Fear the Abyss: 22 Terrifying Tales of Cosmic Horror (32 page)

I bring Ling the coke and chocolate but she doesn't want it. She's sitting on the roof, looking down at the trees, but her eyes are closed.

"You need to eat," I say to her.

"That's not food," she says. "I'll eat later."

I understand her. My own stomach is caving in. My bones are breaking through the skin. If we don't find real food soon, we're all going to starve. Ling has never looked so fragile before. Her cheeks are sunken in but she's still beautiful.

"Maybe it's time to start hunting those raccoons," she says.  "I wish we had some gear. We could learn to fish. Damn oceans gotta be filled with shit."

"We could try Richmond," I say. "There're some really big stores there. Might be able to get some monster bags of rice. Or get a boat and head to the island."

"It'll all be gone there too," she says. "We've waited too long."

"North. We can head north."

"We'd never get out of the city."

She's right. I know she's right but I don't want to admit it. There's a reason why we've survived so long in the downtown core. People always assume that the city would be the worst hit. But in reality, when the infection hit, the first thing everyone did was try and get out. They poured out of the city like rats leaving the sinking ship.

During the first few months, we tried checking out the suburbs. There were some good malls out there and we thought we might be able to reach one. But the UDI were knee deep out there. We never even got close to Burnaby.

And we're not the only ones still alive. There are others. They're more dangerous. Especially now since just about everything's been cleaned out.

We once all lived in this city. We went to stores when we were hungry and we used cell phones to order in when we didn't want to cook. We drove everywhere or took the Sky Train. There were always coins to toss at the homeless people. Insults to hurl over the internet and late night drunken text messages, laced with sexual innuendo. 

We were alive and young, full of piss and vinegar.

We thought we knew so much.

And here we are now. One year later and not a single one of us knows how to actually take care of ourselves.

*****

Safeway.

One can of kidney beans found underneath a turned shopping cart.  Bottle of pasta sauce hidden under a pile of rotten, dried up apples. A tin of Altoid mints. Cinnamon.

In the back room, we find a bonanza. Six boxes of Kraft dinner. Six!

Double Double finds some coffee beans from the Starbucks. Useless. There's a reason why no one's taken them yet.

"You have nothing to grind them with," I say.

"I'll bash 'em with a hammer," he says.

I find Ling in the pharmacy. The shelves have long since been stripped clean.  She's holding a small package of glycerin soaps.

"Did you see the hygiene aisle?" she asks.  Her katana is strapped down against her back. It looks better fed than her. Thicker. Shinier.  "Tons of shampoo, conditioner. Soft soap.  Guess no one gives a crap about that anymore."

"Kinda hard when there's no running water," I say.  "But I'll bring you some from the lake. I can get Double Double to heat it up."

"No need. Did you see the sky? It's going to rain tonight," she says. "I'll just go right outside and rub myself down. I'll be a dancing forest sprite. A goddess."

We head down the aisle and towards the front. Double Double is pulling the magazines off the stands, trying to find hidden gems. Shockk stands on top of the checkout stand, grinding away in air-guitar fashion. Tipper is balancing on one foot by the window and I'll be damned because it looks like he's meditating or praying or some other form of shit I don't quite understand.

She pauses and looks straight into my eyes. Her gaze is dull. Glazed over. She reaches out and tugs on my arm. To make me listen. I can't help it. I flinch. Her fingers feel like toothpicks.

"I don't want to die this way."

"You're not going to die."

"We're already dead. Just a matter of time."

I take a step backwards and the front window breaks.

Glass rains down on the tiles, a cascade of slicing water.

Shockk's air-guitar concert ends in mid shred. Double Double drops his precious coffee beans. Tipper spins around, his arms spreading out like he's Jesus on the cross.

An arrow sticks straight out of his cheek.

There are a lot of them. I count eight but I could be off. They're just as stinky and dirty and thin as the rest of us. A big guy holding a crossbow walks through the broken window, his feet crunching glass, the weapon aimed right at Double Double. His pack follows behind him. A few girls. Mostly guys. It's hard to tell when they're all wearing the same thing. Covered hoodies. Baseball hats. Leather jackets.

Tipper takes two steps forward and then falls flat on his back. His eyes are open and staring into nothingness.

"What the hell?" Shockk says.  He's still standing on top of the conveyer belt. "What the fuck. He's not a deader. Why'd you do that? He's one of us. Alive. Not dead."

"He is now," Crossbow says and someone behind him laughs.

Their weapons make ours look pathetic. Big knives. Machetes. Thick iron bars. Baseball bats dyed with blood. Someone holds a shotgun although I doubt there're bullets in it.

Through the window, I can see the UDI making their way towards the shop. They've heard the noise and are coming to check things out.

"Give us what you've got," Crossbow says. "And we'll let you live."

I'm holding onto the food. Our measly collection of nothing that will keep us alive for at least a few more days. I won't give it up without some sort of fight. I pull the backpack close to my chest and Crossbow immediately notices.

"I'll kill you," he says.

"You take it and we're dead," Ling snaps.

"Not you," Crossbow says with a crooked grin. "You can come with us. I'll feed you real good." He grabs his crotch and the crowd behind him snorts laughter.

A dead girl reaches the glass. She moans, giving herself away. One of the others shoves a kitchen knife in her mouth.

"Why would you do this?" Ling says. "We're on your side. It should be us against them." She points to the dead woman who is now twitching on the sidewalk.

"It's nothing personal," Crossbow says.

