by Eddie Austin
I shake my head.
The sun is hanging on, casting its last shadows. I sip at the jar, my head a-buzz. A blip squeals on the radio; a one second ghost voice. I reach out, press a button, and dial back. Nothing.
I find Other John’s shades on the dash board and put them on. I drive west into the sun, slowly. This far out, there are no cars, dead or alive. I drive and polish off the last jar of booze. Slow and easy, follow the lines.
Maybe Grandpa was right. I need to think about my reasons for getting up each morning. But I can’t imagine doing all this -I spread my mental equivalent of arms before me wide, signifying life, without herb. Ain’t happening. Curtain call. The thought makes me darkly depressed. What if?
I pull right up to the barn, careful not to wreck the wire fence this time, and stagger past the dead fire and up into the loft.
There is just enough light to find my way to bed, and I do so. No dreams, just a big, black empty; and as I drift off, a multitude of voices calling my name. Some soft, some shouting, as if in my ear. Not all of the voices are kind.
Chapter 22
I wake to the sound of a curious bird call; it streams through the bullet hole cracked glass pane next to my bed and is the pinch of dust which precipitates the avalanche called wakefulness. I lie, eyes closed, sun-red window shades glowing in my mind.
I am whole and myself again.
I lie listening to the bird and breathing deeply. A crack, I open my eyes. The bird is small and brown, clutching to the rough shingles next to the window. Its head tilts, and I see a tiny golden eye before it is off in a snap of wings and scraping talons—tiny.
I’m hungry.
Climbing down the ladder from the loft, I remember eggs; boiled and probably still good, chilled by cool night air. I collect them from the sill in the workshop and bring them out to the steps. I ease myself down, for my ankle is still sore, and feel the cold from the stone steps seep through my thin pants. I tap an egg on the step next to me and peel it, tossing the shell pieces between my feet.
I chew the whole thing before swallowing any, mixing yoke and white into a paste in my mouth. It seems more flavorful this way and occupies a larger part of my hunger.
The sun is newly risen, and busies itself burning the dew from trodden grass and abandoned jars.
After my eggs, I pump some water over my head and take a deep drink. Yesterday.
I don’t even want to think about it. But I do, and feel the first rising of panic. I stuff it back down quickly, changing the subject in my mind. My mind.
I still can’t feel anything/anyone pressing against that sensitive part of my consciousness. No zombies. Or, have I dulled or damaged my new ability somehow? My eyes scan the tree line, which is somehow more menacing to me all of a sudden. Perhaps. Do I trust it to work, or do I start looking over my shoulder again? I decide to busy myself, try to lose these thoughts in repetition and labor.
I grab my .38, replacing the spent round from days before, and belt it over my pants; still the loaner pair from Selma. I pause on the steps again tying a blue bandana over my hair and inspecting my leg.
The bite mark is crusty, but the edges show pink; healing is taking place. The hole left from the bullet fragment has a knobby black scab and is surrounded by a brownish green bruise, like someone dipped their hand in dye and grabbed my calf. This too, heals.
My ankle is still sore from when I tripped over the bike. But, I can walk, so I do. First order of business is stowing the truck back in the garage. I drive it over, wondering about that blip on the radio yesterday. It could have been anything, but I am sure it was something. Surely, there would be places other than Selma that are still clinging on. America could survive on its own surplus for how long? Years? Like an obese body burning fat, or maybe a hibernating bear. Such was our excess at the time of our fall.
It is pure life boat mathematics. Take the supplies needed to feed and provide for all the people in America and lower the population by three hundred million. Perhaps a million people left alive, if we’re being conservative? Take shelf-life of goods into account and that still leaves mountains of canned or dried goods, gasoline, ammo, spare parts. Plenty for survivors to get by on until the zoms rot, or we start to make and grow new stuff.
Someone will be out there. Or. Perhaps it was an automated station run by solar power? Common these days; or really those days. Still, I have a feeling I won’t be finding out any time soon. I have bigger fish to gut.
