Last Woman Read online

  “Is that true?”

  “Think about it. Even if it wasn’t would I tell you?”

  I didn’t like the sound of his voice. It was ‘husky’ for lack of better word. Worn and dry, deep and not youthful. Years of experience were in it, years of hardship.

  “Please, I’ll tell you anything you need to know. Let me out.”

  I reached for the door and pulled. “It’s locked.”

  “Can you shoot at it? Maybe that will break the lock?”

  “Shoot at it with what?” I asked.

  “Your gun.”

  “I don’t have a gun.” When I said that, I cringed. Why would I tell him that?

  “All that shit that happened out there, you’re wandering around without a gun or protection?”

  “Everyone’s dead.”

  “I’m not. You’re not. Others are not.”

  “I can’t get you out. It’s locked, see.” I pulled. “Sorry. I am. I don’t know what to do.” I turned.

  “Wait!” he shouted. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t get you out. I have to go.”

  “Stop.” He hit his hand on the door. “Don’t leave. There are keys.”

  I stopped walking.

  “Please. I can’t believe you are gonna leave.”

  Slowly I turned around. “Where? Where are the keys?”

  “The locks on these doors are manual override. There’s a black box in the control room. They are in there or, if you can, find a guard.”

  “There’s a dead guard in there.” I pointed backwards.

  “He may have keys.”

  I held up my hand. “I’ll check.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was frightening. I was talking to a mere eye with a voice attached. I didn’t know what kind of man would emerge from behind door Two B. If I freed him, I knew I wasn’t sticking around long enough to find out. My good deed was to release him.

  If he was in jail, obviously, he was dangerous.

  I returned to that control room and to the body of the guard.

  One hand covering my nose, I reached down to pat his sides, nothing. No keys. Before I gave up., I lifted him from his slumped position. His face was nearly glued to the counter from decomposition. It made me gag.

  I was already in a weakened state, tired again, my legs wearing down, my body lacking energy, and hoisting him back seemed to rob me of what I had left.

  Brackenridge. That was his name. T. Brackenridge.

  Then I remembered, he was more than a body.

  “I’m sorry, T.” I whispered and then spotted the huge key ring attached to the front loop of his pants.

  I undid them and lifted the ring. Nothing was marked clearly. There had to be at least thirty keys. But for the man behind that steel door, I’d try each one.

  I jingled the keys as I made my approach and I heard him cheer happily.

  Tucking the flashlight under my arm to shine on the door, I began the process of elimination.

  Jail man stayed close, talking to me as I tried each key.

  “I heard the squeaking,” He said. “It was the first sound in days.”

  Key tried … failed. Another tried ...failed.

  “It was far away at first and then moved closer.”

  I didn’t speak, I kept trying the keys, I didn’t want to lose track of the ones I tried.

  “I was able to see you moving from the one window. Then I waited until the squeaking stopped so I could make some noise or else you wouldn’t hear me.”

  Another key, another failed attempt. I didn’t think any of the keys would work.

  “We have an open rec area, it’s open air. I figured if you could hear me from anywhere, it would be there.”

  I grunted in frustration. Why wouldn’t any of the keys work?

  “Thank you for stopping. Thank you for coming. I’ve been here for almost two weeks. I think.”

  I shook my head focusing on the keys.

  “I lost track of time. The one guard, unlocked the cells but not this door. Everyone kept dying. I thought …”

  Key in.

  “I thought I was gonna die.” He chuckled. “I still may …”

  Click.

  “Oh my God.” he gasped.

  The door unlocked and slightly fearful, I pulled open the door.

  Not only was I pelted by a strong sour aroma, I was also slammed by the large man who barreled out and immediately embraced me.

  He hugged me as if I were a long lost friend he hadn’t seen in years. A huge embrace and I was smothered in his arms.

  “Thank you.” He said, and stepped back. He placed his hands to my face and kissed my forehead. “Thank you so much.” He hugged me again.

  “You’re welcome.” I pulled away and took in the vision of the man who could be a poster representation of a biker group or professional wrestling organization. He was tall and bulky, strong looking. His head bald, face tough with overgrown whiskers that were probably once a goatee. He had to be in his forties, late forties maybe. His orange jumpsuit hung down to his waist.

  He kept staring at me.

  “Do you need water, food?” I asked.

  “Yeah, water. I’ve been rationing what I had.”

  I reached into my rations bag and handed him a water bottle. The man took it, sipped it gratefully yet sparing, then handed it back.

  “Keep it.” I told him and turned, aiming the flashlight before me. “The building is pretty dark, so follow me. Do you need anything before we get outside?”

  “No. No, I’m sure, what I need, I can find out there.”

  I agreed with a simple nod of my head, leading the way past the control room and to the stairwell. Admittedly, the stairs was a lot less spooky walking down with him behind me.

  We emerged and I faced him. “How long since you’ve been outside?”

  “I was tossed in here right after the shut down.” He replied. “I’m guessing nearly two weeks.”

  “Just be prepared, okay?” I asked him.

  “I can only imagine.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  At the entrance, I grabbed my suitcase by the handle and toted it with me.

