Dredging Up Memories

by A. J. Brown

  I stood in the middle of the dark room for a long while, my head still in a slight fog, my limbs aching. I should have just laid down and went to sleep.

  Instead, I left the room, crossed the house, and entered the back bathroom. I scanned the jugs in the bathtub, my light shining over each one. The liquids were mostly clear except for a dark red one that seemed thick. It reminded me of blood, something I had seen too much of over the past months. There were wine bottles interspersed among the jugs. I picked several up, scanned their handwritten labels. Apple Cinnamon Cider. Strawberry Rush. Blackberry Crush. Lemon Tongue Curler.

  Lemon Tongue Curler? The name alone made the decision for me. I left the bathroom with the bottle and went back to the bedroom. I closed the door, locked it, and then pushed the small dresser by the wall to in front of it.

  I pulled the cork free. A hot smell like kerosene rose from the bottle and burned my nose. I tipped it to my lips, took a sip. Liquid fire ran down my throat, searing my insides and warming my stomach. My eyes snapped completely open and filled with tears in the process. My head was suddenly clear, and I think I spun around in a circle and then braced myself with a hand against the wall.

  What’s wrong? Humphrey was still in my head. I wonder now if she always was.

  “Strong.”

  Strong? Strong what?

  “Alcohol. I haven’t tasted anything this potent in years.”

  Should you be drinking?

  “Probably not.”

  Are you going to drink more?

  “Probably so.”

  The conversation ended. It was the last one I ever had with Humphrey.

  I drank.

  I drank too much.

  At some point in the night—or was it early morning?—I stood at the window of the bedroom, a big double glass version that slid left and right instead of up and down. From where I stood, I could see the water shimmering off the lake. I could see the other homes, most of them actual houses and not trailers like the one I was in. I wondered if I shouldn’t take one of them as shelter instead.

  It doesn’t matter, little bro.

  Lee stood beside me, staring out at the tranquil scene in front of us. He had a beer in his hand, and he wore the flannel shirt and jeans he had on when he died. His head wasn’t an exploded mess, and there was no bite mark on his arm.

  “Why’s that?”

  You can’t defeat them. They’ll keep coming and coming until they get you.

  I held my tongue. The moonshine left a buzzing in my ears. My face was hot.

  They got us all, Hank, he continued. Me, Pop, Davey Blaylock. Wilson and Nancy and Rick. Michael and his son. Mike Simmons. My Jessica and the kids too. Paul Marcum. Mrs. Crenshaw. Jeanette. Jake and Bobby.

  I turned and looked at Lee. He stared back at me, his eyes sad almonds on his face. There were whiskers on his chin.

  There’s nowhere to go, little brother. Nothing you can do. You can fight and fight, but sooner or later…

  “I can’t give up, Lee.”

  He laughed, hardy and loud, a sound that startled me.

  Hank, you already have.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  You can’t BS me, little bro. You gave up the moment you found out Jeanette was dead.

  “I went to the armory, where Jake said they were going. It was overrun.”

  Lee tipped his beer up, took a long swallow. It was as if the old days were back, but Rick wasn’t there, and neither was Davey or Jake. It was just the two of us.

  Do you remember Roscoe?

  “Roscoe Harris?”

  That’d be the one.

  “Yeah. What about him?”

  Remember when he killed his brother out in the woods that day. Calvin was there. So was Joe and Shawn, I think.

  “I remember.”

  He killed Rhonda too, you know?

  “No, I didn’t. I thought she just disappeared—left him after he was arrested.” I continued to stare out the window, not flinching at the revelation offered up by my older brother.

  Nope. He killed her.

  “How do you know?”

  I was there.

  “Really?"

  Yeah. He took another swallow of his beer. It was the action of a man deep in thought, of someone pondering life things. She was such a whore. She cheated on Roscoe a lot. But he let it go. Then he just flipped out, put three bullets in Robert’s chest and drank a couple more beers before heading home.

