Dredging Up Memories

by A. J. Brown

  One shot. Two shots. Three. Four. Five. They fell as I emptied the cop’s gun and stepped out into the bright sun. I tossed the gun aside and took aim with mine. There weren’t as many as my mind made them out to be, but there were still enough of them that the only course of action I could take was to run straight forward, gun out in front of me, cutting a path in the dead.

  A cold hand touched my arm, sending chills along my spine. I ran, still counting the bullets. Nine. Ten. Eleven. At the back of the convenience store, I looked back. Maybe half of them still stood and shuffled toward me. I pushed the back door open and slipped inside. I shoved several boxes in front of it, hoping to barricade the door.

  Sweat spilled down my face, from my armpits, and around my groin. Breaths came in labored gasps. I ran one hand along my arm where the zombie had touched. I could still feel its fingers on my skin. There was no blood; I had escaped unscathed.

  Hurrying to the front of the store, I reached the broken window and looked out. There were several more of the dead moving about, but none of them seemed to notice me. The truck awaited, and I ran, not worrying about grabbing any more food or water.

  At the truck, I turned, emptied my gun on several of the dead, then got in, slammed the door shut, and locked it. The engine rolled over, and I shifted into drive. The tires barked as I mashed the gas and swerved into the center of the road. It was a mere minute before I reached the edge of town. From the rearview mirror, I could see the dead lurching about, the noise of my leaving attracting them toward me.

  For the first time since the beginning of this whole mess, I left the dead standing. Part of me hated myself for not putting those souls to rest. The other part—the side that said I almost died—let out a long sigh of relief and mashed the gas harder.

  Nine Weeks and One Day After It All Started…

  I’ve never been good with directions. Jeanette always planned out our trips, routes, where we would stay, what we would do.

  Turn left at the light. Hit the interstate. Just keep driving. Don’t worry, I know where we’re going.

  Always in control, the true pilot of our vacations. I just navigated us where she said to go.

  That’s the way it was. The way it always was.

  Now…it’s not like that, is it?

  Somewhere along the line, I got turned around. It didn’t dawn on me until I fled Harkers, my skin still crawling with the thought of how close I came to being supper to an old man’s dead wife. Part of me wanted to turn around, go back to that small town right out of Mayberry and put the dead out of their misery. That part of me believed that was the right thing to do, help them find rest—a final, permanent end. But it had been too close. I wanted to see another living person so bad my judgment had been clouded, and I put myself in danger.

  It would be morning again before I thought much about the direction I had been going. The truth was I had been heading toward Charleston, the opposite direction of Table Rock. I wasn’t even on the right interstate—26 not 385 like I should have been.

  It dawned on me when I saw the sign for Summerville, a little town that claimed the Summerville Lights as one of its main attractions: a female ghost who was always searching, lantern held high, for her loved one. I pulled onto the shoulder, stared at the sign. Charleston was a few miles down the road—one of the bigger cities in South Carolina. There would be thousands of zombies swarming about that area.

  I laughed, trying to keep from getting aggravated. I didn’t succeed.

  “Crap, Humphrey. We’ve been going the wrong way.”

  It reminded me of the time Jeanette and I had taken a wrong turn once before. Healing Springs had been the destination, a little elbow just outside of the small town of Blackville.

  “None of this looks familiar,” Jeanette said as she watched the world pass outside her window. It rained the night before, and the morning air was still cool. Gray clouds loomed in patches, surrounded by the clarity of blue skies.

  “I thought you said take 321.”

  “I don’t think that’s right.”

  “You did say to go through Gaston, right?” I asked, pulled along the shoulder of the highway.

  “Yeah, but we didn’t pass the dump or the airport or—”

  “The airport?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, the airport. We should have gone by the airport.”

  “Babe, that's thirty minutes from the house—we’ve been driving for an hour. That didn’t hit you until now.”

  She stared at me, blinked a couple of times, her eyes telling me she thought we were lost.

