Meanwhile, Abby was having dark dreams. She dreamed of being lost and alone in a strange place. She was scared and cried out for Zach, but all she could hear was monstrous laughing and snarling all around her. She tried to run but could barely move a few steps without stumbling and falling. She was suddenly aware of an impenetrable ring of darkness closing in all around her. There seemed to be no escape, and she briefly considered just lying down and dying, scared as she was. The darkness was closing in on her, and all around her were bright, red eyes, glaring at her accusingly. She pretended to be Zach, thinking this would scare off the monsters, but it was a useless charade. The light was running out. Suddenly, it was gone and Abby was completely enveloped in darkness, and a voice that sounded like her own whispered just one word over and over: guilty.
Abby awoke with a start, bolting upright and breathing heavily, eyes wide open. “You okay, Bug?” Zach asked with concern.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” she replied slowly. “I just…bad dream. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” said Zach.
“It’s okay. It was just a dream,” Abby replied. “Have you slept at all?” she asked, but Zach just shook his head. Abby frowned and said, “Well, what time is it?”
“Three,” Zach said, glancing at his watch. “But I’m okay. You can go back to sleep.”
“No. You’re hurt, and you should sleep. I’ll stay awake now.”
“Are you sure?” Zach asked. He really was tired, and sleep was sounding really good right about now.
“I’m sure. I’m wide awake anyway.”
“Okay. Wake me at five though, or if you see anyone coming.”
“Alright,” Abby said. She pulled her pistol out, checked to make sure she had a round in the chamber, and then set it on her lap. Zach leaned his head against the window and was asleep within seconds.
Abby let Zach sleep for longer than he had asked. She wanted him to be able to rest, but she also wanted to be alone with her thoughts for a time. She still shuddered every time she thought about the Marshall Farm, and how cruel those people had been. She recalled her feeling of abject terror and helplessness when she’d been trapped on the bedframe, naked from the waist down, left to Henry’s twisted fantasies. She almost cried again, remembering the feeling of his wretched hand holding her bare thigh.
In an effort to set these memories aside, Abby also pondered her nightmare. Was there a meaning to it? Who had been staring at her? And why should she be guilty, and of what crime? Maybe it was all nonsense, brought on by the day’s horrific events.
The sun was risen by now, and the rain had long since ceased its falling. Abby looked at her watch and saw that it was a quarter past six in the morning. “Zach, it’s morning,” she said quietly, and Zach woke up almost instantly. He put his hand to the side of his head, wincing in pain. Checking his watch, he frowned and said “It’s past six.”
“I know, but you needed some extra rest.”
Zach just smirked and said, “Alright. Well, let’s eat something, and then we can get going.”
Abby had forgotten how hungry she was. They hadn’t eaten since the previous morning. They ate a little bit of the food that Zach had acquired from the Marshalls, then they stepped outside with their packs and started to walk down the road, holding to a western course as best as they could.
After only a few minutes, they came upon a small river flowing across their path. After filling up on fresh water, Zach took his shirt off and tried to wash out the blood stains on and around his collar, but without laundry detergent, it just was not possible. He set his shirt aside and then proceeded to wet his hair, face, and neck where his blood had dried. It came off of his skin easily enough, but picking it out of his hair hurt. It had clotted together and clung to his scalp, but after many painful tugs of his hair, he had gotten most of it out.
He pulled his shirt back on over his head, and walked over to where Abby stood with their packs, standing guard. She had been watching him wash off, and with every drop of bloody water that dripped from his head, she had but one thought: this was all her fault. “How do you feel?” she asked him.
“I’ve been better,” he replied, touching the large bump on the right side of his head. “How about you? You okay?” he asked.
Abby opened her mouth to reply, but she suddenly burst into loud sobbing. She sat down on a large rock behind her and put her head in her hands. Zach quickly knelt down in front of her and asked in a tender voice, “What’s wrong, baby girl?”
Abby wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “It’s all my fault, Dad! I almost got you killed!”
“Oh no, honey! No, no, no, don’t you say that! Don’t even think it!” Zach said as he wrapped his arms around Abby. She pressed her face against his shoulder and hugged him.
“It is! It is my fault!” she said in a muffled voice. “If I hadn’t been so naïve and-”
“Abby, I made the call to go down there, not you. I should have gone with my gut instinct,” he offered as Abby picked her head up and looked into his eyes.
“And you would have if I hadn’t twisted your arm! I took advantage of you and your love for me! What kind of terrible daughter would do that?”
“Don’t say that about yourself, Abby. You are a wonderful daughter. If we had gone on, we might have run out of food. Who knows, it might have been a good thing that we went down there!”
“A good thing?! You almost died, Zach!” Abby said, standing up. “They almost butchered us! Henry almost…almost raped me!”
“Almost, Bug! Almost! A lot of bad things almost happened, but here we are! We made it out okay!”
“No. I made it out okay, but look at you! Look at all of the blood you washed off, all the bruises on your body! All the pain, all the fighting, everything fell to you! I didn’t do a darn thing but make everything harder for you!” Abby sighed and sat back down on the rock. “I was completely helpless,” she finally said. “You’ve spent months training me to fight and survive, but I panicked. I just feel like I’m nothing but dead weight to you.”
