The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1)

by McBain, Tim

  He stood in the dusty spot the birds had just vacated, licking his lips in excitement. A dead raccoon lay at his feet. The animal’s belly had swollen up so big that it pushed all of its legs straight out. He thought it looked funny, like a volley ball with limbs and fur.

  He knelt to gather up the road kill and shove it into the duffel bag with the others. He’d always loved animals.

  Mitch

  Bethel Park, Pennsylvania

  42 days before

  The sound of video game violence blared from the next room, the boys finding solace in blowing off heads with shotgun blasts. He sat at the kitchen table making calls. Nobody was picking up. He stared into the circle of light reflecting off of the wood tabletop with the phone pressed to his ear, listening to it ring, knowing the person on the other end wouldn’t pick up since none of them did.

  He’d returned home, a place he never thought he’d be again. Something about it reminded him of an injured dog crawling under the porch to die.

  He tapped his toe at the linoleum, swished the other socked foot back and forth. Janice always hated when he did that. It turned the bottom of his white sock black. Nothing to worry about now. The phone rang and rang and rang in his ear, and then it cut off, and a robot voice asked him to leave a message. He hung up.

  He and Janice had never really made friends in Bethel Park. Not really. He’d moved them here for a job, and the family had kept to themselves. He regretted that now. Being retired, her dad and his new wife had moved in nearby when the kids were born to do all of the babysitting and the like. Outside of work he didn’t know anyone, and he certainly didn’t know anyone that he’d be comfortable leaving the kids with aside from the grandparents.

  The only people he could think of were the parents of Kevin and Matt’s friends, but none of them had answered, and he wasn’t all that comfortable with the notion to begin with. It didn’t seem right to set the fate of his family into the hands of people he barely knew, but he had to try something. Maybe one of these families could watch them until the grandparents were tracked down. That’d be a start.

  He hung up on another voicemail greeting, thumbed through his contact list to find another number, selected it. As it rang, he ran his finger along the smooth wood before him, tracing along the perimeter of the circle of light there. His touch skimmed along the surface, just barely making contact so it tingled in his fingertip.

  He switched hands, holding the phone with his left now. His right index finger dragged along the table, just as the left had, but no tickling occurred. He had jammed this finger into a car cigarette lighter when he was a kid. The first two times he did it, he’d waited until it faded from red to black and it was still hot but not incredibly so. Just hot enough to feel interesting, to almost sting. The third time, it faded to black very quickly, and touching it sent a poke all through him. The pain shot like a bolt from a crossbow from his finger to his elbow, gave him that spinal reaction where his hand withdrew and dropped the lighter to the floor before he even felt it. He held his finger up to his face, seeing a blackened version of his fingerprint in place, ash which smeared off along with the rest of the tip when he wiped it on the seat. It didn’t truly hurt until after the smear. He cried for hours, though he never really noticed a lack of sensitivity in that finger until just now.

  No answer again. Of course.

  Daylight faded outside, the sky achieving those gray shades that set in just before the sun goes down. He couldn’t see the black smoke looking out the window from this vantage point, just a clear sky. Staring into the blank heavens a while, he could almost believe society wasn’t collapsing out there, that his body wasn’t betraying him from the inside, disease conquering his innards piece by piece. Sitting here, he could glimpse how things used to be, when it felt like he had no real worries, like he could look forward to movies and football games and beer forever.

  If you block out most of the view, you can live in paradise, he thought. Not for long, but for a while. It’s not real, of course, but what you see is what you believe. Is that the best anyone can do, though? Construct a false paradise to live in for a little bit?

  Anyway, none of it mattered. Not anymore. He shifted in his seat, and the black smoke became visible in the corner of the window.

  His thumb swiped through the contacts again. He’d run through them all now and would need to start retrying. It felt hopeless.

  Movement caught his eye. The circle of light reflecting off of the tabletop flickered, dimming down to a faint glimmer that pulsed like a strobe. He looked up at the fixture above as the illumination swelled back toward full power. Just as his eyes connected with the orb of light glowing down on his head, it winked out.

  Shade overtook the room. The house went silent aside from the ticking of the grandfather clock, the video game gun noises suddenly cutting off.

  The power was out.

  Teddy

  69 days after

  Moundsville, West Virginia

  He pulled the dead animals from the bag one by one and laid them in the grass. He’d learned not to dump them out all at once. The burst abdomen of a groundhog taught him that lesson the hard way. Its slimy gray guts slid out and spread over the rest of the road kill like a puddle of gore. He was used to bad odors, but that smell made him vomit immediately. Never again.

  Decent haul today. He’d landed three squirrels, though one was flattened, a rabbit and the raccoon. These should work well, he thought. People had always told him not to pick up road kill, not to play with it, not to put it in his locker at school. But everyone was gone. Nobody could tell him what to do anymore.

  Funny to think back and know how much trouble animals had nearly caused him. Back before everything went to shit, he was a garbage man. Manned the back of the truck for four years, and he never lost his fascination with the rear loading machine. He threw in bags of garbage, pulled the lever and the blade would come swinging down to pull all of the trash together and squish it into something tiny. Then the tiny bit would get pushed off into the pile.

