The enormity of that wasn’t lost on Ryan. As the woman thumped and banged in the bathroom downstairs, he sat and wept for this man and his family.
Chapter 5
After only one house, Ryan rode home and locked himself in. It was just too much to deal with. That poor man and his children. He didn't sleep much; Ryan couldn't shake the images of their bodies from his mind. It was exactly a week before he was able to force himself to leave again. This time, he started the quad in the garage, so he didn’t have to worry about Kelly coming for him.
Back in the neighborhood, he sat on the quad for nearly a minute looking at the house he’d been in the previous week, knowing what was inside. He could still see the white couch and he felt his stomach turn. Ryan shook his head and tightly set his jaw, refusing to get sucked into that again. He wrapped the 4-wheeler’s tow-strap around their mailbox, put the powerful machine in gear and pulled their mailbox over. That was his signal to himself that he’d searched the house.
Every house on the street was inhabited by the infected. Not one single house had a living person in it. At the end of the day, he’d knocked over fourteen mailboxes and left thirty-four people duct-taped in their bathrooms. The worst house had had six people in it. Ryan had been forced to use his bat in that one, hitting one of the infected in the leg to slow them down while he taped up the rest of the family. He hoped that whenever there was a cure for this, that person’s leg would heal up.
Over the next five weeks, Ryan finished the neighborhood. Out of one hundred forty-three houses, only fourteen houses were empty, not counting those that had for-sale signs in the yard. He lost count of the zombies somewhere in the middle, but riding home in the middle of September, he guessed there were somewhere near three hundred zombies.
The first house was the worst by far, but three other houses had tiny infected newborns. Ryan hadn’t had the heart to tape them up; they lacked the muscle coordination to walk anyway, so he just left them laying silently in their cribs. Unless he came close, they didn’t move. There was no kicking, no looking around. They just laid there. He thought the first one was dead until it reached for him; he was able to get within two feet of the first tiny infant boy before it realized he was there. It was horrifying and seeing them only reminded him of his own empty nursery back in his house. They were the embodiment of everything he had already lost. In those nurseries, he wrote the same “INFECTED INSIDE” on the doors and never looked back.
It was heartbreaking work, but he was determined to find survivors. Until day forty-seven of his search, it never occurred to him that in the tiny town of Gander Valley, survivors might not be so happy to see him. It was unseasonably cool for the beginning of fall. The high that day was only about forty degrees when he hopped off his quad and heard a gun-shot. The bullet hit the driveway just behind him, taking a large chip of the concrete with it.
Ryan threw up his hands and screamed, “I’m not armed! I’m not infected! Don’t shoot!”
The next shot was a little closer. It looked like it was coming from a church steeple on the next block. He waved his hands in the air, trying frantically to figure out some way to pantomime that he was alive. The third shot was even closer, causing Ryan to give up and run as fast as he could around the back of the house.
In the back yard, there was a huge pile of trash under the kitchen window. There had to be more than a hundred black trash bags, which were buried under white grocery bags, and then finally, there was a layer of loose trash on top. Cans, cereal boxes, juice boxes, soda and beer cans littered the yard. He sneezed, uncontrollably, three times in a row, wiped his nose on his sleeve and approached the sliding door on the back of the house.
As he peered through the door, he heard a shout from behind him. “Get down on the ground, face down, hands behind your head.” Without hesitation, Ryan dropped to his belly and put his hands on his head.
Six men ran up, each yelling at him. “Who are you!”
“Why are you by our house!”
“Identify yourself!”
“Don’t fucking move!”
“Stay down!”
“What’s your name!”
All of the voices barking orders, Ryan didn’t know who to answer first, so he just started talking. “My name is Ryan Fullerton. I’m just looking for survivors. I’ve been alone since all this happened; I just wanted to know that there are other people out there. I’ve been looking for survivors for almost two months.”
“Hey Tommy, I think this is the duct tape guy,” said one man. Each of the men were dressed in all black tactical clothes, carrying military rifles. They were the kind with the big curved magazines hanging out the bottom. Ryan was more terrified of these guys than he was of the zombies.
