Those Who Remain
Page 12
There was Lily too. Always wearing her hair in a tight ponytail, watchful eyes and silent smiles, joking with Roger about his preference for small guns. Yes, I was fifteen and had a crush on her. No, Roger didn’t know and that’s for the best. Besides, I lost any interest after seeing her skin a deer, blood all over her apron and pretty face.
“Good, Margaret. That’s great,” Roger comments to Lily’s mother, walking over each booth and giving pointers to all his ten students. “Paul, use your left hand to support the gun. Your elbows are too close together.”
Ma walks next to me, arms crossed. We watch the practice. “I can’t believe Jacob left. What type of person just abandons his friends so easily?”
“What friends?”
She sighs. “I guess bringing him a casserole every year on Thanksgiving didn’t endear me enough to him.”
“Margaret’s doing okay.” I point as Lily’s mother shoots the target, almost hitting the head. “Jacob’s training turned out to be useful after all.”
“What use it is if he doesn’t help others? Margaret at least stayed to protect the town.”
Ma talks like Margaret did that on purpose, but I don’t believe it for a second. I bet she stayed just because she didn’t believe zombies were real. But maybe that’s my bias talking, since I’m not too fond of Margaret. The day she left her husband for good, Lily came running to find Roger, tears in her eyes. I was too busy collecting Pokemon on my old Gameboy Color, but I heard enough to wonder what my life would be like if my Ma left me, and never bothered to look back. Just imagining made me feel like crap, I can’t even begin to know what Lily felt. We were only ten, and she never cried since.
The lesson ends. By Roger’s frown, I wager it didn’t go so well. He tells everyone to get close to him so he can explain the plan.
“We will form five teams. I’m going to lead one, and so will Mrs. Terrence, Danny, O’Neil and Gutierrez. Stick with your leader and follow our orders closely. This is not a walk around town, people could end up hurt. So if you see any movements, you tell us first. Don’t ever shoot until you are sure, completely sure, you are pointing at a zombie.”
“And how can we be sure?” Margaret raises her hand. “Don’t they look like people?”
“They do, but don’t act like it,” I answer her. “From a far, they will be just like people, yes, so that’s why you have to be extra careful. But the second they see you, they’ll run toward you and try to bite your face off.”
“That’s reassuring, thank you, whoever you are,” Margaret’s second husband, Paul, says to me with the type of voice that makes you want to punch him in the face. If I were that kind of guy anyway. “Very useful information.”
Margaret places a hand on her husband’s arm and turns to me. “So they are just people, not monsters.”
Roger and Ma focus on me, waiting for the answer. Why people have such difficulty in accepting the concept of zombies?
“If you mean monsters as in rotting corpses from horror movies and Halloween costumes, then you’re right. They aren’t monsters. But if you are so fixed on their lack of green skin and scary teeth, I can show you the footage from Russia, where someone tries to talk to one and ends up with his guts all over the floor.”
Paul opens his mouth to protest.
I keep talking, giving him no time to blabber more stupid commentary. “Do you want to see what happened to a father after he tied up his daughter and insisted on talking to her? What was left of his head made it to the news in India. Or maybe the video of a policeman thinking it was a good idea to read the zombie’s rights before cuffing it and having his face ripped apart?”
Most of the volunteers stare at me with wide eyes. There was a reason I chose the less violent videos to show the town: panic would just complicate things, but these volunteers need to know the gravity of the problem.
“All right, we get the picture.” Margaret nods at me. “So if they come running toward us, we shoot, is that it?”
“Don’t waste ammo. Most of you won’t be able to hit a moving target. Our barbed wired fence will stop their advance. If they manage to get past it, we will attract them with bait and then the team leader will shoot them from higher ground,” Roger explains the plan. “The guns are for emergencies only, if the plan works, you won’t need to shoot at all.”
We didn’t have much time to come up with elaborate traps and defensive strategies, but with luck the numbers of zombies coming from the factory will be small. Or, for a better choice of words, every piece of information I found out about the factory incident indicates a few zombies, probably appearing alone. Luck is for the uninformed and unprepared.
We gear up, wearing gloves, grabbing masks and wrapping duct tape around our lower arms and legs to provide protection on vulnerable spots. Each leader picks up hand-held radios, binoculars and flashlights.
Roger draws names off his hat, determining who will go to each group. For the first time ever, I’m not the last one to be picked, since I’m one of the leaders. It’s a nice change from gym class, I have to admit.
I get Margaret, and of course, Paul volunteers to join us. I’m half glad to have Margaret thanks to her gun skills, but half-dreading Paul’s commentary. All five groups are charged with patrolling and placing bait.
Roger gives me a plastic sack full of raw meat, and then places a hand on my left shoulder. “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to.”
“Why not? I always wanted to test my skillz out in the real world.” I make air-quotes on ‘skillz’. “I’ll be fine. Relax.”
“If you need help, call me, Danny. I’m serious. Don’t...”
“…Do anything stupid. I watch horror movies, Roger. This will be easy, trust me.”
“But if it isn’t, call me, alright?”
