The October Light of August

by Robert John Jenson

  I suppose a whole troop of them could have entered and formed a conga line and then left while I slept, as quiet as they usually were. There were only a couple that seemed too confused to leave the way they had entered. I was able to coax one out by shooting a screw with the wrist-rocket towards the twisted opening. The other was just too stupid to figure out how to leave apparently, like a bee in a wasp trap, so I slipped down and took care of it. I dragged it outside and into the backyard of another house down the street where I had deposited the former occupant of the loft.

  He hadn't seemed to decompose much yet – it was kind of weird what happened to their bodies. I had noticed some bodies would bloat and burst and do what came naturally to a corpse, some just seemed to kind of mummify. The longer you were a zombie, the more likely you were to become beef jerky, maybe? How the hell long had the guy been up in the loft then? Was his dropping in on me an act of desperation? Could the dead get desperate? That was something to ponder...

  I had also begun to notice how the crows were attracted to the dead. Nothing else seemed to feed from them – cats and dogs might sniff at them, but would back away and leave them be. Crows didn't appear too selective in what they would eat, but it seemed to depend on how the corpse was decaying. The ones that seemed to decompose naturally they would go for the standard bits you always hear of them pecking at. The advanced, jerky-like corpses they would go for the eyes and nose, but not much else. I had heard that the flesh was poisonous to animals, but the crows didn't seem to have a problem.

  I had become a bit paranoid about crashing in the space one of the dead had occupied for what seemed to be a substantial amount of time. I ventured into the house that the garage belonged to and found some sanitary wipes and used them to scrub at the surfaces of the loft. I couldn't find any real signs of gore or goo or whatever the hell one of the dead might leave behind – far as I knew they didn't excrete anything. I only found a small spot of a bloodstain soaked into the floor of the loft (that I henceforth decided was off limits to me even after scrubbing the hell out of it) and a short message scrawled on one of the support beams:

  Overnight she turned and was dead,

  no kissing - she bit me instead!

  Ain't life a motherfucking bitch?

  Not exactly Keats, I supposed. But it gave me a good idea what had happened. I tended not to rummage the corpses of the dead – to try and find out who they were before they had been infected. I wasn't incurious or pitiless as to who they once were, it's just that it was easier not knowing. Anyone who has lived this long must know what I mean – it doesn't help thinking about how this carnivorous monster had lived its life back in the day. If I allowed myself to try and memorialize all of the dead that I dispatched I would go insane. And I was through with digging graves. So I dragged away bodies to rot (or not) and got on with surviving. I think it's safe to say I didn't hate the dead, they were just something else to endure. I'm not sure I can say the same about the living, though.

  It was early in September, cooler than it had been, and I was staring at the rafters over my head when I felt a low tremor and heard a distant boom. I was taken back to the time when I was eight years old and at day care when the B-52 crashed out at the Air Force Base. While that had been over ten miles away we had felt and heard the explosion.

  I sat up and listened, and soon heard more booms – like hearing the Fourth of July fireworks down at the park as the explosions rolled up the hill to the north side. These booms weren't nearly as frequent as a fireworks celebration, but often enough to know that some sort of battle was going on.

  The mayhem had lessened considerably the last few days, and it was rare to hear the sound of a motor or the incoherent yelling of a yokel. I can't imagine much gas was left in town after the mass exodus months before, and supplies had to be running low for the warriors and merrymakers. I fervently hoped that they were killing each other off.

  I stood and wandered over to the edge of the loft and stared at the afternoon sunlight spilling through the mangled garage door. I would be taking a massive risk, I thought. The dead would be on the move in that direction for sure – well, maybe not. Who knew if they could tell what direction the explosions were coming from? The way the booms echoed and rumbled around it might confuse them. Still, it will agitate them enough to migrate, I thought.