“Yeah. I duct tape all the infected when I search a house. I don’t ever take anything, I just round up the infected and inventory the food,” Ryan said.
“Why would you do that?”
“Do what? Tape them up? So they can’t bite anyone. So they can’t infect anyone else.”
“They’re dead, dude. Walking corpses. Just shoot them in the head and put them out of their misery.”
“I can’t believe that. My wife…” Ryan stopped himself.
“Your wife was bitten? And you hope there’s going to be a cure? All of our wives were bitten. There is no cure.”
“Who are you? Why did you shoot at me?”
“You’re in our territory. Can’t have people stealing our food.”
“I haven’t taken anything. Let me go. I won’t come back to this neighborhood,” said Ryan.
“What if he’s one of them smart ones, Tommy? We can’t let him go in case he’s one of them. Remember Ron? Ron was with us for a week before anyone figured it was him that took out Jonesy and Bill. What if he’s a Ron?”
The man that ordered Ryan to get down spoke. “He’s not one of them. He’s just a dumbass.” Then Ryan recognized the voice.
“Tommy Rivera? Graduated last year? Is that you? It’s me, Ryan. I’m the guidance counselor. I helped you get into college.”
“Oh shit,” said Tommy. “Mr. Fullerton?”
“You know this guy?” asked one of the other men.
“Yeah, he was the college-man at school. Tried to make everyone go to college,” Tommy replied.
“I didn’t make anyone do anything. I just tried to help people. Have you seen Donte? He came by my house about two months ago,” Ryan said, and slowly sat up.
“Donte Jackson? Not possible, man. Donte got bit on day one.”
“Can’t be. He came by my house. He said he was looking for survivors. We heard shots and he ran off before we could finish talking.”
“Sorry about this, Mr. Fullerton,” said Tommy as Ryan felt something hit the back of his head. His forehead bounced off the deck just before everything went black.
Chapter 6
Ryan woke up shivering. It was raining, and he was soaking wet. He was lying face down on asphalt, but the only sensation he could discern was the pain in his head; as if someone was pounding on his forehead with a large sledgehammer.
He took an easy breath and tried to relax. He could feel water lapping at his mouth as he breathed, and the sound of rain was intensifying. He got to his knees and looked around; he was in the parking lot just outside Thornton’s hardware. They moved him the whole way across the town and left him with nothing. His pockets were empty; his gear was all gone, except for his wallet. Ryan struggled to his feet and stumbled towards the store, looking much like a zombie himself. He opened the door, stepped inside out of the rain, and was immediately beset by a massive sneezing fit.
When he finished sneezing, his nose was stopped up and his headache was renewed. He was having trouble focusing on anything farther away than his hands, any time he tried to look across the store his vision was blurry.
Ryan knew there was a small kitchen and break room in the back of the store. With great effort, he slowly made his way back there. It had been a long t
ime since he’d been in the stock room, but for twenty years there was an old gold couch with dark wood arms back there. There had always been an afghan on the back of the couch, and as a single bright spot in what was otherwise the second worst day of Ryan’s life, it was still there. He stripped off his clothes, hung them up on a shelf, wrapped up in the old musty smelling blanket and went to sleep.
When he woke up, he had no idea what time it was, but he was still shivering uncontrollably. He felt his forehead; he was definitely running a fever. As if to punctuate the thought, he was seized by another uncontrollable sneezing fit.
“Shit. Just what I need, a cold,” he said to himself. His throat was raspy and hurt. Still wrapped in the old crocheted blanket, he got up to check his clothes. Still wet, and now they were cold. It couldn’t be more than fifty degrees in the store. Ryan laid back down on the couch and spent the next two hours drifting in and out of sleep. All at once, waves of nausea overtook him.
