The Zom Diary (21 page)

     My hand slips and I spill pear hooch on my beard and the cold of the sour fluid shocks me back to alertness.  I walk over to the pump and wash it out before it gets sticky.  The sun is down now, and as far as my mind can divine, the coast is clear.  No zoms.  Another perk of my new “freak” status:  my nights are returned to me. 

     The evening grinds on, and the effect of alcohol and flickering heat brings the tired out of me and makes it dance before my eyes.  Best not to push it, Kyle.  I think.  My healing body and travel weariness have drained me.  I nod and snap my head back up.  Have I been asleep?

     Yes.  The fire is low; a platter of orange embers.  I am cold.

     I make my way back to the door and secure it behind me.  I walk through the big room in the dark, trusting my familiarity to guide me.

    I find the ladder and ascend.

     I sleep.

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     I am stumbling along a wide paved street.  I am not sure which street, or which town, for it is dark and the lights are out; save for one.

     In the distance, a warm looking, red lump glows.

     I gravitate toward it, dragging my ruined leg behind me.

     I look down at it and noticed my garments, flowing rags, and a set of enormous breasts.

     I shake off this image; this strangeness.  I am me again.  The red lump calls to me.  Now it is moving away from me.

     It closes itself behind a wall, and I can’t get past, but now there are others like me, and I know that one of them knows how to get in.  I follow, around back.

     There is an opening.  Success!

     The red lump resolves into the form of a humanoid male.

     Vibrations of sound wash over me.

     Some of my companions fall, but I lean over and grab the arm of the glowing red man.  One of the others also tries to grab an arm.

    We pull.

     Others join us, pulling and tearing.  The red is glowing everywhere now.

     I sink my teeth into the warmth.  It glows inside me.

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     I sit up in my bed, covered in sweat.

    “What the fuck?”

     It is a long time before I get back to sleep, but when it comes, it is black, long, and empty.

Chapter 20

     Something startles me awake in the grey early hours.  I think for a moment that I hear a receding echo.  I go back to sleep.

     I awaken again, to the sound of someone knocking on my door.  It is dawn, but just barely.

     I roll out of bed and look out the row of small windows; it is Nathan.  He is dressed in khaki pants and a camo vest.  He has a hunting rifle slung on his shoulder, and he is looking around.  I tap on the glass, and he sees me.

     I stand up and test my leg.

     The air must have done it some good, because the ache is less, and the angry purple bruising has a faded yellow edge.  The bite-scrape marks are still scabby.

     I toss on my clothes quickly; loaner pants and my camo jacket.  Nathan is waiting at the door.  I greet him and stepped out onto the stone steps.

     “Hey.  Good morning.  Was that you shooting earlier?”

     “Yes, I got one; you going to help me move it?  I don’t think I can get it by myself.  He’s a big bastard!”  He smiles.

     “Yeah, hold on.”  I say.

     I look around inside for a minute for something to put on my feet.  I don’t have much to pick from, but after a time I find a pair of muddy sneakers that fit.  That is one thing that I don’t take from the dead, shoes.  It grosses me out.  I walk back out, grabbing the .38 as I pass the table where I set it last night.  I am belting it on as Nathan pumps some water and drinks from his hand. 

     He coughs and then speaks, “That’s good water.  Sweet.  How deep did they have to dig to get to it?”

     “I’m not sure.  Bill said it was deep; if I remember it right, maybe a couple hundred feet or something like that.”

     “Shit!  Lucky you guys didn’t hit oil or something.”  He winks.

    As dry as the land is up here, there exists a shallow aquifer down there.  It had been too little to irrigate with; to people’s dismay, when they noticed that their wells went dry quick and refilled slow.  Deeper drilling had found some brackish water, for the few that bothered.  So long distance irrigation canals were built;  some many miles long, and they provided for much of the lushness that followed, until the end.  But Nate knows this, and now we have a deer to gut.

     I follow him out through the orchard, and he remarks about how thick with deer the place is.  I explain that they seem to multiply when there is grounded fruit.

     The deer is enormous; must weigh two-hundred pounds.  I struggle to lift it from where it has drug itself; shot through the hip, then the neck.  Once I have it on my shoulders, we walk off a ways to get away from the beaten path, to the butcher tree.

     Nathan helps to hoist it, and once we have it up, he produces a wicked looking knife.  I watch closely as he cuts and chops at the carcass.  He glances at the coyote bitten, half drug off, and dried guts from the last kill, the one I had to abandon.  He looks over his shoulder at me.

     “What happened there?”

