Dead Men (and Women) Walking Read online

  I wince as the boy's ankle tangles in the protruding tree roots and careens him forcibly to the earth. The thing would be upon him too quickly.

  It must be that old vestige of lingering humanity which throws me towards the monstrosity. I run silently because silence is the best weapon any of us have in these times. The shovel is raised over my head. I hear the light sound of Maria padding behind, following me reflexively.

  It's done in a moment and the thing helps me out: Raising its ghastly face from where it leans over the boy, it's an easy target for my quickly descending shovel. It smashes into its forehead, splitting skin and cracking through bone, sending the horror toppling backwards. Once on its back, it's an easy secondary blow which caves in the remainder of its skull and silences whatever madness buzzes in its brain.

  Maria and I stand stock still, straining our ears intently. No sound issues from the surrounding foliage. When the boy tries to address us, we silence him with the terror in our eyes. He watches us fearfully, shaking all over. Still nothing stirs, and eventually we allow ourselves to move again. We pad beneath the cover of an overhanging sweep of branches, bringing the boy with us. It's then that we see the congealing red on his wrist and the new eyes in his sickly face.

  He's been bitten already, my frozen mind tells me, but the revelation comes too late for either of us to stop his wide champing mouth as he sinks his teeth into Maria's cheek. The boy's head is split neatly in two with the shovel in my hands and his flapping arms stop their frenetic movements once the second blow finds his exposed skull. I tell Maria with my eyes to look away as I do what I have to, and pummel the corpse over and over again with smashes from my shovel. The meaty sound of my work carries no echo on the still air, a dull sound as flat as the look in the eyes of this new breed of humankind.

  When I'm finished, I turn and look around me. There is no movement anywhere. There are no rabbits hopping and no squirrels scampering. No birds sound their songs from the branches overhead and no fiends come lumbering through the dense thicket. I turn to Maria kneeling sweaty and terror-eyed on the grass and my vision of her blurs as the first tears well into my eyes.

  I kneel down with her, and we cry together.

  Some time later we discern a distant howling through the woods and instinctively raise our weapons. I look to her crimson-smeared wet cheek and shake my head in fury or helplessness. I want to curse the world and scream until my voice is lost in these towering reaches of trees and sky and far-away moaning like ghosts haunted by their own sad fates.

  But I only take her hand in mine, as I've done countless times in the past, and lead us back the way we'd come. She stops me, though, with her curiously lingering backward glance to the inert form of the ruined boy on the grass. I follow her stare and see it: The boy's hand encircles it, and it takes a moment to extricate his fingers from its hard shiny surface.

  An apple. Plump and red like blood, and he'd been hiding it inside his hand as he fled the horror loping on his heels. His fingers hadn't relinquished their mad grip on the fruit even while I'd rained death down on him with my shovel.

  We look to one another and then through the trees in the direction from which the boy had come. Slowly, we move forward, silently, too, as if it matters to us still, these covert movements when our world has just collapsed about us.

  Minutes later we find the orchard. It remains a piece of ordered tidiness in the world, secluded among the fields and bushes dotting this country landscape. The rows of neatly-manicured trees with their perfectly round tops like big emerald balloons stretch on into the distance. Each carries a colorful bounty of fruit in its green folds. I see them but think only of beads of blood rather than their promise of sustenance the way I would have considered them before, if only we'd happened on this place in some other way. If only today's hunt hadn't ended the day as the blackest I've ever known.

  She reminds me the instant we've returned to the barn with our hoard of apples bursting the lining of our bags: Our pact.

  If one of us goes.

  She doesn't finish it, leaves the promise silent and hanging over us like a pall.

