Dahmer Flu (20 page)

“Lisa, you first. Madi, you’ll crawl to her next.” The parent in me needed her to be with an adult.

“Okay.” Lisa dropped to the ground and crawled under the fence, pushing her head into the dirt, her light hair collecting the soil; her backside caught painfully on the lower metal spine, but she managed to pull herself free and kneeled upright on the other side. “Come on, sweetie,” she offered, extending a hand, which Madi accepted, using it to pull herself through. Her small frame slid easily through the opening.

“Now you,” Jon said. He turned to check over his shoulder and returned with a fixed grim expression. I didn’t want to know what he had seen.  I scrambled under the chain links, where my daughter waited with open arms. Lost in the moment, in the joy of having my remaining family relatively safe, I forgot about Jon until he spoke from behind me. “Um… Brad?” I spun around and saw him waiting surprisingly patiently, given the situation. A small band of the ‘stalkers had noticed him and begun shuffling in his direction.

“Let go,” I told him, and he released the fence. It sprung back into place, and I grabbed the bottom, pulling as hard as I could. It didn’t seem to bend as easily outward, but it was enough for Jon to barely squeeze through. I let go and it once again it sprung to its original shape, only the undead seeing our exit; they howled in an eager anticipation, reaching the fence just moments after Jon was through. The occasional gunshot still echoed off the hills and rock, but it was getting less frequent. Either the living were nearly done killing each other, or the undead had helped.

We ran, seeing others doing the same, mostly women and children from god-knows-where. None of us dared to speak, so we just ran. We didn’t know where we were going, or what we would find on the way, we could only run. We plunged into the tree line, none of us actually ‘leading’, but each of us following; following each other, and following some primal instinct to get as far away as possible, figuring the only direction that mattered now was ‘away’. It was fully dark, with only the moonlight filtering through the branches above. The uneven terrain slowed us down, and I knew that the stragglers, those lone creatures that hadn’t yet found a horde to join, would be making their way towards the sound. There, too, distance was our greatest ally. Eventually, when each of us were breathing harsh, dry breaths, we slowed to a walk, and then, after we couldn’t walk any further, we stopped to rest far enough away to feel relatively safe. This night would be hard. We were alone, we were vulnerable, we were unarmed; but at least we were alive.

We sat in a clearing, each of us afraid to speak, until Lisa broke the silence, leaning in close to whisper. “Do you think everyone would have really died?”

I remembered the creatures that almost got to Jon; she hadn’t seen them. “Yeah. I think most of them did.”

“Why did you come back for me, after…” Now that she was away from the Colonel she had started to reconsider her perceptions.

“Lisa,” I stopped her. “People… people are complex.” I pulled Jon and Madi close. “Listen, let’s bed down for the night, sleep if we can. I think we can use it. Lisa, can we sleep in shifts, you and me?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll watch first, you three, go ahead and sleep.” I sat on a fallen log and strained every sense as the group settled into the hard ground. Madi sprang up, as if remembering something she had forgotten, and crossed the clearing to me, stepping carefully over Lisa and widely around Jon.

“Good night, Daddy,” she whispered, with a hug.

“Night, Baby. See you in the morning.”

“Daddy? Thanks for coming back for me and Lisa.”

“Honey, you never have to worry. I’ll always be there for you. Now git.” I gently pushed her towards Lisa and Jon, while I watched the surrounding area, like a shepherd over his flock. Very quickly, Jon began to snore, but not so loudly that I needed to wake him. I could barely hear Lisa and Madi whispering excitedly to one another, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. They stopped whispering, and Lisa stood and crossed to where I sat, giving the sleeping Jon a wide berth.

“We need to leave,” she said, directly.

“Why? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Madi confided something in me, and she doesn’t want you to know, but she’ll talk about it when she’s ready. We need to leave, and we need to leave Jon here. This isn’t a choice; Madi needs you to do this. Do you understand?”

I nodded. I actually didn’t understand, but I trusted my daughter, if nothing else. “Okay, let’s go.”

