by Bobby Adair
The front door was closed, so I stepped up to the porch and tried the knob. It refused to turn. Murphy stopped on the first step. Mandi stayed on the walkway.
I looked up and down the street, a developing habit.
I’m not sure why, but I rang the doorbell. It chimed inside.
Having chosen the path of good manners, I knocked on the door a moment later.
I waited but heard nothing from inside. I rang the doorbell again.
Murphy said, “That’s weird.”
“What?” I asked.
“The doorbell,” he said.
“Yeah?” I asked, not getting the point.
“They still have electricity,” he said. “You’d think the fire would have burned the lines or something.”
I felt a little stupid because that thought hadn’t occurred to me. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. What do you say we go around back and see if the back door is open?
Murphy looked the door up and down. “I can kick it in.”
“Let’s not.” I turned to step off the porch.
“Why?” he asked. “Nobody’s around to hear.”
“I don’t know where we’re going to end up in the long run,” I said, “but I’m starting to think that if we have a list of places like this one, with front doors that lock, they might come in handy one day.”
Murphy wasn’t convinced. “If you say so.”
“We might never come back here,” I admitted. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to start making better decisions. Let’s check around back.”
Murphy turned to Mandi. “C’mon, we’re goin’ ‘round back.”
Murphy and Mandi filed off toward the side of the house and I followed. We crossed the carport and skirted a large oily spot in its center. Murphy and Mandi walked through a gap in a hedge and disappeared beside the house.
A storage room at the back of the carport caught my curiosity and I called to them, “I’m going to check to see if there’s anything useful in here.”
“Okay,” Murphy’s answer carried back through the leaves.
In a nice surprise, the storeroom door was not locked. I cautiously pulled it open and softly said, “Hello?”
Nothing. No sound at all.
I waited a few seconds and peeked in. It smelled of oil, gasoline, potting soil, and dry grass. It was small, but well organized. A lawn mower sat on the floor. A few rakes, shovels, a hedge trimmer, and a tree branch cutter hung on the wall. Beside those tools hung a sledgehammer, an axe, and a machete. “Well how about that?”
Bags of fertilizer were stacked on the floor. My first thought was that those were useless. Then I wondered about the recipe for constructing a bomb with fertilizer and diesel fuel. I had no need of such a bomb at the moment, but the world had turned into a very violent place. Who knew what might prove useful in the future? I made a mental note.
Two gas cans sat on the floor beside the lawn mower, one full, one empty. Another mental note.
I slipped the sheathed machete into my belt. I grabbed the hatchet. The machete was a keeper, but Murphy might appreciate the hatchet.
I closed the door behind me as I stepped out, cautiously looking around as I did. Slow, smart, and safe was better than fast, dumb, and dead.
I walked through the gap in the hedge and into a shadowy tunnel under the thick foliage of overhanging trees. Mosquitoes, hungry for a snack, swarmed out of their hiding places and buzzed in my ears.
The gate to the chain-link fence hung open and I hurried through without a sound.
Once in the backyard, I saw a long row of charred yards bordered by burned-out houses and separated by a chain-link fence. Several backyard widths away, the fence was pushed flat against the ground by the weight of hundreds of immolated bodies caught by the flames in an apparent attempt to escape. Their piled corpses smoldered and stank.
Sobbing caught my attention. I looked to my left.
Mandi sat on the back porch on a piece of lawn furniture with her face in her hands, crying softly. One of Murphy’s big hands rested on her shoulder, comforting again. When he saw me, he shrugged, but said nothing.
I walked up beside them. I wasn’t the nurturing type so no words found their way to my lips. I laid the hatchet on the table and said to Murphy, “If you want it.”
Murphy nodded. I saw approval in his eyes.
I went over and checked the back door. The knob turned and the door swung open.
I didn’t expect anyone or anything to be inside, but I drew my pistol as a matter of course and went in. The house was warm and dimly lit. The curtains were all pulled closed. I sniffed the air. I smelled nothing dead.
Everything was tidy. Pictures hung on the wall. Desiccated houseplants sat on shelves. The furniture was sparse, but well-organized. The kitchen counters were clean. No dirty dishes were piled in the sink.
I thought about my apartment and hoped that no survivor found their way in. I hadn’t cleaned in weeks. The mess was embarrassing.
I went down the short hallway off of the living room and checked the first door on the left, a bathroom. No one was inside.
Across the hall, a door hung, nearly closed. I pushed it open with the toe of my boot, holding my pistol out in front of me just like the police and soldiers I’d seen in a thousand movies.
A bedroom. Empty.
Before heading up the stairs, I took a moment to listen to the sounds in the house. I heard no creaking from the floor above. I heard no human noises.
I took my time climbing the stairs, opting for silence over speed again.
An eight-foot wide rectangular landing at the top of the stairs provided access to three doors, two open, one closed.
One open door led into a small, vacant bathroom.
I stepped across the landing for a view into a room used as an office. It was orderly, with a tidy desk. I spied a phone charger I thought might work on my phone. I took a moment to pull the cord from the wall and pocket it. The closet held nothing of concern: a file cabinet and storage boxes.