I nod, and we shake hands. He leaves with his group to patrol the west part of town. I’m still analyzing my gun and its weight when Ma comes near me, wielding her shotgun like a character from a post-apocalyptic movie. Mad Max, but with more cardigans and garden boots.
She hid the gun from me for a very long time, reluctant to admit she felt safer with a gun in the house.
“Roger already gave me the safety speech, Ma. Don’t worry.”
She eyes my hands fiddling with the gun. “This not one of your violent video games, Danny. There’s no room for jokes. Be serious.”
Why do they both think I’m an idiot? If anyone here knows the severity of a zombie outbreak it’s me. “Look, chances are we won’t find anything and the fence will do its work without us even lifting a finger.”
“I’m not talking about the guns. Those two need you to be a good leader. Don’t antagonize Paul.”
I scratch my neck, letting out a sigh. “I’ll try to be diplomatic, Ma. Okay?”
She gives me a smile. “Also, don’t close one of your eyes to aim. This isn’t a movie. That just gets in the way. Oh, and please, no gangster style of gripping the gun sideways! I know you want to do it, but don’t. Just… Don’t.”
I grin. She got me there: I really wanted to try it. “No worries, homie. I ain’t no gangsta, yo. Peace, I’m out.”
“Oh God, stop.” She tries to hold a laugh. “I taught you better than that.”
We share a laugh. We do have our moments, Ma and me. They occur once in a blue moon, but it helps me remember we’re family no matter what, even with when we don’t agree on stuff.
“Ma…” I bite my lip. “You’re going to be careful, right?”
“Of course, honey.”
“Because the shotgun is messy and its shot scatters even if you aim at the head… Maybe you should use my gun instead.”
I try to give her the weapon, but she just rolls her eyes at me.
“Please, Ma. My aim sucks anyway. You’ll do more damage with the handgun. I can keep the shotgun; aiming doesn’t matter as much with it. It’s heavier too. I think I will be able to hold it better. And the noise, I mean… shotguns are noisy, right?”
“Danny. You never used a shotgun before. You are not accustomed to the recoil. It will slow you down too much. It’s cute that you are worried about your old mother, but unnecessary.”
Ma did take self-defense and gun lessons. After Dad died I guess something just snapped inside her. The fact that she couldn’t do anything but watch him get worse every day must’ve made her desperate for control. Some people travel the world; others pay for dance lessons; Ma decided she wanted to vent her frustrations on the shooting range.
I can relate, except I do it on the virtual world.
“Okay, sorry. But be extra careful.”
“I will, if you are too.”
“We have a deal,” I say, offering her my hand.
She hugs me instead, taking a long time to let me go. I’m kinda embarrassed someone will see, but it’s a nice gesture.
My team is responsible for the east part of the town. The moon is high, and we start our mission by knocking on everyone’s door to warn them not to leave and lock themselves inside. Some people already barred the windows with planks. Those are my kind of people. Rule number three of the Zombie Apocalypse: dumb dies, smart thrives.
After, we reach the town’s edge. Everything is quiet, crickets chirp and the late November wind lowers the temperature to a nice chill. The few houses too close to the woods are cleared and their residents sent to the school, where they will spend the night.
Paul and Margaret place the first trap on the ground. Nothing fancy: a nylon wire with aluminum cans to warn us of an incoming zombie, and trip him or her up too. I get busy placing bait around the nearest two-story house. If any of them get past our first line of defense, then the plan is to hold out in there and shoot them from afar.
The first line of defense is a barbed wired fence we placed around our borders. Roger and I figured that using World War I strategies was a good idea, since back then close combat was still more important than the reach of a drone.
We wait inside the house, up in the second floor’s balcony. Paul takes the first watch, while Margaret and me prepare some Molotov cocktails. The smell of gasoline gives me a headache.
I can see Lily in this woman’s features. The long face, long nose, and hard expression, only Lily got Jacob’s cold black eyes, instead of these warmer hazels. Margaret decides to start a conversation with me and I don’t have a clue why.
“So, you knew all of this was going to happen, huh?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
She raises one eyebrow. “And you knew it before Jacob.”
“I think so, yeah.”
A short laugh escapes her lips. “That’s precious, you know that? Just precious.”
Seems they are both still very bitter about the whole failed marriage and divorce thing.
“For a conspiracy theorist, he didn’t really like the Internet. I guess I had that going for me.”
“Yes. I figured you did. Jacob hates the Internet. He thinks it helps the military to watch us.”
“Well, he was right about that. The number of region blocks I had to circumvent to find real zombie news was not a joke. After reading about people here being arrested for posting proof of what was going on, I tried to hide my tracks online as best I could. The government did monitor everyone on the Internet. They had the technology to do it.”
This bit of information makes her frown. “Do you think they knew?”
I touch my neck with a hand. “About the zombies? Yeah. For sure.”
“And they still let it reach us? Why?”
“I don’t think they had much choice about that. No matter how much control a government has, we are talking about a disease that took two weeks to destroy the Free Republic of Africa and about one month to spread all over Western Europe.”
She widens her eyes. “I had no idea it was that bad.”
“I didn’t tell anyone the details. Didn’t seem like a good idea. It scared the hell out of me. Can’t even imagine what others would think.”
