Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  Dirty warehouses. Nasty sewers. Dark alleys.

  The clawing up the mountain of the apocalypse was live or die every step of the way.

  “You think he's there?” He knew it was impossible to answer. But the question had to be asked.

  “Of course he's there,” and though she didn't say it, her tone suggested she wanted to add, “and don't dare tell me otherwise.”

  It was one of the few things they could agree on when it came to Liam, at least lately.

  “Let's go get him,” he whispered. Then, to echo her sentiment, he added, “dear wife.”

  She couldn't see the tight smile he wore. Yes, the plague that brought on the apocalypse was much worse than he imagined, but the one bright spot was how well they worked together at this critical time to get across the ruined city over the past two days.

  The payoff was in sight.

  He resumed his trot behind his sleeker partner, the heavy ballistic armor on his chest and back reminding him of the two times it had saved his life. He patted the one on his front, to bolster his spirits at this last moment.

  No, Liam stayed put like a good kid. No one could survive outside without gear like this.

  He approached the back door of the house first. The partial moon teased his vision. The outlines of the old brick home were familiar and alien at the same time. The rear screen door had been ripped off its hinges and tossed to the ground. The wooden door it was supposed to protect remained sealed.

  Lana joined him as both focused their lights on the door in front of them. “What happened?”

  “Doesn't look good. Maybe an infected tried to get in?”

  Before either could make an effort to turn the handle, a plague victim fell out of the darkness. Clad in a light-colored nightgown, she was easy to see once she was out of the deepest shadows. The sick woman launched herself on him, and together they tumbled to the deep turf with all the grace of a sacked quarterback.

  “Lana," he yelled. Loud enough for her to hear, but not loud enough to call in more sickos.

  Lana was quick. She managed to hold onto the nightgown of the woman and ensure she couldn't get a solid purchase. At the same time, he was able to keep his chest armor facing the teeth of the zombie. The combined weight of both on top of him made it difficult to exhale fully. He'd never really caught his breath since that street sign.

  The plague victim might as well been a starving dog sniffing a bacon-wrapped ham hock for all the energy she expended to get to his neck. Her hair was matted and wet, but some locks flailed wildly, too. It was almost distraction enough to make him loose focus on the big picture, but when she inadvertently kicked him in the groin, he remembered there were only two ways for it to end.

  With effort, he passed on instructions. Timing was crucial. “I'm going to roll her on three. You know what to do!” It wasn't the first time on this trip they'd had this exercise. A fact for which he was supremely grateful since he couldn't do much more than point after he'd said that little bit.

  “One...” he was going to count in an even cadence, but he had no voice left. “Two-three!” he wheezed.

  “Now,” Lana shouted.

  He used all his strength to push the thrashing woman over to his side and rolled himself the other way. Lana raised her rifle, intending to skewer the zombie as they planned—but she hesitated as he came up in a crouch, sucking in gulps of air.

  “My god. This is Angie.” Lana's flashlight shone on the sick form on the ground, but her back was to him; he only saw her shadow. He reestablished contact with his rifle and used the tactical light to get a better look.

  The nurse was an absolute wreck of her former self. Once a well-manicured sixty-something-year-old friend and nurse for Grandma Marty inside this house, she was now covered almost head to toe in the sheen of blood. Her nightgown was filthy with blood, dirt, and god knows what else. Caught between two living people and their bright beams, Angie's head whipped back and forth as if to decide which of them was closer. Her eyes were blood-red in their sockets, and her hair was gray, brown, and red in streaks. Her skin was ashen gray, where exposed. It was amazing they could recognize her at all, even though they had known her for decades.

  The shock and surprise and resulting delay gave Angie the chance she needed to pull herself off the ground, spring to a crouching position, and make her move.

  She must have decided on Lana.

