Waiting to Die (Book 2): Wasting Away

My voice was low and steady. “We have to go.”

  Mary put her can of soda aside and stood. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “They followed us,” I answered. “There aren’t many now, but enough to give us away if there are any others around.”

  “Damn, I was just getting to like it here.” She collected the other cans of soda and stuffed them into my pack.

  “It’s like they know when you’re getting comfortable.”

  “Maybe they’ll wander off,” she added.

  “I don’t really want to take that chance.”

  I took my pack from her and slung it over my shoulder. I heard a thud and a mournful moan from out front. A couple more knocks against the siding, and we were moving fast through the kitchen.

  The back yard was empty. A long wooden fence cut off the other yards with a gate positioned in the far rear corner which led to an alley.

  With Mary at my heels, I wound through a knot of lawn furniture to the walkway along the fence. Deflated moans came from the front, growing in volume as a few of them spotted us through a crack between a set of loose boards at the front gate.

  “Hurry!” I barked.

  A corpse crashed into the opposing gate, knocking the remaining boards away. Gnarled faces followed closely behind, gathering numbers as I tried to pull the clasp on the rear gate.

  Mary was pressed up against me, pushing me closer to the fence. I tugged the clasp upward and it gave with a resounding creak. I pushed it to the side and Mary’s weight threw us both into the alley.

  Once Mary was through, I slammed the gate closed and tossed a couple of garbage cans in front of it in haste.

  “Fuck!” I hissed. “Run!”

  We sprinted through the alley as I knocked over random garbage cans as we passed, hoping to slow the impending mob. I looked back as the first few corpses emerged, stumbling over the obstructions. Another set of disfigured faces glared through, winding their way around the others, held for just long enough for Mary and I to get to the intersection.

  Straggling bodies met us as we cleared the alley. Mary weaved through outstretched hands and ducked between a pair of corpses that had narrowed in on her. A moan like a releasing drainpipe caught me off guard and I turned in time to see a withered face, only inches away. I backed up and fell to the ground, my pack wedged firmly beneath me. I grabbed the creature by the shoulders as it hurled itself on me, a writhing tongue protruding between once elderly lips. Another body joined in and toppled over on the weight of the previous corpse, nearly suffocating me.

  I heard a powerful scream off to my right and was able to glance over as Mary blurred into sight. She ran with all she was worth and kicked out at the upper most body. The weight on top of me eased and I threw the elder cadaver to the ground.

  On my feet, I watched as Mary sent a series of kicks at the first creature’s head, smearing rotten skin away in layers, revealing the moist tissue beneath. I took her by the arm and she raised a fist at me before she figured out who I was.

  “Let’s go,” I said, shaken.

  Her eyes flashed at me then over my shoulder. “Look out!” she cried.

  I turned in time to see three more corpses only feet away. I ducked and grabbed Mary about her waist as I took off in a sprint, guiding her along with me. Once she gained footing, we were off along the street, a volley of bodies leaking out from everywhere, blocking our path.

  We cut the next corner and Mary flew past me with an intense look of determination spread across her face. I did all I could to catch up to her, but she was faster than I would have ever given her credit for. Her hands were straight as her arms formed arcs alongside her body. She jumped a fence and crossed a yard in a flash as I leapt over behind her, trying to catch up.

  She pushed at a gate through to the back yard and nearly tore it from its hinges as it slapped back into the fence on the other side. I squeezed through behind her before the gate could snap closed.

  As I entered the yard, she was already on top of a small shed, scaling the roof to jump to an opposing yard. I leapt up behind her as she cleared the block wall between the properties. She hit the grass and rolled, using her momentum to get back on her feet.

  I tossed myself over the wall and hit the ground with a thud. I rolled to my side and shook off the pain, watching her hit the next gate.

  “Goddamn it,” I muttered as I stood.

  She was out in the road before I caught up to her. I was panting, sweat rolling from my face as I breathed through a cramp that had set in my stomach.

  Mary took off through a parking lot alongside a bank, dodging through the drive-thru to the ATM’s. Out through the other side at the corner, she led me along shopping malls and businesses, worn and battered.

  “Wait,” I said, but my voice was shallow and tired.

  She turned and looked at me. “We have to keep moving,” she said. “I know a place.” She took me by the hand and pulled me along behind her.

  We crossed a pockmarked lawn to the entrance of a church. It was an older building with a steeple and a tiny white cross adorning the peak. She took and abrupt right and wound along the side of the building toward the rear.

  “Come on, through here,” she said, guiding me into a small alcove beneath the church.

  At first, I thought it was a root cellar, modernized with stairs and a doorway.

  She rooted around above the trim to the door and retrieved a shiny brass key. “It’s still here,” she said, letting out a small laugh.

  She threaded the key into the lock and gave it a firm twist. Once inside, she pulled me in behind her and locked the door.

  I was panting, leaning against the wall, steadying myself with my other arm against my leg. “Shit, you’re fast,” I said between breaths.

