Evangelists: A Reader's Request (Pt. 6 et fin)

Nutria are not, by any means, as filling or palatable as humans. They have a grainy meat typical to rodents, with a fir that sticks between teeth and catches in a zombie's throat.

Not that he cared.

The man was hungry, always hungry. After the stampede along Old Highway 99, he was ravenous. A constant fever, nigh intolerable pain and sudden switches between activity and rest gave the monster a ridiculously high rate of metabolism. Food was fuel; and he was a train engine. Around him, 30 ghouls were feeding and fighting. Above, the sky was uncharacteristically warm.

A dog, frustrated by the sight of food in others' possession, made the almost imponderably tragic mistake of barking.

Day 590
C.S. Lewis once said that the reason we read of music in heaven is not because we'll be singing for all eternity, but because music most strongly speaks to we mortals of the ecstasy and infinity we'll see there. I do not know how accurate his theology is; but I can agree with Jack's latter point - there is, in music, some sort of timeless otherness which calls us up to something.

In this particular instance, the vaguely Spanish melody being plucked and its subsequent strumming, drums drumming and bass thrumming called me further away from the despond I had entertained in the recent months and into a humble sort of fearlessness, the "muchness" Manuel and Liz had fought for me to regain.

We were atop the cement behemoth that had been known, Back When, as Vallenmarkt. The dutch retailer had been enjoying great success amid a world in turmoil when the infection hit. Most businesses had spent the preceding years competing at various levels of "staying afloat" while this one watched its stocks reach record highs.

While Vallenmarkt took its turn in the lap of luxury, the world as a whole was fighting to survive; and everywhere was a quiet assumption that an apocalypse was overdue. Some people said it would be an economic fallout; others feared the wars around the world would escalate to radioactive levels; I spent a lot of time wondering if this was Jesus' way of readying humanity for His return. How strange that it was the most fanciful, ridiculous theories that had ultimately proven correct.

"There's a propane tank in the bed of that pickup;" Liz pointed to a small Chevy not far from the front of the store, "I'm sure I could hit it from here."

I gave her a look of disapproval; she rolled her eyes.

"You're kidding." she sighed.

Behind us, a large, black man named Jeff commented, "This is like going to a barbecue with a vegan."

It took me a moment to laugh. Jeff's deep voice made everything sound profound; so I often had to remind myself to take some things at face value.

In Liz's thin hands, the .50-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver seemed an anti-aircraft weapon. The manly gun was all that remained of Brett after a bloody death that had played out in a manner typical of his last living year: with much conflict and unnecessary violence.  Seeing as I'd put my days of zombie-slaying behind me, I gave my "trophy" to Liz, who had no problem with violent self-defense.

The girl had hoped to thin out the horde before us with some fireworks; but I was reluctant to resort to that. Instead, I handed her a few items I'd pulled together, gave some quick instructions and slid down a rope to meet the adventure ahead.

Above me, an air horn went off.

It was the sort of horn built for sporting events, not nearly as loud as those used by mariners. The label had indicated that I could expect about 3 minutes of continuous sound. With the help of some duct tape and an archer, this meant three minutes of intense distraction on the far side of the parking lot. Unfortunately, not all seven thousand zombies would fail to notice fresh meat sliding down a rope on the front of the store; hence the baseball bat.

By the time I reached the sidewalk that ran along the front of the store, a sizable herd had gathered around. I paused for a quick prayer before dropping from the rope.

A song by the band "Cake" came on as my bat struck the jaw of a nearby zombie. A random piece of information I'd picked up Back When told me that a certain nerve behind the mandible could be pinched by such a blow, knocking my attacker out cold. Whether it worked or not wasn't clear to me; the zombie went down and I moved on.

I spun, crouched and swung my bat low, tripping three of the attackers in front of me. I walked across their fallen forms, ignoring the zombies to my right and left. Addressing every undead person between the sidewalk and the exit across the lot would mean a daylong battle. It was best to focus on moving forward. Behind me, I heard Liz and Jeff land. The three of us fell into a dead run.

