The October Light of August (22 page)

“What the hell's the point?” she asked.

“None at all,” I said quietly. “Look, I have issues with the living. I bet you do too. I think this whole pandemic could have been controlled if people hadn't lost their shit. Before the power went out and you could still get news, there was talk of closing access into town – not just the city and county, but basically downtown and the South Hill – so not just to the mythical 'outsiders' – we're talking
inside
our own city. Now, you heard that geographical elitist bullshit all the time, right? Just talk. If you ask me, it would have been impossible to do. But people get scared, need to be able to blame someone, and then feel like they're doing something.”

They both stared at me silently, unreadable behind their sunglasses. I supposed I sounded like I had an ax to grind, and of course I did. But living your life in a town that is easily divided by a river could color perceptions - on both sides of it.

“Look,” I said, “from what I saw go on up here, I don't blame them for wanting to block access from us. Truly. But...you have to understand talk like that started very early on – can't you see where that might get some people worked up? You tell people in this town they can't do something and they lose their God damned minds over it. So people get scared, and throw up roadblocks. Other people just want to fight. True human nature finally rises to the top, and things go downhill from there.”

“Sounds to me like you would rather have zombies all over and no one else,” offered Ashley.

“I don't know,” I said. “I know
what
to expect from the dead, I guess.” I looked at her directly. “They don't hold me at gun point.”

I sensed the massive eye roll behind her sunglasses.

“What else do you expect us to do?” she began. “If you had -”

“Alright, alright,
alright!
” her sister interrupted. “Let's not go there again.” Lori looked at me pointedly. “We got it, Holden. People suck.”

“I never liked that book,” I muttered.

“How could you not like that book?” asked Ashley, in an astonished tone usually reserved for those that condemned puppies and pandas.

“I...don't know. Never struck a chord with me. I read
Grendel
first, maybe? That was my
Catcher.
”

They both shrugged, unfamiliar with the reference.

“
Beowulf
from the monster's point of view,” I suggested. “One of my favorite books.”

They shrugged again, and I let it go.

“
Anyhow
,” I added. “You two are interested in the Northtown area, huh?”

They nodded, and so I filled them in on the neighborhood. I found out they had grown up there as well. It was highly possible we had passed by each other in life – little girls on bikes, a zit-faced teenager lost in his own thoughts. I may have dashed the younger one's dreams of some sort of dead-free utopia, but they would have found that out eventually.

We talked as the sun lowered, swapping personal information reluctantly. I warned them of the traps I had set up in the area's houses.

“Nothing's going to blow up or anything,” I assured them, explaining what I had done. “I wrote on some doors and stuff to warn people –
living
people. Far as I can tell the dead don't read. So I'm not full-blown misanthropic
just
yet. Be careful, though.”

The sun finally dropped below the trees lining the street – dusty and tired as they were, hardly the shade providers they used to be. Still, they helped cut the glare considerably and the sisters removed their sunglasses. They looked startlingly younger – the lack of makeup, I supposed. Lori's eyes were a lighter brown than her sister's, and had that penetrating quality of pale-shaded eyes. You might think they were both in high school, senior and freshman. Still, their faces were hardened by the times. Lori in particular had dark circles under her eyes. If the world continued on as it was, soon we all would be looking much older.

Ashley announced suddenly that she was tired, handed over the gun to her sister, pried her boots off, stretched out on her sleeping bag, then rolled over with her back to us and was still.

“I guess she's going to sleep,” I laughed.

Lori shrugged her shoulders.

“She's always been like that. 'I'm going to bed' – boom, off she went.
Weird
little kid...”

Ashley shot her left arm into the air, middle finger extended, and we all laughed quietly.

“I was a night-owl – still am, I guess,” I said.

“Yeah, I had to be forced to go to bed,” said Lori. “My poor parents...”

