The October Light of August (10 page)

I could hear feet pounding on the stairs next door overlaying the panicky objections from Mike.

“What?” asked Nick. And then, “Dude, that looks like a bite. You get bit?”

“God damn it no! Fuck, I
told
you I got it from gettin' the truck off the -”

“Bullshit,” snapped the alpha.

“Now look – now look! Wait – come on. No – please! Wait! Wait! Wait!” Mike's voice degenerated into a squeal of fright.

“Sorry, dude,” said the alpha dog and the inevitable gunshot boomed out of the house and into the neighborhood.

“See ya, Mikey,” muttered Nick. “What was he doing up here anyways?”

“Fuck if I know – I heard him thumping around up here. I expected to find him whacking it into Jackie's underwear, frankly.”

“Maybe he was looking for something in the bathroom – thought he could scrub the infection clean?”

“Whatever. Not our problem anymore.”

Nick gave a short laugh. “No. I reckon not. Whew – fuck, Mikey! You stink dude.”

Their voices became unintelligible as they moved out of the room. I could hear laughter, low talking, and then even louder laughter. I lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. After a half-hour of listening to them move around, talk, argue and laugh I began to doze in and out. Finally, I grew more alert when I heard the truck in Jackie's garage start up, peel out of the alley and around to the front of the house. The truck on the lawn revved up, gave a blast of its semi horn and tore off, whoops trailing behind it. The neighborhood was quiet again, except for a few experimental caws of a crow.

“Artie? Artie? Hey...Artie?”

My shoulder was being shaken gently, and as I blinked my eyes open Jackie was leaning over me. I struggled to prop myself up on my elbows, apologizing for sleeping and asking if she was okay. She pushed her hand against my chest and shushed me.

“No, I'm fine. I'm fine,” she assured me. “You just stay there.” I relaxed and lay flat on my back again. By the look of sunlight coming in through the window it was late afternoon.

“I just have to ask you something,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, and scooted over to let her sit on the bed. She sat with a grateful sigh, placed her hands in her lap and stared at them. Let me assure you, I was highly conscious that this was the first time a woman and I had occupied the same bed, ever. Like an old black and white movie, though, she had her feet planted firmly on the floor.

“Did... When you...”

I offered no prompts, only stared at her and waited. Finally, she turned to look at me directly.

“Jesse's gun. We could use it, of course. Do you have it?”

Yeah, sure, you bet. Pried it out of your husband's cold, dead hands,
I thought. She stared at me, could tell my mind was racing for a way to say what I had to.

“I did get it, Jackie,” I finally answered. “But...for the life of me, I don't remember what I
did
with it.”

She frowned.

“Honestly. My mind is a blank on it – I was wracking my brain over it this morning. It could be laying in the yard or the garden or buried...in. It.”

Her frown deepened, and I imagined her despair at being stuck with such a useless bastard. Her face softened quickly, however, and she smiled and gave a short bob of her head.

“Okay,” she said simply. “We ought to be able to find it - yeah?”

I nodded.
Should be able to narrow down its location to a quarter of an acre
, I thought gloomily. I just didn't relish the thought of digging around in Jesse's grave if it came to that.

“Awesome,” she said. “I can strip it and clean it.” She gave my arm a series of quick pats. “I'm guessing you're not all that familiar with firearms, then?”

“To say the least,” I replied and she grinned. “How's your foot doing?” I added.

“Not too bad, I think.” She raised her leg and twisted it around. “Hurts. But like I twisted my ankle and stubbed my toe. Think I'll live.”

“We should have some peroxide to keep it flushed. I can do that later,” I offered.

She tipped her head and raised an eyebrow. “I think I can manage it from here on out. I only took advantage of you because I was pissed off and scared out of my wits. You don't need to be subjected to my scuzzy foot anymore.”

“Fair enough,” I laughed.

She turned away and contemplated her foot for awhile.

“They took your truck,” I said softly.

“I expected they would.”

“Also... I believe Mike is dead in your room over there.”

“Huh.”

“Sounded like he got bit, and they shot him for it.”

“Damned shame, isn't it?”

“Oh, I cried myself to sleep over it.”

