Nadine stood when I came through the door. “You hurt or anything?”
“No. There and back unscathed.”
“Good. I'm glad you're okay.”
“Found a few things. Nothing extravagant.”
Scratching on the door. It started to shake. My heart jumped. Through the peephole, three zombies attempted to make their way in. Their weak motions settled my nervousness. They weren't getting in anytime soon.
“Let me outside,” Nadine said behind me.
“What?”
“Let me outside. They're right there. Just open the door. That's all you have to do.”
“I'm not opening the door.” The sudden change in attitude perplexed me. She could have attempted to leave when I was on the run. If I was out there, I couldn't guarantee I'd get to her in time if I happened to see the yarn gone.
“Please? It would be over quick.”
I went to her and cupped her face. “Don't start saying that stuff again. I was so worried while I was out there. I thought you'd leave. But when I came back and saw you still here...I don't know...I gained a lot of trust. The next time I go out - and believe me I will have to and soon - I want to keep thinking you'll always be here. It would make things easier for me if I didn't have to worry.”
“You know how I feel. We've talked about it.”
“And you know how I feel.”
“Why not just let me do it? You'd be much better off. We can't stay here forever, and you can't protect me all the time. I'll always be in the way.” Nadine started crying. “I don't want to live in this world!”
“Trust that I can protect you. I may not be the strongest man, or be able to protect more than us, but I think I've done all right so far. Don't you think?”
She nodded, but there was no conviction behind it. Nadine lowered her head and stood. “I'm going upstairs.”
I watched her go up the flight of steps, shoulders slumped. Her heavy steps told me everything I needed to know about how she felt with our conversation. Yeah, I knew once I heard the first stories about what was going on in the world, Nadine would want out. For better or for worse, right? And we had had the better for many years. Now, worse was shouting for a turn.
Don't get me wrong: I was afraid of dying. Whether I could admit it, or I could deny it. In my younger years, I denied it vehemently. Or thought about it less. So many other things occupied my mind I didn't have time to think about dying. But as I got older, as the time I had left diminished like the space between walls as they closed in, I couldn't help but give it more thought. And when I hit a certain age, I thought about it at least once a day. I'd like to think I wasn't the only one that had this thought process.
And that age for me was forty. For some it might be less; others, older. It seemed like the day I hit forty was the day strange little pains appeared. Pains that erupted put of nowhere. With no explanation. A quick, sharp jolt through a foot; a dull throb in the shoulders; a random stiff neck. And I couldn't explain any of them. Or why, suddenly, when I looked in the mirror at my slowly-growing beard, a small patch under the chin refused to grow in. The area was about the size of a quarter, and the skin smooth as a marble. I could go on for days of the weird-like idiosyncrasies my body threw at me every day, but why? The biggest thing to worry about was right outside my door. Wouldn't it be a peculiar God (assuming a higher being could be peculiar) if I died from anything besides a zombie? An infected cut or something like that. I could see His list now: 'David Wilcox, death via paper-cut infection.' Thanks be to God.
My job and hobbies kept my mind off dying. Well, somewhat. For a set number of hours each day, I could do my freelance computer programming and get lost in the bits and bytes of a computer. I enjoyed studying and playing checkers (surprisingly, the depth and strategy of the game nearly rivals chess); designing my Role-playing game, Circuitry, about a group of Cyberspace hackers charged with defeating whatever came their way - Dungeons and Dragons for computer nerds, I supposed; and I enjoyed long bouts of mountain biking. After dallying in the fun part of life and being forced back into reality and responsibility, I'd get back to thinking about death in some way. Doesn't sound like an enjoyable way to live life, but it'd probably take another forty years to break that mental habit.
I went upstairs to check on Nadine. I wanted to make sure she was sleeping. The more she slept, the less she talked about killing herself. I wasn't worried about her leaping from the windows up there; I had secured them for fear people would try to climb up and in once they saw no way in downstairs. And after Nadine told me she couldn't live in a world like this, the anchored windows served another purpose.
