by Betts, M. E.
"I see what you're saying," he said almost inaudibly, head still lowered. "Well, let's get on with this. This panic room's making me claustrophobic."
It was nightfall. Shari and Fauna sat on the couch in the loft, sharing a smoke. They had set up the barn loft for Nick."You smoke?" Fauna had asked him before they left him for the evening.
"No, I hate cigarettes," he'd responded.
"I ain't talkin' 'bout cigarettes," Fauna had said, grinning.
"What, you're gonna give me weed?!"
"Well," she had joked, "I'm not too worried about you callin' the cops, turnin' me in."
"Shit, I'll take it. God knows I could use it, take the edge off this bad feeling I haven't been able to shake since all this happened. Maybe even get a good night's sleep for the first time since."
"You gave him some of your stash?" Shari asked later as she sat on the couch with Fauna. The tone of her voice implied that she didn't approve.
"Keep in mind, girlie, it's mine to give away," Fauna responded, giving her a playful tap on the head. "Besides, now that it's basically a post-apocalyptic world, I feel safe enough tellin' you that I got pounds and pounds, and I can always grow more. Shit, I could fill my field with it if I were so inclined, without any worries. Ain't no one around to stop me or give a shit. And I only gave him a few joints. I honestly hope we can gain his trust, and I figure bein' nice to him is a good start. Besides, you know you feel better havin' somethin' to help you relax. Weed doesn't take away the reality or the pain of what's goin' on, but it makes it a little easier to cope."
"I guess you're right," Shari said, leaning back and exhaling slowly. "I don't mean to be such a bitch to him, but I'll be honest--I don't trust him at all, Fauna."
"And to be honest with you, I think you're right. The problem is, intuition is basically the same as speculation. It's like a guess. You're not workin' off facts, you're workin' off a gut feelin'. Now, I'm not tryin' to say your intuituion is wrong, any more than mine is. But it's just awfully unfair to make a judgment on a man when there's a chance you might wind up bein' wrong. Even if your instinct is right, you might be interpretin' it wrong. We just need to take things real slow, and be extra careful. But keep in mind, we're armed, he's not. Plus--" she paused. "I think we got a considerable mental edge on him. I just try and be prepared for anythin'. We don't know him, and we don't know what he'll do. Therefore, I wouldn't put nothin' past him. Just be alert. We should be in the habit of bein' careful anyway, given the circumstances."
Shari nodded. She thought deeply for a moment, and Fauna could see the gears turning in her head.
"You got somethin' else on your mind?"
"You don't have anything in that barn that he could use as a weapon, do you?"
Fauna sat silently, eyes wide open.
"Fauna!" Again, an admonishing tone. But this time, Fauna understood where she was coming from, so she declined to issue another head-slap. "What kind of havoc can he wreak on us?"
"Not much. But there are a couple hoof picks in there. That's about it, in the way of anything weapon-like. The ones I use, they're not real sharp, but sharp enough that I agree, they shouldn't be left in there with him." She stood and put on her jean jacket. "You wanna go for a walk with me?"
"Definitely," Shari said.
They descended the ladder and exited the garage, starting out toward the barn. They could see the faint glow from the small LED lamp they'd given him. It appeared that he was still up in the loft. Fauna opened the corral gate near the barn, closing it behind them. They entered the barn, and Fauna hit the switch on the wall, bathing the lower level with fluorescent light. She searched around, quickly finding the hoof picks, and did a quick inventory to make sure there was nothing else potentially dangerous lying around. They heard Nick pacing in the loft above. "You ladies miss me?" he called, peering down at them with a grin.
"Just looking for something," Fauna responded. "You comfy enough up there?"
"Oh, as comfy as I'm gonna be, I guess. Thanks for the dinner you brought earlier. It's been a couple days since I had anything even resembling real food. I just want you ladies to know, I...I genuinely appreciate your concern for me. I mean, I'm not really psyched to be in this loft, but at the same time, I'm relieved you didn't turn me away." His voice cracked slightly. "It really woulda been a death sentence for me. I'm sorry I went for my gun, I...I just didn't know it was your property, and I couldn't help but be a little defensive--"
"Yeah, you and all of us," Fauna interrupted. "There's no hard feelings, Nick. We're all just tryin' to survive, right? We were thrown into a shitstorm with no manual on what to do, and it ain't easy, for damn sure. But hey, the fact that we all made it this far shows that we got some kinda will to live. Let's all just keep that up, and help each other do the same."
