The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1): A Post-Apocalyptic Series (20 page)

A smooth concrete floor painted gray sprawled in front of him and just kept going. The size of it reminded him of looking out at the untouched top of fresh snow on a field. The concrete wasn’t without flaw, though. He could see indented spots lacking paint here and there in the floor where huge machines must have sat once.

Between the lack of machines and the hole in the wall, he realized this place must have been empty before the plague killed everyone. So why would they stop at an empty factory? Why would they stay in one?

He moved forward, his footsteps echoing, the scuff of rubber soles on concrete reverberating all around him, each new step piling on the fading echoes of those that came before.

Then he saw the piles of goods. Cases of vegetable oil and Coca-Cola and flour were loaded onto the front row of wood pallets with many more square sized loads trailing away behind them. All of these congregated near the big garage doors where semi-trucks used to pick up shipments, and just like that, it all made sense. They were organized. This was their distribution center. The group of men he’d seen looted all day, brought it back here and prepared it to be picked up, probably by another group, probably taken back to a bigger encampment. These were loading bays. He wondered how big this group could be. Did they have other groups of looters out doing the same thing? Probably. Jesus. That could be something bigger than an encampment. That could be a town.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d maybe even see some hope in the idea of something like that, some town of people out there stockpiling supplies, but these guys had kind of, you know, killed his parents in front of him in the kitchen. He knew who they really were.

He walked toward the pallets, observing a cardboard box filled to the brim with bags of different brands of rice, next to that a couple of cases of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Bungee cords held these sloppily stacked items together. Looking elsewhere he saw bottles of motor oil, cans of soup, cases of flour and sugar, 40 pound bags of salt, a bunch of red plastic gas tanks that he presumed were full of gasoline, oil drums that might contain more fuel of some type. They had quite a setup here, quite a collection of useful items.

He walked on, moving to the door on the far side of the room from where he’d entered. This part of the building was carpeted, finished – a lobby and some offices. The air in here felt different, dryer, less dank. This was surely where the human resources people and secretaries and managers all worked. And sleeping bags were everywhere. The first one was laid across a padded bench in the lobby. Others sprawled across office floors, nestled under desks and countertops, and one lay atop a long meeting table.

So the men were staying here, at least for now. Good to know.

He walked back through the cavern, once more feeling that oppressive air in the great empty room. He slowed down in the dark of the foyer, moving through the shadows toward the rectangular opening of light in the distance, feeling along with sliding steps until he found the pair of stairs and navigated them.

And now he was outside, the air morphing yet again, the fading light of day still clinging to the sky. He stretched and began the walk home. He pictured the men at night, nestling into their sleeping bags like this was some kind of camping trip. He couldn’t decide whether or not he’d torch the offices after he killed them.

Mitch

North of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

42 days before

The boys cradled cardboard boxes on their laps in the back seat, and a stack of frozen pizzas sat on top of two cases of bottled water in the passenger seat next to Mitch. More boxes filled the trunk, and plastic bags piled up on the floors and in any other nook or cranny they could squeeze them, filled with more food and clothing and any other useful item they could load up from home.

He merged onto the highway, joining the stream of cars rocketing north. It was a high speed burn from town to the lake, 96 miles, a straight shot. He figured it’d take them another 80 or 90 minutes if traffic didn’t pose a problem. Not too long in one sense, but his life was a clock ticking down to zombie time, and this would eat up a significant chunk.

He adjusted the rearview to look on his sons. They stared out of their windows again, eyes flicking to keep up with the things speeding by. A triple decker stack of partially loaded laundry baskets in the middle of the back seat separated them from each other, isolating each of them with their own glass screen through which to watch the world.

They looked bored, he thought, or perhaps mildly concerned, but there was something about kids that always looked optimistic to Mitch. Some smoothness in their complexion, some perpetual hint of enthusiasm in the set of their eyelids and mouth. Something there told him that life hadn’t beaten them down. Not yet, anyway. And knowing that reminded him that it didn’t matter that his clock was ticking down.

They raced down the backstretch now, barreling down the final straightaway to the place that offered these boys some hope. There were still obstacles ahead of them, but they’d given themselves a real shot.

He looked at his eyes in the mirror and blinked a few times. He looked tired, he thought, but he was still here.

The traffic flowed alongside them, seemingly growing thicker as they went on. It was moving, though, and that’s all Mitch cared about.

The car coiled off of the highway, following the curled path of the exit out to Helmer Road, which was lined with a mix of pines and maples. Green protruded everywhere along the roadside, branches reaching out for the vehicles whizzing by.

They’d made it. The cabin was less than three miles out now. They’d take a right off of Helmer onto a dirt road. He couldn’t remember the name just now, but he’d know it when he saw it. It didn’t seem real. They’d actually done it. It was the first thing that had gone off without a hitch since all of this started. Yeah, traffic had picked up a little, but it never became a problem.

He glanced at the mirror, watching the reflection of his sons staring at the glass panes before them. A feeling came over him that he didn’t quite have words for. Something to do with life being a miracle we have no idea what to do with. Something about this miracle sitting right under our noses for the duration of our time on this plane, like some valuable antique we don’t know how to use so we tuck it away in a closet. These boys were his miracle, and even now he had no idea what to say to them, even when the feelings flooded him until they overflowed, he didn’t know what to say. He just watched their blank faces, the way their eyes flicked to observe the images before them, finding himself on the verge of tears.

But he should say something, right?

“You guys know I love you, right?” he said, eyes still locked on the rearview.

“Yeah, Dad,” Kevin said, still looking out the window.

