Among the Roaring Dead (17 page)

“She’s not answering,” Michael said. “Are you sure she’s nearby Orson?”

“The signal I’m getting is far from accurate but it’s good within 100 feet. If she’s not close by, her PAL is.”

“We should go if she’s that close.”

“Your father told you to wait.”

“And what if we miss a chance?”

“He won’t be long.”

Though the laundry room was without any indication of power being present, there were several windows present and surprisingly let some light in because although it was black as night outside, it seemingly wasn’t pure darkness out there.

The light from Orson’s screen cast them in a warm bath of blue light, making them more visible than anything else spying them. Michael pulled out a hologram of a map of the area nearby. It was a square of blue light floating in front of them. Dustin reached out to try and distort it with his hands.

“Are there any good games on that?”

“Are you crazy? There’s 20 per cent battery left and you want to waste it on games? What if mom calls back and the phone is dead? A lot of good it will do us then brainiac!”

Michael turned the screen of the smartcard off and they sat in darkness for some time. For a brief moment it looked like there was a mouse on the floor – just a small black shape scampering over to the corner where the ground meets the wall. Michael couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like it carried something in its mouth, the colour and shape of a hand.

Michael had a flashlight from the car in his pocket - too afraid to use it until now so he pointed it in the direction of the shadow and depressed the button, creating a beam of light that showed an empty floor. Either the mouse had never had been there, or it had found a tiny escape route unseen to his scrutinizing eyes.

One of the oddities about sitting in the dark for too long is that your eyes attempt to get used to the darkness and for the most part, they do a good job of it. Your eyes will dart around a room trying to find a familiar shape, or some movement. In all that frantic searching, the shadows at the edge of your vision have plenty of time to play tricks on you.

The brothers played games to occupy themselves. It was some kind of variation on football where they rolled a ball over to the other, trying to avoid the goalkeeper’s blind hands. The room was about 12 feet wide and 20 feet long. They were two levels down from the street, in the dark. They had one flashlight that barely provided enough light see to the end of the room. There was no other source of illumination and the building was oddly quiet. When they first waited in the car, people came and went for the first day or two, determined to get in their own car and drive away, despite the dangers that waited outside. Some came from outside the building, covered in dirt and grime or blood and sweat. The people went up to their apartment and then left minutes later.

Michael asked one older woman what was happening outside.

“It’s awful, horrible! But I have to know if my children are okay,” she said, pushing her way out into the underground garage. She carried two suitcases, one of which seemed to be leaking a small trail of liquid behind her. She wore full winter gear, a big blue puffy jacket and a scarf wrapped several times around her neck. Her head was topped with a brown toque with a white fuzzy ball on top that bounced around with each step she took forward.

Although it seemed safer to wait, none of them would.

Michael flung a penny past Dustin, which went under a washing machine.

“Fuck, that was our last one!”

“So what, it was a stupid game anyway.”

There was a loud burst of noise and the floor beneath them seemed to shake slightly.

“What was that?” Dustin said.

“I don’t know. Shut up; I’m listening.”

There was a thud against the door.

“Dad?” Dustin said.

Michael’s eyes opened wide and he motioned for Dustin to stop talking with a finger in front of his mouth.

“Who’s there?” said someone from the other side of the door. “Can you help me? I’m hurt!”

The brothers both looked at each other.

Michael stood up and put his mouth close to the door.

“Go away, we can’t let you in.”

“You have to help me.”

“What are you doing here? Go to the hospital.”

“Hospital? Who’s in there? Is that Toni’s boy? Let me in, I know where your mother is!”

Again, the boys shared a look and Michael unlocked the door and pulled it open.

The woman clutched her side and groaned in pain, falling against the door. When Michael trained the flashlight upon the woman, he saw that her shirt was saturated in blood.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Come in. Hurry.”

“It hurts so much,” the woman said, arching her neck back and tensing against the pain.

Michael sat her down against the wall and slowly lifted the woman’s shirt up a few inches to see her back. It stuck against the moist flesh and had to be pulled free with some force.

“Dustin,” he said, “come here. Hold the flashlight.”

It looked like a small circular swath of skin had been ripped free. A small flap of flesh was hanging to the side.

“How did this happen?”

The woman slumped back against the wall and took a deep breath before speaking.

“The guy... dog.”

“What do you mean? A dog did this?”

She shook her head, no.

“The guy with the dog. It shit outside my door. I yelled and kicked it and then he came out and attacked me like a freaking animal!” She was fighting hard to catch her breath. “He just jumped on me and tried to bite me like a beast!”

The gash of missing flesh was oozing. Michael took off his sweater and tried to stop the flow unsuccessfully.

“Can you stand? I need to get you to some water. It’s not far.”

The woman nodded but needed both Michael and Dustin to help her get to her feet.

They pushed open the door to the bathroom and sat her down on the closed toilet seat.

“Where is our mother?”

“Outside.”

“Outside where?”

“I saw her walking around. On the street.”

“We need to find her!”

“You probably don’t want to do that,” the woman said.

“Why?”

“Everyone’s acting crazy, kid. I saw your mother from my apartment. She just seems to stand there looking at the building entrance, waiting for something.”

