by Beth Hersant
That’s ok, Wilford thought, it’s tempered glass. It’ll hold.
There was a shriek of rage and then the sound of rustling leaves and the thud of a heavy terracotta pot hitting the floor. In another moment the big ficus that the guidance counselor had placed outside her office came hurtling at the door. The tree itself was not the problem, but the decorative stones that covered the soil were. One hard, sharp little pebble was all it took to punch a hole right through the window. The poster tore but still hung on, and so Wilford did not see the cracks spread as the glass shattered. And then the thing was inside the room. It was a bloodied, maniacal Pastor Kulp.
Chaos erupted as students screamed and ran — most of them right into the teeth of the infected that piled into the classroom. The teacher picked up a desk chair and flung it through a nearby window. Lisa Medford saw this and felt a surge of hope. Mr. Bishop would save them. He’d get them out! But he did not even pause. He tore the blind aside and scrambled through the gap himself.
She dashed to the window and flung a beseeching hand toward him. “Mr. Bishop! Please!”
He looked at her. The moment lasted only a few seconds, but in Lisa’s mind it seemed to stretch out for an eternity. Then he turned away and ran and hands were fastening onto her, dragging her backwards. She died screaming his name.
The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines the self-preservation instinct as “the fundamental tendency of humans and nonhuman animals to behave so as to avoid injury and maximize chances of survival.” Sigmund Freud paired this with the sexual impulse under the name “Eros” — the life instinct. And Nigel Nicholson, in a Harvard Business Review article, stated: “Homo sapiens emerged on the Savanna Plain some 200,000 years ago, yet according to evolutionary psychology, people today still seek those traits that made survival possible then… Human beings are, in other words, hardwired. You can take the person out of the Stone Age … but you can’t take the Stone Age out of the person.” But perhaps Yann Martel said it best in Life of Pi, when he observed: “When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.” That is why Robert Carlyle’s character abandoned his wife in 28 Weeks Later. He was simply trying to save his own skin. And Wilford Bishop wasn’t running away from anything as important as a wife. The snot-nosed kids in his class, who laughed at him behind his back and called him Mr. Blobfish (look it up if you want to fully appreciate the insult), really meant … well, nothing to him. Yes, he was their teacher. But that didn’t mean he had to die for them.
And so he ran. He took one look at the chaos at the bridge and realized that no one would be getting out of Midwood that day. The only option was to hole up somewhere. But the town was in a state of absolute mayhem. The infected were swarming up Lincoln Avenue and bullets were flying. He had to get somewhere safe. He tried to force his way into one house but the owner, assuming that Wilford was “one of them,” threw all his ample weight against the door, slamming it on Bishop’s hand. The impact shattered the metacarpal bones of his right hand and he screamed, reeling backward as the door shut. Once again he was running. On Main Street, he was nearly mowed down by a jeep that had just pulled a U-turn and was speeding away from the bridge. He dove out of its way and landed on his ruined hand. He was in the snow, sobbing now, but did not allow himself to stop. Leaning on his left arm, he got to his feet and staggered up Gallows Hill Road. It was a dead end alley that skirts the east side of the cemetery. And there, in front of him, was the Tombstone bar.
Roger Silsbee was confused. He and Leon, if they happened to run into each other on a Friday night, would have a beer or two, maybe shoot the shit for awhile, but the two men were not exactly friends. Roger got the impression that Leon didn’t have friends. He was notorious for his temper and once had shattered Rob Hunsecker’s cheekbone over a card game. He’d done time for that one. Then there was his suspended license and a string of DUIs, two drug convictions and a rape charge in NYC that’d been dropped on a technicality. No, Leon Shaw was not a kind-hearted, virtuous soul. And yet now, as all hell broke loose in Midwood, here he was taking on every charity case that came down the pike. Wilford Bishop had shown up with a badly broken hand. The guy was right-handed and guess which one got smashed — hence he was useless. And Blake Turner? What the actual fuck? Not only did they not need to be saddled with a moron right now, but what the hell was all that hugging crap? Sitting on the floor, rocking the big guy like a baby? He watched this, silently wondering if Leon had lost his mind.
