If you’re reading this and the world we knew is still gone, I applaud you for being strong enough to press forward and live. If you’re reading this and the world’s returned to how it used to be…
Well, I guess I gave up too early.
The note was signed by
Kate
in sprawling, feminine handwriting. I felt an odd sense of intimacy reading this woman’s last words. I set the paper back where I found it and looked at Kate. There was a dark hole coming from the top of her head. I recreated how the scene might have played out.
While Kate ran the water, she retrieved her husband’s Colt from wherever it rested and brought it into the bathroom. She undressed and slid into the hot water, enjoying it one last time before chambering a round and putting the gun to her chin. She pulled the trigger and her brains exploded onto the tile behind her. Her death was instant, and ensured she wouldn’t come back as a Z.
Her humanitarianism gave context to her note. She cared while she was living. A lot. Even in death her note would help people understand why she did it. What happened to her—it was almost too practical.
She looked like she died months and months ago. There were waterlines on the tub that showed the slow progression of liquid evaporating. The parts above water were papery and gray, almost mummified.
Kate could’ve pressed on but she didn’t. She didn’t have anything to live for.
I
didn’t have anything to live for, not really, when the apocalypse started. Why didn’t I off myself?
This woman probably had friends or family. She had to have someone to live for, to try and find or save. But she decided there wasn’t anything worth fighting for.
I never thought of suicide when the world got loud, or after it got quiet when everyone was dead or truly dead. Besides my sister, I didn’t have any remaining family, or friends. I wasn’t a humanitarian and never contributed to society. If anyone had reason to kill themselves, it was me.
It wasn’t worth any more thought. She was dead, I wasn’t. Kate must’ve had a darkness in her that allowed her to pull the trigger. I simply didn’t.
“Are you finished in here?”
I almost dropped the flashlight. During my contemplation, I forgot Beau even existed. He had been standing outside the doorframe and now leaned in, looking at me expectantly.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “This place looks good. Let’s eat and get some rest.”
He found a can opener in the kitchen and we ate cold chicken noodle soup for dinner. It tasted gluey and slushy, but it did the trick. We found a bag of cat food under the sink and a case of unopened bottled water in the pantry. The water was so cold it hurt my throat, but it felt good to get some hydration down.
After the glimpse I had into Kate’s personal life, I felt uncomfortable sleeping in her bed. I opted to take the couch when we finished eating. Beau shrugged and walked off to the room, shutting the door behind him. The lock clicked.
I took Pickle out of my coat and set her on the couch with her space blanket. She felt weak and limp in my hands, but she still breathed. I reached into the cat food bag and set a handful in front of her. She didn’t move or even look at it. Was it my imagination or did I hear her sigh?
“What’s up?” I asked her as I took a glove off and pet her back, each vertebrae painfully obvious, pushing against her skin. “What’s wrong?”
Part of me wanted to scream, but the logical side reminded me this would happen sooner or later. How could I expect a ferret to live through an apocalypse?
Pickle raised her head, just a little, and looked at me. She was taking a long walk off a short pier. She was getting ready to push daisies. Check out. My ferret was looking at me in a way that said, “This isn’t your fault, but the time has come.”
At least that is what I wanted to think.
I haven’t sobbed many times in my life. The times I have were short and for good reason. I didn’t cry, but when I did it was induced by the most traumatic events in my life. This was the best time to sob, but I couldn’t. I could barely move or think. Because right then is when Pickle closed her eyes and died.
The sense of loss and grief I felt was more profound than when Frank died, when Gabe ran away, or when Blaze disappeared, even put together. It penetrated me to my core and made my stomach tie into a thousand knots.
Her frame quivered, starting from the tip of her head, running down her tail, then released. She was nothing more than a limp ball of flesh. Whatever spark she had disappeared into the universe.
I wrapped her in her space blanket, squinting my eyes as hot tears trailed down my cold skin. I took her into the kitchen, where I placed her on the counter. I’d try to break the frozen ground tomorrow, or burn her body if I couldn’t. But for now all I could do was turn, leaving my companion behind.
