Darwin was right. Even our contemporary, human society functioned on the principle of “survival of the fittest.” Granted, it meant something different to the modern man than it did to the wild animals: mental strength got you further than physical prowess. Brains over brawn, education instead of instinct, charisma rather than quickness – those were the traits that kept you alive, got you ahead, made you a success. There was competition over colleges, jobs, women – natural selection at its finest.
I had it all. I was king of my jungle. Graduate of an Ivy League college, CEO of a successful company, husband to a beautiful woman… well, that last part hadn’t worked out so well. But my trophy wife, before she was my soon-to-be ex-wife, had given me a son, so I could add “father to an incredible son” to the list as well. By anyone’s standards, I’d done well for myself.
In another time, I might have been an outcast – the scrawny Puerto Rican and Irish kid who couldn’t play sports or fight or hunt or build things with his hands. But what didn’t kill me made me stronger, at least in the way that mattered. While others kids were climbing trees and throwing footballs, I was studying; I was thinking; I was dreaming. Some kids get athletic scholarships; I got an academic one. And while my peers were up to their ears in debt from college loans, I was already starting to rake in the millions, as my company expanded. Despite my one limitation, I believed I was better than them. Better than everyone.
It’s the ones on top who have the farthest to fall.
On Infernal Friday, I fell just like everyone else. The ones to get back on their feet the quickest were not the smartest or the richest, but the strongest, the ones with true survival skills. You see, we’re back to basics now. Back to classic Darwinism. Survival of the fittest, where fitness means strength, speed, endurance, and good aim. The strong will survive. The weak will become zombies.
I’m not sure why I survived the initial outbreak, but I can’t imagine I’m long for this new world. It’s not just because I’m not cut out to be a zombie-hunter. It’s because the whole point of natural selection is to pass on the genetic traits that will equip a species for success. And despite my own personal success, no one’s going to want to repopulate the planet with my genes.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Week Three
Howie lay on his back on a thin blanket, stripped down to his thin, white, cotton undershirt and boxer shorts. Even so, he was sweating like a pig inside the stuffy chapel. He had never felt so unclean, so uncivilized.
He closed his eyes and imagined himself sitting in his office, in the high-backed executive chair made of smooth, buttery leather, behind a colossal desk of gleaming mahogany, dressed in a neatly-pressed pair of slacks, a crisp button-down, and his finest silk tie. The blinds would be closed, blocking out the heat of the afternoon sun in favor of the cool air blasting steadily from the air conditioning vents in the ceiling. In the dim light, the computer monitor glowed, black type standing out on white, as he smiled over the company’s latest figures.
Gone. All gone.
The scene changed. He was nude, nothing against his bare skin but the silky softness of the twelve-hundred thread count Egyptian sheets he lay between. Lying next to him, sound asleep, the top sheet draped over her breasts, was his ex-wife, Bree. She looked as beautiful as ever, her blonde hair spilling over the pillow as she slept. He watched her for a few moments, yawned contentedly, and stretched out his legs to the tips of his toes beneath the sheets, still not reaching the end of the king-size mattress. She stirred as his weight shifted, but her blue eyes remained closed, her lashes thick against her cheeks. Smiling, he let his own eyelids grow heavy and drift downward…
His eyes flashed open, and he was back in the church, feeling sticky and smothered. He longed for the cool, crisp luxury of his office. He longed for the lavish comfort of his bed. He longed for his old life. For Barty, and even Bree.
Gone. All gone.
In his memory, another image flickered, that of Bree naked in bed again (she’d always preferred to sleep in the nude), but this time, her body was blemished with purple sores, her eyes were fixed half-open, and she was no longer beautiful. He squeezed his eyes shut again, not to keep looking this time, but to extinguish the image, force it out of his head, before he could remember any further. He didn’t want to remember, couldn’t bear to see them again, not like that…
“You okay, Howie?”
He opened his eyes again to look around, startled, and there was Kayleigh, watching him. “I’m fine,” he mumbled and looked away, but he could still feel her gaze on him and knew she had not.
