Allison Hewitt Is Trapped (27 page)

“I didn’t
knock her out
, Collin. I strangled her with my computer cord. I strangled her and then … then her blood was all over my hands. She was suffocating me, crushing me against the wall. It was her or me, her or me. And it was almost me.”

“Christ. Maybe I didn’t want to know that.”

“I killed Zack. I killed … others. I feel hideous.”

“You’re not, I promise. I can’t take my eyes off you.”

“Sure you can,” I say. “You’ve got your wife back. Everything is good again.”

“You know I don’t think that,” he says, laughing bitterly. “I don’t know what to say because I’m afraid I’ll just … I’m afraid you’ll think I’m a very bad person. But I don’t know what you think, do I?”

“Let’s keep it that way,” I tell him. “Let’s just … I don’t know.… Let’s just keep some distance. It’d make things easier on me.”

Collin’s quiet then but he won’t go away. I should tell him I’m afraid, that I really do want to be with him, but the chance that he’ll refuse me, rebuff me …

He looks distant, his face resolving itself into a death mask, pale and aloof, the unexpectedly attractive and unmovable gaze of a pharaoh staring out from his painted coffin. We stand together in the stark, shattering cold, neither of us wanting to break, to bend, to talk.
This is why I want to leave,
I say to him in my mind,
because I can’t be around you; I can’t be around you and not want you to myself.

I hear his breath catch and I think maybe he’s spotted a wandering Groaner. But then I see it, at the bottom of the hill, bright and strange and completely out of place. It’s so unexpected that for a moment I don’t believe that it’s really there. Maybe it’s an illusion, a shared hallucination, just a vision in the mist.

A black and white horse, a zebra, blinks up at us from the base of the hill.

“God,” he says. “It’s so beautiful.”

And then I remember where we are, the paths, the benches, the mangled street signs and why the park looked familiar. It’s Henry Vilas Park. My mom took me here twice when I was a little kid, and just next door, butting right up against the park with its jungle gyms and picnic tables and pretty benches is the Henry Vilas Park Zoo.

As it trots to the base of the hill, the zebra seems to sense us up on the hill watching it. It stops, turning a complete circle, its hooves muffled on the cold, hard ground, and then stares at us. The long, striped nose is lowered and then tipped to the side as it regards us, the black eyes closing and opening with that disturbing, equine sensitivity.
I know,
it seems to say.
I’m lost too
.

I wonder how many of the animals have survived, if there are tigers and elephants and giraffes waiting in the mist too. The thought doesn’t last for long. Collin takes my hand and holds it, not pressing, just cradling.

“Do you hate me?” he whispers.

“No. No, it isn’t your fault.”

Maybe it’s the cold. Maybe it’s the chill mist hovering at the bottom of the hill. Or maybe it’s the beast watching us, the stranger, the thing that doesn’t belong, the thing so far away from its home and so totally out of place. Whatever it is, we’re kissing and the pain in my chest is there again but this time it’s different and it’s not my ribs.

I must be exhausted because my reaction time is terrible. There are voices, angry, shouting voices, but I’m not going anywhere, as if I’ve suddenly been submerged in a murky pool of water. The voices are muted, contorted, but I don’t want to let go … Not now … Not this minute … His lips have stunned me.

“What the hell is
wrong
with you?”

It’s Lydia. She’s screaming and waving her arms and pushing me. I don’t hit back. I want to hit back. I look down the hill and watch the zebra disappear back into the mist, startled back into hiding, startled into reality.

“Calm down, Lydia. Just calm down.”

They’re fighting, sighing, rolling their eyes at each other. I stand off to the side and watch, alarmed by how fed up I feel, how detached and sad I’ve become. It isn’t the right moment for a revelation like that but it doesn’t matter. I turn away, let them continue the argument. Lydia says something like “Come back here, don’t you dare walk away from me.” But I go back to the tent and quietly take a piece of paper out of my laptop bag. I take a pen and, squinting into the darkness, draw a line down the center and, at the top, write: PROS & CONS.

A few minutes later it looks something like this:

PROS

I like Ted.

I like Ned.

I like Evan and Mikey.

I like Renny.

I love Collin.

Collin and Finn have weapons and knowledge.

Strength in numbers

Vehicles

CONS

Lydia.

More mouths to feed

More people, more noise

Lydia.

Bickering and dissent

Attachment

Pandering

Lydia.

My mom is out there.

I didn’t even need to make the list. Just thinking about it all, just writing this has convinced me that I know what I want to do. It isn’t an easy decision and I know it won’t be a popular one, but it’s my life, my survival and I’m determined to be proactive even in the face of so many … complications.

Tomorrow I’ll tell the others. I’ll stand in front of them, take a deep breath and say: I’ve decided to go it alone. Thank you for your help, thank you for being my friends but it’s time for me to go. My mother is out there somewhere, and I’m going to find her or die trying. I’ve waited too long as it is. Don’t look for a postcard, there won’t be one.

Then I’ll take Dapper, my laptop bag and my ax and I’ll find my mom’s house and make sure she isn’t there. I’ll forget about Collin. I’ll find my mother because I owe it to her. I’ll find her because it’s time.

But for now I need to rest, friends, and so do all of you. Stay safe, stay alert and stay in touch. I’ll write again soon when I’ve reached another safe place, another stop on the way forward.

