Containment (45 page)

Emma observed all of this as she circled the room, holding an approach pattern as she prepared to make her landing on the couch next to the doctor. She didn’t want to presume to know his feelings or his needs one way or the other. She could just float from point of interest to point of interest in the room, sharing the space without actually invading his. He could be alone, if he chose, without being isolated in his grief.

Finally, he said, “Do you wanna sit down?”

From in front of the window, Emma turned and admitted, “I don’t know what I should be doing here. I didn’t want you to be alone but then I didn’t know what I should do and so I just...” She had to stop because her sobbing was making her speech unintelligible to even her. She took in a deep breath and finally said, “I should probably just go. I’m really screwing this up.”

She started to leave the room, but Dr. Caldwell calmly patted the seat on the couch next to him. “Why don’t you have a seat, Emma. You’re probably exhausted.”

Once she’d seated herself, Emma apparently lost all control of her emotions and erupted into a series of laughing sobs and gibberish. Dr. Caldwell guided her cheek to his shoulder and then placed his hand on her hair.

He looked around the room and really saw all that was there for the first time in an age. There was the artwork that Valerie and he had picked together. The beautiful forest hues of the oil paintings matched perfectly to the view out the window. He remembered the day they got each of the paintings, and spending the better part of an afternoon, while the kids napped, choosing just the right locations for each on the wall and then hanging and re-hanging each as Valerie considered variations and combinations. She wanted to open the room and make it seem like you were surrounded with windows; a goal she had admirably accomplished.

To add to the green, there were several large plants in the room. He noticed that the ficus trees to either side of the window, the larger than life lily plant on the top of the stereo, and the several hanging plants in the corners of the room and on the higher portions of the stone wall framing the fireplace all were dead and wilted as he observed the room, but when they were alive the room was damn near a jungle, making the living room a truly ‘living’ room.

Like a moth to a flame though, there was no denying his eyes being drawn to the photographs and keepsakes on the mantle above the fireplace. He didn’t need to get up to see them or remember them. They were a lifetime of memories of much happier times.

He finally let his emotions take him. His tears were silent, but they were real. He could feel them working their way out of his stomach, up through his chest, and finally into his eyes. He always assumed that it would be reversed; that Val would be the one sitting on the couch needing consoling. He wished it were that way in fact.

In teams, the others checked the rest of the house, finding nothing alarming. In a laundry room downstairs, they found some more food and some beer but no water. There was also a locked cabinet that very much resembled a gun safe in a back bedroom converted into an office.

In the master bedroom, they found a suitcase on the bed. It was still open and only half full. Most of the drawers were either pulled out or actually on the floor. On top of the folded clothes in the suitcase was a framed portrait of four happy, smiling people. One of the faces was that of their good friend Dr. Caldwell. There was no arguing with the physical and very visible proof that the last few weeks had considerably aged him. Neil opened the back of the frame to remove the picture. Meghan shot him a questioning look.

He said, “The picture is important. The frame is impractical.”

“That’s his family.”

“And this is our and his survival. The picture frame has glass that will only get broken and cut his hands or get into the plastic packaging of the food he’s carrying. Then he’ll be eating glass. I get that we need to be sensitive about this and I’m trying to be. But we have to approach everything pragmatically. We can’t have extra weight or our limited backpack space being taken by non-essentials.”

From the doorway, Dr. Caldwell’s voice startled them both, “Neil’s right.” He extended his hand and took the frame, finishing the job of removing the picture. He added, “I think I’d like to put some of my own clothes on. Can I have a few minutes to change? Meghan, I bet you and Emma and Claire could all fit into some of Val’s clothes if you’d like some fresh duds.”

“I wouldn’t want to...”

“Please. Val would have liked to know that she was helping in some way. That was always important to her.”

“If you insist.”

“We do.”

The balance of the day they spent resting in front of the generous fire they built in the fireplace and enjoying some of their new provisions. They drained the hot water heater and the boiler into empty plastic bottles, pitchers, and any other containers that were available. Both appliances were still relatively new, so the water had neither odor nor color to it.

Danny and Jules drank Cokes they found in the garage while everyone else indulged themselves in the cool beers. The tantalizing flavors and textures scintillated their senses and helped them all settle in for some much needed rest.

Deciding that the day was spent, Neil and Jerry found a tarp in the garage and used it to cover the back door, using generous strips of duct tape to affix it to the frame. This effectively ended the draft, but a trickle of cold air still found its way through the less than perfect cover. The two men then moved the heavy, formal dining table, tilting it up against the open door to add some level of security. Luckily, the table was taller than the door, so they were able to drive a handful of carpentry nails through both the table and the doorframe. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do, especially if it wasn’t large crowds of ghouls pressing themselves against the barrier. They hadn’t seen one since leaving the Fred Meyer several miles behind them. There was some comfort in that.

Given that the living room was the only one with any degree of heat in it, a pair of mattresses was brought into the large room, turning the floor into a large bed. The fire was kept at a new raging level to maintain the little bit of warmth that kept the room comfortable. They all hungered for real rest and each in his own time was able to partake of that morsel.

The next morning, everyone save Dr. Caldwell arose feeling refreshed. Dr. Caldwell’s face looked as lifeless and ravaged as a zeke’s. He tried to smile and join in conversations, but the effort needed for such gestures was evident in his expression. Upon waking, he opened another beer for breakfast. Before rising from his chair, he’d had another.

He found himself only wanting to leave his chair to relieve himself and to get another beer. He brought them upstairs from the laundry room one at a time, figuring that if he got to the point that he couldn’t make it up or down the stairs then it was time to stop.

