Eves of the Outbreak

by Lilith Assisi

  The bed I had been in was incredibly comfortable and it was hard to get up from. I rolled back over and tried to drift back to sleep. But then I heard something I hadn’t expected to: voices.

  River must have heard it at the same time as we both bolted upright in bed together.

  At first I thought maybe Tracy had spotted some survivors from the vet school on the street and ushered them in to join us. But with a slam I heard the front door open and several sets of large footsteps come through the door accompanied by hooting.

  River shot out of bed to run downstairs.

  “River stop!” I shouted in a hushed tone, and she obeyed. They wouldn’t have heard me with all the ruckus they were now making. But at that moment Percy got wind of what was happening as well.

  Growling, scratching, and barking seemed to come simultaneously from behind his bedroom door, making it more difficult for me to hear what the people downstairs were saying. I signaled River to my side and went to pick up my baseball bat. I tried to strain my ears in their direction, if that was a thing.

  “Looks like we got ourselves a winner here. Too bad she ain’t blonde, but she’ll do. Then again if she was blonde we’d probably have to save her for Anthony,” said a male voice.

  I could hear grunting and a frantic “Let go of me” from Tracy’s voice. River was trembling all over at not being able to go check on her. I was trying to clear my head and decide what to do.

  “Careful girl, if you fight too much Brandon might have to stick you in more than one way,” another voice said, followed by laughter. There were at least three different laughs I could hear. I couldn’t even imagine what Tracy was going through downstairs as mental images of her being held down by these men came to my mind.

  “Or you might attract some unwanted spectators.”

  More chuckles.

  I looked at the bat in my hand as I felt myself overflowing with rage. It was then that I realized these people wouldn’t be as easy to take down that way, as much as I could imagine myself beating them to death at that moment. Glancing around the room I saw Tracy’s open duffel bag. I rushed over to it, thankful for Percy’s continued antics. It would make the intruders much less likely to hear me.

  The men kept talking as I rifled through the bag.

  “This is gonna be fun. Boys, you don’t mind if I get first dibs since I was the one to find this lovely lady.”

  “As long as you don’t wear her out too much!” shouted a second voice.

  There was more rumbling of furniture moving.

  “And look at that, pretty nice body on her too! You’ve been keeping in shape baby!”

  “We’ll have to take her back to Anthony after. I think we should leave her for him,” said a third voice.

  “Fuck that shit. Tony’s spending too much time trying to become president of the fucking high school. We can take her back to the prison, but he won’t care if she’s had a couple rides before then.”

  “Whatever, I’ll keep watch outside while you two have your fun.”

  I picked up the shotgun from her assortment of knives and bats and slowly started checking to make sure it was loaded. I had never been much of a fan of guns before this outbreak. Actually, I had been in staunch opposition to them, frequently participating in gun control events after what happened with my parents and losing a friend to the Virginia Tech shootings. It was ironic to be in my shoes now where a gun seemed my most safe bet.

  The only reason I knew how to use a shotgun in the first place was because of my veterinary experience. During my large animal rotation I had been out on rotation with a professor who needed to euthanize a large cow, pregnant to term with a calf. She had broken her leg after falling through some misplaced slates on the farm. The reason for shooting her rather than giving her injectable euthanasia solution was that we could perform an emergency C-section immediately after to try to save the calf, and the whole incident would then not be a total loss to the farmer.

  Since I was not prepared to perform a sixty-second C-section as a fourth year veterinary student, the professor taught me how to use the shotgun and put me in charge of putting the large animal down. It was not fun, and I don’t have fond memories from that rotation, but the fifteen-minute lesson of how to use a shotgun had thankfully stuck.

  With the shotgun ready I edged back towards the hallway, motioning to River to stay behind me.

  My plan was to pop my head around the staircase and see if I could see any of the men downstairs to get a better idea of what I was up against.

  “You like that, don’t you baby,” said the voice that I assumed was Brandon. There was more scuffing of furniture and thudding coming from the room, just barely audible over Percy. I wasn’t hearing Tracy protest, which probably meant they had gagged her.

  I inched towards the end of the hallway, just past Percy’s room. I did not know how I was going to catch these men by surprise. I signaled River back behind me again. She was trembling all over. So was I.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as I worried about not hurting Tracy in the crossfire, but was filled with anger as I imagined them raping her.

  “Hey Mike! Can you go upstairs and shut that mutt of hers up?” asked the other voice that was not Brandon’s.

  “Sure thing,” came the reply as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I only had a matter of seconds to make a decision. Should I shot this guy as he turns the corner or run back to the bedroom? Should I take the offensive and charge him before he reached the top of the stairs? Then at the last second I did something I hadn’t even thought of initially: I opened the door to Percy’s bedroom.

  The black lab came charging out and past me, and practically flew off the top of the staircase as he took the turn.

  I raced after him just in time to see the man go tumbling down backwards, taking quite a tough fall on the back of his neck.

  As his body splayed out on to the floor below I rushed down after him and Percy.

