Paths

by David DeSimone

  To unlock the key to turn the power on would require her to nudge the steering wheel. Very carefully, she reached over her husband, and gently pulled on the steering wheel while at the same time jiggling the key. Finally, the key turned. The dashboard lights did indeed light up, though as before they struggled against the mysterious electromagnetic shielding around them. Despite the interference however power flowed through the pickup.

  She pulled her hoodie back on.

  She felt for the window’s power switch, found it and pressed. With a soft whirring noise the internal motor and gears steadily lowered the window.

  Slipping through the window she lowered herself to the ground outside.

  A cool breeze blew across her face and chest. She pulled her hoodie closed and zipped up.

  She leaned her back against the hood of the pickup, but unlike earlier she felt no hurry to go back in. She listened to the silence, and took in the night air.

  If this was a bona fide extinction event, she wondered whether it would be a good idea to start a journal. Recorded experiences of two survivors may prove invaluable for future generations, assuming there would be future generations. And that was the question? Had others survived? Would even the slimmest possibility of finding people unaffected by the gamma ray burst make the effort of writing a journal worthwhile? The answer was yes. Absolutely and unequivocally.

  Eva made a mental note to include a notepad and several pens to their list of things to get on their first excursion to collect provisions. When that begins, sometime tomorrow, it would be in a low populated area. In a world of 7 billion people and counting, that almost sounded like a punchline to a bad joke, but Connecticut still had its rural pockets; the outskirts or boonies, places where people tended to live quiet unassuming lives, but also where animals like the maniac could act out their sick fantasies in relative obscurity. The boonies used to make her uncomfortable, but things have changed since then. Now she hoped the boonies would afford them some peace and a place to start over.

  Another thought occurred. Even if they were the only humans left, would a journal still be worthwhile? What if those far out science documentaries Drew enjoyed so much proved correct; that the possibility of another species, rodents or cockroaches or some other small creature managed to survive the apocalypse, evolving to obtain human-level intelligence - or maybe aliens inhabiting the earth would find her journals?

  Might not such sentient species appreciate records of how their predecessors had lived and died in the twilight hours of their existence? For this to happen three things need to occur.

  One is that there will be a replacement species.

  Two is for a miracle of preservation to occur, so her journals would survive the millions of years required for mammals to evolve into humanoid species. Perhaps a stone slab, chisel and hammer might be more suitable for the task. Eva chuckled at this. But even if the stone slabs survived time and erosion, she would also have to hope for a good cryptographer to decipher the language, which to the casual eye would only look like chicken scratch.

  And three. Expedience. After all, the clock is ticking for all life on the planet. Within a billion years the sun will expand to such a size that the unimaginable heat it produces will scorch the surface of the planet.

  Every body of water, rivers, lakes and oceans will boil away. Soil and sand will melt into glass or dissolve into fine, hot dust. But even before that happens, all life on earth would have long been cooked away. Our replacements would only expect to enjoy their newly evolved intelligence for perhaps a few tens of millions of years.

  On the other hand, barring another extinction event like a gamma ray burst, supervolcano, asteroid impact or nuclear war, our clever replacements might develop technologies advanced enough to escape their hellish fate. Deep-space colonization is one possibility.

  Or a more spectacular solution would be to refuel the sun. Harvesting hydrogen from Jupiter or a giant gas cloud might be viable ways of doing it. It could be siphoned from those resources and injected into the sun’s core, stabilizing the expanding star buying the earth another 500 million years or more.

  Then our clever replacements could relax, enjoy a nice glass of…something, and read Eva’s harrowing tales of the End Times at their leisure.

  Wow! She wondered where the hell that came from. I must have been listening to Drew’s scifi, out-of-this-world mumbo-jumbo way deeper than I ever imagined. Go figure.

  4

  Still leaning against the truck, Eva heard sounds. They came from the forest side of the road. Erratic footfalls of more stricken deer, she guessed, following the tracks of the deer she had watched stagger across the road, or maybe a family of raccoons or stray dogs?

