by Brown, TW
He sighted on the closest one—a teen boy with a face that used to contain what Kevin had to guess were several piercings, but now he was an absolute mess. His bolt went in under the chin and jutted up from the top of its head. It toppled, knocking the other two over in the process.
Scrambling up, Kevin pulled another bolt free from the holder mounted on the crossbow and stepped close, driving it into the milky eye socket of the lone zombie that remained on its feet. There was a sick popping sound. He yanked it back and was able to do the same to the other two who were a lot like turtles flipped onto their backs as they struggled in vain to regain their feet.
With that done, he did a full walk around to ensure that no other surprises were waiting for them. Once he was certain that it was clear, he called Valarie out. It took them another twenty minutes to get moving as the girl came out and promptly announced that she had to go to the bathroom. He had her go back into their cave seeing as how they wouldn’t be using it any more.
Eventually, they were on the road again. Kevin angled them towards the very first lone residence that he spotted sitting all by itself surrounded by acres and acres of snow-covered land. His hopes that a farming residence might have some good food stored up proved partially correct. There was a pantry where the occupants had obviously canned shelves full of all sorts of things. Sadly, the frigid temperatures had cause all but two of the jars to burst.
Once they were certain that the house was empty, he and Valarie sat down to frozen pickled okra. Valarie surprised Kevin by not arguing or complaining about the less-than-desirable makings of their meal. He knew from certain times involving his sister that, if she didn’t like or want something, there was no force under the sun that could get her to comply.
They went through the rest of the house and found a few things, but nothing topped a dresser full of clothes. They were a bit musty, but they were considerably cleaner than what either of them was wearing. They managed to scrounge up a few complete changes. And while none of it was a perfect fit, it felt nice to be out of the soggy stuff they had been wearing. It was only a slight concern, but Kevin noticed a severe amount of discoloration in his feet. Frostbite was obviously setting up camp.
Once they had both changed, Kevin brought Valarie up to the top floor of the farmhouse. He stationed her at a window that looked out across the open fields of white towards the highway.
“I want you to keep looking out for anything moving. I don’t want you to yell, though. We need to be very quiet,” he said. She smiled big and nodded in agreement. “I will be downstairs for a bit getting our stuff ready. When I have everything set, we will go. But I will be busy, so I need you to watch for anything at all. Okay?”
“Okay,” Valarie agreed and turned to start her vigil.
Kevin headed downstairs and set out everything they had and everything they had found. He had an axe, his machete, his crossbow, and an old curved blade that was rusty but seemed pretty sturdy. They had three changes of clothes, two North Face sleeping bags that smelled like cat piss but had sub-zero ratings, a collapsible shovel, some Ambien and the few assorted meds for Valarie that had been with Shari, and one box of Minute Rice. (Finding the sleeping bags had convinced him that it was okay to ditch the comforter and blanket.)
Kevin checked the weapons and made sure that everything was clean and in good working order. He was not fortunate enough to find a backpack, but from what he was seeing, whoever had lived here had taken the camping gear. They had probably left the sleeping bags because of the stench. They either had newer ones or had some crazy notion that they would easily replace the ones they left behind.
Once he had everything ready, he slipped out the back door and went to the barn. Time and the fact that everything was frozen did a great job in knocking down the stench from the three cows, two goats, and one horse that had died inside the wooden structure. Of all the animals, it was the horse that creeped him out a bit. Its tongue was sticking out of its mouth and its glassy, dead eyes had that look of fear on them that made its face extra frightening.
He went through the building methodically in search of anything that they might be able to use. It proved to be a bust. What the original residents had not taken, it was likely that looters had done so long ago. When he was done, he headed back inside to fetch Valarie.
When he got to the top floor, he could hear soft murmuring. He peeked into the room that he’d left her in to watch. She was seated on the floor with what looked like a pair of handmade dolls.
“…and we can sing together every day,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
“But do I have to go to forever sleep, or can I just visit?” she said in her own voice.
“You can only be with me sometimes if you don’t go to forever sleep.” Valarie moved the ‘Shari’ doll back and forth to indicate that she was speaking.
“But how do I go to forever sleep?”
Kevin held his breath. He wasn’t sure what he expected. If she gave some sort of complex answer, he was going to freak out. His mind raced through the plethora of books he had read that crossed the typical zombie story with some sort of supernatural flavor stirred in. This was done with varying degrees of success. Some had really been good reads, but others had bordered on silly.
“You close your eyes and don’t ever open them again,” Valarie said in her Shari voice.
Kevin actually felt his body relax a bit. The last thing he needed was to for some spirit guide to manifest and turn this entire situation into something absurd. That thought actually made him have to stifle a chuckle.
