Transcendent 2

by Bogi Takács

  Would it rot? These things didn’t seem to be really alive. Besides the grayish pallor to the skin it didn’t look like it had been rotting and it didn’t smell like rotting meat either. It obvious didn’t need or have much blood judging by the missing foot.

  What did people in movies do with dead zombies? Leave them lying around? If I wasn’t behind my apartment building that might have been an option. But I didn’t want dead bodies lying all around.

  So I needed to move it, but where? I needed to at least move it away from my apartment building. The complex was four buildings, two buildings on a side facing inward. Parking spaces in front of the building with extra against the back fence. The zombie had chased me between two of the buildings until we reached the back of the buildings, where I had stood my ground. The wooden fence around the complex meant I was mostly hidden from prying eyes. Ideally I should remove it from the complex but I had no way to move it other than dragging the body. I decided to haul it to the back corner of the complex near the fence. It would be out of sight and hopefully far enough away that if it did start to rot I wouldn’t have to smell it.

  I walked back to the body and stood over it. I avoided looking too hard at the ruined mess that was left of the head. Its arms were bare, meaning I had to touch its flesh. Grabbing one of its wrists, I grimaced at the cold flesh. No, not cold, just not warm like a person. It was firm and dry, not squishy and wet like the rotting meat I thought the zombies were made of. With a wrist in each hand I began pulling against the body’s weight.

  It didn’t move, at first. I threw my weight back and managed to jerk the body forward a few inches. Again I put my weight into pulling the body and dragged it a few feet before its foot snagged on a crack in the concrete. Slowly, I jerkily dragged it past the apartment buildings to the fence.

  My first zombie kill. It had been a lot messier than movies made it out to be. I was covered in stuff that I really didn’t want to think too hard about. If I didn’t know these zombies weren’t infectious, that you had to actually die to become one, I might have been worried instead of just disgusted. I walked back to the scene of the crime and picked up my bat from where I had left it while dragging the body. What if another one of those things had come along? Trying to fight one without a weapon was not something I wanted to think about. I needed to keep my weapons close at all times.

  Wait, I thought, it was a cop. I walked back to the body and checked its belt. Empty holster, a couple magazines? clips? of bullets for the missing gun, pepper spray, a small flashlight, and handcuffs. Would pepper spray work on zombies? Probably not but it would work on other humans. I took it and the flashlight.

  Once back in the apartment, I locked the door, refortified it, and walked straight to the bathroom.

  Half an hour later I was physically and mentally clean of zombie head gore. I dropped my shirt and pants in a trash bag. Before everything went to hell, I would have tried to salvage them. The pants especially, since before I didn’t have many pairs and wasn’t exactly rolling in cash. If things went well on my trip, I wouldn’t have to worry about clothes. If they didn’t, I still wouldn’t need to worry either.

  I re-dressed for my first trip out into the new world. T-shirt and jeans for ease of movement. A sports bra in case I had to run. My hair was pulled back into a sporty ponytail. I dug a duffel bag out of the closet and adjusted the strap until it was tight against my back. Baseball bat and pepper spray for protection.

  I moved the sofas from in front of the door and peered through the peephole. I didn’t see anyone. Was I being too cautious? The deadbolts scraped and squeaked as I twisted the knobs to open them. I reminded myself to get oil. From the main entrance to the apartment complex I headed north, staying close to the complex’s fence while looking around. At the corner I looked down the cross street. No one in sight. I dashed across the open ground of the first intersection to the relative cover of the nearest house. The smaller residential street I had been following met a larger four-lane street bordered by a few small businesses. I stopped by the dry cleaner on the corner and looked around. On the other side of the street was the convenience store. Around it was lots of open ground. Good for me to see zombies, bad for me to have to cross.

  The area between me and the store looked clear. Farther away I saw motion in my periphery. At least I thought I had.

  There was nothing there when I focused on the area. Maybe it had gone behind something. I looked around again, seemed clear. It was now or never. I separated from the dry cleaner’s wall and began walking to the convenience store. Across the dry cleaner’s parking lot, the four-lane street, and across the store’s parking lot. I kept a steady pace while looking around, especially behind me, until I reached the front doors.

  As I pulled open one of the doors I realized I wasn’t the first person to come by. The store was almost stripped clean. I began searching anyway. A package of Snoballs on a rack and a couple cans of beans on the floor. Bags of chips torn open, their contents spilled all over the floor. They crunched under my shoes as I walked between the aisles looking for anything else that had been left behind. I heard chips crunch behind me. Spinning around, I raised my baseball bat and found myself face to face with a skinny white guy also holding a baseball bat. He flinched and jumped back. I stopped, heart beating fast, teeth gritted, panic flooding my mind.

  “Whoa, whoa I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said releasing one hand from the bat and holding it palm out. “I wasn’t sure if you were a zombie or not.”

  My panic faded as I breathed slow and deep. I grabbed a shelf to steady myself as the post-panic dizziness set in.

  “Hey, are you okay?” He looked at me, concerned, as I tried not to collapse.

  “Yeah, just give me a minute,” I wheezed.

  “Okay, um…I’m Andy,” he said.

