A little girl stood before me, just inside the closed door. She wore a blue cotton dress with a pretty floral print pattern. The color matched that of her eyes. Her blonde hair was done up in pigtails, and her white stockings and black shoes seemed brighter and cleaner than anything else in the room. Maybe it’s because they weren’t coated with blood and gore, the way my own feet were. Or maybe it was because she seemed to radiate.
“I know you,” I whispered. “You’re the little girl who is supposed to haunt this place.”
I wasn’t scared. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t. Once I’d gotten over the initial fight of unexpectedly finding someone else in the room with me after I’d just killed Damonte, I found her presence almost soothing. It was reassuring to know that I could now see a ghost, because it reconfirmed what I’d been suspecting for the last hour or so.
“I’m dead, right? I knew it. I fucking knew it! That’s why I can hear Alyssa’s voice in my head, and it’s why I can see you. I’m dead, and this is Hell. I’m trapped here. Right?”
The apparition didn’t say anything. She merely stared at me with those impossibly big blue eyes. They seemed to grow larger by the second. The illusion didn’t scare me, but it did leave me unsettled.
“So if I’m dead,” I continued, stepping toward her, “then none of this matters anyway, right? The things I’ve done here. The things we did to each other. None of it matters because none of it is real. I wonder, was I ever even down here, really? Did I die up top, when the zombies first came, and everything since then has just been another part of Hell? I mean, I know I didn’t go to Heaven. Not after what I did to Alyssa. Or Hannah, even. There’s no way I’d get into Heaven after hurting them both like that. So it would stand to reason that I’m in Hell. Why are you here though, I wonder? Are you in Hell, too?”
The little girl still didn’t respond. Her eyes had grown even larger, shadowing out the rest of her face. As I watched, they converged into one and swallowed her nose and mouth. Her bangs now served as eyelashes. Her entire face was gone, replaced by one giant, staring pupil.
“Jesus,” I whispered. “What the fuck is wrong with me? What is happening here? I just want to go home. I want things to go back to the way they were before. Please?”
The ghost pointed to the door. The gesture seemed accusatory.
“Why don’t you talk? I mean, I know you don’t have a mouth anymore, but why don’t you speak inside my head or something? I don’t understand. What do you want me to do? What are you trying to say?”
She waggled her finger as the eyeball continued to grow, absorbing her entire head. Then she stepped aside, still pointing. I brushed past her and placed my hand against the door. When I turned to look, the girl was gone. Not even the eyeball remained.
“I’m not crazy,” I said.
I’m not sure who I was talking to. Krantz, Drew, Dave and Damonte didn’t respond. If they had, I wouldn’t have been surprised. If this was indeed Hell, then they weren’t really dead. I’d seen the proof myself. Watched it spill into the hotel. Watched it consume our world. Watched it displayed on the video monitors. There was no death. Things didn’t die here. People and animals didn’t die. They came back, to torment the living.
I patted my pocket and felt Jeff’s wooden coin rub against my thigh. I thought of the slogan emblazoned on the token—IT IS WHAT IT IS. That was good advice. It worked for me.
I pushed the door open and strode out into the hallway. I didn’t care anymore about being heard, because it didn’t really matter. I wanted Chuck and Nicole and Emma to know I was coming. I wanted them to be afraid. I wanted my wife back, and they were the key to finding her. If they were fearful, then maybe this would go a lot quicker.
I shoved the dining room door open, took two steps inside, and saw Alyssa and Hannah standing against the far wall. They looked as surprised as I felt, but they also seemed terrified.
“It’s okay.” I held up my hand to reassure them both, realizing too late that I was still clutching the butcher knife. I lowered it again. “Hannah? I knew Alyssa was here, but are you dead, t—”
Too late, I noticed the figure looming to my left. I started to turn but Chuck lunged forward and swung one of the dining room’s metal folding chairs at my head. It connected with a loud crack that deafened me for a few moments. I felt my teeth shatter and my jaw went numb. It was a sickening sensation, worse than any of the pain I’d experienced up until then. I tried to scream but only managed to squawk. My cheek felt hot and wet, and my vision dimmed.
Chuck growled, a primal, animalistic sound that had no human cadence or syllables. His face was a mask of ferocity. He lifted the chair to strike again, but I darted to the right until I was out of his reach. The girls screamed. I wanted to scream, too. Chuck didn’t scream. He grunted. Raising the knife, I turned to face him. My face throbbed.
“Come on, you fucker.” I don’t know if he understood me or not. I could barely understand myself. It hurt to talk. Hurt to breathe. My grip on the knife tightened.
I expected Chuck to charge me, or at least growl some more, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood up straight and held his ground. A crooked smile slowly broke across his face. This was the only opportunity I’d had since entering the dining room to really study him. The first thing I noticed was that he was naked. I wondered how I’d missed that fact until now. He’d drawn different symbols and doodles on his skin with what looked like black permanent marker. They seemed meaningless and random—sigils and runes, a star, a ridiculous pair of tits with a vagina beneath them (no face or body to accompany them), a crude maze with a black squiggle at the center, a cat head, a dog head, several stick figures engaged in various sex acts, and what appeared to be some kind of flag. While the effects of starvation were evident, Chuck was still in decent shape and much bigger than me. Despite losing some of his muscle mass, and despite the fact that his ribs showed through his skin just like the rest of us, I had no doubts that he was still stronger than me. If I let him get in close, he’d easily overpower me. Plus, he was obviously insane. Maybe he’d been crazy to begin with, or maybe he’d just contracted cabin fever after being cooped up for so long down here in the bunker, but whatever the cause, Chuck was absolutely bat-shit.
“You shouldn’t have disobeyed me, Pete.” His tone was almost sad.
“Fuck you.” I spoke slowly. Each syllable was an exercise in agony. “Who died and put you in charge?”
“I’m in charge because I was meant to be. I’m the strongest. That means I’m the leader.”
“You’re not a leader, Chuck.” I ignored the pain. “You’re a cable repairman.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I was a cable repairman. Now, I am something else.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re crazy.”
“Crazy?” Laughing, Chuck edged closer to me. “Have you seen yourself lately, Pete? Crazy! Pot, meet kettle.”
I opened my mouth to respond and one of my teeth fell out. Instinctively, I glanced down at it, and Chuck threw the chair at me and lunged. I jumped back. The chair hit me, but the force was lessened. Chuck followed it, fists raised. He swung at my face, probably hoping to finish what he’d already started on my jaw, but I pulled my head back and slashed at him with the knife. The blade slid across the underside of his forearm, leaving a red line through several makeshift tattoos. Chuck yanked his arm away, but made no sound. He swung again, this time with an uppercut. His fist sank into my stomach, knocking the wind from my lungs. I staggered backward, desperately trying to breathe and clutching the knife. If I let go of it now, he’d kill me in seconds.