I used to believe I was destined to do something meaningful with my life, to make a difference in the world. It’s the reason I became a minister. I thought that through doing God’s good work, I was repaying the life debt I owed him.
I don’t have many clear memories of the near-death experience I had when I was five. Most of them are my mother’s. She was the one who had to listen to my doctor tell her and my father to start making funeral arrangements for me, because the virus that had invaded my bloodstream and attacked my heart was surely fatal. She was the one who had to stand by and watch as that same doctor performed CPR on me, after my heart stopped beating. I was in and out during that time, barely conscious, delirious with a fever high enough to fry my brain. My mother was the one at my side when I woke up and recognized her, despite the doctor’s fears that even if I pulled through, I would be brain dead.
You might call that doctor a pessimist, but she was only being realistic. My mother, though, was an optimist, a believer. She never left my side, and she never stopped praying. And God came through. He reached down and touched me, and He saved my life. It was a miracle. At least, that’s what I’d always been told. That’s what I’d always believed.
I never thought twice about making ministry my life’s work. I owed my life to God, so I would devote my life to God. It was as simple as that. And when I found success as a minister and happiness in my personal life, I naively believed that God and I were square. He had blessed me. I was in His favor.
I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. I believed in fate, in destiny, in the notion that everything happens for a reason. Now I know there’s no such thing. I don’t know why I was spared as a child, nor why I survive now, but it wasn’t the hand of God. It was a fluke, a lucky coincidence. One in a million odds, and I happened to be the one. “Lucky” me, eh?
You know that saying, “Shit happens”? I used to hate that phrase. I’ve never used it, myself, but you know what? It’s true. Shit happens, and it’s all just as random and meaningless as it seems. Nothing’s in God’s hands; it’s all down to us and chance.
We make our own destiny.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
5:00 p.m.
Brian was restless.
He and Gretchen had been bunkered in the gas station since Monday morning: three days, six hours, give or take. They should have been at the Air Force base in Tampa by now, and the more time passed, the more Brian worried that there would be nothing left but zombies by the time they got there.
As he stood in the doorway, waiting for Gretchen to return from the bathroom, he looked out the glass façade of the station. Zombies still prowled the forecourt, shuffling among the blackened remnants of the gas pumps in search of the prey they could sense, but not reach. The sun was starting to sink in the sky. Only a couple hours of daylight remained, and then it would be dusk, and darkness would fall across the land. Brian dreaded another long, sleepless night of sitting up on guard duty, listening to the hungry moans of the undead, while Gretchen tossed and turned on the hard floor.
This was always the hardest part of the day for him. It was five o’clock, supper time, and if the world were still right, he’d have been at home with his family. Leighanne would have been in the kitchen, putting the final touches on a homecooked meal. Brooke and Bonnie, home from school, would have been setting the table. Brian would have poured the milk, then said the grace as they all sat down for dinner together.
But instead, he was here, in this godforsaken gas station, staring out at the gormless ghouls who sought to make him their evening meal, because the world wasn’t right. It had all gone very, very wrong.
“They’re never gonna go away, are they?”
Brian jumped. Gretchen was back; he hadn’t even heard her footsteps approach. He stepped back to let her pass, then closed the door to the back room behind her. “Nope,” he said flatly, turning to face her. “I don’t reckon they will.”
She sat down cross-legged on the floor to paw through the small pile of food they’d taken from the shelves. Opening a new box of Slim Jims, she pulled out two of the beef sticks and tossed one to Brian. He caught it one-handed and absently tore open the yellow packaging. He didn’t feel hungry, but it gave him something to do.
Gretchen spun her Slim Jim around her fingers like a miniature baton. “What are we gonna do about them?” she asked. It was the question Brian had fallen asleep that morning contemplating and woken up in the afternoon without an answer to.
“I dunno,” he replied, “but we’re gonna have to figure out something. We can’t stay here forever. Frankly, I don’t even wanna stay here another night.”
