by Jacy Morris
"I think we can go up now," Katie said.
"You sure?" Lou asked her.
"Take a look for yourself." Katie watched Lou hoist himself up with a small grunt, and then he went up and over the guardrail. Katie and the others did the same. They all leaned against the side of a copper Cutlass Supreme, an ancient vehicle covered in dust. Their arms hung at their sides, useless and rubbery.
"Hey? You hear that?" Mort asked in halting syllables as he caught his breath.
"What?" Katie asked.
"There's no more screaming."
****
Joan dropped off the top of the semi-truck. She had seen her friends climb over the guardrail a hundred yards up. They looked exhausted, and Joan wasn't looking forward to what she had to do next. She was alone. For the first time since this had all begun, she was actually alone.
It was an odd sensation for her. She had always been a loner, prone to long bouts of existing by herself. Human contact had never been something that she valued. It had always seemed like there was something else to work for, something else to strive for that prevented her from spending time with other people. Now there was nothing to strive for. There was only one goal, and that was survival, making it to the next day so you could make it to the next one and so on.
Now, she spent every moment of every day huddled with the others for protection, to assuage her own fears and for friendship... being apart from the others felt like being naked. She felt as if the entire world were made of eyes, and each pair of eyes out there belonged to a hungry dead monster that wanted nothing more than to kill her and make her one of its own.
She sprinted along the length of the wreck and flung her rifle's strap over her shoulder. She dropped underneath the tail of the semi-truck and began the arduous process of climbing along the edge of the road. She never looked down, but she sensed how far the drop was. It would break every bone in her body if she faltered.
But she did it because she had a goal. She had to get back to her people. She had to get back to safety. If Joan were going to die, she wanted it to be in the arms of the people she had survived with. The feeling of loneliness so infused her heart that she couldn't think about anything else... until she heard the shuffling feet of the dead headed in her direction.
****
Clara poked her head up over the hood of the Cutlass Supreme. Joan was nowhere to be seen.
"I think she's climbing across," Clara said.
"Do you see her?" Lou asked from the shadows behind the body of the car.
"No. There's nothing."
Clara strained her eyes for any sort of sign of Joan. She eyed the length of the guardrail, trying to spot her hands somewhere, anywhere, but again, nothing. Then she had to retreat. The dead were turning. They had lost interest in pawing at the side of the semi-truck.
"The dead are coming," she said as she sat back down.
"Did you see Joan?" Lou asked.
Clara shook her head.
"Well, how long do we wait?" Katie asked.
Katie just looked at her. Why would she even ask that question? "As long as we have to." Katie, for once, let it be. That woman had a way of getting under Clara's skin unlike anyone she had ever met before. And once again, she pondered if Katie were actually worth bringing along. At what point does a person become not worth it in the apocalypse? On one hand, they could be the only five living people in the world. On the other hand, one of them was a raging bitch sometimes.
"I'm going to take another look," Clara said. They nodded at her. There was enough room between them and the dead, that even if the dead saw Clara, they would have enough time to react. She rose up over the hood once again, her hands perched on the warm metal. The heat felt good. Seeing a pack of dead shambling towards the guard rail did not.
"We've got trouble," she said.
"What kind of trouble?" Lou asked.
"There's a pack of 'em breaking off to check out the guard rail."
"Should we shoot 'em?" Mort asked.
"I don't think we have any other choice."
"Alright, you do it. You're better than me anyway," Lou said.
Clara just nodded, though being better than the others wasn't saying much. None of them were particularly great at shooting, and the dead were farther away than she felt comfortable with. Clara unslung her rifle and took aim at the dead thing nearest to the guardrail, where she hoped Joan was. It was a big one, flabby pale skin flopped with each step, and its huge breasts were contained under a forest green sweatshirt. Raggedy strands of black hair hid its face as it shuffled forward. She took aim, lining up the sight with the thing's head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
"Damn safety," she hissed. She clicked the safety off and then took aim again. To her, the shot sounded like an atom bomb expoding. It echoed across the mountains, and immediately, a hundred eyes turned in her direction. Her first shot had done nothing.
