Xenia, After

by Joe Schlegel

  They rolled across a small bridge, then finally entered the safety of the thick, surrounding trees and underbrush, too dense to allow any surprise attacks from wayward stragglers. Their perfectly maintained caravan of bikes spread out listlessly, more a group than a regimen, and they all visibly relaxed while embraced by the untamed, impassable woods.

  In the rear of the caravan, Corrine peered back behind them.

  She waited to see if any previously unnoticed of them gave chase from even a far off, languished distance. As they progressed deeper down the bike path, Corrine no longer checked behind them. She softened her cautious demeanor and eased the tension in her posture.

  North Team rambled along the pavement for several peaceful minutes until they eventually slowed down near a trail-sized intersection. The James Ranch Connecting Spur splintered hard right onto a wide, red bridge, but the asphalt path continued on out of sight past the old rail lines’ casual curve.

  Trapper studied the dark quarter mile scarcely lit by the rising dawn, and his attention lingered. It led out of Xenia like an exit ramp in a bottleneck. No search teams ventured any further than the spur, not for weeks. The safe zones beyond sat deserted, unused ...ignored.

  And it made him wonder. His heart tugged him along the path.

  Nevertheless, he turned onto the bridge.

  His tires rumbled across the wide wood planks. As the rest of the team followed, their combined wheels rippled like a rolling wave of unsettling thunder.

  The team tensed, uncomfortable with the ruckus.

  They automatically drifted back into a straight line as they passed a small, algae-swamped pond.

  Trapper curved with the asphalt path and inclined up toward the road. It weaved around a heavy collection of shade trees. A garden up by the road, beside the path as it leveled out, displayed a small collection of bushy and towering weeds.

  He stood on his pedals, and he examined the open area as they fully emerged from the spur.

  They scoped out the county fairgrounds just across the street. A few deer picked around the garbage, but still no sign of them.

  The team crept out into the road.

  Everyone monitored the area, their oscillating vigils diligent and attentive.

  They crossed the road and treaded up to the fairground’s parking lot. Then they turned left and scanned the overgrown soccer fields ahead of them.

  At the end of the concrete lot, they watched the corners of the concession building for them.

  Then they pedaled along its back wall. A mix of emotion spread through North Team to find the aluminum ladders upright and undisturbed. If William, Wesley, and Freddie sought refuge above their heads, they would have knocked the ladders aside and prevented them from also reaching the safe zone.

  Trapper led them onward, and they pedaled toward the fairground’s fenced-in enclosure, wrapped by chain link and topped with barbed wire. Buildings and bleachers, an oval track and a grand stand, hangers, bays, winding sidewalks – everything bore a jarring familiarity, tangible ghosts of a very recent past.

  They rode past the gate, long ago unchained and opened.

  Around the rest of the fairgrounds, they pedaled, and each safe zone’s ladder remained dutifully in place, all of them entirely untouched by beast, man, or other.

  North Team recognized the grim yet thankful expressions which crept onto their teammates’ faces. They each suspected that the Woodland Team might have traversed in another direction after all.

  Trapper charged out of the fenced-in enclosure with a renewed vigor. He rode faster than before, his mind made up with little patience for disagreement...

  The others kept pace.

  He led them back down the parking lot, crossed the road, then aimed to return to the bike path.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Corrine objected, “we need to check the Catholic church next! And the high school is out this way, too!”

  Trapper stopped his bike.

  The rest of North Team followed suit. They watched him and exchanged concerned, trepidatious glances.

  Corrine urged delicately, “I mean, let’s do it cautiously and swiftly. But shouldn’t we check at least the nearest safe zone while we’re in the area? The church is only a minute or two away.”

  Trapper’s grip tightened around his hand brakes. He enunciated softly despite the tension that clipped the edge of his voice, “What if Freddie went all the way down to the race track?”

  “Dude, Kil-Kare is a mile and a half away, I highly doubt that your nephew ventured out that far.”

