All Our Tomorrows

by Peter Cawdron

  Jane looks at me. Her eyes are as wild as the flames reaching up into the dark sky.

  Steve’s alive.

  Chapter 02: Trapped

  I lean my head against the wall. A constant, rhythmic pounding resonates through the wood. Zee is relentless, fighting to get into the barn. The floor is hard and uncomfortable. Part of me would like to lie down and go to sleep, but I doubt sleep will bring any rest. Yelling resounds through the loft. The animals below are restless. Like all of us, they’re scared.

  Smoke hangs in the air. From where I am, I can see out through the open loft door on the side of the barn. Normally, it’s used to store hay on the upper floor, but now it affords us a view of Zee from above.

  Burning zombies scream into the night. I see them on the far side of the collapsed house. I’d like to think they’re screaming in agony, but it sounds more like a war cry.

  A brick wall falls in the burnt out ruins of the homestead. Sparks burst into the sky, scattering like a million stars exploding into life. The fire is all but out, having consumed the building.

  Everything we had is gone. A tear runs down my cheek. It seems silly to cry about stuff rather than people, and yet I feel like part of me died with the old house. Three dresses, a couple of pairs of jeans, my underwear, a handful of jewelry, a faded photo of mom that Dad knew nothing about—all of them ravaged by a fire every bit as savage as Zee.

  Nothing but ash remains.

  The headboard of my bunk held an omnibus of Jane Austen’s best known works, containing Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park in one hefty tome. There was a hardback copy of War of the Worlds and a high school biology textbook that I never got around to reading. Not the most comprehensive of book collections, but it was mine and now it’s gone. That’s the worst part of the zombie apocalypse—being stripped of everything you hold dear.

  Gone.

  Just like the swirling embers fading into the darkness. Tomorrow is all I have, and even that could be stolen from me.

  I had some other stuff squirreled away in lockers and drawers downstairs, but my mind is blank, which is frustrating. I want to remember everything, every little detail. It’s important, if to no one else but me. It’s important because life is important. Death steals. Like fire, death feeds off the living. I hate the implication of those smoldering ruins—that nothing lasts, that nothing really matters in the long run. I feel hollow. Empty.

  I’ve seen a lot of people die before their time in the apocalypse. We teens call them blanks. Not to their face, of course, but we know who they are. Blanks survive for survival’s sake, but they’re not really alive. They’re waiting for their turn in the soil.

  There has to be more to life than fighting to draw one more breath.

  I wish I’d been able to save that photo of mom. She looked so happy. She was standing in front of a railing overlooking some national park somewhere. Her back was to the dense forest with large rocky cliffs rising in a majestic butte beyond. Her smile caught something not on camera, her love for the man behind the lens—my dad. She had one hand resting on her swollen stomach, tenderly touching a bump that gave rise to me. Now, all that’s left of her is a hazy memory, one that is doomed to fade.

  Someone slumps beside me. His head hangs low. He’s distraught, cradling his head in his hands and crying. I haven’t seen too many men cry. I’m sure they shed tears like the rest of us, but they try not to cry in front of us kids and teens. Too disheartening. I guess all pretenses are gone now.

  “Hey,” I say, resting my hand lightly on his shoulder. Life demands compassion. All we have is each other. And if Zee has his way, we won’t have each other for long. Caring is all that remains of our humanity.

  Bloodshot eyes stare back at me.

  Ferguson?

  Soot blackens his face. He’s shaking. Instinctively, I withdraw my hand. I’m not sure why, but I feel as though I shouldn’t touch him, and yet with the next beat of my heart, my fingers return, resting gently on his shoulder. He’s in shock. We need each other like never before.

  Olivia rushes over. She’s got a bucket of water. Blood soaked rags hang from the belt around her waist. She tears strips of clean cloth from an old dress and starts daubing at his bloody palms. We’re fighting both fires and zombies in our desperation to survive this one long dark night.

  “Let me look at you,” she says, but Ferguson doesn’t take his eyes off me. It’s as though he wants to say something but cannot find the words. His lips tremble.

