The Dark Trilogy (98 page)

Until they ran out of water.

Sadie knew the water was getting low and had been for several days. Mommy had stopped drinking and had insisted that Sadie still drink a full cup of the warm, stale-tasting tap water that they had collected in a couple of plastic milk jugs and several glasses. As their supply diminished, Sadie had whispered, asking what they would do when it was all gone. Momma gave her a look that scared the curiosity away and then walked to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Sadie couldn’t hear her crying, but as the tears rolled down her own face, she imagined it was exactly what Mommy was doing.

For a day after the last drop of water had been consumed, Mommy stood by the front door, still as a statue as she listened carefully for over an hour. The noises had died down a couple of days before, going silent for long stretches. It had been nearly a week since Sadie had heard the last scream and sat shivering in Mommy’s arms as she cradled her and covered up her ears, rocking her back and forth.

***

Mandy Wharton had never been quick to make decisions during her lifetime. It had taken getting pregnant with Sadie before she would finally accept Paul’s proposal of marriage. She had debated getting an elementary education degree up until her little girl was born, which meant she would have to put that off for several years, at least.

Paul had always been the one who made the decisions, for better or for worse. So when he chose to leave their little apartment, she pleaded with him to stay, even though the walls had already started to close in. He insisted he would not be gone long. Enough time either to get them some more supplies so they could hunker down for a couple of months until this entire thing blew over, or to find them a better place to hide out.

When he didn’t return, Mandy was forced to figure out what the hell to do for herself and for Sadie. Even that decision was put off until the last moment. She knew they could survive for a few more days with no water, but then they would be far too weak to escape. Besides, she had heard nothing outside for a long time. It was probably safe enough to make a break for it.

Mandy knew that her beat-up old VW Bug would still be sitting in the parking lot where she’d left it. She had stared at it several times through the closed blinds earlier on, desperately wishing it were closer to her front door. Their unit faced the parking lot, and the Bug was on the far side of the lot. The last time she’d parked it, the lot was full.

Everyone had been home then, glued to their televisions as they watched the world falling apart before their eyes. Soon after that, some residents of their little community began taking off, “heading for the hills” as Henry Chu, one of their upstairs neighbors, had put it. Big chunks of the parking lot became barren overnight, but several cars still remained. Other folks had made the same decision Paul and Mandy did: to stick it out, even with warnings that the National Guard was conducting house-to-house and apartment-to-apartment searches for anyone who had been infected. They were also carting off anyone else they came across and tossing them into the closest shelters.

There were enough horror stories about the shelters and how clogged the highways were for them to decide that they would take their chances in their modest little home, at least until the military came knocking. But they never did. A couple of days later, Paul headed out on his journey, leaving his wife and child behind to fend for themselves. Mandy was still not sure if she was more angry or sad that he had abandoned them, leaving her alone to make all the decisions for her and Sadie.

When Mandy finally broke out of her stupor and decided they had to leave to avoid an agonizingly slow death, she did her best, as she had been doing all along, to make it into a game for Sadie. Something that both of them could play so they could make believe the world was not filled with hungry monsters like the TV claimed before it went on the fritz like everything else. The two of them would be spies, sneaking around outside, doing their best not to be seen by anyone.

Mandy knelt down in front of her little girl and told her that she had all the faith in the world that Sadie would do great with this new game. She told her that Daddy would be looking down from heaven and expecting her to do her very best. Sadie nodded excitedly at that, ready to prove that she was as good at sneaking as she was at remaining silent.

But when they opened the front door, it was clear that it would not matter how good Sadie was at sneaking around. Mandy had her fingers wrapped tightly around the car key that she was prepared to jam into the lock as quickly as possible so she could get Sadie inside. The car had remained dormant for over two weeks, but despite its rusted and worn exterior, it had always proven to be a warhorse that started on the first turn of the key. It had been her most trusted ally since she had bought it with some help from her mom and dad five months after her sixteenth birthday. Her dad had nicknamed it the Beast, but she ignored all the jibes from him and her friends. It was her pride and joy and had carted her all over the place for the past ten years.

