by Morris, Jacy
She undid the chain to the gate. It pulled free with a loud metallic rattle.
"Where are you going?" Theresa called.
Katie didn't bother looking at Theresa. She was a pain in the ass, and she knew that sooner or later, she was going to have to kill her. She hoped that, when the time came, whoever died had already delivered their baby into the world. "I'm going to collect some firewood and keep my eye out for some food. I should only be gone an hour or two. Keep an eye out."
She pulled the gate open and stepped into the blood-soaked snow. The others didn't mess with her like they did Joan. They had seen her kill before. Katie walked quickly. There was no point in trying to be quiet in the snow. The flakes had stopped falling, and the top layer of the snow had turned to ice. It was like she was stalking across a field of flavorless crème brulée with every step she took.
She didn't bother collecting firewood. She could grab that at any time. But she only had so much time before the sky would grow dark, and she didn't relish the idea of being out in the woods in the dark. She walked a path she had walked a few times before, moving quickly. She could hear the dead around her, moving in the silence of the forest. The only other movement in the forest came from a few squirrels digging in the snow for stashed goodies. None of the dead were in sight, and she felt comfortable with the rifle slung over her shoulder. She made her way down to a road that ran through the wilderness. Then she came to a washed-out section of the road. A small ledge remained on the left, underneath a tall cliff face.
She chewed on the side of her mouth and then said, "Fuck it." She had to know if he was out there. In the days after she and Joan had taken the compound, she had spent the better part of a month recovering from her wounds. Joan, in an effort to save her life, had shot one of the dead through the head. Of course, the bullet hadn't stopped in the dead thing's skull; it had continued through her shoulder, missing the bones completely. For days afterward, she had been unconscious, feverish.
In her dreams, she had been visited by familiar faces. Images of her dead husband and Kevin, her dead son, tormented her for what seemed like an eternity. They had seemed so real, so alive. It hurt to see them, and even though in the dreams she wasn't aware that they were dead, she had always felt like there was something off. When she finally woke up, Joan was there, and she cried in her arms. Her face blushed thinking about it, the uncontrollable sobbing, the motherly shushing and patting of Joan. Worst of all, it felt as if her husband and son had been ripped away for a third time. The first time was when they had joined the ranks of the living dead, the second when she had killed them permanently, and then the third time, when she had awakened and they had melted away again.
But she had recovered a few weeks later, and by then, she had only one burning question. "Where the hell was Mort?"
Joan had seen neither hide nor hair of the man, and if any of the other denizens of the compound had seen him, they weren't saying. But she had to know. While her body regained its strength, a frustratingly slow process, she had done several circuits of the grounds outside the compound, looking for signs of his body. But she had found no sign of Mort. All she did find were a few rotting corpses underneath some trees. The wounds on their skulls could have been made from the impact of a hammer, so she held out hope that he was still alive.
She stepped out onto the ledge, turning her body to face the cliff wall. She inched sideways slowly, the bulge of her pregnant belly threatening to push her backward. Behind her, a twenty-foot drop ended with jagged rocks, a hillside buried under snow, and a couple of the dead looking longingly up at her. The dead had been trapped for months, buried up to their waist in the mud from when the road had washed out. She slid to the side and came to the treacherous part of the ledge, a gap that she would have to jump across. On the other side of the ledge, the small waterfall that ran down the cliff face had frozen to ice.
She eyed the shine of the ice and thought twice about crossing. Katie squeezed her eyes shut and blocked out the world, and before her mind could tell her, "No," she had leaped across the gap. She pressed her face against the cliff face hard, her legs straining to keep her body pressing against the cliff. When she opened her eyes, she was still alive, still suspended above the washout below. She inched sideways, stepping over several icy spots.
When she reached the other side, she bent over and grabbed her knees, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She felt like she had run a marathon. Looking back at the path she had crossed, a feeling of dread washed over her. She would have to cross it again to get home. But first, she needed to make her way to the house.
She adjusted the strap of her rifle on her back so it wouldn't clock her in the head with each step and then set out on the path that would lead her to where Mort had been hiding out. Hopefully. With each step, her back protested, and it was all Katie could do to avoid lying on the ground for a minute. Her need to find Mort kept her going.
The other side of the road was relatively free of the dead. She didn't see any tracks in the fresh snow, so she walked with confidence. She walked up a small lane that no one would notice unless they had been there previously. The blanket of snow made the world look different, and if she hadn't known the small road was there, she would have passed it by. There were footprints this time, fresh.
Katie stood looking down at the footprints. Was the pattern in the snow a match for Mort's boots? It seemed the right size. No, maybe it was a little too big. She eyed the direction of the footprints. They went down the main road away from the washout. She thought about following the path, but she was already exhausted, and she didn't know how far Mort had gone. If she knew for sure that she would find Mort at the end of the trail, she would have followed it. But if she found one of the dead, she was in no condition to fight it off hand to hand. She would have to use the rifle, and the sound of the rifle would bring more of them, and then she would have to use the rifle again… and she could see where that road would take her, straight to a dead end.
