Containment (51 page)

“Doc, I’ve got one last question for you.”

“No, I don’t want the gun. No, I don’t want any food. No, I don’t want to go with you.”

“I just wanted to know your first name.”

Dr. Caldwell smiled. “After all this time, you don’t know my first name?”

“Never really came up in conversation. You were Doc or Dr. Caldwell or something else. I don’t think we ever got around to that.”

“Jonathon.”

Neil took Dr. Jonathon Caldwell’s hand for the last time and said, “It’s been a pleasure, Jonathon. I’ll never forget you.”

“Likewise.”

Their handshake lasted longer than did their words. They looked at one another without speaking for several seconds, both then nodded, and Neil turned away. Slowly, Neil made his way back toward the others who were nearing the exit and the highway beyond. He moved slowly, reluctantly, wishing that the bad dream would end before he got too far. With each loathsome step, however, he took himself further and further from that possibility. If Dr. Caldwell were to call out to him before he’d reached the end of the parking lot, Neil decided that he’d figure out a way to carry him along with them for as long as they were able. As Neil took his last step on the pavement of the parking lot, he looked over his shoulder at his friend Jonathon, but the other man had turned his back to them and was facing back toward the north.

Emma was crying and struggling to free herself from Jerry and Claire. She alone was still looking toward Dr. Caldwell. Neil approached her and wrapped his arms around her. He hugged her tightly and she melted, but still fought to see over his shoulder. Neil whispered, “He wants us to leave. He doesn’t want us to watch him die.”

Hearing those words didn’t suppress the pain tearing at her chest; but they did get her attention. She looked at Neil with a thousand questions in her eyes but no will to ask them. She shook her head weakly and fell against him, burying her face into his chest. She wanted to tear herself away from him and run back to her love, but the fight had gone out of her. Her struggling gone, her legs felt weak and rubbery. She leaned into Neil for support, allowing herself to be led away, her legs unwilling participants in the exodus.

They walked steadily for some time, following the damp, dark road as it led them south. The green borders on either side of the meandering highway were in fast retreat from the pressing browns of autumn. The small trees here and there were only trunks and branches, their leaves having been shed for the coming season. It was as if the land and the season themselves were mourning. The sky too refused to be anything other than somber and morose in its own grey way, the sun deemed too cheery to be allowed an entrance. And the damp, chill air seemed to revel in its shivering embrace.

They walked largely silently, their quiet footfalls only occasionally interrupted by an isolated sob or sudden sniffle. When Neil braved a glance behind them, the gas station and its lone guest were well out of sight.

Other than the waning light of the fading afternoon, there was no measure of time. They progressed down the road with as much enthusiasm as bait onto a hook. Exhausted and emotionally spent, they had nothing left to give; their collective well was as dry as their eyes were wet. The path ahead of them was as bleak and uninviting as any they had traveled.

With the day coming to a close and Whittier still twenty or so miles south of them, Neil asked them, “What should we do?”

Their legs were as heavy as their thoughts. None of them were immune from their collective agony; even the children’s footsteps were steeped in sorrow. This loss, the loss of Dr. Caldwell from their makeshift family, was somehow more painful than anything any of them had felt since that first day when the catastrophe was still new. For a time, it seemed like maybe they had gotten clear of the worst of the tragedy. They were smarter and more careful. It felt like they had perhaps learned to adapt and hold off the lurking specter of death. How wrong they all were. Even out of sight, terror could never be out of mind. It was all too real and always too close.

Their bodies, from head to toe, sagged pitifully with remorse. They were in no shape to continue their trek; at least not today. It was evident to all of them, even if no one had acknowledged it aloud yet.

Over the growing sniffles and sobs, Emma answered, “It’s been a long day. Maybe this is a good time for us to call it quits until tomorrow.”

“Until tomorrow then.”

The future…their future was never in more doubt or more peril since the first day the Alaskan undead tragedy began to unfold. The tight family formed as a result of those horrific events was struggling through yet another loss…another death…another nail in the proverbial coffin of their survival.

It was becoming ever more difficult to find those elusive reasons to continue. Mere survival did not seem to be enough for all of them to persist.

And yet, they did. Finding some untapped reserves of will, Neil, Jerry, Meghan, and Emma kept them on their path. Where that path ultimately led was still a mystery. There was no knowing what was still ahead of them. All that any of them knew was that they had to continue their journey.

And so they did…

The
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse
continues with
Mitigation
. Coming in 2013 from Permuted Press.

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Containment
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