“Skeleton,” he says. “The little skeleton boy. Skinny arms an’ skinny legs. You then ge’ afraid of what people think when you look like that, and then your eyes, they fall back into your eye-holes to try an’ hide. The dead must stay dead, and we should no’ confuse the living and the dead. Do you wan’ me to call the people at the graveyard to com’ an’ ge’ you?
I shake my head furiously. My papá is a strong man who works hard. He is a living man.
“Tomorrow, you make this easier for me an’ Mamá,” he says. “You eat? Okay?”
The eight-year-old me nods.
***
I awaken to Jay’s hand on my shoulder, pushing my body back and forth. It’s still dark, and the insides of the creature are mostly gone from the windshield, but some of the grumous blood has dried.
“What time is it?” I ask. I hear a faint whimper from the back seat.
“Evening, sixish,” he says. “But you should probably get out of the truck at the next stop. Maybe in like a couple of minutes or so.”
“How far are we from Gallup?” I ask. “Should be easy to find something there.”
Jay doesn’t answer. The cords in his neck are rigid, and I can see that his arms are shaking as he holds the steering wheel.
“Jay? I ask.
He remains mute for another moment, and then, through the coagulated, crimson windshield, I can see several lights off to the side of the road. The whimpering in the back grows louder. Like a panting. A soft, harsh panting.
“Here’s good,” he says, sounding more stressed than before.
Jay pulls off the road to the lights, which belong to a Seven-Eleven. The sign is flickering, and there are only a couple of cars parked out front.
“There will be more cars in Gallup, Jay. It really isn’t that much—”
Jay pulls the Glock from his belt and points it right at my face.
“Get the fuck out of my car. You keep riding with me, you’re dead.”
The woman in the back seat begins to lurch wildly in the bag, and my eyes widen when I hear the tortured screech coming from it.
“Thought I could get that far, but I’m out of the sedatives. Just go!”
“You’ve got the gun, Jay, use it!” I yell as I walk backward in the direction of the gas station.
Jay shakes his head, then suddenly hops out of the truck and runs toward me. When he reaches me, he puts his fist in my hand and drops two small objects in it, then cups his hand around mine, closing it.
“Bury these for me if you get the chance …” His voice trails off. He glances up at me, and I can see the strain in his eyes, the blood vessels crisscrossing like lightning, wishing me luck, even if he knows that I won’t find it. He then races back to the truck. I hear the sharp jangle of keys as he starts the engine, and the rumble of the motor soothes the fragile silence. And then, he’s gone, up the road and fading into the dry, juniper-scented night.
Jay gave me no choice, and now, unless I can find a way to start one of the cars at the Seven-Eleven, I’ll have to walk. A little voice pipes up in my mind. Or you could just cozy up inside this gas station and eat all the shit inside to comfort you. You would like that, wouldn’t you? Nobody to bug you. A wide-open desert around. You didn’t like people and look what you have now. A fucking miracle of a way to die, don’t you think?
“FUCK!” I scream. I don’t care about the noise I make. A part of me wants them to come crawling and charging through the weeds and elms around the station. I expect them to come, but then I realize that unless they’re in the station, there’s no place to come from.
And they don’t.
***
I almost forget what Jay gave me, and it explains everything and makes it that much worse at the same time.
He gave me a pair of rings.
He’d known, the whole time, that she was turned. Maybe he knows how it happened, the beginning of it. He’d held onto her, his wife, maybe hoping it’d get better. And maybe it would eventually pass, like the flu or a cold—except that now—now he wouldn’t be alive to have that chance.
One of the cars parked in front of the Seven-Eleven is dead, and the other is too new for me to start. And no keys. It’s after midnight now. The clock inside the gas station is still working, and from outside the building, I can hear the ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick. Just like the classroom clocks in middle school and high school. The things were so hard to change that sometimes they were more than a few hours off and changing them wasn’t exactly in the State’s budget.
