by Dell Sweet
~
They had met no one along the way: Before nightfall they had been driving a pair of new pickup trucks. John and Bear in one, Madison and Cammy in the other, weaving in and out of traffic heading back into the city.
They had ended up in the factory with the gas lanterns for light. The windows boarded up.
April 16th
Bear pulled Donita's tattered notebook from his pocket and read it once more in starts and fits as he thought about the last few days. Eyes rising to the factory walls, the entrance, and then back down to the notebook. Occasionally a fat tear drop rolled down his cheek unseen and fell to the cold concrete floor.
Tarps overhung the shattered factory entrance. The building itself was solid. He had checked it with a flashlight. Why it had survived the earthquakes he did not know, but he was glad it had.
It was even stocked with canned goods. Someone had gone through the trouble of building a fireplace. Rock from the nearby river, most likely, Bear thought. The fireplace occupied a central part of the floor. Wood piled by it. He had almost passed on it, thinking that whoever had set this up would be back, but the fire was cold, the tarp had blown partly off the door too, and there were too many of the dead now, wandering the streets and alleyways. They seemed to shy away from daylight, but at night they roamed freely. He needed the protection of a solid building and a fire.
He had heard the screams of their victims more than once over the first several nights as he huddled in this doorway or that. He had found a second floor factory to call home for two nights, but there were too many ways into it, too many entrances to guard. The dead had found him on the second night and he had only escaped because they were too slow to chase him. He had found a shallow cave a few days before along the cliffs that faced the river. He had fled to it, hoping that nothing else had claimed that small space. It had been empty and he had spent the night snapping awake every time there was a strange sound. The next morning he had found the factory. The windows bricked up long ago, the entrance a crumbled ruin, but that was the only way in. He had learned that first night that the dead were afraid of fire. They would not come near it. He could hear them out in the night, moaning, stumbling from one place to another, but they never approached where he could see them, and in the morning there were none to be seen. They had secreted themselves away in the dark places that they passed away the daylight hours in.
He had built the fire in the pit, and then another outside the entryway that evening and had managed to get his first night of real sleep the next night, when it was clear they would not come near the fire under any circumstances. He paused, thinking back, and then began to write out his own story.
Bears Notebook.
I’ve heard gunshots more than once. And the nights are alive. Screams, the dead walking about, stumbling and crashing. I’ve heard a dog barking too. And I’ve seen a few dogs, cats, squirrels. I’ve also heard what sounded like a car or a truck, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Everything is so quiet during the day; it could be anywhere.
The sound of the river drowns things out. I've seen few live people until yesterday. At least very few that didn't already seem as though they had crossed over into crazy-town. These three I met yesterday seem okay. Mostly okay.
I have no idea what has happened, even here in Manhattan. It doesn’t really matter either, except to tell you, whoever you may end up being, what happened from my point of view, I guess. Maybe it’s the same for you. Maybe writing this out is a waste of time. But it keeps my mind off shit.
There were more planes overhead in the night. I know that sounds crazy, but I awoke to hearing them. It took me back to the day in the park when they overflew us and sprayed us.
I mentioned people. I have three people with me. I'm not sure how long they'll be with me or if these are people I can form a group with. I hope so. I would hate to think that all of this time has slipped by, I found other people, or they found me, and we aren't compatible with one another. I guess time will tell. I'm going to start looking for other people though. I think there are dozens of people close by but they're all hiding. I'm going to walk down by the river, all those lofts, warehouses. I figure that if anyone is still alive that is where they would be. Hiding in all of those buildings. The more of us the better. There is safety in numbers.
I’m warm. I’m dry. I’m pretty much okay. My fingers are sore and I’m tired, so I’ll pick this up tomorrow.
Bear closed his notebook and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He sat quietly for a few moments and then lifted his eyes looking around the factory floor. The longer he was here the more convinced he was that someone had been here for a length of time directly after everything fell apart. His eyes fell on the three where they had settled in.
