The World Without Crows

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  "Did you find any shells with it?" asked John.

  Brad shook his head. "They must be here somewhere." He looked up at Eric who was standing on the steps, overlooking them. "Were there any shells upstairs?"

  Eric shrugged. "I haven’t seen any," he said. "But I've only checked one room."

  "What the hell have you been doing, jerking off?" asked Brad. Holding his new gun, he bounded up the steps. "We've searched the whole downstairs!" He said this as he went past Eric in a rush. Embarrassed, Eric followed behind him. Brad continued, happily, as they walked through the upstairs hallway. "I swear, man, you live in a dream world or something. We could search this whole house before you even decided where to start. You're too fucking slow, man, you've got to hurry it up." Brad rolled his eyes at him and opened the second bedroom door.

  The cracked Zombie was on him before Eric had a chance to yell.

  _

  The Zombie screeched as it leapt upon Brad. Eric stumbled back in fear, but then threw himself forward, trying to push the Zombie away. The smell of it was nauseating. Eric felt his fingers sink into numb flesh when he pushed at it. It was nearly on top of Brad, screeching and gurgling, black spittle dripping from its mouth. As Eric shoved at it, he watched the Zombie's mouth open. It sunk its teeth into Brad’s shoulder. Brad's eyes flew open in terror.

  "Get her off me! Get her off!" He screamed. Eric grabbed at her hair and tugged, but the hair only peeled away part of her scalp. Brad pushed at her but she was clamped tightly to him. Suddenly John Martin pushed by Eric and, tugging the Zombie free of Brad, he hurled her against the door frame. The Zombie's head crunched against the wood, and it fell to the floor, and then rolled to the side, and was motionless. Black liquid poured from the back of her head.

  The Zombie was an old woman. She was shorter than Eric, old and thin as a bird. There were only a few long strands of hair over her burning red scalp. Her eyes had long ago melted into a black gel and her lips were shrunken so that her teeth were long and bared in a snarl.

  Brad stood hunched over in the hallway, holding his hand to his shoulder where he bled. John Martin went to him, but Brad snarled and turned away.

  "I'm all right," he said. "I'm all right. Just look for shells." Then he turned away and shot down the stairs.

  "Help him," John Martin said to Eric, who nodded and followed.

  All the way down the stairs, he shook his hand absently, without know why. Only when he reached the bottom did he realize the old woman's hair was snarled around his fingers. He wretched and gagged as he furiously wiped the hair off on the couch, leaving smears of dark blood.

  The room was orderly no more.

  _

  Brad was in the kitchen over the sink. The running water, supplied by a well, still worked. He was splashing water on the wound.

  "Don't!" Eric said. "We have to boil that water first!"

  Brad whirled around. "Do you think that fucking matters! She bit me, you asshole! Does it really fucking matter!"

  "Of course it does!" Eric cried. "Don't wash it with something that could be poison!" He rummaged through the drawers and found towels neatly folded. He took one out and grabbing Brad's hand, tugged it free of the wound, and placed the towel on it. "Hold it there!"

  Brad did as he was told. "I think I need to sit down," he said. The towel was turning red. He started to sit on the kitchen floor. Eric held him up.

  "Just put your head down. Put your head down over the sink." It was what his mother told him when he felt sick. Put your head down.

  "Oh fuck, she bit me," Brad said. He made a pathetic sobbing sound and then kicked the cabinet under the sink, splitting a wooden door in two.

  Eric threw open some cupboards. Above the fridge, he found what he was looking for. He unscrewed the bottle of gin and poured it over Brad's shoulder. Brad screeched in pain. His whole body, shuddered, and Eric saw his knees go weak. Eric held him up as he slumped. Then he took off the dish towel. Two large gashes gaped there for a moment before the blood welled up and poured over his freckled skin.

  Eric doused the next towel in gin and put it on Brad's shoulder. Brad yowled and sobbed.

  "How bad is it?" he asked.

  "Not too bad," Eric said.

  "How bad? Really? How bad?"

  "You'll be all right!"

