We Are Still Here

by Jimmy Bird

  When the three zombies were within a few feet of us, I yelled, “Now!”

  I swung my machete from right to left. I caught the father just below the lower jaw. The skin easily ripped away exposing bloody muscles and tendons. They looked like they had just withered away. It didn’t look like there was anything there to support the jaw. My theory quickly proved me right as its dried, bloody jaw dropped from his head. It dangled at a ninety-degree angle as the zombie just kept coming. I think that the only thing that kept the jaw attached was the rotten skin.

  Seeing it, caused a theory to quickly pop into my mind. I wasn’t sure if it was my theory or one that I had heard before. I couldn’t help but wonder if the longer a zombie was around, the more their body deteriorates. If not that theory, then maybe the longer they went without tasting flesh then the faster they deteriorate. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to dwindle on the theory as a scream caused me to snap back to reality.

  I turned my head to my left and noticed that my daughter was giving ground to the little boy zombie that looked like her long dead older brother. A million things ran through my mind at that exact moment as I ignored the dad zombie and turned to help my daughter. I briefly wondered if she couldn’t kill the zombie because it looked like her brother. Maybe it was because she couldn’t kill a zombie? No, that couldn’t be it because she shot one a little earlier. That was probably the noise that brought them to there. Regardless, she had a scared look in her eyes as she gave up ground.

  Worried about my little girl, I was able to catch the boy within a few steps. I grabbed his head with my left hand and used the knife in my right hand to stab the back of his head. I stabbed him with enough force that the blade entered the lower part of his skull while the tip exited through his nose. I quickly pulled my blade out of the kid’s skull and turned around, expecting the dad to be there. He wasn’t.

  Instead, he had unexpectedly turned towards Seth, who was struggling to kill the mother. It looked like the mother was wearing old broken headgear on her head, sort of like a mixture of a filthy looking bandanna and biking helmet. It was odd and kind of confusing. Regardless, Seth was having a hard time sticking his knife into the side of her head. His failed attempts were causing him to quickly give up ground to her.

  Seth must have tripped over his own feet because he went down, and the mother went down after him. The father was not that far behind.

  Seth screamed, “Help me!”

  He was struggling to keep her off him. I could tell that he was fighting with everything he had just to hold her up. She was trying just as hard to pull herself to him. I could see the back of her head bob downward as she kept trying to bite him.

  The father had tripped over their feet and fell directly onto the mom’s back. His upper teeth sunk into the middle part of her back and got stuck. Seth’s scream instantly became strained from the combined weight.

  Ignoring the last zombie coming towards me, I turned and raced to help my nephew. Luckily, I didn’t have to go far, they were only around ten feet away.

  I made it to him in about three steps. During my second step, I swung my machete downward and at an angle with my right hand towards the father’s head. I caught him just above his right ear. Unfortunately, the blade wasn’t sharp enough to go all the way through his skull. However, it was sharp enough to go about halfway through. Lucky for us, it was all that was needed to destroy his brain.

  Blood splattered out just as soon as my blade hit his head. Blood continued to spray out in a mist form as his body went limp and collapsed onto the mother. I reached down and grabbed the father’s collar. I planted my left foot and shifted my weight. Trying to prepare for some resistance, I pulled back as hard as I could. I must admit. It was weird seeing the mother move when I pulled the father. The father’s upper jaw must have been deep.

  The mother tried to hold onto Seth, but she lost her grip on his arm. I wasn’t prepared for her losing her grip though and tripped backwards when the father’s body hit my extended left knee.

  The father’s body landed on top of me and his lifeless head popped backwards, allowing his jaw to come loose from the mom’s back. Not phased at all, she immediately began crawling back towards Seth.

  Fortunately, Seth was ready for her and was already on his feet. With the mom on the ground, Seth took a step towards her and stabbed his knife downward through the back of her head. With a hollowed breathing sound, she stopped moving and went limp.

  I took a deep breath to prepare myself to lift the father’s limp body off my legs when I felt something touch my foot. I looked up and saw the last zombie that I had forgotten about.

  The zombie looked like a middle-aged homeless woman. Like most of the zombies I had seen, her clothes were filthy and torn. Her skin had that ghostly color to it with open sores all over. Her hair was matted up like it had been in a ponytail or something. The left side of her mouth displayed stained teeth.

  I literally froze in fear as my life flashed before my eyes. My mind was working overtime as it tried to figure out how to get out of my current situation. With the weight of the father’s body on my knees, I was stuck and knew that I was seconds away from dying. My mind quickly did the math and knew that there was no way for me to get out the situation. I looked over and noticed that Seth was still messing with the mother. I quickly did the math and knew that he wouldn’t make it to me in time.

  I prepared to fight the zombie with everything that I had when it stopped moving. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as blood splattered out of her mouth, quickly followed by a spear tip. Just as quickly as the spear tip went in, it disappeared. The woman’s body immediately collapsed to the ground next to me.