  “The squeaky wheel,” he said with a slight smile. “That saved me.”

  “Yeah.” I exhaled. “You sure you don’t need anything?”

  “No.”

  “You should be able to find whatever you need. Some of the stores were looted, but the businesses and stuff probably have machines.” I stepped outside and watched as he covered his eyes. The sun obviously was blinding him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just tough to see, I’ve been in the dark awhile.”

  “Let your eyes adjust. And … are you sure I can’t give you an MRE or box of cereal to tide you over?”

  “Tide me over until when?” he questioned.

  “Until you find food.”

  “I’m confused.” He lifted his arms. “If you have food, why am I …. Wait. Wait. No one is around. Everyone is gone. We’re not sticking together? You’re going your own way?”

  “No, actually, I’m headed home.”

  “What the hell, lady! Why pull me out then?”

  “You asked.”

  “You’re serious?” He asked with a hint of airy disbelief. “I’m not going to walk with you?”

  After a second pause, I simply shook my head, said, “No,” and tugging my squeaky wheeled suitcase behind me, I slowly moved onward.

  16. Dodge

  My Wilkes’ watch reminding me it was the seventh of May when I glanced down to check the time as I walked from the jail property. It was nearly two. That meant I lost two hours of travel. That was eight blocks out of my way to backtrack to the jail, and I had to go those eight blocks again to return to the main expressway.

  Something good did come out of it, I was able to help someone who would have otherwise starved and died in that building. Actually his name was William Cash. But he informed me people had called him D
odge since he was sixteen years old. I didn’t ask why.

  I just knew it was time to move forward. I had to keep going if I wanted to make it further south and get some distance before the sun started to set.

  The temperatures would drop without the sun, and with no power, no street lights, it would be too dark to travel, plus, I needed to find shelter while I could still see.

  I had fully intended on going alone, but the truth was, ten steps into my walk away from Dodge, I stopped. Was I insane? I didn’t know what was ahead of me, if more people were alive, if things would get dangerous or even if I’d ever see another living human being again. Having spent so much time alone and withdrawn after the accident made me numb to the world. It wasn’t fair to him to walk away nor was it smart of me.

  I didn’t know much about Dodge, actually nothing at all. I figured I would find out on our journey.

  Dodge was a talker. He was also something else; I learned that right away … he was resourceful.

  Not twenty feet into our walk, he stopped and said. “Wait up.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That wheel, it was all well and fine to let me know you were coming, but I think that might drive me nuts.”

  “It will. But what can we do? Transfer the stuff out?”

  “Nah,” He shook his head and walked to an abandoned police car. He popped the hood.

  “What are you doing?” I walked over.

  “Fixing that wheel.” He emerged from under the hood with the dip stick and walked to the suit case. He crouched down before the problematic wheel and began to use the oil from the stick. “Nudge it back and forth for me.”

  “Oh, my God, that is really smart,” I said.

  “Not really. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. I had a friend, Jack Hanson, who used to say that.” With a grunt and cracking knees, he stood. “Try it, see if it needs more.”

  I pushed the suitcases back and forth. “Wow, it’s great. Thank you.”

  “Now, will you let me tote that for you?” He extended his hand for the case. “It’s the least I can do.”

  I surrendered the suitcase, even with the ease of wheeling it, it was heavy.

  “Good Lord, what do you have in this?”

  “A lot of stuff. We’ll need it.”

  “Yeah, I guess with the city shutting down first, picking are slim. That will change when we move further out. I hope.”

  “Me, too.” I moved along with him at a steady, but comfortable pace.

  “Tell me again, where are we going?”

  “I wanna go home. My home is in Downing Park.”

  He closed his mouth and nodded. “Not a bad place. About three miles from where I live.”

  “Did you need to find your home?”

  He hesitated before answering, then with an exhale, said, “No. No I’d rather not. Not yet.”

  I was going to ask ‘why’, but refrained, the shake to his voice told me he’d tell me when he was ready. It wasn’t my place to ask. Of course, he wasn’t shy about asking things.

  “Why are we headed north into town if we need to go south? Not that I’m griping, I’m just curious.”

  “Because it’s easier to walk the expressway. Even with the road blocks, it’s a straight shot, but to get back to the expressway we have to go this way. Unfortunately. And my plan is to keep going south until we find a bridge that hasn’t been destroyed.”

  “Yeah, I heard those.”

  I quickly glanced at him.

  “The day they did it.” He shrugged. “Was really the thing that nailed the reality of it to me. Just hearing it. The concrete falling, explosions. You could see it on the television, but to be right there, right near it. Hard to explain.” He inhaled. “So why don’t we just take the side streets? The expressways may be a straight shot, but they aren’t a straight way through.”

  “You mean walk the side streets? Kind of a longer way don’t you think?”

  “No, I mean, drive. We may have to foot it over a bridge, but at least drive until we get there. Take the side streets in and out. I know the area well.”

  “How are we supposed to drive?”

  “A car, hopefully one that didn’t run out of gas while waiting.”

