by D. J. Molles
He shook his head, then cringed at the wave of dull pain that it brought. He knew why he had sent them away, could feel the truth rattling around in there, but all of his memories were jostled out of their proper place. He just needed to pick them up and put them back where they belonged. At least, he hoped it would be that easy. He hoped that the wound on his head had not scrambled his brain permanently.
He continued cautiously through the living room and stumbled into the adjoining kitchen. It was a small, dingy room, cluttered with dishes and dirty pans that were piled high in the sink and on the surrounding countertop. A collection of cans huddled at the far end of the counter, beyond which a garbage pail overflowed onto the kitchen floor. The cans were from soups and beans and vegetables and meats, their tops pulled back and covered in a greenish-white fuzz.
Lee’s stomach rumbled audibly. He moved to a door that looked like it belonged to a pantry. Opening it created a stir of tiny claws that scrambled away from the light and shot into dark corners and holes. Little granular bits of mouse shit covered the shelf space. A box of Hamburger Helper with the corner chewed to bits. Some baking soda. A small bag of cornmeal.
He took the cornmeal and left everything else. It could be eaten raw, mixed into a coarse dough with nothing but a little bit of water, if he could find that. He continued through the cupboards and cabinets, but found them empty. In a drawer he found an old packet of mayonnaise. He squeezed it into his mouth because it was high in fat and calories and he knew he would regret leaving it. Then he moved to the refrigerator.
He hesitated, because a refrigerator without power for several months can smell almost as bad as a dead body. He took a deep breath, covered his mouth and nose with the crook of his arm, and opened the fridge. It was surprisingly barren. He shut it quickly anyways. Opened the freezer on top and found only a bag of green beans, long since thawed and rotted away into a dark sludge.
He closed the freezer and turned away.
Down the hall, with three bedrooms and a bathroom. He entered the first bedroom, to the left. It was a child’s bedroom—a boy. Full of Disney caricatures and action figures. He checked under the bed and in the closet just to be safe. There was no one hiding in the room. Nothing of interest, and something about it being a kid’s room bothered him. He moved on.
He went into the bathroom. No water in the toilet reservoir, but he wasn’t to that level of dehydration anyway. He checked under the sink, found nothing but a box of tampons and some drain cleaner. He moved up to the medicine cabinet. He rifled through the collection of bottles inside, reading the labels of each. An ancient bottle of prenatal vitamins. Some acetaminophen and ibuprofen, which he emptied into his pants pockets. There was a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some cotton swabs.
He took these items down and closed the medicine cabinet. He looked at the mirror, uncomfortable with what it showed him. He stood in stark contrast to his own memories of himself. Like he’d been transplanted into another man’s body. His face was gaunt and drawn, his beard disheveled and wiry-looking, with bits coming in gray on his hollow cheeks. His eyes were dark and sunken, seeming wide as though they were perpetually surprised.
He looked unhealthy at best. Psychotic at worst.
He turned to inspect the right side of his head. The hair was matted and clumped with dried blood. The long, open wound looked swollen and angry. He reached up, still holding his KABAR and extended one shaky index finger which he used to cautiously probe at the wound. It smarted viciously, felt hot to the touch.
It’s getting infected, he realized.
Then he thought of all the blood on his hands, and how much of that was his and how much belonged to a dead infected somewhere in the woods? Had any of it gotten into his wound? Was his confusion a result of the bullet wound to the head…or was he going mad?
He left the hydrogen peroxide and the cotton swabs on the bathroom counter. He marched down the hall, teeth clenched. He found the washer and dryer, and a wire rack above them that held what he needed. He grabbed a towel from the rack, and then took the bottle of bleach. Then he returned to the bathroom.
At the sink he soaked the towel and used it to scrub his hands until he could see his pale skin underneath. The towel turned into a washed-out red. Like watercolor. He threw the filthy towel into the tub and opened the package of cotton swabs and the hydrogen peroxide. He wet the swabs with the peroxide and got to work cleaning his wound.