  Blisters have formed on his palms. Dark burns on his forearm speak louder than any words ever could. He’s fought with all his might to prevent the barn from falling to either flames or monsters.

  Olivia is gentle but thorough, checking his injuries.

  David kneels down in front of Ferguson, appearing from nowhere out of the smoky haze. Jane stands quietly behind him.

  “We lost the northwest corner of the roof, but the fire is out. I’ve got men looking for spot fires in the upper loft, but I think we’re good. Mark has braced the main door. We lost the forge, but managed to keep them from breaking out onto the barn floor. I’ve got Jonathan scouting for fires on the roof, but the wind has shifted to the south. We’re past the worst of it.”

  Ferguson doesn’t say anything. He looks through David rather than at him.

  “Dad?” David says, resting his hand on Ferguson’s knee as Olivia continues bathing the old man’s hands. In the soft light, she cleans grit out of his burns with a pair of tweezers.

  David glances at me as though he expects me to be able to get through to his dad, but I don’t know what he thinks I can do. I’m shattered. Every muscle aches. If Zee were to burst into the barn right now, I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t. I think I know what Ferguson feels. Like Marge, he’s carried the commune on his shoulders for almost a decade. He’s fought for all we have, and everything he worked for has been swept away in a single night. Everyone’s looking for him to lead, but he’s as human as the rest of us. He’s hurt. We all have our limits.

  “I’m going to help fortify the main door,” David says as though he’s responding to something Ferguson said. Ferguson doesn’t even blink. David disappears into the smoky haze. I gently massage Ferguson’s shoulder. He rocks slightly with the motion.

  It’s only then I see my dad sitting across from me. He’s been there all along but I’ve been so distraught I’ve only just realized he’s still looking out for me. He cradles his right arm, holding a dirty bandage over the stump on his wrist. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me. My dad knows what I’m going through, what I’m thinking as I sit here comforting Ferguson. I can see it in his dark eyes. He understands Ferguson has hit the wall, and he sees me comforting a man I once despised.

  Life cannot be shoved into a pigeonhole. Time moves on. Forgiveness is a breath of fresh air. No one can relive a single moment from the past. None of us can turn back time. I hated Ferguson. I hated his arrogance, his pigheaded stubborn attitude, his pride, his determination, and yet staring into my father’s eyes, I can see he knows. Ferguson was only trying to do what he thought was right. Ferguson was wrong, but I too understand what he was trying to do and why.

  Olivia has some kind of ointment or grease or healing balm in a jar. She rubs it gently on his palms before bandaging his hands.

  “You need to rest,” she says gently to him. “You have to get some sleep.”

  Ferguson murmurs and nods, which is the most coherent I’ve seen him since he sat next to me. A little tenderness is a wonder drug in itself.

  Olivia ruffles some sacking into a pillow and covers him with a musty old horse blanket. As he lies down, he whispers, “Thank you.” His body may be frail, his mind may ache, but he’s not giving up.

  Dad moves over and sits on the other side of me.

  “How are you holding up?” he asks.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  Neither of us say anything for a few minutes. Zombies growl in the darkness. Hands b
eat against the wood of the barn. Someone’s fighting Zee down below. I can hear them hacking at arms reaching in through shattered windows as they call for help. Hammers nail boards in place. Wood splinters and breaks. The barn shakes as the battle surges beneath us.

  “We’re not going to make it out of here are we?” I ask, suggesting I’ve already resigned myself to the answer.

  “There’s a lot of them,” Dad replies. I love my dad. I love the way he won’t lie to me just to try and make me feel a little better. Sometimes, though, it would be nice if he stretched the truth a bit, but I understand.

  “Marge is in contact with the outlying homes.”

  “Really?” I’m surprised. I naturally assumed all the houses within the commune had been overrun. “How?”

  “Morse code. Using lanterns. It’s primitive. It’s not very precise, but it works. The creatures have concentrated their attack on the homestead. For the most part, they’ve left the other buildings alone. Marge is trying to figure out how we can escape.”

