by McCloud, Wes
The evening finally sat in and, I have to admit, when I watched the last light of the day burn out over the hills, I began to worry. I sat there on the front porch once again with Maddie next to me. She hadn’t spoke more than three words to me in hours. I couldn’t blame her.
“Are we gonna bury them?” She asked
“In the morning…” I said.
She sighed. She didn’t say much after that. I could tell she was put off with me, but wouldn’t bring herself to voice it.
About an hour later, I hear tiny cooing sounds and she’s fast asleep, slumped over in the chair. I felt relieved. It’s sounds odd, but knowing that she was asleep just put me at ease, like I didn’t have to worry about explaining myself to her. I can’t sleep. I’m just staring out at the dogs. The living ones are still out there, some lying down now, other’s still circling round. About 4 a.m. all the dogs go into a tizzy. My tired eyes watch as they all start moving round, whining and pacing. And then it happens. I see the first dead dog roll up and rise on shaking legs. I was right…thank god. I nudge Maddie awake and point to the phenomena going down in the dim reaches of the porch lights.
“I think we can call off that burial…” I say. All she can do is smile. She grabbed my arm.
“Cleaver, God’s bringing them back too!” She was so excited. I let her believe that, because why not? I walked out into the yard and started petting the dogs that were rising from their not-so-permanent grass graves. After ten minutes or so, my lawn is alive with an army of healthy dogs, every single one of them now has green eyes to match June’s. It was the fleas…they’d fed upon the green-killing dogs and passed their powers onto the first-wave dogs. Apparently, dying and coming back was part of that process. It was beyond bizarre, but there was no questioning that’s what had happened. They were all now green-killers.
Take Me Down to the Paralyzed City
A week passed by and I tried my best to start decompressing from the absolute horrors of the week prior. Maddie’s Daddies, murdered dogs, resurrected dogs, green zombies and deadeaters, floated round my head like some twisted crib mobile over a baby’s head. Maddie and I were bonding more. She was opening up little by little, though she still had yet to mention much of her past. I found out her favorite color was purple. She loved bats, snakes, and all number of creepy crawling things most normal people would consider to be “ugly,” but I saw beauty in that. She told me she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. I told her the stories of the property and my grandparents. Of how my grandma used to love to watch the birds and the squirrels. Of how my grandfather would take me fishing. I just tried to remember and reminisce upon all of the good times, because they were the one true weapon I had against the dark times that surrounded.
Despite all the happiness and normalcy that tried to come back into our lives, the bad things lingered. I couldn’t help but find myself worrying. And it wasn’t even about the deadeaters or the zombies, we hadn’t seen a green or normal zombie for that entire week, and we’d been raiding houses. It was almost as if they’d all gone away. But I knew better. No, what really began to pick away at me was just surviving in general. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it. The basics = food and water, Yes we had them, hell we even had electricity thanks to the generator, but how long was all that going to last? What if it took a royal shit? I had no clue how to fix it. What if the natural gas ran out? Beyond that, neither her or I had any real survival knowledge. Like how to shoot a deer and prepare it, or plant a garden, or raise livestock, provided any was still left alive out there. We also lacked medicines. What if we needed things like antibiotics? What if? What if? The what ifs compounded and consumed me. We weren’t going to be able to survive on candybars, pancake mix, and energy drinks for the rest of our days. Even canned foods had an expiration date and that’s what really got me anxious. To top that all off, winter was fast approaching. The internet was gone. And as much as it pained me to admit it, I really could’ve used its help right then. Despite all the flaws of the monster, it had done good things too. It was a treasure trove of information unmatched by the likes of anything…Where else would I find the knowledge to keep us well fed and alive? Was there such a place? There was…
“Where we going?” Maddie asked as I began packing the Bronco up.
“To town.”
Her eyes got huge, “But you said…”
“I know what I said…It was full of the dead. It’s a suicide mission to ever go near there. But that’s just what someone told me.”
“You don’t believe them anymore?”
“I…What I believe is we cant keep doing what we’re doing.”
