by Mark Clodi
We whiled away the whole of Tuesday and most of Wednesday that way, eating drinking beer and hoping the power wouldn't go out and that someone would save us. We got half our wish anyway, the power didn't go out. Every once in awhile the basement door would rattle. Once Alvin tried to reason with his Shandra through the door, he got nothing but moaning and some door pounding for his efforts. I didn't tell him to shoot her, he didn't ask me about it, just looked at me with those brown eyes of his, all sad and mopey. What did he think? That she was going to recover and they could get on with living their lives?
Wednesday afternoon we were watching CNN, Fox had gone off the air, and the power went out. It got dark. Did I mention there were NO windows in the basement. None at all.
"Alvin?"
"What?"
"You got a flashlight man?"
"No Kevin, I, I had it upstairs with me, a big police model, good for hitting things and when I ran down here I ended up leaving it on the kitchen table."
"Fuck!"
"Hey, I know how ya feel, but don't go swearing like that! I think I got some matches in the furnace room for relighting it when pilot goes out. Let me try and get over there."
I heard him stumbling around in the dark, knocking over all the beer cans we had sitting everywhere until he made it to the door. I heard him open it and then the power came back on.
He let out a big ole, 'thank God' sigh and made to come back over and sit down.
I said, "Alvin you better get those matches anyway, just in case and we better go upstairs and try and get the flashlight too. I could hold Shandra off and you could grab it or you could hold her off and I could grab the flashlight."
He agreed pretty quickly, neither of us were looking forward to another power loss. I drank another beer and Alvin said that he would hold his wife off if he needed to, and he briefly sketched out the kitchen floor plan so I would know where the table was to grab the flashlight.
He went through the door first and his wife, man she was right there all big, white, old and scary. You know how sometimes thin guys seem to marry fat women, tall guys get short women or vice versa? Well Alvin was playing the fat guy here, the woman was shorter than him and rail thin. She was wearing a bathrobe and under it she still had on a white bra and panties, I could see her legs and arms, all full of half healed bites, some neatly bandaged, others with the bandages ripped off exposing bloody divots of missing flesh. Alvin used the gun to bodily force his wife back, yelling at me to get what I needed, while pushed his wife into the living room beyond the kitchen. She was pretty slow and stupid, no sign of her getting smarter with 'age'. I grabbed the flashlight and looked in to see if I could help Alvin any, he had backed her up into a bedroom and pulled the door shut in front of her. Seeing me, he said, "We shoulda done this yesterday. Coulda been eating steaks and chicken instead of canned chili and popcorn. C'mon, lets clean this up a little."
We cleaned up the things his wife had knocked over and while we did this the bedroom door kept pounding. This was an older house though, solid doors not those thin things on houses that are new. So the pounding kept on coming but she never got through.
Alvin had a large plasma tv in his living room, I eyed it and he said, "We paid for our house 20 years ago, we got the tv's, 'cause, that's what we do." By way of explaining things. CNN came roaring to life at full volume, scaring the living piss out of me, I swear I jumped a foot and Alvin, he must cleared 18 inches himself. He used the remote to turn it down and I quickly went to the front window and peered through the drapes trying not to move them much. Outside the mob was STILL there, but none of the zombies were on his front porch or even in his yard and none were moving towards his house, somehow whatever was over there kept their attention. Or they didn't hear the noise.
"Hey Alvin, the mob is still there, do you know what has their attention?"
"Uh, I think so Kevin, there was a minivan over there, had a bunch of people, they couldn't be in it still, do you think?"
I slowly shook my head 'no', "I wouldn't think so, no. But something is there. I can't see past your bushes or through the mob. God I hope they are not still out there, its been two days!" Realizing what I had just implied (that the people were dead, not still alive), I scowled.
Alvin came over and clapped me on the back and said softly, "Don't worry about it, I know what you meant.", Turning back into the living room he went on, "So steaks? They have been in the fridge for three days, probably thawed enough by now. I think we shouldn't keep any lights on up here and should still sleep in the basement, what do you think?"
