Vagrant Youth

by Eleanor Merry

  Even after Abby finished her story, Tara found herself shaking her head, unable to process everything. Zombies? And Ike was one of them? What would happen if Joshua became a zombie too?

  “I... I don’t even know what to say.” Tara finally responded. Abby gave a small morbid laugh. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  They sat there in silence as Abby let her friend digest all the information. She wanted to ask how Joshua was doing, and check on Ike, but needed Tara’s support in whatever happened next. She waited patiently as Tara sat with her head between her knees.

  Finally, she lifted her head and looked straight into Abby’s eyes.

  “Joshua’s gonna die.” she stated simply.

  Abby nodded sadly. “Yeah, hon. I think so.”

  “But he could come back like Ike?”

  “He has about a one in three chance. But David didn’t know anything about any talking ones either, so I really don’t know.”

  Tara took a deep breath, channeling her inner strength before standing and holding out a hand to Abby. The girls clung to each other as they made their way down the hall to say their goodbyes to Joshua. Abby stared at the door to Ike’s room as they passed, eager to check on her friend. Despite how much she wanted to, she knew right now she needed to focus on Joshua and making him as comfortable as possible.

  ✽✽✽

  Neither of the girls slept, and by afternoon, both were in a near zombie-state themselves. Taking turns, they filled buckets with cold water from the stream, taking extra care when going outside. They held Joshua, doing their best to keep him cool as he lay in the throes of the high fever brought on by the virus. He was mostly either asleep or delirious and had lost all control of his body. All of them were covered in blood, spit, vomit and excrement, only partially washed off by the water also covering the room.

  Abby knew she at least needed to check on Ike and get him some water. Tara was grateful for one more moment alone with Joshua.

  Going to their makeshift kitchen, Abby looked around to see what she could feed Ike. She had been thinking a lot about what David told her. Knowing Ike looked like the others who were hell-bent on catching her, most likely to tear her limb from limb, she now believed that there were in fact zombies. For whatever reason though, Ike remembered her. She saw that spark in his eyes and was determined to find more remnants of the “real” Ike she hoped was still in there. She eventually settled on a can of tuna, one of the old Ike’s favorites, and a water bottle before making her way towards his room.

  With her ear to the door she waited to see if she could hear him. After a moment, she gently unlocked the door and opened it. Inside, Ike stood beside the window staring towards the door with a sad and confused look on his face.

  “Hey, Ike,” she said carefully, shutting the door behind her. “Remember me?” Abby tried not to jump as he started shuffling his way towards her. Standing her ground, she waited as he approached.

  “A-bby?” he asked as he stopped in front of her. Her grin in response was brilliant. Disregarding the small hesitation she felt, she threw her arms around his neck, “Oh thank fuck, man! You scared the shit out of me.” He pulled back and frowned down at her.

  “W-whhat happened?” he asked shakily, as though not sure of the words. Looking up at her friend, with his foreign pale blue eyes, Abby didn’t know what to say.

  You’re a zombie now. You died for like, five minutes and then attacked our friends.

  “Well,” she began, “what is the last thing you remember?” Ike scrunched up his face, a familiar expression that made her smile.

  “I...I…” he stuttered as he tried to get the words out. Seeing his struggles, Abby reached out for his hand and sat him on the mattress, staying silent in patience.

  “I… sick.” He finally got out. She nodded.

  “I... different.” He continued. Abby nodded again with slightly more trepidation. She watched Ike’s face go through ranges of expressions, most of them in the realm somewhere between confusion and frustration. Finally, his eyes widened.

  “Abby… I… die?”

  She paled a bit as she squeezed his hand. “Yeah, man, for a bit there you did. But your heart started beatin’ again.” Abby looked at him for a moment, his pale skin glowing in the dim lighting. “How do you feel?”

  Ike seemed to contemplate this for a moment, looking down at his arms and the wrecked shirt he was wearing. Abby had cleaned him up a little before, but he was still in the clothes he died in. After a few moments he looked up at her, his eyes burning brightly.

