by Jimmy Bird
We Are Still Here
By Jimmy Bird
Regret. Regret is defined as a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done. Regret is such a simple word with a deep meaning. I mean, have you ever regretted anything in your life? Come on, be honest. Have you ever regretted getting a certain tattoo, maybe not talking to a certain guy or girl you thought was attractive? What about not going to college or not going for that certain job. How about not buying that fancy new sports car or bike? Yeah, we all have regrets and I’m no different. I regret that I secretly wanted the zombie apocalypse to happen. When it finally happened, I lost almost everyone that I had ever loved and held dear. Before the apocalypse happened though, I didn’t think about what could possibly happen. All I knew was that I wanted the zombie apocalypse to happen so badly that I didn’t care about the consequences! Well, that’s not entirely true, but then again it is. Now that I think back on it, I think that I wanted the apocalypse to happen because I felt that our society needed a type of cleansing, a fresh start so to speak. I figured that it would be our modern-day plaque. Deep down, I truly thought that it would unite us as one people. That it would bring all of us together to fight this evil like it did in the movies. Instead, it brought out the worst in us. Instead of uniting us, we attacked and killed each other. Family attacked family; neighbors attacked neighbors. For what? Clothes? Food? A sanctuary? Weapons? Tools? Supplies? No, we attacked each other because it's in our nature, our HUMAN nature. I’ve said this before and you would be wise to remember it now, Don’t Trust Anyone.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Stuff of Nightmares Page 3
Chapter 2: Survival of the Fittest Page 14
Chapter 3: A New Beginning Page 24
Chapter 4: Danny and Austin Page 43
Chapter 5: The Last Council Member Page 58
Chapter 6: The End of Our Humanity Page 77
Chapter 7: Leaving to Survive Page 114
Chapter 8: A Hope for A Future Page 138
Chapter 9: Makalyn’s Story Page 159
Chapter 10: Captain Serina Steph Page 188
Chapter 11: Makalyn’s Escape Page 213
Chapter 12: The Return Home Page 225
Chapter 13: God’s Plan Page 237
Chapter 14: I’m Sorry Page 255
Chapter 15: Abandonment Issues Page 271
Chapter 16: New Plans Page 286
Chapter 17: Mount Scott Page 297
Chapter 1: The Stuff of Nightmares
I was at work, doing what I usually did. Driving a stand-up lift called a ‘Dock Stocker’ to pack up the appliances and get them ready to ship out. When they were ready to ship, I would then load them into stationary trailers. Once the trailers were full then someone would come and change them out for empty ones. It was a normal day for us in the shipping department, nothing out of the ordinary. Well, that was until we got called to the cafeteria for an emergency meeting.
Our management told us, “It appears that monsters were running amok and attacking people across the world. As a precautionary measure, we’re going to send you home until further notice.”
Confused about what we were just told, someone in the crowd asked, “What’s really going on?”
The plant manager spoke up, “Corporate headquarters has reassured me that there’s nothing to worry about. We’re just sending you home as a precautionary measure.”
Once outside the Warehouse, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my wife as I walked towards my car. I wanted to let her know that I was off work early and to suggest that we could take the kids out to eat at a nice restaurant for lunch. During that time of day, it was something that we hardly got to do. Unfortunately, it went straight to voicemail. It was a little odd, but not uncommon. Sometimes, she would leave her phone in another room while she was messing around with our young children.
Once I made it home to our front gate, I noticed that it was wide open. Again, it was a little odd, but not unheard of. It could mean that my mother-n-law, who was disabled, came to visit. It could also mean that the mailman had a package to deliver, one that required a signature. The driveway was a good half mile to our house that was kind of curvy, very similar to a curved snake or a stretched out ‘S’.
I pulled into my driveway and entered through the front gate. Once I was on the driveway, I tried calling my wife again. I got the same response as before. It went straight to voicemail.
For some unexplained reason, I still wasn’t worried. I was more annoyed than anything. I mean, why would she not answer the phone? Was she mad at me? Was she cheating? Was she just too busy to talk?
I pressed the end button to hang up my phone and immediately pushed the power button to put it in sleep mode as I sat it down on my lap. I wanted it within arms reach for whenever my wife decided to call me back. I mean, who knows, maybe she accidentally turned off the ringer. It wouldn’t be the first time she did that either.
Driving up the winding driveway, I glanced over at the perfectly cut green grass and neatly trimmed four-foot bushes that followed the road all the way to the house. The bushes were on both sides of the driveway to discourage people from driving off the path. Just past the bushes were trees. Trees as far as the eye could see were scattered throughout on our ‘few’ acres of land. I couldn’t help but smile. It was perfect.
My house was custom built and paid for, the same with our cars. The house was two stories, with the first floor alone close to three thousand square feet. The second floor was just a little smaller. It was only two thousand square feet. It had six bedrooms (one for each of my kids, me and my wife’s room, and a spare room) and four bathrooms (it was equivalent to a small mansion). It had a tall, steep roof with two fireplaces that had a garage big enough to hold four full size cars. It also had large windows that was offset by a rich colored brick facade.
