Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
I look out the window and wonder how far she’s gotten to. She must be tearing up every house in this town, because she leaves every day for hours before coming back. Hasn’t she caught on yet? It took me only a few hours in this town before I realized that it was stripped bare. Captain Bear Trap had stripped the place bare of anything valuable. But maybe she found something else that’s useful. Maybe she wasn’t just looking for food or water. Maybe she was out there on her own, looking for little tokens to remind her that everything was going to be okay. Even if she did believe all that cynical, fatalist crap she was spouting earlier, every soul looks for the sunlight. Everyone wants to be proven wrong. I know I did. When I found Jason’s house, I remember being filled with horror and awe at the sight that there wasn’t just doom on the horizon.
Hope is powerful, but it is also fickle. Hope shows us the potential of the world, not reality. It is ethereal and deceptive. It makes us believe that there is something better out there and even if it is physically a lie, that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to our advantage. I am not with my girls, I probably never will be, but hope tells me that I
might
be, and that’s good enough of a reason to keep going.
She’s dead. I know she’s dead. I know it like I know that my entire fucking left hand is missing. I have no temper for this, no stamina for it anymore. I’m tired of people dying. I’m tired of being a part of it and I’m tired of witnessing it. Everything in this entire world has made a suicide pact and I feel like I’m going to be the last man on this godforsaken rock before it’s all over. When I die, I wonder if anyone will weep for me. When I drop dead, will light burst in the sky and will God clap His hands and smile, shouting, “Game over,” to all the dead in hell?
Outside, the world has fallen into a dark, forbidding shadow of night and I stare out the dirty window at the twinkling stars beyond the rooftops and the skeletal fingers of the dead trees. I can see constellations that never made any sense to me as a child. I recognize them but I can’t read them. I remember reading that all the stars are actually long dead, that it’s just taking so long for us to witness their extinction. An endless, celestial cycle of life and death playing out in the heavens just like it had played out countless times here on earth, up until now. Now there was only darkness, but the stars don’t give a shit. They never did. They don’t care that I’m all alone again in this town with Lindsay dead out there somewhere.
I have to act. I can picture her. She’s found something, another one of Captain Bear Trap’s insidious little inventions to catch trespassers in his town. The bear trap has clamped down with its massive iron fangs, ripping through her skin and crushing her bones. She’s out there, screaming in pain, but I missed it. I was too stupid to hear the initial screams, but now she’s gotten some of her senses back. She’s grinding her teeth and screaming into her shoulder to muffle the sound so she doesn’t draw unwanted attention. Blood is gushing out of the jagged wound across her arm and slowly she’s beginning to lose consciousness. She’s slipping into a sleep as all of her blood spreads in a pool beneath her. She’s crying out for me and I can’t hear her. I can’t do anything because I don’t know where she is and the last decent person on the planet is now dead in some horrid corner of this town and I’m sitting here like an asshole waiting for her. I have to go out there. I have to find her. I have to make sure she’s still alive.
Oh God. I freeze at the sudden intrusion of the insidious thought that has leeched away all other worries in my mind. What if one of the marauders had returned, just in case? Maybe they wanted another look at the town before they completely wrote it off the map. Maybe they knew that Captain Bear Trap was set up here and that they were ready to finally make their last assault on his stronghold to take whatever he had stored in there. What if they found her while they were making a sweep of the town, or if they came roaring into town in a pickup truck and their spotlight or headlights caught a glimpse of her? What if they had tracked her down and were now doing exactly to her what they had done to Kelci? They wouldn’t give a second thought to raping her before eating her. Denny and Cal had reminded me that these soulless monsters were just using up the last of the people for their own pleasure before the world went silent once and for all. What if those horrors were now pinning her down, ripping the clothes off her writhing body as one of them gagged her to keep me from hearing her screams? They need to be stopped. I have to save her.
Deciding that action is needed, I stand up and quickly try to wrap my stump. Trying is the best I can do. Every time I accidentally bump it, I drop the roll and have to start all over again. It’s impossible to keep it in place, and I struggle with each wrap. I know it’s loose, but it’ll have to do when I pin it in place with a clasp and look at it one final time. Shaking my head, I look around for something. I need to keep it from getting hit or accidentally bumping it into something. One wrong move and I’m down on the ground for who knows how long. I remember seeing guys in my classes after they got a tattoo. There’s a wrap that they put around it like saran wrap. Throwing open the drawers, I finally locate an enormous roll of it and set to wrapping my arm to my chest, binding it in place until it’s snug and not moving.
