May 23, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 32.24 Hours / 1.34 Days - 10:14 PM

Eury Morrissey

We were a mile away from the alleyway when my hearing finally came back in full. We had been staying close to the facades of the buildings that lined the street, hidden from the moonlight under the overhangs and awnings of the businesses and apartments that lined the street. Even though my hearing had returned, the screaming that I had been hearing for the last half an hour wasn’t coming from tinnitus, instead, it was the Banshee, and the mob that she was able to gather was still close behind us. On one hand, for the most part, I was right, the majority of the infected were slow, and if we moved a bit quicker than a fast walk we put some distance between us easily. That being said, no matter how fast we moved, no matter how far we thought we got, her screech was seemingly always just a single street away. And as an added problem, I was suffering something-fierce after turning my O2 back down to eighty-percent. That way, I could stretch the thirty or so hours of O2 I had remaining to a little bit closer to forty. But you’d think that after nearly a week of lower O2 I’d get used to it or something. But if that was the case, it was all irrelevant to our situation right now. Before, there was no running. There wasn’t even any jogging. Really, we spent more time standing still than we did moving when it was just Kelly and me. With Alaska and Boyde around to take care of whoever came at us, we were able to move a lot faster but that didn’t mean we were invincible, not by any stretch. It was obvious that the Banshee could do something to gather the others, and it was that ability that was the most dangerous thing for us at this moment.

Alaska led us around the corner, depositing us on a street that I finally recognized. It was one of the last streets before the bridge that led out of town towards my parent’s house. Finally, even after losing the LOX and constantly being hunted by the Banshee, I felt a little bit of hope. That is, I would’ve felt some hope, if the street in front of us, and the highway that it connected to, weren’t anything less than a sea of infected. What was easily a third of the town’s population were infected, shambling, and standing between us and the bridge.

Alaska, and Boyde behind her, stood stiff, watching the closest of the masses, bruised and blue, practically black in the shadow covered night, shambling nowhere in particular. It had been days of watching these people devolve. Descend from humans, true and undeniable, into whatever they are now. Defined more by their sickness and pain than anything else. And in my mind, they’re defined by something even simpler than that. They were fear. Fear that walked, shambled, and never stopped until a bullet was put into them. I guess that was the one thing they still had in common with humans.

The rest of us watched Boyde and Alaska, waiting for their decision. After all, combined, the two of them managed to put us into our biggest danger yet, and save us from it at the same time.

Without a word, Alaska glanced back at the rest of us. The worry that had become a permanent fixture on her face since leaving the sheriff’s station was even more severe than ever. Her eyes met mine, and she made her decision. She pointed directly across the street.

Low to the ground, and as slowly as we could manage, we crept across the hill-top intersection. Looking down towards the highway, it was another familiar sight. Not exactly the same, but still too familiar. An unknowable amount of danger, just That first night, which felt like it happened months ago, came to me fresh as could be. That night I watched a man die. I never allowed myself to realize that until this moment. There was no way that he didn’t, but in my mind, I was quick enough to ignore it. Another item to add to the list of things that I could hate myself for.

Across the intersection, Boyde began trying the doors, understanding Alaska’s next move without asking. After the third door, a glass front door opened, revealing a short entryway and a set of stairs leading up into the darkness above. Our hands full, Alaska grabbed Kelly’s flashlight, lighting the way for Boyde to clear the way up. Through a thin wooden door at the top, we were in a small office, I didn’t catch the name of but looked too boring to be anything but an insurance company or maybe a real estate firm. Windows led from the hallway into the offices, and from there out to the street beyond. They cleared the offices quickly, and to my supreme relief, there wasn’t even a whiff of vomit or shit. It was an island of boring normalcy that I would have loved to savour. If I wasn’t on the shortest deadline of my life.

“We can’t stay here,” I said the moment the door leading back downstairs was closed.

Alaska looked at me, but after an exasperated sigh, she did nothing but drop the shotgun onto the front desk and walked into an office. Boyde following suit, followed her into the office, only to return to the hallway a half-second later with the door closing behind him. He stood still, blocking the door.

“No, there’s no fucking way we can stay here! C’mon! Alaska.” It would've been more effective had I been speaking with the door itself, the amount of attention that Boyde paid me.

Boyde turned to give the rest of us an explanation but as he opened his mouth the only sound that rang through the building was the Banshee’s melodic howl. Satisfied that served as a reason enough, Boyde walked over to the front desk and collapsed into the chair there.

