by Max Danzig
“Hello,” he yelled. “Hello, is anyone here?”
Steve found the volume of his voice unsettling in this quiet open space. It seemed to carry for miles. He looked around warily.
Peter waited a few seconds for a reply but there was none. He tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. Without hesitation he stepped inside the dark building. Rachel and Steve looked at each other for a moment before turning on their flashlights and following him. By the time they were both standing in the hallway, Peter had already scanned every room downstairs and was working his way upstairs to the second story. He reappeared at the top of the stairs.
“Well?” asked Rachel.
“It looks okay,” he replied as he descended the stairs.
“Anyone home?”
Peter nodded and pointed towards a room on their right. Rachel peered through the door into a large, comfortable living room. In the cold bluish beam of her LED flashlight was the body of an overweight, white-haired man. He looked to be in his sixties, wearing a rumpled plaid shirt, old jeans. His slippers lay on the ground in front of an open fireplace. His blue-grey face looked serene, and there was no blood on or around him.
Steve walked across the living room to the corpse. An unopened utility bill was on the ground next to the man's lifeless hand.
“This must be Mr. Marchand,” he mumbled, reading from the address on the front of the envelope. “Mr. Albert Marchand. Nice place you had here, Mr. Marchand.”
“No sign of Mrs. Marchand?” wondered Rachel.
“Couldn't find anyone else,” Peter replied, shaking his head. “And he looks too old to have any little kids here.”
Rachel noticed that Steve had sat down next to the body. He was staring into its face.
“What's the matter?” she asked.
No response. “Steve, what's the matter?”
“Did you notice? There’s no blood on his face or body. It doesn't look like he died from the virus.” Steve said
Peter and Rachel shined their light on the dead man.
“I wonder what killed him then?” Rachel said
“He probably saw the electric bill and had a heart attack.” Peter said.
“Not funny” Rachel said.
Steve looked away, hoping the other two hadn't picked up on the sudden unease he was feeling. 'Jesus’, he thought, he had seen thousands of dead bodies over the last few days, so why did this one bother him? Maybe it's because it's the first one he sat down with and really looked at, a dead man with an identity, who looked like he was sleeping. He knew the man's name and what he'd done for a living. They had broken into his home, and it didn't feel right. He didn't believe in ghosts, but at that moment he felt like Mr. Marchand would somehow get his revenge on the three intruders.
Peter sat down in a comfortable armchair turning off his flashlight.
“So what do you think, will this do?” he asked. “Do you think we should stop here?”
“There's plenty of room,” Rachel replied, “and there's the stream outside for water.”
“And this place certainly isn't easy to find,” Steve added, forcing himself to get involved in the conversation and ignore Mr. Marchand. “Hell, we had enough trouble finding it.”
“And it's a farm,” Peter said. “There's bound to be more to this place than just this house.”
“Like what?” Rachel wondered. Peter shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know,” he grinned. “Let's find out, shall we?”
With that Peter jumped up from his seat, turned on his flashlight and left the room. Steve and Rachel followed him as he walked down the hallway with the entrance to the kitchen and the wooden staircase on his left and several rooms on the right. He looked inside, but didn’t enter a small office as he walked towards the back of the house. He stopped by the back door and looked back at the other two over his shoulder.
“There you go,” he said, grinning pointing his light out the back window.
Intrigued, Steve and Rachel peered past him. On the lawn at the back of the house was a large shed.
“Wonder what's in the shed?” Rachel asked, “I'm guessing tools, and lawnmowers, those kinds of things.”
“Then what are those?” Peter said, nodding into a small storage room to his left. Rachel peered into the gloom with her light and saw that everything she thought was in the shed was in this little room.
“Only one way to find out,” Steve said and reached past Peter and opened the door. He led the three of them across the lawn.
It looked too big and strong to be a tool shed, and too small for farm equipment storage. Steve pushed the door open and leaned inside.
“What's in there?” Peter asked watching the other man with interest.
Steve reappeared.
“Yes!” he gasped. “It's a generator.”
“I told you so,” Peter said smiling.
“Does it work?” Rachel asked.
“I don't know,” Steve replied, “I'll have to try to get it going later when it's daylight.”
“We've got plenty of time to try,” Peter added as he turned and walked back towards the house. “So should we stay here then?” he asked with a hint of sarcasm.
Neither Steve nor Rachel bothered to answer, but it didn't matter. They all decided to stay there the moment they arrived. The farm seemed the ideal place for them to sit and wait. What they were waiting for was anyone's guess.
Chapter 28
Peter was asleep by eight o'clock, curled up on a sofa in the living room of the old farmhouse. It was the best sleep he had since the disaster begun. Fate dealt everyone a cruel hand, but this was a welcomed break in the nightmare.
The house was silent except for Peter's gentle snoring and the muffled sounds of Rachel and Steve's muted conversation.
