Charlie tested the front door. It was locked. Charlie didn’t want to throw a rock through the window, as it would potentially alert the ‘neighbours’. He walked round the back of the gargantuan house, and found to his delight that the back door was open.
He crept through the house. He walked into the kitchen, when to his horror, a zombie lurched towards him.
The zombie knocked Charlie’s sword out of his hand before he could use it against him. Charlie then tried his gun, whipping it from its holster and shotting at the undead monster before him. Charlie’s gun clicked. It was dry.
“Oh, SHIT!” He hissed. The zombie was approaching him quickly. He threw his gun at the oncoming zombie. The gun bounced harmlessly off of its head, landing on the ground next to him.
“Goddammit!” Charlie said. “This is not good.”
Charlie looked around for any thing that he could use as a weapon against the undead bastard that was after his flesh. He scrambled up and grabbed a chair that was leaning on its side in the dusty old kitchen. He threw it with all his might at the zombie. The chair collided with the zombie and knocked it to its feet.
“Yes!” Charlie said. Next, Charlie picked up the chair and brought it down on top of the zombie’s head, hard. The chair splintered, leaving the zombie relatively unharmed.
“Oh, for fucks sake.” Charlie said. He ran towards the zombie and tackled it. He brought it to the ground and started punching it with as much force as he could muster. He threw the zombie away from him and looked for his sword. When he couldn’t find it, he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to look for something else. He ran over to the old counter, and desperately looked through all of the cutlery, hoping for something sharper than a butter knife. He finally found what he was looking for: a large butcher’s knife. Smiling, he whipped the knife above his head and brought it down on top of the zombie’s skull. The zombie froze, blood starting to gush from the knife wound in his head. Charlie pulled the knife out and the zombie fell to the ground.
He put the knife back and found his sword underneath the table.
“There you are.” He said, smiling.
He walked into the living room. There was a couch in the middle of the room, which looked particularly comfortable.
He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.
Charlie was just starting to relax, until a deep snarling voice rang out across the room.
***
Charlie shot up and looked for his sword.
“Who is it?” Charlie whispered.
The snarl pierced the room again, and this time it was undeniable.
It was a zombie.
“How the hell did I miss you?” Charlie said cheerfully.
In the darkened room, Charlie could only make out the vague shape of the zombie. It was a big one, at least 6’4’’. He stood up and moved towards it.
As he did, the zombie moved into the light.
Charlie sucked in a lungful of air as the shock hit him.
The zombie, emaciated and greying as it was, was undeniable.
It was Rory.
“No.” Charlie muttered. “Please, no. Not this, not like this, not like this.”
Rory advanced towards Charlie.
“Rory. It’s me, Charlie.” Charlie cried, knowing it was pointless.
“PLEASE RORY!” Charlie screamed, tripping over the splintered remains of the chair as he tried to evade Rory.
Sobbing, Charlie put his sword away.
And he pulled out his gun.
He pointed it towards Rory. His best friend for so many years.
Rory continued to advance.
Trembling, Charlie pulled the trigger.
Rory seemed to take an eternity to fall. But fall he did. He landed in a crumpled form on the ground, blood gushing from the bullet wound directly between his eyes. Charlie collapsed too, his entire world crashing down around him.
Chapter 16: All Good Things Must Come To An End
Charlie stared at Rory’s corpse. He was shaking violently. He couldn’t believe that he had just done that. He stumbled over to Rory, and put his hand on his chest. Rory was definitely dead. Tears leaked out of Charlie’s eyes and splashed onto Rory’s lifeless body.
“Oh, Rory.” Charlie whispered. “Why?”
Charlie’s legs gave out after that, and he crashed to the floor. He sat next to Rory, just staring at him. Willing him to wake up, for everything to go back to normal.
But that didn’t happen. Charlie slowly got up and made to leave. As his trembling hands touched the cold doorknob, Charlie realised that no matter how evil his friend had ended up, Charlie still couldn’t just leave him here, to inevitably get devoured by the next pack of zombies to shuffle through the house.
Charlie grabbed Rory by the feet and dragged him across the room. When he reached the front door, he grabbed Rory’s arms and hoisted him over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. He placed Rory’s body in the back of the van, and strapped himself in the front of it.
“Oh, God.” Charlie muttered.
How the hell am I going to tell the others? Charlie thought.
Charlie put the van into first gear, and drove back to the house.
***
The remainder of the trip didn’t take that long. When he had found Rory, he had only been 4 or 5 hours away from the house.
