“We got to take care of them,” I tell Mac. “Quietly.”
I wait while he goes to the garage and returns with a sledgehammer.
As the first of the dead stumbles into the sandy yard, we open the front door and rush back outside. I swing the poker around and crack a grey-haired man with a mustache on the side of the head. He lurches to the side and falls to the earth, but reaches his arms up right away and grabs at me. I jab him in the skull as hard as I can again, but with only one arm that is still worth a shit, I don’t generate the force needed to inflict any real damage. I place a boot on his chest and smash the poker through his eye until the tip penetrates his brain and he finally stops moving.
When I look up, Mac is already walking away from a trio of bodies in the street. The sledgehammer smashed their skulls leaving gory patterns like red inkblots on the pavement.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say as I get back to my feet.
“You better just shoot them next time,” Mac says.
“Maybe you’re right,” I agree.
Twenty-two
“If we’re going to stay here, we need to secure this place,” I say once we get back inside.
“Here?” Claire says looking around the modest house. “For how long?”
“Until we’re dead, probably,” Mac says.
“The lower level has a lot of windows,” I say. “But at least the fence will keep them out of the back. We just need to focus on the front.”
We search the house from top to bottom, but there are no unwanted surprises. Then we gather up materials to secure the building.
In the garage, I find a few pieces of plywood propped up against the side wall behind a pickup. Mac digs through a tool chest and pulls out some screws, nails, a hammer, and a battery-powered drill. I follow him toward the door but pause and stare at the truck in the garage.
We could take it. Try to make it to Los Alamos. Complete our mission.
For what?
To save the world?
It feels like it is too late for that bullshit.
All that’s left out there is more violence and death.
I push the thought away and shut the door to the garage. As much as I don’t want to accept the fact that we have lost this fight, I know it’s true.
All we can do now is survive.
Within twenty minutes, we have all the exposed windows on the lower level relatively secure. If we get a whole shitload of them coming at us at once, it won’t hold. Only a couple more of the dead have wandered down this road so far, and they seem oblivious to our presence for now.
After days on the move, I collapse on the couch in the living room of random strangers. It is the most at ease I’ve been since this whole thing started. I kick my boots off and put my feet up on the armrest and stare at the ceiling.
Mac sits down on the loveseat across from me, and Claire takes the recliner in the corner of the room. She picks up a family photo off the side table beside her and studies it for a long time.
I don’t know what we’re going to do now. Everything has gone to hell. All that matters for the moment is that we don’t have to keep running. I stare up at the ceiling and the nothingness of the white painted drywall and savor the emptiness of it for a few moments. The only thing that could make this any better would be some air conditioning.
Mac takes out his notebook and opens it up and starts scrawling in it again.
“What are you always writing in that thing?” Claire asks him.
“Words,” Mac says. “Poetry. Stuff like that.”
“Poetry?” Claire says. “It’s the end of the world and you’re writing poetry?”
“The world is poetry,” Mac says. “Everything happening out there, the end of the world, if that’s what you want to call it, is really just poetry. Poetic justice. That’s my take on it.”
“Such a renaissance man,” says Claire.
The two of them ramble on for a few minutes, talking like a couple of nerds while I just kind of space out. It’s not that I can’t keep up with the conversation, I just don’t really give a shit about philosophical or scientific explanations anymore. There doesn’t seem to be much point in it. Everyone is dead. End of story.
“I’m going to see what they got to eat,” I say and force myself to get off the couch. “Don’t steal my spot.”
I don’t even bother opening the refrigerator. After a few days with no power, any of the food left inside there would likely just make me sick. That’s the last thing I’d need right now. Luckily, the pantry is stocked with enough food to last us at least a week. They even have a couple cases of bottled water stacked on the floor. It may not be much, but right now it feels like we hit the jackpot.
I grab a bag of nacho cheese tortilla chips and pry it open. Then I notice a six-pack of soda in the cabinet and I crack one of those open as I sit down at the kitchen table. I munch the crunchy chips as I glance around the room at the belongings and decorations of the people that lived here.
They were probably older, since everything is dated. The walls are painted in a mucus yellow color, and the wallpaper in the family room is decrepit. There are no photos of themselves. Old people never like to see how young they used to be or how old they’ve gotten on a daily basis. There is only one photo on a cherry cabinet in the corner of a cute blonde girl in a wedding dress, which I’d guess was probably their daughter.
I don’t really know why I’m curious about the people that lived here. They’re dead now, probably. Maybe I’m just trying to distract myself from thinking about all the bad stuff I don’t want to think about, or because even though the people that lived here are gone now, they are still saving our lives.
“What’s for dinner?” Mac asks as he wanders in from the family room. “Anything good in here?”
I’m about to tell him not to check the fridge but he grabs the handle before I get a chance. He opens the fridge and then slams the door shut again and covers his nose.
