Slowly We Rot (35 page)

BOOK: Slowly We Rot

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Cynthia chuckled.
“Doubt it. She wouldn’t understand what she was hearing if she could. She’s
too simple in the head.”

Noah took a look around
the little kitchen, his gaze eventually settling on a white refrigerator in a
corner by the back door. He could hear its low, steady hum from where he sat.
Rising from his chair, he said, “Anything good in the fridge?”

Cynthia shrugged and
sipped more whiskey. “Some meat. It’s mostly dog and cat. Don’t look at me
like that. I’ve got to eat, don’t I? That’s mostly all I can easily trap and
kill around here.”

Noah moved away from
the table and started in the direction of the fridge. “We all do what we have
to do, I guess.”

She nodded. “Damn
right. In fact--”

Noah held on tight as
Cynthia Thomas pushed up out of her chair and flailed against him. He’d veered
away from the fridge, slipping up behind her to apply a chokehold. She was
stronger than she looked and he struggled to keep his footing as she drove him
backward. The retreat stopped when his ass slammed into the edge of the
kitchen counter. Her hands slapped at his face, nails scratching bloody
grooves in his skin. He ignored the pain and kept holding on as he increased
the pressure. She tried stomping at his feet and he grimaced in agony when the
heel of a boot slammed down on his toes.

But he continued to
hold on and eventually her struggles lessened in ferocity. He kept his arm
tight around her neck and dropped to his knees as she sagged to the floor. At
last, she went limp in his arms and he knew she was dead. He eased her onto
her back and felt for a pulse at her neck for confirmation. Then he put a
knife through her temple.

Satisfied that she was
gone, Noah got to his feet and walked out of the kitchen. He paused in the
living room to spend a few more minutes admiring the old pictures of his only
true love. His eyes again filled with tears and for a brief time he didn’t
think he would be strong enough to do the thing he meant to do.

But then he wiped the
tears away and went to Lisa’s room.

She was asleep on her
side as he opened the door and stepped inside. He went about it fast, knowing
any hesitation in the face of something so horrendous would be his undoing.
After kissing her very lightly on the forehead, he eased out one of the two
pillows under her head and placed it over her face. She stirred minutely
beneath the pillow as he took the .357 Magnum from its holster and placed the
muzzle of the gun against the pillow.

“I know the real reason
I came here now, Lisa. I came to rescue you from this miserable existence. I
love you.” Tears were flowing in unceasing streams down his shredded cheeks
now. “Goodbye.”

There was a soft,
confused mumble from beneath the pillow.

Noah squeezed the
trigger.

Lisa died.

Noah staggered backward
into the center of the room, where he first dropped to his knees and then fell
over onto his side, the gun sliding from his hand and thumping on the hardwood
floor as he curled into a fetal ball. He howled and screamed for a long time,
the intensity of his anguish such that it felt as if it would tear him apart
from the inside. There were times when he thought it was subsiding, but then
it came at him again in fresh waves, his lungs and throat becoming raw from the
sheer physical force of it. He beat at the floor until his fists were bloody.
He cursed the God he’d never believed in and screamed the word “why?” seemingly
thousands of times.

After a seeming
eternity, the expression of raw grief eased enough that he was able to get to
his feet, grab the gun he’d dropped, and stagger out of the house. He sat down
on the top step of the porch and stared blearily out at the street. Though
he’d ceased screaming, the tears were still coming. He set the gun down next
to him so he could wipe them away. When the grief intensified again, he
covered his face with his hands.

He took them away when
he heard the sound of an engine idling out in the street. A red compact car
that looked vaguely familiar was parked at the curb. The car was missing some
windows and its red paint job was badly faded. In a moment, it hit him where
he’d seen it before. He couldn’t see the rear bumper, but he knew that if he
got up and went to take a look, he’d see a Bile Lords sticker.

The car was the one
he’d seen in the driveway of that house outside Jackson.

Noah’s father waved at
him from behind the wheel. Seated next to him was Noah’s mother. And in the
back was Aubrey. They were all alive and healthy. Aubrey had somehow age-regressed
to her mid-teens. She had earbuds in and was listening to something on her
phone.