     I swallow, smelling the busted entrails and wishing that I had a kerosene soaked rag or something, it doesn’t seem to bother Nate.  “Yeah, I got distracted, and then the day got away from me, so it didn’t get butchered.”

     He grimaces.

     “You don’t have much experience with this kind of stuff do you?”

     I shake my head no.

     “So pay attention,” I do, and then “don’t leave it till the job is done, it’s a ticking clock, and you can’t stop it,” he pauses, pulling off the hide like a glove and hacking at the spine and then the ribs, quartering the carcass quickly “for anything.”    

     It is a bloody mess.

   We quickly have a five gallon bucket full of what he calls “stew parts”.  I tell him I want thin cuts for jerky and he cuts quickly, racing the flies and time.  These strips go into another bundle with a leg on the top for spit roasting.  He stacks the other quarters, leaves the bucket for me to carry and pauses, looking back at the pile of offal and skin.

     “The rest,” says Nathan, “is for the coyotes.  Don’t waste your time messing around with the guts.  There’re no fridges, and you aren’t going to run out of deer.  Take what you need, and feed the coyotes with the rest.”

     I nod.  We grab our burdens, and head back to the yard.  Nate makes for the fire with the bucket and leaves the rest for me to deal with.  He gets to work with the kettle and dressing that one leg for the spit.  I go to my shed- turned smoke house.

     It is very dark inside and smells chimney-like.  I eye my “ham” dubiously.  It has a nice mold on it, supposedly this is a good sign.  I push it to the side and it slides easily on the shower curtain rod, I hang the three new deer slabs and walked further in.  The strips I hang quickly from the fishing wire and hooks that I have installed for this purpose.  There must be pounds of the stuff hanging when I am done.  I light a fire in the pot-bellied Benjamin and find some damp apple wood chunks for the smoke.  It will sit all day and all night with minimal attention from me.  I close the door up tight and look up at the make-shift chimney.  Curls of white smoke are starting to wisp up to the sky.

     Back at the fire, Nathan is working at the kettle.  There is a sense of urgency as I watch his hands, shaking, move the cubes of meat and chunks of kidney to the pot.

     Slow and low.  Cook in a little water, and add the rest later.  I can see that he has produced a couple of cans of condensed soup from somewhere to add once it gets going.  In the meantime, I stake some meat on sticks, like kabobs, and set them at an angle towards the fire.

     Nathan speaks up, “I hope you are hungry.”

     I smile, in passing.  “Are you kidding?”

     I walk out into the trees and pick a bunch of pears, pausing to inspect some of my old traps along the way before returning.  By this time, the kettle is steaming nicely, and Nathan has added the cans of soup.  I have become used to bland food, and find the smell intense; it excites my senses.

     Nathan asks for salt and twine, so I go into the barn and rummage around a bit.  My salt supply is low, so I remind myself to make sure it is on my shopping list.  The twine is rolled up on a thin spool in my workshop.  I grab this also.

   When I return to the fire, Nathan has a long green stick, which he is whittling to a point.  He ties the twine to the skinny end, rolls out about three feet and then cuts it.  The other end of the twine he ties to the deer leg.  I watch; curious as to what he is about.

     He judges the distance from the fire to the leg and then when he is satisfied he drives the sharp end into the ground.  The leg swings lazily beside the hot coals.  He reaches out and begins to wind up the leg, spinning it until the line begins to kink.  He releases it, and it spins all the way around the other way, stops and spins back.  He looks up at me and grins.

     “Rotisserie.  Do you have a platter to catch the juice?”

     Again, I retreat to the barn.  There is an old china platter with a blue pheasant painted onto it.  Miraculously, it has survived the hailstorm of 7.62’s.  It will do.

     Nathan stirs the kettle, grabs one of the skewers, and then sits.

     I set the platter underneath the spinning leg, feeling the intense heat of the fire on my exposed hands.  I grab a skewer as well and walk away from the fire, pulling a chair over next to Nathan’s.  I take a bite and remark: 

     “There is no way we can eat all of this.  Maybe I’ll drive some over to town and see if they want any.”

     “Speak for yourself.  I’m hungry as hell.”

    We sit for some time, eating skewers.

     By now it is almost noon.  Having skipped any kind of morning meal, I have attacked the skewers hungrily.  Nathan is more delicate, I notice, but he is on his second skewer before I am.

     “So, how long do we cook the stew and the rest of it?”

     He stares intently at the fire.  “Oh, the leg, a few hours at least, and the same for the stew.  It’s best to take your time with this stuff.  Are there any spices in there?”  He jerks his head back toward the barn.

