Beyond the Barriers

by Timothy W. Long

  “And here I was bored out of my mind with no one to talk to the whole time. Why didn’t I meet you on my way out of town back then?”

  “That fickle bitch fate. You know how she likes to mess with our lives.”

  I smiled at that and kissed her. She met the kiss but was still holding back, and I wanted to ask her what I was doing wrong. She went through the motions, but something was on her mind.

  “Well, thank you for coming back with me. We should really talk about what the hell we’re going to do now. I don’t want to face an army of those things again, but I want to get to Portland.”

  “I remember the first ones we ran into, during the whole zombie thing. It was bad enough that we had to put up with these groaning, moaning bastards with no brains that wandered around like lost kids. Alone, they weren’t that scary. I mean, you could see them coming a mile away and put a bullet in their skulls. It was around the third week that we felt like we were getting a handle on them. Masses were rounded up and taken away in trucks while we watched. The fence was just going up, and people were still running around town. Some were even going home at night.”

  “Weird. I can’t picture the end of the world like that.”

  “It wasn’t really the end. I mean, it isn’t now either. It’s like a bump in the road. Do you believe in evolution?”

  That was a funny question. I was not a liberal, yet I couldn’t say that I was a religious man either. I needed explanations for stuff; I needed to see things to believe in them. The idea that there was some god sitting above me constantly judging my actions and planning to roast my ass in hell if I screwed up didn’t make sense. Then again, neither did the dead walking around.

  “I think so. People have been changing for thousands of years, getting taller, losing their need for wisdom teeth, stuff like that.”

  “And the ghouls are the natural offshoots of the zombies. The virus that reanimated the dead and created the mindless things, well, it affected the living in strange ways. It made them like a half-zombie hybrid.”

  “What started it all?” I had never asked that question. Never really had anyone to ask it of.

  “No one is really sure. Lots of theories but no answers. Some said it was a swine flu vaccine that went wrong, some said it was terrorists. Some said it was a comet strike stirring up weird stuff in the air. Space spores or something. We spent that whole first week listening to the news channels, talking, theorizing, but we never heard a real cause.”

  “Someone has to know.”

  “Maybe it is a form of evolution—a shifting bacterial infection that found a way to get rid of us. AIDS didn’t work; the black plague tried it; Ebola was a huge success. Maybe all those antibiotic-resistant monsters got together and figured out a way to kick our ass.”

  “I like your ass right where it is.” I pushed myself against her as the rain came down harder than before. It rolled down the side of the house and splashed on the ground, making an ocean of noise.

  Lightning lit the sky, and a glance out the window showed tall skeletons in the form of the trees surrounding the cabin. The air felt like it was charged. All those ions bouncing around from the flashes of light in the sky made my hair stand on end. Or maybe it was her shifting against me, under the covers, in that tiny bed.

  “Is that right?”

  I pushed the mess of hair off her forehead and kissed it gently. She offered me a smile in return. Those hard lines around her eyes softened for a moment, and I felt a genuine sense of affection.

  “What did you do before?” I asked. We didn’t really talk about who we’d been before the incident. I think it was a byproduct of our current situation. I believe that, on some level, we were avoiding the ‘before’ because we wanted to concentrate on the now and not on our old lives. Those were long gone.

  “I was a teacher. Social studies was my specialty, but I also taught girls’ volleyball.”

  “Makes sense. You fight like a teacher.”

  She laughed at that, and I smiled at her in the dark.

  “I used to study a lot of martial arts. I took some kaji-kempo, and then some other stuff so I could work on my aggression issues. I had …”

  I let it hang. I could hear her breathing in the dark, and she stiffened slightly against me.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “It’s okay. I was hurt once by a man, and I swore that would never happen again, so I learned how to take care of myself.”

  I stiffened under the blanket, my body going rock hard as tension primed me for violence. How dare a man lay a hand on a woman in anger. He’d better hope to hell he was long gone from her life in this new world.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered lamely. I found I couldn’t let the tension go.

  “It was a long time ago, and I usually don’t talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry.” I took a couple of breaths to calm down.

  “Anyway, I studied and I never feared a person again. Well, until I saw those ghouls and how much damage they can take before they go down.”

  “Evolution again?”

  “Something like that. They feel pain, and they fall if you shoot them in the head, but a wound just pisses them off. Some are smarter than others, and some are in control. The ones that came at us at the barricade were driven by one of the smart ones. You may think I’m crazy, but we had a theory that the smart ones used some sort of mind control.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “They seem to be able to put the ghouls into some sort of hypnotic state. They whip them into a frenzy, and they go crazy for blood. Did you see how they attacked us?”

  She was right; they didn’t act like the zombies at all. Of course, I only had a few days’ worth of experience with the things, while she’d had months. I suppose a form of hypnosis wasn’t that much of a stretch. Look how far it got Hitler.

  We chatted for a while longer, and she shifted under the blankets against me but didn’t seem interested in lovemaking. I was just happy to have her with me, so I didn’t press it. Her body was warm against mine, a feeling completely alien to everything I’d known for the last few months. I wrapped my arm around her and, sometime in the night, found solitude in sleep.

