The October Light of August

by Robert John Jenson

  I stood still and tried to look...harmless. I'm sure that aspect came across easily enough. I had thought about doing this trip at night, but relying on the goggles too much bothered me, and I didn't want to be in the situation where I felt I needed them and then all battery power was gone. Plus, even while I was the great nocturnal scavenger, being out of the comfort zone of my neighborhood made me feel as scared of the dark as anyone else. I had also thought about waiting until winter, but I wasn't sure if more of the living would be mobile then too. I didn't want to be caught in any storms either. But probably more than anything I was just impatient to do it. I supposed I was bored and restless, and whether that would be my downfall or not I couldn't really predict. I was drawn down to the river, and that was fucking that.

  The dead on Division were either back north or south nearer the river, and below me the corpses were truly dead. I decided if someone was drawing down on me from the grain elevators across the way, I may as well give them a moving target and began to pick my way down the slope to my right. I gingerly stepped over a few bodies – some of them looked like that poor bastard they found up in the Alps years ago. I had never seen any of the dead remain still for too long, and any that had been lying on the ground usually thrashed around to get back up. Still, I couldn't help feeling a bit uneasy, and was alert for the most minor of twitches. I gave a frantic little hop over the last body, and was back on Division Street. I had cheated a little with my detour, but I was back on track and let a nervous laugh escape.

  Moving south again, I paused at a corner near a gas station. A giant metal diamond lay in the street, riddled with bullet holes and shining with a dim glow in the morning sun. Huh. Ahead, I could see a large group of the dead up near the bridge, and I could tell that the damned thing was blocked. A pile of burnt and twisted wreckage blocked any travel to the other side. Any easy travel. Maybe it could be climbed. And maybe I would be picked off it like a tin can on a fence post. And of course I would have to get past the dead, which would be the hardest part. I wanted a better view of it all, and shifted my eyes to stare at the hotel perched firmly on solid rock about fifty feet over the street. For once I didn't dither and wring my hands over a decision – I just started trotting down the street.

  The dead spotted me almost immediately, and began to move in my direction.

  “Crap,” I hissed through my teeth. “Crapitty-crap-crap-crap!” I thought I could just fight my way through them and cut over on the cross street below the hotel, but I could see more coming in from that direction. I darted a look down a driveway between a strip mall and the mammoth pile of rock the hotel sat on, saw it was relatively clear, and ran down it until I could scramble madly up the slope and into the long parking lot of the hotel. A dead man tried to intercept me as I began to jog up the driveway, but I knocked him down with the butt of my spear and continued on.

  I slowed as it leveled out, and then stopped under the shade of a dying tree in the parking lot to observe the building. Like most large and prominent structures, it hadn't escaped any vandalism either. The ever present broken windows, bullet holes stitched across the slate-covered walls, graffiti. The little porch covering over the lobby entrance had been rammed by a truck, and it sagged tiredly (I flash-backed to Jackie's porch, and firmly pushed the memory away). I could see no movement, but knew that didn't mean a God damned thing. I was feeling restless and twitchy, and knew I would not spend the time I needed to in observing the building to judge that it was safe. Not that I had any intention of entering the damned thing. I looked back down the parking lot, saw the dead guy I had knocked down top the rise of the slope.

  “Screw it,” I whispered, and moved out of cover and crossed the lot to the east corner of the hotel. I slipped through the narrow dead strip of grass between the hotel and a fence bordering the edge of the basalt outcrop. I gave a cursory scan of the open area behind the hotel, saw that it seemed clear of any dead – from where I could see, anyways. It was narrow behind the building too, at least where I was. What was past the center of the hotel where it pushed out into the grassy belt I couldn't tell, but I had no intention of exploring. My view was just fine from here. Dead vines and bushes intertwined with the metal fence, and before I leaned against the south-east corner, I hacked at them with my spear so they didn't pick and scratch at me as I looked down to stare at the Division Street bridge below.

  It looked like two buses had been tipped on their sides across the bridge, and various other vehicles had once reinforced their mass behind them. They had been set on fire, and the twisted and blackened metal intermingled with twisted and blackened corpses. A large chunk of the bridge had a gaping hole in it south of the wreckage. Huh. I wondered if its defenders had tried to blow it up and failed. A mob of dead – a true mob now, by any definition – were gathered below on the street. I could see twisting forms in the piles of bodies at the base of the makeshift barricade on the bridge. It was hard to tell what was wreckage and what was a corpse, frankly, unless it shuddered and jerked. I pulled my binoculars out, looped them around my neck, and focused them beyond the buses and what had reinforced them. I could see movement back there, and before I could determine if it was alive or undead, I heard a small rustling to my right and turned, expecting to see a zombie coming towards me and was startled to see a guy with a gun in one hand, a machete raised in the other. He stopped about ten feet away from me and I reflexively brought my spear around, gripping it with both hands and jabbed it out at him. I could see the tip of it waver, and I tried to control the trembling in my arms that caused it.

