The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel (10 page)

“You've messed yourself up real bad, my friend.”

I always liked the sound of Doc's voice: it has kind of a scratchy quality to it, like a blues singer the morning after a gig in a smoke-filled club.

“You're telling me.... ”

I try to manage a weak laugh, but even that small act sends streaks of pain racing outward from my wound like baby snakes fleeing the nest.

“I'm dyin' here, Doc. Fuckers bit me bad.”

Doc leans back in the chair and studies me for a minute. He looks me straight in the eye and chews on his bottom lip, just like he always did when something was on his mind.

“I wasn't talking about your injuries.”

We're silent for a moment, each of us looking at the other, feeling like there's so much to say but too few words to express it all. This man was like a brother to me and I've missed him so damn much since we parted ways. More than I'd ever let on.

After what could have been half an hour or just a few minutes, he clears his throat and speaks again.

“You remember the time we saw that tornado, Carl? Somewhere in Iowa maybe?”

It hurts too much to talk, so I simply nod my head. How could I not remember something like that?

We were standing on the roof of an old music store, tryin' to get the lay of the land so we could figure out where we wanted to head next; lightning flashed to the south and the horizon was covered with clouds so dark and low it almost seemed as if they had grown too heavy to stay aloft and were sinking like leaky dirigibles toward the ground.

“That's a wall cloud.” Doc had said. “If we're lucky, we might be in for a treat. It's got some good rotation going on.”

Almost as if he'd called it into being, a funnel started forming beneath this pendulous cloud. At first it was nothing more than a twisty, white ribbon but, as we stood watching, it stretched toward the ground, growing longer and wider with every passing second.

It was kinda magical watching this thing form literally out of mid-air: for a while I was able to forget about the rotters clustered around the base of the building and the way they clawed at the brick as if they could somehow scale the side if they only tried hard enough; I was able to forget the abandoned buildings of this town, these monuments of a world that would never be again, the bloodstained sidewalks and shop windows shattered on the streets.

“Still a chance it might break up. I've seen it happen. You think the sucker is going to touch down and then it just dissolves into the sky.”

Once, the town below us would have echoed with the wail of sirens as people scrambled into basements and storm cellars, rushed through red lights, and tried to find whatever shelter they could. But now the streets were empty except for a few rotters who straggled their way toward us; now we could only hear the wind in the distance, sounding like a cross between a jet engine and the roar of a waterfall as cool wind blew through our hair.

The twister didn't break up after all. Within minutes there was a swirling umbilical cord connecting earth to sky and Doc handed me the pair of binoculars he'd been holding.

I lifted them to my eyes just after the funnel had ripped through a farmhouse as if it were nothing more than a child's creation. For a moment I forgot to breathe as I watched the cloud of dust and debris at its base: compared to the vortex above, this cloud seemed to roil and churn in slow motion... almost as if the twister had ripped the fabric of time and allowed the secret workings of the universe to seep out.

But there was something else. Among the shattered pieces of lumber and shards of broken glass that orbited the trunk of the storm, I could see these little silhouettes. As they twirled on winds strong enough to rip ancient trees from the clutches of the earth, I could see tiny legs and arms flailing, searching for purchase where there was none.

I couldn't help but picture these airborne zombies more clearly in my mind: their flesh being stripped away by sand and chunks of metal, splinters of wood driven through their torsos by the sheer force of nature, body parts severed with sheets of tin... and somehow still trapped within the shadows of Life and Death, not alive but not really dead either.

Suddenly there's fingers snapping right in front of me and I see Doc's face, leaning in so close that I can smell Spam wafting from his breath.

“Carl, hey buddy, come back to me.”

I blink several times and I'm back in the shed again, far from that Iowa rooftop and the finger of God that had reached down from the sky to rake the earth.

“Look, my man,” Doc continues, “I mentioned that tornado to make a point... not to send you off on a trip to Emerald City.”

“I don't know wha...”