COMMENTS

steveinchicago says:

October 29, 2009 at 3:06 pm

I had your optimism for so long, and I don’t mean in comparison, your optimistic and usually cheerful demeanor regarding the circumstances we’ve been put in were a beacon of inspiration. Still not knowing why we keep up this charade of normalcy could have only ever lasted so long and now we here see what can happen from being too generous and welcoming in the face of extinction. I hate to say it but I feel so bad that there were people like you and collin … people like me … that were generous and helpful in the time when we shouldn’t have been. Maybe I was lucky, maybe we were lucky to have not been brave enough to try to find a bigger shelter and some more permanent holdout.

Allison, don’t leave them … they need you as much as you want them.

Norway says:

October 29, 2009 at 4:21 pm

Good luck! I’m not sure I agree with your decision, but if you can find the coast, and a boat, we have a nice, warm, dry, spacious and Lydia-free cave over here on the other side of the Atlantic. Same goes for anyone else in the neighbourhood. We have a radio signal, scouts say it transmits fine to the coast.

Allison says:

October 29, 2009 at 4:46 pm

That’s very tempting! You’re the third survivor to suggest a boat but I’m not much of a sailor. We’re also tragically landlocked here. Maybe your post will attract some help; the people around here seem to know the score.

October 30, 2009—Housekeeping

Maybe I’m selfish or reckless or both, but honestly? I can live with that.

Ted and Renny are fast asleep when I get up. Dapper is too, but he doesn’t protest much when I nudge him to get out of the tent. It’s early, only a few hours after going back to bed, and I haven’t slept much at all. We sleep in our clothes, in our shoes, in our coats. I don’t have much to take with me and it doesn’t seem right to take their food or their supplies so I just take my ax and my laptop bag and a few granola bars. There will be places to ransack, to pilfer, I tell myself, and they won’t suffer much without me, not when they have Captain Commando and Ned I-Can-Hit-A-Splintered-Toothpick-At-Thirty-Yards Stockton. I’m injured, and a lousy shot anyway.

I stretch and do a few careful jumping jacks on the crunchy, frosty ground. I’m getting used to the feeling of being cold all the time and of living with that little twisted pit of hunger in my stomach. I’ve taken on the life of just about every Dickens character I can think of. Dapper sits and scratches his ear, unperturbed by my morning calisthenics and unaware that soon, very soon, he won’t get to steal food out of Evan’s little hand or clean Ted’s palms after he’s eaten a bag of cheese puffs.

I try not to think about those things. I try to forget that in a matter of minutes, as soon as I dip down below the hill and make it behind a building or two, there will be no more Ted, no more Collin and no more ankle biters. I can’t let Ted know I’m leaving. He knows about Liberty Village and he’ll try to follow. I can’t let that happen. It’s sad, sure, but sadness and hunger are hard to tease apart this early in the morning. The grass is stiff and loud as I take a deep breath and set off down the hill. I think, judging by the sunrise, I’m heading vaguely east. There are no zebras in the mist this morning, no lions or giraffes, and no humans to stop me.

Before I make for Colorado I’ve got to be sure, certain, that my mom has left for good. It doesn’t feel right to get on the road without first checking my house. She could still be there waiting for me.

I lost my mother’s purse long ago, gone in the fires at the arena, but it doesn’t matter. I know that Post-it by heart and I’ll never forget it.

There’s a
zip-crack
in the distance, Finn’s sniper rifle. I know it’s him because he’s in love with that gun and Collin generally uses an assault rifle that sounds more like
rat-ki-tat
. Finn must have switched guard duty with Collin sometime in the night. I pick up the pace, trotting down the hill and toward a cluster of trees at the base of the hill. If Finn mistakes me for one of the undead then my little adventure will be very short-lived. I make it to the trees, my heart pounding, my lungs practically breaking with the soreness of my ribs. I keep hoping that there’s nothing really wrong with me, that the sprain or break will heal on its own, that I’m not quietly, secretly bleeding to death of some horrible internal injury.

Dapper stays close, his nose more or less glued to the back of my knee as I slow down and head toward the street. It’s real now. I’ve put distance between me and the camp and going back would mean an extra awkward conversation with the group. I won’t go back, I won’t.

I don’t know if they’ll guess where I’ve gone, but it doesn’t matter; no one knows how to get there. I cross what must be Wingra Street and turn south toward Erin Street. For now I’ll just have to guess, because most of the distinguishing features of the neighborhood have been destroyed by fire. The buildings and brownstones are nothing but charred, hollowed-out skeletons with the broken windows empty, staring down at the forlorn street, standing watch over the fallen mailboxes and stopped cars.

The roads are quiet until I get to Orchard, where a group of Groaners move up the right lane toward me. There’s three of them and they’ve got that disjointed, desperate speed that tells me they’re starving. Luckily it also means they’re weak and clumsy and too distracted by their own driving hunger to be much of a threat. And it doesn’t bother me. Not anymore. I can’t even imagine what a psychologist would have to say about that. I can look at a decomposing human, a person reduced to meat, to flesh and bone and their raw, brittle parts and feel only the faintest pang of revulsion.

Luckily, whatever part of Dapper is German shepherd makes him a natural at commands. I’ve taught him sit and stay and he does, his tail twitching with excitement and frustration as I take the ax to the three Groaners. He wants to help, to defend me, but if he so much as licks one of them I’ll be short a good dog and a loyal companion.

I’m out of breath after that, the ax hanging limply in my right hand. Without sleep, without enough food, I’m not much use against the undead. It hurts to pull a full breath into my lungs and the pain has made my arms weak. I make a promise to treat myself better, to eat more and exercise and regain the strength that I’ve lost. There’s no room for mistakes now, no one to pick up the slack for me if I stumble or hesitate.