Beginning of the New Beginning, Vol 1

by Taylor, W. Joe

  “Yes, we’ll be fine.”

  “Sweet. See you in a few days.”

  After that, Bill literally called all the other people in his phone and didn’t get one single answer. That gave him the answer he was looking for. He could only hope the rest of his family and friends had made it someplace safe. Unbeknownst to him, it would be weeks before he would be able to go look for them. He was going to miss his other friends who lived in the area, but he couldn’t spend a day driving all around town looking for them. His kids were his priority.

  Bill used to like being called a prepper. He’d been a ‘ready for anything’ kind of guy since he was a teenager and had bought his first truck. At one time, it had been pretty cool to be such a thing, until a certain network television show had highlighted the most extreme and outrageous preppers. Then it had become a term that insinuated you were not mentally stable. Now he preferred to just be ready for whatever, without labels.

  He didn’t have a secret shelter under his house or in his back yard, just a few months’ worth of food stores and a few thousand rounds of ammo for his Sig Sauer 556 AR-15 (the ‘.30-caliber clip to disperse thirty bullets within half a second’ type) He’d bought the gun because it was not your standard AR configuration. It had a side-charging handle and was gas operated like an AK but chambered in 5.56 NATO and would accept any standard AR magazine. The thing was absolutely reliable and would shoot any ammo he put through it, even the cheapest steel-cased crap you could get from Russia. He had a few thousand rounds for each of the two guns he owned. “Not a lot, really, just enough to get me started if the shit does hit the fan,” he’d told his friends.

  It was time to get said things out from various hiding places and load them up in the camper. But first, Bill needed to do a little recon.

  He walked north, to the corner two houses away, to see what was happening in the neighborhood. The neighbor was a nice older gentleman about sixtyish, maybe sixty-three. He hobbled around from the back corner of his house and out the side gate toward the front. No blood, just hungry determination in his milky, bloodshot eyes.

  “Hey! Are you ok?”

  “ARGRGHGHRGSHAGHRGAHRGHWGHAGHR!”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “AGHRGARGHGREAHGRGA!”

  Bill waited for the gentleman to take a few steps forward. Then he looked around; there was no one or “anything” else in the street, and he wanted to test the waters. It was a controlled experiment of sorts to see what the zombie-virus-infected people were capable of. He thought, Are they faster? Are they super strong? Can they smell better? What primal instincts do they have? Can they do the cha-cha?

  As Bill backed up, the old guy seemed to get more frustrated, and his actions became a little more erratic. Then he seemed to get pissed off. Bill could visibly see the change, and then the old man charged at him. It was kind of a Forrest Gump run (before the braces fell off), stiff and gangly as his legs swung out and then forward.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Bill said as brought the rifle up from the ready position and fired at the old man, intentionally hitting him in the chest. The old man rocked back on his heels and the continued his Forrest run. Well, that answers that question, Bill thought. The next two shots were to the old man’s thighs, knocking him down.

  The old man tried to stand and got about halfway up, but his shattered femurs were unable to support the weight. He fell forward and smashed his nose into the sidewalk with a sickening hollow thump. The old man looked up at Bill again with a bloodied, smashed in face, and Bill could see the pure unadulterated rage. “AGHGHGHAGHAGHAGHGAHG!”

  He shot the old man in the face to end the little charade.

  He parked the camper in the front lawn at an acute angle to the front door. The rear passenger corner of the trailer was within a few inches of the northeast corner of the house to prevent any stragglers from seeing him from that direction, nor would they be able to squeeze through and chomp on him unexpectedly. The camper door lined up with the house door, making loading everything he wanted a lot easier. It was a modest camper of about twenty-two feet long, built to be a true four-season camper. He and his wife used to enjoy taking long weekends and driving a few hours to “get away from it all.” He had 1100 watts of solar on the roof so they could do dispersed camping and not lose any modern amenities and have to run a noisy generator. Well, getting away was now going to be a little more permanent.