My voice sounds thin and strained, even to my own ears, and every couple syllables it cracks like a man whose been wandering in the desert.

“Save your strength. Don't talk.”

I want a drink of water so badly... just a sip, enough to wet my lips and ease the swollen burning in the back of my throat. But my canteen was emptied hours ago and Doc doesn't seem to have any supplies with him. Which is odd. If there was one thing that man always made sure he had with him, it was water.

“The way I see it,” he says, “is that you're a lot like that tornado. You've got all this death and destruction revolving around you and you're just tearing across the countryside and bustin' up anything that gets in your way.”

He leans back in the chair with that self-satisfied grin he gets when he thinks he's said something particularly clever; but his eyes tell another story. I can see concern in the furrowing of his brow, sadness and fear in the way he squints and blinks. When you really know a person, you get to where you can read these things.

“Problem is, even an EF-5 can't go on indefinitely. Sooner or later, that rear flank downdraft just wraps around and chokes off the twister's air supply. The vortex starts to weaken and then
poof...
this awesome force is suddenly gone. Just like that.”

Doc looks as if he might be on the verge of tears. His eyes glisten and when he blinks it almost seems forced, as if he's squeezing his eyes shut instead of allowing it to come naturally.

“Once Josie died things really went to hell for you, didn't they?”

You're ain't kidding, my man. She was the only thing left which really meant a damn to me....

“Yeah, I know. I could see it in the way you two looked at each other.”

Did I say that last part aloud? Or had Doc somehow tapped into my thoughts like the Jedi Knights he held in such high regard?

“When you were with her, you weren't the tornado. You were the sun rising over a misty field at dawn. Shit, the world may have fallen apart all around you but you were at peace, man.”

I wish I could believe like she did. Doesn't even have to be reincarnation. If only there really was something beyond all of this other than an eternal void. I would love to think that I'll actually see her again in some mansion in the sky with crystal walls and golden ceilings; that we will play harps and laugh and sing and all of that other happy horse shit. That I'll actually get the chance to tell her that I loved her.

“She knows.” Doc says, apparently reading my mind again. “And she's closer than you think, brother.”

He turns toward the window and is silent for a moment as he watches the trees sway in the wind.

“Storm's coming.” he finally says. “And when it does, you're going to have to make a decision. You gonna stay out in the rain? Or are you gonna come in where it's warm and dry?”

Just like Doc to pull some sort of Zen psychobabble on a dying man. Like Josie too, now that I think about it.

I start to ask Doc not to play with words, to just come out and say whatever the hell he's driving at; but as I watch, he begins fading like cigarette smoke on the wind. One moment he's there and the next he's breaking up into little tendrils that melt into obscurity the further they drift.

But I can still hear his voice, as if he were still sitting just across the way.

“I'll miss you dearly, my friend.”

And then there is only the sound of branches scratching against the roof and the whistling of the wind as it blows through cracks in the wall.

I'll miss you too, Doc. You take care of yourself out there. You stay alive, hear?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: JOSIE

Why do I have to see him like this? What good can I do if I can't stroke his hair and try my best to comfort him? If I can't hold his hand and mop the sweat from his brow? He's dying and all I can do is stand here and watch as the light slowly fades from his eyes.

I'd rather remember him as he was during our time at the farmhouse: that crooked little grin that would creep across his face whenever I'd speak to him, the way he would genuinely laugh at even my feeblest attempts at humor....

When we sat together at night, he'd get this distant look in his eyes as he described a place we both so desperately wanted to believe existed: a small town surrounded by walls too high for the freshies and rotters to scale, packed with cottages where smoke curled from stone chimneys and fresh water was only a hand-pump away. In the mornings, he said, you'd be able to hear babies crying for their mothers' breasts as you sat on the porch, sipping chicory root coffee and waving to the neighbors across the way. Being a vegetarian, I would fit right in seeing as how meat would be so rare of a commodity that it could be traded like gold. Instead, the garden would be our main source of nourishment and the produce would be fresh and abundant.

