End of the Line (28 page)

             
I went into the master bedroom where Dave was still snoring. I went to the closet which had a lot of ladies stuff.

             
“Hello?” said Dave’s voice.

             
“It’s Jim, looking for some clean pants.”

             
“Oh—“ he sounded groggy. “Guy who owns the place is thin and tall, should be okay for you.”

             
“It’s raining,” I said, “You might want to get a shower.”

             
“Okay,” he said, then went back to snoring.

             
I looked in the other closet and found some jeans. I grabbed a belt. I tossed on the jeans. They fit at the waist but were way too long. I rolled up the legs and figured when the house had more light I could find a scissor.

             
I left the room and went back to mine. A few minutes later, Tanya came back. Her hair wet but she was dressed. She came with the dreaded bandage.
             
             

             
I laid on the bed. Tanya swabbed it out. It still stung.

             
“How does it look?”

             
“Still ugly. How’s it feel?”

             
“Not as bad, still stings a bit.”
             

             
She put ointment on it, then bandaged it. At least it didn’t hurt as much as when it first happened.

             
“You’ll probably have a scar.”

             
“At least I’ll be cool.”

             
Dave told Ashley to pull over to a Sunoco station with several abandoned cars. She managed to drive the entire time with only a few sideswipes. A sign read four miles to I90.  This would be where we would say goodbye.

             
Tanya and I searched the gas station for gas additives while Dave worked on getting a car started; a New York plated green Nissan Sentra with a faded Romney/Ryan bumper sticker.

             
Tanya easily dispatched a zombie attendant at the door already with several stabs and gun wounds but it looked like no one got a head shot.

             
I searched the shelves, grabbed some candy, including Milky Ways which I knew Dave liked, and a bunch of additives. When we got outside, Dave was siphoning gas from an SUV and putting it into the convertible and showing Ashley how to do it. I put the additives in both the Sentra and convertible. I had to be out of my mind letting Ashley go. A million things could go wrong. Dave moved from the convertible to the Sentra. Ashley got behind the wheel.

             
“Try it now,” Dave said. Ashley turned the key and the engine came to life.

             
“Yeaha!” she said.

             
“Why don’t you drive it a little,” I said. “See how it feels.”

             
“No,” Dave said. “We’re giving her the convertible.”

             
“But Dr. Goldstein.”

             
“Fuck him. She learned on this car. I want her to take it and one of Mike’s rifles. I don’t think she’ll make it but let’s give her a chance.” He said it in earshot of Ashley but she didn’t say anything.

             
We split the supplies, giving Ashley most of it. She went to Tanya and hugged her, then kissed Dave and then stopped at me.

             
“Dear Sweet Jim—“

             
“Ashley, don’t go.”
             

             
“I have to, there’s nothing left for me here,” she said, then kissed me. She got into the convertible. I never saw her again.

Interlude: Ashley

             
My ex was the reason I stopped driving. He didn’t like women driving, saying I’m a wife and a homemaker. We couldn’t afford a second car and he didn’t want me driving his. My job: stay home, keep the house clean, take care of the kids and cook for him while he provided financial support for us. It was a lie of course. He had an affair that I thought was my fault because I didn’t give enough to him. I accepted it. If it was something he needed, let him have it, as long as we had a roof over our head. Then he decided he wanted more than an affair, he wanted to be with her.

             
I swerved to not smash into a truck. Dave told me to go slow and steady. I had no timetable. Slow, steady, and careful like my entire life.

             
I thought she was some bimbo, but it turned out she was my age, and if she hadn’t stolen my husband I would have liked her. I don’t completely blame her, even though I called her a home wrecker and a whore. He was the inconsiderate one. Not wanting to be a husband was one thing, not wanting to be a father was another. He left when Katie was 8 and Martin 12. At first he saw them every weekend like clockwork, then it was every other weekend, then one day every other weekend, then he moved with his new bride and their new child to Texas, promising the kids, summer and winter vacation visits.

             
That never happened. The kids barely heard from him. Sometimes at their birthday they would get cards with a little cash. I had to use the courts to get child support on a regular basis. After he left, I still didn’t bother to learn to drive. He left me destitute, so I couldn’t afford a car or a house. We lived in a tiny apartment infested with roaches but near the buses and the LIRR. My ex lived in a ranch house with a pool while his kids lived in squalor.

             
It didn’t take me long to get to Albany, except the city had burnt to the ground taking a most of the highway with it. I saw the skeletal remains of our once capital city. I kept calm but wondered if Jim was right. Maybe I was making a stupid mistake. It’d be easy to turn back now. I could follow the maps back to CostKing.

             
Katie, my baby, got addicted to drugs when she was 15. Martin was the responsible one. At 18, he got a football scholarship to Hofstra. While I spent all my time with Katie who was in and out of rehab, he graduated college with honors and went to law school. Katie was stoned at his wedding. I made excuses. Martin and his wife had my two lovely grandkids, Cecilia and Sean. He got a job at a prestigious law firm in San Diego.

