The Scattered and the Dead (Book 1.5) Read online

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “No, it’s OK, Doyle. It’s not like that. It’s-”

  He opened the door, and wisps of snow fluttered in to interrupt my scattered thought. The white blanketed everything, the light puffy stuff that piles up real high real fast. More of it spilled down out there so thick that you couldn’t see more than two doors down.

  Looking out that doorway with that slight buzz, it felt like the two of us were living in a snow globe that someone just gave a good shake.

  “You can’t walk home in this mess.”

  “Are you inviting me to stay?”

  “I am.”

  Lorraine

  The Compound

  109 days after

  Ray,

  Progress continues with the repairs to the cabins. Louis reports that we have the flashing around three more leaky chimneys re-caulked. Vacancies that are all ready to be filled by the people you find out there today.

  I know you still have qualms about asserting a leadership role like this. You haven’t expressed it in so many words, but I know that you are concerned it will change you like it did before. That kind of power. The way it corrupts people. I get that.

  But the truth is that you were born for this role. You were born to lead men, to rally people together. When you were young, you used your talents the wrong way, but you’ve seen enough. The doubts you express only scream all the louder that you are the man to lead this community.

  -Lorraine

  Ray

  Outside of Alexandria, Virginia

  109 days after

  Lorraine,

  Alexandria is a waking nightmare. The worst I’ve seen. The dead walk the streets, just like all those rumors about Florida said they did. I know we’ve seen a handful here and there along the way – like the lanky one stuck in the dumpster in Arkansas -- but this is different.

  The city teems with them. They’re everywhere. Stick men and women that stumble around like drunks, shoulder to shoulder, arms as limp as spaghetti noodles at their sides. The skin around all of their mouths seems to peel back to expose the teeth, lips now blackened wads of flesh bunched up along their chins and noses. It looks like rumpled fabric crossed with those black flaps around a dog’s mouth.

  They mill around in droves on the sidewalk in certain spots, like people waiting in line to get into some venue. What movie or concert would the dead want to attend?

  They only seem vaguely interested in my passing car. Heads wheel around in slow motion. Shoulders square toward me in unison. The body language conveys more of a mild curiosity than anything urgent. Perhaps they know they can’t get to me, can’t outrun a car. Or maybe their understanding is more primitive, just some sense that this sound and movement is not food. It’s difficult to say.

  I drove around for quite a while just watching them. And, though it makes little sense to me, I couldn’t help but find individual quirks of behavior within the group. Little things that seemed to lend some sense of character or personality.

  Some keep their spines rigid as they move while others writhe around, their torsos gone strangely slack so they seem to squirm like a snake with every step.

  I watched one drag his face along the front window of a hardware store as he moved down a sidewalk, a smear trailing behind him the color of Baja Blast Mountain Dew. Did he like the way the glass felt, or was it just random behavior?

  I’m not sure which answer I’d even prefer. Which notion is more disturbing – the idea of some animal order at play, some differentiation, some individuality between the members of this group of things, or the idea that all of their behavior truly is mindless, chaotic, utterly without meaning?

  Shit. Which is worse?

  When I think about these things, and when I look upon these walking corpses, I wonder what salvation we’re promising people. Yes, we will have food and shelter, for now. Yes, we will have a community that we can hopefully keep safe for a time. But where’s the path to a better world in hunkering down in cabins? Aren’t we just marketing again? Selling them hopes and dreams that will never come true? I kind of thought I was done doing that. I hoped so, anyway.

  -Ray

  Fiona

  Beckley, WV

  131 days after

  I don’t remember the exact sequence of events, don’t recall the moment the feeling came over me or even what I might have been thinking. It’s all a bit blurry, even if it was earlier tonight.

  Doyle sat in the rocking chair, dumping more booze into his mouth. His face had settled into a resting scowl, I think from the harshness of the whiskey which had crept closer to room temperature.

  I remember seeing him like an animal, if that makes sense. I saw him as a masculine creature for once instead of a sad dog, and I remember wanting him to do what I wanted him to, wanting to feel that power over him.

  But I didn’t want to see him during, didn’t want to see the wet eyes or the juicy lips or the receding hairline. I knew that, so I blew out the lantern and candles before I made my move. The snow outside reflected enough light that I could still kind of see, at least here in the living room, though mostly just the shapes of things.

  With the lights low, I threw a couple of logs onto the fire, the orange glow lighting up a wedge of the room as the door hung open. I could hear Doyle smacking his lips behind me, but I didn’t look. I didn’t want to see. The door squeaked shut, and the dark returned.

  I sat down on the edge of the mattress and faced the shadow sitting in the rocking chair. He wasn’t Doyle anymore, just a masculine silhouette. Any man. Every man.

  I reached out for the dark figure, my fingers clasping his, and I pulled him to me. He sat on the edge of the bed beside me, and I directed his hands to my breasts, and I felt how excited he was, and I liked it. I liked that I could do this to him, that he had no real choice in the matter, that I must be obeyed.

