Dredging Up Memories (10 page)

BOOK: Dredging Up Memories
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That was a subject to think about for later, and if there was going to be a later, I had to hurry. The mass of dead seemed to have grown since going into the pharmacy. How many were there now? Forty? Fifty? A hundred? I always thought one was one too many. In this case, I faced a horde of shambling, stumbling zombies and if they… The good thing about being alive during this…this…apocalypse is you could run a lot faster than they could. Even on a bum leg. Many of them turned to me, their groans loud. I could hear the hunger in them. So many dead voices all at once. It was like cattle being led out to the pasture. It was as if they knew a meal stood before them, and they wanted it. And they were still pretty fast.

I ran, and I didn’t break the one rule you always see getting broke in horror movies: looking back. No, I ran straight ahead, passed a car where a woman reached out for me. Her head cocked to one side when I hit her. She slumped against the car. I didn’t wait to see if she fell or if she was dead. At the road, I darted across the overpass.

Being sick didn’t help me though. My breaths came in sharp bursts and sounded like weak whistles in my chest. I reached the long, dirt drive and turned. That’s when I looked back. I had thought there were maybe a hundred of the dead behind me. I thought wrong. They seemed to come from everywhere, as if someone rang the dinner bell and I was the main course. And unlike me, they weren’t slowing down. 

I ran up the road and wished I were young again. In the yard, I saw a rotter in all its glory come from around the corner of the house. She was an older lady, her hair somewhat blue and gray and matted, not one tooth in her mouth. Blood caked along her chin and the front of her moomoo. I didn’t bother with the steel bar. The bullet split her skull, and she crumpled.

I took the steps two by two and reached the door. For a moment, I thought the handle wouldn’t work, and at first, it didn’t. Then I realized I turned it the wrong way. Looking back, I could see them on the road. Some of them had already reached the dirt driveway.

The door came open, and I hurried inside. I slammed it, locked the knob, and dropped my pack to the floor. I ran to the couch, pushed it in front of the door.

Then I grabbed Humphrey…

You came back,
she said. Always a she. Never, ever a he.

“Yes, I came back. I told you I would.”

I thought you were lying.

Tears touched the corners of my eyes, and I pulled the bear from my chest. “I was.”

She said nothing. 

“But I came back. And I promise, I’ll never leave you behind again.”

It was all in my head, but Humphrey felt warm. Or maybe it was me. A fever had taken hold by then, and the weakness of being sick settled into my muscles and bones, and I could feel the rattle of death in my chest.

The thump on the steps outside brought me from the embrace of a stuffed animal. I looked to the door and hoped it would hold against the horde outside. I grabbed the pack and the shotgun, and Humphrey and took them up the stairs. I ran back and moved the coffee table and a couple of nice chairs in front of the stairwell, even pulling them up the first couple of steps for good measure.

At the top of the steps, I looked around, saw nothing I could use to barricade that portion of the floor.

I’m scared,
Humphrey said in her small voice.

“Me too.”

In the boy’s room, I closed the door and set Humphrey on the bed. The dresser went back in front of the door, and I moved the stuff from off the end table next to the bed. My guns—I only had three of them; the others lay near my truck off the ramp heading out of town—went onto it, loaded and ready. I cracked Ox open. Two shells. Maybe one of them would be for me.

We sat and waited. In the meantime, I took an antibiotic and a pain reliever and then pulled the sling and brace from my pack. I slid the shirt off and read the instructions on how to use the brace then slid it up my arm, put the flap over my shoulder, and put the Velcro ends together. The next part went around my chest, where I again connected two Velcro ends, holding my shoulder in place. The pressure of the brace relieved some of the pain and kept my arm from sagging.

With the shirt back on, one sleeve with no arm in it, I pulled a chair to the window. Part of the roof extended out from there. After a moment, I realized that it wasn’t a roof but more of a patio area, a means of escape if I needed it. I longed for a rifle as I watched the dead approach the house.