"That got their attention."
She aimed again and took another shot. It was a hell of a shot, the type of thing that couldn't be reproduced if she had tried a hundred times. First, the bullet ripped through the jaw of the large woman, changing direction to then rip through the side of a large red pickup truck nearby. The bullet then penetrated the gas tank while simultaneously creating a spark.
The truck had once belonged to the very same woman that Clara was shooting at, though she had no way of knowing this. She had sat in that truck for hours, hoping that someone would come along and clear the road so that she might make it into Hillsboro to find her daughter and her granddaughters. She had sat for hours, until the gas gauge had read empty. Then she had turned her truck off. When the dead came, there were nothing but fumes in the gas tank.
The bullet shot through the gas tank and then, its momentum dulled by jaw, truck, and gas tank, it struck the other side, creating the tiniest of sparks. Though the spark was tiny, it created enough energy to ignite the fumes in the truck. The truck exploded, lifting off the ground for a split second before slamming down and rocking on its wheels.
From behind the truck, on the other side of the guard rail, Clara heard a scream. It started out loud, and then it became softer, as if the person that owned the voice were moving further away each second. Then it stopped suddenly.
"Did you get it?" Mort asked.
Clara didn't have the words to say.
****
Reed Mauer watched the woman tumble off the side of the cliff. Like an angel, he thought. She screamed with the fear of someone that knows they are going to die, and Reed couldn't tear his eyes away as she descended. Such a beautiful thing, a scream. Like a kiss for the ears. He had always enjoyed hearing the screaming, and the new world... that's what Chad called it... the new world created a symphony of the things. A shame, he thought as the woman tumbled to the ground.
The voice on this woman was something amazing. He wanted to kiss her for her performance, even if she would be all sticky and gross by the time she reached the bottom of the hill. He shrugged his shoulders and walked to the place where he supposed her body would be. He would just kiss her, that's all. Chad couldn't get mad about that.
****
The climb down to the bottom of the ravine was harrowing, but they had all managed, though their hands were cut and scraped to ribbons. They had argued for a few minutes before Clara had decided that she was done listening to Katie try and talk them out of going to find Joan. When she had set off to climb down the side of the ravine, they had all followed, even Katie. Even if they hadn't, Clara would have gone on alone to find Joan. If Joan had died, she would have turned by now. That's just the way life was. Death meant a second life, one that no one wanted. Clara couldn't let that stand. Friends didn't let friends turn.
So, now here they were, sweeping the bottom of the ravine for Joan. Clara couldn't leave her. This entire situation had been her fault, but Joan was nowhere to be seen. She cursed herself again for the shot she had taken. The bottom of the ravine was covered in more veget
ation than she had expected, but they should have found her by now if she still lived. If she was dead, it would only be a matter of time before Joan's corpse found them.
As she pushed through the brambles and vines that clogged the ground between giant evergreens, she flinched at the sound of another of the dead tumbling down the side of the ravine. They were following, one by one. Mort and Lou stood at the bottom of the ravine, scanning the side of the rocky slope, waiting for any of the dead that tumbled down the side. When they came down, they made a hell of a racket as they fell, dislodging rocks and breaking their bones in the process. Before they could even get up, Lou and Mort would skullcrack the bastards with either Mort's hammer or Lou's crowbar.
Katie walked ten feet to Clara's right, kicking through the dense vegetation and mumbling under her breath. She was definitely not happy about this whole situation.
"I've got something!" Katie yelled.
Before she could even finish her sentence, Clara was bounding through the trees, tumbling once, but getting up so fast that she didn't even know if she had actually fallen or not. She skidded to a stop next to Katie. On the ground was Joan's rifle, bent and twisted. It was useless, but Joan was nowhere to be seen.
