The October Light of August

by Robert John Jenson

  After surveying the area from the roof for a good half-hour, I decided I could safely venture down to ground level. The sun was low on the horizon, yet I could see the warrior’s body splayed out by the dumpster, but no Pink or any other of the dead hanging around. Time to go down and make sure the warrior stayed truly dead.

  As I paused in the doorway that opened out onto the parking lot, I watched the guy’s body to see if any animation was returning to it. None that I could see so far. I didn’t relish the thought of ransacking the body to see what I could use. Maybe I should keep the guy's guns, I thought. But I was still pretty prejudiced against them.

  I quickly scooted across the lot to the body, hammer in hand to smash the warrior’s skull. As I got close enough to see what condition the body was left in, I paused. I could tell Pink had eaten pretty much most of the guy’s neck and shoulder, then random bite marks down his bicep to forearm. Jesus. Hungry girl... Other than that, the guy looked fairly solid. Except that his head already had a hole in it. And all his weapons were missing. I froze, and my neck ratcheted slowly around to peer into gloomy pockets of shadow.

  Aw, shit…

  “I wonder if you had anything to do with this,” a voice asked quietly from the far side of the dumpster.

  I closed my eyes and cursed myself. I let out a shaky sigh and replied, “I hope you notice that I’m not the type to eat anyone. I'm partial to canned goods and candy bars.”

  It was silent for a moment, and then the voice, still quiet, calm and icy-cool said, “A hell of a lot is going depend on how you answer my questions right now. First, what have you got in your pack? And drop the hammer right now.”

  I opened my right fist, and the hammer dropped to the ground, bouncing once with the handle lying across my foot.

  “I have exactly three sixteen-ounce water bottles and four or five granola and energy bars. One pair of night vision goggles, batteries and a knife sharpener. Plus a Wrist-Rocket and Bowie knife in the webbing on the back. Oh, and ammo for the sling-shot”

  “And your vest?”

  “Batteries, lighter – lighter fluid. Twine. Little shit like that.”

  The man was silent again, and then stepped carefully around the dumpster. He was training an automatic on my chest. He had the obligatory camo jacket, but wore long pants and his head was shaved smooth along with his face. He otherwise was unhindered by being a walking arsenal, but I suspected that the automatic wasn’t the only firearm this guy had. I thought I could see a pack in the shadow created by the fence and dumpster.

  Slowly, the man raised his left arm, rotated his wrist and opened his fist. Two shiny ball-bearings lay on his palm.

  “These yours then?” he asked.

  “More than likely,” I replied.

  The man stared at me, his hand massaging the spheres of metal, causing them to tightly orbit each other in his fist. I thought it best to keep quiet, not offer any information or explanations unless asked. We continued to hold each other’s gaze, the sound of metal scraping as the sun sank lower behind the houses in the neighborhood.

  “I think,” the man finally said, “that it’s unlikely that my friend here would be taken down by one of the dead-heads without some sort of help.”

  I weighed my response carefully. “And I would agree with you.”

  The man cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.

  “Do you see that one over by the fence?” I asked. The man gave a curt nod, but did not bother to look away. “Well, that one was working over your friend’s hand while another was gnawing on his neck - underneath him though. I shot the one in the head then finished it off with my hammer. Tried doing the other one, but could not get a clear shot and missed. I was dead tired, scared, and didn’t feel like messing with the other one. I think you can agree once your friend was bit, he was gone.”

  The man gave another nod and said, “I still don’t see him getting taken down, without firing a shot – I would have heard it.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. When I showed up, your friend had been tag-teamed. Won’t be the last time it happens to someone.” I thought it best to not offer the suggestion that the gun had not fired. The man surely had it in his possession, and may have checked it out already and come to that conclusion. Or not. Who in the hell knew?

  “I think he would have fired a shot,” the man insisted.

  “And I still don’t have anything to say about that. I don’t work with guns, know nothing about them and generally don’t like them.”

  The warrior’s friend stopped grinding the ball-bearings in his hand and dropped them into a pocket on his jacket.

  “So,” he stated. “What exactly am I going to do with you?”

  “Well, I expect you want to know exactly what I know of the area – but more importantly what sort of supplies I might have stashed that you want.” I tried to blend the right amount of false bravado and helpful desperation in my voice. “While I try to figure out how to convince you to let me live.”

  The man gave the barest of smiles and asked, “So where and what do you have stashed?” He nodded his head toward the office building.

  “I sleep here, up on the sixth floor,” I offered. “I have some canned goods, water, some medical supplies and a big tool that I used to cut sod with back in the day, but use as a spear now. Other, more interesting stuff is stashed in the surrounding houses.”

  The guy raised his eyebrows.

  “Nothing like ammo, really. But some cans of gas and a generator, for starters, are just over there.” I pushed my chin towards the fence and neighborhood beyond. “Down in a basement. Some more food in a garage in back.”

  The man’s ears twitched at the words “gas” and “generator.”

  “The generator is chained up with a combination lock,” I added. “Easy enough to break, sure, but you might want help lugging it up the stairs…”

  “Maybe,” the man stated. “Please drop your backpack, and then kick-slide it to me – if you draw your leg back too far, I will shoot you. Just a nice little nudge. Then take three steps back.” I complied.

