(Book 2)What Remains (7 page)

The second zombie was hardly a threat. It lay
face down on the ascending hill from the ditch Sarah had pulled me
through when I barreled through the undead wall closing off our
circle. Somewhere along the line this poor bastard had lost both
arms. I tried to remember if I used my Kukri in the final flight
but the whole experience was still a little foggy. At some point it
fell face down and became the Halloween equivalent of an overturned
turtle. At first I didn’t think it was anything more than one of
the re-killed corpses that peppered the pavement; then it flopped
around grinding its face against the ground with hungry
frustration.

I observed them as long as I could before Maddox
started asking to take a look himself. He obeyed my order to stay
away from the front windows but insisted that I join them outside
for the check of the yard.

After a few hours of uneventful meandering I
decided to get a look out of the improvised window I’d used late
the previous night. The image of a ghostly figure running its hand
along my neighbor’s fence was still burned into my brain. I
shuddered and reached for the box to close the window. Then a
gunshot echoed from somewhere far out of view. Nothing was visible
from the limited vantage point so I listened intently to try and
learn whatever I could from the sound that had become less common
since I arrived home. A string of shots followed irregularly. The
excited reaction from the cul-de-sac’s walking dead was louder than
the gunfire. Their barks and moans then became drowned out but
something even more unusual: the trebled rip of an engine. The
ridiculous mental imagine of some poor sap trying to be an action
star with a revolver and a motorcycle came to mind.

Both kids stood behind me like deer in the
headlights. Sarah rushed back up the stairs from preparing lunch.
They all looked to me for answers that I didn’t have.

“I didn’t see anything,” I told them. “Whatever
it was can’t be a bad thing. It means that someone else is putting
up a good fight against the monsters. Also it will probably draw
some of them away from our circle.”

It was a sad reality; we were benefiting from
another person’s last stand. Sarah and the kids reluctantly
returned to their fleeting distractions. Soon after we’d eat and
they wouldn’t think about it, at least, the kids wouldn’t. Sarah
and I would need to talk seriously soon about what we were going to
do.

Less than an hour later everyone was finishing
up with an early lunch. I told Sarah to get the kids ready to play
outside. The kids reacted like I’d just let a swear word slip out
during Christmas blessing. Sarah looked confused until she saw me
moving towards the peepholes to take another survey of the
front.

“Guys listen to me,” I said with as much
confidence as I could muster then stood with a stern look until the
impatient wiggling ceased. “I’m going to take a look at the front
again. If none of the monsters are very close then you both can go
play in the back. Stick to the quiet rule. I don’t care how much
fun you are having or what one of you did to the other – you
stay quiet
. When you’re in the grass you don’t talk – got
it?”

“But, Daddy, it really is okay…” Maddox tried to
counter but I snapped my fingers and cut him off.

“I don’t care. I’m telling you right now that
there is no talking while you’re in the grass. It’s too close to
the fence and if one of them is close by it could hear you then get
interested. When one gets interested it has a way of making
more
of them interested. Mommy, do you think the yards
around us are empty?”

Sarah nodded.

“Good. So long as the yards on the other side of
the fence don’t have anything in them, you both can talk quietly
back in the jungle. Play on the slide, swing on the swing, do
anything you want as long as it’s quiet. The distance from the
front along with the cushioning from the trees and fence should
keep the noise out of their range.” I took a breath and looked them
both over to make sure I still had an audience. “I’m counting on
you guys to be good. We’re going to be leaving for Grandma and
Grandpa’s in a couple days.”

Their eyes grew almost as wide as their smiles
when they heard we’d be leaving there soon. Sarah looked at me with
deep concern. I tried not to focus on her reaction because the kids
needed to see every bit of the false confidence I tried to exude.
In the time it took me to blink I felt a little hand grip mine.
Following the pink sleeve to the darling face of my daughter she
squeezed my pointer and middle fingers tightly. “You can count on
us, Daddy. We’ll be quiet so the monsters don’t hear us, I
promise.”

