Dredging Up Memories (8 page)

Nine Weeks, One Day, an Hour and a Half Later…

Adrenaline is sometimes painful.

The anger that coursed through my body as I mutilated—and that’s the right word for what I had done—the Paul Marcum lookalike faded before I got back in the truck. My hands and legs shook as the effects wore off. I guessed that’s what a junkie feels like after a high, after his head has been totally messed up for a few hours or a day or whatever and reality starts to come back. I was cold, and my joints were stiff, and I shivered as if winter had arrived and brought with it the northern winds.

I drove the mile to the exit ramp that led to Summerville and pulled off the interstate. At the dead light, I turned and crossed onto the overpass. There I stopped, got out of the truck, and walked to the edge of the overpass. My legs still shook a little, and I was tired and weak. I stared off toward Charleston. In the distance, I could see a few of the dead shambling about. How many? I couldn’t say, but there was no staying any length of time in Summerville. It could take them a couple hours to get there. Or it could take them a couple days. Honestly, it’s not something I wanted to find out.

Back in the truck, I started the cross over and made my way back toward the interstate. I passed a few bodies lying on the ground and some burned out vehicles. One windshield caught my attention. The blood had dried where the driver’s skull struck. The glass spider-webbed in all directions. The front end of the car was crumpled in, the bumper slumped toward the ground. The driver was wedged between the steering wheel and the windshield. I couldn’t help but wonder about the events that led him to the point in time where his head became a ruptured melon. Was he fleeing for his life? Did he swerve to keep from hitting someone or something?

“An accident,” I whispered.

More than likely.
Humphrey sounded more and more intelligent with each passing day. The little girl’s voice had been growing up as we went. I hadn’t noticed it until then. I looked at him—at
her
—and I didn’t see a stuffed teddy bear wearing a bunny costume. I saw a little girl who was no longer around four or five but closer to eight. Maybe nine.  Her hair was long and brown, and there was a braid on one side. Freckles lined the bridge of her nose and spotted parts of her cheeks. The bunny ears were still there, still floppy and in need of cleaning, and the costume had stretched tight over the girl’s body. The arms and legs ended at the armpits and mid thighs.

I couldn’t pull my eyes from her. No matter how bad I wanted to, I couldn’t turn away.

“Who are you?” I asked.

Humphrey,
she said without moving her lips.

“No. Humphrey’s a teddy bear. You’re—”

Alive.

“What?”

I’m alive and—

At some point, I must have let my foot off the break. The truck rolled, but I didn’t realize it. By the time I did, it had reached the exit ramp, crept off the edge of the road, and started down the grass and gravel embankment.

“Crap,” I yelled and mashed the break as hard as I could.  I leveled the steering wheel, trying to keep the truck straight as it skidded down the hill. The embankment didn’t look that steep, but it seemed to go on for miles, all in a world of slow motion special effects that if this were a movie the viewer would have gotten to see the truck bounce and jostle and would have seen my face screwed up in determination, jaw clenched too tight as I held onto the steering wheel. The front passenger’s side tire struck a large rock. The truck bounced up and over it, teetered to one side, then tipped over.

I don’t know how many times I went head over heels. I do know the truck came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, upside down. I struck my head on the ceiling, and my left shoulder felt like someone had stabbed me with a hot poker. My left ankle hurt, as did both legs.

The world sat upside down, and the blood flowed to my head. Pressure filled my face, and there was a rush of water coming from somewhere in my skull, the flood echoing in my ears. I tried to move my left arm, felt a bolt of pain, and forced my hand across my lap. With the other hand, I pushed up on the ceiling, taking as much weight off the seatbelt as I could. I pressed the button, and the belt released. My head bumped the ceiling again, but I was free of the restraint. I rolled onto my right shoulder, grimaced as another pain tore through my left arm.

The pain was intense for a few minutes, but the danger I was in…that danger was far more real than the way my body felt. Laying on my side, the rushing waters in my ears subsided. A little relief but not much.

