WALKABOUT

by Jordan Miller

Get busy living or get busy dying. I heard that in a movie once, or maybe read it in a book, I’m not sure which. Either way, it applies, and I keep moving almost constantly. I stop to sleep and eat, and spend most of the rest of my time walking. Moving forward, or at least it feels like it. Don’t know where I’m going, but I’m guessing I’ll figure that out when I get there. Until then I stay on the move. I get busy living because there’s nothing else better to do. No place safe to stay anymore, no place secure.

When I can find a beach I walk there. It’s a little more work to trudge through the sand, sure, but the sand feels nice after miles on unforgiving concrete. When I can’t find sand or grass I walk sidewalks and marvel at streets I can barely recognize anymore amongst the wasteland that was once a familiar coastal town in South Carolina. A town I called home.

Did I say South Carolina? I meant North. Funny how the details start to get fuzzy. Stuff that was second nature to you before just sort of... falls away after a while. What was the name of this town anyway? Hard to recall. Details have been a bit hazy since The Event.

I’m not sure how long ago it happened specifically because cell phones are useless, my watch broke weeks ago, and the east coast lost power a month before that. Days and weeks, I’ve discovered, are nothing more than a temporal house of cards built by the society that requires them. When society falls away, so does everything else. Days and weeks become drops of rain disappearing into the river of time that flows seamlessly from day into night and back again. No distinctions other than the occasional chill the air brings to your skin. On and on time trudges forward, much in the same way I do, pressing on because there is nothing else left to do. Every day like the last, an existence in deja vu.

My best guess is that it was a bomb. Nuclear. Had to be. Who knows who set it off, but I don’t know what else could have brought on so much destruction and more specifically the side effects that came shortly after. The forgetting is part of that, I’m certain, and much of the effects seem to be mental, but it’s physical too. I can feel it in my bones when I wake up in the mornings. My guess is radiation sickness. Probably only a matter of time before it does me in, but until then I’m going to keep pushing on. I’ll keep on walking and hoping there is something good waiting around the next corner and maybe one of these days I’ll even be right.

It fucked us pretty hard, whether it was a bomb or an asteroid or a rogue virus or whatever, and now all that’s left are small groups of survivors and the occasional poor doomed roaming individuals. I can currently be counted amongst the latter. I was with a group at first, eight in total. We wandered together and hunted for food, which we shared, but we were ambushed on the road one day and the rest of my group were killed by some of the strange folk. People that have sprung up after everything went to shit. I don’t know who they are or why they do what they do, but the strange folk are violent and most often if you see them, it’s because they’re trying to kill you already. I was lucky, I guess you could say, but depending how you look at it you could say I was the only unlucky one out of my whole group. Same difference, I figure, and keep walking.

After that I went on alone and have been good at keeping a low profile ever since. As I think I mentioned, whatever The Event was, it fucked up your memory pretty bad so I made a routine to keep myself sharp. After waking up I started each day by saying my name, how I was feeling, and what I was going to do that day. I would say those things to myself just to help stay grounded because the fallout of The Event got worse over time and you started to get the feeling you were getting lighter, and one day you might just float away. Your body would stay here, but the rest of you feels like it’s getting ready to just take off like a balloon out of a child’s grip so you reach desperately for something, anything, to keep you tied down.

Today I woke up and told myself My name is Ashley, I’m feelin’ fine, and today I’m going to walk through the south side of town. It wasn’t exactly Robert Frost, and feelin’ fine was a pretty pathetic lie, but it helped me start the day all the same.

Some days my name is hard to recall and it takes me a few seconds to get it, and that scares me. In those times I remember the bullies who used to tease me because I was a boy with a girl’s name, the kids from school who would ask if I was I going to wear a dress to the school dance this year? I think of those grade school tormentors and I remember my name, and I also think that all of them are probably dead right now.

I think about Rodney Chambers and how he never gave me a moment of peace throughout middle and junior high school, and how he used to wait for me in the hallways just to make my life a living hell. I think about his stupid laugh that always sounded heavy, like something rotten was going to bubble out of his mouth and over his acne covered chin. I think about how a few weeks before The Event I saw Rodney working the counter at a gas station just outside town. He had a little television behind the counter playing some sitcom with a studio audience and was watching it like a mental patient staring at an empty wall. He barely looked up as he handled our transaction. I think of how I pretended I didn’t recognize him and walked out with an indiotic smile across my face. How I got in the car and actually laughed. Rodney is almost certainly dead now. For sure. I think about those all those things and it helps me remember that my name is Ashley.

All the while my legs carry me towards my destination, which today apparently is somewhere the south side of town. I don’t think too hard about where I go, and today something tells me south is the way. Part of me fears if I stop walking then I’ll just go to sleep and forget everything altogether and never get up again, then moss and fauna would grow up overtop of me and I would turn to stone, staring blankly at the sky forever wondering hopelessly what am I? Walking keeps the rot at bay, so I just don’t stop. I just only wish I knew where I was going.

