by Ponce, Jen
I put my hand on my heart, knowing I was taking a risk at making her mad if she thought I was making fun of her. “I’m getting back to our boys. I vow it. You and I come first over anyone else we come across. I so swear. Do you?”
She blinked as if it hadn’t even crossed her mind that she would save anyone else but me. “Of course I swear. You’re my only, Dee. Haven’t you noticed?”
I leaned in and took the kiss she offered. “Maybe I just need a little reassurance in the zombie apocalypse.”
“Mmm,” she said against my lips, and then she pulled away to eat the rest of her food with a bit more gusto.
When Ivy came back around, I told her the good news. She slapped the table, the biggest grin on her face. “I knew I could count on my fellow females to help me out. Damn that feels good. Thank you. Thank you! When are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” I said, having already hashed that out with Lana. A night in safety and then we’d hit the road with our new companion. Soon boys, I thought. We’ll be home soon.
13
Now
The house is empty and she resists the urge to make another round—it would be her fifth—to check the dark spaces, the windows, the locks on the doors. They left the doors open when they came out to attack her, so she didn’t have to break a window or lock to get in. And now the doors are locked, with heavy furniture pushed against them, just in case.
There are two fireplaces, one downstairs and one up. There is wood. It’s like they were waiting for her to come and this was her reward if she won the game of cat and mouse.
If they had won? Well, she would have been dinner.
A quick glance to make absolute sure the curtains are drawn tight, and she resists the urge to get up and check them all again.
Someone is watching, someone is watching, someone is watching.
The refrain dances around in her head until she wants to scream. Anxiety is a living monster gnawing at her guts as greedily as a zombie, and her hand trembles as she attempts to light the fire. Whenever they went camping, it always took forever to get the wood to light. She was always the one who wanted to give up first—
Nope. She can’t think about them now. There are too many other things that need her attention. If she thinks about her family, she’ll break down, she’ll cry, and then she’ll be useless for hours.
The fire flickers hopefully and she puts half her attention on getting it to grow, the other half still on the doors, the windows, did she check the back window? Did she lock the door? For sure? Is she sure she locked it?
When the flames are strong enough, she pokes a piece of firewood in and hopes it’ll get hot enough for her to cook the beef stew she found in the cupboards. Beef stew, a can of hominy, a granola bar, two things of ramen, a box of spaghetti noodles, a can of sauce. It’s so much compared to what she usually finds.
Honey. She found honey too but she’s saving that for later.
A long-handled pot goes into the fire with the stew and she frets over it, unwilling to let her first hot meal in more than a week burn. The oven mitt she wears keeps her arm hair from singeing as she pulls the stew from the flames. The brown liquid bubbles merrily.
As she stares into the dancing fire, her attention fades, her mind sinking into one of the fugues she calls a time pocket. The fugues are dark and scary—but only when they’re over. During, she just goes away. Not like she had outside. She goes away from all conscious thought when she slips into one of her time pockets. It’s only after that she shakes in terror because what if she slips into a time pocket when one of them is nearby?
When she comes back to herself, her stew is no longer hot, but she can’t make herself reheat it. Her stomach hurts now, and she’s filled with an unnameable fear. Woodenly, she shovels in the cooled stew, trying to focus on the grainy texture of the meat so she doesn’t think too hard about what might happen the next time she goes away.
She fears her sanity is slipping away from her.
When the stew is gone, she heats up the hominy and eats it too even though her stomach feels overfull. It’s a strange feeling after so many weeks running on empty.
The fire is warm. It’s bright. It reminds her of other places and other times. and she wants to curl up in front of it to sleep but she can’t yet. She goes to the sink and washes her hands—there’s running water, perhaps from a well, she doesn’t know how but it’s there. Cold, but there. She figures the pipes will freeze tonight since she’s run water through them, so she fills up every empty container she can find and fills up the upstairs bathtub too.
She can’t make herself wash off in the icy water, though, so she contents herself with warming a pot of water that she uses to sponge off the worst of the gunk.
How long has it been since she bathed?
Her boys won’t recognize her …
are they alive are they okay are they still there what if they aren’t there
She caps the last bottle and sets it by the front door, and then, unable to resist, reaches over the heavy wooden side table and checks the doorknob. It doesn’t turn because of course it’s locked. She locked it earlier. She locked it.
She tests it again, then makes herself go back to the small nest of blankets she’s piled in front of the fire. It’s ridiculously indulgent to sleep in a pile of blankets in front of a flickering fireplace, her belly distended with food. Now. It’s ridiculously indulgent now.
Then …
No. No she can’t think about the past. Not even innocuous things like fast food and 911 and electricity. It leads to thinking about Lana and she can’t think about Lana without wanting to die.
And she can’t die. Not until she knows one way or the other.
are they alive are they okay are they still there what if they aren’t there
She curls up under three blankets, her body cradled by all the pillows in the house, and she wonders if she’ll be able to sleep without listening for them. The wind howls and knocks branches against the house. It could be them scratching to get in. Snow pelts the windows like fingers tapping the glass. Is it the sigh of the house settling, or did she forget to check the upstairs closet? Did she check behind the shower curtain? Is one standing in the doorway right now?
