LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series

by Laszlo,Jeremy

  Swinging the door open, I see nothing more than the cream-colored paint on walls where there are pictures of a couple progressing back and forth through life. One picture has the couple as sage elders and another has them as youthful parents standing with their toddler in a park. I look at the pictures, checking the dusty glass for reflections that might give away an intruder. But what strikes me as the most peculiar right now is the fact that the door to the basement looks like it’s part of the wall on the other side, like this is some sort of secret passage. I look at it and I can’t help but feel like this is the strangest door I’ve ever walked through. Passing over the threshold, I look down the hallway that I’ve stepped into. The house is dark, but there’s light here, pushing through the slats between the boards protecting the windows.

  We’ve seen our share of boarded up windows, but these still have the glass intact, which is a remarkable feat. I walk to my left, making my way into a front room that looks like it serves as the living room. I look around at everything in the house. It almost appears that nothing happened in this home. It has the feel of a grandparents’ home, like I could walk into the kitchen and find an old woman baking cookies while an old man rocks in his lounger, watching the game. But the house is silent. Staring at the couch, I look at the small tables, adorned with pictures and lamps and a phone in the cradle. I look at the table with the landline and see that there’s a phonebook sitting on the bottom shelf. I shake my head while gripping my stomach.

  Turning and looking down the hallway, I resist the urge to scream when I see Greg standing in the shadows, holding his shotgun and looking at me, as if we’ve established a plan before this and he’s waiting for the ‘all clear’ sign. There’s nothing remarkable on the ground floor. We walk into the kitchen and we find dozens and dozens of bottles of water stacked in the cupboards and on the counter. There’s a whole menagerie of bottles in the kitchen, like they were stockpiling when all of this started going down. I look in the pantry and I don’t find any food, nothing boxed or canned or jarred, which I find strange. You’d think that there would be a lot of food hidden somewhere if they had this much water. You don’t just stockpile one thing.

  I look at Greg who is staring up at the ceiling, listening to a sound that has also drawn my attention. It’s a tapping that sounds almost like it’s raining, or maybe it’s the sound someone upstairs is making. I look at Greg who gives me a nod and I follow him, gripping my stomach. I don’t even waste time with grabbing my Sig. If I squeeze that trigger, I’ll drop the gun. Instead, I just follow my daring man as he makes his way to the stairs and slowly climbs them step by step. I follow him cautiously, worried that there’s a killer waiting for us at the top. As we make our way up the steps, it’s immediately shown to us that the second floor of the house is not nearly what we thought it would be. In fact, this whole house is not what we thought it was.

  “My God,” I say, looking at all the open doors to the various rooms. There’s not a doubt in my mind that this is it. This was what my father wanted us to find. I don’t doubt that the bodies out there on the lawn belong to Jason and whoever was here with him. Maybe not him exactly, but he’s been driven off or he’s among the dead. Either way, we’re alone here.

  The walls are covered with writings in every room. Some of the rooms are decorated in strange, peculiar themes, like this house belonged to a bunch of teenage girls at one point. But one of the rooms is completely dark, filled with mason jars that hold seed packets or tons of little seeds. Greg and I look through all of them, not just seeing vegetables or fruits, but flowers, grasses, bush bulbs, and hundreds of other plant beginnings that I have no way of knowing about. I walk room from room, looking at the writings on the walls.

  Greg is fascinated by the drawings, hobbling and limping as he moves from one scribble to the next. Clearly, Jason was running out of paper, that or he was just used to writing on walls.

  “What is it?” I ask Greg.

  “Formulas mostly,” Greg says, moving to another writing. “It’s a lot of chemistry. I don’t understand a lot of it, and would have to work through it backwards, but I think this is definitely where your father wanted us to go. Only problem.”

  “Where the fuck is Jason?” Lexi’s voice causes both of us to turn and see her in the doorway, holding Charlie cradled in one arm. I look at her and I see that she’s neither happy nor impressed by any of this. In fact, she’s absolutely furious at the sight of everything that’s in the room. “Where the fuck is he? Huh? Did Dad just send us to an empty house with a bunch of scribblings from a madman? What the fuck was he thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” Greg says, looking back at the wall. “I mean, I don’t have a grasp on it yet, but I think he was isolating what was causing the mass destruction. From what I can tell, it’s degenerative. You know? I think he was under the impression that the toxin would run its course.”

  “Yeah, so what?” Lexi snaps angrily. “It killed every fucking thing.”

  “But it could be done,” Greg shrugs. “If he’s right.”

  “So?” I lift an eyebrow. “So all we have to do is get out there and start planting seeds?”

  “No,” Greg shakes his head. “I’m not sure about any of this, but he’s got designs, big designs. I think he was wanting to make new earth, new soil from the dust that’s left and fertilizer. It would make sense. It would explain all the fertilizer and wood down there in the basement. I think he was planning on building a hell of a lot of greenhouses.”

