Ben Bedard: The World Without Crows

The house was empty. Already the grasses around the house were encroaching on it. The tame lawn was now feral and devouring its master. Inside a window had been left open, and the water that had come in warped the floor. Eric tried to shut the window, but he couldn’t. He sat in the kitchen and took off his boots.

His socks were red with blood. He washed his feet with boiled water. He found some antibiotic lotion in the bathroom and used it. One blister was so large and painful, he had to skewer it with a needle so he could walk. Clear liquid burst from it. He would have cried out in pain, but what was the use of that? Who would hear? Who would care? He carefully wrapped his feet with bandages. He found some cotton socks in a drawer upstairs and he put them on. It was difficult because he was so fat, it was hard to work on his feet.

There was not much food there. A can of spinach which he ate raw. It was delicious and he drank down the green water left in the can hungrily. He had never felt hunger like this before. It was not a craving, it was a painful necessity. The hunger made him feel like a ghost.

On the way out, he saw the Zombie. It was standing in the door to the garage. It was an old man with a red plaid shirt and denim overalls. He had a bloody beard down to his chest. The old man didn’t even look toward him as he moved away, quietly as he could. It was hard to tell which ones were dangerous. Some cracked. Most didn’t.

He had almost vanished when he heard the barking. The dogs came down out of the fields. They had scented the Zombie. Zombies had become easy prey to the dogs who were left. There were three of them, recently pets, Eric imagined. Now they fell upon the Zombie and ripped him apart. The Zombie was still moving as the dogs began to eat him.

Eric pitched his tent in Wolf Creek Wilderness Area near a pond. The weather was cold and wet. When he built a fire, Eric stared into the flames. He wondered if there was any use in living. It was the first time he had thought this so calmly. It did not come from sadness or grief or solitude. He sat quietly and considered suicide.

Eric wondered what he would do on the island when he got there. Would he spend his life alone? Would he exist day by day, waiting for some sickness to kill him? Was that a life worth living?

Eric watched the warm, orange flames dance in the fire. He took out his pistol and placed it on his lap. He leaned back and looked up through the trees at the twisting sky, filled with flashing stars.

Stars didn’t care that they were alone in the darkness.

Somewhere an owl hooted.

Eric had never known such silence or calm.

He felt the pain in his body. It was his body shining like a star. It was living.

Eric put the gun to the side, in the green grass.

Eric brought a calendar with him. It was a small, pocket calendar of the year 1990. He had marked down the day he left: Monday, May 14th. He crossed off the days as he went. It was nice to know what day it was. Eric suspected it didn’t matter anymore, but it was nice.

For example, today was Thursday.

Eric had lived in Ohio most of his life. His mother had moved there with him when she divorced his father, who, she said, was lazy and had no ambition. Now, hiking north from Wolf Creek Wilderness Area, over hills and through forest, following as close to roads as he dared, Ohio was unfamiliar.

He had never noticed how hilly it was or how green the leaves shined as they first sprouted. He had never noticed the sound of water or the welcome sight of the sun as it peered occasionally through the clouds. He had never noticed how wild it was.

He had also never known how difficult hiking could be. The forest was not made for humans. After being pricked and scratched by many thorns, he learned to avoid plants as best he could. It was best to disturb nothing. But it was tiresome and painful. He wondered if it would be better to take the road and hide when he heard any motorized vehicle. But all it would take was one mistake. It was far too risky.

By day, he moved north and avoided cities, towns, even houses, though this could not last forever. He would need food.

Moving north, Eric crossed route 37. There were deer there, browsing by the road. Wrecked cars were overturned to the side of the road where the military had plowed them aside in the last weeks before they too vanished. Eric crawled inside a car or two to search for food, but he found nothing.

At night, he boiled beans over his fire. He listened to the forest. His mother had said there were preachers in the hills who still charmed snakes and ate squirrels. Eric supposed they were all dead now. The beans were hard, but he was too hungry to care.

This was not Ohio to him anymore. What did it mean anymore to be Ohio? There was nothing but forest and lakes and empty roads lined with wrecks. In school, Eric learned Ohio was an Iroquois word. It meant “big river.”

Maybe it was that again, a land of forests and meadows, cut through by rivers.

Wild.

Eric sat in the woods and listened to the silence. It was evening. His feet pounded with pain. Somewhere there was a crashing sound and then a high-pitched yowl. Like a cat, maybe. The silence came back then. Eric watched the last light of the sun, and felt his heart fall with it. There would be that silence soon, and the darkness that flooded the world.

Night was terrible.

His legs were ligaments of bright pain. His shoulders burned. Blood still seeped from his blistered feet. He thought it would get better over the days, but he was wrong.

Many times he had to stop, breathing very hard, wiping sweat from his face, and gritting his teeth to keep from crying. When the pain was worse, when his whole body seemed to throb with fatigue and pain, his goal seemed impossible. Maine seemed another planet.

He remembered climbing onto the plane when he was a child. Sitting in comfortable seats. Soaring a mile over brambles and thorns and fallen trees. Eating peanuts. Then, mere hours later, landing with a soft thump in Portland.

Eric had never felt his body so acutely. He hated it.

It was difficult, moving through the forest, climbing hills, scrabbling down again, moving slow to avoid the roads, and crouching in nervous silence whenever he heard a sound. He never thought it would be this hard.

His plan was ridiculous. He could never make it to Maine. He was too fat and weak. It was so far away. It was over one thousand miles.

1,000 miles.

He was lucky to hike 8 in one day.

Eric needed to avoid Zanesville. Fearing the gangs that were sure to be there, he studied his map. Eric moved his finger up the Muskingum River as it curved around the forests. At first, he planned to cross the river far south of Zanesville, at a town called Duncan Falls. He wasn’t looking forward to crossing the bridge there. He would be exposed. Then he saw that if he crossed there, he would only have to cross again to get to Woodbury. Instead, he decided to pass Zanesville far to the west. He would still have to cross the Licking. To do that, he would be forced to enter Zanesville.

Eric folded his map and put it in a plastic bag. He remembered the day he had found the map. His mother was still alive then. He went to the local gas station as he normally did. There was hardly anything left that day. No more candy, no more bread, no more rice, no more chips. A few cans of soup and a pack or two of noodles. He had cried because he didn’t know what to do. He had sat down and cried. When he finally looked up and wiped his eyes, the first thing he saw was fluttering paper. Maps. He took them home with the noodles. That night his mother began wandering the house, and he had to lock her inside her room. It was only a matter of time then. He spent his days planning, studying maps.