Chapter 2: Little Powerpuff

Dustin woke up sticky and itchy. It was a good night’s sleep, comparatively. Early morning light cast pinstripes on the bedroom walls. Sam was standing in the doorway, looking ashamed and dripping with blood.

She put up her hands defensively. “The asshole tried to kill me, Dustin. Before you freak out, you should see this.”

“Sam! I knew him!” Dustin shot out of bed. He ran up and shook her, screaming. “He worked with dying children, Sam! What have you done?”

Sam let him shake her. She let Dustin scream and throw things around the bedroom. He tossed his backpack, and it clanged heavily against the far wall. Finally, he collapsed next to the bed, taking ragged breaths. He was weak. Weak of body, because he had little sleep, hardly any water, and less food. Weak of mind because he was human. She spoke then, the remorse gone from her electronic voice, “Follow me.”

Sam led Dustin to the cellar. Light streamed through the basement windows. The shapes of three bodies hung by their feet could be seen in the murk. Five gallon buckets were everywhere, full to the brim with a blackish red goop. The whole basement was thick with the hum of flies. Dustin gagged and stumbled back up the stairs.

Sam walked up to him as he sat, cross legged, in a corner of the kitchen. Dustin was holding Jim’s frame from the stovetop. The photo inside showed Jim smiling broadly next to his wife and two teenage daughters. They were all wearing matching sweaters. Finally, Dustin looked at her, “Are they his...?”

“Family? I don’t think so.” Sam’s voice was as tender as she could make it.

Dustin nodded slowly. “Where’s Jim’s body?”

“With the others.”

“Well dammit.” Dustin got up and gathered his things. He had known Jim: Jim had shook his hand and hugged Christine and smiled at Elise. Jim had a family and compassion to help dying children. Jim was a murdering cannibal. Fuck. He collected Jim’s shotgun and the shells that went with it. “Let’s go.”

Dustin and Sam walked across the street of what used to be the quaint German Village and uncovered their wagon. It was an old wooden two-wheeled pull wagon with faded green paint and shoddy rubber wheels. The shotgun and the carving knife joined a few canned goods, three half-full water jugs, and an assortment of tools and weapons.

Dustin tucked a pistol in his jeans and flapped his t-shirt over it. Dustin was 35 and appeared remarkably young for his age. But creases had begun to deepen at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Little gray hairs found their way into his sideburns.

Sam scratched at the metal device stuck to the back of her head. It was about the size of an iPod, and had four thin cords that traced the edge of her neck down inside of her hoodie and connected to a battery device inside of a fanny pack.

Sam fit a hatchet into her belt and hefted the wagon behind herself. Dustin looked Sam up and down. Her front was mostly cleaned off. He rubbed his face with dirty hands, and pressed his fingers into his eyes. His voice was muffled by his hands. “Was it quick?”

“Yes,” said Sam. She put her hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him.

Dustin pulled away from her touch and started walking down the street. One of these streets would be the last one between Dustin and his wife, it was only a matter of walking them. For her part, Sam didn’t want to find Christine. All she wanted to do was keep Dustin safe and to herself. But since she couldn’t hold him down, Sam followed.

“Thanks. For saving my life,” said Dustin begrudgingly. He watched the stunted houses and burned-out car frames as they walked. Blackbirds punctuated the few standing walls they passed.

“I had to kill him,” Sam said. “We should have never taken the time to find him.”

She was right, but Dustin wasn’t in an agreeable mood. “Jim used to be a good man. He pulled a lot of strings to help my daughter with the Make A Wish—”

“I know. I have those memories. And he didn’t turn out to be Mr. Boyscout. This is a new world. You need to start acting like it.” Sam adjusted the handles of the wagon as she walked. She scanned the edges of the street constantly.

“Just because the world went to hell doesn’t mean we aren’t human,” snapped Dustin. “These are people with some good in them.”

“I’d be interested in seeing that,” said Sam dryly.

“He was just trying to survive.”

