When The Light Goes Out (27 page)

Not that I liked it.

It was very true though. "I"

"Listen."

The woman cut me off, finally beginning to sound annoyed with me. And that actually seemed to alter my mood a bit. It seemed to ground me. It got my mind more fully connected with the real world, and I couldn't figure out why. I should have been even more angry, or upset. I should have been ashamed. But it calmed me down, and cheered me up, and I felt like a reject.

A trueblue reject. "But I"

"
Listen!
"

I was surprised by the vehemence with which the word came out, so I responded the only way I could think of. "I'm listening."

"Listen harder." "What?"

"Shut the hell up, get your head out of your ass, and
listen
."

Jesus, that was angry. Okay, so maybe the lady was trying to tell me something. Something just a little deeper than just "listen." How was I suppose to realize that right off the bat though? Normally when people tell you to listen, it means they want to say something. So naturally I figured that was exactly what she was doing. I figured she was trying to make me shut the hell up, and consider the things she said to me.

No.

She was actually trying to get me to
listen
. So I did.

I shut up, and really tried to listen.

There was the shuffling of (presumably) zombie feet. The dripping of one water source or another. There were birds chirping, and a harsh wind blowing papers down the street. But there was also.. no. It was my imagination. It absolutely had to be my imagination.

There was whistling. Somewhere.

The whistling was specific come to think of it. I was able to quite easily recognize the tune when I paid attention to it for a moment. Maybe a moment more than that actually, as the whistling halted every once in a while. It faltered, as if unsure of the noise that should come next. Occasionally it fell to a volume too low to hear, but ended up loud enough for me to hear again. But even with that I definitely recognized the song.

There was someone whistling the tune to
The Muffin Man.

It couldn't have been my imagination, because I couldn't figure why I would imagine such a thing. There was actually someone, somewhere, whistling. And I simply couldn't halt the hope that it just might have been Ian. Sure, it didn't seem very likely, but it
was
possible. So, of course, at that very moment, I chose to continue my screaming from earlier.

"Ian?!"

But this time my shouting was different. Not by much. Given my head wasn't throbbing so bad, and there were no zombies sitting on my back. I was perhaps more panicked now, because the whistling just didn't sound very steady. But I wasn't talking about differences in any of those aspects. This time
was
different because this time Cathy was helping.

"Ian, sweetie, you there?"

She called out when I paused after yelling his name myself. It seemed like a pretty good method. I scream. She screams. I scream again, which I promptly did. The only true flaw I

could see was the fact that we may not have been able to hear him if he decided to respond to us. If it
was
him, that is. "Ian?!"

I really wasn't shocked, not even a little, that there was no response. That Ian didn't round the corner screaming, "Here I am guys! Here I am! I'm safe, I'm okay!"I simply wasn't shocked in the least because, not only that was action unlikely in and of its self. But it also wasn't a very Ian thing to do in the first place. Or maybe it was an Ian thing to do, but I didn't realize it. Which was possibly even more likely than what I chose to believe.

And I never stopped yelling.

"Ian! If you hear me, can you
please
say something?!" "Anything!"

"Ian?!" "Ian?!"

Damn but, with the whistling, I'd just never wanted to see the boy so much in my life. Never wanted to know he was safe as badly as my stomach was clenching right then. Because there was whistling, and it meant
someone
was there. We just didn't know who quite yet. Common sense, the meanspirited poobrain that it is, told me that it could be anyone. It could be a total stranger, or a best friend. A family member even. Maybe some of the possibilities weren't very likely, but it literally could have been anyone. I just really wanted it to be Ian.

Please, I found myself thinking. Please, if there's a God out there somewhere, let the whistler be Ian. Please. I guess I'd been thinking things along that strain quite often over the past few hours. Days. However long I'd been stuck in such a dreadful situation. It was a bit distressing if one honestly thought about it.

I shouldn't have to think such things.

Shouldn't have to make such pleas. I just shouldn't.

No one should.

God dammit if the man in the sky wasn't just a spiteful bastard. Given he wasn't a figment of the average populaces imagination that is. Because it was totally possible. I can see it now; one religious figure or another dies, after spending their whole life devoted to the great Lord, and all they get is a little note that says, "Haha, fooled you!" Well, not really a note, of course. There being a note would mean there was
someone
there to write it. But still, the point is there. And boy if that just wouldn't be the bitch of living.

Why
did I choose such moment to contemplate useless shit? Really.

I must've been dropped on my head as a child. Multiple times.

Into a pool.

Without my water-wingies. Yes, oh yes.

That would explain
everything.

"Ian?!"

Things would have been surprisingly simple if the bastard would just open his mouth, and speak. Or if he hadn't run away. Oh yes. That would have been very nice. I'm pretty sure everyone would have appreciated it if he hadn't run away. But he had, and I just needed to get over it. I needed to get over it, and find him damn quick, because as far as I knew his time was running out.

He could have been dying at that very moment. Breathing his last breath.

Crying his last tear.

One supposes that counts as melodrama.

