Walking Wounded
Two weeks.
It’d taken two weeks for Jimmy Stans to make the three hundred mile journey from the home he’d shared with his wife and daughter to his childhood home on Lake Tameran.
He did his best to ignore the weight on his hip.
If he hadn’t been forced to make the journey almost entirely on foot, he could’ve been there in a few short hours. But the maze of wrecked vehicles and abandoned barricades limited how often he was able to drive.
In the end, he’d left Mary’s efficient little Prius on the side of the road, twenty miles into the journey.
The weight of the object increased as he walked.
Of course, a motorcycle or scooter would’ve been the perfect vehicle for the trip, but in the end, Jimmy decided a walk, even one of several hundred miles, was exactly what he needed.
He needed time and space to shed the pain and guilt.
It’d only been three weeks since the power went out. Three weeks since radio and television went quiet. Three weeks since the internet went down. Three weeks since he’d seen another living person.
The object on his hip took on an ominous weight, heavier than ever as he walked.
Oh, there were people. Before the silence, the CDC estimated the C-21 virus had a 95% fatality rate. That meant fiver percent of the population, minus the accidental deaths and suicides survived the plague. Jimmy had seen the signs of other survivors during his trek. The remains of campfires and the actual smoke in the distance from said fires being the most common of the signs.
He wondered how many of them were making a similar journey.
Three and a half weeks since Nicky went to sleep for the last time.
The little girl had seemed to be immune. Even as her mother, his wife, sickened and died, she was fine. When the power went out, she’d seemed fine. Then the dry cough started, followed by the migraine headaches. She’d sickened quickly, just like Mary, after the onset of symptoms, and three days later, she was gone.
He’d buried both of them in Mary’s little garden.
When he left, he took nothing to remember them by. His purpose was an antithesis to his former life as husband and father. They didn’t need to witness, even by proxy, his mission.
He hoped they’d feed the plants and at least bring forth some kind of life with their passing. The garden had been Mary’s passion, and Nicky joined her mother in her daily duties. Tending the flowers and vegetables.
They didn’t need to know.
He hoped they’d understand.
He was shocked when he reached the house on the lake. The walk was long, but in the cool fall air, not unpleasant. Jimmy had started thinking he’d never reach the lake. Part of him would’ve been content to just walk on and on, never reaching the lake, never removing the weight from his hip.
But hoping accomplished nothing.
Twenty-three days after setting off, he reached the pristine waters of his childhood home.
The house was unlocked, and his parents were nowhere to be found.
He hoped they’d found a safe place to spend their final hours.
He hoped they’d been together. Dying alone was never a good thing.
He didn’t have that choice.
Moving the aluminum boat from the shed to the water was easy. He’d done it hundreds of times as a child.
He didn’t even feel the weight on his hip.
The sun hung high in the sky, and the smell of apples, never to be picked, lent a nostalgic fragrance to the air.
Jimmy didn’t even realize he was weeping as the boat slipped into the water and he stepped onto the slightly wobbly floor.
Now he was painfully aware of the weight. It felt as if it would drag him down to the bottom of the lake. Part of him wished it would. He didn’t want this responsibility.
Why couldn’t the plague have taken him as well?
It wasn’t fair, but life seldom was.
Strong hands, hands roughened by years of hard work, took the oar handles, and he rowed. Long steady pulls on the oars chewed up the distance between the shore of the lake and the middle.
Jimmy looked down into the dark water and wondered what lay beneath.
The stories of lake monsters, the Water People, had terrified him as a child. Now he hoped the stories were true. Perhaps the Water People would inherit the Earth.
Jimmy was physically alive.
Jimmy was in good shape.
Barring illness or injury, he could live another fifty years.
He had no desire to do so. Settling onto the bench, Jimmy slipped the revolver from its holster on his hip. The tears were gone only to be replaced by a cold certainty.
Jimmy had no desire to go on.
All he wanted to do was see Mary and Nicky again.
He didn’t fear the pain.
All he feared was that he lacked the courage to pull the trigger and escape a world filled with the dead.
The barrel slipped between his lips and touched his soft palate.
“I’m coming home,” he whispered and pulled the trigger.
The soft crack of the gunshot filled the air.
Only the animals heard it, and none of them cared.
The End