Mountain Man - 01 (22 page)

We wait now
, Scott told himself. There wasn’t much else to do. They were stuck in the attic until one of two things happened: Gus turned or the masses discovered them.

Closing his eyes, Scott forced himself to wait.

Four hours later, the light in the attic shrank away, leaving them in darkness. The deadheads still moved around underneath them, incessantly crying out and bumping into things. Just when Scott believed there was nothing left for them to break, something else would give with a clatter. Wood squealed. Glass cracked. And the dead did not retreat. Their smell permeated the wood and gassed the attic, making him regret every breath.

At the five hour mark, Scott discovered he had to urinate. He moved back to the boxes, creeping along the flooring like a mouse fearing nearby predators, and slowly went through the exposed boxes stored in the attic. He needed to find some sort of receptacle, ideally a bottle with a stopper or lid of some sort. He found skates, winter clothes, boxes that contained old board games, more books, and what felt to be an old flat-screen television or computer monitor. He felt around the insides of another box and cringed when metal softly rattled against metal. He froze in place, waiting for a reaction from below, fully expecting the door to be yanked down to reveal a hallway full of rotting faces.

Nothing happened, and Scott realized the scuffle of moving bodies must have masked the noise. After a minute, he continued feeling around inside the box, ever so carefully, and realized it was full of pans. Scott backed away from the box as if it were a land mine. His bladder began to bother him, threatening consequences if he didn’t find something soon. Gus remained still and as silent as stone, and Scott was careful not to bother him. He soon found two large suitcases made of hard plastic, and it took him long minutes to turn them both on their sides and unlatch them, his hands covering the latches to muffle the sound, while his bladder began to really complain, sending uncomfortable pangs through his midsection. Inside the suitcases were soft clothes, sweaters and shirts by the feel, even balled-up socks.

His bladder demanded release, and Scott considered a suitcase. They both had seals of sorts inside, and the clothes would absorb the urine. As long as the lid remained shut, there shouldn’t be any smell, or at least very little. Unzipping the front of his jeans, he positioned himself across and inside the suitcase as if he were about to spoon-fuck it, and let go. His bladder heaved in relief and emptied into the suitcase and onto the clothes without a hiss.
Jesus Christ
, Scott thought, one of the most under-appreciated feelings in the world had to be a satisfying piss. He finished a minute later and rolled away from the suitcase, closing it as quietly as possible.

Feeling much better, Scott carefully crawled over to Gus, feeling the edge of the trapdoor and realizing if he had backed up, he would have been on it. The place had its share of pitfalls, and Scott committed where things were to memory. He reached out a hand and felt the mound of his companion.

“Gus,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“How you feel?”

“Need a piss.”

“No, but, y’know, otherwise.”

“Feel fine. Nerves just got a little rattled, is all.”

“No shame in that, man.”

“I…” Gus’s voice faltered in the dark. “I think I’m okay. I don’t think I swallowed anything. I don’t think. Or I puked it out. It’s been a while.”

Scott considered. It had been a long time. “You might be right.”

“I think, but… be prepared to shoot my ass if you need to.”

That brought a smile to Scott’s face. “Already was.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now, like I was saying, I need to piss.”

“You’re going to have to crawl a bit. Follow me and be quiet. You know what’s below?”

“I know.” Gus’s voice trembled, but held.

“There’s a suitcase over there. You can take a leak in that. There’s clothes in it. I used one just now. It should absorb everything.”

“Okay.”

Scott led him out from beneath his blankets to what he decided would be Gus’s suitcase. With painstaking care, he lifted the thing up and slid it across his legs.

“Take this and put it on your side. Take your time with it.” Gus took it, and Scott heard him move it slowly around, a soft dragging sound that put Scott’s teeth to the grind. He winced at the sound of a latch popping, and for another long minute, the two of them froze. Gus started moving again after a while, and Scott heard him sigh in relief.

Minutes later, he heard the soft scuffling of Gus retreating back under his blankets. It made Scott wonder how loud
he
had been. With the night coming on, the temperature in the attic dropped. Scott located what he believed was a sleeping bag. Confirming that it was, he laid it out and got inside.

“You know…” Gus began. “Those were once people down there, who now want… to
eat
us.”

“You feelin’ better?” Scott whispered.

“I think,” Gus answered, then allowed the silence to be filled with the sounds of the moving dead. After a minute, he said, “Thanks again, man.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We’ll have to sleep in shifts,” Gus said. “Just in case one of us starts snoring.”

That was a good idea. Scott was glad Gus was back. “Sounds good. Go ahead. Don’t think I could sleep anyway with them below.”

Gus didn’t answer. Moments later, Scott could hear his breathing, steady and strangely comforting, while the dead underneath them continued to stir, like things caught and bobbing in a moonless tide.

Every now and again, something bumped a wall just to help keep Scott awake.

*

When sunlight crept back into the attic the next day, Scott woke up to a loud thud that came from directly underneath the trapdoor. He opened his eyes and stared in the direction of the door, waiting for it to be pulled down and the dead to swarm upward. Another loud clunking happened, but the door remained closed.

“Maybe,” Gus whispered, “they’re stacking furniture.”

Though he was glad Gus was still able to make comments and that he didn’t have to kill him, his remark didn’t make Scott feel any better. He remembered being a kid and having a distinct fear of the attic. That was the place where ghosts hung out. It was also, ironically, the same place where Santa stuffed his Christmas presents. He no longer had a fear of attics, but he found it funny that the terrors resided in the part of the house usually reserved for the people, while he and Gus were stuck where the ghosts belonged.

