I’m really trying to be as positive about the situation as I can. If I drape fabric across the window to keep the light dim, and I put big gobs of Vick’s under my nose, spending time together can still be almost pleasant. We sit in a near silence that is only broken by the occasional sound of mother shifting on the bed, straining against her bonds, or smacking her moist, open mouth, or the occasional faint sound of trickling liquid.
But there are no words. We don’t speak; that’s what is important. It’s nice without words. When it’s silent, there are no buried meanings, no implied accusations. We don’t speak of my failings as a son, my failure to protect her. We just sit, in relative peace. Can I give this up? Am I willing to? I think I may have no choice soon. But I fear that the whispered accusations spoken within my own mind may become deafening without having the task of tending Mother to distract me.
As I said, I’m trying to stay positive. Though admittedly mostly it serves as just a much-needed means of distraction, I have been throwing myself into gardening with renewed enthusiasm lately.
Ever since the outbreak, I have tried to grow whatever I can with the little packets of stale seeds that Mother had on hand, plus any others I have since been able to scavenge. The problem is that the plants that grow won’t reproduce. The plants have been genetically altered so that, even though they reach maturity, they are not able to produce fertile seeds. In the last decade prior to the End Time, the one and only big multi-national seed company, which had had a monopoly on world-wide seed distribution, had ensured its hold on the market by rendering all of its plants incapable of reproduction. Somehow, that was legal. So all of the plants that I am able to grow are sterile. It makes for real problems now.
I keep a little garden in the backyard. Gardening is a very calming activity; there is something peaceful and comforting about working with the soil. It’s important for me not to get so lost in it that I let my guard down while I’m doing it though.
My garden plot actually produces relatively little—certainly not enough for me to sustain myself with it-- but every little bit helps. It’s nice to have fresh vegetables, an occasional squash here, some spinach there...
My repertoire includes squash, carrots, spinach, broccoli, green beans, and sunflowers. The sunflowers are entirely impractical—their seed yield doesn’t justify the space they occupy, but I love the way they look. They remind me of my childhood.
There was no real way for me to keep the dead out of my garden, though they wander in only infrequently. It doesn’t really matter though—it’s not like they are going to eat anything there. In fact, if anything, they probably help to fertilize the plot.
About a week has passed since the last Survivors meeting, which I suppose is what I measure time against these days.
In the past week, Mother has gotten much worse. Especially today.
I have been up since early this morning when Mother began making disturbing (more disturbing than usual) noises. She has been spluttering non-stop for hours now, making aspirated gurgling sounds that are expelled from in her throat in forceful wet chaotic bursts.
In the past, I had considered trying to find a ball gag for Mother in one of the several abandoned sex emporiums off of the highway. However, her mouth has just kept widening as she has continued to decay, so it would have had a very limited period of usefulness. I have often thought in passing about how quickly it would have just been swallowed up, disappearing into her damp, black viscous maw. I am reminded of this again now because she sounds as though she could be choking on a ball gag now. If one could choke endlessly, for hours upon hours, on a ball gag...
I’m so very tired. Physically, but even more so emotionally. There are only so many hours of the worst things imaginable that one can witness before beginning to grow numb. Mother has been spluttering and thrashing, splattering dark, sticky droplets of liquid that makes me retch across everything in the room, including me. In the dim light within her room, I can make out the wiggling maggots that have been strewn across the sheets in her convulsions.
I’ll just keep wiping her down. What else can I do? The things that are growing between the moist folds of her flesh... well, there’s nothing I can begin to say. These intimate places should never be seen by a son, even when they are fresh, healthy, and living. I shudder involuntarily, try to think of other things, tell myself that I’m somewhere else, but, ultimately, it’s my duty as a son and has to be done all the same.
I just keep mopping up the fetid liquid that continuously seeps from Mother with every rag, towel, and sponge that I can find. I don’t know where she is holding it all. Her desiccated little corpse should logically be capable of holding only a finite amount of liquid volume. Yet Mother’s sour, rancid milk seems to pour endlessly from her. And so I endlessly dab.
I consider myself a dedicated son, but even I am beginning to see that this is not a sustainable existence. The conditions of our home life have been less than ideal for a long time, but they have taken a sharp downturn. I have to admit that this is deplorable.
Can I continue to live like this? Can I even justify trying to keep Mother under these circumstances? I know it must be wrong to continue this. What for? For the sake of memories? To sustain a routine? To preserve the illusion of a relationship that is already dead?
I am so very tired. I need to sleep. Maybe then I will be able to think more clearly.
Chapter 7
The Winds of Change
LATELY, JACK HAS BEEN MAKING some choices that I consider very questionable. Most notably, he has brought into his operation some jackass thug kids that I suspect are also wrapped up in the sex trade. I’m not sure why he needs middlemen now when he never did before, but it is what it is, I guess.
When I showed up at Jack’s warehouse yesterday, a kid at the front door directed me to see “Bobby” for my assignment. Bobby is apparently handling assigning jobs to runners now; I guess Jack needs more time to count his spoils.