Nadine snored lightly on our bed, the swell of her breasts poking into her shirt. I was very much still attracted to her and sad our amorous activities had become non-existent. I would even take five minutes of snuggling together on this bed, like we used to as we feel asleep. Back when marriage had a definition.
Returning to the kitchen, I ran through our supplies again. The notebook I kept on the counter listed everything we had and had used. A handwritten inventory with upkeep three times daily. The moment I stopped caring about that was the moment we would die. Inventory management was an important task. I added Nadine's leftovers from breakfast and went to sit in Nadine's chair facing the door.
For five minutes I stared at the door. I heard the typical moans I had been hearing the past couple of weeks. Thin shadows filtered through the tiny gaps in the shades and curtains. Nothing to be alarmed about, but I couldn't contemplate how Nadine sat here for hours on end staring at the door. What did she think about? What did she plot while sitting here? And I also couldn't figure out how she stayed comfortable. Even before that Tuesday, the cushion in this chair was thin as a potato chip. Nadine's and my ass had depressed the foam insert daily until it no longer had the elasticity to return to normal. Springs poked my left butt cheek, and the hard wood jabbed my spine where the seat met the back.
I stood, rubbing my lower back.
A muffled thump echoed through the apartment. It came on my left. The difference with this noise from all the other ones was this one was on the other side of the wall in the kitchen. And not outside.
There are three townhouses in this apartment building, and the kitchen wall meets one of the apartments. The wall along the stairs separates mine from the third townhouse. I hadn't been in the other two, but I imagined the one on the kitchen wall was just like this one, except mirrored. The walls were slim, but it had always been difficult to tell if anyone was ever home in those other apartments.
That thump. That thump exploded as if the walls were not there.
I shoved the kitchen table to the side and pressed by ear against the beige wall.
Sliding footsteps, more low groans, something in my neighbor's place bumping into things. No... I closed my eyes and focused. A few somethings. Oh my God. In that townhouse was a family of three. Mom, dad, and a little girl. Seven or eight years old, I couldn't remember. I thought I had seen the girl outside playing a few times since they moved in. Her named eluded me, but I was pretty sure the girl lived right on the other side.
And no wonder I hadn't heard anything from there in a while. Occasionally, Nadine and I had heard the child running, playing, making noise in the apartment. We never complained. Just a kid being a kid, Nadine would say. I didn't mind. When we heard the girl, we'd talk about having our own kids, how many. The usual conversations about that subject. Now that I remembered a child lived in the next townhouse, I don't recall hearing anything for some time. Until now.
I could only assume the family had turned to zombies.
“Urrrrrrr,” the moans came. A set of them, really. Man, woman, and child. I pulled back from the wall, their wails still filtering through clearly.
Upstairs, Nadine's footsteps told me she was awake. I followed her feet from the bedroom, to the top of the stairs, and down the steps. Soft thump, thump, thumps until her shadow appeared at the bottom.
“Do
you hear that?” she asked. “It sounds like it's inside.”
“Kind of.” I pointed a thumb behind me. “The Jensen place next door. I think -”
“Don't say it.”
“They turned.”
“I told you not to say it!” Nadine slid into her recliner. She stared at the kitchen wall. “I can hear them! I can hear them on the other side!” She clasped her ears. “Please make them stop. I don't want to listen to that anymore!”
“What do you want me to do? They're over there!” I yelled abruptly.
Then a calmness washed over her face. Her postured turned Zen-like, relaxed. “No. Let me go over there and take care of it. I need to know how, right?”
“By yourself? That's insane!”
“I'll figure it out. You told me the right ways. And look at you. You've done just fine.”
I was surprised it took me a minute into the conversation to figure it out. “Nadine, I can't let you. I know what you really to do.”
Having been caught, the tender Nadine changed back to her morose self. “Then go there and kill them!”
