JIM: Of course not!...why would you ask that?
REGGIE: Cause everything's fucked, that's why.
JIM: We're gonna be fine.
REGGIE: Jack, man, are you okay?
ME: Yeah...I'm fine.
REGGIE: You wanna-
ME: No, I don't. I'm just trying to think and focus right now on our next move.
KELLY: How's everything going to be alright, Jim? Huh? Our home was just destroyed by those things. We have nothing. Our food...protection...water...everything!
JIM: We'll go back tomorrow and see what's left that we can scavenge. Jack? That a good starting point, you think?
ME: Huh? Oh..um, yeah. We'll do that.
KELLY: What if those things are still there??
REGGIE: They took off after....they took off, they wouldn't be there.
KELLY: They all might not have ran off!
REGGIE: So what if they didn't? If there's any of them there we just keep driving. Come back another time. Not like they're gonna stay there.
JIM: We've never seen that many Bolters like that! I wonder if maybe over time some packs just happened to run into each other and stuck together, adding more to their ranks, ya think? Maybe it was a rare thing they do.
REGGIE: I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe they will form packs that large...I hope it wasn't normal behavior.
JIM: Shit, that wasn't a pack. That was a damn Bolter horde.
REGGIE: It was a nightmare. Plain and simply. Fucking nightmare, man. I got nothing. My skull is fuckin' numb. How you holding up, Ben? You're too quiet.
BEN: I'm alright...just scared. Really scared.
REGGIE: You and me both, little man.....you and me both...
ME: Maybe that's what took out the middle school...those fuckin' bastards.
JIM: Maybe. Easily could have. If that horde is still roaming the area and didn't break apart we have to be careful. Extremely careful.
KELLY: No shit? You think, Jimmy?
JIM: Hey, I'm just talking...I don't know what to say!
KELLY: [sigh] I know. I'm sorry...
ME: Tim saved our lives. We ain't gonna just give up. Tomorrow we'll go back and see what we can find. It's not secure enough to stay there. It felt safe but it wasn't. Even with reinforced boarding they broke through and they did so fast as hell. Even Roamers...enough of them anyway...would have gotten through eventually.
REGGIE: yeah, but least with those slow ass fuckers we could have caused some kind of distraction or maybe waited them out.
ME: We go tomorrow and we gather essentials quickly. Food, water, weapons and ammo. Flashlights.
KELLY: Then what?
ME: Then...I say we drive around and look for this place called Haven.
KELLY: They could be lunatics for all we know!
ME: That wasn't the vibe we felt at all at the middle school. Or would you rather we head toward Kent and see how those people respond toward us?
KELLY: Alright, alright. But I don't like it. At all!
JIM: We're out of options. We need people. It's what we've been saying...strength in numbers. Are any of the other safe houses any warmer than this?
REGGIE: Nope.
JIM: Okay...so supplies and looking for Haven. Good start. Right?
ME: What have we got to lose?
***
All of us slept late into the morning. It was frigid and we were all chilled to our cores. We ate a little from our stash and waited for the sun to rise further into the sky; hoping for the temperatures to rise. Just a little at least. But stepping outside later it felt worse.
We piled everything back into the back of the vehicle and headed home. Rather, what was once home. What was left of it. As we approached the drive I half expected that horde to be there. But it wasn't. It looked clear in every direction. We made damn sure that it was, too. We drove around the block two times before going down that driveway.
It had all happened so fast. No one grabbed weapons except Reggie and myself. Probably because we were on watch and had them anyway. The others were sent into panic mode and didn't grab shit. Therefore, Reggie and I entered first. I with my pistol and he with the rifle. The others trailed us a good ten feet.
We checked every room. It was clear. We looked around in disbelief at the broken boards and shattered glass. I looked at the ground and seen Tim's blood trail leading to the basement door.
I went back outside and backed the SUV up to the front door. We gathered boxes of food and water. Jim and Kelly worked on all that. Reggie and Ben and Me grabbed all the guns we could carry and loaded backpacks full of ammo. It'd last a little awhile.
I found my crowbar. For some reason, that made me smile. Damn thing helped me out from the start. I'm oddly sentimental about little things like that. This one seemed overly odd though.
Kelly was in the right state of mind to remember collecting all the meds we needed that we scavenged from Mantua Station. After a couple more sweeps of the house we decided we had everything of use.
Now we set out in search of this elusive safe zone.
***
As we drove around we made several stops at random homes that had a vehicle or two remaining in order to siphon gas. Our cans were empty save for one that had about a quarter left.
