A Grandmother's Gift

“…your great uncle would’ve wanted you to have it. Please, when you get this message head to our house out in the country. We were going to give this to you when you graduated from high school, but I reckon now is as good a time as any. Grandma loves you baby. Take care of yourself.”

That was the last time Blake heard a friendly voice in six long months. That voicemail played over and over in his head like a sweet song on a continuous loop. The one thing that plagued him was that he wasn't even aware he had a great uncle. He heard stories from family gatherings of a crazy relative, but he never met anyone that fit that description. It didn't matter now anyway. The life he had before crumbled away.

Just a little under half a year ago he was just an average high school kid with a full ride to Purdue University; now he was a scavenger fighting everyday just for a bite to eat. His parents left nothing for him when they fled Carreyville. They grabbed his older brother from the local community college, and followed the National Guard convoy to the safe zone in the neighboring county with nothing but a text explaining. He knew his parents never really loved him, but that was a new low even for them. Blake refused to follow in his father’s footsteps in auto repair which caused a huge rift in his small family. However, it was hardly a reason to leave him to die.

Blake shook the thoughts out of his head. He had a goal in mind, and the one thing he has learned about survival is keep your mind occupied. Keep your goal your focal point, because if you don’t, you will quickly fall into a spiraling hole of despair. It’s happened to him several times.

He stared out on to the open road that laid before him. He had traveled 72 miles from Carreyville by foot, and he could feel every single step on his throbbing feet. It didn’t really bother him though; walking pains were the new norm of this wasteland of a world he was forced into. As long as he could feel his feet he knew that he was still alive. At least he thought he was still alive. He hoped he was still alive, but seeing so much death in such a small amount of time made him question if he wasn’t just in Hell. If he was, it would resolve a lot of unanswered questions.

Blake looked just above the stop sign at the end of the street. 

Devonshire Rd. 

This was it. He had fond memories of noticing this sign as the final “checkpoint”, as he called it, before his parents dropped he and his brother off at their grandparents. He used to love seeing it. It brought him joy to know just around the bend a pair of loving arms, and warm peanut butter cookies waited to greet him. Now the sign laid forever titled as a smashed sedan sat upon its base. An apparent pre-crisis accident, Blake thought, from a large red pick up truck buried in its side in a disturbing T-bone. 

  Blake clipped the chin strap of the football helmet he took from scavenging the Carreyvill high school gym, and drew his nailed baseball bat from its make shift sheath. He wasn’t going to take any chances. Residential areas were always hot spots for the crawling ones, and that was something he just wasn’t prepared to deal with. They were a product of the post-crisis world; disgusting fusions of decaying bodies that lived only to add new healthy parts to its conglomeration of flesh. He had only seen one since the outbreak, and he definitely did not want to be first in line to see another.

He periodically checked the interior of vehicles and garages as he made his way up the familiar street. His entire journey he wondered if this was all worth it. What if his inheritance was money? What could he possibly do with a few hundred bucks in this world? He laughed as he knocked over a jar of mixed change from a work bench stationed in a small tool shed. 

It had to be something he could use. Why else would his grandmother leave that voicemail as the world was falling apart? She had to have known that he would be alone, and would need some kind of assistance, but judging by how peaceful his grandparents were he couldn’t possibly think it would be anything too useful now. Along the way he thought about turning around and going back to his sanctuary, but he knew it would forever bother him if he didn’t at least try. He didn’t really have much to live for at this point anyway, so why not take one last big road trip? At least he would be going somewhere he had loving memories. Life in Carreyville was nothing more than years of emotional abuse from his father. Maybe he died. Maybe Blake didn’t care.

His watch broke the silence of the dead neighborhood with a low beep. 

5:45 PM

It was almost sunset. Blake wasn’t afraid of the dark by any means, but the crawlers became more active at night. More numerous it seemed, and he wanted no part of it. He zipped up what items he could find in his old backpack and made his way back to the congested street. Shadows from near by houses stretched out onto the open road covering most of the street in partial darkness. It was so eerie to see his grandparent’s street so quiet. The usual polite gestures from kind neighbors were replaced by stillness and decay. Blake wasn’t sure if he would ever be used to this.