He’d gotten the sense that a lot of Kayleigh’s staring into space was really people-watching. She was more insightful than people gave her credit for, what with the persona of the mute, unstable, air-for-brains weakling she’d built around herself. Slowly, she was coming out of that shell. He attributed the change to Nick’s seizure. It had been Kayleigh who’d come for help, Kayleigh who’d “saved the day” with her actions, small as they were. She was pleased with herself, he could tell, even if she didn’t make a big deal of it. She had been talking more, even smiling, ever since that day.
Yet still, she struggled. Of them all, she and he seemed to have had the hardest time adjusting to life in the post-plague, zombie-infested world. Some individuals in their group were well-equipped to survive in it – Kevin, of course, and, surprisingly, AJ, who almost seemed to be enjoying himself. Others, like Jo and Riley, Nick and Brian, had adapted quickly. Even Gretchen, the schoolteacher, and Gabby, the little girl, were faring as well as could be expected. But Kayleigh and Howie both had struggled to adjust. Perhaps it was because life had changed the most for them – she, the spoiled sorority sister, and he, the wealthy CEO – both educated, yet neither possessing the sort of smarts that mattered in this new world. Maybe that was why they had bonded.
Kayleigh had opened up to Howie first, telling him about the people she had loved and lost – her father, her family, her boyfriend Bradley Lee. He sensed she expected him to pour his heart out to her in return, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about Bree and Barty. Mostly Barty.
He closed his eyes yet again and tried to picture his son the way he’d last seen him alive: dark hair, glowing mahogany skin, brown eyes that crinkled at the corners whenever he flashed his big, gap-toothed smile. Howie couldn’t help but smile now, sadly, just picturing it. It had been clear, the day Barty was born, that his son had inherited his dark, Puerto Rican looks, rather than Bree’s fair, European features. Despite his pride in having a son who looked like him, he’d feared those weren’t the only genes he’d passed on. Yet Bartholomew Dorough had grown into a strong, healthy boy, athletic and outgoing like Bree. Looks, it seemed, were the only realm in which he resembled his father.
It was cruel irony that Howard had been the one to survive.
For a man who had been worth millions a few weeks ago, he was now worthless. Utterly worthless.
“Yo, Howie! Get off your lazy ass; we got a job to do!”
Howie scowled, as AJ’s crude, raspy voice grated his ears. He raised himself on one elbow, as AJ came barreling into the multipurpose room. “What is it?” he asked stiffly.
“Supply run. Kevin’s orders,” the other man added quickly, before Howie could protest. “We’re running low on food, and Kevin thinks we might as well finish off anything perishable before it goes bad.”
Howie wrinkled his nose. “Don’t you think it’s gone bad already?”
AJ shrugged. “It’s only been a month. Stuff that’s packaged and doesn’t need refrigerating will still be good. Cereal, crackers, that kind of thing. Kevin says we should eat that before we get into the canned stuff.”
Then why doesn’t Kevin get it himself? Howie thought peevishly, but he knew better than to say this aloud. His expression must have given him away, though, because AJ added, “He and Brian are heading out to shoot zombies and try the radio again, and Nick and Riley are on guard duty. He asked me to pick someone to help me get supplies, and I picked you, so suck it up, be a man, and let’s go.”
Howie bristled, but climbed slowly to his feet, pulling on a pair of pants over his boxers. He had learned from Kayleigh that refusing did no good, and his powers of persuasion had proven pointless here. Kevin was in charge, and AJ was his right-hand man. Their command had been established easily the first week, and though he resented it, Howie knew better than to stage a coup. He was used to being the boss, but it was obvious even to him that Kevin was the man best equipped to lead in this situation. Howie had been a competitive force in the hotel industry, but he knew nothing of waging war with the undead. He didn’t want to know. But Kevin and his squad insisted everyone pull their weight, and so, reluctantly, Howie followed AJ to the door.
“Good luck,” Kayleigh called half-heartedly after them. AJ ignored her, but Howie acknowledged the goodbye with a grimace over his shoulder.
“What vehicle are we taking?” he asked AJ, as the other man handed him a rifle and prepared to unbolt the front door.
“Kevin took the Hummer, and Jo thinks we should save the ambulance for emergencies, so we’ll take the truck. You can drive if you want. I’ll ride shotgun, and we can throw shit in the back.”
