Living amongst the Dead

by J. Morgan

  “Doooooon’t you bloody say the ‘C-Word’ around me… though having said that…” Leaving the pancake on the pan on the oven, sounding and appearing to have just remembered something he was surprised he had forgotten, he went to the cupboards. Open one, closed it, opened another, “A-HA!” he announced triumphantly, and his ears told him it was JUST in time! The water was boiling. “Tea, me maid, TEA!”

  “Teeeaaaaa?” She whined, evidently not amused.

  “Tea!”

  A half hour later, she already sipping on her cup, him waiting for his to cool, the boil water was out on the step to cool as well so that it can soon be poured into his water bottle. They had their pancakes, sadly lacking ‘Aunt Jemima sauce’ as he called it, meaning pancake syrup. It was a meal though, and not at all a bad one, in fact it was a rare treat. It had been a VERY long time since EITHER of them had had pancakes, he imagined. Well for himself he knew it as an undeniable fact, for her though, he didn’t know for certain.

  In spite of the lack of syrup, she gave an audible sound of enjoyment from the meal as they ate, and he was glad to hear it. When it was finished, the box of pancake mix left in a cupboard, he marvelled that with that box alone making up the first meal of the day, they might be able to last close to a week here if they stuck to two meals a day with a big breakfast! The water was poured into the bottle, warm but not hot, and she drank a good bit of it. He didn’t mind; was already on his way out to get another potful of water to boil.

  A large pot, like, HUGE, was found in a cupboard beneath the counter. It reminded him of a pot typically used where he came from to boil several lobsters at once, or in which a turkey could be deepfried whole. Well, you know, not with the feathers still on or anything like that, but deepfried as it is after being bought from the store pretty much. It was filled, heavy with the weight of the water, and placed on the flat top of the fireplace. The fire was stocked. If it got too hot inside, they could always open some windows a crack.

  “Baths today!” He announced. Tiff was still sitting down in the living room, reading through a book pulled from a bookshelf.

  “Oh my GOD that would be great! You REEK…”

  “Thanks, sugartits!”

  “You’re welcome, sweetcock.”

  “HAH! Never got that one before!” He earnestly hadn’t, it was a witty comeback to his playful nickname he gave her; a stereotypical one, and he admired her response. “Think you could give the clothes a scrub after our bath?”

  “I’m not really planning to… well… yeah I guess it would be best to keep clothes that fit me, for when it gets cold, huh?”

  “Yeeee’s, y’knows!”

  “Where’s this accent coming from? Newfoundland, isn’t it?”

  “You got’re! From the South Coast originally!” With the stove door closed, he went into the living room to sit down as well. Having already cooked ‘breaky’ as he called it, and brought in a bunch of water to boil for both drinking and for their bath, he wanted to kick back for a bit before bringing cold water upstairs. The hot water will be poured into cold to try and even things out, and to hopefully lessen the shock of the porcelain from cold to hot. He sat down on the lounge chair at the south side of the living room, across from the one in the corner of the north side where she had sat the other day; both lounge chairs faced the no longer functioning television.

  “Oh yeah? How long have you been on the mainland?”

  “Too long; many years, I miss it… so you’re from Ontario?”

  “Manitoba, but been living in Ontario for well over a decade.”

  “Ohhh, you mean roughly back when I was just a little teenager? So youuung and youthfuuuul and full of liiiiif-“ Nodding, he started extending some words casually, as though they were obvious, but were obviously mocking the fact she was so much older than him. She caught on quickly and scowled at him.

  “Oh fuck off, you make me feel old…” He laughed at her disapproval.

  “Well you didn’t sound very old last nigh-“

  “Fuck off.” Suddenly her tone was serious, not joking in the least, “Don’t… let’s just… not talk about it… ok?” She was blushing, now looking as though she were sulking.

  “You know, there’s nothing wrong with what we di-“

  “Shut it.”

