Dredging Up Memories (23 page)

I had to save him.

I.

Had.

To.

Hetch could barely walk; how he managed to swing the axe or pull the bodies to the pile for the fire is beyond me. He held tight to the rail as I carried him up the stairs. Once inside, I closed the door—always closing the door, always locking it. I didn’t believe they could climb steps, but why take the chance? Down the hall, we went to the room with the canopy bed. I thought for a moment to pull the canopy off but chose not to. If there was a little girl with intentions of coming home to this room, I didn’t want her to find it wrecked. Thinking about that now, it seems like an oxymoron. I didn’t want the room a mess, but I put Hetch in there, who was almost certainly going to die, rise, and be shot right there in that room.

He didn’t fight as I put him in the bed.

“Stay here.”

“No problem.” His voice was weak.

The jug of healing water sat on the table. I took it, a towel, and a cup to the bedroom. My hands shook as I poured a cup. “Drink.”

“I can’t, Hank.”

I lifted Hetch to a sitting position. “Drink the water.”

I held the cup to his lips just as I had seen Imeko do. Hetch opened his mouth, let me pour a little in. He licked his lips, opened his mouth again. “More.”

By the time Hetch finished the cup, the edge on my nerves began to ease. He was taking water, and as much as this may sound corny, I felt like I was taking care of one of my brothers or Jeanette. Or Bobby. I lifted his shirt and pulled the bandage off. Hetch didn’t so much as flinch. The gray had spread up into his ribs and down into his waistband. Those nerves went back on edge.

I poured water onto the towel then squeezed it onto the angry wound. I let it spill over his side and down onto the bed. There was no time to worry with his pants. I put my fingers in the hole the biter had made and ripped the material until the pant leg was almost off. The other bandage came off quickly. Like the wound on his stomach, this one had stretched out along his skin like long fingers reaching for something they couldn’t quite get to. The veins stood out beneath the skin as thick, black lines.

“Forget this,” I said and poured water onto the wound.

I filled the cup again. “Come on, Hetch, you need to drink up.”

“Let me die.”

It was a reaction. I swear. That’s all it was. I was angry with him, and I reacted.

His head snapped to one side when I slapped him across the face. His eyes popped open; his brows curled down in angry check marks. “Why did you do that?” His voice was a little stronger, but it still sounded terribly weak.

“I’m not letting you die.”

He gave a weak laugh. “There’s nothing you can do to stop it, Hank. Please, just put a bullet in my head.”

Why not? Why not? I thought about that. Why not let him die? I was being selfish. I wanted—no,
needed
—someone else in my life. I wasn’t afraid of the dead—that fear ended a while back when I found out Jeanette had died. I wasn’t afraid of the living—not anymore though the living were more dangerous than the dead these days. I was afraid of being alone. I didn’t want to be alone any longer. I was tired of not having anyone to talk to; I was tired of losing my mind, my sanity, my desire to live. I believed if Hetch died, I would not only put a bullet in his head but probably drink myself to death or at least get drunk enough to put a bullet in my own head.

“I’m not killing you.”

Tears spilled from the corners of his pleading eyes.

“Hang in there, and drink another cup of water.”

“It’s no use.”

“Drink the water, Hetch.”

“Are you going to hit me again if I refuse?”

“Probably.”

He drank the water like an obedient Jim Jones follower. The difference is he had already been poisoned by the Kool-Aid, and hopefully, this was the cure.

I doubted it.

There was no cure. What I had seen was an abomination…or a miracle. Maybe the little girl lived because Imeko believed she would. He believed God had reached down from Heaven with his finger and touched the water, that it had healing powers. I wanted to believe, and I think I did before I needed it to save someone. But doubt is a powerful emotion. Almost as strong as love and courage, but it can destroy both of those just by coming to the surface of thought.

The bandage came off his knuckles next. The wound had puckered, the torn skin no longer covering the actual cut. It was still gray, but it hadn’t changed since the first time I cleaned it. Like the other wounds, water was poured onto it. And like the other wounds, this time, I didn’t bandage any of them.

I poured him half a cup of water. By then, there was less than half a gallon left—it went faster than I thought it would.

“Drink.”

He didn’t argue this time.

I set the cup on the end table and stood. “I’ll be back,” I said and left the room.

