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Not human.
The ruckus I’d made was the clarion, the di
I’d never steered a boat of any size before, but for a first-timer I didn’t do too badly. I managed to follow the basic course I’d remembered from all our trips on the ferry and within, oh, maybe two hours or so I made it to Ocean Bay Park, the dinky community we’d rented in.
We.
I remember the concept of “we.”
“We” was pretty sweet. I was part of a “we.” I had a wife. But guess what? She became one of those things right at the onset. On her way home from work she got bit. Well, more than bit. Consumed. I got a call from a cop who kept pausing to vomit noisily on his end of the line. He vomited, I wept. Then she came back and tore into the officer. Or at least I think that’s what was going on. It sounded crunchy and wet. He kept screaming until, well, until he stopped. It was a really moist call. I’m being flippant, but sue me. It’s all I have left. If I’m not flip about losing her I might just…
Anyway.
I might just what?
Kill myself?
That’s a laugh.
All I know is I heard her moaning before I got disco
So after ramming into the side of the dock-starting it up I could work out, stopping not so much-I got out of the boat, dizzy and nauseous. I lay there for a while gasping, trying not to hurl. I must have looked like a fish out of water. It was mid-October, still not too bad temperature-wise, but drizzling. A good alternative name for Fire Island would be Rust Island. Back in the day people would ride their bikes all over, but always these ratty, rust-speckled wrecks, and here I was with my almost top-of-the-line mountain bike. Like it mattered. But at the moment I felt a
Fog was rolling in, obscuring everything. If there were zombies afoot I wouldn’t see them coming-or hear them. I hastened my pedaling and raced to our house. I say “our,” but really it was just a rental. And now that I was no longer part of a “we,” “our” seemed moot, too. I approached the dwelling that was little more than a shack and slowed as I heard footfalls.
Not human.
Deer.
Fire Island is rotten with these skanky, tick-encrusted deer. They’re not beautiful, cute, or charming. They’re the animal kingdom’s answer to skid row vagrants. Dirty, infested with chiggers and lice and all ma
I got inside, locked the door, checked all the windows and then collapsed onto the naked mattress and into a nightmare-rich slumber, assuming the island to be pretty much deserted.
I was almost right.
The next morning I checked the pantry, though why I can’t say. At the end of the season we cleared out all our edibles so I kind of knew it would be empty, which it was. I guess it was wishful thinking. Maybe cupboard elves had left something to gnaw on. Whatever. What else is life but hope? What would propel us forward but the inborn combination of hope and masochism? After hydrating myself with tap water I snatched up a blackened iron frying pan, cracked the front door and took a gander. Still drizzling but the coast was clear.
I tiptoed down the short flight of creaky wooden steps to the dirt path and stepped onto the sandy asphalt. Sandy Asphalt. Sounds like the name of a third-string stripper of yore. I digress. To my left was the beach followed by the ocean, a mere hundred or so feet away; to my right the ferry dock and the bay. The island’s about thirty miles long, and at its most expansive only about three-quarters of a mile wide, just a long strip of sand. I mounted my bike and bay-bound made for the general store, a weathered gray clapboard number that had overcharged for everything. Ocean Bay Park-what in its heyday I’d referred to as Lunkhead Central-was silent apart from the patter of rain. Granted, even before this apocalyptic turn of events off-season would have been pretty calm, but this was different. The store’s screen door hung open, not swaying on its corroded hinges. Even a rusty creak would have been reassuring. The silence was u
I jiggled the doorknob. Locked. A swing of the frying pan through the window later I was inside, stuffing my face like a little piggy with beef jerky, chips, and lukewarm Pepsi. I filled my pockets with snacks and potables and hit the road in search of I don’t know what. Other survivors? More food? A gun? Yeah, all of the above. Inland, such as you’d call it, the roads were much clearer so biking was easy. The fog was burning off so visibility wasn’t bad. I cut through Seaview and approached the larger-in relative terms-town of Ocean Beach, relishing the pleasure of riding my bike where the town ordinance had been “no bicycles allowed.” The jolly scofflaw in a world where law is passé. Fun. I did a couple of laps around the center of town, checking out the spoils: general store, hardware store, a couple of shops devoted to souvenirs and beachwear, a disco, some eateries, bars, and ice cream parlors. And the old movie theater, a wooden structure I’d avoided, something churchlike in its mien that had kept me away.
I broke into the hardware store-fu
As I ate a di
It was a little early in the season for this buck to be shedding its antlers. Maybe it had gotten caught on something or been in a fight over a doe. Satisfied it wasn’t a zombie I closed the door and resumed my repast, savoring each salty morsel of dry beef and chips. Amazing how salty American snack foods are. Stomach full of delicious garbage, I fell asleep easily, legs sore from all the abuse I’d heaped on them.