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Chapter 65


When something happens and destroys everything, you think you’ll never get over it. I mean, sure, you’ll never be the same; you’re totally changed by something like that. You feel like you’ll never be able to breathe again. You think that the pain will never stop.

Time’s a funny thing. It makes it fade. You fight it; you hold on as tight as you can to that pain. Why? So you don’t lose what you loved so much. Because even though it’s not even, like, close to being there anymore, the pain is there, so you know it was real. You feel like, if the pain fades, what you loved is really gone for good.

But in time, it does. You can fight it and scream and yell, but the pain still fades. When I think of school, of my sorority sisters, it’s with a smile. When I think about Bradley, it’s with love, and the knowledge that he loved me even as he died. I smile when I think of Mom and Daddy, so happy when they told me I had a new baby sister coming. The tears follow; they always do. But the ache, the overwhelming pain, doesn’t.

Things get lost in history. The full story is never told, simply gone through time. That’s why I majored in history; I like the idea of looking for what’s left behind. Only now, I’m what’s left behind. And now the pain’s leaving me, too. Time has that effect, the ability to wash things away. I guess it’s a good thing. Because if this hadn’t happened, I don’t know if I’d be here now. I’m different, like everything else.

See, I want to live now.

That makes all the difference, don’t you think?



Sunday, July 8, 2012
Week Twelve

Kayleigh smiled as they wandered through the military mall. It was nothing like the malls she was used to. None of the stores she loved the most had a place here. The area was abandoned, empty, and big. It would be creepy, if not for the fact that this was the closest thing to her old life that she’d had since Infernal Friday.

Their footsteps echoed as they walked. She glanced towards AJ, who watched her carefully. AJ had taken on a more protective stance over her, not in the sense that she couldn’t protect herself, but one that was more brotherly, so to speak. It was odd, since the one time she had tried to show affection toward him, when she realized he wasn’t dead or… otherwise, he’d stiffened up, without a clue of how to handle it.

“So why do you think you didn’t turn?”

“Hell if I know. But I’d bet my ass on the line that this means none of us will change if we’re bit. Or… well, fuck, maybe it takes more than one bite for us, since we’re already immune to, like, the basic shit of this thing.”

“So, in other words, you may have just gotten really lucky.”

AJ nodded. “I ain’t about to test that theory, though.”

“Perhaps we’re just immune. The bubonic plague didn’t kill everyone, because some people were just incapable of catching the virus to begin with.” He stared at Kayleigh, in response to her astute remark, and she shrugged.

And then there was Howie, who was traipsing behind her and the former addict. Howie had been her closest friend in the group since the beginning: haunted by everything around them, the two still clinging tightly to their lives from before. Since Howie’s hemophilia had been revealed, he’d become more relaxed. He still kept the wall around him; still, the wall had been lowered or made easier to climb over, she felt.

She wished the others could try giving her another chance. Kayleigh knew they still saw her as the girl she’d been when she had arrived. One who wanted to shut them out; one who refused to help. She’d offered to take Gabby shopping with her, in hopes for some girl bonding. It was something she’d been lacking ever since it happened. But Gabby had, of course, shunned the offer, and gone with Kevin instead. It stung a bit, because Kayleigh had known why. Maybe, given time, she’d be able to show them she wanted to be an active member of their group now. She wanted the family feeling she knew they could provide. Nothing close to a replacement to her past, of course; nothing could ever do that. But she felt lonely, especially if AJ or Howie weren’t with her. They were the only two she knew did see her differently.

“Kaaaaaayleigh…” AJ’s raspy voice called right beside her ear, causing her to jump. He snickered a bit, as she shot him a pout.

“Hey, don’t get mad at me; you should know better. Zombies don’t say names. They just want brains.”

“You’re a poet, and you didn’t even know it,” Howie remarked dryly, but a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. Slowly, but surely, that businessman armor he wore was beginning to crack.

“You look happy,” AJ remarked, as they walked along the halls.

Kayleigh shrugged, tucking a dark strand of hair behind her ear. She felt the split ends and wished suddenly that one of them was a former hair stylist. It was a trivial need, but it would have been nice. Even though the spot that had been bare, thanks to a member of the undead, had grown back, it was uneven and bugged her more than the split ends themselves. “I guess. I dunno, this is nothing like the malls I loved to crawl, but it’s weird – still feels like home.”

Howie eyed her. “Something can feel like home to you?”

“Not completely, but it’s still a mall. It’s… I don’t know… familiar, I suppose.”

They walked silently. Kayleigh’s attention focused in on the stores, of course. They passed a GameStop and, oddly, she walked in. She would have ignored the shop if the world had been the place it once was. Now? Now it was a sign of normality, that one thing she’d never possess again. She checked out the games. The Wii 2.0 had just come out a few months before April thirteenth. She remembered a lot of the fraternity boys had been hyped up about it. Kayleigh didn’t really get the hype; she’d never been into video games, not even as a kid. She picked up a case, glancing at it without true interest. Final Fantasy XXI, the case read, and she flipped it over.