We cleared each home while we were at them to salvage any supplies we could find. It was usually the same; assorted cans of fruits and vegetables or stale chips and cereal. Spoiled milk and eggs and the like in the fridges. Sometimes some boxes or bags of pasta. It was always a good day when we'd find some bottles of water.
We felt lost and desperate. In a matter of horrid moments we went from comfortably secure to shattered and wandering with no place to go. For a little awhile...it felt so safe. We got a little too secure in ourselves. Too complacent. Now one of us were dead and our home destroyed.
ME: The middle school. That's where we're going now.
REGGIE: The fuck for, man?! It's gone.
JIM: What's the point?
ME: When we were there we didn't see any infected except that one we could see wandering down the hall.
KELLY: Doesn't mean they aren't swarming in there.
ME: Right, but we need to check it out. We might be able to find answers there. Maybe not where Haven is at but obviously some survivors set out for there and came back to leave a sign. We can get an idea of who these people were. If it's not fully infested we need to check it out. Know what kind of people they were.
JIM: That's not a bad idea.
KELLY: Or it could be a suicide mission!
REGGIE: What else we gonna do, Kell? We're out of options. We need to find somewhere to go. It's our best chance to find...something! We'll just end up dying out here in this cold ass shit!
BEN: Let's just go. Like Reggie said...we're gonna die out here. If we don't find a place to go we're fucked.
KELLY: Nice language, Ben.
BEN: Seriously? Tim died, we're stuck out in the cold because our home was destroyed and the dead are hunting the living...I don't think my language means much of shit.
KELLY: [sigh]
ME: I hate the thought of staying at The Hutt any longer than we must. It's freezing in there now. If the temps drop below zero...
JIM: let's just get a move on.
A little bit later we pulled to the front of the school. The doors were shattered like most others we see. I won't deny that as horrible as we felt we had gotten a little reckless. I didn't feel like waiting and watching; I simply got out and walked toward the doors. It was too cold to sit and wait anyway. To my surprise Reggie was the first to follow me. No complaint of being scared. No nervous shuffling. Only shivers and clattering teeth.
I carried the crowbar and walked through the broken glass. Inside I clicked on my light and gazed down the long hall leading back to where the art room was.
I had a flashback of seeing that Bolter looking at me inside that discount store. That brought on a different kind of shiver that just made me all the colder.
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I looked right into the glass of the office. No movement. No sounds. I thought...fuck it. I crouched down and banged the crowbar rapidly against the hard floor, sending echoes through the halls.
Now Reggie did the shuffle and flipped the hell out on me. I heard the others outside gasp and begin cussing. No Dead Calls. No sound of Bolters rushing through the school. By no means did that mean it was clear. But we could roam around. No pun intended.
The others piled in and looked around; their lights clicking on and sending beams through the dust and dark. Blood stains covered the floors. Smears and dragging handprints.
It seemed most logical to check the office first. After all, it was right there and common sense dictated that whomever had been in charge would have likely used it.
The room welcomed us with the stench of death. Straight ahead on the floor and leaned against the wall was the body of a middle aged man. There was a large splatter of blood behind his head and a pistol was resting in his dead hand.
It was clear that he had been swarmed and cornered. The dead had still devoured parts of his remains. His entrails were pulled from the stomach and hanging from the shreds in his sweater.
Large chunks of flesh were stripped from his arms. He wasn't completely eaten so the infected must have been distracted in the chaos and went after others.
I walked around the front desk and looked around. There were some papers on the other side. Notes about trading with Haven. These two groups must have set these places up rather quickly in the early days of the plague. It wasn't huge amounts of trading. Simple things really. Some meds in exchange for some water. Food for fishing equipment. Even trades for booze and smokes. That made me smile. First time since we lost one of our own and our home. I felt guilty for that smile.
All the notes indicated friendly relations between the two. It was a promising sign that made us hopeful. It lifted our spirits just a little bit. Only a little...because Haven seemed far away since we couldn't locate it...and for all we knew, it could have been gone too. This looked like it had been a strong set up with a good amount of people and the place was lost.
We were lucky we lasted as long as we had in that house. We were good at being cautious and quiet...but that didn't matter in the end.
We walked around some of the halls looking in rooms for any supplies left behind. Looked like survivors had returned to gather what they could...just like we had done.
Many of the rooms had beds set up. I assumed many rooms on the second floor were set up in similar fashion. People had hung and placed decor to give the rooms a homey kind of feel; rugs, pictures, etc. Now they were all speckled with blood.
The final hit to our psyche came when we opened a door that was used as a play room and classroom. Toys were strown about with blood streaks over the floor. A discarded doll had clots of blood in its fake blonde hair.
Kelly turned away and threw up on the floor; what little she had in her.