  I laughed sarcastically at that. “I’m sure we’ll just find a set of keys in a car.”

  “Um ... yeah.” He pointed to a car, the door was open, and a decomposing body was inside. “Keys.”

  “Let me rephrase that. A car with keys and no body.”

  “Just take the body out,” Dodge suggested.

  “Go on.” I nodded. “Touch it., try to move it.”

  He extended his hand in, then paused and glanced at me. “Why? What’s gonna happen?”

  “Not like the movies. Go on. Hollywood made me delusional as well.”

  He braved it up, covered his mouth and nose as he reached in. I watched his hand grab the body and then the big, tough, man from jail, squealed in disgust, jumped back and rubbed his hands frantically on the sides of his prison jumpsuit.

  “And whatever happens to the body,” I said. “It just eats through the car fabric. It’s gross.”

  “I heard something about that once. I didn’t think it was real. They said the body when decomposing, can be like an acid when it breaks down.”

  “From what I saw, that’s real.”

  He peered down to his hands playing with a substance between his fingers. “Feels like gooey honey.”

  I blinked a few times. ‘I’ll never eat honey again.”

  “Got news for you, fresh honey may not be an option anymore unless you find some bees.”

  “Here.” I reached into my pocket and handed him the tiny bottle of sanitizer. “Use that.”

  “Thanks.” He squirted a lot on his hands and looked around as he rubbed them together. “Ok, so, key in the car, probably means body in the car. So we have to find a moveable, working car, preferably a couple years old.”

  “What’s the age have to do with it?”

  “A lot.” He looked around as we walked, peeking in every car, occasionally stopping to try a handle.

  Dodge made comments about cars being perfect but no gas. Or complaining because there was a body or two in them. Then finally, just as we hit the traffic leading up to what I knew was a hospital, Dodge clapped his hands together released the suitcase and walked to the car.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Abandoned.” He indicated to the open door. “And I can pull this on the sidewalk, cut through that lot there and down the street.” He reached in and popped the trunk, walked around to the back of the car and started rummaging.

  He smiled with an ‘aha!' and lifted a small gray case. “Cheap but works, roadside kit.”

  I shook my head back and forth confused as he climbed in and laid down. His feet extended from the car. “Dodge?”

  He grunted. “Give me a second.”

  “Dodge.”

  “I don’t wanna walk, this car has gas.”

  Just as I inhaled to call his name again, the car started. “You jumped it.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.” He slid out. “Once we stop we may not be able to restart it. But we can find another.” He walked to the suitcase and grabbed it. “Getting in?”

  “How did you know to do that?”

  “My job.”

  “Ah,” I nodded. “You were a car thief.”

  “What? A mechanic. A good one too. Been doing it since I was a kid. Hence my teenage nickname.” He tossed the suitcase in the car. “Dodge.”

  “Ok.”

  “Back in the day I could fix any Dodge. Trucks especially.”

  Suddenly his nickname clicked and made sense, it wasn’t criminal relayed like ‘dodge the bullet’ or ‘get out of dodge’ he fixed cars. He added another reason I was glad to have him with me.

  Thanking him, I got into the car. To me it didn’t matter how many things he banged into getting off that street or curbs he ran over. He was driving,
and I was exceptionally glad to not be walking.

  17. The Empty Chair

  We had to abandon ship. The comfort of the car, silence of no conversation, with the exception of Dodge telling me to hold on when we had to run around or over something. But six miles into our road trip, we hit an impassible section of road. Cars were jammed together like a parking lot. There was no getting around it. All of it beginning several dozen blocks before the area’s teaching hospital. We should have known better.

  But we made it six miles.

  “Hate to say it, we’re probably gonna have to walk to a doable bridge. Then once we cross, find transportation,” Dodge said. “Sorry I let you down. I really thought we’d get farther.'

  “Hey, we made it six miles. That was a lot of walking we saved. No, I expected to have to walk.”

  “We need to plan a course of action. Gotta see where we’re going. How about you start checking these cars for a map. I’ll trudge up to the overpass and take a look, maybe see if we can spot an upcoming bridge that looks good?”

  “We can both go. I’m not that slow, am I?”

  “No that’s not it. Just … I’ll run it and run back. You settle. Maybe not move so much. We also gotta find a place to stop for the night.”

  “How about this? We both go …”

  “How about not.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  He placed his hands on his hips, lowered his head and glanced at me through the tops of his eyes. “Honest?”

  “Please.”

  “You don’t … you don’t look that well. You’re pale.” He reached up and touched my forehead in some sort of fatherly fashion. “You’re cold and dry.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “No, Faye. If you are it, if you are the last person I have to talk to on this earth, I sure as shit ain’t letting you drop from dehydration, exhaustion or whatever it is you are dealing with right now. Don’t be a martyr.”

  It took until I got into that car, driving, to realize, I still wasn’t anywhere near a hundred percent. I pushed it because I had to when the truth was, my body had been deprived of food and water for longer than I knew. Rest was what I needed, but I counteracted that by my constant moving. I hadn’t realized how weak I was until I didn’t have to be quite so strong.