18
Fading sunlight glints through the towering buildings, casting long shadows as Daniel looks back at his group. They are stalking through the streets, moving from one car to the next. The abandoned vehicles make it easy to move with their heads down. No one has said much of anything the past few hours. They have been lucky to be able to travel unnoticed so far.
They passed by a few of the creatures earlier, small groups that looked more damaged than most. They limped along barely able to move. One, an older guy with frayed grey hair matted with blood was dragging himself along, his legs useless stumps.
As he watched the useless undead pull himself through the streets Daniel wondered if maybe it had been exiled from the larger group. Maybe the infirm and damaged are left behind, no longer helpful to the group.
Daniel shudders, his kneels beside the tire of an eighteen wheeler. Faraday is up ahead, ducking in an alley. Sasha, Chloe, and Valentine all move up beside Daniel huffing from the exertion. Moving through the dead city, hunched over is tiring. Daniel’s muscles ache and he stretches as much as he can manage while staying hidden.
“We need to stop soon. I don’t want to be out here in the dark,” Isaiah says, joining them.
They creep until they are deep into a neighborhood. The destruction here truly is random. One house will be nothing but charred wooden frame and soot, then the next one over seems fine.
Deep in a cul-de-sac is a large house with a bright red door and a perfect white picket fence. Daniel imagines that if it were a clear afternoon he could see the mountains in the background. There is a tire swing rotating lazily in the wind.
“This will do,” Faraday says.
He tries the red door. The house looks empty, untouched by the destruction around them. There are no lights on in the house. The lawn is overgrown and there is a small garden of flowers that still has a dirty hoe sitting amidst some overturned weeds. It’s like someone just got tired of gardening and walked away.
Faraday pushes the door and it swings inward. It was never shut after the occupants left. Rain and leaves have blown into the entryway, warping the wooden floors. The others follow him in.
The house is dark inside but Daniel can see a small couch against the wall and a hallway that leads back to what he assumes is the kitchen. He steps into the landing area, listening for any movement in the house.
The place smells like old people. The same way a retirement home smells. Like people who are about to die but for some reason just haven’t yet. The living room is filled with little sculptures of dogs and there is an ancient TV opposite the couch.
A quilt, probably handmade drapes across the moldering couch. “Why don’t you wait in here while we check things out?” Isaiah says to Sasha and Chloe.
Sasha nods, her dark face is stern in the shadows. Valentine sits with Chloe on the couch. Chloe stares out the window at the empty street, her eyes wide.
Daniel squeezes Valentine’s shoulder and pulls a flashlight from his bag walking through the dark hall to the kitchen.
The kitchen is a mess, the cupboards thrown open and empty. The smell of mold and rot is thick in the air. Someone was here before them. Daniel’s stomach clenches he tightens his fist around the flashlight and he checks the sliding glass door that heads out into the backyard, this one is locked so he decides on a course of action.
Daniel walks back to the hallway to the kitchen “Looks like we are alone,” he flashes a small smile at Chloe, “I need you to do something is that OK?”
She nods. “Yes please, I want to help,” her small voice is a squeak in the silence.
“I need you to go into the kitchen and make us something to eat. Can you do that?”
Without another word she stands up and disappears behind him into the kitchen. He hopes that will keep her busy for a little while. Anything to keep her moving, she is tough, but this is unfamiliar. Sasha smiles at him and pats his arm, following her daughter into the kitchen.
Valentine pulls out their candles and lights a few of them, casting a warm glow throughout the living room.
***
Isaiah walks down the other hall to search the rest of the house. Pictures of several generations’ worth of families line the walls and down towards the end of the hall he sees a stairwell. He passes a few rooms, the first is a study, then a master bedroom the bed covers rumpled and dirty.
Whoever stayed here before them left in a hurry, nothing unexpected. He heads towards the stairs and that is when he hears it. A small scratching that barely reaches up the dark staircase.
He works his way quietly down the steps, they creak under his weight. He flips on a switch, the small unfinished basement stays dark. It was a long shot the power would be working anyway. Isaiah shines his flashlight around the room. The shadowed corners are piled high with boxes, and a stack of wooden boards molder in the center of the room. Whoever lived here was just planning on finishing up the basement it seems.
Isaiah bends down and picks up a steel fire poker that is sitting in a pile of unused tools, its weight is reassuring and he takes a few deep breaths before he continues on. That’s when he notices that there is another room in the corner of the basement. It must be the laundry room.
The scratching grows louder.
Someone is in the other room trying to open the door. Trying to open the door with arms they don’t know how to use anymore. His hearts thuds inside his chest, but he is afraid to call out. He doesn’t want Sasha or Chloe afraid to sleep here tonight, they need a place they can feel safe.
