by Mark Clodi
“Marge?” Ned said, surprised. Before he could recover Dora took the opening.
“Yes, that’s right, my husband was having an affair with my best friend, she is no saint either, but he was a rotten bastard. I don't know where you are Roger, but leaving all of us here to die was a terrible thing to do. Why would anyone do that, Ned?” Behind the camera Jeremy was making a horizontal slashing motion with his hand, Dora waved at him from the waist with her off hand. Cameron was grinning and trying not to laugh.
“Well, I...Let’s talk to your friends here and see if they can give us any tips on putting the undead down? Mike, Paige, you two fought alongside Dora, how did you do it? There were just the three of you and you have accounted for more than sixty dead as a group.”
Paige started talking first, “Guns help. At first all we had were table legs and logs. Once we got our weapons it made a huge difference. My advice is to get onto a roof or shoot from higher up, like in a building. Mike only taught us to fire the guns yesterday and we do okay now.”
“In only a day? Mike, was it hard to teach them how to shoot?”
“Dora was a...challenging student. I covered gun safety with them first, then how to load and unload the guns, then finally how to shoot. That is really what got us into trouble. We shot all our ammo learning and the noise attracted a bunch of zombies. We had to fight our way out of them with just the fire wood out back.”
“Quite a story, Mike!” Ned turned back to the camera, “So noise seems to attract them, it doesn't seem that we can get a break does it, Diane? The one thing that makes it easier to kill the things also draws their attention.” turning back to the three of them Ned asked, “You have been following the news that we have right?”
The three of them answered 'yes' while nodding, “Does it concern you that you sit less than a mile from the major highway that the masses of zombies are traveling down?”
Dora answered, “Oh no, we feel really confident now, yesterday I was not able to do much to defend myself and my friends, but now, I am sure we can handle ourselves.”
“Even against the estimated three to four hundred thousand zombies shambling down from Denver?”
“They won't all come here, the national guard will kill a bunch of them along the way. We’ll be able to mop up any survivors that get through. It would help if we had more ammunition.” Dora answered.
“So you’re not evacuating?”
“Not a chance, Ned. Not a chance.”
“Can other survivors come here if they cannot make it to the safe zones?”
“Only if they want to fight instead of run away, we don’t need any slackers here. I am standing up to them. If they drag me down I will go down fighting. Never give up. Never give in.”
“Mike, Paige, do you feel the same?”
Dora watched as her friends gave some less than enthusiastic nods back to the question. “Hopefully the soldiers will get here soon and drive them off. We can hold on until then.” said Paige.
Ned turned back to the camera, “Well there you have it, Diane, this is one group that is going to be hard to dislodge. If everyone is as successful as this group then the grocery stores should be opening up again very soon.” Ned paused to listen to another question and Cameron motioned Dora, Mike and Paige to step away from the front of the camera.
“No, Diane, I cannot, in good faith tell people to stay and fight it out. The government has made it clear that that people need to evacuate to give the military a clear firing ground to meet the threat. This is American, however, and if the citizens want to stay and defend their homes and each other, I cannot, because of the things I hold dear, tell them not to do that either.” He paused again, listening, before saying, “We have come about as far west as I was hoping, we plan on looping around to the south and then heading east to get behind the lines, if we can. Unless we run into trouble we should be back at the station this evening. Thank you, Diane. Stay safe!”
Ned cut off and immediately sagged back to a tired looking middle aged man.
“Are you mad at me?” Dora asked him.
Ned looked over at her, shook his head and smiled, “Forget about it. I wasn't sure what you would do and that went...better than I had hoped. We got the message out. Thanks for the interview. Can we use your address later? For others to come here? Can we give it to the military?”
Dora thought about it for a moment then nodded. “Sure, Ned. Sure thing.” She stepped forward and gave the man a long hug, whispering in his ear, “I think I hate Roger now.”
“That’s better than feeling nothing at all.”
“I think you might be right.”
“Well, right or wrong, I wouldn’t want to be him.”
Dora pulled back from the hug and said, “You say the sweetest things sometimes, Ned! Is that how you got Diane?”
“Now, Dora, don't believe everything you hear.”
Looking over at the camera Dora saw that the red light was still on, she pulled back from Ned and asked, “You still recording Jeremy?”
The green light came on and Jeremy popped his head out from the screen behind the camera, “Recording, not broadcasting. We can use the footage later with some edits. Mind if I get you saying your address and if Ned asks you a few more questions for a canned interview we can broadcast later?”
“Sure I will do that stuff. Later...”
Ned stepped up and touched Dora's arm, turning her to face him, “There won't be a later Dora, we are not looping down south and heading east. The five of us agreed to that. We will send your interview in, but depending on how things go, it might air posthumously.”
