by C. Dulaney
I tread quietly down the steps, not wanting to wake anyone else up. I was rubbing my eyes and yawning when I came into the kitchen, then stopped dead in my tracks when I saw it was not Nancy who had beaten me to the coffee pot. I clamped my mouth shut mid-yawn, pulled my robe closed, and tied the belt around my waist.
“Morning,” I said groggily. It suddenly dawned on me I would have to tone down my usual morning crankiness around these newcomers. The only one who really knew me was Ben, but the others might get a little perturbed if I started biting heads off their very first day in a new home.
“Morning,” Zack grunted. He sat at the small kitchen table in my favorite chair. This fact alone would have been enough in the pre-Z days to set me off. But I merely smiled and took a cup from the cabinet. He sipped his coffee quietly while I poured my own and leaned against the sink.
“Sleep well?” I asked. It felt odd talking this much in the morning, and to a stranger who had made it obvious he didn’t trust me.
He shrugged and tilted his head. “Yeah I suppose...as well as can be expected.” He forced a faint smile, then went back to his coffee. I studied him in silence for a moment and caught myself wondering if he was trying to smooth things out between us. Maybe sleeping on it had helped?
“Want breakfast?” I asked softly. He looked up and nodded, then started to slide the chair back. I held a hand up and shook my head.
“No, it’s okay. Drink your coffee. Just tell me what you want and I’ll fix it.” I wanted to focus my attention on something other than the relative stranger sitting in my kitchen, and I also wanted to meet him halfway; put the fire out on the bridge I’d almost burned. He was easy on the eyes, that much was obvious. And he also seemed to have a similar hatred of mornings, which I could certainly appreciate. But I was hungry, and he didn’t know where anything was yet.
“Nothing much. I can’t eat a big meal when I first wake up. Something sweet would be good,” he answered. I smiled and walked to the corner cabinet. I opened it and revealed several boxes of assorted donuts and Danish.
“Zack, I think we have something in common,” I said. He chuckled and rubbed his face with one hand when he saw all the sweets, then nodded and smiled. Mama always said food was the way to a man’s heart. Yeah, he was starting to come around. I’d have to worry about Kyra next. I pulled a box of cheese Danish down and set it on the table in front of him. He opened it and took one out.
“That’ll do,” he said and began eating. I walked into the dining room and carried a chair back to the kitchen table. We sat together in silence, eating cheese Danish and drinking coffee. When I saw he was running low, I took both our cups and refilled them, then sat back down and enjoyed the quiet.
“This is my favorite time of the day,” I said after we had had our fill. “Well, other than the whole waking up part. Hate that.”
He smiled faintly. “Yeah, tell me about it. I usually wake up pissed off at the world, but I’m good to go after a couple of cups. I like the quiet of early morning, before anyone else is awake and generally irritating you,” he said softly. His low voice was very smooth and soothing, and was starting to lose the edge it’d had with me the day before. I nodded my agreement with his assessment and finished my own coffee. After scooting back from the table and carrying my cup to the sink, I closed the box of pastries and set it on the counter, then patted him on the shoulder as I passed and headed upstairs to get dressed. With any luck, the others would be awake and ready to go by the time I was finished.
* * *
Nancy stood on the front porch waving to us as we drove down the drive. Jake was driving, with Kyra and I in the front with him. Zack and Ben had opted to ride in the bed instead of us sitting on their laps. He stopped at the gate and I hopped out to open it. I waited until he was through, then I walked it back and hung the chain over it instead of locking it. Ben was shouting at me teasingly to hurry up, which I immediately shushed him for. He shrugged his shoulders in that “oops” way and covered his mouth. Zack hit him in the shoulder and made a ‘you’re-an-idiot’ face at him. I slid in beside Kyra and we were off. I tried talking to the girl a few times on the way down, but she apparently didn’t have much to say to me. Jake, however, did. And he didn’t shut up until we hit my neighbor’s driveway.
