Westport

by James Bierce

  Looking at it today, however, Curtis saw something entirely different. Westport was now filled with darkened windows and empty streets — and despite the rare sunny skies and gentle breeze, the sight of it still managed to dampen his family's already unsteady spirits.

  The highway they were walking on leads through the middle of town, with the ocean to the west, and the harbor to the east. Most of the tourist shops are on the harbor side, along the marina — while the ocean side is mostly made up of older houses and newer condominiums, the last of which is a sore subject for many of the permanent residents. Also visible from most of the west side is the Regency, a grand hotel not without its own controversies.

  "Did it look like this when you were here the other day?" Sarah asks Curtis.

  "Pretty much."

  Waking up this morning, she assumed her first instinct would be to ignore the town — focusing instead on gathering supplies. Now that she was here though, she was surprised to find herself soaking it all in.

  "It looks so unreal..." she says.

  "I was thinking last night about the stories my grandfather used to tell me. He said in world war two it was illegal to have any lights on after dark, inside or out. Even the headlights on your car had to be turned off."

  "Why was that?"

  "They were afraid the Japanese were waiting offshore, and that the lights would give away the location of the town. It must have felt something like this back then — at night anyway."

  "It definitely looks like a war-zone now." She turns her head, noticing that Ben is drifting farther behind once again. "Ben! Keep up, don't fall so far behind." Her attention turns back to Curtis, whose mind seems to be elsewhere. "So where do we start?"

  "I've only been in a couple of houses, so I guess any of them." says Curtis, snapping out of his daydream. He stops and points at an incredibly small house sitting on the edge of the dunes. "How about this one?"

  "Its tiny."

  "It also has a car in the driveway. They never left."

  "So...?"

  "If they didn't leave, they never took any of their food."

  "It also means they didn't leave... They could still be in there."

  He turns and makes his way toward the front door anyway, soon followed by his wife and two sons. As he reaches for the door handle Sarah grabs his arm.

  "How do we know these places aren't still contagious?" she asks.

  "We don't. That's why we don't touch anything we don't have to."

  "Maybe the boys should stay out here." She looks back, and both of them are looking back at her, terrified.

  "I don't want to stay out here!" cries Ben, tears welling up in his eyes.

  Matt is too proud to speak up, but his expressions are betraying him. With Ben now wrapping his arms around her, Sarah kneels down to his eye level.

  "We'll keep the door open, and we'll only be a few feet away. You can talk to me the whole time."

  The reassurance doesn't seem to put his mind at ease, but it does release his grip from her waist. Curtis reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of latex gloves, then hands them to her. "Just in case..."

  Not surprisingly, the door is locked, but after a swift kick it rips into several pieces, providing a clear path to walk through.

  "It might be a good idea not to destroy all of the doors... Now anything could get inside." Sarah says.

  "Yeah, you're probably right." says Curtis, feeling slightly embarrassed.

  The air coming from the house is musty and damp from being closed-up for a long period of time, just like the house they slept in the night before. As they step inside it doesn't take her long to realize that the place had belonged to an elderly couple. Besides the decor, there's also a walker and cane leaning beside the door — along with several coats and pairs of shoes, both men and women's. Curtis heads straight to the kitchen while Sarah stays in the living room in plain sight of her sons. Covering the walls and mantel are family pictures and keepsakes, a physical evidence of family memories that were now forever lost.

  "These people must not have believed in canned food." says Curtis from the next room. "Everything is boxed or bagged."

  "What's wrong with that? We can still boil it."

  He steps into view with two big bags in his hand. "Boiled cereal?"

  Sarah had to smile — despite feeling entirely uneasy in the house. She felt like they were thieves going house to house robbing people of their least valuable possessions.

  Curtis walks back into the living room, empty-handed.

  "There's not much in here. When we bring the truck we'll grab whatever we can use."

  "We should get some mattresses too, I slept like a rock last night."

  "That's a good idea."

  "What about the rest of the house?"

  "The only thing we really need right now is food. Whatever else is in here can wait."

  After searching two of the neighboring homes with similar results, and no people, they head farther north to search the homes bordering the Westhaven State Park, an area mostly made up of sand dunes and pine trees that were planted by residents decades ago. On the south end is the lighthouse, a famous white beacon that had a much more useful purpose when it was first built. Back then it was used as a navigation point for vessels operating just off the coast — but in recent years it had stood merely as a relic of the past, a reminder of how unfortunate we were before modern technology saved us from our limited sense of direction. Today it serves no purpose at all. Its a beacon without a signal, and nobody to notice if it had one.

  They decide to continue their search toward the harbor. In this area of town the houses were few and far between, and businesses mostly catering to tourists or commercial fishing dominate the view. As they walk past a large, two-story building with a coffee shop in the bottom corner, Sarah catches a glimpse of movement from inside the glass.

  "Did you see that?" she asks Curtis.

  "See what?"

  "I could have swore I saw something move in that shop."

