by A. J. Brown
I reached up. I was so weak I could barely grip his hand. His skin was real, his touch was real. It was my baby brother…and if he were there…
My eyes opened fully then. My heart sped up. “Bobby? Where’s Bobby?”
“He’s okay, Hank. He’s asleep.”
He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s okay.
That’s all I could think for several long seconds. My head dropped to the pillow as if I were completely exhausted though I was more relieved than anything else.
“Where is he?”
“Down the hall. I’ll wake him in a little bit. The poor kid’s had a rough few months.”
“Haven’t we all?” I asked.
“Yeah. I reckon so.”
Another thought dawned on me, and I tried to sit up, tried to scoot away from my baby brother. “You have to get out of here. I’m dying. I should already be dead… I…”
“You about scared the life right out of me is what you did.” Hetch came up beside Jake. His beard was gone. He wore clean clothes. His left arm was in a sling, and there were several fading cuts on his face.
“We beat on the door, and you didn’t answer, and that note you left…I just knew you were dead. When we found you…” he shook his head, tucked his lips in on each other. “You were sitting on the floor in the back bedroom, your shoes and socks off, that stupid shotgun by your side. If I didn’t think you were already dead, I would have killed you myself.”
“I was dying,” I said. “You never came back.”
“I did,” he argued. “If I wouldn’t have, you really would be dead and probably stumbling around that house you locked yourself in.”
“The biters. They were trying to break down the door. I heard them.”
“The only thing you heard were me and the soldiers.”
“Soldiers?”
“Yeah. The military—it’s still around. At least, what’s left of it.”
There were still soldiers. I chuckled.
“I thought you were dead.”
Hetch laughed this time. “I thought I was too. The van skidded off the road. I was an idiot—driving way too fast for conditions. I hit a patch of ice and spun out, went right off the road and into a ditch. Knocked me stone cold out. When I came to, the door of the van had been taken completely off, and a soldier was pulling me free from the wreckage.”
“Soldiers? Seriously?”
“Yeah. Seriously. They thought I was crazy when I told them of the healing water. But one of them knew the place and took me there.”
“Was there anyone there at the Healing Springs?”
“One man—an Indian.”
“Imeko?”
“Yeah, I think that’s his name.”
“Where were the others?”
“Others? It was just him and a stuffed teddy bear.”
“A stuffed teddy bear?” I smiled a little.
“Yeah. The old guy was sitting on one of the picnic tables with the bear in his lap.”
“The bear, was it wearing any clothes, maybe some bunny pajamas?”
Hetch’s face scrunched up, his brows creased down. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Humphrey.” I didn’t realize I spoke aloud, but Hetch responded.
“Yeah. That’s what the old man called it.”
“Called her.”
“What?”
“Humphrey’s a girl.”
“A girl?”
“Long story,” I said. “Is Imeko okay?”
“He’s alive and well, or as well as he can be. He was covered in snow. We thought he was frozen, but he looked at us when we drove up. We got what I needed and then tried to get him to come with us. He fought us every inch of the way, saying his people died there and he wished to do the same.”
“His people died there?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Is he here?”
“Yeah, but he’s not happy about it.”
“What about his granddaughter?”
“I told you, it was just him. There was no one with him. Just him and the teddy bear.”
This bothered me. I started to ask if he were sure but bit back the question.
“How long have I been out?”
“Six days.”
“Six days?”
“Yeah. I didn’t think you were going to make it. I had to keep one of the soldiers from putting a bullet in your head when we found you.”
“Thanks.” I meant it.
It was all so much to take in. Hetch being alive. Jake being alive. Bobby…Bobby being alive. I wanted so bad to get up from that bed and find him and hold him in my arms. There were other things I wanted as well. Questions filled my brain, threatening to make my head explode. Then he set a notepad on my bed. It was the same one I had written in as time ticked away the seconds and minutes of my fading life. I looked up at him.
“I thought you might want that.”
“Thanks,” I said. I opened it and flipped through the pages. My handwriting grew worse and worse as I got sicker and sicker. Some of it didn’t make much sense, and a lot of things were left out. I closed the notebook and nodded. I guess I did want there to be a record of me after all. (This is also the notebook I currently write in. This, I think, will be the last entry.)
“Where am I?” I finally asked after a long silence with me staring at a blood stain on the notebook. It had to be mine.
“Fort Survivor S.C. #3.”
“What?”
“That’s what they call this place. Fort Survivor S.C. #3.”
“Where are we—not the name of the place, the town?”
“Century Falls—it’s a little town in Lee County.”
“Is it safe here?”
“Safest place I’ve been in a long time.”
“We’re at the high school,” Jake said. “They built walls around it, dug a huge moat. There’s a little bridge—like a drawbridge—on one end. It stays up at all times except when someone comes and goes. Security is tight. No one comes in until they have been thoroughly checked over, strip search and all. Even then, they are quarantined until the docs can look them over. Hank, it’s safe.”
“How long have you been here, Jake?”
“Five, six weeks. Something like that.”
