“I injected you with energy nanobots. They should help reinforce your strength for a few hours.”
“Thanks. We should get the hell out of here before the alarm attracts the entire city.”
“Agreed, let’s go.”
They walked to the front of the house and took a look out the window. Erick’s plan had worked, there were barely any undead in front of Hannah’s house anymore. There was still a few of them, but nothing they couldn’t handle.
“Do you have bikes?”
“Yeah, in the basement. Where my undead family is …”
“Hmmm, I thought we could use them instead of walking. My car is a 30 minute walk away, but we could make it much faster on bike and there are still quite a few undead out there. We could dodge them pretty easily with bikes, otherwise we’ll have to run for it. The nanobots you gave me are helping, but I don’t think I’m ready to run all the way to the car.”
“That’s actually a great idea. There is even a bike path not too far, there should be less undead on the bike path. Where is your car? And how did you even make it here with all those cars on the road?”
“It’s at I-95 just east of here. The shoulder is free on the highway. I was able to drive all the way here and left my car at the exit.”
Using their contact lenses, they both looked at where the bike path was exactly, and if it went anywhere close to his car. It did. The bike path led them just a little south of his car. From there they would then have to use the normal road, but it would save them from using roads for the most of it.
“You’re right. The bike path seems like a good idea. Now how are we going to get the bikes? I mean, I wouldn’t want to kill your parents.”
“I don’t know … They don’t really seem alive anymore. Do you think there is a chance for them to live normally again?”
“I have no idea. But maybe, who knows. I’d keep them alive just to be sure. Maybe we can set up a trap.”
“Yeah, there is a door outside that leads to the basement. Maybe we could open the basement door inside, let them out of the basement, enter the basement from outside and close the inside basement door. What do you think?
“Sounds like a plan. Maybe you can turn on the TV or something to attract them.”
“Ok, let’s do it”
Hannah turned on the radio, but not too loud to avoid attracting undead from outside. Erick opened the inside basement door and they both ran to the backyard, closing the patio door behind them. They watched patiently through the patio door to see if her two sisters and father would come upstairs.
Not even 30 seconds later, her family showed up in the living room, attracted by the radio. To Hannah’s dismay, her family looked terrible. They had pieces of their skin missing and were very brown in color. It’s as if they were dead, in decomposition, but still walking.
Erick ran to the basement from outside, slowly walked on his toes once in the basement, climbed up the stairs and slowly closed the door. He grabbed the two bikes and went back outside.
Hannah was devastated to see her family like that.
“Maybe we should just put them out of their misery,” Hannah said, bursting into tears.
Erick wasn’t really good with girls. Not really knowing what to say, he approached her and gave her a hug. She took it well and cried on his shoulder. Erick was actually enjoying this. He hadn’t touched a girl in a long time and it felt pretty good to touch her soft skin and feel the warmth of her body. She was pretty, had long blond hair, blue eyes and her breast looked real, which was rare. Most girls had fake boobs as well as other cosmetic surgery to their face or other body parts. Natural beauty was a rare thing in 2061.
“Do you think they are suffering?” Hannah asked.
“Hmm, I couldn’t say for sure. It doesn’t really look like they are in excruciating pain. They just look … mad or something, and hungry for human flesh. It’s like they turned into hungry cannibals and nothing else matters, but to eat live humans.”
“What should I do? Should I kill them? You have a gun? Right?”
“I really can’t make that decision for you. You have to decide on your own, it’s your family. I do have a gun, but I wouldn’t suggest using it because it would attract undead … I don’t mean to press you on such an important decision, but you really have to make up your mind ASAP, otherwise we’ll join your family soon enough.”
CHAPTER 8
BAMMM!!
“AHHHHH!” Hannah shrieked.
Her dad slammed in the patio door, trying to attack Hannah, but the window didn’t break.
“Shhhh,” Erick put his hand over Hannah’s mouth, to stop her from screaming any further.
“Sorry, he just really caught me by surprise.”
“Alright, we really have to go now. Your screaming probably attracted a few undead. Look, if you want to kill them you have to do it right now.”
“Never mind then, I can’t do it … Let’s go.”
“Ok.”
They took the bikes and headed out of the backyard. Already, there were several undead close to the house.
“Alright, just stay behind me. We’ll try to dodge them. But if there are too many or if one of them gets too close. I’ll shoot it down.”
“Ok. But I thought you said your gun would attract them.”
“It will, but we’ll be long gone, we can easily outrace them on our bikes. Trust me we’ll be fine.”
They had to go through normal streets for a while before reaching the bike path. They rode their bikes on the front lawn of houses, in between cars on the road, dodging undead.
Bang! Erick had to shoot some of them once in a while, exploding their head. He looked back all the time to make sure Hannah was behind. She was actually doing a great job, following Erick fearlessly 10 feet behind him.
