by Jimmy Bird
So, to help me take my mind off our immediate problems, I figured that I would write. Besides, I had heard a long time ago that writing can help to ease one’s guilt. You might be wondering what guilt I might possibly have? The guilt I feel comes from knowing that I failed to protect my family and friends. Now that I think about it, it could be what’s giving me these nightmares.
I noticed that Makalyn continued to watch me as I slowly worked my way up off the floor. Even though it had been years since I had been shot in my right shoulder, I could still feel the pain, especially when it got cold. I still didn’t have full strength in that shoulder, but I figured that kind of thing wasn’t uncommon. Without proper hospitals and medical supplies, all we could do was patch ourselves up the best we could and go about our business.
I’m not sure if you know this, but our bodies naturally try to repair themselves. It could be both a blessing and a curse. An example is that after I was shot in my shoulder, I had to rely more on my left arm and shoulder. It really sucked since I was right-handed. But, since my body had to overcompensate my injury by using my left shoulder, it now seems to hurt even worse than my right shoulder. Some days it just feels like I’m falling apart.
I looked up and could swear that Makalyn could hear my bones and joints pop when I started to get to my knees. Man, it sucks getting older.
I managed to get my right knee up to my chest, so I could use my left hand to balance myself while I shifted my weight over in order to lift my left knee. Before I could move my left knee, Makalyn was already standing over me with her right arm extended.
“It looked like you could use some help.”
I nodded my head slightly up and down in acknowledgment. I reached out and grabbed her arm, truly thankful for the help. It’s crazy because I used to be too prideful to accept help from others, but that was a long time ago. Now, I accept any help that is offered.
It took her a few seconds of struggling to pull me up, but I managed to get to my feet. Her hands went from my hand to my arm to help steady me. I hadn’t noticed before, but for some reason my legs and joints were severely stiff.
Once I was able to stand up on my own, she slowly released my arm. I think that she was just overly concerned that I would fall on my face or something.
I took a step to not only reassure her that I was alright, but to show myself that I could do it on my own again. One step turned into two, two into three, and so on and so forth.
The room we were taking refuge in was kind of small. I would estimate that it was no more than ten feet by ten feet, maybe even a little bigger. There was nothing special about the room, it was plain with no windows. It did have a lot of old monitors mounted on one wall and a big desk. Maybe, it had been an old security office, or something. The only advantage the room had was that it only had one door. One door to go in or out of. Which meant that it could be easily defended. The downside to that statement was that it also meant that we could also be easily trapped.
While I was walking around the room, Makalyn went and sat back down against the far wall. She continued to silently watch me as I walked around, trying to ease my aching joints. I could see the concern in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. It was as if her eyes were saying that JoJo and I were the only people she had left in the world. She wanted to make sure that nothing happened to us.
Now that I think back on it, as a little girl, she had always been that person who was more concerned about others then herself. Strange though. I couldn’t help but think that this show of concern was a little different.
I’m more than twenty years older than her and we were never close in our family relationship when she was growing up. She grew up in Chandler, Oklahoma while I lived in Moore, Oklahoma. Chandler was a good hour and a half to two-hour drive away from Moore. I know that it may not seem like a significant distance, but it was far enough that I wouldn’t drive there unless I had a purpose.
I walked up towards my daughter who was still sleeping. The poor thing must still be exhausted from all the traveling and fighting we had endured. We had covered a lot of ground in the past few weeks, if not months. We had traveled from a camping ground, outside the town of Eufaula, Oklahoma to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, located just outside the city of Lawton, Oklahoma. If I remember correctly, it had to be over 200 miles between the two. The time or mileage doesn’t include any of the distractions we faced along the way.
By car, the travel time from Oklahoma City to either location is between one and a half to two hours. By foot, well, you can just imagine how long it would take. But, as you can guess, that’s how it is now, how it’s been for a very long time. Because without fuel, good working batteries, or even aired up tires, cars have pretty much become oversized paper weights and they are everywhere. Our options for getting around are now limited and unfortunately, we don’t have any horses to ride. So, we must foot it anywhere we go.
I looked at my sleeping daughter for a few more seconds before I turned around and walked back towards the box of paper. If I was going to write what was on my mind, then I was going to need a lot of paper.
When I got to the box, I slowly bent down to pick it up, but it was already in the air. Makalyn was so quick, that she had beaten me to the box. With a sad smile on her face, she turned around and walked towards the desk. I straightened back up and followed.
By the time I made it to the desk, she already had a lit candle on the desk, paper, and a pen waiting for me. She even had a chair pulled out and waiting.
I asked her, “Why? Why did you do all this for me?”
“I want to hear your story.”
“But you already know our story.”
Makalyn corrected me, “I heard a short version of your story. Now, I want to know the full story with all the details. Besides, it’s the only form of entertainment that I have now.”
I sat down, excited to have someone interested in my writing. I grabbed the pen in my right hand and placed the tip at the top part of the paper, ready to begin when Makalyn stopped me.