"Shit, where is she?" Clara tried to peer through the trees to see Joan, but there was nothing. Katie tapped her on the arm. She was pointing at something. Clara turned to look and she saw it, a path had been made by someone or something. The vines were disturbed, as were the leaves and piles of pine needles on the ground. Something had come through here, or else Joan had dragged herself through the woods.
"Let's go get the others," Clara said as another dead thing tumbled down the side of the ravine.
Chapter 7: Did You See That Elephant?
As the sun went down, they sat in the backroom of the grocery store, silent among the buzz of fruit flies. Allen had become accustomed to the smell of the rotten fruit, and the can of Chef Boyardee's Beefaroni he was eating was mostly flavorless. It should have been a treat. They should have been having a joyous feast, the likes of which hadn't been seen since the first Thanksgiving, but they were not.
Instead, they sat in the darkness with only candles to see by, the ghosts of their fallen friends flitting by in the gloom. They covered up the tiny porthole-like windows of the swinging doors, barricading themselves into the loading docks area. They piled box after box against the swinging doors. So far, they had enjoyed glorious silence, and none of the dead had yet to disturb them, except for memories of their own dead.
The loss of Ramirez and Kazinsky had hit them all hard. Beacham groaned in pain in the corner, his back against the wall. Tejada gave him a small bottle of wine to drink and some Advil, but other than that, Beacham was going to have to suffer through the pain of his broken arm. He dozed fitfully, stirring periodically as his nightmares caused him to jerk awake every ten minutes or so, whereupon he would clutch at his broken arm. They had set it as best they could and outfitted him with a sling to help keep his arm stable, but that was the best they could do.
Allen sat in a small circle with some of the other soldiers. Day and Gregg sat across from him, two plain old soldiers without an ounce of poetry in their souls. But that was alright; Allen kind of wanted it that way today. Their ability to not think so much about the day's events seemed like a blessing right now. They took turns cleaning their weapons by candlelight, one by one, so they weren't caught off guard. They didn't need to be told this anymore, but Tejada always made sure they knew that this was the way he expected things to run.
No one blamed Tejada for what had happened. As far as they were all concerned, they were all living on borrowed time anyway, borrowed time that Tejada had loaned them. That they were still alive appeared to be something of a small miracle, and Allen didn't want to look too much deeper into.
Tejada snored fitfully in the corner. After trimming his hair and shaving his face with some honest to goodness shaving cream, he had made a bed out of cardboard, pulled his hat low over his face and dozed right off, as if they had all come back from a standard-issue march. Allen expected nothing less from their fearless leader.
Quigs sat in the corner, reading a small bible by candlelight, a small gold crucifix dangling from between his fingers. Quigs had been silent for quite some time.
"It's like a damn funeral in here," Day said. He had always had a way with words... a poor way.
"It kind of is, you know?" Allen said.
"Enough of that sad business," Gregg said. "We don't have the time to sit around mourning."
Day looked down the barrel of his rifle with one of his squinty eyes. He was one of the least attractive people Allen had ever seen. His hair curled around the edges of his hat, his drab brown hair framing his rodent-ish features. All you had to do was add a couple of whiskers and he would be a rat personified. Squinty eyes, almost always red from allergies, buckteeth, a bulbous nose that jutted out too far, Day was the kind of guy that you looked at sideways when you talked to him because it would be too hard to hide your revulsion if you looked him dead in the eye. "Don't you think we ought to be sad?" Day said.
"Do you feel sad, or are you thinking, 'I'm glad it wasn't me?' Shit, man, as much as I feel like I ought to be sad, I can't shake this feeling that I'm lucky and that Ramirez and Kazinsky died for something. They died for us," Gregg said while munching on a bag of Funyuns he had scrounged up.
Allen was shocked. "You believe that? You really believe that? You believe we're the lucky ones? Look how many of us there are, man. We're almost extinct. Each loss is something gone from the world forever. Hell, back when there were billions of people on the earth, maybe losing someone wasn't a big deal. Maybe then you could afford to just say, 'Better them than me.' But that's not how it is anymore."
