by TW Brown
What I wasn’t prepared for was over a dozen!
Like a really spread out starfield, the pinpricks of light were scattered below me. In one spot there was a cluster of several. It caught me completely off guard. It made me wonder how many singles, or small, nomadic groups, I had passed by completely unaware during my travels. It also made me recall that young girl that I put down the day before. How similar to my story or Jenifer’s, or even Gabrielle’s was hers? Was she alone? Did she wander away from a larger group?
The only thing I now feel with a sense of certainty is the feeling of doom that hangs over humanity like the Sword of Damocles.
It wasn’t that I felt any safer, but I did find a spot where I could curl up that night. I slept, for all intents and purposes, out in the open. Under the stars, above all the little fires that burned in the night. The strange thing was that in the morning when I woke and looked around, I couldn’t see a sign of anything that indicated people were camping in the area. I knew the general locations of all of those fires, especially the big cluster, and there wasn’t even a wisp of smoke that morning.
Down on the highway, I could see singles and small clusters of zombies. It’s like they’re drawn to any place where there are survivors. Even out here in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, they roam. I guess they’re looking for those last living souls to feed on. Their biology makes no sense. They should have fallen over long ago…starved.
Staying in the hills all day as I walked probably slowed me way down. But I found myself in a funk and I couldn’t shake it.
Then I saw him.
Even though I never got a look at the guy who escaped that night, I knew it was him. He was walking just as bold as you please down the middle of the highway with a naked woman on a leash. I guessed him to be, at most, a couple of miles ahead of me.
The first problem I ran into was coming down onto the highway. I lost sight of my target at some point, and by the time I was on the washed out remnants of the highway, I couldn’t see him at all. As hot as it was, I did not want to jog. Then there was the inconvenience of putting down the occasional zombie.
I discovered real fast that tracking somebody is not as easy as it looked on television. Between the drag/step mark of the zombies and who ever else passed through these parts, I had no idea which set of tracks belonged to the man I was hunting. Then I reached a T-intersection with another highway heading straight south. Looking each direction it was like being given the choice of which doorway you’d like to use when entering Hell.
After taking out this particularly nasty creeping torso with only one arm that came of some brush beside the road—scaring me to the point that my bladder lost control just a teensy bit—I decided on south. The biggest benefit was the tiny stream that allowed me to stop and freshen up a bit while filling my canteens.
A few miles along, I began to think that I may be onto something. I started coming across an assortment of military vehicles. Late in the afternoon, I turned east off of the main road and found an old, abandoned air base.
The place obviously tried to set itself up as a safe zone of sorts. The fences all had makeshift towers scattered along the perimeter. Unfortunately, it also looks like a horde took down their fence. The good news is that this seems to have happened quite a while ago. There are literally hundreds of corpses—and parts of corpses—all dried out. It also looks like the animals came through for quite a buffet.
I couldn’t pass up the chance to snoop around. After all, I did say that, before all of this zombie stuff, I’d never done much of anything. To go into a military airbase replete with: “RESTRICTED ZONE! DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED!” signs all over the place…you tell me you wouldn’t go in and take a peek.
Liar.
I was never much on the UFO thing. I wouldn’t know Area 51 from the Ronald Reagan International Airport, and any airbase I found out here could be something interesting. When I ducked through the gaping breach in the fence, I didn’t have any idea what to expect. I think I was secretly hoping to find some hangar with a spaceship parked inside like in the movie Independence Day. Instead, I found a lot of planes, jets, helicopters, and big pieces of machinery that I had absolutely no idea as to their function.
I think I found some sort of workshop where missiles were put together or taken apart. The coolest find was this bunker with stacks and stacks of what are obviously bombs. They wouldn’t do me one bit of good, but it was strangely cool to see them; stacks and stacks and rows and rows of bombs.
