Left Alive 1

by Jeremy Laszlo

  In the kitchen, I am taken aback. I stand in the doorway and look at the enormous, beautiful kitchen. But it’s not the cabinetry or the appliances that make me stop. It’s the fact that everywhere I look, there are bottles of water. I stand motionless, staring at the hoard that I’ve stumbled upon and grin with excitement. Gallons, two liter bottles, sixteen-ounce bottles, pretty much every bottle imaginable is sitting in the kitchen full of crystal clear water. There is a wheelbarrow in the pantry full of empty bottles and I suddenly realize that Jason and the girl had been the ones using the well. I feel even sadder at the fact that it had been them I had been so afraid of.

  As for food, there is nothing but a trashcan full of empty cans that are beginning to smell a little too ripe to be around. I throw open the cupboards and find that every one of them is bare. I begin to feel more and more frustrated as I look around for anything that might fill my cramping stomach. The only thing I find is a container of salt. I look at it for a moment, envisioning french-fries and potato chips, listening to my stomach growling, sending shocks of pain through my already aching ribs. I remind myself that salt is not the same as salty foods and close the cupboard, abandoning that train of thought. The cramps begin to hurt more and more, so I open one of the bottles of water and drain it, hoping water will keep me satisfied for a little longer.

  I discover the master bedroom and rummage through things, out of curiosity’s sake more than anything. I am enamored with this household. I wish I could go back in time and not kill them. There was something very interesting going on here. Part of me wants to find wherever Jason is stocking up his food. Clearly they weren’t eating too well, but enough so that they were alive. The girl looked a little tired and worn compared to her photographic counterpart, but still very well. Jason, on the other hand, was not doing so well, but was still fed. I know that there is food in this house and I’m determined to find it, but I’ll get to it when I get to it.

  Pulling back the closet doors, I find a bunch of clothes, as to be expected and up top I notice that there’s a bunch of old shoe boxes stuffed with trinkets and memories that mean nothing to me. I leave them alone, not wanting to desecrate those poor memories. While I’m searching through the closet, I find what I more than expected to find in a farmhouse closet. Three shotguns are leaned into the back corner in the darkness. I pull them out one by one and eagerly inspect them. The man was smart, keeping them unloaded. Only idiots keep guns loaded. I set the guns out on the bed and throw open the other closet doors and find a tall safe and know instantly that the ammunition is in there. My shoulders slouch forward and I slowly reach out and try the handle, just in case. Again, of course it’s locked.

  After checking at the bottom of every drawer and every night stand, I take the guns off the bed and check under the mattress for ammunition. Nothing. I sigh and leave the bedroom behind me, making my way toward the guest bedroom. There’s nothing in the guest bedroom that I can find of value, but I still look at all the faces in the pictures, trying to decipher little pieces of their lives. When I’ve given up in the guest bedroom, I head upstairs.

  Before I even reach the top of the stairs, I know exactly where I want to go. I remember the room that had the shutters opened to the south. Maybe there is a hunting rifle there for when Jason kept watch. All the doors upstairs are shut and that makes me nervous, so I draw my knife, moving quietly, heading for one doorway after another. I push open the door and discover a bathroom. The shower curtain is drawn and the whole place looks as if it’s been splattered with pink. I remember pink. It’s the universal mark of girls. The moment I step into the bathroom, I immediately notice that it’s muggy. I look up and see that there’s plastic on the ceiling and it’s covered in droplets of water. I look at the walls and see that the walls are covered with clear plastic as well. Everything about this room is suspicious, so I leave it behind. It reminds me of a room where you might kill someone and I have chills running down my spine.

  The next room I enter belongs to a girl who loves music. Band posters and pictures of the youngest daughter with high school friends cover the walls, and it immediately reminds me of Val. There are books well above a high school student’s ability on the shelves, and academic awards cover one of the walls. But all of this is no interest to me. My eyes are immediately drawn to the hundreds, if not thousands of mason jars in the room. The window is completely covered with black plastic and as I pick up one of the mason jars, I realize again how cold this room is. Holding the jar in my hand, I turn it in the light behind me and see that there is a package inside the mason jar. I blink and read it once more, just to make sure that I’m reading it correctly. It reads: Burpee, Green Globe Artichoke. Slowly, I set the jar down and look all around the room in the pale light from the doorway.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I whisper.

