Wasting Away (14 page)

“Oh
my God…” her face scrunched up as if she were going to be sick.

“That’s
the last image I have of my wife; her mouth was still moving in a silent scream
as this thing that had taken her glared at me with the baby’s…” I trailed off
as I drove away the memory.

“I
didn’t know …” Mary trailed off.

“I
mentioned my wife before,” I said.

“But
you never said what the creature had in its mouth.” A tear rose in her eye.
“I’m so sorry.”

“So
am I,” I said, tightening my lips.

She
stared at the floor as she fidgeted with her hands and rubbed them together in
a ball on her lap. She bit her lower lip and looked up from the couch, “None of
this is fair,” her voice cracked. “It’s been so long and I still don’t know why
it’s happening.”

“No
one does,” I replied. “One day we’re paying our mortgages and fighting to keep
the electricity on and the next, we’re watching our friends and family being
ripped away from us by something that couldn’t logically happen.” I sat down on
the opposite side of the couch. “There’s no rhyme or reason to any of this. If
I believed in religion, I would say that I died and went to Hell, but I can
only imagine it would be more pleasant than this.”

“I
had just got into college when all of this happened,” she said. “I had big
dreams. I was going to become a teacher,” she laughed.

“Really,
a teacher?” I asked. “How old are you?”

“I’m
going to be twenty in a few months, I think,” she smirked, shrugging her shoulders.

“You
don’t look a day over sixteen,” I said.

“It
must be from all of the exercise,” she replied.

“Either
that or you didn’t get enough growth hormones in your milk,” I winked.

“Yuk!
I never liked milk.” She made a disgusted face. “Tastes like watered down
snot.”

“Well
then, that’s it,” I poked at her. “You didn’t get enough hormones and it has
stunted your growth.”

“Yeah,
that must be it,” she smiled and shook her head at me.

Chapter 12

“You
don’t like talking about her, do you?”

“My
wife?” I asked.

She
nodded and looked at me.

I
met Mary’s stare. “It’s not that I mind, it just that I still haven’t dealt
with it yet. I try to think that everything happens for a reason, that we’re
guided by something bigger than us, but when it really comes down to it, I
believe we’re all on our own.”

“My
husband and I used to go to church every Sunday. We even sat through Christmas
Mass.” She fidgeted with the fabric on the couch. “With all of that, I find it
horrifying to think that some
higher power
let this happen. Now I don’t
know what I believe. In some ways, I try not to think about it, but that little
voice in the back of my head keeps saying that I’m really alone.”

“Ah,
that little voice,” I repeated. “That’s the very thing that kept me running for
so long, the very voice that told me to hide away in that family’s house.
Sometimes I think that voice is the voice of cowardice, keeping us from facing
our fears.”

Constance
and I spent our time talking and eating the assortment of canned goods that
were left in the apartment. I hadn’t eaten so well for longer than I could
remember and it felt good to have a full stomach.

As
time went on, she reminded me of what it was like to have someone there to
share memories with. No matter what we talked about, it was good to just talk,
to have someone to communicate with, to get it all out.

Sometimes,
late at night, I could hear her sobbing in the other room. I wanted desperately
to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be all right, that life
would eventually work itself out, but I couldn’t find it in me to lie to her. I
knew what this world was capable of and with the dead only feet away, waiting
for us to make a mistake; I knew that it would be a long time before anything
would get back to normal.

“Healing
takes time,” I told her. “You just have to hold on and wait. You have to let
the pain sink in before it can numb.”

“I
know,” she replied.

“They
can’t keep walking around forever.”

“But
it’s been so long, don’t bodies rot away sooner than that?”

“They’re
supposed to,” I admitted. “I can’t imagine them going on forever. Everything
eventually comes to an end.”

“I
hope so,” she said. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. I mean, what
happens when we run out of food?”

“Then
we move on,” I told her.

“And
what happens when all of the food expires?” she asked. “It’s not like we can
start a farm.”

“I
suppose not, but I don’t like to think that far into the future.”

“It
doesn’t seem like there will be a future,” she shook her head.

“Like
I said, they can’t keep on forever. We just have to wait them out.”

She
looked satisfied with my argument. “I hope you’re right,” she said, leaning
back on the couch.

I
hope I am too, I thought.

Being
confined together took its toll. Even the freedom to wander from apartment to
apartment eventually wore down on us. The building was nothing more than an
oversized prison cell.

Occasionally,
we would spend hours away from each other, taking up residence in other
apartments just to get some alone time. Sometimes being by your self is the
best medicine. It allowed me time to consider my next move, of whether we
should pack up and look for new surroundings, or wait until we ran so low on
food that we wouldn’t have any other choice.

The
mission to find my wife had been put on hold. With someone to care for, someone
to find common ground with, priorities change. As much as my wife’s memory
nagged at me, I had new responsibilities, responsibilities that weighed on
living right here and now.

Sometimes,
Constance would come looking for me and we would play cards to pass the time.
It was a small reprieve from the constant boredom, but it gave us something to
look forward to.