As I watched him pull steaks out of the refrigerator in the kitchen through the kitchen doorway, I said softly, "Sure Alvin, sure man."
We spent the afternoon cleaning up the basement, I even went so far as to toss a bag of beer cans outside into the back yard. I also brought a load of blankets into the basement; the floor would be a bit easier to sleep on at least.
Dinner was great, we ate steak, potatoes, even a salad, I don't imagine I will be getting that good of meal again anytime soon. Around 8 it was starting to get darker out and we headed back to the basement. I shut the door tight and propped my bat against it to hold it shut before we went down to our nest.
About halfway through the night I woke up, something was wrong, it took me awhile to realize it was the power out again. I mean, no lights on the tv or vcr, no lights on Alvin's smoke detector, nothing. I heard a noise in the bathroom then, heard Alvin doing his business in the dark, trying to be quiet. Then I heard the back door crash in, as I heard something running around in the upstairs part of the house I jumped up and whispered for Alvin, "Alvin! Alvin, come out of the bathroom man, somebody just broke in, sounds like a real guy." Then I remembered the short 2x4 that Alvin used to bar his back door, nothing shoulda been able to get through that, nothing normal. Upstairs I heard the bedroom door being opened and whoever it was did not fight with Shandra, they had to be dead already. "Alvin!" The bathroom door opened, and Alvin called out softly, "Kevin? That you? What is going on?"
"Somebody broke down your back door, they went into your old lady's bedroom and there was not a fight."
It took the old guy a second, then he said, "Okay Alvin, my gun is by the couch, the flash light is on the table, grab the light, I'll get the gun."
I had been quietly pulling on my jeans and shoes and grabbed up the flashlight and clicked it on so Alvin could see to get to the shotgun. He scrabbled over and picked up the gun, just as he got it up the basement door was pushed in, splinters came down the stairs and I heard one of the zombies doing that slow shuffle of theirs down the stairs. I also heard something else behind the first one and I heard my bat roll down a stair or two then stop. I nodded at Alvin and pointed his light to the stairs, where his wife was slowly coming down, behind her was another guy, a normal looking dude with a pretty clean t-shirt, worn blue jeans, Reeboks and he was carrying my bat! He was a white guy too, a normal enough looking man, with Sandy brown hair and what looked like he had been a couple of days since shaving, had a bit of a rough face. Something about him was not right though, he kind of gave off this, I dunno, 'aura' of power or something, like when you get a power up in a video game? Not really glowing, but he looked strong.
"Shoot Alvin! Shoot!", I yelled, only Alvin just stood there, he couldn't shoot his wife and the white guy was gonna get us because Alvin wasn't taking a shot.
He was backpedaling towards the furnace room and mumbling, "No. God, no. I can't, I can't!"
Shandra zombie rushed him towards the door and whitey took a swing at me with his bat, I ducked around and took a pretty solid hit to the back, it put me on my stomach on the floor and whitey just kept right on going towards Alvin, who dropped the damn shotgun and ran into the furnace room, I heard him tip the food shelf in front of the door and Shandra started beating on the door. The guy, and I swear this is true, the guy just shoves her aside and smashes his fist through the door. A solid wood door, like he was a kung-fu expert or
something. The light was pretty bad, I had dropped the flashlight on the floor and it was pointed directly at the bathroom door now, but I swear his hand was all mangled and broken up, as I watched it seemed to pull itself back together and he punched again, then shouldered the door forcing it open a little at a time, I heard Alvin screaming as the guy broke in. I couldn't help him, I could hardly even get up myself, somehow I made it to my hands and knees and then started crawling up the stairs, whitey and Shandra didn't pay me no mind, they just kept working to get past the door and shelving and food and get to poor Alvin. I made it outside without hearing any screaming. Once I made it upstairs, I struggled to my feet and went out the back, the board that had been holding it shut was broken like a matchstick and the door was barely hanging too. I closed the back door as I left and pulled the bag of beer cans over in front of it. I know, I know, that wouldn't do shit to slow the guy down, but maybe he would trip on the bag and if it happened while I was close I could at least hear him pushing the bag out of the way, right? I edged slowly around the corner of the house to the front, the zombie crowd was still there and if anything it was larger than ever, a few zombies were even in front of Alvin's place now, I decided not to risk it and went back into Alvin's backyard, no one was out the back door yet, so I got over his fence into his neighbor's yard, it was hard, I thought at the time that maybe that bastard had broken a couple of ribs or something. I am damn lucky he didn't break my back!
