by Cross, Amy
And then I see her.
The girl in the white dress is down there in the corner of the pit, on her back with her head tilted back. I guess I'd figured she might be difficult to spot, but in fact she's right there in the open and I have no doubt that it's her. I make my way along the edge of the pit and then I crouch down to take a closer look. Fortunately the mask doesn't let any of the stench through to my nostrils, because I'm pretty sure this place must smell terrible. As more and more flies buzz all around me, I peer more closely at the girl and I see her dead eyes staring up toward the sky.
“So you're crazy, then,” Bob's voice says.
I don't turn and look at him.
I know he's right behind me, or at least that's what I see if I looked.
But looking would make the illusion stronger, right? It'd be reinforcing something that's not really there, and that's the last thing I need right now.
“Don't feel bad,” he continues. “People go crazy all the time, and you have been through a lot. Not everyone's cut out to flourish in a post-apocalyptic wilderness. Me, I'd've been just fine, if I'd gone out into the world instead of sitting around in that apartment building. I'd have done well, and I reckon your little brother would have done well too. The irony is, the only one who made it out of that building was the one person who couldn't hack it.”
“What do I do now?” I whisper, still staring at the dead girl.
“Everything you do tends to turn to shit.”
“I know, so what do I do to stop that?”
“I doubt there's anything. Your only option is to try to pull yourself together, to see if you can be strong. Nobody said it'd be easy, Elizabeth. You've gotta stand up to your hallucinations. You can't keep looking away.”
I stare at the dead girl for a moment longer, before realizing that maybe the voice of Bob is right after all. I hesitate for a moment, before getting to my feet and then slowly turning to him.
He's right next to me, grinning at me with that same hideous face that I remember from Manhattan.
“You're not really here,” I say firmly.
“No, I'm not.”
“You're dead.”
“I am indeed.”
“So you can't hurt me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because you're just a figment of my imagination.”
“Oh, I am a figment of your imagination, but there's no just about it. Because figments of the imagination can be dangerous, Elizabeth. They can make bad things happen and they can definitely hurt you.”
“You're not really here,” I say again, “and you'll go away now.”
“Will I?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I squeeze my hands tight into two fists, as the sound of buzzing flies gets even louder. I swear, I can almost feel the flies inside the mask, even though I know they can't possibly get through.
“Because I'm making you go away,” I tell him. “Right now.”
I stare at him.
I blink.
His grin grows.
“Nice try,” he adds, and then suddenly he shoves me in the chest, pushing me back so hard and so suddenly that I don't have time to react.
I fall down into the pit, landing on my back against a knot of arms and legs and head. I immediately cry out and turn to get up, but my feet slip and I fall down. Twisting around, I see my left hand resting on the face of a dead man, and then I spot thick, juicy maggots crawling all through what's left of his rancid flesh. I turn to look at my right hand, and I see more maggots and flies everywhere. Screaming loudly inside the mask, I turn and try to make my way back toward the edge of the pit, but my feet keep losing their grip against the slippery, rotten bodies all around. I desperately want to take the mask off, so I can breathe better, but I know I can't do anything so stupid.
I just need more air.
I gasp as I start crawling over the bodies. A moment later I clamber over another, and then I freeze as I see that it's the dead girl in the white dress. Up close now, I look directly into her face and I see that her eyes are looking straight back at me. For a few seconds I'm terrified that she's somehow come back to life, but then I move my head to one side and I realize that it was just a coincidence that our gazes met. I force myself to crawl past her, and finally I reach the edge of the pit and reach up. As I do so, however, I suddenly feel something on my face, and I look down just in time to see a thick, juicy fly buzzing around inside my mask.
Screaming, I fall back and land once more on the pile of bodies. Now there are more flies inside the mask, crawling all over my face, and somehow the space around my head seems to be filling up. I don't know how the flies are getting in, but they're everywhere now and I can even feel some crawling up my nose. I open my mouth to scream again, but immediately a swarm of flies rushes in. I can't spit them out fast enough, and some tumble down my throat while others buzz around next to my teeth and beneath my tongue.
Grabbing the sides of the mask, I twist it to one side and then – even though I know this is a mistake – I pull the entire thing away and throw it to one side. The flies are everywhere now, but at least I can start frantically brushing them away from my face. As I do so, however, I'm suddenly hit by the terrible smell of the rotten bodies, and I start gagging. Leaning forward, I feel an intense, sharp pain in my gut as I gag again and again, as if something in my stomach is out of control and heaving over and over again. The sharpness keeps getting stronger, and it's moving up toward the back of my throat, and I can't even breathe as an icy sweat breaks out all over my body.
A moment later I feel the maggots starting to burst up from my throat and into my mouth. Leaning further forward, I vomit them up, and a great torrent rushes out of my mouth and splatters against the corpses. I squeeze my eyes tight shut as the pain in my stomach becomes intense, and I try to tell myself that none of this can be real, that it's all in my head. It's just another hallucination.
