The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead (19 page)

4

MAY

He walked for days before he
encountered anyone or anything again.  He was working his way through the
woods, traveling in a northeastern direction, occasionally crossing a small
road or stumbling though a tiny community built deep into the middle of
nowhere.  As always, he would search around for any supplies and as always, he
found little to nothing.  It was amazing that even there, in a tiny hamlet that
looked untouched by the modern world, looting had already occurred.  Not for
the first time or for the last did Jeff wonder what became of the people who
lived here.  Did they turn to zombies and  ravage their neighbors?  Or did the
zombies come from somewhere else, brought along by groups of survivors, like
some kind of deadly plague?

He had no answers.  All he knew
was what he experienced, and what he saw was empty, abandoned homes and
businesses, their windows shattered and their insides gutted. 

Jeff wandered into a small field
that turned into a tiny park.  There was a small, rusty merry-go-round, a swing
set, a short slide and a couple of those plastic horses sitting on big
springs.  He chose a seat at one of the picnic tables and buried his head into
his hands.

An unreasonable anguish swept
through him, a broom brushing through a dusty hallway, finding dirt in nooks
and crannies he never knew existed.  He thought of Jenny, raped and beaten,
putting the gun to her mouth.  He thought of Jenny, smiling and laughing, in
bed with him.  He thought of Jenny, yelling at him, furious over him dumping
her boyfriend’s dead body off the porch.  He thought of Jenny, pointing the gun
at him after he climbed up onto her balcony and the look of hope in her eyes. 
He thought of Jenny, in the Food Bank, of making love to her.  He thought of
Jenny, standing before his cell, holding up the severed heads of the men who’d
raped her. 

Jeff reached up and tangled
Jenny’s necklace in his finger, trying to draw some sort of energy from it,
something to sustain him through this dark and terrible time.

A black and foul pain settled over
him, such that he didn’t see the man lurking in the woods, standing perfectly
still, watching him.

Later that afternoon, after he’d
had a bite to eat there in the park, he headed back to the small town and
checked through it one more time.  The food in his backpack was growing lower
every day, despite his attempts to ration it.  He only ate twice a day, but
even that was too much. 

He ran across a backyard with an
apple tree in it.  He smiled, examining what was left.  All the low-hanging
fruit had been picked or eaten, but there was plenty up top.  It was a small
tree, though, so it was easy to grab a dozen and stuff them down into his pack.

When he reached the ground, he
crunched one of his apples and grinned as the juices gushed down his throat and
dribbled on his chin.  For the briefest of moments, he forgot all the world
around him.

Eventually, though, he had to go. 
He walked back towards the park past a small bank with its doors torn down.  He
glanced at it out of the corner of his eye and saw a few dollar bills swirl on
the sidewalk, caught up in a small breeze.   A twisted smile corkscrewed his
face.

Something moved inside the bank, a
startled rustle followed by the crunching of glass underfoot.  Jeff grabbed his
shotgun and walked towards the entrance.  He didn’t know why he was bothering. 
If it was a zombie, he’d probably just leave it alone, and if it was a person,
well, he didn’t want anything to do with them.  Still, some part of him was
curious. 

He stepped quickly into the bank,
shotgun leading the way.  Something was moving up ahead, and in the dingy
darkness of the closed room, he couldn’t quite make out what it was.

Chittering filled the air and he
knew he’d made a big mistake.  Scattered across the floor were a dozen
squirrels, darting around, digging through the trash littering the ground,
scavenging for food.  When Jeff came around the corner and entered their line
of sight, they all stopped and looked up at him, curious.  The closest squirrel
screeched and charged him, scampering across the floor in quick, spastic
movements.  Jeff turned and ran.

He burst into the street at full
speed, the pack of squirrels at his heels.  He had maybe a five yard separation
from them but they were closing fast, their shrill screams   pushing him on
faster.  Still, they were gaining on him, though, and he knew he wasn't going
to get away. 

Jeff spun, digging his heels into
the dusty ground under his feet, and racked a load into the shotgun.

The lead squirrel leapt at him
just as he pulled the trigger.  There was a loud roar and an explosion of fur
and blood, as tiny pieces of flesh and singed hair and bones sprayed across the
ground.  The one blast had killed more than two-thirds of them and the others
were either wounded or squealing, running for cover. 

A fine mist of blood hung in the
air like a storm cloud for a moment, drifting lazy before finally settling down
over the dead squirrels. 