“So how’d it go with the generator?” Rachel asked
“I could have tried to get it going,” Steve yawned, still talking about the generator, “but I didn't want to be bothered with it tonight. We've got plenty of time. I'll try it in the morning.”
Thinking about repairing the machinery gave him a sense of peace. It reminded him of his machine maintenance job at the landscaping company. Steve was looking forward to getting the generator going tomorrow. He hoped that at least for a while, the grease and grime would make him feel like he was back at work and the last few days had never happened.
Rachel and Steve sat on either side of the fireplace, wrapped up in their coats because the room was cold. Peter had made preparations for a fire earlier but decided against lighting it for fear the smoke would draw attention to their location. The fear was irrational but undeniable. Chances were good that they were the only living people for miles around, but they didn't want to take any risks. Anonymity seemed to add to their sense of security.
The large room was comfortable but dark. Yellow-orange light from three candles danced on the wall casting strange, flickering shadows. After an awkward silence that lasted for a good ten minutes, Rachel spoke in a near whisper.
“Do you think we’ll be all right here?” she asked.
“We should be okay for a while,” Steve replied, his voice also quiet and hushed.
“I like it.”
“It's okay.”
The stilted conversation died. The next time it was Steve who disturbed the quiet.
“Rachel, do you think?” He stopped before he'd finished his question, unsure of himself.
“Think what?” she pushed.
He cleared his throat and shuffled in his seat. With reluctance, he began again. “You don't think the farmer will come back, do you?”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted saying them. It sounded paranoid, but the body of the farmer had been on his mind all evening. These days death didn't seem to have the same finality it had in the past. Steve wondered if the old man would find his way back to his home and try reclaiming what was rightfully his. He knew that in a reanimated state, the farmer he would pose no
real threat. It was just the thought of the body returning which unnerved him. He knew it was absurd, but still the hairs on the back of his neck prickled with cold fear.
Rachel shook her head. “No, I don’t think he will.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she insisted.
Logic dictated they would be all right and the farmer would stay dead. After all, when the bodies rose up last week, they either dragged themselves up off the ground and started walking or remained where they had fallen and died. Even if Mr. Marchand did somehow rise and start walking again, his movements would be as random, and uncoordinated as the rest of the wandering corpses. Rachel knew nothing would happen, and they were wasting their time thinking about the dead man, but she still couldn't help herself.
“You all right?” Steve asked.
She smiled with a nod, then turned to stare into the flickering yellow flame of a candle thinking about when they moved the farmer's body a few hours ago.
Mr. Marchand had been a difficult corpse to move. He was a large, burly, well-built man who, she imagined, had worked hard every day to make sure his farm ran smoothly.
Earlier, when Steve and Peter got around to moving the bulky body of the farmer, they found his limbs stiff with rigor mortis. Rachel had watched in morbid horror and disgust as Peter took hold of the farmer’s arms and Steve took the legs. With a lack of respect, they had dragged the body without grace or ceremony through his home. Rachel had seen the look of irritation on Peter’s face when they had trouble maneuvering the farmer's bulk through the back door.
They dragged the farmer's body to the edge of the pine woods bordering the farm and set it down in the tall weeds just by the tree line.
After laying the body on the ground, Peter turned to walk back towards the house. Rachel and Steve picked up shovels they took from the storage room and started to dig.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Peter asked.
“Digging,” Steve replied.
“Digging what?”
Thinking for a moment it was a trick question, Steve paused before answering. “What's it look like? A grave of course,” he replied before adding a cautious; “Why?”
“That's what I was going to ask you.”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel stood between the two men, watching the conversation unfold.
“Why bother? What's the point?” Peter protested.
“Excuse me?” Rachel interrupted.
“Why bother digging a grave?”
“To put his body in it,” Steve said, annoyed at the line of questioning. “Is there a problem?”
Instead of answering Peter just asked another question. “So when are you going to do the rest?”
“What?” Rachel said her brows knitted.
“If you're going to bury him,” Peter said, “then you might as well finish the job and bury the other million corpses lying around the country.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Steve protested. “We can't...”
“For Christ's sakes take a look around. We’ve seen thousands of bodies and none of them will ever be buried. Don’t you get it?”
“I get it but listen; we've taken over this man's home. Don’t you think at the very least we owe him...”
“No,” Peter interrupted his voice calm and level. “We don't owe him anything.”
At that point, he turned and walked back towards the farmhouse in the deepening darkness. He was almost on the porch when he shouted back to the others over his shoulder. “I'm done,” he yelled. “I'm cold, tired and I'm not wasting any more time out here. There are all kinds of things wandering around out here.”
“All we're doing is...” Steve replied.
Peter stopped and turned back.
“All you're doing is wasting time. The two of you are standing out here wasting time and energy doing something that doesn't need to be done. I'm going inside.”
With that, he went into the house leaving Steve and Rachel there with the lifeless body of the farmer at their feet. They stood together in silence, not sure what they should do. Rachel saw movement deep in the forest and thought she glimpsed a body staggering through the trees. The thought of more reanimated bodies wandering in the woods close by made the cold night feel even colder.
