“Yes, Katie,” I replied.
“I don’t weigh a ton, do I?” she asked.
“No, you don’t weigh a ton,” I replied. It was just a joke. I would be surprised if you weighed ninety pounds.”
“OK,” Katie said.
Silence for another minute.
“So, I weigh less than Mom, right?” Katie asked followed shortly by, “Ouch, that hurt.”
“What hurt?” I asked.
“Mom pinched my butt,” Katie complained.
“Maybe you should ask your mother that question instead of me,” I grinned in the darkness, glad that neither Katie or Emma could see me.
“I just thought you would know,” Katie replied.
Emma chuckled.
“If you wait until we get to my dad’s house, maybe you both can weigh yourselves,” I said.
“Not a chance,” Emma mumbled under her breathe.
More silence.
“Dad?” Katie asked.
“Yes?” I replied.
“When we get to Grandpa’s, what am I going to do for clothes?” Katie asked. “Since there won’t be any girl’s clothes there for me to wear.”
“I wouldn’t worry, we’ll find something,” I replied.
“I can wear Mom’s pants, but her shirts are still too big for me,” Katie said.
“The way you are growing, they will probably fit you in a few weeks,” I replied half asleep and not fully realizing what Katie was talking about.
“Ghee, do you really think so,” Katie replied. “Thanks Dad.”
I heard Emma chuckle again.
“Ouch,” Katie yelped as she wiggled around. “My butt is going to be all black and blue.”
“Katie, maybe you should stop bothering your dad and let him go to sleep,” Emma whispered.
“But I always talk to Dad about things that worry me,” Katie replied. “And I still have a lot of questions I want to ask him.”
“You can talk to him tomorrow, he isn’t going anywhere,” Emma said.
“OK, good night Dad,” Katie said.
“Good night Katie,” I replied. “Good night Emma.”
“So, you really do know that I’m here and listening,” Emma laughed.
“So, what are we going to wear when we get up to your Dad’s place?” Emma asked. I could hear the humor in her voice.
“If we if we can’t find anything to wear, we’ll just have to start a nudist colony,” I replied.
“Can we send Logan somewhere else?” Katie asked. “There is no way….”
“I’m just joking, Katie,” I said. “Go to sleep.”
I started to think about starting one of my talks about the government to put everyone to sleep, but this time the silence held up and I found myself finally starting to drift off.
The next thing I knew, I could feel the morning light coming in through the truck’s windshield. I hadn’t opened my eyes yet, but even with my eyes closed I could sense the light by the brightness in my eyelids.
I decided to keep my eyes closed, in case anyone else was awake, in the hopes that I could get a little more rest before we had to get up and start our long walk.
I could hear Emma and Katie’s long soft breathing, an occasional snore from Logan, and thought I would take advantage of the quiet for a bit longer.
Scrape
My mind started to drift, thoughts about what we had accomplished the last few days floated through my mind.
Scrape, bump.
“We’ve been lucky not to have run into many of the dead since we started up into the hills,” I thought. “It had been a nice change since we left the safe zone where we had the dead staring in at us twenty-four hours a day.”
Bump, bump, scrape.
“It sounds like Logan is beginning to wake up,” I thought. “My extra little nap will be coming to an abrupt end when he wakes up and sees Katie’s feet in front of him. He had a habit of tickling her feet and making her squirm every chance he got. Then Emma will pinch her in the butt because she is grinding her butt into her lap, and then I will be inundated with squeals and accusations.”
Bump, scrape, scrape, bump, bump.
I slowly opened my eyes, hoping to stop the coming barrage before it started.
I froze and immediately closed my eyes again as I caught a glimpse of a dark gray mutilated face sliding across the window a few inches from my face.
I slowly raised my right eyelid, just enough to see out through the windshield and was greeted by the sight of dozens of the dead crowed against the front of the truck.
I turned my head very slowly and saw dozens more sliding against the right side of the truck.
Scrape, bump, bump.
The sounds were coming from the window next to the left side of my head.
I very slowly turned my head, until I was looking straight ahead.
I closed my right eye and slightly opened my left eye.
A face bumped into the window, turned and staggered away.
“If Katie or Emma happened to wake up and saw the dead, I knew they would jump or scream.
With the windows closed, the dead were curious, but from their actions so far, I didn’t think that they knew or were sure we were in here.
But the problem as I saw it was how to wake my family and inform them that they needed to remain perfectly quiet and motionless and hope the dead didn’t realize that we were here, then hope that they went away.
I slowly slide my left hand over Katie’s face and clamped it down over her mouth.
I could feel her wake up and start to move.
“Katie,” I whispered. “Remain perfectly still, keep your eyes closed and don’t say anything. Nod your head very slowly if you understand.”
Katie slowly nodded her head.