Out of the room and back across the landing, the last door was ajar, just like the bedroom door downstairs. I nudged it gently with my elbow and it swung open.
I was startled by the sight of a man sat on the edge of a bed, straight back, feet flat on the floor, palms on his thighs, staring through partially open blinds at the mound of corpses in the distance.
I pointed the gun and braced myself to pull the trigger.
“Hey,” I said.
No response. No movement.
Could he be dead in that position?
“Hey.”
Not the slightest move.
What the fuck?
I edged my way into the room, careful to keep myself positioned with my pistol pointed at his chest.
The man’s skin was pale like mine. He was infected.
My finger rested on the trigger of my pistol and I wrestled with the choice of whether to shoot.
He’s infected. He’s a threat.
But he was just sitting there. Was he a monster? Was he like me? Or was he something else?
As I came around to his side, I saw that his eyes were open. Tears left shiny tracks down the coarse skin of his cheeks. His middle-aged face was frozen sadness. I saw his chest move ever so slightly in and out. He was alive.
“Hey, man,” I said.
Still, he did not respond.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to touch him. Mostly I didn’t want to put myself within arm’s reach of an infected man without Murphy’s gun there to back me up.
After several long minutes of indecision, I inched my way out of the room and quietly pulled the door shut behind me.
I stepped quickly down the stairs to the living room and got to the bottom just as Murphy and Mandi were coming in the back door.
Murphy’s smile flashed instantly to worry when he saw me. “What?”
“There’s an infected guy upstairs,” I answered.
Murphy’s M4 was up in an instant.
; “I don’t know what his deal is,” I said. “He might be a slow burn like us, but I think he’s catatonic.”
“Catatonic?” Mandi asked.
I pointed toward the room upstairs. “He’s just sitting there, staring out the window. He wouldn’t answer when I talked to him. He wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t move. His skin was pale, so I know he’s infected, but he didn’t react to me at all.”
“That’s weird,” said Murphy. “What are you thinking we should do?”
“Honestly,” I admitted, “I almost shot him.”
Murphy said, “You almost shot him just because he was infected.”
I nodded.
Murphy went on, “Even though he wasn’t a danger.”
“I don’t know if he is or not,” I told him, feeling a little bit defensive.
“But he just sat there?” Murphy confirmed.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Uh, huh.” Murphy stared me down. “You know where I’m going with this, right?”
“The irony of it isn’t lost on me.” I huffed. “I don’t know what we should do about him, but I do know one thing.”
“And that is?” Murphy asked.
“You were right,” I answered.
“About?”
I hesitated. He was going to force the admission.
“C’mon, Zed. You can say it.”
I huffed and rattled, “You and me are infected. The uninfected will always fear us. To them, we’ll always be monsters.“
Murphy nodded.
I said, “I’m really starting to hate this fuckin’ world.”
“So what do you want to do with him?” Murphy asked.
“I’m not going to shoot him,” I said. “I guess we could get some food and water, get out of here, and just leave him alone. I don’t know.”
Mandi was incensed. “We can’t just leave him.”
“Mandi,” I said, “we don’t know anything about this guy. We don’t know if he’s dangerous, or what. Maybe he’s just sitting there until he gets hungry again, and then he’ll have one of us for lunch.”
Murphy added, “He might. These infected act pretty weird. Who knows what he’s up to.”
Mandi shook her head. “Or maybe he’s just like you guys.”
“Maybe something like us, but not just like us,” I admitted. “There’s something really wrong with this guy though.”
“What do you want to do, then?” Murphy asked me.
Mandi started toward the stairs. “If you guys can’t figure out what to do, I’ll go upstairs and see what’s wrong with him.”
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I raised a hand to stop her and said, “That big heart of yours is going to get you killed if you’re not careful. You can’t just run around acting like you acted last week. Things are different now.” I waited for her full attention. “There’s no telling what he’ll do when he sees an uninfected person come in.”
“Well, we can’t just do nothing,” she snapped.
“Yes we can.” Murphy nodded emphatically.
Mandi glared at me.
“Shit. Fine,” I said. “Murphy, you come up and keep your gun on the guy. I’ll go in and try a little harder to get his attention. But if he jumps at me or tries to bite me, shoot him. I don’t need any more God damned bites.”
Relieved, Mandi said, “Good.”
“One condition,” I said, turning to Mandi. “You’re staying down here.”
Mandi didn’t like that one bit. “You’re not my dad, Zed. You can’t just boss me around.”
Murphy grinned and giggled.
“Mandi,” I took a deep breath, “I’m not trying to be your dad. I’m just…Look, you just came out of that bunker, and you lived through that, so I know you’re tough, but when you saw all those bodies piled and burned out back, you fell apart and cried.”
Mandi threw her hands on her hips and stepped up in front of me. “That doesn’t make me fragile.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” I told her. “If we have to shoot this guy down, don’t you have enough gruesome images in your head? Do you really need one more right now? Look, you do whatever you want. Just don’t get in our way. Like I said, I don’t want any more of those fuckers biting me.” I turned and headed up the stairs, making no effort to be quiet.
