Tamberlin's Account (13 page)

But if what I knew was the norm, about 85% of humanity was selfish, apathetic and rude.

I don't believe that was the norm.

Do I think he was an exception?

Sincerely, yes. 

Jan 18 11:54pm

I've left the stray trucker diner, Deb’s Drive-Inn, and am forced to stay in a car tonight. It's a lot more exposed than I'd ever choose, if I had another choice. Mr. Ages will have to learn to fly soon because he can't keep his feet in the snow any longer and I am exhausted.

The cold
definitely
slows them down.

I saw one that was reaching out, but still as a statue.

I am 95% sure that I could have stood right in front of him and he could have done nothing—or nothing fast enough to matter.

Have you ever seen
Stir of Echoes
?

He reminded me of when the ghost touches Kevin Bacon and he gets all stiff and cold, reaching out.

It’s not the first time I've felt bad for them, but I didn't think I could kill him, even though, for the first time, I felt like it was just as good for him as it was for me.

I know it's no surprise, but I couldn't help but cry for him.

We might not be sleeping in a car if I hadn't taken the time appreciating his "life" and then thinking about all of us.

We see eyes and faces and movement that resemble life, but do they think and feel or do they imitate and just
do
what they
do
?

When I know the difference, I'll be like them and will be able to tell no one.

They don’t talk. But sometimes I think they think and sometimes I think they hurt.

The ones that don't must be the more perfect of what they are. In shows, when they want to make something a perfect killer, emotion is the first thing that's taken away.

I have horrible dreams.

But on the brightside I guess that means I reach deep sleep.

Maybe that's not so good.

I think too much.

I grew up in a loveless home with two selfish adults who hated each other.

It's funny how when you lose someone your feelings about them usually improve. It’s like you feel so bad for them that they are dead or hurt that you can’t hate them as much as you did or should.

I often think about the "every-so-often" when I sometimes thought they loved me. And I thought about what made them that way. I felt bad that both of them obviously never got what they wanted in life. Now they are likely dead.

I said "I love you" every time I talked to them. They would say it back.

When I was a child I meant LOVE and I hoped that evoking the word would provoke LOVE.

When I tried to reach them and couldn't and everything in the world was going to shit—I loved them and meant it. The idea of anything happening to them hurts my soul so bad I feel it in my bones. The deaths I've seen—when I think of the things that could have happened to them. If they did—how? By what? By who?

Did they love each other in the end, like I assume they did when they married? With a sense of loss and guilt?

They got married because they were pregnant with me.

I doubt if love was required.

Jan 22 1:06am

Came upon a busy body under a small wooden country bridge. It shambled out like a flesh colored grasshopper with a human head—quirky like an image filmed under a strobe light, but with all the black frames edited out.

He was horrifyingly thin and naked as the day he was born. It didn't have a jaw and its neck was broken so its chin was almost parallel with its back bone. Its frozen tongue flopped freely over its upper face like a short red horn.

Its tongue actually seemed really long.

It pushed through the drifting snow almost casually—like some creepy creature that lived under the bridge that was actually perfectly harmless.

I felt like Alice.

Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge?!?

I was crossing the bridge when it reached the road behind me, Mr. Ages kept looking back, but he didn't even growl—only his hackles were raised around the neck of his sweater and the back of his head.

 It couldn't catch up—we were so cold I just thought about moving and moving and moving on.

There was an overturned car mangled on the opposite side of the stream. I guess that's why he looked that way—all twisted and mangled himself.

I looked back. He was making pretty good time considering the cold and how broken he looked. Then I saw the others coming out. I imagined some of them as his possible family—a woman and two children who didn't look like they'd been dead that long either, but there were several others too.

I hurried—no matter how my feet were killing me—if I let them slow me down—they would kill me.

About 10 miles later we found a house that didn't look vandalized, busy body occupied or looted.

There was a long deceased person there—had killed herself in bed—shotgun.

I drug the body outside and spent the next long while looking for shotgun shells. I eventually did find the ammo. So I had about 8 shots in the handgun, 4 in the rifle and 13 shotgun shells... and somewhere there are countless dead and countless survivors who might be armed and hostile. I will, of course, assume they are.

Run and hide.

Why take the chance?

Don’t you love your life enough to not take chances?

I got a few more canned and dry goods here. I couldn't get their vehicle to start. There is another house just up the road with an SUV in the driveway. But this one bedroom, no attic, no basement, house was easy to clear.

We had a good supper—our first since the house where we found the Slim Fast. And Mr. Ages and I lay down on the couch and tried to be warm.

It's against my better judgment, but being so tired of being cold, I overburdened us with blankets and Mr. Ages fell asleep on my back after we fought with each other on the small sofa for a comfortable way to sleep.

The first thing I realized when I woke up was that it was still dark. The second thing was that I was
warm
—snug as a bug—the third thing was that Mr. Ages was growling right into my ear—I could feel his bared teeth against it.

We weren’t alone.

My arms were tucked under my chest like I was praying. My LED lantern was on the table on the other side of the sofa arm.

I was afraid to move.

My bag was on the floor to my left—the handgun was accessible. The lantern wasn't far away. I had to get Mr. Ages off of me without making too much sound, but in what order to do the things I needed to?

