Survivors in a Dead World

by Gary M. Chesla

  I was ready to get another car. None of the dealers could figure it out.”

  “One day I stopped for gas down at this little gas station in my town. It was run by this really old guy. I could never understand why he didn’t retire? I guess he just needed something to do. But anyhow, I was telling him about the problem one day. He smiled and rubbed his chin,” Tom laughed, “It reminded me of Santa scratching his white beard as he looked over his naughty or nice list. He looked at me and said it was my spark plug wires. He said he heard GM was starting to use aluminum wiring again. He said it was a big mistake and they would be sorry. He explained how aluminum wiring can’t handle the heat. He said sometimes the heat will cause the wires to crack. When they get hot and the wires expand, they separate and the connection breaks. When they cool off they come back together and everything appears OK, until they heat up again. I took the car back to the dealer and asked him to check the wires. The old man was right. I changed the spark plug wires and never had another problem.”

  “That’s something to think about,” Bob replied, “I’ve looked into all the big things I thought could be causing the problem but sometimes these things can be caused by something as simple as a wire. These flying machines are a bit more complicated than a Ford Focus. Too bad it’s not a Ford. I’d have had it figured out by now.”

  “Well I for one am glad it’s not a Ford. Besides, Fords can’t fly,” Carrier smiled.

  Bob laughed and looked at the time again, “The Doc said if we have the time, he wants us to fly over Heinz Field on our way back.”

  Carrie looked at him suspiciously, “The Doc wants us to fly over Heinz Field or you want to fly over the stadium?”

  Bob grinned, “The Doc wants us to look at all the dead in the stadium and see if anything has changed. He said since the dead in the stadium are isolated from the outside and don’t have anything they can eat in there, he wants to see if there are any signs of those things slowing down. He is hoping to determine if they will starve to death. “

  A big grin spread over his face as he looked at Carrie, “I do have to admit that I sort of enjoy looking down at all those die hard Steeler fans.”

  “You jerk,” Carrie smiled, “If we didn’t need you to fix this thing, I’d make a sharp right over the stadium and drop your Dallas Cowboy ass down into the stadium and let you see how real football fans tailgate.”

  Tom started laughing in the back of the cabin, “Even in their present condition, the Steelers could beat your Cowboys.”

  “Your probably right,” Bob grinned, “I hear the Steelers have a great staggering game. I also understand that Big Ben’s passing game is supposed to be dead on.”

  “Yea, well I hear the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders have stopped doing high kicks along the sidelines. Their legs keep falling off,” Tom said sarcastically. “They didn’t want to stop but Jerry Jones said seeing the cheerleaders falling on their asses was embarrassing the team.”

  “You two idiots,” Carrie laughed, “I can’t believe after everything that has happened that you two can joke about this. They are all dead for God’s sake.”

  “Working in Pittsburgh, Carrie, you of all people should know that Steeler fans never die,” Tom replied.

  “Yea,” Bob grinned again, “They just stagger away.”

  “Good one Bob,” Tom laughed and gave Bob a high five. Really it was a low five, the cabin wasn’t high enough for a high five.

  Carrie looked at the ornery grins on the guy’s faces.

  “I should have known that you assholes were just trying to irritate the hell out of me,” Carrie snorted, “again!”

  “You know guys like to tease pretty ladies,” Bob replied.

  “Yea,” Tom added, “and you’re the only one we’ve got, so I guess you had better get used to it.”

  “Lucky me,” Carrie added as she banked the helicopter to the right as they approached the stadium.

  She brought the helicopter in low over the stadium. The sound of the helicopter echoed off the stadium seats. The Wump, Wump, Wump, Wump echoing up from the stadium could even be heard inside the cabin over the sound of the engine.

  Thousands of gray grotesque faces turned to look up as the helicopter flew overhead.

  “They don’t look any deader than they looked the last time we flew over Heinz field,” Carrie said. “So the Doc hopes they will eventually die for good somehow. If they are going to die they don’t seem to be in any hurry about it.”

  “In the meantime they are getting their money’s worth,” Tom joked.

  “That has to be the longest football game in the history of the NFL,” Bob added. “I guess we can tell the Doc to not count on those things dying off in our life time.”

  “Too bad,” Carrie said. “I guess waiting them out so we can get back to living a normal life again is not going to be anything we can look forward to.”

  As the helicopter finished flying over the stadium, Bob spoke up again, “Take us over Allegheny General. It’s just a few blocks ahead.”

  “The Doc wants us to fly over the hospital?” Carrier asked again suspicious of Bob’s intentions. She wondered if this was another of their pranks to get under her skin.

  “No, there is something I want to look at,” Bob replied. “A few weeks ago when we flew over that way, I noticed one of these Life Flight Helicopters on their helicopter pad. The deck was flooded with hundreds of the dead. I just wanted to see if they are all still there or if they have managed to fall off the roof yet.”

  “Another helicopter,” Carrie said.

