by Steve Wands
“What do you mean mostly?”
“They aren’t around the fence—at least they weren’t. They were mostly just around the building.”
“So we could climb the fence and get inside then?”
“I dunno, maybe.”
“Do you want to try for it or do you want to rest?”
“I guess we can try for it, but if you’re going to stick with us you might want to pack as much of your shit as you can. And any food and water you have left.”
“Okay, I’ll start packing up my stuff. Why don’t you rest up in the meantime—give me an hour or so.”
With that, Jim went into his closet and found an old backpack, a gym bag, and the only suitcase he owned—which was so busted up it didn’t look like it would survive another trip, even if it were just down the road.
Sarah went into the computer room and curled up on the futon. She didn’t think she’d fall asleep, but she was so exhausted she was out before she knew it.
10 SPECIAL OCCASION
(back to top)
Walter walked to his bedroom, every bone in his body ached. His lower back felt like it had been stung by several bees and his left leg twitched from a numbing nerve that he refused to have a doctor look at. He was an old man, with an old man’s body and he didn’t need some damned Indian doctor telling him that and then expecting a twenty-five dollar copay. A good night’s rest was all he needed, or at least it used to be. Nowadays nothing seemed to work, and the pains never seemed to go away. That was life, or maybe just the slow end of it.
In the corner of the bedroom was an old rocking chair. Laura bought it when she was pregnant with Barbara. Walter sanded and stained it more times than anything else in the home. Laura knitted scarves and hats in it now and Walter would sometimes read and sip a few fingers of brandy on special occasions. It sat in the corner with a thin ribbon of moonlight glistening along its curves. Beside it was a small nightstand. In it were Laura’s knitting needles and a few bundles of yarn in a wicker basket. Behind that was a bottle of Walter’s favorite brandy, Ararat, aged almost as long as the chair, and a simple, yet elegant snifter.
He bent down, back creaking, and wrapped his weathered hands around the nape of the bottle’s neck. He set it on the nightstand and grabbed the snifter. This wasn’t really a special occasion, certainly not a time for sitting idly on an old chair with a brandy, but he was alive, his family was alive, and that was something special on these new days. Every day alive was now a special occasion and Walter could drink to that.
The pour was slow but shaky and Walter clanked the bottle against the glass a few times. The snifter was three fingers deep and the bottle was more than half full. He hoped he had as many days as the bottle had fingers deep. He sniffed the Armenian brandy, gently swishing it around the glass and put it to his lips. The dry skin of his chapped lips rejoiced as the caramel colored fluid flowed behind his teeth.
It gave a little burn on the way down but all in all it was smooth and velvety and felt right at home when it reached bottom. Walter sat down and gently rocked himself in the chair. He took another sip as he stared out the window. The blinds were open only a crack, but that was all he needed to see that all was not well.
Walter looked around the room and everything in it brought a memory to his mind; the day they bought the place; the day they moved in; the day they finally bought some proper furniture. He thought about some of their old friends and how most of them were dead or sunning it up in Florida.
He was a dinosaur. Extinct, but unlike those once rulers of the world, he knew it.
He took another sip of the Ararat.
Laura crept into the room. The door opened smoothly—Walter oiled the hinges religiously—and for a moment Walter didn’t notice her standing there looking at him, but when he did he smiled.
“What’s the occasion?”
“We’re alive.”
“For how much longer?”
“Our days were over a long time ago. I’m more worried about our grandkids.”
Laura said nothing and gracefully closed the distance from the doorway to the rocking chair.
She put her hand on his. Walter patted his knee and Laura sat down in his lap, resting her head on his shoulder. Their wrinkled skin was illuminated by the light of the moon as they gently rocked. Walter was never much for the mushy stuff and he certainly wasn’t one for tears, but despite was he wasn’t much for the tears started to run down the hard lines of his face.
“I wish I could tell you that our grandkids are going to be okay…that they’re going to have a future, but I can’t. If there is a God and a heaven he calls home, then maybe we’ll all be happy there when this mess is all over.”
“There is a God, sweetie, there is. I know there is. I just don’t know why he’s doing this, or letting this happen. I—I just don’t know…”
“Guess we’re going to find out, beautiful. It’s been one hell of a ride. I’ve loved you more than life itself. You made every day a special occasion. You gave me a son, and a daughter, and your love.”
“And you’ve given me yours,” she said, her words turning into soft sobs.
Walter’s shirt grew wet with her tears and all he could do was rub her back and keep the chair rocking.
The children were asleep. Jeff and Maria bookended them in bed and when they were sure they were asleep they slid out of bed and tiptoed out of the bedroom. Once Jeff was in the hallway and Maria was a few steps ahead, he gently closed the door. Thankfully his father was a nut about oiling hinges and the door made no noise as it was drawn to a close.
“I can’t believe they went to sleep so quickly,” Jeff said.
“Don’t expect it every time.”
“I won’t. I figure once they see what’s outside--”
“Why would they ever have to see it?”
“We can’t shelter them from it forever.”
“We can try.”
