Fusion: A collection of short stories from Breakwater Harbor Books’ authors by Scott Toney
The moment hangs in the air between us for an unbelievable amount of time before he walks towards me and grabs me in another fierce bear hug. He pulls my face up to his and kisses me with so much force I think he’s bruised my lips, but I don’t care. I kiss him back, my mouth feeling like it’s found its missing best friend. Tears stream down my face, and when he finally pulls away from my lips and looks into my face, his expression is a mixture of happy and sad.
“Never.”
I smile at him, tears of fear and love mixing into one big wet mess down my cheeks.
He smiles back. “It takes the end of the world for us to stop fucking arguing, eh?” he says sadly.
I bite my lip and nod, giving a small laugh as more tears trickle down my face. He thumbs them away and kisses me softly.
“I got a present for you today.” He smiles.
This doesn’t seem fucking real. In the midst of an apocalypse and we’re talking about forgiveness and presents. This has to be a dream, but I’d like to see how the dream ends so I go with it.
Cocking my head to one side, I give him a wonky smile. “Yeah?” I breathe out, my voice trembling when I try to ignore another crash from outside.
“Yeah.” He takes my hand, I pick up my bag with my free one, and we go down the stairs.
The world has suddenly gone silent. There is no more screaming, no more shouting. No bangs and explosions. Just silence. It’s eerie, but for the moment all I can think is that I need him to know how much I love him in-case we die. That seems a very likely scenario right now, death.
“I’m sorry.” The words finally pass my lips and he stops halfway down the stairs and turns to look at me.
“I know, Nina. So am I.” He smiles and carries on walking, pulling me with him.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and he retrieves the box that he’d thrown down earlier, and hands it to me.
I open it up and laugh. Well, I laugh and cry. Maybe a little bit of snot is mixed in with it all too, who knows.
Inside is a pair of navy blue Doc Martin boots.
“Now that is practical footwear.” He smiles.
4.
I tie the laces tight, knotting them into a little bow on each boot.
He’s right, these are practical. I smile. And they’re comfy. It’s strangely perfect timing as well. If there was ever a time for me to get these boots, I guess this would be it. Not that I would ever wish for a zombie apocalypse of course, but if there was ever going to be one, I would want these boots, not the stupid high heels that I bought. Even if they are exceptionally pretty.
I pull the curtains to one side and peep out. Zombies are roaming the streets. Bumping into each other and then moving on. They still look vaguely human, not how I’d expect them to look at all. Maybe it’s because they’re only newly dead, who knows? That’s what fascinates me the most. Apart from the blood, gore, missing limbs and what not, they still look the same to me. Well, most of them do. There’s Emma Watson from across the street.
Hey Emma, how’s it going today? How’s work? Have you had your hair done, it looks lovely. Oh, by the way, where’s your arm? Oh hey, Dennis from number thirty-two. I heard your wife wasn’t feeling well, but man she really looks like death if you know what I mean?
My stomach turns, doing a little somersault. Sandy is there again. She’s moaning, standing in front of her house as if some sort of memory remains of her life before her death, before her life... again, or whatever. Maybe it does. What the fuck do I know? It still doesn’t seem real, but the hell that has enveloped my street begs me to argue with it.
The dead have risen. The dead walk. The un-dead are out there, eating my friends and standing on my front lawn, trampling all over my flowerbeds. God damn it! This can’t be happening. With all the curtains drawn shut, and all the doors locked, we are relatively safe in the darkened front room. Or so Ben thinks. Neither of us know what to do for the best. It’s not like this sort of thing happens every day and we have a guide to follow or whatever.
What worries me the most is that no one has turned up to help. I expected the army, or at the very least the police, but nothing and no one has come to rescue us. I try the TV again. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tried the damn thing, but still it comes up with a black screen and nothing more. I flip through the channels. Click, click, click… there! A message. Finally a message.
Stay inside and lock your doors. Do not attempt to go outside for any reason. Do not attempt to make contact or reason with the infected in any way. The infected are highly aggressive. The government will be in contact soon.
That’s it. Nothing more.
This is real, then. I lean against the wall, my legs too weak to support me. This is actually fucking happening.
I look at Ben, who’s oblivious to what I’ve just read.
“Ben.”
He turns, and seeing my expression, which I can only imagine looks terrified, he replies. “What?”
His eyes stray to the screen and he quickly comes over to read it, rubbing a hand down his face as he does. “Shit.”
I nod in agreement. Not that he’s looking at me, but the agreement is there all the same.
“What now?” my voice is quiet, and I’m not sure if I’m asking him or myself.
“What now?” He turns to look at me.
“Yeah?”
“We get the fuck out of here.”
“But, the TV says…”
“I don’t care what that thing says. We can’t stay here. They’ll find us eventually.” He seems so determined, strong, and dominant. Not the laid-back man I’ve been angry with for so long.
“But…”
“Jesus, Nina, but nothing. No one’s coming for us.”
