Not Enough To Live By

by Gregory M. Thompson

  The album was entitled ROUTE 66, which contained pictures of our road trip along the Historic Route 66, starting in Chicago and ending in Santa Monica. We each took two weeks off from work to drive what was called The Mother Road. The first few pictures were Nadine and I standing in Grant Park. We had a homeless guy take one of these pictures; we gave him five bucks to do so. Next was Springfield, Illinois to do all the Abraham Lincoln stuff, then St. Louis to visit the Arch. Springfield, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and a straight shot to Amarillo, Texas. We stayed in anything named Route 66 and bought cheesy souvenirs from each place or town we stopped, as long as it had Route 66 on it. I was sure Nadine kept everything we had purchased, and if I decided to look, I'd find them down in the cellar somewhere.

  Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; and as we progressed through the southern part of Nevada, we considered stopping in Las Vegas, but it wasn't an official city on Route 66, so we passed. (A year later, we would spend a week in Vegas anyway.) And after a few stops in California, we finally ended up at Santa Monica. An amazing trip. We capped it off with a kiss on Santa Monica Pier. For most people, that trip sung the notes of mundane and touristy. But we had each other that whole time. We were stronger together then, able to stop a bullet with our love, affection, and marital friendship.

  I flipped to the last page of the photo album, nostalgic for that kiss. It stared at me in two-dimensional form underneath the sleeve. The album was good for remembering, but real life contained the finest memories.

  I heard footsteps upstairs. I threw the album back in the tote, climbed out of the cellar, and hid the rope and duct tape just inside the storage door as I closed it. Nadine came into the living room.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  “More zombies?”

  “No, something else. I think someone was yelling for help.”

  “Our other neighbor?”

  “Outside.”

  A look out the side window told me nothing. Just zombies, but they headed towards the street for some reason. Additional zombies arrived from the open field behind the townhouse to follow their friends to the street.

  “Not there,” I said. “Didn't see anyone.”

  Nadine had gone to the other window, the one facing the street. “There!” she said, pointing.

  A crowd of zombies had gathered, and more came from every direction. This upset me mainly because I felt safer in the townhouse when there were very few milling about. As their numbers increased, the higher the chance they could overcome any barrier: a door, fence, window. By sheer weight alone they could find a way into the townhouse. And I dare not make a sound. It only took one of them to hear a footstep or a breath or a whimper of fear.

  I scanned the street left to right but didn't see anything but those things. “Where?”

  Nadine rose to her toes, peering to the right. “Over there. A man and woman.”

  I followed her finger past the first two apartment buildings to the first house on the left. A man and a woman were trapped on the porch. The porch steps were the only way to reach them, and I think this was what was saving them now. The man had a machete and swiped at the zombies ambling their way up the steps; the woman had what looked like a pocketknife - useless in this case - and used her feet to kick those zombies attempting to climb the railings. They weren't losing, and they weren't winning: they were maintaining. At the rate they were going, they'd collapse from exhaustion.

  “They need help,” Nadine said.

  “I can see that.”

  “Are you going?”

  “And do what? They're basically trapped.”

  “I don't know. What did you do when you went to the other apartments? Or the neighbors?”

  “I ran. That's about all you can do. But with a crowd of them.” I didn't need to finish that statement. Nadine could figure out what would happen. “Besides, I'm not sure why you want me to help them.”

  Nadine shrugged. “I don't know. What else am I supposed to feel or think cooped up here all the time.”

  “You know why you're cooped up.”

  The woman, wearing a Chicago Cubs ballcap with her pony-tail extending out the back, went to the front and opened the screen door. She tried to open the thick, mahogany main door, but it wouldn't budge. Locked or blocked from the inside. She threw a massive kick right at the doorknob. It remained closed.

  “Help them or not. I don't care.” Nadine said.

  The woman cupped her hands around her mouth and released a muffled scream. “Can anyone hear me!”

