The Most Uncommon Cold I - Life in the Time of Zombies (18 page)

     In the next moment, I was out of my mind. There is no other way to put it. I just charged blindly ahead into the thic
k darkness. Nothing was guiding me other than a need to move. There was no picture of what I was seeking, no thought of how to reach what I wanted, and no logic to charging ahead into the dangerous unknown. The anger seemed to energize my body and propel it forward.

       I sped through the ink of blackness for what seemed like a long time although it
surely was not. Eventually, my speed was abruptly reduced as I crashed into a wall.

     In the next second, I was
flat on my back on the floor. 

     I had the sudden memory of cartoons. I thought of those cartoons where
somebody gets hit on the head and sees stars spinning around him. Until that time, I had not experienced it. Now I could cross it off my list of life experiences. I continued to lie there for a moment listening for any sound in the darkness. There was only the sound of my heavy and uneven panting.

     I moved my hands to my sides to push myself from the floor.  It was then that I realized that the
floor was covered in some sort of sticky liquid. Of course, I knew immediately what it was even if I did not want to admit it to myself.

     I jumped up from the floor and wiped my blood-covered hands on my puke-covered pants. Although the darkness kept me from actually confirming the fact that the warm liquid was blood, my mind furnished a vivid picture of the red puddle beneath me. While I do not usually get squeamish over blood, I felt a wave of nausea rolling through my stomach and bubbling up my throat. The bitter taste of bile filled my mouth, but that was as far as it got.

     I reached out to touch the cold, hard, cinder-block wall directly in front of me. The solid feel was somewhat comforting amid my dark and unreliable surroundings. My hand slid to the right in search of some type of opening in the wall.  There was nothing aside from the grooves between the blocks. My hand continued to move along, and, for some reason, the roughness of blocks contrasting with the smoothness of the seams in between felt pleasant to me. A strange grin started to form on my lips when my fingers brushed across something different.

     I felt the metal plate and then the hard plastic of a switch. I pushed up, and the place was
instantly filled with blinding light. When the spots cleared from my eyes, I looked around to see what had been hidden by the darkness.

      To say the least, my
imagination had not done it justice.  There was blood everywhere, on the floor and smeared along the white cinder-block walls. There was something on the floor next to the wall back near the door I had come through. I knew at once that the something used to be someone. Without direction from me, my feet began slowly moving toward the body. Even as I moved, I felt that my body had become so heavy that each attempt at motion was a monumental challenge. 

     Finally, I stood
there staring down at the mangled body.  It had been a man. The only way that I knew this was by the wedding ring on the remaining hand that pushed against the wall. The stump of the arm was extended straight up from the torso.  The head had been torn beyond any possible recognition of the man.

    
Gazing at the ruined body, my imagination provided a possible scenario of how it had gotten to this condition. Screams rang out and continued to stream through my brain. I watched as a pair of hands pushed the man to the floor.  Then teeth sank into his cheek. Blood spurted from his neck. And still the screams continued.

     I spun
away from the body and vomited all in one movement. Since I had not eaten anything recently besides pretzels and cookies, the effort yielded nothing beyond brown fluid. I dropped to my knees and continued with the dry heaves. My stomach pitched into my throat over and over with nothing to show for it. By the time the spasms ended, I felt drained of energy.

     It
was a while before I felt strong enough to climb to my feet. When I did manage it, I had no idea what to do next. I stood there motionless for a minute or for an hour.  Paralysis brought on by fear or shock, or both, took over.

     After a time, a voice living somewhere inside my head
popped out brightly, “Just put one foot in front of the other!”

     I followed the advice and stumbled back down the hallway to the other end.  With the lights, the
previously wide expanse was much smaller.  I was quickly at the next door.  But I hesitated before I went through.  Instead, I turned to look back at the brightly lit carnage.  There was another body wedged beneath an empty bookshelf and one on the floor leaning against the wall.  While I was aware of these things, their detail was blurred and faded in my consciousness.

     This time, I hardly paused at the door before pulling it open.  I found myself at the top of a set of stairs. The place was dimly lit, but I had no problem seeing. From the stairs going up came the sound of scratching and some other shuffling. It made the decision to
head downward a simple one. The stairs down were darker but silent.

     I crept over to the edge of the top stair and waited to detect any sense of movement. Again every muscle strained as if to
make me more sensitive to catch the slightest noise from below. There was only silence.

     I stepped onto the
step and cringed at the creaking that rang out into the silence of the stairwell. I waited in anticipation of some response. Relief came in the form of no response, and I continued inch-by-inch down into the darkness. After creeping down three or four more steps, I stopped again and listened. Still there was nothing to hear.

     I began to take another step downward when there was a noise behind me. I turned quickly in that
direction without seeing any source of sound. Unfortunately, the turn was enough to throw me off balance. Before I could bring my foot back underneath me, I was tumbling headfirst down the stairs. Each step shook my body like a rag doll and pitched me downward. I continued to bounce down until my body was tossed onto the floor at the foot of the stairs.

     When the movement ended, I was on my back staring up
into darkness.  This time the voice in my head was different.  “Just lie where you are,” it said calmly.  “Just lie where you are.”

     I have to admit the idea seemed like a pretty good one.  I mean, why not?  Why not just stay there on my back staring up into the darkness and wait for my heart to stop beating?  It was not
as if I had some damned great life waiting for me.  Staying right there on that floor made good sense.  But even so, I knew that I could not.  Something inside me would not allow it.

