by Gary Chesla
“Any ideas?” Tony asked.
“Check for a back door,” Mike said. “If we can get out of sight, maybe we can find a car out back with the keys still in the ignition. I would say our best chance at finding a car with the keys still in it is out front, but we would have to get lucky fast before we were surrounded. Otherwise we are going to have to find someplace to hold up until we have a chance to make a run for it.”
They searched until they found a way out the back of the station.
After running from car to car for a few minutes in the back alley behind the station, Tony stopped and said, “This isn’t going to work.”
“Let’s try this,” Mike said pointing to a car sitting in the driveway of a house across the street from the back of the gas station. “If the keys aren’t in the car, that car obviously belongs to whoever lives in the house. We go inside and look for the keys. People usually hang the keys on a hook near the back door. I know that’s what I do.”
“OK,” Tony replied, “It also looks like a place where we can hold up for a while too, if needed. It looks like a solid house. We should be safe in there for a while.”
“Think positive,” Mike grinned.
“Yeah, like we are on a lucky streak,” Tony replied as they ran across the street and looked in through the driver’s window.
“No keys,” Tony said as he yanked at the locked door.
They ran to the house and looked at the door on the side of the house.
Tony tried the door as Mike began to look under the plants that lined the sidewalk.
Tony turned looking frustrated to see Mike holding up a key.
“It was under the large potted hibiscus, that is where I keep my spare key,” Mike smiled.
“Let’s hope you are right about where they keep their car keys,” Tony added. “Let’s get inside, it doesn’t feel right out here. It’s too quiet.”
Mike walked over to the side door and inserted the key, “Click!”
Mike opened the door and the two men slipped inside.
Tony put his hand over his face, “It smells like hell in here.”
“We should be used to this smell by now,” Mike replied as he looked around the walls in the kitchen for the keys.
Then Mike saw Tony staring at him.
Tony was staring towards Mike as his eyes got wide.
Mike looked back at Tony, “What?”
Tony grabbed a kitchen chair and rushed at Mike.
Mike looked apprehensive as Tony rushed at him, then watched as he ran past him.
Mike turned to see what Tony was doing, just as Tony rammed the chair into the staggering body of an old man that started groaning as he came into the kitchen from the living room.
Tony pushed the old man back into the living room, where the old gray body fell to the floor.
Tony raised the chair over his head and brought it down and slammed it into the man’s bald head.
After the second strike, Tony stepped back and looked down at the man.
“I can’t believe it,” Tony said. “I think I killed it.”
Mike walked up to Tony, “With a damn chair?”
“I was just hoping to push him into another room and lock him in,” Tony said sounding surprised. “Back at the cabin, I shot the hell out of that one thing and it just looked at me and moaned.”
“Maybe we should take that chair with us in case we run into more of these things,” Mike replied. “They must be allergic to chairs or something.”
“Just find the damn keys,” Tony said. “I’m not dragging this chair along with us. I think we were just lucky this time.”
Both men, looked at the body to make sure it wasn’t going to try to get back up, then ran back into the kitchen to look for the keys.
When they couldn’t find any hooks on the wall with keys on them, they started going through the cupboard drawers.
“Well, if you didn’t keep your keys in the kitchen, where else would you keep them?” Tony asked.
“The dresser next to my bed,” Mike replied as he looked up the stairs that led up to the second floor. “Bring that chair just in case there is a Mrs. Zombie up there.”
Tony gave Mike a look that said he thought Mike was crazy, but he grabbed the chair anyhow.
Then they slowly started to climb the stairs.
When they reached the second floor, they saw three doors in the hallway. They moved over to the first of the three doors in the upstairs hallway, Mike pointed for Tony to get the chair ready, then Mike stood with his back to the wall and reached for the door knob.
The first room was the bathroom and was empty.
The second door had been the old man’s office. A large stuffed chair and a desk was all that was in the room.
They moved nervously to the third room.
Mike pushed the door open and stepped aside.
Tony looked in then signaled that the room was clear.
Mike walked into the room and after glancing around, walked over to the nightstand and picked up a ring with two keys on it.
“I think we are in luck,” Mike said as he singled out one of the keys. He held out the key that said Buick written across the top of the key.
“Good, Tony said as he walked over to look out the bedroom window. “Let’s get out of here.”
He slowly looked around the side of the curtain and Mike could see Tony’s shoulders drop.
Mike walked over and looked out over Tony’s shoulder.
“Well, when they stagger away, we at least have a car to get out of here.”
“We might as well make ourselves comfortable while we’re here,” Tony said. “Let’s go down stairs and make sure everything is locked up first. The doors look like they are metal and the windows double pain storm windows, they should keep those things out if they do discover we are in the house, but we don’t want to overlook anything.
We don’t want to make it easy for them.”
“Hey, look at this,” Mike said as he walked back over to the nightstand and reached down and picked up a small square plastic object. “I think the old man had a telephone.”
