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.