Forest Park: A Zombie Novel (18 page)

“And that’s the end of the television too.”

“We have a radio,” Kathy said.

“We don’t have any fresh batteries. I’ve been meaning to get some for a while; we have a few things about the house that needed a couple. I just never got around to it. However, who would have thought this shit was going to happen?”

“What about the MP3 player, it has an FM radio,” Kathy said.

“Yeah, about that --- I didn’t recharge it. I meant to, but just plain forgot about it,” Steve said.

“Jesus, Steve, you know if you had continued walking a few miles a day, like you promised you would to help lower your cholesterol, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Why can’t you follow through with things? Seriously! “

“You know I don’t like walking for the sake of it. I need something to aim for.”

“The aim was to lose weight.”

“I didn’t mean that exactly.”

Kathy sighed. “Walking a few miles a day never hurt anyone. Is your time really so precious?”

“No, but is this really the time to dredge all this shit up?”

“We don’t have a working television or radio, and nothing is going to cook in that pan, so I don’t see why not...” Then it hit her…

The BBQ, they could use the BBQ.

“What about the BBQ,” Kathy asked.

Steve grumbled to himself, and closed his eyes.

This is a fucking nightmare!

“You didn’t replace the propane tank, did you?” Kathy said. Her tone was now moving beyond simple anger; she was Saint Helen’s waiting to erupt.

“I was on my way to do just that the other day, but then I thought it was getting colder. We’re not going to BBQ in winter. I got distracted; the car alarm was acting up and...”

“Got distracted?”

“Yeah, it happens. Like I said the car alarm was...”

“That seems to happen a lot around here. You’re getting distracted.”

Steve stood up; the house was beginning to feel very small after being trapped inside for what was probably a week --- if it wasn’t it felt like it.

“I’m going to look for some batteries,” Steve said as he left the kitchen, “feel free to help.”

“Good and no thank you. Oh, try not to get distracted by something shiny while you’re at it, Steve!”

FIVE HOURS EARLIER.

“Honey, we must have some batteries somewhere for Christ’s sake?” Steve said, yelling from their bedroom.

“Steve, try to keep it down!”

“Yeah, well.” He paused for a second. “There must be some somewhere. Why in hell do they have to make so many different sizes? Why must they make everything so difficult?”

“They didn’t make it difficult, Steve. You make things hard by putting what needs to be done off. I’ll do it tomorrow is the story of your life, seriously, it is. If I had a dollar for every time you’ve put something off, that you could have dealt with, then and there, I’d be a Millionaire. And it’s no different with the batteries. You drive me crazy. You really do.”

“I didn’t know the Dead were going to walk this time next week, last week, did I? If I did, the very first thing I would have done was go for a walk to lower my cholesterol and buy some batteries!” he said with an ever-increasing volume from the other room.

“Shhh.” She held a finger to her lips. “Use your inside voice.”

Steve stormed back into the kitchen and slumped down into a chair. “And don’t get me started on having anything made after 1995 repaired.”

“How about if you don’t start on that,” Kathy said.

“Because they can’t fix a fucking thing these days,” he continued, “Everything is made to break!”

“What?” Kathy said as a dismayed look came over her face. “Why get started on this?”

Steve glanced at Kathy and laughed. “I don’t know.”

Kathy sat down beside her husband and placed her hand in his. “You’re an idiot,” she said and then laughed along with him.

“I think we might both go mad if we stay here much longer.”

FOUR HOURS EARLIER

“So you’re not joking then,” Steve said. “We truthfully only have an electric can opener, are you really serious!”

“My bad, the funny thing is, even if we had power the damn thing won’t work, it broke a while back.”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“Don’t start, Steve.”

THREE HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLIER.

“There’s always next door,” Steve unexpectedly said after a long silence.

“They have power next door?” Kathy responded with a smile.

“Smartass… No, they have a BBQ though, propane too. It wouldn’t hurt to look anyhow.”

