The Haunted Country

by Jason White

  A blast somewhere deep in the abysmal darkness and I pause. Cindy runs into my back, but I barely notice.

  Someone’s out there, firing their weapon. A man’s voice echoes through the trees. He’s screaming at the undead, beckoning them to come to him instead. He’s insane! The zombies in our immediate surroundings stop and turn. I almost laugh. Here, right in front of them, is a meal of two teenagers, two bodies of warm, meaty flesh, and they turn towards the new sound as though it promises better, tastier treats. With all the racket, they might be right. I don’t really care who’s out there. It’s giving Cindy and me a way out, a way back into darkness and, if I can manage Cindy’s crying, back into silence and anonymity.

  Safety, even if only for a few minutes. I’ll take it. Thank God to the crazy bastard who’s drawing them away.

  I tuck the Colt back into my pants, turn off the light, wrap Cindy into my arms. Thankfully, she buries her head into my chest, and we walk, my one outstretched hand our only set of eyes.

  chapter five

  We walk for hours, days it seems. One long continuous year of darkness, Cindy and I lost souls within this labyrinth of an unforgiving abyss. If only we could see. I have no idea how fast we’re actually going, or how far we’ve travelled but we’ve been walking for a long time. So long that the noise distracting the zombies away from us has long grown distant and is now silent. The night is endless.

  Above, whenever the trees thin out, I can see stars. Sometimes I stop to stare up at them. The Milky Way is a bright splash across the sky but does nothing to illuminate our way. The moon is absent. At least we’re the only ones snapping sticks in our jaunt through the darkness. The absent moans and groans of the undead is so welcoming to both of us that I wonder if Cindy isn’t sleeping as she clings to me. Her breath calm and steady against my chest as her feet take slow, unmeasured steps.

  Finally, the sky turns into the deep purple of a bruise that slowly becomes blue. We can see again and Cindy doesn’t clutch onto my body and is able to walk by my side so long as we hold hands. She walks like a zombie, stumbling, her head hanging, often twitching to the left and right. She’s falling asleep on her feet. I doubt that I look any better.

  There’s a clearing in the woods, a downward slope, and something that makes my heart stop beating. When we’ve stopped walking, I don’t know if I can trust my eyes as we’re staring down at an actual house. It’s a ranch, actually, complete with stables, a barn, and fenced in fields. Only there are no animals. No horses or cows, chickens or pigs. I wonder if it’s some sort of mirage, a hallucination. A terrible trick from God. Cindy also stares at it. I know that it is real when she tilts her head to the sky and laughs a sound that is full of joy.

  In the shadows of the morning sunlight, the front yard and fields look overgrown with vegetation. The house itself, although secure with no broken windows or gaping doors, has vines crawling along its walls. Left much longer, the earth would reclaim its ownership of the land, including this house, and I think that perhaps that’s the point to the apocalypse: The earth taking back what it owns, what it always owned. I begin to wonder what the cities look like today. What would they look like in another year? In ten? A hundred?

  Was humanity really finished? Or would there still be the odd person travelling the roads a hundred years from now?

  Cindy grabs hold of me, shaking me out of my thoughts.

  “Arlie!” She says. It’s my name, Charlie, in her thick dialect. It’s the only word she really knows other then ‘yes’ or ‘no’. She points down to the house as though I hadn’t noticed it yet. The smile on her face is as bright as the sun creeping over the horizon at our backs.

  I nod my head and take her hand. We head down and once we reach the house I raise my finger to my lips, hoping that Cindy will take the hint and keep quiet. I love my sister but she can be noisy, sometimes sounding like one of the undead herself. If there’s anyone in the house the last thing I want is to get them shooting at us.

  We step up onto the front porch and I knock. “Hello!” I call, but there’s no answer. I knock again. The third time using my fist. Still no answer and so I try the door handle. Unlocked, the door creaks open. A haunted house sound, but I’m not afraid. The innards of the house reek of human abandonment, and so if anything, my spirits rise.

