Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
Chapter Sixteen
My brain feels like someone has dunked it in acid and my body is left feeling the drunken burn from all of it. I stare over at Noah, watching the blood run down his ruined face and spilling on his knees and onto the floorboards and it makes want to throw up. The very sight of it is impossible to comprehend. You don’t ever have any precedent to imagine what your friend or sister’s boyfriend would look like with half of his face missing. I can see everything and all I can do is wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do now. Am I supposed to help him or is he even worth the effort? I know that we have morphine in one of the medical duffle bags in the back, but if he’s going to die, should I bother with it? Who gets put in a place to make that kind of fucking call? I don’t want that decision on my conscience.
It’s too much for me. The world is spinning outside and I know that I’m the last person here who hasn’t suffered from anything major and traumatic, so it leaves me with the horrifying prospect that I may be the only one here who could survive. I could be the last one who doesn’t die from blood loss or an infection or internal bleeding. I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit. I’m all alone and I have my own problems to worry about. I can’t feel anything in my bloody hands and I can’t hear a single word that Lexi and Greg are shouting at each other. As if trapped in a fish bowl, all I can do is see the world around me. I feel trapped, unable to interact.
I have just one of my senses and all it allows me to do is witness one of the most horrific and disturbing things that I could ever possibly imagine. No, I couldn’t imagine this. This is too much. It’s like the shotgun just ripped the skin right off of Noah’s face and I’m left with a half-skinned head to work with. I see that he’s twitching, quivering from the shock that his body is experiencing. I look at the exposed, bloody molars in his mouth and it’s too much for me. Everything about this is just way too much for me.
I turn and try to get the window open, but my fingers fumble and I just end up locking the doors and closing my eyes. My whole body convulses, twisting and retching as I feel everything that I’ve eaten in the past few days coming up from the depths of my stomach, burning and searing my throat and esophagus until I realize that my sense of smell is improving as well. I throw up all over the door, gagging and choking as I cough and spit out all of the putrid bile. Covering my lips, I try to wipe the grotesque liquid off of my mouth, but I can taste it burning and pooling beneath my tongue. Everything about today has gone to hell. Everything is so wrong. How could it all come to this? I slowly drag my sleeve across my lips for a second time and poke the window button, bringing down the window and spitting outside. It’s long and ropey, not wanting to be free of my lips as I hack and gather as much of the stuff up with a clearing of my throat. I hack once more and spit before rolling the window up and trying to calm my shaking hands. I’m trying to compose myself, to get a grip on everything. This is fine. I can handle this. Noah isn’t going to die like this. If he’s still alive, then I’ll do everything I can for him. I have to try.
Leaning over the center console, Greg grabs ahold of Noah’s shoulder. I watch him as he gently gets a grip on Noah and pulls him back into his seat and softly leans his head against the headrest. His whole body is slack as he sits in the seat like a corpse being posed. I’m certain that he’s still breathing, but I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be alive. I consider the options of rushing outside and grabbing one of the medical kits. I could get some of the stuff we need before the barbaric cannibals show up. I could rummage through the back to try and find everything after all of the monsters have been tearing through the stuff tucked away in the bed of the truck.
Greg tears off his shirt, balling it up rapidly and pressing it to the side of Noah’s face. He is leaning over the middle console, blocking my view for a few moments. For some reason, I can’t help but feel like it should be Lexi taking care of her man, but Greg must feel like he has some sort of need, since he was the one who shot off the side of his friend’s face. I wonder what is going through his mind. It must be awful. He’s shouting something at me, the whole world around me is still this muffled, garbled place where words don’t exist. I’m not sure if they’re actually are talking to me, but I can see their mouths moving, and hear sounds. Greg looks over his shoulder, trying to say something to me, but beyond his panicked expression, I am at a loss.
I have to go out there and try to find something to help put Noah back together. We don’t have anything in here. Why don’t we have an emergency kit in here, just in case there’s something like this happening? I feel like such an idiot. I should have figured out this long ago. Why didn’t I put a medical kit in here when we were loading the supplies? It would have taken seconds to do it. Twenty-twenty.
Yes, Dad, I get it
.
I should run out there and grab something. It won’t take long for me to find it. I unlock the door and reach to open it. A bang sounds on the tailgate of the truck. I instinctively look to the rearview mirror, but there’s nothing there. There’s no more rearview mirror to look in. Turning and looking over my shoulder and out the back glass, there, in the swirling ash and dust, I see the silhouettes of several of the creatures, clinging to the truck, investigating it and licking the blood off the sides of the truck.
