by Jaime Horio
The next day seems to drag on. Don is teaching us all about how to properly handle the guns, and warns us about the force that they’re going to have, should we have to fire them. “Yeah, it’ll be like this,” and I turn and punch Ben in the shoulder as hard as I can. He stumbles back, completely caught off guard.
“Asshole,” he says, but he’s smiling. We’re all focused on getting back to that house, and the treasures we might find. But the laughing soon fades. The reality that we’re going to have to leave for good is weighing on us all.
The next morning we all head out. Greg agrees to stay behind with the women. Although they have all learned how to use the weapons as well, both Don and Terry feel safer knowing that someone who has been around the zombies more recently is staying there.
The search is quick. We already have the keys to the house, so we get in pretty quickly. We load up our bags with the food and the other supplies in the basement. Don feels comfortable hooking up the belt with the grenades, and we’re happy to let him deal with that.
The search of the rest of the house is rather uneventful. We do a more thorough search of the bedroom and find another handgun.
We’re about to pack it in and head back to the house, when Ben notices something. “Guys, how have we been so dumb?” He points to the backyard where there is a large shed.
We’re a little cautious, as the backyard is full of large bushes and a couple of trees. You can barely see where the fences are, and we do a cautious search to make sure there are no zombies in that mess, or an opening where they could stumble in and surprise us. Finding that the area appears to be safe, we head to the shed.
There is a chain locked around the two doors, so I pull out the keys and try a few before the lock pops off. Ben and I pull the two doors open as Terry and Don prepare to attack anything inside. There is nothing all that exciting that we find. A workbench, some yard tools and a lawnmower. There is a gas can with about a half gallon of gas in it. “Damn.” I’m disappointed, and I know everyone else is too.
But Terry doesn’t seem convinced. He is standing in the middle of the shed, sniffing. He walks outside and studies the shed, then goes back inside. He is staring to the back, where there is a large cupboard housing most of the tools. “The inside of this shed doesn’t go deep enough. There has to be something behind here.” I’m standing outside the shed and once he says that, it seems obvious that something’s wrong. The shed is clearly at least 4 feet deeper on the outside than it is on the inside.
Terry and Ben set to moving the cupboard, but soon realize that it’s too well attached, and they’re going to have to tear it down. Using the tools in the shed, we rotate and are quickly able to dismantle the cupboard. What we see makes all of use smile.
“And here’s the crazy gun nut side of this guy!” Don is smiling, looking at the wall with a rack holding two more shotguns and what look to be two high powered assault rifles. Don is looking through everything else that is there. “Limited supply of ammo for these two, but the shotguns are the same as the kind we found inside.”
To the right of the rack we find four 5-gallon containers of gasoline. “I knew the smell of gas was too strong to be from that little can!” Terry is clearly proud of himself for his observation.
After we pull the cans and the weapons out, Don gets a worried look on his face. “And here is the crazy destruction side of this guy.” He points to a small shelf where there have to be a dozen pipe bombs. “I have no idea if these are active, but I really don’t want to risk it, so let’s get out of here.”
We lug everything inside and leave it near the front door. The cans are too heavy to carry all the way back to the house, so we agree that the best course of action is to leave them here, and drive by this house on our way out. We can load them into the back of the truck quickly if we need to.
“Oh shit. Guys! You need to see this!” Ben is looking out the front window, and my heart drops when I see what he’s looking at.
From the view through the window, I can easily see a half dozen of the zombies moving their way toward the house.
“Oh damn it! We must have made too much noise when we were tearing that shed apart.” I look to Don and Terry who nod in agreement.
If this were any other house, this wouldn’t be too big of a concern. We could head up the stairs, where the zombies couldn’t follow us. Their coordination is terrible, so they tend to gather at the bottom of the stairs. We could either take them out from midway up the stairs, or if it’s not too big of a drop, just crawl out an upstairs window and drop to the ground. Then we could just shut the front door, and the zombies would be trapped inside. We’d done this a couple of times before with success.
But this is only a one story house. And it’s a valuable house. So we know that we only have one choice: to fight out way out.
Don seems to transform, and immediately moves to the front. He has one of the shotguns slung across his back, but pulls out the big machete, preferring to try to fight quietly. He pulls the bandana that is tied around his neck up over his mouth, and heads out the front door.
We follow him down the walkway, and in addition to the six zombies we could see, we can see four more coming from down the street. The four are grouped fairly close together and seem to have lots of cuts on them. I’m guessing that they’re a family we locked into a house at some point while we were clearing the neighborhood, and somehow they got out.
Fortunately the first six we saw are spread out, so Don goes straight at them. Ben, Terry and I follow, and in no time they’re all dead. Don clearly knows more about combat than just guns since he took out three of the zombies on his own, and the rest of us each killed on.
Now the hard part is the taking out the other four zombies. They’re too close to one another to just run in and take them out. The zombies might not move really fast, but when something living gets close, they have a suddenness about them that is too difficult to avoid.
