Back in
her apartment, Molly fixed herself breakfast. She grudgingly saved some for
Hayden, whom she’d lost a bit of respect for. She busied herself with an old
magazine while she waited for Hayden to rise from the dead.
Hayden
awoke and went straight to the bathroom. To Molly it sounded as though she
brushed her teeth at least three times. When Hayden came into the living room
she was holding her head and walking slowly.
“Uuugh.
Is this what a hangover feels like?” Hayden asked as she fell onto the couch.
“Never
been drunk before?”
“I
have but I’ve never had a hangover. Tom gave me something strong.” Hayden
leaned forward and laid her head in her lap, relishing the coolness of her
legs.
“Probably
some kind of whiskey. It’s his best friend.”
“Oh,
do you know him well?” Hayden asked; interested in learning more about the man
she’d given all of herself to.
“No!”
Molly scoffed. “I was making a joke about his familiarity with alcohol. Why did
you go up there after I warned you about him?”
“Why
not? He seems like an ok guy to me.”
“You
don’t know him. He’s a creep.”
“I
thought you said you didn’t know him well,” Hayden countered with a snide smile.
“I
know him enough to know that he’ll fuck anything with a girl’s name if he gets
the opportunity.”
“He
saved my life. I owe him something in return.”
“What
the
fuck
do you mean by that?” Molly was confused and pissed that there
was something more going on that she was unaware of.
Hayden
started to pick up some of her things. She looked for her makeup bag, which she
had managed to grab and keep with her the entire time she’d been outside.
“I
mean if it wasn’t for his kindness in telling me about this place I would still
be hiding in a cold room without food or weapons, wondering if each day I woke
up was going to be the day that I’d die.”
“He
brought you here?” Molly was baffled. “Where’d you meet him?”
Instead
of answering, Hayden opened the small, zippered pouch that held her cosmetics. From
it she pulled the scribbled note from Vaughn and handed it to Molly. She read
the short note twice, attempting to find some hidden message between the lines.
“He is up to something. The Vaughn I know would have assaulted you in
that room and left you to cry yourself to sleep. The bastard brought you here
so he could use you. Don’t you see that?”
“Maybe
I choose not to see it,” Hayden shrugged.
“You’ve
been here
one
day and he’s already in your pants. That is hard to
ignore.”
“I’m
not stupid if that’s what you think and I don’t like him. He says he’ll get me
anything I want from the outside. We have an agreement.”
“What
out
there
could possibly be worth a minute with that man?” Molly was
still having trouble comprehending what she was hearing from the scrawny
teenager.
“Soda, makeup, chocolate, magazines. Other things that you guys don’t
have and probably wouldn’t get if I asked for them.”
“Those things aren’t necessities, Hayden. If you haven’t noticed we are
trying to survive here! That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the fancy stuff.”
“I’m sixteen. My needs are different than yours.”
“Just don’t come to me when you find out that all that matters to Vaughn
are needs
of his own.”
Isobel
went upstairs to see Vaughn the next day. She wasn’t going to bring up the
topic of Hayden, as she knew that Molly wanted her to. She was there to ask
Vaughn a favor. The building was starting to feel claustrophobic. As each day
came to a close it felt as though the walls too were closing in tighter and
tighter. Vaughn answered his door after one knock.
Maybe he thinks I’m
Hayden,
Isobel thought.
Horny bastard.
“Hey,
Iz!” Vaughn smiled. Isobel was the one woman in the complex, other than Moira,
that Vaughn never thought about screwing. Because of that, it was much easier
for him to talk to her normally, without distraction. He wasn’t sure why he
didn’t want to dominate her. She seemed to him to be one of the guys; a
dominator herself.
“Hi.
Are you going out today?” she asked as she walked into his apartment. It
smelled like a perfume Hayden had brought in with her.
“Yes
I am but not until a bit later in the day. Wanna come?” He wouldn’t mind her
company out there. She wasn’t going to whine like Molly and it didn’t hurt to
look at her, like Ben.
“I
do. I need to get away for a bit. I need to feel alive.”
The day
was crisp and clear. A perfect fall day and its afternoon promised more of that
perfection. Isobel hadn’t given Ben much time alone. He was happy for that. He
was able to keep his head from thoughts of Anna. With Isobel making plans with
Vaughn he looked for distraction elsewhere. He picked up his acoustic guitar;
something that had been spared any blood or brains in his apartment. Today was
the first day he strummed its strings and the gentle hum of them overwhelmed
him with emotion. He wasn’t good at playing anything. He knew a handful of
notes, mostly the more sorrowful sounding ones, all of the minors. He closed
his eyes and built an image of Anna on the back of his eyelids. He tried to
remember her smiling. She could always hear a wrongly played note but she
always encouraged him to try again. His goal had been to learn at least one
song and play it all the way through for her. “Something I can dance to,” was
her request.
He
imagined that moment; saw her legs moving to a gentle melody produced by his
fingers and hard work. He smiled until a wound appeared on her leg that he
couldn’t imagine away.