I pulled my feet free and got on my knees. My ankle barked once but nothing like my arm. I looked at my shoulder. I could see the swelling, the way it had pulled free from the socket.

The windshield was cracked. There were a few trees around us, and the grass was grown up considerably. 

“You okay, Humphrey?”

She didn’t respond. She just hung upside down in her car seat. I reached over, worked the clasp with one hand until it came free. Humphrey tumbled onto the ceiling, gave a sharp,
Ow.

“Sorry, kiddo.”

It’s okay.

She sounded little again. I was okay with that.

“We need to get out of here, Humphrey.”

Where are we going to go?

“I don’t know. Maybe find somewhere to hole up for a day or two—my shoulder’s killing me.”

Outside, I could see only the grass and trees and the edge of the off ramp the truck had tumbled down. The engine hissed as fluid leaked from a busted hose. The door handle lifted easily enough, and I pushed the door open. It groaned as metal on metal tend to do. I grabbed the pistol and carefully poked my head out. I didn’t know if any rotters heard the tumble, but I saw none of them either on the road just beyond us or on the hill at the top of the overpass. 

A few minutes later, I had my pack over my good shoulder, Humphrey tucked in the top part, the zipper tight to keep him from falling out. The food and weapons were scattered about the ground. I grabbed as much ammo as I could fit in the pack and in my pockets and slung old Ox over my left shoulder and around my neck. The strap tugged on the wounded shoulder, and I grimaced as fresh pain raced down into my elbow and up into my neck. I made my way up to the off ramp, each step I took sending hot bolts up into my left knee.

At the top of the hill, my worst fear had become a reality. Several of the dead had heard the truck crash and made their way toward me. One of them—a thin man with a chunk of hair missing on the side of his head—saw me. His upper lip twitched, and he groaned.

I reached for my machete. A panic came over me so suddenly it felt like electricity along my skin. The machete lay in the road a mile away where I had mutilated the Paul Marcum lookalike. I didn’t want to fire the weapon. Not then. Not with only a handful of them nearby. The truck crash was one thing, but the gun would echo and carry further. 

Limping along, I hurried away from the overpass and down a stretch of road that led away from the stores and restaurants the other direction promised. The center of the road provided distance between the buildings, and I moved as fast as I could, keeping eyes on the corners of the structures and the dead trailing behind me.

I don’t know how far I walked. My ankle hurt, my shoulder pulsed, the skin felt tight, but stopping to check wasn’t an option. Eventually, what seemed like a small shopping district gave way to an open road with a few cars along its side. Off in the distance and across what looked like a world of tall grass stood a house. No rotters came from that direction.

Behind me shambled a dozen or more of the soulful dead.

I started to cross the grass then thought better of it. What if there was a wayward rotter in there? Instead, I went to the end of the road that led to the house. It was more like a long, dirt driveway with gravel and rock lining both sides. 

The house easily sat a hundred yards or so off the road, and though the dead were still a good distance behind me, walking didn’t feel safe. I ran the best I could. At first, the pain in my ankle was like slivers of glass tearing at the muscle and bone, but after a dozen or so steps, it loosened up, and I ran with a slight limp. The pain in my knee did not ease up so easily. In my younger, less beat up days, I could have run that hundred yards in twelve or thirteen seconds. Not then.

At the house, I had my gun at the ready, arm extended, finger on the trigger. It was a two-story wooden structure with ornately carved rails trailing up the steps and frilly designs along the windows. The white paint flaked a little on the edges, and what probably was once red trim had faded to pink. A dozen or so steps led up to the landing where the door stood closed. The windows were boarded from the outside. Maybe someone still lived there. I could only hope.

I knocked, waited, looked out toward the road. The dead still lingered about. Some of them had shuffled back toward town. I knocked again. When no one answered, I tried the knob. It turned—it actually turned. I couldn’t believe it. For a moment longer, I stared at the door then pushed it open.