  "Oh god," Brad sobbed. "How bad is it? How bad?" He viciously kicked the cupboard.

  John Martin came in then, holding the shotgun. He took Brad by the arm, and Eric, following, took the bottle of gin with him. Brad had difficulty walking, so John Martin half-carried him out of the house.

  "Oh god," Brad sobbed. "It's bad, isn't it? It hurts. Where's Sarah?" This new question seemed to consume him all the way back. He repeated her name all the way home. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah."

  By the time they reached the camp, the sun had set, and the sky was dark, steel blue. When they placed Brad by the fire and he clutched Sarah's hand, he finally stopped talking. He just lay there silently by the fire as Sarah cried with his head on her lap. Darkness settled upon them like a gently falling snow.

  _

  Brad's eyes started to bleed at about midnight that night. His head burned hot in Sarah's lap. His red hair clung in wet curls to his forehead. Eric overheard John Martin tell Sergio and Lucia that he had never seen the Vaca B work so fast. "Maybe it's changing," he said. Eric cast his eyes toward them sadly. John Martin quieted and smiled apologetically. They had broken into their original groups, and avoided each other.

  Birdie sat closer to Eric than usual, her arms around his waist and her head buried in his side, under his arm. She hadn't said much or cried.

  Sarah, however, was constantly weeping. She held Brad's head in her lap and administered water to him.

  The next day, the sun rose brilliant in the sky. When Brad woke, he was pale and quiet. After breakfast, Eric said to Sarah they should wash the wound and think about sewing it up as best they could. But when they took away the cloth, the wound was dark and oozed a white puss. It looked like a wound that had been festering for weeks. Eric hurriedly replaced the cloth, and then walked away, feeling dizzy. He went far into the woods and then fought to keep from losing his meal. In the end, he wretched up half of his stomach over the trunk of a tree.

  Brad insisted on moving. They labored slowly over the fields, taking turns helping Brad. Blood now filled his eyes. Brad said nothing to them, moving north. When they came to a long lake, Brad waved them down. He could go no further. They made camp by the water while Sarah held Brad. His breath rasped and rattled. All that long afternoon, they waited, boiled water, cooked food, and sat silently by the edge of the water.

  As night came on, Sarah asked Eric to help bring Brad to the lake's edge. He said he wanted to look at the water. Eric was shocked at how light he was, and how much heat his body radiated. When he put Brad down, he was ashamed at being relieved to leave them there alone. Being so close to the Vaca B again was horrible. Sarah held Brad in her arms, holding his head so he could see the water, turning fiery red in the summer sunset.

  Brad slept, on and off. When he woke, it was always with a strange shiver of his body. He would wake, choking, look around and ask if he was still there. And where was the river? And the clouds, were they still listening? Sarah stroked his head and said he was going to be fine. It was all right.

  Far past midnight, Brad woke up. He sat up with a groan. His eyes dripped blood. "I just want you all to know," he said. "I want you all to know." He shook his head then and lay back down on Sarah's lap. "You remember, right?" he asked her. "I tried to help, you know." Then he sank into a misery of tears so terrible to hear that Eric covered his face with his hands. "There wasn't anything I could do," Brad pleaded. "Oh god!"

  Even later he woke up and he begged. "Please! Please!" he sobbed. This went on for an hour.

  In the last hour before dawn, he had grown quiet and lucid. He looked up at Sarah. "Okay," he said. He smiled. "Okay."

  A few minutes later, just moments
before the sun rose, Brad died.

  _

  They made a wooden pyre on the shore of Mosquito Creek Lake and burned Brad's body. His death happened so suddenly, it was difficult to believe that just two days ago, Brad had been scouting ahead, keeping them safe. It happened so suddenly, it didn't seem possible that Brad was burning in front of them. It seemed that at any moment, he would come back from where he had gone and swear at them for being idiots. It had happened so suddenly, the whole world seemed unreal. The brilliant sun, the glimmering lake, the lazy twirls of smoke above Brad's pyre, none of it seemed plausible. It had happened so suddenly, none of them knew what to say or if anything should be said. They stood by the fire downcast and silent. Only Sarah wept.