Day just shook his head. "Man, you want me to curl up into a ball and start cryin', but them days are done."
"I don't want you to cry, Day. I want you to admit that you feel it. I want you to admit that you understand that no matter what happens, something special is gone from this earth. In Ramirez there was a code, a code that has taken thousands of years to form. It's comprised of bits of DNA from as far back as the beginning of time. It's unique, it's evolved, and now, it's out there walking around, rotting on the bone."
"Why the hell do I even talk to you, Izzy?" Gregg asked.
Allen actually smiled at that. He looked around the room for emphasis and said, "What choice do you got?"
Gregg shrugged his shoulders. "I got plenty of choice. I'm going to go hang with Epps. At least he knows how to have a good time." Gregg grabbed his rifle and headed over to the pool of light where Epps sat with Whiteside and Brown, gambling over peanuts with a deck of cards, smiles on their faces, as if this were just a normal day in the barracks with nothing else to do.
Allen wished he could turn it off like that. He wished he could just pretend that two people had not just lost their lives, ending an unbroken line that went back as far as the beginning of man itself. Maybe Gregg was right. Maybe he thought too much.
"You gotta relax, man," Day said.
"Why?"
Day blew down the barrel of his disassembled rifle. "People feel things in different ways. You think that because Gregg isn't sitting here moping that he doesn't feel their loss? He feels it. He just feels it differently."
Allen thought that Gregg was probably right, but that didn't make him feel any better. He shoveled another mouthful of Beefaroni into his mouth. It was cold, but that didn't bother him none. They lapsed into silence, Day cleaning his gun and Allen finishing off his meal.
****
Amanda and Rudy lay on a flattened out cardboard box away from the others. They inherently felt the difference between themselves and the others. The group was not one cohesive unit. If anything, Amanda and Rudy were nothing more than baggage. They were something to be lugged and protected, but when it came to downtime, the soldiers had largely retreated to their own company.
Rudy lay on his side,
staring at Amanda. She slept quietly, and Rudy watched and listened as she breathed in and out. He lifted his arm slightly, as if to touch her, but then he let it drop. He had no experience in the ways of men and women. He was content to just watch her by the candlelight for the time being.
He fantasized about running his hands through her hair, then kissing her. He imagined her with her clothes off, and then felt like a jerk because of it. Did she like him as more than just a friend? God, isn't that what middle school kids asked? He was so pathetic. He was nothing more to her than just a friend. He knew that without a doubt. He knew what he looked like, and he knew that there were plenty of other men around, some of them not much older than either of them, and all of them, with the exception of Day, would be considered better looking than himself. Even with Day it was a toss-up. The odds that she would fall for him over one of the soldiers must have been astronomical, but at least he wasn't the ugliest person in the world yet.
Amanda stirred, her head snapping up as she looked around, her eyes wide, fear on her face.
"It's alright. Everything is fine," Rudy said.
She saw him then, and she smiled. She rolled over, hiding her face from him, and then she slid her body closer to his. Without looking, she grabbed one of his arms and threw it over her body like a blanket, snuggling in tight.
Rudy's heart was thumping in his chest. This was as close to a woman as he had ever been. He felt her softness underneath his arm, and blood flooded his face and other areas of his body. It was going to be a long evening, but he wouldn't trade it for the world.
****
Pocket threes, a sucker's hand. Seems like that was all he had been dealt since the entire world died, but if pocket threes were what he had, he was going to play 'em. He tossed another handful of nuts onto the pile and called.
"Read 'em and weep," Whiteside said in his Southern drawl. Shit. A pair of fours. What were the odds of that. Epps threw his cards in face up. "Holy moly, you're comin' at me with a pair of threes? Get a load of this guy Brown. Epps is the type of guy that would run into a knife fight with his dick in his hands."