by Kirk Withrow
John thought about his first encounter with Reams and how the big man had literally saved his life more times than he could count since that time. Despite being dissimilar in so many ways, in a matter of a couple of days John felt closer to Reams than to any other friend before, perhaps even Al. While he couldn’t explain it, he knew without a doubt that Reams would sacrifice his life for him, and he felt the same toward Reams. Knowing that Reams lost his only real family when his brother died, John felt that the need to fill that void might be part of the motivation behind the big man’s strong allegiance. Regardless of the reason, it was clear to John that without Reams, he would have succumbed long ago.
A veteran of innumerable military engagements, Ethan was by far the most skilled warrior among them. While their first meeting with him nearly turned bloody, John had since come to rely heavily on his tactical skills and judgments. After hearing the heart-wrenching story of Ethan’s family, he suspected the former soldier was motivated, at least in part, by the need to exact revenge on the thing that led to their demise. John thought of his father, Ben Wild, and of the mentality of a career soldier; the need to make the responsible party pay for their wrongdoings is, at the very least, the banner flown over every military mission. That said, he did not downplay the man’s good nature, considering his willingness to risk his life to help Kate, a woman who he had never even seen.
Kate, being the newest addition to their band of survivors, was still somewhat of a mystery to John. From the beginning, he thought he saw a lot of the very same emotions he experienced initially in the depths of her hollow eyes. The ‘thousand-yard stare’ as Reams called it certainly could be an external manifestation of PTSD, but John thought a significant part of it was due to the fact that she was still coming to terms with all that had happened, and all that was likely to happen because of the plague. Though he knew she might be accompanying them simply to avoid being alone, he doubted this was her sole reason for doing so. If she was responsible for even half of the carnage they witnessed back at the house in Hermitage Estates, Kate was more than capable of looking out for herself. Of the survivors he encountered since the first day, John knew the least about Kate and how she came to be in that deplorable house. Considering this, he turned to regard Kate, intent on trying to learn more about her, but was stopped short when Reams’ hushed voice broke the silence.
“We’re coming up on the main drag. I can see the law firm up ahead,” whispered Reams as the group slowed to a halt.
John had been so lost in thought he had not realized they had arrived at the once bustling commercial district. He gazed ahead and took stock of the situation. When John’s eyes fell upon Trenton’s former law office a bitter taste like black coffee, bile, and wormwood flooded his gorge as he thought of Ava racing past being pursued by those monsters. His murderous glare held a level of disdain generally reserved for rapists, pederasts, and people who unlawfully park in handicap spots. Like a dowser wielding a divining rod, John inexplicably saw the path his little girl had taken down the street in his mind’s eye.
“Come on,” said John as he broke from cover and eased forward without checking to see whether the others followed. Ethan gave Reams a thoughtful but concerned glance before they all stood and moved out behind John. For the most part the street seemed eerily devoid of the infected. John saw the decaying corpse of the gangbanging rev he and Reams put down before rescuing Trenton, and he recalled his buddy they left trapped in the adjacent building.
Reams quickened his pace to catch up with John. Placing a hand on his shoulder, Reams said, “Hey man, you cool? We got to keep our heads straight, okay? We’re all here, so let’s do this together—nice and safe.”
John felt as though the big man’s words sounded like a reprimand of sorts and, for an instant, this aggravated him. With a steadying breath, John reminded himself that they were all on the same team as he replied flatly, “Yeah, I got it.”
Just beyond the law office stood two lone revs on opposite sides of the street, as though merely waiting for a cab or a bus. The area around them was virtually devoid of any reasonable cover, so Ethan decided the safest option was to put them down. Can’t have them raising the alarms. He turned to Reams to indicate he should take the rev on the far side of the road when Kate stood and said, “I’ll take care of it.”
Before anyone could protest, she drew her knife, and edged out of the shadows toward the seemingly dormant thing standing motionless on the curb save for the subtle swaying like wheat being nudged to and fro by the summer breeze. Ethan followed suit, drawing his Ka-Bar and inching toward the thing’s mirror image on the opposite side of the street.
