Vagrant Youth

by Eleanor Merry

  “You saved us, man! I couldn’t even tell they were coming for us. What happened?!”

  Ike swallowed deeply, ashamed to admit it. “You… smell.”

  Abby and Tara giggled a bit. “Yeah, you don’t smell so hot yourself, big guy. Comes with the territory.”

  “No, no,” Ike corrected, “You smell like…Food.”

  The girls stopped giggling and looked at each other and then at Ike. The sniffing sounds inside the church suddenly made infinitely more sense. They all stood around awkwardly for a moment before Abby ushered them onwards. They still had a bit more time until daybreak to find a place for the night, and without saying it, they all knew they wanted to get far away from the church.

  ✽✽✽

  Dawn began to break over the city. It was that time of night where the sky was just a shade lighter, the hint of the morning to come. Abby yawned widely as she stopped at the front of another alley.

  They had been creeping through the shadows of Vancouver all night, going down the quietest, darkest streets that they knew of. It seemed as though the city was taking a deep breath, holding in the chaos as long as possible before it released it in a wave. Much of the population had in fact done what they were told and stayed indoors, but with this came households full of dead, and undead. As they walked past houses and apartments, banging sounds and moans were common. Every so often they would see single or small groups of infected wandering the area, having died outside or having managed to get free of the houses that contained them.

  Abby looked back at her friends and even in the dim light could see the dark bags under Tara’s eyes. Ike seemed surprisingly alert, especially when she thought of how tired she and Tara were after such a long night.

  “We need to find a place to get some sleep soon, guys.” Tara nodded her head in agreement as she stifled her own yawn. Ike smiled at Abby, happy to do whatever the girl wanted.

  Abby thought for a moment about their current location.

  Should only take us a couple of hours tomorrow to get there after we hit the bridge. Tonight…

  “Come on,” Abby led them.

  ✽✽✽

  Up ahead, rows of decrepit warehouses filled their vision. Abby knew that while outwardly they looked like they would appeal to the homeless, they were generally not used by them. Places like this tended to be checked often by the cops and the broken windows and missing doors provided less than ideal protection from the elements. However, with the undesirable conditions also came the likelihood of not running into anyone else. While their direct interactions with the infected were limited, they knew by this point that non-infected people weren’t the most understanding when they saw Ike’s pale skin and awkward gait. Any people infected or not, were not ideal at this moment.

  Walking down the row, they looked for a spot to stay for the coming morning. Abby saw a silhouette of someone in the distance at the door of one of the buildings and made a point to stay in the shadows until they found what they needed. It didn’t take long for Tara and Abby to agree on a spot. It had an upper floor, and they managed to hole up in an office with a barricade in front of the door. They also made sure to choose a room that had a big window where they could access the roof or even jump to the ground if needed. Ike watched them with fascination, helping where asked.

  As the pink and orange hues took over the sky, the trio settled into their spots. They each had a can of food, with Ike taking the tuna.

  A few bird songs could be heard in the distance but other than that, there was silence between them, each lost in their own thoughts. After scraping the bottom of her can, Abby tried to offer to do first watch, but Ike insisted he do it.

  “I no sleeping now,” he told them.

  Abby’s body was exhausted, and she quickly agreed. Tara already snored softly on the other side of the room. It didn’t take long for Abby to drift off as well.

  Ike sat by the window, alternating between watching the girls sleep and keeping an eye outside. For hours the only thing he saw was a rumbling car that passed shortly after they arrived. It seemed to have an uninfected woman driving with infected passengers, but Ike wrote it off as being a trick of the light.

  His body felt buzzed, alive. His reactions, thoughts and limbs felt slow and useless, yet he didn’t feel tired at all. Sighing, he looked over at Abby’s dark brown skin, at Tara’s pale freckled skin and then at his own alabaster arm. He still didn’t understand what it meant when people called him ‘zombie.’ He knew he died and something changed, but he still felt like himself at his core, though he couldn’t explain it in those words. Whenever he heard the word ‘zombie’ though, it made him feel sad. That word in his mind was a negative thing, and he didn’t feel negative. He felt alive.

  ✽✽✽

  Abby woke up five hours later to a bright, but grey, sky. Yawning, she stretched her arms over her head and sat up, looking over towards Ike. He didn’t seem to notice she was awake, his eyes trained ahead on the buildings and streets below. Stealing a quick glance over at Tara, who was still fast asleep, Abby made her way over to him.

  “Hi,” she said simply as she wrapped her arms around herself, sitting beside him. He gave a small smile but didn’t respond.

  For several minutes they sat like this, lost in their own thoughts.

  “A-abby,” Ike finally began, “everyone hate me. Why you not?” Abby frowned at this question, affronted by the idea that she could ever hate her best friend.

  “Because I know who you are,” she told him, “and you are more than a virus and pale skin, okay? People… Well, you won’t remember much from before, but they didn’t like us much before anyway, and that was always okay because we had each other.” Ike thought about this for a second, straining to recall something, anything, from his life before the virus.

  “Why not like us before?” he asked, curious.

