"No, seriously, don’t you have plans for your Golden Years?"
"Listen, Cool Breeze, I’m not even pushing sixty. I ain’t got no retirement plans just yet. My job here is something I do without much thought and I’m really fuckin’ good at it."
"Agreed, but don’t you have family? I mean, back out in The World?"
Weaver got suddenly quiet, almost sullen, and looked away. A dark cloud passed over his expression and his mood darkened. After a minute, he took the bottle back.
"I did… once," and he lifted the bottle and drank. "Same old story, y’know?"
"Sorry," Cleese said meekly. "I didn’t mean to dredge up any bad memories."
"No, it’s ok," Weaver said and lightly touched Cleese on the arm with the lip of the bottle. "See, back in the day, I used to work in, of all things, the electronics industry. Did that shit for years. I kept track of thousands of parts at a semiconductor manufacturing plant. I did what they called ‘destructive analysis.’"
"Sounds fitting."
"Yeah, well… it was all pretty meaningless, but I had me a wife, a home and a good life goin’. The old American Dream, y’know?"
Weaver’s gazed drifted off as he began wandering the meadows of his memory.
"It’s funny how things can change, eh?"
Cleese nodded silently and settled back, not wanting to get in the way of whatever it was Weaver had to say.
"Anyway, one day, I’m on my way home, drivin’, y’know? And—bam—I hit this massive gridlock on the freeway. Ain’t a car moving for shit. People are cussin’. People are honkin’. Then, in the next car over, a radio starts blarin’ on about how there are people goin’ crazy: mass murder, cannibalism, all kinds of craziness. Shit, you know how it was…
"At the time, the news guys were all talking about everything from Venus probes to some kind of infection, like a virus. Whatever it was and wherever it came from, it was makin’ people to go crazy."
Cleese again nodded remembering that day all too well.
"Honestly, I figured it was all one of them War of the Worlds-type things. You know, complete and utter bullshit. Anyway, I’m sitting in my car for quite a while, waiting for the gridlock to break. All I wanna do is get home and get back to my life, but as time goes on, I start getting more and more nervous. Not really sure why, but this anxious feeling starts skittering up my spine. So, I pull to the side of the road and drive up onto the shoulder, thinking I can circumvent this shit by doing some off-roading and get my ass home faster. I go four-wheeling through the toolies and get to the next exit. I bounce up and over the curb and come screaming down the embankment."
Weaver had a faraway look in his eyes as he continued. From the look on his face, it was like he was back there, seeing it all play like a movie across his mind’s eye.
"Anyway, long story short, I finally get to my street and as I pull up to my house I see the place surrounded by a dozen or so of those motherfuckers. They’re all milling about, but gathered around something on the lawn. At first, I was like, ‘what the fuck?’ and start fearing the worst. Little did I know that not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined ‘the worst.’ I start turning toward the house and, as I come up the driveway, I see that the thing on the ground is Fran Johnson from next door. She’s lying on the ground and her clothes are all pulled open and there’s blood and guts and who knows what else spread all over my lawn. Now, I’m still thinking that this is some kind of joke, like a Halloween prank, but the look on her face told me that it was all real as shit. These animals had torn Frannie to pieces and, from the blood on most of their faces, they looked like they had, as weird as it sounded, been eating her. I mean, fuck me…"
He chuckled in disbelief.
"Anyway, as soon as these fuckers see me coming, a whole slew of them, all pasty-faced and bleeding gashes, come lurching across the lawn, toward the driveway. Unable to stop, and not really wanting to for that fuckin’ matter, I hit the sidewalk and plow straight through them sons-a-whores. I mean, I slammed into ’em. A handful goes under the front wheels and their bodies make loud thumping sounds under my wheels as I run right over them. The others bounce offa my fender like bowling pins."
Weaver lifted up the bottle and drank again to both wet his whistle and to calm his nerves. In a moment, he cleared his throat, swallowed, and continued talking.
