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Homebodies

Page 15

by Cheryl Loudermelt


  “You told them you knew about solar, and you could get the power on. And when they got to me, I didn’t have anything to say. He looked at me like I was some little thing he could crush with his boot heal. I told him I could grow things.”

  Todd looked away at the wind whipping through her garden. “He told you a lot of people could grow things.”

  “And then I told him I could handle a rifle. He laughed at me. He handed me his rifle like it was some kind of joke.”

  She’d had to prove it. Emily felt like water all over. The rifle seemed unnaturally heavy, and her hands were trembling so violently that she could barely steady the scope enough to look through it. That asshole laughed at her again.

  Hatred made her steady. Venom made her stone. She took aim at one of the dead piled up on the fence about 100 yards away. She breathed like her father had taught her during hunting season when she was a little girl, and she prayed like her mother had taught her every Sunday. She squeezed the trigger and caught the dead man just above the ridge of one eyebrow through the hole in the chain link.

  “Well holy shit.” The soldier had said with a cold little smile “I love a good surprise.” He pulled the rifle from Emily’s quaking grasp and walked away.

  Emily blinked at Todd, still sitting there like he was made of lead. “They took everyone else away. More bait. But they let us stay.”

  “I’m tired, Em. Can’t we just. . .

  “No.”

  Todd blinked. It seemed to take longer than usual to accomplish even that. “They put you in a guard tower. You were great. You helped keep them off the fences, and you were the best they had. That was a good thing. Other people, sometimes they complained. The ones that complained too much ended up outside the gate.

  “People were on edge. People, afraid. Only certain people could carry guns because a lot of people shot themselves, so they didn’t have to die and get up again.

  “It had to end eventually; everyone knew. And I knew we’d be glad you had a rifle when the end finally came.”

  “I was in the tower.” Emily blinked, the memory appearing unbroken in her brain. “I got bored up there. I used to watch the dead through the fence when they were too far away. There was one guy who’d been eaten through at the middle before he’d risen and eaten someone else. He sat on the ground with his guts splayed out, watching the flesh he consumed come out the hole in his middle. Each time, he made a face like he’d just won the jackpot on a slot machine. He just kept eating the chunks again. He looked up, so I looked up, and I saw the plane.”

  It had been weeks since anything flew over. It was a little turbo prop, the kind used for airport hopping or private pilots with money to waste. It teetered in the air as though it slid along an invisible balance beam with its wings tipping precariously. Its nose began to dip, and it curved downward like it was made of paper instead of steel.

  At some point, she realized it was coming down, but she’d already begun to move, instinct quicker than consciousness. The wail of the engines as the plane dove drowned out everything she in her head. She couldn’t think, but she moved, and with all the speed that terror and adrenaline could manage.

  She was out of the tower and running toward the solar array, toward Todd before the plane clipped the tower and spread splintered wood and flame as it broke into pieces and barreled into the fence at the front gate. Metal met metal and they twisted together with a grim screech. Chaos spread with the smoke, and people ran, some to try and put the fires out, some to bark orders or flee from them, and some ran for the gate where the tangled fence and fractured plane had punctured their fragile illusion of being safe.

  The higher the flames rose, billowing black into the sky, the more effective the beacon became, and from every side, even the laziest dead sputtered toward the fences. By the time she reached the array, she could hear gunfire and knew that it meant the dead had discovered their vulnerability.

  Todd wasn’t at the array. No one was, except a few taking their chances with the barb wire to escape. She didn’t pause even an instant. There was no force that could have stopped her feet. She arced back the other way, toward the bunk they shared at the barracks. The buildings were like an old-style hotel with doors that opened onto a shared walkway. She nearly mowed people down as a few who had been sleeping stumbled out into day.

  Their room was empty. Here she was forced to double over and divert energy to her brain. People were generally flowing away from the gunfire, and though it seemed safer to ride a wake of bullets, she thought that Todd would not have gone that way. He’d be looking for her, so once again, she ran, back to where she’d first come down from the tower.