I grimace—I know what my only option is.
Jay’s truck would be far by now—only if he’d brought himself to use the Glock.
Otherwise, I’d probably find him up the road somewhere.
Before I decide to hike through the darkness, I grab some water and devour whatever seems easiest to open. I haven’t eaten all day, and when I remind myself of the food inside the store, my stomach nearly rears itself up and out my throat. The inside of the station is empty of creatures, but I already knew that walking in. If anything had been inside it would have heard me yelling outside. I check behind the counter just in case, but I see nothing except a fallen mop and a few starburst wrappers. I bring my hands together into the shape of a gun and point it at the invisible man behind the counter.
“Manos arriba,” I whispered, remembering the costume of the bandido I had when I was seven. Papá had told me to say that to the people at the doors on Halloween. The ones who knew what I was saying got a kick out of it. Some even gave me extra candy.
I walk a mile down the road, and still no sign of Jay. The desert moon lets me see some, but if the truck had gone off the road, I doubt I would be able to see it, even if the bushes and junipers are small.
And what if I don’t find the truck? Then what?
Maybe it’s best that I don’t. I’d forgotten that if I did find the truck, I’d also probably find Jay’s wife, and I have nothing on me to defend myself with. I can’t believe I didn’t realize what was really going on with the sedatives and the large, black bag. And Jay. He knew what was going to happen, and he didn’t tell me. I want to be angry with him, want to tell him that he’d be alive if he’d just shot her. But his wife. I shudder at the thought.
I walk by an abandoned car after going another mile, but the front and inside of it are burned. I wonder if some of the people driving out there on the open highway were untouched by what happened and if they too have gone west. There is no logical reason for it, but without a goal, even one that doesn’t make much sense, then what’s the point of continuing, of trying to escape this nightmare?
After walking another mile, and rounding a small plateau, I stumble upon a pair of headlights, dim and red. I’m exhausted, on the verge of sitting down off to the side of the road and calling it a night, but the lights inject my body with a fresh boost of energy. By now I’d given up on Jay still being around, but when I get closer to the lights, thinking that they might belong to a different vehicle, my heart nearly bursts out of my chest, and I duck to the ground.
It’s Jay’s truck. And the engine is on, humming in tune with the even breeze and the rustle of desert grass. And there’s no sign of Jay or his wife—and if she’s there, I would have heard her. But where’s Jay?
I cross the road and tiptoe over the dirt, stepping only onto the bare patches of ground to drown the sound of my steps. Even in the cool air, I’m sweating, each muscle in my neck rigid and my shoulders taut. And then, when I’m only a few feet from the side door of the truck, I hear it—a gentle, heaving whimper coming from the other side.
My first thought is to run. Maybe back to the gas station or farther down the road. But something about the noise isn’t quite the same. Less harsh. More human. I decide to continue, and when I reach the truck, I open the driver’s side door and clamber into the front seat.
I see nothing. Maybe the creatures are less active once they’ve eaten after they’ve satiated their urge to hunt—to kill. A cold shiver un
dulates through my body, and as I sit up straight against the seat, I picture Jay, ripped apart and devoured by the very person who cared the most for him. Or maybe he put a bullet in his brain before she could reach him.
The truck is in park, my hand clasped around the clutch and my foot hovering over the accelerator, waiting, waiting for the right moment—whatever that means. Didn’t make a difference what I did. Maybe Jay’s wife breaks the window and finds her way to me now, or maybe someone else’s wife somewhere down the road. Maybe a child. A fucking kid? I close my eyes.
And then there’s a tap at the window.
I jump in my seat. In the window, I see the back of a bloodied hand rasping lethargically, like the pendulum swing of a brown leaf falling from a tree. At first, I think it’s the hand of one of the creatures, but it isn’t. Their hands are shriveled, discolored and sickly. This is the hand of a man.
