Wasting Away (3 page)

As
I made my way through the wreckage on the street, I saw a child. She was not
much older than the girl I had given money to so long ago. This poor, broken
thing swayed at the corner of the parking lot. Her eyes were as white as frost.
Her stare was graven and empty. For a moment, I thought it was the same child I
had seen before, but as I drew closer, it was nothing more than a projection of
my imagination.

I
gazed at the girl for a long time, watching her waver in place, her glare
fixated toward the road as if she had lost something in a dream. While I
watched her there, I could hear the vibration before I felt it. This low,
humming sound turned through the air. I froze in place and turned slowly. Along
the off ramp, only a few hundred yards away, I saw the frenzy of movement
building like a wave of insects upon a heap of garbage. As I stood still, I
could see the arms dart out from the moving mass. And then I heard the howling cries.

My
tongue swelled in my mouth and I choked. I gasped as the mass of bodies poured
out from the freeway, tumbling like a landslide. There were more of them than I
had ever seen before. A giant explosion of death and rot surged over cracked
concrete. I turned and found the child glaring at me through dead eyes, closer
than before. For a moment, I thought I saw her smile. I thought I saw a glint
of broken teeth through dry, parted lips.

Everything
slowed down. The sound of the horde became drowned out by the rhythm of blood,
pumping in my ears. It was as if I were under water, listening to the crash of
waves upon some distant shore. Panic rose and I felt as though I were rooted to
the spot. I leaned forward, but my legs wouldn’t respond. I cried out and
clenched my fists. Something grew inside of me as I looked back at the growing
wall of rot. There was a simple understanding that if I didn’t move, they would
catch me and rip me apart. The idea of being eaten alive is what pushed me
forward. As simple as it was, it held more weight than any other source of fear
I have ever felt.

Chapter 3

I
ran.

With
everything I had, I set my feet upon the cold ground and ran as my heart
threatened to beat from my chest. The scraping of dead limbs followed closely
behind. Even after so much time among them, I had let myself be found. A cold
rush spiraled up along my spine as I fled.

The
world unfolded in vivid detail. The sounds of birds in the treetops, the
nursing wind, and the dead at my heels – it all popped in my vision. As the
adrenalin coursed through me, I ran as fast as my legs would allow.

As
I weaved through the streets past neglected buildings, I noticed her in the
third floor window of an apartment building. Panic graced her face as she gazed
past me and saw the stumbling horde a few hundred yards away. There was a moment
of mercy in her eyes before she pointed toward the door and vanished into the
darkness behind the window. A wisp of a face, sorrow at her brow, and then she
was gone.

I
heard music, bright and brilliant. It seemed to come from everywhere as it
echoed from one building to the next. The sound was familiar, taking me back to
a place I had been before. I couldn’t place the location, but the music was
lustful and pouting. It shot through the evening air and made the dead moan in
timbre. I slipped behind the approach of the complex and peered from the corner
as the bodies moved through the alleyway at the side of the building toward
where the sound saturated the air like rain.

The
door gave behind me and I turned as I drew the pistol from my waist. The woman’s
eyes were wide as I aimed at her. I lowered the gun as she let out a gasp and
stepped back. I mouthed that I was sorry and she took me by the arm and pulled
me in through the doorway. She moved around me and closed the door, quietly
latching the locks behind her.

“Up
here,” she said, taking to the stairs.

I
placed the pistol back into my waistband and watched her as she moved upward. Her
feet tapped lightly against the wooden stairs, knocking out the slightest
rhythm as I followed. There was certainty in her steps, a confidence to her
movements.

She
gave me a small nod and cocked her head to the side, pointing the way with her
gaze. I looked back at the doorway for a moment and saw the dead move past.
They couldn’t see us. Without a second thought, I hurried up to the next
landing and nearly ran into the woman as she worked the knob on one of the
apartment doors.

Dust
danced through the light that entered the window. Wisps of diamonds and glitter
held and parted for the woman as she breezed through the room. She pulled a set
of electrical clamps from a car battery that sat on a box on the floor and the
music died. Hand over hand, she pulled in a clothes line and removed a small
radio that had been fastened there.

“They
try to find the sound,” she said. “It’s not the music as much as it is the
noise. The music is for me.” She gave a thoughtful smile and looked away.

“It
was beautiful,” I said.

“Mozart,”
she replied. “The only time I ever get to listen is when I need to distract
them.” She motioned out the window.

I
glanced over the edge, down into a crowd of bodies that had gathered. There
were over a dozen below the window and the mob that had followed me converged
from between the buildings, drawn by the sound.  

I
looked at her. There was a certain something in her eyes. It was a fleeting
thing, maybe a glint of sorrow and a touch of hope that built as I caught the
corner of her stare. There was mystery there, the type of mystery that only
comes from those who have lived so long in the hereafter. Purgatory changed
people.

Her
hair was an early morning mess of tangles, outlining her face in wisps of
frizz. Her skin was fair, showing little of the worry that was set in her eyes.
She may have frowned when she looked at me, but it didn’t take away her beauty.

“Thank
you,” I said.

“You
brought a lot of them,” she commented, looking out the window. “You’ve brought
more than I’ve seen in a long time.”

I
glanced over her shoulder and saw the dead coming through the walkways between
buildings into the courtyard behind the apartments. They clawed over one
another to bridge the gap, scraping rot along the walls as they went.

“Where
did they all come from?” I stuttered.

