Those Who Lived

by Poss, Bryant

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’re not hungry, but that doesn’t explain why they always come after us. Animals that aren’t hungry don’t hunt.”

  “People do,” he said with pursed lips.

  “Excellent point. Maybe they’re like most animals. Maybe they can’t eat decaying meat. Decaying flesh houses bacteria that few animals, like vultures, can digest. Maybe these things can’t eat it.”

  “But they’re already dead.”

  “We don’t know that. That’s television lore you’re talking. You were bitten but not infected, and you were immune to the initial outbreak. If the spazzos and pokies are dead, why are they animated? Most of the others who were infected died and are no longer animated. They are stone dead. It doesn’t make any sense technically for these to be dead. Maybe they’re just—I don’t know what they are—but whoever they were is gone. They’re raving cannibals, but they don’t eat each other. That hints at a consciousness. Do they have one? Why are some slow and strong while others are fast? It’s too early to tell. There are just too many unanswered questions.”

  The day was bright, just the right kind of day to call in sick and go shopping, or fishing, or gaming or whatever it was that so many different people enjoyed doing in their own free time with their own individuality. Now it was a day to survive just like tomorrow would be, and the next day, and the next. When the leaves fell, they’d survive. When the snow fell, they’d survive. When the flowers bloomed, they’d survive. When shade was sought—. That’s all she could think about, staring at the blacktop that would turn pale gray and be devoured by the earth just like everything else. There was no need to think about it. The world had moved on, and she had to find a way to move with it. There was no need dwelling on it, expecting it to change. She’d always wanted the world to change anyway, well here it was. Deal with it.

  “I thought Ben was your husband or boyfriend or something—you know because of how you guys acted, or um, you know.” His voice snapped her attention back to the present, and she looked at him.

  “That’s a random response to what I just said about the pokies and the spazzos. Wait, how we acted?” she stopped, cocking an eyebrow at him then continued on, but she stopped again and grabbed him by the shoulder when the yell came on the wind. They stood still listening for the sound again over the autumn breeze. Shoes patted asphalt with their backward steps, her hand on Cillian’s shoulder.

  “Was that a spazzo?” he whispered but she didn’t reply. Lo just squeezed his arm a little harder for him to hush then continued backing up until they got to the car where the dead man was lying face down, half out the door. She crouched down slowly and grabbed the corpse by the waist of the pants, giving it a tug, but the feet caught on the seat. Reaching down with both hands she pulled him, finally rolling the body onto the ground and out of the way. They heard another scream from up the road, the way they had been walking, but it seemed farther off now.

  “Get in the car,” she pulled him toward her. “I think it’s going the other way, but we might as well take a break. We’ve got a couple hours until sundown. Besides, this is as good a time as any to decide exactly where the hell we’re going.”

  The car was vintage with manual windows, and they each sat in the front, she in the driver’s side, with their windows cracked ever so slightly, but there wasn’t a time that a hand was more than a few inches from the knob to roll it up. They consumed their dinner consisting of chips and pepperoni washed down with bottled water and passed the time in relative silence. The caw of crows could be heard in the distance, breaking the silence within the car. Particles of the dead flesh from the car’s previous owner filled their nostrils like the smell of old garbage, but the cool climate helped.

  “How come they’re not eating the bodies, the crows and buzzards, I mean?”

  “I guess there’s too much for them to handle. Animals will only eat when hungry,” she said absently, staring out the windshield. “I don’t even know if these things feel hunger.”

  “Maybe they don’t feel full. Maybe they don’t feel satisfied.”

  “An even better point,” she said giving him a smile. “So, what’s all this business about how Ben and I acted. You mean how we talked to each other?” Her tone seemed sincere, but there was playfulness there.

  “Yeah, how you talked.”

  “How about other things?”

  “I don’t know anything about anything else.” He said rather quickly, and she just raised her eyebrows at him, waiting. “I just heard you guys talk.”

  “If you heard that, Cillian, you heard everything else.” She waited, but he just looked away. “Hey, if you don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to—”

  “I’m just not sure what to say,” he broke in, looking at her briefly then out his window. “You know, I don’t know what to say. I heard. I—watched. I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for?” she asked, rubbing his shoulder for comfort, again placing the back of a hand on his cheek to check his temperature. “You have nothing to apologize for. It is perfectly natural that you looked. I would’ve been more surprised if you told me you hadn’t.”

  “Well, you know, it’s wrong.” He turned and met her gaze. “It’s wrong until you’re married.”

  “It’s wrong!?” she said it far louder than she’d meant to then took a moment in silence to wait and watch. The wind blew into the cracked window, and she took the opportunity to calm herself. “I understand where you’re coming from, Cillian. I understand it better than most. But believe me, I think after you experience the world we’re in a little longer, your concept of what’s inherently right and what’s opposite that being wrong may change somewhat.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  “Hey, look at me,” she turned his chin with her finger to face her. “It’s what you believe. Don’t apologize for what you believe. Just give yourself time to know you believe it for yourself and not just because someone else told you to.”