“He was fishing for survivors, killing them, and eating their bodies. He was about to do as much to us,” Sam buzzed angrily. “Whoever he was before the outbreak, he wasn’t that man anymore, and you know it. You couldn’t have known he’d change, but sticking up for him now is stupid bullshit. Don’t be stupid.”

He shut his mouth. Sometimes, the way she spoke pointedly and logically, Sam sounded just like Christine. Dustin was dizzy, his head ached and his lips were dry. For a second, his mind clouded.

“Sorry, Christine.”

“That’s not my name.”

Dustin shook his head. Of course it wasn’t. “Sam.”

Sam cocked her head to the side. “Dustin, you need rest.”

“I’m fine,” said Dustin. He tried to straighten his shoulders and focus on walking a straight line on the sidewalk. “We just need to go a little further. She’ll be there.”

It was very quiet here. The trees lining the road had become immensely overgrown, in many places building a full canopy over the road. Their leaves muffled the sounds of a dying city: car alarms, unhindered wind blowing through flattened city blocks, even the birds seemed hushed as Dustin and Sam walked the newly forestlike road. When they came to a small hill, the leafy branches finally relented, giving them an open view of the skyline.

They both stopped and stared at the angry black smudge on the horizon. The hospital was still burning. It had been at least three months, and the hospital was still burning. Dustin let his shoulders slump, then. The weight of his pack dragged him to the ground. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but this wasn’t it.

Sam tried to comfort him, “If she was there, she probably left a sign for you.”

“Is that what you would do?” Dustin turned to look at her, his face was earnest, and Sam knew what he was asking. She searched her databanks for memories.

“If I was alive and awake, you’d be the only thing I thought about,” she said truthfully. “If Christin

e’s alive, there will be a note.”

Dustin bowed his head and took a giant breath. He put his hands on the cracked sidewalk and braced to stand up again.

“Speaking of former bodies, I’m pretty sure this one is reaching its expiration date.” Sam held up one of her hands, which was mostly sinew and bone. She lifted her head and showed the gash in her neck. It was steadily oozing black.

“Oh,” said Dustin. There was a sound at the back of his throat, like he was trying to keep something down. “Thank you, that’s enough. Do we have any gloves left? Scarves?”

“I won’t be able to pass as human for much longer. I’m developing quite the aura. Of flies.”

“Alright, we’ll rest and plan.” Dustin relented. A giant wrought-iron fence rose to their left, framing a dog park. They moved towards it. Once inside, they made quick note of the area. The four foot tall fence surrounding the area was ornate and black. It was broken in one place, where a large vehicle had smashed through it. A shelter stood in the center of the area, and from it red gravel walkways segmented the park diagonally into fifths. There was a lone water fountain in one corner next to an overgrown tennis court. In another corner, the trees had grown wild, intertwining with the nearby power lines.

Dustin couldn’t see past the chalet to the far side of the park, but he could see a children’s playground a little further on. His legs were heavy, despite the sleep he got last night. His head continued to pound, and his throat burned. His hissy fit this morning had expended more energy than he could afford.

Dustin shuffled to the playground, with Sam close behind. The rubber gravel was undisturbed; the swings in perfect order. The bright orange plastic slides were unstained by blood. The jungle gym had a solid blanket of crows on every rung.

Dustin stumbled to the slides and sat. He shrugged off the heavy pack with a groan, and leaned back on the slide. He could feel the static pull at his hair as he rested his face on the smooth, cold surface. He closed his eyes and breathed deep.

Thud! Dustin’s eyes snapped open. There was a water jug next to his face.

“Drink,” said Sam. She set the wagon down and climbed onto the slide next to him. Dustin pulled off the cap and raised the jug to his lips. His lips trembled, and his throat caught as he tried to swallow. He sputtered, but it went down; slowly.

Sam brushed her fingers along the edge of her machete as she watched the perimeter.