It was slow, painful work with the cotton swabs, and the hydrogen peroxide hissed and bubbled against his split skin. A pile of red cotton swabs began to accumulate in the sink until he finally had the wound clean enough to see through the scabbed blood. He considered stitching it closed, but dismissed the idea. That would be the worst thing to do for it at this point in time, when infection was already probable. Closing the wound now would only be like putting a lid on a petri dish and hiding it in a warm dark place. His best bet would be to keep it clean and bandaged.
But he needed to find some antibiotics.
He checked a few orange prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet, but they were old and the labels worn so that he could barely read what the prescription was for. He found a tube of antibiotic ointment and delicately spread a thin salve across the split in his scalp. He then closed the medicine cabinet again, avoiding looking at himself in the mirror, and left the bathroom.
In the main bedroom he overturned the mattress, hoping for a gun. No such luck. He ransacked the closet and the chest of drawers. Nothing of use, but he did take a white cotton t-shirt from one of the drawers. He split it into a wide strip and used it to bandage his head.
As he did this, moving room to room, the dog followed him. It padded along quietly, sometimes with its head down low, sometimes staring up curiously at whatever Lee was doing. Lee took a moment to stop and look at the dog. Odd that he hadn’t really thought twice about the dog following him, but when he put his mind to it, he knew the dog belonged with him.
After a long moment’s thought, he pointed with his knife. “Deuce.”
The dog’s tail stirred, the barest hint of a wag.
“Yeah. That’s what I named you.” Lee nodded to himself. “You can smell ‘em, can’t you? You can smell ‘em from a long way off?” He knelt down and reached one hand out. The dog shied away from his touch at first, but then let him scratch behind the ears. “And you haven’t growled, so we must be good, right?”
Deuce yawned, smacked his chops.
“Right.” Lee smiled, but his face felt unsuited for the expression. He let it fall and stood up. It felt good to talk to someone, even if the dog couldn’t talk back. So he kept it going. “Well, there doesn’t seem like a whole lot of good shit in this house. I think we should move on.”
They left out of the back door and crossed to the neighbor’s house. Lee peered through windows while Deuce trotted around and marked all the shrubs he could find. Lee found the back door locked and barricaded, so he moved cautiously around to the front. It was a two-story house, with a door in the center and two second-story windows to either side of the front door so it looked like two eyes. Closed into these windows were white bed sheets that clung stiffly to the side of the house and didn’t stir in the breeze.
Lee tried the door without success, then put a shoulder into it. It rattled loudly and he took a step back, looking around and down both sides of the street, like a burglar worried about the neighborhood watch. Deuce crept into the front lawn and stood there, tongue lolling.
A rustle of leaves from a natural area between houses drew his attention.
A pair of squirrels erupted from a bush and shot up a tree, one after the other.
Lee took a breath to calm his jangled nerves and then turned back to the door. With a sudden grunt he put a foot into the door, just to the side of the knob. The door burst open with a crack of wood, rebounded off its hinges, and almost came to a closed position again before Lee put his hand in the way and stopped it by stepping through into the re
sidence.
He moved through the house carefully, much in the same way as before. He felt clearer than when he’d first woken up, his mind more focused. In the living room he found a large fish tank, still full. The sides of the glass were speckled with algae, the top of the water a thick layer of pond scum. Two large and exotic-looking fish floated amid the green layer, their bulbous eyes gray and sightless.
A soft click of claws on the foyer tiles caused him to spin.
Deuce stood partially through the doorway, sniffing the house hesitantly. His ears forward, tail level. His body language was neutral.
Lee moved on.
The kitchen was cramped. A table took up much of the floor space, and was parked in front of the back door to barricade it. He left it where it was. Lee searched the narrow kitchen and came up with a can of corn and a half-full gallon of water from the pantry. He uncapped the water and sniffed it. It smelled fine. He took a sip, swished it around in his mouth. It was cool on his tongue, and tasted slightly of plastic, but otherwise was okay. He took a longer drink, then recapped the jug.