I sat quietly, watching from that window, all the way up to when the sun began to go down. Some of the dead had turned course and went back up the road. Others stood idly, as if they slept on their feet. I went to the bed, lay down beside Humphrey. My head was in a daze, and the room spun. I reached for a pistol and set it on my chest.

What’s that for?
Humphrey asked in her soft child’s voice.

“Just in case,” I said but didn’t tell her in case of what. 

I closed my eyes and prepared to die…

Ten Weeks (?) After It All Stared, Give or Take a Few Days

 

 

I never liked taking medicine. Waiting out a cold or sweating out a fever seemed natural to me. Drugs didn’t. They were dangerous things, addictive things. That never stopped Jeanette from being on me to take my meds when I really needed to. It was just one of the many things she was good about.

As I lay dying in some kid’s bed in some other family’s house, I heard her talking to me, telling me, “Take your meds, Hank.”

I sat up each time, even as the weight of the sickness pushed hard on my chest and the snot grew thicker in my nasal cavities, and even as I spat up chunky bits of yellow crap and the fever sent me to alternating hot flashes and cold spells. I took the meds. There always seemed to be water nearby, and I didn’t seem to fumble with the caps to the pill bottles. It was like she was there with me in that house, trying to keep me alive.

My breath rattled in my chest and whistled from my mouth. The pain in my head kept me from moving too much.  My eyes constantly watered, and I don’t ever recall getting up to go to the bathroom.

“Take your medicine, Hank.”

I opened my eyes, and there she stood, a picture of beauty, an air about her that glowed even in the darkness of the room. She held the pills out to me, the water bottle in the other hand. She smiled and leaned down, gave me a kiss with her angelic lips.

“You can’t die, Hank,” she said.

“Nothing I can do about it,” I said—I think.

Her hands were warm on my face, soft and smooth, and I relished the way they felt. “You have to live, Sweetheart,” she said. “Bobby needs you. He can’t lose us both.”

Those words woke me with a start but not before she started to change. My eyes snapped open, and I stared at the ceiling above me. The room was gray, not dark. The sun cast its rays through opened blinds. I turned my head to one side. The pill bottles sat on the end table, the water bottles nearly empty. Humphrey sat on the pillow next to me, her eyes glassy but somehow holding life in them.

The guns were not on the end table, and the one I had been holding was not on the bed. They all sat on the dresser across the room.

“Humphrey,” I said, my voice scratchy and sounding nothing like it normally did.

She didn’t respond, but I think I saw her pink, sewn-on mouth stretch into a wider smile.

“I’m still alive,” I said. “I didn’t die. I didn’t become…”

And what were the words of my dream? Was that what it was? A dream? They came back to me. Jeanette holding my face in her soft, warm hands and telling me,
Bobby needs you.  He can’t lose us both.

I sat up. Muscles and bones creaked and popped, and my entire body felt incredibly weak. How long had I been out of it? I didn’t know, but the dream came back. Something was wrong with it. She spoke those words and then…then she changed. Her beautiful, blond hair became brittle; her skin went from white to gray, and her face—her always beautiful face—changed. Her lips cracked, her eyes faded to milky white orbs that sunk back into her skull, and there was blood on her face and she had…

A fear so sudden came over me, and I wanted to bolt from that house and run to Greenville if I had to. Strong and painful and real. I stood but fell down before I could gain my legs.

“No,” I said over and over as I struggled to stand, made it up, and then paced the floor slowly, letting my legs adjust to moving again. With my body weak, I wouldn’t be able to leave that day. I knew that, but I didn’t care. I had to get out of there.

At the window, I looked down at the yard, the street beyond it. The beating of my heart stopped momentarily. What had been a couple dozen rotters when I first arrived at that house was now a swarm of them. They shuffled about aimlessly, but it was clear to me that they knew I was there. 

“We’re trapped,” I said.

After watching them for several minutes, I turned back to Humphrey. My boots lay on the floor, my socks tucked into them. The guns lay on the dresser with nowhere near enough ammo to get me out of there in one piece.