  I might have finally found what I’ve been looking for since Dale and Merrick disappeared. A place where Cindy and I can stay hidden safely away from the nightmare the world has become.

  After a fairly extensive search my theory that the house is empty and has been empty for some time is proven. The dust is thick and undisturbed on every flat surface. There’s a musty smell, the air stale and untouched by fresh air in a long time. I don’t search for as long as I want or would normally do because the exhaustion is so thick that all I can think about is the massive, king-sized bed I found upstairs in the master bedroom. There are other bedrooms, looking like they once belonged to kids, perhaps teenagers around my age, a boy and a girl judging from the Cradle of Filth and Nine Inch Nails posters in one and the Justin Bieber in the other.

  Cindy is already lying down on the master bedroom’s bed. Last I saw, she was lying on her back, giggling like a baby while watching her hands dance with red rimmed, tired eyes. She’ll probably be asleep before I get back up to her. Within ten minutes I’m beside her, drifting off into a deep sleep. I don’t even have time to wonder if it was a mistake coming here before unconsciousness takes me.

  I wake to fading light and Cindy wandering the room, moaning worriedly. I think that she’s probably just got up and is confused as to her whereabouts. It was easier for her when she could wake up in the same place every day. I hope that I’ve found somewhere she can think of as home for a while, but she’ll need time and I’ll need patience before that kind of comfort can solidify.

  So long as this place is as safe as it appears.

  Wind blows against the walls, howling, calling with ghostly voices. Within the shrieking wind I swear I can hear the undead moaning, wandering around somewhere out there, looking for food. The howling wind makes the place appear weak with paper-thin walls, frail enough for an zombie’s fist to punch through. The bedroom window to my left rattles with a particularly strong gust, fueling these dark thoughts.

  I sit up, rub my face and say, “Hey, Cindy. You get a good sleep?”

  She clutches her fists up to her chest. Although her mouth is working, nothing comes out but a small strand of drool. It appears as though she’s nodding, but I can’t always tell.

  “We should go see if we can find something to eat.” At that, Cindy looks up at the ceiling and she lets out a laugh that I know is in the affirmative. First I take her to the bathroom, and while she unloads go looking for a flashlight. It’s getting dark quickly. I go back to the bedroom, look in drawers, under the bed, along the shelves but there’s nothing. In the closet, however, I find an electric lamp. It works, illuminating the immediate area with a blinding, almost florescent light.

  A flash of light explodes in the windows and a rumble of thunder quickly follows. I hurry back to the bathroom. Cindy is on the toilet still, her face scrunched up as her hand dances wildly at her ear.

  “No no no no no,” she says, not quite frantic yet, but time for that is running out.

  Another rumble of thunder and I curse my luck. I was hoping that the first rumble was a storm simply passing by. The wind outside has picked up even more, and the lightning is becoming more frequent.

  I go to Cindy, still on the toilet, and before she starts freaking out I hum a soothing tune I can no longer remember the name of. I set the electric lamp on the counter and clean her. The humming sometimes calms her enough to sway a panic attack, but with my hands quickly working to wipe her privates with a dusty towel, her breathing becomes rapid, and the frightened sounds along with the rapid movement of her fingers all suggest that it’s not going to work this time.

  At all.

  And I’m right.

&nbs
p; As lightning illuminates the room in stark white, thunder immediately explodes right after. Cindy’s eyes grow wide and her breath catches in her lungs. I step back, my hands in the air, my mouth forming the words, “Okay, I’m sorry” over and over, but it doesn’t help. She screams, her voice so loud that that it pierces my eardrums. I think of a time when she didn’t react this violently to thunderstorms, back before the zombie apocalypse when she’d only cry until someone held her, brushed their fingers through her hair and told her that it would be okay. That it was just a storm.

  Somewhere within she knows better than that. Understands that it’ll never be okay ever again. That the storm is just a symbol of the destruction that awaits us all. Impossible for these to be surface thoughts for her. She knows it somewhere deep and she will not be comforted any longer.

  So she screams.