She jerks upright, heart thud thumping in her chest to study the room, study the windows, study the door. There are so many shadows. So many places they could hide.
“They’re all gone. I checked everything.”
Except, had she?
She gets up, hating herself, wanting to cry, and she checks everything again. The doors, the windows, the dark corners, the closets, under the beds, in the bathrooms, behind the shower curtain, up and down she goes, beyond exhausted but unable to stop until every last corner of the house has been searched.
She lays down and soon the cataloging of her terrors begins anew.
14
Then
The noise made it almost impossible to get much sleep. They were out there and they weren’t quiet. Singing, hooting, calling out names. When they got them right? A head would pop up. A hand would cover a mouth. A sob, a gasp, a groan.
Lana didn’t sleep either, her eyes flying to mine whenever they scored a hit. “I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. We get breakfast and go,” she whispered.
“Agree.” The police had been nothing but welcoming to us, making sure we had a spot to sleep, making sure we were fed and watered. One of them, a young guy a little older than our sons, carried a couple plastic jugs of water to our vehicle for us in preparation for our trip.
I wasn’t sure why I was nervous.
“Sword of Damocles,” I said, and Lana kissed my chin.
“Yes. I was thinking the same thing … sort of. I couldn’t remember the name of it.” Her grin made me smile and I kissed her back, mindful there was a roomful of people we didn’t know. Everyone had treated us well, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a bigot among them. “We aren’t in a position of power though.”
“But they are,” I said. They had officers on guard shifts, walking the perimeter both inside and out. It was both comforting and disturbing, especially since those on guard carried rifles. There was something so dystopian about it and it gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.
The world had gone to hell in a handbasket and we didn’t even know the scope of the shit we were in, not really. One city getting overrun didn’t mean that the rest of the country was the same but … it had spread so fast, so swiftly.
“Owen!”
One of them, howling the name outside. A young boy of maybe six jerked in a nearby man’s arms, his eyes white circles against his father’s black shirt. The man bent his head and whispered to the boy, his face tight with unshed emotion.
“Owen! Mommy loves you!”
“Mama!” The boy’s shriek echoed in the big hall and there were several grumbles and at least one muttered curse. “Mama!”
“Sir,” an officer said, coming by with his rifle carefully aimed at no one, “you need to keep him quiet.”
“I know. It’s just … He misses his mom.” The man’s voice cracked and he buried his face in his little boy’s hair.
“Mama, mama.” The boy continued crying for her until the captain came out and escorted them to a room in the back, perhaps the fire fighter’s bunk room. Once the boy was gone, the crazies outside eventually got the hint and quieted too.
“That poor little boy,” Lana whispered.
I kissed her again as we lay back down, though I was pretty sure I’d never get to sleep.
“What happens if Tucker and Jackson …” Lana doesn’t finish the sentence and I’m glad.
“They’re fine.” I willed it to be true with every fiber of my being. Hell, I put up a little offering to the gods: keep Lana alive, keep the boys alive and you can have me as a blood sacrifice. That was all I asked, that the three most special people in my life lived to see each other again.
“What if they’re not, though? What if they go out? What if one of those awful … things lures them out? They’re kindhearted, they’re—”
“Lana, my sweet, I love you. I love those boys. And yeah, they’re kindhearted. They are also ruthless and have a keen survival instinct. And they’ve been training for this moment for all their lives. Resident Evil? Left for Dead one, two, three, however many there are. State of Decay? They’ve got this.” I hoped they had this. I hoped they’d prove me right and not break their mother’s heart when we got there. I wasn’t sure Lana would forgive me if I was wrong.
“These things talk. They cry. They sound so real.”
“And we told them about it, remember? They’ll listen.” They had to listen. “Who’re you going to hug first?” I asked, hoping to distract her from her runaway thoughts. “I’ll bet you’ll go for Tuck.”
“No, not necessarily,” she said, though I heard the hedge in her voice. Tucker was her baby, for all that he was sixteen. She’d go for him first. That was fine. I’d get Jack, then Tuck, then my parents.
“What time is it?” I checked my fitness watch and curled my lip. “We should sleep. Still a couple hours ‘til dawn.”
“I don’t think I can,” she said, but she was soon zonked despite her protests and I laid there watching her breathe, cataloging all the beautiful features of her face.
It took me longer, but I fell asleep finally too.
A gunshot woke us both a couple hours later. The screams came next, one after another, a rolling wave of screams. I jumped up first, casting about for the danger, for a weapon, anything to keep us safe. I settled on a nearby chair, holding it feet-outward like a lion tamer.
Shouts from the cops outside. Another gunshot. Lana held onto my shoulder as we crept to the windows to see what was going on.
Bodies littered the ground and more hung on the barricades the cops had put in place.
The crazies were climbing over, not yelling or singing for once, just intent on getting to the living people on the other side. They didn’t worry about catching themselves when they fell; they merely threw themselves over and stumbled to their feet once they hit. The cops were doing their best to keep them at bay, but there were so damn many of them.