He rummaged through the drawers, pulling up a can opener when he found it and setting to work on the can of corn. He opened it and ate it there, fishing every last kernel out. What was left in the bottom of the can was a murky-looking water. He pulled out the cornmeal he’d taken from the other house and mixed small amounts into the water until he had created a thick paste.
Deuce sat before him, very attentively.
Lee scooped a big wad of the paste onto his fingers and held it down to the dog. Deuce moved in quickly and it was gone from Lee’s finger tips in a flash of pink tongue. Lee pulled out another mouthful. “Go ahead, buddy. You earned it. You already saved me once.”
Lee ate the last half of the cornmeal. He took a moment to think more than five minutes ahead. He stood quietly in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. The yard ended in a thin patch of trees that separated this house and the house on the next street over. Through the layer of trees, the houses on the next street looked strangely untouched. Like he could just step through that bit of forest and find himself in a neighborhood without violence and chaos, with joggers and dog walkers and people in robes stepping out to get the newspaper. Fresh cups of coffee in hand.
He looked down at his dirty old boots. Mud-caked and blood-spattered. Bits of leaves still clinging to them. He didn’t want to think about a neighborhood without violence and chaos, because such a thing was not real. He would not delude himself. This was the world. This was his world. He may as well have been born into it, because everything else was so long gone, it seemed that it had never existed.
Think about what you need to do, he told himself.
Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.
You need to get your GPS back.
How the fuck are you going to do that?
It was easier said than done. Eddie had a big head start on him. And he’d taken Lee’s Humvee. And Lee could only take an educated guess as to where the other man was heading at that moment. But he knew that he should know where Eddie was going. He just couldn’t make it clear to himself. He closed his eyes, his face scrunching up in what looked like pain, but he was only trying to think. His scattered mind seemed to be avoiding him. Like something recently forgotten that only recedes deeper back into your mind the more you try to haul it to the surface.
Lee touched his head where it ached, as though the overstress and confusion and multitude of questions were going to split his skull open like an over-pressurized pipe. Whatever wires had been jarred loose by taking a bullet graze across his dome, Lee could feel that he wasn’t thinking as quickly or making connections as well as he’d done before. He felt stunted. Like his thoughts were being suppressed. Like he had the truth rolling around in there, but he just couldn’t lock it down into place.
He started with what he knew and tugged at the thread gently.
Eddie Ramirez. He stole my GPS and tried to kill me.
Why?
Because…
Because…
Because of Abe Darabie.
Lee’s eyes popped open. His fingers suddenly wrenched down into a fist.
That one little thread had suddenly unearthed the whole ugly truth that had been hiding beneath the silt of his injured mind. And it hit him like a gut-punch, just like the first time he’d learned it. Abe Darabie—his closest friend—had sent people to kill him. To terminate him. To execute him. To keep him from opening any more of his bunkers. Because that wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t in the plan to let North Carolina live. It wasn’t in the plan that Lee’s portion of the mission actually be successful. Lee was just a waste of resources. A rogue operative.
A non-viable asset.
“Motherfucker,” Lee mumbled under his breath. He looked at the dirty dishes surrounding him on the kitchen counter. For a brief moment he wanted to sling them across the room. Just to see something besides himself get broken.
But he didn’t. He just looked at them, slowly shaking his head as the picture became clear. The whole, terrible picture. And he silently argued with himself, his own mind opposing himself like a madman:
Everything east of the Appalachians has been written off. We’re in a dead zone. A no-man’s land. And then there’s everything west of the Appalachians. All the interior states, surrounded by mountains. A convenient buffer between them and all those over-populated coastal cities.
So if I were to make a guess, I’d have to say Eddie Ramirez is heading west. West with my stolen GPS, to cross the Appalachians. Probably into Tennessee.
