by Fuchs, A. P.
Since the dead began to rise and transform any people unfortunate enough to be in their path, August had locked himself and his family away at his cabin an hour’s drive out of town, at first for safety, then for answers.
Over the past year he had read the Bible three times. Read every Bible commentary he had in his library—four, all told—poured over the ancient End of Days prophecies countless times, sought the Lord earnestly in prayer—and was met with a dead end at every turn.
For well over two hundred days he promised his wife, two sons, their wives, and his five grandchildren that the Lord Christ was in control and that what happened the world over wasn’t beyond God’s remedy. Even when his family’s faith began to falter he remained strong. Each morning they met in prayer. Each night they met again. Day in and day out.
Until the last day, the one that made him question God for the first time since being saved as a young man back in ’62.
He had thought despite all the pain the dead had caused, despite being forced from his home, God would come to the rescue. It had been a hard life even before he became a Christian. Growing up with little to eat, not many friends in school, fighting in Nam, watching his friends being shot or blown to pieces from behind that helicopter window. . . . Even now he still dreamed about them once in awhile. He thought that after settling down and having a family everything would be fine. Peaceful. But life was seldom peaceful and especially not now with the dead roaming around.
His son, Jonathan, had gone outside for a midnight cigarette. He’d never came back in.
Jonathan’s wife, Lydia, after lying in bed alone for over an hour, had gone out to look for him. She, too, never returned.
In the morning, August’s other son, David, had gone looking for his brother. He couldn’t go far. The rule was not to exceed the invisible, hundred-yard self-imposed boundary the Norton family had put around the property. Not long after he had gone out, David’s wife, Jan, had wanted to join her husband. August permitted it, much to his later regret, and Jan, like the three before her, never returned.
That night, sitting around the kitchen table, August, his wife, Eleanor, and the five children ate dinner in silence, August’s mind half in prayer, the other going over scenario after scenario as to what might have become of Jonathan, Lydia, David and Jan. Every scenario kept drawing the same conclusion: they had been taken and, most likely, transformed into the hell-birthed creatures that roamed the earth.
Eleanor looked up at him from her canned beans with blue, earnest eyes. She didn’t need to say anything. The question was: what now? They were both too old to manage safety and the children on their own. August was sixty-seven; she was sixty-four. The kids, Jon junior, Bella, Finch, Katie and Stewart were nine, seven, seven, five and four, respectively. Jon, Bella and Finch, though kids, were old enough to handle themselves well enough, but Katie and Stewart needed a mom and dad.
August shook his head—I don’t know—and poked at his own beans with his fork.
They finished dinner.
During cleanup, August peered through the window above the sink and saw four shadows off in the field across the way. They moved slowly toward the cabin.
“E, you better get over here,” he said as calmly as he could despite the urgent tone that forced itself through.
Eleanor finished drying her old hands, set down the dishtowel and joined him.
“What is it?”
“Straight across, there.”
She pulled up her bifocals from the chain around her neck, set them on her nose and leaned closer to the window so she could see. “Oh no,” she whispered.
“Get the kids.”
She nodded and left his side. As she proceeded to the living room, she said, “Kids, why don’t we go play a game in the bedroom?”
Jon junior held up the Superman action figure he had been flying around. “It’s okay. Me and Supes’re gonna save Bella and Katie from the evil Finch and his stupid sidekick, Stewboy.”
“Not stupid!” Stewart shouted at him.
“I was only kidding, doofus.”
“What your mouth, J.J.,” Eleanor said. “Stewart is not stupid and you don’t call people . . . I forget what you said. Now bring Superman and we’ll go to the next room. I want to show you kids something.”
“A surprise?” Katie asked.
“Come and see.”
The little girl was on her feet in a jiff and joined her grandma’s side. After a moment, the others, with a huff, stood and followed Eleanor and Katie into the bedroom.
“Now this is what I wanted to show you,” Eleanor said as she closed the bedroom door.
Keeping one ear on their muffled voices, the other listening attentively for activity out front, August went to the closet near the door and pulled down his .22. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all he had and all he ever wanted to have.
“Oh, Lord, is it murder if they’re already dead?” He tugged down the box of bullets from between the stack of gloves and old hats lining the top shelf.
He brought the rifle and bullets to the kitchen table and checked the ammo. Only about twenty shots, and the bullets were faded and worn. He couldn’t think of how long they’d been sitting up there, probably since sometime in the ’80s.
After loading the rifle, he snuck back over to the window and looked outside. The four shadows were closer now and, sure enough, they belonged to Jonathan, Lydia, David and Jan.
Whistling the first line of “How Great Thou Art” as loud as he could, he waited for Eleanor to whistle back the next line. She did. It was an agreed upon signal between the adults that something was wrong and the person beginning the tune had to leave the cabin. The response of the second line was affirmation that the departure would be okay.
