Lost in the Apocalypse (14 page)

2.

              "I suppose I ought to feed you," Julie told Peanut out loud.

              She had brought from her well-stocked kitchen an assortment of various foods: lettuce, rotting meat, and a small jar of peanut butter.

              Julie tried to offer a piece of the lettuce first, but Peanut simply looked away, pretending, it seemed, like she didn't see the unpleasant vegetable.

              "I know, I know," Julie muttered. "You aren't a rabbit. Don't know why I even tried."

              She grabbed a spoonful of the rotting hamburger meat. It was filled with maggots, and Julie wasn't quite sure why she still had it. The meat had simply gone bad in the fridge and she hadn't bothered to clean it out. There had, after all, been more important things on her mind: like survival, like nursing her parents back to health, like trying to bury them when her efforts failed.

              Peanut wouldn't touch it. Julie sat there for a moment, stunned. What kind of Infected wouldn't eat meat? Julie sniffed the spoon, careful to not get too close to the wiggling maggots, then gagged at the stench.

              "Well, I wouldn't eat it, either," Julie said. She thought about tossing the meat outside, but wasn't sure if it would attract other Infected who
did
eat meat. Instead, she simply set it aside and grabbed her other spoon and the jar of peanut butter.

              Peanut went nuts.

              If zombies could smile, Julie would have said that's exactly what Peanut did. The creature grabbed the spoon from Julie's outstretched palms and clumsily brought it to her mouth.

              Watching a zombie try to lick peanut butter off a spoon was by far the most ridiculous thing that Julie had ever seen, but it seemed to make the creature happy. Julie laughed out loud for the first time in weeks as the petite zombie tried desperately to find a way to lick the spoon. Eventually, she figured out that if she placed the spoon on the ground and knelt down to lick it, she could enjoy the peanut butter.

              "You need a name," Julie said as her new zombie enjoyed the small snack. "And I think
Peanut Butter
is the one for you."

              The zombie looked up from her treat, staring at Julie.

              "Peanut for short," Julie said quickly.

              And the zombie looked back down.

***

              Spending the apocalypse alone in the house where you grew up is stranger than you'd expect. Memories are held in the oddest places, laughing at you as the struggle for sanity rages on. The faint bloodstain on the white carpet screamed at Julie, reminding her of the time she had stubbed her toe on the edge of the sofa. Her mother had been so upset. There was the tiny chip on the kitchen counter where her father had once dropped a kitchen knife. It was Thanksgiving. He had never carved a turkey before. Then there were the pictures of her childhood, all neatly lined up in a row on the mantle. Julie turned them down. She didn't need to see the way she used to smile. She remembered it clearly enough to never need pictures again.

              It had only been a few weeks since Julie's parents died, but already she was beginning to wonder if there was any point in living, any point in continuing on alone.Her neighbors were all dead: none of them, as you might imagine, from starvation. They had all been eaten or died trying to evacuate. Julie was alone in the world, alone in the darkness, alone with nothing but her thoughts and Peanut.

              Sometimes she had to escape from it all. Julie wandered over to the empty houses on her street from time to time and looked for new food to try, stole the unread books, and tried on all the clothes that that her overpaid neighbors used to wear. She stared at the stacks of appliances, the piles of DVDs, the endless televisions and gaming consoles and overpriced jewelry.

              This had been their lives.

              These homes held everything that had once been so important to them.

              And now it was nothing: fodder for the undead who now ruled the world.

              Julie took all of their peanut butter.

3.

              The thing Julie minded the most was the silence. She remembered summer nights from years past when she couldn’t sleep because of the crickets chirping.Now it seemed all she wished for was the quiet noises of animals still alive. She never saw squirrels anymore. The birds had all died or left. Even the insects seemed to have vanished since the plague: all except for the fleas, which were out in record amounts.

              Julie hated the fleas.

              Peanut didn’t seem to get them as bad as other zombies, but Julie still washed her on occasion. Peanut moaned in protest, but Julie ignored her and threw a bucket of water on her to wash away the filth. Despite the limited diet that Peanut consumed, she still seemed to attract the varmints of death and decay: a consequence of her dying form.

              “It’ll be okay,” Julie told her softly, cleaning her grey face with a damp cloth. Peanut never tried to bite her. Julie never knew why.

              Sometimes she held her wrist just inches from Peanut’s face, knowing the Infected creature could smell her blood pulsing through her veins. Peanut’s eyes met Julie’s once, as if to ask why she would tempt her so.

              Julie pulled her wrist away and left, disgusted with herself. It wasn’t that she wanted to die: not really. She just wanted out. She just wanted to be free. She just wanted a way to find happiness, and she didn’t know how. The world had changed so quickly and so harshly that it didn’t make sense anymore.

              None of it did.

