Just Trying To Stay Alive: A Prepper's Tale

by Michaels, Brian

  “Do you really think that’s what happened here?” Emma asked. “What’s happening here is more like science fiction. I wouldn’t think anyone could do something like this if they tried.”

  “I don’t know Emma, the government has a long track record of creating some amazing accidents,” I replied. “If we live through this, maybe someday we’ll find out what happened here.”

  “Live through this!” Emma exclaimed. “I was just thinking about all the prescriptions I would have to fill at work next week after this disaster.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” I said then added. “Careful, these steps aren’t very sturdy.”

  As I finished climbing the steps, I wondered if Emma might be right about work next week. How long would it take to clear the streets of this madness? Would it take a week or a month? As I look back, even after everything I had just seen, the enormity of the situation had yet to sink in.

  When everyone had safely navigated the small steps and we were all in the attic, I led them over to one end of the attic.

  There light coming in through the vents was brighter than I had remembered, the lantern helped but wasn’t really needed, but the extra light did help us avoid a lot of cobwebs.

  “The two vents where the light is coming in are actually doors that will open inward,” I said. “They will let us see outside and are big enough for us to crawl through if we have to.”

  “What’s happening outside is a lot louder up here too,” Katie said, “and it smells funny. It smells like when Logan’s hamster crawled under his bed and died.”

  “We might have to get used to that smell for a few days,” I added.

  I moved over to the side of the vent and began to turn the latches on the right side of the vent, then I swung the vent in and to the left.

  With the vent open, there was a two-foot square opening that overlooked the front yard and Rogers Street in front of our house.

  Yesterday we didn’t want to look outside because we felt sorry for the unfortunate people that were staggering around aimlessly, suffering pain, cuts and scrapes as they kept falling and walking into obstacles.

  Now we all crowded around the opening, wanting to see what was outside without any hesitation.

  I think at this point we weren’t feeling as bad for the people that were out in front of our house now as we had felt yesterday. The people out front now had turned into some kind of savage animals and had killed and eaten the helpless. Probably the biggest thing that had changed the way we felt was that they had also tried to get through the living room window to eat Katie.

  We understood that the people out there now weren’t responsible for what they were doing and had probably been decent people before this all happened.

  We felt bad about what had happened to them, but we now saw them as someone that wanted to do us harm and do us harm in the most horrible way we could imagine.

  They wanted to harm us and that had changed everything.

  For now, they had become the enemy.

  As we crowded around the opening, we were able to see more of our neighborhood than we saw briefly from the living room window, and we had more time to think about what we were seeing.

  What we had seen from the living room window was horrifying, but from up in the attic, the scope of what had happened was unbelievable. We could see over to the other streets from this height and could see most of the yards and houses lining those streets.

  It was the same for a far as we could see, blood, bodies, bones with an eerie sense of horror hanging in the air over it all. From here it looked like the bloodiest battle that had ever been fought, then the bodies of the dead and injured had been ravished by cannibals. Actually, it looked much worse than that, but I couldn’t find the words to describe it.

  We were studying the sight quietly until Logan broke the silence.

  “Something is going on two houses down on our left,” Logan said.

  We all quickly turned to look in that direction.

  Staggering bodies were crossing the street and going into the yard of the house.

  “That’s the Kerr residence,” Emma said. “I think they just moved in a week ago. I didn’t get a chance to meet them yet. I think they both worked and were never home.”

  “They have two kids around my age,” Katie said. “The boy is on the football team. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him or his sister yet because they drive to school instead of riding the bus and they aren’t in any of my classes.”

  I’m sure Katie would have told us more, I believe teenage girls have a secret network to spread all the latest gossip about every kid in their school and their families, especially if it involves one of the boys on the football team, but she was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass and then a scream, before she could say more.

  When we heard the sound of glass shattering and someone screaming, it was as if a message had been sent to all the staggering bloody savages in the area to meet at the second house on the left. It was unbelievable to see all of them stop, then almost turn at the same time and begin the awkward journey to the Kerr residence.

  We were also surprised because we didn’t think there was anyone else around that hadn’t become ill.

  The last couple days Katie had been trying to reach her friends on her phone with out any success. We had just assumed that since Katie couldn’t contact anyone, that there was no one else left.

  We watched the house trying to see what was going to happen. What we saw was something we never wanted to see and hoped we would never see anything like that again, but unfortunately over the next month it became a frequent sight.

  As we watched, a boy around Katie and Logan’s age jumped out a window on the side of the house, rolled twice then jumped to his feet.

  He looked back at the window as if he was waiting for someone else to follow him out of the window.

