Along a lonesome stretch of highway, just south of the military base where I had seen all the bodies piled up in front of the main gate, I found an old tractor/trailer and slept there for the night. It was one of the most comfortable places I have slept since this whole thing began.
The next morning, when I woke up, I could hear the dead moaning outside. I slowly rose, keeping low to the bunk behind the cab. They were shuffling past the window. In a flash, I saw her. She was right in front of me. I nearly cried out.
“You found your wife?” Mary asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I had been looking for her for so long. When I finally gave up, she just appeared out of thin air.”
“So what was that about us not believing in miracles?” she asked with a grin.
“I don’t know how miraculous it is to find your undead wife so you can kill her.”
“Stop trying to ruin the moment,” she said with a harrumph. “I’m calling it divine intervention.”
I laughed and rubbed her shoulder.
I climbed out through the passenger’s side door and hopped over the guardrail. She was the first corpse to spot me. Her head was tilted at an odd angle when she turned and moaned out. Her movements were so stiff, exactly the opposite of the woman I had known in life.
She looked at me in the same way as the old woman from back at the gas station. That pleading, sorrowful gaze was just too much to bear. I lost myself and started to cry.
Through the tears, I asked her, “Did you have to?” I shook my head and swallowed hard. “I never claimed to be perfect,” I said in a sob. “I worked for us. I worked so hard so that we could have something better. Not all of it was my fault.”
She rasped and shambled forward.
I held the pistol out and aimed at her. “It wasn’t all my fault,” I repeated.
She stopped and swayed in place.
I’m probably mistaken, but I saw something there in her eyes. It was like acceptance, a brief flash of acknowledgment when her mouth hung slack. There was the slightest glimmer before she moaned and came for me.
“You finished it?” Mary asked, but it was less of a question and more of a statement.
“Yes,” I answered. “I finished it.”
We sat there quietly and I felt Mary relax. I laid her down under the tree and stood, stretching away the memories like old poems about forgiveness.
As dawn reared up over the mountains in the distance, drawing light across the courtyard, I could hear the dead pleading outside the gates. On the other side of an enormous cage, their presence meant very little. I sat at the base of a tree against the block wall and watched Mary sleep in the morning sun.
I breathed easy, watching the dead gnash at the bars, completely harmless. As birds chirped in the branches above me, I thought of the safest places on Earth: a prison of our own doing, only as strong as the weakest lock. I thought of old loves and fading memories. I thought of falling in love again and smiled to myself.
We were shut in, tucked away from the menace that had taken everything else away. And for that single moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t worry about being stuck. I didn’t mind the idea of dying there. For the first time since this hell began, I felt safe.
Mary moved in her sleep. Her face was restless and her arms twitched every so often. I hated that she had to see the children like that. I hated the look of death on their tired, young faces. I hated the man who would do something so senseless, something so vile. But most of all, I hated myself for not having the courage to pull the gun from my back, for not having killed him sooner.
I climbed a small eucalyptus tree beside the manager’s office and leaned out to grab a hold of the roof. Once on top, I stood and brushed myself off. From the vantage point I could see a few blocks down on either side. Next to us there was the strip mall we had run through the night before. Several businesses sprawled out across the street, ending at another complex a block down.
There was a small flower store directly across from us, a single daisy painted in the window. But inside, the view was like everything else. The flowers had wilted and yellowed. Dry petals, as crisp as paper, lay in the pots where they withered and died. Smears of blood ran along the lower portion of the display window, drifting downward toward the front walkway. An arm poked out from between the door and its frame, lying on the threshold, fingers extended. The palm faced upward as if asking for reprieve. Small bullet holes marked the door. Splatters of blood had dried along the display window, coursing up along the daisy that had been painted there.
Chapter 20
At the front gate, bodies lined the sidewalk, pouring out into the street. More came, drawn by the moaning. We didn’t have much time before there would be too many of them.
I climbed down along the branches of the eucalyptus and checked to make sure Mary was still sleeping. She had moved a little in her sleep, but seemed to be dozing peacefully. She moaned and her face distorted before she turned over and sprawled out on her belly.
I found a locked maintenance door on the west side of the management office. I scoured the side, but couldn’t find a window.
I began circling the manager’s office, checking the door at the front and the one along the back, but they were both locked. As I made my way through the planter on the side, I glanced at the window. The clasp was loose and I was sure I could open it. I took my pocket knife out and made a slit at the bottom of the screen to get a better hold. I pulled out the frame and tossed it aside. I worked the edge of the window, lifting it slightly as I pulled. With a rocking motion, the clasp finally released.
With the window open, I parted the blinds and peered through. There was a long table in the center of the room with enough chairs to seat eight. On the other side of a large coffee maker was an open door. Filing cabinets lined the far wall, a vase positioned on top of one, filled with large, plastic flowers. There was a strong smell of potpourri mingling with a hint of cinnamon - something sweet lingered in the air just below their scent.
