1 Terribly Stable

I finally found the lake house a few weeks after leaving Scarlett behind. The place seemed too good to be true. I spotted it while I was swimming on the other side of the lake. It must have been someone's summer home, one of those survivalist types who had a place to escape to when the world ended. I guess I beat them to it. It was everything that I could ever need. There was already a garden, and years of stored food and supplies in the back room. It even has two solar-powered generators, one that powers the house and another that goes to an electric fence that surrounds the perimeter.

There was an old dune buggy in the garage that looked like it hadn't moved since the outbreak. It was a little rusty, but otherwise good to go. I had spent the entire previous year hoofing it through the mountains in northern Idaho and across the barren hills of Montana to the other side of the state. It was exhausting. The buggy was a perfect way to scavenge for any supplies I needed in the nearby area, and if a hoard of monsters came through, I could make a quick getaway.

That was three years ago. I haven't needed to make a getaway of any kind in a long time. These days, my routine is pretty much the same. I'll get up with the sun and make my morning coffee. I'll roll up a few cigarettes and read whatever book is lying around. Then I'll make breakfast, usually eggs and bread. I like to save the good stuff for dinner. Fresh meat is getting harder to come by. Living without beef is hard enough, but they say the fallout from the bombs is starting to get into the meat. No one out here has any rad meds, so we might have to start looking at alternatives soon. It's something that I spend a lot of time talking with the folks down at the bar in Sawatch whenever I'm in town.

I like to make at least one trip out there every few days. It's a little settlement of about twenty people on the second floor of the Sawatch Hotel out in Kensington. It's just on the other side of the lake, and the buggy makes the trip in no time. Sometimes it's only for supplies, but other times it's just nice to see other people.

Back in the old days, when people used to write stories about their loved ones becoming monsters instead of living them, the central theme was always the same: people are the real monsters. Once the rules of society break down, it's a free-for-all. It was true for a long time, especially in the first few months.

There was no way to know what spread the disease back then. We thought it was only through the bites at first, then it was bites and scratches. Now, it seems like it's just random. Some people turn, some people don't, and no one, at least that I know, knows why. Learning that was the cherry on top of the shit cake. Now I have to look back on everyone that I left for dead or put down after the smallest scratch or bite and wonder if they really would have turned. It keeps me up a lot at night.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. Usually after I eat, I'll head out and walk the perimeter. I haven't had any shufflers through here in over a year, but it's better not to risk it. After that, I'll hit the generators and check the chicken coop. Once that's all finished, I'll either head out on the lake for awhile and see what I can catch, or, if it's cold, I'll relax inside by the fire with a book or head into town for a drink.

Kensington is mostly cleared out. I think the people in Sawatch went for a sweep of the town years before I came through. I'm not sure why they all stick to the hotel. I know some of them are locals, maybe it's too hard for them to be back in their homes. I can't imagine some of the horrible things that must have happened. Families turning against each other. Monsters, wearing your loved-ones like a costume, trying to tear you apart. Maybe it's just how they feel normal. A bunch of people just hanging out, listening to old records, shooting pool and drinking beer. It's just like the good old days. It's the only thing that makes sense to them.

That's what I've been trying to do since I got here. I'll admit, there are times when I'm out on the dock with a cold beer, watching the sun go down over the valley and waiting for a bob out in the water, where things almost seem normal. I could be just another guy by the lake, taking a break from the stress of the real world. Then I go to sleep and the cycle begins again. I could never have imagined that I would end up living like this when things were at their worst.

Things first started getting crazy a month after my twenty-fourth birthday. My fiancé and I lived with her sister and ten-year-old nephew in a duplex in the outskirts of Portland. I was getting my life back on track after years of some serious addiction problems. I had just found work as a car detailer, and through that job I met my wife-to-be, Beth. I had been sober for almost nine when we left the city.

Things were already starting to get bad then. I remember reading articles about it on the internet, but it all happened so fast that no one caught on before things were in chaos. Scarlett came home and told us that she'd seen one of the monsters up close, and we needed to get out of town immediately. She told us that her ex had some property out in Montana. She tried to get a hold of him to meet us there, but he never picked up. She didn't want to wait, and we didn't have any objections.

I don't remember a lot of the early days. I was in shock for most of it. I couldn't believe that it was really happening. I mean, how many people used to have conversations about this kind of shit happening all the time? No one ever expects any of it to ever happen. It was just too much to even think about and I couldn't make sense of it.