  Cindy’s screams end an hour later when the storm has finally passed. They turn to child-like cries, then simple weeping. We are back in the bed, my arms wrapped around her. Her tears and breath are hot on my chest. My ears hum and ring and as I stare into the darkness above—I had turned the lamp off long ago—I realize that my own cheeks are wet. I can feel the tears still welling in my eyes.

  She’s asleep, I can tell just by her breathing, but I can’t stop running my fingers through her hair. I can’t stop saying, “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s all right. It’s only a storm. Shhh.”

  I’m not sure when the moaning and the pounding starts. At first, I think that it’s my heartbeat. A slow and consistent boom boom boom that interrupts the sweet oblivion arresting awareness. I crave for the oblivion to continue. No. I need for it to continue.

  We’re still lying in the same position from after the storm. Cindy snores softly into my chest. Her breath now chills the spot on my neck where her tears have dried. A shiver runs through my entire body, but it’s not only from her breath. It’s also from the stench of the dead, the sound of their constant hunger and I wonder how many of them are out there trying to get in.

  I sit up. The motion wakes Cindy. She moans, resistant to consciousness, and I can’t agree more. I don’t know how much sleep we’ve gotten in the last day or two. It’s been a lot. Even so, I feel as though I could sleep longer. Days, weeks. I could sleep until this nightmare evolves into something better.

  That’s not an option now.

  Not if we want to live.

  “You have to stay here, in this room,” I tell Cindy, standing now. She looks up at me, the dim light of dawn making her skin look grey. I can’t tell if she knows what I’m talking about or if she even registers the urgency in my voice. I leave the room and close the door behind me, anyway.

  Cindy doesn’t make a sound. I’m grateful for the silence though it won’t last for long.

  Silently I head downstairs. The dead obviously know that we’re in here; they were probably attracted by Cindy’s cries during last night’s storm. That doesn’t mean I want to draw their attention to my exact whereabouts. I sneak over to the window closest to the staircase but stop when I see a human-shaped silhouette with its arms raised on the glass. My heart seizes inside my chest. I look at the other windows only to find more of the undead blocking the early morning sunlight.

  I run back upstairs, my heartbeat matching the pounding of my feet. I then head for the second bedroom, the one without Cindy, and straight for the window. The wooden frame slides up easily and I stick my head out. The morning air hints at a hot, muggy day. There are at least ten of the walking dead. More are emerging from the same forest Cindy and I stumbled from just beyond the front yard not that long ago. There’s no telling how many are out there, but judging from the moans and the fists hammering the outer shell of the house, I don’t doubt that the house is surrounded.

  “Shit!” The word hisses from my teeth, full of anger and hatred and exhaustion.

  Full of fear.

  Back in the hallway Cindy stands by the staircase, a specter with fidgeting hands. She’s silent, but by the way her head’s cocked I can tell that she’s trying to figure out whether or not the pounding she’s hearing is a threat or not. I reach behind me and realize that I hadn’t felt the Colt tucked back there in some time.

  I find it on the bed. “Stupid asshole!” I yell at myself. Cindy could have found the weapon and hurt herself. She could have hurt me. Not like it really matters now, with the zombies outside and a human alarm system inside that will keep them coming with each and every scream.

  “We’re fucked,” I say to myself, looking at the cold steel of the gun in my hand. The backpack sits beside the bed, filled with a mixture of food and ammo. I grab a box of bullets, open it, and shove them into the pockets of my jeans until they’re full.

  Cindy is still standing by the railing, confused and frightened. Pain fills my heart. I can’t imagine the zombies tearing into her flesh with their fingers and rotted teeth. The reality of it now is so close to the truth that tears fill my eyes. I can’t let myself break down. I’ve got to think of Dale and Merrick and their strength. How I only heard them cry or panic through paper-thin walls in the dark when secured in bed. When they thought that my sister and I were asleep.

  I straighten my back and step past Cindy. “Stay here!” I say, though the strength of my voice sounds false, forced.

  Downstairs the dead obscure the morning light that would have otherwise shone through the windows.

