Containment (6 page)

Dr. Caldwell nodded his head and smiled along with her. He clarified for Neil and anyone else wondering, “You siphoned gas out of parked and abandoned vehicles.”

Maggie nodded and took another bite of granola bar. “It’s important that you put the right side in the tank and the right side in your mouth or you’ll get a mouth full gasoline. Believe me, it’s as nasty as it gets. I put marks on the side of the hose that goes in the tank so that I wouldn’t make that mistake again. You can’t go off of smell, because the whole damned things reeks of gasoline.

“I keep a couple of gas cans in the trunk just in case. So far though, I’ve been lucky and haven’t had to touch them. The Good Lord has provided for me every step of the way.”

Dr. Caldwell was smiling as he said, “That’s very good. There probably is enough gas to run for a very long time in all of the parked cars around the city.”

Maggie nodded. “Yeah, but some of them were left running when the drivers decided to make a go of it on foot. I haven’t come across too many of those, but there are a few out there with empty tanks on ‘em. The other thing you gotta watch out for is those things in the cars too.”

Neil looked back up from the ground. “Huh?”

“Yeah, every now and then, you’ll catch one of those things in a locked car.”

Dr. Caldwell finished the thought with his own speculation. “Probably, the driver, or someone anyway, got bit and then retreated into the car, locking themselves in. They die and then come back as one of the zombies trapped in the car. We should probably be wary of stalled cars anywhere and approach them with caution. Never know what could be waiting for us in there.

“Well Maggie, I think running into you is the best thing that has happened to any of us for some time. Maybe we can all hang out here for a bit and catch our breath. If you need to get some sleep, we can keep an eye out for a bit.”

Maggie nodded and sat heavily into the Passat’s driver seat. She took one of the numerous Bibles from her backseat and began to read silently to herself.

They sat on the top row of bench seats on the metal bleachers, as if they were waiting for a late summer softball game to start. Neil said to all of them, “I don’t trust her. There’s just something about her that isn’t right. I don’t think she’s tellin’ us everything.”

“So what do we do?” Meghan asked. “We already have one loony with us...” she added, looking towards Malachi as he stood at the diamond’s home plate waiting for an opening pitch that would never come. Danny and Jules were just on the edge of the diamond and using their feet to plow loads of dirt into a pile only to jump up and down on it, causing a dust cloud to form. Jerry was on top of the minivan and scanning all around them with the binoculars hung around his neck.

The sky, though grey, was calm and peaceful. The slight kiss of a breeze causing the merest wisp of a flutter in the kids’ dust clouds was moist and still carried the seasonal aroma of the fall rot. The trees surrounding the lot barely took notice, ignoring the air’s suggestion to move.

Kim said, to herself as much as to anyone else, “So this is what it was like before we came.”

Meghan, who was lifting herself from the uncomfortable metal of the bleachers, asked, “What?”

“It’s so peaceful and quiet. No cars. No planes. No nothing. The loudest noise any of us can hear anymore is our own thoughts. Maybe that was why we had so many distractions around us...to silence our thoughts and our insecurities. If you can’t hear any doubt, then maybe there isn’t any to hear anyway. I guess it takes losing everything to figure out what was really important to you.

“We used to spend so much time entertaining ourselves that we really lost out and maybe forgot what it was to be human. I used to follow a strict TV schedule. I didn’t miss my shows and if I did...oh man was I pissed. I lived a tight existence around my TV. And now that I don’t have it anymore, I can’t even remember why I watched to begin with. There wasn’t any more value to the garbage that I thought was important than the dust cloud that the kids are making over there.

“And now, we drive through the ruins of all that we thought was important, and I can’t even fathom why I thought it was in the first place. I have a crap job that got me nothing but more crap from someone else working the same crap job just somewhere else. Really, what was the point? Maybe we’ve been singled out for extinction with good reason.”

Kim was crying by then, but they were silent tears...with not so much as a single sniffle. She looked off at the trees that stood as a buffer between the sports park and the highway. It all seemed so surreal to her that, in the middle of the terrifying storm in which they were traveling, there could be such a peaceful spot as this. She wished that Tony were still with them. With his big arms and bigger heart, he’d know how to hold her and make her feel that everything was going to be alright. He always knew how to make things better for her. She wanted to remember all the good times with him at work and at home, hers or his, on the couch watching whatever they could find on television. She closed her eyes and tried to see his face, but all she saw was the venomous rage and hunger on the face of her friend Tony after he’d been attacked by those things.

All at once, Kim got to her feet and made her way down off of the bleachers and away from the others. She knew that her resentment for the others was unfounded and that they were right in leaving him behind. She also realized that it would have been Tony that would have pointed all of this out to her and helped her to accept it. Knowing, however, did nothing to diminish her pain. If the hot, metaphysical poker that seemed to be jabbing into her chest would stop, that would be a fantastic start.

She walked over to the van and found a large piece of cardboard on the floor behind the last row of seats. Tearing sections out of it as she walked, she came back over to the dusty infield and began to make a pile of her own. Jules and Danny quickly joined her. She said to each of them, “Now this is a pile that we’ll make but not jump on, okay?”

Making their feet into bulldozers, Danny and Jules scooped and pushed piles of dirt until they had formed a respectable mound. Danny went so far as to make motor sounds as he pushed the soil forward and beeped whenever he went in “reverse.” Kim, meanwhile, went back to tearing and shaping the cardboard. She did so quietly, her back to the others still sitting on the bleachers. She wasn’t doing this for them. This was for Tony. And for her.

When she had finished, she paused again. She could feel the heat rising up in her chest. This was how it had been when she attended her father’s funeral. Despite not having seen him for years, she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the loss. She hugged her cardboard creation to her chest and closed her eyes. She lowered to her knees and sank the long end of cardboard into the pile and then stood away from it.