“They build these slides with two metal bolts at the bottom. All plastic except for these bolts.” Dustin edged up on one elbow and touched one of the bolts idly. His voice was far away with the memory. “Us kids, we’d build up all this static electricity flying down these things and hit the bolts with our little pasty legs. Zap! I remember Elise sitting at the top of a slide, her hair already starting to rise. I thought, her face will be so funny.”

“Because she was about to get the piss shocked out of her?”

Dustin laughed despite himself, it made him choke on the water again, and he brought a hand up to keep it all in. His face turned stormy as he began scratching at the bolt, “Yeah, well, I never said I was a good father.”

“You were,” said Sam. She set the machete down and brushed the back of Dustin’s head. He 

pulled away from her gesture, and Sam remembered how gross her hands were. “Sorry.”

“You don’t know that, Sam.” Dustin frowned at her assertion. “I loved Elise, but that doesn’t mean I was a good dad.”

“Christine knows you were a good dad,” said Sam. “The memories I have say you were.”

Dustin looked at her then. Tears brimmed in his hazel eyes, and she looked away. “It’s true.” Sam muttered.

They sat at the end of the slides and were quiet. The crows shouted at them from time to time. Dustin finally recovered enough to talk business. “We need to get to the hospital. It’s probably a day’s walk. Then we try to find the lab. Can you hold out for that long?”

“Yes. The body is holding up fine, outside of the smell and the appearance.”

“So we might want to find another, then,” said Dustin.

“We will need more water, soon, too,” Sam replied.

“The hospital will probably have water.”

“There’s no guarantee.”

She was right again. Dustin screwed the water jug closed and set it on the ground beneath the slide. “Alright, If we find a place to stay for the night, we can spend the rest of the day scavenging. We’ll look for another body, too. A village like this has to have something of value.”

Dustin looked past the fence at the surrounding houses, the trash filled streets, and the empty skeletons of burned out minivans. “There’s probably a Prius around here.”

“Because you like sissy cars?”

“Batteries, Sam. How’s your charge right now?”

“Fine. I’ll recharge before dark so you can sleep. We don’t need to stop for a few hours yet.”

“Plan?” Dustin continued to scratch at the rusted bolt in the slide.

“Let’s walk a few more miles into town, find a good stronghold like a bank or a gas station, or a high rooftop, hole up and wait for dawn.”

“OK.” Sam scooted closer to Dustin and rested her head on his shoulder. Her body was cold, and felt unnaturally soft; squishy. He eventually put an arm around her. Sam closed her eyes, thankful that Dustin forgave her decomposition, even if temporarily.

They had approached Columbus from the south, and were coming up on downtown quickly. The tallest buildings looked like giant spoons had scooped away large portions, but most were still standing. Buzzards hovered amidst the skyscrapers. From their perspective, Dustin imagined that the scavengers could see all the streets converge like veins on the plagued heart of the city.

Dustin turned around and looked just beyond the fence. There stood a little girl, head cocked, still wearing her Power Puff Girls backpack. Her dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, her small face was clear of blood. Her watery blue eyes stared into nothingness. “Hey, Sam.”

Sam pulled away from Dustin’s shoulder and looked where he was pointing. “Perfect.”

Chapter 1: The Man with the Shotgun

“Don’t you move!” The shotgun wavered in the man’s hands. There were two people standing in the driveway. "I’m serious, motherfuckers!”

“Jim? Jim, please,” pleaded one of the strangers, a man. Only his silhouette could be seen in the darkness. The other shadow-person looked bored, arms crossed as it leaned against the mailbox.

“How do you—who are you?” said Jim. He squinted his beady eyes. Sweat collected on his forehead.

“It’s me, Dustin,” said the first shadow, stepping into view. Dustin was tall with broad shoulders, and he wore a heavy denim jacket and a backpack. His face was thin, his hair dirty blond and unkempt. Both of his hands were raised. “You worked for the Make a Wish Foundation, right?”

Jim’s face scrunched up, and he passed a hand over his bald head. “I don’t remember you.”

