by Unknown
“Yeah, what’d the old thug have to say? I asked with a wink, but also kind of meaning it. I bet if I thought about it really hard, I would swear that she was the woman that had kicked me in the balls that one time in the garage.
“I asked her if she needed anything; like food or water or anything,” Amy said as she picked up her coffee and took a drink. “She didn't feel threatened with just me around. She said she could use some bottled water and that her electricity was out.”
Amy rubbed her eyes and stretched a little. “I explained that the electric was out on the whole floor and that she should fill up her bathtub and sinks with water just in case. I offered to help, but she didn’t want me to let me in her apartment. I came back here and got her some bottled water.”
“Seems like that was the right thing to do. We should try to do the right when we can. There are too many people out there that seem to think it's ok to disregard laws and do whatever they want.”
“Well, when I got back, she stuck the gun out the door at me and told me to get the hell away from her place or she would shoot me. I don’t think she is all there, maybe some early dementia or PTSD.”
“What did you do?” I asked as I pulled the bacon off the stove and placed it on the paper towels.
“I started to walk away and when she closed the door, I left the bottled water by her door and came back here.”
I started to make the eggs in the same pan that I had cooked the bacon in. I cracked a few of the eggs open and let them slide into the bacon grease in the pan. Next, I took some toast and lit another burner to get some toast heated up. Since the toaster wasn’t working, I figured I’d just use the burner to toast the bread. I’ve been a camper my whole life; toasting bread on an open flame was simple.
“We’d better eat what we want from the freezer and fridge before it goes bad, save the canned and packaged food for later,” I said as I moved the bread around the flame and kept an eye on the eggs. We both turned as we heard the moan from the living room. Amy stood up and grabbed her sword off the table ready to take on whatever had made the sound.
“Hold on there!” Butch said as he eyed the sword raised above his head. “I’m still with the living, although I do feel like someone stomped on my head. That wasn’t you was it Amy?” He turned greener and quickly headed to the bathroom.
We heard him praying to the porcelain god in no time.
“Idiot, he better clean my bathroom,” Amy said as sat back on the stool, set her sword back down and looked at me. “You guys need to hold off on the booze until this situation is back to normal. The last thing we need is one of you boozing it up, dropping your guard and getting us all killed.”
“Agreed, but no guarantee that we might have a drink.”
Butch walked back into the living room and fell into the couch moaning.
“You want scrambled eggs or over easy?” I asked.
“Over ea….” He jumped off the couch and ran back into the bathroom to throw up a second time.
This was kind of fun.
“Over easy it is,” I said as I finished the toast and placed it on his plate. I pulled the eggs off the stove and placed them on a plate for him. Placing some of the bacon on the plate and handing it over to Amy. I started on the next set of eggs and toast when Butch returned grabbing some bacon off of Amy’s plate.
“Hey!” She screeched slapping his hand away.
“Ummm….BACON!
Butch sat next to Amy but smiled and winked at me. “Need some water, please, barkeep.”
I handed him a bottle of water and continued to work on the toast. Once it was done I put it on the plate and gave it to Butch as I turned back to the stove and starting on my own plate.
“So the plan for today will be to go upstairs. Is that still it?”
“Um Hm.” Amy murmured through a mouth of food.
“Are we going to take the stairs?” I asked.
“Stairs,” Butch replies. “Could be infected in the stairwell.”
“Can’t use the elevator, we don’t know what’s waiting on the other side of the doors and the electricity is out,“ I said.
“The electricity is out and the elevator won’t work,” Amy said, repeating what I had already said.
“We could check outside and see if we could climb up to the next floor,” I replied. “We need to do something with the bodies anyway since they are starting to smell.”
They both continued to eat while I finished cooking my plate. I sat it down on the counter and started to chow down. I will say that I’m damn good at making eggs and bacon. I should have been a cook at a breakfast diner.
Too bad finding bacon was going to be a problem in the next few weeks.
“So let’s get ready and then take care of the bodies on the balcony before we do anything else,” I said as I put all of the dirty dishes in the trash.
“Hey, those are my dishes, what are you doing?” Amy said watching me drop her plates and silverware in the trash can.
“We’re only going to be here another day or two max. We’ll never see this place again.” I removed their plates and throw them in the trash also. “What’s the point of cleaning them.?”
I move out of the kitchen and grab some gloves from the pile of supplies. “Can we move Shelby to another apartment for the rest of the time we are here?” I ask. “Till we’re ready to leave? It’s starting to smell in here.”
“OK, but we need to take her with us, even if it’s just to the courtyard to bury her. I’m not leaving her to rot in someone else's bed.”
I throw gloves to Butch and Amy as we headed out to the balcony to get rid of the bodies. The stench was unbearable and I had to cover my mouth and nose with my shirt.
We were only outside a few seconds when Butch headed back inside to throw up again. “He should have waited to eat.” Amy laughed.