Bobby was maybe nineteen years old, dressed in army fatigues (which ironically did not blend in well at all in our urban environment) and sneakers, and had a fresh buzz cut. When I entered his office, he was drinking from a bowl made out of the top of a human skull. I introduced myself curtly, unconsciously making a face as I watched him drink.
Seeing that I had recoiled, he proudly said “I use everything from what I kill, like the Native Americans.” punctuating his remark with a smugly pleased smirk.
“So did Hitler.” I said, not batting an eye. “There’s a difference between being efficient and being just plain gruesome. It’s not like there’s a shortage of pottery available to loot.”
He ignored me, returning to the job at hand.
My new mission was straight-forward enough. A former client had been reported by one of our delivery people as recently deceased. Bobby didn’t say how the client had died, but she was apparently elderly, so my guess was associated health complications. My job was two-fold. I needed to dispatch her reanimated corpse and to reclaim all goods of value from her apartment. The woman had been a big consumer of black market medical goods and had apparently had a healthy supply of dry goods such as powdered milk with which to trade. There should be quite a bit worth taking in her apartment. This was standard practice when a client perished.
I left with the unfortunate woman’s address. It was still early in the day, and the sky was clear, so I figured that there was no time like the present.
Things wound up being a lot less clear cut after I got to the former client’s residence.
Standard delivery procedure was to knock on an accessible door or window and identify oneself in a loud voice. This procedure was useless under current conditions, of course. The old woman inside was no longer capable of opening a door, and alerting her (it) to my presence wasn’t really advisable. My best course of action was to find the entrance that offered the least resistance and brandish my crowbar at it.
The windows were solidly boarded up, so I settled for the b
ack door; it was equipped with only a flimsy lock. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for some time now, so it didn’t take very long for me to gain entry. Unfortunately, in doing so, I wasn’t exactly quiet.
Something was waiting to greet me when I entered. Its white hair, with curlers dangling askew from it, framed its face like an absurd, ghostly halo. The old woman was probably a few weeks dead; the forces of decomposition had just begun to take a firm hold in her carcass. Lumps of larvae visibly wriggled beneath the skin of her limbs as she stretched them out toward me.
The zombie was ambling slowly; judging from the metal walker in the corner of the room, its bodily movement had been limited prior to death. I planted my feet wide, bracing myself to swing the crowbar against its skull as it stepped closer.
There was a deafening clap like thunder, and the zombie pitched forward, spraying coagulated goop, brain, skin, hair, and skull fragments all over the front of my shirt.
Involuntarily letting out a shriek, I jumped backwards, completely startled and confused, and knocked over the walker as I pressed myself into the corner of the room.
From the doorway came a man’s voice. “What the fuck? Who is there?”
A rifle appeared in the doorway. Behind it, a young man of about eighteen in a tattered t-shirt and jeans followed.
Seeing me, he said “Who the fuck are you?”
I was still catching my breath, but I managed to choke out my name.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously. Then he added, “Your shirt is completely disgusting.”
“Yeah,” I gasped, “it was a lot cleaner when I got here. I’m a runner. I was sent to kill that.” I said, gesturing to the headless remains of the old woman that was occupying a prominant portion of the room’s carpet.
“Bullshit.” he said, but he lowered the barrel of his rifle toward the floor.
“Killing that,” he said, gesturing to the crumpled carcass, “is my job.”
“You’re a runner?” I asked, perplexed.
“Yeah.” the young man said. “Have been for a couple months. Name’s Drew.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder and then ran his hand through his greasy, mussed dirty blonde hair.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“Jack. Who else?” he replied. “But Bobby assigned me the job. You?”
“Yeah, same.” I said, feeling myself deflate.
Fuck. Two runners assigned to the same job? You’ve got to be kidding me. I almost got killed by this kid. This was bullshit.
Was Bobby planning to pay us both? Now that was an unlikely scenario. Was he expecting us to fight it out? Or to accidentally kill each other? The most likely explanation was probably just poor management. Bobby didn’t exactly inspire confidence, so that it was just a stupid fuck-up on his part was certainly possible.
The boy had already obtained a good deal of the supplies and had dispatched the former client, so I guess the score was his. I didn’t feel like arguing about who had more claim, and not just because he was better armed than I was. I had my crowbar, the machete at my hip, and a handgun in my jacket, but a gunfight wasn’t something in which I was interested in engaging. And there was no reason. It wasn’t the kid’s fault. And it wasn’t worth fighting over the payload any single mission could yield. The bigger picture was troubling though. This turn of events put my whole employment situation in question in my mind.
I don’t particularly need my job with the black market. Over the past couple of years, it has afforded me a plethora of premium supplies, but I could get by, though more meagerly, without it. To be honest, I’ve been putting myself in danger as much for the sake of the adrenaline rush as for the material rewards. It was an effective, and at times exhilarating, way to prove to myself that I’m still alive. And I have been developing mounting concerns as Jack had gotten more intertwined with the sex trade, but it still seemed distant enough for me to keep it in the back of my mind. Now I must begin to consciously ask myself: is this really sustainable? Can I go on indefinitely like this? Eventually, odds are that I’ll slip up and get critically injured or killed outright. And that’s just the danger inherent in relying upon myself. A screw up seems fairly inevitable. But Jack putting jackass kids in charge elevates my danger level quite a bit, whether due to their incompetence, lack of experience, or just general lack of concern for my fucking well-being.