  “He knows that they won’t wade through thick woods. He’d have no problem outrunning any number of them if he knew he had a straight shot.” He turned to face the rest of the team, resolute, “If he was chased onto this bike path, then the bottleneck would have prevented him from ditching his followers all the way down the stretch. The bike path doesn’t open up again until you’re pretty much right on top of the drag strip.”

  Corrine direly reasoned, “Trapper, I’m telling you: Freddie wouldn’t have put so much distance from the rest of us. None of the missing three were at the fairgrounds, which means we have to check the Catholic church. If they’re not around there, then they didn’t come this way.”

  “I can’t casually visit each of the safe zones and then go back to town just to hear bad news from the rest of the search teams. Knowing that I didn’t check everywhere in my vicinity will absolutely haunt me, trust that. So I’m going to Kil-Kare first because the return trip from the race track will put us right back here anyway. After that, we can hit the church, the high school, the florist, anywhere you damn well choose. It’ll be a straight shot up Detroit Street to the gazebo after all that.”

  A bike coasted closer to Trapper. Atop it, Jake Osborne rallied, “You’re not going alone. We got your back.” As he nodded, the Chilly Willy tattoo in his neck nodded, too.

  United together, North Team pedaled to the bike path. Their tires rattled overtop the wide, red bridge as they coasted toward the start of the James Ranch Connecting Spur.

  They turned right in a single-file line toward the shaded quarter mile.

  Corrine’s gaze lingered on the sign that pointed Xenia to the left. She groaned ominously yet kept perfect ranks with the group.

  8.

  Approaching the Flock

  Witty status updates didn’t broadcast anyone’s voice into eternity. Digital pictures didn’t carry anyone’s face until the Earth stopped spinning. It was all just fanciful magic that distracted humanity from itself.

  Forced to look up into the real world for the first time in generations, the survivors found the ultimate meaning to their lives cheapened, perverted. Only tomorrow mattered. Nothing could be planned longer than that. A week ahead seemed foolish to imagine.

  They persevered as far as luck allowed them, but why?

  To adapt so abruptly? To merely survive?

  Perhaps to rebuild?

  The survivors could barely see anything beyond the change of the season, and old age became wishful thinking. To properly rebuild the world seemed far beyond their chances, their skillsets, and their fortunes.

  A daily struggle just to exist robbed the survivors of any blissful retirement.

  * * *

  A perfect blue coated the sky and brightened Shawnee Park. It teamed with life.

  Breakfast consisted of fruit from pop-top cans.

  Mothers Seven and Gwen sat on either side of their children. Young Rhea and Logan bantered happily. They shoveled syrupy pear bites and tangerine slices into their mouths and talked and laughed with their mouths full.

  Just outside of the gazebo, a swarm of bikes parked in a huddle. Child carts tethered behind each one, some four long. The pillaging survivors pilfered more loot and necessities from the dead neighborhoods with longer trains tagging along behind them.

  A conversation hushed nervously – and then another. Faces turned one by one to behold the cause for the anxious ripple.

  Words so suddenl
y failed even those who so easily found joy and laughter early in the morning.

  William and Wesley pedaled closer along the concrete paths through the park.

  A few expressions lifted hopefully. Many others grimaced, tragic news already anticipated.

  Ruth rose from her cushion and the large hat upon her cotton top bustled a little in the early morning breeze, “You’re safe! How joyous! Is Freddie back with his uncle?”

  Wesley shook his head grievously.

  So suddenly not hungry, many of the survivors slid their cans of soupy breakfast away from them. They hunched over their rejected meal, saddened and so easily overcome by communal grief.

  Hesitantly, fearfully, Wesley fretted, “One of them spotted Freddie before he spotted it. We did everything we could, but he was infected.”

  He lowered his pudgy face sadly and shook his head, then he squeezed a mournful whimper into his voice, “He was in shock, couldn’t even talk – he just stared at his fresh wound, terrified.”

