R-A-B-L-O-G

‘Til Death Do We Part
by Ryan Brosmer

Money is the problem. Money is always the problem, or has always been the problem since Ben and June got married. They got out of their apartment and into a house, but they don’t own the house, and it might as well be an apartment, the same cramped space, just laid out over two floors instead of one. They bought a car, but it’s broken down already. It’ll start, but can’t get past first gear. They’ll have to have it towed somewhere, but they don’t have the money.
“Grammie told me, ‘June, don’t you worry. You need that money, we’ll give it to you,’ but I didn’t even tell her we were in need,” June said to Rachel while the two restocked the coffee cups, lids and sugar at the coffee shop they worked at. It was only part-time, but it was the only thing June could find now. Rachel was in high school and this was her first job. June should have graduated college, but money got in the way of that, and this was her third job in just twice as many months.
“Well, do they have the money? I’d let ‘em give it to me,” Rachel said.
“They have the money, but it’s theirs, they worked for it. Ben and I’ll work for ours.”
“You’re going to inherit it one day anyways, right? Why delay the inevitable.”
“Well, it’s mom’s first I guess. It’d go to her and dad. And I owe them enough as it is.”
“I guess they could all go at the same time. Then it’d be yours.”
“Are you suggesting a scenario where my whole family dying would be of benefit to me?” June had always been close to her family. They didn’t always keep in contact, and actually, things had been uneasy with her parents lately. It was about money. But her grandparents were always there for her. June was so hesitant to accept help from them because she didn’t want that relationship to deteriorate, as was the case with her parents.
“Just putting it out there…. It’s not like I was offering to do anything, or suggesting you should. Just, that it could happen. It was more of a…don’t give up hope kind of thing, I guess.”
“Thanks. But I think things will work out.”
June closed the shop that evening and got home just before nine. Ben wouldn’t be home until after 11. He worked full-time, but it was in retail and didn’t mean regular hours. June ate dinner, took a bath, read and went to bed. She had to be at work early to help open the store. Ben would be asleep when she left the house in the morning, and he might be home when she got off, but he’s hoping for a promotion so he’s taken to going in early. They do it for the money. They lived for tomorrow, and tomorrow always came, but it was never any different.
Ben got his promotion. More money, regular hours and pride from his hard work paying off. They had June’s car towed to a junkyard and sold it for scrap. It was decided they wouldn’t buy another car. With Ben’s new work hours he could drop her off and pick her up most of the time. Otherwise she could just take the bus as she had since her car broke down.
June started paying back her parents and they all got together for lunch every now and then, and Ben paid for them all. They would be able to start saving once June’s parents were all paid back. But they would never be paid back.
Ben was laid off a few months later. They explained it wasn’t about him, just that they were getting rid of the position all together. They would be opening up two more part-time positions to pick up a bit of the slack, and Ben could have one of those spots if he wanted, but they would have to fire him and rehire him and there wouldn’t be any benefits involved, and of course, the pay would be much less.
“We could move. Dad said he could definitely get you job at the dealership. You’re already way overqualified with all your sales experience,” June said. She knew Ben’s pride would always get the best of him and he wouldn’t want to take hand-outs from her parents anymore than she wanted to take them from her grandparents.
“I don’t want to work at a car dealership. I have a degree, and it’s not in haggling.”
“You didn’t study computers either and that’s all you were selling before,” June snapped at Ben. It didn’t happen often, she tried to be the calm one in any argument.”
“I was management there. I had serious work to do.”
“Well, there’s the government thing out there, an agriculture department office. You could try and work there. It’s a little outside of town, but then we’d have benefits again. It’s more serious work than selling cars, right?  Would that make you happy?”
“They just ship guys in from Washington for those jobs. It’s punishment for them, just like getting stationed in the arctic,” Ben knew he had hit a nerve by equating June’s hometown to a barren icy wasteland. He quickly changed the subject. “Why don’t you just take the money from your grandparents?” It was a rhetorical question and Ben hoped it would make June frustrated just enough to end the conversation, and it worked.