Murphy clomped up after. Mandi’s tiny feet came up last.
I swung the bedroom door open and stepped in. Murphy took a position in the doorway with his M4 pointed at the guy’s back. Mandi peeked around Murphy.
I shuffled around the bed in the narrow gap between the mattress and the wall. The guy hadn’t moved a bit. He just stared at the pile of charred bodies spread across his neighbors’ back yards. I wondered if his friends, wife, or child might be among the dead. I wondered whether the mental stress was too much for his brain to handle, or whether in despair, he had just given up, just shut down.
“Hey,” I said as I stood just beyond arm’s reach.
Of course, no response.
Nothing ever just fucking works out by itself anymore.
I looked over at Murphy to ensure myself that his gun was pointed in the right place.
The Ogre and the Harpy.
I pulled my pistol down to my hip but kept it pointed at the man, gunslinger style. I knew my aim would be terrible shooting from the hip, but at a distance of a few feet, I doubted I could miss.
I stepped closer and reached out with my other hand and touched the man on the shoulder. “Hey.”
He very deliberately turned his middle-aged face toward me, but the eyes that blinked at his tears were those of a child.
“Man, are you okay?” I asked.
He blinked twice more, but said nothing.
“Do you understand me?” I asked.
The man’s facial expression changed slowly. He was confused, but after a moment, he nodded.
I glanced over at Murphy. He shook his head and shrugged. Mandi looked anxious, but clearly happy that we weren’t shooting.
Yet.
I looked back down at the guy. “Can you speak?”
The guy just looked back at me.
“Is this your house?” I asked.
Another blank stare.
“Are you able to move?” I asked. “Can you stand?”
The guy furrowed his brow in concentration. He nodded.
Frustrating.
I asked him, “Will you stand?”
Slowly, the man stood up beside the bed and faced me.
I tried another. “Can you walk?”
Another nod.
I pointed toward the door. “Why don’t you follow me into the kitchen?”
I backpedaled in the narrow space between the bed and the wall until I was out of the room, keeping my eye on the guy and keeping my pistol pointed at him.
“Murphy,” I warned, “once he sees Mandi, be ready.”
Mandi asked, “Why?”
I glanced at her. “Because you’re not infected.”
“Oh.” She understood, finally.
Once we got downstairs to the living room, I looked over at Mandi. “Would you check around and see if you can find a thermometer, please?”
I brought the guy into the kitchen and asked him to sit down, which he did. He was certainly compliant.
“What do you think, Murphy?”
“I don’t know man.” He took a long look at the guy. “I think his brain is fried or he’s gone off the deep end. I’m surprised he’s not dead already. Man, what do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said as something occurred to me. “I’m wondering about something Jerome told me.”
“Jerome the Liar?”
“Yeah, Jerome the Liar.” That seemed a little harsh thought it was completely true. “He said not all of us Slow Burns end up at the same temperature and that the higher your temperature, the lower your brain functions. Maybe this guy is high enough to be like this, but not quite high enough to be a monster.”<
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Murphy reiterated his point. “Based on what Jerome said, right?”
“Look,” I said, letting a little of my irritation show, “I don’t know if everything Jerome said was bullshit or not.”
Murphy shook his head and stepped back a bit, “But you do know everything he knew about the disease, he learned on the internet, right?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t necessarily make it untrue,” I argued.
Murphy said, “When you have a liar tell you something he learned on the world’s biggest repository of lies, I don’t know how probability works, but I think whatever probabilistic equation explains that situation will tell you that he was probably full of shit.”
“What?”
“You know,” said Murphy, “x plus y times q squared equals turd.” He laughed loudly.
Mandi came into the kitchen. “I found this thermometer in the medicine cabinet. It’s one of those ones that you just shine in your ear and it reads out the temperature digitally.”
“Perfect.” I reached out to take the thermometer but when she Mandi raised her hand she pointed at something else she was holding.
She said, “I also found this.”
Murphy asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s his badge,” Mandi told him. “He worked at the highway department. His name is Russell Coronado.”
“Russell Coronado,” I repeated.
Mandi handed me the thermometer and I holstered my pistol. Russell was seeming less and less like a danger, but I didn’t know what to think of him. I got in front of him and said, “Russell, I’m going to check your temperature. Is that okay?”
Russell just looked at me.
Whatever.
I put the thermometer to his ear and clicked the trigger. Russell didn’t react.
I read the thermometer’s display out loud. “One-oh-two point three.”
“That’s high,” said Mandi.
“For a normal person,” I said. “Here, Murphy. Check Mandi.”
Mandi came in at 98.6, exactly normal. My temperature was 99.4 and Murphy was 99.9.
For Mandi’s benefit, I said, “This guy Jerome told us…”
Murphy interrupted, “Jerome the Liar.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Jerome the Liar…”
Mandi asked, “Who’s Jerome, again?”
“Jerome got Karma-lized,” Murphy busted out laughing.
