The shorter guy laughed again, then put his gun down on the floor and held up his hands.
“Look, honey,” he said with a smile. “We don’t want any trouble. We didn’t realize anyone living was in the house. We’ll get out of your way.” The taller guy kept glaring at me, but at the other guy’s words, he shot him a look.
“Not a chance,” he muttered. “Finders keepers.”
I yelled at him again.
“Fuck you! Go away!” I had nothing nicer to say to him. What an asshole. Who marches into someone’s home and just tries to take it? While they’re still living there?
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve absolutely robbed houses. If the owners are dead, though, isn’t it just looting? I’ve never taken anything from someone who was still alive. I’ve never threatened the life of another human.
Now, though, I just might change my tune. This kid was ridiculous.
The two guys just stared at me, until finally I just left the room. I went into the kitchen and focused on evening my breathing. I could feel myself getting stressed out and the last thing I wanted to have to do was take my inhaler. Not in front of them. Not now. Not over something so stupid.
The problem with stress-induced asthma in the apocalypse is that everything is a stresser. Everything has the potential to be a life-or-death asthma attack.
Everything threatens to kill me.
The guys followed me into the kitchen, but I couldn’t focus on them. Instead, I closed my eyes and breathe in and out.
“Hey, are you okay?” It was blondie. I could tell just from his voice.
“I think she’s crazy,” the brunette said.
“I’m not,” I said to him. I wanted to snap, but I could feel my lungs tightening.
This was it.
I needed the puffer.
I reached for my pocket and pulled out my inhaler. Bringing it to my lips, I took just one puff. A standard dose is two, separated by a few minutes and ideally, using a spacer. I knew my puffs were getting low, though, so I only took one. Once the inhaler was empty, it was gone forever.
“Shit,” said the brunette. “Are you okay?” Now he was suddenly so caring? “I didn’t know you had asthma.”
How would he? He didn’t even know my name.
I don’t say that, though. Instead, I sit down at the kitchen table and lean my head against the table, allowing myself to finally feel the stress, to breathe through it.
That’s one thing my mom used to always tell me: breathe through the stress. She’d say that I shouldn’t try to avoid it or hide from it. I should just get through it as quickly as possible.
My hand is killing.
I’ll write more tomorrow.
April 8th
It’s been a long two days and I have lots to write about. Let’s see, where to start?
After my asthma attack, I just sat in the kitchen, trying to breathe. The two guys finally introduced themselves. They argued for a little bit first, but finally decided to tell me who they were. Brown hair was Paul. Blondie was Keith. They were brothers who were trying to survive just as much as anyone else.
“Why are you here?” I asked them. “Why won’t you just leave?” I think by that point, they were worried about leaving me alone in case my asthma killed me.
“We have nowhere else to go,” Keith said finally. He seemed to be the more amicable of the two, but Paul wouldn’t stop watching me. Part of me wanted to think it was because he thought I was pretty, but in reality, I knew it was because I look like crap.
I finally decided that I couldn’t overpower the two guys, especially not without a weapon, so I resigned myself to the fact that they were going to be here for a little while. Then we started talking.
I found out that we had all been students at the same college when the infection hit, but they took night classes while working day jobs. Not me. I was the opposite. I went to school all day, then pulled double shifts at a coffee shop as much as possible.
I told the boys about my roommates and warned them that Kristy was going to freak out when she got back.
It’s a good thing I did because the second she and Danielle walked into the house, they started screaming. Kristy hadn’t brought the shotgun on her run. It was upstairs in her room, which made her feel vulnerable and dumb, but I just rolled my eyes. I promised her that everything was going to be okay, but I don’t know if she believed me or not.
It didn’t matter, not really.
It’s not like her believing me would magically change anything about the situation.
Kristy stood screaming in the doorway until Keith finally wet over and clamped a hand over her mouth, which she promptly bit.
“Hey!” He yelled, obviously surprised at her fierceness. Not a lot of people expected much from Kristy. Those of us who know her understand that she’s much stronger than she looks. Strangers, though…well, she always manages to surprise them.
