Ian fell to the side of her body. His feet wore a layer of excrement and newly rotting insides. He held his head, panting and crying and trying to avoid looking at his feet. Instead, he observed something on the girl’s wrist. Below the scars and wounds that would never heal, she was wearing a bracelet made with silver beads. Four of the beads had letters engraved on them. He turned them to reveal the name. L-E-N-A. He didn’t know how to pronounce it since she’d never told him her name. Lee-na, Lay-na. It might even have been short for Helena, or maybe a name he’d never heard of as parents were naming their kids all kinds of weird names these days.
• • •
“Her name doesn’t matter.”
Then you should tell them, like you told Grant’s body, how the bloody girl got inside.
“No one needs to know that.”
It might help you get rid of some of the guilt.
“Ha!” Ian laughs. “Nothing but death will take away my guilt.”
You must be held accountable for your actions.
He takes a deep breath in, itches a particularly bothersome fleabite on his thigh and begins.
“We had found a place we thought was safe but the reinforced door didn’t matter because…”
…I LET THE WRONG ONE IN
The sun was working its way toward the horizon and Grant and Ian were upstairs in the bedroom of the house, going through what belongings were left between them. It was a grim situation, but they knew that every house in the neighborhood was a potential treasure trove of food and supplies, once they could get to them.
“We’ll have to stay inside and let the dead calm down. It could be a couple of days before we’re able to sneak around out there.” Grant unrolled his sleeping bag on the dusty floor and pulled out his iPod. Little battery remained on the device, but he needed to unwind from what they’d been through earlier that day so he popped the earbuds in and lay down.
Ian set his sleeping bag on the bare mattress of the four-poster bed, but, instead of lying down, he searched the house. There has to be something of value, he thought. Two other bedrooms on the second floor, one the master, held little more than the room in which he’d left Grant. The living room, sitting room and dining room downstairs held only old furniture, nothing of real use unless Ian got creative or, later, desperate. The basement was likely to produce something of value, but he wasn’t yet willing to venture into its dark recesses alone. The only room left was the kitchen. Ian prepared himself to be let down, especially since there had been another family in the neighborhood capable of raiding the place.
All ten of the counter’s built-in drawers were empty and he checked five cupboards before he found anything still edible. The sixth cupboard’s two shelves held four cans of soup. He held one in his hand. The expiration date was difficult to make out, but the can wasn’t dented or bloated. They would feast tonight! He was about to grab the other cans and bring them to Grant when a soft knock came on the front door.
Ian closed the cupboard. It seemed ominous that an outsider would find them just as they found food. He couldn’t let someone take their supplies again, but his curiosity won out. He went to the heavy drapes of the living room and glanced outside. A beautiful girl, covered in small, bleeding cuts, was standing on the front porch. He watched her for a while, hoping she would leave.
• • •
Ian can feel the anger growing in him.
“She didn’t leave.”
She knocked again.
“Who knocks during the fucking apocalypse?” Ian asks, hitting himself in the head for being so dumb and not doubting it when it happened.
• • •
It was true. No one knocked on doors anymore, not even the Mormons. You entered without announcement or invitation and then you suffered the consequences if there were consequences to be suffered.
• • •
“She knew we were there, because Keller sent her to destroy us.”
He might have been an arsonist and an asshole, but Keller wasn’t that clever or convincing.
• • •
She knocked a third time. She had no visible weapons and her face was streaked with tears. Grant was overly concerned about contamination and if he had been down there with Ian, he wouldn’t have let her in. He would have told the girl to spend the night on the porch. They both knew that time would always answer the question of whether someone was infected or not. In the morning, they would either have another walking corpse or a new, albeit beat up, friend. And though one was preferable to another, they were both another mouth to feed. Deciding to minimize risk, as many decisions in the apocalypse were about, Ian opened a window first.
“Are you okay?” he asked her quietly.
She jumped, startled by the sudden noise from within the house. She shook her head ‘no’ and began crying again. “I’ve lost everything and I’m hurt.”
The last part wasn’t a necessary addition to her sentence. Ian could see that she had injuries. He looked at the front yard behind her and the street beyond. No sign of others, but he and Grant had walked into well-laid traps before.
• • •
“How could I have been so stupid?”
Give yourself a break. She was cute; much cuter than the other girls.
“Those fucking girls,” Ian says, remembering a trio they’d met before coming to the house.
Don’t think about them now. We’re telling Lena’s story.
• • •
Unlike the “fucking girls”, Lena was throwing up red flags that Ian should have seen. But ever since he’d been unable to save the girl he’d slept with, he was feeling the need for heroics; an honest chance to redeem himself. Her endless crying only helped her case. He opened the door slowly and let her in. He waited for a surprise attack, a bombing without a warning siren, a silent bullet to his head, but nothing happened so he closed the door. The girl had already walked herself to a couch in the living room, where her leaking blood was working on staining the upholstery.
