by L. D. King
The man that appeared to be the other group’s leader walked forward to talk to Jerry. As he stood face to face with Jerry, he held out his hand to shake Jerry’s. As they shook hands, the other man announced, “Hi, Jerry. My Name is John Eddyson. It’s good to meet you. Just to let you know, we’ve been watching your group following us for the last two days. We were wondering if and when you’d come up and say hello. We don’t mean you any trouble, either. We decided to leave it up to you as to when we’d finally meet.”
“Wow! I thought we were doing a better job of staying out of your sight. I guess we aren’t as stealthy as we thought.” Jerry smiled. “We’re trying to get to East Norwich, near Oyster Bay Harbor. It’s on the northwest side of Long Island. I guess since you know about us, if you’ll give me a minute, I’ll call the rest of our group to come out.”
“Hey, we’re from Massapequa! And sure, that’s fine. We know there are four of you. You might as well call them now.”
With that, Jerry waved to Mike to come on out. As Mike walked up to them, Jerry explained to him what was going on.
“Mike, this is John. They know that we have been following them for a couple of days. Go back and get the girls. Tell them it’s okay. These guys are good people. You can wait next to that building on this side of the street, all right?”
“Sure, Jerry. No problem. Is everything good?”
“Everything’s fine. They’re from Massapequa, on the other side of Long Island from us. They just want to get home, like us.”
Mike trotted back to the girls. “Jerry says they’re okay. He wants us to come up there with him.”
The three started up the street to meet the others.
“It sounds like it’ll probably be better than those guys from last week. Just the fact that they’re not from New York City makes them better in my book.” They continued on their way. Mike noticed that Mary seemed a little somber. “Mary, are you all right?”
“I just don’t want to go through the same thing we did last time,” said Mary. “We were really lucky that time. All I want is for Jerry to go slower with them.”
The girls followed Mike to the building on their side of the street. As Mike waited, he gave Jerry a thumbs up. Jerry nodded back at him, smiling. Mike thought to himself, This might just turn out better that that last bunch we met. John continued talking to Jerry.
“As I was saying. We’ve walked here all the way from Harlem. All we want to do is get back home. With no cars, no trains, no buses or even cabs, the only way left for us is to walk. We live in Massapequa out on Long Island. My name is John Eddyson. My wife, Sally, is that tall blonde over there. She’s 21 and I’m 22. The short, stocky guy with the Marine buzz cut is Peter Anderson. His girlfriend is next to him, the one with the long, brunette hair. Her name is Alice Hasselbald. They’re both 21. And the last guy is Sid Valdez. He’s the short, wide guy, our resident nerd” — he grinned — “and he’s also 21, and is single by choice, not because of the zombies. All five of us came to New York City for Peter and Alice’s wedding.
“We were in our hotel rooms by the American Museum of Natural History, next to Central Park on the east side — on Columbus Avenue near 79th Street — when the shit hit the fan with the zombie thing.
“It had started to get dark, and we heard a scream outside, down on the street. We all rushed to the windows and saw this zombie killing somebody down on the sidewalk. That was our first indication that things were changing. From that point on, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
“Peter and Alice were supposed to get married the next day. They’d even put a deposit down on one of the buildings on the museum grounds for the ceremony. After the killings started, we figured that they weren’t gonna be able to get married, nor were they going to get their deposit back,” he laughed.
“We started trying to get home the next day. Nothing was running, no cabs, no buses... We’ve been walking towards home ever since. All we want to do is get home back to Massapequa. Nothing else. We just want to go home. The people in the city are too violent for us, and I’m not talking about the zombies.”
“We know what you mean about the locals,” said Jerry. “We’ve run into some of them a couple of times now. We got robbed of all of our food and water a few days back. We’ve been working hard to find enough to eat since then, without much success.” He stopped, shaking his head.
“We’re all in high school. This is gonna be our senior year! We came to the city for an end-of-summer fling before our last year of high school started. Now we just want to get out of this shithole of a city. The day we got here we took a shortcut through the subway tunnels. That’s when two of our friends got killed by the zombies.”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “Just like you, all we want to do is go home. That’s all. As far as the New Yorkers go, we’d sooner deal with the zombies than with some of them. At least you know right up front that the zombies want to kill you… you can never be sure about the city people.”
He continued, “Just to let you know, we are not looking to join another group. We got burned pretty bad recently. But we don’t mind walking the same direction with you. We’re just on edge right now. I hope you understand.”
“I do understand, Jerry. We don’t want to run into any more gangs from the city either. It seems like they’re all gangbangers or thugs. They’d rather kill you and take your stuff than search for their own. We understand if you don’t warm up to us right away. We can keep our distance, and just going the same direction.”
“John, I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Could you hold on for a minute, please? I want to go talk to my people and let them know what’s up. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure, Jerry. I’ll go talk to my group, too. We can meet back here in fifteen minutes or so.”
Jerry walked back to the other side of the street to bring his friends up to date.