             
He told me Katie was a lost cause. He wanted me to come with them to California and leave Katie behind to sort out her own mess. I told him he was selfish. Told him we had to look after her. He said he was tired of being the dad in the family and that while he loved Katie, I was always there when she fell. He was right, but I wouldn’t admit it. I blamed myself for her father leaving and her drug addiction. I let her stay with me while hooked on drugs.

             
Katie did manage to stay clean for six months and met a man named Joey in rehab. It seemed like this nightmare was over. She decided to go to school to become an accountant and managed to get a job.

             
I used the map to find a route around Albany and ended up on Route 20. It took me through pretty mountain ridges but the huge cracks and potholes in the road showed signs of a bad winter. Sometimes I had to drive on dirt, feeling the bumps in my old bones. I wondered if I had any chance of making it. I don’t think the others believed I did.

             
Katie invited her father and his new family to her engagement party. They accepted then cancelled at the last minute. Katie relapsed and never made it to the altar. Joey left her, which in the beginning I blamed him for.  Ending it with Katie had devastated him but he had put his addiction behind him and he couldn’t be with Katie until she did. He told me what Martin told me, I needed to stop enabling her. I realized they were both right. I sent her to rehab again and then told the daughter I loved her but she was on her own. If she didn’t stay clean I wouldn’t help her.

             
I slammed on the brakes when I saw the girl and a cloud of dust went into the air. The girl, living, looked about twelve years old, white but tanned, brown hair, wearing a yellow sun dress. She waved her arms at me to stop. I stopped, knowing it could be a trap, but the rifle was the only thing I had of value and besides this was a kid. I had to. Even with what happened with Jennifer.

             
I shut the car off and got out then walked over to the girl.

             
“You all right, honey?”

             
“You’re the first person, I’ve seen in a while,” she said. “Glad you aren’t a scary man. You look like my grandma.”

             
Many women would feel insulted, I felt flattered.

             
“Do you need help?”

             
“Yes,” she said. “I need a ride.”

             
“I’m not coming back this way.”

             
“I need to leave,” she said.

             
I looked around. My heart sank. “You’re here all alone?”

             
“Since mom died.”

             
“How long ago was that?”

             
The girl shrugged.

             
“You got family?
             
“Maybe—grandparents in Ohio, but I don’t know if they’re alive. They’re pretty old.”

             
Katie didn’t shake the drugs right away, she came to me one night, high, claiming she was homeless, sleeping on the streets, and I didn’t let her in. I never cried as hard as I did that night.

             
“You’ve seen a lot of zombies?” I asked. Terror filled my mind over the thought of this little girl alone.

             
“Once in a while,” she said. “I hide from them— What’s your name?”

             
“Ashley, yours?”

             
“Kathleen, but everyone calls me Kathy.”

             
I looked at the sky. The late afternoon sun hid behind some grey clouds, indicating it could rain. Might be a good idea to stay here for the night.

             
“Kathy, can I stay here tonight? We can leave tomorrow. I’m heading west to California. I think Ohio’s on the way.”

             
“That’s sounds great,” she said, with a big smile.

             
It was the near overdose that finally woke her. Katie’s drug of choice was heroin and she OD’d on a stranger’s couch. They called an ambulance. After they managed to revived her, something changed. Katie faced her own mortality with a new determination. After being three months clean I let her move in with me. She got a job at a fast food restaurant, then enrolled in community college. She found a place with two other girls and was one year drug free.

             
Kathy, despite her young age, kept the house neat. The house itself had a length of chicken wire and stringed cans around it. Easy for us to get around but not a zombie.

             
“Your mom didn’t die of a zombie bite?” I asked. The living room of the ranch house was covered in pictures of two smiling adults with three smiling children, two girls and one boy. One of the girls was Kathy.

             
“No,” she said, matter of fact, no tears, no emotion. “She was sick for a while. No doctors.”

             
“You two lived here alone?”

             
She nodded. “Dad, Carol and Shane all died of the flu at the hospital.”

             
I didn’t press on.

             
“My mom and I slept in the same room. I’ve been sleeping there since. You can stay in my room if you want.”

             
“That’s fine.”

             
When we found Katie’s body, she had been almost three years drug free. I was beyond upset and angry, cursing god for this plague. Cursing him because Katie finally got her life together and he took it.

             
Throughout all of Katie drug years, Martin contacted me once a week. I called him once in a while. He visited with the kids only twice. I never went out to California. I always wanted to be here in case Katie was ready to be clean. I never gave Martin the time he needed. I thought he was fine, great wife, kids and job. He didn’t need my help. I was wrong.

             
“We have a little propane left. That’s one of the reason I need to move on. We used a lot of the propane last winter for heat but I don’t think we have enough for next winter and it ain’t like there’s any at the store.” We had plenty of propane at CostKing. I thought of the winter. Would I make it to California before then?