And where was
it
?

I felt like a child hiding under their covers from the boogieman—it was
unthinkable
to have your arms or feet out of the blankets.

I was afraid to reach for either thing; I was sure I'd feel its teeth sink into me.

But its only other option was my head.

If it even was a busy body.

I slowly straightened my arms underneath me—I went from mummy, to chicken, to transformer, to airplane.

I turned the dial of the lantern as my fingers wrapped around the cold handle of the handgun. It felt too cold out there. And as the gun came out and bluish white light came on, I was about to order Mr. Ages down when I saw it just about pass by the room.

The Grasshopper.

Its inverted legs, with outward facing feet, were stepping—two steps more and it would have been out of sight, but in mid-step it reversed so perfectly it looked like it was being rewound.

He looked right as me—his eyes seemed small and were wide set and they lived far back in the eye socket, like his eyeballs themselves were shy and peeking out.

Mr. Ages snapped and snarled and dug his nails into me. My shoulder screamed. I
heard
the force of fluid drain from the infected wound. He lunged off of me, struggling out of the blankets.

I felt a bite then, felt teeth clamp on me and fight through the layers of blankets to get at me. I kicked out. My foot, through blanket, connected with something and it fell. Mr. Ages had the busy body that was nearly on top of us, by the back of his shirt and was yanking him away.

Something bit my ham and I rolled onto my back without Mr. Ages' weight and shot it—the little boy.

The girl, who I'd kicked, was getting up.

I shot the one Mr. Ages was struggling with next and then I shot her.

Grasshopper was about two feet from my face then. He tried to reach for me, but had to keep dropping his hand to balance his broken body.

I wailed when I shot him.

I leapt up and called Mr. Ages.

We started in the hall that led to the bathroom and bedroom that made an "L" shape that reached the kitchen and front door—which was standing wide open. The other busy bodies were coming in.

I shot them with the last of my handgun rounds and came back with the hammer and screwdriver for the last two.

My first thought was,
There weren’t that many under the bridge
. That I saw, I guess, but what I thought was that there were not that many, like I was cheated.

The second thing I thought and then did was get them out of sight of the road. I took them one by one around the side of the very small house.

I turned the doorknob—it
was
locked.

And I thought
that
defiantly too. See, so it wasn't
my
fault.

I closed the door. I stood back a second and pulled on it.

The door swung open.

I repeated the experiment.

I closed it a third time and shoved on the door. I heard a "click"—I pulled the handle and it held fast.

"Mother fucker," I said.

I balled up the top blanket which had
something
like blood on it and put it in the hamper.

I went to the bathroom and took off my pants and checked my legs.

I felt pretty numb about it. I was shaking and all the things I think were normal to feel were there, but the emotional traffic jam let nothing out but Polly Practical and she just wanted to check if the skin was broke.

No, but it was already bruising.

It felt like those wind-up gag teeth that chatter had attacked my legs. It seemed like there was only teeth, even as the back of my mind protested that
it
had
felt the hands. The Hands of Death.

Like dentures. The one I kicked, the teeth never left, just relaxed and applied pressure, as if it was teething.

I was bruising—I could live with that.

Then I peed in the toilet—that felt like a reward. And I used the toilet paper and that was like a dream come true. But I’d got my period.

That explained a lot.

We took the rest of the blankets and lay down in front of the kitchen sink—the living room was too spoiled—and tried to sleep again.

The blankets must have muffled his senses enough that Mr. Ages hadn’t noticed everything that happened while we were sleeping—either that or he was sleeping too hard; just like I was.

I folded a couple blankets underneath us and lay the sleeping bag down on top of that for a mattress. Then put all the remaining blankets on top of us again.

I thought the odds were in my favor to have no more visitors.

What did visit were nightmares. That's why I'm awake and writing at this hour.

I'm glad I didn't have to write that
it
happened—the horrible (inevitable?) IT of being bitten and knowing the inevitable without any question marks around it.

Right now I'm thinking about what I'd write if that happened.

My first thought is that I'd hope Mr. Ages would know enough to stay away from me.

In this situation, as horrible as it would feel to do it—I think I'd kick him out and lock myself in—barricade the door so he might have a chance. With absolute certainty, even if I died and came back as something that would kill him, I believe he would stay with me.

I thought about how long it would take.

I would put all my supplies out there for him to eat.

I can't stand
the idea of being apart.

I think I'm done writing for today.

Jan 23 7:56 am

I just kept staring at the page.

The pen hovers and dives with intent to land and retreats.

I feel that I am strongly effected by what happened, but don't know to what degree yet.

I feel that it’s natural that I should be, but my mind won't even let me peek at how much.

I can't seem to make myself do anything.

Mr. Ages is clearly shaken.

We're moving on tomorrow. We need to.

Jan 24 1:06pm

When will the veil of surreal lift?

No matter how real the planning

No matter how real the
impossible
improbable.

Very often dreams feel every bit as real until you wake.

I hope everyone I care about is alive—and well. To the standard "well" has become.

Anything less—I'd rather believe they were in Heaven.

If I was anything less than well, could I stand to live?

Hell yes. I'm no quitter.

Would I rather someone I loved died
or killed themself
if they were in a crappy situation now?