Collegare, Young Writers of Earth [graded readers TXT] 📗

in their cans over the flame. It’s funny how a little bit of heat makes even the simplest meals seem gourmet. Once our appetites had been sated, we sat next to each other by the crackling fire, drinking the warmth in. Quiet enveloped us for a while and it became almost eerie. It was the first quiet moment I had spent with Dale all day. I could tell that he was one of those people that got philosophical in the night, reveling in nostalgia and living inside of his head. I knew what was coming next and there was no defense against it.

“Did you…lose any family when the shit went down?” he asked with the somber inflection of whipped puppies. He poked the fire with a stick, waiting for my response. I took my time.

“Yeah...yeah, I did. Darren…my older brother.” Dale shook his head as he poked the fire. “What about you?” I asked him.

“My darlin’. Her name was Joni. She was an angel. She had a terrific ass…and she made a damn good stew. I met her at Daytona long ago. That was the best damn race I’ve ever been to in my life. She was a good wife. She would have been a terrific mother.”

His eyes were wet with salt and sadness. I didn’t press the issue, but I could tell by his tone what he meant. His wife had been pregnant when the turn came. Fate had played two-to-one odds with Dale and won the hand.

Dale quietly wept for a moment, burying his head in his knees. He whispered something to himself once or twice. It was hard to make out the word through the snot and hiccups, but it sounded like he said “motherfuckers”. Motherfuckers, indeed, Dale. Motherfuckers, indeed.

I put my arm around his shoulder and comforted him, his body twitching with convulsions of his diaphragm. He pulled into me tightly and wept for another few minutes. He pulled back, looking up at me with salt-stained cheeks and I could see something in his eyes and face that made me nervous. He wanted to kiss me…I could read it in his pupils. Then, he thought the better of it and collected himself, pulling away and wiping his eyes. The silence returned for a moment and filled the air between us.

“I ain’t gay,” he said after a moment. “It just…hurts sometimes.”

“I understand. I read nothing into it.”

Dale shook his head silently and sprawled out by the fire, using his bundled up jacket as a pillow. I understood him more in that moment than I had the entire day. Sometimes our emotions get the better of us, much like Dale’s had gotten the better of him. He rolled with the emotions rather than hiding them inside. I respected him for that. I liked Dale, platonically, of course.

I didn’t sleep that night. I told myself that I was standing guard against the flesh-eaters, but in truth, my guilt kept me awake. I had quickly become friends with Dale, even if some aspects of the friendship were based on lack of options. I liked the guy and felt for the trouble he had been through. And yet, my intentions for him were far from friendly. As much as I liked him, some things are just more important than friendship…and he had something that I needed. And so, I didn’t sleep. After all, there is no rest for the wicked.

Dale rose just before dawn to the smoky embers of the fire pit. After he stretched and oriented himself, we collected our things and continued on the journey home. The remainder of the trip through our dilapidated town was spent in silence, for the most part. When there was chatter, it was sparse and lacking in substance. There was a joke here and there, but nothing quite as vivacious as yesterday’s banter.

After what felt like eternity, we finally made it home. The house, which had been in the family for about sixty years, was pretty much an aging wasteland that hadn’t been fixed up properly since it was built. It sat beside a small creek which had, over the years, steadily softened the ground around the house and forced it to sink lower and lower into the creek. When it rained heavily, the yard would flood from overflow and the roses that grandmother had planted would drown. At one point, about ten years prior, a chunk of the back yard had broken off and fallen into the creek, taking with it two rusted out sheds that we had used for storage. Needless to say, this house had grown used to tragedy.

“Is this the place?” Dale asked with a weary voice.

“That it is. That it is. Come on, let’s go around back. I’ve got a bunch of food stored up in an old shed back there.”

I walked around the side of the house, Dale following closely behind me. I kicked open the rusted out gate and slowly headed towards the shed.

“How long have you had this place?” Dale was getting chattier now.

“Oh, this house has been here for decades. My grandfather bought it long ago when he first got married to my grandmother. It’s got some years on it,” I answered

We reached the shed and I turned the knob to the front door. It didn’t move. It was locked.

“Shit, I almost forgot about the key,” I said. “Stay right here. I’ll be back.”

I walked around the side of the shed, leaving Dale standing there to admire the backyard. Dale was a nice guy. Truly, he was. I felt more for him than I did for the others. But at this point, I had come too far. If I let him go now, it would be days before I found another survivor. Maybe even weeks, depending on circumstances. I couldn’t afford to wait that long.

