El Paso Under Attack - 01

by Michael Clary

  I fired up my laptop. I couldn’t remember the website that the news stations were talking about, but it wasn’t hard to find.

  EPUA.

  It was there that I learned what was really going on. It was there that I learned that all forms of communication aside from the internet were shut down. It was there that I learned that El Paso was sealed off. It was there that I learned that the dead had risen. It was there that I learned that help was not coming.

  I cried for hours. I cried and cried and cried. I was going to die soon. They’d get in somehow. I just knew it.

  Eventually, I calmed down enough…no, that’s not true. Eventually, through the tears and quiet sobs I started to read the messages that people were posting.

  I read the horror stories. I read the fear and sadness in their words.

  I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

  “That website helped a lot of people get through the bad times.”

  I agree. It helps to know that there are people out there that are going through the same things you are. Even though we were isolated and stuck in an apartment closet, I was able to connect with others that were also trapped.

  I mean, don’t get me wrong…I truly wished that I was anywhere but where I was. Paris was especially sounding pretty damn good.

  “Did you talk to any of the other survivors on EPUA?”

  I didn’t. I just read what they posted. I read and read and read. I barely ate at all. The one time I left the closet to grab food, I was spotted and the frenzy began again. The screaming and banging and thrashing, it was horrible. It took hours for them to calm back down again.

  Jill wasn’t responding to anything anymore. She just laid there. It was like her mind had shut down.

  I had headphones and music on my laptop. I played the music loud and every so often I would feed the both of us. She would barely eat. I was losing her. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did.

  I had reached a sort of calm as the days and nights passed. The outrageous fear was gone. It was replaced by an inevitable knowing that I wasn’t going to live much longer. I didn’t want to starve. I had pills. As soon as Jill was gone, I was going to join her. I didn’t think it would be very long.

  I don’t know how many days and nights had passed exactly. The time seemed to bleed together. I slept and read the posts on EPUA. I could do nothing else. I was just waiting for the end.

  And then, I heard about the General.

  I never noticed it when Jax was trying to reach Georgie. There were thousands of people trying to reach friends and family and I must have been asleep when Jax and Georgie actually began to talk, but afterwards, when I woke up, I was able to read all the stories people were talking about.

  “And you had no idea who the General was?”

  None, all I knew, was that somewhere out there, a man was fighting. Somewhere out there, a man was saving people. In the cold, dark and lonely night, there was a hero.

  My heart began to beat again. My eyes grew wide. It couldn’t be true. It was too much to hope for. And yet, despite myself, I began to hope. I wasn’t ready to give up. I was excited. Who was this man? Was he sent by the government?

  I sat straight up and read and read and read.

  Finally, Tito was there. His apartment is just down the street from mine. He was trapped just like Jill and I.

  “You recognized Tito?”

  Yeah, it wasn’t hard. I’ve never met anybody else called Tito, but what really shocked me, was that he said he knew the General.

  Everybody stopped posting. The page became still for the first time. Everyone just watched and waited to see if the General would respond. Tito began to write about the past and the good times that they both had. I felt the tears well up in my eyes as I stared at the laptop screen. I began to pray for the first time in a long time.

  It was then that I realized who the General was. It was then that Tito asked for help. It was then that Jaxon responded.

  The website crashed.

  The public solitude was broken with a surge of hope. Everyone reached out at the same time. I squealed with joy. Jax was coming. He said so, and my boy never lies. You may not like what he’s saying, but he’s always honest.

  “Tell me how you felt at that moment, knowing that the General was a close friend of yours.”

  It’s kind of hard to explain, but I was certainly happy. I felt like I had already been saved. I just had to wait for the site to go back online and write him. There was no doubt in my mind that he would come for me. He’d follow me straight into hell if that’s where I had been dragged.

  That’s the kind of guy Jaxon is. He’ll be there when you need him.

  I was beside myself. For the first time in days, my tears were for joy instead of fear. I was going to live. I was going to survive. This wasn’t going to be the end. And as much as I had resigned myself to dying…I wanted to live.

  It was then that things went bad.

  I reached out in the darkness of the closet for Jill’s leg. I had been doing this periodically like she was some sort of security blanket. It wasn’t there. I turned around and neither was she. I lost her in the excitement. She had left the closet and I never even noticed.

  I panicked.

  I was up in a flash. The laptop was still in my hand. The frenzy of the dead had started once again. I could hear the screams and fists shaking the walls. I opened the closet door and was looking into the apartment. I saw Jill at the front door of the apartment. The zombies saw her as well.

  “I’m leaving now,” said Jill. “I hope you take care of yourself.”

  I screamed for her. I screamed louder than the zombies that were reaching for her through the small windows.

  She opened the front door.

  They were on her in an instant. A savage, tearing mob of corpses fell upon her so fast, that I never even heard her cry out. Hell, I never even saw her being attacked. One moment she was there and in the blink of an eye, she was underneath…

  She doesn’t finish her thoughts and I don’t press her. She was tearing up the moment she talked about reaching for Jill in the dark closet. Now, with one hand to her mouth and the other motioning for me to give her a moment, she takes some time to quietly mourn her lost love.

