Another Zombie Apocalypse Tale: Part 5

Three Weeks Since the Apocalypse

I smoothed the front of my brand new t-shirt. The plain beige tee with a splattered stain on the sleeve was brand new to me, anyway.

After the breach three days ago, I was allowed to pick out four sets of clothes: shirts, pants, underwear, socks. My lovely new—gently used—wardrobe sat in neat, folded piles on the floor along the wall of the room I was staying in.

Room was a generous word as the space was around five feet in length either direction, and I couldn’t lay down without having to bend my knees a little. At least the closet turned sleeping quarters was too small to hide surprises.

With a single bulb in the ceiling easily illuminating each corner, the light operated by a pull string that dangled all the way to the floor. The perfect thing for someone lazy or just down right exhausted from everyday bullshit. I had a thumb tack in the wall to wrap the excess string around to keep it out of the way when I didn’t need it.

I needed to figure out a way to accept Mr. Maddock’s proposition without making it appear as if I was using them to gain supplies for my own little escape from their weird refuge. Even if the only supplies I took from them was a weapon, that’d be more than I came with. Staying here was not an option, not after what they’d done.

I didn’t care how apologetic the bearded man was about it either.

So far, I kept my distance from everyone, and kept a scowl in place. Most people respected my disdain, some of them offering me looks of apology and pity, as if they were the ones to toss me to the dead, as if they were the one who commanded I be thrown to the living corpse.

I almost hated them more.

With several deep breaths to calm my racing heart, that was acting as if I’d been doing back-to-back 400-meter sprints, I grabbed the door handle and let myself out into the hall.

Sunlight streaked in from hazy windows, dust particles sustained in the rays. I stood there, listening. Chatter down the hall, a casual conversation, someone listening to guitar music. My ears strained for the moans of the dead, my eyes closing to try and focus in on the song that had been the soundtrack of my life for the past three weeks.

Footsteps thumped down the hall and I blinked open my eyes. I pulled the door shut behind me and crossed the hall to the windows, looking down at the courtyard two stories down, and waited. The dead bodies and their smashed or decapitated heads from the breach two days ago were laid out along the fence furthest from the buildings. An attempt to keep the stench of death to a minimum.

As predictable as the sun itself, the bearded man appeared at the end of the hall. He carried a plate of steaming food. Some sort of chicken and pasta dish by the look of it. The cheese and garlic aroma made my stomach gurgle with hunger.

“Morning.” He held the plate out to me.

I took it and sat down, my back against the wall. He joined me, being sure to keep a comfortable four feet of distance between us. He crossed his legs and leaned forward with his elbows against his knees, tracing the capped tip of a marker on the ground.

“I guess I should start pitching in if I wanna keep eating like this,” I said around a mouthful of rotini pasta. Trying my best to pretend it wasn’t the most delectable thing ever. “I don’t relish the idea of being used as a gopher just because I don’t reincarnate.”

He propped his chin on his hand and looked up at me. “It wouldn’t be just you.”

This was the first I brought up the proposition since it was first offered. I guess everyone who wanted me to take the offer was just waiting for a moment like this, after I had time to cool down.

“Yeah, you said that.” I picked out a couple of pieces of chicken and ate them. A little dry, but damn, it was so good. “Were you out on a scavenger mission when you found me?”

“Hm,” he affirmed. “Coming back from one.” He cleared his throat. “The guy who, uh, died in the breach was with me.”

I’d only eaten about half of what was on the plate, and the contents in my stomach were starting to get heavy. I passed the plate back to him. He accepted it, picking at the corkscrew shaped pasta.

“His name was Thomas,” he said before taking a bite. He chewed slowly and swallowed hard. “He was a good man.”

I saw this for what it was, and it was working. I bring up the proposition, and he brings up a guy who helped save my life, and who I just happened to fail saving. This bearded man was a master in guilt trips.

“Um.” I absently rubbed my hand against my leg. “What’s your name? I’ve just been calling you bearded man in my head.”

He snorted a laugh and his teeth flashed in a grin before he shoveled another bite into his mouth. “Bearded man,” he said.

I shrugged my good shoulder, and picked at a tear in the knee of my pants. “I can keep calling you that. Or BM.” A teasing smile tugged at my lips. “Which makes me think Bowel Movement.”

He exhaled loudly through his nose, finishing the last bite of the pasta and chicken. He set the plate aside, and I watched the dust floating in the sunlight.

It was kind of incredible how much I’d been able to tune out in my time here, I truly didn’t know this guy’s name. I knew Marge’s name, and Mr. Maddock. I learned the doctor’s name a few days ago, Dr. Johnston. People who I hated the most. I knew their names, but not the one person who was making an effort.

Oh, and I now knew the name of the person I failed to save.

“Beckett,” said the bearded man.

“Huh?”

“My name,” he said, “is Beckett.”

I reached my hand over to him. “I’m Camille.”

He smiled a little and shook my hand.