Kelly slipped one of the E-tanks behind the desk, and Davis did the same. Davis, who looked even more exhausted than Boyde, just found a dark corner and curled up in it, closing his eyes immediately. Kelly, the only one still standing other than me, approached me with all the severity of an oncologist ready to ruin my life again.

“Just… Just take a break.” He didn’t bother to stop walking until he reached the last door in the short hall. Walking in, he left the door open behind him. Blindsided, and shocked, I just stared back at the space that he had just stumbled out of. The emptiness that Kelly had just been in felt just a little more empty than it should’ve.

Standing in the middle of the office, with Boyde and Davis exhausted and resting to one side, and Alaska and Kelly bottling themselves up in offices, I couldn’t help but feel like the only one who realized exactly how deadly this situation turned.

Because the only one that is truly in trouble here is you. Did you forget? The rest of them don’t have a ticking clock like you do.

Often, there wasn’t a damn thing that my rational brain would take from inner-bitch. Not a single iota of agreement as long as I thought about it for a minute. But at that moment, there wasn’t a damn thing that my mind could come up with to disagree with that thought. Nothing that didn’t sound half-hearted or braindead.

Seeing exactly how right my inner bitch was, I allowed old habits to take over. I grabbed one of the E-tanks and found my own office to sulk in. If I couldn’t beat them, why not join them! To my great annoyance, the only office remaining was the one directly across from Kelly’s chosen mausoleum. If we were all going to die anyway why not at least get our own cushy digs while doing it. Without even thinking about it I slammed the door behind me. And with a quick pull, I lowered the curtains. For the first time since leaving Alaska’s, I felt alone.

For a single second, the feeling wasn’t bad. In fact, it was relieving. But, it was exactly that, a single moment of relief.

The open window on the other side of the office gave me a view of the street. It wasn’t a good one. When we were outside the infected had been mostly stumbling around aimlessly on the lower street and the highway it led to, but now, it was like a huge mass of them had migrated up here. Hundreds of them on the street in front of the building took away any choice we had in the matter. This was going to be my mausoleum, this was it.

I looked behind the desk for a chair, only to find a sagging blue exercise ball.

“Jesus, fucking, christ. Can I not get a break?” I muttered to myself.

Resigned, I sat on the floor behind the desk. My fire poker under one hand, and my E-tank under the other. Turning down the O2 rate even further could stretch the two and a half hours on this tank to maybe another four and a half. Not a lot, but it was something.

As the O2 audibly slowed, I closed my eyes. Preparing for the waves of fire that would start in my lungs and travel to my brain as my body did everything it could to tell me that I was dying. Little did it know that I had already come to terms with my doom.

May 23, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 32.04 Hours / 1.34 Days - 10:31 PM

You awoke in an almost familiar room. At first, you were confused. The room itself was dark, lit only by the dull blue glow of the fish tank in the corner across from you. So, you convinced yourself that maybe that was the problem. In the dark all sorts of things look wrong, you tell yourself. But as the seconds drip past slower than molasses, you begin to notice things. Little mistakes, little problems that the dark should’ve hidden. As more and more inconsistencies reveal themselves to you, and as you realize that this place, this place that looks like it should be so familiar to you, was anything but. Then, you find yourself frozen in fear. As the moments pass, and you watch your breath curl out your mouth, you realize just how true that turn of phrase was, you were cold, extremely cold.

Hello?

You try to speak, but like your breath, your throat was frozen. Or was it paralyzed?

Mom? Dad?

You try to call out for them, it was their home after all. Wasn’t it? At least it looked like it was to you.

Out of the wide bay-windows, you see a still-night. Snow had fallen, they called it a freak snow-storm you recall. The barely luminescent orange of the highway street lamps that reflected off the low-grey clouds left the world all oranges, blacks, and whites. After a moment, you remember this night, the memory hazy but the emotions clear.

Dad! Please! Anyone! Mom! Again, you try and call out for your parents, you wish to get up and run, to search for them, find them and dive back into them. Back to the place that you were safe if only one more time.

For the first time since you awoke, you finally heard a noise. It was the fish tank in the corner. You didn’t realize just how quiet it had been until that moment, and now, the quiet murmur of the tank’s air supply was deafening.

“Do you honestly believe that they’re trying to keep you alive?” Hearing my voice, but not seeing the source, you once again find yourself paralyzed to the chair, afraid like a new-born kitten scared of the world. “Why would they be?”

You search the dark room frantically, begging whichever god you had suddenly become so devout to, that you could find the source of your torment. You tried to move your arms but they were nothing but melted and useless flesh, unwilling and unable to move.

“It won’t be long now.” My voice repeated over and over in your head. “I will see you soon.”

