BROTHERS IN SOLITUDE ch 3

Gasping and covered in sweat, Chad sat up straight.  He couldn't remember the nightmare, just fragments of clawing hands and jagged, decaying teeth snapping at his blocking arms.  Ever since the brothers' near-fatal Wal-Mart run, Chad's sleep had been anything but peaceful.

He wished he could erase the memory…

A few months prior, they had taken advantage of the noticeably dwindling flesh eater population and geared up for the East End of the beach's largest store.  They rose before the sun and peddled three miles through the empty streets, passing only a few small packs of the lurching fiends along the way.  Easily dodging them with the bikes, Chad and Drake rode past their gurgling moans and outstretched arms.

Thirty or forty of the creatures shuffled about Wal-Mart's main parking lot.  They could have handled them but decided to save their energy for any trouble inside the store.  Chad and Drake snuck around to the corner lot and found three more creatures ambling by the tire and lube department.  Chad took out an oversized lady in a light blue bathrobe covered in flowers with a crossbow while Drake lopped off two heads with a machete that once belonged to their father.

The side entrance's door hung on its hinges, broken from either swarms of the undead or roaming gangs that looted the area as things were falling apart.  Chad followed Drake into the building, cringing when broken glass crunched under his sneakers and reverberated through the aisles.

A gurgling groan replied from somewhere in the darkness.

The auto care section still smelled of tires and oil.  Drake turned left at the first row of antifreeze and windshield wiper blades, hugging the wall as they went deeper into the store.  It didn't take long before shadows swallowed up the light pouring in from outside.  Drake flicked on a flashlight as they passed the paint section and kept it pointed low.

The groceries were located on the other side of the building, past electronics, cleaning supplies, and pet care.  Canned goods were in the center of the food department, but the plan called for staying along the edge of the building and skipping the wide aisles where they could be easily spotted.  Their approach would take longer, but it sounded safer on paper.

Drake stopped and swept the beam around.  If not for Drake's flashlight, the darkness would have swallowed them up.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

Chad shook his head.

"Thought I heard…  Forget it, let's hurry.  I'm not liking the vibe in here."

When they reached the CDs and video games, the stale air filled with the sour aroma of death.  Chad looked at the wall of display TVs and wished he could watch cartoons again.  He missed lounging on the couch and stuffing potato chips in his face.  He never thought those languid afternoons would end.

They came across a cadaver of a man sitting with his back against the CD rack.  Still clinging to a shotgun, he'd blasted off a quarter of his face.  Rusty brown chunks of rotting tissue splattered across the rock and pop CDs—the corpse was relatively fresh.  When Drake traced his body with the flashlight, Chad saw the man's legs had been chewed up in several places and knew he took his own life in order to escape the plague's vile reanimation.

Chad hoped that if were bitten he'd have enough time to kill himself.

They first heard the cacophony by the paper towels and toilet bowl cleaner.

Groans.

Hisses.

Feet shuffling.

They could hear large numbers of the creatures, but through the darkness there was no pinpointing on which aisle they were concentrated.  Drake slowed his pace, his machete ready to strike.  Chad raised his crossbow and held his breath.

At the corner of dog food and cat litter, a rotting little girl around twelve-years-old grabbed Drake's arm, knocking the machete from his hands.  Taking him by surprise, he screamed when the flashlight revealed the rotting skin dangling from her face, exposing her fractured skull.

Chad didn't shoot, he couldn't risk hitting Drake with an arrow.  He hooked the crossbow's prod over his shoulder, grabbed the little girl by her nappy blonde locks, and jerked her back.  Clumps of her scalp broke off her head, leaving Chad with a handful of knotted hair but giving Drake enough time to unsheathe the blade in his belt and ram it into her temple.  Black pus oozed from the wound.  Drake tossed aside her carcass—it hit a stack of metal dog bowls, sending them crashing.

By the time Drake scooped up his machete, a mob of the creatures had surrounded them.  Chad drew his revolver.

"Drake, let's go."

He dropped what was once an elderly man with a single headshot.  The blast bounced off the walls and the store came alive with un-life.  They ran along the back wall, Chad shooting the occasional fiend obstructing the way.

At the engine fluids, they rounded the corner and discovered the tire and lube entrance was blocked by fifteen or twenty staring pairs of red and yellow eyes.  Behind them, the groans and growls of the approaching throng grew louder.

Drake dove in, swinging the machete and taking down the nearest creature, a woman still dressed in her Wal-Mart uniform.

"Get down," Chad shouted.

Drake ducked.

Chad unloaded, creating a wide gap between the infected.  The brothers dashed towards the broken door; Chad shoved one of the things into the checkout counter before stepping outside into the warm sunlight.  After the building's dark corridors, the blue sky was like a religious experience.

They mounted their bike and peddled as fast as they could to Hilltop Avenue.

The failure hit them hard.  Trying for such a big place was ambitious, but the neighboring houses were beginning to run out of supplies.  Hunting squirrels and the occasional deer wandering throughout the state park was hit or miss, much like fishing.  Soon, the canned food would all be gone, and the brothers would have to find another way.

Chad was beginning to hate sleep, the nightmares it brought.

He rose from bed and pulled on a T-shirt.  When he opened his bedroom door, his nose filled with fresh coffee.  The smell reminded him of Sunday mornings when his father would get up before everyone else and cook deer sausage omelets from their hunting trips.  Mom always kept the dining room tablecloth rotating so it matched the season.  Little touches like that were important to her.  She made the brothers write thank you cards for every gift they received, and their clothes were always washed, folded, and tucked in their drawers when they needed them.