Noah’s father honked
the car’s horn and called out to him. “Hey, son! Come get in. It’s time to
go home.”

Noah shook his head and
said, “Go away.”

There was a look of
vague disappointment on his father’s face, an expression Noah had seen many
times. But this time it didn’t wound him the way it had in the past. This was
because he knew his father wasn’t really there. The man had been dead a long
time. This was just another case of his mind trying to shield him from
something difficult, but Noah was no longer interested in the comfort of
illusion.

The car at the curb
disappeared.

But now something else
was outside the gate, which Noah realized too late he’d failed to properly
latch. The dead thing he’d spotted in the street outside that convenience
store was on the sidewalk. As Noah watched, it pushed the gate open and
started up the path to the porch. There were two more dead things behind it.
Noah had the sense the other two somehow knew the first one had a lead on some
food and had followed it here.

Noah glanced at the gun
sitting next to him on the porch. The zombies were decrepit. Dispatching them
and properly securing the gate would be easy. But he did not pick up the gun.
Because he was thinking about what he might do now that all his dreams had come
to nothing. Now that he’d done the worst thing he ever could have imagined. It’d
be easy enough to set up house here and keep on going through the end of his
natural life cycle. Thanks to those solar panels, the house had power. In
some ways, life here would be even easier than it’d been through all those
lonely years up on the mountain.

But it would be just as
empty.

He didn’t want to drink
ever again. The very idea of it sickened him. But he knew something
undeniable about himself. The need was too strong. He wouldn’t be able to
resist it forever. Sooner or later, he would surrender to it. It might be
today or it might be next week or next year. But it
would
happen
again. That was an absolute fact.

The dead things were
closer now.

The one in the lead was
just a few lurching steps away.

Noah didn’t move.

The zombies came
closer. He could smell the putrid breath of the one in front. It was so foul
it made his eyes water.

Noah let out a breath,
suddenly feeling calmer than he ever had.

The lead zombie came yet
another step closer. It was within grabbing range now. Its blackened fingers
were inches from Noah’s face.

Noah picked up his gun
and he used it.

THE
END

AUTHOR’S NOTE

About a third of SLOWLY WE ROT
was written before season five of AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD began. I’d selected
the name of my protagonist, Noah, before a character of the same name was
introduced on the show. I considered changing my character’s name to fend off
comparisons, but in the end I said “fuck it” and decided to keep the name.
I’ll tell you a secret. My life is a long, long series of “fuck it” moments.
The name just felt right and I didn’t want to change it, so here we are.

I have one other thing I need to
discuss before I let you go this time, and that’s the matter of what happens to
Noah at the end part two and throughout part three of this novel.

Long crippled by a frail psyche, Noah
suffers a psychotic break at the end of part two. This happens as a result of
the traumatic events that are described and other, even more traumatic things
his mind suppresses. In the case of the latter, these things are hinted at
later in part three. The information is mostly there, though not quite all of
it. For some of it, you’ll have to fill in the blanks, much as Noah must do.
From this point forward, his perceptions become untrustworthy. As the thing
that may or may not have been Luke Garraty puts it in chapter 49, Noah spends a
lot of his time talking to ghosts. That’s not to say that everything he
experiences in part three is illusion. In my mind, quite a bit of it did
happen, even some of the more seemingly fantastical parts. But they are all
twisted and embellished by his fractured imagination. Hell’s Lost Mile, for
example, is “real”, at least in the context of this novel.

Finally, I have never visited
either Ventura, CA, or Henryetta, OK, and have taken some liberties with both
locales.

Until next time…

Bryan Smith

March 5, 2015

ABOUT THE
AUTHOR:

Bryan Smith is the author of numerous previous novels and novellas, including
Depraved, Depraved 2, Go Kill Crazy!, 68 Kill, The Killing Kind, Strange Ways, House
of Blood, The Freakshow, and The Diabolical Conspiracy. Depraved 2 was named
the second best book of 2014 by Brian Keene in his annual top ten books of the
year list. Bryan lives in Tennessee, where he spends the bulk of his
non-writing time drinking an astonishing amount of beer and watching horror
movies on Netflix. Visit his home on the web at
www.thehorrorofbryansmith.blogspot.com
.