On the contrary, Leon Shaw was thinking clearly and planning ahead. In order to survive this mess, he’d need other men to back him up. Roger Silsbee was all right, but he wasn’t exactly Rambo. And then Blake Turner came stumbling in. His brain — permanently stuck in the third grade — had been hit simultaneously with the loss of his mother and a zombie apocalypse. He arrived at the Tombstone a lost and broken child. But a friggin’ huge child, powerfully built and strong as an ox. And all Shaw had to do to have that strength at his disposal was to wrap his arms around the big man and tell him that everything was gonna be OK.
And then there was the poindexter, Wilford. He showed up, sobbing from pain and exhaustion, with a bum hand that couldn’t hold a gun or pull a trigger. But he was smart and that could come in handy. He was desperate for their help and that could come in handy too. And so, for the price of an Ace bandage he’d gotten from the first aid kit behind the bar and a bottle of Jack to numb the pain, Leon had just bought himself another ally.
As darkness fell, the four men bedded down for the night. Leon was sprawled out on the long, padded seat that lined one wall of the room. On the floor in front of him, curled up like a faithful dog, slept Blake. Roger had tried to fold his long legs into one of the booths, but he couldn’t get comfortable. He gave up and stretched out on a pile of old coats behind the bar. And Wilford Bishop curled up in a corner and closed his eyes. He’d been nursing that bottle of Jack for the last two hours, and while the alcohol had made his lips numb and his stomach queasy, it had not taken the pain away. He had to keep loosening the bandage as his hand swelled and as he rewrapped it, he stopped to marvel at his rotated index finger and the blue and purple bruise that mottled his skin. His hand was balloon-like — swollen to look like Mickey Mouse’s paw and he couldn’t bend his fingers.
It was awful luck — to get hurt like that on the first day of the outbreak. But, in a perverse way, it was helpful too. The mess he now called a hand made him feel vindicated. He had begged the man in that house to let him in. But the guy forced Wilf back out into the carnage, shattering his hand in the process. And then the man in the Jeep almost ran him over. Why? For the same reason that Wilford Bishop had left his students to die. They were just trying to save their own asses. It was the survival instinct, a biological imperative, that drove them and so what if he was no different from the rest?
He had as much right to live as anybody else. Take Lisa-oh-I-broke-a-nail-Medford. She was a child in his care. She’d begged him for help and he’d abandoned her. But why should her life count for more than his own? Why was he obliged to sacrifice himself for that blond-haired bit of fluff? Because she was young? So what? She was a fatuous slave to Instagram, Maybelline and Justin Bieber. Oh yeah, that was worth preserving and surely outweighed his degree, his public office, his respected position within the community. Or was he obliged to die for her because she was a girl? Or because her gormless parents would be sad or because …
“Because she was your responsibility,” he said quietly to himself. And while he felt shame at his actions now, at the time his duty to her had not mattered one bit. When it came right down to it, survival had been paramount for all of them — for everyone who’d tried to claw their way out of Midwood that day. And so it was OK. It was OK to be a coward, because the cowards were the only ones left alive.
And yet still he struggled with the knowledge that he had behaved like an absolute shit. It was h
ard to wrap his head around. He’d always been so good. But then being good was simple when all it required was putting on a suit and passing the collection plate at church. Or sitting around a table making a few inconsequential decisions for the town. Or throwing some canned goods and toys into a box and slapping a bow on it. He’d received praise for all of those things.
But really they were easy. He risked nothing by doing them. And today, when he’d been called upon to risk it all to do the right thing … he’d refused. That, surely, counted more than all of the Sunday mornings and toy drives put together. Oh, but that’s dangerous thinking; it threatened to sink him into a despair so deep that he might never emerge. And so began the mental gymnastics people use to justify their actions to themselves. First he had recourse to that time-honored excuse: “Well, everybody else was doing it too.” An action was somehow justified if other people engaged in it also. In court you are tried by a jury of your peers, but if your peers were committing the same crimes, then surely they could not pronounce you guilty. He knew, of course, it was a juvenile argument. No matter how much you pointed your finger at other people’s behavior, it did not excuse your own.
