by Tawn Krakowski
He
shuffled aimlessly near the structure in the near pitch darkness. Ambling with his crooked, hitching gait, he
knew she was inside. He ached for
her. Hungered, like a man deprived of
air. He also knew that she would have to
come out eventually, and when she did, they would be together...forever.
***
Thomas
was riding a bicycle he had found abandoned in an alley when he came across the
building. He was on his way to check on
extended family that had been living in Wisconsin. He didn't really expect to find them, but the
journey was all he really had left after his wife and three children had been
turned. He didn't have it in him to kill
them—even as a mercy—so instead, he ran.
Like the lowliest coward, he left them to whatever existence they had
left. Not a day went by that he didn't
think about what he had done and how much he had lost. But if he had to do it all over again, he
knew he would choose the same horrific path, despite the fact that it led
straight into the bowels of Hell.
A
large “911” printed on the front of the structure above the door declared it to
be an emergency center. Thomas had been
an electrician before the virus had mercilessly swept through this part of
Illinois. Many people hadn't known of
the treasure trove of electronics, emergency supplies, and security benefits
that such a place boasted or even where to find them. This meant that most emergency centers were
relatively intact, even after all the Walmarts everywhere had been looted into
oblivion. He approached the building
warily, circling completely around it twice to verify as best he could that it
hadn't been compromised, and then went to work on getting the door open. He had to hurry. It would be nightfall soon.
To
his vast surprise, it clicked open before he even had a chance to decide upon
the best way to force the lock. Thomas
heard a woman's voice beckon him inside, further adding to his confusion. Since zombies don't do much more than snarl,
grunt, and bite, he figured it was safe to enter. Once past the front door, he found himself in
a short, dimly lit corridor designed to be very much like an airlock on a
submarine. The metal door at the far end
of the hallway could not be opened until the outer door had been closed and
whomever was inside pressing the buttons decided the visitor was welcome.
What
if this is some sort of trap? Thomas suddenly wondered, as apprehension
crawled up his spine. Only when he heard
the click of the inner door did relief drown his irrational fear. Thomas pushed through the second security
door and was greeted by a slightly plump yet still athletic-looking woman with
short mousy-brown hair and a vacant look in her hazel eyes. There was nothing extraordinary about her
looks, but the way she carried herself and the tone of her voice identified her
as someone teetering on the razor edge of despair.
“My
name is Sandra,” she said tonelessly before turning her back to him to lead him
further into the facility. The center
was built like a bunker. Before the
apocalypse—that's what those who were still human called it—the structure was
used as a police station in addition to an emergency response center and was
well fortified against attacks from the outside.
Thomas
was surprised to find that it was also well provisioned within. The first room she led him through had been
an office and was set up as a first line of defense with several riot shotguns,
9mm automatic handguns, boxes of ammunition, and even the sleek black clubs with
handles that were issued to cops. There
were flashlights, boxes of batteries, and even a couple of outfits Thomas
assumed were standard issue riot gear.
A team of navy seals couldn't get past this room without divine
intervention, even if the only defender was a child.
“How
long have you been here, Sandra?” Thomas asked, marveling at the arsenal.
“Three
months. My husband was a dispatcher
here...before...” She abruptly shoved the knuckle of her right index finger
into her mouth and bit down hard to stifle the tears already threatening to
spill onto her pale cheeks.
Thomas
didn't need to hear any more to know what had happened. Her husband had been bitten and turned. Just like Thomas' family. “My name is Thomas,” he softly introduced
himself to combat the awkward silence that had developed between them, as each
mournfully remembered what they had lost.
“Welcome
to Hell, Thomas,” she replied so softly that he missed it.
***
Sandra
showed the tall, gaunt man she had let into the facility where all of the
supplies had been stashed. In addition
to all of the guns in the front office, she and Reggie had loaded three of the
four cells in the basement with provisions.
One cell was their pantry, loaded top to bottom with canned food. A second cell held water. They had been able to obtain six racks each
holding eighteen full five-gallon jugs of bottled water, which they had used
and refilled in the early days when the water supply had still been
uncontaminated and fresh from the taps.
