“We can’t stay here much longer,” Uncle Jamie said on the evening of our second day in the office. “We’re running out of food.”
“We can’t go out there,” Chase said, glancing toward the door.
It wasn’t bowing as it had in the past. I suspected, as Uncle Jamie most likely did, that the horde was thinning, but by how much I couldn’t tell.
“We’ll starve in here in a week if we stay,” Sam said.
“I’d rather starve to death than be eaten by one of them,” Chase said.
“If you die, either way, you’re getting eaten,” Sam said with a mischievous grin on his face.
“How so?” Chase asked.
“You die, and I’m eating your corpse for sustenance,” Sam said.
His words were a joke, but the thought that things might come down to that crossed my mind. I wish I could say that I wouldn’t eat human flesh, but I couldn’t. Life was too precarious to rule anything out anymore.
“You wouldn’t. Would you, Uncle Jamie?” Chase asked.
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Uncle Jamie said, not looking at the boy.
23.
Two mornings later, we woke to silence. The stillness was almost as deafening as the moans and bangs that had filled our waking moments.
“They’re gone,” Chase said, sitting up in his sleeping bag.
He looked so relieved that I hoped it was true.
“We can get back on the road today,” Chase continued saying, looking at each of us in turn for agreement.
I hated the doubtful look I knew was on my face. The creatures were gone, but I didn’t think we should leave our shelter until we felt confident that there weren’t any stragglers nearby.
“Come on. Why aren’t you guys happy?” Chase asked, getting off the floor and heading to the front door.
“Don’t open that door,” Uncle Jamie barked out, freezing Chase mid-step.
“But...,” my cousin said.
“But nothing,” Uncle Jamie said. “We’ll wait a bit. We don’t know for certain that they’re gone. We hope they are, and if they’ve finally given up on us, then yes, we’ll go, but not right now. We’ll go about our morning business, have breakfast, then we’ll see about the horde. All right?”
Uncle Jamie turned to look at Sam and me, who were still in our bedrolls. We both nodded. Neither of us got up. I wanted to take advantage of the quiet and sleep a bit longer. Judging by the looks on my uncle’s and cousins’ faces, they did too.
“I can’t stay here any longer,” Chase said in a pleading tone.
“Yes, you can. And you will. We are not risking our lives because you feel cooped up or scared or whatever,” Sam said. “Now, lay back down and get some sleep. We haven’t had a proper rest in days.”
Chase looked as if he wanted to argue more, but he didn’t. He did as Sam suggested and crawled back into his bag. He was asleep before the rest of us.
Uncle Jamie rose a few hours later and began preparing our meager breakfast.
“Are they still gone?” I heard Sam ask through the fog of my half-asleep mind.
“As far as I can tell. I haven’t heard anything outside in a while,” Uncle Jamie said.
“Do you think they’ve moved on?” Sam asked.
“Most of them, yes. I’m sure some are lingering around, which is why we’ll stay here again tonight. We’ll rest and get an early start first thing in the morning,” Uncle Jamie said.
“Why can’t we leave now?” Chase asked, sounding like a petulant child.
“Because I said so,” Uncle Jamie said in his “dad voice” that silenced us all. “Because we’re all still too tired and because I want to make sure there aren’t any stragglers. You can wait a day.”
“What if more creatures come?” Chase asked.
“Then, we’ll wait. We can ration our food a bit longer. If it makes you feel better, I’ll go out this afternoon and have a look around,” Uncle Jamie said with a sigh.
Chase did have a point about more coming through the area. We couldn’t survive in the office for too much longer.
My younger cousin didn’t look happy, but he did appear mollified for the time being.
We had a small meal, trained for a bit, and then rested for a while around supper.
“I’m going to slip out the back door and wander around the park to see what I can find. I’ll do my best to come back to that door, but someone needs to be at the front waiting for me as well,” Uncle Jamie said, donning his empty pack.
“I’ll take the front door, and Sam will take the back,” I said. “Chase can be our go-between if either of us needs help with anything.”
“Good idea,” Uncle Jamie said. “Don’t open this door for anyone but me. I highly doubt there’s anyone else around, but you never know.”
The three of us nodded and braced ourselves for what we’d see when Uncle Jamie opened the door. Despite having not heard a sound in hours, we were shocked to see that nothing was on the other side of the door.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Uncle Jamie said before pulling the door closed behind him.
Sam rushed to lock it.
“Did you see that?” Chase asked.
“What?” Sam and I asked at the same time, thinking we’d missed something.
“They’re gone,” he said. “All of them. We can leave in the morning, for sure.”
“We don’t know that. You need to calm down and stop pushing to leave. Remember, when we leave here, chances are we’ll be sleeping outside at night or somewhere not as secure as this place,” Sam reminded him as only a sibling could.
Chase looked at the two of us dumbfounded. The boy hadn’t thought through the repercussions of leaving our current shelter. Thankfully, Sam’s words shut him up, and Chase said nothing else on the subject.
True to his word, Uncle Jamie was back an hour later. He was alone, and his pack had very few items in it. What little he’d found would get us through the next few days if we found ourselves stuck in the office building any longer.
