by Siara Brandt
Not that being out on the streets wasn’t terrifying, too. Conditions in the city were far worse than anything she could have imagined. She was shocked at how fast things had deteriorated in the city she had grown up in. The devastation and destruction surrounding her were truly staggering. They had left the condo yesterday. They still hadn’t found any drinkable water. They had no food, either, so they were weak with hunger. But water was the most pressing issue at the moment. Vayna’s mouth was so dry that she could barely swallow. How long, she wondered, before a person collapsed from dehydration? Her stomach had felt hollow for a long time and there was a dull pain in it at all times. Yesterday was the last time she had eaten, and that had just been some cheese and crackers from a package she’d accidentally found under Ryland’s bed. She had shared the dozen or so crackers with both Ryland and Arlend, but even if she hadn’t, they wouldn’t have come anywhere near appeasing her hunger.
As critical as food was, however, it was not their priority right now. Getting safely out of the city was. The streets that they passed through were mostly deserted. The people had either succumbed by now and were among the undead, or they had been killed by the undead, or they had barricaded themselves in order to stay alive. At times, it was like maneuvering an obstacle course. There were barricades everywhere. They had been put up across roads and in front of and around buildings, wherever it had become necessary to keep things out. Or in. The barriers were made up of everything imaginable. Fences. Cars. Trucks. Furniture. Even road signs and billboards.
There were vehicles everywhere, too. Overturned cars. Burned-out cars. Empty cars and cars with bodies in them. And just like the death that surrounded them at every turn, blood was everywhere, too, running down the walls, staining the roads and the sidewalks, collecting in the gutters.
Aside from those ever-present, grim reminders of mortality, the city was silent. There was no sound of traffic. No construction or machinery. There were rare human footfalls and even rarer human speech. Right now, there was an occasional clap of thunder from the storm that was building. Other than that, there was only silence. It was nothing at all like the city that Vayna remembered. The crumbling infrastructure had quickly collapsed in on itself. Not only was trash piled high along every street, there was also the nauseating smell of rot and decay and sewage everywhere. And permeating everywhere was the stench of unburied, rotting corpses.
Vayna felt almost sickened by sensory overload as she wondered how far away from the city they would have to be to get away from the smell. Or if that was even possible. It seemed they would carry the smell with them no matter how far away they got.
They had run into other groups of desperate people trying to get out of the city. People just like them who were trying to hide and keep a low profile. People who were hungry and exhausted. There were several ways in and out of the city, Ryland had told them as he had laid out their route last night. All of them were dangerous. Some were suicidal. Ryland thought he knew the best route. She could only trust that he was right.
Above all, they had to be careful because not only were the undead everywhere, Ryland had also warned them that with no law to stop the gangs and the criminal elements from doing whatever they wanted, or taking anything they wanted, they would have to be very, very careful. Since the gangs and the undead had taken over the city, violence in the streets had taken on a whole new meaning.
But Ryland agreed with his mother that getting out of the city was their best chance for survival and so far he had gotten them safely through. On their own, Vayna was pretty sure they wouldn’t have made it this far.
“Keep looking behind you,” Ryland had told them before they had even started out. “Look over your shoulder as much as you look in front of you. And don’t open any doors if you don’t know what’s on the inside.”
Closed doors imprisoned the undead, he had explained, who were now like starving animals that had been locked in cages for a long time. You didn’t want to let them out when you were their first food choice, when you looked like prime rib delivered right to their doorstep.
Vayna’s gaze was drawn upward to the night sky. Lightning illuminated the darkness like an angry, pulsing strobe light. The air was heavy with the feel of impending rain. If it did storm tonight, it would be the second night in a row. She turned to look at her husband, expecting him to grumble about the weather again. He had tried to talk them out of leaving tonight because he had said that it felt like a storm might be coming, but they had overridden that and voted against him. He hadn’t been happy about that. She didn’t like the idea of travelling in a storm, either. But there was no controlling the weather. Just like there wasn’t even any predicting it any more.
Behind her, she heard Arlend mutter some remark under his breath that she couldn’t quite catch. She knew that tone even if she couldn’t hear his words. Could he not, just for once, rein in his sarcasm? she thought to herself. Could he not, for once, stop complaining and blaming everyone around him for his hardships? Every thought he had, every word he spoke, was about his own needs, his own discomforts, his own inconveniences. If they were not bound together by Ryland . . .
. . . she would have left him a long time ago.
She shook her head, made herself ignore his disparaging attitude and tried to focus instead on what was important, getting safely out of the city. A city that was getting more frightening with every block they travelled.
Parts of the city were on fire and a thick pall of smoke hung over everything. Ryland said the fires had been burning for a long time and that it was a wonder the whole city hadn’t gone up in flames. Gas explosions were becoming more frequent, too. Last night’s rain had dampened the fires a little bit but had not put them out completely. Another rain might put some of the fires out. But if this storm blew over, any winds accompanying it might make the flames spread like wildfire and burn down even more of the city.
