Wasting Away (4 page)

“Really,
it’s selfish,” I replied. “I just … I could use the company.”

She
let out a small laugh and grinned.

“How
well do you remember the area?” I asked.

“Pretty
well,” she replied.

“Good,
I’m going to need to know where the nearest market is.”

Chapter 4

Mary
led me to the kitchen.

Empty
food cans lined the counters. A light film graced the granite tops, making them
look dingy in the afternoon sun. I could smell spent food in the air, but
didn’t let on.

She
found a map in one of the drawers, unfolded it, and placed it on the dining room
table. She marked the location of the grocery store and traced a line with her
finger from the apartment. It was only a few blocks away and down a couple of
side streets. I penciled in the path she indicated and studied it until I knew
exactly what route I would take.

I
emptied my pack and checked to make sure that my pistol was loaded. I must have
checked it four or five times before I was satisfied. I removed the clip and
slid it back, checked the sight and aimed, felt the weight in my hand and
lowered the barrel to make sure it was real. Everything had a ghostly quality.
After finding someone else who had survived, the tension from the dead made me
anxious.

Mary
watched as I checked the weapon. “Does it help to go over it like that?” she
asked. “Is it like some sort of meditation?”

“No,”
I replied. “It’s more out of nervousness. It doesn’t help to calm me at all. It
just keeps reminding me of what I have to do.”

“Then
why put yourself through it again?”

“Because,
in life, there are some things bigger than me,” I said.

Being
safely tucked away with Mary had put me on edge - it had allowed me to let my
guard down. When I was out there among them, I knew where they were, I knew
where I stood. I could feel them with the hairs on the back of my neck. I was
always ready, always aware. But here, away from their constant threat, I felt
like the connection had been cut. I felt the fear again.

“Are
you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

I
nodded, placing the pistol on the couch beside me.

“I
have enough to get by,” she said.

I
looked at the shelf beside the kitchen at the few cans of food she had left.
“You have enough for a couple of days,” I said.

“I
can manage.”

“Mary,
you can’t stay here forever. What are you going to do when the food’s gone?”

She
let out a sigh and looked thoughtfully through the window. “My husband told me
to stay here, to stay safe until someone came to get me out. As much as I’ve
thought about leaving, I don’t know what it’s like out there. All I’ve seen has
been through that window. It’s been like watching the same terrible movie over
and over again. I wouldn’t know what to do once I was outside with those
things.”

“I’ll
teach you,” I said. “There has to be someplace to go. We’ll find an island, a
mountain top, the deepest pit. It doesn’t matter. I’ll get you somewhere safe
and we can try to start over.”

“But
what if you find that you hate me?”

“Hate
is a pretty strong word.”

“It’s
possible,” she said. “We could wind up stuck with each other. We could get to
this sanctuary of yours and find that we don’t get along. Then what’ll we do?”

“We’ll
manage,” I said.

She
laughed. “But still, I don’t know if I can go.”

“In
the time before, didn’t you ever want to get away from it all? Didn’t you ever
wonder what it would be like to live free without restriction?”

“I
never needed to run away from anything,” she said.

“I
didn’t mean that you should run away from life,” I said. “But maybe running
headlong into it isn’t such a bad thing.”

She
smiled. “But that seems like what you’re getting at. I lived an everyday life
before all of this,” she said. “It was simple, but I was content. I even had a
little money stashed away for a rainy day. When this happened, I was under the
impression that I would die, that we would all die. I believed that this was the
next step in the natural course of things. But, for some strange reason, I
couldn’t let myself go. I kept fighting. I looked for food in the other
apartments and watched the world slowly die outside that damn window. I watched
every single second of the end of times, but I couldn’t get myself to let go.”

“Don’t
you see? That’s exactly what we’re supposed to do. It’s in our nature. We
have
to survive because dying isn’t an option. That’s all I’m asking you to do, just
hang in a little longer and give me a chance.”

She
gave a small laugh. “It’s almost like you’re proposing to me.”

I
shook my head and smiled. “No, I’m just offering something better, and it seems
to be more reasonable than dying here alone.”

“I
watched people kill each other. I watched them take women and girls from the
streets while the dead ran wild. They didn’t help anyone. They stole innocent
young girls and took them away. Do you know what I imagined them doing to those
girls once they had them tucked away?”

I
slowly shook my head.

“I
imagined they were doing what all cowards have done before them. They assert
themselves, they rape and they beat away every last scrap of dignity. What’s to
say there aren’t more of those types of people out there? I mean, those are the
ones who seem to survive something like this -the alpha males- those who would
kill at the drop of a hat and never look back at the destruction in their
wake.”

“
You
seem to have eluded them,” I replied. “And I have too. That’s all that matters.
We stay hidden and we get away from here.”

“You
have big dreams,” she said. “They haven’t been out much since the beginning. I
dread to think what they’re doing in there.”

“All
I have left are dreams,” I said. “And the others, they can rot out there for
all I care. Come with me, Mary.”

She
looked down at her hands and folded them in her lap. “So do you have any
particular destination in mind?”

“An
island would be ideal,” I smiled. “But I think we should head east, get away
from the coast. There might be others who have made it. We could find refuge
somewhere.”