  “That’s Edmond Highway,” I said. “It’s the other way. I go that way to work every day, remember?”

  We didn’t make it to Healing Springs, which is kind of ironic now. Jeanette bought a GPS shortly after that trip and kept a notebook with traveling notes in it just in case the GPS died on the way. She became obsessive in her research of where and when. We never got lost again.

  And there I was, on the side of the road, staring up at the big, green sign that said Summerville 1 Mile.

  “We have to go back.”

  Humphrey said nothing.

  I lowered my head to the steering wheel, my heart and hopes deflated. The longer it took me to get to Table Rock, the less chance I had of ever finding my family alive. I had taken too long already, spending way too much time in our hometown, wiping out as many of the dead as I could, burying them where I killed them. I lifted my head, punched the steering wheel. The horn had long since been dead and gave only a thump when I struck it.

  Up ahead, I saw a handful of the dead coming toward me. Their bodies wavered from side to side as they lumbered my way. My face grew hot with anger, jaws clenched tight. “Stupid rotters,” I said as I thought of my brother, Rick, how the doctors let him die after they realized what was going on. I thought of Davie Blaylock and how he died surrounded by a horde trying to draw them away so I could get away. I thought of Jeanette and Bobby, of how they begged me to go with them before I sent them away with my baby brother. I thought of Lee, the oldest of our group of four siblings and the rapid descent from healthy young man to the fragile, blood vomiting shell of himself and how his eyes held fear in them as he died while lying on the floor of a furniture warehouse.

  “Little Bro, promise me you won’t let me get like that. Promise me you’ll put me down before I die.”

  I had promised, but in the end, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill my own flesh and blood even as his eyes held hope and fear all at the same time. I had stared at his lifeless body, the warmth gone out of it, the stench of his bowels and bladder release hanging in the air. When his foot twitched—a slight movement I barely caught—I backed away, waited a moment for another body spasm that came in the form of that same foot moving, the knee bending enough to make it look like he would stand.

  No gun has ever been heavier for me than my rifle as I stood above him, the barrel aimed for his forehead. When his eyelids fluttered then opened, I squeezed the trigger. Fear had swallowed me whole at that point. I couldn’t let him get up. I might not have been able to put him down if I had waited any longer.

  I thought of Pop, repressed the look in his eyes as he put the gun to his head with Lee and I standing there. His back had been mauled by several of them, and death was imminent. His body slumped to the floor, his life ended by his own hands rather than coming back—it was the only way for him to be sure he would remain dead.

  “This is my burden,” he said when we told him to let us take care of it. “Not yours.”

  All these thoughts raced through my head as the rotters lurched toward my truck, coming from the woods and the overpass and just down the interstate. I opened the truck door, grabbed my pistol and rifle, and slung the machete over my shoulder. The pistol went into my waistband.

  What are you doing? I like to think that voice belonged to Humphrey, but the truth is it was probably just me in my state of grief and anger and the close call from days before and how fast the world w
ent to hell and how I had gotten turned around and it was all rolled up into a package ripe for exploding.

  “Hey,” I yelled to the nearest one as I approached it. “You want some of this? You hungry?” I did what all stupid men do in times of extreme anger. I ripped my shirt off, slung it to the ground, and beat on my chest. A show of defiance to a world gone insane.

  I no longer saw people trapped inside decomposing shells, their memories and feelings still intact, their souls still very much bound to their bodies. What I saw was death, a bunch of grisly grim reapers, their hands and mouths their scythes.

  “Come on,” I said to the woman with matted brown hair, her jaw slack, tongue lolling from between yellowed teeth.

  The machete came from off my shoulder, and I dropped the sheath to the ground. I swung it in a high arc, the blade striking her just above the left ear and severing the top of her head. She shuddered before dropping.

  “Who’s next?” I yelled, turned to see an old man, his button-up, white shirt half open, a chunk of flesh missing from his chest. “Is it you? Are you ready for this?”