I rounded back around the corner with the aluminum baseball bat in my hand and cracked him once hard in the back of the skull. The thud echoed through the barren trees of the backyard and he fell quickly to his knees, dropping his heavy shotgun. I grabbed up his weapon as he crashed, aiming at the back of his head. He was still disoriented and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings back. Eventually, he turned to me, coming face to face with the barrels of his own shotgun.

“What the fuck, bo?! What is this?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s nothing personal. Really, it isn’t. Just, wrong place wrong time.”

I reached into my pocket with my left hand, producing the key to the shed and throwing it to the ground.

“Open it.”

“What the hell are you doing, bo? What is all this?!” His southern drawl was losing its appeal more and more by the second.

“Just open the fucking shed,” I told him. This one would be harder than the others.

After a few more moments of stunned hesitation, Dale grabbed the key and rose to his feet slowly, turning to face the shed. He inserted the key and turned it, unlocking the door with a click. He turned the knob and opened the door.

“Go in.”

“Why? What’s in there, bo?” Dale’s voice was quivering. He was beginning to get scared.

“Just walk in there, god-damn-it.”

Dale walked in slowly and I followed, the gun trained squarely on the back of his head. The shed was in disarray, just like I left it. The smell inside was awful, much as it had always been. Dale began to choke and cough, the stench lodging itself firmly in the back of his throat. After he hacked and spit, he began to talk.

“You don’t—really, you don’t have to do this, bo. Whatever you think you have to do, you don’t. Trust me. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Honest.”

There was a rustling in the back of the shed and a few tools fell over. It was time. He had finally heard us…and he could smell Dale’s fresh flesh.

“This isn’t about you, Dale. Like I said, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This has to be done. It’s been days. He’s getting hungry.”

“What the fu—Wait, what? Who? Who’s—“

I cut his words short with a crack to the back of the head, freshening up the baseball bat wound. He fell to the floor, his face smacking the rotting chartreuse linoleum. As Dale hit the ground, Darren’s undead corpse came into the light from the shadows beyond, teeth gnashing, ready to feed. I hate that it had to end this way, but there really was no other option. Darren hadn’t eaten in days and after all, blood is thicker than water. Dale began to scream at the sight of him. He finally knew what was going to happen to him…he knew how his story would end.

“What the fuck?! Holy shit, you don’t have to do this, bo! You don’t—“

It was too late. Dale’s words were lost amidst his blood-curdling screams. Darren was hungry and he took to Dale’s flesh like a king to a feast. Dale’s screams mate with the sound of flesh beneath teeth and blood pooling against the floor. The cacophony fills my skull. I don’t want to watch, but at the same time, it’s tough to look away.

The poor fool stares at me and screams as my brother makes a meal of his legs. He stretches his hand out and cries with the fury of a newborn child as it shuffles free from the birthing canal. His blood runs free as his skin and muscle are picked clean from the bone by the gnashing teeth of my brother, the flesh-eater. He beckons to me with eyes of pain and shatters my icy exterior, exposing me for the monster I truly am. My brother knows no better; he’s nothing more than an animal feasting on fresh dinner. I’m the demon whose skullduggery led Dale to this moment, writhing with pain on the floor of my shed. I tell him something pretty in hopes of chasing the forthcoming nightmares away. Hush now, my friend. Your screams have become nothing more than guttural gibberish. Only the dogs can hear you now.

***

When the sunbeams came at dawn and the morning chill graced my cheek, all was silent. The screams were still a faint whisper upon my mind, but the day after was always the hardest. I rose and dressed for a new day, cracking open a can of black beans and eating them slowly, savoring every bite. Dale had been a good man, much as the others before him. But, at the end of the day, I have to do what must be done to keep my brother fed. After all, he’s all I’ve got left in this crazy world.

Today would be a new day. Perhaps I would go west this time in search of new survivors. There seemed to be nothing left on the east. Dale would sustain my brother’s appetite for the next few days. That gave me plenty of time to search through new terrain. I was sure to find more survivors somewhere.

I tossed the empty can into a trash receptacle and gathered my bag full of supplies. The horizon was strikingly beautiful this morning. The mist from midnight dew had created a subtle ambience that was not lost upon me. It was beautiful, the horizon. It’s always good to be reminded that beauty still exists in this world. Today was, indeed, a brand new day.


PERFECT MELODY