by Tony Urban
Once my eyes adjusted, I realized the house was abandoned. There was no furniture save for a couch that looked like it had been around since World War I, complete with springs poking through the cushions. When I got close enough to smell it, I realized the aesthetics were the least of its problems. The aroma of old piss wafted from the vaguely tan fabric and punched me in the face. And, as my eyes scanned the room, I discovered several plastic milk jugs filled with yellow/green liquid.
“Oh, that’s fantastic.”
I thought about leaving the hovel, but I supposed that, in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, I couldn’t afford to be too picky.
Room by room, I checked and cleared the house. Aside from the containers of urine, the only evidence of a prior resident was a pile of dirty clothing heaped into the corner of what might have once been a bedroom, and a stained and tattered mattress setting on the floor. I’d rather sleep in a puddle of my own vomit, thank you very much. I decided to make camp in what passed for the kitchen. Even though the old linoleum floor was filthy, it didn’t smell like piss and that was as good as it got in that place.
As exhausted as I was, sleep was slow to come and when it did, it was restless and dream-filled. For the first time since the initial appearance of the zombies, that day that seemed so long ago at the Buffet, I felt… not scared exactly, but at a disadvantage. I didn’t like that feeling and I vowed to fix that in the morning.
After vacating the chateau de urine, I walked another mile before coming across an old Jeep Wrangler sitting in the yard in front of a mobile home. It had no top and the seats were torn and worn through. Four gigantic tires raised the body so far off the ground that I thought I’d have to take a running leap to get into it.
That fact made the Jeep more than a little intriguing. After all, the motorcycle had been something of an epic fail. Maybe it was time to go in the complete opposite direction. I wondered if would even start, but the keys were missing, and further exploration was required.
I knew I was pressing my luck, with a three-pound rock as my sole weapon, but I climbed the rickety wooden steps and pulled open the trailer door. The smell inside was all too familiar. It wasn’t finely aged piss though, it was death. On the floor, I spied the body of a slender woman who could have been anywhere from mid-teens to mid-sixties. It was hard to tell since her face had been eaten away to the bone.
Her body hadn’t fared much better. Her breasts were mostly gone, just a few mangled lumps of blackened tissue rising from her ribcage. Her stomach was torn open and it looked like something - someone - had burrowed into her innards, gnawing away an irregular circle so deep I thought I could see parts of her spinal cord.
I considered clearing the trailer, to see if whoever had done this to her was still around, but the last time I’d ventured into a mobile home looking for keys hadn’t gone too well, and I had no desire to linger longer than necessary. I went to the kitchen and began the scavenger hunt.
As I searched through the drawers, I found a pair of scissors and decided to add them to my collection. All I needed now was paper. In the third drawer I found a keyring with ten or more keys of various shapes and sizes. As I checked for one etched with the Jeep logo, my back was turned to the living room where the mutilated woman had lain. And, so caught up in examining the keys was I, that I didn’t see or hear her get up.
“Bingo!” I said as I located the Jeep key. I deposited it into my pocket, grabbed the scissors and rock and spun around to see the dead woman rising to her feet. What remained of her insides tumbled out the gaping hole in her belly and hit the floor with a heavy splat that sent coagulated, black blood splashing across the room and onto my lower legs. Undeterred by the loss, she came for me.
“You’ve got be fucking kidding me.”
The faceless, gutless zombie shuffled my way. Even without eyes she somehow sensed my location. I looked to my hands, from the rock to the scissors, trying to decide which to utilize. I went with rock.
The zombie’s honing beacon overcame her blindness, but it did nothing to alert her to what was coming. I strode her way, reared back with the rock, and smashed it down on her brow. Her skull crumpled inward like a dented soda can. She stumbled backward a step, then fell to her knees.
When I looked down on the wretched, dead thing, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for it - or for its condition, anyway. But, when her mouth fell open and a raspy growl tumbled out, I didn’t hesitate before swinging again. This time the rock didn’t just dent her soda can skull, it smashed a hole and the zombie crumpled to the floor, motionless once more. I stepped over her body as I fled the trailer and headed for the Wrangler.
Up close, I realized it wasn’t pretty. There was no top and the passenger door had a rust hole big enough to fit my head through. The faded, baby blue paint was pinstriped with scratches and gashes, but the big ass tires and a large, steel bumper with a forward jutting bull bar made up for the ugliness. Besides, I’m no prize winner either.
I hauled myself into the driver’s seat, inserted the key into the ignition.
“Start you son of a bitch.”
And it did. The Jeep fired up without any hesitation. I shifted it into gear and whomped down on the gas pedal, sending chunks of grass flying up behind me as I peeled out of the yard and onto the road.
I had a feeling I could get used to this.
2
July 6
Stops at four different sporting goods stores turned up none of the amazing, unbreakable hockey sticks. I guess that was to be expected, but I was disappointed nonetheless. I was still reluctant to trust my safety, my life, to firearms, so I tossed a variety of tools into a bright, green shopping cart.
Included among them was a 36-inch axe with a lightweight, composite handle. It felt good in my hands, but I missed the extra inches of length (that’s what she said) afforded by the hockey stick. Nevertheless, it seemed like something that might come in handy in a pinch.
