Aberdeen

by James Bierce

  "We haven't really checked this house for supplies yet, have we?" Sarah asks her, more as a distraction than anything. As much as she appreciates the company, she's not really in the mood for it.

  "Just briefly — was there something you were looking for?"

  "Just set anything useful on the dining room table, and we'll figure out what we can take with us when we leave. Non-perishable food, weapons, matches, those small propane tanks like you use in a lantern, batteries — whatever you think we might use."

  "Are we gonna stay here for a while?"

  "Until we find Curtis, and Larry recovers well enough to move."

  "I'm sure we'll find him," Christine says, as she stands up and starts to leave the room.

  "Christine…" Sarah calls out, stopping her just as she heads into the hallway. "Larry said that you guys heard Curtis upstairs, but he didn't tell me what he was saying…"

  "We couldn't understand it, we're not even sure it was him."

  "Larry said he recognized his voice. Did he sound angry, or hurt?"

  "Honestly, you couldn't really tell. I'm not sure what Larry told you, but he took a pretty good blow to the head when we came out of that place."

  As she makes her way down the hallway, Christine wonders whether it was a good idea to lie to Sarah like that — but the relieved look on her face afterward was certainly a welcome sight, even if it only lasts for a short while. It's true that they couldn't understand what was being said upstairs, but that's only because the things they heard were screams of agony, and they were clearly coming from Curtis according to Larry — but she doesn't see the point in traumatizing the poor woman any more than necessary, especially over something that may or may not have happened in that hospital.

  Figuring that any weapons would probably be in the master bedroom, she walks to the end of the short hallway and enters a good-sized room that looks as though it's never been touched by human hands — aside from the messed up blankets and sheets on the bed that is. Otherwise, the room is pristine, with knickknacks sitting on shelves throughout the space, and a perfectly aligned row of shoes placed neatly in front of a pair of mirrored closet doors in the corner. Clearly, one of the people that lived here was a neat freak — but one thing they weren't, was a gun fanatic. After going through all of the drawers and closet shelves, throwing everything haphazardly onto the bed with only a small amount of guilt for having ruined the perfect order — she finally gives up on finding anything that even resembles a weapon, and continues onto the next door along the hallway instead. Room after room, she searches through every box, drawer, and cupboard, finding absolutely nothing of use aside from the large amount of canned food still sitting in the cabinets and pantry.

  Then a vision suddenly flashes into her mind, of the family spread out so peacefully onto the lawn — and one of them with a bullet hole that can still be seen, despite the horrible decomposition present. She glances at Sarah and Larry as she passes through the living room, and then at Rachel and the boys, who are all fast asleep in the back bedroom that sits by itself. Not wanting to disturb any of them, she quietly opens the sliding back door in the dining room and steps out onto the back patio. The family, or what's left of them, is resting about halfway across the yard, near a small vegetable garden that's now full of weeds and volunteer plants that have reseeded themselves back into the soil. Lying just a few feet away from the first body, she can see a handgun on the gravel pathway next to the garden beds, sitting fully exposed to the downpour of rain that's coming down. She tries not to look at the bodies as she approaches them and picks up the gun, plucking part of the barrel from the wet mud and noting how much rust is covering both it and the cylinder of the revolver. Then she tries to open it, curious as to how many bullets might be left — but seemingly every moving part on it is now frozen in place with rust and decay.

  Disappointed, she looks out at the rest of the lawn and sees that the entire place is surrounded with a tall chain-link fence — and after studying the perimeter of it for a few minutes, she suddenly notices a young man standing on the other side of the barrier, watching her every move as his hands grip the heavy wire. All of the men these days, healthy or not, have facial hair that gets longer by the day, and hair on their scalps that's even longer — but the man staring at her from the other side of the fence clearly had long hair even before the outbreak. He starts beating on the wire, then pacing back and forth as his state of mind becomes agitated — which prompts Christine to back up toward the house again, still holding onto the rusty revolver. A few moments later, as she nearly trips while stepping back up onto the concrete patio, the man begins screaming at the top of his lungs, his fists still beating violently against the chain-link — and by the time she opens the sliding door again and closes the curtains behind her, she sees another figure joining the man.

