The Dead & Dying

felt for the couch cushion she was using as a pillow and from there found her face, brushing her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

“We could see if we can find a town.” Doc finally said. “Maybe raid a drugstore or doctor’s office. Bring back what she needs.”

Carl closed his eyes and leaned back in the kitchen chair as he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“All well and good,” he said, “but what if we get lost out there? What if we can’t find our way back here?”

“Wait.” I interrupted. “What are we talking about? Taking her? We don’t even know how far the next town is. She could die out there and …”

“And I reckon she definitely will if we don’t, sweetie. You’ve seen how it is out there. Nothing but snow covered fields as far as the eye can see. Shit, it was just dumb luck we found this place to begin with.”

“We could Hansel and Gretel it.” Doc whispered. “Leave something as a trail so we can find our way back.”

Carl snorted and shook his head.

“And what happens if it decides to start snowing again? Before we’re even halfway back that little trail would be gone.”

I listened to the two bicker back and forth and watched the elderly couple in the other room; I watched as Watchmaker’s breath formed plumes in the air as he sung; I watched Sadie try to kick the blankets off her sweaty body and how he had to fight to make sure she remained covered. I watched the two and knew Carl was right: we had to do something.

“… if those things come ’round while we’re dragging our sorry asses across the prairie? It’s only a matter of time. They’ll find us, mark my words. They always do. We can’t stay here forever. Besides, we’re runnin’ out of food as well.”

“Fuck this.”

I stood and walked into the living room, leaving the two men in silence as they watched my departure. Standing next to Watchmaker, I placed my hand on his shoulder and he turned to look at me with those milky eyes.

Leaning close, I whispered in his ear, recounting the debate that had been raging in the kitchen. I explained the pros and cons of each side, laying it out as bluntly and factually as I could.

“So,” I said, “what do you think?”

Watchmaker sat there for a minute, listening to his wife cough as she shivered. Despite the sheen of sweat that glistened on her face and the mound of blankets beneath which she was buried, there were still goose bumps on her arms.

In that moment he looked far older than I had ever seen him, as if decades had passed in mere seconds. His face drained of color and he squeezed his eyes shut as if warding off a headache. When he next spoke, his voice was as thin and devoid of emotion as a rotter in the most advanced stages of decomposition.

“I don’t really see as we have much choice, do we?”

Though he tried to hide behind a tight-lipped mask of stoicism later that night – as the rest of us were preparing our meager supplies for an early departure – I could hear him weeping softly from the other room as he whispered prayers on his wife’s behalf. I couldn’t imagine what he had to be feeling and wanted nothing more than to hold this old man in my arms like a small child and allow my shoulder to absorb all of his fear and concern; I wanted to place my hand on Sadie’s forehead and draw the fever out, wanted to clear her lungs of the cloudy fluids which threatened to drown her. But all I could do was visualize a beautiful, healing white light surrounding the elderly couple as I continued shoving cans of outdated vegetables into my rucksack.

We said goodbye to the farmhouse just as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon like a giant, fiery head. Streaks of yellows and orange blazed across the thin clouds as the last of the stars grew dimmer and dimmer until they were no more.

Somehow, this brilliant display made the cold more bearable, as if the cells of my body were channeling the rays of the newborn sun and amplifying them. Not only did this process radiate warmth from within the confines of clothes and skin, but it also awakened a sense of hope. Surely, we had to be close to some sort of town; before society collapsed, everyone had to go to the store. Everyone had to go to the doctor. We would find what we needed and begin the process of nursing Sadie back to health.

Doc had fashioned a sort of stretcher out of two poles and a piece of canvass that had been pulled taut and stapled to the wood; Sadie laid on it but to the uninitiated it probably looked more like a mound of blankets and quilts than anything even vaguely resembling the human form. He and Carl had decided that they would take turns pulling the stretcher behind them, trading off whenever the weight grew too heavy for their shoulders.

Somehow all this triggered a fleeting sense of deja vu in me: the jerry-rigged stretcher, the fevered woman so desperately in need of medicine, the snow covered fields all flat and white and seeming to stretch out for infinity….  I felt as if I had been through all of this before, perhaps in another lifetime. But just as quickly as it had appeared, the sensation was gone.

Doc had volunteered for the first shift, which left Carl and I ample time to talk as the exertion of pulling the stretcher through the snow demanded the strictest concentration on Doc’s part; and Watchmaker? He hadn’t said a word to anyone the entire morning and instead elected to hover near his wife in silence, presumably so he could be near in case she needed him.

“I reckon there might come a time when Doc and I have to share the load.” Carl said as he handed me his pistol. “That happens and it’s up to you to be point man, honey.”

The pistol felt as heavy as a brick in my hand and I remember looking at it and thinking how dark the metal looked against the blanket of snow that stretched out in all directions. I lifted it a few times, testing its weight as my stomach churned sickeningly; I chewed on my bottom lip and too a long, slow breath as I tried to keep my hands from trembling.

Carl must have noticed too but mistook my nervousness for something else.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That’s a helluva gun. And I won’t lie. It’ll kick like a mule in a bee’s nest. But as long as you’re expecting it, then it shouldn’t be too bad.”

I glanced at Carl and decided the time had come to be totally honest with him.

“I’ve never actually done it.”

“Done what?”

“You know… it.”

Carl suddenly seemed as if the mounds of clothing he’d donned had doubled in weight and he tugged at his collar as he cleared his throat.

“Look,” he said slowly, “I don’t know if now is really the time to be talking about that sort of thing. I can appreciate you being a virgin and all but I…. ”

I felt my face grow warm beneath the ski mask and was glad he couldn’t see the blush that washed across my cheeks. It never occurred to me that he would misunderstand.

“No.” I laughed in an unsteady voice. “No, you pervert. Not that. Of course I’ve done that.”

He now seemed more confused than ever and his tone grew short with frustration.

“Then what in tarnation are you talking about?”

Taking a deep breath of the cold winter air, I finally blurted out my confession.

“I’ve never killed one of those things, alright? I’ve never shot, bludgeoned, beheaded, or burned anything.”

Carl stopped walking as suddenly as if I’d told him the dead could now fly as well as walk. I could picture him standing there, his mouth hanging open and eyes wide with shock; but I kept trudging through the snow, refusing to look back.

Somehow, this admission embarrassed me even more than when Carl thought I was proclaiming virginity. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I watched as my feet disappeared into the snow again and again.

“B-but,” he stammered from behind me. “you’re alive…. ”

“After all these years the cute boy finally realizes I exist.”