What I really needed, however, were long handled weapons. Fighting with a single zombie up close and personal was one thing, but for even a small horde, I needed something to keep them out of arm’s reach. Once they got within biting distance, the odds of survival dropped too low.
My near-death experience on the bridge made me realize once more how fast Lady Luck could change her fickle mind and say, ‘Fuck you, Mead. You’re still a loser. Time to say sayonara.’ My pads were better than nothing, but still exposed flesh in too many spots to be foolproof. Plus, the weight of them almost drowned me in the river. I needed something better.
I pushed the cart full of tools and weapons through the parking lot of the plaza and spotted Tractor Supply. I thought such a blue-collar store might hold some treasures inside its walls and decided to explore.
The business was basically a farmer’s version of a department store. The front half was filled with lawn mowers, tractors, weed eaters, and other lawn care machinery. As I progressed further inside, I saw pet food and supplies.
A row of plush dog toys, rubber bones, and kibble bummed me out because I’d always wanted a dog. My parents would never allow one and, once I was out on my own, none of the five or so apartments I’d rented allowed pets. Like a mutt could have really done any damage to those rat holes.
I realized I hadn’t seen a single dog, or cat for that matter, since the beginning of the apocalypse and my mood, which had been increasingly optimistic as the day wore on, took a quick detour south.
I wanted to get away from this depressing scene, but as I turned, I heard a noise a I couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t walking or shuffling. Scraping maybe? No, that wasn’t it either. I tried to listen harder, if such an act was possible, concentrating.
Chewing? Not quite but getting warmer.
Crunching. That was it. Like someone was gnawing away at extra crispy potato chips somewhere beyond the end of the aisle.
I let the shopping cart and its contents sit and took the axe with me as I moved toward the noise. That could
have been a stupid move. If the supply room happened to be teeming with zombies, a lone axe wasn’t going to do me a whole lot of good. I could have been walking toward death, but the alternative was fleeing the store as a preventative measure and leaving this treasure trove of a store empty-handed. That wasn’t happening.
The noise grew louder with each footstep. It was definitely crunching and whatever was making the sound was going to town. Another half dozen steps and I was almost there. My hands tightened on the axe handle as I steeled myself for whatever laid behind the corner. I held my breath and looked.
What I saw surprised me at least as much as anything I’d seen since the first days of the apocalypse. It was a zombie which, of course, wasn’t strange anymore, but this zombie was on his hands and knees, crouched over a ripped 50-pound bag of dog food and had its face buried in the kibble. The chewing sound continued as it gobbled down the chow.
The scene was so bizarre, so unexpected, that I barked out a laugh and I didn’t even care that my cover was blown.
The zombie pulled its face free of the food, brown chunks tumbling from its jaws which still worked and chomped.
“Holy chuckle fucks. Now I’ve seen everything.”
I must have looked tastier than generic dog food, because the zombie pushed itself away from the food and turned toward me. It wore a red vest with white embroidery that read, “Gregory - Manager” and his gut was so distended from eating most of the bag of kibble that the buttons looked ready to blow.
I couldn’t believe a zombie would eat dog food, but I supposed, after a few weeks trapped in the store with no human flesh to feed upon, desperation must have set in.
Greg the manager zombie staggered to his feet, his pendulous belly swaying back and forth like he was smuggling a five gallon water balloon under his uniform. He took a wobbly step toward me and I closed the gap from the other direction.
It growled at me, which seemed entirely appropriate considering its recent meal, and I thought I was probably doing it as favor when I slammed the axe into its face. The blade sunk deep into his cheek and nose with a sickening crunch and the zombie went limp.
As I jerked the axe free from its skull, I heard an oddly musical crash nearby. I didn’t hesitate, rushing toward my next target.
I found a tall, husky man in overalls and a white t-shirt tangled amongst a pile of wind chimes and weathervanes. He’d fallen to his knees, his feet ensnared in the strings and cords and every time be moved there came another ding or dong.
Music to die by, I thought, and I was glad I wasn’t the one dying. The zombie saw me approaching and reached in my direction, but his arm was caught between decorative metal chickens and I was in no danger.
I probably could have left him there, finished my shopping, and he’d have still been tangled up, but I wasn’t in the business of taking foolish chances. I swung the axe overhead, like I was chopping a supervised piece of firewood, and slammed the axe into the top of his skull. He fell into the merchandise with another melodious clatter.
With those two finished off, I could get back to shopping. I found a rack of metal conduit in 10-foot-long sections. It was lightweight and using the blunt side of the axe, it was easy to pound the hollow ends into sharp points. To check their effectiveness, I returned to the manger and tried jamming the makeshift spear into his dead head. It plunged through his milky eye and didn’t stop moving until it hit the inside of his skull. Yep, I liked this a lot. I made another half dozen of them. I’d never been a Boy Scout, but I believed in being prepared.
With weapons in hand, I knew what I needed next. Protection. In the clothing department, I found exactly that. I grabbed three pairs of jeans and they weren’t the broken in, thread bare kind they sold in the mall for a hundred bucks a pair. These jeans were rigid and heavy and smelled of raw denim.
