Jesus, where had she been? I wondered again. Who let you down, Pink? Who screwed up and let you turn into one of the dead? Or were you trapped somewhere, and recently escaped out into the world? I shook my head – she looked in too good of shape to have been dead for very long.
I began to back up, unmindful of what was behind me. Tears began to blur and ruin my vision and I cuffed them away, smacking my nose with the handle of the hammer. I turned, and ran back the way I had came. I shot around the corner of the sporting goods store, then the front, and back across the front parking lot to home.
As I hit the sixth floor, I just dropped everything and sat on the floor of the dental office. I squinted in the glare of the sun, and rocked myself in spastic little jerks. I knew I should take Pink out, yet could not in any way see how that was going to happen. I felt weak and impotent, like I was letting her down. She had crashed back into my life like a comet. She was someone I had not thought of in a long time – Jackie had over-written any feelings of attraction, I supposed. Pink's abrupt return to my life threw me into a chaos of emotions I could not grasp.
I could not sleep at all that day, feeling lethargic and drained until I dropped in exhaustion that evening, very lucky I was left undisturbed. Dreaming, there were mixtures of a young dead woman working out at the gym, singing along to her I-Pod, and of Jackie ordering me to not let her turn into one of the dead. Dying, she turned into my mom and sat up, letting me know she couldn’t eat me because I hadn't given her grand-babies yet. That nice dead girl at the gym would do, wouldn’t she?
I awoke in the dark, cold and hungry, and dug some water and a power bar out of my pack. I wasn't exactly refreshed, but my head felt clearer than it had despite the nightmares. My body began to respond to the nourishment, and my resolve grew stronger.
“I can't do it. I can't do it,” I muttered over and over.
The old Pink might be disappointed in me, to be sure. But this one…it had its own purpose, didn’t it? Some desire drove it, and if it was any part of what she once was I could not bear to snuff it out. I had no illusions she would be any different than the other dead that roamed the world. But it was enough that she was a part of my universe.
The stars. You've noticed them? If you've stayed with me this long, of course you have. If anything was worth the price of the pandemic, seeing the stars in all their glory has to be it. No light pollution, no pollution pollution – they were undimmed and astonishingly bright, spilling across the dome of the sky and as alluring and mysterious as they have been to us for thousands and thousands of years. And then for far longer even than that.
Up on the roof, lying flat on my back, the stars tugged and pulled at me and the gravity shifted to where up was now down and I clutched at the rough surface under my hands, dizzily certain I was going to fall into the sky. It was late June, and I had never seen the Milky Way before.
I wished I had learned all the constellations and stars so I knew what I was actually seeing. Sure, I could tell Mars from Jupiter and Venus. See the Big and Little Dippers. But I was woefully ignorant of much else up there. Still, I knew the nearest star (or stars, actually – Alpha Centauri is a binary system, with another star, Proxima Centauri, hanging around as well) is about four light years away. From up there, if anything could point an alien telescope and see us, it would look like normal, messy, human-infested Earth. Seeing Earth from up there, Jackie was alive. My mom was alive. Pink was alive. Seen from up there, I was a fat, shy, insecure nobody. If I knew what was coming, would I have done anything differently? I was afraid to try and answer that question.
As far as the universe was concerned, I was still a nobody – but we were all nobodies. The gulf between the stars, let alone galaxies, was massively incomprehensible. Some of the nut-case theories about the pandemic claimed that it had been the result of aliens. It was easy enough to dismiss for a variety of reasons, but the simple fact was that I didn't think aliens had ever visited us. Period. Look up at those stars. If you aren't distracted enough by their beauty, know how incredibly far away they are. Are there aliens up there? I think probably so. Could they beat Einstein and find their way here? I don't know, but I doubt it.
Life indeed may very well be teeming in the stars and other galaxies, but how do we measure their potential intelligence compared to ours? Life is one thing, that it has to follow our example is another. Life, but no intelligence. Intelligence, but no curiosity. Who says they have to send out radio signals and other intentional transcripts of communication? Why should we assume they care if we exist? That they are likely to be not like us cuts down the chance that we will ever come in contact with them.