She motioned for Madi, who carefully tip-toed to where we stood. Our group, now only three strong, headed out of the clearing into the woods, walking quietly, each of us sorry for the loss of precious sleep.

We were almost out of earshot when Jon woke up.

“Hello? Hello!? Where are you?” I heard him call. We kept walking. “Please, it’s dark. It’s daaark!” He fell silent for a moment, listening. “Come back! I won’t do it again, I promise, I’ve gotten better, I learned my lesson! I promiiiise!” I looked at Madi, who just looked straight ahead, as we walked- she smiled a chilled smile. I was torn between hoping that he deserved what we were doing to him, leaving him in the dark, and also hoping he didn’t.

People are complex.

At least when Washington City existed, and even when other survivors were attacking and killing the occupants, there was the small comfort that there were other people left alive- that we weren’t alone in the world any more. The world felt darker, but it may have just been I that was darker on the inside; I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Either way, something had changed.

When Madi got tired, I carried her, the three of us walking until we could find someplace safe, and putting distance between us and the events that we would relive the next time we slept. Eventually, Madi fell asleep in my arms, resting her heavy head on my shoulder and snoring softly in my ear.

In time, we found a relatively safe place for the night. The ground was soft, with patches of green growth spreading over the soil. Low tree limbs enveloped the area, filtering out the moonlight and casting lazily waving shadows that could barely be seen against the dark wood’s floor. This is where I stopped, and Lisa, as if knowing my intention, began clearing a little-girl sized area of rocks and debris. I laid Madi in the spot, using her soft bag as a pillow. While the night had a slight chill, the stillness of the air left it warm enough to sleep, although I knew that would change before too long when we reached closer to the north and the seasons turned.

Lisa and I slept on opposite sides of Madi, instinctively shielding her from the unknown terrors that were hidden in the woods.

“Night,” Lisa whispered, barely perceptibly.

“G’night,” I returned, equally quietly; I couldn’t be sure that she heard, even from this close. I lay awake for too long, until I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, and was soon back in better times, when my family was complete.

I woke up to high-pitched, terrified screaming…Madi… It was still dark, but I was instantly alert, scrambling to my feet. I, or my body at least, was ready to fight off the horde that I was sure was all around us, or to find Madi from wherever she was screaming; but she was still laying where I had left her, her eyes wide open, her jaw dropped into a terrified expression. I spun around. Nothing moved. We were alone. Lisa, her instincts better than my own, stayed at her level and by her side, consoling her with a panicked urgency.

“Shh, sweetie, quiet now. It’s all right, you’re safe, we’re here, you’re okay,” She rapidly poured the near-lies into Madi’s ear as she gently stroked her hair with her fingertips.

I kneeled to her side after one more glance into the thick darkness. “Madi, baby, it’s Daddy; you’re okay, you just had a bad dream.”

She broke off with a higher pitch, as if her scream ended in a question. She blinked heavily and bolted upright, frantically looking in all directions. I pulled her close, and Lisa laid a reassuring hand on her small back. “Dad? We’re okay? Where’s Mom?” The dream world falling away, she remembered, and her brave facade fell away; she buried her face in my chest and sobbed. “It was real, I thought it was real,” was all she could manage between pained breaths. Lisa, too, began to weep quietly, sharply drawing in air through her nose, not allowing herself to cry out. But her tears flowed freely, like twin streams falling from her chin onto the dry ground. I didn’t know if she was crying for Madi, or for all that she had lost, or perhaps both, but for the first time in far too long, I cried, too. For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t try to stop it.

Eventually, our tears devolved into sniffles, and then into silence. I asked Madi, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m tired, but I don’t want to sleep again.” I couldn’t blame the child. She crawled into Lisa’s lap, who welcomed her in with enveloping arms. “Promise you won’t put me down?” She asked, already making the assumption that Lisa would agree.

“Promise,” Lisa answered.

“Okay,” Madi mumbled, already falling asleep in the crook of Lisa’s arm. Soon, she was still, in what I could only hope was a dreamless sleep. Sweet dreams were too much to hope for, any more.

