by T. W. Brown
He had passed other animals, many dead by now as nobody showed up to feed the poor things. Up until now, he had not seen a single animal as a zombie since what he had hoped was a fluke with that dog after Rose died. This discovery was upsetting to say the least.
After unloading their bags into the truck, the three of them went to the next house. The windows were a filthy mess and he was still ten feet from the door when the terrible smell hit him.
“Can I do the door thing?” Chris asked.
At just over six feet tall and already showing obvious signs of weight loss as the Apocalypse Diet melted away the pounds, he was down to about two hundred and eighty pounds from his well over three hundred that he weighed when first arriving. Still, his round face and gap-toothed grin reminded Ken of Augustus Gloop from the old (and his mind only) film version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The kid was either an idiot, or that smile was frozen on his face. His dark hair was in need of some washing as it was starting to clump.
And then there was Jerri. She was the polar opposite of her brother. Where he was obese and terrible clumsy, she was slim to the point of skinny. The lack of food would have her down to nothing but a skeleton before much longer. Of course her breasts would not suffer, since they were so blatantly fake to the point of almost comical, considering how slight the rest of her body was by comparison. Where her brother had dark hair, Jerri had blonde. However, the lack of any beauty salons were taking its toll as the roots grew out to a more sandy and natural color.
The one feature that bonded the pair were the eyes. They were a vibrant hazel that had flecks of a golden color swimming in them. That…and the constant smile. Both of them were always smiling like they knew some wonderful secret. Personally, it annoyed Ken to no end.
Ken did not like the idea of following Tweedledee and Tweedledummer into this situation, but they needed to learn. With a hint of trepidation, he stepped aside and let Chris lead the way.
The young man showed the proper caution at the door and turned with a huge grin after trying the doorknob and discovering it unlocked. He had turned the knob and opened it partway. That was when things went bad in a hurry.
A hand snaked out from the crack. It was just a foot or so off the ground, and Ken was the first to see it. Unfortunately, he could not shout the warning in time as Chris was already shoving the door open and preparing to enter.
He tripped over the arm and had the misfortune of his sister bumping into him and sending him sprawling forward. That actually shoved the door open the rest of the way. The good news was that the owner of the tiny arm did not weigh enough to keep the door from opening, and it lost its grip on Chris’ leg as he fell. The bad news came in the form of the five zombies that were stumbling into the hallway.
One of them, a man who looked like he spent every waking moment in the gym, was first to pounce. It flopped down on Chris, causing the young man to let out a pained “oof” as his lungs emptied of oxygen. Chris’ sister Jerri was no help as she screamed and started to back away, tripping in the process and knocking Ken back, preventing him from rendering assistance to the downed young man in the doorway.
Next came that horrible scream. Ken was just recovering, and in the act of stepping around Jerri, when he saw the second zombie fall on Chris. Its mouth latched onto the sleeve of his heavy leather jacket and tugged in futility. Unfortunately, the first zombie found the man’s face. More specifically, it found the meat just below the left eye. It clamped down and began to tear.
By now, the other three zombies pounced, and Chris all but vanished with the exception of his legs which pounded the ground furiously as the screaming kicked up another notch until one of the zombies obviously found his throat. There was a jet of blood that managed to squirt through the cluster of undead that were now pawing and tearing at the man.
Ken backed away as Jerri turned to him and screamed, “Help him!”
“He’s beyond any help, kid,” Ken said. He winced at the cold flatness of his voice as he stated the reality of the situation with appalling bluntness.
That answer was not good enough for the young lady. Her face twisted into a mask of fury as she ran to her brother’s aid. She grabbed one of his flailing legs and began to pull. There was another awful gurgle and one of the zombies tumbled away from the soon-to-be dead young man and landed on its side right in front of Jerri’s feet.
Ken backed away as the hands reached out for the woman’s ankles and grabbed hold. Jerri actually lucked out. At least that is the way Ken saw it as he continued to move away from the carnage. As she fell, her skull struck a huge concrete planter with some sort of tree that was a dried husk of its former self without the owners to water it. There was a thud and a snap. He only looked long enough to see the awkward angle that her head sat. Jerri’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and she shuddered violently once and was still before the zombie crept up her body and began to paw at her.
Reaching the relative safety of the pickup, Ken saw several of the undead emerging from the shadows, open garages and even a few front doors of the duplexes up and down this road. This had only been the second run on this particular community, obviously the undead had not been lured away by anything as of yet. As Ken started up the pickup, he hoped that most would follow him out through the arched brick entry. That would make future runs to this place that much easier.
As he drove away, he could not tear his eyes from the rearview mirror. He saw many of the undead clustered around the two bodies of Chris and Jerri. He should have never let that fool boy go first. Up until the very end, the boy thought that this was some immersive video game or some other equally ridiculous nonsense. In short, the kid had not taken it seriously and now he and his sister were dead.
