“I used to get so jealous of the time you’d spend together with him,” Lexi confesses to me bitterly. “So I would sneak into the closet next to your room and watch the two of you have sex or just spend time together. I would get so mad and envious that it was making me crazy. I feel so terrible.”
I feel like I’m going to die. I think about all the mornings I would wake up without Greg next to me, with him somewhere searching for work or things to do, always claiming that he was helping someone before he would tell me that he loved me or he would kiss me. I want to throw up every kiss that he spent on me, that he wasted on me. I want to scream at her. I want to explode and rid myself of everything that has to do with them. It makes me sick just thinking about the two of them together.
God, I thought Henry had been the one peeping on us. I thought it had been him and I have held that against him since the moment I caught him spying on Lexi. My God, it was some sort of divine, poetic justice that Henry was peeping on her. God, I feel sick about all of it. I want to throw up. I just have to get out of here. I want to scream. I want to die. I can hear her moving in the darkness, trying to come closer to me, trying to plead her sorrow, regret, and innocence.
I want to throw it all in her face, but I can’t help but feel like it doesn’t matter. I want to latch onto my hatred, but it’s slippery and I realize it’s because I have my own blood on my hands. I’m dying. I sit there in the darkness, thinking that I loved Greg more than anyone else I have ever known and how happy I was that I was here, at the end of the world with him, but now, after this, I don’t know. Maybe he loves my sister. Maybe he loves Lexi like he never loved me. I feel defeated on all sides. I just want to stay here. I just want to sit alone in the darkness and become one with the nothing that resides there.
Chapter Sixteen
“What are you thinking?” Lexi asks me. Such a loaded question. She has to know that she’s looking down the barrel of a loaded cannon, waiting for it to explode all over her, ending her, ending this. What she’s just said to me is something that doesn’t just wash away, doesn’t just go away with time. “Val, talk to me,” she urges and I’m not sure if she’s aware of what she’s asking me. If I talk to her, I know that I’m going to say something I’ll regret and I have to think about the fact that this is the end for me. These might be the last words I ever speak to her.
I take a moment, trying to pull myself together, try to strap together the pieces of my life, of my mind. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I should say to her or even what I feel. If I feel. Maybe I just need a moment to sit still, let the darkness of the sea I’ve been tossed into ebb and wash over me. I let the truth permeate me, filling me and crushing what’s left of my heart, my hopes and dreams. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what to do anymore. I just need it all to stop. When has the truth ever been a good thing in this time? The end of the world has brought with it more trouble and suffering than I ever thought I would have to endure and this is by far the worst. My body is dying, crippled, and broken—and yet, this is the worst part of my end.
“This isn’t the time to air our dirty laundry,” I tell her calmly, getting my heart rate to slow, trying to stop the madness that’s crippling my body from spreading any further. Reaching up, I feel for the counter, gripping the lip and hauling myself up painfully. I have to swallow my emotions. I have to take everything that has happened and I have to bury it down deep inside of me. I have to kill it for now. The emotions are sharp and jagged, but they’ll dull over time, I just have to let them rest. As they stagnate, I’ll get a better grip on them and I’ll be able to handle what I’ve been told just now.
I reach over and grab the pack that Lexi brought with her, slinging it over my shoulder and making my way across the room cautiously. Lexi is seated on the floor, looking at me. I don’t know what she’s expecting from me. In fact, I don’t know if there’s anything she should expect before the end of my life. I owe her nothing and I don’t intend to give her the chance to turn this on me. I’m about to die and I think I’m going to use my last, few precious days keeping my worthless boyfriend alive.
I fight the disorientation as I reach down and pick up the flashlight, trying to avoid looking at the dead dog in the doorway. “Grab my Sig,” I tell Lexi coldly, emotionlessly. I feel dead on the inside. Where fight and love and endurance once lingered, I now only feel the hollow void of my own disappointment. I don’t even wait for her to pick up the gun; I leave her behind me. She’ll find her way out. She’s cunning like that.
