Authors: Horace Brickley
A stick broke and cut the silence. Brush rustled as a reanimate emerged from the brush. A short guardrail stood between the living and the dead. Adam’s hand slid down to the grip of his pistol. Jesse shook his head and grabbed Adam’s wrist. He freed his cudgel from his belt and released Adam’s wrist. He rested the makeshift weapon on his shoulder. Both Jesse and Adam regarded even a single reanimate
like a poisonous spider: easy to crush with a single blow, but a small mistake can be fatal. Jesse took a quick survey of the trees and brush. Convinced no other reanimates lurked nearby. Jesse approached the creature. It stumbled into the guardrail: arms raised like a toddler wanting a hug. Its soupy eyes met with Jesse’s keen ones. Jesse struck it hard in its temple. Bone chunks and thick, dark matter scattered across the dirt embankment. It collapsed sideways like a boxer whose clock had been cleaned. Its eyes ceased to track movement.
Jesse and Adam continued a while down
the road without seeing anything of note. Rural Washington had not changed much since the dead overran the Earth. The only differences were the lack of moving cars, and that the wilderness had overtaken the small plots of land.
Adam spotted a crow perched on the street sign for Iskra Boulevard. Its black feathers ruffled at the sight of the two of them. It let out a hoarse caw and took flight down Iskra.
“Do you believe in omens?” asked Adam.
“I believe we’re going down Iskra,” said Jesse.
“Great,” said Adam as he drew his pistol. “I just want to tell you, in case we die, that these last few months have been bullshit — and that I’ve grown to both loathe and respect you.”
Jesse crossed his arms and scowled at Adam.
“What? Can’t take a joke all of a sudden?”
“I’m sure I’ll laugh once we get back to the fort.”
“We’re never going back to that fort, Jesse,” Adam said in an uncharacteristically dark tone.
They turned into Iskra. Jesse craned his neck back and forth, scanning the abandoned houses for signs of reanimates. Windows were shattered, doors
were bashed into splinters, and most of the cars were still in their driveways. No bodies were around. Jesse could not recall seeing any bodies stick around for long after reanimates overran an area. The reanimates had always cleaned their plate. He shrugged off dark memories and refocused. Above them, a bright patch of clouds obscured the falling sun.
“Adam, hold up,” said Jesse. Adam stopped without a word.
“I want to check this house,” said Jesse.
“Why?”
“It’s Eric’s family’s house,” said Jesse. “I remember his dad was a hunter.”
“You go ahead in,” said Adam. “I’ll post up out here.”
“Fair enough, keep an eye out.”
“Scream if you need me.”
“Funny.”
Jesse passed broken lawn ornaments on the unkempt lawn. He kicked away a triangular slab of the oak door. The entryway was a nightmare scene: dark stains and deep scratches in the linoleum floor. Jesse went upstairs. The stench of moldy carpet and stale air was disarming. It sat on his tongue like an unwelcome meal.
Several picture frames were strewn about, shattered glass decorated the carpet, and bullet holes gave the walls a wartime texture. The door to the first bedroom was hanging off its hinges. Jesse could tell it was Eric’s room because there was a Nirvana poster on the far wall and a Korean-made Stratocaster with rusted strings sitting on a guitar stand. There was a huge, dark stain on the carpet and blood spatter all over the walls, bed sheets, and ceiling. There was no body, and there were no weapons save a bent aluminum baseball bat. All that was left of his childhood friend was DNA.
“Sorry Eric,” Jesse said. Eric’s sister’s room was also empty and filled with things that were no longer i
mportant: colorful jewelry, an LCD TV, designer purses, and a hundred other fashionable accessories. On her nightstand was a brand-name purse. Jesse rummaged through it, but all that was inside was makeup and worthless green slips of paper.
“The dollar just hasn’t fared well in this predatory economy,” Jesse mumbled to himself. He dropped the purse on the carpet and went back into the hallway.