  “Shutting it…” He didn’t ENTIRELY understand why she was so upset, but now nodded without the sarcasm he had given before, understanding not to push her; he wished this to be a good morning. It was certainly off to a good start. He realized that she was out of the bedroom so he can store his stuff upstairs again, and did so since he didn’t know what to say. Coming back downstairs, this time without his backpack, rifle, bandolier, and also having double checked that those two loaded mags were on the dresser along with the two casings that had gone towards putting Charlie and Denise out of their misery, the door was locked. The owner of those firearms was now passing her downstairs.

  She took note of him no longer having his things, thought why he had brought them down in the first place, and the sulking only seemed to worsen. Tiff was tempted to say that he didn’t have to be paranoid; she wasn’t going to try to shoot him, or take his stuff or anything like that, but it wasn’t a pleasant subject to bring up and so it wasn’t. Richard returned to the chair. They rested in silence.

  They were hydrated, his water bottle full, several pots of cold water brought up to the tub, but he found that the huge pot of water was taking ages to boil, which was understandable. The fireplace was stuffed with more wood and afterwards more wood from outside was brought in to be stacked up behind said fireplace. Overcast overhead, might rain but he wasn’t 100% sure. Was there anything he had to do outside that he should do before it starts pissin’ rain, just in case it did? Fishing, that would constitute their second and possibly last meal of the day. Fresh water fish wasn’t as good as salt water fish, but the Iodized salt in the cupboard can assist that.

  It wasn’t long until he was in the tub with a belly full of fresh fish; the darkness of late Afternoon or early Evening upon them, only faint light coming in from the bathroom window. Soap, shampoo, and warm water… this was a good day. Tiff had complained that SHE should be the first to bathe since she wasn’t as dirty, but he had been the one to do all the work today… and had done all the work yesterday, not to mention in olden times when whole families shared the same bath water the men always went first, which she commented was horribly misogynistic. He rolled his eyes, she said he was a sexist prick, he told her that she can run her OWN bath if she wants, and then the feminist finally shut her trap.

  After drying himself he took his side arm in hand, wore a fresh pair of socks from Charlie’s top drawer, and tossed his pocket’s contents along with his holster and belt into the master bedroom. Fetched her blouse, left the skirt which she intended to discard, and left his clothing and hers in the bathroom. Nude except for socks and a towel around his waist, he went downstairs. She scoffed at his shamelessness, face showing a less-than-approving expression to which he whistled, and after getting her attention while she was on the stairs, he turned to her and opened his towel.

  “Disgusting pig…” She shook her head and went upstairs; he sneered at her while grasping his junk, then put his side arm on the living room carpet, picked up the towel, fastened it to him again, picked up the pistol, and went to the fireplace. It was good to feel clean, and a shame that she held onto her extreme third-wave-feminist terminology. How could she practically DROOL over his body last night, but now act like such a cunt?! ‘Fuck her’, he thought… she can sleep in the Goddamn SMALL bedroom tonight, where her strapless purse remained.

  With nothing to do but dry off and wait for his clothes to be washed, which he asked her to bring down so that he could dry them quickly on the stove, he went upstairs. Shortly, he was coming back downstairs, backpack in hand. While in the room, he had grabbed the two casings on the dresser, left the four spare pistol mags there, loaded the two loose rounds in his bandolier in his Lee
Enfield to bring it back to 9+1, and grabbed the two rounds from Tiff’s bag. It was indeed .308… so she had tried to shoot him with a .308. A popular cartridge, likely MADE popular when it was adopted in the 1950s to be 7.62x51 which would go on to be accepted as the Nato standard rifle round.

  .308 was the civilian version, able to be loaded with whatever the shooter desired, but 7.62 Nato had to be loaded to specific loadings like M80 Ball which was a 147gr or 150gr bullet, he could not remember which, and it had a muzzle velocity of about 2800 ft/s from a 22” or 24” barrel, again, he could not remember which, but it was one or the other. Although the .308 had a casing shorter than the .303 British, it could hold more powder due to being thicker. Their Metric measurements which told of the bullet’s width and casing’s length in millimeters, were 7.62x51 for .308 or 7.62 Nato, and 7.7x56r for .303 British. The ‘r’ meant ‘rimmed’; an old style of cartridge rim at the base of the casing that protruded from the rest of the brass. This was done away with around the 1890s; by the 20th century just about all rifle cartridges designed thereafter were ‘rimless’, meaning the rim was parallel with the body of the brass.

