“I don’t know, Nina. Why don’t you ask him?” I knew she had other things on her mind—she was trying to get her own steam going with Jeff’s non-theater buddy.
I frowned, knowing I was too damned shy to ask him point blank what was happening. Instead, I joined him in the room where they were playing the movie and sat as close to him as I possibly could. He was pointed in ignoring me—it felt personal and direct, and it made me even less inclined to talk to him.
I only knew that something was different—I was clueless. That night, I stained my pillow with salty tears but held onto hope, something I often did when times felt dark…and I resolved to try to win this boy back…if only I could figure out how.
Chapter Seven
Present
“Generation Dead” – Five Finger Death Punch
IT WAS EARLY Saturday afternoon, just one week away from when I’d have my kids under my roof again. As strange as things had felt earlier in the week, the atmosphere now was beyond heavy. Something felt imminent, undeniable, supercharged with fear and predation.
I’d spent all morning trying to accomplish something, anything. My kids had been begging me to move on with my life. I’d been in virtual mourning for over a year now, and they knew I hadn’t moved past it. I’d promised to clean out my husband’s closet and donate his clothes to the secondhand store. It was a first step, they’d said, and so I told them I would.
I hadn’t as yet. I’d made that promise in August, and here it was November and I hadn’t found it in my heart to do it. Now, though, I knew I had to get it done or the kids would know I hadn’t even tried to move past it. I’d awakened in the morning with that noble goal and, finally, after hours of sitting on the bed, staring at the closet and the cardboard boxes on the floor in front of it, I’d forced myself to pack up most of his clothes. I ended the ordeal by removing my wedding ring and placing it in my jewelry box, saying a silent goodbye as I did it. Then I looked at everything I’d managed to do. A ten-minute task had taken more than five hours.
I was dealing with it by sitting on the porch, contemplating.
But something out there was different. The air felt charged, ready to explode. There was a strange energy poised to strike…and, as I sat on my porch, I felt myself grow nervous.
Yes, I knew part of it had to do with the worry in the collective unconscious. Most everyone had to be fearful not only of contracting the so-called zombie virus but also of being attacked by those afflicted. Communication from the folks in power was getting better in that they were giving us more info more often, but they still weren’t transparent—not by a long shot. I had no idea why. What did they have to lose? What were they afraid of? There was already mass panic—telling us the truth surely couldn’t make it worse.
It wasn’t until I sat for a good half hour that I noticed what wasn’t happening outside. I couldn’t hear any kids playing, no dogs barking…and there wasn’t the usual light traffic passing by the house. It was unusually still.
Sitting on my porch that cool early afternoon, activity pulled my eyes from looking at the gray and brown leaves, long since dead, in my yard. It started with a teenage kid running past my house. The running wasn’t so strange, but the look on his face was, and the fact that he kept looking behind himself was disconcerting. He looked so…scared. Something about his expression haunted me—never mind the fact that he was the first human being I’d seen all day.
After a while, though, I didn’t think much about it. I was sure part of my nerves were caused by my nerves. I tried to dismiss the feeling in the air and the tautness of my muscles as the natural result of my state of mind. Soon, Larry came out of his house and braved crossing the street to talk to me, making the day feel even more normal. He glanced both ways but walked quickly—it wasn’t his usual saunter. Before he even got to the fence, he asked, “You hear what’s been goin’ on, Nina?”
That didn’t help me relax.
The tone of his voice made my hackles rise, and I stood quickly, closing the gap between us, meeting him at our usual spot on the fence. “No. What’s up?”
“Shit’s outta control. Vera and I are thinking of getting the hell out of Dodge, just till things settle.”
“Settle? And where would you go exactly?”
“Yeah, settle. They’ve already called the National Guard into Denver and the Springs. It’s just a matter of time before they show up here, pushing us around and telling us what to do.”
I wasn’t worried about that. “What are they doing?”
“Martial law. They’re ratcheting down. Supposedly, it’s to keep the biters at bay, but—”
“Wait, what? You’re saying the military is—”
“Yeah—talking about imposing curfews, standing on the streets holding combat rifles, you name it. It’s all over the news.” I saw the sneer on his face before he even said his next sentence. “But I forgot—you don’t watch the news.”
I frowned at him. “So you think they’re coming here too?”
“Hell, yeah. Only a matter of time. But that’s okay…I’m prepared.”
“How?”
“I have plenty of weapons—and we’re gonna get the hell out of here.”
“And go where?”
“No idea. Just away from here—maybe north.”
“Will you be able to get through the cities? I mean…if they’re infested with a military presence…”
He started laughing. “Infested. You got that right. I’m not sure. I only know we gotta do it now, and I wanted to know if you wanted to come with us.”
My mind could barely wrap around it all—the military coming into cities and towns and holding their citizens virtual hostages. I couldn’t quite picture it in my mind, but I could almost see an army guy in olive-drab fatigues, standing on top of a tank, holding a big rifle, a neutral expression on his face while watching everything.
My mind might not have been able to process it well, but my imagination was having a fucking heyday.
“Why the hell would I run off? My kids will be coming home next week—”
“At this rate, Nina, they might not have a home to come back to.”
