by Jason White
“What crawled up your ass?” I say. “What happened to the other night when you said we could all sleep, anyway?”
“We had four walls then, idiot. Nothing’s crawled up my ass but your attitude. Now, what’ll be for breakfast? Pea soup, or pea soup?”
We eat in silence, then gather our things and head on our way. If we ever had a destination, I’ve forgotten what it was. I’m beginning to think that Grant only wants to keep travelling and never stop in one place for too long. If anything, the things I’ve seen since Cindy and I headed out on our own to look for food proves that he’s probably right. But I’m so tired, and though my hip feels better today it still stings.
Eve remains quiet. If she’s still upset about her dad, I have no doubt that she is, she no longer shows it. I imagine that her father must have shown her some survival tricks if they’d been travelling together long. Either that or she’s always been this tough. It’s probably a mixture of both, but I’m certain that her quiet “let’s get this going” attitude is a front.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I think too much. This silence juxtaposed to her tears of last night leaves me edgy, wary.
I don’t know why. It’s not like I know her or anything. We’ve just met.
“So, where you travel from?” I say to her as casually as I can.
She looks at me and smiles. It’s a quick smile, there’s something in her eyes that suggests she’s trying to be friendly and not tear me a new one.
“Listen,” she says. “I’m really appreciated that you were there for me last night. You were a big help. But that doesn’t make us friends. That’s the last thing I need right now.”
Grant looks back and winks at me.
I want to tear the smirk right off his face.
I mean, who says that they don’t want any friends?
We walk through the morning, entering the town of Angus. This is the biggest town we’ve come across since before Grant, before Dahmer. The houses to the left and right, jutting out from between trees, appear empty and quiet. Grant’s steps have grown cautious, a nervousness taking over and I know that he prefers to avoid the town, like he’s been avoiding everything we’ve come across aside from the odd farmhouse.
“We need a warm place to sleep,” Eve says. Cindy giggles at her words, her fingers dancing to some pleasant tune by her eyebrow only they can hear.
“There are people here, probably,” Grant says. “In case you didn’t notice, it’s not a good thing meeting new people these days.”
“Well, yeah,” Eve says. “But there’s good people, too. It’s probably worse finding people in the middle of nowhere than finding them in a town like this. They’re just trying to survive here. They have the tools to do it. They’re not going to want what we got. There’s got to be tons of stuff we can salvage here. Maybe even a car. Or, maybe we can even stay. Who knows? I mean, do you guys even have a plan?”
“Yeah, my plan is to avoid the zombies and living alike,” Grant says.
“Oh, so you want to be Mr. Farmer, Mr. Survival Man living off the ground in some secluded mountain.”
“Doesn’t sound bad to me.”
“Sure, there’s only one problem with that.”
“What’s that?”
“There’s nothing that secluded here. Sure, you can walk for a day or two without finding a town, but there are towns within a couple hours drive in every direction, no matter where you are. You’d have to go out west, to the prairies which would be your best route. ’Cause goin east or south you’ll find the big cities before you reach any of those secluded areas.”
Grant stops walking. His shoulders slump. He’s deflated. He hasn’t thought this far ahead. Or he has and doesn’t want the reminder. All he wants is a place that feels safe and he likes to think that he’ll eventually find it somewhere. Maybe he thought he’d travel for the winter, then find that secluded place in the spring, where he could grow food and hunt, if there was anything left to hunt.
Eve laughs at him. “Gee, that all just sink in on you?”
Grant’s lips curl, he retreats back into his quiet and calm self.
“We need a house with a fireplace or a woodstove, hopefully somewhere around here, on the outskirts of town Not at its middle where we will attract too much attention. Our only problem is finding one that isn’t inhabited one way or another.
In the distance, figures walk the slow, stumbling steps of the undead. We don’t worry about them yet, though. Although the cold hasn’t stopped them as I had once presumed it would, it has slowed both the old and newer undead alike.
We pass a few houses before deciding to check out luck and looting capabilities of a pale grey brick and wood house. I think that it’s the strangeness of the house that attracts us.
We peek into windows, into the murky darkness, at all the goodies hidden to us from the walls and the sun shining high above. We look for movement, listen for the sound of voices or moaning, anything to suggest danger, or that we’re trespassing.
Cindy coos at my side, her sunken eyes scanning the tops of the pine trees surrounding the house, a big smile on her face. It seems she grows happier the bigger our little group gets. There’s strength in numbers, somebody once said. I guess some part of her knows this.
Eve, who’s crouching by a window, glares at us and I get the hint.
“Cindy, you need to be quiet,” I whisper to her, my fingers on her chin lightly so that she’ll look into my eyes and hopefully understand. She barks out a laugh that startles us all, then, still smiling, a thin strand of drool pooling on her chin, she covers her mouth with her hand and remains quiet.
We all exhale, relieved that she’s gotten the message.
She’s attracted the moans of a close-by undead. The joy melts from Cindy’s eyes when we hear the moan that’s almost a response to her laughter. One comes from the other side of the house, one right behind us.
