(Book 2)What Remains (6 page)

My arms creaked out towards the removable box.
An odd sound outside stopped me in my tracks. There was a thud
followed by rhythmic scraping. The pattern was baffling. Nothing I
could imagine matched the clatter I actually heard. After the
peephole section was removed I slowly peered out.

The figure caught my attention immediately. At
that time of night, I should have only seen a view of my neighbor’s
fence. Instead, a trespasser marred the normally peaceful nook. It
hobbled along the fence with an outstretched arm, every step
dragging his rotting digits along the planks. The perplexing rhythm
I had heard was created when the scratching went from one board to
another.

Darkness hid most of his details from my view.
It almost seemed like he was staring up at me with those black,
soulless eyes. I blinked hard, hoping that doing so would kick the
view out of my imagination. When I opened them again he had gotten
closer to our side of the fence. Most of his silhouette was
obscured from my vantage point by a spindly oak tree that lined the
fence. A wisp of late November air caught my face bringing about a
shudder. Even though I couldn’t clearly see the ghoul, I still
heard the nails digging across the wood.

This was the first time I’d observed the zombies
in such a way since arriving home. When the infection initially
broke out I tried to study them as much as possible. Doing so might
prepare me for my flight away from the dead city. Now I’d reached
my loved ones… and so had the reapers. Feeling like my wretched
curiosity had been appeased, I moved to reseal the peephole.

Then a blast echoed from somewhere up the
street. It must have come from someone living firing a shotgun or
maybe a large caliber rifle. Whatever it was caught the attention
of our trespasser. He ceased scraping and let out a ravenous growl.
On the opposite side of the house I heard a similar racket from
another member of the undead. Three seconds later a car alarm
sounded from the area towards the gun blast.

I quickly sealed the peephole before any lurking
sounds of nocturnal horror could bother my sleeping family. Sarah
was correct; I should have just ignored what I heard. There was
evil out there literally lurking at our doorstep. Another sound
from the other side of the house confirmed that the trespasser I
saw wasn’t the only one on the property that night.

Adrenaline added a dangerous potency to my pain
killer-filled bloodstream. Anger had surfaced above my worry. If I
knew I could get out of the attic without waking anyone I probably
would. Right then I was so infuriated by this invasion that I
wanted to grab my Kukri and quench its thirst for blood. I sat down
next to Sarah and our sleeping bag nest. She startled me by placing
a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Calm down,” she whispered softly. “At the
moment we are safe and you are here. We can worry about the rest
later.”

I didn’t say anything back because once again,
she was right. My response came in the form of my stiff return to a
horizontal position under the warmth of our blankets. She kissed me
gently and was asleep in minutes. I lay there stewing in my
thoughts.

We were safe for the time being. As long as the
dead stayed on the other side of the fence we would have time to
plan. The reaction from the infected that I witnessed to a distant
sound reinforced the need for us to remain hidden. The following
day I planned on going out in the yard to check the perimeter. I
was sure it would feel good to do something beyond remaining still
in the name of healing.

My storm of thoughts eased to a drizzle. Before
sleep returned to open the door for my nightmares, I pondered the
blast outside. Something like that must have come from someone that
still had a beating heart. For their sake, I prayed that the single
trigger pull that I heard brought that person peace instead of more
pain.

Life before the end offered so much comfort in
its routines. I never realized how much I took the simple daily
tasks for granted until Thanksgiving morning. This thought occurred
to me as I stood atop my mangled back deck-turned-platform. It was
also the first time I’d been outside since getting pulled inside
the house unconscious and wounded. The aching in my ribs was numbed
down by a potent blend of painkillers and adrenaline. Being
outdoors was unnerving. Although, I’d never admit feeling that way
to the little one that watched me through the crack in the kitchen
window boards.

