When the Dead

by Michelle Kilmer

  I found you here and I didn’t want to disturb you. You looked like you could use the sleep. There’s a whole group of survivors living just up the road, there is even another kid but he is a lot younger than you. We have food and secure shelter. There isn’t an easy way in though; you’ll have to get their attention. They will be more likely to let you stay if you don’t mention this note. I live on the third floor if you want to say hi when you get here. The place is called Willow Brook.

  -Tom

  She smiled. Her luck hadn’t been this good and though she wasn’t looking forward to going back outside she knew it was the only hope she had of survival.

  Love in the Dead Air

  Rob watched Molly and Gabe as they played together. Things felt great now that no one was worrying about the baby or the food. Everything was in its place and life, or a semblance of it, could go on inside Willow Brook.

  “Molly, I’m going to visit Isobel and Ben for a sec, do you two need anything?” Rob asked in a voice he hoped didn’t sound condescending.

  Molly looked up and smiled. “I think we have everything we need.”

  Rob found Isobel and Ben eating a late breakfast in their apartment. “Am I interrupting?”

  “Not at all. Do you want some coffee?” Ben asked.

  “That would be great,” Rob said as he sat down on the couch that doubled as Ben’s bed.

  “We even have some little creamer cups that haven’t gone bad. I don’t know where Molly found them but you should thank her,” Isobel said, standing up to prepare him a cup since Ben hadn’t moved.

  “I’ll remember to do that.”

  “So what’s on your mind that you’ve decided to stop by?” Isobel asked as she set his coffee down on the table in front of him.

  “Well, instead of gathering every time something goes wrong I thought I would stop by when things were calm for a change; just as a neighbor and not a co-survivor.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable. You never know what’s going to happen,” Ben said.

  “Of that you are right. But, I really think things will settle down,” Rob sighed and sipped his coffee, “or maybe I mean that I don’t see what could go wrong next.”

  “The dead are walking so anything is possible. Things we can’t even begin to prepare ourselves for could be in the works for us right now,” Isobel said ominously, but laughed.

  “You might not be prepared for this but, I’ve been hearing some . . . ahem . . . strange noises from the Brown-Newsom residence next door.”

  “Really? Are you sure?” Ben asked.

  “Yep. Last night and this morning. I don’t like to gossip but I think Jeff and Markus have really hit it off,” Rob made an obscene gesture with his hand.

  “Rob!” Isobel yelled.

  “Gabe isn’t here and I had to make sure you understood what I meant,” Rob laughed.

  “Jeff has been emotionally and probably physically abused by Sheila for years. It’s possible that Jeff has turned to Markus for comfort and affection. I think it’s great. Jeff deserves some happiness. We all do,” Ben said, looking to Isobel. She didn’t look back.

  “He definitely has something to be happy about. He is the only one of us getting laid. They got so loud the other night that Gabe heard them and ran scared into my room thinking that zombies had broken into the building.”

  Isobel smiled. “I don’t even want to know what you told him.”

  “Sometimes men love men. That is all I had to say. Now this morning he has a gay Lego couple running a restaurant. He’s pretty open-minded.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good kid. Pretty resilient in all of this too it seems,” Ben said.

  “He’s playing tough for me. I do the same for him. We are tricking one another.”

  “Well you had me fooled too,” Isobel said.

  Teen Spirit

  Gabe was playing near the window and watching the rain start when he saw a girl run by. She looked different than the monsters to him. She was faster and looked scared.

  “Molly, there’s someone out there,” Gabe said without turning away from the window.

  “I know, Gabe, there are a lot of people out there.”

  “She’s different,” Gabe clarified.

  Molly pulled herself off of the floor where she’d been sitting surrounded by toys and went to the window. Gabe was right. A teenage girl was running back and forth in the street in front of Willow Brook, screaming. Her brown hair was greasy and stringy, her clothes and face smudged with dirt, her adolescent form worryingly thin. She was running around so much that she looked on the verge of fainting.

