Aftershock: A Collection of Survivors Tales

by Kristopher Lioudis

  While that was being done I had Mick check the buildings with me. These assholes had been trapping groups in this little trap for a while now, and had accumulated a large stash. The only two things I was interested in were the weapons, and water. Our other supplies were more than enough to get us to our destination, but these two things would secure our welcome when we got there. We took load after load of guns out to the truck. I lost count of how many we picked up. The two cars were pushed to the side of the road, and we moved on.

  Daniel

  The scouting party I gathered never made it out to this other camp. We barely made it a couple miles past the outer wall before we ran into a herd of those fucking things.

  We were moving at a pretty good clip through the trees. Me and the 4 guys I thought would be healthy enough to make the march. I wanted to bring the kid, but I figured the Rev was going to be pissed enough at me over this little field trip; I didn’t want him pissed at Max too. Besides, if something went down while I was gone, the townies were gonna need him.

  We were cutting a trail north through the woods headed toward the highway. Jimmy thought maybe we could boost a car and drive at least part of the way there. We came out of the tree line into this little housing development. I figured, shit, if it was a car we were looking to steal, we should be able to find one here. I told the guys to keep their voices down and stick close to my back. We moved slowly around the backyard of a nice looking McMansion and out in the street were about two dozen moaners. They hadn’t noticed us yet. They were just kind of standing around looking down at their feet, sort of shuffling around a little.

  I had to wonder if maybe we couldn’t just sneak right past them if we were quiet enough. Jimmy broke that train of thought right the hell off when he pulled his revolver and started shooting. I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking and I never got a chance to ask. I pulled my pistol and called the retreat as all two dozen zombies turned and started toward us. Did I mention Jimmy was shit for accuracy with a handgun? We were so busy firing at the moaners in front of us that we didn’t see the handful come out of the house behind us.

  I heard a choked yell and turned just in time to see Jimmy get pulled down by two fat fucks in bathrobes. It was his own damned fault for starting this mess. The rest of us hauled ass back to the woods shooting back over our shoulders. Jimmy only screamed for a minute.

  We ran all the way back to the wall. I thought we outran them. I was sort of right. We hit the wall about ten minutes ahead of them. We busted through the gate and I went straight for the Rev’s place. Max was playing with his dog in the street. He saw me running and tore ass to catch up.

  He yelled as he was running, “What’s going on?!”

  I was too out of breath to respond in anything other than one word sentences. “Coming. Moaners. Lots. Get. Guys. Wall.”

  He got what I was saying and turned mid-stride to gather a fire team. This kid was good. I crashed through the door of the Rev’s house. He was at his desk with that damned journal. I stood there a second, hand on my knees trying to catch my breath.

  “What’s this about? Why did you…”

  I waved my hands to get him to shut up so I could get a deep enough breath to explain.

  “We were in the next town and we ran into some trouble. Some of it may have followed us back here,” I told him.

  “What were you doing there? And what do you mean some of it may have followed you back? What followed you back?”

  “Relax Rev. There’s maybe twenty moaners. Max already has a team at the wall to take care of them. It’s under control.”

  Now it was his turn to wave his hands at me. “Under control?! We are about to be attacked at any minute because you decided to go out on a beer run or for whatever reason. We will continue this conversation later, for now get to the wall.”

  It took a little longer than my ten minute estimate, what I didn’t count on was their group picking up stragglers along the way. There had to be at least a hundred and fifty of them, probably closer to two hundred, but with numbers like that a rough estimate was all you needed. By the time they showed up I had shooters on the wall waiting, I just didn’t have enough. As soon as I saw how many there were I leaned over to Max and told him to tell the Rev that it was time to go. I told him to go calmly to the Rev’s place and tell him it was time to blow this pop stand. Max took off to sound the alarm with his dog right behind him.

  There was no way we were going to keep this herd out for long, if at all. At least The Rev had at let me draw up a bug out plan and run a few drills with a handful of key people. A big part of that plan was in the shitter already. We didn’t have enough time to load everything I wanted to take into the trucks. I also had to hope that the Rev would let the kid run the show. Max knew what to do. The Rev would likely just stand there rebuking the moaners while they took us all down.

  The first zombies staggered into range. “All right boys,” I called out, “You know what to do. Take your time and make your shots count.”

  I sighted my first target and let my training take over. I heard shots popping off to my left and right as the men on the wall did the same. Not every shot was a kill, I would say it was probably closer to one out of ten for some guys, but we held them longer than I thought we would.

  We even managed to drop around thirty of them by the time they made to within banging distance of the wall. We kept firing as they piled up against the base. There were too many of them and we all knew it. Not one man left his post, though; I got to hand it to them for that. Nobody panicked, nobody ran. They just kept shooting as the wall started to buckle inward.

  I heard the first of the trucks fire up as the wall started to shimmy against the weight of all those bodies. I sounded the retreat.

  “Fall back! To the trucks, we are bugging out!”