There was some sort of tension there that he couldn't quite define. For the last few hours it had seemed as though a whispered argument of some sort had transpired between Madison and John. Bear didn't think much of John, but he was surprised that Madison was with him. She seemed too strong to need someone like that. He turned away and shook his head to clear it. People belonged to themselves, maybe more now that they ever had. The wrong thing for John to be thinking is that he could tell a woman like Madison what she could or couldn't do. He stared back into the fire for a moment and began to think once more about his own losses, wondering where Donita might be. It was always like that. 'I need to get some batteries, maybe some more ammo too, and I wonder how Donita is?' … 'Looks like rain today, but I can still get some things done, and I wonder if Donita is safe and dry somewhere.' Her memories kept sneaking up on him. His feelings, his longing for her, something like that, kept it absolutely fresh and ever present. It made his chest ache almost instantly and so he turned his thoughts in a different direction.
Bear had been sitting out front of the factory building a few days back when he had met a guy that said he had worked at the Army base over in Jersey. He said he knew what it was. He said the planes came from somewhere down south, but stopped there on the way back to re-fuel. What he had said was that the blue stuff was designed to strengthen the survivors, keep them alive a little longer, make them stronger somehow. Some dip shit scientist's idea. The guy had, had a bad twitch on the right side of his face, and he kept turning away in mid-sentence to check the shadows amid the foliage of the river bank. He had never even said goodbye, just walked away.
Bear supposed it could be true. That it was meant as a boost for human kind, a help. The world had fallen apart; everything stopped working. They knew the government couldn't get to the survivors to help them. They would die. So they sprayed the blue shit on everyone, and Bear supposed further that some of them had survived the first few months because of it. He couldn't prove it, but he suspected it did help them evolve into...
He didn't know. Whatever the hell they were now. He knew they we're alive. He knew his heart beat. He still felt human, and he truly thought he was still human. If it made changes to the living, they are very small changes... at least so far.
But the dead - oh, the dead. That was a different story. It did something else to the dead.
He sat now thinking his thoughts. He was lost in them for a few seconds. But he came back fast when he caught a disturbance across the factory floor.
Madison had been watching him from across the factory floor where she had made a clearly defined space for herself and Cammy a few feet away from John. John hadn't liked it at all. But she didn't really care too much about what John thought. He was all right, but he was not her leader... She wasn't sure what kind of leader she needed, but not a leader that didn't respect the boundary lines of a relationship. She looked over at Bear where he sat close to the fire. Maybe she had found her leader, or at least someone she was willing to follow. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt him while he was writing, but now that he seemed finished. She got to her feet, dusted her palms.
“Baby?” Cammy asked.
Madison squatted back down beside her.
She smiled and then leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “You know I love you, right?”
Cammy smiled back. “I do...” Her smile slipped. “But?”
“Just got to have a conversation.... See if this is someone we can travel with... I'll be right back.” She leaned forward and kissed her again, and then stood. She caught John's eyes as she straightened.
“Him?” John asked. He shook his head and turned away. Madison shook her own head and then walked over to where Bear sat.
“This was really nice of you,” she said as she walked up. “We were staying in that old school building. None too stable. Last night was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.”
“Funny,” Bear replied, “I was thinking the same thing. For me it was just having companionship.”
Madison smiled. She caught his eyes and smiled again.
“Mind?” She asked, gesturing at the ground beside him.
“Not at all,” Bear smiled.
The silence stretched out for a few seconds, each of them looking around the factory floor waiting for the other to begin.
Madison fixed her eyes on him. “I was just wondering what you were planning on doing. I mean, have you thought about leaving? I know you spoke a bit about it yesterday when you were talking to John. Seemed like you two don't really see things the same way.” She let the last words rise like a question.
Bear looked at her levelly. “Yeah… I guess it does show. We just don’t click. I wondered if you were coming over to tell me that the three of you might light out... I guess it's obvious we don't see things the same. I guess I also wondered what you thought as an individual... You don't seem like the kind of woman that follows.” Bear shrugged. “I know I can't be nobodies soldier.”