  He walked out the front door of the house and was making a bee-line for the camper door when he heard a scream coming from down the street. He quickly dropped his armload inside the trailer, swung his AR around on its single-point sling and stalked down the lawn towards the street. He took a knee on the sidewalk and saw a woman running down the middle of the road with fifteen thrillers behind her. Well, this is exciting, he thought. He sighted down his red dot optic and lined up his first shot.

  “DON’T SHOOT!” she screamed. Then he heard glass break and a few more thrillers fell out of the house to her right.

  “Get behind me, NOW!”

  As soon as she was out of his immediate line of sight, he methodically started mowing down the herd. It was not really a herd, but there was a good many of them. She started slapping him on the back.

  “What are you doing? You’re murdering them!”

  “What?”

  She sobbed loudly. “WHY? WHY? WHY?”

  “Look, lady, I just saved your ass from becoming zombie shit. You really need to stop hitting me and shut the fuck up before you attract more of them.”

  More glass broke all around them, and hands pounded on doors as more and more thrillers tried to escape from their homes.

  “Come on, follow me,” he said to her quietly.

  “Why? So you can murder me too?”

  “Stop, just fucking stop with that. They were already dead, and they were going to eat you alive if they had caught you. Here come more. We need to get out of sight. Now!”

  He led her into his house and closed the security door and the front door behind her.

  “Sit on the couch. I’m going out the back door to flank them. Stay here. Do not leave. You’ll be safe as long as you stay quiet and out of sight.”

  With that, he snuck out through the back yard, passed his wife’s fresh grave, and went up the side yard between the two houses. He pulled out his hunting knife from his thigh sheath, making an effort to do this as noiselessly as possible. He still didn’t know how strong they would really be yet. But he was about to find out.

  First one was his neighbor Tom. He was tall, built like a running back, muscular and quick. Bill approached from the rear, grabbed a handful of Tom’s hair with his left hand and thrust the knife up into the base of Tom’s skull. Bill felt the warmth of the blood and cerebrospinal fluid squirt out and run over his hand and down to his elbow. Tom dropped like a sack of potatoes, like someone had turned off the power switch to a robot. Bill had a hard time maintaining control of the knife it was so suddenly slick with bodily fluids. Tom hit the ground with a whomp, and Bill looked around to see if the noise had attracted any other thrillers. Sure as shit, they turned toward the sound with arms up to grab the first thing they can get ahold of, moaning like whores. Bill thought to himself, Ok, you can do this. Slow and steady. It’s only three of them. Divide and conquer.

  He lashed out with his right foot and bent the knee of the first one backwards with an audible crack. He knew that would replay in his mind for years to come like a grainy football film. It fell to the ground on its left. With his next step, Bill did the same thing to number two with his left foot, causing that one to fall on its right side. He slapped the arms of number three to his left with his left hand. It turned, and he forced it slightly off balance. He thrust the knife into the thriller’s temple with his right hand, and it kind of stood there for a minute like it couldn’t believe Bill had gotten through its defenses.

  As it fell, number one was trying to get up, and Bill pounced on it like a puma. While it was on its hand and knees, it c
ouldn’t grab him, so he slammed the knife in the base of its skull. He jerked the knife back out, and it fell flat on its face. Then he repeated the process with number two.

  Huffing and puffing, Bill thought, Well, that went well. I should have stayed in better shape. I guess round is a shape. He continued up to the corner of the house and peered around it, scanning both ways down the street.

  He saw a couple of thrillers to his right, about seventy-five yards down the street, and with nothing to the left, he decided to try and sneak up on them. It looked as though they were searching for whatever had been screaming earlier. He crouched as he walked along the grassy space between the curb and the sidewalk. He figured now would be a good time to practice with the machete, since there were only two of them. He sheathed the knife and pulled the machete from the scabbard he had slung across his back. He made it up behind the closest one without them noticing him. He swung for the neck and felt the machete strike bone and stick. He couldn’t pull it back, and now the thriller wanted to turn around and see what the hell had just happened.

