Deciding that action is needed, I stand up and quickly try to wrap my stump. Trying is the best I can do. Every time I accidentally bump it, I drop the roll and have to start all over again. It’s impossible to keep it in place, and I struggle with each wrap. I know it’s loose, but it’ll have to do when I pin it in place with a clasp and look at it one final time. Shaking my head, I look around for something. I need to keep it from getting hit or accidentally bumping it into something. One wrong move and I’m down on the ground for who knows how long. I remember seeing guys in my classes after they got a tattoo. There’s a wrap that they put around it like saran wrap. Throwing open the drawers, I finally locate an enormous roll of it and set to wrapping my arm to my chest, binding it in place until it’s snug and not moving.
It hurts like hell up against my chest, but I need it in one place. I need it secured. Pulling my shirt back on, I tuck it into my pants and catch a glimpse of myself in a tarnished mirror and realize how pathetic I look. I need a shave, a haircut, and a decent meal or three. I wonder if the girls will even recognize me when I show up in Florida, if I ever make it there.
Slipping my belt through the belt loops on my pants, I secure my machetes to my legs, but now that I think about it, when am I ever going to need two machetes? I only have the one hand, damn it. I awkwardly pull out my right machete, certain that if I lose this one in a fight, it’ll be easier to unsheathe the one on my left hip. I feel the weight of the weapon and I have to admit, it’s good. Even if this blade was used to cut open people so Cal and Denny could have a tasty snack, it’s my blade now. I give it a few swings and stare out the window at the nocturnal world beyond. She’s out there somewhere and I’m going to find her. She’s saved my life twice now and it’s my turn to save hers.
I have left the doors completely unsecured while she has been out on her raid, so that if she needed a quick return, she wouldn’t be hindered. Truth be told, I don’t even know if this place has a back or side door that she could use. I figured that it was better if she didn’t have to risk it. Now, as I slam my shoulder into the door, the ripples of the impact hits my ribs and as I charge out into the open, night air, I’m nearly brought to my knees in agonizing pain. My ribs are going to kill me if they never heal. Why did Jason have to be so damn ferocious with that crowbar? Bent over, sucking in deep, controlled breaths, I try to adapt to the pain or just survive it until it washes over me and abates.
It never has a chance to do either. Before I can lean back and stand up straight, I hear footsteps—soft, quick footsteps. They’re padding closer and closer to me and before I know what is happening, the full weight of a body slams into me and hurls me back through the door of the parlor before I can even realize that I’ve been hit. The body slams me full on in the chest as I’m wheeled backwards. Pain rips through my arm and chest like bolts of lightning, singeing and burning through all of my body down to a cellular level, completely filling me with such horrifying agony that all sound escapes my lips as I freefall backwards. Tumbling backwards, my eyes looking up at the moon as I watch the door closing in behind me, the dark shape of whatever hit me covering my chest. I think to try and kill whatever it is, but my machete is no longer in my hand, it’s chasing after my hand, free in the air. As I feel my back slam into the ground and unimaginable pain shatters across my ribs and back, I skid across the rough carpet, feeling the heat of the carpet burn all along the way and the clatter of the machete landing a few feet away from me, just beyond my grasp. The door closes and I gasp for air, wide-eyed and in paralyzing agony as I wait for something to happen. I wait for my attacker to start clawing, digging into me, tearing me apart, biting the flesh from my arm, but nothing happens. I lay there in such misery that I am incapable of harming whatever has assaulted me and it has clearly no intention of harming me. I suck in another noisy gasp of air and I feel something clamp down on my face.
This is it. This is how I die.
“Keep quiet,” I hear a voice hiss at me. “Keep completely still.”
I look at the hand and realized that it’s coated in a fingerless riding glove and suddenly I am aware that it is Lindsay on top of me, crushing my stump and re-breaking whatever ribs had started healing. Her head is just above my clavicle and I can hear her breathing over the thundering of my blood rushing through my ears. For a moment, I am full of gratitude that she’s alive, but I also want to beat her to a bloody pulp for slamming into me. I keep completely quiet just like she says and suddenly I see the shadow rising on the dingy window.
The windows of the parlor are tinted and I’m suddenly very grateful for that as I see the head of one of the Zombies appear. He’s alone, sniffing the air as he approaches the window looking at it, probably seeing his own reflection. He’s a hideous husk of what he’d been once upon a time. He’s gaunt and his ribs are protruding from his chest along with his knobby joints. He’s still wearing a shirt, which looks so large on him that I immediately assume that he was enormous before the cannibalism that has taken hold of him. He’s covered in flabby skin that looks like bat wings now as he holds up his arms and puts his palms against the window. He bangs the windows once, his chin, lips, and neck covered in blackened horrors. His eyes are vacant and empty but they do seem to be searching for something. They’re hunting for something, no doubt Lindsay. I’m suddenly terrified that he’s going to find the door and open it. He opens his mouth and lets out a shriek that is inhuman. It sounds like a wretched, unholy creature from the bowels of the earth. His cheeks show evidence of long, scraggy hair, but most of it has fallen out due to malnutrition, along with the hair on his head. There’s a diamond stud hanging from his ear, barely hanging on as he shakes his head in fury and screams again.
