Only the Light We Make

by James Dean

  “The Light has work for you,” Mike said smiling. “Nothing will hurt you as long as you follow your instructions. Head east. I don’t know how, but you will be shown the way.” Mike turned his eyes down, a hint of sadness passing over his youthful face. “I’m going to miss you. I’ve always loved you like you were my own daughter. Please, be safe.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” her mom said as the golden haze returned, swirling around them like cigar smoke in an old bar. “Please be careful. I know we’ll see each other again. I have faith in you, I know you’ll follow your calling. I love you so much. I’ll be watching over you.”

  The haze built into a wall of brilliant light, and before Sue could blink, Mike and Christine were gone. She glanced to her right, and found Danny still sitting beside her. He tried to force a smile, but he could never fool her. His heart was hurting too.

  “Danny?” she asked, lowering her eyes to the table. “My boys and their families … are they …”

  “Happy,” Danny interrupted. “That’s all I can say. They’re happy.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear,” she replied, laying her head on his shoulder. “Is this really happening?”

  “It is. I wish I could take this burden from you. There’s going to be a lot of tough days ahead.”

  “But if I succeed, and this Soul of yours does what he’s supposed to … then we will be together again?”

  “I guarantee it.”

  “Then it’s worth it,” she said, lacing her fingers between his. “Why didn’t you shoot?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t you shoot when … it happened?”

  Danny smiled at her, gently kissing her forehead. “The noise would have brought more of the dead right to our front door. One of them came up behind me and I was bitten almost as soon as I left the house. I messed up, but I didn’t want my mistake to get you hurt too.”

  “I would have gone with you,” she said.

  “I know,” he sighed, hugging her close. “But I’m glad you didn’t.”

  Goosebumps rose on her skin as the warm comfortable air was suddenly overcome by the icy winter of the waking world. She shivered against the cold, holding Danny close to her.

  “I don’t want to go,” she said, fighting back her tears.

  “I know,” Danny said, hugging her tight. “I’ll be waiting for you. But for now, it’s time to wake up.”

  *****

  Sue curled into a ball as the cold winter air wormed its way under several layers of blankets. The taste of honey lingered on her tongue like a memory, the warm flowery air vanishing as her dream faded away.

  Death, sour and rotten hung heavy in the dark inner room of her ranch style home. She had hoped that the foul odor would have been tempered by the recent snowfall, but that was not to be. The ripe air was tainted with death that felt never ending.

  She held her husband’s pillow to her, breathing in his scent. He had only been gone for 24 hours, and yet she felt as if it had been a lifetime. The dream felt so real that for a fleeting moment, she truly believed it had been. But she knew better. She knew it was nothing more than a dream brought on by a combination of sorrow and exhaustion.

  She pulled herself out from under her covers after several minutes of tears. She slipped on her boots and heavy coat and left her room. She had grown so accustomed to walking through her room in the dark that she no longer worried about walking into walls or whatever furniture they had not already burned for warmth.

  Sue stood in the hallway, listening for the shuffling dead outside. She assumed they would still be around. When they found someone, they rarely left unless another noise drew them away.

  Hearing nothing, she wandered through her deathly silent home into the kitchen. Shafts of light poured through the spaces between the boards on the windows. She wondered how bad her perfectly kept home would look in the light as she watched dust particles dance through the beams of sunlight.

  She dropped one of her last tea bags into a mug. Filling it with her rationed water, she set it on their old propane camping stove until the mug steamed. She sipped at her tea, savoring the minty flavor as the heat warmed her insides.

  Her thoughts turned to the front of the house, where Danny had fallen. She knew the person that he was would not be there. He would have risen, like the others, within a minutes. She wanted to look outside, to see her husband one more time. But whatever was out there was not Danny, and she wasn’t sure if she could handle seeing him as the monster she knew he had become.

  She took another drink, the hint of sweetness in her tea allowing her mind to drift back to her dream. The dream of flowers and honey … and of family. She felt drawn to the living room, as if something urged her to look outside.

  The gloom inside her home made her long to see the brilliant sunlight. Her heart ached at the idea that she may never see the blue sky again, or walk through the grass barefoot again. She wondered if she would even live long enough to feel the warm breeze of spring on her face.

  She wasn’t sure when her feet started moving, but Sue found herself standing at her front door. Boards covered most of the small panes of glass on the upper part of the door, but Danny had insisted on leaving a small gap between the boards to allow them to see what was happening outdoors. It was there that she watched Danny die the previous morning.

  “Please don’t be there,” she mouthed as she rose up on her toes to peer outside.

  Her breath caught. Eyes widened as every hair on her body stood on end, goosebumps crawling across her skin as fear shot through her like lightning.

  Danny stared back at her, his milky white eyes locking on to hers. His jaw had been stripped of flesh, giving him the appearance of a permanent macabre smile. The police jacket he still wore had been shredded, blood stained cotton spilling out between the tears in the heavy fabric.

