The Dead Circle (22 page)

Sarah’s heart is racing. She knows they got lucky fighting the Fred and Gingers off at Home Depot. Every instinct in her body is screaming at her to slowly and quietly back away from the car. She puts her fingers over her lips and gives a ‘Let’s get out of here and keep moving’ nod to Chris.

Chris shakes his head and whispers “No. We have to know if the garage is clear.”

Reluctantly they creep towards the back of the car. There is a film of dust covering the back window. It’s not the normal dirt and pollen that blankets everything in the country; it’s that grey grimy film that coats every surface in large cities. The kind of grime that turns black when you try to clean it with a wet paper towel. It’s the kind of thing that city dwellers deal with every single day but try not to think about too much.

The muffled noise continues. It sounds like something small is shifting around in the back seat. Sarah sees what it is first, recoiling then wiping a section of the window clean with her sleeve. She needs to get a better look, even if she desperately doesn’t want to.

“Jesus. God no. Please.”

Chris, who has remained a step behind to keep lookout, prepares for a fight. “What is it?!”

“Fuck.” The word comes out in a mixture of revulsion and profound sadness. She stumbles away and vomits onto the floor spattering the crumpled blouse the driver must have been wearing. Chris reluctantly looks through the window himself and understands why.

The shell of a baby is still in the car seat. It’s gaunt, bony and dehydrated. Its face looks unreal, like it is an animatronic baby made of silicone from some cheesy horror movie. Its skin is cracked and coming apart as if the silicone had dried and started breaking down. But this is not a prop. It is real and it is still moving. The baby blindly looks around with only the whites of its eyes. Its arms and legs are still continuing to twitch and spasm.

Chris somberly closes the driver’s side door and puts his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “Let’s keep moving. We can’t help it. It can’t hurt us.”

They continue morosely walking down to the ground floor and to the exit. Chris points at the industrial rolling security gate hanging above the attendant’s booth.  “This is why it’s good that nothing stays open 24 hours in Detroit. If we can close this, we can secure the entire garage!”

He tentatively pokes his head out to check the street. He can hear the car alarm wailing in the distance, but doesn’t see any Fred and Gingers. He starts jabbing at the top of the gate with his hockey stick, attempting to get it to roll down. He tries to hook the end of his stick into the handle and pull it down with brute strength. This does not go well.

“Help me.” He says, not looking back at Sarah.

The gate starts to roll down smoothly. Chris turns around, pleased with himself. Sarah is standing in the attendant’s booth turning a key as a small motor lowers the gate.

“But there’s no power?” Chris is confused.

“You think that security gates don’t have battery backups? In this neighborhood?”

“Where did you get the key?”

Sarah holds up a pair of blue uniformed trousers she found on the floor.

“Ralph always wanted me to get in his pants.”

“Dreams come true apparently.”

Sarah gets back to business. “It’s getting dark. I think we should get inside until morning. We can deal with the supplies tomorrow.”

“Agreed.”

“Now, how are we going to get back into the house? We sure can’t use the front door.”

“The roof. Follow me.”

They walk back up though the parking garage, doing another thorough sweep of the cars, but nobody is there except the baby. When they arrive at the bus, Chris grabs a pair of bolt cutters and they continue to the top level of the garage.

There’s only one car on the top floor and it looks like it has been there for a while, probably stolen and abandoned. But, the fourth floor connects with the roof of the library. Whoever built the garage topped the fence separating the two with razor wire to discourage anybody from roof-hopping. Undeterred, Chris cuts through the chain-link with the bolt cutters and they climb through and onto the roof of the library.

“OK, let’s kill that damned alarm.” Chris walks to the edge and looks down at the street below. His heart skips a beat when he sees that the Mustang has been swarmed by zombies. There are a lot of them, a startling, intimidating amount. Hundreds of naked ex-humans dully paw at the car. They’ve broken through the windshield and it is starting to sag on its shocks. Chris and Sarah give each other a look. Alone, a single zombie can’t break through much of anything, but the destructive power of a large group of them is alarming.