“Oh, Abigail. No, you couldn’t be more wrong. Do you want to know what dead weight is? My past and what happened to me and…my wife. That’s what dead weight is. And it was crushing me, Abby. I was lost and had no hope for the future. But then I found you, and you changed my life! You are the daughter that I never had. Do you remember what I told you that first day at the cabin?”
“You said that I could never be a burden to you.”
“So what makes you think that that is any less true today than it was the day I said it? You have never been a burden to me, Abby, and you still are not. You’re everything to me, and I don’t want you taking the blame for this. Last night was bad, but it was not your fault, okay?”
“Okay,” Abby said, wiping away her tears again. Zach hugged her tight for several seconds before standing back up.
“Now,” he said, “what do you say we find out where we are?” He opened up his ruck, pulled out his GPS unit and a grid map of Illinois and spread it out flat on the ground. He then took a super-fine point black marker out of his pocket and uncapped it with his teeth as he turned the GPS on and waited for the tiny LED screen to give him his coordinates. It finally showed up, and Zach annotated their position on the map. He recapped his marker, slid it into his pocket, and showed the map to Abby.
“This is where we are,” he said as she looked over the map. “We should be able to reach the Mississippi by this afternoon, if we keep up a good pace.”
“Then we head south, right?” Abby asked.
“Right. Hopefully at some point we can find a settlement or a town,” Zach replied, folding up the map and returning it, along with the GPS, to his ruck. He threw the ruck on his shoulders (turning away from Abby as he did so, so she wouldn’t see the pain on his face) as Abby did the same, and they both started walking west.
After walking down an old state road in relative silence for almost an hour, Abby said, “It’ll be nice to final
ly be around normal people again,” Abby said.
Pleased to finally hear her talking again, Zach replied, “No kidding. Or be able to wear some clean clothes.”
“I know, right? Or take a real shower.”
“Yeah, you could use one. You stink,” Zach said, nudging Abby.
“Hey, I do not!” she replied as she hit him back. “At least I don’t smell like a dirty, sweaty, man!”
“Girl, please. I smell fabulous,” Zach replied, and Abby laughed loudly. This made Zach smile. Yesterday had been nothing short of a waking nightmare for both of them, and just this morning she seemed like she was falling to pieces. But here she was, laughing and making jokes. Nothing could quench this girl’s spirit, thought Zach.
“In your dreams, mister! It’s a scientific fact that girls smell better than boys.”
“Oh yeah? You’re a scientist now?”
“Yup!”
Zach just laughed and said, “I’ll admit that I could use some deodorant.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Who would have thought that something as simple as deodorant could be considered a luxury?”
“For real. You know what I really miss? School.”
“Bah. I hated school when I was your age.”
“I love school! I got to be with my friends, and I love learning stuff!”
“You never went to high school though. That sucks.”
“Oh, come off it. It can’t be that bad.”
“You’d be surprised. It’s not just the school itself, it’s the-”
“Hey, check it out!” Abby said, interrupting Zach and pointing away to the right.
“What is it?” Zach asked as Abby jogged over towards a bush that was near the road. She bent down and pulled something out from underneath the lowest branches.
“A skateboard!” she said, showing it to Zach.
Zach asked, “Now what are you going to do with a skateboard?”
“Psh. Ride it, duh,” Abby replied as she set it down on the road.
“You know how to skateboard?”
“No, but it can’t be that hard,” Abby said.
She then took her hat off and put it right back on, but backwards. Zach gave her an inquisitive look, but Abby just shrugged her shoulders and said, “What? I gotta look cool.”
She put her left foot on the board and gently propelled herself forward with the other. She rolled a few feet down the road, holding her arms out at her sides to balance herself. The board gradually came to a stop and Abby looked back at Zach with a huge grin. “Did you see that?!”
“I did. You’re a natural.”
“Ahh, this is so rad!”
Abby pushed herself forward again, daring to go a little faster now. This time, she pushed off again while the skateboard was still rolling. She almost fell, but she was able to stay on the board and then laughed as she pushed forward again. She was having the time of her life with the skateboard, and Zach couldn’t help but smile at her.
“Zach, watch this!” she called back to him. She leaned back suddenly on her rear leg and tried to do a hop on the skateboard. She almost landed it, but the board hit the road awkwardly and Abby fell off, smacking the pavement.
Zach saw Abby fall and quickly jogged up next to her. He held his hand down and helped her up. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Just my pride…and my butt,” Abby replied, rubbing her backside.
“Don’t do that again, please. We can’t afford to have you breaking your ankle or something out here,” Zach cautioned her, allowing a bit of sternness to come into his voice.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Abby said, rolling her eyes slightly.
Abby kept playing with the skateboard for a little while longer, but she eventually left it on the side of the road. She couldn’t ride it for the rest of their journey and it would just weigh her down anyway.
After another period of walking wordlessly, Abby said, “Can I ask you something personal, Zach?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“So, assuming we find a town or something, or even when everything returns to normal, are you ever going to get married again?”