  The area was hot and filled with a growing number of dead investigating the flames for barbecue, but she found him, alive and charging toward her. “I saw the plane, and then I found you.”

  “You wanted to head for the gate, but I remembered the other tower. I was so stupid. Even if we could have climbed to the top of it, we’d have to jump down again on the other side. We’d probably have ended up dead or broken and then dead. But it didn’t matter. There were a lot of people as stupid as me. The tower was overrun, and it was too late to head for the front gate. It turned out it didn’t matter anyway. They couldn’t get through to the tower because too many people had thought the same thing. We went for the chain-link.”

  “I got up and over because I was small.”

  “Like a blond little monkey. But I wasn’t small. I tried so hard.” Todd choked.

  “But you made it. You finally made it over. And we were okay.”

  “No.” She wasn’t sure if it was sweat or a tear that ran down his face. “You weren’t okay. Everything had changed. I was looking at the same person. It was your face, but you weren’t there anymore. I tried to get you running, but you just stood there. Then you turned to me and said-”

  “I want to go home.”

  “So, I brought you home.”

  Emily took a few slow, deep breaths and tried to think, but it was difficult with the wind shaking the windows and doors. He was telling her the truth, but. . .

  It didn’t feel right. She was still a puzzle with a fuzzy picture and missing pieces. She was sure it was the truth, but not all of it.

  And Todd knew it too, because he’d looked away. He couldn’t lie to her. He didn’t have the strength. If she had known what to ask him, she would have forced it out until she felt he’d sufficiently explained everything, but she didn’t know where to begin or how to spot the discoloration on the history he painted.

  He still stared out at her garden. Strange, she thought, because he’d never taken comfort in that place. She stared at him intently, letting the thunder of nature write the soundtrack to their silence. When he said nothing further, and the shadow from the clouds outside had covered his entire face, she finally decided to speak. “You aren’t telling me everything.”

  “Emily, please.”

  He sounded so pathetic. Weak. His weakness was the fuse that lit her up again. “What is it with you? Is it impossible to tell me the truth? Have you lied so much you’ve forgotten how?”

  Todd scowled. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore than you want to hear about it.”

  “But I do want to hear it.” She said quietly. “I want to hear everything.”

  Todd pressed his lips together, and with shaking fingers, wiped away sweat on his forehead.

  Red growled fiercely at the movement of Todd’s hand. She suspected he’d spent one too many storms outside and was now afraid of them. It made sense to Emily, with the dead, he could just rip their faces off, but wind and rain had no tender, meaty place to put his teeth.

  Todd stared at Red morosely. “The dog is never going to like me, is he?”

  “No. He’s too much like me.” She rubbed Red’s ears. “Can’t love someone who doesn’t love him back.”

  “That and the blood in his teeth.” Todd sulked, slumping further onto the sofa.

  “I don’t n
eed to bite you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to leave.”

  He had no reaction except to chew his lip and look with exhaustion at their carpet. “I love you, Emily.”

  She knew she couldn’t answer him, and she struggled with what she could say that wouldn’t sound cruel or hurt him too much. If she loved him any more at all, it was buried somewhere like all her other memories, too deep to access, and too dark to see.

  The storm saved her from having to speak. With a menacing crack, the wind ripped a branch off a tree in the front yard and whipped it into the window. They heard the glass shatter and wood splinter. As tired as he looked, Todd was instantly on his feet.

  He dashed into the front room to examine the busted window. There wasn’t much glass on the carpet. The branch had penetrated the window but not the boards behind it. Still, it was too uncomfortable a breach.

  “I’ll fix it.” Todd was as eager to be busy as he was to be free from keeping their conversation going any longer.

  “Should I help you?”

  “No. I’ll do it. It won’t take ten minutes.”

  He hurried out the front door before she could say anything else. She heard him open the garage and close it again.