“Me neither,” Gretchen agreed, which gave him some hope. If she was as eager to leave as he was, even if it meant risking their lives, then maybe they could find a way out. He considered this, as he watched Gretchen reach for a Corona from among the selection of drinks they’d pulled from the coolers. There was bottled water and Gatorade, sodas and tea, but she always went for the booze with her dinner. It relaxed her, she said; it was the only way she was able to sleep. “Want one?” she asked, gesturing to the remainder of the six-pack.
Brian shrugged. “Sure,” he said dully, extending his hand. He twisted off the cap of the bottle she passed him and took a sip, grimacing at the bitter taste of the warm beer. He’d never been much of a beer-drinker, but like Gretchen, he welcomed the calming, numbing effect the alcohol had on him.
“It’s sure better cold – with limes,” put in Gretchen, “but I guess it’ll do.” She took a long swig of hers, wiping her chin with the back of her hand when she finished. “You know, the first time I had one of these was when I was in the U.K., in college. It was the Fourth of July, and we wanted to do something to celebrate, but all we ended up doing was buying a case of Corona and a bottle of Malibu rum and ordering Chinese food. We sat around in the tiny little kitchen of the flat we were staying in and got drunk while we played cards and listened to The Beatles. It was pretty sad, actually. No fireworks, no backyard barbeques… it was like the world was just wrong that night.”
“Like it is now,” agreed Brian. His smile was grim, but knowing.
Gretchen nodded. “I was homesick then, but at least I knew I’d be home again soon. Now…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
He knew she was thinking of her family and her husband. He wondered about his own family, his parents and brother, up north in Kentucky. Was there any chance the plague had not yet struck them? Then he thought of Kevin in Florida. He was banking on Kevin’s – or someone’s, at least – survival at MacDill. Was the base just a pipe dream?
“I’m anxious to get to the base,” he admitted. “See if it’s any different down there.”
“Let’s pray to God it is,” said Gretchen. “Otherwise, where else will we go? What will we do?”
Brian couldn’t answer her.
They fell into silence, Gretchen fumbling with the wrapper of her Slim Jim. Brian watched her unwrap it and bite off the end, chewing speculatively. After some time, she swallowed and wrinkled her nose. Without a word, she got up and wandered over to their stock of supplies, returning with a lighter. She sat down again with her Slim Jim and clicked the lighter until it sparked a flame; then she held it to the end of her Slim Jim, until it began to crackle and blacken. When she looked up and found Brian watching her in bewilderment, she giggled. “Didn’t you ever see a clip of Wendy Williams doing this on her talk show?”
“Who?”
Gretchen shook her head. “Never mind.” She capped the lighter and took another bite of her now burnt Slim Jim. Swallowing, she made a face. “I’m not a fan.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about right now,” Brian admitted, chuckling.
“It’s okay. It’s not important. I was just thinking… last week, I wouldn’t have thought anything of wasting an hour watching some stupid talk show. And now… I’d give anything to spend that hour with Shawn. We took so much for granted…”
Brian thought painfully of those family dinners, such a routine part of his life – his old life, a life he’d never have again. “I know.”
Gretchen sighed. “Sorry if I’m depressing you. I just realized how much everything’s going to change. I mean, what if it’s not any different on the base or anywhere else? What if it’s not just the east coast that’s affected, but the west coast too? What if it’s the whole country? The whole continent? The whole world? What if this is…”
“The end of days?” murmured Brian. He thought suddenly of the book of Isaiah, of passages he’d read from his mother’s Bible, foretelling of the Lord’s impending judgment:
Terror, and the pit, and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth! ... The earth is utterly broken, the earth is torn asunder, the earth is violently shaken… Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise… The earth will give birth to those long dead. Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past. For the Lord comes out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no longer cover its slain.
“Why us, then?” he wondered aloud. “Why are we the ones left alive?”
Gretchen shook her head. “I wish I knew…”
Brian didn’t know what to say back. He couldn’t really blame God, because he’d forsaken His existence. And he couldn’t blame Satan either, because how could Satan exist in a realm where God did not? The truth was, he was beginning to think it was all random and meaningless. His own survival was nothing but a fluke – and if the number of zombies outside were any indication, he would be joining their ranks soon enough. He and Gretchen were greatly outnumbered. They could only run and hide for so long.