When they reached the courthouse, they paused, much like Lot’s wife had done, to look back at all that they were leaving behind. The red glow and the hovering layers of eerie smoke circling the dark spires of unlighted buildings made the city look like a virtual hell on earth. An occasional tongue of flame shot upward reminding them of how precarious their situation had been, and how lucky they were that they had made the decision to escape when they did. Not that Arlend would ever admit that. But somewhere inside, he had to know.
A block away from the courthouse, Ryland had them wait for him outside a house. He soon came back out of the darkness of the doorway. “Here, take these.”
He took four small oranges from his pocket and handed them to his parents. He also gave them one granola bar each. “Eat the granola bar and one of the oranges now,” he told them. “It’ll give you a little strength to keep going. Save the other orange for later.”
“What about you?” Vayna asked her son before she would even touch a bite of food.
“I already ate mine,” he said.
Arlend had already devoured his granola bar. He quickly peeled one of his oranges. After tossing the rinds away and downing the orange, he reluctantly put his remaining orange in his pocket.
“Where did you get these?” Vayna asked.
“A man in that building trades for food,” Ryland told her.
“What did you give him in return?” Vayna wanted to know.
“My gym shoes. You know, the green ones, the ones that never fit me right,” he added.
Arlend was not happy to hear that and he didn’t keep his thoughts to himself. “For some oranges and a couple of granola bars? I paid over a hundred bucks for those shoes.”
“We need food more than we need shoes,” Vayna told him sharply. “What good are a pair of gym shoes setting in the closet of a condo that might burn down any day?”
Arlend grumbled some sour reply under his breath.
The shoes were worthless now, Vayna thought to herself. Why couldn’t he see that? Anyway, Arlend had wanted those shoes, not Ryland.
&n
bsp; They quickly forgot about the shoes because there were more pressing issues. Ryland continued to lead them through the humid miasma of the hazy streets, maneuvering through yet another one of the business sections until they reached a maze of alleys and warehouses. As a new, far more pungent wave of rot drifted out from the brick warehouses before them, Vayna used her hand to cover her mouth and nose. The stench was so rancid and overpowering that she tried inhaling through her mouth to keep from smelling anything. Ryland came up behind her and, without saying a word, tied a cloth over the lower half of her face.
“See if that helps.”
Arlend looked over at them, but didn’t say a word. He couldn’t have said a word even if he’d wanted to. They’d had to do some running and a lot of fast walking and right now he needed a break. His lungs felt like they were on fire. Between the smoke and the stench surrounding him, it was hard to even draw a breath. He took the handkerchief that Ryland handed him and tied it around his own face, doubting that the flimsy material was going to help at all. Just like the shoes he was wearing. Ryland had made him wear sturdy shoes for running, but they hadn’t made any difference at all. His feet and his legs were already killing him.
They were now effectively cut off from their condo, which meant there was no going back now. It had been an exhausting, harrowing experience just getting this far, and they still had a long way to go. Trying to find their way in the darkness, not knowing what lay ahead of them or anywhere else for that matter wasn’t improving his mood any. He blamed Vayna for all this. He shouldn’t have listened to her. He shouldn’t have come along with her, and he especially shouldn’t have allowed Ryland to go with her, but it was too late to change any of that now.
In the beginning, when they had first set out, he had seen how difficult things were going to be. He had wavered back and forth over going back to the condo before they’d gone two blocks. Since this had been her brilliant idea to leave in the first place, the further they went the more willing he was to let her take all the risks. He had not believed the rumors of the dead coming back to life. He had not, in fact, seen a single thing that could even remotely be called a zombie. Ryland had made some vague illusions about things in the distance, but just as he had expected all along, the stories about zombies were all exaggerated, maybe made up entirely. All he had seen were other people just like them fleeing the city. They were like rats deserting a sinking ship, the panicked, stupid ones. And here he was among them.
His near-empty stomach rumbled. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t eat the second orange. At this point, he could have eaten a whole bag of them, he was that desperate for food. Who knew when they would find something else to eat?
Lightning pulsed in the black sky. Thunder sounded like monster pins being knocked down in a giant bowling alley.
To top everything off, they now had a storm to contend with. He would bet they were probably going to end up getting drenched because Ryland wasn’t going to let them open any doors and get out of the rain. But worse than all of that, he needed a smoke. He had made his cigarettes last as long as he could. He only had three hidden packs left and he was already wondering if he could find a place to actually buy cigarettes. If the money he had on him was even worth anything, if cigarettes were anywhere to be found. And if she didn’t get them all killed first. Along with the petulant flow of his thoughts, came a bitter twist of his lips as he thought more about it. About her and her brilliant ideas.
Vayna glanced to the side and saw, in the vivid flashes of lightning, the familiar snarl on her husband’s lips. It was a surreal moment as she saw the stark image of the man he really was. The greying stubble of beard made his chin recede even more. The thinning hair on top of his head was now greasy and unkempt. In spite of the starvation, his thickening waistline was still in evidence and the ever-present scowl - the one that was usually directed at her - all those things were suddenly repulsive to her.
