“Got any people food in here?” he asked Cody.
“Let’s finish off whatever is in the fridge before it goes bad.” he said, and they all headed for the kitchen, pushing away any thoughts that they were eating other people’s lunches. People that were dead and running around killing other people.
They ate sitting around the fire and traded for the best sandwiches or bowls of microwaved soup, candy bars and fresh fruits. They talked quietly about the day and what had happened, how the world they knew no longer existed. They were kids, the oldest of them only fourteen. They’d grown up on dystopian video games and apocalyptic TV shows and end of the world movies. They’d seen hundreds of hours of zombie shows. They’d witnessed the screaming undead with their own eyes and they didn’t pretend they hadn’t. In case they forgot, in case they thought they were having a waking dream, all they had to do was walk out to the front entrance. Mr. Baynard was there clawing at the bars, his burnt and melted face not much more than a blackened skull. Others had wandered in during the day and there were probably ten or fifteen of those things pressed against the gate. They knew they were the lucky ones and they didn’t think the families that left was still alive. They knew they were safe where they were at and they knew no one was coming to save them. Cody took a poll just to make it official and no one wanted to leave, even if they could. Their families knew where they were. They would come if they were still alive. The safari was their new home.
“Okay.” he said, “I can show you everything I know about the park tomorrow. We’ll have to figure out what to do with all the animals but I’ve got a few ideas. I think we’ll be okay here, it’s pretty secure and it’s off any main roads. You have to be looking for this place to find it.”
As the fire died down, phone batteries went dead, bellies were full and eyes got heavy, Cody told them there were rooms upstairs they could claim if they wanted. No one did. They pulled cushions off of couches and chairs in the offices and used them for makeshift mattresses as he and Donny went to the gift shop to grab armfuls of Mexican blankets and souvenir cushions they could use as pillows.
Murray claimed the couch and rested the weather radio he’d grabbed from the kitchen on his chest. The parks crew had never changed the frequency but it had a couple of different settings. There were a lot of weather stations from different parts of the country and the emergency channel but it didn’t have regular radio. Vanessa turned off the lights and they listened in the dancing firelight as he scanned through the stations looking for any kind of news. Any voices in the night. He caught the same broadcast warning occasionally distant, echoed and automated. He’d listen for a while before turning the dial but no one ever said anything new. It was all the same warning, nothing was updated. By the time he gave up and turned it off, most of them were fast asleep.
13
Day One
Ever since the accident that left him in the wheelchair, Murray had been an early riser. He was embarrassed by the shriveled twigs that were now his legs and being walked in on in the bathroom caused him a great deal of embarrassment. He’d developed the habit of being the first up to tend to his needs in the mornings. He was fully capable of taking care of himself and found it demeaning when someone offered to help him with his toilet duties, even his parents.
He wheeled himself in circles around the lobby, a habit he had when he was anxious or excited. His mind raced, one idea jumbling over another as he intermittently paused to check his phone or scribble in his notebook. This is it. The big one, TEOTWAWKI as the doomsday preppers on TV called it. The End of the World As We Know It. Unable to contain himself any longer, he rolled over and shook Cody.
“Get up man.” he said in a loud whisper, “We got stuff to do. We are running out of time.”
He watched as Cody shook off the fog of sleep. Confused at his surroundings, the boy looked around and his face fell when he saw that nothing had changed from the previous night. So much for it all just being a bad dream. Donny was coming in from outside with an armful of wood and started stoking the fire to burn off the early morning chill.
Cody padded back into the room, having ignored whatever it was that was so important until he could go to the bathroom. Everyone else was stretching and yawning, wrapped in colorful blankets and looking sleepy-eyed. Murray was scribbling furiously in his notebook but when he looked up and saw everyone was mostly awake, he announced loud enough so they all could hear.
“We don’t have long. The power grid is gonna fail, internet and cell phones will probably go first. Are there generators here? How many? How much fuel? What about guns and survival gear?”
Cody shook his head in confusion and some of the others frowned at him, not understanding or maybe not really wanting to understand.
“Listen to me man, I’ve been gaming the apocalypse for years now. These may not be crawling out of the graveyard trying eat your brains type of zombies, but they are zombies. We know this. We gotta get a plan. No one’s coming to save us. They’re either all dead or like those things outside. Which, technically, they’re dead, too, I guess.”
His animated voice snapped them out of their sleep stupor and they listened as he ranted.
“Slow down,” Vanessa said, “and tell us what you are talking about.”
Murray rattled off one thing after another like it was inevitable. Like it was a fact. Like their whole terrible situation wasn’t temporary and things would soon be fixed. It’s not like after a hurricane or earthquake or flood or forest fire. Things were bad then but things got better. Somebody always came to help.
“Nobody is coming!” he exclaimed. “There’s nobody left. That wasn’t fake news last night. You guys gotta see the big picture, man. We don’t have much time before everything shuts down. If we don’t download all the knowledge we’re ever going to need right now, it’ll be lost forever.”
He had their attention then went on to explain, drawing his knowledge from books, movies, video games and the hundreds of internet searches he’d been doing for the last few hours.