  The man knelt and explored through the pack and must have decided I had been honest about its contents. I thought about the “please” the guy had inserted into the conversation. I had suspected that the guy wasn’t the wannabe warrior his friend was. Military training for sure, but maybe law enforcement too. I didn’t know if that was good or bad for my chances. The guy was probably less likely to shoot me in a fit of panic, but also much less liable to make a mistake.

  “So tell me where this gas stash is again?”

  I hesitated for several seconds, as if I were running over my options, then sighed and said, “Just through the gap in the fence, and two blocks over - a house with a vinyl fence around the front yard, only one like it on the east side of the street. In the basement of that house.”

  I could have been shot right then, I knew, and I had resigned myself to that fact from the beginning of the encounter. It couldn’t be helped, and I had dreaded this sort of confrontation – yet had expected it almost on a daily basis. I sure had witnessed it an awful lot. This guy wasn’t a taunting blow-hard, though. He didn’t appear sadistic.

  “Why don’t you tell me again how you saw my friend die?”

  Oddly, I felt a little flame of anger flare up inside me, and I let it show.

  “I wish I could tell you I’m sorry your friend is dead. Honestly? I don’t care. I have more admiration for the monsters stumbling around here than the living that have killed, stolen and raped their way through this city. At least the dead have an excuse for what they do. I realize it’s every man for himself right now, and I chose to go it alone and that’s kept me alive up until now. My choice to avoid confrontation with people like you and your friend has kept me alive up until now. It may not have been the ballsiest way of existing, but I don’t see it as hurting anyone. I realize I’m a trigger-pull away from it being the last seconds of my life, but I will not spend them repeating
myself. Your friend was down when I showed up, and that’s all I know.”

  The eyes behind the gun did not change expression, nor did the gun waver.

  “Fair enough,” the stranger said. “Why don’t we take a walk over to this house?” The man took a few steps back, and motioned me towards the fence. I began a careful and deliberate walk forward.

  “Keep your pace just like that. If you start to run, I will shoot you. If you make any sudden movements, I will shoot you. I would advise you to walk carefully, because if you even stumble, I will shoot you.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  We walked with a steady pace, crunching through the dead leaves and grass on the other side of the fence and into the street. My nerves screamed to be more furtive in our procession, and I just hoped the guy was keeping an eye out for the both of us. Twilight had never seemed as foreboding as it did now, and the streets never so full of hidden dangers. As we neared the front gate of the post-World War II era house, the man called for me to hold up.

  “The front door is open,” he stated.

  I looked over the knee-high dead grass in the front yard to see the doorway yawning open as the guy described.

  “Yes it is.”

  “You leave it like that?”

  “I do. I’ve noticed that the dead can’t resist a shut door. A lot of the living can’t either. If I leave it open, it kind of removes the temptation if you ask me. If someone wants in, they’ll get in. Not a lot I can do about that, except make it less...interesting.”

  The man grunted and indicated that we proceed. As we moved through the open gate and up the walkway to the porch, I asked, “Mind if we slow up? I don’t like to assume any doorway is clear, no matter how uninteresting it appears.”

  “Sure,” the man remarked. “You first - step in the doorway and halt.”

  I did what I was told, feeling sick to my stomach. No trusty spear to defend me! One quick bite, and that was it – I could fend off the dead and maybe neutralize it bare-handed, but a quick nip would do it. Hell, it could drool on me and I could get infected. I looked around the looted living room of the house, and save for a soiled sofa and a rug buried in dust, debris and mold the room looked empty.

  “This room is clear,” I informed him. “I can’t see into the kitchen, but the bathroom is clear. Around the corner of the wall on my right is a hallway where there are two bedrooms and the doorway to the basement.”

  “I want you to ease in, and hug the wall,” I was instructed. I complied. The man moved sideways through the door, still training his gun on me.

  “Now slide along the wall, and stop at the hallway and have a look around.”

  I strained to hear any random thumping or moans that might indicate any presence of the dead upstairs with us, but I could only hear the sound of my hands and jacket scraping the painted drywall as I moved along the wall. I peered into the gloom of the hallway, could see that one bedroom appeared clear, but could not see into the master - the basement door hung open all the way and blocked that opening. Jesus, it's dark in here, I thought.

  “I need to move into the hallway to see inside the other room,” I informed my guard, who gave his consent. I backed against the far wall of the hallway so I could clearly be seen, then held my breath and slowly pulled the basement door towards me, ready to shove it back if one of the dead lunged out of the gloom of the bedroom. I heard nothing, and peeked around the edge of the door that now effectively blocked the hallway. The master bedroom looked clear.

  “I think we are good,” I said, and let my breath out.

  “I want you to hug that door and do not move,” I was ordered. I gripped either side of the wooden structure and peered into the basement. The faint odor of gasoline wafted up from below.

