Dead Fall

by Joseph Xand

  But then again, the door had never been unlocked before, so I couldn't be sure. You never really know until you know, right?

  So when the door opened and I realized it was Brandon, once the fear passed, and I saw he was fine and not one of those things, it was almost too much emotion all at one time. My hands got all shaky and I just sank quick and hard onto my rump and covered my face and cried and cried.

  For all I knew, mom and dad were on his tail and he needed to hurry inside and shut the door, but I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn't think that far ahead.

  Of course, that stupid smirk on his face gave away the fact he wasn't in any imminent danger, but who knows? I just put my face in my hands and cried. Brandon got on the floor with me and put his arms around me and kept saying, "I'm sorry, sis. I'm sorry." But I didn't know what he had to be sorry about exactly. Changing up the plan without informing me first? But he kind of had to think on his feet and didn't exactly have time to run things by me.

  I get that.

  So anyway, here's what happened:

  Brandon started out following the plan as we'd discussed it up to when it came time to close the door at the end of the hall. At that point, he says he couldn't resist the urge to look around the corner and see mom and dad one last time. I guess I can understand that, even if I have no desire to see them myself.

  Anyway, he made a noise or something, he doesn't remember, and they turned and saw him. I could tell when he was telling me all this that he wanted to tell me what they looked like, but I didn't care for too many details. One thing he did tell me, though. He said they started trying to walk towards him, but they couldn't move at first. Somehow their feet were like glued to the carpet or something, maybe from having been standing in one place so long without shoes on. Brandon said they couldn't lift their legs for a few seconds. They kept trying to and nearly fell over in the effort. Finally, both of them did fall over and when they did, their feet tore free, taking some carpet with them. Brandon even said there was a weird ripping sound as they fell and their feet tore loose.

  Then, he said, they started getting back up. But they didn't jump up fast like they did when they chased me. He said they got up a lot slower. Before they got up completely, Brandon took off back down the hallway. The doofus could have just shut the hallway door like he was supposed to do in the first place, but he said he didn't think of that. When he got halfway to his room, he said he looked over his shoulder, expecting mom and dad to be right behind him, but they were just turning the corner to the hallway. They weren't running like they were before, but walking at a pace, Brandon said, that was a little slower than a normal walk. Brandon started walking backward himself, but fast enough to keep his distance.

  That's when he got a really smart idea.

  Mom and dad have a big walk-in closet in their room that has two doors. One door opens into the bedroom. The other into the bathroom. Dad built it special for mom when they bought the house. But I don't want to talk about that.

  Anyway, Brandon got the idea to let them follow him into their bedroom, then around the bed into their closet. Once they were in the closet, he'd leave the closet via the door that leads to the bathroom, shut that door, then go out of the bathroom and shut the other closet door.

  It seemed simple enough, but looking back a lot could have gone wrong. The timing could have been off and he could have gotten cornered. Or one of them could have followed him in the bathroom as planned while the other stayed in the bedroom, trapping Brandon in the bathroom. Lots of bad stuff could have happened.

  But luckily it didn't. He was able to lock them in the closet (well, shut them in—the doors don't actually lock), then shut the bedroom door for a little added protection. Brandon's quick thinking improved our position immensely. Rather than being relegated to the bedrooms while we planned our next move as we would have been with the original plan, we now had the run of the whole house.

  Plus we weren't reliant on some crazy scheme to get out of the basement that included using a remote-controlled toy. Which wouldn't have worked, by the way. For "shits and giggles" (as my Uncle Travis used to say when mom wasn't around), we set the R.C. Dune Buggy outside the window and we couldn't get it to roll in the grass. Some dune buggy. And then the siren didn't work at all. So Plan A would have screwed us royally.

  As it worked out, like I said, we had the whole house, with the exception of mom and dad's closet, of course. Which actually is kind of a big deal because somewhere in there dad has a pistol. We don't know exactly where, and it's locked in a strongbox that we don't know the combination to, but still, we could have found a way to open it.

  Oh well. We probably would have just shot our toes off.

  So anyway, since we were able to scrounge more food out of the kitchen, along with some cookies Brandon found in his room and the water from two toilets (it could have been three, but we both sponged off in one of them and then used it to go in), we didn't have to rush out immediately. We stayed at the house five more full days. We might have stayed a little longer, but more and more of those things were wandering the streets in front of the house and we already had a big hole in the living room wall where a large window used to be. I can only guess how that happened.

  So that's the story of how we got out of the basement. And that's all for now because we need to try and find a safe place to sleep tonight.

  * * * * *

  Dear Diary,

  (Date Unknown)

  It has been a few days since my last entry, and they have been some rough days.

  Food has been scarce. We've been walking long distances only to find places that have already been emptied of anything that might have been edible.

  We've been able to stay hydrated, at least, and once Brandon found a raspberry bush that hadn't been picked clean yet.

  One of our destinations had been a pair of gated communities that are less than a mile apart near a town called Lebanon. We figured we would climb the fences, then scrounge from house to house for a few days at each location.

