Survivors in a Dead World

by Gary M. Chesla

  Bob walked out onto the roof holding the broom out in front of him.

  The creature spotted Bob and started to groan and began to stagger towards him.

  Bob walked over in front of the creature and held out the broom.

  The creature grabbed the broom.

  Bob pushed the creature back with the broom.

  When he was near the edge of the roof, Bob gave a push on the handle and watched the creature and the broom fall off the edge of the roof and disappear.

  Carrie ran out and stood next to Bob.

  “Let me see if the engine will start,” Bob said. “We only have about ten minutes of daylight left. If it starts I need to check over a few things before we try to get off of this roof.”

  “It will be tough trying to land in the dark,” Carrie said.

  Bob hopped into the helicopter, flipped a few switches and hit the ignition.

  The blades slowly rotated.

  Bob pushed the starter again. The blades turned a few more times but the engine began to sound weaker.

  “Do you know what’s wrong?” Carrie asked.

  “It sounds to me like it’s not getting any fuel.” Bob replied.

  “They have to have a tank here somewhere to refuel the helicopters,” Carrie said looking around the roof.

  “They should, but it’s getting too dark out here to do anything tonight,” Bob said. “The battery sounds weak. We might only have enough power for one more attempt at starting this thing. We need to wait until morning to do this right or we may never get this thing running.”

  “Do you want me to give it a try?” Carrie asked.

  “No Red, even if it would start, it’s getting too dark to check this thing over,” Bob replied. “We could end up ditching again somewhere in the city. Let’s do this right and wait until morning. Let’s go find a room for the night while we have enough light.”

  Carrie sighed, “You’re right. What’s one more night?”

  The walked back into the stairwell and went into the hospital and began to look for an empty room.

  Chapter 23

  Jamal opened his eyes.

  His felt like he had been hit over the head with a brick.

  “I was hit over the head with a brick,” he remembered.

  “That son of a bitch came out of nowhere.”

  The last thing he remembered was seeing some guy’s face flash in front of him then that brick coming at his head.

  He remembered hearing Devon and George shouting at something inside the school building.

  Their shouts of anger soon became screams of terror.

  For a time, Jamal thought the dead had killed his friends and that girl and the guy that had taken her from Devon and George.

  Then he remembered seeing the girl run out from the side of the school building.

  Half of her clothes looked to have been torn from her body but she didn’t seem to have been injured. He didn’t remember seeing any blood running down her body.

  He was about ready to get back in the car and get away from the school before the dead came for him too, but when he saw the girl stumbling around the corner of the school, he couldn’t pass up that opportunity.

  She looked like an easy target.

  But it had apparently been a trap.

  “You can’t trust these damn hillbillies,” Jamal thought.

  The last guy that had tried to hit him with a brick died for his efforts.

  So would this son of a bitch when Jamal found him.

  The more he stayed around here, the more he hated these people.

  If he could find little Ricki, he had a score to settle with him too.

  But he knew that both of these bastards would probably get away without getting what they deserved.

  Since he now seemed to be on his own, his best course of action was to just go back to Pittsburgh.

  When he got back with the rest of his guys, he would come back. No one disrespected him like this and lived.

  Jamal tried to open his eyes again.

  As his eyes opened, he saw stars.

  It took him a few minutes to realize he was seeing actual stars.

  It was dark out and he was on his back and when he opened his eyes, he was staring up into the night sky.

  “How the hell long have I been here?” he wondered.

  Jamal rolled onto his side and forced himself up on his hands and knees.

  He got to his feet and wobbled around feeling unsteady.

  He finally stood still, now being pretty certain he wasn’t going to fall down on his ass, and tried to get his bearings.

  He needed to find where he left the car.

  It didn’t have any windows but it would still be better than being out here in the open.

  He strained his eyes and stared into the blackness, finally finding the dark eerie silhouettes of the cars out on the street.

  He staggered out to the street and turned right to follow the street past the front of the school building, remembering that he had parked the car at the other end of the building.

  He didn’t like the idea of using the headlights to drive out of New Florence, knowing the beams of light could attract the dead. But there was no way he could drive through the wreckage on these streets without lights.

  Jamal staggered along the street, using the wrecked vehicles to steady himself.

  He could tell by the silhouette of the school, he should be half way back to his car.

  “Half way back to that little piece of shit,” he thought.

  He took a few more steps, stopped and held on to some dark old truck.

  He was getting dizzy again, all the dark shadows around him, seemed to be moving. It was just like when he had first opened his eyes.

  He held on to the large vehicle tightly and closed his eyes.

  He took a deep breath, steadied himself and opened his eyes again.

  All the dark shapes around him still seemed to be moving.

  He closed his eyes and took another deep breath.

  It didn’t seem to help, everything around him still seemed to be spinning around him.

  Jamal took a few more steps and strained to look up ahead where his car should be.

