Seizures: A Tale of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Sparrow Black

  Running to the car I flung the door open and grabbed Ginny up in a hug.

  “She’s alright, Ginny, she’s alright! Come meet her, you’ll love her. Lena’s great, she’s funny, and kind, and she loves kids too! You’re going to love her, I promise!” And then I might have picked Ginny up and carried her in the house, skipping like an 8 year old with joy as Maggie bounced up and down behind me, but I’m too grown-up for that! I am, seriously, I am. Well, maybe not? My best friend was alive, Ginny was safe, and I was safe. All was as well as could be expected.

  Lena had quickly dressed while I got Ginny out of the car and when we walked in she gasped to see a child in my arms. Yes, I did skip to the house, after all. Together we fussed over Ginny, and tried to answer the questions being fired by all.

  We somehow ended up in the kitchen and Lena started preparing a spaghetti for dinner. As she cooked we continued catching up.

  “How did you end up with Ginny, Madeline?” She asked, her tone hesitant but curious.

  “Well, she ended up with me I think. Her dog found me in the grocery store…” I had to trail off as she interrupted.

  “Wait,” Lena interrupted “you went out? To the grocery store on your own?”

  “Yes, I had to. It was Thanksgiving and I had no turkey, I needed turkey! So, off I went. Then Maggie found me in the store. Later, I found Ginny in the house, trying to find food. Then the Zombie of the Lambs showed up this morning, with an entire herd of zombies, and we knew we had to leave. The first place I thought of to come was to you. I had to find out if you were okay or not, so here we are. What I want to know is what you’ve been doing through all of this?”

  Lena looked up at me guiltily, and ducked her head while she continued to plate up dinner. “You won’t believe me.”

  “Of course I will, what’s going on!” A tone of worry heavy in my voice. Sitting at the table after filling a bowl of food for Maggie I picked up my fork. I hadn’t touched my food yet.

  “Well, I tried to go out to get you, but the car wouldn’t start. Then the news was that everyone was sick. I walked down to the neighbors to see if I could get help, but they all had already turned. I assumed you must have gotten sick too. I tried to call, but couldn’t get through when I tried earlier that day. I tried not to think you were dead, but with everything going on…” Her voice broke at the end and she put her hand to her mouth and breathed in heavily until the tears filling her eyes dropped from her eyelashes and the lump in her throat finally passed. She took her place at the table and began spinning pasta around her fork.

  “Then, like an idiot, I lost my phone when the neighbors from the last house I tried chased me out of their house and I’ve been too afraid to try and go out again. I guess I could have taken their car but I was afraid to face them again. I’ve just been so depressed thinking you were dead that I have pretty much just stayed here, hiding. I heard the car while I was in the bath and freaked out. I hid under the bed, but when I figured out it was a woman, I saw your shoes, I thought I could take you down and get rid of you. Well, I didn’t know it was you, but whoever it was I wasn’t letting them take over my house or anything else. Obviously that wasn’t what happened.”

  I grabbed Lena’s hand giving it a squeeze. Our eyes met and I saw the tears still hadn’t left her eyes. I knew from that look that she felt responsible for me and maybe that she’d somehow failed me, but I was starting to learn I didn’t need constant caring for, I might need help, but I could help out too. I didn’t have to sit back and let everyone else do all the work while I stayed safe. Lena wasn’t alone anymore and I wasn’t going to be a burden to her. I wanted her to know that.

  “Oh my poor darling, you’ve had a time of it too, haven’t you? But Ginny, Maggie, and I are here now. And I’ve learned quite a bit about myself since this all began. We’re here to help and between all of us we should be able to figure out what to do next. Shouldn’t we Ginny?”

  Ginny nodded her head while munching on her spaghetti and tried to cram her garlic bread in her mouth while it was still full of spaghetti. I worried maybe those few days of hunger had damaged her but after chewing it all up she turned to Lena and relieved my mind.

  “This is so very good Lena! My mom used to make toast with butter and garlic on it that I liked, but it was different to this. I like the spaghetti too, I’ve never had spaghetti that was so good, may I have more please?” Then she grinned and Lena and I both laughed. At least our girl is okay.