  Paralyzed with fear, Sue watched as her dead husband raised his left arm, the hand of which was barely clinging to the wrist by a few strands of shiny red muscle fibers. The watch he always wore glinted in the morning sun, the gold band stained red with his own blood. He raised his right hand, the tip his finger coming to rest on the watch.

  TAP … TAP … TAP …

  Sue shrieked, her cup falling to the hardwood floor sending hot tea splashing across her jeans. Unable to look away, she watched in terror as Danny was surrounded by seven more corpses. One by one, they all mimicked his behavior, until all of them tapped away at their wrists in unison.

  TAP … TAP … TAP …

  Their arms fell to their sides. As if a puppeteer were guiding their movements, all of them raised their emaciated and rotting arms toward the garage. Their heads swiveled in the direction of the garage, and those that still had fingers pointed to the closed overhead door.

  Danny turned his head back to Sue, and pointed directly at her through the small slit between the boards. Slowly, he turned his body again until he was pointing at the garage once more.

  “Go away!” she screamed as she fled into the kitchen. Sue slid to the floor, burying her face in her hands. “Why are you doing this to me?!”

  Her cries were met with silence. She had spent countless hours sitting in silence with Danny, waiting for the dead to pass by outside. She knew her screams should have every one of the creatures outside pounding at her door, smashing anything and everything to get to her. The quiet only served to unnerve her even more.

  Suddenly the silence was broken by thunderous pounding on her front door, sending it rattling on its hinges. Sue curled up into a ball on the floor as the force against the door intensified.

  Wood cracked in the front of the house, glass shattering as the heavy door started to give way. Sue shook uncontrollably as she came to the realization that the remainder of her life was measured in seconds.

  With a loud pop, the door gave way slamming against the wall as it swung open. Her breath caught as her safe haven was suddenly filled with the shuffling feet of the dead. Her hu
sband now searched their home for her, to kill her and feed on her flesh as she died.

  She jumped at every crash as the creatures spread out into her home, overturning everything that stood between them and their warm meal. She heard them move into her bedroom and Danny’s study. The things moved down the long hallway that connected the back bedroom to their dining room. Within seconds, they would be on her.

  “No!” Sue wept when an old woman appeared in front of her. The long dead woman wore a tattered dress, the yellow fabric darkened and grey from the months spent out in the elements. Her ashen skin peeled away, exposing darkened muscle fibers coated in flaking dried blood. Her mouth and chin had been stained red, no doubt from the many screaming meals she had previously enjoyed.

  The thing stood before her, staring at Sue. Despite what appeared to be hatred in its eyes, there was no expression on its face. Sue had seen far too often the faces of the dead before a kill. The bared teeth, the snarls … the expectation of the feast. The creature in front of her bore none of those expressions. It simply stood there, waiting.

  It was then that Sue noticed that her home had gone silent. She heard the gentle shuffle of feet in her living room, but nothing more.

  The old woman suddenly stepped back, raising her hand and pointing back out toward the living room with boney, claw like fingers.

  “Is this really happening?” she whispered to no one as her terror and confusion grew.

  “Yesssss,” came an unearthly hiss from the dead woman. She lowered her hand, pointing at Sue, then back towards the living room. “Goooo,” the thing moaned, its eyes staring holes through Sue.

  Sue was on her feet, bolting passed the woman with the intent of running out the door and away from the madness that had suddenly surrounded her.

  She only made it a few steps before skidding to a stop. The dead stood wall to wall and shoulder to shoulder in her living room. The creatures shifted, opening a path before her as the mass of dead flesh backed away. Bones cracked as the monsters pressed themselves tight against the walls.

  As the creatures moved apart, she saw a heavy green duffle bag sitting on the floor between her and the front door. She scanned the room, trying to make sense of what was happening to her, when suddenly Danny appeared where the front door had been, carrying a green and white box in his one good hand. He walked to the duffle bag, and with stuttered movements, dropped the box inside.

  Danny locked his eyes on her again, pointing towards her, and then the duffle bag. He tapped his watch again, then pointed toward the exit, never taking his dead eyes from her. As she had seen them do before, every creature in the room pointed toward the front door.

  “This is really happening, isn’t it?” she asked, not really knowing what to expect next.

  Danny lowered his arm, and nodded at her. He reached into the pocket of his tattered pants, and pulled out the keys to his van. He held them out to her, nodding again.

  “You already packed for me, huh?” she asked, her lips quivering as she finally understood that was very real. The dream was real, and the soul of every human being alive or dead hung in the balance. More importantly, she realized that she had an important job to do. “You’re in there, aren’t you?”

  Danny closed his eyes, nodding again.

  “Can I take anything else? Pictures of my family? Of you? Anything?”

  Danny shook his head, pointing toward the exit again, the keys dangling from his outstretched fingers.

  Sue took a deep breath, the stench of so many rotting bodies cramped together in her small living room bringing her dangerously close to vomiting up her tea. She walked over and picked up the bag, finding it full of 10mm rounds and the .38 she was told to take in her dream.

  “When I leave, so will you. Am I right?”