Now I knew he was exaggerating. “Oh, come on, Larry. You really think so? Don’t you think the military is stepping in to keep the biters from killing the non-infected?”
“I’m sure that’s the rationale, but I know anytime the government has the chance to imprison its citizens, it’ll do it. Even better when we’re willing herds.”
I wanted to say so many things, because it was like he’d lost his mind, but I also understood fear and caution, and I didn’t want to make fun of him. We all did what we had to in order to survive, and apparently Larry’s go-to response was paranoia. I shook my head but stilled my tongue.
“You want to come with us or not?”
Before I could answer, we heard a truck speeding noisily up our street. It was normally a quiet neighborhood, so the presence of the guy’s loud engine hauling ass got our attention. We both turned our heads to the east from where we heard the sound, and that was when I realized I didn’t just hear his vehicle. I was also hearing the way it was scraping cars as it passed them by—metal grinding against metal, and the cars protested as the truck made its way past, with or without them. It was then that we saw the truck was heading straight for Larry, and if he didn’t get out of the way, he was going to be hurt. He started running up the sidewalk and then up my driveway, just as I began running closer to my porch, because it was looking like the truck might take out my fence as well.
The car it was dragging along was slowing it down some, which helped us.
Finally, though, the truck hit my chain link fence and the wooden post in the corner, cemented into the ground years before we’d moved in. The car it had been dragging had let go but was left on the side of the street just east of my house, looking like a used-and-abused lover. It wasn’t until I saw steam rising from the front of the truck in anger that I began assessing it more closely. I noticed a y
oung man in the front seat on the driver’s side, but he’d hit his head on the steering wheel. Larry and I looked at each other and then took tentative steps across my yard to see things more closely.
The guy was out cold. At first, I expected to see a biter in the passenger side, making him drive like a maniac, but nope. He was by himself. I couldn’t help myself. Curiosity got the best of me, and I walked around the fence. I had to see what was going on.
He had come close to hitting my car in the driveway but had instead blocked it. I moved around the side of his truck and heard Larry saying, “Nina. What the fuck? Are you crazy?” I got to the driver’s side of the truck and looked inside. The guy’s skin was pale, almost gray, and there was blood trickling from his ear.
Larry got closer to me in spite of his instincts. “Oh, my God, Larry. I think this guy was infected. Maybe he was heading to the hospital.” That was my guess, at any rate, because the hospital was about a mile away from our neighborhood on the same street.
“Yeah, which makes me wonder why the hell you’re getting close to him.”
I shrugged. “I’m gonna call 911. Someone’s gotta help the guy.” Larry followed me into the house without question. I walked across the living room and picked up the handset, touching the three numbers and waiting for the line to ring. While I sat there listening to eerie silence on the phone line, I noticed the voicemail light blinking. Someone must have called while I was outside.
Larry gave me a look. “What’s going on?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s—” I paused then as I heard something on the line—finally.
Larry noticed the confused look on my face. “What is it?”
“I’m getting a busy signal. A busy signal.” He walked over to me and took the headset from my hands, listening to it for himself.
“That’s fucked up.” He hung up the phone using the button on the set and then turned it back on, punching in the nine, followed by two ones, and then he held it up to his ear again. After several seconds, he said, “I’ll be damned.” He hung up the phone once more and handed me the handset. “Things must be worse than we thought.”
“I wonder what the hell we should do about that guy,” I said, and Larry shrugged. “Maybe we should take him to the hospital.”
His voice sounded dubious but he said, “Maybe.”
I pushed the button on the machine so I could listen to the message I’d gotten. Larry watched me as I held the phone up to my ear. It was my aunt who lived about an hour away, higher up in the hills, deeper in the woods, further removed from mankind. I loved the woman and spent two weekends a month visiting her. Her kids lived in California and Oregon and visited once or twice a year, earning six figures, while I stayed close by and helped out when I could. My mom, her sister, visited when she and my dad were home, but I was the one who helped her with things her kids normally would. Most recently, I’d helped her harvest vegetables from her huge garden and had taken a week off work to help her can as many vegetables as possible. I was going to drive up there the day before Thanksgiving to pick her up so she could spend the holiday with me and the kids…but I had yet to talk her into it. I was hoping maybe she’d left a message acquiescing.
Instead, her voice sounded out of it—and scared. Oh, God…maybe she too had fallen victim to the news channels, worrying over nothing. But as I listened, I realized it was more than that. “Neeny,” she said, calling me by the affectionate nickname she’d given me years ago, “honey, something’s wrong. I know I’ll see you later this month, but I wondered if I could trouble you to visit me early. I’m feeling a little strange, dear, and I can’t get in touch with my doctor—or even the ambulance. I’m worried and—” Her message cut off there, and my veins filled with panic. I wasn’t afraid of biters, but I was terrified of losing yet another person I loved. I immediately punched in her number—and got another fucking busy signal.
“Oh, God.”
“What?”
“I need to go see my aunt. Something’s wrong.” I was in full-on panic-and-response mode.
“Now?”
“Yeah. She said something was wrong—and I get a busy signal when I call her.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
“You don’t understand, Larry. She’s in her seventies and lives alone. She sounded…bad.”
