The Undead Situation (28 page)

Then the sun went away, leaving me alone in the undead world.

When I was twenty, I had a girlfriend. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but it did. At the time, I was living in a moderately sized town, teaching community Russian lessons three times a night.

I speak Russian—forgot to mention it. Seeing it’s the most useless skill to have during a zombie apocalypse, why would I bring it up?

There was one girl, a blonde, who was always hanging around after class. She was my age, I imagined, but I honestly didn’t care. I wasn’t interested in her, but I could see why others might be. Nice complexion, a curvaceous body that was just shy of being on the skinny side.

She made quick progress in asking me on a date, which I declined immediately. But try after try, she came back. I figured saying yes would get this whole ordeal over with sooner rather than later.

I was mistaken.

Her name was Nicky and she decided she was my girlfriend, which meant calling me at odd hours and me paying repeatedly for dinner and movies. Had I known it was going to be that bad, I would’ve killed her to save myself the trouble.

It was all very funny. I felt as though I had accidentally gotten on the wrong train and had to see it through until it arrived at the next station. If anything, I was just along for the ride, and the scenery and entertainment were strange.

After a few months, I decided to end things while I still could. I managed to break myself out of the bizarre reality that was my life, and told her I wasn’t interested in her anymore.

Not like I ever was to begin with.

Nicky practically had a psychotic breakdown when I told her. I wasn’t a good judge of character. Less so back when than I am now, so it didn’t register she’d been unusually obsessed with me. At the time, I had no clue why she was so dejected by the ending of our relationship. No idea at all.

The night was clear and cold. The moon was full and heavy in a sky speckled with thousands of stars. One last splash, followed by an absence of the music of the undead, told me the last of the Zs had fallen into the water. I got to my feet, taking the last bite of the Snickers bar, and dropped the wrapper off the bridge.

Remembering what was in my pocket, I withdrew a can of condensed milk from my pants. At least Judy-Beth did that much for me. With a thankful prayer in my heart for pop-top cans, I removed the lid and tossed it into the river. Not bothering with the formality of using my finger to scoop it out, I let the thick sugary concoction slide into my mouth.

Well, now I knew how Nicky felt. The gnawing sense of anxiety that ripped my insides up, accompanied by a wash of emptiness. My chest was so tight I felt like it might implode. I’m surprised Nicky didn’t just kill herself. It felt so hideous

It hadn’t taken long for the rest of the zombies to fall into the water. Maybe a half hour tops. They filtered through the woods and onto the highway, making their way to the bridge, before jumping off in attempt to get me.

Once half the sugar milk was gone, I dropped the rest into the river and licked my lips clean. My sweet tooth was sated, and it took the edge off my misery.

After shaking my limbs out to relieve the numbness from sitting, I set to work on traversing the bridge. Its structure allowed for easy climbing, and the work became mindless.

I was still in shock and I knew it. In fact, I embraced the sense of emptiness that was keeping me sane. Blaze meant something to me, and my mind was protecting me from an inevitable breakdown. It was smart and knew to wait until I was safe. I dreaded the moment when I’d realize it was entirely my fault she was dead or alone. How could I live with that?

Shocked, I stopped a third of the way across the bridge. Suicide was an option I hadn’t considered before, and it was one that made sense. One bullet, right then, and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting to the cabin or anything thereafter.

Shame washed over me and I began moving again. Suicide was a big copout. Besides, what would Pickle do without me? I owed it to her not to do it. Blaze wouldn’t have done it, either. If she were still alive and I mentioned the idea to her, she would’ve called me something derogatory and lit up a cigarette. I ran through a dialogue in my mind, in an attempt to lighten my mood.

I think I should kill myself.

You would think that, you cocksucker.

No, really.

Well, go ahead. I certainly won’t stop you, you panty wearing fuck.

I laughed sadly. Making up conversations between us wasn’t going to help my mental state in the least.

Only ten minutes later, I landed on the other side of the bridge, a barely lit expanse of highway before me. After I attempted to clear my mind, I started the jog to Kellogg Lake Road.

* * *

No one was waiting for me. The town of Startup was entirely visible in the moonlight, but seemed as empty as it had been when I first arrived. I didn’t hesitate to make the right onto Kellogg, not interested in investigating that forsaken town again.

The trees closed in overhead, blocking out a majority of the light. I would’ve been afraid if I wasn’t so deadened already. Fearlessly, I continued my jog up a large hill, paying attention for the markers Frank explained would get me to the cabin.

* * *

A few hours later, I stopped at an abandoned double-wide trailer for the night. When I woke up, I fed Pickle some cat food I found in the kitchen.

I lost it there. I sobbed until my eyes felt fiery and my throat hurt. Blaze’s face wouldn’t leave me. When I closed my eyes that’s all I saw. I punished myself for what happened to Frank, Blaze, and Gabe. The burden of their lives weighed down my entire being. My episode went on for hours until I forced myself to even out and focus only on surviving.

When I got my act together, I left.

All day I walked or jogged until I found the first of Frank’s signs: a yellow, steel roadblock. It opened up into a gravel area where a small electrical substation was fenced in. Normally I’d hear a static buzzing of the transformers overhead, but everything was quiet as it had been.

I searched the perimeter until I found the first “F” marked tree, indicating the direction I should go. It was like connecting the dots to find my trail. Once I found it I started the hike, following every clue Frank mentioned in his death-plagued delirium.