Dustin spoke calmly. “My daughter, Elise. She visited the space observatory, got to meet Neil DeGrasse Tyson. You set up a bunch of it.”

“The scientist mom and dad.” Jim wiped his mouth with a trembling hand. “Small world.”

“That’s me,” said Dustin as he remained frozen in the driveway, “The world is smaller every day.”

“How did you... what do you want?” said Jim.

“Just a roof over our heads for the night. I’d love to explain beyond that, but it’s getting dark. We have food to trade,” said Dustin, lowering his hands.

He gestured to the sky. The clouds were giant and rolling, deeply purple with a swath of angry red at the horizon. The night would be thick black and full of deadly promise.

“Right, come in.” Jim took a step back from the porch steps. His skin was pasty and loose. His lips were a bright red bloom in the midst of a sprawling dirty black beard. Jim rattled his shotgun in one hand, “Sorry for the manners. Is that your wife?”

Dustin paused and waved at the person leaning against the mailbox. “No, she’s my traveling partner. She’s safe. Her name is Sam.”

Sam slouched past both men and into the house. Dustin and Jim followed. When they were all in, Jim took one more look into the night: his house was one of many stacked end to end like victorian Legos. Beyond the darkness, however, the rest of the neighborhood was torn apart. There would be smoldering fires in the rubble of family homes.

Jim lit a tiki torch in the darkness, and the ragged corners of the living room flickered into existence. He bent over and set the shotgun in an umbrella holder, groaning as he stood. “Welcome to my home sweet home.”

All of the furniture had been pushed to the walls, the carpets were covered in mud, and the ceiling was black from soot. The smell of kerosine was sharp, masking a stench that was not immediately visible. A cat clock glared at them from the far wall, its pendulum tail frozen in place. The house groaned.

They all stared at each other silently. Sam wandered to a ratty loveseat and deflated into it with a huff. She kicked her feet up on a coffee table with a loud bang.

“We have peaches!” Dustin unzipped his backpack and pulled out two cans. The butt of his pistol glinted in the torchlight.

“I don’t want to offend you, but,” Jim smiled nervously, his teeth sparkled yellow in the torchlight, “I have a no weapons policy beyond the front door. Think of it like taking off your shoes.”

“Of course,” Dustin pulled the gun out of his pants and set it next to the shotgun. He looked pointedly at Sam, who was fixated on the cat clock.

“Sam,” said Dustin. She sighed with an electronic buzz. Sam removed a hatchet tucked in the back of her pants, a machete from underneath her hoodie, and a snub nosed revolver from her pants pocket. She dropped them all on the ground beneath her chair, as if she didn’t have the energy to walk them to the front door.

“That all?” Jim cracked another nervous smile.

“That’s most of them,” said Sam. Her voice was a mechanical hiss. She bounced her foot on the coffee table and crossed her arms, staring at Jim.

Sam looked about twenty and she was impossibly thin. The hoodie she wore hung from her shoulders like a sail. Most of her face hid in the shadow of the hood, and her eyes were orange sparks in a sea of black.

“Sam was a smoker,” explained Dustin. “She had a tracheotomy, that’s why she sounds weird. She also doesn’t like strangers, but she’s harmless. I’m the conversationalist, obviously.”

“Ah.” Jim’s eyes widened as he watched the peaches. He licked his cracked lips and scratched at his beard absently. “Let’s sit in the kitchen.”

They followed Jim. The linoleum floor was pocked with burns and spotted with mouse shit. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, covered in black mold and dried food. Large green-black stains emanated from the bottom of the refrigerator, which stalked at the edges of the light, hulking and mustard yellow. There were three bar stools at a central island. “Sit, everyone!”

Jim grabbed bowls and spoons, wiping each with his shirt. The dishes somehow looked dirtier afterwards. “So how did you find me?”

