Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
I feel my whole body hollow with fear and horror at what she’s just said. She refuses to meet my gaze as she takes another step back, looking at my chest and then slowly working her eyes up to mine. She meets my gaze and holds me there, helpless and useless for a moment. She knows that I can’t say the words back to her and she doesn’t expect me to. Her eyes are apologetic—not to me, but to herself. Why should she feel sorry for what I’ve done? She’s a smart girl, always has been. She’s rough and worn and experienced in ways that I will never know. She knows a losing battle when she sees one. As she turns to walk away, she starts unbuttoning her shirt and carries it with her, wherever she’s going.
I don’t follow her. I can’t. I stay in the kitchen for a while, pondering the choices I’ve made and what I’ve done to that poor girl. Everyone has a responsibility for those around them and the feelings that they might have. I sit down on at the kitchen table and listen to the rain as it continues to bombard the house. Tomorrow, when the rain has stopped, we’ll pick up our journey again. I’ll keep pushing onward toward the family that I have put before Lindsay and my own safety. I will try to beat the odds and find my daughters. I will once more risk the life of a woman who loves me, but I do not share the same emotions with. I will continue being a cruel and heartless monster toward her and she will hopefully still follow. Hopefully.
I look across the table at her in the darkness of the house. My flashlight is shining against the wall so that it’s not blinding either of us, but that’s all we have. Thin rays of pale light are peeking through the boarded up windows, but it’s not offering much. After midnight the rain stopped and since then, I’ve done nothing but watch Lindsay sleep until she woke up. I made up some excuse that I was worried about her and came to check on her. It’s a thin lie, but she doesn’t question it immediately. After she wakes, I searched the rooms. It was an old couple that lived here and though I’m not particular about what I wear, most everything looks like it’s from the seventies.
Changing out my shirts, I eventually find her sitting at the dining room table and join her, sitting on the far side facing her. She is wearing the same thing that she was wearing the day before. She hasn’t said much since the kiss and I didn’t expect her to. “We should go soon,” I say, breaking the sacred silence that had been held over the house for the last six hours.
“We’re almost to Atlanta, right?” Lindsay says.
“About,” I nod.
“We should go into the city,” she says without meeting my gaze. She knows how much I hate cities and towns. I think she knows that I’m right too. Every time that we go into a heavily populated area, we always find trouble waiting for us and every time we do, one of us almost dies. I’m tired of risking it. I’m tired of having the same conversation over and over again.
“Are you forgetting about what happened in Cartersville?” I ask her calmly, but I am anything but okay with this conversation that we’re having again. I feel like the taboo of our relationship has finally snapped. Last night she was a different person than she is today. Something has to change or we’re not going to make it.
“It was an accident,” she says with a strong voice. “There are always close calls, Charlie.”
“You almost died.” I tilt my head to the side. “That’s
too
close of a call.”
“Says the one-armed guy?” she snaps at me.
I don’t say a single thing to that. I refuse to. I stare across the table at her and feel nothing but contempt for her. When she’s angry, she cuts too deep. I know that it’s probably just the way she’s always done it, being a tough girl and all, but I don’t stand for it. Being a bitch might have kept her from getting used in the old world, but in this world, it only makes enemies.
“If you don’t remember, Charlie,” Lindsay leans forward, “I’m the one who saved your ass in tighter situations than this. So don’t treat me like a little princess. You might know how to survive on the road, but I was doing just fine long before you ever showed up in my life, Charlie, so don’t treat me like a child right now.”
I don’t say anything for a moment. This is not the woman who I was with yesterday. This is not Lindsay anymore. I should have lied to her last night—or I should have tried to. I should have told her that I love her so that we could have avoided this. I lean back in my chair and stare at her.
“Atlanta is east,” I say. “I’m heading south.”
