Homebodies

by Cheryl Loudermelt

  Their house, their cars, their tiny world wrapped in cinderblock, it was their carcass to eat and repeat. And it meant nothing, nothing to Todd, and almost nothing to Emily, except for Chloe. Emily would eat her own stomach if it meant that Chloe didn’t have to live the same way.

  That was the cruelty of it, really. Every parent thought that. Every parent ate their own misery to keep their children from pain, but the misery just came out the guts and the children grew up and took over the cycle of hoping and weeping. Even when the world fell apart, that much didn’t change. It was the same place it had always been, a land of strangers in their private worlds eating their problems and pretending everything was okay.

  Then she saw the plane.

  This is the end of it. She watched it teeter in the sky. Finally. She’d have let it take her if it wasn’t for Chloe.

  Todd had Chloe.

  She ran to the solar array but didn’t find him, and then to their bunk, which was empty, and then back to the tower where the dead were wandering near the flames.

  And there was Todd with screaming, writhing Chloe.

  She tried to take the baby from his arms, but he wouldn’t let her. He nodded to the rifle. “You’re better than me.”

  Then he pulled her for the far tower, the one still standing, and when they got cut off, and they knew they’d have to make it up and over, Emily once again tried to take Chloe away.

  “I’m stronger.”

  She shook her head violently. “Let me.”

  “Go, Emily.”

  Behind them, the dead were coming, slowly. Even though they had lost themselves, they knew there was no reason to rush in for the meal. Emily was halfway up the fence when she felt it shake and Todd fell.

  And Chloe screamed.

  “Christ,” she whispered, but she didn’t know if she was swearing or praying.

  The barbwire ripped her arms to pieces as she reached for them both. The barbwire sliced chunks from her jeans.

  “Christ.” It seemed like all she remembered how to say.

  Todd flew at the fence. He fell.

  And the dead had made it to him. She slid down the fence as fast as she could make it, slid the rifle around and up into the pocket of her shoulder, and did her best to keep them away, but there were so many.

  And she couldn’t fire faster. She couldn’t hit Todd or Chloe. Todd finally leapt, his grip held, and he was just out of reach. There was a second, a look that passed between them when they thought they’d be okay, in between one shot and the next, one slow breath and another.

  Todd dropped Chloe.

  Emily screamed and tried to crawl down the fence, but the barbwire held on, unencumbered by the baby, Todd climbed up faster than she could climb down. He ripped her from the barbed wire, and they fell down the other side, watching, withered from the ground behind the fence as Chloe came apart like a doll in the frenzy of the dead. She was wailing, then gone, in a second that seemed like years.

  Emily tried to climb again, knowing that it wouldn’t do any good; she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything.

  Every moment she was forced to live filled her with darkness, like her body was cold and her face was black with poisoned veins. She didn’t know how long she’d wept and screamed, but she remembered Todd clamping a hand over her mouth, dragging her into the woods.

  They could still smell the smoke for miles when Todd stopped to catch a breath and lean back against a tree. There were tears in his eyes. He cared that much at least. She wanted to pull up the rifle and kill them both, to punish him, and to end her pain. But it was too hard to do anything but crumble and bleed.

  “I want to go home.” She said when he wrapped his arms around her again. He’d done what she’d asked but didn’t realize they were thinking of home as two very different things.

  25

  There was a knock at the nursery room door. “Emily? It’s me.”

  “It isn’t locked.” She wiped her face on Chloe’s blanket. Emily felt like her voice was coming from someone else’s throat.

  Red stirred from her side. He’d been laying down, keeping off his injured leg, but he was up the second the door opened, and limping between Todd and Emily, growling, and showing his teeth.

  “Is the dog, okay?”

  “He’ll live.” Red chomped at the air and snarled in Todd’s direction.

  Emily pulled her eyes up to Todd’s face. He still looked tired, like his eyes were sinking into his skull, and pushing out his veins. Todd tried to sit down on the floor, but he collapsed half way. “Don’t let him kill me, Em. Please.”

  “He doesn’t have to. You’re dead already. He’s been trying to tell me for days.”

  Todd nodded and managed to sit up against the wall. “I’d rather not be dog food, if you think that’s okay.”

  “Red. Come.” The dog returned to her, and Emily got him to lay down again with great difficulty. “How long since you’ve been bitten,” she said, the smell of Chloe still clinging to her face. “By the look of you, I’d say two or three days.”

  Todd nodded again.

  “How did it happen?”

  “The cashier at the store. It’s been so long I can’t remember his name.”

  “The zip tie didn’t hold him?”

  “Nothing holds forever, I guess.”

  “Were you going to tell me or just turn and rip me apart, because it’s too late for that. I’m already in pieces.”

  “I was going to tell you. I’d never have let myself hurt you.”

  “You hurt me every day.”

  “I would have told you.” He stared at the carpet and plucked at a few strands of it with his fingertips.

  “Bullshit. Always bullshit. You would’ve kept it secret to the last, and maybe killed us both. You’re that selfish, and it’s too late for you to change.”

  “I’ll change enough.” Todd’s voice was heavy. “And that will finally make you happy.”