  One after another, we jumped down and hauled ass for the line of pick-ups and cargo vans that Max and I had rounded up for just this occasion. Most of the townies had crowded around the area, each carrying a bag or a rifle or both. They were hurriedly loading gear into the vans and looking frantically over their shoulders in our direction. I waved them on with both hands, looking for Max and The Rev. I heard the wall fall as I made it to the edge of the crowd.

  “Get in the vehicles! Now!” I yelled as I turned to take a firing position. I thought if we could drop a few more of them it might buy us some time. Max dropped to a knee about five feet to my left and started shooting. A couple other guys from the wall took positions next to him.

  Moaners were pouring in through the busted section of fencing. I didn’t want to say anything out loud but I was going to have to give us pretty long odds on getting out of here. We were taking them out, just not fast enough.

  I heard the rest of the trucks start up and I looked back over my shoulder to see a couple of guys throwing open the front gates. Suddenly this seemed the worst idea in the world to me. Probably because as soon as the bar went up another stampede of zombies fell through the gate in a giant, biting mass. Fucking great, our odds just got a whole lot longer.

  The men at the gate were swallowed up, I don’t even think they had time to scream. One lady in the cab of the lead truck did. She slammed it into gear and spun the back tires spraying me and about twenty others with gravel and dirt. A couple of the people too close to the truck got cut up pretty bad, but in about three minutes they weren’t going to care. The truck finally got some traction and took off toward the open gate. She mowed down about six or eight moaners before running out of momentum and the tires started slipping in the mud again. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the driver tried to gun the engine and only succeeded in burying the back tires in the dirt and mud.

  As soon as the vehicle stopped they were on it, pounding the doors and trying to climb into the bed. By this point there were so many people screaming that I couldn’t tell which screams were coming from the truck and which weren’t. Not like it mattered by then.

  I saw Max tak
e off toward the truck firing his .22 pistol as he went. He even took a couple down and that is damned hard to do at a full run. I don’t know what his plan was; I don’t think he did either.

  The driver threw the door open and tried to make a run for it. She didn’t make three strides before being pulled to the ground. I saw her go down behind the truck, then I saw them pile on top of her, then I saw chunks of meat start flying through the air as they tore her apart.

  Max skidded to a halt, turned on his heel, and started toward another truck without missing a beat. Rocky was right at his side the whole time. It’s like he and the dog had some kind of telepathy. I knew guys who spent a lot of time in combat together that got that way. I had a second while reloading my rifle to wonder where the fuck the Rev was and why we weren’t rolling out with what we had loaded. I started to call out to Max when I got my answer. The Rev came barreling out his church with a ruck in one hand and a bible in the other. He started toward one truck, but stopped dead when he saw a swarm of moaners pour over about a dozen townies in the back of it. Max was frantically waving from the cab of a cargo van and the Rev moved toward that one instead.

  We were losing townies left and right. Anybody with a weapon never stopped firing though. I saw some brave bastards dying ugly. Looking back I think that’s what pissed me off the most. We should have been long gone before this ever happened. Had we left when I said we should have, we would be sitting pretty in a bunker by now. Not getting chewed up in the courtyard trying to get out before we all died. I started to fall back toward Max not so much to get away from the moaners, but because I wanted to get my hands on the Rev. More specifically, I wanted to get my hands on the Rev’s throat. I was almost out of ammo and as I looked around I saw more than half of the townies lying on the ground in various sized chunks. FUBAR doesn’t quite cover it, but it comes close. That morning we had around 80 men, women, and children eking out an existence within our walls. I doubted there were more than 15 of us left right now. I was going to choke the shit out of the Rev for this. I said a quick prayer to his god to keep him alive long enough so I could.

  I threw myself into the back of the cargo van that Max was driving and slammed on the front wall to get him to go. There were 7 townies back there with me, 4 men, 2 women, and one of Max’s friends. I spotted a pick-up with a handful of townies in the bed falling in behind us. We rolled the back door down as Max crashed through the half open gates and took off down the road. Every one of those townies has the same shell shocked look on his or her face.

  Back there rolling around with us were 8 or 10 duffle bags and half a dozen ammo cans. I could only hope we had more ammo in the pick-up. I knew Max knew where to go. Our plan involved a rally point twenty miles up the road. I had to hope the pick-up was going to meet us there. For now I slumped down against the side of the truck, closed my eyes, and tried to get those screams out of my head.

  Tim

  Things couldn’t have gone better during our first week away from the island. The weather was perfect, as it is in late Spring. I wasn’t sure she would come with me. All those weeks I spent planning and sneaking things into the boat, but I never told her what I was doing. She was friendly with me, more than she was with her other guards, but we were not friends. I took a huge chance, and it paid off.

  “Tim can I ask you a question?” she probed.

  “Anything. We are in this together kiddo.”

  “Why did you do it? Why risk everything to save me? You could have just left by yourself and they may not have even noticed you were gone. Or they could have figured that you were killed in the breach. Now you brought me along, and invited a mess of trouble. You know he is going to come after me, he has too big of an ego to let this slide. You made this so much more dangerous by bringing along.”

