by White, A. L.
Willie turned back toward the men, “Sarge, looks like a good spot up here to pull in and stretch our legs for a few minutes.”
The Sergeant made his way to the front passenger seat and agreed with Willie.
“Doctors, I think we may get to do a little site seeing here if you want to go in and check things out, find some supplies and maybe a specimen or two,” the Sergeant yelled back to them.
***
Bob Watson went over his inventory of supplies the same way he had every morning since the shit hit the fan. He had enough human food to last three months, enough dog food to last six months—a year if anything happened to one of the Lads, enough water to last them close to a year, enough ammo to fight a small war, and enough gas to keep the generator going for a few weeks. He wasn’t too worried about the gas; there were plenty of abandoned vehicles out there with gas in the tanks just waiting for him. He had originally planned on having enough food to last thirty days for himself and his wife, but she had decided that there was something better out there for her just before the shit hit the fan. That better thing was twenty years younger and over one hundred pounds lighter than he was—probably hadn’t had a single joint replaced either, Bob mused. He thought about going out and looking for her after this all happened. He knew the dogs missed her, and in truth, he did a little some days, a lot on other days. But he was safe. He had his defenses all planned out and there was no reason to venture too far away from there at the moment. Part of him, against his better judgment, kept waiting for the cavalry to ride in and save the day. He knew that wasn’t going to happen. There had been no sight of local police or emergency services for months. It was just him, the dogs, and the zombies outside, around the perimeter.
***
Lori reached the top of the stairs in time to see Jay fire an arrow at the faces outside of the family room window. With a crash, the arrow smashed into the window, causing it to shatter and the creatures were gone. Jay turned and ran out the front door in what Lori thought was a futile attempt to kill them—whatever they were. Virginia started screaming, drawing the attention of the zombies around the backyard fence, causing them to surge forward. The weight of so many of them pushing in one space was forcing the fence to give in places. Now even the backyard wouldn’t be a haven to venture out occasionally. Lori rushed to her baby sister and hugged her close.
“Shhhh Virginia, we have to be quiet for a few minutes okay?”
Virginia stopped screaming and buried her head into Lori’s chest, shutting the world out. At that moment there was only her and her big sister, nothing else. Lori on the other hand, was trying to keep Virginia calm and assess their new predicament. One thing was clear to her; she was going to have to retrieve Jay if he didn’t come back fairly quickly. That wouldn’t be easy to do dragging Virginia along with her. Virginia could shoot a crossbow, that wasn’t the problem. She was probably the best shot out of all three on a target range. Whether her skill would hold up with something coming at her, Lori didn’t know. How would Virginia react out there? Unfortunately, they were going to find out. Lori couldn’t her there now; the broken window was a breech in their security. There wasn’t time to find Jay and board up the window.
Lori decided finding Jay and keeping what was left of the family together was the important thing. She knelt down to Virginia and told her what they had to do and that she needed to be strong for all of them. Lori handed her a crossbow and quiver and then led her to the wide-open front door. She could see that the zombies were already gathering around the front porch. Luckily, they were not like whatever the other thing was, these zombies couldn’t climb the stairs. Lori could see that if they went to the right, they could easily out-maneuver them.
Before Lori could give her the plan, Virginia was out the door and heading toward the large bush on the right side of the yard. Lori followed right behind her as the surge of zombies shifted like a wave to follow them. Once off the porch, Virginia cut through the large evergreens on Mr. Gowwers' yard that marked the end of his property and the beginning of theirs, then left onto the street and crouched down behind a van. For the moment they were safe; the zombies were not agile enough to navigate the evergreen branches very easily.
Virginia set off across the street, hiding behind another car. Lori followed. “Okay, now what?”
“I am following you, silly,” Virginia said with a smile, reminding Lori of better times.
She looked down the street toward the direction Jay had run. There was no sign of him anywhere on the street. They would have to make their way up the street, looking between all the houses for any sign of him.
“Okay, let’s just move from car to car and look for Jay. And Virginia, keep an eye out for other things too!”
Virginia nodded her head and they left the safety of the car, heading toward the next one. Luckily the Smiths across the street had half of their family living with them at the time, so the front of their house was lined with cars. When she caught back up to Virginia, the little girl pointed toward the windows of the house. Lori could see the zombies moving around in the living room.
Well, Lori thought, that explains why they hadn’t seen any candlelight coming from there for the past month.
She and Virginia worked their way up to the last Smith family car. From there it would be three or four houses before another car could be used for cover. The street looked fairly clear with the exception of the yard around their house.
Instead of making mad dashes, Virginia followed Lori down the street, mimicking her every move. They walked slow and cautiously with their crossbows at the ready. As she passed each house, Lori would make a slow spin to check in between the house to her right and then to the left. Then they would inch forward to the next small piece of land dividing the houses. When she felt comfortable, they would move forward to the next one. They were almost at the end of the street, about three houses to go, when she saw the arrows stuck into the vinyl siding. Lori motioned to Virginia that they were going to be crossing the street. The little girl nodded and followed behind.
