Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
Noah points his shotgun at the buildings, scanning for anyone who might show up and confront us, while Greg cautiously crouches and makes his way under the fence. As he comes up, he aims his gun at the buildings as well, following Noah’s lead. I crawl under after Lexi and stand on the barren, rock-hard lawn that used to be. It’s almost identical to concrete in its hardness and tack-like qualities. It makes me sick that this is the world now. It hits me then that nothing could survive in this soil. It’s practically clay. Everything that survives on plants is long dead. I’m out of a career path.
Making his way under the fence noisily, Marko arrives on the other side and starts walking toward the nearest building, looking at it with a curious, scrutinizing eye. He’s searching for where we might find our prize. I know that Greg and Noah aren’t here for the radiator but the thrill of the adventure and the chance to get something extra. I’m not sure what they’re expecting to find specifically, but I know that it’s not reasonable. Where are we even going to put whatever treasures they find? It’s not like we have a whole lot of room in the tiny Sidekick.
“Alright,” Noah says coming under the fence after Marko. “Let’s lock and load.”
“Roll out?” Greg lifts an eyebrow.
“Attaboy,” Noah grins. I roll my eyes. They’re basically overgrown children.
The strangest part about this entire place is the main parking lot. As we round the building, we can see the guard post that’s been abandoned for who knows how long and the road that’s caked with dirt and sand leading toward the main parking lot that’s brimming with vehicles. At first, I’m not sure what to make of it. None of them are military vehicles. They’re all cars, trucks and minivans. There’s nothing here that even states manly man. I stare at them, covered with dust from the wind storms and wonder where the people are. I don’t know where they would go here, it’s not like there’s much of anything for them to stay for. There’s what appears to be a small barracks, but the windows are shattered and the doors have been kicked in. Clearly whoever rammed the truck into the fence hit that place the hardest. I look at the cars, wondering if their owners died here. I half expect to stumble across a mass grave, left unburied in the haste to get rid of everyone. Maybe, they all boarded their boats and cutters and went out to sea, looking for a new place to call home. If they didn’t then there is only one other possibility.
Zombies.
The word sends ripples through the darkness of my mind. It’s the word that’s been haunting me for months now. I regret turning on that radio. I regret hearing that word. I look at the cars and I can almost see the ghoulish faces clawing at the windows, trying to get out, to get to our tasty flesh. I blink and look over at Greg who is still walking around like a well-trained commando, or at least what they looked like in the videogames he played. Noah and Greg are about as comforting in this situation as a pair of four-year-olds. They don’t seem to be scared of anything, more excited and alive than scared. Lexi looks pissed off at everything and Marko seems to have his head entirely into this mission. Clearly, I’m the only one who is haunted by the possibility that there might be murderous, walking dead lumbering around this place.
“Why didn’t they just come in through the main entrance?” Lexi asks, pointing her pistol nonchalantly at the guard post. “Wouldn’t it be easier than ramming into a fence?”
“Maybe,” I shrug. “There might be those spike things that pop the tires if you’re not supposed to enter.”
“Good point,” Lexi shrugs, as if that’s exactly why they didn’t go through the main entrance.
The only military vehicles that I’m seeing are small boats on trailers that have tipped over near one of the buildings. They look like enormous, rusting whales, beached in the middle of the compound. I stare at them and wonder why they left these behind if they made their way out to sea. Maybe they didn’t have the gasoline. Even so, I think that I would have drained some of the gas from these cars, put out to sea and try to find the Bahamas or something. I look at the boats and optimistically hope that it’s what happened to everyone. Maybe that’s exactly what they did. It would explain why there’s no one here.
When the end came calling for everyone, I remember that the Coast Guard and Navy were responsible for keeping people from trying to illegally sail to islands. I don’t know why they would try and prevent them. Maybe a concern for cross contamination? When people started sailing away in greater numbers, desperately hoping that islands remained untouched by the killer fertilizer that ended everything, the Navy started sinking the ships. I’m sure that if there were still governments around and international policies, a thousand different wars were started in those withering, final months. I can still remember one of the last newscasts I had seen. It was an aerial video of the beach covered with what appeared to be sunbathers. Then they zoomed in. The beach was covered in washed up bodies from ships the Navy had sunk.
