“Should we come back later Tom?” Isobel asked as politely as she possibly could. He was mean when he was sober; she wasn’t about to tick off the drunk and blue-balled Tom that was barely standing in front of her.
“Nah! Now’s perfect, come in!” He made a big, sweeping motion with his arm to gesture Ben and Isobel inside 306. She walked in, and after a nervous glance down the hall in the other direction, Ben followed her.
Vaughn stumbled to the living room and began knocking stolen goods onto the floor to clear the couch off for his visitors. He didn’t apologize for the mess, turn off the smut or zip up his pants. But, like a good host, he offered them each a beer. Ben tried to get straight to the topic of the visit but Tom didn’t want to talk business just yet.
“The skies have been clear lately; been kind of nice to see the blue,” Vaughn said with a hint of melancholy in his voice as he looked toward his sliding glass door and beyond. The self-professed loner was lonely so Isobel and Ben stayed for a while. They talked about random things - Mt. Rainier, the proper way to clean a rifle, how many women they’d been with, which for Isobel was none. Ben and Isobel relaxed when they finally saw some humanity in Vaughn.
The slider was open to the porch. It felt strange to Ben sitting around, surrounded by guns and drinking beer; getting drunk while dead people walked around on the street below.
“Relaxation and safety like this will be hard to come by, as we get deeper in this disaster,” Isobel said, feeling the lightness of sobriety leave her. Three beers later, the sun replaced by the moon, their faces lit only by the same flickering porn, which must have been set to loop, they finally started to talk about the next day.
“We need your help again, Tom. Molly has an eating disorder and she ate all of our food.” Isobel said drunkenly.
“Not all of it, a lot of it.” Ben corrected her.
Isobel ignored him and continued. “We were thinking about going out tomorrow, with your help, to look for more. As a punishment, Molly has to go,” Isobel continued.
“So just me and her, eh? The fat bitch was a hassle but I wouldn’t mind spending some alone time with Molly. I’m in.”
“No. No, Ben is going too. We need more than what two people could bring back.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.”
Ben spoke up, wanting to assert his usefulness. “I’m pretty good with my handgun.”
“That’s good I guess,” Vaughn smiled, “We should go around noon. The dead aren’t very active midday. Not sure why but that’s what I’ve noticed; shouldn’t have to get too violent.”
“Where’re you going to get the food from?” Isobel asked. She remembered how messed up the grocery store had been before things had gotten really bad. It was probably destroyed now.
Tom’s answer was frightening. “I’ve been out there every day since this has started, traveling as many as twenty blocks in any direction. I haven’t once seen anyone else alive. We can raid the houses.”
“There has to be someone out there. We can’t be the only survivors. That’s impossible.” Ben walked unsteadily to the dark windows of the apartment. He scanned back and forth, his eyes searching for hints of light that could mean life beyond the walls of Willow Brook. He found none.
“A lot of impossible sure is happening these days. From what I can tell, no one is home, anywhere.” Vaughn said grimly.
A Thieves Market
After Ben ate a small breakfast of oatmeal and a juice box, he went to Molly’s apartment so they could walk upstairs together.
“You look worried, Molly. You ok?” Ben patted her back lightly. She turned and scowled at him.
“You aren’t? We’re about to entrust our lives to a disgusting man who thinks more with the southern region of his body than the northern, probably drank whiskey for breakfast and is waiting for any excuse to pull a trigger,” Molly spoke quickly and took in a deep breath when she was finished.
“I can see you’ve really slept on it.”
“I didn’t get any sleep,” Molly said wearily.
“It’s a figure of speech,” Ben explained.
“I know!” Molly said, exasperated. Ben decided it would be best to stop talking to her for the moment. He could see the dark circles under her eyes and the exhaustion in them.
Vaughn’s door was propped open and he was wide awake, running around his apartment getting ready. It looked like a war room.
“You should take this machete. It will compliment your handgun well and save your life in a pinch if one of them gets too close,” Vaughn said to Ben as he divvied up some weapons between the three of them.
“Molly, you can have this wooden bat.” She accepted the sports implement from him but begrudgingly. Why can’t I have a gun? She wondered but didn’t ask.
“I will take this assault rifle.” Vaughn held it up for them to admire, a grin spread across his bristly face.
“Come here.” He waved them over to his low coffee table; on it were worn satellite image printouts lay side by side creating a birds-eye-view of twenty of the blocks that were south of Willow Brook. Ben and Molly examined the map. It had marks all over it but no key with which they could decipher them.
“We’ll go this way.” Vaughn said as he took a black marker and drew a line to mark their path. Molly counted the cross streets, the neighborhoods, the houses that he passed and speculated in her head how many potential zombies that represented. She guessed hundreds but feared thousands, remembering to account for “visitors” from out of the area. Molly shook herself out of the obsessive mathematical daydream she’d fallen into to see that Vaughn’s marker line had ended at a cul-de-sac of fifteen tightly-packed houses some ten blocks south of their current location.
“That far huh?” Ben was surveying the map with more general interest and less terror-fueled math than Molly. He nodded his head as if to say that he agreed with the route and accepted the challenge of it.