  He could throw anything in there and watch the machine make it tiny. Some things, tall things like the pole from a basketball hoop, would take a few runs. The machine would bust off a piece of the pole and crush it, then another and another. In the end, though, it’d be tiny like all the rest.

  He loved his job, loved to watch the garbage water squish everywhere once that blade did its thing, loved the sound of different items being destroyed. He lived to throw in new things: lamps, recliners, big screen TVs, microwaves.

  One day he watched a black and white cat paw at a garbage can up ahead. It got scared of the truck’s noise and ran into some bushes as they got closer, but he called it over. He kneeled down and cupped his hand to make it look like he had a treat for it. The cat hesitated for a second and then trotted to him. The fact that he reeked like garbage juice might have helped, too. He wasn’t sure.

  He felt a tingle run up and down his entire body when he tossed the cat in and pulled the lever, a surge of energy that made all of his hairs stand on end. The blade swung down. This popping noise was different than any of the others. It made him hard right away. He had to put his jacket in front of it before they went to the next house, and he barely stopped giggling the whole rest of the day.

  Even now, he laughed thinking about that sound. It was like something from a cartoon. Like Wile E. Coyote splatting against a rock wall.

  He got three cats and two dogs that week.

  And now he handled more dead animals, picking at the pieces of road kill he’d gathered and laying them out in their proper spots, waiting for them to help him find new pets to play with.

  Erin

  Presto, Pennsylvania

  37 days after

  Something dark stirred in the front yard. A big, black dog. She could tell something was off, though. It wasn’t moving right. It was writhing. Twitching. Erin grabbed the back of Izzy’s t-shirt to stop her. They did not tangle with dogs.

 
; “What is it?” Izzy said, and even though she’d said it quietly, it was enough.

  It burst toward them, but at the same time it exploded, breaking into half a dozen pieces that flew into the sky. Erin pulled Izzy backwards a few steps before she realized it wasn’t a dog at all, but a group of buzzards.

  They swarmed overhead in a low circle, not ready to give up their meal just yet. One of the birds broke from the flock. It swooped down and perched on the top of a white pickup truck parked in the driveway, head angled sideways to better watch them.

  Erin moved forward, but Izzy didn’t budge.

  “I don’t like them.”

  “It’s alright. They only eat dead stuff.”

  “But they’re huge!”

  Erin didn’t deny it. At this proximity, they seemed pretty imposing for giant garbage-eating chickens.

  For some reason, she thought of the time a seagull had shat on her head. It was on a school field trip to the museum, and they were outside eating lunch in a little courtyard. She felt the wet splat hit her skull, felt the ooze of liquid seep through her hair and drip onto her scalp. And her first thought was that she hoped no one had noticed. For some reason, it made her feel embarrassed. And vulnerable. Like at any moment, the whole class would turn toward her so they could point and laugh at the white splotch on her head.

  As calmly as possible, she made her way to the bathroom. She grabbed a wad of the crappy industrial-grade toilet paper and pressed it to her head. Her face was bright red in the mirror, and standing there staring back at herself, tears started to form in her eyes. It seemed like a bit of an over-reaction, and yet there she was. On the brink of crying because a bird pooped on her.

  Thinking back on it now, all she could think was that she'd let a hilarious, once-in-a-lifetime situation go to waste because she'd been too self-conscious. Too worried that someone would laugh at her.

  She took a deep breath and announced it to the world.

  "One time a bird crapped on my head.”

  Lines formed on Izzy’s forehead. "What?"

  "Yep." Erin held her fist over her head, then spread her fingers, mimicking an explosion. "Plop!"

  Izzy laughed. And Erin laughed.

  "My grandpa always said that was good luck," Izzy said.

  "Really?"

  "Yep."

  Erin tipped her head to the side, considering it. “I accept.”

  The path to the front door took them close to whatever the vultures had been feeding on. Only the ribcage remained, and the surface had been shredded by the beaks of the carrion birds. It looked more like it was made of frayed rope than bone.

  “Don’t look,” Erin said, but Izzy was already staring.

  For once the door was unlocked. Not a complete shock, since it seemed the former occupant had wandered into the front yard to die. Erin did a quick sweep, and then she and Izzy started their inventory.

  The house yielded a few things to add to their stockpile: more beans, a couple rolls of toilet paper, some candles and batteries. She pocketed some cash in a purse they found in the foyer. But it was the garage that got Erin’s blood pumping.

  It was brand new, still in the box. 4000 watts. She didn’t know anything about generators, but that sounded like a lot of watts.

  This was it. The solution to all of their problems. She imagined a ray of light piercing the clouds, a perfect beam coming through the singular garage window to shine on the black and yellow box. A choir of angels began singing the Hallelujah chorus.

  Lights. Hot water. Television. She didn’t figure any of the channels still worked, but they could watch DVDs. Play video games. Listen to music. All because of a beautiful thing called electricity.