She turned and walked up the smaller road, dead branches and leafless trees broken only by towering evergreen trees. Here and there, a leafless plant jutted up out of the snow. By next year, the path would be completely overgrown, and no one would know that the house in the woods was even there.
After a ten-minute walk, she came to the house. It loomed up at her, casting shadows in the grey gloom of the early morning. The snow was broken in more places here, and a neat stack of the dead let her know that someone had been living there. She smiled then, knowing that Mort was still alive.
Katie climbed the steps that led up to the house. She couldn't see inside. Mort had blocked off the square windows of the front door by nailing wood over them. She reached out to turn the handle and found it locked. The handle didn't turn. She stood there, her brain going over possible courses of action. She could wait in the cold, but who knew if he was ever going to return? What if today was the day that he had decided to set out on his own? She could break into the house. She discarded that plan too, as she simply didn't have the energy to do it, and the noise might bring any of the random dead to her location, though judging by the stack of bodies in front of the house, that wasn't as much of a concern as it once was.
In the end, she decided to write a simple note in the snow. With the tip of her rifle, she found a clean patch of snow and wrote, "Still alive. Katie and Joan." She stood there, trying to imagine what Mort would see when he stumbled upon the words. She worried that it wouldn't be enough, so she scrawled the word "compound" in the snow, so he would know where they were.
With her work done, she shouldered her rifle and walked back the way she had come. She mentally crossed her fingers and hoped that none of the dead would come along and walk through her message.
****
As Katie was returning home, prepping herself to cross the treacherous ledge one more time, Mort was kicking in the door of a house. He had watched the house for some time, listening to see if there were any signs of life.
So far, he had cleared two homes on his side of the washout. This house was the third. They were vacation homes, empty, abandoned. Inside the previous two homes, he had found precious little that would help him. He had been living off condiments and preserves for the greater part of a month. It had gotten to the point where he had even taken a shot at a chipmunk. He had even hit it. Unfortunately, the rifle he had used obliterated the damn thing, and on top of that, he had become surrounded by the dead in his house.
In his weakened state, it had taken him a few days to kill them off. He was still recovering from the day he and Katie had assaulted the compound. His knees, his hips, his shoulders, they all felt like shit when he woke up. He was a ball of stiff pain every morning, and he spent the better part of each morning trying to stretch out his aching joints.
It took him two weeks to go through all of the food that he and Katie had brought to the old lady's house. It took him another hungry week to recover from his wounds to the point that he could fight off the dead. By then, he had lost a lot of weight and had next to no strength, but he managed to scrounge enough food to stay alive by walking upriver and picking through the bloody remains of campsites. When the snows came, and the inside of the house had become unbearably cold, he knew he couldn't continue without finding more food, so he had explored all of the little roads that branched off the main road.
The first house he broke into was the closest, about a half-mile down the lane. It was a standard-issue cabin, still fancier than anyplace Mort had ever lived. He had kicked down the door, looking over his shoulder with each boot stomp, waiting to hear the sounds of the dead clomping through the snow. On the tenth kick, the door swung inward, slamming against the wall, and he limped inside, shining his flashlight frantically into every corner.
He eyed the mounted elk head on the wall with some suspicion, but there were no signs of life–– or death for that matter. He eyed a few magazines on the coffee table, but he wasn't much of a reader, so he left them alone. In the back half of the cabin, he found a small kitchenette with a refrigerator and plenty of cabinet space. Out of habit, he avoided opening the refrigerator, though his own pluming breath let him know that whatever was inside was probably cold enough to be tolerable. He went through the cupboards first and found nothing but dishes and an old canister of oatmeal. He bagged the oatmeal and then began rifling through the drawers, where he found the real haul, a drawer full of condiment packets, ketchup, mustard, and a ton of hot sauce packets from Taco Bell. Each packet was food. Each packet contained enough energy to keep him going for a while longer, so he threw them all into his bag as well. Before he left, the last thing he did was look in the fridge.
With a hand over his face to hide the smell, he threw the door open and then shined his flashlight into its interior, only to find empty shelves and an open box of Arm and Hammer baking soda. With his work done and his bag slightly heavier, he returned home and spent the evening eating a small amount of oatmeal covered in condiments. He rather liked the combination of Taco Bell mild sauce and oatmeal. It had a solid flavor, and Mort had eaten worse in his life.
He continued like this for several days, slowly gaining some of his strength back. He felt strong enough to continue down the road and see what the next house offered. The next house was a mile down the road. It was set back away from the river on top of a hill. His climb to the top of the hill made his knees and hips ache, but he forged on, fueled by the power of oatmeal and Taco Bell sauce.
The house at the top of the knoll was a single-level affair. It was in decent shape, and he had the feeling that someone might actually live there. It didn't have the dilapidated, abandoned feel of the first cabin. He climbed the porch and knocked on the door. He waited patiently, shivering in the cold as bits of snow as fine as sand fell from the sky. He knocked again, and then again. Then he called, "I'm coming in! If you don't want me to break down this door, you'd better say something."