There is another shadow growing on the window in the pale moonlit world beyond the parlor. I see another head. This one is rising across the door and I feel my heart beginning to race. With her hand still clamped over my mouth, Lindsay puts her other hand on my shoulder, no doubt hearing the accelerating of my heart. She’s trying to calm me and I’m grateful, but there’s no way of calming me for this. I can see this one, a woman, slamming on the door. I’ve seen the Zombies tearing off shutters and boards across windows before. Surely they can figure out how to work a pull door. Soon, another appears and then two more. Before I can act, there are at least a dozen Zombies outside of the parlor, breathing heavily, wheezing, groaning, and pounding on the windows. To my utter surprise, they aren’t going for the door. They’re not even touching the handle. I’m still horrified, but Lindsay stays on top of me, her hand clamped over my mouth as I feel her breathing on top of me.
I feel her breasts against my chest and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes steadily, calmly. Her head is resting peacefully on my collarbone and I can feel her waist and legs wrapped over my own. She is here and she is with me. I am not alone. I slowly begin to calm myself as I think about that crucial fact. I am not alone.
Something inside me is stirring and is restless by her body. I want to take my hand and reach up, put it on her side and feel her. I want to touch her. I want to know that she’s real. I want to know that I’m not imagining her. She’s on top of me now and I can tell that she’s not a figment of my imagination, but it isn’t enough. My mind wouldn’t have hurled me into a building backwards, but I want to touch her with my fingers. I want to do more, maybe. I look at her hooded head just inches from my face and I remember looking her over. She’d worked at a club. She’d been a trainer at a gym. She had a fantastic body. I want to reach up and grab her ass. I want to feel it, to knead it. Something deep inside of me wants to feel every little aspect of her body and it horrifies me. This is not me. I am not like this. I am loyal to my wife.
“Your dead wife,” the voice inside my head whispers to me. I can practically feel a scarlet ‘A’ burning into my chest. She has to get off of me. I can’t have her on me. I can already tell that my body is willing to betray me. I want her off of me.
I look up and see that th
e Zombies have passed the parlor by. One by one, they have given up the chase and moved on to something far more alluring in this desolate, abandoned town. Maybe they found Captain Bear Trap. Maybe they found my hand that Lindsay had abandoned. When the last one—our original friend—decides to move on, we are all alone once more.
Lindsay slowly pushes herself up, careful of my injured body and looking me in the eye with a twinkle, a light in her dark eyes. She holds a cautious finger up to her lips, signaling me to keep as quiet as possible before she unleashes a smile across her lips that is truly spectacular. All the slightly off features of her face illuminate as she smiles, coming together in a perfect, beautiful harmony. I can picture her in a tight shirt just cut off a little too low and a little too high, squeezed into short shorts that would make anyone blush. I can picture her in makeup and in jewelry and I can only marvel at how she is still alive. How did she not meet a fate like Kelci?
She crawls to her knees and peeks out over the windowsill at the world beyond and the shambling horde that has passed us by. She watches them for a moment before she reaches for the rope and begins to loop it around the handles, quietly and efficiently. She’s done this before, I realize—narrowly escaping death. I have to wonder at what sort of a life she has led in those long months where she omitted her narrative. What was it she had done where she’s now comfortable with narrowly escaping flesh-eating horrors like that? She finishes the knots and gives the rope a sharp tug to test its strength before turning to me and radiating that beaming smile of hers.
“That was close,” she whispers.
My God, she’s an adrenaline junkie, I comprehend now in this horrific moment. Yes, she is addicted to the close calls, the narrow escapes, and the dangerous endeavors. How in the world can someone become excited by all of this? I look at her with revulsion in my stomach as she checks once more to make sure that there are none coming back.
“They came from the west,” she tells me. “They’ve come all the way from Cincinnati. Something big must be going down.”
“What?” I hiss.
“Those guys don’t stick around if they’re getting picked off,” she says with expert experience behind her words. “They get out of Dodge when people start hunting them. They might be stupid and slow, but they still believe in self-preservation. Kill enough of them, and they’ll give up.”
“They’re mindless,” I say, pulling myself up slowly and painfully. “They eat each other.”
“Had you stuck around a little while longer, you would have seen them run from that courtyard,” she says with a smile still across her face.
“You like all this,” I accuse. “You get off on it.”
“Maybe,” she shrugs. “I just think it’s worth it sometimes.”
“You nearly killed me,” I hiss angrily. How can she be so reckless?
“Sorry about that.” Her face contorts into a mask of concern. I’m not sure if it’s genuine or real, but I’ll take it. She pulls her pack off of her shoulder and tips it upside down. I watch four cans drop down onto the floor. I smile as I reach down and pick one up and read SPAM written across it. God, I’ve never been so happy and excited to see Spam before. “Want to share?” she asks with a flirtatious look across her face that makes me feel uncomfortable and wrong again. I think she’s messing with me.
