Wasting Away (8 page)

The
music was still playing and Mary was waiting at the door for me when I made it
back. She let a simple smile grace her face. She unlatched the locks and I slid
in, scraping the pack on the doorframe.

“You
did it,” she said in a relieved sigh.

“Of
course I did.” I smiled and hefted the pack off my shoulders.

I
followed her up the stairs and waited for her to enter first. I dropped the bag
to the couch and watched her face brighten when I opened it, revealing what I
had found.

“The
whole store was packed,” I said. “I was worried, I thought maybe those
neighbors of yours had got to it first.”

“I
don’t think they need to,” she replied. “There are a lot of food distribution
centers over that way. They’re probably living off that.”

“So
what’s the deal with them, anyway?”

“I
don’t know much about them,” she said. “All I can tell you is that they came
and killed and took people against their will. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

“Surely
you’ve seen something.”

“They
don’t come around this way. Every once in a while, I see smoke from the roof
and that’s it. They go out as much as I do.”

“Never?”
I asked with a grin.

She
nodded her head and returned my smile. She turned her attention back to the
bag. “So what are we having tonight?”

I
focused on the cans and replied, “Anything you want.”

She
smiled again and picked through the bag, shuffling cans to the side, and pulled
out a bag of pasta and a can of sauce. “Do you suppose it’s still good?”

“Absolutely,”
I said.

I
opened a can of
Sterno
and placed it on the stove and sat a few of the
gas burner grates on top to give the flame room to burn. I filled a pan with
some of the bottled water and brought it to a boil before adding the pasta.

“Have
you ever heard the song
Canned Heat Blues
?” I asked, waiting for the
pasta to cook.

“No,
I don’t think I have.”

“I
don’t suppose you would have,” I said. “It was recorded in 1928. It was about
hobos drinking the alcohol they strained from cans of
Sterno
,” I said.

She
tightened up her face. “Really?” she asked. “They would go through all of that
for a buzz?” She laughed.

“During
the Depression, people did whatever they could to get by, to make life easier.”

“I
suppose they had to,” she said, watching the water bubble up in the pan.

“It’s
a lot like it is now.”

“What
have
you
done to get by?” she asked.

“Things
that I would rather not remember,” I replied, shaking my head.

Once
the pasta was cooked, I strained what was left of the water into a cup and
returned the spaghetti to the pan, pouring the sauce over with a sizzle. I
added some of the water to thin it out and placed the pasta in some bowls that
Mary had wiped clean.

I
don’t remember anything ever tasting so good. There’s nothing in the world like
a plate of hot food.

“What
did you do when you found the building, that supply store you were talking
about?” she asked, wiping sauce from the side of her mouth.

As
I looked back through my memories, a bitter taste came up in my mouth. The
story just came out and I did little to hold it back.

Chapter 8

Hand
over hand I climbed a series of water pipes to a fire escape on the side of the
building. I couldn’t feel my fingers by the time I made it to the landing.
Calluses ripped open on my palms and dotted my skin with blood. I rubbed my
hands together and balled them into fists to make the circulation return. As
the numbness went away, so did the pain.

I
edged my fingers through a small gap at the bottom of the window and pulled it
upward. Tight and swollen, the window opened a few inches with every tug. When
it was halfway open, I knelt down for leverage and pushed it up the remainder
of the way.

The
smell inside was stale and musty. I held back a sneeze as the dust drifted
upward. My eyes watered as I placed my hand over my face and breathed slowly to
make the urge subside.

Once
in, I found that I had come into an office. A half full cup of coffee sat on a
desk positioned in the center of the room, mold floating on the top. A yellowed
newspaper lay open next to the cup with the headline ‘Pandemic sweeps the West
Coast’. I scanned the page for a moment before I realized that I was reading
history. I smiled to myself and sighed as I went for the door.

A
long, dark hallway stretched out in both directions as I poked my head out from
the doorframe. Pictures hung between each of the doors that lined both walls,
depicting nature scenes and landscapes.

Down
a narrow flight of stairs I made it to the first floor. There was a door behind
me with an exit sign above it and another door ahead, unmarked. I tried the
knob of the unmarked door and found it was locked. I thought about shooting off
the lock, but didn’t want to give myself away.

I
took to the stairs again and back into the office. I hadn’t noticed it on my
way out, but the door was labeled with a placard that read ‘manager’s office’.
I shuffled through the desk drawers and found a key ring.

Back
downstairs, I tried each key until I found one that unlocked the door. With a
faint click, it opened and I was looking out into a showroom. Camping gear and
sporting goods lined the shelves and hung along the walls. I stood there for
quite a while, taking it all in. I was amazed at how much there was. But what
really got me was that it hadn’t been looted. The building was far enough off
the main drag to make it inconvenient for anyone who may have been involved
with the initial riots and looting. It made me thankful for laziness.    

I
changed my clothes in the middle of the store, selecting a sturdy pair of
hiking shoes, cargo pants and a button-up shirt. I grabbed a new pack from the
assortment on the shelf and filled it with dehydrated camping rations and packs
of emergency survival water. I tossed in a couple pairs of extra socks, a new
flint stick, and a first aid kit. I stuffed a couple disposable lighters into
one of the outside pockets and spotted a spool of paracord on one of the stock
shelves as I turned around. I grabbed a couple of spools and tucked them away
in the pack as well.

A
large section of boxes fell behind me, scattering fishing tackle across the
floor. I looked up as a creature staggered into view.