Jeff stood immobile for a moment,
staring at what he’d done.  Finally, he turned and walked away.  He hadn't
wanted to kill them, but they gave him no choice.

That seemed to be a recurring
theme in this hellish world.

5

Days blurred together into one
long string of walking, resting, eating, and more walking.  His mind didn’t
wonder much, it kept to the task at hand, which was putting one foot in front
of the other, but the farther he went, the harder it got to push down his
thoughts.  Jenny was foremost on his mind, swirling just at the edges of his
vision, threatening to show herself like a shrouded phantasm, a ghost haunting
his every move.  

His nights were restless.  Between
waking from a fitful sleep at the slightest noise to the jarring nightmares
that shrouded his sleeping, he felt like he was beginning to lose his mind.  
How long before he was a raving lunatic? 

He needed to find a house to hole
up in for a while, to get his bearings and some rest.  But he knew if he did
that, there would be nothing to distract his mind, nothing to keep the madness
of grief that was nipping at his heels harder and stronger and faster than that
pack of squirrels he'd killed.

So he kept going.

One night, he built a fire.  Maybe
it would keep the demons at bay, if just for one night.  It most certainly
could attract any roaming zombies but he wasn’t as concerned about that.  He
hadn’t seen one of the dead for over a week now.  He was sure most of them were
in the cities and larger towns.   If any were out in the woods, the odds they
were anywhere close to him were astronomical.

Still, a part of him was uneasy
about what he was doing.

He pushed those thoughts aside and
held his hands out over the flames, feeling the warmth as it radiated out and
massaged his fingers and skin.   He took his boots off, something he never did,
and stretched his toes out near the fire.  His feet stunk and the boots were
pretty worn out.  It was time for him to find a new pair. 

Jeff was so caught up in the
moment, enjoying the warmth of the fire and feeling of protection, that he
never heard the man who’d been following him walk up and stop on the other side
of the fire.

“You mind if I sit for a minute?”
the man said, jarring Jeff from his lethargic haze.

Jeff grabbed his shotgun and
pointed it at the man. 
“Hold it right there,” he said.

The man held his hands up. 
Firelight flickered across his features, illuminating a small, stoop-shouldered
man with slight features and gray hair.  He had a craggy face, full of old age,
wrinkles, and weathering.  The man wore a pair of dirty blue jeans, a flannel
shirt, hiking boots, and a John Deere hat.  His ears were large and so were his
hands, but there was nothing strong or threatening about him; he was a tired
old man.

“I don’t mean any harm,” the man
said.  “I just saw your fire and was cold.”

Jeff stood and walked over to
him.  “Open your shirt and turn around,” he said.  “I want to make sure you
don’t have any weapons.”
The man did as instructed, turning around slowly.  He had a canteen hooked
onto his belt and, in a sheath on his lower back, a long hunting knife.  Jeff
took it and went back to his side of the fire and sat down.  The man stood a
moment, a strange look on his face.

“What is it?” Jeff said.

The man pointed at his knife.  “I
feel naked without it.”
Jeff shrugged.  “What’s your name?”
“Edgar,” the man said.  “Edgar O’Brien.”

“I’m Jeff.  Have a seat.”
Edgar sat down, his eyes on his knife.  Jeff went into his bag and pulled out
a can of tuna and a pack of peanut butter crackers.   He threw them over to
Edgar along with the can opener.  Edgar caught them and stared at Jeff.

“Really?”
“Go ahead,” Jeff said.

Edgar was into the can in seconds,
inhaling the tuna and crackers.  He swallowed thick and heavy, draining it all
down with a couple of swigs off his canteen.  When he finished, he wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand and smiled.

“Thanks,” Edgar said.

Jeff nodded.  He never took his
eyes off Edgar.

“What are you doing out here in
the woods?” Jeff said.

“Same thing you are.  Trying to
avoid them damn zombies,” Edgar said.

“Where are you from?”

“Up in Oregon,” Edgar said.  “I
was making my way down south towards San Francisco.  I figured that a big city
like that would still be the place to go.”
Jeff shook his head.  “I’m from there.  It’s gone.  What about Portland?”
Edgar’s face turned white.  “You don’t want to go to Portland.  No, sir.  It’s
an awful place.”
“What do you mean?”
Edgar took another drink from his canteen.  A funny smell was coming from him,
something Jeff didn’t recognize at first.  After a few minutes, he placed it: 
alcohol.  The canteen was full of whiskey. 