  “There is a flashlight just to the side of the second step,” I noted helpfully. The man moved to the doorway and peered into the darkness of the basement. He pressed the gun against my back, and began to kneel down to probe for the flashlight. Not finding it, he stretched further down and I felt the gun leave my back as the man gave a satisfied grunt and began to rise. I drove my left arm down and shoved back at the man’s gun arm, and as the gun roared I felt a violent tug in my left palm. At the same time I struck out blindly with my right arm and felt my fist connect with the man’s jacket. I pushed hard, and then plunged towards the kitchen as the gun began to fire repeatedly up at the hallway.

  The basement door had been flung wide to bang into the bedroom door frame and rebound back to the stairwell. Bullets tore into it, and while I couldn't see it, I imagined my scrawled message on the front of the door was riddled with holes.

  Warning! No Stairs!

  I crouched in the doorway of the kitchen’s back door – made a quick survey of the patio - then inched out onto the concrete back step. My ears were ringing with the gunshots and my left hand felt slick. I looked down to see blood oozing from my palm, shut my eyes tight and bit my tongue. Now is not the time to pass out you pussy! I felt in my back pocket for a relatively clean handkerchief and wadded it into the wound and held it tight against my chest. I couldn’t feel any pain in it yet, just an oddly numb sensation that made my hand feel inflated. That would be the least of my problems if my plan had not worked…

  The man had not appeared in the doorway to the basement yet, and I let myself feel a tiny victory. I do believe I pulled this off, I thought.

  An angry yell issued from the basement. “You…cocksucker!”

  I gasped and panted as relief flooded through me. I barked out a sharp laugh and then yelled, “I’m guessing you can’t walk on air any better than your buddy could!”

  Bullets rocketed up through the floorboards of the kitchen and I huddled behind the concrete steps, laughing wildly with the giddiness that only sweet escape could generate.

  As the echoes of the gunfire faded, I shouted, “You might have some company down there with you man! I wouldn’t waste any ammo on me right now!”

  I wasn’t sure if I could hear a reply or not, but for a solid minute it was quiet. Then, a muffled rap of a shot, followed a few seconds later by another.

  “Got them,” I heard the man yell. “And when I get out of here, I will get you.”

  I could hear a tightness to the man’s voice, and knew he was in pain. Hopefully, something was broken. Still, I didn’t underestimate the man’s chances. Sheer willpower had a lot going for it. Sheer, pissed-off willpower even more so.

  “Doesn’t matter if there are no stairs, I will get out. And I will hunt you down,” he added.

  I waited for more, but the guy seemed to think that was enough of a threat. I let go of my hand, and a sharp, burning pain began to work its way up and out it. I dug into my vest pocket and removed a cheap plastic lighter. I reached in another pocket and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag containing one of the small bottles Mrs. Clarke had for her airbrush. I had two lids – one solid that capped the bottle tightly, and another with a wick driven into it, sealed with wax. I pressed the bottle against the door jamb with my forearm, unscrewed the cap and then screwed the wick-capped lid onto the little jar of lighter fluid. I could hear gasps of pain, grunts, and probably the sounds of his hands slapping against the lowest remaining step from the staircase. As I have noted before, I was quite busy over the winter.

  I stood in the doorway and took a slow and careful step onto the floor, far enough to be able to lean in and see the basement opening. I took another step, then another, and sat the bottle on the kitchen counter. I flicked the lighter, and touched the flame to the wick, made sure it was burning full and bright. I would only get this chance, I was certain.

  “Well that’s too bad then,” I shouted, and tossed the bottle into the stairwell, hearing it plunk into the basement.

  I didn't hear a tinkle of glass breaking, but a muffled curse rose out of the dark, and I could see a dim glow flare up in the stairwell. It'll be hard to exit through there now, tough guy! I wanted to yell, but I decided now would be a good ti
me to get out of the house.

  The sawed-up remains of the wooden staircase lay below the basement door, soaked with gasoline. I had left the top two steps, but greased them with petroleum jelly. The main reason had been to make the steps slippery to help the dead tumble into the basement. I hadn’t thought that it might help keep someone down there. Regardless, it looked like the fire was growing as the stairwell lit up brightly. I heard a scrabbling, banging noise down to my right, and soon a bullet erupted from the small basement window I had boarded up, inside and out. If the guy was as small as Ashley, he might have been able to squeeze through it. With his bulk he stood no chance.

  Yeah, the front door was open alright, I thought grimly. I do keep them shut my friend – on some of the houses. The dead just don’t seem to be able to resist a shut door. Front door, basement door – they just have to get on the other side of it.

  I backed away as I saw the flames begin to lick up from the basement and dig into the dry woodwork in the doorway. Another shot came through the window, and I darted to my left, keeping the bulk of the back steps between me and the window. I would have to run along the south side of the house quickly. I wasn’t sure if the guy would hear me crunching through the debris as I went, but I should be able to make it past the south window and out in to the front before he could fire through it.

  I had to make it out of the yard, down the street and then east two blocks and into the parking lot unarmed and wounded. The sun had set, and I had never felt as naked as I did now. I peeked around the corner of the house, saw it was clear, spared one last glance inside to see the flames spreading higher, and then ran, pain lancing in my hand with every step.