by Gallier, TW
"Be alert," I whispered, starting up the stairs.
We went up the stairs quickly. Even though we tried to move quietly, the steel and concrete stairs made a lot of noise. I watched the two doors off the second floor landing warily as we passed and continued up. I could hear others moving around down in the parking lot by the time we reached the top.
"Shh, don't move," Ralph said, laying a hand on my arm.
We watched as four zombies slowly shuffled past down in the parking lot. The undead never even looked up. Indeed, they only looked straight forward.
"I don't think these walkers are very smart," Olivia whispered.
"Let's hope not," I replied. I tried the door. It was locked. "Damn, if I knock it might attract zombies."
"Kick it in," Ralph said.
"Really? Do I look like Rambo?"
"Shoot it," Olivia suggested. "Wait, do you think any noise will attract zombies?"
"Yes," I said. I thought about it a second. "Okay, here's what we're going to do." I paused to look the door and knob over some more. "I don't think shooting the door will help. There isn't a deadbolt, so I think our best bet is to charge it at the same time and kick it."
"If that doesn't work, then we're fucked," Ralph said.
So Ralph, Olivia, and I backed up against the other apartment door and took deep breaths. As one, we shouted and charged the door. At the last second we leapt up and kicked the door. It held.
I ended up on my back, with Ralph on top of me. Olivia stumbled back against the other door.
"Damn, that hurt," Ralph cried.
He hurt? I was the one on bottom. So I shoved him off to the side and struggled to my feet. I glowered at the door, feeling rather foolish. Three geniuses couldn't open a stupid door. The sounds of movement caught my attention then, sounding closer. Did we just alert the zombies that we were up there and awful tasty?
"We made a lot of noise," I said. "Maybe we should get out of here."
"Screw that," Olivia said. She pushed us aside, aimed her shotgun at the doorknob, and pulled the trigger. Ka-boom! She screamed and stumbled back. "Holy crap, this piece of shit kicks like a horse."
The door swung open, even as I rubbed my ringing ears. There was a big hole where the doorknob used to be. I glanced down at the parking lot and realized I couldn't hear the zombies over the ringing. They could be right on top of us and I wouldn't know it.
"Quick! Get inside," I commanded. "Olivia, keep watch and guard the door. Come on, Ralph, let's find those zombie kits."
Olivia closed the door and hurried to a window. I smiled to see she didn't open the curtains, but covertly peeked through them. I was pretty sure Ralph would've just opened the curtains and announced himself to the zombie world.
"I got walkers down there," she said, just like when we played the game.
It was all so surreal. I paused to wonder if I was dreaming. There was no way to sleep through a dream like that. So while Ralph searched Jax's room, I hurried into Charlie's. My friend's room was a bigger disaster than my own. Dirty clothes and half-eaten food were everywhere. There was nothing we could use out in the open, so I looked under the bed.
"Gun!" I said, pulling out an AR15 assault rifle. I vaguely recalled him mentioning it, and how he'd modified it to be fully automatic. Of course, we were all smoking weed at the time, so I might've been remembering wrong. "Sweet!"
It already had a 30-round magazine in it, with two more duct-taped to either side of the first. I got a thrill chill. Charlie always had the best shit. There was also a crossbow and a quiver of bolts under the bed, but I left them there.
Going to the closet, I spotted a black, nylon mesh, tactical vest hanging on the very first hanger. Two pistols were in built-in holsters on the sides, with lots of pouches filled with magazines and other necessities. I quickly put that on, noticing it already had AR15 magazines and pistol magazines in the pouches.
The black nylon 'zombie bug-out kit' pack was on the floor at the back of the closet. I quickly carried it to the bed and opened it up. On the outside I found binoculars, a machete, flashlight, and a sleeping bag hanging off the bottom. There were several compartments and pouches. Mostly, I found freeze-dried food and boxes of ammo. There were also extra batteries, a compass, rope, a first aid kit, water filtration kit, matches in a waterproof container, a packet of BIC lighters, and glow sticks. There might've been more, but I was in a hurry and just rifled through it.
