After a while, Mandi said, “I knew I was going to die a horrible death. The infected were going to find me. It was inevitable. But then I heard you guys.”
Mandi took a deep breath to collect herself. “The infected in the room went crazy when they heard you outside the door. That’s when I knew that I had a hope, not a chance, but a tiny, nearly invisible bit of hope. While they were still being noisy, I crawled out from under the corpses that had kept me hidden and I followed the wall around the room. On the way, I found a big flashlight, one of those long old metal ones that’s shaped like a baton. That was my weapon. I was determined that if any of the infected got their hands on me, then I wasn’t going to let them kill me without a fight.
“After a while, I heard most of them go back to eating wherever they’d been eating. I found my way up to the stairs and I pushed myself into a corner and I waited. I don’t know how long I waited. Eventually, all of the infected started to make those sleepy sounds they make. But I didn’t hear you guys out here anymore. I was so afraid that I’d waited too long. You don’t know how difficult it was, how afraid I was.”
More tears flowed.
I didn’t know what to say in the face of so much painful emotion. I was glad that Murphy had taken it upon himself to comfort her.
“I found a quarter in my pocket. I used that when I finally got up the nerve to tap on the door. It took so long to get a response. Do you know what it feels like when your last hope dies?” Mandi cried some more.
I wanted to answer yes. The Ogre taught me that lesson a long time ago.
“I thought…I thought…Well, it doesn’t matter. You did respond. One of you did, anyway. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Murphy said, “It was Zed who heard it. It was Zed who insisted that you were in there.”
I said, “We got you out together, Mandi. Neither one of us could have done it alone.”
Chapter 17
I awoke looking at the bunker’s concrete ceiling. Murphy sat nearby, busying his hands with the parts of a handgun that I didn’t recognize. He glanced at me and said, “Good morning, sunshine.”
Mandi was still asleep so I spoke softly. “Good morning, Murphy.”
“I thought you were going to sleep all day,” he said.
I tainted my tone of voice with a little indignation and said, “I think I earned it. What time is it?”
“How would I know?”
“What?”
“Zed, you know my watch is still at the county jail.”
I rolled my eyes. “So it could be seven in the morning.”
“Heh, heh, heh. Don’t get your panties in a wad, man. I’m just messing with you.”
“Sorry. I could use some coffee.”
“You and me both.”
“What’s that you’ve got there, Murphy?”
“While you guys were sleeping, I went down to level three to root around and see what I could find, which was pretty much nothing. But I got this Ruger nine millimeter.”
“Is it a good gun?”
“As good as any, I suppose. It’ll take the same nine millimeter ammo as the Glocks.”
“Was there any ammo down there?” I asked.
“Just a few rounds, but I found a couple of empty magazines. You and I both have plenty of ammo, at least for now. We can spare some nine mill to fill the Ruger magazines. Then Mandi will have a gun to protect herself.”
“I passed out when you guys were talking last night, Murphy. What do you think of her?”
“She seemed all right to me. What are you asking?”
I scratched my head. “I don’t know. I mean, she seemed all right to me too. I guess I just don’t want to get backstabbed by another Mark.”
“I don’t think she’s like that, man. I have a good intuition about people. I think she’s a good one.”
I shrugged. I felt like I didn’t have any kind of intuition about people. “Sounds good. Was there any food down there?”
Murphy shook his head. “Depends on your definition of food. What’s your temperature today?”
“It’s not high enough to start thinking other people are food, if that’s what you mean. Water?”
“Nothing. That big cistern down there has holes like the ones on the other levels.”
“That’s too bad. This could have been a great place to ride this whole thing out, but with everything broken or missing...” I punctuated with a shrug.
“Maybe worse than that, Zed. Without a house on top to keep it hidden, it’s a deathtrap. It’ll probably keep the infected out. I mean, if you fixed the doors that we blew. But if anybody with a few weapons wants in, well, you saw how easy it was for us to get in here.”
I rummaged in my bag for something to eat and drink. I found two packages of donuts and a bag of peanuts. I set the peanuts and a package of miniature donuts aside for Mandi and opened the remaining donuts. She was one of us for the moment, and she needed a share of the food.
Murphy added, “I saved her something too, a package of cupcakes.”
“Cool. That’ll get her started. So what do you think? Are we still at square one? We’ve got almost no water and this is the last of our food. At the moment, we’ve got no communications, so we don’t know what’s going on anywhere, and we still need a place to stay.”
“Yeah, square one,” Murphy agreed.
“What about your sister?”
Murphy’s smile slipped off of his face. “She wasn’t at the house, but that was a thin hope, anyway. Now with the whole neighborhood burned down, my only chance of finding her, if she’s still alive, is to get lucky and run into her. There’s no point in searching.”
I said, “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that, Murphy, but I think you’re right.”
With the pistol put together, Murphy started slipping nine millimeter rounds into a magazine.
I changed the subject. “I think Mandi is immune.”
“Maybe.”
“She’s been down there with all of those infected for days. She would have caught it if she wasn’t.”
