Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse (6 page)

     “What’s so funny?” she asked.

     “You wouldn’t understand,” I answered.

     “Try me.”

     “Well, I was just thinking about how everything is different in the world now. And, well, in this new world, you guys are my new family.” I waited and watched her expression. I tried to figure out what was going on inside her head.

     “Yeah, I guess it is a new world and all that. I mean, the shit has definitely hit the fan.” She started to apologize for her language but then stopped herself. “Seems like, well, everybody is on their own, and it’s probably gonna be like that for at least a while.”

     “You got that right,” I agreed.

     “So we’re the new family unit. Does that make us like some sort of new age Adam and Eve?”

     I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea. “Hmmm, Adam and Eve, huh? I hadn’t really considered that one. Perhaps we are…I’ll have to give it some thought. All I know is everything we got used to in the old world is gone. We have to start living in this one. That means starting over. I’m not sure about wearing a fig leaf though.”

     “Oh, c’mon, you didn’t expect to look good in a cowboy hat. Who knows, a fig leaf might be perfect for you,” she giggled a little.

     At that moment, I realized we were actually flirting. The realization startled me a little. It had been a long time since I had been in such a situation. I could not decide exactly how I felt about it.

     As easy as it would be to consider the old world and everything belonging to that world no longer relevant, I wasn’t ready to completely toss aside all the memories I had of my previous life. I could see every feature of Bonnie’s face. She smiled, but her face was trembling. The tears started streaming down her cheeks.  

     “No, I don’t want a divorce,” she cried as she moved toward me. “It was…just a stupid mistake. He doesn’t mean anything to me. He…” The rest of her words got lost in the sobs that shook her body.

     I wanted to reach out to hold and comfort her. I tried to do that but was unable to move. All I could do was watch as Bonnie trembled with sorrow. However, what really bothered me was that Bonnie seemed to be sliding further away as I stood watching. Her image remained there for me to see, but it no longer had the sharp detail it had previously. I was aware that at the same time the sharpness of the pain I had experienced had eased.

     “You okay?” Kat asked.

     “Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered, although my words did not change the fact that I was definitely not fine.

     “You ready to go check out this tent with your new family?”

     I looked at her, but the previous strong feelings toward Kat were gone. We walked slowly over to where Taylor and Christina played with things they had found. Kat’s eyes focused on me as we moved. She must have been completely confused by my sudden change in mood.

     I couldn’t blame her for being confused. I did not fully understand my behavior either. Of course, I had lost my wife recently. Even if she died in such a bizarre and violent manner, it made sense that I would need time to adjust to her death. I had no reason to feel strange, because I still needed time to grieve. The idea that this was all part of going through a normal mourning process made me feel better, and I actually smiled.

     My new expression did not relieve Kat’s confusion.

     “You okay?” she asked again.

     “Sure…uh…I guess so… How about you, Eve?”

     The smile slowly came to her mouth as if she was not quite sure it belonged there.

     “What did you guys find?” I asked.

     Christina answered with excitement. “A little TV with some movies! I see a battery, but it doesn’t work!”

     Taylor had already found a video game on the laptop and was busy killing space aliens.

     “Well, let me take a look,” I told Christina, sitting down next to her.

     Trying to look as though I had some idea of what to do, I checked the buttons in the front of the small television and even pushed the power button a couple of times. There was no response. I turned it around a looked for some secret on the back. After a moment, I finally spotted it. There was a little slot near the bottom of the set. On one side AC outlet was written and Battery on the other.

     I found a pen and stuck it in the slot to move the switch to battery on the television. Once done, I pushed the power button on the front. The light came on, and after a moment the screen filled with snow.

     One would have thought I had given Christina the best gift of her life from the way she threw her arms around my neck and cried. “Oh thank you, Kevin.” The little girl appeared truly beyond emotion as she regarded the snowy screen.

     “For a long time, I couldn’t watch anything,” she said. “Now I don’t know what to watch first.”

     She looked at the various videos scattered around the table. After a moment, she grabbed one and stuck it into the video player. The screen immediately filled with an animated blue rabbit-like creature that bounced everywhere. Christina was instantly enthralled and looked deeply into the screen for the next fifteen minutes.

     “Looks like you’ve found the key to keeping her happy,” Kat chuckled.

     I looked at her for a moment before responding. “Well, I wouldn’t ordinarily resort to plugging a kid into the idiot box, but these are certainly not ordinary times, and she definitely deserves some mindless entertainment.”

     Kat nodded. “You got that right. We all do, especially you.”

     “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t really think I have it any worse than anybody else, especially these two.” I nodded toward Taylor and Christina. “They lost everything, and the thing that makes it even more terrible is that they don’t really understand why it happened. I mean, as far as we know, nobody really understands why all this shit happened. But it’s got to be more terrible when you’re young and your future simply disappears in front of you. There one second and gone the next. I mean, everything you ever figured would never change instantly changed. Everything we figured would always be around and could be counted on is gone. Nothing can be counted on.”

     “They can count on you,” Kat replied slowly. “At least, they can count on you.”

     She gave me a smile that I did my best to return.

      “I wish I believed that to be true. I wish I had something to promise them would never change.” I paused and shook my head. “But in a world like this, what can I do for them?” I realized that my whining did not deserve a response and I didn’t really expect one.