  River took this to mean her previous “stay put” command was broken and bounded off ahead of me.

  Percy landed on top of the man and took one big bite in to his face and shook, while River grabbed the hand with the gun and tried to shake it loose.

  The collapsed man barely moved as the two tore in to him. It left me to suspect that he broke his neck during the fall. But I couldn’t stop to inspect him as I could hear shouting coming our way.

  I launched myself down off the last four steps to a clear part of floor. I swung the shotgun up to the left and took the turn so that my gun was pointing right towards another bearded man coming my way. He had his hand on a rifle that was slung around his neck and was about to lift it my way when I shot.

  Buckshot peppered his body and blew a hole through his neck. As he fell I could see the kitchen behind him.

  A tall man with a moustache wearing army fatigues was frantically trying to pull his pants up around his waste mumbling oh shit, oh shit.

  A skinny man with spikey hair and goatee was at the back of the kitchen, and high tailed it out the back door before I could shoot, but I turned back towards the remaining man.

  “Freeze douchebag,” I shouted, keeping my shotgun raised towards him.

  Tracy was on the table behind him, her mouth duct-taped and her hands bound behind her back. She was leaning up towards me with a look of fear and relief at the same time, if that’s possible. I didn’t want to imagine being in her shoes.

  Well, her underpants that is, since that was all that she was left wearing at the moment. They had taken her shirt and pants off so she was just in a bra and panties, and even though it couldn’t be more than a couple minutes old I could tell they had given her a black eye.

  Seeing as how the man on the stairs was no longer a threat, Percy and River were rushing down the hall towards the kitchen to join us. River lead the way, growling with her hair on end as she stopped a couple feet in front of the man I assumed was “Brandon”.

  Percy followed suit. The man stood pressed
up against the cabinets looking at the two dogs and me.

  “My buddy Matt out there is gonna be back with reinforcements. You better be careful ladies,” he said, though he sounded terrified as he said it.

  I heard a car ignition turn and could hear what must have been the man who had escaped out the back leaving in a vehicle.

  “Well we’ll just have to make sure we are long gone before they come back,” I said matter of factly.

  “What are you going to do to me?” he asked, his voice quivering a bit as he realized how empty his last threat had been.

  He looked a little frightened, but there was still a hint of challenge in his voice. If only I could have slapped that out of him, just like I wanted to kick his moustache to oblivion.

  I had reached Tracy, who had scrambled off the table towards me. I set the gun down, still pointing it towards the man in the corner as I untied her hands.

  “That’s for her to decide,” I said as I picked the gun back up and pointed it back towards him.

  Tracy let out a little grunt as she ripped the duct tape off her face.

  “Call your dogs off,” he demanded.

  “Sure thing. River? Percy? HERE!” I had to say the command with a little force since the dogs were reticent to leave me unprotected. River backed up in place whereas Percy turned around and slouched towards me, his hair still on end. I felt better having them out of kicking range from this thug.

  Tracy was getting herself dressed frantically while all this was happening.

  “You ok?” I asked her.

  “No comment,” was her reply.

  “We have a community we set up a couple miles from here. I could take you two there. This was all a little misunderstanding. And you just got your revenge, right?” he said, nodding towards his fallen comrades in the hallway.

  “Give me the gun,” Tracy said. I looked at her and saw she was fully dressed. All fear was gone from her face. Instead now all I could see was hatred in her eyes.

  I handed her the gun. I had told her whatever we did with this rapist was up to her after all.

  She lifted it towards the man.

  “Now ladies, be reasonable! We can barter. I am sure there is something I can get you that you want,” he pleaded, finally starting to sound a little desperate, holding both hands up towards us in surrender.

  “I hope you liked what you saw asshole, cause it was the last thing you are ever going to see.” And with that the shotgun went off one last time that morning.

  Chapter 31

  The next week was trying for both of us. I wanted to be there for Tracy, but didn’t even know where to start. I kept imagining myself in her shoes. And it wasn’t easy.

  Plus I had killed someone. No, not a zombie, an actual person!

  Tracy made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to brood over what had happened to her. That made it a lot harder for me to talk about the internal turmoil I had been suffering from when it seemed so puny in comparison to her trauma.

  That fateful, traumatic day was still looming in my memories. Several zombies had been attracted to the house after Tracy had finished off her assailant. Though I wanted to dispatch of them, Tracy asked me to leave them and the door open so they could feast on those deserving of it.

  Back in the truck we both agreed that Percy would be allowed to stay with us unless he started showing signs of illness. It seemed to have been the right move as he was still fine a week later. He had saved our skins one too many times and having him with us made both of us feel safer.

  We spent the next several nights sleeping in the truck. Tracy had vehemently opposed to being in a house again, fearful it would just lead to another ambush. Most nights we would park on the top of a hill, and the dogs woke us up whenever something or someone was getting close.

  At least once a night some shambling zombies would be the threat. That was easy. We’d just start up the truck and take off, sometimes ramming the walker in the process. Within half an hour we always seemed to be settled in to another rest area.