“What happened to you?” he asked her, eyeing the cuts that covered her body. They didn’t seem like injuries caused by the dead. Zombies took chunks out of your flesh, not precise cuts evenly spaced across the epidermis. Anyone not blinded by testosterone would see that a steady human hand had done the damage.
• • •
You’re writing Keller into this again. I can tell.
“She was just like the walking Molotovs he sent. A bomb waiting to explode.”
But that isn’t what she told you.
• • •
“I got chased through blackberry bushes,” she said. But many of the wounds were deeper than anything a thorn might cause. Of course Ian didn’t press the issue.
“Those look infected.” The skin around the cuts was red and inflamed. “You can clean up in the bathroom down the hall and sleep here, on the couch.”
Her eyes widened. “Why can’t I stay upstairs away from the big windows?”
He wanted to hide her from Grant because he’d put her straight back out in the cold. And she couldn’t know about Grant either. If she wasn’t dying, she’d choose him over Ian. If he kept Grant a secret, he might actually have a chance with this girl.
“They can’t see you when the curtains are closed,” Ian pointed out, hoping the weak reason would hold up against her fear, fake or not.
She walked toward the curtains. “They’ll hear me,” she whimpered.
“Don’t let them,” Ian warned. Her silence would be doubly beneficial. “There’s some food in the kitchen but you’ll have to eat it cold.” He walked to the stairs.
“You act like you own this place,” she said. The attitude caught Ian by surprise. He’d just offered her room and board, though it was a first-floor couch and cold food.
“I do own it now. It’s a buyer’s market.”
• • •
You didn’t say that to her. You aren’t that clever.
“I know, but I came up with it later.”
You can’t just add whatever you want to the story. They’ll stop believing you.
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want!” Ian shrieks. His throat is dry from talking. He reaches around the closet to find his last water bottle and then takes a swig.
When you are ready, tell them what you really said.
• • •
“I hate this house. It should be burned to the ground.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he regretted them. If the girl was working for Keller, she already knew about his pyromania. She might even have a lighter and gasoline in her backpack.
• • •
“I don’t want to talk about her anymore. It’s like talking with a ghost. Pointless and painful.”
You already told them about what happened to Grant.
“That doesn’t mean I’m over it.”
This isn’t the end of her story, or rather, you haven’t finished the beginning yet.
• • •
“Just keep it down okay?” Ian asked. Back upstairs and bundled in his sleeping bag for the night, sleep eluded him. He expected the girl to do something stupid and loud.
Nice guys check on girls, he thought. He also remembered there was some rubbing alcohol in one of the kitchen cabinets. Maybe she could clean her wounds. So he slid out of the sack and crept back downstairs. He checked the living room, but it was empty. On his way back to the stairs, he saw light glowing from the dining room. He walked to the doorway. Lena sat at the end of the dining table. A flashlight stood upright, illuminating the ceiling and room. Her sleeves were pulled up and in one hand she held a razor blade, which she dragged across her arm.
“Whoa.”
His voice startled her for a second time that evening, causing her hand to force the blade deeper than she intended.
“Fuck!” Lena yelled. “I thought you went to bed!”
“I wanted to make sure you were alright.” Clearly she wasn’t. “The cuts, you did them to yourself?”
She didn’t answer, but she hung her head in shame.
Ian couldn’t understand ruining a body so beautiful. “Why?”
Lena looked up. “I like to see the blood; to know I’m still one of the living. Death doesn’t have me yet.” Still holding the razor between two fingers, she dabbed another finger in the blood that was seeping out of her and smeared it on her skin.
Ian walked around the table and pulled out the chair next to her. She set the razor blade down. He could see it was rusted and covered in blood both new and old. It belonged in the garbage, not releasing life from her flesh. Now that he was closer he could also see the many raised scars that crossed her forearm in neat rows.
“Those healed a long time ago,” Ian said. “Before the dead started walking.”
“I needed to know I was alive then too,” Lena said, but she offered no more explanation. “So, can you go now?
“Yeah, I guess. Will you be okay?” he asked. She was pale and sweaty, like she was sick. Sick wasn’t good in the apocalypse.
Lena shrugged and then motioned her hand to shoo him away.
• • •
A realization pops into Ian’s head. “Keller could have dipped her blade in infected blood. She was already infected when I let her in!”
She could have died from a regular infection. You saw the blade. She didn’t keep it clean.
• • •
Ian reached the top of the stairs and he remembered something Grant had said a few weeks prior “one day a drop of blood is going to change our lives in a very bad way if we aren’t careful”. It was bad enough that Ian allowed someone into the house, let alone a bloody someone. He went back to bed and finally fell asleep. In his dreams he completely reimagined the encounter.
Lena wasn’t downstairs. She wasn’t hurt. She didn’t even exist to knock on the door. Ian wasn’t incapable of discernment. He had turned away a man that had come to the house earlier that day, not a girl. The man, like the zombies, was skin and bones and his life-worn body moved in a jilted manner. He could have been mistaken for a one of the dead, but when he chose a direct path to the front door and used a bony hand to knock on it, Ian knew him to still be living. Grant was out scavenging so the task of turning away the skeleton fell to Ian.
