Day 100.
I awoke with a start, as I had every morning since Beth's passing; and, as I had every morning for those three months, I fought back the tears - the unstoppable heaviness - that came with realising that, at best, everyone I once loved was dead. At worst, they were zombies.
In sharing this tale, I hesitate to use the word, "zombies" because I fear it gives the wrong impression. You might imagine shuffling hordes of reanimated corpses, moaning as they decompose in motion. You might see George Romero's imagination take form - the quiet dead returning to attack the living. I wish our apocalypse had been so peaceful.
From what little television was still airing during the first week of the attacks, what communication we'd been able to establish with people outside and what we saw in those of us who became infected, we deduced that this illness didn't kill and revive its host. The zombie disease was more like mental trauma than magic.
The host lost most of his human functions, the whole of his mind relegated to the reptile brain, where base instinct took over. A horrendous fever coursed through the body, taking up most of the host's energy and causing considerable pain. This combination of mental degradation and physical illness caused a heightened paranoia to the animal mind within. Everything looked edible; everyone looked dangerous. To further complicate things, the body seemed to react to the constant pain by shutting down certain nervous functions, lending the infected a physical numbness that rendered all but mortal wounds ineffective.
The assailants didn't necessarily prefer human flesh to other things; they'd eat anything to replace the energy lost to their fever. Hospital patients, back when hospitals were the place to take a zombie, were often found eating the contents of their bedpans. It wasn't until someone tried to interrupt their meal that a paranoid man-beast would attack the staff.
Once, an electronics associate who'd been infected at my store was so engrossed in some sauerkraut he'd found that I was able to walk up and shoot him from the side without incident.
I hate how nonchalantly I can say that.
Having successfully pushed down an ocean of tears cresting at the dam I'd spent fourteen weeks building, I climbed down from the freezer I slept on. While much of my crew preferred to sleep in the back room, where we'd emptied out some large shelves to serve as elevated beds, I preferred sleeping out where I could hear most things. When a majority of the shelving on a sales floor has been moved to barricade the front glass entryways of your store, you can easily hear someone whispering in sporting goods from a perch on the edge of the produce department. This is important if that whisperer in sporting goods happens to turn in the dead of night.
If you find yourself in a zompocalypse and you can make it to a supermarket, do so. I worked for a dutch retail giant called Vallenmarkt, off and on, for four years. I was in the midst of an overnight shift supervising four cashiers when the horrors that now define my existence came to bear. The thing that keeps me mindful of God's providence is that, though my heart is in shreds, my body is well-cared for. Food, water, shelter, weapons, clothing and even entertainment are all non-issues in this brick and mortar behemoth.
I opened one of the freezer doors and set the climb-up-to-my-perch rope inside of it. I hadn't seen any infected ascend a knotted rope yet; but I took no chances when it came to my bed. From the inactive freezer, I pulled out a clean set of clothes and my toiletry bag. Remembering that I had run out of deodorant the previous day, I made my way to the deli counter, where we kept bins of hygiene products. I pulled a new stick of Mitchum gel out of the bin marked "Deodorant" and headed for the men's room.
Using water from one of our rain-collection buckets, I bathed. In the mirror, I inspected my complexion, looking for any signs of illness. I seemed okay. I had the bags under my eyes and pale skin that marked a man who'd done little sleeping and even less peaceful sleeping. I tried smiling; but that only resulted in the haunted sort of grin you see in bad movies about insane asylums.
Brushing my teeth, I noticed a little bit of pink in the foam I spat out. I said a quiet prayer. The most terrifying thing about this virus/illness/infection/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is that, though a bite will always get you, sometimes a bite isn't needed. So far, no one had been able to divine what caused these sudden turns; but it was horrifying. Somehow, un-bitten individuals would change, though we hadn't seen a zombie in days or weeks. To give things an even more jarring effect, our infected didn't take hours or even minutes to turn. It was a matter of seconds. Looking into the mirror again, I imagined myself suddenly snarling and attacking the man before me. I wondered how long it would take for my reptile brain to realise I'd never taste the mirror-man's flesh.
Suddenly, from the far end of the store, I heard a shuddering explosion and the piercing screech of metal tearing. My dim eyes went wide and I ran toward the sound. From a sheath on my belt I pulled a heavy machete. This was not one of the flimsy, grass cutting affairs we used to have hanging with our camping supplies. This was a gift from one of my dear friends, crafted from a lawn-mower blade and given an electric-tape handle. I had to fight and creep my way across Longview to fetch it from what was left of my old home. There, I had buried my sisters' bodies and found within me just enough rage and heartache to keep on moving in this crazy world.
Bursting through the double-doors that separated the back room from the sales floor, I found that a blue Volvo had torn through the rolling door once used for small delivery vans and parked itself among our pallets of home-canned fruits and vegetables. In the driver's seat, I could see a blonde head of hair set against the steering wheel. The driver was either laughing or crying. Meanwhile, a few hundred broken mason jars leaked their contents across the floor; and we now had a hole in our back wall. Those who had been sleeping on the steel racks were climbing down and gathering around the intruding vehicle. One or two were slamming their fists on the hood of the car, as though to intimidate the driver.