  Curtis watches for a few seconds, and after seeing nothing decides to get closer. Only inches from the glass window of the shop, he looks around at the empty tables and counter-top, spotting an impressive display of bagged coffee grounds and syrups.

  "I don't see anything, but I wouldn't mind some of that coffee."

  Sarah still feels apprehensive. She's almost positive she saw something. "We can get it later, along with everything else."

  "Yeah, I guess so..." says Curtis as he backs away.

  "What about that store?" says Matt, looking across the street at a corner market.

  "Might as well check it out." says Curtis.

  As Curtis and the two boys make their way to the store across the street, Sarah takes another look at the shop. She has an eerie feeling that she can't shake, like she's being watched.

  "Can we go inside this time?" asks Matt.

  "Yes." says Sarah.

  Curtis glances back at her, an inquisitive look on his face. "They can?"

  "I don't want them out here alone." she tells Curtis. "Don't touch anything, do you understand?" she tells the two boys in a stern voice.

  Both of them nod in agreement as Curtis walks to the door and breaks the glass beside it, then reaches through and unlocks it as if he'd been doing it all of his life. As they step inside, the first thing Curtis spots is a large stockpile of canned goods, but they aren't sitting on a shelf like one would expect to see in a grocery store. Instead, they're arranged neatly on top of a table behind the front counter. As he walks around the counter, he stops, then holds up his hand to stop his family.

  "Wait a minute, don't come any closer."

  "What is it?" asks Sarah.

  "Go back outside for a minute."

  "But..., you said..." cries Matt.

  "I know what I said. Now go outside with your Mom."

  Sarah doesn't say anything as she escorts Matt and Ben outside, but when she looks back she sees Curtis staring at somethi
ng on the floor. After a few minutes he comes to the door, then motions for her to come inside.

  "Guys, just wait outside a minute..." he says to his sons.

  Once inside, he leads her back to the front counter. As she walks around the corner she sees a dark puddle of blood oozing across the floor, tracing back to a corpse slumped over onto his side.

  "Oh my god..."

  "Yeah, and it looks fresh..."

  "How can you tell?"

  "The blood is still wet, and his body hasn't deteriorated at all."

  She starts to back up. "He could be infected..."

  "He didn't die from the virus, he died from having his skull crushed in." He steps over the body, then points to the side of his head. "See, right there..."

  She leans over, careful not to step in the blood. Most of the man's face has been bashed in, by numerous blows by the looks of it. Whoever did this took their time.

  "We should come back as soon as possible to get this stuff, before he starts to rot." says Curtis.

  "I'm going back outside before I throw up..."

  Curtis follows her back out, seeing two disappointed faces waiting on the sidewalk.

  "Maybe the next one." he tells them.

  "Its getting late, we should head back." says Sarah.

  He points to the sky in the west, where a rolling band of black clouds dominate the horizon, blocking most of what's left of the sun.

  "I think we're staying the night, it looks like there's another storm moving in."

  The long band of black clouds stretching along the entire coastline and closing in on Westport is a perfect representation of how Sarah felt at the moment. The image of the man in the store and the thick smell of blood that refused to leave her senses seems to be permanently imprinted in her mind. The only good thing about the experience was that her sons weren't in the building to witness it.

  Over the last two days, the four of them had come across dozens of corpses, most of them either along the highway or still lying in their beds covered with blankets or sheets, but none of them seemed as horrible as this. Maybe its the fact that this one's death was more recent, or maybe its knowing that he was killed at the hands of another person and not by some mysterious virus. Whatever the reason, the world viewed through her eyes was beginning to seem like a nightmare, and the heavily filtered light coming through the dark clouds overhead was completing the picture.

  The part of town they're walking through used to be much closer to the ocean, but over the years the sand dunes have expanded, leaving the once-expensive homes and businesses with merely a distant view instead. One of those businesses is the Regency Hotel, which Sarah can now see sticking up over the pine trees in front of them.

  "Do you hear that?" asks Matt.

  They all stop and listen, but the only sound they hear is coming from the ocean on the other side of the dunes.

  "What does it sound like?" asks Sarah.

  "Like music."

  "Honey, I'm sure it was just..." Before finishing the sentence though, she hears it herself. Its extremely faint, but its definitely music of some sort — and it sounds like its coming from the house across the street. She turns to Curtis and points toward the house. "I hear it too, I think its coming from that house."

  "Do you wanna check it out?" he asks.

  She looks up at the house, a larger two-story home probably built shortly before the war. Despite the peeling paint and rotting trim boards on the outside, there's still a certain charm to it. There's no light coming from the inside, and no smoke coming from the chimney, which makes her question whether or not someone might actually be home. Part of her wants to find someone who survived, someone who might have answers as to what happened here during the past couple of months. Another part of her is scared, of both the disease and the people still left.

  "I don't know, its up to you."

  Curtis takes another look at the clouds sitting off the coast, slowly making their way toward the town. "Let's be quick about it, we only have a few minutes before that storm gets here."