He bolted for the bathroom. On the way across the storeroom he debated whether he should sit or face the toilet. At the last moment he opted for sitting, and was grateful he did. The force of the explosion from his rear end was so intense it seemed as though it might lift him off the commode. At the same time, he reached for the trash bag, and hurled his innards at the liner. He vomited until his stomach was empty, and sat there until the lower half of his digestive tract stopped cramping. Liquid snot poured out of his nose. There was no sense in sniffing it back; it would have been like trying to keep half a cup of water in his sinuses.
Every time Ryan sneezed, various bodily fluids ejected from whatever orifice happened to be nearby. After half an hour on the toilet, he tried to get up. As soon as he stood, his bowels were seized in a horrible cramp, and he sat back down to repeat the entire process. This time there was nothing to vomit; he just dry-heaved over the trash can as diarrhea filled the bowl beneath him.
He had to get home. There was simply no other choice. Ryan knew he would die of dehydration or hypothermia here.
Chapter 7
At first light, Ryan started walking. He moved slowly, lacking any kind of energy that would allow for even a leisurely stroll. In an hour, he’d gone almost half a mile. In that amount of time, he had to stop twice to relieve his bowels, and twice more just to rest. Thankfully, the rain had stopped, and his clothes were finally starting to dry. Ryan wondered if the heat radiating from his body was causing them to dry faster.
He mopped cold sweat from his forehead, stood up from his perch on a stone wall, and almost passed out. Even though his eyes were wide open, his vision had narrowed down to a tiny pinpoint, as if he was looking through a long tunnel. He staggered from a street sign to lamp post to an old mailbox, barely able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
“Must get home. To Kelly,” he said to himself. Although he would never admit it, Ryan loved when Kelly would take care of him when he was sick. “She’ll know what to do.”
He staggered on, at one point picking up a limb and using it as a walking stick. To stay focused on the present, he counted his steps. In an attempt to remain coherent, he tried to do the math in his head, but his mind kept wandering.
“Thirteen miles home. That’s 5280 times 13. So, that’s like 68,000 feet. At two feet per step, that’s… I need to remember to repair that top step from the garage to the kitchen. It’s been loose for a while, and if I ever get the garage cleaned out, Kelly might trip coming into the house.”
For the next several hundred steps, Ryan’s fever-addled mind wandered to all of the things he needed to do around the house. He was just past the last house in town, when Donte appeared in front of him in a swirl of black smoke.
“Hi, imaginary Donte.”
“Hi, Mr. Fullerton. You don’t look so hot,” Donte casually replied.
“Oh, I’m hot. I’m about to sweat to death, I imagine.” Ryan’s voice was nearly jovial. “I need to get home to Kelly, and somehow I don’t have my keys. Did you ever lose your keys? One time, I was at the beach, and forgot to take my keys out of my bathing suit pocket. Like three hours later, I got to the car and did that panicked pocket-patting. You know that feeling?”
“I do know it,” Donte replied, walking backwards in front of Ryan, although Ryan didn’t notice. In his stupor, all he saw was the beach on a sunny summertime day. There were hundreds of people all around him. Beautiful girls in bikinis, children playing in the surf and way too many men wearing Speedo’s who shouldn’t be. All connection he Ryan had left with reality was completely severed.
“So, we had to call the rental car company and they had to bring us a new key,” he rambled. “The next day, Kelly was walking around in the surf and stepped on our car key! Can you believe the luck? That’s how she was, my Kelly. She always has a way of making things work out.” Ryan wasn't even aware that he was speaking about Kelly as if she was still alive.
“Mr. Fullerton, you’re pretty sick.” Donte's voice had no connection in the fantasy world Ryan created. He was merely a floating voice – the last remnant of reality.
“Nonsense, I’m perfectly fine. Just having a little stroll down the beach with my beautiful wife. Isn’t that right, Kelly?” Ryan said, turning his head. Just to his left, holding his hand was Kelly. She was walking barefoot along the beach in a red bikini, with a big floppy hat on top of her head. He felt warm and content.
“Yes, Ryan. It’s a beautiful day for a walk,” she agreed and squeezed his hand a little tighter.
