Fight 4 Us (Book 2)_Reunited

by Brian Grenda

  Nicole looks down at Mason and get teary eyed. She can’t help but to think about Derrick and the last time that she saw him. Nicole loves Derrick and hates that she had to leave him.

  Lauren sees that Nicole is crying and asks, “What’s wrong Nicole? Are you okay?”

  Nicole stops crying and replies, “It’s just everything with Derrick and Denise and the fact that Mason and Mia are without a father now.”

  Lauren looks at Nicole and says, “Can I ask you a serious question?”

  Nicole says, “Sure.”

  Lauren replies, “Did you know Derrick was cheating on you or was it a surprise? I hate to ask but I’m just curious how that could happen in a marriage.”

  A tear drops from Nicole’s right eye. She feels the urge to cry but stops herself from fully crying and says, “I had a feeling that something was going on last year with Derrick but didn’t know completely. He was always working late or had plans away from home.”

  Nicole continues, “When your husband doesn’t want to be around you, that should clue you in that something is up, right?”

  Lauren feels bad for asking Nicole and says, “I’m sorry for asking about Derrick.”

  Nicole replies, “It’s fine. It actually feels good to talk about it and get it out.”

  Lauren says, “Well. Good. I’m glad. I’m always here for you. If you need to talk or just someone to hear your frustrations, I’m your girl.”

  Nicole jokes, “Well, actually since you said that. Let me tell you about this crazy thing that happened to me.”

  The girls laugh and have a nice moment.

  Nicole says, “I’m torn though. Part of me hopes that I never see him again, and the other part feels bad that my babies won’t have a father in their lives.”

  Lauren says, “We are your family now. I know it sucks about Derrick, but everything happens for a reason and someone else might be right for you.”

  As Lauren finishes her statement, Phil enters the living room.

  Phil walks into the living room and sees Nicole holding Mason. Phil sits down next to Nicole and relaxes on the sofa.

  Lauren wants to give Nicole and Phil some alone time, so Lauren excuses herself from the living room while holding Mia.

  I’m getting dressed in the bedroom when Lauren walks in with Mia. I put on a shirt and sit on the bed. Lauren sits next to me and we both look at Mia while Lauren holds her in her arms.

  Mia is a very cute baby. She is super tiny but has these chubby cheeks. Mia definitely takes after Nicole in the looks department.

  Lauren looks at me and asks, “Do you want to hold her?”

  I haven’t had a chance to hold Mia since I delivered her, so I am eager to hold her. Lauren hands her over to me and I hold her against my left shoulder and chest.

  I have always loved babies but was nervous about raising one. Kids are great but the responsibility of raising another human being is life changing. Parents must worry about so many things that they can and cannot control when it comes to kids.

  As I hold Mia, I can’t help to wonder what it would have been like for Lauren and myself to have a child. We would be great parents as we would bring tons of love and care to our child. Maybe someday down the road when the world evens out and isn’t so dangerous, we will have a child or two.

  Baby Mia is so cute but she is gassy. She must have farted about three times while I was holding her. I can’t help to laugh and smile when she does, as the farts are funny and luckily not smelly.

  Phil and Nicole are sitting on the sofa and are enjoying being around each other. They always enjoy being around each other and that’s a good sign for them. Phil genuinely cares for Nicole and I feel that Nicole cares about Phil.

  Phil looks at Nicole and Mason and says, “You two are the cutest. Don’t tell Mia I said that. She might get jealous.”

  Nicole smiles and replies, “I won’t. It will be our little secret.”

  “Can you hold Mason for a second? I have to go to the bathroom,” asks Nicole.

  “Sure. I’d be happy too,” responds Phil.

  Nicole hands Mason to Phil and walks through the kitchen to the back bathroom.

  Phil loves holding Mason and feels a sense of joy when having him in his arms. By nature, Phil is a protective person and that is clear when he holds Mason. Phil is a great person to have on your side and I’m glad that he’s on mine.

