Dredging Up Memories (4 page)

I thought I had been slowly losing my mind over the previous few weeks, but the insanity that must creep in on the dead, the helplessness…I have no words to explain how it made me feel just to think about it.

Again, I apologized to the woman. When I took aim the next time, it wasn’t to wound her; it was to test a theory I thought was true. Her struggles ended with the sound of my rifle going off. I went back to the truck, grabbed the pistol off the hood, and shoved it in my waistband. I had another grave to dig, another person to bury. My thoughts centered around the many rotters I had put down. Up to that point, I had refused to see them as rotters, but that was really what they were: slaves to the hunger, trapped in dead bodies, longing to be freed. The undead knew they were going to die again every time I pointed one of my weapons at them. Maybe they welcomed it like I thought that woman did. Maybe the reason they hurried toward me when I raised the gun wasn’t so they could feed but so that I would hurry and put a bullet in their brain…hurry, for crying out loud.

I buried the woman, spoke a prayer over her, asking for mercy for her soul…and for mine as well. If murder is a sin, then I’m Hell-bound. I asked for forgiveness I wasn’t so sure I deserved.

The sun was almost gone as I got back in the truck. I closed the door, put the window all the way up, and looked over at my riding partner. I started to speak then only shook my head, preferring to let the silence ride along with us. I put the truck in gear, flipped the lights on, and drove off, my thoughts lingering with the woman a while longer before turning back to Pop. Up to that point, life had kicked me in the teeth, but unlike Max, I didn’t choose to exit the story stage left. I stuck around for whatever the world would bring me.

Eight Weeks and Three Days After It All Started…

Humphrey sat in his seat, his head slightly higher than the edge of the door. He could see over the dashboard and the road ahead of us. My little stuffed traveling buddy. We sat atop a hill overlooking a small town—Harkers, South Carolina. It wasn’t much of a hill, but it gave me a clear line of sight in all directions. The town wasn’t much of a town either—a couple of buildings that looked as if they belonged in the fifties, some cars lining unmetered parking spots. There was a red vehicle stopped at a streetlight. The light itself had long since expired. A few houses off in the distance ran along a cracked blacktop that was in serious need of repaving. 

There wasn’t much to see. 

I lined the perimeter of my truck with cans and wire—enough to raise a loud clatter if someone or something were to try and cross it. I had made the makeshift alarm system after that lady tapped on my window a few weeks earlier. If anyone approached, I would know. 

Night settled down. A slight breeze blew in, ruffling the leaves of trees a hundred feet to our right. I needed gas for the truck but had no desire to pilfer the tanks of the cars below in the dark. I could wait until morning. It’s not like the world was passing me by.

I leaned across the seat, made sure Humphrey’s door was locked. His glass eyes reflected in the moonlight, a shimmering image that made him look alive.

“Do you remember what it was like, Humphrey?” I asked. “You know, before…all of this?”

I waved an arm like a game show host revealing prizes to be won.
All of this can be yours if the price is right…
Humphrey said nothing.

“Do you even know what happened?” I looked down at my lap, the pistol sitting between my legs. A bottle of water sat beside me, half full. I took a long swig, swallowed. “Of course you don’t. You can’t be all that old, can you? Maybe six, if that?”

Four.

I glanced down at him, startled by his voice. I nodded. “Okay. Four it is.”

I thought of my boy when he was four. Star Wars and Legos and Hot Wheels cars—he loved them all.

“Daddy, I’m going to be R2D2 for Halloween.” The beeps and boops and whirrs that came from his mouth made me smile as he pretended to glide across the kitchen floor. By Halloween, he had changed his mind. Instead of being R2D2, Luke Skywalker’s trusty companion, he went for R5D4, the rusty bucket of bolts that barely worked well enough to roll five feet. Bobby popped and clunked as he pretended to move like a robot. Then he would wheeze as he broke down. He was a great little R5D4. And he let people know when they called him the other robot. I shook my head, tried to push Bobby from my thoughts for a while.

Humphrey stared ahead, unmoving, his stitched-on smile never wavering. Always the optimist.

“You know, it started with a slight fever,” I said as I stared down into the darkness of Harkers, a small town as dead as any other in America. Humphrey said nothing, not even a whisper in my brain. He just sat…and listened to this lonely man talk. “A kid in North Carolina got sick, his fever not rising much above ninety-nine degrees. His name eludes me at the moment. It’s something normal, like Robert or James. The fever was just enough to make him uncomfortable. His body began to ache as if the fever were much higher. The doctors said he had the flu, maybe even some new-fangled viral flu. They actually said that—new-fangled, like it was doctor speak.” I shook my head. The night sat still beyond the cab of the truck.  