“Fuck you!” Kristy yelled, echoing my earlier shouts. The guys exchanged looks that just said, “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
Everyone continued yelling and screaming until I heard it. I heard the moan. I heard it loud and clear and by the way the entire kitchen fell silent, they had all heard it, too: a zombie.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Paul mumbled under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair, then turned to Kristy. He could obviously tell that she was the one in charge around here.
“What weapons do you have?” He whispered.
“Just a shotgun,” she told him.
“Get it,” he said. She nodded and ran to go upstairs. He had a pistol at his side. Keith had a baseball bat. That was it, though. We hadn’t had any luck finding any other weapons and to be honest, we’d been lazy about it because we hadn’t seen any Infected since we got here.
Now we were all regretting that choice.
It seemed stupid in retrospect. Honestly, who doesn’t have a weapon in the zombie fucking apocalypse? Then again, no one ever made the mistake of thinking we were geniuses.
Keith and Paul peered out the kitchen window.
“Just one,” Keith whispered.
“Try again,” Paul whispered back.
We all gathered around the window to see not one, not two, but five zombies wandering around.
“Give me the shotgun,” Keith whispered.
“Not a chance,” Kristy said. Then she was out the door. We heard the two blasts as she made perfect headshots and knocked down the first two zombies.
Paul followed her quickly and took down the other three zombies. The entire thing was over very quickly. Keith didn’t even have to use his bat. When they came inside, Kristy whispered that we should all go upstairs to the attic.
“In case there are more,” she said. “We don’t want them knowing that we’re here.”
“Can they smell us?” Asked Paul.
“I don’t know,” Kristy said, “but I don’t feel like finding out.”
She was sweaty and gross from her run, but I didn’t want to complain about the smell. We all sneaked upstairs, all five of us, and made it to the attic. I was worried that the sounds of gunfire would bring more to the area. After all, isn’t that what zombies do?
Don’t you get swarmed when they hear a shot fired?
“You brought them here,” Danielle finally spoke. She was huddled in a corner by a window, staring out of it intently. The guys look surprised, like they had forgotten she existed for a moment.
“What? No, we didn’t,” Keith said.
“Yeah, fuckers, you did,” she growled. I’d never seen her this angry before. She gritted her teeth and glared at him, like he was the most hideous thing he’d ever seen. “We’ve been perfectly fine here for weeks. Weeks. Do you understand that? Now, the exact same day you losers show up, we get swarmed?”
“I’m sorry,” Paul said, shaking his head quietly. I thought he was kind of a jerk, so I’m surprised at his reaction. I risk a glance, and he’s watching me. “We didn’t mean to,” he said. “We were running
from a horde and thought we had lost them. We didn’t mean to bring them here.”
“A horde?” Kristy asked. “How many is that?”
The two brothers exchanged glances before Paul finally said, “At least 25. Maybe more.”
Kristy didn’t say anything right away. She just ran her hands through her hair, trying to take deep breaths.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m not panicking.” We could all tell that she was, though. I knew she was wondering about the logistics of feeding two extra people, especially men. We could barely keep ourselves alive. Could we really afford to feed and house a couple of dudes?
But me, I was thinking that they might be good for protection. I bet they’re better fighters than us. They’re certainly bigger. I would guess from the way their faces looked a little pale and their clothes hung off their bodies a little that they had lost weight during this apocalypse, just like the rest of us had.
They still had a lot of muscle, though.
And I knew that there was no way I could kill a zombie with a baseball bat, the way Keith could.
“We can go together in the car,” I said the words before I had thought about it. Four sets of eyes looked at me.
“What?” Kristy glared at me. Now I was the one in the hot seat.
“The car,” I told her. “We still have a quarter tank of gas. We could go somewhere, all of us together.”
“These guys could be rapists,” Kristy said.
“Hey!” Complained Keith, but she ignored him.
She pulled me aside and we talked about it for a few minutes. She said that she didn’t trust them. I said that it didn’t matter. Even if she didn’t like them or trust them, they could offer us protection.
Kristy wanted to know what they’d want in return.
I knew what she was thinking: sex.