“Long story short, I was here in Columbus with my wife a few months back. We got separated and I ended up in Washington D.C. Now I’m back trying to find her. I had your address from a while ago, and I knew it was a long shot, but I stopped in to see if you were here.” Dustin popped the tab on the peaches can and Jim shuddered with delight at the wet splock it made.

“Sounds like that story’s a lot longer,” said Jim. He set the bowls down and smiled unconsciously for the meal to come.

“We’ve all got long stories Dillweed,” said Sam. Her face was still in total darkness, but Jim got the impression that she was glaring at him. “The city is a wreck, the streets are overrun, but here you are. Still playing house all alone.”

“Yeah, sure. Well,” Jim coughed uncomfortably. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at Dustin. “Like you said, long story short: I was a part of a group outside the city. Then I wasn’t. So I moved back in because I didn’t know where else to go. Been here for a few weeks.”

“And then you weren’t.” Sam continued to stare at Jim. She tensed slowly, like a spring.

“Sorry, Jim,” said Dustin, glancing at Sam. He set the peaches down. “But that seems like a part of the story we should hear.”

Jim scratched his neck and shifted his eyes from Dustin to Sam. His face cracked with worry. “Listen, I’m not infected. I swear I’m not.”

“That’s fine, just tell us what is going on,” Dustin raised his hands and spoke soothingly. Sam continued to coil.

“I’m immune, alright,” Jim shrugged quickly and started flailing his arms, “I was bit, okay? But I didn’t turn and it’s been a long time and I swear I’m not infecte—”

Sam exploded from her seat, knocking the table aside and grabbing Jim’s right hand. Her momentum flung them against the refrigerator. She pulled his hand up over his head and held it there. Jim looked at Dustin sheepishly, his hand still holding a pistol. “I’m not infected. I’m not.”

Dustin got up slowly, and pulled the gun out of Jim’s hand. “Fine. You’re not infected.”

“It was just a precaution,” babbled Jim, “I don’t wanna kill you, but the group I was with, they got a no tolerance policy. One bite, one scratch, they’ll burn you alive. I mean, zombies haven’t killed shit compared to these guys. I ain’t infected.” He turned to Sam, “You’re strong!”

“You’re a twat.”

“Listen,” said Dustin, “We got off on the wrong foot. Jim, we’re not here to hurt you. We just want to stay for the night. You let us do that, and then we’ll be on our way. You can have the peaches. Fair trade.”

“Yeah, yeah sure.” Jim squirmed beneath Sam’s grip.

“Let’s see the bite.”

Sam let go of Jim, and he reached for his shirt. “I’m just going to pull up my shirt, okay?”

Dustin motioned for him to get on with it. Jim lifted the cuff slowly, and exposed a festering wound in the shape of a human bite. Dustin leaned down, “It’s infected.”

“No!” Jim swung a meaty arm into Dustin’s face. Caught off guard, Dustin reeled back into the overturned table. Sam grabbed Jim by the throat and pushed him against the fridge. He looked over at Sam, her face still, amazingly, deep in the shadow of her hood. “Sorry.”

Dustin untangled himself from the table, his calm demeanor evaporating. “Sure, bad word choice. The wound’s infected. You’re not. That’s obvious. Because you are fucking talking. Zombies don’t do that, and people who are infected this long don’t either. Just calm the fuck down. Can you do that?”

Jim nodded. He looked at Sam again, “You smell really bad.”

“You’re still a twat.”

“One more time,” said Dustin, exasperated, “We’ll leave if we have to, but I’d rather stay the night with a roof, and I think you would rather have a meal.”

Jim nodded again. Dustin looked at Sam, and she released him. Dustin offered Jim a hand, “I can treat that wound, too.”

Peaches covered the far wall, and the bowls were scattered everywhere. They reset the table. Jim gathered the peaches and scraped the juice off the wall into his bowl. “I’m sorry. It’s so hard to trust anyone.”

“You don’t say?” Sam was practically vibrating with anger.