Don signals for Terry to follow him to their right, and for Ben and me to go to the left. He’s got a plan that becomes clear. We’ll surround the zombies, and try to get them distracted so they head in different directions.
As we each get into our positions, with the undead creatures in between us all, they stop. I don’t think the zombies have any sort of higher thinking ability, but it’s almost like they’re waiting and deciding what to do. If anything, I think they’re just a little confused, and unable to decide which of us to go after. So they go after Ben, who is most directly in front of them. I guess they don’t feel like getting all turned around.
I see Don swear to himself, and he runs up behind the last zombie. He goes in low, and takes a chunk out of the legs of the zombie in the rear. The creature goes down, but the way it twists, it’s able to grab a hold of Don’s arm, and bites into his arm.
Something about this attack must have alerted the other three. They stop and turn toward the action in the back. “Shit!” I yell, and run forward. I’m not worried about staying quiet at this point. Don grunts back his scream, and even with blood flowing down his arm, he manages to hold onto the machete. He brings it up and quickly down on the creature’s neck, severing its head.
We were only about fifteen feet back from the group, but we’re still too slow. The other three have descended on Don. He has dropped the machete, I think he has lost all control of that arm below his elbow. The creatures are biting into his shoulder, so he’s unable to pull the shotgun from his back.
Realizing we can’t swing a bat or heavy object at the zombies without hurting Don, I pull out a pistol. I go right up behind one of the zombies, place the gun right in the center of his skull, knowing that none of our group are on the other side, and pull the trigger. I quickly turn right and do the same to another, only this time shooting into the side of his face.
In the meantime, Don has managed to get away from the last zombie, and Terry has clubbed the thing’s head in.
“Damn it, give me that bandana!” I quickly t
ry to tie the bandana onto Don’s arm above the bite that is freely flowing blood. I’ve taken a few CPR and first aid classes, but I’ve never actually tended to a major wound, let alone tried to tie a tourniquet. The blood flow is slowing, but is definitely not stopping.
“Hey, we’re with you here!” Ben is helping me lower Don to the ground.
His breath is shallow and quick. Terry is holding a jacket onto Don’s shoulder area, but the blood is flowing quickly out beneath it. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach, and realize that one of the creature’s must have hit a vain or artery.
Don grabs at my collar and pulls me in closer. He’s trying not to talk too loudly, saving his breath as much as possible.
“Hey...thank you so much for taking us in.” He gulps down a breath. “Please, take care of Carrie.”
I’m trying to choke back tears as this man lies, dying in my arms. I only wish I would have had more time to know him. Once he came out of his depression, he showed so much personality. “I will, man. We’ll make sure she’s safe!”
He nods and blinks slowly. “Do it. Please.” I look down, and he has pulled the pistol out of its holster, and put it in my hands.
“Wait. No! I can’t!”
“Please!” He is staring me straight in the eyes. “I’m not going to make it, and I don’t know if I’m immune, or if I’ll come back as one of those....things! Please, just do it.”
I nod, but I can barely see him through the tears.
I can tell he’s in pain, but I’m not sure I can do it. He can see the expression on my face, the doubt, so he just smiles and mouths the words, “It’s O.K.”
He has come to peace with the fact that he is going to die, and feels confident that his daughter is in good hands.
Terry has now taken off his sweatshirt, and made a little pillow for Don, so he sets his head back and seems to relax just a little bit. His breath gets shorter, and we all know that he’ll be dead within a matter of moments. One last little smile crosses his face, and his breathing stops.
I pull the pistol up, fix it right in the middle of his forehead and pull the trigger.
After pulling the trigger, I just let the gun drop right next to Don. I can’t bring myself to pick it up, or even to stand up. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here next to Don, but it can’t have been long.
All of a sudden, Ben and Terry are pulling me up. I look around and see that there are three or four more zombies starting to come out from around the houses. We have to get out of here, the sound has attracted too many of them. We can hear them rustling through the trees and bushes that are in between the homes.
Knowing that we can’t allow them to follow us back to the house, Terry pulls one of the grenades off of the belt that Don is wearing. Sometime while I was sitting there in a daze, Ben put his jacket over Don’s head. I’m glad because I’m not sure I could look at this man that was becoming a friend that I had just shot through the head.
Terry pulls the pin on the grenade, and throws it down the street toward the end of the cul-de-sac. We take off running up the main street back toward the house.
A moment later, I hear the loud explosion behind us, but I never look back. We keep running, but after a few minutes, we start to slow. We look back and see none of the zombies. Apparently the noise from the grenade was enough, and all of them went toward the noise.
Unfortunately, it was really loud, and any zombies within at least a mile, if not more, will probably start making their way toward this area. Even if they’re not looking for us, we’ll have to be extra quiet now, so they don’t hear us and decide that we’re more interesting than that loud noise.
We don’t wait around for long, and soon we’re jogging around the corner and down the street to the two story house we call home. Greg saw us running around the corner from his watch up in the second story. By the time we’ve reached the house, he has crawled out the window onto the roof above the garage and lowered a ladder down. We secure its footing and crawl up the ladder and we’re inside the house by the time he is pulling the ladder back up.
