by Rich Baker
Keith opens his mouth, but Kyle gives him a look that makes him think twice about speaking.
“Danielle, I’m sorry if you feel singled out, but understand this: everyone pitches in here. If you’re going to go out and scavenge, this is important information you’re going to need to know. If you aren’t going out to scavenge, it doesn’t mean that you won’t find yourself in a situation where you’re running from these things, and this is important information you’re going to need to know. I’m worried about our survival. This is life and death, so if I’m short with you, it’s because I don’t have a lot of patience right now. Can you please hold the sarcastic commentary until we’re done?”
“I just – yeah. Whatever,” she says, going into hiding behind her crossed arms.
Kyle turns his gaze to Robert. “Please, continue.”
“So, anyway, I put them in a few categories,” Robert says. “Runners are the most dangerous. They are full speed all the time and do not tire out. That’s what Kyle ran into on Z-Day.”
Kyle nods as Robert continues.
“The runners will tire you out, and then it’s game over. Next are the walkers. They move pretty good, but anyone in decent shape should be able to out-pace them. But, when there’s a lot of them they can flank you and cut off your escape. I watched a group of them surround a dog and try to get it. It was faster than them, but I think they would have gotten a human. Shamblers are the ones with more significant damage, but they’re still vertical, mostly. They’re easy to out run. Last are the crawlers. They can’t stand, so they crawl after you. You might think that they aren’t much to worry about, but they can sneak up on you. I watched one come out from under a pickup on the street in front of the house and bite one of your neighbors on the leg, and he never saw it coming.
“They move in herds, like lemmings. When one sees something and starts after it, others follow even if they don’t know what they’re following. More join them. Pretty soon you have a swarm, and then you’re pretty much screwed. That’s what happened to your neighbor in his car, and what happened on the recording Marc showed us.
“So, basically, these things are like the Terminator. Once they target you, they’re going to be relentless in their pursuit until they catch you, you lose them, or they target something or someone else. Pointing a gun at them doesn’t scare them. Shooting them anywhere but in the head does nothing, unless you were to hit a nerve and disable them. Even then you would just slow them down, not stop them. You must destroy the CPU, in this case, the brain, to stop them for good.
Keith raises his hand.
“Yeah, what is it?” Robert asks.
“Ok, so they’re horrible, unstopping, unfeeling, un-everything that will for sure kill us once they target us. But…how do they target us?”
“Yeah,” Andy chimes in. “It would be good to know what makes us a target so we can avoid doing it.”
“Movement seems to be the key,” Robert says, “and sound. Like I said, we have video of them chasing after coyotes and dogs, and we know they react to gunfire. Maybe there’s something else – like smell – but right now all I can confirm is that when they see something moving, they go after it, and when they hear something, even if they don’t see it, they head in the direction of the sound.”
“One other thing,” Marc says. “They’re not real adept at obstacles, or rather, avoiding them. Some of the videos I’ve watched, they trip on curbs, they trip on ridges in the vacant lots, they run headlong into cars. One of them was chasing a cat and it just, well, it killed itself ramming into the side of a truck that the cat ran under. Its head just caved in.”
“Well, not moving isn’t going to be a good strategy, so we’re left with ‘be silent, faster and agiler.’ That’s what we’ve got,” Danielle says. “Not for nothing, but that seems like a recipe for getting ourselves killed.”
Before anyone can stop her, she keeps going.
“You run freaking marathons, right Kyle? You outran one for what – a mile? And if it weren’t for the cops you’d be dead. And Keith, you sprained your ankle playing frolf, for Christ’s sake.” Robert looks at Keith and mouths ‘frolf?’ Keith shrugs his shoulders, and Robert shakes his head. Danielle continues. “That would be a death sentence out there. I just don’t see the upside here.”
“Not starving to death, for one thing,” Kyle says. “We’re down to two days’ worth of food. We can ration and stretch that to four or five, but we’re going to run out of food, and soon. The longer we wait, the weaker we’ll all be, and scavenging will be just that much harder.”