I get out of the car and loop around to the other side. Sitting against the opposite door is Jay, his head hanging to one side and his mouth just barely open. His chest is moving up and down, and as I take a few steps toward him, he opens his mouth and whispers to me.
“Medina.”
His eyes close again after the words trickle out of his mouth. His blood-stained white shirt is plastered to his chest, and with another grunt, he looks back up at me, his blue eyes pleading.
“Go,” he coughs. “Go!”
Then I hear it—the spine-tingling, gurgled scream—and when I turn around, I see her, lumbering over from only fifty or so feet away. She’s moving slowly, though, limping and falling over, and, realizing that I have a few seconds, I run over to Jay and pick him up in my arms. I’ve never been able to lift much weight, but with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I swing the limp man into the back of the truck, all the while failing to hear the slithering, wounded woman come sliding through the desert brush.
When I turn back around, I stop in my tracks.
Where has she gone?
The air is still, and when I begin to move back to the other side of the truck, a hand grabs my ankles, pulling me under, and my head hits the ground. Hard.
***
“Por favor, manténgase sentado, con los brazos, manos, pies y piernas dentro del vehículo, y cuiden—”
“Please, Papá,” my sister interrupts. “It’s not that funny, even if you can imitate the recording.”
“Di’ you at least like the rides?” my papá asks, looking at us both.
“Yes, Papá, thank you,” we both answer at the same time.
Papá grins and puts his arms around us, giving us each a warm pat on the back.
“And Disneyworld is even bigger?” I ask.
“So I’ve heard,” Papá smiles. “But you wi’ ha’ to do that when you’re grown up. It’s too har’ to drive to Florida. Maybe you ca’ bring me in your suitcase when you fly one day.”
“Maybe we can all go,” I chuckle. “Maybe you’ll be an old abuelo by then, maybe—
Papá suddenly lets go of us and places his hands on his stomach, wincing in pain.
“Luís!” mamá says, almost shouting. “Again? Are you okay?”
Papá stands back up straight and grins through the pain, grunting as he leans over to give Mamá a kiss.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “I’m okay. I am okay.”
***
I hardly feel myself sliding under the truck. My head is spinning, sloshing against the inner walls of my skull, and I can’t think—as if I were in the tight embrace of a giant snake. The sharp, dry rocks of the ground scrape my ribs, and I can do nothing. Nothing but kick as hard as I fucking can.
And when I do, the sole of my shoe comes crashing onto something hard, and as I make contact I hear a crunch and a cry of agony. And then silence.
I dare not look at my legs, afraid that if I do she will come back at me. But then I remember Jay in the back of the truck, and my legs twitch to life, pushing me slowly out from the metal underbelly. I moan as I stand, and my scraped hip shines a bright red through the rip in my now-filthy jeans. After I check that Jay is in the back, I crawl into the truck, ease onto the accelerator, and slam the back of my head against the headrest.
“Gallup,” I mutter. We’d be there soon. But soon didn’t mean shit. Every hour that passes is just another step toward the morgue. I picture myself lying on an icy table, waiting for an autopsy, and instead of a pathologist standing over me, there’s a creature. A corpse examining one of its own kind.
***
I make it to Gallup, barely. I nearly nodded off a dozen or so times on the way there, with only the pain in my hip to keep me awake. I had been to Gallup once before, with some of my roommates. I hadn’t wanted to, but living in New Mexico—I figured I had to visit some other cities besides Albuquerque. It isn’t all that different—dry, brown—but it feels older and certainly smaller.
I decided to drive almost past it. On the western edge of town, there’s a Walmart that one of my friends had insisted on stopping at, and I figure if I stop there I’ll at least have supplies, and maybe a way to heal Jay. I haven’t checked on him since I threw him in the back—I haven’t even had time to look at myself after what happened last night.
I park out front, directly in front, so that I can see somewhat into the store. Given the number of creatures I saw through the town, I figure that there are at least a couple inside the Walmart. Maybe more.
