Donny beamed with pride as they left, shutting the door behind them. The gates of the building were shut and locked. An old woman sat on an overturned bucket and kept guard with a shotgun. It seemed that Bram wasn't the first to realize the advantages of where they lived, and want to defend it. Donny tagged along like his shadow all day, watching him interact with the other adults. They came up with a plan to leave the teenaged boys behind on guard duty while the rest of the men went out to scavenge for food, medicine, and water.
“These boys aren't old enough to defend themselves,” one of the neighbors complained in a thick Russian accent, “…much less defend our wives.” Not knowing all your neighbors by name was part of growing up in Los Angeles; people on this block kept to themselves for the most part. Over the years, Donny would see familiar faces and get to know people before they moved away. It was a transient city, constantly in motion like the shifting sands it was built on. No one was interested in putting down roots. And if you weren't staying, why bother to unpack at all or even get to know anyone? It would just mean losing more friends, as far as Donny was concerned.
“They are stronger than you give them credit for,” Bram argued.
“Are you willing to put your life in their hands?”
“As long as Donny is with them, I am. I trust him with my life.”
Bram handed Donny a shotgun. He'd shown him how to load the shells earlier and warned him about the kick. They hadn't had time to test it out. Donny thought about how proud he'd been to be trusted to defend his home and be trusted with a weapon.
“This is insane!”
“I agree,” Bram shouted over the man, forcing him to stop midsentence and gawk at him. “But what choice do we have, huh? We can either hide here and wait to run out of supplies, or we can take the 7-11 up the street – and any place else we can reach to grab our fair share. Our women and children are depending on us, so what do you say? Who knows, maybe we can make it up as far as the Ralphs.”
If they had made it to the store, there was no sign of it. Bram whipped the troops up with a rousing speech that day and they went forward as a force to be reckoned with. We could hear yelling and screaming by the time they'd reached the end of the street. Donny never saw Bram again. The Russian man, the neighbor, had come back infected and transformed. His weeping wife let him inside the gates, along with several other flesh-hungry zombies, which was how most of the residents had died. Donny had been part of the effort to force them all back out. He'd fired the shotgun several times that day, killing his first human being, or what remained of one, in the process. Fast Jeff was his downstairs neighbor. They'd always gotten along well, but had never really been friendly until that day. He'd been the one who helped Donny get the gate shut again – right after his friends, Jimmy and Gary, had shown up. They were just closing it when they spotted a gang of small children making their way up the street between parked cars. Farther up the street, moving between smashed cars and stepping over the remains of blood-soaked dead bodies strewn across the wide street, a horde of hungry monsters loomed. Fast Jeff had risked his life that day to protect those children, while Jimmy had tried to talk him out of it.
“We can't leave them! They'll be dead in minutes.”
“That's not our problem now,” Jimmy screamed hysterically. “There is nothing we can do.”
“What are you talking about? That could be us over there.”
“But it's not!”
“Their blood is gonna be on our hands, man. Can you live with that?”
“If you open up that gate we're all going to die, including those snot-nosed kids.”
“Open it up,” a low voice growled. We all turned to see Gary staring at us, shotgun in hand, a dark look of determination etched into his face. “Do it!”
It was the first Donny had heard him speak, but it wouldn't be the last. From that moment on, Gary was in charge. He became their de facto leader, the one they went to with all their problems.
“Come on, Gary,” Jimmy whined, looking dejected.
“We're going to do this shit lickety-fucking-split,” Gary said, dropping to his knee as he revealed the plan. The rest of the kids quickly followed suit. They were glad to have someone else in charge; glad to be told what to do. “Donny, you try to get their attention. Jeff, you run out and help the slow ones. I've seen you in gym class, out on the track. You move fast. It shouldn't be a problem for you. I'll stand watch at the gate with the boom stick.”
Jimmy sneered at Gary's Army of Darkness reference but his face quickly returned to its usual slack stupid expression when no one else seemed to get it.