  Well, we walked a LONG way with that plan in mind only to have our hopes dashed upon arrival. The first gated community was swarming with zombies. Hundreds of them. And those were just the ones we could see.

  Even if we made it over the fence and managed to run into one of the houses, and the house just happened to not be occupied already by any dead people (slim chance), it would have been the last place we'd ever go.

  We'd never have left the house alive.

  The next gated community was smaller and more remote, but it was also occupied…by LIVE people. A group of people had turned it into a kind of fort, complete with lookouts and guards controlling the fences.

  We kept our distance.

  At first, Brandon thought we should just go up and introduce ourselves and see if they'd let us join their little community.

  It was tempting.

  Although we've seen signs from time to time of where people might be, we've always stayed quiet and to ourselves. Sometimes we'll see smoke rising up out of the woods like from a campfire, or we'll see fresh footprints in some mud (not dragging through the mud like one of the dead might do). We'll sometimes hear a car on the road near us or a gunshot in the direction we're going. Or even voices in the distance.

  We always change direction and go somewhere else. That's a lot of the reason we never got further from Philly than we have. No real direction.

  It's hard sometimes because we've talked to no one else but ourselves and each other for a long time, and we're starting to get on each other's nerves. It would be nice to have someone else to talk to. But you can't be too careful.

  There's no telling what people are capable of.

  After more recon of the gated community, we realized we hadn't seen any women or children. Just a bunch of well-armed, burly men. We decided not to take any chances. We backed out the way we'd come, thankfully without being seen, and stayed off the roads and out of the open.

  Then I got a
great idea. I remembered a clothing store in a strip mall we'd passed by the day before.

  Why would I want to go to a clothing store, you ask? I thought about a time I went to a clothing store with my mom, and I had to go to the restroom. While looking for the restroom, I stumbled across the employee break room, complete with snack and soda machines.

  We decided to head back to the clothing store today to see if this one, too, had such a break room, thinking that maybe scavengers don't typically go to clothing stores in search of food.

  It turned out to be the right call! We found the strip mall again and entered the clothing store (Allister's Apparel) through the back door (we're getting good at getting into locked doors). The break room was where I expected it to be—steps from the public restroom. Must be a clothing-store thing.

  Anyway, there were vending machines, and they hadn't been touched. That's not to say all the food in them was edible. Actually very little of it was. There was a cold-food machine, and all the food in it was gross and moldy. Burgers, little pizzas, hot dogs, sandwiches…all ruined. We could actually see rats and cockroaches moving around inside. Yuck!

  The regular snack machine wasn't too much better. Cupcakes and honey buns only last so long. But we were able to forage some stale cookies and chips.

  The soda machine was stocked and even had bottled water! Getting it open was no picnic, but it never is. Locked doors are much easier.

  In the employee refrigerator (which was smelly and disgusting, by the way) we found a complete six pack of V-8 juice with a note attached that said, "For Mack P. ONLY!" Sorry, Mack. We owe you one.

  And in the cabinet, we found a few canned soups and two Ramen noodle soups that rats and mice hadn't discovered yet.

  All in all, not a bad haul.

  But the best may be yet to come. Behind the strip mall is an entire neighborhood of homes we didn't notice when we passed by before. They are somewhat hidden from the main road. The entry road into the neighborhood must come from a different direction. And if we can't see it from the road, other scavengers can't either. It's possible there may be something there.

  Tomorrow or the next day we're going to hit it and see what we can find.

  We're also going to find new clothes and shoes before we leave. When baths are scarce, we've learned a simple change of attire can be very refreshing.

  Right now Brandon's collecting stacks of clothes and using them to make comfortable beds for us behind the counters in the cosmetics department.

  All for now.

  * * * * *

  Dear Diary,

  (Date Unknown)

  We've been staying at Allister's for four days now. Coming here had turned out to be a really good decision. Two days ago we decided to make our way down to the houses in the neighborhood behind the strip mall. The strip mall sits much higher than the houses behind it, and you basically have to walk down a very steep grade to get to them, then climb the wooden fences into their back yards.

  Which is fine with us, because in the few months after we left home, we've learned that the best way to travel when you're scavenging neighborhoods is to move house to house via the backyards. The streets in front of the house are usually where you'll find most of the zombies and others will sometimes be trapped in the houses. Very few are in the backyards, so it's fairly safe travel. And from the height of the parking lot behind the strip mall, we can see into a lot of the backyards, so that's cool, too.

  So after scanning the backyards nearest the strip mall and seeing no dead people in any of them, we settled on a backyard where we could start our search and climbed the fence.

  We have a sort of routine we follow anytime we enter a backyard. First, we try to hug the fence from the side so as not to be conspicuous to anyone or anything inside.

  Once we get to the house, we peek into any window or patio door we can to look for movement inside or signs that someone (living) might still live there. If we don't see anything, then we knock on the windows and doors to see if we can draw anything (dead) out into the open by the sound.