     Kat surprised me by saying, “You can be around for them. That’s worth more than just about anything, you know? How about you can protect them?” She paused for a moment. “That seems like it’s more important than anything now. You can protect them from becoming like those things, those things like Paul.”

     She appeared to be near tears, and I simply nodded.

     Fortunately, Taylor and Christina had both gotten so engrossed in their newfound tools of escape that they did not listen to our conversation.

    Perhaps watching videos and playing computer games, the two activities bemoaned by parents and teachers as the virtual destroyers of imagination, might actually serve to preserve minds. After all, imagination would be no blessing in a world that seemed to be quickly becoming worse than imaginable. My thin grasp on reality was a clear example of the negative impact imagination could have.

Chapter 5

     Thankfully, the horrific state of the world outside could be temporarily forgotten as we relaxed in that tent, in that store, in that city. It had turned into a cocoon like the layers of an onion, blocking out the deadly reality surrounding us. Like all cocoons, it would only be temporary and could only protect us for a short time. Eventually we would outgrow it. However, those were concerns for later. Now was the time to enjoy the brief reprieve we had been given.

     “Have you got anything besides cartoons?” I asked Christina after we’d sat through the third video of animated animals.

     “Yeah, what about something a family would enjoy together?” Kat asked and smiled at me.

     I smiled back, as my face warmed with a blush.

     We helped Christina look through the pile of videotapes until we found a suitable movie. It told the story of a family that ran a zoo and all of the problems they encountered.

     Despite calls from all of us, Taylor continued to play his video game. As time went on, I saw him glancing over at the video. Eventually, he scooted his chair closer and began watching the movie. Christina made her way onto his lap. Kat gave me another smile and I returned it. There was no denying the sense of family. For the first time in a very long time, it was possible to forget everything we had seen, forget the death, forget the horror. Just being able to forget for one night presented an incredible gift.

     By the time the movie ended, the light had begun to fade, so we set about checking lanterns and flashlights. Fortunately, we found a large assortment of lights to use. We set a couple of the battery-operated lanterns on the path from the tent to the bathroom. The idea was that during the night it would be easy for us to find the toilet.

     Kat found a large light which lit up the inside of the bathroom.

     Once the pathway had been lit, we returned to the tent and had a feast of canned ham, instant mashed potatoes, fruit cocktail, apple juice for two of us, and a bottle of wine for the rest.

     Since I had not seen a corkscrew anywhere in the store, a screw cap on the wine bottle was a blessing. The plastic wine goblets took the place of fine crystal stemware.

     “We should make a toast!” Kat insisted.

     “Okay, what do you wanna toast?” Taylor asked.

     “Why not our new family?” the little girl asked with a wide smile.

     Kat shot me a big smile. “That sounds like a great toast, Christina. Here’s to our new family.” She moved over and clinked glasses with Christina and Taylor.

     I did the same until we had all touched glasses. “Here’s to our new family!”

     After we ate and put all the dishes and utensils in a big black trash bag, Taylor and Christina went back to the cartoons. Kat and I went back to the bottle of wine.

     “Don’t you wish that it could stay like this all the time?” Kat asked, as if reading my mind.

     “I wish that more than anything,” I answered. “But it seems like, well, like perhaps we simply have to be satisfied with the present and not really expect anything to last.”

     “Live for today?”

     I considered her words and realized that as strange as it seemed, they might be correct.

     I chuckled a little. “Yes, I guess that’s my new philosophy live for today and the hell with tomorrow.” I tried to force a cheerful laugh, but it sounded like a hollow attempt at cheerfulness.

     Kat did not miss my insincerity and stared at me for a moment before saying, “I guess that’s kinda funny. I mean the whole live fast, die young way of life seems like it fits me better than you.” She smiled at me. “And anyway, don’t you feel like that’s the kinda attitude that put everybody in the pile of shit where we are now?”

     Kat’s idea was bouncing around in my head as I glanced over to see that Taylor and Christina had fallen asleep.

     “So you believe that shortsightedness put us here?”

     Kat looked down for a second. “I’m not sure exactly what that means, shortsightedness. But if it means only caring about right now instead of the future and how it’s gonna be, then yes, I think that’s what put us here.” She paused for a moment as if suddenly realizing something. “I’ve heard that this is the most self-centered generation. So I guess it makes sense that we would act like that. But it seems like everybody’s that way.”

     I nodded at her insight. “I did a story about how many of the diseases that had been virtually wiped out by medicine are now making something of a comeback. I interviewed a couple of doctors who agreed the reason for this is the over-reliance on medicine. Because of our need to get better right now rather than letting even a minor illness run its course, we demanded newer, faster-acting drugs to make us feel better. The result of all this being that the drugs lost their effectiveness as diseases built up a resistance or mutated into something else entirely.”

     Kat interrupted. “So your idea is that some normal disease mutated or something into whatever is making people…changing them into whatever the fuck they are?”

     “Well, I suppose it makes sense. It’s not like I have any inside information or anything. What’s probably the most common illness?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “The cold, right? All you have to do is take a peek a few yards outside of this tent to see the huge assortment of medicines designed to give us instant relief from the common cold. We can’t stand to have a little discomfort for a day or two, so we turn to pharmaceuticals to save us. The funny thing is it may well be our own advancements in science that wind up ending us.” I took another gulp of wine before continuing. “The cold going around when all this started was probably a mutated strain brought on by a reaction to all those overused remedies.” I glanced over to see an amused expression from Kat. “But then again, I could be drunk.”