In that moment, their situation seemed both hopeless and pointless. He didn’t want to die, but what was there left to live for?
Kevin, he told himself fiercely. If his cousin had survived in Florida, he had to get to him. And if not, at least he had to see for himself. He had to know. He was sure Gretchen felt the same about her husband. If there were others alive, perhaps the situation was not as bad as it seemed.
Hope flared and faded inside him, like the flame that ignited and died every time Gretchen clicked the lighter in her hand, which she’d started to play with. “Sorry,” she said, when he looked up at her, mistaking the frown on his face as one of annoyance towards her. She put the lighter down, trading it for her beer bottle, from which she took a swallow.
Brian’s eyes drifted from the lighter to the bottle, and all of a sudden, something clicked. It was not the lighter, but an idea that sparked, and at once, his eyes lit up. “No, no,” he said quickly. “I just thought of something!”
She looked up curiously at him. “What?”
“You know what a Molotov cocktail is?”
“Eh, I’m not really a connoisseur of mixed drinks. Sounds like it’d include vodka, though. Why, wanna make me one?” She smiled, swishing the beer that was left in her bottle.
Brian laughed. “No, it’s not a drink. Well, not the kind I’m talking about, anyway. It’s a weapon, a type of bomb. You put a rag in a bottle filled with a flammable liquid, and you light it on fire. The rag becomes a fuse, and when you throw the bottle, it becomes a fireball.”
Gretchen’s eyes widened. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Dangerous, yes. But also more destructive and easier to aim than a gun. We could probably take out enough of them using those to get to that tan SUV parked on the road.”
“What if there’s no key? Or no fuel?”
“Let’s just hope there is.”
A grim look passed between them. Brian could tell Gretchen was uncertain about taking such a risk, but like him, she was also unwilling to stay another night in this room. The time had come to take action, take a chance, and hope it paid off.
“The way I see it, we’ve got nothing to lose,” he told Gretchen, as they ventured out into the station to gather the materials they needed. “If we can’t escape now, we never will. And I dunno about you, but I’d rather die running tonight than starve in that back room a few weeks from now, when our supplies run out.”
Gretchen nodded, pocketing a couple of extra lighters. “I’m with you.”
In the back room, they put together their rudimentary bombs. They started with bottles of hard liquor, the strongest proof the station offered. Brian had also found bottles of windshield cleaner in the stock room, the labels of which contained a warning that they were flammable, so they filled a couple of glass bottles with that, as well. Into each bottle, they stuffed a cleaning rag, leaving one corner hanging out to act as the fuse.
“Should I be frightened that you know how to do this?” Gretchen asked as they finished, surveying their handiwork in awe.
Brian chuckled. “Unexpected, for a man of –” He stopped abruptly, on the verge of saying “God,” and quickly recovered with, “– music, huh? Trust me, I’ve never tried actually making one of these before. Pretty sure they’re illegal, for one thing.”
“Guess that doesn’t matter now,” said Gretchen. “Let’s go burn some zombies.”
They carried their weapons out into the main part of the station, stopping short of the door. Upon seeing them, the zombies began to press in on the other side of the glass with fresh determination. Brian could see Gretchen’s confidence dissolve as she watched them warily. “The hardest part will be getting out of the building,” he said, noticing how tightly the zombies were packed in around the door. “We won’t be able to use the bombs till we’re out in the open. We don’t want to risk catching the building on fire until we know we have an escape route.”
Gretchen nodded in agreement, but she looked doubtful. “How exactly are we going to get out?”
“We can use the guns while we’re in such close proximity,” replied Brian, looking to the hunting rifles they’d taken from the farmhouse. “Shoot enough of them to get ourselves out, and use the bombs on the rest.”
When this was agreed on, they loaded themselves up with supplies. Gretchen strapped on the backpack with all the worldly possessions she’d carried with her, plus some extra supplies from the gas station. Brian stuffed the bottles into the pockets of his jeans, grateful that they were the baggy, cargo variety. He tucked one lighter in the waistband and handed Gretchen the other. They each armed themselves with a loaded rifle.
