by Ray Wallace
"What did you do that for?!"
Anger had replaced the emptiness.
Good, thought Pastor Lewis. Now let's see if he's angry enough to do something.
"I'm sorry I struck you, brother, but I need you to keep it together. We can't just sit here. Eventually, those monsters are going to make their way inside this bus. And when that happens..."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to drive."
"Where? We're trapped here."
The pastor agreed that it certainly looked that way. The cars before and behind them sat unmoving. The "zombies," as many in the media had taken to calling them, surrounded the bus on all sides.
“Surely, a behemoth such as this,” the pastor waved a hand, indicating the vehicle enclosing them, “can find the strength to free us from this quagmire."
Over the past few years, Randall had driven chartered buses for a variety of Pastor Lewis's church functions and outings. They'd gotten to know one another in passing, not well enough for the pastor to get any real sense of the man's character, however.
We must work with the tools we've been given.
Once again, he reached out and grabbed Randall by the shoulder, said, "I have faith, brother."
A nod of the head. “I'll see what I can do.”
Pastor Lewis walked to the back of the bus, calming people along the way before returning to his own seat.
The bus started to move. Forward, just barely. Then back. Forward again. And back. Over and over, a little further each time, pushing the obstacles hemming it in—namely the cars and the zombies—out of the way. Then, without warning, the bus surged ahead and to the right, swaying from side to side, the massive vehicle plowing its way through the mass of bodies pressed up against it. A ragged cheer went up from the people on board as they crossed the emergency lane then drove off across the grassy terrain sloping down and away from the interstate. And just like that, they were moving once again, having overcome the first real predicament of their journey.
The pastor had a feeling that even greater trials would present themselves. But as he'd told Brother Randall, he had faith—he had to have faith. The Lord would guide them throughout the journey ahead, however long and dangerous it proved to be, toward whatever destination awaited them.
Wednesday, July 15th
Dear Diary,
So much has happened since the last entry I wrote. A lot of it bad. Some of it beyond bad. As for the worst of it...
Mom and Dad are dead. Even as I write the words, I have a hard time believing it. Dead. Along with everyone else from the neighborhood, all of the people they took from their homes that night. Mrs. Lewis from across the street. Danny Turner from two houses down. Mr. and Mrs. Ford who always gave out the best candy on Halloween.
Everyone but me.
How did I avoid getting sick? I have no idea. Just lucky, I guess. Yeah, that's me, the luckiest girl in the world.
For a while there, I was pretty sure I was going to die. For the first time in my life, I found out what it was like to starve. Eight days I spent in that room with nothing to eat. At least I had water. If not... I remember reading somewhere that dying of dehydration is even worse than starving to death. After what I went through, that doesn't seem possible. My stomach hurt all the time. I couldn't think straight. I was completely worn out, didn't even feel like writing.
How long can I go on like this? I wondered.
When I heard the strange sound coming through the walls, I thought I was imagining it: tap-tap... tap-tap-tap-tap... It went on for a few minutes then stopped. I got up and went to the door, looked through the window, tried to figure out what was going on. A man walked by wearing a gas mask and a camouflage outfit. At first, I thought I was imagining him, too. But when I saw the gun in his hands, I realized what had made those tapping sounds.
"Hey!" I shouted, banging on the door. "In here!"
More soldiers arrived. One of them lifted his mask and talked to me through the door, told me to pull the mattress off the bed and hide behind it. When I did, there was an explosion and the door flew open. I grabbed you, Diary, before I was rushed out of the room, led down the hallway, then through some rooms I'd never seen before. Along the way, I saw bodies lying on the floor. When I stumbled on the stairwell leading up to the top of the building, one of the soldiers picked me up and carried me the rest of the way. There was a helicopter waiting on the roof. The soldier strapped me into one of the seats, got me some protein bars and a bottle of fruit juice.
"Eat it slow," he told me when I tore at the wrappers. "Or you'll get nauseous, throw it up."
Somehow, I managed to do as he said, even though right then that protein bar was the best thing I'd ever tasted.
As I watched, more soldiers appeared from the doorway leading back into the building. They got into the helicopter and the propeller started to spin.
"What about my mom and dad?" I asked the soldier who'd carried me and given me the food. "What about everybody else?"
He leaned in close so I could hear him through the mask he was wearing and over all the noise: "You're the only one who made it. I'm sorry."
When the helicopter lifted off, I got my first view of the city where they'd been holding me. In the afternoon light, I could see people running through the streets below. There was an intersection where a couple of cars had smashed into each other, another one where a school bus had flipped onto its side. Buildings burned and smoke rose into the sky.
It was all too much. What I saw... What the soldier had told me...
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about any of it. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew the helicopter had landed on the roof of another building. I was brought inside, led to a plain white room with a couple of chairs and left alone in there. A little while later, a woman wearing a white jacket and a doctor’s mask entered the room.
It was Dr. Anders.
She told me how sorry she was about everything, about my parents, that she wished they could have gotten me out sooner. “I hope you find your new accommodations more to your liking.”