We turn to find a man standing there. A zombie, and an old one at that. He’s wearing a T-shirt and I recognize the band name right away. Cradle of Filth. Under the words is a woman in a bath filled with blood. He’s also wearing jeans that are torn at the hips and knees, exposing massive chunks of missing flesh. His walk is strained and difficult, and I imagine that he died sometime in the summer.
His jaw opens and snaps shut. His sunken, rotted eyes still somehow see us.
“Fuck,” Grant says. He walks over to the thing, his rifle held in two hands. He slams the butt of the rifle into the undead’s skull, knocking it over. He continues to bash at it until the skull cracks and black and grey matter oozes through.
It smells terrible, the old, dead blood and brain matter. Things squirm in there, maggots probably. It’s always surprising how these creatures don’t freeze.
Another one limps from around the corner of the house. I decide to take this one myself. Once a woman, she still wears an old purple dress. Or, at least I think that it was once purple. It’s too tattered and dirty to tell for sure. What remains of her left breast hangs free, full of bites, most of it missing. This woman had died slowly, with large parts of her skull showing through the skin of her face and chunks of flesh taken out in her stomach, her thighs, her shoulders and arms. I almost feel sorry for her, but there’s no time. There are more zombies shuffling and moaning out in the woods, and they are coming this way. If we don’t get inside the house soon we’re fucked.
Blocking the way is this woman.
I raise the stock of my double barrel and bring it down on her forehead. Her head snaps back and she loses her balance, falling on the snow, her teeth gnashing at the open air. I crush her skull. She shudders and then stops moving.
“We need to get inside,” Grant says, looking around. “And now!”
“Let’s hope there’s no one inside,” Eve says.
If there is, we could maybe make it to one of the neighboring houses. Maybe. Or, if we are even more lucky and somebody is home, they’ll be friendly and let us in.
That’s too muc
h to hope for, in my experience. My heart sinks with the trouble we’ve found ourselves in, but it is what it is.
I grab Cindy into my arms and help her along over the dead zombie that I had taken out and around the house where we’re greeted by a man with a giant beard and a shotgun of his own.
“I don’t fucking think so,” the man says. He jacks the pump-action and then, with the stock against his shoulder, aiming the weapon at our heads.
chapter twelve
The front door to the house is right behind the man. From inside the gloom, a shadowy face peaks from behind a wall.
“I said, I don’t fucking think so,” the bearded man repeats. “Not this house. Go somewhere else.”
“Jesus,” Grant says. His face almost glows in red, and I know that it’s not only from the cold. “Just let us in until those things pass by, then we’ll leave.”
The first of the zombies come from the woods, only about twenty meters from where we stand. This one’s a child, an older undead from the summer, judging by its cut-off jeans and striped t-shirt. More follow it. A man and woman, and I wonder if they’re a family still wandering the countryside together in death.
The thought makes me shiver, and I raise my weapon at them, preparing to shoot.
“If you do that, son, you’ll only attract more of em!”
“Then let us in!” Grant says. “We won’t harm you or anyone else. We just want a place to stay. Maybe somewhere where we can eat, then we’ll be gone. I swear!”
The man’s gun lowers mere inches.
More undead come from the forest, following the undead family.
“Aw, for fuck’s sake!” The man says. He lowers his weapon and stands aside. “Come on, move it before they get in, too!”
The house has a scent about it, a strong one. For once it isn’t death and rotting things. No, this scent is more like a well lived-in home. Smells of cooked food bleed from the walls of the kitchen, while the man and his family’s natural smells fill the rest of the place. It’s a musty smell, like clothes that have remained in the closet for too long with a slight stench of body odor. I can tell by the curious looks we’re getting that these people had been kept in here for too long. I feel like I’ve been at war for decades and I’m finally returning home.
I want to cry and laugh. Then the bearded man who let us in stands in front of us again, his shotgun back in our faces.
“Once they’re gone, so are you!” he says.
“Hey, wait a minute here,” Grant says. He holds his hands up by his chest. We all do, except for Cindy who, for some reason, isn’t afraid of the bearded man and his gun. Instead, she looks around with her sunken eyes, her mouth opening and closing with flecks of drool on her chin. She makes happy whining sounds, and I bet that she’s having similar thoughts to what I was having moments ago about the comforting feel of the house.
“We’re not here to hurt anyone,” Grant continues. “We just wanted a place to stay for the night and move on. We’ll happily head next door once the zombies are gone, until then, you don’t have to keep a gun on us.”
They lock eyes, and from around the bearded man’s pants, a set of blue eyes and blond hair peek out. A small set of fingers grab at the fabric, when I smile at her, she disappears.
“You leave your eyes off my daughter,” the man says, ignoring Grant, keeping the gun on us. “And what the hell’s her problem?” Using the barrel of the shotgun, he motions toward Cindy.
Cindy doesn’t notice. Her fingers are too busy dancing, her eyes wandering, a big goofy smile on her lips.
“What do you think, asshole,” I say. Anger stings at my chest, and I glare at the bearded man. “She’s mentally handicapped.”
Guilt strikes through the man’s eyes. He lowers the gun.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone like that.”
