by Howard, Bill
After a few years of continual illness and a handful of strokes, he finally agreed to see someone about a pacemaker. The morning of his appointment for the consultation, he rose happy, enjoying the beautiful spring weather. He ate a solid breakfast and basked in the warmth of the early morning sunlight at his kitchen table. Beth found him lying on the floor shortly thereafter, a peaceful look on his face. He was rushed to the hospital and declared dead a short time later. The memorial was simple, heartfelt and full of people exchanging stories of my father and the joy he brought into their lives. He had been a strong man, a great father, and a kind soul.
My mother, Christiaane, was born in Holland and was just a young girl when World War II broke out. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was the most popular barber in town. The Nazi’s invaded during the blitzkrieg of Holland, and within days of the initial attack they had taken over the entire town. She told me of an incident where a German soldier had come into her father’s barber shop one busy Saturday afternoon, and demanded he get his hair cut right away, despite the long line of waiting townsfolk. Her father refused the officer, telling him he would have to wait his turn like everyone else. The officer stormed out of the barbershop and returned to his command post. One of the patrons of the barbershop quickly sent word to my grandmother of what happened and, fearing for her husband’s life, she walked down to the German post herself, asking to speak to the officer in charge. The German officer approached and listened to the sincere Dutch woman who pleaded for her husband’s life, explaining the situation and apologizing. The officer told her she could leave, and that she should take pride in the fact that she just saved her husband’s life. Sometime later, the Nazi’s actually commandeered my mother’s childhood home as a post, and treated her family as if they were slaves. This was when my grandparents knew they could take no more. One day, under the guise of going into town to get food, they boarded a ship with help from some local friends. With nothing but what they could carry inconspicuously, they set sail away from their Nazi-occupied homeland to Canada.
My mother’s family made a new home in Oshawa, Ontario, with the help of some family that had already moved there before the war. My mother, now called Chrissy, was very happy in her new home. She grew up very independent and strong willed, and was well-liked in school. She was always the popular girl, everyone’s friend, the social butterfly. After meeting Charles, courting, and eventually getting married, she always held a job of some sort outside of the house and a clear sense of independence; it was part of her personality that could not be suppressed. Even while raising me, she would always have something on the go, some project, some job somewhere to keep her in the social loop. She loved being around people and thrived in social settings. I think it was this independence that eventually drove her to divorce my father. She couldn’t handle being tied down. I think she was still discovering herself and looking for something in life that would truly satisfy her longing to see more, to discover herself and the world. At least that is what I always thought. But she never stopped loving my father, and they were always respectful of one another and never stopped caring about each other. In a different reality, who knows if things would have gone the same way?
As for me, Denny, I was always a happy child. I was very imaginative and creative, and very often lost in my own world. I loved to play, to pretend, and to get lost in the worlds created in my own mind. I loved toys and would spend countless hours playing pretend with my friends, whether I was a soldier, a superhero or a strongman. My parents were low maintenance, meaning they pretty much left me to my own devices. They instilled in me their values, and the rules by which to remain safe in my own life, and I followed their lead.
I rarely got into trouble, except for at school. I was not much for education, although I liked the atmosphere and social aspects of it. I didn’t like the work though. If it was creative, such as writing stories or art, I excelled, but in the laborious pursuits of the rest of education, history, math, science, I had no interest. I always passed my classes, and was well liked by my teachers, but I was a real daydreamer, my head was never where it should be; I was always off in some distant dream.
In grade school, I was desperate not to disappoint my parents. I kept failing to submit homework and would have notes sent home for my folks to acknowledge and sign. I got very good at forging their signatures and bringing them back. Of course, it eventually backfired on me when someone in the school office started noticing discrepancies in the signatures. Needless to say, it didn’t end well for me.
Through high school, it was much of the same. I had good enough grades to get by, but I was still more into daydreaming and having fun. I did well in English and art class, as usual, and did horribly in math and gym. I hated gym class. I couldn’t wrap my head around being forced to play sports I did not enjoy. I was the worst gym student the school had ever seen, and perhaps the only gym student ever to actually fail the class. Forty-two percent and damn proud of it. Luckily, I didn’t need a gym credit to graduate, and graduate I did.
My twenties were a blur of no responsibility. I lived on my own or with roommates for most of that time, and spent most of my money on entertainment and frivolous fun. My twenties were all about hanging out with friends. They were also about depression. Despite the fun I had socially, I had some issues personally. I longed for some sort of relationship, but my world was filled with not very serious people who were interested in not very serious relationships. I was popular with my friends, but not with women. I was every woman’s best friend, and I often heard the (damning) words ‘you’re like a brother to me’. I had a string of short-lived relationships, but most ended by way of me wanting more, and the women being scared off. I ended up with loneliness issues and some related anger issues.
One day when I was about twenty-seven, I had an epiphany one day that I was wasting an awful lot of my life sulking about things that were beyond my control. That realization turned my life into a drastically happier place. I started working in fields that were more to my liking and spent more time doing what I wanted to do, which was writing. I stopped worrying about relationships and figured that life would unfold as it deemed fit. All those theories and attitudes rang true when I was introduced to Diane and my true life and purpose began. Moreover, everything I believed in my life was solidified once Jordan was born. I was finally a truly happy man.