But it was the man underneath that sickened her more.
All the years that she had wasted on him seemed almost tragic to her now. She realized only too well that it was too late for her to find love, or to even think about having a caring partner at her side. She was on her own, as she had been for a very long time, and she knew that she would stay that way until her dying day.
But survival was her focus now, not romance. For protection, she was carrying a baseball bat. So was Ryland. A gun would have been better, but Arlend didn’t believe in guns. He said they were too dangerous to have around. She wondered if he still felt the same way. Arlend, himself, was carrying an umbrella. Of course he was. He had never taken the idea of zombies, or defending himself or any one of them, seriously. She, herself, hadn’t actually seen any zombies out there yet, but if Ryland said they were out there, she believed him.
They reached the end of an alley where Ryland opened a gate. It was accompanied by a long, shrill screech of rusted metal. The gate shrieked once more as he closed it again.
As they stood now on the other side of the gate, Arlend asked, “Can we stop here for a while? I need a cigarette.”
“Not yet,” Ryland told him.
“When?” Arlend wanted to know. He got extremely irritable when he couldn’t have a cigarette.
“I’m not sure,” Ryland said. “Just not now.”
Arlend gave his wife an accusing look and said in a low voice, “This is all your doing, you know. It was your idea to come out here. And now look at us.”
“We were on the verge of dying back there,” she reminded him.
“And this is easier?”
“Easier than starving to death,” she shot back.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he returned sarcastically. “We could have searched our area better. I’m sure we would have found food and water somewhere. Look how easy it was for Ryland to find those oranges.”
“You have to be quiet,” Ryland admonished his father.
“Why? Because the zombies are going to get me?” Arlend scoffed mockingly. He even threw his arms up in an imitation of a monster. “So where are all these zombies?” he wanted to know. “I haven’t seen anything yet.”
“Just be glad you haven’t,” Ryland said under his breath. “Let’s go,” he said and they started out once again.
Not fifteen minutes later, Arlend was crouching behind a metal garbage can in an alleyway. His eyes were shifting back and forth wildly while he clutched his umbrella in both hands. He was doing all he could to try and make himself as small as possible. He had finally seen one of the undead, although it still had only been from a distance. But he had heard more than one of them out there howling and it had been enough to make a believer out of him. He now regretted that he only had an umbrella for a weapon. He definitely didn’t want to have to come close enough to one of those things to have to use it.
The stench from the garbage can was horrible. He was worried that he might have gotten some of the smell on him when he heard Ryland whisper, “Through here. Hurry.”
Ryland opened another gate, one that was badly damaged and hanging crookedly on its hinges. As they hurried through it, they did what Ryland had told them to do. They looked behind them and saw several dark silhouettes coming towards the gate, heading straight for them. It wasn’t going to take them long to find their way to that broken gate. And once they did, there was no way the gate was going to be able to hold them.
“See that open window up there?” Ryland said, pointing to the one he meant. “Climb. Now.”
There were enough boxes and other debris piled under the window for them to climb easily. Vayna made it safely through the window. Arlend was right behind her.
When she looked back, she saw that Ryland was still on the ground. He needed to hurry, she thought, terrified for him. Her heart was still in her throat as he finally pulled himself up through the window. He kicked the top of the boxes over so nothing could follow them.
That was when Vayna had her first close-up look at a zombie. There were four
of them down below them and they were absolutely terrifying in the strobe-like flashes of lightning. With their ravaged, corpselike faces turned upward and their grey arms reaching, they were more frightening than anything she could have imagined.
The building they ended up in was black as soot. At first, she couldn’t see a thing. The darkness was disorienting, too. Ryland had to help her down from the metal platform they were standing on. She heard Arlend clumsily following after her, muttering complaints all the way down.
As they stood in the darkness, trying to make out their surroundings in the black void around them, she heard a voice say, “Where do you think you’re going?”
EMMA HAD NEVER BEEN SO SCARED IN HER LIFE.
It had all happened too fast. It was too dark, too surreal with the lightning flashes lighting the room and the rolling peals of thunder crashing constantly.
Because there was a knife against her throat, she stayed frozen. But the instant the pressure of the knife fell away, she didn’t waste a moment trying to save herself. She knew her only chance was to take whoever it was by surprise. By now, she knew her attacker was a man. Zombies didn’t carry knives.
As she struggled to keep her balance, she kicked hard at the shins behind her, hoping to do enough damage to catch the man off guard.
His sharp, indrawn gasp told her that she had succeeded at least in causing him some pain. As his grip loosened, she swung around and threw a punch, one that landed where she wanted it to, against the side of his jaw.
He jerked back with a grunt of surprise. Staying on the offensive, she tried to bring her knee up where it would do the most damage. She aimed for the man’s groin, a strike that he deftly managed to dodge.