As she moved between the houses, Lori counted the arrows on the ground and the ones stuck in the siding. She counted eight, so Jay had time to shoot at something even if it looked like he hadn’t hit anything. Her mind quickly calculated how many arrows were in her quiver and realized that Jay didn’t have many left.
Why hadn’t he picked the ones up on the ground and taken them with him? Then she noticed the blood on the grass. At first just droplets, easy to miss, but then too much for Lori to even imagine seeing outside of a B-horror-movie. She quickly motioned for Virginia to stop and stay. The last thing she needed was for Virginia to scream again.
Virginia stopped and quickly picked up the arrows on the ground, placing them in her quiver. She’s daddy’s little girl, Lori thought before the blood pulled her back to reality.
She could see that the blood was getting thicker as it rounded the corner of the house to her right and could hear an odd sound coming from that way. It was kind of a murmur, she thought, a low constant rumble or murmur. She raised the crossbow up and inched forward, expecting something to jump out at her any minute. With each step the murmur got louder, and the blood began looking like a puddle. Everything else was silent. She could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears, the squishing sound her shoes were making as she stepped through the blood-soaked grass and then the murmur.
As she reached the corner of the house Lori took a stance with her back to the wall and took a quick glance over at Virginia. She was there, kneeling on one knee, aiming her crossbow toward Lori with three or four arrows stuck softly into the ground. She didn’t look like sweet Virginia, her baby sister, but like a child who had grown up in some war-torn part of the world.
Lori took a deep breath, struggling to control herself, and then peeked around the corner. She quickly snapped her head back and fought the urge to vomit. Her heart took off at what felt like a million beats per second as a crushing weight constricted
her chest. She wanted to just run as far from there as she could, never turning back. An arrow shot past her with a swishing sound followed closely by another. She whipped her gaze back over to Virginia. The little girl was sighting something else and unleashed another arrow passing close then moving beyond Lori. She could hear thuds all around her and then another swish.
“Lori, let’s GO!” Virginia screamed and Lori took off running and flew past her sister. She could still hear the swishes and thuds behind her but she kept running. Then there was an explosion of sound behind her and she fell to the ground only then turning to see if Virginia was behind her; she wasn’t. Virginia was standing in the middle of the street with a white haired, fat man and two large, black dogs. The man was shooting a machine gun into the hoard of zombies and the dogs were attacking any of them that got too close. Her baby sister was right in there too, using what arrows she had left taking down zombies with her crossbow. Lori rose up and took aim, firing arrow after arrow as she joined the others.
“Little ladies, I think it is time for you, me and the Lads to head to safety. Follow me,” he said, following it up with a yell, “Lads!” The big black dogs followed him.
The man moved quickly for being a heavy-set fella, lead the girls into the house on the corner and directly down into the basement into some sort of bunker. He motioned Virginia and Lori inside, the dogs following them off to the left.
The man then closed and sealed the door, leaving them in darkness for a few minutes until the lights flickered and began to glow with life. He noticed the shocked look on their faces. “Generator and solar panels on the roof,” he said with a smug smile.
“Thank you for helping us out there, but we should probably try to make it back home in a little while” Lori stated.
“You can leave whenever you want—no one is going to force you to stay,” he said, “You may want to consider staying longer than a little while though. That young fella that was out there and you two have really whipped up a hornets’ nest. It has been pretty calm around here for the past month until today.”
“Jay? You saw Jay, the young fella?” Virginia asked.
The man looked over toward Lori with a quizzical look on his face. The little girl didn’t know or see what happened to the young fella he figured. Well, he thought, it may not be his place to say then. Instead, he introduced himself. “My name is Bob Watson and these lads here are Zeus and Perseus.” He motioned toward the dogs who sat up at the mention of their names. “And you are the Littles’ kids from down the street. I knew your father well. Forgive me, but I don’t remember your names though.”
“I am Lori, and this is Virginia,” Lori replied as she felt the tears welling up in her eyes as she thought of her brother. “The young fella, that was our brother Jay.” She quickly grabbed Virginia and hugged her, tears breaking, and she is sobbing.
Bob noticed that the younger one didn’t cry. She hugged her sister back and stared at the Lads, but there were no tears, no emotion at all.
“Listen, why don’t you gals stay the night here? The Lads and I sure could use the company for a change of pace. We can have a good meal, trade information on what’s going on out there and maybe watch one of those old DVDs I have back there. Let’s take a night off from the end of the world,” he said. Then he motioned to two bunks on the far side of the bunker. “You can sleep over there—even has those curtains you can pull around the bunks for some privacy.”
Lori started to decline when she heard Virginia.
“Thank you, Mr. Watson, we would like that very much. I am up for any movie that doesn’t have zombies or the end of the world in it.”
They all shared a chuckle at that. “How about a good Chuck Norris film? We could use him right about now!” That brought an even hardier laugh out of Bob as he remembered all of the Chuck Norris jokes. Hear tell it from the jokes Chuck could take on just and win.