"Guys! Guys, calm down. Back up; back up." The small crowd receded. Machete still in-hand, I approached the driver's window.
I tapped the glass with a knuckle, half-wondering if the girl had turned while driving. The face that looked up at me had tears streaming down her face and something deeply familiar to its features. No rage, no hunger and no red, feverish skin. Just a sort of relieved fear, as if she had escaped something terrible by going into something scary.
"Miss, are you okay?" I called through the closed glass. She nodded and then began rolling down the window by hand.
"Yeah, I'm okay." her voice faltered for a moment.
One of the men in our group cursed loudly, complaining about the mess she'd made. I told him to stow it for a minute. Looking back at the girl, something clicked in the back of my head; and a name rushed to the front of my mind.
"Liz Holsinger?" I asked, incredulous.
Fear turned to suspicion, "Yes. Who are you?" she demanded.
"Isaac. Isaac Stiltz! I wrote that blog! You were, like, my only fan!"
Suddenly, I wasn't in the middle of an apocalypse, but slipping back into a life before I had to build a dam against tears, before I had to pray against death as I brushed my teeth. I could tell, by the way she suddenly laughed, that the Volvo-crashing blonde had gone back in her mind as well, to a time when Facebook seemed to matter, food that grew naturally was expensive and friends of friends could become your friends with a click of the mouse.
As we greeted each other, my coworkers began to complain again about the mess. I returned to the present for a moment and began delegating. The maintenance team was charged with cleaning up the canned goods and repacking what could be salvaged for immediate use. I put another team to the task of bending the sliding door back into place and reinforcing it with old shelving materials.
Once everyone knew their job, I re-sheathed my machete, beckoned Liz from her car and began helping her unload the supplies she'd filled it with. We took a full cart up to the front to be sorted. As we passed by the electronics area, she admired the large screen we'd hooked up to generators. There were usually movies or video games going around the clock. I asked her how she -an Olympia resident- had ended up in Longview during a zompocalypse.
Apparently, she'd been in our town selling a king-sized mattress to a friend when the infection hit. Since then, she'd had to move from house to house, staying quiet and running off when things got too hairy. She'd found a working car and some dried goods near the highway and had been en route to I-5 north when she saw the Vallenmarkt sign. Realising that she could either hole up in a big place with lots of food or drive north to who-knows-what-fate, she decided to try the store first. She encountered a horde in the front lot and so drove around-
I cut her off "Wait, there was a horde out front? Did they see where you went?"
"I'm...not sure." she admitted. I sprinted again to the back room.
"Guys!" I shouted before I was even through the door, "BOOK!"
Through the plastic window, I could see the workers look up and run to fetch their weapons. I pulled my machete out again and slammed my body, shoulder first, through the plastic doors. The greyish dark outside lent enough light to silhouette the enraged zombies that were running around in the back lot. I knew, with the lights inside, it would be only a moment before they began flooding in. One of the maintenance crew, a tall gentleman named Manuel, returned with a hatchet and a heavy-duty trash can lid. As the first infected came through, he employed the lid like a shield and buried his hatchet in the attacker's skull. I stepped forward, toward the bent door. Two more zombies came into view, and I decapitated both. I could see more workers coming with their weapons and more shadows outside coming to meet them.
Suddenly, I was lifted off my feet as a football-team's worth of assailants hit the door at once. I flew a number of feet and landed on my back; my machete fell from my hand and skidded across the floor. Looking up, I saw one of the infected running toward me with the same full sprint and unfathomable rage I'd seen so many times before. As the heavy, bloody man approached, I kicked at his forward foot with my left, causing him to stumble. My right foot caught him in the chest as he fell; and swift push sent him backward about a yard an a half.
I scrambled to my feet as quickly as possible and made a run for my machete. The heavy man was faster than I'd guessed; and he slammed into me just as I bent down to pick up my blade. I rolled and used the momentum to get back up. Because my boots are less bite-sensitive than my fists, I prefer kicking to punching.
I swept the man's feet out from under him and stomped on his head a few times, until I heard a crunch that told me he'd stay down. Hearing footsteps to my right I sent out a push-kick that caught a tall woman in the gut and knocked her down with a snarl. I grabbed my machete and swung around to meet her second attack, but slipped on some of the leaked strawberry preserves. When I regained my footing, I turned to find the woman dead, an arrow sticking out of her left eye. I chopped a few more heads off and looked to thank my resucer.
Taking a hurried survey of the scene, I saw that only two or three stragglers remained outside and we had lost at least two men to this battle. There was not a single bow nor crossbow in sight; and my tall woman was the only zombie with an arrow sticking out of her. I turned around to look down the hallway that led from the back room to the offices. I found myself facing Liz, who was holding a compound bow.
"You should be more aware of your surroundings, Isaac. " she warned, motioning to the fruit that I'd stepped on
I raised an eyebrow, "All things considered, I could say the same thing to you. Losing that fight would have killed me; but your mistake cost two men you've never met their lives and could have cost a lot more."