As Kate approached her target, she was nearly overwhelmed by a nauseating wet dog smell like sweaty crotch rot and rotten potatoes. A low, hissing sound like gas leaking from a pipe wafted to her ears, and she thought the thing might be trying to scent the air, as though vaguely aware that fresh meat was nearby.
Before the rev had a chance to further investigate, she nodded to Ethan, and leapt forward like a lion pouncing on the prey it had been patiently stalking. With her left hand she grabbed the afflicted thing by its verminous hair and thrust her razor-sharp blade into the soft, fleshy divot at the base of its skull with the silent accuracy of a trained assassin. As the rev crumpled to the ground at her feet, she saw that Ethan had done the same; he gave her an approving nod as John and Reams moved forward to rejoin them.
Pushing forward down the street, John strained his memory to recall every detail Trenton had said about the young girl he had seen from the upstairs room. He imagined himself peering out of the second-story window, trying to see exactly what the diminutive barrister would have seen. Following the reconstructed path, John’s heart paused when he caught a glimpse of a small garment, filthy and ruined, lying abandoned in the squalid gutter twenty feet ahead.
Racing to the spot, he scooped up the bedraggled lilac jacket, desperately trying to remember if Ava possessed such a thing. All at once he froze, terror-stricken upon realizing he was unable to conjure a mental image of his little girl at all. No matter how hard he tried her beautiful face remained just beyond his mind’s reach, as if trapped in a labyrinth of shadows behind the traitorous synapses that dared let her slip from his memory. With that one simple neuronal glitch, the weight of the entire plague came crashing down upon John’s shoulders. Frantically, as though he was in danger of forgetting who he was, John rifled through his pockets and produced the small photograph of his wife and daughter. His eyes fell on the image, and he felt the air flood back into his world, as if he had been holding his breath and waiting for the wind to blow him away like the dust of decay.
I have no idea if Ava had a jacket like this! I can hardly remember her face much less her wardrobe! But who else could it have been… It has to be hers!
Pivoting around, John saw no other signs of his little girl. The nearest revs, a group of four about two blocks away, seemed to take notice of the commotion made by the survivors. As the dolorous things shambled toward them, their cumulative groans sounding like a dirge belted out by a demonic barbershop quartet from Hell, John paid them little mind. Instead, his eyes paused on the partially ajar door of a sturdy, industrial building on the right side of the street. Before the plague had decimated the town, it had served as a warehouse for a contractor.
As if in a vision sent down to him from the heavens, John imagined Ava running into the building, panicked and scared. Blinded by the possibilities promised by the vision, he took off like a shot, plunging into the unknown darkness inside the structure without a word. Having been so focused on the small group of revs staggering their way, Reams, Ethan, and Kate only caught John’s sudden movement out of the corner of their eyes. Both alarmed and dismayed by his action, they dashed toward the warehouse in pursuit, still unsure of what caused him to tear off on his own with such reckless abandon.
With voices low, the three cautiously called out for John upon entering the darkened building; they
heard nothing in reply. Their eyes were not yet adjusted to the dim interior making it virtually impossible for them to discern anything inside. Guardedly, the trio searched the cluttered aisles for any sign of John, but ended up finding only one another in the vast warehouse.
“Where is he? What the hell was he thinking?” growled Reams, clearly frustrated with his friend’s rash behavior. A sound like a metal pipe clanging to the ground came from somewhere in the Cimmerian expanse. Hearts thumping and minds racing, the group moved quickly in the direction of the sound.
As they rounded a corner toward the rear of the building, Reams slipped on a slick patch of concrete, barely managing to stay on his feet. Simultaneously recovering and cursing the tenebrosity, he froze as his eyes settled on the horrible tableaux laid out before him in a swath of light provided by one of the few skylights in the roof of the structure. As though paralyzed by some form of black magic cast by the small rev, John stood unmoving in front of the tragic creature slowly hobbling toward him on its ruined leg.
