by McElyea, Ben
“We can’t go on scavenging runs with those things outside our home,” said Megan.
“I know what to do,” said Chris. “I’ll be the new leader.”
“I’m going to be the leader,” said Jake. “I know what needs to be done. As long as people listen to me, we’ll have a chance. If you make one bad decision, you can get one or more person killed.”
“Why shouldn’t I be the leader?” Chris asked.
“You don’t ever leave the gates. Enough said.”
“Just because I don’t leave the gates doesn’t mean I won’t make a good leader.”
“You’re too much of a coward to lead us, Chris.”
“I’m not a coward, Jake.”
“How many times have you been outside the fence?”
“Not many times.”
“You’ve been outside the fence one time since this whole thing started,” Eric said with a laugh. “You came home as soon as you could and stayed put.”
“Shut up, Eric. You’re too crazy to be the leader, Jake.”
“You aren’t going to be the leader.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m the best candidate.”
“Never thought of you being the leader.”
“Never punched a man named Chris before, but there’s a first time for everything.”
Jake reared back and punched Chris in the nose as hard as he could. Jake’s built up rage threw him on top of Chris. He bashed Chris in the mouth six times before hearing Chris yield.
“Okay! Stop! You’re the leader! Just stop hitting me!”
Jake rose up from the ground and kicked Chris in the side of the head. Chris spit out a piece of a tooth.
“Does anyone else question my leadership?”
No one said a word. Chris spit up blood and held his mouth.
“I’m going to take care of you all. I’ll do the best I can. Do what I say. I know what I’m doing. If you aren’t going to contribute to the group, leave. Let’s get rid of these zombies.”
Dan was quiet for the rest of the evening. He and Jake said very little before hearing a knock on their front door. Jake opened the door with a pistol in his hand. It was Courtney with Aaron.
“Are you feeling better?” Jake asked Courtney as he lowered and holstered the pistol.
“No,” Courtney answered. “We’re not okay.”
“Come inside.”
Courtney and Aaron walked inside and sat on the mattress.
“You’re smart to make walls out of stuff.”
“Everyone should do it. Spread the word.”
“I will. I have a question.”
“Ask away.”
“Can Aaron and I live here with you and your brother? We don’t trust anyone else.”
“Why do you trust me?”
“You’re strong and know what you’re doing. I have to hope you’re not a bad man.”
“You need me this much?”
“We all do.”
“Everyone needs to pull their own weight.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“You’ll stay inside the fence and watch over Aaron.”
“Can we stay here?”
“You two can stay.”
“Thank you. I’ll go get our things and be right back.”
Another horde of zombies was attracted to the area when Angela shot herself. Chris shot himself not long after. Another day was spent toiling beside the fence. From then on, Jake, Dan, Eric, Sam, Courtney, Megan, Melissa, and Aaron stayed in Jake’s house. Frightened by the losses, they rarely separated from one another. Adam died on the cross.
“What are we going to do?” Melissa asked.
“We’re going to struggle from time to time,” Jake said with a sigh. “Just get with the program, everybody.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. What are we going to do next?”
“We’ll go on a scavenging run.”
“Going on a scavenging run is the solution to our problems?”
“Is it not?”
“We need better than this. I can’t live like this.”
“If you want to leave and find better, you’re more than welcome to grab your stuff and go.”
“You know I can’t do it alone.”
“Then shut up.”
“I’m all alone, Jake.”
“None of us are alone. We have each other.”
“None of us really care about each other. Everybody in this room would sacrifice another person in this room to save their own skin.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“It is that way.”
“It really isn’t. You’re just afraid no one will take care of you.”
“What will I do if someone doesn’t?”
“We will.”
“I’m one of the least useful.”
“It’s okay.”
Melissa turned her head and stared out the window. Courtney looked at Jake and smiled. Jake liked Courtney, but he didn’t want to get attached and lose her. Melissa started watching over Aaron. Courtney felt like she couldn’t do it anymore and Melissa needed something to do to keep her mind focused on something else.
The house was quiet. After four hours of silence, Jake spoke up.
“I know there aren’t a lot of us, but we can do this. Some of us will go on the scavenging run. Melissa, Megan, Courtney, and Aaron will stay here.”
“We really can do this,” Eric said with confidence.
“We can and will,” Jake replied.
Courtney grabbed his hand.
“We know what it takes to survive. It’s us against the world. Get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
While everyone slept, Courtney and Jake went downstairs to release their “urges”. When they were finished, Courtney rubbed Jake’s chest and stared into his eyes.
“What’s on your mind?” Jake asked.
“Did what we just do mean anything to you?”
“I’m afraid to get attached to and lose you.”