I have to admit, the room is much nicer here. Bigger. The food is better too. And there's a courtyard where they let me go outside a few hours a day. Now I just have to wait and see what they plan to do with me. More tests, according to Dr. Anders. Then... Who knows?
I wish Mom and Dad were here. More than I can put into words. I really can't believe they're gone. It all seems like a dream, Diary, an awful dream. And maybe it is. Which means that, at any minute now, I might open my eyes and wake up...
Thursday, July 16th
Dominick had been struggling with the cinderblock. He'd carry it a few steps then set it down. Carry it a few more steps. Set it down. At one point, he’d parked his butt on it, sat there thinking about the last time he saw his father.
“I need to go out for supplies,” Dominick remembered him saying. “It won't take long. I'll be back before you even know I'm gone.”
That had been nearly a week ago. Dominick could only assume that something bad had happened to him. Why else wouldn't he have come home?
He shook his head, told himself the reason for his father's absence didn't matter.
He's gone and he's not coming back. That's what matters.
Dominick got to his feet, squatted down, grabbed the cinderblock then used his legs to lift it once again. He needed to move the heavy gray brick the rest of the way across the rooftop. Grunting with exertion, he took several more steps closer to his destination.
The sun hovered high in the sky, hidden behind a thick veil of clouds that looked ready to unleash a downpour similar to the one that had pounded the city the previous night. A night Dominick had spent underneath his bed for the most part, staring wide-eyed as lightning randomly illuminated the room, flinching at the repeated roar of the thunder. Violent storms had always frightened him. Oh, how he'd wished that his father had been there to tell him there was nothing to fear. Inste
ad, he'd spent the night alone and terrified, certain the storm would never end, the morning would never dawn. Eventually, exhausted by the whole ordeal, he'd fallen asleep. By the time he awoke, the sun had risen, and the storm had moved on like all the ones before.
He’d eaten a cold Pop Tart for breakfast, washed it down with a warm can of Pepsi. Riding the sugar buzz and an eleven year old’s youthful energy, he’d opened the apartment door and checked to make sure there were no zombies roaming the poorly lit hallway beyond. After making his way to the emergency stairwell at the end of the hall, he’d climbed past the building's top floor and exited through the open door leading onto the rooftop. The thin layer of gravel covering it had crunched beneath his tennis shoes as he made his way to the low wall standing along the roof's perimeter. Once there, he’d leaned out and stared down at the parking lot five stories below.
Zombies, zombies, everywhere…
He’d watched as they wandered about aimlessly. Men. Women. Children. The elderly. No sign of his father among them. He’d felt a sense of relief at this. What would he have done if he saw him down there? He had no idea, didn't want to find out. What he did know was that these creatures were in some way responsible for his father's disappearance. If not members of this particular group then others of their kind. And for that, he hated them.
The cinderblock had been sitting atop a stack of three others over by the doorway.
With grim determination, he finally managed to muscle it across the roof and, with a final effort, set it on top of the low wall. Then he waited.
“Come on...”
He didn't have to wait long.
A zombie wandered close to the building.
“Bombs away...”
With a push, Dominick sent the cinderblock plummeting, watched as it slammed down onto the top of the zombie’s head, caving it in amid an explosion of blood and brains. He pumped his fist in the air as the dead man—now officially dead—crumpled and lay sprawled across the ground, right leg twitching.
“Yes!”
His spirits buoyed, he turned and crossed the roof once again, ready to grab another cinderblock.
Friday, July 17th
In recent days, the electricity had been acting erratically, cutting off at random times only to come back on unexpectedly. Amanda wondered when it would go off for good. It was the end of the world, after all. At least, that's what the ongoing news coverage would have her believe. And, judging by all the footage they'd been showing, she found herself believing it.
The plague had spread far and wide. California. Texas. New York. Most, if not all, of the major metropolitan areas across the country were showing signs of the sickness taking hold. Reports of the dead coming back to life and attacking the living continued to pour in. Authorities were doing all they could to contain the various outbreaks of chaos and carnage. From what Amanda could see, they hadn't been doing a very good job of it. Not that she could fault them. How could something like this be contained? It was like trying to contain the flu only worse. Much worse. Because this particular flu turned people into fearless, cannibalistic monsters. A scenario straight out of a horror movie. Only this was all too real.
The entire spectrum of Amanda's emotions had collapsed, seemed to consist of nothing more than a fierce, simmering dread and something approaching outright panic. She felt trapped, unable to reach any solid decisions concerning her and Mitchell's safety. Should they stay put or try to get away while they still could? In regards to their long-term survival, the latter option was undoubtedly the better of the two. But the thought of going out into the world and facing firsthand what was taking place there terrified her, even more so the idea of exposing Mitchell to such danger.
Standing at the living room window, she peeked through the curtains, took in the sight of the street below. A group of people walked by. They moved strangely, a few of them looking as though they might fall down at any moment, conjured images of drunks at the end of an all night bender or infants who'd only recently gotten the hang of the whole walking thing.
