End of the Line

Part 1 

Rachel

Chapter 1

Still alive.

My forehead glistened with sweat because last night felt like winter, but the morning brought early spring and I baked under a comforter and the soft wool blanket Maddie knitted. On cold nights, some of the others, but not me, huddled together for warmth. On very cold nights we locked ourselves in the office, sleeping on desks, cots and the floor while running the space heater one hour for every four. Last night we only needed blankets.

At least I saw the sun though the skylights and the cracks of the boarded up windows high above me. My wind-up travel clock said 5:57, 3 minutes before it was set to ring. I never needed it, but always kept it set. Every morning, I woke up at the right time. It was hard to sleep here. Jim and Maddie tried to make me go to bed no later than 9. They said I needed my wits to be leader.

I gathered my thoughts. All jumbled from constant adrenaline and despair. The first thought concerned the group of survivors outside who wanted to come in, to join our commune, our dictatorship, our fascist dictatorshi
p
, our shithole. We had been called all that. Today was my first time as leader making this life and death decision.

“Wakey, doc.” James Macintyre, who kept the place running, entered my room. Always chipper, always in a good mood, so easy going that you’d be willing to do anything for him.  The alarm went off. He shut it off quickly.

I’m not a doctor, but a nurse. I always got roles I was not qualified for. Every morning, even on days I didn’t decide people’s fates, I did rounds to make sure my group was okay.

“Good morning, Jim,” I said, getting up and out of bed. I wondered if I could bathe today. Was it warm enough? There should be enough water. It rained heavily a few days ago. Maddie left me her spicy rice and beans on my night table, a tan CostKing special, only $29.99. We tried to make the aisles look like rooms, but tall iron shelves filled with food gave it away that this was not a bedroom. My room, the condiment aisle with boxes used for privacy, gave me views of giant bottles of ketchup. Not that I had to worry about privacy. I noticed but never mentioned that I was surrounded by empty aisles on both sides.

Maddie must have gotten up early to make them, since it was warm. Usually, I ate dry cereal for breakfast. I guess she thought this would be a tough day. I sat for a moment and ate while I waited for Jim’s report. I took in Jim’s handsomeness, his milky skin, dirty blond hair and green eyes. Annemarie and Mindy had a game called Jim watching when it was his turn to shower. Jim didn’t look like a model but he and Jake were the best looking ones here.

“Seven people are waiting in the repair shop. Some of them have been waiting for weeks. We’ll be meeting them at 8am. Princess killed 11 overnight. Harlan killed 3 in the evening. The rooftop garden is near ready for planting. Rosa thinks it will be soon. Annemarie has a cold. I’ve asked Harlan to cover for her tonight but he’s not happy about it. He wants Princess to do half. Aisha wants to move into her own aisle.”

“Give Annemarie two days off.” A cold in this weather could turn deadly and if it did, I would have to decide if she could be saved. “I’ll talk with Aisha later.” Not that I planned to allow a 14 year girl to be alone.

Fourteen in one night wasn’t good, considering our average was about four a night. “Get someone to do sentry duty to relieve Harlan, but let him know he’s on standby for those hours. How many bullets did he waste?”

“He shot off six, but he missed three of them. The shots seemed to drive them off. Princess got all of hers and wasted only nine bullets.”  Nine bullets, eleven zombies, she got four for the price of two. Harlan wasted three bullets that we couldn’t afford.

I went to the basin, also on my night table which still had water from last night. I washed my face, using a scented soap that was supposed to smell like lavender. Jim said lavender would calm my nerves. It hadn’t.

I got dressed not caring if Jim saw me. He didn’t care either since he preferred the same gender. Most of the others were less modest than me. Annemarie, Mindy and Jake tended to occasionally parade around after showering in towels that didn’t always cover all. Aware of the “Watch Jim” game, Jim wore an oversized robe. Dave and Eli complained. My response to most stupid complaints was to show them to the door. I don’t give a crap if someone got an eye full.