I can hear more growling, more clicking of nails through the one door that we didn’t check and decide that I don’t want to play the role of bait any longer. Fighting the nausea and the sickness that is sloshing around in my stomach, I make my way around the courtyard, looking at the torn open kennels with newfound horror and terror at the sight of them. It wasn’t something breaking into them, it was the dogs breaking out. When we pass through the doorway leading to the hallway full of exam rooms, I close the door behind Lexi and lock the door behind us.
Heading up to the reception desk, I open one of the drawers until I find a Sharpie and write on the door leading back to the exam rooms. I scribble a warning, telling anyone who might come to this place looking for supplies that it’s already been looted and that there are zombie dogs in the back. At the bottom, I leave them the warning: Proceed with Caution. I think of myself as I write that, knowing that if I came across this warning, I wouldn’t take it seriously. Strangely enough, I find myself signing my name before I toss the Sharpie away, heading for the entrance.
We slide the dumpster in front of the entryway with newfound clarity and understanding as to why it was there in the first place. I’m guessing that someone else discovered the dogs inside and tried to warn off anyone else foolish enough to try and get inside the building. I shake my head as I feebly help Lexi with it. She does most of the work, jamming it into the entryway and making sure that it’ll be just as difficult for another group of fools looking to find some medicine. Turning away from the dumpster, I stop, freezing at the sight I behold waiting for us.
Standing between us and the Dodge is another one of those dogs, but this time, I’m certain that I know exactly what kind of dog it is. Without its cheeks and lips, the Great Dane looks monstrous. Stained by blood, scarred, and completely hairless, it looks like something out of a nightmare. The creature stares at Lexi, focusing on her with its white eyes, nearly completely milky thanks to staring at the sun too much, just like the humans’ do. There’s bone exposed all over the creature’s mouth and the teeth are blackened from decay and blood. This monster has been feeding very well, probably on the other dogs. It looks like there were a ton inside that veterinary clinic once upon a time. The dog takes a step toward Lexi, growling and putting the other dogs to shame with the ferocity encapsulated inside that low abiding snarl.
I don’t have a weapon. I gave Lexi the order to pick up my Sig on the way out of the storage room. I feel naked without it. I feel like there’s absolutely nothing I can do right now and I know that Lexi doesn’t have her gun ready. The monster is about to charge at her and I feel a wash of emotions hitting me, pelting me like a hailstorm. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a darker place than this moment. I’ve never actually wanted to kill my sister. Sure, I’ve wanted to beat her or punch her, but I’ve never wanted to put her in the ground and never look at her again. Right now, I think that I’m dangerously close to that line, even with my own mortality looming on the horizon and the great beyond just around the corner. I know that Lexi would deserve every little bit of the pain and suffering that would come with getting mauled by a two hundred pound zombie dog, and I’d probably relish the screams for a moment. But when I look at that dog, I know that it’s not going to happen.
If anyone deserves, or gets the chance, to kill my sister, it’s definitely going to be me and I’ve come too far, sacrificed too much for some dumb animal to put everything I’ve worked for to an end
. I’m not going to let the legacy of Jason, my father, and myself fall to ruin because some dumb animal was too stupid to die off when all the other animals were dropping dead. There’s nothing to question here. I know what I have to do.
Lexi, just now realizing that the dog is behind her, slowly turns, trying to cautiously reach for the gun holstered behind her back. Without hesitating for a moment longer, I start charging. Summoning the last of my strength, I rush to intercept the beast. I’m not going to let that thing touch the mother of my nephew and the future of this world. I’m not going to lose everything that I have left. For everything that she is, Lexi is still my sister and I’m not about to lose her. I’m better than she is, she was right about that. I’m the high road. I’m the optimist. I’m the person who is worthy of being envied and seen through the jealous eyes of others. That’s why I’m the one dying right now. The world demands the best of us, it demands we give everything we have so that others can rise to the challenge. I see that now. I understand. It’s never about us individually; it’s about more than us. Emotions, risks, lives, all of it exists for the hope that humanity can prevail and if I throw all of that away, then I’ve given into pure nihilism and I refuse to do that. I refuse to surrender.
