Gregory Norris - Down with the Fallen - A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

Haley shook her head and got up.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” the girl asked, sniffing.

Haley took off the backpack and took out the bottle of water. Juli took a sip and gave the bottle back to her mother.

“I don’t think they’ll come back,” Haley said.

“How do you know?’ Juli asked and kicked at an empty pack of chips. “Why would they make such a mess? Can’t they clean up after themselves?”

Haley smiled at her daughter’s outrage, so out of place and yet so reasonable, so sane. Julianne was still sane.

“Let’s see if we can find some food, all right?” she said and reached out to Juli. The girl took her hand and for a second they stood there, hand in hand, in the debris, the stench of fresh death hanging over them, almost palpable. Juli thrust her right leg forward, stirring the pile of packages, bottles, and cans. Haley hesitated for a moment, then did the same. They started moving forward, stirring the debris with their feet, scanning the store for any candy bar, packet of chips, box of cookies, anything that the last visitors of the place might have missed.

The last time they’d eaten was the previous afternoon—they’d split the ten remaining saltines from a box they’d found in an abandoned house a week earlier and had finished the pack of peanut butter chocolates that Haley had taken from the bag of a dead woman they’d stumbled upon when they were leaving the last town. She didn’t remember its name. She remembered they left it three days ago, after it turned out there was a whole swarm of sick ones in the town’s Methodist church. Apparently, there were a few infected people among them still at the early stages of the disease, who broke down the doors and let them all free. Haley and Juli were squatting in a house nearby and they heard the shouts of “Get them!” and the moans. Then they saw the still-sane ones run up the street, to the house they were hiding in, and made a quick exit through the back door and into the woods. They had to run. Haley almost gave up halfway through but she made it to the road, bleeding, breathless, but alive. And so did Juli, which was the important thing.

“See anything good?” Haley asked in her new cheery voice. She was feeling better by the minute, in spite of the dull pain in the pit of her belly, in spite of the girl’s corpse behind the counter, in spite of the stench. She’d felt worse pain, when Juli was born, prematurely. She’d seen worse things, when Mrs. Geiger fell on Jim, hands groping, mouth opening and closing, eyes unfocused, sealing his death sentence the moment her palm came into contact with his neck. And she’d smelled worse smells, when the blood started flowing out of her when she miscarried two weeks ago.

Juli tapped her foot on something in the pile of garbage and her face lit up. She grinned at her mother, let go of her hand and reached down. Her hand came up with a box of lemon cookies. The box was trampled but unopened. Haley’s mouth filled with saliva again, just as it did every time she thought about the baked beans in the backpack. She swallowed.

“Great find, kid,” she said. “It’s all yours.”

Juli hesitated with the misshapen cookie box in her hand. Then she offered it to her mother. Haley blinked back the tears that had suddenly filled her eyes and shook her head.

“All yours,” she managed. “You need your strength.’

Juli’s chin started trembling.

“No, Juli, I’m not going anywhere!” Haley said. She waded through the debris to her daughter and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I’m fine, seriously. And I have baked beans.”

Juli didn’t smile. She continued staring at her mother, studying her face, which Haley knew was drawn, dry, and paler than usual, blinking away tears, swallowing back her worry.

“Juli?” Haley said, relaxing her grip on the girl’s shoulders. She forced her fingers to loosen their grip on the thin bones and turn the squeezing into light massaging. “Juli, please have the cookies. You know you love them and you’re hungry. Then we’ll have some beans, okay?”

“Are you really fine?” her daughter asked, with her bottomless eyes that cut short any attempt at a lie fixed on hers. “Are you?”

“Of course I am,” Haley said. She knelt in the pile of garbage in front of her daughter and looked her straight in the eyes. Jim’s eyes. “I’m well and good, and I’ll be much better after you eat these cookies.”

“Mom, that’s emotional blackmail,” Juli said. She looked somber. So somber that Haley burst out laughing. Juli jumped. Haley grabbed her and pulled her to her chest, squeezing the girl, not caring if she hurt the tiny body. Juli hugged her back, fiercely. The box of cookies fell on the floor behind Haley’s back. She groped for it with one hand and pulled it out from the mess. Then she wedged it between her and Juli.

“Take it,” Haley said, letting go of Juli and pressing the shapeless cookie box to the girl’s now scrawny chest. “Please. Emotional blackmail and all.”

Juli took the box with one hand, keeping the other one around her mother’s neck.

“Okay,” she said, stifling a sob. “If you insist.”

Haley hugged her again, kissed her cheek and let go.

“Let’s see if we can find anything else,” she said, getting up. The empty packs, wrappers, and cans rustled under her feet, so she didn’t hear the soft moan that came from the door. Neither did Juli. She’d opened the box of cookies and had stuffed a palmful of crumbs into her mouth. She was watching her mother, who was blocking the door from view. Then Haley made a step forward, to the single aisle of the small store, and Juli choked on her cookies. She shot up from the floor, coughing up crumbs, and grabbed her mother’s arm. Haley started and her head snapped back to the door.

The sick man at the door had not been sick for a long time. He still looked normal but for the mouth that opened and closed erratically and the unfocused eyes. His clothes were filthy and he swayed a little like a drunk, but otherwise he could pass for a healthy man. A year ago, of course. Not now. He let out a low moan and stepped forward unsteadily. The reek of urine, feces and unwashed body hit Haley and Juli in the nose, for a second overtaking the other prevailing smell, of violent and messy death. The man lifted his right hand and groped the air. He was moving toward them.

Haley and Jim had discussed whether the sick ones could smell the healthy humans and neither of them was sure, but it did look that way. The eyes of the sick ones didn’t seem to see very well, the feet were unsteady and still they always tried to approach the healthy ones they encountered and touch them. Perhaps that was their way of asking for help. Perhaps they wanted to spread the disease now that they’d lost their own lives to it. Haley didn’t know. Juli had insisted they were asking for help but since her father’s death—or accident, as she called it—she refused to talk about it.

“Slowly,” Haley whispered, trying to push Juli behind her back. Juli resisted, planting her legs right where she was, next to her mother, facing the door and the stinking man who was standing there, groping the air, his head swiveling from side to side like a hinge that’d gotten unhinged. Which was pretty much what had happened, what happened to all of them. And then they died of starvation and lack of water.

“I know, Mom,” the girl said, her eyes fixed on the sad creature at the door who’d just taken another tentative step toward them. They both stepped back into the aisle—the very short aisle, it now seemed to Haley. They had no weapons. They were both in T-shirts, which was bad. But they wore long pants, which was good. And they couldn’t just outwait the sick one or run. Haley was sure they would find more food in here, food they needed because they might have to run from that house with the smoke coming out of its chimney. There could be bad people there. Or dead people. Besides, Haley had seen—or imagined she’d seen—a few cans left standing in the soft drinks fridge and she wanted them. They needed them.