     My back ached as I got to my feet, bu
t other than that I felt okay.

    
Considering the distance I had fallen, I felt extraordinarily lucky that I had not killed myself. In fact, I was feeling pretty darned happy about things in general.  Then I realized I was no longer alone. 

     A few yar
ds away against the door were the forms of two people or shells.  Both were swaying slightly from side to side as if drunk. As far as I could tell, they had no interest in me.  My first thought was to run away from the spot as fast as possible, but I caught myself. The last thing I wanted to do was give those things a reason to take notice of me. So I simply stood up straight and walked slowly away as if I was perfectly comfortable after having tumbled down a flight of stairs and spilled onto the floor. I was aware of the swaying shells looking in my direction as I walked slowly away.

     The stairs had dumped me in another hallway. Up
ahead a few yards and directly in my path, there was a shell gazing at the ground. It was dressed in the dirty coveralls of a janitor. 

     As I moved closer, I could hear words.

     “Needs another goin’ over with the buffer,” it muttered quietly.

     I started to say something but realized there was nothing to
say.  It suddenly occurred to me that these things, shells, or whatever they were, did not know they were dead.  It appeared that they simply continued to go through the motions.

     “Needs another
goin’ over with the buffer,” it repeated without looking up from the floor.

     I passed slowly and
silently around the figure.

Chapter 15

     There was another door in front of me.  This one was metal and, unlike the others, was made with security in mind. There was a brass handle on the right side of the door with a little lever on top to push with your thumb. That is what I did, and the door opened with a click. 

     The cool air of the early evening felt
fresh on my face as I stepped forward into a narrow alleyway lined with dark blue garbage dumpsters. The realization that I had made it out of the building gave me renewed energy, and I moved quickly next to one of the dumpsters to watch for any movement.

     The wailing of a far-off siren at first startled me but then comforted me with the sense of something of normalcy. Almost on reflex, I started trudging in the direction of the sound. I have no idea of how long I just moved mindlessly
forward like that.

     When I came back to
awareness, there was an abandoned street in front of me. Something about it looked familiar, but I could not figure out why.  The difficulty was probably due to the fact that I had never viewed the street other than from the car.

     Recognition came to me with a shock that sort of knocked the wind out of me. This was the street leading to the junior high school where Bonnie was a teacher.

     The remembrance of the
school instantly flooded me with the images of some of the times I had gone there.  There had been an openhouse in her first year of teaching when I had accompanied my incredibly nervous wife to offer support.  The evening had gone well with lots of compliments from parents on Bonnie’s positive influence upon their sons and daughters. Her classroom was decorated floor-to-ceiling with numerous graphs, charts, formulas, and student work proclaiming mathematics was the subject addressed.  The evening had given Bonnie a real boost of confidence.  It was also the first time I met Principal Ron Thomas. 

     The young principal was in his second year at the school.  Prior to becoming principal, he had been the English/drama instructor at the school. From the
second I saw him, the drama part of his resume was apparent. He entered the classroom in the manner of someone who was used to being the center of attention. He greeted several students by name before sweeping in next to Bonnie where we stood at the back of the room watching students show parents where their work was displayed.

    
“It sure looks like you’ve got some proud parents here,” he had announced with a little too much enthusiasm.

     Bonnie
instantly stood up straight at the sight of the principal.  “Oh, Principal Thomas, thank you.”  There was a slightly uncomfortable pause before she added, “Principal Thomas, this is my husband Kevin.”

     He stepped over to me
quickly and extended his hand.  “As I keep telling Bonnie, it’s Ron.”  He flashed a smile at Bonnie and then at me.  “It’s great to meet you at last Kevin.”  He shook my hand too enthusiastically and proclaimed, “Well, you certainly have a proud wife here. You’d think that you were writing for
The
New York Times
rather than just the local rag.”  The principal chuckled as if he had made some clever comment rather than insulting me.

     I could feel Bonnie
’s strong gaze directed my way as I slowly answered, “Well, I am just happy to have a job.”  Not a great comeback and one of those things you think about later.  Naturally, it is then that better responses present themselves.

     Before anything more occurred to me, Principal Thomas had swept
back out of the room.   

     On the way home, I had mentioned my less than positive impression of the principal. 

     She had waited a moment before replying, “Yes, I suppose, Principal Thomas does think a lot of himself, doesn’t he?” She laughed a little and then added, “Anyway, he leaves me alone to teach, so I appreciate that.”

     That had been the
end of the conversation at that time.

     My
second meeting with the good principal had come about six months later at the end-of-the-school-year carnival.  Bonnie was one of the teachers involved in organizing the event and had spent a great deal of time on it.  Since it was held in the early afternoon following a half day of school, I was unable to attend until the early evening after work.

     By the time I got there, it was clear that a
fabulous time was being had by all.  I made my way to the dunk tank where Bonnie had told me she would be.  As I approached the big tank over which one brave soul sat while others threw balls trying to hit the target on the lever and drop the sitter, I got a clear view of my wife being chased by the dripping-wet principal. A nearby crowd of students was shouting encouragement. Eventually, Principal Thomas caught her and wrapped her up in his wet arms.  It was at that moment that Bonnie noticed me.