  "What were you doing out there?" Rachel asks her, standing in the doorway of the spare bedroom. "I've been looking for you everywhere…"

  "I thought there might be a gun out there," Christine answers, her voice shaking with fear. "Why were you looking for me?"

  "Sarah is afraid that Curtis might be headed back to the bank, so I volunteered to go look for him." She looks down at the pitiful excuse for a gun that Christine is carrying, then takes it from her trembling hand and sets it on the table next to them. "I was wondering if you wanted to come with me…"

  Christine looks over at Sarah sitting in the next room, and sees the desperation in her eyes — but she also sees the darkening skies outside the window as the sun sinks deeper into the west. "It's getting kind of late, isn't it?" she whispers.

  "It's not very far away — just down the hill a bit." She sees Christine nod nervously, then walk past her and into the living room, where she picks up a gun and holster from the floor next to the couch. "Were you gonna tell me who's yelling out there?"

  "A guy who saw me — but there's a fence in the way," Christine replies, her sleep-induced mind forgetting about the second man.

  Rachel opens the curtains just a crack, and sees a single man standing quietly next to the fence. "You're okay to stay here alone?" she asks Sarah, walking back into the living room.

  "I'm not alone, I have Matt and Ben — and Larry," Sarah says, still looking out at the hospital, which is beginning to cave in on itself as the fires spread throughout the entire group of buildings. "You guys should leave right away, it's gonna be dark soon."

  "Are you ready?" Rachel asks Christine, who's standing next to her with bleary eyes.

  "Yeah, I'm ready."

  "Keep your radio handy, okay?" Rachel says to Sarah, as Christine opens the front door and starts walking down the pathway to the street. "Oh, and there's a guy out back, but he's on the other side of a big fence — so you shouldn't have any trouble."

  "Just one guy?" Sarah asks.

  "Yeah," she answers back, leaving the house. "Be sure to lock this behind us…"

  "Okay, I will. And thanks, Rachel, I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am…"

  She watches the door close, and the two women as they cross the street and head out across the hospital parking lot. It only takes them a few minutes to disappear behind the brush at the top of the hill, and then the scene in front of her turns static again, with only the flames of the fire moving in the distance. She's aware that there's no longer a reason to keep an eye out for Curtis, since he obviously won't be coming out of its doors now that it's fully engulfed — but with Larry still snoring next to her on the couch, and the boys asleep in the other room, she figures that it doesn't hurt to watch their surroundings anyway.

  Picking up her gun and radio, she walks over to the kitchen and grabs a bag of saltine crackers, then turns around to head back into the living room — but she hears a faint ticking sound coming from somewhere behind her, and she turns back around and faces the sliding door, listening for the sound to repeat itself. Hearing nothing, she walks to the door and slides the curtains open just enough to see through them, and
she sees the man that Rachel was talking about, still standing motionless against the fence. She closes the curtain again, then heads back into the living and sits down in the chair, opening the package of stale crackers from the plastic wrapper as she looks back at the parking lot.

  Then she hears the sound again, this time with a scratching sound along with it. Facing the back door again, with her hand gripping the pistol, she nearly screams when there's suddenly a knocking against the glass — hitting the door hard enough that Matt comes staggering out of the bedroom beside the dining area.

  "What's going on?" he asks.