“Do you know how to fire it?” Donny wasn't trying to fuck with him. He just remembered Bram telling him about getting the back end of the weapon nestled all the way into his shoulder, about how the kick would hurt at first but that he'd get used to it in time.
“Shit, yeah,” Gary said. “I grew up in Alabama. Used to go hunting with my old man when I was five years old. First time I fired a gun I was eight. Pops got me my own rifle by the time I was twelve. Trust me. I got this.”
Gary smiled and Donny smiled back. It felt good to hear that someone knew what he was doing, even if it was all just bluster. Times like that, you didn't care if it was really true or not. All that mattered was the illusion that shit was going to work out. Otherwise, you'd never get the balls up to try anything. You'd just shit with your legs shaking, crapping in your pants wondering what to do.
“What about me?”
We all turned and stared at Jimmy. He looked red faced and guilty and put out all at the same time.
“I wanna help but I am not going out there on purpose.”
“Once the little kids get inside,” Gary said, “it's your job to keep 'em in here. Don't let them back out. The last thing we want in this situation is a clusterfuck. Got it?”
Donny had no idea what a clusterfuck was, but it sounded bad. He nodded along with the rest.
“Good. Now let's get this over with.”
The plan went off without a hitch. Jimmy and I both got the kids attention by yelling and screaming. We also got the attention of our unwanted visitors at the end of the street, who made an angry beeline right toward us the minute we started shouting and waving our arms. The kids darted right through the apartment building gate and went way inside. Just as Gary had predicted, there were stragglers. Fast Jeff moved in quickly and grabbed a child who had lost his sneaker and fallen in the street. He picked the screaming kid up and ran as fast as he could, just clearing the entrance before Gary let off the first of two shotgun blasts. The zombies were now flat out running in our direction. Gary had taken out three of them with his efforts, and with Donny’s help pulled the gate shut just in time to keep the rest of the monsters out. Denied their meal, the undead scratched and howled and threw their bodies against the metal mesh, but it held. The living were safe, tucked away behind the security gate.
I can still see their faces, Donny thought. Their dead eyes all flat and lifeless like a Great White on Shark Week. One man looked like he'd been attacked with a cheese grater. Some were missing fingers. And that smell, ah shit man, that god-awful fucking stench of death and decay. I will never forget it!
In the weeks that passed they'd formed a work schedule, dividing up the labor. The kids took over one of the empty apartments. They laid out sofa cushions and slept together in a circle on the floor. The water still ran, but they had no electricity so they had to use candles. They dug up a fire pit in the middle of the yard between the apartment buildings and used it to cook food at night. Everyone shared. That was the rule. No fucking hoarding! Anyone caught hiding food or holding back would be forced to leave. Gary set that rule the first night while he still had the shotgun in his hands, before we ran out of ammo. He sent packs of us searching apartment to apartment, gathering resources and making sure no one was cheating. The adults took to calling Donny and his friends 'the flies' with Gary being referred to as their 'Lord,' but they didn't try
to make waves. Everyone more or less fell in line with the men gone.
Donny's mom refused to come out of her bedroom. He'd bring her food from the rations pile once a day, but she barely picked at it. Instead, she just stared at the wall and silently cried. She'd withdrawn into herself so much that Donny wondered at times if she even knew he was there. There was a diabetic who lived on the lower floor near the gates, but he died in the first few days.
Insulin shock, thought Donny, whatever the hell that is.
They started calling the apartments Camp Zombie, because of the constant stream of screaming little kids running around. The whole atmosphere was like an endless summer camp. It just made sense. In the first few weeks the zombies came right up to the gates and leered at us. Some roared in anger, thrusting their bodies teeth first at the metal bars over and over again. Others drifted idly back and forth, roaming around the front of the buildings like restless insects tirelessly searching for a way in. The little kids soon made a game out of it, poking them with sticks and taunting them with food. They began to dare one another to stick a hand or foot out of the gates for a few seconds at a time without being caught. The bravest among the runts, li’l Kevin, held his leg all the way outside for nearly five seconds. After a few weeks, the dead people just began to wander away on their own.
