by Misti Vanhoy
Chapter 3
April 16, 2016
Thirty minutes later
Upon landing back at the docks, we found ourselves in a much larger scale of chaos. People were running everywhere like they were mad, but had no clue what to do about it. Screams and gunshots rang out from God knows where in the area. It wasn’t nearby, that much I was certain.
“We’ll have to take two vehicles,” my dad said as he looked at the captain. “I’m not riding with that man in the same one.” He pointed over at the one that had killed my step mom, disgust written all over his face. It was apparent by the stains beneath his eyes that he had been crying again and it looked like he might start back up any minute now.
The captain nodded as he dug in his pockets for something. He handed my dad something small. It looked like a walkie talkie. “The batteries are fully charged. We can use it to talk,” he said as he slowed the ferry for it to dock successfully. My dad nodded at him and turned his attention back to where we were going.
We couldn’t see any zombies here yet, but I knew they couldn’t be far. These people wouldn’t be running around like that if they weren’t. I worried about what would happen when we left the safety of this vessel. Why couldn’t we stay on it and live off of it? Wouldn’t that be much safer than anything else? Were we really that crazy to think that we would be able to live this out anywhere else? I shook my head, clearing it of the negativity that I felt. If I wanted to live, I would have to think better thoughts than this shit. It wasn’t going to do me any good to be so melancholy about it.
The ferryman jumped off of the ferry once we were close enough to the dock and tied her up to keep her from drifting away. “All right, folks. This is what we’re going to do. We’re getting in these two vehicles and we’re going to look for safety at my employee’s house. His is closest,” the captain said as he walked out onto the plank to the dock. The ferryman and the two strangers followed as quickly as they could while my family and I got back into our car. We pulled off of the ferry and waited for the others to pull out so we would stay together. The lull of the engine as it idled gave away a false sense of security, humming our troubles out of our minds.
The drive just a few blocks away to the ferryman’s neighborhood was torture. Cars backed up the highways and side streets, making it almost impossible to maneuver anywhere. The move was so slow that it was nothing more than a crawl. “We’ll never make it there before anything happens!” I said, scared of what might be coming for us any moment now. We were sitting ducks.
“I know, I know. Let me get a hold of the captain,” my dad replied, pulling the walkie talkie out of his pocket. He pushed the button to alert the other vehicle and spoke into it. “Say, it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to go anywhere anytime soon. It might be quicker to make it on foot.”
The walkie beeped and a reply came through. “10-4. Let’s park it and hoof it,” the captain came across the station. My dad shoved the walkie back into his pocket and shifted the car into park. Turning the key into the off position, we all exited into the chaos that awaited us outside.
Fighting the swarms of people that had the same idea we did was like fighting off a river full of hungry bears. Samantha had to be carried to prevent us from losing her in the mass. I was shoved this way and that, up against cars and against other people. At some point, my head was cut open by something and I started to bleed, the liquid seeping into my eye. I never saw what did it. Freaked out as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to stop running wherever my dad went. His hand kept a hold of mine as he pulled me along behind him.
We dodged down an alleyway that connected our current position to the road directly leading to the ferryman’s neighborhood. I could hear my heart pounding away in my chest as my legs began to throb and ache from the effort exerted. I hoped that the end of this journey would come soon. I wasn’t used to putting myself through this strain.
The ferryman led the way across the street to the house at the end of the cul-de-sac with the blue shutters. Everything was quiet. Before we could even make it halfway to the house, we could tell that something wasn’t right. The van parked out front had the back door open on it with groceries still inside. There was no one to be found.
As we approached, we could see that the front door was cracked somewhat. The ferryman stopped dead in his tracks beside the van and fell to his knees without a word said. There, on the porch, was a pool of blood. It looked like it may have been too much for just one person, even an adult. I looked down at the man to catch him starting to sob.
He was mumbling something about his wife and little girl when we heard a noise. Somewhere nearby came a low, growling sound. Nervousness set in. I turned frantically around in circles, searching for the source of the sound. Nothing could be found for several minutes. My anxiety began to seep into the minds of the others in the group and soon we were all turning in circles.
As soon as we settled down, shuffling came from around the corner of the house. A woman and child, turned to undead creatures, walked into our view. They had blood running all down their matching shirts from their mouths, their eyes white and blank, their noses in the air, and the woman looked like she had a broken arm. It hung limply at her side. They searched for food to satiate their ever-growing thirst for human flesh.
Our presence was given away, not by the smell that we gave off, but by the ferryman’s cries of agony. He was clearly upset about this. It must’ve been his wife and daughter that were hunting us down. His pain alerted them and gave them a direction to move in. They bore down on us at full speed, reaching in front of them to grasp at the air to ensure they found their mark.