  “How does she know we are here?” Molly asked aloud. “Come on Gabe. Let’s go to Isobel’s and tell the others.”

  Gabe smiled and followed Molly happily. He liked being included in the adult stuff sometimes.

  “Can you hear me? Let me in!” Hayden yelled but she wasn’t seeing any movement in the building. She was growing weak from the exertion but she couldn’t stop; the dead would get her. She saw the convenience store on the corner. She ran around the back side of it and managed to climb up to the roof. She was trying to make herself more visible. Her throat hurt from yelling but she still couldn’t see anyone responding to her pleas. Maybe I have the wrong building? She thought to herself. She pulled the note back out and reread it.

  “Help me!” she yelled. She wanted to yell for Tom, the man who had left the note but she could tell from what he wrote that it wouldn’t be a good idea. A massive crowd of the dead milled around at the foot of the store. The entire glass front of it had been smashed in by them and tabloids and candy bars littered the entry. She listened to the crunching of the wrappers and the horrible sounds of the dead as she sat in the rain, shivering and waiting for a response.

  Isobel, Ben and Rob went to the windows of 205 at Molly and Gabe’s request. They could all see the girl, perched on the edge of the roof, soaked to her bones by the falling rain. The hands of the dead reaching into the air trying to grip her ankles or anything else they might get a hold of. Occasionally she would yell something and wave her arms.

  “How does she know we are here?” Isobel asked.

  “That’s what I was wondering,” Molly said.

  “We can find that out later. What we need to decide is whether or not we can help her,” Rob said.

  “We have room since, well, since Jill and the baby, you know . . .” Ben couldn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t need to.

  “Does she look like she could have been bitten? We can’t let her in if she is going to expose us,” Molly said.

  “I can’t tell from here. I think it’s a risk we’ll have to take. We can quarantine her or something, right?” Isobel looked to the group for some sort of agreement. Everyone nodded but Isobel was unsure of the next step. “How are we going to do this then?”

  “I’m going to ask Vaughn if he has a megaphone. We need her to stop yelling. She’ll be lucky to get off that roof with all the dead that she’s brought here,” Ben said.

  Our Own Little World

  Markus and Jeff had spent the last day in bed together. They could hear the yelling from outside but they didn’t want to move.

  “Isobel will take care of it, whatever it is. She always does,” Markus said.

  Jeff lay next to him, feeling happy and safe. He held a fear in him that Markus wouldn’t stay with him if he knew what happened to Sheila.

  “Do you ever think about leaving?” he asked.

  “Sure. All the time. It isn’t that bad here but I miss my friends and I wonder if they have survived. What about you?”

  “I think we should leave together. We could start a life together; make our own rules.”

  “Sounds nice,” Markus said as he turned to face Jeff and threw an arm over him.

  According to Plan

  Vaughn had been watching the goings on from the Coopers’ old apartment. He could see the girl clearly through a set of binoculars he’d brought over from his apartment. T
he rain water had washed the dirt from her face and wetted down her dirty hair, giving the illusion that she had just taken a shower. It had also made her thin shirt almost disappear as it stuck to her skin. Vaughn couldn’t believe she’d taken his advice from the note. He was about to unzip his pants and enjoy the view when he heard someone knocking on his door across the hall.

  He looked out the peephole of the Coopers’ door. “I’m over here,” he said as he opened the door to Ben.

  Ben came into Jill and Austin’s old apartment slowly. “What are you doing here?” he asked, unable to hide the suspicion in his voice.

  “I was outside earlier and I heard that girl over there so I came over here to see what was going on. That’s all,” Vaughn said as he lifted the binoculars to prove his story true.

  “Oh. Ok. We could use those and a megaphone if you happen to have one. I’m going to get her.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Vaughn asked, trying to hide that he thought it was a fantastic one.