They’re making their way around the truck, slowly trying to see if there’s more to this bountiful feast, and I’m not interested in letting them find out. I throw the truck in reverse and slam my foot on the gas pedal. I ram into the zombies behind me, crushing them under the Dodge as I crank the wheel and the truck spins out into the open. The whole time, I’m still hearing my nephew screaming. I can’t help but pray that he isn’t injured, that something horrible didn’t happen to him like it had to Noah. I try to shake it from my head, but his cries won’t allow thoughts of him to be ignored. His poor little lungs have to be burning. Even his voice seems weaker, or hoarse maybe. I should be hearing so much more. Maybe something is wrong with him, but I can’t focus on it. Not now. I feel like my head is going to explode. The compounding problems make me want to give up on everything.
Leaving Florida was a mistake. We shouldn’t have left. I wish that my father hadn’t shown up. His arrival has only been a negative thing for all of us. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what I could have done differently between then and now. From the moment he showed up, everything has been strange, almost surreal. We had a good thing going back at the beach house. We used to have a system, a life, and we had food that would have lasted for a long time. Why would I ever jeopardize that? Why would I ever go with Lexi on this stupid adventure? This isn’t me.
I’m the rational one that doesn’t do hasty or ridiculous things like this. I’m the one who plans everything out. From the moment we decided that we were going to leave, everything has just gone wrong. It goes all the way back to Marko dying in the attempt to get a radiator for the five-ton. His death was the first major blow to our morale, but that wasn’t where this terrible journey began and sadly wasn’t a sure sign that it should have ended.
It began with the fact that my father’s truck wasn’t even able to be driven. I can’t believe that every step along the way has been another horrible, life-altering event. What were the odds of finding fanatics and legions of cannibals, Lexi having a baby while we’re being hunted like animals, and having my friend’s face shot off?
I’m horrified by all of it. Why couldn’t it be simple, easy? The majority of the world is dead, decimated by a horrible plague that has left the world empty and devastated. How many people can still be alive? Weren’t reports estimating that only ten percent of the world’s population could survive, the rest having vanished in what seemed a blink of an eye? So if there’s maybe ten percent of the population left in the world, then how on earth are there still so many people with violent intentions out there for us to run into? It makes me desperate for some kind of odds, some kind of mathematical probability that can explain why there have been so many troubles. It’s like we’re on a doomed voyage that is bound and destined to end in some gruesome, nightmarish way.
It looks like I’m just going to have to suffer with it. This is our lot now. I should never have done this, but I was the idiot who thought it was a good idea. Pretty much everything that has happened before right now is completely my fault. I’m the reason why everyone is suffering, why everything is completely ruined and horrible. I hate this. I hate being the one who is responsible for everyone’s pain. I hate all of this. I’m going to end up getting everyone killed if I keep going. I should have ended this the moment Marko was killed. I should have kept everyone at the beach house. We would have been safe there. We would have been at the house with plenty of extra food, thanks to the great gift my father brought for us. We could have held out longer. We all would have been fine.
Why wasn’t I satisfied with taking the food and keeping everything at the beach house? We would have been completely fine. God, I’m such an idiot for thinking that this is something that we could pull off. Maybe I should have told Greg and the others to stay there. They should have remained and I could have gone out in the Sidekick. I could have gone on this journey all by myself, avoiding all of this or dying on my own. This isn’t something I should have shoved on everyone. Or maybe Lexi and I could have vanished in the middle of the night without anyone knowing. But then it would still leave us out here with a newborn.
I shake my head, and it becomes apparent that I’m not alone in my head. I can hear the screaming of my nephew and I feel completely oblivious to the fact that I can hear something more than just my own thoughts and my nephew screaming. Suddenly, I’m fully aware that Lexi and Greg are still fighting with each other. I look over my shoulder, throwing the truck in drive and pulling off down the street once more. I hear the flailing bodies of the undead slamming on the side of the truck, still trying to locate what could be a possible feast. Throwing caution to the wind, I drive as quickly as I can, looking over my shoulder and seeing that Lexi is shouting at Greg. She is not nearly as emotional about Noah’s situation as I would expect her to be. Honestly, I would have been far more devastated by having my boyfriend, the one person I love in this world’s face blown off.
How can she keep her cool so well after all of this? I would have gutted Noah if he shot off Greg’s head. I would have torn him apart and he wouldn’t have the opportunity to put his shirt to Greg’s head if their places were switched. This is nothing like how I would have handled the situation. She’s calm, or calmer. I’m not, maybe I need to be. Taking a deep breath, I exhale slowly and find to my surprise that my hearing returns to a degree. It has felt like an eternity, although I realize that only seconds have passed since that fateful blast.