"It's got all of the basics covered," I muttered.
"You found it?" Ralph said from the door.
"Got it. And you?"
"Got it."
Our packs looked exactly like Olivia's, so I figured Jax, Charlie, and Tommy all bought them at Smith's Outdoor Life as thought. That was good, since it meant they had the same thing in the packs. Unfortunately, if the kits were missing anything, then none of them would have it.
"You didn't find an assault rifle or shotgun?" I asked.
"There's an Uzi I stuffed in the pack," he said. "But I like the crossbow better. It doesn't make any noise, so the walkers can't locate me from the noise."
He had a point. I reconsidered the crossbow under the bed. Of course, I noticed Ralph only had about two dozen bolts for it. That wouldn't last long.
"There's some more crossbow bolts under Charlie's bed," I told him. As Ralph hurried to collect them, I turned to our lookout. "How's it look, Olivia?"
"Like trouble," she said. "There has to be a dozen zombies out there."
That wasn't good. I couldn't get past the fact there were so many of them. The gas must've gotten closer to us than we'd realized.
"Damn, we have to fight our way out of here," I said.
"Fucking A, dude," Ralph said as he returned.
Olivia and I looked at him, and then each other. We shook our heads woefully.
"Sometimes you scare me, dude," I said.
"I have a question." Olivia looked at Ralph, and then me. "I get we have to fight our way out, but to where?"
We just stared at her a long moment. I felt like a fool. What were we going to do? Just walk around and shoot zombies like in the game? That wouldn't end well. As good as we were, the game usually won. Which meant we, or our characters, were eventually killed.
"We need to find an easily defendable place in the country," I said. "We'll have to learn to garden and hunt for our food."
"Doesn't sound like much fun," Ralph said.
"Fine, you go off and kill zombies for fun," I said. "I'll take Olivia and find a place to actually live. We'll name one of our babies after you. Probably a girl."
"Hey!" Ralph cried.
"What? Who said I want to make babies with anyone, much less you?" Olivia said.
"Hey, babe, we have to repopulate the earth," I said. "I'll be Adam and you'll be Eve."
The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Olivia was pretty. She was fun, though maybe a little wild and crazy. Not Ralph crazy, but a fun kind of crazy. Of course, she was such a tomboy I wasn't sure if she'd make much of a mother.
"Maybe she'd rather come with me," Ralph said.
"Maybe you're both idiots," she replied. She held her smartphone up. "I called home again. Still no answer, so we have to go home."
I couldn't argue with logic like that. Even thinking about what was going down back in the little farm town we grew up in stressed me out to the max. There could be no other destination. Still, it was like a ten to twelve hour drive.
"Let's get out of here," I said. "I think we should take Olivia's SUV. It has the most room and best chance of making it."
We checked all of the windows, locating all of the zombies roaming the parking lot. When a cat snuck across the parking lot, I noticed one zombie looked at it. Half a second later, every zombie out there turned towards the cat. They charged it.
"Look at them run!" Olivia cried. "That's not like the game. These walkers are fast."
I grimaced. It was going to be so hard to fight through them. Ralph's crossbow was g
oing to be too slow to do them any good.
"Listen up, guys," I said, waving them together. "Ralph, since they are so fast, you need to put up the crossbow and use the Uzi until we get through them."
"I think you're right," Ralph said, nodding. Totally surprised me. I expected at least some argument. "Gotta use the right weapon for the situation. I learned that playing Zombie Hunter."
"You actually learned something?" Olivia replied. "That's a first."
"My IQ is seven points higher than yours," he answered.
"Hush," I commanded.
I had to stop it fast, or they'd be arguing for the next hour. Ralph had the highest IQ of our little clique, but you wouldn't know it by his words or his actions. No one could stand up to him when it came to computer programming.
I grabbed some books and knickknacks, arranging them on the floor. A representation of their apartment complex was created, a sort of map.
