Wasting Away (25 page)

Slowly,
I went inside of her. The pulling heat, the inviting warmth, I held myself
there for fear of finishing too soon. She bit at my lip and ran her fingers
through my hair, pulling me closer. Her breasts were firm against my chest, her
nipples poking at me playfully. I looked into her eyes and ran my hand along
her side until I felt her hip. I pulled her in, thrusting deeper. My skin
tingled and I breathed her in; the smell of spice and sweat and lust caught in
a single breath.

Her
back arched and her body tensed. She moaned out in pleasure and her legs
clenched around my waist. Her chest heaved and she finally relaxed. I leaned in
and kissed her neck, tasting her skin and ran my tongue down to her breasts. I
was there for a long time, kissing her nipples and suckling along the underside
of her breasts.

She
moaned again and pulled me into her once more. I could feel the folds tense
between her legs and I came. With driven thrusts, I released inside of her as
she held me tightly.

We
held each other as our sweat mingled. She placed her head on my shoulder and
breathed deeply and squeezed me tightly against her body. Her leg coursed over
my hip and rested at the small of my back.

We
fell asleep in each other’s arms.

I
awoke in the night and slowly slid myself from her embrace. I went to the
window and looked down to the street where the dead were moving about in the
fog, dense black movement within white mist. Their voices were low as if the
night gave them reprieve over the misery of hunger and rot.

The
thought of going to the bunkers made more sense.  I wanted to get her away from
all of that. I wanted to keep her safely tucked away from the dead. I wanted to
be with her, and damn the bodies that crept in the darkness.

I
watched the sun rise and the fog filter away with the coming light of morning. It
was as if I were watching dawn for the first time in my life. Something new had
grown inside of me. After some time, I realized that I had found a new purpose,
a new meaning to my life.

I
returned to bed and lay there next to Mary. I watched her sleep, and this time,
I didn’t look away. I watched her chest gently rise and fall with every breath.
I took her in and tried to figure out what had changed. We were still the same
people in the same situation. At any given moment, we would have to run again,
we would be out there amongst them and they would have the upper hand.

But
then it came to me. I was the one who had changed. My outlook on life had
completely turned in on itself. I wasn’t a new man, by any means, but my
troubles seemed to vanish. My wife was but a distant memory. Constance’s face
blurred in my mind. The strange man in the church with the dead children was
but a moment in time, shrouded by the love I felt for Mary.

There
was that word again: love.

And
in all my days, I would never truly understand what it meant. I would never be
able to define it. I could grasp at it until my dying days, and yet it would
still elude me. It would forever be a wisp of smoke in the morning air,
lingering on the breeze, threatening to blow away.

Mary
took a deep breath and opened her eyes - a slight and sleepy look before she
smiled at me from the corner of her mouth.

She
smirked. “What are you doing?” she asked with a yawn.

“I’m
watching you sleep,” I said.

“You
sound more confident about it now.”

I
let out a faint laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am.

“Are
we still the same or has everything changed?” she asked.

“Well,”
I began, “the dead are still outside the gates, waiting for us. And the sun is
shining. Maybe today’s the day we initiate that change we always talk about and
get the hell out of here.”

“Silly
ass, that’s not what I meant.”

I
looked away, shyly. “I know what you meant,” I replied. “We made love. Of
course everything is different now. It will never be the same again. And I
wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Are
you sure?” she asked, touching my hand.

“I’ve
never been so sure about anything in my life,” I replied.

She
leaned over to me and kissed me, cradling my cheek in the palm of her hand.

Chapter 23

I
took out my binoculars and spied along the fence at the horde of corpses that
had gathered. There was a wall of rot blocking our way. I thought about every
type of scenario that would allow us to escape and none of them looked good.

“There’re
more of them now,” I said over my shoulder to Mary who was behind the manager’s
office in the shade. “If we’re going to get out of here, we’re going to have to
do it soon.”

“Okay,”
she said. “What do you need me to do?”

I
climbed down the eucalyptus and slid along the trunk to the ground. Mary
followed me to the maintenance room and waited for me to unlock the door.

“Take
these,” I said, handing her a couple of five gallon gas cans. “If I can get
that truck in the parking lot running, we’re going to need as much fuel as we
can get.”

I
took a hose from one of the shelves and slung it over her shoulder.

“Got
it,” she replied.

“Are
you sure?” I asked. “You just put the hose …”

“I
know where to put the hose,” she said with a wink.

I
couldn’t help but to smile. “That’s not what I was getting at.”

“You
swear,” she said, mockingly. “I know how to siphon gas.”

“I
didn’t know,” I replied.

“I
told you I was poor when I was a kid,” she said with a grin. “How do you think
we got around on a Saturday night?”

I
laughed. “All right, well have at it then.”

She
took off across the parking lot and I watched the way her hips swayed as she
walked. I flashed back to when I first met her and followed her up the stairs
into her apartment and smiled to myself. I would never have thought that
fantasy would turn out the way it did.

The
dead rattled the gate and brought me back to reality.

“Assholes,”
I spat. “Leave it to you to ruin a perfectly good moment.”

I
took the keys from my pack and unlocked the door to the truck. When I released
the lever under the dash, the hood popped open, exposing the engine. It was a
newer truck and the compartment was relatively clean. I went back into the cab
and placed the key into the ignition. The engine turned over, knocked a few
times, and evened out into a dull hum. I noticed the gas gauge read nearly
empty, a little under an eighth of a tank.