We came to a stop just in front of Mr. Crousley’s garage. His front door stood wide open and a strong breeze was banging the screen door against the house. I knocked on the back glass and motioned for the two fellas to stay put, then pulled my sidearm and opened the door.
“Jake, you’re with me. We’ll check it out, just to be sure it’s empty. Kyra, you and the guys stay here ‘til we get back,” I said as I got out. Jake met me on my side and had his pistol drawn as well.
“Hey, we’re going with you,” Ben whispered harshly. Zack closed his hand around Ben’s upper arm and pulled him back when he tried to stand. My gut told me this was it; would Zack argue Ben’s point, or would he relent and follow my lead? Zack looked back and forth between me and Jake for a long moment, every so often biting the inside of his lip with his eyebrows drawn low. I kept quiet and hoped Jake would as well. Zack needed to think this through on his own. He had a good, solid head on his shoulders from what I could tell, and he would make the right decision.
“No, we’re staying here and keeping watch. Kasey and Jake can clear the place. Face it Ben, they’re better with weapons than we are. If we see any trouble, we’ll have Kyra blow the horn,” Zack said firmly. Ben pleaded with his eyes on me, but I shook my head and turned towards the house. We walked up the sidewalk, half crouched, with both our hands on our weapons and pointing them at the ground. I had to bite my lip to stay focused; the sudden change in dynamics between Zack and I had thrown me a bit, no matter how relieved I felt.
We eased up to the front door and I caught the screen with my foot, the sudden lack of slamming a little disarming. I nodded once to Jake and he walked through the opening, gun raised and braced for an attack that did not come. I followed closely behind, and we cleared the first floor: approaching a door, one of us would open it, the other would enter with the other following behind. It occurred to me how odd it was that the two of us were so in sync, considering we that had never met and the only things we knew about the other had come from Ben. Maybe this stemmed from our similar backgrounds, having grown up around weapons and hunting our whole lives. Maybe we were just more alike than either of us, or even Ben, had realized.
There were obvious signs of a violent struggle; blood splashed over the walls and on the carpet, pieces of what we assumed were flesh here and there. Jake motioned for me to stop when we hit the staircase going upstairs. He held up one finger, put it to his closed mouth, then to his ear. I nodded then jumped when he spoke.
“Hey, any of you dead fuckers up there?” he said. He didn’t shout, just talked in a normal conversational tone. But it still almost made me pee my pants. Right away his finger went back to his lips, and we listened. He smiled and raised both eyebrows when we heard nothing. He jabbed me in the side with his elbow before starting up the stairs.
“See, nothin’ to it,” he said. I snorted and followed closely. We were still cautious as we checked all the bedrooms, and were quite relieved to see the violence had been contained to the ground floor level. I also noticed that this house’s layout was very similar to my own. We only needed two beds: one for Kyra and Nancy’s room, and one for Ben and Jake’s.
“I want the racecar bed,” Jake said as we entered the boys’ room. I laughed and pointed to the other bed in the room; a simple twin size, no racecar frame. Jake sighed and said alright, then followed me down the hall. We stepped into the little girl’s room. This one also had a twin sized bed, but with a brass four-poster frame.
“Kyra will love this,” Jake snickered. I shrugged, not getting the joke but guessing it had something to do with her shitty attitude, and tapped his shoulder.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said as I started for the steps. J
ake went to work stripping the sheets from the brass bed as I made my way downstairs. I stuck my head out the door and motioned for the others. When they got to the porch, I stepped to the side and let Ben and Zack in, and then stepped in front of Kyra to cut her off. As much as I was really starting to dislike the little snot-nosed brat, I figured a show of good faith was in order. So I handed her my pistol.
“I need you to keep watch out here for us. Have you ever fired a gun before?” I asked. She nodded and took the pistol. I patted her once on the arm and went inside, jogging up the steps and taking two at a time. The guys were busy dismantling the brass frame and already had the mattress and box springs leaned against the wall in the hall, so I went into the boys’ room and got started on that bed. I was just dragging the mattress off when Ben snuck up behind me.