“And we will, but that don’t mean it’s gonna happen like that.”
“All we have to do is shelter them long enough for this all to get cleaned up.”
“This again? Really? We are on our own, Maria, why can’t you see that?”
“The military will get this under control soon enough. They’re equipped to deal with shit like this.”
“No one is equipped to deal with shit like this. If there’s any military force left they sure as hell can’t do it alone. We need to pull our own weight. We need to be our own army, our own protectors.”
“Come on, guys, give it a fucking rest,” Barbara chimed in as Jeff and Maria made their way downstairs.
“Sorry, Barb,” Maria said.
“Shut up, Barbie, you know I’m right.”
“Can you stop with the Barbie bullshit? You know you are the sole reason I never played with them damned things, and as a result knew nothing of fashion.”
“You’re a trendsetter, stop complaining.”
“So, is all quiet?”
“They’re still out there. They’re walking. Roaming, I guess. Some of them look like they might come this way, but most of them seem to be following the others. I haven’t really been able to make any sense of it.”
“I don’t think we ever will.”
“I’ll see how we’re doing with food and water. Where’s the flashlight?”
“Should be…right there,” Barbara pointed
Maria grabbed the flashlight from the coffee table and headed to the kitchen.
“Where are Mom and Dad?”
“Upstairs.”
“What’re they doing?”
“How the fuck should I know? Probably having some alone time.”
“Alone time?”
“Don’t be gross.”
“I’m just kidding. Can’t I crack a joke?”
“No.”
“How you holding up?”
“Great, you know, aside from the fucking zombies.”
Jeff couldn’t help but smile at that.
; “I’m okay. I think I might be getting a bit stir crazy, though.”
“You can always go for a jog.”
“Mr. Funny guy tonight.”
“Yeah, you know it.”
“How ‘bout you? How are you doing?”
“I’m just worried about the kids. I can take care of myself, I think Maria would do okay, but if the shit got heavy and we had to get out of here? I’m terrified one of those things would get ahold of one of the kids.”
“You can’t think about that.”
“Easier said than done, but shut it, here comes the boss.”
Maria came back from the kitchen.
Barbara asked, “Well?”
“Not too good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we have plenty of stuff to eat and drink, but there’s just too many of us for it to last long. There’s a lot of us.”
“Give us some numbers.”
“Eight cases of water. Six gallons of water. Four bottles of Ginger Ale. Two cases of Hi-C, plus all the water we bottled and filled the tubs with, which I have no idea how to count, but if we get to that level I’m sure it’s going to be gross.”
“Well, that gives us a week, right?”
“Not if we use some of it to cook with.”
“But we still have running water.”
“Today we do. Tomorrow…?”
“No variables, please. Food?”
“Food we’re pretty good on I think. We have those two metal pantries full of canned foods and boxed pasta. I’d say at least three weeks till were down to nothing. Of course, that’s eating mac & cheese and plain spaghetti.”
“We don’t need gourmet.”
“We can always start scouting for food from the neighbors that have taken off.”
“Barbie the scavenger.”
“Fuck, bro, I’m being serious.”
“I know, and it’s a good idea. If we can, we should start tomorrow.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sadly yes. I know how my kids eat, and if we are that low on water we might as well strike now before things get any worse.”
“Dad’s going to want to weigh in on that one.”
“I’m sure he will, and I’m sure he’ll agree.”
“Yeah, probably…anything else Mar?”
“Well if you guys are going to visit the neighbors things like toilet paper, soap, and coffee couldn’t hurt.”
“Noted.”
“Hey, where’s your dad?”
Barbara smirked, “Alone time.”
“Don’t be gross, sis.”
“Me?”
11 ONLY IN DREAMS
(back to top)
The convoy moved along the road swiftly. They were fortunate enough to hit a decent stretch of road, where congestion had broken up and accidents were minimal. Abandoned cars were fewer and fewer and therefore the convoy was able to move quicker. Jon-Jon stayed focused on driving. His eyelids were heavy and he badly wanted to sleep, but he was able to push it aside and continue driving.
Dawn on the other hand had fallen asleep and her cheek rested on the window, leaving a greasy spot as her face moved up and down along with the rhythm of the van. Her sleep was full of dreams—intermingled memories cutting across the movie screen of her mind with every vivid color and detail usually reserved for reality.
She was at her father’s wake; standing at her mother’s side, staring at the sleek black coffin that snuggly fit her father’s large frame. Beautifully arranged flowers were scattered all over the room, desperately trying to remind people that life was full of wonder and color and beauty—not just black suits and black dresses and pale faced widows with weeping daughters.
Dawn held her mother’s hand. It was cold and dry, but it squeezed back with all the strength it could. Her father looked asleep, almost like he was smiling. Dawn saw that smile on her father’s face so often. Usually as he slept on the couch after a few beers on the weekends when he wasn’t working.