That was one option. Almost the only option. The other option was to leave the neighbors alone and deal with the noises. For me, the noises would eventually blend with every other noise, so I would forget about them. Nadine would be the opposite. Once the sound was in her head, she wouldn't forget about the cacophony until it disappeared.
“I don't think I can,” I said. “There's a kid over there.”
“None of them are what they used to be, David. They're monsters. All of them.” Nadine hopped up and stomped to the kitchen and found a butter knife. “I'll go then. Whatever happens. Well, will happen.”
I stopped her as she walked by me and grabbed the butter knife. “What are you going to do with that? Spread jam on them?”
“I already can't take it,” Nadine said, plopping back down in the chair.
“I'm going, I'm going. Promise me you'll stay here?”
“If you take care of the noises, I'll stay here.”
“I didn't know this was a negotiation.” I bundled up in my special outfit again and readied the cutting knife. “I will do what I can.”
Nadine didn't respond.
A quick glance through the peephole. I weighed my path options. To get to the neighbors, I had two ways to circle around the building. One way longer than the other. The long way took me around the third townhouse, which ran horizontal to the other two. I wanted to go the shorter way, but once I rounded the front, I'd be exposed as I crossed the driveway. I could only see what the peephole allowed me to see, so either direction was a guess. And all luck.
Was this what my life had become? Short runs for supplies? Taking care of noises? Then back inside until the next time? Rinse and repeat. I'd attend to the zombies in the next door so Nadine felt safe. Then I'd wait until I'd have to go out there again. To some that sounded like a life no one wanted to live as the world currently turned. But being alive, staying alive was the endgame, right? That next breath, that next thing you saw, that next thing you heard - whether pleasant or not - that next moment with your wife or husband: that's why poets and philosophers and motivational speakers described life as precious. I had one simple reason to stay alive. Nadine. And if Nadine wanted me to do this one little thing so her mental acumen kept her living, then I'd do it.
I rushed through the door and hung a quick left. I had decided, nearly at the last second, to go around the front of the building. The shorter route. It was faster. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
The two closest zombies saw me and stumbled towards me like drunks, slowing raising their arms to grab me. Easily dodged. One blocked my straight path off the stoop, so I leapt over a bush to the side, landed on the sidewalk, and accelerated along the building. I curved around the corner and stopped, my tennis shoes squeaking on the cement.
This high-pitched screech made the crowd of zombies turn in my direction. And by crowd, around twenty or thirty. They shuffled towards me like raindrops sliding down a window.
I spun and headed back the way I came. The zombies right behind me made their way closer, and I moved into a wider-than-expected berth. One of them was a few inches away as I ran past my front door. He had half a shirt hanging from his shoulders and one shoe. His creamy eyes locked onto me like a radar, and when he reached up, his fingers brushed my neck, which wasn't entirely covered. Dirt, blood, and tiny particles stuck to my skin. Disgusting.
I blindly swung the knife backwards, not aiming at anything particular. But the knife struck something, and I sensed the distance between the zombie and me. With my free hand, I swiped the area where the zombie touched me. Light-colored something attached to my glove, and I prayed to God (Hey God, you still up there?) it wasn't skin from someone he had eaten or bit or attacked.
Nothing else it could be though.
When I got back, I'd need to scrub my neck clean. While the “experts” couldn't determine how we turned, it didn't hurt to take precautions.
I crooked around the rear of the building, eyed the large oak tree in the middle of the yard for a possible escape if required, and saw a few zombies that could potentially give me trouble. I rushed past them without issue and ran along the other side until I reached the neighbor's door.
It opened and I ducked in.
A tiny amount of light streamed in from little gaps in the blinds, but otherwise, I stepped into a dark room. This place was a mess with toppled chairs and garbage all over the floor. The stench - a combination of a decaying animal and spoiled milk - made my eyes water, and I held my hand over my nose and mouth. Breathing in too much of the air would cause me to puke.