  “Thomas Edison, you beautiful bastard,” she said.

  Izzy pressed her lips together, and before she could even say it, Erin cut in.

  “Yeah, I know. Language. But this is fudging awesome.”

  Erin tried to pick up the box but only managed to scoot it across the floor. She adjusted her grip and tried again. It didn’t budge. It was too bulky for her to get her arms all the way around, so she couldn’t get a good handle on it.

  “Help me out.”

  Izzy set down her bag and stooped at the other end of the box.

  “One, two, three-”

  They both grunted under the weight, but the box lifted. It soared a whole three inches off the ground before Izzy’s end started to teeter. The thud of the box hitting the concrete floor echoed around the garage.

  “It’s too heavy,” Izzy said, clenching and unclenching her fists, trying to relieve her hands after the strain.

  Erin noted the text printed on the bottom right corner of the generator box: NET WT. 94 LBS.

  Why the hell was it so heavy?

  She scratched at a mosquito bite on the back of her arm, annoyed. They’d never be able to carry it all the way. She needed a way to transport it that didn’t require brute strength. But how?

  Might as well start with the easiest and most obvious method. She opened the screen door that separated the garage and the house, Izzy following close behind.

  “We need keys.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, her gaze fell on the table next to the door. Or more accurately, the purse resting on top of the table. She thrust a hand inside, rooting around until she removed a triumphant fist clutching a key chain.

  “What do we need those for?” Izzy asked.

  Erin stepped outside, disrupting the vultures again. The beasts flapped back into the air.

  “For our truck.”

  Her feet crunched over the gravel. The door opened and she climbed up to the driver’s seat.

  As she settled into the fake leather, the stink of new car smell wafted over her. She remembered people remarking that they liked the scent of it, but she never understood the appeal. To her it smelled like plastic and rubber. A sickly sweet chemical combination that made her stomach hurt.

  Izzy hopped onto the running board and poked her head inside.

  “But we already tried this. It never works.”

  “This time it will,” Erin said.

  “How do you know?”

  Erin watched Izzy reach overhead, grappling the roof of the truck with both hands. She lifted her feet and dangled from the truck like a monkey.

  “I just do.”

  Erin put the key in, closed her eyes, and turned the ignition. Nothing happened.

  Erin’s eyes opened. She let go, tried again.

  Nothing.

  She punched the steering wheel and the horn blared, scaring the shit out of her, Izzy, and the buzzards, who had just settled back in on their buffet.

  Izzy dropped from her hanging position, stumbled backwards in the gravel. She bumped into the door of the truck before catching her balance. Erin looked down at her, their momentary fear dissolving into a fit of laughter.

  “Well the horn still works,” Erin said.

  She scrambled down from the seat, slamming the door. She barely even knew how to drive, so maybe it was for the best. She’d only done the first half of driver’s ed. Not that her lack of a license mattered a whole lot now.

  Back in the garage, she looked for anything that might help her move the generator. The best she came up with was looping some rope around the box. She handed one end of the rope to Izzy.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  Erin wrapped her end around her waist, yanking until the rope was taut.

  “We’re going to pull it. Like a dog sled.”

  She surged forward, straining against the weight of the generator.

  “Come on! Mush!”

  They got as far as the door before needing a break. She plopped down on the box, wiping sweat from her face and trying to catch her breath.

  Izzy handed her the water bottle they’d brought along. Erin took a warm swig and almost spit it out, expecting the water to be as cool as it was fresh from the well. She forced herself to swallow it. Better than nothing.

 
; Through the screen of the front door, she watched the vultures pick at the corpse in the yard. The sun was just kissing the tree line. It would be dark before long.

  Erin clenched her jaw, not wanting to give up yet and knowing she had to. They’d only managed to drag the box twenty feet before they collapsed in exhaustion. It would take them hours to haul it back to the house. And it was an uphill walk.

  That night she lay awake in bed for a long time. She knew she was tired, but she struggled against it, desperate for a plan that would solve the generator problem.

  Maybe a wheelbarrow would work. They’d need to figure out how to get the generator into it, to start. Assuming they succeeded in that, it was still going to be a long, slow walk back to the house, toting almost a hundred pounds.

  She felt the pull of sleep urging her to close her eyes. It reminded her of standing on the beach when she was a kid, and how the waves would lap over her feet. As the water retreated, the sand around her toes drained away with it, and the magnetic draw of the tide tugged at her feet.

  Erin’s eyelids drooped closed and she let go, allowing the current of sleep to drag her under.

  Travis

  Hillsboro, Michigan

  57 days after

  Scuffs and grunts and scrapes and thuds echoed about the room. Travis shuffled to his right, toward the place where he could see the muffled glow of the light on one wedge of the floor. He reached under the desk, hand bouncing along the carpet, and then he found the cigar shaped tube of plastic, scooped it, pressed the button, and returned it to his mouth in the dark.

  He kept moving, sure they had a good idea where he was based on the light moving and clicking off. He moved toward them, hoping that would come as a surprise.