Live Another Day

By Madeline Sheehan

Dropping down on all fours, careful not to settle heavily on any of the creaky floorboards, I crawled slowly across my living room. Like clockwork, several boards moaned in protest as my weight touched down up on them. My heart pounding, I quickly skittered right and then left, much like a crab, until I’d reached the row of windows. Swallowing hard, I gripped the windowsill and gradually pulled myself up until I could see the world outside my prison.

From my vantage point within the top floor of my five-story apartment building, I could easily view the row of shops and independent boutiques below, the afternoon summer sun illuminating the street and the several dozen people milling about.

From far enough away, it could almost be considered picturesque, just another beautiful summer day in Pearl River, New York…if the walls of the buildings weren’t blackened and charred, the doors and windows weren’t busted, and the merchandise that was once for sale wasn’t scattered, broken and shattered, across the sidewalk and street. And if the people were still actually people instead of the infection-carrying, cannibalistic, reanimated corpses they now were.

It was the same horrifying scene that had greeted me every day for two weeks now. Mrs. Havers, a once kind and elderly woman who’d owned the children’s clothing shop directly across the way, was out front as usual. Only today she wasn’t sweeping the sidewalk, wasn’t greeting her customers and passersby with kind words and a smile.

No, that Mrs. Havers was long gone. Today, like every other day for the past two weeks, the former Mrs. Havers was outside her shop, mindlessly shuffling the same ten-foot stretch over and over again. Her white hair, always carefully curled, now hung greasy and limp past her frail, bony shoulders. Her usually perfectly pressed blue summer shift was now wrinkled, caked with dirt and blood. Her vacant milky-white eyes, previously lit with the sort of warmth that only comes from living a well-lived life, were now focused on nothing in particular. Just like the others.

Worse, she was missing most of the skin on her left arm, the limp appendage hanging at an awkward angle. Her right foot was also broken, yet seemed to have little impact on her ability to continue walking. She walked and walked on an endless cycle, never sleeping, only ever pausing in her mindless movements when something would catch her attention.

As if reading from a cue card, when any one of the infected would break their mundane ritual, the entire mass of them would all stop what they were doing to turn in the same direction. Usually it was nothing. A noise off in the distance, a small animal making a commotion of some sort. They seemed to be drawn toward sound, but unless the noise continued on, or produced some sort of visual result, they became disinterested and went back to their habitual shuffling.

If only I had some fireworks. A remote-controlled airplane. Anything that could draw them away, and give me the time I needed to get out of this building and to my car. My once pristine SUV, now covered in gore and surrounded by the infected, sat only a half block down the street. Freedom was so close, yet reaching it was near impossible.

At first I’d been elated by the protection offered by these four solid brick walls. I’d been grateful that those four flights of stairs I’d once complained about daily were now the only thing separating me from the horrors that lay in wait beneath. But my sanctuary had quickly become my own personal prison.

I should have run. I should have gotten out of town when everyone else started packing up and running. I should have done a lot of things, except…

Dropping back down on my knees, I leaned my cheek against the cool wall and tried to breathe through the dizziness and nausea that threatened to overtake me. I had to keep it together. I had to keep going. Only how could I? I was quickly running out of both food and water, I felt filthy, and as far as bathrooms went, I didn’t have a working one. Forget starving to death, the rapidly declining sanitary conditions of my apartment would kill me before I could even think of opening my last can of vegetables.

Blinking away the tears that threatened, I looked blurrily across the room, seeking the small framed portrait seated proudly on the bookshelf. Taken on our high school graduation day, a friend of mine had captured the exact moment I’d come walking off the stage, my diploma in hand, and had run straight into Brian’s waiting arms. Only his profile was visible, his reddish-brown hair, a sliver of his pale, freckled skin, both a testament to his Irish heritage.

I was the dark to his light, my black hair, dark features, and bronzed skin a carbon copy of the Sicilian parents I’d lost to the whims of a drunk driver when I was only ten years old.

The picture was my favorite, depicting my husband as he really was: a tall and muscular, hardworking construction worker from Queens. And me, my smaller, much curvier frame almost entirely engulfed by him and his love. A love I’d clung to ever since I’d lost everything.

“I’ll always protect you, Becca,” he would promise.

And he had.

We’d both grown up as wards of the state, never having very much, and constantly on guard. Back then, living inside overcrowded group homes, I’d needed a protector, a champion, someone who would take care of me when no one else cared. Someone who would love me. And Brian had done just that.

During middle school he’d always kept the bullies at bay, and then later, in high school, he’d given out a fair share of black eyes to a number of guys who’d thought a child in the system would be an easy lay.

He was my first kiss, my first and only boyfriend, my one and only love.

After high school, neither of us were able to afford college. I was lucky to find a job at a local bank, and Brian, already working construction in Manhattan, joined the Marine Reserves. It was a selfless act, to ensure that we’d always have a roof over our heads, food on our table, and clothing on our backs.

The evening before his first deployment, while I cried in earnest, begging him not to leave me, he’d promised me he’d return. Seven months later, a month after he’d come home to me, we stood in front of God, the justice of the peace, and the state of New York, and he promised to love me unconditionally, to be my faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and to cherish me for as long as we both lived. That was six years ago. We’d been friends for fifteen years, lovers for ten, married for six, and still every bit as in love with each other as we were on the day we wed.