“I’d say it’s been a pleasure but…” I shrugged my good shoulder. “You threw me to a corpse.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, dropping his gaze and pulling his hand away. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.” He collected the plate and stood, gesturing for me to follow. “If you’re serious about pitching in, I can show you around. See what kind of job you feel like you wouldn’t hate too much.”

It was by no mistake that he took me through the infirmary first, showing the lack of supplies. Not just basic first aid, but things that a few of the people living here actually needed, like asthma medication, insulin, epi-pens, etc.

“Hey Elsie,” he greeted a familiar tall, stocky woman. She was sitting on a bench on the other side of the infirmary, sharpening a medieval sword. I stared at the weapon while my mind’s eye replayed her decapitating the heavy-set corpse. I rubbed my arm where its head had touched me when it had rolled away.

She looked up at us, a soft smile on her lips. Her brunette hair was pulled back into a ponytail, revealing a scar on her forehead that trailed down the side of her face to her ear.

“Look who’s up and about.” She winked at me, reminding me of my grandmother. She’d always wink at me like we were sharing a secret. I hated that this instantly made me like the woman.

“Yeah, we’re getting her orientated,” Beckett said.

“I got to start pitching in,” I said, with a classic teenager eyebrow raise/eye roll. The kind where I don’t really roll my eyes so much as widen them.

The two shared a look, but nothing was said, and Beckett continued our tour. We passed through the kitchen and pantry area, which was decently stocked, and the man in charge—a stout, tan skinned man with a thin black mustache—gave us each an apple.

“This her?” the man asked, giving me a hopeful look. Dark eyes, almost black, jumped from me to Beckett.

“We shall see, Hector.” He gave the man a smile, and guided me out of the kitchen area.

I glanced back at him over my shoulder. He watched us go with such a sad expression that I felt my gut clench and my heart ache. I had to remind myself that the people in charge threw me to the dead because they couldn’t think of a better way to prove that I don’t become one of the hungry corpses when bitten.

“Beckett,” a woman’s warm voice flitted across the courtyard as we stepped outside. The noon sun beating down with a fierceness that only promised more heat. A willowy black woman grinned at us as she approached. “Look what we found today.” She lifted a backpack and held it out for us to see.

Inside the bag were small boxes. I squinted at the writing and the pictures to try and deduce what they were, but I couldn’t make it out.

“Jackpot.” Beckett grinned, and grabbed a few of the boxes out.

“And that’s not even the best part.” The woman’s voice almost pitched to a squeal with excitement, her grin widening.

The way the two were smiling had me feeling like I was on the outside of a joke. I reached into the bag and took a box of my own to examine.

“I got a few boxes of 12-gauge slugs.”

I scrunched my face, giving the woman a look, but she and Beckett were sharing a moment as she started to dig around in the bag. The two talked excitingly. They were speaking English, I think, but my brain couldn’t seem to translate it. I returned my attention to the box I held.

It was heavy. Almost felt like holding a five-pound weight, though I knew it couldn’t weigh that much. I jiggled it and metal clinked around inside. I flipped the box over, and I felt dumb.

In large font, the letters BPS topped with a three-point crown was uninteresting, but the picture printed on the front of this box was of bullets. This was something I’d only ever seen in movies. Ammunition. Along with the numbers 9x19, the fine print informed me that these were ‘pistol cartridges’.

I didn’t know much about guns, but the language Beckett and the woman were speaking made sense to me now. They were just talking bullets.

If I still had my cell phone, I’d Google what a slug was supposed to be in bullet terms.

“You must be the girl,” the woman said, now that she and Beckett were done fangirling over ammunition and slugs, I was now the center of attention, and being referred to as “the girl”.

At least it wasn’t “sweetheart.”

“Marianne, meet Camille. I’m just giving her the official tour.”

“Yeah, ‘cause, you know.” I put the box back in the backpack. “Locking me in a room with a hungry corpse wasn’t official enough of a tour.” I gave what I hoped was my best ironic smile.

The woman let out a laugh and clapped Beckett on the shoulder. “She has you there, hon.” She hit his shoulder again with a little more force, and his jaw clenched. All signs of smiles and jovial attitude gone. “See you around.” She mock saluted us then strode away with the backpack.

We continued the rest of the tour, Beckett less perky than he’d been before. Resorting back to minimal to no eye contact, his greetings mumbled and weak. We ended the tour on the roof the business building turned apartment complex, the building that had the closet turned my bedroom.

“It really just goes on for miles, doesn’t it?” I leaned against the railing, surveying the fields. Nothing growing in them, just dirt and rocks, and the occasional lump that could be a decapitated corpse. A few roads crisscrossed here and there. “I can see my house from here.”

“Really?” Beckett sounded tired. He stood next to me a couple of feet away, arms crossed over his broad chest.

I didn’t answer him, as the joke fell flat. My house was in a different state, not that he knew that. Instead, I examined the tattoo that sleeved his arm, trying to translate the cursive, only to let out a huff as my heart felt like it was being sucked into a black hole.

I missed my sister. I missed my parents. I missed school, of all things. I missed my coach making me run extra laps because of my snarky comments.

With a shuddering breath and tears streaking my face, I said to Beckett, “I’ll do it.”