I park the truck and lock up the garage. I want to be more careful with my reliance on gas. I really should leave the truck for a life or death situation. Bleeding and almost dead, it might get me to Salem and a chance of getting patched up. If I keep wasting gas, maybe that will be the day the tank is dry. The thought is sobering.
I amble over to the first two five-gallon buckets and walk out into the section of the groves that holds pears. They are glorious, light green, skinned beauties. Kind of like a Bartlett, but grafted with a variety from Kazakhstan that needs much less water and has more tolerable temperature ranges. The only trade-off is lower yield, but you can grow more with less, so it evens out.
I leave the fallen fruit to the hornets and deer and focus on the ones that still dangle, pulling down branches. I am a quick twisting little monkey, tossing them into the bucket like it is a basketball hoop. The dents and dings in their fragile flesh won’t matter, these will be juice.
I quickly fill the first two buckets and walk them back. My bandana is wet with perspiration already. I am letting myself get soft. Back to the trees. I pick. I get stung by a wasp, awful bastard!
More trips to the trees. I skip lunch, eating a few pears as I work. By noon, the buckets are full and I busy myself washing the fruit.
All afternoon, I feed the press and remove buckets of the leftover mush. Milky-golden juice flows, and I capture it in jars; jars upon jars. I let them sit before capping them, to allow natural yeasts to settle on their surface, then down to the shelves set aside for the new juice. It is quite a process. I use every jar I have saved, even remembering to retrieve the ones from the truck. Even with this, there is leftover juice.
I call it quits when the sun begins to get low. I boil more eggs and drink some of the fresh juice. Just as I get relaxed with my food, the feeling comes. The tell- tale sensation. Three sudden sensations.
I can feel them cross into my range of sensitivity, and know they are making for the hills and the desert beyond. But this time they are too close. They will turn soon and gravitate toward my location.
I decide to conserve some ammo. I keep my .38, but decide to get some practice with the blade. I finish my dinner quickly and walk to the barn. I select a mean three foot run of razor, Japanese, and bring it outside with me.
Sitting, I lay it across my lap in the scabbard and wait. The sun is gone by the time the first arrives, and the ring of light cast by my fire, maybe ten feet across, is my line of engagement. I watch it approach. Her frame is thin and her meat is badly eroded, jeans hung low around her knees, almost tripping her as she groans and waddles to me. She must have been heavier in life. One of her arms is wasted and hangs limp, chewed to the bone like a cartoon ham; probably what turned her. Her face is sagging, bleary milky-blue eyes peeking through remnants of hair matted to her face.
I stand up, dropping the scabbard as I draw the blade. It flashes in the light from the fire. I am ready for my Musashi moment.
One arm raised, her mouth opens, and I strike. Her body falls forward and her head to the left, rolling on the ground, snapping. One down.
The next two come into the light as a pair, and as their arms rise, I can see why. The one on the right wears the remnants of a police officer’s uniform, and the other looks like any average person. What had possessed him to cuff himself to this guy? Too late to ask.
I take a swing at the zombie cop’s wrist and separate the pair, barely dodging their double lunge. Turning, I swing high and I catch the perp in the neck, but I just graze him,
opening a wicked slash on his throat. I back away from the fire now, toward the barn. They follow.
The one that had been cuffed to the cop is slower, and it is the officer that crosses into my kill zone first. I have plenty of room to maneuver, nothing fancy, I just reach in and sweep the blade over his shoulders. He falls, with a distracting jangling of duty gear.
I look up now and see the last one, silhouetted by the light of the fire, arms raised and coming at me slowly, there is no rush. All the time in the world to eat me. I force emotion away, and chose my ground, letting him come. Come on fucker. Come and get it. I spin. I am grace and silence. You are a pile of rot.