“So, what did you see?” I asked, once my uncle had unloaded his burden and sat down.
“No zombies,” he said. “Or well, none that could attack me. Debris pinned a few of them to the ground. I killed the ones I could. The creatures have leveled the trailer park. In some areas, they nearly flattened the homes. If there were any other people around, they’re gone or dead. We’ll try to search through the debris when we leave in the morning, but I don’t think we’ll find anything useful.”
“So, we’re still leaving in the morning?” Chase asked, then flinched as if his brother had taken a swing at him.
“As of right now,” Uncle Jamie said. “There isn’t enough stuff around for us to stay.”
“We’re still heading to the National Guard Station, aren’t we?” Chase asked.
“Yes. I think that’s our best bet,” our uncle said, though the expression on his face said he wasn’t so sure.
I doubted anywhere was safe, but didn’t voice my thoughts. Uncle Jamie and Sam were smart enough to know it was true. Chase was too. He just chose to live in denial—or maybe he decided to have hope.
That night we slept well between guard shifts. In the morning, Chase, who wasn’t in the rotation, woke us early in his eagerness to get on the road. Sam cursed him and threw a shirt at him.
Uncle Jamie, who had the last watch, came into the main area to see what was happening.
“Son, you’re going to have to calm down,” Uncle Jamie said to Chase before taking a seat on a pile of blankets.
“Sorry,” Chase said, looking sheepishly.
“Look, we know you want out of here. We know you’re scared. We feel the same way, but we’re cautious. You’re behaving impulsively. Out there, that will get you and us killed.”
“Sorry,” Chase said again.
“What’s for breakfast?” Sam asked, changing the subject.
We ate in silence. We cleaned up and packed our bags without ta
lking as well. Chase had even seemed to no longer be in a hurry to leave.
Once we were ready to go, we stood by the front door, not moving.
“Remember, stay together, weapons at the ready, and pay attention to your surroundings. Just because it was clear yesterday and everything is silent now, doesn’t mean there isn’t something or someone waiting to ambush us,” Jamie said, removing the two-by-fours.
The world on the other side of the open door was just as bright and empty as it was the day before.
24.
The first thing I did was tilt my face to the sky to feel the sunshine when I crossed the threshold into the chilly winter day. Growing up, I hated summers in the south. Temperatures rarely fell below freezing, and we seldom got snow. That day was no different, but at that moment, I relished the forty-degree weather and the bright sky.
“Zombies did this?” Sam asked, breaking my tranquility and bringing me back to reality.
“Yep,” Uncle Jamie said.
The fact that the creatures had been in the park was undeniable. The monsters had nearly leveled the entire place. Only the random trailer or motor vehicle stood upright. Some homes, as Uncle Jamie had said yesterday, were almost flat against the ground. Bodies and body parts of zombies who’d gotten trapped under the horde also littered the area.
“If the creatures could do this, then how did they not break down our doors and windows?” Sam asked.
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” Uncle Jamie said. “That part doesn’t make sense.”
“God,” I suggested.
“Had to be,” Chase said.
Not everyone in my family went to church, nor, I’m sure did they all believe in God, but my grandma was insistent that we attend as much as possible, and no one told her they were atheist or agnostic. I believe in God. I didn’t think the Bible was literally “God’s word,” which Grandma did. Seeing the destruction before me and the lone office building relatively unharmed, cemented my belief whether it did for my cousins and uncle or not.
“We probably won’t find much, but we should sift through the debris for food and anything else useful,” Uncle Jamie said, moving off to one of the trailers that the creatures had only partially demolished.
“Don’t split up too much,” Sam called when he saw that Chase and I had headed in different directions from him and Uncle Jamie.
“Okay,” Chase and I called back.
I did my best to keep my family in sight as I picked through the remains of the trailer park. Mostly, what I found were body parts. My gloves were going to need a good scrubbing when we settled next.
I didn’t find any weapons, but I did find a roll of toilet paper, a can of tuna, a bottle of shampoo, and a pair of shoes that might fit Chase. As far as I could tell, my cousins and uncle were fairing about as well as I was. Hopefully, between the four of us, we’d find enough food to last a little while.
Either we were making too much noise digging through the demolished trailers or the zombies were moving silently, but one minute we were alone, and the next, we were all but surrounded.
Chase screamed.
I shot at the closest creature.
Uncle Jamie and Sam ordered us to run.
So we did.
At the far end of the park, I almost ran face-first into five zombies shambling through the trees in our direction.
“Fuck me,” I shouted before spearing one of the creatures in the eye.
“Willa, you all right?” Uncle Jamie called to me.
“Yeah. The zombies seem to be coming from all directions,” I said, spearing a second one in the neck.
“Keep running,” Sam said, sprinting up to me, grabbing my arm, and pulling me toward a gap in the horde.
Chase and Uncle Jamie were right behind us. At least for a while.
I ran.
I stumbled.
I fell.
I lost sight of Sam.
I fought.