“A damn flip phone,” Tony smiled, “I haven’t seen one of those for years.”
Mike flipped open the phone and punched in Linda’s number and held the phone to his ears, “It’s ringing.”
Tony walked over next to Mike and said, “Who knew that old man would be so hi tech?”
Mike grinned then turned his attention to the phone as a woman’s shaky voice answered, “Hello.”
“Linda is that you?”
“Mike, Oh God, where are you?” Linda shrieked.
“I’m in some small town up by the cabin. We ran into some trouble but I hope to be home later today.”
Linda sobbed, “They killed the Ramseys, Mike!”
“Who killed the Ramseys?” Mike asked, what happened?”
“I don’t know what they are, Mike. They look like something out of a horror movie. They broke into our house too,” Linda paused and sobbed.
“Are you and Jamie OK?” Mike shouted.
“For now,” Linda replied. “We’re upstairs. I pushed your dresser down the steps. They haven’t been able to get up the stairs yet. Mike, you have to come home right now, we need you,” Linda said.
“I’m trying,” Mike started to reply, but the phone started crackling and a beeping sound started.
Then the phone went dead.
Mike held the phone out and looked at the small screen.
“Low Battery!” flashed across the screen.
Mike closed the phone and tossed it on the bed.
“Tony, these things are back home too,” Mike said looking wide eyed and scared.
“They killed the neighbors and are now in my house,” Mike said looking dejected. “They have Linda and Jamie trapped on the second floor.”
“Shit,” Tony replied as he walked back over to look out the window, “How far has this spread?”
“Too far,” Mike said
. “We have to get home!”
“We aren’t going anywhere for a while,” Tony replied.
Mike looked over his shoulder, “We have the keys to the car, we can fight our way to the car and get out of here.”
“We’ll get back,” Tony replied, “but we won’t do Linda any good if we end up dead. We’ll leave as soon as we can, but we have to use our head and be smart about this.”
“I guess you’re right,” Mike said as he dropped down on the bed. “This scares the hell out of me, Tony. It tears me apart to think about Linda and Jamie trapped in the house with those things.”
“I know, Mike,” Tony replied. “Linda is a smart girl, I’m sure she will be OK for a while. Let’s go down stairs and check out the house. It will help keep your mind off things. Those things won’t hang around out there forever. Come on. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”
Mike and Tony walked out of the room and slowly went downstairs.
Mike’s stomach churned as he worried about Linda and Jamie trapped in the house with those animals.
Visions of Ryan, lying on the ground being torn apart flashed through his mind.
Chapter 18
May 9th, Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Linda looked at her phone with a shocked look on her face.
She moved the phone back to her ear and shouted, “Mike, Mike!”
But he was no longer there.
“Was that Daddy?” Jamie asked as she crawled out from under the bed, dragging George out behind her.
Linda shook her head up and down, still unable to control the trembling in her voice to answer.
“Why did he hang up?” Jamie asked. “I didn’t get to say hello. Didn’t he want to talk to me. He always talks to me when he calls. Is he mad at me?”
“No, he had to go. I think he said he was having car trouble and had to go,” Linda finally said. “He just wanted to let us know he was on his way home.”
Jamie thought for a moment.
“What was that big noise out in the hall?” she asked.
Linda wasn’t sure what to say, but decided she had better start to prepare Jamie for what she was going to see sooner or later.
“I had to push some furniture down the stairs to keep the bad people that are trying to rob us from getting upstairs,” Linda said.
“Did they leave then?” Jamie asked.
“No,” Linda replied as she tried to control the fear she felt.
“Maybe you should tell them Daddy is coming home,” Jamie said. “That should make them go away.”
Then Linda saw Jamie thinking and slowly turn and look up at Linda.
“Are the bad people going to rob us?” Jamie asked.
“Not if I can help it,” Linda forced a slight smile.
“Are we stuck up here then until Daddy gets home?” Jamie asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Linda answered.
“Are we allowed out of this room?” Jamie asked.
“Why?” replied Linda.
“Me and George need to go to the bathroom,” Jamie grinned sheepishly.
Linda thought about all the problems they could face if they had to stay in Jamie’s room.
There wasn’t any food or water, of course there wasn’t a bathroom and Jamie’s furniture was too small to be much of a barricade in the event they had to block the door if any of those gross things managed to get upstairs.
“Come on,” Linda smiled. “We’ll go stay in my room. There is a bathroom over there,”
“OK,” Jamie grinned and ran for the door.
“Don’t go out there!” Linda shouted, terrified at the idea of Jamie running out into the hallway and seeing the dead body on the steps.
Jamie stopped and turned, scared by the tone in Linda’s voice.
“Wait for me,” Linda said calming her voice, “we’ll go over together.”
“OK,” Jamie replied, hanging on to George tightly as the kitten struggled, looking nervous.
Linda walked over to Jamie and took George in one hand and tucked him under her arm. She knew once they were out in the hallway, the sounds and smell out there would probably make George try to get himself free so he could run back under the bed and hide.
