Day Nineteen

I don’t know what time it is. The clocks are out. I stumble to the sunroom, groggy from the weed, and step outside into the screaming morning sun. With the power out and nothing to pump water, I guess the great outdoors is my bathroom. I’ve pissed gallons in my back yard, usually drunk as hell, but always under the cover of darkness. Not anymore. It’s broad daylight and I’m taking a huge morning leak with half a boner right in the middle of the yard. If half the city wasn’t wandering around dead, it would be a pretty awesome moment. Considering any neighbors I have are either complete assholes, or dead, or dead but not dead, I see it as a bit of a waste. Too bad I don’t have to take a shit.

Back inside, I shake some rice into a bowl and pour some bottled water over it and set it on the counter to soften. I’ll have to start thinking not just about the day to day stuff, like eating, but the longer-term proposition of how to stay alive. There’s enough food in the house to last a while, but it will run out eventually and I’ll be fucked. I sit at the kitchen table and ponder whether or not I can continue raiding the neighborhood for staples or if I’ll need to make a real food run, and although the prospect of leaving the safety of my street isn’t  all that fulfilling, I decide it’s going to be necessary if I’m to ride out the storm. The duffel with my battle outfit is resting on the floor by the refrigerator, waiting for me to gear up. I pull the black Harley boots over my feet and tie them up, tucking my jeans in as I draw the laces tight.  I notice some splotches of old blood on my Levis and again, I’m not sure whose it is. This is getting old.

I clomp across the hardwood floor, across the kitchen, and pick up my watch from the counter next to my useless iPhone, which must have died out during the overnight hours. It’s about ten thirty. I look at my watch and smirk to myself. It’s a Tag Heuer, and once upon a time I was so damn proud of that watch. Now, well, it’s a watch. At least I’ll know what time it is for another year or so, until the battery decides to piss itself out. Gotta love the Swiss.

My rice is soft, at least soft enough to gulp down a few bites. I’m wishing for the days I’d pop a bag of Uncle Ben’s into the microwave for ninety seconds and pour a can of chili over it, drown it in butter and parmesan cheese (Rachel used to call it “stinky cheese”, but she loved it) and mix it into a thick stew. I have cans of chili, but they’ll need to last me for who knows how long. The butter is in the fridge, but the rice is room temperature. Fuck it. I swallow down a few more mouthfuls seasoned with some salt and some pepper, pour some more rice into the bowl and top it off with lukewarm water. It will be softer, later, but it won’t taste any better.

A nylon dry cleaning bag is hanging on the coat rack. I grab it and stuff it into my waistband. It will hold a few weeks’ worth of food.

I hoist the duffel over my shoulder and step out into the garage, again checking for the key and making sure the door is locked. The duffel gets tossed onto the front seat of my Volvo. Through the windows of the garage door, I do a safety check and find the coast clear. The door lifts up silently, again, and I back the car out into the daylight, and quickly push the door back down again. I can’t lock it from out here, so I’ll have to hope for the best.

The Volvo doors lock automatically as I get over ten miles an hour, and I goose her a bit to get up to speed, and the let off on the gas so I can look over the neighborhood. It’s deserted. At the corner, I roll through the stop sign and out onto the boulevard that links my neighborhood with the retail area a couple miles south. There are a few wandering dead out in the park, shambling aimlessly across the soccer field. They turn in my direction as they hear the car pass by and begin their slow march in my direction, but I’m in a car and their dead legs aren’t made for sprints, so I don’t pay them much attention.

Mine is the only car on the road, at least the only one under power. I pass by a Toyota pickup that’s run itself up on the curb. The driver side door is open and I notice a huge black spot on the pavement. It’s blood. I stop and look into the cab of the truck, but there’s nothing there that looks useful, so I drive on.

As I clear the tree-lined street at the corner, I see a huge plume of clack smoke rising up over the rooftops. It’s probably the elementary school; there is a lot of smoke. I’ve spent a lot of time at that school, watching Rachel in Christmas plays, watching Rachel play chimes, watching Rachel sing karaoke during Fun Day. Now I’m watching the residue of the fire that’s gutting the building, burning away all those memories while my little girl melts into the dirt in my back yard.

I make the left onto Golf Course Drive and find myself looking at a long line of abandoned cars, all of them heading east toward the main drag. There’s a lane open and I’m able to make it out onto Randall Road. The Dominicks Grocery is only a quarter mile south, and despite the junk yard of crashed cars and trucks and burned out school busses in front of me, I’m able to weave my way through. The first turnout into the big shopping center, by the movie theater, is clogged with a mass of twisted metal and broken glass; several cars are mashed together in a giant heap of crushed aluminum and rubber. There are bodies here, dozens of them. Some are inside the vehicles, slumped over steering wheels and draped out of back windows. Others are on the ground, slowly rotting into pools of thick, black sludge.

The broken body of a small boy is resting on the hood of a white BMW, a dark red swath of dried blood marking the trail where he slid after he was ejected from the windshield of the grey Taurus that came to  rest against the front bumper of the Beemer, its own hood and bumper rolled up like a sardine can. I look away and slowly drive on to the next turnout.

This intersection is just a left turn off the four lane road, and I’m through without a pause. The parking lot of the grocery store is nearly empty. As I get closer to the front of the market, I can see why. The front windows have been smashed out, and a thick coating of shattered glass litters the sidewalks like snow. Broken bottles litter the spaces in front of the doors, along with empty plastic cartons of milk and torn boxes of cereal. Mice have found the Frosted Flakes and the Cheerios, and they scatter as I pull my car as close as I can without risking a flat tire from all the busted glass.

There are no Walkers here. The lot is empty.

I turn off the car and step outside, half running around the front to the passenger side and pull the door open. I tug my ski jacket on and zip it up, wrap the shin guards around my legs and pull the Velcro straps tight and slip the gloves over my hands. The duffel gets tossed back onto the front seat and I nudge the door closed as quietly as I can. The store looks abandoned, but I’m not taking any chances. I want to lock the car, but I sure as hell don’t want to risk the sound of the horn screaming at me as the locks drop. Fuck it.

Dominicks is dark inside, and the air is stale and warm. The light from the shattered floor to ceiling windows that cover the entire front of the market doesn’t make it too far into the store; beyond the endless rows of checkout counters, the aisles are nothing but shapes and shadows. I don’t have a flashlight.

I hear skittering across the floor and as my eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, I can see hundreds of mice. Some of them are huge, and I realize they’re not mice. Rats. I shiver and take a few steps deeper into the recesses of the market. With each step, the darkness becomes blackness. Even the shadows are gone, replaced by an inky nothingness. I close my eyes, and I realize I can’t much tell the difference. I pull the clothes bag from under my coat and start feeling for shelves.

I’ve shopped here so many times, but for some reason I can’t remember where anything is. I know the produce is to the far left of the store, and the freezers and liquor is at the far right. The center of the market is a bit of a crapshoot; there’s the pharmacy aisles, dry goods and the “seasonal” aisle with all kinds of worthless plastic shit no one can seem to live without. I’m located roughly left of center.

I’m waving my arms around, feeling my way into the heart of the market. I figure I must be halfway down an aisle, so I turn to my left and flail a little more, taking little steps until my hands find the cold metal of a shelf. It’s empty. The one above it is, too, as is the shelf below. Shit. I turn around, hoping I’ve made it a full one hundred and eighty degrees, and start flailing again. To my far right, the windows are bright and glaring. I look away, trying to keep my eyes adjusted to the darkness, not that it’s doing me any good.

The shelves on the other side of the aisle are empty, too. I can feel a few wrappers of who knows what, but whatever they held is long gone. I curse out loud. From deep within the store, I hear a soft moan. Shit. I’m not alone in here. I freeze for a second, listening. Again, a low, sad moan and the shuffling of dead feet on the slick linoleum, and then the crash and thud of something heavy and solid, falling hard against the shelving down the aisle.

I turn back toward the front of the store and the light streaming in from the broken windows half blinds me, but not enough that I can’t see the silhouettes of three of them standing silently up by the checkout rows. I blink, wishing for my eyes to hurry the fuck up and get adjusted to the light. Behind me, the dead thing is moving again, struggling to get free of the shelving.

I try to hold my breath and I can’t. I’m fighting back panic and losing. My heart is pounding in my ears and I’m sweating underneath the ski parka. I left the house with a fucking laundry bag; I’m not holding a shovel, a shotgun, not even a stick to defend myself with. I reach into the shelving and frantically feel around for something, anything. My fingers find a can, then another. I start grabbing, dropping cans into the laundry bag. Four cans. Five. Six. They’re bigger than soup cans. Fruit, maybe. Green beans. I don’t care what they are, as long as they’re hard enough to swing and strike and do damage with.

The dead thing behind me is moving closer, and the dead things ahead of me are, too. I’m caught between bad and worse, and both are getting nearer with each breath.  The three Walkers are moaning, louder now. I take a step forward towards the front of the store as I wrap the end of the bag around my wrist. I can hear my heart thumping away in my chest. It sounds like a bomb exploding, over and over again. I figure I have about three good running paces before I’m in the shit. There’s no way I’m retreating deeper into the store; I’d rather take my chances with three Walkers and some precious daylight than fight one Walker blind.

Here we go; hammer down, motherfuckers.