  By midmorning it was done. The pyre was nothing but ashes. There was nothing to do but move on. They said nothing as they began to break camp. Looking at them, Eric saw the pain of loss. They were used to it. They knew the only reaction was to continue. It was the only response they understood.

  People died. People lived. Get on with it.

  There wasn't much more than that.

  Eric and Sarah solemnly unpacked Brad's share of the goods. His backpack was mostly full of food and boiled water. He had easily carried more than his fair share. In one pocket, Eric found a plastic bag. Inside was a little child's doll with great long, purple hair and an impish face. There was also a picture. In the picture, Brad was laughing. He was holding a little, red-haired girl. She had red pony tails, one on each side of her head, done up with pale blue ribbons. Squeezing Brad tight, the little girl was looking in the camera and smiling. Her teeth were bared, she hugged him so tightly. Eric had never seen Brad look like this. There was none of the darkness, none of the deep sadness, none of the fury and rage. He was smiling.

  Sarah took the picture from him. Tears fell down her face as she looked at the picture.

  "Who's the little girl?" asked Eric.

  "I don't know," Sarah said. "Brad never talked about life before the plague. But I think it must be his sister. Look at how happy he is."

  "I hardly recognize him," Eric said with an attempt at a smile.

  Sarah handed the picture back to him with a strange, painful shake of her head, and then wordlessly packed what she could in her own backpack before she walked away.

  Eric stuffed the rest of the supplies in his own backpack and then groaned as he hefted it over his shoulders. He stood for a moment with the doll and picture in his hand. He placed them both in the center of the ashes and then, looking once at the calm water of the lake, he turned and walked away.

  Late that afternoon, without speaking more than a few words between them, the party arrived at Pymatuning State Park.

  7

  __________

  Lake Erie

  THEY DID NOT STAY at Pymatuning to rest, as they had once planned. Their grief demanded movement. They hiked north along the shore of the great, curved lake. It was nearing mid-June now, and the days were getting hot, and beneath their backpacks, they sweated. They hiked harder and faster than was necessary. It felt to Eric like death followed close behind and, if they stopped, it would suddenly catch up to them. The feeling was so strong, sometimes he did not dare to look behind him.

  As if he was moving through a storm, he put his head down and plowed forward.

  _

  When they left Pymatuning, hiking north toward Erie, they had to move much more slowly. Twice they saw vehicles. It was hard to tell if they belonged to the Snakes or to some other gang or if they were just people like them, trying to find somewhere safe to live. They couldn't take the chance. They hid in ditches and little copses of woods along fields. They dug pits for their fires to hide the light. They ate quietly and hardly spoke. One night Birdie drew a picture of Brad's funeral pyre. In her picture, Brad flew up through the smoke on yellow wings.

  Eric thought painfully about his plan. They were still hundreds of miles from Maine. And when they got there, would they really be safe? For the first time, Eric thought of their goal as a real island with difficulties of its own. How would they get all the supplies on the island? How would they survive the first, terrible winter? When he imagined it now, his father no longer lazed back in his canoe with a can of beer in one hand. His father was probably dead in Florida. Instead he thought about Sarah and Birdie and himself, alone there on the island, in the desolation of winter.

  They wouldn't be safe in Maine either. They had to prepare. There could be Zombies and disease and hunger and death by freezing. For the first time, Eric thought of stopping somewhere, anywhere, and building a life there. The island wouldn't be safe either.

  No one was safe. No one was ever safe.

  _

  North of Pymatuning, the five of them hid in the woods near a creek while John Martin went into town. He said he wanted to get antibiotics. He didn't say so, but Eric thought John believed that Brad might have been saved if they had treated him sooner. He had mentioned there were stories of people who got the Vaca B but took a lot of antibiotics quickly and survived. Eric wanted to go with him, but John wouldn't let him.