Here’s a truth I thought I would take to the grave with me: When I closed the bedroom door, I went down in one of the other bedrooms and rummaged around a while. I found some rope at the top of one of the closets. From there, I went outside, taking my machete with me.

My heart was heavy—a feeling I was tired of having. There were several biters roaming the dirt road, but none of them had crossed the little ditch or walked up the easement toward the house. The fire still burned, and that stench of rancid pork filled the air.

I made my way to the back side of the house. Here, the dead on stakes screamed in vivid colors. Arms hung down by their sides. Some of them were on crosses—how I managed those, I’ll never know. Wooden stakes, much like what they used in movies to kill vampires, had been driven through their chests. Their bodies were wrapped in wire from the fence, holding them in place. Their feet touched the ground. Each of them was missing portions of their heads. Flies buzzed around their bodies. I told myself I would eventually take the bodies down. That never happened.

I passed the staked biters and continued up the hill, stopping at the woodshed that sat along the tree line. Inside were mostly smaller pieces of wood. I found the longer one sitting along the wall—a four-foot piece of 2X4. I tied a rope around it, grabbed a black toolbox that sat on the floor, and then headed back to the house.

Inside, I entered the room across from the one Hetch lay dying in. I didn’t know how much time I had, so I worked quickly. With the toolbox lid opened, I found a thick-tipped screwdriver and a hammer. It took a minute, but I managed to drive the screwdriver through the door, whittling out a hole the size of a nickel. I ran the rope through it and then nailed the board to the inside of the door. I opened and closed the door several times before stepping into the hall and tying the other end of the rope to the knob of the bedroom door Hetch lay behind.

It wasn’t the soundest idea I’ve ever had, but all I needed was a little warning. If Hetch died and rose, he would try to open the door. When he did, the door opposite him would slam shut. The rope attached to the knob would delay him from getting out of the room. By then, I would have my gun ready. I planned on sleeping in the main bedroom, the door locked, just in case.

I untied the rope, checked in on Hetch. He was asleep, his face pale and peppered with sweat. With the door closed and the rope tied back around the knob, I went outside.

I don’t know who first coined the phrase, “the world is a cruel place,” but that person had no clue. Sure, it could be bad and difficult and people could be cruel, but the world itself? Not so much. Well, not so much back then. Now, the world is nothing but cruel. I lost everything. So did almost every other survivor left out there. I didn’t know Hetch’s story, but he was about to lose his life after making it so long. The world isn’t cruel. No. The world is a real bastard.

There were more biters walking around. They were like vultures that could smell the living. I stood on the porch stoop staring down at them. They seemed to stare back at me. I went back inside, reached for the machete, then grabbed several pistols instead. Screw being quiet.

Back outside, the dead moaned. The party was just getting started. As I went down the steps, the moans grew louder. They worked themselves into a frenzy, but none of them crossed the circle of bodies. It was like a rotting, corpse-laden force field. That was fine. They were about to join the barrier.

I remember the first shot. It split the side of a teenager’s head. I remember the last shot. It caused the explosion of an elderly woman’s face. The force of the blast sent her sprawling backwards. I don’t remember any of the shots in between. But the bodies on the ground told me I had wiped them all out.

And the sun told me it was near dark.

Inside, I sat with a lamp on. It was late. I thought about checking in on Hetch. Then decided not to.

At some point, I fell asleep in the chair, one of the pistols in my lap.

The slamming door woke me.

My heart hammered in my chest. My head buzzed with disorientation. The gun was in my hand and raised near my head. I listened, heard shuffling from down the hall.

“Hetch?” I whispered.

It was dark in the house.

The shuffling stopped, then came another slam. The rope trick worked. Hetch was dead and had been stopped by the rope between the two doors.

I stood. My body shook but not from fear—from sadness. I would put him down, and I would bury him. And I would be alone again.

I eased into the kitchen and caught a glimpse of him standing in the bedroom’s doorway. His head was down, as if he were looking at the rope. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like one hand was on it or maybe both of them.

“Hetch?”

He lifted his head and looked at me for a long few seconds.

“Walker.”

I think I blinked. I think I stopped breathing. I think I almost pulled the trigger at the sound of his voice.

Biters don’t talk.

“Hetch?”

“Yeah, man.” His voice was weak.

The rope dropped to the floor. He had untied it.

“What’s with the slamming door rig?”

“I…I…”

“You thought I was dead, didn’t you?”

