Surrounded by dead bodies that were closing in all around him, Noah realized there was no way to break through their rotted line of flesh. The man and woman and their followers were closing in behind him and the new group wasn’t too far ahead of him. Noah only had two bullets left, not even enough to put a dent in either group. For a second, Noah thought that he should just take his chances and jump into the woods but quickly tore that idea from his temples. The woods were too dense, too full of hiding places for those people. They could be behind any tree, ready to grab him by the arm or neck and pull him down and that would be the end. Noah then thought he could tackle them, break through their line. The ones ahead looked a lot frailer than the ones behind him. They had been dead for a long time. Maybe they’d go down easily. But what if they didn’t? He could handle one but if two or three of them grabbed him all at once, he wouldn’t be able to fight them off, especially with the throbbing in his leg that was slowly crippling him.
Noah stood there, not knowing what to do. His mind raced but he couldn't think of anything in particular. In an attempt to come up with a split second solution, he froze as a trillion other things blurred past the eyes of his mind. Looking down, Noah noticed there were no tree limbs or heavy rocks for him to use, nothing to help him. The rain began to hit his head harder, fatter drops of water splashing off his nose and hands. Noah pulled out his gun. With no more time to organize a surefire strategy, he decided to shoot the ones closest to him and hope they’d go down. With enough luck, they would create a hole large enough for him to squeeze through. The odds weren’t good but Noah was battling a sudden onset of exhaustion, fear and tremendous pain that wouldn't allow for a better plan. The rain spread out and came down harder, drenching Noah and making visibility low. The groans of the people were drowned out by the falling rain, splashing down on everything, turning the ground into slippery mud and stifling Noah’s concentration.
One of the men approached, staggered, lunged his red hands at Noah, his mouth open, ready to receive Noah’s flesh.
"Father, forgive them; forgive me," Noah said and with a flash of light, he shot the man in the face. The man went down in a wet heap on the ground. Noah aimed for the next person in line. It was a teenage boy not much younger than him, his throat torn open, his Adam's apple dangling onto his chest with every soggy step. Noah raised his gun to the teenager and as he concentrated on the face of the person he was going to kill, Noah saw that the hair on his head was falling out, being washed away by the hard rain. Noah’s eyebrows flared up in confusion. In a matter of moments, the boy's nose fell right off his face. His lips and cheeks were next, sloughing off his skull like wet tissue paper. Soaked lumps of rotted meat slid off the teenager, splattering on the ground that was turning into thick mud. Splat, plop, splash. His outstretched arm, wet and full of protruding veins broke off at the elbow and fell with another wet thud. Around him, the other people were also feeling the effects of the falling water. One severely decomposed man’s head fell completely off his body, sending him to the mud with a sickening plop.
It was the rain.
Suddenly, Noah remembered what his grandmother had told him.
“The rain is only God’s tears, sugar. It’s His way of letting us know He’s watching over us. When the world has become too wicked, the Lord becomes sad and cries. His tears fall from Heaven and those tears wash away all the bad. When the rain dries up, man's sin has been cleansed and everything is made good again.”
Wash away all the bad.
One by one, the dead people collapsed and did not get back up. They tried but the muscles that moved them were disintegrating. They were becoming skeletal, the hard rain stripping all the flesh from them, the rotting smell of death and fat melting in the mud. The rain fell intensely and Noah thought he heard a clap of thunder. Or maybe it was a faraway gunshot. Out of the estimated fifteen dead people, all but three had fallen, writhing in the mud, bellowing, dying again. Enough were down to allow for Noah's escape. He started to run through the mud and quickly slipped. His legs flew out from underneath him and he fell on his side with a hard thud, right onto the bite wound. Despite the softening blanket of mud, the ground beneath was still hard and provided no cushion for Noah's fall. Pain ripped through Noah’s leg like white hot lightning and Noah screamed with abandon. Rain fell into his open mouth, momentarily choking him.
After a few moments of cradling himself in the mud, Noah collected himself. The three dead people were still after him. He had to get up. He looked behind him to see the dead slipping and sliding in the mud. One wasn't wearing shoes. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. It also slipped in the mud and upon impact, its left leg fell off at the knee and its left arm fell off at the shoulder. The others slid clumsily, trying to gain traction while keeping their focus on him. If the threat of being eaten wasn't so close, Noah might have considered this comical. If he weren't so exhausted, he might have laughed. The dead thing on the ground pulled itself through the mud with its one good arm. The other two were still coming, their faces slowly melting under the merciful rain. Noah got back up and continued to run. Their bodies fell out of view but their moaning followed Noah the whole way.