  The answer came seconds later.

  It was none of the above, nor any other creature that walked on four legs. What Eva saw was the silhouette of a human being. It appeared from the trees and dipped below the roadside ditch. It clambered up the side and continued across the road. From this distant, in the dark, it was impossible to tell whether it was man or woman. Its steps were not as sluggish as the deer, but they were slow and wavering, feet dragging across the pavement.

  There were more sounds coming from behind the treeline, getting fuller, louder, and seeming to stretch the length of the woods; the rustling of foliage, the breaking of branches.

  And now she heard voices, faint moans and grunting noises, sounds of people trudging, and sometimes stumbling, through an unpredictable terrain.

  A soft gasp escaped her lips. She slid into a crouched position.

  As the lead zombie finished his or her trip across the road, many more approached the treeline.

  Remaining crouched, Eva moved to the door and mounted the step jutting out from under the rocker panel. She hoisted herself up, and slid back into the truck, careful not to wake her husband.

  Inside the cab, she lowered herself into the footwell, reached up and pushed the button to close the window. The pane whirred steadily on its way up, sounding too loud for her comfort.

  They’re gonna hear it, she thought nervously.

  Shifting sideways to face her sleeping husband, she looked up peering through the driver-side window and saw them coming.

  They were pouring out of the forest by the hundreds.

  Even though it was dark outside, her eyes had adjusted enough to make out a few of their appearances; a diverse flowing of human wreckage: black, Hispanic, white, Asian, middle-eastern, young and old, rich and poor, blue-collar and professional. Some dressed flamboyantly, others casually, and some wore suits. An endless procession of the not-quite-dead pouring down the slopes and climbing over the roadside ditches, like condemned souls starting on the long road to hell.

  Thankfully, Drew remained in a deep sleep, for now.

  One of the dashboard lights was still lit. It was the oil indicator. Eva reached across and tried to turn the key to power the truck off. The key would not budge. She reached across with her other hand and gave the wheel a quick tug as she turned the key.

  No luck.

  As the zombies moved placidly around the truck, a few stumbled bumping into the truck’s side and jostling the cab.

  Eva gave the wheel another tug, and this time was able to turn the key. The oil light shut off.

  At that moment a female zombie stopped.

  Eva pulled her arms back as the female zombie turned her head toward the window.

  Another zombie bumped into the truck and Drew’s eyes shot open.

  The first thing he saw was his wife’s face. Her eyes were wide open, her lips trembling.

  Terrified, she threw her finger to her lips - ssshhh!

  He tried to speak, “What-”

  “Drew,” she whispered, stopping him. “Don’t move!”

  He stared at her, frozen.

  “Don’t breathe!”

  The zombie woman approached the window.

  “Keep your eyes shut.”

  He closed his eyes.

  Eva c
losed her eyes but not entirely, wanting to know what the woman would do next, wanting to be ready to react.

  The female zombie gave the window a single head-butt. She pressed her forehead and hands against the glass, her long arms framing her perfect oval face. Before the gamma ray burst turned her into a grotesque, pallid creature, her good looks had probably turned a lot of heads. With thick locks of golden hair and full lips, wearing a long, low-cut blouse now looking like something scraped up from a crash site, she mouthed lazy chewing motions as though she was kissing the window. Stains from her lipstick created wavy pink smears on the glass. Her eyes rolled around in their sockets taking in every shape inside the pickup’s cabin, but not really caring what she saw, unless, of course, one of those shapes happened to move.

  Ms. Beauty Queen drew the attention of other zombies and they crowded around the window, standing aimlessly as though waiting for instructions. After a while some grew bored and tottered away to rejoined the mass migration to nowhere, only to be replaced by newcomers. However, the rate of new arrivals was outpacing the rate of those leaving, and the cluster surrounding Ms. Beauty Queen swelled.