It hurts like hell up against my chest, but I need it in one place. I need it secured. Pulling my shirt back on, I tuck it into my pants and catch a glimpse of myself in a tarnished mirror and realize how pathetic I look. I need a shave, a haircut, and a decent meal or three. I wonder if the girls will even recognize me when I show up in Florida, if I ever make it there.
Slipping my belt through the belt loops on my pants, I secure my machetes to my legs, but now that I think about it, when am I ever going to need two machetes? I only have the one hand, damn it. I awkwardly pull out my right machete, certain that if I lose this one in a fight, it’ll be easier to unsheathe the one on my left hip. I feel the weight of the weapon and I have to admit, it’s good. Even if this blade was used to cut open people so Cal and Denny could have a tasty snack, it’s my blade now. I give it a few swings and stare out the window at the nocturnal world beyond. She’s out there somewhere and I’m going to find her. She’s saved my life twice now and it’s my turn to save hers.
I have left the doors completely unsecured while she has been out on her raid, so that if she needed a quick return, she wouldn’t be hindered. Truth be told, I don’t even know if this place has a back or side door that she could use. I figured that it was better if she didn’t have to risk it. Now, as I slam my shoulder into the door, the ripples of the impact hits my ribs and as I charge out into the open, night air, I’m nearly brought to my knees in agonizing pain. My ribs are going to kill me if they never heal. Why did Jason have to be so damn ferocious with that crowbar? Bent over, sucking in deep, controlled breaths, I try to adapt to the pain or just survive it until it washes over me and abates.
It never has a chance to do either. Before I can lean back and stand up straight, I hear footsteps—soft, quick footsteps. They’re padding closer and closer to me and before I know what is happening, the full weight of a body slams into me and hurls me back through the door of the parlor before I can even realize that I’ve been hit. The body slams me full on in the chest as I’m wheeled backwards. Pain rips through my arm and chest like bolts of lightning, singeing and burning through all of my body down to a cellular level, completely filling me with such horrifying agony that all sound escapes my lips as I freefall backwards. Tumbling backwards, my eyes looking up at the moon as I watch the door closing in behind me, the dark shape of whatever hit me covering my chest. I think to try and kill whatever it is, but my machete is no longer in my hand, it’s chasing after my hand, free in the air. As I feel my back slam into the ground and unimaginable pain shatters across my ribs and back, I skid across the rough carpet, feeling the heat of the carpet burn all along the way and the clatter of the machete landing a few feet away from me, just beyond my grasp. The door closes and I gasp for air, wide-eyed and in paralyzing agony as I wait for something to happen. I wait for my attacker to start clawing, digging into me, tearing me apart, biting the flesh from my arm, but nothing happens. I lay there in such misery that I am incapable of harming whatever has assaulted me and it has clearly no intention of harming me. I suck in another noisy gasp of air and I feel something clamp down on my face.
This is it. This is how I die.
“Keep quiet,” I hear a voice hiss at me. “Keep completely still.”
I look at the hand and realized that it’s coated in a fingerless riding glove and suddenly I am aware that it is Lindsay on top of me, crushing my stump and re-breaking whatever ribs had started healing. Her head is just above my clavicle and I can hear her breathing over the thundering of my blood rushing through my ears. For a moment, I am full of gratitude that she’s alive, but I also want to beat her to a bloody pulp for slamming into me. I keep completely quiet just like she says and suddenly I see the shadow rising on the dingy window.
The windows of the parlor are tinted and I’m suddenly very grateful for that as I see the head of one of the Zombies appear. He’s alone, sniffing the air as he approaches the window looking at it, probably seeing his own reflection. He’s a hideous husk of what he’d been once upon a time. He’s gaunt and his ribs are protruding from his chest along with his knobby joints. He’s still wearing a shirt, which looks so large on him that I immediately assume that he was enormous before the cannibalism that has taken hold of him. He’s covered in flabby skin that looks like bat wings now as he holds up his arms and puts his palms against the window. He bangs the windows once, his chin, lips, and neck covered in blackened horrors. His eyes are vacant and empty but they do seem to be searching for something. They’re hunting for something, no doubt Lindsay. I’m suddenly terrified that he’s going to find the door and open it. He opens his mouth and lets out a shriek that is inhuman. It sounds like a wretched, unholy creature from the bowels of the earth. His cheeks show evidence of long, scraggy hair, but most of it has fallen out due to malnutrition, along with the hair on his head. There’s a diamond stud hanging from his ear, barely hanging on as he shakes his head in fury and screams again.
