No matter how often I have cursed myself for being foolish, sentimental and cruel for not dropping her right there, I had known the instant it dawned on me who the dead woman was that I would never be able to end her misery. Surely, that had to be what it was like to be dead - miserable? I had no idea if the dead hurt, had any notion of what they were now or what they had once been. There were no indications that they were nothing more than a shuffling sack of hungry, biting instinct. Except…she seemed to want to
sing
.
All the more reason to end it for her
, Jackie's voice would argue.
At first I was certain that my hallucinations had returned – but they had never combined sound and vision before. I stood in the alley, dumb and indecisive.
It…can’t be her. Can it?
Where had she been all this time? Some of the dead just seemed to pop into existence, as fresh and unmarked as a newly laid egg. Had she been with someone? She certainly wasn't dressed for scrounging like me...
I wanted to whistle and draw her attention, but she was the one to end my paralysis. The dead woman stopped suddenly, tottering as if still learning to balance herself in her new state of death. She turned towards me, making an observation for a moment, then methodically began to stagger in my direction. I could see the faded spray of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, and there was no longer any question that it was Pink. The blue eyes were dim and weary, but undeniably were the same ones that had once stared into mine.
Jesus, where had she been?
I wondered again.
Who let you down, Pink? Who screwed up and let you turn into one of the dead?
Or were you trapped somewhere, and recently escaped out into the world?
I shook my head – she looked in too good of shape to have been dead for very long.
I began to back up, unmindful of what was behind me. Tears began to blur and ruin my vision and I cuffed them away, smacking my nose with the handle of the hammer. I turned, and ran back the way I had came. I shot around the corner of the sporting goods store, then the front, and back across the front parking lot to home.
As I hit the sixth floor, I just dropped everything and sat on the floor of the dental office. I squinted in the glare of the sun, and rocked myself in spastic little jerks. I knew I should take Pink out, yet could not in any way see how that was going to happen. I felt weak and impotent, like I was letting her down. She had crashed back into my life like a comet. She was someone I had not thought of in a long time – Jackie had over-written any feelings of attraction, I supposed. Pink's abrupt return to my life threw me into a chaos of emotions I could not grasp.
I could not sleep at all that day, feeling lethargic and drained until I dropped in exhaustion that evening, very lucky I was left undisturbed. Dreaming, there were mixtures of a young dead woman working out at the gym, singing along to her I-Pod, and of Jackie ordering me to not let her turn into one of the dead. Dying, she turned into my mom and sat up, letting me know she couldn’t eat me because I hadn't given her grand-babies yet. That nice dead girl at the gym would do, wouldn’t she?
I awoke in the dark, cold and hungry, and dug some water and a power bar out of my pack. I wasn't exactly refreshed, but my head felt clearer than it had despite the nightmares. My body began to respond to the nourishment, and my resolve grew stronger.
“I can't do it. I can't
do
it,” I muttered over and over.
The old Pink might be disappointed in me, to be sure. But this one…it had its own purpose, didn’t it? Some desire drove it, and if it was any part of what she once was I could not bear to snuff it out. I had no illusions she would be any different than the other dead that roamed the world. But it was enough that she was a part of my universe.
The stars. You've noticed them? If you've stayed with me this long, of course you have. If anything was worth the price of the pandemic, seeing the stars in all their glory has to be it. No light pollution, no
pollution
pollution – they were undimmed and astonishingly bright, spilling across the dome of the sky and as alluring and mysterious as they have been to us for thousands and thousands of years. And then for far longer even than that.
Up on the roof, lying flat on my back, the stars tugged and pulled at me and the gravity shifted to where up was now down and I clutched at the rough surface under my hands, dizzily certain I was going to fall into the sky. It was late June, and I had never seen the Milky Way before.
I wished I had learned all the constellations and stars so I knew what I was actually seeing. Sure, I could tell Mars from Jupiter and Venus. See the Big and Little Dippers. But I was woefully ignorant of much else up there. Still, I knew the nearest star (or
stars
, actually – Alpha Centauri is a binary system, with another star, Proxima Centauri, hanging around as well) is about four light years away. From up there, if anything could point an alien telescope and see us, it would look like normal, messy, human-infested Earth. Seeing Earth from up there, Jackie was alive. My mom was alive. Pink was alive. Seen from up there, I was a fat, shy, insecure nobody. If I knew what was coming, would I have done anything differently? I was afraid to try and answer that question.
As far as the universe was concerned, I was still a nobody – but we were
all
nobodies. The gulf between the stars, let alone galaxies, was massively incomprehensible. Some of the nut-case theories about the pandemic claimed that it had been the result of aliens. It was easy enough to dismiss for a variety of reasons, but the simple fact was that I didn't think aliens had ever visited us. Period. Look up at those stars. If you aren't distracted enough by their beauty, know how incredibly far away they are. Are there aliens up there? I think probably so. Could they beat Einstein and find their way here? I don't know, but I doubt it.
Life indeed may very well be teeming in the stars and other galaxies, but how do we measure their potential intelligence compared to ours? Life is one thing, that it has to follow our example is another. Life, but no intelligence. Intelligence, but no curiosity. Who says they have to send out radio signals and other intentional transcripts of communication? Why should we assume they
care
if we exist? That they are likely to be
not
like us cuts down the chance that we will ever come in contact with them.
Gravity shifted, and I didn't feel like I was going to fall up anymore. My back pressed reassuringly into the surface of the rooftop. I was alone as I ever was. The South Hill may as well have been Alpha Centauri for all that I knew was going on over there. But speculation gnawed at me. Was there life over there? Did it look across the divide, and wonder the same? Or did it
see
, and make its plans against me? I laughed. The South Hill was as uncaring and neutral as the Universe itself, I bet, and not out to get me. Still, the need to know swelled with each heartbeat and it dawned on me I was going on a journey.