  This time he saw what appeared to be hundreds of dark shadows swaying in the darkness getting closer to him.

  “Shit,” Jamal thought to himself as he realized what the movement was. “I can’t even trust these damn hillbilly zombies to groan like they are supposed to.”

  Jamal turned to go back the way he had come.

  He didn’t know where he was going to go, but he couldn’t get to his car like this.

  “If those people came from behind the school, maybe there is somewhere back there where I can hide,” he thought.

  But when he turned, there were more of the staggering dark silhouettes behind him.

  Jamal ducked down behind the vehicle next to him.

  He raised his head over the car to see if the movement was getting closer to him or if they were going to pass him by.

  He started to turn back around when he heard a noise behind him.

  He had barely started to turn when something fell into him, pinning him to the car.

  He felt the pain all over his body as something bit into his flesh.

  Then the silence of the night erupted into a loud chorus of groans,

  “God damn hillbillies,” was the last thought to pass through his mind before he was overwhelmed with pain and began to scream uncontrollably.

  The sounds of agony lasted only a few minutes.

  The night once again became eerily quiet and the dark shadows of the night moved on.

  Chapter 24

  The sun was halfway between the horizon and from being directly overhead.

  The doctor had the guys lined up in the room where he had done his experiments.

  “It smells like hell in here, Doc,” Ken said.

  “I specifically had you all come in here to prepare your sheets because of how it
smells in here,” the doctor said, “because this is nothing compared to what you will smell when you put the sheet on over your head.”

  “I guess this is a small price to pay if this works,” Jim said.

  “If the smell doesn’t kill us first,” Ed joked.

  The Doc picked up a knife and walked over to the creature that he had removed the eyes. He plunged the knife into its chest and with a long sweeping motion, cut open the creature.

  “Oh shit,” Jim started to gag.

  “The second reason I wanted you to come here and prepare your sheets instead of me doing it for you, is so you would have some experience touching the dead,” Doc said.

  “I can understand the smell thing, it will help us get used to this foul odor,” Ken said. “But why do you want us touching these gross bastards?”

  “You have watched the creatures staggering around on the streets below. I’m sure before you came here you had more close up experiences with the dead,” Doc said. “I’m sure you noticed that they are constantly bumping in to each other.”

  “What’s that have to do with us and these smelly sheets?” Jim asked.

  “The purpose of the sheets is to confuse the dead at least until we can get over to the cliff,” Doc replied. “To make the dead believe we are one of them. But when we are crossing the highway among the dead, they will bump into you.”

  “I think what the Doc is saying Jim,” Ken laughed, “is if you yell ‘Oh Shit’ every time one of those things bumps into you, you will end up in deep shit.”

  The others chuckled.

  “Correct,” the doctor smiled. “I am hoping by having you touch these creatures when you saturate your sheet in their blood and organs, when they bump into you out on the street it won’t be so traumatic.”

  “Personally,” Ed said, “I was planning on keeping my eyes closed until I got to the other side of the road.”

  “You should keep your eyes open,” the doctor said.

  “I know,” Ed replied. “So I don’t trip and fall.”

  “That too,” the doctor smiled, “but you must also keep your eyes on the dead.”

  “Why do we have to watch those things?” Ken asked. “It’s going to be scary enough out there without looking at them.”

  “You should try not to bump into any of them,” the doctor replied then added, “bumping into them might get their attention and make them want to investigate. Also you need to keep an eye on the dead in the event one of them, for whatever reason, is not fully convinced you are one of them. If you see one of the dead looking at you or coming your way, try to avoid it. They seem to have very short attention spans. If you make it difficult for them to get over to you so they can investigate, it may lose interest quickly and move on to something else.”

  “What if we can’t get away from it?” Jim asked.

  “Then you must kill it,” Doc replied. “Carry a knife. A quick thrust to the head should do it. Then just keep moving slowly and get to the cliff.”

  “Won’t seeing us kill one of them get the other’s attention?” Jim asked.

  “Possibly for a few brief seconds, but if you keep moving slowly you should be OK,” Doc answered.

  “You learned all of this from your experiments?” Ken asked.

  “No, most is just conjecture from studying the dead below,” the doctor replied. “I’ve spent the last two days watching those things below to see if I could discover anything else we needed to know,” Doc added. “But they are simple creatures and I didn’t see anything different from what we all already knew or have seen before.”

  “In other words Jim,” Ken laughed, “Put your sheet on, keep your mouth shut and get your ass to the other side as fast as you can.”

  “Like I said,” the doctor smiled, “The dead are simple creatures. Wear the sheet and if you don’t bother them they won’t bother you.”

  “That’s what my friend said about his German Shepard right before it bit me in the ass,” Ed said.