  The solar panels are still on my mind as I sit on the edge of my bed holding Mia. Mia starts to cry, so that’s my signal to hand her off. I try to calm her down by gently rocking her while I hold her in my arms. Mia won’t stop crying, so I hand her off to Lauren.

  Lauren takes Mia and says, “She’s probably hungry again. Let me see if Nicole wants to feed her.”

  Lauren walks out the bedroom and goes looking for Nicole. Nicole and Lauren meet in the kitchen. Nicole sees that Mia is crying and is most likely hungry.

  Nicole looks at Mia and asks, “What’s the matter Mia? Are you hungry?”

  Lauren gives Mia to Nicole and says, “She’s either hungry or she needs to be changed, but she smells fine.”

  Nicole says, “I’ll go check it out in my bedroom. Thank you, Lauren.”

  Nicole leaves the kitchen and walks back to her bedroom with Mia. Lauren walks into the living room and sees that Phil is holding Mason while he looks out the living room window.

  I exit my bedroom and walk into the kitchen. I look at the refrigerator and feel that it’s only a matter of time until the generator stops working for us.

  I go into the garage and check the generator.

  The generator is working fine and should last another day or two, but I don’t want to run out of power. Chancing that the generator will keep working gives me anxiety. I want to feel secure that we have power for our house and that the solar panels are working. We can have the generator as a backup.

  “Come on converter. Why aren’t you working?” I ask as I’m looking at the electrical panel connections and converter.

  I open the garage door to let some of the heat escape from the garage. It must be 100 degrees inside the garage today. As I’m in the garage, I hear a scream come from down the street.

  I look out the garage, but don’t see anything. Another scream from what sounds like a young child is heard. It sounds like it came from near Carlos’ house. I run to the edge of the driveway, but don’t see anything.

  A gunshot is heard now. I run back into the garage and grab one of my old aluminum baseball bats that have been sitting in my garage for years.

  I take the baseball bat and sprint over to Martha’s house.

  I peak from around the corner of Martha’s house and find a zombie walking down the middle of the street straight towards Carlos.

  His wife runs inside the house, but Carlos stays outside.

  Carlos is in danger. I run over to Carlos. He shoots at the zombie, and hits him in the chest. The zombie keeps coming at him. I get to the side of Carlos before the zombie gets too close to him.

  I look at Carlos and say, “Put the gun down. I got this zombie.”

  The zombie steps closer to me and I smack him in the head with the baseball bat. Zombie brains and blood fly into the street. The zombie falls to the street.

  I walk over to the zombie and raise my bat. The zombie reaches for me as he lies on the ground. I swing down on the zombie’s face, crushing his skull.

  Carlos says, “Thank you Ryan.”

  “You need to kill the brain Carlos. Where did the zombie come from?”

  Carlos points to the South entrance to the neighborhood. I figured it was only a matter of time until zombies got in. We need to prevent any more from coming in to the neighborhood through the South entrance.

  As I’m talking to Carlos, I see six more zombies make their way into the neighborhood through the South entrance.

  I look at Carlos and ask, “You ready to take out these zombies. How many bullets you have left?”

  Carlos replies, “I am ready
. I have 5 bullets left.”

  The zombies make their way into the neighborhood and start walking towards us. Carlos and I run over to the zombies. Carlos raises his gun and fires. He hits a zombie in the chest.

  I shout at Carlos, “You need to aim for the head.”

  Carlos fires another shot and hits a zombie in the head. Another zombie steps towards me, and I hit the zombie in the head with the baseball bat.

  The four remaining zombies are moving quickly towards us now. Carlos fires another shot and kills another zombie.

  As we are fighting the zombies, I hear footsteps walking towards Carlos and me.

  When suddenly I hear, “You guys okay over here?”

  It’s Chris and Jamie, but they are not alone. Chris and Jamie must have rounded up some of the neighbors and his family. There must be about 10 people standing behind Chris.