“I went there, first thing, when
the outbreak started,” Edgar said.

“Mind if I have a belt?” Jeff
said.

Edgar stared at him, reluctant. 
Finally, he nodded and passed the canteen over to Jeff, who took a swig.  The
alcohol burned down his throat like he’d swallowed a pack of razor blades.  It
roiled his stomach, and then settled in, nice and warm and. 

“Good stuff, huh?” Edgar said.  He
held his hand out, eager to retrieve his precious liquid.  Jeff handed it
over. 

“What about Portland?  Why is it
so bad?” Jeff said.

Edgar turned white again and shook
his head.  “You don’t want to go there, is all I’m saying.  Leave it alone.”
“Is it swarming with zombies?”
Edgar spat a wad of phlegm into the fire.  “I stopped there first, and what I
saw I will take to my grave.  Man and zombie alike…What that place has turned
into is something nobody needs to see.”

They sat in silence for a while,
the fire crackling between them.

“I figured San Francisco would be
different, what with their liberal sensibilities.  I thought maybe the people
there would get together and help each other,” Edgar said.

“Last I saw San Fran, it was being
bombed to rubble by a jet fighter,” Jeff said.

“Shit,” Edgar said.  “I guess I
seen too many movies about hippies.” 

Jeff shook his head.  “It was a
place, just like any other.  No place is really that different than another.”    

Edgar blanched.  “If you’d seen
Portland, you wouldn’t say that.”   

Jeff said nothing.  Edgar let out
a long, sad sigh.

“They built themselves a paradise,
right there by the river in Portland.  Some military outfit moved in and set up
camp and when I first arrived, it was like the old world, before the dead took
over.  They had a couple gardens to grow food and installed solar panels for
electricity.  Then things went bad.  And people, they went bad, too.  I was
lucky to get out alive.”
“What happened?”
Edgar shook his head slowly and passed the canteen back over the fire to
Jeff.  He took a swig, this one not burning as bad.  They didn’t talk much for
a while; they just passed the whiskey back and forth some, Jeff feeling warmer
and happier by the second.

“What’s your story, then?  Before
the world went to shit,” Jeff said.

Edgar held up a finger and stuck
his hand inside his jacket.  He pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette and a box of
matches.  He looked at Jeff.

“Go ahead,” Jeff said.

Edgar lit the cigarette and took a
deep drag.  He exhaled a plume of blue smoke, coughed, wiped his eyes, and
laughed.

“They say these things will kill
ya, but hell, they don’t scare me much,” Edgar said. 

Jeff smiled.  He took another sip
of whiskey.  He felt light-headed and tired and decided he’d had enough to
drink.  He passed the bottle back over to Edgar.

“I was born in Oregon,” Edgar
said.  “I lived there all my life, up in the country, out where most folks
leave each other alone.  I got out and went to college in Portland for a year
but it didn’t take, so I went back and worked for my Daddy.  He owned a grocery
store.  Anyway, my folks eventually passed on and I got married to a local
girl.  Peggy Hines was her name.  She was nice.  Big hips, the kind that makes
a man feel welcome when he comes home, if you know what I mean.”  Edgar winked
at Jeff, who grinned in return.

“We had two children, but the
first one died.  She had that crib-death.  Never could understand it,” Edgar
said.  He smoked his cigarette a little more, shaking his head.  “That nearly
ruined it for us, for me and Peggy.  That’s a hard thing to get over, losing a
child.”
Jeff offered a grim smile.

“But we persevered.  We didn’t
think we’d want another child until one day, Peggy comes home from the doctor
with the biggest smile on her face,” Edgar said, his face bright and shiny,
lost in the memory of that day. 

“At first, we didn’t know what to
do.  We considered getting rid of it, ‘cause the doctor said there was a chance
it could be born funny, you know, because Peggy was so old.  We talked about
having the child and then putting it up for adoption, which seemed the best of
the plans.  We were both older, and raising babies should be done by young
people.  But we decided that baby was a gift from God and we shouldn’t turn our
backs on it, so we had him, little Bobby—named after her Daddy—and he was a
sight to see.”
If it was possible, Edgar’s face got even brighter.  He held his hands out and
apart by six inches. 