  Creatures? Dad, they’re zombies! I want to yell at him but I keep my mouth shut.

  Shots ring out in the night. Ferguson flinches but remains asleep.

  “What has she got planned?”

  “I don’t know. Right now, I think she’s just trying to get us through the night. We’ll get a better idea of how bad things are in the morning.”

  I lean into my dad, snuggling against his good shoulder. He shifts his weight, putting his arm around me and I close my eyes, not wanting to go to sleep, just wanting to rest my weary eyelids for a moment.

  Sunlight warms my face, which surprises and disorients me. It should be night.

  “Hazel,” Olivia says, touching gently at my shoulder.

  Blinking in the bright sunlight, I wonder how many hours have passed with what seems like nothing more than a few seconds.

  For a moment, the world is at peace. Then I move and pain racks my body. My aches are echoed by the groan of zombies outside. They’re still beating on the wooden walls of the barn, but it has become a background noise barely noticeable until I think about it.

  “Marge, Ferguson. They’re asking for you.”

  “Me?”

  I feel groggy. Sitting up, I rumple my hair. The bandage on my forearm has come loose. The zombie bite from the animal hospital looks raw and red. Those worm tablets may have prevented me from turning, but they’ve done nothing for a rancid bite teeming with bacteria. Pus oozes from between the stitches. My skin is angry. I feel hot.

  Outside, smoke drifts from the burnt remains of the homestead. Where once a proud old house stood, now there is nothing but the blackened stumps of burnt wood. Zombies stumble through the ash, oblivious to the heat. Charred bodies lie in the ruins.

  Olivia leads me around the internal wooden walkway overlooking the center of the barn. Dad stands beside Marge and Ferguson in front of the open upper doors. They’re looking out over a sea of zombie heads. Arms reach for us, beckoning us to join them.

  “Here she comes,” Dad says, reaching out his one good arm to welcome me. His injured arm rests in a sling. Marge smiles. Ferguson looks awful. He should be in bed resting. His hands are so thoroughly bandaged he looks like a prizefighter wearing boxing gloves.

  Zee goes crazy.

  Snarling and growling, the zombies begin banging on the main barn door directly below us. The double doors flex and shake, straining under the weight of the horde surging outside. Fear seizes me. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. My fingers tingle. Sweat breaks out on my brow and my heart pounds in my throat at the prospect of the barn doors giving way. The whole front wall of the barn flexes and sways, groaning in time with the mass of zombies fighting to get in.

  “That’s enough,” Marge cries and Olivia pulls me back into the shadows. Once I’m out of sight, the horde subsides. Zee claws and pounds at the wood, but he no longer surges as one.

  Marge, Dad and Ferguson crowd around as Olivia herds me back into the corner of the barn. I trip on a bucket full of water. There are dozens of buckets pushed up against the walls. Olivia has a grooming brush in her hand, but the look on her face suggests she’s not about to use it on a horse.

  “I don’t understand. I—”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Dad says, gesturing for me not to panic.

  “Seems you were right,” Marge says. “All of this. A horde of over two thousand zombies. They’re all after you.”

  For a moment, I’m scared. I’m not sure what they’re going to do.

  “We need you to strip down,” Dad says as though he’s asking for something as mundane as an apple.

  “It’s the smell,” Ferguson says.

  Marge adds, “We’re going to use your clothing to draw the horde away from the barn, but we have to be quick. These walls are on the verge of collapse.”

  “Quick?” I say, feeling I have a right to some clarification before tearing my clothes off.

  Dad says, “We have no idea how sensitive their smell actually is and how dependent it is on sight for confirmation.”

  Marge cuts him off, saying, “We don’t know if this will work, or for how long the deception will last, but if we don’t try something, sooner or later they’re going to breach the barn.”

  Down on the floor of the barn, David mounts a horse. Jane climbs up behind him, hugging him tight.

  David’s wearing a zombie suit, with thick padding lining his arms, legs and chest. A high collar reaches up over the back of his neck. In another age, his clothes would be akin to motocross leathers. Jane, though, is dressed like me. She doesn’t have any of the heavy padding. At a distance, it’s easy to confuse us, and my heart skips a beat as I realize what Marge is about to do.

