When the Dead (9 page)

Ben and
Isobel carried a handgun and two shotguns, plus ammo for everything, to
Isobel’s apartment. They went door-to-door on the second floor to tell the
others about Tom’s offer to rescue Jill. Isobel’s apartment afforded the best
view of the street and the Cooper’s car so everyone gathered there in eager
anticipation for the event. Isobel went out onto her small balcony to get a
better view and to keep an eye out for Tom. They only had to wait a half hour
before he came running around the building. His skills were impressive, using
the trees to stay out of view, moving quickly and silently until he was at the
passenger side door of the car.

To Tom Vaughn, the lady looked like she was asleep, something he didn’t
have time for. He pounded on the window, startling her from rest. Tom pointed
at the door lock. Jill only looked up at him in confusion. She couldn’t figure
out how she knew him or if she really did.

Come on Jill
, Isobel thought from her balcony,
think straight
.
Unlock the door.
Isobel willed for Jill to hear her silent plea.
Unlock
it!
The dead started moving toward the car. Tom saw this and pointed determinedly
at the lock once again. Jill saw the zombies coming back and shook her head.
Near paralyzed by fear, she just sat there shaking her head
no
.

“Hey! This way, come over here!” Isobel started yelling in an attempt to
distract the zombies; buy Tom some precious seconds to alter his plan. They
turned towards the building for a moment but again focused their attention on
Tom and Jill. Tom wasn’t going to die for this woman. He took out a crowbar and
started smashing it against the window. Jill cowered in the front seat,
shielding her body with the blanket she’d slept under. He hit the window until
it broke.

Tom reached into the hole he’d created, unlocked the door, yanked it open
and grabbed Jill’s wrist violently to drag her out of the car.

“Snap out of it you bitch!” Tom was closer to death now than he had ever
been, weighed down by an unborn child and its mother’s fear. Some of the
zombies were nearing grabbing distance.

The baby kicked in Jill’s belly, bringing her into the moment and
awakening Jill’s instinct to survive. She started running, but just as suddenly
as it came it left her and she stopped. She was staring at something in the
distance. Tom followed her gaze and found it resting on the partially eaten
body that was walking straight for her.

“Do you know him or something?” Vaughn couldn’t tell who it was, or who
it used to be. “That one got pretty mangled, huh?”

            “Austin!” she wailed.

            “Your guy? Holy shit.” Tom wasn’t sentimental
or sympathetic. He was on a mission to rescue her and stay alive, both he
didn’t plan on failing. He yanked her hard, away from Austin’s walking corpse
and they disappeared behind the building.

Isobel’s heart was racing as she stepped in from the balcony. The room
was silent. No one said anything. Ben and Isobel contemplated going upstairs.
Ten minutes passed, it felt like an hour. And then, a gentle knock at her door.
Markus jumped up to answer.

“No, I’ll get it,” Isobel said, remembering that Tom wasn’t interested in
the other residents. Isobel stepped out into the hallway and there he was, just
Tom.

“Oh my god, did she make it?” Isobel asked, wringing her hands from the
anxiety as she looked from one end of the hall to the other; Jill nowhere in
sight.

“Calm down. She made it just fine. She had to climb slowly, her belly
made it hard to reach the rungs of the fire ladder. But she made it and now
she’s upstairs in her apartment.”

“With the baby and all those emotions she is carrying, she shouldn’t be
alone. I’ll ask Molly if she’ll take a roommate.”

“Whatever. I’m going back to my place.” Tom left as though he hadn’t just
saved a life; two lives. He didn’t wait for a thank you and he didn’t want one.
Isobel went back inside to the group to deliver the good news. The group broke
up and Molly and Isobel went upstairs to see Jill.

“I don’t
mind having her as a roommate. It isn’t my apartment anyway. I think it will be
great for her to spend some time with Gabe too,” Molly decided as they walked
the last few feet towards 305. “She has her first baby coming and she needs to
focus on that . . . instead of Austin.”