“I believe you. I feel the same way. You should stay here and not go on scavenging runs.”
“I have to go with them.”
“Why?”
“They need me.”
“You better not get any more attached to me. We’re too close.”
“I won’t.”
Courtney went back upstairs. Jake thought of his mother, father, cousins, and uncle. He wondered if they were somehow still alive. Probably not.
28
The next search for supplies went well. Melissa volunteered to join Jake and the other scavengers this time. She was too scared to go on a second search after she witnessed Eric and Jake shoot two strangers.
“Why did you do that?” Melissa asked, trembling and struggling to keep walking.
“It had to be done,” Eric said as he inserted another shell into his shotgun and searched the bodies.
“No one can be trusted,” Jake said as he led everyone to the last house in the neighborhood they were searching. “If strangers could kill us first, they probably would.”
“How do you know that? They might have been good people.”
“We know better than to think something like that,” said Dan.
“You’re not making any sense.”
“That’s the way it is now. If you see someone you don’t know, you’re probably going to have to kill them and take what they have.”
“That’s insane. You’re all psychopaths.”
“Keep your voice down. Let’s search this last house and get back to safety.”
The trip was successful. They found plenty of what they needed.
“We’re getting good at this,” Dan said as he and the rest of the group neared their home. “This is getting easier.”
“Yeah,” Jake agreed. “We can’t let our guard down for a second, though. We can’t make any mistakes.”
The scavengers were cut off by another group of survivors. The unknown people were standing
just fifty feet from Jake and his companions. The two groups stared for a moment and slowly approached each other. There were ten of the strangers.
“Hello,” said the man in front.
Jake noticed only the man speaking had a firearm in view. The rest held hammers and axes. They carried hiking backpacks. Jake drew his pistol and started shooting the other people. Eric quickly followed in suit. Jake and the others destroyed the heads, grabbed the backpacks and weapons, and went home. Melissa ran inside the house, walked downstairs, and sat in the corner in a fetal position.
“What happened?” Courtney asked. “Melissa is freaking out.”
“We had to kill some people,” Jake answered.
“So that’s how you got so much stuff.”
“We couldn’t trust them. We just couldn’t.”
“I know.”
“If all of those strangers would have had guns, at least some of us would be dead. We’ve got plenty of everything now. We won’t go scavenging for a while. We need to rest.”
“Okay. What kind of food did you get?”
“Let’s take a look.”
Melissa stayed downstairs while the others unloaded what was found. Pots, pans, lighters, canned goods, protein bars, crackers, coffee, shampoo, deodorant, a flashlight, boxes of matches, a canteen, batteries, beef jerky, cough drops, bandages, and a can opener.
“I’d do anything for a cheeseburger,” Megan said with a sigh.
“I want some peanut butter,” Sam said with a smile. “I want some biscuits and gravy, too.”
“A sausage biscuit.”
“Some rice and teriyaki steak with shrimp sauce.”
“You two are killing me,” Dan said as he put some meat on some crackers. “The best thing we can find is canned meat.”
“No,” Megan said with a shake of her head. “Tuna is the best.”
29
The next five months went well. They were ready for everything except the extreme cold of winter. Everyone huddled in the living room. For a good while, they had been using a kerosene heater to keep warm. The water from the well was frozen. They had to melt snow to get water.
It was Christmas and they were nearly out of kerosene.
“I guess it’d be of bad taste to say Merry Christmas,” said Dan.
“There’s nothing merry anymore,” said Jake.
“I’m so depressed.”
“We all are, bro.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“No one wants to talk about Christmas, Dan. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
Aaron cried when he heard about it being Christmas. He cried the entire day.
They ran out of kerosene the next day. Everyone did what they could to conserve heat. A fire was kept alive in the fireplace. Pieces of houses were burned when there was no more firewood.
“With so much to burn,” Eric said, “It’ll always be warm in here.”
“I still think we could use more blankets,” Megan said, teeth chattering.
“You have more blankets than anyone.”
“It’s so cold. The temperature has to be in the negatives.”
“It’s going to be like this for a while,” said Jake. “Like everything else, this is going to be hard. We can’t afford to get sick.”
“I don’t feel good,” Aaron said before he started to cry.
Courtney held Aaron close. Melissa stared at the child before going back to sleep.
“He needs medicine,” Courtney said to Jake.
“We don’t have any.”
“He needs it, Jake.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“If you don’t find medicine, he’s going to get worse.”
“Talk with me downstairs.”
Everyone else stared as Jake and Courtney walked out of the room.
“You know we can’t do anything about Aaron being sick, Courtney.”
“You have to do something.”
“There’s no medicine anywhere near here.”
“Surely there’s some not too far away.”