  The four members of the Lockwood family cross the street, all of them looking both ways first, a habit not easily broken as it turns out. When they reach the porch, Curtis motions for his family to stay on the cement pathway while he knocks on the door. To his surprise, its both unlocked and opened slightly, and as the door swings open even more, it reveals an immaculate front room filled with antiques and hardwood floors. Even stranger than the unlocked door is the fact that the air smells fresh inside — an indicator that someone might still be coming and going. As he steps inside, he reaches into his pocket and takes a firm grip on the revolver inside, then motions for his family to join him.

  "Hello? Is anyone home?" he hollers, but there's no response. As he walks farther into the room he can plainly hear the music playing from a room upstairs. Its an old song from before his time, but one that he's unfamiliar with.

  A stack of firewood is stacked up neatly beside the fireplace, a sight that surprises Sarah when she sees it. She'd assumed, perhaps wrongly, that nobody was left in town. The only dirt visible in the room is directly in front of the fireplace, which is odd considering the vast amount of fine sand that makes its way in from the beach every time the wind blows. She looks up the staircase at the far end of the room where the music is coming from, then at the ornate wooden railing that follows it to a second-floor landing. Its also completely free of any buildup of dust or sand.

  "Somebody still lives here." she tells Curtis.

  "It certainly seems that way, doesn't it?"

  He steps past her and begins climbing the stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise — but the old wooden steps creak and crack under his feet regardless. "I'm gonna check out the upstairs, you guys stay down here."

  "We're all going up." Sarah says firmly.

  He stops for a second, trying to think of a good excuse why his family shouldn't follow him upstairs, but she's probably right, they need to stick together. After taking the revolver out of his pocket and holding it down at his side, he continues climbing the stairs to the top — where he can see an old-fashioned hand crank record player sitting in the closest room to the landing. The song being played is some sort of swing music from the 1930s or 40s. Ordinarily he wouldn't think much about it, but to hear it in an apparently empty house in a post-apocalyptic world, gives it a disturbing, almost frightening feel.

  As the four of them enter what's clearly a bedroom and begin looking around, Curtis notices that all of the picture frames have either been broken or turned face-down. He shuts off the record player, which turns the house eerily quiet, the only sound coming from a window shutter swinging in the wind outside.

  "We need to get out of here..." says Sarah, who's still standing just inside the door.

  "I wonder how long these things can play before you have to crank them again...?" he responds, bending over to get a closer look at the record player.

  Annoyed, Sarah gently pushes the two boys ahead of her and into the room, then stands next to Curtis. "We need to get out of here, now."

  Curtis nods and stands up straight, then takes a single step toward the door before hearing something downstairs, a set of footsteps walking briskly across the hardwood floors. All four of them freeze, expecting at any moment for the footsteps to begin climbing the stairs — but they never do. Instead, they hear the opening and closing of the front door, and then nothing.

  "What're we gonna do?" Sarah asks frantically, keeping her voice as quiet as possible.

  Curtis looks out the bedroom window, hoping to find another way out of the house, but its a straight drop onto the paved alley below. "I saw a back door out through the kitchen when we came in. I think that's our best bet."

  Never taking his eyes off of the front door below, Curtis leads his family out of the bedroom and onto the staircase. His heart begins pounding with every creak and moan of the floorboards under his feet. When he reaches the bottom, he motions for Sarah and the two boys to
head into the kitchen, keeping himself between them and the door he expects will open at any moment. As they all round the corner toward the back of the house, they hear a subtle knocking, too quiet to immediately know where its coming from. Slowly, the knocking grows louder, then faster, until finally it sounds like someone is trying to bust a door down.

  "Where is that coming from?" whispers Curtis.

  "Forget it, let's just keep moving..." replies Sarah.

  Curtis then realizes that a door near the staircase is shaking slightly, like someone is rattling it from the other side. "That's the basement — someone is locked up in there."

  "That's their problem, we need to get out while we still can..."

  Feeling a horrible guilt for leaving whoever it is behind, he leads the way through the small dining room and into the kitchen at the very back of the house. As they cross the room, they pass by mountains of canned foods and bottles of water. Nearly every square inch of the counter is covered in food and supplies. While Curtis slows down to look at the cache, Sarah moves around him and reaches the door leading to the backyard and begins to turn the doorknob. Before she has a chance to pull the door open, Curtis places his hand on her arm.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." he replies, as he looks out a window next to the door, scanning the yard for any signs of trouble. "I just want to make sure we're not walking into a trap."

  "Do you see anything?"

  "No... I don't. Go ahead and open it, but quietly."

  She grabs onto the knob and slowly opens the door — and the instant that she does, the familiar sound of swing music fills the house once again, this time louder than before. Without hesitating, Sarah throws the door open and runs outside, looking back to make sure that her sons are still close behind. As all four of them run across the lawn and onto the street behind, Curtis looks back at the bedroom window, half expecting to see someone staring back at him — but the room is too dark to see much of anything at all.