The dog is faster than I am, but I slam into its rear, wrapping my arms around the dog’s hips, gripping it as tightly as I can and dragging the mongrel to the ground. The dog lets out a distinct yelp, the sound of a puppy getting run over by a larger dog. I don’t have much fight in me, but I’m giving it everything I can summon. Refusing to let go of the monster’s putrid, stained flesh, I swing it over me, using the momentum of the fall and roll to hurl the dog away.
Flailing its front legs and kicking with the back, the dog tries to catch itself before it hits the ground. I hear its head smack against the dusty, mud-layered asphalt with a sound that doesn’t inspire any thoughts of victory. Still holding the dog’s hips, I feel its back legs kicking and in a single thrash, I feel the wound in my stomach rip open. I scream at both the pain and the dog. The agony is unimaginable. It’s all ruined. The dog’s earless head turns, looking at me with wide, unseeing eyes.
The dog looks alien without its hair or its ears. With the teeth exposed, I feel like I’m looking at some primordial horror that should have been killed off by the cavemen who believed in a world without monsters. The dog's jaw snaps ferociously, determined to get a hold of me as it rolls, trying to come within range of anything it can grasp onto.
I can hear a scream from somewhere and pray to God that it’s Lexi coming to my aid and not her getting attacked by another dog. The beast rolls toward me, landing on top of me with its jaws clacking ravenously for a chunk of my flesh. I reach up with one hand, taking a risk and punching the dog’s ruined, rotting face. I can feel the putrid, rancid flesh sticking to my fist and some of it coming off as I pull away. The dog looks away, recoiling for a moment before it comes back for another attack. I punch it again, feeling pain rippling through my hand as my knuckles come in contact with bone. I hear a crack and I’m fairly certain that I’ve broken the dog’s skull, but it doesn’t stop. The monster keeps biting at me and I hear another scream. This time, with the dog nearly on top of me, I reach up and grab its throat, squeezing as hard as I can while keeping the monster away from me.
A shadow passes over me and with another scream, the dog’s body shudders, but it doesn’t give up trying to get at me. Instead it snarls as if filled with more rage and determination than ever. Its ruined paws dig at my chest, trying to tear something open while it keeps coming at me. Another scream and gore splatters across my face and neck as teeth rain down upon me before the dog collapses dead on my chest. The weight of the dog shifts as Lexi drags the rotten corpse off of me.
Immediately, I roll over and vomit, letting everything that’s left inside of me come up. I don’t hesitate and there’s nothing I can do about it. Everything inside of me escapes between hacks and chokes. Breathing heavily, I know that this was probably my last hurrah. I stare at the vomit, looking at the blackened stains of old blood and the fresh crimson blood from my stomach. I’m bleeding internally still. I’m so screwed on so many levels that it’s enough to make me want to vomit a second time.
I hear Lexi collapsing to the ground, weeping and muttering something, but I’m too exhausted to try and figure out what it is that she’s so worked up about. Instead, I’m more worried about the wound in my abdomen. Pulling up my shirt, I see that my wraps are soaked through with brownish, red blood. I don’t like the sight of it, but at least it’s not too dark. Not yet anyhow. I don’t think that too much damage was done. Pulling my shirt down, I push myself up, trembling, and dust myself off as my whole body quivers and shakes like I’ve just completed a marathon. I don’t want to go through that again. Looking at the truck, I see that there’s nothing standing between us and our destination. Glancing up and down the street, I see there are no zombies or zombie dogs waiting to kill us either. The road is clear. For the first fucking time in eternity, we’ve earned the right to walk free of death a full fucking ten feet.
I look down at Lexi who is still sitting there, weeping with her hands trembling. I realize that she pistol-whipped the dog to death and I feel highly impressed at the sight of my sister covered in blood and gore from the beast. I can’t think of the last time she truly got her hands dirty in the name of the excursion. I glance over at the dumpster wedged into the entryway just to be sure it is still in place and that we have a moment.
