by L. D. King
Throughout the morning hours and into early afternoon, there were hardly any zombies out, maybe one or two stragglers. The large groups of zombies came out in the late afternoon. They also found that if they kept quiet, the zombies did not notice them.
The next day it was still raining. They decided to stay over yet another night.
It was early afternoon. Mike was on watch with Alice. He was looking out the window at the street in front of their building. There had been a bloodied, ripped-up body on the street ever since they entered the building. Suddenly, Mike noticed it starting to twitch. Then, slowly, it sat up. Mike began to yell for the others.
Alice was watching the street, sitting next to Mike, and when she realized the noise he was making, she jumped up and grabbed him, putting her hand over his mouth. Mike realized what he’d done, calmed down, and sent her to the second floor. He wanted everyone to see this. Shortly after they all arrived at the night watch post, the dead body suddenly stood and started to lumber down the street in the same direction that the other zombies had gone earlier.
Watching this was scary for everyone. Never in their lives could they have imagined that the zombie outbreak could happen. Today, however, they had learned another facet of the zombie outbreak.
Were they witnessing where zombies came from? As they stood frozen in place, some with their mouths hanging open, they were seeing something that not many survivors would ever see. Would this be the ultimate fate of the people of the world? Was this how it would all end? They didn’t know. They didn’t want to know. All they wanted to do was to get out of the building right now. They wanted to be out of this town right now. The issue facing them was that the rain had ended too late in the day for them to venture out. The zombies would be making their daily rounds, hunting for people to kill. They could not safely leave now.
They agreed that the next day, rain or shine, they would leave this place. John’s group of five had discussed it, and so had Jerry’s quartet. Everyone was sitting around on the second floor, relaxing, except for those on the day watch.
John walked to the center of the group and stood next to Jerry.
“Do you guys have a minute for me?” he said. “I’d like to talk to you about where everyone will be going when we leave here. You know, Massapequa isn’t far from here, maybe two days of walking. But we’ve been talking… There’s really nothing in Massapequa for us. None of us have any family there. The five of us were all teachers at the school district, and started to hang out as a group. All we really had was our friendship. We all came from other cities on the east coast, and moved to Massapequa for work. Last year was our first year of teaching, so we really didn’t know anybody. And, well… we’ve become really comfortable with your group. If you’ll let us, we’d like to come with you to East Norwich.”
Jerry glanced at his friends. “John, I can’t speak for everyone, but I don’t have any problem with that. Looking at my friends, I don’t see anyone that looks like they have an issue with it either. We have to go home to see if any of our families survived. So you’re welcome to come with us. We’ll leave tomorrow at first light, as one group. We all want to be out of this building as fast as we can.”
“Thank you, Jerry. We will forever be grateful to all of you. Tomorrow will be a new day for all of us.”
The last person on night watch woke everyone at sunrise the next morning. After breakfast, they headed out for East Norwich. For the next three days, they walked during the day. They found a safe place for the night. At 11 AM on the third day of walking, they arrived at the outskirts of East Norwich. Mike was the first to turn onto Main Street. What he saw took his breath away.
Standing in the middle of the street, he said, “Guys? Do you see this? This town is just completely torn up. Look at the stores! All the windows that have been broken out. Look over there on that side — the buildings are all burned. This was our home. Now it’s nothing but a beat-to-hell, tired old town. Mary, your home is the closest. We can go see if there is anything there. Do you want to wait for us here while we go look?”
“No,” said Mary. “I don’t want to wait. We need to go somewhere… my house is just as good as any other, I suppose.”
“Okay, then. Mary’s house is down this street, and around the corner. Let’s go.”
A few minutes later, they walked into Mary’s front yard.
“Mary, I don’t see anything wrong with the place. We need to go inside and have a look around. Wait out here on the sidewalk. A couple of us guys will go in to check first.”
“Thank you, Mike. I’ll wait out here. If my parents are here and alive, it’ll make me so happy.”
Mike and John went into the house. They looked around and found no one there. In the kitchen, they found a letter on the table for Mary. Mike went to the door and called for Jerry to bring Mary in.
“Okay, Mary. Mike wants us to come in now,” said Jerry.
Mike stopped them at the door and told them what they had found.
“There’s no one in the house. Everything is still in good shape. I think your parents left you a note.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice shaking. “Will you read it to me, please?”
“Sure.” He cleared his throat. “‘Dear Mary, Your mother and I came back from the beach early. The zombies were there, killing people. We got out just in time. We stayed at the house for a couple of weeks until the electricity went out. The water stopped running as well. I was on my radio and found a survivor camp in Nebraska. I left the radio set to the station that the Nebraska Survivor Camp is on, so you can talk to them. Your mother and I took the car and headed for Nebraska. We left the pickup in the garage for you. The gas tank is full. There is more gas in cans in the bed of the truck. When you read this, please go out and start the generator and call the Nebraska Survivor Camp. We will tell their radio man to expect your call. Love, Mother and Dad.’”
Mary was in tears. She had to sit while Mike read the letter. “Jerry, please come sit next to me,” she said. “I want you to hold me.”