“Can you read out loud as you’re writing in your journal, that way I can get a vision of what happened to y’all?”
I thought about it, “Yeah. I can do that, but on one condition.”
She frowned as she asked, “What kind of condition?”
I smiled sadly as I told her, “I would like to add your story to my journal.”
She thought it over for a few long seconds before agreeing. I watched in amazement at the young, enthusiastic woman before me had just done a complete one hundred and eighty degree. She was beginning to come out of that guarded shell that she had built around herself. I assumed that she had built it shortly after being taken hostage. I sat there with my smile as she began to open up.
She avoided eye contact as she stated, “I want you to know that this is going to be painful for me, but I’m hoping, that speaking about what had happened to me, will help me get over it.”
My smile faded as I told her, “I’m afraid that the memories of the pain you had to endure will never truly go away, but they will slowly fade into distant memories over time.”
She frowned as if to disagree with me, but I continued talking, “However, I do agree that by talking about your experience will help in your healing process.”
Her frown turned into a look of acceptance as she accepted what I told her and turned around. I assumed that she was going to look for another chair. I turned around to face the desk. It was covered in dust; my guess was that it hadn’t been cleaned since the start of the apocalypse. The only cleanish area was where the paper was. It looked like someone had taken their hand and wiped the dust off the best they could, probably Makalyn. That girl was being sweet on me. I had a feeling that it was only because after all she had been through, she was just thankful to be around family.
I took a deep breath in order to focus my thoughts but ended up coughing my head off. My eyes began watering. I guess that the dust was beginning to get to me.
Before I had a chance to catch my breath from coughing, I already had a bottle of water in front of me.
I immediately grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the top. I fought back my next cough as I took a drink of water. I was trying hard not to cough which would have caused me to get all choked up.
I must have been coughing pretty loud because my daughter asked, “Dad? Are you alright?”
I turned my head slightly and noticed the concern in her eyes. I took another drink and managed to keep from coughing.
I forced a smile as I told her, “I’m fine. There’s just a lot of dust on this desk. It must have gotten to me.”
I pointed to the desk I was sitting at.
In an irritating voice, she asked, “Why are you sitting at that old thing in the first place?”
“I had a nightmare and the only thing that I could think of to calm me down was to write.”
Her attitude changed, “What are you going to write about?”
Before I could answer, Makalyn jumped in and excitedly told her, “Jimmy’s going to write down our story, all of our stories!”
My daughter frowned, “Didn’t you do that already?”
I smiled sadly, “Yes I did, but I’m wanting to write about our lives after we left the Warehouse all those years ago.”
My daughter absentmindedly shook her head up and down as she agreed with me. She had one of those zoned out looks in her eyes as if she was remembering the past.
Makalyn had watched the exchange between us with great interest before jumping in. It was as if she was still that young enthusiastic teenager I remembered long ago.
She stated, “I didn’t get to hear everything that had happened to you. I’m really interested and want to know.”
Hearing Makalyn excited voice brought my daughter out of her trance.
With a intense gaze and attitude, my daughter told her, “A lot of people had died, the end.”
Makalyn’s jaw dropped for a split second before regaining her composure. She took a deep breath to steady herself.
Ever the optimist, she told JoJo, “I realize that it’s a touchy subject for you, but there’s more to the story then that. I want to know what happened to my family. All of OUR family!”
JoJo didn’t know how to respond to that and to be honest, I didn’t expect her to. It was no secret that JoJo didn’t want to relive the painful past, but I don’t think that she wanted to deny Makalyn her chance to learn what had happened either.
My daughter lowered her eyes in defeat as she said, “Fine, but don’t expect me to be emotional about it.”
Makalyn smiled as she opened her arms and hugged JoJo, “Thank you, cousin. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
I watched in awe as my daughter cracked a genuine smile, something that I hadn’t seen her do in a very long time. Well, not since before her Aunt Tina died.
When Makalyn let go of JoJo, the smile was gone. It wasn’t surprising. I had to teach my daughter to always be careful when it came to her emotions. Currently, emotions can get you killed.
With her emotions bottled up, my daughter turned to me, “Dad, I guess that now is as good time as any to get started.”
I noticed that Makalyn’s eyes lit up. She was getting to finally find out what happened to her family. Well, some of them at least.
While getting my thoughts together, I realized that JoJo and Makalyn were total opposites. From first glance, you would have thought that Makalyn was the serious adult while my daughter was the young enthusiastic teenager. But my daughter was more like the adult while Makalyn was like the young teenager. I could only assume that it was because of the conditions they were forced to survive in.
I broke down the story for Makalyn. I told her about how her Uncle John had been his overconfident self and stepped on an infected bone fragment. He ripped up his foot and fingers trying to get it out causing the infection to spread quickly. He turned into a zombie not long after and had to be put down, but not before he attacked another member from our group. I continued by telling her how I lost my wife and three sons. How my son, Jimmy got bit trying to save JoJo when it first happened. I told her how my twin sons, her other cousins, and aunts (my mom and John’s wife) had died. I told her about how our sanctuary, the Warehouse was attacked and how the attackers were the ones that killed almost everyone that we had ever cared about. I explained it all, from the very beginning of the apocalypse so that she would have a better understanding on why I started off writing where I did.
