fire. He pulled up next to the sign where he’d parked the truck before and stepped outside. He grabbed some supplies and a few rags then picked up the shotgun from the bed. He held it barrel down to drain as much blood out of it as possible. Before he could fire the gun again, it needed to be cleaned. Kyle didn’t have any oil, but he had to make do with what he had.
The door to the post office was wide open. He fumbled with the items in his hands and reached for the Glock holstered at his waist. Pointing it forward, Kyle slowly walked toward the door. In his rage, he couldn’t remember if he had left it open.
“Victor?” Kyle said as he walked into the post office.
The fire in the metal trashcan had almost completely extinguished. It threw the last remaining embers into the sky before Kyle threw another cardboard box into the fire in hopes that it’ll catch again. He searched the room for any movement. “Victor,” he said calling to the boy for any form of contact. He raised the Glock forward and crept to the post office sales counter.
“Victor,” he whispered.
He peered over the counter and Victor’s legs were still motionless on the floor. Kyle jumped over the counter and headed toward the boy. He removed the curtains that gave him a little bit of decency. The blood around the boy had dried and begun to turn brown.
He nudged Victor’s body in an attempt to wake him. “Victor,” he said, shaking him a bit harder. “It’s time to get up, bud. I got a surprise for you.”
The boy did not move, and Kyle began to panic. “Victor!” he yelled shaking him violently. “Wake up, come on …” His heart raced and his belly began to grumble as if telling him that it was time to empty out its contents.
He removed the curtain completely and checked if he was still breathing. Tears welled up in his face. All the rotten actions he’d done the past day flashed in his head. Leaving Mary and Eddie, sawing the head off the poor soul that happened to wander in his direction, Susie, Angel, the crazed man in the street … Chet. “Come on, Victor. I can’t lose you.” He rolled him onto his back. Victor’s red and purple puffy face stared back at him.
Victor began to blink as Kyle pumped the center of his chest. He bent down to blow into his mouth. At that second, Victor’s eyes completely opened and all he saw was Kyle coming down to him with his mouth wide open. Victor began to punch and kick.
“No!” he yelled through his puffy and swollen face, “get the hell away from me.”
Kyle jumped back for a second. Victor continued to punch the air.
“Victor, calm down. It’s just me, Kyle,” he said moving forward to help comfort the boy.
A sudden calmness befell Victor as soon as he acknowledged Kyle. He stopped moving and opened his eyes again to see the dirty stained face of Kyle. There was a silence for a moment. It only lasted a few seconds at the most, but to the two friends it felt like an eternity.
“How are you?” Kyle asked knowing that it was a stupid question, but in a situation like this, any question would be stupid.
Victor’s eyes filled with tears. “He … Chet … raped me. How do you think I feel?”
Kyle knew that response was coming. “Come on, let’s get you up and dressed.” Kyle rose to his feet and bent down to slowly help Victor up. The curtain wrapped around Victor’s lower half fell to the ground, exposing him to the dead world. Kyle picked it back up and draped it over him. They walked back to the front counter, Kyle hugged Victor by the shoulder to help him move. Victor limped, but nothing seemed wrong with his ankles.
They reached the counter and Kyle jumped over first. He then turned to help Victor over. They continued on their way to the makeshift bonfire. Kyle dug around through his things to find some pain medicine. He knew Victor needed as much as his body would allow him to take. He gave him some pills and searched around the ground for a bottle of water. There was one half empty.
Victor took the pills without hesitation.
“Your clothes are dry now. We can leave the ones you were wearing where they are. I don’t want them back.”
“That makes two of us.”
Victor slowly dressed. For some reason, Victor didn’t seem so ashamed exposing himself to Kyle. Kyle examined the boy’s body for any other marks. Besides the swollen face, Victor’s body was fine.
The boy was fully dressed and suddenly asked, “Where is he? Gone?”
Kyle couldn’t help but grin. “No, he’s not gone. Almost did. After I saw what he did to you, I …” He stopped himself for a moment. If Victor couldn’t remember that it was him who knocked him unconscious, he didn’t want to tell him. “You passed out; I saw what he did and ran out of here like a demon out of hell. I found him up the road transferring shit from our truck to his car.”
“Is he dead? Did you kill him?”
“Well …” Kyle glanced to his right and wrinkled his face in a childish maneuver. “Dead …
“Is he a zombie now?”
Hearing the word zombie instantly made Kyle remember the entire ordeal he had witnessed. The Existing Dead falling simultaneously, the head in the back of the truck no longer moving its eyes, just a deadlock stare.
“Something is happening.”
“What does that mean?”
“It mean’s something is happening to the dead.”
“What does that have to do with Chet?”
“He is one of them now, well … was,” Kyle answered walking to the blood stained Winchester. He put his hand around the barrel and lifted it. He examined it for a second. He knew that blood had found its way into the barrel. Without the proper cleaning materials and lubricate, there was no telling how long he could continue firing the weapon. “Get your things.” He turned to stare at Victor. His puffy blue and purple face focused back at him. He wanted so desperately to have some ice to help with the swelling. “I think it’s time we took you home.”
Chapter Sixteen
Kyle walked into the post office lobby with the Glock in his hands. He was on a mission and needed to find something. Something that would hopefully make Victor and him
Jumping over the counter, he looked at the lifeless post office worker. The body that was once alive, then dead, then alive again and finally brought down for the last time by a slug from Kyle’s shotgun. He reveled in the surreal paradox of life. The greatest fear in life is death, but when death is replaced by a new life of unwillingness and endless hunger, it’s a paradox that you wished you could escape.
The air was cool in the darker side of the post office warehouse. It was dark, but there were a few windows overhead that let some ominous light inside. He used that to his advantage, searching the room for any movement and slowly walking forward.
On the far right wall, he found a dolly stacked to the top with packages that would never see their final destinations. He began to search through the boxes, opening those that weren’t packaged properly. There was nothing useful.
Thinking that this mission was a waste of time, Kyle began walking to the front counter. He paused for a moment when he saw a long box propped up against a wall through the corner of his eye. It was a long shot that it was what he wanted, but he had to check it out.
The brown box was three inches wide and about three feet tall. Perfect size. He holstered the gun at the small of his back and tore off the top of the box. He looked inside and saw a massive amount of bubble wrap. He flipped the box to drop its contents onto the floor. A silver aluminum baseball bat with a rubber grip fell out. The echo of hollow aluminum hitting tile bounced off the warehouse walls until the bat settled, then began rolling away from Kyle.
Still holding the box, he walked toward the bat and lifted it off the ground. He shoved it back into the box and wanted to mentally thank both the sender and receiver of the package, so he turned it over to see the shipping label.
Kyle felt a cold breeze pass through his body as he stared at the names. The recipient of the package was for his now dead son, Eddie. And sender was Mary’s mother. The odds of something like that happening at that very moment were next to none. But somehow, some way, it did.