August smiled to himself, proud of his wife. He knew her heart was breaking inside, but at the same time each were strong enough in their faith to know that, should something happen, it wasn’t good-bye forever. It was “See ya till we meet again.”
He checked the window.
Jonathan and Lydia were on the front lawn, ambling toward the door. David and Jan were no longer with them.
“Be with me, Lord,” he whispered. He slipped on his old, brown boots.
Rifle at the ready, he took a deep breath, and unlocked the door. Once outside on the front steps, a chill swept through him. He should have put on a jacket over his brown-and-red-checkered shirt.
Jonathan and Lydia were not far away, maybe twenty feet, maybe less.
August locked the door, pounded on it twice, letting Eleanor within know he was still all right. She tapped twice on the glass of the bedroom window at the front of the property in reply. It was also another code, one that said “I love you.”
He glanced toward the window. Eleanor had already closed the curtain.
August faced his son and daughter-in-law. Even in the dark, he could see the color was bleached from their faces, their eyes white, their expression cold and heartless and not just from being dead. A portion of Jonathan’s cheek was missing and was a mess of red and black tissue. Lydia only had her brown hair on one side her head, the other side ripped away along with her ear. The damage to her head hadn’t been enough to kill her though. Only change her.
August shuddered at the thought of what might have happened. But that didn’t matter now. His family was inside and he had to protect them.
He stepped down the three front steps and set his feet firmly on the grass.
Jonathan and Lydia stepped toward them, their footfalls feeble yet strangely sure at the same time. He knew that if they could, they’d run at him and take him down.
Not tonight.
August raised the rifle. “Jonathan,” he called. “You know I love you so I’m going to ask you once, if you can hear me somehow.” Tears pooled at the bottom of his eyes and his voice cracked when he spoke next. “Turn around and walk away.”
Jonathan’s expression did not change nor did he give any sign that he understood h
is father.
“I love you, son,” August said and lined up his shot.
BANG!
The shot hit him in the heart. Jonathan stopped, and then, as if nothing happened, kept advancing.
Shocked it didn’t faze his son, August felt the corners of his eyes pinch with tears as he aligned his next shot.
BANG!
A hole appeared in the center of Jonathan’s forehead and he dropped to the ground.
Tears leaked out of August’s eyes and through blurry vision he watched as Lydia kept moving toward him, her arms raised, about to grab him.
“Good night, darling,” he said and sent a bullet through her eye and into her brain. She hit the ground, as well.
Muffled banging came from the rear of the property.
The back door, August thought, eyes wide.
He propelled his old legs as quickly as possible around the cabin with the hope of catching David and Jan still outside.
The muffled thudding continued all the while he rounded the cabin and just as he arrived at the rear, a loud crackle-crack signaled the door had been broken. He got there just in time to see Jan squeezing her way through the three-foot hole in the door. David was already inside.
August got the rifle ready and got as close to her as he could. With her body half fallen over the hole in the door, her rubbery legs kicking at the ground as she tried to crawl her way in, sending a bullet into the back of her head was easy.
“David!” August shouted. As if David could hear him, and even if his oldest son did, he wouldn’t listen to him.
The back door had been locked ever since the Nortons arrived at the cabin about nine months ago so August reached in through the hole and fumbled around until he found the deadbolt. He tried opening the door. It opened a few inches then hit something. He tugged again. It wouldn’t budge. He glanced down. Jan’s weight on the door was enough to put pressure on the wood, causing the bottom corner to scrape along the floorboards and catch against one of them that had warped a long time ago. August had forgotten about that board and cursed himself now for having put off fixing it.
Grunting, he yanked on the door over and over.
Foomp, foomp, foomp. Banging from within.
Foomboom!
The children screamed.
“E!” August shouted. “Kids!”
“August!” Eleanor shrieked.
The kids squealed. Tiny footfalls echoed through the cabin. For a moment August expected a pair of them or more to find him. Instead, the screams were cut off one by one until silence reigned.
Shaking, tears running from his eyes, August turned and ran down the back steps and was about to go to the van out front and hightail it back to the city, when he stopped himself.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “They’re . . . they’re going to . . .”
He checked to see how many bullets he had left. Seven. He wished he had taken more. The rest were still on the table inside.
Sobbing, he walked to the front, expecting David and the others to appear and charge him. For a moment he entertained the idea of letting them. Why not. The world was going to end anyway.
But if they do, I have no idea if I will be truly dead or not. Will I still be alive or aware in some way? I refuse to let myself or, even, my spirit go over to them. He prayed, asking God to preserve the spirits of his family, that somehow his family was indeed dead and the creatures were nothing but demonically-possessed human shells.
David was the first to appear at the front door. He pushed it open, took the first step fine then stumbled down the rest. As he straightened, the others appeared, the kids first, then Eleanor. Each had a similarly hard time coming down the steps.
August jogged a good distance away, turned and aimed.