Regardless one of my only allies in the damned mess I found myself in could easily be table scraps for one zombie dog or another at the moment of my thoughts, and what was I

doing? I was walking around thinking. Really, as if that would do any good.

It wouldn't, really, I knew. Thinking never does the heroes any good. You see it in all the movies. The heroes almost always run head first into the danger without a glance back, or thought of the future. They barrel in, grab the damsel in distress, however many there may be, and barrel right back out. Bingbangboom. Done. Finished. Mission accomplished, break out the champagne (regardless of the fact that it tastes little bubbly piss.)

Sure there was the puzzle solving, brainiac hero or two. They were the ones who rushed around like idiots considering their options. But they were also the ones who always got caught in the end (even if they do get forgiven every single damned time. Really, I'd like to see just one of them die for having the gall to think about which stupid act is the less stupid one. Rambling. Rambling.)

I guess I didn't really fall into either category.

I wasn't a hero at all. I never really had been, not even as a child. I was more like the twobit sidekick who got stuck in drainage pipes by habit, and ran to the nearest Starbucks to pick up coffee for the underground insert name of chosen animal here cave.

And the whistling was indeed getting louder and louder by the minute. "Ian?!"

Maybe it was a good time to wonder, "Why
The Muffin Man
?" It really was a good time to wonder it. It was a good question. What was so special about that stupid song? At least one could have chosen a more tasteful childhood rhyme. Ha. This coming from the one who sings "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad wolf?" in times of great distress.

Don't you love the hypocrisy of it?

I sure don't.

But I always figured Ian for a more, "
It's Raining, It's Pouring
," kind of guy. Don't ask. Please don't ask.

I wouldn't know how to explain. That's just how I happened to see him in my minds eyes for one exceedingly stupid reason or another. Sometimes, even I had to admit that the workings of my inner most thoughts made absolutely no fucking sense. Not even a little. Not even a little on occasion.

But as the whistling got louder, I started to sing the lyrics to the song under my breath. And before I knew it, I had a little singalong going, with Cathy's voice right next to mine. And boy, if we weren't just a sound for sore ears.

"Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man, oh, do you know the muffin man" "Does he make cookies?"

And I couldn't help but laugh. "Cathy?!"

"Couldn't help it." "Wow."

"Ian?!"

If it was him whistling, I didn't know why he wasn't responding. "Ian?!"

"Oh my God."

Except he'd quite obviously been shot. Several times.

And probably couldn't speak.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The run had been short and frantic in all honesty. It wasn't a block to the bleeding body, but I was out of breath by the time I got there maybe half a second later (so I exaggerate a bit.) My heart was pounding in my throat, and I felt a pulse in both my temples as I reached for the boy. This, I can quite easily say, was a fear I'd never felt before.

Not even when my brother died.

You see, when my brother died it was a sad thing. It upset me, of course. It made me want to beat something, yes. But it just sort of.. happened. One minute he was sitting there, the next he was dead. There wasn't a warning sign. No blood. No sputtering. He hadn't grabbed at me, or do anything to show he was going. He just slumped.

Ian was staring dead at me, without seeing me.

He kept whistling, however. And as close as I was, it was growing faint.

The moment I realize he knew I was there I could swear my heart stopped. He looked so sad.

"Excel?"

"Hey, buddy." "Hey, what's up?"

"Oh, nothing really." I wasn't entirely sure how to react when my voice trembled. "We were kind of worried about you, you know? Man, what made you run off like that?" "Didn't wanna deal with the old man."

"I can't blame you, really." "I don't I"

"Shush, Ian. I know."

I had to bite my lip to keep myself from crying when the boys eyes welled up with tears. He looked so, so frightened. I felt like crap. I just wanted to make the world go away, turn back time before he got shot. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I was thinking the same thing.

He didn't want to die.

"I don't I don't eeven know who shot me." I blinked.

Well boink me in the ear. I was wrong.

I didn't know if the halting speech was him choking back a sob or two, or effects of the holes in his body. I really, really hoped it was the former, as I wasn't entirely sure the proper way to handle a gunshot wound. Dammit if only we had a doctor.

Dammit.

Dammit
.

"Ian." My turn to choke on the sob. "Ian, man. You'll be okay." "Don't they always say that?"

"But I mean it."

"You ever fix a bullet wound?"

"No, but I used to fix my brothers clothes." "Reassuring."

"Really, Ian. You'll be fine. I swear it. I swear I won't let anything bad happen."

"I've been shot, and am bleeding a rather unhealthy amount of blood. What can be worse?" "There could be a crowd of zombies coming you eat you."

"Umm.. Excel?" I didn't like the tone of Cathy's voice, calling from over my shoulder, or the ominous way the sky started to darken. "Don't look now, but"

It was a given really, the fact that she told me not to look and my head shot straight up. The flow of curse words started then. Started the moment I saw the mass of the undead wobbling toward us. Really, wobbling. Not a single one was actually walking. Several feet were twisted at odd angles. Several legs were entirely missing. Some of the creatures were clawing their way to us, which really wasn't all that reassuring.