Jim came to us with the skills of organization, scheduling, and everyone’s assistant. He cut everyone’s hair. None of us looked out of Vogue, but we didn’t look rats had won the war on our hair. He charmed the pants, not literally, off of our previous leader Abe. He had a kindness that the kept our spirits high and earned him the occasional nickname Sweet Jim, which I’m sure he doesn’t like.

Of all of us, Princess tolerated Jim and granted him permission to speak about things other than business. Just for that, I thought he earned his keep.

“Weather report?”

“Chilly, but warmer than yesterday, and clear. Barometer says no sign of rain.”

Rain could be good and bad. Bad in that it makes it damp and people can get sick, but we needed the rain to grow vegetables and have bathing water. The store had tons of bottled water, which was saved for drinking.

I dressed in jeans that hung loose. Despite that Jim and Maddie were always on me to eat, I continued to get thinner. I used to be the envy of other women because I ate what I wanted and never gained. My metabolism hasn’t slowed down in this brave new world.

I put on deodorant. Not that it helped when you could only bathe once or twice a week-- no bra, an Izod t-shirt and a sweat shirt over it.  I no longer cared that my small breasts were free. I put on jeans, sweat socks and tennis shoes.

Sixteen of us now, down from eighteen. We allowed no more than twenty to be part of this commune, this paradise, this dictatorship, this fascist dictatorship, this shithole. Abe came up with the number, not me. When I first joined, I’d be happy to let in any good person who needed shelter and was willing to help. Abe said that if we had to stay here a long time, more than twenty couldn’t be sustained. Not to mention the more people, the more they came. I didn’t know how long we needed to stay here. It was almost a year, with no sign of civilization returning.

No one knew the cause, but it was fast. A flu epidemic, worse than usual, but the media didn’t make it out that way at first. We were told to go to work if we were well, stay home if we were sick. I should have known it was bad when a Democratic congress and a Republican president swiftly passed a temporary bill that no one could be fired for taking sick time off for this flu.

I worked a private practice, a nurse in a high end OB/GYN office on the North Shore. I got paid well, as did my husband who ran his own security business. We made enough to buy a nice little three bedroom house in Commack where we lived quietly with our daughter. We were the perfect family, we worked, had dinner, sex two or three times a week, and both of us had affairs, me with a neighbor and him with one of his clients.

Many of the women who came to us were sick and worried what the flu would do to their babies. Half our staff was out with the flu, others were sniffling.

They came to us because the hospitals were worse, filled with the sick and dying, and this was a small private practice for rich women.
             

Mrs. Horestein had been seeing us throughout her pregnancy. She already had two beautiful daughters that I helped deliver. She was seven months along finally with a boy when she came in with a high fever. The doctor wanted to send her to the hospital for an emergency c-section but Mrs. Horestein instead had a convulsion and died. The EMTs thought they were successful in reviving her, even though the doctor tried. She came back, growling and spitting and bit one of the EMTs. The bite was superficial, but it broke the skin. Sedatives didn’t work, so they strapped Mrs. Horestein to the gurney. I never found out what happened to her or the EMT. Was she still walking around with a dead baby inside her or did someone manage to end her misery and shoot her?

A day later almost the entire practice got the flu. Unlike Mrs. Horestein, they never came back after they died.

As the epidemic grew, there were pockets of unexplained riots. Reporters covering them got attacked and either joined the rioters or never seen again.

The flu was not only highly contagious but highly fatal too. At least that’s what the last news reports said. The Spanish flu epidemic was minuscule compared to it.  Society shut down in a matter of weeks, the flu fizzled out, but not the riots. They seemed to go on strong. Many people on the Island started fleeing to Connecticut and all points north. I choose to remain behind with my daughter.

You see, Mrs. Horestein wasn’t a lucky one, like my husband Carl who died of the flu. She came back. A small portion of the flu victims came back, still dead, yet able to move with their sole objective to attack and eat humans. Any bite from them, small or large meant you became one of them, the lucky ones got ripped apart so much that nothing could reanimate.