Therefore he swiftly moved on to rationalization. It was “survival of the fittest.” But again, he hit a snag in logic. He couldn’t exactly describe himself as “the fittest.” He was a middle-aged man, with a middle-age spread, sedentary in his lifestyle and overly fond of bacon cheeseburgers. Yes, he was smart, very smart actually, but brains had not saved him; he had survived only through dumb luck.
And then there was his hand. It was useless. It would take at least six weeks to heal and, in a collapsing world, six weeks might as well be a lifetime. And yet, for all his sins, he had landed on his feet. He was alive and uninfected and safe. These men had taken him in. And it’s not like they were prime specimens either. Blake was a moron. Silsbee was a bit of a suck up. And Leon Shaw was the town’s most notorious scumbag. So they were all freaks really — each in their way. And maybe that, in and of itself, was telling. The nice people, the meek, had in fact not inherited the earth. It had been left for the cowardly, the dishonorable, and the degenerate. Why? Because it was that kind of a world now.
A virus so tiny that it could only be measured in nanometers had effectively expelled God from Midwood. That was a hell of a statement to make, but when trouble comes and everybody looks out for number one, what does that tell you? Sure, God had resided in Midwood in moments of peace and on drowsy Sunday mornings, but He had been wholly absent in the town’s chaos. The virus had made Him irrelevant.
And so began the alliance. It did not take long for Shaw to emerge as the undisputed leader. Bishop was too weak to do the job and Blake was too dumb. And Roger? Well, after what happened, he saw the advantages of toeing the line.
It all coalesced in this way: the group barricaded itself in at the Tombstone and carried out short raids on nearby houses for supplies. They were raiding Katie Boehler’s place when they found Robby Hunsecker. He was holed up in the basement, living off cold tinned food; and Leon greeted his old enemy with a knock out punch to the jaw. They scavenged his cans of Campbell’s soup and spam, found his stash of Oxycodone, and took his gun and Buck knife. Yet when it came time to go, Shaw insisted that they take Rob with them.
Roger looked down at the unconscious man. “Why?”
“I have an idea” is all that Shaw would say and so they dragged him back to the Tombstone. Hunsecker was bound and gagged and left until later that day when he finally came to.
“All right, Shaw, what are you planning?” Silsbee asked.
Leon leaned back in his chair. “You’re going to kill him. All of you.”
The three men gawked at him.
“What?” Roger asked.
“Think of it as an initiation into the gang.”
“That … that’s insane.” Wilford Bishop was on his feet and attempted to cover his agitation by strolling to the bar to pour himself a drink.
“No it’s not. It’s how a lot of groups are.”
“In the ghetto, maybe, but …”
“Where do you think you are?” Shaw was up now too and looking belligerent. “The ghetto’s a fucking weekend in Vegas compared to this shit,” he said, gesturing towards the heavily-barricaded door.
“And so killing him accomplishes what?”
“It proves to me that you’re fit to be a member of this group.”
“Oh I get it,” Wilford nodded. “I read an article on this once.”
Roger rolled his eyes thinking, Dude, don’t. He doesn’t want to hear about your fucking article.
But Bishop plowed on. “In violent neighborhoods, people form gangs for protection. But in order to join, they have to prove that they’re tough enough to help defend the group. Which begs the question: why don’t you kill him yourself? Or don’t you want to get your hands dirty?”
Wilford leaned back and crossed his arms, confident that his argument would put this nonsense to rest. But Shaw crossed the room, leaned up against the bar, and smiled.
“I already have,” he said quietly.
“What?”
Roger had joined them now. “Who?”
“That Zimmerman bitch. Who do you think started the fire?”
“No you didn’t.” Even as Bishop shook his head to deny all of this, he was starting to see the truth. “Why?”