It wasn’t as grandiose as Calvary, but on the ground in front of her was a mound with a modest cross rising up. Neil and the others stood and joined her. They gathered round the cross as if it were the single mass grave for all that had been lost in the still unfolding calamity. The solemn silence stood there with them, touching each of them.

And then Maggie was there with them as well. She opened a Bible and began to read. Even the silence paused to listen, perhaps seeking its own sense of solace.

“...though I may walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil...”

Kim produced a Sharpie marker from the pocket of her light jacket and rolled it in her hand for a few moments, decisions just out of reach teasing her. And then she leaned down, took the cross out of the dirt, and wrote Tony’s name on it. She held it quietly as Maggie continued to read. With her thumb, she caressed the writing gently, hoping that perhaps touching his name would help mend the deep emotional connection that had once existed between her and her friend. She closed her eyes to see his face one last time, kissed his name, and then handed the cross to Meghan, whose hand was extended to her.

Kim rose back up with a pinch of dusty earth in her palm. She looked up at the sky and then let the dirt sift through her fingers and be caught by the slight flurry of air. Meghan followed suit by writing her fiancé’s name on the cardboard and doing the same as Kim. Dr. Caldwell was next in line.

When the cross was handed to Neil, he opened the marker but then stalled when he realized he didn’t have a name to write on it. There was no one who immediately came to mind to mourn. His parents, he hoped, were still safe and removed out east in Pennsylvania. His ex-wife had made it abundantly clear that he was less than a memory and a painful mistake for her. He had no children and really no close friends with whom he shared anything. He looked around at the others and was overtaken with embarrassment. He empathized with all of them, but his detachment from all of those around him had the unintended effect of insulating him from the loss that they all felt. He suspected that, perhaps, he was better off than the rest of them when he stopped and considered the isolation that had characterized his life before Armageddon.

Kim, Meghan, and Doc had all walked away and were standing next to the van. Jerry was positioned on top of the vehicle keeping watch, ever vigilant. Maggie and Malachi were still enwrapped in the Bible’s words. Emma was staring at the mound and holding Jules and Danny to her legs. Neil was as alone in his moment of self-pity as he was in his miserable life. Not wishing to add irreverence to his misery, he slowly and carefully re-buried the long end of the cross into the mound and then walked away as well. Silently, he crept back to the van and took his place behind the wheel without uttering a single word to anyone.

Only a few minutes later, Jerry asked no one in particular, “Can you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” Dr. Caldwell was the first to answer.

“I can hear...hell, I can basically
feel
a buzzing in the air. It’s like the kind of vibration that we all heard back at the house, but it’s much lower...not nearly as intense.”

The doctor looked at Kim and Meghan, still standing next to him by the van, and both of them shook their heads.

“No. We don’t hear anything.”

Jerry hopped down from the van, the scoped hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, and said, “I’m not sure, but I think maybe we should get moving again. They may have found us.”

Kim asked, “They?”

Jerry nodded and clarified, “Yeah, you know…they. Them. The zombies. I think that’s what I’m hearing. But I feel like I’m hearing it in my chest more than anything. It’s hard to describe.”

Danny, who had come over to the van thinking that they were getting ready to go, added, “It’s like holding the lawnmower handle with your stomach.”

Jerry wrinkled his brow and pursed his lips, then said approvingly, “That’s a great description for it, Danny, my boy. That just about describes it to a tee. It’s just kind of a low vibration that buzzes you from front to back but there’s a sound element to it too that lurks in the background.” He winked at Danny who, once again, beamed with delight at having contributed to the conversation. This was becoming a habit for him and he liked the praise. This wasn’t like teachers back home who were paid to give praise. He was earning it because it was merited, and he could tell the difference.

Still looking at Danny, Jerry said to everyone, “Regardless of how it feels or sounds, I still think we should get on the move. It’s starting to get stronger, so either they are getting closer or there are more of them.”

“Or both!” shouted Emma, running toward the van. She was pointing at the road leading into the sports park. There, coming slowly up the path but gradually gaining steam, was a crowd of maybe ten of the beasts.

Despite the distance, they could still see that the zombies’ skin had taken on a slightly grey hue and whatever wounds had originally claimed them were now merely rust colored patches against their skin and clothing. Their movements were stiffer and less organic. They seemed clumsier at first, but as they drew nearer and the scent of their prey became stronger, their shuffle became a slow amble, which transformed into a bit of fast paced walk and then almost a trot.

Jerry stood next to the van as the women and children from the party climbed into the rear. He hoisted the rifle to his shoulder, clicked off the safety, and then sought a target through his scope. He picked out a “man” wearing coveralls that sported the logo of one of the local airfreight outfits. His dark scraggly facial hair stood out in stark contrast against the practically translucent grey skin of his scarred face. Jerry took in a deep breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger.

Everyone in the van, including Dr. Caldwell and Neil in the front two seats, jumped. Across the parking lot though, there was one fewer attacker coming toward them. Jerry felt that, given the time and opportunity, he could probably take all of them down. He slid the door shut, struck by the ease with which the thought occurred to him. As they exited the park, he sat in his more comfortable spot on the bench seat in complete awe of the change in his temperament and his almost casual acceptance of the way things were now. Maybe that was what was keeping him alive. Maybe. Or maybe deep down, within sight but just out of reach in the well of his soul, there was a sense in him that he was actually thriving and had always sought just such a set of circumstances. This, of course, was absurd. He attributed it to the continual bile of their circumstances. It was ridiculous to think that anyone could possibly be prospering in these difficult days. He was, however, finding himself settling comfortably into the role that he was assuming within their group.