We fought and sprinted our way across the parking lot in about two minutes. At the corner where our parking lot exit met a road, we caught sight of a large horde answering the air horn's call. Jeff knocked the glass out of a window and we entered a structure that had been intended to serve as a strip mall, Back When. It had never been used.  We  were able to find our way to the roof quickly and survey the route to our first destination.

The San Juan Medical Center was a large building by Longview standards. While the risks of entering a hospital during a zompocalypse seemed pretty obvious even Back When (Where do sick people go? A hospital. What are zombies before we realise they're zombies? Sick people.), it occurred to me that we would need transport, first aid, food and a portable container for the needles that held our cure - all things we'd find at a hospital.

In a zompocalypse, one-stop shopping is a survival imperative.

From the top of the might-have-been strip mall, we could see that our "noise-grenade" had caused an unforeseen problem. The streets and byways leading to Vallenmarkt were flooded with zombies almost two blocks back. Getting from our location to the hospital was going to be difficult. Difficult and time-consuming.

"Thoughts?" I asked my two co-adventurers.

"I see only one way through it." Jeff spoke without hesitation, "We'll have to cut across streets and go through yards and houses. The open walkways are no good to us until we get past the horde.".

I thought for a moment about how sometimes, we take the conventional path because we see safety in numbers. Too rarely do we consider the quality of the people in the crowd. Walking down a street full of zombies is about as wise as casting in your lot with ten thousand corrupt men.

At this point I stopped myself and decided Jeff was right. Our best bet was to avoid the clogged roads and move from house to house instead.

We spent most of the day quietly moving from yard to yard, hopping fences and quietly slicing (or clubbing) the zombies we encountered. I found myself cringing every time Liz or Jeff dispatched another assailant; but I tried to keep my discomfort to myself.  To stand a chance at saving humanity, we had to be a little inhuman.

It was late in the evening when we finally arrived at the hospital. Police cars and road blocks still littered the drive-up at the main entrance. We climbed over the mess of cars, blocks and decayed bodies, passed the shattered glass sliding doors and found an empty room.

After we locked and barricaded the entrance, sleep came easily.

The Noise! Oh, the Noise! Like a shriek and a roar at the same time! He was instantly thrust into a frenzy as the Noise - such Noise!- filled the air from somewhere close. 

He joined the faster monsters in a rampage to attack, to kill and silence the Noise. They clambered and climbed, stumbled and sprinted over fences, over cars, over each other. They found a large open area and tall walls. He raced across the lot, to the largest horde he'd ever seen. He fought his way to the center, where the Noise was coming from. He couldn't hear the grunts and screams around him; the Noise was too loud. The Noise was all-consuming, like a fierce blaze burning his ears and his thoughts and making his head swell and thud. 

KilltheNoisekilltheNoisekilltheNoisekillthenoisekillthenoisekillthenoisekillth-

Suddenly, it went quiet. 

As quickly as the Noise and frenzy had started, both ceased. His aching ebbed to its normal levels and his attention was diverted to the almost-alive dance of a leaf crossing the lot. Hunger replaced curiosity; and he was running again.

Day 591.

The thing about  hospitals is that, once the nurses and doctors leave, the place is creepy as all get-out. Add some decomposing corpses and broken windows and you've got a veritable haunted house of the zompocalypse. Blood was caked on the floor in some areas. Red hand prints smeared some hospital rooms. We even found, in the hallway, a bed with a body covered in a sheet and, pressed through the sheet into the body underneath, an impressively large hunting knife. A sad narrative played out in my head; and I wondered how the owner of the knife would react if he learned of our cure.

 

No one spoke as we made our way up and down each hallway on the first floor.

We encountered a room full of medicines, presumably where the ER's pharmaceuticals were kept. Swiping a backpack from a decomposing battle scene near the cafeteria entrance, we stocked up on everything we thought we could use.

It was Jeff who noted that certain first-aide essentials were absent.

I wondered what sort of essential things I was lacking in life - what internal resources I would miss in an emergency. Smacking myself in the side of the head, I stopped the tangent.

In the cafeteria, we ate a quick meal of untoasted toaster pastries washed down with some canned cola.  Once we'd filled our pack to the brim with what food contained some semblance of nutritional content, we prepared to make our way to the ambulance garage.