  If a zombie is drawn out, we have a decision to make. We can move to the next house or we can assess the danger of going into the house even with the zombie inside.

  For example, once we saw a zombie in a bedroom through the bedroom window, but we could clearly see the bedroom door was shut, trapping it inside. After checking that the rest of the house looked clear, we decided to go in. After all, since someone in the house didn't evacuate, it stood to reason they might have a stash of food to sustain them.

  If no zombie responds to our knocks, then we are free to enter.

  Once we are inside, we are still cautious and move slowly until we are 100% sure it's clear. There could still be live people hiding inside.

  That hasn't happened yet, but once we heard movement coming from somewhere upstairs and skedaddled.

  We've been surprised at how much food we find in some neighborhoods. I mean, obviously, some have already been scavenged. Okay, most have already been scavenged. But even then you can find food people missed.

  Most scavengers just hit the kitchens and move on, but people keep stashes of food in all kinds of places—home offices, bedrooms, garages, even bathrooms. Once we found a basement that happened to be where the family had kept its bulk food items, and it was all untouched!

  And sometimes we find houses that are completely untouched and have lots of food in the kitchen proper. This used to puzzle us. Why leave home and not take the supplies you'll need with you?

  Then it occurred to us that a lot of people probably left soon after the outbreak happened. They packed up a few clothes and necessities and headed west to stay with friends or family until the crisis blew over. The best signs this is what happened is when you find lots of food, but few or no perishables. They either took those with them or gave them away (or cooked them up) before they left so the food wouldn't go to waste.

  In those cases, there will almost always be closets or drawers with gaping holes where clothes used to be. That's also a pretty good indicator.

  Of course, other people probably left home to go to work or the gym or to run some errands but never made it back home. Like they got killed along the way. There are signs for this as well, and I'm not talking about a smelly gallon of spoiled milk or some moldy cheese. These signs are really heartbreaking.

  Dead pets.

  Sometimes we'll go into houses and find the remains of dogs or cats or other animals that eventually starved to death when their owners never came home.

  So, anyway, we've been to four homes in the neighborhood behind the strip mall and it looks like the entire neighborhood may be untouched! We've found lots of food so far. We brought two heavy duffle bags full of can goods and other stuff back with us, and we're just getting started.

  There are about a dozen houses behind the strip mall alone, as well as houses across the street from those houses, and from the back parking lot, we can see the roofs of more houses beyond those. If we can figure out how to maneuver to the other houses safely and have as much luck with those as we've had so far, then we might find enough food to last months.

  Thinking positively, we've done some talking about storage. Originally we considered just living at the clothing store and going back and forth for food as we need it. But just because no one else has discovered the neighborhood doesn't mean it won't happen, and then there goes all our food.

  Brandon thinks we should just go ahead and try to hit all the houses, several a day, and bring everything we find back to the clothing store. And he makes a good point because the reason we came here in the first place was because we didn't think people would hit a clothing store looking for food. They certainly wouldn't come expecting to find large stashes of food.

  We could hide food on shelves behind boxes of shoes or under piles of clothes, and odds are no one would find them, even if they did think to hit the employee break room—which they'd find already hit.

  We're gonna start tomorr
ow. I'm excited! We both are.

  I'll let you know how it turns out.

  * * * * *

  Dear Diary,

  (Date—Well, you know)

  Brandon's a lot smarter than I sometimes give him credit for. He got a really good idea so we wouldn't have to make so many trips from the houses back to the store carrying our loot. We bring several duffel bags, three or four for each house, and when they are full, we drop them through the fence in the backyard. (We're going to start pulling out some of the boards in the fences rather than climbing over them each time.)

  Then we have a shopping cart from the store waiting, and we push it along the back fence and gather up all the duffel bags. From there we'll have to try to push the shopping cart up the hill to the parking lot. That may not be too easy, but we'll work something out.

  Worst case scenario, we'll have to go back and forth up the hill from the shopping cart, but it's still better than what we'd been doing before.

  LATER TODAY

  We hit four houses from this morning to lunch time and everything went very well. We even got the shopping cart up the hill, and it was full.

  Besides lots of food, we found medicine and first-aid supplies, matches, flashlights, batteries, candles, a CD player and music, and lots and lots of other stuff. We only had to skip past one house because there were dead people moving around inside.

  We haven't started hiding the stuff yet. We're still trying to inventory it all. Going to have to come up with a system.

  I think we're going to call it quits for the day scavenging-wise and work out the other stuff.

  LATER AGAIN

  Wow, my third entry in one day! But what can I say, it's been a good day (mostly), and I have lots to report.

  Earlier while I was creating an inventory of what we've found so far, Brandon disappeared. I went looking for him around the store and found him near the front in the formalwear section. He said he wanted to find a suit that was his size. He said he'd only worn a suit once in his life, for grandma's funeral two years ago, and he wanted to wear one just to wear one and not let the only time he's ever worn a suit be a sad occasion.