  Eva didn’t believe in telepathy but she tried anyway, willing Ms. Beauty Queen to go away; it was all she could do.

  It had no effect on the zombie.

  Ms. Beauty Queen kept her hands and face pressed against the window.

  Eva had been so preoccupied with Ms. Beauty Queen she had forgotten the mysterious itch that plagued so many, if not all, of those stricken.

  She noticed more and more scratching. Now it was worse. Figures moving in opposite directions clawed at their torsos, indiscriminately tearing clothes and skin. No minor bloodletting now. In some cases clothing was drenched in red.

  Ms. Beauty Queen was no exception. Her chest was a map of crisscrossing red lines. Blood had turned the front of her neckline into a crimson necklace.

  A male zombie, thirtyish, approached the window, sidling up to Ms. Beauty Queen and peered inside. His collar was pulled open and black with dried blood. After deciding there was nothing particularly interesting to see, he pulled back. As he stepped away his upper body became more visible. Eva discovered that the flap hadn’t been a collar at all, but his skin; the drenched shirt was really exposed tissue.

  Clenching her teeth to stanch a scream until the muscles in her jaw ached, Eva closed her eyes, hoping Ms. Beauty Queen wouldn’t notice.

  “What’s going on?” Drew whispered. She wished he had stayed quiet - who knew how well they could hear?

  “They’re surrounding us. Stay quiet.” The words seeped out of her unmoving lips so clearly she could have had a second career as a ventriloquist.

  She cracked open her eyes again - still there. Ms. Beauty Queen thumped her head against the window as if to confirm it, gazed stupidly into the cab, and then she began rubbing her face from side to side against the glass.

  She used the window to scratch her itchy face, Eva realized.

  Ms. Beauty Queen wasn’t satisfied.

  The itch was too intense. She needed to go deeper.

  She brought a clawed hand up to her right cheek and began to dig. Skin parted and pushed below the fingers like potato skin curling away from a peeler.

  Blood followed.

  It oozed down her face like syrup, ran along the underside of her jawline, down her chest, and finally soaking into her blouse.

  She clawed at her other cheek.

  More potato peels.

  More blood.

  A dark red bib replaced her crimson necklace. Ms. Beauty Queen emitted a low endless groan, her mouth a distorted crescent of agony.

  That didn’t stop her fingers from plunging deeper into the tissue - down to the first joint.

  When Ms. Beauty Queen finally pulled her fingers away, her face looked like it got caught in a mower. Muscle, fat and skin dangled on either side of her face, exposing molars and other bone below the cheeks.

  Eva stared in horrified fascination, finding it impossible to look away, yet wanting nothing more.

  Wet, throaty hacking noises mixed with unending moans rose out of the passing throng. But it was the occasional bleating, inhuman cries like sheep being led to slaughter, that caused ice to run down Eva’s spine. Sounds of unwarranted suffering. She was in a foxhole with mortar rounds bearing down in all directions, a defenseless soldier praying for deliverance.

  On some primitive level, Ms. Beauty Queen must have come to understand that moving on was a better option than passing the time pulling her face apart, for she dropped her arms and did an about-face.

  Blood tracked down the window and collected along the bottom seam.

  A parting gift.

  As she tottered away, pushing stragglers aside to clear a way to pass, the cluster she had drawn began to disperse. For whatever reason they had imprinted her as their leader, at least until they dissolved back into the herd.

  Like a stream the current smoothed itself out.

  The herd was thinning.

  “How does it look?” Drew whispered.

  “Keep quiet and don’t move.”

  The last of the zombies crossed the service road. Those that fell into the shallow ditch flanking the road managed to climb out. Like lemmings they followed the heels of ones ahead and vanished into the brush.

  5

  After an hour following the wave, Drew had actually drifted off to sleep.