“He was the smallest little thing
you ever seen.  And he was loud, too, squalling like a kicked pig.  I hardly
ever got any sleep, but that was okay by me, because I spent a lot of nights
and holding my baby boy, walking him around, singing songs to him,” Edgar said. 
He laughed.  “Peggy always said my singing was what made him cry, but I never
agreed with that.  I thought it made my boy happy.”
Edgar dipped his head.  Jeff saw tears glisten on the old man’s face,
reflecting in the firelight. 

“He died three days into the start
of the zombies,” Edgar said.  “I don’t know why.  I suspect it was the same as
his sister.  All I know is I got up and went to check on him ‘cause he was
being so quiet and when I got to his crib, I nearly collapsed.  He was all
purple and black.”
Edgar looked up at Jeff, his face smeared with tears.  He had no shame, no
embarrassment. 

“I must have screamed ‘cause Peggy
came running and when she saw our baby boy, she lost it, too.  She bent down
and picked him up and held him to her chest, his head cradled into her neck. 
She walked him around the room, stroking the back of his dead head, telling him
it was all going to be okay.  This was between cussing me out, ‘cause she
blamed me for the whole damned thing,” Edgar said.  He paused a moment and took
two puffs on his disintegrating cigarette.  He tossed the butt in the fire and
continued.

“She was part-way to the kitchen,
just into the living room, when she screamed again.  Only this time, it wasn’t
one of grief but of terror.  I ran to her and saw that Bobby had taken a chunk
out of her neck.  It was like some kind of vampire movie or something,” Edgar
said.  “I reached out for my son and tried to pull him away ‘cause I knew, even
though I didn’t want to know, what was going on.  He’d turned.  He’d become one
of those things we’d heard about on the TV.  But as soon as I tried to pull him
away, Peggy screamed at me to leave her son alone.”
Edgar’s voice cracked and he swallowed hard.  He picked up the whiskey and
drank a long, deep gulp. 

“She wouldn’t let go and I
couldn’t go near her, not ‘til she fell to her knees, covered in blood and too
weak to stand anymore.  By that time, Bobby had gnawed a good-sized hole in her
neck and she didn’t have much longer to live.  I pulled the baby away and put
him in his crib and went back to Peggy.  I held her until she died.  She lay
trembling in my arms, bleeding out on the floor, begging me to bring her son
back to her.”
Edgar wiped his eyes.  His voice was raw now, like someone had taken a handful
of sandpaper and shoved it down his throat and made him gargle with it. 

“I waited until she came back,
too, just like our baby.  I went and got my hunting rifle and sat on my
favorite chair in the living room and watched her dead body as it sat up and
looked at me.  It was my Peggy, but it wasn’t really, not any more.  She got up
and walked over to me and I shot her in the head and splattered her brains all
over the living room floor.  Then I got up out of my chair and walked over to
the crib and I…”  Edgar’s voice trailed off.  He held up his hand, sobbed, and
coughed violently.  After a few moments, he got it together enough to speak.

“I left after that.  I went out
into the woods and I’ve never been back,” Edgar said.  He looked up at Jeff
with haunted, black eyes, his tears glittering in the fire light.

“That’s my story,” Edgar said. 
“What’s yours?”
“I was trapped in my apartment,” he blurted out, the words coming unbidden,
flying from his mouth like chunks of vomit from a sick stomach.  And they went
from there, just pouring out, telling Edgar what had happened to him, about
Jenny and the apartment and the Food Bank and the boat and Alcatraz and then
his run to the place he was at now, the words tumbling from his lips like rain
from the sky.

When he finished, Edgar got up,
walked over to him, and handed Jeff the whiskey.

“We all got stories,” Edgar said. 
“And given what’s left of this world, they’re all tragic.”

Jeff took a deep swig, the burning
warmth of the liquor slicing through his heartache and carrying it all down
into his stomach.  He thought he was going to throw up for a moment but that
passed.  What followed was the soft, soothing numbness of the alcohol. 

“Drink up,” Edgar said. “It’ll
help.  I don’t do it much, ‘cause I don’t want to turn into an alcoholic, but
sometimes, sometimes it’s what you need most to help out.”

“The thing I don’t get,” Jeff
said.  “Is the way it all went to hell so quick?  I mean, look around.  We have
the Army and guns and we can move and those damned zombies are so slow.  How
did they wipe us out and how did it happen so fast?  It doesn’t make any
sense.”