The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead (22 page)

Jeff stumbled back.  He didn’t
know what to do.  His mind searched frantically for a plan.

The rifle.  The shotgun.  He had
weapons, but were they enough to take down a bear of that size?

He didn’t know, but he had to try.

Jeff slipped the shotgun off his
shoulder, pointed it at the rear end of the bear, and fired.  Even as he did,
he spun and ran from the house, as fast as his feet would carry him.  He heard
the bear squall in pain and shift its weight, cracking the railing of the
stairs as it turned.  Jeff sprinted into the middle of the yard and dropped to
one knee.  He set the shogun on the ground in front of him and pulled the rifle
free from his other shoulder, aimed, and fired as the bear burst through the
front door, foam flecking its muzzle and an enraged roar echoing through the
countryside.

The bullet struck the bear in its
front shoulder.  The bear grunted and stumbled but kept coming, fast, so fast,
no way for Jeff to get more than one more shot off.  He sighted the monster’s
face and pulled the trigger.  The bullet flashed and slammed the bear below its
face, slicing into its neck.  Blood burst like a shattered water balloon as the
bear’s howl turned to a gurgle and still it came, fast and hot and heavy and
full of fury.  Jeff dropped the rifle and lifted the shotgun just as it was on
him, its flashing teeth a foot from his face.  Jeff jammed the shotgun in the
bear’s nose and pulled the trigger.

What happened next moved in slow
motion.  He saw the pellets fly from the gun, strike the bear’s face, peel back
the flesh and jowls and moist black nose and pierce its skull.  He watched as
its eyeballs exploded in tiny bursts of liquid as its face sheared all the way
off, the bullets peppering its head, penetrating and blowing the bear’s brains
out.  Even as this happened, Jeff tumbled to his right in a desperate attempt
to avoid the imminent collision.

The bear clipped his leg and sent
him spinning through the air from the impact.  He landed and rolled, spraining
his left wrist in the fall and cracking a rib.  The bear skidded across the
grass, leaving behind a smear of blood and fur, until it came to a rest ten
feet away, its huge, raw ass sitting up in the air.

Jeff stared, incredulous, at what
had just happened. 

Pain lanced through his side and
throbbed in his wrist.  He carefully got to his feet, grunting when his ribs
hitched.  He had to make sure the baby was okay.  For all he knew, there was a
family of bears in there, and he was too late to save anybody.

Jeff picked up his shotgun and
walked gingerly to the house, up the stairs, and into the nursery.  Jenny was
there, in her crib, no longer crying, instead looking up at him, eyes big and
full of wonder. 

Despite his misgivings, despite
his fears and worries, a smile crept across Jeff’s face.

4

He spent the rest of the day
cleaning the corpse of the bear as Jenny napped.  He kept her up in her crib
while he did so, keeping an ear out for her.  Jeff only had to stop his bloody
dismembering of the bear twice to go make sure she was okay when he heard her
call out.  And each time, whenever she saw him, she smiled and closed her eyes
again. 

By the end of the afternoon, he’d cut
all the meat from the bear he could handle.  He took it inside and washed it
off in the sink, surprised to find the water was still running.  When he
finished, he built a fire in the fireplace using wood piled next to it and put
the meat on a big spit and started roasting it over the flames when he heard
Jenny cry out again.

Jeff washed his hands and face and
went back upstairs, his side burning and his wrist pounding.  He’d look for
some painkillers later, he decided, but right now, he had to tend to the baby.

She was in her crib, squalling,
her face red and angry.  Jeff hovered over her, not sure what to do.  He’d
never really dealt with babies at all, much less knowing how to take care of
them.  He reached in and stroked her face but that didn’t do much other than to
make her cry louder.  What was wrong?

“What is it?” he said, his voice a
croak of rust and disuse.  Jenny stopped crying for a moment to look at him, as
startled by the condition of his voice as he was.  Then she started up again,
loud and persistent.

Jeff looked around, clueless.  She
was upset about something, obviously, but what was it?  Did she just need to be
held?  How did he do that? 

He shrugged.  No other way but to
do it.

