One Hour to Live

by Gary M. Chesla

  He wanted to go home and tell his dad one more time how much he appreciated all he had done for him.

  But the way his ass hurt, the pain that shot down his leg, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to make it home.

  “Shit,” Kevin said to himself as he looked around and realized that nothing looked familiar.

  He told himself to think, but his thoughts were getting fuzzy and his eye sight blurry.

  He put his hand to his forehead as he began to shiver all over as he felt the heat leaving his body.

  “Damn I feel cold to the bone,” Kevin said as he felt his head. His head felt cold to the touch.

  He looked at his hand as he lowered it from his forehead.

  He felt like he was watching someone else’s hand move in front of his face.

  His hands weren’t gray and old looking, were they?

  “This is happening a lot faster than I thought,” Kevin thought. “I’m never going to make it home at this rate, especially since I don’t know where the hell I am. Maybe I shouldn’t even try to go home.”

  Kevin envisioned himself turning into a zombie as his dad opened the door to let him inside the house.

  “I can’t do that to you Dad,” Kevin said out loud as he let himself drop into a sitting position on the ground.

  “I can’t think, and it’s starting to get worse. I’m never going to be able to find my way back home, at least not while I’m alive anyhow.”

  Kevin could feel the warm tears run down his cheeks as he thought about his dad and about growing up with his dad in Bolivar.

  Growing up in Bolivar, thinking about his family, his friends, Lisa, he realized how lucky he had been.

  He had thought about Lisa every day over the last year. His beautiful, sweet, crazy Lisa. His poor Lisa.

  God how he had loved that girl.

  He had had a good life. The key word being had.

  He hoped to be able to tell his dad what he seldom ever told him, “Thank You Dad, I love you.”

  But it seemed to Kevin he would be too late to say those words, again.

  His dad had always been there for him, even after everything else had been ripped away.

  He had hoped he would be able to be there for his dad, but that was no longer going to be possible.

  The least, or now the most he would be able to do, was to tell his dad Thank You, apologize for all he should have said and done over the years and wish him well.

  Kevin struggled to get to his feet.

  “I’ll give it five more minutes,” he thought to himself, “if I don’t know where the hell I am by then, I’ll turn around and hope that I go somewhere far away where my dad will never see me again. It would probably be better that way. Better he doesn’t see me like this and doesn’t know what happened to me.”

  Kevin struggled along on the path.

  Even with his mind beginning to fade, he knew he didn’t have much time left. He knew he would probably never see his home or his dad again.

  But he needed to try.

  Kevin had seen many people get bitten by zombies and turn into zombies themselves.

  He had often wondered if those that he had seen turn into zombies ever remembered anything about their lives or if their minds were just blank and they didn’t remember a damn thing.

  If their minds were as dead as their bodies, they probably didn’t remember anything at all.

  But did their minds go all at once or did they lose their memories gradually over a few days.

  “I guess I’m going to find out,” Kevin thought. “If I’m going to die, please just let me die and be over with it. At least if my body has been condemned to wander the earth for eternity, let my brain die so I don’t know who the hell I am or who I was.”

  It would be hell to spend eternity with his memories.

  Kevin continued to stagger down the path.

  The pain was spreading through his entire body now as he struggled to move. He could feel the cold creeping through his body.

  He felt strange, it was a feeling he had never felt before.

  However, he knew he was still partially himself, at least for a short time longer anyhow, as a smile ran across his mind even if not on his face, as he heard himself say, “Fucking zombies!”

  Chapter 4

  September, One year ago

  Kevin drove his old Subaru Impreza down Route 259.

  The old rusty metal one lane suspension bridge that would carry him over the Conemaugh River and into his hometown of Bolivar had just come into view as he crested the hill.

  The dirty orange/brown color of the rusty structure would have given Kevin second thoughts about crossing the bridge if he hadn’t lived here all his life.

  The bridge didn’t look like it would be able to handle the weight of his little Subaru, but he knew it would since he had crossed the bridge safely many times.

  Kevin remembered when he was a kid, the bridge had been a bright silver color and had been able to handle the weight of dozens of cars and trucks at one time.

  He remembered when he and his dad would drive across the bridge on their way to visit relatives in Robinson, they would often have to wait in line for many minutes for their turn to get on to the bridge because there was so much traffic crossing the bridge to get in and out of Bolivar.

  “Someone should paint this bridge,” Kevin thought as he drove over the bridge, “and fix the damn potholes!”

  Kevin swore as his car jolted his spine as it bounced hard in and out of one of the bridge’s many ruts and holes.

  It had been years since any one had bothered to do any repair work on the old bridge.

  Kevin quickly looked down at the tire pressure warning light on his dash as it began to flash a bright yellow color.

  His right front tire had a slow leak that had been giving him problems all week.

  Every time he hit a bump, the light would come on and have him looking for a service station so he could add air to the tire before it would go flat.