I scream as loud as I can, some kind of pasty white-collar battle cry, and lurch forward into the group of Walkers. I swing the laundry bag in a sweeping arc and the cans inside connect hard with the skull of the closest. It’s a woman. She groans as the cans collapse the side of her skull and she tumbles into the Walker to her right. Together, they both spill into the shelving and onto the floor. The third reaches for me and I swing again, this time too low. A heavy thud, a wheeze and foul, heavy puff of gas pours from the dead lungs of my dance partner. The blow isn’t enough to do any damage, but it’s solid enough to knock the Walker back a couple steps, and it’s all I need to duck and dodge my way past the trio and sprint to the front of the market.

Fuck, it’s bright. I’ve never seen a cloudy day as bright as this. But I’m at the front of the store, and through the broken plate glass windows, and in the parking lot. I don’t slow down until I’m at my car, and I open the passenger door and toss the laundry bag on top of the duffel. Across the lot, I can see about a dozen Walkers ambling towards me. To the west, by the Taco Bell, there are about a dozen more.

I hurry around the front of the car and nearly slam into a toddler. She’s dead, but she’s still standing, her white eyes looking at me, through me. How old is she? Two, maybe, three? She has a little pink dress on and her feet are bare and covered in dried, open sores. Her skin is grey and there’s a ragged, ugly slice down her left cheek, skin hanging in shreds from the wound. She moans, a small, pitiful little sound that’s more like a cry. I lift my foot and plant my boot firmly against her little chest and shove, hard. She slams backward onto the pavement, her head bouncing like a rubber ball but sounding very much like a small child’s skull striking the hard earth. Her feet are kicking and I step over her and drive the heel of my boot into her forehead, hard. Again and again, until her skull gives way and the sole of my boot sinks deep into her brain. Her feet aren’t moving anymore.

 In the car, my hands are shaking so hard I can barely fetch the keys from my pocket and into the ignition, but somehow I manage. I shove the car into reverse and spin the wheel. The Volvo’s tires screech on the blacktop and I feel a jolt as the front wheels crush the body of the little girl under two thousand pounds of Swedish engineering. I drop the gear into drive and there’s another thump and then a third as I roll over her again with both sets of tires. I slam my foot to the floor and I’m across the parking lot in seconds, and out onto the highway.

The trip home is exactly the same as the trip to Dominicks, except there’s no hope for a full bag of food waiting at the end of the journey. I make it to my driveway and into the garage without another encounter. With the garage door safely closed and locked, I dig my arm deep into the laundry bad and pull out a can. I’m hoping it’s peaches.

Condensed milk. Perfect. 

Day Eighteen

When I wake up, the television is off. It was on when I fell asleep, tuned to CNN, which has been broadcasting public service announcements along with coverage of “the health crisis” that pretty much sounds a lot like the public service announcements.  Last night, there were intermittent test patterns as well.

It’s been two days since I lost the girls, the two longest days of my life. The house is empty and the silence is deafening. There have been no visitors, no undead to deal with. The phone hasn’t rung. I haven’t been off the couch other than to take a leak in forty eight hours.

I reach for the remote and hit the power button. Nothing. I tell myself it’s the batteries as I roll myself off the couch and onto the floor. The clock on the microwave is out. I flip the wall switch to the light in the family room. Nothing. The power is out. I’ve been silently dreading the day when electricity would cease to flow through the wires of the house. It’s today. 

I’m off the couch. My face is still sore but I can breathe, at least a little. The headache is gone, thank God, and although I’m scared shitless to sneeze, I can at least pretend I’m not still all fucked up. I stand staring into the refrigerator for a few seconds until it dawns on me that the light is out and I’m letting all the precious cold air escape into the kitchen. I slam the door shut and something inside clatters and falls. I’m not hungry, anyway.

I sniff at my armpits and realize I smell like a homeless guy. Outside, it’s raining, so I strip off my clothes in the sunroom and swing the back door open, spreading out the shirt, underwear and jeans on the brick patio to wash. I let the warm drops of rain cascade over my skin, working it in the creases and crevices until I feel at least a bit clean. I repeat the process for good measure. For my hair, I stand beneath the eaves of the sunroom roof and let the water pour over my head until I feel little gritty nobs in my hair and realize the rain is washing tiny little pebbles from the shingles away. I’m afraid of what I’ll find when I twist the faucet on the hose so I lay down flat on the pool deck and lower my head over the side and work the chemically enhanced water over my scalp. It burns a little and for a moment I wonder if it will make my hair fall out.

Who gives a shit, right?

  I peel my dripping clothes from the patio and drape the pants and shirt over the backs of a couple of the black metal chairs that complete the little patio set Mandy was so intent on buying from Lowes. When the sun comes out, they’ll dry all stiff and crunchy, but they’ll be somewhat clean. There’s a little blood spatter on the front of the shirt. I have no clue where it’s from. It could be mine, or it could be someone else’s. It’s kind of amusing; there’s blood on my clothes and I don’t know – and don’t care – whose it is.

I look over into the yard and notice water pooling in the muddy depressions where my girls lie sleeping. I choke back a sob and for some reason I wonder if their fingers are moving and twitching under all that dirt and mud. I hope they aren’t.

There’s moaning from the street and I work my way slowly to the fence in time to see two Walkers and a cat shambling across the intersection towards the high school. One is a man and one looks like a teenage girl. She’s dressed in black boots and a mini skirt, and she has no top on. The man is also shirtless and has a huge chunk of flesh missing from his lower back, exposing the bright white of his ribs and spine. They’re moving away from the house. Good for them. Good for me.

Inside, I towel off and dress in another pair of jeans and another tee shirt. I’ve put off  fortifying the house properly for too many days. It’s time to get started.

In the basement, I pull sheets of plywood from the storage beneath the stairs. I wish like crazy I’d done this while there was power, but I didn’t. A little sweat equity won’t raise the property values, but I grab a hack saw off the tool rack and use my four foot level to pencil a straight line across the middle of one of the boards and start cutting. It takes for fucking ever. When I’m done, I have two relatively square four foot by four foot pieces of plywood. Rinse and repeat on the second sheet and I have enough boarding to cover the windows in the living room.

I’m a little bit proud of myself for fully charging not one but both battery packs for my cordless drill. Upstairs, I use decking screws to fix the panels over each of the windows. They don’t quite fit, so I center them vertically, leaving six or so inches open at the top and at the bottom. This is good, I tell myself; I’ll be able to see out of the bottom without whatever is trying to see through the plywood seeing me. Bliss.

Back in the basement, I round up an armload of four inch flowing boards and use them to cover the windows at the back of the house, learning from the last job and leaving a little bit of space open at the bottom. The screws are three inches long; the wood will break before the screws give way. I hope.

The sunroom presents a bit of a problem; it’s a fucking sunroom, meaning there are too many windows and not enough walls. It’s all inside the fence, so for now I’m not too concerned. If the Walkers start getting stronger and breaking shit down, then I’ll have a bit of a problem on my hands.

I get the idea to create myself an escape hatch from the basement. I suppose in the event the house is overrun by the walking dead I’ll need some way to get myself the hell out. There’s a large window that we hid behind a bookcase, and it sits about three feet below ground level. It was intended as a fire escape, so I figure it will work just as nicely as a safe route out of the house if I’m trying to keep myself from being eaten. I dig through my junk can; it’s not a junk can to me, but to most other people it’s just a collection of pack-ratted shit that I never saw fit to throw in the trash can. And a good thing, too, because I find two screen door hinges. After rigging together a door from more of the flooring panels, I screw the hinges in and then mount the trap door to the studding above the window. It swings easily, and I use a hook and eye clasp to fix it in place. It won’t hold well if I wind up with some steroid-using Walker kicking at it, but first he’d have to find the basement window. It’s surrounded by a half circle of aluminum with mounts of ivy growing over the top. I’ll be OK.

With the house secure, or at least as secure as I know how to make it, it’s time to work on securing me. I suppose if I’m going to be spending any time at all outside, I will need to have some protection from undead teeth and fingernails.

 I grab my ski jacket from the clothes rack in the closet and put it on. From the shelf above the washer, I pull down a new roll of duct tape and start wrapping it around and around the arms, making certain to leave gaps at the shoulders and elbows so I can retain at least some semblance of mobility. I look at myself in the mirror next to the dryer and I see a half-assed astronaut looking back at me, silver and orange and utterly fucking ridiculous. I’m not in it for the fashion. The duct tape will keep teeth from getting through the nylon and minus forty degree-rated filling.

I drag my old, worn Harley boots from one of the storage bins, glad I didn’t let Mandy sell them in last summer’s garage sale. I hate garage sales. Who other than a sadistic money-hungry miser could stand arguing over a fucking quarter for a torn paperback? And what kind of idiot would pay five bucks for a VHS copy of Titanic? Idiots. Idiots and Mexicans. The Mexicans will buy anything.

In another bin, I rummage until I find my elbow guards from my two week roller blading stint. I could roller blade with the best of them, but stopping was another story. A torn rotator cuff takes a lot of fun out of the sport. My bike helmet is in the bin, and I haul that out as well. I’ll look ridiculous, but I’ll be safe.

My upper body is pretty well covered, and I intend the pun. I start thinking about my legs; old Levis probably won’t make the cut. Another pun, and I chuckle to myself.  I don’t have anything for my legs, and for a minute or two I just stand there, imagining myself wearing hockey goalie pads. Idiot.

Well, shit.