I reach down and look at the others. One is a kids’ noodle soup, another is corn, and the last one is refried beans. I put them back down and look at her with the Spam still in my hands. “Fine, but we’re eating this one.”
She smiles and nods, jumping up onto her feet in a flash and stretching out her hand to help me up. I take her hand gratefully and am surprised by the grace and ease with which she helps me up. She walks toward one of the counters and grabs an old can, and stuffs it with paper and pieces of wood from another can. I watch as she reaches for my bag and begins rummaging through it with familiarity. I realize she’s done this before. Somehow I’m not surprised. She produces the lighter that I took off of Cal and lights a piece of paper and stuffs it into the can.
I stare at her with impressed surprise. She looks at me and smiles again. “I’m not eating that shit cold,” she says to me.
“Fine by me,” I answer.
Chapter Five
“How did you know how to do this?” I ask her, looking at my arm with confusion and interest now that I hadn’t felt before. It was strange to think that I had never asked this simple question, since it was fairly important, after all, she clearly wasn’t a doctor. What did a woman who worked as a glorified waitress and gym rat know about amputation? I look at the studs in my arm and the metal bars and already notice it scabbing and healing in its own sort of malnourished way.
“I used to watch a lot of TV,” she answers, strapping on her various knives and weapons that she so lovingly hides across her lithe body. “I was super-addicted to Doctor House and I was really into reading between shifts. I used to read these old Civil War books and I watched a lot of documentaries on the Civil War. You know that Ken Burns one that’s like a billion hours long? Yeah, watched it twice.”
“Seriously?” I smile. I don’t know why she always messes with me. Why can’t she give me a real answer?
“Seriously,” she nods, slinging the quiver over her head and shoulder.
What? I crinkle my brow and stare at her in disbelief. “You’re lying,” I accuse.
“Nope,” she smiles.
“Jesus Christ,” I laugh a little hysterically for a moment, but she doesn’t seem to mind, thankfully. I’m allowed my few precious moments of insanity. I think Lindsay embraced insanity a long time ago and never came back to the world of normal people. There was something about her that thrived in the chaos of this world that continually threatens to break me. I’m not the kind of person that she is. I want to be, but I don’t have it in me. Part of me thinks that I spend too much time in my head. Lindsay never talks about moral dilemmas, not that I ever do, but I doubt she sits around and thinks about her moral corrosion.
For four days, I have watched Lindsay go out and scavenge and explore and for four days, I have sat here, by the window, waiting for her to return. I feel like a dog, being left at the house while its owners go to work every day. She goes out for hours by herself, tearing the town apart slowly. She’s found food and various other things, but nothing substantial enough for me to feel like it’s worth it. We should be walking. We should be putting the horizon behind us and making for Florida. If she wants to go with me, then we need to start going. After all, there can’t be much left of Blanchester to discover. I’ve been patient, but I can no longer keep silent about it.
“How much of the town is left to explore?” I ask her while she tests her bow.
“Not much,” she answers. “I’m going out to look for things we might need on the road.”
“I think we have enough,” I tell her from across the room.
“You still need to mend and you can never have too much,” she lectures me. I feel my cheeks flush and my temper flare.
“You’re a hoarder,” I accuse her.
“You’re a far-sighted fucktard,” she fires back.
I look at her without any interest in hearing whatever else she has to say. She’s not a woman who can take a criticism and brush it off. She’s the kind of woman that takes a criticism as an insult and escalates so quickly that it becomes an argument. For the murderous temper that I carry, hers is so much worse. I’m afraid to get on her bad side, in fear of what she might do to me. I wonder how many women and men have been beaten by her because they crossed her.
“You are on very thin ice,” I tell her calmly. “You need to settle down.”
“No,” she shakes her head and grabs her bag. “You need to. I’m not the one with a missing hand and a bunch of broken ribs.”
“You’re also not the one with two daughters out there,” I remind her as calmly as I can, but I’m a volcano waiting to burst and I can tell that she senses it. I’ve had fun with
her these past four days, watching her go when the sun descends beyond the horizon and whittling the days away talking about what we used to like. I can even say that I sort of like her now. She’s got enough spirit and brains in that head of hers to keep me distracted from the realities of this world, but my patience is wearing thin. She has had her fun running through this town, playing pirate and explorer, but the clock is ticking. I have more important things in this world and she knows that. It’s the only reason why when I tell her that my daughters are out there, she receives it as a warning. I’m gearing up to leave and she’s about to miss the boat if she still wants in. Crossing the room, she stands in front of me, her arms crossed and her eyes looking over my face.
“I’m going out to search a few more houses tonight,” she tells me. “I want you to sleep and when I get back, we’ll sleep and go by night.”
“No,” I shake my head. “We go at dawn.”
“The Zombies come out during the day,” she reminds me. “It’s safer to travel at night.”
“Not in the wasteland,” I tell her. “Everyone out there is just like you. They come out at night and if we’re traveling on the road at night, then they’re bound to see our trail. If we travel during the day, they’ll all be asleep.”
“What if they find us during the night?” she presses.
LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series Page 21