Having Cindy with us must make us seem less threatening or something, because the bearded man puts the gun aside and says, “I’m Bill Hanksy. I’m sorry about all the formalities, but you can’t let just anyone into your home these days. I’ve seen others die for their generosity. Good people, too. So far, I’m lucky to have not lost anyone too close to me during all this.”
The blue eyes peek around the Bill’s pants again This time nobody yells at me for staring back.
“We’ve run into people like that, too,” Grant says.
“Recently,” Eve says. Her eyes are hard, unreadable. She looks tired and ready to fight all at the same time.
“Yeah, well, if it’s all the same to you, I still want you to leave once the dead are gone. I don’t have enough food for you and my family.”
From behind, the pounding on the door from where Bill had let us in begins, a slow and tired beat. It will go on and on, I know, but I wonder if Bill knows it, too.
“The ones around the house, you’re gonna have to help me clear,” he says to Grant. “Those fuckers will stay out there for days now that they got the smell of us. The others that were headed this way should be distracted by other things and go away.”
Grant nods. “Do you mind if we sit for a bit? We’ve been walking all morning and would like to eat something. We have our own food.”
Bill scratches at his beard for thirty seconds or more, then finally nods. He bends over, swings his little girl up into his large arms. She giggles and laughs, and Bill smiles.
“You can pick any spot in the living room here. I’d offer to cook your food for ya, but that tends to draw ’em out, too. I doubt you need a can opener?”
Grant shook his head and we head deeper into the living room, me and the girls taking up the couch and Grant taking the easy chair. It’s then that I notice a woman sitting in the corner, in a rocking chair. She rocks back and forth, her hands working at two sticks. She’s knitting, I realize, embarrassed that I had almost yelled in fright at the suddenness of her appearance. She looks to be around Bill’s age, but she doesn’t say anything to us or even acknowledge our presence. Click click click go her knitting needles, her eyes never stray from staring at her fingers.
There’s something wrong with her eyes that bothers me. It’s like there’s nobody home, just a dead, rotting soul with a body that somehow still functions.
“This is Margaret,” Bill says. “She hasn’t been the same since … well, since the dead rose. It’s like it’s all too much for her to take in. Doesn’t help seeing friends and family get eatin’ by those things. It’s worse when you hear the living kill your neighbors and you can’t do anything about it.”
He still holds the little girl in one arm, in the other, he’s got a kitchen chair that he plants by the kitchen’s entryway. He then sits holding the girl with both arms.
“This little creature,” he says, meaning the little girl, “is my daughter, Samantha.”
The little girl looks to be somewhere between one and two-years-old. She’s got wavy blond hair and giant blue eyes. From outside the pounding continues. I try to figure out how many of them are out there. I don’t think that there’s too many. I’m surprised the sound doesn’t seem to disturb Samantha.
With any luck, we can clear them out in an hour or two and get out of here.
Click click click
Margaret’s needles continue to move and create, her dead eyes focused on that task only. That mixed with the pounding and moans of the dead outside make it so that I no longer feel like a veteran soldier having returned home. I feel like an intruder.
Grant opens cans of vegetable soup, pea soup, and beans and passes them around. For a while, we eat without speaking.
By the time evening comes around, Grant, Bill, and I have cleared out the zombies that were pounding on the outer walls of the house. It was easy, and seems to be getting easier. All we did was grab blunt instruments and bash each of the undead’s skulls in as quietly as we could, then checked the perimeter for more. Thankfully, there wasn’t many, but the ones that were close enough to notice us we beat down.
> The atmosphere inside Bill’s house was thick not only with his family’s stench, but an uncomfortable silence, a tension between homeowner and interlopers. It was nice to go outside and breathe fresh air.
Eve appeared as blind to the discomfort as Cindy. At some point she had moved herself from the couch beside Grant on the chair and talked with him in low voices, occasionally giggling as she rubbed at his leg. I don’t think that Grant liked her on, or nearly on, his lap like she was. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with him. He certainly didn’t do anything to stop or resist it.
I don’t know why her doing that and Grant letting her bothered me. It’s not like I think of Eve as more than a friend. I mean, she’s not even a friend, even if she did cry on my shoulder just the other night.
She had just lost her father. Maybe that was it. Maybe the man who died beside her last night wasn’t her father after all, because she hasn’t shown an ounce of emotion after last night. Maybe I was supposed to put the moves on her when she cried on my shoulder, and if I was any other kind of man, I probably would have.
The only problem with that is, the most experience I have with women, other than Merrick and my mom, was my sometimes high school classmate, Tracy. That hardly counts. Because when we did talk, it was always in class and about the most mundane things. Mostly things she wanted to talk about. Like her boyfriends, her hair or, if she wanted to go deeper at all, how long she could go without eating. We never discussed making out, kissing, or any of that.
So when Eve had her head on my shoulder, I thought only about her pain and nothing else. But this afternoon, watching her work Grant over, made me wonder if I had pulled my head back and looked her deep in the eye at any moment last night by all that slaughter, what would have happened?
Just thinking about it made certain parts inside my pants swell.
That’s ridiculous. Ludicrous! There’s no way she wanted to kiss me with the man she claimed was her father’s dead body nearby.