We’re a bit out of breath as we make our way down the stairs, and Greg sullenly follows us. He had a look of shock on his face as we crawled up, all of us with Don’s blood on our hands and clothing and when he opened his mouth to ask something, I just shook my head.
Carrie and Maria are both out in the heavily fenced in back yard, and come running in when they hear us. Carrie has a huge smile on her face that disappears and transforms into a look of confusion, then fear, then she’s on the ground screaming and crying.
Fortunately Maria is right next to her, and grabs her in her arms, trying to console her. Carrie buries her head into Maria’s shoulder, and Maria looks up to shoo us all away. I feel relieve that we’ve been sent away, but I also feel terrible that our presence sent that poor girl into such hysterics. Ben reminds me that it wasn’t us showing up, it’s that her dad didn’t show up.
I know he’s right, but knowing that I pulled the trigger is still weighing on me. We’re back upstairs, changing into some cleaner clothes, using a bucket with some dirty water to rinse the blood off our skin and into the sink that at least seems to drain somewhere, even if it doesn’t give us fresh water.
Ben and Terry both remind me that Don was dead when I did it. I was sparing him, but I know I just need some time, maybe a chance to tell Carrie what happened. It has to be terrible for her, knowing that her dad didn’t come back, and obviously died, but not knowing what happened. Then it dawns on me that her mother died too. We still haven’t found out what happened, only that she died sometime during the initial outbreak.
I shake my head, realizing I shouldn’t be feeling bad for myself at all, not after this poor girl, this poor kid just lost her entire family.
I thank the other two for what they’ve done, and Terry goes to join Julie, who has apparently just come up the stairs from helping to console Carrie.
A couple of hours have passed. Ben and I have both been sleeping in the room where we changed. Well, maybe “sleeping” isn’t the best word. We did lie down, I did lose consciousness for a little bit. But when I close my eyes, I just see Don, and it’s hard not to cry, but then I just think of his last moment, telling me, “It’s OK.” And then he smiled. I wonder if he was thinking about joining his wife. That has to be it, losing her obviously took a lot from him, and he felt like Carrie was going to be safe, so he was at peace. How crazy, he was being torn apart by undead beasts, and just a few minutes later, he’s smiling and happily moving on.
We finally get up when Julie pokes her head in and tells us that she and Maria have made some dinner. They’ve got a setup in the fireplace that allows them to startup a fire and hold a pot or pan over it without getting burnt. We generally try to avoid using the fire, we’re still not sure if the smoke will attract the zombies, but tonight was a night that the ladies felt it was just appropriate. All of us are feeling the hurt, even Greg, who doesn’t have any relation to any of us and wasn’t there when it happened.
I imagine that he is feeling some sympathy, since his parents were also killed by zombies. I forget this sometimes. I’ve just grown to see him as another one of the guys, part of our crew going out to clear out the undead from the houses. But he has lost his whole family too. I guess this is why he looks so sad.
Dinner is canned corn and canned beans. We haven’t had a nice hot meal in a while, generally sticking to things that don’t require the fire. But we’re all satisfied with the food, and the warmth in our bellies helps to calm all of our nerves.
After we eat, Carrie asks us to tell her what happened.
I start with the story, making sure to emphasize how brave her dad was, how he led the charge and took out most of the zombies. How he was attacked trying to distract them from Ben. And I make sure to leave out the most explicit details about the zombies tearing at his skin. But I think she must know, because I do say that he died from the wounds, that he was dead before I had to shoot
him. She smiles a little when I tell her that his last act was to smile, and how calm he looked.
“He was going to see my mom. He really loved her, and he just wanted to see her....” Her voice trails off, and I realize that she’s starting to wonder, “But what about me?”
“Hey, he told us to take care of you, he made us promise. And we did.” Ben and Terry nod their agreement. “That was his last wish, and we’ll do everything it takes to make sure you stay safe.”
“Me too!” Greg surprised me, I’d almost forgotten that he was there. Everyone looks to him, and he gets an embarrassed look on his face. “I mean, I’ll help to make sure you’re...that everyone is safe.”
She smiles and thanks us all, then thanks Greg.
Terry stands up, towering over all of us sitting on the floor or on the pieces of furniture that we’ve salvaged. “Well, we should all try to get some rest tonight. We’ve got to get over to that house and load up what’s left, as long as that grenade didn’t destroy everything, then figure out where we’re headed.”
He looks to Ben and me, then to Greg, and his expression says that we need to figure out where we’re headed before we go to sleep.
We go through our nightly routine, making sure that the entire back fence is secure. We check the front door and ensure that we’ve got heavy furniture moved in front of it. All of the windows within reach of the ground are boarded up, but we still double check that they’re secure. After we make sure the door are all secure, we set up our warning system, which consists of a table with lots of glass containers, and metal cans. The idea is that if something does break in, and somehow we don’t hear it, and whoever is on watch doesn’t hear, then they’ll have to knock the table over, with all the cans and bottles making enough noise to wake us up.