After hoisting myself up on the window frame, I edged my way through the side of the blinds. I crouched to the floor and saw a shadow move across the door of the office, just past the coffee maker. I saw a balding head with wild patches of hair jutting out to the sides. An empty gaze fixed in on me and the creature gurgled. The lower half of its face was missing, just below the top row of teeth. A vacant hole of black lined in brown slop and a dark tinge of spine where its throat had been. I backed away and tucked my hand into the small of my back, groping for the pistol.
The corpse lumbered forward, a mess of slaughter across a waste tainted shirt, staining it the color of rust and mud. Its tie hung slack, loosened in times of worry. Its upper lip twisted like a leech as it stared at me, slick fluid peeling away from the gum line.
It gurgled again, releasing a fuzzy hiss of bubbles along it breastbone.
I aimed the pistol, centering the sight above the bridge of its nose, between its eyes. A dull click and my eyes went wide as the creature lurched forward, grasping at the weapon. I twisted under its reach and scurried to the other side of the room, desperately trying to pull back the slide and load another round.
I fell to my ass and the cadaver bent down over me. A wet slap hit my chest from a stream of bile that trailed from the cavernous hole in its neck. I kicked out and landed my heel into its guts. It toppled over toward me and its eyes bulged. It stretched its arms, trying to claw at my face. I braced my feet against it chest as it writhed on top of me. The slide clicked back into place. I steadied the pistol and fired. A tiny hole appeared above its brow and a look of astonishment crossed its eyes. The body went slack, all of its weight resting on my legs. I grunted, pushed it away, and watched as it hit the floor.
I swallowed hard and gulped for breath.
A slack, rot filled suit heaped in on itself to my side.
I stood slowly and stared down at the blood laced phlegm on my chest and pulled off my shirt, keeping the waste away from my face.
>
“Are you okay?” a voice asked behind me.
Startled, I turned around to see Mary at the window.
I tossed the shirt to the floor. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, looking down at the corpse. “I didn’t see it when I checked the building.”
“How did it get in?” Mary asked, staring at the heap on the floor.
“I think it was always here,” I said.
“Suicide?”
“Probably.” I nodded.
“Well get out of there,” she said.
“Yeah, just give me a minute.” I returned the pistol to my waistband. “I’m looking for the key to the maintenance room.”
“Be careful,” she said with a concerned look in her eyes.
“I will,” I replied. “Just stay there and I’ll be out in a minute.”
Mary backed away from the window and I went into the back office.
There was a spray of blood across white paint, dripping down in places and converging in runs, collecting at the baseboard. The chair behind the desk lay on its side in the corner. A large caliber handgun a few feet away with a smear of dark red along the barrel shimmered in the faint sunlight that filtered through the closed blinds. The smell of cinnamon, iron laced decay, and potpourri lingered there. It made me think of final moments and the end of pain.
It was hard to consider what the poor bastard was thinking before he cocked the hammer. What was even worse was thinking of all the others that had taken the same route. How many bullets does it take to bring about the end of the world?
I righted the chair behind the desk and sat down. The image of blood behind me, a picture of a sunflower, framed on the opposing wall. A shuffle of papers across the top of the desk scattered along like an Asian fan. Little wisps of nothing written on pages that no longer held meaning.
I gave the chair a push and wheeled over to the handgun on the floor. I leaned over and picked it up. The grip was slick. It weighed heavy in my hand. A single round was missing.
I wheeled back behind the desk, looking through dead man’s eyes, glancing through the final moments and what ends in loss. I remembered what had almost brought me to the same end. My heart beat quickly. The taste of metal in my mouth, coupled with fear, with the lost fragments of unknowable change. Sweat stung my eyes and I realized I was holding the gun too close. I placed it on the desk in front of me.
The top drawer opened easily. A key ring inside, knotted with silver and brass.
“Hey, what’s going on in there? Are you okay?” Mary asked; her voice was dull from the window in the other room.
“Yeah, I’m coming.”
On my way out, I glanced at the body, huddled on the floor and was glad it wasn’t me.
Chapter 21
I unbolted the front door and let myself out. Mary was sitting at the side of the building in the shade, resting against the wall. She glanced up at me for a moment and managed a smile when I sat down next to her.
We sat there quietly for a while, watching a few stray clouds gather and drift in the sky.
Mary finally broke the silence. “There are going to be a lot of them, aren’t there?” she asked.
I looked at her questioningly.
“We’re going to find the same thing everywhere,” she said. “When the dead rose, a lot of people did the same thing as that man in there.”
“Yeah,” I replied, lowering my head.
“As much as I thought about it, I would never have actually gone through with it,” she said. “It was always just a passing thought. You know, if there just wasn’t any other way out, if things got too bad, I could always fall back on that single thought.”
“I think about it every day,” I replied.
“You’ve thought about it even since we’ve been together?”
