by Lee Ragans
When we found ourselves alone, and Josh took up a perch that let him see most of the square he said, “So I have a wife now?”
“I guess you heard that.”
David responded from the doorway to the next room, “Yeah, we did.”
“I am not leaving you two. Are you planning on leaving me?”
“No.”
“No.”
“Then that makes us married.”
“I suppose we need to find rings,” Josh said never taking his eyes from the window.
David replied, “Three of them.”
Our discussion of our relationship ended when Josh called out, “Fire. Looks like they set the building on fire.”
“Should try to save the kids?” I blurted out.
David put his hands on my shoulders as I looked at the fire, “It is too late. They either killed them, or it is barricaded to make sure they can’t out.”
I was not sure he was right, but I was also sure that we could not take care of them if we did save them. They were not the last people we did not try to save or the first, but we were alive because we knew when to walk away and also knew when it was time to kill. I was not proud, but I did not even lose sleep. If you did not want to live in this world, it was not our place to make sure you survived.
Looking at a tourist map I realized the mall, was many miles away, but it was closer to the interstate. If we were going to head north, we might as well go through Atlanta to see if anything was left of the Capital of the South.
5
We secured the doors of the building and then the stairs in just a few hours. The work was not hard for the boys, but I was worn out after an hour of climbing stairs to get materials. No one was going to get inside without making a lot of noise. We had food we scavenged, and we stayed in the master bedroom for 3 days, sleeping and enjoying our honeymoon now that we were married. The fire across the way burned out on day 2.
Well rested, we set out for the Mall. As we started going through abandoned cars, I cursed the former owners that decided to leave their cars running until they were out of gas. Karen’s rules of the zombie apocalypse included a 100% chance that a car with keys in it was out of gas. Those that did have gas had no keys. People had their key fobs in their pockets when they abandoned their cars. If there were shambling zombies nearby, you were not going to enjoy going through their pockets looking for a key fob. The exception was BMWs. If you found a good dress man or a richly dressed teenage zombie nearby, they usually had the key to the BMW.
Our car shopping efforts were turning into a zombie killing exercise. I was sure we were going to need another day’s rest after all the skull smashing. Just as I was getting tired, our prayers for a ride were answered. Karen’s rules of the apocalypse meant that we were not going to get what we wanted, but we would get just enough to keep us going. We found a rack of bicycles meant to be borrowed.
There were a dozen bikes in a rack and a sign saying, “Take when you need, bring back when you are done.” Apparently, Savannah College of Art and Design put the bright blue bikes out for the students. In the aftermath, no one bothered to take bikes. We did. They were simple one-speed bikes, but without complex gears, they would last much longer and be easy to fix. I hated the color, it closed with the whole military look we had going. I thought about trying to paint them but left that for late. In this world, everything you could not put in a pocket was borrowed. No need to spend energy on something we were likely to have to run from.
Three hours of riding down Abercorn and dodging a few groups of shamblers. We neared the first Mall. I took a look and thought out loud, “This place was abandoned long before the outbreak.”
David agreed, “That is a grade A shithole. I guarantee we can find gang colors and some crappy motorcycle gear. I don’t think we will find anything of value.”
Josh nodded. We headed on out Abercorn. Stopping at a drug store with no glass in the doors. There was no food, but we found some Advil and water bottles. Josh found a package of Z-Packs. We were not sick or injured, but the reality was that was just lucky up until now.
I was hungry, and I know David and Josh were. There were a lot of options and a lot of danger with each one.
With the old mall behind us and a new promising mall ahead of us, we found a grocery store. It was a Food Lion. I thought for a minute it was a dollar store, then looking at the sale signs I realized that was the goal. It was supposed to appeal the cheap. The prices looked the same to me as anywhere else. I suppose people just like thinking they were saving money.
Instead of going in the door and hoping Josh and I took up a spot on the back of an abandoned pick up truck. David slammed his bat into the remains of the doors. We were rewarded with a few dead making their way toward him slowly. Josh held his fire. David took the few out easily, and the store was ours.
10 minutes in and we were rewarded with a hidden box of pringles single packs and a case of canned bushes baked beans. It was the vegetarian kind. So even at the end of the world Southerners did not bother with the healthier option. We packed our backpacks with the cans and the Pringles. We each at a can of beans and looked for more. The only other thing of value we could carry was first aid supplies. I grabbed a box of maxi-pads, with wings and tucked them in my backpack. The low body fat from being nearly starved and the constant exercising made any thoughts of a period history, but better to be ready. Showering was hard to do these days, and I don’t want to think of what it would be like if I had an unexpected flow.