“We’re ready to load the first bed,” he said. I jumped and swung back with my arm, catching him in the jaw with my elbow. He squealed and grabbed his face, staggering back a couple steps. I turned and caught him around the waist before he fell.
“Jesus Ben, don’t sneak up on me,” I said as I moved his hand away. His jaw was red, but otherwise fine. I patted his cheek roughly and led him out. Zack and Jake were pulling the mattress down the steps, so Ben and I took the box springs. Luckily, their width made them very easy to load, each lying flat inside the bed of the truck.
After several more trips, we finally had both beds and frames secured in the back of the pickup. Only then did we stop to take a break and catch our breath. Kyra came out of the house and met us at the truck with bottles of water tucked under her arms and shoved in her jacket pockets. We drank in silence, Kyra leaning from one foot to the other with a cheery look of futility on her face.
“Alright, so who’s sittin’ on my lap?” Jake asked after gulping down the last of his water. I nearly spit my mouthful out, and Kyra giggled. The other guys just chuckled as they piled into the cab.
* * *
That evening after supper, I sat on the porch swing with Ben. Red and orange leaves swirled on the ground as a crisp breeze swept across the ridge. Mr. and Mrs. Chipmunk were once again gamboling under their tree. It felt like snow, though it was still a month away, or at least I hoped. I could hear the others talking in the living room. Ben also talked, quite extensively, of their trip and all they had seen. I held his hand and let him cry, said all the right things in all the right places, while in my mind I was somewhere else.
I had started doing that a few days earlier; be in the middle of eating lunch, or, after the others got here, be talking to one of them and just space out. My body continues doing what it was doing, eating, talking, etc., but my mind just leaves; shuts down for a few seconds - or minutes - then BAM, my brain wakes up and I’m back, as if nothing ever happened. Sure, it was a defense mechanism; sure, it was my mind’s way of saying, “Whoa girl, there’s too much crazy shit going on here. But no worries, I’ll take care of it.” But even though I knew the what and why of it, I still felt as though I was taking a leisurely stroll through Nutville.
I didn’t miss all of Ben’s recounting. I heard enough, believe me. So I took it upon myself, after he had dried his face, to discuss lighter things. I tried to slip into that old familiar groove we’d had before all this crap happened. Dried leaves danced across the old wood decking, twirling and skittering around our feet. Occasionally Gus would chase one, then get bored and find his place at my feet again. We talked about old memories, old jokes. The constant droning panic that had loomed in both our hearts since Day One was temporarily forgotten. I laughed, he smiled, until the sun was nothing but a red sliver on the horizon.
The chattering inside had eased up a bit by the time we went in for the night. Kyra was curled up asleep in the chair, Jake sat on the couch, Nancy was in the kitchen, and Zack was stretched out in the recliner. Gus shoved past my legs and went straight upstairs to bed. I heard a murmuring and looked around. No one was talking. Okay now I know I’m going crazy, I thought.
Then I saw it; the TV was on. Someone had popped in a DVD. I stared at the screen for several minutes and thought, I’ve been here for how many days, bored to the point of stupidity, and I forgot about the DVD player?! Ben had already brushed past me and plopped himself down beside Jake before I finally realized what movie was playing. I lost my shit before I could stop myself.
“What the hell are you watching?” I asked and stomped over to the set. I jabbed the power button on the DVD player and shut it off. I stared at the TV’s blue screen, then turned it off as well.
“Hey!” Zack and Jake protested in unison. I spun on them, glaring first at one, then the other. Jake scooted to the edge of the couch.
“We were watchin’ that, thank you very much. Gatherin’ vital intel and shit,” he said. Nancy appeared behind the couch and smacked her grandson on the back of the head.
“Vital intel huh? Tell me, Jake, what have you learned from watching Dawn of the Dead? Hmm?” I threw my hands out to my sides and looked around the room. “Please, enlighten me!” I was getting loud, and the silence in the room only made it worse.