The heads lay intact, and I can still feel their presence fouling my mind. I wipe the blade on the pant leg of the closest body, and then rest it in its scabbard. It’s too dark to clean up now, and I’m tired. I leave the mess behind me, ignoring the heads, and open the door to the barn.
Lying in bed, I can still feel the three distinct points touching my mind from outside. It is less discomforting than before, and as I drift off, I toy with the sensations in my mind. Three fingertips, or points. This close, they press much stronger than at a distance. I single out one and roll my head slightly, feeling the pressure shift against the point in my brain. It is almost like trying to push together two magnets that didn’t want to get along. Interesting.
Exhausted, the darkness takes me.
⃰ ⃰ ⃰
A dream. I’m walking down a sidewalk, somewhere urban, and the sun is bright.
I can feel the discomfort of starchy clothes and a hot, hot vest. My belt is heavy, adorned with gun, light, and cuffs. Approaching me, a familiar face. Carly’s boyfriend. I haven’t seen my little sis in ages.
Something is wrong with his eyes, there is panic. I call the code, thumbing the mic on my shoulder, I have seen this look on many faces.
“Hey, Shane, what’s wrong?”
He looks frantic, “She’s hurt bad, came at me like a mad person; almost lost my thumb.”
I notice now his bloody hand. “Shane, where is she?” My stomach turns.
“It wasn’t my fault, she hurt me. I had to stop her. Oh, God. Please don’t let them take me, I feel fine.”
No.
“Take it easy, Shane.” I call in another code, why isn’t anyone responding? “Take me to her.”
He shakes his head violently. “You don’t know what you’re asking….No!”
He moves past me, as if to run, but I sweep his leg and manage to get a cuff on his good hand. The other cuff I place on myself. “You’re not going anywhere, man -take me to Carly!”
There had been a briefing this morning about civil unrest. A new drug, or sickness, they still weren’t sure, but we were supposed to refer cases to the FEMA goons that had just arrived yesterday. But if my sis was hurt I needed to get her to a hospital, I knew that…”
⃰ ⃰ ⃰
Gasping, I sit up straight in bed. I don’t bother with shoes and nearly fall off the ladder getting downstairs.
A hammer.
I go out in the moonlight. The fire, almost gone, is all red embers caked in ash.
I don’t stop hammering until the three points are gone.
I toss the hammer and wash my hands and arms from the pump.
Sleep comes slowly.
Chapter 23
I am coming to terms with the phenomena that I am experiencing in my mind, if slowly. I can sense the zoms, and they can sense me. And maybe there is something else, though I can’t really say what. Refractions? Recorded images, ESP, some kind of astral hooey? I don’t know.
I am also realizing that my use of marijuana is not passing or recreational. What perfectly sane and sober mind could stand this existence? Without the euphoria and escape that I get from my herbs, this place is damned depressing.
So, I try smoking again, and the results are the same.
Rising waves of panic and terror. Confusion. Despair.
When I come back to my senses and feel…normal, I am faced with hard choices. Give up the green and cope as best I can, or wait and try again once I’ve healed some more. I don’t want to believe that it is an effect of my recent exposure, but rather something more mundane. Maybe I was stressed out, and this was all a reflection of the suppressed panic stored in my psyche.
The images from that dream, of someone else’s dream, follow me for days; like a bad feeling impossible to shake.
I don’t want to think about these things anymore.
So, I loose myself in my work.
I clean my guns and repack bags. I decide to place a few weapons and caches of extra supplies in other buildings in case of catastrophic events.
In the garage, my old shack, and one of the old animal pens, I place bug-out bags, a rifle, and a hand weapon. One set per location; hidden cleverly.
I become a steward of my surroundings. I cut the grass around the yard and clear out the thicker weeds in the orchard. I prune, and clean out dead areas in the groves. Not all of the trees have done well in this climate.
I use precious gasoline to operate the chainsaw, felling trees and cutting them into foot long segments. I cart these over to the back of the barn and spend days splitting wood and stacking it in the low storage of the barn.