  The second thriller had taken a keen interest in the fresh meal that seemed to have suddenly presented itself. Controlling number one with the machete, Bill directed it towards the second, placing the machete in the direct path of number two. It didn’t correct in time and impaled itself through the eye with the point of the blade protruding twelve inches from the front of the one he was controlling.

  When number two’s lights when out, it fell forward, toppling both thrillers on top of Bill. All the air was forced out of his lungs from the impact of hitting the ground coupled with the weight of the two meat sacks that had fallen on top of him. He struggled to breathe and to keep number one from turning on him and cutting him with the machete—or biting his yummy living flesh. He reached down, took out his knife, and quickly dispatched the one still moving.

  With that done, he managed to roll them off and turn to his side to catch his breath. His heart felt like it had bruised itself against his sternum from the adrenaline dump he’d gotten thirty seconds ago. He stood on shaky legs, peered around again, and saw that all was clear.

  He walked in through the back door, turned left, passed the bedroom door, and went into the kitchen to wash up.

  The lady sitting on his couch to the left of the back door nervously looked at all the blood on him as he scrubbed his hands like a cardiologist before surgery. Then, as he dried his hands on a towel, he noticed for the first time how she looked: straight, shoulder-length dark hair with bangs that framed her face beautifully; steel-blue eyes that showed intelligence; nice complexion and fair skin—she obviously used sunblock moisturizer on her face; about five feet tall and a good decade younger than him. He conducted his assessment quickly, making sure not to stare. He didn’t want to creep her out by being the perverted old guy.

  At the same time she was making an assessment of him: not very tall, maybe five and a half feet. Silver hair cropped short at the temples gave him a sexy, distinguished look. Balding? She asked herself. Hard to tell under that ball cap. He had soft eyes that showed kindness. A Beer belly, but muscular arms. Definitely someone that worked out. Overall he was built like a brick shit house.

  “Well, if this just ain’t some beer-battered baby bullshit,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  “This whole fucked-up situation. First, zombies are real. Then I had to kill and bury my wife this morning, and now you’re staring at me like I have a dildo taped to my forehead.”

  “I still don’t understand what’s happening. Why did you shoot those people? They were just sick. We could have taken them to the hospital.”

  He pointed to the TV, which had been on the whole time, and said, “Have you not been paying attention to what the newscasters are saying?”

  “Yea, stay inside until authorities arrive for help, and then someone came onscreen that looked really pissed and started attacking the newscasters. After that, they started playing a loop.”

  “Exactly my point. There is no help coming, and I’m about to drive four thousand miles to save my family. The world just went back in time about a hundred years, and when the power does finally go out, it will be the Stone Age all over again. Survival of the fittest. Every person for themselves. This, whatever it is, has encompassed the whole planet. It’s not just this town.”

  “So, what are you saying? This is the end of the world?”

  “Not if I can help it. I have a plan. I want to build a safe community. So, tell me, what happened to you? How did you make it out of that house alive?”

  “I was in the bathroom. And I heard several thumps, like people falling down. Then I started to hear growling and other strange noises. I cracked the bathroom door open a little, and John, my boyfriend, was there, and he looked really pissed. He tried to push his way in, but I slammed the door closed with all my weight and locked it. He stood there pounding on it for a while, and my other friends that we were visiting for an early brunch also started pounding on the door. We were supposed to head to the lake and spend the day on their pontoon boat. I was just so scared and felt sick to my stomach. I took some aspirin they had in the medicine cabinet, and then I lay down in the tub, covered my ears, and just waited. After a few hours, I guess they got bored or something. I had to see what was going on. I crept out of the bathroom, and they had wandered into the kitchen. They have the same floor plan as you, so I made a bee-line for the front door. That’s when they must have heard me and started to follow. I tried to talk to them at first, reason with them, but they refused to answer. So I ran. That’s when I started to realize the severity of the situation. I saw people in the windows of other houses looking like they’d just eaten a raw steak. I guess, in a sense, they had, huh?”