Suddenly the pain stops and my mouth is dry, and I open my eyes. I'm still in the pit, but all the maggots are gone and the flies are simply buzzing around. The mask is still off, but only one or two flies are on my face and I quickly brush those aside. I take a deep breath, and now it's clear that the pain and the nausea were all in my head. I manage to banish the hallucinations, however, which means that I actually took control of my own thoughts. If I can do that, then maybe I still have hope.
I turn to reach for the mask, but then I freeze.
Slowly, I look down at my left hand, and to my horror I see that another, paler hand is reaching up from the mass of bodies and gripping my wrist.
The dead hand belongs to the girl in the white dress. I stare at the hand for a moment, unable to understand how it could possibly have reached up and grabbed me, but deep down I already know that somehow she's alive. Maybe she came back from the dead because she sensed my presence, because she knows that I'm the one who killed her. So I turn and look at her, and sure enough she's staring straight at me with an expression of pure hatred in her eyes.
“I'm so sorry,” I whisper, my voice trembling slightly. “Things shouldn't be like this.”
Suddenly she lunges at me, screaming and grabbing my head and then shoving me back. She lands on my chest and snarls, dripping blood from her mouth, and then she leans closer.
I blink and she's gone.
I'm standing at the edge of the pit still, staring at Bob, and I feel a rush of relief as I realize that I never actually fell into the pit at all, that it was just another in a long string of hallucinations. I don't even know what's real and what's not anymore, I just know that I can't trust myself.
“See you around, kid,” Bob says calmly, before looking past me as if he's spotted something over my shoulder. “Looks to me like shit's about to get real.”
“Huh?”
In an instant, he's gone. I hesitate for a moment, before realizing that I can hear a strange humming sound nearby. Turning, I'm shocked to see that something in the di
stance is kicking up dust. Whatever it is, it's coming this way fast, and finally I spot a buggy racing along the ruined road. I take a step forward, but then I realize that the buggy is one of ours, one of the ones that's used by teams that go out on patrol. And as the buggy races past me, I see a single, injured figured strapped into the seat. I don't even have time to react, before the buggy hits a rock on the road and spins, quickly flipping and then barrel-rolling as it crashes into the checkpoint.
5pm
Thomas
For weeks now, I've been siphoning off small quantities of gasoline and hoarding it in a hiding place at the back of an old store. I don't have enough to fill the truck's tank but, as I remove the boarding that covers the stash, I figure that I have enough to burn a zombie.
***
“It won't hurt,” I say as I crouch down next to the end of the gasoline trail. “At least, I don't think it will. It shouldn't. It'll just all be over real quick. Okay?”
Looking up at Jane, as ants continue to crawl all over her, I feel a sense of fear in my chest. I know I have to do this, that I have to save her from the indignity of being slowly eaten by the ants, but I also know that I'm about to set fire to another human being. Or to what's left of her, anyway. She's still moving, still tugging on the ropes occasionally, although those bursts of anger have stopped ever since she saw her purse. I don't know what caused the anger, and I might never know why they lasted for exactly eleven seconds, but the purse – or, more specifically, the photos inside – changed something.
“I'm sorry about what they did to you,” I continue, feeling as if I should say something before I strike the match. “All the experiments, I mean. I'm sorry no-one stopped that. I don't even know what she wanted with all those pieces of you, all those little chunks she cut off, but it was wrong. I mean, unless she had a really good reason, but I don't think she did.”
Furrowing my brow, I realize that I maybe just contradicted myself.
“It's about respect and decency,” I add, trying to get back on track. “It's about treating each other right.”
I pause, trying to think of something else, of something meaningful. I guess I've never really been good at stuff like that, so instead I watch Jane's face as the ants continue to swarm. Deep down, I'm half-expecting her to say something, or for her to show some other sign that she's still in there, but finally I realize that I'm just delaying the inevitable. I'm waiting for some kind of poetic moment that's never coming.
“Sorry,” I say again. “It'll be alright. I promise.”
With that, I light the match and let it fall.
The flames are instant, rushing across the ground and up to Jane's face. She immediately twists away and screams, but she's already burning and I scramble back as I watch her pull first one way and then the other on the ropes. Her scream is rising above the sound of the flames, and I can't help wondering whether a zombie would scream at all or whether, instead, the sound might be coming from Jane herself. A moment later one of the ropes snaps and Jane falls to the side, dropping to her knees as the flames consume her body.
I pull back further, prepared to turn and run if necessary, but instead I simply watch as Jane remains on her knees. I can feel the heat of the flames against my face as I stare in open-mouthed horror at the sight of Jane's figure slowly crumpling to the ground. I tell myself that it must be over, that there can't be anything left in the inferno, but then the figure turns slightly as if some part of the creature refuses to die. I can just about make out the shape of a body in the heart of the brightness, still twitching, still fighting for a few more seconds until finally the figure slumps all the way down and the movement ends.
All around, ants are scurrying away from the flames.