She approached the casket. Light glistened on its black surface like the nighttime surf of the ocean. Gentle rippling waves crashing against the smooth sand. This wasn’t her father. It couldn’t be. The gentle waves grew rough…
…and now she was standing on the beach. Her father was walking away into the water. The coffin stuck in the sand like an abandoned boat in some painter’s vision of a lighthouse scene. Her father wasn’t alone. There were hundreds—thousands—of other people walking into the water. The surf grew rougher still and storm clouds filled the sky. Thunder and lightning rolled out from inside of them and lightning slashed away the darkness in a frenzied brush stroke. More lightning…
…and then nothing. White.
Dawn is standing in a field of flowers—the same flowers from her father’s wake—she’s pregnant and rubbing her swollen belly in what can only be described as bliss. Her mother is smiling at her. The father is nowhere to be found, but it doesn’t matter, the best thing he can offer her is to leave and have no hand in raising the child. More storm clouds. The thunder and lightning return.
She’s driving. It’s raining. The sky is bleeding purple and red. The car is swerving. She can’t see. It’s spinning. She’s screaming. There’s an impact. She smacks her head and her vision goes black as lighting strikes across her eyes.
She awakes and knows something is wrong. She’s back at the beach, staring at her father who is now standing knee deep in the ocean holding a baby—her baby. She feels her stomach, but it feels hollow with only the faintest trace of a ghost.
She walks toward the water but with each step the ocean recedes. She tries to run to it, to feel the water swallow her feet, but despite her best attempts the ocean is no closer. A message in a bottle is at her feet and it’s a suicide note from her mother that goes on seemingly forever. She drank herself to death, and the bottle in Dawn’s hands was the very bottle she was found clutching, empty of everything but regrets. The regrets were hastily jotted down on the note.
Lightning.
She hits her head against the window and wakes up. For a minute she’s not sure where she is but hopes she’s still pregnant and is able to stop the car from spinning out of control but then she looks over and sees Jon-Jon and knows that the damage is done and the dream is over.
“Hey sleepy-head. Feel refreshed?”
“Uh…not at all. My neck is killing me. How long was I out?”
“I dunno, maybe like an hour, hour and a half.”
“Damn. Are we there yet?”
“Not you too. It’s bad enough I have to hear it from these dicks in the back and now you?”
“Relax.”
In the back of the van Chung-Hee sat squished next to Chuck. They were both fairly small men, but with so many people in so little space everywhere was tight. He leaned away from him as best he could but with every bounce on the road he just ended up bouncing right back into him.
When the van grew silent—as it often did—Chung-Hee’s mind drifted to thoughts of Naraka. This was far from what he imagined the underworld to be, but what this was certainly wasn’t the world he remembered. Naraka is a place where the souls of the sinful are sent for expiation of sins. For redemption—reconciliation, even forgiveness. Chung-Hee could think of nothing in his life that would secure him such a fate. He was never able to live up to his parent’s expectations, true, but neither was he the bane of their existence. From what he could tell he was a hard-working man, more so than his peers. Everything he owned he worked for. He was given nothing in this life other than the necessities he needed, the love he warranted, and the expectations to live up to—or at least strive for.
Naraka is supposed to be a place of justice. Not a place like this—a place of torment, of suffering unwarranted. Chung-Hee considered the possibility that he was dead. He was dead and unaware of his demise or sins and as he came closer to righting his wrongs a sense of clarity would overcome him. And if that were the case then he could think of nothing he did that
would lead him toward any sort of reconciliation. He was simply trying to survive—as were the rest of the people in his group.
How he could atone for a sin he didn’t know he committed was beyond him. All he could do was what he thought was right, which is what he’s been doing all along. In his mind, Naraka was a terrible place full of terrible people having unthinkable things being done to them for the sake of penance. He envisioned people being boiled, skinned, beaten, raped, and even eaten. Naraka was a land that was ruled by darkness to bring about light, full of evil, vile, punishments for those that deserved such a fate. It was no place for children—what could they have done? And yet, they were here too.
Chung-Hee shook it from his mind, though he knew he would eventually drift there again. Naraka was a place for the dead and for the wicked—not a place for him, and not a place for the people he had come to travel with. They were good people—he was a good person—Naraka was not for them.
He opened his eyes and watched the world go by as they drove down the road. Every now and again he would catch a glimpse of one the lumbering dead that stumbled about in search of flesh. What sins did they make, he wondered. What did they do that deserved their unnatural return from oblivion?
Chuck stared straight ahead, but he wasn’t looking at anything. He was deep in thought about nothing. He was thinking of the beach. The sand between his toes, the sea breeze rustling his hair, and the women. Good golly Miss Molly was he thinking about those Florida women. The Beach Boys always seemed to favor the California women, and Chuck couldn’t fault them, they were just fine as well, but for Chuck, the women back home were the only women for him. Sanibel, Bonita Springs, and Marco Island were some of his favorite places to visit and even further north at Cedar Key would be great this time of year. Most of the college kids and hipsters would be heading out to Key West, or—God forbid—Miami, but there were plenty of places in Florida that suited Chuck just fine. Full of the slow-paced, relaxing qualities that kept him down south for so long.