  “No. We can use your help.”

  The three remaining zombies are standing in the middle of the street. Carlos and I move away from them.

  Chris and his group come running over and hit the zombies with shovels, rakes, knives, and bats. The zombies are destroyed by the group and turned into a bloody mess in the middle of the street.

  Phil comes running over to me and says, “Damn. Who are all these people?”

  Chris and his group finish killing the zombies and walk over to Phil and me.

  Chris looks at Phil and I and says, “This is our group. There are 11 of us. Some are my family, and others are people from the neighborhood.”

  I look at the people and am very happy to see that Chris came through. It’s clear which people are related to Chris and which ones are people who live in the neighborhood.

  Chris and his family have a very Italian look to them. Several of the men are short, overweight, and what you would picture from an Italian mafia movie.

  I look at the group and say, “Thank you all for wanting to help secure this neighborhood. As a team, we can survive and thrive here. We need to fight for us and become a team. When people work together, we can achieve great things.”

  The people look at me with a look of happiness and appreciation, but also nervousness. I feel that I’m winning some of them over, but not all of them. Words only mean so much but my actions will fully win them over.

  “The plan is to secure both entrances of the neighborhood. We must be able to control what and who comes in and out. Any questions?”

  Chris raises his hand and asks, “When do we start?”

  “Right now. Let’s get to work!”

  CHAPTER 17

  SAFETY ISSUE

  The sounds of people working hard fills the air. People are digging trenches in the lawns by the entrances to prevent zombies or anything from getting into the neighborhood. The South and West entrances are both susceptible to zombies and danger as they currently stand, but hopefully with our team approach, we can fully secure them from any threats towards the neighborhood.

  People are positioning cars to narrow the street space. Palm trees are being cut down and turned into diverters or blockers to direct zombies away from the neighborhood.

  We have been working for several hours now, but the entrances are far from secure. A lot of work needs to be done to completely secure the entrances and neighborhood.

  As I stand watching the progress at the South entrance, I hear something flying overhead. I look up and see two helicopters coming towards the neighborhood. They are flying West, most likely going towards the beaches and Gulf of Mexico.

  The helicopters fly quickly by the neighborhood and are gone. Almost as soon as the helicopters go out of sight, Phil comes running over to me with some news.

  “You need to look at this. Something is coming towards the West entrance,” says Phil.

  Phil and I run over to the West entrance and find a group of people looking at something down the street. People start to scream in terror as something approaches the neighborhood.

  “Is that a group of zombies?” shouts a woman.

  “There must be 100 of them!” shouts a man.

  I see the zombies coming directly towards us, and know that we need to do something. A herd of 100 zombies could wipe out this entire neighborhood. We don’t have enough bullets to clear out all those zombies, so we need to divert the zombies somehow.

  Phil looks at me and says, “I have a plan. I can use the SUV to run over the zombies.”

  “Good idea. Don’t get too crazy with the plowing though. If you get to many zombie bodies or body parts stuck in the SUV, then you may get stranded in the middle of them.”

  Phil runs back to my house and gets in his SUV. I direct the people away from the street and tell them to continue cutting down trees, so we can block the path of the zombies that might come into the neighborhood.

  The people move out of the street and start trying to block any open areas around the entrance. Phil comes driving up to the West entrance and stops.

  “You be careful out there.”

  Phil replies, “I will Ry.”

  Phil drives through the entrance and makes a right-hand turn towards the zombie herd. The zombie herd is closing towards the West entrance as Phil approaches them.

  Phil plows right through the front of the zombie herd. People stop working and watch Phil as he drives right into the herd.

  “Let’s keep working people.”

  People frantically get back to work, but they can’t help but to look at the zombies coming towards them.

  Phil plows through several zombies and keeps driving. Zombies go flying all over the place. Phil was driving pretty fast as he approached the zombies and zombie parts were thrown everywhere. Zombie bodies are cut in half and blood is everywhere.

