Timothy Long: Beyond the Barriers

I pulled into my side street and slowed down in case kids were in the street. But there was no one there, and I got that eerie feeling of aloneness once again. I pulled into my driveway and noticed that my neighbor Hector Edwards was in his back yard. I could only make out the top of his head, so I waved a silent greeting and went inside without waiting for a response.

The house comforted me after the afternoon I’d had. I didn’t want to go out again, so I hauled my goodies into the living room, depositing them on the couch. Then I clicked on the TV and switched it over to CNN. A group of men in white lab coats were debating the effects of the disease.

“Because it isn’t possible, that’s why! Why are you so ready to jump to crazy conclusions like this? The dead? Really? It is not physiologically possible for the dead to reanimate in any shape or form. It is utterly preposterous!” The guy had a full beard, and his face was bright red.

“Then how do you explain it? How do you explain the ones we have captured and brought in for testing? They move on their own like automatons, but they have no respiration, no brainwave activity, no pulse for God’s sake. How do you explain that?”

“I would like to see that. I would very much like to see a dead man moving around. This is a hoax!”

Then the scene cut away to an overhead view of New York City. There was no doubting that cityscape; it was like a fixture to the American public. A bird’s-eye view of that city was as familiar to people as the Golden Gate Bridge or the Statue of Liberty. The view shifted as the helicopter dropped a few feet, then adjusted as a shaking camera tried to focus on something down below. There was talking in the background, and it was pretty obvious the guys in the helicopter were thrown in without much prep time.

Then a voice popped in.

“Are we live? Live?” A man came into view who I had seen on the news many times. I couldn’t remember his name for the life of me. He had a blocky jaw, like an old-time movie star, and his pepper-gray hair reminded me of a politician’s.

“… the city where the disease has run rampant. We are over Times Square now, and we are seeing some activity that is being called a riot. The police have been called in to handle the situation; we aren’t sure how many are available. The riots seem to have caught the authorities by surprise. NBC would like to warn viewers that what they are about to see could be graphic.”

The camera shifted again, and then they went to an outside view that was crystal clear. They must have had another camera mounted to a strut to get such a good shot. Another helicopter shot past then slowed to a hover.

The scene below was chaos, as hundreds of people ran in the street. Some moved slower than others, and if people stumbled, the pursuers fell on them like prey.

“Oh my God.” It was the first time I had spoken since I got home, since I killed the man in the street. The undead man who had been like the attackers on the screen.

Within minutes, the ‘riot’ had become a full-scale mob as people ran every which way. I watched the people attacked rise up and go at others as they tried to get past.

A pair of ambulances pulled up slowly. Figures jumped out of both sides, and then some slithered out the back. They had bags in hand. Giant, black bags that reminded me of the bags they carry bodies to the morgue in.

The paramedics were torn into on the spot, attacked and beaten down where they stood. A pair tried in vain to wrestle one of the slow ones into a bag. I was glad the camera was too high to allow viewers to hear the screams of pain.

I sat in front of the TV for a long time. Once again, I thought of how Allison and I had watched the 9/11 attacks all day and most of the night. Somehow, this didn’t have the same impact, although it should have. An hour later, the street was covered with nothing but dead things, and I knew it was just a matter of time before it spread everywhere.

I had to get out. I had been thinking of a place to hide, to wait out the end, and I had a good idea where I could go. The problem was that it didn’t belong to me. My buddy Ray had let me use his cabin in the woods up on Mount Arrow a few times, and I was pretty sure I could remember how to get there.

I had gear, I had gas, and I had food. I could stay for a week or two, listen to the wind-up radio, and try to wait it out. I looked around my house at all the things I had accumulated over the years, all the things that Allison and I had added to it, and I knew there was no way to keep someone out once I left. I didn’t want to stay cooped up here, however, so I grabbed what valuables I had - that I wanted to come back for- and put them in big black bags. Portable hard drive and a smaller laptop. I planned to bring the larger one with me. I added some of my favorite CDs, some jewelry she had left, stuff I bought her. I pocketed her engagement ring, because it had cost me a small fortune. Then I wondered what I would do with the damn thing and tossed it in the bag.

I put pictures in the bags, along with some canned goods that I didn’t want to have to try to carry. It was already going to be a long hike to his place, so I didn’t want to have to carry a hundred pounds with me. Then I opened the closet, moved all the crap aside, including my rarely used vacuum, and tugged open the entrance to the space under the house.

I climbed inside and pushed the stuff to a back corner where the dirt met the concrete wall, and hoped it wasn’t too visible if someone else came along and looked. I was going to bolt up the house, but I had no illusions about how tenuous the hold on my property would become once I wasn’t here to defend it with a gun, or even my fists.

I was climbing back out, knocking dirt off my shoes, when a loud knock came from the front door. I popped up and looked at the couch where the guns sat. I almost went for them, but I didn’t think any crazies would be around this early. To the front of the house, I went, when my cell phone rang again. I popped it out of my pocket and looked at the display. Allison. Didn’t she have anyone else to bug? Like her new boyfriend?

I pocketed the phone and stared out the peephole in the door. My neighbor Devon stood on the porch. He craned his neck around to peek in the window then looked up and down the street. His face was covered in sweat, and his eyes shifted rapidly as he tried to look everywhere at once. I opened the door, and he let out a sigh of relief.

“Man, I thought you left or something. Except your car is here. Is everything okay? I mean, not that you need anyone checking up on you and all. Because of the war stuff. I bet you have a million weapons in there. Probably a good thing you didn’t start shooting.” He was babbling, and I felt like joining him. Devon and I had hung out a few times, shot the shit, talked about our wives, and downed a few six packs of beer. He was about as liberal as they come, but I liked him just the same. He had a quick wit and a fun way of looking at the world—kind of like a schizoid who was in control of his other personalities. He could flip from dead serious to making fun of the other neighbors in an angry German accent at the drop of a hat.

His wife was pretty and genuinely nice. I remember the day Lisa stopped by after she found out Allison had left me. She said she was sorry and brought over a meatloaf. I was touched by her kindness, and shocked when she hugged me, walking off with a furtive look over her shoulder.

“What do you know, Dev?”

“I know the whole goddamn fucking place is going crazy. Did you hear there was an attack at Walmart and the new Safeway? The things came out of nowhere and started attacking people. Just biting them in public.”

“Where did you hear that?” News sure was traveling fast in this tiny town today.