I make the decision to scout next door for some shin guards. The Pinarskis’ kid played soccer in high school. It’s worth a shot, and what else have I got going today? I dress myself in battle gear and lumber up the basement stairs, through the kitchen into the garage. It’s musty and hot out here. Through the frosted glass windows, I can see there’s nothing in the driveway and no Walkers in the front yard. I grab a pry bar from the corner by the garage door and slip my hands into a pair or worn leather work gloves I’d left lying on the work bench. There are a couple packets of seeds there and it strikes me as pretty fucked up just how hard we’d worked in the yard, the flowers and the shrubs and the mulch and the cultured stone, and how none of it made one shred of difference now. Nobody gives a shit about their yards these days.

I check the drawer in the workbench for the key and make sure the door to the kitchen is locked. It is.

I press the button on the door and nothing happens. I punch it again and remember the power is out, so I grab the pull cord and release the latch and lift the door by hand. It’s quiet and smooth and I wonder to myself why the hell it’s so fucking loud when it’s pulled up by electricity. I lift the door to halfway and crouch down as I pass out into the open air.It’s still cloudy, but the rain has stopped. It’s humid and I’m already getting hot in my undead-killer outfit.

There are no people outside, and it’s quiet except for the birds. The birds never seem to shut up.

I make my way across the street and cross the sidewalk towards the Pinarski’s place. There are two blackened smudges in the front lawn and I try hard not to look for pieces of bone and clothing, but I can’t help it. They’re there, little blackened hunks of, well, people, scattered in the grass. The lawn is getting tall again.

The front door is unlocked and I slip into the house. There are muddy footprints tracked across the carpet and little cakes of dirt leading down the hallway into the kitchen. I follow them, and find the cabinets thrown open and spice bottles and packets of instant gravy strewn over the tiles on the floor. A box of rice that must have been dropped sits on its side on the counter, little maggoty white flecks scattered in a two foot wide swath. Sanjay has been here, that fuck. Anybody else would have had the common sense to save the goddamned rice. The rest of the cupboards are pretty much bare, some flour and sugar and a few boxes of pasta. I slip off my gloves and scoop as much of the rice as I can gather back into the box, and gather up the flour and sugar and boxes of macaroni. I love pasta. I load up my arms and carry the food to the front door, pile it neatly on the floor and head up the stairs.

Ricky Pinarski’s room is at the top of the stairs on the left. It’s empty and dark, the curtains drawn up tightly. Ricky is away at college in Indiana on a baseball scholarship. His room is a typical teenaged boy’s room, posters of Metallica and Green Day tacked to the walls and shelves covered with baseball and soccer trophies above a small, neat desk. In the closet, I dig through piles of clothing and enough sneakers to fill a shoe store until I find a green and gold duffel bag with the high school logo on it. Gators. Inside, I find a gold mine; soccer cleats, shin guards (jackpot), a small baggie of weed (another jackpot) and a stash of Hustlers. The crumpled jock strap and cup can stay; I leave the rest in the duffel and head back downstairs, load the food into the bag and close the door behind me, but not before grabbing a set of keys from the little hook on the wall and locking the place up.

I look left, and then right. Nothing. With the duffel over my shoulder, I take my time crossing the street and crouch under the door. The garage is clean, just the cars and tools and all the stuff I won’t likely need again in the near future. Or maybe at all, ever.

With the garage door silently down and locked with the slide bolt, I’m at least somewhat safely sealed off from the decomposing outside world.   I tug off my gear and unload the duffel, replacing the food and weed and Hustlers with my duct taped jacket, gloves, helmet and the shin guards. The food belongs in the cabinets, not on the counter, I remember Mandy telling me, so I carefully stock away the pasta, the used up rice and the bags of flour and sugar.

The bag of weed is staring at me from the island in the middle of the kitchen. I stare back. There’s a little magnetic note pad stuck to the side of the refrigerator, and I tear off half a sheet os paper and sprinkle some of the pot into the center, carefully rolling a joint. It’s not thin like good rolling paper, but it works. I find myself smiling at how easily the muscle memory returns, my fingers twirling the joint at each end until it’s tight. There are some matches in the spice cupboard, and I light up and inhale deeply, immediately coughing my lungs out. It makes my nose hurt like hell, but the coughing stops and I pull another drag from the joint and hold it for a ten count before letting an impossibly huge plume of smoke escape from my lips. Two more, and my head is light and I’m seeing little specs of light dancing in front of my eyes. I lick my fingers and pinch out the joint.

Oh, look. Somebody brought Hustlers.  

Day Sixteen

I’m awake. I’m awake, but my eyes won’t open. My eyes won’t open, and I can’t breathe through my nose. I can’t breathe through my nose, and my mouth is open, wide. It’s dry, like the inside of an old suitcase. My tongue feels like leather. I use my fingers to pry my eyes open, and feel the swelling around the lids, puffy and full. The clock on Rachel’s dresser reads two thirty seven. It’s light outside, the sun blazing through the window onto the bed. Jesus Christ. I’m drenched in sweat, I realize, and I sit up slowly and work my wet tee shirt over my head. It doesn’t slide off; it rolls up my body, clinging to my skin and pasting my hair over my forehead as I work myself free. It weighs about twenty pounds. I’m thirsty.

In the bathroom, I gulp water from the faucet until I’m about to burst, and then I swallow some more for good measure. I try to avoid my image in the mirror, but it’s impossible. The face staring back at me isn’t mine. My nose is swollen like a boxer’s and the skin around my eyes is a deep, rich purple. Christ. The whites of both eyes aren’t white. They’re blood red, two deep brown spheres swimming in a sea of crimson.

As I’m staring at my damaged face in the mirror, I hear it for the first time. A soft moan. I’ve heard it before, but never inside the house. The sound is unmistakable; once you’ve heard the sad, pitiful crying of the dead, you can’t unhear it. It stays with you like a soft whisper in your ear.

The moan came from down the hall. My blood freezes in my veins and my heart stops beating for a moment. I can feel it stop, and then with a shudder it pulses and my blood flows again, leaving my feet and returning its nonstop journey through my body. My brain is still foggy and for a few minutes I just stand there at the sink, listening to the moans and trying to figure out why they’re not outside. When I finally realize the sounds are coming from the bedroom, my knees begin to give way and I’m shaking uncontrollably, my body sliding down the vanity until I’m sprawled on the floor, curled around myself. I realize I’m sobbing,

I rise to my hands and knees and slowly push my head out the bathroom door and look down the hall. The door is closed, and I don’t understand yet how a Walker got in the house, much less how one got in the bedroom. The window? No, it’s two floors up and as far as I’ve seen, the dead don’t climb.

Nothing got in. There are no breaches in the half assed security I’ve erected around the house. No, nothing got in. They were here all along.

 I’m crying as I crawl down the hall to the bedroom, big, heaving sobs sweeping over me. The doorknob is still locked. It washes over me, the horror and the grief of what’s happened beyond that God damned door while I was sleeping, unconscious, passed out, whatever. They’ve turned. It has to be both of them; there’s no way one could go without taking the other along with them. I press my wet cheek to the door, listening to the soft moans on the other side of the wood panels. My head drops to my chest and I’m hoping, praying they turned while they were asleep.

I sit there, listening, crying, listening again, for what seems like hours. I finally gather my energy and rise up from the floor and walk back to the bathroom. Above the door, perched on the casing, is a small key. I’ve only used it a few times, when Rachel has somehow locked herself out of the bathroom. My fingers run over the molding, gathering dust until they find the cold metal key. It’s in my hand, and I’m looking at it, and for fuck’s sake I can’t bring myself to walk the few steps down the hall and open the door.

Somehow, I manage to take one step, then another.

At the door, my hand shakes almost uncontrollably as I work the key into the tiny little hole in the doorknob. The lock pops with a pinging sound, and my hand closes on the knob. It turns. I’m hoping it won’t. I’m silently begging for anything that might keep me from seeing what’s on the other side. My luck, or lack of it, holds. The door opens silently, inch by inch. I can’t see anything. There’s a short little hallway before the bedroom opens up and I’m still on the wrong end of it. Fuck. I force myself to take a step, another, three.

They’re in bed, the covers over them. They’re just asleep, I tell myself, but I know it’s not true. They’re dead, alive but dead, or dead but alive. Either way, they’re not with me anymore. The moans are louder now, two distinctly different pitches blending together in undead harmony. Rachel is draped across her mother, who is on her back with her dead, cataract-covered eyes wide open. Mandy’s jaw is working slowly, chewing air. Rachel stops moaning and sits up abruptly. Her hair is matted to her forehead and her neck snaps and pops as her head swivels in my direction. Her jaw starts working, just like Amanda’s, biting at nothing. Rachel rolls off her mother and off the bed, her little body dropping to the floor with a thud.

I’m crying again, my chest heaving with each guttural sob. My nose is running and tears are pouring down my cheeks. Rachel is crawling toward me, not crawling so much as rolling, the way she did when she was a toddler, not quite ready to walk but too fucking impatient to stay in one place. Slowly, I back away from her and pull the door closed behind me.

Downstairs, I load the shotgun and drop a couple extra shells into my pocket. I take my time climbing the stairs, memories of Christmases and Easter egg hunts flooding my mind. Tickling Rachel on this stair. Holding the cat while Rachel pets her on that stair. Painting the edging along the banister while Rachel brings me a diet Mountain Dew. Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

The bedroom door is still closed and I twist the knob and push it open. It bumps against something solid and soft and stops. It’s Rachel; she’s rolled in front of it. I push, gently, and she rolls behind it. She’s moaning. Purple veins are spread out over her have and her eyes are dark where the blood has pooled behind them. I put the muzzle of the shotgun to her forehead and she looks up at me, her dead eyes gazing past me, through me. I can’t see anything behind them, no evidence of who she was, nothing to tell me she sees me as daddy, her father, her protector. Nothing.