  Of course, revolver cartridges like .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, as well as the ancient .22lr which had history dating back to… what was it… 1850s? No, probably not; around the 1880s at least though, he figured. Thinking on all this history, which fascinated him, his reloading setup was… well… set up. It was all there on the coffee table in front of the couch. Powder bottle of IMR 4064 stood up, .303 Die set brought out, the translucent top of the plastic box lifted up and placed beneath the red plastic base of the box in which the finely machined pieces of steel lay along with a little yellow powder scoop. It was a bit greyed from gunpowder dust from all the times it had been used. The powder itself was in fact not powder, but little cylindrical pellets, almost like the lead from mechanical pencils but finely cut into lengths of maybe 2-3mm if he had to guess.

  Lyman Powder Scale which he had gotten for quite a good price years ago was set up, an arm balancing on its red plastic base, the screw under the right side of the base adjusted until the point at the end of the balancing arm was pointing at the 0gr mark. The two casings shot that day were brought to the table, the sleeve of CCI Large Rifle Primers set down, the box of bullets as well, and then some fishing was needed. Not the type for fish; he had to find the casings at the bottom of his backpack. Fishing out all of them eventually, trying to ignore the chill of being wet and almost completely naked there in the living room, there were 25 in total including the ones he’d used that day. Some brass casings had been lost over the months, whether in grass, or mud, or puddles, or what have you. He had more once upon a time.

  Indeed back before the infection he had over 200 casings of .303, which were just about all loaded to be live rounds. He also had four Lee Enfields, three of which worth using, the fourth being from the late 19th century; a No.1 Lee Enfield, which he wouldn’t allow to be carried and banged around. It was in IMMACULATE condition. So unfortunate that right now it was in a safe in the back of a truck somewhere along the Trans-Canada Highway. Such was life; c’est la vie. Now though, he had 45 cartridges left and 25 casings; a potential total of 70 rounds, 10 more than he can carry in both rifle and bandolier, which was fine. Luckily the clips were harder to lose, actually had an excess; 7, enough for 35 more rounds.

  The two clips were left in the bag, along with the book that told of hundreds of different cartridges, and hundreds of different powders, because powders can be quite different. 40gr of one type might have the same power as 50gr of another, so without being careful you can overload a cartridge which can have disastrous results depending on the firearm design, but even if the firearm is incredibly sturdy and can take the pressure, too little power or too much power can negatively affect accuracy with too much elevation, too little elevation, or something like that. In simple terms, the bullet might go too high or too low.

  Finally the Lee Hand Press, looking like a big red nut cracker. Onto that was screwed the resizer/deprimer die, and below that he slipped on the seat for the rims of .303 casings to be sat to keep them stable as the casings went about the processes of becoming live cartridges once more. The spent brass was not particularly dirty, and so didn’t bother boiling water with dish soap to clean them, which he used to do regularly during simpler times before the shit hit the fan, as they say. So the process begun.

  One after another, after giving each neck a tiny bit of thick white lube, each spent casing was resized and deprimed with one motion. For more leverage, the cold metal body of the press was placed between his bare knees so that his legs put less strain on his arms. He could do it without his legs, but arms would be sore by the end. Spent primers popped out while the necks of the casings, meaning the very tops, were pinched back to size. After a casing is fired then to place a bullet on top would lead to it falling down into the casing itself because it had expanded from the controlled explosion, but after being resized after firing then a bullet can be seated and sealed securely.

  The spent primers were left in a pile on the coffee table, which was presently looking to be in a bit of a mess. Pistol on the end of the table to his right, hand press right in front of him, die set, scale which didn’t require batteries or electricity of any kind, black plastic bottle of powder, sleeve of primers that had 67 of its potential of 100 dimples filled, casings, small box of bullets which he counted 42 in, and so on. Months ago when he’d started, he had more supplies; more components for reloading along with more cans of food and what not, but things dwindle in time, and knew things would dwindle further as time went on. It was the nature of the situation, images came to his head of years from now, figuring he’d end up with a full beard trimmed only short enough so it was difficult to be grabbed, a homemade matchlock or, at best, a homemade flintlock musket. Lead balls or round stones for projectiles. Black powder made by himself using a thoroughly unpleasant and disgusting ancient process involving charcoal which he knew how to make, and saltpetre which he had an idea of how to make but had never put it into practice.