“Get to the car,” I said to Lana. “We have to get out of here.”
Ivy was halfway to us and I jerked my finger toward the lot in the back. She nodded and ran to grab her things while Lana and I did the same. When we got to the back door we had to stop. It was solid metal and there were no windows, so there was no way to tell if there were any of them out there waiting for us.
Ivy put her hand on the door. “Nothing ventured,” she said.
“No.” Lana’s knuckles were white as she gripped the bag draped over her shoulder. “It would be one thing if we were only risking our lives but we aren’t. If those things are out there and we open this door, they get in here. That puts everyone else at risk. I won’t do it.”
She was right, of course. I thought of that poor little boy, Owen, and his broken-hearted father.
“Out the front and hope to hell we run faster than they do?” Ivy still had her hand on the door, and I wondered if she was going to risk it. Wasn’t sure why she would. She didn’t have a ride and she had to know we weren’t going to follow her out there.
“What if we get caught out there? What if more of them pour over that wall?”
“There’s a side door.” This from Owen’s father. He was holding his sleeping child, his hair askew, dark circles under his eyes. “If you’re leaving, I’d like to come along.”
I didn’t have to look at Lana to know she was mentally yelling at me to say no. But how could I? Say no to this man who’d lost his wife, who became a single parent after one horror-filled night? “Do you have your things together?” I asked, studiously avoiding my own wife’s eyes.
He turned slightly to show the pack on his back.
“Okay great. Let’s check out the side door.”
Ivy followed the man and Lana tugged my arm. I stopped, dropping my chin to my chest, still not looking at her. “Sorry,” I said.
“A guy and a kid? Are you crazy?” she whisper-hissed. “We can’t save the world, Dee.”
“What if it were Tucker or Jackson?”
Her eyebrows shot up, the skin underneath reddening. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is leaving that man and his son here when we have the means to get them out.” I sidestepped her and followed Ivy and the man to a spot just to one side of the door. There was a window and if I pressed against the wall and looked hard left, I could see the tailgate of our borrowed car.
The lot around the backside was empty.
More gunshots rang out.
“We need to get out of here now,” Ivy said and this time when she put her hands on the door, she also pushed, charging outside in a rush, followed closely by the man. I held the door for Lana, who didn’t look any happier with me. Her mouth was set into a grim line and she didn’t even thank me for holding the door for her as she brushed past.
That was all right. She’d forgive me eventually. As long as I didn’t get myself killed.
I checked behind us as we jogged to the car. Nothing behind us, though I saw another of the crazies crawl over the barricade and fling itself to the ground. Then another. Had they been piling up all night waiting for their chance to overwhelm us? Was I giving them too much credit for strategizing?
“Dee!”
I jerked my attention to the fence beside me and flinched back when one of them hit it, fingers curling through the links. Another one slammed against the chain link beside the first and began to climb.
Fuck. They could climb.
I mean, I’d known it, watching them throw themselves over the barricade, but it almost made sense they could figure out how to climb up and over the bus and the firetrucks, but a fence?
Apparently, a fence.
I ran to the car, hitting the fob as I went. The door locks clicked and we scrambled in, Lana and I in front,
the man, Owen, and Ivy in the back. They buckled themselves in as I started the car, my hand not quite shaking as I shifted into drive and eased us toward the back of the lot where a rolling gate blocked our exit.
Before I could say anything, Ivy jumped out and pulled it open, then frantically waved us through. The crazies on the fence heard the commotion. The one halfway up the fence kept climbing, the other started running for us, for Ivy, who was tugging the gate shut.
“Hurry up!” Lana screamed.
Ivy had left her door open and she leapt in, slamming it just as the crazy hit the car, its mouth open in a snarl. Owen cried out, his little boy’s voice shrill with terror as I goosed the gas and we bumped over a pothole-ridden alley to the road beyond.
“You got that gate all the way shut, right?” I asked as we put the fire station behind us.
“I think so.” Her eyes met mine in the mirror, hers wide and frantic. “Oh god, I think so.”
I slowed, debating whether we should turn back when Lana said, “Drive. It’s too late now if she didn’t.”
I looked over at her, at her fear-filled eyes, thinking of all the people we’d left behind, the ones who would be killed if the gate wasn’t shut, if they got in.
“Go, Dee.”
I went. But the gate weighed heavily on my mind a long while down the road.
15
Then
Three hours into our trip and we were down to a quarter tank of gas. Despite car wrecks and small mobs of crazies, we finally got out of Omaha and the open road made travel much easier.
So far, we hadn’t seen anymore living people.
Owen had fallen into a fitful sleep, punctuated by sobs when he got to a particularly terrible part of his dream, which happened with alarming frequency. His father—Dan—looked about as haggard as a person could get and we all encouraged him to sleep. “We’re safe in the car. Nothing will get him or you,” Lana told him. And so he slept, his head leaned against the cool glass, his face drawn into a frown.