by Sean Kennedy
But I eventually ran out of gas. The Davisons’ SUV stuttered out on a long, unbroken road. I managed to coax the car on until I saw another car in the distance, stopped on the side of the highway. I slung my backpack over my shoulders, held my bat, and walked toward it.
I was relieved to find there were no corpses in it. It was also unlocked; someone was making my job easy for me.
Until I tried to hotwire it, and the fuel gauge registered as barely above empty.
“Damn it,” I hissed. Looked like I was footing it until I found another car to try.
I slammed the door in a temper.
“You’re alive.”
I jumped, yelped, and generally made a fool out of myself as I swung around with my bat at the ready.
The man on the other side of the road jumped back, even though I was nowhere near him. “Hey, watch it!”
I sized him up. He was probably only a couple of years younger than me: cute, but a little grizzled. He looked like he had been hiding out just as badly as I had.
“You’re not a zombie,” I said.
“Neither are you.”
“I thought I was the only one.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Where did you come from?” I asked. It was like he had appeared out of nowhere.
He pointed up the hill next to the highway. “There’s a house. I’m hiding out there for the moment.”
“By yourself?”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Don’t think anything funny.”
I realized that what I said could be misconstrued; he probably thought I was out to rob him and take whatever he had. “I’m not. It’s just… you’re the first person I’ve seen. I was just hoping there were more of us.”
He shrugged. “There probably are. I mean, we both thought we were alone, and here we are.”
I nodded. “Here we are.”
“So there must be more. We can’t be the only ones.”
“Fuck, I hope so.”
He gave a short laugh. “Me too. What’s your name?”
It had been so long since I had said it out loud. “Jay.”
And even longer since I had heard someone say it. “Jay. I’m Richard.”
I shook his hand, and he was lucky that when I felt human contact again I didn’t sweep him up into a bear hug. So I dropped his hand almost immediately.
“Do you want a coffee?” Richard asked.
I could only laugh. “You’re asking me if I want coffee?”
“It’s what civilized people do, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Sure. I could do coffee.”
Four weeks ago, I would never have been so reckless. But four weeks ago, the world was normal. The flu wasn’t even mentioned in news reports. But now, following a stranger back to his house for coffee seemed fine. Even if the house wasn’t his own, and was just one he was squatting in.
We trekked up the hill, and as we came over the crest of it, I could see the farmhouse only a short distance away. “It’s nice,” I said, trying not to breathe too heavily.
Richard shrugged. “I like it.” He looked back at me. “You want to put that bat away? It makes me nervous.”
“What if zombies come along?”
He gave a short laugh. “Haven’t seen any around here in a while. That’s why I’m staying on for now.”
“Guess zombies don’t like to walk,” I murmured.
“Well, this place is out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Yeah, it’s very In Cold Blood.”
He obviously didn’t like the allusion. “Please put away the bat.”
I complied, stashing it in my backpack, the end poking out, as we reached the front door.
“I heard you trying to start the car,” Richard said as we walked in. “That’s why I came down. It was the first sign of human life I had heard since a helicopter flew overhead six days ago.”
“Six days?” I asked, having a quick look around the lounge we were in. It was normal, farm-like. Utilitarian. Richard looked too bohemian to belong there.
He nodded, and led me into the kitchen. “Have a seat.”
I took one of the chairs at the large table as he began lighting the wood stove.
“Sometimes I think of the stupidest things,” he said suddenly. “Like what I’ll do when the matches run out.”
“We’ll have to learn all the old skills again,” I replied. “Or really stock up.”
“I don’t even know where the closest stores to here are,” he said. “But this is a farmhouse. There are plenty of supplies for now.”
“I came from the city,” I told him. “I could have just kept moving from house to house, but there were too many zombies.”
“You’ve seen a zombie?”
“I’ve killed a zombie.” I said, knowing I sounded like I was bragging. “More than one, actually.” I mean, I probably had killed those ones that went under the car as I escaped.
Richard gave a small whistle, setting a saucepan of water on the stove before coming over to sit across from me.
I remembered what he had said before, and couldn’t believe that I had forgotten it so easily. “Hey, you said you saw a helicopter six days ago?”
He nodded.
“So there are other people out there besides us.”
“Probably not out there, but below there.”
“Huh?”
“They’re military,” he said, as if I were stupid for not automatically getting it. “You know they have all those crazy underground installations in case of nuclear or viral warfare. They’re probably in them now, trying to figure out some way of killing the zombies, and then they’ll show their yellow asses again. “ He jumped up to see if the water was boiling.
“Right,” I said, for lack of anything else to say.
He sloshed the water into mugs, and stirred them. “No milk to offer you.”
I’d gotten used to having my coffee black. “It’s okay.”
He set the mug before me and sat back down. “Of course, private citizens like us are just left to fend for ourselves.”
I sipped at my coffee. “And we’re doing a bang-up job.”
“I don’t know. I think I’m doing okay.”
