Nathan woke with a start. His lips were parched. His head was pounding. He was consumed by hunger. The unfamiliar room around him was lit by a grey dawn seeping in through drawn blinds. Besides the rasping sound of his own laboured breathing, the only sounds he heard were some shuffling feet and a low inhuman moaning coming from some distant hallway.
As his eyes came into focus, he realized that he was in a hospital room. No nurses. No doctors. No other patients. "Oh damn," he thought, "must be the zombie apocalypse."
Lying there, contemplating his next move, some memories returned to him. His wife Patty had sent him out for some bread. It had been earlyish that day - a Saturday, he believed - Patty and the three girls had been sprawled out in the family room, watching something on tv. With surprising clarity, he recalled that they had just started re-watching The OC from the beginning, and were somewhere early in Season Two. The little one was hungry and wanted some toast, and hence the errand to get some bread. But how had he ended up here?
Then he had flashes of a memory of the first few minutes of his drive to the corner store, an on-rushing car going way too fast and swerving onto his side of the street, and the rest was blank.
Now he found himself in what looked like a big city hospital, alone, and clearly in dire straits.
Nathan was never a quitter, and he certainly wasn't going to let a small brush with death, a zombie apocalypse, and a bit of distance keep him from returning to his family...if he had a family to return to. So he slowly eased himself into a sitting position, then onto the floor, and he began what would turn out to be several weeks of scavenging the hospital for food, drink and makeshift weapons, working his way back into strength, and developing a plan for how he would make his way back home.
By the time he finally left the hospital on his homeward trek, he was ready - armed, well fed and well stocked, in the best shape of his life, and deeply driven to overcome whatever stood between him and his family.
First there was the matter of fighting his way out of a city swarming with the undead. That took a while. The suburbs and countryside weren't much better. Between bashing brains and dodging the awkward but surprisingly determined creatures, it was pretty slow-going. Despite that, Nathan kept moving forward.
He joined up with other bands of survivors when their direction aligned with his. But a time would always come when he'd be back on his own, following his solitary path home.
The thought never crossed his mind that his journey was in vain. It never occurred to him that he would find anything other than his family as it had always been, awaiting his return. He just kept going with a doggedness that surprised even him, not letting the clouds of doubt darken his spirit.
Finally, months and many life-threatening skirmishes later, he reached the edge of his town.
Like every other place he had encountered on his way, his own community had clearly been over-run and was now a wasteland. No children played. No dogs barked. No cars moved on the streets. There were a few zombies staggering about mindlessly - some he recognized as old acquaintances - but not many. And now he was mere blocks away from an anticipated reunion that had played out over and over in his head for months.
Looking about, he saw the corner store that had been his destination that fateful day months ago: windows shattered, parking lot strewn with rubble and carnage, and dark inside. Remembering the morning before all of this happened, and a time when the old Nathan had chosen to drive his car the few blocks to the store rather than walk, he realized how far he had come; he now looked like an action hero and had just crossed countless miles with nothing but his own two feet, a previously untapped strength, and sheer force of will to carry him.
Then he remembered one more detail from his last morning at home: A loaf of bread. He had been sent out to buy a loaf of bread! On a whim, he crossed over to the store, carefully climbed through he window, and looked about to see if there was anything left that hadn't already been scavenged. Sure enough, under an overturned shelf he found a relatively well-preserved (if slightly flattened) bag of WonderBread. He picked it up and set off to cover the remaining few blocks that stood between him and the end of his quest.
At last he found himself on his overgrown front lawn. The windows of his home were boarded up and the house was dark except for a faint flickering light emanating from within. His heart pounded with anticipation.
Unable to see inside, he decided that his only prudent move was to carefully try the front door and be ready to deal with whatever lay inside. He did that. The door opened with a slight creak.
Inside, he saw that the flickering light was coming from the direction of the family room. He quietly crept toward it. Peeking around the corner, he took in the entire scene all at once: the light was coming from his old, faithful television which had been connected to a small generator; also connected to the tv was a DVD player with boxes of The OC DVDs neatly stacked on top; on the screen an episode from Season One was playing; and there, sprawled out in the room, were Patty and the girls.
He wasn't sure at first that they were okay, but as he stood there observing them silently, he could see that they were indeed alive, gazing at the screen with very human eyes, breathing normally, and seemingly much as he had left them months and months ago.
Overcome with joy, he cleared his throat with a distinct "ahem" so that he wouldn't startle them and stepped around the corner. Nothing. So he tried again, speaking in the calmest voice he could muster: "Girls...it's me. I'm home at last!" Nobody reacted. Then he stepped closer to the tv and spoke again in a clear and much louder voice: "GIRLS! I'M HOME!"
"SHHHHHHH! We can't hear the tv and this is the best episode ever!", came the response from his girls, more or less in unison.
Nathan had imagined many versions of this scene on his long journey home. In none of his imaginings had he been shushed. In a last attempt to salvage some dignity, he held up the loaf in his hand and asked in a falsely cheerful voice: "Anyone want some bread?"
Patty shifted her eyes in his direction, looked at the bread and answered "That's white, the girls only eat multigrain." She then returned her gaze to the screen.
Nathan left the room, sat down in the kitchen and ate a few slices of bread while he waited patiently for the episode to end. Outside, he heard a horde of zombies shuffling by and thought to himself, "Sure glad I don't have to deal with those anymore".
He was home...and the Wonderbread was wonderfully soft.
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