“Sure. I don’t know anything about any of that. You’re the college boy, Zed, so whatever you think.”
“She’s immune, then. That’s goody-gumdrops for her, but also bad. I mean, you and I can walk around among the infected as long as they aren’t too hungry, but not Mandi. She’s lunch unless she stays hidden.”
“Yeah, but the uninfected won’t shoot her, like they will us.”
“Do you really think they’re all that way? It could be that those soldiers that killed Jerome were just…I don’t know, overzealous.”
“Zed, I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re a little bit naïve about people’s intentions.”
I shook my head. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“I think that is the problem, Zed. You want to believe that this is all going to blow over, and the ones of us who are left are going to sing ‘Kumbaya,’ and then go make babies and live happily ever after, or something.”
Yes, that is what I think! I shrugged. Murphy’s summary of my hopes made them seem ridiculous.
“Zed, that’s not going to happen. Every time they see our white skin and our dilated eyes, they’re going to see the monsters that killed their brothers, or their mothers, or their sisters, or their sons. They’re going to see us as disease carriers. The uninfected hate us. They’re all afraid of us. They’ll kill us if they can.”
I shook my head, “No, Murphy, the longer we last, the more unlikely it is that anybody we come across will be immune. They won’t need to fear us.”
“Zed, that’s exactly the kind of suburban white-boy bullshit I’m talking about when I say you’re naïve.”
“What?”
“You don’t know anything about fear and hate. Fear and hate aren’t rational emotions, and they damn sure don’t depend on the existence of valid reasons. People hate because they’re afraid. People are afraid because they don’t understand. People don’t unders
tand what we are, Zed. They don’t want to understand what we are, because they already have a belief that we’re monsters. Once people get beliefs into their heads, it’s fucking hard to change their minds, no matter how many facts come knocking on the door. As far as the world is concerned, you and I aren’t people anymore, Zed. We’re big-eyed white monsters, because we look like all the other big-eyed white monsters. White is the new black, man. How does it feel to be an oppressed minority, Zed?”
“I don’t have big eyes, Murphy.”
“Heh, heh, heh. You don’t believe me now, Zed, but you will. Give it time.”
“Mandi isn’t afraid of us,” I argued.
“Not that you know.”
“Amber –”
Murphy butted in, “…is one of the people who kicked us out of the dorm, Zed.”
Chapter 18
It was well after noon when Murphy pushed the bunker door open. Sunshine poured in, and I squinted behind my sunglasses. With my M-4 at the ready, I climbed into the blowing smoke. Surprisingly, it wasn’t nearly as hot as I’d expected.
“An August cold front.” Murphy grinned widely.
“It’s still got to be in the low nineties,” I countered, as Mandi came up between us.
“What’s the thing with you, Zed? How can you be the Null Spot and still be such a stick in the mud? If you weren’t so white, I’d have to change your superhero name to Dark Spot.”
Mandi said, “Wait. What? Zed has a superhero name?”
“Thanks, Murphy,” I said with an unimpressed glare.
Mandi said, “I think that’s neat. Why do you have a superhero name, Zed?”
Murphy laughed, “Because he keeps doing superhero shit. He’s always rushing around and saving this person or that person.”
Mandi said, “I think that’s valiant.”
I looked at Murphy. “Hah!”
Murphy grinned. “The Valiant Null Spot. I like that.”
Mandi asked, “Why is your superhero name Null Spot?”
“The Valiant Null Spot,” Murphy corrected.
“You’d have to ask Murphy. He made it up.”
Murphy said, “Man, it just sounded right.”
Mandi said, “Well, Null Spot, thank you for saving me.”
I said, “You already thanked me. And besides, it was both of us, not just me.”
“Thank you, anyway.”
“Damn, dude, say ‘you’re welcome.’” Murphy nudged me.
“You’re welcome, Mandi.”
Murphy said, “Don’t mind him, Mandi. He’s a good guy. He always wants to do the right thing. He’s just moody.”
“I think it’s okay to be moody. With everything that’s happened, I think it can be expected,” she responded.
I scanned the area for potential dangers and said, “I’m not moody.”
The smoke was thick and blowing hard in the north wind.
Around us was a fire-blackened world that faded into gray. I knew there were houses that had survived the fire, but they were beyond the range of our visibility in the smoke.
I walked toward the street in front of the house, or what used to be the house. Murphy and Mandi followed. When we reached asphalt, we headed west.
We walked between rows of dead oaks, whose blackened branches reached in futility for heaven. Burned kitchen appliances, mounds of unidentifiable junk, and partial masonry walls marked the remains of each structure we passed. Hulks of cars littered the lawns and roads. Among those lay the crusted, black bodies and bones of the dead.
Mandi spoke up. “Murphy, can I ask you a question?”
“Mandi, you don’t need to ask me if you can ask me a question. Just ask it.”
“I’m just trying to be polite.”
Murphy said, “You don’t need to be that polite.”
“Fine,” Mandi said. “Why do you smile so much?”
“Why not?”
“Doesn’t all of this make you sad?” she asked.
