The Seventh Day (10 page)

My fear of everything returns with a vengeance
when we pull into my neighborhood. Bodies lie in the way along the drive. He
treats them as if they are rocks his truck can navigate easily. We each sway back
and forth from driving on the bumpy road.

Biters move slowly, frozen and weak from
the three days they have spent exposed to the weather and starvation. I don't
understand how they’re alive without water, unless blood counts.

“When I pull up to your house, you jump out
and I’ll circle the block, taking the followers with me.”

I nod, not even caring anymore that he is
leaving me to find my own way. The fear of the biters is real—it’s huge,
but somehow it’s not the bigger threat in my life. That would be my mother
awaiting me in the house, either dead or undead.

He drives the wrong way to my house, taking
the long way around. A woman in a pair of UGG boots and a sweater, I swear I
own from Hollister, climbs to her knees from the crisp grass. She walks her
hands back to her kneeling legs, each finger moving as if it were the leg of an
insect. When we pass her, she’s getting up robotically. She joins the
stragglers behind us, a small herd of them, each looking worse than the next.
But the woman in the UGGs does something I don't expect. She jerks her head to
the left three times and falls to the ground in a heap, her chest rising and
falling rapidly. Blood trickles from her nose.

I lose sight of her as we round the corner
past Julia’s house.

The way her chest heaved looked different
from the other biters.

“You ready?”

I sigh my response, “I am.” I don't tell
him that I’m scared to see my mom dead in the closet, starved because I locked
her in there.

He turns onto my block, the far end of the
road from my house, and slows down. The herd right behind us has thinned as
they’ve struggled to keep a good pace, but at the very back of the pack of
biters, I can see there are far more than there were. The noise of the loud
truck brings them.

When we reach my house he slows enough for
me to open the truck door and jump out, running alongside the slowly moving
vehicle. He stops as I run toward the house and the next thing I hear is the
truck skidding in reverse. I look back to see him aiming the massive vehicle
directly at the biters. Their bodies hit but I’m focused on the garage door. My
fingers shake as I press the pin pad. The door doesn't budge. Of course, the
power is out.
I nearly facepalm myself as I look back to see
if anyone is following.

Not one has noticed me; they’re still swarming
the truck. I turn and run to the side yard, jumping onto the fence and pulling
myself up to look into the backyard. I lean against the wood, ignoring the
splinters in my fingers as I catch my breath and listen for anyone else who
might be in my yard before I jump down.

Slipping along the siding, I take small
steps, desperately trying to hear over the sound of the truck. Beads of cool
sweat gather on my forehead as I grip to the side of my house.

When I get to the corner, to the spot that
will reveal the entire backyard, I take several deep breaths before I peek
around it. My legs twitch with the want to turn and run back to the fence but
there’s nothing there. The yard looks the way it did days ago. Even the grass
looks the same, not even a leaf is out of place. It dawns on me then that the
weather has been oddly consistent—overcast and roughly the same
temperature. No wind, no rain, not a lot of snow, and not much sun. So of
course the grass wouldn't have changed, but wouldn't more leaves have fallen?

Seeing the backyard makes me think of home,
being home and being safe. It’s there in the view of the grass I’ve spent all
of my life growing up on, I realize my father isn’t coming for us. He isn’t
here. He hasn't been. He would have used a window or door back here to get
inside and he hasn't. All the windows and doors are still boarded up.

He never came. Not for us and not for her.
Something must have stopped him. And that means she is either dead inside or
she’s one of them.

My insides twist into a ball as I walk
across the crunchy grass to the back deck. I climb up, using the railing to get
to the second story where the windows weren’t boarded. Sitting on the
overhanging roof makes for a spectacular view when I look back over the town.

Smoke billows from several locations in my
neighborhood. The smoke becomes one with the low-hanging clouds, and it’s as if
there is no light left in the world.

I fear we broke it all, even the light
inside of us. I don't feel any in me. I feel disparity and anguish. I feel
broken and hollow, like the good stuff has fallen out and what’s left is the
husk or shell. Like Mr. Milson and his inability to feel anything for the
people he kills.

It’s been three days and I’m already sick
of this life.

I want to get invited to a party, see my
friends, drink a little, and feel a little bit guilty for it all. My friends
were everything a few days ago and suddenly they’ve become nothing, a liability
maybe even.
Apart from Sasha maybe.
If anyone is alive
it’s her. Her dad is a savage and no one can run faster than her. I glance in
the direction of her house, across several blocks, and decide I need to check
and see if she’s alive. The smoke doesn't seem to be coming from that direction
and adding her to my predicament would increase my odds of keeping the kids
alive. Jamie, my other best friend would be a complete liability and a risk to
my sister and her friends, but I can’t fight the want to glance at her house quickly
and wonder if she’s alive. I doubt it—I imagine she clumsily brought this
plague into our town. But I miss her in every way.

Not that I can think on it now. I turn and
stare at my own reflection in the window.

I sigh, pushing the window to the side and
listening for my mother inside of the still house. One of my legs slides in the
window easily but the other leg refuses, as if half my brain is completely
against the trip I’m about to take.

I force myself into the window, still
pressing my back against it though. I shudder from the cool air inside of
Joey’s dank room. The pinks and purples of the room could trick you. They could
lull you into a false sense of security.

The plush carpet presses down as I take my
first steps. The hallway is motionless but there are five doors from which she
could jump from behind and attack me. I listen for her breath or anything that
might give her away.

The house has never been as eerie or silent
as it is now. I swear I can feel her cold hands upon me with every step I take.

