by Hawk, J. K.
“Mia.”
11th Day, 5th Sap Moon;
Day after day, Mia emerges further out of her dark protective shell, and I am finally getting a glimpse of who she really is. She speaks on a regular basis now, and at times it can be difficult to keep her quiet. This of course makes avoiding the dead slightly more difficult, not to mention that hunting is completely out of the question. And yet, just hearing her voice brightens every day.
Oddly though, her inflections tend to change randomly, as well as the pitch of her voice, all depending on which subject she is speaking of. One moment she will convey in a juvenile tone, so sweet and innocent. Then, other moments she is conversing like a young adult, opinionated and strong headed.
Sometimes, late at night, she speaks in her sleep. A haggard, wraith-like voice, a sound that tears at my chest from under nights pitch-black shadow. Her words are mostly inaudible, as if it were just mindless babble. The worst are her frantic night-terrors where she will run madly about the cabin, screaming and thrashing like a caged banshee.
“HE'S GONNA EAT ME! HE'S GONNA EAT ME!” Thankfully those are not as frequent.
In the old world she would have been labeled a schizophrenic and locked away in one of them old nut-houses down in Augusta. I however, see a mind tormented and fracture, desperately trying to pull itself back together. Besides, as of yet she has shown no hostility, no deranged behaviors, she is happy. Probably the first time in a very, very long time.
She utilizes her childlike voice whenever she is speaking of Nova; telling stories of how high the pup can jump, or how fast she can run. She loves that animal more than anything, in fact the only complaint she has expressed is how much the pup can piss, the simple things.
Occasionally, she will tell me a tale of her dreadful past, yet these are far and few between. Stories that bring out more of her odd mannerisms, driven by the emotions they instill. The tales of her childhood are always in that same sweet childlike voice, then gradually it changes with the more recent events in her life.
I try to jot down everything thing she says, word for word, but it can be hard to keep up with her fast pace speech, hand gestures, and vocal sound effects. I would sometimes question her about what I had written, to check for accuracy, but these attempts for answers end in silence. So I would stare down at the words on the page and hope that they were wrong, that I had misunderstood her. But deep down I know otherwise.
The following passages are just a couple of tales from her past. A few that she was able to more clearly recite to me and needed less clarification. I have thrown out most of her other accounts in hopes that without those records she may one day forget that they had ever happened. But, in truth, it was I who needed to forget.
onset of 1st Outbreak Moon;
It was late when I awoke to a loud racket, screaming and crying, which at first I thought it was my father watching TV. But, then I realized it was coming from outside in the street. Quietly I tip-toed out of my room to see who it was, to see what was going on. I remember it was dark - scary dark. Like in the woods at night when there is no moon or stars. I could just barely see outside of the window in the hallway, only shadows running about the shadows. I first thought that I'd slept through a big storm, one that shut off the power. But then why was everyone outside? None of it made sense.
Then, Ms. Thompson's house across the street lit up so bright that I had to cover my eyes. Eventually I peered out from behind them only to find her entire house was on fire. Mrs. Thompson was okay though, she appeared to be badly burnt, but seemed to be walking around just fine. And her house now lit up the street, giving me a better look at what all the fuss was about. I first noticed a little boy, about my age I think, stumbled around our lawn crying for his mom.
“Mom! Mommy! Where are you?”
Thankfully though, he was quickly gathered up by a big strong man, his father I think. They were new to the neighborhood and I hadn't seen much of them. My daddy said something about the mother being sick. In fact, over the last few days a ton of people seemed to be getting sick. Even Mrs. Thompson, but at least she seemed to be much better.
At first I was happy to see someone comforting the poor little boy, but instead, I watched the man bite into his son's neck like a bad dog. He must have been real hungry too, I'd have to be really hungry to eat my own kid like that. Thankfully the boy was not too hurt, he could still walk about, but he too became hungry as well.