“I’m right here, Mary. Everything is gonna be fine. Your parents are alive; they went to Nebraska. They’re waiting for you. We need to get the generator running so we can call them.”
“Jerry,” said Mary. “Before we get started with that, can we go talk somewhere?”
“Well… sure. Let’s go upstairs. Come on.”
The two went up the stairs to the second floor.
“What’s going on?” said Jerry.
“Jerry, you know that I love you. I want to marry you someday. Then this zombie crap happened, and… Well, I’ve been so afraid to tell you this. I’ve been worried that once I told you, you’d leave me.”
“Mary, I love you too. I’d never leave you. What could you tell me that would be so horrible? Why is it scaring you so much?”
“Jerry… I’m pregnant. I knew the day before we left for New York. I’ve been so afraid to tell you.”
“Oh, Mary. That’s wonderful! I’m gonna be a dad! I’ll never leave you — I love you. C’mon, let’s go get the generator started. We need to talk to Nebraska, and then we need to get on the road.”
On their way down the stairs, they heard the sound of the generator running. John and Mike had already started it up. But it was much too loud — it was going to attract zombies. Jerry ran the rest of the way down the stairs to shut it off. He had Mike and John help him carry it inside and up the stairs. In the spare bedroom, it would be quieter.
As soon as they rerouted the wiring for the generator, they started it up again. Mary was the only one who knew how to work the radio, so she sat down at her father’s desk. Her father had written down the call sign that he went by on the radio: NO2EST.
“Calling station NE0KCT, Nebraska Survivor Camp, this is NO2EST, East Norwich, New York. Can you hear me, over?”
“East Norwich this is Nebraska Survivor Camp. I can hear you loud and clear. How can we help you, over?”
“I am looki
ng for my parents Matt and Mildred Johnson. My name is Mary Johnson. Have you heard of them, over?”
“Yes, East Norwich, they are here at Nebraska Survivor Camp. We just sent a runner to bring them here to the radio. It should only take a few minutes. While we’re waiting, let me give you directions to get here, over.”
“That’s okay, Nebraska Survivor Camp. My father left me the directions, over.”
“Roger, East Norwich. Here are your parents, over.”
“Mary is that you? Are you okay? How is everyone else, over?”
“Hi, Daddy…” She had to fight to hold back her tears. “I’m fine… most of us are here. I do have some news for you and Mom. Uh… I’m pregnant. Jerry is the father, and we want to get married.”
Afraid of his response, she continued quickly, “We’ll start heading your way tomorrow. Thank you for the truck, over.”
“Mary, look in the garage, and there’ll be a hand-cranked electrical generator. If you take that and the radio with you, we can talk when you stop at night. Here is your mom. Over.”
“Hi, Mom! How are you doing, over?”
“Mary, I am doing great, even with all this zombie stuff going on. Please come out here. It’s a safe place. There are high walls all the way around that are patrolled 24 hours a day. The land that the Survivor Camp sits on is so big they can grow food here. The camp leaders have told us that they have room for up to 3,000 people. There’s only about 375 of us here right now.” She paused, her voice husky with emotion.
“Oh, and your father wanted you to know that he left the directions to the Camp on the desk. When you first get here, they’ll ask you to stay in quarantine for two weeks to make sure that you don’t have the zombie virus. We did it, it is not that bad. Over.”
“Thank you, Mom. We’ll head that way in the morning. Mike is telling me we need to shut down for now, ‘cause we don’t want to attract any zombies. I love you. Bye, over and out.”
They shut down the generator and got everything ready to spend the night in Mary’s house. At first light, they would be heading towards North Platte, Nebraska. The Nebraska Survivor Camp was 49 miles due north of North Platte, on State Highway 83 at Stapleton, Nebraska.
It was getting late in the afternoon. They had night watches set up. Since they had joined groups, there was only one person on watch. This would give everyone a chance to sleep a little longer. They had a light meal together before getting ready to lay down for the night.
Around 4:00 PM, Mike was on watch. He was sitting in the living room, watching the street. This was the time when the zombies normally came out. He didn’t expect today to be any different. Then he saw something that made him jump up. He took the stairs two at a time and called to everyone to look outside. As he pointed, he whispered, “Guys, do you see what I see? Is that Stan? That zombie is wearing the same ugly tee shirt that Stan had on at Jerry’s house the last time we saw him. Oh, hell no. Is that Rosie? That’s her sweater, or what’s left of it, anyway. Aw, jeez… now we know why they didn’t come with us.”
“Oh, no. Damn it!” said Jerry. It was them. “What do we do now?”
“Jerry, I don’t know who these people are, but I would strongly advise you to just ignore them. Let them walk on past this house. There are about 40 of them out there. If we go outside, we’ll die. We need to go back upstairs and be as quiet as we can until they’re gone.”
“Okay, John. You’re right,” said Jerry. “I hate to say it, but I’m good with that. If we go out there, there’s no guarantee that they’ll know who we are. I don’t want to be killed by a zombie, but I especially don’t want to be killed by a zombie that knows us.”