  “Hungry.”

  Chapter 8

  Tara sobbed as she held Joshua. His chest rattled with every breath, and his body shook and shuddered. Her heart felt as though it were breaking, and she couldn’t bear to see him like this another second. Her body wanted to run as far and as fast as it could, but her love for him rose above the pain she felt.

  She recalled the night, eight months before the FIRE Virus, when her and Joshua had ‘hooked up’ for the first time. They had both been drinking, something they rarely did, and one thing led to another. They both had so much pain in their pasts and found solace in each other’s arms. After that, they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off one another.

  Although they had kept it hidden from the rest of the group, what was once a passing passion had turned into something more than that. They were both only seventeen, but both had been each other’s only bright light in otherwise sordid and horrific histories.

  Tara was so caught up in her memories of Joshua and their history together, it took her a moment to realize the shuddering and rattling of his lungs had stopped. Her eyes grew wide, but she hesitated before looking down, not wanting to confirm the inevitable reality.

  “NOOO!” she cried, her voice breaking as she squeezed Joshua’s still warm body tightly against her own. Tears poured down her face and into his hair as she clung to him, frantic to hold onto the last vestibules of life.

  From down the hall Abby heard Tara’s cry and immediately knew what had happened. Ike looked around with a quizzical expression, trying to determine where the sound was coming from.

  “Wait here,” she told him firmly as she ran down the hall to see Tara.

  Entering the spare room, which she now firmly associated with death, she looked over at her friend sobbing into Joshua’s corpse. Although they knew it was coming, it didn’t make the loss any less painful. Abby walked over and held out her arms for Tara, who immediately plunged into them. Patting her back, Abby whispered platitudes in her ear that she knew Tara wasn’t really hearing.

  And then there were two…she thought. Well… three, I guess. What are we going to do now?

  Abby swallowed down her own pain, her brain already switching from mourning to survival mode. She knew that dwelling on emotion, rather than practicality, was a quick way to get hurt or killed. She continued to absently rub Tara’s back as different ideas ran through her head.

  After five minutes, she pulled away and looked into Tara’s watery, bloodshot eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” Abby whispered to her. “If he was like Ike, he would be up by now. I’m so sorry, hunny.” Tara sniffled and looked over at her deceased lover, willing him to get up. After a moment her shoulders slumped, and she turned back to Abby.

  The girls sat in silence as they let the gravity of their situation wash over them.

  “How’s Ike?” Tara finally asked to distract herself. Abby hesitated a moment. “He’s… I don’t know, really. Okay, I think, but he doesn’t remember much.”

  “Well maybe...” before Tara could finish her sentence, a growl picked up behind them. Both girls shot around to see Joshua sitting up looking at them with a sinister expression on his face. His eyes and skin had paled, like Ike, and blood and vomit still covered his chin and chest. Baring his teeth, he glared with pale blue eyes as he tried to work his uncooperative limbs.

  “Josh…” Tara began as she reached her hand out towards him as she had seen Ab
by do. He quickly snapped his teeth at her outstretched fingers making both girls jump back, unfortunately, into the corner of the room. Frozen in place, they looked on in horror as he rose, never taking his eyes off them. Spittle dripped from his mouth as he gnashed his teeth at them. With shaking limbs, he finally managed to get off of the bed.

  Abby looked around, frantic to find any sort of weapon or something to defend themselves but found only an empty aluminum bucket. Grabbing it, she held it over her head, standing protectively in front of Tara.

  Joshua lurched forward, eliciting a scream from Abby as she swung the bucket at him, pushing Tara back at the same time. Tears ran down her face as she watched their friend move towards them once more.

  “Joshua, please it’s us,” Tara sobbed as her former lover made to attack them once more. His eyes showed nothing of the boy she once knew.