* * *
“You think it isn’t your fault? It was your fault you left me.”
Blackness surrounded me, but Blaze was illuminated by some unknown source of light. She held Pickle, limp and dead, in one hand. She looked dead, too, with washed out skin and milky white eyes.
“It’s your fault your beloved pet is dead.”
Gore oozed from her grinning mouth. Pickle was gone, and suddenly Blaze was right in my face. I smelled rot. I felt scared, more scared than I had been in a while.
“Everything is your fault. You’re not going to find me. I’m dead.”
Her clawed hands closed around my throat. I tried to scream but couldn’t. My body was paralyzed.
Then white light surrounded me. I heard a rumbling sound from afar. Blaze shut her mouth and faded away into blackness.
* * *
There
was
white light in the living room. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep. It could’ve been a day or five minutes. I was still shaken from Pickle’s death, and the dreams of Blaze always disoriented me.
The light was coming from the windows. It took a second, but I put two and two together and realized there were cars passing the house. The rumbling I heard in my dream was coming from outside.
To my right, the bedroom door clinked open and Beau came out. He didn’t have to crouch or stay low as he approached. The curtains were heavy enough no one could see through, but the light from the cars still managed to filter in.
“It’s a convoy,” he said.
I stood up and slinked over to the window. Instead of pulling the curtains aside, I peeked through a small opening between the seams.
Some of the vehicles stopped on the road next to the house. They weren’t too close, but it seemed evident they were looking at the place. People stood in front of the cars, and I saw only their silhouettes. Which had guns.
I’d only seen that many well armed, organized crazies in Kevin’s company. My body tensed. I strained my eyes and tried to recognize any of the men. Specifically
him.
How could he survive the chaos we left him in?
“Let’s slip out the back,” Beau suggested as he glanced towards the sliding glass door.
“No, they aren’t coming closer. I think they’re just covering the other cars while they go by,” I said. “I don’t want to go into a pitch black forest buried under a foot of snow. We’ll get lost. If we give them a head start maybe we won’t run into them later. Let them get to wherever they’re going.”
Beau didn’t say anything. I kept watching and, after another five minutes, all the cars were gone. I counted a total of 20 vehicles including trucks, humvees, ATVs, and a few other military grade vehicles. That didn’t include the ones that passed before I kept track.
“Where do you think they’re going? Do you think they’re Kevin’s guys?”
I didn’t want to say it, but it slipped. “Yes. I fucking hope they aren’t, but who else would they be? That many trucks, that many guys?”
Kevin was alive and looking for me. I knew it. I felt it.
“We don’t know if they’re looking for us. Maybe they’re trying to find supplies. Slaves.”
I wondered if they
were
hauling slaves. Or meat, rather. It was vain to think every crazy in the state was looking for me. Their primary objective was to gather food, wreak havoc, and gather followers for Kevin.
20 or more cars. If those cars each contained at least two people, that was 40 people. Minimum. There had to be more, of course, but I couldn’t even imagine that many together at one time. Back in Startup was the last time I saw a congregation of more than ten. Even at Kevin’s camp there weren’t that many, nor at
Sports Authority
. This group was massive.
Time passed and we remained in the dark living room, waiting to make sure there were no more trucks. I thought of Pickle’s lifeless body in the kitchen and felt cold and sick. Defeated. Alone.
What if I’d joined a group like that? Hell, what if I said yes to Kevin? Would things be easier? Would Pickle still be alive? I’d have been able to take better care of her, because people would’ve been looking out for me.
I clenched my fists, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. In times of hardship, like when Frank died, it was easy to let negative emotions take control. They made you think things you wouldn’t normally consider. What I thought, even for those brief moments, showed how much I was losing it.
It took a few tries, but I made my mind go blank. I kept breathing slow and steady, regaining control. We separated to go back to sleep.