The hush that fell over us felt palpable, covering Ashley like a blanket and easing her into sleep. Her even breathing was infectious, and I stretched out on my back. The sky was still bright blue overhead, but the east was easing into tinges of purple. I wasn't sleepy, but I felt more relaxed than I had in some time. I could hear Lori behind me as she drank some water, then sighed.

“God, I miss coffee,” she whispered.

“Oh yeah,” I replied.

“So. Arthur,” Lori began. I waited for her to continue, then grunted as a prompt.

“Is it just you up there?” she finally asked. “Other than the zombies, I mean?”

“I've seen smoke from chimneys here and there,” I said. “I would glimpse someone once in awhile during winter. But honestly, I can't be sure that they weren't hallucinations too.”

She seemed interested in those, and we got sidetracked talking about my mental shenanigans over the winter. She was fascinated with the details, and laughed grimly when I talked about the audio hallucinations.

“Sometimes,” she whispered, “before I fall asleep, I hear my mom telling me good night, and that she loves me.”

I smiled, and we discussed the mystery of the human brain for some time before she guided the conversation back to the possibility of more survivors in Northtown.  I told her of the boy I had seen in front of the library, and that I hardly knew everything that went on on the north side. The thought of telling her about the hermit at the hotel just made me feel weary, and I didn't bother. I was certain there were many guys like that out there, and felt that beating up the poor bastard was really nothing to brag about and didn't want it to appear that way if I related the incident. Plus, I had the feeling he would wind up on the losing end of the stick if he ever ran into them...

“When was the last time you spoke with your parents?” I asked – more blunt than I wanted to be, but I was tired of dancing around the issue. I was almost convinced she was going to ignore me, but then she began to talk quietly.

“Over a year ago, I guess – phones were still working. The dead were...
multiplying
by then for sure. 'Stay indoors' we were told – all that crap. I'm sure you heard it too. We assured our parents that's what we were doing, and they assured us the same. My dad was confident this would be over soon – that it couldn't be sustained, that the 'right people would be
on it
.' I guess we all thought that.”

“Mmm,” I grunted in agreement.

“Well, we put up with that shit for about a week. A friend had been teaching us how to shoot and handle firearms for about a year prior to all of this nonsense – guess
that
was kind of lucky for us, huh? Yeah. So we piled in my car and headed north on I-5 – me and Ashley, her boyfriend and two other friends. I expected roadblocks and stuff – thinking we would make a go of it and then be told to turn back. But only one cop stopped us south of Portland, and all he really did was wish us luck. Soon a
lot
more cars were on the road, mostly headed south.”

“Yeah, we had 'The Great Exodus' up here too,” I said. “I wondered where else would be better than
here.
By the sounds of things, it was world-wide.”

“Well, you get worried about family I guess,” she replied. “and you get nervous and edgy and wonder what's going on. I expect a lot of people headed for the hills, you know?”

I nodded my head. Would Jackie and Jesse have taken off for their cabin if the drunken fool hadn't fallen out of his window? What had kept them? Family worries, fear of abandoning them? Believing authority knew how to handle the unknown?

“You didn't have family somewhere else that you were worried about?” Lori asked.

“No,” I answered. “My mom was here. Never had any siblings.”

“Huh. So...no aunts or uncles or cousins –
grandparents
– you were worried about?”

I thought about pointing out that she was awfully nosy for someone who had been so tight-lipped earlier. But she seemed genuinely puzzled by my lack of family values so I decided to nip it in the bud.

“My mom came to town to go to college – a good Catholic girl,” I said. “She met my dad, got pregnant, refused to go back home,
married
my dad, pretty much got ostracized by the family. Dad died when I was very young. I have met my maternal grandmother once apparently but I don't remember her, an aunt a few times. Don't know much about my dad's side of the family. My mother was a good, honest person who's only real fault was not knowing how to dial things back a bit.”

I paused, and rolled onto my side and tipped my head towards her.

“So - my mom died without any of her family ever giving two shits about
her
while I know for a fact that she was worried to death about
them
. I feel
extremely
comfortable not giving a rat's ass if they're alive or dead. Or undead, for that matter.”

