(Book 2)What Remains

by Barnes, Nathan

  She was right. As much as I hated the reality of what she was saying I couldn’t deny that she was absolutely right. The group of us would be far from useless. Sarah was a good shot and could get the kids out of harm’s way if something were to happen to me. Maddox had the eagerness of an eight-year-old with an analytical mind that would rival most adults’. Calise was another set of eyes and was obedient enough to stick close to her guardian of a brother. Together we were stronger.

  I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through my nostrils. The pain in my ribs had faded to a dull aching. “Okay, baby. You’re right. Do you think we’re ready enough to leave tomorrow or should we wait another day?”

  “The car is packed. We were ready to jump into it if we had to come get you.” I glared at her. “Oh calm down. That night you left for work we agreed that I’d get out of the area if things got bad and you couldn’t make it home right away. I don’t give a crap about what we agreed on then because you know what happened after that? The world fucking ended, Nathan. Did you really think I would abandon my husband in those circumstances? We were ready to come get you then go to your parents’ farm. Huff and puff all you want because I know you would have done the same thing.”

  “I would have ended the world if it meant getting to you.” Time slowed to an eternal crawl. I looked right at her when she spoke but my mind saw something else….

  The air currents bit at my damaged skin as they followed the direction of the James below. My pulse pounded so fiercely that it felt like it was in fact the Kukri’s wooden handle that had a heartbeat. Quickly tracing the path of the blade, I saw it disappear within the gut of the man that had saved my life not hours before. Viscous crimson echoes of his existence oozed past the gleaming steel to blend with the coating of filth that hinted towards the hardships which had led him here on the railroad bridge with me. Through the gloom of night I could see the shine of Phil’s pupils; pupils that had grown wide as his humanity fled and the virus took hold. The face of a man, not the ghoul he was becoming, was wrought with sorrow. I was his last friend on this Earth. I betrayed him. I murdered him.

  Sarah’s lips tenderly met mine. A shock of realization flashed into my battered mind bringing reality back to the foreground. A gentle, caring hand lightly ran over the healing gash in my forehead then down to wipe away a tear that had slipped past my defenses.

  “Shut up, you big sap. Let’s go make our rinky-dink Thanksgiving dinner before the kids eat all of our supplies.”

  Chapter 8 - Thankful

  1820 hours:

  Everyone was given their own task to make sure things happened quickly since so much of the day had been stolen from us. The lack of time and ability to cook anything extravagant would make Thanksgiving meager in comparison to the feast that was normally associated with the day. Sarah was first downstairs. She looked out the peephole in the family room and then the kitchen first to ensure there wasn’t anything close enough to make our presence downstairs short-lived. As soon as she called up that we were good to go I passed orders to the eager little ones.

  Both of the kids were under strict orders to stay in the attic. I told them that we would bring the cooked food to the ladder and they would be able to prepare our rinky little table however they wished. Maddox showed some wisdom in his slight age difference and didn’t protest. Calise looked very bothered by it all.

  “What’s the matter, baby girl?” She sniffled; a tear streamed down her delicate little face. “Calise, what’s wrong? You can tell me, sweetie.”

  “I don’t...” her words trailed off into a mumble. A distant shotgun blast somewhere outside didn’t help the poor girl speak any louder.

  “Sweetheart, I can’t understand you. Please tell me what’s wrong so we can get going on dinner.”

  “I’m scared, Daddy. I don’t want you to die again.”

  I scooped her up in a big hug. Her swirling hair tickled my face as she buried herself in my shoulder. When the trembling of her sobs settled I placed her down in front of me then knelt down to her level. It was a struggle to keep the positional aches and pains I felt from showing in my face. “I am just fine. Mommy is just fine. Monkey is just fine. YOU are just fine. We’re together and we’ll make it to Grandma and Grandpa’s where the monsters won’t hurt us. I’m scared too, princess. It’s okay to be scared because that means I’m still alive. The monsters outside don’t get scared but if they did do you know what would scare them? Me. I promise they would be so, so very scared of me. Oh… and maybe Maddox.”