Zombies.
Strange how quickly a word like that—along with other personal favorites such as “undead,” “cannibal,” and “pandemic”—could suddenly take on so much meaning in one's life. All just another part of the new and disturbing reality she found herself waking up to these days. If she even managed to sleep. As bad as the waking world had become, the places she often visited in her dreams made her happy to return. Dark, ugly places where Mitchell would be lost to her, only to be found transformed into one of those horrible things wandering past her apartment building, hungry for human flesh.
"Mommy, I want something to eat."
Startled, she whirled around to find her son standing not five feet away, staring up at her. She felt bad when he flinched at her reaction, went to him and kissed the top of his head.
"Sure, baby. How about some cereal?"
Fortunately, the sporadic electricity had managed to keep what little food remained in the refrigerator from spoiling. She knew she'd have to head out to get more sometime soon. The very thought of it left her with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Trying not to dwell on it, she got Mitchell his cereal. As he wandered into the living room and set the bowl on the coffee table, someone knocked at the front door.
Now it was Amanda's turned to be startled.
Crossing the room, she pressed her eye to the peephole to see who was there. A young man wearing a baseball cap stared back at her. Something about him looked familiar, although she couldn't recall where she might have seen him before.
Mitchell had the TV on, so it seemed pointless to pretend no one was home.
“What do you want?” she asked.
"I was passing by and saw movement at the window," came the reply. "Just wanted to make sure whoever lived here was all right."
Amanda stepped back, checked to make sure the chair pushed up underneath the doorknob was still in place, wondered if it and the deadbolt would be enough to keep the man out if he really wanted to get into the apartment.
"I'm fine," she said. "Everything's fine."
Please go away.
"It's not safe here,” the man told her. “If you want to go somewhere that is, I'd be glad to help you."
"Are you a cop?"
A quick laugh. "No, I'm not a cop. Just a... concerned citizen."
She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the rack she kept on top of the refrigerator, well out of Mitchell's reach. Then she moved the chair and unlocked the door, hoping she wasn't making a big mistake. But the guy was right. She couldn't stay here. And if he could get her and her son somewhere safe...
Hiding the knife behind her back, she opened the door.
That's when she saw the gun in the guy's hand. And she realized why he looked familiar.
He's the one who walked up and shot the man—no, the zombie—on my way back from the grocery store that day.
“Oh, hello,” said the guy as he made a very deliberate show of tucking the gun into the front of his pants, standing there empty handed and non-threatening. He smiled. "It's nice to see you again.”
Saturday, July 18th
Returning to Florida had not been one of Eric's brighter ideas. For starters, he'd found no trace of Justine or Bill. They weren't at home when Eric arrived, nor had they shown up in the week since. He knew this because he'd been living in their house—the same place he'd been staying when the asteroid fell out of the sky nearly a month ago—during that time. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he was doing what he could to survive instead of any real "living," as people normally used the word. This was because the area where the house was located had become an extremely dangerous place to be, thanks to the zombie plague.
It had taken him nearly two days to reach the house once he'd crossed the border into Florida. And what a memorable and terrifying two days they had been...
He’d seen bodies, lots of them, lying along the sides of roads or in the road
s themselves, the latter pulverized by vehicles that had been driven over them. Some of the corpses had been burned, others decapitated or dismembered. Quite a few of them were barely more than skeletons, the flesh, meat, and organs all but picked clean by the zombies that had fed upon them. He’d seen groups of the wandering dead. Car wrecks. Burning buildings. Small bands of military personnel who'd been sent in to impose some sort of order, a task at which they'd failed rather spectacularly.
Eric had found Justine’s neighborhood infested with zombies. According to the news programs he watched when the electricity was on, the entire state of Florida—along with many other places across the country—would become a more dangerous place for anyone caught within its borders with every passing day.
"I need to get the hell out of here."
The power had been out for the past several hours and he spoke aloud, although not too loudly, in an attempt to alleviate the house’s deathly silence.
"Should've been long gone by now."
He'd stuck around because, quite frankly, he’d been afraid to leave. And with good reason. As far as getting to the house in one piece, he’d been very lucky. The idea of going out there, of pressing his luck once again held little appeal. He knew that the longer he waited, though, the more difficult it would become to get away, to try and leave the state, head for less inhospitable locales.
He looked at the end table next to the couch, at the tire iron resting on top of it. During the journey to his sister's house, he’d had to make use of it on more than a few occasions. Just outside of town, the road he'd been following had become impassable. By that point, he'd already gotten turned around too many times, had felt the need to reach his destination building inside of him with every passing hour, until he couldn't take it anymore. So he'd abandoned the truck and set off on foot, tire iron in hand. He'd met soldiers along the way who told him to turn back, that it was suicide to continue onward. But he hadn't listened. He had waited, though, as the soldiers opened fire with the automatic weapons and flamethrowers they carried, destroying a rather sizable pack of zombies.