"This is where we are," I said, touching a box of corn flakes. "These are the buildings in the complex." I traced a path between the "buildings" to Olivia's left foot, avoiding the parking lots filled with zombies. That's where our apartments were located. "That's our best path to freedom." Then I pointed to the Avenue P entrance to the complex. "Meet here if we get separated."
"Why do you want to go to Avenue P?" Olivia asked. She pointed to the area between Ralph's feet. "That's an open field. I bet money there aren't any zombies over there."
"True, but this is better for us if we fail to get to your SUV," I said. "I was thinking of hitting the U-Haul place down Avenue P and taking a truck. We can store our shit and sleep in it."
Her face lit up. It was a beautiful sight, and I think I impressed her.
"Good thinking," Ralph said.
Olivia wasn't completely onboard. She thought we should find a four-wheel drive, like a jeep or SUV. That way we wouldn't have to stick to the roads. I argued that outside of the city was forest land, so we had to stick to the roads anyway. Ralph wanted each of us to get a vehicle, but Olivia and I argued that would just ensure we would all get separated.
"What's that noise?" I asked. It was footsteps on the stairs. "They're come up!"
I racked the AR15's charging handle, loading a round, and headed for the door. Once the shooting started, it would be suicide to stay up there. We only had so many cartridges. We had to find a source for more ammo.
"Aaaiiieee!" I cried, stepping through the front door and opening fire on the three zombies coming up the stairs. The undead jumped and wiggled for a long moment, as bullets riddled their bodies and heads. When I stopped firing, they slowly toppled over and rolled down the stairs. "Let's go!"
We charged down the stairs three and four steps at a time. I almost tumbled twice, slipping on blood and gore, before I reached the ground. Zombies were rushing towards us. Holy shit, they were so fast! I opened up, quickly followed by Olivia and then Ralph.
We mowed zombies down like crazy. I learned a lot in that first fight. I tore through a magazine in just seconds. At that rate we'd all be out of ammo in no time. After that, I fired in short bursts and single shots. Then I noticed Olivia was shooting zombies in the belly and legs, like she didn't want to kill them.
"Aim for their hearts and heads," I said.
"I know some of them!"
"They're already dead," Ralph cried. "Or undead."
Nothing else seemed to bother them except head and heart shots. The wounded zombies showed no sign of pain or distress. Wounding them did seem to slow the undead down, but only true death stopped them.
It wasn't anything like the game. This was up close and personal. Hot blood splattered all over us as zombie heads burst and blood erupted from body wounds. I used up all three magazines taped together before we killed all of the undead around us at the moment.
"Follow me!" I cried.
Every zombie within hearing seemed to be converging on us. The undead were coming out from between the buildings, cutting off our planned route to the SUV. I hurried towards the complex entrance.
We quickly figured out that while zombies could run, they were not very fast, got in each other's way, and tripped a lot. Even with heavy packs and weapons, the three of us could outpace the zombies. Yet, the zombies didn't show signs of growing tired, either.
"I have to ditch this pack," Olivia huffed out. "It's too fucking heavy."
"Not yet," I said. I wasn't doing any better. My sides hurt, and my lungs were burning. "We're almost out."
We turned left on Avenue P, which was downhill. It became a little easier to carry the packs, but not by much. I realized there was no way we'd reach the U-Haul place with the packs, and I didn't want to come back for them.
"Gas station," Ralph gasped out.
"So?"
"Look. Cars. Dead people all over. I bet we can find the keys to one of those cars," he said.
He was right. I counted six vehicles at pumps, and more in the store parking spaces. Two of them stood out to me. One was a full-sized van. The other was a 4-wheel drive pickup.
"Damn, you are a genius," Olivia said. "I was wrong."
"Thanks. Just imagine how smart our babies will be."
"Shut up. Don't make me surrender to the zombies."
I went straight to the van. It was my first choice. The van would hold all of our gear, and we could probably sleep inside in reasonable comfort. There wasn't a key in the ignition, so we quickly searched the pockets of the dead. No luck.
