.

  He wrapped his arms around her, and together they cried as the candles burned low.

  Their will to survive had eventually brought the two youths together, and their shared grief drew them close quickly. A need to hold and be held and to relieve themselves of a portion of their heartbreak bound the boy and the girl in a way even they could not fully understand.

  7

  The next few weeks were a blur for Matthew and Casey both. After so much time spent alone, the two soaked up each other’s company, rarely spending time alone.

  Together they neatened the shack, organizing the piles of clothes, packaged foods, and all manner of items Matthew had been collecting over the previous years.

  Once floor space had been cleared, Matthew helped Casey remake her sleeping area. On a quick supply run to Morganza they found an egg crate foam mattress top. Matthew rolled it as tightly as he could and carried the bulky bedding all the way back to the shack for Casey to use beneath her sleeping bag.

  As they days wore on into weeks the two fell into a comfortable routine. They shared every duty, from cleaning the dishes, which usually took all of five minutes, to skinning and gutting a large snapping turtle Matthew had caught by accident.

  Between maintaining the junkyard, including the traps, and occasional scavenging trips into Morganza, the two enjoyed a life of relative comfort. Some days were given entirely to reading, others to remembering pleasant times from the past, reminiscing over old school stories, or favorite movies and music.

  At one point, Casey asked about the Matt Hew stories, and Matthew pulled a battered notebook from the stacks of paperbacks and comics by his bedroll. He spent the next several hours telling stories that he’d made up, and Casey was rapt, losing herself in Matthew’s stories.

  One evening, just as they were going to bed, Matthew opened
a small black book he carried in his pocket and clicked the ink pen he kept in its spine. He made a mark in it, flipped to the front and glanced at something, flipped the cover closed and tucked it back into his jeans pocket.

  “What is that? I’ve seen you mark in that a bunch of times, I’m just curious.”

  Matthew tugged it from his back pocket once again, looked at the black cover for a heartbeat and handed it Casey.

  “My way of keeping track, of remembering, I guess.”

  Casey opened it at the center. Inside was calendar page after calendar page with an X in each day. “You’ve kept track every day since the zombies?”

  “No, just since… since my Mom and sister died.”

  Casey nodded in understanding.

  “We had a bunch of those,” he said, indicating the pocket calendar. “Mom found a deal on them once, five-year calendars. She gave one to me and my sister. Any time Dad went out on deployment Sadie and me would mark that day with a red X. Then we would mark each day after until he came home with a blue or black pen.”

  Casey paged back through the book, noticing there were far more marked days than there were unmarked. “He was gone a lot, wasn’t he?”

  Matthew swallowed the tight knot in his throat. “Yeah. When he was home it was always good. I mean he was never mean like you hear about some soldiers, and he always made sure to do stuff with me and Sadie, and Mom. We laughed a lot when he was home. Maybe not so much when he wasn’t. We’d take out the little boat and go fishing, or practice the bow in the back yard, go to movies, just hang out.”

  “He sounds pretty cool.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  “I never knew my Dad.”

  “Did he die?”

  “No, he left, when mom was pregnant with me, I guess. I’ve never even met him.”

  “I’m sorry, Casey. His loss, totally.”

  She glanced up at him from the book, smiling, “Thanks, dude.”