  A roar from behind them turned Joshua around. Ike shambled forward and tackled him, having heard Abby’s scream. The two infected boys struggled and chomped at one another as they rolled around on the floor. The girls watched with eyes wide, slowly creeping around the edge of the room towards the door.

  Joshua managed to get his teeth around Ike’s arm, his jaws tearing through the skin, eliciting a loud roar from the latter. With renewed fury, Ike grabbed Joshua’s head in both hands, blood dripping down the bite on his arm. He slammed the boy’s head into the hardwood floor once, twice, three times. And then Joshua stopped moving. Blood poured from under his head and his eyes stayed fixed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling.

  His chest heaving, Ike rose and turned to the girls. Abby watched him guardedly as Tara fell to her knees beside Joshua. Abby couldn’t take her eyes off of Ike, standing there with blood coating his hands as he stared straight back into her eyes. For a moment, fear gripped her, but as she looked into his eyes, she saw a familiar protective gaze. Tara continued to cry as Abby walked up to Ike, stopping only a few feet in front of him.

  “You saved us, Ike,” she whispered as she looked into his pale eyes.

  At this, Ike’s entire body seemed to deflate, the anger leaving his expression as he slid down against the wall and stared into his own hands.

  “What… am I?”

  ✽✽✽

  Abby dug one final grave that night, this time by herself. Ike had offered to help, but she declined, and Tara hadn’t said a word since it happened. Truthfully, Abby was grateful for the solitude. As she threw the last of the dirt down, she fell to her knees and finally let herself truly mourn for all those they had lost. Last time she sat like this, only days ago, it was with Joshua. Tears burned behind her eyes.

  Living like they did, death was a very real threat almost daily. They had all had friends who had died too young by various means, whether drug overdose, fights or exposure to the elements. This was too close to home though.

  The group had been together, unchanging, for almost a year. Abby couldn’t imagine what life would look like now in the wake of FIRE, and the thought of doing it without most of her family was devastating.

  After a while, Abby finally wiped the tears from her face and went back inside. It was time to figure out what was going on with Ike, and what they would do next.

  ✽✽✽

  Tara mostly stayed by herself in the coming days, watching out the window at the hints of chaos outside. Abby, however, spent much of it with Ike trying to help him remember again. Although it was slow, his words were slowly improving, and a few small memories seemed to be coming back to him.

  It didn't take them long to discover another change in Ike, and that was a ravenous desire for protein. In his broken words, he had admitted to Abby that the smell of her and Tara called to him and stimulated the same type of anger and hunger he felt when he first woke up. The more he recalled, the better he was able to control his urges and by the third day, Abby felt confident leaving his door unlocked. He tended to keep away from Tara regardless, sensing her unease in his presence. The household had an uneasy vibe that didn’t sit well with any of them.

  The only benefit to their small family dwindling, morbid as it was, was that they now had more food and supplies. Neither Tara nor Abby had gotten sick, despite having been intimately familiar with the virus. Once it was discovered that Ike could only really eat protein, they put aside all the tuna and other things they had. It wasn’t much, and Abby knew it wouldn’t last them more than another week even if they rationed.

  It had been almost five days since Joshua had died and outside it was apparent the situation was worsening. In addition to the not far-off sounds of screams and guns, there were now several corpses within sight of the house. None were in good shape any longer.

  “Tara,” Abby said lightly as she approached the girl who was once again staring out the window below. Abby could see there was a lone infected man on the other side of the street, shambling along. After a moment, Tara turned to Abby,

  “Yes.”

  It wasn’t a question. She knew Abby was going to ask her if she was ready to go out, ready to leave the abandoned house they had called home. To leave a home of memories of Joshua, Benny, and Olive.

  Abby could see the hurt in her friend’s eyes but also, a small fire still burning inside. She smiled a bit, glad to see her friend’s fury remained. They were going to need it.

  ✽✽✽

  “So you really want to leave?” Tara asked.

