Cage The Dead (10 page)

“Humor me,” she repeated. “Please”

“Fine.” Nick took a deep breath and stared at the child.

“Let the kid sleep, he’s been through a lot.”

“Yeah, I’d say,” he said, throwing his feet up onto an adjacent chair and crossing his feet over one another. Gaia stared at his boots that were dangling over the table and almost corrected him, but instead said nothing. “There’s a few bottles of goodies over there in that cabinet. Fetch us one and some glasses and I’ll oblige.”

“Wine okay?”

“I don’t care. Sure.”

Gaia retrieved two spotty wine glasses from the cupboard and rinsed them off. She then rifled through the cabinet and found a bottle of red wine. She placed a glass down on the table in front of Nick and the other was in her hand. Then she carefully poured them each a brimming glass full.

“Who knows when we’ll ever get to do this again,” Nick said cryptically, raising his glass in a toasting motion. Gaia repeated the motion and nodded, taking a long drink.

“Seems strange to be drinking wine with all of…well…all of
that
going on out there, right?” Nick nodded his agreement, held the galls up in a salute, and took a long swallow of the wine, draining half the glass.

“So, whaddaya wanna know?” he asked, running a hand through his beard.

“Well, let me lay something on you first,” she said sharply, sipping a bit of the wine. Nick nodded and she continued. “When I first met Adam, we talked about getting married and raising a family, you know, stupid kid stuff. But, within the first month on the job here, well into a long-standing commitment with the man I love, I found out that my chances of having a child were slim to none. And I found this out because Adam and I were having unprotected sex for over a month straight, wanting to have a child together; the ultimate culmination of a man and a woman’s love, right?”

“Not necessarily, but I get your point,” Nick interjected.

“Exactly. Either way, it was our goal at the time. Needless to say, it was devastating to the both of us. We both wanted kids. A few weeks later, Adam and I discussed our future, him understanding that I couldn’t bear his children or carry on his name, which hit us hard, not to mention his family.” She stood, stretched and downed the rest of the glass of wine before sitting again and pouring herself another glass.

“And yet, the man gave up his need for having a family—children of his own flesh and blood!—to love me!”

“That’s pretty heavy,” Nick mentioned, staring back at her intently.

“That, my friend, does not even begin to describe Adam’s selflessness. Anyway,” she added, sipping her wine, “the man was willing to give up everything just to be with me….”

Long silence ensued as the two exchanged glances and sips of wine. Gaia glanced over at Justin who was still sleeping, and refilled her glass once more, enjoying the taste of the wine.

“That explains your affection toward the apes and their babies, right? Transference or some shit, am I right?”

“Something like that, sure.”

“You're the psychology buff, not me,” Nick said, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

“Yes. I am sure there is a lingering need to nurture in there, if I was to break it down. But, what about you, man? You mentioned your dad on occasion, never told me why he and your mom split. You wanna get that off your chest?”

“Maybe,” he admitted with a deep sigh. “But who let the cats out of their pens? Never mind…. Anyway, my dad was a good man from what I can remember early on. He took me to ball games, coached me in sports, all that kind of shit. But, when I was a teenager, he began to disappear for long periods of time.”

“Lemme guess. An affair?”

“Not that simple. No, he would go off on hunting trips,” Nick said, as Gaia raised her eyebrows in disbelief.

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?!”

“Right?”

“You gotta be jokin’! Your mom’s family is all about—“

“Yeah, I know. He went the other way with that. And not only that, he even brought me along on a few of ‘em. I didn’t have the heart to tell my mom and I was too stupid to tell my dad to go to hell. No, he had me convinced that it was okay. But, I figured out when I shot my first and only deer. I didn’t feel so good after that, you know, hunting defenseless animals. I know people do it, and that’s whatever…but it wasn’t for me. So, not too much longer, my mom caught wind of it and, well…you can guess what happened then.”

“Divorce, I’d say,” she said draining her glass.

“Ding—ding—ding! Give that lady a prize!” Nick yelped, causing Justin to shift in his chair. Gaia placed her finger over her mouth to quiet Nick, who chuckled at his lack of manners in the moment. “Look, you asked, Gaia. I’m just relaying the sad story.”

“But, you found a love of animals in that gloomy life that your father wanted for you, right? You could have chosen to be like him, but you didn’t. You don’t have that kind of heart, do you?” she asked rhetorically. “No, instead you found a deep love for animals and ended up making your mother proud. And me.”

“I’d like to…think so,” he said, wincing at the obvious pain in his shoulder. He removed his jacket and placed it on the back of the chair and folded his arms over his chest. He got up and began looking through the cupboards and in the refrigerator and closed the door, staring up at Maye, who sat there quietly, playing with something up there. “Gaia, there isn’t as much dry food here as I thought.”

“We could take the arm, Nick,” Gaia said with a lack of confidence, causing Nick to laugh again, ignoring his bleak statement about the food. Gaia couldn’t deal with it right now.

“I’d fuckin’ bleed out, Gaia. You're no doctor! C‘mon!” he barked angrily, Gaia recoiling under his cruelty in the moment and understanding that he would probably just die from blood loss instead.

A few long moments of silence passed and Nick drained the wine and poured himself another. “Oh, and I'm not sure if you know it, but there is a backup generator in the basement underneath the lab. If you lose power, there’s a few fifty gallon drums of fuel down there to keep the lab, freezers and house going for a while. And you know the gas station is not far away either, if things get…desperate.”

