When the Dead (24 page)

Three
days had passed since the anarchists tried to take over the neighborhood. The
group had warmed only slightly towards Vaughn when they’d all heard of what
he’d done. But life was brighter and louder again inside of Willow Brook, now
that everyone could make noise again without fear of alerting an enemy.

Gabe was running sprints down the second floor hallway for exercise and
when he was done he grabbed some toys and camped out on the floor in a bit of
sunshine to play.

While he
was there he thought he heard a voice, not unlike his own; a child’s voice
calling for his help. It was coming through the chairs, lamps, and bedside
tables tossed into the stairwell to keep the dead people away. For a moment Gabe
was terrified. He thought it might be a zombie trying to eat him. But then his
brain caught up with his imagination, reminding him that zombies didn’t use
words like regular people did.

“Hello?” Gabe whispered. He turned away from the apartments down the
hallway so the adults wouldn’t butt in. He pretended to keep playing with his
toys but he waited anxiously for the child to respond. “Are you there?”

“Can you help me? I need help. And food and I’m stuck,” a weak voice
responded.

“How did you get in there? They hammered everything downstairs.”

“They did a bad job ‘cause the dead people opened it up again. There is a
lot of ‘em so I had to squish into here and hide. But I’m hungry now and I
can’t climb up anymore.”

“Where are you in there?” Gabe asked. The child grunted and pushed a hand
through the debris. Gabe reached out and grabbed it. “I’m Gabe, nice to meet
you.”

“I’m Charlie. I’m hungry! Can you give me some food?”

Gabe ran to his room and grabbed some peanut butter stuffed cheese
crackers that were still unopened; he’d been saving them for later but Charlie
needed them more. The plastic crinkled in Charlie’s hand as he pulled apart the
wrapping and consumed the crackers in no more than a minute.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Charlie’s voice was thicker sounding
from the peanut butter. Gabe had thought ahead and brought a juice box too and
he handed it to the outstretched and crumb-covered arm. The box disappeared
into the furniture and he heard slurping shortly thereafter.

“Ahhhhhhh. That was good. Got anymore?”

“Not right now. I can try to sneak some stuff from dinner for you. How
old are you Charlie?”

            “Six.”

            “Stick
your hand back out.”

Charlie
poked his arm through the opening one more time and Gabe stuck a matchbox car
into his hand.

            “You
can keep that. I’ll bring you some more food in a little bit.” Charlie didn’t
respond but Gabe could hear car noises and he knew that, because of him,
Charlie was happier; if only temporarily.

“Who were you talking to Gabe?” Rob asked as they walked to dinner. He’d
seen Gabe in the hall but didn’t want to disturb him.

“Um . . . nobody.” Gabe didn’t want to share Charlie with anyone else and
he was scared that his dad would make Charlie go back to his own house.

“Do you have a friend that you can’t see?” Rob knew imaginary friends
were a common occurrence and not an unhealthy development. It was probably just
another way that Gabe had found to cope with the craziness and his lack of
playmates his own age.

“How did you know?” Gabe was amazed at his dad. He knew everything. “His
name is Charlie and all I can see is his arm.”

Rob laughed. He was expecting purple hair or silly clothes but an
imaginary arm? “That’s strange.”

“And he likes peanut butter and juice.”

“How does he eat and drink with just an arm?”

“He takes
the food and puts it in his mouth. Duh.”

At dinner, which was in Molly’s apartment that night, Gabe couldn’t stop
talking about Charlie.

            “
. . . and he likes matchbox cars and he wants me to bring him some food and
he’s my friend.”

            “Jeez,
Charlie sounds real,” Molly leaned over to Rob and whispered. She’d gotten to
know Gabe and she didn’t see him as the imaginary friend type.

            Moira
didn’t think the boy was imaginary either. “How could a child survive out there
for this long?” Moira asked.

            “Hayden
did it,” Ben said.

            “She
is almost an adult. Charlie is supposedly six. He isn’t real,” Markus tried to
reason.

            Isobel
laughed. “Real or not, at least I don’t have to play with Legos anymore.”

            “You
never did! It was either me or Molly,” Moira frowned at her. “My hands still
hurt from trying to pry those blocks apart.”

            “Gabe,”
Edward said to the boy, “does your friend like to draw or read?”

            “I
don’t know yet. I just met him.”

            “That’s
strange,” Rob whispered to Molly. “Usually when children have imaginary friends,
they know all about them. There is no ‘getting to know you’ stage.”

            “He
isn’t imaginary! He’s real!” Gabe yelled.

            “Calm
down, Gabe. Let’s focus on eating dinner right now. No more talk about
Charlie.”

            Dinner
was uneventful after Gabe’s small explosion of emotion and when everyone was
finished, Gabe jumped back to the topic of Charlie.

            “Can
I bring him some food . . . please?” Gabe was begging as Molly and the others
cleaned their plates from the table.

            “You
have to promise to eat it if ‘he’ doesn’t, ok?” Rob said.

            “Oh
he’ll eat it!” Gabe’s eyes lit up.