  I looked up, expecting to see either my sister or Bobby standing there. To my surprise, it was my daughter. Her usually sweet and innocent face had a sweaty scowl on it. Her blue eyes were uncommonly wide with a distant look to them, it was as if she realized that she was no longer an innocent little girl anymore. I noticed that she was standing in perfect form, her spear was held out in front of her. It looked like she was routside to continue fighting. She was breathing hard.

  I tried to keep an eye on my daughter as I struggled to move the heavy father off the lower part of my legs. She continued to stand perfectly still. It was as if she was playing one of those childhood ‘freeze’ games like Simon Says or Freeze Tag. It was kind of creeping me out.

  Once the father was off my legs, I slowly worked them underneath me until I was on my knees.

  I called out her name, “JoJo?”

  I lifted my right knee up so that I could use my right foot to balance myself. Using my right leg, I lifted myself up enough until I could use my left foot to help me balance. I made sure that I kept an eye on my daughter as I slowly stood up.

  Once I was up, I slowly moved towards her, “JoJo?”

  I noticed that she still wasn’t moving, well, except for her breathing.

  I reached out with my left hand and touched her shoulder as I called out her name again, “JoJo?”

  She instantly jumped and turned her spear tip towards me. I quickly grabbed the tip with my right hand and tried to reassure her that it was alright.

  She blinked repeatedly before focusing on my face, “Daddy?”

  “Yes sweetie. I’m here. Are you alright?”

  She began to tear up, “I’m sorry. I.....I thought that I saw Bubba.”

  My smile vanished, “I know. I thought that I saw him too.”

  “But it wasn’t him because he’s dead.”

  I tried not to tear up, “Yes, JoJo. He’s dead, along with your mommy and younger brothers.”

  Tears began to run down her cheeks, “I..... I miss them.”

  In one fluent move, I gently pushed her spear out of the way, dropped to my knees, let go of my machete, and pulled my daughter to me. She collapsed into my arms and lowered her head onto my shoulder. She immediately began weeping. My eyes also began to tear up.

  I choked ou
t, “I know you do. I do too. But we must be strong. Do you know why we have to be strong?”

  JoJo whispered, “Because....Because mommy would want us to be?”

  I whispered into her ear, “Yes. Because mommy would want us to survive and the only way, we can survive is by being strong.”

  I pushed her back to arm’s length and forced a smile, “Do you know what you just did?”

  With teary eyes, she asked, “What?”

  I fought back my pride, “You saved my life?”

  JoJo’s face brightened up, “I did?”

  I smiled wide, “Yes, you did. Do remember stabbing the zombie with your spear?”

  JoJo frowned, “The girl zombie?”

  I beamed with pride, “Yep, the girl zombie. You see, my legs were trapped under the daddy zombie and I could hardly move. When she stood over me, I thought I was going to die.”

  “Really?”

  Wide-eyed, I told her, “Yep and when I saw the tip of your spear pop through her mouth, I knew I was saved.”

  She smiled as she stated, “Well, I guess that we’re just going to have to protect each other.”

  I nodded my head, “Yes. Yes, we are. Remember, mommy would want us to be strong.”

  “Yeah. Mommy would want us to be strong and survive.”

  I pulled her back towards me and hugged her again.

  When her head was next to mine, I whispered, “Mommy loved you very much and was very proud of you. I’m sure that she’s looking down from Heaven, smiling at how strong you’ve become.”

  I could feel her shake a little as she began to cry softly. I could tell that she wanted to cry but was really fighting it. It was a hard situation for her. I had to remember that she was still very young and had already been through so much.

  I used my free hand to wipe away my own tears as I slowly pulled away from her. We had so much to do and a short amount of time to do it.

  I slowly stood up and stretched. My joints had stiffened a little bit. Man, it sucked getting old.

  I looked over and noticed that Seth, my sister, and Bobby were watching us. From their facial expressions, they had been moved by what had transpired between me and JoJo. They even had tears of their own.

  I reached my right hand out towards my daughter. She shifted her spear towards her right hand as she grabbed my right hand with her left.

  I looked down and asked, “Do you like the spear that Ruff made you?”

  She smiled back up at me, “I do. Can I have a knife now?”

  Surprised, I asked, “A knife? Why do you want a knife?”

  JoJo stayed, “Because of what of happened to Seth.”

  I frowned, “What happened to Seth?”

  She looked thoughtful, “You know. He stabbed that one zombie and got his spear stuck.”

  She was right. He got it stuck and with everything happening fast, he couldn’t pull it out for some reason. Even now he was struggling to remove it.

  I nodded, “Okay. You can have a knife. As a matter of fact, you can have Austin’s old knife. But if I ever see you playing with it, I’m taking it away.”

  She was excited, “Okay dad, I won’t play with it.”

  My voice became stern, “I’m serious. If I see you playing with it as a toy, it’s mine. A knife is a tool just like everything else, just like your spear and gun.”

  Just like a teenager, she sighed, “Okay dad. I get it.”

  I gripped her hand tightly, “Good. Now let’s go see how everyone else is doing.”

  We walked up to my sister, she looked worried. Maybe, a little too worried. She had just got through looking Bobby’s head over; it didn’t look good.

  I asked the obvious question, “How’s Bobby doing?”