As for the cars, I had the newest black Shelby Mustang Cobra. It had dark interior and dark tinted windows. It was designed, signed, numbered and photographed with Corral Shelby himself. My wife had a brand-new tan Ford Expedition with matching interior. It was the Eddie Bauer collector’s edition.
I looked up and saw the steep roof of our large two-story house come into view. An excited feeling suddenly came over me. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.
When my dad had passed away a few years earlier, my sister and I each received a large inheritance. It was close to a million dollars each! My sister pretty much did what I had done. She used part of her money to buy a nice house, in one of those wealthy gated communities. She also bought her, her husband, and her children brand new cars.
When the house came into view, I automatically knew something was wrong. There were no visible cars in our circular driveway, which meant that her mother nor the mailman was here. I also noticed that our large double front doors were wide open. It looked uncommonly dark inside my house, especially, since the house had so many large windows. I looked up and noticed that there were clouds directly overhead. Still, there should have been enough light to enter the house.
Instead of taking my car to the garage like I usually did when I got home, I stopped directly in front of the front door. I opened my car door to get out when I heard screaming come from somewhere inside the house. Without a second thought, I jumped out of my car and pushed the hidden button under my dash. It automatically pulled my seat forward, so I could get to my custom gun case. With the seat forward, I reached down and unhooked the case from its specialized hidden storage space.
I pulled the case up out of the space, triggering a switch that automatically slid the seat back into place (Yep, some real James Bond type of stuff). I placed the case on my front seat and put in the four-digit code that would
unlock it. With a snap hiss, the case lid began to slowly rise, revealing the 9mm handgun inside.
I reached inside the case to grab the gun when I heard a second scream, it sounded like a woman was in pain. Fearing the worst, I grabbed the gun and ran towards the front door. I didn’t even think about shutting my car door until I was already at the front door.
I’m not sure why a picture of my car popped into my head at that moment, but I turned around and saw that my car door was already shut. The tint was so dark that I couldn’t really see if anyone was inside. All I know was that my car began backing away from the house quickly.
Forgetting about everything that was going on, I turned to chase after my car when I heard multiple child like screams call for help. Ignoring my car again, I turned back towards my open front door and rushed in. Before going any further, I had to wait a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The first thing I saw was a blurry woman laying on her back at the base of the stairs. She was laying on top of some sort of dark liquid that had stained the gray carpet under her. With my gun aimed out in front of me, I cautiously made my way towards the woman. As my eyes continued to adjust to the darkness, fear gripped me as I realized that the woman looked awfully familiar.
Once I was within a few feet of the woman, I knew that my worst fears had come true. The woman was my wife, Nichole. My knees became weak, causing my legs to shake uncontrollably as they fought to support my weight. Without even trying, my eyes began taking in every detail as I looked her over. Unconsciously, I put my gun in my pants waist as I dropped to the floor.
For some unknown reason, I began searching her eyes. Her brown eyes were hauntingly still and were wide open as she stared at the ceiling straight above her. They had a cloudy glazed overlook to them. Next, I noticed that her skin had already taken on the pale sickly color of a rotten body. My eyes continued to search over her until I came across her neck.
It seemed that a large chunk had been taken out of it, as if large predatory animal had sunk its teeth into it and violently pulled back. Gravity had caused whatever torn flesh was left around the open wound to sag down and the blood to drain towards the carpet beneath her. It was at that moment that I realized that the dark liquid on the carpet was her blood. I felt sick to my stomach and wanted nothing more then to run away.
I believe I raised my right knee up to do just that whenever I heard my three boys scream in unison, “Daddy, help us!”
Wait, my boys were home? Why weren’t they at school or daycare? I looked up to see a dozen or so figures making their way up the stairs towards the direction I had heard my boys. Forgetting about my previous thoughts of running away, my paternal instincts kicked. I quickly jumped to my feet and turned towards the staircase and sprinted.
Without missing a beat in my stride, I jumped to the fourth step and continued sprinting up the stairs hitting every other step. My mind began to formulate a plan as I made my way up. I knew that I could use my gun, but it would attract too much attention. If that ever happened, I didn’t know how I would be able to make it to my boys in time to save them.
The next best thing that I could come up with was to just bulldoze my way through them. I figured that if I could just knock as many of them over the handrail as possible then I could deal with whoever was left at the top of the stairs.
When I was within a foot of the first figure, I noticed that he looked strangely familiar except for the fact that half of his body was burnt and smoking. I came up on the left side of him and threw my right shoulder into his side. Without even trying to stop himself, he went over the handrail.
Without wasting time, I immediately went towards the next familiar figure. This one had bite marks all over him and seemed to be missing his left hand. I came up on his right side with my left shoulder and hit him as low as I could, so I could get as much leverage as possible. I slammed him into the wall. He immediately fell backwards. Just like the figure before him, he never tried to stop himself from falling.