The
grey, bloated corpse stumbled through the mess that separated us. It wore a
stained blue polo shirt and jeans. A rasping snarl rose from its mouth,
releasing scraps of decay from its throat and out onto the assortment of stains
on its shirt. I backed away, dropping my pack. The creature lurched forward as
I fumbled around for something I could defend myself with. My hand clasped onto
something cold and hard as I continued to stare at the corpse. I lifted, swung
out and hit the creature just under its jaw. There was a loud crack and the
thing was down, clawing at the ground, trying to get up. I held the weapon
above me and bludgeoned the thing again. Its head slammed into the floor as it
tried to rise. I swung again and again as it continued to move. I didn’t stop
until its head snapped away from its body. I held the shirt rack to my side and
panted. Blood oozed from the stump, gurgling out thick, acrid filth.

I
tried to calm myself as I stepped back, watching the vile thing twitching its
last impulse of undeath. I dropped the rack to the floor. A massive dent along
the shaft glistened with thick, brown blood. For a long time I remained quiet,
listening for any others. The store fell quiet as my heart slowed. I was alone.

Over
time, I had seen so many of them that I should have become accustomed to it,
but the truth was that each new corpse brought exclusive nightmares. Each body
was its own terror, its own repulsion. In death, every person had their own
gruesome nature, their own individual horror. A lot of it had to do with how
they died, or how long they had been dead. Each form of decay was more shocking
than the last as time took its toll.

For
me, it was more shocking to see one without the signs of battle, without the
dangling scraps of meat and maggot ridden flesh. The manager had been locked up
in relative safety since the beginning. His face still showed humanity. When
the disaster had started, it was hard to tell the difference between attacker
and victim. We all wore the same expression of panic and aggression. It wasn’t
until the bodies began to rot that I could tell what they really were, truly
know who it was that I was supposed to be fighting.

I
watched through the front display window as the dead began to thin out. My
encounter with the manager had attracted a mob, and it took hours for them to
calm down and begin to spread out.

The
dead are the most basic form of predator. In a way, it’s as if they hunger for
the hunt just as much as they hunger for the flesh. I’ve wondered if it’s the
pheromones that are released from fear that set them off, as if they can smell
the anxiety, the terror that leaked out through my skin.

In
the back of my mind, I’ve always thought of them as animals. The way they seem
to call to one another, the way they hunt and kill in groups, it’s as if they
were nothing more than a pack of rabid wolves. Maybe humans sat at the top of
the food chain for too long and the dead were destined to rise, destined to
thin out the herd. And from the mad city streets through to the rural towns,
the dead are winning. They have picked us clean.

Once
they moved on and my heart calmed, I took a jacket from one of the displays on
my way out and escaped through the back door that led out into an alleyway. I
was out on the streets again, searching for a place to be. Through all of this,
that is all that I’ve ever wanted; just a place to exist, a place to call home,
a place to rest my head.

Chapter 9

Lonely
days turned to blackened nights as I trudged across wasted land. I would have
wondered if the rest of the world was the same way, but I already knew it was.
With how quickly everything changed, I could only assume that even the most
secluded places had fallen to this hell. A single bite, a scrape of decaying
fingernail across fresh skin and the conversion began. I’ve thought of it over
and again as I made my way. It could be a germ, a bacterium, a virus that made
us all mad in death, rendered us helpless until we eventually succumb to that
most terrible hunger. I’ve considered biological warfare and alien organisms,
government cover-ups and terrorist cells bent on global domination. But when
it’s all said and done, the only thing that truly mattered was that I was alive
and they were dead. Real life rarely gives you the answers you seek and
sometimes you just have to be happy you’re still breathing.

“Government
conspiracies, alien organisms, terrorism?” she questioned. “You don’t really
believe that, do you?”

“Not
now,” I said. “At the time, I was just searching for answers, trying to find a
logical reason why it was all happening. I’ve never believed that my government
was always looking out for my best interest. I’ve always thought of myself as a
cog in a machine that was too big to fail. If I suddenly broke down, there were
others to take my place. If I resisted, I would be replaced. I kept quiet and
did my job, working my life away with all the others who were stuck in the same
situation.”

Mary
tapped the side of the chair in thought. “I didn’t fit in anywhere,” she said.
“No matter what type of job I held, I tended to wear out my welcome in a few
months. Looking back at it now, I really put a lot on my husband’s shoulders.
All of those jobs were just temporary. I never aimed for a career; I did what I
had to do to bring in an income. As far as the government goes, I didn’t look
at them as the enemy. I saw them as a nuisance. Every time we turned around, my
husband and I were paying new taxes on top of old taxes. With the little that
we had, we kept finding new ways to go broke, whether it was paying for the smog
check on our cars or another hike at the gas pump. No matter what we did, we
couldn’t get ahead.”

“That’s
exactly why I pointed my finger at the system. It had failed us, it had let us
down. It let those things take control and rip away at the little we had left.
As crazy as conspiracy theories sound, there’s always a little truth hidden
between the lines.” I sighed and shook my head slowly. “I don’t know anymore.
But whatever this is, it’s not because of them.”

The
military truck had gone farther than I thought. I was over thirty miles from
where they had picked me up. I was on autopilot. I walked for as long as I
could and when my legs threatened to give out, I would stop somewhere for the
night. I don’t think I ever really slept. I just sort of dozed off, always
waiting for them to find me.