ZOMBIE

 

The world had gone to hell and I wasn’t sure what had sparked it, but I did know it had happened on the heels of my son moving off to college.

***

The back yard had become my sanctuary and I walked the perimeter regularly with its six foot privacy fence that had been shored up with angled two by fours, pipes, and whatever I could scrounge up from the garage and scrap wood pile behind the shed.  On this particular day one of the pipes had come loose and I recognized it as a section of the baseball net frame my son had once used to practice his pitching and catching when I was not around to throw with him.  As I re-secured it to the fence I allowed my mind to wander back to a time when my son had been the primary pitcher on his elementary school team.  

Josh was one of the smaller kids in his class and struggled to put himself out there but, man oh man, when he stood on that mound he found a different place to park his head and the strikes poured out of him like a raging river.  It didn’t make a lot of sense for such an anxious kid to be so calm and focussed with the game riding on his shoulders and everyone staring at him up there on the mound.  It was just one of many things that had surprised me about him as the years passed by and he grew foot by foot until finally passing me some time at the end of his 16^th year.  That was the year he lost his mother and I lost my wife.

A moving shadow on the other side of the fence jerked me back to the present as I felt little prickly sensations at the crown of my head where my hair was missing.  The shadow shuffled a bit but then spoke, “Is that you over there Cooper?  When are you going to cut your goddam grass in front?  It looks like shit.”

I stopped what I was doing and quietly made my way over to the back door, pausing with my hand on the knob.  “Do you hear me Cooper?  It’s a jungle up there and I don’t want my dog getting ticks.”  I slowly turned the knob and quietly stepped through the door. 

The neighbor was clueless about the world going to hell.  His name might be “Jim” or “John”, I couldn’t remember.  Jim-John seemed to be in denial that civilization was grinding to a halt and the walking dead was no longer just a show on TV.  He would find out soon enough that things had changed and then he’d be knocking on my door asking for help.  You just wait!

But then my mind was back at the ball park and Josh was on the mound, the ball clasped  inside his mitt and pressed to his skinny chest.  I found myself sitting on the bleachers directly behind home plate on the other side of a chainlink fence as was my habit.  He faced me but stayed focused on the catcher between us.  He stepped back with his right leg then wound up like a tightly coiled spring before unwinding quickly, extending his leg, and snapping his arm towards home plate.  The crisp smack of the ball on leather as it hit the catcher’s mitt slightly startled me.  The umpire rose up to punch  the air and barked an emphatic “Stee-rike!”   

***

It had been a few weeks in the planning.  I had non-perishables organized in boxes and three large water jugs sitting in the back living room next to the door to the garage.  A map of Ohio was laid out on a table in the middle of the room and a mattress was in the corner that I’d drug downstairs.

I sipped the steaming liquid from my favorite coffee cup and sat it down where it cast a long shadow from the kerosene lamp (the sun had set while I was daydreaming).  The words “WORLD’S BEST DAD” on the cup glowed in the warm light and gently directed me back to my task.  I circled our neighborhood on the map with a red marker and made another one around a neighborhood in south Dayton where my son had gone off to college.  I’d gleaned bits of information from listening to the staticky radio at night that had me thinking a safe haven had been established there and I was desperate to confirm that information.

I drew a line on the map to connect the two places following back roads through cornfields and cowtowns in order to avoid the interstate.  This included a long run down Old State Road 40 which paralleled I-70.  It probably wasn’t the safest option but quicker and time was of the essence.  Of course, the interstate had been the quickest route but I was sure it would be littered with abandoned vehicles and scattered debris frustrating my journey westward.  The plan was to leave at oh-dark thirty and arrive at the campus compound some time around sun up.  I wasn’t sure what I would find there but I knew Josh was a resourceful kid and the not knowing was killing me.  

I extinguished the lamp with the air from a deep sigh plunging the room into darkness.  

***

I understood it to be the game against St. Michael in the fifth grade.  This was the school Josh had attended when he was in first and second grade before transferring down the road to Our Lady of Peace.  We knew all the other players and their parents as neither school was particularly large.  He was a kind of nexus of catholicity  standing there on the mound.  In the dream I smile to myself knowing what is to come.  Josh is the lead off pitcher and will be utilized for the full limit of four innings before the rules say he must be traded out for another pitcher.  He pitches brilliantly with strike outs in quick succession and the game speeding along towards a no-hitter.  Between the third and fourth innings I walk past some cars parked facing the field to find a bathroom and hear my name called.

“Hey Cooper!”  A dad from St. Michael whose son Josh used to hang out with is sitting in his SUV watching the game.  

“Hey, what’s up Joe?”

Joe raises his eyebrows and nods his head knowingly, “Your son is pitching one heck of a game.”  

Before I can respond I hear a beeping sound, like a countdown, and turn to see Josh in his windup.  He rotates, spins, spins again, and keeps spinning until launching like a  rocket with a dusty smoke trail following him into the darkening sky.

I awoke with a start in the dark and turned off my watch alarm.  Time to go.

***

The jeep was packed and ready.  The acrid smell of a skunk hung strong in the air, even inside the garage.  Just as long as it wasn’t the smell of rotting flesh I would be OK.  I put my ear to the garage door listening for sounds of movement that would betray the presence of any corpses loitering in my driveway.  The neighborhood was a bit spread out and semi-rural which worked to my advantage.  God help those living in the city in times like these!