Constance
spoke of her sister often and her feelings about leaving her behind.

“A
piece of me died that day. I should have made her go first,” she said.

“There
was nothing else you could do,” I replied. “Your instincts took over and you
were forced to react.”

“I
knew better.” Her lips quivered. “I knew that she wasn’t fast enough, I knew
that and I still went first.”

“You
can’t blame yourself, it wasn’t your fault.”

“The
hell it wasn’t,” she cried. “I should have protected her.”

I
tried to comfort her, but she pushed me away. Truthfully, I couldn’t even cope
with my own past, let alone someone else’s. I had no idea how to fix
Constance’s issues. I was desperate and I kissed her.

Her
lips were soft and comforting. I lost myself in them, allowed them to filter
away my own misgivings.

She
pushed me away again, but harder this time. “Don’t,” she said.

“But,
I…”

“Just
don’t,” she repeated. She stood from the couch and ran. She slammed the door to
the bedroom and started to cry.

“Constance,”
I pleaded, but she didn’t answer.

She
became withdrawn after that and kept to herself. Eventually, she didn’t even
search me out for cards or conversation. It weighed on me. I wanted to tell her
that I was sorry, that I shouldn’t have kissed her, that I shouldn’t have taken
advantage of the moment.

“I
don’t think you were taking advantage of her,” Mary said. “I think you just
needed someone. I believe that when you come to the end of your rope, love is
the only thing that seems to help.”

“It
still bothers me though,” I replied. “I should have just tried to keep talking
to her. I should have listened more and reacted less.”

“I
think you’re wrong about that,” she said. “Sometimes life demands reaction.
It’s all about cause and effect. When we’re hungry, we eat. When we’re tired,
we sleep.”

“Instincts
are nothing but trouble,” I replied. “They put us into bad situations.”

“Your
instincts have kept you alive,” she said.

I
let out a small laugh. “You’re right,” I admitted. “But they’ve also caused me
pain.”

“You
can’t live without a little pain,” she explained. “Happiness and pain are the
flipside of the same coin. We live. We endure. We suffer for our choices.
Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, we become better people because of it.”

I
felt more alone than I had ever been by myself. To have another person so close
without communicating with them is more intense than torture. I waited for her
and hoped that she would come around, that one day, she would deal with her
feelings and give me another chance, but that day never came.

Another
day fell to the darkening sky.

I
watched the sun drift off behind rolling clouds and past the horizon, falling
slowly into oblivion.

Huddled
up into the couch with a blanket, I tried to make sense of the situation. It
had been days since Constance had spoken to me. Her silence was tearing me up
from the inside, making me regret what I had done.

 I
must have laid there for hours trying to drift off to sleep. The dead moaned
out a chorus of despair and contempt like far away animals humming out calls to
their prey. It was as if they were calling to me alone, boding me out into
their world to relieve me from my worry.

With
all I was worth, I tried to think of something else to get my mind off of
Constance. I thought of my wife and tried to concentrate on the good times, but
the images of her lying there, being devoured as she screamed out for me to
help crept up in my mind. Thoughts of her were my burden. They ripped at me
from the inside and refused to give me peace.

When
I eventually fell asleep, the images kept playing out over and over, reminding
me of what a coward I had been for running. I may not have been able to save
her, but I could have at least killed the thing that took her from me, I could
have made sure that she didn’t rise. I could have at least made the attempt.

I
had a nightmare. The memory of it was vague, but I saw my wife there on the
ground, splatters of blood across her sundress. She looked up to me and asked
why. She kept asking me why.

Her
stomach was thrown open, bits of skin and intestine littered the grass, but her
face was the same. Her eyes were exactly the same way they were the last time I
saw her. They were pleading.

I
awoke and sat up on the couch, covered in sweat.

There
came the sound of breaking glass. I jumped to my feet and ran to the bedroom.
The window was broken out and a chair lay upon the floor, one of its legs
broken off to the side.

I
gritted my teeth as I peered out to the ground, but she wasn’t there. Across
the starlit street, I saw her flee. She weaved between the dead and she was
gone into the night. I tried to yell after her, but my voice would not come.

“She
left you?!” Mary asked, her voice laden in shock. “Why on earth would she do
that
?”

“I
don’t know,” I replied. “It’s a question I’ve been turning over in my head ever
since. I thought it was because I kissed her, but I just don’t know.”

“Take
it from me,” she said, “unless her head was severely screwed up, she wouldn’t
leave you just because of that. It takes quite a bit for someone to put their
life on the line and jump from a second story window.”

“Like
I said, I just don’t know. Anyone who has made it this far has had to deal with
more than their fair share of misery and regret. None of us are free from loss
or pain.”

“Are
you sure she wasn’t trying to kill herself?”

I
let out a sigh and replied, “The thought never occurred to me, but I suppose
it’s possible.”

“Maybe
she wanted to die because of the guilt she felt. Maybe she wanted to end it all
because that’s all she could see – pain, misery, guilt: they all end in
depression.”