The scratching continues with more fervency the closer he moves to it. He can hear footsteps from the others upstairs but he hopes they can’t hear the noise. He hopes it isn’t at all what he thinks it is. He lays his hand on the handle shifting the weight of the impromptu weapon in his other hand. He realizes that he might have to act soon. And act fast.
The door swings open and the woman standing in front of him causes Isaiah to catch his breath. She is wearing gardening clothes and is heavily bent over from a hunch. The glove on one of her hands must have fallen off sometime earlier and the ruined stumps of her fingers are covered in clotted black blood. She shuffles at him out of the deep shadows.
Isaiah acts on instinct. He doesn’t even think, the fear constricting his throat makes him move. His fight or flight reflex activated. He swings with such force that he can feel the blunt point of the poker break through her skull and crush into the soft tissue beneath. She didn’t even try to reach up and block it. The thick squelch of the homemade spear entering her brain sickens him.
She falls backwards into the laundry room. Just like the other creatures, she doesn’t bleed. There was plenty of gore from the strike, but not the amount of blood that should have been produced from such a wound. He steps backwards letting the poker stick with her on her short fall to the ground.
He spins around and retches into a dark corner. There is nothing left in his stomach but his body convulses. She was old and frail but the disease, or whatever the hell it is, cares little for who it infects.
Slowly he rises to his feet again willing himself not to look into the laundry room; he feels around the side of the wall and turns the light off casting a dark shadow.
“Hey are you ok?” Sasha’s voice carries down the stairs, praise god they didn’t hear.
Isaiah looks around the dark room, “Yeah I was just looking through some boxes. I’m coming right up,” he calls, trying to sound surer than he feels. He shudders again and walks out of the dark leaving the woman behind.
Sasha stares past him. She has known the man long enough to know when he is lying, and the way she crosses her arms over her chest gives it away. She knows. But, thankfully she doesn’t ask about what happened down there.
The light from the stairwell illuminates Isaiah as he walks onto the bottom step. Isaiah jogs up the stairs with a forced smile. The thought of his family so close to one of those things is almost enough to overwhelm him.
Isaiah takes the stairs quickly, two at a time eager to be away from the basement and what he is leaving behind. He’s grateful that Sasha doesn’t ask about what happened. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
At the top of the stairs he grabs Sasha’s hand giving a light squeeze. They head into the kitchen Chloe and Valentine are by the stove, opening cold cans of soup. A small red pot sits on the stove top. Daniel fiddles with the nobs but there is no power and the stove stays dead.
Isaiah washes his hands in the sink, scrubbing them raw. The thought of the body laying downstairs pulls at him but he forces it away. There is going to be a lot worse things to come he figures and he can’t allow himself to be paralyzed by everything happening.
Life is a series of decisions and right now he knows he just needs to eat and focus on the next five minutes. It can’t be about what has happened or what might happen; there is no theoretical in hell. There is only right now and doing what needs to happen to survive.
“Hope you’re excited for more cold soup,” offers Valentine as Isiah drops himself into a chair. She lays out crackers and a couple cups of water.
He grabs a cracker and begins chewing on it realizing only now how famished he actually is. Finally a real smile finds his face, the first normal thing since they left the apartment and it is just a simple meal, but right now he can’t think of anything that sounds better, “What kind for tonight chef?”
“Chicken noodle, the good stuff. Real vegetables in here it says, all organic,” She flashes the can from where she is standing.
Isaiah maintains his smile, “That’s my favorite, I was hoping we wouldn’t get stuck with cream of mushroom or something, but right now I’m so hungry I would eat anything.”
A small laugh escapes Valentine. Maybe that’s all she needs too, just focus on small things. She fills six bowls and walks over setting them down on the table. Rain picks up outside and it is nice to have a break from the quiet.
They sit for a while, eating and talking. Pretending like the world outside is OK. Just focusing on the moment.
Not knowing what will come next tears at Isaiah, he can’t imagine being unable to protect his family. Like walking in your house alone at night, you know where everything is instinctively but every dark corner becomes a predator waiting. Every small noise is the killer moving through the house to get them. Except now that might actually be true.
Sasha dries the dishes and leaves them on the counter. They will need the bowls in the morning for breakfast anyways.
When everything is cleaned and put away they take a final look around the house ensuring that the doors are locked tight and the windows are shut. Isaiah finds a small table in the bedroom and sets it at the top of the stairs. He stacks an alarm clock and a lamp on top of it running the cord through the bannister hoping that if anything comes up from downstairs it will make enough time to give them warning.
Sasha again pretends that she doesn’t know what he is doing. It’s better not to know sometimes.