Once inside, I closed the door, let it click shut. I set Ox on the floor and lowered the pack.

“Stay here, Humphrey.”

Like he—
she
—was going anywhere. The kitchen was empty. The hall that led away from it had two rooms to the right, a bathroom to the left. No one occupied these rooms. Stairs led up to the bedrooms. I braced myself as I went up one step at a time. A few creaks sounded louder than they probably were. I cringed with each one and prayed the sounds didn’t alarm anyone, living or otherwise, to my presence.

Four bedrooms and a full bath and not a soul to be found. Each of the bedrooms held their own particulars, their own characteristics, telling what type of people had lived there. The one at the end of the hall closest to the bathroom held my attention for a few minutes longer than I wanted it to. Posters of baseball players were tacked to the walls. Baseball bats sat in a rack bolted to the wall closest to the bed. A banner that said RED SOX 2004 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS—THE CURSE IS DEAD had been put up along the edge of the ceiling like a border. A ball sat in a glove on top of the dresser. It was definitely a boy’s room. By the size of the bed, I would say a little boy.

Bobby played baseball. Second base. His old man played third, though I was a lousy hitter. Bobby swung a bat much better than I ever did. I closed my eyes and I saw him in uniform, taking cuts while standing in the on deck circle. At the plate was Charlie Rose’s little boy, Chuck—yeah, he was a junior, but instead of calling him that, we all just called him Chuck. The pitcher was a kid I didn’t know, his hair sandy blond and long with thick strands hanging out the back and sides of his cap. A large A in Old English font was plastered across the front of the opposing team’s uniforms and hats. He threw the pitch, and Chuck singled into left field. The outfielder bobbled the ball, and Chuck, even at ten years old, knew to run to second base as quickly as he could.

Bobby came up to the plate, swung his bat a few times, then stepped into the batter’s box. A first pitch strike was followed by a ball then another strike. The pitcher wound up and…

I don’t know what brought me away from my thoughts. I was startled to see the sun was setting. How long had I been standing there?

I hurried out of the room and back down the stairs. With no one there, I thought it safe to lock the door. But with all the windows boarded up with plywood, I couldn’t see outside. I opened the front door, looked out with the gun ready if needed. At the bottom of the steps, I saw what snapped me from my memories: one of the dead had made it from the road to the house. I reckon it tried to climb the steps but only managed to fall backward. It struggled to stand, but its legs were too rigid to bend.

I went back inside, very aware of the pain coursing through my shoulder. The arm had grown stiff. I grabbed Ox from the floor and went back outside. I made my way down the steps. White film covered the man’s eyes, and his mouth snapped open and shut, open and shut. “End of the line,” I said and brought the butt of the gun down on his head. It cracked, but he still squirmed. Again, I brought the butt of the gun down, this time much harder. His head split from forehead back.

A shiver traced up my spine, and I hurried back up the steps. That’s something I never got used to: physically striking one of the dead. The thought of it made me nauseated. With the living, you could pull a punch and still do plenty of damage. With the dead, a pulled punch could be the end of your life. Still, my skin crawled, and I wanted nothing more than a shower that I wouldn’t get.

With the door closed and locked, I went over to the couch in the front room. I was thankful there was no carpet on the floor. If there had been, I would never have been able to move that couch to stand in front of the door.

I walked the downstairs a second time. All the windows had been nailed shut from the inside; boards covered them from the outside. The backdoor window had also been covered with wood, but a hole had been drilled in it at about eye level. I wondered why the person who had taken all the precautions to board the house up didn’t bother with drilling a hole in the wood in the front door as well. 

Like a lot of houses, there were pictures on the walls, and these pictures showed a happy family. Two adults, a teenaged daughter, and a young boy, blond hair and shining blue eyes. He looked like a baseball player. Add a couple years to him, and he could have been that pitcher…