Chapter 25
Ned took turns interviewing all of the people at the house and at the end each of his crew spent three or four minutes recording a final farewell to the camera lens. The crew started packing up the van and getting ready to go after that. Jeremy had been correct about Mary and her family, she made it clear they were staying on. Despite Ned's offer to escort Paige and Mike, in Paige's car, to the nearest military station, Paige said she too was staying on. Mike just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
The van's front tire had to be changed out, so the whole group went house to house to look for a compatible vehicle to get a new tire from. They did not have to search for long, Dora's neighbor Russell had a spare set of rims in his garage for his truck, with snow tires on them, they were not precisely what the van needed, but they would work. The only drawback was they wanted the tires on the back, as they were slightly larger than tires the van had. Because the front tire of the van had been blown that meant they had to change three tires instead of just putting a new one on.
“Well, we probably would have had to change both the front tires anyway.” said Cameron, “So they would match. Changing three instead of two isn’t that big of deal.”
The guardsmen took the opportunity to get a couple hours sleep while Dora and her gang provided cover to keep the zombies away. By eleven in the morning, the job was finished and the weather was blazing hot. The clouds and rain of the previous day were long gone and the humidity made breathing a sluggish chore. The area's electricity was still going, so Dora had the house air conditioning on full blast. Mike and Paige made the group lunch and they sat down with the news crew one last time.
“So, you will keep filming for how long?” asked Paige, serving up a cold cuts sandwich to Ned.
“Depends on when we start to go. None of us feel too bad yet. It’s there though, like a poison slowly working through my system. I can't say how long it will be really. I've seen people bit up like Marge was and they go fast. Maybe we won't go at all. Somehow I don't think that’s realistic. Say a week at the outside?”
Kerim said, “I say five days. We've heard for the lightly wounded that’s about how long it takes to fight off the body's defenses. We were all lucky really, just scrapes, I think I have the worst case.” He pulled up the fatigues on his left leg to reveal a white bandage on the side of his lower leg, from the
edges of the gauze there was a deep purplish blue streak running up and down through his flesh.
“Does it hurt?” Peter asked, craning his neck around to look at the wound.
“Like a bad bruise. It’s tender. So far it isn't bothering me too much. Every day though, it’s worse and hurts a little more. And I am getting tired. I could have slept ten hours, not that I am complaining about the time you let me sack out.”
“We are going to radio our superiors your location.” Kerim said to Dora after the meal and while they were cleaning up the dishes.
Dora shrugged, “What will they do? Evacuate us?”
He shook his head, “I doubt it, they don't have time to protect or evacuate fools like you. They might, I say might, check up on you when they can. I spoke with my Sargent, who spoke with our lieutenant, who had news from further up the line that the soldiers seemed happy to see you doing what you are doing. Fighting back instead of running.”
“We aren't really, you know.” said Dora.
“Aren't really what?”
“Fighting back. We are just holding our ground like in the Hobbit where Gimpy raised his staff and fought the demon. The giant flaming demon the bagman?”
Kerim's face turned pale, “You did not just say that.”
“Bagman?” Dora asked puzzled.
“I loved that movie, the Lord of the Rings, does that mean anything to you?”
“Yeah, yeah with Orlando Bloom as the fairy guy. It was awesome. I had dreams about him...and his bow.”
“Stop. You’re ruining my childhood memories. That was my favorite movie when I was a kid. I watched it so much my dad said he thought the plastic was going to melt in the dvd player.”
“Oh, well I just liked Bloom, he was good.”
“So you mean you are going to hold out like Gandalf the wizard against the Balrog in the mines of Moria?”
Dora waved her hands and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Are you sure he fought a 'balrog'?”
“Absolutely.”
“What kind of name is 'Kerim' anyway?”
“Bosnian. I was named for my grandfather, my parents came over during the atrocities when they were young. They grew up here, but still found each other and married. I am first generation American, or more like generation one point five, my parents both arrived when they were like, six.”
“Huh? Sad I don't even know where my parents came from. I mean Kansas, yeah, but before that? No idea. It never really interested me. Hey, Ned?” Dora called to the man as he was lugging a bag out the front door.
Ned turned back, “Yeah Dora?”
“You leaving?”
“Well I was going to come back in for a final goodbye, but yeah we gotta get moving.” said Ned.
“Let’s go, John.” Kerim said from beside Dora.
The people who were staying gathered in the living room to say goodbye. Mary was crying, which made Peter look like he was going to cry too. John put his hand on the boy's shoulder and leaned over and whispered something into the boy's ear, whatever it was seemed to work and he perked up immediately.
The men all shook hands with the other men of the house and gave the women hugs, then they filed out the door. The house members followed them outside and watched as their van pulled away and drove up the block, leaving in the opposite direction from where they had arrived. The road still had bodies here and there and the van had no choice but to drive over some of them as it went, although Cameron was doing his best to avoid that. Mary quickly brought Peter back inside, leaving the other adults on the porch looking after the vehicle until it was gone.
“Well.” said Dora, “I think we need to get some of these bodies off the road. And we need more vehicles, in case we ever have to run for it. Russ's truck would be a good start, but I think we should get all the vehicles we can and park them across the road as a kind of road block to keep the riff-raff out.”
