From a distance, our location would look abandoned and undisturbed. But up close, the striations left by the grass stalks would be a dead giveaway. All we could do was hope the weather helped us out with a strong wind or an afternoon thunderstorm.
After cleaning up, the three of us looked at each other, each one waiting for the others to speak. Finally, Mike said, “Well, anyone feel like sleeping in one of the stables?”
Sophia and I said, in unison, “No.”
We looked at each other and laughed. “Kind of seems like a lot of work for nothing, doesn’t it?” I said.
Mike shrugged. “I’ve done a lot harder work for a lot dumber reasons. At least the next person who comes along won’t have to worry about those things.”
“Walkers,” I said, more to myself than the others.
“What?”
I looked at Mike. “That’s what the soldiers called them. Walkers. Walking corpses, walking dead, you know. Like an abbreviation.”
He turned his head toward the stable loaded with dead bodies. “Makes as much sense as anything, I suppose.”
“Walkers, schmalkers,” Sophia said. “I’m tired. Let’s get out of here.”
Mike and Sophia slept under the shade of a lodgepole pine near the Humvee, the engine making the occasional faint ticking as it finished cooling. I stayed close for a while, perched atop the wide vehicle, binoculars focused on the small ranch up the hill until it became clear no more infected were nearby. Thanking fate for small favors, I put my ghillie suit back on and conducted a slow, careful sweep of the surrounding area.
I’m a firm believer people overuse the word ‘surreal’, often applying it to situations out of context with its definition, but that’s exactly what the next five hours were like. Surreal. No airplanes droned overhead, no cars buzzed along the highway, no voices drifted to me on the wind, nothing manmade. The only sound was a light breeze sighing through the dry brush and the rustling of sparse evergreen limbs. Sometimes a rodent or lizard skittered away at my approach, a bird took flight with a flap of feathered wings, or a door to one of the open stalls beat against its frame. Otherwise, I heard nothing.
After a while, I realized that other than Mike and Sophia, I was probably the only living person for miles. All the sneaking and crawling and straining of ears began to feel silly. So I stood up in the middle of hundreds of acres of open terrain, made a pile of my gear, and removed my ghillie suit. Rolled it up. Tied it to my assault pack. Tilted my head back and closed my eyes to the sun.
Orange spots raced across my vision, the amber glow of faraway nuclear fusion backlighting my eyelids. The wind ruffled my hair and flapped my collar against my neck, carrying the scents of warmth, dry grass, pinesap, and the faint, earthy undertone of decay. The field around me was a static crackling of brown stalks gently colliding in the breeze, dipping and rising like the surface of a lake, flashes of white reflected at a cloudless, azure sky.
My eyes stung when I opened them, forcing me to blink to restore sight. When I could see without large, multi-colored spots obscuring half the world, I picked up my gear, finished my patrol, and headed back to camp.
It was a refreshing, clear-minded peace I felt that morning, alone in that bright field. It was pure. Undiluted. An instant of hopeful clarity amidst a maelstrom of chaos and fear.
No peace has found me since.
FORTY-FOUR
Two more days on the road brought us to the outskirts of Colorado Springs.
The first day was downright boring. We set out at night, Mike and I taking turns driving, and after seven hours of dodging wrecks, abandoned vehicles, fallen trees, dead bodies, and a crashed single-engine airplane, we spotted a cluster of buildings. Drawing closer, I could see the buildings comprised one of those parasitic road towns that once earned a bleak subsistence siphoning money from tourists and passing travelers.
Gas stations, chain restaurants, and a dry cleaner lined the road, while in the center of town was a squat strip mall, complete with coin laundry, coffee shop, nail salon, barber, used books, and the all-important grocery store. Looters had shattered the grocery store’s front window, leaving broken glass glittering in the parking lot. Looking past the entrance, I could see whoever trashed the place had done a thorough job of cleaning it out. Not much point in searching for leftovers. I glanced around to see if there were any cars nearby. A nineties-model Mercedes with flat tires was the only vehicle in sight.
“How much you wanna bet there’s a maintenance ladder around back?” I asked.
“No bet,” Mike said. He drove to the service entrance and followed a narrow strip of gravel behind the building. The lane widened into a flat loading area. Mike parked next to one of several service ladders.
“Not much of a lock,” Mike said. A metal security grate covered the ladder, held shut by a cheap bronze padlock. I grabbed a crowbar from the back of the Humvee and levered it off. While I worked, Sophia appeared with Mike’s tent and bedroll and kissed him on the cheek. “Sleep well, Dad,” she said. “See you this afternoon.”
She grabbed my arm and started pulling me away. Mike said, “Where are you two going?”
“We’ll be on the roof of that gas station over there,” she replied. “Keep your radio handy.”
Mike looked like he was about argue, then let it go with a sigh, looking deflated. “Fine. Just keep it down over there. Don’t want to draw any infected.”
“Okay, Dad.”
I kept my mouth shut and followed.
While Sophia was settling in, I retrieved an empty five-gallon fuel can from the Humvee and checked the abandoned Mercedes’ tank. To my delight, not only was it a diesel, but there were just over four gallons left. I thought about how long it had been since the Outbreak and wondered how much longer it would be before what limited quantities of salvageable fuel were left lying around went bad. The prospect of walking to Colorado Springs appealed not at all.
After stowing the fuel, I went back to Sophia and lay down with her in the tent. A simple kiss became two, then three, and the next thing I knew we were tearing each other’s clothes off, skin hot, hands exploring.
There are few things more awkward than two people trying to undress one another in a pup tent, but somehow we managed. There was a lot of pulling and cursing and pauses to kiss whatever portion of skin one of us happened to expose on the other. Then came the clutching, and thrusting, and gasping, and heavy breathing, and Sophia’s white teeth biting down on her lower lip.
We tried to be quiet. We really did.
*****
Later, as Sophia drifted to sleep next to me, I lay awake, ears straining.
A few hours passed. I heard nothing but birds, insects, and the breathing sound of the wind against our tent. I thought about Mike on the other rooftop, alone, and wondered if he was thinking of his wife, and if so, was he remembering the good times, or the bad?
I tried to imagine what would preoccupy my thoughts if Sophia were far away, unreachable, and putting my mind in that place, I knew I would remember the arguments, the harsh words, the digs we took at each other. For Mike’s sake, I hoped he had enough good memories to outweigh the bad.
It is easy to be impatient with someone when they are close to you. When you can reach out and touch them, and hear their voice, and apologize for whatever stupid thing you did or said. But distance creates perspective, and when that distance is eternal, there is no salve for the regret of loved ones taken for granted.
Memories stirred of my father, and Lauren, and Blake, and I clenched my fists to keep my hands from trembling. That way held nothing but pain, regret, and sorrow, and its path ended at a cliff. Once over it, no matter how much I clutched and scrambled, there would be no coming back. So instead, I closed my eyes and focused on the immense black nothing in front of me, wondering if it was the last thing they saw before the end. If the empty dark was what waited for us all, the answer to the great mystery of life after death, the idea people had been debating and philosophizing and fighting wars over for millennia. Maybe the answer had been staring us in the face all along, every time we closed our eyes. I wondered, when my time came, if my family would be there waiting with hands outstretched to lead me home.