by Max Lockwood
“What do you mean?” Matthew asked. As far as he was concerned, there was no choice but to leave them where they fell. He didn’t remember making a conscious decision to make a barricade of bodies. It just sort of happened.
“Have you noticed that these creatures have a keen sense of smell?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I think we’ve effectively camouflaged ourselves from the outside population. This place is going to reek of dead zombies so much that we’ll be tough to track.”
She seemed delighted at the thought, which gave Matthew a bad taste in his mouth. He didn’t want to think of the smell of decaying flesh or that monsters were tracking healthy people like dogs. It was all too much for him to think about. He was already tired of being cooped up in a building with no means of getting out.
“I’m going to head back downstairs to check on Genevieve,” Ellie said. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute,” he said, returning to the window. He couldn’t help but peek down at the sight of the latest victim to get some kind of closure. To his surprise, there was no sign that he’d ever existed.
With the lack of a body to prove the stranger was brutally slaughtered, Matthew decided to override logic and assume that the man escaped. He turned around and jogged down the empty corridor to catch up with Ellie.
7
When the pair returned to the security break room, they heard a small yelp as Matthew rapped on the door. After promising Genevieve that everything was fine, she cautiously opened the door, knife in hand.
“I was scared,” she said meekly, returning her knife to its sheath.
“Nothing to be scared of,” Matthew replied. “The building is safe.”
“Everything?” she asked, gesturing toward the upper floors with her hands.
“Yes, the whole building is secure.”
“Good.” She nodded.
Matthew looked at his watch. They had been gone for almost four hours. He felt guilty for leaving Genevieve alone for so long, especially after they said they would be back soon. The room looked tidier than it was when they’d left that morning, and Genevieve’s blonde hair was intricately braided. Apparently, she hadn’t slept for long, after all.
“How are you feeling?” Ellie asked.
“A little bad,” Genevieve said. “Is there ice?”
Matthew pursed his lips. Ice would probably help with her pain and swelling, but without electricity, all the freezers would be useless.
“We need actual medical supplies.” Matthew sighed. He wished he had some medical training. He could do basic first aid, but he didn’t know what to do to make Genevieve feel better.
“I didn’t see any when we searched the floors,” Ellie said, frowning.
“I’ll double check,” Matthew said. “Now that we know the zombies in the building are dead, I think we need to really block the doors and windows. I know everything is locked up, but I’ve seen the damage a big mob can do. With as many zombies as there are on the streets, I’m worried that a locked door won’t stop them.
“I suppose that means I should go with you,” Ellie said, eyeing the vending machine.
“If you could, yeah,” he replied. “Genevieve, is it okay if we leave again?”
“Fine,” she said glumly. “Please return soon.”
“It shouldn’t take long,” he replied.
Grabbing their weapons again, the healthiest of the group returned to the lobby. Overtaken by the rancid smell, Matthew covered his nose and mouth with a shirtsleeve.
“Yeah, that’s foul,” Ellie agreed, pulling the collar of her shirt over her face as they passed through the lobby.
On this round through the building, Matthew and Ellie grabbed whatever heavy, bulky objects they could find to place in front of all the doors and windows. Ellie’s mood was on the decline, as it was clear that she would much rather be in the break room with Genevieve. But she didn’t complain once. It wasn’t in her nature not to help when asked for it. Besides, Matthew did the bulk of the heavy lifting. She just assisted whenever necessary.
On this expedition, Ellie made her way to the second floor to look for goods while Matthew covered windows with duct tape and office supplies. Without power tools, there was no way for him to properly board up the windows. But, he reasoned that any precaution they took would buy them at least a few extra seconds before a potential attack. Ellie couldn’t argue with that.
On the second floor office space, Ellie found a basic first aid kit with most of its contents missing. But among the loose bandages and antibiotic cream, she found a waterless ice pack. It wouldn’t last long, but it might help Genevieve feel a little better.
In a desk drawer, Ellie found a sharp letter opener and a chocolate bar. She tossed the sharp object in the first aid kit and nibbled on the chocolate, hungry for something more substantial. Before returning to Matthew, she grabbed a notebook and a pen. After talking to Matthew about what she did for a living, she wondered if a little brainstorming session couldn’t help with the outbreak. At the very least, it would keep her mind occupied if they were going to be holed up in the building without anything to do for a while.
“Hey, Matthew, I found some—” Ellie began to say as she walked toward the atrium. She stopped dead in her tracks when she witnessed him pulling bodies from the stack.
“What are you doing?” she asked before looking up and noticing a couple frantically pounding on the revolving doors. Not far behind them, she saw a group of zombies headed toward the fresh meat.
“No, you can’t!” she yelled at Matthew. “You saw how many of them there were out there. By the time you get the door open, there will be more. You won’t be able to stop them. I’m sorry, but you can’t save them.”
“I have to,” Matthew said frantically. “They’re going to be killed—or worse, turned. I have to try.”
“Do you want us all to be killed?” Ellie said, grabbing him around the waist. By now, the zombies had come closer, right on the heels of the couple.