  She edged a smile. “I used to be on the track team,” she said. “The coach used to say that I was born for it.”

  I breathed heavy. “Yeah, you’re a natural Forest Gump.”

  She laughed as she pulled out a chair next to a long table. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks.”

  “They used to use this as a soup kitchen,” she explained. “They fed the homeless and used the church upstairs as a shelter during the week.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, “it looks familiar.”

  “Is it like the one you used to volunteer for?”

  I nodded, still trying to catch my breath. “The one I worked at was above ground, but pretty much the same concept.”

  “Are you making fun of my church?” she asked.

  “Maybe a little,” I said.

  She grinned and rooted through one of the shelves. “Here have one,” she said, tossing me a bottle of water.

  I caught the bottle and twisted off the cap. No matter how warm it was, it still tasted good. I sipped at it as she sat next to me on a foldout chair.

  “When Henry and I were first married, I used to run all the time. There was just something about the high. The first few miles are the worst and you want to quit, but when that high comes on and the world blurs around you, it’s just something else.”

  “Why did you stop?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and took the bottle of water from me. After she took a swig, she gave it back to me and continued, “It was just one of those things. As much as I enjoyed it, I thought it was better to do all of the ‘wifely’ chores.”

  “So you got lazy.” I grinned.

  She slapped my shoulder. “Smart ass,” she said. “No, it wasn’t that at all. I figured since Henry was out working all the time, the least I could do was help around the house. Not that he really ever expected me to or anything. He was actually all right in a lot of ways. I was young and thought that was a part of growing up: the man goes out and earns a living, the wife stays home and keeps everything in order.”

  “Damn, how old are you again?” I asked wide eyed.

  She laughed. “I know, right? It’s like something out of a Republican propaganda f
ilm.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Leave it to Beaver, but close enough.”

  “Yeah, I know, it was silly,” she continued. “I was just trying to do my part, you know?”

  “Really, I do understand,” I replied. “My wife did the same thing when we were first married. I think it’s hardwired in somehow. After a while, everything settles down and you get into the routine of things.”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking down at her hands. “It’s not the fairytale that little girls grow up believing.”

  “The funny thing is if I had it to do over again, I would.”

  She looked off in thought. “If I could, I would have tried to pay more attention to him. I knew there was something wrong. I knew he was staying away from me for a reason, but I didn’t do anything to find out why.”

  I looked over to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “You can’t blame yourself for that,” I said. “It’s a pretty piss pour thing to leave the woman you married behind when the shit hits the fan.”

  “That’s true too,” she said.

  “Sometimes I wonder if it’s just natural to grow apart,” I said, thinking out loud. “Almost every couple I’ve known ends up living separate lives. They put on a good show when others are around, but behind closed doors, it’s a different thing entirely. They fall into a routine of being away from each other as much as possible.”

  “That’s what Henry and I used to do,” Mary replied. “When we weren’t arguing, we just tried to keep away from one another. I always wondered what it was that made a relationship turn sideways so fast. In the beginning, you can’t get enough, you want to be with the other person so much, you almost want to crawl inside their skin. Give it a year or so and even the mention of their name makes your stomach lurch.”

  “I don’t think that’s the way with most marriages,” I told her. “But, to some degree, you’re right. It’s like you get your fill and even the thought of another spoonful makes you sick. I always thought I felt that way about my wife because of what she did to me, but honestly, I had those feelings for a long time before we started having problems.”

  “Maybe it’s the whole act of marriage,” she said. “It’s like it makes you start thinking differently. I had a friend from high school and we kept in touch through the years. She was one of my closest friends. Sometimes we would talk on the phone for hours about nothing. You know, you start rambling on about silly things and suddenly half the evening is gone.”

  I nodded. “Like the way you’re doing now?”

  She squinted and pursed her lips. “Just shut up and listen.”

  I grinned and said, “Okay.”

  “So anyhow, she lived with this guy for eight years. Their relationship was great, but she wanted a little more. She wondered why he wouldn’t ask her to marry him. So she starts leaving subtle hints. You know, bringing up the subject every so often. Finally, he gets around to it and pops the question.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “A year later, they were divorced, couldn’t stand each other.”

  “No shit?”

  She raised her hand like she was taking an oath. “I shit you not.”

  “So what you’re saying is that people are only momentarily monogamous. Like we can only stay faithful for a time until we get bored and want to move on, like love is a drug that wears off after a while.”

  “In a way,” she replied. “But I think there’s more to it than that. I think it has to do with being stuck. You start to think that it’s a prison sentence, that you’re being punished for something. You start to believe that there’s no end in sight.”

  I agreed, “I felt like that after a point. It was as if I would be a failure if I left, if I just gave up and moved on. But I felt like an idiot for staying. It was like I was telling her that I would put up with cheating in the future because I was giving in now.”

  “God, this conversation is really depressing me. Let’s talk about something else.”