  He awoke a few hours later to numb legs. Climbing back onto the driver’s seat, he stretched his legs. A rush of pressure pain flooded in followed by pins and needles. Both legs felt as though they were about to explode.

  Through clenched teeth he winced.

  Eva felt sympathy pains for him, grimaced. She had been in her seat for several minutes already. Although she too experienced a prickling sensation when circulation had returned to her legs, it wasn’t as severe as Drew’s.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he groaned. “Legs fell asleep.”

  “Rub them. It’ll help bring the circulation back.”

  He rubbed; it didn’t help. Several minutes had to pass before he felt okay.

  He looked around.

  “They’re gone,” she said.

  Seeing blood and spit smeared on the door window, he said, “Jesus.”

  “It was worse when she was there.”

  “It was a woman?”

  Eva nodded.

  “What did she do?”

  “Please don’t make me answer that.”

  6

  As sunrise approached, the effects of the gamma ray burst lingered. The greenish tint stripped the rosy light of its vibrancy, but it had diminished significantly since yesterday. The prospect of a normal looking sky boosted Eva’s spirits a little, like a halftime pep talk. The team is down by 35 points yet the overly zealous coach insists that they could still win. It was a highly improbable assumption but not impossible, leaving room for hope. Better than nothing, she supposed.

  She had slept for four hours. It wasn’t as much as she would have liked, but following Ms. Beauty Queen’s unorthodox facial procedure, she was lucky to have slept at all.

  Drew had five hours of sleep total. That seemed okay to her. As the driver, he should have more sleep. She supposed that she might have to take the wheel at some point, but even before the Apocalypse, she hated driving. Now the thought of having to negotiate a large pickup through uncertain terrain and countless walking corpses horrified her.

  “Sleep okay?” he asked.

  “No. I had a nightmare.”

  “Sorry about that. What of?”

  “That woman was back.”

  “The one that stood over me. The one you don’t want to talk about.”

  “Yes. And I still don’t want to talk about it, but I think I should.”

  He waited.

  “There’s something wrong with them.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  “No, I mean not just with their behavior or how they
look. There’s something else.”

  Drew knew. He saw it too. He saw it back at the gas station - the scratching.

  He waited.

  Raising her hands in front of her chest she mimed a scratching motion. They scratch themselves.”

  “Yeah, didn’t we talk about this already?”

  “But it’s worse than that now. More like clawing themselves.”

  He gave a thoughtful nod.

  “You didn’t see it last night. It wasn’t with just that woman either. After they tore their clothes, they gouged at their skin.”

  An image of Ms. Beauty Queen popped into her head, her fingers sinking into the soft tissue of her cheeks, the maw of excruciating pain. Blood.

  She tried to shake it away.

  “They were mutilating themselves! That woman?”

  “What about her?”

  “She tore into her face so hard that, Drew…” Her voice grew shaky. “I’m not exaggerating when I say this… She was literally tearing it to shreds, with her bare hands!” Eva shuttered as she spoke.

  “Jesus Christ!” he cried.

  “It was horrible!”

  “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”

  “The thing is I really didn’t have to,” she admitted wiping her eyes. “But I also couldn’t not see it. I was transfixed. That’s the only way to describe it. As horrible as it was, I was amazed. Does that sound sick or what?”

  “No,” he assured her. “It doesn’t sound sick. Given the circumstances it sounds understandable, completely.”

  “And to top it off, I had a nightmare that she came back, only this time she moved from her face to her eyes. I watched her dig into her sockets and pull out her eyeballs.”

  He put his hand over hers. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore.”

  “What’s happening to them?”

  “It’s probably the radiation poisoning or something like radiation.”

  “You mean it might not be radiation?”

  “Well, I don’t think typical radiation - if you can call radiation typical - has side effects like we’re seeing. It doesn’t cause brain damage, at least not so quickly. It doesn’t immediately ruin skin pigmentation and it doesn’t cause people to tear at their own flesh. It’s like radiation on steroids.”