Ben
stood up and smashed the guitar down on the coffee table. The wood body cracked
and splintered. He brought it down again. The neck split. He wanted to see her
and hold her again. He felt that he had two choices.
1.
Remove the tape of his apartment and bathroom doors. See Anna. Remind
him that she was unreachable, untouchable.
2.
Pick up his handgun, pull the trigger and hold her again.
He
picked up the gun but it didn’t feel right to him so he set it back down and
walked out of the apartment door. He would mourn her properly, at her side.
“I
liked the strumming but that bit at the end, with all the banging, you need to
work on that part,” Edward laughed. He had entered the hallway at the same time
as Ben. He could see the pain on Ben’s face. He put a hand on Ben’s shoulder.
“Something’s bothering you. Do you want to talk?”
Ben
nodded his head and broke down again.
“Come
in and sit with me for awhile,” Edward gestured into 206.
“You
know she hated me when we first met? It took me three weeks to convince her I
was worth talking to,” Edward told Ben between drags from his pipe. Moira was
sitting in the living room with them but politely minding a crossword puzzle.
“I
can’t believe that,” Ben looked at Moira and caught the tail end of a smile.
“You guys are perfect for each other. Anna and I talked about this all the
time, you know, growing old together.”
“I
know you are missing her,” Edward pointed at Ben with the end of his pipe. “You
carry it around with you and every day without her, it grows heavier on your
soul.”
“What
would you do if something happened to Moira?” Ben asked. “Sorry Moira.” He
quickly followed.
“That
is an important question,” Moira looked up at them. “One I would love to know
the answer to. Edward?”
“It
would pain me, of course. She is a part of me. But we all have to keep living
on as long as we can. Fight for our own survival. That is what the ones we love
who have passed on would want, right? You’d want me to keep living, Moira,
wouldn’t you?”
“I
would. Besides, I think you’d sooner live without me than you would that pipe
of yours. Best to stay alive until you at least run out of tobacco,” Moira
laughed.
“Bahhh.
Can’t get a serious answer out of her, ever!”
Ben
stayed for hours, delighting in the company of the Cabels. They were right. The
best he could do to mourn Anna’s loss was to live.
Gabe couldn’t stop looking out the window. His toys lay
abandoned on the living room carpet, his half-consumed lunch sat on the table.
The dead were getting grosser and he was fascinated.
“What is that?” Gabe asked his dad.
“What are you looking at now?” Rob said as he
pulled himself up off of their overused couch. He joined his son at the window.
The glass was grimy and covered in small handprints. “You’re going to start
cleaning the window, dude.”
“Look at that guy! He is super icky! All his skin
is gone,” Gabe pointed at a bloody corpse that kept walking into things, trees
and such. He’d rubbed his own skin off.
Rob’s heart sank at the interest in his son’s
voice. Gabe had always liked worms and dirt. He was a boy after all. But now it
sounded like Gabe was developing morbid fascinations. “Do you want to do
something else, sport? Maybe we could go on the roof and toss the football or
something?”
“Yeah! Let’s go to the roof. I can see more from
there!” His son jumped away from the window to grab a jacket.
“Don’t you have a date with Vaughn or something?” Molly
asked Hayden. The teen had been getting in her hair all morning; hanging around
the shared apartment and singing loudly to pass time.
“He’s going out and he doesn’t want me to come,”
Hayden said with as much pout in her voice as a five year old whining over an
unshared toy. “He’s taking Isobel. I don’t know why he’d want to hang out with
her. The way she acts, she’s practically a dude.”
“That
is probably why. There is a point when men get sick of women, you know.”
“Vaughn
will never get sick of this,” Hayden ran her hands down her body.
“Gross.
Don’t talk like that in front of me. What you do with him, I don’t want to hear
about.”
“Yes,
ma’am!” Hayden saluted Molly. “But don’t you ever want to be adored?”
“He’s
too busy with his son,” Molly regretted divulging her continued interest in Rob
to Hayden as soon as it had come out of her mouth.
“Ooooh,
you like that Rob guy? I guess he’s ok. He looks like my dad. Do you want me to
say something to him? I could.”
“No,
don’t say a damn thing!” Molly’s cheeks flushed red from embarrassment and
anger. “He’s made his decision.”
“You
have to
look
like you want a man. You look like you want a cave to curl
up and die in.”
“I’m
not going to advertise. I’m not a flirt like you.”
“You
really do have issues, Molly.”
“And
you don’t? I’m trying really hard not to judge you for your choice in men.”
“What
did he do to you?” Hayden asked bluntly.
Molly
was surprised that the teen was smart enough to catch on to the personal
element in Molly’s rants regarding Vaughn.
“I’m
not going to talk about it, especially with you. Just don’t piss him off, ok?
You’ll get hurt.”
Isobel
used to enjoy taking walks outside, down the block, to the mall. But she hadn’t
been out since the first day. On this particular outing Vaughn was going to the
mall to look for a new pair of boots and anything else that might strike his
fancy. Hayden had given him a list of requests too since he’d forbidden her to
accompany him. He and Isobel left two hours before the sun was to go down.
