The October Light of August (7 page)

I jumped off my mother's bed and followed the glow of my watch to her bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet above the sink, spotted some ibuprofen and decided that would do. I padded back to the bedside table and swallowed two pills, chugging down the rest of the water in the bottle. I hesitated before getting back on the bed – I could hear no thumps or the inarticulate moans the dead made.

I stood at the window and stared out into the black night – something so devoid of shape and form it was unsettling. No stars, even. I had never been in such complete darkness that I could remember. I couldn't even see the peak of the roof next door. Absently, I pressed the light button on my watch again. The little pool of light flared and reflected into the window, and died.

Across the way I thought I saw a brief flare of light in what should have been the room next door, where Jesse tumbled from. I wasn't sure if it had been residual spots in my eyes or a true flicker of light. I waited, but didn't see it again. I closed my eyes, lit my watch, then opened them after counting to five. A dim point of light blossomed once again next door, so I answered. And got a reply. This went on for several minutes – I'm not sure how long. You would think with a watch in my hand I would have known...

I can't say it was a feeling of hope that flickered in my chest as I stood at the window and conversed in a sort of meaningless Morse code, but I felt a lightness in my heart and some tenseness leave my muscles. Or, it could have been the ibuprofen kicking in. At any rate the buzzing in my head lessened, and I was feeling drowsy. I leaned into the window, slipped the watch off my wrist, and held it up to my face. I pressed and held the light button, leaned my cheek against the palm of my hand and pantomimed the look of sleep. After a few moments a brief glow appeared next door – whether it was illuminating anyone or not I couldn't tell. So I shuffled to the bed and dropped onto it, and into sleep.

I woke, wondering why I was in my mother's room. In her bed. But of course the previous day's events crashed back onto me and I groaned. My head still hurt, and I didn't feel very rested. But if I tried to go back to sleep I wouldn't, and my headache would only get worse. I was probably dehydrated. I rolled over and across my watch. I scooped it up and stared at it stupidly until I remembered standing at the window in the dark. I checked the time and it was early morning.

I sat up, wondering if I had dreamed flashing my watch in the dark late last night. I looked out the window to gray skies, and could hear faint dripping from the eves. I decided my nighttime communication
had
happened, and it was the first time it occurred to me that it was probably Jesse's wife over there.

Check on my wife?

Not, “Check on my family?”

I couldn't remember seeing any kids over the years he had lived next to my mom. I was out of the house by the time he had moved in. I estimated Jesse had been in his early forties. I never recall seeing his wife, and frankly don't remember any of the conversations my mom and I were sure to have had about her “new neighbors” when they moved in.

Check on my wife?

I sighed and stood up, almost moving to the window until I realized I was stark naked, and still streaked with dirt.

Well that wouldn't make a very good impression,
I thought. I realized I had been naked while we were blinking out our declarations of existence last night, and I flushed. Although the window sill was below waist height, I guessed she wouldn't have been able to see much. But still - not cool.

So I rolled across the bed and walked around it, far from the window and then darted down the hall to my room and threw on a t-shirt and shorts. The house felt stuffy and humid, so I opened up my window, moved back to my mom's room and after looking out and seeing no dead roaming around I slid that window open too. The cool, wet air felt wonderful as it moved through the opening, carrying that summer rain scent and the tang of the dusty screen. I looked next door but could see nothing in the gloom past the window. So I trotted downstairs to have a tepid energy drink and power bar for breakfast.

Feeling a little better, I went back upstairs and spent a long, frustrating time trying to run a comb through my gritty and tangled hair. After restoring a bit of order to it, I grabbed a wash cloth and went down to my room and stuck my arm out the window into the rain to soak the cloth. I then ran it over my face and behind my ears, across my neck then rinsed it out the window, and washed again. A light beard had been sprouting from me the last few weeks, and I had no intention of shaving. I figured I was as presentable as I was likely to ever be.