June had the next weekend off and planned to go home for a couple of days. She thought she would find then a place to live, find Ben a job and maybe, just if she had time, she would stop by to see her grandparents, but only to see how they were.
She left Saturday morning after making sure Ben was fine that she would be gone with the car all weekend. She was sure it wouldn’t be a problem though; he had been depressed and hadn’t been leaving the house much as it was.
The drive was a few hours of rather barren nothingness. It was a lonely drive to take by oneself and it had been awhile since she went by herself, without Ben. She had to take a series of back road highways that cut through nothing but fields and forests. The scenery was the same the entire way home for June.
West, then south, then a little further west.
June’s cell phone rang a few times about halfway through her trip. It was Ben, but she didn’t bother picking up. She was finding herself lost in a bit of nostalgia and self-reflection. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen she and Ben aren’t able to get back on their feet. Their marriage was still young and fragile and already under so much strain. It was because of money, it was all because of money.
Ben called again. She ignored it again. This time he left a voicemail. A little red light on her phone blinked when she had a message. She had a hard time ignoring the light. She could ignore the message, but hated the blinking light.
“Goddamnit,” June said aloud, grabbing her phone and flipping it open. It said she had one new voicemail, but also that she had no signal and couldn’t check the message, but at least the light had stopped blinking. She was almost there, and she wouldn’t have cell phone signal the whole weekend so she wouldn’t have to check her voicemail. She’d give Ben a call from her parents’ home phone to let him know she arrived safely, but she hoped his voicemail would pick up and she could continue ignoring him until she got home.
A helicopter flew overhead; almost parallel with the road that June was driving down. She arched her neck up and looked out through her windshield as it passed over. It was hard to see with the sun in her eyes, but it looked military. There was an army base not far to the north. Three more helicopters followed in the next few minutes.
There were lights up ahead, flashing emergency lights. Police vehicles and fire trucks and ambulances, even a couple tow trucks, and they were blocking the road, but they were still far off. There was a sign on the shoulder of the road that was lit up and said the road was closed ahead. There was nowhere for June to turn off. It was a straight stretch of road ahead of her leading in to town, so she kept driving.
There were military vehicles, and soldiers. She hadn’t noticed them from far away, the flashing lights had been all that stood out, but she could see the people now, and they were carrying guns and taking orders. June could hear somebody shouting, but couldn’t make it out until she rolled down her windows and slowed her car.
“Turn around! The road ahead is closed!” one of the soldiers was saying through a megaphone. June continued driving, slowly. This was the only way into her town. Somebody was waving to her to stop while the one soldier kept speaking into the megaphone, telling her to turn around. She stopped and another soldier ran up to her car.
“Ma’am, you can’t get through here the road’s closed off, you’re going to have to turn around.”
“But I’m going into Burke. This is the only road in.”
“I know ma’am, but the town’s been closed off.”
“The town have been closed off? What happened? My family lives there.”
“I’m afraid we might have some bad news for you. Nobody lives in Burke anymore.”
“What do you mean? My family lives in Burke. They haven’t gone anywhere.”
“I’m sorry, nobody is alive in Burke. Everybody is dead. Kind of.”
“…Dead? What is this? What do you mean ‘kind of’? Is this a joke?”
“I assure you ma’am, this is very serious. There have been warnings on the news and over the radio. The town has been quarantined. There was something in the water. The people were infected, all of them. They all died. Then they all came back. But we’re getting ready to kill them all again.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about? So they aren’t dead?”
“No, ma’am, we’re pretty sure they’re dead, but they came back to life…sort of…after they were dead for awhile. Right around the time we arrived. They’re…undead. Umm…you know…like…zombies?”
“I can’t believe what you’re saying. I…I don’t believe it. It was just coming home to visit…”
“Ma’am, it really would be best if you turned around and went back to where you came from. We’re not sure of how far the infection has spread yet and…we’re preparing to drop napalm on the town. If you don’t leave on your own we’re going to have to escort you out.” The soldier’s voice was shaking. He had a hard time believing his own words
“How am I…what do you mean I just have to leave? My family is dead! And I have to leave? I don’t even understand what’s happened. I…can’t. I can’t go anywhere now. My whole family is dead.”