  His black hair, streaked with dirty gray, hung down as stringy and filthy as his beard. He wore a soiled t-shirt advertising some craft brewery, and wore the shortest shorts not seen since the 80s, and honest-to-God tube socks yanked up to his knees. His work boots looked fairly new, oddly enough, the laces looking crisp and neatly tied. He almost looked as if he was surrendering, with the machete arm high, the gun pointed in that sideways kill-shot angle that always looked tough in the movies, but kind of just looked goofy with him doing it – like he was trying to shoot fish in a really tall barrel. That didn't stop me from being scared of the gun anyways. A goofball could kill me just as easily as a gangsta.

  “Whuh, whuh, whuh,” he sputtered, like a small engine trying to start. “What,” he finally spat out, “do you think you are doing? Huh? What?”

  “I...was just trying to get a good vantage - ” I started.

  “A what? A good what?”

  I cleared my throat nervously. “I was just...looking. Down. Looking - ”

  “Looking! Who said you could look? Huh? Who said you could look?”

  I really didn't know how to answer that, and only stared at him, my hands twisting anxiously on the shaft of the spear. He brought the machete up higher in response, and shuffled his feet quickly in the dead grass.

  “I will take your fuckin' head off boy,” he muttered. “I will pump you so fulla holes you'll look like...” He faltered, trying in vain to find an adequate analogy for my bullet hole-laden corpse. So he settled for asking me again why I thought I could just up and go looking again.

  “Huh?” he demanded. “Who said you could look?”

  “No one,” I mumbled weakly.

  “No one,” he repeated. “That's right. No one told you you could look. Not one muthafuckin' no one told you. Did they? No one!”

  My heart hammered in my ears, and I felt the urgent need to pee. This guy was crazy enough to kill me at any provocation. Why he hadn't just shot me in the back of my head was beyond me. He took two steps towards me and waved the machete, and I flinched. He gave a wild laugh.

  “I think you should drop that pack, boy. I'll take it. I'm taking it from you.”

  I wondered if there had ever been a time when my muscles cooperated with me, and couldn't recall. They felt like they were solid to the core. Hadn't they always been that way? I was just a statue all my life, wasn't I? We stared at each other, and he took another step forw
ard.

  “I said drop it. Drop the pack. Drop it. I said drop it, you have to drop it,” he barked, and lunged out with the machete. “You either drop it, or I drop you.” He laughed long and loud. “I drop you. I drop you!”

  I blinked stupidly at him, and then it dawned on me he was a lying son of a bitch. My head had felt huge and stupidly heavy, and then suddenly the pressure was gone. I could feel tension bleed out of me, and the feeling of relief made me shake. He laughed at that, which pissed me off and I could feel heat build inside my ears.

  “You know what?” I asked. He was still laughing, so I screamed at him. “Hey!” He jumped, startled, and swung the curved blade towards me, but took a step back.

  “You know what?” I asked again. He didn't answer, just tried to scowl at me but I didn't buy it. Not one damned bit.

  “I don't think that gun is loaded,” I said. “I don't think you have any ammo. If you did, a little rat-fuck bastard like you would have shot me by now. You talk it big, dude, but you keep shaking that bush-whacker at me instead of the gun. And hey - you know what else?” He stared at me and I could see his bravery leave him like it was nothing more than a gob of spit - hacked up to let fly and hit its target, only to run harmlessly down and dry up.

  “I said, 'do you know what else?'” I screamed at him, and he flinched, shaking his head.

  “I have got the reach on you, mother-fucker!” I yelled, and jabbed the spear at him. He twisted, turned to run but his feet tangled up and he went down. I took long, confident strides up to him as he tried to get up, drew a foot back and kicked him solidly in his balls. He dropped again, the air in his lungs escaping violently as if it didn't want anything to do with him. It was just an innocent bystander in all this – no need to get involved! I giggled at the thought, stomped on his left wrist until the hand opened and the machete fell out. I bent over, scooped it up and flung it out and over the fence, the gagging and retching noises the guy made almost drowning out the sound of it clattering against the rocks. I spied the gun lying in the dead grass, stepped over him, and picked that up and sent it sailing over the edge as well.

  I let him gasp and wheeze in the turf, then jammed the spear head into the ground inches from his face.

  “Do you see that, asshole?” I asked. I didn't get a reply, so I kicked him and repeated my question. His head gave a sharp nod, and a sob finally burst out of him.

  “That spear head has greasy-grimy zombie guts all the fuck over it,” I said, and pulled it free from the grass. “I bet,” I added, flicking the blade towards him as he flinched, “all I have to do is scratch you with it and you'll get the fever and die a horrible, no-good fucked-up death. Whatcha think?”

  The guy had enough breath back in him to start crying miserably as his legs worked uselessly in the dead grass. He lay at my feet, an emaciated half-crazed hermit of a man – much like me – and scared to death. Much like I was a few moments before. I spun my spear around and gave him a series of sharp whacks across his arm, back and legs with the handle, then kicked him one last time.

  “I ever see you again I will kill you,” I muttered, then felt incredibly stupid for stating such an insipid little threat. “You just lay there, catch your breath, and thinks things over,” I added, a bit more gently this time. “You can have the whole damned hotel to yourself. I just wanted to see the view for a minute.”