Her shoulders shook as she gave a quiet laugh.

“So they're out of there, then?” she asked.

“Sounds like it,” I replied. “They were able to get their truck going too.”

Jackie was quiet again, and then whispered, “Poor Mrs. Clarke.”

My hand hovered over her back, wanting to give reassuring pats. But I held back, of course.

“Yeah,” I said foolishly. And for want of anything better to add, I just said, “Yeah,” again.

She straightened abruptly, slapped her hands down onto her thighs and turned to look at me with that open and direct way she had.

“Ya hungry, Artie?” she asked with a big grin.

“I am,” I said.

“Good! Let's see what we can rustle up on your camp stove.

The weather grew warm again, the temperature climbing into the mid eighties. The action next door seemed to act like the dinner bell for the dead, and at one point there must have been twenty or so of them clustered around the neighborhood. I was anxious to go next door and get Mike's body out of there – I could only imagine what the smell would be like wafting out of that room with the heat. There already was a tang to the air with all the dead milling about - “zombies” as Jackie insisted on calling them. And was I going to argue?

Perhaps the thunderstorm had shaken people free from their homes and hiding places,  since there was much more activity out in the streets than there had been in the last month. It appeared a lot of them had been busy little beavers. I don't know how many snowplows had been reattached to trucks, along with steel plates and what looked like cow-catchers welded to the fronts of vehicles. Clearly a lot of thought had been put into making apocalypse battle wagons. I guess when you own a twenty year-old Escort you aren't naturally inclined to think of these things.

Jackie and I sat on the upper porch off my mom's bedroom. I had blocked off the French doors that opened onto to it with a huge dresser, but with the warmer weather and thinking that the dead were unlikely to hurl grappling hooks up and scale the house, we felt relatively safe sitting there watching the world go by. Besides, it beat the hell out of having a wedge-like view of the street out of the side window. The neighborhood had a strange, off-kilter look to it – like someone who always had his hair cut short in a neat military buzz, and had now allowed it to grow out over his ears. Lawns were long and fading, trash littered yards and the street and weeds were sprouting wildly in the gutters and sidewalk cracks.

“Neighborhood's going to hell,” remarked Jackie.

“Ay-yup,” I replied, and she laughed and threw a candy bar wrapper at me.

“God, what I wouldn't give for a cold beer,” she sighed. I murmured in agreement. I wasn't one for any alcohol, really. Never had a taste for it, and didn't really have the social life to develop it. But I could understand, and kept my thoughts of ice-cold milk to myself.

“Hell, I'd take a warm one,” she added, then frowned. I wondered if she was remembering her and Jesse's last drinking binge, and was rethinking that last statement.

“Well,” I offered, “if things ever get back to normal let me be the first to buy you one.”

She tipped her head to me and stared, opened her mouth, thought over what she might say then compressed her lips to a tight smile.

“You got a deal,” she finally said, and took a swig from the water bottle.

She paused, lifted her arm and sniffed. “Jesus, I'm ripe,” she laughed, and so did I.

“I can't imagine you're any worse off than anyone else,” I said and she gave me a grin, dimples forming in her cheeks.

“You are too kind, sir!”

The deep, throaty growl of a glasspack muffler intruded on us, growing in volume until it was obvious it was heading our way, accompanied with the booming thump of heavy bass.

“Ah, wonderful,” muttered Jackie.

A Civic shot down the street, and it seemed all of the dead paused, turned and began to stumble in the direction of the noise-maker. Jackie dropped her feet from the porch railing and leaned against it. The Civic turned at the end of the street by the park and rocketed back up towards us as incoherent yells and screamo blared from the interior. We watched as two paragons of society roared up and down the street playing the equivalent of mailbox baseball with the heads of the dead. The passenger, sitting recklessly on the door, swung his bat mightily at the clueless zombies. Bits of clotted blood and flesh sprayed with each connection.

Jesus
, I thought.
Swallow any of that shit buddy – get it in a cut, and you'll soon be one of them...

Jackie stood suddenly and leaned into the railing, her palms pressing against the wood on either side of her, causing her breasts to push forward prominently.