I slowly slid my hand from her mouth and put it on the arm rest of the truck door.
I held my breath and half expected Katie to ask me what was going on, but she must have heard the fear in my voice because she remained quiet and motionless.
Now, waking Emma was going to be much more difficult, but the good thing was her head was resting on my shoulder, where she usually slept.
I pulled my right hand out from under Katie and began to slowly move it to my lap, then up over my stomach and to my chest.
I opened my left eye slightly to see what the dead were doing. They were all around the truck, bumping into the truck and each other, but they still gave no indication that they had seen us or were anymore curious than they had been before.
I slowly moved my right hand off of my chest and moved it over Emma’s mouth.
“Emma, keep your eyes closed and stay perfectly still,” I said.
Emma started to struggle but stopped when she heard my voice.
“We have visitors, but I don’t think they know we are here,” I whispered out of one side of my mouth, trying to keep my lips as motionless as possible.
I could feel Katie’s body begin to tremble when I said that we had visitors.
“Emma,” I continued, “I need you to wake up Logan very slowly, so he doesn’t wake up and start moving around and give us away.”
“How?” Emma whispered, her eyes still tightly closed.
“If you don’t think you can put your hand over his mouth, squeeze his leg while you are telling him not to move,” I replied. “They are all around the truck.”
“Shit!” Emma mumbled.
“Dad, I’m scared,” Katie whispered.
“Quiet,” I quickly whispered.
“I’ll try,” Emma whispered.
“I scanned the front of the truck, then closed my left eye and opened my right eye to watch what Emma was doing.
She was nervous and I could see her hand shaking as she moved it slowly over and put it on Logan’s leg.
She must have been extremely nervous and was barely able to control her hand, because instead of squeezing gently, Emma’s hand dug into Logan’s leg causing him to jump and call out, “Knock it off,’ as he swatted at her han
d.
Emma’s eyes shot open just as a gruesome face crashed into the window next to Logan.
Emma let out a shocked scream, then Katie began to scream.
Then it sounded like the truck was being pummeled by an avalanche as the dead, now sure that we were here, they began to throw themselves against the truck.
Chunks or rotting flesh began to stick to the windows and where moved from spot to spot on the windows as more bloody faces pounded at the windows.
Very few of the chunks of flesh that was sliding down the blood covered windows made it to the bottom of the windows before they were pulverized and pushed to another place on the glass.
“Katie, get up,” I yelled over the pounding sound echoing through the truck. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to a sitting position on top of Emma’s lap.
When I had Katie out of my way, I reached down and turned the key in the ignition.
I knew we were out of gas, but I hoped that maybe enough gas had settled in the gas line to start the truck and let me drive the truck a few hundred feet, far enough away from the dead so we could get out and make a run for it.
It was the only chance we had as far as I could figure, because if we didn’t find a way to get out of the truck, the dead would break through the windows before long and drag us out of the truck and kill us, one by one.
When I turned the key, the engine sprang to life, I quickly dropped the transmission into drive and hit the gas, but the engine died after the truck had moved no more than ten feet.
I grabbed the key and turned it again, but the engine chugged and sputtered, but would not start. I kept turning the key until the engine stopped grinding, the battery again died and the familiar sound of clicking was all that remained.
The dead continued to pound their faces into the windows, occasionally through the bloody glass I could see the evil looking faces, jaws moving, teeth snapping, as they frantically attacked the truck.
I knew we didn’t have much time left.
From watching the dead attack and break in to the minivan and little Kia in front of our house, I knew they would have us in less than five minutes.
I considered jumping out of the truck to let the dead attack me, hoping that would create enough of a distraction that my family could get out of the truck and make a run for it.
But I knew that would never work, As the dead got me, others would move in to take the place of the ones attacking me, and the attack against the truck would continue as if nothing had happened.
In fact, if I tried to get out, the dead would rush into the truck and kill us all, depriving us of what time we would have left to be together.
“I just want you all to know how much I love you,” I said.
“I know,” Emma choked back her tears.
Tears ran down Katie’s face, Logan just sat and stared at the dead in silence, his face pale and his lips quivering.
We all knew what was going to happen, we had seen it happen to others, but even though we knew it could happen to us, somehow, I think we had always felt that we would find a way to survive.
We were so close, only another ten miles, but even then, we didn’t know what we would find.
The odds were against us from the first day when that girl staggered around our front porch. The girl I had asked if she was OK, but she only mumbled something I couldn’t understand and then just staggered away.
We watched in horror as the dead continued to pound on our windows, their ugly faces appearing briefly against the glass, then being replaced by another face equally as ugly and terrifying.
When a crack spread across the front of the windshield my heart sank and I could feel the dread spread through my body. I was afraid for my family, more than for myself.
Which of us would die first?
