Unhappy Endings

by Chris Philbrook

  Well that ain't true at all. I got lucky socks, and I will NEVER wash them on Cowboys game day. But that’s probably not a problem I'm gonna have ever again, I'm sad to say. There might still be cowboys out there, but they ain't playing no football.

  So aside from that pretty white steeple, the rest of the church looked like it was ready for a hurricane to blow in. Heavy sheets of plywood across all the stained glass windows, and the front door had a big old handmade barricade at the top of the steps. The house of Christ was invite only now, and I figured I'd try and see what was happening.

  I knocked on the 2x4 and plywood entryway barricade and I hooted and hollered to let the folks inside know who I was. It wasn't two shakes of a bull's tail before I could see the actual church's door open inside. It was a heavy door, a good door, and it swung inwards and out come two people I had never laid eyes on before.

  Your daddy and his friend Ray. Adam and Ray got twelve gauges on me as soon as that door let the sunlight in, and they're all serious and taking no chances and that's smart. Your daddy is a smart man, boy. He has helped keep me alive, as well as you and your mother. All of us.

  So your daddy says, "Sir, we don't have any food or batteries spare to give away, but we'll share some clean water if you need it."

  And I thanked him kindly, and said I was simply looking for a place of Christ to take a knee for a bit, and possibly talk to other sensible living souls while there was still some left in the world.

  We stood there on the porch talking, hot as Hades for near an hour. I still remember the taste of the sweat that ran down my face. I was so dang well soaked in it that day I had to wring out my bandana just to smear more sweat around. Made me thankful for my cap, and even more thankful after they let me in.

  I drank almost an entire bottle of water right off the bat, which gave me some cramps, but also brought me right back to life. It was then that I made my way past the forty eight souls in that church to say my prayers at the foot of Jesus. I think I was there for the better part of another hour, asking for forgiveness, and praying for the safety of friends and what I knew of my family. Huh? No, I never really met my momma. She died right after I was born in a car accident. Daddy told me she was on her way back from the store with food for dinner. But that ain't the point.

  When I got done praying for all that I needed to pray for, I sat down with Ray, and Adam, and Bob, and Clayton and Colton, and Sally, and Lauren, and Gerald, and Michelle and Cailie and all the folks who are with us tonight, as well as a whole slew of folks that didn't make it this far. It’s a troubled world kids.

  If you can remember, your daddy Adam was the manager at a Home Depot, and he was smart enough to shut the store down, lock up, and load a flatbed up with lumber the afternoon of the 23rd. He also grabbed up screws, nails, a handful of generators, water filtration gear, everything a smart person needs to survive the end of times. Thank you, orange smock wearing hero. I hope he can't hear me, he's apt to smack me for making fun of him, and I like your daddy too much to shoot him in the foot.

  So one hour of talk turned into two, and then two hours of talk turned into six, and before you know it, we were formulating a plan for not just that night, but that summer, and potentially that whole year. We were on to something that night. Ten reasonably bright folk, all willing to share their possessions and ideas, and all with the get up and go attitude that could get stuff done. Some old dude said that if we don't hang together, we'll all hang separate, and times could not reflect that more.

  That very next day we all set out to achieve what we'd planned.

  Now boys, it's important to remember that what we wanted to do was dangerous. Very dangerous.

  Colton worked at a kitchen supply company. Specifically, one that sold deli equipment and butcher's equipment. That was our first stop. No son we didn't need aprons. Well that's not true, we did want some aprons, but not the cloth kind. You see, real industrial meat cutters use gloves that are like medieval chainmail, and wear aprons that are the same. It's pretty light, and is knife resistant. Knife resistant means bite resistant, and we knew that these unholy abominations liked to bite to spread their evil. Bites are always lethal kids. We also had the idea that with some chicken wire, and some dirt biking gear, and the great enabler of invention herself, duct tape, we'd be able to fashion us up some anti-zombie armor.

