The Undead Situation (5 page)

Gabe’s eyes were frantic and bulging. She hyperventilated, but I knew she wouldn’t die from it. Just a panic attack.

As I walked back into the apartment, I heard the first of her long, hysterical screams. I forced myself to become the apathetic monster I always tried to be.

I was a little boy once. I had a boyish physique and long, messy red hair. Trucks, trains, and the outdoors were the staple activities of my life. Finding a stick and hitting things with it was prime time fun for little old me.

In fact, I had parents once, too. When I was young, our parents died in a boating incident, leaving me and my sister orphans. If I remember correctly, she was devastated by their deaths. I didn’t know why since they never spoke to one another.

My grandparents gladly took the place of our deceased creators, shipping us off to Alabama to live with them. They were kind, as grandparents should be. My grandfather smoked a pipe and read the newspaper. He drank his coffee black. My grandmother was matronly and an avid Bible reader. She read me and my sister stories. Made us oatmeal cookies on Saturdays.

The rest of my childhood was arguably idyllic—almost sickeningly so—which brings up one vital question: how could it have produced me? I am a fellow of great intelligence and philosophical bent. However, I do have an affinity for violence and destruction. Humanity is a trait I lack, but was one my grandparents had in abundance.

Why couldn’t my kindhearted grandparents rub off on me? Whether it was because of my parents’ death or being the sole communicator with my disturbed sister, I don’t know.

My first kill was only months after moving to Alabama. It was my eighth birthday, and the grandparents were throwing me a party. I had no friends, but they managed to invite kids from church and school. In the pool, after everyone left, the two remaining kids wrestled me out of my lifejacket. The pool was too deep for me and I couldn’t swim well, but neither could they.

I grabbed one of them, the smaller one, and took him down with me. I used him to push myself out of the water for a breath before going under again. We kept it up for only a short time before he stopped moving and someone pulled me out of the water.

From the outside, it looked like we were both drowning. An accident. One of the moms pulled me out while another dad went in for the dead boy, no one blaming either of us. It happened so fast. No one was looking.

Only I knew it wasn’t an accident.

Maybe that was what changed me forever. It seemed like a traumatic enough event to fuck me up permanently, but I’m not quite sure.

It must have been the realization that the world was a horrible place filled with horrible people who would never amount to anything. It was filled to the brim with people who were apathetic and money driven, with no real goal but to get more money. To live more indolently or to have a bigger TV. Yes, that must have been it. When I saw the majority was flawed, I wrote off trying to be like them. The kids taking my lifejacket was a metaphor for how I saw the whole planet.

The undead situation shook everything up. No one cared anymore about bad people, goals, or indulgences. We were all on equal ground, and that made things interesting.

In fact, I dare say it made living worthwhile.

* * *

Spring wasn’t planning on giving way to summer. It was probably mid-June by now and it was still cold. Through steel-toed boots and thick wool socks, I felt thoroughly chilled. I was wedged into the corner of my bed, which was pressed to a wall, curled up against the sounds of rain outside. Since Gabe arrived, it rained constantly, the liquid varying in severity, but relentless nonetheless. Such weather wasn’t uncommon, but I couldn’t stop myself from making foolish correlations between her and it.

When I had nothing to do, I thought. Recollections of a childhood, consciously repressed, rushed back to me for no apparent reason. Sometimes I thought the memories were significant, but most of them were mundane. Me riding a bike to school, or one of Grandma’s old church friend’s scolding me.

Drip, drip, drop. Drip, drip, drop.

From somewhere in the house came the maddening metronome of dripping water. It drove me insane. I would’ve gotten up to find the source, but what if I couldn’t find its location? I’d grow even more insane, endlessly searching. In the end, it was easier not to bother.

Isolation made me nostalgic and dizzy, most often with a feeling of stagnation. When I felt like that, thinking about my past was the only entertainment, even if said entertainment was odd.

Pulling the blanket closer, I sighed. Life was a nonstop run for me, so I never paused to mull over my past, present, or future. But why would I? There was nothing in that dark closet that would change anything about me. Reminiscing was nothing more than dredging up old, insignificant memories.

Boredom knew exactly how to leash me and lead me, nudging me into cynical thoughts and life-questioning dilemmas. No matter how hard I tried to keep my mind blank, I kept returning to how my life really was going to be, especially now that Gabe was around. No one ever mentioned meeting up with another survivor.

Drip, drip, drop. Drip, drip, drop.

Overlaying the beat of the water-metronome were Gabe’s moans, and the moans of zombies outside. They provided the bass clef melody to the song of my meaningless thoughts.

Pickle rifled through the candy on the dining room table. Soon, a soft thud signaled she had abandoned the cause. Minutes later she was in the middle of the doorway to my room, staring at me. I brought my hand out from the covers and beckoned her, only to have her scamper off out of sight.

Gabe had been hanging outside for only an hour or so. Already masses of undead clambered beneath her, eyes filled with blank, empty hunger. For the first twenty minutes, she screamed until her throat was raw. The she went quiet, then back to her grousing. I began to reconsider my actions, but never for very long. I couldn’t change the past, so why think about it?

Drip, drip, drop. Drip, drip—

“Cyrus!”

The scream startled me. I turned my neck too fast, sending hot pain up it and into my head. The tips of my fingers flew to my neck, rubbing up and down the hurt nerve, seeking reprieve.

“Cyrus! Quick!”

This scream was different. It didn’t possess the pathetic tone of a plea, but the loudness of authority, not to mention a dash of lunacy.

Kicking the cold comforter from my body, I rolled out of the bed and scrambled to the balcony, tripping multiple times. Pickle went berserk from my fast, clumsy motions, and took to running around the living room in a blind panic.