The sky was beginning to lighten, turning the rich dark purple of dawn. Neither Lisa nor I could sleep, and she kept her promise to hold Madi. We spoke in hushed, conspiratorial whispers.

“We don’t have any food, no water either,” she said.

“I know.”

“What’s the plan?”

I thought for a moment. I didn’t really have one. “We walk north until we find something, I guess.”

“That’s not much of a plan,” she said.

“Unless you got anything better, it’s our
only
plan,” I replied, ending that conversation. We talked trivially as the sun began to rise, bathing the sky in lightening hues of reds, pinks and orange. With the heat of the sun, a light breeze began to rustle through the trees, and the birds began to wake for the day, singing as they darted from branch to branch. They seemed not to trust us, more than usual at least, as if they had already gotten used to living without people. As the sun rose to low above the horizon, throwing shadows in the opposite direction, Madi woke up. Peacefully, this time, rather than screaming like before.

She smiled at Lisa, seeing that she had held her through the night. “Thank you,” she said. Lisa looked down at her and smiled a warm smile.

Madi stood up and stretched with a cat-like enthusiasm, making sure to get every muscle. “Daddy, I’m hungry. Do we have anything to eat?”

The question stung, knowing that we didn’t- the guards had removed the small amount of food that I had left from my satchel. “No, sweetie. But we’re going to go find something right now. Are you ready?”

“I guess,” she answered. “Not like we have anything else going on.” She rolled her eyes and smiled, and Lisa chuckled at her perception. We took a slow pace along a faint animal trail through the sparse woods; I didn’t want to exert ourselves without any food or water. As I recalled from my childhood, that didn’t work too well in ‘Oregon Trail’ on my school’s ancient Apple computer; I never made it past The Dalles anyways, which wasn’t much comfort now. As we walked, I could feel my throat getting dry and starting to swell with thirst. I was sure Madi was feeling the same, but she didn’t complain; instead she walked on, her thoughts and discomforts kept to herself.

Eventually, we found the battered remains of a long-disused back road. It was quiet, absent of even the still corpses of vehicles, and the plant-life was slowly winning the war to retake the asphalt. We stood there for a moment, unsure.

“Which way?” Lisa asked.

I threw an imaginary coin into the air and caught it, slapping it to my wrist and peeking under my hand. “That way,” I said, pointing to the left. It was as good as any, and I was fairly confident in the luck of a coin toss, until I remembered that had happened entirely in my mind.

We walked along the lonely highway, which would most likely never again see traffic. Instead, the only sound was our soft footsteps and the occasional panicked animal escaping noisily into the brush. I liked having animals nearby; it meant that an undead horde wasn’t too close, at least. They would tolerate a small number, just avoiding the stragglers, but they would clear out reliably when the masses came close.

As we crested a gently sloping hill, the top of a tall church spire came into view; a pointed white structure that desperately reached up to the heavens, as if confused by being left on this earth. The bells that could once be heard through the entire town now sat silent; they would someday rust and fall, without the faithful to care for them, and destroy the lower levels. We stopped at the height of the hill, and saw that the church sat nestled in the middle of a small community, which was itself cradled in a serene valley. The road we were on ran directly through the heart of the town and disappeared on the other side of the valley and into the horizon, and paralleled a lazy, tree-lined river on the northern side.  A large expanse of land sat still and alone past the city and over the river, connected by the thin vein of a dirt road; a dairy farm, I imagined, although I’d never actually seen one in person.

Every time that we came to a town, I remembered their binary nature; it would either save our lives, or cost them.

I took advantage of the higher ground, losing track of time as I inspected the town through the binos. As if our lives depended on it, I watched each window, each street corner, each rusted vehicle. The town was a mocking facade of normalcy; beautiful, until you look too closely. The larger animals and the plant-life fought for turf; wild dogs and feral cats roamed the streets in an uneasy truce, and a single cow ambled down the sidewalk, stopping to eat from an overgrown lawn. The town was surreal, but at least it seemed to be free from the undead.