  Bolivar no longer had a service station, but Kevin knew his dad had an air pump.

  All he had to do was hope the tire didn’t go entirely flat before he made it home.

  Kevin wasn’t concerned, he would be home in a few minutes now.

  He also knew he could easily walk home from here, if he had to.

  Living in Bolivar all his life, he never seemed to notice how much the appearance of the town had changed over the years.

  He had gone to Indiana University to start his Junior year three weeks ago.

  Having been away at school in Indiana for a few weeks, a brisling modern college town, the appearance of the rundown boarded up buildings that greeted him as he drove into Bolivar seemed to scream out at him as if he was just now seeing the town for what is was for the first time.

  It was the same feeling that came over him every time he came home from college to visit his dad.

  Kevin guessed it was like his dad had once told him about his hair.

  Kevin’s dad was bald.

  He had lost his hair gradually over the last twenty years.

  Kevin remembered how he and his dad had laughed when his dad told him that he didn’t mind being bald. He said he would have rather had a full head of hair, but not having hair on his head wasn’t the end of the world. However, if he would have awakened one day, looked in the mirror and discovered that all his hair had fallen out over night, he probably would have had a stroke or a heart attack.

  As Kevin began to drive through Bolivar, seeing all the boarded-up buildings in the dead near ghost town, all his old hangouts now closed, he knew his hometown was like his dad’s hair.

  If Kevin would have got up one day, remembering what the town had been like when he was a kid, and saw what he was seeing today, he would have had a stroke.

  Having lived here all his life as the town slowly died, Kevin had not paid a lot of attention to the changes slowly going on around him.

  He felt a little sad as he reme
mbered growing up here, as he did each time he came home from school.

  Kevin had studied about the depression years in the country and the rust belt. The towns that had disappeared during the depression as companies went out of business, leaving thousands of unemployed to search for work so they could feed their families.

  He had always thought that conditions like that were only things that happened in the past. Kevin never thought that something like this would ever happen in his lifetime, especially in his hometown.

  He had such good memories of life in Bolivar.

  It was hard to accept that everything changes, often to you and not just to other people, towns or countries.

  Kevin felt old as he drove into town.

  The movie theatre, closed and boarded up, still had faded movie posters advertising, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

  A few letters were still clinging to the marquee, the other letters advertising the movie had fallen off years ago.

  The window, where the teller had sat and sold tickets, was also long gone.

  Kevin remembered going to the theatre to watch movies. He also remembered the sad day when it had closed.

  DiRenaldo’s Shoe Store was next to the movie theatre. His dad bought Kevin’s school shoes here every year, along with his own steel toed work shoes. The store was boarded up now like most of the other buildings in town.

  The “For Sale” sign was still nailed to the front of the building. The sign had been on the building for years. The realtor that had listed the building had closed and left town before Kevin started college.

  Saint Mary’s, where Kevin’s family had gone to church when he was young, now had a sign on the front of the building that said it was the community center.

  Since there was no longer much of a community, the community center, like just about everything else in Bolivar, sat empty.

  His mother had been buried in the cemetery next to the community center when the building was still a church.

  His mother had died when he was young.

  For most of his life in Bolivar, it had been just him and his dad.

  When the mines closed and the town started to die, his dad didn’t want to leave Bolivar.

  Kevin always figured it was because his mother had been buried here and his dad didn’t want to leave her, or maybe his dad just couldn’t walk away from everything that had been his entire life.

  Kevin intended to move elsewhere when he graduated college, but if he was his dad, he wasn’t sure what he would do.

  Bolivar had been his dad’s entire life, he grew up here, raised a family here. It would be so much more to leave behind than Kevin had to leave.

  The smell of the sulfur creek, that disgusting smell of rotten eggs, shook Kevin out his trip down memory lane as he crossed the small bridge that took him over the creek that ran through the middle of Bolivar and took him to his side of town.

  He was almost home.

  Two blocks later, next to Miller’s Service Station that was also closed, he pulled the Subaru into the short dirt driveway and parked next to his dad’s old blue Chevy pickup truck.

  His dad was half way across the yard by the time Kevin got out of his car.

  “Kevin,” Bob smiled warmly, “how was the drive home?”

  Bob walked up to Kevin and gave him a warm hug.

  “It was an easy drive today Dad, not much traffic this time,” Kevin replied. “How is your back? You don’t look like you are having any problems walking today.”

  “I went to rehab this morning,” Bob replied, “the doctor says that as long as I take my pain pills and go to rehab each week to keep my back limber, I shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “That’s good,” Kevin smiled.

  Kevin noticed his dad staring at the front of the Subaru.

  “You’re getting a flat tire,” Bob finally said.

  “I hit a damn pothole coming over the bridge into town,” Kevin replied. “Are they ever going to fix that damn bridge?”

  “I doubt it,” Bob smiled, “at least I hope not.”

  “Why would you hope that?” Kevin asked.