  “Yea, wow. So you were at Robert’s house? Well, I’m glad you’re okay. What is your name? My name’s Bill.”

  “Charity. I guess it’s nice to meet you? Anyway, thanks for saving me earlier. And yea, it was Robert and Eunice’s house. What do I do now?”

  “I don’t know, Charity. I guess it’s up to you. Do you have any family nearby?”

  “No, I moved down here from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, ten years ago for work. I had a boyfriend, but you killed him.”

  “HAHAHAHAH! Sorry about that. I don’t think he was really your type anymore. Where do you live? I know you probably hate me right now, but my suggestion is we go back down the street, collect whatever belongings you have, and I can escort you home. From there, stick with me and my friends, and in a couple of days, we’ll have you in Indiana to go check on your folks.”

  “You are kind of an asshole, and I’m not very happy with you right now. But you’re right, and you did save my life. I guess I don’t have a whole lot of options at this point.”

  “Sweet. Let’s roll.”

  “Before we go, do you have any Tylenol? The aspirin I took earlier has worn off.”

  “Yea, no worries.”

  He went to the kitchen drawer he kept his medicine in and handed her the bottle. Being over forty now, he kept that shit handy. He never knew when he was going to wake up with something hurting.

  Down the street, at the house Charity had emerged from not thirty minutes ago, Bill was pulling out all the nonperishables from the pantry while she looked for her phone.

  “What are you doing? Are you going to steal their food?”

  “You mean the dead people who tried to eat you? Oh, this is happening, sweetheart. Survival means we have to eat, you know. We don’t have the luxury of eating just any ol’ body that happens to walk by.”

  “Right. Aaaaasshooooole. What can I do to help?” she said with a smirk on her face.

  “See if there are any weapons or ammunition in any of the bedrooms. Can you shoot a gun?”

  “Yes, my dad taught me. My boyfriend and I used to go to the range. We have some stuff back at my place that I can use when we get it.”

  “Awesome. If you happen across any first-aid-type stuff, bring it also.
”

  Thirty minutes later, they had everything loaded into her car and walked back over to his house to finish loading his crap into his camper. They’d just brought out the last of it when Q and D pulled up in their truck with their camper in tow. Bill walked over and let them know they were going over to Charity’s apartment so she could get some clothes. Then they would head south to get Terry.

  The drive to the apartment complex Charity lived in was relatively uneventful. A few thrillers were in the street here and there, and there were a few crashed cars, but that was it. Bill was beginning to wonder what was up with that. He thought there would be a ton of thrillers out and about, doing their Saturday shopping. At one point, they saw a man running from a small horde. He was getting away, but then he tripped when he looked over his shoulder. Another thriller that he hadn’t seen came from around the corner of a building and pounced on him.

  When they arrived at her apartment complex, there were no thrillers around anywhere. Then he noticed that there was an apartment on fire a couple of buildings over that was attracting the attention of the nearby thrillers. As long as they kept quiet and didn’t attract a lot of attention, they would be fine for their short stay. I really need to pay more attention to what’s going on around me. It’s time to up my Situational Awareness, Bill thought.

  Outside Charity’s apartment building, he gathered everyone around and said, “We need to get in and back out in record time. Do you know where everything is that you want to take with you?”

  “Yes, I have been thinking about that so we can make this fast like you said back at your house.”

  With that, they headed towards her apartment. Only two thrillers tried to make a tasty treat out of them from the breezeway by her apartment, but they were quickly taken care of with Bill’s machete. On the drive over, he had taken the time to analyze mentally what had gone wrong the last time, and he tried to learn from it, he hoped, to become more efficient at wielding the machete.