Here he was in the middle of Ohio (he was pretty sure they were still in Ohio) searching an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of winter. Currently, his only companion was an African-American girl with Down’s syndrome. She was dredging up all of his feelings of guilt about how he had basically abandoned his little sister and mother. Meanwhile, he was searching for the rest of his group which consisted of perhaps one of the most beautiful women in the world who just happened to have the ‘hots’ for him, a former cheerleader who was immune to the zombie bite, a guy that they had rescued and that he had personally carried on his back to their hideout, and the teen sister of what had been one of the biggest pop stars prior to the apocalypse who he had recently put a crossbow bolt through the forehead of at her request. To make it more comical (at least he was currently seeing it as humorous), that group was on the way to try and meet up with an all-female militia who just happened to supposedly have the former president’s daughter in their group.
When he looked at it all in the condensed form, it seemed kind of far-fetched. Toss in the fact that they were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and it went right to absurd. He had spent so much time telling everybody that things weren’t like the movies, yet he kept thinking that each obstacle might be the last. He and his group would find their Utopia and be able to rest. All of his plans and hard work would bring them to safety.
He was as guilty as the others of fanciful thinking. The reality was that they would have to fight and scratch to survive each and every day for the rest of their lives. The thing about the movies was that they all came to an end. This was forever. He couldn’t just walk out into the lobby and leave it behind…there was no reset button like in his favorite video games if the level became too hard or he made a bad decision. This was it.
Kevin shook his head and blinked his eyes. He had drifted off on his train of thought. At some point, Valarie had simply stopped talking. She was now curled up tight on the floor clutching the dolls to her chest and rocking back and forth.
He stepped into the room and whispered her name. He wasn’t sure if she was aware he stood there or not and didn’t want to frighten her. She continued on, oblivious of his presence. At least it seemed that way.
He knelt beside her and put a hand very gently on her shoulder. He spoke her name again, this time just a bit louder. She made no response that indicated she realized that he was there and continued to rock back and
forth.
“C’mon, Valarie,” Kevin urged. “I need you to get up now. We need to start walking.”
Out of the blue, she began to sing at the top of her lungs. He recognized it as one of Shari’s songs, but in all honesty, he had never paid any attention to the girl’s music. As guilty as he felt about her death, it was more out of the simple fact that he doubted that he would ever be comfortable with taking another human life. However, the reality was that they had never actually gotten very close.
“Valarie,” he said with just a bit more force.
“I don’t want to walk anymore,” Valarie sang at the top of her lungs. “I just want to sleep…sleep like grandma and Shari.”
Kevin put hands on each of the girl’s shoulders and eased her up until they were face-to-face. He took a deep breath and let the agitation that was trying to rear up settle down just a bit.
“We have to walk now,” Kevin said. “We are going to look for the others. Shari’s little sister Erin is with them, don’t you need to watch over her? Didn’t you say you would for Shari?”
He didn’t really know what the two had said or agreed upon, but it was the best ploy that he could think of that might get her up and moving. It did not appear to make a dent as Valarie continued to rock back and forth, singing one of Shari’s songs at the top of her lungs.
A voice in the back of his head started to try and compete with the singing. That is why you left her. Despite how much you loved your sister, you knew that she would be a danger to everybody around her.
“No,” Kevin whispered. Now he was shaking his head back and forth.
***
“She is what we consider high-functioning,” the man in the shirt and tie said from behind the desk.
Kevin sat beside his mother in the stuffy office, walls littered with diplomas and certificates that were supposed to impress or comfort. They did neither for Kevin.
“And what determines that?” Kevin asked as Sara stood between his knees chewing on the nose of her stuffed Big Bird.
“Well, we have put her through a battery of tests—” Dr. Seymour Huffings started, but Kevin cut him off.
“Non-standardized tests if what I read is accurate.” He glanced down at his sister and flashed her a wink and a smile. She blinked both eyes in response and her grin grew around the slobber-soaked beak that was starting to wilt. “You can say what you like, but those words really don’t mean a thing do they? There is no actual medical benchmark that you use to make that determination. So you think that if you toss around a phrase that you think is complimentary, then we will just enroll her in this study because we are so lucky to have a high-functioning child. The fact is that she has trisomy twenty-one…Down’s Syndrome. She is prone to irrational mood swings and tantrums. But because she can put the right blocks in the right slot on some board, we will let you take her and try out some new drug?”
Kevin stood up and scooped his sister into his arms. “We’re leaving, Mom.”
She followed him all the way down the hall scolding him for being so rude, and how that poor man was just trying to help. Kevin let her get it out of her system. He kept his mouth shut until they reached the car and he had Sara strapped in to her car seat and shut the door.
“I told you that she was going to have problems that you were not ready to deal with.” Kevin spun on his mother and looked down into her creased, angry face. “You had it easy with me. You and Dad didn’t even have to hardly be parents. I never needed help with homework, and by the time I hit my freshman year, you wouldn’t have been able to help me anyways.”
“That’s not fair, Kevin,” Sharon Dreon argued. “Your dad and I made sure that you were able to flourish. We enrolled you in everything you asked for…sent you to all those camps during the summer.”
“You started sending me to those when I was six…I never asked for them,” Kevin countered. “You shuttled me out of the house every chance you got.”
“You’re changing this to make the situation suit you…you always do this, Kevin.”