“Don’t want to attract a crowd of zombies next door now do we? If they gather around us here, we have several blocks to lose them.”
Vaughn circled seven houses.
“These are empty and haven’t been overly looted yet.” He drew a large “X” on four of the remaining houses.
“We won’t be going into these ones unless absolutely necessary.”
“Why not?” Molly asked, not sure if she actually wanted the answer.
“The air is bad. Decomposing bodies can be a real health hazard.”
Molly felt chills crawl her body. “Yuck,” was all she could muster in response.
He left the remaining four houses unmarked. “I haven’t scouted these ones yet. Who knows what’s in them. We can find out today if you want, assuming we don’t draw too much attention from the zombies in the area.”
“How are we going to carry the food?” Molly asked.
“We’ll all be wearing backpacks and they are going to be heavy so get ready for that.” Vaughn pointed to three large bags that looked more like oversized duffle bags with straps than backpacks.
“Like hiking!” Ben said cheerfully. He’d once been a prolific hiker of the Cascade Mountains, something he missed about the dying world, the ability to escape for a weekend.
“Only, minus mountain streams and plus zombies,” Molly said dryly, quickly killing any happiness and enthusiasm Ben had for the comparison. “Besides, that won’t be enough food.”
“I’ve got some collapsible, stacking storage bins and a handcart to roll them back on. It will slow us down but it’s our only choice. Vehicles make too much noise.”
They kneeled around the map a few minutes longer, each preparing in their own way for the journey that lay ahead.
“Well I’m ready,” Ben said standing up.
Molly followed his ascent from the floor and then bent down to check that her running shoes were tightly tied. “I’m ready too.”
“Quick! To the fire escape!” Vaughn exclaimed as though the building was on fire. He laughed but neither Ben nor Moll
y thought that there was anything funny about it.
Beat to Re-Death
Ben was actually quite nervous about going outside but he tried his best to hide it because he knew that Molly was much worse off. She was shaking as they climbed down the fire escape. The ground at the bottom was clear of any undead because everyone who stayed behind was making as much noise as humanly possible on the opposite site of the building to draw them away from the scavenging team.
Vaughn led with determination and confidence. Molly, who was in between Vaughn and Ben, could see zombies in the distance; little moving shapes littering the landscape but much too far away to notice her. That didn’t keep her from clutching the baseball bat so tightly in her hands that Ben could see the white of her knuckles. He followed behind her, his handgun loosely in his right hand. The machete, wrapped in its army green sheath, hung from his belt and gently hit his leg as he walked.
“Just keep low, be quick, and stay quiet!” Vaughn said in what Molly considered a loud voice. He had the handcart and the plastic bins folded and strapped to his back, under his backpack, but he still managed to stay low and move quickly. Two out of three, Molly thought.
They used abandoned cars and the thick trunks of trees to conceal themselves. Molly knew it was the best strategy but she couldn’t help but feel it also helped the zombies to sneak up on them and trap them.
“Get down!” Vaughn whispered as he threw an arm behind him to motion the demand. They’d only made it two blocks from Willow Brook before being spotted by a group of the undead that were hanging around a bus stop.
There were three of the ghouls. “One for each of us,” Ben said as he holstered his handgun and withdrew the machete from its guard.
They lumbered forward, toward the gathering party. Molly was staring at one of the two women in the group who was missing both of her arms. The left arm stopped near the elbow. The right arm was ripped completely out of the socket at the shoulder. “How did that happen to you?” Molly asked as though she was addressing the dead woman directly.
Vaughn had moved away from Ben and Molly, sticking close to the front end of a parked sedan, waiting for the right moment to attack.
The second woman’s face had been eaten away. Molly could see bite marks elsewhere on her body but no other major injuries. This woman scared Molly more than the armless one because she was making chewing motions with her mouth and opening and closing her hands into fists.
“I think that one likes you, Molly. Molly?” Ben had lost sight of her. He found her on the ground on the curb side of the same sedan Vaughn was using for cover. Her legs had given out and she was too terrified to look anymore.
“It’s alright Molly. Vaughn will take care of them.”
And Vaughn did. He went for the third zombie, the man, first. Using the butt end of his rifle he destroyed the man’s skull. He did the same to the ladies, never turning the opposite end of his gun toward them. Panting, he returned to the curb and took a short rest near some bushes. Molly looked beyond him and into the front of a brick building that had been a dentist’s office before the fall. The full glass front door was gone, broken into thousands of pieces. Bloody hand prints, smeared and obscured, were a terrific contrast to the smooth laminated white of the front desk. She looked away.
“I want to go back,” she said through stifled tears.
“They won’t let you back in without food.” Ben reasoned.
“They don’t know what it’s like out here!” she yelled. “You have blood on you, Vaughn!” Her eyes travelled all over his body searching for more.
“Keep your voice down!” Vaughn yelled back at her as he wiped some blood from his arm. “It’s a tad bit hard to beat three zombies to re-death and come out clean. Besides, the blood can’t infect you unless it gets inside through a wound or down your throat. So don’t get hurt, watch what gets in your eyes, and fight with your mouth closed.”