  “Oh yes. Your great sacrifice. Thanks.” She huffed. “It won’t make me happy, Todd. Nothing you do could ever make me happy again. Now, it’s just easier to walk away.”

  “You’ll go to the others, I suppose.”

  “Yes, with the others. They’re not like last time, Todd. They helped me and asked for nothing in return, unlike you.”

  “So, you remember then.”

  “I remember all of it.”

  “Then you remember I tried to help you. I tried to save you and. . .”

  “Chloe, Todd. You’re such a coward you can’t even say her name.”

  “You two were all I wanted. I just realized it too late.”

  “I was never what you wanted. I was never who you wanted. The only way you could love me was for me to pretend, to constantly put on a play for you. To make you dinner and take care of the house and let you feel like a king. And even then, you didn’t want me. Not really.”

  “Of course, I did, Em. You’re everything.”

  “I’m everything you should have wanted.”

  He was too sick to give her anger, so he only showed her pain. “I protected you. I kept you safe.”

  “You protected me.” She felt a rush of sadness for him, but it passed as quickly as it came. “I only needed to be protected because you were so convinced I was weak, you made me believe it too. This world of lies you built, you didn’t make it for me. It was always for you. You knew the only way you could keep me was to cut me off at the knees.”

  “It isn’t true.”

  Emily stroked Red, who was still intent on showing Todd his very sharp teeth. “Believe what you want. Apparently, I don’t care enough to lie to you.” She left him then, splayed out on the floor of the nursery sweating himself to death and letting the darkness inside him spread through every vein.

  She packed a bag of little things. Not only clothes, but memories. A picture of her parents, the picture of herself and Danny. There were no pictures of Chloe, so she took a little onesie with pink hearts and flowers in neat r
ows.

  Todd looked up at her as she folded it and put it in her bag. “Please. Don’t leave me. I’m so afraid.”

  Emily sighed and sat down beside Todd on the floor. “Of what? Dying?”

  “Losing you.”

  “Lie to me again, Todd. That’ll help.”

  He drew a slow breath. “Of losing me.”

  Emily put both hands on the back of her head and pulled her fingers through her hair. Almost every piece of her wanted to leave him in a pile on that nursery floor, so his last thoughts would be of Chloe and loneliness, but she was only cruel in her brain.

  Her heart remembered love. Her heart remembered looking into his eyes the first time they’d held Chloe, and seeing magic, and happiness, and peace. She did remember everything, and that meant she remembered the way he’d leaned in and kissed Chloe’s head, and curled up beside them in the hospital bed to rest his head on Emily’s shoulder and his hand over hers as she held Chloe.

  He’d tried to save them all even if he failed. And whether he’d done it the right way or the worst way, he’d kept Emily alive long enough to remember all those lovely, happy things.

  “Will you stay? Not because I’m afraid. I mean I am but, all this time, I remembered her alone. Just stay with me a little while, in this room, where we can be a family again for a few minutes before I die.”

  “It won’t be like dying. Not really.” She reached over and petted his wet hair and scooted closer to him to pull his head into her lap. “To die is to be forgotten.”

  “You won’t forget me?”

  “I won’t forget you, Todd. I don’t want to.”

  “So, we had something, at least.”

  “Something.” She turned her face away and wiped her eyes with palm of the hand he hadn’t claimed. “Sometimes, even something great.”

  “Sometimes.”

  She squeezed the hand he’d taken. “You don’t have to suffer, Todd. If you want me to end it for you, I will.”

  “You’ve been wanting to kill me for years.” He tried to laugh, but that part of him had already died. “I’d rather suffer if it means you’ll stay.”

  “I’ll stay. But I won’t stay in the dark.” She reached behind them and pulled the curtains open as wide as she could reach. The evening sun was clouded by rain, but the pink light that reached through the clouds created a glow in the room that almost made it feel alive again.

  They said nothing because there was nothing else either of them could say, and she stayed with him until the sunset turned to moonlight and watched him fade and grey. Sometime, a few hours before dawn he fell asleep. She knew he’d never wake, so she climbed out from under him and went to their room for a pillow to tuck beneath his head.

  Red watched her, laying just outside the nursery doorway, his eyes never straying from Todd. “It’s okay, boy. It’s almost time. Everything will be okay.”

  It was after sunrise when he took his last breath, and Chloe’s room was filled with light. She turned the lock on the inside, then stepped outside and closed the door.

  She had to carry Red downstairs, and she left him on the sofa as she spent one last morning in her garden, taking all the food she could carry to the SUV to share with the others.

  She watched the upstairs window, kissed by sunlight, with its green curling vine.

  It wasn’t long. She blinked as he appeared in the window frame, his handsome face streaked by puffy black veins. Almost a stranger, he looked down at her, his eyes bloodshot and vacant, and put his hand on the windowpane to say goodbye.

  About the Author

  Cheryl is originally from the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, but now resides in Phoenix, Arizona where she teaches English, listens to Chopin, and sings loudly when no one is looking, except her pet rats. She loves zombie history and anything made with salted caramel. She is also the author of Blackbird and the Mirror.

  Keep up with her and upcoming books at www.cloudermelt.com