  He nodded in response and began lowering his eyes, but she caught his gaze with her own, bringing his eyes back up to look at her. Her long hair fell over her shoulder with a sweep of her hand behind her ear. He stared back at her, unblinking, nearly unmoving. The sound of their breathing filled the car. A gust of wind came again through the cracked window, blowing strands of hair back over her face. Cillian opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, the bottle of water sloshing in his lap.

  “Reeeooohhaa!”

  The scream was hollow, liked its vocal cords were broken, but the loudest sound was that of its hands smashing into the window behind Lo’s head. They both jumped, and she lunged forward to get to the passenger seat, but it had her hair. Its arm was through the upper part of the window, sliced to the bone by the broken glass, but it seemed not to even feel it. The spazzo had its hand embedded into the red hair, so fixed there was no way to tear it free. She pulled her revolver and pointed it behind her, not thinking of anything but escape.

  Boom!

  The shot next to her ear in the enclosed car was so violent it made her dizzy, nauseated with vertigo. Cillian put his hands over his ears in response then looked at her. Her eyes were wild, desperate, and she had completely missed the spazzo. Cillian threw himself onto her, grabbing the wrist of the thing that used to be a man, someone’s husband, someone’s father. It threw its other hand into the window trying to get at him, but it couldn’t break through. Cillian’s face was no more than inches from the spazzo’s. The dilated pupils, the spasmodic shifting of the eyes in every direction. There was nothing there. It was like looking into a hollow man, like there was nothing, no soul, only rage and hunger and hate and discontent. Perhaps pain. It was at that moment that he realized what the world was now. It was this now and would never be right again.

  He reached down into Lo’s pocket and pulled out her folding knife. He opened it, straddling her while she came to and reached around his neck, pulling him down. The horn blew a few times with the str
uggle, but it sounded weak, dying itself. Cillian looked down into her eyes briefly and she looked back at him. There was pleading there, anxiety. Trying to be careful with the blade, he reached behind her head with both hands, she still pulling him down toward her in struggle, and he began sawing. It was only a matter of seconds, painful seconds as he heard her let out a yelp, but he finished. She pulled away, most of her hair still in the hands of the spazzo, some thick clumps pulling from her scalp, and she turned with rage that seemed equal to the thing outside the window. She reached down and grabbed the gun, coming up with it in both hands.

  “Cover your ears,” she said steadily, and squeezed the trigger not a second after. The spazzo’s head snapped back and it sank to its knees, its hand caught in the window holding a giant clump of hair. Lo shook her head again from the noise then waved at him with her hand. “Get out,” her voice was hoarse. “We have to get out of here now. I don’t know how much the noise will attract them.”

  He obeyed, grabbing her bag for her, and they made their way swiftly off the road and into the woods, behind the hospital where they’d both been when it started. He looked at her questioningly, but she only shook her head, pointing with the revolver for them to keep going. He didn’t argue. He kept the road in sight but stayed behind the tree line while she stepped in cadence with him close behind keeping her eyes and ears open to try to keep them safe, if such a thing there was.

  5

  They followed the sun that was beating them to their destination, wherever that may be, and it wouldn’t be long until they only had the moon to work with. She didn’t think there could be anything worse. The woods were growing darker by the minute, and they were running out of rations. Lo reached up and felt the ragged ends of hair on the back of her tender scalp and winced. Her head was splitting from the spazzo’s grip, the gunshot, and the sawing of her hair by the boy wonder, and all she wanted to do was sit down and not be on edge for about five damn minutes. That was it. Didn’t seem like too much to ask, but in this world gone to hell in a handbasket, it was asking for a winning lotto ticket. There just was no magic place to go. She thought about the jail, but there may be infected trapped inside, not to mention the dead bodies. Houses were too risky this soon both for the infected and the living. Either would be inhospitable to immunes coming into the place unwelcome. Lo looked over at Cillian then at the road beside them as they made their way through the woods. He didn’t look so great either. Running on antibiotics and painkillers, he looked well worn and needed rest. This trek needed to end soon.

  “The school,” he whispered it, making her pause for a moment.

  “How far?” She asked, and he pointed up the road so her eyes could follow. Barely visible through the trees and across the highway sat the long, one-story brick building. The two stared at it for several minutes then she looked at him skeptically.

  “This all started on a Sunday, well around here anyway, so it should be empty” he said, pursing his lips.

  Lo looked at the building, its silhouette something like an old bunker in the background. Either that or a mental institution. Something about it seemed right. Prisons would be overrun with all kinds as would be jails and military compounds. Everything happened so fast. But a school, here was a building made to be secure against intruders and vandals, made to keep kids safe from the outside world. It would most likely be completely empty, and it would have food, enough to feed hundreds of kids, non-perishable foods as well as anything else. It didn’t take her long to decide that it just made too much sense.

  “Good point, let’s do this.”

  Every door they found into the building was locked, which made sense given that everything really did go to hell on a Sunday. All the windows were intact, making the structure even more secure, but better than anything else was the lack of screams. There didn’t seem to be any infected around the place. The two kept moving cautiously, anxiety beginning to creep up a little. It was almost dark, and she really didn’t want to break glass to get into this place.