     “I don’t keep a big supply.  There are some herbs growing around the side of the barn.  Check it out if you want, just don’t pick anything from out back.  Those ones grew out of the zombie mess I told you about.”

     He nods, “Right, that would put me off my appetite, too.  You know, Bill and I took a cooking class once, years ago.  I remember him saying he was going to grow some herbs.  I wonder what’s survived?”

     “Go see.  I’ll fetch us some pear hooch, if you’re feeling thirsty?”

     He stands up and tosses the used skewers into the fire.  “Perfect!  We’ll have a proper feast to celebrate your recovery.  How is the leg, by the way?”

     It still aches some, but I am pretty sure I will conquer the infection; I tell him, “Just great, you should try getting bit sometime; does wonders for the soul.”

     He waves me off and disappears around the side of the barn, his hand resting on the handle of his old service revolver, head looking left and right.  I don’t sense any zombies, but I’m not going to tell him about that, yet.  It seems too difficult to explain.

     I go down into the cellar and grab an armload of the good stuff, jars clinking together merrily.  The shelves are emptying fast, but with some hard work and a bit of luck, I will be replenishing my supply soon.  I glance up where the strange fluid had clung, mercury-like, to the ceiling.  There is still a stain, but it looks dry and cracked.  I climb back upstairs and shut the trap door.

     Nathan is back and busy with a small pile of leaves and a dirty-looking clump.  He seems excited.

“Kyle, look, garlic!  And some parsley.  Things are shaping up.”

     “You found all that?”

     “Yeah, right next to a patch of marijuana that would’ve sent you packing in the old days.  What?  Are you selling that stuff?”

     I laugh, “Oh, is that what that is?  I guess I’m busted.” 

     He chuckles, “Well, I won’t turn you in.  Maybe one of these years, I’ll need some for glaucoma—that’ll be the day.”

     “Yeah, well, until that day.”  I hand a jar over to him.  He unscrews the lid and takes a sniff.

     “What is this stuff?”

     “I press the pears and let the juice sit in the cellar.  I figured out how to get it to ferment.  It’s kind of like prison-style toilet wine.  Once you cook off some of the water it gets stronger, and then back to the cellar it goes.  Take a sip.  It’s kind of sour, but maybe better than you’d think.”

     He sips it and gives me a level look, “Kyle, you’re too modest.  This stuff is great.”

     “Thanks, drink up.”

     So we sit, the sun beating down on us, the smell of smoke stinging my nose, and wafting over, making our eyes water.  The heat of the fire adds to the general intensity of it all, and sweat and booze flow.

     Nathan tosses a couple cloves of garlic into the stew, then crushes another, dropping it onto the platter.  He adds some of the parsley as well.  It wilts quickly, as juices drip down onto it.  He pulls out a spoon, and ladled some of the mixture back over the leg, winding it up again.  He looks over his shoulder at me.

     “Save a cup of that hooch.  We’ll use it to deglaze this platter and have a nice au jous for the meat.”

     “Uh, ok.” I say, sipping from my jar and only half listening, “you sound like you know what you’re doing.” 

    And so, a rhythm is established.  We duel with the jars.  He sips, I follow, and soon, we are both drunk.  He winds the leg, stirs the pot, and tells me about cooking.  I think he is just happy to have someone to talk to.

     As dusk approaches, we try the stew.  It is great; meaty and thick.  The bits of vegetable in the stew are almost unrecognizable; a bit of corn here, a bean there, but they add their essence all the same.

     I wash out the glass bowls at the pump after our first course, and watch as Nathan serves the leg.  He cuts it down and holds the bone with an old cloth to keep from burning his hand.  With the hunting knife, he slices off thin slabs of meat, still rare near the bone, and arranges them on the platter in an overlapping circle.  When he is done, there is a heap of meat, and he is holding only a bone.  The pan drippings, now a thick and dark glaze, are poured over the whole mess.

     I have to remark, “That’s incredible.” 

     “You haven’t tasted it yet.”

      And, it is good!

     Either he has a hollow leg, or an extra stomach, for we clean the platter between the two of us.  I’ve never seen someone eat like that.  I cover the kettle of stew and set it off to the side so it won’t burn.  Sated, we sit watching the last of the fire and sipping cold water now, from empty hooch jars. 

     I light another of the old cigarettes and sigh, “Thanks for cooking man, that was phenomenal.”

     “You’re welcome.”  He glances at the cigarette.  “You’re just full of bad habits, aren’t you?”

     “We all have to go sometime.”

     He turns then, and unbuttons his shirt, pulling it open so I can see his chest.  A wicked scar runs from between his collarbone and down his sternum.