by Alex Apostol
As night fell, she got distracted by her reflection growing more vivid in the window pane. She caught herself glancing over to look into her own face, lost in thought. Even with nothing else to do but read, she wasn’t getting through the eight hundred plus pages of miniscule type. She forced her eyes back onto the book, but only a minute passed before she realized she was looking at herself again.
She closed the book and let it fall against her leg as she sat perfectly still. The fireplace gave off a warm, orange glow that spread throughout the darkened living room.
“You know what I don’t miss,” she finally said as she sat up to cross her legs Indian-style. She leaned forward with a cheeky smile. “Telemarketers calling during dinner. How did they even get our cellphone numbers?”
Liam chuckled despite what he’d just read. He set down the journal and bent his right leg up and rested his elbow on it, bringing his thumb to his lips as he thought. “I don’t miss….eBooks,” he said, looking straight at Christine. “I’m glad that paperbacks are the reigning king of the book world.”
She threw her head back and laughed as she clutched Anna Karenina to her chest. “Low blow!” she said through giggles. “This apartment isn’t big enough to house every book we own, so I was saving us money by using an eReader. We didn’t have to rent out a storage unit to house hundreds of books that we would only read once.”
They both laughed fully, their eyes squinted and creased in the corners.
“Speaking of saving money,” she said as she tried to control herself. “I don’t miss saving all our loose change for a big, expensive vacation that we’re never going to take.”
“We could’ve taken one,” Liam said through his laughter. It tapered off in his throat.
“Yeah, right! Between your sixty hours a week at the lab and my seventy-five at the firm, when could we have found the time to take a vacation?”
“Well, now we don’t have to save our pennies anymore,” he said with a smile. “We can go wherever we want whenever we want.” He made a sweeping gesture, as if the world was theirs for the taking.
The faint screams of Lilly crying across the hall brought the conversation to a halt. They listened, staring down at their hands. “I guess Ralph’s not back with the formula yet.” Liam’s mouth pulled back into a sad grimace. “Shall we go to bed?” He picked up the journal again and held it to his chest.
Even with the bedroom door closed, tucked under the warm blankets they’d recently dug out of the storage, they could still hear the shrill wails of a starving Lilly. It penetrated their ears and burrowed deep inside their heads.
Christine turned over on her side with her back to Liam. She took long, slow breaths in hopes that he would think she was asleep. The last thing she wanted to do was talk. Ralph and Zack were out there and she wouldn’t know until morning if they were alive or dead. Meanwhile, a sweet nine month old baby was wailing her heart out from stomach pains her mother couldn’t subside. She thought about going over there to see if she could help in any way, but the fear of running into Ralph kept her tucked in bed.
She closed her eyes and repeated the world “sleep” slowly and quietly, almost making no sound at all, until she drifted off to another place in time.
XX.
A five-year-old Christine stood on the Calumet bike path that ran alongside the train tracks near the Dunes. The hot, summer sun beat against her back. She looked down at the vibrant green grass and searched the wildflowers for the perfect one to pick. She smiled a toothy grin as her tiny hand lunged forward, plucking a purple flower from the overgrown weeds. It was the perfect addition to her boring collection of white daisies and yellow dandelions.
“Grandma, look what I found!” she said, running over to an older woman further up the path.
Her grandmother stood with her back turned to little Christine and her older sister was even further away, squatted in the tall grass as she picked blade after blade and tossed them aside out of boredom.
“Grandma!” Christine said again, but stopped short.
She dropped the flowers in her hand when she heard a slow rattle from deep within her grandmother’s chest. The white haired woman turned around slowly. Her feet dragged on the gravel pathway. When Christine saw the mangled face, and entire side completely gone, blood oozing from her missing jaw as she gurgled from deep within her throat, she screamed with everything she had.
——
“Christine,” she heard someone say from a distance. “Christine.” She sat upright and she gasped for air. Liam was sitting next to her. “You were having a bad dream.”
She panted as sweat dripped down from her forehead and neck.
“All right, love?” Liam asked with his eyes still half closed, also awoken from a deep sleep.
“Yeah, go back to bed. I’m fine.” She lowered herself down onto the cool gel pillow and turned her head to look at him, but he was already fast asleep. She took a deep breath. Would she ever dream of anything else again?
As soon as she turned over and tried to fall asleep again, Lilly’s cried returned to her canals. She picked up her phone from the bedside table. It was one in the morning. Ralph still wasn’t back yet. Or if he was, then he hadn’t found any food for the baby. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, and willed herself to sleep. “Fall asleep, fall asleep, fall asleep,” she repeated in her head over and over again. When she opened her eyes, the sun was up and the room was silent. Lilly had finally stopped crying.
XXI.
Christine’s eyes opened at the same moment Liam’s did. She debated rolling over and pretending to go back to sleep while he got up and ready for the morning meeting with everyone. Her face burned with embarrassment as she replayed her failures at the comic book store in her head.