“Electricity runs everything.” he said. “Without it, we’re back in the dark ages. We only have a few days at the most before the power grid crashes and the world goes dark.”
“I think you’re getting carried away.” Harper said. “C’mon, Murray. Everybody’s not dead. We can’t be the only survivors. There’re probably whole cities that are safe. This can’t be everywhere.”
“We don’t have time to pretend!” Murray exclaimed. “If I’m wrong, then it’s no big deal, we spent a few hours downloading stuff. We can delete it later. But we need to get everything we can about survival. What kind of plants are edible or medicinal, how to grow crops, smoke and cure meat, first aid, how to build snares and fish traps. The list is endless. We have to save it offline because in a day or two, everything online, the complete knowledge of everything in the world is going to be lost.”
They were generation Z, they’d never known a world without high speed internet, facetime or instantaneous answers to any question they might have. Most of their skills and talents were rooted in technology and as they listened to Murray talk about planting seeds and learning how to spin cotton into cloth, they hugeness of yesterday settled down on them.
They looked at him like he’d grown an extra head. No one was in a rush to do anything, they still looked shell shocked and unsure.
“I’ll make you a deal.” Murray said. “If you can find one other live person out there, anybody we can talk to on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat…whatever, find one other person and I’ll admit I’m wrong, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.”
“My battery is almost dead.” Swan said. “I can’t waste it on nonsense.”
“They sell chargers in the gift shop.” Cody said. “I’ll get some.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about spinning wool to make clothes.” Harper said. “If everybody is dead, there will be plenty at the mall.”
“Yeah, okay, point taken.” Murray said “But regardless, we�
�re going to lose the internet soon. Maybe even today and when it goes, so does all of the information. We need to save as much survival stuff as we can.”
Cody returned a few minutes later with a handful of charging cables and one by one they finally had to admit what they already knew in their hearts. They scoured every far corner of the internet they could find, they watched live traffic feeds from a hundred different cities and everywhere it was the same. The undead wandered about unchecked and unchallenged. Donny watched for a while, knew by the looks on their faces what Murray said was true, then went outside to check the fence line. He wanted to double check the spot where he’d slipped under was secure.
It didn’t take long for the rest of them to set down their phones and stare listlessly into the dying fire.
“What are we supposed to do?” Vanessa asked. “Why bother doing anything, we’re all dead, it’s just a matter of time.”
This was one bet Murray would have gladly lost but he’d had hours to wrap is head around their situation. He had sincerely wished he were dead more times than he could count so he knew how some of them were feeling. They had a chance, though. They were lucky to be where they were, isolated from big population centers and surrounded by a strong fence. Now they had to get over their grieving for friends and family. They didn’t have time to be despondent over the death of the world. He had to get them talking, get them to join him in saving knowledge before it was gone and fortifying the park if it needed it. He spoke quickly, told them they didn’t have time to be sad, they could do that next week. He laid out his argument, expounded on their need to be fast and urged them to help him gather everything they would need to start rebuilding.
“Does anybody have a credit card?” he finally asked. “We can buy a bunch of prepper eBooks.”
No one did.
“Aren’t there websites about that?” Harper asked. “Just get it for free.”
“Loads of them.” Murray said. “I’ve been scouring them for the last couple of hours, my phone is almost full, but it’s only bits and pieces here and there and it takes time to find good articles. Time we don’t have. We need to buy every book on Amazon about gardening and making tools and fixing machines and first aid. We need to download them and make copies and save them, it’ll be the only thing that prevents us from reverting back to cavemen.”
They were all wide awake now and realized what he was saying was probably true. Most of it, anyway. They wouldn’t be swinging clubs, grunting at each other and wearing rough furs if they didn’t get all the information he was ranting about but while it was available, they should try.
“Okay.” Cody said. “In the office is the main computer, I don’t know how big the hard drive is but it’s got to be bigger than all of our phones combined. You want to take charge of that, Murray?”
“Find me a credit card. It might be the only thing that can save our lives.” he said dramatically and wheeled off.
“There’s probably a purse or wallet laying around outside.” Swan said. “I’ll go look.”
“I’ll help.” Vanessa said and followed her out. “We’ll find one, don’t worry Murray.”
“I’ve got to milk the cow.” Cody said. “She’ll start bawling if it’s late, I guess it hurts her or something.”
“We’ll figure out something for breakfast.” Tobias said and his twin sister nodded.
“Oh yeah, if one of you want to come with me, we can get the eggs from the chickens.” Cody said and Harper volunteered.
As Cody worked methodically filling the pail with warm milk, he considered what else they had inside the walls of the sanctuary. There was a generator and the fifty-gallon fuel tank for it they used for the meat lockers in case of a power outage. The electric golf carts had solar panels on their roofs as trickle chargers for the batteries but he knew from experience if you forgot to plug one in at night, the little solar charger didn’t really do much. One of the carts had a cigarette lighter on it that could charge their phones, the panels could probably keep those in power.
There was a hand pump in the kitchen that pulled water from the old well. It still functioned as it was a part of the historical tours to let people see how water was drawn from the ground when Piedmont house was first built. He didn’t know how good the water was but it had to be better than drinking from the Mississippi.