“Where does she live?”
“Just east of Chipeta Springs.” An hour away in good weather—and the weather was fine; the roads were clear. Without further discussion, I walked to the kitchen and pulled my coat off the chair I’d draped it on, sliding it up on my shoulders. Then I picked up my purse off the same chair, reaching in to find my car keys. “Could you maybe put that guy in my car and I can swing by the hospital on my way there? You think they’ll come get him out of my car?”
“Nina, you’re out of your fucking mind. The guy might be a biter—if nothing else, he’s probably a carrier.”
“Who’s sick. Who needs help. Have you forgotten that?”
He sighed, shaking his head and following me out the door. By rote, I locked the front door as I pulled it closed, and, as Larry and I walked down the driveway, it occurred to me that I probably wouldn’t be able to get my car onto the street—it was blocked by the two trees in the yard and the mailbox on the one side, the fence on the other, and…the guy’s truck. I didn’t see any earthly way I could get my car out—unless I climbed into the guy’s truck and moved it myself. That somehow seemed disrespectful.
But I was starting to think I wasn’t going to have a choice.
Chapter Eight
Past
“No More Tears” – Ozzy Osbourne
WHEN I RETURNED to school from Christmas break that January, I found myself drowned in work—not just regular school work and my part-time job, but I had to apply to colleges, apply for scholarships, send ACT and SAT test scores to schools, asking teachers for written recommendations, completing resumes, writing essays.
I was almost able to put Kevin Savage out of my mind.
Almost.
But that didn’t stop me from looking for him in the crowded hallways of my school, peeking in the commons area for him during lunch breaks or looking in the library as I passed it every morning. When I would see him, I’d smile brightly and say hi. And it wasn’t like he didn’t acknowledge me—he did—but something was gone. I got hollow greetings from him, and—being the naïve thing I was—I just thought there was more attracting to be done.
God, it’s painful looking back on it now, how completely clueless I was. I suppose I could have blamed my previously sheltered existence upon it, but maybe he and I just weren’t meant to be. Maybe this guy and I wouldn’t have been compatible, wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But I would have liked the chance to try.
Our group still hung out together some. We’d go do things together—go to parties, hang at McDonald’s, drive around town. I discovered that he and I loved the same music, and I found we had a shared love of Ozzy Osbourne, which led to small discussions about other bands like Dokken and Mötley Crüe, but we were never alone again, never able to get into a deep conversation that might have led to other things. And I was, frankly, stupid. I had no idea how to communicate how utterly smitten I was with the boy. I didn’t know that I should flirt and touch his arm and tell him it looked like he worked out. I was clueless.
And heartbroken.
But, by the time spring rolled around, I refused to shed another tear. I still dreamed about Kevin Savage and hoped that maybe someday something could happen…but I wasn’t going to cry anymore. I was too old for that bullshit.
Chapter Nine
Present
“Gone Sovereign” – Stone Sour
LARRY AND I walked toward the truck blocking my driveway. The engine was off and it looked like the man inside was lifting his head off the steering wheel. Relief washed over me like a warm shower and I picked up the pace.
Until I walked over to the driver’s side door.<
br />
“Shit.” I heard Larry before I saw his face, but he was echoing exactly what I’d been thinking. The guy was clearly infected. His skin was pallid, but that wasn’t what gave it away—it was that he was pawing at the window with bloody fingertips, trying to get at us like a caged animal.
My problem was that I wasn’t as well-educated as Larry about the epidemic. I didn’t know if the guy still had full use of his brain. Would he figure out that all he needed to do to get to us was open the door? If so, we were toast. Could the infected move as quickly as normal people? The only thing I knew about zombies was from the world of fiction. And the authorities were careful not to call the infected by the z word. No, those people had contracted a disease—a disease that made them cannibals.
I jumped back from the truck, purely out of instinct. A survival instinct.
Larry touched my shoulder. “No way in hell can you go visit your aunt. You’re never getting your car out of the driveway.”
I was feeling frustrated. “I guess I just need to keep trying to call the cops. Or someone. Somebody needs to deal with this.”
“Yeah, I guess you could try to keep calling, but…” He was quiet for a second, and I took my eyes off the creepy maybe-dead guy in the truck long enough to assess Larry’s face. “Maybe I could take you up there. You’re just wanting to check in on her, right?”
I nodded, realizing how desperate inside I still felt. “Yeah. I need to know she’s okay and…if she’s not, maybe I could bring her back here.”
Larry gave one resolute nod of his head, as though his mind were made up. “Come on. I’ll grab Vera and we’ll head up there.” He started walking toward his driveway and I followed suit, continuing our conversation.
I resisted the urge to look back.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
I was feeling a little guilty then, because I knew my fears were probably silly and overblown. My Aunt Louise was likely fine. I knew the weird goings on with the virus and the government were causing the problems with communications but…there was an unexplainable fear, an almost intuitive gnawing feeling that I needed to check on her. Maybe Larry sensed that in me. Even if not, it was a kindness I wanted to repay. “Thanks. We can stop by Chili’s on the way back and I’ll buy you guys a couple beers and a steak dinner.”
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