The October Light of August (9 page)

I let her rant like that as I poked around in the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom. I realized she was full of adrenaline and needed to vent. And actually, I kind of liked the way her voice sounded - an urgent whisper that would rise in irritation and pitch to a suppressed scream. Ordinarily I would be shrinking away from such anger directed at me, apologizing in stutters and stammers. But I was feeling calm and quiet, and I'm still not sure why. Maybe this was the first time anyone – let alone a woman – had sought me out for help and shelter. It's not like I could have refused or made an excuse not to. So I let her complain, and didn't get mad.

“Look,” she barked. “
Loooooook.
”

I turned my head and she lifted her right foot and waggled it. “That fucking hurts, buddy.”

Her big toe was split, and it looked like her ankle was swelling. I nodded.

“I bet it does,” I said. “I'm looking for the alcohol and bandages. Sorry, no ice for your ankle.”

“No shit, genius.”

It dawned on me disinfectant and bandages were probably under the sink, so I squatted down, my knees shrieking, and shone a flashlight in the cabinet. I grunted in satisfaction.

“Here we go,” I said. I produced a first-aid kit and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Why don't we swing your leg over into the tub, and I'll clean your foot off in there.”

“What's this
we
shit? It's
my
leg. Quit trying to sound like a God damned doctor.”

“Sure,” I replied. She was sitting on the lid of the toilet and twisted her legs to prop her foot up on the edge of the tub. I stepped over her and into the tub, then grimaced as I got on my knees.”

“Oh boo-hoo,” she quipped. “What the hell's your problem, anyway? What the hell have you been doing over - ”

The sudden silence was a little shocking, and I looked up but couldn't read her face in the gloom.
Dawned on you I've been burying bodies over here, has it?
I thought.
One of them your dearly departed husband?
I asked her to hold the flashlight as I screwed the cap off the bottle of alcohol. She took it meekly and shone it on her foot.

“Thank you,” I said. “This might sting some? Sorry, but I think we should kind of flush the nail first?

“Yeah,” she whispered. In the hush that filled the bathroom and with the light pointed in my direction, I began to feel self-conscious. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, and little details popped out at me with startling clarity: drops of blood looked almost as dark as the mud caked on her toenail against the metallic polish, and her shin still had indentations and little blue-green granules embedded in it from the shingles of the porch roof.

Crap. What do I – do I touch her? Hold her foot?
I wondered. I shifted around until I faced her foot from the top, and still hesitated, my hand hovering stupidly.

“It's okay,” she said. “Just do it. I'm a big girl.”

I grabbed her foot lightly and tipped the bottle over her toe in a quick dollop. She twitched once, but I didn't hear so much as a hiss or gasp, so I poured another burst and leaned in close to examine the wound. The nail had split down the middle, but not more than halfway. The leading edge was ragged so I clipped it clean and tweezed a splinter out of the toe.

“I actually tripped over edge of the garden,” she offered. “After crawling over the rocks...”

I nodded and poured some more alcohol on for good measure, then used a swab to try and wipe away flakes of blood and nail polish. I patted it dry as lightly as I could, applied some Neosporin and wrapped the toe with non-stick pads, then taped it up. Finally I bound her ankle, and stood up with a gasp, my knees screaming. She swung her legs in front of her and braced her left arm against the sink to push herself up. I offered her my arm as she began to hop to the door and at first she waved it off with a protest, but I said, “Oh, come on now,” and she grabbed it with a sheepish smile and we maneuvered out of the bathroom, down the hall and into the living room where she sank into a recliner. I levered up the foot rest, the chair tipped back and she sighed.

“Doing okay?” I asked. “Want some water? You should probably have something to drink. Oh – some pain reliever? Aspirin? Ibuprofen?”

She laughed, and began to wave me off again. I said, “Well, I bet you at least need the fluids – I'm sure I have an unopened bottle of water.” I hustled to the kitchen, found a sealed bottle and brought it back to her.