  I smiled and agreed. “So is there more to this church besides a basement?” I asked.

  “This is where all of the food is, but there’s a chapel upstairs and an office in the back for the Reverend.”

  “Do you think there’s anything good up there?”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it.”

  I checked the slit windows above the foundation. “You know, we’re sitting ducks down here.”

  “You use that expression a lot,” she replied.

  “Would you prefer, ‘up shit creek without a paddle’?”

  She met my line of sight and stared at the windows. “I think you’re right. Upstairs it is.”

  Chapter 18

  I followed Mary up a narrow set of unfinished, wooden stairs. She pressed her ear to the door and patiently listened.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she whispered.

  I pulled the pistol and held it at my side. “Maybe I should go first,” I said, keeping my voice low.

  I slowly turned the knob and pulled the door inward.

  Plain wooden floors, old and worn, adorned with row after row of pews. A thin layer of dust, dull against the veneer. Droplets of light rained through stained glass, casting a prism of tilted rainbow along the worn flooring.

  There was a pulpit stationed on a platform of stairs, wrapping around the entire end of the church. A crimson curtain hung behind, hiding the baptismal. At the other end of the church, giant double doors towered under a sprawling balcony. I checked to make sure they were locked and the pins were lowered at their base, ensuring we were safe.

  “Well, the windows look high enough,” I said.

  “When we were running, this is the first place that came to mind,” she explained. “Besides the basement, it should be pretty safe.”

  “I can’t believe the earthquake didn’t take it to the ground.”

  She tapped on one of the support beams under the balcony. “This place has been here for many years and survived worse than that. Buildings were made better in the old days.”

  “Yeah, but the windows are still intact,” I said.

  “There was a church in San Francisco; I think it was St. Brigid’s that had much larger windows than these, and it made it through the 1906 earthquake. Maybe they’re made to flex.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot of flexing,” I replied.

  “Then we’ll chalk it up to a miracle.”

  “A miracle?” I asked. “I thought we didn’t believe in those.”

  “How else could you have found me if it weren’t for miracles?” she asked.

  “Oh, don’t get all weird and mushy on me now,” I said, raising my brow.

  She laughed and sat at one of the pews. “Have you ever thought that just the act of believing makes the world take on a certain shape? You know, it gives the thought energy. And if enough people believe in the same thing, it gains power.”

  “There’s a lot that we don’t know about the natural world,” I explained, “but I really believed that my wife wouldn’t cheat on me, and here I am.”

  “Maybe you were the only one to believe it,” she said, flatly.

  “Yeah, I suppose I was.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she clarified. “What I meant was that maybe the idea didn’t have enough force behind it to gain traction. Maybe your family and friends didn’t believe in it either. Maybe there just wasn’t enough force behind the thought. But I think if two people believe in each other, wholeheartedly, there’s nothing that can stand in their way. I think that other people see it and start to believe too and it gains traction, begins to solidify.”

  “Do you believe in me?” I asked.

  “I believe that you would do everything you could to make sure I was safe,” she said. “I believe your intent is pure. Why else wouldn’t you try to cop a feel when we held each other the other night?”

  I smiled. “I was being a gentleman.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

&nbs
p; “Well, you can’t take advantage of every situation,” I replied. “Sometimes it’s better to let the anticipation build.”

  She nodded with a smirk. “I bet you say that to all the girls you rescue.”

  “Who rescued who?” I asked. “It seems like you did a pretty good job back there, saving my ass.”

  She looked away. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “You kicked that thing pretty hard,” I said.

  She looked down at her foot. “I still have the stain to prove it.”

  “Very impressive,” I said.

  A loud thud came from the back of the church. Mary jumped to her feet and stared past the baptismal.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  I held up my hand. “Stay here,” I said, and walked through the row between the pews.

  Past the pulpit, a small hallway opened, darkening the farther I went. I could hear ruffling come from the other side of a shadowy doorway at the end. I held the gun out toward the corner of the door and turned the knob.

  A small face was at the back of the room. Fear stretched eyes laced in shadow. I held my breath and moved forward. There was a desk at the center of the room with a wood framed chair behind it. A soft movement struck the corner of my eye. Another face, barely visible in the corner, moved slightly as I neared.

  “What?” I asked aloud.

  The child was tied to a chair, a gag bound across his mouth, red marks in circles about his wrist where the rope had bitten in, rotting slowly where it had pierced the skin.

  I nearly gagged. The children were dead, bound to wooden chairs and left to rot. I slid the pistol into the small of my back as I heard Mary say something in the church.

  I looked back at the other child, a small girl with light hair and streaks of dirt washed away in streaks along her cheeks. Placid, white eyes shot through me as if it were staring at my spine through my neck.

  “Help us,” I heard her say at the back of my mind.

  “Mary,” I said, raising my voice, “I need your help in here.”

  No answer.

  “Mary,” I said again, louder this time.

  I went out into the hallway and rushed toward the chapel.