  * * *

  Morning came in with the same overcast gray. I struggled up to a sitting position and noticed she had put on a shirt sometime during the night. Katherine slept soundly while I rose and donned shorts and a tank top. The night may have been cold and rainy, but the day was already heating up. My watch was in the kitchen, and I was surprised to see it was after nine. When I was at the compound, we usually woke around seven, but at the cabin I was used to sleeping in—an indulgence I hadn’t allowed myself in years.

  I dug out some coffee we’d scrounged from the convenience store and built up a fire in the stove. Water boiled, while I used my old method of suspending the grounds in a wrapped-up paper towel and letting it sit for a while. The water passed through my crude filter as it cooked, and within fifteen minutes, I had a fresh pot of Folgers. I grabbed a box of cereal, Lucky Charms, popped it open and sat down to enjoy breakfast.

  She came out of the bedroom a half hour later and joined me. Her long legs hung out of the shirt, and she curled one under her body as she sat down. I felt a rush for her—a burst of emotion I could not readily identify. It was a combination of giddiness and warmth, and I wished I could put the feeling into words.

  She smiled when I brought her a cup of coffee.

  “Cream or sugar?”

  “Neither. I’m used to drinking it black. We had a whole section of coffee saved up during the setup phase at the Walmart, and it was almost as closely guarded as the guns.”

  “Priorities and all ...”

  I was still getting used to drinking coffee again, having been without it for a few months. I got a quick caffeine buzz today because the brew was dark and very strong. I expected her to turn her nose up at the stuff and tell me it was too thick, but she took a sip, and then another witho
ut comment.

  She mixed some of the powdered milk with water from a pitcher on the counter and poured it in a bowl with the cereal I was eating. I watched her move around the kitchen looking for things, and I pointed out where I stored items. If I expected her to comment on my placement, I was in for a surprise, because she accepted what I had done and went along without a word.

  We ate in silence, glancing back and forth between our food and each other. I smiled more than once, and she returned a tight grin.

  “How did you find this place?” she asked.

  “It was a friend’s. I stayed here once with Allison, and it seemed like a good place to hide out while I waited for the world to go to hell.”

  “Who is Allison?”

  “Ex. We came here about five years ago and stayed for a week.”

  She didn’t comment.

  “So what would you like to do today, honey?” She tacked the last word on with a hint of sarcasm that got a grin out of me.

  “I’m concerned about food. The main reason I left the cabin was because I was out, and the stuff we picked up on the way back won’t last long. We need to figure out how to survive.”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  * * *

  Six long sticks poked out along the lake’s edge; bobbers of pinecones and chunks of wood hovered on the calm water while we sat and watched. A bucket of fresh water stood next to the poles in case we caught anything. I had my doubts. During the months I had spent here, I had caught maybe seven or eight fish.

  I had dressed in jeans and left the tank top on. She didn’t have any clothes to speak of. Everything she owned had been left behind in the store. The plan had been to rejoin the caravan as it moved away from the city. We didn’t count on getting caught in the mess at the barricade.

  So she wore one of my shirts like a dress and looped a piece of rope around her waist. Her pants were soaking in a tub of water with a little bit of soap. She and I set the fishing poles, then dragged down the little chairs from inside the cabin and sat them on the wet ground. The legs sank into the mud, but we were content to sit on rickety chairs as long as we could watch the poles.

  We spoke a little, but for the most part, we just stared at the water. The gulf that separated us was in full effect again, and I wondered if it was I who was holding back.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” I offered.

  “Penny isn’t worth much these days.”

  “It wasn’t worth much a year ago either.” I smiled.

  “I don’t know what to do. I’m used to being busy, organizing, teaching the others to fight. I’m used to cleaning guns, rationing supplies. There isn’t really much to do here.”

  “Except me,” I said with a leer.

  “And there is that. I know there’s an attraction, but I’m old, Erik. I can’t have kids anymore, and in this new world, we need to repopulate, to replace the numbers we have lost.”

  “You think I’m gonna run off with someone younger than me just because she can have babies? That’s just plain stupid, Katherine. I like you. I like being with you.”

  “For now. I am a sad and empty girl. I loved the world more than anything, and then the world took away everything that meant anything to me. I hate it now, and if I died tomorrow in a gunfight, who would remember me? No one, and that’s just fine with me.”

  “I’d remember you for the rest of my life,” I said, my voice choked with emotion.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to be practical.”

  “Damn your practical. I’m happy to be with you for as long as you’ll have me.” I stood up and went to her, took her hands in mine. They were slim and cold, and I felt the edges of the hard calluses on the sides. Drawing her up to me, I hugged her tightly.

  “Got one,” she yelled and slipped away. She grabbed the pole with the bobber that had been tugged underwater, hauling out a hard-looking little fish that resembled a catfish. After pulling it up, she ran her hand along the head to hold down the fin, then she took the hook out of its mouth and put it in the bucket.