Only the sound of infinitesimal snowflakes falling upon the ground greeted him, so he began beating down the door. He hadn't seen the dead for quite some time, so he was quite surprised when he heard the crunch of snow behind him. He turned and found a grey-faced creature, stumbling towards him. He noted the trail behind it; it had been following him for some time it appeared. Had it followed his tracks in the snow? If so, that would be a very bad thing. He also didn't like the idea of the dead thinking… that's the last thing he needed.
He stood on the porch, gripping his hammer tight and then relaxing his grip. He was trying to get the blood flowing in his freezing arm. As the dead thing came near him, it reached out, its fingers clawing at his face. He swung with all of his might, and the hammer caved in the front of the creature's forehead. It fell backward in the snow, and blood, thick like maple syrup, oozed out of the wound.
He stood looking at the corpse, as he always did when afforded the time. The creature had been a woman once, with long red hair. Her eyes were fair, gray or blue; he couldn't tell with the dead as their eyes clouded over. She wore a shirt that was fit for the summer, and blue arms stuck out of the sleeves. Some of the flesh was missing from her arms. She certainly hadn't died in her sleep.
Sure that she was dead, he turned back around and gave the door one final kick. It burst open, slamming against the wall behind it, and he stood at the entrance, shining his flashlight inside and waving his hammer menacingly. Gray light streamed through the windows, but there were still plenty of shadows inside the house. He saw an open living room space. A thin layer of dust covered the hardwood floors.
"Hello?" he called. Nothing.
He stepped inside and moved through the house. He turned the doorknobs and opened the doors quickly, his hammer cocked and ready, his rifle slung over his back. He found no one, and he didn't know whether he was happy or sad. Mort had been alone for months with no one to talk to. He knew he was changing. He felt like the sand in an hourglass, his sense of self slowly dripping through a tiny opening. He knew what would happen when all of the sand reached the bottom. He would kill himself.
Mort went through the motions in the kitchen, tossing the cupboards and drawers and finding nothing but silverware and a guide that filled in guests on what the wi-fi password was and how to operate the hot tub out back. He was desperate, so he looked in the fridge again. A half-full bottle of Sunny Delight glowed a deep orange in the beam of his flashlight. It had vitamins in it. He could use some vitamins. But he didn't want to get sick, so he left the bottle alone. His feet dragged him into the spacious living room, and he collapsed on the couch. He covered his face to hide the tears in his eyes, and he sobbed for a while, the wind whistling through the broken front door and stirring the dust around the empty house.
Sometime later, as the sky darkened, he rose from the couch and returned to his home base to dine on another bowl of oatmeal. He tried the diablo sauce this time. It wasn't as hot as he had expected it to be. He wanted the sauce to burn, to make his body leak snot and sweat, to make him feel alive for a second. When he was done, he laid the bowl on the floor, leaned back on the couch, and went to sleep. As he dozed off, one final thought ran through his head before oblivion took him. What good is being alive if no one knows it? He had an answer for the question, but he didn't say it, not even to himself.
A few days later, as the sky seemed grayer than ever and his own voice stopped being company enough, he hiked farther down the road to a third house. Two stories of unexplored darkness loomed before him. He knocked on the door, knowing there would be no response, at least not from the living. If anyone had been home, he would have seen smoke. It was too cold to not have a fire, even inside a house.
He swallowed the saliva in his mouth as he imagined cans full of preserves, soups, and chili waiting for him inside. His stomach grumbled, and he shook with the hope that he knew he shouldn't allow into his body. But it was there whether he wanted it or not. He kicked the door open. The jamb splintered, and the sound of the door slamming into the wall echoed in the cold
air.
"Hello?" he called. "Is anybody there?" He hadn't even pulled his hammer this time. It still hung from the belt loop of his pants. If one of the dead appeared, he wasn't even sure that he would pull the damn thing then. Mort staggered inside with short jerky steps. He headed first to the kitchen. He threw open the cupboard doors. Each empty cupboard was like a punch to the gut. After the third cupboard, piled high with dishes that hadn't seen use in months, maybe years, all feelings of hope fled from his body. He leaned on the counter, his head down. With his eyes squeezed shut, he threw open the door of the refrigerator. When he had composed himself, he opened his eyes and looked inside. An old pack of hot dogs sat on the wire rack, next to the remains of a moldy block of cheese. He swore at the owners of the house. Why even leave anything at all? Out of duty, he checked the other rooms in the house.
He found the owner in the back bedroom. He was an elderly man, at least, that's what he thought judging by the wrinkled hands. There was no head left to judge by. The upper half of the man's torso reclined on the bed. His feet, still clad in boots, rested on the floor. A dark stain covered the ceiling, and a shotgun rested on the floor. More blood covered the man's bedspread. Mort knelt down and picked up the shotgun, frustrated.
He didn't need more guns. He needed food, but more than that, he needed someone to talk to. Mort checked the shotgun to see if it was still loaded. Then he propped the stock of the shotgun on the ground. He looked at the remains of the old man, and he tried to figure out who he was. He tried to fill in the man's background, his personality. He jumped at his own voice as he began to talk.