Understand that I was only trying to not look very scroungy – it's not like I was expecting to hook up with Jesse's wife or anything. Thoughts like that just didn't occur to me. This was no end of the world pulp tale where
we were the last man and woman on Earth, thrust together  to battle the murdering hordes of the dead!
I just didn't want to look like the creepy next door neighbor she was stuck with, is all. My assumption was I could only be a disappointment, especially compared to her bear of a husband.

So I moved back to my mom's room, and stood in front of the window. The rain was slowing, but I could hear a rumble of distant thunder. I vowed if we got a good, strong storm I would go out and shower in it. I craned my neck to see if any of the dead were out and around, but I could see none. I tried to get a sense of the sky, to see if it was any darker to the east or west. As my gaze flickered back to the house next door, there she was.

She stood close to the window, with her arms folded across her chest, staring at me with dark eyes. They were red-rimmed and wide, and looked like they had seen more than what they had wanted to lately. Her dark shoulder-length hair was slicked back, and she had a fresh-scrubbed look, without makeup. I guessed she was in her late thirties, early forties, trim in a gray tank top and cut-offs.

I blinked, and stared stupidly at her for a moment. I raised a hand tentatively in a wave.

She stared back, and I realized she had the posture of a deer about to bolt. I slowly lowered my hand, and waited.  After awhile, she shivered and brought what looked like a drawing pad from her side and wrote on it with a marker. She then held the pad up to the window.

Is Jesse dead?

Well that was an ice-breaker. I didn't know how to respond, and my mouth worked silently as I gave a curt nod of my head. Her lips trembled and fat tears coursed down her cheeks. I held up a finger –
one moment
– and I ran downstairs to the kitchen, rummaged through a drawer to find a pad of lined paper and a Sharpie. I bolted back upstairs, kind of expecting her to be gone but she was still there, and still crying. I scribbled hastily on the pad.

I'm sorry. He got bit.

I paused – do I tell her he shot himself? I decided I would not get too wordy at this time, and held the pad up to the window.

Her eyes tightened in anguish, and her shoulders shook as she dropped to the floor and out of view and I felt just about as stupid as I ever had. She had to have known
something
had happened to him since he didn't come back home. Jesus, he fell out a second story window! He was lucky he didn't break his neck right then. Trying to put myself in her shoes, I imagined what she could have been thinking all night. Maybe he was hurt, but next door with the neighbors. Maybe they were tending to him. Maybe that was
him
flashing his watch light at me last night! Holding out hope that it would be okay, Jesse would come back, and things would get better. Yet knowing that probably wasn't the case. But hoping, hoping,
hoping...

I had no idea of how much she knew or had seen when her husband died. I didn't remember seeing her behind him as he tumbled out the window, but then I wasn't exactly focused on the room so much as the big guy taking a dive. I think the maple tree's branches probably blocked her view into our backyard where he had shot himself.
Maybe
she could have seen me digging my mom's grave from a different window, but that was close to the fence on their side. All I could do is be honest, I supposed. I was twisting the cap on the Sharpie, feeling miserable when I noticed she had stood up again and had the pad pressed to the window.

Did you bury him?

I flipped over to a clean page and wrote:

No, I'm sorry. I buried my mother – heart attack, I think.

Her shoulders slumped as she read that, and tilted her head the way people do when they're feeling sorry for you. The marker squeaked across the paper as I wrote:

I will bury him today, promise. Yesterday was too much.

She nodded, attempted a smile. We stared at each other for some time, then she closed her eyes, folded her hands together and rested her face against them. I smiled, and as she opened her eyes I gave her a thumbs up. She moved away from the window and faded into the dark of the room.

And it looked like I was going to have to bury someone else today.

Shit.

I nearly slipped off the rain-slick roof, then slipped on the branches of the maple tree, but made it safely to the ground. The rain was light now, but the thunder sounded like it was closer. Well, getting struck by lightning while digging a grave was better than being a meal for the dead I supposed.