CHAPTER 25:
FEELS LIKE HOME
Frank grabbed the rifle out of my hand and gave over his handgun. I looked at him with puzzlement, not understanding how he came to be standing in front of me right now. He put out his hand and helped me up.
“Denny, did everyone get into the base? Emily and the kids, are they okay?”
“Yeah Frank, they’re all okay and all at the base. How the hell did you get here, what happened in the apartment?”
“It’s a long story, there’s no time right now. I have to get to Emily. The troops are on their way, you have to get out of here, I’ll cover for you and say I was shooting at some infected in the woods. I have to be with Em and the kids Denny. Just run.”
“Thanks Frank, really. Please be careful with the soldiers, play it safe. I’m going to take the northern route through the woods, up through the Rouge Valley. If the opportunity presents itself, you know where I’ll be headed. “With that, I shook hands with Frank and took off into the woods. After a few minutes I could hear the troops yelling at Frank to get on the ground. Thankfully, I didn’t hear any gunfire. I ran as fast as I could through the woods, my breath burning in my lungs, but the urge to get further away, closer to home, overwhelmed the urge to stop. I ran for another hour straight, getting into a trance like state that carried me through, thoughts of Diane and Jordan occupying my mind. As I ran through the dense woods, I felt like a wild animal, leaping over fallen branches and crossing streams. It was freeing in a bizarre sort of way. Once I finally did stop, I looked around and took note of the fact that I had not seen any animals in the hour si
nce I started running. Not one. I considered various explanations as I walked, until a glimpse of a house across a field pulled my attention back to the real world. The house was on a large piece of land that seemed to be an old farm. The farmhouse was well kept, large and beautiful with a full wraparound porch. There were no sounds in the area, nor any movement that I could detect. The sun was getting low in the sky and I knew I didn’t have long before darkness fell, so I made my way across the field and approached the house. This particular house had good-sized basement windows, so I leaned over to one and tried to open it. It was locked from the inside, so I took out a Swiss Army knife that I was given back at the Bramford and started to peel away the caulking around the window. After a solid 15 minutes work, I pried the window out of its frame and lowered myself into the house. I pulled the window back into place and made a mental note to come back down later and board it up. The basement was finished, done up like a home theatre with leather couches and a LCD TV that was far bigger than it needed to be, but cool nonetheless. There were family pictures on the walls, a nice looking guy with a very pretty wife and three kids. I looked around and found the staircase to the main floor, and went up them as quietly as I could. Once at the top, I opened the door a crack and peered inside, examining a small hallway area, and part of the kitchen. Both seemed clear of any occupation. I opened the door further and stepped into the hall, my handgun at the ready. I sidestepped into the room, then through the dining room and into the living room. Everything seemed lived in yet undisturbed. I moved through to the main entrance and the den, but still nothing. I began my climb up the large staircase, to the second floor. I checked a hallway bathroom, a couple of children’s rooms, and a large closet, before approaching the main double doors of the master bedroom. I turned the knob but it seemed to be locked from the inside. I leaned into the door with my shoulder, hoping the pressure from my weight might pop the door open. As I did so, I felt a slight but hard pressure on the top of the back of my head accompanied by a low growl. Then a voice.
“Do not under any circumstances move. Let go of the gun and let it fall to the floor. ”
I didn’t have much of a choice, so I dropped the gun, but I couldn’t figure out why the poking in my head was so high up; the person behind me must have been seven feet tall.
“Turn around, slowly.”
I did so and then raised my view up to see a woman, maybe late forties, blonde hair, leaning out of an attic door with a very intimidating rifle pointed at my head.
“I just needed a place to stay tonight. I don’t like to travel at night; I’m trying to get home to my wife and daughter. “I used my hands and motioned to my whole self, up and down, “see, I didn’t loot anything, I don’t have any other weapons. I just need a place to crash.”
The woman’s face de-scrunched a little and she looked me over.
“Turn around, on your knees and face the door.”
I did as I was told and could hear the creaking of a fold down staircase out of the attic, her footsteps on the old wooden steps, then the return of the rifle barrel to the back of my head. This was followed by the sound of an animal coming down the stairs as well, and the return of the low growling.
“Okay, you can get up. Keep it slow though.”
I got up and slowly turned around. The woman appeared to be in her late forties. She was very attractive, with blonde hair tied into a tail, in a plaid button-up shirt and jeans. She stood about five-foot-six but she was solid. She was not a fragile woman; rather she was very healthy looking, curvy, and she had a glow about her. She was accompanied by a large German shepherd who was watching me very carefully. She leaned over slowly and picked up my gun, tucking it behind her back.
“I’ll keep this, for now." She paused, thinking. “Let’s go downstairs. Do you want something to eat?”