  As I ruminated over what to do, I found myself preparing a smaller backpack than my usual one with supplies and lowered my spear down to the concrete floor with weed-whacker line. I often would begin to plan and prepare even while I knew I wouldn't go through with something. This time, I surprised myself and climbed down the rope to the floor. I threw the end of the rope up and onto the loft where it formed a loop I could snag with my spear. If any live folks came rummaging around, maybe it wouldn't get as much attention that way.

  I ran streets through my head. I still intended to avoid Division, but I felt I could make it by alleyway down to...Glass, was it? That street ran along a bluff that overlooked the city. Sure, downtown was several miles away - but I might be able to see something. I had traveled as far as Garland Avenue one night, and I suspected the alleys began to run east-west after that. Still, it seemed possible to make it with minimal risk. And as I ducked through the garage door opening, it had become inevitable I was going to do it.

  I felt naked and exposed in the daylight, wishing I had some sunglasses. I made a mental note to check my mom's house. The sun had moved south since the last time I'd been paying attention, and the light had a dimmer intensity to it. I had a co-worker who had grown up in Southern California and called it the October light of August. He'd been up here for close to twenty years, and for five of those years that I knew him, he had to announce that it still felt like it should be autumn in the late summer. On the given day each year that he had noticed this phenomena, he would march in to work and intone, “The October light of August is amongst us! To mess with my internal clock, making me pine for the days of my youth!” You really wanted to kick the pompous ass in his balls, all the way back to California. I never related to him on his feeling – August light was normal to me, but I now understood his disorientation. The light quality looked like a partial solar eclipse, and it just felt wrong. Or maybe I was just on edge more than usual.

  I crossed several streets before I saw my first dead person, one block over. Surprise, surprise – he was heading south toward the sounds of mayhem. I darted across the street and into a brush-filled alley before he could see me. I moved slowly but steadily through the weeds, and about half way down I flushed a cat out. It bounded away and shot out of the alley and ducked under a parked car. A malnourished Golden Retriever rushed up to the car barking furiously, and the cat drew back further under the car, near the curb.

  Aw, damn it, I thought. That was sure to draw at least the one dead guy over. I wanted to cross the street and forge ahead into the next alley, but the dog seemed oblivious to anything else but the cat. I plucked my slingshot out of my pack and picked up a small rock and shot it at the dog just hard enough to sting it in the rump. The dog yelped and turned, its tail curling under. He spotted me and began to slink away with misery in his eyes. I didn't think my heart had much left to break off, but tears welled up in my eyes at the frightened, confused and betrayed look the dog had.

  I hadn't thought much about man's best friend and how the pandemic had affected him. We had bred them for thousands and thousands of years to live with us and warn us, and now they were more than likely a liability in times where silence was truly golden. How long would it be before they learned to shun us and not bark? Or would they die out? I hadn't had a dog of my own since I was eighteen or so – a rusty colored Cocker Spaniel that I had to have put down when he got cancer. I hadn't been able to bear the idea of having another dog again, and yet I couldn't imagine a world without dogs.

  The dog ended up trotting away to the east, and I quickly moved into another alley. I never heard the cat make a peep.

  I got lucky and
all other alleys I followed were paved. I didn't seem to be pursued by the dead guy I had spotted, and soon I finally made it down to Garland Avenue. One of my favorite little streets filled with book stores, art galleries, diners, bars and of course the theater. The street looked disheveled and lost, weeds choking the gutters, shop windows smashed and a truck tipped over on its side near a music store. Looking west on Monroe I could see several dead moving south. Were they still so used to the main arterials, I wondered? Perhaps because it was wider and less apt to have many obstacles. The dead were like water, I mused, looking for the path of least resistance.

  As if being punished for being too contemplative in this no-nonsense world, a dead woman rounded the corner of a dry cleaners and began to make a beeline towards me. As soon as I was finished with her, another of the dead emerged from a parking lot across the street and limped towards me with a speed I hadn't seen before. Jesus Christ, had this guy been a sprinter before he got infected? His pace was little more than a brisk walk, and I began to wonder if he wasn't truly dead. His dark lips pulled back and a low moan welled up and pushed past his teeth, which began to gnash as he worked his jaw. As far as I was concerned, that was zombie credentials for sure and I let him get within two yards before I danced aside to move behind him. The plan was to slice a tendon above his running shoes, but the bastard could turn quickly as well. I could see at least five more dead moving in from the east, and for the first time I wasn't sure I could dispatch a dead guy before others closed in.