The pickaxe was still buried in Jesse's head, and as I tried to pull it out his body tried to rise with it. I shook and wiggled the tool until it worked its way loose. Then I darted over to a corner of the yard to retch, hoping I wouldn't be overheard. When I felt less queasy, I marched over to the garden, and giving my mother's grave as much room as I could, I attacked the dirt with a vengeance.

I didn't intend to dig too deep or spend too much time at all, but began to feel guilty and ended up digging deeper than I had for my mom, but narrower. Wrestling Jesse's body into the hole was probably the hardest part of the job. That, and prying the gun loose from his fingers – he was stiff as a board and his left arm was out away from his body. I wound up putting him in on his side, and jumping on his arm to make it lay down against his body. When I was certain it wouldn't spring back up, I began to shovel the wet dirt over his body as the rain picked up in tempo.

The sky brightened with a flash of lightning, and soon thunder rolled over the neighborhood. I tamped down the final shovel loads and decided it would be a good time to try and fortify the gate. I grabbed a couple two-by-fours from the shed, dug them in and braced them into the turf, then nailed them against the gate. Thunder had been rumbling steadily, and I hoped no dead could hear my hammer blows. That would have to do.

Rain was streaming down the roof of the house, the rain spouts gushing as the gutters directed the flow of water. I had brought with me a bar of soap and some shampoo, so I moved out of sight from the neighbor's windows, stripped, and had my first good shower in weeks. It took some time until I felt I had all of the shampoo out of my hair, but I felt much better. I draped  some clothes over patio chairs out in the rain. I thought about scrubbing them with soap, but I was getting cold – the heat from digging a grave was leaving my body, and I didn't want to cramp up climbing the tree. So I made it back up and into my room where I toweled myself dry and then wrapped a bath robe around me.

As the storm continued outside, I decided I should probably try and collect some of the rain water. I gathered up an empty coffee can and some water bottles, glasses and cups, pried the two-by-four off of the door and set them out in the rain. I then went inside, found three funnels and put them into the water bottles. They promptly tipped over until I used some rocks to brace them up. The wind didn't seem to be too strong, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I hammered the door shut again, toweled off and put on the robe once more. I had a lunch of water and trail mix, and realized I was sleepy. I shuffled upstairs and crashed into bed.

I woke in the early evening, feeling hot and stuffy in the bath robe, so I flung it off and went to find the 'pot of doom' as my mom had christened it. I'm guessing anyone reading this cares as much about my bathroom habits as I do in writing about them, so I only need to note that I sincerely hope there are areas that still have the luxury of running water.

After I put on some clean shorts and a t-shirt, I went back to the window to see if Jesse's wife was around, but I didn't see her. It was still drizzling outside, and I could see a dead guy swaying in the street in front of Jesse's house (yes, yes - technically Jesse's
wife's
house now). He didn't seem to be interested in anything but occupying that little patch of asphalt for the moment, so I went downstairs to warm up some chili on a camp stove (I
really
miss cheese) and wash it down with an energy drink.

I was by then pretty stiff and sore, and grimaced my way back upstairs where I took some more ibuprofen. I lay back on the bed, and soon was out.

An enormous crack of thunder woke me. The house actually creaked and settled in its wake, and as I sat up a bolt of lightning illuminated the room and I could see rain blowing in the open window. The house shook again under the thunderclap. I jumped up to slam the window shut, and moved down the hallway in the dark to shut the other bedroom window. The floorboards were slick with rain and as I lowered the window I slipped and went down, banging my knees hard. I swore long and loudly, curled on the floor in a fetal position until the pain eased into a dull throbbing. I blindly grabbed a comforter off the bed and pushed it around to sop up the rain water. There was a flashlight on the nightstand so I grabbed it and used it to make my way back to my mom's room, dragging the comforter behind me. The floor wasn't so wet there, but I mopped it as best I could and then shoved the soggy fabric into a corner. I would hang it in the basement later.