Since we’ve been at the beach house, there haven’t been any bodies on our little chunk of sand, aside from fish and birds. I’m grateful for that. When people get desperate, there’s not a lot of rational options left for them.
I can’t help but feel like we’re some of the last few out there who are running, running as fast as we can to escape something that’s all around us. I truly hope that my father found something in the north. I hope that in some barren wasteland he did find a man named Jason and that Jason had figured out everything that was needed to reverse all this death and destruction. Maybe he’s fixed it and found something to make things grow again. Maybe, Lexi, I, and our small band of wannabe soldiers will be able to save what is left of mankind. If there’s anyone out there left to save, I’ll be impressed. From where I’m standing, it looks like everyone is dead. There’s no hint of people left on the base, even though at one time there had to have been hundreds. I walk past Greg, breaking formation to look at the first building we come across that doesn’t have the doors bashed in.
“What are you doing?” Greg hisses at me.
“There’s no one here,” I say in my normal tone, and it sounds like I’m shouting relative to the prevailing silence.
“They could be hiding,” Greg hisses back at me, stressing silence.
“There’s no one here,” I repeat.
“I can get in there,” Marko says, pulling a pry bar out of his toolbox and approaching the door. Sure enough, it doesn’t take long before the door swings open and we’re inside. I look at Marko and give him a smile. He offers a little bow and extends his hand silently offering me a ‘ladies first’ gesture. Inside, the windows cast pale blue light across the lobby. I’ve never been on a military base, but this is honestly, exactly what I expected it to be. I look at it and I feel a sense of severity here, professionalism. We walk into the foyer and I can’t help but notice the first thing that jumps out at me, a vending machine.
There’s nothing inside of it. Everything must have been bought out of it, or at least it wasn’t restocked in the process of the world falling apart. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or if I was genuinely expecting that. Food was so expensive in the end. The government bought up as much as they could, but the black markets still existed. They overcharged on everything and they made sure that they got their money’s worth from you, but it was better than the feeding centers. Mostly they served hard, stale bread and some kind of stew. Unless it was canned, there was no finding meat out there in the end. Honestly, it seems like forever since I’ve had real meat.
There’s a dark, rusty stain on the floor, as if there was water damage inside, leaking under the closed doors. I look at the stain and then stare up at the ceiling. There’s no sign of water damage. I look at the wooden, heavy doors and see that there’s a handprint of the same rusty color, like someone was touching the door with paint. No, not paint. I feel a sickening stretching in my gut. It’s blood. There’s dried blood on the walls and the floor. I turn and look at Lexi who has the same realization.
“This place is just an office building,” Lexi says to everyone else. “We’re wasting time in here.”
“How do you know?” Greg asks, coming in and looking down one of the hallways that leads into the great swelling, gaping blackness. I look at Lexi and shake my head. “Maybe there’s food or other supplies in here.”
“Just an office building,” Lexi repeats.
“But how do you know?” Greg asks again.
“Because there’s no vehicles,” Lexi snaps as she heads back out the door where Noah is covering us from nonexistent threats. I look at Greg and touch him on the shoulder, encouraging him to come with me. There’s nothing in here that any of us want to see. Whatever’s behind the locked, heavy doors, it’s not what we came for.
Back outside, we follow Marko who is like our bloodhound. He heads straight for the building directly across the parking lot from where we’re standing. I crouch down and look under the cars, making sure that there’s no one hiding with a knife to slash our Achilles tendons when we’re passing through the parking lot. Thankfully, my paranoia reveals nothing but debris.
“What are you doing?” Noah asks me like I’m just playing around, wasting time.
“Checking,” I tell him.
“For what?” Noah asks as I leave him behind.
I don’t have time to babysit him and Greg. They are completely out of their element right now and I’ve only got the patience to get what we came for. When we actually head out on the road, I’m sure I’ll have more patience with them, but right now, they’re just dead weight. I think about Henry, who handled his rifle like a professional, who knew exactly what he was doing. These two are just clowns. I hate the irony of the one man I don’t want to see being the man I want to see now. I follow Greg who is still sweeping the horizon with his shotgun, watching for snipers or something like that.
By the time we reach Marko, he’s already prying off a padlock on the vast garage doors. They’re the kind of garage doors that are going to roll aside and open up the cavernous hangar-like building to the outside world once Marko gets this lock off. With a loud pop, the lock flies free and clatters on the ground with a heavy thud.