  “It should be me on that horse,” I say.

  “You’re too weak,” Marge replies. “You wouldn’t make it.”

  “Neither will she,” I cry, but Marge ignores me.

  Marauders busy themselves strapping padding to the frightened mare, wrapping clothing around its legs and across its hindquarters. The animal is scared. Her eyes are wide with terror. Foam drips from her mouth.

  David struggles to keep the horse stationary, working with the reins and talking to the horse. Someone stands in front of her, holding the bridle and patting her neck, but she’s spooked and pulls against him. Somehow, she knows we’re about to send her out into the zombie horde and, like all of us, she fears for her life.

  A woman anchors a belt around Jane’s waist, binding her to David.

  Marge hands me a backpack, saying, “Stuff your clothing in here. We need everything. Your clothes, your underwear, the bandages on your arm, your bra, your socks. Anything that might have the slightest trace of scent or sweat.”

  I nod as Marge continues.

  “Olivia is going to scrub you down.”

  I’m too weak to protest. Something is sucking the life out of me.

  Shooters position themselves above the barn door, aiming their rifles at the zombies, ready to thin the crowd once David and Jane burst out through the doors.

  Dad and Ferguson walk back to talk with the marauders lining up their shots. There’s no privacy. There’s nothing to do but to strip down. I start with my socks, stuffing them into the backpack, followed by my torn trousers and underwear. I feel exposed, but I keep working at a frantic pace, unraveling the bandage from my arm before pulling off my shirt and bra. Standing there naked, I stuff my clothing into the bag.

  Olivia gestures to my hair. I pull the scrunchie from my ponytail and shove it into the bag.

  “We’re good to go,” Olivia calls out over the racket of zombies pounding on the barn, baying for blood.

  She tosses the backpack to Jane.

  Jane swings the bag over her shoulder and calls out, “Ready!”

  “Okay,” Marge says. “Let’s do this!”

  A bunch of marauders standing above the door begin throwing cinderblocks into the horde. Volley after volley of shots ring out as the sh
ooters fire down into the swarm of zombies.

  I step forward to get a better look when a bucket of ice-cold water is dumped over my head, taking my breath away. Olivia begins scrubbing my skin with a horse grooming brush dipped in soapy water. The bristles are rough, harsh, scratching my arms and back. Someone dumps another bucket of water over me, soaking Olivia as well but she continues madly scrubbing. Soap lathers on my skin. With my arms outstretched and my legs apart, several women rub vigorously with brushes. Bucket after bucket of freezing cold soapy water dowses my body. The brushes hurt. It feels as though thousands of needles are tearing at my skin. Fingers massage the hair on my head, working the soap into my long locks, but they’re rough, pulling at my hair.

  Someone grabs me by the shoulders, turning me around and forcing me to bend over. There’s not an inch of skin that isn’t scrubbed, including the soles of my feet. I’m yelling, screaming in pain, only vaguely aware the main door has been opened and David is charging out into the horde with Jane on horseback.

  One last bucket of deathly cold water soaks me to the bone, and suddenly it’s over. I stare down at my pink body flushed with ruddy splotches as a heavy blanket is draped over my shoulders.

  Olivia hugs me, saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I must have been screaming louder than I thought. I feel weak. Olivia takes my weight and helps me walk.

  Another volley of shots fell the zombies swarming toward David and Jane. Rather than charging through the horde, they’re bounding over zombies, riding the horse as though they’re crossing a deep river. The mare leaps, struggling not to be dragged beneath the mass of blood-crazed zombies. With its powerful rear legs, the horse kicks, sending zombies flying.

  Arms reach for Jane, crowding in from the sides, trying to tear her from the horse. She’s dragged sideways, pulling David with her, but he works with the reins of the horse, staying upright and steering the mare through the swarm. Bodies lie everywhere, but it’s working, the horde is swelling behind them, abandoning the assault on the barn.