Jeff reached in and picked Jenny
up under her arms, careful not to hurt her or aggravate his wrist.  He held her
up so she was eye-level with him, her little legs dangling in the air, and the
smell hit him harder than the collision with the bear. 

She needed her diaper changed.

Jeff carried her over to a small
table that had a bag of diapers sitting on it.  He laid her down and bit his
bottom lip.  He’d never done this before and was at a loss.  How did somebody
change a diaper?

He undid the tape at the sides and
slid the diaper down, the stench smacking his nose and making him retch.  He’d
dealt with a lot of foul smells in his time since the world had fallen apart,
from rotting zombies to the reek of spoiled food, but nothing compared to what
was coming from that small child’s diaper.

Jeff winced and scrunched up his
face.  Jenny went quiet.  He looked down at her and she was smiling up at him. 
He laughed and shook his head.  He dropped the diaper in a garbage can by the
table.

Jenny looked at him, waiting. 
What was he supposed to do next?  She’d stopped crying, at least, but he knew
he still had to put another diaper on and…

Clean her up.  He groaned and
opened the box of moist wipes sitting next to the bag of diapers.  When he
reached down with one in each hand, wrinkling his nose, Jenny grabbed her feet
and laughed.  Jeff chuckled with her. 

“That's right,” he said.  “Old
Jeff doesn't know what the hell he's doing.”

His voice was clearer this time
and her eyes danced when he spoke. 

He cleaned her up and patted a
couple handfuls of baby powder on her behind.  She giggled.  Now came putting
on the diaper.

He opened the bag and pulled one
out and held it up.  He shook his head.

“God help me,” he said.

It took him twenty minutes, and
when he finished and stood her up, he realized he’d somehow put them on
sideways, making her look crooked.  He groaned and took the diaper off,
fetching a new one out of the bag.  The whole time, Jenny giggled and stared at
him, patiently amused by his predicament.

Another ten minutes and he stood
her up again.  It sagged in the back and he could tell he didn’t get a good
seal on her left leg, but Goddammit, this would have to do for now.

The smell of roasting flesh filled
the room and he realized he’d left the bear meat down there, cooking too long
by itself.  He quickly set her down and turned to run to the living room when
his cracked ribs caught and he cried out in pain at the same time Jenny started
crying again.

He limped over to the crib and
stared down at her.  What in the hell had he gotten himself into?

It took some doing, but he got the
meat squared away while he held Jenny and carried her around with him.  It was
hard to carry her with the pain in his side, but once she calmed down, he set
her on the couch and went into the bathroom. 

He washed his face and hands, took
his shirt off, and patted himself clean with some of the moist wipes for the
baby that he’d brought down.  In the cabinet he found a couple wads of wrapping
bandages and fixed his wrist and ribs as best he could, pulling them tight and
secure.  When he finished, he went back out to check on the baby. 

“How’s the baby doing?” he said. 
It was utterly ridiculous, he thought, the way he’d suddenly started talking in
that baby voice so many parents used.  But it came naturally to his lips.

“Is she all clean now?  Is she
feeling good and bouncy?”  He lifted her to bounce in his arms when his ribs
caught again.  He winced and Jenny laughed. 

“It’s funny, huh?  Funny how the
man is in pain?” Jeff smiled.  “You’re going to grow up to be a good woman,
aren’t you?  Yes, you are!”

Jenny laughed, her bright eyes
sparkling. 

And as Jeff met those eyes, a
warmth spread on his chest and he grinned.  Just being around her this late
afternoon had already done so much to melt away some of the depression and loss
he’d been carrying around for so long.

He grimaced when he realized that
the warmth on his chest wasn’t his own fuzzy feeling, but Jenny's leaking
diaper.

Jeff laughed and Jenny giggled.

His next attempt at the diaper was
a success.

Jeff cleaned up and tried to
figure his next move as Jenny slept in the living room.  He needed to get rid
of Jenny’s Mom’s corpse and what was left of the bear.   And after that,
tomorrow morning, probably, he should go into Valsetz and see if he could find
a library.  He could get some books on parenting.  He knew he couldn't find out
everything he needed to know from a book, but it was a good start. 