A small part of me was ashamed at my lack of faith but not ashamed at my will to survive. “Truthfully? Yes.”

“I’m not. I’m alive. I feel better. A lot better.”

I lit a candle and held it up. He was no more than six feet from me. His face didn’t look so pale. He was no longer sweating.

“Let me see your knuckles.”

He held out the wounded hand. The wound was pink, the skin around it white. I checked the wound on his stomach next. The gray skin had reverted back to white. The bite marks themselves were red but not angry looking any longer. His leg was the same.

“I can’t believe it. It worked.”

“I can’t believe it, either. I just knew I was going to die and…and…”

“Yeah, I get it. I was about to put a bullet in your brain.”

The smile faded from his face. One appeared on mine. My heart didn’t feel so heavy. There was a way to save those that were bitten. I doubted it would work after someone died, but there was a way to save them before they reached that point. We didn’t speak for half a minute. Maybe more.

“Why don’t you take a shower? You smell like death warmed over. I’ll make you something to eat.”

After he left the room, I lit a couple of candles. The cabinets still had food in them but not a lot. We needed to go on a supply run eventually. But not tonight. Hetch was probably still in no shape to run from biters.

I pulled out a box of crackers that had expired two months earlier. They were still crisp and held no signs of going stale. Two bottles of water went on the table. My mouth was dry, and I could feel my body wanting—craving—the alcohol I had lived off of for weeks. I didn’t know if there was any more over at the other place, and I had no real desire to find out. My body, however, begged me to search. There had to still be some over there.

I held onto the edges of the table, closed my eyes, and took deep breaths. In and out. In and out. In and out.

The urge passed, and I sat down. I could see the jug with the Healing Springs water in it. There wasn’t much left—maybe a third of a gallon. I wished I had known about this…

…before Pop died…

…before Davey died…

…before I sat in that warehouse holding Lee’s hand as he threw up and sweated and wasted away, greeting death with a touch of humor and a lot of tears and begging me not to let him turn…don’t let him turn…please, Hank, don’t let me turn…

…

…

…before Jeanette…

A crushing blow sank my spirits. Hindsight and all that aside, my family was dead, and there had been a cure all along. Somewhere in the background of the world around me, I heard the sound of water running behind a closed door. I lowered my head to the table, the weight of truth crushing me all over again.

I cried…

Twenty Weeks (?) After it All Started

Hetch was sometimes a pain in the rear, but he was one of the living and one who wasn’t Hell bent on feeding me to his dead wife, or raping a pretty biter, or blinded by an overzealous preacher-man. He was normal—for what that was worth. Normal was relative in the old world. It was unheard of in the dead one.

We’re all just a little messed up in some way or other.

And maybe that’s what made him Hetch: being normal in this screwed up world.

It took almost a full week before he was strong enough to do anything besides lie around and nap. There were times where he acted like a little kid, whining about not feeling well and wanting me to bring him his meals. I watched his temperature like a doting mom to that whiny kid, checking it often.

Two weeks after Hetch’s arrival, I made a run into Batesburg for medicine, passing the armory of dead soldiers along the way. There were biters outside of town but not as many as I expected to see so close to the town proper.

The drug store was empty of life of any kind. And there were plenty of bottles of medicine—Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Aleve, Excedrin, and a whole host of generic brands as well. I took as long as I could, gathering medicines in plastic bags I grabbed from the front counter and throwing them in a buggy. There was water and Gatorade and chips and crackers and some canned goods, and bandages and…and I realized then that the little town had no survivors. It was a startling epiphany that made me cold all the way to the bone.

I had never before felt like someone was watching me even though there was no one else around.

Until then.

I looked around the immediate area, saw no one in the gray shadows of the store. I pulled out my pistol and pushed the buggy toward the front. One wheel didn’t want to cooperate and rattled along the floor instead of turning quietly. The hairs on my neck stood on end, and I couldn’t shake the shiver that had crawled up my spine. It was like someone had taken a piece of ice and touched me on the back of the neck.

Outside, there were half dozen biters roaming the streets. I shoved the gun back into my waistband and slid the machete from its sheath. I had to be quick. To let them notice me before I could take a few of them out meant running for the truck before I was ready. Though I was almost positive I would never return to that drug store or even that little town, I still needed the supplies I had stashed in the buggy.