“You haven’t eaten in a week, Charlie,” Lindsay’s voice is cold and in control. “If you don’t find food soon, you’re heading to hell.” She sees that I’m weak. It’s from regret and sorrow over the loss of a friend, but I doubt she realizes that. Right now, all she smells is weakness in the air and she pushes in toward it. “We go to Atlanta, we get food, we resupply, and then we can head south. The city is my element. You may know how to stay alive on the road, but I know how to keep alive inside the concrete jungle. I’ll get us food and you can find another vehicle. If we’re smart and keep our heads down, we’ll be out of there in a day or two.” She leans back in her chair, coup de grace. “Then we can go south.”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer, because I’m not going to. She stands up and leaves the table. I watch her walk away and I wonder how I’m going to fix this—if I can. There’s a problem here that isn’t going to just go away. Lindsay is finally thinking about the future and what she’s doing here with me. She’s starting to realize that there’s no future with me and my daughters, that she’ll only become a third wheel to our family reunion. I suppose that I could convince her that they might be with a community, that they might have others there that she’ll meet and fit in with. She doesn’t have to be an outsider when we get there. She can bond with others, maybe fall in love with someone who has that capacity. All she has to do is be patient a little while longer. We’re almost there. We’re so close that I can almost taste it. All we have to do is get through Georgia.
But I don’t think Lindsay wants to listen to me. I don’t think she cares anymore. Something tells me that she’s ready to be done with me. I watch her in the next room and realize that she is better in the city. She’s done amazing with me so far, but she always was better equipped to survive in the metropolis and the ruins of the old world. She is a hunter and a killer. I’m a runner and a survivor. We’re not a good team. One of us is always outside of their comfort zone, and comfort zones are the only thing that keeps us alive these days.
I need to slip away. I need to disappear when we start searching Atlanta. She’ll be better off without me and she knows exactly where I am heading. I’m not going to make her walk all the way to Florida with me. In fact, I never told her that she had to go with me. All of this was her choice and she can walk away at any point. It’s time for her to be reminded of that.
Standing up, I go to the kitchen and reattach my harness. She’s packing her things and steps into the room behind me. I can feel her watching me while I fasten the last buckle. I need to clean the knife, but I can’t spare the water at this moment. When we come across more, I’ll clean it. When I turn around, she’s not even looking at me. She’s leaning against the frame of the doorway looking at the floor with her arms folded.
“I never made you come with me,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice from quivering at the flood of emotions I have. “You chose to follow me. You have known from the moment you found me that I am going to find my daughters. They are my priority. I cannot risk anything else until I find them. It’s not personal, Lindsay, it’s how it is.” She looks up from the floor at me with eyes filled with hatred and disgust. “If you’re out, then you don’t need to submit a form. You don’t need to die or me to die. You can walk away anytime you want. So I’m going with you as far as the outskirts. I’ll go with you as far as I can to find a new vehicle and when I do, there’s a spot in there for you if you want it. If not, I have no doubt that you’ll do just fine in Atlanta on your own. If you want to part ways, then so be it. I’ll make sure you’re set up and help you until you’re comfortable, but then I’m going south.”
She’s silent for a moment before standing up straight, her eyes flicking away from my gaze. “I don’t need your help setting up shop,” she says before turning and walking toward the front door. She shoves the couch out of the way that we used to barricade it. I watch the bright light breach the darkness as she steps outside and I shake my head. Why am I bothering at this point?
Hope, that’s the only explanation that I have. I hope that she comes around by the time we make it to the city. I grab my pack and sling it over my shoulder before grabbing my flashlight and heading out after her.
We don’t talk for hours. The dawn light fades into the harsh glare of the afternoon while we keep to the muddy, half submerged interstate. I don’t waste words. I keep ahead of her again, just like we originally had. Everything has changed now and I’m not going to work to fix something that she doesn’t want fixed.
I deviate from the interstate at the sight of a wealthy community. The houses are enormous, three story mansions that have sprawling tracts of land stretching out around them, surrounded by dead trees and bushes. I make my way toward the enormous houses that have seen much better days, especially after last night’s storm. I come to the chain link fence and look through, smiling at the sight of the mansion. Hopefully there is something in there that might be of value. Dropping to a knee, I search my pack for the bolt cutters that I packed away from long ago. One by one, I cut each link in a line until there’s a gap large enough for me to spread and sneak through. It’s not an easy task with one hand but I manage. Lindsay keeps her distance, pretending that she’s keeping watch. Stepping through the gap, I look back through the fence at her. Her back is turned to me.
“I think you’re beautiful,” I call to her.
“Go fuck yourself, Charlie,” she calls over her shoulder.
“Fine,” I answer and start heading toward the enormous Mediterranean-style mansion with the peach stucco exterior and the red shingle rooftop. I climb the slope to the house and give one back glance to Lindsay, watching her as she steps through the fence. The house is three stories tall with a balcony on the top story with an iron railing around it. There are security cameras around the house that have been dead for over a year now. I make my way around to the backside of the house, or at least where I think it should be. There’s an enormous Jacuzzi that has filled with rainwater that mixed with the ash and debris inside to form a sort of tainted sludge that couldn’t be less appealing. As for the swimming pool, the same sight has happened, but it overflowed and is covering the tiled concrete around it. There’s an awning over a large deck and a fire pit area deeper into the back yard that draws my attention.