Then, in the deepest darkness, you finally saw me. My teeth, my eyes, watching you. Waiting for the moment that you slip, and then, and only then, you knew that you would become mine forever

May 23, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 31.17 Hours / 1.30 Days - 11:57 PM

I awoke to the sound of the door closing behind Alaska. Shaking off the mire of half-remembered nightmares, I tried to speak, only to find that alongside the oxygen that my lungs were screaming for, I was desperate for water. Noticing, Alaska held out a water bottle. As I turned my O2 back to a more reasonable amount, I waved her and the water over.

“You alright?”

I nodded between sips, one second of water, one second of oxygen, the only way that I could get both fast enough. I couldn’t do that again. There’s no way that I could survive at sixty-percent for that long.

“You kinda look like shit. Did I mention that?” Alaska said, confirming what I instinctively knew.

“Don’t worry, everyone has.” I could feel the dryness in my mouth flake off and gum up my words, but they got through anyway.

“Do you mind?” She said, gesturing to the empty wall beside me.

“Pull up some floor. There’s ‘nuff of it,” but as she sat, I couldn’t look her in the eyes. Every moment I was awake, I remembered more of those emotions I had been piling upon one another since seeing her again. The relief at our first meeting was immeasurable, but then, moment after moment, the problems had piled up.

“Did you look out there?” Alaska said, leaning her head against the wall.

“Yep.”

“That fucking blows, huh?”

“It’s like a damn airport out there and I’m not looking to get sick.”

“Same here.” After a few silent beats, Alaska held her hand out. As I handed her the now half-emptied bottle, she smiled. “Glad I could help.”

“Thanks, I really needed that.” The backwardness of the conversation hit me as she chuckled. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thanked you first.”

“Nah, that ain’t your style.”

“Am I really that bad?”

“Nah, it’s just your style. Would you have expected me to say thank-you if you were in my shoes?”

“I don’t know? Probably?”

Alaska laughed again. “Absolutely not. Had I not mentioned it—as a joke by the way—you wouldn’t even have thought about it. Like I said, ain’t your style.”

“I must have pretty-shitty style then,” I said taking the offered water bottle again.

“I mean…” She said pointing to my muddy and now almost falling apart boots, “you are still wearing those things.”

“I guess I am.” Even though it felt a little weird, I still smiled. The pressure of everything else—everything that we both said—was still hanging heavily in my mind, but it was always like this when I spoke to Alaska. It was minutes, not days or years like it had been before, that it would take for me to get over, or move on, or really, at least go with the flow. That was Alaska's power over me. For all my defences it only would take the lightest of prodding by her for me to lower them, just as much as she needed.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, letting the gentle hiss of my O2, and quiet sloshing of the slowly dwindling water bottle fill the room instead. The bottle finally empty, Alaska twisted it shut and placed it on the ground beside her.

Then, suddenly, and with an unexpected burst of enthusiasm, she turned to me and grabbed my hand.

“I really am sorry. About last night, and everything that happened before the clinic, and…” Alaska, let out an exasperated sigh, closing her eyes, she muttered under her breath “fuck,” then with a sharp breath she continued, “and for what happened when we got here, and just like being a total bitch back at the station to Kelly.” Letting my hand go, her intensity faded as she slumped back against the wall. “Jesus.”

“Shit,” I said, dumbfounded.

“What?” Almost out of breath, Alaska looked like she just sprinted a mile.

“Well, that was just... a lot. Plus, if saying thank-you isn’t really my thing, saying sorry is really really not your style.”

“Geez, then my style must suck too,” Alaska muttered.

“Don’t worry, it’s the only reason why we can be friends.”

She turned her head to face me. The corners of her mouth were pulled into a smile, but she was anything but happy. “I still can’t take back what I said about Kelly though. God, I feel like such an idiot.”

“Why the sudden change of heart? Didn’t wanna wait until it was too late?

“Shut up, you’re not dying here.” Seeing the futility of her false smile, Alaska’s expression relaxed into a soft scowl. “We’re not dying here.”

“So? Then why are you suddenly apologizing?” When Alaska was “right” she was right, and she seemed pretty “right” in her opinion of Kelly back at the station.

“Because I was wrong. He’s not a bad guy.”

“I know that.”

“Well shit! Sorry that I didn’t get the memo right away. It was hard to judge when all I saw of him was the geeky sword and his ninja get up. Then, when I realized who he was, I wasn’t exactly the happiest about that either.”

“But you could’ve trusted me. I wouldn’t just be hanging around with someone who’s a bad guy.”