"I slide to a stop near the front door and I’m about as scared and pissed off as a cat in a washin’ machine. Not really thinking about whether it could or would be dangerous, I jump out and get a clear look at the situation—Frannie torn open on the lawn, the blood, the people I’d run over starting to get back to their feet, the whole mess—and I know somethin’ ain’t right, y’know? I mean, I’m just fuckin’ smart like that.
"Then, I see Frannie move…"
Weaver paused long enough to take another pull on the bottle.
"So, I dive back into the car and pull an old tire iron out from under the seat. I get back out and just start swinging. I mean, I’m cavin’ in heads and breaking off fuckin’ limbs."
Weaver looked over at Cleese in the waning light and smiled.
"You’da been fuckin’ proud of me, man."
Cleese grinned and nodded.
"Anyway… It was about then that I hear my Dora screaming from inside the house and I panic! I start beating my way through the crowd of these sons-a-bitches. I must have flattened a football team’s worth or so, I swear to fuckin’ God! So, with my adrenaline now pumping, I make it to the front door and kick the motherfucker down. Inside, there are one or two more wandering in the front room and entryway. I lay them out and go running through the house and up the stairs toward our bedroom. I get to the doorway and I see Dora…"
Weaver’s voice cracked suddenly, tied tight with emotion. His eyes welled up with tears that he quickly swallowed down. Bolstering his resolve, he looked out across the compound and continued.
"I see her… and she’s surrounded by like four of those things. The only thing I can figure is that they must have gotten in through the back patio door, coming over the fence from the neighbor’s house. They were all gathered around her, trying to negotiate the furniture, knocking it over and scattered shit off of the dresser as they did whatever they could to get at her."
Tears were streaming freely down the big man’s cheeks now and Cleese didn’t blame him one bit. Weaver was a tough guy, but… every man had chinks in his armor and they usually were gathered somewhere around his heart.
"I’ll never fucking forget the look on her face as I came into the bedroom, Cleese," he said wiping away at the tears which had gathered in his beard. "Her eyes were wide—scared, scared as I’d ever seen her—and her face was covered in these scratches. It’s kinda funny… Through all the commotion of those things in the room and the ones that were trying to break in outside, through all of that shit, I heard her softly say my name when she saw m…"
Weaver’s eyes brimmed over with a new wellspring of moisture and his voice cut off, suddenly sounding constricted. He coughed softly and cleared his throat and did his best to continue.
"And that was when they got a hold of her. I remember her screaming as they dragged her down to the floor. I mean, she sounded so fucking scared. By the time I was able to beat ’em off of her, she was gone; torn apart. There was blood everywhere." His voice trailed off into nothing. "There was just so much blood…"
Cleese looked deep into his friend’s face, but quickly realized that he was no longer telling the story for his benefit. He watched as tears freely spilled out of Weaver’s eyes, rolled down his face, under his glasses, and soaked into his already wet beard.
"Later, Emergency Rescue crews showed up in the neighborhood and started rounding up The Dead. I never saw if Dora came back or not. I assume she did, but I wasn’t there to see her… or take care of her. I was taken out to the EMT vans and checked out for any bites or signs of infection."
Weaver wiped at his running nose and took another drink from the
rapidly emptying bottle.
"Anyway, once things were relatively safe, they took survivors off to some of the Shelters. There, they had some real doctors check me out and, once they saw I hadn’t been bitten, they let me go. The only problem was… I had no place to go. With Dora gone, my life meant shit. It was fucking rubble, man. So, at first, I joined the cleanup crews and helped trying to get things back under control. For the longest time, I went out on the ‘house to houses’ and I’ll tell ya… I took great delight in watching each and every one of those bastards I came up against being put down. Hell, I still feel that way some times. With every one of them being killed, it’s like a little bit of my pain, a tiny bit of my grief, gets washed away. My heartache seems a little more tolerable anytime I feel as though I had even a small hand in putting those fuckers back in their goddamn holes."