“Hi, guys. That guy’s name is John Eddyson. They’re all from Massapequa, on the other side of Long Island.” He explained about the cancelled wedding, and said “They’d like to walk along with us, not too far from us, since we’re all going in the same direction. Is that all right with you guys?”
“You remember what happened to us about a week ago, right?” said Mike. “I don’t want to go through anything like that ever again. If they follow us, that’s all right with me, but they’ll have to find their own place to sleep, and we still stand our night watch.”
“That sounds good to me, Mike,” said Jerry. “If they stay on the other side of the street, it’ll be okay for now. We have a hard time finding enough to eat. Maybe they might have other ways to find food that we’re missing out on. What do you think, Mary?”
“I’d like to see how this works out first before we start being best buddies with them,” said Mary. “They’re not from the city, which is good thing as far as I’m concerned. They want to get back home just like us, and it’d be easier to do that with more help. I’m all for letting them walk near us as long as we sleep in different places. Other than that, I’m okay with it, Jerry.”
“All right, it sounds like everyone is good with this. Let me go back and have a talk with John.”
Both men — John from his group and Jerry from his — came back out to the middle of the street. John carried a flat piece of wood, like a roof shingle, holding it like a tray, with a piece of cloth covering something on it. He handed it to Jerry as they met again.
“Hey, John. What have you got there?”
“Well, you told me that you guys haven’t been eating much lately. We have some food. It’s not much, but we’re willing to share it with you. If you want to take it over to your friends, I’ll wait for you here.”
Jerry’s surprise was evident on his face. “John… this is great, but, you know, you don’t have to do this.”
“We want to. Take it to them so they can eat, and then come back and we’ll talk some more. I’ll wait for you right here.”
“Okay, I’ll be ri
ght back. Thank you.”
Jerry took the food and walked back to his group.
“Look at this, guys. They gave us some food so we can eat tonight. I’ve gotta go back to talk to him. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Jerry handed the food to Mike, then he walked back out to finish talking to John.
“Thanks again for the food. You’ve got no idea how much that means. I talked to my people, and they agreed that we can travel together, just on either side of the street for now. We’re all going in the same direction. But for now, at night, it’d make us feel better if we slept in different buildings. Will that work for you? Just so you know, we were scammed really bad about a week ago. We lost everything. Please don’t think we’re judging you because of what someone else did. We’re just trying to be more careful. And thanks again for the food. We really needed it. Sometimes we’ve gone a long time between meals.”
“Staying in separate places at first works just fine with us, Jerry. We had a city gang nearly kill us to get to the food we had. We had to fight to keep it. We managed to get out of that without losing our stuff; fortunately for us, no one from our group was killed. So yes, we do understand, Jerry. This zombie crap has made thieves, killers, or both out of a lot of people. They seem to rationalize that it’s the only way to survive.”
He went on, “I guess I should let you in on what we have been doing. We knew you were behind us for the last few days. We kept an eye on you while we were walking. You guys didn’t do anything to be worried about, so we just kept walking. We were waiting for you to show us what your intentions were. I’m glad we were wrong about what we first thought about you. It’ll be good to walk with some new friends that don’t have it out for us. We’ll stay on our side of the street until you decide you’re ready for us. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us rather than trying to kill us or steal from us. I’ll be going back to my guys. Talk to you later.”
The two shook hands before walking back to their respective sides of the street. There wasn’t much that Jerry could add to what he had told the others. He did tell them that they would be walking with them, just on the other side of the street.
John walked back over to his group and started to tell them what he knew about the others.
“Hey, these guys are going to be okay, I think. They came to the city to have a summer fling before their senior year in high school. They’re from East Norwich. They are trying to get out of New York City, just like us. For a while, they want to keep a little distance between us until they are comfortable with us. They got robbed last week, so they’re still cautious. For tonight, we’ll stay in two different places. Tomorrow we’ll walk head towards home, keeping to separate sides of the street, at least at first. We’ll talk more as the day goes on. What do you guys think about them?”
“The good thing is that they are not from the city,” said Sid. “I like that. They’re from East Norwich, so they probably aren’t all ganged up like the people from the city. East Norwich is not big enough to have a gang problem. I’m okay with walking together for a couple of days.”
“Thanks, Sid. What about you, Peter? What do you think?”
“Neither Alice nor I wanna go thru what we did before. We had to beat the hell out of those guys just to be able to get away with our lives. I know that I feel better about these people. I’m sure Alice does, too.”
“And what about you, Sally?” asked John.
“You know I’m good with whatever you decide. They sound like good kids. East Norwich is a long way from New York City. It’s just so hard to tell about people in the city. So many of them are just plain brutal. It seems like they’re all in a gang or thugs. Why is it that all of the New Yorkers we’ve run into don’t want to work for what they need? They’re more willing to take what they need from others, even if they have to kill to get it. I’d sooner be with high school kids from East Norwich any day before I trust any New Yorkers again. Yeah, I’m good with this. They’re cautious, and that’s a good sign already.”