I froze in my spot. This wasn’t something that I knew how to react to properly so the fear kept me from doing much. The flight instinct wouldn’t kick in, either, to keep me from becoming a victim. Only one person reacted by doing something other than crying or freezing up. The strange female in our group stepped forward confidently and lifted a knife up in front of her, preparing for a battle. She met the woman first and grabbed her by the hair. Jerking her off her feet, the stranger shoved the knife into her temple without a moment’s hesitation.
She pulled it out, blood oozing from the wound, and rose back to her feet. The little girl came after her, following the sound of the fight with her mom. She was even less of a fight than the woman. The ferryman cried out harder as he watched his daughter face the same fate as his wife. The knife was shoved through her head and she was thrown to the ground without the stranger seeming to care about it all. The child was discarded like trash.
I had never felt so much pain for another human being in my life. The ferryman was hysterical at this point, breaking under the depression that weighed heavy on his shoulders and the realization that his family would never be whole again. He would be forever stuck with us until his death, or until he decided to leave the group to try to live it out on his own. I couldn’t imagine continuing any further.
“Come on, we have to go!” my dad yelled at the group as he grabbed hold of Samantha’s hand and started to pull her off in the direction of the west side of town. If safety didn’t lie somewhere there, we probably wouldn’t make it through this. We couldn’t live without somewhere to go.
Chapter 4
April 16, 2016
Fifteen minutes later
The trip to see his family ended badly, but we still needed somewhere to go. I offered up a suggestion. “What about the middle school I went to? They have a chain link fence. Should be safe,” I whispered to my dad as we hid behind a dumpster in one of the alleys. The crowds were starting to disperse, but we needed to wait a little longer. We still hadn’t seen any sign of other zombies.
“I don’t know, Morgan. I don’t think a fence like that could hold back anything that really wanted to get in,” he whispered back. He was on alert. He couldn’t keep still as he scanned every weakness in our defenses. It was like watching a person with agyrophobia being carried out into a medium and
having to cross the streets to get back to the sidewalk without help.
“We’ve got to try, dad. We are exposed here. We need to get Samantha to safety.”
“You’re right, but perhaps we should go elsewhere to be on the safe side.”
“It’s only a few blocks away from here. If it doesn’t look safe, we’ll keep going.”
He thought about it in silence for a moment before he came to a decision. “Ok. We’ll go, but the first sign of trouble and we leave.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to the others and waved them forward toward him. As they did so, he whispered, “We’re making a break for it to the middle school nearby. It could potentially be a safe house for us.” They all nodded in agreement and prepared to make a break for it. I leaned forward onto the balls of my feet and waited for the signal.
My dad huffed and threw himself out into the open, followed quickly by the rest of us. We stayed close to one another for protection. My dad led the way, followed by his children, the captain, the ferryman, and the two strangers. They didn’t seem as alarmed as the rest of us with this situation. They could probably survive without anywhere to go, out in the open and exposed.
I noticed that things started to get quiet all around us. The screams and sounds of feet on pavement dispersed and thinned out. Cars no longer moved or breathed in the air to release their toxic fume upon the Earth. It was eerie beyond belief… The only good thing was that we could move about with greater ease.
We hunched over as we ran through the streets and alleys to our safe destination. I could feel it in my bones. The emotions I felt from being so close to normalcy and sanctity… I couldn’t find the words to describe it. If I could, I would fly away from here on the wings of faith. I just wanted desperately to get there.
We turned a corner and had the school within our sights. I was ecstatic! My feet were starting to hurt and my lungs burned from exertion. I had never run so much in my life before. I wish I had trained. It would have made this journey bearable.
The chain link fence glinted in the pale sunlight, inviting us in for a closer look. The brick building stood strong on its boundaries and unchanged since I had last been there. It was beautiful; something that I would hold onto for the rest of my life. I could return to a thought like this when I needed it the most.
We stopped at the fence line and checked out what was going on inside the closed-off area. It all seemed quiet, much like the ferryman’s neighborhood had been. It raised a red flag with me, but my dad seemed to think that this was a good thing for us. He looked over at me and said, “Babygirl, you’re a genius. I believe this will be able to protect us until we can figure out something more permanent.”
He nodded at the others, walked over to the locked gate, and unhooked the chain from its home. We followed him through onto the grounds of the school and formed a line to go into the building. My dad led us through the doors, quietly walking just in case something came out of the shadows. We kept to one of the walls, along the lockers, in a single file line as we searched the rooms one by one for any sign of trouble for us. Most of the rooms were empty, luring us into a false sense of security.
The closer we got to the inner most room of the school, the more uneasy I got. Something didn’t feel right about being here. A few cars had been out in the parking lot so where was everyone? This seemed wrong, just as unnatural as the amusement park. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and goose bumps spread along my arms. I wasn’t sure if the others felt it or not, but there was no denying that I did.