Howie frowned, picturing the dented pick-up Brian and Gretchen had arrived in. “I’d rather drive my own car,” he said at once, thinking of the tinted windows, the cool leather interior with the air conditioning blasting. It would feel so good to escape into the luxury of his old life once more, if only for a short while. “It has eighteen cubic feet of trunk space, which should suffice for the amount of supplies we could reasonably be expected to obtain in one trip.”
AJ shot him a look, opened his mouth to retort, seemed to change his mind, closed it again, opened it once more, and finally replied, “Whatever, dude. Whatever floats your boat.”
Satisfied to have gotten his way, Howie ignored the condescension in his tone and shouldered his gun, trying to prepare himself for the threat of zombies, as AJ finally opened the door. He winced against the shock of the light and heat that spilled in from outside, wrinkling his nose. The air he’d been craving wasn’t fresh at all, but ripe with the stench of decay from the bodies lying or lurching about. It was almost worse than the stale, stagnant air inside the chapel. The breeze felt nice, but smelled terrible. Howie wanted to hold his nose, but didn’t dare take a hand off his rifle. He breathed through his mouth as they crept towards his Lexus.
AJ broke into a run, and Howie followed, panting behind him. He used the automatic starter on his keychain so that the engine was running by the time he slid behind the wheel. The leather seats practically scalded the backs of his legs even through his trousers, but within minutes, icy air was blasting through the air conditioning vents.
Even AJ had to sigh and rest his head against the back of his seat for a moment, fanning the cool air towards his face. “God, that feels good,” he groaned.
Howie smiled in self-satisfaction. Despite the rotten stench outside, the Lexus maintained its smell of new leather, though as they drove away from the chapel, Howie’s nostrils detected the odor of sweat coming off of AJ – and probably himself, as well. Someone had picked up deodorant on one of their supply runs, but it could only do so much when they were constantly sweating.
AJ didn’t seem to notice; if he did, he didn’t mention it. Now that they were on the road, he was focused, his gun armed and ready in his lap, his eyes darting back and forth like an edgy animal’s. He lowered the passenger side window, shooting at every zombie they passed. Howie flinched at every shot and struggled to keep his hands from jerking the wheel.
“Take a left here,” said AJ, when they reached the intersection of Florida Keys Avenue. “The catering office is a couple of blocks up the street, part of the base’s club complex. We’ll try there today.”
Howie nodded, having no choice but to follow his directions. After three weeks of following Kevin around, AJ had come to know the layout of the base considerably well, certainly better than he had. He let AJ navigate, and sure enough, in just a couple of minutes, they were parked beneath the overhang of an expansive building with a white-columned façade and a sign labeling it The Bayshore Club. It looked like a swanky place, and for an instant, Howie’s spirits lifted.
Then he felt a familiar, warm, wetness in his nose, and his heart sank. He looked down to see a spot of glistening red on the steering wheel in front of him and watched as another drop fell to join it.
“Ready?” AJ growled, reaching for his door handle. “Let’s do this.”
“Wait,” said Howie. He reached up and touched the moisture at the base of his nostrils, then pulled his hand back to look. His fingertips were streaked scarlet. He tasted metal as the blood dribbled down over his top lip. “My nose is bleeding.”
“What?” AJ turned to look at him, frowning. “Damn, it is. Well, stuff some kleenex up it or something, and let’s go. We can’t hang out here; I’d bet money those motherfuckers can smell blood.”
Howie could smell blood, too. He was starting to feel light-headed. “It’s not that simple…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, leaning his head back, but he could still feel the blood trickling down his mouth, his chin, the heel of his hand. He was going to get blood all over the pristine interior of his Lexus, but for once, that wasn’t his biggest concern. He should have known better than to blast the air conditioning like that… all that dry, cold air after so much heat and humidity… “Can you open my glove compartment?” he asked AJ thickly. “There should be tissues inside.”
Impatiently, AJ flung open the glove box, handed him a huge wad of tissues, and slammed it shut again. Howie started to feel annoyed. If AJ didn’t want to be held up by him, he should have known better than to make him come along. This wasn’t the first nosebleed he’d had in AJ’s presence, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, unless…
His head snapped upright when he heard the moan. He stared out the windshield at the small flock of zombies staggering up the sidewalk towards them and felt his panic skyrocket.