My finger curls around the trigger and I start to pull, watching the hammer draw back little by little. I’m crying so hard I can’t seem to keep the gun on her and the hammer drops. The blast misses her head by a foot, tearing through her little shoulder and blowing a six inch chunk of flesh and bone and thickening, dead blood across the carpet. The sound is deafening and Mandy sits up and screams, a guttural, animal scream that I tell myself I’ll be able to forget but know I won’t, not ever. I pull the trigger again and this time, Rachel’s head disappears in a thundering cloud of red and black and white little bits of skull and brain.

She stops moving. She’s gone, gone for real now.

Amanda is struggling to work herself from the bed. The sheets are twisted around her and she doesn’t have much muscle control. I let the empty shells fall from the shotgun and slide two more into the chamber. This time, I’m able to aim and fire, and my wife’s head disappears from her shoulders, leaving a spray of gore on the headboard and the wall behind it. Her body sits there upright for a moment as if it doesn’t know it’s been separated from a head, a brain. Gravity takes over, and what’s left of her falls back onto the bed.

I want to die. I want to die with them, and for a moment I seriously consider using the remaining shell on myself. But I don’t. I’m afraid to be alone, but I’m more afraid to die.

I back my way from the bedroom, trying hard to look away from the mess I’ve made of my family. I can’t look, I can’t look away. I leave the shotgun against the wall in the hallway and step over Rachel’s corpse to pull the comforter from the bed, careful to work it from beneath Mandy so she doesn’t roll to the floor. I spread it over Rachel’s body and tuck it under her, gently. When she’s wrapped in it, I lift her to my chest and cry again. I’m still crying as I carry her down the stairs, past the Easter eggs and the diet Mountain Dews and the memories that will never again be anything but fading images in my mind’s eye.

She will sleep in the back yard tonight, alongside her mother.

I repeat the process with Amanda, struggling a bit because she’s heavier. I lose my footing on the stairs and we slide down the last few steps, my back thumping against the stairs as Mandy’s weight forces the air from my lungs. At the bottom, I rest. I know I should drag her, it would be easier, but I can’t bring myself to haul her body through the house like a bag of salt.

In the back yard, I lay them side by side and I begin to dig. When I’ve dug two large holes and four additional smaller pits, I use the buck saw to cut through the muscle and bones of their arms, their legs. I’m covered in their blood now, dark black and cold fluid drenching my clothes. Their torsos go into the bigger holes, and the arms and legs go into the smaller ones. I don’t know what happens to Walkers when they go down for good; I’m not going to burn their bodies, but I don’t want them getting back up again.

When the last shovel of soil is laid, I collapse on the grass. I’m filthy and I’m sweating and I know I’ve lost something of myself. I’m not innocent, not naïve, but I’m not good at this shit, either. My heart is gone.

I crawl through the grass, across the pool deck and tumble into the water, letting my body sink to the bottom. I stay down there as long as I can, until my lungs are on fire. I push myself to the surface and gasp, sucking air into my lungs and fighting the urge to throw up. My nose is throbbing, my whole face aches.

I strip my clothes off and toss them over the fence into the side yard. Inside, I dry off and wrap myself in a towel. I make the trek back upstairs and take one last look into the bedroom. It’s like a slaughterhouse, blood and tissue everywhere. I toss the key onto the floor by the dresser, click the lock and pull the door shut for the last time.  

Day Fifteen

The telephone is ringing and it jolts me awake. I’m on the couch, again, and I forgot to set the sleep timer on the TV. The on-screen caller ID flashes Martin Black’s name and number. Martin and his wife Kathryn are neighbors, depending on how you define the word. Their house sits on the front side of our circle. Martin is a tall, thin prick of a man who hasn’t had a job in over two years, lets his aging parents support his family – or he did until the flu – and I don’t respect him a bit for it. Plus, his wife Kathryn is a royal bitch.

“Hello.”

Kathryn’s voice is loud and nasally and it’s the last thing I want to hear first thing in the morning, but it’s her on the other end of the line. She doesn’t bother saying hello to me; she just asks where Amanda is. I tell her that Amanda went to Tennessee to visit her cousins, she tells me not to be an asshole, and I tell her that as far as I know Mandy is asleep, a lot like I was before the phone rang. I ask her what she could possibly want nearly two weeks into the end of the world, and she tells me we’re having a neighborhood meeting to discuss security and home defense. She wants me there. Apparently, word of my little turf waltz with the Walkers has made it around the horn. I ask her why she wanted to ask Amanda to ask me to show up. She tells me the meeting is at seven tonight and hangs up.

I want to see something other than CNN on the tube, so I press the Guide button on the remote. Most of my favorite channels only read “To Be Announced”. I remember reading through the TV Guide as a kid and seeing those words. I thought it was some kind of news show. I select History International and a test pattern fills the screen. National Geographic has one, too, and so does the Science Channel. The test pattern must be a popular show. I’ve been wondering how long the cable channels would continue to broadcast after the meltdown started; I guess thirteen days is my answer. I scroll through the guide to the Disney Channel; there’s a test pattern there, too. Rachel is going to be a mess. She’s been quiet and weepy for the past few days. The Walkers at the window have been a tough thing for her to snap back from. Fuck, it’s been a bitch for me to get over it. I think about the things I’ve seen over the past couple weeks and it makes my head spin and my stomach churn. But I’m also more than satisfied at the fact I haven’t would up in a fetal position somewhere. I’ve often wondered what I’d do in a life or death scenario, and before – this – I would have figured I just didn’t have it, whatever “it” is. But I do.

I reach for the phone and dial my brother. It’s a little after seven here, so it’s after eight on the east coast. He answers on the first ring and I ask him if he was holding the telephone. He doesn’t answer me right away, and I say his name, loudly. “Artie.”

“I’m here”, he answers. “It’s bad here.” He sighs into the phone and pauses before speaking again. “Hal died. “ Hal is Artie’s brother-in-law. “Anna just called, he was outside and some of the infected got hold of him and he’s gone.” His voice breaks and I can tell he’s on the edge of a breakdown. “They tore him up, they just ripped him apart. He couldn’t get away and they pulled him into fucking pieces and I saw one in the woods behind the house and Jesus Christ, it’s still out there, what the fuck am I going to do here?” He’s rambling. I’m trying to calm him down, I tell him that they’re slow and he can drop them if he can take away their sensory abilities, or he can outrun them if he can’t.

“The turkey gun should do it”, I tell him. He’s a sport hunter; he’s got plenty of firepower in the basement, locked inside a Winchester gun safe. “When it’s down, take it apart. Use an axe.” I wish I had an axe. The shovel is getting dull. He tells me he’ll deal with it, and I wish him luck. I tell him I love him, he promises to call me after he deals with his woods walker, and we hang up.

We’re getting low on food. I’ve been putting off making the trip across the street to the Reichert’s to forage, but today’s the day. I pull on a pair of Levis and a Chicago Bears tee shirt and grab the big ski gear bag up from the basement. It should enough for a week or so. I don’t bother with the shovel, but the twelve gauge is going with me for sure. I check the windows and the coast is clear, so I tell Mandy to keep watch and lock the front door behind me.

It’s a quick trip across the street; I haven’t seen another humvee since the Army came to visit the Pinarskis. I unlock the patio door with the Reichert’s key, and push it open. The stench of death washes over me. I gag, and pull my shirt over my face. It helps, but only a little. Sandy Reichert is still on the floor beneath the afghan. One of her hands is exposed, and it’s covered in tiny, white larvae. Rot and fluids have seeped through the thin blanket. It looks as though someone has dumped rice over the stain where her blood has pooled, but this rice is moving. I step over Sandy’s body and move into the kitchen, drop the ski bag on the floor and start filling it with canned soup and vegetables, boxes of pasta, jars of applesauce and fruit. A big piece of me is thinking about leaving the box of instant rice, but I tell myself it’s rice, not maggots, so I throw it in the bag. A horde of fruit flies swarms over blackened bananas on the counter. In the refrigerator, I grab cheese and a sleeve of bagels. Bagels never go bad. The freezer is a jackpot of Zip-Locked ground beef, pork chops and chicken breasts, and I take it all, along with some frozen carrots and peas. I stuff a few frozen meals into the side pockets on the gear bag and I’m done.

From upstairs, I hear a soft thumping sound. It’s Bob. I don’t need to see him to be sure. He’s still there, dead but not dead.

The bag weighs heavy on my shoulder. I trip as I step over Sandy’s corpse, my foot catches in the afghan and I’m down, face first, sprawled across her body. A soft rush of air hisses from beneath the blanket and I’m waiting for groping hands and gnashing teeth, but they don’t come. It’s just Sandy’s last breath, making its way from her lungs after all these days. I push to my knees, hoist the bag and I’m out the patio door as fast as I can move. There’s still ammunition in the basement, but it will have to wait for another trip. I can’t take anymore of the smell.