“People lie Eury. And you’ve been lied to before, I just didn’t want to see you get hurt again.”

“I’ve learned my lesson there. Getting caught up thinking instead of jumping in has become a sort of bad-habit of mine.” I tried to push memories of being flustered by Kelly’s flattery barrage to the back of my mind. It’s who he is, and I can’t really blame him for trying his best to disarm me when we first met. “Anyway, you weren’t there. Those first few nights, he did some things that laid the groundwork.”

“Did he massage your feet?”

“Jesus Lask, no,” I said slapping her thigh. “He was there when I needed him to be. A bunch of times.”

Alaska stayed quiet enough that all I could hear was some snoring coming from the next room over. Kelly didn’t snore, so that had to be Davis or Boyde. My money was on Davis.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you.”

“Hey no, you… you’ve had it bad enough, you don’t need to apologize. Like shit, you’ve had to put up with Davis this whole time. If anything I’m sorry for you!” I added.

“It was pretty brutal being with that guy for so long. But by the end of it, Boyde and Chuck were both with me on telling him to shut up.”

“Was he that bad?”

“Oh god, I can’t even tell you half of it. All he would do, every single day, was theorize and stress. Then he’d wake us up in the middle of the day to tell us some new thing that he thought he figured out. It was fucking exhausting.”

“God, I can’t help but cringe at the thought of switching roles with Davis.”

“What? Why?” Alaska looked hurt.

“Because, if I had even one other person who I thought I could talk to about this thing without them getting upset about it, I don’t know if I’d be able to contain myself either.”

“Trust me, I was getting plenty upset.”

“I know. But that’s not what I mean,” I said. Alaska rested her head against the wall again.

She nodded, then asked, “was it that bad?”

“As far as I can tell, those two that you mentioned? The ones from the bar? They were something like his best friends. For a time at least. After he got clean, they didn’t. I guess he stuck around with them to try and get them sober.”

“That’s fucking rough man. It ain’t easy to kick a habit when everyone around you’s still hooked. I’ve seen enough of that around town over the last few years to get a good idea of it,” Alaska said.

“I can only imagine.”

“Truthfully, it’s the same for me. I see it but I don’t really know.” Coming back to Sheridan back then was Alaska’s choice and the most logical one in her mind, but I still couldn’t imagine coming back here by choice. “But that’s what I’m talking about. I can tell that he isn’t all bad. Just… maybe associated with the wrong people,” Alaska said.

“Don’t I know it, he decided to tag along with me.” Alaska chuckled, but again, the room fell silent.

After a few seconds, Alaska scooched closer to me and then leaned her cheek on the top of my head. “This is all sorts of fucked up isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.” An understatement of the largest magnitude, but I didn’t feel like being rude. Really, I didn’t feel like doing much else other than sitting there and just waiting. It would be easier to do that.

“What the hell are we gonna do now?” Alaska asked.

“Why’re you asking me?”

“Because of the two of us, you’re the one that I trust with our next move.”

“Another surprise.”

“What? Why?”

“‘Cause you’re you. I’ve never known you to be anything less than in charge.”

“I’m not. Not all the time at least. I just…” Alaska raised her hand to her face. “I really don’t want to fuck this all up.”

“If anyone can get us through this, it’s you.”

“I can’t do this alone.”

Alaska had all the affect of a scolded child, but she said the words anyway, “fine, then… how about, if anybody can get through this, it’s us.”

“I can live with that.”

“What the hell are we gonna do Eury?”

“I don’t know. Maybe… maybe for just right now, we wait.”

Again, the only sound in the room was my O2 whistling away into my nose. I couldn’t help but begin to nod off, my body, exhausted and almost hypoxic, was ready to sleep at the drop of a hat.

But, before we slept, Alaska broke the silence one last time. “I’m really scared.”

“I am too.”

May 24, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 30.64 Hours / 1.28 Days - 12:36 AM

May 24, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 30.00 Hours / 1.25 Days - 1:24 AM

The silence was deafening when the burning in my lungs woke me up. I was panicking as I quickly detached my cannula from the empty D-tank. I tried to calm myself as I scrambled for the E-tank that had rolled under the desk. Alaska woke up in the middle of my struggle, but by the time she realized what was happening, I already had the cannula attached.

I leaned against the wall again as the O2 began to flow steadily. It was only once the burning began to subside that my panic did as well.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s… Fine.” The D-tank in my hands was empty. I was one more step closer. One step closer to being no different from the rest of them out there. Wanting for something that I just couldn’t get.

May 24, 2019 - O2 Remaining: 29.99 Hours / 1.25 Days - 1:25 AM