When the Dead (14 page)

The Boat
House was full of what Ben thought of as “fancy food”. He couldn’t believe the
delicious things he found like sardines, caviar and oysters, all the wine (of
which they only took one bottle), crackers, tuna and cheese that hadn’t been
covered in mold yet. He felt greedy in the Boat House and he found ways to
stuff more into his backpack and the pockets of his cargo pants. He also took a
few books from the library including Walden by Thoreau and The Road by Cormack
McCarthy. It didn’t make a dent in the collection. The previous residents must
have owned around four hundred books. Ben didn’t think it made much sense why
the owners of the house chose this area or this neighborhood to reside. Their
tastes and income level were above those around them. But the spoils in his
pockets made him happy they had settled there.

Molly was uncomfortable in the Boat House. The stuffy décor, the unused
formal living room, and the expensive china, it all reminded her of her
parents. They were a well-off and selfish couple with no time or money for her,
even when she was very young. They lived across Lake Washington in Bellevue, an
affluent city. She wondered briefly if they might be alive but she knew they
couldn’t cook for themselves and they would die if the water stopped running.

Molly, Ben and Vaughn spent only a short time in the house as most of
what they found lacked any nutrition. Vaughn led them back outside to the boat
that was parked in the driveway.

“There are more valuable supplies in there. Molly, I want you to climb up
and grab the first aid kid, the flare gun, and all the food you can find. Ben
and I will stay down here and keep guard.” Molly hesitantly did as Vaughn asked.
He stared at her ass as she climbed the side of the boat.

Inside and alone for a minute, Molly sat down and did nothing. It was a
lovely feeling to be alone. No mother and child to watch, no others to answer
to. She felt tired from the long walk and lack of food in her stomach. Mostly
she felt drained from putting up with Vaughn’s company. She dug around in the
cabinets of the boat and found a huge stash of food.

“They think a tiny girl like me can move around this much and not eat a
thing?” she said to the darkness of the inside of the boat. She looked at the
cans of food and carefully selected three to eat. They all had pop top lids
which made it quick for her. Three cans turned into five, which turned into
eight. Finally she had to stop herself because she knew Ben and Vaughn would
grow suspicious of the time it was taking her. She found a flashlight and the
first aid kit and flare gun that Vaughn asked for. She loaded some food into a
sack she found on the floor and climbed back into the daylight.

“Sorry it took so long. There had to be like, fifty cabinets to look
through.” She smiled and hoped she didn’t have any food stuck in her teeth.

The yard
of FedEx was pleasantly manicured and a wind chime played a calming song with
the help of a gentle breeze that was swirling around the cul-de-sac. Vaughn
walked by the abandoned FedEx truck at the house’s curb and made a muttered
alteration to an old motto:

“Come rain, snow, sleet, shine, or zombie Armageddon . . .” He chuckled to
himself.

“Don’t you think we should look inside here?” Ben said as he slapped the
side of the giant brown vehicle.

“Haven’t you seen the movie
Castaway
? No one ever mails useful
stuff,” Molly said.

“We can take a peek I guess and a break more importantly. Climb in
everyone.” Vaughn walked back to the rear door of the truck and opened it.
Molly feared that the missing delivery man would be inside but the back was
half full with undelivered packages and space for them to sit.

            Inside,
they closed the door and rested their feet. Molly didn’t have any more room for
food but she politely accepted a small can of fruit. Ben opened a bottle of
water and took out one of his novels to browse. Vaughn produced a can of beer
from somewhere and started opening packages with a pocketknife, stopping every
so often to drink.

            “We
could use these!” Vaughn exclaimed after sorting through nearly fifteen useless
mail items. Ben looked up from his novel to see what had excited Tom so much.

            “Walkie-talkies?
We don’t go anywhere and they make too much noise.” Ben was disappointed that
it wasn’t something better.

            “Come
on. Didn’t you want some as a kid? These were supposed to be for someone named
Brian on his 10
^th
birthday, according to the card.” Vaughn chucked
the card to the opposite corner, turned both the walkies on and tossed one to
Ben. “Happy Birthday Brian!” Vaughn yelled happily into the walkie mic and it
came out loudly in the speaker of Ben’s.
Thump.

            The
three of them jumped. Something had hit the side of the FedEx vehicle. Ben held
a finger up to his lips. “Shhh,” he said. He clicked off the walkie-talkie.
Vaughn did the same. The back of the vehicle was windowless making it difficult
to determine what or who was on the other side of the thin brown metal. Vaughn
pointed to the cab of the truck and made his way slowly forward until he had a
view of the side mirrors. A single zombie was hanging out by the truck, drawn
by the noise from inside their rest area.