“You can’t go outside, not with those things out there.”

“They’re on the street in front of the house, and they can’t get out back because of the garage. All I have to do is climb over the fence.”

“You think you can climb over the fence?”

“Yeah. I’ll use a chair to boost myself up, and then I’ll grab their propane tank and climb back over; it’s a fool-proof plan.”

Kathy thought about it for minute. “Do we really need a steak that bad?”

He was about to agree with her, until he glanced over at the pair of raw steaks. He shrugged and then said, “It’s better we eat the food that could spoil first, and not the stuff which will keep. Maybe we don’t really need the propane just yet, but if this keeps going on and on and more of those things come around, we might find ourselves in a bit of trouble, and then what?”

“The power might come back on,” Kathy said, feeling the need to sound positive.

Steve glanced at the steaks again. “Perhaps the power won’t come back on. It may take days or weeks for it to return. Who knows how many power lines are down or even if the grid is still capable of working at all. Both of us can smell the smoke. God knows how much damage has been done, and I don’t remember the last time I heard a fire truck, or even a cop car. I think we have to assume that we’re going to have to rely on ourselves, at least for a while, and to do that we need the propane.”

Kathy put her hands to her mouth and thought about it. “Do you really think that?”

“Maybe, I didn’t want to worry you, babe,” Steve said.

“I don’t know...”

“I’ll be a few minutes at most --- seriously. I’ll be there, then gone. Don’t worry.”

Kathy searched Steve’s eyes. “Perhaps we should leave. Maybe we should jump in the car and go. We could head for Macon or to the army base here, the refuge. We have options; we don’t need to sit this out alone.”

Steve wobbled his head with an emphatic no. “The first thing they said was to stay at home. And that’s what we’re going to do, we’ll tough it out. Anyhow, what would happen if we couldn’t get through to Macon, and we get stuck somewhere? All we have for protection is a baseball bat.”

“I think I want to leave, Steve. I want to take that chance. I want to go to my sister’s.”

Steve stood up and walked away from his wife, and stared out into the backyard from the window above the sink. The yard was clear, but hazy from smoke --- but clear of those things. Thank God, he thought.

He turned back to Kathy. “I know those things are out there, but they come and go. Every time something else goes bang or boom they leave, and each time they go away only a few come back again and sometimes none. Gee-whiz, there have been times when there hasn’t even been one out there at all! I just worry that if we leave now we could be making a big mistake. As I said before, we could become stranded, and after that, what?”

“I’ll get the propane, and I’ll be right back. You just wait and see. I won’t be long,” he said and then kissed her cheek. “What could go wrong?”

“If I had to write a list, you’d never leave.”

THREE HOURS AND THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER

Steve stepped outside into the smoky air and shut the screen door behind him.

From behind the screen door, Kathy watched her husband with petrified eyes as he stepped out into the yard, and beyond her grasp.

She wasn’t afraid for herself; she had always been stronger than that.

She was afraid for him, her sometimes slow-witted, infuriating and undependable husband, and the kindest man she had ever known. What worried Kathy was the simple biological truth --- biology doesn’t give you a rubber stamp for courage. Courage can only be found by being able to push through the fear, but without the fear, there wasn’t any such thing as courage, only foolish stunts.

She wanted him, and needed him scared.

Steve could feel the smoke as it entered his lungs --- he coughed; he hoped that wherever the smoke came from was far away from home. There is a breeze, he considered, as he watched the smaller smoke clouds dip and roll in the air currents, and he thought he could hear the crackle of flames, but hoped it was only his imagination.

Far into the distance, he heard the odd shot, but nothing else. The skies were also empty ever since. He didn’t really want to think about why though, not after what he saw on the television.

Steve placed a bench seat by his neighbor’s fence and looked over the top to have a peek at what waited for him on the other side. Everything looked clear. There were none of those things in the neighbor’s yard either. “That’s a good start.”

He placed both his hands on the top of the fence and gave it a little shake. He felt it move a little and heard some creaks, but it should hold me, right?