A few more hours and we were looking at the completely abandoned new mall nearer the interstate. In the first days of the outbreak, people avoided public gatherings, thinking it was an airborne disease. It might have been, but being at the mall was not a danger. So a mall with absolutely zero cars in the parking lot was not surprising. The fact that the glass doors were still intact was surprising.
Instead of just smashing our way in we took a side door and with a short push from Josh’s small crowbar we were in. The entire mall was empty, well empty enough that we never saw anyone. There was no food, and the only practical thing I found were 10 pairs of panties and 3 bras. Josh and David got a sharpening stone and a spare knife for me along with all of the socks they could stuff in their bags.
We found a jewelry store, and with only a few minutes we found rings. I found a sizing tool, and we were in business. Thirty minutes later we had rings that fit, and I put them on the boy's fingers, and they jointly put one on my finger. It was dumb and completely useless, but in this world, our commitment to each other was all we had left.
Josh looked at David and said, “So she is my wife, I am her husband. She is your wife, and you are her husband. So are you my husband or my brother husband?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
I could not stop laughing. I was no help.
Josh was undeterred, “No really. We are making this up, so we get to make the rules. Are you my brother husband or my husband?”
David grabbed Josh with one hand on each side of his face and kissed him. The first time I had to seem them be that close that I was not in the middle. “I’m your husband, and you are mine. There.”
“I think I am going to be jealous.”
“Hardly. He is not my type. I like boobs.” Josh said.
“Honestly, I wish I could tell my mama, I am married. I might leave out the having a husband part until she figured it out.” David said to the dark mall interior.
I put my hand on his back, and he leaned into me. Josh hugged us both. David’s mom died years ago, but it was still hard.
We made a safe spot and slept in the cool dark mall. I woke constantly expecting a horde of zombie to come in at any moment. That damn movie and the video games. I wish the zombies were like in the movies. These were far worse. It was no fake makeup or prosthetics. They were dead and falling apart. I wish their clothes stayed on them. I have seen far too many naked, rotting monsters.
When the sun came up were on our way. At
lanta was next up, and then maybe we could find a car or something and go to Philadelphia to find Josh’s family.
6
We peddled up I95 to I16. We were able to dodge the few shambling dead, and there were no cars worth looking at.
Our hopes shot up when we found a stopped military convoy near an exit that leads to Georgia Southern University. It turned out to contain nothing of value. The vehicles were abandoned, and the soldiers had stripped it clean before moving on. The boys knew it was scavenged by soldiers because they took everything soldiers would be interested in and left manuals and useless items.
We ran into some other travelers on the road near Dublin, but we spotted them before they spotted us. I followed the boys into the wood line, and we waited for them to move. Josh raised his scoped rifle, he said it was a sniper rifle, but I had no idea what the difference was other than it fired one round at a time and made me feel like I was hit with a bat in my stomach each time it fired next to me.
“Three men, 2 women, 2 children.”
Josh Continued, “No visible weapons, and their backpacks are light from the way they are walking.”
He watched them through the scope for a few seconds, “They have not eaten for a while based on the way they are walking.”
David said softly, “So nothing worth taking?”
“No.”
I said, “Let’s put two cans of beans in my bag. I will give it to them, and we move on.”
“Why?” David asked.
“One day in the future, it will be the three of us walking along with no food, and I hope someone stops and gives us some.”
Josh spoke up, “I can’t argue with that logic. I mean if we are going to go the Karma rout we might need a semi full of food to cover for David and me.”
“I am no angel either. I think Karma did a reset when the world died.”
“I hope it gave us a few days grace period,” David said.
“You and me both, brother.” Josh did not take his eyes away from the scope.
I stared at them, wondering what they had not told me. I did not think it was the time to ask and it did not matter. I moved two cans to my bag, and we set out on our bikes.
The small group spread out, and the men got in front of the women and children. They drew small knives and waited.
David and Josh drew their pistols but did not raise them. They had lots of ammo for their pistols, so they chose them first. I did not just understand their thinking, now I was starting to think like them. If they had raised them, they would have fired. I had been with them long enough that they only took him to kill.
“Are you okay?” I called out. We had a good 50 feet between us.
The oldest man said, “We have not been bitten. We ain’t got nothing though.”
“Where are you from?”
