Beyond the Barriers (29 page)

Darkness all around. That was the new world in which we lived. It was devoid of life and love; these things that had been human were washing away the old world and recreating it in their own rotted image. Their lack of humanity and love was appalling. How many had gone to church? Worked as cops, maybe doctors and nurses? Or just Joe Everyday who gets up for work and kisses his kids and wife goodbye, only to become one of these things.

I wanted to cleanse the earth of them.

I’ve never had much love for causes. But right now, I wanted to take every gun I could find and kill every one of the things. Fuck them and fuck what they had done to my world.

“Gotta get out,” I mumbled and realized she had stopped talking. I seemed to have drifted off and was muttering to myself. The girl was staring at me with those big eyes that bored into my head like a drill. My vision swam, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep for the rest of the day. Just put my head down and call it. After a midday siesta, everything would make sense again.

A voice in the back of my head screamed it was bad to let someone with a concussion sleep, but I silenced it with a loud “shhh” that may have come from my mouth and may have come from inside. Either way, it silenced the voice and I laid my head down on the filth and slept.

I didn’t dream.

* * *

It was dark when I came to. Jerking upright, I reached for my mouth. A line of spittle rolled down the side of my face. It felt like a bug, and that freaked me out. As I rose off the cold ground, I may have let out a little cry. My head still hurt, as did my throat and back. I shivered violently and curled up into a ball. It was so cold. The earth beneath me was hard and unforgiving as it leached more warmth from my body. I shivered again, and my body took that as a cue to shake all over.

Scott was having a similar reaction, so I went to him and wrapped my body close to his. We may have been strong men, but I should have done this when I first woke. No attraction, no ulterior motives. I just wanted to get warm. The girl watched me from the opposite corner. Her dirty hair covered her forehead, but one luminous eye held my gaze. It didn’t blink for a long time. She shook just as we did. Lying next to Scott, I put his hand over my chest and pulled him tight. To the girl, I gestured, and after awhile, she rose and crept to me, snuggling into the crook of my body, but when I tried to put my arm around her, she stiffened. I laid it on my side, parallel to the ground.

The night was silent. No bugs chirped, no crickets called, and no animals moved in the underbrush. The only sound came from the zombies as they wandered around the camp. Sometimes I would hear them approach the cage and rest a hand or a forehead against it. They were probably staring at us like we were prime rib. I rolled my head to the side to stare at one who leaned forward, blood and gore leaking out of his mouth. Most of his forehead was missing. I gave him the finger, rolled back over, and went to sleep.

* * *

In the morning, things were no clearer, least of all the sky. Clouds had rolled in overnight. It was overcast and gray, reminding me of a fall day. It was a bit warmer thanks to the clouds keeping the heat in. I went to rub my eyes, but one look at my filthy hands dissuaded me. The girl stirred against me. Quietly I tried to extract myself from the little sandwich we had created, but my movement woke her. She turned her head and, for a moment, the filth covering her features made me think of the ghouls that stood outside our cage. I sat upright, and she scrambled away from me and into the corner.

“The fuck?” Scott’s voice came from behind me. He stared at me with huge eyes that looked none too friendly. I looked between the girl and him, and I couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter.

“You think this shit is funny?”

“The look on your face is. You should see it.”

Scott scowled and turned away, then he rolled over and sat up. He looked the way I felt—haggard and worn. The girl pressed herself to the edge of the cage and watched us from underneath a curtain of hair. She cried gently, mewing like a small animal. How long had she been in the cage? Yesterday she was barely coherent. Yesterday she was much as she appeared now. Small. Lost. Sad.

Another minute and she seemed to recognize me. Sleep probably dulled her mind. It had dulled mine, not to mention the affects of hunger and thirst. She gave me a half smile and slid across the ground to me. I held my hand out, and she shook it.

“Nice to meet choo,” she mumbled, and I nearly broke into tears.

“Just ‘cause we slept together don’t mean we are engaged,” Scott shot from behind me. I turned to regard him, and he had a big shit-eating grin on his face as well. For the first time since the attack, I felt like I was among friends. I felt like I was among the living.

* * *

An hour passed where we spoke in low whispers. The girl’s name was Haley, and she was seventeen. She told me a bit more about the area in which she had lived, and even spoke of her life before the coming of the zombies. She was not the typical teenager who was filled with angst and taken to brooding about being misunderstood. She participated in a drama class at school and even did some plays. Had been very close to her mother and father. Every time she mentioned them, she wept.

We sat together, the trio of us. Haley smiled every once in a while at one of Scott’s jokes. I smiled as well. It was a strange feeling to be happy in this cage where we should be huddling in misery, but it was like an unspoken bond had formed that would not let us succumb to despair.

Zombies walked past us, and sometimes one would stop and stare at us. A well-dressed man—except for the blood and missing ears, stopped in front of the cage and watched us for a long time. Scott tossed him one-liners: “What ju staring at, Pedro? What’s wrong? Zombie got your tongue?” He picked up clumps of the earth and tossed them at the cage. One flew through the bars and smacked the dead man in the face, but the corpse didn’t even acknowledge the blow.

For the last insult, Scott approached the bar, unzipped his pants, and peed all over the dead man. Haley had the good sense to look shocked. She turned her head and covered her eyes, but she was giggling.

Scott did a nice job of covering the man in urine, then he zipped up and took a seat with us once again. It was good to have some levity, but the gnawing hunger in my gut was getting to be a real problem. I was having pains that made me clench my hands and hold my stomach. Sometimes I shook uncontrollably, and sometimes I wanted to grab a chunk of dirt and stuff it in my mouth. Anything to fill that void.

I thought back to the gruel I had eaten with the survivors at the Walmart. I would pretty much kill for a bowl of that right now.

