Chapter Three
The rain lets up a couple hours after daybreak. I stuff The Complete Works of Shakespeare into my bag to read sometime in the future. Leaving the bookstore, I find the infected have moved. A group not present last night has drifted into the area. Two of them are punching the living daylights out of each other. The rest are just watching with as much of a confused look as they can muster, and I join them, but from a distance. My instincts precede my ability to think: I get the hell out of there as fast as an inconspicuous pace will take me.
I walk through Cherokee Park. Compared with the violent destruction of the city, the park is a bastion of life. I see no animals, but the plant life does not look as though the plague has done anything to it. The colors of a mid-September day still paint the landscape; liberal reds, oranges and yellows stand out vibrantly amongst the greenery of a fading summer. I'm in no hurry. Finding on a grassy hill vacant of any infected other than myself, I set my things to the side and lie down. I stare up at the clouds, amputated remnants of last night's storm. I want to forget. I want to wipe everything that has happened in the past two days from my mind and never remember, never rediscover the horrors. I know that won't happen, but I indulge myself in the daydream for a little while, closing my eyes and picturing better times on the back of my eyelids, until it loses its novelty, and I continue on my trek home.
Exiting the park, I hear an unfamiliar noise behind me. It is a low murmur, like the unintelligible ramble a loud crowd in the distance might make. Then, the sound of busy footsteps accompanies it. From the mangled, broken road I just came from comes a group of at least thirty infected, in a mad dash. I flinch for a moment in fear. They run past me, and my subconscious tells me Follow them! I obey. I join them in their haste, under the ruins of the I-64 overpass and further down Grinstead Drive, towards the water treatment plant. I am unsure of what caused them to get so riled up until a minute passes and I hear the sound of a gunshot, echoing across the lifeless, broken condominiums that line the street. The noise seems to anger the infected mob I travel with, as they start yelling, screeching, and grunting all sorts of strange, animalistic noises.
It startles me as well, but for reasons different. A sign of life! I'm ecstatic at the very idea. My jog turns into a sprint. I'm filled with a burst of energy just thinking of finding another mind in the world possibly unaffected. Another two gunshots scream through the air. The infected babble at it. They must have been aware of this person long before I heard the gunshot.
The mob slows to a stop. I keep on running, ignoring their behavior. Three blocks further, I discover the reasons behind it. The pummeled body of an African-American man lies still in a slowly growing pool of blood, a pistol still gripped tightly in one hand. Without thinking, I exclaim a weak "No!" and fall to my knees. I have seen so many corpses already, but this one just… hurts so much more. He is dead, but the signs of life have not completely left him. He looks more like a picture, a frame in a movie, as though someone needed to unpause so he could finish his tumble, cough a bit, then stand back up and be just fine. His eyes are still wide open, looking somewhere. His skin is still flush with color and the muscles under them still ready to work.
I could have saved him. If I were just a bit faster, I might have been able to save him. I want to break into tears again, but my body won't let me. Why do I care so much? I curse under my breath. Is it because of the man, or is it because of what he means? The infected don't seem to care. They don't seem to care about anything, as long as we're all dead. They don't even care about the slain infected the man killed, before they caught him and beat him to death. They just return to doing nothing. They stand victorious, yet without any pride, over their slain foe. I want to kill them. I want to stand up, draw out my knife and kill them with such ferocity that it threatens to overtake my body, but I do not. I cannot. It is not my wiser self that stops me, but my cowardice. I've no chance against them. I would simply join the dead man in front of me as another stain on the pavement. I don't want to be so frightened but I am. I can't help it, and that just makes me angrier, now at myself even more so than at the murderers around me. The absent tears grow stronger in my chest, and my breathing becomes as heavy as a fog.
The viscous puddle of blood runs down the pavement, and makes contact with my knees. Its lukewarm touch brings me back to reality. "Shit!" I curse under my breath again, covering my mouth midway through the word. I realized I had spoken thrice now with infected around me. I think that's enough to prove my speech doesn't bother them, but that doesn't stop me from being extremely unwilling to say something else to prove it. I grab my messenger bag and flee the scene.
It's been at least an hour since I left the dead man to his grave in the middle of the road. I've long since regained my emotions, but the pains in my chest never vanished. I walk down the forested US highway 42, the road that will eventually lead me to the subdivision where my mother's house is, with one hand clutching the fabrics of my shirt in pain. I wince if I try to take a deep breath. This is nuts. Why does this hurt so much? I'm talking to myself. Will it ever stop? I hate this. I hate this pain. I hate my twisted body. I want to find something not to detest, but everywhere I look is ugliness, and that ugliness transforms into hatred, which then becomes an overpowering sorrow, and the pain in my chest only gets worse.
Chenoweth Elementary is on the way home. I jog past it, my eyes averted away. The last thing I want to see is a bunch of dead and infected kids. As I'm running, an infected in a hooded sweatshirt begins running alongside me. He is an adult man of normal size. His hood is pulled far over his face, revealing only a gross smile of crooked teeth with a jungle of unruly stubble surrounding it. I glance at him and he returns it. I'm probably just as ugly as he is. Is this one sentient too? I want to say something to him, but my throat won't let the words escape. I stop running, and he mimics me. My eyes are darting everywhere. He stares at me for a moment, then runs away. I try to yell at him "Wait!" but it only comes out as an asphyxiated word, little more than a breath. Why didn't I say anything?
My old high school comes into view. My sister is in there somewhere. Only a little longer now until I reach my destination. It cannot come any sooner. I feel like shit. The aching has spread from my chest to every portion of my body. Please don't let this be the last part of the infection, the part I've somehow avoided. Please don't let this take my mind, too. That would be too cruel, to leave such a dismal end. This is too much.
By the time I'm in the subdivision and onto my street, I'm barely walking anymore. I drag my bag behind me, scraping the pavement. I strain to keep my eyes open; my vision becomes blurred. I pray this is just me finally managing to get some sleep. I don't care at this point. I'll happily crash on the wet street. But I'm so close! Just a few more houses and I've made it. I pull every ounce of strength I have to drag myself the last small leg of the journey, to ignore the searing, blinding, overwhelming pain.
I reach the front porch. I can barely see, but I know them by heart. But I cannot feel. I collapse to the ground and my hands brush the concrete steps, but I cannot distinguish their touch from anything else around me. All of it is pain. I give up. I close my eyes, and surrender myself as the darkness devours my mind.