“You might want to try the pantry,” I tell him. “There’s enough in there to last a while. Give us a chance to figure out what the hell we do next.”
“There ain’t nothing to do now,” Mac says. “Except probably die at some point.”
“I’d still like to put that off a while,” says Claire.
“Then we better make this food last,” Mac says.
So that is what we do. For the next week, we conserve as much as we can. We stay inside to avoid attracting the dead. By the end of the first week, the pantry is nearly bare and the water stops working, so we have to resort to drinking out of the tank in the back of the toilet.
Eventually, we have no choice but to start scavenging from the other houses on the block. That comes with a significant risk. We never know what might be coming at us once we smash in a window to get inside.
In this one house, we run into an entire family; mom, dad, kids... baby.
All dead.
We dealt with them, but I didn’t sleep so well that night.
The boredom is by far the worst part. Mac keeps busy writing in his notebook for hours on end, so I spend a lot of time listening to Claire talk because she doesn’t have much else to do. She seems like a sweet gal, but me and her come from different worlds.
I hear all about how she had a hard time going to private school, how hard she had to work to earn her second college degree by age twenty, and how she regrets it all because her parents died in a car accident when she was eighteen and she wished she had a normal life and could have spent more time with them while they were here.
I mostly just listen, because hearing her go on and on about her upper-middle class struggles mostly just makes me feel like a piece of poor, white trash. Her definition of a rough childhood is a lot different than mine. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t try to ask me about it.
Whenever she gets curious about my past, I change the subject. I taught her to play poker, just to have something else to do besides talking. But s
he mostly continues to talk about herself while I pretend to be concentrating on my cards.
Finally, she convinces me to talk one night.
Earlier in the day, we had tactically acquired a stash of expensive Kentucky bourbon whiskey from a house on the next block over.
“It’d be a damn shame to let this go to waste,” Mac tells me as he cracks open the bottle and fills three glasses.
A couple hours later, Mac is busy writing on the sofa and Claire and I are piss drunk playing poker on the floor.
“Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?” she finally asks me.
“There’s not much to tell,” I deflect.
“Come on. By now you know like everything about me. But all I know is that you’re Corporal Chase Graves from Wichita Falls, Texas,” she lowers her voice and does her best imitation of my accent. It makes me laugh, but mostly because it’s so bad and I’m pretty drunk.
“Well, what do you want to know?” I ask her.
She seems so surprised that I’m agreeing that she can’t think of what to ask me right away.
“I don’t know,” she says. “What was your family like?”
“Just a regular shitty family,” I say.
I’m pretty content to leave it at that, but she stares at me until I finally go on.
“My pop is in the Air Force. We don’t really get along.”
“What about your mom?” she says.
“She died,” I say. “I never really knew her too well.”
“How old were you when it happened?” she asks.
“Eight or nine,” I say. “I don’t really remember.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “What happened?”
“She overdosed,” I say.
“Oh my god,” says Claire. “I can see why you never wanted to talk about it. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I never really knew her. She up and left when I was a year old. Just walked out one day. Left my dad to take care of me. I never really knew why.”
“That’s terrible,” Claire says.
I don’t really want her pity, but it makes me want to explain the rest so she doesn’t feel so bad for me.
“I think my pop might have resented me for it, like it was this baby she was trying to get away from and not him. Maybe it was. But from what he told me later, she went off to Mexico and got involved with some biker down there. She got addicted to some junk then the biker bailed on her. She wound up on the streets. Prostituting herself. Eventually, she died of an overdose. She was kind of a shitty person.”
“Chase—” she says.
“It’s alright,” I assure her. “I never told anyone about that.”
“I can’t even imagine how hard it was growing up with all that,” Claire says. She looks at me, but different now, like a kid staring at a broken toy.
I suddenly feel irritated with myself for saying anything.
“No,” I say. “You can’t.”
I grab the bottle off the table and fill my glass.
“You and me are from different worlds,” I say. “We don’t have nothing in common. If we weren’t trapped in here together, we probably wouldn’t have nothing to talk about.”
“That’s not true,” Claire says.
“It’s fine,” I say. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just reality. That’s how it’s always been.”
“No,” Claire shakes her head.
“You know, I’m right,” I say.
“You’re not,” she insists.
“Suit yourself,” I tell her. I down my drink, get up off the floor, and head toward the bedroom.
“Chase,” she calls after me. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m going to sleep,” I tell her. “Goodnight.”
I leave Mac and Claire downstairs and head up to the bedroom. I take my shirt off and toss it aside. Then I lay down in the bed and try to get comfortable.
I regret the whole exchange with Claire already. Even though she is probably just bored, I’m not looking to be her friend. I definitely don’t want her pity either. I manage to fall asleep, but wake up a short time later when I hear a noise.
The floorboards creak and groan in the hallway. I decide to get out of bed and check it out. I need a drink of water anyway.