“Well, for starters, don’t get trapped in a mall,” he said indignantly and pushed himself back against the couch. He returned my glare for a moment before averting his eyes to the floor. Zack kicked the recliner down and sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees with one eyebrow arched in my direction.
“You’re kidding me. Seriously, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said as I looked from Jake to Zack. Nancy was frowning and shaking her head, and Ben just looked confused, not sure what I was angry about. Kyra was still snoring.
“Haven’t seen enough? We’re living in it for Christ’s sake! You want some more action, then get the hell out of here and find some! You want zombies, you want blood and gore and death? Maybe some adventure? Then go! Seek and ye shall find, you goddamn idiots! There’s not enough chaos and death around you that you have to watch this shit? “ I turned around and ejected the DVD, then threw it across the room like a Frisbee. Everyone cringed, but looked guilty as hell as they realized why I was going off the deep end.
Zack sighed and stood, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry we upset you. But you need to relax,” he said quietly. My fists shook at my sides as my nails dug into my palms. I stared him down for a few seconds, my cheeks red and ears on fire.
“This isn’t upset,” I finally hissed through clenched teeth, then strode to the stairwell. Nancy started after me but I held a hand up as I went. She had good intentions, but it would have ruined my exit. The others stared at the ceiling as I stomped up the steps and slammed my bedroom door.
“She just broke rule number six,” Jake grumbled. Ben punched him on the shoulder before Nancy had the chance.
* * *
Gus watched from his corner of the bed as I paced around my room. I was so angry, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Not only about the movie, but at myself for being pissed at something so trivial. It was just a stupid movie for Pete’s sake. I mumbled to myself and made several trips around the room before I realized I was in total darkness. At any other time that fact alone would have sent me into hysterics.
Gus squinted his eyes at the sudden brightness of the desk lamp. I ran my hand through my hair and continued pacing. I didn’t know I was crying until I swept a hand across my face and found my cheeks wet. I stepped into the bathroom for a towel when I heard someone knock. Gus perked his ears and watched the door. I took a few steps out of the bathroom, rubbing the towel over my face.
“Not now,” I shouted as I turned and stepped back through the doorway. Thoughts raced through my mind as I stared at myself in the mirror. I closed my eyes to the stranger looking back and gripped the edges of the cold porcelain sink. I kept thinking, I don’t want to be here. Then I would think, Well if not here, then where? My furious inner voice was still swearing about that movie, which was still a ridiculous thi
ng to be mad over.
I kept thinking, It’s a movie. Just a movie. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just a movie - it was life now. Literal life and death, not the proverbial. And they had the balls to watch that shit in my house? Did they think this was all funny? Did they think this was like Hollywood horror, where the smart and clever (and sometimes virginal), survived and only the idiots (and the occasional slut), died?
Mia was a smart and clever individual, why wasn’t she still alive? My family, for the most part, were smart and clever, why weren’t they alive? Did this mean these people were, in fact, idiots who had deserved to die? To be ripped apart, their insides torn from their bodies? Only then to reanimate and spend the rest of eternity (or the next several months before their bodies rotted away to nothing, whichever came first), roaming the planet with their fellow undead brethren?
These were the thoughts racing through my mind as I opened my eyes and saw Zack’s reflection in the mirror. He leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed over his broad chest. His face was sympathetic, yet hard at the same time. I gritted my teeth and exhaled slowly, lowering my head and staring at the drain in the sink.
“What do you want,” I forced myself to ask. Fatigue was creeping into my voice as another wave of fury swept through me. This was my room, what the hell was he doing here? Can’t I find any peace?
“Ben wanted me to check on you. He also wanted me to tell you, there’s coffee on if you’re interested,” he answered softly.
I snorted once. “Then why the hell didn’t he come and check on me himself?” I said, my voice still thick with anger, even though that one gesture, small and insignificant as it may have been to the others, was already breaking past the madness that was weaving its way through my mind and pulling me back from the edge. It all seemed very clear to me at that moment. I had been angry because I was scared. And more simply, I was sad. What’s the most natural reaction to this? Take it out on the people around you.