It was noon. Both groups started to walk again, each on their side of the street. They were in Garden City, Long Island on St. James Street. There were another three or four days of walking ahead of them to get home.
During the time that they had been running from the zombies, they had noticed that the creatures didn’t seem to see very well. However, it appeared that they could hear or sense the presence of people from a long way away.
Today they had walked five or six miles when Mike noticed a group of zombies coming out of a side street three blocks ahead. John’s group didn’t see them because of the angle. Mike nudged Jerry, pointing to the zombies. Mike counted around 15 or 16 of the things.
The zombies did not appear to have noticed either group yet. On Jerry’s side of the street was an abandoned two-story building. He had Mike and the girls quickly enter the store.
Jerry tossed a small stone to get John’s attention. Without making a sound, Jerry pointed to the zombies coming towards them, then to the open door behind him. Jerry waved to them to cross the street to the store. One by one John’s group came across and entered the building. Once inside, they blocked the door.
Jerry led everyone up to the second floor. From there, they went up to the roof. To stay out of sight, one person would rise up enough to look over the roof railing to see where the zombies were. It was John’s turn to look. As he came back from the rail, he gathered everyone around him and whispered, “Guys, the zombies are moving up the street. They’re directly in front of this building. I counted 30 to 35 of them, just staggering along. They aren’t looking around. If we keep quiet, they should continue right past us.”
He murmured, “I saw another group of seven or eight survivors a few blocks back up the street. I think they’re drunk, because they’re standing in the street, singing. If they don’t quiet down, the zombies will notice them. It’s really a case of shut up or be killed.”
“John, with a little luck, the zombies will pass us up for them,” said Alice. “If I have to choose, I’d rather it be them that’s killed than us. I know it’s wrong to think that way. But I don’t want to die.”
“No, Alice,” said John. “You’re not wrong. Not now. The zombies will try to kill anyone they can find. Personally, I’d rather it not be any of us or any of them, but right now it’s their choice. If they don’t stay quiet, they’re sealing their own fate. All we can focus on is making sure that we don’t do anything stupid that could get us killed. We’ve gotta do what we have to save ourselves first.”
About 25 minutes later, they could hear the drunks screaming as the zombies started killing them. Mary, Alice, Sally, and Jennifer held their heads down and started to cry. The guys couldn’t look at each other. They all knew what had just happened. The fact that it could have been them didn’t make it any easier.
Mike stood up and walked to the roof railing. John was already there, and Jerry joined them. They were watching the zombies finish their job up the street.
Jerry said, “John, I know what we agreed to a few hours ago, but I think this is a good place to crash for tonight. Are you guys okay with that?”
“That works for us, Jerry,” John replied. “We’ve never been in a situation like this before. Not telling those other survivors was hard. We should have shouted to warn them, but if we did that, we might have been attacked by the zombies too. We’ve never had to make a decision like that before. I hope we never have to do it again.”
“Yeah, that was really hard on us too,” said Jerry. “And I agree, I hope we don’t have to make that kind of choice again. I don’t believe that this zombie crap is over yet, not by a long shot. If it doesn’t bother you, we’ll keeping our night watch schedule that we’ve set up for ourselves.”
“It’s not that we don’t trust you, but we have a night watch too,” John said. “Our watchers can just keep each other company tonight.”
“We have plenty of food,” said Sally. “Who’s hungry? We have enough for all of
us for several days.”
“Thanks, Sally. The last time we ate before we ate tonight was almost two days ago. You guys are good people. Not like everyone from the city.”
“It probably needs to be warmed up, but with those zombies out there, it might be a bad idea to try to build a fire in the darkness. Is that okay?”
“Warm food or cold food, it’s still food. Thank you for being so generous.”
As they ate, they got to know each other. They decided that each group would continue to hold their own night watch. As a group, they would all sleep on the second floor while those on night watch would stand their watch downstairs.
The guys walked through the building. The front door was blocked closed. The back door looked like it had not been opened for years. A few hours after the zombies went by, the guys pried the back door open to look outside. It opened onto a narrow alley, so narrow that two people couldn’t walk side by side. They decided that was probably why the door hadn’t been opened for such a long while. They would still watch it at night.
The next day it was raining hard. Mike was the first one to mention it.
“Damn, do you see how hard it’s raining? I don’t want to walk in the rain again. I’m tired of being cold and wet. We really don’t have that far to go. Can we all stay for another day until it stops raining?”
“Yeah, I’m okay with that. I hate to walk in the rain too. When we get wet, we stay cold all day long. If nobody else has a problem with one more day here, I’m ready to stay.”
There were mumbles of agreement.
“We’re fine with that too. Staying here and staying dry is good.”
“All right, then. We’ll move on tomorrow. Today we should post a day watch in case something or someone finds us.”
“That’s a good idea, John. Our watches can just stay on the night rotation for the day watch.”
As the day dragged into late afternoon, the day watch saw what they believed was the same group of zombies from the day before lumber past their building at about the same time as yesterday. This wasn’t the first time that they’d seen groups of zombies at the same time. The creatures had a sort of schedule about them.