  She spread out on the sofa. Her head felt heavy, like someone had poured molten lead inside her skull. Red insisted on laying down beside her, forcing her back into the couch cushions. He too seemed tired, but he showed no willingness to sleep. Instead, he watched the front door as if he were going to leap at Todd the minute he returned.

  “You can’t eat him baby.” Red snapped his teeth with disappointment. “Not yet anyway.”

  23

  By the time Todd came in from boarding up the outside of the window, she was nearly asleep. Todd stretched out on the other end of the sofa, and Red moved so that he was directly in between. She wanted to push Todd to tell her more, really, to tell her anything, but he was tired too, and there was no point in pressing onward that would warrant not getting a little bit of sleep.

  Emily didn’t dream at all, which was both a disappointment and a relief, but her respite was too brief to be grateful. Red’s sharp, livid bark was all the alarm she’d ever need. She knew they were in trouble before she even opened her eyes. She woke up and moved in the same moment, but there was only so far to go.

  There were six of them, spread between the sofa and the front door, which was wide open and shifting in the wind.

  Todd was closer, and fortunately Red’s warning had awoken him as well. Todd wasn’t completely unarmed. He usually carried a knife on his belt, and he heaved the huge man who lurked down on him away after pressing the knife behind his ear and into his brain.

  It happened so quickly. Emily had little time to react, and Red, even less. The man’s body fell like a meteor over the dog, and Red squealed in pain. Emily bent to move the body away from him, but simply taking away the weight did not restore the Dog’s fight. Red limped in agony, unable to support himself on his front paw.

  “Run.” Todd said calmly squaring off with a tall woman in green scrubs. “Run, Emily.”

  She threw herself in front of Red as another man with silver hair lumbered toward him. She grabbed a poker from the rack by the fireplace and swung. The blow connected but didn’t penetrate. Still, it threw the silver haired man off balance. She reared back and swung again. This time she heard the skull crack and the man fell face first at her feet.

  She made the decision in a heartbeat. Todd had drawn the attention of the remaining four of their uninvited guests, she had to help him, but with Red unable to move, it would only take a moment for one of them to demolish him. She dropped the poker and scooped up Red by the belly. He felt like he weighed as much as she did, but she managed to shift him back against her body and bolt toward the door, knocking one of the dead away with her shoulder as she passed. Todd tried to cut through the opening too, and he was partially successful before they cluttered up their path to the door, where yet another of the dead appeared looming in the entrance.

  “Run.” Todd’s voice was calm as rain.

  That coldness, that placidity that had always driven her mad for want of feeling, slowed the slamming of her heart and strengthened her grip on Red.

  The stairs were the only option, and her only opportunity to possibly save them all. She heard Todd struggling at the foot of the stairs, but it was so difficult to distinguish his grunts from the others.

  She leapt up, one foot landing squarely between the stair railing, and threw herself and the dog over the banister. Red whimpered and landed on top of her like a yellow cannon ball, but she lifted herself and him again and bolted up the stairs. She didn’t think about it; she didn’t hesitate. She flung open the door at the top of the stairs and set him down on the first patch of empty floor. She almost turned around again without really seeing, and maybe it would have been better not to see at all.

  The walls were baby pink. There was a white bassinet with pink ribbons. The wood was old, and the paint was chipped in places, but it had been a gift from her mother. It was her mother’s bassinet, and her own, and then. . .

  Emily reached down and touched the scar on her abdomen as though her insides might rip through it to the floor. She reached around and closed the door.

  She struggled with herself, that black place inside her still unwilling to reveal its secrets. But she shredded all that remained with sheer will.

  Her baby’s name was Chloe.