“Val, you need to pull over,” Lexi shouts at me. “God damn it, is she mental now or something?”
“The shotgun went off by her ear,” Greg snaps at her. “Lay off her, she’s probably deaf now because of me. So stop shouting at her.”
“If we don’t pull over, he’s going to die,” Lexi shouts at me.
I turn over my shoulder and shout at her, “I’m searching. I can’t see a thing.”
“You can hear?” Greg turns his head and looks at me.
“I can now,” I tell him. “I couldn’t. Jesus, Greg, how did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” Greg shakes his head. “It was an accident.”
I can understand that. I truly do understand it. I keep driving down the road, putting Atlanta behind us. The roads are still clogged with cars, but the farther away we get, the more I see that we’re almost free. As we go deeper and deeper into what was once the wilderness, the dust storm begins to relent. I see that there’s nothing left untouched by the devastation. I swallow hard and keep driving, listening to the two of them shouting at each other. I ignore them, filtering out their shouts and screams into an odd droning silence that somehow I know I need. I don’t know how to handle any of this. Everything that is happening is tainted through the lenses of doubt and self-hatred. Looking out the windshield, I feel the dust and ash running across my face. My eyes are burning. I’m going to need sunglasses or something.
As we keep driving, I look for anything that isn’t completely burned out. I’m feeling so lost right now, so out of my element, so far from home. I just need a place to stop and breathe. A place to rest and relax. A place to patch up Noah. The weight of the world seems to be weighing on my conscience. I shield my eyes, trying to keep the ash from completely blinding me.
“Make sure your son is covered,” I tell Lexi, uncertain if she is even listening. I only know a few things that are redemption-worthy in this world now, and keeping my nephew alive is one of them. I look over my shoulder and see that Lexi is wrapping him tightly. I let out a sigh, hoping we find something soon.
Chapter Seventeen
It only takes a moment for me to start piecing together my broken, worried thoughts and realize that Greg and Lexi have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. Right now, they’re operating under the assumption that Noah needs help, and assume that I am the answer. I know that there’s that enormous medical duffle bag in the back of the truck. I know that we have all the supplies that we need to put him back together just waiting in the bed. If we’re lucky, it’ll still be there and we can get to work on Noah the best we can. I know that it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to save him from a long road of suffering. I don’t know how I’m going to help him with such a terrible wound in this world, but I have to try. My father had lost a hand and survived. Maybe Noah has a chance too.
Again the weight is on my shoulders. I know how to suture and I know how to close wounds, but I’m no television super-ER surgeon. I don’t know how to deal with a wound where the flesh and skin is completely gone. I glance over at the roof where the black specks on the ceiling mark what’s left of Noah’s ruined face. The sight of it makes me nauseous, but as we clear the dust storm that was left in the wake of the horde, I’m finally getting my senses together. I’m finally getting everything back where it’s supposed to be. I’m strong enough to handle this. I tell myself that over and over again. I whisper into my soul’s ear that I have the strength to keep moving forward. No one chooses their lot in life, they come to terms with it and trudge along or they get bogged down and die from the disappointment and frustration the obstacles of life cause. I’m not going to get bogged down. I’m not going to pity myself and scream at God that this is all unfair. Life is not fair or unfair. Life is life.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, gritting my teeth against the pain and pushing forward, I look for something—anything—that will help me with Noah’s current situation. Everywhere as far as the eye can see, all that remains are burned-out houses, still smoldering with wisps of black and white smoke curling up into the breeze before vanishing. There’s nothing that I can see to help us. There are no pharmacies, no clinics, not a single thing to help me gather more supplies or have a table inside that I might get lucky and find sterile. No. We’re on our own right now. It could be miles and miles before we find something outside of the desolation zone surrounding Atlanta. Cursing my luck, I keep my foot on the gas pedal, hoping to find something. I’d even take a house with a dining room table. I see my father dying in my mind’s eye. I push the image aside and decide that anything will work. If it’s even a McDonald’s with an ordering counter, it’d be fine.
No, there’s nothing. I’m not going to get lucky and just find something.
“God, he’s bleeding everywhere,” Greg says with a healthy amount of dismay in his voice. Lexi says nothing. I find it so strange. She doesn’t look like she’s in shock. She just looks like she’s angry with everything while she holds my nephew.
