The Dead & Dying

by William Todd Rose

  We’ve almost made it all the way to her when she hears us behind her or something. She stands up real quick and spins around and her face looks like she just saw a ghost as she starts backin’ away real slow. At the same time, she’s lookin’ around like maybe she’s lost something and the blurry people are all rushin’ toward her now and I am too.

  She starts screaming and her voice hurts my ears so bad that I just want her to shut up, to stop yelling and be quiet, and it makes me even more mad that she won’t.

  She kinda dives toward this really long knife like the one jungle explorers use to cut through vines and stuff and she just touches its handle with her fingertips when all of the sudden we’re all piling on top of her.

  I can hear her clothes being ripped as we claw at her and she’s still screaming and for a second I see her boob only I don’t feel all embarrassed like that time when I walked in on my babysitter changin’ clothes.

  She’s still screaming and kickin’ and tryin’ to push us away but there’s too many of us and I start seeing blood squirtin’ everywhere. It smells rusty and salty at the same time and its warm on my face and chin, so warm that I didn’t realize exactly how cold I was before.

  And I’ve got something rubbery in my mouth, something that tastes like I bit down on an old penny or stuck the tip of my tongue against a battery. But at the same time, I like the way it makes my mouth feel nice and toasty and as soon as it’s not warm any more all I want is another piece, a little bit more make my tongue feel like it’s a cat sleepin’ in sunlight.

  The lady isn’t fighting as hard now. Maybe she realizes we just don’t wanna be cold no more and that she can help. Or maybe it’s ’cause she’s startin’ to get a little fuzzy now herself. It’s almost like her face is melting in front of my eyes, her nose and lips and ears kinda smoothing out into one big blur that starts to go down her body, covering everything in its path.

  By the time the lady is just as blurry as everyone else, she’s stopped moving altogether and I don’t feel that excitement any more. None of the others seem to either ’cause we’re all standing up now and starting to walk away. When we were with the lady, it didn’t hurt no more but now I can feel it starting again, like little needles bein’ shoved into the bottoms of my feet. And my eyes are starting to sting and my skin feels like its shrinking and crackin’.

  Maybe she didn’t want to be alone anymore or maybe she was starting to feel cold too, but the lady in the checkerboard jacket stands up and for a minute it almost seems as if she’s about to fall down again. But she doesn’t and she just kinda falls in with the rest of the group, just like kids used to do when we had to go back inside at the end of recess.

  And I can feel that tugging again only its stronger than what it was before. It’s almost like I’ve got an invisible rope tied around my waist and am being pulled through the woods by something a lot stronger than me. My new friends follow along behind me and I don’t know if they feel it too or if they’re just kinda playin’ Follow The Leader.

  Either way, I don’t really care. All I know is that I want to be warm again, that I want to find someone else who’ll share their heat, that I want the hurting to go away. Even if only for just a little bit.

  And I somehow know that out there in the woods, hidden by the trees and rocks and shrubs, there are others like the lady in the checkerboard jacket. All I need to do is find them….

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: CARL

  For some reason, I find myself thinking about the day I shot Jason’s mother. God, that seems so long ago… almost like it’d happened to an entirely different person or perhaps in another life.

  Josie always talked about reincarnation, you know? About how she’d die and come back again as a little baby… how this cycle had been repeating over and over throughout the course of time and would just continue on until she had learned whatever it was she was supposed to. And I think she had the basic concept right; she just had it all muddled up with religion, superstition, and what-not.

  The way I see it, a person can reincarnate a hundred times within the span of a single life. But there ain’t nothing mystical about it. There ain’t no divine plan guiding the way. It’s all about having an experience so damn intense that it seeps into every pore and every cell of your being. And it changes you. Sometimes slowly, sometimes so quickly that you’re left feeling as dazed as if you’d just been struck by lightning. But the change happens and you come out on the other side as someone other than the person you were before.

  Hell, you don’t even look the same in the mirror any more. Your eyes seem a bit older, hopefully wiser, and the emotions left over from this here experience bring out new expressions that re-sculpt your features. You see lines and shadows that weren’t there just a day earlier, slight variations in your complexion and the contrast between your skin tone and the stubble growing across your chin. Even your voice sounds different… and, at some point, you realize that the reason for all of this is that the old you is dead now. You’ve been reincarnated and it didn’t take your whole dang body kicking the bucket to bring it about.

  Jason and Monica, the little girl in the forest… that was one of those experiences for me. Hell, unless you’re some kinda nutjob a man can’t take two lives in a single day and just expect to go on like nothing ever happened. And those books and movies I used to like so much? They lead you to believe that it gets easier with time: that eventually you can just pop one of those things in the head without giving a second thought to who they used to be. But, for me at least, it was always right there in the back of my mind. I’d try to push it away, to remind myself that whatever it was that made these people human had long since left their rotting bodies. But, truthfully, there was always this part of me that wanted to cry.