  “I’m drunk,” I said.

  That you are, little bro.

  I humored myself—I was the only one there. Lee wasn’t real. He couldn’t be—and asked, “You were there when he killed her?”

  Yeah. We thought he was on the run, you know, fled town for the mountains. We were wrong. He came in while she and I were…you know…

  I looked at him again, this time acknowledging that this bit of weirdness was taking place.

  He killed her, threatened to do the same thing to me if I didn’t help him hide the body.

  Disbelief. That’s what I felt.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  You don’t have to; you’re drunk, and you’re talking to dead people, Hank. But that’s not the point. Roscoe gave up on life when he killed his brother. Just like you have.

  I should have stopped then, stopped drinking and gone to bed and slept it off.

  I didn’t. I took another long swallow, sucked in a breath of air as the fire raced down my throat and the buzz became more of a full throttle beehive between my ears.

  Pop was sitting on the bed, his hands in his lap. I never realized how old he looked. He lifted his head to me.

  You still have my shotgun, Hank?

  “Yes sir.”

  You ever gonna fire it?

  “I don’t know.”

  Don’t let it break your collarbone. It’s got a heck of a kick.

  “I won’t.”

  The dead. They’re going to get you, Hank.

  It wasn’t Pop this time but Mrs. Crenshaw. Her hair was some shade of blue or purple and up in rollers. She stood by the dresser, a ruler in hand, much like when she was a teacher.

  Do you hear me, Hank Walker? I ain’t going to keep spoon-feeding you. The dead will get you.

  I looked at the bottle, shook my head. It was half empty.

  “Not if I drink myself to death first.”

  And it was out. My intentions weren’t to drown my sorrows but to drown myself. Lee was right. I had given up already. I was tired of running, tired of fighting. Tired of being alone. Maybe I would get drunk enough to go down to the lake and take a swim to the bottom.

  You can’t give up, Hank.

  Jeanette was there beside me, her hand on my shoulder. She was as beautiful as ever, but her eyes held all the sadness and pain in them that they could possibly hold.

  “Too late,” I said.

  It’s never too late.

  “Oh, it’s too late, Jeanette. It’s way too late.” Tears spilled down my face, and I turned to look at her.

  She was gone.

  At some point, I ended up on the floor in the bathroom just off the bedroom I had barricaded myself in. My gun was still in the waistband, the butt jammed into my stomach. The tile was cold on my face, and when I lifted my head, it felt like it would explode. I stood, and my head swooned. My stomach lurched. Vomit spilled into the toilet as I heaved several times. When I was done, I reached up and pressed the lever. To my surprise, the toilet flushed.

  Stumbling across the floor, I kicked the bottle. It clattered away, spilling the remaining Lemon Tongue Curler.

  I lay down on the bed. Humphrey was there but didn’t speak. I guess she was mad at me. I gave her a look, and she didn’t seem right. Her fur was missing, and she was a deep gray color. Her eyes were gone, and there were wisps of blond hairs on her head. I turned away from just another hallucination and focused on the ceiling.

  The world was out of control, both outside and in there with me. I thought of my family. My bro
thers were all dead. Pop and Davie Blaylock. Jeanette…

  Bobby.

  With tears streaming down the sides of my face, I slid the gun from my waistband and fingered the safety off…

  Twelve Weeks and Some Days (?) After It All Started…

  I don’t know how many people died between the outbreak and the time I laid in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house. Thousands? Millions? Billions? I didn’t know if the entire world was infected with people dying and getting back up, the dead killing and eating, a relentless army of rotting flesh, never stopping, never resting, always hungry.

  How many people did the dead kill? How many of them were screaming and crying and begging for someone to help them, begging for their lives against creatures too unfathomable to believe were real, though they were?