  She giggled, as did Maddox.

  “Now I have an idea of what might make you feel a little better about us being downstairs. Tell me the names of two of your favorite kitties in your room. But think carefully because they must be the very bravest of your kitties.”

  Her eyes lit up with the mention of her beloved plush felines. “Hmm.... I think Van Gough and Colonel Meows-a-lot.” Each member of her collection had a special name with some funny story behind it. I saw them all as mementos; memories alluding to a simpler time that ended abruptly weeks before. However, all the mattered then was that she could see them as trusted friends.

  “Great choice! Now sit right there at the top of the stairs while I go find them.” I barreled down the ladder then took the immediate right turn into her room. Since her room faced the front of the house I maintained the proper paranoia with noise while tiptoeing around the assortment of toys. I located her choices and held them up before her in the hallway. She reached her pink-clad arms out to receive them and looked confused when I raised a finger urging her to wait. My actions were over exaggerated to keep her from getting scared all while keeping her attention.

  Van Gough was stationed at the end of the hall on the right side while Colonel Meows-a-lot proudly guarded the parallel corner. The entrance to the hall was now under the protection of two stuffed sentries. Calise’s sadness had dissipated and she bounced with glee. I climbed a few of the steps to be close enough to whisper. “We were safe before but now we have absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Your friends will guard the hall. They can protect the stairs while keeping track of Mommy and me.” She planted a big wet kiss on my cheek then hopped off to help her brother with the table.

  Sarah stood just beyond the cats waiting for me to turn towards her. “You are so freakin’ sweet that I can see why the zombies are eager to eat you. Where did the kitty guards come in to this?”

  She didn’t need to know what Calise had said to me; there were enough things to worry about tonight. “The little diva just needed a little extra protection. Let’s get dinner made. I’m starving!”

  Our original plan was to use the charcoal grill on the deck to cook some of the frozen chicken that was in the bottom of the freezer. Since doing much of anything outside was now too much of a risk we were settling for a propane camping stove with chicken nuggets and some mixed frozen vegetables. I would have rather done everything in the attic but the kitchen-stove area was ventilated a little better. In the event something went wrong, I didn’t care for the idea of filling our only safe area with smoke. Sarah did most of the cooking while I ran things back and forth. Most of my time was spent looking out any peephole I could create to know exactly what was going on outside.

  The sun went down over an hour before dinner was ready. It was difficult to appreciate the light pollution from passing cars or porch lights until they all had gone dark. Unlike the nights before there seemed to be occasional breaks in the gloomy ceiling allowing the moon to send bursts of illumination to the tortured land below. Silhouettes of the patrolling dead appeared in the moonlight. Knowledge of their proximity stirred appropriate fear within me. Considering how numb the experiences of the last month have made me I was grateful that the reapers could still provoke fear in my mind. In the days to come I would have to rely on that fear to keep me in check.

  “Babe,” Sarah called to me in a loud whisper from the kitchen, “will you run this up to Maddox?” My mind was wandering at an unhea
lthy level so the chore was welcomed. She met me at entrance to the kitchen wearing her favorite apron, a black and yellow Batman apron that my mom had made her many Christmases before. I retrieved the plate of charred chicken nuggets offering a goofy smile in return. “Is there a problem?”

  “Of course not. I’m just lucky to have Batman cooking me chicken nuggets during the zombie apocalypse.” She glared back. “Come on, beautiful... it wouldn’t be a real Thanksgiving dinner without me saying things that make you want to poison my food.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just a few more then we can eat. Make sure the kids have everything set upstairs.”

  Maddox waited halfway down the ladder, making little attempt to conceal his eavesdropping. “I got it, Daddy. The table is done. Calise is mixing some of the water flavoring drops in our cups now.” He snatched the plate of nuggets then scurried back up to the attic.