Leon shrugged. “I’d never done it before. I wanted to know what it felt like.” He said this as casually as he might have said, “I just tried a cup of Oolong tea” and the smile on his face was so placid. Never before had Roger seen anyone look so calm and yet so irretrievably insane at the same time. It sent a shiver through him and he backed off.
“You killed her out of,” Bishop groped for a word, “curiosity?”
“Yep. Surely you can understand that.”
“Why me?”
“Oh come on! All this self-fucking-righteous-I’m-a-pillar-of-the-community bullshit … doesn’t it ever get on your nerves?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Even to Bishop’s own ears that sounded priggish.
“Yes you do. All that time spent doing good works and what does it get you? Getting your ass beat by Albitz every four years in the mayoral election and your wife off banging some jock. She and that gym teacher … they live three doors down from you, don’t they? That’s gotta be fun. Your students think you’re a joke, Mr. Blobfish — yes, the whole town has heard that one. Don’t you ever want to be bad? Just to say ‘Fuck you all’ and go and take what you want?” Leon asked.
“Yes, but this,” Wilford pointed at Hunsecker, “is not what I want.”
“Don’t you want to survive?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re going to have to kill to do that. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, friend. Here’s your chance to practice.”
“But my hand…”
“Your feet work, don’t they? Let’s cut the shit,” and now Leon was addressing all of them. “I’m happy to do whatever it takes to survive. But I need men with me who are willing to do the same, `cause I’m not gonna carry you people. Make no mistake about it: if you don’t have what it takes, you’re out.”
Blake went over and clutched at Shaw’s arm, but Leon shook him off. “Nope. I said I’d look after you, but I need you to look after me too. Now you show me you can do it.”
Trembling, the big man walked over to Robby who stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes. He took a deep breath and then punched him in the face. It was a clumsy, unpracticed punch, but it was hard. Hunsecker grunted with the impact and started to cry.
“That’s good,” Leon said, “keep going.” He turned to Bishop. “It’s this or the door, man.”
And Wilford chose. He landed a kick to Rob’s side and it was as if some dam within him broke. The seemingly endless string of humiliations. His wife Catheri
ne leaving him for Jeff Burgess — a jock, for fuck’s sake. The town had gotten months of juicy gossip out of his divorce and not one woman he’d invited to dinner afterward had accepted his invitation. And then there was all the shit he swallowed being nice to people who never appreciated him and never gave him his due. He’d run for mayor five times and lost five times. His most successful campaign in the last twenty years had only landed him an embarrassing twelve percent of the vote. All the rage of being disrespected and marginalized. All the insufferable tedium of having to do the right thing, the polite thing every fucking day. People’s judgments and expectations had clamped shackles on his ankles. But the chains fell away now as he delivered kick after kick, to the head, to the body, to the groin. And this spurred Turner on, who was now punching more enthusiastically. Robby Hunsecker started screaming — a muffled sound around his gag.
Shaw walked over to Silsbee. “You too.”
Roger shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Roger, how far do you think you’re gonna get on charm and a winning smile? That may sell shoes, but it ain’t gonna cut it here.” Leon produced a switchblade. “Finish it.”
Roger backed away until he was up against the door. He knew in that moment that if he didn’t play along, he would be out that door in a heartbeat. The thought terrified him. He needed Shaw. Leon was the only fighter, the only real badass in their group and without him … Roger sighed, defeated. Without him I’m dead. There was no doubt about it. And come on— was he really the weakest member of the group? Even that cream puff Bishop was able to do this. He took the blade and clumsily went to work on Hunsecker.
On subsequent raids, Leon noticed something important about the infected. They seemed to be sensitive to light. There were a lot less of them out during the day, especially when the sun glared so brightly off the snow. Therefore, his group scavenged in the mornings. On one such raid they ventured onto Main Street and Roger kept suggesting places to hit. There was Pilgrim’s Tavern which used to serve food and so would have a well-stocked kitchen. And across the street from that there was the police station, which was bound to have weapons. But Leon passed on both of these and made a beeline right for Holliger’s Drug Store.
