SurvivorZ

53

BRENT

Never in his fifteen years since lighting up his first cigarette did Brent Danvers need a smoke so badly. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was the terrible image of rats gorging themselves on his beloved wife. He doubted he would ever sleep again.

Careful not to wake the others, he snuck through the darkened house with the lights off until he found the back door. The steep drop to Judith's deck caught him by surprise. He stumbled outside, barely finding his footing before taking a bad spill. The aluminum door swung closed behind him, but caught with a soft tick rather than a bang. He sighed, relieved that his clumsiness didn't startle everyone awake.

Blackness immersed Judith's spacious back yard. He tried to picture his surroundings from an earlier glance out her kitchen window before sunset. He recalled the trees and shrubbery separating her land from an open field bordered by a farmer's house in the distance. Now, only the faintest hint of moonlit grass undulating in the breeze broke the illusion that her house floated over an endless abyss.

Brent shivered at the field beyond the silhouettes of the trees. It was too close for comfort to the one he and Amy had taken refuge in earlier. Fatigue weighed his eyelids down while staring at it, but he didn't dare close them. A swarm of razor-sharp teeth and ghostly white eyes might come pouring out of the darkness if he did.

Shaking off the cold causing his skin to prickle, he pulled out his lighter and Marlboros from his pocket. Amy managed to convince him to cut down from a pack a day to four or five cigarettes. Given enough time, she promised to save him from his inevitable brush with emphysema.

He lit his cancer stick and inhaled. Since they started dating in college, Amy had always been health conscious, regularly exercising and watching what she put in her body. She never once gave in to temptation from any of Brent's bad habits. It became a running gag during their relationship that she would outlive him long enough to remarry someone as fit as she was.

Looks like the joke's on you, sweetheart, he thought bitterly.

He trudged down the steps and stood in Judith's yard, tapping his ashes into the frigid grass. Winter threatened an early arrival. He could feel it in his bones. He thought back to their conversation in Judith's kitchen earlier, and wondered if heading north was really the answer. The threat of starvation and subzero temperatures outweighed any benefits he could imagine.

Though he couldn't wait to leave Amherst and the painful memories tormenting his sleep, he'd rather head southwest instead. Maybe even cross the border into more tropical climes. He puffed on his cigarette and imagined weathering out the apocalypse on a sunny, tropical beach. With every exhalation of smoke through his chattering teeth, the notion gained in appeal. The thought engrossed him so fully that he almost missed the rustle of movement in the bushes.

He froze. The cigarette smoldered between his lips. He didn't hear it again, and almost managed to convince himself that it had been his nerves when the breeze shifted.

His sinuses filled with the putrid stench of feces and rotting meat. Brent ripped the cigarette from his mouth and gagged. He had only seen the human variety of zombies from a distance during the drive here, but Charlie had regaled him with tales of their traumatic day in nauseating detail.

He crushed his smoke underfoot and peered around, looking for the zombie or a weapon of some kind. He found neither.

"Shit," he whispered.

He slowly backed away, while searching the shadows for movement. Back home, he had a habit of venturing out on his porch for an evening smoke. Carrying a weapon to protect himself hadn't been part of his nightly ritual, so it wasn't surprising that it slipped his mind now. It was one more habit that he was going to have to break himself out of, now that Amy was gone.