“Yes, something like that. But I still want to know how you’ve managed to avoid them until now.”
“Back to that, are we? I am sorry to inform you that there’s not much to tell. As you probably know, the corporate headquarters for CompuLine is near here.” She paused as if perturbed by the fact I showed no signs of knowing the location of CompuLine’s headquarters. “Well, anyway, the building is near here.”
Linda Green went on to tell me about how she and about twenty of the company’s employees had taken refuge in the headquarters when things had gotten bad. At first, the group had pulled together in order to keep things running smoothly. A few people took charge of preparing meals. Others had the chore of gathering water. Some became responsible for going on food searches. However, as time passed, things began to fall apart. A couple people began complaining that they did more work than others. The discontent grew from there until the group split into a few distinct groups. One group was sure that leaving the city was the best plan. Another group thought it would be safer to shelter in place. Still another simply wanted to be in charge of everything. As a result of the differences, the group as a whole imploded. Arguments became common, and there were even a couple of physical clashes.
Eventually, the group split up, with some leaving the building and others staying, but not on the best of terms. Given Linda’s disability, her input in any decisions was mostly disregarded. Even more, one of Linda’s employees strongly resented past treatment by her. His grudge grew to the point that she actually feared what he might do to her. Her assistant Randy believed that she was over-reacting but agreed to take her away from the building. The trip had not gone well, as they had run into a mob of the shells. That is where I had found her.
“So now you know how I avoided direct contact with those things,” she said and tried to smile.
“Well, it sounds like you had enough problems without the shells causing more.” I started to tell her my own experience with the world.
For a brief time, I actually felt a glimmer of sympathy for this woman. This emotion was immediately swept away as she showed unmistakable signs of impatience with my story.
“Where are we going?” Linda demanded.
Her interruption caught me by surprise, and I stammered out my answer. “I, uh, we’re going to CheapMart. That’s where… That’s where my family is waiting.” The words stuck in my throat for some reason, but I felt better once I got them out. I even smiled, an expression that earned a confused look from Linda.
“If we are going to CheapMart, we are going the wrong way,” she stated flatly.
I probably should have had more patience with her. After all, she had seen her companion killed and been trapped by shells a short time ago. That kind of experience would definitely affect a person’s behavior. The thing which really bothered me was the distinct sense that her behavior did not result from her recent ordeal but was simply her normal manner. I am not certain from precisely where the feeling came, but it was there. Once it arrived, it did not leave.
I tried not to look at her, because a sense of resentment boiled inside of me at the sight. The existence of her disability should have squelched my anger, but it had the opposite effect. While her need to compensate for any appearance of weakness might be understandable, her arrogance infuriated me.
“I am aware of that,” I spat out. “The other way was blocked by abandoned cars.”
“Hmmm,” she responded.
The doubt showed itself clearly in her tone, and it pushed me over the top. I pulled the van over to the curb and turned off the engine.
“Listen, you’re damn lucky that the street was blocked! If it hadn’t been, you’d sure the hell be stuck in that damn car waiting to be a meal for some fucking shell!” She was clearly not used to being spoken to in such a manner, and her discomfort spurred me to continue. “I’m the only reason you made it out of that car, and you sure as hell ought to remember that!”
Silence filled the car for a minute or so. Just as I was ready to apologize for being such a jerk and going off like that, Linda Green spoke and drove any regret away.
“I apologize for not showing you the proper level of gratitude,” she replied slowly, uttering each syllable with precision. “I am certain that you are accustomed to a higher degree of reverence. Perhaps I should bow down to you. Oh, sorry! I cannot because my legs are useless stumps!” She stopped, as if suddenly realizing her voice had become a scream.
I was not immediately sure how to respond, and an awkward silence filled the car. Unlike most silences, this one had no calming effect. Instead, the quiet seemed to amplify my sense that Linda Green had made a career of using whatever tool available to her advantage. In this case, the tool proved to be her own disability.
For an instant, fury boiled inside me at this idea. A moment later, I cooled down and chuckled as something else took hold of me. It was admiration. This woman was a survivor. I imagined that she had struggled all her life. She had certainly managed to make the most of what she had been given. Sometimes a weakness might actually be a source of strength. At that moment, I actually had some admiration for her.
My newfound esteem must have produced a strange expression on my face, because Linda asked, “Are you alright? You look like you’re about to, uh, look very pale. I don’t…” Her words trailed off as if she no longer had the energy to voice them.
I did my best to grin at her. “I’m okay, I guess.” To tell the truth, I was okay, because I realized that I had somewhere to go. I mean I had somewhere to go where people I cared about waited for me. It seemed like this world had become a place where you were lucky to have somewhere to go. I pictured Christina, Taylor, and Kat and realized that they had given me something terribly special. I realize how ridiculous that sounds. After all, I had spent a lifetime regularly mocking those who devoted themselves to family. I remembered times when I had rolled my eyes when some new father at school or at the newspaper insisted on showing photo after photo of the latest offspring. Now here I was getting lost in thoughts of family.