It’s getting hard to ignore the twisting pains in my stomach. I’m always hungry now it seems and there’s never anything to eat. I used to hunt my food, but there are far fewer animals left. I haven’t seen one for days and it’s so rare to find anything left behind of any substance. Best to just keep walking, maybe I’ll find something. That feeling of deja vu again. Happens a lot now. So much of what I do now seems more like instinct and less like a choice, but anything is better than stopping. Stopping means death.

So I pass through intersections of streets I once knew but now I am a stranger and I walk them as if it were the first time. I enter a part of town I have never seen, but feel like I know it intimately, always staying careful to keep to the shadows. If there should be some of the strange folk around I don’t want to be surprised, and if it’s something that can be my dinner I would like to be the one doing the surprising. I’m entering a fenced backyard and approaching a house that seems vaguely familiar when I feel a sudden rush of that weightlessness and I’m about to float away for good, the final effects of The Event finally taking my hand and walking me into death and whatever blackness might await a poor soul beyond the realm of this life. How terrible an idea that this is the only existence we’ll ever know and to realize in the final instant that we never truly appreciated it, however fickle it may be.

My name is Ashley and I’m feelin’ mighty fine, today I’m going to walk through this backyard. Right now. I’m back. That was a close one. The effects are getting stronger, whatever they are, and I can feel that thing in my bones again. It’s actually not so much that I feel something in my bones as I am hyper aware of my bones. I can feel them more than I can feel muscle or skin or anything else. I feel like a walking tree and I imagine that I can hear my skeleton creek with each step like old tree limbs in a high wind.

Lord of the Rings! What was that, a book or a movie? I can’t remember but I think it was a movie, and I’m pretty sure there were walking trees in those movies. That’s something! My name is Ashley and I remember the walking trees! That’s good. As long as I keep remembering and keep walking, things might be okay. Something good might still be coming around the next corner, or even inside this very house. Standing at the back door, the feeling of deja vu is stronger than ever. Why was there a sudden unwillingness to pull it open and go inside?

A sound not so far away. Popping sounds like fire walks. No. That’s not right. What are they called? Oh yeah, fireworks, right, like on Fourth of July. Whatever they are called, those sounds usually mean the strange folk are nearby and I should find somewhere to hide so inside the house I go. Usually I stick to the streets, but for the first time my wandering feet have brought me unknowingly into a backyard and up to someone’s door, but with the sounds of the strange folk nearby I’m happy for the temporary shelter.

Inside the house I’m overwhelmed by an ocean of familiar things I can’t quite recall. Everything from the paintings on the walls to the pattern on the kitchen floor are like memories of a dream that as I try to grasp, only drift further away. I’m used to walking in a semi-coherent haze, fighting constant frustrations trying to remember the names of things from my world’s previous life as invisible radiation slowly depletes my mental well. This, however, is something else entirely. This is like standing in front of a locked door that’s bulging at the hinges, but without the key to unlock it. Frustrating isn’t nearly the right word, but coming up with the right words hasn’t exactly been my strong suit lately.

I reach out and brush the walls as I walk down the hallway, relishing the dry smoothness against my rough hands. It feels like silk against my blisters. I see something hanging on the wall and have to stop. I stare transfixed at a photograph that I can’t explain. It’s incredible and beautiful and sad and at the same time like staring at a total paradox. An offense to the very senses. Something that defies all reason and terrifies me. I know that I know the people in this photograph, I just don’t know who they are.

In the photo there’s a man sitting on a bench with his arm around a woman with maybe half a dozen four legged things around them. The man is wearing a tan sweater and smiling like it’s the best day of his life, and maybe it is for all I know. The woman looks about the same, smiling radiantly and wearing a knit cap with autumn hair hanging down to her shoulders. The four legged things are in various sorts of disarray but a couple of them have managed to actually sit and look at the camera. I think I remember… shit! Something about that goddamn picture made me smile and it hurt like a motherfucker. My skin is so dry and the edges of my mouth split on either side when I did it. Not as much blood as I thought there would be. Counting my blessings, I suppose.

I look at the man in the photo and I know I know him. I know it. I do. I look at the other photographs hanging on the wall and that’s when I see it. Not in one of the photos, but caught in the reflection of the glass. My face. Me. I look down at the photograph again and now I can see it, now I remember. My name is Ashley and I am the man in this photograph. I am the man smiling like it’s the best day of his life, only now when I try to smile the skin breaks apart at the corners of my mouth and black stuff drips down over my chin. No wonder I didn’t recognize him at first. I look at all the four legged creatures (dogs, I think they are called dogs) and at the woman I’m putting my arm around in the photo. She’s beautiful and so absolutely happy. It’s so hard now to imagine a world where people could smile like this. The people in this photo don’t have a care in the world and I wish I could go back and tell them to appreciate it while it lasted because something was coming. What was it though? I wish I could remember.