  I always knew Lena was a good cook. She’s starting to sound like Little Miss Perfect, isn’t she? Maybe she is. I think she is anyway.

  We all worked together to clear the table, get the dishes done, and a little while later we were all cuddled up on the couch, watching a movie because there wasn’t any television networks on here either. Ginny and Maggie were curled up together on the end of the couch, both asleep and covered with a blanket. I caught Lena up on Zombie of the Lambs and other events over the last few days and then she wanted to know how I was coping with having a child with me to care for.

  “So, you have a kid now? How’s that going for you?” Lena asked, smiling at me teasingly. I loved her teasing smiles. I loved her and was ever so happy she was still alive.

  “I don’t think of any of this has really sunk in for any of us. Both of her parents turned and attacked her. I think that’s eventually going to catch up with Ginny but for now she’s just awesome. Helpful and smart, and she loves Maggie so much! Maggie is awesome too.” As I said this I looked over at the pair and saw Maggie looking up at me, then she seemed to wink one eye at me, like she was saying she’d be here to help out with Ginny and that all was well. I reached over and scratched her ears and she panted happily. “This dog is unbelievably smart too Lena, wait, you’ll start to see it too.”

  “So you’ve only been together a couple of days? You’ve formed such a strong bond with her already. Do you plan on staying with her? Or will you hand her over to authorities if we ever find any?” Lena didn’t look thrilled with that idea. In fact she kind of sneered when she said authorities. I guess my buddy didn’t have much confidence left in the powers that be either.

  “Oh, I can’t abandon her. We’re a team now, Maggie, Ginny, and I. And you of course”. I turned to Lena with a smile, but what I had on my mind was serious.

  “What do you think we should do, Lena? It’s quiet here and obviously none of the zombies have shown up at your house. Maybe we’re safe here?” I could hope, couldn’t I?

  “I definitely think we’re safe here Madeline, but there’s something you haven’t thought about. We’re in East Lincolnton right now; we’re closer to the power plant. And it’s nuclear. What if there’s nobody there, caring for it and the spent fuel houses?” She looked as though she knew what she was talking about, but spent fuel what?

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I’ve seen enough films such as “Threads” to know this wasn’t good news she was giving me. All I needed to hear was nuclear and my pulse quickened in fear.

  “Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Where do we go?” My head came up to stare into her eyes, my own reflecting fear and loss of hope.

  Because zombies weren’t bad enough Lena had reminded me of the fact that there are nuclear power stations all over America. I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I knew it wasn’t good. I knew about Chernobyl and what had happened there when the nuclear reactor melted down. Could we prevent that? We might be able to for one, but there are dozens in America. We couldn’t protect the entire continent’s nuclear reactor’s spent fuel rods from melting down!

  “I’ve got to take my medicine, maybe some Ativan to keep me calm, but we have to talk about this. We have to figure out what to do Lena. This could wipe us all out. Zombie of the Lambs and us. What do we do?” Maybe I hadn’t done as much growing up as I thought I had after all? I seem to be on the verge of panic again.

  “Go take your medicine Madeline and I’ll show you what I’ve figured out
so far. Go, quick, take it and calm down some. I’ll get my laptop started while you do that.” She looked rather guilty, as though she’d caused the nuclear plants to spring up across the globe, but I knew it was just that she’d caused my concern. But we were partners in crime; we had to tell each other things, even the worrisome things. That’s the only way we operated.

  “Please tell me we’ve not lived through the unimaginable just to die through our own stupidity.” I was on the verge of panicking; trying to recall anything I’d ever heard about how nuclear power plants operate.

  “Well, we’re in a bit of a quandary, that’s for sure what with the zombies AND nuclear annihilation staring us down but I believe we can get through all of it, as long as we’re careful. This is what I’ve found so far.” Lena turned her laptop to face us both and started pointing things out.

  After explaining to me how nuclear power plants work, and showing me what would happen as the water mechanism to keep everything cool like it was supposed to started to fail, in the form of a video she found online, Lena started to calm my fractured nerves by showing me other things. Things like how to survive nuclear fallout and what she’d planned on doing before Ginny, Maggie, and I showed up. It looked like an elaborate plan, one that was going to take some caution and daring, but looked plausible.