"Let me check the pickup," Olivia said. She hurried over, while Ralph and I continued to check pockets. "Bingo! We got keys." She threw her pack into the bed, before sliding into the driver's seat. "And a full tank!"
"Quick, let's grab some food from the store," Ralph suggested.
I looked around. Zombies were coming our way from all directions, but none of them were close enough to stop a little scrounging for Twinkies and cupcakes. So after tossing our packs into the back of the pickup, we hurried into the store and started filling plastic bags with sodas, junk food, and beef jerky.
"Time's up!" Olivia cried, honking the horn. She started the pickup, put it in gear, and waited until Ralph and I hopped into the bed with our forage. "Wahoo!"
The pickup surged out of the gas station. Ralph and I stood up in back, holding onto the cab with one hand and shooting zombies with pistols. She weaved through the undead, running over as many as she could. The pickup was one of those "lifted" trucks, high off the road with ginormous knobby tires and a big steel bumper with a winch in front.
Perfect zombie killing machine.
"We are the zombie hunters!" Ralph cried. "Die, zombies!"
Chapter 3
Olivia avoided the walkers after the first block. Despite the size and badassness of the pickup, hitting and running over them wasn't as easy as it sounded. Each hit was a jolt, and driving over them was like going cross country. Ralph and I were bounced all over the place. I almost lost my grip. It was so bad we had to drop our guns to hold on.
"Wahoo!" Ralph cried.
"Wahoo!" she echoed him.
At that moment, I thought I was the last sane person in the world. At least in that truck. Ralph holstered his pistol and dug out some more magazines for his Uzi when she hit a stretch of clear road. I took the opportunity to dig out some ammo and reload my empty magazines.
"Dude, we have to be more careful about shooting," I said. "We used up way too much ammo back there."
"I was thinking the same thing. Where can we get more?"
That was the million dollar question. How long before we were out of ammo? Could we survive with just machetes? I looked around at the houses as we passed through a residential neighborhood. Many, if not most, of the people owned guns. Some of those houses still had the guns and ammo because their owners were dead. Figuring out which houses had what we wanted was the problem.
Those houses also held food.
"Where is Olivia taking us?" Ralph said. "She's heading north. We should be going south."
Our hometown was south, in another state. I didn't plan to ride the entire way in the bed, either. Fortunately, the pickup was one of those four-door models.
"No, I think she's heading for the highway," I said. "Do you think Plano is safe from zombies? Or will we need to take our families somewhere else?"
"Good question. Do you want to live in the woods in the snow and cold," Ralph said. "Or down south where it's warmer? Either way, we'll probably be camping for at least the first winter."
He had a point. I'd camped as a kid. My parents enjoyed it. Me, not so much. Ralph camped as a kid, too. His father dragged him out on extended hunting trips all of the time, trying to make a man out of his skinny geek son. Even Olivia's family camped, but her experience was in parks with facilities, similar to my experiences.
I stuffed the half-empty box of 5.56mm NATO ammo in the pack. My magazines were all full again. The three taped together were back in the rifle. Once the pack was closed up, and Ralph was ready as well, I stood up and slapped my palm on the top of the cab over and over. That got her attention. The pickup slowed.
"What?" she shouted out the window.
"Stop and let us into the cab!"
"Why?"
"Why the hell not?"
There weren't any zombies in sight. We were on a stretch of road between six-foot concrete fences on either side. We were as safe from zombie attack as we'd ever be. She didn't slow down for another block, and then didn't slow to a stop until well past the intersection.
"Shotgun!" Ralph called.
I was on the driver's side in the bed, so I rushed past Ralph and leapt down with my rifle in hand. I was in the cab beside Olivia before Ralph hit the ground. He was pissed.
"I called shotgun," he said.
"Breakdown of civilization, dude. No one respects calling shotgun anymore," I said. "Get in back."
Olivia laughed and Ralph grumbled. I didn't care. I was obviously the one in charge. Therefore, I needed to be up front. That was kind of odd, because most of the time Olivia called the shots. She was like her mother, always giving orders to everyone.