  Abby nodded. “We don’t have enough food left even if there are only three of us, and we all know shit’s getting worse outside. We’re way too close to the city, anyway. We can head to Horseshoe bay. I say we find a boat and head to an island, or even up the coast.”

  Ike listened and watched Abby but didn’t say anything. He would go where she went. Tara paced their living room, running her hands through her greasy red hair. Eventually, she sat down with them and looked Abby straight in the eye.

  “We need weapons.”

  Abby grinned. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  Chapter 9

  The kids lived in a pretty shady neighborhood but were so well-known to the locals that they didn’t, typically, have too much unwanted trouble. There were a few gangs and pimps nearby, but they never bothered them. Even though some of their group would be considered old enough to recruit, most people on the streets knew Abby and Ike took care of the younger ones, and they respected them for it. The problem with that now was that they only had the one baseball bat and nothing else they could use to defend themselves with. They simply hadn’t needed it before.

  Abby recalled a drug dealer who lived just down the street, Rock. He was huge and with his full sleeves of tattoos and slicked back hair, he looked every bit the part. Despite the roughness to him though, he was one of those who appreciated what Abby was doing. He was once a kid like them until he got into ‘the game’ and thought ‘the little brown girl had balls’ for doing what she did. Though he didn’t give her or the kids any problems, Abby knew him and his crew had plenty of guns and other weapons. If they could get over there stealthily, she was sure she could convince the gruff man to help them—if he wasn’t dead…Or worse, a zombie.

  Tara also knew Rock and agreed Abby’s plan was solid. The docks they wanted to go to weren’t too far, but far enough to be a concern. They had no intention of running into anyone they considered as being less than desirable, zombie or otherwise, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. They both also knew that despite their shabby clothes and appearances, two young girls in a situation like this did not go running around an infected city without a plan.

  Ike couldn’t recall Rock or much of the neighborhood. He would listen as Abby, and eventually Tara, filled him in on much of their past. They glossed over the deaths of the rest of the kids, knowing that Ike still felt guilt at what happened with Joshua. Ike asked if there had been a young boy with them at some point, a vague memory he had. Reluctantly, Abby told him what had happened to young Benny.

  Ike seemed to mostly dwell on Joshua’s de
ath though. At the time he had been filled with such rage at the thought of someone hurting Abby, but looking down at his bloody hands afterwards, he knew what he had felt wasn’t normal. The look of horror in the girls’ eyes had solidified his guilt. Even now, he could see the accusation in Tara’s eyes.

  The trio cleaned up as best as they could and layered on clothes. They filled their backpacks with the last bit of food, blankets, lighters, a map, a compass and a few handfuls of pads and tampons. When Ike had asked what the last items were for, Abby only smirked and told him ‘girl stuff.’”

  Armed with only the bat, they waited until nightfall and carefully crept out of the house. Rock and his crew lived across the street and six houses down. Crossing the street as quickly as they could, silently cursing Ike’s slower movements, the three made their way down the block. As they passed the third house, they heard banging noises from inside, but didn’t stop to investigate.

  After what felt like way too long hiding behind bushes and garbage cans, they found themselves in front of Rock’s house. No noise came from inside and, as always, the windows were covered. Abby forced Ike and Tara to crouch behind the bushes at the bottom of the drug dealer’s steps. Gripping the bat, she firmly but quietly knocked. A moment later, she heard some shuffling and looked up at the peephole, wondering if anyone was looking through.

  “Rock,” she whispered loudly, “it’s Abby from down the street. Open up man.”

  “Abby, that you?” A familiar gravelly voice responded.

  “Yeah, open up!” she urged as her eyes darted around the street behind them. It was empty for now.

  The clicks of locks being disengaged could be heard, and Abby turned to give a thumbs-up to Ike and Tara. The door opened and a wave of chemicals, burning plastic and smoke washed over her. Rock stood in the doorway with bloodshot eyes and a gun in his hand. He apparently had a generator, as the lights were on. He glared and looked Abby up and down.