“Oh,” Lori said.

I dropped onto my back again, and propped my head on my hands.

“Didn't really have too many friends,” I continued. “Just never learned to be all that comfortable around people, I guess. So my first inclination was to go it alone. It's worked so far.”

I saw no reason to say anything about Jackie or any other circumstances that culminated in our rooftop meeting.

“Fair enough,” Lori said.

“So. Your parents,” I said, drawing attention back to them. “You never got a chance to...make plans? Nail down some sort of contingency?”

“No,” she sighed heavily. “That's probably what drove us north. Last time we tried calling – when calls would go through - it went right to their voice mail over and over. So I left a message telling them to stay there, we were heading home.”

Ashley gave a soft moan in her sleep, then a sharper groan and her shoulders twitched. I heard Lori gather her feet under her and then her boots grind against the roof. Her sister's head rose, then dropped back down onto her arm. Lori knelt next to her for a moment, bent to kiss her sister's shoulder, then leaned back against the parapet and rested her hand atop Ashley's curled fist. Their fingers intertwined, and soon Ashley's breathing evened out again.

We sat quietly for several minutes. I was content for it to be the end of our conversation for the evening - I probably wouldn't sleep for some time, but I was used to laying quiet and still with only my thoughts to entertain me.

“If we
don't
find my parents home,” Lori said suddenly, “I guess our next step will be to head over to Idaho and see if they're at my grandparent's place.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I offered stupidly. She nodded her head.

“And if they're not there...” She shrugged. In the gloom of dusk I could see a hint of tears in her eyes, and I turned my head away. Women crying has always made me feel awkward – it was rare for me to find the right words to express, let alone find a comforting gesture. Ones that have a gun because they're still not at ease around you, doubly so. Not that I wasn't empathic to her feelings, but I felt she and her sister should not get their hopes too high.

“If they're not there,” she added, “I guess we come back this way.”

“I wish I could tell you there's a good chance they're up there,” I said quietly. “I obviously didn't scour
every
house in the area – any that looked firmly closed up and un-looted, I gave a wide berth. But last summer was crazy, and there aren't a lot of houses like that.”

“Yep,” she sniffed.

“Still, it is...
manageable
up there.”

She was quiet for awhile, then said, “My big fear is they headed down to get to us. We barely made it out of the Tri-Cities. If they got stuck down there...”

Silence again. I thought it unlikely they would ever find their parents, but I would rather have shot myself than utter those words.

“I really hate the Tri-Cities,” I said finally. “Always a pain in the ass to get through there.”

“I know, right?” she laughed. “Take this exit, then that one then this one – make sure you bear left here. Ugh!”

We chuckled quietly, and listened to Ashley's breath as it sighed in and out, a gentle rhythm that could lull the fussiest baby into the realms of Morpheus. The sky grew dark, and the stars came out.

Gravity shifted, the stars pulled at me and I fell into them, and into sleep.

I woke to the most gawd-awful snorting and growling, and I sat up in alarm expecting to find chunks of flesh missing from me. I heard a small giggle, and turned to see Ashley smirking at me.

“You should try living with
that
for 20 years,” she laughed.

I twisted around, and in the early light I could see Lori sprawled across her sleeping bag. A low rumble began in her nose and clawed its way out of her throat, ending abruptly only to repeat itself in a few seconds.

“Jesus Christ,” I mumbled. “You two are
really
sisters?”

Ashley laughed again, an honest set of chuckles that ended higher in pitch than they had begun.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “My mom and dad said she got greedy and didn't leave any height left over for me when I was born.”

“Or volume, apparently,” I said, marveling at the racket the young woman produced as she snored. Ashley laughed, and I wondered how they didn't attract the dead from miles around on their journey north. Life on the tracks, I guessed.

I stood abruptly, and Ashley watched me warily, her grip tightening on the gun. Oh yeah.