“Is this what is going to happen to all of us, Jerry?” said Mary.
“I really don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Jerry. “Two or three months ago I didn’t know that we’d be running from zombies now. We just need to try to live one day at a time.”
The next morning at sunrise, they left East Norwich, headed to Nebraska. They drove until mid-afternoon and started looking for a safe place to stop for the night. They found a vacant house with a small barn on the outskirts of Morristown, Ohio.
They parked the pickup in the barn, securing the doors against zombies. Earlier in the day, they had passed a road gang of thugs. To keep from being found, they did not light any candles or heat food. They would eat cold food again. The night watch kept an eye out for the road gang as well as the zombies. They could not let down their guard. As they settled down for the day, Jerry asked Mary a question.
“Mary, I’ve been thinking… once we get to the Nebraska Survivor Camp, I want to marry you. We could ask your parents to be there. I wanna be your husband, and we’ll be a family. What do you say, Mary?”
Mary smiled at him. “Jerry, that’s the best thing that you have said to me, ever. My answer is yes, I’ll marry you. I’ve always wanted to have my parents at my wedding. Maybe with our baby, this zombie thing that we’ve been fighting will be just a little better for all of us.”
Tomorrow they would run.
They now had two reasons to do more than survive.
The first reason is that a new baby would be born into this new world.
The second is that they had a destination: Nebraska.
Their lives depended on getting to Nebraska.
They needed to run still further to survive.
Chapter 16
Riverside, California
ADZ +197d
When the countries adopted the isolationist stance, they planned to control their citizens by restricting movement from one area of the world to another by using the new travel visas. News reporters, for the most part, were granted the ability to move around select areas of their home country. By allowing reporters a larger area of travel, the countries would be able to monitor citizens through the news that was being reported. For example, News reporters stationed on the west coast of America had permanently stamped travel documents that allowed them to travel from the Mexican border to the Canadian border and from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains.
As long as the broadcast van that Kimberly was assigned to was within the acceptable boundaries, they would not bring unwanted attention to themselves for being too far away from Riverside.
As morning dawned, Kimberly rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She could smell breakfast being made and turned her head to see Floyd busy cooking on the camping stove that he’d bought while they were filling up the van’s gas tanks. He had been able to find pancake mix as well as a package of bacon. She walked over to where he was cooking.
He said, “Good morning, sunshine. How about a cup of coffee? If we can’t buy any more, this’ll be the last it. You’re not a morning person, are you?”
“Thanks for the coffee, Floyd. No, I’m really not a morning person at all. You ought to know that by now. We’ve been at this gas station for more than seven days. How are our supplies holding out?”
“You’re welcome. What you have in your hand is the last of the coffee. It was all I could buy. It’s the same for the pancake mix as well as the bacon. After today, we’ll be on canned or dried food. That market where I stopped was out of almost everything. The clerk told me that they weren’t getting their deliveries any more. I bought everything that I could. The store was packed with people, buying everything on the shelves. So what are your plans for today, Kimberly?”
“I want to talk to everyone as a group after we’ve had our breakfast. That coffee was good. Do you have enough that I might have a second cup?”
“I do. If you want another cup, go ahead and pour yourself one. Can you make sure that the guys are awake, please? Breakfast is almost ready.”
“Yeah, I will. You can dish up breakfast for everyone, and I’ll make sure that they’re all awake.”
With coffee in hand, she went out to the service bays in the gas station to wake everyone. She was happy to find everyone was already up. They were starting to come into the office for breakfas
t.
As Floyd was dishing up their plates, the rest of them sat down at their makeshift table. All of them ate in silence. None of them talked, but not because they didn’t have anything to say. They didn’t talk because they were hungry. They had been on rations since they had left Riverside. They were always hungry. After they had finished eating, they put their paper plates into the garbage can.
Nursing her last cup of coffee, Kimberly asked them to stay in the office for a minute because she had something to talk to them about. She was concerned about their current state of affairs.
The professional reporter that she was, she could not talk to anyone without standing. Holding her lukewarm coffee, she rose to her feet. She stood at the end of the makeshift table so she could see everyone.
She started by saying, “I’m getting tired of staying in Llano. We’ve been here for the last seven days. Talking with Floyd this morning, he told me that as of today we are nearly out of fresh food. We are down to canned or dried food from here on out. In my opinion, we’re wasting our time by staying here. The zombie thing has gotten worse rather than better. I don’t know about you, but this gas station isn’t where I want to hole up until this zombie outbreak has been cured.”
“I’ve tried to call the station a number of times. No one has answered. I tried to call other places in Riverside, but it’s the same thing, no answer. I have been listening to the radio in the van. This is what I understand from the news that I’ve hearing. They say that the electrical grid is starting to fail in various parts of the Los Angeles Basin. With it, everything else is failing. They’re losing water, sewer, natural gas, phone service, public transportation, deliveries of food and anything else that has to be delivered. This is just a partial list. The police aren’t responding to calls, fire departments aren’t fighting fires… the list goes on.”