“You need to stay here, curiosity
killed
the cat!” my mother's voice yelled in my ear, full of panic.
“Bullshit,” I whispered, and lifted my arm to point a finger towards the carpet of stars. “An asteroid can come blazing out of the sky and destroy me and all life on the planet while I lay here and do
nothing
.”
My mother stayed quiet, but I sensed her frustration all the same.
I uncurled my other fingers to line up with the index, and waved hugely at the stars. Was Alpha Centauri in view? I had no idea, but other stars were, and maybe something could see me in four to four thousand years and wave back. That is, if they even cared to. But
I
was only as alone and as ignorant as I chose to be.
And gravity shifts...
Once again I stood at the top of the Division hill in the early hours of the morning, and stared into the gloom below. I could take side streets down, of course – down Wall and cut through here and there, zig and zag like I always did. But the lure of a straight shot down to the river was just too much. It was warmer, and the dead were active again all over. I could conceivably be back home tonight if all went well and there was nothing to see. As long as I didn't get treed by the dead...
I wore a light jacket with the utility vest over it. Batteries - always batteries – electrical tape, fishing line, lighter fluid and lighter as well as matches. My backpack was filled with water and snacks, some rope, twine, my hammer and wrist-rocket, ammo, knives, rain poncho, toilet paper, sanitary wipes, first-aid kit, flashlights, duct tape, night vision goggles, binoculars and my sleeping bag across the top. Inside of
that
was Jackie's tank-top. I tried to secure it all so nothing jingled, clanked or sloshed - anything that made repetitive noises was adjusted until the only sounds would be my footsteps and breathing. With my trusty spear, I felt like I was ready to make a journey to the center of the earth.
Recalling my last major journey in the warmth of summer made me hesitate, but like all projects I was reluctant to begin I decided to take it in stages. Just
go
. You can turn back at any time. So off I went. Past second hand shops, appliance stores, coin shops, comic book stores, bars, gas stations, Chinese restaurants, coffee shops, auto repair shops, mattress stores. A standard, wide-ranging main drag that looked like countless others in cities across the country.
At the bottom of the hill Division continued on as a one-way street. East, Ruby Street hurtled around a bend to merge with Division. They combined again south, just this side of the river. The sky grew brighter to my left as I walked on. The street itself was largely vacant of cars - those that were in view had been used to ram businesses and were often scorched shells. The detritus of civilization littered the ground as if left by a flood. Cups, bags, boxes and cans were mired in a light layer of muck built up in the gutters and spread across the road in an uneven coating. This was true of most streets, but down here it looked like a lot had washed down the hill to collect against buildings and under the wrecked cars. An Army Surplus store looked astonishingly empty, as well as a hardware/sporting goods store and of course a gun shop.
A withered old corpse came limping out of a coffee shop, white hair framing its face, and for a moment I couldn't tell if it had been a man or woman until I saw the beard tangled with clots of dried blood. His right arm was out, shaking, and you would have sworn he was beseeching for alms. I detoured to take him out, and went on my way.
I saw my first group of the dead just past Indiana. They seemed to cluster around a central object in the middle of the street. Individuals would close in, seem to lose interest and forget why they were there, and then wander off. I wondered if this was why I had seen so little of them so far – something was drawing them in. And here I had been thinking my little trip might be easier than I thought it would be. I paused at the corner of a furniture store, after checking the alley for dead. It was still clear back the way I had come and in the parking lot across the street, so I felt safe enough to retrieve my binoculars and see what the attraction was. As I focused in, I couldn't figure out what I was seeing.
The shifting dead didn't help as they passed in and out of my field of view. I could see a red rectangle that was a base, and a red pole poked up from it with a red box on top. Something else stood on the base, and seemed formless and rust-colored. An aimless jerking and flapping confused me - and then it all snapped into clarity in my mind as to what it was, and I flinched. It was one of those coin-operated rides all kids badger their parents into letting them climb aboard and get shaken silly for a minute. This one was an elephant with a saddle, with room for one or two kids. It had been pale once, but streaks of dried blood had congealed on it to give the rusty patina it now sported. I was looking at its hind end to be sure, but those of us who had lived in this area for years and years knew the ride well. It had sat out in front of a surplus store, and I doubted few kids hadn't had their butts planted in it at least once. But something was moving on it, twisting and heaving and then lying still. For the life of me, I couldn't get a sense of what it was – just a dark shape, with a smaller one bobbing above it from time to time.
I looked down the alley, and ran behind the furniture store and another group of buildings and cut south across Indiana, through an empty lot to the back corner of a tavern. I had seen several of the dead a quarter mile west on Indiana, but they didn't concern me yet. I focused the binoculars again and saw that somebody had been lashed to the elephant ride with chains.
Whoever had done that had taken pains to protect the head and torso – it looked like a black leather gimp-suit had been cut up to only cover the head, neck and chest. The rest of the body had been left uncovered. Mutilated arms hung from the jagged and gaping shoulders of the suit, mostly bare bones – the poor bastard had been there a long time. The abdomen had chains draped loosely across it, but I imagined they had been taut at one time. The left leg was detached from the hip, but its ankle was still chained to the machine. The head of the figure jerked up and strained to stay there, wobbling and shaking with the effort, then twisted and lay back. The arms shook and rattled with the motion. Someone had chained this poor bastard up and made sure he would live long enough to throughly experience the horror of being eaten alive. I could only speculate darkly as to the why of it. Retribution? Execution?
Amusement?
My brain tried to wrap itself around the idea, and had a hard time accepting such unmitigated cruelty.
Really?
I asked myself.
After all you've seen, you still find something like this so unbelievable?
And I decided the answer was yes. The bar had now been reset.