My lower lip trembles, tears forming in my eyes again. I’m such a fucking cliché. “You don’t know that, Ben.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“Then why can’t we just wait and see? Just for a day or so, maybe… maybe someone will come.” I don’t want to wait around here for any length of time, but then again I also don’t want to go outside, either. However, if there’s a chance of help coming and saving us shouldn’t we take that chance?
Ben looks to be pondering my words. His hand rubs the back of his neck before he looks up at me and answers. “Okay. So we’ll wait.” His jaw is still grinding away with worry, but with the gun hooked into his jeans and his new can-do attitude, I feel safe.
A bang from the back garden interrupts us and we both run to the back window and peep out through the curtains. More zombies have found their way into the small space that used to be our patio. It sure isn’t anymore. No, now it’s more of a zombie neighbourhood gathering. Now all we need is a BBQ and some beer to really get the party started.
“Shit,” Ben say’s again, his voice barely audible next to me.
I agree though. Shit, would be it indeed.
Double shit. Holy shit. Yes, all of the above and more.
5.
“I thought the back gate was locked.” Ben’s gaze is fixed on the outside as he speaks, but I don’t even need to look at him to know that he’s cringing at his own words as we both think of the broken lock on the back gate. The lock that I’ve asked him to fix for the past year.
Typical man. You nag and nag and nag at them to get things done, and they keep putting it off with the same dismissive remark; ‘what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll fix it next weekend.’ Well, this is the worst that can happen! Just like that, the past years’ worth of anger is back again. This is just one of the many reasons that I had been feeling like I was giving more to our marriage than he was and I was constantly moaning at him-- his laziness to do anything proactive in our marriage, around our home, or anywhere come to think of it.
It’s funny isn’t it. Even in the midst of something like this, I can still be angry with him for something which is, especially now, inconsequential.
DIY. One of life’s, and most marriage?
“Sorry.” He puts his arm around my shoulders and I relax against him without even thinking about it.
“I know you are.” The anger is still there, but when your neighbours are filling your yard with their sorry dead arses, I guess there’s more to be angry over in the world than just my husband’s laziness. Even if it could end up getting us killed.
Bloody men!
As the day draws on, we try to devise a strategy for our survival. One of us needs to be on watch at all times. Ben isn’t happy for me to be on guard duty, but he can’t stay awake forever and I’m not going to stand for his male chauvinistic bullshit, anyway. We have our bags packed so that when we see our opportunity we can make a run for it to his pickup; now we just need to secure our valuables and sort out something to eat, and we’ll be fine.
Yeah right.
Every time that I look outside I feel sick. The dead smell. That’s not me being a bitch, that’s the truth; and it’s not something that I would have ever considered up until now, but they really do stink. It makes me feel sick. The sight of them, the smell of them. It’s sensory overload.
Ben says the electricity will turn off soon. That’s what he thinks anyway. He’s probably right. I think about the supermarket trip and realise exactly how lucky I actually am.
The scream as I was leaving.
The blood and the crowd around the person on the floor.
I shiver at the thoughts and images that force their way into my head as I push my food around on my plate with my fork. The pasta’s barely soft since we were so nervous about being in the kitchen and making too much noise. The chicken was cooked on the George Foreman grill on the bedroom floor-- we were that scared. So here we are, eating chicken and pasta sat down on the bedroom floor like happy little campers, whilst the world turns to shit outside of our bedroom window. This is just plain weird.
“It was happening at the supermarket.” I look up at him over my food.
“What was?” His appetite hasn’t been affected at all, typical man, and he continues to shovel food into his mouth. He looks at me finally. “You need to eat, Nina. We need to keep our energy up.”
I put a piece of pasta in my mouth and chew it slowly. “As I was leaving the store today, something was happening. I didn’t realise it, but it must have been this…” I gesture around us.
Ben stops eating and looks at me, his eyes wide and his fork hanging in the air between his mouth and his plate.
I nod. “I know, right.” I swallow the pasta piece and nearly gag on it. I really can’t eat right now.
“Did you see anything?”
“Just a bunch of people running around, and then an ambulance turned up, but you know, it didn’t even occur to me that it would be… well, this!” I snort and put my plate down. “Like this would ever cross my mind.”
“You need to eat,” he prompts again, pointing to my plate with his fork. “There’s hardly any of you to begin with, you can’t afford not to eat.”
“I can’t, Ben.” I push my plate away like a brat.
“Nina…”
“No, I can’t.” I stand up and go to the window. The sun is setting. God knows what the night will bring.
I hear him put his plate down and a few seconds later his arms are around my waist, his chin on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I just worry about you. If you don’t want to eat, don’t,” he whispers the words into my ear.
I turn around to look at him, his hands never leaving my waist. “I love you, Ben.” Sincerity pours from me. “I’ve always loved you, and I know that we have both messed things up pretty badly, I really do know that, and yeah maybe it’s taken this to sort our marriage, and maybe it won’t work. Maybe we are still doomed and none of this even matters because we’ll die tomorrow--”
“Don’t say that,” he interrupts.