“There isn’t any.”
“There has to be a way to make him feel better.”
“All we can do is keep him next to the fire.”
“He is very sick. He’s so cold. Coughing, throwing up, shivering. He can barely get up and move around. I think he has pneumonia.”
“He’s been that way for a while now.”
“He’ll only move to go to the latrine.”
“You know what’s going to happen.”
“Don’t say it, Jake.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He can’t die.”
“It’ll probably happen. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“I know.”
“He could make it.”
“Maybe.”
The first snow came the next morning. Jake looked outside and punched a hole in the wall.
“What’s wrong?” Courtney asked.
“It’s snowing.”
“That could be a good thing.”
“We’re going out today.”
“It might slow the zombies down.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, it has been a while since all this started. Maybe they’re rotting. Maybe they’ll all die off.”
“Maybe. Even if they were to start dying off, there would be zombies for quite a while. People will be bitten. Adam died without being bitten and came back as one of them. With that being said, there will always be zombies.”
“Most will die off, right?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I don’t like the snow. It makes everything colder and impairs our vision.”
“Just be careful, okay?”
“We’ll be as careful as we can be.”
Jake, Dan, Eric, and Sam bulked up on clothing. Jake and Dan were extra careful not to get sick. They wore two pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear, long boots, two long sleeved shirts, gloves, hunting masks, scarfs, and puffy jackets. Dan argued that wearing so much clothing would slow their movement too much, but Jake wouldn’t let up.
The four traveled for five miles before reaching a trailer park. It was surrounded by a thick barricade of parked vehicles.
“Be on your guard,” Jake whispered to the others. “Be ready to shoot. People might be living here.”
Jake and the others climbed over the cars and looked around. The yards were full of empty tents.
“We might be shot to death,” Dan said quietly.
“Shut up,” said Jake. “Keep your eyes peeled.”
People rushed out of one of the trailers with guns.
“Leave here!” A man yelled.
“Are you good people?” Jake asked.
“Go away! We’ve all been bitten! We were in a fight. We were looking for food and got surrounded.”
“Is there food anywhere?”
“There’s food everywhere around here. Lots of it. Just look in homes and cars. You can have all the food and stuff we have. We won’t be needing it.”
“How many of you are there?”
“I can see that you’re not bad people. We’ll help you out. It’d be nice to do a good deed before dying. There are nine of us here. There were a lot more of us. We’re all infected. We’re going to spend the rest of the time we have worshipping God.”
“Are you going to attack us?”
“No. We’ll come out and give you everything useful.”
Jake, Eric, Sam, and Dan held their firearms with focus in case of a surprise attack. The nine men and women slowly walked out with bags full of food, drinks, and tools. Some had visible bite wounds on their arms and faces. The infected slowly walked forward and set the supplies on the ground in front of Jake.
“Old man,” Jake said to the man missing a chunk of flesh from his right arm. “I have a big favor to ask of you and your people.”
“What ki
nd of favor?”
“You’re all infected, right?”
“That’s right. We’ve all been scratched or bitten.”
“You all know the infection will kill you soon.”
“We know this.”
“Since you’re all going to die anyway, will you all leave this place?”
“Why do you want us to leave?”
“We will eventually want to make this trailer park our home. There are few supplies in the area where we came from. We’ll eventually have to move.”
“You want us to leave the safety of our home?”
“I’m trying to be nice here. Just leave.”
“No. You all should leave. We’ve given you everything. Just leave us be.”
“We don’t want to clear this place out when we come back.”
“Just leave.”
“You’re going to die, anyway. Why not make it easier on us?”
“We don’t want to get eaten alive!”
“Eric, Sam, Dan. Fire when ready.”
Jake and the others opened fire on the infected. They killed the infected, grabbed everything of use, and returned home. Megan, Melissa, and Courtney were happy to see them return.
“There are few supplies in our area,” Jake said to everyone. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. There’s a trailer park not too far away from here.”
“You want us to leave?” Megan asked.
“We’ve been here for too long. We have to walk for miles in any direction to find what we need to survive.”
“This place is safe. We shouldn’t leave.”
“Safety means nothing if we don’t have food. We have to keep moving.”
“I disagree, but it’s not like my opinion matters.”
30
“What about Aaron?” Courtney asked.
“He comes with us,” Jake answered.
“He’s too tired and sick to travel.”
“This new world we live in is no place for a child.”
“He’s too sick. What do we do with him?”
“Carry him.”
“I guess I’ll have to.”
“We need to spend the rest of the day resting and keeping warm.”
“Do we have enough of what we need to be comfortable living somewhere else?”
“We have enough.”
“Do you think we’ll be attacked?”