  “I’ve given you this information so you could be prepared if anything should happen once you are out among the dead,” Doc said, “But don’t over think this. These creatures don’t appear to think, they just react. Just walk across the road and don’t do anything that they would react to. It is as simple as that.”

  They all nodded.

  “OK, we have all our supplies and an inflatable mattress in our bags in the hallway. Each of you have a knife and now all that is left is to prepare our sheets. Put on rubber gloves, take your sheet and push it inside one of these creatures. Keep your hands away from the creature’s mouth. Even though the body is no longer functioning, the head and jaws still function and are lethal. Once you have your sheet saturated, don’t put it on yet. Just meet me out in the hall,” the doctor instructed. “I will redo my sheet so you can see what you should do.”

  The doctor pushed his sheet inside the creature, moved it around inside the creature for a moment, pulled out the sheet and left the room.

  Ken was next. He put on his rubber gloves, pushed his sheet into the same creature as the doctor had minutes before then threw up on the floor next to the bed.

  Jim laughed.

  “I thought it was funny too,” Ken said wiping the vomit from his face on his sleeve, “But wait to you stick your hands in this thing.”

  “I’m sure my breakfast will end up on the floor next to yours,” Jim grinned.

  “Better here than out there, I guess.” Ken said as he pulled his sheet out of the creature and went out in the hall.

  Ed was the last person to come out of the room.

  The others all looked at him when he stepped out into the hall.

  “It doesn’t smell too bad in there now,” Ed smiled. “I don’t think you can smell those things for all the vomit on the floor. I fell on my ass twice.”

  The doctor laughed, “Now follow me down to the first level. I was down there earlier. There are about twelve of the creatures in the hall that we will use to get to the door,” the doctor said. “We are going to go there first and clear the hallway before we start. This will give each of you some experience moving around among the dead.”

  The doctor picked up his laundry bag of supplies and walked to the stairway.

  Each of the men picked up their bag and followed the doctor.

  After taking a quick look around at what had been their home for much of the last year, they started down the stairwell, nervously thinking about what they were going to do.

  None of them worried about the trip down the river, they would gladly face that challenge when and if they made it that far.

  The dead out on the street was their biggest worry now.

  Each of them had seen friends and family torn to shreds by the dead. They could barely believe they were going to just walk out into the street with the dead.

  As they walked down the first few floors, they felt uncomfortable. When they reached the fourth floor they were nervous. They were terrified when they reached the second level.

  The doctor stopped and waited until all the men gathered around him.

  “When we get down to the door to go out in to the first floor hallway, we will go out into the hallway and just stand there. Jim and Ken, if I could get you to follow me,” Doc said. “The three of us will walk slowly down the hall towards the front door. I will kill the first five or six of the dead that we come to. If any of the dead get past me, I would like for you to kill them by pushing your knife into their skulls. The rest of you just watch what I do. This should put your minds at ease that our plan will work.”

  “OK Doc,” Ken replied. “I will follow you, but if I see that this isn’t working, I’m back in the stairway.”

  The doctor smiled. “Put on your sheets.”

  They could all hear each other gagging, but after the experience in the room above, there wasn’t anything left in their stomachs to come up.”

  The doctor smiled to himself as he watched and listened. He had accurately predicted the m
en’s reactions and hoped he had prepared them for what was to come next.

  “We are going out into the hall now,” the doctor said and then turned and pushed open the door.

  The men all stood together inside the hallway and looked at the dead that shuffled through the hall a few feet away.

  The doctor started down the hallway.

  The dead at first looked at the doctor as he started to move.

  They raised their heads into the air and looked as if they were sniffing the air.

  Then the dead, one by one, seemed to lose interest and continued to shuffle on.

  The doctor moved forward seemingly unnoticed by the dead.

  The doctor passed slowly by the first few creatures.

  After he passed by them, he slowly turned and through his sheet, pressed his knife into the back of their skulls.

  He slowly turned and continued down the hall.

  Moving slowly, he repeated this maneuver two more times.

  Now only three of the dead remained.

  The dead continued to stagger around aimlessly, ignoring the doctor.

  The doctor walked through them two times so the men would see that the plan would work.

  Then he slowly moved behind each of the dead and used his knife.

  When the last of the dead had been eliminated, the doctor spoke, “Does anyone have any questions about how our plan works?”

  “I couldn’t believe it Doc,” Ken said. “Those things didn’t even know we were here. Even when you were killing them they didn’t pay any attention.”

  “Is this how it will work out there?” Jim asked.

  “Yes, except we are not going to try and kill any of the dead out there unless it is absolutely necessary,” The doctor replied through his sheet.

  “I’m sold Doc,” Ed said sounding relieved.

  The other men also mumbled their surprise and agreement through their sheets.

  They all followed the doctor over to the double doors.

  They could all now see the hundreds of the dead that staggered around out on the street. The low hum of the dead groaning as they shuffled on the street penetrated into the hallway where the men stood looking out.