            “I’m
going to make some noise on the back right corner of the truck and you guys can
exit through the driver’s side door. Run straight to the house, the door is
unlocked,” Vaughn directed them.

            Molly
climbed to the cab first and waited until she saw the zombie disappear behind
the corner of the truck in its pursuit of the source of the noise.

            “Go!”
Ben whispered from behind her but she sat frozen.

            “How
can I run outside when one of those things is so close? We should stay put.”

            “This
place is hardly safe. Go or I’ll climb over you,”

Ben said
seriously.

            “We
could drive this thing away and just go back home.” Molly had placed her hands
on the wheel.

            “There
aren’t any keys Molly.” He pointed to the empty ignition.

            Molly
looked to see that Ben was right. It made her want to cry. She felt sick and
wanted to vomit. The weight of the food in her body was really what was
bothering her. There would be a bathroom inside the house if she could just get
out of the truck. Ben gave her no more time but instead of climbing over her he
pushed her out of the door. She tripped when she hit the pavement of the
driveway and scraped her knee. Ben was right behind her to pick her up and
hustle her to the door.

            The
door was unlocked as Vaughn had promised. Ben opened it and they flew inside.
He slammed the door closed; not thinking of what trouble the noise could bring
them. Molly collapsed in the living room. The carpet she fell on was bright
white and it smelled wonderful like it had just been cleaned. The smell of her
body, how dirty she had become in the days that had passed since the trouble
had started, wafted up to her nose. It made her cringe. Her scraped knee bled
lightly onto the pristine expanse of white beneath her.

           
Ben, in auto mode, cautiously took a
look around. Anyone or anything could be in this house if the door was left
unlocked. Vaughn had said that the zombies didn’t turn doorknobs but Ben could
think of several worse things that could. A long, straight hall ran in front of
him to the back of the house and the back door; it was open.

            “I’m
gonna . . . barrrragghhh.” Molly vomited on the immaculate floor. “Where the
fuck is Vaughn?”

Her chin was covered with her undigested meal and her heart, racing. She
was done with politeness. Ben turned back to the front of the house and dared
to look through the curtains of the living room window.

            “I
don’t see him anywhere. The door of the truck is open like we left it,” Ben
said.

            “Someone’s
making noise in the kitchen. Do you hear it?” Molly said quickly, worried that
she would barf again.

            “Maybe
he came in the back. I’ll go check it out. Wipe off your face.” Ben pointed to
some decorative pillows on the couch behind her. Molly picked what she thought
was the ugliest one and cleaned her face off on it. She put the pillow on top
of the mess she’d made. Before Ben could make it down the hall he saw that
someone was coming toward him from the back of the house.

A man, thirty-something and nude except for one dirty sock hanging
halfway off his left foot, came stumbling down the wood-floored hall. Ben saw a
single bite mark on the man’s left shoulder but no other trauma.

“It’s not Vaughn, Molly. We have company.”

“Who is it?” Molly asked as she stood up. The man emerged from behind the
wall and Molly screamed. He whipped his head toward her and jumped over the
loveseat between them. She put her bat at his neck but didn’t have the strength
to hold him away from her. “Help me! Ben!” Stepping backward, she lost her
footing on the pillow she’d left on the floor. Ben couldn’t shoot the dead man
without hitting Molly. He had to wait for the right moment. As she lost her
balance, Ben got one clean shot in the man’s head.

Molly broke down where she landed. “Is there blood on me, anywhere? Do
you think it got in my mouth?” Her face was covered in tears but miraculously,
no blood.

            “Calm
down Molly, you are fine. This carpet is really done for though,” Ben joked.

            More
noise from the back of the house. Ben aimed his gun and walked part way down
the hall.

            “Get
that shit out of my face,” Vaughn said, his mouth stuffed with food.

            “Where
have you been? You left us on our own and Molly was almost bitten. Are you
eating? How long have you been in the kitchen?”

            “Whoa
there. One question at a time,” was all Vaughn said in reply.

            “Ok.
Have you been in the kitchen this entire time?”

            “Yes.”

            “And
why didn’t you come help us?”

            “Field
test. I wanted to see if you learned anything.”

           
Vaughn walked up to the corpse and
kicked it with his booted foot to make sure it was dead.

            “Nice
shot Ben. You passed.”

            “Passed
what?” Molly asked, unsure of what Vaughn was talking about.

            “Nothing,
Molly,” Ben said. “Vaughn, have you searched the kitchen? Anything good?”

            “A
few things. I’ve already put them in my pack.”

            “Let’s
go then.” Ben suggested.

            “Hold
on. I want to look at his movie collection.”

            By
movie collection Vaughn meant porn. The owner of the house was single and an
avid collector like Vaughn. He dug through a pile in a box near the television,
selected a few titles, and led the way out the front door. The driveway was
clear of any undead. Molly could see the lifeless body of the zombie they had
run from lying on the cement near the FedEx truck, his skull broken in.