I imagine some of the empty rooms that I found were once full of guns and ammunition. And I imagine that if I were Angelina Jolie or some other female action hero in a movie I would have hit the weapons jackpot. No such luck for Meredith Gainey, child abandoning, angel-of-death to all she meets (especially if they were friends). I found zip. At least when it came to weapons. I did score one major find: MREs and cases of bottle water! That was what made me decide that I was being stupid chasing some ‘Bad Guy’ all around the Nevada desert. I’d already come to grips with the idea that I can’t save everybody.
I’m a little ashamed to admit what happened next. Since I’ve decided I was going to hang out a bit and explore, I found a big basin. I don’t know what it was used for in the past, but I filled it with some of that bottled water and took a bath. I couldn’t do anything about my legs or armpits, much less the Enchanted Forest growing between my legs, but at least I could be clean. I found some liquid soap that smelled like melons and I gave myself a good scrubbing. Then I emptied the basin, refilled it, and just soaked in the lukewarm water.
Before you rush to judge my obvious waste of precious water, unless you’ve gone days or weeks without a proper cleaning, AND had to use ripped up t-shirts during your period, then just shush! It’s not like this place looked to see any living inhabitants in at least a year. Besides, who else would be stupid enough to wonder around in this wasteland? Sure, I saw all those campfires scattered about, but strangely enough, I’ve only actually seen that one sign of a living, breathing person during the day.
And that is why it probably took me a while to realize that I was hearing a child’s laughter. When I came out of the water and quick-changed back into my still-wet clothing that was hanging in the window to sun dry, my first thought was that the zombies had evolved. It would just figure that those bastards would learn how to make a new sound now that everybody pretty much knew about the baby cry noise.
I grabbed my crossbow, which due to recent events and my inability to do some searching, was down to eight bolts. Granted, you only need one, but that makes for a fairly useless weapon. Then I strapped on one knife and snuck down the stairs of the building that I had made camp in. If zombies were around, I wanted to put them down in a hurry before others came.
When I stepped outside, the last thing that I expected was a “family” of four. Of course it was obvious that the children were not from the two adults. Primarily because she was Black and he was Asian and the two little girls were White. Very tan, but white.
Alicia and Min were both from Texas. They were part of a much larger group of survivors which had dwindled down due to some folks simply going off on their own, others dying—of course—and some outright vanishing. They found the girls in Provo, Utah last year when they got stranded due to a fierce winter.
The two are like any married couple I have ever known. They bicker, finish each others sentences, and fret over ‘their’ children. It was Min’s throwing knife that I had barely managed to duck as I stepped out of the doorway. I think the only reason he missed, is because Alicia screamed “Breather!” just as he threw. I think that because I have seen him throw a couple of times since. He doesn’t miss. Ever.
Min and his family are headed north. I told them all that I could remember. After some discussion, he and Alicia decided that they would try to winter in Winnemucca before pushing on in the spring. They said that their ultimate goal was Alaska. A bit too cold for my taste, but I imagine that its small population, mi
les of empty space, and months of heavy snow has its appeal to some. In fact, they seemed more than a little dubious in regards to my plan of trying to get to Vegas. I guess they’ve heard some wicked stories. Still, I’m one of those people that, once she gets an idea in her head, has to see it through.
Of course I made their day when I showed them the cache of MREs and bottled water that I’d found. To their credit, neither said a word about my bathtub. Of course Alicia and the girls enjoyed it themselves. Min was fine with a sponge bath. When they joined me outside, they all looked and smelled much better.
I have no explanation for it, but for the next couple of days, the five of us just hung out around the now-defunct military base. Sometimes we went around together, and sometimes I would wake up and think that they had left. Then I would go downstairs and see their backpacks lined up against the wall. At some point the family would stroll in with a couple of odds and ends or knick knacks in their hands. The girls found a pair of model jets one day and played with them just like a couple of boys their age might. It was actually somewhat pleasant.