“Let it run its course, they said. Give him Tylenol and Ibuprofen, alternating doses every four to six hours, they said. If he’s not better by the end of the week, bring him back, they said.

“The kid…was his name William? I can’t remember. Something like that. Anyway, he got sicker. His temperature never went up though. Gray sacks formed under his eyes. His hair became matted, as if caked with mud. Breathing became irregular gasps. The doctors sent him to the hospital, said something about pneumonia. His skin began to gray. The doctors then cried his kidneys were failing.

“Internal bleeding, they said when he began to vomit blood. They didn’t have a clue.

…

“He cried a lot.”

Didn’t they all?
I thought. All those sick children, crying, wanting their mommies and daddies.

“What was his name? Jessie? Larry?”

I shrugged. “His momma sat in the hospital bed with him, cradling her little boy in her arms—the same arms that held him when he was born, comforted him when he was hurt, hugged him just to hug him. She wept as he slept, held onto her strength in those few moments he was awake before…”

I hated myself for not remembering his name. I should’ve never forgotten. How could I have?

Carl with a C? Or Karl with a K? I couldn’t remember. I should have.

I continued my story. Humphrey remained silent, his ears as perked up as they would ever be. “His name was in the local papers as doctors from MUSC and other places within the region went to see him. Duke Medical Center could do nothing for him.

“The kid lost weight, and by the time he breathed his last, he had become nothing more than an emaciated stick figure, skin on bones, if you will.” Skin on bones? That’s the best I could do for the kid? Describe him as skin on bones? The thought haunts me. What if that kid had been my Bobby? What if any one of those millions of kids had been my Bobby? What if, since I last saw my wife and boy, Bobby had suffered the same fate? My breath hitched as I thought of the boy—a boy whose name I couldn’t remember, whose name I should have never forgotten.

“By then his momma—her name was Nancy, this much I’m sure of—had gotten sick. Like her boy, it started with a slight fever that never reached a hundred and progressed to the vomiting blood, graying skin, and loss of weight. She began to itch and scratch at her skin, tearing it in some places. Her death came quicker than her son’s, accelerated by lack of sleep and food. Her body just couldn’t hold up under the grief and illness.

“The kid’s pediatrician and a couple of nurses got sick as well. Who knows how many kids and parents were in the office the day the kid—was his name Jeffery—was there? I guess most of us know how it goes from there. Fever. Stiffness. Throwing up blood and graying skin. Loss of weight. Itching and scratching and…death.

“A not so funny thing happened a few hours after Wilson—Wilson! That was his name.” Tears stung my eyes as I thought about the dark-haired kid with green eyes, his pale complexion a trait inherited from his momma, from Nancy, whose husband was Richard Walker, my second youngest brother. How could I have forgotten Wilson’s name? How many times have I said I’m sorry into the air, begging my brother, his wife, and Wilson to forgive me for such a horrible thing?

I could shrug it off if I wanted to. Richard had left home angry when he was eighteen and really never returned, not in the sense that he belonged. No, Richard was never the same after leaving, but he was in the wrong. I don’t care what he may have thought. Stealing is wrong, but stealing from your family… It was an addiction that caused him to be the way he was for a while. I reckon after he got clean, either Pop or Richard just didn’t get over things.

I never met Wilson and only met Nancy on two occasions, so I guess it’s forgivable, right?

I laughed and cried at the same time, a contradiction of emotions welling up and exploding from within. I reached down and took Humphrey from his seat, hugged him tight. I could still smell the scent of little girl on him. I sat holding that bear, whispering into his ear and staring out into the darkness of a dead world.

“His name was Wilson. Was. You see, when he died, a few hours later, he woke up. The doctors—you know, those guys who said he had a viral flu and then kidney failure and whatever else—those doctors said he must have slipped into a coma or something and came out of it. Hallelujah, they said. It’s a miracle, they said.

“But it wasn’t a miracle.” I pulled the bear from my chest and stared into his glass eyes. “Do you understand? It wasn’t a miracle. It was just the opposite. It was a disaster. You see, the doctors…they went to check his vitals, and it turned out he didn’t have any. No heartbeat. His lungs weren’t working. No blood pressure. But Wilson sat up on that gurney right after the orderlies moved him, and no sooner than his momma was taken away to her own bed where she died a couple hours later. And you know what Wilson did?”

