by Clark, W. E.
Reluctantly, he turned his head back towards the house, and the thoughts of why he was here returned. There was nothing but silence out on the street with him. Since the army had opened the safe zones and tried to clear everyone that was living out of the infected areas, most streets of the smaller cities were deserted. Most major cities, however, belonged to the dead now.
***
It felt like it had all happened so quickly. The truth was that, if he would have been paying attention, he could have been more prepared for what was to come. He never really made time for the news…or what passed for news. He realized early on that he could get all the information that he wanted from the customers at his small bodega in San Francisco’s tiny Nob Hill neighborhood.
The “war” against Iran and North Korea was a joke to Kenny. A lot of people were afraid to talk Middle Eastern politics with him because he was darker skinned and they assumed he was a Muslim. In reality, he was apathetic towards religion and cared more about making money than any religious doctrine.
Kenny always found it ironic that he was more Americanized than most of his patrons due to his love of capitalism. A certain segment of the population couldn’t ever get past the color of his skin; always seeming to marginalize him and his perceived beliefs.
On that fateful Friday evening, his cousin, Abdul, called him and said that he couldn’t make it to work because he had been mugged and that the attacker had bitten him. Kenny doubted the story at the time, Abdul was drunk more than he was sober, and the story seemed far-fetched. Why would Abdul, who refused to see a doctor when he broke his arm until Kenny’s mom begged him, suddenly go to the emergency room after being bit by another person?
Still, he dutifully showed up to cover his nephew’s shift as there was no one else to run the bodega. That night was a blur to him now. Chaos blanketed the neighborhood shortly after dusk. Random gunfire became a full-on firefight between the living and the dead.
He learned that monsters existed that night, and they weren’t all re-animated corpses.
After fighting for his life just to get home, he was met at the front door by Abdul, or what used to be Abdul. His cousin was gone, but he tried to talk to him—begged Abdul to understand. He would never forget the blank emotionless eyes that stared back at him as he tried to plead with Abdul to back down.
Even placing Abdul in an arm bar and hearing the bitter crunching of bones breaking had no effect. The stench that permeated from Abdul was nearly unbearable as he twisted his cousin’s arm at that unnatural angle.
Kenny felt the tears begin to sting his eyes at the memory of ending his cousin’s existence by pulling that trigger. He had prayed to whatever god would listen and begged for forgiveness for what felt like the thousandth time for the sin of killing his cousin.
The point-blank bullet from the .45 caliber handgun had nearly separated his cousin’s head from his shoulders. Abdul let out a whimper that sounded more like an animal being put down than a human cry of pain. The emotional toll of putting his feral cousin to sleep permanently still weighed heavily on his soul. The next few frantic moments of searching for his mother seemed to take hours.
“Mom?” Kenny yelled. “Mom? Where are you?”
Kenny heard rustling from the back bedroom and instinctively started that way.
“Mom? It’s okay, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
Kenny heard the soft click of the lock as the bedroom door slowly creaked and then opened.
“Kenny? Thank God for you!” Kenny’s mother Esmeralda said between hard breaths as she sprinted down the hallway and embraced her son.
“Mom! I was so worried. Are you okay? Did he…” Kenny’s words trailed off.
“I am fine, Kenny. I am so happy you are here. Is he…gone?” she asked with an eye towards the main foyer of the home.
Kenny choked back tears at what he had just done.
“Yes,” he stammered, feeling his upper lip quiver as a tear burned down his cheek.
Esmeralda tightly embraced her son again. “It’s alright. You did what needed to be done. He was not himself anymore. He was something…” She struggled to find the right words.
“He was different,” Kenny finished her sentence.
“Yes. He was different.” She smiled at her son and continued as she raised her arms towards the heavens. “His was an animal. He was possessed by the devil spirits, Kenny.”
Kenny’s eyes grew wide and he took a step back from her embrace before she noticed that he saw it.
The Bite mark.
A perfect bite mark marred her left hand. Death was coming for his mother.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay. I promise, Kenny,” she reassured him.
“You don’t understand!” Kenny barked. “What happened to Abdul was because of the bite!” Kenny grabbed his mother’s arm for a closer inspection of the deep and infected wound.
She violently shook her arm free before regaining her composure and smiled at Kenny. “I know. I know my time is short.” She spoke as she covered the wound with her shirt sleeve.
Kenny locked eyes with her and pleaded, “We have to go. We have to get help. Someone can…”
Esmeralda grabbed her son’s wrist and squeezed. “It really is okay. I am an old woman, Kenny. I have lived a good life.”
“Mom, don’t talk like that. We can still—”
“No! We can’t! Accept it, Kenny, I already have!”
The fire in her voice caught him off guard. She dug a pill bottle out of her pocket and showed it to Kenny. He snatched the half-empty bottle from her hand and, after reading the label, knew that they were his mother’s prescription sleeping pills.