The next 5 hours passed without any incident at all. In the coming months after Charlie arrived back at The house, Charlie would realise that he had close to no recollection at all when it came to that drive back.
When Charlie finally did make his way up the long, twisting drive to The house, his guts felt like they were knotted up like a pretzel. He had no idea what the others would say.
Feeling worse than he had ever felt in his life, Charlie honked the horn of the van, and watched as the seven people closest to him ran out of the front door of the house to greet him.
Charlie got out of the van, and put both his hands up, palms facing outwards.
Before anyone could say anything, Charlie spoke.
“I need to talk to you guys.” He said, his voice cracking with emotion.
***
Charlie ushered them all inside. Jack frowned. It wasn’t like Charlie to be so… serious. Usually, he would crack a joke in pretty much any situation. Something was definitely wrong.
Once Charlie had them all sitting in the living room, Charlie spoke.
“You guys…” Charlie said, trailing off.
“What is it, Charlie?” Penny said soothingly. “You can tell us.”
Charlie breathed out heavily.
“Rory is dead.” He said, tears once again falling from his eyes.
There was an audible gasp as everyone took in the horrific news.
“How?” Audrey whispered.
Charlie thought for a second before answering.
The voice that followed was not Charlie’s. He spoke so quietly that the others had to lean in to hear him. His eyes were fixed on a spot on the floor; he couldn’t bear to see their faces as he spoke.
He began.
“I had given up on finding him at all.
I decided to head home.
I passed a house that caught my eye in particular.
I went inside and there Rory was.
He had already turned into one of them by the time I found him. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could-” he trailed off, his voice breaking.
The seven sat around him in stunned silence, until Jessica spoke up.
“You know what?” Jessica said. “He can’t be hurt anymore. He will never get bitten or scratched, or anything like that ever again. He is in a better place now.”
“Yeah. Maybe he is.” Charlie said.
“Well, I think we should have a memorial for him.” Santa said.
“I agree.” Penny said. “Charlie, can you make another one of those crosses, like you did for Vanessa?”
“That would be nice.” Charlie said, smiling. �
�We are also going to need help digging a hole.”
“Why is that?” Walt said.
“What do you mean? I couldn’t just leave him there.” Charlie said.
“He’s in the back of the van.”
***
“Oh my God.” Penny said.
“You mean Rory is in the back of the van right now?” Jack said.
“Oh, Christ.” Charlie heard someone say.
“OK. Someone get a shovel.” Jack said.
Minutes later, Walt handed Jack a shovel.
“OK. Lets start digging this hole.” He said.
Luckily, there had been a shower earlier that morning, and the fields were damp, and easy to dig into.
In less than 40 minutes, Jack, with help from Charlie, had created a large hole, large enough to fit Rory, who had been a big man.
“That is going to be fine.” Charlie said, wiping perspiration from his eyes.
Charlie then went and fashioned another cross, just like the one he had made for Vanessa more than 10 months ago. He stood back and admired his work. He knew that Rory would have loved it. It was larger than the one he had made for Vanessa, simply because he couldn’t find a saw this time. This also caused Rory’s cross to appear misshapen and a little bit elongated, but for some reason, this made the cross look all the nicer. Charlie smiled at the cross and carefully placed it on the passenger seat.
Charlie drove the van containing Rory’s body up to the fields.
He brought the cross back to the place where they had dug the hole, a lovely little space.
It was right next to Vanessa’s grave.
“Guys. This may be a little bit too much for some of you, and there isn’t any shame in that.” Charlie said as he stepped out of the van. He beckoned for Jack’s help in removing Rory’s body from the van. Grunting and groaning, they slowly took his body from the van and placed it as gently as they could inside the makeshift grave. They arranged his features so it looked as if the former gentle giant was merely sleeping. Seeing Rory was like a major punch in the gut for Penny. She had honestly though she would never see Rory again, and after a while, she had made peace with that. She could always fantasize that he was still alive somewhere. Now, she had proof that Rory was gone forever, and he was never coming back.