His next immediate step, though,
was to assess the food situation. 

He foraged through the kitchen, finding
ten boxes of baby food in the pantry along with all the canned goods.  Jeff
sighed with relief.  He didn't know what a child her age could eat, so feeding
her the baby food took a lot of pressure off.  It also helped that he looked to
have enough food to last several months, if he rationed it right.

Jenny woke.   He heard her in the
other room, talking jibberish to herself.  He grabbed a spoon from one of the
drawers, found a sippy cup and filled it with bottled water he found in the
cabinet, grabbed a roll of paper towels, and went into the living room. 

Jenny lay on the couch, giggling
and smiling.  Jeff sat next to her, sat her up against the cushions, and
proceeded to try and feed her.

An hour later and her face was
caked with “Apple Dumpling” baby food and he had clumps of it in his hair. 
They were both laughing, though, enjoying the moment. 

An hour after that, after carrying
her around on his shoulder and patting her back until she burped, Jenny fell
fast asleep.  He laid her out on the couch and went upstairs.  It took him a
little while, but he got the crib down to the living room and placed her inside
as gently as possible. 

Outside, the sun had almost set,
the last of its rays falling across the lawn and dying a slow death.

Sighing, Jeff went back upstairs
and rolled the mother’s body into a rug.  By the time he drug her down the
stairs and onto the front porch, he was pouring sweat and his side was
screaming at him.  Gritting his teeth, he hauled her out next to the bear’s
still-untouched corpse and laid her down. 

He went to the shed, found it
locked, and went back into the house.  He rifled through several drawers until
he found the keys and, grabbing a flashlight, he went back out and opened the
shed.  Inside was a lawnmower, a grill, a weed-whacker, and all sorts of tools
and implements.  He snatched up a can of lighter fluid and a box of matches and
carried them over to the corpses of the bear and the woman.  He sprayed them
with lighter fluid, struck a match, and flicked it onto the pile.  The bodies
went up quickly, blazing hot.  The thick smell of death and cooking flesh
filled the air as he stepped back.

Jeff stood next to the burning
bodies, watching until they burned down to ash, wondering how in the hell
things had turned out like they did.

5

He slept on the couch next to
Jenny’s crib.  She woke twice in the night, crying, and both times he got up,
picked her out of the crib, and held her until she stopped.  And after both
times, he fell out on the couch, dead to the world.

The morning brought sunshine and
warmer temperatures.  Jenny woke up about the same time Jeff did.  His body was
sore and his mind confused.  Where was he?  Jenny squealed and it brought it
all back.  He got up, plucked her from the crib, and took her into the kitchen
to change her diaper.  When he opened it up, the smell of rotten eggs and
apples nearly choked him.

This time, he changed the diaper
quicker and better.

The next few days were a blur of
activity.  He stole off one afternoon when Jenny was sleeping, locking up the
house as safely and securely as possible, and traveled into the small town of
Valsetz.  On his way there, he found an abandoned bicycle on the side of the
road and used it to get to town quicker.  It squeaked some, but not so much it
should attract a lot of attention.  He hoped. 

He rolled into Valsetz
unmolested.  The area Jeff rolled into was small, with a grocery—picked clean,
of course—and a few other stores, but no library.  He was beginning to give up
when he spotted a big blue van parked on the side of the road.  “Bookmobile”
was painted in tall yellow letters by the driver’s side and knew he’d hit
paydirt. 

Jeff rode the bike over, keeping
careful watch on the area surrounding him.  He was in a small suburb, empty and
desolate houses sitting around, hunched like dead spiders.  He leaned the bike
onto the side of the bookmobile and went around to the back.  The doors were
locked.  He gave them a good, hard jerk, but they wouldn’t come open. 

Jeff stepped back and looked
around.

The town was dead.  He hadn’t seen
any indication of human or zombie life.  The streets and sidewalks were covered
in fine layer of dirt that stirred with every breeze.  It was like this in most
every town he’d gone to.  Sure, he’d sometimes run across a few straggling
zombies, but he almost never saw people anymore. 

