apophenic as a haruspex | anthology

Breathe

“Three Gs on your left, kid!”

I pivoted to look down on the approaching ghouls shambling toward me. The first shot rang in the air, lodging between the eyes of a rotting, half-eaten face.

Inhale. Second shot, for the second waking corpse. Exhale.

Among the broken axles and chassis of a rusting seven-car pile-up, the third ghoul hid. This was a terrible place to be caught in, but I needed higher ground to get away from the cluster.

I didn’t feel him until his hand closed around my ankle with abnormal strength. I kicked hard, nearly falling over, and his body swung out into the air. He only had his upper half, but his stomach was intact and he reached for me even as the whole of him made an arc toward the ground. Belatedly, I realized his hand was still around my leg, detached at the wrist. I shook it off.

Before I could turn my gun at the still-chattering head, a spade slammed down and cleaved it in half.

“I said three ghouls, Julia. Didn’t I say three?”

“Yes, boss.” Breathe. Randall only ever said names when he was real mad. “Couldn’t find it.”

“Well, start lookin’ better.” Randall pulled out his shovel from the remains and wiped it off in the dirt. He must have seen my face; he said, voice still rough but without bite, “You’re lucky it was dry. Could have gotten you sick.”

The grabber was the dry kind, the ones with almost no fluid left in them. Desiccated brains, kept going by hunger. Generally unintelligent and not very perceptive, following their senses for any sign of living flesh. As opposed to the wet ones, who still had most of their organs and assorted bacteria with them.

Randall kicked the one he destroyed and a splinter of bone, already poking out, protruded further from the caved-in chest.

“Hey! Help me down!”

Randall and I turned to squint at the afternoon sun. Our third stood atop a billboard, limned against the light. She already had her rifle strapped securely to her back.

“Clear me a path!”

Obediently I went and grabbed bodies, careful not to lose either of my too-big motorcycle gloves. They were heavy duty and got the job done as I hauled the corpses away to give her space to stand on.

She scampered down the scaffolding, shuddering as she took mincing steps between motionless, decaying corpses.

“You’re doing it on purpose,” I said. She shivered again, exaggerated.

“No, man. These ghouls just make my skin crawl. I don’t care if it’s finally dead, I still don’t want to touch it. And it smells awful.” She put an arm around me. “I saw that one grab you. Nice kick.”

“It wasn’t very smart. Yanked at me before taking a bite.”

“Did it hurt? Remember when a G grabbed me by the neck? Bruised for weeks.”

“It was real strong. Why are they so strong?”

“Rand says it’s because they lose that thing we have, the blocker in our brain telling us we can’t go any harder or else we damage our body.” She looked in disgust at a dead ghoul that still had enough blood to bleed out on the dirt road. “Not like these things care about their bodies.”

Randall reached us, eyeing something us two didn’t see in the horizon. “We have to go. We made too much noise. Horde might come.”

Later, when we returned to the abandoned apartment block we operated out of, the woman asked me to go with her to the river.

“I don’t like you two going down there alone,” said Randall, when we asked to go past the barricades.

“Nothing’s sneaking up on us, boss. It’s all clear for three hundred meters around.”

“It’s the river that’s upsetting me, kid. Heard tell of some Gs walking right out of the water.”

“From the water? They can swim?” The woman beside me sounded more curious than worried.

Randall was brushing caked dirt off of his boots. He brushed particularly hard and said, “No. They walk.”

“Ghouls don’t need air?”

“Apparently not.”

Despite his reservations, the woman had convinced him; said that we kept our backyard clear and we’d shoot any Gs when we saw them. So we made the short walk to the river, guns and machetes at the ready.

While we didn’t see any ghouls, we did stay away from the water. Randall’s story spooked her. We were laying on our backs on the water-worn pebbles as the bright skies faded above, her bare hand touching my gloved one, when she asked, “Do you think they get smarter?”

“What?”

“The ghouls, Jules. Nick at the ammo exchange said he saw one open doors, and it snuck up on him. Said he only got out alive because one of its legs was gone and he just outran it.”

“You think that’s a real story? Nick said he could shoot a bird out of the sky with a sawn-off. So,” I said, and inhaled sharply to make a point. “I think he just forgot to close the door.”

“No, yeah, you’re right.” She rolled on her side and put an arm on my chest. I kept my breaths deep and even, like I was unbothered by her proximity.

After a while, she stood and offered a hand to me. I took it carefully and she pulled me up with all her might. “Let’s go. Don’t want to be out here in the dark.”

We set off at a brisk walk back to the apartment when she said into the young evening breeze, “It would be so scary if they were, though. Could you imagine? If them zombies could learn?”

“I’d prefer not to imagine that, thanks. And we’ll barricade our doors, if it makes you feel better.” She punched my shoulder in retaliation, and I laughed.

This felt good. Camaraderie felt good, like how I imagine truly fresh air smelled like.  In this wasteland, I had always been lonely. It was the first thing I ever learned.

So maybe it was with the slightest twinge of guilt, one morning when I just couldn’t go any longer, that I twisted Randall’s neck with abnormal strength, as easily as wringing out a wet shirt.

I already had my gloves off and had gotten to work, careful about not breaking the skin, when the woman walked in.

“It smells awful in here,” she said, and stopped short. She looked at Randall on the floor, whose bare skull grinned up at her. Then she looked at his peeling face in my mottled, misshapen hands – the hands I had when I first woke up again.

The woman opened her mouth and closed it, over and over. It was the conscience I didn’t know I could have that made me say, with embarrassment, “It wasn’t personal. It really wasn’t.”

I would have said more: I got hungry, or I’m sorry for your loss, or I wish I knew your name. But before I could, the woman who must have been very important to Julia –  when Julia was still alive – turned tail and ran off.

I didn’t worry about her yet.  Instead I ate. If I wasn’t a smart one, I would have kept eating until I made myself sick and sore and unable to move. But I had control, and knew how long a chunk of meat would last me.

When the hunger stopped hurting, I finished my work and fixed myself up. The hands never fit, but my motorcycle gloves lay wonderfully snug against Randall’s bigger wrists. Then I picked up his gun, breathed through his nose to feel my useless lungs swell in his chest, and went to tie up loose ends.