  “Please...” Nadine said, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the door. “I don't want to hear her yelling like that. Worse than the zombies.”

  “Okay, okay.” When I got to the door, I grabbed a bullet from my pocket and loaded it into the gun. Just one. Didn't want the chance I'd waste bullets. I opened the door slightly and peeked through the crack. A few zombies labored by, but they continuously focused on the house where the man and women were.

  I stepped outside - one zombie noticed me and came my way - and I bolted for the front of the building. I raised the gun and pointed it at the sky but hesitated in firing it.

  The throng of zombies astounded me. They shuffled and moved like a huge pile of earthworms. Bloody, disgusting earthworms. Arms reached for the man and woman, the front of the line nearly getting one of them each time, but the man and woman were good, accurate. More and more came from the left and right, as if a zombie signal flare went up into the sky and every zombie within a ten-block radius decided to answer the call.

  “Help us!” the woman yelled at me. “Please help us!”

  I made a cutting motion in front of my neck. The woman nodded, said something to the man, who also nodded. I pointed to my front door, and they acknowledged it.

  I fired the gun.

  The shot echoed ridiculously loud on the street, bouncing between houses and buildings like an errant pinball. My ears rang violently, and a dull vibration ran up my forearm into my shoulder. The sensations still surprised me, even though I hadn't fired a gun in a while.

  The shot did its job.

  The crowd of zombies did an immediate turn-around, most of them now concentrated on me.

  “Come on!” I yelled at the creatures. “Come on and get me!”

  And get me they tried. I ran around the building, past the recently-dead neighbor's place, and by the rear of the building. As I came around to the side with my door, the zombies chased after me, like I a magnet and they the steel. The man and woman still had to fight their way through some zombies. They were almost to this side of the street. I willed them to move faster, sprint like they were being chased by Usain Bolt as a zombie.

  I darted inside my house and slammed the door. Nadine stood by the window overlooking the street. “Tell me when to open the door for them.”

  “Thank you,” she said in response.

  “Sure. Just pay attention to them.”

  Nadine returned her gaze through the window, and I waited for her signal. I counted to twelve before I heard, “Okay, David. Now!”

  I whipped open the door, and the man and woman sprawled in. When they cleared the door, I shut it. I trained the gun on them quickly. “Okay,” I said, “take your weapons and give them to Nadine there.”

  They didn't have much, but the man gave Nadine his machete, a knife from a calf sheath, and an axe strapped to his back. The woman handed over a pocketknife and a 9mm pistol. Nadine took the weapons and set them on the kitchen table.

  “Sorry I had to do that, but I need to be careful.” I lowered the gun. “My name's David, and that's my wife Nadine.”

  The man nodded. “I'm Abraham, Abe for short. That's Susan. I call her Susie for short because she hates it.”

  “I do.”

  “Are you two married?” Nadine asked.

  “Heavens no!” Susan bellowed. “We met a few days ago. Both of us scavenging a gas station on the other side of town.”

  I said,
“You can rest here if you need to. For a little bit. But we have no extra food or water to offer.”

  Abe glanced at Susan. “We understand. A little rest is all we need. And we have our own food and water.”

  “Mind if I take my shoes off?” Susan asked. “Been walking for days straight. Would love to give them some fresh air.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Not sure how fresh the air in here is, though.”

  Susan smiled and sat on the chair by the door. Nadine lurched forward, fire in her eyes. I held my hand up, and Nadine collected herself.

  “That's my chair,” Nadine said. “Please don't sit there.”

  A confused Susan looked at me. “It's complicated,” I said, throwing my eyes towards the couch.

  When Susan got up to go to the couch, Nadine jumped into her chair. “Thank you,” she said.

  Susan and Abe found spots on the couch and removed their shoes. Sweat-stained socks found their way to the floor; filthy toenails and grime-covered souls now inhabited our semi-clean little abode.

  “How you two get caught on that porch?” I asked.