With a heave I got the garage door up and peered into the expectant darkness.  A breeze tousled the long seeded tips of grass in the front yard.  Jim-John wasn’t kidding.  It looked like the front of the house was returning to nature at an alarming rate.  And in that vein of thought a flicker of movement near the large oak tree had me reaching for a shovel close at hand.  I scanned the yard looking for the source of movement in the moon cast shadows.  Something was there but had froze.  Could zombies be patient?  The thought was terrifying.  

The impasse was broken when a dog barked off in the distance and the head of a magnificent antlered buck swiveled its head towards the sound.  It was standing under the oak but cantered off when I gave my bumper a bang with the shovel to scare it off.  Nature could and would reclaim what it wanted in our absence but we were not dead yet.  

***

The trip so far had been surprisingly uneventful.  I figured I was about half way there and assumed my advanced planning had really paid off.  There was something soothing about no one else being on the road, driving cocooned in a moving envelope of light, and hearing the drone of the engine.  To keep from falling asleep I popped in a CD my son had bought me for Father’s Day.  It was Bach’s Cello Concertos by Janos Starker.  It almost felt like I was in a heart-warming movie if I hadn’t known better.  But I let the feeling carry me mile by mile towards the one thing on the planet I felt was left worth living for.

And in my mind’s eye a film was playing out.  A little naked red-headed baby was being carried to the warmer surrounded by the doctor and nurses looking to stimulate him with some aggressive rubbing.  It was a moment of ice cold dread sitting at my core until the exhilaration of hearing him cry out brought tears to my eyes, seeing the stream of pee arcing into the darkness through blurred vision, the sound of laughter echoing in the room…

Then a flash forward to our kitchen in Tennessee filled with light from the large windows that ran along the backside of the house.  We are playing his favorite game which we called “Ratatouille” for obvious reasons.  I am in the living room with his small plastic broom acting like I am sweeping the floor as I move slowly towards the kitchen while humming a tune.  Josh is two years old closing in on three and wearing only a bulky cloth diaper.  He is standing on a chair at the counter with a play metal pot he has put various ingredients in and is stirring it with a wooden spoon.  He pretends to shake in various spices mumbling to himself, wafting the smell to his nose, and acting enraptured in the process.  I am now in the kitchen with the broom and I look up as he looks over and our eyes lock.  We are frozen for but a moment and then I yell out “A RAT!!!”  He leaps down from the chair and bolts for the living room as I chase him swinging the broom in the air.  He circles the coffee table, then the dining room table with me in hot pursuit.  I come around the love seat but then reverse direction and we crash into each other and fall to the floor laughing.  I am breathing heavily from this brief but exuberant exertion.  I do not want the moment to end…

The jeep suddenly shuddered and threw me forward causing me to swerve to the right.  Pulling hard back to the left I felt the vehicle go on two wheels and then slam back down as I hit the brakes and came to a skidding halt sideways on the road.  I didn’t know what I’d hit but the possibilities flickered through my brain.  I reached down to find the flashlight that fell out of the box when it hit the floorboard.  I clicked it on and swept it across to either side of the road.  I did not see anything but I couldn’t see down in the ditches or into the trees.  I wondered if I should just keep going or check to make sure I hadn’t hit anyone.  That begged the question of whether or not to call out which might bring unwanted attention or save someone’s life depending on what kind of “someone” that would be!

Time was wasting so I got out of the jeep and moved slowly back down the road swinging the flashlight from side to side.  A dribble of blood was mixed with the dirt several yards back and lead to the side of the road.  In a kind of forced whisper I faintly called out “Is anyone there?”  From the high grass not more than five feet away I heard a moaning noise and I knew I was done for.  Staggering back my light caught bright eyes peering at me as I fell back on my butt.  It was a deer lying in the ditch panting pitifully.  We sat and looked at each other, trapped in this world of pain and suffering as hapless co-inhabitants.  I had nothing to alleviate his pain so I simply gave him as sincere an apology as I could muster and got back on the road.

***

I arrived at the backside of the campus as dawn was just starting to bring a glow to the eastern sky behind me.  It was quiet and almost idyllic with some bird song and a coolness that seemed to settle on my cheeks and ample nose by way of a thin fog clinging to the ground.  I’d seen horror movies with this visual effect but this was not that.  I could imagine zombies erupting from the ground or staggering through the mist, but somehow this was sacred ground.

I scaled the fence and made my way around to the front of the dorm where I had dropped my son off what seemed like a lifetime ago.  He was on the second floor and I picked up a few small rocks to bounce off of his window.  By the third pebble his disheveled head appeared in the window and I motioned him to come down.  A few minutes later he was out the front door and walking towards me with a bemused look on his face.

“Dad.  What are you doing here?  It’s so early.  I didn’t know you were coming.”

Seeing him there so close, so alive, I felt waves of emotion washing over me and I wanted to grab ahold of him and never let go.  “I… I just wanted to make sure you were safe, son.”

“Of course I’m safe, Dad.”  And with those few words from him I broke into sobs.  “It’s OK, Dad, come here.”  He pulled me into a hug as the sun’s rays crested the hill behind him.

***

I took the interstate home and watched in wonder as cars moved eastward with me on a pristine and uncluttered road.  When I pulled into my driveway Jim was squatting in his front flower bed pulling weeds.  “Hey Jim!  I got some gas for my mower.  You’ll be glad to know I’ll be mowing it today.”

“It’s about time.” he grumbled.  

I drug the mattress back to the bedroom and up onto its frame.  It seems strange now but I was a bit astounded when I flipped a switch and the lights came on to chase the darkness from my home

***