  I step out into the hallway and slowly close the door. Who did I kill? I turn and move to the next doorway, gripping the brass handle and twisting it before stepping into the room. Written on the far wall in great, black strokes is a saying. I recognize it immediately. Ralph Waldo Emerson. It reads: ‘Bad times have a scientific value. These are an occasion a good learner would not miss.’ I feel an even greater, sinking feeling in my stomach.

  It is the color that draws my gaze along the bright window. The room is empty except for newly installed shelves and tables that line the walls. Along the walls are several brown potting plants, each of them holding an adult plant that I recognize from when I was a child at my grandparents’ house. I notice immediately that they have been growing tomato plants. All the other planter pots are full of topsoil and each of them has a tag sticking out of them, but nothing growing in them yet. I read: Onion, Basil, Red Pepper, Pumpkin, Watermelon, Eggplant, and Radish before I stop and reach the tomato plants. Who have I killed? There are dozens of plants here, maybe hundreds, and then there was that room full of seeds. I look at the walls where there are drawings, designs, scribblings, and numbers written out like a madman, but maybe to the right mind, it would make perfect sense.

  My stomach cramps and I instinctively grab my stomach in agony. Part of me wants to find the nearest person and bring them here, to show them all that Jason and the girl had done. I had joked about it, but they were seriously trying to build a New Jerusalem. Hell, they had grown tomato plants. That was enough to make me feel the strange sensation of hope in my soul that I had not felt in a very, very long time. What if there was a way to fix this? Well, maybe not fix this, but endure this. Wasn’t that worth sharing, worth trying to get help to discover what it is we can do? But at the same time, I’m not going to survive unless I eat.

  I look at the green tomatoes on their vines and feel the terrible dilemma inside my soul. What kind of a monster am I, if I eat the last few tomatoes on the planet? But they’re not even real tomatoes, they’re immature, nowhere near ripe. I look at them and feel the cramps ripping apart my body and I know that I’m a monster. I killed the one man that I’ve met in months that is trying to do something to make the world right again. I killed his beautiful fiancée and I am now about to eat the fruits of their labors. I close my eyes and think about the monster that I am and try to tell myself that this is a dying world. Putting a Band-Aid on a burn victim does nothing to save him. But doing something is better than doing nothing. I look at one of the six pots in front of the window and notice that one of them is grass. I can see the tiny green blades poking up and feel a shaking sense of wonder at the sight of the blades. To hell with it, they’ll grow back.

  Reaching out, I take one of the tiny, grape-sized tomatoes from its vine and put it in my mouth. It tastes earthy, organic. I place it between my molars and with a single movement, I bite down, crushing the fruit in a single bite, filling my mouth with sweet and bitter juices at once. It hardly tastes like a tomato, but I don’t care. It’s something I can swallow. I feel my eyes welling with tears as I instinctively reach out and pluck another from its vine and place it in my mouth and bite
down with ravenous hunger. Again and again, I rip the tomatoes from their vines, moving from plant to plant, watching leaves fall as I do so. Stuffing tiny tomatoes in my mouth until I can feel the acidic juices rolling down my lips and chin. Finally, as I take the last one, I look at it for a lingering moment, picturing the world. I see a tiny green world, but that isn’t right any more. It’s a dead world. So I put it in my mouth and bite down.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Even here, the waters are grayish brown. It reminds me of Lake Huron, back when all of this started. There are big white clouds in the sky, peeking through them is the pale blue tapestry of the sky and I can’t help but feel a swelling sense of hope in my heart. I took my shoes off some time ago, letting my torn and frayed jeans walk with me along the warm beach, well away from the surf as I unsling the shotgun and carry it in case there’s another ambush. I am worn. I am tired. But I’m not far now. Gainesville had been a hard fight, but I got the answers I was looking for. The journey to the coast had been shorter than I had expected as well, but not without its run-ins. I am surprised at how many people decided to migrate to Florida. The refugee camps were some of the most horrifying places I had ever seen. Zombies roamed in packs in those places, killing anyone who dared venture close and feeding on the fetid, rancid carcasses of the dead that still lingered there.