  “We did something stupid,” Abe said. “Got greedy. There's a huge house a few streets over, so Susie and I decided to hit it. See what's inside. We'd been watching it for a day, and no one came or went from that place. Whoever lived in it probably moved on to a Safety Zone right after all this crap started. Or, you know, changed. Much like most of the people in this area.” He reached into his backpack - I instinctively tightened the grip on my gun - and got a bottle of water. He didn't notice my impulse. Abe drew a big gulp. “I figured there's got to be something in that house. Or at least it's a place Susie and I could rest peacefully for a night or two.”

  “So, we get there,” Susan continued, “and get rid of a few zombies lurking by the place and get inside no problem. We check the place out and found a pretty good stockpile of food on the second floor. We didn't know at the time, but the cellar door had been left open, and while we were in there, a mess of zombies got into the house.”

  Abe said, “We barely made it out. Had to jump from a second-floor window to a tree. For each one we managed to escape from, ten more would show up. Eventually we made our way to this street. The zombies just kept gathering, more and more of them, until we found ourselves caught on that porch.”

  “No other open houses?” I asked.

  “Lots of them are locked. Maybe people think this will be all over soon and can come back to their home all intact.” Abe closed his water bottle. “Let me tell you: it ain't going to be over soon.”

  “Is that what you guys are doing? Waiting to get back into your house even though you don't think it will be over soon?” I sat on the armrest of Nadine's chair.

  “Far from it,” Abe said. “I ditched my town on the third day.”

  “And I lived in the next town,” Susan said. “I stayed as long as I could, but I eventually left. Trying to find safety elsewhere.”

  “I assume you haven't found it.”

  Abe shook his head. “A night here. A couple hours there. No permanent solution.”

  Nadine turned to face our visitors. “Where were you going?”

  Shrugging, Abe said, “Well, there's a Safety zone rumored to be about a hundred miles south of here. We thought we'd try that.”

  “A hundred miles?” I asked incredulously. “From what I heard, there was one near Freeport, three hundred fifty miles from here.”

  “That Safety Zone fell,” Susan said, sadness creeping into her words.

  “How are you sure?”

  “About a week ago, I came across a working ham radio. A repeating message: 'Freeport no longer viable. New Safety Zone in Rend City, Illinois.' I'll never forget it. Wasn't even a human voice. Sounded like a robot out of a science fiction movie.”

  “Is that the only one in Illinois now?” There had to be more than one. One Safety Zone in the state of Illinois wasn't enough.

  “As far as we know,” Susan said.

  “Why so far away from the first one?”

  Abe pointed to Susan's backpack. “Map.” Susan handed him a map, and Abe spread it out on the coffee table. He pointed to Benton, in southern Illinois. “My guess is they wanted to keep it remote with few major roads near it. There's also Rend Lake nearby and other smaller lakes within walking distance if that Safety Zone's population became too much and they had to force people to outlying areas.”

  I said to Nadine, “Not too far away.”

  She shrugged and got up. “I'll be upstairs.” And she went.

  Abe and Susan watched her go with minor confusion on their faces. “She okay?” Abe asked.

  Nodding, I said, “She'll be fine. Any other confirmation Rend City is legit?”

  “Not sure. We got run out of that house, and I haven't seen another ham radio since.”

  “Yeah, I've been using a transistor radio and there hasn't been anything on it for a while.”

  “I believe it,” Susan said. “Everything went to pot almost the same day as the zombie reports started coming out. I didn't think humanity could fall so quickly.”

  Abe smirked. “Didn't surprise me. We've gotten so used to our cushy lives the last fifty years. Electricity and heat when we want it. Food available for most people within walking distance of everything. Electronics keeping us in touch with other people right from our living rooms. Take that away and people go nuts. They don't understand how to go on with life. They just want to quit.”

  I understood that last sentence all too well. The epitome of that statement lived under the same roof as me. But one difference: Nadine didn't have the desire to die because we had intermittent electricity and heat, low amounts of food and water, and no electronics to communicate with the outside world or with family or friends. It was a simple desire to die because she found no reason to live on.