  "Go get your brother," Sarah tells him. "And grab the other gun…"

  CHAPTER 25

  Aberdeen: March 31st

  Between the downpour of rain in the city and the splitting headache from the gash on his head, Curtis doesn't even notice the numerous dead dogs that are scattered on the street until he nearly walks into one. Once he does though, he stops and looks around carefully, counting at least nine of the animals in the vicinity of the intersection, and the body of one man whose throat has been ripped out — presumably by the same dogs. The scene by itself, as horrific as it is, doesn't necessarily bother him all that much, but the fact that it happened only a few blocks from where he left his wife and kids is worrisome to say the least. He also sees what's left of a burning strip mall on the other side of the street, but all that's left are a few brick walls and the parking lot out front.

  After checking the man for weapons or a radio, and finding that his pockets are remarkably empty, he begins walking further into the downtown area where the bank is located, his legs burning from the abuse they've endured over the last few days. The sun is still barely visible in the sky to the west, but he can already see a couple of people walking down the street by the harbor — both of them clearly infected from the awkward way that they walk, like every joint in their body is inflamed and painful. He can see someone else as well, lying motionless and face-down on the sidewalk just past the bank.

  Sensing that something isn't right, Curtis carefully makes his way down the sidewalk, keeping his body as close to the buildings as possible until he reaches the first window in the front of the bank. At first he only listens, hearing a fair amount of clatter from inside — but after a few minutes of hearing no voices or anything he recognizes, he looks through the window and sees a shopping cart parked in front of the open bank vault, but there are no people anywhere in sight. He watches for a few more minutes, then finally sees a gray-haired older man emerge from the vault with bags in each hand. After the man re-enters the safe, Curtis sneaks over to the entrance and slips inside, glancing over at the man lying on the sidewalk as he passes by, who looks deceased from the amount of blood running from his body and into the gutter.

  As soon as Curtis enters the building, the old man comes out from the safe once again and places more items into the cart, completely unaware that the front door still hasn't closed entirely. Curtis hides behind a desk and looks around the rest of the bank, seeing no sign of Sarah, the kids, or Rachel — and certainly no sign of Larry or Christine. As far as he can tell, he's the only other person in the building besides this old guy — a man who at first appears perfectly normal, judging purely from his mannerisms and fluid movement. There's still something that doesn't seem normal about him though, besides the fact that he appears to be stealing piles of cash that now has as much value as a ream of typing paper. It's not until the man turns in Curtis' direction that he sees the fresh blood splattered across his face and the front of his clothing, and the two handguns resting in holsters on his hips. He stays there, crouched down impatiently on the opposite side of the lobby, and waits for the man to enter the vault one last time before moving quickly across the room. Hearing metal clanging from inside, he throws his weight against the thick, reinforced vault door and closes it, muting the screams from inside to little more than a whisper.

  Paying no attention to the noises coming from inside the safe, Curtis wedges one of the desks between the door and the wall alongside of it, trapping the man and his guns in what he hopes is a bulletproof cage — with only a small crack on one side exposing the innards of the safe. Behind him, filled to the brim with canvas bags and metal safe deposit boxes, is the shopping cart that the man was loading up. Although some of it is cash just like he thought, most of it appears to be personal items that were stored inside the boxes — like jewelry and gold coins, and even a few unloaded pistols. He has absolutely no interest in the jewelry and cash, but he does slip the pistols into one of the bags and sets it on the desk — then he searches the entire rest of the bank for any sign of his family, but finds nothing. The only hopeful thing about the situation is the fact that their bags are also missing — but without a single clue left behind as to where they've gone to, finding them in this city could prove to be both difficult and dangerous.

  Feeling discouraged and frustrated, he walks outside onto the sidewalk again and looks around at the nearby buildings and streets, hoping to see either one of his family members, or a message of some sort that might lead him in the right direction. All he sees, however, is another small group of people, looking weak and moving slowly to the east. He heads back inside again and picks up the bag of guns from the desk, then spots an assault rifle leaned up in the corner of the lobby, complete with a scope. Placing the bag onto his shoulder, he picks the rifle up and pops the clip out, seeing what looks like a full magazine of ammunition inside. Ready to move on, he looks over at the bank vault and wonders if he should be feeling at all guilty about leaving the guy locked up with no food or water — but regardless of whether he should feel something, he also knows that the man inside poses a threat to him, and for that reason alone, there's really nothing he can do to help the guy out.