They made it look so easy, shooting something that was once human through the skull. She knew the only way she would get over her fear was to face it. And she would start by facing the group. When she threw the covers off, her body shivered. The morning was even cooler than the previous one, the dreaded one where she showed everyone just how much of a coward she was.
She tossed her legs over the side of the bed and hung her head to stare at the ground. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t going to leave the complex ever again. Ralph wouldn’t let her. She shook her head and settled on the decision to go to the meeting, collect the walkie-talkie from Jerry, and resume her spot on the patio with her binoculars. The thought made her entire body feel heavy and slow as she shuffled to the darkened bathroom.
With the scrape of a match, she lit the two candles on the back of the toilet and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. It was lopsided and pieces were already falling down, but she didn’t care. She didn’t bother to change out of her sweatpants either. Instead, she pulled one of Liam’s knitted sweaters over her gray t-shirt and stepped into a pair of wooly slipper boots.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Liam said cheerfully as he opened a box of cereal and poured it into a bowl for her.
Plain, crunchy wheat. Again. She collapsed onto the one bar stool they had left and looked up at fiancé with droopy eyes.
“Sorry, love, it’s all we have for breakfast. Would you like a cup of black tea?”
“Black tea?” she asked as she sat up straight and craned her neck to look over the counter. “No coffee?”
“I’m afraid we’re all out of the instant coffee, as well.”
She sighed and sunk back down into her chair, giving a weak smile. She let herself drop from the stool without touching her cereal and shuffled to the front door. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Oh, come on. It won’t be that bad,” he said with a smile and draped an arm over her shoulder. “I bet they won’t even remember.” He gave her a wide-tooth, ridiculous grin.
She looked up at him with a stony face and narrow eyes. Inside she wanted to laugh. Outside she was like ice, unwilling to thaw for anyone, even Liam. He unlocked the deadbolts and they stepped into the open hallway where a chilly
breeze whipped through like a wind tunnel. Liam pulled down the sleeves of his navy blue ribbed shirt. He folded his arms tightly to his thin body for warmth.
Christine looked at him with her head lolled to the side. She’d been feeling so sorry for herself that it was almost too much trouble to support the weight of her own head now. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. “You should grab your jacket,” she said to Liam flatly.
“Right.” He snapped his fingers and popped back inside to grab his wool-lined jeans jacket from the coat closet.
Zack came out of his apartment to join them, but he wasn’t wearing the usual padded gear anymore. Instead, he had on a heavy zip up camo print jacket, matching pants, and a black beanie hat, no helmet and no paintball mask. Christine eyed him lazily as she leaned against the wall, wondering where or who he got the new outfit from. The image of Zack tearing the clothes off a dead body made her scrunch her face and look away.
Liam came back out with two mugs of hot black tea and handed Christine one. She took it and held it between her hands for warmth. She hated black tea. In the morning she drank coffee. That was her routine for the last ten years. Did the end of the world have to mean the end of every good routine she had? She brought the mug to her face and took a tiny sip. It was disgusting, but she drank it anyway.
Christine didn’t notice Jerry as he made his way up the stairs to stand next to her. He held out a black walkie-talkie while his other hand rested in the pocket of his hoodie. He didn’t say a word to her. She wondered who had told him about the incident at the comic book store. With a quick snatch, she shoved the handheld radio into her pocket.
“I feel like I should tell you all something,” Zack said. Everyone was unprepared for his voice to shatter the silence of the early morning. Liam gave a quick jolt and spilled tea down his chin.
Christine perked up and lowered her mug. “Look, we don’t have to talk about it, OK?” she jumped in before Zack could say anything to further humiliate her. “Don’t worry. I’m staying home. I don’t want to freeze up and get any of you killed so there’s really nothing else left to say except I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry…”
Zack gazed at her, brow furrowed, and shook his head. “No, actually, what I was gonna say…”
Christine’s face turned bright red. She lowered her eyes and raised her mug to her mouth again.
“Ralph went out by himself late last night to find formula for Lilly.”
“What?” Liam spat, spilling tea on himself for the second time. He wiped at his chin. “Why would you let him go by himself?”
“He snuck out, all right? I’m not the guy’s babysitter. Anyway, I don’t know if he made it back or not. He never checked in. Lilly stopped crying at about two this morning so she either wore herself out or…” His entire body tensed. He couldn’t finish his thought.
“That’s our first stop, then,” Liam said. He handed Christine his half empty mug.
She set both their cups down on the ground outside the door. “I think I’m going to come with you.”
Liam looked at her, but didn’t dare say anything to argue her decision, though every ounce of his body wanted to. She saw it in his eyes.
“Just to check on Sally and Lilly. I’m sure they’re tired of being cooped up alone all day, every day.” She wanted to add the words, “just like me,” but stopped herself. There was no reason to make Liam feel bad over her own weaknesses.
He nodded and adjusted the red, rectangular glasses on his face. “Let’s go, then.”
Liam, Christine, Zack, and Jerry stopped in front of the Sherman’s door. The apartment was silent. They waited, each holding their breath as they hoped to hear any indication that everything was all right behind the heavy, white door.
