Wasting Away (18 page)

With
a questioning look, I said, “You can tell me anything.”

That
first morning, I watched the news with my husband, Henry. We sat in this very
room and watched it all unfold. The first reports were coming in about the
hospital on the other side of town. They seemed to believe that’s where it
started, but I’m not so sure.

When
I saw the footage from the news chopper, all of those people pouring out
through the emergency room, all I could think about was ants. In life, in
death, that’s what it looked like. Then the camera zoomed in and I saw them for
the first time. There was something wrong with them, I could tell from the very
start. Their eyes were blank, empty. Their souls were gone and yet, the body
was allowed to continue.

Henry
was silent. He stared at the television, working his hands into a ball in his
lap. I had never seen him that way before, something had loosened in his mind,
came uncoiled. As the television flashed from scene to scene, carnage
unfurling, blood staining the streets, Henry became panicked.

“I
have to get out of here,” he said.

“What
about me?” I asked.

“I’ll
… I’ll get help,” he stammered. “It’s not safe. I’ll get help and I’ll come
back for you.”

“You
can’t leave me here,” I pleaded. “What if they get in?”

He
took his keys from the hook next to the door. “You’ll be safe, just keep the
door locked. Don’t let anyone in. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“But,
Henry …”

He
was gone. He had left me there. I could see it in his eyes. I could see that he
was lying. He had no intention of coming back for me.

I
sat on the couch in shock. The man I married, the man I had shared my life with
was leaving me behind. In that moment, everything became clear. I never really
knew him at all.

For
the first few days, I thought that I had been wrong, that he would come
stammering through the door at any moment, ready to whisk me away. But as time
went on, I thought back on our marriage. I thought of how it always seemed to
be about him and his needs, rarely ever mine. I eventually realized that I was
on my own. No matter how much I tried to find faith in him, it wouldn’t come. I
knew him too well.

You
see, we had been married for eight years at that time. We went through the
motions, having breakfast together out of habit, showing up at church on Sunday
morning, putting on a happy face. But we were growing apart, slowly. We put a
little more distance between each other every day.

Often,
Henry came home from work drunk. He would throw himself into the shower, grab
something to eat out of the fridge, and pass out in his chair while watching
television. It was a bland life, void of any real meaning. In a way, getting
used to the dead was the easiest thing I could have ever done. They’re
predictable, they have a routine. They are as reliable as anything in my life
before.

I
had a lot of time to think while I was walled up here. I had nothing but time.
As I searched through the other apartments for food, it dawned on me that I was
just waiting for the end. I would eventually run out of food and then the
hunger would come. I knew, from the very start, that I would starve here. Hunger
and death would be my salvation.

I
know all about hunger. I know that it starts eating you from the inside out.
When I was a little girl, my family was poor. My father worked at the iron ore
mines in the northern Midwest. We had nothing but a few clothes and just enough
to eat. But we were always at the edge of starving. That’s why I moved to
California when I was old enough. I didn’t want that for myself. I didn’t want
to be hungry, to go without anymore. I just wanted something better.

When
you told me that you volunteered, that you took time out of your life to help
the less privileged, it brought those times back. And while I’ve been stuck
here, I thought of how funny it is that sometimes life comes around full
circle. I felt that starvation again. I remembered what it was like to be alone
and empty.

But
then you came.
She
smiled at me and tilted her head ever so slightly.

You
came and damned my way of thinking. As you told me all that you had been
through, I slowly realized how important it is to live, to continue on even if
there isn’t much to look forward to. Life is about companionship, growing
accustomed to someone who compliments your own lifestyle. And it seems more
apparent now than ever before that anyone who has survived this has been hurled
into that very same lifestyle. We are all that remains and our purpose in life
is to live.

As
I sat there listening to Mary, I felt a small something at the base of my
spine, the smallest vibration through the couch. Everything became quiet, an
eerie calm like a moment trapped in time.

“Did
you feel that?” she asked.

I
tried to answer, but was cut short as the floor seemed to fall beneath me. A
terrible rumble coursed through the building. A picture fell from the wall and
hit the floor, shattering the glass. Dust rained from the ceiling. The living
room window shattered. Shards of glass blew inward and scattered along the
floor.

I
rose from the couch and my legs were rubbery as I tried to steady myself.
Several more pictures fell from the walls, shattering as they hit. The furniture
began to move, skidding, knocking along the hardwood.

“We
have to get out of here!” I shouted.

Mary’s
eyes were wide, glazed over in fear. “What is it?!” she asked, her voice
shaking.

“Earthquake!”
I yelled.

I
took her by the arm and ran for the door, snagging my pack and tossing it over
my shoulder as I fumbled with the lock. There was an explosion outside which
jostled the building and another wave coiled beneath us.

We
turned the corner into the hallway as another window shattered, sending glass
down along the stairs. As we passed the second floor, the building cocked and
the nearest apartment door splintered in its frame. Below, the stairs took on
the look of rushing water as they bulged and buckled from the quake. I found footing
along the edges where the stairs were secured to the support beams.

At
ground level, the overhead light fixture rattled from the ceiling and came
crashing down in front of the main door. I kicked the debris out of the way and
unfastened the lock.

Outside,
the street bulged in time with the shocks, cracking asphalt and dislodging
manholes as we fled. I could see the dead scattered along the roadway, swaying
with the movement of the ground. Their faces still wore the blank stare of
death, unfazed by what was happening.

