“What?” Jack said.
“There are at least 60 zombies heading our way, we need to MOVE.”
“Holy shit.” Walt whispered. Santa did not pull him up on his language. The survivors turned on their heels and sprinted for the doors. The only problem was, in the labyrinth of corridors that made up the supermarket, they had no idea where the hell the doors where.
“Shit!” Jack said frantically, as they ran right in front of the zombies. They couldn’t run anymore, there were just too many of them. They would never make it out of this alive. Everyone, almost exactly in sync grabbed their weapons, and started to fight. Charlie unsheathed his sword and took the heads of two zombies.
Audrey was right behind him, her sword swishing and swooshing, swiftly decapitating three zombies. Jack, Santa, Rory, Vanessa, Penny, Jessica and Megan all had their guns out, shooting at a group of about 18 zombies. Once they had killed that group, Vanessa turned around, with her back to the zombies. Suddenly, a previously hidden zombie grabbed Vanessa’s arm, and dragged her down with it.
***
Vanessa screamed, and frantically tried to punch or kick any exposed part of the zombie. The zombie tried to clamp his teeth down onto Vanessa’s arm, just as Santa ran past and shot the zombie in the head.
“That was close.” Vanessa said, panting heavily. Santa pulled Vanessa up to her feet, and walked away in order to kill some more of the zombies that were closing in on Jack, Penny and the others.
Vanessa moved back towards the back of the store, where there were no zombies, to collect her thoughts. That was close. Really close. She was usually so good at defeating the zombies, and she had NEVER had one sneak up on her like that. She needed to hide her weaknesses from the rest of the group. She couldn’t let them thinking she wasn’t strong.
She was about to turn around to leave and help the group, when she felt a painful prickling on her upper arm. She lifted up her sleeve, and to her absolute horror, found a disgusting gory bite mark in her arm.
***
Vanessa was terrified, which was a feeling she wasn’t generally used to. She knew that bites were a death sentence, that much had been perfectly clear since day 1. She remembered the very first day of the apocalypse. She was living with her parents when she saw the news broadcast. People in HAZMAT uniforms running around the TV screen, the reporter having his throat ripped out in front of millions of viewers, the panic that followed. She remembered how she had hauled her elderly parents out of their comfortable Atlanta home.
She remembered how her parents had been bitten almost immediately after they had left the house, and how they had died an excruciating, stretched out death. She remembered how she had sat with them in their final hours, completely helpless to save them. She remembered how she had to put a bullet in their brains when they turned, which was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. The only family she had ever had, gone within the blink of an eye.
She had decided to travel then with four of her friends that she had met when she was in college. They travelled the roads, surviving day to day for about two months before being captured by James. The rest, including meeting Jack and his group, was history.
She didn’t want the same fate as her parents. She didn’t want a long drawn out painful death. She wanted something quick. Something painless. She moved her hand towards her thigh, where her holster was. She withdrew her gun and pointed it towards her head.
She was just about to pull the trigger when she heard Jessica scream. Her group was in trouble. She thought about the group. Her new family. The cogs in her brain started to tick over she though about what to do. Her group was in danger. A group of zombies could kill a human in about 10 seconds. Ten seconds of excruciating pain to save her friends? That wasn’t a hard decision to make.
She started sprinting towards the zombies; everything seeming like it was in slow motion. She sprinted past the bewildered group, shouting ‘RUN FOR IT’ as she hurtled straight into the midst of the zombies.
She grabbed three zombies and smacked them into three others, knocking them over. She turned around, and screamed again to the group ‘WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? FUCKING LEAVE!’ The terrified group sprinted to the doors, which they had finally found during the debacle of the fight. Jack turned around long enough to see Vanessa scream in excruciating pain as a zombie bit into her chest. Vanessa fell to the ground, and the merciless zombies wasted no time ripping the flesh from her bones.
“Thank you for everything, Jack.” She whispered, before succumbing to her the multiple bite wounds. Jack sadly bowed his head, and left the store along with the others.
***
The others sprinted to the vans. No one even looked at each other as they ran towards the vans. Everyone got in and drove towards their new home. While in the armoured van, Charlie put his hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Did she…?” He asked, trailing off at the end.
“No. She didn’t make it. She gave her life for us.” Jack said. Charlie bowed his head in sorrow. A solitary tear dropped from his eye and splashed into his lap.
“Why?” Charlie asked.
Jack looked at him. “I don’t know.” He said.
Back in the other van, Audrey, Walt, Santa, Jessica and Megan were absolutely stunned.
As Santa was driving his van, following Jack in order to get back to the house, he was confused. He had saved that women’s life minutes before she had sacrificed herself to the zombies. Why would she kill herself? Everyone else was understandably shaken. During the days before James had captured their family, they had encountered zombies in groups, but only in groups of 7 or 8. The largest they had ever had was about 15 zombies, and they nearly lost their lives. No one else said a word until they arrived back at the home.
