Eyelids

Angela Ludrucker had been the bane of my existence before The End. When I was thirteen I had a massive crush on Hilary Duff. Not Aaron Carter. Not Heath Ledger. Hilary Duff. I wrote in a journal about how pretty she was and how charming she seemed. I carried that tattered journal everywhere. Hilary Duff wasn’t all I wrote about, but that’s what this anecdote is about, so just pretend.

One day, after I’d excused myself from math class to use the bathroom, Angela Ludrucker put forth her evil plan. She took my damaged spiral notebook from my backpack and stuffed it into her own. I didn’t realize until our lunch period that my precious musings were gone. I immediately knew who it was, but it was too late.

Copies of my Hilary Duff lovefest were appearing in desks. With my name in bright purple sharpie at the top. It was the most embarrassing thing that could have possibly happened, I was sure. The Hilary Duff Incident started years of rivalry that couldn’t been…well, rivaled.

And yet when Angela Ludrucker’s corpse appeared outside our wood covered dining room window that October, I felt sorry for her. Her left arm was dangling by meaty strings of decaying muscle at her elbow. The left side of her abdomen had been gnawed on until you could see whatever was behind her, through her.

I watched her shuffle past our house, only moving once she had crossed the street to make sure she didn’t hear me. I pulled my legs up into the dining chair and shoved a bite of peach pie filling from the can to my mouth. As I munched, I made sure to keep eyes on the world outside our fortified home.

In the weeks that had followed the sweep of the outbreak in our state, our entire neighborhood was emptied of everyone but the dead, and us. Few bands of survivors trekked out this far into the suburbs. Like they knew it had already been cleared out by my brother and me.

When we originally brought up the idea of ransacking the other homes to my parents, they were not quite up to the idea. We’d convinced them by suggesting we start with the homes we knew were empty. The ones we’d watched people flee from that night. Like the Lieberman’s. They begrudgingly agreed, and the motion was passed.

We’d lasted two weeks longer than we had expected because of the supplies we’d found in the houses. It had been thirty-nine days since the spread.

Some radio stations were still in use, but all TV channels, phone lines, and some powerlines were down. The sewage lines were still going, thank the apocalypse gods for that. We didn’t drink or bathe in the tap water. We’d all seen far too many zombie shows to know that that’s a bad idea. All it would take to infest the water - by entertainments standards - is one zombie in the tank.

“Logan, you ready?” Sawyer ambled down the stairs, empty duffle bag thrown over his shoulder. I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s Tuesday.” He smiled. “And Tuesday was scavenging day.” He tossed the cloth bag on top of my head.

Yanking it off, I scoffed at my brother. “You dingus, there is no scavenging day.”

“Hey,” he threw his arms out. “If the sky and zombies are clear, then it is scavenging day!”

I balled up the bag and threw it at his face. “Fine, fine.” After making sure my boots were double knotted, I followed Sawyer to the door. Dad always stayed home when we went out, but Mom was waiting by the door, jacket zipped up and an empty suitcase at his feet.

Dad came out of the dining room, bottles of water and granola bars in one hand, balancing on his cane with the other. “Here, Lo.” I held open the duffle bag, so he could drop them in.
“Honey, maybe I should stay here.” Mom stepped towards Dad, one hand resting on his arm.

Dad smiled. “You always go with the twins, honey. Won’t hurt any less if you stay.” He stuck his tongue out at her and she grinned. I knew Dad’s knee injury had been acting up more now that he couldn’t see his chiropractor, but I also knew he stayed home because he couldn’t stand the state of what had become our lives outside these walls. He couldn’t stand to force himself to kill the neighbors he once knew. To venture into yards where he’d attended barbeques and pike his old friends.

Seventeen days into The End, Dad, Sawyer, and I were taking down a neighbor’s fence, to use the wood as more enforcements on the house. The idiots didn’t check to see if there was a Z in the yard first, and as soon as a post was down, it tried shoving itself through the hole.

They backed up into the yard they were standing in and stared at each other like they had no idea what to do. As if they’d forgotten every damn zombie movie they’d ever seen. I had been rummaging through the kitchen on the house of the yard we’d been standing in and looked through the window in time to see the zombiefied face of Mrs. Kaminski being pulled off by the fence panel she was shoving her head through. I waited a beat to see if they were going to act, and when they didn’t, I grabbed a giant kitchen knife and headed outside.

It was the first Z we had seen up close. We’d seen a couple shuffling through the neighborhood but had never had to take one out.

Lump in my throat, bile rising, I walked straight up to her.

“Logan, what are you doing?” Dad grabbed at my arm, but I twisted away.

Ignoring the fact that my first kill was going to make me vomit, I held my arm up sideways, ready to pike Mrs. Kaminski in the skull. I’d seen enough movies to know that’s usually how to kill them.

“Logan!” Dad cried. “That’s Mrs. K! Don’t!”

I brushed his denial off and swung hard, burying the knife deep in her temple. She immediately collapsed. Silent, I stalked off to the kitchen, stopping at the door to lean over the patio railing and puke up the can of carrots I’d eaten that morning.

That first incident was burned into my own pike-free brain. Killing whatever was left of Mrs. Kaminski was a wake-up call. We’d been hiding in our house and not seeing much of what the world had become. I’d always been more like Mom. She was prepared to see everything the way it was, even before Apocalypse Now. So, when Dad decided he’d rather stay at home, Mom was ready to venture out on supply runs.