I moved quietly, sneaking up behind the first few and bringing the machete over the tops of their heads with ease. Two or three others noticed and turned toward me. I took them out before they grew too close to each other and then made my way back to the van. In the driver’s seat, I exhaled and put my head on the steering wheel, my hands gripping either side of it. I never get used to the feeling of the dead being around—they are like venomous snakes waiting to strike, and yeah, their venom will kill you.

The air of the town gave me the creeps, as if the ghosts of all the dead surrounded me.  My skin crawled as if hundreds of tiny hands slid along my body. I almost turned the key in the ignition and put the van in gear. Getting out of there was all I wanted even if it meant leaving the buggy of supplies on the sidewalk.

I looked around again. There were no more biters to be seen. Honestly, I don’t think it would have been so terrible if there had been a thousand of them right then. At least the dead were physical—I could
see
them. I could
hear
them. I could react to them. The way I felt right then, getting out of the van was more dangerous because I
couldn’t
see anything that could harm me.

I opened the van door and got out. I went to the buggy. Its wheels were loud on the concrete, shaking the metal frame as they hit each crack and bump along the way. The side door opened, and I tossed supplies inside haphazardly, not caring if anything spilled out. I shoved the cart aside. It bumbled a few feet before tipping over, crashing with a loud clatter of metal on concrete.

I hissed, suddenly angry with myself for the extra noise. Then I saw it. Out the corner of my eye. I turned, my hand already pulling the machete from its sheath. It was a biter. It had to be.

But it wasn’t.

I stared at the dog. It was brown and white and thin. It was small and scruffy and dirty and pathetic looking. Its ears hung down, a clear sign it was scared. It was probably as hungry as I was.

“Hey,” I said. “Hey, little dog.”

I hadn’t seen many animals since the end of the world began, and this one looked as lonely as I had been—as I still was. I took a step forward. It took a step back. Both hands went out in front of me.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Another step forward and the dog backed away again, its tail between its legs.

We stared at each other a while longer.

“Stay here,” I said as if the dog was going to listen. It had probably been through as much as any person had. I went back into the drug store. It took a minute, but I found the pet food section. It was close to the back, near the pharmacy. I grabbed a bag of dog food and made my way to the front. The dog was gone by the time I got back outside with the bag open.

“Doggie?” I called softly, not raising my voice too loud.

I made my way around the corner of the drug store.

“Doggie?”

The backside of the store held nothing more than garbage and a rundown car that probably wouldn’t crank up in an emergency. I made my way to the front, turned, and walked down the street a little way. I didn’t get too far before I heard the dog growling.

On the other side of a parts store was the dog. His fur was on end, and his tail was tucked between his legs. But he wasn’t running, and he wasn’t cowering down. He growled then barked and then backed away, his nails tapping on the crumbling blacktop. Standing in that little alleyway between the parts store and another store were several biters. At first, they didn’t notice me. I wasn’t sure if somewhere in their brains they recalled how dangerous an angry dogs could be. Or maybe they were just as dumbfounded as I was to see a living animal. It didn’t matter one way or the other. The dog was food for the dead. As I think about it, many people would have considered him food for the living. Yeah, maybe that’s why he didn’t let me near him.

In this world…in this crap hole those of us that remained still lived in, seeing a dog was like seeing the past. It was Fido and Rex and Lassie saving little Timmy. It was man’s best friend trying to survive without man and man trying to survive without dogs. It was Scooby Doo, where are you? It was Sam from
I Am Legend
taking on vampire dogs and saving Will Smith’s behind. It was everything that was right about the old world and everything that was wrong about this new one.

The stalemate ended when the biters started shambling forward, some of them going after the dog, some of them coming for me. I dropped the dog food and had the machete out in as quick of a motion as I could. I swung it in a wide arc, taking the tops of two biters’ heads off. I swung again.

And again.

And again.

With each biter I took down, another one replaced it. What was going on? That alleyway wasn’t that big. Where were they all coming from?

I drew my pistol and took the nearest one out. The biter’s head snapped back with the force of the blow. The bullet exited the back of his skull and struck a woman behind him in the forehead. They both fell, like dominoes, one bumping into another, and then they struck a couple more. In seconds, half a dozen biters were on the ground.