“And it’s safe here? You’re sure?”
“Hank, the dead can’t get in. I can show you if you like.”
“I’d like that.”
It was another couple hours before I was able to get out of bed. They told me it was four a.m. when I woke. By seven, I had eaten a bowl of oatmeal and showered—hot water and all—and was dressed in clean clothes. My stomach felt odd at first, probably from having actual food in it after being so sick.
“Can I see Bobby?”
Jake smiled. “Let him sleep, Brother—we’ll see him soon enough. Are you ready to see how safe this place is?”
Hetch and Jake led me out of the room. My legs were still unsteady, but after a few minutes of walking the halls of the high school, they began to feel stronger.
The sun was just coming up as we made our way outside. It was cold, and there was plenty of snow on the ground.
“It snowed a lot.”
“Too much,” Hetch responded.
We trudged across the ground, the snow crunching underfoot. I pulled my coat tight and shoved my hands in the pockets. My breath came out in plumes of white vapor. It was good to breathe.
The walls loomed higher than I expected. In my mind, I envisioned cars or trucks or maybe buses and semis surrounding the entire school, each one bumper to bumper but with enough gaps beneath them to allow a few biters to get through from time to time. What I saw was nothing like that.
The walls were concrete—prefabbed or otherwise didn’t matter—and easily twenty feet tall. There were ladders anchored to those walls. Every ten feet or so, a soldier stood, weapon in hand. They didn’t talk to one another. They stared out at the world beyond the school grounds.
“Come
on,” Hetch said and made his way to one of the ladders. I followed, but I moved much slower than he did. My legs and arms were tired by the time I reached the landing. The soldier said nothing to us as we moved closer to the edge of the wall.
From where I stood, I could see the moat. It was wide—thirty or forty feet—and maybe just as deep. Inside of it were hundreds of stakes; one end of each one was buried in the ground, the other end sharpened and pointing toward the sky. There were plenty of corpses in the moat, their bodies impaled on the stakes. Some of them still moving their arms and legs. I think I heard a couple of weak moans as well.
Beyond the moat and the stakes and the bodies was what was left of the town, which wasn’t much. Many of the buildings were destroyed, fires having done the bulk of the damage. I wondered if they had been burned down on purpose. Snow covered a lot of the black soot around the ruined buildings. There were hollowed out husks of cars lining the crumbled streets. It looked like someone had dropped a bomb on the town, and all that was left was the school.
A few biters shambled around but terribly slow, the cold weather hindering their movement.
We walked the wall the entire area around the school, coming up on what could be considered the front of the compound. The drawbridge was there in the up position. There were four men standing guard here, each with a rifle and all of them looking straight ahead.
Like the rest of the area around the school, the buildings and cars on that side were nothing more than rubble and shells, the skeletons of a previous life and time.
“Let’s go in,” Jake said. “You’re probably starving.”
I hadn’t noticed at that point, but he was right. I was more than starving. I was famished. The small breakfast I had eaten consisted of a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal and water.
Inside, we hung the coats on pegs near the entrance. The warmth of the building immediately began to thaw my frozen face and hands and feet. We made our way along the halls, all of them painted white, the lights brilliant in their glow. We passed a few people heading the opposite direction, mostly in groups of three or four but even a few loners who looked as content as full church mice.
A family of four walked past us. The older of the two children—a girl with red hair down to the middle of her back—was a teen. There was no mistaking that. The other child, a boy who was probably not quite to his teenage years, looked away as we approached. The man had dark hair and sunglasses, and he held the hand of the young woman he was with.
I did a double take. Her hair was long and brown. Her eyes were brown as well. She was tall, and there was something vaguely familiar about her. I stopped and watched them walk away.
“Hank, come on,” Hetch said. “Besides, that gal is obviously taken.”
I ignored him. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said and took a few awkward steps toward them.
They all looked back at me. Though I couldn’t see the man’s eyes, I knew there was suspicion in them. He stepped in front of the woman—on instinct, I’m sure.
The woman put her hand on his arm. They exchanged looks before he moved out of the way and let her approach me.
“Can I help you?”
I hesitated. It was her. It had to be her.
“Can I ask you something? I promise I’ll let you go on your way, but just let me ask you one question.”
She looked back at her man. He stood there, hands in his pockets. He looked like he could pound me pretty quickly if he felt like it. He shrugged and then nodded.
“What do you want to ask me?”
My throat felt very dry. I licked my lips, but that didn’t wet them the way I had hoped.
“Your name. Is it Cate?”
Her face said everything. Her mouth hung slightly open, and she cocked her head to the side just a little. “How did you know my name?” Her voice was like honey from the comb, sweet and smooth.
“I saw a picture of you—a wedding picture. It was in this house. A trailer. I took up shelter there for a few days. Your picture comforted me.”
Again, her face spoke volumes. Her brows creased down, and her eyes thinned. I wasn’t sure if she were angry or confused or what.