So, no, my husband wouldn’t have forgotten me. Brian McDowell was as honest, as trustworthy, and as loving as they came. He’d never reneged on a deal, never turned his back on a friend, and had never broken a promise. Which only meant one thing.

He was dead.

Back before the infection had struck, but with the knowledge that it was making its way toward us, people everywhere had been running scared, some stockpiling resources and refusing to leave their houses, while others began resorting to looting and eventually violence. It quickly escalated, becoming too dangerous for the average citizen to be out on the streets. Despite the still calm of our quiet suburban town, Brian felt it was no longer safe for me to go to work and as usual, he was right. Two days after I called in my resignation, the bank I’d worked at since graduation was robbed, and three people were killed during the incident.

The president, in an attempt to counteract the ensuing chaos, enacted nationwide martial law. Armed military forces invaded our cities, using brute force and weapons to try to bring the citizens to heel. Brian had been among those called to duty.

Day after day, night after night, I waited, locked inside our apartment while he patrolled the streets of New York City attempting to keep the peace. Nightly, he’d call me, sounding exhausted, growing increasingly angry with each day that passed. He’d never go into specifics but I could hear the fear in his words, sense his anxiety through the phone. This went on for weeks until one day the phone calls stopped.

Two days later, I lost electricity. The following day, I lost water. And it was that same night that the screaming began. They came from every direction, some near and some far. The gunshots that followed weren’t loud enough to drown out the sheer terror, sometimes agony, that each of those screams embodied. I ignored the shouts coming from within my own building, the banging on the doors, the pleas for help. I ignored it all, tears streaming down my face, my heart racing, I ignored it and just…waited.

Sometimes I would watch people running through the street, some managing to reach their cars while others weren’t as lucky. I watched, horror-struck yet unable to look away as the infected would mob them, rip into their skin with their fingers and teeth, eating them alive. Three days later, the last scream sounded. In its place was something far worse: the quiet death that every one of the infected carried within them.

A choking whimper bubbled up in my throat, but I quickly squelched it with the slap of my hand across my mouth. Holding my breath, I squeezed my eyes closed, causing my gathering tears to leak free. As they slid, one by one, down my overheated cheeks, a violent shiver shook my body and my teeth clattered together. It wasn’t uncommon for me to feel cold despite the stifling heat. Oftentimes I found myself shaking, unable to feel warm, the bone-chilling cold coming from a place so deep inside me no amount of layers could help it. It was fear, I supposed, unescapable, and freezing me in ways no lack of temperature ever could.

At night it was worse, the only source of light the moon, every noise that sounded—the unearthly groans from the infected outside, the unexplainable creaks, scrapes, and scratches of my apartment building, even the sound of my own shortened breaths—all leaving me in a state of hair-raising, heart-pounding panic, leaving me unable to sleep.

If the lack of food didn’t eventually kill me, the fear I felt undoubtedly would. Never before had I ever felt so helpless, so unable to fathom a way out of this dire situation.

I needed Brian. I needed his bravery, his strength, his ability to think clearly when others couldn’t. I needed my husband.

That was when I heard it, a booming, resounding crack that I knew to be a gun discharging. Forgoing any sort of stealth, I jumped up to my feet and yanked the curtains open. The scene was much the same as before, only now Mrs. Havers lay still on the sidewalk, the back of her skull blown to bits. The other infected had paused in their shuffling, wildly turning their heads back and forth, seeking out the threat.

I too was seeking the owner of that bullet when another crack echoed through the streets, and directly below me another infected fell to its death. Pressing my face against the glass, I tried to see farther down the street and still saw nothing.

Two more shots were fired, and two more infected fell. Then a maelstrom of bullets zipped through the street, each one hitting their intended target. I watched, my mouth agape, as the source of the shooting finally came into view.

A lifted pickup truck, complete with rooftop fog lights, bright red flames painted along the side, and tires half my height, was rolling to a stop near the end of my block. Men and women, some dressed in plain clothes while other wore military fatigues, all of them heavily armed, were crammed into the bed of the truck, picking off one by one the few remaining infected that were slowly ambling toward them. As the truck came to a stop, several people began climbing out of the truck. Kicking the dead infected out of their way, some continued picking off what was left of the infected while the others headed toward the shops.

My heart in my throat, I flattened my nose against the glass, squinting through the glaring sunlight, eagerly searching the faces of men wearing fatigues for Brian.

Another pickup truck, this one much smaller, pulled up beside the first. Before the truck could come to a complete stop, a male figure jumped out of the back. Tall and broad, dressed in fatigues and a football helmet, he took off down the center of the street. As he drew closer to my building, I noted his broad shoulders, the mechanical and familiar way he jogged, and my heart began pounding, beating faster and faster the closer he came.

Stopping directly in front of my building, he looked up, it seemed, right at me. My breaths became short and strained as the welling excitement in my stomach grew to an unbearable level. I was going to puke, or cry, or shatter into a thousand pieces, maybe all of the above. It had to be him, it had to be him, because if it wasn’t him…

“It has to be him,” I whispered fiercely, my hands clenching into fists. “Please, God, you have to be him.”

Reaching up to grab his helmet, he pulled it off his head, revealing a familiar shock of messy reddish-brown hair. Looking directly up at me, he smiled his achingly beautiful smile, and I stopped breathing altogether.

It was him, he was here.

And I knew then I would live to see another day.

© Copyright Madeline Sheehan

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