She kissed Dad on the lips, rested her forehead against his for a moment, and then turned to Sawyer and me. “Alright, let’s go.”

We headed down the street, weapons on a swivel. I’d grown up an archery fanatic. I went to competitions, won the competitions, and practiced daily since I was seven. It was my passion. I had a quiver of arrows on my back, and my metal bow in my hands. Kitchen knives were attached to my belt just in case. Mom had Dad’s pistol on her hip, though we tried not to use it for fear it would attract the undead. Two fire axes swirled in her hands gracefully. It was beautiful to watch.

Sawyer had a baseball bat he’d ‘embellished’ and was swinging it in circles as we walked. The metal bat had the head of an axes welded to one side, and spikes on the rest. He said he’d dreamt of it, so for three days he locked himself in the Pemberton’s welding shed and walked out with the bat of his dreams.

We had been walking for five minutes, headed towards a house we hadn’t touch, when I broke the silence. “Ten o’clock.”

“Dibs.” Sawyer replied, veering off and approaching Riley Tennie. When we were fifteen, Sawyer had the biggest crush on her. And then she dyed her hair black, pierced her septum, and got a girlfriend. He moved on. Now she was shuffling down the street, strings of someone’s flesh dangling from her teeth. Her black hair hung in chunks off her skull. “Yo, Riles!” Sawyer called. Riley swung her head in his direction. Sawyer effortlessly swirled his bat in circles with one hand, cocky as ever, until Riley screamed, and ran at him.

“What the fuck!” He shouted, barely dodging her attack. She whirled again, screeching. I held up my bow, arrow nocked, and right before she took off, released. The arrow flew into her head, exited through her dilapidated bones, and buried itself in a tree. Riley dropped to the ground.

“Since when do they run like that?” Mom mused, brow furrowed.

“Great. We thought we had run of the mill zombies, but we have World War Z zombies. Cool. Awesome. Great.” Sawyer dusted himself off and marched off towards the house we were headed to.

“That’s not good.” I mumbled, following them.

We approached the house, grey brick and red trim. No idea who lived here before. I put my bow over my head, pulling knives from my belt, before I rapped my knuckles on the door, peeked it open, and called out. “Hello? Anyone home?” A faint high-pitched groan from the basement was my reply. “Basement zombies. Sounds fun.”

We made our way upstairs first, opting to start at the top and work our way down, per usual. By the looks of it, it was a single father and his two kids who used to live her. A teen girl and a preteen boy. I dug through the girls clothes and medicine cabinets. She appeared to have favored the apocalyptic steampunk style, which was super ironic. I found a large duffle in her closet and opted to throw most of her clothing and accessories inside. I knew I could mess around with it all and make some actual helpful items out of it.

She had prescription antibiotics galore, all only missing about six pills. She seemed to start to take them, and then forget about them at some point. She had a bunch of them milling about her room and bathroom. She also had Xanax, and some prescription painkillers. As well as some basic first aid supplies and female care. I loaded up, dropped the duffle at the bottom of the stairs, and headed to see what I could find in the kitchen.

Mom was in the master loading up on things and Sawyer had cleared the kids room before moving on to the garage. He spent his free time messing around in the welding shop, so when we went out he liked to stock up on whatever he could find.

I started piling food into a suitcase, filling it with cans of beans, vegetables, and soup. In the bottom of the pantry I found a half empty case of water and a bag of sprouting potatoes. Figuring we could plant them, I grabbed them as well, throwing them and the water into the bag.

Once I had finished, I started wandering. I was the fastest at looting things, Mom liked to mill about, and Sawyer got distracted with metals. One long wall in the den was filled with bookcases. Books lined most of the shelves, but there were some board games on one section. I wasn’t big on reading before The End, but without the internet, I was turning to books for some form of entertainment and education. I found a section of college books, and grabbed the ones focused on sciences and nursing. Figured the Dad had been a nurse.

By the time I finished there and brought the rest of the stuff to the door, Mom and Sawyer were finishing up. Mom came from the basement, where she must have dispatched the Z. “It’s getting dark.” Sawyer noted. “We should go.”

“I was waiting on you, ya dingus.” I shoved at him. He smiled and we all loaded up on bags. We ambled the mile home, the kitchen and book suitcase dragged me behind the others. Sawyer was telling some story about his third semester in college, and Mom was laughing despite how awkward a story it was. They weren’t paying attention as we approached the house.

“Mom, Soy, stop. Oh my god stop and look.” I rushed ahead of them, shoving them aside as I pushed towards the open door of our house. I dropped the bags at the step inside and grabbed knives with both hands. “Dad?” I called. “Dad, where are you?”

A loud crash from upstairs made me jerk my head up. Mom and Sawyer came into the house, weapons ready. Mom had the gun out. Her face had lost all color and she looked ready to faint from fear and worry.

I side stepped my way up the stairs, thankful that our open concept house didn’t have any walls blocking sight from the stairs. “Dad, are you okay?” I called out again. As I moved onto the top step, I could see Dad’s cane protruding from the doorway to his office. I approached, shoving the door open with my foot, and falling against the doorframe when I saw Dad’s body lying on the ground.

Throat cut.

“Z…zom’s…zom’s can’t…” Sawyer stumbled through his words. Mom screamed and fell to Dad’s side. Sawyer’s face was pure shock. “Zom’s can’t cut throats…how…” His words were mumbled, as a sob had him collapsing to the floor.

I had frozen when I’d hit the doorframe. Violently shaking, I somehow replied to Sawyer.

“Humans.”