  Danny nodded, turning his grisly face to her. She looked into his eyes, seeing beyond the horrific damage that had been done to his jaw the prior morning and into the gentle soul that was her husband inside. She reached to his hand, taking the keys from his fingers.

  “I will see you again,” she said to him, all hints of fear vanishing from her voice.

  “Yessss,” he hissed. “Goooo …”

  “I love you. With all my heart, I love you.” Sue turned away from him, scooping up the duffle bag and walked out the front door. She would never lay eyes on her husband in this world again.

  The sun hit her in the face as soon as she passed through the door. She wanted to bask in its light, and stare up at the blue sky again, but her attention was drawn to the semi-circle of dead that surrounded her street, all facing the garage as if waiting to see what she would do.

  The sudden urge to run hit her, but she had a gut feeling that if she were to try and leave the dead would tear her apart. She was a part of whatever was happening whether she liked it or not. So she ran the only way she knew was safe … to her garage.

  She used her key to gain access through the side door, closing and locking it behind her. The monsters walking around her home were not acting in any way dangerous toward her for the moment, but there was no reason for her to trust that would remain the case for long.

  Sue leaned her back against the door, taking a second to collect her thoughts and calm her nerves. The heavy odor of grease and oil wafted around her, the smell heavy enough to block out the stench of rotting meat that permeated everything. She smiled, thinking back to the times where she and Danny would sit in the garage, watching their German Shepard, Katie, play in the yard. She would enjoy a glass of Riesling while her husband worked on their cars, enjoying one of his many favorite beers.

  The cold silence came crashing down on her as her eyes scanned across the dust filled emptiness. He was gone, and that life was a thing of the past. If she ever wanted to be with her husband and family again, she had to answer her calling and do what was expected of her.

  Sue pulled the manual release on the overhead door, and started working the small hoist that Danny had installed after their last power outage. Slowly the overhead door opened, sending the morning sunlight streaming inside. The dead came back into view, still unmoving in the middle of the street.

  As soon as the overhead door was high enough, she hopped into the van. She closed her eyes, expecting the engine not to respond after months of sitting idle. The key turned, and the engine cranked, slowly and painfully. Suddenly the engine caught, sputtering as the old fuel fed into the system. After a few moments of hitching and gasping, the engine settled down into a smooth rhythm.

  Sue looked around her, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would never see her home again. With a deep breath, she shifted the van into drive. The second the van lurched forward, every dead creature in sight raised their arms, pointing off to her right.

  “Well,” she said as she stared at the most recent oddness of that morning. “They said I would know the way. I just wasn’t expecting zombie GPS.”

  Shaking her head, and letting out a small laugh, she cut the wheel right and drove off towards whatever it was that God, or the Light, or whatever it was that was guiding this show had in store for her.

  *****

  For weeks Sue stayed on the road, following the strange signals from the undead. When they were not guiding her, they were as vicious and feral as they had been since the beginning. On the one occasion that she broke the rules and went against their directions, the creatures attacked with deadly ferocity. She was forced to use up half of her .38 ammunition just to stay alive.

  From that point on, she went only where she was told to go, following their directions without question. When she ran low on fuel, she would be guided to a source. Most of the time it would be nothing more than a place that she could siphon fuel from an abandoned car. She would only stay long enough to get what fuel she could before she was forced to leave.

  But sometimes it would be a gas station with manual pumps. Those were the times she was allowed to rest. She changed clothes with whatever she found inside the store, ate what she could
and gathered supplies for her journey. More importantly, those were the times she was able to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she prayed to return to the white room with Danny. Every morning, she awoke disappointed, her sleep filled with dreamless emptiness.

  The weather improved as she drove, the late winter finally giving way to spring. Despite the desolation everywhere she looked, she still rolled the window down from time to time to enjoy the fresh air. She couldn’t explain it, but the closer she got to the end of her journey, the more whole she became. As if the longer she drove, the more at peace her soul felt.

  Miles ticked by, day after day, as she navigated around large cities and heavily congested areas. There would be times where she would stay on the same path for days on end without interference from the dead. She passed by them as their clawed hands raked the air toward her in an effort to catch another meal. At times the creatures had drawn too close to be avoided. The front of her van was dented and painted with their black, clotted blood.

  Changes in direction came suddenly and without warning in most cases. She would round a corner, slamming the brakes to avoid a wall of dead flesh pointing to an off ramp. Or she would crest a hill to find several of the undead things forcing her into an immediate turn down a side street.

  She learned very quickly to watch her speed.

  Two months into her journey, she drove with her head hanging halfway out the window and enjoying the warm spring air as it blew through her long white hair. The sun dipped halfway below the horizon, pinpoints of light appearing in the darkening skies as stars began to poke their way through the veil of sunlight. Sue had taken to reading off the road signs aloud, if only to keep her mind occupied for a few brief moments.

  “Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy, five miles,” she sighed. “I wonder if any of those kids made it out.”

  Her mind filled with the horrors that an academy of that size must have suffered though that first day. That day when friends, teachers, and family became cannibalistic killers.