My bedroom door is cracked open just enough
for me to see my bed. It calls to me, lying about safety and sleep and things I
might never have again. Fighting every instinct inside of myself I turn for the
stairs, taking them slowly and missing the ones that creak. I have snuck out a
couple times so I know which ones try to sing of my escape like an alarm for my
parents.

When I reach the landing my eyes lock on
the bench at the front door. The urine stain is still there, looking waxy and
pale compared to the dark leather. The way Mr. Baumgartner’s eyes sought me out
in the dark still makes me cringe, but I have to keep going. I pause at the end
of the stairs, listening for anything. The sounds from outside mix in the
house, stirring the silence so I’m not sure where all the noise comes from.
Some of it could be inside.

Forcing bravery and the end of this expedition
I take a breath and lean forward. The door to the under-stairs storage is in
shards with a large hole in the center. Blood has dried to the jagged edges of
wood. But none of that is what catches my eyes. No, it’s the twitching fingers
with the chipped red nail polish and bloody fingertips that drag my eyes to
them.

Was she wearing red polish? I don't
remember.

But it has to be her.

The note to Dad is on the floor, torn a
little and coated in old brown blood like the door. Her arms and hands are scraped
raw from escaping the prison I placed her in. The way her fingers twitch brings
tears to my eyes. It’s the kind of twitching you would expect in a dying
person. It’s the last of the movements she will ever make.
Weak
and desperate jerks that are linked to the last of her nerves as they die off
with her starved body.

She didn't drink the water.

She dehydrated and starved under the stairs
as she turned into a biter. Had she been even a little aware of her situation,
she would have drunk. She would still be alive.

I can’t look anymore. Partly because tears
try to blind me, try to block out the bad things, but in reality I’m seventeen
and nowhere near strong enough for this moment.

In a twinkling of shear stupidity or
bravery, I slip to the garage, opening the door slowly and silently. I don't
dare look back. I close the door again and walk across the chilled air of the
dimly lit garage. I open the lock carefully, listening at the crease in the
door and wall.

When I’m certain it’s silent, I turn the
handle and open the door a crack. Nothing breathes or moans or groans or moves
outside of the door. I take my chances with the outdoors, sliding through the
small opening I’ve made and closing the door behind me—pressing my back
against it afraid to move. Afraid of every step I am planning to take because
it will lead me away from her.

Her, my mother.
The woman who birthed me and loved me when I was
little.
The woman who deep inside of me is breaking my heart, her and
the steps I take. My brain screams that I need to turn back and save her. I
need to check on her.
She was twitching
,
she wasn't dead
.

But I have a bad feeling it’s her or me
that's walking out of that house. I have to choose me for Joey.

I run to the right, away from the herd of
them he has dragged all over the block. My legs warm as I get past the next
house, pushing my thighs hard but trying to make the steps as quietly as I can.
The only noise is
him
and the truck taunting and
torturing the biters.

I want to keep it that way so I sprint
silently to the street below. I hear the truck revving through streets as he
barrels toward me. When he gets close to me, with the crowd of them chasing
him, he slows and opens the passenger door for me. I grab it, swinging myself
inside.

He doesn't ask how she was. I assume he
knows by the absence of her and a lack of instruction from me for how to pick
her up. Instead, he drives out of my neighborhood, not looking back.

“Can we try my friend’s house? Her dad is
pretty intense and I have to assume she’s alive.”

He glances at me, frowning. “The deal was
we checked on our loved ones and that was it.”

I nod. “But I have a feeling she’s alive,
and if she is, we stand a better chance of staying alive if she’s with us.”

His answer comes with a heavy sigh, the
kind only an old man can accomplish. “Where?”

“Downey Avenue, just down the road. She’s
the big green house with the black shutters. Sasha Bernard.”

He nods. “I knew her dad, Phil. He was a
trainer for the Griz, right? Blonde girl who plays with you on lacrosse?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn't say another word, just drives
directly to her house. There is a serious lack of biters in her part of our
suburb. In fact, there are none. No bodies, no biters, no blood. The whole
place looks untouched. I don't know what that means but when he stops the truck
and turns it off, I take my handgun because I don't know what to expect. I tuck
it in my pants like my dad told me not to and walk across the pristine lawn to
the back fence. When it opens it squeaks, making me feel sick with nerves but no
one comes. Nothing rushes me, nothing stirs even. I walk across the back lawn
to the sliding glass doors on the back deck and knock lightly.

Nothing inside moves so I
tap again.

When no one comes, I have to assume she
never made it back from the city with her dad. I’m about to turn around and
leave when a shape stirs in the dark inside. Lifting my hand to the handle of
the gun, I watch as an upright person walks to the window. I nearly jump when
Sasha presses her nose against the glass. An odd smile creeps across her lips
instantly, but she glances behind herself before moving.

She slides the door, not doing anything
quickly until she rushes me and wraps herself around me. “Lou, what the hell? I
figured you for dead. I went to your house but it was boarded up and the SUV
wasn't in the garage. I figured you guys fled.”

I sigh into the embrace, closing my eyes
for half a second. “I’m alive. Just barely but still alive.” My breath consists
mostly of her blonde hair and perfume. It's weird she’s wearing it.

“Me too.” She nods, squeezing tightly as
her voice cracks slightly. My heartbeat stops fluttering enough for me to
notice she’s shaking. “Run away from here, Lou. Fast.” Her words are a panicked
whisper in my ear, sending chills up my spine. “Run fast.” Her words are my
mother’s in my dream.