  “I thought you were going to ask one question,” I replied with a smile. I knew she would ask me these questions, but I never really figured out what I would tell her. I was going to have to wing it. “Jessica, I watched you since you were bitten. I couldn’t figure you out. You never looked scared. Always carried yourself with pride, even after he decided to lock you away and treat you as his own personal sex slave. I knew long before that though, I knew I had to save you. I was trapped too, but I didn’t care what happened to me. Then I saw you, and knew I had someone to fight for. “

  She smiled, then her head fell into her hands. “I was never that brave. Inside I was terrified. I hated the way he looked at me. Then he started touching…” she trailed off.

  I didn’t push.

  “I felt ill every day. I made the choice to act like it was alright, but it wasn’t. A piece of me died every time. I had no other choice as far as I could see. There was nowhere to hide. He was going to take me if I let him, or if I didn’t. What choice did I have?” She trailed off again.

  “No one can ever judge the decisions you made.” I stated. “You were in an impossible situation, with no right or wrong answers. Life is funny like that. It isn’t black and white. Instead, it is grey and muddy, and you end up covered in a mess. Getting through it, that’s the important part. You never cracked. You are so much stronger than I am. “

  “I never felt strong.” She sighed.

  “You may not have, but it was obvious to the rest of us that you are. You are by far the strongest woman I have ever met. That made you worth risking my life for.”

  “That sounded like a line from one of my books.” She giggled.

  “Cheesy? Yea, I guess, but true.” I snickered.

  From that moment on she was relaxed around me. She must have been so worried what my intentions were. I never thought of that in my preparations. Taking her from one man, and having her trapped with another, only in a much smaller space. Only I didn’t want to father a baby with her, so that was a plus. I couldn’t imagine wanting to bring a child into this world. Even if they had the chance of being immune, they still could be eaten alive.

  Vincent had told the rest of us about the flyer a few days before I set off the breach. He had taken it off of some people who had made the trip over from the mainland. As soon as their boat docked they were asked if anyone had ever been bitten before and recovered. They responded as most would with a laugh at its impossibility. This led to them being shot and stripped of all useful supplies. There was no quarantine zone for newcomers. Not unless there could be another woman to try to make a baby.

  I wondered what would have happened if another man was immune. My best guess is that Vincent would have him killed, and anyone who had the knowledge that he existed. Another immune male would take away his savior status, and we can’t have that. So, the flyer was found on these refugees and Vincent saw an opportunity to expand his kingdom. His two most trusted men were sent to find this mainland colony. Earl was not thrilled to be pushed out of the safe zone, but he would never disobey Vincent. Eddie was more than happy to take the assignment. He would do anything to prove his loyalty and value to his master.

  They had taken off four days before I set off the breach. I decided to give us a bit of space, and lucky for us I was in the room when they had discussed the route they would be taking. Earl made a few copies of the flyer. They wanted to make sure that they had backups in case the two of them didn’t make it back. What a morbid thought, making copies for your replacements. That was how I got my hands on a copy. I was asked to deliver them to the office and slid one off of the pile.

  Now here we are drifting along down some cedar water creek. Quietly making our way south towards the colony. The dead haven’t paid much attention to us. We only had to put down three so far. The woods are filled with them, but they have been ignoring the boat covered in reeds as it floats past them. If we can keep the pace we are making right now, we will be at the place in no time. I don’t want to be overly optimistic about this, but things couldn’t be going better.

  Test Subject 63-04

  I took a good, long look at myself in the reflection from the jeep’s windshield. Pretty hilarious.
I looked like I belonged in some post-apocalyptic science fiction movie. I started to chuckle, then I realized I might very well be in some post-apocalyptic science fiction movie. Not as much fun as it sounds.

  Nevertheless, I looked the part. Dressed in black fatigues with a rifle over my shoulder and a jeep full of random gear. Mad Max; eat your fucking heart out. Quick before the zombies do.

  Anyway, turns out I was in the CDC building in Virginia. Amazing what you can find out by looking at mail strewn all over the floor of an office. Fair warning, you may have to move aside the body of a guy in a lab coat with a pistol in his hand and a giant hole in the back of his head. Oh, and it is also going to smell really bad. Olfactory discomfort aside, you can gain a lot of valuable information, like your current location. This will come in handy when you decide to follow the advice of a flyer you found in a parking lot outside the government building you have been held in for an unknown amount of time. When this flyer gives you the location of a camp of some kind where you may be able to see another human being that won’t try to eat you alive, well you need to know the start point of your little trek…

  Jesus, I think I’m cracking up.

  I also found a GPS unit that seemed to still be functioning so that would do to get me started, but I have a backup map book with alternate routes already marked out. The trick is going to be getting out of Richmond. If I could get out of the city then I could pretty much run north parallel to I-95 for three hundred or so miles. I couldn’t pretend to know how long it was going to take. My best guess would be somewhere between six hours and a month. Depending, of course on how many people I had to kill between here and New Jersey…