I
watched Mary from across the lot. She concentrated her efforts on the older
vehicles that didn’t have the security block inside the tank inlet.

“I’ll
be damned,” I said under my breath, “she
has
done this before.”

After
turning off the ignition, I went back to the maintenance room and scoured
around for supplies. In the back corner, I found a generator on wheels, covered
with a painter’s tarp. Between a set of ladders, I grabbed a few extension
cords from a hook and laid them over the generator before pushing it out of the
room. A hazy cloud of dust came from the wheels as I carted it out.

As
I was cutting off the plug on one of the cords, Mary came up behind me. “There
wasn’t much gas in the cars,” she said, “but I was able to fill up both cans.”

“That
should be enough to get us out of here,” I replied, splicing the wires to
expose the ends.

“What
are you doing?” she asked.

“Well,
if this goes the way I’ve planned, I should be able to get enough power to the
motor over there to open the gate.”

“Not
a bad idea,” she said. “So you’ll start the engine, run back to the truck, and
we’ll plow through the dead. I like it.”

“That’s
if everything works. I’m no electrician,” I admitted.

“I
have confidence in you,” she said with a quick nod.

I
wound the cords along the curb line, taking my time to unravel every foot. They
came up about sixty feet short of where the truck needed to be to get enough
momentum to make it through.

“What
are we going to do?” Mary asked.

“You’re
going to have to go it alone,” I said.

“Are
you crazy?” She made a face. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“That’s
not what I’m saying,” I began to explain. “I’ll cross through the yard and jump
the fence where we came in before. You just make it through the crowd and pick
me up on the side of the strip mall.”

“Bullshit!”
she exclaimed. “You’re not leaving me to fend for myself. Either we do this
together or not at all.”

I
took a deep breath and surveyed the length of extension cord. “We need more
room than that,” I said, staring at the gap between the generator and the
truck.

“Well,
Mr. Fix-it, you’d better figure something out because I’m not driving through a
few hundred rabid cannibals alone.”

“All
right,” I said. “You take the apartments on the far end and I’ll check the ones
over here. Look for extension cords or wire. If you happen to find anything
else we might be able to use, stick it in the bed of the truck.”

“Food,
water, that kind of stuff?” she asked.

“Hell,
grenades, antiaircraft rockets, anything that might be handy.”

“Smartass,”
she chuckled.

We
divided the master keys on the ring I found in the office, and I gave her a
wink before starting up the stairs to the first row of apartments.

The
first door I came to was marked with the letter A. I took a deep breath as I
inserted the key and turned the deadbolt. The door scraped the jam as I pushed
it in.

A
simple couch with a blanket thrown over the back sat against the wall, positioned
in front of an old television. A few magazines lay on the coffee table next to
a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray.

Something
caught the corner of my eye.

There
was a silhouette in the doorway of the back bedroom, shrouded in full sunlight,
drowning out the figure. I blinked a few times to make sure what I was seeing
was real. The child stayed perfectly still as I waited at the front door.

“Hello?”
I stammered, catching myself, mid-sentence, but it was too late.

The
child lumbered forward. Her shoulders hung slack and her back was hunched over
as she made small steps toward me, dragging her left foot every other pace. I
stepped back and withdrew the pistol. She lurched closer, her shoulders rising
in step as she favored her gimp leg.

When
she got close, I pushed her back and she stumbled. She came at me again, mouth
wide, and I shoved her to the floor. She hit with a loud thump and sat up,
staring at me. The look in her milk white eyes seemed to question me. They
asked me why I would hurt a child. They pleaded with me as she wavered there. A
rattle came to my throat as I held back a sob.

She
sat on the floor with her legs extended out in front of her. Her nightgown was
hiked up her leg and I saw the bite mark against grey skin. Purple at the
edges, and deep black at the center, it oozed as she placed her hands on the
floor and rose.

“Goddamn
it,” I whispered. “God damn you, why?”

The
pistol shook in my hand as I aimed at her. The barrel flickered in the light as
my finger tensed on the trigger. I waited as she staggered closer. There was a
small flash in the dimly lit room and she fell over backwards. Her head bounced
against the floor when she hit. I bit at the inside of my mouth before
clenching my teeth.

I
moaned softly.

As
I looked at the spray of waste that slowly seeped into the carpet, my stomach
lurched. A thick knot formed in my throat and I heaved. On my hands and knees,
I continued to vomit. My eyes watered as I placed my head on the floor. I
released it all in that moment.

 And
my head swam with the hate and pain that had been building. I thought of what
the dead suffered. I thought of what little they knew of that suffering. I
thought of the torrent of slaughter that had swept over everything and I felt
helpless.

“Oh
my God, are you all right?” Mary asked from the doorway.

I
looked her way and nodded my head before wiping the bile from my lips.

She
looked at the child and let out a gasp. For a moment, it sounded like she was
clearing her throat. She stood there quietly and finally leaned down next to
me, putting her arms around my shoulders. She nestled her head against mine and
ran her hand along my face.

“I’m
sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s
not your fault,” I breathed.

I
gathered myself and stood, wiping the tears from my eyes. I caught a glimpse of
the child and turned away. She looked like she had been laid out for a funeral,
her arms at her sides, her eyes staring off at some unknowable source, gazing
into eternity.