  I didn't know what else to say, so I made a point of stepping back over him as I walked away, and around the corner of the hotel into the parking lot. I could still hear him hitching and gasping as he cried. I didn't know what else he might have stashed around here, but I was pretty sure he had given me his best shot. Still, I picked up my pace. I had seen what I came to see and it seemed unlikely I would ever cross the river down there, and I just wanted to get the hell away from the hotel now. The dead guy I had knocked over wandered aimlessly over the dusty pavement, and I detoured to take him out. One less thing for the miserable wretch behind me to worry about.

  Good manners don't cost nothin', do they?

  * * *

  I trotted along North River Drive, and I halted abruptly. In the distance I could see the sports arena peeking over ancient brick buildings, and on the street ahead the dead populated the road between Washington and me. I immediately cut to my right and into a sea of parking lots and medical buildings. As I tried to head north, retaining walls, buildings and simple basalt barriers blocked my path. I ran along them to the east, and I was beginning feel winded and needed a rest – something I had hoped to have at the hotel until its occupant made me feel unwelcome. The thought of him angered me - yet also mined a startlingly acute sensation of pity, which I thought had been so buried in my heart as to be irretrievable. Which in turn angered me again. I felt a strong desire to go back and finish beating him to a pulp, and to also offer him some of my supplies. Share a fucking granola bar, for chrissakes. That feeling made me want to beat the crap out of myself, and before I could work up a sarcastic internal argument, I burst through a stand of bushes and trees and spotted a set of stairs set into a rough block wall, and they lead up to – oh look, another parking lot.

  This one was small and narrow compared to the ocean of asphalt below, and I shot out of it, glanced to my left and there were still quite a lot of dead to the west. Son of a bitch. I didn't slow to take in details, just jogged up the street in front of me and discovered it was Atlantic, and soon saw the empty lot I had crossed over to Division not very long ago.

  You have got to be kidding me, I thought bitterly. Round and round I go, where I stop who the fuck knows?

  For shits and giggles, I hung a left on Boone and could see more of the dead up near Washington. Man, they really seemed to like hanging around up there. What was so damned special about it? I decided to take a right and head north again just one more street. I really felt the need to see what the draw of Washington was all about, but didn't relish the thought of being surrounded by the dead. I could avoid a lot of them I was sure, but it would only take a few like the sprinter to ruin my day.

  I took the next left, and once again found myself in familiar territory. Before long, I was at the top of the grade on Washington, the desecrated church in front of me. I avoided looking at it again, but it added to a feeling of dread that had been building in me. To the north the dead seemed to have grown in numbers – whether it was my imagination or not I didn't waste any time debating. But many were coming my way. To the south it looked more or less free of dead. Well, compared to what I had seen back that way, at any rate. I felt a sinking feeling, that I was trapped and had made a stupid, stupid mistake for taking this journey.

  This is turning into a bad idea, I thought with rising panic. A very bad idea.

  The words ran in an endless loop in my head, and as I trotted south they tried desperately to find a tune to play along with them. The best I could come up was, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

  This is turning into a bad idea,

  bad idea, bad idea

  This is turning into a bad idea,

  you're a fucking moron!

  I made a note of the jumble of rocks to my left that formed a retaining wall for the medical complex above. I couldn't imagine any of the dead being able to navigate their way up or down them – I was always looking for quick barriers, and these might come in handy. Well before I could make it to the corner of Washington and Boone, I skidded to a stop.

  In the vast parking lot for the civic theater and overflow for the sports arena was the largest group of the dead I had ever seen, period. They milled between abandoned cars, trucks, Hummers, RVs, you name it. They also wandered out into the streets, so I backpedaled furiously hoping I had not been spotted. A dead man with stumps for his arms came limping towards me from behind, and the knowledge that I had not been aware of him at all made my guts feel like they had liquefied. I took him down easily, but I could see at least a dozen more coming down Washington to me. Panic welled up in me. I had never been surrounded before - at least
not on this scale. I could clamber up the rocks to the medical complex above, but I hated not knowing what was up there waiting for me. I swung my head desperately around for an exit.

  Across the street to the west, a telephone pole had been knocked over, its jagged end suspended over the sidewalk as it jutted across an outcrop of basalt. The top rested across the roof of a medical supply store. I shot across the street and clambered up the rock face, then ran up the shaft of wood like I was a freakin' Wallenda. It shifted a bit as I neared the roof, but I jumped over the parapet and onto the tarred surface not knowing what to expect, but fairly confident there would be less dead up here than down below. I was also pretty sure no dead would be able to climb up the pole as well. I hoped if any saw my escape route they would forget it soon enough.

  I looked around the rooftop, and while it appeared someone had been up here due to the random trash, cigarette butts and shell casings, there was no one here now. I almost shouted with relief, and eased the backpack off of me. I really had to go to the bathroom, and once I figured out the logistics, did so. Nothing like adding a little desperation on top of desperation...