The food pile began to run low so Gary made plans to do what the adults had failed at – go out and scavenge for supplies. They started by hitting the apartments closest to Camp Zombie, breaking windows and ransacking their way through.
“Stick to the kitchen and the bathrooms,” Gary cautioned them. “In and out, you got it? There will be time later to go back and pick the places apart. Right now we wanna stockpile what we can use: food, water, and medicine. We'll worry about the rest later.”
There was a universal belief among all the kids that the authorities would eventually step in and fix shit. Sooner or later, adults who knew how to handle things like this would arrive: cops or firemen or military people. All they had to do was wait it out.
They lost a few of the smaller kids in those first few apartment raids. It was always the smart ass ones, the brats who didn't listen. They'd go off script, wandering into parts of apartments they didn't need to visit or kicking open locked doors, only to have a zombie come flying out to tear them to shreds. After the herd had been thinned out a few times, they stopped deviating from Gary's plan. Get in, hit the kitchen and the bathroom, and get the fuck out. The trouble was that most of the apartments had been picked over. It was as if people had seen the writing on the wall, grabbed what they could, and gotten the fuck out of Dodge. Trouble was, most of them hadn't made it far in the chaos of those first few days. Some asshole had gone around lighting all the abandoned cars on fire after that. Donny wondered if the thoughtless prick had even bothered to check for supplies before they torched the vehicles.
For all we know we could have lived a month off of that shit, Donny thought, the anger boiling up inside of him. Then maybe Fast Jeff would still be alive right now.
As time went by they grew more desperate, and also more bold. Gary began leading them up the street and out onto Sunset. They no longer ran when they saw a single zombie on its’ own. They'd gather around it in a circle and hack it to pieces with their weapons. Donny preferred the baseball bat because he could crack open a zom's skull with one well-placed blow over the top. Gary usually carried a fire ax with him. Once they ran out of ammo, it had become his weapon of choice. Donny had seen him behead more than one monster with it. The rest of the gang used whatever was at hand. Jimmy made a spiked club one day, but later traded it for a machete. Fast Jeff didn't like to use anything at all, relying instead on his speed and on Gary's growing appetite for killing zombies. The tactic worked one on one, but was almost no use if they saw a pack of zombies working together. In those situations they'd just pull back and haul ass to Camp Zombie, locking themselves in tight – just in case there were runners in the group.
No one had ever escaped a fast moving zombie. They came out of nowhere, as if they had been lurking around waiting for their next victim, and they didn't stop until they had the taste of fresh flesh in their rotten mouths.
“I'll bet you I can outrun one,” Fast Jeff boasted one night while roasting a spoiled hot dog over the fire pit on a wire hanger. “They're fast, but they’re no match for a real person.”
“Yeah, right,” Donny laughed sarcastically. “That'll be the day.”
“You wait and see. I'm going to run circles around one soon, then let Gary pop his head off like a Pez dispenser.”
They'd all laughed, but Fast Jeff had never gotten the chance to try.
Now he never will, Donny thought, his mind flashing back to his present dilemma. Fuck! I've been drifting off again. What the hell? Why can't I seem to stay in the moment? Why do things keep getting fuzzy on me? And why didn't I warn him?
It was fear that had held him back, and he knew it. The least he could have done was tell them to block the door with something, maybe booby trap it so they'd have some kind of warning if something was coming through. He'd kept his mouth shut and now his friend was paying the price for it. Jeff hadn't even wanted the gig in the first place. None of them had.
“Fast Jeff, you stand watch,” Gary instructed. “You see anything coming out that door you give a shout and we'll all make for the parking lot. Got it?”