“We’ll need our own power sooner or later too.” Alex said. “We should make a list of the places that might have generators and go out and get one, or three. Plus fuel and the cold cuts are all gone. It would be a good idea to start stockpiling some food.”
Dora looked at him, “You know Alex, you are so different from Mike and Paige. I think those are all good ideas. Mike, Paige? Listen to the man and take notes.”
Alex looked a little surprised as he followed the others into the house.
Part II
Six weeks later
Chapter 26
The break in the weather was a welcome relief to the group staying in the neighborhood, the power had long ago gone off and while they had generators they limited them to a common entertainment room to power up a television and keep a line of freezers and refrigerators running. Fuel was going to be a problem. It was weighing on Dora's mind heavily this mid September morning. Dora was sick, some bug she had picked up from the last refugees the army had dumped off on her.
‘Three more fucking kids and one late teen.’ In her mind Dora had expected the refugees to trickle in as family units, all self contained and tough, like survivors should be. ‘Instead I get kids, little fucking idiots with no parents.’ And they were survivors alright, the little tramps hoarded food and valuables and had to be taught that stealing, lying and cheating were no longer acceptable inside of 'Doraville', which was the common designation of the area around Dora’s house.
The original crew was all still alive, Mary, Alex and Peter were living in Russell's old house with a pack of almost twenty kids. The two adults fought like a married couple and Peter was left with a lot of work bullying the younger kids into behaving. Paige and Mike stayed with Dora, they each had their own room upstairs. Dora had kept the master bedroom and most nights she slept alone. Sometimes there was a frightened kid in there with her. Paige seemed to take unnatural delight that some of the kids were comforted by Dora’s presence.
The living room of Dora's house was officially called the 'Clinic', where all refugees were brought when they arrived, anyone who had been bitten was given the option of leaving or being shot, anyone judged 'clean' by Mary was set up with housing somewhere. Yesterday the army had brought in the three kids, four really, and they were all stripped naked, washed off and examined following the usual procedure Mary had gotten from one of her military counterparts.
“You puking in there?” asked Paige from the open doorway into the master bedroom.
“No, just brushing my fucking teeth with vomit.” Dora called out, before leaning forward and puking again.
“Wow, I knew water was scarce, but using toilet water to brush your teeth…that takes balls, Dora.”
Dora held up her middle finger at the woman and threw up one more time. Rising to her knees, she said, “You'll have the fucking bug soon enough bitch.”
Paige shook her head, “Somehow I doubt it. I never get sick, it’s always you. You don't have to be there when the new kids come in you know. Let us deal with it and you can go do 'Mayor' things somewhere else.”
“It’s my town, right? So I should approve the new arrivals. What else did the army drop off yesterday?”
“Another rifle, an old M4, plus a thousand rounds of .223 ammo, we need it, we were getting low. Oh and some food.”
“Oh god, don't tell me, more dehydrated eggs?”
Paige nodded, “Another whole pallet. And two pallets of MREs. Dora?” she stepped forward as Dora leaned over and threw up again. The MREs were packaged military food that the entire town had already grown weary of.
“God, don't speak to me of food again! Fucking dehydrated eggs? That's shit. The MREs are shit too.”
“We are going to need the food when winter comes.” Winter was on the minds of all of them in town these days. They were a hundred and forty two people living here in western Kansas City, the official border of the Midwestern state was only about a twenty miles to the east, on the outskirts of the city. The Iowan's had pulled even further north because they could not control the city itself, there
were too many zombies running around.
“Any other news this morning?” Dora asked. The group had raided a big box store and had taken all of the walkie-talkies they could find, as well as every battery they could fit into the pickup truck bed, right now they were using rechargeable batteries and saving the other ones for emergencies. In addition to the batteries and walkie-talkies they had all sorts of flashlights, bedding and blankets. None of them were under any illusions that winter would be anything but miserable if they didn't find some way to heat the houses. Of the large houses they were in only a few had real fireplaces, most ran on natural gas. Dora's was one of the few that had a fire place that actually burned wood and wasn’t just for looks. The group had decided to build a long, low bunkhouse in the backyard of Dora's neighbor. They had most of the wood in piles around the neighborhood, as well as roofing materials, a few windows and four wood burning stoves. They planned on keeping the ceilings down to eight feet high and to double insulate the walls and attic to help keep things warm. At least that was the plan.
Some of the men had construction experience, one had actually been a general contractor, and he was in charge of the construction. Dora's yard would be filled with firewood for the winter. So far the reality of the construction was that Dora's yard was filled with firewood, not much work had actually been done on the new bunkhouse. Tim, the contractor, seemed to have less experience actually building things then he had led them to believe.
“No, no word on any attacks last night.”
“Did Tim say anything this morning?”
“He found more firewood yesterday, about a cord of it.”
“We got nothing to heat, let alone heat it with! Goddamn it, we need the fucking bunkhouse built!”
“Yeah, we all know that. You gonna fire him?”
“And do what with him? Send him out searching for firewood? And who would take over for him?”