When the armoured van arrived at the house, Jack parked in the garage and waited for the others. About 30 seconds later, Santa’s van arrived.
Santa, Audrey, Megan, Jessica and Walt got out of the car and walked over to Jack and the others.
“What happened?” Walt asked Rory.
“Just come inside, and we will explain everything.” Rory answered solemnly.
The survivors went inside the house and sat in the large lounge room. Jack stood in front of them all, and began to speak.
“You saw what happened. We all did. Vanessa sacrificed herself in order to save every single one of our lives. I can’t begin to know why she did it. I’m so confused. She was perfectly fine, and then-”
“She wasn’t perfectly fine. I had only just saved her from a zombie attack. The dumb bastard was on top of her, damn nearly killed her.” Santa said.
“Do you think it is possible that she was bitten?” Walt said.
“Maybe.” Jack answered.
“Hang on, Jack.” Charlie said. “If she was bitten, it would explain why she did it. Maybe if she though there was no possible way she would get out of that supermarket alive, then she could at least go out saving the people she cared about.”
“Wow. Maybe your right.” Jack said. “She saved all of our lives.”
Charlie went back to sitting on the couch. He was absolutely devastated. Ever since Vanessa had come along and saved Jack from certain insanity, Charlie had been incredibly grateful towards Vanessa. They had always joked and had a lot of fun with each other, and now that Charlie stopped and thought about it, he had never actually thanked her for all her heroic, brilliant efforts while saving Penny.
“How do we go on from here?” Audrey asked miserably.
Jack stood up. He had a fiery look in his eyes.
“We fight. We win. We survive. We do it for her. She never gave up on us, and now we won’t either.” He said.
Rory looked up. “I want to do something for her, Jack. A memorial service or something. We can’t just let her fade away. We need to remember.”
“That’s a good idea.” Santa said. “We could have a nice service out the back. I didn’t know her for long, but I think she would have loved that.”
“She would have.” Charlie said fondly.
“I think we all need some sleep.” Jack said.
“Jesus! It seems all we do is sleep.” Charlie said.
“Do you have the energy to anything else, Charlie?” Jack asked.
“Good point. No, no I don’t.” Charlie responded sheepishly.
Everyone went to their respective rooms, or couches or mattresses and fell asleep almost instantly. They all slept for a good 5 or 6 hours before a loud squawking woke them all up.
“SHIT!” Jack yelled, sprinting outside. “’What the fuck is that?”
A medium sized hawk sat perched on top of a tree branch. It was grey bird, with black wings and white splodges on its wings.
“Oh!” Santa exclaimed excitedly. “That is a Red-shouldered Hawk, also known as Buteo lineatus!”
Everyone stared at him.
“What? I know my birds.” He said defensively.
“Well, I’m afraid we can’t keep it here.” Jack said.
“What?” Santa said.
“It will be too loud.” Jack said. “We can’t have something that loud here all the time. It would be like having a giant neon sign that says ‘come get us zombies, we are yours for the taking!’”
Santa knew he was right, but that didn’t stop him from being pissed about it. He had always wanted a Red-shoulder. Charlie walked over toward the tree that was housing the hawk and shook it.
“Shoo!” He said. “Go on, get away!”
The bird flew up about 10 feet in the air, before landing in exactly the same place as before.
“You have GOT to be kidding me.” Charlie said.
“Oi!” He yelled again. “I said, PISS. OFF.”
He jumped up and tried to swipe at the bird, which as it turned out, was not a very smart idea. The bird flew down and started to attack Charlie’s face. Luckily, Charlie managed to throw his arms up and protect his face.
“OW!” He yelled. “KILL IT! FUCKING KILL IT!”
Jack had no choice. As funny as it was to watch the bird maul Charlie, the noise pollution was a problem. He drew his gun, and with incredible accuracy, shot the bird off of Charlie.
“I hate birds.” Charlie said grumpily.
He rolled up his sleeves to reveal multiple deep gashes that the bird had made.
“Come on Charlie.” Jack said, chuckling. “We will get you bandaged up.”
Charlie and Jack walked inside, leaving the others to wander around the property.
Rory told the others to make sure they had their weapons out, so that if they were caught by surprise, at least they would have weapons. The place was big. The old lady that had lived here was getting more and more intriguing. Rory and the others walked behind the house and their jaws dropped.
Behind the house was a massive array of beautiful green fields.
“Holy crap.” Santa said, looking over to the fields.
“How the hell did we miss that?” Rory asked, completely perplexed.
“I suppose we just didn’t look around on the outside of the house when we first got here, and we fell asleep as soon as we got here, then we left for the supermarket the very next morning.” Walt said.