***
“Hey Thomas, are you okay?” Toad asks as I wander back along the dusty road that leads toward the rationing post. “Is something burning out there?”
“Not anymore,” I reply, barely able to get the words out.
In my mind's eye I'm still seeing the sight of Jane's crumpled corpse on the ground. The flames began to die out a few minutes ago, revealing nothing but a collection of charred bones. I know those creatures are pretty resilient at times, but I defy anything to move around when it's just a bunch of bones that aren't even connected. The creature's gone and so too, I'm certain, is Jane. Maybe she wasn't really in there, maybe I imagined that, but maybe she was somehow aware and maybe I just found a way to release her.
Stopping, I turn to Toad and see that he's staring into space, as if he's lost in his own thoughts. I watch him for a moment, and I swear there's an unusual, uncharacteristic expression on his face.
He looks...
Happy?
“What's wrong?” I ask.
It takes a moment before he turns to me.
“Huh?”
“What's going on?” I continue. “You look funny.”
He opens his mouth, but then he holds back. Then he looks both ways along the street, before coming over to join me.
“I'm going crazy,” he says, with a hint of excitement in his voice, “and I have to tell someone, but you've gotta keep it under your hat, okay?”
“Keep what under my hat?”
“I was sworn to secrecy, but I found out something today and it's all I can think about right now.” He sighs. “You know Carter? Sarah Carter, I mean.”
I immediately bristle at the mention of that name.
“Sure,” I tell him. “Why?”
“I finally talked to her,” he continues. “Well, I talked to her once before, but that was only brief. This time I was sent to deliver some crates to her in that makeshift lab she's got going, and we actually got talking. Man, it's crazy how that woman still does her hair and make-up even when the world's basically ended all around her. Priorities, right? But the thing is...”
His voice trails off. He looks along the road again, and it's clear now that he's really worried about somebody overhearing us. It's as if he's about to tell me something that's massively important.
“She's been able to listen in to some of the broadcasts from Boston,” he explains finally, lowering his voice even further. I'm standing right next to him and even I can barely hear him. “Nothing too exciting, mostly military stuff, but a few names have been bandied about and she mentioned someone who sounded familiar to me. Do you remember the girl I told you about?”
“The one you're in love with?”
“I never said I was in love with her.”
“You just talked about her all the time,” I point out. “It's not exactly hard to figure out.”
“The thing is, and I know this is going to sound incredible, but the thing is... she's in Boston.”
“How do you know?”
“I'd mentioned her to Carter before. I'd mentioned her name. And then Carter overheard chatter on the radio about a bunch of people in Boston, and Lizzie's one of them. Apparently she's pretty high-up, she's on their Council or something like that. To be honest, that sounds like exactly the kind of thing that Elizabeth would do, she was always kind of bossy. But the point is, she's alive and she's in Boston. Can you believe that?”
“You're lucky,” I tell him. “My -”
I stop myself just in time. Carter warned me not to tell anyone about my sister being alive out there in California, and I guess I should stick to the promise I made.
“I'm going to find her,” Toad continues. “When we get to Boston, I'm going to find Lizzie and... I don't know what we'll do then, but at least I'll have her back. And Rachel too, hopefully. But after all this time, I'm going to see Lizzie again and then we'll see what happens after that, but do you get it, Thomas? There's hope. I'd given up on ever finding her again, on her even being alive, but now there's hope. To be honest, I was having my doubts about going to Boston, but now I know that it's worth the journey.”
“That's great,” I tell him. “I'm really pleased for you.”
“I know I'm just being an idiot,” he says with a sig
h. “She probably won't even remember me, but it's worth a shot, right?” He turns and looks along the street, and now the faraway expression has returned to his eyes. “At least there's a chance. And if she's alive, then I know what we'll do. We'll go back to my farm, we'll fix it up and we'll get on with our lives. The rest of the world can do what it wants, but we'll get on with things alone. If that's what she wants, anyway. I mean, I hope it is. I'll have to ask her.”
“I have to go and check something in one of the ammunition stores,” I reply, “but I'll be back later.”
I wait, and after a moment I realize that he's lost in thought. The news about this Lizzie girl has really animated him, almost brought him back to life after a few days when he's seemed pretty hopeless.
“I'll be back soon,” I mutter, turning and walking away.
It's funny, I talked to a girl on the radio a while ago, and her name was Lizzie too. Or rather, Elizabeth. For a moment I wonder whether there could be a connection, but then I remember that this particular Elizabeth said she was on a farm in Pennsylvania. Or was it Pittsburgh? I don't even remember. I know coincidences happen, but it's pretty unlikely that it's the same girl and that she then somehow moved from that place all the way to Boston. Some coincidences are just too huge to believe.
And then, as I spot Sarah Carter walking into a nearby building, I suddenly think back to what she told me about Martha, and to what she's apparently told Toad, and I realize that I'm right.
Some coincidences really do seem too good to be true.
6pm