Heartland Junk - Part I: The End (A zombie apocalypse serial)

Chapter 14: Morning

The only time I can remember praying was in the hospital six years ago, but now I paused before falling asleep to thank God for putting me in a bumfuck town like Joshuah Hill. I couldn't bring myself to imagine what was happening in the rest of the world, where people were packed in more densely. In the dark bedroom, under the itchy, unfamiliar quilt, enveloped in the heavy silence you only get miles away from civilization, it was hard to imagine anyone else still alive on the planet. There was too much horror even in our little scab of a town; what was it like in New York City, or LA, or London or Paris or Beijing?

So I thanked God that I lived in Joshuah Hill, but I wasn't naive enough to thank Him for making me a junkie. He didn't have shit to do with that. It had been my own choice. My own conscious choice, just like it had been my mom's. There was no divine intervention in that, no heavenly hand guiding us to destruction. We chose our own paths to hell, and each and every one led there as sure as the tides will rise and fall.

I dreamed that it was raining bodies, and when I woke up, the sun was glaring hot and bright through the bedroom window and building vivid shadows in the corners. The strange room disoriented me for a moment, but then the previous day stitched itself back together in my mind and I shot out of bed, inducing a streak of pain in my shoulder. I grit my teeth and ignored it. What time was it? I used my left hand to awkwardly dig my phone out of my right pocket. 10 AM. Shit. I didn't like the way the shadows looked. They were too hard, almost sinister.

I was almost sober.

Jennie reached the living room at the same time as me, each of us with the same thought. We looked at each other and wordlessly dug into my backpack. As panicked as I was, though, I only swallowed one Vicodin. It was time to start thinking forward, and I wanted my head as clear as it could be.

"You feeling okay?" I asked Jennie after she'd managed to gag down a Percocet. I opened a can of Coke from the duffel in the corner of the room and handed it to her. She took a long draft and nodded, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. She'd apparently found some clothes that fit, because she was wearing a pair of running shorts and a tight t-shirt that framed her body like a second skin. Hadn't found a bra, it seemed.

She caught me looking and gave me that same strange half-smile she'd given me in the pharmacy. Embarrassed, I quickly turned my head to Mr. Dinkins, still asleep on the couch. There was no sign of Rivet.

"He was up most of the night," Jennie said, as if reading my thoughts. "He'll probably be out a few more hours. It was the damn Adderall." I didn't ask how she knew he'd been up so late. I didn't want to know.

"He's not...he's still alive, right?" Jennie asked, stepping up beside me to watch Mr. Dinkins sleep. Her arm brushed mine, and I unconsciously leaned away. Jennie was about five inches shorter than me, and I could smell shampoo in her hair. Lavender. She must have bathed with some of the water bottles from the pantry. I tried not to picture it.

"Yeah, he's alive. See his chest moving?"

"What the hell did you give him?" Jennie asked. "Strong shit." Was it my imagination, or did she purposely move closer so our arms touched again?

The air felt too thick. I cleared my throat and said, "Triazolam. Way too much of it, but he's not in any danger anymore."

"What you did for him," Jennie said softly. "It was good of you not to leave him. Most people wouldn't have done a stranger like that."

"I couldn't have done it without your help," I said. I looked down at her and she was already looking up at me. Our faces were almost touching. Her eyes were wide, alive, staring into mine. What was she thinking? Shit, what was I thinking? We stayed like that for a breathless moment, the warm living room frozen in time, and Jennie asked, "If the time came, would you do me like that?"