I look again at the woman in the photograph and feel that deja vu like never before. I tell myself I know her name. I know I do. I love this woman. This photograph is proof of that, so come on! Come on and remember her name. You can do it. I think of the dogs and remember things. Road trips with a small herd of them in the back seat of the car. Camping in the Outer Banks. Kissing the woman in the photograph under the shade of a beach umbrella. Backyard bonfires and how the lines of her smile made the most beautiful shadows in the flicker of fire light. Her name. Say her name. Don’t float away now, look at the woman in the photo and remember her name. I can feel it on the tip of my tongue. I can feel the shape of her name in my mind but can’t translate it to words.

Sounds. Inside the house with me. I drop the photo to the floor, making a loud crashing sound which is probably not the smartest move. Three dogs round the corner and stop, teeth bared and snarling. One of them is comically small, but clearly meant just as much business as its larger companions. I survived The Event and avoided being killed by the strange folk, and now I was going to meet my end at the paws of three hardened house pets? Not likely.

I stepped forward to make my attack when a person, an honest-to-god person, walked around the corner and I saw it was a woman. Not just any woman, but the one from the photograph, the woman who’s name I was trying to remember. Why had I been trying to remember it again? It’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t think of it.

I don’t know this woman but I do know she is pointing one of the death things at me and there’s not much I can do. I’ve seen these death things before, they are instruments of murder used by the strange folk. The death thing in her hand makes a loud sound like fireworks (or was it fire walks?) and I feel a chunk of my right shoulder explode away. I see it splatter across the wall and onto some of the framed photographs.

Whoever this woman is she is most certainly one of the strange folk. Always trying to kill, always trying to harm. I see that much of my right shoulder and upper arm are gone, but I don’t feel anything. That’s fine, better that way. Maybe the pain will set in later, but for now there is the strange woman to deal with and her three creatures. I know enough about the strange folk from my experiences with them to know they are much less of a threat when they are by themselves. Besides the four legged things, this one is by herself, so I go for her. She’s screaming and doing something with the death thing in her hand when I get to her and take her by the throat. The four legged things bite at me, taking chunks where they can but causing no serious injury, certainly not enough to stop me now. I pin the strange woman against the wall and show her I know how to deal with strange folk. The secret to keeping alive after The Event has always been finding food, and the murderous strange folk with their firework weapons make the best food. The only food really, though sometimes the four legged things can work in a pinch.

With her pinned down under my strength I bite down into the side of her face. The flesh tears away so easily and the taste is truly divine. One bite through her neck opens an artery that jets out blood in large spurts and I try my best not to miss a drop. That was life shooting out of her. I take more meat from her face, neck and chest. I found my way to the soft flesh of her belly, full of the best and tastiest parts and without the hassle of those white branches that protect the parts above. Ribbers, I think they are called, but that doesn’t sound quite right. Either way, her screams eventually stop and the four legged things run away with nothing left to protect. Inside her soft flesh I find many warm, steaming things to satisfy my hunger. I take my time and eat my fill, no telling when the next meal may come along. The taste is exquisite.

I finish my meal and think that it’s high time I start walking again when I catch a glimpse of a photograph on the ground. It must have fallen off the wall somehow, but the sight of it makes me stop and inside something hurts like it was stabbed with a hot knife. In the photo is a man with his arm around a woman and around them are many of the four legged things. I have no idea who either of them are and not sure why it caught my attention in the first place. Just more photos of strange folk who would gladly kill you the first chance they got if they met you on the street, so best to get up and keep walking before that happens.

On the way out of the house I pass a mirror and find myself transfixed once more. An image there in the mirror. Myself I suppose, in what they call a reflection. Who calls it that? I don’t know anymore but I stare at it all the same, mesmerized by it. The bluish gray of my sagging skin, the yellow filmy eyes set back into deep cavernous sockets, the ruined shoulder with bits hanging down in useless chunks from decaying flesh.

At the corner of the ghoul’s mouth are long cracks where the dead skin has broken. It almost looks like I’m smiling, even though I’m sure I am not. The image in the mirror reminds me vaguely of a man I had seen once who had been smiling like it was the best day in his life. Where had I seen that? A book? A movie? I’m not sure but as I stare into the vacant eyes of the ghoul in the mirror, I can’t help the feeling that part of me is just floating away and the thing left staring at itself is nothing more than a husk. A vacant taxi. Bah. I’ve always been one for frivolous fancies, probably should go.

I leave the house and walk on, because that is all that is left to do. Walking is survival, as I am fairly sure I’ve said. I hear distant popping sounds and know it would be best to keep to the shadows. I’m not sure where I’m going but my feet will most surely take me there without fail. Get busy living or get busy dying. I heard that in a movie once, or maybe read it in a book. Can’t remember but either way it applies. Just as much for the living as it is for the dead in times like these.

It’s starting to get dark now but I think I’m going to keep walking for a while. Walking and hoping that maybe there’s something good waiting around the next corner, and who knows, one of these days I’ll even be right.