  “Ok, if we’re going to stop in Hickory to steal, ahem, I mean acquire, an RV from that place on I40 that has all of the campers and boats, and then we have to stop and see what’s happening with my cousin.” I didn’t want to say the words, but I knew I had to check on both of them. I’d never live down the guilt if we just left them to their fate. I know it’s a strange time, and goes against all self-preservation instincts, but some part of the past was still alive in me and I had to know.

  “We are NOT dooming ourselves to a lifetime of Maria, that woman has attacked you and bullied you your entire life!” Then she said a very nasty words and my eyes went round. Apparently Maria was a sore point with Lena. I never knew.

  “Calm down, calm down, I don’t mean Maria, I mean Amanda. Although maybe we should check on Maria.” A tiny bit of guilt was niggling at my conscience. She is family, after all.

  Lena just squinted her eyes at me and muttered something about “over her dead body”. I’d talk her around. For now, I had a lot to think about.

  “So we have to leave? What if there are still people at the power plant? Maybe it’ll keep working.” I still had hope.

  “There may be at this one honey, but look at this map,” she clicked a page she hadn’t opened before on her browser. It was a map that showed the United States with little icons that I couldn’t quite make out dotted all over the country. Uh oh.

  “Are those what I think they are? GULP!” There were far more than I’d realized there were.

  “Yes, this shows all the areas where a nuclear power plant operates. There’s a lot. We’re going to have to hide out underground for a while. Even though we may not know that we’re being exposed to radiation we’re still going to have to act like we are. This will be different from an explosion or bomb; we won’t have fallout like we would with that. It’ll spread on the wind, but it won’t be as bad. It still won’t be good, but it won’t be as bad. And we know how to prepare. Is tomorrow too early do ya think?” She chewed at her thumb, the joint caught between her perfectly straight white teeth.

  “No, tomorrow will be good. Or maybe tonight. I don’t think I’ll be doing much sleeping anyway. Where should we be heading?” I asked, my nerves making my voice shake.

  Lena opened some more files as I waited this one of photographs. I watched her as she tucked part of her long black hair behind her ear, little lines of worry creasing her eyes and forehead. I felt better with her near. Our lives had turned completely upside down and I’d taken on the added worry of a child, but I wouldn’t change that. There were things I didn’t think about, generally seeing only what is right in front of me and obvious, but Lena looked beyond that and that was something Ginny and I are going to need if we’re going to survive this.

  I realized Lena was looking at me, apparently expecting an answer to something.

  “Do what, I’m sorry, my brain just drifted into Lala Land.” I said with a quiet laugh.

  Lena just smiled and said, “Pay attention woman, this is going to take some explaining. We can’t have you taking trips to fairy land in the middle of it all.”

  I rolled my eyes and made a rude gesture at her. “Bite me.”

  Then I thought about what I said.

  “On second thought, don’t. I might have to bash your head in with the baseball bat and it’s too cute to bash in. So what are these pictures of?” Looking at the screen I saw pictures of caves. Very deep looking caves. Oh dear, caves.

  “Aren’t those cold? And wet? And full of bats? Ginny won’t be able to stay in a cave, she’ll be sick all the time! And where will Maggie go when she needs to potty? Even if we picked it up in a bag we’d have to dispose of it somehow. And what about us? Where are we going to go?” I was starting to think about the long-term effects of this disaster. Garbage was put in a bag and disappeared once you put in on the curb every Tuesday. Those people wouldn’t be around anymore to make the trash go away. Why had I never thought about these things before?

  “Don’t panic Madeline. Once we have the RV, we’re going to drive it into these caverns. It’s on property my grandfather owned up in western Virginia, close to West Virginia and Kentucky. They’re all snuggled up against each other up there. The entrance is wide enough we can drive a rather large RV into it and live inside of that, inside the cave. Grandpa put big doors on it to keep teenagers and those looking for a spot to party out. Not a lot of people know about it because he didn’t commercialize it. He wanted to be left in peace and the only people that really know about it are the locals. We use solar panels to provide electricity, and wind generators for the gloomy days, and we have power inside the RV. There’s also a stream that runs in there, with pools of water that have blind fish in them. We can catch some every now and then, if we get desperate for food.

