by David Smith
A few of the dead were standing at the big steel door, clawing at it slowly. They somehow knew there was still someone inside so that gave me hope. Rather than deal with them we slipped by unnoticed and climbed the grassy hill to the trap door up top. The sun hadn’t broken the horizon yet but had started to light up the sky, scattered with just a few clouds, left behind by the front that had moved through.
There was just enough light to see something moving at the bottom of the hole. Laying on top of the makeshift steel door and scratching at it was the top half of a body, the exposed bone at the ends of its fingers pulling and prying in futility at the edge of the round piece of steel that rested over the opening in the roof, the end of its spine tapping arhythmically on the steel. I eased myself down over the edge then dropped the last few feet into the hole, both feet landing squarely on its back, a honk coming out of it as the stale air in its lungs was smashed out past its rotten vocal chords like an accordion. The stench was awful and unavoidable in the tight space. I stomped the back of its head and neck till it stopped struggling, fighting back the urge to puke. I spit and wiped my mouth, hoping to get rid of the taste before reaching down to scoop it up under the arms. It was easy to lift up over my head, decomposed and mostly dried out down to the bones.
"Take it!” I demanded and she took its wrists and pulled it up out of the hole, gagging. Once she had moved it out of the way I helped her down into the hole and we began working to get the heavy steel door leaned up enough to climb in.
I found my sister sleeping on our parents’ bed, made from a stack of blankets on the floor. When I woke her she scrambled to back up against the wall, pulling the blanket up to her face, eyes wide with fear, feet kicking wildly until she realized it was me and sprang like a rock from a slingshot to hug me, crying.
“Momma’s dead.” She cried.
"I know.” I gave her just a moment. I didn't want to tell her about Dad yet. "We’re gonna get outta here, okay?”
She pulled away, shaking her head, a look of pure terror across her face. It was almost cartoon. “Those things are out there.”
"No, they’re all gone right now but we have to hurry because they'll be back.” I said, trying to encourage and comfort but still convey a sense of urgency. “Were you watching when Dad taught me?”
She nodded. “Where is he?”
I hesitated. I never was able to lie when asked a direct question. "He’s gone. Some men, they killed him."
She nodded, got up from the blankets and walked off to the darkened end of the bunker. I was surprised at how she took the news. I thought I would have a big fight on my hands, hysterical crying, denial, acceptance with a side of permanent emotional damage, the whole bit. Stephanie and I looked at each other, heard some things rustling around, then looked back at the darkness into which Beth had disappeared. It took a moment to sink in that she might be doing something stupid. I guess I had just never seen anyone react that way so it threw me off. I was just about to run after her when she came walking back. I almost ran into her and she just side stepped me, coming back into the lantern light, and cut me a condescending look; one eyebrow raised, the other lowered, the corners of her mouth turned up and pinched together, her head cocked over about forty-five degrees, tears still in her eyes. Even at 15, she was already locally famous for the looks she could give and how she could make people feel. It used to infuriate Mom and could drive Dad out of a room. I had learned to ignore it.
"Did you come back down the trail from the north side?" she asked as she rolled out a map of the area on the floor, drying her face with her hands.
"Yeah." I answered.
"Did you see the ones that killed Mom?"
"Yeah, they chased us off earlier. We had to fight our way around them to get here."
"That means they'll be coming back. We don't need to go that way." She pointed at the map, a satellite image with so many symbols on it and the colors so faded I could barely tell the difference between the roads and the woods. All that was left to define the edges of the woods were the shadows of the trees. "We can go out the gate and to the main road, follow it to the interstate and from there..."
"We go north." I picked up where she left off. "The guys that killed Dad had to have come from there."
"What do you want to go there for?" She asked angrily.
"They had a truck. They've got to have a fuel supply and who knows what else. If we can find where they came from, it might be a good place to hold up for awhile."
"So they can kill us too?" She argued.
"I don't know, okay. They are the only sign of life we saw out there and..."
"Why can't we just stay here?" Stephanie cut in.
Beth and I just looked at each other, trying to think of a good reason. The truth was, we could have. Wherever those men came from, they didn't know where we were. The bunker was safe as it ever had been. Mom and Dad lasted here for almost twenty years. As for myself, I just wanted to see the rest of the world, see what was out there. I think Beth felt the same. I think Dad would have done the same if he hadn't had us to take care of. That one day we had, he seemed more comfortable out there, happier even.
"There's not enough food left around here." I finally answered. Honestly, I probably could have set traps out in the woods and kept us pretty well fed but any traps I set, the commotion of a snared animal would probably draw the dead to it making it too dangerous to go collect them.
"There's got to be a place somewhere better than this; with more people, better food supply, safer. Those men had to come from somewhere."
"So we go hand ourselves over so they can kill us too?" She whined. "Let's just stay here. You can go hunt and gather or whatever it is men do. She can cook and clean..."
"Hold on princess." Beth interrupted. "I can cook and clean? And what are you gonna do? Lay around and paint your fingernails?"