  His face twisted into a guilt-ridden grimace.

  “I’m so sorry this happened. We both are. The boy was such a beautiful soul.”

  Ruth slumped back down onto her cushion. Her eyes filled with grief and pity.

  She pried politely, “Why did you stay out past sunset?”

  “The cemetery was busier than we expected,” Wesley supplied. “There were a few of them. It took us some time to deal with the situation. By the time Freddie was infected, we were losing a lot of daylight. We had to rush the disposal; there were many more bodies than we anticipated.

  “We tried to arrive early in the morning to ward off a search party,” he added.

  Seven sighed darkly, ominously, “You’re a couple hours too late. They all left as the sun broke over the horizon.”

  He lowered his pudgy head shamefully. “Hopefully the Lord sees it fit to deliver them all back to us. I am so sorry this all turned so horribly. We’re at the mercy of the community.”

  “What do you mean by that,” Ruth questioned, and her elderly wrinkles scrunched up with suspicion.

  “If it’s the majority’s opinion that we leave Xenia as punishment for the boy’s death, and for placing so many others in harm’s way, then that is—”

  “Rejecting you can’t be an option! Stability, that’s what this community needs!”

  “Trapper is much admired among all of us,” Wesley sheepishly goaded the conversation, “and the two of us are responsible for the loss of his nephew. We don’t expect forgiveness.”

  Ruth rose stubbornly off of her cushion again as she expounded, “It won’t be you he blames, I assure you. They have taken nearly everyone from all of us – they are the ones he will hunt! Trapper won’t be alone in his pain. And we will all stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to bear this loss as a whole. Come here,” she waved the polo-adorned men toward her.

  William and Wesley kicked their stands down and parked their bikes among the swarm of others with tethered child carts.

  They entered the gazebo. Several survivors patted their backs supportively as they passed.

  Ruth lovingly hugged them both.

  Several survivors stood to leave. They droned to their bikes, dazed in the moment by news of young Freddie’s death.

  Seven leaned over to her daughter and hugged her shoulders tightly. She brushed the hair from Rhea’s forehead. “Finish your breakfast. We have work to do.”

  She kissed the side of her head.

  Rhea turned her round face and wispy bangs up to her mother, hope bright in her eyes. “Does that mean Ben gets to come home sooner?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart, I suppose.” She tidied up the picnic table and added, “I hope so.”

  Ruth released William and Wesley from her warm, supportive embrace.

  “We’re going to fire up the generators later today,” she informed them, “so we’ll need gunmen up on the roofs. You can help us gather goods until then, unless you already have something else to do.”

  Wesley dismissed affably, “We were just going to tend to the chapel, but I’m sure we would be more help around here.”

  “There’s a crew pillaging every neighborhood in town, and they report what street they’re occupying to me. If you take them some empty carts and then haul their full ones back to us here, I’m sure it would help us gather that much more supplies so much swifter, you know?”

  She turned pleasantly to Seven and Rhea as they pushed up from their picnic table. “What do you think, Seven? Could you use the help hauling some of your stuff from Prugh Avenue?”

  Caught while rushing her daughter from their breakfast, Seven flashed a concerned look to William and Wesley. She disguised it immediately, seamlessly with a tiny, kind smile, “Sure, one less trip back around here should help us tremendously. Yes, and cover more ground, terrific.”

  Ruth delighted, happy with her plan. “There we go,” she concluded to William and Wesley. “We’ll have you guys zipping around town right away!”

  Seven led Rhea to their bikes. They mounted and pedaled from the overgrown park.

  They dodged the refuse and dregs on Detroit Street, and they turned right onto Main Street at the central intersection.

  Seven glanced behind them.

  William and Wesley chose not to follow immediately.

  Mother and daughter rode along the middle of the street and they studied the area. Several volunteers in the distance sped toward their chosen rummaging grounds.