  The scarier times were when we were woken up by the dogs but never quite figured out why. Sleep deprivation has been proven to cause just as many car accidents as drunk driving. We would have been in a bad situation is civilization still existed. The sleep deprivation was not only impairing my vehicle functioning, but making me see things.

  I swore I was seeing shadows between houses and amongst the trees, but couldn’t be sure if it was my imagination or actually something there. Maybe it was an animal, an abandoned canine or feline, or local wildlife. Maybe it was another zombie, though that seemed unlikely considering they had no reason to hide. And maybe it was what I was starting to become more terrified of than anything: maybe it was another human. After the incident at the house I felt like they were going to become the real danger. This apocalypse would probably enable a lot of low life scum to become empowered. With minimal to no law enforcement, and free range to commit violence to survive, who could blame them?

  Whenever I tried to talk to Tracy about what happened and make sure she was ok she would just tell me she was “fine”. We all know what that meant, or at least we being me and the dogs. I assumed the dogs knew too as they were trying to get close to Tracy, snuggling up with her whenever they could. It’s like they knew she had this ice-cold shell around her that needed help, needed breaking.

  Later in the week, maybe five or six days after “the incident”, we stumbled across an abandoned corner store just after dusk. We were somewhere in the southeastern part of Illinois, having passed a border sign earlier in the day. But neither of us knew what town we were in and weren’t surprised: it was a typical tiny town surrounded by cornfields with a couple shops and rinky-dink homes.

  The store was a great find, allowing us to stock up on more supplies. It had been locked, but with a combination lock that we could easily break with our bolt cutters. It surprised us both that it hadn’t been raided already.

  There was a large bloodstain at the front of the store, something that I assumed had been from someone getting a nasty head shot, but no zombies came to greet us as we entered the store. Plus the dogs being silent with happily wagging tails was always a good sign.

  I was collecting some extra medications from the back of the store, drugs like Tylenol and cold medicine, when Tracy came up behind me. I turned and saw she had some sleeping bags under each of her arms.

  “Hey Di. I found these in the back storeroom. Looks like whoever was here abandoned ship. But the store should be easy enough for us to fortify. Maybe we can catch some shut eye here tonight,” she suggested.

  I couldn’t believe that Tracy was finally willing to forgo the safety of the truck, and tried to hide my shock. The first time she wanted a night out of the truck, and this was the one time I completely disagreed with her plan. I glanced around the store and saw what she meant. Someone had already boarded up all the front windows with two-by-fours, and all we had to do was barricade the front door for some extra overnight protection. Plus there was a back door that could serve as an alternative exit if we got surrounded. We hadn’t seen a zombie since earlier that afternoon either.

  It seemed too complacent, too easy.

  “I don’t know. The people who owned those sleeping bags might still be planning to come back here. And even if they weren’t, I’m sure other people driving by would want to stop just like we did. We don’t want to get ambushed again.” I hadn’t meant for that last part to sound like an accusation, yet somehow it did. I hoped Tracy hadn’t taken it that way, but one look at her ignominious face told me she had.

  I was about to apologize, and she was probably going to protest my dismissal of her suggestion, but neither of us got around to it. Because that’s when River started growling.

  Chapter 32

  River started, and Percy quickly followed suit. The two of them were at the end of the row we were standing in, facing the door.

  “River! Percy! Come here!” I whispered to them. I was grate
ful for their early warning system, but sometimes it was quite difficult for us to quiet Percy once he started barking. I wanted to avoid him drawing unnecessary attention if possible.

  Tracy had dropped the sleeping bags and was ushering Percy towards her. Our new tactic was for one of us to try to keep him quiet until we figured out what we were up against. River was a lot easier seeing as how she had already learned my “shush” symbol. I kneeled down and River came up next to me, still standing forward in full-alert mode.

  Slowly, we all started crawling towards door to see what had alarmed the dogs. I was pulling my crowbar out from its back strap while Tracy was getting her shotgun ready. Ever since she had used it on Brandon she seemed too attached of the weapon to let go of it.

  Tracy and I had also stocked up on weapons from the three goons that dreadful morning. I had a new pistol tucked in my belt, but here’s my confession: I unloaded it before putting it there. With minimal knowledge of how to use it, and being unsure how to make sure the safety or not was on, I figured it would be safer to carry it as a deterrent to others without having to reveal that I had no clue of how to fire it. I also didn’t want to risk having it fire while tucked in my pants. Sure, point and shoot sounded easy, but even before the apocalypse it always bothered me when cops on shows put these loaded weapons in to their pants like there was no risk doing that. I had the clip in my other pocket, but it’s not like I could load the thing in any speedy fashion. It seemed more logical for me to grab the weapon I knew I could wield until we knew what we were up against.

  Tracy kept one hand on her shotgun and the other over Percy’s mouth as we scooted up to the front of the store. She stayed off to the side while I peered through the inch wide space between boards in the window.

  At first I saw nothing. Just another abandoned neighborhood, with small changes that would make one realize this wasn’t normal America. An overturned trashcan here, a broken window there...