“Uh,” I prompted warily, but she ignored me, her head swiveling as she followed the car as it raced up and down the street.

As the last of the dead performed a clumsy pirouette after receiving a solid whack upside its head, the Civic cruised down the street, did a U-turn and shot over to Mrs. Clarke's driveway, then cut across the lawns to pull up facing us directly. The engine revved twice, the strangled screams of the music unable to rouse the dead that littered the neighborhood. Finally, the driver's side door opened and a kid leaned out, skinny in his black muscle shirt, tattoos crawling up and down his arms.

“Yo!” he yelled.

Jackie smiled, turned her head in profile and cupped her left ear. I shrank down and rubbed my forehead absently. I could not believe she was engaging these clowns.

The kid motioned to his partner to cut the music, which ended abruptly. The irritating rumble of the Civic's engine and the anxious calling of crows stood out clearly.

“'sup?” the kid asked.

“Not much,” Jackie answered. “Just kicking back. We
were
enjoying the peace and quiet.”

The kid gave a nonchalant roll of his shoulders, and Jackie leaned over to a small wrought-iron table to her right.

“Just out having some fun. Tired of being stuck inside, yo.”

“Yeah. I can see that,” Jackie laughed.

“You look like you could use some fun. How 'bout you come with us?”

“Oh, I don't believe I will,” Jackie responded, and  raising her right arm she shot out the passenger side mirror on his car.

The kid and I both jumped, our mouths open in surprise. I sat up straight, eyes wide as my head snapped back and forth from the kid to Jackie.

“You crazy fucking
bitch!
” yelled the kid.

“You have no idea, you little shit-stain,” she said, and put a round through the windshield dead-center. I could see the passenger cringing in his seat, curled around his baseball bat. The kid slammed his door, and Jackie took off his side mirror. I could only sit in awe of her marksmanship.

“Got anything else to say?” she shouted as the car reversed to the street, the back end popping sparks as it dropped off the curb, its rickety-looking spoiler trembling. As the kid backed south, he thrust his arm out defiantly, middle finger raised – then snatched it back quickly as Jackie fired at it, the bullet creasing the top of the car. Jackie laughed as the kid rabbited up the street.

As the sound of it's muffler faded, she turned and eyed me coolly.  I suppose the look on my face made her think I might have been pondering some sort of judgment, so she raised  her eyebrows and spread her arms as if to say, “What?”

I cleared my throat and said quietly, “To be fair, they did clear out the neighborhood pretty well.”

She burst out laughing, deep and throaty from her gut. She sat the pistol on the railing, wrapped an arm around my neck and gave me a deep kiss on the top of my head.

“Oh, Artie!” she shouted, and collapsed back into her chair giggling uncontrollably until she snorted, which made us both laugh some more.  I had a few more quips lined up – the “think I'm in love” sort, but I thought the moment had been served best as it was. Over the last three days I was ever conscious of not appearing to hit on her – like I could have had the confidence to do that anyways. And she was newly widowed, for God's sake. I was under no impression I was in anything other than the friend-zone – worse yet, probably the 'like a little brother-zone' -  but still the kiss on my head had made me turn red, and I casually propped my feet up on the railing and rested my arms in my lap.

“Well Artie,” she said, still chuckling. “I suppose that does bring up the matter of what we're going to do now.”

She leaned back and wiped her eyes, then ran her wrist under her nose, giving another burst of laughter, quieter this time. 

“Yeah,” I said. Insightful as usual.

Jackie straightened in her chair, composed herself and gave me her direct and honest look. “I think we are going to have to get out of here - see what the hell's going on out there.” She waved an arm out towards the street.

“Hmm,” I offered.

“Seriously. The zombies aren't going away, but honestly? I'm more scared of the twiddle-dees and dumbers out there,” she gestured up the street where the Civic had fled, “than the dead.”

“Yeah...”

She leaned towards me and leveled her gaze right between my eyes.

“Artie. They will be back.” She waved her arm north again. “Maybe not those little jizz-drops, but I bet when they're done being scared and start being mad, they'll feel like they'll have something to prove, so who knows? But if
not
them, than someone like them. And probably worse.”