Not only did we have to deal with massive deaths, but also with the living dead. No higher brain function except to maim and kill. No one to protect us. No sign of the military except in small pockets. Their ranks were also decimated by the flu. Before I came here I was in a militia. Our job was to go out and hunt them. Kill them to stop the spread of the virus.

The CostKing had three entrances. In the front, the main one which was gated with reinforced steel and now nailed shut. In front of that door was a bunch of shopping carts, then the registers. Each register had a shopping cart blocking it. If someone got in alive or dead, it will make a horrible racket. In the back of the store was a loading dock, fenced in and gated and then boarded up for good measure. That also had shopping carts blocking it. The side entrance led to a separate car repair center. That entrance was double door. The inside door led to the food court and was locked with heavy boxes in front of it. The garage was closed off and allowed people shelter and we used the food court to meet with survivors who wanted to join us. Every night when Princess went on, she covered Robert while he left food and supplies for people gathered. Some hoped to get in, others wanted a quick and more secure place to rest, and others exchanged food and sometimes cigarettes for information or wallets off the dead. We put the IDs in an empty file cabinet for posterity but considering how many bodies were burned or rotted in the street, it doesn’t matter. When Jim had time, he wrote them down.

One person we rejected stuck around: Ernie, a middle age drunk with liver problems, lived in the automotive repair shop full time. We gave him a case of beer, pain killers and occasionally steroids for every errand he did for us. When it got bad for him, we’d take him in to die. I knew it was unethical to give him the beer but he showed no signs of giving up drinking, so I didn’t mind unethically making him happy.

We only took in those we needed: a plumber, a farmer, an electrician, a good shooter, engineers, a doctor or medical professional, even a quack. Medical school or some kind of training was all you needed. We had been reluctant to take in new people but Ernie informed us there had been an influx lately.

“You ready?” Jim asked. Jim had a husband of six years named Cameron and assumed dead because he worked in the city. He put on a brave face for us, but I saw his misty eyes when he talked about Cameron.

I went to the roof first, climbed the stairs near the loading dock which was behind the now empty bakery. Some of the bread still frozen, but all the cakes and cookies were gone. Abe had been smart enough to eat only perishables while the electricity was still on. When it went off, there was not a lot left to rot.

It was nearing seven and the sun had fully come up. I wanted to chat with Princess, since she’d be off her shift at 8 and I wouldn’t see her until the next one starts. I would rather get done with the unpleasantness as soon as possible. She barricaded herself in the store’s office with only Jim allowed in with permission. She had to give it up if it got too cold or hot.

The CostKing roof wasn’t high, maybe three stories at the most. The roof was long and smooth, ideal for a rooftop garden and to get some sun and air on warmer days. Princess sat in a beach chair at the edge of the roof in a picture beyond surreal. She cuddled up in a Ralph Lauren blanket, her eyes covered in dark sunglasses, her make up flawless, despite it being made by Cover Girl, a brand she would never touch in her former days and her shiny and natural blond hair hid under a scarf she bought with her, that probably cost more than my former car. A custom made rifle with a scope lay across her lap. Next to the chair was a fire going in a metal garbage can. On the other side a solar powered flood light, turned on only when she could hear them. Next to the chair was a table with night vision goggles. The only pair Ernie managed to find for us. About three feet away was a tent used for our roof top shooters to get warm. Jonathan froze to death on this roof. We don’t know why he didn’t go into the tent.

I found her useless, almost. She never did anything but shoot. She never grew food, never volunteered to do labor and she was mean. In her former life, she was a rich girl from Park Avenue who never lifted a finger except to get a manicure or to shoot out in the Hamptons with her daddy.

That made her the best shot we had. Every night, she sat here and killed any zombie that came. Perfect shot always right through the head even in the dark, even in the rain and snow. Her skills meticulous, cold and a perfect hit always.