Ryan walked along the beach with his wife. If there had been anyone left alive to watch the scene, they would have seen a man who was barely able to walk drenched in sweat, mumbling incoherently. Occasionally he would stop as massive coughing fits seized him. His body was running on auto-pilot; he turned at the right places to get home, but his mind was gone. The fever he carried was off the charts at 107. The flu virus ravaging his lungs had limited the oxygen supply to his brain.
As he started up the dirt road towards his house, the beach scene disappeared. The world seamlessly transitioned into a beautiful fall day, even if unseasonably warm. The sun was shining over his head and the leaves were gloriously colored. All around him, there were shining oranges and yellows with hits of red blowing in the light breeze. He was walking home, looking forward to the chicken pot pie Kelly was working on in their kitchen when he left. He could smell it from here, and the smell quickened his step.
In reality, it was getting dark. A cold drizzle beat down on Ryan, soaking him to the bone. Ryan’s body leaned on his mailbox, wracked with a coughing fit, spraying the side with bloody phlegm. As if to add insult to the cough, he sneezed twelve times, before letting go of the mailbox and starting his slow shamble up the driveway.
It was to Ryan’s benefit that no one was left to see him walking. Had there been a single armed survivor at any point on his walk home, they would have shot him, thinking he was a zombie. As always, when Ryan topped the hill and started the last hundred feet to the driveway, the undead corpse of his wife started shambling towards him.
Slightly winded from the walk up the driveway, Ryan looked up and saw his wife, standing outside in a pair of blue jeans and a dark gray hoodie. Her hair was beautifully streaming behind her, glowing in the sun, and she was smiling. Kelly called out to him and waved her hand in greeting. She started towards him, and Ryan couldn’t wait to kiss his wife. He was struck with the sense that he hadn’t seen her in a very long time, even though he’d only been gone for about an hour. As he walked, it felt like he was dragging his legs through concrete – he just couldn't get to her fast enough. Getting to Kelly and finally embracing her became his ultimate goal. He just missed her so much and with a small, happy cry he reached towards her.
The two of them closed the distance. The shambling man and woman, both of them pale, dripping with water, clammy to the touch. The woman tripped over a stone, nearly falling to the ground. As she fell, her torpid limbs attempted to grab anything to arrest her fall. Her palm scrubbed
down the trunk of a pine tree, coating it in heavy, sticky sap. The woman shambled forwards.
Ryan was happy – something he hadn't felt in a very long time. A smile lit up his face as he walked. He embraced his wife. A flood of pure joy washed over him as they finally touched. “I love you. I love you, Kelly,” he said over and over. Kelly's warm skin was so soft as he cupped her face in one hand. He brought the other hand up through her soft, golden hair and pulled her closer. The lovers kissed passionately. Ryan knew that he could never live without her. Life was not worth living if she was not part of it. And then, very suddenly, there was intense pain. The pain was so strong; his eyes snapped open and reality came flooding back into view.
Kelly was dead - one of the infected. She was inches from his face, slowly chewing his bottom lip as the E’Clei she’d infected him with streamed through his blood towards his brain.
Her teeth had torn through the meat of his lip as she pulled back. She stared at him blankly, still chewing on his flesh. Blood ran down his chin and with a horrified shout, he tried to shove her away. He grabbed her hand to remove it from his shoulder. Even though he was pulling with all the strength he could muster, Ryan was too weak from the flu and couldn't get away. Not that it mattered - the infection had already taken him. The E’Clei shut down the pain center in his brain first, and he stopped screaming. Then he stopped fighting all together.
Donte Jackson watched the scene unfold curiously from the roof of the house as he released his control over Kelly. With a smirk, he disappeared in a swirl of black smoke. He was off to report what he’d learned about the human mind’s capability to distort reality to his Lieutenant.
Minutes later, the corpses formerly known as “Ryan and Kelly Fullerton” shambled back towards Gander Valley, hand glued to hand by the thick pine sap. Finally together again, just like Ryan always wanted. Forever.
Darlings of Decay Page 7