When the Dead
Page 22
“They taught me how to eat properly which is more than I can say about yours!” Hayden finally raised her voice and eyes to meet Molly’s.
“At least I can go to therapy for my problem. I don’t think there’s any hope for you!” Molly shot back.
“Well that’s one thing we can agree on. I’m hopeless,” Hayden shrugged.
“We took you in, Hayden! We’ve fed you and sheltered you. Everything you do still matters here. It matters to all of us,” Molly pled with the teen. She was tired, her nose ached and throbbed, she was done. “But if you don’t see it that way, get out.”
Hayden said nothing more as she packed her things and left 204. Molly slept peacefully that night, despite her injury, with the weight of another person’s welfare off of her back. Now she could focus on herself again even if the loneliness was bittersweet.
Alternate Ending
Hayden stood at the top of the stairs to the first floor. She could hear the dead beyond the couches and through the spindly legs of office desks and dining room chairs. The zombies never stopped moving, never stopped searching. Without another option, she moved into 305 for good. Vaughn was passed out across the hall and she wanted him to stay that way for now. A light knock came on the Cooper’s door and she answered it.
“Hi,” Ben said shyly. “I knew you’d be here.”
“Where else can I go?” Hayden laughed weakly.
“I completely agree. We’re all just kind of stuck and it gets crazier every day.”
“I actually have nowhere else to go in the building. Molly kicked me out,” Hayden explained.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I’d let you stay with me but I’m not in the position to offer such accommodations. Can I come in?”
“Sure.” Hayden allowed him to pass the threshold. She started walking to the bedroom but he put a hand on her shoulder.
“We can talk for a while. Just as Ben and Hayden. No role playing.” He sat on the couch in the living room.
“About that . . .” Hayden began.
“What do you mean?” Ben leaned forward.
“I’m pregnant.”
“I’m not the father, am I?” Ben turned white at the thought of Vaughn finding out that he and Hayden had slept together.
Hayden considered lying to Ben and telling him the child was his but then she’d be just as bad a person as Tom. “No! I was pregnant then! That night! The baby is Tom’s,” she admitted.
Ben relaxed. “What are you going to do? You have to tell him.”
“I know but it’s never the right time and I’m scared that he won’t want the baby.”
“Yeah, for some reason I just can’t picture the guy pushing a stroller and it has nothing to do with the fact that we can’t take leisurely strolls outside anymore.”
Hayden laughed but inside she panicked each time someone told her Vaughn wasn’t dad material.
Ben could see the trouble in her eyes. He stood up and hugged her. He kissed her head and came to a decision.
“If he doesn’t want you and that baby, I do,” he said and he meant it. “I’d be a good dad.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I’m not ready,” Hayden cried.
Ben nodded and led her to the bedroom where they fell asleep, his hand resting gently on her slowly growing belly.
Versions of the Truth
Isobel wasn’t used to waking up in an empty apartment. Ben wasn’t around and she was certain he hadn’t spent the night on her couch. She made herself coffee and lazed about. She was not religious but she found herself talking to God, asking for just one uneventful day. Just as Isobel was finishing her cup of coffee, Ben returned home.
“Hey,” he said as he used the remaining hot water that Isobel had heated to make a cup of tea for himself.
Normally Ben talked to Isobel a lot. So much so that it seemed he liked the sound of his own voice but he said nothing more. He sat down on the couch and picked up a book to busy himself.
“So, where’ve you been?” Isobel asked, the curiosity overwhelming her. “By process of elimination I have decided your answer will either be ‘with Molly’ or ‘with Hayden’.”
“Does it matter either way?” Ben answered her question with a question of his own. “You and I aren’t together in any form or fashion so I don’t see how it concerns you.”
“Molly would be the more suitable answer but she has a thing for Rob. So what were you doing with Hayden?” Isobel continued her questioning. “Nothing illegal I hope.”
“Well sheriff, no. I did spend the night with her but we didn’t do anything. She needed a friend, a listening ear. She has a lot more going on with her than you know.”
“We can’t be a team, Ben, if you are keeping secrets from me.”
“I won’t be pressured into discussing her issues,” Ben growled from over the brim of his mug.
“Fine!” Isobel huffed. “Just don’t sleep with the girl. God knows what diseases Vaughn’s given to her!”
Street View
Rob knew that Molly had kicked Hayden out. He’d checked on Molly after Gabe had fallen asleep the night before. In the morning, once he’d fed himself and his son, he went to her apartment with a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck.
“Want to go bird watching?” he said cheerfully.
“You don’t watch birds. There aren’t even birds around to watch anymore. What are you really asking? You’re not here for more sex are you?” she asked with accusation.
“No! Do you want to come to the roof to see if anyone else is out there? I’ve been thinking how crazy it is that we didn’t know there were survivors across the street. We haven’t been paying much attention to our surroundings.”
“Maybe they were just as good as we are at staying hidden,” Molly suggested.
“Do you want to go or not?” Rob asked impatiently.
“Alright, let’s go.” The weather had grown even colder so Molly looked around for a thick jacket, hat and gloves.
