Look, I know the world has ended and everybody else is dead. But it's Christmas, Goddamnit!!
The Perfect Gift for a Post-Apocalypse Christmas
It
’s just after midnight, and I’m still wide awake. It’s Christmas eve, after all. Like the child that I was, way too many years ago, I am waiting for the sound of sleigh bells on the roof and jolly old Saint Nick to pop out of the fireplace bearing everything my secret heart desires.When all is said and done, I think I’ve been a good girl in this year of Apocalypse and Armageddon. I can’t figure out which word I like better for what the world has become. Armageddon rolls off the tongue so majestically, but Apocalypse is so darned Apocalyptic.
I’m digressing, aren’t I? Digression is a vice commonly practiced by the lonely and eccentric. Those two little words sum me up perfectly I am literally so lonesome (and paranoid) that I’ve spent most of Christmas Eve pacing the vast echoing confines of my domicile. I’ve remained awake long into the wee hours of Christmas Morning, wondering which of the 45 decorated and be-stockinged fireplaces Santa may choose to appear in. The sad and eccentric part is that I want his company even more than the goodies he will have in that big red sack of his. The shotgun I’m carrying is a just-in-case thing. Really. The bullet in the chamber is merely a precaution, because to believe that Santa Clause has become like everybody else is unthinkable.
I see Santa every time I venture out of here, sometimes three or four of them at a time. Over at the mall I have counted at least six Santas, trapped behind the glass doors that locked shut when the power gave out. They seem to lack the capacity, in their new undead state, to turn the levers that release the doors manually. They buzz around in there like bees in a jar, banging off the doors and ricocheting off the walls, never ceasing their senseless and futile motion.
Just as well, really. I have no problem shooting zombies, but there must still be a bit of the little kid left in me because inwardly I cringe at the notion of blowing Santa’s head off. It was bad enough when I had to pop the guy in the Thomas the Thanksgiving Turkey suit, and I don’t even like turkeys.
All I really want for Christmas is to go home. Home is about 500 miles away, though, and I am sorely lacking a handy pair of ruby slippers to step over the miles in. Home might as well be on the moon. I dream of my home with such longing that my sobs wake me almost daily. I want my quiet house with the cozy back porch and shelves crammed with paperback books. I want the familiar faces and places of my small town life. Most of all I want my husband, who I know could keep me laughing, even amidst Apocalypse and Armageddon.
I know that I am very fortunate, just because I am alive. The world ended with shocking suddenness, and I think most people died because they couldn’t accept what had happened in time to save themselves. Because they tend to be steeped in the practical more than the fantastic, folks my age are likely an endangered species about now. I guess that’s kind of a dumb statement, since all folks are pretty endangered about now. The world is still overpopulated, it’s just that now it’s overpopulated with ex-folks.
Why did this happen? How did it happen? No clue here. I was on a business trip the night the world ended. I had gone back to my room at the hotel, taken a shower, called Matt at home to say goodnight, then gone to sleep with Arlo purring on the pillow next to my head. I hate traveling alone, so I always bring the cat along for company. Hey, I still sleep with the stuffed lion I had as a kid, too.
I woke to the sound of the plant next door - the one that I had come to do safety inspections for - blowing up. The power was out and I decided that discretion was the better part of valor. I dressed quickly, and stuffed Arlo and the lion into my traveling bag, which I slung over one shoulder. When I got outside the world was on fire and every person I saw was dying or dead. The dead ones were walking around. Walking around and eating the dying. I kept to the shadows and slunk away. Cowardly, maybe, but I go to the movies, so I know all about the living dead. Once a zombie bites you, you’re dead anyway. No thanks.
I walked towards a mall I remembered passing, figuring that if the movies were right about zombies they might also be right about the relative safety of malls. Before I reached it, I found a Sam’s Club store. I climbed a fire ladder to the roof and forced open the access door. The place was deserted, and built like a fortress. I jammed the door closed with a folding chair and I descended the dark stairs into my new home.
I managed to salvage most of the fruit and vegetables in the place thanks to the veggie chip machines in Aisle Five. The meat smokers just up the aisle from the chip machines enabled me to preserve the vast meat supply. I used one of the generators to run the chip machines and meat smokers.
There is plenty of gas for the generators, and there are plenty of generators. It’s Sam’s Club - there are plenty of everything. I only used the generator to save the food, though, then turned it off for good. It made noise, and even though I ran it in the basement area I was terrified that the vibration would tell the ravenous masses outside that I was in here. If they ever figure that out, they will trap me in this place forever.
I have solar lanterns that I charge daily up on the roof. There are over 200 of them, more than enough to keep the place nice and bright. I painted over what few windows this place has to keep the light from showing. There’s lots of cat food and enough bottled water to stave off thirst for the next several years. The camping supply department was stocked with an eternities worth of water purification tablets, making it fine to use rainwater for bathing and washing clothes and such.
I haven
’t encountered another living human being on my stealthy scouting excursions. No people, no animals, no anything. Well no live ones anyway. Plenty of dead people walking around, also looking for live ones, but no one alive and capable of conversation to be found.Are they hiding, like me? The night this happened I saw how relentlessly those who had died pursued those still living. I think that if there were other survivors in this once-crowded suburb I
’d see signs of life somewhere. Like a crowd of the walking dead milling around a closed up building or a biker gang on a shooting and looting spree or something.Still, I
’m here and I’ve managed to keep them from finding me. Maybe - hopefully - there are other survivors out there.All in all, things could be much worse. On most days I sneak out - carefully - making sure to leave no evidence that my particular Sam
’s Club store is tenanted. I don’t think they’re smart enough to realize that tracks in the snow could lead them back to a surviving human, but I stay in on snowy days just in case. I keep the doors locked and blocked, and check them several times a day with all the zeal of a religious convert.I also think a lot about transportation. There are literally millions of cars abandoned all around me, but they could stop a car with the sheer pressure of their reeking carcasses. Cars get stuck all the time and I
’d imagine that thousands of bodies converging on a car, even a big jeep, would inhibit forward progress enough for them to smash their way through the metal and glass shell to me, the soft and chewy center. A motorcycle is out, too. The noise of the engine would bring them running. I have no doubt I could outrace them, but they are everywhere. When I was finally forced to stop and re-fuel they would bury me.A military vehicle would work, though. A tank or a half track type of thing, something that can roll over stalled cars or attacking animated corpses with equal ease, with enough room inside for me and Arlo, plus food and water and plenty of extra fuel. Maybe even a flamethrower full of napalm, just in case I want to burn a few. It might be slow, but it will get us safely home, where I pray that Matt is alive and waiting for me.
They keep those things on military bases, and just now, just as I was wandering aimlessly from fireplace to fireplace I located a military base. The base is close, just two towns over. It is listed right here on this map of local attractions. The map was on the floor in front of the faux fireplace I had set up next to the book section. I guess I knocked it loose when I was decorating the fireplace, and didn’t notice until just now, when I was pacing around the store hoping for a Christmas miracle.
As Christmas Eve becomes Christmas morning, I realize that Santa Clause has visited me here after all. I finally put aside my miraculous map and road atlas and toddle off to my luxurious king-sized waterbed - conveniently set up for me in the home furnishings section. I nudge Arlo’s purring furry warmth over to make some room for myself. Except for the cat, and the stuffed lion, I have been alone for months.
Today, on this holiday of holidays, I no longer feel so alone. I have a companion, something that I have not seen for months. Something that I have missed so horribly and deeply that I couldn’t bear to acknowledge its absence in my life.
This magical Christmas morning my fear is blessedly forgotten. Santa, that wiliest of old elves, has brought me a companion after all. That companion is hope.