The Scattered and the Dead | Book 3 | The Scattered and the Dead

by McBain, Tim

  “Yeah, that was a change all right. The end of civilization. Little shift in the paradigm there.”

  “Maybe nothing can compare to that, I guess.”

  When they reached a place where the trail widened into a mouth that fed onto the main road running through camp, Deirdre moved off to the left side of the path. Baghead thought he could see a little rutted spot in the foliage there.

  “We’ll move off the main path here. Wade into the rough stuff. There’s a game trail we can take for a little ways, and then we’ll be moving through the thicket for real. We’ll make slower time, to be sure, but we can stay off the main road, stay out of the light, until we’re all the way to the house.”

  She hesitated a second before she finished her thought.

  “I guess from there, it’s up to you, yeah?”

  Baghead nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Louis

  Rural Tennessee

  1 year, 57 days after

  Lorraine’s seat reclined all the way, and Louis squatted on the floor before her, rocked forward on his knees. They both breathed heavily. Chests inflating and deflating in unison.

  But Louis peppered his breathing with little murmurs and coos. Words of encouragement, words of comfort streaming out of him, almost more of a soft melody than any kind of elaborate thought being expressed, the words themselves unimportant.

  “You’re doing great. Doing great now. Just breathe and focus.”

  When the next contraction came, Lorraine’s lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth. Little pained breathy noises seeping out of her. Choked whispers emitted between breaths.

  “Focus and breathe. Breathe and focus. You’re doing so good, Lorraine. Doing so, so good.”

  She stiffened. Head and shoulders lifting off the seat. Hands clutching the door handle and center console respectively.

  And heat filled the car again. It rolled off of Lorraine in waves. Somehow made the air thick in here like all of this took place in a sauna, steam congealing around them.

  Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, sluiced down from the corners of her brow and over her cheekbones. She squeezed her eyelids shut tight. Little wrinkles folding the skin there.

  Louis had put the windows down about halfway. Almost daring the dead to intervene, to loop their dead arms into the open places, rotten hands grasping everywhere, to make this nightmare even worse.

  The corpses kept their distance, but whatever trickle of air the opened windows allowed in didn’t help. The heat only got worse.

  “It’s OK. It’s all going to be OK. Just breathe, baby. Just breathe.”

  The sun crept higher in the sky as the morning wore on. Washed away the mist. Beat down on the little car with all of its fury.

  The soothing talk wavered for just a second as the heat and fear came over Louis. A wooziness assailed him, but he took a breath and resumed his soft melody.

  “Doing good. Keep breathing. Keep going. Good.”

  The contraction let up then, and Lorraine’s body unclenched. She lay back on the seat as the tension let go. The little rivulets of sweat on the side of her face changed direction with her movement.

  She blinked a few times. Locked eyes with Louis.

  Soon. This was no false labor. It was going to happen soon. She didn’t have to say that for Louis to know.

  He licked his lips. Swallowed audibly. Then he pushed the fear down.

  He leaned forward to hover over her shuddering figure. Tipped the rag in his hand toward Lorraine’s lips. Squeezed moisture out for her to drink.

  Then he settled back to his spot huddled on the floor. Poured fresh water over the washcloth with care.

  They both panted. Waiting. Waiting for the next contraction to hit. Waiting for the end to begin.

  “Doing so good now. It’s going to be OK.”

  The blood came now. Sheets of red flowing over her thighs all at once, keeping time with her heart. From nothing to flowing like a faucet.

  Panic constricted in Louis’s chest, in his throat, in his face. Veins seeming to tense in his forehead, in his cheeks. Strange wires strained to just shy of their snapping point.

  His limbs likewise went taut. Clumsy. He swallowed, and the lump in his throat bobbed and felt wrong, felt stuck.

  He couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t concentrate. The heat rushing through his head, pulsing there, his own fevered blood.

  His thoughts wouldn’t hold still, couldn’t hold still, not in this heat. They came to him in fragments. Fleeting. Partially formed.

  Early. The baby was so early. A month early? Maybe closer to two. This was not good.

  But he kept his litany of positivity going in spite of the turmoil inside. That patter of little catch phrases still spilling from his lips.

  “Doing great now. Keep breathing. Everything is going to be OK.”

  Another contraction. So much blood. Too much. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t tell what he’s looking at. Just bloody contours that had ceased making sense.

  She stiffened. Back arching.

  Her body went still then. All of that tension released. All of that effort spent. She sagged. Muscles letting go from her head to her toes.

  She was out. Or maybe worse than out.

  The stream of words coming out of Louis’s mouth turned hollow. They no longer meant anything. Even that light melody was powerless here. His voice started to tremble.

  “Lorraine, stay with me.”

  The blood’s flow slowed. The strength of each pulse waning. Giving out.

  She was gone. He knew already that she was gone from this earth, from this plane. Taken. Plucked from this world.

  Her body lay totally still. Still glistening from the moisture, from the heat. She looked peaceful. A motionless angelic thing, never to stir again.

  And it was there. The baby. A bloody thing in his hands. Coming free.

  He pulled it into the open, into the light.