Rounding the last corner to the gym, the door to the spacious room burst open on its own and leaked out a large group of zombies into the hallways. The darkened hall made it harder for us to see them. We froze in our places, fighting the urge to make any noises. We couldn’t fight this big of a crowd. We weren’t trained. Only a few of us could fight and I wasn’t one of them.
They flew at us at terrifying speeds. Their faces were contorted in frightening expressions of anger and hunger. We turned as one and fled the hall, running faster than I had run so far today. Despite our efforts, they were still gaining on us. It was like I could feel them breathing on the back of my neck.
My shoes slipped and slid along the linoleum floors, breaking traction and making it harder to go even faster than I already was. I kept taking quick glances over my shoulders to check on their status and the distance that they were closing between us. We needed to get out of here now before we became chow for the undead.
At the next corner, close to the exit where we had entered in at, Samantha made a different turn and pulled our dad down that hall with her. Frantic, I followed them and the others. I had no idea where Samantha thought she was going and why our dad didn’t stop her from doing it. Was he going insane already? You can’t trust a child to make decisions that could kill us!
She darted around the next corner. Where was she going? I couldn’t remember this part of the school. I don’t think I had ever been down here more than once or twice. I also wasn’t sure how in the world she knew where to go. She wasn’t even old enough to go to this school yet. Maybe it was instinct that led her to take the route that she was on. Or maybe she had been here when I was at school? Either was possible, I suppose.
One more turn back the other way and her decision made itself clear to me. She had found a side exit and, in turn, put some space between our group and the undead. I could hear them hit the walls as they fought one another for running room. She had bought us a bit of time to make it out alive, all of us. I had one of the smartest sisters in existence.
We burst through the door, bathing ourselves in sunlight. The last of us through the door, the strange man from the ferry, shoved it closed behind him and looked around the ground to find something to jam the exit with. My dad did the same, finding a mop lying underneath one of the classroom windows. He snatched it up and ran to the aid of the man. With a little help from the captain, the door was secured from the assault of the zombies. It bought us enough time to get out of the fenced-in area and down the street before they got out.
We managed to survive that close call, and many others that day, before we settled on an office building a mile away from the middle school. It wasn’t the safest place in the whole city, the windows were easy entry points for anyone or anything, but we could make it do for the time being. We couldn’t afford to keep running around in a city inhabited by thousands upon thousands of undead cannibals. Safety, for now, meant staying in a place where we could lock ourselves into a room and still have a way out if we needed it. If we could just survive until the government discovered a cure, we would be in Heaven someday.
Chapter 5
New York- September 12, 2020
Sometime in the morning
It had been four long years since the destruction of mankind. Four long years of being on the run from certain death. Four long years to watch my companions and family suffer, only to lose their minds slowly. The ferryman, who we came to know as Rob, was the first to do so. It was difficult to watch him go through the mental anguish that he had to deal with. He had found out the hard way that his wife and daughter had turned sometime while we were making our way to Coney Island. We hurried to his home, which was the closest to the docks. The streets were surprisingly quiet and deserted for that time of day. It only added to our confusion and fear after the death of my step mom. His neighborhood was no different. The homes were quiet with no one outside. Upon walking up in front of his driveway, though, it was clear that his family had fallen victim. They were attacked outside their door with a load of groceries in the van. We didn’t have to wait long to find out what had happened to them. The blood on the porch was more than enough of an indication before they came walking from the backyard, undead. His stop was the first and only one we made that day and it was easy to see he couldn’t handle it. His mental capacity diminished rapidly. A few months into our fight for survival, we watched as he left the safety of our locked down off
ice building and meandered out into a mass of zombies, ending his life in the most awful way I could possibly imagine at that point. We all felt that he had blamed himself for not being home that day to protect them and this death was his way to make himself pay for his mistake.
The captain, who we learned was named Jessup, took a little longer to reach that same point. A year and a half after Rob’s suicide, he stole Brantley’s revolver in the middle of the night and shot himself in the head outside as we slept. The gunshot had startled us awake in time to see a horde of zombies jump onto his limp body. Retrieving the gun back later was easier said than done. We had to wait two days for the undead to dissipate from the area, and from Jessup’s body, before we could safely go out and get it. Then there were five of us left: me, my dad, Samantha, Reagan, and Brantley.
Even though we stayed a group after the Coney Island incident, it was clear that there were three factions within it. My family and I stayed to ourselves pretty much while Reagan and Brantley stayed to themselves. Occasionally, Reagan would interact with me. It was hard to ensure everyone’s survival like that, especially with Reagan wanting to follow her own set of rules. I can’t even recall how many times she and Brantley almost killed us all. Her ‘survival’ schemes were ill-thought out and usually ended in zombies chasing us down. Every time we had to leave supplies behind and find a new place to live. That didn’t stop her plans from coming, unfortunately. She continued her adolescent-like ways no matter what the cost. In fact, the only good thing she ever did was to figure out these things were blind to light.