  The hiss of the burning wood picked up in the stove, and the heat intensified. I leaned away from him to peel my shirt off, and then his shirt was off, too, and we were two animals lying together, skin on skin, beads of sweat intermingling.

  I felt his open mouth pressed into my shoulder, lips and the edges of teeth sliding over to my neck, and I didn’t feel it as Doyle, and I didn’t feel it as Warner. I felt it as every man. All of them at once, somehow.

  The same for the sex itself. I didn’t feel it as something we did together. I felt it as a power I had over him, dominion over a man, over every man, maybe. I pressed my hands into his face at the climax, muffling him, covering him up, blocking out his eyes and nose and mouth like he wasn’t real, like I could just snuff him out and make him small if I wanted. Heat radiated from his blocked out face into my hands, slicked them with sweat. And this primal heat proved that I wasn’t some helpless thing who watched her husband and children die one by one, that I still had power, that I still existed.

  Fiona

  Beckley, WV

  132 days after

  Warner died on the toilet, shitting his guts out. He refused to go to the hospital. Said it was already too late, and he’d rather die at home. While I could identify with him and respect that choice on a certain level, it didn’t make for a pleasant time for the family, during or after his dying days. I mean, I think we all thought of his bloody spray and pained noises every time we took a shower or brushed our teeth after that.

  Of course, that wasn’t long for the children. Within the next three weeks they were all gone. It’s too awful to write about, though, too awful to even think about.

  It’s been months now, I guess, and I still feel like I just got the wind knocked out of me, that little panicked twitch in my chest like if I don’t regain the ability to breathe soon, I’m not going to make it either.

  Everyone says life goes on, but to me it feels more like death goes on. It goes on and on, and it never goes away. Never gets any better.

  Sometimes I think it’s not so bad, the cold. If it kills some of the stink in the city, I’ll be
happy.

  I took a walk today, taking the trail that winds out around the lake. Most of the snow melted this morning, though it had gotten cold enough again later on in the afternoon that my breath steamed from my nostrils all along the way. Usually by the time I get to the South side of the water, I can smell the sewage smell blowing in from the city where the pipes are all backed up. It’s crazy if you go any closer than that. The paint literally peeled off of all the cinder block buildings from whatever combination of chemicals and excrement stenches fill the air. I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before it strips the wooden homes bare, too.

  Anyway, today I smelled nothing like that, just the smell of the lake. The scent of the water always seems cleaner to me in the winter, too. Fresher.

  The muscles in my legs tightened up about halfway in, got a little sore on me, but it felt good to get them some work. And there’s something about that sound of the water lapping against the banks that never gets old. It’s peaceful.

  Lorraine

  The Compound

  111 days after

  Ray,

  Here’s a question that will sound dumb: Do you think the dead will die off? I mean, can they stumble around rotting forever? Won’t things start to fall off? Limbs, such as legs, that are mandatory for said stumbling to transpire?

  If so, hunkering down for a while, even if it’s a long while, really is the smartest move. Banding together in one place we can defend, stockpiling food and weapons in a location with a water supply. Sounds pretty good to me.

  I think being out there on the road so much, you have a different perspective. Here, we work together all day. We pound nails side by side, work paint brushes up and down to seal the exposed wood of the steps and porches on the cabins. We cook and clean and log the scavenged supplies. We sit down together a couple times a day for meals.

  We sweat together. We eat together. Something about those things bonds people like nothing else. As the days pass, we’re more and more like a family. And even if you’re not here for most of it, we talk about you. Everyone talks about you. The men and the women and the children. They all admire you. Admire that you brave a harsh world so more can share in our community.

  That’s the role you find yourself in. The one you were born to play. This is our family now, and every family needs a father. I think you’ll make a great one.

  -Lorraine

  Ray

  Rural Virginia

  111 days after

  Lorraine,

  I am going to write this here, scrawl it on this page in black ink, and then we’re never going to speak of it again. You will not ask me about it. Ever. And if you do, I will not answer. Not now. Not in a month. Not in ten years. I can’t.

  It was a little subdivision out away from town. Tract homes. Identical boxes in perfect rows like a mouth full of porcelain veneers.

  I don’t know what made me veer that way and drive around the loop. I pass bunches of these types of upper middle class mini-neighborhoods without checking. I’d never expect to find someone in one. They don’t make much sense in terms of places to stay long term, you know? Those wide open lawns make for poor cover, and there are no good water sources around most of them, I’d guess.

  I slowed down, creeping past the homes. I swiveled my head back and forth to peer into the gaps between the houses, as though someone, or something, might appear there, some figure tucked back in the shadows. Perhaps alive. Perhaps dead. I don’t know what I expected, really. Nothing appeared there, of course. Nothing but overgrown grass that swayed in the breeze; bushes gone from tightly cropped to shaggy like unkempt beards.

  And then I heard something. Or I thought I did. A high pitched whoop of some kind. I stopped the car. Put the window down. Listened.

  Whatever it was, it had been muffled, hard to place. Hell, it was hard to even discern any specific characteristics. I wasn’t even certain I’d heard anything.