  When we all heard another chilling scream coming from inside the house, the boy turned and started to run through the yard towards Rogers Street.

  He never made it to the street, it wasn’t even close.

  As he ran through the yard, the blood covered bodies staggered towards him like ants swarming over a chocolate bar.

  But that is where the comparison ends.

  Ants swarming over a chocolate bar is quiet and the candy bar feels no pain.

  As the boy ran, one of the ruthless savages grabbed one of his arms and spun him around.

  Before the boy could regain his balance, another of the bloody monsters grabbed his other arm.

  The boy cried out in agony as his two attackers began biting into his arms.

  As the boy struggled unsuccessfully to pull free, more attackers began to latch on to his body. They began to bite into his back, legs, chest and head.

  The screaming became louder and more desperate as more attackers joined in on the attack.

  Soon the mob of attackers surrounded the boy until we could no longer see him.

  The boys screaming stopped when we saw an eruption of red that sprayed ten feet into the air over the mob of attackers, raining back down over the mob coating them in a fresh layer of blood.

  We watched speechless until the mob began to break up, but not until a fight over who got what parts of the boy’s body had concluded.

  As the savage attackers moved away, gnawing on bloody flesh as they went, we were unable to identify what remained of his body in the pool of blood at the spot where the attack began.

  More screaming and yelling came from inside the house.

  Next a man came running out on the front porch holding a gun in his hand and frantically looking around.

  When he saw the remains of the boy on the ground and the attackers getting up holding pieces of bloody flesh, he started to go wild and began firing his gun at the mob.

  The man was surround with in ten seconds.

  For as many shots as we heard, it never seemed to phase any of the attackers and we never saw an attacker fall to the
ground after being shot.

  Like we had seen with the boy, the man never had a chance.

  The scene that followed was a replay of what had happened to the boy, cries of agonizing pain, blood squirting into the air, then attackers drenched in fresh blood, walking away chewing on fresh flesh.

  It was a horrifying sight to watch, but we did watch. Something compelled us to watch, as if we needed to watch and learn if we didn’t want to end up being the mob’s next victims.

  We looked at each other, our wide eyes met expressing the fear and terror that we couldn’t put into words right then.

  We all moved in from the window and sat mentally exhausted from what we had seen.

  But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

  I looked back out the opening and saw more of those savages, attackers, monsters, zombies or whatever you want to call them coming out of that house.

  The screaming inside the house had stopped around the time the mob swarmed over the man with the gun.

  As I was looking out the opening, I now saw two of those savages staggering out of the opening where the front door had been. The two seemed to be both trying to pull something yellow away from the other. As they moved out into the yard I could see the yellow object had a foot sticking out of one end. The yellow object had been someone’s lower leg, complete with the slacks that the victim had been wearing.

  I didn’t tell the others what I had seen, they had seen enough, and I just hoped it was now over.

  But like I had said, it was far from being over.

  Over the next two hours we heard more screaming and smashing windows sounding from different parts of the neighborhoods around us.

  Each time we heard another scream, or the sound of breaking glass, we knew what was happening.

  We could see bits and pieces happening from our attic doorway, but mostly it was the screams we heard that told us what we were unable to see.

  As I listened, I knew what was going on.

  We called them by many different names over the first few weeks as we tried to figure out what they were.

  But whatever we called them, they were relentless and savage killers, and I realized what they were doing as I sat in the attic listening to the sounds coming from different streets and houses.

  They were searching for the living, almost as if they were going from house to house, until they found them.

  When they found them, they were smashing windows, breaking down doors and anything else they had to do until they were able to get their hands on the living and then to kill and eat the living.

  What compelled them to do this, what caused them to become what they were, now took a back seat to what they were doing.

  With their intentions clear, hunt down and kill the living, we could wait to figure out what made them into what they are now.

  How to stay alive was what we needed to focus on now.

  For the moment we were safe, but we knew what waited for us outside. We also knew that they would be coming for us too.

  After what we had seen, I felt it was time that I had a talk with Emma and the kids.

  We were no longer trying to ride out the flu virus, or even the Ebola virus. We weren’t working from home or just having a few days off from school anymore, we were fighting for our life.

  It was time we admitted what we were facing and started to do something about it besides waiting for it to be over.

  Chapter 12

  I sat on the stuffed chair in the living room and looked at Emma, Katie and Logan who sat on the couch across from me.

  “I think we all realize that what we are facing is a lot more serious than a flu epidemic, or an Ebola outbreak,” I said. “This also doesn’t look like something that will pass after a few days. To be honest, I don’t know what is happening and right now I don’t care who is responsible. All I’m concerned about is keeping us safe until whatever this is, until it is over. Those people out there, I don’t know what happened to them, but they want to kill everyone they can find. After what we saw, I don’t think any of you would disagree with me. I think we need to do more than just sit here and wait if, I don’t mean to scare you but there is no way around it but to say it, if we expect to live.”