  “Well,” Abby shrugged a bit, “people aren’t really that great, Ike.” He stared at her, prompting her to continue. “We were a bunch of street kids. Weird street kids. People judged us before they knew us." She smiled a bit and held her arm out. “It’s funny, when I was a kid, I used to hate my brown skin. I don’t even remember people teasing me about it, but I knew most of the other kids were paler than me, and I wanted to be pretty and blonde and beautiful.” Abby paused as she caressed her arm.

  “There was one girl in my class, Kelly, and she was so beautiful. Long blonde hair, perfect skin, and white shiny teeth. It must have been grade two or three, and I always liked to watch her, was always jealous of her.” Abby paused and smiled wickedly at Ike, “Then I got older, and I realized that I was beautiful too. But I’ll always remember watching Kelly.”

  “But why they not like me before?” Ike asked hesitantly, unsure if he missed something.

  “Well, you were a gay hooker for one thing,” she teased, “and then you got in with my lot. You know, I was on the streets for a while before we met and when you came into my life, it was like I had a family again.” Abby held Ike’s hand and stared into his pale blue eyes.

  “People have always judged us, Ike. It never bothered us before, and we don’t need to let it bother us now. We have each other. You, me and Tara. Everyone else… Well they can suck my pretty brown balls.” Ike looked even more confused as he looked down his body, then at Abby’s.

  “B-but A-abby, you don’t have balls?” She burst out laughing, covering her mouth at the abrupt noise before falling to her side as she clutched her stomach. Tara shot up, wide awake from the outburst, and looked over before frowning at Abby.

  “What’s so funny? You woke me up.” She yawned. Abby continued laughing but managed to get out, “Ike is confused about where my balls are.”

  Tara smiled as she tried to hold in her own laugh. She stood up and walked over to them before grabbing her crotch.

  “This is where our big ol’ lady balls are, Ike, metaphorically speaking. But, man, let me tell you, Abby’s got the biggest.” She finally caught Abby’s eye
and couldn’t contain it anymore. The two girls howled, shushing each other as they continued to laugh, releasing days and weeks of built up tension. After a moment, Ike chuckled a bit too.

  “You girls weird, but I like you.”

  Abby smiled at the strange sense of normality washing over her. Such a familiar thing, the way they could still tease and laugh together.

  They would be all right.

  Chapter 12

  As darkness began to take over the light of the day, the three quietly prepared their bags, making sure their weapons were easily accessible. The moon was full and even with the light clouds they could see relatively well.

  Abby figured that at the pace they were going, slowly, they would reach the docks they were heading to by dawn. That is as long as nothing major held them up along the way. A few groups of infected seemed to be wandering back towards the warehouses, presumably to sleep. They stayed out of sight and weren’t bothered.

  A light drizzle fell from the sky, not dampening the smell of decay but rather adding an undertone of wet dog. While Ike didn’t seem affected by it, Tara and Abby both were doing their best to breathe through their mouths to avoid the foul smell.

  “I slept beside a garbage can for a month when I first went on the streets,” Tara told them, “and that ain’t got nothin’ on the nasty stench of this damn city.”

  Twenty minutes and a few blocks later, they were headed back in the direction they needed to go. Abby wondered what they would do when they got to the docks, if a boat would even be there for them to take, and decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. Growing up, she had learned how to sail and knew if there were any boats left, she would be able to figure them out. Considering how few people seemed to have managed to get out, she figured they had good chances.

  While they were making good time, the number of infected still roaming the streets was becoming more of a concern the farther into the city they got. Abby knew going through downtown and across the bridge wasn’t really the best idea, but it was the only way to get to the kind of boats they would need to escape with. Grateful for their weapons, they gripped them as they hid and watched small groups pass by.

  They had been stuck in one spot; unable to move without attracting attention, for a while when Abby thought she heard voices. Looking around, she could only see silhouette of a group of four infected just down the street, too far to be able to hear. She wondered again if there were any others like Ike, or if he was just a fluke. The small group finally passed, and she vaguely thought she heard Ike sniffing the air behind her. They prepared to keep moving when suddenly Ike cried out behind her.

  Whipping around, Abby saw a woman circling Ike, who had his hands raised with his knife clenched. The woman was trying to hit him with the heavy wrench she held. Tara made a move to go forward, but Abby stopped her.

  “You girls gotta be more careful,” the woman said not taking her eyes off of Ike, who was now growling at her, “this one almost had ya.” She swung her wrench towards him.

  “Stop!” Tara cried, “he wasn’t trying to hurt us, he’s our friend!” Taking a pause, the woman flicked her eyes over to them. The woman's eyes grew wide, and she quickly ran the other way. Abby and Tara looked at each other, confused by the abrupt entry and departure.

  “Ike are you—” Abby abruptly ended her question when Ike’s eyes also widened, and he pointed behind them. The noise of the shuffle, and Tara crying out had attracted a lot of attention, and they could see no fewer than a dozen infected making their way out of the shadows and towards them.

  “Shit.”

  Just as they were about to run, an infected man turned into the alley right in front of them. His pale skin seemed to glow and, this close, Abby could see a thin line of bloody drool coming from his mouth. Not hesitating, she raised her gun and fired, hitting him through the cheek. He immediately fell. The moans and shuffling towards them increased and Abby realized her mistake of using the loud weapon too late.