I would have volunteered to be first, but that would mean that my family would have to watch what happened to me.
I could imagine the terror in their eyes as they had to watch, but would it be much better if they died first and I had to watch my family being torn to shreds.
There would not be an easy way out for any of us. I had my answer to the question I didn’t want to think about before, it would have been better if my family had never existed and I could face this horror on my own.
If I had a gun, I would wait until the last minute and then spare my family from the horrors that would take them.
I would spare them from the pain of being ruthlessly killed and from the horrors of being subjected to becoming one of the dead and being condemned to roaming the earth in search of the living for only God knows how long.
As I watched the crack spread across the windshield, without thinking I squeezed against Emma and Katie, lifted my leg and pushed my foot up against the windshield to keep it from collapsing into the truck.
Logan saw what I did and he also pressed his feet up against the windshield.
I could hear Katie sobbing and grabbing my arm with both of her hands, digging her fingers into my biceps.
It felt like the world had suddenly gone into slow motion.
The sobs, the pounding, the crying all suddenly sounded like they were coming from somewhere far away and not from inside the truck.
I could feel the fear leaving my body as my brain analyzed our situation and resigned itself to our fate, but I continued to fight on.
I was suddenly shocked out of my stupor by what sounded like stones pelting the truck all around me.
Then the pelting sound was followed by what sounded like gun shots and engines roaring.
The sounds seemed to circle the truck as they continued.
After a few minutes, the sounds stopped, the pounding, the pelting stones, the gunshots and the roaring engines all stopped and was replaced by only a loud ringing in my ears.
I removed my feet from the windshield and sat up in my seat and listened.
“Is there anyone in there?” I heard a man’s voice shouting.
“Hello,” I shouted back.
“There’s someone in the truck,” I heard another voice say.
I slowly wound my window down a few inches until I could see outside.
I saw a large red pickup truck parked about twenty feet away. In the back of the truck were three men in camouflage clothing, holding shotguns in their hands as they studied our truck.
“There are people outside,” I said as I looked at Emma.
“What kind of people?” Katie asked, her body trembling.
“I don’t know but they just saved our lives,” I replied. “I’ll go out and talk to them, you three stay in here and be quiet.”
They all nodded.
I slowly opened the door and stepped outside as I held my hands over my head.
I was greeted by the sight of dead bodies that had been shredded by the buckshot from numerous shotgun blasts.
The bodies were in pieces, many of those pieces still moving, teeth snapping and hands opening and closing.
But the shredded bodies were so damaged that they were unable to move with any purpose.
The bodies that no longer had heads laid motionless, but the disembodied hands and jaws continued to act as if they were unaware that anything had happened.
The body parts were still dangerous, but were no longer able to continue their attack, but I knew that each part still waited for their opportunity to latch on to anything that carelessly got too close.
“Put your hands down,” a bearded guy that was standing in the back of the pickup said. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
“Thank you,” I said. I lowered my hands as I continued to observe the gruesome scene that seemed to cover every inch of the ground around the truck for twenty feet in every direction.
“It looks like we got here just in time,” the man said. “What the hell are you doing down here?”
“I was just trying to get up to my Dad’s house when I ran out of gas,” I replied.
“Who is your dad?” the man asked.
; “John Michaels,” I replied.
“Old man Michaels died years ago,” the man replied.
“I know,” I replied. “He left me the place when he died. I live down in Rapid City and have only been able to come up once or twice a year to look after the place. After what happened, I decided to try to come back home, hoping that conditions would be a little better here for me and my family.”
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
“I’m Brian Michaels,” I replied.
“Brian, you son of a bitch, how have you been?” a voice shouted from behind me.
I turned and saw two more pickups with more men standing in the truck beds behind our truck.
“It’s me, Jimmy,” a man about my age shouted.
I looked at him for a minute.
“Jimmy Snyder?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you for over twenty years.”
Jimmy hopped down off the truck and ran over and shook my hand.
“I thought you moved away the first year after I left for college,” I asked.
“I did,” He smiled. “I went to Orlando to work at Disney World. I flew back to visit my old man right before the shit hit the fan. When I saw what was happening everywhere, I decided to stay here and I’m glad I did. The last I heard you were in New York working for some big city bank.”
“I was, but I decided New York was no place to raise kids so I took a job in Rapid City and moved back out this way,” I replied. “I’m glad you found us, I thought we were goners. How did you find me?”
“The walkers haven’t made it up to the mountain yet,” Jimmy replied. “We come down this way every week or so to see if they are still moving and to see if we can find anything we can use. Our shelters are pretty well stocked, but since we don’t know how long these damn walkers are going to be around, we try to hedge our bets every chance we get, if you know what I mean.”
“Is my dad’s place still unoccupied?” I asked.
Just Trying To Stay Alive: A Prepper's Tale Page 35
