It looked like a bomb had gone off near it. The front door was lying on the ground in a dented heap of metal. Ripped from the hinges like the lid of a sardine can. A couple of the windows were busted and I remember how we thought before that they were too high for zombies to climb into. I guess we were wrong. I took two steps toward my trailer and wondered what I should do. I couldn’t see any zombies waving to me from the windows but there was a good chance there was at least one in there and I didn’t relish being trapped, but on the other hand maybe this was Mason getting back at us yet again. He’d trashed Barrett’s car after all.
I finally sighed and slowly closed the distance to my trailer, keeping on the lookout for any zombies near me. It felt like I needed about 30 eyes to watch all the directions I was trying to watch but there was no help for it. I was all that was left. I finally reached my trailer and stood about four feet from the door, fully prepared for anything to come jumping out at me. Something creaked inside, but I couldn’t see anything.
I heard a noise behind me and whirled, bringing the shotgun up to my shoulder in a blazing fast burst of energy that brought a wave of pain to my arm. I almost pulled the trigger, but that was when I realized there was nothing there. Shit. My heart beat about a thousand miles per minute and I could feel the veins in my forehead pulsing in rhythm with it. I was spooking myself. This had almost been easier in the middle of the night.
I let the shotgun lead the way as I slowly eased myself inside the trailer. The living room was a shambles. There was glass all over the floor and most of the pictures had been knocked off the walls. There were smears of dried blood everywhere and I had a vision of zombies traipsing through here leaving their marks from their wounds or from the bloody meat they’d ingested. I shivered again. This place no longer felt like home to me. Now it was unrecognizable.
There were no zombies in the living room or the kitchen. It took only a quick swivel of the head to see that. There were no windows in the hallway so it was still dark as sin down there, but I could see a little from the ambient light coming from the living room and the bedrooms. Enough to see that the kitchen table had been rudely thrust aside and was now in pieces on the floor. Enough to see that the door to my parent’s bedroom stood gaping open.
I muttered a curse, wondering what the zombies had done to my mom. Had they eaten her dead flesh? Seen it as a little after-dinner snack to ease their palates? No hot, salty, rushing blood to mess up the meat?
As much as I’d hated my mom I felt that it was my duty to go down there and see. It was possible the zombie virus could infect already dead tissue as easily as it could infect living tissue and if mom was out there shambling around as a zombie I knew it was my duty to take care of her, too. All my duty hung around my shoulders like a mountain. All I wanted to do was go lie down somewhere with my trusty shotgun and fall asleep to the world.
But I set my shoulders, redistributing my burden, and set off down the hallway. I went into my room first to make sure there was nothing in there and half-expected Mason to be sitting there at my desk, smiling his dead smile at me. But he wasn’t. There were no zombies in there anywhere. I breathed a sigh of relief and went over to my desk. There was a picture of me, Fannie Mae, and Barrett smiling and having a good time at school. I don’t remember who had snapped it, but there were days when just looking at that picture had helped me survive and now when I saw it a wave of those feelings crashed over me again. God, did I miss them.
I put the shotgun down and tore the back of the frame off, pulling the picture free. I smiled at it and held it to my chest, hoping that it could fill the void I felt there. It didn’t, of course. I put the picture in my pocket, glad that I’d come in here for that if for nothing else. That picture could help me survive in the years to come, if surviving was something I wanted to do.
There was a whisper of air behind me and I cried out, grabbing the shotgun, and whirling around, diving backwards onto my bed. There was nothing there. Again. This was getting old.
I suddenly caught a whiff of myself as I lay there on the bed. God, did I stink. I’d completely pitted out my shirt at some point and between the blood and grime that was caked in it I was pretty sure that it was ruined forever. I stripped it off and wiped myself down with it as best I could, wincing when my arm flexed. The bandage was dirty and bleeding through but I didn’t really care enough to worry about changing it at this point. I grabbed another shirt off the floor and quickly put it on. I hadn’t yet checked mom’s room. I’d been drawing it out as long as I could and I knew I needed to.
To this day I’m still not sure if I actually wanted her body to be there or not.
It was. The light streamed in through her broken window and a breeze made the curtains billow inward. The blanket had been removed from her body and it lay in a pile on the floor. She was fully exposed to the world, her body still bent in the upright position she had died in. Her hand still clenched closed as if she had a bottle in it. I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that she had neither been eaten or was up and about walking around.
I went forward and stood over her. For the first time since coming home Friday night and noticing that she was dead I felt a wave of sorrow touch my heart. I had a few memories of her being good to me when I was very small, before the drink had overtaken her. They were very few and very far between, but there were a couple there. I’d hated the woman most of my life but with all the trauma and tragedy of the last two days I felt like even she deserved a little better than this. I remembered mom buying me ice cream a time or two and a small, sad smile crossed my face.
My hand went out almost of its own volition and touched her forehead. I cupped it and rested my palm there, feeling her cold body and taking a moment of silence just for her. It was the least I could do for the woman who’d brought me into this world. The sorrow poured out of me through my hand into her and I could feel my heart breaking. Not for her, you understand. I don’t expect you to think I suddenly changed my mind about how I felt for her. But for the whole situation. For the whole of Rosie Acres. For all the death and destruction that lay squarely at my feet.
I closed my eyes and whispered to my mom, “I’m sorry you’re dead, mother. You deserve to have lived a good life.”
A rush of air passed through me and my skin contracted into goose bumps and every hair on my body stood on end. My nipples became hard as rocks. I felt a tear fall from my cheeks and splash onto her.
“I’m sorry, mom,” I said again. Then I turned to go.
I quickly left the trailer and went back outside. I so wanted this whole mess to be over.
The zombies were waiting for me.
24.
Mason Smith stood out there with his zombie army. It looked like all the zombies that were left were in the road before me. Their utter silence was eerie. There were at least a hundred zombies arrayed out there. None of them were moving or shuffling or twitching or making a single sound. All eyes were on myself and Mason, who stood a few feet in front of them. Only about half of them actually had eyes but I could still feel their gazes tearing at me. None of them shuffled or shambled forward for me. None held beseeching arms in my direction, hungering for my flesh and blood. None wanted to feed on me. It was weird.