Skrrraklunk…thump. Skrrraklunk…thump. Skrrraklunk…thump. Skrrraklunk…thump.
John was unable to move – unable to make even the slightest sound – as the clearly irremediable, infected juvenile trudged closer and closer. Its left lower leg was fractured just above the ankle; the sharp edge of its tibia protruding through the frayed skin of the ankle like a big toe long overdue for a nail trim poking through an overused gym sock. The jagged end of the bone scraped across the concrete floor as it faltered along with a pronounced limp due to one leg being six inches shorter than the other. The ravaged foot flopped limply against the hard floor with a sickening, wet thud each time the rev settled its weight on the bony peg leg.
Skrrraklunk…thump. Skrrraklunk…thump. Skrrraklunk…thump. Skrrraklunk…thump.
Reams stood rooted to the spot in a slimy salmagundi composed of blood, hair, and other sundry pieces of tissue. The puerile rev was barely more than one broken step away from John at this point, yet still he showed no sign of action. To Reams, his friend seemed resigned to his inevitable fate at the hands of the fiend before him. The rev was exceedingly slow due to its injured leg, and Reams estimated he was only twenty feet away from the pair. Can I make it in time?
In the split second during which his mind processed the entirety of the situation, Reams’ brain also registered a far-off, familiar voice coming from somewhere in the shadows. He wrestled with the horror of the scenario with which John was facing, struggling to accept the cruel twist of fate the man had been dealt. Then, with a jolt like cold water being thrown in his face, Reams emerged from the recesses of his mind as the tumultuous sounds all around him flooded back into his ears. Reams suddenly spoke up, “It’s not her!”
The voice Reams heard – that of Ethan – was trying to prod him into action.
From his position, Ethan was only able to partially visualize the scene but could plainly see that Reams urgently needed to act. “Reams? Reams! Reams!” he bellowed to the big man in a frantic call to action. Though he could only see John’s unmoving legs, he could clearly see the small figure lumbering toward him with hungry malice smeared across its face. He saw Reams freeze at the sight and feared it was because the rev about to take John’s life had been his daughter, Ava. While this gave Ethan a moment’s pause as well, he knew there was nothing for it, and they needed to act now. As Reams’ mind broke free from the fog of disbelief, Ethan heard him mutter the words that hit his eardrums like the report of a starter pistol at the beginning of a 500-meter dash.
John could see every minute detail of the thing’s cold, mottled flesh, as the infected adolescent—with minacious baby teeth bared in anticipation—wrapped its maleficent fingers around his wrist, and pulled his trembling hand toward its feculent mouth.
Before Reams even had time to react, a third actor appeared on the sordid stage before him. With little more than a second to spare, a blur a silver light flashed across the scene as if someone in the audience had ignored the request to refrain from flash photography during the performance.
When the glint of light faded, Ethan stood with his left hand knotted in the filthy tangles of the rev’s hair, and his right hand on the hilt of the Ka-Bar that skewered its soft skull.
The infected thing still held John’s hand loosely in its own, no longer feverishly working to pull the appendage into its yearning jaws.
Russell gently eased the now inanimate rev to the ground with as much care as if he was putting a newborn baby down for a mid-morning nap. John did not even move when the thing’s icy hand finally pulled away from his wrist.
Kate emerged from the shadows behind Ethan and, placing a hand on John’s shoulder, she ushered the nearly catatonic man out of the darkness and into the light.
Chapter 38
October 21, 2015
Following the incident in the warehouse, the group pressed on to John’s house where they planned to regroup, restock, and prepare for the trip to Atlanta.
After Kate managed to guide John out of the ghastly building, the two downtrodden survivors walked together in silence.
From his position behind them, Reams thought they looked nearly indistinguishable from a pair of revs with their filthy clothes and titubant gaits. He knew that whatever remained of his friend was tearing itself apart inside, and he hoped that Kate might somehow be able to help him out of that dark place as well.