Chapter 14
When I woke up, I found myself staring at a pot of dead flowers. The fallen petals were dark and crispy. The branches were nothing more than twigs. It rested in the center of the coffee table, as forgotten and useless as I felt. Pink and green bunnies were printed across the pot with word bubbles coming from their mouths. ‘
Happy Easter!’
My eyes were crusty and swollen. Mouth was sticky, but my throat felt dry. It seemed like that was always how I woke up, feeling like I’d been through the ringer. Then again, I had been. This time the smell of food redeemed the otherwise unpleasant morning.
My head was throbbing and my legs were stiff from sleeping on a couch a tad too short for me.
Shuffling sounded from the kitchen. I pulled my boots onto sore feet and stretched as I stood.
Today we’ll make progress. We won’t get hung up by anything. Fuck, we might even get to the island.
I tried to be optimistic, hoping it would make a difference.
“Hey, I made...I don’t know. Chicken and beans, I guess.”
Beau stood in the garage entrance, holding a steaming plate of white meat with black beans scattered throughout. It didn’t look appetizing, but when I saw the steam coming off of it my mouth watered.
“The end of times won’t stop you from making hot food, huh?” I took the plate from him. The meat and beans held the metallic taste all expired canned foods had. But it was delicious, and I wolfed it down while I went to look through the front window.
“I was looking through the garage while you were sleeping. Found one of those camping stoves and felt like eating something other than half-frozen cafeteria food.”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “Thanks.”
I didn’t have a perfect view of the road, but I couldn’t see any tracks from last night. It wasn’t snowing anymore, though it must have fallen heavily overnight to cover the tire marks so well. The sky was perfectly blue, which explained why I was so cold. Clear days were always colder than cloudy ones.
The dead, white world outside sparkled in the sunlight. There were no sign of the undead or life of any kind. It was a nice day for a funeral.
“Pickle.” I coughed to clear the phlegm from my throat. “Pickle died last night. I wanted to burn her body. Ground is probably too cold to dig.”
Beau didn’t look sympathetic, but nodded curtly. “I found a lot of wood in the garage. Lighter fluid near the grill.”
We made two trips to carry logs outside. The ever resourceful Beau found a shovel in the garage and cleared away a circle of snow. Here, we doused the wood in lighter fluid. It took a little longer to find a lighter, but there was one in the kitchen, in the drawer right under the counter where Pickle lay.
I carried her body outside and set it on the top of the wood. She looked awkward and felt stiff. Just a lifeless, dead rodent. What made up her unique, resilient personality was gone. I wanted the whole thing to be over with, so I didn’t stop to dwell. I lit the bunched up paper Beau had used as kindling and watched as the structure burst into flames. I didn’t want to watch it happen, but I stood for five minutes until her body was consumed in fire. A part of me needed to know her remains were gone from the world.
Last night I experienced most of my grief, though this morning an emptiness in the pit of my stomach wouldn’t leave me alone. As we shouldered our packs and walked up the little hill to the main road, I couldn’t shake the loneliness away. I doubted I would for a very long time.
“She’s better off now, Cyrus.”
Beau’s voice held sincerity, but not enough to make me feel better. I knew she was better off, obviously.
“Let’s just focus on getting to the island, okay?”
We grew quiet as we trudged down a smooth expanse of white road. The emptiness inside me made room for another familiar feeling. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Something was up. I looked behind me, and my gut feeling was confirmed.
Multiple figures in pursuit. They were far off, a mile maybe, and no immediate threat. But they were coming. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they followed the convoy. If I had to bet, I’d say they came from Lake Stevens. The horde from the apartment buildings.
Beau walked past me a ways before he turned to see what was up. I gestured behind us.
“Great,” was all he said.
It was hard to trek through snow. The powdery ice caked onto our boots, but the exertion made me heat up, and my new gear kept me well insulated. The exercise took my mind off Pickle.
The zombies following us remained in sight. In fact, the line of them filling the horizon grew darker, as though more of them caught up.