  Feeling a little underutilized, I walked back to my peephole. The stuffed cats remained at their post. I gave them both a nod as I passed like a general saluting his soldiers. There wasn’t much difference in the level of light between my vantage point and that of the wicked outdoors but it still took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. A flash of light from the street startled me. It almost looked like headlights turning down the road several houses away. My face pushed so hard against the boards that it began to hurt. Although my eyes saw it, my brain certainly didn’t believe it. I craved some confirmation of what I thought saw.

  “Something out there?” Sarah asked from the kitchen doorway.

  I couldn’t even pry my gaze away from the window long enough to look back at her. Then I heard the faint sound that I’d heard earlier in the day from the backyard. It was the dirt bike! That lunatic was making a round again cutting down the shambling neighborhood occupants.

  The gasp that came from behind me indicated that Sarah heard the bike too. “It’s him again, isn’t it?”

  Stepping back towards the kitchen I sighed. “Sounds like it. I saw some headlights right before the revving became loud enough to hear. For a second I thought I was going crazy.”

  “Should we be worried about him?” Her hands fiddled behind her back then returned with the yellow ties of the Bat-Apron.

  Probably, I thought to myself. “I doubt it,” I said aloud. “Judging by how often we’ve seen him I would say he lives just up the street. Our house is obviously boarded up and there is a fully loaded car out front; anyone with a working brain could look in this direction and tell people are still here. Where there are people there are supplies. If he had any malcontent towards us, we would likely know it by now. Frankly, I’m surprised we haven’t had anyone come knocking yet. It’s only a matter of time. I think it further emphasizes the need for us to go…”

  Worry overtook her delicate features yet again. “Don’t we want to find other uninfected people?”

  Other people...

  A hard blink unleashed a flood of memories in that split second. I saw the survivors that came across my path during the flight home. I saw the failed rescue plan and the burning corpses around the elementary school. My heart palpitated the way it did when I pointed a shotgun at a man in front of his daughter simply because he was scared and had me in the crosshairs first.

  “Nathan?” If she didn’t suspect that I was going through some post-traumatic stress from the last time I drifted into my thoughts during our conversation in the bathroom earlier, then she most definitely suspected it now. “Sweetie, wherever you keep disappearing to up there,” she said, motioning to my head, “that place doesn’t matter now. You’ve made it back to us and those places that keep pulling you away don’t matter because you have us again.”

  She brought me back to Earth again. “I know, babe... I’m sorry. To answer your question; no, we don’t want to find other uninfected people. Any human being out there isn’t the same person they were when the dead stayed dead. People are desperate and have nothing to lose. They are doing things and acting in ways that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago.”

  There was a brief moment of silence. Muffled giggles filtered down to our ears from above. She paused as if the next question could open Pandora's Box. “Is that how you got home? Did you make it because you were desperate and had nothing to lose?”

  This time I didn’t need to drift into my memories of an atrocious past. “No. I ran past people that I could have helped. I stole from people that were taken by the virus. I.... I killed a man. I murdered a man that saved my life.”

  Sarah stood in shock holding a pan of sautéed vegetables that simmered lightly.

  “People turn into monsters when they have nothing to lose. I turned into whatever I needed to because I had everything to lose.” A smile appeared on her face, which made me feel instantly better. Rather than dwelling on my crimes I quickly shifted back to the original subject. “The dirt biker outside is doing a good thing right now. The infected are flocking to him because he’s like a raving Happy Meal out there. If he keeps it up he’ll eventually pull enough of them away from the cul-de-sac for us to make it in the car and get the hell out.”

  The change in her posture was relieving. It’s not every day that you confess crimes to your spouse like they are as significant as taking the trash to the curb. Sarah swirled the veggies around in the pan causing the sizzling to intensify for a moment. “We’ll talk about our plan after dinner. This food smells delicious and it needs to be in our bellies! Let’s enjoy Thanksgiving mini-feast now then worry about the apocalypse later.”