Michael walked over to the large metal sink and tested the taps. They still worked, and the water seemed clear and was without odour.

“I’m going to try and clean your wound a bit,” Michael said, “and then we’ll see if we can patch you up somehow.”

The woman nodded, clutching Jess’s sweater behind her.

The beam of the flashlight flitted around the room as Michael started to work. The room was square-shaped with white tiles lining the walls. Michael asked Dustin to find a clean piece of cloth from a dryer and his brother opened the doors of three dryers before he found something inside that would suffice. It was a small blue towel with a white and yellow flower stitched into the middle. He held it up in the air and smelled it – it seemed clean.

He went back to the woman and knelt before her.

“How do you feel?”

“Tired, “she said. “Like I’m drifting. Like my heart is slowing down and everything is becoming calmer.”

“That’s good,” Michael said. “You need to calm down. Now why wouldn’t I want to find my mother? Because she’s acting weird? Because she’s sick?”

“She is sick.”

“So are you.”

“True, but she’s not herself.”

“Well, maybe once you feel better you can help us find her.”

“Why would I help you?”

“What do you mean?”

The woman looked up at Michael, her face suddenly changing to that of one who was suddenly irritated by something.

“I was banging on that door for ages before you decided to let me in! You were prepared to let me die out there! With nothing but those monsters and this noise in my head. It’s like a voice. It might be chanting, or a beat, or screaming from very far away. Maybe it’s just a buzz in my ears from the explosion, but I swear it’s getting louder! That fucking animal probably infected me with rabies!”

Michael applied the towel to the woman’s wound and wrapped her up with someone’s newly cleaned bed sheet.

“You’re going to be okay,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He slipped through the door into the laundry room and found Dustin sitting in the same spot in the dark.

He knew that the flashlight would eventually die and did his best to use it only as needed. The batteries were already fading but it was important to save them for when they really needed it. So they sat in the dark.

He checked on the woman every once in a while and encouraged her to sleep. She seemed either tired or in a state of shock and had to be roused several times to get an answer out of her. Her breathing was slow but strong.

The boys were tired but dared not sleep, even with the disarming sounds of sleep echoing from the bathroom. Michael realized he had to accept that there was no way to know what was going on outside. The woman was delusional or hysterical.

An hour later and Michael started to feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety. Why wasn’t his father back? Was his mother really just outside, wandering the streets? He kneeled before the woman, who still sat on the toilet that they had left her on.

The towel was fully soaked in blood now. It hadn’t stopped the wound like Michael thought it would.

“How do you feel?” Michael said.

“Angry.”

The woman just looked down at the floor, and a finger on her right hand twitched for a moment.

“What did you say?”

“I could kill the bastard,” she said. “If I could just get out of this chair.”

Michael didn’t think there was anything else that he could do for the woman but wait and hope that help would arrive soon.

“What’s your name?”

“Bitch.”

“What?”

“B-b-b-bitch.”

“Okay, why don’t you stay here for a bit. It probably won’t be comfortable, but I’m just going to close the bathroom door so you can get some rest.”

Dustin started to whimper as though he was going to cry. He didn’t want to be stuck in this dark room with the crazy woman any longer.

There was a sudden banging against the bathroom door. Michael figured the woman probably woke up from her sleep. He walked over to the door and tried to open it but found that the woman was pushing against it from the other side.

“What’s going on, are you okay?”

The banging stopped. There was shuffling behind the door. Jess tried pushing until he forced it open. The woman was standing about five feet away from the door opening, her toque missing and her head hanging down so that her grey hair covered her face.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t feel, right.”

“What do you mean; can you explain? Is it your injury?”

“I think my heart is about to stop, like I’m having a slow heart attack or something, and I’m scared, and angry. So angry.”

Michael put a hand around the woman’s waist and tried guiding her over to the chair. She grabbed his wrist tightly as she sat down.

“You’re still strong, aren’t you? Full of life and muscle, and flowing blood.”

Michael laughed nervously. “I guess so,” she said.

She sat in the chair motionless, save for the long, deep breaths that entered and exited her open mouth.

A moment later, the heavy breathing seemed to stop. Michael leaned in close but couldn’t hear anything. He checked her wound quickly by lifting up her shirt a little and saw that it had turned black, like rotted, dead flesh.

He wondered what he was supposed to do and she opened her eyes and exhaled. Not a normal breath like someone would take after emerging from a long swim, but an exhalation of breath and sound, like someone who in relief was letting go of the last grips on something.
Like Jesus dropping the cross.

Michael was certain it was the first stages of the body slackening; letting go. But then her hand came up for his wrist again and Michael let her take it, surprised by the movement.

Her grip was strong, like that of someone scared and trying to hang on for dear life.

She struggled to get to her feet, and her lips recoiled to show her teeth. She practically fell upon Michael, lashing out at him like a drugged animal.

Michael pushed her off and backed up in the doorway.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

But there was no answer, just the awkward attempt of the woman trying to get to her feet. The same horribly slow expulsion of sound coming from her throat as she tried to steady herself on her feet. And there was something wrong with her eyes, like they had glossed over – almost exactly like a cadaver’s did in the movies, Michael thought.