I waited for an answer that didn’t come.

“He bit one of the doctors on the hand, tore off the flesh from between his thumb and pointer finger. The doctor, he cursed up a holy hell—at least that’s what Lee told me when he arrived at my house a couple of days later, scared and half out of his mind. His wife and boys were in the car out in the driveway, waiting for us to hurry up so they could go away, go as far as they could before the sickness reached us.

“By then, it was too late. By then, it had been a week since Wilson had gotten sick and visited the doctor that first time. Do you know how many people he came in touch with during those first three days? And how many people did those people come in touch with?”

I rambled. What else was there to do? Everything that had happened in those long few months, every word I hadn’t spoken or even thought, came rushing out.

“Lee said Richard was in shock—more from the deaths of Nancy and Wilson than from the sickness he had come down with. His face had taken on that gray pallor. He was as good as dead, but the doctors wouldn’t go near him. Lee argued and yelled for them to help him, but they wouldn’t. They were scared. Everyone was scared. Nancy was in the morgue, her once lifeless body staggering about. No one was brave enough to go in there to see her. Not after what Wilson had done.

“That doctor…that doctor Wilson bit got his hand bandaged and got a tetanus shot for good measure, but the wound spread out; his skin turned black around it. Within a day, the doctor was dead. Like Wilson and Nancy and soon to be a bunch of others, he didn’t stay that way long.”

It’s said that the Bible is not completely comprehendible, that the mind could not handle the depth of knowledge and truth within its words. I believe that applies to these…events…as well. The mind can’t fully comprehend what is going on until it’s entirely too late. I set Humphrey down, wiped my eyes with the back of one hand. 

“Richard really couldn’t do much, you know? They quarantined the hospital. Cops surrounded the place. No one was allowed to leave. Lee had managed to get out of there before the cops came, said he was going to get something to eat and would be back soon. When he arrived back, there was no going in, and he sure wasn’t telling the cops he had already been there. He said a few folks tried to escape, and they were shot. Can you believe that, Humphrey? Scared folks were killed by the police because, well, they were just as scared. People started panicking, and things went south pretty quick. Just like the movies.

“You know, Lee was the only one Richard talked to all that often. I guess he still looked up to his oldest brother. I don’t know. I do know I wish he and I would have squared things away. After all, it was my money he had stolen… I guess I failed to mention that, didn’t I?

”Lee and I shared a couple beers, him drinking one down fast before popping the top off another one—this is after our families were on their way to Table Rock. Brothers having a couple of beers like the old times, but things were never going to be like the old times again. You know?”

I set Humphrey back in his seat, straightened out his bunny costume. “Hey, what do you say we get you some new clothes? Maybe some traveling clothes or biker jeans. What do you say? Would you like that?”

Yes.

I nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. Maybe we can find a mall or a Wal-Mart or something and get you some new clothes. You don’t want to be seen in public in your pajamas, do you?”

No.

Humphrey was talking again in his girlish voice. I never thought much about me calling him a boy but hearing his voice as a little girl’s. Maybe I should have named him something else, given him a female name. But then, Humphrey is what he said he was called. 

“You know,” I said and looked down at Harkers. “Leland, he came with us to try and save some folks in town. He sent Jessica and the boys on up to the hills, up to Tablerock, with Mike Simmons, his best friend. I guess I already said that, didn’t I?” I continued to stare at the small town as I talked. “They…umm…were in a red car—the four of them, you know?”

He had grown silent again. Maybe he knew what I knew.

“Yeah, me too, buddy,” I said. 

I checked my pistol and the rifle between us. Fully loaded with plenty of rounds on the floorboard if needed. Inching down in my seat, I patted Humphrey on the head. “Get some sleep, little guy. Long day tomorrow.”

But sleep…she’s a mistress who long since divorced me. I sat staring at the night. The stars still shone their brightness on the world. The moon still hung high, a blue hue to her white surface, a ring of yellow around her. I wondered if she had any clue what was happening down here, and if she did, did she care?

I prayed what we taught Bobby, I think more for the comfort the words brought. “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Let angels watch me through the night and wake me in the morning light.”

I wasn’t so sure about angels, but calmness swept over me, and I closed my eyes to the fleeting day…