“Well,” I gasp, trying to slow my breathing and get my heart rate down again. I feel like I’m doing too much of that lately. “At least we know why that thing was there.” I try to lighten the mood, just a little.
My sister looks up at me with eyes that are not overly impressed by the gesture that I’ve offered to her. She should take it and be grateful. I’m not overly willing to give her more than that.
“Assholes could have left a fucking warning,” Lexi says bitterly, pushing herself up and looking at the dumpster.
Without asking me, she approaches me and hugs me, squeezing me tight and not saying a word to me. I know that she’s sorry for everything she did and honestly, I can’t say that I care too much. People do stupid things and these are grievous offences that will haunt her for the rest of her life, but I don’t need to add to that. The universe has a way of getting revenge and justice for everyone. It’s really not my concern anymore. Her lies will be something she has to live with in the days to come when I am dead and she is left with the love of my life and their child. I lean on her as she helps me to the truck and gets me into the passenger seat.
We don’t share a single word on the way back.
Chapter Seventeen
Greg is standing on the porch waiting for us, completely unaware of the fact that their little charade is up. He’s smiling at us, acting perfectly within the lie that they’ve come to know as their own little reality. It makes me sick and I’m more than willing to save his life, but only because there’s something more important at stake right now. If I was ever tested, now is the moment. I could take that cheating bastard to the grave with me and let him burn in hell or whatever is waiting for us. But I know that Lexi and Charlie are going to need him. I know that the world is going to need him. He’s the only one who can make any damned sense of all that madness on Jason’s walls and in his notebooks. I hope the dead know absolutely nothing about the world they left behind. I hope my father isn’t looking down upon this. He’d be so ashamed to see what his daughters have become.
Charlie cries from Greg’s arms weakly as Lexi kills the truck. I can feel her eyes on me and I know that she’s waiting for me to say something, to tell her whether I’m going to give her confession up or if I’m going to play along. I know that she doesn’t know that I’m going to die, so I wonder what she thinks the whole dynamic is going to be from here on out. I decide that it’s good enough to let her stew about it. She can eat herself up with worry for a while. But right now, in the si
lence of the truck, listening to Charlie’s hoarse little cries, I know that something needs to be said.
“I could do nothing,” I tell her, warning her with my cold, distant words. I feel like God right now. “I could walk in there and do nothing to Greg and give him exactly what he deserves. He could die of a fever, delirious, and in agony. I could end his miserable life and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.” I turn away from Greg and look her dead in the eyes. “But I want you to know something, Lexi. I’m going to save that bastard’s life and I’m going to save him for Charlie, because that little boy deserves a father and I know you lied to me and Noah, and everyone else, but you better tell that little boy the truth. He deserves it. As for me and Greg, we’re done. He’s all yours. I don’t care what you have to do or what you have to say to him, but make it work. You three are a family, so start acting like it.”
Before she can say anything, I throw open the door and sling the bag over my shoulder. It’s painful to walk. It’s painful to even breathe, but I keep moving. I know that the moment I stop, I’m going to regret it. Hobbling toward the farmhouse, I listen as Charlie begins screaming, despite Greg’s futile efforts to comfort him.
“He’s been crying for a while now,” Greg says amicably, sensing that something’s wrong. Even with his broken moral compass he can tell that something’s off. It’s like relationship radar, but in his case he has to be cautious from every angle with the fucked up love triangle he pursued. Even though he has no idea that something has happened, he knows that he and Lexi are in a bad spot. “I think he’s hungry, Lexi,” he says as Lexi rushes to take Charlie from him. Before I reach the porch, Lexi vanishes into the house. Greg must have found a way to un-barricade the door. I’m not so sure that’s a smart move, but I’m not here to judge anymore. I have one last job to do before I die and I intend to wrap up my affairs in this life rather quickly.
LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series Page 97