  “Since we have a pilot and they don’t really have a need for the helicopter anymore” Bob smiled, “I thought if it would still fly maybe, we could use it. If I can’t figure out what’s wrong with this thing, we are stuck staying within fifteen minutes of the hospital. Fifteen minutes out and fifteen back. If the problem with our chopper gets any worse, we could really be limited on how far we can go. If it cuts out altogether then we’re really screwed. But if that helicopter will run, we might be able to go out a hundred miles or more. Who knows what we might find out there. It would sure be nice to get the hell out of the city.”

  Carrie nodded, “That would be nice.”

  “Worst case,” Bob added. “Spare parts and maybe some new wiring for our helicopter.”

  It only took a minute to reach Allegheny General Hospital.

  The helipad was on the roof of the top floor.

  Hundreds of the dead staggered around the helicopter as it sat out in the middle of the roof.

  “It doesn’t look like we can land down there anytime soon,” Carrie said as she circled the hospital.

  “I hope those bastards don’t chew off the wires and rotors,” Tom said. “They seem to like to chew on everything they can get their boney hands on.”

  “Take us home Red,” Bob said as he looked at the time. “We have three minutes before we are into our final five minutes of safe air time.”

  “No problem, we’ll be back on our pad within two minutes,” Carrie replied.

  The helicopter banked and headed for the point. They crossed the Ohio River and flew over downtown Pittsburgh. The streets were crowded with the staggering dead.

  From this altitude it looked like a normal busy day in Pittsburgh, without cars of course and the crowds also moved in an awkward jerky motion.

  Carrie guided them towards the other side of the triangle that made up the down town area. The helicopter began its descent as the large “X” on the top of Mercy Hospital came into view.

  Chapter 2

  Jim Gorman walked cautiously along West Fifth Street and knelt down behind the shrubs that acted as a barrier between Ligonier Street and the front of the old New Florence library.

  Ligonier Street was the main street that ran through New Florence. It wasn’t really deserving of the name Main Street Jim guessed, that must have been the reason someone had decided to call it Ligonier Street.

  In its heyday, New Florence, Pennsylvania
only had a population of around 687 people. Even fewer were living here when the end came. Jim and his family had lived here all their lives. Even in the good times you could usually cross over Ligonier Street without looking both ways and not have to worry about getting hit by a car. Of course when he was little, his mother had smacked his bottom whenever he would do anything like that. Even when crossing one of the always deserted side streets, she made sure he looked both ways. She would always tell him the story of how little Timmy Kaufmann had been hit by a car and paralyzed by the accident. Her lecture always ended with, “Do you want to be paralyzed like poor little Timmy?”

  His mother was lucky that his family didn’t live in Johnstown.

  Johnstown was the closest thing to “The Big City” that existed in this part of state. Pittsburgh was much larger, but in New Florence, Pittsburgh was only a place you saw on the TV. Jim had only known of one person who had ever gone all the way to Pittsburgh.

  His mother would have gone crazy with worry if they had lived in Johnstown with the way Jim always carelessly ran across the streets in New Florence.

  But Jim was probably lucky too that they didn’t live in Johnstown. Mothers in Johnstown would have probably been telling their kids that they would end up like little Jimmy Gorman if they didn’t learn to look both ways before they crossed the street.

  Today Jim looked both ways, up and down Ligonier Street before deciding to cross. He wasn’t looking to make sure he wouldn’t get hit by a car. It had been a long time since any cars had driven on Ligonier Street. The last car he had seen driving on Ligonier Street was maybe over a year ago but he wasn’t sure. When everything started to go to hell, the power and all the radio stations soon stopped broadcasting. That was two summers and one winter ago. His family had tried to keep track of time by crossing off the days on a calendar, but soon they ran out of pages. By that time they had lost interest because it really didn’t matter any longer what day or month it was. One day was the same as the next day. The only thing that made one day any different form the next day was whether it was freezing cold or warm enough to move around. A full summer and winter had come and gone since everyone’s life had changed.

  A year ago when this had all started, Jim wished now that he would have paid closer attention to all the TV broadcasts and emergency alerts. Back then he was too interested in girls and graduating from high school. Like most kids his age, what was going on in the world didn’t matter unless it had a direct effect on his personal life. By the time he started to take notice, it was too late.

  He guessed he hadn’t missed much as he looked back at the time when everything started. He was sure there had been others that had been interested and had paid close attention, but it apparently hadn’t made a difference. If anyone would have been able to figure out what had happened back then, surely the world wouldn’t be the shit hole it was now.

  Most of what had been said on TV back then, Jim just figured he hadn’t heard it right or didn’t understand. People were dying and coming back to life, that was crazy. The dead attacking and eating the living had to be a promotion for some soon to be released horror movie.

  Even with all the broadcasts and film clips about the attacks and bloodshed that was starting to destroy the cities, it all seemed too unbelievable to really sink in.