The survivors stood, looking at the fields in awe for almost 10 minutes.
It was around this time that Jack and Charlie came back, Charlie’s arm covered in bandages. Jack whistled when he saw the place.
“Whoa.” Charlie said. “This place is freaking amazing.”
“I know, right?” Penny said.
“God, we could grow crops here!” Rory said. “Stuff like cabbage, lettuce, carrots and tomatoes!”
“I hate literally every single food item you just said, Rory.” Charlie said. “Except carrots. Gotta love carrots.”
The survivors roamed around the luscious green fields for almost two hours, finding nothing extremely noteworthy, other than the fields themselves.
After they had thoroughly inspected the fields, the survivors found not only the perfect place to hold a memorial to Vanessa, but a large dam full of water. The place they had found for Vanessa was a particularly beautiful place, on top of a small hill, laden with wonderful, exotic flowers.
“Yep.” Jack said. “This is the right place to do it.”
“I agree.” Charlie said, looking over towards the hill.
They walked to the top of the hill, and formed a semi-circle around a space on the hill.
“Did you bring it, Charlie?” Jack whispered.
“Yeah, I did.”
While Charlie had gone inside to bandage Jack up, he had also found some wood in one of the back rooms. He had fashioned a medium-sized cross, and crudely carved Vanessa into it.
Charlie pulled the cross out of the bag, and plunged it into the ground. Everyone stared at it.
“Does anyone want to say anything?” Charlie said.
“Yeah, sure.” Jack said. “I’ll start.”
“I didn’t know Vanessa long. None of us did. Me, Charlie and Rory only knew her for about a month. But in that month, we learnt how kind and brave Vanessa was. She was the only reason I got back to Penny, and I will be eternally grateful for that.”
Charlie was the next one to step forward.
“Again, we didn’t know Vanessa that much, but we did know that she was helpful, smart, resourceful and wasn’t known to take no for an answer! She saved all of our lives many times, and in the end, made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could fight on, like she wanted us too.”
Rory walked towards Charlie, and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Vanessa was such a sweet girl.” Rory said, his deep, Scottish accent cracking with emotion. “She was brave, and good, and she didn’t deserve to go the way she did. We need to survive for her. We need to keep living, to prove that Vanessa did not die in vain. That is how we honour her sacrifice.”
Penny stood up and spoke as well.
“I knew Penny even less that the others did. Technically, I’ve only known her a couple of days, but she saved my husband from insanity, and I can never thank her for that.
Santa bent over and plucked a single flower from the ground. He placed it right in front of her cross.
“Rest in peace, Vanessa.” He said.
“Rest in peace, Vanessa.” The others repeated.
And just like that, Charlie, Rory, Jack, Penny, Audrey, Santa, Walt, Jessica and Megan left the hilltop, and left Vanessa.
Chapter 10: As The Days Go By
Seven months had passed since the horrific events of the attack at the supermarket. That meant it had been more than a year since the apocalypse had started. Over the past 7 months, the weather had gotten much colder, as the months turned into October. A thick blanket of snow covered the house, transforming the wonderful, green fields into amazing sheets of white. During the transition from autumn into winter, Rory had continued his training on the survivors; with the help of Walter, which included hand-to-hand combat in case they were ever without guns. Santa, Audrey, Jessica and Megan were coming along very well. It turned out that Audrey had taken some classes with Walt before life went to hell, and she was good. She really did look like a Japanese samurai with her sword, as did Charlie. The survivors had become much more hardened and stronger as a group.
They had also made major improvements on the house as well. They had started by almost identically mirroring the security measures on Jack and Penny’s first house, then going down to the local hardware store (taking down a small horde of zombies as they did) and then adding a massive long fence around the perimeter of the property, which had taken the better part of 8 weeks, but it had been worth it, as now there was a 2 metre high fence completely surrounding the house and its fields. The only way in or out of this place was through the front gates, which were kept heavily padlocked when no one was entering or leaving the house. During one supply run, Charlie had even grabbed a trolley full of fire extinguishers so that should a fire occur, they would at least have a good chance of combatting i
t. Life had actually been good for the survivors. The death of Vanessa had strengthened the group, and truly shown them that they couldn’t just bow down and die, they had to keep fighting, until every breath had left their lungs.
After seven months of day-to-day survival, the survivors were starting to think long term. They already had plans to stay in that house for as long as they possibly could. Although it almost pained Jack to admit it, this house had done so much more for the survivors than his old house had ever done. The 9 residents of the house had come to the assumption that the elderly lady who had previously owned The house had been either filthy rich and bought heaps of seemingly useless things (which would end up saving the survivor’s lives), or she had been one hell of an adventurer!
Life As We Know It Page 9