“Sounds good to me,” Jimmy said, but Fast Jeff didn't look as easily convinced.
“Why does it have to be me?”
“Because I said so,” Gary fired back at him. Fast Jeff shot him a look that softened him up a bit, adding, “You're quick enough to stay ahead of 'em that's why.”
They'd all come at once, led by a huge fat man with half his guts hanging out. He still wore an apron and a hair net, probably from the meat department. His skin looked greasy and sallow, but his mouth was pinkish. He had a pear shaped body with tiny, stick legs. His face wore no expression as he hoisted Fast Jeff up in the air, grunting through his open mouth as the others behind him clawed at the skinny kid’s body like a swarm of hungry, biting insects. Donny heard Jeff's screams echoing in the back as the plastic closed around the egg-shaped belly of the butcher.
“Don't just stand there,” Gary shouted, the sound of his voice breaking Donny out of his trance, “move your ass. Go now! Go!”
Donny turned, his legs suddenly working, and bolted toward the parking lot as fast as his feet would carry him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the others running in the same direction, moving like broken warriors fleeing a losing battle. They gathered near the shopping cart return, panting and scared and angry.
“We've gotta go back in there,” Jimmy said, looking guilty now.
They were armed with sticks and baseball bats and rocks, but nothing that might help them get their lost friend back.
“It's too late,” Gary said, shaking his head from side to side.
“We got nothing,” Jimmy scornfully laughed. “We lost another one of us, and for what?”
“Shut up,” Gary said, his voice a dangerous low whisper.
Jimmy immediately fell silent.
“It's like they’re getting smarter or something,” Donny said.
“They're not getting smarter,” Gary argued. “They just got lucky, that's all.”
“That's more than luck,” Donny panted, making eye contact with Gary, then looking down when he saw the angry glint in his eyes. “They're learning strategy, like a computer game figuring out our moves.”
“Fast Jeff took his eye off the ball,” Gary replied. “He let his guard down and turned his back and that's why they got him. If he'd done what he was told, he'd be with us now instead of with them. It ain't pretty, but it's the truth and each of you knows it. I wish to hell we could go back there and beat those monsters to death and bring him back, but we just can't. You all know that.”
“I wish we'd never come,” Donny said, a guilty look crossing his face before he hung his
head down again, staring at his worn sneakers.
“Instead of blaming ourselves we need to let this be a lesson,” Gary admonished us, sounding more like a preacher on Sunday morning than a soldier. “Keep your fucking eyes open at all times, especially when you've got your back to an unchecked area.”
“I'd like to go back in and bash their fucking brains out,” Jimmy said, the anger working through him. “Just stand over them and drive my fucking stick into their disgusting puss-filled heads over and over until there's nothing left.”
“That won't bring him back,” Gary said, “and it won't get us what we need right now, which is food. We’d better get moving before the sun goes down on us. I'm hoping this day won't be a total waste after all.”
“We should’ve caught that fucking dog,” Donny offered. “Could’ve had ourselves a fucking Korean barbeque in no time.”
Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance. Before the words could find their way out of him a deafening explosion ripped through the air from somewhere behind them, causing all to turn and stare in silent fear. From a distance it looked like there was an actual wall of fire heading their way. It towered over them, like a tsunami made out of moving fire.
It's beautiful, Donny thought for a split second as his fear gave way to detachment at the undeniable realization that they were all about to die. The way the flames dance…so alluring…so inviting. It's almost sexual – like erotically charged women whose bodies are made of flames; all hypnotically humping and grinding, luring us in with their perfect siren’s song.
The last thing they saw was the edge of the blue sky directly above them filled with military fighter jets shooting past, bellies open, while shiny metal cylinders poured out like storks delivering bundles of love and joy to new mothers depicted in a cartoon. The loud roars were quickly drowned out by the rushing wind as it brought its cleansing fire to burn away the last remnants of hell on Earth.
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