He paused again, obviously trying to get control of his emotions. He took another shot and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Cleese idly thought that, before this night was out, he was going to need to go get that other bottle from his Crib.
"It wasn’t too long after that that things settled down and we got back to what we all remembered as ‘normal.’"
Weaver turned and looked Cleese in the eye.
"But… who gave a flyin’ fuck? A lot of us had no place to go. Most of us couldn’t—and wouldn’t—go back to our homes. Hell, everything at my house only reminded me of what had been stolen from me, of what I’d lost. I’d heard from some guys on one of the cleanup crews about this guy Weber and his plans for this League thing. When it looked like it was a go, I signed up right away. It seems that I still needed to see some blood spilled before I was ready to call things square," he chuckled and shook his head. "Once I signed on, it was pretty apparent that I was no fighter. Fuck, I usually come out on the losing end of a pillow fight. So, since I’d always had a head for organizational shit, I volunteered to head up their armory. And with that, The Chest was born."
Weaver lifted the bottle in a half-hearted toast and drank deeply.
"I’ve been here ever since."
"Jesus…" was all Cleese could muster. He went over Weaver’s story and had to admit, it was something. One thing wasn’t clear though and that was closure. "So, are things about even between you and The Dead, Weaver? Are things any closer to being settled?"
Weaver looked at Cleese, his normally jovial face now grim and set in stone.
"Well, I’ve considered that a time or two, to be honest. And after a lot of thought, I’ve decided that things will never be even or settled between me and those fuckers, Cleese. Not ever. Never. Ever… Ever…"
Cleese nodded and looked away, somehow understanding. Some men, when everything important in their lives is stripped away, have only the pain and the anger left. Their anguish becomes the one thing they can count on and they cling to it like a life preserver because, in a lot of ways, that was exactly what it was. Cleese didn’t fault them for feeling that way. Everyone walked their path in life and they held the things that worked for them close, the things that nurtured and protected them. Anger and hatred could oftentimes be as reassuring as a warm blanket on a rainy day. However, sometimes that comforting blanket wrapped around them, weighed them down, and dragged them to the depths of despair. Cleese silently hoped Weaver was the type of man who could one day learn to let go.
"It’s one of the main reasons why I appreciate the work you do," Weaver continued. "I mean, you cut a swath through those fuckers and nothing seems to affect you," Weaver laughed and slapped Cleese on the thigh. "You’re a baddass, Son, and you’re able to do the very thing I wish I could have…"
"And that is?"
Weaver looked away, up toward the piece of sky where he liked to think the love of his life waited for him to one day return to her.
"Save my Dora, I guess."
Ridgeway Elementary
Before…
The afternoon bell rang out across the crowded playground, signaling the end of the lunch recess period. The sharp, shrill sound made many of the children playing there jump in their shoes. Some of the more excitable girls squealed in surprise and then immediately cupped their hands over their mouths as if trying to catch their voices before they could be heard. Balls bounced and swings swung, but all that soon came to a stuttering stop once the Yard Duty Teachers blew their whistles and gently herded the kids toward the main building. There were a few stragglers— that was to be expected with children of this age—but the women soon had the mass of waving arms and runny noses all heading in the right direction.
Chikara Pressfield walked toward the red brick façade of Ridgeway Elementary School, stopping every now and then to gather up an abandoned jump rope or orphaned Four Square Ball. She tried to soak up as much of the midday sun as she could since it would be her last chance of the day to feel the warming rays of the sun on her skin. The rest of the afternoon would be spent in her classroom, her time monopolized by what she’d come to think of as "her kids."
She’d been teaching at Ridgeway for most of the school term, having received her teacher’s certificate the prior year, and she’d come to really enjoy her new vocation. In college, she’d ridden an athletic scholarship for all it was worth and at one time even thought herself destined for the pro tennis circuit. She had a backhand that was—or rather, had been—pretty devastating, if she did say so herself. But after a car wreck had more or less shattered the elbow of her left arm, those dreams had been set aside. After months of rehab and a heart full of tears, she’d found that she’d been unable—and unwilling it would seem—to invest the kind of energy it took to make a full recovery. Now, incapable of competing on a professional stage, teaching became the best of a set of limited options.