Gravity shifted, and I didn't feel like I was going to fall up anymore. My back pressed reassuringly into the surface of the rooftop. I was alone as I ever was. The South Hill may as well have been Alpha Centauri for all that I knew was going on over there. But speculation gnawed at me. Was there life over there? Did it look across the divide, and wonder the same? Or did it see, and make its plans against me? I laughed. The South Hill was as uncaring and neutral as the Universe itself, I bet, and not out to get me. Still, the need to know swelled with each heartbeat and it dawned on me I was going on a journey.
“You need to stay here, curiosity killed the cat!” my mother's voice yelled in my ear, full of panic.
“Bullshit,” I whispered, and lifted my arm to point a finger towards the carpet of stars. “An asteroid can come blazing out of the sky and destroy me and all life on the planet while I lay here and do nothing.”
My mother stayed quiet, but I sensed her frustration all the same.
I uncurled my other fingers to line up with the index, and waved hugely at the stars. Was Alpha Centauri in view? I had no idea, but other stars were, and maybe something could see me in four to four thousand years and wave back. That is, if they even cared to. But I was only as alone and as ignorant as I chose to be.
And gravity shifts...
Once again I stood at the top of the Division hill in the early hours of the morning, and stared into the gloom below. I could take side streets down, of course – down Wall and cut through here and there, zig and zag like I always did. But the lure of a straight shot down to the river was just too much. It was warmer, and the dead were active again all over. I could conceivably be back home tonight if all went well and there was nothing to see. As long as I didn't get treed by the dead...
I wore a light jacket with the utility vest over it. Batteries - always batteries – electrical tape, fishing line, lighter fluid and lighter as well as matches. My backpack was filled with water and snacks, some rope, twine, my hammer and wrist-rocket, ammo, knives, rain poncho, toilet paper, sanitary wipes, first-aid kit, flashlights, duct tape, night vision goggles, binoculars and my sleeping bag across the top. Inside of that was Jackie's tank-top. I tried to secure it all so nothing jingled, clanked or sloshed - anything that made repetitive noises was adjusted until the only sounds would be my footsteps and breathing. With my trusty spear, I felt like I was ready to make a journey to the center of the earth.
Recalling my last major journey in the warmth of summer made me hesitate, but like all projects I was reluctant to begin I decided to take it in stages. Just go. You can turn back at any time. So off I went. Past second hand shops, appliance stores, coin shops, comic book stores, bars, gas stations, Chinese restaurants, coffee shops, auto repair shops, mattress stores. A standard, wide-ranging main drag that looked like countless others in cities across the country.
At the bottom of the hill Division continued on as a one-way street. East, Ruby Street hurtled around a bend to merge with Division. They combined again south, just this side of the river. The sky grew brighter to my left as I walked on. The street itself was largely vacant of cars - those that were in view had been used to ram businesses and were often scorched shells. The detritus of civilization littered the ground as if left by a flood. Cups, bags, boxes and cans were mired in a light layer of muck built up in the gutters a
nd spread across the road in an uneven coating. This was true of most streets, but down here it looked like a lot had washed down the hill to collect against buildings and under the wrecked cars. An Army Surplus store looked astonishingly empty, as well as a hardware/sporting goods store and of course a gun shop.
A withered old corpse came limping out of a coffee shop, white hair framing its face, and for a moment I couldn't tell if it had been a man or woman until I saw the beard tangled with clots of dried blood. His right arm was out, shaking, and you would have sworn he was beseeching for alms. I detoured to take him out, and went on my way.
I saw my first group of the dead just past Indiana. They seemed to cluster around a central object in the middle of the street. Individuals would close in, seem to lose interest and forget why they were there, and then wander off. I wondered if this was why I had seen so little of them so far – something was drawing them in. And here I had been thinking my little trip might be easier than I thought it would be. I paused at the corner of a furniture store, after checking the alley for dead. It was still clear back the way I had come and in the parking lot across the street, so I felt safe enough to retrieve my binoculars and see what the attraction was. As I focused in, I couldn't figure out what I was seeing.
