William Rose - The Dead & Dying

It had been nearly two hours since I’d left my last shelter and, as these thoughts went through my head, I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake. With its single point of entrance and exit, the old silo hadn’t been exactly the safest of strongholds; but it did provide a screen from the wind and a place where I could stretch out free of snow. But, as I laid there listening to the little pops and creaks of the metal, I began imaging a veritable army of corpses tightening around the outside of my resting place.

I could picture them trudging through the snow, their numbers growing with each passing moment, coming closer… and closer… ever closer.

What at first had seemed like a cavernous room now began to feel as dark and constricting as a coffin. It was almost as if I could feel the walls pressing in and the air suddenly seemed thin and dry, making each breath an act of sheer will power.

That screech echoing through the darkness: was that a wire raking against the outside of the silo? Or broken and jagged fingernails scratching against the metal, desperately searching for purchase?

My heart pounded in my chest and I clutched my tire iron closer to me, the metal warm and slick in my moist palms.

“Damn it, girl, you had to go and drop the gun didn’t you? Shit…. ”

I pictured the shotgun, laying at the bottom of what could have either been a very large stream or an extremely small river. Probably trapped beneath ice by then, the way the temperature had been dropping. And I knew exactly how it felt: cold, isolated, and useless.

Something clanged against the outside of my shelter, the sound causing a queasy warmth to spread through my stomach. I held my breath and listened for it to repeat, for even the smallest ting or pop.

“Girl, you need to get up and get your ass out of here. You want to die in this place?”

The voice in my head sounded reasonable, but I laid there for several minutes with images of rotting flesh and gnashing teeth looping through my mind.

Could I really bring myself to kill them if I had to? And how many were out there? Just one? Ten?

“Be a whole lot more if you don’t get your ass moving.”

I stood and walked to the entrance of the silo, holding the cold metal lever in one hand with the tire iron raised above my head in the other. Waiting. Listening.

My heart pounded in my chest and I could feel beads of sweat forming on my brow.

Another scraping sound, so soft that it could have been nothing more than a twig swaying in the wind.

But was it really?

Fuck this .

I threw open the door and my head instinctively whipped back as I winced in pain. Tears streamed from the corner of my eyes and I backed away, swinging the tire iron wildly before me.

When the door was flung open sunlight had flooded into the previously darkened silo. Intensified by the reflective blanket of snow, I found myself blind. Vulnerable. And trapped.

There was a sound in the doorway. A soft crunching that could only be feet breaking through icy crust. At the same time, a stench wafted in, a smell that reminded me of coming back from spring break only to find we had left steaks sitting on the counter in our dorm room.

I continued backing away, swinging the tire iron at what I imagined to be head level; trying to blink away the flashbulb-like explosions that obscured my vision.

But, inside, I knew that it was pointless. The little voice that had urged me to leave while I still had the chance now whispered with quiet certainty:

“Girl, you’re going to die in this place.”

He saw me, I know he did, I could tell by the look on his face. I knew he was just tryin’ to ignore me and that he had to be able to see and hear me all along. I just knew it. And he can keep tryin’ to pretend he doesn’t but I know he can now so it won’t do him no good. I’ll keep yellin’ and kickin’ and hittin’ and every time it looks like he might be ready to pass out or something I’ll make sure he wakes back up. He has to feel every little bit of the pain, has to suffer every minute ’til he dies. If Mr. Boots was here, I’d say sic ’em boy, go get ’em and I know he would ’cause Mommy always said Mr. Boots was my protector and would do anything to keep me safe.

If Mr. Boots had been there that day in the creek, I know things woulda turned out different. He wouldn’t have let that man point the gun at me and Mommy. I know he wouldn’t.

When he said he was gonna shoot us if we didn’t say somethin’, I started tryin’ to talk but it was like my brain had forgot how to make words. There was kind of this feeling in my throat like maybe I had tried to swallow something a little too big and my belly felt all warm and sick.

Mommy jumped in front of me and threw up her hands.

“Don’t, please, for God’s sake, no.”

The man looked like he was glad Mommy had said something, like maybe he really didn’t want to shoot us after all. But now I think that it was all just an act.

So the man said his name was Carl and he said there were a bunch of those things headin’ our way and we’d best be movin’ on if we knew what was good for us. Then he asked if he had any weapons or anything.

Mommy told him we didn’t, that it was just her and me and she didn’t understand what was going on and just wanted to keep me safe and was trying to make her way to my Grandpa’s farm. She started crying again and it was real hard to understand what she was saying after that.

Mr. Carl kept lookin’ over his shoulder the entire time and he kinda bounced from one foot to the other like he had to pee real bad. But he listened to everything Mommy was saying and for a minute it looked like he was about to cry too.

“You two better come with me.” he ended up sayin’. “You won’t last long out here without any weapons or nothin’.”

So Mommy scooped me up in her arms and waded out of the creek, but the man looked at me and kinda frowned. He told Mommy that those things were really fast and if she was gonna carry me the whole way she better be darn sure it would be quicker than me runnin’ alongside. He said those things didn’t care if I was a kid or the King of England… that they would snatch me up the minute they had a chance.

When he was saying all this, I just wanted to lay my head on Mommy’s shoulder and cry. Maybe if I cried long and hard enough I would wake up like I sometimes do and find out this was all nothin’ more than just a bad dream. But there was another part of me that told me to be a big boy, so I blinked really fast and held my breath until I didn’t feel like I had to cry anymore.

The rest of the day we spent wanderin’ through the woods. Sometimes Carl would tell us to wait by a tree or a rock while he went to take a look up ahead. And he would always say that if he wasn’t back in ten minutes then we just needed to run and keep on runnin’ and not worry ’bout what had happened to him. And sometimes, when we were waiting for him, we would hear gunshots and Mommy would try to cover my ears but it was already too late.

It was after one of these times that he came back with blood all over his clothes and that was probably the only time I ever saw him cry. He just kinda plopped down in the grass and held his head in his hands like he had a headache or somethin’. But Mommy knew right away something more was wrong with him, just like she does with me.

“Carl,” she said, “what’s wrong? What happened?”

He looked up at us and his eyes were all watery and it was weird but his face somehow looked longer than it had before. He opened his mouth like he was about to say somethin’ but instead he made these noises almost like he was chokin’. And then his entire body started shakin’ and he started cryin’ just as hard as if he’d just seen his favorite puppy get run over by a truck.