  And that day, I did. After I shot Monica in that bedroom, I felt as if every sorrow I’d ever felt, every heartbreak or pain, just came rising to the surface like bubbles in a pond. I didn’t want this anymore. I wanted to return to the way things had always been. Just give me my boring, old life back. Give me the Pit Stop, the customers bitching me out ’cause I’d shorted them a nickel, the never ending routine that marked my day to day life. Let that little boy have his mother back, let everything return to normal, and I would never wish again that my life was more exciting or unpredictable than what it was.

  Of course, I knew that couldn’t happen. Might have as well wished for a bumper harvest in the middle of winter. So I knelt in that there room and felt like those tears were pulling everything that had ever been worth a damn plum out of my soul. Left me feeling hollow and empty inside, how I expect a Jack-o-lantern would if it were able to think and feel.

  I thought things had hit rock bottom. I thought there was no way in tarnation it could possibly get worse.

  I thought wrong….

  After I realized the boy had run off, I tried to find him. I ran through those woods, calling out his name until my voice felt like glass scratching against my vocal chords. I knew that I’d attract every damn rotter within earshot; but I didn’t care. I’d fight my way through each and every one of them if I had to. Whatever it took to make sure that I didn’t fail that little boy again.

  I kept thinking about how alone he was out there, how dark would be coming soon, and how he wouldn’t stand a chance against those things. I had these pictures of him in my mind, pictures that I tried to shake off like a dog flinging water: rotters tackling him to the ground, freshies leaning so close to his face that he would smell their decaying organs waft from their opened mouths. Him screaming, begging for help.

  By the time the sun had sunk below the horizon, I was no closer than I’d been before. I’d seen signs that I thought might have been him passing through: broken twigs and crushed undergrowth, a scrap of cloth that could have been from his shirt. But they could have just as easily have been from someone else trying to hide within the forest. Or even from one of them.

  But I had to keep looking. If I didn’t at least try, I knew I’
d be signing that little boy’s death warrant. So even after the full moon had risen well within the sky and tinted the woods in a bluish light, I kept searching. Kept calling his name and dealing with corpses as they staggered through the trees.

  The sun rose, the birds chirped their little Good Morning songs, and by then the soles of my feet stung with burst blisters. I’d walked through the woods the whole night through, stopping for a spell only when I couldn’t force myself to take another step. I might’ve nodded off here and there, but if I did it weren’t nothing more than a cat nap and offered no real rest. At least not the kind my body demanded.

  The morning sun, however, has an effect on someone whose been up the better part of the night. It’s almost like the golden light filtering down through the trees and leaves gives a boost of energy. A body feels more hopeful and the cobwebs start to clear from the head a bit. And, of course, the thoughts in that head turn to breakfast.

  My stomach rumbled like an angry bear and I realized that it’d been close to fourteen hours or so since I’d eaten anything. I also realized that I couldn’t keep going on an empty stomach. That if I had any hope of finding Jason, I had to get some food energy in that tired ’ole body of mine. I knew I had a bunch of Spam in the backpack, maybe some crackers, a mess of Slim Jims, and one or two cans of….

  And then it hit me. The backpack. It’d had all my food in it. The little first aid kit I’d lifted from a wrecked car on the interstate. The rest of my ammo. And, in my hurry to chase after the boy, I’d left it back there in the house. In the room with his dead mother where it wouldn’t be doing anybody any good.

  I had this feeling like my stomach had just turned itself inside out and all the bile had spilled over my innards. I wanted to throw up, to bang my head against the nearest tree as I screamed out my frustration. How could I have been so damn stupid? My life depended on the contents of that bag and I’d just waltzed away, never giving it a second thought until I’d gone so far that I’d never manage to find my way back to where I’d left it. On top of that, I’d killed an innocent girl, let a little boy’s mother get bitten by one of those fuckers, and then lost him in the process… some fucking hero I was turning out to be.

  About half an hour later, I came across a little patch of blackberries and attacked them like they were manna from heaven. I shoveled handfuls in my mouth, ignoring the prick of the thorns as they drew beads of blood from my fingers, and probably ate more than a few of the little grub worms you sometimes find inching their way along the berries. It wasn’t much of a breakfast, but to me the tart sweetness of the juice that stained my lips and fingers was like a full course meal with all the trimmings.

  After eating, I kept walking until the sun was well over halfway across the sky. About fifteen minutes earlier, I’d spotted something in the distance: something white, something that occasionally flashed with brilliance from its hiding place behind the trees. I was pretty sure that it was a house or building of some sort and that the flashes were the reflection of the sun on glass windows. Maybe I would be able to find something substantial to eat there or even a weapon that had more than just three rounds left.

  My instincts wanted to run full out toward that little glimpse of civilization, but I had to force myself to walk the way my Grandpa showed me when he taught me to hunt. Each foot carefully placed in front of the other, mindful of twigs that could snap and give away my position; in a way I was stalking this building, creeping forward at a pace that would have done a turtle proud. What normally would’ve taken me a few minutes to cover ended up taking nearly half an hour.

  But eventually I was at the edge of the woods and I hunkered down within the trees as I scoped out that lay of the land. What I’d seen had been a house after all. But that house was just one part of a small town, much like the ones I’d grown up in. A single road, most likely called Main Street, cut through the center and I could see the marquee of a theater called The Roxie that looked as if it dated back to the fifties. Accountants, lawyers, real estate agents, a hardware store: all the earmarks of Americana were laid out on either side of that empty road.