Once, I watched the girls so that Min and Alicia could “go for a walk”. They came back looking like they had just run a marathon. Well…except for the ear-to-ear smiles on both their faces. Alicia probably thanked me fifty times.
Then, on a morning no different from any other, they said they needed to get moving. I actually felt a strange loss. Is this what it’s like every time I tell folks that I’m leaving? I went up on the roof and watched them go. When the little girls looked back and waved…I cried. What in the hell was that about?
The next day I wandered around the base alone. When I came back to my little camp, I knew that it was time for me to get moving once again. I had ended up staying one day too long. I heard the sounds of breaking glass. That was what jarred me awake a couple of hours before sunrise. My first thought was kind of stupid: The family is back! Then my brain flipped a switch and more sounds of breaking glass had me up and grabbing my weapons. I don’t know why, but something made me grab the bag that had my books and the MREs along with both of my canteens.
There was a voice in my head that was screaming for me to run. I ignored it and listened to the muffled voice that told me to go see what was happening.
In the shadow of one of the giant hangars that housed a pair of jets, I saw movement. The laughter gave them away as living. I stayed put as they cranked open the big doors. The hangar was dark, but those five morons had torches and lanterns. They were like kids who’d been let into Disneyland early and had it to themselves. They climbed all over the jets making quite a scene. Of course they had no idea what to do, so the jets were really nothing more than a pair of giant play structures.
I stayed back and kept quiet as the sun came up. Eventually I staked out a spot in one of the admin buildings. There was no reason to do anything. These guys weren’t taking anything that I cared about. One of them had found a uniform and put it on. Another seemed content just to sit in the cockpit of one of the jets. The only real negative side of this situation was that I was stuck hiding and watching. I knew better than to show myself to a group of men.
As the sun began to set, they made camp in the hangar. I wasn’t really paying attention any more. As long as they stayed inside that hangar, I could simply wait it out until it was completely dark, and then slip away. I must have been napping, because I was jolted to full alert at the sound of a scream. I was certain that somebody had been set on by a zombie.
I tried to move into a position to get a better look. I could still see a low fire burning in the hangar between the two jets. What I couldn’t see were any of the men; or any signs of zombies. It went on for at least a minute. And let me tell you, when somebody is screaming in obvious pain, that is an eternity.
There was no way that I was going to snoop around in the dark for the source of those screams. Also, that meant I wasn’t leaving. Something was going on in the darkness, and I had a nice, safe, defensible spot. I’d just wait till morning.
As the sun rose, bringing what I am positive was the hottest day I had endured in my life, it actually took me a couple of minutes to make sense of what I was seeing. Four of the five men were in the hangar huddled together. When one of them got up to do something, I spotted something large on a spit over the fire. It took a minute for it to dawn on me that it was a human torso. Things clicked. At least somewhat.
I considered making a break for it, but being in the middle of nowhere, it would take me over an hour just to get out of sight. I would be exposed for way too long. The only choice I had was to stay put. The worse part was the fact that the smell of roasting meat was making my mouth water. Try as I might to remind myself what I was smelling, I could not overcome the growling in my stomach or the saliva building up and occasionally dripping down my chin when I wasn’t swallowing enough. I think, at first, I wouldn’t swallow because I was protesting my bodily reaction to the smells versus the knowledge of where those smells originated.
Finally, late in the afternoon, they started gathering up their stuff and moving along. I waited for what felt like forever, but really couldn’t have been more than an hour after they were gone before I came down. I couldn’t help it, I had to go see. Finding the killing spot was easy. It was a big, dark stain in the sand. There were bones tossed about, and on a stick was the head. The boy couldn’t have been any older than sixteen.
My guess goes something like this. They encountered this kid, maybe when they ran across another group. They probably enticed him away with stories of all the lawless fun to be had. I’m betting that this wasn’t the first time that these guys had done this. It seemed too cleanly executed.