            “Gabe?”
Rob wanted to hear two words from his son.

            “I
promise.”

            Rob
made a small plate of leftovers and handed it to Gabe.

“Bring the plate back to Molly when you’re done,” he told the boy as he
ran off.

Gabe carried
the plate to the top step and called out to his friend.

            “Are
you there Charlie? I brought you dinner.” Gabe leaned forward, straining to see
any movement in the barricade. He could hear muffled crying but no response.
“Are you ok?”

            “They
got me. My leg,” Charlie sobbed louder.

            “What
do you mean? How could they get you?”

            “They
climbed up in the hole I made. They bit my leg and now it hurts and it’s wet.”

            Gabe
knew that a bite was a bad thing. His dad had kept a lot of things from him to
“protect” him, he was told, but Rob had taught his son that bites were bad.

            “I’ll
get help then. I’ll get my dad.”

            “I
don’t wanna be a monster.” Charlie cried much louder.

            “Here,
reach out your hand and take this food.” Charlie’s tiny hand accepted the
leftovers and Gabe ran down the hall to his father.

            “Dad!
Charlie needs help! They got him!”

            “That’s
not funny Gabe. You shouldn’t joke about it. Charlie will be fine. He can’t get
the infection.”

            “Why
not? He’s just a boy like me.”

            “He’s
not real so he can’t get sick, that’s why.”

            “He
is too real and he’s stuck in the stairs and he needs help!” Gabe started to
cry and Rob knew then that his son did not have an imaginary friend. Charlie
was actually real. He followed his son to the end of the hall and sat next to
him on the top step.

            “Charlie,
are you there? Can you show me your hand?”

Again a
tiny hand, this time slightly green from smashed dinner peas, emerged from a
gap in the debris. Rob gasped.

            “I
told you he was real.”

            “We’re
going to get you out of there, ok?” Rob reassured the little boy. It took
thirty minutes to remove enough furniture to see the child’s face and thin
upper body. He was barely alive, even before any injury he may have acquired,
weighing just above nothing. “Gabe, go get more help. Find Ben and Isobel and
tell them to come here. Then I want you to go to Molly and stay with her.”

            Gabe
made no move to leave. “I want to stay with Charlie.”

            “He’s
in bad shape kiddo. I don’t think you want to see him like that.”

            “I
don’t. But, he needs a friend.”

            Rob
couldn’t think of anymore to say to spare his son the tragedy of the situation.
“Ok. Get Ben and Isobel and bring them back.” Gabe smiled, nodded, and sprinted
away. He was still brimming with youthful hope that his dad and the others
could save his new friend.

            Ben
and Isobel were as stunned as Rob.

            “How’d
he get that far up the stairwell?” Ben was warily eyeing the mess of chair and
table legs, books, clothing, and other items there.

            “He
is so tiny and it was his only choice.” Isobel was teary-eyed and holding
Charlie’s hand. She could see and feel the life fading from the child.

            “It
didn’t do him much good. Gabe says he was bitten,” Rob added.

            “We
have to get him out of there whether that is true or not. If he was bitten,
before he turns. If he wasn’t, before he dies from something we could save him
from.” Ben was starting to formulate a plan of object removal as he spoke.

            A
thought occurred to Isobel that she shared with the men. “He’ll spread disease
if he dies and we leave him there. We’d be forced to abandon Willow Brook.”

“Let’s stop talking and get to it then. Step back Gabe.”

Gabe stood across the hall in the common area as the adults slowly moved
one household object after another from the pile that was tightly packed around
Charlie. Every so often he would see Charlie’s hands flinch and his face
grimace in pain as items shifted and settled over his body. It was when Ben
moved a large framed mirror from atop the child that they saw the bites and the
blood.

            “Gabe,
go to Molly,” Rob said without looking at his son. “Now!” he yelled more
forcefully when he sensed that Gabe hadn’t moved. Isobel went to him, placed
her hands on his shoulders and guided him away.

“Goodbye Charlie!” Gabe whispered as they walked down the hall. He knew
if he spoke any louder that he would start to cry. His dad had been right. He
really didn’t want to see his friend like that, all messy and ripped up. He
could feel his chest get heavy with sobs and his eyes filled with tears as he
reached blindly in front of him for the doorknob of Molly’s apartment. He
couldn’t find it so Isobel took over, finally getting the door open. Gabe ran
to Molly, who was seated on the couch reading, and took shelter close beside
her.

“I don’t want to get dirty,” Markus was unenthusiastic about being
recruited to get Charlie out.

“Too bad. I need someone to hold this table out of the way while two
others gently ease him out,” Rob said.

“I’ll hold the table then,” Markus quickly volunteered. “That sounds like
the cleanest job.”

“Someone should have a gun. In the event that something does crawl up
through the opening he made,” Ben suggested. “I’ll grab mine.”

“Jeff, that leaves you and me to free him. Can you help me do that?” Rob
asked.

Jeff had come out with Markus but was aimlessly wandering around, looking
out the windows of the common area and picking food out of his teeth,
disinterested in the goings on of the stairwell. “Huh?”