  “What more can we do?” Emma asked. “We’re stuck in the house, it’s not like we can go anywhere or do anything.”

  “Dad, do you think those people can get in our house?” Katie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “You saw what they were doing outside, how they were breaking in to houses to get in after the people inside. The were breaking through the windows and breaking down the doors.”

  “But we have the windows and doors barricaded,” Logan said.

  “I know, but if enough of them keep throwing themselves against our doors and barricades, the barricades might eventually give out. I think we have to assume they will eventually find a way to get inside,” I replied. “We have to be prepared in case that happens. So I want you to think, if they got in the house, what could we do to be prepared to protect ourselves?”

  “Lock ourselves in the bathroom,” Katie said. “I know that’s not the answer but at least we would be able to go to the bathroom.”

  “We could lock ourselves in the basement with all the food,” Emma said. “Isn’t that why we are storing all that food down there?”

  “It is, but when I made that plan, I had a different situation in mind,” I replied. “I figured that we would be working with some of our neighbors to keep our neighborhood safe. We could all help each other, share our resources. When I made plans to store up as much food as we could, as far as locking ourselves in the basement, I didn’t think it would be for very long. Worst case if all else failed, I figured we could sneak out under cover of darkness and go to one of the neighbor’s houses. None of that is possible with what we’re dealing with now.”

  “If we locked ourselves in the basement, we could stay there for months,” Logan said. “How long do you think this will last? Those people out there that are attacking everyone don’t look in very good shape, by the looks of most of them I doubt they’ll live out the week.”

  “Yeah Dad, how long do you think I’m going to have to stay locked up in the same room with Logan?” Katie sighed.

  I thought for a second.

  “Locking ourselves in the basement probably would work, those people out there don’t look like they will last too much longer,” I replied. “I’m also optimistic that they won’t be able to get in the house, but if they did manage to get in the house, they might also be able to get into the basement. I just feel we could be getting ourselves trapped down there with no place left to go.”

  “Then what do you think we should do?” Emma asked.

  “What do you think about the attic?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t we be trapped in the attic then?” Logan asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied. “First of all, you saw how those people stagger around, if we go up in the attic and pull the steps up after us, I don’t see any way they could get up into the attic. Second, we can see what’s going on outside the house from the attic and as a last resort we can go out one of the vents. I just feel that the attic would be the best place to be if those people do get inside the house.”

  “What about food?” Logan asked.

  “We can take a supply of food, a gas stove, lanterns and blankets up to the attic to hold us for a while,” I replied.

  “Where would we go to the bathroom?” Katie asked.

  “In a bucket,” I replied.

  Oh gross!” Katie shrieked.

  “Until that time comes, we can stay down here during the day,” I grinned.

  “I guess I would feel better being somewhere I wouldn’t have to worry about them getting into,” Emma said.

  “OK, then what do you say we stock the attic,” I said. “I also think we need to take turns watching outside. We need to see what they are doing and how they are doing it so we can figure out ho
w to defend ourselves against them. Hopefully we will see something, a weakness or something that we can exploit.”

  “Do you really think we will be stuck in here for very long?” Emma asked.

  “I hope not, but nothing about this has gone the way we expected it to go,” I replied. “So I don’t think we should get our hopes up that this will all be over in a few days. I think we should be prepared for this madness to last for a month or more. Even if everyone dropped dead outside, look at the blood and dead bodies out there, we might be stuck in here for another month before we could go outside without getting infected.”

  “I didn’t think about that,” Emma said.

  “As we learn more about those people, we can adjust our plans,” I said. “But I think we’ll be better prepared for whatever happens next if we move some supplies to the attic.”

  “Whatever you say Dad,” Katie smiled. “It sounds good to me, except for the bucket part. Can we at least hang up a blanket or a curtain so I can have some privacy?”

  “OK, hanging up a blanket will be your job,” I smiled. “Emma, if I could have you take some blankets and pillows up to the attic to make us a place to sleep. Logan, if I can get you to start carrying some lanterns, a stove and boxes of food. I’ll come help you in a few minutes.”

  Emma and Logan got up and headed for the basement.

  “Katie, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.

  Katie walked over to where I was sitting.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

  “No, of course not,” I smiled. “I was just wanting to make use of your expertise.”

  “What expertise do I have?” Katie asked.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and handed it to her.

  “My phone is fully charged,” I said. “As you know I don’t use it very much. Can you get on the internet with my phone?”