Fear of the Dead (5 page)

Day Four

Wednesday

April 23, 2003

6:01 AM

Vanessa slept for most of last night. The time on her car read 6:01 AM. One minute past the hour.

She got outside and stretched. She wanted to jog, but had to force herself not to. The last thing she needed at a time like this was to be caught by more of them while running on foot. She considered writing on her notebook to help calm her nerves. But she’d lost the mood. She leaned against the ledge, and watched as morning came to fruition.

7:20 AM

Cloudy skies today. Cold too. They say that the further up north people go, the more likely they are to kill themselves. Something about there not being enough sunlight that makes people depressed.

How long am I supposed to go on this way? What am I supposed to do?

Vanessa stopped. It was all she could do to grab a hold of herself. She climbed inside her car, and drove. No direction, no place to go.

She piped in The Beatles on her headphone. The first track in the album was
Back in the U.S.S.R
. Paul McCartney telling her she didn’t know how lucky she was.

Funny.

She drove for about two hours straight, at least according to the time on her car. And yet it felt infinitely shorter. Her mind drifted off into another world, living out the fairy tale life she’d always wanted. She imagined being a mother to a child. Singular, because she knew she wouldn’t have it in her to carry any more. Demands of work didn’t leave much room for maternity leave as it was, nor for that matter the patience she would need to deal with an extra kid.

Motherhood had always been that one thing she’d wanted to be a part of but never had the chance to consider. In between work and a husband she was on the verge of leaving, the opportunity for a baby never had the chance to present itself. Vanessa could only hope that once circumstances changed for the better, she would have a child. Even if it was on her own.

She imagined herself, maybe five or six years down the road, growing to be a single, white collar mom. Living in her apartment with either her son or daughter, and a maid whose hours might as well have made her a permanent resident. She’d be off all day at work while Max (if it was a boy) or Evelyn (if it was a girl) grew up with the maid, showing off whatever new lessons were learned, maybe even mistaking the hired help for mommy.

That was never going to happen now.

Vanessa stopped in the middle of the road, and cried.

It was nine o’clock. Still dark outside. Still cloudy.

She couldn’t take it much longer.

For the next hour and a half, the Corolla remained on standby. The engine was still running, and the indicator on her fuel gage had just turned yellow. Vanessa stared with empty eyes at the stretch of city road out in front of her, no longer curious as to where it would take her.

9:17 AM

I never believed in God, and yet as a child I used to think that the world revolved around some cosmological being of fairness. Karma. That good things happened to good people, and no bad deed ever went unpunished. When I grew up, I started to see karma as something different. More like a convenient excuse for injustice.

It’s always easier to go through life assuming that even if someone who does you wrong ever does get away with it, they’ll still get what’s coming to them someday. If not by your hand, then by somebody else’s.

With all that’s happened here, does karma exist, or am I looking right at it? Is this what I deserve?

Vanessa rested her head against the window while peering passively at the empty city. She piped Billy Joel’s Piano Man on the portable CD player, and skipped to the track that inspired its name.

The first line of the song;
It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday
. Words that would have been an eerie parallel were they any closer to the truth. She listened passively as Billy went on to tell the story of a crowded bar, an old man making love to his tonic and gin, asking to be played a memory.

In the periphery of her left eye, Vanessa saw a woman limping from the corner of an office building. She was slim, brunette, with long wavy hair, and a bright orange dress. Her skin was ghostly white, and her lips were cracked and dry. Her eyes were red, and her nails were as black as night.

The infected woman peered out at the sky before she screamed.

“
Shit.”

Vanessa jolted and put her gear on drive. She tried to accelerate when a hand burst through her window, smashing the glass into shards. The woman grabbed her by the collar of her tracksuit, and pulled. Vanessa fought to keep her distance from the infected’s encroaching teeth, drawing back every time it lunged closer. The infected straggled while the Corolla picked up speed. Vanessa swerved to shake its balance, turning her steering wheel at every which way it could go. With the infected woman salivating just inches from her face, Vanessa’s eyes drifted off the road until she could no longer tell where she was going. She unlocked the door and kicked it open, effectively increasing the distance between them. The infected clung to the wide open door, scarcely able to stay afoot off the sweeping gravel. When Vanessa aimed her head back on the road, there was an infected standing straight at her trajectory.

She panicked. She forced the steering wheel to her left, missing the infected by just mere centimeters. The Corolla spun uncontrollably, and by the time she saw a red bricked wall in front of her, it was too late to change course. The bumper smashed hard, immediately crumbling the hood of her car. The infected dropped from the door, thrown by the momentum of the crash. Vanessa’s head smacked against the leather tiller, spawning flashes of light in her vision. A pain in her chest forced a rough cough. On top of air and saliva, she let out blood.

The airbags never deployed. As a result her head had felt as though it were about to come clean off.

There were more of them now. At least from what she could see in the side mirrors. Was it three? Four? Vanessa couldn’t tell. Their pictures all blurred together. Everything blurred together. Her head felt wet, and she suddenly had trouble keeping her eyes open.

She shut her door and put the gear on reverse.

It didn’t move.

The infected were closing in now. Their frames getting larger. And as if her Corolla had developed a sense of humor, her side mirror was sure to remind her that all objects were closer than they appeared.