Outside, I fill my lungs with fresh, clean air. The taste of decay is in my mouth; my eyes are stinging and watery. I lock the door, drop the key into my pocket and turn around. I’m standing face to face with face Sanjay Bedi. He’s standing on the patio walk with a blue surgical mask over his mouth, holding an ancient pistol. The gun is squarish and it reminds me of a German World War Two sidearm. A Ruger? That’s probably what it is. His hand is shaking and he tells me to hand over the bag. “Do it, or I shoot you”, he says. I lower the gear bad to the ground but keep the shotgun in my right hand. Sanjay steps forward and reaches for the bag of food, and I raise the shotgun so it’s pointed at his chest. I tell him he’d better fucking hope that gun works and he just looks at me, says fuck, and takes a small step backward, his head lowered in shame. “I do not know if it works, but we are out of food and we are starving. “ I reach out for his pistol, he hands it to me and I check it over. It’s not even loaded. I give it back to him, butt first, and he holds it like it’s something nasty and dead.

“The Pinarskis”, I tell him. “The Pinarskis are gone. We’ll get you some food there.” Sanjay is staring at his feet and I’m feeling bad for yelling at him a few days ago. “Let me get this bag emptied and we’ll make a run for you guys.” I turn and start down the walk and my shoulder jerks hard as Sanjay, his teeth bared, pulls hard on the strap. The butt of his Ruger slams down hard on my forehead and I see a flash of white. A hot, wet flow runs into my left eye and I’m bleeding. Sanjay swings the gun in an arc, trying to make a second contact, but he isn’t letting go of the strap of the gear bag and he comes up short. The momentum turns him away from me and I plant a foot on his ass and shove. He drops to his knees, pulling me down with him, and then we’re on the ground and his fingers are clutching the barrel of the twelve gauge, trying to yank it from my grip. The bag slides off my shoulder and it’s free. Sanjay is on top of me, one hand on the shotgun and the other slapping at my face. The palm of his hand comes away slick and red with blood. The slaps hurt; they sting mostly, but they’re not doing any real damage. I’m getting more and more enraged with each smack of his hand. My left hand is up, trying to deflect the blows Sanjay is raining down on me. The right is still clamped on the butt of the twelve gauge. Sanjay closes his fist and strikes, connecting with the bridge of my nose and I hear a crunch as the entire front of my head explodes with pain. Blood is running down the back of my throat.

I hear a shriek and Sanjay is yelling “Do it, do it!” I turn my head and see Emily crossing her front yard, and I think she has a large carving knife in her hand. Blood is filling my eyes. I reach up and squeeze Sanjay’s neck in my fist and his screams ratchet up several octaves as I clamp down on his throat. The shotgun slips from my grasp and I’m thinking this is it, I’m fucking dead, but Sanjay drops it and starts flailing wildly at my head and face with his fists. His face is turning purple. I reach forward with my right hand and grab the front of Sanjay’s khakis, squeezing a fistful of his cock and balls as tight as I can, twisting at the same time.

Emily is standing over me with the knife and I hear a pop and she takes one step backwards, then another. A second pop and she’s sitting down, hard, on the Reichert’s walk. The knife clatters to the cement. Sanjay’s dark face is almost black and he rolls off me, onto the grass and curls into a fetal position, one hand to his throat and the other cupping his wounded johnson.

Mandy is next to me, holding Bob’s nine millimeter Glock. I sit up, my head spins and I turn to see Emily Bedi as she slumps forward, a pool of blood spreading from between her doughy thighs. Sanjay is crawling across the front lawn, dragging himself toward his open door. Fucking bastard, he doesn’t even turn to see if there’s any life left in his wife. There is none; she’s sitting spread-eagled on the sidewalk, folded in two at the waist so that her head is almost touching the ground. Blood has flowed out of Emily’s wounds, over clothes and onto the ground. She’s sitting there, dead, soaking in a four foot wide semi-circle of crimson.

I’m bleeding, too. Blood is running like water from my scalp and from my nose. I look down at the front of my shirt, it looks like someone has slit my fucking throat, I’m drenched from my collar down to my waist. From behind me, I hear the sound of Mandy as she drags the gear bag filled with food down the sidewalk towards home, a strap in one hand and a black handgun in the other.

I don’t think I’ll be in good shape for the neighborhood fun festival this evening. I’m a little dizzy and in a lot of pain, but fuck it. With the shotgun under my arm, I make the short walk around the circle to the Black’s house. After five minutes of knocking on the door, Kathryn Black finally peeks out through the blinds on the sidelights. She won’t open the door. I tell her we’ll meet tomorrow, we’ll meet outside and we’ll meet at noon. Her face puckers, she doesn’t like someone other than herself making the rules, but it is what it is. If I’m going to be tapped to lead the resistance, I guess it’s going to be on my terms.

I just need to figure out what those terms are. 

The walk back around the block seems like it takes hours. I’m wiped out. My arms are sore from trying to block Sanjay’s fists and my nose and scalp hurt like crazy. I know for sure that my nose is broken.

Back inside the house, I head down to the basement, strip off my bloody clothing and throw it in the wash. At the utility sink, I rinse my face and forehead with warm water. My nose is swollen and I can’t breathe through it. My eyes are like slits. Holding a hand towel to my face, I take a deep breath, and then blow the air out through my mouth. I’m thinking what I’m about to do will hurt like a motherfucker, and I’m not wrong. I suck in another breath, brace myself and blow out hard through my nose. Ohjesusfuckmotherchrist. An angry jet of thick, coagulated blood and mucous shoots from my nostrils, filling the towel. My head, from my teeth all the way back to the base of my skull, erupts in a fresh maelstrom of pain and a sheet of brilliant white light blasts my eyes. It feels like my brain is going to explode, and I wonder for a second if some of the shit that I just blew into the towel was part of my cerebrum. Apparently, my body feels like I’m not suffering enough; on top of the slicing ache in my head, my stomach begins to contract and suddenly I’m retching into the wash basin, a torrent of bile and blood and partially digested canned beans pouring from my mouth. Perfect. I’m reeling, salty drops of sweat are running into my half-closed eyes, adding the sensation of acid behind my eyelids to the pounding ache that’s hammering my face.

Back upstairs, the bedroom door is closed. Rachel and Amanda are on the other side of it, and I can hear soft crying. I reach for the doorknob. It’s locked. I’m on the wrong side of it. Or maybe not. In Rachel’s bathroom, I pour a half dozen Advil tablets into my palm and wash them down with water that I drink straight from the faucet. It’s only a few steps to Rachel’s bedroom, and it takes me what feels like an hour to take them. I lower myself into Rachel’s unmade bed, pull the covers over myself and I’m asleep in seconds.

Day Eleven

I wake up before dawn, and head upstairs to check on the girls. Neither of them has moved since I wished them sweet dreams last night. Downstairs, I flip open my laptop and surf to Facebook. The posts from my friends have dwindled down to a trickle. Thanks to the World Wide Web, I’m watching them die, one by one. I flip on CNN. A lot has happened over night. Israel has lobbed nukes into Iran and commenced a heavy bombing campaign against the Palestinians. Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have mobilized troops and are preparing to mount an attack on the Israelis, who are reiterating their willingness to use nuclear weapons again if a single Arab harms one of the chosen people. Well, fuck. American military personnel are leaving the region, heading stateside to assist with containment efforts in the US. It amuses me a little to think that it takes a goddamned plague to get the troops back home. The fucking mess they’re coming back to is unbelievable. I wonder how many of them have families left.

The President will speak to the nation at eight o’clock Eastern.

The sun is coming up and the birds are making a hell of a racket outside. I move from window to window, checking out the perimeter of the house. The back yard is secure; the fence gate is closed and locked. The grass is out of control and there are leaves and buds from the trees blanketing the water of the pool. I’m not making any plans to mow the lawn. I pull the curtain back from the living room window and my heart stops. On the street, there are several people moving slowly down the center of the avenue. It’s the Thriller dancers, jerking and swaying from side to side as they shuffle toward the rising sun. It’s daybreak, not fully light, but I can see that their faces are an ugly, purplish grey. One, a woman, has no shirt on, and her large breasts are heavy with blood and fluids. I count seven in all, three men, two women and two children. One of the men is missing an arm, a jagged stub of bone juts from his shoulder. They’re passing by the house, and I can hear long, soft moans from the other side of the window.

Behind me, Rachel screams, a high pitched child’s cry of pure terror. I didn’t know she’s come downstairs. I pull her to me, hiding her eyes from the view of the street. The group of walkers jerks to a stop, and one by one, they turn toward the house. The one-armed man is the first to take a shuffling step forward, and the rest of the pack jerks one leg, then the next, along with him. I tell Rachel to go upstairs, wake her mother, and lock the bedroom door. She sprints up the stairs like a jackrabbit and doesn’t look back. The bedroom door slams shut.

Outside, the walkers are on my side of the street. One-arm reaches the curb, stumbles and goes down, face first. The topless woman steps over him, using his spine as a ramp and lurches over the grass and onto the sidewalk. One of the children, a little girl who looks about five, follows closely behind. Most of her face is gone, it looks as though it’s been eaten down to the bone. One-arm pushes up, onto his knees, before being knocked back to the ground by another walker. My heart is pounding out of my chest. I let the curtain fall back and the window is covered.

I can hear them, outside. That fucking moan, it sounds like wind, is right outside the wall now. There’s a scraping as dead fingernails work down the aluminum siding. I dash to the stairs, taking three at a time, and burst through the bedroom door. It’s unlocked and I curse Rachel for never remembering to follow my instructions. Rachel and Amanda are holding each other close on the bed. I tell them to stay there, keep the fucking door locked, goddamn it, I’m going out to try to fight the – what, zombies? – off before they break through the windows.