With those words, I relaxed. She let a small smile creep onto her face as she introduced herself as Eleanor Croft, or Ellie, for short.
We went into her kitchen, where she had some food already prepared in the refrigerator, sandwiches with ham and tomato, lettuce and mustard. It was the best sandwich I had ever tasted. It’s funny how much better food tastes when your world is turned upside down. I guess you just take fewer things for granted; you’re thankful that you’re even alive to eat something. Her dog, Max, stood by the table and did not flinch in his constant monitoring of me. I told Ellie of my journey so far, about the mall, the Bramford, my friends. Ellie was divorced from her husband for some five years now, and the kids had been at her ex’s for the week. He lived in a house outside of Oshawa in Brooklin. She got through to them on the first day of the outbreak and they were okay at that time; her ex was moving them all into the basement cold cellar with supplies and sleeping bags. He figured they would be fine there until this blew over. But she hadn’t talked to any of them since. Ellie also had a boyfriend, Nate, who lived in Whitby. She hadn’t heard from or been able to get hold of him at all. She wanted desperately to get to and hold her children, but she dared not go out alone. She only had the one rifle, limited ammo, and already quite a few encounters in her own yard with some of the infected. Earlier that same day she had an infected young woman doing circuits around her house, banging on windows, moaning and groaning. She had taught Max not to bark when the infected came sniffing around, she was Lucky she had a smart dog; a bark could have led to some pretty disastrous ramifications. She thought that the female zombie-thing’s behavior was even stranger than other infected she had seen, that it took longer to give up and move on. She was really frightened by that one. Her description of the girl made me feel queasy; all the color went out of my face and she asked me if I was okay. I braced myself on the kitchen table and asked her again what the girl looked like. Short brown hair, athletic, piercings, tattoos. Isabel. I hadn’t mentioned much in my story about Isabel, except that we had lost her in the events of the Bramford. I told Ellie that it sounded like Isabel had been the thing banging on her windows and she was stunned. Was Isabel still following our plan? How did she get to this area so fast?
That’s when I told Ellie about my plan to get home, and my route to get there. She hesitantly asked if she could join me, and I was pleased to say yes. I know Ellie didn’t like the thought of trying to get to her family alone, and neither did I. Safety in numbers, isn’t that what they say? We loaded up a couple of backpacks that Ellie had (her family were all avid hikers). It was a much better system than the bag I had been carrying around. In addition, we could carry more, make fewer stops and our hands would be free to use our weapons. We slept soundly that night in the same room and in the same bed with Max standing guard of the room on a woven rug at the foot of the bed. It felt strange sleeping beside another woman, but it was a large bed, and after some awkward discussion about it, we both decided it would be much safer to sleep in the same room, especially with all the visits her home had been getting.
We rose the next morning to the sound of birds. The early morning sunrise was bright through the bedroom window, a shaft of light hitting me square in the face as I opened my eyes. I turned in the bed and saw Ellie still asleep on her side of the bed, and I had a strange déjà vu of being home. God how I wished I was. I slipped out of the bed quietly and walked to the window, taking in the view of Ellie’s street. All seemed quiet, abandoned. I went downstairs and brewed some coffee, hoping we could get an early start to the day’s travels. I sat at the table and sipped hot coffee, the taste strong on my tongue. My thoughts turned again to home, to Diane and Jordan. The ache in my heart from not even being able to talk to them was unbearable. I started to daydream.
I was sitting in a large green meadow, yellow flowers blowing in waves across the field. Diane and Jordan were walking towards me, Diane holding a wicker picnic basket and Jordan holding a toy, both of them smiling and holding hands. They arrive on the blanket that I had laid out in the grass and they sat beside me, Jordan hugging me and Diane placing a kiss on my forehead. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my
back, and I feel great joy on such a beautiful day with my family. Diane reaches over and hands me the picnic basket, then leans over to Jordan to tie her shoe. I lift the hinged lid of the basket and open it, reaching inside for the delicious lunch Diane had prepared. As I pull my hand out of the basket, I look down and see that I’m holding a bloody arm. I drop it, shocked. I open the lid further and look inside the basket, I see Isabel’s face, bloody and dirty with large yellow eyes, and she screams at me, yellow foam spraying out of the basket. I fall back from my crouch onto my butt and look over to Diane and Jordan, who are now lying on the blanket on their backs, with Thom and Frank hunched over them, ripping their stomachs open with their teeth. I jolt awake, pushing away from the table and tipping my chair backwards, falling onto the linoleum floor. I look up to see Ellie standing over me with a cup of coffee.
“Are you okay? I asked you three times if you slept well, and you just kept staring ahead like you were in a trance.”
She reached her hand to me and helped me up. I righted my chair and sat back down.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I thought I was daydreaming, but I must have fallen asleep or been sleepwalking or something. I sat down to have a coffee and drifted off, and then I had this horrible dream.”
Ellie put her hand on my shoulder, gliding it gently over my back. It reminded me of Diane and how she would comfort me when I was stressed about something. I put my hand over my eyes and tried to wipe the images out of my head. I stood up.