Ben Bedard - The World Without Crows

When it became obvious the world was ending, Eric thought the worst part would be the people in the streets, screaming or laughing or crying, or how it was impossible to be sure which ones were infected. He thought the worst part would be the sight of great dump trucks full of corpses going down the road. Or the military who showed up toward the end and started shooting people. Or the fires in the distance or the gangs roaming the streets with guns. But it wasn’t any of those things.

“Eric,” his mother said, her lips dry and flaky. Her eyes dripped blood. “Come here.” He did. Her sweaty hand took him by the collar. “I never loved your father,” she told him. “Sometimes I don’t love you either. You’re so much like him, Eric.” She began to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

Everyone thought that the end was the time to tell the truth. As if lies were what brought on the worm. As if lies had doomed them all. The things people said to each other in those last days.

The worst part about the world ending was honesty.

His mother was still alive when he started to form the plan. She was locked in her room. Eric left her a plastic jug of water by the bed. She didn’t eat, but she drank. That was how it was with the Vaca B.

The first part of his plan was to get books. In the time before the worm, a time that seemed more and more distant with each passing day, Eric loved the library. On Thursday nights, he and his friends would meet there to play AD&D. Bill, Andy, Jessica, and Glenn. He saw some of them wandering the streets of Athens, Ohio, like the rest of them, wandering until they found a body of water, then throwing themselves in to drink until they drowned. He didn’t say anything to them. There was nothing to say and nothing he could do to help.

Eric went to the library. There was a Zombie there. She had been a librarian once, part time. Andy used to have a crush on her. Her name was Janice. She was thin. She had glasses and her breath stank like coffee and rancid milk. All Janice did now was stand against the wall, scraping the wall with her bloody fingers. She was harmless, waiting to die. Most of them were.

But there were others.

In the back of the library, Eric found what he wanted. He took it down from the shelf. “The CALM Wilderness Survival Guide,” by Walter Jakes. He wanted to look for more books, but Janice was scraping the wall. The sound of it in the silence terrified him.

The night after he had gone to the library, he woke up to screams. Someone was screaming, “No! Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Please! No!” Eric ran to the window.

Outside the moon was bright. There was a man, dragging one leg behind him. He was trying to get away from a cracked Zombie. It came after him slowly. The man must have shot him because the Zombie moved in lurches. It was slow but faster than the man trying to get away. The Zombie had black fluid running out of its mouth. Eric wanted to help the man, but he didn’t know what he could do. Mostly he was too scared.

The Zombie caught up with the man and started tearing apart his legs. The man was screaming. “NO! STOP! PLEASE!” But the cracked Zombie was eating his leg. The man hit the Zombie again and again, but it didn’t stop. Finally the man passed out, and the Zombie ate for a while before it collapsed on top of him. By morning, they were both dead.

Eric decided he needed a gun.

When the Vaca B broke out, Eric celebrated his birthday. It was August 12, 1989. He was 16 years old. He had a small party in his basement. Glenn was there. Jessica came late. The rest didn’t make it. They spent the time eating confetti cake and making characters for their next campaign. Glenn rolled a clean 18 on three dice. They tried to get him to become a magic-user, but he put the 18 on Strength anyway. Glenn was a fighter. He was always a fighter. Jessica said he wanted to be a fighter all the time because he was so skinny. They laughed about that, but Glenn became angry. He tried not show it, but he was angry. It made Eric happy somehow. When they all left, Eric went into the living room where his mother was watching television and eating chips. She was watching the news.

At the time, the military was fire bombing Houston.

He sat beside her to watch, eating chips and licking the grease and salt from his fingers.

When the days seemed to get warm enough, Eric decided to leave. When Eric left Athens, he turned north on Columbus Road. The backpack he carried was very heavy. He hoped he would get stronger. It was a long way to Maine.

When he got to the edge of downtown, he looked back. Athens was the town he had known most of his life. His mother worked at the University there. Now it was empty except for the Zombies who stumbled among the classical columns. He could still see the curling smoke from his burning house. He was crying. He had poured gasoline on her body and all over the house. He had lit the match. He loved his mother and now she was ashes.

Eric tried not to cry. He had to grow up. He had to survive.

The backpack was heavy. After an hour, he had to stop and breathe and take it off. He hadn’t even crossed the 33 yet. It was rainy and cloudy and he was wet and miserable. Eric took the backpack off and sat on it.

He looked at his boots and breathed heavily. He was so fat. Maybe it was a mistake. All of this. He could never make it to Maine.

He looked at himself.

Finally, he emptied out his backpack. He looked at what he had brought. He separated the necessary things. The book he had taken from the library said this about the survival pack:

“Making a wilderness survival pack is fun! If you pack appropriately, there’s no reason to fear the outdoors. No matter if you are in the desert or in marshes, in the forest or on the prairie, if you pack right, you’ll be able to survive any climate. Then you can sit back, relax, and enjoy God’s gift of nature, just as was intended!”

Eric decided to leave behind some things. Books. Canned food. A hammer. The radio. The extra pair of boots. When he put the backpack on again, it was lighter, but still pretty heavy. The gun he had found in a neighbor’s house, nestled inside an old shoebox, weighed down his pocket, but he would not give it up. He would have to get stronger.

When he came around a corner, he saw a billboard. He’d seen it many times before, but now it scared him. It was a picture of Jesus on the cross. He was covered in blood. His face was contorted in pain. HE SUFFERED FOR YOU! the sign read. Eric swallowed and put his hand on the gun that he kept at his side.

Jesus looked like a Zombie.

The plan was simple.

When Eric was young and his father had still taken him for a few weeks in the summer, Eric had flown to Portland, Maine. His father met him at the airport and they drove to Rangeley. His father had a cabin there. They would go out in his canoe and fish. Eric couldn’t fish well. He didn’t like killing worms. It frustrated his father. The skies were always blue like the water. The forests were green. At night, the loons would call over the water. He never wanted to go home. When his father brought him back to the airport, Eric always cried. He tried not to, he knew it irritated his father, but he didn’t want to leave. Then his father married another woman. She had two boys of her own. Eric got birthday cards for a while, but then they stopped.