  Living in New Florence, you mostly disregarded whatever you saw on the major networks because it never really had any effect on your life. In New Florence garbage men didn’t drive garbage trucks and wear uniforms, they drove pickup trucks and wore a t-shirt. The mailman didn’t have one of those postal vehicles with the steering wheel on the passenger’s side, he had an old Pontiac.

  Even the sign at the local BP gas station didn’t look anything like the signs at the BP stations you saw on the TV. Whatever you saw on TV usually took years to filter down to New Florence. That was if it ever finally made it to town at all.

  It was too bad the dead didn’t know they weren’t supposed to get to New Florence for at least a few more years. No sooner than the TV and radio stations went off the air and the power went out, the dead arrived in New Florence. Unlike everything else that had made its way to New Florence, the dead quickly changed the lives of everyone they came in contact with. New Florence, like all the other cities and towns, would never be the same again.

  The first day was a blood bath.

  The slow moving pace of life in New Florence was overrun before they knew what had happened. Soon the unsuspecting residents changed and joined the dead in search of their friends and neighbors.

  By the end of the second day, the population of the town had more than doubled in size. The dead roamed the streets, groaning and sniffing the air as they searched for anyone still alive. The number of bodies on the streets dwarfed the size of the crowd at the last large event held in New Florence, the Fourth of July parade. The only thing the two crowds had in common was they both generously displayed the color red.

  Those that survived the first day, either hid in their homes scared to death or tried to make a run for safety.

  Jim’s dad had watched all the TV coverage about the dead up until the day the stations all went off the air. He decided trying to make a run for safety was useless, the dead were everywhere. He decided there was nowhere to run that would be any better than New Florence.

  So Jim, his dad, mother, sisters Debbie and Monica all hunkered down to wait for the dead to move on.

  Of those that had tried to leave, most had only made it a few blocks. Their cars still littered the streets of New Florence after bogging down in the mass of bloody bodies that were trying to get at them. Jim knew that if anyone had managed to get out of town, they probably didn’t get very far. One on one, the dead didn’t stand a chance against a car. However it was never one on one. It always seemed to be more like a hundred to one. With those odds, even a four wheel drive vehicle didn’t last long. Traction was impossible once you started to plow into the dead. Bloody slimy bodies that built up under the tires were harder to drive on than the snowy icy roads that were common during a long cold Pennsylvania winter.

  Once the cars bogged down, it didn’t take the dead long to get inside. The streets in New Florence now looked like a combination of rush hour in New York City and the aftermath of Custer at Little Bighorn.

  The families that decided to stay were soon found and killed, or forced to seek shelter somewhere else.

  Jim and his family soon found themselves hiding, in of all places, the Stuart’s Funeral Home. As if life in New Florence wasn’t creepy enough, sharing a basement with three dead bodies in different stages of being embalmed made it even creepier. Safe or not, they left the funeral home after one day in search of somewhere else.

  Jim’s mother and dad were killed a few months later. Jim assumed that was what had happened. They went out together to look for supplies and had never returned. Jim didn’t know for sure what happened and thought it was probably better that he didn’t know for sure. He was just grateful that he hadn’t seen them staggering through town with the dead.

  Jim and his sisters waited and searched, but they were not able to see any clues as to what had happened. In a way Jim hoped they had decided to just run and search for safety somewhere else. As hard as that would be to accept, at least it would mean they were still alive.

  Jim knew his parents would never do that. He also knew what was happening to the living. But he wanted to believe that somehow his parents were still alive, but deep down he knew they were dead. He would be willing to forgive any excuses they had for not coming back if it meant that they were still alive.

  Jim and his sisters had been on their own ever since.

  He and his sisters would probably not have lived much longer themselves, except they found what was probably the only safe place to hide in New Florence, the New Florence Elementary School. The yellow brick building with bars on the windows and wire reinforced windows in the metal doors was the only building in town the dead hadn’t found a way
to get inside.

  Jim looked out from behind the shrubs in front of the library and across Ligonier Street at the yellow brick school building on the corner of Eighth Street.

  He looked in both directions, not to see if there were any cars coming, but to see if there were any of the dead around to see him when he would make his dash across the street to get to the school.

  There were plenty of cars on Ligonier Street, but they hadn’t moved in a year and would in all probability never move again.

  The area looked clear. There had been a few of the dead staggering around in the football field next to the school when he went out this morning, but fortunately it was quiet here now. He was happy he didn’t have to take the long way around the building to get inside because he was tired. Eighth Street was on the north end of town. He had gone out this morning and traveled the few blocks to the Conemaugh River that flowed around the north end of the town. He went over to the river every few days to try and catch some fish to feed himself and his two sisters.

  Finding any food that had been left behind in the houses in town was getting harder every day. If not for the river, they would have starved months ago.

  Jim secured his grip on the two fish he had caught today before running across the street. He stayed low behind the mangled and bloody cars that were piled up on the street in front of the school. In the cars were the remains of the people that had tried to make a run for safety during the first couple of days when the dead first invaded the town.