“And you are avoiding the fact that you are trying to shove the responsibility for taking care of Sara on anybody you can,” Kevin countered. “I warned you when those tests came back that this child would be more than you can handle.”
“And your answer was for me to abort it? Who are you to make that choice for anybody?” Now Sharon Dreon was really angry. Her face was flushing a bright red and she had her fists clenched.
“My answer was that you should have never let this happen in the first place.”
“Why don’t you just get in the car and tell your sister that she isn’t wanted?”
Kevin glanced in the window at his little sister. They had built a bond unlike anything that he ever imagined, but there was still that very small voice that would pop up from time to time—usually whenever he was at home for extended periods. He always enjoyed the time that he spent with his sister, but he had a tendency to vanish whenever she went into “one of her moods” as his mother referred to them.
Sara was currently engaged in a very animated conversation with Big Bird. She seemed oblivious to the drama taking place just a couple of feet away. Still, she appeared to sense that eyes were on her and she turned to look out the window. Her eyes lit up and became visibly brighter as soon as she made eye contact with her big brother. His heart melted.
“You know better than that.” Kevin gave a little wave and tried to keep his serious tone while the smile stayed plastered on his face. “But these drug companies are getting out of hand…you really want to let them pump her full of crap that they have no idea what side-effects may crop up?”
His mother stood silent for a few seconds too long in Kevin’s opinion before reluctantly shaking her head. They got in the car and drove home in silence. A few days later, when Kevin returned to school, his mother had returned to Dr. Huffings’ office and signed the papers to admit Sara into the study. Kevin didn’t find out for almost five weeks when he called one day and had the urge to just say hello to Sara.
***
Snapping himself out of it, Kevin took Valarie by the hand and urged her to her feet. She continued to stare up at the ceiling and sing at the top of her lungs. That is why Kevin didn’t hear the zombie clawing its way up the stairs.
“I don’t wanna walk in the snow anymore!” Valarie sang over and over.
The clatter of his crossbow toppling where it had been propped against the wall in the hallway alerted him to the approaching zombie. It was missing everything below the waist and its clothing had long since rotted or torn away. A knife jutted from its back and looked to be welded to the body.
Kevin drew his machete and stepped forward. The thing rolled its head up at him and hissed. Long blonde hair matted with filth covered one milky eye completely, and a sickly condensation gave the entire thing a vile sheen. Just as he stepped in to put this thing down for good, Valarie shrieked.
“Don’t hurt my mama!”
The girl shoved past him and dropped to her knees beside the pitiful creature. Her arms wrapped around its neck, and for just a moment, Kevin was certain that the girl was going to have a chunk taken out of her. He was amazed at how deftly she maneuvered to put the creature in what, on a living person, would be a hell of a choke hold. But once her grip was secure, there was no way for it to get into position to bite her. Not that it didn’t try.
“Valarie,” he whispered, kneeling but still keeping his distance, “that isn’t your mama.”
“It is!” she insisted, rocking the zombie in her arms while it continued to hiss and flail.
The sounds of moans carried to his ears. Getting up, but still keeping one eye on the zombie, he moved to the window. Coming across the field, slowly but steadily, were a few dozen dark shapes. Valarie’s carrying on had brought them, and now it was up to him to get them out of here.
Part of his mind raced as he tried to figure a way out, the other part scolded him for not at least giving her some of her medicat
ion. After all, that had been his purpose for making that trip in the first place…the trip that had eventually led to this situation. Had he been with the others when Major Beers and her soldiers had arrived—
Nothing would have ended up any different…and in fact, you might very well be dead, a voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like Willa scolded.
“We need to go find Erin,” Kevin blurted.
Valarie looked up from where she sat. She had started to sing to the zombie and rock it back and forth while resting her chin on top of its head. Like a child being shown a new or better toy, she shoved the zombie away and lunged to her feet.
The zombie reached out with one hand, the skin worn away in spots to show gray bone underneath. It swiped for the girl’s leg as she rushed to Kevin with a look of expectancy on her face.
“Will Shari be there?” she asked as the zombie clutched her booted foot.
Kevin was about to step in and put the thing down when Valarie lifted her free foot and brought it down with a crunch on the offending appendage. With a few more stomps and a kick, she sent the zombie crashing into a nearby dresser.
“Maybe,” Kevin lied. He felt just a slight tug at his conscience, but he felt that the situation more than warranted what he considered a very minor ‘white’ lie.
Grabbing their things, Kevin led the way downstairs. When he reached the front door and looked outside, he was relieved to see that none of the approaching undead were having much luck with the snow as they trudged mindlessly forward. He quickly spied the trail of the creeping zombie that had made it upstairs. It had come out from under the porch. He filed that little bit of info away and would process it later.
They headed around back. The way was clearer, but not completely an open shot. He could make out dark figures that stood out against the all-white background. He and Valarie plunged forward, and it was all he could do to keep their pace reasonable. He had a difficult time not simply running for all he was worth. After all, all those “dark figures” moving slowly through the snow were zombies. They never rested, never slept…they simply continued forward in pursuit of whatever had their attention for the moment; and right now, it was him and Valarie.