Dr. Caldwell joined Danny and Jules in a lively game of Aggravation, which most everyone else watched. The beer was helping, though he realized that all it was doing was pushing his grief to the side temporarily. Eventually he would be forced to deal with it. He was a doctor and had seen it all before. For the time, he was happy consorting with the likes of Amber...Alaskan Amber.

Curiously, Meghan and Emma noted to one another that the doctor was careful not to venture into the kitchen. He avoided that room like he was cursed and it was hallowed ground. He didn’t seem to be evading the truth, but perhaps the kitchen with its grisly reminders was too much truth for him to want to embrace.

They kept a watchful eye on him for the balance of the day. His drinking was worrisome, especially if they were prompted to be on the move again, but who were they to advise him on dealing with his pain? He seemed to be a happy drunk so far, so they elected to smile a lot and always be on hand.

Jerry, Claire, and Neil meanwhile decided that it would be prudent to check out the houses in their immediate vicinity. With only a handful of houses to check, it just made good sense to know what was around. It was Jerry who offered the first objection. He suggested that if there was something in the other houses or the immediate adjoining land, it might be just as well to leave it alone, and that maybe they could avoid detection by just staying out of sight. If they got out there and had to use their guns, they might attract attention to them that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

Neither Neil nor Claire disagreed that it was a possibility, but they both felt that it was worth doing a sweep. For simple peace of mind, they needed to know if there were any threats already around them. There was always the likelihood that something would come their way, but if it was already in their backyard, it might be worth knowing about it.

The three of them were armed with baseball bats, clawed crowbars, shotguns, rifles, and handguns. To Gerald, who closed the front door behind them, they looked like battle hardened warriors venturing back into the field and, on a certain level, they were.

The Caldwells’ house was the second to last house, so they chose to go to the last house and then work their way back. The mailbox at the end of their driveway announced that the Higgins family resided there. The front door on this house was open, as were three of the four car doors. As they walked by the car, they saw that the window on the closed door was so caked with blood that they couldn’t see through the glass.

Going around to the other side of the car, Jerry looked in but recoiled almost immediately. He’d once seen the picked clean carcass of a moose on the side of the road near Hatcher’s Pass. He saw more or less the same thing sitting on a child booster seat where bits of red vinyl cloth, white faux down stuffing, and small shards of bone all commingled into a single, horrible vision.

Neil looked at him and asked, “Does it need to be dealt with?”

“Man, there isn’t enough in there to have turned. They ate him down to the seat.”

“How do you know it was a him?”

“Spiderman boots.”

“Anything else?”

“Naw. Looks like maybe the kid was strapped in and waiting on the rest of the fam. Doesn’t look like anyone else made it out...at least this direction.”

Claire swallowed audibly and said with no humor whatsoever, “I really don’t know how you guys do it.”

Just as quickly, Jerry answered, “Not much of a choice really. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make me wanna retch when I see something like that.”

The path leading to the small concrete porch sitting in front of the front door was strewn with clothes. They appeared to be a young girl’s sized and styled clothes. They saw purple butterflies, rhinestone hearts, and Hello Kitty. On the porch sat on its side a purple suitcase, its hearts less than cheery.

Some have posited that events so utterly imbued with emotion or trauma can leave an inanimate object with the memory of that happening imbedded in the fabric of that object. Many paranormal psychologists had explained ghosts and poltergeists in such a manner. Looking at the suitcase and then remembering all the seemingly everyday items that were carried by their owners until that terrible day when all this started, Claire wondered what kind of memory each would impart.

Standing at the threshold, Claire asked, her eyes never stopping their desperate scan of the immediate interior of the house, “Why don’t we just shut this house up and seal in whatever is inside?”

Jerry asked, “What about supplies? There might be something in there that we could use.”

“If we’ve been able to get by this long without whatever that is, then I guess we don’t really need it. Besides, we can always come back if we have to. In the meantime, if we can just close the houses and make getting out tough, then maybe we don’t have to, you know, get Medieval on their asses.”

Jerry chuckled. “Great Ving Rhames reference by the way, but it seems like we’re all dressed up. Might as well go for a dance.”

Claire leaned back and gave Jerry the “what did you just say?” look.

Neil compromised. “Why don’t we check this place and decide after? No tellin’ what we’re gonna find in there. It’s another big house, lotsa rooms. Claire, do you wanna stay here at the door?”

“You ain’t leavin’ me alone anywhere.”

“I was just—”

“Yeah, well, whatever ideas you get better not have me alone.”

“Okay, okay. Well then, I think we should shut the door behind us and then do the same with every door we pass.”

Claire smiled and, gesturing with her hand, said, “After you.”

They chose to check downstairs first, hoping that the scarce daylight from outside might help to illuminate the rooms. Luckily, the window shades on the large window in the recreation room were open, letting in a generous portion of the flat light of the sun. The bittersweet pungence of decay wafted up to them before they had made it down the stairs. They immediately knew that they weren’t alone.

In the corner of the large room there stood a longhaired, languishing wraith. It had its back to them, but turned slowly as they entered the room. Its ragged clothing, looking more like a funeral shroud than garments, hung from its bone thin emaciated grey limbs and frame. Its skin, festering with rotting sores, was pulled tightly across protruding bones.

At first its eyes only seemed bewildered, like it was trying to remember something. Smelling the salty temptation of flesh that walked in with these pink skinned creatures, a deep, lurking hunger suddenly awoke, firing aggression into its congealed veins. The confusion washed from its eyes, replaced as it dissipated by a ravenous craving for raw flesh.