  “Are you okay?” Abe asked.

  “Yeah, fine.” I responded. I moved closer to Abe and Susan. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “As long as it's not too crazy,” Abe said.

  “It's simple, actually. I just want you to stand guard for a few hours while I get some sleep. Three, maybe four hours. That's all I really need. I've only been able to grab a few minutes here and there in two weeks. I'm exhausted.” I released the last word with a huge breath behind it, to illustrate my tiredness. “It can be later this evening so you guys can sleep all night before you leave the morning.”

  “That's it?” Susan asked.

  “Yes. And before you say no, let me also offer one bottle of water for each of you.”

  “Doesn't Nadine watch for you?” Abe asked.

  “It's a long story I'd rather not get into.”

  Abe laughed. “Don't worry about the water then. We'll stand guard as payment for letting us stay here. We'd be happy to do it.”

  “I really appreciate it.”

  Susan stood and planted herself by the window. “Hey, you saved us. It's the least we could do. You want to grab some shut-eye now?”

  Right after she asked it, my body answered for me. My eyes nearly closed on their own; my shoulders slumped into terrible posture; and my back, which had had bouts of soreness lately screamed to be stretched out on a bed. “Yes. I would.” I went halfway up the stairs before I came back down. “Whatever you do, don't let Nadine outside. Come get me if she asks to go outside or you feel she's going to make a break for it.” I knew this sounded strange to them, but they seemed like smart people; they could figure out why I asked them to do that. “You don't have to do anything to her. Just come get me.”

  “Will do,” Abe said.

  Nadine was sleeping on our bed, curled up on her side with blankets bunched up to her chin. Heavy breathing, which could turn into a light snore any minute, emitted from her, and in any other circumstance (meaning no zombies, of course), I would have found the scene cute. But I didn't want to disturb her, so I laid down on the twin bed in my office, my one-ton head hitting the pillow with extreme acceptance. My eye
s took another few second to realize where I was; they closed quickly.

  I slid off the bed and tried the transistor radio again. Static and silence all up and down the tuner. Would I ever hear an annoying DJ voice or irritatingly catchy ad jingles for an auto repair place or insurance company again? I'd take that. Not that I missed those kinds of things like I did pizza.

  Giving up on the radio, I went to check on Nadine. No one was in the bed. Where had she gone? She must be with our two new friends.

  I headed downstairs. I had no clue to the time. When had I gone to sleep? Hours ago? Abe and Susan lay sprawled on the floor, using their own sheets as makeshift mattresses. Not sure why one of them wasn't on the couch. But both were asleep nonetheless! I had asked them to watch over the door, to keep an eye on Nadine if she came down here. I had, hadn't I? I didn't recall my exact words, but I asked them to do something for me, right? It seemed so long ago. Days, actually.

  “Nadine,” I whispered.

  Abe stirred. I stepped over him and went into the kitchen. No Nadine. Where the hell was she? Not upstairs or downstairs. That meant -

  I threw open the front door. A dark overcast flooded the area, fast-moving clouds raced above me, as if a strong storm was minutes away. When I stepped outside, I felt no wind despite the speed of the clouds. The gray hue was desolate and one I normally wouldn't enter, but I had to in this case.

  I moved further out into the yard, then walked to the street. In the middle of Elm Avenue, it occurred to me there were no zombies.

  Was it over? Did the government or some other entity figure out how to get rid of them in one swoop? I checked my watch. And in a few hours? Wait. My watch was even working now. The last time it worked was four days ago.

  A mass zombie genocide. Why didn't I awaken? Surely something like that couldn't be done in silence. And neither Abe nor Susan woke either. I spun in a circle, and in each direction, silence and emptiness. The streetlights illuminated the street in good-sized circles, cutting the dismal atmosphere like yellow knives. The streets confounded me, however, as they disappeared into the horizon. Even though they should have stopped at the end of the block.