“You a gamer?” AJ asked, breaking gently into her reverie. He sounded surprised, and to be fair, she couldn’t blame him. She didn’t seem the type, from what he knew of her, and he was right – she wasn’t.

“No… but maybe I will be now,” she remarked softly. It’d be a good distraction, if nothing else. Something to help fill the hours was becoming a necessity, since she wasn’t one of the main zombie hunters (not that she ever wanted to be), and they were out of the church. Currently, she was using the time to redecorate the home she shared with Howie and AJ, and watching seasons of The OC on DVD when she needed breaks from that. As much as she loved the angst of the brooding Ryan Atwood, the wit of geeky Seth Cohen, and the ease at which she could always relate to Summer, it wasn’t enough to fill the void. Maybe nothing would be. She’d try everything before deciding that, though.

“I’ll bring this with us,” Howie replied, grabbing a game console. “It’ll give us something else to focus on, at least.”

The three strolled out, AJ in the lead. Kayleigh glanced around once more, trying to spot the next store she wanted to check out. Her eyes lit up when they rested upon the sign above the entrance to a furniture store. Howie stared at her, a brow raised. “Don’t think you’re getting us to carry a couch back to the house.”

“Nooooo… but we can redecorate! We can get, like, pictures to hang, lamps, that sort of thing. Oh my God, then maybe later, we can totally see if we can’t get some paint, try to really add some personality to this drab place…”

AJ laughed, shoving her forward with a smirk. “Okay, okay, we get it. You don’t want the place to look like it still belongs to the people currently known as the undead.”

She bit her lip as they entered the store. “It just feels a bit creepy living there, knowing it belonged to the people in the pictures, and knowing they’re all… well, you know.”

The two men simply nodded as she glanced around. There were various pieces: lamps, tables, bed frames, wardrobes, the basics of any good store of that type. Kayleigh walked around in a bit of a daze, touching the railing of a crib as she let her eyes close. She could almost hear her mother singing as they set up the new nursery during her winter break. She sniffed, trying to remember the exact scent of her father’s aftershave, for he would come up behind her mother, wrapping his arms around her from behind. She’d come down the halls, peeking in on them with a smile.

“Kayleigh?” They would turn and watch her with loving eyes.

“Kayleigh?”

“Kayleigh, you’re gonna have us come back here with the truck so we can bring some of this stuff back, I bet. Am I right?” Howie’s eyes skipped back towards her.

“Huh?” she asked, sounding a bit dazed and confused, as the daydream drifted away.

He shook his head. “Never mind.”

Kayleigh just nodded, looking around when she realized they were now missing a member of their trio. She weaved and bobbed amongst the furniture. “AJ?”

She could hear Howard falling in step behind her. Suddenly, she stopped. Howie, right on her heels, almost stumbled into her at her abrupt halt. Kayleigh wasn’t sure herself why she had stopped. Maybe it was simply instinct. And while she wasn’t the most adept at listening to it, compared to the others, she had learned to try and operate by it. It was something they’d all come to learn. Howie said nothing, and she felt he sensed the same thing. Odd, yet soft noises resounded in the distance. They were footsteps, and they were uneven. Uneven footsteps were never a good sign anymore.

“We need to get AJ and go find Kevin.”

She moved slowly again, trying to find AJ, but without making too much noise. “I know… are you armed?” She wasn’t and was definitely regretting it right then. Even though her distaste for guns had lessoned, and even though she had grown accustomed to using them to kill zombies any time she needed to, she still hated carrying them if she didn’t have to. Despite Kevin’s warnings to always be prepared, she’d made sure to always “forget” her gun once it became evident that the base was clear.

Or at least evident that they believed the base was clear.

A moan echoed through the empty store, coming from behind. The two turned, as several zombies meandered clumsily in their direction. Some looked to be civilian, wandered in from reanimating in the neighborhood, most likely. Others were in uniform. As time went on, the decomposition had furthered, though still not at the pace a plain corpse that hadn’t reanimated would have rotten. Maggots were beginning to attack the flesh now; she could see several crawling through a large hole in the frontrunner’s cheek. The eyes had become completely milky white now; she couldn’t even see what color the irises had once been. The skin was now a pale yellow and beginning to peel from the rotting flesh along the cranium. The hair hung from the head and appeared to be loosening, as if it were a wig, when really, it was just the skin that was starting to slacken.

“… I’m not armed.”

Kayleigh began to back away slowly, as they advanced. Her voice shook as she spoke. It had been awhile since she’d been this scared. She felt vulnerable again, helpless because of her stupid choice to remain unarmed. “Neither am I.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I know how to get creative, then, isn’t it?” AJ announced from behind them. He grabbed a lamp as he ran up to them, passed them, and almost dived into the zombies.