The
world was full of all kinds of people.

            “Be
careful in this house.” That was all Vaughn had to say about Gnome City, named
so due to what Molly counted to be no less than fifty garden gnomes hiding in
the overgrown front yard. He could have said a lot more but he knew that they
would have to see to believe.

            Molly
didn’t want to vomit for a third time but the inside of the house could easily
qualify as an inducer. A hoarder lived there; a woman from what Molly could
tell based on the collections. Dust covered dolls and photographs lined shelves
on the walls and peeked out of stacked boxes. The air was thick with the stench
of old cigarettes and cat urine and the small bits of wall that were visible,
once white, were a dingy yellow color.

            “How
many cats are in here?” Ben asked with amazement and disgust in his voice. He’d
stepped over or around five just inside the crowded entryway.

            “I
think the question is ‘how many fleas are in here?’” Vaughn said.

            Ben
bent down and tucked his pants into his socks. Molly wasn’t going to do the
same until she actually saw a cat covered in hopping fleas. Her body started to
itch, she tucked in her pants. The cats meowed incessantly at their feet and as
they jumped from pile to pile.

            “They
must be hungry,” Molly said sadly.

            “I
don’t think there‘s any cat food in here. We could let them outside,” Ben
suggested.

            “They’ll
die. The zombies can catch them and it is starting to get cold out there,”
Molly said.

            “They
will have a better chance of finding food if they are free and the heat doesn’t
work in here anyway.”

            “How
about we give them the option and let them decide for their little cat selves?”
Vaughn interjected. “After we do what we came in here to do. Follow me into the
kitchen.”

They slowly made their way in but both Ben and Molly looked confused as
to why the kitchen was any more promising than the rest of the house. Mold grew
on plates of abandoned food stacked on the dining table. Old magazines and junk
mail dated three years ago littered the floor. Cat feces covered everything.
Even though they’d already been breathing the vile air, the state of the
kitchen encouraged the donning of their dust masks.

            “Why’d
we come in here? This place is disgusting.” Molly tried her best to enunciate
through the thick mask. “You should have put an X on this house.”

“Look in the pantry,” Vaughn explained, pointing to a wooden door set in
one of the walls, “this lady collected food too.”

Ben walked to the door but from the outside it looked like a closet not a
pantry. He opened it after much negotiating with the piles of garbage on the
floor that blocked its outward swing.

“Wow! The plastic bins are going to be full!” he yelled through his own
mask. A room ten feet deep and eight feet high and full of shelves was revealed
to him. The shelves were chock full of canned and dried food. He set to
grabbing all he set his eyes upon but Vaughn grabbed his shoulder.

“We can’t take most of it. You’ve got to take the time to read the
expiration dates. Some of the cans date back to the nineties. If you can’t find
a date or if the can is damaged leave it, or it might kill you or someone else.”

            “Was
she hoarding for Y2K?” Molly joked as she found a can with an expiration date
of just after the non-event.

            “Or
a zombie apocalypse?” Ben added.

            “I’m
guessing something religious. You should see her bedroom.” Vaughn said.

            “Where
is she?” Molly asked.

            Vaughn
led them to the woman’s bedroom. The walls were tinged with the same dirty
yellow from tobacco smoke but they were covered with pictures of Jesus. Molly
even spotted a black Jesus and a female version of the savior. In the middle of
the room was a bed with a cat-covered corpse on it.

 “Oh my god, if she had all that food why didn’t she survive?” Molly
asked.

“She starved to death in her bedroom, clutching some meaningless piece of
newspaper and sitting in her own filth. I found her sitting there and she
didn’t even get up to try and bite me. The most pitiful thing I’ve ever seen.
She wasn’t even good at being a zombie. I shot her just in case she might
decide to get up.” Vaughn explained.

“It seems like such a waste that she kept all that food only to starve a
room away.” Molly reflected on the woman’s obsessive life.

“No waste.
We’re
going to eat it. She helped us!” Ben side
brightly.

“Thank you hoarding cat lady,” Vaughn said as he bowed to the dead woman.

            They
returned to the kitchen and went to the task of carefully sorting the food into
an edible and un-edible pile. They packed the plastic bins full and stacked
them neatly on the hand truck. As they left Gnome City they left the front door
open for the cats. Some followed them as they walked to the center of the cul-de-sac;
others stayed behind, pulling deeper into the hoarded house, preferring the
chaos of home to that of the outside world.

“We’ll have to come back,” Vaughn said as he looked at the sky. “We don’t
have enough daylight or any more room to carry back food from the other two
houses. But we did well.”