I heard rattling in the kitchen followed by grunts. I knelt behind the couch and had a good view of the hallway and kitchen entrance.
Shadows bounced on the wall from the available light. Last room on the left - a bedroom - and the kitchen. An arm popped out of the kitchen, swinging loosely. Then a leg. And the hem of a yellow dress appeared. All of it small. The little girl. I would have to kill her first. Well, kill her again.
I lowered to the floor and took a deep breath.
These three would be the first ones I'd have to directly deal with. And worse, I'd have to start with the child, the girl. I understood these weren't actual people or live human beings. I repeated that to myself. I wasn't going to be killing actual people, or other human beings. I wasn't going to be killing actual people, or other human beings. Other human beings. Actual people. Wasn't going to be killing them. I'd be killing monsters, strange things no one understood. I wasn't going to be killing actual people.
I exploded from behind the couch and tracked the girl. She had moved through the hallway and stumbled into the living room. She saw me and growled, chomping her mouth at the air. Saliva dripped to the floor, on the dress, staining it with greenish-yellow spit. I raised the knife high, pointing the blade down. When I got within a foot, I plunged the point of the knife into the top of her head and drove the knife until the side of my hand touched what was left of her hair.
Blood and brain matter spurted up like an erupting volcano as the girl went limp and slumped to the floor.
My own legs tingled with nervousness. Or adrenaline. Hard to tell which. Killing the girl, even though knowing what she had turned into, knowing that her endgame was devouring my flesh and insides, had felt like killing a real live person. Nervousness or adrenaline? Part of me wanted to pass out, to collapse on the floor and spend time feeling guilty. I had just slammed a knife in a girl, already dead or not.
My breathing increased as I watched the girl's eyes roll into the top of his head, the final life of hers leaving. A girl.
Wasn't a girl. An animal. Remember that. If I wanted to move on from this, from this apartment from the impending tasks for Nadine, I must remember to consider these creatures as animals. Not as people.
The noise I created with the girl attracted the parents. They emerged from the bedroom not with an
emotional eye on their fallen daughter, but with destruction in their hearts. Destroy the human, their eyes said. Feast on his body. Not a look I enjoyed seeing.
The mom and dad struggled to move side by side down the hallway. The dad found stronger footing and cut in front of the mom, stomping and thudding along towards me. I took a step back. I didn't remember him being so muscular. And taller than me. Would he have the same strength as when he was alive? I had to make this fast.
Charging, I lifted the knife over my head, focused on the man's right eye. Nothing was behind those eyes. An empty chasm of primal motivations. No amount of negotiation or reasoning would change the fact he wanted to kill me. Not that he would know why he wanted to.
I drove the blade directly into his eye socket. It stopped him, but he kept going. Arms gripped my biceps, squeezing. Throbbing pain came as my blood pumped through me. Almost felt like he was using a blood pressure cuff on me and squeezing the bulb more than he needed to. Using my weight, I leaned backwards and dislodged the knife. A sickening slurp almost made me retch.
I lunged and jabbed the blade into the left eye. This one didn't go in as far, but halfway up the blade was good enough. I slipped the knife back out and the dad tumbled to his knees and plopped onto his belly. His head slammed against the floor a second later.
No time to relish the moment; the mother was close behind. Readying the knife, I waited for her to get closer as I tried to catch my breath.
She tripped over her husband, and this was a blessing. The mother rolled over the top of him, but instead of getting back up, she crawled towards me. She threw her arms out randomly, grabbing at air. I stepped to the side and stabbed the knife down one, two, three, four times into the side of her head. And she went motionless.
The hallway was a zombie blood bath. Dark blood spattered the walls like a painter's canvas. Pools of the near-black blood oozed out from head wounds like thick molasses. It wasn't human blood, but something disgusting and stickier. I wondered if something was in that blood that caused the outbreak or caused normal people to turn into these slobbering freaks.
Not Enough To Live By Page 2