  I watched for movement, for anything that would betray the presence of rotters. But there was only the shadow of clouds easing across the street and buildings. Only the rustle of leaves on the little trees bordering the sidewalk as a slight breeze rattled litter through a town that seemed frozen in time.

  Finally, I stepped out of the safety of the forest and into the open. I gripped my pistol with both hands so tightly I could feel my pulse throbbing within my palms. Take a step. Stop. Listen. Scan the town for any signs of activity. Repeat.

  The American flag outside the post office fluttered in the surreal silence and I forced myself to take long, slow breaths.

  Take a step. Stop. Listen.

  In my mind I had imagined that every city in the country would be in shambles: all shattered glass, burnt out buildings, the wreckage of civilization smoldering amid the ruins of a crumbled world. But this town was immaculate. As if all the residents had simply disappeared in the wink of an eye. As if the Rapture had come during the wee hours of the morning to whisk them away from the hell that was about to be unleashed upon the world.

  Take a step.

  Maybe I’d be able to find another first aid kit in of the cars parked alongside expired meters.

  Stop.

  Maybe the grocery up ahead would be filled with row after row of canned food, just waiting for me to come along to find it.

  Listen.

  Thoughts of food caused my stomach to growl and in the stillness it sounded like a rusty door swinging open.

  Scan the town.

  I would get what I could from this place, stock up, and then head back out into the woods. Resume the search for the boy. He couldn’t have gotten far.

  Repeat.

  Nearing an intersection, I saw a green, rectangular sign which confirmed my earlier suspicion: the corner of Main and Elm. Before I could go back and check all these mom and pop shops for supplies, I needed to make sure that this place was a clear as it seemed.

  I eased my way over to the sidewalk and pressed my back against the rough bricks of Brighton Hardware and Feed. Just a few feet from the intersection now… I stood and listened.

  Nothing but the chirping of birds, the wind, and the breakneck rhythm of my own heart.

  The pistol felt as heavy as a chunk of granite in my moist palms and I tried to ignore the little voice whispering in my head:

  Only three bullets left….

  As slowly as I could, I peeked around the corner of the building and what I saw caused my breath to catch in my throat.

  Whereas Main Street could’ve been lifted from a Norman Rockwell painting, Elm was an entirely different story. Here was the destruction I had expected to see: shattered windows with curtains flapping through the empty sills, front doors flung wide open, cars crumpled around telephone poles, bloodstains like dark inkblots on the street and sidewalks. Four houses on Elm were nothing more than a huge pile of cinder and blackened stone and the wreckage seemed to radiate out from a central point as if there had been an explosion.

  I saw bodies littered about the street, sprawled out with dark clouds of flies buzzing overhead and crows ripping long strands of flesh with bloody beaks. But none of these bodies seemed to be moving and I was pretty sure zombies didn’t have the presence of mind to play possum in an attempt to lure fresh meat to them.

  I rounded the corner and came to the first of the fallen. In life, he’d been a young man but now he was nothing more than a sun-bloated feast for the insects and scavengers. His eyes were long gone but there was something within the darkness of the sockets that gave the impression that things were moving around in there. A scuttling sound. Changes in light and shadow. Lumps that shifted position just beneath flesh the color of a paper grocery bag. For a second, I thought I caught a glimpse of something pink as it poked out through the bullet hole in the center of his head. But it was gone so quickl
y it may have been nothing more than a trick of my exhausted mind.

  When I’d approached, the crows had taken flight and perched on a phone line overhead. They called out in their gravelly voices and somehow this sound I’d heard all my life now seemed threatening. As if they were warning me to step away from the food. Just step away and no one gets hurt….

  The man’s right arm was stretched out away from his body. As if, even in the throes of death, he had been trying to reach the overturned shoe box a few feet away. The contents of the box had spilled out across the street and I saw a few bottles of aspirin that had rolled a distance away, two tins of tuna, a pair of binoculars.

  This is wrong. I thought. Zombies don’t carry supplies….

  Overhead, the crows called out again.

  Let them have their feast; I would have my own. This man may have been killed when blood still flowed through his veins, but I couldn’t let that get in the way of my own survival. The food and supplies, as meager as they were, was fair game and I’d be damned if I’d just leave it behind based on principle.

  I gathered the supplies from the street and began stuffing them into my pockets, noticing that fortune had decided to smile upon me. There was also a little Bic lighter and an unopened pack of smokes that had been blocked from view by the overturned box.

  After everything was neatly tucked away, I raised the binoculars to my eyes and began sweeping across the landscape. Maybe I could find something else in all of this carnage and destruction, anything that would help me live for another day.

  And then I saw them. The undead. They were clustered around the base of a church, hammering and scratching at the walls, hurling themselves against the door, scrambling over one another in their zeal to gain entrance. There must’ve been fifty, hell maybe seventy-five, of those filthy bastards attacking this little white building with its bell tower and stained glass windows too high off the ground for them to reach.