Chad missed the simpler times, realizing how lucky he was before the dead returned to life and began eating the living.

He wondered if he still had it lucky.

In Drake's room, he found his brother asleep on a chair.  Chad shook his head and headed downstairs, lured by flickering lights and the rich smell of coffee.

Their parents had boarded up the bottom floor of the house in the early days of the virus.  Little light penetrated their home, even during the middle of the day.  The brothers illuminated their lives with candles, lanterns, and glow sticks scrounged up from their searches.

He paused in the stairwell, wondering if he should have brought his gun.

Felix was sitting in the living room by several candles, holding a steaming coffee mug.  The intoxicating aroma made Chad's mouth water.

"Morning," Felix said.  She had changed into grey sweatpants and a matching tank top tight enough to show off her curves.  Chad could tell she wasn't wearing a bra and fought the urge to look at her cleavage.

"Morning.  That smells wonderful."

"Want a cup?"

"That'd be great," Chad said.

"We brought some food up with us last night," she said as she lifted a kettle from a propane burner and filled another cup.  "Mostly rations, but we also wanted to say thank you with some luxuries."

"The coffee around here started tasting funny a long time ago," Chad said as he took the cup.  She handed him three sugar packets, two mini creamer cups, and a spoon.  He added all the ingredients, stirring them together.

"Whole beans only last a few years, even if they are sealed," she said.  "Instant coffee doesn't spoil."

The brown liquid burnt the roof of his mouth but was delightful.  The taste of a world long gone.  Chad sat across from her and set the mug in his lap.

"Did you get any sleep?" he asked.

"A little," she said.  "I just couldn't keep my eyes closed anymore.  Tom's going to be out of it for a while.  He hasn't rested since we left Ambertown."

"You said something about Ambertown being a community?" Chad asked.

"It was an indoor shopping mall, three stories tall," Felix said, crossing her legs.  "Called it Amber's Galleria before the world changed.  A group took it over and began taking in survivors.  I came early on.  My dad was a truck driver, so he heard about it on CB radio."

"We have one, but there hasn't been any chatter for a while.  We gave up listening."

"There's a hand held in the truck.  After we passed through Enterprise, we stopped hearing Ambertown's patrols.  Hasn't been any sign of life for miles."

"We haven’t seen anyone in long time."  Chad remembered the encounter on Mystic Lane, the terror he felt when Drake shot the man as he charged with the serrated kitchen knife.  "We were surprise to see your truck at the store."

"Have you two been on your own long?"

"Yeah, since our parents died, almost three years ago."  Chad's insides turned.

"My dad died when our people began fortifying the area around the mall.  They made a wall of abandoned vehicles.  Cars, trucks, school buses—you name it.  We took whatever gas and supplies we could from them and began building.  Dad was good behind the wheel.  He was one of the few people in our group who could operate heavy machinery, so he always went out on those missions.  One night he didn't come back."

Felix's eyes watered.  She dabbed her tears away with her fingers.

"He was a good man. He would do anything for anyone."

"How old are you?" Chad asked, wanting to change the subject.  Seeing her pain stirred emotions buried deep in his heart.

"Eighteen.  I'll be nineteen next September."

Chad was surprised.  Her husband looked much older.

"How about you?" she asked, her eyes still watering.

"Seventeen.  Drake is nineteen."  He took a sip of the coffee, savoring the flavor.  "How many people are in Ambertown?"

"A hundred, give or take.  Every year you gain some, you lose some."

"Lots of people, fortified walls.  Sounds like you guys had it pretty damned good up there.  What made you two leave?"

Felix's cheeks turned red before she focused her attention on her mug.  Chad thought she looked cute.

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"Tom thought it was best for both of us.  Sometimes he has a quick temper, and he and the leaders had come to a disagreement.  That riff drove us out."

"Drake and I don't have much, but we're doing well."  Chad thought about their dwindling food and wondered if the statement was a lie.  "But there isn't much out here.  I couldn't tell you what's going to happen six months from now."

"That's the way of the world, isn't it?  Even though we were getting by at Ambertown, we've had our share of ups and downs.  Those things aside, we've been attacked by other groups of survivors.  We've dealt with power struggles, sickness, insanity.  Tom wanted to move on before he lost me."

"Lost you?"

"Yeah," she said.  "His time with me was up."

Chad didn’t understand.  "You're both not sick are you?"

"No, it's more complicated than that.  Can we talk about something else?  Do you have a working radio?  I love music."

"Radios kill batteries.  We have books."

"I like books.  So long as they aren't scary."

"We've got all kinds of books.  How about historical fiction?"

"Do you have any poetry?"

"Afraid not.  I have some fantasy and Mom used to have some romance novels."

Felix chuckled.  "It's OK, really.  I'll survive."

"We've got board games."  Chad stood and started for the stack of games on the wooden shelf in front of the barricaded windows.  "Do you like Monopoly?  How about chess?"

"It's insane, isn't it?"

"What's that?"

"We're so awkward with basic conversation that we're racing to distract ourselves.  Were you born here?"

"Yeah.  Born and raised.  Mom missed the Big City, but Dad loved being on boats and in the woods.  He taught us how to fish and hunt early on.  Guess it came in handy."

"Looks like it."

"I've never really been anywhere else," Chad said, a little embarrassed at the confession.  "Other than vacations, that is."

"Trust me, you're not missing much," she said.  "I tell you, it’s a goddamned fairy tale out there."

They started laughing.

"What's so funny?" Tom's voice came from the stairs.

Chad looked up and tensed when he saw the look on his face.