“My picture comforted you?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds crazy, but I was alone and talking to your picture…ummm…you know what? Never mind. I sound crazy. I know I do. But you saved my life. And I’m so happy you didn’t end up like most of the world.”
There was a long silence between us. Then Cate leaned forward and put her arms around me. “You’re welcome.” She let go and stepped back.
I nodded, a little shakily, before turning around and letting them go about their lives. My face was hot, and my heart felt good. It was like seeing an old friend you had lost contact with over the years.
The cafeteria was large, and there were maybe fifteen people there. Fifteen? Just a month ago, I thought I would never see that many people again in my life—all total. Now, it was a reality, and adding the three of us into that made eighteen. Eighteen people in one room. Unfathomable. And they were all sane.
They led me past the lunch tables and to the serving kitchen. There were four people in there, three men and a woman, all with nets on their heads and gloves on their hands. One of the men, a tall fellow with a gaunt face and glasses, stepped up to the counter.
“What’ll you have, mister?”
I looked to Jake and Hetch.
“Try the chicken noodle—it’s great,” Jake said. “Just like Mom used to make.”
Just like Mom used to make.
“That sounds good.”
And it was. Though it didn’t taste as good as Mom used to make, it still tasted better than anything I had in months. I ate the soup, drank down every last bit of the broth.
“That was great.”
“Why don’t we go find Bobby,” Jake said.
“Yeah. I’d love that.”
We stood from the table. I took my bowl back to the kitchen, handed it to another one of the workers—he wasn’t much bigger than the guy who had served me, but he had a warm, engaging smile.
“Thank you,” I said.
He obliged with a, “You’re welcome.”
My stomach rumbled but not from hunger. It cramped, and I let out a small grimace.
”What’s wrong, Hank?” Jake asked.
“My stomach’s not used to food, I guess—at least not good food.”
He left it at that, satisfied with my answer.
We were more than halfway back the way we came when we passed a door to the right. Inside sat an old man, his hair as white as the snow outside, his skin like brown leather. He sat on the floor, his legs crossed, hands on his knees. He rocked back and forth and hummed.
“Imeko?”
I stepped into the room, repeated his name.
He stopped humming and looked in my direction. His eyes were two coal embers peeking out from layers of eyelids and age.
“Walking man,” he said to me.
I didn’t understand what he meant. If he had said, “Walker, man,” I would have gotten it. But I wasn’t even sure he remembered me. He looked more fragile than when I had left him.
“Imeko. It’s me. Hank.”
“I am aware.”
“Where’s Alaya? Where’s your family?”
“Dead. All dead.”
“How?”
Imeko looked beyond me to Hetch and Jake in the doorway.
“Give us a minute,” I said.
Jake nodded and pulled the door closed.
“Imeko, how did your family die?”
“I killed them.”
“You killed them?”
“I killed them. If the dead didn’t get them, I did. It was all I could do.”
“What about Alaya? You wouldn’t have killed your granddaughter. You went through too much to save her.”
His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. His grip was firmer than I thought it would be.
“Especially Alaya. She…she was not right…” h
e tapped his forehead. “In here.”
He released my wrist and then looked away.
“She was not the same.”
With that, he stood, though it was a great effort for him. I tried to help him, but he pushed my hand away. Imeko walked an old man’s walk to the bed against the wall. I hadn’t noticed until then, but Humphrey sat on the bed, her bunny pajamas still on, the blood from Alaya’s wound dried and ground into the white material. He picked Humphrey up and held her out to me.
I took her with no hesitation. She didn’t speak to me at all. Not even when I spoke to her.
“It’s been a while, Humphrey. It’s good to see you.”
When she said nothing, I looked back to Imeko. There were tears in his eyes.
“Why did you keep the teddy bear?” I asked.
“To give back to you. Now, you be gone. Be gone from this place.”
“I don’t plan on leaving. Not for a long time.”
Imeko rounded the bed. He pointed at me and spoke angrily. “You leave this place. You…you’re not right in the head. You leave, and never come back. For your own sake.”
“Imeko, I just arrived.”
His face was fierce, his eyes like hot coals. “I’ve been given a vision from the gods. They said the walking man must go. If he stays, many will die. You are the walking man, and you must go. You belong out there, out with the dead souls.”
I backed away and shook my head. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you’ve lost your rocks, Imeko.”
“Leave me be. Leave us all be,” he said and went back to the middle of the room where he sat back down, crossed his legs, and began to rock forward then back, forward then back, humming as he did so.
A minute passed before I turned and left the room. I gave one last look back to Imeko, and sadness filled my heart.
“What was that all about?” Jake asked.
“Nothing important. He’s lost everything, including his mind.” We walked down the hall together, me with Humphrey in one hand, determined to forget Imeko and desperate to see my son. We rounded the corner to see a group of kids standing in the hall. One of them had blond hair that could use a good cutting. He was talking to a couple of others, mostly girls.
“Bobby?” I called, my voice quaking.
He turned. He looked so much like Jeanette. It was as if she chewed him up and spat him out. The blue eyes were hers. The blond hair also. He had my chin, but that was about it.