Damn, she could pull my heart strings like the
strings of a marionette puppet.

“I know, Princess,” I said with a smile. “Go put
your sneakers on. If you need any help see if Monkey can give you a
hand.”

Sarah helped both the kids prepare for their
longest period of time outside since the world had collapsed. I
eased my way down the creaky drop-down ladder to conduct my final
check of the front yard before letting them out. That ladder had
always been a source of irritation. The two-part folding design had
awkwardly sized metal bits that loved to fall off after a few trips
regardless of how many times I’d screwed the damn things back on.
When I walked down I felt like an elephant descending the rickety
ladder to a tree house constructed without parental
supervision.

As I returned to the ground floor of my ranch
house this time I noticed that the typical pig-like squeals of
warped wood were not insulting me for every extra pound. After
surveying the front yard I discreetly went to the middle bathroom
to weigh myself on our digital scale. I stood there for a moment
dumbfounded by the simple equation presented in glowing blue
numbers. It had been a long time since I’d lost enough weight to
warrant the use of math. Assuming the scale was correct, I was at
least forty pounds less of a man than I was when the dead stayed
that way.

Our bed felt like heaven. Sleeping a night on
padding in the attic made me appreciate our memory foam mattress
like it was the first time. I was physically feeling a thousand
times better than the last time I rested there. However, mentally I
was wracked with a plague of worry. Aside from trying to convince
myself that the improvement I felt in my body wasn’t just the
result of medication, the worry about where my family would be a
week from then overcame the constant flashes of what I’d gone
through to get to that point.

Maddox insisted on going out the hidden entrance
in our window first so he could help Calise from the outside. I
felt so proud of the little man he had become. With me being
essentially out of the picture one way or another in the time since
the collapse he had eagerly taken over the reins more than any
eight year old should have to. Once both kids were clear, Sarah
propped the plywood swing panel open so we could hear them then sat
on a folding chair next to the bed so that she could see outside.
The kids weren’t in sight because the jungle was on the far
opposite corner of the yard but we were able to hear them in the
event the noise rule was violated for any reason.

There was an unusual moment of calm in the house
without them inside it. I was about to speak but Sarah beat me to
it.

“Nathan…” this was the first time I’d heard any
wavering in her confident facade. “What are we supposed to do?” Her
shoulders sunk down in the chair like her guard had been let down
for the first time in weeks.

The handle of my Kukri, newly reinstated to its
rightful place on my belt, poked my side as I shifted towards her.
I gently took hold of the scabbard, feeling the battle scarred
gouges that marred the leather. With a light tug the blade slid
from its sheath and was placed on the nightstand with a thud. Sarah
tensed for a moment upon seeing the flash of dirty steel then I
think she understood I was simply uncomfortable relaxing with it
jabbing me.

I slipped down from the bed behind her and
started massaging her shoulders. They were wrought with tension at
first but quickly conceded to a tender touch. The sensation of her
soft, curly hair dancing over my fingertips was like a riding a
gust of fresh air through billows of smoke. “We’ll leave in two
days. Today we enjoy ourselves as much as possible. Tomorrow we
prepare to leave this place behind us.” As the words left my mouth
we both realized that soon the home in which we’d started our
family would be nothing more than a memory.

Light beamed through the propped open window.
Outside, a parting in the clouds allowed sunlight, something I’d
nearly forgotten about, to bathe the ruined land for a brief
moment. Daylight glimmered off of my wife’s cheek in tears that
escaped her tired eyes.

“You barely made it here from downtown… how are
we supposed to make it across Hell with two kids? What if we
somehow make it and your parents aren’t there? We could be headed
to someplace even worse than here.”