He tried to push her off, sending her to the floor. She fell flat on her butt, surprised that the young man would be so physical with her.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” she said again, grabbing onto his arm once she got to her feet. “It’s too late. I’m sorry.”
Ellie had tears in her eyes at this point. The zombies had reached the couple, who screamed in fear, then agony as they were ripped from the door.
Matthew sank to the ground, covering his ears with his hands as the young couple were annihilated by the pack of zombies.
Worried that their defenses had been weakened by his efforts to save the outsiders, Ellie strained to roll a corpse to the top of the stack. Once the carnage was complete, Ellie wiped her hands on her pants and placed a hand on Matthew’s shoulder.
“Hey, there was nothing either of us could do. Things would be different if we had guns, but we just have puny knives and a single baseball bat. If there hadn’t been a group of zombies so close, then maybe we would have had time. We have to look out for ourselves because no one else will. Are you listening to me?”
Ellie placed her hands on her hips and looked at him expectantly. It reminded Matthew of his grandmother scolding him.
“Got it,” he said. “They just came out of nowhere. Did you see the looks on their faces? They were absolutely horrified. They were attacked, knowing that help was on the way. Then, we snatched the rug out from underneath them. That was their last moment as human beings.”
Ellie frowned. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, it was over very quickly. If they made it this long, then they were doing a lot better than most people, right?”
Matthew groaned. There was no way to make this okay in his head. He had witnessed too many people’s last moments before they were brutally murdered.
After Rebecca was killed, the police officers shared a similar sentiment. They said something like, “At least she wasn’t in pain for long,” or something similarly repugnant. He’d heard
his sweet wife’s cries and shrieks of pain. She’d felt everything.
Rebecca was one of the toughest women he knew too. One time, they went on a ski trip and she hit a tree, breaking her leg on the last run of the day. She lay in the snow, waiting for ski patrol with nothing but a sheepish expression on her face. Her leg was in shambles and she only felt embarrassment for not landing her jump. The x-ray technician said it was one of the worse breaks he’d seen on the slopes. Even after surgery, she only cracked jokes about planning the next year’s trip.
So, when someone who didn’t know Rebecca told him that she wasn’t in pain, it took all the self-restraint he’d had not to sock the cop in the face. But Matthew had a lot of experience dealing with authority. He wasn’t about to be charged with assaulting an officer and miss his wife’s funeral.
Plus, when he considered how painful a scratch on the face from a zombie was, he knew that whatever pain they felt was intense while it lasted. One meager scratch burned like hell and gave him a week of symptoms that made Matthew feel like he was dying. In fact, he prayed for death several times as he tossed and turned in his empty bed.
“Actually, there’s nothing okay about this,” he said softly, looking at the floor. “I didn’t know them, but who’s to say they weren’t really good people?”
“No, don’t do this to yourself,” Ellie said sternly. “We have no way of knowing who they were. They could be saints. They could also be Nazis. Making up elaborate back stories for strangers will only hurt you. Whether you like it or not, this is our new reality. Everything is shit, and lots of decent people will die. Now, I’d like to do whatever I can to make sure I’m not one of them. I would also like to see Genevieve and you stay safe, too. Can we at least focus on that?”
“Yeah, okay,” Matthew said morosely. “Is there anything else we need to do before we go back to the break room? I can’t stand to be here anymore.”
“If you’re pleased with the security, then I’m ready to get back to Genevieve.”
“I’ll never be satisfied.”
“Then let’s go,” Ellie said, extending her hand to Matthew. He reluctantly placed his hand in hers and she pulled him to his feet.
Matthew trembled as they walked to the little room, unable to shake the horrified expressions of the people out of his mind. Just when he was finally able to sleep a little, he was given fresh nightmare fuel.
“It’s us, Genevieve,” Ellie sighed after knocking on the door.
She opened it, hopping from the couch to the door. Once again, she looked relieved to see the other two.
“Come in,” she said in a hushed voice. “I prepared the meal.”
On the table were three paper plates, each filled with an assortment of snacks from the vending machine. Tuna on crackers, beef jerky, and trail mix sat in neat piles on the plates. A variety of beverages sat in the center—Genevieve hadn’t spent enough time with the others to know their preferences yet.
“Thanks,” Ellie said, trying to make her voice sound somewhat cheerful. She applied a generous amount of hand sanitizer to her skin before sitting down, then she tucked into her lunch.
This pleased Genevieve, who had been feeling guilty about staying in the break room while the others worked. She sat down at her designated spot and cracked open a bottle of cranberry juice.
Matthew, still in a bit of a daze, sat down in the last seat, completely uninterested in food. He knew he needed to eat, especially with all the physical activity he had been forced to do, but the thought of food wasn’t particularly enticing.
Genevieve watched him, noticing that he wasn’t touching the food she prepared for him.
“It is no good?” she asked.
“No, it’s good,” he said. “I’m just not very hungry.”
“But you didn’t eat since morning,” she persisted.