I shrugged.
Richard stared at me for a while, and although his gaze felt uncomfortable, I looked back at him. His expression felt a little predatory.
“So,” he finally said. “Wanna fuck?”
Beautiful pick-up line. Maybe I’d known it was leading up to this. Even contemplating it made me feel like I was cheating on Mike, despite the fact that he was dead. But I wanted to be touched, to remind myself what it felt like to be human. To be touched by another human.
So I said, “Okay.”
“I have condoms,” he reassured me.
I nodded. “Good.”
“Drink your coffee.”
It was surreal. But I did. He finished before me, and disappeared behind the counter, emerging with a box of condoms. I wondered how many he was hoping to use.
“Finished?”
I took my last sip. “Yeah.”
“Just leave it there.”
He led me back into the lounge. As I stood there, wondering where the bedroom was, he pulled his shirt over his head. I guess he didn’t want to take me to bed. His torso was taut; his ribs were beginning to show.
“Come on,” he instructed me.
I pulled off my jacket, and was taking off my shirt as he unbuckled his pants. I closed my eyes briefly and sent a silent apology to Mike for my weakness. When I opened them again, Richard was pulling down his boxers. His cock was already hard, straining toward his stomach. I walked over to him, and took it in hand. I leaned in to kiss him, but he moved his head.
“I’m not gay,” he told me.
“Oh?” Funny, it seemed like he was letting me give him a hand job at that moment.
“Just letting you know. So you don’t get the wrong idea.”
“I wasn’t expecting an engagement.”
“Still, this just is what it is. Is that going to be a problem?”
I hated myself for doing it, but I shook my head. Guess I was just that desperate. And my own cock was betraying me, straining against my briefs.
That seemed to be enough permission for him. He yanked down my briefs, taking control from that moment on. They were still twisted around my ankles as he guided me to the floor. He manipulated me like a doll, turning me over so that I was on all fours, my ass pointed up in the air for him to do whatever he wanted to do to it.
I heard him rip the foil of the packet, and the snap of the latex as he rolled it down his shaft.
He wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t gay. He didn’t try to prepare me. One second the blunt head of his cock was against my cheeks, and then he was pushing in roughly. I cried out, but he didn’t stop, just letting himself sink in farther before he began to pump.
It was painful. Every now and again he hit my prostate and it made my cock jerk, although not in the good way that it could have been doing so. The room was filled with the sounds of my grunts that were trying not to be cries, the slap of his balls against my ass cheeks, and his own grunts of desire. Or what I assumed to be desire of some sort. I think I was little more than a hole to be filled to him at that point of time.
My ass felt like it was on fire, but it sounded like he was getting close. Balancing on one hand, I stroked myself to a perfunctory orgasm, if only to relieve the hardness of my cock. Richard sagged against my back, his chest sweaty, as he came. By that point I just wanted him off me. And I didn’t want any more condoms in that packet to get used on me, either.
It was a relief when he pulled out. He didn’t bother tying the condom off; he just threw it into the fireplace.
He began pulling his clothes back on. “Thanks.”
I grunted, non-committal, and fell back on my ass, as my briefs were still bunched around my legs. I pulled them back up and grimaced at the sight of my cum gleaming on the hard wood floor.
“Do you want a cigarette?” Richard asked.
I nodded, just for something to do. He fumbled around in his jean pockets as I began dressing. He lit it for me, and I took it off him. The first drag made me want to choke, but I managed to restrain it. I still couldn’t help but look at his lips, wishing I could kiss him, just to remind myself what a kiss felt like. But even if he had been into that, there would have been no tenderness to it, just like our fucking. I was better off without it.
Richard sat on the couch and looked at me. “You can make yourself another coffee if you want. It’s the one thing I have plenty of.”
It would get me out of this room, which was making me feel sick. “You want one?”
“Sure.”
I went into the kitchen, and ran the tap. The farm must have had a tank. I splashed my face, and leaned against the sink for support. I wanted to throw up, but wouldn’t let myself.
Sorry, Mike.
Sorry, me.
I heard a snore coming from the lounge. I smiled to myself, relieved for small mercies. I grabbed my backpack, and crept out through the lounge to the front door. I had one last look at Richard, the only human whose existence I knew of for now, and knew I couldn’t stay. Fuck, I didn’t even know if Richard wanted me to stay. Was sharing his supplies worth having a warm body to fuck?
I didn’t want to find out.
I was back on the road, walking, and was long gone before he would have woken up.
IV
FOR THE next week, I did nothing but travel, taking car after car until the gas ran out. At some point, I would have to find out how to work a gas pump manually. I had tried my luck at a couple of stations, but without the computer functioning, they remained locked.
My current system seemed to be working for the moment, anyway.
I hadn’t seen any other people since my disastrous hour with Richard. I was actually glad about that. I still wasn’t happy with what I’d done, and what I’d allowed to be done to me. Maybe the human race was doomed, if we were the only example specimens left after the apocalypse.