Sarah arrives next to him. “Oh fuck.” She takes a deep breath. “How can there be so many?”

“Apparently they can’t see, but their hearing is great.”

“We have a
big
problem.”

“Yup.” Chris aims the remote key at the Mustang and presses the unlock button. The car beeps its acknowledgment and the alarm stops.

Chapter 10

Later that night, Sarah and Chris sit at the table in the main room eating Cup of Soup. Sarah eats chicken and pea flavor though Chris thinks the idea of eating dehydrated chicken bits is not only disgusting, but practically begging for stomach problems that evening. Chris eats cheddar cheese flavor. Sarah has a very similar feeling about his selection, but they are both grateful to have a hot meal made possible by the camping stove they got on their trip. A gas lantern lights their faces but it is too weak to illuminate the entirety of the large room, leaving the space feeling somewhat gloomy. They are uncharacteristically quiet.

***

When Chris was eight, his father lost his job. Not long after, he started to notice changes in his environment. The house, which used to be almost obsessively neat and tidy, slowly became messy and chaotic. His father started to leave bottles everywhere. Beer bottles lived in little nests next to the recliner. Empty wine bottles collected on the kitchen counter. Chris started discovering half-empty containers in the strangest places. It was almost like an Easter egg hunt. After discovering bottles with a happy-looking pirate on the label under the sink, in the couch cushions and even in his own sock drawer, he decided it wasn’t an Easter egg hunt, but a search for pirate booty. It was kind of fun. But when he tried the brown liquid inside it, he discovered it was definitely not treasure.

Chris used to be really excited when his dad was home. His old job had kept him out of the house a lot and it was a treat to get to spend time on the weekends or on the rare evening when he got home before bedtime. Now that his father was home all the time because of something called ‘cutbacks,’ it wasn’t as much fun anymore. He thought of his father in three distinct modes; Silly Daddy, Sleepy Daddy, and Angry Daddy. Silly Daddy was really fun. He would laugh at things that Chris didn’t understand and make jokes that were confusing and sometimes naughty, but at least he seemed happy. At least he laughed a lot. But inevitably, Silly Daddy would transform into Clumsy Daddy, then become Sleepy or Angry Daddy.

Angry Daddy was terrifying. He didn’t scream and yell or throw things, he just got cold and mean.

One summer day while he was playing in the yard, Chris was beset with the kind of random inspiration only understood by children and he decided to climb the large fir tree next to his sandbox. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to do it, he just wondered if he could. He pushed through the outer shell of stabby pine needles and discovered a mysterious world inside. The needles didn’t go all the way to the trunk. Instead the branches inside were mostly clear and he could climb them fairly easily. It was dark and spooky in this secret tunnel up the tree, but adventure called. He’d only climbed a few feet when he discovered that he had gotten himself covered with pine pitch. It was on his hands and in his hair. It was sticky and stubborn, but at least it smelled nice. He continued up branch after branch, slowly working his way up the tree. He could not see the world outside his secret cave because he was protected by a thick wall of pine needles.

Chris was in his own magical land where no one would ever find him. He felt truly content for the first time in a while. There were no scary guys from the mall here. His father didn’t even know where he was. Nobody could see him. He could stay here safe and sound until he decided to re-emerge into the world. It was a liberating feeling. For some reason he felt like he could breathe deeper up here in his secret hideout. Perhaps it was just all the pine scented fresh air trapped inside the tree, or perhaps it was the solitude, but he felt calm and refreshed. It felt different than what he was used to. A very adult moment of clarity crept into his consciousness
. I don’t ever feel safe. I think people are supposed to feel safe.
He didn’t analyze the thought, it just occurred to him.

It was at that moment that he looked down and saw that he was now twenty feet off the ground. He hadn’t been thinking about the fact that he was going
up
the tree, he was thinking about it as if he were going
into
the tree. To Chris it looked like he was a thousand miles in the air. His stomach dropped and the terror began. Ignoring the sticky pitch, he clung to the trunk of the tree with both arms as if his life depended on it.