I waited until it was light enough for me to see a few feet in front of myself the next morning, and got moving. Of course I topped off on everything and stuffed a few days worth of the MREs in my satchel.
I was cutting across an airstrip when I heard a commotion from a squat building that sat at the end of a narrow path. It was right against the fence. I couldn’t help myself; I had to go check it out. I was surprised to say the least at what I had discovered. The best I can figure is that maybe it’s like prison. Some men go in and need sex so badly that they make do with whatever is available. Men who don’t have a gay bone in their body, but just couldn’t do without sex.
It was the same four from the boy-barbecue. I watched through a dirty window as they fought each other. It was definitely every man for himself. When the dust settled, two men were unconscious and two men were unbuckling their pants. I tried to wrap my mind around the whole concept.
“Sorry you lost the fight today, Pete. You know the rules. I will be butt-raping you now.”
“It’s cool, bro. I’ll get you next time.”
What I did next wasn’t out of any sense of helping the two unconscious men. It had solely to do with the fact that these men were animals. They had succumbed to their most base level. They were barely a step above the slime that we supposedly evolved from.
Fortunately, these guys weren’t worried about much. The door was shut, but a window that gave me a clear shot was open. I fired my crossbow catching one of the still conscious ones right between the shoulder blades. Have you ever noticed how close the sounds of sex and pain are? That is why I got off my second shot catching the other in about the same place. Two down and two to go. I figured I could go in and retrieve my precious bolts, then finish off the other pair with my blade or spear. I got two steps inside the door when the body underneath the first one I killed shoved the corpse off of him, rolled over, and came up with a blade that would make Crocodile Dundee jealous.
It never once occurred to me that one of the unconscious men might be playing possum. And trust me, as alert as he was, that was the only explanation. That brings a whole new series of thoughts and questions to mind, but all I had time to do was to turn and run. I don’t know if you have ever tried to reload a crossbow on the run…I couldn’t.
What I did do was du
ck inside a three-story building. I got up the stairs and kicked open the door at the top. It was probably all the noise I was making, but I wasn’t prepared for the pair of zombies waiting on the other side of the door. I jumped back from the two sets of arms that came at me. That’s when I dropped my crossbow. I felt a little sick when parts and pieces of it flew off as it bounced down the stairs.
I grabbed the first hand I could and did a yank-and-sling move that send it careening and tumbling down the concrete steps. I brought my knife up and drove it through the underside of the jaw of the remaining zombie, and then hip-tossed it downs the stairs as well.
I heard my pursuer burst in down below and looked for a place to hide. The sounds of a scuffle let me know that he went heads-up with the zombie I had thrown down the stairs. It sounded like they clashed on the second floor landing. By the time I heard booted footsteps coming up, I’d wedged myself in an alcove between two tall filing cabinets. My plan was simple. If he came in and looked for me, I was down low with my knife ready. I would thrust out and up.
Sure enough, the door slammed open and I could hear his heavy breathing. He called out, hoping that I would be some frightened girl who couldn’t deal with the fear of being stalked. I heard him toss a few chairs out of the way, thinking that maybe I’d hidden under some desk. When he stopped in front of me…the idiot actually had his back to me. I must have hit a kidney, because when my knife plunged in, he barely made a sound. More like a hissing whimper. I scooped up the big-ass knife that he’d been carrying and drove it into his chest. The worst part was the fact that I did not feel one single thing while I looked into his eyes as the light dimmed, and then went out.
I wiped my knife off and headed for the stairs. My crossbow was in pieces. That was a bummer. I stepped outside and that’s when I saw the other guy. We just looked at each other for a moment. Then…he leered, waved, and started heading my direction.
He was a big man and I didn’t have any doubts as to who would win in a fight. Wait! Let me correct that. I didn’t have any doubts about who would win in a fair fight. The first thing I did was run back into the cluster of main buildings. At the very first corner I reached, I took it so that I was temporarily out of sight. There were eight buildings to choose from.