Once in the neighbor's yard I went over his back fence to get to the other row of houses and spent a few minutes looking around for weapons and other fences that would be easier to crawl over. One of the houses had a couple shorty bats in it and I took the longest one, I figured at least I would go down fighting. Then, a few houses down I heard the crunch of a bunch of beer cans and someone cursing. I headed to the side of the house I was on and slowly opened their gate, it squeaked enough to wake the dead, but whitey didn't hear it, lucky me. Then I ran, back towards where I had ditched the car on Monday, no way I was going to get around the zombie mob and I didn't know the back streets that well, I could end up lost and trapped. In fact I was not even sure where I was now, the street I was on could end in a dead end or it might open up on Federal, like I hoped.
For awhile I ran, not even caring, I knew one thing and that was that I did not want to meet whitey again. Ever if I could help it. Eventually I hit Federal, I was tempted to go hide out in the car, then I remembered the mob around the car at Alvins', no way I could chance it. Heck I was closer to my neighborhood, I could go find someplace to hide out for awhile closer to home. I was jogging down Federal when I came across this mountain bike, a real nice one, with saddle bags and everything, looked pretty good, no blood on it or anything, we are talking a thousand dollar bike here. I looked around suspiciously, a few zombies shambled around not too far enough away, slow-zoms though. I picked the bike up. No flat tires as I had feared, nothing wrong with it all as far as I could tell. I got on and started pedaling, whenever I saw zombies I avoided them, I even saw a few faster zombies, some chased me, but the bike was faster than they could run.
I started thinking how funny this was, me riding a bike around town, no shirt, middle of the night. I hadn't done this since I was a kid, you know? I am not sure why I headed south, but it was always clear, at Colfax I decided to head east, probably not a smart move really as it leads right into the heart of down town, but I figured I would try to get to Colorado Boulevard and head south again, or keep heading east if the way stayed clear. What I didn't count on was getting so tired, by sunrise I was hardly able to keep pedaling and daylight seemed to make the zoms more active. I looked around for some place to crash after I reached Colfax. Man that is right where the stadium is, and it was crowded I had to pick my way through a dozen wrecks and past ten or twelve zombies, not good. I ended up heading further south until I hit eighth avenue, then I turned east. There was this dry cleaning place that still had power, it had a neon 'open' sign still light up, I tried the door, it was unlocked, I pulled the bike in and turned it around, in case I had to make a quick getaway. Then I checked the shop out, it was empty, but there were pieces of bodies in a back room. It looked like the room had been barricaded off from the rest of the shop, then broken into. I had found an office with a locking door while I was searching the place and decided to hide out there for as long as I needed. On my way back to it I snagged some white t-shirts, looked like employee shirts to me, only no names or anything on them. I lugged a couple of huge bags of clean clothing into the office to use as a mattress. Once inside the office I locked the door, then shoved the desk in front of it, along with everything else I could move, which was not much considering the pain I had in my back.