  “Lisa,” I replied. Andy’s brow furrowed slightly. I cleared my throat, smiled, and said in my most feminine voice, “Hi, I’m Lisa.” He smiled, mollified by my femme voice.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “I was looking for water and food.” I stood up straighter.

  “Why?” he asked, “The water is still running here. Did it stop where you were staying?”

  “Not yet but when it does I want to have some water around.”

  “Good point,” he said.

  “Looks like you got cleaned out,” I said gesturing around the store.

  “Yeah, when the power went out I tried to close the store but the customers didn’t want to leave and started taking stuff. Some of them started fighting, so I locked myself in the back room until they left.”

  “You were here alone?”

  “No one else would work. I was the only one not to bail on my manager. I kind of wish I had now.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since the power went out. A week, maybe a little more.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave?”

  “I don’t have a car and no one was answering the phone at home. I didn’t want to try walking with everything that was going down. What about you, why are you still here?”

  “No car either and I couldn’t get in touch with anyone.” I pointed at the chip-covered floor, “Did you do this?”

  “Part of it. When they started grabbing stuff, some chip bags got busted open and dropped. I just spread them out. I thought it would help to alert me to someone coming into the store.” He grinned at his cleverness.

  “You could have just locked the door,” I said, “I guess I’m going to have to look somewhere else for water.”

  “There’s a pallet of bottled water in the back,” he said. “And I packed everything they didn’t take back there too.” I looked toward the open door he had come from. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. I would share…” he halfheartedly offered.

  “No,” I said turning back to face him, “You have to protect what you have. I’d do the same.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, “Hey are you s
taying some place nearby?”

  “Uh…I don’t think…” I trailed off, not sure how to say, “I don’t trust you.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. Sorry I asked.”

  “No, it’s not like that. I don’t know you. You don’t know me either, remember. You have your storeroom with water and who knows what else that you need to protect. You don’t know if I’m going to kill you for your water and food.”

  “I don’t think you would—” he protested.

  “But I might. You should start thinking like that.” I already had, apparently.

  “I should start thinking everyone is out to get me?” he asked.

  “Look at this place. They took everything they could and that was before it got really bad. When I spun around, I could have killed you. I almost did out of instinct. I could have taken everything you have.” He paled as I talked. I might not be as strong as I used to be but I was still taller and a little bigger than him. “I’m going to go now. Lock the door after me.”

  “Wait, you can’t just leave me here alone,” he pleaded.

  “I…I can’t trust you either. You could leave. Try to find a house nearby to hole up in,” I said.

  “Is that where you’re staying?”

  I locked eyes with him, “If you follow me I will kill you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know you. I can’t trust you,” I stated. Guess I was over being shy with my emotions.

  “Come on, this isn’t some post-apocalyptic wasteland. Everything was normal a couple weeks ago. Why wouldn’t you trust me?”

  I turned and walked a few steps away from him, putting a shelf unit between us, before turning back, “I’m transgender.”

  “What does that mean?” he asked confused.

  “It means when I was born the doctor looked between my legs and said, ‘It’s a boy,’ and everyone believed him but I’m not.”

  “You’re a guy?” his brow furrowed.

  “No, I’m a woman, just—a different kind of woman.” I watched him thinking through it. Watching for him for signs of violence.

  “You have a dick?” he finally asked.

  “Yes,” I watched his eyes flick back and forth, his face scrunched up in confusion, “And that is why I can’t trust you. Right now you’re trying to decide how to treat me now that you know I’m a woman with a penis. You’re trying to decide if I’ve tricked you. You’re trying to decide if you should be angry. You are trying to decide if you should attack me.”

  “I…I…”

  “It’s okay, I’ll see myself out.” I walked down the aisle away from him and made my way to the door. I turned back to him and said, “Don’t forget to lock the door after me.”

  He said nothing, just watched me leave.

  I walked away from the store, past the dead pumps, the package of Snoballs still in my hand. I thought for a second about taking it back as some sort of peace offering for rejecting him. No, I thought, I have the right to be defensive. They’ve always killed us but now there really was nothing to stop them.

  A few hundred feet ahead, a superstore loomed over a mostly deserted parking lot.

  Happy REGARDS

  • RoAnna Sylver •

  ONE MONTH BEFORE CHAMELEON MOON…

  It was Evelyn Calliope’s birthday, and for one day everything was almost perfect. It almost seemed like Parole stopped being Parole. Her small house was full even on ordinary days. Full of plants, machines, people, and laughter. And today it was filled with balloons, brightly wrapped presents, and the smell of delicious treats slowly baked to perfection.

  The first surprise came a day early, and it wasn’t for Evelyn. Not exactly.

  “That’s a pretty drawing, honey,” Rose said as she sat down beside Jack and his collection of papers and crayons, all in varying shades of red and green. “Is that a cake?”

  “Mm-hmm.” He nodded, adding another slightly more magenta, pointed shape to the top, completing the circle. He had a faraway look in his eyes that Rose knew well; she’d seen it often enough when Danae started work on an especially intricate project, or Evelyn was writing a new song. She supposed if she looked in the mirror when she was deep in thought, she’d see it in her own eyes. But this might have been the first time she’d seen it in her son. Maybe he’d discovered his calling, she thought with a little thrill. They hadn’t had a visual artist in the family yet that she knew about. Or maybe he just got really excited about baked goods. “Tomorrow.”