I take my foot off the gas pedal and press it on the brake, bringing the truck to a stop and throwing it in park. I don’t want to kill the engine. I leave the key right where it is and feel that if I twist that key and shut off the truck, it’ll never fire up again. We’re never going to get the engine started and we’re never going to have a chance to find anything better than what we have right now. We’ll be left walking and that means that Noah is as good as dead. I leave the keys and grab the handle, opening the door and stepping outside.
“What are you doing?” Lexi snaps at me.
The moment my feet hit the ground, plumes of dust and ash curl up around them and I feel strangely dizzy and disoriented. There’s blood all over me and ash is sticking to every tiny droplet. I want a shower. I would give anything to wake up right now in my bed at the beach house with a fever, and be right back where we all were before any of this happened. I would get up and go take the longest shower of my life, relishing the warmth and the comfort that water can bring. But I’m not at home. I stare at the blackened cars that became victims of a propane supply store near the side of the road. The building is an enormous crater in the center of the parking lot, and all the cars have been hurled away, rolled upside down or onto their sides by the force of the explosion and the flaming debris that ignited them. I take in the sight for just a moment before I turn and make my way around the truck, surveying the massive amounts of destruction that the fire has brought to everything.
I hear Greg and Lexi opening their doors and getting out of the truck while I’m heading to the tailgate. I listen as they work their magic, quietly hissing at each other in a strange argument that they’ve been nursing the entire time we’ve been in this ordeal. I try to push them from my mind, taking account of all the dents and bangs on the side of the truck, blood smeared all over the once olive green paint. I feel sick looking at the jagged marks. The paint has been scraped off and the metal is carved with the scars of dragging against the sides of cars along the way. The whole exterior of the truck is a ruined mess of gore and destruction. I look at the repulsive ruin that it has become and wonder how it is that any of us managed to get out of it alive.
The one thing that still seems to work is the tailgate, which drops easily, and I let out a sigh that quickly turns into a scream. In the back of the truck, one of those things is thrashing and clawing toward me, wading through a pool of coagulating blood from all the creatures that had been maimed or mangled in our escape. Even the creature is coated in blood as it snaps at me, stretching out its arms and trying to grasp me, desperately wanting something to chew on.
Whoever this was at one point, she is a far cry from that person. Her hair has started falling out everywhere and there’s something sad and forlorn on her face, behind the mask of ravenous hunger. Her teeth are broken and jagged behind her torn lips, snapping to get at me. One of her eyes is covered with a milky cataract and her nose is a strange dark color that penetrates the layer of dust and ash on her face. It’s starting to fall off. And rot. She’s still wearing the floral dress that she was wearing before she turned. I wonder who she was, if she had any family or children. Was she lost out here and alone, just trying to survive but had fallen victim to whatever it is that makes people become like her? Were there others with her? I feel like our situation is dire, but I look at her face and see that it could be so much worse. She’s stuck, slipping in the bloody slurry that’s coating the bed of the truck and I watch as she struggles, just as we struggle. We are so different yet so much the same.
I look past the creature at Greg and Lexi as they try to move Noah into the back seat of the truck to lay him down. I like that they’re actually doing something now, that might be more helpful than just arguing and bickering about how Greg shot Noah. The creature in the back of the truck gets ahold of something and flings itself at me. I jump backwards and reach behind my back for the Sig. I feel my old companion in its holster, whispering to me, begging to be let out. I think about how little ammunition we all have right now. I’m not sure if spending a bullet on this thing is going to be worth it, but as I look at her, I figure that there would be something symbolic in the act. No one wants to live like this. No one wants to be imprisoned in a horrendous body that’s rotting away, wandering the world to eat the flesh of other humans. No one would want that. The creature squirms and tries to push herself up and I see that her legs are missing. I must have ground them off in the flight from the city. The sight of her languishing is enough for me to feel slightly bad for what I’ve done to her. I don’t mourn the creature in front of me, but rather who she was. It’s a shame that everything has come to this.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I say to her, reaching for the button and unfastening my Sig. Drawing it, I point it straight at her head. The woman is feral, indifferent to my apology and I would expect nothing less from her. I look at her wild eyes, her lips peeling back in the horrific expression on her face that cares only for flesh. I feel silly for having felt sorry for this thing. I keep my aim and squeeze the trigger. The creature’s head whips back violently, the bones in her neck cracking audibly as the back of her head explodes, blowing chunks of flesh, bone, and brain across the bed of the truck. Within a second, the woman’s ruined head whips back forward and slams into the tailgate, blood leaking out of the hole in the bridge of her nose, between her eyes. I look at the woman’s lifeless body and feel nothing for her now. I am sorry this happened to her, but she’s still an abomination.