It was nearly dark by now, but Brian could see the gleaming silhouette of the tan Suburban on the road, their best shot at an escape. They would make a beeline to it, if only they could clear a path.
Shoulder to shoulder, they positioned themselves in front of the door, their guns raised. Brian reached out and unlocked the door. Next to him, he heard Gretchen suck in a deep breath, as she prepared to open the door. “Do it quickly,” he told her. “You’ll be able to knock down the ones standing right on the other side if you throw it open with enough force.”
Gretchen nodded. “Ready?” she said breathlessly. “One… two… three!” On three, she hurled her weight against the door, thrusting it open.
Out of the corner of his eye, Brian saw the zombies who had been standing behind it topple backwards, in a domino effect, just as he had predicted. But those who had been better positioned swarmed forward, trying to push their way in. Brian fired the first shot at point blank range, the barrel of his rifle pressed against the forehead of the first ghoul. Its head was literally blown half off, and Brian pressed his lips tightly together as he was spattered with bits of brains, clotted blood, and rotting flesh. Barely hesitating, he aimed at his next target and fired again.
An echo shot came from Gretchen, and together, they inched their way forward, taking out as many zombies as they could with their rifles. When they were far enough from the building to become encircled by zombies, they pressed against each other, back to back, and Brian said, “Time for the cocktails.”
Shouldering his rifle, he pulled one of the glass bottles out of his jeans and hastily snatched his lighter. His fingers shook as he clicked the lighter, but thankfully, he was able to ignite a flame. He didn’t hesitate, holding the lighter to the rag until the cloth caught fire. Then he hurled the bottle into the face of the nearest zombie. Behind him, he heard glass shatter, as Gretchen did the same.
On either side of the circle, zombies were stumbling around in flames. Brian raised his rifle and used it like a bludgeon to knock down the zombies who still blocked their path to the SUV. Then he grabbed Gretchen’s hand and yanked her through the break in the circle. The desperate moans of the undead rang out behind them as they ran, and glancing back over his shoulder, Brian saw that they were still lurching forward, arms outstretched and on fire. They were walking torches now, igniting everything around them.
“Run!” Gretchen screamed, and now she was the one pulling him along. She reached the Suburban first and dove for the nearest door, tugging on the handle. “No!” she shrieked, tugging harder, and Brian’s heart stalled in dismay. It was locked.
“Try the driver’s side!” he shouted, and they ran around to the far side of the SUV. This time, he grabbed hold of the door handle first and pulled. To his utter relief and amazement, it opened in his hand. “Get in!” he cried, pushing Gretchen up and into the vehicle first. She scrambled over the driver’s seat and middle console and fell into the passenger seat. Brian climbed in behind her and slammed the door, immediately locking it again.
Looking out Gretchen’s window, he could see the flaming horde of zombies approaching, slowly but steadily. If they got too close, he was afraid they’d ignite the SUV. They had to get away, now. His eyes darted down to the ignition, fearing that after all the obstacles they’d fought their way through, there would be no keys now. But there they were, dangling from the ignition, right where their dying or undead owner had left them before abandoning the vehicle.
He let out his breath in a whoosh and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered to life, and he threw the gear shift into drive and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The Suburban shot forward, spitting gravel from its tires. Brian pulled it back onto the road, and when he checked the rearview mirror, the zombies were lagging far behind. He drove until they were indiscernible from a bonfire on the horizon, and then he looked over at Gretchen.
She was still breathing fast, shuddering, covered in zombie flesh and guts. Brian wasn’t sure why, but he actually laughed. “Déjà vu, huh?” he remarked, looking down at his own brain-spattered clothing. “We’ll find a place to stop soon and clean up. We’ll probably have to switch cars again too; this one only has a quarter tank.”
“The sooner, the better,” said Gretchen shakily.
“You got it,” Brian agreed, smiling. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Now that they were on the road again, he felt worlds better than he had at the gas station. Soon they’d be on their way to Tampa again. Soon they would know if there was anyone left alive down there… or if they were on their own.
