DREDGING UP MEMORIES PART IX By AJ Brown
July 12, 2012 Short stories Tags: AJ Brown, Dredging Up Memories Series
It was a sunny morning. The trees were a green so lush it looked like they could have been computer generated. But they weren’t. They circled the open field I parked in the night before. I had made my way from Sommerville to the little field in Columbia the previous day.
I was still tired.
I still hurt. The pills only dulled the pain. Things were a little fuzzy in my head, as if everything was falling apart in my mind, just as it had in the world.
But I was alive and the need to press on was stronger than ever before. I guess almost dying will do that to a person; will give them a stronger resolve. In this world we live in now, almost dying could be considered an every day occurrence. Searching for food, gas, a safe place to stay for a night or two–or a couple weeks–are now the ways of survival. Gone are the days of reaching into the refrigerator for a beer or going to McDonald’s for one of their I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-soybean cheese burgers, or finding a hotel where they still leave a light on for you.
There are no luxuries. Only live or die and if you die, you better hope it’s because of a bullet to the head and not from being bitten by something resembling a person, but not quite.
That field… that field was a familiar place and nothing feels like home these days than a little familiarity.
It sat off Interstate 20. I had detoured from 26 just to find the rest. I crossed over I-20 in Columbia and headed there. It sat behind a huge church and at the time the world died, it was being turned into a sports complex. The entrance was a dirt and rock path with a mobile home to the right and a playground and eating area to the left.
I thought about the mobile home, about possibly finding a bed to sleep in, but decided against it. If I wanted I could sleep in the back of the snazzy new van I had. There was plenty of space to lie down once I moved the supplies around or took out that middle seat. Maybe one of these days I’ll find me a small mattress to put down in there–a luxury I would say.
I drove down the dirt road and around the fence that separated it from the playground. The parking area was nothing more than dirt and grass and there were a couple porta-potties sitting side by side. The field was lavishly green.
I parked in the center of it and got out. All around the field, the trees stood like ancient sentries over a holy land. They formed a U shape, with the church directly behind the fields and an apartment complex in the opposite corner. The playground and exits sat just up the hill I had come from. And along that hill just beyond the fields were steps that led up to the playground.
How many times had Bobby run up those steps after a game, whooping and hollering and having a blast?
I got out the truck and took a deep breath. The world smelled clean. There was no smoke, no pollution, and nothing even close to the scent of decay. Just the crisp smell of nature. And maybe that’s what this was. Nature doing what nature does and giving herself a bath to clean things up. Maybe she was spring-cleaning. I don’t know, but I could have stood there the remainder of my life and been content… if I didn’t have a family to find.
There wasn’t a zombie in sight.
Before the sunset I had stood in the middle of Field 2. Bobby played flag football on that field when he was five. It was only a six-week season, but he disliked it from the first practice.
“I want to play baseball again, Daddy,” he said before his second practice.
“Maybe in the spring, but for now, you said you wanted to play flag football, so you are.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Too bad. If you start something, you finish it. You started this, so you’re not quitting. I paid good money for you to play and you’re going to finish it out. Understand?”
He shook his head and cried all the way to practice that day.
I stood there, where he had played–begrudgingly–and I missed him terribly. My heart cracked and my breath hitched. I thought about when I was sick, how I wanted to give up and put a bullet through the roof of my mouth and felt shame. What if he was still alive? What if he and his mom were in Table Rock waiting for me? My heart cracked a little more…
I could see him chasing the kid with the ball, trying to get that flag, his fingers extended, but not quite able to. And I think that’s why he hated it so much. He wasn’t quite able to run as fast as the other boys, or catch that football the way they could, or get that flag so easily. Unlike baseball, football didn’t come easy to him. And he didn’t like all the contact. More than a few times he got knocked down and he wasn’t about that. I reckon he got that from his mother.
That night I dreamed of little zombie boys chasing each other, but instead of flags they were trying to grab the arm that one of the boys carried. That boy was Bobby and every few steps he took another bite out of the flesh of what could only be another little boy’s body part.
And when morning came I was tired.
I drove back up the small hill, stopped between the trailer and the playground. I don’t know why I didn’t look to the playground first, but I didn’t. I went straight for the trailer. Grass was grown up around it and there was a car parked on the side, an older model that had seen better days. Much like the rest of the world.
The steps were nothing more than a few cinder blocks stacked together. I tried the door. It was locked. I knocked softly and listened. I heard nothing, knocked again and waited. After hearing nothing again, I put my shoulder into the door. There was a jolt of pain in my arm, but it pushed in easy enough and I raised my pistol.
My heart hammered again and my mouth became dry. My shoulder throbbed and I thought of those pain pills sitting in the console of the van. I checked the first room. No zombies. Instead, there was a man sitting on the couch, the top of his head blown out and splattered against the wall behind him. I checked his gun–three bullets remained. I’m not ashamed to say I took it with me.
The kitchen held nothing other than a couple of butter knives and mostly spoiled food.