At the large double front doors of the school, she dropped off the playthings in the bins kept by the entrance to the playground and—as she was the last one in—turned to shut the doors behind her. The midday sun had just reached its epoch and was beginning its long slow slide toward the horizon. Birds could be heard chirping in the trees that lined the soccer field, their song joyful and carefree. Momentarily, she envied them.
As she pulled the door closed, through the glass she noticed a man standing far across the playground outside of the fence which encircled the perimeter of the school. She continued to watch him for a minute or so as she absentmindedly straightened her long black hair with her fingers. The door’s lock clicked into place and a chill abruptly rippled down her back. Shaking it off, she turned and headed down the hallway to the stairs and up to the second floor where her small class waited at the end of the hall.
As usual, her classroom was in a total uproar. The children, still bristling with excitement from the play yard, were jostling one another and bouncing around the room like pinballs. She opened the door, which was flanked on either side by large bulletin boards, and stepped into the room. The class was in the midst of learning the countries of the world and each continent was represented on the corkboard by assorted maps and pages carefully cut from National Geographic magazines.
Along the far left side of the room, a whiteboard stretched from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Across the top was taped a banner which read "Word Wall." Underneath it were all of the letters of the alphabet arranged in orderly rows. Slips of paper with handwritten words on them were taped beneath each corresponding letter.
At the head of the class to her immediate right, a large chalkboard was mounted, the day’s lesson plan written in Chikara’s swirling scrawl. She approached her desk as the door closed with a hiss behind her, and the class immediately began to settle down.
"Hello, Miss Pressfield," the children called to her in a sing-song tone as she took her position before them. Quietly, but firmly, she redirected the children’s energies back to their studies.
"Ok, settle down now, boys and girls," she said, smiling warmly. This being the first real class of her teaching career, she couldn’t help but love them all dearly. Despite her best efforts
to conceal how she felt, her affection for them was readily apparent. "Can anyone remember what we were talking about before recess?"
A pond of blank faces met her gaze.
"Oh, come on, you guys… we were just talking about it."
Sheepishly, a hand rose at the back of the room. The boy had a crew cut and a soft, round face. He was new to the class, having just arrived from St. Louis a month or so ago. From what she’d seen, the kid was pretty smart.
"Yes, Jeffrey."
"We were talking about the… Messopotavia and Youfrageous Rivers."
"Well, sort of."
The class giggled and hid their faces behind their hands.
"We were talking about the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia. What many call the Cradle of Civilization. Good job though…" She cast a playful frown toward the rest of the class. "No one else remembered even that much."
The kid’s laughter stuttered to an embarrassed stop. Behind a tapestry of faces, Jeffrey blushed and looked down toward his desk. It seemed that Jeffery, like many of the boys in her class, had a bit of a crush on his teacher.
Chikara considered the whole idea quite cute.
"Does anyone remember anything else from our discussion?"
Before any of the children could answer, the Public Address System crackled overhead. A few thumps later, and Principal Borden’s voice was heard, peppered with static.
"Excuse the interruption, Ladies and Gentlemen, but we have an announcement."
Chikara held a single finger to her lips as a sign to the children that they should be quiet. As the children had been taught, they dutifully repeated the gesture.
"We have been notified," he continued, "that due to some road closures, we’ll be staying after school today until everything is cleared up. Thank you."
The class collectively groaned and shuffled in their seats.
"Ssshh," Chikara said and tapped her finger against her lips. The children again mimicked her. As the Principal began talking again—something about parents having been called and "how everything was ok" and for them "not to worry"—she walked over to the window and looked out at the schoolyard from over the fire escape that ran up the side of the building. The area was empty. A sudden gentle wind swirled and gently pushed the swings to and fro as if invisible children who occupied them were enjoying a ride.
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