  And it was wrong. It was all wrong.

  It was purple and shiny and still. Totally still. Too quiet. And it’s skin wasn’t right at all.

  It was lumpy.

  Lumpy.

  But he blinked, cleared the water from his eyes and it was fine, it was fine. Not lumpy. The baby was fine.

  Smooth skin. Normal.

  He cleared gunk from the baby’s mouth and nose, and the tiny thing inhaled, shuddered, the entirety of the tiny body quivering, and then the little thing cried out. One long holler followed by a mess of smaller syllables. Warped little chirps spilled from her mouth.

  Louis stopped himself right there. Replayed those last two words in his head.

  Her mouth.

  It was a girl.

  He held the shivering baby and the tears started to drain down his face. He let them flow for a few seconds, and then he went to work wiping the baby down. Went back to singing his endless lullaby of positivity, for the daughter now instead of the mother.

  His eyes flitted to the still figure sprawled on the seat. Found a peaceful expression on her face.

  Lorraine was gone.

  But he couldn’t focus on that now. Couldn’t think about that now.

  And as he cleaned the babe and held her and talked his little melody to her, some part of his mind worked at the little puzzle facing him. Mind tumbling at this task instead of facing the reality reclining before him.

  He needed a name. Something appropriate for this little baby girl. Something to honor Lorraine and Ray and the situation out of which she was born. All three of those ideas, preferably.

  He didn’t have to think about it long.

  The name came to him almost right away. The word beamed into his head as if from another world, maybe whatever world her parents resided in now. A name that sounded like her father’s name, sounded like her mother’s name, told the story out of which she was born.

  Rayne.

  Baghead

  Rural Maryland

  9 years, 40 days after

&nb
sp; Baghead moved on his own now. Still picking his way through thick greenery in what seemed like an endless night of just that task. It was hard to imagine this walk in the dark would ever end, even if it would soon.

  He and Deirdre had parted ways with little fanfare. In some ways they knew each other well. In other ways, not at all. She reached the fork in the trail where the house became visible, where her help was no longer necessary, and she left, vanishing into the shadows right away. Better not to feign any of the mushy stuff here and now. No hugging. Not even so much as a shaking of hands. Indifference without pity. That fit what he knew of her personality, and he appreciated the honesty of it.

  For now, the house had fallen back behind the trees again. Rows of pines blotting it from his view. He knew vaguely where it was, based on memory, but in some ways it was hard to believe it was so close when he couldn’t see it.

  But then he saw the steps that led up to the back of place. A concrete staircase that curved as it climbed the hill up to the deck and back patio, faintly lit in the moonlight, the stairs a few shades lighter than all that surrounded them — a clean strip of pale gray among all the dark shades.

  He climbed the stairs, the strangest sense of finality coming over him. Not unpleasant. After all the miles, after all the conflict, there was almost nothing left to worry about. This was it.

  He noted something new in the quiet about halfway up the steps — he couldn’t hear the generator running. No whirring engine grinding away in the dark, sound echoing off the house to sort of gather itself in a corner and project its noise out over the valley. Here, even right up close, he found only the quiet.

  That might suggest the occupants were in bed now, turned in for the night, saving some gasoline. He’d heard all the rumors about Father watching movies at all hours, his Blu-ray player and flatscreen sort of legendary, both around camp and in the world beyond its perimeter. In the new world, these formerly common household items had become extravagances that turned him into a Pablo Escobar type figure — a coked up (or otherwise inebriated) weirdo, watching The Matrix and The Godfather and Die Hard on endless loops, laughing like a maniac while the world burned around him.

  At the top of the steps, the land leveled out, and the moon lit this place pretty well compared to all he’d just traversed. It felt calming to be in the open now, in the light, not scary like before. He crossed a little swath of sod onto the cement patio and strode up another set of wooden stairs to the deck.

  Only here, within an arm’s length of the house, could he see the lantern light on inside. A dull orange glow. Very dim but there. He cupped his hand to the glass sliding door, tried to peer into the murk inside. Couldn’t see much. He thought maybe he could make out a figure sitting in the recliner just next to the burning lamp, but he wasn’t sure.

  He knocked on the door, and the figure inside moved. Jumped like a marionette whose strings had just gotten a good firm tug, shoulders jerking as though startled. The dark shape froze for a full ten seconds before it finally rose from the chair and crossed the room.

  She seemed to coagulate before him in the glass — the shadow figure’s features populating as though she were truly forming here and now rather than becoming visible in the moonlight. He knew her, too — older, perhaps frailer than when he last saw her — though he hadn’t considered the idea of her being here. It made sense, in a way. He didn’t think she’d be as likely to recognize him, however.

  The door slid open, wood scraping against the metal casement frame with a dry rasp, and she stood still there a moment in the little opening. Blinking. Squinting. Sizing him up.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  She sounded more concerned than confrontational. Her tone itself curious, trying to decide how frightened she should be.

  “I have business with Father.”

  Her head tilted a little away from him so she could look at him out of the corner of her eye. The gesture reminded him of a mischievous puppy.