Down the hall were two bedrooms. The first one held two little girls lying in their beds, their head covered by blankets, red patches bloomed like bloodied flowers. I looked around the room and found a box full of dolls. Next to the box was a basket of doll clothes. I think I smiled a little, though there was really no reason to. I picked up the basket and made my way out of the room.
In the next room was a woman. Like the girls there was a bloodied blanket covering her head. I reckon they all opted out.
I left the trailer with a box of baby doll clothes and one gun with three rounds in it. I closed the door behind me, making sure it was locked. I thought about all those houses in my hometown, the ones I had placed X’s on after searching them for any living people.
At the van I started to get in, but stopped. The playground caught my eye. It wasn’t the faded out slide or the rusted monkey bars and ladders. It was what sat beyond that: the eating area, completely covered. Several pic-nic tables sat beneath it and sitting at one of those tables were two people.
I set the basket down by the van and approached the play set. I crouched down and peeked over the side of the slide. I wiped my mouth with one hand and held my breath as I stood.
A boy and a girl, no older than their late teens, sat staring at one another. They were as dead as any zombies I had encountered, but they didn’t turn to look at me. They didn’t get up and give chase. They didn’t seem to smell me or hear me. They didn’t seem to care. They only stared forward, like lovers do.
I cocked my gun, held my breath. If they stood to come after me, I would put them down.
One step forward, then another.
The boy turned to me. His face was sunken in and gray. His hair was matted down as if he had crawled out of mud. But he didn’t have any blood clinging to his face. As far as I could see, there was no blood on his clothes at all. The girl lifted her head. Her eyes were maybe green at one time and her hair had been red. Now it was a dirty rust color and, like the boy, there was no blood on her face or her blouse.
I took aim with the pistol.
One move.
One twitch to stand and I would drop them where they sat.
The boy turned back to the girl. The girl turned back to the boy. There I stood, a potential fresh meal and neither of them made to stand and come after me. They only stared at each other… like lovers…
I gave a nod, lowered the pistol and took the few steps backward toward the basket of doll clothes. I picked it up, made my way to the van and slid the side door open. I set the basket inside and went around to the driver’s side.
Inside the van, I sat there and watched the two teens. They hadn’t budged since I first saw them. Somehow, they controlled their hungers, their impulse for flesh, that carnal part of their mind that said humans were food and it didn’t matter that they were living creatures.
We pulled away and onto the road, leaving the lovers behind. Maybe one day they would lose the battle with their decaying minds, but not then. On that day they were lovers who only had eyes for each other.
“Hey Humphrey,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I got you something.”
“What?” She sounded excited–the first time I heard excitement in her voice since finding her.
“New clothes.”
She didn’t say anything, but I think she smiled…
Once again a great story, even if it is a little if short. Good job!
Comment by maxwell on July 12, 2012 @ 11:06 pm
I’m really enjoying this series but remind me…
Wasn’t he on some kind of a detail or mission to cleanout houses in a town/part of town/something like that?
It’s been a while since I read the first of these but I thought he was on a sweep that would have taken him to his family eventually any way. Or am I getting this mixed up with another series?
Comment by zombob on July 13, 2012 @ 11:20 am
I always look forward to these installments and they never disappoint. Keep up the great work.
Comment by Terry on July 13, 2012 @ 1:37 pm
Alright! Two installments back to back! I really liked the two teenaged lovers at the picnic table, very nice touch.
Comment by Retrobuck on July 14, 2012 @ 4:21 pm
Hey Zombob, you are absolutley right. His mission was to clean out/bury the dead in his neighborhood. All that changed when he was almost killed by the man who was feeding people to his zombie wife (talk about til death do ye part) in part V. The very last line to that was how for the first time in months he had left the dead standing instead of putting them all down and that another part of him let out a huge sigh of relief that he didn’t get killed.
Then in part VI the anger that he had suppressed through losing his Pop and brothers finally came full circle and he went bonkers on the dead, killing all but torturing the one zombie that looked like the guy who got his brother.
This story is about to take a significant change (in part X) and we’re going to see a different Hank Walker soon. The man who started this story is not the man who we are going to see in the coming installments.
Comment by AJ Brown on July 14, 2012 @ 7:07 pm
I really cant wait to find out what happens to your characters, please keep writing!
Comment by Gunldesnapper on July 16, 2012 @ 9:08 am
Love and desire that surpasses that of death and flesh, this was an enjoyable read!
Comment by bong on July 16, 2012 @ 12:56 pm
Thanks for writing and sharing!
Comment by brian on July 16, 2012 @ 2:47 pm
Looking forward to the next one!
Comment by Ryan on July 19, 2012 @ 1:42 am
AJ, I’m curious. How did you come up with Humphrey’s name and character?
Comment by Richard Gustafson on July 19, 2012 @ 8:07 am
Richard, Humphrey, the teddy bear is not fictional. When my daughter was around three she had horrible nightmares and would wake up screaming and we could never get her to go back to sleep. After several months of dealing with this, my wife and I went to a store with the purpose of finding her a ‘Good Dreams Bear’
We searched through several stuffed animals until we found the light brown teddy bear. We named him Humphrery, the Good Dreams Bear and gave him to our daughter. She thought, well, he sure is naked, we should get him something to sleep in. Our daughter picked out the white bunny pajama outfit and that bear has been dressed that way ever since. She is 11 now and still sleeps with Humphrey.