  As they waited by the fire where Sarah was boiling water and cooking, Eric watched Sergio and Lucia. They were talking to each other in Spanish. Brad's death had separated them as a group. Now they looked at each other, somehow abashed at the other's presence. They thought that Brad's risks were serious and foolish and maybe they suspected they had stolen from Carl Doyle. They were trouble. Eric thought they would rather travel separately now. He found he agreed, and wished they would leave.

  Eric didn't like the way they looked at them, especially Lucia. He was used to the scorn of women, especially beautiful women, who always looked at him with the same mixture of pity and revulsion, but he didn't like being in such intimate quarters with Lucia. He found himself watching her walk, watching her tip back her head to drink, watching her much more often than he wanted to. He hoped she didn't notice, but he suspected she did. Beautiful women always knew they were being gawked at. Eric wished they would just leave.

  They sat around the fire quietly, hardly speaking.

  "This is good," Lucia said finally, pointing at the beans and corn that Sarah had made.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "What is that flavor?"

  "Sage."

  Then the conversation died and they returned quietly to their meal.

  Just as the sun touched the horizon, John Martin returned. He brought with him a plastic bag of medical supplies and packages of penicillin and amoxicillin. He was also wearing a new, thinner jacket. He didn't look happy, however. When he put his backpack on, he sat down, frowning into the boiling water. "I saw the Land Rover," he said. "Doyle is still following us."

  Eric felt a chill and his heart fell. Maybe Brad had been right. Maybe they would have to kill him. Brad had been prepared to do it. But when Eric thought of doing it, he felt nauseated and afraid.

  As they sat by the fire, silent, Eric thought there was a test ahead of him. He could feel it. It would be the test of his life. He would have to face it. Some day, maybe soon. He could not avoid it. But he shrunk from it, terrified.

  The thought tortured him and he could not sleep.

  _

  Lake Erie was huge. Eric had never seen the ocean before, so it was the most water he had ever seen. The gray waters, calm and flat, stretched to the north and west. They arrived at the shore haggard but strong. The beach was made of stone pebbles, some round, some large and flat and gray. Eric and Birdie and Sarah sat on the rocks and looked at the water. John Martin, Sergio and Lucia sat together on a knoll overlooking the stones and water. The waters lapped gently against the rocks. The plan was now to move east, but for now, they didn't seem much interested in anything except staring at the huge lake.

  The waters seemed to go on forever. It seemed strangely lifeless to Eric. Thinking of the lake, he had imagined waters glowing blue as sapphire. But the lake was the color of lead, flat and endless. The sight made him think
this whole idea was useless. He should have stayed home. He should have stayed in Athens. Maybe it would've been better, after a while. Maybe the gangs would settle down. Why had he thought that hiking hundreds of hundreds of miles was a good idea? Was it, in the end, only because he missed his father, only because he still felt empty somehow without him? Was it all about him and his stupid desires and foolish fears? Looking out over the gray waters, Eric thought such thoughts and grew heavy with self-loathing and doubt.

  Suddenly Sarah burst into tears. She put her face in her hands and then dropped her head against Eric's shoulder. Eric stiffened in surprise, but then awkwardly put his hand around her shoulders. Her yellow hair snarled on his shoulder.

  "I'm so sorry," Sarah sobbed. "It's all my fault! This is all my fault!"

  "It's okay," Eric said, trying to soothe her.

  "No! No!" Sarah was inconsolable. Eric didn't say anything, but just rubbed her arm. Sarah opened up her hand in front of him. For a while, Eric couldn't understand what he was looking at. Then it resolved into a flat round piece of shining metal.

  It was Carl Doyle's medal.

  "Why?" asked Eric, before he could stop himself.

  "I don't know," Sarah sobbed. "I-I found it while we were escaping. He must have dropped it in the forest." She gave out a tortured groan. "My grandfather had one, and maybe, I. . .I don't know, Eric. I just took it." Eric didn't know what to say, but his heart fell in him. Sarah cried. "I wanted to give it back, but I was scared. Then it all got so crazy, I really didn't dare. I've been so scared, Eric. Now-now, look what happened. All those people are dead! Brad is dead and it's all my fault!"