A
few blocks down, I watched as a building popped and cracked at its foundation.
It warped along the walls, dislodging an entire section before it toppled over.
As it crashed, it took out a group of bodies. In a flash, they were gone - replaced
by concrete, brick, and spent water lines that twisted up from the rubble.

I
pulled Mary behind me, gripping her hand tight. I heard a crack and doubled
back as a light pole crashed down on an abandoned car a few feet away. The roof
of the vehicle twisted and the driver’s side seat exploded through the window. Fragments
of glass peppered my face. A cloud of dirt and dust rose from below the
wreckage.

As
quickly as it had begun, the quake was over. We stopped at the odd sensation of
calm.

“It’s
stopped.” Mary said.

I
tried to slow my breath, to regain my bearings. “That was too big, there’re
going to be aftershocks,” I said. “We have to keep moving.”

She
tugged on my hand. “What about the food?”

“We
can’t go back for it, it’s not safe.”

She
turned, looking back the way we came. “But everything I have is in there, we
have to.”

I
pulled her toward me. “Mary, we can’t! You saw it, it was about to fall over as
we got out.”

“But
…” Her eyes widened as she looked past me.

I
turned, following her stare.

A
crowd of bodies had gathered at the intersection, spotting us as we stood there
in the middle of the ruined street. Uneven rows of corpses staggered closer -
an entwined mass of rigid death.

I
tugged at Mary. “Through there!” I shouted, and pulled her behind me through a
narrow alleyway between a set of apartment buildings. Flakes of brick were falling
from the sides, pummeling our backs with debris.

Behind,
the dead moaned, their voices rising as they spotted us at the other end of the
alley. They were wedging themselves in tighter as we gained distance.

Mary
slowed.

I
looked back and saw her panting. “Keep moving.”

“I
can’t,” she said, out of breath.

“Damn
it, you have to!”

Her
knees started to buckle and I could feel her weight in my arms as I caught her.
I shook my head. “Come on, Mary, you can’t do this!”

A
corpse howled behind us as the ground started to rattle again. A subtle arch in
the concrete beneath us, and Mary’s eyes flashed with fear. She stood on her
own as another wave struck.

“Come
on!” I yelled.

We
broke out into a run and our footfalls hit unsteady ground. Glass splintered
above us as we vaulted over an overturned dumpster at the end of the alley.

Back
on the street, we crossed to the other side through a row of parked cars and
out into a field. Warehouses came into view in the distance. Power line poles
toppled along the road behind us like dominoes, fraying electrical lines,
uncoiling, slapping the pavement as they hit.

At
the far end of the field, there was a pedestrian walkway that cleared a freeway
barrier. I turned, still holding Mary by the hand, and led the way.

A
handful of corpses wandered through the field, blocking our way.  A creature
turned, its mouth a ripped snarl, dripping thick with waste. Arms held high, it
came at me as the others gathered in turn.

 Bending
howls nursed by the wind.

I
pushed Mary behind me and reached out, grabbing a ghoul under its arm. I threw
it to the ground and shouted, “Go!” as I looked back at Mary. She fled toward
the stairwell as I held the creature to the ground. I neatly placed my heel
below its chin and stepped down. I could feel its neck pop, scattering
vertebrae within rot, vibrating through my leg.

Hundreds
more poured out from between the warehouses, gathering
like the shadow
of an eclipse. The ground shook with stampeding bodies, crying into the wind. I
tensed. The muscles in my arms cramped as my breath escaped me. An army encroached,
bulging from every side - a child’s picture, colored outside the lines in
wicked scribbles, torn at the edges.

Finally,
my body worked again. I fled, winding my way toward the stairs after Mary. A
jet plane hum of cryptic voices shook the air, rustling the hairs on the back
of my neck. The taste of sour rose in my mouth. A bead of sweat fell free from
my brow. My heart sank slowly at the sight.

I
made it to the bridge and looked down at the sea of corpses, bottlenecking at
the first rise of the stairs like ink poured through an hourglass. A wave of
death, packed tightly, jamming the front into deadlock. Creeping things locked
in struggle.

“Through
here,” Mary said. She guided me through the exit on the other side of the
walkway and along the narrow stairwell which led to a sidewalk below.

I
could still hear the dead, trumpeting hunger from the other side as a few others
approached the walkway. Once we were on the other side, we fled along the edge
of a retaining wall that divided us from the northern portion of the freeway.

Another
aftershock hit, scattering loose concrete from the overpass. It continued to
shake violently, releasing a section of the road which sank a few feet, hanging
on by a steel support. Both Mary and I hit the ground from the sudden shock.

We
were up in a flash, changing direction, bolting toward a park surrounded by
homes on the far side. The tremors had subsided, leaving minor aftershocks to
part the dust that had already fallen. Once I was brave enough to look back, I
noticed only a few bodies had cleared the walkway, but the bridge was
overflowing, cracking under the weight.

There
were so many of them twisting through the rails at the walkway that their mass
blotted out the sun. Clawing hands and lapping maws snatched at the chain link,
shaking loose crumbling concrete from the supports. Livid voices gurgled out
screams of death.

“My
legs are cramping,” Mary said, limping.

I
looked back again; the bridge was a black smudge along the skyline. The bodies
were tiny specks against the horizon. “We’ll find a place to rest once we’re
far enough away.”

Her
lips were tight as she nodded.