Calise stood on the chair that she normally
would have been sitting at waiting for her morning sugar rush.
Either Sarah or I should’ve been pouring milk into two bowls of
Frosted Flakes under the intense scrutiny of hungry children.
Instead, Calise watched me as I nervously observed her brother and
mother. Maddox was in the grass keeping a close eye on his mommy’s
every move. He gripped a camping machete tightly in his
eight-year-old hand.

My son is out there with a machete. What has
this world become?
I thought to myself while trying to control
increasingly panicked breaths.

Signs of anxiety were far less apparent in the
rest of my family. This may have been my first time observing the
routine but they had spent nearly every morning since the dead rose
turning this into a necessary morning ritual. The morning hours of
each day evolved to include an expedition of Sarah tiptoeing around
the fence line. She did this holding her own blade, a heavy piece
lethality I bought her years ago as a silly gift. Who would have
thought that the sword I painted partially pink would actually be
used to fight the undead? I longed for the days where such a
thought was nothing more than a foolish outlet for generalized
angst.

First they embarked on a pulse pounding, slow
inspection of the fence lengths that connected to the house. Once
this was completed they patrolled a wooded portion of our yard that
the kids have always referred to as ‘the jungle’. In reality, this
section is far from a jungle; however, to a child it must look like
walking from a golf course green into the bowels of Vietnam. Before
Calise was born Maddox began getting adventurous during outside
playtime and the wooded area quickly became one of legend for the
little man. To him it was a place where monsters played and demons
lurked. He continuously tempted the boundaries to see how far we
would let him wander. Sarah hated when I’d go back there with our
curious ball of energy; random vines of thorns and a host of biting
insects made the area one where children didn’t belong.

As the years passed I cleared out portions of
the jungle in order to make additional usable areas. There was an
area dubbed ‘Mommy Cove’ which sported a hammock, bench, and a
drink stand. Jutting out of the back of Mommy Cove was a play area
complete with a clubhouse, rope swing, and a re-purposed slide.
There were two small gaps in the fencing: one caused by a hurricane
a few years ago and another in the corner of the yard where a
transformer box was installed by the power company. These spots
were small enough that I doubted even half of a man could have
squeezed through them. A less scrutinizing patrol was possible in
the jungle thanks to its isolation.

The tension broke when Sarah flashed a smile
back at Maddox. She sheathed her sword and followed a worn path
back to the grass. With the morning patrol completed, Maddox
gleefully ran back to the stepladder lowered down on the opposite
side of a railing that had supported my weight during the grueling
fifteen-minute check of the yard. He easily climbed atop the deck
and set the machete on a folding table so cautiously you would
think it was a Fabergé egg. Then he startled me by speaking
aloud.

“It’s alright, Daddy. The fence is good and so
are we.” His volume wasn’t quite at a normal level but it was still
above a whisper.

His confidence did nothing to ease my worry.
“Should we be talking out here, buddy?”

A smirk developed on Maddox’s face before I even
finished the question. “Relax, Daddy. I swear it’s all right.
Calise has even played out here before. As long as we keep our
voices really quiet and don’t talk near the edge of the fence then
the zombies won’t hear us.” My scowl at the Z-word stopped his
smirking. “What else should we call them?” He pointed at the
boarded bay window where Calise was inside bouncing up and down at
the sudden inclusion. “Calise can’t hear us so I should be able to
tell the truth. I know what they are, Daddy. I’ve watched your
scary movies before while you were napping so I know all about
them. I’m eight years old and I can handle this!”

“Monkey, I’m thirty and I can hardly handle it.
You have no idea the things I had to see and do just to be having
this conversation with you.” Not long before this I wouldn’t have
had the strength to argue. It was a good sign that recovery was
upon me. Sarah approached the deck so I decided to cut this off.
“We’ll talk about this later. For now you are
not
to use
that word… got it?”

