by A. J. Brown
…I want to pull my guts out and cut them from my body with one of the knives…in the…kitchen.
My eyes boil…
They are dry, and I swear there is sand in them…
I want to say a few things before…
…
…before I go.
It’s still snowing. It doesn’t snow like this in South Carolina. Hetch…he left to find the…Healing Springs…my God my stomach…
…
…
…
…
Hetch said he would be back…be back in a few hours. Hours? No. The snow slowed him down. He might have ran out of gas…or ran off the road…or maybe the biters got him…
It’s probably…probably…just as well. By the time he got back…gets back…if he gets back…I’ll be dead.
Sweating from the fever, my body on fire.
My lungs feel so full…so hard to breathe…
Must finish this.
Focus, Hank. Focus.
Focus…
I drank the last of the Healing Springs water yesterday. It’s not enough. The wound on my thigh is gray. It’s turning black. The veins are thick and bulging against my skin. The bandage is no longer blood-soaked but green and brown with pus. I can smell the infection. My fingernails are yellow and crusted with blood.
I’ve already begun to rot.
While I still have a little strength…
When I was a kid, my brother, Lee, once fired Pop’s shotgun. It had a name…I can’t remember what it was right now…something like an animal or…that’s it. It was Ox, like Babe the blue ox, but without the Babe, the blue. Lee broke his shoulder. I think I might have wrote that already…
I’ve never fired the gun. I always wanted to…but after what happened…to Lee, well, I never got up the nerve to touch it much less shoot it. That was before the entire world died. I’ve held the shotgun several times since, staring at it, wondering how it would feel to pull the trigger. Before this gets me, I’m going to lose my socks—it’s not like I need them to keep warm or anything.
I went outside yesterday. The snow was six inches deep if it was one. There’s probably more now. I did my best…but the hole I dug wasn’t that deep—maybe just enough to cover up my body and leave a mound of dirt, or snow, in its wake.
Something happened while I was out there. Something…odd. Several biters appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t hear them, but they must have heard or seen me…I don’t know. When I finally saw them, I lifted the shovel and prepared to defend myself. They stopped their approach when they got within about ten or fifteen feet of me. They stared at me through their cataract white eyes, their jaws slack and their skin grayish-green. Then they all shambled off, their feet dragging along in the snow, leaving ruts behind.
They moved so slowly… The cold must slow them down. That’s fine information to have now…
“Where are you going?” I yelled. “I’m right here.”
One of them turned back. I’m not sure if it was confused or not, but the look on its face was just that: confusion.
“Yeah, you!” I yelled. “I’m talking to you. Come and get me, you rotting bag of bones.”
The biter turned away and joined its companions as they left me there.
Anger.
That’s all I felt.
Anger.
I’ve been chased and chased…by these things…and now that I’m right there, no gun in hand…wanting an end to it all…they just walk off.
I stumbled up behind the male, who looked back at me. He had scratches on his arms and face, and he was missing an eye. I wonder if he plucked it out when he was still alive. The shovel connected with his skull. It split open. I drove the spade into the back of his head after he hit the ground. Then I went after the other two men. I smashed the first one, swinging the shovel like an axe. The second one turned back to me, as if attracted by the commotion behind it. I screamed as I bashed its head with the spade. I continued to scream and yell and beat the biter long after its head had ruptured like a rotten watermelon.
When I was done, I stumbled backward and fell into the snow. I dropped the shovel as well. I lay there, staring at the gray sky, snow still falling, my clothes steadily becoming soaked…
When I was a little boy, I loved to make snow angels. Making them was like doing jumping jacks while lying down. Lee was always really good at it…so was Jake.
I lay on the ground, my arms weak and body tired. I wanted to go ahead and die. Maybe I could freeze to death…but that wasn’t happening. I was too hot to freeze. The snow melted around me…
I didn’t make a snow angel.
I thought…
Hetch almost died that first time we went scavenging together. That old man…that old man had been right on top of him. Then he turned around and came for me… Hetch said there was a kid in the store. That kid…did the same thing. They could smell him…they could smell the rot inside of him. They didn’t go after him because he’s infected…
Maybe the water heals the wounds and lets you live…maybe…maybe…
Then the second odd thing happened.
I felt something licking my face. It was wet and like sandpaper. I wanted to swat it away but was too weak to move all that fast. I shifted my head to the side, and there stood the dog from Batesburg. He was kind of scrawny, and he might have been sizing me up, hoping he could make a meal out of me.
Go ahead, I thought. Eat me, and get it over with.
He didn’t eat me… He licked me, and there was no joy in what he did. I think he knew.
I struggled to stand and threw the shovel aside when I was halfway up. I fell back into the snow…
…
…
My stomach feels like it’s going to explode…
…
…and spill my intestines all over the floor…
…
…
The dog ran away the best he could in the growing snow. I watched him go, his tail tucked between his back legs.