To John, the possibility of finding Ava – or at least something to indicate she was alive – near Trenton’s office seemed like his last chance. He and Reams had found no hard evidence that she was alive or dead, leaving him with only a father’s gut feeling to go on. From excited anticipation at the prospect of finding her, to total desolation when he thought she was the rev he had discovered in the warehouse, to utter despondency when he realized his chances of ever finding his little girl dwindled steadily with each passing day, the emotional rollercoaster left John feeling like little more than a shell of a person. For the hundredth time since he returned home to find his world in tumult, he felt like he could not go on; the pain raging through his veins was far too great to bear.
“John, I know you don’t know me at all, but I know what you are feeling,” said Kate in a soft voice after they had been walking for twenty minutes. John hardly acknowledged her, giving her only an ice cold, half-glare out of the corner of his eye that begged to differ.
“I know that sounds like clichéd bullshit, but it’s true. I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass to try to make you feel better. In fact, I don’t think I can make you feel better. I just want you to know you’re not alone. You see, I had a son,” continued Kate, her voice faltering after her last words.
This caused John to turn his head and regard her with the entirety of his gaze, no longer icy, but rather searching. He stared at her, his eyes scouring her countenance as if somewhere within was the secret to ending the gnawing agony deep inside him. He had not known she had a child, and learning this now left him feeling somewhat selfish.
“In a way it’s better, and in a way it’s worse. I know where he is, so at least I have closure. But I also know he is gone, so I no longer have hope. I suppose you can’t really have both—hope and closure. My advice to you, John, is hold on to hope at least until you have closure. Even though they are both bitter pills to swallow, I can’t imagine how bad it would be without having one or the other,” concluded Kate.
With a profound look of equal parts astonishment and confusion, John stammered, “Sorry, I never knew…why are you telling me this now?”
“Because the three of you gave me hope of a different sort when you risked your lives to save me back at Hermitage, and because I see the hope that I once had burning in your eyes,” answered Kate.
Without another word on the matter, John offered an appreciative nod that told Kate he not only understood her, but also that he would be okay, at least for the time being. They continued walking in silence until they reached 1406 Hood Street.
Once
inside his former home, now as foreign as the alien landscape of Mars, John carefully looked around for any sign that Ava had been there. He had been unable to check the house for the past several days and was again dismayed to find no clear evidence that anyone had entered the house. Reams showed Ethan and Kate around, and they each began their preparations in their own way. Kate took a moment to clean up, rigorously trying to wash away the last remnants of Hermitage Estates. Ethan scoured the house and gathered any supplies he thought they would find useful on the next leg of their impossible journey. Sitting on the couch where he had fallen asleep the last time he was there, Reams took a minute to catch his breath and redress his wounded arm. He wondered how and if they would ever make it all the way to Atlanta. Is it even worth trying to get there? Given what we’ve seen here, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in the city.
While the others went about their own personal tasks, John sat in the kitchen lost amidst a swirling tempest of thoughts and emotions. He stared blankly at the setting sun beyond a shattered window—a skeletal tree limb jutting through in an accusatory manner like the disapproving phalanx of a giant decayed hand that knew what he was thinking. He discovered the letter he left for Ava on the floor in the corner of the room, presumably blown there by the same wind that sent the tree limb smashing through the windowpane. As if Mother Nature was playing a cruel trick on him, John initially saw the note was gone and thought his daughter had taken it. Crestfallen, John sat alone with the letter at the empty kitchen table, bemired by dirt and leaves blown in through the broken window, and struggled to compose a new letter for his little lost girl. The pen and paper proved to be no match for the blinding tears spilling out of his eyes like water from a ruptured water main, smearing the ink and rendering his words as undecipherable as ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. After four tries, John finally managed to staunch the flow of tears sufficiently to allow completion of the letter that told Ava everything he ever wanted to tell her. At the end of the missive, John detailed their plans to travel to Atlanta to assist Dr. Lin San.