The shifting dead didn't help as they passed in and out of my field of view. I could see a red rectangle that was a base, and a red pole poked up from it with a red box on top. Something else stood on the base, and seemed formless and rust-colored. An aimless jerking and flapping confused me - and then it all snapped into clarity in my mind as to what it was, and I flinched. It was one of those coin-operated rides all kids badger their parents into letting them climb aboard and get shaken silly for a minute. This one was an elephant with a saddle, with room for one or two kids. It had been pale once, but streaks of dried blood had congealed on it to give the rusty patina it now sported. I was looking at its hind end to be sure, but those of us who had lived in this area for years and years knew the ride well. It had sat out in front of a surplus store, and I doubted few kids hadn't had their butts planted in it at least once. But something was moving on it, twisting and heaving and then lying still. For the life of me, I couldn't get a sense of what it was – just a dark shape, with a smaller one bobbing above it from time to time.
I looked down the alley, and ran behind the furniture store and another group of buildings and cut south across Indiana, through an empty lot to the back corner of a tavern. I had seen several of the dead a quarter mile west on Indiana, but they didn't concern me yet. I focused the binoculars again and saw that somebody had been lashed to the elephant ride with chains.
Whoever had done that had taken pains to protect the head and torso – it looked like a black leather gimp-suit had been cut up to only cover the head, neck and chest. The rest of the body had been left uncovered. Mutilated arms hung from the jagged and gaping shoulders of the suit, mostly bare bones – the poor bastard had been there a long time. The abdomen had chains draped loosely across it, but I imagined they had been taut at one time. The left leg was detached from the hip, but its ankle was still chained to the machine. The head of the figure jerked up and strained to stay there, wobbling and shaking with the effort, then twisted and lay back. The arms shook and rattled with the motion. Someone had chained this poor bastard up and made sure he would live long enough to throughly experience the horror of being eaten alive. I could only speculate darkly as to the why of it. Retribution? Execution? Amusement?
My brain tried to wrap itself around the idea, and had a hard time accepting such unmitigated cruelty. Really? I asked myself. After all you've seen, you still find something like this so unbelievable? And I decided the answer was yes. The bar had now been reset.
I thought I should go and take the poor bastard out, but he wasn't in any worse shape than any of the other dead when it came down to it. I imagined all of them had died hard. Maybe he had it rougher in death, but that was over and he was just another miserable zombie.
Jesus, it's too nice of a morning to deal with shit like this, I thought. This was the type of day that was made for sitting on my mom's porch drinking coffee, listening to the birds, watching the early morning walkers and joggers – maybe waving to a few of the regulars that were sociable. If I closed my eyes – dared to do it, actually – and concentrated, I could convince myself it was a time before the pandemic, and life was normal and easy. The birds still chirped happily, unconcerned with the dead. The only thing missing was the low whisper-rush of cars in the background. I could take for granted my job, the gym, my mom, and yeah, it was just one empty day after another but God it would be sweet.
I could hear a steady clacking, tapping, scrabbling noise to my right. Hollow little thumps and scratching like twigs on metal. I could see a green dumpster at the south-east corner of the lot, and both of its thick plastic lids were down, but one would twitch and lift slightly. I brought up the glasses and focused in on the metal container. The lid fluttered, and I thought I could see, for a fraction of a moment, bony fingers hooked on the rim of the dumpster.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me, I thought. I swung the binoculars back to the guy on the kiddie-ride. His arms looked pretty picked over – I suspected my friends the crows had worked on him along with the elements. Sinew and gristle still held much of the bones together, but he couldn't lift his arms and the one leg for sure. Didn't get the chance to be tossed away yet, I thought darkly.
My view became obstructed, and I dropped the glasses from my eyes to see that two of the dead were now heading in my direction. Uh-oh. The sun must have glinted off the lenses and attracted their attention. Shit. I turned and ran across the empty lot, steering well clear of the dumpster, dodged the carcass of a burnt out car and hit a side street heading west, past pre-fab office buildings and then shot south down another street, past small shops and houses until I hit Mission Avenue. Directly across from me was a chain link fence blocking my way, so I headed west again, then south, past empty warehouses up a partial gravel road filled with weeds until I stopped to look up an embankment below a parking garage belonging to a black and chromed-mirror medical complex. I could see corpses hanging by their necks from concrete barriers, some twitching feebly, others just decaying into mere skeletons.