“Damn,” Marko howls and I look from the silver lock to Marko, who is gripping his hand.
He’s clenching his fist, but already I can see the blood trickling out through his squeezing, clamping fingers. He’s slashed himself. As blood drips from his fingers, everyone circles and presses in on Marko, trying to see the damage. I roll my eyes and start pushing them aside. Marko is clenching his teeth and squeezing his hand, trying to keep the blood from gushing out everywhere. It’s a noble effort, but he’s hurt himself pretty bad.
“Out of the way,” I tell them. “Get the doors open so we can see what’s inside.” As Noah and Greg start opening one of the doors, Lexi gets the second door, sliding it open and letting the light pour into the enormous, gaping cavern of a garage. I look at Marko who is staring at the garage that is illuminating, trying to avoid looking at his hand. “You alright?” I ask him.
“It scared me,” Marko confesses. “But I feel fine. It hurts a little.”
He uncurls his fingers and I look at the damage. He really slashed deep and I’m not sure how he did it. I’ve seen plenty of stuff like this in my line of work, granted, usually they have four paws and a tail that they wag. “You’re going to need stitches,” I tell him. “I’m sure there’s a first aid kit lying around here somewhere.”
Everything gets derailed by the sight of what’s inside of the garage. As the light fills the enormous room, we see that everything seems to have been stored into this one enormous hangar-like depot. Everything is crammed in, packed together like sardines and I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but Marko seems to have died and gone to heaven. I see trucks that sort of look like the one my father had, but I don’t know if there’s anything specific that Marko needs. I look at him and wonder what’s going on in his head.
“Are you going to be able to get the radiator out?” Greg asks, coming back toward us, but his eyes are locked on a Hummer with a very large gun on top of it. I don’t know what it is about men and large guns, but his eyes are glued to it like they’re magically bound to the gun.
“I don’t know.” Marko looks at me grimly. I shake my head. No, he won’t be able to. Marko gets the message and looks back at the others. “I’ll be able to talk you guys through it. It isn’t much.”
“Lexi, Noah, see if you can find a first aid kit,” I tell them as Marko starts to pull off his shirt.
“Here,” he says, offering me the shirt while Lexi and Noah hurry off to find the first aid kit. I take his shirt and wrap it tightly around his hand that’s still bleeding like a stuck pig. Hoping the bleeding will stop, or at least slow, I nod to him as he smiles awkwardly. Watching as Lexi and Noah vanish, Marko and I start walking toward whatever truck has his eye. “Greg, this one will do.”
Finding the truck unlocked, Greg pops the hood before both of them lean over the front of the truck to peer under it. I don’t bother listening as Marko walks Greg through the whole process of removing the parts he needs. I’ve never had any real interest in trucks or cars or engines. I know how to set a bone in anything that has four legs, I know how to suture Marko’s hand, and I know how to get poison out of anything’s stomach, but this is beyond me. Instead of helping, I do what is best and stay out of the way, keeping an eye out just in case, while the men work to gather the parts we need.
When Lexi and Noah finally return, I make Marko walk over to the hood of one of the smaller vehicles. Peeling his shirt away, I look at the wound and see that it’s starting to coagulate, happy that we’ve managed to get the bleeding to slow down immensely. Popping open the green and white first aid kit, I watch as Lexi and Noah join Greg to help detach hoses after Greg drains the radiator. I’m not certain what all it entails, but it sounds complicated—the draining part.
“You going to sew me up?” Marko asks me, waiting for Greg and the others to catch up with his instructions.
“It’s going to need it,” I tell him. “Are you okay with pain?”
“For the most part,” he says, not very confidently. No one is ever good with pain until they have to be. I have no doubt that Marko will be fine. I’m fairly certain that he’s tougher than he looks, having grown up with seven brothers and sisters in a small two-bedroom house. I give him a soft smile and start un-packaging the sterile needle and thread. I listen while he talks to the others about clamps and I look back out at the parking lot. There are a lot of cars. That makes me wonder why we don’t just start moving all the vehicles blocking this one in and drive the truck home. I’m sure Marko loves his Sidekick, but wouldn’t it be better to take one of these trucks home and just swap out the gear from my father’s truck into this newer one? I keep my mouth shut. Maybe this one takes a different fuel or something. I’m sure Marko knows what he is doing.