With that thought still hovering in his mind, he heaved himself on top of the fence and with great effort; he lifted his right leg into the air and paused for a second halfway over the fence. Then he lifted his other leg up from the bench, and for a moment, he thought he was going to tear his jeans...

Steve then overbalanced and fell into his neighbor’s yard with a thud. “Man, I need some practice.”

It was a lot easier when I was a kid
, he thought as he lay on the ground, smiling to himself.

This is the coolest thing I’ve done in years, shit
! Since I was a kid --- he couldn’t even remember the last time he had climbed a fence, or a tree- or anything. Let alone falling over somebody’s fence.

He got to his feet with another grunt; his ribs tickled him a little.

I’m so unfit
, he thought to himself,
when this is all over I’m hitting the gym, and that’s a promise.

Quickly, he scanned the yard looking for any signs of life, in case he had missed anything. He was scared --- maybe that was a good thing, it never hurts to be vigilant.

From the angle of his neighbor’s yard, near the back porch he could see across to the next property and then to another.

That house was the one that was on fire, and it was close, only a few doors up from his.

This isn’t good...

A fire and no sirens, he was getting used to that --- but a fire being so close.

In his mind, he pictured other parts of the town blazing away, possibly a factory or the grocery store. Something like that, but not once did he dare to consider that his own neighborhood could be in trouble --- real trouble.

Why so close to home? Why make this harder than it already is? Kathy will want to leave. Go to her sister’s! Steve chuckled to himself. “Fucking bite me now, anything is better than that.”

However, then he considered something else. Why would his neighbors just allow their house to burn --- could they have left, could they have run away? Are we the only real people remaining in the street? Are the others dead?

Alternatively, maybe they’re armed and waiting.

Waiting for looters?

What would they think of me stealing propane, would they consider me a looter? Their neighbor...

“Oh, this is a bad idea. I’ve got to go back. I can’t stay here.”

He searched for another seat to help climb back over the fence, jumping fences wasn’t so cool any more. The mystery of adventure was suddenly found wanting.

Abruptly aware of where he was and how much danger he could be in, Steve then noticed he was standing in front of a window which looked out from his neighbor’s kitchen.

He quickly crouched under the window --- it wasn’t an easy thing to do either; it was quite low.

What if they see me, they’ll think I’m a looter.

His feet scuffed his neighbor’s wooden decking as he struggled to maintain his kneeling position, to Steve it sounded as loud as a jumbo jet,

“Oh, shit!”

He then saw his neighbor’s propane tank attached to their BBQ. He didn’t touch it; he didn’t even want it now, in fact, he wished he’d never climbed over that damn fence in the first place. I’ll eat beans for a fucking month. I don’t care, he thought as panic began to set in.

He saw his neighbor’s patio chair; it looked sturdy enough to take his weight --- over the fence I go! At that moment, he saw the back door was open. Why is the door open? If they could have heard me, why haven’t I heard them? Because they’re hiding to catch me red-handed, that’s why! I’ll look inside, he thought, just to see if they’re there...

I’ll look just for a second that’s all.

He quickly stuck his head out and around, peeked inside… and saw a wine rack.

A wine rack. “Good work.”

I’ll look again, one more try.

He tried it a second time and saw a
wine rack and a refrigerator. Double door and stainless steel, not cheap either.

He then placed his face into his cupped hands, he felt like a man on a twelve-hour shift. “Man, you’re no good at this spy shit. Well, third time’s the charm.”

This time he moved into the doorway and had a good look.

No more playing the chicken.

The kitchen was empty.

There were no dishes in the sink, there was nothing on the table --- it was spotless.

Feeling shaky but a little more positive, he took a step inside and saw a row of knives magnetically held to the kitchen wall above the bench. He decided to grab the big one. It was like the one he’d seen in the Halloween movies.

He took a step and then another, until he was almost across the kitchen --- where he stopped dead in his tracks.