At last he reached the highway when he felt something like a gunshot to his chest. His left arm went numb and he started to experience a double vision of sorts as his eyes watered terribly. Ken Simpson was no fool; he knew damn well that this was a heart attack.
His hands kept slipping on the wheel and everything went in and out of focus as the pain came in waves, each one more intense than the last. His air was driven from him as he struggled. He knew that he was as good as dead. He thought that he could see the blackened ruin of the house and the big red barn that was now his home along with Jason, Juanita, and all the others. If he could just reach the gate, then just maybe…
Ken’s eyes shut and his hand slipped from the steering wheel. Fortunately, his foot came off the gas pedal as well and the truck coasted to a stop.
***
“How is he?” Jason asked as he and some of the others came in from a day of working on the barricades.
“Grouchy!” Gabriel muttered.
This response received a few titters from everybody, but Juanita shot the boy a scolding glance and turned back to answer the question. “He seems like he is recovering okay. That slurred speech is actually fading. I think he will be back to normal in a few more weeks.”
“Normal?” Jason scoffed. “Then he is doing better than everybody else still alive, because I don’t think anything will ever get back to normal again.”
“You know what I mean.” Juanita brushed aside his comment. “He will be up and around again.”
“Well you can break the news to him that he won’t be working on any of the field crews.” Jason joined the rest of his work crew around the large wash basin to at least rinse some of the day’s grime from his hands and face before the meal.
“You do know this is an open barn and I can hear you,” a voice wafted down from above.
Jason wiped his hands and face on the towel and craned his neck to look up to the rafters of the barn where everybody slept and where Ken Simpson had been kept since his heart attack. “Yep, sure do.”
With that he headed over to the table, ignoring the muttered string of profanities that had Gabriel covering his mouth to stifle his giggles. One of their new and crowning achievements was a wood fired oven. Jason had spent th
ree days on it, and today was the first day it was being put to use. Juanita had kept the kitchen area clear, insisting that she and the other three cooks wanted to surprise the group.
Looking around, Jason was amazed at how many people were now living here. In fact, a discussion was scheduled for tomorrow about perhaps setting a limit or making plans for what they could do to accommodate more.
In the books and movies, there were only a handful of survivors. In the real apocalypse, things were playing out very differently. They had not only taken in a fair number of survivors, but they had also encountered their fair share out in the wilderness of this new world. Some were fearful, some friendly, most simply made a passing acknowledgement and continued on their way. There was even a rumor of a community being built up at Timberline Lodge. That might be great for the summer, but if they survived the first winter, he would be very surprised.
At this morning’s count, they now had forty-one people living here. As of today, Gabriel was still the only child. Jason was not a fan of children, they could not really contribute, and as selfish as it might sound, everybody needed to pull their weight in these first months.
That brought his thoughts back to Ken. He had been the one to administer CPR, but since that day, he had actually found himself wondering if that was the right thing to do. There would be no after care. No special diet or anything else. And again, everybody needed to pull their weight. Would it have been such a bad thing to let the man die? If he lived for an extended period, but could do nothing more than sit around and consume the precious supplies they managed to scavenge or grow in the garden, then wouldn’t it have been better for the community if the man had been allowed to die on that road?
Normal? Jason thought. Things are never going to be normal again. We are going to have to make some tough choices ahead that would be unthinkable just a few months ago.
“Pizza!” Gabriel squealed.
Jason shook himself free of his morose thoughts and looked up as Juanita and the others who had put together this evening’s meal came to the table with round platters of a familiar treat.
That night, he tried to put away the darkness that was creeping into his thoughts and simply enjoy a meal with everybody. He made it a point to wander around and talk to as many people as he could. He told himself that he was not judging or gauging their worth, but simply trying to get to know them.
However, no matter what he told himself, he knew what he was really doing. One moment in particular would haunt him in the months to come. He was talking to a young man who had obviously spent a considerable time behind a desk and out of the sun. The man was a whiz with numbers, he always talked about spreadsheets and all he could do if he only had Excel to make things run smoother. When Jason asked him why he couldn’t do it with pen and paper, the man rambled and babbled on with what were, in his mind, nothing more than thin excuses. He glanced up to see Ken staring down. He made eye contact with Jason, and in that look, he knew very well that the older man was, whether he would admit or not, thinking many of the same things.
All Ken did was give a slight nod, but it was as if the man had been inside Jason’s head. This was the height of summer. The garden was producing, there was a stall stacked full of canned goods, improvements were being made to prepare the outer perimeter and make it not only zombie-proof, but also a deterrent to the living that might have mischief on their minds. Yet it could not be denied or avoided.
Winter was coming.
He knew he had read that line somewhere before, and he knew that it was actually written as some kind of ominous warning. And now, here he was, thinking those very same words and wondering how many of these smiling, laughing individuals would be here when the first buds of the next spring began to show.
17
Winter
Jason tromped through the snow. It was only a few inches, but the sky and the feel of the air let him know that things were just getting started. It was early, so everything was a dazzling white with just a hint of gray as the dawn broke. Large, fluffy flakes drifted to the ground, some swirling in the gentle wind that was making the chill seem just a bit more intense.