Molly’s face grew paler but she had no choice except to stand up and move on. They made it eight more blocks without event, save for Molly finally vomiting on the sidewalk. Watching Vaughn beat the trio of zombies to what he had called “re-death” had caught up with her system. She was disgusted.
“Feels good to vomit for the right reason, huh Molly?” Vaughn said without looking back at her.
Ben, who had stopped to hold back her hair, fumed at his remark. “Vaughn, that was fucking uncalled for. Give her a break.”
Vaughn shrugged his shoulders. “I was just saying.”
“Don’t say anymore about it. Let’s get this over with and get back home where it’s safe.”
“Thanks Ben,” Molly said once she’d spit the last bits from her mouth and taken a swig of water.
“It’s like he gets paid to be an asshole. I don’t get it,” Ben cracked, trying to make Molly smile a little. They both laughed and caught up to Vaughn who had continued on without them.
Arriving at the entrance to the cul-de-sac they stood hidden from view behind a large sign, on it the name of the abandoned neighborhood, Alpine Fields. They reviewed the map printout.
“Alright, here is where this gets interesting. I’ve given the houses nicknames so we can quickly identify them if we need to make decisions on the fly.” Vaughn paused. He looked as though he was waiting for applause or congratulations for his great idea. None was offered.
“Well, let’s hear them,” Molly urged him to finish the meeting. She couldn’t help but feel that her feet, and the feet of her companions, were visible between the posts of the sign.
“The names will make more sense when we get in there. They are Pink Horse, Gnome City, Dead Lawn, The Boat House, FedEx, The Forest and Cupola.” He pointed to the rooftops of each house on the satellite map as he called its name.
“Those names are very creative, Vaughn. Now can we go? I feel like a sitting duck here.” Molly knew that starting with flattery and following with reason would go much further with Vaughn than almost any other conversational formula other than an offer of sex.
“Sure thing. Pink Horse is first.”
He skipped playfully into the cul-de-sac and Ben and Molly followed with much less zest.
Pink Horse
“Creepy,” Molly said, eyeing a bright pink My Little Pony horse that stood atop the mailbox. Vaughn may have put the toy there to mark the house or it might have been left by the child who had owned it. Either way it hurt for Molly to look at it. She was pretty sure it was a happy childhood that had ended. They walked past the large dining room window of the house; its curtains were open. The flowers on the table inside were dead; never to be replaced with a fresher bouquet. The front door was unlocked.
“Creepier!” Molly shivered.
“Don’t worry,” Vaughn said as he touched her back, “I left it unlocked last time I was here and zombies break windows, they don’t turn doorknobs honey.”
Molly moved away from his hand. “Don’t touch me unless I ask you to.”
“So there’s hop-,” Vaughn started.
“It will never happen.”
Inside, they secured the house by checking every room and closing all the windows and doors. After Molly closed the heavy drapes of the dining room she took the vase off the table and threw it, and the dead flowers, away.
The hallway walls were lined with family pictures. In one of the images an immortalized little girl, owner of the pony and all the toys in the pink bedroom upstairs, stared back at Ben. He felt on the verge of breaking down right there in the middle of the unfamiliar hallway. He and Anna had talked about marrying and having a child, hopefully a little girl, someday. Without Anna those plans were only dreams now, or sad memories.
Once the house was clear and secured, they gathered in the kitchen pantry. Ben felt pure elation, a world away from the sorrow he’d just held on to. The pantry was fully stocked with plenty of canned and dry goods for the taking. Molly and Vaughn carefully sorted through the items and loaded everything they could into Ben’s backpack. This might be eas
y after all, he hoped, as he hauled the sack full of loot back onto his back.
“On to the next place then,” Vaughn said, satisfied with what they’d taken. They left Pink Horse and were moving on to Dead Lawn when Ben stopped.
“Look over there!” he whispered and pointed to the entry to the housing development. A corpse was moving towards them but hadn’t seen or otherwise sensed their presence.
“Wait for it to turn away and then move as fast as you can to the next house,” Vaughn told them. The corpse, as though he heard Vaughn’s suggestion and thought it a good one, turned away and exited the development. “Go!” Vaughn said just above a whisper.
Dead Lawn
Dead Lawn was just that. Dead. The owners hadn’t taken care of it or the home either. The house had been built, like the others in the neighborhood, within the last ten years. But it was in such a state of disrepair that it had aged twice as many years, looking like it would fall over in less than ten more. The dead grass crunched under Molly’s feet as she made her way to the front door.
“We can’t go in that way. It’s locked,” Vaughn said. “We have to go in on the side.” He showed them to a window into the garage that hinged at its top. It opened inward with a push of his hands.
They took turns climbing into the window and onto a convenient stack of boxes inside. The garage was dark and packed with junk and shadows. Across the garage Molly could make out the door that led into the house because it was cracked open slightly and some light was peeking through. She focused on the tall crack of light as she moved towards it, bumping into a bicycle and what felt like a plastic Christmas tree. Ben or Vaughn, she couldn’t tell who, stepped on a squeaky toy and swore into the darkness. Molly watched in fear as a shadow moved past the crack of light. Something was on the other side of the door. She stifled a gasp and lifted her bat.
When the Dead Page 9