Jeff walked carefully to the front
of the van and tried the driver’s door handle.  It was locked.  He walked
around and tried the passenger side. The same.  Jeff sighed and used his
shotgun and shattered the passenger window with his shotgun.  The sound of the
exploding glass echoed off the surrounding buildings and cars.  He looked
around and cleared the glass before reaching inside.  Jeff unlocked the door,
got in, turned on his flashlight, and moved between the seats to enter the
back.

Standing in the passageway was a
zombie.

It wore a blue jumpsuit that
matched the exterior of the bookmobile and the man looked relatively
untouched.  Its skin was ashen, turning brown, and a blue baseball cap rode the
top of its head like a bun on a burger. 

The Bookmobile zombie lurched
forward, moaning, its teeth clacking together.

Jeff stepped back and moved
between the seats.  He would lure it outside and then deal with it.  He could kill
it there, but he didn’t want to splatter the books with any kind of mess.

He backed to the door and bent
down to open it when a hand grabbed his.  Jeff shrieked and pulled away just
before the mouth of an Elderly zombie chomped down on his fingers.  Its teeth
crunched on the metal, cracking and breaking. 

Jeff looked out the windows and
saw that his little stunt crashing the glass had roused the dormant living
dead.  They were streaming out of everywhere, arms raised, voices joined in
distant moans, and their teeth chattering, eager for warm flesh.  By his quick
count, there were over two dozens zombies on the street, shambling towards the
bookmobile. 

He needed to get out, and quick.

Next to him, the Bookmobile zombie
groaned and lurched forward for the kill.  Jeff swung the butt of the shotgun
and cracked the side of its head, sending the creature sprawling across the
passenger seat.  He grabbed it by the back of its jumpsuit and shoved it
through the broken window, ramming the Elderly zombie, the head’s butting like
two empty coconuts bonking together.  Bookmobile zombie fell to the ground into
a heap with Elderly, the two zombies a pretzel of arms and legs.

Jeff spun to go out the driver’s
side, but there were already several zombies out there.  He turned and saw four
in the front and another six at the passenger door.  He was trapped.  His best
bet was to slip into the back and leave that way.

The plan was perfect, until he
looked down and saw the van keys in the ignition and smiled.  He could just
start the bookmobile and drive it away.

Jeff sat down and cranked the
engine.  It screeched and coughed and sputtered but didn’t catch.  He turned
the key again.  This time, the engine spit and stammered, but caught.  He
pressed on the gas, the motor revving. 

He put it in gear and the
bookmobile leapt forward.  He creamed two zombies in front of him, knocking
them down and running them over.  He maneuvered the large vehicle into a U-turn
in the middle of the street and then roared off, leaving a gaggle of the living
dead behind to stumble around.

Jeff drove down the road a bit and
pulled over.  He stopped and waited to see if the zombies were following him or
if they had given up. 

The van idled for twenty minutes
as he waited, but nothing and nobody came.  Her put the van in gear and drove
it home.

He parked in front and was about
to peruse the books when Jenny screamed inside the house.  Jeff burst from the
van, shotgun in hand.  He ran to the porch, unlocked the door and sprinted
inside.  He’d left her in her crib and she was still there, lying on her back,
squalling like a winter storm.

Jeff set the gun down and picked
her up.  She kept crying, her face red and angry.

“There, there,” Jeff said.  He
patted her behind and smiled. 

She kept crying.

What should he do?  What did
people do when babies didn’t stop crying?  He didn’t have a clue.  Jeff walked
her around, bouncing her gently in his arms.  She still kept crying.  It wasn’t
as loud or insistent, but she didn’t stop.  Finally, he opened his mouth and
sang.

The first song that came to his
mind was “Penny Lane” by the Beatles.  He surprised himself by remembering most
of it, and although his singing voice was horrible and rusty, it did the
trick.  Jenny quieted down and closed her eyes.  By his third rendition, she
was fast asleep. 

He looked down at this fragile
thing in his arms.  How could he ever hope to provide for her?  How could he
protect her?

He didn’t know.

But as he stared, her tiny eyes
moved under her closed lids and her mouth puckered and she made a small noise. 
He felt something move in his chest as warm tears ran down his cheeks.