“It doesn’t make a difference how I feel about all of this. How I feel about it isn’t going to change any of it,” Murphy answered.
“Why then?”
“Why not?” he answered. “It’s just how I am. The world is a fucked up place, but it’s always been a fucked up place. I just choose not to let it fuck me up, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess.”
“It’s easy, Mandi. I get to choose how I’m going to feel about things. I don’t let the world tell me how I’m going to feel.”
“Murphy, that sounds like something you read on a motivational poster.”
“It doesn’t matter where I got the idea, does it? I take life as it comes. I don’t complain about the bullshit. I make the best of it and I try to be happy.”
Mandi asked, “Even in all of this? Haven’t you lost anybody you love?”
“Mandi,” I said to her, a little too harshly, but it got her attention. I shook my head.
Mandi’s face immediately creased in worry.
Murphy said, “Man, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but it is what it is. I found my mother yesterday.”
Mandi timidly asked, “Was she dead?”
“She was,” Murphy answered.
“Didn’t you like her?” Mandi asked.
“No, man, that’s a Zed thing. Me, I loved my mom and my sister.”
Mandi asked, “It didn’t make you sad?”
Murphy said, “More than that. It breaks my heart. But I choose not to let it tear me up inside. I choose to put one foot in front of the other. In life, that’s one of the only choices you ever really have. You can choose to move ahead and take control, or you can sit and let life roll over you.”
Mandi said, “You said we have two choices.”
Murphy stopped for emphasis and looked at both Mandi and me. “You get to choose how you’re going to feel about it. I choose to be happy.”
“I don’t understand how you can be happy when you just found out your mom was dead,” Mandi said.
“I’m a complex human being with complex emotions. I can be unhappy about my mom and still be the same happy guy I’ve always been. I don’t have to let it ruin me.”
We all walked on a bit and Mandi concluded, “I’ll have to think about your philosophy, Murphy.”
I said, “I think I need to get a what-would-Murphy-do bracelet.”
Murphy said, “They sell them online.”
“Really?” Mandi asked.
Murphy laughed.
I said, “No, not really.”
Mandi said, “Well, I didn’t know. I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re kidding.”
Half a block later, Mandi asked, “Is it safe to be out here?”
“We think that the infected stay away from the smoke, I replied. “I think they understand that smoke means fire and like any animal with half a brain, they’re afraid of the fire. I think we’re fine for the moment.”
Mandi said, “I have half a brain and I’m not afraid of fire.”
Murphy burst out with a big laugh that carried for blocks. “That’s because you didn’t see the fire that we saw yesterday. Man, that damn near scared the shit out of me. And I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean, I nearly shit my pants.”
Mandi asked, “Was it bad? I mean to actually see it?”
I said, “I don’t know why we’re alive right now. We should be dead.”
Mandi’s face showed a pained expression. I couldn’t tell whether she was sincere or trying too hard to appear that way. She asked, “Can I ask another question?”
I said, “I thought you and Murphy agreed that you didn’t have to ask if you can ask a question.”
“I’m sorry. It’s a habit.”
“No sweat,” I answered. “What do you want to ask?”
“Why do you and Murphy act normal, but you look infected?”
I hesitated. “Murphy likes to talk. I’ll let him explain it.”
Chapter 19
We saw nothing alive as we wal
ked through the destruction. But slowly, the smoke dwindled to a gray haze that floated around us like a thin layer of fog. Above was cloudless, peaceful blue. The sky was a hope of something better, but like everything better, it lay beyond reach.
Murphy and Mandi had fallen silent by the time we came to a block of houses left untouched by the fire.
On one side of the street lay nothing but mounds of ash and the metallic innards of family homes. On the other side of the street, the grass and leaves were wilted by the heat, the lawns cluttered with the detritus of a post-virus world. The houses bore their scars but were generally intact.
Still leading the way, I selected one of a dozen two-story tract homes and headed for the front door. There was no vehicle in the carport and none parked on the street in front of the house. My deduction was that the owners had gotten out of town when things got bad. Hence, there was little chance of us finding an occupant in the house, infected or otherwise. With Murphy’s arguments about the danger of people fresh in my mind, unoccupied houses would be safer.
The grass on the lawn was mostly green, but dry enough to crunch underfoot as we crossed it. The hedges were well-groomed and healthy. The flowers hanging over the edges of the pots on the porch were once lush, but had turned dry and brown. Wilted petals lay scattered.
The front door was closed, so I stepped up to the porch and tried the knob. It refused to turn. Murphy stopped on the first step. Mandi stayed on the walkway.
I looked up and down the street out of habit.
I’m not sure why, but I rang the doorbell. It chimed inside.
Having chosen the path of good manners, I knocked on the door a moment later.
I waited but heard nothing from inside. I rang the doorbell again.
Murphy said, “That’s weird.”
“What?” I asked.
“The doorbell.”
“Yeah?”
“They still have electricity.”
“Hmm.”
“You’d think the fire would have burned the lines or something.”
I said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. What do you say we go around back and see if the back door is open?
Murphy said, “I can kick it in.”
I said, “Let’s not.”
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 66