  I thought of Max Baxter. He had killed his boys while they were asleep in the bed. He did the same to his wife before turning the gun on himself. He opted out. He didn’t give his family a chance to survive. He was a coward. Or maybe he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

  I thought of Jake, not more than a young man when I sent him off with the rest of my family, forcing him into a leadership role he probably wasn’t ready for. He tried so hard to take care of the group. He tried so hard to protect Jeanette and Bobby. The last I heard, it was just Jake and my son. I didn’t know if they were dead or alive, but the odds weren’t too good for them to still be among the living. But he had tried.

  …

  …

  My baby brother had tried.

  …

  I thought of Jeanette dying. I hadn’t been there, but I had seen Lee die and turn, and I had a real good image of what it may have been like for her.

  What would she think about me after this? Would she think me a coward like Max Baxter and all those others who opted out?

  …

  Probably.

  …

  Lee’s figmented ghost came to mind. He still held a beer in his hand, and he was looking down on me.

  See? I knew you had already given up.

  Given up? Is that what it was? Giving up?

  …

  I thought of Davey Blaylock.

  …

  …

  Davey Blaylock had been my best friend. We grew up together. Our families lived six houses apart when we were kids. We played baseball together and were a pretty good double play combo—he a short stop and me a second baseman for a while before I switched to third. As adults, Davey and I lived four blocks from each other. He was the best man at my wedding. One day, I hoped to return the favor.

  That never happened. Never will.

  Pop and Lee were dead—my brother was in another room where I shot him and covered him with a blanket. At that point, we hadn’t been completely surrounded. At that point, we still had a chance to get out of there.

  We were in something like a storage facility, a building probably owned by a nice business, a law firm or accounting firm or something along those lines. There were desks and office chairs and useless computers, all in their own section of the large room we stood in. There were wooden shelves—a couple of hundred of them—along one wall. Lamps and light fixtures, a huge fan that looked like it belonged on a swamp boat, tables and tablecloths and a ton of nice plates, glasses, mugs, and silverware.

  We had few bullets, and I had my machete. Davey had a baseball bat, the barrel stained red.

  There were steps that led to a catwalk that seemed to circle the inside of the large room. There were other offices, smaller by comparison. The main floor windows had been boarded up, and there were a few bodies inside when we arrived carrying a feverish Leland Walker, sweating and delusional. It was just a moment. That’s all we needed. A moment to get Lee comfortable.

  The moment turned into three hours, and three hours turned into six more. By the time Lee had died and risen and I had put a bullet in his head with tears in my eyes, it had been almost eleven hours, most of them spent in the dark as night passed us by.

  It was early morning; the sun wasn’t quite on its way up. Unlike us, I’m sure it was well rested. A gray fog covered the land.

  “I need to bury Lee,” I said.

  “Hank.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “We need to get out of here.”

  Davey was right, but I couldn’t leave Lee in some room where he would rot and where someone may find him or maybe not. No, I wanted to bury him. I needed to bury him.

  I went out to my truck as the first rays of sun started to burn off the fog. Davey was behind me. There were a few corpses walking around, but I’m not so certain they saw us.

  “Hank, we need to get out of here.”

  I turned on him. “If you want to go, then go. I won’t hate you for doing it. I’ll understand. I promise. But I will not leave him like that.”

  Davey stepped back. His hazel eyes held gray and purple bags beneath them. He had a full beard—something I hadn’t noticed until right then. His hair had gotten long and touched his shoulders. It was the hippie revolution all over again. All he needed was a peace sign on the front of his shirt and a lit joint in one hand.

  He frowned. “I’ll stay. I’ll help you.”

  I wonder if Davey regretted that a couple hours later.

  I do.

  We hurried, finding a soft spot of land. We dug for all we were worth. It wasn’t a deep hole but one that would serve its purpose. We wrapped Lee in one of the long tablecloths in the warehouse and carried him out to the hole. Gently, we laid him in the ground and hurried to cover him up.

  By then, the sun was coming up, and the fog was burning off.