The windows are all smashed and I can see inside the house that it’s been stripped and is mostly empty. Whoever was living here has long since been evicted. I approach the glass doors on the deck, stepping across thirsty timbers that are now waterlogged and squishy. I step through the shattered doors and into the kitchen and dining area. Everything has been emptied from the house, but there’s one thing left in the kitchen that draws my attention.
On the island of the kitchen, there’s a naked man who has been dead for a while, but his chest and abdomen have been sliced open and everything inside of him has been thrown around the kitchen. His head is tilted back, his mouth open, frozen in a silent scream. His eyes are missing. Nothing has gnawed on him, so that immediately makes chills run down my spine. I reach for my machete and slowly and silently unsheathe it. He’s been dead at least a few days, but that doesn’t mean that he’s alone in here. I don’t know where Lindsay is, but she’s definitely not behind me.
I find more people in the entertainment room. The varnished rafters are all wrapped with ropes that snake down toward the floor where they coil into nooses around the necks of thirteen different corpses, all in various states of decay. The walls are peppered with bullet holes and their empty weapons are left on the floor under their dangling faces. Each of the bodies are missing their eyes, but their swollen heads are all tilted in morbid, curious fashions. These people were strangled to death. I look around the room and as I step across the floor, my feet crunch on the pages of books. I look down at my feet and slowly reach for the page. Pulling it up and looking over it, I recognize it.
“What’s going on here?” I whisper to myself before investigating the rest of the house.
Every room is filled with carnage, blood smears on the walls that have turned to rusty browns, bloody handprints, and everywhere I look there are corpses. Some are tied to chairs and covered with cuts. One has a lever action rifle shoved down his throat, his head tilted back as the barrel was forced inside of him before they pull the trigger. There’s another room where children are all seated in chairs, their backs facing the middle. They were tied and then executed one by one, their throats slit and their blood gushing down their chests. I look at them with horror and disgust. Who could have done all of this? In the last room I check, there is a naked woman tied to an ottoman and impaled with forks, fire pokers, and knives. Written on the wall with blood is the word: WHORE.
I step through the front door and see that whoever did this has hit all the other houses in the opulent cul-de-sac. The ring of mansions have all been broken into. There are bodies lying on the sidewalk and driveways. All the vehicles have been pushed to the center of the cul-de-sac and lit ablaze long ago. Piles of furniture and possessions have been heaped into mountains and set afire as well. The soggy pages of books stick to the wet concrete. Everything is in a state of disarray. Amidst the ashes are dozens of weapons, pistols, guns, knives, and more crude and violent tools.
Behind me, I hear Lindsay stepping out onto the concrete and surveying the chaos with me. I look down the street at the metal gate that defended the community, or for a while it did. The gates are closed and there is a large tarp hanging on the far side of it. I want to know what it says. I want to know what the murderers who invaded this place had to say. I pass lamp posts that have the charred remains of people tied to them, ashes and cinders at the feet of them, the only remains of the pyres they built to burn their victims.
“We need to leave,” Lindsay calls after me.
I ignore her and keep moving. There’s a guard house that has a door open. Inside there is a dead man with something that looks like a homemade spear shoved through him. The window to his post is shattered and I step through it, climbing out the other side and seeing the softly, fluttering tarp and the message that it holds. There are two men tied to the fence as if they are tied to the cross for crucifixion. They are naked and showcasing the message that the killers of this community have left for those who witness it.
“Defilers, whores, gluttons, and devils shall all perish before the might of the cross,” I read the sign out loud, softly to myself. The dead men have a black line painted down the center of their faces, from the top of their foreheads to the points of their chins. There’s another line across their eyes, from temple to temple, making a cross on their dead, lifeless faces. Whoever did this cut off their penises and their testicles and either took them with them or something ate them, but they’re not here. A cross has been cut into their chest as well and it was from that wound that they bled out and died. It’s horrible, but something about it sort of fits the world that I now live in. Those who had plenty no doubt holed up in their gated community to survive as long as they could. Someone with a religious affiliation and psychosis came after them and justified the mutilation and theft of everything they had.