“We don’t have to go out in the open, either,” Annie says. “I’ve been talking this over with Robert and Stephenie. Kyle, you and Marc and the guys have completed the tunnels to the neighbor’s houses. We can climb into their houses and use their other window wells to get to ground level. Then we can just hop the fence to the next house, drop into their window well and minimize the time we’re exposed. We can cover every house on this side of the street. It wouldn’t take much time at all.”
“What about weapons?” Ben asks. “I mean, we have all Danny’s guns in his shop, right? Can’t we get some of them and, I don’t know, put snipers up in the houses and pick off the zeds that are close?”
“That we have covered,” Robert says. He looks at Danielle. “And it helps us with the ‘be silent’ part of the plan. In terms of armament, we hit the jackpot by hiding out here. I mean, if you were putting together a wish list you couldn’t do much better than what we’ve got access to. He’s got a ton of rifles, kits for silencers, everything we need to take the fight to zed.”
“Okay,” Kyle says. “It sounds like we have a plan forming. Let’s start talking details – the who and when – and we can get ready to go.”
Four
“I’m in,” Annie says, speaking into the mic clipped to her collar. Everyone else in the ‘away team’ has one of Danny’s walkie-talkies with the plug-in headset and mic combo.
Robert looks around from his vantage point on the second floor of the ill-fated Mr. Davies’ house. Other than the two zeds he killed crossing the alley, there are no threats.
“You’re clear. Go now!” he says.
Across the alley, Stephenie emerges from the window well of the house next to Danny’s, hops the four-foot fence that divides the yards, and disappears into the window well on the other side.
“Go,” Robert says.
Andy pops out, hops the fence and disappears into the window well.
“How do things look?” Robert asks.
“The house is empty,” Annie says. “No sign of the people. Looks like they had a cat, but there’s no sign of it, either.”
“Maybe it’s the one that Marc saw that zed chasing. The one that killed itself smashing into the side of the car,” Andy says.
“Maybe,” Annie says. “There’s only one car in the garage. Maybe they made it out.”
“How’s the food situation?”
“One sec, headed to the kitchen now.”
Robert scans the alley for additional zombies for a few seconds. He spots Ben on the ground between the two houses, doing something to the fence. The silence stretches on for longer than it should when Annie comes back on, coughing and gagging.
“Ugh. I wish I hadn’t opened the fridge. I’m not going through that sucker. I almost ralphed just peeking in. Everything’s definitely gone rotten in there.”
“There’s some decent canned stuff,” Andy says. “Some soup, some canned veggies. Ooh! Ramen noodles!”
Kyle speaks up.
“Look for vitamins too. We don’t want anyone getting scurvy.”
“Dad, it’s not the 18th century, and we’re not pirates,” Ben says.
“And we don’t have any fresh squeezed orange juice. Or fresh oranges for that matter. Just look for them.”
“Will do,” Annie says.
She and Andy scour the kitchen for food, filling a big duffel bag with canned goods and a bottle each of men
’s and women’s daily vitamins. Andy takes the bag down to the basement and climbs out of the window well, where he finds Ben has used a prybar to take a half dozen boards off the fence.
“Awesome, man! Now we can get through without the zeds seeing us go over the fence! Great idea!” Andy says.
“Thanks! It was easy - these side fences are all falling apart anyway because the HOA doesn’t make you fix them. You only have to maintain the front and rear sections. My dad’s always bitching about it.”
“Well, that’s working in our favor now. Fucking old people problems, man. When I start complaining about the HOA or whatever, just kill me.”
Ben laughs and says “I don’t think that’s going to be much of a problem now. What are they going to do, send a letter because you haven’t cleaned the zeds out of your alley space?”
“Right? Like, ‘we’re putting a tax lien on your house because of all the corpses. You have thirty days to clean them up, or we’ll evict you.’”
Annie’s voice crackles over the walkies.
“Andy, are you ok? What’s taking so long?”