“We’re going to have to make a break for it, Humphrey.”

She said nothing.

I sat down on the bed, slipped the socks and boots on, then grabbed one of the guns from the dresser—a nine millimeter with a full clip. I moved the dresser from in front of the door as quietly as possible, but it still sounded too loud in my ears as it scraped across the floor.

With the gun out in front of me, I opened the door. Nothing awaited me. Down the hall, I walked until I reached the bathroom. I relieved my bladder and turned to leave. The bathtub was clean, and there was a bar of soap on a small dish in the corner of it.

There was a small closet next to the entrance. I opened it. Two shelves of neatly folded towels sat there. Above them was a shelf that held washcloths. I took a towel and washcloth and looked at the bathtub. Surely there would be little water, if any, still left in the pipes, but it was worth a try. 

I turned one knob. There was a hollow clunk from deep in one of the pipes. A dribble of brownish water fell from the faucet just before it seemed to spit, cough, and clear its proverbial throat. Then a stream of wonderfully clear water spilled from it. It was cool, but I didn’t care—it had been so long since I had a bath, since I smelled like something other than a sweating mass of flesh. I was quick about getting my clothes off, and then, just for peace of mind, I locked the bathroom door.

The soap was Irish Spring. I took in its heady aroma. I would love to say I took a long bath, that I leaned back and let the water fill the tub, that I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the moment. But I can’t say that. No, there wouldn’t be enough water for that, and I knew it. I was quick about washing, rinsing off the suds, and then getting out of the tub before the water completely ran out. I didn’t imagine the water would last long, and I was right—just as I went to shut it off, the steady stream lessoned until it was nothing more than just drops dripping into the tub.

Being clean was one thing—if the dead managed to get me, at least their meal wouldn’t taste so bad—but what I wanted was to get out of that bathroom, check the rest of the house for any means of escape.

I toweled off and got dressed, including putting the shoulder harness back in place. I went back to what was clearly the parents’ room and pulled out another pair of jeans and a shirt and even a pair of underwear. Everything was loose, but I used a belt to hold the pants up and then dug around for some clean socks. Leaving the bedroom, I held the gun out in front of me, ready to take the head off of anyone, dead or alive, that could have been there. Down the hall, I stopped at the top of the steps. The door was closed; the couch still sat in front of it. The chairs and coffee table still lay cluttered at the bottom of the stairs.

Back up the hall and in the young boy’s bedroom, I gathered what little gear I had left. There were still some pain meds and antibiotics. I took an Amoxicillin and followed it with two painkillers. My shoulder still hurt but nothing like before. The swelling had gone down, but still, I knew it had been hurt every time I moved.

I put as much in the pack as I could then went to the baseball bat rack on the wall. There were a few good, wooden Louisville Sluggers, but I opted for a thirty-eight-ounce aluminum bat, the barrel nothing more than a lean, straight pipe. I could swing a bat, I thought, better than I could swing old Ox. It dawned on me that an eight-year-old boy probably couldn’t swing a bat that heavy all that well, but it had been in the rack with others, a collection maybe. I nodded. Definitely a boy’s collection, and one day, if the world hadn’t died, the kid would have been able to swing that bat and probably swing it well.

Before leaving the room, I placed Humphrey in the pack, this time shoving her a little further down and tucking her arms into the bag before zipping up.

Why so tight?
she asked.

“I don’t want you to fall out. I’m probably going to have to run, and I’m going to need my hands to shoot or…” I nodded to the bat on the bed. “Or play ball.”

We’re leaving?

“That’s the plan.”

I like it here.

I took a hard look at Humphrey. In another time, I might have liked it there as well. It was spacious. The yard was huge. I bet it even had a basement or an attached garage.

Garage?

I hadn’t thought of that before.

If there was a garage, there might be a car, and if there was a car, I might have a better chance of getting out.