At one point, I found myself on the ground with a sheet of metal covering my body with two creatures beating on it. I was screaming. The piece of a trailer was the only thing between me and those things eating me. I couldn’t do anything more than cry as their bodies fell on top of me.
I didn’t stop crying when I heard gunshots or after the weight pressing me into the earth eased or even when I could see the sky again.
“Get up. We gotta keep going. The creatures are still coming,” Sam said, grabbing my hand and yanking me to my feet.
I didn’t get to scream at the sight of the horde, making its way through the trees after us because Sam was pulling me behind him again.
After that, we did a lot more running. Sweat and blood ran down my face, blurring my sight. I don’t know in which direction we ran. I don’t know how long we ran. I don’t even know when I lost my family. I thought I was following the sounds of their feet, their guns, and their yells reasonably well, but at some point, I lost them. Next, the sounds of their voices faded, and then the cracks of their guns were gone.
Once or twice, I called out their names, but for the most part, I was too out of breath to make a sound.
Eventually, I collapsed at the foot of a large tree. I was too tired to run anymore—too tired to fight. If I was going to die, then so be it. But nothing attacked me. As my breathing calmed and my heartbeat stopped thumping in my ears, I realized the world around me was quiet.
I opened my mouth to call someone’s name, but the only noise I made was a dry squeak. The bag of stuff I accumulated while searching the park was gone. I was sure I’d dropped it early on in my flight from the zombies. My backpack was in shreds, and most of the stuff I had in it had fallen out. I found a bottle of water at the bottom. That was all that I had in the way of sustenance. Fortunately, I still had most of my weapons.
After sipping the water, I used a torn shirt to wipe my face. Once I could see, I scanned the forest around me, wondering where I was. I saw no sign of my family or the creatures that chased us out of the trailer park. Panic wanted to overwhelm me, but I forced myself to take a bunch of deep breaths before ordering my body to move.
I continued to sip the water, but I’d screamed and cried myself hoarse, so I had no way of calling out to my family.
For hours, I walked in the direction we’d run. I found no sign of my uncle or cousins. Footsteps and debris littered the ground, but they led off in too many areas for me to follow. The only thing I knew to do was find shelter for the night.
Eventually, I stumbled upon a small house sitting by itself just past the tree line. I prayed as I opened the door that my family had found the place as well.
They hadn’t.
The home appeared to have been empty since day one of the outbreak. There were some supplies left in the cabinets, so I’d be all right staying a day or so and waiting for someone to find me.
I ambled into the bathroom and stripped with only a glow stick to shine a light on my actions. I threw my dirty clothes into the hamper out of habit. I rinsed blood and dirt off my body the best I could with a jug of water I found in the back of a cabinet in the kitchen.
Once clean, I discovered a nasty wound on my upper arm. When I had gotten it, I didn’t know. I hadn’t felt it until I had cleaned it. I guess that was due to shock and the adrenaline pumping through my body.
“Shit,” I said, pulling the bloody rag away from the wound. The skin and muscle looked so gnarled that I was sure it was a bite wound.
I didn’t know how or when I was bit, but that was what the wound had to be.
I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. I thought about putting a bullet in my head right then, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger.
I did throw up the water I drank before forcing myself to get my shit together and bandage my arm. The entire time I cleaned the area, doctored it, and wrapped it, I cried.
After dressing and eating a can of Vienna sausages, I had a long mental talk with myself.
There was no way I could go back to
my family with the wound. Uncle Jamie would shoot me on the spot, and I wouldn’t blame him. He’d looked so tired and lost those last few days. He didn’t need the nightmare killing another family member who was still alive would give him, and I couldn’t risk them letting me turn.
Once dressed and fed, I left the house. I needed to run from Uncle Jamie and my cousins. I had to make sure neither they nor anyone else found me. I knew I had to find a place to lock myself inside where I couldn’t get out and hurt people.
25.
In a deep state of shock, I walked late into the night. I had no idea what direction I was going and didn’t care. Eventually, I fell asleep in a dollar store. The front doors of the place were gone, so I grabbed a pillow and blanket off a shelf and curled into a back corner, fully expecting to wake as a zombie.
I didn’t.
I knew I hadn’t because the pain that woke me some hours later was horrific. Those creatures never appeared to hurt, not even when they lost a limb. I was both relieved and sad when I woke alone.
For some time, I lay on the floor crying and wishing I’d die already. When the pain got to be too much to bear, I rose and searched the store for medical supplies.
With tears pouring down my face, I dressed the wound in the store’s bathroom—though I knew it was pointless—and put on clean clothes that I’d pulled off one of the racks. Once that was done, I ate a protein bar.
A part of me said I should stay in the store and wait for my death, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know where my family was, and I couldn’t risk them finding me. I hoped I’d wandered far away from the trailer park, but thought I should still put more miles between us if possible.
The sun was full in the sky by the time I left the store. My feet ached from all of the running and walking I’d done the night before, but I made myself move in the direction that I thought was west until I realized that I was stumbling all over the road. Anyone watching me could mistake me for a zombie. That would be a bad thing, considering what was happening to me, but I wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.
WILLA Page 11