  Two happy faces appeared in the opening of the attic. “Hey guys! Is everything ready?” Calise said down in an excited pseudo-whisper. Sarah nodded happily and started up the creaking ladder. I doubled back to make sure no lights were left on so we could enjoy the meal in our hidden area without any of the infected inviting themselves to the feast.

  I eased the ladder closed behind me; we were sealed tight. The attic felt more vibrant than it had ever been. Fruits of the kids’ decorative labor were obvious. They had gone into the boxes and took out a few containers of Christmas ornaments. Everything was so bright and festive that it resembled a dream. Looking at the sweet arrangement of past memories and their childish excitement made it easy to forget about the ravenous ghouls just outside our walls. An array of pan-cooked delights was spread across the impromptu table made from an artificial Christmas-tree box covered in random tablecloths.

  We settled and our feast began mostly bathed in silence. Food came as a welcomed distraction but it was obvious that the events of the day were still being digested by every one of us. I pondered how the little things in life suddenly took on significance as I ate what could be one of the last chicken nuggets ever made. The kids looked equally content with the warm morsels that filled the colorful M&M plates.

  As much as it pained me to pop our pleasant little bubble, I knew that we had to discuss the days ahead. Maddox and Calise may be young but the time was near for their innocence to be thrown out into the evil world. We would traverse the wasteland as a family in every sense; withholding knowledge at this point could be a disastrous mistake. I let out a deep sigh, and the attention shifted towards my end of the makeshift table.

  “Kids,” my words were heavy as if I was breaking the news about the loss of a family. “We need to talk about what the next few days will hold for us.” Sarah’s shoulders dropped, knowing what needed to be said.

  “We’ve been safe hiding here for a while now waiting for me to recover. I really appreciate you guys taking care of me after I got so banged up. With Monkey helping Mommy out and Calise being the best little doctor I could ask for I feel almost back to my old self.” Recognition made her grin from ear to ear. “But after what happened earlier today I think we know it’s time to leave the hou–”

  Chapter 9 – Murphy’s Law

  A horrible boom, combined with a bloodcurdling scream somewhere close by, cut through our isolated bubble and ended my sentence mid-word. Calise screamed and we all jumped.


  “STAY PUT!” I commanded, rushing over to the peephole on the side facing our neighbors’ drive.

  I fumbled with the boxes covering the vent, disregarding any attempt to maintain our silence. I wasn’t sure if Calise’s crying was muffled by her mother’s hand or by the palpitation of my own heart. Outside it was dark, but a wavering light emanating from towards the cul-de-sac lit a few silhouettes eagerly hobbling away from the house towards the light.

  “What do you see?” Sarah called in a coarse whisper.

  “I’m not sure. Maddox, help me reseal this.” He was already at my side before I even finished speaking, grabbing onto one of the boxes I had thrown to the side. We rebuilt the box wall swiftly.

  “Mommy is with Calise so I need you to wait by the ladder. As soon as I raise the ladder back up I want you to pull the cord in so it isn’t hanging on the downstairs side. I’ll call up to you when it’s okay to drop the cord so I can pull the ladder down again. If you don’t hear me call then you DO NOT lower the cord. No matter what you hear outside or downstairs you must keep the ladder closed. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir. Daddy... are you sure you should go down there?” Another shotgun blast came then, close enough that I could feel the impact of the boom in the floorboards. Sarah held onto Calise tightly trying to calm her.

  My hands were already pushing on the end of the drop-down ladder. “No I’m not sure. Everything will be fine so stay up here with Mommy and your sister. I’ll go look out the peephole in the family room. That’s the only way to find out what is going on in the area we can’t see from here.”

  The revving of the maniac’s dirt bike leaked in again from the direction of the cul-de-sac and Sarah’s scowl voiced her disapproval.

  “I’ll be fine Hun. If it is him, and it comes down to a forced introduction, then I want him to think I’m the only person holed up in this house.” I patted my side confirming that my trusted Kukri was where it belonged then took the twelve gauge in my left hand. Calise looked completely terrified. I threw a smile her way and said, “Don’t worry, Princess. I’ll be back in just a minute.”