Now she had just over four racks full of water left and no way to refill
them with untainted water. Even boiling
the gunk that came out of the faucets could not make it drinkable.
The
third cell held cans of gasoline for the large generator located upstairs that
was jury-rigged to direct its exhaust outside, propane tanks for cooking when
the gas company was no longer supplying gas—which came to pass only two weeks
ago—and all the lighters, kitchen matches, and butane refills they could find
on all of their pre-apocalyptic scouting missions. There was even a pile of homemade torches for
when the generator could no longer provide light.
“And this last cell is the sleeping quarters.”
Her voice broke from the heartbreak that had not faded in the last three
months. The man—Thomas, she
reminded herself—took her into his arms, hesitantly at first, but it wasn't
long before he was sobbing as desolately as she was. Sandra's grief was so raw, so bottomless
that he was swept away by her emotional maelstrom. They stood, clinging to each other, weeping,
until Sandra emptied her broken soul and her breath came in ragged gasps.
Oh,
Reggie...
***
The
decrepit, shambling creature that used to be Reggie was so far gone now that he
couldn't even remember her name. Or his
own. But the miniscule part of him that
was still alive, that remained locked away deep inside, imprisoned by the
catastrophe that had transformed him into an animated corpse, that part knew
her. Loved her. But that was the extent of his
awareness. He only knew that she was his
reason for being. In some primitive way,
perhaps he sensed that she could free him from his abhorrent captivity so he
would no longer be forced to commit the most heinous of crimes to feed the
cravings within his rotting dungeon. If
she could love him again, as she had before he had become this...thing...then
maybe he could finally be at peace.
***
Thomas
awkwardly released the despondent woman from his arms and wiped his own
eyes. Somehow, her raw pain had blown
apart the barrier that he had erected around his emotions as if it were nothing
more sturdy than a house of cards.
Comforting her had initially made him feel a bit better, reaffirming his
place among humanity after his vile abandonment of his loved ones. Now, however, something felt wrong. As if she were feeding on his pain, sucking
him dry. He feared that soon nothing
would be left but a husk if he did not push her away.
“I'm
sorry,” Sandra sulked. She didn't even
bother to dry her tears, allowing them to glisten and dissipate on her
cheeks. “It's been so long with only my
nightmare for company. I
just...couldn't...”
Thomas
interrupted her confession. “Your
nightmare? What do you mean?”
“I'll
show you,” she replied. “Come look at
the monitor.”
Intrigued,
Thomas followed her back up the stairs to the main floor. Sandra led him into a room which contained
four high tech computer workstations.
This must have been where the 911 dispatchers had worked before the
world was turned upside down.
To
conserve energy, Sandra had a single station operational with only one monitor
on. She turned to Thomas and said, “Tell
me what you see on the monitor.”
Thomas
tilted his head quizzically at her before honoring the request. The screen cycled through the images piped in
from various cameras located around the facility. “What the...” Thomas breathed as he saw a
shadow, darker than the surrounding night, clumsily trudge past the door from
which he had entered not so long ago.
“I
let you in because I couldn't stand to watch him...it...kill another
one,” she shuddered in horror.
“Another
one?” Thomas' creeping apprehension
returned, running its icy fingers lazily from his neck to the base of his
spine. “You mean it comes here to feed
or something? But they don't do
that. They wander around and kill whatever
they come across. They don't hunt!”
“He
never leaves,” Sandra whispered hauntingly and moved deeper into the room to
Thomas' right.
Thomas
found the control inputs for the cameras and removed all the other feeds from
the cycle so that he could more closely watch Sandra's zombie. He said nothing as he concentrated, brow
furrowed, for another ten minutes on the image shown on the monitor. “It's still out there,” Thomas said, nodding
at the camera. “I can't figure it
out. What does it want?”
“Me,”
Sandra said without looking at him.