"Well, I'll probably run out of polish in a few weeks but there's more back at the store."
Beth meant it as an insult but it missed the mark all together. She then snatched up the back pack we had brought and unzipped a pocket on the back. Inside were several small bottles of fingernail polish, mascara and other things I couldn't identify. "Oh my God, Dane. Where did you find this girl?"
"Don't start, okay?" I said, walking over to Beth and taking the backpack. I dumped out the unnecessary weight and handed it back to her. She snatched it and started filling it with the last few cans of food and what was left of the ammo for the 700.
"Hey!" Stephanie whined again. "That's my stuff!"
"We don't need it right now." I argued. She gave me a look like she just couldn't even process what I had said. "Look, there'll probably be more where we're going. Just grab what you can and let's go." I said and handed her another, much smaller backpack.
We packed only food, water and ammo, leaving behind everything else that made us who we thought we were, and climbed the shelf ladder to the escape hatch in the ceiling. I stood on it and slowly lifted it up with my shoulder then pushed it all the way open as the blinding morning sunlight made a spotlight down on us, through the shelves and all the way to the floor. I climbed up and stood, my head just high enough out of the hole to look around. The woods were making that sound that was becoming all too familiar as the horde from the airport made their way out of them and into our front yard but I didn't see anything up on top of the hill. Before climbing out, I helped Beth and Stephanie up and out of the hole then jumped out and took off after them down the back side of the hill, Beth leading the way.
I saw only a few in the woods behind the bunker but we slipped by unnoticed, down the gravel road and out the gate. Just outside the gate the gravel turned to concrete. It looked odd, such a high quality road surrounded by nothing but thick, unadulterated woods.
After a few hundred yards we came to an intersection. There was an old traffic light like the ones in town, over a four lane asphalt highway with faded yellow lines but still no buildings. There were far fewer bodies h
ere than in town and no cars at all, almost no evidence of the war that had taken place. Except for the high grass in the ditches, the few scattered skeletons and the traffic light not working, I imagined it looked almost like it did before any of this happened.
We had ran at a pretty quick pace up the road to here and both of them were starting to drag their feet. I knew we needed to slow down and save our energy in case we ran into trouble further up the road. I ran a little faster till I caught up with her.
"Beth, slow down."
"What's the matter?" She said, gasping for air. "You're girlfriend can't keep up?"
"No, you can't keep up this pace. You're out of breath already and there's no reason to be going this fast right now."
She stopped and bent over, putting her hands on her knees. "Are you sure?" She asked, finally not acting so tough.
"Yeah. That's one thing Dad taught me. We've got to save our energy. I haven't seen an infected body since we left the bunker. There's no reason to kill ourselves."
Stephanie stopped beside her a stood up tall, hands on her hips. She was just as winded as Beth but tried not to look it. "What's the matter? Can't keep up?"
"Bite me, Barbie." Beth said without missing a beat and started walking.
Stephanie stuck her tongue out at her then looked at me, shook her head and made face like a teenager mocking a parent behind their back. I rolled my eyes and she took off jogging to catch up to her.
"Okay, I know we got off on the wrong foot," She said as she slowed to a walk beside her. "but I think it's going to be nice to have another girl to talk to. We could be like, best friends."
"Shhh!” Beth replied.
"Oh, right.” She said, a little quieter. “So it must have sucked living all that time in that dark bunker."
No reply.
"Did you have Cosmo, or Seventeen?”
"No, be quiet.” Beth whispered harshly.
"I’m talking as quiet as I can. I can barely even hear myself.” Stephanie said, still above a whisper.
"I don’t want to hear you at all.” Beth replied.
"Oh my God. What’s you problem? You may not have tampons where you’re from but pull the stick outta your ass.”
All I heard after that was an abbreviated scream and the thud of a body hitting the road. I looked back and Beth had Stephanie on the ground, one knee in her stomach, one hand on her throat and the other grasping her face, covering her mouth.
"Besides drawing them to us, you’re keeping me from being able to hear them. If you don’t stop talking I will shoot you in the leg and run while they tear you apart.” Stephanie’s eyes were big as plates and Beth’s face was shaking, tears forming in her eyes.
I ran back to them and pulled Beth off of her. “Go easy on her. She wasn’t raised the way we were, she doesn’t understand.” I whispered so forcefully and close to her that the brown hair hanging in her face moved with my breath.
"Well I’m not letting your girlfriend get us killed figuring it out.” She said.
"What is your problem?" Stephanie said as she picked herself up off the ground and dusted herself off.
"You are!" Beth barked back. "You're spoiled, you're soft and you're stupid and you're going to get yourself killed out and us in the process."
Stephanie folded her arms as the spoiled exterior started to crack, her chin trembled beneath her perfectly symmetrical frown and tears came to her eyes. "I'm soft? You're just mad that your parents are dead and you're taking it out on me!" She yelled then got much quieter as her voice got pinched by emotion. "You think you had it so tough? At least you didn't have to kill yours."