“I’m good,” he says into the mic, then he gestures at Ben. “Hey, give me that prybar. I’ll use it on the fence on the other side.”
Ben trades the prybar for the bag of food and heads back to the tunnel into Danny’s house.
Andy takes the prybar and heads back into the basement. Annie and Stephenie are in the window well on the opposite side. Annie climbs out, retrieving her satchel of tools and her rifle from Stephenie.
“Hold up,” Robert says. “There’s a zed wandering down the alley now. I can’t get a good angle at him though. Kyle, can you get him?”
From the upstairs bedroom window of the house next to Danny’s, Kyle looks through the scope of his .22 rifle at the ashen figure with the blood covered shirt staggering down the alley. “I see him. You’re sure this rifle has enough power to kill it?”
“You’re close enough, only fifty or so yards away at the most, so I think it should. I guess we’ll find out. With the silencer Danny left for you, your gun will be whisper quiet, so feel free to take a couple of shots if needed.”
Kyle breathes in and out a couple of times, exhaling slowly like Danny taught him. His heart is pounding, and he can hear the blood rushing in his ears. He takes another breath, in, and out.
The gunshot sounds like someone clapped once. Barely noticeable beyond a few feet, which is good, because he missed. He can’t be certain, but he thinks he clipped the thing’s ear. He takes a few more breaths, and this time when he squeezes the trigger, the bullet flies true and hits the dead man on the side of the head. It goes stiff, its right hand twitches rapidly, then the joints go loose, and it collapses in a heap.
“Nice shot, Kyle. All clear Annie,” Robert transmits.
Annie goes up and over the fence. This house has window well covers, so she pulls up and lifts the one covering her target window and peers inside. It’s nice and clean, with a laminated scene of a golf course lining the semi-circular metal frame. She leans the cover against the house and lowers herself in. Once inside she opens her satchel and pulls out the suction cup and the glass cutter. She sticks the suction cup on the stationary side of the window and runs the glass cutter in a six-inch half circle, covering the same ground a few times. She hits the glass with a small rubber mallet while pulling on the suction cup. The glass breaks free from the rest of the pane and she pries it out of the frame. She repeats this with the inner pane of glass, then reaches inside and unlocks the window. She pries the window screen out of its track and uses the suction cup on the slider to pull the window open. She was holding her breath, fearing that the house would be alarmed, but if it is, the alarm isn’t set. She climbs inside the house, pulling the screen in after her, and presses the button for the mic.
“I’m in.”
“It’s still clear out here,” Robert replies.
Andy hits Stephenie’s shoulder and gives her a thumbs-up. She climbs out, goes over the fence, and disappears into the window well.
When she gets inside the basement, Stephenie smells death right away.
“It stinks,” she signs to Annie.
Annie nods, and thumbs the button that activates the mic twice.
“Hold up, Andy,” Robert says. He can see Andy at the top of the window well, ready to hop out and climb over the fence. “Something’s up, Annie just gave us the alert signal.” Andy drops back into the window well, out of sight.
The finished basement is mostly an open floor plan. The golf course scenery in the window makes for a nice, if fake, view from what must be the game area. There’s a large eight-sided table that looks like it has seen more than a few intense poker games, a popcorn machine, and further down the wall is a big flat screen TV, a couch, and a couple of recliners. It’s not too different from the layout of Danny’s basement.
They scan the basement but find nothing to which they can attribute the smell of rot.
“I’ll get the door, you cover me,” Annie signs to Stephenie, who nods her understanding, getting her rifle ready.
Annie turns the knob on the door that opens to the stairs, and pulls it open, stepping back and out of the way. Stephenie fires two quick shots as a wave of odor rolls past Annie that makes her wretch.
A woman lies dead at the bottom of the stairs, leaking an oily fluid from two fresh holes in her bloated body. Her head is at a ninety-degree angle, broken.
“Did she die falling down the stairs?” Stephenie signs.