* * *

I hiked for days. I wasn’t a decent mountaineer, so it took far longer than projected. No undead pestered me on the way; my location was so remote, it seemed impossible for even one of them to come shambling along.

On the second day, I ran out of food, and resorted to eating copious amounts of blackberries and huckleberries. Oh, I wished hard for some kind of animal to come along, but none did. I encountered plenty of streams along the way, so hydration wasn’t an issue. Near one of the bigger rivers I even took the time to shower in a deep swimming hole I found.

It was hard to find the marked trees. Sometimes neighboring bushes were overgrown and covered the signs, or the trees had fallen, which added length to my trip. Each time I stopped to search tree after tree it added one, maybe two hours.

But then I found it. The cabin. First I found the edge of a tall chain link fence. Emptiness was so prevalent inside me, I couldn’t muster up any excitement when I arrived at a gate, which had a padlock painted blue.

With shaking hands, I shrugged off my backpack and fished out the keys. I inserted the blue one, pulled the lock off, and pushed the gate.

It opened. I had arrived.

* * *

As I searched the compound, I realized the memory of my journey was shrouded in fog. It seemed like a hallucination. I shut down so I wouldn’t think of Blaze, but that action seemed to have shut down the rest of me, too. I didn’t mind.

Francis J. Bordeaux’s cabin wasn’t just a cabin—it was also a bizarrely advanced tree house. One large cabin was formed around a giant maple tree that seemed misplaced in the forest consisting mostly of pines and firs. A short distance away from the main cabin was a smaller one made of tin that housed the entrance to a formidably sized well.

His little compound was at the foot of a rocky cliff I estimated to be about a hundred feet up. The fence provided a good perimeter, both ends stopping at the cliff.

What was most spectacular was the hatch on the cabin ceiling that opened up to a ladder, which led up into the maple and into a grand tree house. It seemed like a safe house, or a last resort; all it had was a bed and a few other necessities. Two ropes led off the tree house platform. One led up to the top of the cliff and was tied to a tree, while the other lead to a pine outside the fence perimeter.

It was perfect when it came to survival. A slightly overgrown garden near the cabin produced corn—which meant it was late August—beans, tomatoes, and quite a few other vegetables. I didn’t want to live on candy, MREs, and canned goods (which he had plenty of) forever, and was grateful for it.

Frank even had a collection of books on gardening, property maintenance, and other useful volumes in the lower cabin.

My location, physical health, and resources were perfect. The only thing damaged, quite honestly, was my heart.

But I survived, and that’s what mattered. Maybe my chi would realign and I’d be the apathetic motherfucker I was when this all started. That would certainly be easier, wouldn’t it?

I looked out into the vastness of the forest and sighed.

My name is Cyrus V. Sinclair. The V stands for—

Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, now does it?

Cyrus V. Sinclair leaned back in a comfortable, but ugly, recliner. Warm, golden rays of sunshine filtered in through the wooden slats of the window and onto the smooth oak floor. Birds tweeted outside, having a lovely time in the late October weather.

He was finally alone. He was glad to be alone. During the first few weeks of solitude he had endured a bad case of cabin fever, but it passed. Now he spent the days tending to his compound and gardening.

No one could see him, but he grinned sheepishly. Gardening was the last thing one would expect from Cyrus, but every day he’d go out and work on his year-round garden. Everything had settled down and he was alone again.

For reasons unknown to him, especially under these ideal circumstances, Cyrus’s throat tightened and he choked back a sob.

He was alone again.

Frank was dead because Cyrus couldn’t think clearly. Blaze was probably dead because he wasn’t paying attention. And Gabriella…she was gone and almost certainly dead because she needed him to take care of her, to be there, and he wasn’t.

A wet, foreign substance rolled down his cheeks. Angry at himself for such a display, he went to wipe the tears away, determined to stop his crying. He stood up on quavering legs and went to the small wooden dresser standing near his bed. He opened the top drawer and pulled out the box of cigarettes Blaze had given him in Startup.

It’s never too late to start.

That meant a lot, now. He drew one cigarette out and set out to find a match. While he looked, he considered every meaning of that sentence. It was never too late to learn to love someone.

It was never too late to grow a conscience.

* * *

When Blaze opened her eyes, the sun was setting. The distant sound of zombies made her pulse speed up. Her entire head felt like a batter had used it as a baseball and really, really didn’t hold back.

She didn’t know where she was or why she was there. The bridge breaking, the crash. The nothingness. It was a blur. Blaze tried standing twice before succeeding on the third try.

They were standing across the broken bridge, some distance away. She was forgetting something, but she had no clue what it was. Blaze patted her pockets and found nothing but a crushed lighter and her hunting knife. No gun.

Was she with someone?

How did she get there?

Had she been driving?

Her head swam and she stumbled forward. The yellow markings on the road doubled. She couldn’t remember anything, but she knew she had to find somewhere safe to stay until her head stopped buzzing.

Eloise J. Knapp currently resides in Washington state, where
The Undead Situation
is based, and is working on a degree in graphic design.
The Undead
Situation is her first novel, and she is currently working on the sequel

Knapp both took the photo and designed
The Undead Situation
’s cover. Her other published graphics include the first
Metagame
cover (by Sam Landstrom), and the photo for
Jumping off Swings
by Jo Knowles. Landstrom is the cover model for
The Undead Situation
, depicting the main character Cyrus V. Sinclair.