The October Light of August (24 page)

I looked around the ruin, seeing if there was any sign that the sisters had been there. All trash and debris looked ancient, as if surfacing up through an archaeological dig. Broken glass, articles of clothing, flattened cans and empty cough medicine bottles indicated I was in a once popular party spot, but there hadn't been any fun in some time. Fresh boot prints and scuff marks tracked across the dirt, though. And against the dull graffiti an unobtrusive peace sign, impossibly black and crisp, stood out against the dull sprays and brush-stroked paint. I smiled at it.

I thought of the sisters grimly making their way through the north side, and my belly clenched.
God damn it, they came all the way up from Oregon
, I thought.
They are tougher than you are!
I pushed thoughts of them away, and peeked over the south wall of the foundation.

It looked like most of the dead had taken to my misdirection and were following each other down the bike path. But a few were wandering along the road below, gamely following that instead. I couldn't decide if that made them dumber or smarter - or was it just the random odds of it all? What went
on
in those wasted minds?

The areas reserved for the senses had to be largely unaffected, right? How could the virus, fungus –
whatever
- effect areas of higher thought, yet leave the others alone? I can understand it spreading itself by biting, but Jesus – couldn't it just have the decency to
stay
at the cough and snot stage? I guess it wouldn't be the same if it could be defeated by washing your hands regularly and a surgical mask. And that's why I maintain it was manufactured. Maybe it got out of control and the biting was a side effect, but it just seems so conveniently tailored to wipe us out while scaring the shit out of us to boot.

Seriously. Who were the happiest in the early days? Who was the most smug about the whole thing? Seems to me you couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over some 'end-of-days' propheteer trumpeting “I told you so!” rapturously. They were way worse than the wannabe warrior in their eagerness for the shit-storm that came (I have to wonder if the luster wore off for them after awhile?).

No matter if it was a manufactured virus or newly discovered fungus, I am certain it was utilized as an intentional, terrorist act. To what point, when it could not be controlled and it wipes out everyone? Again -
who
was the happiest when it all went down? Self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone? Yeah, yeah, hand me my tinfoil hat…

I grabbed my binoculars and stared across the river into apartment complexes and neighborhoods west of downtown. Beyond, I could see the railroad tracks the sisters had traveled on. The dead were everywhere. Not a constant flow of corpses, but they permeated the streets and lots and yards and hillside. Almost always in motion, dried blood staining the remnants of their clothes - some falling off their frames and hindering their progress, tattered rags dragging behind by an ankle.

How?
I asked myself for the hundredth time.
How could it have gotten so out of control?
Never underestimate the ability of people to freak the fuck out, I guess.

The bridge the sisters had crossed was as they described – chock full of burnt-out cars and trucks that were slowly rusting into their own monument of waste and fear. Some of the dead had followed the path down to the dam of metal, and were milling around uncertainly.
They already have forgotten why it was they were down there
, I thought.

How could the other side have hoped to keep any of us crossing over? Jesus, all the damned boats in this town would have gotten a
lot
of people across. I could only reason it was to try and stop a flood of the barbarians – they had been
doing
something. Well, based on what I had seen last summer, I had no cause to blame them. Still, it rankled.
You can't tell me what to do!
a stubborn voice in me said, and I laughed.

I thought about fighting my way down to the bridge and crawling over the dead cars and trucks to cross, but I already had my sights set on another bridge downstream I wanted to see. It had been far too long since I had set foot on it. Surely, that was intact? Maybe barricaded, but intact?

I continued to follow the river, taking my time. I took trails below the main roads when I could and went largely unmolested on those. I avoided houses and trailer parks, had to cut through neighborhoods and avoid the dead there, but these were already less populated than back south. I was beginning to settle into the fear of the living once more instead of the fear of being overwhelmed by the dead.