There were a lot of hungry people out that night, chasing, biting, and clawing. People hurting people, and people killing people. I should have been scared, but I wasn't, at least I don't remember being scared. I'm not sure how long I watched before I realized my mom was yelling at me from the garage.
“MIA!” At once, I left the window and ran through the kitchen to the door that led into our garage. “GET IN THE CAR MIA!” She screamed. My mom does not like to wait, 'Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.' She always says.
My dad had packed up the car, like he does when we are going camping. But this time we must have been really late because he too was running about yelling, and cussing.
“Hurry Mary, HURRY THE FUCK UP!”
I don't like it when my dad swears, yet he doesn't swear that often, mostly when he stubs his toe or when the Pat's lost a game. But when he does let them slip he tends to use all of them at once, sometimes he even makes up a few of his own.
When I got in the car I saw next to me were all my dad's guns. Which was weird, cause he never takes them anywhere, they were always locked up in his safe. But I just assumed he was planning on hunting on this trip. The car was also packed tight with an assortment of canned food, clothes, and random tools. More than what we normally bring on a camping trip.
We left the house in such a hurry, the garage door wasn't even all the way open when my dad backed out. I covered my ears with my hands as it scrapped loudly against the roof. I think he even ran over the trash-cans as he spun out into the street. There were a few hard thuds right as I began to bounce about in my seat. Then, I reopened my eyes to see we were on our way down the road.
My dad was driving crazy, swerving back and forth and around all the hungry people. I remember that he had almost run over a couple of them. They seemed to be getting even hungrier, and meaner. My friend Ashley was even eating Mr. Reny in his driveway. I always liked Mr. Reny, he use to give me candy every time I walked by his house. He should have given a piece to Ashley.
We drove fast throughout the night, my dad kept saying, “We gotta stick to the back roads, the highways will be tight as shit.”
“What are we going to do? How could this happen?” My mother cried out. I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about, but figured it had to do with everyone out on the street acting weird. It might have been because I was so tired, I'm not sure. I just did not understand what was going on, but I ended up learning real quick.
I don't like it when my parents are upset, so I curled up in the back seat with a blanket from one of the bags my mother had packed. For years my father’s car had no heat, my mom said he was too lazy to fix it. “Never marry a lazy man!” she would say to me. So I was happy to have the blanket for warmth, my jammies were never that warm.
It didn't take long for me to fall asleep, but I don't remember if I dreamt that night or not. I always try to remember my dream, but not the scary ones, I don't like those. When I did have a scary dream, my mom would sit with me in my bed and talk, all night sometimes. We talked until I forgot about them and fell back to sleep. I miss that, I miss my mom.
When I woke up it was almost light out and a thick fog covered the car. We were in the woods somewhere, I could just barely make out all the trees to either side of the car. We were parked on the side of an old dirt road, one that did not look familiar to me. There weren't many dirt roads near our house either, the only one I can remember is the dump road.
My Parents were also nowhere to be found, the key was still in the ignition and the car still running. O
pening the door, I climbed out and immediately noticed the puddle of blood on the ground next to the front tire. Then, a trail of bloody foot-prints heading off into the woods.
“My dad must have hit a deer.” I had thought. One year he hit a small fawn and spent hours searching the forest for it. He really liked deer meat, and every fall he would spend entire days out in the woods hunting. He's never actually shot one, though. Yes, it had to be a deer, there was no other reason for all the blood.
I followed the footprints into the forest for a while, picking little white flowers that grew all around. I wanted to get a bunch for momma. She loves flowers, especially white ones. We don't have many flowers around our house, just dandelions, but they die real quick and tend to make a mess.
After a while, I began to hear strange noises, moaning and what sounded like growling. I thought there might be a hurt dog so I hurried up to see. But it was no dog, just my mom eating daddy under a tree. She must have been hungry too, because his arm was almost all gone.