Ben went to look inside but I stopped him and shut the door. He didn't object. Jim tended to his wife as Reggie and I exchanged a look of horror and shock.
As we stepped out into the cold I looked over at the sign instructing to find Haven. It gave me an idea. It was pointed out to me that it might be a bad idea...bad people could find it first...we'd just have to be prepared for that. But I reiterated the point that we had nothing to lose at that point. How much longer could we make it in this cold. We never took the time to set up plans in the event we had to suddenly leave our home. We weren't prepared and now we were paying for it. After thinking we'd finally wised up and had everything going great we proved again to be naive and stupid.
In hindsight it's really amazing we survived that many months in that house. Then again...who could have predicted that Bolters would form together in a giant horde. We'd never seen anything like it.
Before we left I placed my own sign next to the other in case they came back.
Where is Haven?
Need Help
Roller Hutt
***
Thankfully it had warmed up a bit and clouds rolled in to offer some insulation. The night wasn't as cold as the previous and for that we were all grateful.
REGGIE: I hope we didn't fuck up today, man. I really don't.
JIM: Like we said...out of options. This is one of the coldest months of winter. Always is. Anytime it could get colder. I can remember plenty of days and nights well below zero and the windchill negative ten...fifteen. Sometimes worse!
ME: Right. Also, it's not like we can really build a fire anywhere without attracting attention to ourselves.
KELLY: And what if no one comes? What if that place is gone...wiped out like the school?
REGGIE: Then we're fucked ducks, that's what!
JIM: We're also getting low on our stocked food in here. We're going to have to go and scavenge.
BEN: We can't all leave...what happens if they show up and we ain't here. They'll assume we split.
KELLY: I'm not comfortable with only a few of us staying behind...what if someone comes and they're hostile?
ME: Even if we're all here and assholes show, we could still be out gunned and out manned. But I don't like the idea of us splitting up either. Not after everything.
JIM: Coldest damn time of the year...fuckers picked a great time to smash our home to shit. We had food, water....heat!
KELLY: No point even talking about that. Homes gone.
BEN: Hey...it's not like there's not other houses with fire places! There's plenty of old places around!
REGGIE: The fuck?! Why didn't our stupid asses think of that, man?? This kid is smarter than the rest of us combined apparently!
ME: But it won't be as reinforced as this building. We have brick walls. Thick walls. Little to no windows and sound doesn't escape easily.
JIM: Seriously, Jack?
ME: What?
JIM: You're right, the place has walls...walls that even that massive Bolter swarm couldn't get through. But there were probably fifty of them...maybe more. Regardless of these walls...steel doors or not...those doors will not hold against that many of them. We'd also have no escape route to even run. We'd be canned food in here for them.
REGGIE: He's right, Jack. As secure as this badass little place is...it could also be a fuckin' death trap.
KELLY: I say we listen to the kid. Too many more cold nights could be the end of us anyway. As for why none of us thought of it, Reggie, is because we're all emotionally screwed right now after everything.
REGGIE: I'm just glad he thought of it.
ME: He's been much more silent then we have been. He's been thinking while we've been talking too much to even think....Good job, Ben.
BEN: So we're going?
JIM: What about someone showing up?
ME: I donno....I'll...I'll leave a note on the inner door before we leave.
REGGIE: Sayin' what? Oh, hey...we left. Y'all took too damn long. Peace out?
ME: No smartass...we'll leave the address of the place we find to stay in.
REGGIE: Oh yeah...that's a pretty good idea....Ben, you're rubbing off on him.
BEN: Well, that's good...cause I saved all our sorry asses.
REGGIE: Take that ego down a notch, boy.
BEN: Pfft.
ME: Well, not sure about you guys, but I'm not looking for a house near our old one.
JIM: No.
REGGIE: Hail Nah!
KELLY: No complaints here.
JIM: [shakes head]
BEN: Nope. I'm good.
ME: Okay...well first things first...we have to find a place. So someone has to stay behind here while some of us look around. Two go and three stay.
KELLY: Is that wise? It's more dangerous out there than in here.
ME: But if assholes show up here I'd feel better knowing there's more of us here to defend this place. It's dangerous out there...but most of the infected are slow and/or frozen. With the exception of....those mother fuckers. I'm going. Who's going w
ith?
REGGIE: I'll be your wingman.
ME: You sure?
REGGIE: I said it didn't I?
ME: Okay...we'll set out in the morning. When we find a suitable house we'll go back to our old home and gather some of that shit-ton of wood we cut. Rather, Tim cut.
KELLY: Maybe look for one that's not as out in the open like the other. Maybe some light got their attention. We need more cover.
The Dead Lands Diary (Book 1) Page 20