“How can you joke at a time like this? This is awful, it’s got to be the worst thing I’ve ever smelled.”
“It’s my way of coping. Deal with it.”
We looked over the side of the balcony and looked down to the ground two stories below us. There were a few infected roaming around, but the streets were pretty empty with no pedestrians present from what we could see.
“Pitch them over the side?” I asked.
“No. What the hell is wrong with you? We move them into an empty apartment down the hall away from us and close the door. Jesus.”
Amy was right, what was I thinking? Why was my first thought to throw them over the railing and watch them fall to the ground? What kind of mess would that make I wondered, maybe that was why I thought to do it.
We picked up the first body on the balcony and carried it to an apartment down the hall. We repeated the process with the other body but putting it in another apartment. We figured that the smell wouldn’t be too bad if we put them in different places instead of placing them all in the same place.
We returned to Amy’s place and found Butch on the couch looking a little bit green around the gills and sweat building up on his forehead. We moved into Amy’s bedroom to move Shelby’s body out of the apartment.
We still hadn’t decided what we were going to do with Shelby, but there was no reason to have her body in the apartment with us. Amy had already told us that she wasn’t Shelby anymore, so why we were even talking about what to do, was beyond me. Amy needed to come to grips with it and let it go.
Once we were back in the apartment, we moved to the balcony again and discussed how we could scale up one floor. Even if we make it to the second floor, we would have to move to the other side of the building to get to Amanda’s apartment. There was no way we could move outside the building all the way around. Taking the stairs would put us right next to the apartment.
“You think you can climb up to the next balcony?” Amy asked me.
“I’m pretty sure I could. Maybe one of us could get up there and create a distraction for the others.” I said, thinking this might be a good job for me. Be
ing the distraction might mean that I didn’t need to deal with any of the infected.
“Good idea to create a distraction, but doesn’t it break rule number 2?” Amy asked as she looked at me with a slight smile. She had caught me ready to break a rule after I had just given her the “what for” for leaving the apartment this morning.
“But if the apartment above is empty, it would be a lot less risky situation,” I said with a wink. “The only thing I’m going to do is get in the apartment, wait for your guys to get in place and then cause the distraction. That should let you guys move in and check out Amanda’s apartment for her parents.”
“You’re just trying to get out of having to deal with the infected,” Butch said as he walked through the sliding glass door.
“I admit that I’m not the best person to take the lead. For some reason beyond me, I have a problem with killing these people. I know they’re no longer really people, but it’s still hard to bring myself to kill them. I think having me as your backup is the wrong thing to do right now. You and Amy are good together and more than capable of handling the infected.”
“He has a point,” Amy said walking away from us and into her apartment. “You think you can get up there?”
“Yes and getting down would be easy to. If I did get into trouble, I could easily get back down here and away. I think it’s a no-brainer.” I moved through the door and into the apartment.
“Let me catch my breath. I need a drink of water to settle my stomach.” Butch sat down on the couch looking at me.
“What? You want me to get you a drink of water?” I asked.
A smile and a wink were Butch’s reply.
“You’re going to have to kill them at some point, dude. Our lives could depend on it.” He said as he laid his head back on the couch.
“When I have to, I will,” I replied. I walked into the kitchen and got a bottle of water. I grabbed out supply bags and found some aspirin. “Here. Take these.” I handed him the water and the aspirin.
Amy handed me a two-way radio we had found during our scavenger hunt yesterday and turned them on. “Channel two.” She said.
I turned mine on and turned it to channel two.
“Test. Test.” Amy said as she was walking away.
After confirming the two-way radio’s worked, Amy said, “Why don’t you go upstairs and see what’s up through the sliding glass doors? If it’s clear, Butch and I can head up.”
“OK,” I said as I headed out to the balcony.
“Butch, you ready?” Amy was asking Butch.
Butch got up off the couch and grabbed his knife and pistol, grabbing extra ammo.
“I may need this,” I said as I grabbed a pistol and a machete off the coffee table. I grabbed a broom handle with a couple of knives duct taped to the end that was leaning against the wall by the door. I moved through the door and out to the balcony. Setting the spear against rail outside, I climbed up on the railing and held onto the balcony above me. “Hand me the spear,” I said to Amy who was on the balcony watching me.
Amy handed me the spear and I pushed it through the railing slats on the balcony above me. “Butch, give me a lift up will you, just enough so I can see if anything is waiting at the sliding glass door.”
Butch grabbed my foot and lifted me so I was raised high enough to peek over the upstairs balcony floor. I didn’t notice anything so I said, “OK. I’m going over, give me a push-up.”
Amy grabbed my other foot and helped Butch lift me further up so I could grab ahold of the railing above me. I used my upper arm strength to pull myself up and over the railing, landing on the balcony floor.