  “That’s right!” Rose resisted her delighted urge to pick him up and hug him; that might break him out of his newly discovered creative groove. “It is Mama Ev’s birthday tomorrow!”

  “Mm-hmm.” He nodded again, still not looking up. He added a rectangular shape around the cake, like a frame, or as if it were floating in a doorway, held by unseen hands, or suspended by invisible strings. “Strawberries.”

  “Her favorite.” She grinned. The warm love and pride that swelled in her chest was one of her favorite feelings, and Rose tried to savor like she did every time. The memory would make the next hard Parole day go a little easier. “What a wonderful idea. We’ll bake her a strawberry cake—a bunch just came in the other day too! Perfect timing!”

  Now he looked up, shaking his head a little bit as if just now coming out of a daydream. “Is it a good present?”

  “The cake? It’s the best. She’ll be so glad you remembered!”

  “No, this! It’s not done yet.” He held up the drawing, eyes entirely clear and focused on Rose now. When he smiled, it was filled with pride in his work, though he still watched carefully as his mother took in the art, then the artist. Now it was her turn to look dreamy for just a moment, imagining all the art and birthdays to come. “Will she be happy?”

  “I can’t think of anything she’d love more. It’ll be a perfect day.” Even in Parole, they still happened from time to time.

  So when the next day came, Jack stood on a chair to reach the kitchen table, working with two of his mothers to create that elusive perfect day for the third. The house was decorated, bright, and cheerful, but the cake wasn’t quite done, and Evelyn was taking the night off to come home early. She’d be home soon, and every minute counted. In front of him was the masterpiece he’d designed—or soon, it would be. The kitchen was warm and filled with the mouthwatering smell of oven-fresh cake, and the fact that so much frosting had gone onto its hubcap-sized surface and not into their mouths was a testament to their dedication. Nobody was beyond temptation, but at least the cake was getting done.

  And the top did read “Happy Birthday Evelyn” now, in bright red letters.

  Strawberries, big as both his small hands put together, pointed up around the top of the red-frosted cake in a ring like the points on a crown, and Jack and Danae were halfway around when they ran out. Rose went to politely request some more of her homegrown ingredients (it was very important to be clear with your intentions and say please and thank you, she reminded Jack before heading into the adjacent, skylight-bright and vine-thick room, petting the head of a giant Venus flytrap as she went), leaving Jack and Danae to continue painting more red icing and food coloring onto any missed spots and sneaking licks off the spoons.

  This kind of normal was the strangest thing in Parole.

  And it never lasted.

  Danae and Jack both jumped as a shrill cat’s screech cut through the air, followed by thunderous barking. Then, the rapid, harsh scraping of metal claws against wood and tile.

  “Dandy?” Danae called, voice instantly tight with anxiety at the guard dog’s alarmed bark, putting down the large bowl of red icing and turning around quickly, just in time to see a metallic animal zip into the kitchen from her open workshop door.

  It wasn’t Toto-Dandy. It was much smaller, and even though it didn’t look quite finished—more like a metal skeletal frame with a more-completed head than a fully formed animal—it moved much more like a cat, crouching low, almost flat, and scooting along the ground. It zigza
gged wildly around the kitchen, briefly scrabbling at the kitchen door, before it ricocheted out into the hallway, ears flattened against its shining head. A moment later, Dandy himself followed, bursting into the room with a much louder, wilder, entirely doglike bluster.

  “Oh no.” Danae paled, face filling with rapidly growing horror. “Dandy, no. Stay!”

  The huge, black-fur and shining-steel wolf paused for a moment, staring at his two surprised humans as if weighing his options. Then he chose one. Toto-Dandy dove after the cat toward the living room in a fresh explosion of barks and answering furious yowls.

  Crash.

  Toto-Dandy was not always one of her more graceful creations. On his way out, the huge metal wolf slammed into the kitchen table, and everything on it jolted to the side and a good three inches into the air, including the lovingly crafted cake.

  “No…”

  Breathless, paralyzed, Danae watched it happen from across the kitchen, but it might as well have been from a mile away. Horrified, she couldn’t move a muscle—then she moved all at once. Her legs were propelling her forward before she knew to jump, arms outstretched, but she was too late and too far; she would never make it in time. The cake and its plate slipped off the table, fell—

  And landed safely in Jack’s waiting arms. The huge cake was almost too heavy, too unwieldy, too much, but he planted his small feet and stood firm.

  “Good!” Danae almost collapsed with relief before she reached him, but managed to steady herself, and then Jack, keeping herself between him and the noisy animals still yowling and barking up a storm in the living room behind her. “Oh, good job, Jack, you’re my hero. You are my absolute hero.”

  “I was just in the right place at the right time,” he said, and she had to laugh. One of Evelyn’s favorite saving-the-day phrases. Kids really did pick things up fast. Looked like he’d picked up the truth-and-justice part too.