These were the jeans of a working man, meant to last, not look good. The denim felt almost a quarter inch thick and I’d yet to meet a zombie that could bite through that. I added a turtleneck undershirt and a long-sleeved denim shirt which was every bit as heavy duty as the jeans. Putting all of this on had already made me feel more protected, but I wasn’t done yet.
I found several pairs of rugged, rawhide gloves, then grabbed two pairs of steel toed boots that fit perfectly. I took in my reflection in a body length mirror. I thought I looked like I’d just stumbled off the family farm and that made me think of Wim. I wondered if that oaf was still alive and I surprised myself a little when I realized I hoped he was.
A glimpse of exposed flesh between the end of my sleeve and the beginning of the glove clued me in to the fact that I couldn’t be too careful. I grabbed some duct tape and used it to connect the shirt and gloves and remove that potential weak spot, then did the same with the boots and jeans. Finally, I took the tape and ran several rows of it along the front of the shirt where the two sides were buttoned together and then made loops around my waist where the jeans and shirt met.
I felt confident that all this clothing and tape should keep me protected from the neck down, but I was already hot and working up a good case of swamp ass.
I made a mental note to grab some powder before I left the store, but first I needed some headgear. There wasn’t much to choose from, but I settled on a four-wheeler helmet with a tinted plastic face shield.
Again, I checked myself in the mirror and that time I couldn’t find a single weak spot. I was ready to continue on.
3
July 11
Even though I was armed, protected, and back on wheels, I wasn’t sure what to do next. My original plan to head West still sounded reasonable, but boredom still nagged at me. Boredom and, although I’m loathe to admit it, loneliness.
I decided to head back to West Virginia to see if I could find the others. As much as their treatment of me was annoying, reteaming with them might be for the best. If nothing else, I could try to talk some sense into them. To show them what I’d learned.
Just as I started to trek south, the sky opened and dropped precipitation of the torrential variety. The topless Wrangler provided no protection and the denim clothes soaked up the water like a sponge, so I took refuge in a pharmacy whose doors had been smashed down about the time the zombies had begun to walk.
The pill section was the obvious target, but that didn’t bother me. Sure, I’d had my share of recreational fun over the years, but there was a time and place for everything and this was neither.
What the pharmacy did offer were shelves full of junk food and I gorged myself until I felt like the zipper on my jeans was going to blow. That, and my perennial favorite energy drinks, provided all the sustenance I needed to get through several days of rain.
I also loaded up on toothpaste, toothbrushes, and dental floss. I’d been something of a fanatic about my teeth since the apocalypse started. Even something like a minor cavity could be debilitating and the odds of finding a dentist had to be a billion to one. So, I brushed and flossed like a motherfucker.
Once the storms passed, it took me a full day to get back to that West Virginia warehouse where I’d parted ways with Wim and company. When I pulled into the parking lot and saw the vehicles gone, I knew my return voyage had been a waste of time. All that remained behind to indicate their one-time presence was a piece of yellow paper taped to the door. It read, in sloppy, oversized print:
“Mead, I’m not sure if you’re coming back, but if you do we went southwest toward Princeton. Trying to find Ramey’s father. I hope you get this and catch up with us. We’re better with you. Be careful and safe. Wim”
I couldn’t believe the big fool, out of all of them, had thought to leave me a letter. It pissed me off and confused me at the same time. I wanted to hate Wim, I did hate him because he was the one they all turned to for advice and comfort and protection when they should have looked to me, but unless the hayseed was putting on one hell of a show, it seemed like the farmer was the best of them. Maybe that wasn’t saying much, but at least Wim cared about me
. Or pretended to.
I wasn’t sure if I could get past the Wim and Ramey love connection, but I was starting to realize that I wasn’t as much of a lone wolf as I’d thought myself to be. I found an old roadmap in the Wrangler’s glove box and unfolded it.
Princeton looked to be a few hours away. I had no way of knowing when the others left the warehouse or if I had any legitimate chance of catching up with them, but decided it was worth a shot. I didn’t have anything better to do with my time anyway.
It was smooth sailing - or driving - until I reached a section of roadway where the asphalt disappeared, replaced with a deep chasm that looked like it had once been on fire. Charred chunks of metal and pieces of bodies littered the area surrounding it like fallen meteorites.
Bright red paint on one of the fragments caught my eye. I left the engine of the Jeep running as I jumped down to get a better look. Amidst the red paint, white backward letters read, ‘ulanc’.
“U-lance?” I wondered aloud and as I said that the sound became familiar. “Ambulance?”
Was this Mina’s ride? She was a skinny, judgmental broad Bundy and I found on the highway. She didn’t like me much and after a while the feeling became mutual.
I knelt beside the hole in the road and could make out a broken axel and wheel. There was definitely a vehicle down there, or had been at one time anyway.
This had to be the route Wim and company would have taken. And the odds of two ambulances out and about in this remote neck of the woods were slim. But what happened? It was like a bomb had gone off. I kicked the ulanc and when it skittered sideways it revealed a chunk of arm the size of a country ham.