Donny met up with the girls and searched everywhere, even in the bathrooms, but the only purses or wallets they saw were laying out in the parking lot. The undead milling around the front of the park went crazy when they saw them and slammed into the bars, hands reaching, faces pressed hard and tried to squeeze through. They slipped back behind the snack shack so they were out of sight and the keening died down a little.
“Did you see the lady in the hiking outfit?” Swan asked with a little shake in her voice. “The one near the ticket booth?”
Donny and Vanessa peeked back around the edge and saw the one she was talking about. A woman with filthy cargo shorts, a shredded plaid shirt and a rugged leather satchel slung over one shoulder.
“You think that’s her purse?” Vanessa asked already figuring out what the other girl had in mind.
Swan nodded
“We have to get it.” she said. “We have to. They’re depending on us.”
The other two agreed and they started trying to come up with a plan, taking occasional peeks around the corner to make sure she was still there and trying to force her way through the steel. Donny pointed at one of the golf carts and mimed his idea. The girls made horrified faces but it would probably work. And it was a lot less dangerous than anything else they’d thought of.
They picked out a four-seater and Swan took the wheel since she’d done a little kart racing and then Donny climbed in the back, ready to snatch it when they got close. Swan circled behind the row of buildings that housed the nurse’s station and gift shop then lined herself up beside the fence. The cart, like the rest of those is the park, was electric and silent. She gave the horn a short toot when they were in place and Vanessa stepped out from behind the snack shack and waved her arms. The undead surged harder against the bars as she came closer. They snarled and snapped their teeth, stretched out hungry arms and reached for her with blood crusted hands. Swan floored it and steered close to the gate, scraping the fiberglass body and steel framed windshield support along it. She gritted her teeth as pieces of the cart broke and flew off. She nearly screamed when she hit the first outstretched arms, breaking them with a horrible chicken bone snapping sound. They twisted in a way no arm was supposed to bend and she slammed the brakes right in front of the hiker woman. Donny reached through the bars and grabbed the satchel and tugged but the strap didn’t break. Twitching, broken hands tried to grasp at him. Fingers pawed but were unable to grip. They clasped weakly on his arms and he opened his mouth to scream a silent scream. The cold flesh grabbing him was revolting, it was clammy and disgusting and he was going to throw up. The girls were yelling at him to hurry and he was trying but every time he jerked on it, the woman just slammed harder into the bars. An arm snaked up from the ground, one of the crawlers being trampled by the others, and grabbed at Swans ankle. Another misshapen hand tangled itself in her hair, reached for her eyes. She screamed her own scream then and mashed the go pedal. The hand on her ankle was strong and would have pulled her out of the cart if she hadn’t had a death grip on the steering wheel. Donny managed to get a double grip on the satchel as they lurched away from the bloody, mangled horde and watched with horror as the strap finally slid up over her head. It caught her neck, snapped it and nearly jerked him out of his seat.
Swan didn’t stop until she was back at the main house and then just sat there shaking, her fingers white in a death grip on the wheel. The others came running, they’d heard the commotion and her screams. Donny threw the satchel on the seat and sprang out, running for the bushes to throw up. The feel of those clammy dead fingers scrabbling against his skin was the most vile and disgusting thing he’d ever
felt in his life. It was like cold spiders creeping over him and trying to burrow their way in. When he rejoined the group, Vanessa was triumphantly holding up the wallet and a half dozen credit cards.
14
Cody
They helped Cody with the rest of the animals and when they gathered for the late breakfast the twins had whipped up, they were feeling a little better. Even though Donny and Swan thought they’d never be hungry again, it smelled too good and they dove in like the rest.
“Any updates on the computer?” Annalise asked as Murray rolled in and took his place. “Any new news?”
They all turned to him and knew the answer before he shook his head then spoke softly so they had to strain to hear him.
“Nothing. I mean nothing official. Not overseas, not here in America, not any news channel, not any blog. There were some new twitter posts but it was from people like us. I answered all of them and a few answered back but there isn’t anything from anybody that’s in charge. Just people spread out all over, all alone and with zombies surrounding them. Nobody knows anything, really.”
Nobody had anything to add to that dour news and they ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t like it was a big surprise but they had almost managed to forget when they were taking care of the animals.
Cody broke the quiet and started talking about his ideas to free most of the animals, to let them run wild in the open areas. They could pretty much take care of themselves. Some they would need to keep penned in, the farm animals from the petting zoo and the predators like the panther, the bears and the wolves. They would need daily care, they would have to be fed and watered. The meat lockers would last a little while after the power failed but after the generators exhausted their fuel supply what was left would spoil quickly.
“That will be a problem.” he told them. “None of the hunters know how to be wild. They were all raised in captivity and we can’t just set them free. That would be cruel. They might do okay here inside the fences, all the antelope and gazelles are trapped, but outside they’d starve to death. The panther would lick a rabbit to death before he tried to eat one. The polar bears probably couldn’t catch a fish out of a kiddie pool.”
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 8