He nodded acceptance through a quelled tantrum.
Sarah made it up the ladder and gave me a kiss. “Everything looks
good.” Her low voice had the soothing undertones of a jazz singer.
Utilizing her supernatural wife/mother powers, she automatically
sensed the fresh tension between her two boys. “Are things okay up
here?” Under these circumstances she’s had to trust Maddox with so
much responsibility. He has every right to see himself as being
older than his limited years; having the world end without your
father immediately present would age anyone by a decade.

“We’re good, babe. Maddox was just filling me in
on the rules for being out of the house.” His postured relaxed
slightly upon hearing my response. I pointed at the machete.
“Should he have that?”

Before Sarah could respond Maddox replied, “No
guns inside the fence. We save those for emergencies only.”

Perhaps I underestimated how adult my son sees
himself to be if the possession of a machete is so normal that he
thought I was referring to him being under-armed. Fortunately,
Sarah knew what I meant. “You heard the rule, Daddy - we stay as
quiet as possible. Don’t worry, because the
only
time a
weapon has been used here was when we pulled you out of the
cul-de-sac.”

Things were different then; one would think that
I shouldn’t need any more convincing of that after having to cut
down over a dozen things that were living people when the month
began. I let out a sigh and conceded, “Sounds like a pretty smart
rule. Good call, Mommy.”

“Thanks, but he’s the brains here,” she said
while making her way back over the rail. Maddox stood there with
brimming with the confidence of a soldier that had just had the
Medal of Honor placed around his neck.

I rubbed his head. “Grab your weapon and go help
Mommy get into the house. When you’re done come back and help me
off this deck. Also remember - before you even think about picking
on me for acting so old, I did kill
a lot
of
that-word-we-don’t-say-around-your-sister to feel this way.” His
grin reached from ear to ear. Within seconds he was in the grass
moving the ladder for Sarah to get back in the house then quickly
returned to give me the same assistance.

The kids had grown restless inside the attic.
Their ability to control the average noise level gradually faded
away. Given the circumstances, we couldn’t blame them one bit for
it; an eight year old and a five year old had no business being
essentially caged up. Their outside time had been brief due to the
elevated reaper activity in the area that was only there courtesy
of my arrival. Sarah and I knew that we couldn’t keep it up much
longer before a tantrum erupted and subsequently rang the dinner
bell for every ghoul in the neighborhood.

Calise was excited to help her mother get
Thanksgiving dinner ready. Regardless of how minimal our feast was
to be, she could not wait to help for the first time. Her smiling
enthusiasm was as infectious as the evil that put us in this
position to begin with. Daddy’s little girl had reminded me about
the sweet things in life since I first set eyes on her. I would
have slaughtered the entire infected neighborhood if it meant
maintaining my little girl’s innocence. The beauty about being so
young was that everything was significant; she deserved to feel
excited.

Maddox was born wise beyond his years, always in
a hurry to do everything: talking, walking, learning and
comprehending. That morning reminded me how powerless I was to
prevent him from seeing the world for what it had become. When not
picking on his sister, he was lost in a book about the settlement
of Jamestown. Last year he went on a field trip there and bought a
book about colonial survival in the gift shop. He kept telling me
that he wanted to dig a deep hole in the back yard to store our
food in because it would act like a natural refrigerator for the
more perishable items in our pantry. The boy’s initiative was
ambitious and I was damn proud of him for it. I had no idea if his
subterranean refrigerator would work, but it was worth a try since
the preparation of the Thanksgiving meal would mark the end of many
short term preserves.

Before the walk of the fence line that morning I
peeked through various peepholes in the front barricades to assess
the situation in the cul-de-sac. Two infected were within earshot
of the house. The closest one shuffled around at a snail’s pace in
the driveway. It lumbered into our only remaining car, which was
fully packed for the trek to my parents’ farm. My heart stopped,
remembering the wretched creature that bumped into a car when I
first reached Hull Street and alerted the horde. Thankfully it
didn’t recreate the scenario because our tiny four-door hatchback
would need its window smashed for an alarm to go off.