  Lana moved with a quickness he didn't know she had. In the pit of his stomach, he knew she was going to get herself killed in this disease-ridden disaster, maybe now at the hands of the ex-nurse. It was the same fear he'd felt innumerable times the past twenty-four hours. Each time Lana was forced to take a life. That's the moment fate would decide if it was going to be her or the other person in the proverbial pine box.

  I should have called Angie to me.

  While he wrestled with his guilt, and to his great relief, the bayonet sunk deep into Angie's head. Lana out-grunted any professional tennis diva. The blade sunk until the tip of the barrel was inside her skull. Both stared at the dead body in stunned silence as it settled back onto the grass.

  In a shaky voice, Lana got out “Angie. I'm so sorry.”

  Jerry said nothing. It went down so fast he could barely compute all the variables.

  Lana broke the trance, pulling her blade out with effort. “Let's get inside." The wet sucking sound turned his stomach, but she got him moving.

  He had a key. As he rifled through his many deep pockets, he happened to notice a flash of light inside the house.

  Liam, he thought.

  Hope swelled, but caution nagged him. He stood still, indicating Lana should also be quiet. Though it had been there the whole time, the noise of gunfire around the city reminded him of the worldwide pandemic beyond this yard and how nothing should be trusted. This was life or death, again.

  His heart yammered in his chest, warning that the forties were not the new twenties. Not out here.

  “What is it?” she whispered to his back side.

  He turned off his light, and she followed suit. Instead of pushing the door open, he backed away, drawing her with him. They rejoined in the narrow walkway between the two red brick structures. At the first window, he paused and peeked into the glass frame. A light bobbed up and down inside. It had a dreamy quality. Not too fast, not too slow. Just a drift here and there.

  “I'm not sure. Someone might be drunk in there.”

  Lana took a turn at the window.

  “Or dead,” she muttered with a sour tone.

  “Let's get this over with,” he said while stepping gingerly toward the front.

  By the time they reached the front door, they'd not learned anything beyond what they already knew. The drunk or dead person stayed in the back of the house while they scanned the front half as best they could.

  “The person has to be sick. We made all kinds of noise fighting Angie.”

  Lana nodded in silence.

  They whispered back and forth until they had the right plan.

  Before walking away from her, he reminded her of the most important point, “Don't forget to come back and watch my behind.”

  She gave him a wry smile at the innuendo, despite the seriousness of the hour. That loving smile instilled confidence as he ran in the darkness to the back door of the house. Something he admitted he needed at that moment.

  He waited until there was a series of jarring bangs in the night. That was Lana at the front door. As he'd hoped, the noise coaxed the floating light into the front of the home. Jerry snuck in and stood near the back window as soon as it was gone.

  Moments later, Lana returned and walked in the open back door. Once she had his location, she kept going forward, to the kitchen table. A noisy shoe squeal and a surprised squeak accompanied Lana's flailing arms. He flicked his light down and saw the blood. By some miracle, she slid into the table instead of under it. The look on her face conveyed a wild-eyed relief at what just happened. There may have been a hint
of a smile.

  You're one lucky lady.

  “Don't I know it,” is what she'd say.

  He ensured she was stable and in possession of her wits, then sought their target. The mystery figure was somewhere inside the flat. Even their clumsy entrance didn't bring the lost soul to them.

  “I'm going to call out,” he whispered.

  His earbud answered. “I'm good.”

  He pointed the flashlight attached to his gun barrel and yelled into the darkness beyond. “This is Jerry Peters. Identify yourself!”

  There was a flash of light in the front room. A sign the trespasser was on the move.

  Liam? Grandma?

  “Stop. Identify yourself!”

  Every gun safety video he'd ever seen flashed before his eyes. Would Liam come stumbling out of the darkness? Was he sleepwalking? It would be a first, but if the last twenty-four hours had taught him one lousy thing it was that they were now in crazy times. The dead were walking. Neighbors were fighting neighbors. Law and order had gone out for an extended smoke break.

  This was the end of the world as we know it.