 “Big
dreams,” she repeated, shaking her head in amusement.

“Some
of the biggest,” I agreed.

“So
teach me, tell what it is to be out there with them. Tell me what you’ve seen.”

I
had told my wife not to worry, that we would be safe. We lived in the suburbs
and the riots were happening in the city. I was sure we would be fine. The
police wouldn’t allow them to get past the city limits.

We
went on with our lives as if nothing were happening. We settled in and hoped
for the best just like so many others. We waited and did nothing.

We’re
spoon fed from birth, we don’t believe that anything truly bad can happen to
us, so we wait and we pray in our churches. We drive our luxury cars and live
in our micro-mansions and think that the government will take care of all of
our problems.

I
was one of those people.

It
wasn’t until the power went out that I got worried. The lights flickered on and
off for a few minutes and finally went black. My wife and I sat there in the
dark, still believing that everything would work itself out. We ate crackers
and cheese by candlelight and drank wine from the crystal set her mother had
bought us for our wedding. We laughed and talked as if nothing were happening.

The
next morning, I pulled a windup radio out of one of the boxes I had stored in
the garage. The power was still off and I was getting curious. I wanted to know
if they were making any progress with the rioters.

We
listened to the reports. I had a sense of hope again. If the radio stations had
power that meant our issue was local. They were saying that the city was under
quarantine, that the looters and rioters were being barricaded within a five
mile zone within the downtown area.

I
smiled at my wife. “See? I told you it would work itself out.”

She
returned with a shy smile. “I didn’t doubt you for a minute.”

I
pulled some meat out of the deepfreeze before it fully thawed and got the
barbeque ready.

I
had been so naive. To think, I was going to cook outside while the end of
everything was almost at our front door. But that was the problem, without any
information, no one really knew what was going on, no one had any idea that the
dead were returning to life. We thought we were safe from looters and rioters
in our comfortable homes. We thought that all we had to do was bide our time
until the authorities came to save us. 

While
my wife was sitting on one of the lawn chairs in the back yard, I went into the
house to get a teapot. I was going to boil the water on the small burner on the
side of the grill. Thankfully, the water was still running and I filled the pot
and grabbed a couple of teabags from the cupboard before returning to the yard.

As
I juggled the teapot and packets, trying not to drop them, I heard her scream.
I went through the back door and dropped what I was carrying. I stood there in
shock as my wife fought off a man who was advancing on her. He launched himself
on her and threw her to the ground.

I
stood there frozen, watching while some madman held her down, burying his face
in her stomach. I might have yelled something, but I can’t quite remember.
Maybe it was only a whimper.

The
thing was on top of her. It looked back at me with strips of flesh in its
mouth. He returned to her stomach and shook his head again before slowly chewing
what he had torn away.

That
was my first real sense of what was happening out in the real world. It took
someone so close to me to die before I snapped back and realized what was going
on. I stood dumbstruck and watched that thing tear at my wife, and did nothing to
save her.

“You
didn’t try to save her?” Mary asked, shock drawing through her voice.

I
looked away from her. “It happened so fast,” I said. “You never know what
you’re going to do in that type of situation until it happens. I did nothing.”

The
moans and howls tore through the yard as more of them entered through the side
gate. I looked back at the creature and thought it smiled at me with something
in its mouth. As I stared at it, the reality of what it was gnawing on sunk in.
I could see the details of what was hanging in its mouth. I saw that terrible
thing hanging there, slack.

There
were at least a half a dozen of them in the yard now, making their way toward
me.

I
panicked and ran back into the house, slamming the door behind me. I bolted the
lock as wet, bloody hands slapped against the window, smearing stains from the
tips of their fingers in slimy trails that coursed along to the edge of the
glass.

I
tried to scream, to allow anything to come out, but I was silent, and my breath
was gone. I was trapped. There wasn’t anywhere to run. I took to the stairs that
led to our bedroom. I fished through the boxes in the closet and found the
pistol I had bought a few years earlier when a rash of home invasions erupted
in the neighborhood next to ours.

Breathing
heavy, I slid the clip into place and cocked a round in the chamber. I felt
like a fool for not grabbing it sooner.

From
the spare bedroom, across the hall, I opened the window and aimed the gun down
into the backyard at the creature, but it had wandered off. All that remained
was my wife, swaying in place. Her stomach was torn open and blood was
everywhere. Something small fell from the open wound and she lurched forward,
her eyes locked on me.

I
called out her name, but my voice was gone, and nothing would come out. She
stared blankly and exposed her teeth in a snarl. As a knot of entrails fell
from the wound on her stomach, she staggered toward the house.

Downstairs,
I could hear the pounding getting louder. I went back into the bedroom and
slammed the door. My knees went weak as I backed away from the door. I fell
backward onto the bed and rolled to the side to get back up, but my legs went
out again and I crumbled to the floor.

A
spray of thick coursed from my mouth and splattered against the bed. It pooled
on the carpet as I heaved. My stomach lurched again, but all that was left was
bile and burping rasps.

Glass
broke downstairs and I scurried to my feet. I was up off the floor in an
instant and at the window in our room. I pulled the latch and opened it wide. I
stuck the gun beneath my belt and crouched through the window, stepping out
onto the overhang.