Makalyn sat next to JoJo and both listened intently to what I had to say. Together, their eyes moistened as they fought back tears. Once I was done with that story, I paused for a second before beginning our new one.
Chapter 3: A New Beginning
We grabbed whatever supplies were left over from when we had abandoned the Warehouse the last time. Surprisingly, there was more supplies then I had imagined. We were able to pack the dark colored SUV with enough supplies that it was a little uncomfortable to sit. Unfortunately, we didn’t even have that much supplies.
When we had finished packing our car, I took one more opportunity to look back at the Warehouse for the last time. Memories of everyone we had lost flashed before my eyes, as well as what we had tried to accomplish there. Images of my wife, children, family, and friends flooded me with guilt. All that was left of our great community was Danny, his teenage son, Austin, my sister, Christina, her fiancé, Bobby, her teenage son, Seth, my young daughter, Josephene (JoJo for short), and myself.
I was lost in my thoughts when I heard Danny yell, “Jimmy. We gotta go. Now!”
Snapping me out of my thoughts, I turned and looked in his direction. Our time at the Warehouse was up. We were about to have company, lots of company.
Coming up the street was a horde of zombies. They were less than a block away. Maybe, the neighborhood wasn’t as abandoned as we first thought, or it could be that we had stayed longer then we had originally planned. It didn’t matter because we needed to quickly leave.
I glanced at the Warehouse one last time, turned around, and crawled into the passenger seat. Danny didn’t even wait for me to shut the door as he gunned it. He was always an impatient type of guy, but it seemed that those last few days really did a number on him.
When we were a safe distance from the Warehouse, I decided to bring up the subject of supplies, “We need to look into getting more supplies.”
I guess it became a sore subject or everyone was irritated because no one wanted to talk about it. All they wanted to do was find somewhere safe.
My sister spoke up from the backseat, “Brother, look at us. We’re tired and afraid. We need to find someplace safe to hide.”
I turned and looked at my sister but addressed all of them, “Look, I’m scared too, but if we’re going to find someplace safe to stay then we’re going to need supplies. At the very least, we need to find some supplies before we get too far out of the city because where we are going is kind of secluded.”
My sister responded but I didn’t pay attention to what she was saying. I ignored her as I became lost in my thoughts. It had been a long time since I had been to the old campgrounds of Porum Landing at Lake Eufaula, but I couldn’t remember a lot of places to search for supplies.
It was finally decided that since we were going to have to drive through the Suburb of Midwest City on our way to Lake Eufaula, then we might as well search for supplies there. They had some businesses right off the highway, including a supercenter and a do-it-yourself store. Besides, Tinker Air Force Base was in Midwest City. Who knew what kind of goodies we could find abandoned there?
We decided that we would use the I-35 highway north to the I-40 junction that led to Midwest City. We figured that it would be the fastest and safest way to get to Midwest City. Unless something terrible was to happen, we should have a straight shot there.
It was going to be my first time to travel that far north. You see, we had assigned designated areas for different search grou
ps. It was a way for us to keep track on who went where. The area my group was assigned to was mostly to the west of the Warehouse. The issue was the north. We had people go north of the Warehouse to search for supplies, but for obvious reasons we didn’t want to get too close to the downtown area. The Warehouse was only a few miles south of downtown Oklahoma City and figure that it would be way overcrowded with zombies.
The highway north of 29th street pretty much looked like it did towards the south. Cars were abandoned, covered in blood, glass broken out, wrecked, or looked like they had been on fire. To be honest, it not only looked frightening, but we were nervous to venture towards the unknown. For me personally, it had been years since I had been to the lake, much less knowing what we were going to find when we finally got there.
We carefully turned off 29th to the access road that would take us to the northbound I-35 on ramp that was a few blocks north of 29th street. We got about a block north of 29th street when we noticed a few obstacles were in our way. It looked like someone had intentionally moved a few cars around to block access to the I-35 on ramp. As a matter of fact, it looked like the street before the on ramp was completely blocked off.
As you can imagine, we instantly became suspicious. Can you really blame us? Especially, after everything that we had just went through. We needed to know who was responsible for it. Was it the work of Robert? It wouldn’t have been the first time he had done something like that. Was this done by Bruce and Kevin before they came to take the Warehouse? Maybe, it was their way to prevent our escape if we had decided to run instead of fighting them. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why it was blocked. Maybe, it was just a coincidence, but I wasn’t planning on waiting around to find out.
We thought about trying to go over the curb to go around the blockade but thought better of it. With the weight inside the SUV, we weren’t even sure if it would even go over the curb. Besides, even if we did go over it, how could we be sure that it wasn’t a trap. Who knows, we could pop a tire and then be up the proverbial ‘creek without a paddle.’