“Mommy?” I said, but she didn't hear me, she was too busy eating. I walked up and pulled on her shirt. “Mommy we have food in the car, remember?” She turned her head towards me and growled as blood dripped from her mouth and a piece of daddy's skin fell from her lips. It was gross, it was also then that things began to sink in, and I got really scared.
My mom grabbed my pajamas so hard that I heard it tear as she tried to pull me close while snapping her teeth at me. I began to shake, I began to cry, and I didn't know what to do. I was almost frozen in fear, yet was still able to pull myself away from her.
“Mommy, I don't like this, can we go home now?” She didn't say anything, she just continued to growl and snarl, crawling towards me as I backed myself away. Then my Daddy slowly stood up from behind her.
“Daddy! Tell Mommy to stop, I don't like this!” I cried out, but he was hungry too and slowly walked towards me, snarling just as mommy was.
So I ran, hard and fast, I ran straight back to the car trying not to look back as they chased me through the trees. When I finally got back to the road I saw a strange man standing by the car. He was staring at it like he had never seen one before. I ran towards him, not noticing his blood soaked shirt.
“Mister, Mister! There something wrong with my mom and dad, I think they are sick!” He slowly turned towards me revealing the hunger in his eyes, along with his entire right cheek - torn away. His teeth almost glowed-white in the darkness. Then he began to walk towards me, dragging one leg behind like a dead stick.
Quickly I ran around him and jumped back into the car, making sure to lock all the doors as fast as I could. I was so scared, scared of the strange man, scared of my mom and dad too. I love my parents very much, but I didn't want them to eat me. So I hid down on the floor, trying to keep out of sight.
Mommy, Daddy, and Mister were all around the car, smearing blood across the glass with their hands while they pressed their faces into it as yellow drool dribbled down the window. I felt like I couldn't breathe but was still able to cry out, over and over.
“PLEASE, PLEASE STOP! I JUST WANNA GO HOME!” But, they never heard me.
It seems like it was forever that I laid there crying. Praying for God to save them, to even save the strange man. I cried so hard and for so long that I must of tired myself out and fell asleep right there on the dirty car floor. In a way, it was comforting to know that I slept peacefully until next day, with Mommy and Daddy watching over me.
supplemental;
Mia later mentioned that a cop eventually came along and put the stranger and her parents to rest. She says she does not remember anything after that, or what had happened to that nice cop. Maybe it was for the best, maybe he wasn't so nice after all.
Although the cop is a mystery, she does frequently mention Old Ben, like he is some long lost grandfather. She generally just mentions his name in passing, short sentences that don't make a whole lot of sense to me. Yet tonight, for some reason Mia decided to spill the beans on Old Ben.
est. 2-3 Years After 1st Outbreak Moon;
The hungry were everywhere, eating everything; dogs, cats, rats. Anything still alive. They searched the city streets, but there was only me left. I was alone and so very scared that I had crawled into a dark and wet pipe that stretched under the road. Shivers ran down my back with the tug of every spider web that got tangled up in my hair. I don't like spiders but they don't scare me as much as the Hungry do.
The cold damp pipe began to get even colder as night fell, and the Hungry began to move about even more. I couldn't hold back the shivers as I desperately tried to rub my arms to keep them warm, which seemed pointless. I didn't want to sleep in that hole, but the hungry are meaner at night, and there was no way I could out-run all of them. Especially how tired and starving I was. Every step burned into my legs, and made the pains in my belly worsen. I just wanted to eat and then sleep for days, maybe even a week.
As it got late, and darker, those terrifying noises filled my ears. The noises of the hungry at night. Just one of them growling and hissing is scary, but when there are a bajillion of them echoing along those narrow metal walls, it almost stopped my heart. Their shrieks and wails echo in the night, muffling the soothing songs of the crickets.
Shivering in the mucky pipe, I tried to hold back my whimpers, tried to remain silent. My hands, pushed hard over my mouth, but my sobs still escaped. The hungry heard me almost instantly. One of them jumped down in front of the opening of the culvert, snapping his teeth at me and peering deep into the pipe with his head cocking from side to side. I screeched in surprise, which echoed painfully in my ears.