The character for Humphrey came about because I thought we called him the wrong name, or at the very least, made him the wrong gender. In my mind, Humphrey has always been a little girl. When I started working on this series I wanted Hank Walker to need something to hold on to, something from the way things were and Humphrey felt right. I needed him to have something to live for as the world went to crap and having him find the teddy bear in the house gave him that something.
Humphrey has always played an important role in the story and, as it progresses, she will play an even larger role in how Hank changes and how, hopefully, he is brought back from the brink of madness… but that’s further on down the line.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the series so far. Stick around. Hank and Humphrey are just getting their legs under them. It should be a fun, harrowing ride to the end.
Comment by AJ Brown on July 19, 2012 @ 11:13 am
AJ, that really hits home with you than doesn’t it? Scary how we tend to use parts of our daily lives in our work and see it progress into something else entirely. Humphrey it seems has been a Good Dreams Bear for not only your daughter but you as well. It’s good to know that you take such an emotional path with the characters as it definitely exudes in your work. Any time I see or hear the word Humphrey I will be thinking of the little Good Dreams Bear in the bunny outfit. Thanks for sharing something from home with us. You are an excellent author and one I am proud to have my work along side. BTW, I requested to have my moniker changed to my real name. See the link. Thanks AJ.
Comment by FubarFrank on July 19, 2012 @ 11:39 am
Forgot to change my signature on the desk top. I’m the same guy.
Comment by Richard Gustafson on July 19, 2012 @ 11:52 am
Richard, as writers, we have to move ourselves in order to move our readers. We have to be willing to say, hmmm, this might hurt a little, or this makes me so mad, or this is too funny… It’s the only way I know of that makes our characters come to ife.
Humphrey definitely has a soft spot with me and, though I already know how I want things to turn out for the little bear, I have no clue how I want them to turn out for the story itself. But Humphrey will be there every step of the way, and she may just end up being the salvation that Hank Walker needs in the end.
Comment by AJ Brown on July 19, 2012 @ 3:56 pm
Humphrey is very totemic in this story, I’ve always liked that.
AJ can I ask how many words “Dredging” is up to now? Any plans to publish as a book or ebook?
Comment by Pete Bevan on July 19, 2012 @ 4:08 pm
Pete, being a fan of yours, that’s a compliment I’ll take.
Dredging Up Memories currently sits at 31649 through 10 installments (#10 should be somewhere in the e-mail queue). I would like to put it together as several books when I am done or maybe when I get to a significant amount of words (like 100K) to where I can break it up into a novel series.
What I really would like to do and had started doing before The Walking Dead actually did it, is to create mini-stories for some of the characters, like the little girl who originally owned Humphrey and just how the old man ended up feeding the living to his wife and the zombie in the jail cell. But then The Walking Dead went and did it with the Bicycle Girl and I didn’t want to appear like I was copying them.
You wouldn’t believe how many things I’ve gone back and changed because of TWD. I even changed Walker’s first name, which was originally Rick. I like Hank better anyway.
Comment by AJ Brown on July 19, 2012 @ 5:39 pm
I must admit when I saw “Guts” which was S01 EP2 of TWD, where they cover themselves in gore to get past the Z’s I did kick myself I didn’t think of that idea.Since then though I don’t think it has been that original in fact for the entire middle of Series 2 they could have called it “10 angsty people living on a farm”. I hope Series 3 is better.
As for the side stories, personally I wouldn’t worry about copying TWD. That way of interlacing stories has a long history within literature, particularly early Sci Fi. Personally I would love to know Humpfrey’s story up to the point Hank finds him. I am surprised it totals up to so few words, there is a certainly a novella in there.
I can confirm part X is in the email queue as well. The good news being we have caught up with the back log and we have a big list of stories in the “To be published” queue. Therefore I will be sticking to 2 stories a week, Tues and Thursday (or the nearest days to that) for the forseeable future.
Comment by Pete Bevan on July 20, 2012 @ 2:54 am
That’s a good rotation, keeps it fresh yet gives the stories time to be read before moving down the line. I still think we need some sort of forums or message board and I happen to know a guy who know’s a guy too…. Hint Hint, Nudge Nudge.
Comment by Richard Gustafson on July 20, 2012 @ 9:15 am
Interesting reading the comments – I think it’s very difficult, considering you are writing within a certain are of the horror genre, to not copy or appear to copy earlier stories or movies in some way or up to a certain point. One thing I like about this story is how your zombies are different – or appear to be different to Hank; the idea that they are still in someway conscious of their condition, but unable to really communicate – riders in a horror track of their own minds, is in someways scarier than to think of them as automatons driven solely by residual instincts. And Romeo & Juliette, the Zombie edition – wild, and disturbing – but at the same time in some way also hopeful. Really. Well. Done.
Comment by JohnT on July 23, 2012 @ 7:28 am