He stopped when his arm came into view, realizing that its motion was far jerkier than it had any right to be even after being so stiff, but that hardly seemed like the most important detail at the moment. Again he had a vague flash of memory, this time of himself barbequing outside. He saw his arm in the memory, decent sized in the bicep with forearms that might have seen a little more development than the other muscles. In the memory there was a tattoo on his inner left forearm of four playing cards, two aces and two eights fanned out. It was that tattoo that told him what he was seeing in the memory and what he was seeing now were indeed the same arm, but that was where all the similarities ended. The tattoo now was barely visible with just the faded outlines of the cards all that remained. Despite the dim light he could still tell that the color of his skin was completely wrong. In the memory his arm had a light tan to it, but now the skin was much darker, darker than anything that could be achieved just from the sun. Although it was still hard to tell in the wan light, his skin might have been a sort of grayish green.
And it had holes in it, deep decayed holes with maggots squirming inside.
Edward screamed again, and this time he had more success. His voice cracked and he didn’t achieve much volume, but at least it was recognizably a scream. He pulled the arm out of his view as the scream echoed through the cavernous store, not wanting to admit what he had seen, but he couldn’t un-see it. The damage to his arm was so horrible that he shouldn’t be able to move it, but even as he sat there he could feel more sensation returning to it. He could move his fingers now with more ease. And that led to his first truly coherent train of thought.
Whatever was wrong with him, it couldn’t just be his arm. If he checked the rest of himself he would probably see the same improbable decay. And with that kind of breakdown of the flesh, there was no way he should have been alive.
His hearing hadn’t fully returned yet and he was too busy thinking about his current horrifying state to concentrate on anything else, so he didn’t hear the moans from elsewhere in the store that responded to his scream.
Chapter Two
More time passed before Edward tried to stand up again. He knew something was very wrong with him, but his mind wouldn’t let him confront all the implications yet. Instead, he sat on the floor, rocking slightly, trying to keep his thoughts blank. But as his nerve endings worked better he came to realize, even through the still-present ache through his entire body, that parts of his legs were actually growing more numb. He tried to move them and felt the tingling sensation that let him know they had fallen asleep on him. This was enough to get his mind once again focused on self-preservation, and he attempted to stand once more to wake them up. It was easier now, especially since it occurred to him this time that he could hold onto the shelves for support.
When he was finally in a standing position he took a deep breath. It was at once an unfamiliar sensation and a great relief. He had never thought that a simple breath could taste so sweet. The breath reassured him that, no matter what was wrong with him or what strange disease he might have, he was alive. For now that would have to be enough.
He walked down the aisle in slow, deliberate steps, having to concentrate on each one or else collapse once more to the floor. Even though he tried to keep his thoughts on the task at hand, his head was clear enough now that he could wonder what exactly had happened to both him and the store around him. He still couldn’t remember many details about himself, but considering his physical state that might be a blessing.
The department store, on the other hand, felt like a safe thing to contemplate. His first thought was that the store had to have closed down at some point and he had just stumbled into it, except there were the shelves to consider. A closed down store wouldn’t have all the merchandise on the shelves, but this place was still well stocked. As he made it to the end of the toy section and turned into a wider central aisle he found there was more ambient light, and he had a better view of his surroundings. He passed out of the toys and into housewares, glancing every so often down the aisles for anything that might be a clue. Most of the items here didn’t look they had been touched. Toasters, microwaves, blenders, and other such appliances were all forgotten, although here and there boxes or display models had been knocked off the shelves. Some shelves were nearly empty, though, leaving only a few towels scattered around. In the utensils section, most things were still there but all knives were gone. Although he knew these things should have been clues he still couldn’t put it together.
At least the layout of the store was familiar. It was a Walmart, specifically the one he remembered always going to for his groceries. That, in turn, sparked a few more memories. He remembered coming here to get brats and buns for a cookout. A Fourth of July cookout, in fact. The cookout had been a last minute idea, since Julia had suddenly found out that she didn’t need to work that day and they would be able to spend the holiday together. He’d come here, bought what he needed, went home to fire up the grill, but then…
Wait. Julia. The woman he had remembered sitting on the couch with him watching the race. That had been Julia. His wife. As soon as he remembered that, another memory came unbidden into his mind. The memory of holding her hand as she screamed, a memory that at first might have seemed like something terrible. It was terrible to begin with, since the pain she had been in was so bad and he had wanted to do anything at all to take it away, yet the memory was still happy. The pain had ended with the birth of their daughter.
He was married, and he had a daughter. Dana. These memories made him stop in his tracks and take another deep breath. He didn’t know how he could have possibly forgotten these things, but now that the memory was back he no longer felt so scared.
That still didn’t answer the question of what had happened here, though. The more he wandered the store the lighter it got, so the light had to be coming through the front doors, but the light didn’t show him anything that made the answer look simpler. All the items on the shelves had a thick layer of dust on them, so thick he couldn’t even see many of the labels, and several aisles were thick with old cobwebs. Whatever had happened here occurred a long time ago, but that didn’t seem possible. As far as his newly returned memories were concerned, the Fourth of July cookout had been yesterday, but the state of the store proved otherwise. His memories were not as fresh as he had initially thought they were. He didn’t want to think just yet what that might imply about Julia and Dana’s whereabouts.
The closer he got to the grocery section of the store the more he realized that, oddly, someone at some point had used this store as their home. The shelves in the grocery aisles were, unlike the rest of the store, picked clean, and in one far corner of what had once been the deli section he could see a mountain of trash and emptied tin cans. In the open spaces near the checkout lanes Edward saw several tents. A few were still standing while most looked trampled, but every single one of them looked as if they had been abandoned many years ago.
“What the hell happened here?” Edward murmured, and was shocked at the sound of his own voice. It sounded scratchy, out of tune, but still the relatively young voice he’d once possessed. It occurred to him now that if whatever had happened here was years in the past then he should have been much older, but he didn’t sound old. He thought for a second that he wanted to find a mirror and see what he looked like, then remembered the hideous mess that was his arm. On second thought, maybe he wasn’t ready to see himself after all.