The Last Percocet Pepsi

Margaret is chasing her dog in clumsy circles on my front lawn. She’s 75.

How do they not catch you?

I lower myself to the carpet and crawl to the window. Rising to peer over the sill, I freeze. Her dirty face breathes, open mouthed, just a few feet from my own. Her slow, bleached gaze finds me, and she bares rusty teeth.

Gross. That’s old blood, that’s what that is.

I keep still, not looking away. Distracted by something in the Harrison’s yard, she pulls her hollow stare away and scrambles off. She’s still zipped into a dirty, purple parka; it’s torn in the back and reveals a pair of very stained granny-panties.

“Oh, Margaret, honey,” I whisper. “Where are your pants?”

Laughter belches up from deep in my chest. I snort loudly, cover my mouth and slide down to sit on the floor with my back against the wall.

It was the tequila and Pepsi. Yesterday I found a stash of both behind the Xbox in the basement. Max must have left it there when he was alive and not buried behind the garage. Was never my drink before, but now, with nothing but an overworked Brita pitcher in the house?

Fucking nectar.

I take another burning gulp from the canteen around my neck and crawl to the front door to check the bolt. Something slams hard against the door and I fall backward and laugh in fear this time.

Jesus Christ!

The Infected never hunt alone, but I can’t imagine reclusive Margaret hanging with anyone but her trembling dog. Maybe her Princeton professor son runs with her. He attacked two kids in front of Vito’s Pizza last month.

A deep, inhuman growl vibrates beyond the varnished wood and I hold my breath, eyes wide, smiling; I’m sharing a hellish joke with no one. At last, I hear clumsy steps trip over themselves and then stomp across the wooden porch to the grass. The canteen strap rubs my neck; I pull it off and take another long drink. “Max McConnell, Hopewell Bulldogs” is written crookedly in green Sharpie on its beaten metal side.

“Oh, Maxie.” I smile and wait for tears. “You made me so proud.” My eyes burn, but it might be the cocktail. No tear tsunami today. Good. And he had made me proud. After he was attacked -- when he knew he would be violent in a few days -- my teenage son did what few men in town had the guts to do.

We found him in the garage sleeping a sweet and final carbon-monoxide dream, his bitten arm rested on top of his lap. One of his little black notebooks, which he carried everywhere, lay opened on the dash. Each word filled a page: Love you.

There was half a crumpled joint sitting in a coffee mug. Nick, the bad cop, won’t admit it but we were both glad Max had something to soften the end.

Wiping my nose, I stand up shakily. “Okay, ‘nuff booze.”

I shuffle into the dining room in scuffed Ugg boots and my thickest jeans, all duct-tape-reinforced – the better to ward off spitty bites from the shitty infected. Glancing at the overgrown grass outside, I’m glad the house is still cool; the thought of choosing a safe spring outfit makes me tired – but then, fashion always did wear me out.

Tightening Nick’s robe over my apocalyptic ensemble, I catch the scent of his cologne on the collar and close my eyes. He’s tied down on our bed upstairs and will be a snarling sack of deadly saliva by tomorrow. . . probably. One quick jog up the street, just to see what was what, and that was it for my big guy. He’d stepped on some poor bastard asleep under the Huber’s hedges.

Yeah, they sleep, but – for fuck’s sake – don’t step on ‘em.

I shift the robe and smell up the last bit of him. A Lexus SUV growls slowly up the street, and then idles ominously. It’s filled with my former PTA-tyrant neighbors. I step behind the curtains to peer through the smudged glass. Armed and drunk on righteous violence, the healthy lean excitedly out the windows: Highly Educated Zombie Hunters on Patrol.

Not zombies, though. No, the Infected, actually, have rabies and can be killed in conventional ways. But there’s no vaccine, no cure, and once turned bat-shit insane they are near impossible to catch. One drop of saliva or blood could infect you from 15 feet away and they all spit like gods. Mother Nature, that vindictive bitch, infected a rabid chimp with a spicy new bird flu, and presto-chango: Rage Rabies. It followed the end of Covid-19 and took just a month to jump species.

“Emmm…”

Jesus, he is lucid. It had been 48 hours; so the gossip was true. Tom at the Italian Market said his wife had two hours of sanity just before she turned.

“Emmy!”

I lay my canteen aside and pick up the tray.

I have a few hours if I’m lucky.

At the top of the stairs, where windows can be safely opened, I inhale the soft breeze, cruelly scented with sun-warm lilacs. They choose to bloom, now?

Really? You shove damned bouquets up out of the earth as we all morph and die? Really?