They took turns with the binoculars, pointing out anything interesting they saw. There wasn’t much to make them smile but they were happy in one another’s company.
“Look over there!” Molly gasped. “The mall is completely destroyed. The whole thing is gone!”
“Do you see anything up the road near the hospital?” Rob asked as he strained to make sense of the shapes in the distance without the aid of the binoculars.
“There are a lot of abandoned cars. Bodies are lying in between them. The road is covered with them.”
“Let me see.” Rob took the binoculars from her and raised them to his eyes. “They are all dead. I mean completely dead. Someone must have killed them when they turned. That might mean there are survivors up there in one of the houses.”
“We couldn’t risk that trip. There aren’t enough of us left and we’re all weak.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we try to make contact. But the undead are growing weaker too. Look at that one over by the crosswalk button.” He gave Molly the binoculars back.
The zombie was trying to walk but his rotten legs made it difficult to achieve any sort of progress. “He doesn’t look too good.” Molly turned the binoculars on others to see if they were all having as much trouble. One of the zombies stood out to her.
“Isn’t that Sheila?” she asked, pointing to one of the dead.
“Where?” Rob asked. His heart started to pound and he tried to get the binoculars back from her. “It can’t be. Jeff said she was out of town.”
“No, that’s her! I’m sure of it. That is the same outfit she wore to work all the time and that giant diamond on her finger is unmistakable. Jeff must have paid a fortune for that thing,” Molly said as she followed the shuffling corpse moving down the street. “That is so strange.”
“Hmm?” Rob asked half-heartedly, hoping she would drop the conversation.
“It doesn’t look like she has any wounds. She wasn’t bitten.”
“Maybe she took some pills?” Rob suggested.
Rob could see the gears turning in Molly’s head. She was doing the math and any moment she would have the answer. He decided to give it to her.
“He killed her,” Rob blurted out.
“No, Jeff’s a good man. We shouldn’t assume that,” Molly replied.
“I’m not making an assumption. He strangled her. He admitted it.”
“How long have you known this?” Molly’s voice was rising as she uncovered the extent of the lie.
“We’ve known since the second day when we went door-to-door.”
“We? The others know too? How could you not tell me this, Rob?” Rob walked toward her but she backed away. She was growing more agitated.
“Listen, Molly. We wanted to give him a second chance,” Rob said.
“Murderers don’t get second chances!” Molly threw the binoculars hard onto the rooftop, breaking a piece off of the plastic frame. She ran back inside, leaving Rob alone.
Careless Confrontation
Markus and Jeff were looking over a map of the city that was unfolded on their coffee table. They had an address book out and they were going page by page marking the locations of all of his friends. It was important to be prepared to find death and therefore ready to move to the next house if they were to set out on their own.
“Someone has to be alive. It isn’t that difficult to survive, is it?” Markus said. He was worried about his friends, some of them ex-lovers.
“They’ll be fine,” Jeff said comfortingly. “But more importantly, we’ll be fine.”
Markus leaned across the table and kissed him. “If we stick together, I’m sure everything will work out.
Jeff sighed happily, relishing the comment. Suddenly Molly barged into the apartment without knocking. Markus and Jeff jumped to their feet, ready to fight if necessary.
“You fucking MURDERER!” Molly screamed.
“Molly, calm down,” Markus said. He looked to Jeff for an explanation.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Jeff feigned ignorance.
“How’s your wife, Jeff?” Molly asked. “Tell me! Lie to my face!” She ran up to him to meet his eyes.
“You can’t just barge into someone’s apartment and start accusing them of murder.” Markus stepped into the small space between Molly and Jeff, ready to protect his boyfriend. “Well you can’t just strangle your wife, dump her body, and start fucking a man either! Playing homosexual HOUSE like everything is normal!”
“It’s not your business what I do, Molly,” Jeff said, his face turning red with anger, “or what I’ve done.”
“Hold on. Jeff, is she telling the truth? Because that would be my fucking business!” Markus yelled.
“She’s outside right now, Markus. Walking around like the rest of the DEAD PEOPLE but without a single bite wound,” Molly said.
Markus left the apartment. He wanted to see for himself if what Molly said was true.
“You bitch!” Jeff yelled at Molly. He tried to grab her but she stepped into the kitchen, putting the island in between them. Jeff looked for the baseball bat but the wall where it normally sat was empty. He’d left it outside when he’d tried to move the dog.
Molly could see him looking for a weapon. “Don’t come near me!” she screamed.
“You ruined EVERYTHING!” he snapped at her as he ran out of the apartment.
Out of the Bag
Jeff’s heart hurt. He hadn’t felt pain when Sheila died but he was feeling it now. Not because his wife was dead but because all the wrong people now knew it. His body shook with tension as he stormed down the second floor hallway to apartment 205. No need to knock, he thought to himself, there is no privacy here anyway. He turned the doorknob and let himself in.
Isobel was in her kitchen, still in pajamas and eating cereal with rehydrated powdered milk. She almost dropped the bowl when Jeff let himself in.
“Why’d you do it?” Jeff yelled.