“Rory was a good man.” Charlie said, his voice cracking. “He was always there for me, even when others weren’t. All throughout my childhood, I was alone. I had no one, except for my parents. They were the only people on the planet who actually seemed to care about me. All of my teachers were horrible, all of the people in school were bullies, and I spent most of the first 15 years of my life wishing I had anyone that I could connect with on a friendship level. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my parents, but what I wanted more than anything else was friends. Then Rory came along. I will never forget that first day that I had met him. I was having a particularly bad day, and at the end of it, this dickhead whom I can’t even remember the name of starts getting right up in my face. Rory came and beat the shit out of the kid, and he never touched me again. Life got so much better after meeting Rory. People started being nicer, I started to get more and more friends, but Rory was always my first. And my best. It was Rory who gave me a new lease on life, and when both of my parents died in a car crash six months after meeting Rory, it was him and his mom that took me in and gave me a home. Rory was more than just my friend. He was my brother. The person who died today wasn’t Rory. Rest in peace, my old friend.” Tears were now flowing freely from his eyes. He didn’t try to stem them. He didn’t want to.
Penny looked over at Charlie.
“That was beautiful, Charlie.” She said tearfully.
With nothing left to say, Jack scooped up a shovel of dirt, and mournfully threw it in the grave. Dirt splattered all over Rory’s chest. The next landed on his face, covering it up almost entirely. Everyone ended putting a scoop into Rory’s grave, until finally, Charlie put the last load of dirt into the grave and patted it down.
“It’s a beautiful day.” Santa said, smiling slightly.
“Yeah, it really is, isn’t it?” Charlie said. “You guys go on, I’ll catch up soon.”
“Are you sure, man?” Jack said.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” He said.
Jack patted him on the back, and with the others, started the 10-minute walk back to The house. Charlie however, stood at the foot of Rory’s grave.
“I know you wouldn’t have blamed me for what I did. What I had to do. Hell, you would have killed yourself if it meant protecting me. You were always the best of us, Rory. The best of everyone. I am going to miss you so much buddy. All of your wise thoughts that you shared with everyone, all of your funny jokes, which your accent made 10 times funnier for some unfathomable reason. Man, I am just going to miss everything about you.”
Charlie smiled at the cross thinking back to when he had carved Rory’s name into the wood. He remembered how he knew that Rory would have loved it, because Charlie had decided to use Rory’s other name. The name Charlie had always known Rory by.
Peacekeeper.
Chapter 17: Flesh, Blood and Bone
Charlie stood up and walked back to the van. It only took him about two minutes to get back to The house. When he reached the house, an epiphany struck Charlie. He was finished, he realised. While he was absolutely devastated at the loss of Rory, he would never have to live the horrible life of worrying every day whether or not he would find Rory, or if he was even alive at all. Still in awe of this, he walked inside The house and sat down on the couch.
“How are you holding up?” Audrey asked him.
“You know what?” Charlie said. “I’m actually pretty good. Rory is in a better place now, and no one can hurt him.”
“That’s true.” Audrey said.
“Listen.” Audrey continued. “Me, Dad and Jack where about to head off on a quick run for supplies when you arrived. We still need to go, and your more than welcome to come with us. In fact, I insist that you do. It will take your mind off of things.”
“That actually sounds really good.” Charlie said. “But we are all staying in each others sights. I never want a repeat of what happened with Rory again.”
“Actually, Jack already implemented a buddy system, where you have to be with one other person at all times. Guess you really haven’t been around enough to hear about it, huh? Oh!” She said suddenly, surprising Charlie.
“Now that you are back permanently, I can have you as a buddy! I always got lumped with another group.”
“That’s… good. I think.” Charlie said. “Just let me have a quick wash and get changed. I have been in the same clothes for a week now, and they are smelling more than funky.”
While they no longer had running water, when Ruth Barker had been alive, she had had 5 large ponds outside of the house, which now served as the bath ponds. There was even a small lake at the back of the property, which they used for drinking water.
After he had cleaned and dressed himself, Charlie walked back into the living room, where Santa, Jack and Audrey were finishing getting ready. When Charlie saw that Jack, Audrey and Santa were all dressed in Jeans and T-Shirts, Charlie took off his long overcoat and casually draped it over the couch.
“Are you good to go?” Jack said.
“Yep. All ready.” Charlie answered.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Santa said.
“Yes, Santa.” Besides, I think this will take my mind off of things for a bit. Which is a good thing.”
“All right, then.” Santa said.
“Let’s get going.” Jack said. “We will be back in 5 or 6 hours.”
“Alright.” Penny said sulkily. She hated when Jack went on runs. “Be safe.”
“I will be.” He said, kissing his wife goodbye.
They walked out the front door and got in the armoured van.
“Damn. I missed you.” Charlie said to the front passenger seat.
“I have a few things that are
wrong with that sentence.” Jack said. “1. You are talking to a seat. 2. You saw that a week ago and 3. You didn’t say that to a single human that you hadn’t seen in a week. Thoughts?”
Life As We Know It Page 14