"Yeah, sure thing," he said.
"Alright, then. We're gonna get some sleep, you do the same. We'll see you in the mornin'."
"Okay. Good night, ladies."
"Good night, Nick," Fauna called on her way out.
"Night," Shari said.
Nick sank down onto the bed as the women left, his eyes narrow slits. Those girls are gonna be the death of me, he thought. He had really expected that if he played nice like Fauna had said, that she'd let him out. He wondered how long she expected him to pander to her while she kept him in the barn with the animals. I'll give her awhile, he thought as he held the long piece of glass in his hands, feeling its sharp, smooth edge. He'd found it in the corner, nearly hidden by the shadows of the sloping wall. I'll give her awhile, but I can't take this kind of treatment for too long.
It was Saturday, exactly one week since the world as they had known it ended. They had gotten some use out of the radio. Each evening after they dropped Nick off in the barn for the night, the two women sat on lawnchairs in the garage while Fauna operated the radio. The first night, they heard a transmission from a man calling himself J.B., broadcasting from south of Marion, Illinois. He described to them in what he had seen in the city."I was in the ER, waiting for some lab work to come back. I had cut mysefl at work the day before, and it started to get infected. I figured I'd get it checked out. The guy in the room next to me, he had some kind of heart issue going on. I heard his wife, speaking way too loudly, talking about how he had a heart attack before, and she was worried he was about to have another one. So they're sitting there waiting for the doctor to come back, and I hear the two of them talking, having a conversation. Granted, she's doing most of the talking, but I hear him every so often. And all of a sudden, I hear her start screaming. I was thinking, Holy shit, did he have a heart attack and die? That fast? I had just heard the guy speaking seconds before I heard her scream. But I figured, hey, I guess it could happen. Well, a buncha nurses rushed over to his room, and I knew something was wrong when all those nurses started to scream, too. 'Dr. Simon, get in here!' I heard one say. 'He's killing her! Dr. Simon, he's killing her!' Now at this point, I was pretty freaked out, but I still didn't know the guy was a zombie...then my curiosity got the better of me. I crept over to the doorway, poked my head out, and peered into the room next to mine. The wife was lying on the floor facedown in a pool of blood, and the husband was biting one of the nurses, ripping her throat out. Dr. Simon was injecting something into the man, trying to knock him out. But it didn't help, he just kept at it. The doctor was next. I took advantage of the fact that he hadn't seen me yet, and ran the hell outta there. Now, looking back, I have to wonder...did that man even die before he turned? All the zombies I've seen since then, when they die it takes at least a minute before they get up again. But this guy...he had just spoken literally ten seconds ago. Makes me wonder if it has something to do with his bad heart. Maybe he didn't even have to die before he turned. It's speculation, but it's just something for those of you listening out there to think about. Anyway, back to my story...as I went to leave through the main entrance for the ER, I noticed an ambulance outside. They were bringing a woman in on a stretcher
, someone with their throat torn open, just like what I had seen that guy do to the nurse. The woman's eyes were closed. I assumed she was passed out, but in retrospect I know she was already dead, getting ready to come back. Too bad the EMTs didn't know. As they were carrying her in, she bit one of them, took a chunk out of his arm. I decided to look for a different exit. I continued down the hall, passing a mortifician along the way, running in the direction of the ER and screaming something about all the bodies in the morgue being alive...it was hard to understand exactly what he said, because one of them had bitten his lower lip off, peeled the skin away all the way down to his chin. None of his M's came out right. His shirt was covered in blood. I got a little further down, and man came bursting out the door of a stairwell, pressing his hands into his throat as it gushed blood. He made it another dozen steps or so past me, and wiped out. He died right there on the floor. At this point, I took off running. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. Even though we'd all seen the zombie movies before..." He paused, and laughed. "Even though we'd heard of zombies, I don't think most of us were prepared to accept it. I mean, that's the movies, right? What the hell are zombies doing in real life?" He paused again. "I guess we've yet to find out the answer to that question."