  I look at Greg, admiring him more than I’ve ever admired him. I look at the walls and it might as well be Sanskrit, but to him, there’s logic to it. He can read it. He can decipher this madness and that makes me love him all the more. I need to get out there and find a way to save his life. If he can read this, then Greg can’t die. He can’t follow me into whatever awaits me beyond death. I have to keep him alive until he can get all of this insanity translated into something that Lexi and Charlie can use to help themselves. Even if it means hacking off his leg, I’m going to have to save his life. It’s not a prospect I savor. What if there is an afterlife and I have to wait for the man I love? That sounds greedy, I know, but I’m not interested in being apart from him that long. I love him.

  “Greg,” I say to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I need you to stay here and see if you can make sense of all of this.”

  “Why? Where are you going?” Greg asks me with a confused and worried look on his face. I don’t know why his mind immediately jumps to dark places, even though he’s right, but it bothers me. Why can’t he assume that I’m just going downstairs to relax?

  “I need to make a run into town and see if I can’t find some more supplies,” I tell him honestly. We have enough food supplies for a while, but I don’t think I’ll be partaking of anything. Already, I feel like throwing up, so I’m going to avoid having anything to eat. It’ll be better for them if I just avoid wasting their supplies for the next few days, before I die.

  “I’ll come with you,” Greg says, stepping away from the wall.

  “Like hell you will,” Lexi says, handing him Charlie, who is nothing more than a little bundle of sleepy joy. I look at him and smile at his little, twinkling eyes. He’ll never remember me, but I’ll remember him, and I suppose that’s important enough to me. “You’re watching Charlie while the two of us make the run.”

  “No,” I shake my head. “I’ll go alone.”

  “No way,” Lexi snaps at me. “You can hardly stand. I’m going with you.”

  There’s no sense arguing with her. She’s going to make me accept the fact that she’s going or she’ll probably beat me. No matter what I do, she’s going to do what she wants. I look at Greg and offer him an apologetic smile. He’s going to be stuck here with Charlie.

  “I should go,” Greg says to us. “We can all go together.”

  “No,” Lexi says to him harshly. “You’re too fucking slow with your ankle. You’re just going to make everything that much
harder if you go with us. Stay here and do something useful.”

  I want to slap her for talking to him like that, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Lexi is scared and when she gets scared, she gets mean. I look at Greg and Charlie and decide that everything is in motion now. All that’s left to do is just get out there and do it. The faster we get a hold of all of our supplies, the faster it’ll be that we get back here and save his life. I take one last glance at all the madness on the walls and I realize that this was it. Fate. Destiny. Call it what you will, I am here to save him, so he can save Lexi and Charlie. If he doesn’t make it, I don’t think humanity will.

  Chapter Twelve

  I don’t doubt the very strong possibility that I may have just seen my boyfriend for the last time. I look over my shoulder and out the back window at the house where Greg is standing with Charlie in his arms, staring at us as we leave. I don’t doubt that he is thinking the same thing right now. The world is a dangerous place and there are evils waiting around every corner. This isn’t just an anecdote for old church folk to say anymore, it’s reality. Death could take Lexi and me, or one of a thousand problems could unfurl before us and he could be stuck with a baby for the rest of his life, however short that is. I watch him vanish behind our dust trail as we head out into the world to find help for his leg.

  They both think that we’re going out into the world looking for help for my stomach wound too, but I don’t bother correcting them. The thought of me finding a trauma surgeon out wandering the streets is a tad past unlikely. The only thing I’ll find is a bullet to put myself down, and that’s if I’m lucky. No, my time has passed, but saving Greg is still a possibility. If we don’t find anything to help clear up or amputate his leg, then he’s going to die and Lexi will be left alone with only Charlie for company. I don’t want her to have to see that future. I will happily give Greg a fighting chance if he can figure out what it was Jason was doing in that house. If Greg can save the world, as crazy as that sounds, I’m more than willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

  Climbing into the truck, I decide that there is no point in struggling with Lexi when she decides that she was going to be the one driving us into town. Honestly, I’m a bit relieved that it’s not me behind the wheel. It’s better than the thought of blacking out and plowing us into a canal so that we’re both left unconscious for whatever comes wandering along to find us. No, Lexi can drive. I place our journey in her capable hands. After all, she’s definitely the healthiest one of us left.

  Holding the phonebook in my still aching hands, I look at the listings for medical facilities. There are hundreds of places that we could go right now, just in Dayton and the surrounding area. I look at all the possibilities and I feel overwhelmed by them. The only problem is that the cynic inside of me who has the loudest voice of all now tells me that the odds are against us if we go looking at any of these places, especially in Dayton. From the look of the large X over the town on my father’s map, I don’t think he was telling us that X marks the spot in Dayton. I think that enormous X stands for 'stay away' and I intend to do just that. I feel the weight of choice hanging over me and it scares me.

  We don’t have the luxury of time. I’m dying, we have limited gasoline, and Charlie is going to need to be fed sooner or later and Lexi is the only one capable. So whatever decision I make, it has to be the right one. Looking south toward Dayton, I wonder what it was that my father encountered there. Maybe it was just too dangerous to navigate in whatever vehicle he’d been driving, probably his Jeep.