Liam wanted to go inside, but felt like his feet were stuck in quicksand. All he could think about was when they hoped to find Luke and instead found a rotting zombie. Driving an arrow through a stumbling, hungry corpse was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life. Ralph was going to be worse. Sally was going to be worse. He couldn’t even think beyond that. His stomach lurched and he had to close his eyes to steady himself.
“Screw this waiting bullshit,” Zack growled as he jammed the crowbar into the door. It popped open and hit the wall, bouncing back at them. He stuck his arm out to catch it before it closed again.
Christine immediately screamed. “God! No!” she cried over and over again. Her face hung long with her mouth open as tears poured out of her eyes. Liam grabbed ahold of her and forced her head into his chest so she wouldn’t have to look.
Sally lay strewn across the ottoman in front of the couch with her stomach ripped open, her intestines, guts, and entrails on the floor. There was a look of terror petrified onto her bloodied face. The back of her skull was cracked open. The massive, gaping hole leaked blood and brains onto the beige carpet.
Liam had to look away as well before he wasn’t able to hold his stomach any longer. Saliva gathered in his mouth faster than he could swallow it. His head spun and he was sure he was going to pass out. He thanked God he was able to stay upright for Christine. She sobbed hysterically into his shirt, her cries more like shrill screams.
Zack couldn’t believe the amount of blood. He’d always thought horror movies over did it, throwing the fake stuff on the floors, walls, even the ceiling. He looked up at the red splatters that dripped from the white ceiling fan. He felt oddly detached as he took it all in.
That’s when he realized that Ralph wasn’t there. His shoulders sunk with heavy dread. He didn’t want to be the one to tell him what happened to his wife while he was gone. No one asked where Lilly was. They couldn’t bring themselves to.
A loud thud came from the bedroom in the back and interrupted his thoughts. The door was cracked open and a shadow passed in front of it.
“Take Christine back,” Zack ordered Liam.
“But—”
“Just go!”
The body of Ralph Sherman staggered into the living room. Blood drenched his face and dripped down onto the shirt he’d been wearing when he left the day before. His eyes were marbleized, lifeless, a rotting shade of chartreuse with a white glaze. He slammed into the wall, bounced off, and kept walking while his feet scuffed along the carpet. He opened his mouth and exhaled a wet gurgle. The gap between Zack and Ralph diminished by the second.
Zack’s eyes grazed over the room, away from Ralph, away from Sally’s mangled, bloodied body, and rested on an empty pink stained blanket on the floor. His eyebrows raised and pressed together as his eyes widened. Tears gathered, making it hard to see Ralph’s staggering corpse moving closer, arms outstretched to grab ahold of him. At the last second, Zack backed out of the apartment and slammed the door shut. There was a relentless pounding from the other side.
It was impossible to stand upright any longer. Zack rested his hands on his knees and let the tears fall to the floor as he doubled over. His body racked with agonizing sobs. Every time he tried to take a breath it felt like a knife was being plunged into his lungs.
Jerry put a comforting hand on his back. “If you need me to, I’ll do it.”
Zack forced a deep breath and released it slowly from his lips. He wiped the wetness from his cheeks and beard before he straightened himself up. His eyes blinked a few times to clear any residual agony from his face. “No, I should do it.”
Christine and Liam watched from around the corner of the hallway in silence as Zack opened the door and kicked out his foot. It hit Ralph’s putrid body square in the chest and knocked it backward into the apartment again. Zack disappeared. The door shut behind him. Less than a minute later he emerged, wiping oily blood from his sword.
Part Four
“There is no such thing as a residual soil.”
—Roger Parsons, 1981
I.
The wind blew through the trees, picking the leaves off one by one until they floated down to rest on the hard, cool dirt of the Dunes Stat
e Park. The only heat Lonnie Lands and his group of wanderers felt in the last chilling weeks was from the low burning embers of the fire built only at night. The white crescent moon shone through the branches, but not enough to see if anything was stumbling through the woods for a late night snack.
Lee Hickey leaned his head back against a tree and closed his eyes to fall asleep. Mitchell was curled up next to him with a backpack shoved under his head and his shotgun tucked between his legs. Carolyn sat on a log next to Rowan with her legs crossed and her arms wrapped tightly around her waist for extra warmth.
“Would you lay off, Big Bertha,” Lonnie whined as he sharpened a large stick with a hunting knife. “We’ll find an apartment when we’re ready to find one. I’m not just going to settle in the first shithole I see so that these fucking zombies can eat my face off while I sleep.”
“No, of course not. Better to lie out in the open where they can stumble upon you and eat you while you sleep.”
He lowered his stick and knife to glare at her. She matched him, her gray, thin eyes never blinking as they bore into his soul. The rest of the group sat back and listened to the conversation with smiled on their faces, like it was a reading of The Night before Christmas. Every day since Lonnie agreed to Gretchen’s demands for shelter two months ago, Gale had thrown it back in his face when he came up with nothing and they spent another cold night in the woods. It lead to long and heated arguments and entertainment for everyone not involved.