“You’re right. People might panic. We seem to be doing okay for now. Why risk rocking the boat?”
I nod. She’s not that bad, after all.
“Now that you know Jacob and Lily were right, do you regret staying?” I ask her, even while knowing she probably won’t answer. “I mean, they are probably better off than us, right?”
“Maybe,” comes her answer after a long silence. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m…Well, I’m Lily’s friend. Back when we were kids.”
“Funny, I don’t remember you at all.”
Ouch. “I was small and… mostly silent.”
I was hoping for an apology and a moment of remembrance, but instead she goes back to stuffing alcohol-soaked rags into bottles.
“Aren’t you worried about her?”
My questions are annoying her, since she places a bottle on the floor and crosses her arms. “Of course I’m worried about my daughter. But what’s done is done. She chose her father.”
That’s the end of the conversation. We hear the rattling of metal cans.
“Shit, I think that’s one of them,” Paul whispers, passing me the binoculars.
A small man with a big belly and no hair tries to untangle himself from the wire, his right leg has a big cut on it, but the pain clearly is no problem to him. As soon as his clothes finish ripping he’s free. He moves to our direction attracted by the piece of meat I hanged from balcony of the house, the blood dripping slowly onto the backyard.
“Margaret, can you shoot him from here?”
She nods at me, taking her gun out and moving near the edge of the balcony. I almost place both fingers in my ears to avoid the noise, but numbing the senses right now would be stupid. She pulls the trigger and the fat man falls over the wire, lifeless. One clean shot.
“Yeah! That was awesome. High five!”
Her silent stare makes me lower my hand.
“Shut up, kid. There’s more coming.” Paul points at the tree line, where a group of four zombies come out running. “They must’ve heard the shot.”
“It’s okay; we got this,” I say, grabbing a Molotov we just made. “Let’s wait until they trip on the wire then hit them with this.”
Turns out, they do trip, but over each other. The first one falls on the wire, but the next falls over him, and now the third one climbs them both, passing over our defense easily. We throw three cocktails on them, but while the first two zombies burn and struggle to get up, the other pair runs towards the meat, flames totally ignored. I guess the Molotov idea wasn’t my brightest moment.
The bait works, and they stay busy trying to reach the food. I turn to my two teammates.
“We need to shoot them before they set the whole town on fire.”
The three of us raise our guns, but the zombies’ frenetic jumps and tries at climbing make it difficult to aim. Margaret shoots, missing. Paul also hits the post instead of the zombies. Again, our makeshift alarm rings. Three more zombies appear, near where the fat one was. Paul turns his attention to them.
“No. Hit the ones on fire first, man,” I order him.
The newest zombies are stuck on the wire, but while I run to pick up another Molotov, they disregard their ripped skin and clothes, forcing their bodies to keep moving.
This is not good. This is not good at all.
“What we do, kid?” Margaret asks me.
“Keep shooting the ones at the post. I’ll take care of the others.”
Think, Danny. Think.
I can’t set these others on fire while they are free to move around. I can’t let them pass either. My heart races, and I’m out of breath, but there is no other way.
After pulling up my mask, I bolt down the stairs, open the back door and run toward the barbed wire, flashing my light like a maniac and screaming to get their attention.
I’m not really all that happy when it wo
rks.
Three male zombies are all wearing factory uniforms, in different states of decay, and are too close together. No way I can take them at the same time—I need to separate them.
How? How?
House.
My yells lead them back to the yard, and to the back door. I enter, followed by one of them—only one fits through the door.
I throw the flashlight on the floor and take out my gun. I would pay millions for an Xbox controller right now. This thing is heavy and slippery.
Bang. Bang. Bang. I hit him in the chest, in the shoulder then in the cheek. He falls. The second zombie comes in.
“Welcome, make yourself comfortable. Do you like gunpowder? I hear it tastes like…” Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. The second zombie falls. “Like chicken.”
Yeah, it’s lame. Give me a break, I’m trying to have some fun while scared out of my mind.
The last one runs in, hissing and arms extended to reach me. I aim.
Click. Click. No ammo left.
Fuckery fuck. Fucky.
My left hand goes inside my pocket, searching for ammo; then I hit my back against the floor. The ugly ceiling covered in flowery wallpaper is blocked by a big head and wide mouth. This zombie is going to eat my face.
Too close. Too close!
I raise my duct tape covered arm to protect my face just in time to feel the zombie close his mouth around it. While the thing chews on bitter tape, I yell. “Margaret! Paul! Little help here, please?”
Nobody comes.
Danny, you’re a dumb idiot. You forgot your own lesson. Lesson number two of the Zombie Combat Techniques class: always have a melee weapon nearby.
Wait. I do have a melee weapon!
My free hand feels the floor on my right.
There!
My flashlight hits the side of the zombie head. Nothing happens. I do it again, and again, with no results. The movies all make it seem so easy to crack a skull! Damn you Hollywood, damn you to hell.
Somehow, someway, the zombie is lifted up, and then shot in the face. Margaret offers me a hand, while Paul kicks the thing’s dead body.
“Thank you. Really.”