  I smiled at the thing as it swam in circles looking for a way out. We had dug out some worms and grubs and put them in the empty breadbox, so we would have a fresh supply ready all day. The hook went back in the water, and she took a seat to watch the poles. That was how we spent our first day together.

  It was coming up on the hottest part of the day when she stripped off her shirt and tossed her panties at me. I hung them on the back of my chair and marveled at her body in the daylight. She stepped into the water, having moved the fishing poles aside, hooks removed and stuck in a branch so we could find them easily.

  I shrugged out of my tank top and let my pants join hers. I followed her, and when my feet hit the water, I gasped. It was hot out, but this was very cold water. She flashed a smile at me then moved deeper, so the calm surface came up to her knees.

  “Come on and catch me.” Some of the tension went out of her, and I followed. She dashed one way as I closed in, and then the other way when I reached for her. She stepped back, and I moved after her. Her eyes gleamed in the fading light, and I felt a rush of emotion for her once again that was hard to explain. The analytical side of me understood that I had a need to protect her, to watch out for her even though I had seen that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  I sank to my ass and felt my pride shrivel up between my legs. She splashed water at me and I splashed back. A pair of birds flitted across the surface of the water behind her, then fled to the trees. I wished I had a way to catch them.

  Her nipples were hard as little rocks when I caught her and pulled her close. We kissed, and I held her to me so she couldn’t get away. The water settled around us, and I thought about making love to her right there, but suspected it was too cold to try, though things below hinted that I was up for the challenge.

  “You caught me. Now what are you going to do with me?” She smirked.

  “I guess you’re mine now. I think I get to do whatever I like. I mean, as long as you, you know, want me to,” I finished lamely.

  “That stuff I told you about was a long time ago, Erik. I trust you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  I stared past her at the far shore, because I thought I had seen movement. A shape that was vaguely manlike moved into the woods, but maybe it was just an animal. I stared for a long time, and she turned in my arms to follow my gaze.

  “What is it?”

  “I thought I saw something. Probably a deer.”

  “Hmm, let’s go inside where the animals won’t see the things I am about to do to you,” she purred.

  “Wait a minute. I get to do what I want.”

  “Right. Same thing.”

  * * *

  Shadows moved across the wall after I lit candles in the dark. There were a few of them left, and I felt like it was the right thing to do—a romantic gesture. She stretched on the bed as I moved around the room with the lighter.

  Earlier we had hauled in some of the fish, changed the water on the others, and then split them and fried them in a bit of olive oil I had saved. There were spices in the cabinets, things that had expired, but they tasted fine to me. Salt and pepper with a dash of powdered garlic that was so old it was turning white. The fish were delicious, and we ate a couple of them. We boiled beans and ate them with the fish, and when we were done, I soaked the pan in some water and took her back to bed.

  We lay together again as I tried to find sleep. Her hand was draped across my waist this time, and every once in a while she would flinch, like she was nodding off. I wanted to sleep, but my mind was on all the things that had happened. Spring was on the way, and I was pretty sure we would be able to live on the stuff we caught here. Hunting would turn up some deer, and we would have meat, but we wouldn’t have any produce—no vegetables or fruit. We had some powdered milk, but not a lot, and the calcium would be sorely missed.

  Unless we could find some fruit, I worried
about us getting scurvy, the way sailors used to when they were at sea for lengths of time. Lack of vitamin C might be worse than lack of anything else.

  I started to drift off as well, but something drew my eye to the window. The moon made the outside world murky at best, but the lack of outside light meant there was nothing to reflect off the glass in the cabin, so I had a good view out the window directly across from us. We could have constructed some sort of curtains, but there was no need for privacy out in the middle of nowhere.

  Shadows drifted—diffuse shapes that eluded trees and ringed the cabin like silent sentinels. My eyes were drawn to a copse far away. I could just make it out in the dim light, and I could also make out a shape that I thought had green eyes, which stared into my own. I gasped and sat up in bed, clenched my eyes together then stared again, but the shape was gone.

  * * *

  “It was probably a deer plotting to set a trap for you,” Katherine said the next morning.

  We were enjoying breakfast, such as it was. She was sitting across from me, having woken earlier and made coffee and some flat but tasty pancakes. We didn’t have anything to make the things rise, and she used some Cheerios, ground up, to make the mess stick together before baking them in the oven. The coffee was strong, and I enjoyed several cups.

  She wore one of my shirts again, and it looked a hell of a lot better on her than on me. Long legs flashed every time she moved around the room, and she wore the top unbuttoned low. She looked rested for the first time, like she had really slept last night. I imagined it was hard to leave the life she had led over the past five or so months and move in with me. All the familiar sights and sounds – just gone.

  She cracked the windows so a breeze rolled through the cabin and out the open door. I thought of the shape I had seen the night before, but discounted it as not being real. We were too secluded to attract one of those things.

  Then again, why hadn’t I ran some sort of snares or alarms? Bottles hanging from twine might be just the thing to give me a heads up. I would have to scour the cabin for stuff to use. There are probably enough bottles left over from the preserves to make something. The biggest problem would be covering the entire area around the cabin. If I did it, I would have to be careful where I placed everything.