  I try to reassure her. Our bond has endured, I tell her, hearing the awkward lie in my voice as I know she hears it, too. We watch each other but the determined pleading in her eyes is too much for me now. I turn away and hate my shame when I collapse into the corner of our loft and sob like a child. I can feel Maria's eyes touching me all over and it burns me more, knowing she has to see me this way. We've always been open with one another but now is a time for lying, and I wish that I could act for her now and force an act of bravado. As if I knew what to do and as if I still believed in any hope of tomorrow for the two of us. She doesn't come to me now, the way she would have any other time. Maybe she's scared of my reaction: What if her touch on my shoulders is cold and all her old familiar warmth has left her? What if the sound that leaves my mouth is a scream as her breath on my neck chills me like it never has?

  I hear the horse before I see it. When I look downwards from the edge of the loft, its long sleek head and neck are already peering in through the crack in the barn door. Its large obsidian eyes watch us evenly. It snorts again, a deep watery sound, reassuring somehow. I remember this animal. It's one of the several horses we'd freed months before, from these very stables. Its black shiny fur and single spot of white surrounding its left eye mark it easily. It's come back. I look into its eyes and wonder about the things it's seen on its travels in the past days.

  When everything was smoke and ruins everywhere else, maybe it tried to return to its home. The place it knew best of all. Or maybe now it returned to return the favor, and now it's here to warn us of impending doom. But it watches us a while and then maybe it sees the disaster in our vacant stares, or maybe it only smells the beginning of ruin among us in the barn, and it leaves us as silently as it entered. With a low snort it's gone, and the soft sound of its cantering over the dirt and stones outside diminishes with distance, and then we're alone with the huge quiet once again. Even the scurrying of mice through their hay bale castles below and around us is silenced.

  Her voice whispers but its sound startles me. It has become hoarse and I tell myself that it's only her frantic, troubled mind, the great fatigue she must be feeling, that gives it its rough new edge. She whispers: We promised each other. If one of us goes.

  Again she leaves it unfinished, and so I complete it for both of us. I turn to her with tears in my eyes, and they blur her silhouette looming in shadows before me, and I offer her myself: Bite me, Maria. Some dark humor in it seeps through the horror of our situation, and I hear the silly sound of the words briefly, as if hearing them in a distant time when such words carried no real weight and meant only lighter things.

  The tower of shadows above me only stands still, unspeaking. The silence is enormous, weighted down with the significance of the moment. I think of the world outside this barn, the country with its dark woods and lonely fields, and the cities ghostly and empty beyond. And I wonder again as I have countless times during these new days. Why are we in this plight now, and what on Earth does it all mean?

  Her voice grates from above me, a croaking in the darkness. No, darling. I can't...bite you. I'd never. But you can use the shovel. And then...

  She trails off, because the rest of the words are even more awful for her to ponder than the horror of the reality which she's already accepted. I consider our choices and quiver along my spine. I quiver and tremble and weep because I realize it now more than I ever had before: I don't want to die. I want only to be with her, but not in any of the ways from which I now must choose. I hear our old promise echoing in my thoughts and I'm filled with shame as I realize that it doesn't hold strong for me anymore. Maybe I'm simply older now, too mature for young-love pacts. Or maybe I'm only changing the way the world sees fit these days.

  The crunching from the darkness jerks me from my reveries. The ice in my veins leaves as another crunch follows and the memory of the sound fr
om long ago catches up with my tired thoughts. Maria's taking little bites from the apple in her hand, slow and deliberate because she's ravenous but mindful of the danger of too-loud sounds in the night. I listen to her eating and become hopeful for her, and my own hunger swells inside me. I reach to my gym bag and retrieve an apple for myself. My teeth puncture its hard hide and the fruit's juice is amazing where it bursts onto my tongue. I can barely contain myself as I munch along.

  But then Maria's coughing violently, and then it becomes an awful retching sound smashing into reverberating echoes from the tall barn walls as she heaves and vomits into the hay. Through the faint glimmer of moon glow I see the moist chewed remnants of apple amid the small puddle of yellow and red water. I clench my eyes closed, knowing that it's truly begun its course now. I hear the ghost of the echoes that rang throughout the barn and listen for answering cries from outside in the night.