  “We’ve already decided it’s the right thing to do. Will you help or not?” Ben asked in a rushed way.

  “Sure,” Vaughn took off the binoculars and handed them to Ben who followed him to his apartment for the megaphone. Vaughn could barely hide his smile.

  Shelter

  Hayden was really starting to feel the chill in her bones. She had a sweater in her bag but it wouldn’t do her any good. She and the bag were soaking wet. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of the building and she thought she’d seen people gathering at one of the windows on the second floor. The sliding glass door of that same apartment opened and someone came out onto the balcony, raising something large up to their face. Hayden jumped up and started to wave her arms. She moved as much as her fatigued and cold body allowed, splashing in the puddles that had grown on the convenience store roof.

  “Save your energy. We see you,” a woman’s voice reached her easily with the amplification of a megaphone. The zombies below turned and started toward the apartment building. “We are sending a man named Ben down to get you. I need you to do what I say and do it quickly. Wave your left arm if you can do that for me.”

  The woman’s voice was stern but there was kindness in it. Hayden did as she was asked and waved her left arm.

  “Don’t make any noise. We have to draw them away from you and the only way that will work is if you keep absolutely quiet. Wave your arm again if you understand.”

  Again Hayden did as she was asked.

  “Pick up your stuff and get ready to climb back down. I’m going to keep talking in this thing to keep them distracted,” Isobel explained.

  Hayden picked up her rain-soaked bag; put her hair in the one rubber band she had and waited for the cue to descend the ladder. Ben climbed down a fire escape on the other side of the building and ran in a large circle behind the office building across the street.

  “Climb down to the street when the last of the dead have reached the intersection. Then run behind the office building over there,” Isobel pointed with the megaphone to the building that Ben had run behind. “Ben will meet you on the other side. Stay close to him and do what he says.”

  The last of the zombies, a little boy with a hole in his chest, reached the intersection on their track toward Isobel’s voice. Hayden climbed down from her temporary refuge on the rooftop and made her way behind the office building to safety.

  Let it All Out

  “Come on you beasts, the freshest meat’s in here! I’ve never felt more desired in my life and I haven’t showered in weeks. Aren’t you sick of eating the homeless cats covered in fleas? Don’t you want to bite into something with a bit less hair?” Isobel screamed into the megaphone. It felt great to yell at them and see them react from a safe distance. Isobel was revving up to say some more when Moira appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the megaphone from her. She had a few things to say to them too.

  “Or would you like some aged meat better? You have ruined my retirement you mindless ghouls! Devoured the whole of my knitting circle and slaughtered the pharmacist. You make me want to kill and that . . . frightens . . . me . . .” Moira broke into a heavy sob. Edward, as though that sob was a summoning bell, had arrived to carry her off in a loving hug back to their apartment and a cup of tea.

  Isobel raised the megaphone up to her mouth once more and was about to begin another tirade when Ben opened her apartment door. Behind him the teenager stood, wet and shaking but smiling from ear to ear.

  “She looks a little crazy,” Rob whispered to Isobel.

  “She’s just in shock,” Isobel whispered back. “Molly, can you take her in the bathroom and help her get cleaned up?”

  “Um . . . ok,” Molly thought too that the girl looked a little psychotic with the grin she was wearing and she wasn’t sure why she had to be the one to tend to her.

  “I’ll get some extra towels and some dry clothes for her,” Isobel said as she went into her bedroom.

  Rob and Ben sat down and waited anxiously. It was exhilarating to meet someone new when you’d seen the same faces for weeks.

  Crash Course

  “So what’s your name?” Molly asked as she hastily undressed the tense girl. She tossed the dirty and dripping wet clothes into the sink.

  “My name is Hayden,” She said quietly, embarrassed to be near nude in front of a stranger.

  “Well Hayden, since we are alone right now, let me tell you a few things about life here,” Molly felt compelled to influence the girl since she figured the others would make her share her apartment again.