  In an unstable voice, my sister replied, “Well, he has lost a good amount of blood. He also has a deep gash exposing his skull. From what I could tell, his skull looks a little cracked, but I’m not entirely sure. That doesn’t even take into fact on how long or wide the cut is. I don’t even know how to tell if he has brain damage or not.”

  I didn’t want to tell my sister, but I was pretty sure that he also had a concussion. It looked like he was starting to stutter now. It seemed that James had done his job well.

  Speaking of James, I needed to see if he was still alive. I slowly made my way over to our old SUV and noticed that his head was lying down on the door trim, halfway out the door. He wasn’t moving.

  I carefully moved along the edge of the car and made my way towards him. I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t playing possum or something. When I got within a few feet of his head, I noticed that it was slightly moving. I edged around his head and looked inside.

  Man, my sister and Bobby did a great job of tying his hands and feet. It seemed that they were even considerate enough to buckle his seat belt for him. After all, if his hands were tied tight around his back then there was no way he could undo his seatbelt.

  Unfortunately, seeing James tied up wasn’t the part that concerned me. It looked like he was struggling to breath. His chest was barely moving. It looked like he was taking very shallow breaths. His skin had become even paler. I could tell that he was close dying.

  I turned around, “Hey, I need everyone to hurry up and grab whatever supplies you can because we need to leave. I don’t think that James has much time left. For our trap to work, we need him alive.”

  Since my sister was the only person who could drive (I guess Seth could, but we didn’t have time to make sure that he was comfortable driving), she needed to park someplace hidden and out of the way. It did have to be close enough for us to watch Robert and his group, but far enough away that he couldn’t spot us.

  My daughter was upset that I was going to make her ride with her aunt instead of with me and James to Tinker, “Dad, don’t go alone with him. I think he’s faking being sick and could attack you.”

  I told her, “You don’t need to worry about James attacking me. He’s very sick and dying. That’s one of the reasons he’s tied up. Besides, you’re going to be following closely behind us.”

  My daughter accepted it, but she didn’t like it. Honestly, after everything James had done to us, I didn’t really blame her. Who knows, maybe she had a gut feeling that something bad was going to happen to me. I’m not even sure if that was even it, but she really wanted to go with me.

  Once we were finally on our way, I started getting that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me that something wasn’t quite right. While driving down the service road, I carefully looked around. When I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, I began to tell myself that it was probably just my conscious fighting to keep my humanity intact. After all, I had never killed anyone this way. Sure, I’ve killed people before, but that was only in self-defense. I was fighting to survive and fighting to protect the ones I love.

  So, the question remained. Why did I feel this way? Who really knows why? Maybe, it was just me feeling guilty for the fact that I was going to kill James or the way I was planning on killing him.

  I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t feel guilty about anything that I was fixing to do. After all, his people killed my kids, family, and friends. His people attacked us and forced us out of our homes. His people had just killed Danny and Austin. Hell, he even attacked Bobby and Seth after we befriended him and let him into our little group. So, what was I truly feeling guilty about?

  The only plausible explanation I could come up with was that it was because of the ruthlessness of my plan. I admit it was going to be a cold thing to do, but I felt like we really had no other choice. I just hoped that I could live with myself afterwards.

  For the plan to work, I needed James to stay alive just long enough for him to get bit and turn. It was the only guaranteed way for him to become a zombie. It felt like it was the only way to truly trap Robert and his people. I knew that we needed to kill them all, so we could survive.

  As we slowly made our way up the service road, Tinker Air Fo
rce Base slowly came into view. As with any military base, the land the base occupied was massive. Especially, at an Air Force base. It had to be so that planes could land and take off.

  Just like any of our other military bases, the fences that surrounded the base were chain linked. It allowed us to easily see through them which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Zombies were everywhere. As far as the eye could see, there were zombies. They weren’t packed in there like a ‘pack of sardines’, but there seemed to be well over a few hundred within eyesight. It was an educated guess, but it had to be close to that number. I also want you to know that the estimated number was just what we could see from the outside of the fence. It didn’t include what we couldn’t see. Like, how many could still be inside or around the buildings?

  I noticed that most of the zombies were dressed in stained military uniforms with a few dressed in torn civilian clothes mixed in. It looked like most of those dressed in military uniforms still had their side arms on them. Some even had their machine guns draped around their shoulders.

  There were more than enough weapons around, and I even thought about trying to get some, but quickly changed my mind. With just a few of us left, I felt that it wouldn’t be worth the risk. Besides, I figured that it would help sell the notion of us trying to get weapons, so we could lure Robert here.

  I stopped about half a block from the closest gate and waited for my sister to pull up next to me. While the feeling that something bad was about to happen still hadn’t gone away, a new feeling began to emerge. I didn’t recognize the feeling at first, but it slowly revealed itself. In fact, it wasn’t just one feeling, it was a couple of feelings mixed together. It was a combination of sadness, emptiness, anger, frustration, and betrayal.

  The feelings prompted me to glance towards the rearview mirror, allowing me to see just how empty the rear seats were. There was no Danny. No Austin. No supplies. No nothing.