Well, food for thought. I shook Drew’s hand, wished him well, and headed home. I was anxious to change my clothes.
Stealthily making my way home through back alleys, I started thinking about Nathan again. Damn it. His face spontaneously popped into my head. Something about him is definitely sort of cute. Why is he getting under my normally tough skin? Maybe things are just in a state of flux. In joining the silly survivor group, I have adopted a new routine. And things are getting weird with the black market. Things are changing, so maybe I am too. I need to be careful; I can’t afford to get careless.
At the very least, I need to take a little break before I take on any new black market assignments. Fortunately, I already placed an order for the meat for our next Survivors meeting. I arranged it earlier this month in lieu of payment for a job.
The meat will be human, of course. Zombie human, more than likely. The memory of what animal meat even tasted like has already faded.
Animals don’t reanimate. Thank god for small favors, right? They don’t seem to possess the mutation or whatever it is that causes humans to pop back up after death. Bottom line, animals just lay there peacefully and stay dead. Unfortunately though, the living now have to compete with the dead for animals as a food source. The dead aren’t terribly discriminating about their eating habits. If it has life, it will make an appealing meal.
Since the living are in competition with the dead for animals as food, and because people are no longer producing meat by the tons and pumping it into the cities via eighteen wheelers twenty-four hours a day, there aren’t a lot of animals to be found anymore. Most of them seemed to get devoured in the first few months—either by the living or the dead. Birds twittering on phone lines, squirrels scampering up trees, and rats scurrying around in alleys are no more than distant memories now. I guess maybe it’s different in rural areas. Having spent my whole life in cities or suburbs, I really couldn’t say. Perhaps, if farmers are diligent enough in defending their livestock from the meandering undead hordes, they might actually be able to eke out a sustainable existence by breeding and raising livestock. I can’t really imagine that being possible in the United States even before the zombie era, but as I said, I’m no expert.
It’s not of particular relevance to me anyway. In the city, my world, there is virtually no access whatsoever to any animals anymore. The pre-apocalypse staples of the American diet, beef and poultry, stopped being available as soon as the outbreak occurred. There are no waterways within at least fifty miles of me that haven’t been contaminated by industrial waste for decades, so fishing is not a viable possibility. And I won’t eat pet flesh. An animal is far more innocent and genuine than any human being. Besides, eating a dog is an unthinkable taboo in our post-apocalyptic culture. Dogs are far too valuable. Sure, the larger breeds are revered as protectors, but even the smallest toy or teacup serves as an invaluable zombie alarm. A lot of survivors eat cats, if they can catch them. I won’t. I like them far too much. But I suppose it’s much easier to be principled when you’re only talking about a yield of maybe a pound or two of meat once the feline is skinned and deboned. Turning one’s nose up at a human meal is a great deal more difficult to do.
It’s funny how fast our biggest taboos can become passé when circumstances change. I’m sure that in our former lives, every one of us would have passed judgment on the practice of cannibalism, summarily condemning all that would resort to it under any circumstances. “Surely there is a less barbaric solution.” we would tut.
We live in a different reality now, and we can never return to our previous one. There are no s
olutions that are not barbaric. The average human diet is perhaps eight hundred calories a day. We’re all gaunt, and we take our sustenance wherever it may be found.
I would imagine that eating another human being is like committing murder, bestiality, incest, or any of our other societal taboos—the first time is the monumental hurdle. Once you’ve done it once, the boundary has been crossed. You’ve already irreparably altered who you are. There is no going back. After that, you can quickly come to view it as normal, unremarkable behavior.
Chapter 8
Another One Bites...
WE’RE CELEBRATING. IT IS TECHNICALLY the group’s two year anniversary, although there were apparently only two members for the first few months, and both of them are now dead.
Still, we’ll take the opportunity to give thanks wherever we can find it.
The Survivors of the Apocalypse hold every meeting in a different location. It was decided that it just seems safer to do it that way, although I’m not sure why.
Today, we met in an abandoned high school. Schools were closed when signs of the outbreak first appeared, so except for the few that were turned into evacuation centers, they are generally surprisingly safe, deserted, and zombie-free. In fact, schools would probably make excellent safe havens for clans of survivors to colonize if their fences were just more sturdy.
We began by setting up in the cafeteria. Maggie dressed a long folding table with a tasteful, relatively unstained white table cloth and decked it out with what remained of her wedding china.
As timid and meek as Maggie is, it’s difficult to imagine her making the trek to this school loaded down with serving dishes and cutlery. I guess it’s all a matter of where your priorities lie. I involuntarily shook my head from side to side in mild dismay as if I were trying to dislodge from my mind the absurd image of Maggie darting between buildings in her house dress and support stockings with a pack full of dishes strapped to her back.
Making the Best of the Zombie Apocalypse Page 5