  “As for waste, we’ll have to figure out how to dispose of that later. Obviously we can’t keep it in the caves but we have to do something to get rid of it. We’ll figure something out. The important part is figuring out how to get up there. It’s going to take around four hours of driving to get up there and we have no idea what’s going to be in the way. Or if we can get fuel. Did you bring your credit card with you by any chance?” She looked back at me, her eyes curious.

  “I brought my purse, force of habit, so yeah; it should be in my wallet, why?”

  “We can use our credit cards to get fuel, as long as the power is still on. That saves us trying to figure out how to siphon fuel out of tanks while we’re on the trip. I’ve never done it, I’ve only seen it done and I don’t know if I can do it myself. I don’t even know if I can drive an RV, but if all those old people can get into one and drive it without killing everybody on the road I’m sure I can figure it out. Hopefully the roads will be clear and we won’t have too many problems with that. Now, my next question is, what about your medicines? Can we find enough to last for a long time, do they expire quickly? What do we need to know about those?”

  I could tell Lena was worried about this; she’d taken my hand and turned to face me as she asked the last questions. I kind of felt bad; she shouldn’t have to worry about this. It’s my burden and it made me feel like a burden. I had a lot to face in the future, and a lot of limitations to overcome, but I wasn’t going to be a burden to Lena. I was determined of that.

  “Oh, I should be fine on that front. The Ativan is mainly just to keep me calm. The others are the ones that are actually supposed to prevent them. I read an article a while back that the shelf life of most drugs is much longer than expected. I might need to take a little more because some meds do lose some of their potency, but I should be alright, as long as I can stockpile it. There’s another alternative, but we’ll di
scuss that at another time, if it comes down to it.” I wasn’t sure how Lena would feel about that alternative, but if it comes down to it, I’ll do what I must to ensure I’m not having seizures every time I turn around. We’ll see how everything goes.”

  Lena breathed a heavy sigh and let go of my hand.

  “I guess we should get some rest,” she said, standing up. “We can leave Ginny and Maggie here, if that’s okay with you, and you can have the guest room. Your room. Whatever you want to call it, you’re the only one that ever stays in there.” She said with a laugh.

  Lena had no other family. Her mother died last year and her father disappeared a long time ago, long before we met in school even. Her mother was an only child as well so when she passed Lena was on her own, except for me. I knew life hadn’t been easy for her but it made her stronger and able to think in a way that was far beyond anything I’d ever had to go into. Because Mom and Dad had left me with so much most things were taken care of for me by advisers, I didn’t have to worry about filtering through hundreds of companies to find insurance of any kind, or paying bills, it was all done for me. I was actually pretty pampered compared to her. Maybe even naïve in some ways, but I’m learning. Don’t write me off completely yet! I am!

  “Lena, what do we do if we can’t get an RV? What if there are too many zombies or the road is clogged up with cars? What do we do then? I don’t want to take Ginny out into something that’s even worse than what we have right now. Even with the radiation maybe it’s better if we stay here?”

  “No darling, the way we’d die if we stayed here would be even worse than if the zombies got us. Radiation poisoning is painful and miserable, and it’s not quick. You don’t want Ginny to suffer, I know that, but she would suffer if we stay here. It looks fine now, I know, and there is always the hope that somebody is still manning all of the stations, but we have to think as though they aren’t, and prepare. There may even be emergency fail-safes in place, just in case the humans all disappeared, but we have to work like there isn’t and won’t be. We can do it and you can do it, even without me. You got her this far. That’s a maternal instinct kicking in. You’re going to do what’s best for that kid and I don’t think there will be much that can stop you from doing that. Stop doubting yourself. You’re doing a great job so far. Now go get some rest, I’m getting us up at 5 am, that’s only a few hours from now so do it while you can. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Love you!” She gave me a hug and we went our separate ways.