There was a machete propped inside its sheath behind the door. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and slid it easily from the cover. He tried to swing the blade at her but the entry to the kitchen was lower than he realized and the machete hit the top of the frame with a thud. Bits of paint and plaster fell to the carpet. Isobel dropped her bowl of cereal. Jeff was about to try again when someone, he guessed it to be Ben, grabbed him from behind and dragged him into the living room.
“What are you trying to do? You could have split her skull,” Ben said as he grabbed the machete handle and wrestled it away from Jeff.
“Fuck you!” he yelled as he took a swing with a fist. “Who told her? Who was it?”
Ben tossed the machete onto the couch and punched Jeff just to get his attention. “What are you talking about? Why are you acting like this?” he asked Jeff as he nursed his knuckles which were virgin to fist fights.
“Who. The fuck. Told Molly. About Sheila?” he asked in response, his nose bleeding lightly from Ben’s massive bear paw of a hand.
“No one told me!” Molly yelled. She stood in the doorway with the apartment door propped open, ready to run if she needed to. “I saw her in the binoculars. No bite marks, no blood, just bruising on her neck.”
Isobel was cleaning up the spilt milk when Rob and Markus appeared behind Molly in the hallway. Markus was crying. Jeff, upon seeing the tears, lowered his head into his hands in defeat.
“I’m not a murderer,” he whined. “It’s different than that. She was taunting me and her damn dog wouldn’t shut up!”
“That doesn’t make it ok!” Molly yelled, still extremely upset about being left out of the loop.
“You’re anorexic and kept it from us!” Jeff argued back.
“Bulimic,” Molly said more quietly. “And that was different. Not knowing this about you could have gotten any one of us killed!”
“And starving to death wouldn’t?” Jeff shot back.
Molly gave him a hurt look, scowled at Rob and left. Markus followed behind her. Rob shook his head and entered the apartment to sit on Isobel’s couch. He touched the machete. Isobel closed her apartment door.
“She confronted me in front of Markus. He doesn’t want anything to do with me now.” Jeff was crying so heavily he was having trouble breathing.
“I’m sorry Jeff. I thought it would be better if people didn’t know,” Isobel said, stepping closer. Jeff no longer seemed dangerous, just depressed.
“The dead aren’t keeping secrets anymore,” Rob said. He too was sad about the fact. Just as Markus wasn’t likely to forgive Jeff, Molly wasn’t likely to forgive him.
Screw This
The group was falling apart and Markus had been ready to leave them for at least a week. Now it had become a solo journey. He cared for Jeff, a lot, but he couldn’t love a killer or live with people who would cover for one. Markus packed a few of his things into a backpack, grabbed some food and climbed down the fire escape of 201. At the bottom he saw the rotting body of Jeff’s dog behind a bush, tufts of its curly coat moving gently in an almost indistinguishable breeze, reinforcing his decision to walk away from it all. He saw Jeff’s baseball bat and took it with him.
His friends, spread throughout the city, would welcome him with open arms if they were still alive. Willow Brook was a sinking ship with few decent people left on it to die with.
Struggle Within
Ben walked Jeff back to his apartment. Jeff said nothing as he closed the door and realized his worst fear had quickly become a reality. Markus, his address book, the city map they’d been working on were all gone. Jeff sat on the floor next to the coffee table. He touched his hands to the cool wood and closed his eyes. If it stays quiet and I concentrate, he thought, I can remember some of the places he might be going.
“But what would I do if I found him?” he asked himself out loud.
I’ll kill hi
m for leaving me. His mind said.
“No! I love him!” he yelled and opened his eyes. Jeff formed two fists with his hands and punched the table. Left. Right. Left. Until his knuckles bled and the rage left his body.
Molly Mathay, Alone
When Molly was moving into Willow Brook, the office lady went on and on about how nice the residents were. They’ll do just about anything for each other, she had said. Molly had believed that and it was one of the reasons why she decided to stay after her lease was up about a year before the infection came. Now she was sitting in her cold apartment remembering all that those residents had done for her.
Jill had killed herself and her baby after Molly’s kindness and care. Hayden had gone back to the man who’d punched Molly in the face and who’d molested her in the third floor hallway. Rob, the only man she’d let into her bedroom, had kept a secret for a killer, as had the others. But she, with her eating disorder, was such a threat and needed to be punished. She didn’t know if Markus had left but she assumed it was likely. She felt like high-tailing it out of Willow Brook too only she had no one to run to.
The only thing she could come up with that they’d actually done for her was keep her from focusing on her eating disorder. Besides all the dying and deception, life actually felt more normal for her than it had in a very long time. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d binged and purged but, as she sat alone, she could feel the familiar need growing inside of her. Stealing from the others was out of the question. She would have to resort to more wild and dangerous efforts to get the food she so desperately needed.
Punishment, Banishment, or Death
“He’ll have to pay for what he’s done,” Isobel said to Ben and Rob. “It’s only fair. Molly had to.”
“An eye for an eye? Molly had to get food for stealing food. Does that mean we have to kill Jeff?” Ben asked with worry in his voice.