  I listened for a time, but it didn’t repeat itself for my sake or anything. That would have been too easy, I guess.

  I crept on, leaving the window down. Just in case.

  I didn’t think anything good would come of this. Still, even if there was the remotest chance that someone here needed my help, I had to pursue it somehow. That’s what we’ve signed on for, the way I see it. I don’t know.

  A yellow house took shape ahead, set apart from the rest at the end of the loop. The vinyl siding had faded almost to white on one side where the sun had bleached it. A curved line beneath the eaves formed the border between yellow and white like a tan line on a boob.

  My eyes locked onto the place as I approached, tracing down vinyl siding to the blue door, partially open, and then dancing a moment upon each window, only one of which was broken. Still, over and over again my eyes made their way back to that border where the white gave way to yellow.

  The longer I looked at the place, the more it looked like one of those diagrams in the anti-crystal meth pamphlets at drug rehab facilities. The cartoon of the rotten teeth with the rim of yellow and brown along the gum line. That was what happened before they crumbled away for good. My son described something like that to me once, a little less than a year before he passed. Biting down on an Everlasting Gobstopper and feeling two molars splinter, shards of bone flaking onto his tongue just bigger than powder.

  And then I heard it again. The sound. Close. It made the hairs on my neck prick up right away. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from inside the yellow house, but it seemed likely.

  The only words I can think to describe it are “scream” and “screech,” but neither of them are quite right. They don’t do the noise justice. It sounded shrill and harsh like a woman screaming hard enough to shred her vocal cords, but it had an insectile quality to it as well. Almost like when cicadas get to chirping real loud.

  I couldn’t tell if it was pained or aggressive. Either one seemed totally possible, and for some reason, I had to know which it was.

  I eased into the driveway and killed the engine, my gun out and clenched in my hand, the muzzle resting against my knee. I waited there in the silence for a long moment. Listening. Hearing nothing.

  Clouds passed in front of the sun just then, and shade fell over everything. The shadows stretched down from beneath the eavestrough, darkness creeping down past that borderline onto the white.

  Finally, I stepped out of the car, closing the door with care so it gave back just a little click. Nothing loud enough for anyone, or anything, to notice. I hoped.

  I stood a while, a long while, feet planted on the concrete of the driveway, shoulders squared to the house. I watched the crack where the door stood open, half expecting some hint of movement, some little jerk or sway to betray the person standing behind it. But no. No movement. No person. I knew that. Sort of.

  Beads of sweat sluiced down the back of my neck, sogging into my collar. I wiped what I could away with my hand, knowing more droplets would form to replace their fallen brethren. I dried my palm on the thigh of my pants and looked at the dark smear there a moment before my gaze returned to the yellow house.

  I moved toward it, finally, not realizing until I was in motion how sick I felt. My guts knotted themselves up, the tangle of pink ropes in my middle cinching into a cramped ball of muscle. I get that when I’m nervous, that kind of overwhelming nausea that seems to creep into more and more intense territory and makes it impossible to sit still.

  I stayed light on my feet, but the soles of my shoes still scuffed against the sidewalk, a tiny patter that made my neck and shoulders tense.

  I pushed the door and watched it glide away from me in slow motion. It squealed as it swung, a high pitched tone that got deeper as it tapered away to silence.

  A landing took shape in the gloom just beyond the open doorway, with a staircase leading up to the right and another leading down to the left. The house was a split level.

  I waited a beat, forced myself to breathe normally, to fight whatever impulse implored me to ta
ke shallow breaths. A tingle rippled over my scalp. Even with these physical signs of panic coming upon me, though, my thoughts remained clear.

  I stepped up and through the doorway, my shoulders twitching once as the shade surrounded me. The air was cool and dry, harsh in my throat and against my lips. The feel of it made me acutely aware that I was in a different space, like I’d somehow traveled more than the few steps from the front stoop to this landing; I’d left one world behind and entered another when I pushed open that blue door and crossed that threshold.

  After a moment’s hesitation, I started up the steps. I don’t know why I decided to go upstairs first. I think I was sick of stalling more than anything. Time to rip off the damn band-aid and be done with it.

  The carpet seemed plush, perhaps freshly installed just before it all went to hell. For the time being I didn’t like the way it scrunched under my feet. It made me feel vulnerable, like I didn’t have the grip, the level of control, I normally would.

  The quiet swelled to a nothing scream around me. So silent it made my heart beat faster, made my eyes jerk and twitch to look over everything. Nothing stirred in the dining room and kitchen ahead of me as I neared the top of the stairs, though the wall wrapped around a corner into a hallway to my left that I couldn’t see down from my vantage point.

  The floorboard groaned as I reached the top step, and after a beat, a deep thump resonated from somewhere down that hallway. The second sound seemed a response to the first, I thought, a reaction to the creaking floor.

  My mouth dropped open without my say so, and the dry air clawed at my throat. I swallowed, my epiglottis clicking, the saliva creeping down my esophagus like moisture soaking into a dried out sponge. It seemed dead, this air.