“I’ve heard about the generator. I’m hoping the freezers keep.”

“Me too. But judging by the amount of animals that are roaming free, you won’t have to feed many of them.” Nick cut away the cotton fabric of his shirt from around the infection and stared at the inflammation and discoloration that surrounded the wounded area. He winced and began to weep, apparently accepting his bitter fate. “This is it.”

She nodded and stared at him intensely. He blinked and drew in a breath. “You need…you need to kill me. I am too much of a pussy to do it myself, Gaia. Please…,” he said, falling out of his chair and spilling his wine. She could not believe that this was happening.

Maye chirped from the windowsill at hearing the crash and hid on top of the refrigerator, while Justin’s head shot up, his eyes wide.

“What happened?!” the boy asked, standing up and staring at Nick on the ground.

“Back away, honey,” Gaia cautioned, unsure if Nick were past the point of no return, or if he was simply overwhelmed by fever. She hoped for the latter.

She swallowed hard, thinking of how she could put the man down in a humane way, but nothing at all came to mind. Her heart raced and the room spun, her emotions getting the better of her.

“What—“

“Go!” Gaia cried out loudly, stealing a glance at the boy and knowing he had no clue as to what he should be doing. She removed her machete and stared at it, thinking it too harsh to use on her friend.

Glass shattered from behind her and she spun to face the source. A zombie was trying to climb through the window in the kitchen above the sink. The zombie’s flesh was carved away by the remaining glass in the window frame, but it did not care. It advanced indifferently, pulling itself through the window toward them.

Gaia could not let the creature inside and so she rushed toward the sink and raised the machete high with two hands, bringing the blade edge down upon the zombie’s skull, stopping it clean. Another pair of hands, and then another, began to breach the open area where once a pane of glass stood.

They needed to be silenced, else more would come, she knew. Grasping the handle of the machete again, she shoved the tip through the pair of zombies, whose corpses now blocked the window.

“Gaia, the safe. Get…the guns. Now!” Nick said as firmly as his weakened voice would allow. Gaia took in a deep breath and ran to the basement door right next to the kitchen, swung the door wide and flicked on the lights. Moaning and snarling ensued.

 Something was downstairs.

The sounds of footsteps and groaning grew louder and a figure hit the bottom of the stairs and tried to climb them to get to her position. Gaia retracted her foot from the first step, grabbed the keys and waited for the thing to navigate the stairs. Half a minute later, it was there and she slammed the door in the creature’s face. The sounds of loud thuds and crashing ensued. Gaia grinned ever so briefly, imagining the spectacle of a zombie tumbling down the stairs, and flung the door wide, pocketing the keys.

The zombie—a young boy not all that long ago—lay on its back, its head sitting at a right angle that almost had Gaia vomiting. She held it back, raced down the stairs and jammed the blade through the zombie’s forehead. The blade hit the cement floor quite easily as the zombie’s skull did not offer as much resistance as she’d initially thought.

She stood and looked around, seeing a lot of what looked to be antique furniture and old pottery and glasses, even fine china piled up on tables and in good shape. One table and its belongings were shattered. The window above was open wide with no window or screen. This had to have been where the zombie had entered the cellar. Gaia quickly made it to the window, peered out and saw more undead creatures in the distance, though they hadn’t seen her or noted the opening. It was small, too, she noted, but this one had gotten in and more still might.

Gaia looked around and saw an air conditioner on the floor that looked as if it were meant for that window. She took a step forward and then heard a creaking sound behind her. She reached for her machete, wrapped her fingers around the handle, and slid it out.

She slowly craned her neck to see the source of the sound and saw Justin standing still on the third step. Maye sat quietly on his shoulder, her tail wrapped about his neck.
Gaia sighed and slid the machete back in place. She was so focused on the zombie that she hadn’t even noticed that the boy wasn’t beside her.

“C’mon! Help me get this in the window!” Gaia barked as Justin met her at the base of the window, grasping the opposite side of the air conditioner. The pair lifted the thing up and slid it into the opening perfectly.

“Good job, high-five,” she congratulated, holding up an open palm. The boy excitedly obliged her.

 She studied the basement area and found what had to be the gun safe. She removed the keys from her pocket, made her way there and fitted the key in the lock. She turned the key and opened the door wide, seeing three rifles and a few more hard shell plastic cases on a shelf at the top. She had no idea what kind of guns they were, but she knew she would have to figure it out on her own.

Gaia quickly inspected the first of the cases, knowing that they would be pistols. She did not want to try dealing with a rifle right away and instead opened the first case. It was a gun that appeared to be fairly old with a handful of loose shells inside. The second one was another six-shooter, but much bigger.

“Too much kick,” she mumbled, closing the case.

Then she heard movement upstairs and swallowed through a suddenly constricted throat.

“Shit!” she whispered sharply, grasping a third and opening it. Gaia opened the hard shell case and saw a modern looking pistol that appeared very similar to the one Adam had purchased a few years past. It was something in the semi-automatic family she recognized immediately. She hefted the gun, trying to recall the topics that Adam had forced her to remember and trying to get a feel for the weight.

She had, on occasion, gone to the firing range with him. On one particular occasion, Gaia remembered spending a few hours there with him—after normal business hours, as Adam was good friends with a man who worked there, and he owed Adam a favor. She recalled how he patiently showed her so many ways about firing a weapon responsibly. He made her go over things forward and back again, working the safety, changing clips, chambering bullets, and so on