The backpack went over my shoulders. I winced a little when I first slid it on, especially as I pushed it over the bad arm. But the brace alleviated most of the pain even as it jostled about. There was no using Ox today and maybe not for a while. I still had never fired her but was certain if I had to right then, I would probably end up dying from getting knocked off balance by the recoil. I made sure the safety was on and slipped Pop’s shotgun through the straps of the backpack. For the first time, I thought I needed a gun tote for Ox. Maybe one day, I would find one.

With one pistol in hand, one in the pack, one tucked into my waistband, and the bat in the other hand, I went back to the staircase and made my way down. I tried to be quiet as I moved one of the chairs and the coffee table, but I had placed them so precariously on the steps that moving one item caused the others to topple. The chair made a loud
CLACK
when it hit the hardwood floor.  

“Crap.”

I eased down the steps further and walked through the house, nerves on edge, eyes and mouth dry. If any of the rotters heard the chair fall, they would converge on the noise, and sticking around much longer wouldn’t be an option. Other than the front door, there were no other doors in that direction. That left the kitchen area.

Past the front door, I stopped. Something thumped outside. Another thump followed. Then another and another.

They had heard the chair fall, and they knew where I was. I moved a little faster, trying to stay as quiet as I could. In the kitchen, I heard the moans of those just beyond the backdoor. It didn’t look to be as sturdy as the front, and it was nearly ground level, but the windows were covered, and there were several two by fours nailed at the entrance so nothing could get in.

A second door sat off the kitchen where I walked in. It could have been a pantry, and if so, at least I would have a little food if I made it out of there. I opened it slowly, recalling what happened to Lee when he died. A careless moment where he hurried instead of took his time.

The door opened with a creak that may as well have been a scream. It wasn’t a pantry at all but stairs that led down into the garage. I took a step down, then another, listening as I did so and wishing I had one of my lights from the truck. I heard only the beating of my heart heavy in my ears.

Another step down and my eyes began to adjust. Three more steps and the garage became less black and more gray. Objects took shape. To my right was a workbench and several tool boxes. Other tools hung on pegboards: shovels, rakes, hoes, hammers, saws. To my left were what looked like boxes and cans and other stuff—a storage area, I guessed. But what sat in front of me were the most beautiful things I had ever seen up to that point. Two vehicles: an SUV and a van. 

“Yes.”

I didn’t go for the cars right away. There were tools to be taken, and if I could load them in one of the vehicles, I would. I hurried over to the workbench, rummaged around, letting my hands feel for objects that I could use. Near one of the toolboxes, I struck gold. My fingers came across the almost square object, found the handle. Near that handle was a button. My thumb did what it does naturally and pressed the little button.

The flashlight came to life.

“Yes.”

That joy was short-lived. From up the steps, I heard the banging on the back door. A window broke, and glass hit the floor. Sure, there were boards in place, but that gave me no comfort at all. I went back up the seven steps and closed the garage door. Before doing so, I saw the glass on the floor and a hand sticking through the broken window. There was no lock, so the need to hurry became real.

I went back to the workbench, grabbed a screwdriver from one of the toolboxes and a hammer from one of the pegs. If I needed to break into one of the cars and hotwire it, I would need tools—at least the screwdriver.

The van looked newer than the SUV and probably got better gas mileage, but the other car looked more rugged, as if it could take running into something—like a walking corpse—and not get damaged too much. I went to the SUV, tried the driver’s side door. It opened, and the body slumped from the seat. 

“Crap!”

Startled, I almost shot the guy. There was no need to do that. There was already a bullet in his head. Blood and brains matted against the ceiling, and the gun sat on his lap where it fell after the deed was done. I shone the flashlight in the vehicle.  My heart sank. There were five of them, all strapped in as if they were heading on a trip.

“Are we going to Disney World, Daddy?”

“Yes, Sweet Pea.”

They were going somewhere, but Disney World wasn’t it. The two older kids lay slumped in their seats. The woman in the passenger’s side was leaning on the door, her window shattered. But it was the other child—the one strapped in the car seat between the older two—that hurt my heart the most. A baby—probably not even six months old.

BOOK: Dredging Up Memories
11.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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