Tim Curran - Resurrection

Mitch went over to Deke and tapped him on the shoulder. “I need to talk with you, buddy.”

They went in the living room and Mitch sat by him on the couch. “What brought you here?” he said, knowing it would not be something good.

Deke shrugged. “I was looking for Chrissy most all night.”

“And?”

He sighed. “And…and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, because I can’t believe it myself.”

He looked somewhere on the borderline of tears or rage. It was hard to tell which. But there was no doubting that something inside of him had been yanked out and stomped on. And it would be no easy matter putting those things back in and getting them to work properly again.

“I’d believe you. You saw dead things walking? You saw mutations maybe? Ghosts? Spooks? Zombies? Whatever in the Christ you wanna call them. You don’t think I’d believe that, try me. Because I’ve seen things in the past twenty-four hours that’ll turn your hair fucking white.”

Deke looked him, his eyes moist. “Lily,” he said. “Mrs. Barron, I mean.”

Mitch bit down on his lip. “Gone, son. She’s just gone.”

“And Chrissy?”

“She’s out there. She’s alive out there. We just have to find her.”

Deke nodded. “She is alive, Mr. Barron. I know she’s alive.”

“Me, too.”

They both knew it and they both believed it and that was a connection they shared. Maybe it was this more than anything that made Deke start talking. He told Mitch about his visits to the house yesterday and the way Lily had been, talking about dead people below in the sewers and secret worlds beneath and her sister being down there. It hurt to hear it. And mainly because Mitch was floored by guilt. While he was out nosing around town for Chrissy, Lily had been here, needing him. Not in a good state of mind. Confused. Scared. But he had to live with that.

“Then I went home and my mom and dad were gone,” Deke said.

“Nobody was there?”

“Oh, yes, somebody was there. My brother.”

Mitch paled. Nicky Ericksen had drowned a couple years back, he thought.

“We buried him at Hillside Cemtery,” Deke said in a wounded voice. “He must have been washed out with the others. He was home last night. Laying in his bed. Laying there, waiting for me to come home.”

Mitch put a hand on his shoulder, but it was precious little consolation. “Then you came here?”

“No. First I took care of him. I had to take care of him. I had to…to put him back down, you know?” He sank his face in his hands. “It wasn’t Nicky. I don’t know what it was. He was saying things…bad things. Nicky was a sweet kid. He would never have said things like that.”

“I know. Whatever gets into them, it’s spirits or something. Demons. Shit, I don’t know.”

“Are you going to look for Chrissy?”

“In a little while. Not just yet.”

“And when we find her?”

“When we find her, we’ll get her out of this mess. Then I’m coming back. I’m coming back to sort this mess out.”

“I want to help.”

“Okay.”

No point in telling the kid no, Mitch figured. He was hurting and only vengeance would seal that wound and stop the blood from running.

When they got back to the kitchen, Harry was still eating and Tommy was feeding a massive tiger-striped tomcat strips of bacon. It was probably the biggest, ugliest cat Mitch had ever seen. Half its left ear was gone as was half its tail. Goddamn monster. Looked like a dwarf sabertooth tiger with those yellow fangs hanging from its mouth. Tommy had the damn thing sitting up on its hind quarters, begging for bacon.

“Me and this damn cat are getting acquainted,” Tommy said.

“His name’s Mr. Cheese,” Deke said.

“Looks like he got beaten with an ugly stick.”

“Well, that was another name we thought about. Mr. Ugly.”

“Let’s go, Tommy,” Mitch said. “We’ve got things to do.”

They didn’t find much more in the neighborhood than they’d found the evening before. Most houses were locked and nobody answered the doors. Those that were open, were empty. They didn’t search every open house, but you could tell upon walking in that nobody was about.

Emptiness.

Desertion.

The day was gray and misting. The water had risen two or three more inches now. You could no longer see the streets. Even the yards and walks were inundated now. Everything was a stagnant sea of dirty standing water, lots of dead leaves floating. Lots of flies buzzed around. They found a few dead animals, a couple of corpses. Tommy poured some salt on them, but nothing happened. That was a good thing, they figured. And what a state of affairs it was when floating corpses meant nothing to you.

Outside the Blake house, the very house that Mitch and Tommy were in no hurry to check, they saw destruction. The front door was pretty much torn off its hinges. Just hanging there. A lot of windows broken.

“Looks like the old bitch had trouble last night,” Tommy said.

Carefully, Mitch went up onto the porch with his Remington autoloader and stuck his head through the doorway. Instantly, he could smell the sickly-sweet tang of death. “Miriam?” he called out. “Miriam? You around?”

His voice echoed out and died.

Inside, there was wreckage: shattered furniture and pictures hanging askew on the walls, lots of mud in the carpet. Yeah, Miriam had had visitors last night and it sure as hell wasn’t the fucking Welcome Wagon. He knew if they searched that house room by room, they were going to find things. Maybe some of the dead ones. Maybe Miriam’s corpse and those of Russel and Margaret Boyne. Maybe even Lou Darin. But Mitch wasn’t up to it. He’d seen enough death, he didn’t need to go hunting for it.

Down the block they went, knocking on doors and looking for life and finding nothing. They didn’t even see anyone out walking or hear a dog barking. The world was just graveyard silent. Flooded and stinking and dead. If it hadn’t have been for the far-off drone of a plane, it would have been easy to imagine the entire world was like this. A colossal cemetery.

Then at the Procton house, life.

Lou Darin was on the porch, looking agitated like usual. “Is there anyone else left?”

“Not that we can find,” Mitch told him.

“Have you looked?”

“Yes, we looked, Lou. We’ve been knocking on doors for the past half-hour. Nobody’s around. Either they’re dead or they just got out of town.”

He grunted. “Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“How’d you end up over here? Where’s Miriam and the others?”

“Miriam’s dead as far as I know. And good riddance. Russel and Margaret are inside. And I’m getting out. This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Those things burst into Miriam’s house last night and we ran. We hid inside the Procton’s. I don’t know where they are.”

“You taking Russel and Margaret with you?”

He shook his head. “No way. They’re both crazy. I don’t care what they do. They think they’re living in a zombie movie. They’re preparing for the final battle of mankind. If you can believe that.”

He made to move past and Mitch grabbed him by the arm. “Miriam didn’t make it?”

“I don’t know. They attacked and we ran. The Boyne’s and I.”

“And you left that old woman there?” Tommy said.

“We didn’t have a choice.”

Lou gave them a more detailed version of events. Apparently, the dead got in the house and Miriam told the others to run. That’s all that Darin knew. Miriam was most likely dead.

Tommy laughed. “Well, you are one brave sonofabitch, ain’t you?”

“Oh, shut the hell up, you idiot.”