“Batter up!” He swung the heavy, metal lamp at the one closest to them, connecting squarely with the jaw. The creature flew through the air and crashed through a glass table not too far away. He turned and eyed Howie and Kayleigh, who watched him in a shocked stupor.

“Don’t just stand there; help me clear out the fuckers before more show up!”

There were still several advancing, including the one AJ had knocked through the table, as the brain hadn’t been destroyed. It had been undeniably slowed down and injured, though, if she wanted to look at the silver lining of their advancing grey clouds. Howard spotted a frame; inside were antique swords that Kayleigh hoped weren’t just for decoration. The zombies came closer, and AJ tried to bash another’s head in before the other one came back. While Howie struggled to get the swords, Kayleigh looked around desperately for a weapon.

A lamp? I’m not strong enough to kill it with one.

A vase? It’s not strong enough to kill it. Even if I did hit it hard enough, it’d shatter.

A chair? It’s a zombie, not a vampire; I’m not going to get anywhere with that. It won’t trip it up or bash in the brains.

Then it hit her. Her pearl necklace. The pearls her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday. She could remember the moment perfectly. But right then wasn’t the time to reminisce, as Howie still was struggling to tear apart the frame and the cover that he’d learned clearly wasn’t glass as he had assumed. AJ was swinging around the lamp, but he wasn’t as reckless as he’d once been. The bite scare had gotten to him, the same way it had everyone else, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Testing fate was okay to do once, but twice was just crazy, and his behavior supported that theory.

I’m sorry, Daddy. Kayleigh pulled the necklace off roughly, hearing the cord snap. She ran forward, as AJ hit another ghoul upside the head and lost grip of the lamp. She could hear it sliding across the floor, the metal clanging with a tone of finality. Howie was now jumping on the case, doing his damndest to find a weak spot so he could pull out the weapons she knew they desperately needed. AJ backed away, as a couple more zombies came in. The number was almost an even dozen, at this point.

She threw the pearls along the ground, watching them scatter beneath the creatures’ feet, and pulled Howie along, as he finally kicked the display case aside in disgust. “Let’s go!”

The three ran out of the store, pushing past the zombies, who were now falling on top of each other, thanks to the pearls tripping them up every step of the way. She could hear the loud moans behind them, as they continued to flee. Even though she knew zombies had no emotions and no true cognition at all, they sounded as if they were moans of frustration at their prey getting away. As the trio raced through the mall, the noise they made roused more members of the undead from their dormancy inside the building.

“Let’s get the hell out of here, and maybe we’ll run into Kevin when he comes out! I ain’t being a breakfast burrito for these fuckers again!” AJ announced, as he made a swift turn towards the double doors of the main entrance of the building. Kayleigh simply followed; she trusted AJ’s judgment and knew, if nothing else, that alone could keep her safe.

They burst through the doors, none of them looking forward. Their lines of vision were focused on what was pursuing them, rather than what was ahead of them. It was for this reason that Kayleigh was surprised when she felt herself slam into a body in front of her. She screamed as she fell over and knew now that this thing would have a chance to eat her, as its comrades had Nick’s poor dog. She screamed and flailed, ready to beat whatever she landed on off. It reached for her hands, and she batted them away angrily. She wasn’t going to go down without a fight. No, this time, she was ready to fight back, ready to show that she wasn’t going to just lie down and die. She looked down to see the rotting face of…

… Kevin, who stared at her in bewilderment. No zombie. No decomposing remnants of a face. It was just Kevin, their leader, the man they all had come to rely on. That was who she was trying to fight off, for no good reason. Not a zombie. Gabby was still standing, smirking. AJ was laughing, as was Howard, but in a more dignified manner. Her cheeks grew warm, and she climbed off Kevin quickly, holding out a hand to help him up as well.

“Well…” he said, as he brushed himself off calmly. “You ran into some trouble, too, I take it.”

AJ nodded. “Yep. I feel like an idiot for not remembering my guns.”

“We all thought the base was clear!” Gabby piped up.

Kevin sighed. “Well, let’s go load up, so we can come back and try to clear this place out. Hopefully, the others aren’t having any trouble.”

Kayleigh silently agreed. In spite of all the arguments and the frustrations, she really did care a lot about everyone in the group. She prayed that they were having the carefree day they deserved and that Nick, Riley, Gretchen, and Brian didn’t run into the same familiar visitors that they had. She stared at the doors now; no zombies were coming out. For the moment, anyway, they’d lost them. Finally, she let herself breathe easy once more. She wondered if she’d ever be able to truly let herself feel completely safe again.

Deep down, she knew the answer. Probably not.

Even in the blistering July heat and thick humidity, she found herself shivering.

***