Annie shrugs and eases toward the doorway, peeking around the corner. She carefully steps over the body and starts climbing the stairs, wincing every time one of the treads creaks under her weight. She creeps her way to the top of the stairs, stopping on the last step. She waits for Stephenie to catch up, and signs to her that she’ll go right and Stephenie should go left.
They move, catlike, rifles ready, but find nothing waiting for them in either direction. The front door is unlocked but closed tight. Stephenie locks it. They sweep the den and spare bedroom in the front to ensure there is nothing that will surprise them while they search the rest of the house.
When they get to the kitchen, they find a mess. The cupboards are open, with things strewn everywhere, and the side-by-side doors of the refrigerator and freezer hang open, the useful contents gone. A quart of ice cream has spilled inside the freezer and run down the front onto the floor. A box of baking soda lies on its side in the refrigerator. They do a quick check on the rest of the house and find it empty.
“Someone’s been here already,” Annie says into the mic. She looks at the pictures of an elderly couple on the buffet by the kitchen. She recognizes the woman in the picture as the same one rotting at the bottom of the stairs. “And the owner is dead. Fell down the basement stairs.”
“Was she pushed?” Robert asks.
“No idea. But I don’t think she ransacked her own house. If had to guess, I’d say yeah, someone killed her.”
“The food’s gone?”
“All the good stuff. They left a jar of olives and a can of enchilada sauce.”
“Grab the olives and come back. We got enough for a few days. If someone’s been hitting these houses, I don’t want you and Steph running into them by yourselves.”
“Okay, gotcha,” she says, as Stephenie waves at her from the garage entry.
“What is it?” she signs back to her.
“Come look at this.”
Annie looks in the garage. Inside is Honda CRV on one side, and two golf carts on the other.
“These might come in handy,” Stephenie signs. “They’re quiet. And they can carry a lot more than a bag at a time.”
“Robert,” Annie says into the mic. “We found a couple of golf carts in here. Steph thinks they’d be good for scavenging. Quiet, and they can carry a lot. What do you think?”
“It might be handy. Kyle? Thoughts?”
“We can put them in the garage here, next to Danny’s place. We’ll have
to work out the power to charge the batteries, but I agree, they could be useful for a lot of things.”
“How is the alley? Is it clear?” Annie asks.
Robert and Kyle look around from their viewpoints on opposite sides of the alley.
“There are several in the field that will see you when you pass the vacant lots,” Kyle says. “If you’re spotted that will bring a pile of them down on us. But if you’re fast I think we can get you in without any of them seeing where you go,” Kyle says. “We’ll need someone to be on the spot with the garage door.”
“I’m on it,” Andy says. “I’ll be there in a minute!”
“Let us know when you’re there,” Robert says.
Kyle is looking through the scope of his rifle. He puts the crosshairs on the head of an undead woman which, while one hundred and fifty yards away, is sure to see the golf carts drive past the one hundred feet of undeveloped lots across the alley from the Harris house. He breathes out and squeezes the trigger.
The bullet hits below the woman’s collar bone. She takes little notice, other than turning all the way in the direction from which the shot came.
He fires another shot, this time aiming what he estimates to be a foot above its nose. He sees its left eye disappear. Its body stiffens and falls backward into the weeds.
“I’m here,” Andy wheezes into the mic.
“Good,” Robert says. “Can you see the cord hanging down from the opener?”
“I know my way around a garage door opener. I sold them at Sears.” Andy pulls the cord that detaches the door from the opener’s rail so he can open it manually.
In the house above Andy, Kyle fires another round at a different zombie. The bullet strikes it on the cheek, but it doesn’t go down.
“You’re good to go, Annie. Make it fast,” Robert says.
Annie opens the garage door, squinting at the light that overwhelms the flashlights mounted on their rifles. Stephenie is in the lead cart and hits the accelerator, pulling out onto the driveway. She hops out of the cart and pulls the door down behind Annie in the second one, then jumps back in and follows her down the alley.