He opened the door a crack. A locking chain allowed him to see who was there without risking them barging in uninvited.
“Hi,” he said. His face was weathered with deep wrinkles and liver spots. He wore loose overalls and a plaid shirt beneath them. To Ian, who had seen one-too-many horror movies, the man on the porch looked like someone who would eat people or keep fetuses in jars in his basement; like a killer.
“Are you boys doing all right in there?” the man asked with a gravelly voice that rattled around in his chest before leaving his lips.
The old man’s question told Ian a lot. He knew that there were two of them and that they were young enough to not be doing well without parents.
“Have you been watching us?” Ian asked. He was worried about what his answer would be because looters weren’t uncommon. He could have a list of everything they owned for all he knew. And a shorter list of the items he would take.
“I seen you come and go. Your friend is looking thin,” the man said.
“He always looks like that,” Ian explained, though his words came out slowly like molasses. Ian thought it strange that a man whose skin was stretched taut over his bones would call someone else thin.
“We don’t have enough to share, I’m sorry,” he said, remembering the cans of soup in the kitchen cupboard.
“I ain’t here for food,” he said. “Just checking on you. Must be hard to go through this without your parents.”
“They weren’t home much anyway, when they were alive.” Ian shrugged.
“Knowing you ain’t never gonna see them again is different though,” the man said as his head dropped. “I’ve lost a lot of important people in my life, even before all this mess.”
“I guess you’re right. Hey, look, all the cold air is coming in and the dead are out there.” Ian glanced left and right for effect. The old man raised a hand up in goodbye or understanding and turned to take the same path back across the yard.
“Who was that?” Lena asked from behind him.
In the dream he turned to face her and saw that she was covered in blood.
• • •
It’s dark out. We should sleep.
Ian remembers his sleeping bag, which is still out on the bare mattress of the four-poster bed. He is too tired to get it and so he falls asleep in the closet, under the musty coat in the mostly abandoned house. He dreams that Grant’s corpse is sitting in the closet with him, listening to every word of Ian’s recollections and shaking his head in disgust.
• • •
The next day he wakes up shivering. He stands up and moves his legs in place to get his heart pumping faster. Grant’s lifeless body is downstairs where it should be.
Good morning, sunshine.
Somewhere in the dark of the closet there is a small Tupperware with the last drops of juice from a can of pineapple he’d eaten days before. It had been his last meal, the only food he had left. Ian finds the juice and drinks it down in one small gulp. The tartness shocks him and the sugary liquid makes his teeth hurt, but still he savors the meager breakfast. There’s soup downstairs, but he still cannot bear to step over Grant’s body to get it.
Now that you’ve done your morning routine of nothing, tell them how you ended up here.
“We wouldn’t have been stuck in this horrible place or crossed paths with Lena except that…”
…I DIDN’T HAVE A BACKUP PLAN
“And it cost the Cohens their lives.”
• • •
Days prior, with nowhere safe to go and only a few supplies left in their pockets, Grant and Ian were running out of options. They made it twenty blocks before the crowd of the undead was too dense to safely pass through. It was time to lay low for a while a
nd it was easy enough to tell which houses to avoid. The blood-smeared windows were an obvious Do Not Enter sign. Wide open doors meant anything could be lurking in the halls. And in some of the houses they could just plain see zombies wandering within. The neighborhood they were in had been truly decimated, with a mix of the warning signs above, leaving little choice as to where they could hide.
“Over there!” Grant yelled, pointing to a one story blue house, with perfect white trim and a picket fence. It was the only house on the block left untouched by the dead. There were several zombies on the front lawn, but they looked to be completely unmoving, like statues made of slowly melting flesh. Ian saw a last name on the mailbox as they ran past it. Cohen, it read. At the door, the boys were elated to find it unlocked.
There were many things they hoped to find in the blue house with perfect white trim. Cupboards full of canned food, clean beds to sleep in, a fenced backyard, and a basement stocked with weapons. The house had all of those things.
It also had a family still living in it.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” A tall man, with thick glasses and a thicker beard, stepped into the hallway. He held a shotgun at his hip.
“Whoa, um,” Grant said as he stumbled backward, his hands in the air.
A woman and two young children came into view behind the homeowner. The children were smiling, as they didn’t know any better. The woman’s eyes were wide and she clutched her children like they’d be stolen away at any moment.
“Go back to the den!” the man yelled at them. By the way he said the words, Ian could tell the man was normally gentle with his family, but he sensed danger and wanted to protect them. His family hurried back in the direction from which they came.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Ian said from behind Grant. “The dead are everywhere and this was the only place that seemed safe.”
“As you can see,” he lifted the gun, “I’m trying to keep it that way.”
“You should have locked your door,” Grant said. He didn’t mean for it to sound like a threat, it really wasn’t, but it did. The man cocked the gun. Grant stepped back again until he was almost on top of Ian, who was already up against the closed front door.
Mistakes I Made During the Zombie Apocalypse Page 3