I grab Bob’s pump action twelve gauge, load it and stuff a handful of shells in my pocket, and reach for the garden shovel with my other hand. I’m out the side door in the garage and around front in just a few steps. I scan up and down the street; thankfully, there are no other walking corpses to deal with. The herd of walkers is scratching, pawing at the side of the house. They’re moaning, ragged, raspy cries from deep within their chests. I raise the shot gun to my shoulder and aim for one-arm’s head. The trigger pulls back, the hammer drops and one-arm’s skull explodes in a spray of grey and red. He doesn’t go down, but he can’t hear or see me. Another shell, another hard recoil of the shot gun, and the topless woman’s head is gone as well. The five corpses left are moving slowly toward me and I’m backing away, trying to load a shell. I drop it to the ground, damned fingers, and quickly slide another into the chamber. The little faceless girl is ambling toward me. The white bone of her skull is shiny and wet, the skin where her nose and upper lip should be is completely gone where something, probably rats, ate away the flesh. Her teeth are clicking together until I fire the gun at point blank range and shower her friends with brains and blood.  

I fumble in my pocket for the shells. There are two left, and four bodies to deal with. They’re all between me and the shell I fucking dropped. I jog a few steps backwards and slam a shell home. The walkers are following me and I back into the street. They keep coming with that jerky, unsure gait. Thriller. One of the men, wearing a pair of cargo shorts and a faded flannel shirt with the sleeves torn off, reaches for me just as I unload a blast to his face, which blows away, leaving nothing but the back of his head sticking out of his neck like am ice cream scoop. Three more walkers, one shell in the gun and one on the ground. I make a mental note to count the fuckers next time and bring enough ammunition. I blast another round through the skull of the kid and he’s on the ground, thick black ooze seeping from the stump of his neck.

The bodies of the walkers I’ve already shot are scattered over the front lawn. A couple of them are trying to walk. The others are rolling in the grass, arms reaching for something, probably me. The shell I dropped is in the hand of the little girl, so I spin around, grip the shot gun by the barrel and swing it like a baseball bat, connecting with the head of a walker for a homer. The gun stock makes a squishy crack as wood meets flesh, splitting the face and flattening the nose into pulp. The shovel, my new best friend, is leaning against the porch railing and I make a dash for it. The other child, a Hispanic boy named Hector that I recognize from Rachel’s school, is close so I swing the shovel in an arc, sideways. The blade of the spade cuts deep into Hector’s neck, and the black ooze flows generously down the front of his Pokemon tee shirt. I swing again, screaming, and feel the satisfying crunch as the blade cuts through his spine, and Hector’s head falls to one side, resting for a moment on his shoulder before gravity pulls it forward. It’s hanging by a thick piece of muscle and skin; the weight of his head hanging against his chest makes Hector stumble and fall forward to the ground. His arms, outstretched, crumple beneath him and I hear the sharp snap of a bone breaking as he drops.

The headless little girl is still clutching my last shell, and I swing the shovel high and down across her forearm, neatly separating it from her elbow. The blade sinks into the turf. I leave the shovel standing there in the ground and grab the severed hand, prying the shell from tightly closed fingers. The hand is still flexing. I grab the shot gun, slam the shell into the chamber and spin around behind the last body, pressing the barrel tightly against the back of the walker’s head before pulling the trigger and sending a shower of brains and bone fragments skyward. 

I’m standing there, covered in gore. Of the seven, only two walkers are standing. One is shuffling in circles in the street, and the other is against a tree in the front yard, its feet making a burrow as it tries to force its way through the trunk. I run my hand through my hair, and it’s slick with that wet, black shit that passes for zombie blood. My heart is pounding and I’m having a hard time catching my breath. From across the street, I hear Sanjay yelling to me from his kitchen window. He’s been watching me fight off the onslaught of walkers, which I’ve decided to call these… things. Walkers, with a capital W. “Doot”, he yells. “Doot, that was fucking pretty awesome!” I generally like the guy, but I’m so pissed that he didn’t bother to lend a hand that I can’t see straight.

“You fucking cocksucker!” I scream back. I’m seeing red, and shouting at the top of my lungs. “That was awesome? Thanks for the fucking help, you motherfucking fucking fuck!” Sanjay slams the window shut and I’m left to clean up the mess in silence. I punch the code into the keypad and the garage door rises. Inside, I grab the regular shovel, a lighter from my tool box and a can of gasoline. I hit the keypad again and the door eases down. In the yard, I swing my garden spade at the legs of the walker by the tree and she drops to the ground. I swing a few more times and her legs and one arm are torn away. I do the same with the rest of the bodies, removing an arm here, a leg there, just enough to take away any remaining mobility. I have to jog half a block to catch the walker in the street, and take him down by cutting through a knee. When I’m done, I use the regular shovel to pile the limbs, still flexing, into a heap. I roll the torsos together and pour a liberal amount of gas onto each pile and flick the lighter. It takes a few tries to get a flame, it must be low on butane, but it lights and in a few seconds, both mountains of flesh are burning. They sizzle and pop, it sounds like hamburger frying in a pan on the stove. I’m not hungry.

Around back, I do my pool routine again. Mandy isn’t there to greet me, and I walk through the garage and into the house, shivering. I’m still dripping as I stand in the kitchen, bare feet on the hardwood floor, freezing as I try to dry off with a hand towel. Upstairs, I turn the knob on the bedroom door. It’s locked. I knock gently, and Amanda lets me in. I put on a pair of shorts from the dresser, towel my hair dry in the bathroom and crawl into bed. Rachel and Amanda curl up next to me, and they’re warm. The clock on the night table says eight fourteen.

It’s already been a long day.

Later, I’ll check on the smoldering corpses. Later. For now, in here, I’m warming up, I’m safe and I’m just so goddamned tired. I close my eyes, and sleep comes quickly. When I wake up, it’s almost noon. The girls are still next to me. Rachel is snoring lightly and Amanda is propped up on one elbow, watching her sleep. Our eyes meet and she smiles, just a little. She looks at me, then at Rachel, and at me again. “It’s Friday”, she says. “Movie night.” I laugh a little at that. Fridays are always our night to eat pizza and watch movies in the basement. I tell Mandy yes, let’s do that, let’s watch a movie.

                After a shower, I’m dressed and back outside. The corpses have burned down nicely, leaving piles of grey ash and bones. Nothing is moving, and I’m glad for it. I dig a hole in the grass and rake the remains in.

There’s nothing left in the yard but a dirt covered mound and a few pieces of scalp and hair. Shrek, I think to myself. Tonight, we’ll watch Shrek. That’ll do, Donkey. That’ll do. 

Day Nine

                   I wake up to a motherfucker of a spring storm. Rain is sheeting across the front windows and the wind is howling and gusting hard. It sounds like demons. The lights dim and a bolt of lightning strikes close by, immediately followed by a pounding thunder that rattles the windows and shakes the entire house. The storm is right on top of us. I start counting down from ten and before I get to four, Rachel is on the couch with me, pressing her face into my chest. I ask her is she’s scared and she says no in her “I’m not a kid anymore” voice, then pauses. Another flash of lightning turns the room into a photonegative, and the thunder threatens to knock the pictures off the wall. Rachel’s muffled, small voice says yes. She’s scared.

                Rachel asks me if this is a tornado, and I tell her no. She’s petrified of tornadoes, ever since a middle of the night twister tore a new twenty-five mile long asshole through our previous town in Indiana. I’d been standing in the window, peering through the black rain, the girls in the hall closet, when the F4 ripped past, just a tenth of a mile from the house. I remember the eerie silence that followed the twister’s passing. It’s a lot like that, these days.

                Like most spring thunderstorms, this one is over in a few minutes, the booms of thunder getting a little more muffled with each clap until they’re gone. Now, it’s just a steady rain. I wrap Rachel in the blanket I’ve been sleeping beneath and turn on the Disney Channel. It’s still on and for the first time ever, I’m pleased to see the hideously perfect faces of Zack and Cody as they frolic across the deck of their cruise ship.

                At the front window, I watch as Sanjay Bedi peers in the big bay windows of the Reichert’s place. He holds his hands up around his eyes to block the light, then starts gesturing wildly at his wife Emily. She’s watching him out their kitchen window. Emily is white and manic and so scatterbrained Mandy refuses to allow Rachel to ride in their car when she drives. I can’t hear because the windows are closed, but I can see Emily gesturing back, pointing toward the rear of the Reichert’s house. Sanjay waves his arms some more, slumps his shoulders and trudges along the walkway, disappearing into the back yard. Half a minute passes and he’s back out front. I’m glad I locked the door. I watch as Sanjay crosses his front lawn and vanishes behind his own front door.

                Amanda and I pass the morning watching CNN. The anchor, another newbie probably brought up from the mailroom, stutters through her broadcast. Her voice has a southern twang and she stretches out her syllables, making each word longer than it needs to be. To boot, she’s speaking slowly, as if her viewers are either deaf or stupid. I’m neither, and I’ve had it with warnings to avoid the infected, the video clips of riots, the doctors who don’t know shit but promise they’re working like dogs to bring society back from the brink.