She looked confused. Oh, I wish I had her ignorance of the situation. That blithesome mentality you had when you were a kid. You knew nothing of bills, of keeping food on the table, nothing of the innerworkings of what adulthood meant. That was her mind. She thought we were just going to continue to stay here, surrounded by dogs and swinging our swords and the rest would sort of just fall into place. We’d stay the same age and it would never end.
I loaded June and Jeff in the truck with us and took off towards town. We saw nothing along the way. No living, no dead. As great as that was, it set me at unease. It was just too damn quiet. One mile out I killed the engine. Maddie looked at me with question through her mask.
“Are we here?”
“No. We’re walking the rest of the way. For now, we’re just scoping this out. We can’t have the sound of the truck drawing attention.” I handed her a gun and holstered one of my own.
“Don’t use that thing unless it’s the last resort. Stay close to me and let the dogs lead.” I then grabbed the shotgun and let June and Jeff pile out of the car with Maddie shortly following.
I don’t think I’d ever walked a mile that felt that damn long. Well maybe I had, I do recall this one time back in grade school, walking to a friend’s house. Earlier in school that day he told me to come down, he had a box full of skin mags he wanted to give me. I don’t know how or where he got ahold of thirty porno mags at the age of eleven. Then again, you might ask yourself why I thought I needed those thirty porno mags at the age of eleven. You have to understand, this was the early 1990s. I couldn’t get on the computer or my phone and watch any depraved thing I wanted with the fast flick of my fingers. Hell, back then just seeing the butts of some of these Instagram models would’ve had me busy for hours. Write that down under another one of those “kids today will never know the struggle” memes. Anyway, I load these magazines into a huge, empty, canvas bag and start this back-braking venture back to my house. Along the way I had this “brilliant” idea of collecting glass bottles along the road and throwing them in the bag. The idea was that if anyone stopped and asked what I had in the bag I’d tell them I was collecting bottles and they’d have no further interest in my cargo. Halfway back, some kid on a bike comes by. I recognize him. It was Billy Bobby. I’m not lying, that was his name. With a moniker like that you’re headed for one of three places, a race track, the grand ole opry, or a prison cell. Or maybe all three, in no specific order. He asks what I have in the bag, and instead of telling him bottles, I instantly crack and divulge that I am transporting over two dozen titty mags. Not only do I do that, but I offer him a few of them. I have no idea why I did that, I can only surmise that he was a few grades ahead of me and I was afraid he’d kick my ass if I didn’t at least offer a few up. He takes them with a smile, and grabs a few bottles too. At the time I had no clue why he wanted those. But he crams everything into his backpack and pedals off. In the distance I watched as he stopped his bike and just broke every damn bottle I gave him on the road and rides off. I started to regret giving him those magazines, not to mention the bottles. As I reach the spot where the said bottles were smashed, a dude comes running out towards the road, his face as red as a baboon’s buttcrack, just screaming as loudly as possible. It takes a second for my cowering ass to even process what he’s saying. “Hey you little shit! If I see yo
u braking anymore glass on this road I’m gonna take every piece and shove it up your fuckin ass!” And that seemed to be the story of my life, getting blamed for someone else’s bullshit. I later realized it was the brother of one of my school mates. This dude was about to go into the military. Yeah that’s the guy I wanted to see holding a fully automatic gun, the dude who said he’d shove glass up an eleven year old’s backside. So yeah…that was a long mile. Sadly the anxiety of being caught with porno mags at such a young age almost matched the anxiety of what lay ahead that day for the dogs and Maddie and I.
Right outside of town there was a city park. It has tennis courts and shelter houses and all those stereotypical trappings. But what made it rather unique was it was built at the base of a large rock outcropping. A miniature scale mountain, if you will. Some people actually called it a mountain, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that. It wasn’t Everest, it was a glorified hill. There was a hiking trail you could traverse up and at the top you could overlook half the town at this sheer cliff edge. I think it was like 250 ft above the town, I don’t remember, I wasn’t listening on the school field trip when we went there in 6th grade. I was too busy staring over the edge, wondering what you’d look like if you fell off.