  So I bolted. I had never ran full speed while out and about – I was ever careful of watching where I was going, but I shot down Post Street as fast as I could go. The way looked clear, and my head swiveled at each side street but I didn't really have a chance for a full inspection of my surroundings. When I realized I was running downhill I also realized I had ran past the side street that took you over to Glass, so I made the decision to go off-roading and darted into the brush that grew in the embankment along Post Street. I finally slowed, stopping in a small cluster of pine trees to catch my breath. I could see no dead behind me yet, so I crept with deliberate steps through the weeds and grass up to Glass Avenue. I came out near the bend in the road and stepped over the guardrail that bordered the street and looked around cautiously. It seemed clear, but I had discovered that could change in a hurry. I walked along the sidewalk on Glass, heading west, until a small boom from the south and some quick pop-pop-pops reminded me why I had come down here in the first place.

  At first glance, it only looked like a normal, hazy summer day. But off to the west a smear of dust and smoke seemed to hang in the air where I judged the Monroe Street Bridge to be. A column of smoke rose somewhere downtown, and back farther to the east another one – bigger and darker and oily, about where I supposed Division crossed the river. It was a little disappointing, really. I guess I hadn't expected to see rocket's red glare stuff or anything – I knew I would be too far away to see anything clearly. Still, explosions with debris hurtling into the air would have been nice after the effort I had made to watch the show.

  After looking around to see if any dead were there to observe me – there were none that I could see - I stepped off the sidewalk and into the brush and eased down the south-facing embankment. It was very steep, and I had to be careful I didn't take a dive. When I felt I couldn't be easily seen from above, I sat in the brush and rested. I felt a little dizzy – I don't think I had a problem with vertigo. I probably just needed calories after running so far, and to hydrate. I munched on a candy bar and drank some water, and wondered how long I could get by on crap like that. I would have to find some vitamin supplements at least, and try to figure out something for a better diet. I had no clue how to hunt, skin, dress, or cook anything. I supposed I could go to a library and see what I could find on that, but so far didn't have the inclination to do so.

  “You get hungry enough, you will,” Jackie's voice drawled in my head. I pushed the thought aside.

  As the sun lowered and shadows grew longer, the timing of the battle slowed. A few distant gunfire reports, but hardly any explosions. The tower of dark smoke near Division Street still stretched up, but could have been less potent by then. The smudge of haze at the Monroe Street Bridge more or less blended in with the atmosphere. I wished I had some binoculars – another thing to hunt for. Immediately below me was an apartment complex, and then residential neighborhoods filled with dusty trees stretched as far as I could see from my perspective. I decided that I had sat still for too long and was about to get up when I heard the pop of a gunshot, only much closer than before. And then, faintly, someone calling out.

  I immediately fell onto my side, and hopefully out of sight. The brush blocked my view of the world, and I even shut my eyes momentarily. I guess I reverted to a childlike state – I can't see you so you can't see me! Random gunshots broke the silence, and the voice grew louder.

  “Tim!” I could finally make out. “God damn it - we have to go back! Tim!”

  Two gunshots, silence, and then, “Tim!” Huh. It seemed Tim was having none of it. I certainly wished Tim would go back. Just turn around buddy, I thought.

  “Tiiiiimmm!” screeched the voice again. I was reminded of a couple in my old apartment complex that felt the need to entertain the rest of us roughly once a month. Usually out in the parking lot around two in the morning. I was never sure if her name was 'Amber' or 'Goddamnfuckingbitch!' but I was pretty sure he was just called 'Asshole'. The voice below me now had the same pleading tone of Asshole's, alternating with indignant outrage.

  “Tim! God damn it bro – I fucking vouched for you!” Closer still. Probably down on Post in front of the apartments.