She wasn’t driving anywhere. Not anymore. Of that she was certain. Mustering what little will she had left, Vanessa quickly retreated to the back seat, pen and notebook in hand. She glanced at the time on her car.

9:27 AM

I’m sorry.

9:28 AM

The infected horde closed in, and by now the woman in the orange dress had joined the fray. As far as Vanessa could discern, that made five in total. Or six.

Vanessa sat as she was and watched the commotion, any notion of escape far removed from her mind. There was nothing she could do now. No place to go. Fighting would only make the inevitable hurt even more.

They came in one on each side, banging at the windows while the orange dress mounted on the windshield. A series of disorganized knocks reverberated throughout the car, shaking it side to side.

Vanessa was scared, though she tried not to be. It wasn’t the way she wanted her life to end.

She imagined that those that were trying to kill her now might have shared the same feeling at one point in time.

Most people never get to choose the way they die. Why would she be any different?

A blood-soaked hand smashed the windshield. Again, it was the woman in the orange dress.

The impact shook Vanessa’s mind into being. And with the jolt came a sudden epiphany.

Vanessa took the key from the ignition, and unfurled the cushion in the backseat until she could actually reach the trunk. Hurrying, Vanessa climbed inside the opening, her notebook and pen still wavering in her hands. She used the remote on her key to open the trunk, and leapt out just as soon as it popped.

Vanessa was weak, but even so she’d been able to sprint. The infected behind her screamed, and suddenly she could feel their feet storming towards her.

Vanessa kept her pace. She didn’t look back. Eyes front, chest straight, shoulders high. She ran faster than she’d ever run before. And even though her legs were sore and her heart began to sting, she picked up speed. She pushed herself harder, never allowing herself to lose sight of the possibility that she might actually make it if she tried.

In time the footsteps behind her dissipated, and she’d almost felt as if she’d won. But then the dizziness came back, and her vision slowly faded. The damp spot on her forehead grew, and it was only when she touched it with her hands and smelled it on her fingers that she realized she was bleeding.

Vanessa’s run descended into a jog, and then into a weak stagger, until she had trouble simply standing straight. At that point consciousness faded. She closed her eyes, and she fell. And from then on all she could do was hear. The footsteps came back, louder this time since her ears were on the ground. She heard what sounded like gunfire, and immediately went back to the day she killed her husband. This was different though. More explosive. But as far as the noise was concerned, it shared all the same qualities. A loud burst that stretched out in the air, repeating itself in fainter and fainter pitches, finding new levels of sound to carry it through.

Vanessa opened her eyes, but she saw only darkness. She opened them again, and a hazy image of what looked like a man. He was skinny, and had a tattoo running along his neck. He wore a plain white shirt and jeans. There was a gun in his hand, what to her looked like a rifle. He held it over his shoulder, like something a human would do.

“
She’s alive,” he spoke. Actually spoke. Could an infected really speak? Why hadn’t they before?

“
Get her out of here,” came a woman’s voice, which sounded remarkably like hers, except the tone was raspier, like it came from an older woman.

“
Get me out of here,” she whispered to herself, for no other reason than to compare the two voices. Again, similar, but hers had the inherently higher inflection.

A second man cropped into view. This one larger than the white shirt. He was black, or dark brown. He lined himself up close enough that she could tell his eyes were a gentle hazel.

Not red.

He wasn’t infected, and from what she could barely tell, neither were the other two.

Was she in heaven then? Was this where all the survivor’s went?

“
She’s there alright. But we have to move her fast.”

Maybe God really did exist. It made sense, she supposed. For karma to exist, there had to be someone up there pulling the strings, making sure that everyone got what they deserved.

Before Vanessa closed her eyes, all she could see was white. And at the time it made sense that the only reason she could see anyone other than red-eyed infecteds was because she was already gone. California was lost now, and she was up there with everyone else who had once been alive.

For a moment Vanessa made herself believe in the possibility, and for as long as she did it brought her peace of mind.

Grace Minien

Chapter Five

Day Four

Wednesday

April 23, 2003

6:21 PM

Dear Lord,
What you have shown us today is a miracle, and one I will never forget. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart I thank you. I always knew even in the darkest of hours that one day you would show us a sign; a marker that all is not lost. That there are still others out there; still alive and in need of our help.

I thank you for bringing this child into our care and into our lives. We have taken her in. Atton laid her down, and I have wrapped a fresh bandage around her head for her injuries. She has suffered a concussion, but she will recover. It was through your gracious mercy alone that she survived the day’s ordeal, and again I thank you most of all for that. Had you not been there to protect her, I don’t know what any of us would have done.

She had a diary with her when we picked her up. I don’t know if I should have, but I took the liberty of reading some of it. If the diary belongs to her as I suspect it does, then her name is Vanessa Lowen. If what she has written is true, then she has gone through a great deal of hardships. She is scarred. I can see it in her face. Vanessa is still in pain even as she sleeps. There’s a part of her that’s searching for answers; searching for you.

So many of us left seem to be in need of guidance. But that is to be expected. The last four months have been a trial for all of us who are still on your soil. I see so much trauma in Atton, and in Linus. Even in myself. We have all lost something dear to us. And I know that that is why you brought us all together. So that we may all understand our suffering, and work together to do what is right.