I looked around and found a first aid kit, popped four of the ibuprofen tablets from it and quickly fell asleep. There was one window in the office, barred on the outside and high up on the wall, it let in light, but I didn't think anyone would be able to see inside to get a look at me. I woke up in pain, my back was killing me. I searched through med kit more, you know, hoping for something like morphine to kill the pain, there wasn't any. I found some aspirin and Excedrin and took plenty of both, washing it down with some Spanish drink I found in the bottom drawer, it was nasty, tasted like sweet rice or something. Then I just sat and waited for the pain to go away. Probably several hours had gone by since I broke in there, another half hour and I felt better, and hungry. There was no food in the office so I was going to have to go out. I had not heard anything while waiting for the aspirin to kick in so I slowly slid the desk back so I could open the door. Only I could hardly move the thing, my back hurt so bad! In the end it took me twenty minutes to move the damn thing out of the way and I threw up once. I forced some more aspirin down with the rice drink and moved out into the shop. Everything was the same, except one thing, no bike. Someone had stolen my goddamn bicycle when I was sleeping!
Looking out the front windows I saw the zoms were pretty sparse, across the street was a gas station, but I didn't have my bat anymore, I vaguely recalled having tucked it into the saddlebags on the bike and not bringing it with me into the office when I slept. In fact I had not even seen what was in those saddle bags, it could have been food, or a gun!
Searching the shop I found a metal rod about 3-4 feet long, it had a kind of 'u' shape in one end and I think they used it to reach hangers on the upper rack, it didn't matter it was pretty hefty and actually better than the bat anyway. I used the pisser, passed a little blood in my urine, that made me nervous.
I got out of the store quietly, trying not to draw attention to myself as I made my way to the nearest gas station or convenience store. Before lone0g I was outside of a seven eleven, but there were zoms inside and out, not too many, but enough to make me nervous. Still I was hungry and need food. As I went for the front door a zombie clawed out from beneath a parked car and grabbed one of my ankles and started trying to pull me under the car. I fell over twitching my back, still I managed to get my foot on the car and pulled my leg out from this thing's grasp. Of course while I was down, several others started crowding me. I used my rod as a stick and levered myself up. The first zombie died like a piece of cake in a fat man convention, it was gone so quick you wouldn't have know it ever existed. After that things got dicey. I managed to knock out a couple more and get into the store, then I had to deal with all of the store zombies, while the others crowded around the front door on the outside, not able to 'pull' the door open. Stupid zoms!
"Inside the store I clubbed the old clerk to death first, the pipe thing worked great, it was thinner than a bat and heavier, plus the end could poke really well, like a spear, even though it was not sharp or anything. The store had, like I said, maybe five zombies in there at least and after the first the others were a little easier, I had to put down one chick, man she was hot, had a bunch of wounds, like a shotgun or something, but she was still hot. You maybe understand that I waited to hit her last? Weird huh? Like I am thinking, hey this bitch wi
ll snap out of it and 'be normal' if she sees me kill off her friends. No luck there, I went around the store even looking for crawlers, but had to face the reality, the cute chica was gonna keep chasing me around. She was a little faster than most of them too, not much, but a hair, you know?"
Hank and Jaun nodded 'yes'.
"It seemed like she was like trying to tell me something, her in her baby pink t-shirt coated with dried blood. Short-shorts too, did I mention she was hot? The effect was ruined by the fact she only had on one shoe though, well that and the blood. Eventually I had to just club her.
I looked around the store, pulled open the cash drawer, grabbed the twenties, just in case. Hey I knew then money was worthless, but maybe I would run into someone who wouldn't know that. Then I grabbed a bunch of candy and chips and headed back to the back room. Then I came to my senses and dropped the trash I was carrying and came out looking for something with real value, you know, beef jerky, nuts, dried fruits, anything that was not shit. Eating with Alvin may have been a little boring when we were stuck in the basement, but it was real food, man, not sugar and fat. I took the food and went into the back room, out of sight of the zoms. It took about two minutes before I heard the glass break. I didn't even go look, just grabbed my Mountain Dew, stuffed the granola bars and jerky in my pants pockets and lit out the back door of the place. Funny thing too, the place was pretty well built, the back door was metal and all, with all these latches and stuff, seemed like it took me ten minutes to get it unlocked, while I heard them in the front of the store.