              She just needed a way to be free.

***

              It had been days, weeks, and then months. The seasons changed and still Julie lived alone with only Peanut for companionship. The days blurred together as she spent most of her time sleeping, reading, or looking at photo albums. She wondered sometimes why she still tried, why she continued to stay where she was. Her parents weren’t coming back. No one was coming back. The house that haunted her was never going to be filled with love again. It would never hold anything but longings for a time past. It was as dead as the zombie who sat in her garage.

              After the first snowfall had melted into slush, she decided it was time to go. She wouldn’t survive the winter here: not without a better food supply. That simply wasn’t going to happen. She had spent the warm months of summer enjoying her dead neighbors’ food. Now it was time for her to start acting like a grownup.

              Now it was time for her to move on.

              Julie grabbed her suitcase from the downstairs closet. It was the blue one with the faded edges. The suitcase was covered in stickers from her childhood trips. One from a visit to the fish museum was still as bright as the day she put it on there. Others, like the stickers from Disney World, had faded. She plopped the old suitcase on the bed and stared at it, briefly wondering how she had managed to pack her summer wardrobes in it as a child. Summers at Grandma’s house were the best thing that had ever happened to Julie.

              She wondered if Grandma was still alive.

              The old woman wouldn’t go down without a fight. Julie knew
that
with certainty.

              She picked up her last pair of clean underwear, the pair she’d been saving, and put it in the suitcase first. When the infection had first started, people just went about as usual, wearing clothes and dirtying them up. Once the power went out, though, clean clothes became something of a luxury. Julie had worn the same skirt and tank top every day for a week before giving up and changing into something new. The only other clean outfit she had was the dress she had bought for a prom she never went to.

              The purple-and-black lace gown hung delicately in her closet, begging to be worn. Unceremoniously, Julie plopped it in the suitcase. She put in her favorite photo album and a bottle of water. Then she zipped it up and carried the suitcase downstairs. She didn’t need her stuffed animal collection, her mother’s favorite necklace, or silverware. She just needed to go. She just needed to be somewhere:anywhere. She just needed to escape from her reality.

              Julie carried the suitcase outside and got her lasso and her gun. She locked the front door, though it was probably unnecessary. Anyone who wanted to break in would simply break in. Still, it felt odd to leave the house unlocked, as if she were begging for uninvited company. That simply wouldn’t do.

              Julie walked to the garage and looked at her zombie for a moment before deciding that Peanut should come with her. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt, and she never minded the company.

4.

              When you’re alone at the end of the word, sometimes you feel just that: alone.

              It’s not the same kind of loneliness you feel when you don’t get invited to the prom or when your friends go party without you. No, this type of loneliness is different. It’s harsher. It’s raw. It’s the type of loneliness that makes you want to curl up into a ball and run screaming through the streets at the same time.

              And it made Julie feel like she was going insane.

              She put Peanut in the back of the car. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Who in their right mind, after all, would travel with a zombie? Who would bring their “pet” with them in a time like this? But having Peanut was better than having no one, Julie reasoned, and so her dead friend came along for the ride.

              Julie couldn’t quite remember the way to her grandmother’s cabin. It was no more than an hour, she reasoned. Maybe two, if she hit obstacles.Then again, maybe it wasn’t worth trying to get there. Maybe her grandmother was dead or maybe the cabin was overrun with bandits. Or raccoons. It didn’t matter. Nothing did anymore.

              There wasn’t going to be any traffic, Julie knew, but she had no idea what the roads were like anymore. Maybe they weren’t even there. Maybe it would just be her and Peanut, alone in the world together. If the roads were gone, would they really want to walk to a haven? Would a place of solitude even exist anymore? Could she even find her way to someplace safe? Did she even care anymore?

              The zombie moaned from the backseat: one of the first times Julie had heard her creature being upset. She wondered if zombies got car sick. Then she realized that was silly. Of course they didn’t. Maybe they just didn’t like the feeling of moving so quickly when they were used to shuffling around like rag dolls.

              Julie started the car and pulled out of the driveway. For the first time in months, she was doing something normal. She was doing something human. She was doing something that would make her feel like a real adult. Julie was driving a car into the heart of the apocalypse.

              And all she wanted was her mother.

              She wanted to close her eyes and picture Mom’s face. She wanted to think once more about the way her mother smelled, the way she moved, the way she laughed. But Julie was trying to find something new. She was trying to let go of her pain and move on with her life, whatever that meant.

              She popped in a favorite CD and started listening to the sounds of classic rock as she and Peanut left their pleasant suburban world behind. The road would be long and boring and lonely, but at least they had each other, sort of.

              They might die tomorrow. They might die today. But they weren’t going to die from starvation sitting trapped in a tiny house, alone.

              Today was their day.

              Julie drove faster.