“I know
I
need some aspirin at least. Plus, I want to see what's going on over there. I'll be back in a minute or two.” I moved off through the dining room and began to creep up the stairs. As I limped down the hallway I heard muffled voices outside. Easing into the room, I carefully moved to the window and looked down through the sheer drapes. I couldn't see any of the chuckle-heads, but a dead girl – might have been eleven or twelve – was making steady progress down the street towards Jackie's house.

I went into the bathroom and grabbed the aspirin and ibuprofen, stared at a bottle of Midol. Grabbed it, put it back. Grabbed it again, then put it back for good. I was afraid she could take that in all
sorts
of wrong ways rather than what I had intended.

My stomach rumbled and I realized I was hungry. As I came out of the bathroom, the sound of clear voices startled me.

“Here's his wallet,” Nick said, amusement in his voice. “Let's take his credit cards and head on down to the gun shop.” I heard no reply to that, and Nick must not have gotten the reaction he was hoping for. “Just kidding bro.”

“Let's find the keys to the gun safe, huh? Then get the hell out of here?” The alpha dog.

I realized they were in the bedroom across from the window, so I moved to the opening to listen. I could hear floor boards creaking, and drawers being slid open and dropped.

“I still can't believe that stupid fuck did something right for a change,” Nick commented.

“Yeah,” answered the alpha. “But there's no way he thought to do that. No fucking way. The dick just had it in reverse already.” There was a grunt of agreement.

“Hey - lookee here!” Nick shouted abruptly. “En garde!” Both men laughed loudly.

“Think that's Jackie's or Jesse's?” asked the alpha, and they both laughed even louder.

“I wonder what the hell happened to him?” said Nick.

“I have no idea. Can't imagine he'd just leave Jackie all alone - aw, shit look over there, dude.” The alpha chuckled.

“No way,” Nick laughed. “Hiding in plain site!”

I heard the sound of metal scraping on ceramic, and the jingle of keys.

“Looks like we have...keys to his Dodge, and – yeah. Keys to her Mustang,” the alpha stated. “Some of these others might fit the safe. Let's go.”

The sound of boots tromping across the room faded, and as I turned to leave a loud boom echoed from out front, and I turned back to see the dead girl dropped on the lawn.

As I limped back into the living room, Jackie was sitting up, with a pistol across her lap, her dark eyes sharp and alert. She must have had the gun tucked into the back of her cut-offs. She raised her eyebrows at me.

“Oh, someone shot a dead girl – zombie,” I said.

She nodded, and sank back into the chair. After shaking out two aspirin, I placed the bottles of pain reliever on the end table by the chair.

“I am starving,” I said. “I can offer you a variety of dried cereal and granola bars, stuff like that. Chips. Bread. We have canned goods to heat on the camp stove, but I don't think we should cook anything until...”

She waved me to silence and said, “I had something before...before the shit hit the fan.” She gave a short laugh.

“Alright,” I said, and went to the kitchen to swig the pills down and find a power bar to eat. I heard one of the pill bottles shake and the gurgle of her water bottle. She gave a little gasp of satisfaction. I wandered back into the living room, munching on the food bar and sat on the sofa. After I had finished eating, I leaned back and we listened to the silence for a bit.

“They were ransacking your room next door,” I mumbled.

“Oh?” she asked.

“Yeah. I could hear them – looking for keys to your gun safe, apparently. Sounded like they found some keys – car keys, at least.”

She shifted in the chair and raised her hips, slid fingers into the front pocket of her shorts. She withdrew two keys on a ring. She shook them, making them jingle.

“Gun safe,” she stated, and then gripped the keys tightly in her fist. I smiled, and she leaned back into the chair and closed her eyes. “I would have thought the digital keypad would have stymied them. Either they found the key lock underneath, or Jesse bragged about his precious safe to Nick,” she added.

“Sounds like they'll be taking your truck and car,” I offered, and then felt foolish for stating what she was sure to know already. She spread her arms out in a what-are-you-gonna-do? gesture.

We sat there in silence, and I thought that she might be drifting off to sleep until she groaned.

“I can't believe I lost the M1,” she hissed. “That would have come in very handy.”

“I bet,” I offered lamely.

