Crowded Yet Desolate: A Zombie Novel (22 page)

As he ran out of ideas and sought creative ways to improve defenses, he began to notice a gap in the chores: many of the messes he created, being dragged from the basement and scattered across the yard, were no longer being cleaned. He thought little of it and cleaned it himself. But little by little, other messes began to appear, in the living room, in the bedrooms, then in the kitchen. Ryan, inspecting the house, also cleaned it as he went, not thinking of who was responsible for the slack–for his mind was preoccupied with his new task–until one day Cam approached Ryan, pulled him aside, and asked, “Have you noticed that Albert is acting weird lately?”

Ryan glanced over Cam’s shoulder at Albert. He thought it strange that Cam would come to him to talk about Albert instead of talking to Albert directly. Ryan shrugged and suggested he ask Albert himself.

“I did. He won’t tell me what’s wrong with him. But I know something is. I’ve noticed you’re doing his chores now too. He’s being lazy, and Albert is anything but lazy. Narcissistic sociopath, maybe, but not lazy.”

Ryan felt a puzzled look come to his face. “You’re right. This isn’t like him at all. I’ll talk to him.”

“Great. Thanks. Awesome.”

But Ryan did not talk to Albert for a few days, for he did not know what to say. It made sense to Ryan. Albert, throughout their entire experience, seemed to be the one who was least affected by the gore and the deaths, and Ryan had assumed this was simply because of some barrier that Albert had put up in himself. But perhaps this explanation was too simple. Perhaps even someone numb to pain had to mourn. Marge’s death, for whatever reason, seemed to be the tipping point for Albert. So Ryan continued to avoid this uncomfortable conversation, until one morning, a few days after Cam had approached him, Ryan sat alone at the table with Albert. In this new world small talk was replaced with absent-minded silences, so the two sat across from each other, barely noticing one another. When Ryan looked into Albert’s face, he saw not only Albert’s exhaustion and pain, but also that Albert had been avoiding Ryan for some reason. What Ryan mistook as peace between them was anything but. Albert would not let his own blood-shot and puffed eyes meet Ryan’s. He purposefully looked at the table when Ryan glanced his way, keeping his peripherals focused on him. Ryan, not being assertive himself, took a few minutes to take notice of this pattern, but when he was finally certain of it, everything became clear:

“You know. That’s it, isn’t it?” Ryan asked.

“I beg your pardon?” Albert replied, getting up from his chair. Like Ryan had seen Deborah do timelessly, Albert made himself look busy by inspecting here, rubbing there, arranging things.

“You know what’s happening, don’t you?”

Albert stopped, most likely realizing his frantic movements were not helping, and turned to face Ryan. “What ridiculous thought gave you that idea?”

“It wasn’t a thought. It was in your face.”

Albert cast his idea away with his hand. “I have a lot on my mind.”

“Exactly.”

Albert paused, looked down, appeared to be uncomfortable, shifting on his feet. He opened his mouth then closed it, realizing, no doubt, that it would not do to argue that he was mourning for the others. Instead, he chose a childish insult. “Suddenly you’re so perceptive.”

“Suddenly you’re so defensive.”

Albert turned to leave. “Let it go, Ryan. Just let it go.”

How could he? It was the answer that had haunted his mind since the morning he left his beloved wife. He sprinted ahead of Albert and blocked his path from the kitchen.

“How could I know?” Albert demanded, his face red with exasperation. “Knowing implies that I have proof of some sort, or at least an argument to form, but I have nothing, nothing at all. For every piece of proof and conjecture that I have, I have another going against it. All I have is the seed of an idea, an idea so vile”–he raised his hands to his mouth–“So vile that I would rather have lived in ignorance. . . . Just live in ignorance, Ryan. Now please, excuse me.”

“Tell me on thing,” Ryan said. Albert waited. “Were you right about us, about us all being infected?”