  Phil is making good progress at cutting down the number of zombies, but the number of zombies is too much for him to eliminate with one pass.

  Phil could only eliminate part of the herd; the zombies are even closer to the West entrance now. Phil does a U-turn in the middle of the road and starts driving back towards the neighborhood.

  He speeds up as he comes across the zombies. Several zombies get stuck in the front grill and hood as he drives into the herd. Phil continues driving forward and more zombies crash into his windshield. The windshield cracks and becomes obstructed. Phil is driving blindly down the road now.

  Phil drives past the neighborhood, and I see that his windshield is cracked, but not fully broken. I hear Phil slam on the breaks as he drives past the neighborhood.

  A woman screams as zombies start to enter the neighborhood through the street of the West entrance. The zombies are being somewhat blocked by the blockades that we put in the grass, but they can still come through the neighborhood through the street.

  People start to scatter as the herd of zombies walk into the neighborhood.

  Carlos is running towards me. He narrowly escapes a zombie attack, but gets to safety.

  I grab Carlos and say, “Go get the people from the other entrance and bring weapons.”

  Carols hops in a car and drives to the South entrance. I pick up an axe that is lying in the street and start to kill zombies. The axe is heavy and not a great weapon. I can only take out one zombie at a time, as the axe tends to get stuck in the zombies’ head as I drive it into them.

  I try to make my way through the chaos and to the West entrance to check on Phil, but there are too many zombies coming into the neighborhood now. I must retreat backwards while fighting off zombies.

  Several zombies are coming towards me, and I feel outnumbered. I fall backwards onto the lawn of a neighbor’s yard. Four zombies are coming towards me.

  The zombies are inching closer and closer towards me as I try to get up from the lawn. I feel that my death is imminent, when suddenly a car comes out of nowhere and takes out the zombies.

  I take a deep breath and look at the car. The driver side door opens and it’s Carlos. Carlos runs over to me and helps me up from the lawn.

  “Thank you, Carlos.”

 
“No problem,” says Carlos.

  Carlos and I get into the car, and we drive to the other side of the neighborhood to check on the South entrance.

  I look at Carlos and ask, “Where are Chris and the others from the South entrance?”

  As we turn the corner past Martha’s house, I see Chris and the group fighting off their own herd of zombies.

  “Holy crap! These freaking zombies are all over this place right now!”

  It’s a terrible site to see. People are running for their lives as several zombies chase them. Zombies are eating several elderly neighbors in the middle of the street and people are trying to run back to their homes.

  Carlos parks the car and we get out. Carlos shoots a zombie in the head as he closes his car door. I see a zombie eating a neighbor on a lawn across the street. I run over to the zombie and kill him with the axe.

  Carlos runs over to me and says, “I need to check on my family.”

  Carlos runs to his house and makes it to his front door. Zombies are all over the place. The neighborhood is getting overrun.

  Jamie, Chris, and Chris’ family are fighting off zombies with various objects. Chris has a pipe and Jamie has a knife. Chris and his family are protecting themselves, but are starting to get overrun by a big group of approaching zombies.

  I feel the presence of zombies all around me and don’t know where to go. Zombies are coming towards me, so I run back towards my house. A group of about 20 zombies are coming down my street. They walk pass Buck’s house, then my house, and are now coming towards me as I stand at the corner of Martha’s house.

  Zombies are coming at me from all directions now. I look where to run but I don’t have a clear escape path. The closest thing to me is Martha’s giant oak tree in her front yard. I have no better option but to climb the tree.

  I jump up and grab a tree branch. I narrowly pull myself up to safety as several zombies reach up to grab me. There must be 20 zombies looking up at me, as I am standing up in the tree. I try to get higher in the tree but I slip. I do not fall though. Branches from the tree protect me from the zombies as they reach for me.

  I finally get up higher in the tree and am somewhat safe. I see that zombies are making their way towards my house now. I get terrified at the sight of them going towards my house and try to draw their attention towards me.