“Damn, too late,” AJ cursed. “What do you think – fight, bail, or run for it?”
“I’m not in a position to do any of the above at the moment!” cried Howie, holding the tissues to his nose.
“Fine, then I’ll fight.” Before Howie could stop him, AJ jumped out of the car and started shooting.
Howie had to hand it to him – he was a pretty good shot. But by the time he’d taken down most of the undead, there were more – lots more. They were like termites crawling out of the woodwork – the emerged from around both sides of the building, even through its front doors, and still more came from across and down the street. Either AJ was right and the blood had attracted them, or maybe it was the noise, but suddenly, there were zombies closing in on them from all angles.
AJ jumped back into the car and locked the doors. “Okay, so fighting didn’t work, and I think we’ve lost the chance to make a run for it. The supplies will have to wait. Let’s bail.”
Howie nodded, reaching out to start the car again. The engine sprang to life, and he put his foot on the gas to rev it, but not even the roar could scare the walking dead that surrounded them. He shifted into drive, and with one hand holding his nose and the other gripping the wheel, he eased the car forward.
“Floor it!” shouted AJ. “Run them down!”
“I don’t wanna wreck the car!” Howie protested.
“Well, they’re gonna wreck it for you if you don’t get us outta here!”
He was right: even as Howie tried to navigate through them, one-handed, the zombies swarmed around the car, their faces pressed to the windows, their hands beating determinedly against the glass and aluminum exterior. The Lexus bumped and bounced over the fallen bodies of the undead, but the ones left standing did not get out of the way. Howie accelerated, but some of them clung to the car, hanging on to door handles, bumpers, whatever they could grab.
He looked into the rearview mirror, his nose still leaking blood into the handful of tissues, and saw two riding on the trunk, trying to climb up onto the roof. When he lowered his eyes to the windshield, he gasped and jerked his foot off the gas pedal – a third zombie clung to the hood, inching forward on its belly. Howie slammed down on the brake, but he was too late – the zombie had grabbed hold of one of his windshield wipers and managed to hang on. He flicked the wipers on, but as the zombie was dragged sideways, it struck the windshield with its free hand.
“Fuck, man!” shouted AJ, and Howie gaped in dismay at the spiderweb pattern of cracks that had appeared in the glass.
“It’s shatterproof glass,” Howie said, “so it should be-” The word “okay” died on his lips, as the zombie rammed its skull into the already-cracked windshield, and a circle of glass imploded. Howie cried out and let go of the wheel, both hands flying up to cover his face. He slammed his brakes again and opened his eyes just in time to see the zombie fly off the hood. He watched it bounce and roll on the ground, where it lay motionless.
“Would that be considered zombie suicide?” asked AJ, looking at the lifeless heap. “That thing totally just smashed its own head.”
Howie stared at him. He had a small piece of glass embedded in his forehead and another cut on his cheek. He hadn’t seemed to have noticed either yet. Howie reached up to feel his own face and felt a jolt in his stomach when his fingers came away bloody once more.
“Dude,” AJ chuckled, finally noticing this, “now you’re really bleeding.”
“It’s not funny,” said Howie, feeling his face again. He couldn’t tell where exactly the blood was coming from; his whole face stung, wet and sticky with it. He could feel it running slowly down his hands, his wrists, his arms. “We’ve got to get back. I… I need Jo…”
“Well, floor it, then, before we end up with zombie hitchhikers!”
The thumps and thuds of zombie bodies came from all directions now. There were some on the trunk, some crawling up the hood, and still more had made it onto the roof. Howie felt sick imagining the damage to his Lexus, but he felt even sicker picturing the damage to his face, the blood pouring from his nose and each of the cuts caused by the flying shards of glass.
“Can you drive?” he choked. “I… I can’t… I shouldn’t…”
“What?! Now you want me to drive your precious car?” AJ was incredulous. “Well, fuck, then move outta the way.”
In a tangle of limbs, they managed to switch positions. AJ collapsed into the driver’s seat, grunting, but didn’t waste any time getting comfortable. He floored the accelerator, and the car lurched forward, throwing the zombies off the hood and sending the others flying over the roof and right into their path. The car practically went airborne as it bounced over the pile of bodies.