  He groaned or growled. I’m not sure which. I swung the machete down as hard as I could, split his skull in half all the way to his upper lip.

  There were others—more than I thought at first. But anger and hate combined is a powerful motivator…and an all too dangerous form of gasoline. Another woman was followed by a little girl, her skirt dirty, part of her leg missing. Two younger men came in quick, freshly dead or so they appeared. The pistol took them down. I focused on the singular zombies with distance between them and the nearest one.

  A middle-aged man groaned as we neared each other. I screamed back at him before taking the top of his head off with the machete. The pistol took out several more, just click and boom and down they went.

  I spun and saw another rotter moving toward me. His glasses were still on his face though hanging cock-eyed, just on the tip of his nose. His hair was short, a few cowlicks kicked off the edges. He was thin, and all I could think was Paul Marcum taking a bite out of Lee, essentially ending my oldest brother’s existence. The man looked similar to him.

  I backpedaled to the truck, climbed in the bed, and shoved aside part of the tin can alarm system. There were other guns back there, plenty of ammunition, but all I wanted was a vantage point.

  The other dead approached, flies swarming around them, their stench filling the air, making my stomach churn. Even after these few months, that smell still makes me want to heave. I plucked them off one by one until only the Paul Marcum lookalike was standing at the tailgate. He was missing three fingers on one hand, and up close, he was a lot worse off than I originally thought. Skin had peeled away from his face, exposing facial muscles as tough as jerky.

  “How you doin’, Paul?”

  He looked at me, gave a moan, and stretched out his arms.

  “Okay, so you’re not Paul—at least you weren’t in another life. But today… Today, you’re Paul Marcum, and you killed my brother.”

  I brought the heel of my boot down on the bridge of his nose. He stumbled backward, let out what sounded like a howl. He was in pain, and I was happy to put him through more of it. I jumped from the truck, landed a few feet from him. A quick whip of the machete on one arm and it separated from his body.

  “You think that hurt?” I yelled as he groaned. “You haven’t felt anything yet.”

  I circled around him, rage having consumed me entirely. The blade found the other arm. The snap of bone and the rush of fetid blood spilled from a new wound as the arm fell away. Another pain-filled howl left the Marcum lookalike. I pulled the pistol from my waistband and took two shots at his legs—two wasted bullets that I’ll never get back, but at that time…at that time, wounding an innocent man who unfortunately looked like another one was all I cared about. The rotter fell to the ground, lay there with no hands to pull himself along, his legs useless.

  With the toe of my boot, I rolled him onto his back. His teeth clattered together as he gnashed at me. His filmed-over eyes held anger in them.

  “You’re mad at me? Is that how it is, Paul? You kill my brother, and you’re mad at me?” I laughed. Maybe the wheels had finally come off the car, and my mind had taken the short road to insanity. I don’t know, but at that moment—that frozen, horrible moment in time—I didn’t care about the pain the dead must have been in, the fear that must have been sitting in their undead veins. The only thing that mattered was revenge. Plain and simple. And revenge I would have.

  I brought the blade down on the dead man’s chest, yanked it out, and swung it down again. Over and over, I bashed the body of the poor man as black blood spilled from each wound, and dead tissues tore free, bones broke. After several minutes, I finally stopped, my arms aching, my breathing heavy and harsh in my ears. The zombie still stirred, his mouth still opening and closing, his eyes still focused on what could have been a meal.

  And the anger was gone from me, all of it unleashed on that poor dead man. I shook from adrenaline and sudden guilt. A hand went to my mouth, and I dropped the machete to the ground. I took several steps back until my back hit the tailgate. The man still moved, still made little groans and moans, and his head turned from side to side like he was saying no no no no over and over again.

  I pulled out my pistol, walked the short distance to the mutilated body, and pulled the trigger. The man’s head ruptured, and he stilled. Hands shaking, I got into the truck, closed the door, and locked it. I could feel Humphrey’s eyes on me, sense his disappointment.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I stared out the windshield at the carnage around me. The dead were truly dead, their bodies lying where I felled them.