“Everything is okay, Kenny.” He could see the early effects as she was having trouble standing and starting to slur her words.
“What have you done?”
“I’ll be with Gammy and Pop-Pop soon. And Abdul.”
“Jesus, Mom. What am I going to do?” Kenny felt like his world was crumbling around him.
“You must be strong, Kenny, and I want you to make me a promise.”
“Anything, Mom. What do you need?”
“It’s not for me. It’s for you.” Esmeralda allowed herself a big grin as she flopped onto the couch like a drunk returning home at three in the morning from a night of drinking.
“Before I fall asleep, I want you to promise that you will check on your father.”
“What?”
“I want you to check on your father.”
“Mom, I don’t—”
“Kenny!” She struggled to sit up and fell back down into the cushions. “I don’t have much time. Promise me!”
“I promise.”
She smiled and patted a spot on the couch for him to sit with her. “I know your word is good, son. Thank you.”
“Why do you want me to check on him? After everything that he did to us…” Kenny paused and turned his head away from her at the memories before continuing “The things he did to you.”
“We must live life and forgive other people. In spite of everything your father has and hasn’t done, I still love him. I always will.” The old woman reached up and gently turned Kenny’s shoulder so that he was facing her again. “Remember…without him, I would have never had you.”
“I’ll check on him. I promise,” Kenny finally ceded after a long moment of silence.
She gently patted Kenny’s knee as a large smile came across her face. “Thank you for indulging an old woman.”
He smiled at her as Esmeralda looked at him one last time and closed her eyes, her head lolling to the side as she fell into a deep sleep. Kenny sat on the couch with her for a long while, holding her hand, until she stopped breathing.
He kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Mom.”
***
He had come to this place to make peace with himself and fulfill his mother’s dying wish. He did his best to hold his emotions in check and slowly started towards the door again. Every step seemed to s
ap a little bit more of his energy. He stood in the doorway to the house that symbolized a tomb more than a home to him.
With slumped shoulders he let out a long exhale and meekly uttered, “Hello?”
Silence.
He spoke again.
“Hello?” he said a little louder this time “Anyone home?”
Again silence. He crossed the threshold to the doorway and was struck by how dark and empty it felt in the home as the wind slammed the front door behind him. He reached around and grabbed his Maglite from his backpack and flipped it on. He smoothly pulled the Glock 22 out of his holster and made sure that it had a round in the chamber.
Kenny walked over to the front blinds and the handle squeaked in protest as he opened them. Dust danced in the air from the newfound sunlight. The home appeared to be in decent shape. There were no signs of struggle. No blood stained walls, no looting like in so many of the houses he had squatted in on his journey. No sign of a violent last stand.
He walked down the hallway towards the bedroom in the back of the home, his Maglite leading the way as it cut through the darkness. When he reached the bedroom door, a sense of fear and anxiety washed over him. He took another deep breath and tried to prepare himself.
To build up the courage to open the door, he uttered, “You can do this!” out loud.
He grabbed the door handle and turned the brass knob to open the door. The smell of death nearly overwhelmed him as he doubled over and tried to suppress the acidic bile building up in throat. He reached for the bandanna in his back pocket and held it tightly over his nose and mouth.
On the bed directly in front of him was a body long since dead. A shotgun lay next to the body with a hand still holding the trigger, locked in the death position forever. Dried and crusted-over blood and brain matter splattered the wall behind the body in a vicious pattern.
As he approached the body, he knelt down next to the bed. The tears were streaming from his face as he examined the body. Even in its decayed and decrepit state, he recognized the body of his father. The man had abandoned Kenny and his mother when he was six years old. Kenny felt the heartache and pain of the abandonment all over again.
“You sonofabitch!” he screamed at the mortal shell that had been his father.
Half of his head was missing from the self-inflicted shotgun blast. Decay had long since set in on the rest of his body.
“I won’t feel sorry for you! Fuck you!” he screamed as the tears came with more force. Through the tears he saw a pad of paper that had fallen to the floor. He grabbed the pad and began reading:
Esmeralda and Kenny,
Words cannot describe the grief that I know I have inflicted on you. I failed you both as a father and husband. I allowed my vices to take over my life and let them get in the way of what was really important.
The letter continued, but Kenny stopped reading. He flung the pad of paper at his father’s body. It bounced off harmlessly and fluttered to the floor.
“No!” he screamed through his sobs. “You lost the right for any of this years ago! Fuck you!”
The weight of his emotions hit him, and he sat on the floor to try and compose himself. After a few minutes, he rose to his feet and took one last look at his father.
“Goodbye, old man,” he uttered simply and headed back towards the front door.
As he exited the house, into the baking Arizona heat again, he pulled a second envelope from his pocket. 25441 Good Earth Drive, Whitewood, South Dakota was written in big green lettering in very nice handwriting. He hoped Joey was there.
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