It took him ten minutes to gain the courage to try to climb down. He didn’t even think of calling out and asking for help. He knew he was on his own. His feet suddenly felt clumsy and dead. He felt disconnected from his body, like he was operating his arms and legs by pulling puppet strings. He searched for the branches with his feet because he was too afraid to look down. A drop of sweat dripped off the tip of his nose and plummeted all the way to the ground. It felt like it took an hour to hit the carpet of reddish-brown dried pine needles at the base of the tree.

Inevitably Chris stepped on a branch that was too small to support his weight and heard a sickening crack. In an instant he felt himself starting to tumble down. He thought he was in free fall, but he actually mostly slid his way down the trunk. As he was knocked back and forth by the branches, he felt like a Plinko chip from his mom’s favorite show, ‘The Price is Right.’ He cut his hand trying to grab onto a branch and knocked his knees into his chin when he hit the ground. But when he finally came to rest, he was more surprised than wounded. That is until he noticed a wet feeling on his forehead. He didn’t even remember hitting his head. But when he reached his hand up to his brow, it came back slick with dark red blood. He sat there stunned for a moment. Then, abruptly, he was overwhelmed by his own sobbing. He was sore, he was sticky, he was bleeding, but mostly he was just horrified that something like this could happen.

When he ran back into the house, he found his father sitting in the recliner watching the Lions lose to the Vikings. Tears had streaked tracks through the pine pitch on Chris’ cheeks and snot was trailing down his face and onto his shirt. Blood was still dripping down his forehead and onto the carpet.

“What the hell happened to you?” His father’s voice wasn’t slurring yet, but it already had a leaden thickness to it.

Chris choked out the story through his sobs. His father stared at him impassively, not moving from his spot on the recliner. When he was finished, his father didn’t get up and give him a hug. Nor did he help him clean himself or treat the wound. Instead, he looked Chris straight in the eye and spoke in an icy monotone.

“Well, Chief, let me give you some advice. Learn it now and you won’t end up a fucking failure like me.” He lets out a short bitter laugh. “Your experiences in life are the result of your choices. You do stupid things and bad shit happens to you. If you make all the right decisions, then you can have whatever you want.” He paused and stared at the boy for a moment. “Is this getting through?”

Chris nodded. He didn’t understand, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“You did something stupid right? Something you shouldn’t have done?”

“I guess so. But it was an accident.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t have an accident, you fucked up! So now you’re paying the price. That’s how the world works kid. Darwin was right. If you aren’t smart enough or strong enough to control your life, you get what you deserve. And around and around we go.” He raised his beer as if clinking cans with some invisible friend then took a long swig and cackled again.

“But… but it wasn’t my fault.”

There was a dry crackling bitterness in his voice, as if angry dust would puff out of his mouth at any moment. “Not your fault!? There’s no such fucking thing. You’re not a cripple or a moron.” He looked at Chris and saw the fear in his son’s eyes. The part of his father that was still sober caught himself and softened a bit. “Look, Chris, come here for a second.”

Reluctantly, Chris stepped closer. Still holding onto the beer, his father put his hands on Chris’ shoulders and leaned in. Chris could feel the condensation from the beer bottle starting to seep through his shirt. His father’s face was covered with a thin film of dried sweat. His eyes were bloodshot and tired and Chris could sense that they were fighting to maintain focus. His skin had taken on a greyish yellow tinge like it hadn’t been in the sun for a long time. Chris smelled a sweet and sour odor on his father’s breath. It smelled like the pirate drink under the smell of what his father called ‘Millertime.’ Under that was the stench of his father’s B.O. The dizzying combination of smells turned his stomach.

“Listen up Chris. You are so special. I hold you accountable for your actions because you are smarter than most little kids. Fuck, you’re smarter than most adults. You’ve got to accept that and accept the responsibility that it comes with. The world is just math. All of our hopes and dreams and feelings all boil down to making the right calculations. Do the math right and you’ll never fail. If you do fail it’s because you didn’t think through the consequences and you got what you deserved. I don’t want to hear any excuses or any complaining. There is no such thing as a victim. Take your medicine like a man. You get me?”