  “Double shit.”

  Looking around, she pointed down the alley where the other woman had gone and the three of them bolted after her.

  Abby ran until her heart was pounding in her chest, only slowing enough to make sure Tara and Ike were still close behind her. Tears ran down her face, the adrenaline not enough to keep them at bay.

  I just killed someone. He was infected, a zombie… But I still killed him.

  Fortunately, few of the infected weren’t as coordinated or as fast as Ike, and it didn’t take long for them to lose the group. They finally stopped, their ragged breaths heavy in the night.

  “That was way too close,” Tara finally gasped. Ike nodded briefly, still trying to get his breathing under control. Abby did her best to keep her tears at bay, wanting to remain strong for their small group.

  “You okay, Ike?” Tara asked after a moment. He nodded. “I smell her,” he said simply, referring to the woman in the alley. Abby swallowed as she considered the implications of the infected being able to smell their approach. Pushing that thought away for a later problem, she addressed the most pressing thing for the moment: to move forward.

  “I can’t use the gun again unless we really have to. That brought way too many of them. Tara, are you okay to take point?” Abby asked as she nodded at her machete. Tara held up the fierce blade, fire in her eyes.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 13

  With painful slowness, they made their way onwards with Tara taking the lead, her machete held out in front of her. Abby told Ike to put his hood up again to avoid more encounters like the one the alley. Both she and Tara were obviously not infected, and unless someone looked under his hood, Ike would likely pass as well. There wasn’t anything they could do about their ‘smell,’ so they plodded forward, watchful of the infected.

  As they moved along, Abby considered what her reactions might be seeing a ‘zombie’ had she not seen what happened to Ike. Being raised in the generation they were, the idea of anyone coming back from the dead was horrifying. The stereotypical zombie story with mindless, brain eating undead wasn’t so far off from what they had seen in others. Even Joshua…

  Several hours went by uneventfully until they finally made it to the bridge. Lions Gate bridge spanned across the Burrard Inlet, connecting downtown Vancouver to the north shore. At just shy of two kilometers, and with how open it was, it was the one part of the journey they really were not looking forward to. Unfortunately, they had no choice though if they wanted to be able to get up the coast.

  They stood at the edge of Stanley park, sitting in the cover of the tree’s as they looked at the expanse in front of them. Several cars were stopped in varying places along the bridge, although from where they were, they couldn’t see any movement. After about five minutes, they silently began to move forward.

  The first few groups of cars seemed to have just stopped, their passengers seemingly just having gotten up and left. The trio circled the cars, giving them a wide distance. Up ahead, it looked as though a large crash had taken place, and the entire center of the bridge had almost a dozen wrecked cars littered across it.

  With infinite slowness they made their way forward towards the crash site. As they approached, a few clanging sounds could be heard from the opposite side of the crash. The wind shifted and the scent of thick coopery blood carried over to them in the breeze.

  “You guys…” Tara began to whisper, interrupted by several loud moans and fumbling from the wreckage. In front of them, many of the crashes former occupants had obviously turned and began shuffling towards them.

  For a moment they all stood frozen. The infected coming towards them seemed more gore covered and agitated than any they had met previously. Abby looked towards the several corpses in her vision and saw how torn apart they were. They must have just been sitting here the whole time, eating. No wonder they have a taste for flesh…

  Abby was broken from her musings by an angry growl from the infected closest to them. Quickly turning to he
r friends, she gave a wry smile, “Well, guys, this is the only way.” Tara’s face lit up with an equally insane smile. Ike swallowed thickly and nodded. Looking back towards the infected, the three rushed forwards.

  Abby and Tara began to shout as they quickly closed the gap. Abby could count eight infected coming towards them and quickly raised her gun, knowing being quiet didn’t matter anymore. She hit the closest to them right in the center of its forehead. He dropped instantly. She didn’t pause to give herself credit for the perfect shot.

  Tara rushed past her, slashing through the next. Despite Ike’s fumbling, he too managed to take one down quickly with the bat he carried, bashing it across the head. Abby watched as the remaining ones approached, a bit more hesitant than their predecessors. Although her heart felt heavy, she raised her weapon once more and let off two more shots. They both hit their mark. Tara quickly dispatched the last few, while Abby went to check on Ike.

  Grouping together, they all took a moment to breathe.

  “That was easier than I expected,” Tara eventually said as she walked over to one of the downed infected, wiping her machete on its shirt. Bits of blood and gore covered her chest and face, glowing against her naturally fair skin.

  Abby nodded in agreement, “I still don’t like killing them, though,” she admitted, “I mean, don’t get me wrong I’m not against shooting something that is trying to eat me, but it just feels so wrong, you know?”

  Tara gave her a small smile before looking over at Ike.

  “You okay, man?” Tara asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He nodded before following her example and wiping his own weapon clean.

  “I no like kill too,” he told them as he rubbed the last bits of blood off, “but we family. We take care each other.”

  Both girls smiled before they carefully made their way through the remaining crash, traversing the last of the bridge in blissful peace.