Zach thought for a moment before answering. “Well, Abby,” he said slowly, “I don’t know.”
“Do you not want to get remarried?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s funny you say that, actually. She made me promise once that if she ever died young, I would find someone else to marry,” Zach said. He put his hand to his shirt, feeling his wife’s wedding ring against his chest.
“So why are you unsure? She obviously wanted you to find someone who could make you happy again.”
“Exactly. I don’t know if I can find someone who would make me happy like she did. She was so…perfect, Bug. I don’t mean perfect as a person, but perfect for me, you know? She and I together…we were perfect. And I’m afraid that I’ll meet some nice girl, hold her to an impossible standard, and just end up ruining everything.”
“Well, it couldn’t hurt to try. I want you to be happy too, Zach. And if you find a nice girl who loves you and makes you happy, you should try to make it work.”
“Maybe. We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.”
“At least promise me that you’ll try.”
“I promise.”
“Pinky-promise?”
Zach smiled as he hooked his pinky around Abby’s. “Pinky-promise,” he said. Abby smiled back.
Later that day, early in the afternoon, Zach and Abby finally made it to the great and wild Mississippi River. They stopped to stare at it for a while, feeling like Lewis and Clarke, when they first happened upon the river centuries ago. The bright sun glinted off of the water’s surface, causing Zach and Abby to have to squint to look directly at it.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Zach asked.
“Yeah,” said Abby.
Although he did not show it, Zach was actually ecstatic that they had reached the river. Though this would probably be the longest leg of their journey, he felt like it might be the easiest, or at least he hoped so. He was in such a good mood that he started whistling the tune of “Mighty Quinn” by Manfred Mann.
Abby glanced at Zach when he started to whistle and gave him a curious look, but didn’t say anything as she continued walking. But Zach caught the meaning of her look and gave her an exasperated sigh. “Oh my God, Abby. Please don’t tell me you don’t know this song either.”
“Am I supposed to know every song you know?” Abby asked as she threw up her hands in frustration.
“This is on my iPod, kid! You had to have listened to it at least once!”
“Well, maybe I did once. What song is it?”
“Mighty Quinn.”
“It doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Well, I have clearly failed you as your father.”
“That’s the word on the street,” Abby replied sarcastically.
Later that day, about six miles downriver, Zach and Abby found themselves approaching a small, isolated town. “Do you think there are people down there?” Abby asked.
“Doesn’t look that way,” Zack replied. “We should go down there and see if we can scavenge any useful gear. But keep sharp.” He checked his rifle to make sure he had a round in the chamber, and Abby did the same with her pistol. “Let’s stay quiet,” Zach said. Abby nodded, and fell in behind Zach.
As they drew close to the town, Zach and Abby both scanned windows and doorways, looking for zombies or highwaymen. It was quiet in the town. No, more than that. It was completely silent. Not even the wind was moving. Some old cars lined the streets, most of which were pockmarked with bullet holes. Windows were smashed and doors were either barely hanging onto their hinges or were gone entirely.
There was still no sign of life (or unlife) as Zach and Abby stepped onto what appeared to be the main street of the town. The yellow dotted-line running down the middle of the road was faded, and cracks filled with weeds were abundant. Drains were clogged with garbage,
reinforcing the already pungent odor in the air.
They walked down the middle of the street, just to the right of the faded yellow lines. Zach’s rifle was at the ready and Abby held her pistol in both hands, pointed down at the ground. She noticed that bullet marks were seemingly everywhere, making cars and buildings look like hunks of Swiss cheese. Pockmarked storefronts were stained a rusty color, the result of dried blood. Bodies sat along many of these grisly walls, suggesting that these people all died long ago. Brass shell casings littered the ground and reflected the sunlight like hundreds of miniature stars.
“What do you think happened, Zach?” Abby whispered, though the empty town echoed her voice and made it sound much louder than she had intended.
“I’m not sure, Bug. It looks like a mass execution to me,” he replied, gesturing towards a clump of bodies all lined up against a wall, one of which appeared to once be an elderly woman.
As they walked, Zach and Abby noted the different shops all around them: a post office with a blue mailbox out front, an insurance office, a jeweler that had a sign reading ‘GET $$$ 4 JEWELRY’. They passed a mom-and-pop style deli and they glanced in the window, but could not see any food. It probably would have been inedible anyway. They saw a gym for boxers and aspiring MMA fighters. A barber shop with only three chairs. A gun shop!
“Let’s check it out,” Zack whispered, pointing to the gun store. The front window was smashed and they could see no weapons, but they went inside to look around anyway. It was a small place, and a quick search of the shop availed Zach and Abby not one, lousy bullet. They exited the same way they had come in and got back on the street.
They passed a restaurant that advertised authentic Mexican food. Next to that was a liquor store. Zach fought the temptation to go in there and try to find a drink. There was a small shop that offered psychic readings, and next to that was a seedy looking massage parlor.
“Hey, look!” Abby whispered, pointing down the street at a gas station with a mini-mart. “I bet they’ve got some stuff,” she said.
They quickly but quietly made their way into the parking lot of the gas station and peered through the big, broken windows of the convenience store.
His Name Was Zach Page 7