  “It can’t be worse than out there,” she said.

  “True. But still, you should know a thing or two. First, they are Nazis about the food and it is controlled and rationed. Don’t eat more than your share. I learned that the hard way. Second, no one is in charge but there are a couple of people who act like they are.”

  Molly picked up a bottle of shampoo and started to scrub a week’s worth of dirt out of Hayden’s hair.

  “Who?” Hayden asked. She wanted to suggest Tom, so she could find out more about him, but she knew it wasn’t a good idea

  “Isobel, the one on the megaphone, is nice enough but she kind of runs the show with Ben, the guy who brought you in.”

  “They seem like good people to me,” Hayden said.

  “Just don’t be surprised if they try to tell you how to act,” Molly warned as she finished shampooing Hayden’s hair and rinsed it with bottled water.

  “Ok, anything else I should know?” Hayden asked as she dried her hair with a towel.

  “Use these baby wipes and disinfectant soap to wipe off the rest of your body,” Molly showed her what she meant. “It’s our version of a shower when we can’t use the camp shower on the roof. We brush our teeth with bottled water.”

  “But the water and electricity still work. Why don’t you use them?”

  “They aren’t reliable and we could lose them at any time. Also, we aren’t quite sure about the quality of the water. We don’t want to get sick. So, we decided to switch to the backup system. We’d have to eventually anyway,” Molly said.

  “I drink the water all the time and I’m not sick, but whatever. Anybody else I should know about?” Hayden pushed for more information, hoping the note writer Tom would come up in the conversation.

  “Everyone is pretty harmless but there is a guy on the third floor that you should watch out for. His name is Tom Vaughn, but he goes by Vaughn.”

  Hayden’s heart beat a little bit faster at the mention of his name. She thought it strange that he would sign the note ‘Tom’ instead of ‘Vaughn’ if what Molly said was true. “What’s so bad about him?” Hayden asked innocently.

  “Everything,” Molly answered. A knock came on the bathroom door. Isobel opened it and brought in another towel for Hayden’s body as well as some clean clothes.

  “Did you check her for injuries?” Isobel asked politely, avoiding any reference to bite wounds.

  “I didn’t s
ee any. She’s clean and free of infection.”

  “And her name is?” Isobel asked Molly.

  “My name is Hayden,” Hayden responded, annoyed by Isobel talking as though she wasn’t there.

  “Well, Hayden, if you could get dressed and come meet the others I think that would be great.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hayden responded.

  Molly could hear a hint of sarcasm in Hayden’s voice and it made her smile.

  Fifteen minutes had passed since Molly and Hayden had entered the bathroom. When they emerged, Rob, Ben, and the other residents who had come to meet her, could not believe what they saw. A beautiful teen, although slightly emaciated, stood before them. All that time without a proper diet had almost killed her.

  “I didn’t find any wounds. No bites, no cuts and she scrubbed her skin with disinfectant soap. I think she is healthy,” Molly updated everyone.

  “Hi,” Hayden said shyly.

  All the residents started to ask her questions at the same time.

  “Don’t overwhelm her,” Isobel stopped the barrage of questions. “Hayden, how old are you and where did you come from?”

  “I’m sixteen and I lived in Maple Leaf.”

  “What happened to your family?” Ben asked.

  “My parents died on the second day so I’ve been alone ever since. I tried to make it to the houses of friends and I did but most of them were dead before I got there,” She started to cry and Molly put an arm around her. “I spent nights in abandoned houses. I decided to try one more friend; he and his dad were still alive but my friend got attacked and was dying. I left there two days ago. I haven’t had much luck since then with food because the dead are everywhere. I’ve had to keep running.”

  “How did you know we were here?” Rob asked.

  Hayden hesitated. She couldn’t tell them about waking up and smelling Tom, finding his note. “I saw candles burning in your building last night so I knew you were alive in here,” She gestured around the room. “It looks like you have it pretty good.”