“I think this is the best it’s going to get, we will be safe tonight and tomorrow we can get another couple miles behind us,” Isaiah says, trying to sound as sure of himself as he can. He knows this can only possibly be a temporary situation but temporary is better than nothing. Right now it is just survival.
“Yeah I think we should be alright,” Valentine echoes his thoughts. She lies down on the couch and covers herself with the quilt.
It is pretty chilly inside the house but they are too nervous to start a fire. Even with the curtains drawn it would let out too much light. Valentine wraps herself in the safety of the blanket. Like being a kid, there can be any monster in the world but if you only cover your head with the blanket they are powerless to affect you. She rolls over so she is facing into the couch.
Daniel pulls out a few more blankets and passes them around. Faraday sleeps near the hallway, using his pack like a pillow. Isaiah lies down with his wife. Chloe falls asleep with her arms tight around Sasha.
Slowly his eyes drift off. The events of the day are running through his mind at a million miles an hour and his entire focus is bent on what they will do tomorrow but he is drained. Physically and emotionally more drained than he has ever thought possible. Finally sleep claims him and he gives into the warmth of unconsciousness.
19
Before they leave the house they check the garage for anything worthwhile. Daniel scores a tent that looks like the family purchased it and never even used it. They leave the house behind them with the sun still rising. Cold morning air nips at them and dew is frosted over the grass.
Faraday leads them around the outskirts of the city, staying away from the Auraria campus and the densely packed Downtown. They stay on Quebec, wrapping through neighborhoods. The streets are packed with cars end to end in every direction. All of the traffic pointed out of the city, in both lanes. People so terrified and trying to escape that they crossed over the median and were all headed out in one stream.
Daniel rests his back to an SUV. Valentine is beside him, sweat beads her forehead and her snarled hair hangs in a mess.
A moan, and the clawing of fingers against glass startle Daniel and he jumps forward holding in a scream. Inside the SUV, scratching at the tinted window is the face of a young boy. He was maybe seven or eight, he is twisted and emaciated now. A husk of childhood.
Valentine claps a hand to her mouth, and tears spring into her eyes. Daniel grabs her arm and pulls her away from the vehicle.
“Isaiah,” Daniel whispers back.
Isaiah’s head pokes out from behind a rickety camper. “What?” he mouths.
Daniel points at the SUV and shakes his head. Isaiah nods slowly, understanding the meaning. He puts a hand over Chloe’s eyes as they pass the little boy continues to snarl, his blackened mouth pressed to the window.
They leave the boy behind, not stopping to kill him. In truth Daniel doesn’t know if he could. Maybe if he were threatening them, maybe if it were a decision made of necessity, but to open the door and bash in his skull is different. Even if the little boy is gone forever.
The thought sends a chill through Daniel’s spine and he forces himself not to vomit.
After a few hours they stop for lunch. Shriveled apples and a few packets of almonds they found in an abandoned car. Daniel’s stomach rumbles at him, he has lost weight around his midsection, no more extra fat. His pants hang from him, he pulls his belt a loop tighter. There is nothing else to do for it.
Their lunch is quick and small, leaving Daniel’s stomach grumbling. It’s barely enough to stave off the hunger, and then they are back on the road. Stalking between cars again.
***
Evening settles in, bringing a crisp chill to the air. The sickly sweet smell of the dead lingers at the back of Daniel’s throat, cloying like incense.
“Where do you think they all are?” Daniel asks Faraday. They are walking a little bit ahead of the rest of the group. Strung out in a loose single file formation. All of them are tired and hungry but it hasn’t been raining so thankfully they are still dry.
“I think they’re inside the city still. They’re staying Downtown. I can’t work out why but it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Faraday says.
They cross over the road, keeping interstate 2 on the left, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Reserve on their right. To the north Daniel sees the edges of the wildlife reserve. The leaves have turned to a dazzling array of oranges and yellows in the late fall.
“What are they doing in there?”
“I can’t be sure, but the few stragglers we have seen out here don’t seem as dangerous either. They move slower. I don’t know. It’s like if they are too far away from a larger group then they don’t behave the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was looking for you for a while, Daniel. When there are enough of those things together they move quicker. It’s like they have some sort of communal intelligence or something. The farther out we go the less they seem to even moan have you noticed that?” Faraday says, shrugging. Daniel nods. “They act more like they are actually dead.”
“So you think they’re staying together?” Daniel asks.
“Well I mean it makes sense. Imagine if when this all started they lost their ability to function. They went crazy and attacked each other and then they died,” he snaps his fingers, “When they come back the only thing driving them seems to be hunger. But they have some sort of social instinct that keeps them all together. People are not meant to be alone,” Faraday says.