Albert dropped his gaze, giving Ryan his answer, but then looked up and nodded. Ryan knew this would be all he got from Albert, but Albert, not one to push through, waited, and then walked past Ryan when he stepped aside. Albert’s voice was pleading, desperate, his eyes were haggard and tired, but none of these were what made Ryan move. It was his words. What could make Albert wish he had never known to begin with?

An inner war soon began in Ryan. He thought of his earlier ignorance, about how he had failed to realize that these monsters were zombies. How much more survivable did this plague seem when he was deluded and foolish? So perhaps it was best to do as Albert said and live in ignorance. Yet how many hours had he contemplated the cause of Deborah’s death? How many hours did he beg an empty sky for the truth, for some clue, for anything to either absolve him of blame or pinpoint himself as the cause? Anything but this not knowing! The longer the war continued inside him the more certain he became that Albert was completely certain of the truth. In his mind, Ryan built up great confrontations between himself and Albert, in front of the group, alone behind the cabin, he pestering and outsmarting Albert with wordplay until Albert was forced to give him the answer. Knowing these daydreams never happened the way he imagined, he could not make himself do it.

Yet in time it appeared that he did not need Albert. With no great revelation, no shocking confrontation with the truth, the truth slowly revealed itself to him. At no point could he pinpoint the exact answer, and how exactly he came to it he did not know. It was just as likely to Ryan that in his sleep he had overheard Albert whispering the truth Cam, and that his subconscious had absorbed it, as it was likely that his mind had finally solved the puzzled with simple logic. The same way Albert had. Like Deja Vu for an answer he never knew.

The answer was firmly established somewhere in his mind, yet still hiding, in his subconscious, his conscious fighting to dig it up to his everyday thoughts. He began to have terrible nightmares of Deborah, Deborah at the concert, Deborah the last time he saw her. Your wife. Your love, Deborah. At the concert. No she wasn’t. Then where was she? You know exactly where she was.

He felt un-loved, betrayed, like nothing in his life mattered. But still his conscious mind did not know why.

Then his dreams took an even more sinister turn. In a preschool. Jaden. Mike. Some unspeakable and unthinkable evil. His mind hated what it knew and threw the answer deeper, further down into his subconscious.

He lived in this war, in this divided ignorance, until the moment finally came when he no longer thought he knew, but knew he knew. Out in front of house on a cold, crisp morning in the advanced months of the year, he glanced at Molly and was struck by a sudden revelation.

“Your eyes,” he said.

She was smiling, and her mood was good. “Yes, I have eyes. Two of them. But what about them?”

“They’re . . .” The words couldn’t form. “I thought they were blue.”

She gave him a puzzled look, pushing her lower lip out. “No. I wish. But no, I got stuck with hazel. My eyes have always been hazel.”

She walked towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He had unknowingly backed himself against the house, and he was crouched forward, his elbow on his knees–deeply breathing, almost hyperventilating. He had thought the days where he had panic attacks were over, but here he was having one, and there was not even a dead body in sight.

He was far from okay. Everything was far from okay.

“You’re eyes,” he repeated. “They’re beautiful. Breathtaking even. But no, they’re not blue. Never blue.”

She crouched down on one knee and looked up into his face. Her awkward smile was attempting to hide her concern; she was torn between staying to help and going to find someone who actually could.

“Thank you, Ryan,” she said, nodding her head sympathetically. “I’ll be right back, okay? Will you be okay by yourself for just a second?”

Ryan tried to speak, to say that he would be fine, but he could not muster the lie. Instead, he nodded his head, and tried to find the balance between panic and serenity as she walked away.

It was clear to Ryan that she did not understand the significance of her eye color. How could she? It meant something only to Ryan. His mind, so desperate to hide the truth, had allowed his guilt to project his love for Deborah onto Molly. But Ryan had fought his mind’s defense. Now he wished he hadn’t.

Ryan, in the sudden change of her eye color–or rather in how he perceived their color–saw the secret his mind had so desperately tried to hide–the secret to the failure of his marriage, to the loss of an innocent’s innocence, and to the doom of humanity.

The End