  Man I hate that word. Zombie. It sounds uneducated. A cop out. Skipping the full day of work if you know what I mean. Doesn't do 'em justice. You know who calls offa work? People who don't get nowhere.

  So that next day we got our trucks rigged up, and we headed out to Colton's place of business. That was easy. No one there you see. Nothing worth stealing out of a business that sells nothing but aprons and packaging materials right? Well boo to them is what we said.

  Butcher's gloves, and cut resistant aprons rescued from the clutches of a dark and dirty warehouse rack, we returned back to that Baptist church and sent out a few more cars to scoop up some chicken wire off a farm down the road from my trailer. I remember hearing back that day when they had to put down old man Keller at the farm. He'd cut himself some bad on the leg and bled out, and of course when we got there, he was all kinds of dead and ornery, walking down his driveway looking for something to bite, and they had to shoot him. We said prayers for him that nigh as we made our first sets of armor from chicken wire and duct tape. It worked good, really. Small rings of wire about three quarters your width of whatever body part cut to size, then covered in strips of that good old gray tape, then buttons were sewn on so you could fasten yourself in. The tape only covered maybe half of the wire, so your skin could breathe, but no teeth could get through to you. I took some wood stripping from my shed and made slats of more reinforced armor just like the stuff I'm wearing right now. See, small strips of wood under the tape? Yep, its light, and it helps protect against the worst bites. Some of the others have taken to using soccer shin pads too, but I don’t like how they make my shins sweat in the heat.

  So we made real simple stuff that night and the next day. Just forearm guards, and shin guards, and Colton made himself a knightly breastplate out of the wire and tape too. That didn't last. Especially after we started to pick up cop vests. Day after that arts and crafts session we buckled in, and we took that flatbed and three pickups back to Greg's Home Depot to get some more lumber.

  You see, I'd told them all about the diesel yard, and how it'd be perfect to move to. We just needed some lumber to make it all happen.

  Now I done told ya these aren't the happiest of stories. I drove the flatbed due to my experience behind the wheel of all vehicles commercial, and that suited me just fine. There's no need to put lipstick on this pig, I know my role. Some of them we'd brought with us were veterans, and they were well armed with semi-automatic weapons, and they knew how to shoot them too. It was a good feeling. We felt safe. As safe as we could be I suppose.

  We weren't of course. Now son, don't be scared, your daddy made it back with us that day, he's here tonight with us. Smile. These are stories of brave men and women creating a new world, despite fear and danger.

  When we arrived at the Home Depot it was being looted. Now we'd made the plan ahead of time to leave any other looters be. We were not the police, nor did we want to involve ourselves in the activities of others. We would have enough trouble atoning for our own actions, let alone the actions of others.

  All that is well and good, but when we drove up into the contractor's access, and Adam hopped out the truck, someone over at the regular entrance across the way started shooting at us. I do not consider myself a particularly brave fellow, but I threw the truck's brakes, killed the motor and got out with my SKS. I didn't even know who was shooting at who, but I had the distinctly poor feeling someone else was shooting at us, and when all our other brothers got out and started to shoot at the other entrance, I knew where to point my weapon.

  I didn't fire one round. But the time I had figured out which end of the rifle was up, and whi
ch way I needed to be pointing it, our people had gotten off about fifteen shots, and sent whoever it was right back into the store. Course that's when we saw that our girl Diane had gotten in the way of a bullet. We didn’t even realize we'd lost someone she'd gone down so fast. Clayton had come back to the Dodge to get some of our extra flashlights, and there she was, flat on her back on the ground, her head pretty much missing. It's a strange fortune when you get killed like that boys. No need to worry about coming back and harming those you're with. Of course it's stomach turning. No one is ever meant to see the insides of someone like that. 'Cept maybe doctors and surgeons, and even then I don't understand how they keep their dinners inside 'em.

  It just ain't right kids. You know that though. I know you all have seen too much already in your young lives. It speaks volumes that half of you kids are just barely into your teens and you're all veteran carriers of handguns. Heck, I can see the lumps under your sleeping bags where your guns are right now.