I immediately went to the next familiar figure on my right and sent him flying over the handrail. I continued to alternate until I had made my way through them all the way to the top of the stairs.
Once I reached the top, I ignored everyone behind me as I began looking around for my boys. It didn’t take me long to find them. They were lying motionless next to each other at the end of the hall in front of little Jimmy’s bedroom door.
I called out their names, “Jimmy, Cole, Corbin?”
I began sprinting over towards them. Nothing happened. No response. No movement. No, nothing.
It was alarming. The closer I got to the boys; the more frightening things became. My boys were lying next to each other, side by side. Jimmy was in the middle with his twin brothers, Cole on his left and Corbin on his right.
Just like their momma, their eyes were wide open looking upward towards the ceiling. Their eyes were glazed over.
I was within a foot when I noticed something that looked dark red under Jimmy’s right side and Corbin’s left side. Upon further examination, I saw that Jimmy’s right arm had a chunk taken out of it, like the animal looking bite his mom had.
My heart broke. A single thought popped into head; things couldn’t get much worse than this. Obviously, God loves proving me wrong.
My eyes wandered to his right side and I saw a horror that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Half of Corbin was burnt. A straight line divided his left normal side from his right burnt side, including his clothes. To top it all off, it looked like a light-colored smoke was rising from his burn blisters. My eyes wondered over to my oldest twin, Cole. It was the same thing as Corbin except that his burns were on the opposite side of his body.
How? How could this be? I heard them scream for my help. Didn’t I? I started to hyperventilate and had to bend over to try to steady myself. I put my hands on my knees and took a deep breath. My mind raced as to what could have happened to my family. First my wife and now my boys! Now I really felt like running away.
My eyes began to moisten as I fought back my tears. My chest began to hurt from all the hyperventilating I was doing. I tried once again to control my breathing when I heard a familiar female voice behind me.
A voice that sounded like my wife’s voice said, “You killed us.”
The hairs on the back of my arms and neck immediately stood up straight. The pain in my chest completely forgotten about as fear and dread rushed over me. I can’t explain the feeling, but it felt like someone had literally walked on my grave. I took my wide eyes off my boys and slowly turned around.
To both my surprise and horror, my wife was standing about ten feet from me. Her eyes were still wide and glazed over as she stared at me. The chunk in her neck was still missing and her clothes were stained dark red. There was no anger or animosity in her face.
I replied, “I... I didn’t kill you.”
She didn't respond, but behind me three little familiar voices did.
In unison, they said, “You killed us.”
Fear washed over me in waves as I slowly turned my neck. When I saw them, I almost tripped over my feet. Standing behind me were my three boys.
They stood in the same position that they had been lying in. Their eyes were also wide and glazed over. Jimmy still had a chunk missing from his arm and his clothes and the clothes of Corbin were still stained dark red. Corbin and Cole still showed signs of being half burnt. Smoke was still rising from their burns. Just like their momma, none of their little faces showed any sign of anger or animosity. I was terrified.
I stood very still, afraid to move or even speak until I heard even more familiar voices behind me speak as one, “You killed us.”
Fear gripped me as I forced myself to turn around again to see who was speaking. Words cannot describe the horror of what I saw, but I’ll do my best to describe them.
Standing behind my wife was everyone I had ever known, all my family and friends. My mom, sister, brother, nieces, nephew
s, and friends were standing behind her. To top it all off, they had the same wide open glazed over eyes as my wife and children. I tried to speak, to tell them all that I didn’t kill them, but I became tongue tied. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t speak.
My only response to their accusation was to take a step backwards. My actions caused them all to take a step towards me. I hadn’t noticed before, but my heart seemed to be pounding quicker and quicker.
I took another step backwards and they continued to follow suit. I continued backwards until I felt little hands touch my back, causing me to jump in freight. I reacted on total instinct and turned around with my right hand curled into a fist, ready to defend myself. I stopped myself in mid swing when I saw my boys standing there. They didn’t react or seemed worried.
They just had their arms outstretched with their hands towards me as they said, “You killed us.”
I stood there frozen. I couldn’t speak, which meant that I couldn’t deny it.
Behind me they said, “You killed us.”
I turned around and they were right there, arms outstretched. Their hands were inches from me. I felt little hands grabbing at my waist. My waist? That’s right, I still had my gun in the waist of my pants.
I reached to my waist to grab my gun, but little hands were grabbing at my arms. It seemed that they were trying to stop me from getting my gun. I slightly turned my body, so I could push their hands back when a few larger sets of larger hands began grabbing me from the other side.
I lost control of my emotions and closed my eyes in fear. I successfully grabbed my gun and immediately started swinging my arms wildly around try to break their grip on me. The only problem was that I couldn’t feel much of a resistance. In fact, I couldn’t feel more than one set of hands on me, trying to calm me down.
After a few seconds, I stopped squirming and opened my eyes. Standing before me, grabbing on to my arms was my young teenage daughter, Josephene (JoJo). She looked up at me with concern in her eyes.