We made our way down into the park and started our ascension with twice the caution we’d come in with. I still saw nothing. Nothing but broken down cars, debris, and trash ridden streets, but these things were far from new.
I had forgotten how taxing the hike up that hill was. I think the last time I’d taken that path was maybe eight years ago. By the time we’d finally reached the summit we had to remove our masks to get the condensation out. We sat down and panted away. I seriously thought I was going to pass out…it was pathetic. The dogs acted as if nothing had happened. They didn’t even take a rest. They just looked at Maddie and I as if we were holding them up. The new strain of the virus had undoubtedly changed them. Transformed them into soldiers, ones that could not only take abuse, but could dish it out, tenfold. I saw the way they’d assaulted that group of greens. The way they’d overpowered them. I was just glad the dogs were on our side. Especially now.
My exhaustion was soon overthrown by my curiosity as I watched Maddie get up and join the dogs at the edge of the cliff facing the heart of the city. I arose and limped over and what I saw sickened me. The town was a shell of what it used to be. Houses were hollowed out by fires and the like. It looked like a warzone, but that was expected. What wasn’t expected, however, was the vast number of the dead that now packed the streets. Frank had been correct, unfortunately. I was absolutely taken aback by their numbers. I whipped up the binoculars and panned the alleyways and roads with a growing pang of defeat chewing on my guts. They were so thick in some areas that they almost touched shoulder to shoulder, unable to move through their own vast legions. They were just meandering around, lost souls hoping for a new body to turn or live flesh to devour. Some of them still had flesh, most didn’t. Most were now the red, bare-muscled foes I had been used to seeing in my travels. I kept spying through the glass, praying I wouldn’t catch a glimpse of green amongst the patchworks below. For now I saw none. The dogs were beyond agitated at the sight of the dead. I kept side-eyeing them, listening to their whining and growling. They seemed possessed with some hunger, like they were looking down into a valley covered in prime rib. It was odd…I just started praying they wouldn’t bark and draw attention to us.
“Where…where, where,” Maddie started stumbling for her words, “Where…do we need to go?”
I wanted to say what I felt at that moment “Home, we’re going home.” But I just kept looking through the binoculars until I spied the place I thought was worth risking life and limb for.
“There,” I pointed, “The library.” I’m sure she thought I was insane. Hell, I was insane.
“Books?...We’re going to risk dying for books?” Wow, the teenager was suddenly the voice of reason. Still I kept a positive head.
“Knowledge,” I corrected her. “We’re going there to find out how to keep living.” Holy shit, this is starting to sound like some half-rate, afterschool special. A “Save our libraries” campaign cleverly disguised as a zombie parable. I swear I wouldn’t do that to you…but seriously, libraries are important. Maddie’s newfound silence told me she wasn’t convinced. I suppose I wasn’t either. At this point, the dogs are reaching new heights of impatience. They’re prancing on the edge of the cliff and a tiny dance of rocks is rolling off and onto the ground hundreds of feet below us.
“C’mon, we gotta get them out of here,” I said. We each grabbed a fistful of collar and led them back into the woods below, but not before I took one last look at the horde that currently owned the town. My mind was brewing a slew of ill-gotten ideas, ones that I needed to chase off. We had no choice but to head back home, unless of course we thought we could mow our way through ten-thousand zombies with two dogs and a prayer.
On the way out of town I started trying to explain to Maddie what all those books meant to us. The agricultural books, the science books, the hunting manuals, the electrical / HVAC / construction tomes, just all the things we might need to keep us going. I wanted her to understand that we weren’t attempting a possible suicide mission so I could get a copy of Green Eggs and Ham. In the end, I think I had her convinced. She kept nodding her head and grunting. But I guess that’s just sort of what teenagers do when they’re sick of hearing you talk.