“Get over here and help please. You’ll support his shoulders while I lift
what’s left of his legs,” Rob explained.

“Why do I have to hold the teeth end of his body?”

“He isn’t dead yet, Jeff.” Rob looked daggers at him.

“It could happen at any moment,” Jeff hypothesized.

“All the more reason we should get him out now!”

            Ben
had returned with his gun and a thick wool blanket to wrap Charlie in. “I’m
ready when you are.” He tossed the blanket over the back of a chair and had his
handgun trained on the hole in the debris, his finger positioned to quickly
slide down onto the trigger.

            “On
three then. One. Two. Three!” Rob yelled.

            Markus
pulled the table up with all of his strength. Jeff and Rob grabbed the boy’s
body and gently freed him from the barricade. Ben set his gun down for a second
to spread the blanket across a couch in the common area. They placed the child
on top of the blanket to inspect his wounds.

            “There’s
something crawling up the hole already!” Markus yelled as he dropped the table
and ran for safety into Jeff’s apartment.

            “Ben,
get your gun back on that hole! Jeff, watch Charlie! I’m going to repack the
barricade,” Rob directed.

            Ben
shot the zombie as its head appeared in the small hole. The shot made everyone
jump. The pile of furniture in the stairwell was pulsing; moving up and down as
though it had a heart beat. The hallway downstairs was filled to capacity with
the dead and they were piling on one another trying to push their way through
the blockade. Charlie’s living flesh and spilled blood had put a strong scent
in the air around the stairwell. The sound of the bullet had only encouraged
their pursuit.

            Isobel
ran to her apartment and dragged her couch out into the hall. Jeff left
Charlie’s side to help her move it faster. Molly and Gabe came into the hall.

            “Was
that Charlie? Is he dead?” Gabe asked, looking around for answers.

            Isobel
was out of breath from pulling on the couch. All she could do was shake her
head. Gabe squeezed past the couch and ran ahead to check on Charlie. Rob was
busy repacking the debris for the tightest, most secure fit.

            “What’s
going on?” Molly asked.

            “They’re
trying to get through. The whole barricade is moving. We have to stop them.
Grab something heavy.”

Once at the top of the stairs, Jeff and Isobel tipped the couch up onto
its side and pushed it on top of the pile. Rob stood back to see if the weight
was helping.

            “A
second couch should do it,” Molly suggested. “We can use Angela’s. It’s
uncomfortable anyway and really heavy. It’ll take everyone to move it.”

            Jeff
returned to his apartment to check on Markus while Rob, Molly, Isobel and Ben
walked quickly to Molly’s apartment for the couch, leaving Gabe alone to find
out what had happened to his friend.

Gabe
found Charlie on the couch as he breathed his last breath. The amount of
infected saliva that had entered his body made for a quick turn upon death and
a few seconds after dying, the boy stood up. Gabe couldn’t tell the difference.

            “You
should stay on the couch. Your leg doesn’t look so good. But don’t worry. My
dad could probably fix it,” Gabe said as his friend stumbled toward him. He ran
forward to help Charlie stay upright and to give him a hug. Gabe was incredibly
happy that his new friend was free from the stairwell.

            “You’re
really cold Charlie. I can warm you up!” Gabe laughed and started rubbing the boys
back briskly. “This is what my dad does if I’m cold.”

            “Gabe,
no!” Rob yelled as he and the others returned to the common area, a heavy couch
in tow.

            Charlie’s
mouth was almost closed on Gabe’s neck. Rob dropped his corner of the couch and
ran forward to tear his child from the beast’s arms. He pushed Charlie away
with a force that made the boy’s head slam against the wall. It wasn’t enough
to stop the zombie child. He stood back up.

            Ben
had dropped his corner of the couch as well and grabbed his gun. He shot
without hesitation which didn’t leave Rob any time to cover Gabe’s eyes. Blood
and brain hit the wall. Isobel and Molly had dropped the couch altogether,
unable to hold up the massive piece on their own. They ran to Rob and Gabe.

            Gabe
cried hysterically, hitting his dad. “Why’d you guys do that to Charlie? He was
gonna play with me!”

            “He
was a monster and daddy had to protect you from him. He was going to hurt you.
I couldn’t let that happen,” Rob said as he took the beating from his son.

            “I
hate you. I hate you!” Gabe yelled as he pried himself from his father’s arms
and ran down the hallway to his room. Rob stood in the common area staring at
the spot on the wall where Charlie’s life had ended for good.

            “Let’s
get this couch on top of the other one first and then we can clean up this
mess,” Ben said to Molly and Isobel, realizing they had little time at the
moment to dwell on the emotional impact of what had just transpired.

“Can you help us finish the couch, Rob?” Molly asked the pale and shaken
man gently, knowing the couch was too heavy for only three people. “Rob?”

“Sure,” Rob said, snapping out of the trance that had taken him. He
picked the blanket up off the couch and tossed it over Charlie’s body, wiped
the sweat from his palms and grabbed his corner of the couch once again.