The door to the master bedroom was closed. Huge chunks were torn out of it and cracks ran down the painted wood. The door had held an onslaught, but there was a two-man-sized hole in the wall connecting Eric’s father’s office to the master bedroom. Jesse went through the hole as the reanimates had done. Beams of light shone through the narrow spaces in the boards nailed across the windows. There were no bodies, yet remnants of the slaughter decked the walls and furnishings. At the foot of the bed was a pistol. It was not the shotgun that Jesse had hoped for, but the apocalypse did not cater to picky shooters. Jesse picked it up gently and checked out the piece. It appeared to be in working order. The slide was open, and the magazine was empty. The pistol was a 9 mm, the same caliber as Adam’s gun. A rifle leaned against the closet wall next to a metal locker. Jesse flipped open the locker. Inside was Vietnam memorabilia and two full five-round rifle clips. Jesse opened his backpack and put the handgun and clips into it.
He snatched up the rifle, searched the rest of the house, and went outside to meet Adam.
“Nice rifle,” Adam said. “You find anything else.”
“The usual,” replied Jesse. “A pistol with no bullets and a bunch of dead people.”
“Bodies?”
“Just stains
.”
Jesse
handed the rifle to Adam.
“I’d rather see the bodies,” said Adam. “Something about a stain just leaves the mind to wander.”
Adam looked at the rifle and muttered, “Thirty-ought-six… good shape.”
“Anything else?” Adam asked.
Jesse set down his pack and pulled out the pistol and the rifle clips.
Adam saw the pistol and said, “Holy shit! I knew E
ric’s dad had great taste in guns. That’s a Hi Power. These things are legendary.”
Adam snatched the gun out of Jesse’s hand. He checked it and slid it into his jacket pocket. He took his gun out of the holster, released the magazine, and tossed the pistol on the ground. He reloaded his new gun and marveled at it.
“That’s what we call leveling up,” he said. “I’m actually looking forward to shooting this. Should we head up Cobi Place?”
“Yep.”
“All right, you’re sure?” asked Adam.
Jesse nodded and walked toward Cobi. They walked in silence, checking the tree line for reanimates. Ahead of them, an SUV was upside down on the side of the narrow road. It was covered in dents and safety glass was scattered all over the asphalt. All the tiny prisms of light reflecting off of the glass created a majestic aura around an otherwise gruesome scene. Dark marks lined the asphalt from when the driver swerved, to avoid something or someone.
“That’s a shitty way to go,” said Adam. “It’s the illusion of safety.”
“If not here, then it would have been 250 miles down the road when the gas tank ran out.”
“Or that mess on Newberry Hill.”
“Or there.”
They had learned not to dwell too long over the death of strangers, or loved ones. All tragedy had to be dealt with in a matter of seconds, or more tragedy followed on its heels. Before long, they were in front of Jesse’s childhood home: the quaint, suburban house turned into family tomb by a swarm of reanimates. The garage door sat bent on the concrete floor of the garage. He stepped on its panels and went into the house.
The house reeked of mold, the same as Eric’s house, and
similar stains, tears, and bullet holes marked the interior. He grabbed his mother’s small pistol off the floor and checked the magazine. Empty. He discarded the piece with a grunt. There were no bodies. He kept his field of vision high. He did not have the heart to look at those ignoble dark stains. He walked to the staircase and took pause at the missing baluster. There were no bodies, not even of the reanimates. He and his father had killed many of them, but they were gone just like the bodies of his family.
“They eat each other,” he said to himself. He felt no sorrow in that moment, only growing rage.