“It’s true though, Ben.” I pull away from him and pull back a corner of the curtain to reveal the horror outside. “Look at this! I’m not stupid. There’s a huge chance that one, if not both of us are going to die. I don’t want it to be true, but that’s the fact of the matter.” I take a heavy breath as I listen to my shaky voice. I slump to the floor and sob as the realisation takes hold of me. How much time have we wasted arguing and fighting when the end of the world was on our doorstep. Hindsight is a bitch. “I don’t want to die and I don’t want you to either, but--”
“We’re not going to die. We’re going to get through this…together.” His arms are around me again, and if I didn’t know any better I would say that he was crying, too.
6.
We spend our days keeping a watch over the street out front, watching the back garden slowly fill with the dead, and talking about the past. I’ve noticed that we avoid talking about the future. We talk about when we first met, our first kiss, and our wedding day. We reminisce on the past eight years together, both skirting around the subject of the past year, and where it all started to go wrong.
Ben shows me how to shoot, though for what good it will be I don’t know, since we can’t actually fire the gun. Regardless, he shows me how to load, aim and fire it and it makes me feel a little more competent, if nothing else. He tells me the story of how he ended up with the old Smith and Wesson .38 a hand-me-down from his grandfather to Ben’s father and then to Ben. I can tell we’re both wondering if he’ll have the chance to pass it down to his own son in the future. Worst of all is the thought that we might actually have to kill the things outside. They may be dead now, but we knew these people, they were our friends and neighbours once upon a time.
Every night is scarier than the last. The noises are louder. The blackness more foreboding. You’d think you would get used to it, but you don’t. Ben sleeps on top of the bed fully dressed, a blanket draped across him. Not a sound can be heard… apart from the grunts and groans of the dead outside. Of course they don’t shut the fuck up.
I get up from the bed for what seems like the hundredth time this night to check on them. I don’t want to, but I have to. If I don’t watch them, I feel like I’m going insane; because the need to know what they are doing out there is constant, like an itch I can’t scratch. I go from room to room upstairs, checking all the windows. There’s more of them now than yesterday, and even more from the day previous to that.
Where are they coming from?
Ben hates having to go to sleep, but I always insist. He’s no use to me dog-tired. If I’m honest I’m always surprised that he can actually fall asleep, but it seems that’s just another thing that doesn’t seem to bother him, though it’s a light sleep. For me I can never sleep until the strength to physically keep my eyes open is impossible.
I hate this time of night, when it seems that it will never end, when morning seems so far away. I want to wake him; I don’t want to be awake on my own, but I need to not be such a girl about this, grit my teeth and learn to deal with the situation. My mind keeps playing tricks on me with every little noise I hear. I creep downstairs and check the TV again. Apart from that one message, there has been no word since. The growls from the back garden intensify when they see the glow from the telly so I quickly flip it back to off. I sneak back up the stairs and peek out the window overlooking the back garden to watch them again. They don’t seem to know how to get back out of the garden, and they seem pretty pissed with the fact of being stuck. Every time that another one stumbles in, there’s less and less room and they get growlier.
Growlier? Is that even a word?
My eyes are red and sore from staring out the window, and when Ben’s hands guide me to the bed I don’t have the energy to resist. He lays me down in it and covers me with the blanket. It’s still my shift, but I can’t keep my eyelids from closing, sending the world flickering into blackness.
“Baby, baby, wake up!”
Hands shake me awake, strong fingers digging into the soft flesh of my upper arms. I open my eyes groggily, and for a moment, just one sweet moment, every
Reality hits me across the face. Or rather Ben’s palm does, softly of course, just enough to get me to wake the fuck up.
“We need to go, now. Get up.” He drags me up to sitting and I stare at him in confusion for a moment. “Get up, Nina.”
Zombies. Death. End of the world. Oh yeah, shit!
I practically jump out of bed, half-stumbling over Ben, and push my long hair away from my face whilst reaching for my boots that I don’t even remember taking off.
“What? What’s happening?” I’m slipping on my Doc Martins before I’ve even finished talking.
“We need to go. There’s too many of them.” He grabs my hand and drags me through the house to the spare room. We look out of the window and out on to our patio below. “There’s too many of them,” he repeats, as if I didn’t hear him the first time.
Words cannot express the true horror of the vision before me. The garden is crammed full with zombies, deaders, whatever you want to call them. My neighbours. My friends. The bitch from down the road who always used to complain about me putting the bins out the night before collection. They’re all there, and they all look and sound really pissed off. Shuffling past each other and bumping shoulders, arms, legs, some are even crawling across the floor and causing others to trip over. The noise seems deafening, or maybe that is the blood rushing in my ears.
We knew this time was coming; there has been more and more of them coming for days now. I just hoped that help would arrive before it actually happened.
“I don’t want to leave,” I whisper without looking away from the window.
“We have to.”
“But Ben--”
“We have to, Nina. We have to make a run for it now, before they smash through the patio window.”
“I can’t. I’m scared.” My hands are shaking, and I ball them into fists by my sides. Neither of us are moving. We both stand and stare, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
A cry escapes my mouth as the first zombie bumps into the glass.
Ben grabs my arm, dragging me away from the window. “Move, Nina,” his voice is harsh, but controlled, and I’m glad he’s being the brave one because I don’t think that I can.