It was a little bit like playing football, trying to make a touchdown. Except you had no teammates to help you block the opposite team, but you had a gun instead and you could just blow their brains out. He was starting to actually enjoy this a little bit.
Erick had played a lot of zombie games in his adolescence and these games were highly realistic. The player was on a multidirectional treadmill, could run in any direction and the contact lens would project the image of the game, plunging him in a highly realistic 3D simulation. It was almost as if you were living it for real, the only difference being that you couldn’t actually touch anything in the game. He had to remind himself that this was no game, this was real life, and he didn’t have unlimited lives like in his games. If he made a single mistake, he wouldn’t return to his last saved position.
Bang! He continued to shoot down any undead standing in their way, passing through cars on their bikes.
“AHHHHHHHHH!”
All of a sudden, an undead sitting in a car grabbed Hannah’s arm, pulled her and tried to bite her neck. She blocked him with her arms.
SCREEEECHHH! Erick turned right, gripped his brakes and jumped off his bike. Without hesitation, he aimed at the undead and blew its brains out.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—Hannah, are you alright?”
Hannah’s head was soaked with blood and pieces of brain. Her shirt was also full of blood. She stared at him, “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”
“I’m so sorry,” he took his shirt off and wiped off her face with it. He also tried to remove the little bits of brain stuck in her hair.
“I’m really sorry, I reacted instinctively. I just wanted to save your life.”
Hannah was appreciating Erick’s gesture of wiping her blood off and she was also enjoying seeing Erick with no shirt on.
“That’s ok, I guess I’m alive, that’s the most important. It’s just really fucking gross and it stinks.”
She took off her shirt soaked with blood and threw it on the ground. She had a bra on and was wearing short shorts. They both were staring at each other and started laughing. It was the first time since the apocalyptic event that they both l
aughed.
“Watch out behind,” Hannah shouted.
Erick turned and shot an undead 6 feet away from him right in the head. He turned back towards Hannah and she started laughing again. Erick was in turn full of blood on his head and chest. She approached him, took Erick’s shirt and wiped the blood off of his body. They only knew each other for one day and it already seemed like there was something developing in their relationship. They were standing in front of each other, almost as if they were going to kiss, but the blood they both had on their face kind of turned the whole thing off.
“Alright, let’s get moving before we get killed,” Erick said, as he turned away and went back on his bike.
“The bike path is right on our left, 50 feet ahead,” Hannah said.
“Let’s go.”
They finally reached the bike path which was surrounded by trees and the occasional fence. There were no undead in sight.
Erick stopped his bike and took a 2 minute water break.
“Are you thirsty?” he asked Hannah.
“No thank you,” she replied.
“Alright, only half a mile on the bike path, then my car is only 2 more minutes on the road on the left.”
Five minutes later, they reached the street to the bike path. Since they were mostly out of the city, there were hardly any undead. They continued zigzagging through cars and front lawns, dodging undead and shooting them if necessary. Erick was always in front with his gun, Hannah following right behind him. This time they were both more cautious about the possibility of an undead being in their car with their window open, potentially grabbing them as they passed through.
After two minutes, they reached Erick’s car.
“Oh wow, old school car!” Hannah commented.
“Yeah, it’s my neighbor’s, or at least was.”
“Should we keep our bikes? They might come in useful later on the road, you never know.”
“I wish we could keep them, but there really isn’t any space in this car for two bikes.”
“Right. Just thought I would suggest—AAAAHHHHH!” Hannah jumped. “Sorry, the undead in the car beside us scared me.”
“Can you do me a favor? Try and stop screaming when you see an undead.”
“Sorry, I’ll try. I’m just not used to it yet.”
“That’s alright, just try and work on it, our lives depend on it. These undead seem to be attracted to sound.”
“Yeah, I will, sorry …”
“Alright, let’s get out of here. Get in.”
They both got in the car and sat. They were both half naked and still had quite a bit of dried blood on them.
“A shower would be nice, my hair is disgusting,” Hannah said.
“I wouldn’t mind a shower as well. I haven’t had one in four days. But we can’t really go anywhere crowded. Where do you suggest we could have a shower? Where do you suggest we go at all?”
“I don’t know … maybe a small river or something? I just want to get this blood off my hair. A shirt would be nice too.”
“Well … I crossed a river on my way here. I guess we could go there. It would be nice to sleep somewhere safe and comfortable too. I haven’t slept since yesterday.”
“I haven’t slept much in the past few days either … How far is your river from here?”
“About 3 hours away.”
“Alright we should be there by 5 o’clock and we’ll see what we do next from there. What do you think?”
“Ok, at least I know it’s relatively safe there. Let’s go.”
Erick turned the car around and started driving on the same shoulder he used before. As far as he knew, there weren’t many people still alive. They would most likely not meet anyone else on the road.
CHAPTER 9
They drove for hours against traffic, or really more like against parked cars with undead in them. They both didn’t talk the whole way there. Hannah was so tired her head bounced down every 30 seconds. She couldn’t really sleep though as she couldn’t let her guard down. Erick was doing relatively fine, the energy nanobots Hannah injected him with still had effect and were keeping him awake and alert, but they would only work for few more hours.