“I love you, Daddy,” Matt said. He looked up, met his father’s eyes in the mirror and smiled, which Mitch could discern in the wrinkles forming in his son’s eyelids.

They were good boys. He may not have been the best father ever, he thought, but his sons turned out right despite his mistakes.

There. He saw the dirt road up ahead and slowed to make the turn. The ride felt less smooth as they transitioned from pavement to dirt, leaving the modern standard for the older ways. But that wasn’t so bad, he thought: the remoteness of the locale promised safety.

The car shook a little. Rocks shifted under the tires, making a noise something like coffee beans grinding in slow motion, Mitch thought, a crunch and a whir.

“Almost there now,” he said, watching them in the mirror again.

They seemed to wake then, squirming in their seats in a way that reminded him of a pile of newborn kittens writhing and mewing after their mother has left them to get a drink of water. They looked around, eyes dancing from window to window to take in the scene, their foreheads wrinkling to break up the blank expressions they’d worn for so long now.

The car juddered over the rocks and divots in the dirt road, and clouds of dust kicked up behind them, a trail of what looked like brown smoke screening the view of where they came from.

Mitch’s heart hammered in his chest. He was excited and at the same time paranoid that something would go wrong at the last minute. Maybe they didn’t get the right key. Maybe the hand pump was broken and they’d have no access to water. Maybe the whole house had already burned to the ground.

But no. He knew none of these things made sense. They’d done it. They were there.

He pulled into the driveway, and his heart fluttered even faster. He wasn’t worried now, though. It was a good flutter. Oh, black sludge might be flowing in his veins, might be killing him a little more with each passing moment, but he had found a place for these boys to stay. He had done one thing right. The biggest thing.

He craned his neck to get a good look at the cabin. There it was. The wood exterior, the stone chimney jutting out, the windows angling up against the roof to reveal the vaulted ceiling within. It was a small building, yes, but a very, very nice one. He glanced out into the backyard, fixing his eyes on the hand pump atop the well. It looked fine, too.

Christ on a crutch. Was it real? Could all of this be real? He knew it was. He knew it must be.

He turned off the car and gathered the pile of frozen pizzas into his lap, securing them under one arm while he dug the big key ring out of his pocket with the opposite hand. His cheeks stung in a way that reminded him of tasting something sour, and he realized that he couldn’t stop smiling, that the muscles in his face verged on cramping up.

As soon as he opened the car door, the crack of gunfire rang out. A single shot. Before he could react, the bullet ruptured the windshield, the tinkle of the metal ripping through the glass reminding him of ice shaking around in a stainless steel tumbler. The slug made a soft tearing sound and then a FLOOF as it embedded itself in the headrest of the passenger seat next to him.

Mitch slammed the door, started the car and skidded back onto the dirt road in a flash. The gun fired again, apparently missing as they moved out of view of the cabin.

“What was that?” Matt said, the bullet lodged about three feet shy of his face.

His father said nothing. He was too nauseous to speak. The tires rolled over the rocks and potholes again as they drove into the brown cloud hovering over the road, into the sandy fog of the unknown.

Travis

Hillsboro, Michigan

54 days after

He lay in his bed that night, cold feelings bubbling around inside of him. Crickets chirped outside, little black things sending shrill sounds into the black. He missed his fan, the white noise that drowned everything out so he could sleep. At least all of the jogging and walking had tired him out. His back ached in a way that somehow felt pleasant now that he reclined. He felt the muscles around each vertebrae let go and somehow tingle and hurt at the same time. His legs felt too tight to offer any pleasure in their relaxation, but there was at least some relief in letting the joints go limp and floppy.

The dog exhaled loudly in the corner on its pile of blankets. That was a good sound. Even if he didn’t have the white noise of the fan, he had something: the sound of a companion.

The walk home had been hellish. Once full darkness fell upon the day, he could see nothing. A wisp of clouds blocked out the moon, and the starlight was not enough to help. He never realized how much he’d miss the streetlights until they were gone. He used the lighter just enough to navigate, the flint still getting hot enough to blister his thumb even with limited use. He could kind of see the white line on the side of the road if he didn’t stare right at it, so he followed that much of the time.

At some point early in the return trek, he noted that he didn’t feel high anymore. His head felt a little funny, but it wasn’t pleasant now. It was just dull, a little flutter behind his eyes.

In the dark it felt like he’d never get home; he’d never actually get anywhere. He’d just pump his legs and flick his lighter off and on forever in alternating flashes of brightness and emptiness.

Walking up the front steps felt so strange. He heard the dog’s nails clicking across the boards as it moved across the porch to greet him. He reached down, touching the peach fuzz layer of fur coating the beast’s head, and it snarfed out some happy sound somewhere between a sneeze and a dry heave. He felt like a dead thing somehow moving, somehow returning to life to go through these old motions once more, pushing the key into the lock, turning it, stepping through the doorway, smelling the familiar odor of home, stale cigarette smoke and some note of cedar that he thought might be from his mom’s linen cabinet by the stairs. The dog’s nails clacked on the wood floors, somehow fuller sounding than on the porch.

He felt around until his hands clasped the lantern. He flicked the lighter one last time for the night, the flame igniting near the oil chamber, and he lit it. He brushed his teeth by lantern light, spitting off of the back steps into the grass, and he chugged a glass of water before and after the act of hygiene. Then he made his way to bed, peeling off his clothes and pulling up the covers. The blanket felt just heavy enough, resting on him. Like a hug.

His mind circled around the same few thoughts for a long time. He knew that if he fucked up even slightly, they’d kill him, but he didn’t care. His thoughts came back to that landing point over and over again.