  Cold out isn't it?

  Mighty cold. Almost 40 degrees.

  Diane was dead, and we all said our words over her body quick. The other guys knew that the folks that had killed her were still about, and we needed to get what we'd gone there to do done before they started shooting again.

  I was tasked with the admirable job of holding down the fort outside. I took me some cover next to the flatbed, and I put my head on a swivel like a lawn sprinkler. Now I can tell you all the nitty-gritty details of the inside shooting in the store, but I'm sure you've heard most of the details from your daddy, or someone else who went inside. I can tell you that they had to fight, aisle to aisle inside that big building, taking down some crazy assholes that thought they had to kill us to keep their haul. We would've gladly let them walk out with whatever they wanted, so long as they kept the peace. But they didn't, and we had to protect ourselves.

  We left three of their dead inside that Home Depot that day, and it was with heavy hearts we loaded the trucks up with all of what we wanted. We'd made so much noise though that by the time we were half loaded with our supplies we needed to start peeling off people to cover us. We'd drawn in about ten of the dead folk just while everyone had been inside, and I'd been able to send them to a resting place with some squinting and a few missed shots. Well, a few is being mighty generous. Shooting at a moving target a few hundred yards out that's the size of a paper plate is actually a pretty steep feat. I think I spent a whole 30 round mag plugging away at those poor guys. Remember kids, head shots are the only thing that counts against the dead. Gotta wreck that rotten melon to put them back to sleep for good.

  It took us the entire afternoon just to keep the crowd of the dead out of the parking lot and get the trucks loaded and strapped down. I'll say this though; we left that parking lot with nearly everything we've ever needed. We planned smart, worked quick, and did Diane justice. She did not die in vain.

  Saying words like that doesn't make her any less dead though kids. Big words are meant for impressing small minds my daddy said.

  No, jackass that wasn't meant as an insult.

  When we left the store we went back to the Baptist church. It was fortified enough in case anyone followed us, and we certainly didn't want to lead anyone to where we really wanted to go. Folks was hard to trust back then, more than now I think. Now we all know there's nothing left to fight over. But back then, with such a ripe basket of things to pick over, it was easy to get violent. Lord knows we had our fair share of shootouts with people over what's left. Man you guys remember when everyone started to get sick? When the water all went bad? Those were hard times.

  Anyway, the fuel farm. My work. You remember when we moved in there right? Before we built the whole place up and started calling it The Fort? Can you believe one of those idiots wanted to call it The Alamo at first? The Fort's a kick ass name, and doesn't have all that negativity and such associated with it. Man, those were dicey days. Scared of making all that noise, and we was cutting lumber all day and night to get that place built up and fortified. Truth be told, we couldn't have found a much better place. All that fuel may have made us a target, but it surely kept us in food and supplies.

  The next day after we was sure that we hadn't been followed a bunch of us set out in our trucks over to the fuel facility. My good man Greg was still sitting there. He's the one I told you lost all that weight? From not eating and whatnot? He was still sitting guard, right there in the heat of the day, hiding down in his security booth at the gate. When we pulled up he drew down with his shotgun on us, using the booth wall as cover. I dropped out of my truck and as soon as he saw me waving, he lowered the gun. It should be noted he did not put the gun away. Greg's a smart fella.

  I offered him a bottle of water, and as he drank it down in three gulps I told him we aimed to be moving into the place. Permanent like.

  See kids, it makes a lot of sense to set up shop in a place that has resources at it. If it has some kind of security too, well then that's icing on your cake. Greg needed some cajoling though. It was his sworn duty to ensure that none of that fuel was stolen, and no one trespassed on company property. After thirty solid minutes of us explaining to him that the world had indeed gone sour, and it was every man for himself out there, he agreed to let us in. Agreed to join us.