“Right. Can we start again?” Jim set out the bowls and spoons and set the recovered peaches in the center of the table. Sam waved him on. “Okay, when the infection thing started, I joined a neighborhood watch. We got proactive on the zombies. Then we started tracking down people we thought were infected. We called it NT. No tolerance. Open wounds, cuts, bites, didn’t matter. Dragged them into the streets and burned their bodies. Their houses. Their stuff. About a month ago, I got bit and so I ran. I came back here, I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Family?” asked Dustin.

Pain flickered across Jim’s face. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and forced out a quiet, “no.”

“How have you survived since then?” asked Dustin.

Jim shrugged noncommittally, the peaches were all he could look at now, “It’s been hard.”

“Eat.” Said Dustin. He filled his own bowl from the second can. Sam played with her empty bowl. “My wife Christine and I were located at the Riverside Hospital when the fire bombings happened about three months ago. We were working for the government on a project to try and help the infection. We got separated when the hospital blew up. The military outfit that was watching over us took me and a few other scientists and I ended up outside of D.C. I came back to find her, and I met Sam on the way.”

Jim was making loud slurping noises, fitting entire peach halves into his mouth. His eyes bulged with ecstasy. He looked at Sam.

“I like the dark mysterious vibe I’ve got going.” Sam fashioned her hand into a gun and shot at him sarcastically. So much for new beginnings.

Jim turned back to Dustin. “Did your daughter...?”

“No. She was gone long before the zombies.” Dustin stared at his bowl. Finally, he said, “It’s probably better that way.”

“Yeah,” said Jim, glancing at a picture frame sitting on the stove. It was turned away from them. Dustin knew then what happened to Jim’s family.

“You can come with us,” offered Dustin. Sam’s head snapped to, and her fingernails started to grind into her plastic bowl.

Jim smiled ruefully. “I dono. This is still my home.” There was a maniacal glint in his eye, and his eyes flitted back to the frame.

The rest of their dinner was silent. Jim showed t

hem the sleeping arrangements: there was a soggy couch in the living room and a relatively well-kept bed in the guest room. Dustin took the bed, and Sam took the couch.

Hours passed. The wind howled and the house creaked like a tired old man. Jim stared at the ceiling, which, despite his best efforts, was starting to fall apart in giant clumps. How odd to be visited by specters from a past life. And now they offered a new life: to join them on the road.

Leaving would mean getting away from endless starvation and claustrophobia, but it also meant abandoning the spirits. Sometimes Jim swore he could hear his wife wandering the halls, and the laughter of his daughters in darkened bedrooms. He would run from room to room, mad from thirst and hunger, calling their names. On the worst days, when the wind howled through broken windows, Jim could hear their screams, and screamed with them, curled on the floor, delirious and broken.

Jim was sure they lingered here, trying to tell him something. Something about... something. Regardless, those peaches were the best meal he had had since the last roamers stopped by. Their carcasses had long since run out of edible meats. He wondered absently, if they hung in his basement long enough, whether they would turn into jerky.

No matter, his mind was made. Jim reached into his dresser drawer and pulled out a long carving knife. It was a new world, and this world had new rules. He really would feel bad about Dustin. Sam, however, he would relish her death.

“Thank you, Gwen,” he whispered to the darkness.

Jim snuck into the living room, melting from one shadow to another. He leaned in close to Sam. The smell coming off of her almost made him gag.

Jim raised the knife and pulled her hood back with his other hand. She had a small face with an upturned nose, and her ears stuck out too far on either side of her face. She was cute, in a mousey way. She couldn’t be much older than his daughters when they died. Jim shook his head. No turning back now. He laced his fingers into her hair and held tight.

Jim stabbed into Sam’s neck with a sharp, piercing blow. Her large eyes snapped open. He stabbed her again. The knife slid in easily and came back out gummy with congealed blood. Confused, he cursed softly, “What the hell?”

Sam’s cold hand palmed Jim’s face and muffled the surprised scream. The bones in Sam’s fingertips pressed through her rotting flesh as she squeezed.

“I knew you were a twat,” she hissed.