  “You oughta move on, friend. It’s late. Getting toward the middle of the night. Any business you have can wait until the morning.”

  “I have business here tonight. Now.”

  Now she squinted harder. Looked him up and down. And her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened. Was it fear he saw there now, or was it wonder?

  “It’s you,” she said. She brought a shaking hand to her mouth, idly picked at her bottom lip which quivered. “I didn’t… None of us knew… I… I can’t believe it’s you, that you’re here.”

  She blinked rapidly now, chest heaving a little, waiting now for him to speak again, rapt as though in the presence of a ghost.

  “Is he here?”

  She nodded in slow motion.

  “Yes. Downstairs. He’s sleeping.”

  He took a step forward, and she turned to the side to let him pass through the open door.

  “You should leave this place now,” he said. “Leave and don’t come back until morning.”

  She looked taken aback, about to protest.

  “I… Yes. Yes, I’ll go.”

  She scurried out the back door, and he could hear her clattering across the deck and away. He listened until her footsteps trailed away to nothing and stayed still for a few more seconds, listening to the quiet just to be sure she was gone. Then he walked to the glass door and slid it closed, the ambient night sounds dying back to silence right away.

  He turned and looked around the house, lit as it was in the orange-tinged lantern light. It hadn’t changed much since he was last here to get Lorraine and go on the run. A nice suburban home set in the middle of a refugee camp, in the middle of the damn apocalypse. Well-maintained, if a little dated. Something about the mauve undertone to the faux marble counter tops in the kitchen struck him as very 90’s — everything seemed to tint toward purples and beiges.

  The same smell persisted, too, some blend of potpourri and a hint of saw dust, he thought. He ran his fingertips over the matte lilac paint on the wall, as though touching it would cement that he was really here. Physically. All the way. This was it.

  He hadn’t spent much time in the house. Just passed through a few times when running some errand or other. Even so, it held onto memories. Places did that. Buildings did that. The carpet and walls and wood soaked up the energy, the smells, the personality of the people who lived in them, just like smoke, he thought. Nicotine slowly stains everything it touches — drywall, ceiling tiles, glass, upholstery, fingers — all of them go yellow in time. And people left that same kind of mark on the things they touched. Subtle. A translucent tint you could only detect in just the right kind of light, something you felt more than knew.

  Ray and Lorraine had lived here only a short while, and though they’d been gone longer than they were here — expelled from this building just as they were expelled from this plane of reality — he could still feel them in this place. Specific feelings arose in him just being here, intricately detailed perceptions, the precise experience of being in their presence, being near them, talking to them. It all came right back.

  Crazy how that worked. The way reveries could seemingly be trapped in the physical world, enmeshed and captured in objects, in fabric, in carpet fiber like a smell. The way people stayed with us long after they were gone.

  At last, he walked through the living area and started down the steps to where Father slept.

  Louis

  Rural Ohio

  1 year, 71 days after

  He still dreamed of being trapped in the car most nights, even weeks after it was over, even after he’d fled the area, found a new car, moved on. He’d lived through a nightmare, a trauma that had etched bold scars onto his psyche, burned puckering lesions onto his soul, and now he dreamed it over and over. Relived it.

  It was the same dream every time. Back in that place. The world cast in grayscale around the car, murky clouds roiling above.

  His hands rested on the steering wheel. Sweat prickled down the length of his spine.

 
And the horde of dead things milled around the vehicle, visible through the windshield as though it were a big screen TV. Little twitches played among the corpse’s shoulders. Random shuffling and staggering of their beings spiraled them around and around, like they were playing ring around the rosie in circles about the car.

  And sometimes, when he let his attention fall on the passenger seat beside him, Lorraine was alive, and other times she was dead. It all happened out of order. Jumping and choppy. One of those random dream continuity problems, like whoever was in charge of splicing this dream footage together had done so at random.

  Nothing much happened in these dreams. He was just stuck there, each time, for 8 more hours of dread, worry, anticipation. Peering out the windows. Watching and waiting. The tension of those awful days entering his body again, tightening into a knot somewhere in his core, the very center of his body. It made him nauseous.

  Waking was a great relief, the baby there sleeping next to him. He sprawled on the backseat, sometimes needing to stick his feet up onto the window to really stretch his ankles and calves.

  He’d wrapped the baby in blankets and then wedged the balled up extra fabric on the floor behind the driver’s seat. No way to fall then, he figured. No way to even roll over, really.

  She was such a fragile thing. Delicate. At first, whenever he wasn’t holding her, he worried. Worried she’d fall or stop breathing or in some other way get damaged, fragile as she was. A soft thing. Impossibly so. Only when holding her could he truly trust that she was safe. When he could feel her in his hands, he could feel secure.

  Maybe it was something to do with witnessing the deaths of both of her parents that made her seem especially vulnerable. Or maybe it was the responsibility falling solely to him so unexpectedly, with no one else to help. He’d never in his life considered that responsibility of caring for an infant in any kind of realistic way, not for one second, until Lorraine slipped away, and suddenly it was there, the task bestowed upon him via a blindside.