I love my sons the same. “David. You know I love you so I’m only going to ask this once. Turn around and walk away.”
David, his body rocking side to side, a piece of his hip missing, kept coming toward him.
“I love you, son,” August said.
Déjà vu flooding him, he pulled the trigger and knocked out the middle of David’s face. His son’s body dropped.
The kids stepped side by side, each with a hole in their necks, syrupy blood still oozing out.
“God, I am so sorry.” He shot each of the little ones down.
Eleanor moved toward him, her beautiful face untouched. Her white eyes looked through him and even though he knew she was dead, he thought she could understand him somehow, understand what he was about to do.
He didn’t know where David had bit her and if not for those white eyes, he could believe she hadn’t been bitten at all and this was all some kind of act she was putting on to fool the undead around her.
Eleanor raised the fingers of her left hand. Two of them were missing.
“My darling,” he said. “Forgive me.”
He wiped his running nose with thumb and forefinger then caressed the trigger. He squeezed but the slickness from the snot was enough to make his finger slide off and tug the barrel down.
The bullet pierced his wife’s neck and a stream of dark blood squirted out in a fast arc.
“No!” he gasped.
He was out of bullets.
Hand to his face, his heart raced, not knowing what to do. The strength drained from his legs, the adrenaline coursing through him too much for his old body to bear.
Eleanor neared and had both hands held out toward him. She grabbed hold of his neck and pushed, landing on top of him. He had never known her to be so strong. The notion of demonic-possession flashed across his mind again.
He wanted to speak, to ask the name of the spirit that had her, but the pressure around his neck was too much and he couldn’t get a sound out.
God, help me! Jesus, help me! Over and over he pleaded for the Most High to intervene. Over and over he was met with silence.
He pushed against her arms. They wouldn’t budge. Her face drew near to his, mouth open, teeth at the ready.
He took the rifle by the butt, stretched out his arm so the tip of the barrel was pointed at the side of Eleanor’s head . . . and plunged it into her temple.
She stopped her charge, her dead weight settling on him. He let the blood oozing from the wound wash over them both and laid with her for several minutes, catching his breath and absorbing what he’d just done seemingly without thinking.
Now, three months later, August wondered if God had abandoned him that night.
Maybe God had abandoned the world.
Sucking back a shot of Tequila, August reclined in the chair in the living room and stared at his bare feet. The nails were long and curling. Same with those on his hands. He hadn’t shaved nor cut his hair since that night his family died.
He glanced to the floor and in his mind’s eye looked through it to the crawlspace beneath to where he had buried his family.
I’ll be with you soon.
The food was almost gone. They had gotten a six-month supply originally but had made it stretch. It stretched even more once there was only his mouth to feed.
Let’s see. I can probably make it a couple weeks without food. If I want to go sooner, I just won’t drink anything for a few days. Either that or . . . He looked to the rifle leaning up against the door. There was one bullet in the chamber.
It was for him.
1
April
Joe Bailey entered his apartment just after dawn. He closed the door behind him, locked the knob, the two deadbolts and chained the top.
His dog, April, a white and brown Springer Spaniel-Collie cross he had rescued shortly after beginning his crusade to hunt the undead, came bounding from the living room.
“Hey, April,” he said.
Sitting at forty-five pounds, she wasn’t the fiercest animal in the world, but she knew what to do if anybody but him entered the apartment. For a long while, after he first got her, she’d bark and growl each time he came home. Now, she was able to recognize his footfalls in the h
allway.
Joe made his way to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a beer. Popping the cap off and letting it fall to join the others, he took off his trench coat and dumped it on the table. He hit the front room, not bothering to turn the lights on. The sickly gray sky brought enough light into the place and even that was more than he cared for.
Flopping down on the aged blue and gray sofa, he sat with legs out, fatigue filling his eyes and fuzzying his head. Staying up all night shouldn’t be taking the toll that it was, but his body said otherwise. He should be used to it. He’d always had trouble sleeping and used to fill the late-night hours writing comic books. Those days were gone, writing funny books, but he still should have been able to weather the night and catch what zees he could during the day.
But things were different now, and the rise of the undead was only a part of it.
April hopped on the sofa beside him and plopped her head in his lap. He scratched her behind the ears between each sip of beer.
“What’d you do tonight?” he asked.
April didn’t reply but only let out a deep sigh, as if saying, “More, more, more.”
“I killed people,” he said. “Lots of them.”
He gulped a mouthful of beer, belched, then drank a little more. He’d need at least four more to get a buzz going and he only had three left in the fridge. For a time, he took what he could get from the vendors and liquor stores. Once those supplies were all looted, he began brewing his own. And now, even doing that was getting difficult because others, it seemed, had the same idea and raided every store that carried brew-it-yourself kits.
It was at home that things caught up to him, not when he was outside. Out there, prowling the streets, taking out the dead where and when he could—out there, there was freedom. In here, his place was swimming with memories.