Jeff commented on how the more nutritional nonperishables were gone. 

I pondered whether I was investing enough time in good things that would last. Jeff gave me a concerned look as I smacked the side of my head again.

We came around a corner where the hallway opened into the ER's waiting room. Jeff put a hand on my shoulder. Instinctively, I surveyed my surroundings. No movement, moan or munch told of a hungry zombie.

After a moment of fruitless observing, I asked, "What?"

"Something's bothering me, boss." Jeff rumbled.

"Jeff, could you do me a favour?" I asked.

"What?

"Stop sounding so deep."

"Deep?"

"Yeah. I'm spending way too much time finding the hidden truths in everything you say. I'd like to have a normal, shallow human conversation with you."

Jeff was silent for a moment,

"Is having someone around to make you think deep thoughts a bad thing?"

It was my turn to be silent.

"Nevermind, then."

I was about to start walking again when the black giant tightened his grip on my shoulder.

"I never told you what bothered me." He sounded like he was smiling.

So much goes unsaid between friends; it's deeply tragic that even people whose souls are indelibly intertwined can find themselves in a state of mutual ignorance.

"What's bothering you, Jeff?" I sighed at myself.

"The closer we get to this area, the cleaner it is."

Purity is not a constant force. In some areas of a heart, you will find diamonds cut by the hand of God Himself. In the same heart, there can be  mountains of filth. Perhaps you'll be in the part of the heart where a man's guilt is piled sky-high; as you wander to the area where he is a great friend, it gets cleaner and cleaner, until the floor shines. There, you find where God has been given leave to do His work. A pure heart is not one that has avoided this or that particular evil, but one in which God has been allowed a free hand. Purity is not a sign that someone has kept himself from every kind of sin, but that Someone has been around to clean up the messes.

Then it clicked.

I turned to Jeff, "You think someone's living  here?"

Jeff sniffed.

"Was." he  stated quietly. Before I could think on how transient life is on this side of eternity, or whether eternity would have need for  words like "was", he added, "I think someone was living here, until recently."

One squirrel is not enough to share. When you're scrambling over a dog, there's enough for you to chew on without getting in another zombie's way. Even a cat can be broken into two in the course of a skirmish. A squirrel is a different story. A squirrel is a morsel with a fluffy tail. It's a fun-sized snack that is no fun at all to share.

And yet.

And yet this other misanthrope wanted a piece of the delicious action. So they fought. With shrieks and punches and kicks they fought. Grabbing and falling and striking and standing back up to grab and fall and strike some more. They felt powerful and loud and vicious, like beasts at war.

From a distance, they looked like two drunk men.

Being human means that certain things hurt. If they don't hurt, if they fail to catch you in the throat and draw tears, you have let something important drop off from your heart.

I was feeling very human when we found the boy's body in an office behind the reception desk. He could not have been more than sixteen years old, yet the gun in his and and the bite on his arm told us a very adult decision had been thrust upon him. A silence settled between the three of us as we looked over the scene. It was tragic, even more so when I considered the pencil box of hypodermic needles in my pack.

Jeff and I began surveying the room while Liz knelt down next to the boy.

In drawers and on desks we found many of the medicines that had been missing from the closet. In a trash pile in an adjacent room, we found wrappers from the healthier food Jeff had commented about earlier. We also found girls clothing and boots belonging to a man much larger than the boy against the wall.


When we told Liz about our findings, her quiet thought turned to tears. She stroked the boy's hair, pulling some of the clean hair down to cover part of the deadly wound.

"Can you imagine losing everyone a second time?" her voice trembled, "I mean, it was bad enough losing my family and friends once. But, I got you guys and everyone at the store. I got a second chance. This boy.."

She trailed off, as though pondering, like me, how the boy's camo jacket seemed oddly oversize, big in the way a father's shirt looks large on a child who's "getting ready to go to the office, daddy!" When she spoke again, all three of us were near tears, "He lost everyone twice. I don't think I could do it."

The silence that fell among us was thick with thought and feeling, as though our hearts and minds were so full that they were pouring their excess out into the open. When Jeff opened his mouth, his typically heavy words were like boulders falling into a lake.