  With a ghostlike hand, Emily reached out and pulled the blanket from the bassinet. She fell to the floor and pressed it to her nose with both hands. The smell was everything, every missing piece. She lost all track of time. She forgot Red. She forgot Todd. She crawled to the dresser drawers and opened each one, taking out the tiny clothes inside by the handful and pulling them to her face. She leaned her head against the open drawer of the dresser, both arms wrapped around the baby's clothes like if she tried hard enough, the body that had once filled them would be pressed to her chest again.

  Chloe had cried so much, and Emily had spent every second trying to keep her quiet while they hid from the dead and waited for the evacuation to reach their street. Todd hadn’t answered his phone, and she and Chloe were alone.

  It didn't matter if he didn’t answer; she knew where he would be. The world was falling apart, and he still couldn't let that other woman alone. She'd only tried to forgive him for Chloe, but he did nothing but leave them alone and afraid. She told herself, when Chloe was a little older and could understand, she would leave Todd forever. Someday.

  She’d wrapped Chloe tightly in a blanket and packed her diaper bag. She went to the window, the impulse to look for Todd insurmountable. All she saw was the military trucks at the end of the street going door to door. They were leaving the infected, shooting the dead, and leaving them in the street.

  She'd scribbled a note to Todd and left it on the TV. Looking at the soldiers in their uniforms, their sleeves dotted with blood and black, she'd doubted she would ever see Todd again.

  She had tried for Chloe's sake, pressed into the back of the truck as far against the cab as she could squeeze. It seemed like the safest place, which was only about as safe as standing in the garden shed in the middle of a hurricane.

  And she felt that way again, with her arms full of empty baby things. Downstairs, she heard a body crash into something, and wondered if it was Todd, or the dead, or if it mattered either way.

  No. At least he’d tried. He did save them.

  When the truck rolled over and she’d cowered against the cab with some of the others, while the rest were being ripped and devoured, and Chloe screamed in her arms. One of them handed her something hard and heavy, and she pressed Chloe to her chest with one arm and swung wildly to keep the dead at bay.

  And Todd saved them and put them in the cab of his truck and took them to the base where he thought they’d be okay.

  She wished he’d driven anywhere else, even if he’d driven them all straight into a lake
that day. Because she’d fought to keep the baby quiet every time the soldiers came. Chloe was small and weak, and nonessential.

  And forgotten, even by Emily.

  24

  The soldiers were difficult to keep at bay. She almost understood. Had she not been the object of their attention, she could have seen how desperate, angry men could end up that way. Todd couldn’t leave her for a moment or they would come and harass her to set down the baby and come away with them. For fun, they called it. Hey honey, it’s the end of the world. . .

  Her mother had once told her that desperate men would say anything, but she tried not to think of her mother then. She didn’t want to imagine black veins on the face of the woman she’d looked up at from the cradle.

  Or her father, it was better to think of him in his overalls driving the big yellow tractor in the fields and waving as he passed her window.

  One of the soldiers threatened to take the baby away. Todd had sheltered Chloe, but Emily had stood up and slung her fist right into the soldier’s face.

  He’d been so surprised and humiliated, all he’d done was scramble away to tell his friends a lie about the swelling already starting where her fist had landed.

  “You shouldn’t have.” Todd said.

  Emily reached down and took the baby away. “Next time, I’ll kill him.” Emily said in a sugary voice, speaking more to Chloe than Todd. “No one takes my Chloe away.”

  Later, it was the same soldier who came back to see what Todd and Emily had to offer to remain on the base. Todd glared at Emily when he saw that particular soldier walking their way. Emily thrust her jaw forward and clenched her teeth.

  But she also prayed.

  Todd held Chloe while she took the soldier’s rifle. For a minute, she considered turning it on him and shooting that smug cruelty off his face. But instead, she aimed the rifle at the dead and prayed. The soldier took his rifle back and went away.

  And there were days where she laid in the tower and watched that dead man eat the same meat he’d eaten for days and thought that it was the way the world worked, but she’d never noticed it. Every time people pulled ahead it would just fall through the bottom again; every day was a cycle of failure that seemed like success.

 

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