You would think that I had seen enough of this ugly, new world by now to know that it was dangerous not to stay alert.
What occurred in the following seconds happened in a flash but somehow played slowly in my mind. A loud thud at the back of the van threw us forward. An instant later, an explosion of glass showered us in the front seat. The campervan rocked to the side as something struck the passenger side, slamming me into the driver's door. Linda screamed in a short, high-pitched way and then again in a long, howling way as a shell lunged through the broken window and grabbed her. I reached out for her, but her arms swung wildly and I touched only air. Her hand slapped the back of the seat near me, and I managed to grab her arm. With the physical contact came eye contact. Linda's eyes moved frantically like a wild animal that found itself trapped. For a split second, they appeared to pause as they recognized my face. As strange as it seemed in the middle of all the frenzied strangeness, Linda smiled at me. An instant later, she was yanked through the broken window and everything got quiet. I stared at the space where Linda had been.
The idea of going after her and trying to save her flashed into my mind. It does not make me proud to admit that the idea got no real consideration. Instead, my fingers turned the key, started the van, and slammed my foot down on the gas pedal.
The van lunged forward before stalling. It took me a moment to realize what had happened. My hands kept their tight grip on the steering wheel, and my foot stayed on the accelerator. For a few seconds, my mind continued to play the scene of me fleeing from the area. Then, quite literally, everything stopped. It all happened so quickly that logic seemed unable to catch up. All I knew was that the van had stopped moving. My eyes stared straight forward at the empty street. After a moment, my eyes stared at the street that was no longer empty.
Several shells had come out of a building about a hundred yards up the block, shuffled on to the sidewalk, and were headed toward me. N
aturally, I reached for the ignition with the idea of getting the hell out of this place, but something caught my eye and stopped me.
One of the shells on the sidewalk was husky with blond hair. The resemblance to Glen, the young minister from Faith Lighthouse Church, struck me immediately. In an instant, my recognition of the shell’s resemblance to Glen changed to the certainty that the shell had to be Glen.
Without considering the wisdom of the action, I grabbed the baseball bat from between the seats, opened the door, and stepped out of the car to get a better look at the shell. I was now sure that this was the young minister. Reflexively, I took a step toward him and called out, “Glen!”
Instantly, the shell paused and seemed to focus upon me. As a matter of fact, all of the shells on the sidewalk paused and focused upon me. Everything remained that way for a long moment. In that moment, my brain took me back to the roof of the Faith Lighthouse Church and my discussions with the young minister.
“Okay, they sleep and some talk, but what the hell are they?” I did my best to stay objective on the subject but found it difficult as the images of Bonnie and the others came flooding back into my mind.
Glen must have noticed my struggle, because he moved a little closer to me and said, “That’s the real question, isn’t it? The only thing I can come up with is...well...perhaps they are the...the shells that are left behind after God takes our souls up to Heaven.” The young minister pushed away the brief smile that curled his lips at the idea of his clever explanation.
Thankful for the distraction, I smiled as well. “Shells? Well, I guess that’s as good as anything else. So why do you suppose these shells picked this time to start coming back and killing people?”
He remained quiet for a long time before answering. “I guess... Hmm... If I was a fire and brimstone type, I suppose I’d give you a quotation like ‘For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into the gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the days of judgment’, Peter chapter two, verse four.”
“So you’re saying this is Judgment Day?” I asked with a shake of my head.
Glen shrugged and answered, “I said ‘if I was a fire and brimstone type’ not that I am. I have never followed that line of thinking. It is the belief of God as a vengeful being willing to punish any of us who fail to follow his commandments. I believe our creator has too much love for us as his children to punish us with eternal damnation.” Now it was his turn to have difficulty holding things inside as his face quivered and he started to cry.
Being a modern male, I was totally unprepared to deal with this kind of emotional display. In my discomfort, I turned back to the ladder. The shells were now clearly awake and agitated. They stretched toward the roof, but it was much too far away to reach. Their eyes appeared to look without seeing. I wondered what exactly went on within their heads.
I jumped when the hand touched my shoulder.
“Sorry about that,” Glen said with surprising cheeriness, and I didn’t quite know whether his apology was for crying or for scaring the crap out of me. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to find a way off this roof.”
Of course, getting lost in memories of times gone by was not at all wise, given my surroundings. It could have been the end of me. To be honest, that might have been the point. I may well have been trying to end it all. It had gotten harder and harder to find reasons to keep going.
Christina’s voice echoing in my head brought me back to the present and awareness of my surroundings. “Kevin, you said you’d protect me…you promised you’d keep from becoming one of those monsters.”
The pleading immediately sent a wave of guilt through me. I had no excuse for my self-pity. The world had undeniably become an ugly, harsh place. If hope was ever again going to exist in the world, it would have to come from young people, such as Christina and Taylor. They deserved better than having someone they trusted simply give up and fail them. I damned sure wasn’t going to fail them.
With this new sense of resolve, I looked around at my surroundings. This return to reality could not have come any later.
The pack of shells had gotten only a few feet away from me. The one that had previously looked so much like Glen now bore only the slightest resemblance.