“The damned thing flew out of my hands when that bastard hit the porch. I should have shot him when I had the chance and saved the world some trouble. Jesus. Well, I'm sure those idiots have it now.” She laughed. “You know what's funny?”

I shook my head, but she still had her eyes shut so I grunted a “Hmm?”

“As the porch was tipping under me, all I could think about was that
Titanic
movie. You know when people are scrambling up the decks when it's sinking? I was grabbing for the bedroom door like mad, and all I could think was, 'I'm on the
Titanic
!' Funny what goes through your mind at times.”

We both chuckled at that.

“You would have thought if I was gonna get any splinters in me
that
would have been the time...” She grew silent, and gnawed at her lower lip for a moment. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Artie, I am
so
sorry for being such a bitch to you – no, listen. Listen. I had no right to take my frustrations out on you. I didn't realize...that...
you
know. I mean, I could see you out there working away, the pickaxe swinging above the fence – I kinda figured what you were doing. And I could see you climbing the tree to get back in here.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I mean that's what gave me the idea to get over here – climb your tree. I threw open the back door of the house, the garage door, and then the door from the garage to the alley – to make it look like I had ran off out of there, you know? Then I climbed over our fence and almost bashed my face in on...” The tears spilled down her cheeks as her voice faltered.

My ears were hot and the back of my eyes stung. I felt like a big useless lump, stared at my hands and cleared my throat.

“Well,” I said. “If there's any time that being cranky is warranted, I'm thinking a day like today counts for sure.”

She laughed, and I looked up and smiled.

“I suppose,” she sniffed, and laughed again. “But I truly am -”

I waved my hand. “I know – but you have worse things to worry about than my tender feelings. There's no butt-hurt on my part, truly.”

She smiled, leaned back and closed her eyes.

“I'm thinking you are probably exhausted,” I said. “All that adrenaline pumping through you. You want to crash on a bed upstairs? You can have either one. My old one, my mom's - doesn't matter.”

“Okay if I stay here?” she asked. “It feels pretty comfortable.”

“Certainly,” I said. “I'm going to go upstairs then and give you some peace – and check on the morons. See what they're up to. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Not a problem,” I said, stood, and shuffled off to the stairs hoping the aspirin would kick in soon.

*  *  *

At one point, it sounded like a mini fire-fight had broken out (how Jackie could have slept through it was beyond me, but when I checked on her she was snoring softly). I spent the better part of the morning eavesdropping on the going-ons next door and rummaging in the basement through some of my dad's odder items – one of them some night vision goggles he had liberated from a commercial photo lab in Seattle, of all places. Back in the '80s he had been fired from this lab for running a bunch of film with the room lights on – unknowingly because he had been wearing the goggles. Astonishingly enough, he had been the second person to do this. He told my mom that he “kept” the goggles to remind him what a dummy he had been.

As I carried a box of my dad's crap upstairs, I could hear shouts of alarm and then the sharp booms of gunfire. Stupidly, I ran to the window to look out and it looked like another mob of the dead was on Jackie's front lawn. I couldn't see all of the action, and at one point a bullet tore through the wall and into the ceiling. I dropped to the floor by the bed, afraid to move until I heard the shooting stop.

After nervous laughter and the low murmur of conversation appeared to signal that the battle had ended, I crawled up to the window and sat on the floor with my head peering over the sill. It looked like they had been successful in getting the truck extracted from the porch. From what I could gather Mike had been changing a tire when the mob of dead had “snuck up” on him. It sounded as if Mike had spent the entire time on the ground firing up at the dead – and into houses as well.

At this point I got alarmed at the thought of a bullet entering the living room and into Jackie and that's when I checked on her. I couldn't see daylight peeking in through any holes in the walls downstairs, so I began to trudge upstairs again when I heard clearly, “Whoa, whoa, whoa – are you
bit
?”

“Nah, man – got that from gettin' the truck off the porch,” Mike stammered.

“Dude, are you fucking bit?” asked the alpha dog again.

“No! I told you I got cut -”

“Dude that looks like a bite. Hey Nick?
Nick!
Get up here and look at this!”