In the days following the reanimation Daniel saw large groups of them shambling in the direction of Downtown. He can remember them moving like a herd. Isaiah said it was strange. And it was strange, but Daniel always assumed that would be where the survivors were. Just hunting, he thought.
“Do you think they’re still people?” Daniel asks.
“Who knows? What makes you or I people?” Faraday responds.
They stop for a moment waiting for the group to catch up. “We will need to find somewhere to stay tonight. Tomorrow we are going to find a car. I think this far north we should be able to cut across to 85 and hopefully it will be mostly clear. I doubt anyone made it too far out of the city on that first day.”
They make camp just inside the park. They find a copse of trees that gives some shelter and set up their tent, it’s a tight fit. But the extra body heat will be welcome with the cold coming in.
True to what Faraday said they don’t see any dead this night. Outside of the rare stragglers which they are able to put down easily it just seemed like the dead had left all together. But the insistent moaning carries across their camp whenever the wind changes directions. It makes the hair on the back of Daniel’s neck stand up.
He hopes that Faraday was right, that they will be able to avoid any more of those creatures if they stick to the outskirts. It seems like Faraday had a better understanding of what was happening than any of them but in his heart he fears that they could only avoid problems for so long.
They set up the small propane stove and Sasha sets about warming up the cans of soup they were able to find. Isaiah holds Chloe close. Talking quietly with his wife. Faraday wanders away from the group.
At first it made Daniel nervous when Faraday would wander off but over the past few days Daniel realized that it was just his way. Faraday often leaves for a few hours at a time before returning and telling them where to go to avoid any wanderers.
Daniel assumes part of it is that Faraday had never spent much time with people. He’s always been a loner and the end of the world hasn’t really changed him that much.
Daniel stands on the edge of the camp staring at the small flame trying to give Sasha and Isaiah some alone time. He wonders what it must be like to have a family during a time like this. He can’t think of anything more terrifying.
“Hey,” Valentine calls, walking up to him. He turns and smiles at her. “Almost there,” she says. Her voice is lighter than it has been this past week.
“Yeah, we are getting close,” Daniel says, “I was talking to Faraday earlier and he thinks that they are all going into the city.” Daniel looks through the trees at the sunset. It’s breath taking, with the mountains in the background. One of the things he noticed since they started walking was that without any light pollution the sunsets really are amazing.
Valentine stops next to him and they watch the city for a while. The moaning is barely audible from this distance. That collective sound of a couple million voices drifting on the breeze like some sort of lament.
Much of downtown is burned, the skyline forever changed in the chaos of that first night as fires raged uncontested. The rain stopped the fire from annihilating everything, but from this distance they can see the destruction like a scar across the city.
It’s not a place for the living anymore. The dead have claimed it and there is nothing they can do to challenge that. Daniel imagines that it is the way it will be for a long way to come. Will there ever be enough people to go back in and live there? It just doesn’t seem possible.
“When I was in school,” Valentine says. “I took this social anthropology class. They talked about the development of modern humans. How we came along and replaced the Neanderthals because we were smarter. It’s not that we were stronger but we knew how to work together, how to hunt better, how to survive better.”
“Yeah?” Daniel replies. It’s a chilly night. He moves a little closer to Valentine.
“What if all of this is just the next step,” she suggests, “What if they are our replacement? If what Faraday said was true, about them having a group consciousness and everything, they could be more advanced than us.”
Daniel frowns for a moment considering what she said. The whole world has been turned upside down. Everything they knew is destroyed or slipping away but what Valentine says makes sense.
“Think about it, Daniel. We don’t ever see them attacking each other, they show no signs of race or class. They are communal, they work together. They exhibit everything that a species would if it were trying to survive. And they do it better than people ever did.”
Valentine stares back at the city thinking. “I don’t know, I’m just trying to make sense of all this. I don’t ever want to give up. But like you said if this all happened for a reason, maybe we are outdated. Do you think we can even fight them?”
“I didn’t know we were fighting them,” Daniel says. He scratches at the rough stubble on his jaw. “I thought we’re just trying to survive.”
“I think if we are going to survive we need to think about what all of this means. Sometimes there is more to life than just living,” she shrugs, “Do you think it’s possible that we can leave. You know, start life somewhere else. Put all of this behind us.”
“I really hope that it’s possible. I think that’s what we are trying to do,” Daniel says. He turns to look at her and smiles. “I think the safe zones up north are our best bet. Maybe someone there will know what’s going on.”
She slides her hand around his waist and hugs him from the side. “I hope so,” she says.
They stay and watch the sunset, until his stomach aches from hunger and Valentine finally says, “Are you hungry? I’m hungry lets go eat.”
They walk back to camp holding hands.