Jill’s apartment door was wide open. They found her passed out in the
master bedroom, luckily on the bed. She was breathing softly, a men’s blue dress
shirt, darkened in areas by her tears, was pressed to her nose.

“I’ll stay here and wait for her to wake up,” Molly offered.

“She’s in good hands with you, Molly. Thank you.” Even though Molly was
young, twenty-two Isobel thought, she was smart, kind and she wouldn’t leave
Jill’s side.

“Well, it will be good for me too. More than you know,” Molly smiled
gently.

On her way out, Isobel closed Jill’s door and glanced at Vaughn’s across
the hall. She considered thanking him but alone she didn’t feel as brave.

Evening.
The rescue earlier brought attention to the building again. The pounding was
the loudest it had ever been. Ben had been trying to trick his mind into all
sorts of alternative sources of the noise. Construction, a loud horror movie,
etc . . . but it only worked for a few minutes. He resorted to wearing earplugs,
like some of the others, while he read a novel he’d borrowed from Edward. The
story made him smile and it felt good to do so. Isobel had left to check on
Jill again before going to bed for the night.

The door to 305 was closed so she knocked and it took only a second for
Molly to open it. Her eyes were watery and red, as though she’d been crying. Isobel
followed her into the living room where Jill was sobbing heavily. Tissues were
strewn across the couch, the coffee table and the floor. The men’s dress shirt
from earlier had followed Jill into the living room. She had it draped over her
belly. It felt wrong to Isobel to be intruding on such a personal moment.

“Sorry for the mess,” Jill acknowledged her without looking up.

“You don’t need to apologize. I’m really happy you made it back. Can I
sit?” Isobel asked as she gestured to the couch.

“Yeah, um . . . yeah,” Jill said, pushing a bunch of used tissues from
the cushions to clear a spot, adding them to a pile on the floor.

“Have you had a chance to eat?” Isobel asked. She saw a bowl and plate on
the side table.

“Molly heated up some soup and toast.”

A film had formed on the top of the soup as it cooled and the slice of
bread was only missing its crust. She had barely touched the meal. Molly felt
hungry still and planned on eating the leftovers later.

“Did Molly tell you about moving to the second floor? We think it would
be good . . . for when the baby comes.” Isobel asked.

“Yeah she did. I’d rather not stay up here. Even though Tom saved my
life, it doesn’t make up for the years he’s been a complete asshole. When he
came out to the car to get me I didn’t want to get out because he’s been
indecent to me in the past. Austin and I almost moved out of this complex because
Vaughn tried to force himself on me in the stairwell last year. No one knows
about it because Austin thought it would only cause more trouble for us, and
Vaughn would just claim he was drunk anyway. Now he might think somewhere in
his messed up head that I owe him. I can’t sleep with him across the hall.
Besides, this apartment is full of Austin.” Jill looked around and started
crying again and Molly came quickly to her side, putting a hand on her
shoulder.

“There is plenty of room Jill. We can bring down stuff for the baby too.
We can decorate Angela’s place just how you want it,” Molly said happily,
trying to move Jill’s thoughts away from her dead husband.

“It’s getting late. Can I help you two bring anything downstairs for the
night?” Isobel asked.

“There’s some stuff ready to go in the bedroom. Toiletries and clothes.”

Molly was alone with Isobel in the bedroom. “I don’t know how you
convinced Tom to get her but thank you. She would have died out there," she
said as she grabbed a blanket.

“Don’t thank me,” Isobel threw her hands up in the air, “it was Tom’s
idea. He thought it would be fun.”

“Fun, huh?” Molly huffed. “That guy is a dick.”

“Yeah. The definition of the word.”

When Isobel returned to her apartment she found that Ben had fallen
asleep on the couch, his bookmark fallen to the floor. She picked it up and
eased it into place where his thumb was still tucked in the pages. She set the
book next to his handgun on the coffee table.

Outside, the front passenger door of Jill and Austin’s car was still open
and the dome light was on, lighting up a bit of the dark night; a tiny hope
that hadn’t quite flickered out.