Most of the supplies are gone, ripped out by fingers that gripped onto anything they could to try and pull themselves onto the truck. Finding anything they could grab, they put all of their weight on it, pulling the item they grabbed out with them. I grab the back of the woman’s dress and slide her out onto the road, her body slamming against the ground with a sickening splat. Climbing into the back, I notice that the big black duffle bag with the multitude of medicine and supplies is completely gone. Everything is missing. I feel this terrified sensation wrapping around my throat, dragging me down into despair and worry.
We don’t have the stuff here to help Noah. We don’t have anything that is going to be even remotely useful to patch up Noah, but that’s not all. We no longer have the antibiotics or the medicine that we’re going to need for Greg’s leg or to help Lexi in her post-partum state. I pull myself up onto the bed of the truck and start pushing things out of the way, trying to see if maybe something survived the attack. Maybe something was torn and some of the supplies might have poured out in the bed, hidden under the gore, stuck in a pool of coagulating blood or something. I’m desperate, I’ll take anything. I hurl aside a container of gasoline, hoping that there’s something I can salvage. Kicking over a container of food, I see that there’s a lot food packets that are still here, but underneath them, that’s where I see the white box with a red cross on it.
There’s a flutter of levity in my heart and I grab the box as quickly as I can. Looking at rest of the equipment, it’s fairly clear that we’re in a tough situation. More than half of everything is gone. There’s some stuff that is completely gone. I hop over the side of the truck and look over my shoulder to the swirling smoke and clouds of ash in the distance where Atlanta waits somberly within its deathbed. It won’t be long until there’s another horde chasing after us or catching us. I grip the box and head for the back seat.
“Where’s the duffle bag?” Lexi asks me, still holding my nephew tightly. I’m glad to see that she’s at least taking care of him. I climb into the back of the truck, ignoring her and closing the door behind me, leaving her out in the elements with my nephew. I don’t have time for her and her false sense of interest. I listen as Greg opens the driver’s door and climbs in behind the wheel. As for Lexi, she’s the last one to climb into her seat. Clicking open the medical kit, I look over at Noah who is staring up at the ceiling with wide, horrified eyes. I’m still not sure if he can actually see out of his left eye. It looks up at the ceiling of the cab.
“Noah,” I say softly, looking at his bleeding face. “Noah, can you hear me?”
There’s nothing that comes even close to a response from Noah. I watch him swallow painfully, but his eyes are as distant and unresponsive as the moon. It’s enough for me to feel like I don’t have to tell him about anything that’s about to happen, but I do anyways. It’s not so much for him, but more of a comfort for me. It’s just something that makes my hand steadier while looking at Noah’s ruined face.
“Okay, Noah,” I say to him, wondering if he’s able to even hear me. After all, I look at the side of his face and his left ear is completely gone. “I’m going to pour clotting powder on your wound. I’m going to stop the bleeding so that I can help you as best as I can. You’re going to be alright. I hope you can hear me.”
Tearing open the packet, I pour the white powder on his face. I try to keep it neat, carefully dumping powder into the small pools forming in his ruined flesh. As the powder hits his face, it darkens, turning black and the multitude of weeping, bleeding wounds slow their flow, some staunched in entirety. Using every last bit of the powder, I watch it completely absorb into the wounds on his face until the once white powder is tainted and tarnished, becoming thick pools of black. It’s a grotesque sight, but I watch it with a mix of fascination and excitement, glad to see that it’s stopped his bleeding. I’ve been afraid this entire time that he was going to bleed out completely. It makes me feel a little more confident that I can do what I’m going to need to.
As Greg drives, I feel the bumping and the swaying of the truck as it goes. This isn’t going to work. I look at Noah’s lolling head, rolling gently to the side as the vehicle sways and bumps along with the road. I look through the empty hole where the windshield should be and see only the vast, littered highway. It looks almost exactly like a blizzard came through here and I find the whole thing baffling. How is this thing bumping and loping so badly, with nothing in our way? It’s not like we’re driving over speed bumps or something like that. It’s just the road, ash, and dust. At most, I should be dealing with swerving and the swaying of the truck, not bouncing.
Gripping the bag of already threaded suture needles, I rip open the bag and draw out one of the hooked bits of surgical steel, looking at Noah’s face and feeling a sinking feeling inside of my stomach. I can’t do this. I can’t do this while the entire truck is bouncing and swaying. I have to be somewhere steady, somewhere clean. I know that it might be too much to ask for to get a place that’s actually clean, but for Noah’s sake, I’m hoping we can find someplace where the windows are still holding strong.