  “My taxes would go up,” Bob laughed. “Since I’m almost the last resident of Bolivar, I don’t think I could afford the increase.”

  Kevin laughed.

  “I see your point,” he smiled, “Make yourself mayor and raise Old Bill’s taxes.”

  “That would really piss him off,” Bob laughed again, “good idea. You can tell him that when he comes over for dinner tonight. I took him with me to New Florence this morning to buy some chicken for us to barbeque on the grill. I told him to stop over because I knew he would be happy to see you.”

  “As long as he doesn’t ride my ass again about having a Japanese car,” Kevin said.

  “He’ll be civil tonight,” Bob replied, “I told him I made you buy it because it was the only car we could afford. He can’t understand why people buy foreign cars, but he can understand not having any money and only buying what you can afford.”

  “It’s nice to be home,” Kevin said as he looked at the house. “I have to admit the sight of the town always shocks me when I come home, even though I know what to expect.”

  “The town shocks me every day when I come out of the house,” Bob replied. “It’s sure has changed a lot over the years, but it’s still home.”

  “Did you ever think of leaving and moving somewhere else?” Kevin asked. “Someplace with more people, a gas station or a diner where you could go for coffee every morning. You might enjoy having those things again.”

  “Nah,” Bob replied. “I’m getting too old to leave, besides there are too many good memories here. Everything about this place reminds me about you, your mother, your grandparents, about all of us during the good days. I would miss that if I were to leave. At your age, you probably don’t understand that, but trust me, someday you will understand.”

  Kevin smiled, “I think I understand. The memories of the old days flood my mind every time I cross that old bridge when I come home.”

  “The old days,” Bob laughed. “You don’t know the meaning of the old days yet, but I’m glad you still enjoy coming home to visit your old man.”

  “Well if I could borrow you air pump to pump up my tire,” Kevin said, “then we could put that chicken on the grill. I hope you bought a lot of chicken, I’m starving.”

  Old Bill watched closely as Kevin removed the chicken from the grill.

  “I think you should have gone to culinary school instead of business school,” Bill said. “I’ve never seen anyone that can grill a chicken breast like you can.”

  “I don’t really like to cook,” Kevin replied, “I just like to eat. After mom died, I soon discovered that if I wanted to eat I had to learn to cook. Dad couldn’t cook worth shit.”

  Bill laughed, “I found that out the first time I came over to eat with Mac after you left for school. No one can destroy a good chicken breast like your old man.”

  “So, you and Dad don’t eat together as much since I left?” Kevin asked.

  “No. we still get together to eat every other day,” Bill smiled, “The food tastes like shit but he always has a lot of cold beer to wash it down with. I like his beer.”

  Kevin laughed, “Have you two done any hunting lately? I remember how you guys always liked to go deer and squirrel hunting. I don’t think either of you were very good at it, but you seemed to have fun trying.”

  “We went out last week and got two squirrels,” Bill answered and grinned, “Your old man turned them into charcoal trying to grill them. In a way, I was sort of relieved. I didn’t have to try and eat them.”

  Kevin laughed.

  “So, we just sat around and drank beer and got shit faced,” Bill smiled. “We went out the last two days to try again, but I don’t know what the hell is going on around here, we didn’t see anything. We don’t always get something when we go hunting, but we always see lots of animals. The last two days it has been quiet as hell ou
t in the woods. We didn’t even see any birds. I don’t know what it is, but I just have a feeling something is going on. Who knows, maybe the animals are fed up with this old town and decided to move on like we should have done.”

  “Maybe winter is moving in early this year,” Kevin said.

  “I don’t know if that’s it,” Bill replied. “Even in winter there are always some kind of critters running around. Hell, even the pigeons are gone. On the bright side, I haven’t had to clean bird shit off my car’s windshield for two days now.”

  Kevin sat the plate of barbequed chicken down on the picnic table in the back yard.

  He looked around at the trees, “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed until your mentioned it, I don’t hear or see any birds. That sure is strange. They are always making a racket out here. Bill, didn’t you ever think about moving?”

  “Where would I go?” Bill replied. “I don’t have any family anywhere. Your old man is as close to a family that I have. Besides, I’m too old. No one would give me a job at my age so I might as well just stay here and drink your old man’s beer.”

  “Speak of the devil, here comes the beer,” Bill said as he turned at the sound of the screen door on the back-porch slamming shut.

  Bob came out of the house with a six pack in one hand and another plate of chicken in his other hand.

  Bill grabbed the six pack of Iron City beer as Bob handed Kevin the plate of chicken.

  “Here put some more chicken on the grill. Lisa and her parents are going to stop over to visit,” Bob said.

  Bill grinned, “Didn’t you and that Lisa have a thing before you left for college?”

  “We dated a few times,” Kevin smiled. “I don’t know if you would call that a thing.”

  “I thought you and Lisa spent a lot of time together that summer before you left for school. When was the last time you saw her?” Bill asked as a sly grin spread across his face.