  “What about the kitchen?” Cillian asked from in front of her.

  “What about it?”

  “Aren’t there always exhaust fans in the kitchen?”

  “Good thinking, but we’ve got to find a way in one way or another in the next few minutes or we’re gonna have to make our own way.”

  After covering half the perimeter, she gave up trying to find any exhaust fans then it dawned on her. Everything was probably on the roof, from fans to air conditioning units. They made it to a small window at the corner of the building and Lo nodded. Pushing together, they rolled one of the nearby dumpsters over to the window and searched around until they found half a cinder block, the circle of the sun itself gone, only the faint glow remaining of the day.

  “This is the smallest window I’ve seen, and it looks like it leads to a book room or something, easy to block off once we’re inside,” she motioned for him to move out of the way with her head and reared back with the piece of concrete. “We’re out of time. Let’s get in here and pull the dumpster in front of the window until we can barricade it from the other side.”

  The noise was very discomforting in the silence of the evening, and she quickly removed her jacket, knocking out the loose pieces of glass then helped Cillian through. It took a few minutes, but they finally got inside and managed to pull the dumpster in front of the hole as best they could, both sitting down by the window for several minutes listening for anything that may be attracted by the noise. Breathing was the only thing disturbing the silence, and once content that they were the only ones doing it, the two moved into the interior of the room.

  “This place is about to be pitch black,” she said, rummaging through her bag. “I’ve got one flashlight, and I think the first thing we need to do is find the shop class. That’s the most likely place to find something we can use.”

  They roamed the blackening hallways for quite some time, Lo cupping the light with her hand whenever she thought there was a noise, until they finally found the shop class. There were no windows in this room, and the exterior wall consisted of a garage door closed tight. Stacks of lumber lined the walls with expensive looking saws and power tools that were more useful to block doorways with than anything else now. She shone the light on a sign behind them on the interior of one of two doors in the room, the other leading to what seemed to be an office. Safety equipment can be replaced. Your life cannot. Use the proper gear.

  “No shit” she said, shining the light on Cillian. “This looks like the perfect spot.” Lo walked past him to a workbench and pulled off one of the headbands hanging on the wall. She turned the light on and smiled, handing the headband to Cillian. “Here, they use these when working on engines, I guess. This is the jackpot.”

  The boy put on the headband and switched on the light at the front of it.

  “You look like a coal miner,” she giggled. “Well, what do you think, find the kitchen tonight, or lock ourselves in here until morning?”

  “I think that answer is pretty obvious,” he said going over to the door and turning the deadbolt. The sound of shoes on dusty concrete followed him over to the lumber stacks where he found a two-by-four to wedge under the doorknob. Walking back to the stack, he dragged a long piece of board to the door, wedging it between the bottom and a table saw that was bolted to the floor, the smell of dust and sawdust becoming more pronounced with his movements.

  “You’re a quick study, kid,” she said, bringing a frown to his face. “Cillian, I mean. Sorry, old habit. How do you feel anyway? I know you’ve got to be rundown. Here, drink this whole bottle right now.” She said it rather forcefully, extending the water bottle to him. “Sorry, I just don’t want your fever to come back.”

  He nodded, turning up the bottle and sat down while she rummaged around, coming back with thick welding aprons and jumpsuits from the closet. She laid them on the floor, making a bed as best she could. Plenty of cloth from a box of new work rags served as pillows. Cillian tr
ied to get up several times to help her, but she just told him to sit and keep drinking the water, giving him the last two bags of chips, and setting her pack behind the makeshift bed. The teacher’s office was closed off from the room, and after rummaging around awhile, Lo came up with nothing useful. Finally, she stood by the bed and took her shoes off then her jacket. She looked at him for a moment, his light partially covered with one of the rags serving as a lamp now, and began unbuttoning her pants, doing her tiptoe motion, inching them down her thighs. A huge koi fish started at her hip and circled around her right thigh. It was dark, but he could see it in the soft light of the covered lamp. Small script scrolled down her left thigh all the way to the knee. He looked at her hard, and she let him.

  “This is about as safe as I’ve been since this all started,” folding the pants and placing them in a pile. She took off her shirt and quickly lay down in her bra and panties, pulling some of the jumpsuits over her. “I want to sleep as close as I can to how I used to.”

  “In your underwear?” he asked, turning his head and looking at her.

  “Well, this is closer. I usually sleep in nothing, but I don’t feel quite that secure in this room,” she turned her eyes to his and smiled. “I’ve slept in everything, including my boots since this started, and I haven’t slept worth a righteous damn. I need this.”

  “I totally understand,” he said, unbuttoning his own pants under the jumpsuit covers. He looked over at her and she just stared at him as if to ask what he was waiting for. The boy slid his sneakers off and his jeans then he pulled his shirt over his head.

  Lo reached behind her and grabbed her pack, rummaging around then gave a sigh when she didn’t find an extra bag of chips in the bottom like she’d hoped. Her hand touched the golf ball at the bottom, slowly pulling it out and placing it in the light. She turned it this way and that, looking at the word Luck scrawled just above the drawing of an eye. The pen was in the bottom of the pack.