  Honestly, if I were alone on this little excursion and Lexi had just stayed home where she is needed, then I probably would have risked Dayton. If I were alone I could take bigger risks, after all what do I have to lose? I could probably make a run straight to the nearest hospital, find what we need, and get home before there is any trouble. But not with Lexi. No, with her here, I’m not risking a chance that she might get injured or that her life could be put on the line. Her survival is absolutely necessary if we’re to find any silver lining in this dark, unforgiving world. Right now, I see only the bad, but she and Charlie have a chance at seeing the good. So keeping her alive and finding a way to add Greg to their future are the top two priorities right now.

  Staring at the map, I decide that Trotwood is going to be our best chance, and direct Lexi to head in that direction. I remember telling Greg to drive around it yesterday when we were hunting for Jason’s house, but now when I look at it on the map, it seems fresh and full of promise. It appears to be a small community, somewhat removed from the city. What others might overlook or think completely pointless, I see as a gold mine because all around us I see sprawling farmland that would have existed before all of this went down. I look at the flat, empty land dotted by houses, tractors left where they died, and barns. I look at the leaning fence posts, shifting in the soft earth. This is definitely farmland, or at least it was, once upon a time.

  That means one thing, veterinarians. I look at the wall of blocks that cover the west and I know for a fact that we’re going to have our best luck there. For all the farms out here, there are going to be people with a lot of animals and those needed to take care of them. But there’s more than that. When the lack of food started to get to people, animals were quickly targeted. If they weren’t dying out from starvation, then they were getting taken and eaten. The scavengers and the carnivores were the last to die, but they died out not long before the government fell. So the veterinarian clinics were all shut down one by one, if not abandoned immediately. People would have taken the feed that they had available there for their beloved pets or even to eat for themselves, desperate measures and all. The actual medical supplies that would be locked and stored away from their customers might have been overlooked. Any looters’ attention would have been on the feed that they probably sold there as well.

  I look at Trotwood ahead and I can’t help but see an opportunity to get at what we need and avoid any serious conflict. After all, it isn’t a metropolitan area, there wouldn’t have been that many people there, fewer zombies, fewer fanatics or other survivors. The idea seems so simple to me, but maybe that’ll change. Maybe we’ll get there and there won’t be anything there at all, or maybe it’ll be a stronghold. I’m not sure what to expect, but I do think that this is our best chance and Lord knows we need one.

  Flipping through the phonebook, I find a veterinary office that’s right on Main Street, which goes straight through the center of town. I don’t doubt that this is a vulnerable spot if there are survivors in the town. I look at the map just before the yellow pages and I try to figure out if there’s going to be any significant danger down the center of the town. I hope not. If there were a lot of survivors, they might be able to dig in and fortify it to try and hunker through until this all passes over. That would have been ideal for our group if we’d moved out together and effectively. I shake my head, everything got screwed up and it’s all my fault. I can’t blame anyone but myself for the disaster that has come to pass. It’s only poetic justice that I should die this slow painful death for every decision I’ve made for others in all my glorious ignorance.

  But I have to put that behind me. One day, Lexi is going to have the key to the future in her hands and I need to do everything in my power to make it so. All she has to do is survive and if I can give her Greg as another pair of hands, then so be it. One day she might have people coming to her for help and she might have a community. Then they could take over some place like Trotwood and fortify it for themselves.

  “Keep to the main street,” I tell her as we approach the town. I look at the buildings, my eyes wide, ready to see if there is any danger waiting for us. I know that there’s death lurking behind every dark window and every shut door. I’m paranoid, cautious, and yet thus far I am completely unimpressed by this town. We pass by the first couple of buildings, isolated homes welcoming you to Trotwood on the outskirts, but nothing that looks like it’s been lived in recently or used by survivors.
It’s a good sign and I’m not too worried about running into immediate danger. I look around at the buildings we’re coming up on and feel like we might have found a place without survivors. That would be so fortuitous that it might make me cry.

  On its own, Trotwood is an abandoned junkyard just like the other places we’ve been through. The buildings are sad and forgotten. Without the constant interaction with humanity, everything has gone to hell. There are cars abandoned on the side of the road, parked in their final dying spots. There are only a few cars in the middle of the road, mostly stopped at an angle and abandoned. One of the cars has been lit on fire and has been left as a monument to a world gone to shit. Maybe it’s a warning. I look at the car and wonder at the countless possibilities. Perhaps it belonged to a family just passing through and trying to get somewhere safe when they were attacked for their supplies. Maybe the car just overheated and something caught fire. There is no way to tell, but the burned out metal husk gives me the creeps and puts me on edge.

  There are houses and shops with doors broken open and windows smashed, probably by people passing through and looting. But there are other places that have been boarded up with plywood or two by fours. I look at those buildings and wonder if there are survivors tucked away inside of the buildings. I wonder if there are eyes on us right now, watching our every move with cautious, curious eyes peeking through boards. I hope they don’t think that we’re a threat. I wish that there was a white flag that we could fly from the top of our rattling, hobbled truck so that other people won’t think that we’re a danger or menace to the life they’ve built here.