“You
came from the freeway?”

“Down
the off ramp a mile or so back.”

“There’s
an encampment there,” she explained, “across the freeway. That must be where
they spotted you.”

“There
are other people?”

“No
one any good,” she replied. “See there?” She pointed out the window at a thin
wisp of smoke coming from a building surrounded by warehouses.

“I
can’t believe I didn’t see it on my way through,” I said. “How could I have
missed it?”

“It’s
easy to miss signs of life when everything else is so dead.”

“So
how do you know that I’m not one of them?” I asked.

“I
don’t.” She shrugged. “But you don’t seem the type.” She motioned for me to
take a seat. “I don’t have much, but what there is, you’re welcome to.”

“I
can’t thank you enough for helping me,” I said. “I don’t know what would have
happened if you hadn’t seen me.”

She
sat on a worn armchair opposite of the couch and introduced herself as Mary. “I
spend most of my time looking out the window,” she said. “I’m either watching
for others or praying that the next time I look out, the dead will have gone
away. I would have seen you either way.”

“You’ve
been here since the beginning?”

“Since
the very first day,” she replied. “When I heard what was happening, I didn’t
know what else to do. There was so much chaos. I stayed here quietly while all
the others evacuated. I bided my time. I suppose I should have left with the others,
but I couldn’t get myself to go out there with those things.”

“It
wouldn’t have been any better if you had,” I told her. “I’ve been out there a
long time and I haven’t come across any encampment that survived.”

“I
heard there was a military base in the High Desert that is still operating.
Have you seen anything?”

“No,”
I said. “It fell in the very beginning like all the others. There isn’t much
out there. Where did you get the news?”

She
glanced toward the hallway. “I have an old short wave radio in the other room.
I heard reports until the power went off,” she said. “So this is really the
end, isn’t it?”

“There’s
always
some
hope,” I answered. “We don’t know much about the dead or
even how this thing began. I think they’ll eventually rot away.”

She
looked lost in thought for a moment. “I never paid much attention to religion
beyond the Sunday services,” she stated flatly. “I never paid any mind to
superstition or prophecy, but with what I’ve seen, it’s hard not to think that
this is some sort of retribution. There are more of those things every day. They
come from out of nowhere.”

“You’re
right - they’re everywhere.” I sat at the edge of the couch. “They’re
absolutely everywhere. Even in the deserts and hills. I’ve seen them in the
forests and along the canals. I have seen them wading in the ocean and through
the rivers. I see them in my dreams. And in every place I’ve been, they’re
always patiently waiting.”

She
frowned. “I had thought of going to the ocean and finding a boat. I’m going to
eventually run out of food so I’ve been trying to find a way out of here. But
if they’re everywhere, like you say, there’s no point in running.”

“There
are always reasons to live and running is just another part of life now.”

She
feigned a laugh and ran her fingers through the tangles on her head. “Do you
know how many people I’ve seen die?”

I
shook my head.

“I’ve
seen so many, I gave up counting,” she said solemnly. “For every one, I tried
to remember their faces. I tried to put some meaning into their lives, tried to
keep their images so there would be someone left to remember them. But even the
ones who made it through the beginning soon died, trying to escape. They ran
and paid a steep price for it. So I stayed here. I locked myself up in this
building and came to terms with what my future would become.”

“Mary,
life is precious no matter the outcome,” I said. “Life was a struggle before
this ever happened. We fought to survive because death frightens us more than
living. There’s always a point to living.”

“I
envy you.” She wiped away a tear, brushing it along her cheek until it was no
more. “I feel guilty for breathing when so many have drowned.”

Looking
at her, I realized how emaciated she was. Her skin clung like loose fabric
about her bones. What muscle she had was long, knotted where her joints jutted
out from the spaces in between. Her eyes were sunken and showed the pain she
had endured. I could imagine her heart looked much the same way.

“What
have you been eating?” I asked.

She
gave a small sigh. “Whatever I can find,” she replied.

“What
about water?”

“I
collect rain on the roof and boil it.”

“But
it hasn’t rained in weeks.”

“Then
I stay thirsty.”

I
pulled my canteen from my pack and handed it over to her. Her eyes brightened
when she saw it and her lips parted slightly. Her hands shook when she reached
for it, uncurling her fingers like brittle twigs, threatening to snap with the
weight of rain.

“Not
too fast,” I said. “Drink slowly.”

She
took a sip and the water ran along the corners of her mouth. It coursed along
her chin and down her neck. “Thank you,” she said after stifling a cough.

“I
have to get you out of here,” I said.

“But
I can’t.” Her lips curled. “I wouldn’t know how to walk away. I’ve been here
for so long,” she stammered as she spoke.

“You’ll
die here, Mary,” I said to her, almost pleading.

“I
could die out there,” she said, glancing toward the window, knotting along the
outline of the canteen in her hands.

“But
at least you’ll have tried.”

She
remained silent and took another drink. She leaned back on the chair and looked
deep in thought. “Look at me,” she began, “I wouldn’t make it very far.”

“I’ll
go out and find some food,” I replied. “We’ll get you healthy again and then
we’ll get away from here.”

She
smiled.

“However
long it takes,” I said.

“You’re
very kind, but it’s too much to ask.”

“I
need to eat too.” I shrugged. “What’re a few more cans of food?”

“You’re
serious.”

“Yes,”
I replied.

“You
would really risk going back out there for someone you just met?”