Roderick (2)

I guess I should say that before I was at the state park I had been at my home, having been well hidden for the four days in which the outbreak had already been occurring. I’d received a nasty wound on the very first day before I’d even known that I should have been hiding.

After the four days passed I left, wandering in search of hope. My first thoughts turned towards the wilderness, perhaps there’d be fewer spooks out that way. I met some people along the way from whom I learned that there weren’t just zombies, and that everyone was pretty sure that the zombies were being created by vampires, and I learned what exactly a cannibal is in those terms. I guess maybe you don’t know; a cannibal became the term to describe someone who was bitten by a spook, but hadn’t been fully turned. Just enough so they retained their humanity but still craved flesh. I’m not sure if a cannibal actually needs it. I think it’s more like Wendigo syndrome. I read about that on the internet, I think. It was a proneness to eating flesh, or resorting to cannibalism in survival situations much earlier than other rational people.

Ok, so from the park, I came across the truck, and I quickly decided I would give civilization one last shot, even if it might take a shot at me. That asshole kicked me out of his truck, I ran into the ranger station to avoid the spooks, and here I am.

So I listened to the sounds of someone running, and the spooks slow shuffling away toward it. The sound of running trailed off, and with it the spooks’ shuffling grew quieter and quieter. Knowing that they would likely be outpaced by this savior, and knowing that spooks returned to where they last found food, I decided to make a break for it.

I knew that the road that the truck had been parked on would lead to a highway, and given every zombie scenario I’d ever encountered there were plenty of cars parked on the sides of highways. I figured I’d give it a shot.

While the zombies shambled away I tried to run as quietly as possible, which I discovered can be a very difficult thing to do. One of them caught on, and not wanting to make a scene, I smashed it in the head with my crowbar, peeling back the skull in a very professional manner.

This violent event, which occurred upon the very spot the truck had driven through just moments prior, took me a great deal longer than I intended. I was very distracted by this fresh kill. I left it eventually, but not before seeing the first of the spooks returning to the ranger’s station. I cursed my luck, considered using my pistol to gun a few of them down, and decided upon sprinting in a not so quiet manner.

I had been a runner before this, one of those people you saw running along the sidewalks in the early morning with gym shorts and a headband, and so I knew I could outpace the spooks as well as my savior had. It would be taking a risk, of course. I wished that I hadn’t taken so much time with the spook I killed, so that I could have simply returned to the safety of the ranger’s station.

But now I found myself jogging as I’d always done before, knowing that the spooks would potentially tire of me, perhaps returning to the ranger’s station, believing that there was someone else inside. I was a wishful thinker at that moment.

I jogged a ways along this path; I would like to say for twenty minutes, until I reached the highway. But, as my luck would have it, there were no abandoned cars. I stopped to catch my breath for a moment, knowing that I might see spooks before long.

It was still the dead of night, except now the moon was peeking from the clouds. This enabled a brilliant line of sight into the park, and I knew it would be an unusually handy early-warning system.

From my knowledge of the highway I rested upon, it’d be a few miles more before I reached any semi-habitable place. So I knew I could probably make it to safety before daylight. I took a couple of extra minutes to stretch and waited to see if any spooks shambled out upon the trunks and bushes.

Instead, I heard the running once more. It was up the highway a ways, and at first I could not see her. But she came closer and I could see that it was another survivor. At first I wondered if she would attack me; if she was a cannibal, she would likely pretend to be my friend and then attack me when I let my guard down, but if she were a vampire she wouldn’t have to.

But then again, I knew an easy way to test whether one she was. The pistol I’d retrieved from the ranger’s station was still tucked into the belt that held up my jeans at the waist. One bullet would reveal everything I’d need to know.

While my hand strayed there, it eventually settled on the crowbar. “Hello!” I called, as it was obvious she had already seen me.

She slowed to a walk, and put a finger up to her mouth in a “shush” kind of way. I waited for her to get closer, and she finally said, “What do you think you’re doing? Are you suicidal?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “The trying to steal the truck or the hiding in the ranger’s station?”

