by Main, Lynn
“I've changed my mind. I really would like to go back to sleep.” My heart starts beating again when she turns back.
“Well come on then. Just stay on your side, okay?” She says with a bubbly and warm smile.
I climb in on her right side and lay stiff and cautiously look toward her. She turns back and sighs.
… I sleep most of the day and wake feeling half-starved not long before sunset. Right away I notice Faith's absence. I hear her in the kitchen and breathe again. I hadn’t even noticed I was holding my breath. I am still sore, but I feel better…more rested.
The sky is darkening between the cracks in the boards over the windows. The light coming from the kitchen windows makes brilliant orange and red rays through the house that are thick with dust and look almost solid. I sit up using my arms despite the ache coming from my bicep.
Faith walks in with a tray containing two cans of soda-pop, a single red apple that doesn't look fabulously fresh, and two opened cans of soup. One is chicken corn chowder and the other is beef vegetable in a plain white can. Both came from my cupboard; way in the back. “Sorry, it isn't much of a feast.” She says as she sits the tray on the bed beside me. Pills roll around scattered on top of it.
“What is all this?” I ask, pointing at the pills. “Just some antibiotics, a few more pain killers, a muscle relaxer and a Valium so you can go back to sleep.” She says, sloughing off the question in her somewhat annoying doctor’s tone.
“Oh okay.” I say, trying not to make my annoyance obvious, “I’m really not that tired.” “I don't think it is going to be safe here much longer. There is a huge hole in the wall in your bedroom. We have to leave. We both know it. When they come again they may take the whole place down.”
“So what are we going to do?” I say as I take the pills -the pain killers are just generic Tylenol- with a whole can of pop and start wolfing down some cold chicken corn chowder. This would normally be totally gross. I think that can of soup has been in my cupboard since I moved in here, but right now this is a feast fit for a sultan. I finish the chowder and look at the other can and the apple then at Faith, “Are you going to eat?”
“No its okay go ahead I ate another can of that beef s tew a little earlier. I wish there was more. Most of your food was half rotten when I got here and over the days…I kind of got hungry. There is not much left except a saltine cracker sleeve and a few more cans of vegetable soup and a couple of sodapops.”
I finish all the food on the tray, including the core of the apple, and my stomach grumbles right after I am done, “Maybe you can get me some of the crackers too?”
The look of guilt on her face is totally unnecessary. She could have just looted the house like she had planned. She stands and walks around the corner and comes back a moment later with the sleeve of crackers and opens it. They are stale for sure, but not rotten; edible. I devour them and then quickly drink the other can of soda. Suddenly an urge builds in my stomach and I can’t control it. I burp loudly and cover my mouth in embarrassment. I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks and I look at Faith and shrug. “Sorry.” I whisper, barely audibly.
She giggles, “That’ s okay. I'm just happy you had an appetite. That might have been too many pills otherwise. I ran out of fluid for the IV. You haven’t been on it for over a day now. Before that, it was feeding you.”
“IV?” I ask, “I can't remember an IV.” “You were hooked to one. I got the bags of fluid at the clinic and the supplies I needed to keep you hydrated…otherwise, you would have never pulled through after all of the blood loss,” she says and then takes my hand with hers and touches the clean looking puncture wound, caressing the irritated flesh around the hole with two of her delicate fingers.
I smile. She looks up at my face with a strained look and gently drops my hand away. She stands, “I think I should sleep on the couch. You will be able to stretch out more.”
My jaw starts tighteni ng, “It’s okay. I’m not going to touch you. I owe you my life. And I’m not some rapist.” I can feel the heat from my cheeks turning to fire in my brow.
“No” She says with wide eyes. “I don’t mean that. I trust you. I do. It’s me. I can’t handle being touched. It has nothing to do with…”
“How I look?” I finish for her raising my eyebrows. “ No. No. I just meant that I get freaked out when people touch me. You have behaved appropriately. I never meant to…” She stands and fumbles, half running into the kitchen and stays in there for a while. Making quite a lot of noise too, opening and closing the cupboards, and shoving around a large suitcase.
