By the time Doc had freed the elderly couple from the shed, Carl had reappeared around the other side of the house. Behind him was a mass of flames that writhed and twisted in human-shaped forms as they continued to stumble forward.
“We later found out all the shooting had been Carl picking off the freshies first. Which was smart. After the freshies were all gone, he simply made zombie torches.”
I raised my eyebrows in a silent question and Carl, for once, chose to answer.
“You get a bunch of rotters all clustered together,” he said, “and then you just toss some fire right in the middle of ’em. Once they’ve been dead a while, they’re pretty dry. Go up like kindling. Zombie torches. Don’t need no gasoline or nothing.”
“What he’s not telling you,” Doc interrupted, “is that he burned the hell out of his hands lighting those fuckers up. Damn fool took a timber from the burning house.”
“Only one end was on fire. I didn’t think the wood on the other end would be so damn hot. Shows how much I know.”
“Anyways,” Sadie added, “that’s how we met these two fine boys. And they’ve been looking out for us ever since.”
That night, after the others had drifted off to sleep in the warm glow of the fireplace, Carl and I sat up late into the night. For the most part, we talked about movies we’d seen, books we had read, people we’d known. We sat side by side with our shoulders touching, snuggly wrapped in blankets, and whispering so as not to disturb the others.
There were times when we laughed, times when we bordered on tears, and occasions when we simply sat in silence, enjoying the closeness of each other’s company and stealing glances like two smitten teenagers.
But at one point, once the fire had burned down to nothing more than glowing coals, I touched his shoulder lightly and made sure he was looking into my eyes. I had to ask him, had to know.
“Carl, why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
He had seemed genuinely perplexed, as if I had just asked a question that couldn’t be answered.
“Why do you put yourself out there like that? Taking risks for people you barely even know?”
He tried to look away and I moved my hand to the rough stubble on his cheek, guiding his gaze back to my direction.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “it’s the right thing… ”
“No, it’s more than that. I can tell. There’s something else. Something I can’t put my finger on.”
He seemed agitated, as if his blanket had suddenly become coarse and itchy, and the half-grin melted from his face.
“I swear,” I coaxed, “you tell me and we never have to talk about it again if you don’t want to. But I have to know.”
And I did. I can’t explain why it was so important for me to understand this man, to know what made him tick so to speak; but it was and I would be as relentless as a rotter on the trail of the living if I had to be.
After what seemed to be an eternity, he managed a weak smile as he sighed.
“Atonement. Plain and simple. I gotta put things right again.”
And that was the last I ever heard him say on the matter. Far from sating my curiosity, though, his answer only served to fuel it: what had he done that was so bad he felt he had to risk his life time and time again simply so others could live?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE CHILD
I’m with the blurry people again and I can see dark clouds in the sky that flash with lightning like a storm’s on the way. I know there’s wind and I used to like the way it felt blowin’ through my hair and stuff, but for some reason this wind makes my skin hurt. It’s almost like there’s invisible acid in the air and it burns and stings and hurts so bad that I wanna scream but can’t. So I just keep walkin’ but even the bottoms of my feet hurt with every step and I just wanna sit down for a while until the pain goes away but for some reason I just can’t. So I just keep walkin’ with the other people.
But something’s different now. Everyone else seems to want to just keep going straight ahead, but I feel like something from the woods is pullin’ me. I don’t wanna walk toward the storm clouds in the distance and I don’t wanna stay with the others. I wanna split off and go into the trees, I wanna go toward whatever is drawing me and not stop ’til I’m there.
There was this one time that Mommy had a little piece of metal and she put it on top a sheet of paper. Then she took a magnet in her other hand and held it underneath. Wherever she’d move the magnet, the piece of metal on top would follow and that’s exactly how I feel: like there’s this giant magnet under the ground and every time it moves it pulls me along after it.
Once the blurry people see me headin’ off into the woods though, they kinda stop for a moment and then start followin’. I wonder if they feel it too or, if for some reason, they think I might actually know where I’m goin’?
The wind is blowin’ harder now and it makes my skin hurt so bad that even my teeth feel like they’ve been cracked into a million bits. But I still can’t scream and I still can’t cry and all I can do is just keep walkin’ and it’s not fair, I shouldn’t be feelin’ like this, it should be
I’m back in the room with Mr. Carl and the lady now but the pain is still kinda there. Just not as bad. The lady keeps lookin’ from me to Mr. Carl and then back to me again and I can tell she’s thinkin’ ’bout somethin’ but she’s not sayin’ nothin’ so I don’t know what. But she looks so sad that it makes me start feeling lonely and kinda lost inside, if that makes any sense. Something about the look in her eyes makes me think about Mommy and I just wish she was still here, that she would hug me and kiss me and tell me it had all been a bad dream and then ask if maybe I wanted some cocoa.
But I know that’s not gonna happen. I remember how Mr. Carl had carried her through the woods after they saved me from the monsters at the cave. How she kept trying to reach her hand over her shoulder and I kept trying to reach back. But Mr. Carl was so tall that even if I could stand on tiptoes, I probably still wouldn’t have been able to hold her hand.
Besides, we were movin’ real fast through the trees and bushes and Mr. Carl was cryin’ and told me to try to keep up as best as I could, that he was tryin’ to find somewhere we could rest and help my mommy.
I tried not to look at the place on his shoulder that my mommy was layin’ over ’cause there was so much blood now that it started almost lookin’ like Mr. Carl was bleedin’ too. Only I knew he wasn’t. I knew all the blood was Mommy’s and I knew she was hurt real bad.
We finally came to this big, white house and Mr. Carl kicked the door open with his foot like the cops do on TV. He went running into a bedroom and dropped Mommy on the bed and then told me to stay there with her, to keep talkin’ to her and tellin’ her how much I loved her and stuff. And then he ran outta the room and I thought he was probably leaving us but I didn’t care.
I climbed on the bed and snuggled up to Mommy’s side like I used to when it was cold and we’d watch the snow falling outside together. Only back then she was always warm and toasty, but now she was so cold that I could feel her shiverin’. So I tried to get up and go get a blanket for her, but she put her arm around me and started talkin’ to me.
I’d never heard her voice so soft before, not even when whispering, and she kinda seemed like she was havin’ trouble making some of her sounds. Kinda like Stutterin’ Johnny at school only when Mommy did it, it was scary instead of funny.
“J-Jason, b-baby… I love you… I love you, s-s-so much. N-never forget that, s-sw-sweetie.”
By this time I was cryin’ again and I felt like a giant ice cream scoop had come along and dipped out everything inside me. I pressed myself against her as tight as I could, thinkin’ that maybe my body could help keep
