Mary

My rifle is getting heavier, and I’m not sure if it actually is, or if my body is getting weaker each day. It’s my dad’s .308 deer rifle. I only took it because we had more ammo left for that than I did for my .270, and while it took a bit for me to get used to shooting it, we are six days in and I’m getting the hang of it. Too bad it’s so damn heavy.

I think he’d be happy I’m using it. He always thought my zombie movies were stupid and I’d joke that I was studying for when it actually happened. Little did he know how close that was to the truth. He and my mom didn’t make it past the first afternoon. My two brothers didn’t make it past the second day, either. I just want to find Mary.

I haven’t seen her since the sirens went off and we ran out of school. It only took moments to wish it was our senior prank, but the reality was much worse. I watched my math teacher get bit on the neck and dragged into a pack of them. Their eyes were yellow and lacked that human glow. I’m not sure if they are truly dead, but they certainly are not alive.

But I continue to look for Mary. I’ve been looking ever since by clearing houses with the food shelf, spray painting on the doors like they did after Hurricane Katrina with the FEMA giant ‘X’. At the top of it we’d put the date we searched through it and on the left, we’d put either team one or team two. I’m on team two. On the bottom we’d put the number of dead people we had found inside and on the right we’d put a zero if we were lucky, but if we left any infected roaming inside we’d put the number of them to warn whoever comes by next, trying to skim from our leftovers.

Funny to think the food shelf became so powerful. One could assume it’d be the police department or the National Guard. The toughest of survivors had the brilliant idea, individually, to make their way to the church and take control of the donated dry goods. I’m lucky to have joined them. They know my goal is to find Mary, but I’m happy to help as we slowly trudge through the town, street by street, house by house.

Last night, the last house we checked was a friend’s from baseball in middle school. I was so damn tired when I stumbled across a magnet with our team picture on it and saw my face standing there smiling next to him in our uniforms. I thought I was imagining it. Only his mother was in the house when we made our way through, but she wasn’t the same as I remembered. She tried to bite Jimmy and gnashed her teeth as we walked through. Her eyes were turning yellow like the rest. Jimmy shot her and put her to rest. It’s disgusting how normal it is starting to feel.

I’m afraid of what I’ll find once we get to Mary’s house; we are getting close. I hope her family is still intact, but the odds of that are slim. We’ve cleared over a hundred houses in the past five days since I joined up and I haven’t seen a single family still intact. I wish I had, though, found a family all together, safe and secure. My mind drifts with wishful thinking, and I picture a nuclear family eating snacks and playing board games. Maybe we'll break down the door of one of these houses and discover a pleasant surprise. I’d like that to be Mary’s house, in this newly terrible world.

It’s harder and harder to make it through each day. I just want to sleep in tomorrow, like a normal Saturday, and wake up around eleven and meet up with Mary, wherever that may be. I need even just one more regular weekend. I’m tired of this hell, but I know tonight I’ll make my way back to the church, where I share a small office as a bedroom with three other men. One is an emotional teenager, a few years younger than I am. He said we go to the same school, but I had never seen him until two days ago. The other two are at least in their fifties, but I recognized them instantly as the barbers who used to cut my dad’s hair. When I’d sit in their barbershop as a kid and eat candy from the little quarter vending machines, I never thought I’d one day share a pastor’s office as a bedroom with ‌both of them.

The next house, around the corner, is Mary's. I think about parking my car right here, away from her house so her parents couldn’t see us make out. My feet are heavier with each step as I fear what I will find. I can see her lawn chairs on her deck from here and imagine resting with her once we get there. I wonder if her mom has root beer in the fridge, like usual. A root beer sounds incredible right now.

We creep through the ditch and peek around the corner. “There’s movement inside,” Jimmy says.

The first four in line approach the door. I flank to the side, along the privacy fence with Jimmy. “I see them too,” I say, before yelling, “Mary!”

I cough from shouting.

“You OK, dude?” Jimmy asks.

“Yeah.”

“Take off your glasses,” Jimmy says and pulls them off my face. “Fuck, dude. Are you serious?”

I was most definitely serious. “I need to sit.”

“Yeah, you do.”

I feel groggy, as if I were drugged. Jimmy looks over my body for a bite. I pull up my pant leg and show him my calf. “I thought I could push through.”

“No, no, you can’t.”

A voice yells from the house. “Four alive in here!”

Four people live in Mary’s house. “Is one Mary?” I ask Jimmy between breaths.

He yells it for me.

“Yes!” the voice from the house replies.

“Tell her I tried my best to find her,” I say. “Don’t let her see me. And tell her I love her.”

“I will,” he says and draws his rifle. “You gotta look away,” he trembles.

I lay on the grass and feel it on my face. I wish I would have made it to Mary one last time and drank a root beer with her up on her deck.

Bang.