  His finger tensed on the trigger; then he forced himself to place it on the side of the housing of the AR-15. If he had to lose a second in his decision loop before he shot this target, so be it. He was going to give his only son the benefit of the doubt, no matter the cost to himself.

  The form came waddling down the hallway in a leisurely fashion. Nothing like the vicious attack dog Angie had become. The small flashlight revealed all the blood on the man's face and neck. It was an unmistakable indicator he was already a lost cause from the Ebola-like plague ravaging the city.

  Satisfied it wasn't Liam or Grandma, he put his finger back on the trigger and resisted the urge to crush it. With one gentle squeeze, he lit up the hallway for an instant. The thud a moment later indicated he'd scored a direct headshot.

  The acrid smoke dissipated as he stood in awe at what he'd just done. He'd had to put many of these strange dead people down, but doing it in Grandma Marty's kitchen made him appreciate just what the end of the world meant.

  The infected man slid a short way on the slick floor. He came to rest not far from Jerry's feet. The light revealed a wrecked skull, heavy bulletproof vest, and the same type of black tactical clothing he had on. Sort of a cross between a policeman and a soldier. The flashlight linked to the man's shoulder with a thin rope, as if he wanted to ensure he never got separated from it. He clutched his gun, and the light attached to it, a little bit tighter as if in sympathy.

  The glow reflected into a nearby bedroom. His breath caught in his chest. A leg and shoe of someone lying on the floor looked familiar. Then his heart choked and fluttered; the shoe reminded him of the style Liam wore.

  “Lana, I—” He couldn't say the words. Instead, he moved rapidly to the bedroom. “Cover the hallway, dear, while I check out this first bedroom.”

  He entered a morgue. A dozen bodies were in a messy pile, all with bullets to the head. They'd been murdered—as healthy people—because none of them were as bloody and messed up as the infected. He scanned the bodies, but didn't see his son—that was his only focus. The person on the floor with shoes like Liam's was...someone else. Memories of his childhood clouded his vision—he denied they were tears—before he completely shut it all off. He closed the door to the bedroom and took several deep breaths.

  He'd taken a little too long. Lana was beside him.

  "Everything okay?"

  Their two flashlights reflected off the hardwood floor and the numerous picture frames on the wall. Liam's face caught his eye in one of the tendrils of light. His boy smiled at him from a fancy golden frame.

  “Lana, that room's clear. We have to keep looking for Liam.” He pointed down the hallway, intending to distract her.

  The stereotypical “phew” sound slipped out without him knowing it.

  “Yeah, I'm glad it wasn't him, too.” She walked where he pointed. He was torn between sending her first into the darkness or running the risk of her trying that door handle. Falling in behind, his finger was once again well away from the trigger.

  They went upstairs to Angie's apartment and found another dead guy inside a pile of bloody clothes in the middle of her apartment. It was hard to know how he died because he was in pieces. Only his black clothing tied him to the other man.

  Still, no Liam.

  They finally went into the basement. Liam had his room down there, but other than the dryer sitting in front of the rear basement door, the entire level seemed pretty much undisturbed. They both returned to the main floor, stopping at the body on the kitchen floor.

  Jerry searched it but found no identification of any kind. He had numerous pockets in his tactical vest and pants filled with rifle magazines and various types of knives, batons, and handcuffs. He figured he was more policeman than soldier. But that didn't feel entirely right, either.

  He did find one clue. At the bottom of a small pocket up near the shoulder, he found several sheets of paper stapled together and folded multiple times—beyond what any normal person would do. He unraveled them and spread them out on top of the dead man's chest. Using his light, both he and Lana were able to scan the names typed in three neat columns. A few were crossed out with a pencil.

  “What the hell? This list has most of our family on it. Maybe all of it.” He scanned the names and found one with a line through it. “No. No. No. This is a list of people someone is trying to kill.” He scrunched up the paper with his hands and crushed it into a ball with primal grunts.

  “Why? How do you know that?” she replied with skepticism.