  The clouds parted and I could feel the kiss of the sun on my face and stopped for a moment, basking in the glorious warmth of the sun, thankful to have made it this far.

  The girls had left a note, warning me that they were no longer at the dorms. It was in Lexi’s dorm that I found the note, written in glittery pink ink and left on her pillow, folded nicely with ‘Daddy’ written on it for me. The University of Florida had been a nightmare. College-aged packs of killers roamed freely with assault rifles, shooting down anyone that came in sight, but I made it. Stealth was the greatest weapon a lone operative could use in this new world. Rather than going in with my shotgun blazing, it was best never to fire it at all. I had grown to appreciate quietly killing my threats from behind, slicing open their throats or stabbing them in the base of the neck while covering their mouths. I’m not proud of what I’ve had to do or what I’ve seen to get here, but it was worth it. Or it would be.

  The beach house is painted navy blue with baby blue trim and a white door on the high deck that had a staircase that wound down to the sandy beach. Seagulls circled in the air, dropping down onto the beach to feed upon the bloated, salty bodies of the dead fish. A whale has been tossed onto the land by the surf down the beach and an army of birds desperately fight for mouthfuls of meat. There is a watchman at the top of the stairs with a rifle. He points his rifle at me as I approach. I pretend not to see him, hoping he’ll keep quiet a little longer before he starts shouting. Every word he’s inevitably going to shout at me could draw others to our location.

  “Stop right there,” the watchman shouts angrily, as if I had punched his mother in the face.

  I stop. “I’m looking for two girls,” I shout up to him.

  “No girls here,” he lies to me. “What do you want?”

  “I’m here for my daughters,” I shout back to him. “Alexandria and Valerie Duwain.”

  The man lifts his rifle from me and looks at me, pulling down his bandana and lifts up his goggles to get a clear look at me. “The hell you say?” the man shouts down to me.

  “You heard me,” I shout back.

  “One second,” the watchman points his rifle back at me and calls over his shoulder. “Kelly, get Lexi. Tell her some man out here wants her.”

  I wait patiently until a band appears around the watchmen. It’s hard to tell who among them are men and women, they’re all bound up in bandanas and goggles and heavy clothing. There’s a moment where no one says anything. I stare at them while I wait for Lexi to show up. I spot assault rifles, a few hunting rifles, and one guy is holding what looks like a bastard sword. There’s a moment where I stand still and fear that they’re not here. I watch and wait impatiently, my heart pounding. Then the crowd begins to part and a familiar face steps to the front. She has cut her hair short, above her shoulders, but before she removes her bandana and sunglasses, I know that it’s Lexi.

  “Daddy?” she calls in a confused, unsure voice.

  “Hi, Sporty,” I call up to her. “Been a while.”

  “Daddy!” she screams before rushing down the steps to the beach. The band of twenty or so survivors behind her watch in amazement as their companion lunges over the railing and lands into the sand, sending jets of it shooting up all around her. She doesn’t stop for anything. Lexi keeps running for me as I sling my shotgun over my shoulder and throw open my arms. She dives into my arms, wrapping her legs around me and I realize that she’s crying. I spin her in my arms, laughing while she giggles and cries in wondrous excitement. I feel as if I’ve died. This can’t be real. After so long, this cannot be her. I set her down and put my hands on her face, brushing back her hair and seeing my little girl all grown up and still alive.

  “Lexi, Sporty,” I laugh with delight. “Where’s Val?”

  “She’s out with a band,” Lexi says, wiping the tears from her eyes. “We’re scouting a group of migrants moving through the area. They look like they might set up camp.”

  “Sporty, I’m so glad you’re alive.” I hug her again.