He continued to snarl at me like a bad dog, reaching into the pipe trying to grab me with his long skinny arms. The gray skin on his cheeks sagged down over his jawbone like grandpa's old blood-hound. He had but two teeth, both on top. But that did not make him any less scary, only sillier. If I wasn't so scared I might have even laughed at him, he reminded me of Goofy the dog, only creepy.
The other end of the pipe was soon guarded by a few more hungry, I was trapped. Two men, and a small child, maybe only two or three years old. Just a baby, an innocent kid. His eyes were still so alive, not yet faded like most of them. His snarls though, I will always remember his snarls, unlike anything I've have heard before.
Soon, more and more hungry began gathering at the openings, almost piling up on-top each other as they pushed forward. Thankfully they could not figure out how to crawl through the opening of the rusty old culvert. Yet, I still began to sob even louder, closing my eyes tight as I tried to think back of a time before the world went bad. But there was nothing, no memories, just blackness with quick glimpses of sickness.
As I began to pray, a loud crack of thunder echoed from outside the hole, so loud I had to cover my ears as it rung up and down the pipe. For a moment I thought a storm was coming, but the flashes of light did not seem to come from the sky, and there was no rain. Soon, another crack, and the head of the buck-toothed Hungry exploded as a shower of blood, brain and skull sprayed into the muck before me.
A few more cracks of thunder and the rest fell the same way, all dead, at least the ones in front of me. My sobs slowly began to ease, and my heart began to settle. I was still unsure what had happened but was relieved anyway, knowing that they would not eat anyone else, especially me. For a second I thought that just maybe, God, had struck them down with bolts of lightning from his eyes.
But it wasn't God, a dark figure soon appeared before the opening. Slowly he stepped down into the pile of dead and peered into the pipe at me. This one was big and held an even bigger gun. He was definitely not a hungry, and I thanked Jesus for that.
“Come here child.” He whispered.
He was my hero, a hero sent from above, so I crawled towards his welcoming arms. As soon as I was close enough, he lifted me out of the drain and held me tight. It hurt a little, but felt good, just like the bear-hugs daddy use to give me.
“You out here all
by yourself, honey?” he asked, and I nodded back. “You are safe now.”
Slowly he carried me out of the ditch and down the road. I stared back as the dead wandered the streets like the blind trying to find their way. They did not seem to follow, maybe they too were scared, or maybe they just hadn't seen our escape. Either way, the man hurried down the road, away from the town and all those hungry people.
I felt for once, in such a long time, safe. He seemed like a nice man. He said his name was Ben something, but I just called him Old Ben. He wasn't old like Mr. Thomas, but he did have pepper colored hair like my uncle Roger. Old Ben was one of them black people, I don't believe I had ever met a black man before Old Ben. But, my daddy was right, they are just like you or me.
Old Ben's coat was soft and warm, so I snuggled deep into his arms as my body began to relax. The murmur of the dead soon faded as we moved further away, and the last sound I remember was the comforting lone cry of a loon from a nearby pond. Her soothing song allowed my mind to forget, and before long I drifted off to sleep.
I'm not sure how long I had slept, but when I woke I was in a small room and on a nice warm bed. I could see a light coming from under the doorway across the room, so I got up and opened it slowly to peek out. Old Ben was sitting in front of a fire place cutting into some wood with a small pocket knife.
“What are you doing?” I asked him as I walked into the room, he paused for a moment, looking up at me with a little smile on his face. His big brown eyes stared into mine as I approached his chair to get a better look. His smile grew with each step that I took.
“Whittling.” he finally responded, then looked back down and continued to cut into the wood. Quietly I sat down on the floor next to him and watched him slice thin piece after thin piece away from the block. I wasn't sure what he was making, but he worked carefully at it. Breathing heavily out of his nose while his tongue stuck partially out between his dry cracked lips.