Shari was getting some target practice, this time about seventy-five yards from the target. Johnny Cash played from her MP3 player dock on the ground beside her. She had gotten four zombies in the past couple of days, picking them off from the balcony. Two of them got arrows to the head, clean kills. Of the other two, one had been struck in the torso and one in the leg. They had both been pinned down to the ground, easily affording Nick the opportunity to go out with the sledgehammer and finish them off. They had drug them to the pyre near the creek, burning the remains. Shari, excited by her newfound ability to hit moving targets, had gone hunting in the woods earlier, successfully shooting a large doe. They had seen a large number of whitetail deer lately on the property. It seemed the deer, and a lot of animals, were on the move in great numbers, confused by the chaos that was ensuing and likely running for their lives much of the time. Fauna and Nick were about fifty feet away, beside the shed. Fauna was attempting to teach Nick how to gut and skin the doe, but it was apparent the man didn't possess a strong stomach for gutting. She had tried getting him to help remove the anus, but after he tossed up his breakfast, she decided to do it on her own, rolling her eyes. "That's why I wanted to do this outside," she had said, eyeing the puddle of vomit on the ground, and went about gutting the animal. At this point, she was hanging the doe by its head, getting ready to skin it, having cut off the limbs. "You think you can handle this part?" she asked him patronizingly. "Yeah, I think so," he said weakly. "I mean, it's not as gross as grabbing an anus and cutting it out, you've gotta admit."
"So you can sledhehammer a human zombie head, but not cut out the digestive tract of an animal?" Fauna asked, hand on her hip.
"Hey, I can say this much for sure...a sledgehammer to the head is much quicker work than dressing a deer. Besides, this deer's not gonna be getting up to kill us. I got no beef with it."
"Well, I guess I can't argue with that," she conceded. "Okay, just grab the skin from the top--" Nick did as he was told, "--and peel it down, just like a banana." Nick looked uncomfortable, but he didn't throw up this time. "You alright?"
"Yeah, it just takes some getting used to. I didn't have a dad that took me hunting, so this is all new to me."
"Well, I'm happy to be the one to teach you. You harden yourself, you got a much better shot of survival. This ain't a world for the sqeamish no more."
"Amen to that," he agreed. "Shari keeps bringing us deer to dress, and who knows? Maybe in a month or so, I'll be de-anusing deer with the best of 'em!" Fauna laughed, loud and hearty.
"And who knows? I just might get to like you, Nick." He smiled sheepishly. "Hey Shari, you ready to get your first taste of venison today?" she yelled.
"You're damn right," Shari yelled back, smiling as she nocked an arrow. "It made for some good moving target practice, and we're not about to let all that good deer meat to go waste, now are we?"
"Hell, no!" Fauna and Nick both said at the same time, laughing. Fauna showed him how to cut the skin away from the head, then began to butcher the meat. She made quick work of it, and was done before ten minutes had passed. Nick watched attentively, determined to harden himself to the process.
"What do we do with all the meat?" he asked as Fauna finished, throwing the butchered meat into a large poly container.
"Cover the container, put it in the empty chest freezer I got down in the basement," she responded, taking out the haunch. "Except for this one. We're makin' a roast outta this bad boy. Got some potatoes and onions in the house, should still be good. Have us an honest-to-goodness homecooked meal tonight."
The three of them sat on stools around the small circular table in the loft. They had all assisted in preparing the meal of roasted venison cooked in a red wine sauce with roasted vegetables. Shari had thrown together a salad from a bag of spinach she found in the fridge in the house. "Might as well use it, won't be good much longer," Fauna had told her. Nick poured them each a glass of vintage wine from the bottle that Fauna had brought up from her cellar."I was savin' that bottle for somethin' special..." Fauna told them, a distant look in her eyes. "I figure, hell, now's as good a time as any, right?" She lifted her glass. "To survival!" The three of them clinked their glasses together. "Well shit, let's eat."