Suitcase When she comes back out of the kitchen, Faith deposits the suitcase by the door to my bedroom. She comes over to where I am sitting on the couch, breathing hard, and puts her hands on her hips, “You tired?” she asks. It is fully dark now. I had been sitting here staring at the wall.
“Yeah.”
“Me too…um sleep?” She says and looks at the mattress on the floor where my coffee table should be. “Yeah.” I say, lying down. I try stretching but am stiff and can’t stretch far, even ignoring the pain. I had just been sitting on the couch thinking. Maybe…for hours, but I have no idea what about.
She sits on the couch. There is more moonlight tonight. I can see her clearly. She stares up at the ceiling. There is a fan there coated with dust. She has a tortured look on her face as she stares. Her eyes flick towards me and I divert mine. When I have the guts to look at her again her eyes are closed. I fall asleep.
I wake again before dawn, but I can tell it is nearing because of the soft blue of the sky through the cracks. Faith is still sleeping. I don’t bother her. I stand and stretch but I’m still very sore. The cool morning air is nice. I sit down on the couch and watch Faith sleep.
After she wakes, we decide to go into my bedroom and look out through the hole. Its daylight now and maybe we can see…something. We creep to the door and I turn the knob as slow as possible. Then I push it open even slower.
The room is the same. The mattress lies against the dresser, shoved back and the hole gapes. The cheerleader is gone. I point when I notice her body missing.
“Well maybe something drug her off?” Faith suggests. We creep past the empty frame of the bed and Faith crouches in the open hole with her shotgun aimed out of it. I lean out over her and we stare at the garage apartment behind my house.
My roommates and I had always parked on the street because the lady who lived behind us came and went all hours of the day and her van always needed the driveway. She was a big woman too, and loud. I wonder if she was one of those burnt up women that came through after the man with no face. The apartment’s door stands open but it looks otherwise undisturbed.
Flies swarm above something rotten about 15 feet outside the hole in my wall. The grass is a little overgrown so it’s hard to tell what it is, but I can smell it. We can’t see much else because of the oleander bushes planted along the perimeter of the property like a topiary fence. They are blooming; red oleander in perfect five point stars all over the bushes, but nothing of their smell can penetrate the reek of the yard. “We should check that apartment. See if there is anything useful in it.” Faith says, nodding to herself and then looking back to me.
“I don’t think that is safe.”
“I am sure it isn’t, but its close. They may have food or weapons.” She seems determined, so I relent.
“Okay, but you should stay here and watch my back with that shotgun.” “You aren’t going!” Her look turns from determined to fierce, “I am. You can watch my back with the shotgun.” She makes to stand up so I step back to give her room and she turns and offers it to me.
This is a bad time to mention this, but I really hate guns. I have never fired one. Thought I would never fire one and don’t know anything at all about them. But I take it anyway. I just don’t want to seem scared. When she does go to check the place out, she may need to move real fast, “I will watch your back but if anything is in there you should just come
back here. Will you promise?”
“Yes . I need something. Wait here.” She turns and trots to the bedroom door. A moment later she returns lugging that ugly greenish suitcase on her thigh with both hands. She nods at me and steps through the hole over the large mound of debris, and then sprints past the thing in the center of the yard swinging the suitcase. She looks down at it and then turns her head with a jerk, whipping her mass of curling blonde locks around.
“What is it?” I mouth, holding the gun by its barrel and handle not even wanting to touch the trigger and step through the hole. I take a couple steps toward her, waving the gun over in the direction of the flyhaven. I step towards the swarm to see what she is staring at.