She returned her attention to the corpse on the ground. Peter’s attitude and manner annoyed her, but what upset her more was that he was right. He was cold, heartless and unfeeling but he was right. Whether they wanted to bury the body out of duty to the farmer or out of instinct, it didn't matter. The burial would serve no real purpose other than to make the two of them feel less guilty about what they were doing. They were simply trying to survive. The farmhouse and everything in it was no use to Mr. Marchand any longer.
In the increasing gloom Rachel and Steve reached a silent compromise. Rather than bury the body they placed a light covering of loose soil and fallen autumn leaves over the dead man. They fast walked back to the farmhouse as the darkness closed in behind them.
“What are you thinking about?” Steve asked, bringing Rachel out of her reverie and back into the present reality of the living room.
“Nothing,” she lied.
Steve stretched out in the chair and yawned.
“What do we do next?” he asked.
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. If you're talking about tonight, I think we should try to get some sleep. If you mean in the morning, I'm not sure. We need to decide how long we're going to stay here.”
“Do you think we should stay here or?”
“I think we'd be stupid to leave,” said Peter, surprising the other two who turned towards him. He had been sound asleep just a few moments earlier and his sudden interruption startled them.
“How long have you been awake?” Steve asked.
“Not long,” he yawned. “Anyway, in answer to your question, I think we should stay here for a while and see what happens.”
“Nothing's going to happen,” Rachel said.
“I hope you're right,” he said, yawning again. “We should spend tomorrow trying to find out exactly what we've got here. If we're safe, sheltered and secure then we should stay.”
“I agree,” Steve said. It's not that he wanted to stay in the farmhouse; it was just that, for a few days at least, he didn't want to go anywhere else. In the journey from Derry, he had seen more death, carnage, and destruction than he ever thought possible. For now, the old, strong walls of the house protected him from the rest of the devastated world.
“I'm going to bed,” Peter said as he stood up and stretched. “I could sleep for a week.”
Chapter 29
Rachel was the first to wake the next morning. It was Saturday, not that it seemed to matter anymore. By the amount of low light seeping in through the crack between the curtains she guessed that it was early morning.
After a few disorientating seconds she remembered where she was and how she got there. She gazed up at the ceiling above the bed she'd been sleeping on and stared at the cracks etched across the surface. Her eyes drifted towards the walls. She gazed at the red diamond and white floral patterned wallpaper in the semi-darkness. Rachel counted the flowers in the center of each diamond for several minutes before she stopped, realizing she was only filling her mind with simple distractions. It was easier thinking about patterns on walls and other mindless things than it was thinking about what happened to the world outside.
A sudden groaning noise came from the side of the bed and she went rigid with fear and lay perfectly still listening intently. There was something in the bedroom with her. She heard something moving on the floor next to the bed and was too frightened to move.
Her heart hammered in her chest. She held her breath, petrified that whatever it was might sense her presence. Thirty terrifying seconds dragged by before she gathered enough courage to peer over the side of the bed. A wave of relief washed over her when she saw it was Pe
ter, asleep and curled up in a sleeping bag on the floor. She lay back on the bed and sighed.
She was certain Peter began the night sleeping somewhere else. They had talked on the landing outside her room for a few minutes after Steve left to find a bed. There were four bedrooms in the house, three on the second floor and one in the attic. She clearly remembered Peter going into the room across from hers. So why was he sleeping on the floor next to her bed now? Was it because he thought she might need him there for protection or was it because he needed company and reassurance in the dark hours of the night? Whatever the reason she decided it didn't matter. She was glad he was there.
She was wide awake and didn't think she’d be able to get back to sleep. Still tired, she shifted to the other side of the bed and swung her feet out over the edge. She lowered her feet to the bare polished floorboards, as her toes touched the ground they recoiled at the icy chill felt through her thin socks.
Rachel was cold despite having slept fully dressed and in her coat. There were blankets and sheets on the bed, but she couldn’t bring herself to use them. She didn't know whether the bed had belonged to the dead farmer they left half-buried at the edge of the forest. It made her feel uneasy, and she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sleeping under the covers. Ironically, even though she slept fully dressed on top of a dead man's bed, she'd been more comfortable there than at any other point in the last week.
She tiptoed so she wouldn’t wake Peter and crept around the cold room to the window and opened the curtains a few inches. Peter stirred and mumbled something unintelligible before rolling over and snoring again, blissfully unaware Rachel was watching him.
Leaning near the cool glass, she looked down onto a dull world. An early morning mist clung to the ground, settling heavily in every dip and furrow. Birds sang out and flew between the tops of trees, silhouetted in black against the dull grey sky. For a few moments, it was easy for Rachel to believe that there was nothing wrong in the world outside of the farm. There weren’t many times she was up early on a non-workday morning admiring the break of a new day. She imagined this was pretty much how every day must have started on the farm.