Outside was just as cold as inside. Rain beat down from the sky. The drops were even and dense, cool and refreshing. I tilted my head back into it before another shout snapped me from my daze.

“I’ve learned my lesson, Master. Please, bring me up.”

Gabe looked up at me, smiling. Her teeth were stained an unpleasant tint of pink, her chin and nose dark with dried blood. Cleansing rainfall hadn’t washed her clean yet. A pitiable laugh escaped her.

“Why are you smiling? You don’t have anything to be smiling about.”

“When life sucks the fuck out of you, you just gotta grin and bear it, right? I get it… You’re the head of the pack. I’ll go by your rules. It’s not like I haven’t done that before.”

I rubbed my face, slick with rain, and screwed my eyes shut. It stung keeping them closed, but I welcomed the searing pain.

Guess I’d done as much damage as I could, leaving her there. Maybe I broke her psychologically. When I decided to bring her up, it wasn’t an act of compassion, but one of pride.

Once she was at the top, I hauled her over the railing. We went back inside as though nothing had happened.

Once settled in, I listened for the water drops that had threatened to take my sanity.

They were gone.

If fate were paying attention and wanted to make things cinematic, the rain would have stopped when I let Gabe back in, representing the cliché of a new beginning. The sun would have come out, the zombies would have all died, and we would have repopulated the earth with battle-ready mini-Cyruses.

I might have said this before, but life isn’t a movie.

Also, Gabe was too young for me, and didn’t have appropriate genetics for breeding.

I helped her hobble back into the apartment, while the continuous storm grew angrier, blowing with all its might. Rain beat down on the roof so hard we could hear it through the wind and rumbling thunder.

I brought her into the bedroom and allowed her to lie on my bed. Picking up the abused comforter from its resting place, I placed it over her, awkwardly. I was no mother, no caring father. I didn’t know how to console the dying or aid the sick.

Clearing my throat, I looked out the window—a distraction from the situation at hand. The sight that greeted me was no better. A little girl stared back from the building next door. Tiny, bloody hands clawed at her shut window, white eyes gazing at me hungrily. I tugged at the cord on the blinds until they gave way, shutting the disturbing image from Gabe’s view.

“Why did you do that to me?” Gabe’s hoarse voice barely stood out from the howling wind outside. “Never mind. I don’t care. It’s over now. I don’t have anywhere safe to go.”

It’s over now? Who says?
I realized Gabe handled the entire me throwing her off a balcony thing a bit too lightly. This brought into question her past, and what she was doing before she came to me. If she were hiding something from me, it would certainly make sense to grit her teeth and bear my lunacy.

Maybe she wasn’t the tough girl she made herself out to be. She did say she didn’t have anywhere else to go, and in a world like this… Well, I imagined a person could put up with a lot if it meant they weren’t being eaten alive.

It wasn’t going to be safe here for long. We’d be able to stay inside the apartment for as long as we wanted, but eventually we’d have to leave for supplies. There might be too many of them to even do that. The word “trapped” sprung into my mind.

You’re not safe and it’s your fault
, I thought. While easy to blame Gabe for being loud and drawing Zs, my actions were what caused the developing problem. How could I have been so careless and let my anger take control? Every minute, another handful of stiffs were coming around the corner because I lost my cool. Any chance of safely escaping the apartment had vanished.

I clenched my jaw and stopped scolding myself. What happened happened. Nothing I could do about.

Then there was Francis. I wanted to wait for him, of course, but it was becoming less rational by the day. If there was one person I was willing to wait for, that I wanted to fight the apocalypse with, it was Francis Bordeaux. Gabe showing up distracted me for a while, but now my mind was back on Frank. Was he coming? Should I even bother waiting?

Gabe mentioning somewhere safe to stay challenged my notion of how safe I really was. I thought of the little girl next door, vacant face staring into the room, or the mass of undead gathering below. I thought of my one friend in the world and wondered how safe he was.

Keeping Gabe in my apartment was the second most human thing I’d done in my life. The first being the fifteen days I spent in the Peace Corps. Helping people for nothing in return except gratitude didn’t work for me. I thought it would be a ‘life changing’ experience like the testimonials said. After that I gave up on being normal.

A sinking feeling in my stomach told me keeping Gabe was a huge, awful mistake. It reflected poorly on my character. Why didn’t I just leave her there? Why didn’t I kill her? What about this barely adult girl captivated me? I looked back down at her. Her face was sweaty and pale, her lips chapped and flaky.

I turned around, eager to leave her to her own thoughts and pains, but she grabbed for me, her fingers brushing against my leg. I caught the gaze of her deep blue eyes. I noted the sore, deep bruises from the ropes that had snaked around her wrists.

“We can’t stay here. There are too many of them,” she said. “There are hundreds. We need to leave soon.”

“I know. Once you’re feeling better we’re going to pack up and find Frank.”

“Frank? You’re not still considering that, are you?”

My compassion for her vanished. “Yeah, I am. We can leave and look for him in the immediate area. If we can’t find him, we’ll come up with something else.”

“I don’t believe you. We’re going to get killed looking.”

“Listen. No one ever said we have to be a ‘we.’” I sighed. “You can go your own way whenever you want. It’s up to you. As long as you’re with me, I’ll try not to kill you and we’ll see where things go,” I bargained, knowing I was being stupid. I shouldn’t have to plan around her. But maybe this was what consoling the sick was all about—letting your life revolve around someone else for a change.

* * *

Sitting by the sliding glass door, I watched the sea of undead in the streets below, undulating, growing rapidly. The horrendous weather continued on, the sky turning darker with the approaching night. Once it became too dark to make out the forms of corpses, I broke from my thoughtless daze and stood up.