We packed a few bags and were out of town before the sun was down. The roads were already beginning to fill up with others doing the same. We managed to get ahead of it in our neighborhood, but by the time we hit the freeway going East, the lanes were starting to fill up and the cars were slowing down. We had an argument about what to do. I don't really remember what was said, just that it was tense. We were all only a few steps away from panicking, and it was getting worse every second.

In the end, we decided to abandon the freeway and go north on back roads until we crossed over into Washington. From there things would be quiet and we could push straight through Idaho to Montana.

The first week was rough on all of us. Things had gone from bad to much, much worse a few days after we left the city. We camped out at a little spot near the Washington border. I noticed that I had service for the first time in days. I hopped on the desperately slow internet and tried to scour for anything I could find. Most of the major cities in the world were in total lock-down, with emergency evacuations being planned. Millions were dying, and the army was being sent in. I thought immediate evacuations sounded a little strange. Usually when things got that serious they would always tell us to lock our doors and stay inside. It didn't take long for us to find out why.

The next day, we were getting close to Moses Lake. We were going to top up there and see if anyone was around. After that, it was going to be off on I-90 all the way to Missoula. The sun had just set as we were about to pull into town. The freeway out there was pretty barren, and there weren't many accidents. The town itself looked like it was still on the grid, but we didn't want to risk it. We pulled into a truck-stop outside of town. Surprisingly, someone was still working there. They even charged us for gas.

While I was waiting for the car to fill up, I was watching the stars in the distance and the sky lit up behind me. It felt like the air around me changed. It was denser, warmer. I don't know how to explain it. I heard Scarlett scream from inside the car. I turned around and saw the most horrible thing that I've ever seen, even to this day. Just over the horizon to the west, cresting over the Snoqualmie mountains like a second sun, was an awful ball of fire shooting up into the night sky. It was when I knew that the world was over.

I sat down in the dirt and stared up at the grand beast, billowing in the ashes of the old world and spraying them out for miles in every direction. At least they had a warning. I wonder how many people heard it? It must have been Seattle. We were only about 150 miles away. If they were dropping bombs on places like that, I could only imagine what happened in New York and L.A. Millions of lives gone, just like that.

When my senses started to come back to me, I was pushing everyone in the car and getting on the road. I had read somewhere that radiation from bombs like that could carry hundreds of miles in every direction. No one said a word on that first night, except for Scarlett trying to console Devin when he couldn't stop crying. There wasn't really anything to say. We were in a waking nightmare, and nothing would ever make it go away. Our lives, whatever they were before, were over. Once nuclear explosions start going off, there's really no turning back.

Beth didn't make it out of Washington. We were gassing up at some place that we thought was far enough away from any trouble. I swear I cleared the place before I turned on the pumps. I go over it in my head sometimes when I can't sleep. Somehow, I just missed it. She went in to grab some food with Scarlett while I was pumping the gas.

I heard a scream, and saw Scarlett burst through the door. She yelled something at me, but I didn't hear it. I was paralyzed. She kept screaming, and I just stood there. I think I might have shouted her name, but I really don't know. I didn't even notice when she stopped screaming.

I only snapped out of it when I saw a figure stand up from between the isles. Time slowed down when it stared at me. It was a woman once, maybe my age by the look of it. Its skin was ashy and grey, and covered in blood and cuts. Its clothes were tattered and stained, and its hair was a matted mess. The eyes were the worst part. They had that awful yellow glow that all new infected have. Its mouth was covered in Beth's blood, with pieces of her flesh hanging out between its teeth.

Scarlett grabbed me from behind and pulled me into the car. She opened the back door and pushed me in, then jumped in the driver's seat and took off like hell was hot on our tail. Something broke inside me that day. I didn't sob, or make a big dramatic scene. I just sat in silence, trying to make sense of the world around me as it sped past on the highway towards the Idaho border.

Now, looking back on it, I think I was lucky with Beth. I never had to see her become one of the monsters. I saw her walk into the gas station, asking me what snacks I wanted, and then she was gone. She just disappeared like a bad magic trick. A lot of people never got that. Most people only got to see the people they care about tear each other to pieces.