“You’re right,” he said, popping a sliver of jerky into his mouth. He tried to chew it and not think about the dead in the atrium, or worse, the dead in the street. The canned tuna didn’t look any better. So, to appease Genevieve, he plucked a peanut from the trail mix and popped it in his mouth. He figured if he took such small bites, then they wouldn’t be at risk for revolting in his stomach.
The three ate their meal in silence. There wasn’t anything for them to talk about. Most conversations revolved around planning and creating strategies for their next move. Since there was no other plan but to stay put, that part of the conversation was unnecessary.
Otherwise, when they spoke, it was to ask trivial facts about each other. This was largely done out of politeness and to abate awkward silences. But that conversation could only go so far too. Matthew tried to avoid speaking about his personal life by talking about his army training. If he could convince the other two that he had dedicated his life to the armed forces and nothing else, perhaps he could steer all conversation away from the death of his wife.
Then there was the fact that he just didn’t care to try anymore. It took energy to act interested and come up with thoughtful questions. After watching so many people die within his reach, he just didn’t have it in him.
It didn’t appear that the other two were interested in chatting either. They ate in silence, staring at the paper plates that Genevieve had procured for them.
Seeing the vending machine snacks plated like real food almost made it worse for Matthew. It was a constant reminder that life was in no way normal, no matter how hard anyone tried. If he were at home, he would prepare a nice meal of stir-fried tofu and mixed greens, not peanuts and raisins. Or, he could prepare a tuna steak, not canned tuna mixed with mayo. Not only did good food make him feel better, but the act of cooking was a stress reliever. Now, with no output for his stress and no means of comfort, he sat in his chair, just waiting to crack. He could only stay strong for so long, and Ellie’d had a firsthand look at how easily he could unravel if Matthew couldn’t do what he so desperately needed to do.
As far as he was concerned, he was only good at two things—cooking and taking care of others. The former was not even an option. There were no fresh ingredients and no means of combining the flavors to create something extraordinary. The latter was something he continued to fail at. It was by pure luck that he’d managed to keep Genevieve and Ellie in one piece. But he feared that soon, like everyone else, their luck would come to an end.
8
Staccato beeps emitted from Matthew’s watch, signaling the end of his watch. Ellie was convinced that the building was secure enough to forgo shifts and just sleep whenever they felt like it, but Matthew didn’t agree. Not one to raise a fuss, Ellie agreed to take the first watch. He didn’t have any way of knowing, but he suspected that she probably dozed off during her four-hour shift.
Though he was allowed to sleep now, he chose not to rest on Genevieve’s couch when she got up to take her post. Matthew felt as if they did nothing but sleep to pass the time, as there was little else to do. Though Ellie found a stack of paperbacks and fashion magazines on Floor 3, everyone just ended up drifting off as they read. No one had any motivation, or the means, to do something useful.
“You should sleep now,” Genevieve said softly, urging Matthew to take her place on the couch.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think I can sleep. I’m going to walk around the building. I’ll be back soon.”
Before Genevieve could express her concern, he was gone. Striding across the tile floor, he was careful not to look at the front door. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on the entrance to the stairwell, his knife tucked into his back pocket.
Over the past day, the first three floors were picked over for useful goods. Ellie was a bit of a scavenger and she disliked climbing stairs. So, everything within reach had been collected and brought to their camp. This left a lot of uncharted territory that had yet to be discovered. With nothing better to do, Matthew figured that he could at least make time go a little faster by snooping around abandoned offices.
As he took to the stairs, his
legs burned, not completely healed from the marathon through the city. But there was something about the pain that felt right to him. So many people around him were suffering, and his body was still intact. It didn’t seem fair for him to move through life without any physical pain.
So, as he passed the third floor, he decided to keep going. He climbed the stairs at a steady pace, passing each floor without giving it a second look. He walked, legs aching and lungs screaming. In a strange way, it felt good to exert himself—like the bad energy circulating through his body was exiting with every gasping breath.
When he got to the top, he leaned against the concrete wall, wheezing. His head spun as he tried to gain balance. Then, he threw open the heavy door and walked straight toward the windows.
For as long as he could remember, Matthew had always hated heights. As a child, he cried when his parents took him to the Empire State Building. The elevators were far too fast and there weren’t enough barriers in the world to convince him that he wouldn’t trip and launch off the side of the skyscraper. In the Army, he did whatever he could to avoid rising above a story or two. In any training instance where he needed to climb a ladder, he did so with shaky legs, hoping that no one would notice. There was a reason he hadn’t joined the Air Force.
Even in the military, he found that he was a little more cautious than the others. It was already a risk to be deployed, but it was a calculated risk. In his mind, it was no more dangerous than working road construction or teaching. Yes, many in his field were injured or killed in the line of duty, but more survived and went on to live relatively normal lives.
What he never understood about many of his fellow soldiers was the fact that so many of them were thrill-seekers and adrenaline junkies. He was the only guy in his platoon who had never been bungee jumping or skydiving before. Even at home, he didn’t drive a fast car or go to wild parties. He was just a guy who wanted to work hard and defend his country. He wasn’t in the military so he could shoot big guns and rappel down brick walls. He just wanted to save innocent lives and rid the world of a little evil.