Once I’ve parked the truck there, I fall asleep almost immediately, but the pain from the night before comes back in my dreams, my nightmares. No matter what else I’m dreaming of, they’re there, the creatures, infesting every fold in my brain. When I wake up early the following morning, anything but rested, I try to get out of the truck and move, but then I remember Jay, probably dead in the back of the truck, and my limbs freeze. I feel like sitting in the front seat and rotting, cooking under the unforgiving sun until I look like one of those damned creatures.
And then, only a few minutes after waking up, I hear a hollow echo of movement from the back of the truck. And a sliding, dragging sort of noise. It takes my tired brain a second to realize what I’m hearing.
“Lorenzo. Get up. Get the fuck up,” I tell myself.
My weary limbs fumble for the door handle, and when I push open the door, the weight of my body sends me tumbling onto the pavement. I groan as I lift my head off the ground.
And then I hear a moan, followed by a hair-raising, inhuman screech. My blood turns to ice and my face contracts and twists when I hear it, but not because of the wretched, painful ring of the sound. But because I know who it’s coming from.
Using the last drop of energy I have remaining, I climb back into the truck, turn on the engine, and without thinking, floor the accelerator and then slam on the brakes, crashing the vehicle through the entrance. I take a part of the wall with me, and the force of the truck sends some of the concrete overhead tumbling down. And through the rising dust and the hiss of a tire losing air, I see Jay limp out in front of the truck, a metal shard lodged into his shoulder and through his heart—but he’s still alive. A chunk of flesh is missing from his calf as if it’s been bitten and torn off.
And then I know why he’s turned. And how most of the others turned, too. The creatures aren’t interested in feeding on us. Not on the beings that could host whatever this terrible disease is, if that’s even what it is.
Several other creatures from inside the store, after hearing the crashing noise at the entrance, come toward Jay, just in front of the truck. I think about Jay’s wife, probably lying back in the middle of the desert, blistered body turned pale under the sun. She likely died before Jay even found me, and as I look at Jay now, I realize that he too is dead. I feel the tears collect around my eyelids as I feel the rings in my pocket.
I send the truck lurching forward.
***
I sealed off the doors to the Walmart without much trouble, using furniture and whatever else is heavy but not too heavy to move or slide. At the fro
nt, I put up metal tables as a barrier, and all the barricades are working so far. Or maybe there just aren’t any more creatures close enough to know I’m inside.
There is food and water to keep me alive for months, maybe even a few years. But after several days inside I only feel worse. I can keep the creatures out, at least for a while, but I can’t take the agony of waiting. I’m going to leave. I have to. There are many cars to choose from out front, or in an adjacent parking lot, but I need more rest before I head back out. My hip is feeling better, but I can’t clear out the images frozen in my mind from the first day. At UNM, then with Jay and his wife, and then finally here at the Walmart. Did that all really happen in one day?
I’ve been at the Walmart for three days now, which has allowed me to plan ahead and create a plan of some sort to head out west. There’s no real reason for it, no guarantee that I’ll be any better off over there. But it’s a goal, something to keep me going.
I buried Jay on the other side of the parking lot with a brand new shovel from the garden center, and put the rings there with him, nestled tightly between his lifeless hands. I hardly got to know him, barely even spoke to him, really, but somehow I feel like we’ve known each other for some time. I have to remind myself that we were never friends. Maybe I thought so because we had something in common, the fact that we weren’t infected. Didn’t last long though, did it? my mind interjects. I gulp down the pollen and dried saliva collecting in my throat. I’m now a prisoner of my good fortune, and Jay is now free. Maybe even with his wife, too. I can find some comfort in that.
***
The approaching navy-blue car is a small Honda, and the driver pulls into the Walmart without braking, and when I see his face through the windshield, wide-eyed and panicked, I know something is wrong.
When he parks, he slams the door closed and looks around. Seeing me at the front, he races to the back of the pickup and begins to ramble.
Silence of the Apoc_Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse Page 8