So as they passed over the threshold of their apartment and out onto the concrete path, Mandy’s eyes were locked on her car, their salvation. That was why she missed the movement in the overgrown bushes off to her left as they strode forward.

She got no more than a couple of steps out the door with Sadie running ahead when the smelly old cat lady who lived two doors down stepped out of the shadows and grabbed Mandy’s arm.

The elderly woman had taken refuge in the bushes for several days with the hot sun beating down upon her weathered and befouled body. She hadn’t had a meal since she had caught one of her older, lame cats and devoured the old tom, fur and all. Despite her nearly catatonic state, she reacted quickly to the sound of the opening door and the scent of human sweat.

Sadie turned as she heard her mother cry out in surprise. Seeing what was happening, she started running back, totally prepared to kick the mean old woman right in the shin. The cat lady had always scared her, even when she smiled. What few yellowed teeth remained in her gingivitis-riddled mouth, and her taut and leathery skin, made her look like a jack-o-lantern to Sadie.

Sadie was no longer afraid of her, just angry that she was grabbing her mother. She had to save Mommy from the horrible witch.

It was then that Mandy looked up and screamed at Sadie as she tried wrestling her arm away from the old crone.

“Don’t get any closer, Sadie! Get away from here now!”

Sadie was confused by the command. Her mother had cried out, which was enough of a shock, but now she was yelling for her to run away. It was the first time she had heard her speak above a whisper in a very long time, and the raspy croak coming out of her lips did not sound a thing like Mommy anymore.

Sadie stood stock still, trying to comprehend what was going on. She was mesmerized by the contortions of the two women battling in front of her. It was not until the crusty old biddy leaned over and bit deep into her mother’s arm that Sadie reacted again. She screamed long and loud, louder than the voice her mother had used to reprimand her. She watched as Mommy gasped with pain and stumbled backwards, her feet getting tangled with those of the other woman, whose teeth were still lodged in Mommy’s arm.

Sadie moved forward once again, her mother’s command to leave forgotten. That was when her mommy got really angry. Mandy turned and twisted, wrestling desperately until her eyes locked onto Sadie’s one last time.

“GET OUT OF HERE, YOUNG LADY, BEFORE I SPANK YOUR BUTT!”

Sadie still hesitated, and her mother’s words were cut off for a few seconds as she rolled around on the ground with the old bag of maggots on top of her. The girl wanted to help her mother, protect her from the mean old woman, but the fear of a spanking was like an electric jolt to her senses. Mommy almost never spanked her. She had, in fact, only done so once before, after she’d been playing with a fork near an electrical outlet in her bedroom.

“SADIE, DO AS I SAY! RUN AWAY FROM HERE AND FIND SOMEPLACE TO HIDE. DO IT NOW!”

Sadie turned slowly, still hesitating, unsure of what to do. It was then that she noticed some of the other neighbors stumbling out of their doorways. At first she thought they were coming to help. She opened her mouth to plead with them to get the crazy old lady off Mommy, but instead she found that she couldn’t speak as she looked closer at each of them.

They all looked funny. Sadie had not gotten that close a look at the old woman, but she could see all these other people quite clearly. A couple of the neighbors looked like they had been bashed over the head with a giant hammer, like the ones they always used in the old cartoons they showed on the Boomerang network. They looked like they should have stars and little birds flying around their heads, but instead they just had a lot of blood all over them. It was like they all decided to dress up for Halloween and chose the same costume.

That was when the smell hit Sadie’s nostrils. The mean old lady smelled bad, but she had been out in the fresh air for days. The miasma that crawled out of the steamy hot apartments where numerous corpses had been festering for days and weeks was overpowering. It reminded Sadie of the stinking piles she had seen at the farm she’d visited with her preschool class. The teacher had called it manure, but she knew what it really was. It was like all her neighbors had been rolling around in a big giant pile of poo.