I t is the cheerleader. Well, it’s what is left of her torso. No arms or legs are on her at all and she lies on her back. All of the flesh has been eaten off of her ribcage and her guts are a black and green pile within. Her crunched skull grins up at me with long brown strands of hair poking out of the top of it. It has been eaten quite thoroughly. I turn away and pinch my nose trying not to vomit. I bend over feeling it coming on anyway, but end up just coughing and gagging. There must not be anything in there to come out. When I turn, Faith is gone. As if she had never been there at all.
“Faith?” I question the emptiness in the direction of the garage apartment, but I don’t hear a reply so I take a step towards it. “Faith?” I question the empty doorway when I get to it and hear a shushing. Her head pokes around the corner of what must be the kitchen.
“Does it look clear?” She asks.
“Yeah, I don’t see anyone.” I turn and scan towards Brandon Ave. Next to my house there is a big empty lot. It should be three lots, it’s so big. There are oaks here and there in haphazard disarray. In the center of the lot is a bare patch where no weeds have grown back since whatever stood there was removed. It must have been a trailer because there doesn’t look like there was a foundation; just a bare spot. It is empty like it always has been other than what looks like a body next to one of the trees and another right in the center of that bare spot.
No one is around and nothing moving. The houses on the other side of Brandon Ave. look wrecked and looted. Of them, nothing is left but shattered windows and doors ripped or smashed open hanging on hinges. Some of the houses have burnt down.
“Is it still clear out there?” Faith whispers loudly from deeper in the apartment.
“Yeah.”
“Good come in here and help me. No one is home and they have some food they are going to lend us.”
To the Flies We tally our rations and have: 11 cans of pop (various flavors, some diet), one gallon of water, five 20 oz. bottles of water, seven cans of corn, eight cans of beans (various kinds), three cans of tomato soup, a box of instant coffee that neither of us think we will use without hot water, two packages of saltine crackers, and a half full box of Cap’n Crunch that isn’t that stale. She also found some magazines that she decided to take.
Luckily the toilet still works. We have light for half the day. It’s quiet, except outside sometimes. We chat, laugh and joke about dumb stuff. We keep the conversations light. Ignoring topics like family, friends, or anything that is going on in the outside world. It seems like a different world inside our fine home even though it looks like a warzone hovel. The gloom inside does bother me sometimes. It is pitch black at night. But I sleep a lot and in the day the dark boarded up house feels safe.
With Faith it is quite cozy and days start turning before I realize it. We ask each other direct, easy to answer questions like age, favorite color, and star-signs. Faith is 27 and I am going to be 20 in November. Her favorite color is blue. She was born May 1st and is a Taurus.
We don’t talk about future plans for two more days. It’ s like we are living in make-believe…pretending that we can stay here; until we start running low on food again.
I am almost completely out when Faith comes out of the kitchen and kicks the mattress to wake me, “Hey you, going to eat?” She says.
There is a single can of corn on her tray and two pops, “Feasting this evening huh?” “Well we have to eat something. Ther e are two more cans of corn and four more pops and then we are out of everything; even the instant coffee is gone.” She says. We decided the instant coffee wasn’t that terrible with cold water.
“Well sit down,” I say sitting up. While we chew bites of corn, I wonder what we should do next. The electricity has been out so long now I’m convinced it will never come back on. This is real, all of it and we are going to have to find better shelter and a lot more supplies or we aren’t going to last much longer. “We have to leave.” I say. I had wanted to leave before we went outside but after seeing the way it is out there I’m not really excited about it anymore. But now we have to.
“I know.” She says. She looks over at the suitcase by my bedroom door. “We can take that van. Keys are in it.” Not long after supper we are back at the hole. We are going to put the stuff in the van and have a look around; one thing we are in total agreement on is that we should avoid travelling at night. We have the shotgun and the tapioca suitcase. We take a blanket and I have it folded beneath my arm, but that is all; otherwise we are leaving this place and everything else in it to the flies.