I was able to follow the Centennial Trail for awhile, blissfully free of bicyclists screaming for the right of way, until the ruins of another bridge broke it up - no surprise they took that one out, really. Still, there were enough paths and trails below West Downriver Drive that hadn't been completely overgrown, and they urged me on. I wondered if there were dead golfers on the course above, wandering through the dried and desecrated greens? I camped for a night on the roof of a building at the waste-water treatment plant, and the next morning I found myself swearing at the destruction of the suspension bridge at the Bowl and Pitcher.

Riverside State Park was my favorite place, so close to town and yet you felt you were in the wilderness. I gladly paid the thirty dollars each year the car's tabs were due so I could get the pass to hang from the rear-view mirror. The ice-age floods that had repeatedly scoured the Inland Northwest had exposed the basalt, and for ages the river formed rustic sculptures to honor the power of water. Even as a fatty, I would regularly cross the bridge to hike the trails or perch on a rock to read, or just watch the river flow.

Now, one of the cables – cut, torn, or blown loose - had caused the bridge to twist cruelly and drop on its side into the river, the waters rushing and exploding over and through it. It would not be long, I knew, before it would be gone for good. The river would tear the bridge free, and it would be nothing more than snags and logs, and then not even that.

I dropped my pack, and sat down heavily. I had known for some time I had no real reason to cross the river, but I still felt defeated. Just
cross
it. Go over and take a shit - my way of planting a flag.
Kiss my ass, I made it!
I could go back to People's Park and cross it like the sisters, I supposed, but I was done. I'd had it in mind the last day or two to cross the suspension bridge, to feel it bounce and sway as the river roared below me. But the fuckers thought of that too, and destroyed it. Well, why the hell not?

There were a few abandoned vehicles in the parking lot, but not a lot of dead at all. Across the river, other than the bridge cable being sabotaged, there weren't any other signs of destruction. If there had been a battle, the river had washed away any signs of it. Around 12,000 years ago, an ice dam in Montana had repeatedly formed a lake and then thawed to loose unimaginable amounts of water to scour the state – all the way down through the Willamette Valley in Oregon. This happened at least forty times.

Would that it could happen at least one more time
, I thought bitterly.
Scrub this city off the fucking map for good...

I stayed in the park for several days, trying to let the roar of the river wash away the  melancholy stench that clung to me, but my mood only darkened. I realized I was wasting time anyways, hoping the sisters would be clear of Northtown and I could go home. I decided they probably had gone on to Idaho by now. I was convinced their parents were gone or dead. Hopefully, the girls didn't discover any bodies – but would that be worse, never knowing? Something as simple as a suspension bridge being destroyed gutted me. Finding your parents dead after such a long journey...

So I left the park and began my customary trek through neighborhoods after dark, the night-vision goggles strapped to my face. I made a point of taking Wellesley past the library, but I could see no campers there.

The sun was fairly high when I made it home, the office building blazing white against blue sky. The crows seemed ecstatic to see me, and I was truly touched. As I began my cautious ascent up the stairwell, I noticed a peace sign drawn on the wall. Later, I would discover Holtom's famous design in the most unexpected places all around the office tower and neighborhood, and it would never fail to make me grin.

So where were we? Ah yes, I had just helped kill a guy – the wannabe warrior. To be honest, I didn't think we would make it this far. I have a fever, and my hand hurts anytime I move it. My hand writing has deteriorated, I'm afraid. Can't be helped. But I think I can get this done – feel we're in the home stretch.

I lay quietly in my sleeping bag, dozing off and on, but the events of the morning kept me restless. I hadn’t had that sort of desperate excitement with the living since... Jackie, I guess.

I replayed the events of the morning, from my initial spotting of the warrior as he strode confidently up the alley towards the office building, to his final grisly end. I wondered if the man had spotted Pink coming up the alley and that was what had made him turn towards me by the fence? However much I would have liked the idea of Pink coming to my rescue, it was just bad luck on the warrior’s part that she made her rounds at that time. Did some part of her associate the office building with a certain time of day – the time of the morning when I would make it back home? Instinctively, she may have been looking to grab me as a snack, and got the warrior instead. My heart gave a little stutter-thump at the thought that Pink actually might, in her own ghoulish way, be hoping to run into me.