Sadie noticed one person in particular. Someone whom she had always liked. Unlike the others, he was shuffling toward her instead of toward her mother and the old witch. It was Mr. Gonzales, the building superintendent. He had always been nice to her. He always had a quarter or a dime in his pocket, and he gave her one of the shiny coins every time he saw her. His thick black mustache that drooped down over his upper lip always made her laugh. That and the neat little tricks he could do, like the one where he made it look like his thumb was detachable.

Sadie took a couple of tentative steps toward him, calling out for him to help Mommy. He was in charge of all the buildings in the complex and was always there to help them when they had any trouble. She cried out again to him, repeating his name. If anyone could take care of the crazy old cat lady, it was Mr. Gonzales.

But he kept moving toward little Sadie, oblivious to her plea. Even when she started screaming at him, he ignored her desperate cries. He was certainly interested in the little girl, but not in anything she had to say. It was not until he was fairly close (in Sadie’s mind, he had been right above her, and that was how she remembered things every night when she had nightmares about Mr. Gonzales) that she realized his shirt was bloody and ripped in several different places. The brown skin beneath looked dipped in blood as well, most of it dried to a tacky consistency.

No matter what job Mr. Gonzales had to do, no matter how messy it got, he always had a clean shirt on. That was something Sadie knew for sure. He liked to tell the kids his shirts were magical and dirt was afraid to stick to them. Sadie always giggled at that, especially when he winked at her and gave her his best fuzzy mustache wiggle and great big grin.

Mr. Gonzales always had a smile for Sadie. But not today. His shirt was almost black with blood, and though she could see his teeth beneath his thick black mustache, there was no smile there. As he reached out for her, she finally turned and ran, her mother’s screams fading in the distance.

The little girl didn’t look back, no matter how badly she wanted to. Past the little playground she ran, and down the hill that ran out back of the small huddle of buildings that made up the Pleasant Pines Apartment Complex. She kept running, making sure she never stumbled. She kept running until she couldn’t run any longer.

Sadie knew that her mommy was dead. Just like her daddy, she was up in heaven now. Because Sadie had screamed. Her mommy had taught her how to stay quiet, and Sadie had been good at that, but once they left the apartment, she had screamed and mommy had died.

It was then that she decided she would never scream out loud again. She would keep all her screams on the inside so that the bad people would never find her again.

For two days, Sadie hid in an empty drainpipe beneath a road that had been under construction. She heard noises up above sometimes. Ones like she had heard outside their apartment day after day with Mommy by her side. She remained still and thought about her parents. Wondered what they were doing right at that moment up in heaven with Grandma and Grandpa.

She dipped her hand in the little trickle of water than ran through the pipe, and though her stomach rebelled at the taste of it, she was able to keep the water down and not get sick. It was only when she became too hungry to remain in the dirt-encrusted tube any longer that she finally climbed out, desperate to find something, anything to eat so she could crawl back down into the dark confined space that she accepted as her new home.

Ben found her an hour later, wandering in a small stand of trees, rooting around on the ground for acorns. He had been watching a group of about twenty biters for the past couple of hours when he saw the little girl stumbling around in the trees not a hundred yards from their position. She looked as dirty and pathetic as the ghouls, but it did not take Ben long to figure out that she was still among the living. He swooped in, abandoning his hiding place and snatching her up before she could even react.

He had expected her to scream out and was surprised when she didn’t make a single noise. Instead, she struggled in silence, beating uselessly against his chest as he carried her away from danger. Even at full strength, nothing she could have done would have bothered him, but she was as weak as a newborn kitten, and after ten minutes of urgent but futile attempts to squirm free of Ben’s iron grasp, she was fast asleep in his arms.

He raced her back to the others, handing her over to Lydia before he returned to his scouting mission. From that moment on, she became Lydia’s responsibility, joining the two little boys Ben had found only a couple of days before.