There is another shadow growing on the window in the pale moonlit world beyond the parlor. I see another head. This one is rising across the door and I feel my heart beginning to race. With her hand still clamped over my mouth, Lindsay puts her other hand on my shoulder, no doubt hearing the accelerating of my heart. She’s trying to calm me and I’m grateful, but there’s no way of calming me for this. I can see this one, a woman, slamming on the door. I’ve seen the Zombies tearing off shutters and boards across windows before. Surely they can figure out how to work a pull door. Soon, another appears and then two more. Before I can act, there are at least a dozen Zombies outside of the parlor, breathing heavily, wheezing, groaning, and pounding on the windows. To my utter surprise, they aren’t going for the door. They’re not even touching the handle. I’m still horrified, but Lindsay stays on top of me, her hand clamped over my mouth as I feel her breathing on top of me.
I feel her breasts against my chest and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes steadily, calmly. Her head is resting peacefully on my collarbone and I can feel her waist and legs wrapped over my own. She is here and she is with me. I am not alone. I slowly begin to calm myself as I think about that crucial fact. I am not alone.
Something inside me is stirring and is restless by her body. I want to take my hand and reach up, put it on her side and feel her. I want to touch her. I want to know that she’s real. I want to know that I’m not imagining her. She’s on top of me now and I can tell that she’s not a figment of my imagination, but it isn’t enough. My mind wouldn’t have hurled me into a building backwards, but I want to touch her with my fingers. I want to do more, maybe. I look at her hooded head just inches from my face and I remember looking her over. She’d worked at a club. She’d been a trainer at a gym. She had a fantastic body. I want to reach up and grab her ass. I want to feel it, to knead it. Something deep inside of me wants to feel every little aspect of her body and it horrifies me. This is not me. I am not like this. I am loyal to my wife.
“Your dead wife,” the voice inside my head whispers to me. I can practically feel a scarlet ‘A’ burning into my chest. She has to get off of me. I can’t have her on me. I can already tell that my body is willing to betray me. I want her off of me.
I look up and see that the Zombies have passed the parlor by. One by one, they have given up the chase and moved on to something far more alluring in this desolate, abandoned town. Maybe they found Captain Bear Trap. Maybe they found my hand that Lindsay had abandoned. When the last one—our original friend—decides to move on, we are all alone once more.
Lindsay slowly pushes herself up, careful of my injured body and looking me in the eye with a twinkle, a light in her dark eyes. She holds a cautious finger up to her lips, signaling me to keep as quiet as possible before she unleashes a smile across her lips that is truly spectacular. All the slightly off features of her face illuminate as she smiles, coming together in a perfect, beautiful harmony. I can picture her in a tight shirt just cut off a little too low and a little too high, squeezed into short shorts that would make anyone blush. I can picture her in makeup and in jewelry and I can only marvel at how she is still alive. How did she not meet a fate like Kelci?
She crawls to her knees and peeks out over the windowsill at the world beyond and the shambling horde that has passed us by. She watches them for a moment before she reaches for the rope and begins to loop it around the handles, quietly and efficiently. She’s done this before, I realize—narrowly escaping death. I have to wonder at what sort of a life she has led in those long months where she omitted her narrative. What was it she had done where she’s now comfortable with narrowly escaping flesh-eating horrors like that? She finishes the knots and gives the rope a sharp tug to test its strength before turning to me and radiating that beaming smile of hers.
“That was close,” she whispers.
My God, she’s an adrenaline junkie, I comprehend now in this horrific moment. Yes, she is addicted to the close calls, the narrow escapes, and the dangerous endeavors. How in the world can someone become excited by all of this? I look at her with revulsion in my stomach as she checks once more to make sure that there are none coming back.
“They came from the west,” she tells me. “They’ve come all the way from Cincinnati. Something big must be going down.”
“What?” I hiss.
“Those guys don’t stick around if they’re getting picked off,” she says with expert experience behind her words. “They get out of Dodge when people start hunting them. They might be stupid and slow, but they still believe in self-preservation. Kill enough of them, and they’ll give up.”