She
sat on a desk in the abandoned 911 center, hugging herself tightly. She had been terrified and sad for so long
now that her overwrought emotions, agitated when Thomas had held her, had
morphed into a detached hollowness. She didn't have to see Reggie on the monitor
to know that he was waiting for her. But
the thing that waited outside was no longer the man that she had loved with
wild abandon. It was a hollow shell that
was all that remained of the Reggie who had succumbed to the last wave of the
virus that had nearly scoured mankind from the planet.
A
rotting corpse which had, until three months ago, been her husband.
“You?”
Thomas' voice cut through her misery. “What are you talking about?”
“It
was my husband, Reggie,” Sandra told him.
“He was turned three months ago and hasn't left.”
Thomas
was so baffled that he could not process what Sandra had told him. “He hasn't left? That zombie has just been hanging around for three
months?!”
“DON'T
CALL HIM THAT!” Sandra screeched, her hazel eyes erupting into a wildfire
of anger fueled by anguish and fear. Her
voice pitched higher as her denials became more vehement. “He's not a
zombie! He's NOT!” She clutched at her short hair, whipped her
head from side to side, and repudiated all of Thomas' startled attempts to
soothe her before she streaked toward the front door without warning.
Thomas'
utter shock kept him rooted in place for a moment too long. He sprinted into the office that was
outfitted like NRA headquarters just as the inner door banged closed.
“NO! Oh, God, NO!”
Thomas prayed to a God he no longer believed in that he would find the
button to seal her into the corridor before she could do the unthinkable. He searched frantically around the room, but
the hollow sound of the outer door opening stabbed at his heart an instant
before he found the control panel.
Sandra
was already outside.
***
The
monster that stalked the building in the dark night halted its lonely rounds,
sensing that something had changed. A
loud noise and her sweet voice
echoing into the parking lot heralded the end of his suffering. She had come.
At last, she would save him and his hunger would be quenched.
***
Sandra
had come entirely undone. The frayed
bits of her mind that she had thought to mend by letting a stranger into her
sanctuary had been the very thing to finally break her. She had heard the man she had saved from the thing
outside use that disgusting word to describe Reggie, her soul mate. But it just couldn't be true. Reggie was not a monster. Reggie loved her. He couldn't...wouldn't...
She
had to know. She had to find out the
truth...whether or not even the most miniscule speck of what had filled her
heart with so much love remained. Why
else would he still be here, but for her?
Maybe he needed her help. Sandra
could not hide in her fortress anymore.
She had to be with Reggie even if there was nothing left of the man she
loved.
***
Thomas
ran back the way he had come to the dispatcher workstation. He didn't want to watch the broken woman be
torn to bits by her zombie husband, but the guilt that this was somehow his
doing needed to be assuaged. Sandra had
to be delusional, insane. Zombies simply
did not behave in the manner she insisted this one did.
Thomas
watched the monitor, frozen in horror as the woman and the zombie closed the
distance between them, like a cheesy movie where lovers run to each other
through a field of blooms in slow motion.
He hoped against hope that her death would be quick and painless, that
she wouldn't be turned instead. Maybe
that's what she wants, materialized unbidden in Thomas' mind.
He
squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw in an effort to force the repulsive
thought from his head. When he opened his
eyes and focused again on the image on the monitor, he saw the plump,
short-haired woman with the tear-stained cheeks fall into the arms of the
ravenous walking corpse. The scream
Thomas fully expected to hear despite the lack of speakers did not come. The awful sounds of the rending of flesh and
warm blood splashing on the concrete played only in Thomas' imagination. Against everything Thomas knew to be true,
Sandra—still alive and unbitten—was snuggled in the putrid arms of her zombie
lover.
Thomas'
appalled disbelief overpowered his rising need to be sick and he absently
swallowed the bile in the back of his throat.
He sat down heavily in the rolling office chair at the desk, still
staring aghast at the monitor. If
that zombie was still human enough to remember Sandra, then what hellish
nightmare must my wife and children be experiencing? Can love really overcome a zombie's
hunger? Oh, God, what have I done?
Thomas
buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly a second time in less than a day. He didn't need to see the woman and her
zombie wander hand in hand into the night to know in his heart that he had just witnessed proof of the power
of love.
Audio version
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