  I load the gun just as the first of the windows break. Glass shatters to the floor and dried, atrophied arms reach in, followed by a torso devastated with what looks like a shotgun wound to the chest. Faded blue plaid hangs loose on bone and what’s left of its meat. Its jaw snaps open and shut, the lips dried out so much that they’re no longer existent, showing only the clacking teeth.

  It sees me and cries out. Within its widened eye sockets are pools of squirming maggots. They fall onto its cheeks, onto the floor, like grotesque tears.

  I aim the gun, switch the safety off and pull the trigger. The gun recoils violently in my hand, knocking my arm high into the air. The bullet, however, finds its mark. A hole appears in the walking dead’s forehead, an explosion of grey matter, skull, and black, rotted blood sprays the window and curtains behind it. The creature goes limp, lying on the window sill by the waist, a drunkard passed out trying to break into his own home. More maggots squirm in the exit wound of the zombie’s back that’s as large as my fist.

  There’s another one right behind and it reaches over its fallen comrade, reaching with frantic arms and cries. A squirrelly one, I think and nearly laugh aloud. More glass clatters to the floor behind me and I turn to see another zombie with grasping hands come through the kitchen window. Neither zombies care that the broken shards of glass tear through their ruined flesh. No blood seeps from these wounds. If the room was silent enough I would be able to hear it tear like cloth.

  Now I am laughing, because Cindy’s downstairs, screaming at the horror of our impending death, yet she refuses to run. She’d rather die beside her big brother because somewhere deep she holds a ridiculous hope that I can save her.

  What she doesn’t know is that this is the end.

  There’s no other way.

  If I start shooting, I’ll run out of ammo before I can get them all.

  Another window breaks and my laughter is nearly hysterical. I can’t hear Cindy’s screams. She stands there open mouthed, the veins in her neck and at her temples protrude and the color of her face deepens to a beet red. Still, I cannot hear her screaming. I can’t hear the zombies moaning and groaning or pieces of the house breaking apart.

  All I hear is the madness swirling in my brain and the laughter that joins it.

  Tears run down my eyes.

  I walk over to Cindy and my laughter dies when I hold the gun up to her head.

  “It’s okay,” I say, repeating the words over and over. I hold her close, the barrel of the gun at her head. Just one shot, and then one more and this nightmare will be over. I won’t have to worry about watchi
ng the undead tear into my sister’s flesh with their teeth and overeager fingers. I can stop obsessing. I can finally rest.

  I pull back the hammer, my finger gripping the trigger. She wraps her arms around me, holding me so tight that it begins to hurt. The stench of her unwashed hair saturates my nose. I’ve got to get this right with the first shot. She cannot feel it. She cannot see it coming.

  “Arlie,” she says, her voice strained and frightened. “Elp eee.”

  “That’s right,” I say, and now the tears fill my eyes. Somehow, my voice remains strong. “Charlie’s here. He’ll protect you. He always does.”

  My finger tightens on the trigger as I adjust my aim.

  My finger tightening. Tightening. Tightening.

  Bang!

  The blast is sudden and loud and I jump, dropping the gun. Cindy’s grip around my body tightens as the second shot blasts. This shot is just as loud as the first, but not loud enough to have come from the Colt. I feel the heat of Cindy’s breath on my chest, and it’s not until the third shot cracks outside that I realize that Cindy’s still alive, it’s no longer just the two of us.

  The undead silhouettes drop at the window closest to the front door, just behind us. More gunshots crack through the morning light, punching holes in the front door and the window beside it.

  Then there’s a frantic pounding.

  A gruff voice yelling, “Let me in, Goddamn it!”

  As I turn around, Cindy has no choice but to follow my movements. Looking down at the lock, I grunt. When we entered the house yesterday, I hadn’t realized that I had locked up behind us.

  The man’s fist pounds on the door and I go to unlock it, but I pause.

  “How do I know you won’t hurt us?” I say.

  “Look, kid, you have no choice in the matter. I already saved your ass once. If you want me to save it again, you’re going to have to help me out and return the favor!”