And then he'd tell me how what he really missed – more than television, movies, or even music – were fried green tomatoes. He'd had a little patch in his backyard during his former life and he'd describe how it had that earthy smell after a rain, how the fruit would plump up until they practically fell into his hands at the slightest touch. He'd gather the tomatoes in his hands and head to the kitchen where he'd slice them into thin circles, dredge them in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, and then savor the aroma as they sizzled in the cast iron skillet. It almost sounded like a religious experience, the way he told it; and it was little details like this that began to blossom the simple seed of physical attraction into something so much more beautiful.

At the same time Carl and I were growing so much closer, however, Sadie was in decline. It had started as nothing more than tightness in her chest and a tickle in the back of her throat.

“Just a bit under the weather.” she'd claimed. “No use getting your panties all in a bunch.”

Within days, though, the tickle had mutated into a cough that rattled deep within her chest. You could hear the phlegm in her lungs gurgling as it tried to break up and she would double over in a fit of coughing so bad that it wouldn't have surprised me if she had vomited. But nothing ever came of it other than a raspy voice and a fever so high you could feel it without even touching her.

Watchmaker stayed by her side the entire time, giving her sips of water that had been melted from the snow and occasionally singing snippets of a song that was, as Carl later informed me, and old ballad by Johnny Cash. Her hand looked so small and dainty in his, as if with the slightest bit of pressure he could crush the brittle bones into indiscernible fragments; but there was tenderness there, a delicacy in the way he touched his wife that told a lifetime of stories in a single gesture.

“She needs meds.” Carl whispered from the dining room. “She's just gonna get worse otherwise.”

Doc and I stood in silence, watching as Watchmaker pulled the tattered quilt up to Sadie's chin. His hands felt for the couch cushion she was using as a pillow and from there found her face, brushing her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

“We could see if we can find a town.” Doc finally said. “Maybe raid a drugstore or doctor's office. Bring back what she needs.”

Carl closed his eyes and leaned back in the kitchen chair as he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“All well and good,” he said, “but what if we get lost out there? What if we can't find our way back here?”

“Wait.” I interrupted. “What are we talking about? Taking her? We don't even know how far the next town is. She could die out there and ...”

“And I reckon she definitely
will
if we don't, sweetie. You've seen how it is out there. Nothing but snow covered fields as far as the eye can see. Shit, it was just dumb luck we found this place to begin with.”

“We could Hansel and Gretel it.” Doc whispered. “Leave something as a trail so we can find our way back.”

Carl snorted and shook his head.

“And what happens if it decides to start snowing again? Before we're even halfway back that little trail would be gone.”

I listened to the two bicker back and forth and watched the elderly couple in the other room; I watched as Watchmaker's breath formed plumes in the air as he sung; I watched Sadie try to kick the blankets off her sweaty body and how he had to fight to make sure she remained covered. I watched the two and knew Carl was right: we had to do something.

“... if those things come 'round while we're dragging our sorry asses across the prairie? It's only a matter of time. They'll find us, mark my words. They always do. We can't stay here forever. Besides, we're runnin' out of food as well.”

“Fuck this.”

I stood and walked into the living room, leaving the two men in silence as they watched my departure. Standing next to Watchmaker, I placed my hand on his shoulder and he turned to look at me with those milky eyes.

Leaning close, I whispered in his ear, recounting the debate that had been raging in the kitchen. I explained the pros and cons of each side, laying it out as bluntly and factually as I could.

“So,” I said, “what do you think?”

Watchmaker sat there for a minute, listening to his wife cough as she shivered. Despite the sheen of sweat that glistened on her face and the mound of blankets beneath which she was buried, there were still goose bumps on her arms.

In that moment he looked far older than I had ever seen him, as if decades had passed in mere seconds. His face drained of color and he squeezed his eyes shut as if warding off a headache. When he next spoke, his voice was as thin and devoid of emotion as a rotter in the most advanced stages of decomposition.