                Around noon, Rachel hops up from the futon in the sunroom, drops her book to the floor and stares out the window. Amanda and I join her. On the usually busy street that intersects ours, a U.S.  Army humvee leads a futuristic white van. Stenciled on the side in big blue block type are the letters CDC. From the bullhorn speaker on the roof of the van, a man’s voice is telling us to stay in our homes. Curfew has been extended to twenty-four seven, looters will be shot and citizens caught outside their homes will be arrested, quarantined and detained until the “crisis” is resolved. The words are antiseptic and threatening. The van moves slowly on and the message repeats, fading away into the distance. It doesn’t return.

                By mid afternoon, the rain has stopped and the clouds break. Sunlight floods the house. The windows have a light haze, left over from the buildup of grime from the Chicago winter. I wonder if we have any of that Windex spray-on stuff that flows through the hose, and then I remember it’s pointless. For all I care, the windows can crust over with shit.

Outside, birds are testing their wings and the grass is drying under a light breeze. Other than the fact there’s no human activity, the neighborhood looks peaceful, like any other spring day. While I’m at the window, I see the garage door on the Pinarski’s house disappearing into the ceiling. Dan Pinarski, a south-side self-proclaimed Polack who loves the White Sox and hangs a Bears flag on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, steps into the sunlight wearing coveralls, boots and a surgical mask. He walks to the end of his driveway, checks the mailbox, shrugs and disappears back into the garage. A few moments later, he emerges pushing his John Deere mower. Dan is a lunatic about his lawn, and I’m thinking he’s fucking gone over the edge. The mower starts on the first pull, and Dan lifts his noise reducing earphones to his head before he starts crisscrossing his front yard. Even though the doors and windows are closed, I can hear the motor of the John Deere whining as the blade trims grass to precisely three and one quarter inches in height. I’ve actually seen Dan out there with a ruler, spot checking different elevations across the lawn.  Rachel joins me at the window and leans her head on my arm, her fingers encircling mine. “Are you going to mow, too, daddy?” she asks. I am not. As I’m thinking Dan must not have heard the message streaming from the CDC van, the humvee rounds the corner and slides to a stop, one wheel up on the curb in front of the Bedi’s house. I send Rachel to her room.

                A soldier wearing fatigues and a bio filter mask leaps out of the back of the humvee. Another steps out of the other side. Both have weapons raised and even though it’s daylight, I see the bright red dots of laser sights bobbing across the back of Dan’s head as he cuts the grass. The soldiers are shouting for Dan to turn around. He can’t hear. Dan turns to start the return swath and sees the humvee and the two soldiers. He sees their weapons and his hands leave the handle of the mower and shoot into the air. The soldiers shout for him to drop to the ground, and Dan steps forward, smiling and calling out that he’s not sick, he’s just cutting his lawn. The soldiers take a step back, and Dan takes another forward. Before his foot touches the ground, his head explodes as both soldiers fire short bursts of rounds. The rap-rap-rap of the automatic weapons jars me and I watch as Dan’s body shudders, wavers and then crumples to the ground, which is littered with pieces of skull and tissue. His wife, Karen, runs screaming from the garage and the soldiers again open fire. A fine red mist envelopes Karen’s torso and a jet of bright red blood sprays from her neck as the bullets rip a path through her jugular. She raises a hand to her neck and I can see blood streaming from between her fingers. Karen drops to her knees, a few short steps from Dan’s body and another hail of bullets from one of the soldier’s rifles blows the top of her head apart, and she drops to the ground, face first.

                The soldiers keep their weapons high as they circle each body, prodding and probing with the toes of their boots. Dan and Karen aren’t moving. Another soldier, wearing a white bio suit with a full hood, leaves the humvee carrying a canister with a hose attached and sprays a fine mist of something over what’s left of Karen and Dan.   One of the soldiers lights a match and tosses it over the bodies, and I hear a muffled WHOOMP! as a fireball engulfs them. An elf-sized mushroom cloud rises into the air. The soldiers return to the humvee and it backs off the curb and eases south, disappearing down the street. Whatever they used to torch the bodies must have been powerful. In less than a minute, there’s nothing left of the Pinarskis but some ash and a scorched, black stain on their perfect lawn.

Behind me, on the stairs, Amanda and Rachel are standing together. Rachel has her hand in Mandy’s. She asks me what the pops were, were they guns, or were they firecrackers, but it’s not the Fourth of July, she’s talking nonstop. Mandy nods her head and I tell Rachel that yes, they were guns. I tell her that the Pinarskis were shot by the Army, but I leave out the part about the funeral pyre. I wait for the waterworks from Rachel, but they don’t come. She just looks at Amanda, lets go of her hand, and turns back up the stairs and pads across the catwalk to the loft. Mandy and I lock eyes as the chimes of the Wii fill the top half of the house. Amanda backs up the stairs, turns and makes for the bedroom. The door closes, but I can still hear her sobbing.

In the loft, I join Rachel for a game of Wii baseball. She doesn’t feel like talking, and the truth is, neither do I. I think about letting Rachel win, but I realize she’s going to whether or not I allow it. She scores 3 home runs in a row, bases loaded, and I lose by sixteen. I tell her that things are different now, that life has somehow changed and it looks like it’s for the worse, but we’ll make it and we’ll be okay. She nods a lot, but she doesn’t speak. Not a word. As I walk back downstairs, I hear the familiar music of her skateboard game. With each step I take, I’m thinking we won’t make it. We won’t be OK.

In the living room, I’m in my usual spot in front of the TV. CNN is airing a segment on disposal of the infected. Burning bodies, according to the anchor, will ensure that the dead will stay that way. Footage shows a flaming row of human shaped forms while the white, bio-hooded soldiers stand guard. I’m sick of seeing this shit. I can look out the window and see the real fucking thing, so I press the guide button on the remote and scroll to the movie channels. The Breakfast Club is on Encore, and I tune in just as Bender says “Screws fall out. It’s an imperfect world.” I’m thinking, no shit. I think about how I should be standing out on the patio, watching a couple big steaks broil over a spread of glowing charcoal, a cold Goose Island or Blue Moon Pale Ale in my hand. Instead, I’m on the couch, wondering whether or not I should cover the windows with plywood and nail the front door shut.

Amanda doesn’t come down at dinner time, so I boil some water, and throw in a box of spaghetti. Rachel and I eat all of it, with butter and Ragu straight out of the jar. I have mine with a lot of parmesan cheese. Rachel calls it “stinky cheese”. I ask her if she wants some, knowing she doesn’t, and she scrunches up her nose as she sucks a full strand of spaghetti into her mouth.

As it gets dark, Rachel and I decide we’ll camp out on the futon in the sunroom. There’s still no sign of Mandy. I unfold the futon, throw a few blankets out and put the Evening on the Marsh cd in the player on repeat. The sounds of crickets and night birds fill the house. Upstairs, I grab a couple pillows from Rachel’s bed and put my ear to our bedroom door. Nothing. I slip into the room, and there’s Amanda, curled up small under the covers. I sit down on the bed beside her and rest my hand on her shoulder. Her eyes are open, red and swollen. “Why?” she asks me. I tell her I don’t know anything anymore, and she tells me we need to get out, head for my brother’s place, go to Canada, the woods in Wisconsin, anywhere but here. We don’t have the equipment, the supplies, the tools to survive out there, I tell her. At least here, we’ll have food and shelter. I kiss her on the forehead and she squeezes my hand. As I leave the room, I make sure the door is open.

I call my brother, and get an update from the east coast. My nephew made it home from Syracuse, they’re safe and riding the storm out. When I mention Mandy’s idea to head to New York, he’s silent for a while before telling me we should stay put. I don’t know if it’s because he really thinks it’s safer, or if he doesn’t want us there. I’m afraid of the answer, so I decide not to ask. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Rachel and I cuddle close. She’s asleep before I am, and I drift off with my arms around her, smelling her hair and feeling her softly breathing to the chirps of the crickets and cries of the loons. 

Day Six

I fell asleep on the couch, watching CNN, and that’s where I wake up. My neck is sore from the throw pillow I rested my head on and my legs are stiff. Amanda and Rachel aren’t up, or if they are they’re not making much noise. The cat is sitting on the ottoman next to the couch and she’s staring at me, not moving so much as a whisker. I rub the shit from my eyes and run my hand through my hair. It’s greasy. No small wonder, I haven’t showered in, what, four days? The face on CNN isn’t the regular morning anchor, it’s an Asian dude with an ugly pink tie. Behind him, in the inset, are scenes of riots and burning cars. Parliament has declared martial law in Great Britain, it’s martial law in France and Germany, and martial law in select metropolitan areas of the United States. The land of the free and the home of the scared shitless.

I shoo the cat off the ottoman and stretch. It feels good. There’s coffee in the coffee maker and I pour a cup and throw it in the microwave for sixty seconds and watch as the timer counts down to zero. Beep, beep, beep. The warm coffee tastes like shit, but I need the jolt so I down the cup in a few big gulps.

Upstairs, the girls are sound asleep. Rachel is sideways on the bed, her bare legs poking from under the comforter.  I look at her feet, her toes. I remember when they were so tiny that a doll’s shoe would have been large on her. Christ, she’s getting big. I can’t stand the fact she’s in so much fucking danger. Today, I’m going to work on fixing that.

I shower in Rachel’s bathroom so I don’t wake them. I don’t bother to shave; there’s really no point to it. It feels good to be clean, and I let the hot water rain down over me for as long as I can stand it. It used to be that I’d get pissed if Rachel or Mandy let the bathroom steam up – “It’s bad for the wood” or “the steam causes mildew” – now, I just don’t give a rat’s ass. I wipe a spot on the mirror away so I can see myself. My eyes are red and heavy and my beard is coming in more grey than brown.