The dozen RVs were perhaps the only thing not under that blanket of white as the heat from within did its best to melt it all away for the most part. That had been a pretty damn good idea. Although, when they had first thought of it, they had planned for doubling the size of their community and brought in far more of the luxury vehicles than they thought they would need. Now people were doubling up. They had grown much faster than he could have ever imagined.
The vehicles were arranged in a giant square. There was an outer and inner ring along with catwalks and all sorts of things that were designed to aid in their defense should the perimeter fencing and defenses ever be breached. So far, nothing had come close. The zombies were simply not agile enough to climb the berms. Up to this point, they had not even seen a single one of the walking dead make it up, over, and into their trench. Humans had been another story, but none had come in numbers able to really pose a threat to this burgeoning community. Jason was actually very proud of what they had managed to create over these past months.
The first stirrings of people waking and preparing for what would be another grueling day were just being heard. Above it all was Ken’s voice.
“Dammit, Juanita, I don’t need to be dressed up like a four-year-old. I can do this myself!”
Jason smiled, feeling his cheeks crinkle as they shifted under the frigid air that, according to the large, round thermometer, was an icy nine degrees. For Oregon, that was akin to being in the Arctic Circle. The weather simply did not make a habit of plummeting to temperatures of that nature very often.
“We had some activity last night on the back side of things,” Erin said as she fell in step with the man.
Actually, that was his destination. He’d already been made aware of this latest attempt by some small marauding gang of what were now referred to as “Wasters” due to everything outside of their little realm now being referred to as The Wasteland. It certainly seemed fitting.
Jason’s last trip outside the fences a few weeks ago had shown him a world that he could have never envisioned. Buildings burnt and falling over, vehicles starting to settle into their final resting places as tires lost their air. The bodies of the truly dead in varying stages of rot and decay littering the landscape and bringing out all sorts of vermin. Next spring was going to pose some problems as all manner of disease would likely be spawned from the abundance of rotting corpses.
Today was a big deal. He and fifteen others were making a run to, of all places, a mall. He was torn between seeing the humor and being more than a little nervous. A mall was a big and dangerous place now more so than in those early days. They were havens for warring tribes of Wasters.
They were not actually going to the mall proper as their primary target. Actually, they were hitting a few locations around it that the newest additions to the community had sworn were largely untouched, along with what was designated as the priority target. That was another thing about the apocalypse; in the stories, people travelled along, little to no mention of re-supplying, and when they did, it was always some magical cache of goods that would appear at the worst of times just as things looked bleak. That was almost the situation here at what was now just known as The Compound.
Game was scarce for whatever reason, and canned goods were running low enough that the latest report was that there was maybe enough for four days if they watered everything down and gave out minimal portions. They had felt so confident that they had scavenged enough when the last of the fuel had been used up. They did not count on the fact that their population would continue to grow; or that all that hard, physical labor required a regular infusion of energy in the way of protein to fuel the body.
“It is a small warehouse complex,” the new arrivals’ spokeswoman had explained. “I was a shipping clerk for the place. The reason nobody has hit it is because it is just a fe
w long buildings with no sort of signage out front. However, this was the overflow warehouse for the local Costco. As you can imagine, that store was emptied long ago, but this overflow warehouse just down the road is stacked.”
Of course that had instantly raised a flag for Jason, Erin, and Ken. “Okay, so why didn’t you hit the place?” Jason had asked.
“Because there is a group of people that have turned it into their home. They are dug in pretty good and keeping a low profile.”
“So we are raiders now?” Erin asked. However, there was not so much anger in her tone as acceptance.
“If we don’t find something soon, we are gonna start running into serious problems,” Ken said in his matter-of-fact tone. “Maybe we can work out a deal with these folks.”
“They don’t do deals,” the woman said with a darkness in her voice that made all three of them turn their full attention her direction.
“Okay,” Erin finally gave a wave of her hands to indicate that the woman needed to spill what she had not been coming out with up to this point, “out with it.”
“The man running the place is my ex-husband, Larry Ralston.”
That statement just hung in the chill morning air like the ghostly vapor coming from everybody’s mouths and nostrils. It was said with a certain degree of bitterness and open hostility. That gave Jason pause. However, Erin was a bit more practical.
“You guys didn’t split on good terms?” Erin prodded.
“He was the foreman and warehouse supervisor. I was the last person in the place to find out that he was nailing some damn college girl who was working there for the summer,” the woman spat.
“Okay, we will check it out,” Erin had said. “You will give us the address and basic directions, but you won’t be going on this run.”
The woman started to protest, but Ken shut her down. “We don’t have a democracy here. And you might be setting us up, or, even worse, you might be tempted to do something stupid. That means that you and your people stay here in isolation until our group gets back. Three days out, three days back. Five days leeway for any problems that will occur, and if they don’t make it back, you are sent on your way with the clothes on your back and no supplies.”