I stood on the balcony looking around. I grabbed the spear on the ground and moved to the sliding glass door to take a look in the apartment. I couldn’t see anything moving inside and didn’t really see any furniture. It looked empty like no one lived there. “Hey, did anyone live up here?” I asked Amy waiting below.
“A guy and his kid used to live there. I haven’t seen them in a while, but I figured they were on vacation or something. He could have moved out, it’s been pretty quiet up there the last couple of weeks.” Amy tells me from below.
I tried the handle on the sliding glass door, but it was locked. “Doors locked,” I informed them.
“Wait there and we’ll head up the stairs. Once we are in place, we’ll let you know. You can smash the sliding glass door then. Might get any infected headed your way.” Amy said back to me.
I move to the edge of the balcony and looked over. “What do you think if we try to get them into the apartment, basically blocking them in?” I asked. “I could get down to your place, keep making noise and you guys could sneak up to the front door and get it closed, locking them in the apartment.”
“Let’s see what happens once you get their attention. We can make a decision then.” Butch said from below. “If anything, we can always try to lock them up once we’re done.” He added.
Both Amy and Butch moved off the balcony and headed out. A few minutes later Amy used the radio as they were making their way up the stairwell.
“Test?” She said.
I replied so she knew the two-way radio’s worked. I stood on the balcony waiting for a longer then expect amount of time. I took, this time, to look out at the city. On the second floor, the view wasn’t much, but it gave me enough of a view to see that the city was gone.
Chapter 14
I had moved back to Charleston when I was twenty-one which I turned just a few months after my dad was killed. I was all alone at our place up north and the thought of living by myself in the middle of nowhere was going to drive me nuts.
The move was a lot of things all at once; traumatic, exciting, scary and enlightening. I had dreamt about this move for many years. It wasn’t exactly how I wanted to end up moving back to Charleston, what with my father passing away, but Charleston was part of my long-term plan when I was growing up.
I’d used it to threaten my dad when we were at each other’s throats. I would tell him that I was going to run off and find a place to live in the city, away from him. If we had any kind of fight, I would tell him I was leaving.
In my mind, Charleston was the place to be. It had everything a kid could ever want; theaters, museums, parks, video arcades, skate parks, everything I always wanted.
I remember as a very small boy living in this city, close to the college campus, spending time at the city park with my mother and father. Back then, my dad was around a lot and we got along great. I didn’t know then that he really did hate living in the city.
He was a country boy at heart and he longed to be in the woods away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
I have a few memories when I was very young; they were very vivid. My earliest memory was lying on the ground, in what had to be the park since we didn’t have a yard. My mother was next to me while my dad was lying beside her and reaching over her to tickle my stomach. They were laughing at me giggling with the sun shining on us; it was a memory that I longed to relive. A time when I felt really loved, warm and safe.
I have this other memory when I was about seven, of sitting in a rundown theater in downtown Charleston. The smell of the popcorn, the other kids talking to their parents and then the music started. The first time you see Star Wars is so memorable. My mom was totally into it.
It was the only theater that was playing it in Charleston and even though it was ways from our apartment, my mother took me anyway. I remember sitting there with my mom, a big bucket of popcorn, smothered in butter with a huge drink of soda between us. My mother was telling me to not drink too much because she didn’t want to have to leave once the movie started. Being at a movie was special, but this was super special, I could feel it and the last thing I wanted to do was have to ask my mom to take me to the bathroom during a pivotal scene.
After the movie, my mom and I went for ice cream and talked about the movie for over an hour. Those were special times with my mom; seeing a show, havi
ng ice cream and discussing it among ourselves.
At the same time, I remember a time with my father, sitting with him at the college library while he wrote the many papers for classes. My mother would be working and I would be with my dad for the day. He would always find me some books that I was interested in, tell me to sit at the table and be quiet while he worked.
This happened a lot since my mother was working as a professor's assistant while my dad was getting his Masters in Forestry. My birth derailed a few things.
I know it pained my father to be stuck with a newborn and then a toddler, but he never let it be known to others. I only knew how he felt because, later in life, we talked about it. I overheard him once arguing with my mother when I was young, and some of the things they discussed were about having me when they did. He didn’t want children this early in their marriage, but my mother did. She wanted to make sure she was young when she had children so she could be involved with her children.
I found out later in my young life that my mother was the city girl, always interested in the city life, the vibe of the city making her happy every time we walked out the front door. My father, on the other hand, was the country boy.
He liked being out in the wilderness, out in the forest; living off the land for all of his needs, providing for his family with only the things that nature could provide. They were two opposites and yet their worlds collided which resulted in me. I knew they loved each other, I knew they loved me and I knew they wanted nothing but the best of both of their worlds for me.
While my mom would take me to the shows, the restaurants, the parks, museums and everything the city had to offer, my dad would take me camping out in the forest, to teach me how to survival and what it meant to be one with nature. He taught me how to tell what was safe to eat in the wild, which of the plants were safe for medical uses, what animals to stay away from and how to provide for myself.