…
…
I hate myself for scaring him away.
I crawled back to the house…and up the steps. On the landing, I leaned against the door. My eyes were heavy. I wanted to sleep…sleep and never wake up…never wake up.
I don’t remember opening the door…or crawling inside…or getting back to the table… I woke here, my head down, the pen still gripped in my hand…
My fingers hurt… I can barely move them…
Hetch should have been back by now…
…
He’s probably dead…
I think I’ve looked at the picture of the pretty brunette for the last time… I think her name is Cate… I hope she’s alive and safe… She really is a beautiful woman…
Thinking of her makes me sad…and I feel…
…guilty.
…
My Jeanette is dead, and I miss her terribly…but it won’t be much longer now…not much longer at all…and I will be with her…forever…
I won’t be traveling to Table Rock…I won’t die at her grave…
I’ll find her though… In death, I’ll find her…
…Maybe, I’ll find Bobby too…and Jake…and Pop…and Davey…and Lee…maybe they’re all waiting for me.
We can all be together again.
That’s comforting…like the images of Heaven Momma always talked about…
How many times did she tell us boys, “Fly right, and go to Heaven. All your departed friends and family will be waiting there for you when you get there”?
I can see them now. Pop with his bald head and dry sense of humor, his way of saying things that made you think even though you didn’t want to. Lee, with his unkempt hair and scraggly beard…always quick with a smart remark. Jake with his boyish smile and big heart…Rich and his family. Wilson will be there…oh yes he will…Jeanette with her pretty smile and soft skin and loving arms and…
…
…
God
, I miss her…
…
…
I can’t cry anymore. There are no tears left…
My head began to hurt sometime in the night.
Thumping…thumping…throbbing. The veins along my skin feel thick…as if they were growing and would burst from the swelling. The pain…the pain is like a migraine…a vice on my skull, squeezing my temples and cheeks and running down into my jaw and neck…stiffening…
…
Focus, Walker…
Jeanette was—is—my soul mate. We did things together that I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. Spontaneous things. Like getting donuts in the middle of the night or going to the beach at midnight so we could watch the sun come up. One time we ran through the sprinkler system at the old baseball field at two in the morning. We laughed and slipped and got soaked and got turned on, and that led to…well, you get the picture…
When Jeanette told me she was pregnant, we had only been married for three years. She had wanted babies sooner. Shortly after we got married, she asked, “When are we going to have children?”
She caught me off guard…she was good like that. I looked up from the book I was reading—yeah, I used to read—and said, “Why don’t we wait until we’ve been married three years and we’ll talk about it. Okay?”
She agreed. Reluctantly.
On our third anniversary, September 6th, it was…she came out of the bathroom with one of those pregnancy tests. Her eyes were glassy, her bottom lip trembling…just a little…and she said, “I’m pregnant.”
“Seriously?’ I said.
Her face crumbled… It was the wrong response…
…
…
I wish I had said something else…
I wish I could change that.
When Bobby was born, and I held him for the first time, I knew then that, yeah, seriously…I’m a father…
…
…
I feel like I’ve been hit in the head with a hammer. Yellow dots dance in my vision…
…making it hard to write.
I would lie down…but I need to finish…need to tell my story…
It’s not that I don’t want to be forgotten. I don’t care about me…I want my family to be remembered…
…remember Jeanette…
Baby, I’m so sorry I let you die. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when the dead came… I’m sorry I told you to go…to leave our home… It would have been safer there…
I love you…
I love you…
I love you…
Remember Bobby Henry Walker…
I never called him Junior. I wanted him to have his own identity.
Bobby…if you’re still alive, stay safe, be strong. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you and your momma… I’m sorry you had to see her die. Please, know that Daddy loves you…
Daddy loves you…
Remember Leland…
…
…
…this hurts…
My stomach is in knots. I reek of death. The wound on my leg has spread lower than my knee and up into my hip. My bones are stiff. The blood in my vomit tells me I don’t have much time…not much time at all…
Everything is growing fuzzy around the edges…
Hang on, Hank. Just a little while longer, old boy.
Remember my brothers. Leland Rex Walker. Richard Clark Walker. Jacob William Walker. The best brothers a guy could want…
Did I ever tell the story of Jake riding his bike and trying to jump over a hole he and the neighbor boy, Billy, dug?
They were ten, I think… I can’t remember now. I probably won’t remember much longer…
They dug a hole—a deep one, maybe four feet wide and three feet deep…
They built a ramp—a crappy one. Three cinder blocks and a piece of plywood. For a skateboard, that might have been okay. For a bike, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
…Cramps…
Hold on, Walker…
Focus. Focus…
“Hey, watch this, guys,” Jake said and straddled his bike. He went around Billy’s yard several times, picking up as much speed as a ten-year-old could. Then he hit the ramp.