"We should all be this kind of brave. He made it until he got bit; he kept on fighting until he thought his choices ran out. With the cure, we have no excuse for ever giving up. Not on ourselves, not on each other."

In a flash of unmitigated selfishness, I hoped that Jeff would be around to give my eulogy someday.

Jeff reached down suddenly and grabbed at the boy's chest. With a quick yank, he removed a necklace I hadn't even realised the boy was wearing. Turning to Liz, he tied the string around her neck. Just as quickly as he'd started, Jeff stepped back.

A thin black string held up a round, celtic-style knot made of pewter   At center, intertwined with the design, was a triquetra. It was somewhat reminiscent of a tattoo I'd seen somewhere - the sort of thing you see sold at carnivals and flea markets. In any other circumstance, the necklace would have evoked no sentiments or thought of deeper meaning. For the three of us in that room in that moment, nothing was without meaning.

"I want you to wear that," Jeff rumbled, "and remember what brave is."

Outside, a crow squawked.

Noise! Killethenoise! Alive! Killthealivething!

The meal fought and fluttered a called for its feathered friends, but the man held fast. With a quick squeeze and tear, the insides came outside and the alive thing became the edible thing.


This time, no one expected him to share the kill; and that was good. He was hungry.

For a moment, the man thought he heard voices. Human voices. HUmans are much grander meals than any bird or dog. He stopped munching to listen for the direction of the sound. A few seconds of quiet passed; but nothing happened.

So he enjoyed his bird, down to the last scrap.

I believe that God speaks to us in ten thousand different ways. Whenever understanding come more quickly than normal, I believe He has involved Himself in my thoughts. When coincidence becomes blessing, I believe He has orchestrated events. Because He so great at acting subtly, I believe many of His whispers go unnoticed until we reach the end and look back.

I cannot tell you why the handcuffs hanging from the doorknob of the office we exited caught my eye. I know that, as I pocketed them, I had some vague thought that I might use them to restrain a zombie as we cured him; but I had no concrete reason for hanging onto them.

It wouldn't be until I'd traded myself out for a better model that I would see Providence at work.

The three of us entered the ambulance garage cautiously, glad to find the doors were pulled down and the area clean. Across the doors were painted instructions for an escape. We all tossed our bags into the back of the single ambulance and set ourselves to the tasks written there.

1) Fill gas tank from canisters.
Behind the ambulance, we found four sealed cans of gasoline. We carefully filled the gas tank, making sure to get every possible drop from the containers. It was likely to be along trip: and running out of gas halfway across Kelso sounded like a terrible idea. With care and vigilance, we had our fuel.

2) Move battery from trickle charge to engine.
 It was Jeff who found the battery connected to cables that led outside. Next to it he found a handwritten notebook on the care and tending of a car battery connected to a solar panel. In a few minutes, we had power.

3) Map is in the glove box.
With the press of a button, we had our path.

4) Open the door and make sure alley is clear of debris.

The man was certain there was food behind the metal wall - like noisy, living  food stored in an oversize can, something kept moving and talking. 

 Then, suddenly, the fates smiled on him. The can began to open itself. Rolling back like a sardine tin, the metal wall lifted to reveal three humans!

The man shrieked in ravenous delight.

Time froze as a blood-chilling scream erupted mere feet from me. I looked up and stared into the face of my attacker, the face of my best friend.

He leapt forward to meet the feast. Suddenly, he wasn't there.

My body took over, doing what my mind was not yet ready to handle. As Aaroneous rushed at me, my hands took hold of his head and directed  him around me. My foot came up and gave a quick kick to the back of a knee as my mind still tried to grapple with the best man I know stumbling and writhing around like a common infected.

He sprawled on the ground and scrambled to get back up. Turning again to face his victim, the zombie didn't see the dark shadow forming overhead.

"NO!" I screamed as Jeff lifted a fire axe over his head. He froze, momentarily confused, then deeply annoyed.

"Isaac, you said this would be a Romans 14 thing. You said we could kill them if we had to."

Aaroneous rushed me again. This time, I took the cables from the battery charger and wrapped them around his neck. I spun around and pulled him backward to the rear side of the ambulance. I knew we only had a minute or so before whatever zombies had heard the first shriek would come in search of the source.