  But the only sound is the heavy clanking from before me. I look to the floor, perplexed, squinting my eyes and discerning the coils of rusty chain glinting feebly in the semi-light. Without my knowing, Maria has chained herself to one of the wooden pillars set into the wall beside us. I can make out the thick metal hoops where she's looped them about her ankle several times, multiple lacings because we've both seen what the hungry others are capable of when in the throes of their insatiable hunger.

  I take a foolish risk and edge close to her. My hand finds hers and I lead her towards a stretching line of moon beam where it pierces through the roof. I wince because her fingers feel very cold in my own. She allows me to lead her and when I turn to her my heart hammers with an ache I've never known until this night. I look into her face and see its haggard appearance, more weary than I've seen her in these long strange days. Her cheeks are hollowed out, as if she hasn't eaten in a very long time, and her skin has a ghostly pallor which the moonlight colors silvery and makes deceptively pretty. But her eyes hold the same hollow cast as the rest of her, and behind the wall of her weariness I see her great fear and I hurt everywhere. The wound on her cheek has swollen her flesh, and the purpling edges of the torn area where the boy-thing's teeth had bitten in look raw and moist. I look to Maria before me and see in her eroding face the home I know and cherish most of all. I feel the rough notched wood of the shovel in my fingers and feel cold and twisted inside me.

  I look at her shackled here like some awful captured animal and tears blur her new ugly features from me. I still see her beauty underneath and this is what brings the tears. I have to be brave, now more than ever before. But I want to live, darling, I tell her, my painful gift of honesty to her, the best I can give to her under these dire circumstances.

  I want to die, and I want her to die, too, but not by my hand. I'm sorry for my lingering humanity, darling. I'm so sorry I can't be as strong as I need to be today.

  She screeches suddenly and spittle flies and spatters the dust at my feet. Her breath is a wind of stink, a breeze carrying carrion and death. It's the new breath of the woman I made vows with, and who I was content to walk into any kind of tomorrow with. Such romantics, the two of us, we'd always joked, and knew it to be true.

  Then the moaning comes again from her mouth and I know for certain that all the rest of my dreams will be haunted forever by the sadness of the sound. I stand before her and she reaches for me hungrily, and with this gesture she tells me that she's gone forever. We stay this way a moment, swaying on the noisy-creaky loft floor only inches apart, and I think how this is no kind of dance the two of us should be acting out.

  Then, from outside the barn: The moaning.

  They've come. The country about us is infested with them and they've heard us at last and now they've come. Hell has spread everywhere.

  I watch Maria, the shovel heavy in my hands. I watch her closely and wish hopelessly for some sign of her old life in the contorted face snarling before me. I think of the black horse with its eye-patch of white, and I hope that it's galloping freely somewhere.

  The moaning draws nearer, ever nearer to us. Shuffling footsteps crunch through dirt and send pebbles bouncing into the grass. The new brand of humanity edges closer. The mice have begun a frantic scrambling in their secret tunnels in the hay and walls. I watch my darling's pale face and black stare, and we sway together as we take in each other's new eyes. And it's the longest and saddest dance we've ever danced. My humanity quivers, hanging in the balance as the moaning draws closer and the shovel's rough wooden handle settles firmly between my tightening, trembling fingers.

  WAKING FINNEGAN

  By Josh Benton

  It was a black day when Tim Finnegan died. It should have been a day of drinking and celebrating. I'd just been released from six months in prison. I'd been convicted of robbing Captain Kelly; I hadn't done it, but had been sent away just the same. The things a woman can land you in....

  So that's how things stood that day. I was in Bobby Thomas' pub when I found out. Daniel Boyd rushed in, and told us what had happened; Tim had been climbing a ladder and fell off. They said between the drink and the fall, he probably didn't feel much.

  Feeling much or not, it was a shame. Tim was a good man; sure he'd had a bit of a taste for the drink, but no man's a saint. My adventures with Ms. Bell had shown me that. Nothing like being locked away for six months to help clear up any lingering youthful illusions.

  There in the pub, we all hoisted a glass in memory of Tim Finnegan. A few of the lads even had tears in their eyes. He was an odd bird, was Tim, but well liked just the same. He'd surely be missed, and at the time, that was no lie.