…
…
The front tire didn’t go up like it should have. It went down and hit the other side of the hole. Jake shot forward on the bike, racking what little manhood a kid his age has.
…
…
That’s probably not how he wants to be remembered…
Remember Pop.
Pop, I tried to make it. I tried to make you proud. Like most of my life, I failed again. But you always saw the possibilities with me… Where everyone else thought I would fail, you never gave up. Thank you, Pop.
Remember Davey Blaylock…
The best friend a guy could ask for. Thick and thin, to the end… It’s my fault you’re dead, Davey. I’ve had to live with that ever since…I still can’t believe it…
Remember them all.
Remember them all…
Remember…
Remember…
…
…
…
Breathing…is so hard now. Lungs are full of nastiness. It took almost all the energy…the energy I had to reach the side door.
I made a note… I’m not sure I spelled the words right, but I tried. The note…the note says, HETCH, STAY OUT. I’M DEAD. I think I taped it to the door…then I locked it…
It’s almost time… I can hear Death knocking on the door. You just come on in, Death… Just come on in. I’m…in the back…bedroom…the one I thought Hetch would die in…
Hetch…
He wanted to be remembered…
Remember Hetch.
He never married. Never had kids… He had a gal, but they called it quits before…the crap hit the fan…
He survived two bites and a nasty cut… He went for help. He was a good guy…
Yeah, he must have died too…never came back… Get away while you can…from the crazy man…
…the crazy man with the dead on stakes around the house…
…Don’t blame him…don’t blame him at all…
I can’t
quite see all that
well right now…
Mine eyes have seen the
glory of the coming of the Lord…
He is trampling out
the vintage where the grapes of
wrath are stored;
He hath loosed
the fateful lightning
of His terrible
swift sword.
His truth
is marching
on…
The wrath? Did I just write that? The wrath…is the dead…so many of them…the world ends…the world ends because of the wrath…like that preacher man said. The dead will eat the living…something like that.
My eyes don’t see much of anything right now…
Everything…everything…
…is a haze.
I hear the dead…they’re coming for me…
I can hear them over the roar of the trains…in my ears…I can hear them…over the forever…sounds of gunshots in my soul, thumping…thumping with my rapid heartbeat. They pound at the door…I can hear them…
Coughing…
Blood…so much…
blood…
I’m tired.
Fingers hurt…body hurts…mind…
mind…is numb…??
I hear them… I hear them…
The door…how did they…how did they get up…
…steps…
They’re here…I hear them…
…the dead…
Hetch, forgive me…
Thirty Weeks and Two Days After it Started…
I woke up.
You have to understand that.
I.
Woke.
Up.
I shouldn’t have.
Everything was blurry, and
there was light—bright and white—that hurt my eyes when I opened them. A raw pain like that of staring at the sun for far too long on a hot summer day ripped through them. I clenched them shut.
“He’s awake.”
The voice sounded excited. And familiar. But muffled as well. It was definitely a voice I knew, but my ears felt clogged, and there was a slight buzzing in them.
One hand went to my face, shielding my eyes when I opened them again. The light was still there but not directly in my field of vision.
“Hank?”
That familiar voice again. I shook my head, opened my mouth to speak. All that came out was a wheezing croak.
That familiar voice spoke. “Hetch, get some water.”
Hetch? Hetch? He’s still alive? No. I must be dead and this is…wherever it is.
And who was the familiar voice?
“Turn down the lights, will you?” the voice said. It felt odd to hear that. I hadn’t seen real lights that weren’t powered by flames in a long while.
The lights dimmed, and I lowered my hand. Things were still blurry, but I could see in the gray of the room that I was not home. I was not in a hospital, and I wasn’t at the house at the lake. The room was nothing more than a square box, no windows to be seen, and a door across from where I lay in a bed. There were several chairs—the type that belong in a dining hall or cafeteria and not in a place being used as a caregiving room. A sheet covered me from midsection to toes. My head lay on a soft pillow.
My skin no longer burned.
My stomach was no longer in horrible knots.
My head didn’t hurt.
My lungs no longer felt full. I could breathe.
The fuzziness in my vision faded as my eyes adjusted to the room’s light.
“Hank? Drink this.”
The voice was in front of me, just off to the right. A hand touched my arm. It was rough, a hardworking man’s hand. I could see a white cup. There was a straw jutting out the top. The person who spoke lowered it to my mouth, and I drank. The water was cool and fresh and felt like Heaven as it went down my throat, filling my chest and stomach with its sweet relief.
My vision cleared a little more, and the person who stood by me wasn’t Hetch. I rubbed my eyes, blinked several times.
It was impossible.
“Jake?”
“Yeah, Brother. It’s me.” He laughed. Tears streamed down his face.