  The casings, all resized and deprimed of their spent primers, stood in neat rows off to his left. Those two .308 cartridges nearby, he awaited Tiffany’s permission to use them since they were hers after all. The resizing/depriming die was removed from the press, replaced by the repriming die. Positioning a primer in its seat on the repriming die, the casings were kept in place at the top as said primer was thrust up into the primer pocket of the brass. This didn’t take much pressure AT ALL, and so his legs would not serve to help. Roughly half of them were finished when she finally came down while wearing the clothes she put on this morning, rationalizing that they were still clean, which they pretty much were. She looked at the coffee table confusedly, holding his damp clothing in hand, having wrung them out over the tub so they weren’t dripping wet.

  He sent her a friendly smile, not stopping in the process, already dry but still wearing the towel for decency’s sake. “Oh!” Richard exclaimed as he reminded himself, “I was meaning to ask, is it alright if I used your .308?”

  “My what? What’s all this?” She asked in legitimate curiosity, not knowing what a ‘three-oh-eight’ was.

  “Two rounds of .308.” His left hand came out, pointing briefly at the two live cartridges topped with lead-tipped soft-point bullets, knowing that the purpose of having the lead exposed was to allow the brass to mushroom out, to expand upon impact, causing FAR more devastation on the target. Soft point bullets were often used for hunting, in fact to his knowledge, it was illegal to hunt without using soft point or hollow point bullets. “They were in your purse; I first seen them in the truck.”

  She blushed, being reminded, and it annoyed her. “Just take them, and take these too, I’m not your damn cleaning lady, you should clean your OWN clothes.” They were tossed at him as he opened the Lee Hand Press, pulling a three-oh-three casing out, freshly primed, and the pant leg ended up knocking against the two .308 cartridg
es towards the lefthand end of the coffee table from the man’s perspective. They were knocked down to the carpet, as was a .303 casing waiting to be primed; two others rocking back and forth from the motion, his wet clothes landed next to him on the left side of the couch, he was sitting on the right side.

  This careless action around his reloading gear was immediately taken insultingly. It was not dangerous in terms of the powder or primers going off, but if she had gotten his primers wet which might have nullified their usefulness, if the powder bottle was open and she knocked it over to spill its contents helplessly to be lost in the carpet, or anything like that, then ‘furious’ would have been the LEAST volatile emotion he would have felt. Standing up immediately, a hand half-heartedly coming down to his waist to keep the towel from falling, the sudden sight of this big and hairy 6’ bear of a man standing before her made her jump.

  “YOU BE BLOODY CAREFUL WHEN AROUND MY RELOADING GEAR! IT’S THIS BLOODY STUFF THAT KEEPS MY RIFLE FED, WHICH HAS KEPT ME FED AND SAFE!” His free hand gestured down to what was on the table when stressing ‘this’. The voice was roared angrily, suddenly the content looking male appearing and sounding enraged. “Any more Goddamn attitude from YOU after having buried Charlie and Denise, got the bath ready, opened our meal yesterday, CAUGHT and COOKED our meals today, kept us WARM with the fire I’ve kept going which I HAD going before you even got up, and now I’m getting MORE rounds prepared to keep us fed and safe, while you have done sweet FUCK ALL!” Those last two words were barked; spittle flying towards her but luckily she was too far from him to be hit, at least not in the face.

  She had done the laundry, true, but in the face of all he’d done thus far it was a poor contrast. Her eyes were reddening, watering, in the face of this man who she knew could hit her, could beat her, could rape her, could KILL her, and there was nobody and nothing that could be done about it. The most painful part of it; it was true, though she would never admit to it. Running upstairs, he heard a door rattle as she tried to get into the master bedroom, further sobs came from her before a wept grumble that was doubtless containing misandry, and then a door slammed as she stayed in the small bedroom. How can a grown woman be so damn difficult?