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 … ish.”
“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 happy.
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.
Not exactly what I wanted, but it’ll do, he thought.
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.
He began walking back to the front counter in awe. His eyes filled with liquid and he knew his eyes were as red as the evening sunset. A tear fell and raced down his cheek. Not only was the bat intended for his real son Eddie, but he was now about to give it to his new son, his pretend son, Victor.
“What do you have there?” Victor asked, sitting on the ground next to the now- extinguished fire.
“Something for you.” Kyle reached into the box and grabbed the bat by its rubber handle. “Are you ready to take a few practice swings?”
Victor rose to his feet and walked wobbly toward Kyle. The medication Kyle had given him earlier had made the boy unsteady. Victor reached for the bat handle.
“Grab the rest of your things.”
Victor turned and began picking up everything he needed to take with him. He stumbled a few times as he tried to keep balance. Maybe leaving so soon was a bad idea. But Kyle had already wasted too much time. Jasmine was probably suffering at that very moment, or tomorrow could be her last day on Earth.
They gathered the rest of their things and walked outside. Kyle looked up. It had not begun to rain again, but there were still clouds in the sky. A small patch between one of the clouds allowed a sliver of sun to stream down.