We’re just about to the city limits when this sickening, cackling-croak of a noise comes blasting down the hill and sends my blood to a chill. Maddie draws her sword faster than I can even process the sight of about a dozen zombies pacing themselves at this sloppy, unnerving jog in our direction. They’re at least fifty yards away, and something weird happens. The dogs just take off, dead run right at these things. I mean, they weren’t even close to us yet. Needless to say ( then why am I about to say it? ) it’s a bloodbath. June and Jeff level all of these deadbags quicker than I could’ve taken a piss, and I didn’t have to draw a sword or gun in the time leading up to it. It was out of character. Yeah they’d killed their fair share, but the zombies always needed to be a little closer than that. It was like moth-to-flame violence. I was beginning to understand their behavior at the cliff now. I guess we were damn lucky they didn’t take a nose-dive right off that sheer wall into the city streets below. It was no doubt another symptom of the green anti-viral strain. The aggression was revved up just like the aggression was elevated in the greens themselves.
The rest of the journey back home was without incident. We ate a late lunch and then I tried to busy myself with plans on how the hell we were gonna get to that library. But there was more than that. There was a pharmacy, there were grocery stores, a home improvement warehouse, gas stations, a gun store, and plethora of houses to raid, all stitched to the earth within a stone’s throws of one another. What I’m trying to say is, the town was the dwarven treasure inside the Lonely Mountain and the zombie horde was Smaug. If you’re not a virgin, I’ll rephrase that, I wanted that town for myself, it had everything we’d ever need, I just had to figure out how to slay all those bastards.
The next few days were full of swordplay and the usual, feeding dogs, shoveling shit, and scheming. Oh, I schemed all over the place. I schemed in the yard, and schemed in the shower. I schemed in the barn for over an hour. I schemed to the left and schemed to the right, I schemed all day and into the night…Wow, maybe I did need a Dr. Suess book. How were we going to take that town? I hadn’t disclosed these ideas to Maddie, she still thought we were headed for the library and that was it. And I’m sure by this point she thought I was just giving it up, because neither one of us spoke a word of it since the day we left the town behind.
I remember that following day it stormed and stormed. I guess we were due for it. I opened the barn doors and most of the dogs took refuge there while Maddie and I retired to the house with a few dozen dogs in company. I dug out some old Star Wars comics
that had been collecting dust in a box in the basement for god knows how long. I handed them over to Maddie. She was absolutely elated. I’d bet money she thought I’d made up all those stories, but now she had pictures and real written words to go along with the fantasy I had planted inside her head. I sat there and watched her for awhile as she laid belly down on the floor, legs lightly kicking the air, her face planted firmly in her open hands as she took in the sights of the magical book before her. Every once in awhile, when she’d flip a page, she’d look up at me and smile. It warmed me, but it also made me remember the before time, how we were to the point where CGI laden movies would make most kids yawn. It was rare to see anyone young with a book spread out before them, and if you did, they were probably being forced to do so. Their faces would tell you that. But here was this wide-eyed fifteen year old, behaving like a six year old, completely enamored with the beauty of the ink and the paper it made love to. It reminded me of when I was a child, the 80’s. I could stay glued to books for hours, much like the kids of today stayed glued to phone screens for hours. I guess one could argue, what was the difference? I suppose it depended on what was on that zombifying screen. I’m quite sure there were still kids out there that dared to dream and ask questions. They would look up animals on their phones, much like I peeled back the pages of encyclopedias at nine years of age, filling my mind with knowledge of the natural world. I’m not saying I was smart, I’m just saying I was curious. Were the kids curious today? Most of them were playing mind-numbing, repetitive games that I was convinced were created by the government to keep us as stupid and as distracted as possible. And the adults were to blame because it was a classic case of learned behavior. And maybe that’s why I kept refusing to bring certain things back into the house. I could’ve done it at any time. Let pieces of the modern back in. I had electric. Most of the houses around still had their precious TVs, game systems, and even DVDs, but I just didn’t want those things back yet. I was still quite content with the beautiful simplicities of reading a book or listening to music. It was all I needed. It was all WE needed. In any case, I tried ridding my mind of it, and just let myself enjoy the fact that this girl I took into my life was happy. She’d been through unimaginable horrors, and if a comic book could make her forget them for a moment, then I needed no further convincing that magic did indeed exist. I then recalled the question she asked back at town, “We’re going to risk dying for books?” I could only hope that she was now beginning to realize why books were worth dying for.