  As Curtis starts to leave, the old man begins yelling something again, this time in a voice that sounds more calm and rational.

  "You wanna repeat that?" Curtis says loudly, leaning in close to the door. "I didn't quite catch it."

  "I said…, are you looking for two women and a couple of boys?"

  Feeling as though his heart is about to beat out of chest, Curtis yells back, more loudly this time. "Yes, I am — have you seen them?"

  An evil, hoarse laugh comes through the thin crack beside the door. "Yeah, in fact I have — they're in here with me right now. A little rough around the edges, but they'll be okay."

  A million thoughts race through Curtis' mind as he tries to figure out how to get his family out safely, but every one of them involves opening the door. There's a possibility that the man is lying, either about them being in there at all, or the fact that they're still okay — but at this point, he really has no choice but to trust him.

  "Listen, we're just passing through, we don't want to hurt anybody," Curtis says, checking to make sure there's a round in the chamber of the rifle. "I'll open the safe, and we'll be on our way — does that sound reasonable to you?"

  "Sounds good to me — as long as you leave my shit alone."

  Curtis drops the bag with the pistols back onto the desk, then readies the rifle as his foot pushes the desk off to the side. As soon as the door is clear, he steps back and aims the gun, feeling the stab wound on his wrist begin to throb as his hand grips the handle. "Go ahead and push it open!"

  Little by little, the vault starts to open, and an older man that stands several inches taller than Curtis slowly emerges with his left hand raised in the air, and the right hand still hidden behind the door. "Drop my rifle, and your wife won't get shot — okay?" the man says.

  "Drop yours and I won't put a bullet in your head," Curtis says, his voice shaking horribly.

  "You're not gonna shoot me," the man replies, laughing again. "The safety is on…"

  Curtis quickly squeezes the trigger, but nothing happens. As he glances down at the side of the rifle, the man picks up an office chair next to him and throws it toward Curtis, then rushes toward him and grabs the rifle — wrestling it out
of Curtis' arms before finally striking him over the head with it. Curtis' legs give out from underneath him as he crumples to the floor, and the room starts spinning as the man stands over him with the rifle aimed at his head.

  "By the way, I lied, your family isn't in there — but you're gonna help me find them…"

  As Rachel and Christine make their way down the hill, taking a different path than earlier in the day, both of them are a bit dismayed when they see a bat flittering around in the sky above, an unwelcome sign that darkness is approaching quickly — although it is a sign that spring has finally come to the coast. By the time they reach the bottom of the hill, more dogs can be heard from somewhere behind them, no doubt the same group that Christine could see from the living room window. They don't sound as if they're getting any closer, but it's enough to keep Rachel glancing in that direction often.

  "What kind of dogs do you think those are?" Christine asks.

  "When they're wild like this it doesn't really matter — they're all dangerous." Rachel points at the road up ahead, where the remains of the last pack is now visible. "Don't get any ideas about saving any of them either — those ones tried to kill us the moment they laid eyes on us."

  Christine looks the other way as they pass by the carcasses of the dogs in the road, finding it easier somehow to look at the dead man lying next to them instead. She's been an animal lover since she was little, although neither of her parents would allow any of them in the house. Her mother had a valid excuse, since she was allergic to seemingly every type of hairy creature imaginable, but her father was a different story — he simply didn't like them. More than once in the last several months, Christine has stayed awake at night wondering what happened to all of the pets that used to be under the care of people. Some were trapped in homes, livestock were locked in fields, exotic animals in zoos, poultry farms with countless birds all crammed into ventilated buildings — and all of them were more or less dependent on the human race for their food, water and shelter. Besides these dogs and a few cats in the city, they've seen relatively few domestic animals on their journey — mostly cows and horses wandering around in the countryside.