Once arrived at destination, Erick parked the car at the exact same spot he had parked it earlier, on the overpass right by the merchandise truck. He woke up Hannah, as she was half asleep her head still bouncing up and down.
“Hannah, we’ve arrived.”
“What …”
“We’re here, at the river.”
“Oh, great!”
“Do you have any soap? How do you intend to wash yourself?”
“I don’t have soap. I’ll just try to rinse myself as best as I can.”
“Alright, me too.”
They both got out of the car and walked down to the river. It was a relatively small river, maybe 20 feet wide and no more than 4 feet deep, surrounded by trees. They took off their shorts, which was the only piece of clothes they both still had on, apart from underwear, and dove in the water. They tried to just scrub their bodies with their own hands, as much as they could. The water was perfect, not too cold nor too hot. Hannah tried to wash her hair as best as she could, successfully taking off little pieces of brain.
“So, why do you think we are still alive?” Hannah asked Erick.
“We must be immune, otherwise we would be long gone like everybody else.”
“Makes sense. But why are we immune?”
“I don’t know. Viruses and genetics are complicated. I think it’s quite common for a minority of people to be immune to some viruses. It makes me wonder though, why your family caught the virus while you didn’t.”
“I’m adopted.”
“Hmm, I see. This would confirm my theory then.”
“How about you? Do you have family?”
“My parents died a long time ago, I have a brother, but I don’t know where he is. I really wonder if he’s alive. If we’re immune, then he should be alive. Unless he got killed by an undead.”
“How long do you think the Internet will be up for?”
“Well, Internet towers are all powered with solar panels or a wind turbine, so these should be up for a long time. Server farms are also independently powered with wind turbines, geothermal energy and solar panels, so they should be up for a long time as well, probably until hardware failure.”
“Have you tried browsing the web for more survivors?”
“I haven’t really had the time. Too busy trying to survive.”
“Gotcha, me too. But we should probably look whenever we have time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. But for now my priorities are eating something other than power bars and finding some clothes. We also need to find more ammunition, I went through half. I probably have less than 40 to 50 bullets left.”
“Where do you suggest we go? If we go to any type of store, it’ll be crowded with undead.”
“I don’t know yet. I’m thinking the first place we should try to go is a firearms store. A police station might be less crowded, but would be better protected. If we go to a firearms store we could just walk in and take whatever we want. I have a 1 million dollars credit limit so it shouldn’t even trigger the alarm system when we pass security.”
“There is a firearms store 30 miles away in a small town.”
“Yeah, I saw it too.”
They saw the store through their contact lenses. These contact lenses were basically like having a smartphone, except it was right in your eye and it worked with thoughts. As they finished washing themselves, they walked back up to the car, still pretty wet from their river bath.
“It’s too bad we can’t open up this merchandise truck, there could be useful stuff in there,” Hannah said.
That’s when it struck him. Erick just had a brilliant idea come to mind.
“Let’s go to the Amazon distribution center! There shouldn’t be very many employees, if any and the warehouse is huge. It should have anything we would
ever need. They have these giant printers that can print whatever you like.”
“Hmm, ok.”
They both checked on their contact lens to see where the closest distribution center was.
“It’s just outside of Raleigh, only 40 miles away! It’s in an industrial sector, so there shouldn’t be too many undead there.”
“Alright, let’s do it then. But how do you intend to actually enter the distribution center? There is probably tight security there.”
“We’ll find a way when we get there. For now I think this is our best chance of survival. We would be safe there. We could finally sleep without fear of getting killed in our sleep.”
They got in the car and drove away, hoping to find a safe haven in the Amazon distribution center.
CHAPTER 10
They drove for miles and miles without any incident. The highways and country roads were mainly free of undead. There were undead, but locked up in their cars. Once in the industrial sector, they could fortunately keep driving. There were no traffic jams, it was mainly deserted. Erick and Hannah were relieved, as they didn’t have very many bullets left. After two more minutes of driving, they reached the distribution center. Erick parked the car in the parking lot and was able to plug it in to charge. Five other cars were in the parking lot, which was a good indication of how many people there would potentially be inside.
They walked around the entire warehouse, which was huge, probably at least 1 million square feet, and tried to look for entrances. There were loading docks in the back where the trucks unloaded merchandise, but these were tightly secured with no way for them to enter. There were also a few emergency exits, but these doors were impossible to open. There was only one entrance by the parking lot. One door was standing in their way, and there were no keypad or anything. There was just a chip reader which would automatically detect employees coming in the door and would unlock it automatically for them. They could probably break in, but it would trigger the alarm, and that’s the last thing they wanted. It was almost dawn, they needed to find a way to get in.
“I might be able to hack the chip reader,” Erick said.
2061: The Undead Page 3