I also knew what she was thinking: it’s the zombie apocalypse and none of us are on birth control anymore.
We argued for what felt like forever, but as soon as Paul said, “I see another one,” we knew that we didn’t actually have any other choice. We couldn’t fight off a horde and the house was unsecure. We’d have to run.
I hurried to my room and threw my few possessions in my backpack, wishing for the millionth time that this was any other situation, wishing for my mother, wishing for a world where I didn’t have to constantly fear for my life.
We loaded up the car as quickly as we could, not bothering to waste bullets or our time on the ambling Infected walking toward the car. We said silent goodbyes to the house, then we took off. Destination: unknown.
April 12th
We made it down back roads for about an hour before the car finally sputtered out of gas. When it stopped, we had just passed a tiny little Podunk town. There were no zombies there that we could see, but we decided to keep moving forward instead of backward.
Our goal was to find a place to stay that had some sort of water supply. We either needed a well or a creek. The last house we were at, the one where I was learning to knit, that house had nothing. We were existing solely on stolen water bottles, but those were almost gone.
We walked in silence for a long time. The sun set and as soon as it did, we could hear their sounds. I walked close to Paul. It was cold, but I was also scared. I jumped when I heard a sound and he surprised me by putting his arm around my shoulder and pulling me into him. It wasn’t a sexual or unwanted gesture. It made me feel safe.
It made me feel like I might just be okay. Maybe.
Just when we thought we were all going to go crazy, we spotted an old cow shelter. It was a barn, sort of. I think it used to be. Now it was obviously a place where farmers let their cattle go during rain and storms. There weren’t any doors and the roof was caving in. For cows, it was probably a horrible place to stay. For us, it was perfect.
We went inside the building, which was basically falling down. There was a small loft and a ladder. We all scurried up and cuddled together on the loft, passing out almost as soon as we got there.
I don’t know how we made it that far, but we did.
I’m exhausted and my flashlight battery is almost gone. Time to go to sleep.
April 13th
It’s been almost a month since I got this journal. An entire month. It feels like I’ve lived years in this apocalyptic hell-hole, but I haven’t. It’s been only two months since the outbreak. Two months and everything has changed.
We left the barn and kept walking. We passed a couple of boarded-up houses, but ignored them. If a place has been boarded up, it either has survivors inside or dead bodies. Neither are things we want to deal with.
The thing about being in the country is that there aren’t many zombies because there aren’t many people. Part of me wishes that I had a weapon and a horde of zombies to fight. At least that way, I’d feel like I had something to do. As it is, I just feel bored constantly, which I guess is better than being dead.
Maybe.
Keith was the one who spotted the house we picked. It was back from the road, surrounded by trees. I didn’t even see it as we walked along the dirt road. I wonder how many other people passed this one by. It gave me a strange sense of comfort and hope that even though we have to live in this creepy old house, at least most survivors won’t notice it from the road. They definitely won’t notice it if they’re driving by.
There was a car in the driveway, which is awesome because it means we can easily go exploring and scavenging. The back door was unlocked and inside there were a few bodies, but Keith and Paul earned their keep today and took care of them. I didn’t ask what they did with the bodies. I don’t think I can handle knowing, not anymore.
I don’t know if this is going to be where we stay forever, but I do know one thing: we’re going to make things work, even if it’s one day at a time.
Author's Note
Stories in a Lost World: Bridget is the first in a 3-part series about roommates Bridget, Kristy, and Danielle. Kristy and Danielle's stories will be released soon, so make sure to check my author page for details!
Author
L.C. Mortimer loves zombies almost as much as she loves coffee. When she's not on a caffeine-induced writing spree, she can be found stocking up on canned goods for the apocalypse. Mortimer loves reading, playing zombie video games (7 Days to Die is currently her favorite), and spending time with her partner-in-crime: her husband of 10 years.
Other Books by L.C.
Zombie books in the same world as Stories in a Lost World:
The Forgotten
The Dark
Peanut Butter Zombie
The Zombie Runner
Other books by L.C. Mortimer
The Dead of Night
Very Lost and Far Away
Stories in a Lost World: Bridget Page 3