Hell, if I want to think about irony, I picture the rusted metal box I dug up last week. John’s grandparents had said there was treasure here. We thought they were kidding, but they were apparently just crazy. Crazy to bury a $20,000 gold coin collection, forget where it was and then sell the house to your grandson and his family. What we could have done with that, my family. My family.

“I don’t even want the stupid box, now,” I pout, holding the tray. And then a sharper, sour scent rises from the closed door before me. I hear movement inside and the smell grows strong, tangible. A nursery rhyme ghosts in my head:

“…a pocketful of posies,

ashes, ashes,

we all fall down…”

Swallowing, I push the door open with the toe of my boot and really, truly smell Nick before I see him.

Just, wow.

Inside that wet Yankees t-shirt and behind the oily new beard is my best friend.

“Hey, sleepyhead!” Too loud, too cheerful.

The pillows I pushed behind his passed-out head last night are now flat, stained. He looks up at me through feverish eyes, and then, with effort, turns his head right and then left to stare at each bound wrist.

I shrug, try to smile. “I finally used the furry handcuffs.”

“S’bout time,” he whispers. “And the necktie you, you h-hated.”

He was shivering now.

“Yep,” I whisper back. “It’s so girly. What was your mother thinking?”

Grinning through tears, I feel for the utility knife at the back of my waistband. It’s in a secure duct-tape holster. I once had mad crafting skills.

I unknot the necktie at his left wrist. He cries out as his weakened arm hits the bed.

“Sorry, sorry!”

I turn and pick up one of the two glasses from the tray. The residue of the five Percocet tablets I’d added to each glass earlier makes a smoky swirl in the dark, sweet sodas. It’s not the warm Pepsi I’ve grown to love with its tequila base; the last of that is in my canteen downstairs. No, this is a special cocktail just for Nick, a wonderful, horrible seasonal drink from Maxie’s middle school years: Pepsi Holiday Spice. Max and I would drink it on a dare, but Nick actually loved it. Said it reminded him of a Swedish drink his grandmother used to serve. Two cans, hidden for a future holiday, had been forgotten behind a box of extra wine glasses we would never need again.

When I sit on the bed beside him, I realize the linens are damp with more than sweat. With the glass at his lips, he drinks hungrily, closes his eyes, the spicy taste unnoticed. I return the glass to the tray, carefully arrange the pillows behind his head and settle lightly next to him.

He dozes.

The view outside is all golden yellow and baby green, sunlight and spring. I watch as Margaret scrambles through our back hedges and over our broken fence. She’s joined by a young, well-built man. He’s naked, his body striped dark with blood, and they both are running full speed. His face is alight with savage, innocent joy.

Nick laughs weakly. I grin down at him.

Pretty precious painkilling pills...

The irony that these slobbering creatures hunt and sleep in possessive pairs remains hilarious to me. I jump as the giant Lexus rumbles after them across our mangled hydrangea bushes. Martin Sanderson leans out the back window, a black military rifle propped on his shoulder.

“Damn,” Nick and I both say.

Jinx. You owe me a Coke… Or a Pepsi …

With my left hand I adjust my waistband, pull the knife from its holder and look down at Nick. His head hangs to the right, so I brush his wet curls away from his neck and think: Will I be riding with that crowd next week? The last time we saw them, before the outbreak, Martin and Heather had recounted their kids’ academic awards and sports victories with an almost sexual excitement. Now they had automatic weapons and a license to be lifetime assholes.

Nick sighs, and coughs. “Bye love.” His voice is faded, going.

My lips shake, so I bite them.

Now or never… never or now.

I reach for the last Percocet Pepsi, raise it to him and look into his closing eyes. He shakes his head; I slam it myself in three child-like gulps, savor the unexpected cinnamon and tart medication.

Suddenly heartsick, furious, I throw the glass out the screenless window with aim I never managed in our life before. It shatters on the bluestone patio below, where memories of happy summers die.

Nick’s breathing grows erratic and his eyes open, scared, and then they close, and he grows still. Sounds of the truck and the shouts die away. A few brave birds resume polite conversation.

Turning the rubber knife handle in my sweaty left hand I look down at my husband, at his still body, his calm face. I blink as his eyes open again and stare … straight into my soul.

Clear … coherent … waiting.

Without looking away from him I fling the weapon after the glass and fumble for the small key in my pocket. My teeth chatter as I turn the plastic key in the costume cuffs that anchor his right wrist to the bedpost, I pull the white furry halves apart and then hurl them out the window, too.

As the cuffs clatter on the bluestone below, I pull my husband’s face close to mine and stare into the flat brown irises that sparkled once. I grin at him, press my nose below his ear.

Sliding my suddenly strong arms around his weakened body, I inhale deeply and hold on for life.