  After a few minutes she continues.

  I’m sorry…It’s just…this is the first time I’ve told anybody the full story.

  “Nobody ever asked you what happened to Jill?”

  They did. I just told people that she didn’t make it. I guess it’s a testament to the survivors. After you tell someone that so and so didn’t make it, they just say that they’re sorry and drop the subject. Everybody knows what happened. Only the smallest details vary.

  She coughs loudly and stretches her arms.

  Alright, I’m good.

  Is she though? Who am I to answer that question really? I didn’t go through what she went through. I feel for her. I truly do. I barely know her and yet, I share just a little bit of her pain.

  They rushed into the apartment. They filled the room. Yet, none of them had eyes for me. They all went after Jill. I ran straight through them.

  In their ferocity, I was almost through the door before any of them even reached for me. By the time that they did reach for me it was too late I was outside.

  Outside wasn’t any better. I was in the midst of the dead and they now knew it. I felt fingers clamping hard on my shoulder, but I didn’t stop. I ran and ran for all that I was worth.

  I think that the only reason I survived was because I took them by surprise. I don’t think they expected anyone to run right through them. Not that they think at all. I guess they were just used to people running away from them.

  So, I ran at them, through them and in just a few moments away from them. Many of them gave chase. Too many of them gave chase. Only one of them was able to cut me off and I smashed it in the face with my laptop.

  The smell had gotten pretty bad. I noticed it when I was still in the closet, bu
t it was nowhere near as bad as it was out here in the midst. Their flesh was beginning to decay. The rains, the humidity and then the sun had certainly left its mark upon them.

  The sun was a problem for me. After spending so much time in the dark closet, the bright sunlight was blinding. I ran through shrubs and even slammed into a tree at one point. I never stopped though. I never even slowed down.

  I was able to reach my truck.

  It’s a full sized Chevy. I opened the doors from ten feet away with my keypad. It was then that I noticed that there weren’t as many zombies in the apartment complex. When Jill and I first tried to leave, the zombies were everywhere. Now it seemed that the bulk of them had been at my apartment.

  It was another stroke of luck for me. After the mass, I was able to run from the apartment to my truck with only one zombie getting in my way.

  When I made it inside the vehicle, I immediately locked the doors. I barely made it by the way. The zombies were right behind me. I think I even slammed the door on some fingers. They didn’t give up though. I don’t think they ever do. They had the truck surrounded in seconds. They were climbing all over it and punching at the windows in an effort to reach me.

  I probably don’t need to tell you that I was scared to death. I mean, when I ran back at the apartment it was basically on instinct, but being stuck in a vehicle while a herd of zombies are pummeling their way inside, wow, that gives terrifying a whole new meaning.

  To my credit, I only froze for a moment. One moment of seeing their angry, rotten faces pressed against the windows and I was off. Those of them that didn’t scatter out of my way ended up under the tires. I heard a sickening crunch, a bump and I was still going. I had no idea where I was going mind you, I was just leaving.

  Some of the zombies were still in the back of the truck. I zigged and I zagged out of the parking lot and around the neighborhood. It took about fifteen minutes and a vast amount of slamming brakes and petal to the metal accelerating before I got all of them out of the truck bed.

  Then I drove more slowly. I drove until I came to a neighborhood where there were no zombies rushing out from the houses as I passed by. I had a moment to myself. I took stock of what I had. My clothes were disgusting. They were filthy from their dirty fingers and torn from their clenching hands. At this point, I realized how close they actually came to killing me.

  As soon as I stopped hyperventilating, I realized I still had my laptop.

  I fired it up. The computer found a signal and I went immediately to EPUA.

  Unknown to Jaxon, there were other survivors in the neighboring homes. They were reporting everything he was doing to the entire world. And what he was doing was nothing short of incredible.

  He was once again fighting back and this time the world was getting a play by play of his success. I waited for his inevitable fall. It was almost too much to bear. The odds against him were too great. Yet, he didn’t fall like all the others. He escaped. He, himself fought the dead…and won.

  People began leaving the safety of their homes to join up with him. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that this trouble making guy that I love so very much was creating an army. Not by his words, but by his deeds.

  It was a strange moment. It was a history making moment. I should have known that if anyone could do it, it would be Jaxon. He just isn’t very good at following any sort of rules. And the rules now clearly stated that everyone should board up their homes and hide.

  Not him. Not the General. I remember laughing out loud. I was so proud.

  Then, there came a message from Jaxon himself. He was telling everybody to join together and meet him at Lowe’s.

  The first zombie hit the side of my truck at a dead run. It was a woman with grey skin and a ruined face. I don’t know why she ran headfirst into the side of my truck. Maybe her eyesight was fucked up. I don’t know, but the next zombie hit even harder against the passenger side door. A slam, a punch, it even tried the handle.