  “Daddy, how did you get here?” She pushes back and looks me in the eye. “How the hell did you get all the way here from Michigan?”

  “I walked,” I answer.

  Suddenly my eyes are open and I’m looking up at a poster for some teen romance movie that came out five years ago, a dreamy hunk staring me down in the most awkward feeling I’ve had in days. Slowly I push myself up and look around the room, wondering where the hell I am before an overwhelming sensation of pain explodes within my body. Not only are my ribs and left arm sore from the beating I received yesterday, but something is happening with my stomach. I feel it, discovering that it’s as hard as a rock. Part of me wants to throw up—no, compels me to throw up. I jump from the bed and rush to the nearby bathroom and throw open the door. I puke in the sink, scattering a curling iron and bottles of moisturizer and tanning lotion. My vomit is as green as salsa verde and the stench makes me wonder if my entire stomach has liquefied. There’s a burning in my colon and I’m afraid that my ass is going to catch on fire, so I throw open the toilet and unleash whatever is declaring war on my intestines.

  I’m worried that something happened in the fight with Jason. What if he ruptured something? Am I bleeding internally? I grab the roll of toilet paper and marvel at the feeling. I haven’t felt toilet paper in a very, very long time. Standing up and finishing my business, I hurry downstairs and fetch a gallon of water that I take back up to the bathroom in the oldest daughter’s room and pour it all into the tank before flushing down my rancid shit. I use what’s left in the jug to wash out the sink, watching it swirl down my salsa verde vomit.

  My head hurts. I think I slept too long. I walk back into the room inspired by Emerson and look out the window to the south. I can see buildings on the horizon. I’m not far from Dayton. I should keep going, but southeast. Keep the city on the horizon as I go, keeping the vast expanses that make up the farmlands. My course is well plotted so far. I need to find a gas station now that I’m closer to a larger town. Hopefully there is still one that hasn’t been lit on fire or exploded from its gas line or fuel storage tanks. I want to be able to get a map to further plot my course. But first, I feel like I need to bury poor Jason and his beautiful fiancée.

  I cannot explain this burning desire inside of me, but I know that it’s the right thing to do. This was a good man and a good woman who I killed too early in their lives. If anything, it should have been me who died. That way, my girls might be alive right now with hopes of a better future. If Jason could have found a way to restart growing food, then maybe everything that we as a people feared could have been diverted. I shame myself, thinking of all
these hypotheticals in a world of fantasies and fairy tales. I’m here, in the real world and it is still dying. I know this more than I know anything else.

  In the mirror in front of me, I am looking at a gaunt, cynical, old man. My face is a field of thick hair, speckled with gray and a nasty wound on my left cheekbone that will be a fearsome scar one day, if I survive. My eyes are surrounded by dark rings, but those eyes that stare back at me are cruel and monstrous, the eyes that Jason saw yesterday—eyes of a man who is willing to do anything. No wonder he had tried to kill me. My hair is getting long. I grab my knife that I had used to kill Jason with and begin grabbing handfuls of hair, sawing at it with my knife and tossing it into the sink. I doubt anyone will ever find this house, but if they do, I’m sure a sink full of hair will give them pause.

  I’m turning gray around my temples, probably from the stress of living day to day. My skin is blistered and I have no doubt that I will die of skin cancer if I live to be old. My skin is a deep, dark red that is now peeling everywhere. I’m sure I’ll look like an entirely different person when I finally find the girls. Unlike in my dream, they won’t be able to recognize me. I don’t care if the oldest daughter had germs, when I’m done cutting my hair, I grab her toothbrush and start brushing my teeth with it. My gums begin bleeding almost immediately and I decide to take her brush with me. It has been weeks since I used one and God knows what will happen to me if my mouth becomes a festering cesspool of bacteria and germs. Mostly I want the taste of vomit out of my mouth. Swirling a drink of water in my mouth, I spit it out with a sigh. I take one last look at myself in the mirror and shake my head. I’m turning into a monster to save my girls. I suppose that’s justifiable, but that doesn’t mean I like it.