We walked down into the valley towards the town. A large brush had grown wild and hidden the sign behind it. We stopped to read it. ‘Welcome to Ashland! Population 549.” Another sign had been erected next to it; this second sign was faded and cracked by the sun, but the red hand-painted letters were still clear… ‘FORSAKEN’.

Despite the warning, if that’s what it was, we pressed into town, having no real other choice. The first home that we had come across wasn’t exactly right- the lavish windows were too large, and the glass door wouldn’t even hold against living attackers, much less even a small group of the undead. The homes, in general, seemed mostly intact, although they were showing their neglect. It looked as though the citizens had either left in phases, or had a sharp difference in their perception of the danger. Some of the homes, in no particular order, were securely boarded on the windows and across the doors, while others were left as though the owners had expected to return shortly. The town itself told the odd story that, to me, was about the transition between hope and despair.

The second home, however, was perfect; at least it would be for a temporary shelter. It was a simple, rustic two-story home, the windows were smaller and boarded securely, and the door had two large planks crossed against it, which were themselves nailed to the frame. A single child’s shoe sat alone on the porch; it was faded purple with Velcro fasteners, and had been there long enough for a small plant to grow inside. I told Madi and Lisa to stay, and I circled the home. Each window was secured, and the back door was closed and locked; it held firm when I pulled on the knob. As much as I could see of the second floor, those windows were secure as well. I came back around to the girls.

“Okay, girls, I’m going to find a way inside and I’ll let you in the back. If anything happens, just run the way we came, we can be pretty sure it’s safe that way. If you need to leave, don’t wait for me; I’ll meet up with you later on.”

I don’t believe that Lisa was fooled, but Madi seemed convinced. Lisa answered, “Okay, we’ll wait around back. Be safe.”

Madi gave me a quick hug and looked me in the eye with every bit of sincerity that an eight-year-old girl could manage. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

As Lisa led Madi by the hand to the back of the house, the thought occurred to me; was she still eight? Had her birthday come and gone? It may have without our notice recently, as I had no real idea of how much time had passed since this started, and the season was about right. I made a mental note to find a calendar, maybe something with moon phases, and try to determine the day. If she had a birthday due, she deserved to have it. But, for now, I needed to find a way into the house- my small contribution to make sure that she saw her next birthday, if nothing else.

I considered the home. The windows were all closed and the boards held firm. The owners, the previous ones at least, seemed to be pretty sure they’d be back, if they weren’t still inside for better or for worse. I wished that I had a weapon; a handgun, a bat, or even a sizable stick, as I thought about going into this strange home.

One advantage that I had over the undead is that I had the coordination to climb; at least, I hoped that was an advantage that I had over them. I didn’t want to compromise the first floor, so I’d have to go in through the second. I looked methodically, near and around the home, hoping to find a ladder that would reach the window. And in the last place I’d expect to find one, I didn’t. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

The latticework complained as I climbed awkwardly and slowly towards the second story with a heavy rock cradled in my arm. With one hand holding the stone, I had to let go completely to reach higher, having to balance while I quickly grasped for the next handhold, and each time, the jolt caused the aged wood to complain ever more. Still, I continued to climb. I reached the top and positioned to swing wide with the stone, hoping to shatter the glass. I swung, but not hard enough for the surprisingly strong double pane. The glass cracked, and the rock slipped from my hand, falling solidly to the ground and kicking up a small cloud of dust. I stared, dumbstruck, and cursed as I slowly climbed down, being careful not to disturb the alarmingly loose lattice. Slowly and carefully I climbed back to the top, feeling the wood sway as I climbed. Again, I reached the top and, again, I swung. Harder this time, knowing I wouldn’t have another chance. The glass shattered with a satisfying crash, accompanied by the dull thud of rock on wood.

The wood itself was loose enough that I was able to push it free from the frame, causing one of the planks to fall to the floor and sunlight to cut into the dark room, spotlighting the disturbed dust that danced in the beam. Slowly, I brought my face close to the opening to peer inside, to see if the noise had attracted any attention from anything that remained inside. It wouldn’t have been the first time that a loved one was left behind by escaping family members, only to break loose later and be found by a scavenger like myself.