******
The clouds were gone now and the beating rain was replaced with the beating sun. Noah was sick. The pain in his leg was so intense it made his stomach wrench in response. Along the road, he had found a sturdy tree branch and after removing the small twigs and leaves, used it as a makeshift cane. It helped take some of the pressure and discomfort off of his leg but not by much. Noah’s face felt hot and cold at the same time. His clothes became moist with the sweat that dripped from his nose and chin. He was starving. He stunk. The pain and the hunger and the heat made Noah throw up. Because his stomach was empty, nothing came out but an acidic froth that bubbled around his mouth and burned his cracked lips. As much as he didn’t want to, Noah had to stop and take a break. He fell to the dirt and cried. In the middle of the long stretch of dirt road that never seemed to end, the tears mingled with his sweat, making his face a wet, red pulp. How much longer was this road? Noah peeled off his shirt and wiped his face. His ribs felt like they were pressing against his back so hard they would break through his skin. Noah cried until he ran out of tears, until the sobs became dry and burning to his eyes and throat.
As if a ghost had passed him, the air began to cool and a breeze brushed up against his back like a feather. The air was cool on his skin and the wind felt calm after the rain. Almost fresh. Noah unzipped his jeans and attempted to take them off. They became stuck on his thigh at the wound site. Noah tugged at the jean carefully. Whatever burst when he pressed on his leg earlier had now glued his jeans to his leg. Noah slowly and painfully pulled the jean and the dried, crusty material attached to it, down his leg, ripping away at the scab and the hairs surrounding it. Noah winced. The wound was large and gaping now, red and glossy under the sunlight, like black cherry Jell-O. The edges were rimmed in black and yellow with gritty puss. Heat rose from the wound in pulsing waves. Black veins branched off the wound in all directions and the redness had spread from his hip to his kneecap. Noah almost threw up again. The wound was getting worse, spreading, intensifying in pain. It was now a race to see what would eat Noah first, the dead people or the disease that was slowly consuming him, sampling his flesh before diving in for the main course of meat. Noah looked up. Nothing. Just dirt and trees. No moaning or groaning. No dead people around. No life. No birds or small animals scurrying around. There was only him and the noise of wind through branches of trees. Stillness. Cold, unnerving stillness.
Noah struggled to tear his shirt into strips, going for a frayed spot at the bottom of the material to aid in ripping it. He didn't have much success. He put the fabric in between his teeth and yanked. With a slight rip, he managed to elongate the small tear. Noah was hungry and his strength was waning. The combination of the heat from the sun and the sickness swirling inside him made his head feel like the Jell-O that was now his thigh. He took two of the strips and wrapped them around the wound, not knowing if it would even do much good at this point, and tied it into a sturdy knot. He wiped his face again with the rest of the strips. He then put his jeans back on and checked the left pocket. Still there. Noah smiled, reassured, motivated and reminded of the purpose of his journey. He got up and started to walk again.
It seemed like Noah had been walking for miles. He hadn’t seen any of those people. He only ran into a few disassembled bodies every mile or two but it looked like the rainfall from earlier had taken care of them. Mostly. Those that only had their limbs unattached were still twitching. They craned their necks at the sound of Noah walking and started gurgling. Noah was disgusted and horrified by the sight and sound of them. They were pathetic, disgusting, scary, sad. Noah's head was a whirlwind of emotions and sickness. Noah risked getting too close to the creature's teeth so he could help them. He went down the road, impaling their skulls with his homemade cane, squashing them into nothingness, easing their hunger. He hated it, didn't want to kill them but they were suffering. Noah didn't want to see anyone suffer, not even those things. They didn't choose to be that way. They were just as much victims as he was, or so he tried to convince himself.
Noah limped on until he was stopped once again. This time shuffling creatures weren’t in his way. No, nothing horrible was waiting for him at his stopping point. Noah’s knees weakened and if it weren’t for his tree limb cane, he very well would have collapsed.
The perspective lines from the tops of the trees to the edges of the dirt road all led to a single point off in the distance: his home.
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