  “Hank,” Davey said as I tossed a spade full of dirt on the grave.

  “Yeah?”

  “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  I looked up. This is it, I thought. This is the end.

  The dead came out of the fog in shambling, stumbling droves. My truck was on the other side of the building, and all we had were shovels, the bat, the machete, and two guns that would be useless soon.

  We ran.

  We were always running.

  The building grew closer, but it didn’t matter. Around the corner came several rotting corpses that were little more than bones held together by drooping skin. I had the brief thought that they must have risen at the very beginning of the outbreak.

  They were on us quick. I swung the shovel at the nearest one then at another one and another and another. We were almost to the corner of the building. Another few steps and my truck would have been in clear view.

  I swung the shovel again, connecting with the side of a woman’s head. She did a pirouette, her entire body spinning as she fell to the ground. I swung again and…

  …and Davey screamed.

  I whirled around. Davey leveled what once was a woman square in the face with his fist. Her forehead caved in, and she dropped to the ground, but she had done her damage. There was a hole in his shirt to the side of one shoulder blade. Blood spilled from the wound.

  “No!” I yelled and ran for him. I don’t know when I dropped the shovel and pulled out the machete, but I swung it in wide arcs, taking out as many at a time as I could.

  Most people would have given up. Most people would have let the shock kick in and then let the world end around them. Not Davey. He swung his bat harder and harder, crushing fragile skulls with ease. And he moved away from me, going the opposite direction of the truck.

  “Davey, this way,” I yelled and took out another three of the dead.

  “No! Get to the truck! Leave!”

  The world, as it would do so many times after that, slowed down. The sounds became distorted, and everything seemed to brighten and become clearer. The rotting corpses stood out like three-dimensional objects on a video screen.

  “Get out of here,” he said, but I wasn’t listening. I ran toward him, grabbed his arm, and tried to pull him with me. Davey shoved me away, shook his head, his eyes wet with tears and full of r
esolve. I could see him so clearly. A few strands of gray in his beard, the speckled brains and blood on the front of his shirt and face, the red in his eyes. His lower lip was bleeding, and there was a smudge of dirt on one cheekbone. It was all too vividly clear.

  Then the world sped up, and he said, “Get out of here.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’m a dead man, Hank. I’ll lure them away.”

  I started to argue, but he shut me down and shoved me back toward the truck, back in the direction where there were fewer dead coming toward us. I swung the machete, took out a little kid with dark hair and slack eyes.

  “Run!” Davey yelled one last time before doing the same thing but away from me instead of with me.

  I stared at him for a moment until the hands of one of the dead touched my arm. I turned, screamed, and swung my machete, taking off the top of the man’s head.

  “Run!” Davey yelled again.

  And I did.

  I ran and hacked at the dead. I rounded the building and saw my truck was by itself. The driver’s window was slightly down—enough to hear the world as it passed by. It took maybe a minute to reach it, to crawl in and slam the door shut and then crank it up. I floored it, determined to save Davey one way or another. The back wheels spun and then caught traction. Panic set into my chest, and my hands squeezed the steering wheel tight.

  The truck swerved around the building. Bodies bounced off the front and sides, blood spattered the windows. The horde lurched away from me. A few turned back, and I ran them down, angry and sad and full of guilt and hoping I would find Davey alive. And then I heard the gunshot.

  One.

  Single.

  Shot.

  The truck came to a stop. I could see the dead had stopped as well. There was a crude circle of decaying bodies near one edge of the building. In the center of that circle was my best friend, Davey Blaylock. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there, and I knew he was the reason the horde had stopped and that they were feeding on him.

  The thump of a hand on the side of the truck pulled me away. The woman was missing most of her face. Her bottom lip was barely there, and she was mostly bald. If not for the top she wore, I wouldn’t have known she was a woman. I put the truck in reverse and backed over several more of the dead. The truck didn’t really bounce over them. It crushed them like soft melons in an overripe field.