When I open the door, I notice a light on in the other room.
“What do you want?” Mac sighs.
“Make love to me, Mac,” Claire whispers.
I knew it was just a matter of time before it happened. Maybe it’s been going on for awhile. It’s probably better if I don’t stand there listening in on them, but my curiosity gets the better of me.
I walk over to the door and can see Claire sitting on the bed beside Mac. She touches her forehead with her hand, and I can tell she is really feeling the whiskey. She slides her feet onto the bed and lays down on her side and props her head up with her hand. Her eyes look at his face, then down his chest.
“Claire—” he starts to say but she lets out a hiccup and interrupts him.
“Excuse me,” she laughs.
“You should probably get some sleep,” he tells her.
She reaches up and touches his chest with her fingertips. Mac grabs her hand. It startles her, so he lets go and she retracts her hand. She rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling and sighs.
“What’s wrong with me?” Claire asks.
“You clearly had too much to drink,” he tells her.
“No,” she says. “I mean why don’t you care about me?”
“I never said I don’t,” he says.
“You act like it,” she says. “Do you hate me because of them? The guys in your squad that died to rescue me?”
“That’s not it,” Mac sighs.
She turns her face away from him and starts to cry. Mac swipes his palm across his face in frustration.
“Claire,” Mac says. “I do care about you. But… love? I’m just not that guy.”
“I don’t want it to end like this,” Claire says. “To die like this. All I ever did my whole life is study and work. I’ve thought the right guy will come along one day. There will be time for all of that. But I was wrong. There isn’t going to ever be time. Nobody is going to love me.”
“Easy,” he tells her. “Calm down.”
She buries her face in her palms and sobs. Mac finally relents and reaches his arm out and pulls her toward him. Claire scoots her body closer and lays her head on his chest.
“I don’t want to be alone until I die,” she says.
“You’re not alone,” he assures her.
She lets out a deep breath and then she reaches up and puts a hand on the back of his neck. Claire pulls him closer to her, and Mac leans down and kisses her. His hand reaches up to cup her breast.
I feel awkward standing in the hall, so I retreat to the bedroom, careful not to make any noise that might disturb them. As much as I try to forget the whole thing and go to sleep, I can hear them having sex across the hall as I stare up at the ceiling. I can’t blame them, but something about it still bothers me. If there is one thing life taught me, it is that relationships never end well, so it’s best to just look out for yourself. Maybe it will be different for them. I’ll hope I’m wrong, even if I know that I’m not.
Twenty-three
In the morning, I wake up to Mac running up the stairs in a panic.
“Chase, wake up!” he says as he rushes into the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“We may have a problem,” he says.
“Stiffs?” I ask him as I get out of bed and pull my shirt over my head.
“No,” he says. “Looks like some of the Army made it out of Holloman.”
He hurries back across the hall to look out the window. I get out of bed and follow him and do a double-take at Claire clutching a sheet to her naked body on the bed. In my groggy state, I wasn’t sure if what I remembered from last night was not just some strange dream. Instead of saying anything,
I just head to the window and peek through the blinds at the street.
Mac points out the vehicle up the road. A team of six men work their way from house to house. Too bad for them we’ve already ransacked the entire block. I watch the men moving from the houses to the truck and try to spot Jenson, but from this distance it’s not possible to tell if he is among them.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
Mac rubs a hand along the facial hair that covers his jaw.
“We can just try talking to them,” suggests Claire.
“I don’t know if they’ll be too happy to see us,” Mac says.
“Probably not,” I say. “I’m not exactly happy to see them either.”
“Two against six,” says Mac. “Don’t really like those odds.”
“Three,” Claire says.
Mac looks over his shoulder at Claire.
“I meant three,” Mac lies.
“Give me a gun,” Claire says. “I want to be able to defend myself if something happens to you guys.”
Mac walks over to the bedside table and picks up his nine-mil and hands it to Claire. She will likely end up shooting herself in the foot, but she has a right to do that if she wants.
We grab our rifles and head downstairs to the front door. The truck pulls up to the neighboring house and four of the men get out to search the building while the other two keep watch on the street.
“Let’s go,” I say to Mac.
“What are we doing again?” Mac says.
“Just going to try and talk with them,” I say.
“Sure. This will go great,” Mac scoffs.
“Stay inside,” I tell Claire. “If something happens, go out the back patio and run like hell.”
I open the door and walk down the driveway beside Mac. We approach the truck casually, but keep our rifles at a low ready.
“Don’t look so nervous,” Mac says.
“I’m not nervous,” I tell him.
“You look nervous,” Mac says.
“How do I look nervous?” I ask him.
“I don’t know,” Mac says. “But you do. Put on your nice face or something.”
I try out a smile and Mac looks at me and shakes his head.
ROTD (Book 3): Rage of the Dead Page 14