“Sylvania. We left the farm, and the truck ran out of gas ways back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Macon, My cousin has a big farm there. If anyone can ride this out, it is him.”
“Are you going to let us pass by without problems?” I asked.
The older woman called out, “Lady, we could not threaten a house fly right now.”
Josh laughed. David was silent. He did not trust them. Though he did not trust anyone after Savannah. Though we had not seen anyone since there.
“Do you have food?” I called out.
“Nuthin, miss. Sorry, wish I had some for us. I would share.” the older man called out.
I slipped off my backpack and took out the two pull-top cans of beans and rolled them toward them. “It’s not much, but it is all we can spare.”
They rushed toward the cans one of the men dropped his knife. We passed by slowly walking our bikes while they sat down to eat.
“Bless you. You saved our lives.” The younger woman called out as we passed.
We were a mile up the deserted interstate when Josh said, “They will be dead by tomorrow with no water. The food will finish off their dehydration.”
“We don’t have water to spare,” I said.
“We should have probably just killed them. It would have been the merciful thing.” David said.
“Let’s hope we don’t become the angels of death.”
We did not talk again until that night. It just felt overwhelming.
I curled up between David and Josh and cried. They said nothing. There was nothing to say. They let me get it out.
Once we got to Macon, the roads were packed going north and south. It did not really make sense. Normally you could see why cars were backed up. Usually, a wreck or road damage accounted for the pop-up parking lots. This one just started and stopped at the same time.
We took out time and stopped when things looked interesting, but most of the cars were picked over. People who came through got the easy to find things. We did not have the time nor the inclination to dig through every crevice and glove compartment.
As we got closer to the city I thought, I was losing my mind. I heard the music. Good old southern rock. I hated it when I was a bartender. Now, I really hated it. It was loud, very loud to be heard this far away. Someone was playing live music at the outdoor arena.
We moved up the interstate, and we could have been crashing cymbals. Any of the dead we saw were ignoring us and moving toward whoever was putting on a concert. We got close enough to the concert to see that the arena was surrounded by zombies. Any dead within the sound of the concert found their way here.
Josh and David were happy. I considered that maybe their taste in music was awful. With no places to listen to music, I realized I had no idea what they liked. Everything about our lives was based survival not living.
We stopped at an overlook from the interstate to watch the insanity of a concert in the land of the dead. I grabbed the binoculars and took a look at the act on the stage. I was sure they looked familiar. I could not name them. I scanned the small crowd. The audience was maybe 40 people. A few people in the arena were using spears and killing the zombies as they got close. The corpses were stacked deep and starting to make a pile the newly arriving dead were starting to walk up.
Josh looked through the binoculars and said, “Wow, as I live and breath. The Allmond Brothers. Too bad they are all going to die soon.”
David took a look and said, “Yep. I don’t want to hang around to watch the end.”
A big friendly guy using a spear looked up and waved. I waved back. He had a big Harley Davidson t-shirt on that looked like it fit him 50 pounds ago.
We were about a mile north when the concert stopped. I was surprised to hear music coming from another direction. It was the high school football stadium. Tinny music blasting at full volume.
“Brilliant,” David said.
“What?” I asked.
“They are keeping the dead moving from place to place, killing what they can and then moving them off to another spot. I imagine there is a group at the other location doing the same. They might have a 3rd and 4th place too.”
“I feel better now. I would hate to think the Allmond Brothers died today.” Josh said.
7
Moving into the city proved to be easier than we thought, but once we were downtown, it became obvious the bikes were making too much noise. We found a place to hide them in a post office. Josh joked that it looked like it had been abandoned long before the outbreak. I did not see it. It looked like every post office I had seen.
David pointed out the bullet holes and then added, “Those were old years ago.” He then pointed to some stylized painting and said, “MS13.” Gang territory.
“Don’t think it is a problem anymore,” I said.
Josh was already climbing up a pole next to the building and was on the roof in seconds. David ushered me around and said, “Gangs would be harder to kill. At least a real one like MS13.”
“I don’t get it.”
“There are pretenders, and then there are paramilitary gangs. MS13 is the latter. I trained with
one of their guys. Tough.”
“Then maybe we better move the bikes.”
“We will find more if we need them.”
Josh clambered back down the pole and said, “No one has been moving around here for a while.”
The look between them was enough for me. “Okay.”
We struck out on foot toward some destination they did not share with me.
8
The Museum Tower condos were right in the middle of the city and located with a good vantage point.