  That first day all we did was scout the buildings. You ever go into a new shopping store? One that's new to town that you ain't never been in before? And each and every aisle, even though it's got the same shit as ever other store you ever been in, is exciting and new?

  That was how I felt. How we all felt I suspect. When I brought the crew around to each building and we decided on what was going to go where, it was thrilling stuff. Like how we went to the driver's locker room and decided it'd be our armory. All those steel cages for clothes doubled perfectly for gun safes. The main office building was just about perfect for living quarters for the whole lot of us, and all we had to do was finish our plan on how to make sure no one got into the place, and how we were going to find enough beds for us to sleep in.

  I headed back to my trailer that night, and started moving stuff in while everyone else headed back to the Baptist church and kept on planning and getting rest.

  I moved my home into a back workshop near the rear of the Fort. Originally it was a machine shop for tool repair and our own company use. I knew the office would be a good bedroom, and it was a sturdy building that was right next to the fences, and about a stone's toss from the back exit. That was part of the good stuff about the Fort kids. Two twelve foot tall chain link fences topped with that coiled up concertina wire. Plus, all those Jersey barriers around the exterior meant driving through the fences was a real bad idea.

  I was almost fully moved in by the time I fell asleep in my new machine shop home right before dawn. Two hours of sleep later and we were back at it.

  A smart move was deciding that getting all our beds from home was a bad idea. Too much driving, and too much exposure. It was decided that we'd head to a mattress store, and just take a truck load of beds. The local mattress place was on the edge of town, nowhere near anything, and our crew loaded it all up in less than four hours. Mattresses, box springs, frames, and even some dressers and bureaus. Right next door to the shop was a batteries and car parts shop, and we emptied that place of what we could. A few of us know enough about car repair that parts would be useful, and we also knew that car batteries themselves would soon be in short supply. A pickup truck full of that stuff was money in the bank. That voyage to the strips on the frontage roads near Longview was pretty mundane. No stores in that neck of the woods that drew in looters that day, and there were only a few of the dead about. Thankfully someone who is a far better than I am was able to do the trigger pulling for us. Saved us quite a few rounds, and quite a bit of adrenaline. Life is easier when they stay far away.

  It took us the rest of the daylight to drive back and get the offices emptied of cubicles and filing cabinets and shit desktop computers that weren't any g
ood to anyone without the internet no more. Besides, that was the day the kids said the internet died. One of 'em was searching through the Google for news when it all just stopped working.

  Man I'm tired. You kids tired yet? No? Alright I'll keep talking. Where was I? Uh, yeah, moving stuff out and in. That day was beds. The next week, was food and personal stuff, from home. Well, for the folks that dared risk going home. Over that week things became much worse. The violence in the city from the living folk got much worse as the food inside stores dwindled away. Larger cities and towns I suppose had worse problems with it. Many more folks trying to go after the same food, and everyone is starving and scared and desperate, and it's Texas, so we're all armed in five ways or more.

  We spent a lot of nights sitting in the darkness, listening to distant gunfire that week. One of the worst feelings it was. Some of you remember it I'm sure. Nerves frayed, blood boiling. Wanting to either run and hide, or go help. No win to be had in either direction truth be told. Just sadness, and praying that the evil didn't reach us.

  We started cutting the Home Depot lumber when the gunfire died down in the following weeks. Our perimeter was damn well secure from the two fences and the concrete barriers, but we needed elevated firing positions, according to our National Guard fellas. We weren't real scared of being bombed by airplanes no more, so the option of guard towers was our best. On each corner of the Fort's fence and at each gate we built ourselves a thirty foot tall tower. Large ladder leading up the top with a retractable portion so folks couldn't climb up it easily. We lined each tower's floor and walls with sandbags and some cinderblocks for protection against being shot at, and we mounted some spotlights up on the top that we rigged to run off those car batteries. When we put everyone to work cutting and bolting and nailing we were able to put up a tower every four days. Mind you kids, that's eleven hour days for about six adults who know what they're doing, plus time for the concrete to set.