“Gotta take a piss,” Scott said, and grabbed his suitcase. He opened it to the faint smell of uric acid and did his business as quickly as possible. Finishing up, he closed the suitcase and inhaled the air. “Can you smell that?”

“Yeah,” Gus answered in a low voice. “But it’s not, like, strong or anything.”

“Not much to do about it up here.”

“Nope. That’s what I figured when I took a dump.”

“You what?”

“Every morning I squeeze pipe. This one was no different.”

Scott sniffed. “Oh, fuck. I can smell it.”

“Just a little, though, right?”

Scott thought about it. “Yeah.”

“All right, then. We got some time.”

“Wonder what time it is?”

“Morning,” Gus said. “That’s all you need to know.”

They became silent then, listening to the rustling below.

“Can’t believe you took a shit in the suitcase,” Scott muttered.

“Wiped my ass with a T-shirt, I think. Don’t let it bother you. You’ll have to take a squat sooner or later.”

“Not me. I get constipated when I’m scared.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then…” Gus words sounded as if they were framed in a smile. “The things you find out about a person.”

Scott positioned himself facing Gus across the way. “Back is stiff from last night.”

“Plenty of beds downstairs.”

“Fuck off.”

In the morning light coming in through the vent, Scott saw Gus’s beard smirk. “There you go. Wondering if you had it in you or not. By the time this is all over, you’ll be calling me names, too.”

Scott grinned back. “You got any breakfast over there?”

“Hold on, now, and let me run down to the kitchen.”

“Make it fast.”

“Ah, wait. I put a loaf in the suitcase here. Fresh this morning.”

Laying his head on the flooring, Scott sighed. Below, the moaning continued. “S’all I need to think about now. Dead people underneath me and your shit in a suitcase.”

“I understand a person can eat their own chocolate at least once.”

“Yeah? Why only once, I wonder?”

“Tastes like shit, I imagine.”

“How long do you think we’ll be up here?” Scott asked, wanting to get away from the subject.

“Until they go.”

Scott had no reply to that. When they could go was the million dollar question. They could still be below next week. That didn’t set well on his mind, starving in an attic.
I’m starving
. He thought about the expression and realized that he had come close to that several times since the collapse of civilization, but he, Teddy, and Lea had always found something before it got too bad.

“Relax,” Gus said. “It’ll work itself out one way or the other.”

“You’re pretty calm about this. Yesterday, you were a mess.”

“Yeah, well, yesterday was… the first time I thought I died.”

Scott kept silent. He didn’t think Gus was completely out of danger yet.

“For a while there, when you were sleeping,” Gus went on, “I paid attention to every twinge I felt. I swear my mind was inventing it as it went along, but I don’t think I was ever so aware of my own body as I was last night. I’m in the clear, I’ll have you know. But… fuck. I was worried to say the least.”

“You freaked out.”

“I freaked out,” Gus agreed quietly. “And the thing was, I wondered if I would be aware of going over to the other side. If I would be really dead when I turned, or still be alive and somehow know––or not know––what I’d become. And if I did, whether or not I could stop myself from attacking you.”

Jesus
. Scott’s mind cringed.

“But I’m okay,” Gus continued. “We do have the problem below, though.”

“Yeah.”

“So, Chico, the one thing––the
only
thing—we can do is sit on our duffs and hope that the morning tide takes them out of here and away. And if not, maybe the afternoon tide will. Or the night.”

“Maybe they’ll take the van and just go,” Scott whispered.

“Maybe. You got the keys?”

“I do.”

“Well, scratch that off the pissability.”

“Did you just say
pissability
?”

“Did.”

Scott grunted with a smile and rolled quietly onto his back to stare up at the shadowy beams of the ceiling. He exhaled and saw his breath. Listening to the sounds of the dead, he tried to think of anything but the idea of food.

And if the dead starved.

*

They waited until the afternoon, still hearing the unliving thump into walls and furniture below. The smell no longer made them wrinkle their noses, but it was still foul. Scott took the time to carefully root around in the semi-light, and found several Tupperware dishes. Two he handed to Gus, while he kept one for himself for any emergency voiding. They both suspected that to open either suitcase would kill them. They whispered in low tones, making jokes at times, and it made Scott glad that the episode with Gus yesterday appeared to be only a one-time ordeal. They talked about what they would eat when they escaped from the attic. They then went on to talk about what they would drink. They napped when the urge took them and felt increasingly sure that as long as they stayed quiet, they were safe.

Time dragged on into evening, when the light started to retract from the attic, like a wary gunslinger with both guns drawn. Scott watched it go, all to the irregular beat of dead people searching the house for meat they instinctively knew existed, but couldn’t locate. The unliving proved their fearlessness and resolve time and time again, but they were displaying another trait every bit as lethal.

Patience.

Or dumb fuck stupidity, Gus pointed out as if he didn’t want to give the corpses any flattering characteristic at all.

They each filled a Tupperware dish and sealed it, noting that they weren’t urinating regularly.

“This,” Gus informed him, “is where it might get bad. We can probably last without food for a while, and I’m talking a couple of weeks, but the dehydration won’t let us.”

“How do you know?”

“Watched a lot of Discovery Channel.”

“Oh.”

“We could drink our own urine if it came down to it.”

“What is it with you and this fascination with consuming your own waste?”