Chapter 3
The night before had been a breath of fresh air. Bob had thoroughly enjoyed himself and the company of the girls. It took him back to better days before the wife had left and he couldn’t even put a value on hearing laughter again. He had taken the Lads on a scouting mission right after the sun came up in morning. Bob had wondered if he should wake the girls up before he left. He had hoped that the little one wouldn’t wake up and think he abandoned them. His luck had held out on both accounts—he made it home safe with both dogs and no one had woken up in his absence. Sitting, drinking his coffee, he knew that he faced the hard part. He would have to tell his guests that something had inhabited their house overnight. That, he thought, would be the easy part—the hard part would be explaining what he thought was in there. Bob was sure that they had stayed inside during the whole ordeal up until yesterday. He knew they had seen the zombies. No one could miss ‘em if they had windows. They were pretty much everywhere. That wasn’t what was in there though. Of course, he didn’t see what was in there with his own eyes, didn’t hang around that long. He learned early in the apocalypse that keeping on the move when he was outside was the best way to keep living and that was what all the prepping had been for.
Lori came out from behind the curtain drawn around the bunk bed. She reminded Bob a lot of her mother but acted more like her father. Bob poured a cup of coffee and offered it to her. Lori took it and sat down, keeping her eyes on him, “Did you have to take your dogs out this morning?”
“You could say that.”
Lori started to ask if he had gone by the place where Jay was last seen then thought better of it. It was too hard to even think about that.
“The Lads and I went for a little scouting mission to check out your house.”
“And?” she asked.
“I have bad news and bad news,” he said with some concern.
Lori giggled and replied. “If you put it that way, let’s start with the bad news.”
Bob took a sip of his coffee, pulled out a pack of Pall Malls from his pocket and fetched a cigarette from inside. He held it to his lips and slowly raised the flame from the lighter to it. He was trying to stall for time. He really hadn’t expected her to be so direct. I guess when the world goes to shit this is what you get, he thought.
“You have seen what you kids call the zombies?”
Lori rolled her eyes at that question, not trying to hide her annoyance in the slightest bit.
Bob smiled, “Please, humor an old man for just a little while.” He took a long drag off of his smoke, then continued, “I am not sure if what you have seen are zombies, mutants or creatures from Hell. Don’t really care what they are or what you call them. What I do care about is that they are here and they are a threat to all of our existence.” He paused to see if she was following along or ignoring him. He never knew with young people. They were apt to tune older folks out and go through the motions to make ‘em think they were paying attention.
“Let’s call them zombies for now, okay?” he asked, and she nodded yes. “Okay, so we have the zombies out there; slow, clumsy and as far as I can tell, dead. Then there is something else out there, are you following me?”
Lori nodded yes and felt something inside her crawl up into her throat. Her chest tightened; she knew the feeling—it was fear digging its claws in deep.
“I am not sure what we would call the other thing that is out there. But it is one pretty nasty creature.”
“Zombie 2.0,” Lori replied.
Bob laughed. Everything to the kids these days had some digital value to it, in being or name.
“That will do just fine,” he replied. “Zombie 2.0 it is then. The 2.0’s are fast, and I think they are smarter. Yesterday, and this is just a theory mind you, yesterday your brother was led to that spot behind the Thompson house. I am guessing they started being seen around your yard?”
“They were looking in the back windows, leaving handprints on all the rest of the downstairs windows,” she replied.
“Hmmmm,” Bob took another sip of his coffee as his mind calcula
ted. “One or a bunch?”
“We only ever saw one, as far as I know. It started yesterday morning.”
“You may think it did, but your brother had been making little trips out after sun-up for the past three weeks. I am sorry to say that I never made contact with him. If I had things may be different today.” Bob lowered his eyes in shame toward his freshly emptied coffee cup.
“So you’re saying that Jay attracted these things to us?”
“For lack of a better way to put it, yes I am. Come with me for a minute and let me show you something,” Bob rose from the table and motioned for her to follow him. They went upstairs into what had been the living room in better days, stepping between the five-gallon bottles of water that now covered the floor.
“What do you see outside?” he asked, pointing toward the street.
Lori looked at the empty street and saw nothing. Bob motioned her to follow before she could answer and led her to a window facing out in each direction on the ground floor.
“Well?”
“You don’t have the packs of zombies hanging around your house—why not?”
“Because little lady, when the Lads and I go out we don’t attract attention. It took me over an hour to go just down the street to check on your house this morning. It took that long because I never go the same way more than a few times and I am always on the lookout for anything that could cause me or the Lads harm. Now the Lads help because they can smell these buggers from way off and they will not let me walk into an ambush either intentionally or by accident. Your brother was like a noisy, old truck without a muffler going down the middle of this street every morning. Probably had a few following him and never gave it another thought because they were slow. So how could they possibly have caught up to him?” Bob calmed himself as he felt his temper begin to boil at the boy’s out and out stupidity. After all, he was a boy and he learned his lesson the hard way, didn’t he?