"Oh man, this is the best food I've tasted since...I don't even know when," Nick said as he took a bite, his face contortted into a near-orgasmic mask of pleasure.
"You were a bachelor?" Shari asked him.
"Yeah," he said, looking down at his plate as he ravaged his meal. "I don't think most women really saw me as marriage material. I dated every now and then, but..." He stuck a large forkful in, and continued talking. "None of them really stuck around for too long. I mean, I didn't make much money, and they probably figured I never would. I'm not really good at anything, and I don't have any particular skills." He chuckled. "Other than video games, and that doesn't pay very much."
Shari chuckled. "I guess not. What did you do, anyway?"
"Gas station attendant. I had actually just worked my way up to manager, and then all this shit happened. Didn't even get my first paycheck since getting promoted. Figures, huh? Just my luck." He smiled. "Know what, though? I figure, maybe this is my time to shine. I mean, I'm not happy about what's going on, and all the people that died...I don't know if anything will ever feel okay again. But just the fact that we survived--" He looked pointedly at Shari and Fauna. "The fact that we survived, I figure it must make us special in some way. Like, maybe I'll get to be better than I was before the...before the apocalypse." He looked down at his plate, self-conscious. "I don't know, that's just what I hope for."
"I guess your options are wide-open now," Fauna said. "You can re-make yourself to be whatever you want to be. Be reborn, as it were. Me, I'm old. I am what I am, already. I know enough about survival, at least I have that much in my favor. But you and Shari, you got options, even with what's happened to the world. I think that maybe, if we play our cards right, we can all live to a ripe old age. What we'll do with it, that remains to be seen. But God saw fit to let us survive, and I guess we should oblige him and ride the train to the end of the line, wherever that line, and its end, may lead." She studied Shari and Nick's faces. "But that's enough waxin' philosophical for tonight. Who wants more wine?" She topped off all three glasses. "So what else, Nick? You got any family besides that brother you were talkin' about?"
"Just my mom," he said. "I haven't seen my dad since I was three. Walked out on my mom, my brother and me, so I don't even count him as family. The chances of me ever seeing him are just as good now as they were before the zombies. I do worry about my mom, though. I hope my brother made it to her, because I'm obviously not going to anytime soon." He looked down at his glass while he talked. "I'm not really i
n denial, though. I've prepared myself for the possibility that..." He sighed heavily, gazing upward. "That everyone I've ever known or cared about could be gone."
"I know how you feel," Shari said. "I was on my way to my parents house when all this happened. I tried calling them the night I got here, but calls weren't going through. It's the not knowing, that's what feels the worst. You don't know if they're dead or not. If you knew, you could grieve. But you don't know, and you might never know. Even if they're alive, will you ever find them? The odds are slim to none, at least for now."
The sun was setting, casting an orange glow through the large western windows of the loft, illuminating the cloudy haze of smoke. Shari stood up and began clearing the dinner dishes as Fauna and Nick retired to the balcony.
"Hey Shari, when you're done, bring your bow on out here. Got a couple undead wanderin' around," Fauna said, poking her head back in the door.
"No, let me," Nick said.
"You ever shot one of these things before?" Fauna asked.
"A little bit, in high school. I had a buddy whose dad had all sorts of bows. I'd go over there every now and then, shoot at some targets. I might be a little rusty, but some practice would do me some good."
"Alright, Nick. Let's see what you got," Shari said, stepping onto the balcony and handing Nick her bow.
He had no trouble nocking the arrow and shooting, but his aim left a little to be desired. The first arrow to fly landed on the grass, five feet from the nearest zombie. He grimaced, taking another arrow and nocking it. This one hit a teenage female zombie in the abdomen, knocking her over.
"One more," he whispered, concentrating intently as he aimed for the other one, a thirty-something male. The arrow sailed through the air and pierced him in the temple. The female was struggling to get to her feet, rearing her head for Nick as he took another arrow, nocked it, and let it fly. It penetrated her skull, knocking her back down to the ground.