Liz shifted her gaze downward. "I'm sorry." she said softly, "It was a mistake."
"We can't get away with mistakes," I retorted, "not even small ones. Not in this world. If you're staying here, I need to know you'll be vigilant."
I walked away feeling like a bit of a jerk.
Gathering with the guys, we surveyed the damage. With so much infected blood splattering around, the broken jars and their contents had to be counted as loss. The two dead left our crew at a dozen, thirteen with Liz. The remaining men were divided between those who wanted to throw our newcomer back out the door she came in through and those who wanted to forgo the roundabout route and kill her themselves. I ended the debate swiftly.
"What's our motto, guys?"
An uncomfortable silence followed.
"Come on." I prompted, "It goes 'Deadly in battle...'"
One of the guys murmured something.
"What's that?" I asked.
"...lively in good deeds." he finished the saying.
"Gents, we live in a world full of men who've become beasts. There's no sense in fighting to survive this mess if we're only going to become beasts ourselves. The girl stays; and anyone who harms her or allows harm to come to her will answer to me. Is that clear?"
The crew mumbled in reluctant agreement. We worked together, patching the metal door, moving the car out to the sales floor and cleaning up the mess my friend had left in her wake. By the time we finished, the sun was well on its way across the sky, illuminating the main area of the store through a series of skylights that had been Vallenmarkt's token energy conservation effort.
I started cooking breakfast in a makeshift cafeteria we'd built in what used to be the ladies' department. Because the clothing racks were so easy to move, we'd had no problem clearing a large space out for tables and chairs. This morning, I made pancakes with fruit preserves mixed in. I also included a small bowl of mixed vegetables with each plate.
The guys often told me I'd make a great mom someday.
When Liz appeared, the excited chatter of men enjoying a well-earned meal became a quiet murmur of men eying an intruder. The tension was thick; and it did not pass the girl's notice. She took a seat at an empty table on the far side of our dining area , a large, restaurant-sized affair we'd found in the training room,without a plate of food.
As I handed a plate to Manuel, I said, "Sir, would you mind sitting with me when I get my plate?"
He looked to Liz and then at me, skepticism plain in his eyes.
"Are you sure about this, boss?" he asked, "I mean, are you sure you're bein' objective about her?"
Suddenly, I was seeing myself through my crew's eyes; and I felt embarrassed.
"No, no it's not that." I assured him, "When this started, we all agreed that we'd help anyone who needed us. 'Deadly in battle, lively in good deeds', remember?"
Manuel gave a quick smile; and I could tell he was trying his best to believe me.
"Yes," I admitted, "I kind of knew her on Facebook, Back When; but the reason she stays is that we still have that responsibility to help. If you join me over at that table, I know the other guys will feel more comfortable about this arrangement. I could use that kind of solidarity right now."
Manuel sighed, leaning his head from side to side as though weighing mental options with actual weight. Then he nodded.
"Sure, I'll sit with you."
I filled two plates and two bowls, turned off the stove and made my way to Liz's table. As Manuel and I passed the crew, I gave them a quick nod and grabbed one of the pots of coffee from their table; they seemed unsure of what to think right then.
As we approached Liz, a deep insecurity was evident in her face. I set a plate and a bowl in front of her, taking my seat directly across the table. Manuel gave an unsure glance over his shoulder, toward the other guys and then took his seat. I offered Liz a warm smile; then, remembering what I'd seen in the mirror that morning, I quickly reverted to my normal expression. No one spoke for a number of minutes.
"So...." Manuel was the first to break the silence. Unfortunately, one word was as far as he got. Another silence, more painful than the previous, settled over us.
As we ate, the quiet grew until it covered the other tables as well.
Finally, Liz stood up. She cleared her throat and addressed the crew as a whole.
"Look, I'm sorry about your friends. If I had known that there were people in here, or that the zombies were following me, I would've been more careful. I know you're angry with me; and I don't blame you." Her voice quavered, "I'd be angry with me, too."
There was a short pause that felt like ages; nobody so much as moved in his seat. Liz took another deep breath.
"If you let me, I'd like to make it up to you. I can work hard. I can be vigilant. I will do whatever I have to, to pay back the debt I owe you all for taking me in after the trouble I've caused."
With that, she sat down and continued eating her vegetables. I just stared.
"That was awesome." I don't remember deciding to say anything; rather the words felt like they fell, slowly and unintentionally, from my mouth. Manuel nodded in agreement.
"Thanks." Liz said quietly without looking up.
I heard shuffling feet behind me and the voice of one of the men asking, "Miss? Would it be alright if we joined you for breakfast?"
As the whole crew gathered around one table, there was neither silence nor rowdy jocularity. Instead, a quiet, friendly discourse pervaded the table - one that bespoke new friendships forming and the welcoming of a new sister into our brotherhood.
Had I known then what course our story was to take, I may have done more to make that breakfast last a bit longer.
To be continued...
-isaac
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