  “Tim! Don't – what are you doing? Don't fucking go up there – you might be seen on the hill!”

  My ears pricked up at this. Hopefully, he just meant on Post Street. I could hear no feet tramping through the brush, and could see no reason for it. Still, I whispered a mantra into the dirt and weeds: “Just go away and quit yelling. Just go away and quit yelling. Just go away and quit shooting...”

  “Tiiiiimmm! I fucking vouched for you!”

  “FUCK. OFF. EDDIE!” a new voice roared. Ah. Apparently Tim was fed up.

  Eddie was silent, and then several gunshots barked their way across the hill to me.

  “Dude,” Eddie offered finally. “You can't just up and...desert like that! We have to -”

  “What in the fuck do you think is happening down there, dipshit?” snapped Tim.

  I could hear them clearly now, and I carefully raised up on an elbow to peer over the weeds. Between the apartment complex and the edge of the hill, I could see them in the middle of the street out on Post. Both were dressed casually for battle – Tim may have had on a Kevlar vest, but Eddie was just t-shirt, pants, boots with a rifle across his back and a pistol in his fist. Both were as shaggy and as unkempt as everyone else was, and I could tell both were bone tired. Tim was higher than Eddie on the hill, but I judged he was a head taller than him anyway.

  “Tim,” Eddie pleaded. “They will kill us if they think we...you saw what Zack -”

  “It. Is. All. BULLSHIT!” screamed Tim, and he leaned into Eddie, jabbing his pistol towards him. “We will never get across there, and between the dead-heads and the cocksuckers across the river it is a lost fucking cause! It,” he jabbed the gun into Eddie's chest, “Is all,” jab, “Bullshit.” Jab.

  “Dude,” Eddie pleaded, “If we get caught they'll make us take the ride...”

  Tim stared at the smaller man is if amazed that anyone could be so clueless and dense. “There ain't gonna be no fucking ride no more!” he bellowed. “It's all over, and I am done!”

  Eddie took a step back. “But...I told 'em you were cool. I fucking vouched -”

  “What do you not get, Eddie?” yelled Tim. “The world is fucked and it don't matter where we go in it. I'm going home, and you and your circle-jerk buddies playing army-men can FUCK THE HELL OFF!”

  Eddie stepp
ed back again, staring sullenly at Tim. I thought I saw his eyes widen a fraction, and he raised his pistol. But Tim shot first, and Eddie wore a betrayed expression before he dropped to the pavement.

  “You think you can draw down on me?” screamed Tim, veins standing out in his neck, and he emptied his clip into Eddie, whose body shook and twitched under the barrage.

  Holy shit, I thought. Nothing crashes harder than a failed bromance...

  “You think you can draw down on me, muthafucka?” he yelled again. “How's that? How you like that? Here's me vouching for you, shit-bag.” He began kicking and stomping Eddie's head. “You like that? You like that kind of vouching, you piece of shit?”

  Tim became absorbed in the task of smashing Eddie's head into pulp. Too bad he didn't see the sprinter stumbling down the hill right into him. The nimble dead man grabbed tightly onto Tim, and his teeth ripped a sizable chunk of flesh out of the deserter's arm just above his elbow. I stood up, leaning against my spear for support.

  Well this has taken an interesting turn, I thought.

  “Aw, shit!” screamed Tim, and managed to throw the sprinter to the ground, who then sank his teeth into his calf. Tim flailed away at the head of the dead guy with his empty gun. The sprinter's head just seemed to absorb the abuse, and Tim screamed in outrage as blood welled up through the denim around the dead guy's mouth.

  “This is BULLSHIT!” he screeched, then his knees buckled and he went down. The warrior and dead man thrashed on the pavement, and as Tim drew back an arm to put some energy into a punch, another of the dead came into view and grabbed his wrist, wasting no time as he helped himself to a bit of Tim's forearm.

  “This is bullshit! This is bullshit! This is bullshit! This is bullshit,” Tim screamed as he was eaten alive.