The one thing that keeps me up at night the most out of the whole thing is that I know that she might be out there somewhere, shuffling along with the rest of them. I couldn't save her from death, and I took off so fast that I couldn't even make sure that she didn't end up turning. I hope someone put her down, and that she's found some kind of peace. But I feel like she's still out there, maybe walking along the highway where we left her, slowly making her way East, trying to find me. I have a lot of nightmares where she does. I don't sleep much these days.

It wasn't long after that where I found a place that I thought we could call home. It was a mansion up in the mountains in the Silver Valley. It was a reform school for troubled kids before the outbreak. There were thirteen others there when we showed up. They welcomed us with open arms once they found out we had a kid with us. It was the first time things felt like they were looking up. We had only planned to stay for a few weeks, but we ended up getting snowed-in for the whole winter. By the time the spring came, we decided that it would be better to stay there for good instead of risking our lives trying to get to her property.

We had a pretty good run in that place, all things considered. For everyone that died in those first few months, we had managed to survive in a nice, peaceful little place for almost a year and a half with no incidents. The place was huge, had a pool table, a sauna, and its own set of generators in the boiler room. It was also the best sleep that I had since the outbreak started. Out in the mountains, miles away from what's left of civilization, the silence can be beautiful. There were even some nights where I slept all the way through without waking up screaming once. It was a miracle.

Of course, things weren't always perfect. Even out in the mountains, we were always looking over our shoulders. More people started showing up and supplies were winding down. We offered a few of them a spot, but eventually we had to start sending people away, especially when winter started rolling around again.

One of the groups that we turned away tried to shack up in the abandoned country club down the road. Me and two of the other guys went down to check on them about a week later after a big storm came through. They were all frozen solid in their sleeping bags. Luckily, none of them ended up turning. We took the bodies out back and buried them in the woods. We ended up telling the others that the place was empty when we got there and never talked about it again.

The next spring, Devin and the other kids were out playing in the forest. He slipped on a rock and fell down the side of the mountain. By the time we got to him, there was nothing that we could do. He had broken his arm and was pinned under some rocks for over an hour. He was still alive when we finally made it down, but he had lost a lot of blood and we knew that it wouldn't be long. He died shortly after we got back to the house. We planned to bury him the next morning but, unfortunately, the universe had other plans for us.

He woke up at some point in the night, and by the time I got up, he had managed to get into the house and had already turned two of the others. I managed to grab Scarlett and get out in the chaos, but it took me physically dragging her, kicking and screaming, out to one of the trucks. Just like that, out of nowhere, we were on our own again.

Scarlett never recovered. She wouldn't eat, and she would barely talk. She would just sob on and on about how she'd lost her baby and how awful and cruel the world was. I'll be honest, and this is something that I would never tell anyone else, but I was a little relieved when I woke up to find an empty sleeping bag next to me about a month later.

We were traveling along the Snake river as it curled through the Idaho Panhandle. I got up and figured that she was out using the bathroom or getting some water. I saw her clothes bundled up along the shoreline in a neat little pile with her phone and sunglasses on top. I never bothered looking for her. I figured she didn't want to be found. I took the phone with me and left the rest.

There was a part of me that was so angry at her for what she did. We all lost people, but she just couldn't take it. I guess I thought we shared a bond after everything that happened to us. I was wrong. She was my last connection to the old world, and she left me all alone.

Now, everything that I have left exists in a bubble. I'm surviving, but I don't feel alive. What was the point of any of it? Beth and Scarlett were the only friends that I ever had. Beth was my life. She pulled me out of the darkness and set me on the right path. She saved me, and now she's dead. They're all dead. They're all dead, and here I am, lounging back and taking in crisp mountain air without a care in the world. What a sick joke.

Sometimes I think about going back out there. I'd stock-up in Sawatch and take the buggy out on the open road. I could try and go up to Vancouver and find my mom. We haven't talked in years, even before the outbreak, but I still have her address. I could be back on the road tomorrow with hope in my heart and a desire to go and make something out of the time I have left.

I could do all those things, but I won't. Despite how much I hate it here, if I left I would end up dead or shuffling around with the rest of them. No. I think I'll stick to lamenting to myself with a cold beer as the sun sets over the lake. I know I don't deserve it, but I'm too afraid of anything else. It's better to just fade away quietly out here. I think it's the most anyone could hope for in the world we live in, or at least the most that I can hope for. Maybe one day I'll be able to get back on the trek. Just like maybe one day our world will heal.

I guess we'll see which one happens first.