Now that Richard had told me about the helicopter, I kept an eye on the skies. But I never saw anything except the occasional bird.
In a town called Berryville I saw a dog—a golden lab—that I tried to call over to me. It seemed only fitting that we travel the roads together, and the company would have been nice. But it shied away from me, obviously out of some self-defense mechanism. The zombies hadn’t only attacked humans, and animals had learnt to keep their distance from humans as well as we had.
We went our separate ways, but I think I was more upset about it than the dog was.
From Berryville to Central Orion, there was nothing to be seen in the streets of the towns or the roads in between them. The signs on the highway announced the next town to be Drake, and that set off a reminder in my head.
Drake. That was where Dave had moved.
Dave had been the guy who got away. The guy I had willingly given away.
You know when you’re young and stupid, and you do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life? That even in your final moments, you’ll think, I wish I had done that differently?
That was Dave.
We started going out just after I finished college, and we were together for three years. I was happy, he was happy, and together, life was good. So what caused us to break up?
His job was transferred to Drake. He asked me to come with him, but like I said, I was young and stupid. Oh, and selfish. Really, really selfish. I didn’t want to move from the city to a small country town, even if it did look as charming as a movie set decorated to look like a picture-perfect small country town.
My mind strayed to science fiction movies and tales of alternate timelines. If I had stayed with Dave, and moved to Drake, would the virus have somehow never happened? Would we just be living our lives, unaware of the catastrophe that we had averted? Would our relationship be the butterfly that should have never been crushed under the clumsy time-traveling scientist’s foot?
I wished I were in an alternate dimension. Anywhere but here.
And that was when karma got me good. The car suddenly shuddered beneath me, and rolled to a stop. No matter how many times I turned the ignition or banged the steering wheel with my fists in frustration, the car remained dead. I would have to hoof it from here, at least until I found another car.
But I didn’t like the look of the darkening sky. Maybe it would be safer to find somewhere to hole myself up for the night.
A fleeting thought concerning Richard passed through me; I wondered how long he would have let me stay if I hadn’t run off while he was sleeping. I could have probably gotten a night out of him at least. Probably would have had to let him fuck me a couple of times more, though.
At this point of time, I didn’t know if it would have been worth it.
I threw open the driver door and slung my bag over my shoulder. It was time to find a new home.
I debated whether to try and find food, but decided I could go hungry. Twilight was definitely upon me now, and although that was usually a safer time to walk the streets, I was too tired to start a search now.
I trotted up the path of a house that was set a little distance off the road, thinking that as it was more work to get to, I would be safer. However, when I opened the door, the smell was like a punch in the face. There had to be a body in there, maybe even more than one. There was no way I could stay there.
Panic was starting to set in. Human instinct was to hide from the dark, and I liked to be barricaded up way before this time. I was stupid to have traveled so far. I should have stopped in the last town, but thinking about Dave had probably made me push on in some stupid haze.
Yeah, blame it on the dead guy.
The next house was no better. I could smell the bodies before I even reached the porch. If each house in this street turned out to be like this, I would probably have to put up with the smell. Maybe I would even get s
o used to it I wouldn’t even smell it after a while.
After all, I had become used to so many other things I had never guessed myself capable of.
I walked back out into the street, and froze.
A moan came from behind me.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look….
I looked.
The zombie was one of the grosser specimens I had seen. Dried blood crusted along the bottom of its mouth, and its skin… well, let’s just say Kermit would have had a partner to duet “It Ain’t Easy Being Green” with. I knew the flesh wasn’t decaying, so fuck knows what it had been crawling through.
She opened her mouth and moaned again.
I took a step back. “Look, I’ll go my way, and you go yours. And we’ll both be happy, yeah?”
You can’t reason with a zombie.
Her moan became a scream, and she lunged at me.
I turned and ran. I knew it was useless, but the instinctual nature of fight or flight handed down by the cavemen came out in me. The blood was pounding in my ears, and I could taste the copper in the back of my throat as I struggled for breath out of exercise and fear.
She was right behind me, ready for the kill. No clumsy shuffling for her now that she had zeroed in on me. This might be it; the moment when there would finally be an end to my story.
Would that be such a bad thing?
I guess deep down I thought it was, or why else would I be running?
I was yanked back; she had grabbed onto my backpack. I fell, tumbling head over ass, and looked up to see her looming over me. She smiled, and a thin thread of blood ran from her cracked lips.
She lunged down to grab me, but I rolled away. I still wasn’t fast enough, though. She had a hold on me, grabbing me by the right leg.
Don’t let her bite you. Don’t let her touch your skin….
Truth be told, I had no idea how the virus got transmitted. It must have been airborne, or else Mike wouldn’t have gotten sick, because he had never had any contact with a zombie. But Mike hadn’t become a zombie either, so maybe zombies were created by bite or touch or contact with their blood? All I knew is it wouldn’t be a great idea to have direct contact with them.