  He had anger in his eyes while pointing to the sealed room. “Because my brother's in there—dead. And his name's crossed off.”

  He held it out to her. She unfolded the paper and spread it on the table where she could get a better look.

  While she studied it, he felt that deep-seated fear once again. Something was going to reach out from the darkness and pull Lana away from him. He was powerless to stop it. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure something bad was going to get her. Again, his heart reminded him it was capricious—it pounded like a freight train as he got to his feet and stood next to her. His arm found her waist and sought the comfort of the contact.

  He was supposed to be the strong one.

  Lost in his emotions, he was well and truly startled by her voice. “There's my name. Yours! We aren't crossed out. Nice to know we're still alive.” She let out a nervous chuckle and leaned into him. She read the names under her breath—mostly family he recognized—from time to time she lamented this or that cousin or aunt with their names crossed off. “And here's Marty's name. She's alive, thank you, God! At least she hasn't been, what? Assassinated?”

  He grunted an affirmation, though he had no idea. If this was an assassin's list, he didn't want to know who else was on it, and yet he had to know.

  She turned the page. Then she turned once more. On the third page, she pointed with excitement.

  “No line! Liam has no line over his name.” She set the flashlight on the table, exhaled deeply, and turned to hug him. “I'm so sorry about Craig.”

  She sobbed deeply, as if she'd held it in until she knew whether to cry happy or sad. What came out was hard to read with so many dead, but he and she shared the happy knowledge Liam wasn't already dead by whatever hand had made such a horrible list.

  He wanted to cry in relief, but they were hardly a step closer to finding Liam. He had to hold it together.

  “Thanks. Me too.” Jerry gently separated himself and looked around. “Looks to me like these men were hiding in Marty's place, waiting for our family members to come collect her. When my brother arrived, they must have killed him and tossed him into that room—he pointed to the one he'd steered her from—with some others I didn't recognize. If they were targeting our family, maybe these other people just wondered in?”

  “That's horrible. Were they Marty's neighbors?�
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  “Yeah, that would make sense. Everyone checks on Grandma.”

  “I hate to say this, but I don't care about anyone else. I just can't. Not yet. I need my Liam. Where the hell is he, Jer?”

  He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He'd been formulating a positive-thinking reply since they walked into the empty house. Originally he'd built his answer on a fiction that would convince her Liam was still alive, but the more he considered the facts, the more he felt maybe things weren't as bad as he feared. Not if Liam remembered half of what he'd tried to teach him over the past few years.

  This is the same kid that lives inside those dumb video games.

  He swallowed hard and tried to think of how Liam was pretty good at some real-life things. Shooting, for instance. A key point for what he was going to tell Lana.

  “If I had to guess, I'd say Liam took Grandma and tried to escape the city.”

  Lana raised her head. The question on her face was evident.

  “Because her guns are gone. I noticed, when we searched downstairs, they'd been moved.” He pointed his light at the black box sitting on the stove top. “I left her two guns in that box, hidden in her rafters downstairs. Because they were so high, there's no way she got them herself. Since the house isn't otherwise looted, it means someone pulled them down who knew they were there and what was inside. That means she told Liam and he has them. I'd bet anything they're armed and attempting to escape this town.”

  “Grandma and Liam, out in the city? I'm not sure if I should be jumping with joy or screaming in fear.”

  “Me either, my love. Me either. But at least we know these creeps didn't get him. We just have to think where he'd go.”

  He didn't want to appear pessimistic, though he certainly felt it. Whoever made the list was still out there. That suggested Liam wasn't safe at all. But that wasn't even the dangerous part. Liam had gone off into the urban decay of St. Louis with 104-year-old Marty. At best, he had a couple of little handguns to defend himself. The dead were walking, killing everyone left alive, and the police, fire, and other civilian infrastructure lay in ruins. If Liam could get out of the dying city, and if he avoided getting himself scratched off this list, and if he survived the other million dangers, where would he go with an old woman?