  The wake was held in Tim's house. Widow Finnegan had gotten the house in fine order as people started to arrive. Tim was laid out on the bed, cleaned up and dressed in his finest suit. A barrel of porter was set above his head, and a gallon of whiskey was resting at his feet.

  Richard Hanrahan and his boys had arrived just after I did, and I could hear the music starting up in another room. I wandered back in to mingle with the crowd. Richard and his sons gave me a nod, which I returned with a polite wave.

  Voices were still subdued, and everyone's face was lined with sorrow. Smoke was starting to fill the room, and folks were circulating, sharing stories about Tim. The band struck up a soft song, and a few people quietly joined in. It was a sad song, but at the same time, it spoke of a life well lived. I was heading for a piece of cake when Tommy Franklin caught me.

  "Liam, it's good to be seeing you. Are you glad to be back?"

  "Surely I am, Tom, I just wish it was in happier times."

  "That's true enough. I was thinking about that time Tim caught us out. Do you remember that?"

  I smiled at Tommy. "Oh, indeed. We were but small lads, and he caught us trying to sneak a peek at Molly Henry swimming down by the river."

  "Aye, and after he near to skinned our hides, he stayed on to watch her for himself!"

  A few people overheard us and laughed. Molly Henry had been a fine looking young woman, and there was hardly a man or boy who hadn't tried to catch a peek of her. She'd wound up getting with child, and moved to a farming village near the coast. Many a heart, including Tim Finnegan's, had been broken when that happened.

  I gave Tom a hardy clap on the back, and excused myself. I caught up a piece of cake without being stopped by anyone else. It was a fine cake to eat, and the first I'd had in months. People must have seen how intent I was upon it, for not a one came to disturb me while I enjoyed it.

  I took my plate into the kitchen, and then helped Mary Finnegan bring hot tea out. I passed a few cups around before taking a seat for myself. Frank Riley was sitting across from me, and we nodded politely at one another.

  "Doing well, Frank?"

  "Well enough, I think. How's your old mum these days?"

  "She's fine, and sends her greetings to everyone. Glad to have me back, and threatening me with dire harm should I chase any more 'slatternly women'."

  "Truly that sounds like Rose. I remember the time Tim winked at her and o
ffered her a drink. I thought they must have heard her up in Heaven itself. Poor Tim just stood there and listened the whole time. Then he nodded, smiled and wished her a good day and God bless."

  "Oh, aye, my mum's never been a fan of the drink. She nailed my da's boots to the floor once, and threatened him with a broom if he, 'set one foot outside this house to go to the pub with that devil Finnegan'."

  Frank and I shared a fine chuckle at that. My da and Tim had grown up together, and I'm sure that incident wasn't the only story of Tim Finnegan and Sean O'Hanlon being passed around the room. Frank had been caught up in another story of Tim's adventures, so I slipped away to visit a few more people.

  I spotted Old Man Conner off by himself. Now, Old Man Conner truly lived up to the name: he was old when my grandfather was just a boy. No one was even quite sure when he'd been born, or if Conner was a first name or last. He looked the part; a well-trimmed white beard, and not much left on top. He still had a gleam in his eye, though, and that gnarled cane he carried had caught more than one young troublemaker upside the head.

  "Mr. Conner, what a fine thing it is to see you. Still in good health?"

  He snorted at me, and gave me a fearsome squint. For a moment, I didn't think he was going to say anything.

  "Liam, you're a grown man, you are, and you've been up to the jail for half a year. So quit calling me Mr. Conner, and just call me Old Man, or if you're feeling kind, just Conner, like everyone else does."

  "Begging your pardon, Conner. So, if I may inquire, how's your health?"

  I didn't even see the cane coming around. It wasn't a hard blow, but it certainly came as a surprise. The old man just sat there looking as innocent as a saint. "Oh I have the good days and the bad days. When you get to be as old as me, things can start to get a little run down."