“We are going across the freeway. Less dead up there and it’ll give us a
good vantage point to scope out the mall.” Vaughn explained as they climbed
down the ladder of the fire escape.
Isobel was happy to be outside but fearful of what could happen to her. There
was no barricade to hide behind, no second floor safe zone to protect her from
the undead. She carried a handgun in a holster and a metal bat. Vaughn had two
different guns and several more weapons hidden under his clothes. Isobel, who was
unfamiliar with most weapons, couldn’t tell what kind they were but, she knew
they would do major damage to anything so unlucky to be in front of the firing
end. Vaughn was wearing a backpack as he usually did when he went out. Isobel
had a backpack too. She might find something she liked and she was planning on
getting books for the others.
It was only one block east to the freeway from Willow Brook. They crossed
the street in front of the building and made their way through the parking lot
of a large office complex. Zombies filled the lot, shuffling between abandoned
vehicles, leaving rotting bits of body smeared on windows and doors. Some of
them walked noisily which allowed Isobel and Vaughn to keep track of them. Some
were amazingly stealth on their feet allowing them to get close without
warning.
Isobel was whipping her head back and forth so much she thought she’d end
up with a pulled muscle. “We should tie bells to them. Shit. They are like
ghosts.”
“You need to calm down a bit lady,” Vaughn could see her fear. “Why’d you
come out here in the first place? Your heart is going to jump out of that chest
of yours.”
“I told you why,” Isobel self-consciously put a hand over her breasts
since Vaughn had taken his comment as an opportunity to stare at her there. She
was still a woman after all. They made it to a stand of trees on the edge of
the lot where they took a moment to catch their breath.
Isobel felt almost invisible to them here and she wanted to stay for
awhile. “There are so many,” she said, “I can’t believe how many. It looks like
most people didn’t fare very well. Everyone is dead.”
“Yeah but we aren’t. That’s what matters. ‘Sides, they don’t know they
are dead,” Vaughn pointed out as he motioned her to start moving once again. She
followed him over a chain link fence, through a grassy area and up an equally
grass-covered embankment that bordered the freeway. She felt winded from the mini
obstacle course but found strength to climb over the guardrail and continue on.
“Whoa. Straight out of a horror movie.”
Isobel had seen the freeway from Willow Brook before but seeing it up
close was another experience altogether. The commuting traffic was still there
from the day the plague hit Northgate but the cars weren’t moving nor were the
people. Many of them had died in the backup; their cars left to idle until the
fuel ran out; their bodies still in the cars or nearby, some starved to death,
some eaten. Doors were open here and there; leaving Isobel to believe that some
tried to make it out of the mess on foot. She looked south down the freeway and
saw a few burned out cars and more of the dead. Someone had hung a hand-painted
banner from an overpass. Its large red letters read “No Escape”.
“It’s true,” Vaughn said, reading the sign for himself. “This was the
last traffic jam of their lives; one they would never see let up.”
Isobel shuddered and continued to survey the scene.
“You are thinking too much about it. Try being more of a casual observer,”
Vaughn suggested.
“Casual?” Isobel pointed up the lanes. “There is a dead cop on the
freeway near his wrecked patrol car. A gun is still in his holster. He didn’t
have time to pull it out! How can I be casual about this when I know for sure
now that no one is coming for us?”
“You still thought someone might come? We have to look out for ourselves,
Iz. That is how I’ve always lived anyway. Officer what’s-his-name isn’t even
going to come back from the dead; they ate so much of him. So pay attention only
to where your feet are taking you! Stop thinking and start doing.”
“Yes
drill sergeant,” Isobel said mockingly but, she knew he was right. She’d end up
like Juan or Katie if she thought too much longer on the state of things.
Vaughn had started to hop over hoods of cars making his trip across all eight
or more lanes a quick one. Isobel chose to walk between the cars bumpers;
trying the whole time not to think about her ankles being grabbed from under
the vehicles. She avoided the vans and trucks too because she couldn’t see
behind them. Vaughn was waiting on the embankment on the other side, a
cigarette glowing between his lips.
“There
she is.” He swept his arm in front of him, a grand gesture for something as
mundane as a mall. It was beautiful though, when Isobel made out the nearly
empty lot in the evening light. “Everyone fled the city center, or tried to,
the day it reached us. That’s why the freeway looks like that; too many people
all at once trying to leave.”
“This
is going to be easier than I thought,” Isobel smiled. “There are only about ten
cars in the entire lot.”
“We
can see them better too, if they start coming for us.” Vaughn tossed his
cigarette onto a bare patch of freeway pavement and pulled a tattered brochure
out of his back pocket. It was a mall map.
“We don’t need that,” Isobel laughed, “I know exactly where the shoe
store is. It’s just on the other side.”
He tossed it to a gentle wind that had picked up and laughed too. “I
should know where it is, I’ve been wandering around out here for weeks now. Guess
I wasn’t paying much attention though. Lead the way.”
Isobel took a deep breath and stepped carefully down the embankment. She
liked having someone behind her to keep her safe but she had a horrible feeling
that Vaughn would sacrifice her life in order to keep his own if the need
arose.