Chapter 8: Stephanie’s Story
One of my first memories was playing in the electronics department. Daddy would set up a video camera and put me on the big screens in the back and I would pretend I was a movie star. I would dance and sing and act out my favorite movies. Daddy was my biggest fan.
Once a week, we would have movie night. Daddy would put a movie up on the biggest TV he had and everyone would watch it. I remember when there were like, a hundred people living there with us. I don't remember how we got there but I remember a time when we had food and electricity, enough for everybody. It was never canned like this stuff, always fresh out of the freezer. I never wondered where it came from. I just thought it was always like that and it always would be.
When I was about eight, the electricity stopped coming and a few weeks later everything changed. I remember being so hungry all the time. We still had food but it was only every now and then. When we did have it though, oh my God, it was so good and so much of it. I never knew where it came from but I was so hungry, we all were so hungry, we didn't care.
It wasn't until I was twelve that one of the boys, Jaime, told me the truth. He said he was nine when they all moved in. Daddy had invited everyone who worked there and their families to come stay until the plague was over. They boarded the place up a week before the outbreak made it here. As soon as they did, everybody went crazy. So the part about the cops was true. They stayed out there, defending the store from people who could have easily broken in until the dead, who couldn't break in, got here and killed them all. When the cops started trying to get in, Daddy told everyone to stay really quiet. Nobody even tried to help them. They were all too scared. Daddy planned it all perfectly.
The reason we never ate anything canned was part of a deal Daddy made with some military guy. A few weeks after the plague passed through, when they first came, there were just a few of them. They had guns but we did too and there were a lot more of us. They thought they'd be able to just take what they wanted but after they realized how many of us there were, they offered Daddy the deal. We would save all the canned food for them and they would bring us fuel for the generator and fresh food to stock the freezers when they could get it.
Daddy didn't realize the plague would outlast the cans. So, as their numbers grew and the cans ran out, they stopped bringing fuel and left us here to starve. I guess they didn't realize that Daddy already had a plan before they ever showed up.
There was an older guy, he was always so nice to me. He might have been in his sixties or seventies and every Christmas he would dress up like Santa Clause and hand out rewrapped toys from the year before. I never knew my grandparents but I always wished he was one of them.
After all the food ran out, Daddy asked him to climb up to the top of the shelves in the stock room for some noodles or something and he had an accident. Nobody was sure how it happened but they had kind of a funeral and put him in the freezer where he wouldn't be smelled.
Some of the people wanted to throw him outside but Daddy convinced then otherwise. He said that one day, when all this was fixed, he wanted to be able to give him a proper burial. He said he deserved better than to be eaten by those things. Years later, after half the group had had various accidents or died of starvation or sickness, the truth came out. I don't remember how they found out but we had eaten everyone that died.
Daddy gave this long speech and they all decided he had done the only thing he could have done to save everyone's life. He said the reason he had lied was because he didn't want everyone else to feel the guilt he felt. With big crocodile tears running down his face, he said it was a hard decision that had to be made by the person in charge and the one who had to make the decision should be the only one to have to deal with the consequences.
They should've killed him and left this place. Instead, from then on, they treated him like a king. When we all would get hungry enough, someone who was sick or just sick of living this way would kill themselves just so the rest of us could eat. When our numbers got low enough, Daddy realized some of the meat was going bad before we could eat it so he convinced them it would better to use just a little at a time and only give their life when there was nothing else left to give. They'd start from the elbow down then go from the shoulder, then the knee down, then the rest of the leg. You haven't had it bad until you've had to feed a quadruple ampu
tee his own leg.
Jaime was one of the last ones left. Dad had this long talk with me about sex and how he wanted to have a grandchild before there was no one left to give him one. Jaime was like twenty then I think but was the closest one to my age so one night, Daddy left us alone in the milk cooler. That's when he told me about everything. He wouldn't do what Daddy wanted him too though. He said I was too young anyway and that he was going to take me away somewhere that he knew was safe. He said if we got separated to just run down the trail behind the store as fast as I could until I found that bunker you guys were living in. He grabbed my hand but as soon as he opened the door Daddy was standing there and Jaime's head had an accident against the floor, several times, until he stopped moving.
Eventually, there were only the three of us left; Mom, Dad and me. We waited as long as we could, all three of us starving then one day I walked up on Daddy trying to cut off Mom's arm. She was crying, he was crying. I think they knew that she would bleed out since the last person we ate was Jim. He was the pharmacist and the one who always bandaged the stumps.
He had died all at once though. I overheard him tell Mom one night, when Daddy was asleep, that he suspected Daddy of killing some of the first ones, that none of them were accidents. He said he was going to take Mom and me away and find somewhere safe, somewhere they could make a life. She agreed but when he turned to walk away, she shot him in the back.
Anyway, Mom saw me from under Daddy's arm as he stood with a hacksaw, ready to cut. I started crying and ran away as she was yelling, "We did this for you baby! We did this for you."