  Then Seven checked back again, comforted to find it desolate. A chill ran down her spine, one to match the chill she’d felt when the pair of men first approached the gazebo.

  “A little faster, love,” she urged sweetly, and she nearly disguised the tension in her voice.

  Maddox woke with a startled wince.

  His sudden movement spooked both of them.

  Their screams and babbles woke the prisoners violently.

  The captives recoiled from the full-throated noise, and they pushed themselves back against the wall. Their shackles rattled.

  Maddox lifted his head from the wadded up dachshund t-shirt he used as a pillow. He rose laboriously as he lifted his weight from the ground. Beside him, the embers simmered and smoked within the cinder block fire pit.

  The empty cast iron skillet sat on the edge of the pit, cold and empty. And the rest of the teen girl’s body lay atop a jumbled pile of body parts out back, all routinely burned and charred beyond recognition with each new addition – an irreparable scorch upon the Earth.

  He paced to the door of the large, round room.

  Maddox lifted the lock bar from its place, then picked up his Remington shotgun from beside the door jamb.

  Shirtless and freshly bulbous, he pushed out into the morning.

  Overhead, the sun fully ascended over the horizon, and the sky glimmered with a pale, bright blue. Not a single cloud marked the sky.

  The transportation department’s compound unveiled its familiar layout to him. An identical, domed building sat opposite a gravel-covered drive, barely two car-lengths from the one he exited. And the rest of the property hid behind garages, city trucks, construction equipment, a propane tank, everything left over from when civilization tended to its monuments of modern necessities.

  To his left, the gravel path led to the rear of the office building.

  Maddox locked the large, round building.

  Their screeching reverberated through the door.

  Dismissive of their violent hunger, he marched toward the office building at the front of the parking lot.

  9.

  A Naive Suicide

  None of the survivors lacked terror in their eyes. Stress nagged at them, frustrations chipped away at them, shock dulled their reactions, depression emptied their purpose for living – yet terror remained as pervasive as the start of the outbreak. Unfortunately, the cluster of negative emotions often times masked the morbid ultimatum that played out in many minds just before they took their lives.
r />   Fear easily encapsulated and marginalized reason. Isolation froze their hearts, their souls, and their humanity.

  Without hope, the world appeared claustrophobic and bleak. Nothing seemed to offer the survivors any form of salvation.

  And there was only one escape that offered respite from them.

  Lily turned and pedaled onto an access road, followed by a diligent South Team. The small groves of trees on either side ended just ahead of them and gave way to a handful of factories and companies with sprawling parking lots.

  Within the momentary safe space at the wooded thickets, the rigid line of bicycles gradually drifted askew.

  David slowed and leveled his speed with Ben. He whispered, “I need you to help me keep an eye on Lily.”

  “Why? What has she done?” Abrupt bewilderment knitted his eyebrows together.

  “Have you seen the wound on her leg? It could be infected! I don’t know how long ago she got hurt, but she may turn soon—”

  Ben casually defended, “That had nothing to do with them. I think she said she missed a step or something. No big deal, right?”

  “Maybe. Some people turn within minutes, others take hours. What if she brushed that open skin against the infection somewhere? Or what if Lily has staved off the infection for a day or more? She could already be poisoned, poised to strike as they do at any moment!”

  “I don’t think so, dude. I’ve only seen people turn because they’ve been bitten. Lily doesn’t have a bite on her.”

  “That’s utter bullshit,” David scoffed angrily. He fought to keep his voice below a hiss, inaudible to the rest of the team, “People have turned into them without us seeing some bite! One moment they’re normal, and the next they’re crazed! And they take with them everyone who isn’t prepared! I’m just asking you to keep an eye out. If she turns unexpectedly—”

  He eyed Lily suspiciously at the front of the pack.

  “—then it’d be nice to have someone else on the ready who can lend me a quick hand, ya know?”