“What?” She asked. “No, yelling at me like that.”

“Ah,” I said. “Ok.”

“What about trying to steal a truck?” She said.

“Well, I didn’t try to steal it. It was empty and covered in blood when I first saw it, so I thought it was up for grabs. Then the owner decided he wasn’t dead and took it back,” I said.

“Do you have a safe place to stay for the day?” She asked.

“Not really,” I said. “I’d hoped to get a truck and head for the safe zone.”

“You really are suicidal aren’t you? You know they’re shooting people right? Anyone who tries to break quarantine.”

“I did not know,” I said. “Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Uh,” she said. “Survive?”

“That’s shitty,” I said. I wanted to scream, I think, except I didn’t, and instead just clenched my teeth and balled my fists. It hadn’t ever really impressed upon me until then that all hope was lost, there was no chance of salvation.

“At least until the military carpet bombs everything. I think that’s their plan.”

I wanted to grab my gun and shoot her then; she was so relaxed about this, so relaxed about being the bearer of bad news. I even wondered if she enjoyed it.

“Come on, we’ll screw and drink,” she said finally.

All of my negative emotions resolved, I grinned.

“Maybe in reverse order,” she added. She kissed me on the lips in a very apocalyptic kind of way, and it lasted for ten or so seconds; long enough to get me excited for liberation in a carnal sense. Afterwards, she said, “Come on.” And began to walk down the highway. I followed after staring for a second, delighted in my luck. I pondered upon the strange feeling I had, something about the way she kissed was foreign. Perhaps she was not American. I wondered if they kissed significantly different in different countries.

It’s hard to say how much time passed while we moved along the highway. We walked in silence, only once passing an abandoned car with smashed windows and a ripped out radio. I found a few dollars in a purse in the backseat, and she claimed ownership to a bottle of liquor in the trunk. I wondered about her age, and how much she’d consumed in the past. My first tastes of alcohol had been at age seven though, at my stepfather’s house. Maybe she was like me, and was naturally attuned to such substances.

After passing the abandoned car, we walked along the highway for some more hours, and as the sun began to brighten the horizon in a really warm orange kind of way, she suddenly turned and bounded over a guardrail to step into the forest. I followed after a moment’s hesitation. I wondered where we were then, as I’d known of no town near that part of the highway.

We walked through thick brush and branch before reaching a manor set into a hill overlooking a creek. We approached by way of the creek, I should add, climbing up a ladder to the porch on the back of the structure, where she unlocked a sliding door that led into a grand foyer.

When she shut the cardboard-covered glass door behind us, she said, “Home sweet home.”

“Were you rich?” I blurted.

“A little. It was my mother mostly.” She said.

“Ah,” I said. “How old are you?”

“That’s an odd question to ask,” she said. “And you wouldn’t believe the answer if I told you.”

“Ok,” I said, “Twenty three?” I ventured.

“You flatter me with such conservative estimates,” she said, smiling. She flipped a light switch and I got my first good look at her face; distinctly Arabic, in the exotic kind of way. Her eyes were what caught me the most; the deepest verdant shade of green I’d seen with flecks of gold around the iris. It made me think of a comment my step-father had said once, about how Arabic women always had the prettiest eyes because in the countries they came from that would be the only part of their face not obscured by a burka, and therefore the men would prefer the girls with the “prettiest” eyes.

And I left it at that. She led me to the kitchen, and I took a seat at the end of the dining table closest to the front door. She set the liquor on the table and walked off; we’d soundlessly agreed upon a meal, I thought.

While I waited, I ended up standing up and taking a walk around the kitchen. I decided to look for a glass. The first cabinet I opened contained bowls, and the second was an arrangement of glasses, short and tall. I selected a shorter one and walked back to the liquor my patron had grabbed. I poured myself a shot and downed it, savoring the fiery burst of flavor coursing over my tongue. A minute passed, and I took another.