With her free hand, she took Jamie’s hand.
“Stay beside me and don’t look down the steps, OK?” Linda said.
Jamie shook her head up and down, then asked, “Why not?”
“Just do what I saw,” Linda replied, “I’ll explain later.”
Linda let go of Jamie’s hand and opened the door slowly.
She grabbed Jamie’s hand again and said, “Look at the wall until we get to my room.”
“OK,” Jamie answered.
“Here we go,” Linda said and pulled Jamie out into the hall.
Linda pulled Jamie out into the hallway and quickly walked towards her room.
George began to struggle, but Linda just held him tighter as she hurried down the hall.
Linda took a quick glance down the stairs as she pulled Jamie past the top of the stairs and into her bedroom.
She handed George to Jamie and said, “Now you can go to the bathroom.”
“It stinks out there,” Jamie said as she took George. “Don’t those bad people ever take a bath?”
“Just go to the bathroom,” Linda smiled.
Jamie took George and hurried into the bathroom and closed the door.
Linda rushed back over to the bedroom door, glancing back to be sure Jamie was still in the bathroom.
She turned back to the door and opened it slowly.
When she had glanced down the steps as she pulled Jamie over to the bedroom, she thought she had seen something that worried her.
Linda stuck her head out the door and looked down the steps.
The dresser had moved a few inches in the archway.
She watched nervously as the dresser vibrated as the things on the other side of the archway pushed at and threw their bodies against the barrier.
Linda knew with the angle the dresser was leaning into the archway, that if it moved a few more inches, it would fall through the archway and into the hall.
If that happened, the monsters in the downstairs would be able to get into the stairwell.
Linda slid back into the bedroom, closed the door and leaned back against the door as she looked around the room for ideas.
She could push her dresser out to the top of the stairs so she would be ready if Mike’s dresser fell through the archway. But her dresser was much smaller and wouldn’t block the stairway like Mike’s had done.
If she pushed it down the stairs after Mike’s dresser fell through the archway, it would probably just tumble through the archway and end up out on the floor next to Mike’s dresser.
It would buy her maybe another few minutes at best.
No, that wouldn’t be much help.
If she pushed her dresser down the stairs now in an attempt to help keep the stairway blocked, it might dislodge Mike’s dresser and make the situation worse.
She decided the best thing she could do was use her dresser to block her bedroom door.
She walked over to the window in her bedroom and looked out through the window.
Four feet below her window was the peak of the garage roof.
If those things were able to get into her room, the garage roof would be her last place to run.
“Then what?” Linda thought, “the end of the line.”
But maybe it would buy her and Jamie enough time for Mike to get home to help them.
“My God, what a nightmare,” Linda sobbed.
She walked over to her dresser and pushed it in front of the door.
She had just finished moving the dresser and leaned her forehead against the dresser, when Jamie and George came out of the bathroom.
“I think the toilet is broken,” Jamie said. “It won’t flush. It just makes a hissing noise like George when he gets scared.”
“Great, now the water is out,” Linda thought
as she remembered the two jugs of water on the kitchen sink she had filled after listening to that emergency broadcast.
Linda also remembered checking the pantry to be sure they had enough food for a week.
“The broadcast could have told us to store the food and water where we could get at it if we were trapped in the upstairs of our house by zombies,” Linda thought. “Like I would have believed that one!”
Jamie carried George and stood in front of Linda and said, “I’m hungry.”
Linda opened the drawer on her night stand and took out the bag of animal crackers she always kept by her bed for her frequent midnight snacks.
“Don’t eat them all,” Linda said, “they might be all we have to eat until tomorrow.”
Jamie reached into the bag, pulling out a lion cookie.
After showing her mother that she was going to eat a lion, she bit into the cookie and George chased after the crumbs that rolled down the front of Jamie’s shirt.
“God, Mike,” Linda sighed and thought, “please hurry home! I’m afraid of what will happen next and I don’t know what to do.”
Chapter 19
Monday May 10th, Fallon Nevada
Rogers looked up from the computer screen he had been studying as the sound of jet’s roaring down the runway distracted him as they took off from the airfield, circled around the base and headed west.
“There they go again,” Rogers said, “What’s that, the fifth time this morning?”
“Where are they going this time?” Davis asked.
“I believe they are going out to sector four, near Reno and Carson City,” Chervy replied.
“Early this morning they hit a group coming in from Salt Lake City, then they hit another group coming down from Twin Falls. They made two runs down near Vegas, how many of the infected are out there?” Rogers asked.
“Let’s see,” Chervy replied, “The population of Salt Lake City was 2.5 million, the Vegas area had a population of 2 million, and Twin Falls had about 175,000 people. Those areas have been devastated by the virus, so even if the infected left the cities and went in ten different random directions, that could still be up to 250,000 of the infected coming our way,” Chervy replied.