The quiet steps on asphalt became loud crunches of gravel beneath his feet. He was there. He stared up at the two story brick house that used to be vibrant with life; now sitting empty and dark along with the rest of the neighborhood. Blake didn’t know what he expected. Some part of him hoped he would walk up the drive way to see his grandmother sitting in her screened in porch waiting for him. However, he knew that was the child in him reaching out. The days of being cared for were over. 

A small gust blew a pile of leaves through the yard making his grandmother’s wind chimes sing. He closed his eyes and embraced the symphony of rings her collection would always play. As a child he always imagined little fairies playing the tunes just for him. It made him feel special for once, just as his grandparents did. He felt like he was home for the first time in a long, long time.

His feeling of nostalgia quickly washed away from him as the low, bellowing calls of something horrific echoes in the distance. It was the crawlers waking from their slumber. Blake quickly ran up to the screen door and tugged on the latch. To his surprise it was unlocked. Very unlike his grandmother to leave an entrance unsecured. Even though she was a kind old lady, she wasn’t stupid. She was always sure to check all her doors and windows before bed to make sure they were locked.

Blake locked the screen door behind him and turned to the front door. He peered through the window situated above the reef, and saw nothing but darkness on the inside the house’s entry hallway. He tried the door, but was met with the resistance of a locked knob. He didn’t want the cause a lot of noise by breaking a window, but he had to get in. He lifted his elbow fully prepared to bust the glass when his eye caught a glimpse of something out of place. It was an orange sticky note with a winky face on it. It was something his grandmother loved to do. He picked up the small paper and stuck on the other side was a key.

He smiled as the knob clicked after accepting the key. He pocketed it, and stepped inside closing the door behind him. On the entry table Blake saw another sticky note, this time a bright pink. No doubt to grab his attention.

Welcome home baby. Just as always be sure to take your shoes off and wear the slippers by the door. 

Blake glanced down at his muddy, worn boots and bent down to untie them. He knew he didn’t have to, but apart of him felt compelled to do so. For old time’s sake. He slid his feet into the slippers and quietly investigated the first floor. It was just as he remembered it, but devoid of anything he really deemed useful. His eyes combed over the various, small figurines his grandmother collected over her many years. He never really took the time to appreciate her collection as a kid. He stepped back into the entryway to the stair case which led to the upper story. 

He ascended the hard wood steps until he reached the hallway above. At the end was his grandmother’s room along with a bathroom, and a spare guest room flanking both sides of her door. A bright green sticky note, this time taped, sat on her bedroom door at eye level.

Now this is very important babe: Never EVER open this door. Promise grandma? Good. Take the key right here. I, and your late grandfather, have a surprise waiting for you in the basement.

His eyes followed the arrow drawn on the bottom of the note to a key hanging on a nail beside the door. He pulled it off, and noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Underneath the bedroom door, a shadow passed back and forth blocking the light. He already knew what happened. His grandmother must have been infected, and set this up for him before she passed. Even as she awaited death, she still found a way to put him first. She absolutely amazed him.

He placed a hand on her door to say goodbye, and quietly descended the stairs to find the basement door. He slid the key in and pulled the heavy metal door open. He always wondered why the door was a thick metal, but now that he thought about it he had never actually fully been in his grandparent’s basement. He pulled his flashlight from his belt and aimed the beam down the old wooden stair case. He slowly crept down, unsure of what he would find, but when he reached the bottom his eyes grew wide. 

His beam darted back and forth between crates of military MREs, and firearms neatly placed on racks hanging from the walls. Blake was stunned. He wasn’t quite sure how to process what he had discovered when his eyes found a familiar bright orange sticky note taped to a support beam.

Your great uncle, my baby brother Richard, was always paranoid since he came home from Vietnam. He spent his retirement collecting these weapons, and storing food in our basement for an eventual communist invasion. I always figured he was being silly, but I guess it was old grandma who was the silly one. Your grandfather would occasionally sell one or two pieces as the years went on to keep us afloat in tough times. This is all yours now baby. Your grandfather kept a detailed inventory of all things Richard kept here, so make use of it, and don’t eat everything in one sitting! Grandma loves you, and remember I’m always with you no matter what. You can beat this world and thrive. 

P.S. Don’t forget to feed the birds. They make the neighborhood what it is.

Blake choked back tears in the memory of his grandmother. She gave him the resources and the will to live again. In the one place that he felt safe as a kid, now gave him the same feeling as an adult in the worst of circumstances. He would make this his home, just as he always wanted to as a child. He would survive this. 

In his grandmother’s memory.