"My bag!" I yelled for whoever would listen.

Liz tossed it to me. Sitting on the concrete stage, which was level with the rear door on the vehicle, I pulled the box of needles out with one hand and held Aaroneous down with the other. Already, the tips of the hypodermics were poking through the end of the box. Pulling the plastic latch free, I grabbed a needle.

"Jeff!" I motioned for him to hold the zombie down.

Reaching into my bag again, I stopped short.  I looked at Jeff, whose massive hands were wrapped around Aaroneous' shoulders. Seeing the looked on my face, his eyes widened a bit.

"My gloves." I said, "Jeff, do you know where my gloves are?"

"Why would I know?" my friend was (understandably) exasperated, " You're the freaking vegan!"

Leaning into the ambulance, I emptied my bag on the floor of the vehicle. No pierce-proof gloves.  Sudden gun blasts told me that Liz was fighting off the first of what would likely be a horde. Leaning back onto my butt, I became aware of the handcuffs again. It was instantly clear to me what would need to happen. Jeff seemed to pick up on my thoughts.

"Boss, don't - "

"Jeff, I have to. You'll see soon enough why. Just do me a favour."

Jeff sighed a deep, manly sigh, "What's that, Boss?"

"If I don't make it back, say something nice at my funeral."

I looked Aaroneous' zombie form in the eyes and said, "Listen to me: When you wake up, help these guys with the cure. They needed me; but now they need you. Find Hannah. If you can, come back for me, too."

I quickly handcuffed my left hand to a handle  that stuck out from a cement post near us. Biting down on the needle of the hypodermic, I yanked as hard as I could. The metal grated against my teeth and poked my gums. I groaned as the tip came off at the last second.  Jamming my hand into the zombie's mouth, I pressed the plunger. Aaroneous screamed and fought and bit down as hard as he could.

The pain was blinding as I pulled my hand free and grabbed my empty backpack. I had just finished pulling it down over his head when I forgot who I was.

***

 "Why him, Liz? Why would Isaac leave us like that for him?"

"You don't know who that is?"

"I heard him say, 'Aaroneous'. Who has a name like 'Aaroneous'?"

"I heard Isaac telling Manuel about him once. This guy's a legend."

"Man, that's just how Isaac talks. Everything's a legend."

"No, this was for real. For starters, imagine if Isaac was good at math and science."

"If Isaac was good at math and science, he'd know how to fly, too."

"Exactly."

"What, this guy's like Isaac with superpowers?"

"If knowing just about everything Isaac didn't is a superpower, yes."

"I don't trust him. He's funny-shaped. I want Isaac back."

"If this guy's all Isaac said he was, it'll happen."

Day 616.

Aaron had noticed that Jeff and Liz were wary of him at first, while the doctor was enthusiastic about talking with him. Aaron also noticed that, whenever Isaac came up in conversation, Liz would reach for her necklace - a pewter celtic peace knot. Jeff would become quiet.

In the weeks following the encounter between best friends in Longview, life was an exercise in adaptation - adapting to having lost almost everyone he'd known before, adapting to an entirely different world, adapting to memories of the most disturbing sort. 

The doctor was a good confidant, gentle in his approach but deeply interested in hearing about the retroactive nature of Aaron's memories. He was also brilliant. 

At first, he began explaining the basics of what was going on. The doctor was so engaging that, as quickly as he could be shown the way to the library, Aaron was soaking up all kinds of information about chemistry and the cure. Before long, the two of them were bouncing ideas off of each other at breakfast and writing down plans by lunch. As Liz and Jeff saw the progress being made with the cure, they began to show Aaron more friendliness.

They lived in a house and yard that had been specifically fortified for a zompocalypse. There, they could safely do just about anything that needed doing.

One day, as they talked of how hopeful things were beginning to look, the doctor spoke.

"We are in for a mess." he said, "There is no simple way to mouth-feed an entire world of cannibals a cure. There is no simple way to rebuild entire civilisations from the rubble we've inherited. There is no simple way to keep this disease from coming back. No, there is no simple way to do any of it; but, if we're up for some hardship, there is a way."

The End

-isaac