It is back breaking work, but I feel some of my upper body fitness returning, and the act itself, of splitting, is cathartic.
I have chosen a thick segment of tree trunk for a chopping block and loose myself in the rhythm of splitting wood. The more I concentrate, the harder the job becomes. So, I let go of my mind and become the act of raising the maul and letting it fall onto the right place on the wood. It is not necessary to swing the heavy instrument; only to guide its descent toward the exposed face of the wood. The yellow fiberglass handle becomes familiar in my hands; gifting them with calluses.
This is my routine. Chopping, stacking, water breaks and tending to the smoke house.
Each night I sit out next to the fire, watching the skies, sipping my fruit wine, and renaming the stars.
Once the land is in order and the outbuildings stocked and secured, I turn my attention to the barn.
Some of my sloppy repairs are undone and replaced with salvaged boards from unused buildings and with improved finishing materials. I have found some old paint, and there is enough to cover the entrance room with two coats.
Copper green: ceiling, floors, trim, everywhere.
Kind of an ugly shade, but better than gore-splattered wood.
Some of the more damaged furniture goes as well. I make a burn pile, tossing all the junk onto the place that had been Bill’s home. It feels like a cleansing act every time I bring fire to this place. I drink on the evening that it burns, dancing around the fire, and chanting, deep growling reels from the depths of my being.
This last act brings the week to a close; it feels good to have my chores done. My balances are clear, and I feel alright leaving for a couple days to see the country.
I have a long mental list of things that I need, and I decide it is time to go poke around some houses. I get my pack together, my AK and some basic tools, and set out to forage. Before I leave, I tack a note to the door.
BACK IN A FEW. –K
I figure that if Bryce does show up a little early, he can wait for me to return. I make my way around the barn and head west, through the trees.
Chapter 24
The sun is three fingers over the horizon, and it warms my back as I walk along a row of dead trees. Here the grass is golden like straw, and it swishes over my sneakers and deposits the morning’s fine dew, quickly dampening my feet.
I am heading back toward town, but have no intention of going that far. In my mind, I think about some of the places I have checked before, but my needs are different now, and what I might have passed over long ago, might be gold to me now. Where to begin?
I step out of the brush and onto one of the side roads that cuts down from the main road to town. Unpaved, it is badly overgrown with
weeds, but is still recognizable for what it was.
I lean against an old speed limit sign, bullet ridden long before the end, and fish a cigarette out of my pocket. Last one.
The houses out this way are pretty well spaced out, mostly farms and ranches, with a few exceptions. Closer to town, things get much more compact. What the hell, maybe I’ll head for town and zero in on the first place that I feel a zombie. Let me hunt them for once.
I take one last pull on the cigarette and toss it to the ground, twisting it into the dirt with my toe. Shouldering my AK is difficult with the pack, so I carry it, holding the cherry colored grip.
There are a few low areas here, almost like basins, odd for the flat valley, and I know that there is a small development in the one up ahead. I came across it not long after the end on one of my first trips out. I had been desperate for news or confirmation of the madness that had descended upon the world. This place had been what I’d found, a small community consisting of three houses around a cul-de-sac.
Probably built back in the 80’s to accommodate a yuppie exodus from L. A., it had been eerily quiet that day. I had expected that some other people had stayed behind, or had been able to fight off the roaming dead, but the place had exhibited all the signs of a quick evacuation. Sheets and clothes blowing around front yards, abandoned boxes of food, scattered toys and no visible cars.
I’d picked up some of the food and brought it back with me that day. And I’d done a quick check of one house, and now I think I remember that there had been some ammo, but the memory is foggy now. I haven’t forgotten the feeling of being watched.
At the time, I thought it had been natural guilt from going through people’s things, or paranoia, for those were nerve wracking times, but now I wonder if someone hadn’t been looking out from one of those dark windows, peering through the crack of a blind.