I pull on a faded pair of Levis and realize I’ve forgotten to put on underwear. Commando seems appropriate for what I’m planning to do, so I button the fly and drag a Life is Good t-shirt from the dresser. Pretty fucking ironic. Mandy is awake and I tell her I’m going across the street. She tells me no, I tell her yes and we argue in whispers for a few minutes until she realizes I’m going no matter how much of a fight she puts up, so she turns away and puts her face close to Rachel’s.

In the garage, I grab the small garden shovel. I have no idea why I think I’ll need it, but it makes me feel a little stronger. I debate opening the garage door, and decide I’ll go out the back through the sunroom instead. The pool is crystal clear in the morning sunlight. Birds are singing and there’s a gentle breeze. It smells like spring. As I make my way to the front of the house, I notice the tulip bulbs Mandy planted last fall are starting to poke through the mulch.

Across the street, the Reichert’s house is silent. The sheet on the front door is less than inviting. I pull a bandana over my face and tie it at the back. I look like a bandit, but maybe it will keep me from catching the flu if there are any of the little fuckers floating around in the air inside. The door is locked, so I head to the back of the house. I know where they keep the key to their patio doors. It’s there, under the stone flower pot, and I use it to let myself into the Reichert’s family room.

The shades are drawn and it’s like twilight in the house. Sandy Reichert is on the floor, her legs twisted underneath her. There’s a hole in the side of her head about the size of a quarter and her blood has run out of her, making a dark brown circle that’s as big as a golf umbrella. The phone is still in her hand. The air in here smells like metal, tastes like metal. There’s an afghan on the couch and I spread it over Sandy’s body. Rest in peace, neighbor.

I want to turn around and get the fuck out of there, but I need to find Bob’s firearms. Down the hall, Amy Reichert is on her bed. She looks like she’s sleeping, but she’s not. Her pillow is stained the same color as the living room carpet. Her youngest brother, Toby, is on the floor next to her bed. His head looks like it exploded from the inside out. I think the grey foamy shit that looks like vomit is pieces of his brain.

In the next room, Jason, the oldest Reichert boy, is slumped over the bathtub. All I can see is the lower half of his body. He must have been trying to run from his father. He’s only wearing underwear and his legs are purple. I can’t stand it anymore and I lift the bandana and throw up. The puke stings my throat and makes my nose run.

Four down, one to go.

Bob and Sandy’s bedroom is upstairs. I know he has a gun cabinet in the closet because he’s told me, so that’s where I’m headed. As I hit the landing, I hear a wet, frothy sound from behind the bedroom door. It reminds me of a cappuccino machine, but I’m pretty sure Starbucks hasn’t opened a new coffee shop on the second floor. The door is closed, and the wet sound doesn’t stop. I put my hand on the knob and twist, and I’m holding the shovel high, just in case. What I see makes me weak, and I actually piss a little. Bob Reichert is lying on the bed, his feet are twitching and his fingers are opening and closing, fast. The entire top half of his head is gone. It’s not actually gone, but it’s in several pieces scattered over the pillows and the headboard and the wall behind it. His upper jaw is gone too; the wet sounds I’m hearing are coming from his tongue, which is waving in the air like a fucking cobra in a basket.

I back into the door and it swings shut. Bob sits up. All that’s left of his face is his bottom jaw and that tongue, his fucking tongue, and it keeps licking and smacking his teeth. It’s a dream, a goddamned bad dream, that’s all. Bob swings a shaky leg off the edge of the bed, then the other, and I’m thinking this isn’t a dream, it’s real. He’s trying to stand up, and I’m trying not to shit my pants. He’s up, off the bed, and I’m panicked. Fight or flight. Adrenaline kicks in, some primeval force is driving me and I swing the shovel at Bob’s thigh. There’s nothing tentative about the swing, like the half-assed stroke I took with an ax handle when I tried to whack the opossum that had taken up residence under my front stoop. The blade cuts in deep, it’s a garden spade, and I pull it loose and swing again and feel the bone snap. Bob’s standing now, wobbly but standing, and I swing one more time. The shovel cuts through the rest of the meat of Bob’s thigh and he topples. The wound doesn’t bleed; it just… leaks. Gravity is pulling the blood out, drawing it to the lowest point. Now he’s all arms, flailing and trying to crawl, so I swing twice like I’m chopping wood and an arm breaks free at the shoulder, the fingers still clawing at the air. There’s more blood, spraying off the blade of the shovel in an arc. Two more swings and the other arm is off just above the elbow. 

With only a leg left, Bob can’t move enough to get to me. I have blood on my arms. It’s not mine. Bob’s remaining leg is working like a piston, up, down, up, down, and he’s pushing his body in a circle. His torso gets wedged under the bed and his leg keeps pumping, forcing him deeper until his belly roll gets hung up on the side rail and he can’t get fit any more of his bulk beneath the frame. I take another swing at his leg and Bob’s shin bone breaks clean and now his calf, and the foot attached to it,  is hanging at a ninety degree angle from where it should be.

I can still hear the wet sound coming from beneath the bed. Just about all the blood has run from what’s left of Bob’s body, leaving a slick black ooze on the carpet.

The nine millimeter Glock Bob used to take his life and the lives of his beautiful family is on the bed, resting harmlessly on the pillow. It’s surrounded by dried blood, wet blood and pieces of Bob’s head. About six inches away from the gun, there’s a particularly large piece of skull, scalp and a tuft of Bob’s silver hair attached. He may have gone grey a little too early for his taste, but he sure had a good head of hair.

In the master bathroom, I grab a hand towel and use it to wipe the gun clean. In the walk in closet, I grab a royal blue gym bag from the high rack above Bob’s business suits and Sandy’s dresses. It’s heavy, and I unzip it and spill the contents on the floor. A half dozen DVD’s and a purple dildo scatter across the closet. One called Anal Angels catches my eye and for a brief moment I forget about the carnage in the bedroom as I gaze at the cover, a blond with huge fake tits enjoying the cock in her ass. A week ago, I would have been hooked. Today, it’s a brief diversion from a horrible task. The blond will have to wait. Bob’s gun locker is open, and I pile seven different kinds of handguns into the duffel, along with boxes of nine millimeter and forty five caliber ammunition and some shotgun shells. There are three long guns, two big gauge shotguns and a hunting rifle with a scope. I gather the guns together and hoist the gym bag onto my shoulder.

Downstairs, I take a last look at the Reichert children. I’m fighting back tears as I think about  what kind of horror occurred here just a day ago; three innocents, robbed of life by the one man on the planet who they trusted without question, and the cowardice of the man who took those lives, a man who I’d called a friend. What a sackless bastard. The kids, Sandy – they should have lived. Bob could have done himself and left it at that.

Although I don’t think it will make much of a difference, I close the patio door behind me and lock it. The key goes into my pocket. There’s food here and we’ll need it.

As I’m lugging the gym bag and the rifles along the brick walk that leads back to the driveway, the kitchen window in the house next to the Reichert’s place goes up. Sanjay Bedi is an Americanized Indian who has lived in the States since college more than twenty five years ago, but he still speaks with a strong Indian accent. His V’s often translate as W’s, especially after he’s been drinking. He has.

“Doot,” he says. Dude. “Where are you going with the things from Bob’s house?” I tell him I’m going across the street with them, pointing my chin at my own place. He looks as though I just took his winning lottery ticket. “You do not have a right to those things, and where has Bob gone? I have not seen him leave today.” I tell him I have as much right as anyone, and then I tell him what’s happened at the Reichert’s since he stopped paying attention and started drowning in cheap cabernet. When I get to the part about Bob’s – reawakening – he shouts something in Indian over his shoulder and slams the window shut. 

Back inside my house, I close and bolt the lock to the sunroom and drop the duffel to the floor. The shotguns go against the wall. Amanda is in front of CNN. She’s not speaking to me, and that’s all right with me for the moment. I check each weapon, loading the cylinders and filling the magazines as I go. I don’t bother counting bullets, but there are plenty.

Amanda is standing in the open doorway to the sunroom, her mouth hanging slack and her eyes wide. I look down at myself and I realize what she’s staring at. I’m covered in blood, large black spots of it dotting my arms, my shirt, and my pants. She asks me what I’ve done, and her voice is suggesting I’ve committed murder. I tell her it’s much worse than that. You can’t kill what’s already dead. Her eyes fill with tears as I tell her of the children, of Sandy. Amanda asks if we should do anything, something, but I don’t know what there is that could possibly make things any better, so I simply tell her no.

Back outside, I lug a five gallon bucket of chlorine shock to the pool and pour the entire tub into the water. With my clothes still on, I lower myself into the spreading cloud of chemicals, rubbing blood and God know what else from my skin. I strip naked, letting my jeans and shirt sink to the bottom of the pool. The water is still cold, it’s too early in the season for a dip. The chlorine burns my skin, stings my eyes. I’m frantically scrubbing my flesh, working hard to rid it of Bob’s blood and disease.  Under water, I open my eyes and blink, making sure to get plenty of the bacteria killing chemicals behind the lids. It burns like a motherfucker.

When I step out of the pool, Amanda is there with a towel. She wraps it around my shivering body and pulls me close. She’s warm. My chest is heaving, but it’s not from the cold. I’m sobbing. Mandy pushes me away and looks at me, and although my vision is blurred from the chlorine, I can tell by her eyes that she’s proud.

I did what I had to do.