The UDI are getting closer. They've smelt Tipper's blood and now they're getting excited. The groaning sounds are closer. Through the window I see a few dozen have appeared.  Way more than I've seen in a long time. They're coming out of hibernation or whatever it is they do when there's nothing to hunt.

Lots of fresh meat right here.

Crossbow walks right up to me and holds his weapon until the arrow is pointing right at my eye. "It's up to you, cowboy. Now be a smart boy and give me the food. Or I'll take your girl there and feed her to the wolves."

I hand over the bag.  Crossbow smiles and tosses it back to his grunts. They go through it, pulling out our puny stash and admiring the contents.

"You're worse than them," Ling says.

Crossbow shrugs. He takes the can of kidney beans and looks it over. Frowns. Smiles at Ling. "Last chance?"

She holds her ground.

"Your death," Crossbow says. He tosses the can of beans at her. "Expired."

And then they're gone, racing down the aisles towards the back, the only way out since Davie Street is suddenly alive with a hell of a lot of undead impaired.

Shockk jumps down from the till and races over to check on Tipper although it's pointless at this point. Double Double is gripping his coffee beans tightly, part of him is obviously thrilled that no one tried to take them from him.

"What do we do?" Shockk asks.

Good question. We can't go out the back where the others might just pick us off one by one. We can't go out the window, the street is full of undead life. We sure as hell can't stay inside.

"Come on," Ling says and she pulls her katana out. "I want to go home."

She's right. At least we have our weapons. We're lucky. They could have taken them too.

Shockk picks up his machete which had been lying on the floor by the till. Double Double grabs Tipper's axe but that's going to be a problem.  He's useless in a fight. He normally doesn't even bother carrying anything. That's why we usually leave him at home with his coffee.

"We can do this," I say to Ling. She nods, biting down on her lip in determination. She's still holding onto her soap. She looks at it before stuffing it deeply into her pocket.

I take her hand. It's tiny in mine and cool to the touch. I wish I could find her mittens. She deserves such fine things.

"Rock hard," Shockk says and pushes his way out the window.

We make it halfway down the block before they bring Double Double down.  He swings Tippers axe but the effort is fruitless. A group of undead swarm over him, pulling at his clothes, his hair, his skin. As the teeth sink into his body, Double Double screams. The last thing I see is his hand, still holding onto the coffee beans, sink into an unwashed dead sea.

"Fuck!" Shockk screams. He's ahead of us. Fair enough. In such situations, it's every man for himself. He turns the corner onto Denman Street and disappears.

"Come on," I say and I pull Ling towards English Bay. If we can get out into the open we'll have more opportunity to run. The trees can hide us.

I push through the bodies as they claw at us. Using my baseball bat, I swing over and over, slowly making a path. It's like watching bowling pins dropping.

We reach Denman Street. Shockk is nowhere in sight.

Finally an opening.

We take it.

Running.

The beach is empty. It's weird. We run along the path towards Stanley Park and the UDI disappear behind us. They don't follow. It's as if they suddenly found somewhere else to go.

Finally Ling yanks hard on my arm and screams at me to stop. We're both breathing heavy. Sharp gasps block out all other noise.

Ling bends over, holding onto her knees. Her katana is gone. She must have lost it in the chase.

Maybe later we can go back and try to retrieve it once the crowd dies down.

The beach behind us is empty. There are a few UDI milling about but they aren't even looking in our direction. An older man with half his cheek gone, is slowly creeping towards a seagull.

I wait while Ling catches her breath. It takes a while before she rises up to face me.

Blood.

All over her jacket. Her sleeve.

I grab her hand. Her fingers are hot. There are teeth marks. Her skin has been chewed. Ravaged.

"No," I say.

She opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

*****

We sit on the sand and watch the sun going down.  Ling's breathing is ragged. Heat pulses off her body in waves. It won't be much longer now.

Everyone has an
ikigai
. A reason for living. Ling is my
ikigai
. Without her, I have no purpose. I don't want to spend the remainder of my life withering away into a skeletal nothing. I'm tired of being hungry. Of hiding. Of scavenging just to try and survive. I don't want to die alone.

The other side is starting to look good.

That kind of makes things easy.

"I can kill you," I say. "Once you turn. Would you prefer that?"

She shakes her head. "No. I don't want it to end that way."

"Ok."

I take her hand and we walk into the waves.

Everything is connected. The water. The ocean. The sky.

There are currents under all that blue stuff. The currents are connected and if you toss something in the bay in Vancouver, it will travel all the way around the world. From one ocean to the other.

If Ling sinks beneath the waves, will she wake up in the Dominican Republic? Europe? Maybe she'll make it home to China.

But she's not going to take that journey alone.

I take my jackknife out and bring the blade up to my palm. It's easy, slicing through my own skin. I hold my hand up to hers.

"Are you sure?" she whispers.

I nod. 

We join hands, mixing our blood. Ling bites down on her lower lip to try and keep from crying. 

We wait a while, holding each other. My palm itches. I want to scratch it but I can't let go of her hand.

I'm ready.

Ling shudders and dry heaves. There's not even water in her stomach. I wish I could have given her one last meal. Something romantic. With candles and champagne.

Love. Can it really die?

"Do you think we'll remember?" she asks.

"Yes," I say.

"Stay with me till the end?"

I will and I do.

When she finally stops breathing, I lay her body out to float in the water, holding tightly to her hands. My own fever is building and I can feel my heart slowing down.  It's only a matter of time before I join her.  I blink several times. It's getting harder to keep coherent thoughts.