The Done Soldier We creep around the corner of the house. I set the suitcase down by the van and slowly open the doors trying not to make noise. I throw the blanket in the back seat and bend over to pick up the suitcase when Faith gasps. She’s standing beside me watching the street. I freeze. I don’t want to fight right now. She looks down at me and motions for me to turn around. A single soldier, in a grey camo suit, wanders down the middle of 13th Street.
He looks over at us about the time I turn and see him. He has dark tanned skin. Though his appearance is haggard like he has been in battle for days, his short jet black hair is perfectly in place, as if combed often and trained well…and he’s human. It is only slightly irksome that he is also very handsome. The thought of handsomeness in general makes my scars itch so I try to ignore that quality in him.
He stops for a second, gives us a non-committal wave and turns, continuing to shuffle. “Wait.” Faith says as she trots past me. I groan and hobble after her as fast as I can. When I get to the street she is standing at the edge of the drive watching him walk away. As soon as I reach her side she takes another step towards him, “Wait, I said. Where are you going?” He stops and turns back and I see the gun in his hand. I leap in front of her pushing her behind me and stare at him. My fists are clenched and my teeth are locked together and showing just a little; all are useless, I realize, against a bullet.
“Package is dead.” He says, then shrugs as if that answers all and turns to walk away again. “I said wait! Aren’t you a soldier? Aren’t you supposed to help people?” Faith says as she pushes past me. I’m nervous, but stay where I am. She has her shotgun held out and when he turns back he eyes it.
“I was. That doesn’t matter now. Not anymore. I’m not soldiering anymore.” He says.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “ Our drop was simple. Secure the package for egress; Special Forces. We went into the toughest soup to get out the hottest packages. But it doesn’t matter now. The guys are dead. The package is dead and as far as I know command is dead too.”
“Where did you come from?” Faith asks , taking another step towards him. I follow suit, not sure why we are, but I don’t want him closer to her than I am.
“Ft. Bragg, Texas.” He stops and looks the other way for a while as if he heard something. I don’t see anything except a destroyed neighborhood.
He continues, “We were supposed to drop by the Airport, but some fubar happened. We dropped right on the damn beach into a hornet’s nest. Got to a life guard tower and attempted to fortify. That night the goddamned dead bastards came right up out of the surf. All eyes were on the city and the parking lot and the beach. They took four guys while our pants were down. We had to waste the dweebs ‘cause they got
themselves bit.” He stops and turns to hock up blood. I can’t help but wince when he says ‘waste the dweebs’ and think back to when Faith first saw me on the porch…with her shotgun.
This guy has been out there in the sun for a while. He is licking his lips. His eyes are sunken in his head and rolling around and every tiny noise draws his attention away. He’s probably been wandering out here for days and lost his mind.
I start getting a little worried so I reach up and tug on Faith’s arm. I’d rather we didn’t get any closer to this guy and of course he senses it and takes two big deliberate steps toward us.
He is looking at me now and his eyes are not flickering away. He has the gun down at his side. His knuckles are turning white.
“It’s okay” I start. Suddenly, he brings his hands together in front of him. He pulls the top of the handgun back and I can almost feel the bullet slide into the chamber. Then he points the gun at me. “If you’re bitten then you’re dead; only one way out.” He says and turns the gun on himself. When he does I see a telling oval of teeth marks on his forearm.
“Wait! You’ll be okay! You don’t know …” Faith says. “Do you want to know what my superiors told me when I radioed for evac, lady?” He says with sick rage in his eyes. “No. Help. Coming.” Then he points the gun at his temple.
“Wait you don’t want to do that!” I plead.
“Mister, you want some advice?” He says looking back to me.
“Okay…sure” I answer, afraid to stop talking.
“When I’m done take it and do likewise…you will thank me in Hell!”
Before I can respond he jams the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. “No!” I scream for nothing. It’s far too late. His body flies backwards. Faith and I look at each other then cautiously walk over to him. Where there was a face and head is only a repulsive slimy red soup being held in by fragments of skull. His hand still holds the gun; his finger still squeezes the trigger.