The next
day the sun was gone and replaced with clouds and the promise of rain. In 201,
Markus was looking out the window and it made Jeff very nervous. Sheila could
be in the area still. He felt close to Markus and strangely wanted Markus to
feel the same about him. He didn’t want to lose his trust.

            “Looks
like it might rain, huh?” he asked Markus, attempting to engage him in
conversation and divert him from staring at the faces of the dead below.

            “Hopefully
it’ll wash some of the stink away.” Markus laughed and turned toward Jeff.
“What do you want to do today?”

            “Get
to know each other better,” Jeff said.

            “Like
twenty questions or something?” Markus asked.

            “Sure.”

            “I
guess I’ll start by asking the one question I am sure everyone in the building
wants the answer to. Why in the hell did you marry a woman like Sheila?”

            The
question made the brown hair on Jeff’s arms raise in prickly goose bumps. He
wasn’t angry about the question. He had often wondered the very same thing.
“Long story short, our parents are friends and they pressured me into
accepting. She proposed and I obeyed my folks. Let’s stay off the topic of Sheila
though.” Jeff didn’t want to lie more about Sheila’s whereabouts if he could
help it.

            “You’re
right. Sorry. Ask me a question.”

            “How
long have you known that you were gay?”

            “All
my life.”

            “And
have you ever been with a woman?”

            “Hey,
it’s my turn to ask! Have you ever been with a man?” Markus smiled.

            Jeff
could feel his face get hot and only part of him hoped that Markus didn’t
notice.

Isobel
ate breakfast, cold cereal, on a stool she had brought onto the balcony. She
had decided to spend the morning watching the dead.

“I might as well see what you are up to.” She knew she was talking to
herself.

One of them was stalking a cat. From what Isobel had seen so far the
plague didn’t affect animals but they still seemed to be desirable as
nourishment for the zombies; second choice on the menu when human was fresh
out. The fumbling hands of the corpse caught the cat but Isobel wasn’t sure how
it happened. The cat looked pretty confused too. Angela Turner, her former
second-floor neighbor, was using the sidewalk today, though unintentionally.
The sun from the day before had done something terrible to her exposed skin. It
was sliding off of her in small patches. Isobel knew from watching crime shows
that there was a special word for that stage of decomposition but she couldn’t
remember it. Angela’s arms were spotted. The white of her skin and the fading
crimson of her decaying muscle in strong contrast to each other.

Isobel wished that Angela would go somewhere else in town. She hated
recognizing the faces of the dead. It reminded her that it could happen to
anyone. Austin had wandered away, which was probably for the best.

            “Do
you want to play with me?” Gabe asked Jill. She and Molly had gone over to
visit with Rob and his son. Molly and Rob were in the kitchen talking with one
another. She was left on the couch; the child sitting on the floor by the
sliding door, playing with action figures.

            “Hmm?”
Jill looked toward the boy. She had been daydreaming again or mourning, she
wasn’t sure which. Her due date was only two days away and with each passing
hour she was thinking more of her dead husband and less of anything else.

            “I
saaaaiid, do
you
want to play with
me
?” Gabe certainly did not
like repeating himself. He was used to a lot of attention from whatever adult
was around him. Jill wasn’t interested or interesting at all. “Don’t ya have a
baby in there?” Gabe pointed to her belly.

            “Uh
huh.” Jill barely said it loud enough for Gabe to hear but she nodded her head
at the same time.

            “Maybe
the baby will play with me!”

            “Do
you like girls?”

            “No!
Tell her to stay in there.” Gabe turned away in disgust.

            Jill
sighed. “I already tried.”

            “Are
you guys having fun?” Molly had joined them in the living room. She brought
with her some goldfish crackers and fruit snacks for Gabe. He took them happily
but shook his head no and went back to playing alone with his toys.

            “What’s
up with him?” Molly asked Jill.

            Jill
shrugged and excused herself to the bathroom.