Inspecting the cage took Scott and me all of two minutes. It was tall, rounded on top, but covered in a plastic material to keep some rain out. I stuck my hand out the bars by the metal door, but I couldn’t tell what kind of lock held us. I stretched and cranked my wrist around. It was no use. Whatever held us in was out of reach, which made me stomp the ground in frustration.

“I tried that the first day. The lock must be in the center of the door. I couldn’t reach it,” the girl informed us, then went back to staring at nothing. I scowled at that.

Scott and I went over the entire cage again, but we could find no easy way out. Maybe if we had some kind of torch or a hacksaw. Sadly, all we had was some rancid human flesh.

Later in the day, we sat together but didn’t speak. Rain drizzled down, and the sky was dark gray. One of the ghouls walked to our cage and tossed a couple of chunks of meat inside. I eyed him—make that her—but refused to look at the meat.

She was tall and thin, with hands that hung like emaciated sticks. Her fingers were long, and some were missing fingernails. Her skin was the same mottled off-color of the other ghouls. Her eyes glowed green just as those of the other ghouls I had seen, and she was a nightmare. Her skin was sunken, her cheeks barely existent, for her cheekbones were so sharp they looked like they could be used for weapons.

She didn’t speak; just shook as if she were laughing, and then walked away. The zombie wore a faded t-shirt with Elton John’s face on it, which was a strange contrast to her nightmare visage. A pair of canvas-style pants hung around her bony waist.

“Come back with some Wendy’s next time,” Scott called out and flipped her the bird, but she didn’t acknowledge him.

I snickered at his comment.

“Goddamn that woman is butt ugly.” Haley giggled at Scott’s joke this time.

“She was probably a bouncer before the world changed.”

“Nah, man.” Scott shot back. “She was a porn star. I bet she used to shoot three or four movies a week.”

I laughed at the image of that ugly thing ever being attractive. Then I worried that we may have crossed a line by discussing porn in front of the girl, but she didn’t even blink.

“I think she used to be a barista. At a Starbucks or Tully’s,” Haley offered.

“She’d scare off the customers.” Scott scoffed, turned his head, and spit out of the cage. It sailed through the bars and smacked a passing zombie in the leg.

“You’re making an art out of it,” I told him, half expected him to start throwing feces at the zombies, which would be just about the ultimate in irony. Look at the humans in a cage throwing their shit at a bunch of undead.

“I might run out of spit soon. Hope it rains.”

“We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?” Haley whispered.

I went to her side and draped my arm over her shoulder, wanting to tell her that everything was going to be okay and that I had a plan. The problem was, I had nothing. Not only was I out of ideas, I was so hungry there was no way we would have the strength to fight the undead off if we did get free. All they had to do was wait outside for us to eat the rancid zombie meat or die of starvation.

“You’re a brave kid. I respect that you have survived this long, so I’m not gonna bullshit you.” I took a breath. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. They never open the cage, so there is no way we can attack or run. We don’t have any sort of tools to get through those bars.”

To make my point, I walked up to the bars and struck one with the meaty part of my hand. They rang hollow, which made the girl’s face drop. I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but I truly saw no hope in our situation.

The bars were thick, at least an inch around. They must have originally housed some sort of small animals, maybe even monkeys.

“There has to be a way.” She sighed and stared out, up at the clouds. They had grown thicker, making the day even darker. Now a crackle sounded from far away, and a blast of lightning lit the sky. It was a full twelve seconds before we heard the thunder. I watched my two companions, and sure enough, they had both been counting.

The rain started coming down harder. Sticking my hand out, I let some run over my palm in an attempt to clean it. I rubbed it against the inside of one pant leg, then stuck it out again and caught enough to sip.

Haley and Scott joined me, and for the next hour, we drank our fill. After the negative turn our conversation had taken, all at my doing, it was pleasant to return to happier thoughts.

* * *

We passed the night in silence, huddled together, shivering from the cold as rain pelted down. It ran into the caged area and soaked the ground, wetting our clothes making sleep impossible. We kept the girl between us, but it was only for warmth. The last thing I was thinking about was the fact that I had a female pressed against my body. I needed her and Scott just for warmth.

Lightning continued to blast the air around us. I may have dozed a few times, but not for long. Somehow Scott slipped into sleep and even snored.

I was so hungry. It was at least three days since I’d last had food, and I was starting to daydream about every meal I had ever eaten. I remembered a day when Allison and I went to the city and stopped at a burger joint. I had a fish sandwich that dripped tartar sauce all over the plate, so I dipped my onion rings into the stuff. How I wanted that meal again. I would even settle for one of the poorly cooked deer steaks from the cabin. The thought of the cabin made me wonder how Katherine was doing.

Kicking the cage in frustration, the lashing blow made me fall on my ass. I was weak, but the force of trying to put my foot through a metal bar was oddly therapeutic.

For a long time, I sat staring at the dark clouds. The rain grew heavier, and I didn’t have anything to do but watch it. Rain. Wet ground. I followed the tiny rivers of water that were forming. They rushed in every direction, but some were coming at the cage. I knew that if the rain didn’t let up soon, we would be sitting in a puddle.

Water flowed around the bars of the cage, and that was what caught my eye. I got to my feet and walked to the place I had kicked. The bars went deep into the ground, and I suspected they had some sort of thick cap to hold them in. But the mud around them told a different story.

I grabbed hold of the bars and lifted straight up. I almost broke into tears when they budged. It wasn’t much, but I could tell that we had a chance. Why didn’t I think of this before?

After waking Scott, I furiously whispered my plan into his ear. He was sluggish, but after he stood and stretched, we took a shot at the cage. He was out of it, judging by the way he came awake, rising slowly and shaking his head. I’m sure he felt the way I did, which was exhausted. But how else would we ever get out of this place if we didn’t try to move the cage?