Howie groaned, pressing the blood-soaked tissues to his face. He felt like a human colander, the blood draining out of him through multiple holes in his skin. He knew he needed medical attention, but now was not the time to explain why to AJ. His only relief was that they were not far from the chapel.
AJ veered back onto Florida Keys Avenue, and as he sped back towards the church, the horde of zombies chasing after them fell behind. By the time Howie staggered out of the car, he felt too light-headed to even notice the many cracks, dents, and scratches in the amethyst pearl exterior of his car.
“Dude, are you okay?” asked AJ, coming up alongside him. “You look about ready to faint.” The teasing smile left his lips as a look of genuine concern came over his face. Without waiting for a reply from Howie, he threw Howie’s arm around his shoulders, supporting his weight as the two men dragged themselves across the chapel’s lawn.
“What happened?!” cried a female voice, and Riley came running towards them. “God, Howie, you’re bleeding pretty bad…”
She hurried them to the door, where Nick stood, waiting to usher them in. Howie leaned against AJ, who hauled him into the multipurpose room, where the others sat, including, thankfully, Jo.
The nurse came over right away, a look of alarm on her face. “Did you get bitten?” she asked, in a grave hush.
Howie shook his head quickly.
“Most of it’s from the windshield breaking,” AJ explained, “though he did have a nosebleed before that.”
“Gabby, get the first aid supplies,” Jo asked her daughter, and the girl came trotting over at once with the box she and Brian had brought back from the base hospital. Jo set to work mopping up the blood with gauze. “These cuts must be deeper than they look,” she commented, after a few minutes. “They won’t stop bleeding. Some of them might need stitches. Hold this in place while I get out the suturing equipment.” She guided Howie’s hand to one of the gauze pads she’d applied to his forehead. “Put pressure on it, now.”
Howie nodded. He knew the drill. He also knew it wouldn’t do much good.
He cleared his throat. “It’ll take awhile for it to stop,” he told Jo quietly. “I’m a hemophiliac.”
Despite his low voice, all eyes in the room turned to him. Everything else in the room seemed to stop, as everyone paused to listen and stare.
Jo’s eyes widened, her expression serious. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Howie shifted uncomfortably. “I… I guess I didn’t want to be considered a liability. You know… the weak link.” He couldn’t help it: he looked at Kayleigh, who blushed when he met her eyes and quickly dropped her gaze.
“Dude… you were the weak link before we knew you had hemophilia,” said AJ with a snort, but when Howie looked at him, he was smiling. “At least now you have an excuse.”
Howie managed a smile in return. “Thanks for getting me back in one piece,” he offered.
“Not sure you can say the same for your car,” AJ replied, “but at least it still runs.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Howie, and to his surprise, it didn’t. Perhaps it was because he was still worried about bleeding, but the damaged Lexus seemed trivial now.
The concern must have showed on his face, because Jo patted his shoulder and said, “You’re going to be fine. Most of these cuts really are superficial, and I’m excellent at suturing – you’ll barely have scars.”
“Thank you,” Howie replied quietly.
Jo peered at him closely. “You weren’t injured anywhere else, were you? No impact from the seat belt or steering wheel?”
Howie shook his head. He knew she was wondering about the risk of internal bleeding – dangerous for anyone, deadly for a hemophiliac.
“Good,” she said with a nod of relief. “Just take it easy, then, and keep an eye out for signs of a bleed.”
“I know.”
All his life, he had been dealing with the symptoms and stigma of hemophilia. As an adult, he’d done so quietly – few people in his life, with the exception of his family and closest friends, even knew of his illness. He had a medical alert bracelet that he barely wore; it was at his home in Orlando, tucked away in the top drawer of his bedside table, never to be seen again. He viewed it as a sign of weakness, a magnet for sympathy and even fear. As the leader of his company, the last thing he wanted was to be patronized or pitied. He took care of himself as best he could and dealt with the issues sprung from his hemophilia privately. It had been a long time since he’d had a bad bleed, but then, he’d lived a cautious and controlled life up until now.
That life was over now. Gone. All gone.
If he was going to adapt to this new life, he realized, he was going to have to start opening up to and accepting help from the rest of the group. Otherwise, he’d never survive.