The idea that this thing had somehow tricked me into believing it was Glen enraged me, and I swung the baseball bat harder than I should have. The shell’s head cracked and opened up around the bat. Blood sprayed out and on to my face. The shell crumbled to the pavement. In my rage, I pulled the bat back and continued swinging without stopping. The scene became somewhat unclear. I remember my hands stinging again and again as the bat came into contact with shells. My shoulder ached from repeatedly swinging and striking the shells.
When my flurry of action had finished, I looked around at the damage I had done. The street near me was filled with five bodies.
I gazed down at the one nearest me, the shell of a young Mexican man. My mind caught the term “Mexican” and autocorrected to “Hispanic.” Suddenly, the notion of being politically correct in the middle of this nightmare struck me as the funniest thing I had ever heard, and the laughter exploded from me. The roar of my laughs echoed around the neighborhood. As I focused upon another body with its head oozing bloody grey tissue from the crease above the ear, the laughing continued. It shook my entire body as I looked at the crushed face of a teenage girl’s shell. Her long blonde hair was filled with bits of bloody flesh. Next to her lie a shell wearing a dark business suit. I had no idea about the age of the shell, because the face had been smashed to nothing but flesh and bone and brain mush.
The notion that this new world with its blurred lines between the living and the dead had turned me into some kind of killing machine started the laughter once again. This time the sound held little humor and quickly turned to a sort of maniacal cackling. Once again, Christina brought me back to sanity.
A scene played in my mind. Christina knelt beside Kat and put her hand on the young woman’s shoulder, trying to comfort her. “Sometimes being sad we do stuff…stuff like a ding-a-ling would do.” The words had sent her into a fit of giggling that she was not able to stop. The memory made it impossible for me not to smile and gave me the idea that I had just acted like a complete ding-a-ling. I shook my head and chuckled at the idea and looked around for some sign of Linda Green.
I found her crumpled on the sidewalk near the entrance to a big building. Walking toward her, I knew better than to hold on to any hope for what I would find.
“I apologize for not showing you the proper level of gratitude,” she said slowly, looking through me with dead eyes. “I am certain that you are accustomed to a higher degree of reverence. Perhaps I should bow down to you. Oh, sorry. I cannot because my legs are useless stumps.”
Although these were the same words she had spoken to me earlier, the words spoken by the shell now held none of the anger, sadness, passion, or life. The emptiness of the words coming from this empty body filled me with the deepest sorrow I had ever felt.
I slowly walked over the shell.
“I apologize for not showing you the proper level of gratitude,” the shell hissed the words while squirming around on the pavement trying to reach me. “I am certain that you are accustomed to a higher…”
I slammed the end of the bat down into the shell’s head, stopping the words and the movement. The bat remained still as the blood and pinkish gel oozed onto the sidewalk.
The sorrow led to an overwhelming sense of futility. Even if Christina, Taylor, Kat, and I managed to survive today, tomorrow, and next month, what about after that? The world did not seem to be a place with any sort of promising future. Was there really any point to staying alive if it meant simply existing in a dismal place with no hope for something more?
Thoughts like these did nothing to put a spring in my step as I walked back to the car. The van started up without a problem. As I drove away, my eyes became drawn to the small mound that h
ad been Linda Green.
Although it had been a short and not entirely pleasant time since Linda Green and I met, it was no less shocking how one moment she had been alive sitting next to me talking and just like that was gone. The realization of precisely how fleeting, how temporary, everything was sent me deeper into my sense of futility.
Driving slowly down the street, I saw nothing to counter my depression. The litter-strewn streets were empty and still. The late morning sun seemed unable to reach all the way to the street. The effect was a sort of a dusty haze covering the area. It certainly did not look familiar, and it took me a minute to make a guess as to where I was and how to get to the store.
Finally, I simply cranked the wheel and turned down another street. I still had no idea where to go. At that point, any decision seemed better than none.
To be honest, there was another reason for my sudden turn on the street. It had only been a few minutes since the woman sitting beside me had been ripped away and killed. However, I had not given it much thought. I wanted to be away from the place so that I would not have to think about what had happened.
As absurd as the idea that such an extremely violent shock as seeing someone snatched from the seat next to you and dragged through the car window would be something easily pushed aside seemed, that was precisely what happened. I suppose it must have been a survival technique. With the constant parade of horrible things to be seen in this new world, the brain’s ability to push the sights out of thoughts was crucial to keeping one’s sanity.
However, driving down that street, I’d swear that the horrible thoughts could be felt catching up with me. If I managed to get off that street, it might be the first step in keeping ahead of those terrible images. It didn’t work, of course. As I sped down the narrow street lined by trees, my heart was ready to burst out of my chest.
That’s when the flood started.
Seemingly random bits of experience began pouring into my brain, and I could not turn them off. There was a parade of faces: Bonnie, the waitress from the airport diner, Glen, Lawrence, Linda Green, and a stream of faces for which I had no name.
The Most Uncommon Cold (Book 5): Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse Page 9