I began to get nervous again about taking Division to the river. The idea of a bold, straight shot into downtown started to feel more like bravado than common sense. To the west, Washington Street ran across the river, so I jogged up the hill towards it. An old-fashioned looking church loomed above, riddled with bullet holes. Plywood had been nailed over lower windows and doors, but the building had been breached, its front doors torn off. I ignored what hung from the steeple. How many places like this had been last stands – at first from the dead, and then from the living?
I stopped before I hit Washington, and bullish feelings began surface. I wavered on the sidewalk, taking a step forward, then back, and looked behind me. A few dead tottered towards me, but were laboring up the hill and it would be some time before they would be a problem. I sprinted the rest of the way up to the intersection, and to the north on Washington the random dead ambled almost peacefully. But there were a lot. I squinted, and I could see corpses tied to a chain-link fence that bordered a baseball field of a high school, but I had no desire to stand there and soak in the details. To the south, there seemed to be less of the dead, but I couldn't see very well past trees lining the street. This is turning into a bad idea, I thought, and turned to look back where I had come from. Still, only a few of the dead were laboring towards me.
“Fuckitfuckitfuckit,” I breathed as I ran back down the hill, not bothering to even acknowledge the dead as I shot past them. I ran east, determined I would hit Division and bull, bluff, and bluster my way down it if I had to. It was a matter of principle - of pride, by the gods. Until I chickened out and hung a right on Atlantic, one block before the main drag. I passed another medical complex with its matching parking garage to my right. I w
ondered who the architect was that had the mirrored glass fetish for medical buildings. Jesus.
As I crossed Boone I spotted an empty lot that stretched all the way across to Division, with the bonus feature that it sloped up and up until it rose higher than some of the rooftops next to it. I could see the sharp, rocky base cut into one side, and knew the side facing Division was a jumble of steep, weed-shrouded basalt, and the dead would have a hard time scaling it to get to me if they were on the other side. I could at least knock them back easily if I had to, and seeing how none wandered in the lot on this side, I cut over to it on it's south side and slowed as I picked my way through the tall weeds, busted pallets, and tires. The slope became more rocky, and I slowed, trying to make as little noise as possible. I didn't think any of the dead would likely be wandering around in here, and I wasn't too afraid of surprising any of the living in a camp site. I can't imagine anyone would want to be out in the open when shelter was pretty cheap these days. Still, I could see that this lot had been tramped through thoroughly once, and as a I reached the end of it I could see a fire had been built at one time near the apex of the rocky outcrop. Spent shell casings shone in the dirt next to crushed stubs of cigarettes. Below me, down on Division, there must have been twenty to thirty dead piled amid old campaign signs. Some were rotted away to scattered bones, others were the dehydrated strips of jerky, baked hard into leather out in the sun. I looked north up the street, and could see maybe ten or so several blocks up. To the south, I couldn't see anything moving too near me.
Up near the bridge I could see a lot of the dead milling around, but could not get a good idea of the bridge's condition. Directly in front of me was a car wash that looked like it could have been used as a dump, for all the trash and abandoned vehicles that occupied it now. Behind the car wash rose the old grain elevators, as massive and seemingly indestructible as bedrock. More graffiti covered it than before the pandemic, and it looked like someone had tried to blow holes into the concrete cylinders – with what I had no clue. Craters pockmarked the surfaces of the silos, but to little effect it seemed. I speculated as to how good of a defensible space from the dead it could be, and decided a lot of people probably wondered the very same thing. I shifted nervously, trying to decide if it was occupied still, and the thought made me feel vulnerable and naked. The sun was much higher now, and against the morning sky's glare it was impossible to see if anyone might be gazing back at me through the broken windows up there. It wasn't even eight in the morning yet, and while I usually was thinking about hitting the sack by this time, maybe people were sleeping in later these days.
The October Light of August Page 14