Madison nodded. “It’s the same with me. I do my own thinking.”
“Exactly,” Bear agreed.
Madison nodded. She fixed him with her serious eyes once more. “So what will you do?”
“Probably like I said, like everyone else is doing. I don't see them, but I can feel it... It's like a drain on the city... The living moving out, the dead moving in. So I guess that's me too... I'll leave. Get out of this city... That's first. It's bad here.” He raised his arms to encompass the factory. “I've been here a few days... False security. They won't come near this place, but that isn't getting me out of the city either. I have got to quit procrastinating.”
“What's next do you think?” Madison asked.
“As this goes on?” Bear shook his head “I guess I’m just waiting to see how this goes too... Like everyone. But.... I think the dead are getting smarter... Faster too. I know that sounds like bullshit, maybe even paranoia, but I've been paying attention. I saw three the other day that seemed to be working together to break a door down to a building.” He nodded when Madison raised her eyebrows. “Back on Park Avenue with my woman, Donita? ...” He blinked and stumbled with his words. “It was after she was gone.”
“I see that... Sorry,” Madison said softly.
“So I had to leave... Couldn't stay there...” Bear swiped at his eyes, embarrassed at the instant tears that had appeared. He cleared his throat. “The dead... The dead had been attacking every night. It's like they knew I was there. At first they just stumbled against the stuff I had piled up in the stairwell to keep them out, made a racket all night long, but after a while it was like they saw it for what it was and began to work to remove it. The morning I left they had nearly made their way through overnight.” Bear raised his hands, palms out and shrugged his massive shoulders.
Madison hung her head and shook it slightly. “That's the last thing we need,” She said as she scrubbed at her face with her palms.
Bear nodded. “So, what happens next? I’ll probably leave,” he smiled. “I guess that was a long drawn out answer.”
“No. Not really,” Madison answered. “I’m in the same place.” She looked around.
Bear shrugged his shoulders. “Jersey's looking better and better, huh?” He laughed a little.
Madison looked up from her contemplation of the floor. The laughter had caught her by surprise. She laughed too. “It is starting to look better.” She smiled at Bear.
“Been over there,” Bear told her. “Wandered all over for a few days. It's not so bad. Thinking it might be time to at least spread out a little. I thought that was what John was suggesting at first. Get a truck and get out, but then he wants to come right back. I don't really get that.”
She nodded and then continued. “Me either... Anyway, I…” She raised her head level with his and locked her eyes on his own. “I just wanted you to know I’m seeing it the same way as you. I mean… I mean I want to be on your side of it... Me and Cammy both” She gave a nod, then firmed her mouth, set her jaw and spoke once more. “I have Cammy to think of,” She blushed and turned away, and then turned right back.
“I see,” Bear said.
She nodded and smiled carefully, “Didn't know what side of this you might fall on... John is against it... Thinks I need a man. I’m taking you at face value, I guess.” She smiled.
Bear laughed. “What a dick.”
“I just wanted you to know the deal... I don't want to mess this up.,” she said quietly, her eyes serious.
“So we'll go looking tomorrow,” Bear said. “We'll decide things between us.” He turned toward John “Him too if he wants.”
“I don't see that working for him, but it works for me, Bear” Madison said.
“Okay Madison,” Bear agreed. Tomorrow it is.”
“Maddy,” Madison told him. “We'll be with you tomorrow.”
Bear nodded, “Maddy it is,” which caused a huge smile to spread across her face. His own smile answered it. But he thought, did she really mean it? He didn’t complete the thought as she stood and walked across the factory floor to where she had put her things and spent her first night. Cammy followed her and then her eyes came up and seemed to question Bear. She turned and looked back at Madison. Bear stood and walked over to help them move their things to their own area. Bear saw the tension in John's shoulders as he helped them move, but John said nothing.