  Feel better?

  I looked down at Humphrey. He stared straight ahead.

  “Not really,” I answered.

  You’ve blood on the side of your face.

  I ran a finger along one cheek, wiped the black gunk from it, and stared at my finger for a while. Wiping the blood onto my pants, I cranked up the truck. “Reckon we should be going?”

  Yes, we should.

  I didn’t bother looking down at the stuffed bear with its floppy bunny pajama ears. He wouldn’t be looking at me—or at least not when I turned to him. With the truck in gear, I pulled onto the road, weaving in and out of the bodies. Up ahead about a mile, the Summerville exit would take me off the interstate. I could circle back and end up in the opposite direction, heading back toward home and, hopefully, Table Rock.

  Nine Weeks, One Day, an Hour and a Half Later…

  Adrenaline is sometimes painful.

  The anger that coursed through my body as I mutilated—and that’s the right word for what I had done—the Paul Marcum lookalike faded before I got back in the truck. My hands and legs shook as the effects wore off. I guessed that’s what a junkie feels like after a high, after his head has been totally messed up for a few hours or a day or whatever and reality starts to come back. I was cold, and my joints were stiff, and I shivered as if winter had arrived and brought with it the northern winds.

  I drove the mile to the exit ramp that led to Summerville and pulled off the interstate. At the dead light, I turned and crossed onto the overpass. There I stopped, got out of the truck, and walked to the edge of the overpass. My legs still shook a little, and I was tired and weak. I stared off toward Charleston. In the distance, I could see a few of the dead shambling about. How many? I couldn’t say, but there was no staying any length of time in Summerville. It could take them a couple hours to get there. Or it could take them a couple days. Honestly, it’s not something I wanted to find out.

  Back in the truck, I started the cross over and made my way back toward the interstate. I passed a few bodies lying on the ground and some burned out vehicles. One windshield caught my attention. The blood had dried where the driver’s skull struck. The glass spider-webbed in all directions. The front end of the car was crumpled in, the bumper slumped toward the ground. The driver was wedged betw
een the steering wheel and the windshield. I couldn’t help but wonder about the events that led him to the point in time where his head became a ruptured melon. Was he fleeing for his life? Did he swerve to keep from hitting someone or something?

  “An accident,” I whispered.

  More than likely. Humphrey sounded more and more intelligent with each passing day. The little girl’s voice had been growing up as we went. I hadn’t noticed it until then. I looked at him—at her—and I didn’t see a stuffed teddy bear wearing a bunny costume. I saw a little girl who was no longer around four or five but closer to eight. Maybe nine. Her hair was long and brown, and there was a braid on one side. Freckles lined the bridge of her nose and spotted parts of her cheeks. The bunny ears were still there, still floppy and in need of cleaning, and the costume had stretched tight over the girl’s body. The arms and legs ended at the armpits and mid thighs.

  I couldn’t pull my eyes from her. No matter how bad I wanted to, I couldn’t turn away.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  Humphrey, she said without moving her lips.

  “No. Humphrey’s a teddy bear. You’re—”

  Alive.

  “What?”

  I’m alive and—

  At some point, I must have let my foot off the break. The truck rolled, but I didn’t realize it. By the time I did, it had reached the exit ramp, crept off the edge of the road, and started down the grass and gravel embankment.

  “Crap,” I yelled and mashed the break as hard as I could. I leveled the steering wheel, trying to keep the truck straight as it skidded down the hill. The embankment didn’t look that steep, but it seemed to go on for miles, all in a world of slow motion special effects that if this were a movie the viewer would have gotten to see the truck bounce and jostle and would have seen my face screwed up in determination, jaw clenched too tight as I held onto the steering wheel. The front passenger’s side tire struck a large rock. The truck bounced up and over it, teetered to one side, then tipped over.