“You’re the only reason I haven’t already done it,” I said. “I lived through this mind numbing haze for so long to realize I was actually just looking for my wife. I became driven to find her, to put an end to the nightmares. And when I found her and killed her, my purpose died with her.”
“What about all of those lofty ideas about changing the world?” she asked. “I know you think it’s too big for you to handle, but if you take it one step at a time, give it your best, you can become that dream.”
I pained through a smile. “The more I see, the less I’m able to find value in any of this. What’s left after the world turned its eyes away from the living? We’ve seen the type of person who managed to survive.”
“Are you talking about the man back at the church?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “The type of person that lives through this is the same type of person who has lost concern for anyone else. The most selfish people survived this.” I shook my head at the thought. “Think about it, Mary. If someone survived this it’s because they stayed away from other people. They turned a blind eye to what was happening and put their own lives first. They lived because they had given up on compassion.”
“Or maybe they were just afraid,” she said.
“That’s a possibility too,” I agreed. “Either way, true survivors aren’t going to reshape the world. They will fend for themselves - they will go on living because they’re smart enough to know that death comes in numbers. If every one of these fucking things drop dead tomorrow, the world is left with a population of selfish assholes and others who were just too afraid to make a move. What kind of future is in that?”
“Our future,” she replied, her voice a dull scrape on the wind.
I said nothing.
She shifted next to me. Her gaze lowered on my leg and slowly worked up to my face. “Let’s get one thing straight,” she said. “The only reason I came with you is because I saw hope in what you told me. I found something about you that I could relate to. And since we’ve been together, I have learned to trust you. I’ve even grown to like you. So if we’re going to get through this, you need to drop the ‘woe is me’ shit and get to the point. Either you want to survive this with me or not. There are no two ways about it.”
I was shocked. I had never heard her take that type of tone before. “I …”
“Just shut up and listen,” she barked.
I leaned back against the building and took a deep breath.
“This idea of changing the world for the better is totally possible, but it happens with you and me first. If we find others, then fine, we’ll deal with it when the time comes. But for now, we’re the only ones that matter. It’s just you and me out here. So get a fucking grip.”
I nodded. “You’re right.”
“I don’t want to hear any bullshit …” She paused. “Wait, what?”
“I said you’re right.”
“Oh,” she stammered.
“I’m being an ass and I’m sorry. There’s just so much shit going on in my head right now. Every time I turn around there’s death, staring me down. It’s everywhere. It’s got us cornered in another fucking apartment complex and it’s like we’ve went full circle. It’s like we’re hopelessly repeating the same thing over and over again.
On top of that, I’ve started to realize I have feelings for you and that scares the hell out of me. When you were out here under the tree, sleeping, I watched you for a while. I know it sounds creepy, but I did it and caught myself. I watched you and you looked so peaceful there. In a way, I envy that. And I’m afraid that you’re stronger than me.”
She touched my leg. “I’m not stronger than you,” she said. “This is all so new to me. I have no idea what I’m doing out here. I don’t know the first thing about what you’ve been through. I’ve heard all the words, but I’ll never really know what it felt like.” She brushed my thigh and turned, staring up at the clouds again. “It’s funny how people are brought together. It makes me think that there is some higher power, guiding the way, some all knowing energy setting the wheels into motion. How many random events did it take to bring you home and out to the edge of the freeway in a part of town no one in their
right mind would go to, just to find me? As much as it seemed like an accident, it also seemed to be destined to happen.”
I nodded in agreement.
She continued. “And maybe, if all that is true, we were meant to be sitting here, right now, trying to figure it all out. It’s as if the universe had to conspire to make all of this happen.”
“I hate to think that the world had to end so you and I could meet,” I said with a smile.
She returned with a grin. “But maybe the world had to end so we could recognize each other in all this mess.”
She touched the back of my neck and I leaned in closer to her. Her breath was hot on my cheek. Her hand was quivering. My heart thumped loudly as our lips met. A whirl of realization hit me and I looked at her.
“My God, I almost missed it,” I said.
“What, the moment?” She scrunched up her face and smiled.
“No, no,” I said, excitedly. “I know where we can go!”
“What are you talking about?”
“The other day, you asked me where I was before I met you. You know, before we went into your room and you held me. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, and in all reality, it was just to find you, but I had been at the military base. That’s where we’ll go!”
“But you said it had been overrun with the dead.”
“Yeah, the first time I was there,” I replied. “But when I went back, before I found you, there was an area I trekked along the freeway. I saw these mounds of dirt along a valley and got curious. There are dozens of small shelters there, a few larger ones too, set back in the hillside. That’s where we can go, Mary.”
“Wait a minute, you’re going too fast,” she said. “Let me get this straight, before you found me, you returned to the base and found these bunkers and you waited until now to tell me?”
“It totally slipped my mind,” I replied. “I had told you about finding my wife. I was so stuck in that portion of the story that I forgot about the base.”
Waiting to Die (Book 2): Wasting Away Page 16