So, great. You’ve really narrowed it down.
Somewhere near the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
In the fucking mountains with a two-day head start.
I’ll find him.
There’s no fucking way you’re going to find him.
I will. I have to.
The sound of Deuce growling snapped him out of it.
For a moment he stood confused, as though the growl required interpretation. Then abruptly he dropped to the ground. He fumbled with the knife in his hand. Felt his heart lodge firmly in his throat. He put his back to the cabinet doors. Leaned out just slightly, peering around the corner. From there he could see straight through the living room and to the front door. It still hung open from when Lee had kicked it in.
It was open about a foot, and through that opening he could see a thin sliver of the world outside. Green-brown lawns. The charcoal strip of the street. A single mailbox. He waited there, not breathing, not moving, his whole body just a bundle of muscles and nerves locked down and ready to bolt at any minute.
Beside him, Deuce stood stiffly. The hair along his spine risen and his head was lowered. He continued to growl, but it was low, subdued.
Lee focused on the door again. He couldn’t see any movement outside, and Deuce was not barking yet. But his window of opportunity to get the hell out of the house was rapidly closing. He had to assume that whatever infected Deuce smelled were moving closer. And all Lee had was his knife. If he was still in the house when they got close enough to sniff him out, or hear him moving, it would be all over. He might take one. Maybe two. But after that they would overpower him.
Lee reached out and poked the dog gently in the side of its neck.
Deuce looked at him and grumbled.
Lee put his finger in front of his lips. “Ssh.”
He rose slowly from his crouched position, eyes still locked on the front door. When he was on his feet, he turned and faced the back door. There was a window in that door, and through it Lee could see the backyard and the strip of woods beyond. Then the next street over. More houses. Lee stared at them for a long moment but saw no movement.
Deuce growled again, this time a little louder.
“Alright,” Lee said. “We’re going. Just stay quiet.”
He pulled the table out of the way as quietly as he could an
d opened the back door. It creaked loudly, the weather stripping cracking as it separated from the door. Lee grimaced at the noise and swore under his breath. With the door open, he leaned out and looked both ways.
All clear.
He stepped through the door, Deuce on his heels and then trotting past him, casting wary glances back behind them as they headed for the trees. He didn’t want to be in the house, but the woods weren’t much better. The last few days had been dry, and the leaves would be loud. He wasn’t sure how far away the infected were, but he always assumed that they were in earshot.
He jogged to the woods and then slowed. “Shit!” He turned back to the house, one hand flying to his head. He’d left the jug of water sitting on the kitchen counter. His feet moved unsurely, as though one foot wanted to go back and the other wanted to go forward.
He looked forward through the woods, to the back of the next line of houses. He could hole up in one of those, take a minute to barricade the doors and windows, keep watch and wait for the neighborhood to be clear of infected before running back for the water…
He shook his head.
Bullshit. He wasn’t going to get himself killed over a half-gallon of water, no matter how thirsty he was. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to escape one house just to cram himself into another one less than a hundred yards away from the first.
He stepped into the woods with fresh urgency, picking his way as quickly and as quietly as he could. The dried leaves and twigs felt more like tripwires and sensors, threatening to give him away at each step.
Deuce was already on the other side of the strip of woods, looking back at him with what seemed like impatience.
Yeah, I’m working on it…
Lee forced himself to focus completely on the forest floor and where he put his feet. In his mind he pictured a pack of the filthy creatures tumbling around the corner of the house and seeing him picking his slow progress through the woods, locking onto him like a pack of wolves on a wounded deer.
Just get to the other side.
His feet hit grass. He looked up and found himself in another back lawn and he broke into a jog. Deuce lingered for a few seconds, sniffing the air, his body language cautious. The houses here were packed close together so that the side of two adjacent houses created a narrow alley perhaps ten feet wide. Lee went to the left of the house directly in front of him, making for the street on the other side.