I pulled the trigger a few more times. The dead fell, their bodies like matchsticks or kindling, forming a barrier that the others couldn’t quite get through without falling over. For them, it was a final death sentence, and I was their executioner.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

How many more? So many in such a tiny space.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Where were they coming from?

I heard growling from behind and spun to see the dog crouching, as if it were about to strike. There, at the mouth of the alley, were several more biters. Coming to the party, I guess.

“Crap!”

With a wall of dead bodies to one end of the alley, I started for the entrance. Before I got there, the dog lunged at one of the biters, hitting it in the stomach. He ripped at the woman as she fell to the ground. He jerked his head from side to side, tearing rotten flesh from her body but not killing her, not like I guess the dog thought it would.

I couldn’t risk a shot, so I turned the gun to those still standing. Three shots and the gun was empty, but the biters at the entrance were down, and they would never get up. The dog was gone again, but the female biter was still alive and struggling to stand. She struggled no longer after the machete’s blade split the top of her skull down to her neck.

Behind me, the wall of flesh had held the remaining biters at bay. I stood for a moment, looking, watching. Then I realized the alley I was in lead to the entrance of another building. Or maybe it was the EXIT to the building and the entrance was on the other side. Either way, the door was open, and the dead had piled out of it.

I watched. It’s all I could do. Everyone who had survived in that little town must have gone to that building as a safe house, somewhere they could conjugate or…no, that wasn’t it. I was wrong in so many ways, but the biggest of those was how many people would have survived the initial outbreak. This town might have supposedly had a safe haven in the armory just outside of its boundaries, but within…within, there was no way this many people survived.

Unless.

“They are the people who came here to escape.”

Suddenly, I had hope. Just as suddenly, it was gone.

If Bobby and Jake were in there, they were dead. They weren’t in the armory. They weren’t at the Table Rock cabin. If they were there, they were dead.

I was sapped of energy. In the span of fifteen seconds, I went from hoping I would find someone from my family to knowing there was no way they could be alive, not in that building where biters still filed out of.

My shoulders slumped. I left the wall behind me, stepped over the biters at the mouth of the alley and stopped on the street. The dog was a few buildings down. He had pulled the open bag of food away from the alley and now had his head buried in it. I couldn’t blame him.

Back at the van, I grabbed a gas can. I hated wasting the fuel, but I had to take care of the dead. Bobby or Jake could have been among them. I hated the idea that if they were in that building, then they would suffer unbelievable pain before they died. But I couldn’t go in after them. It was the only way.

It was the only way.

The ghosts were all there, and they begged to be silenced.

I doused the wall of corpses with fuel. I went back to the mouth of the alley and cut away the shirt of one of the biters there. I found some stones and bricks and wrapped them in torn strips of cloth before soaking them with gas. I tossed them into the crowd and then went back to the front of the buildings. The parts store was on my left. I smashed the window with one of the stones and went inside. There were no dead there, only the specters of their lives.

More gasoline went onto the floors and counters and shelves. I made sure and doused the oil shelves as well as I could. With the can empty, I left it on the floor, went back to the van, and got a lighter.

The dog was gone, the bag of food ripped open, most of it still lying on the sidewalk. I guess he had his fill.

I took another piece of clothing from the dead and dipped it in the gas in the middle of the floor of the parts store. I went back outside, lit the arm of the shirt, and watched as a flame quickly engulfed it.

“Bobby, Jake, if you’re in there, I’m sorry.”

I tossed the shirt into the store. There was a loud
WHOOSH
even before the shirt hit the floor. Flames raced through the building. I backed away and watched. Soon, the entire store was burning. When the flames leaped from it to the stores on either side of it, I walked away.

I got in the van and closed the door quickly. For good measure, I locked it. Even inside the van, I felt out of sorts, as if at any minute, the boogey man from under some kid’s bed was going to grab me and pull me from the vehicle.

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the feeling. It didn’t work. I sat there for the longest time, watching as flames hopped from building to building. A few biters appeared from shops or from around corners, their bodies on fire. Most of them didn’t get very far before collapsing. Those that managed to get away from the buildings still didn’t make it beyond the road before they too dropped to the ground where they died—in agony, I suppose.

My heart hurt as I watched them die. Deep down inside, I hoped none of them were Bobby and Jake, though honestly, I felt somewhere in that mass of rotting corpses they were there.

I also hoped that I would see the dog again. Man’s best friend and all that. I didn’t.