His father’s pistol was lying on the dark carpet with the slide open. The magazines were empty, but the boxes of bullets that he had brought down for his father were still there. He ejected the magazine, and loaded it with seven hollow point rounds. The box only had another ten rounds, which he dumped into his pocket. He went upstairs into his old room to grab some winter clothes for himself and Adam. The mirror on his closet door provided Jesse with an unwanted sight: a bearded man in filthy clothes. Earlier in his life, Jesse had remarked on how stupid people sounded when they said they did not recognize themselves when they looked in the mirror. Now, he understood the reality of those words. Missing was the handsome, clean cut wrestling champion and scholar. What he saw was an angry hobo with a sad story and a head full of rage. After a discomfiting minute, Jesse threw open the closet door. The force of the action sent the door crashing into the wall and off the runners. He ripped two jackets, two shirts, and two pairs of pants off their hangers. He also grabbed a handful of mismatched socks and underwear and went downstairs.
Adam
faced away from the house keeping watch when Jesse came out with a pile of clothes in his hands.
“Here,” said Jesse. “Change.”
“Ah nice,” said Adam. “Why didn’t we ever grab clothes at the stores?”
“It was summer when this shit happened
. The stores hadn’t gotten their winter shipments yet.”
“Ah, yeah,” said Adam
. He took of his wet, rank clothes. “It’s summer forever at the Silverdale mall. Hey, that could be a slogan. I’ll remember that once the ad agencies get up and running again.”
“Don’t hold your breath on that one.”
They took turns changing to make sure neither was caught off guard. As Jesse was zipping up his old winter coat, a loud, distorted scream cut through the trees to the west. Adam was trying to put the second leg of his new pants on when the scream ripped through the still air. He fell onto the asphalt.
“Ah fuck!” he said. He pulled the pants
on, zipped them, and drew his new pistol in a barrage of movement. Jesse looked at the tree line. Nothing stirred.
“Is that the scream you heard earlier?” Jesse asked.
“That would be the one, yeah,” said Adam.
“That’s not a person or any animal I know.”
“I was really hoping I was wrong about that.”
“You and me both.”
They began their pre-fight ritual. Jesse secured his cudgel to his belt, and checked the slide and barrel of his father’s pistol. Adam rechecked the rifle, slid it butt first into his large pack and left the barrel sticking out of the top.
Jesse noticed that Adam only had guns. He tapped Adam on the shoulder and said, “Go into the garage and grab a bat or something.”
“Ah shit, I left my axe back at the fort.”
Adam ran into the Jesse’s old garage and came back with a dull machete.
“That’s not sharp anymore,” said Jesse, “I used to use that to trim branches.”
“It’ll suffice,” said Adam. Jesse shrugged.
They crept through the Kitsap County forest. For half an hour, they waded through the thick growth and worked around the pungent evergreen trees. Jesse wondered how the creatures managed to get past these obstacles. He decided they must have taken another route.
“When we come back, we should use the main road. This is a pain in the ass,” Jesse whispered.
“We won’t have time to come back this way,” said Adam. “It’ll be dark before we get to the end of Eldorado.”
Jesse was about to reassure Adam when he heard footfalls in the distance. He crouched down and shot a sideways glance at Adam. Adam clenched the grip of the Hi Power. Jesse motioned for the rifle. Adam slid the left strap of the backpack off his shoulder and placed the pack on the ground. Jesse unzipped the bag, pulled the rifle out, and handed it to Adam.
"Take a look," Jesse said.
Adam holstered his pistol and took the rifle. He couched the butt of the rifle on his shoulder, and he looked through the scope.
“We’re fucked,” Adam said under his breath.
“What is it?” Jess
e asked. Adam handed him the rifle.
“You look,” he said. Jesse closed his left eye and peered through the scope.
Ahead was a clearing: the same clearing from the vision he had on the platform of their fort. The reanimates were all huddled together. An odd creature paced in front of them like it was surveying the reanimates. It stopped for a moment. Its mouth opened unnaturally wide and it unleashed another scream. It was a primal roar that was twisted and amplified by an evil energy. A sound from the underworld that said, bring death to those that still live. Jesse closed his eyes and lowered the rifle. Adam took the rifle. He exhaled hard and put the rifle down.
“Yeah, it’s bad,” said Adam. “So what do we do?”
“That depends.”
“I already don’t like where this is going.”
“It’s not going anywhere.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean—”