  I hit the gas and tore off down the street. Lowe’s was about ten minutes away and nothing was going to stop me from getting there.

  I took the side streets. I stayed away from the main roads in fear that the dead would be thick on those streets. I had no idea that they tended to get lazy in the hot sun.

  Some of the streets that I traveled on looked completely normal. As if the dead had never risen. Others were ravaged with beaten cars left out in the middle of the road with open doors and splatters of blood. This time, I prayed for the victims.

  I saw very few bodies. This was probably because most of them rose up after being killed and joined their fellow zombies in the search for victims. When I did see a body, the remains were either so ravaged; that they either couldn’t rise or were suffering a head wound that was probably received after they had been turned.

  It was a sobering experience.

  Once again, I felt very alone.

  I started thinking about Jaxon. About how he used to flirt with me back in the day. About how nothing in his personality would lead one to believe that he would ever do what he was doing. I mean, he was always a leader with his friends. He was always very well liked. I began to wonder.

  “What were you wondering?”

  Umm…just that I never saw him as the hero type. He was always kinda wild. He was fun. He was funny. He’d prefer to sit around and tell jokes, rather than hit the clubs and party it up. He was never much about meeting people or going out. He just didn’t seem like the type that would be out there saving all those lives. He’s a bad boy, trouble maker.

  She’s laughing as she tells me this.

  “So it was still a shock that Jaxon was the General.”

  Completely, and as is common with times of stress, I began to wonder if it wasn’t just some sort of cruel joke. Or maybe I was wrong and the General wasn’t really Jaxon.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just worried that my intended destination…my salvation would turn out to be the place of my death.

  Does that make any sense at all? I don’t want my interview to turn into a bunch of mindless yammering.

  “It makes perfect sense actually. The idea of a hero rising up out of the ashes is almost too good to be true and by all accounts, there was nothing in Jaxons personality or the way he lived his life to suggest that he would be that hero. You were worried that there was no light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.”

  Exactly.

  “Now I have a question.”

  Lay it on me.

  “Some of those personality traits that you mentioned, like him being a trouble maker, or a bad boy, or that he can’t follow the rules, or that he’s a leader among his friend…aren’t they a sort of vague indication that he would be capable or that he would at least desire to fight back?”

  Hell yeah they are, but at the time, I was running for my life in a zombie infested city. Any doubt that I could possibly have had I was having. But what you said, really hit the button. The very traits (so to speak) that made me doubt it was him, were also the very same traits that made it possible for him to do those things.

  I tell ya, it’s the wild ones you gotta look out for. Nothing ever holds them back.

  “So, you were driving to Lowe’s. You’re going there to meet your friend the General. You were understandably worried. What happened next?”

  The worst thing imaginable, my truck ran out of gas.

  “What?”

  Yeah, just like in some cheesy horror movie. Clunk, clunk, clunk and boom, my truck was dead.

  I screamed. I was about two miles from Lowe’s. For the first time, I wasn’t screaming in terror, I was screaming in rage.

  I mean what the hell kind of cruel joke is this? After everything that I went through, when the ordeal seems to finally be over…this happens!

  So yeah, I screamed with a vengeance. I was finally angry. No more, no more, no more.

  It felt good to scream. It was also the stupidest thing that I could have possibly done
, but for a few seconds it felt really good.

  Then the zombies came.

  They came from the houses, they came from under the cars and they came running out of the backyards. They came from everywhere.

  I ducked down in the cab of my truck. I was hoping they wouldn’t see me and for about five minutes they didn’t.

  They ran out to the street and began wildly looking around. I eventually chanced a glance through the window. Hopefully, they’d go back to hiding if they didn’t see anybody and maybe they would have, but one of them decided to investigate my truck.

  Its leg was badly mangled. It limped all the way over to where my truck died. The others were much farther away. Some sort of luck was still with me I guess.

  Anyway, it reached my truck and without any kind of hesitation it looked in the window. We both kinda stared at each other for awhile. I could hear its rattling breath through the fogging glass. Its face was a weird putrid, yellow and gray mixture.

  Then it slammed its fist through my window. I’m honestly still a little shocked that none of my other encounters ended up breaking the windows on my truck.

  In a blind panic, I scurried out the passenger door.

  Of course I tripped and fell. The others were running towards me at this point and there were a lot of them.

  I skinned up my elbows pretty badly in the fall. The scent of blood was in the air. I got up and ran like hell.

  I run every day of my life now. I work out with weights as well. Yet, back then I rarely ever worked out. I wish I had, but I didn’t. Jax had even asked me to go to his martial arts class on many occasions. I only went a couple of times.

  I was two miles away from Lowe’s.

  Two miles isn’t really that far, but when you’ve spent most of your adult life sitting on your ass and drinking at the bars, two miles might as well seem like a thousand.

  I don’t know how I made it. I almost didn’t. My lungs all too quickly began to burn with fire and my legs began to feel as if they were made of jelly.