I hated how right she was - the odds were not in
our favor. We had already defied the odds with our survival to this
point; she and I both knew that, and there was no need to
acknowledge it. Potential plans of action had run through my mind
for weeks. I knew from the very beginning that somehow we would
need to make it to my parents’ farm. Originally, that end goal
seemed like it would be as simple as loading up the car and driving
there. After the time I spent on out in the virally ravaged world I
knew all too well that it wouldn’t be as easy as embarking on a
family road trip.

“But I did make it,” I said. “I also learned a
lot in the process.”

She scoffed at me. “Only you could turn the
apocalypse into a fucking learning experience.”

“Joke about it if you want, baby. I’m not going
to patronize you by saying any of that ‘everything happens for a
reason’ bullshit. But I did learn; I learned a lot about what we’re
fighting and what the world has become. We have a chance to get
somewhere,
anywhere
that is safer than here.” I moved from
behind her seat to crouch beside her. It had been a while since I’d
bent in such a way so my joints fought the motion with grinding
disapproval.

“How can you be so sure?” Another tear attempted
to flee her fatigued face only to be thwarted halfway by a light
brush of my hand.

“Because I also learned that I’d happily butcher
anything that gets in the way of me and my family.”

She immediately smiled. If there was ever
evidence that this woman was my soul mate, smiling in response to
my maniacal devotion definitely qualified. Her response came in the
form of a gentle kiss. She started to speak when a shriek from
outside broke the fragile silence. We both leaped to our feet.
Sheer panic blanketed Sarah’s face as she immediately knew what I
knew – the scream came from Calise.

All sensation in my body instantly became numb;
every action impetuously flowed from instinct, magnified tenfold by
the shriek my precious daughter let out from beyond the safety of
our walls. I went into an automated call to arms that hadn't
existed in me before the world fell. If I'd heard such a sound
before the pandemic my reaction would have been simple irritation
at the assumption that the kids were fighting. Now, I've been so
justified in paranoia that I didn’t even register the Kukri as it
entered my grip. When I awkwardly landed after the jump through the
trap door the ground felt no different than the cushioning mattress
I had just left. My muscles obeyed all commands without their
typical protest. The mere thought of something attacking my
children quelled all of the crippling dread I should have felt from
a headfast rush into danger. A second later my tunneled vision
locked onto the pink of Calise’s puffy coat.

“Calise! Where’s your brother?!” Sarah said with
panicked breaths as she chased immediately behind me.

I had been so focused on the pink target that
Maddox’s absence from direct view escaped my notice. Calise stood
at the corner of the mini fence that separated the play area from
the rest of the jungle, frozen as if in shock. I skidded to the
ground on my knees and scooped her up. Sarah joined the embrace a
moment later facing the other direction.

“Oh thank God!” she said through tears. “There!
There he is!”

I spun towards the opposite corner near the
planked clubhouse to see for myself. Our relief transformed into
terror before I even finished turning. Maddox stood with his back
to the outer clubhouse wall. His right arm was outstretched towards
a disfigured shape on the ground, the rest of him was paralyzed in
fear. My heart stopped completely upon realizing that a mangled
reaper was nearly within arm’s reach of my son. It was on the
ground, wiggling prone in the leaves towards my unsuspecting son.
Desperation catapulted me the eighteen or so feet between us while
my arm brought up the Kukri for an imminent strike. I didn’t look
towards Maddox at all; every ounce of vengeful attention was
focused on the ghoul I intended to slice to bits.

Nearly upon them, my feet skidded to a stop and
centrifugal force practically sent me tumbling through the wooden
pole that connected him and the creature. This encroaching undead
specimen looked like it had somehow been the victim of a piranha
feeding frenzy who escaped mostly shucked of its form. Both legs
were missing, along with the left arm at the elbow. A tattered
Pittsburgh Steelers jacket covered most of its body; something I
really only recognized from the stained yellow sleeve covering an
arm that was now limp but stretched towards Maddox. It was slightly
propped up as if it was in the middle of an aborted push-up. Only
the square shovel embedded inches inside its skull kept him
suspended.