She’s got a crush on me
, I thought, and started laughing. I tried to contain it but after several wheezy grunts I gave into a full-on laughing fit, tears streaming down my face. Oh, that was just too perfect. Lord knows I hadn’t tried to keep her from hanging around.
One could say that I was pretty much leading her on
… I laughed so hard I felt a headache coming on.

Jesus, I had to control myself. I didn’t
think
I could be heard unless someone was up on the sixth floor with me, but my survival instincts were screaming at me to stop – which only made it all the more funny. I repeatedly quieted down, then giggled and built up to laughing again. I finally felt in enough control to slip from the bag and down to the door-platform. I ate a granola bar and had a bottle of water, then stocked my small backpack, making sure the sling-shot and hammer were secure. For some reason I thought about taking my spear with me today – I didn’t do that as much since my journey to the river, but after a few moments thinking it over, I decided to leave it. I listened carefully for any sounds, slipped the acoustical tile aside, listened again, then quietly dropped to the filing cabinet and then the floor.

After surveying the area from the roof for a good half-hour, I decided I could safely venture down to ground level. The sun was low on the horizon, yet I could see the warrior’s body splayed out by the dumpster, but no Pink or any other of the dead  hanging around. Time to go down and make sure the warrior stayed truly dead.

As I paused in the doorway that opened out onto the parking lot, I watched the guy’s body to see if any animation was returning to it. None that I could see so far. I didn’t relish the thought of ransacking the body to see what I could use.
Maybe I should keep the guy's guns,
I thought. But I was still pretty prejudiced against them.

I quickly scooted across the lot to the body, hammer in hand to smash the warrior’s skull. As I got close enough to see what condition the body was left in, I paused. I could tell Pink had eaten pretty much most of the guy’s neck and shoulder, then random bite marks down his bicep to forearm. Jesus. Hungry girl... Other than that, the guy looked fairly solid. Except that his head already had a hole in it. And all his weapons were missing. I froze, and my neck ratcheted slowly around to peer into gloomy pockets of shadow.

Aw, shit
…

“I wonder if you had anything to do with this,” a voice asked quietly from the far side of the dumpster.

I closed my eyes and cursed myself. I let out a shaky sigh and replied, “I hope you notice that I’m not the type to eat anyone. I'm partial to canned goods and candy bars.”

It was silent for a moment, and then the voice, still quiet, calm and icy-cool said, “A hell of a lot is going depend on how you answer my questions right now. First, what have you got in your pack? And drop the hammer right now.”

I opened my right fist, and the hammer dropped to the ground, bouncing once with the handle lying across my foot.

“I have exactly three sixteen-ounce water bottles and four or five granola and energy bars. One pair of night vision goggles, batteries and a knife sharpener. Plus a Wrist-Rocket and Bowie knife in the webbing on the back. Oh, and ammo for the sling-shot”

“And your vest?”

“Batteries, lighter – lighter
fluid
. Twine. Little shit like that.”

The man was silent again, and then stepped carefully around the dumpster. He was training an automatic on my chest.  He had the obligatory camo jacket, but wore long pants and his head was shaved smooth along with his face. He otherwise was unhindered by being a walking arsenal, but I suspected that the automatic wasn’t the only firearm this guy had. I thought I could see a pack in the shadow created by the fence and dumpster.

Slowly, the man raised his left arm, rotated his wrist and opened his fist. Two shiny ball-bearings lay on his palm.

“These yours then?” he asked.

“More than likely,” I replied.

The man stared at me, his hand massaging the spheres of metal, causing them to tightly orbit each other in his fist. I thought it best to keep quiet, not offer any information or explanations unless asked. We continued to hold each other’s gaze, the sound of metal scraping as the sun sank lower behind the houses in the neighborhood.