by David Spell
At this rate, she knew that they would never see each other again. The odds of both of them surviving weren’t very good, but their phone calls gave Cunningham something to look forward to. Talking to Jimmy was the one normal thing in her life that she could enjoy.
Four weeks after the attack on the UGA campus, they were no closer to eliminating the thousands of infected. The National Guard advised the GBI and local law enforcement that it was time to pull back. The guard had lost forty-two soldiers and the multi-police agencies had suffered a combined sixty-one more casualties. There were no replacements stepping in to fill the holes left by those who had been killed.
The National Guard was pulling out altogether until they could be reinforced. Without the heavy firepower of the military, the local police had no chance at all. Grace knew then that it was time to get back to her family. If they wouldn’t leave, maybe she could at least protect them.
Jennifer Fletcher’s family was in Virginia and that was where she was heading. The two friends hugged and Grace started across town to her parent’s house. She hadn’t been able to reach any of her family for several days, but the communications grid appeared to be dying, the signal on her phone going in and out.
As the police car got near its destination, Grace saw several groups of infected. They began following as she raced by them. When Officer Cunningham arrived and saw the front door standing open, she instinctively knew that it was too late. She had to know for sure, though, and Grace cautiously approached the residence, her well-used Remington .12 gauge pump shotgun at a low ready. There were no sounds coming from inside and she listened for several minutes at the open door.
Normally, she would call for a backup officer. One of the cardinal rules of law enforcement was that you never searched a building or residence by yourself. Of course, there was no backup available and this was her parent’s home. Her home.
Grace moved inside, securing the heavy, wooden door behind her, then clearing the downstairs area. Suddenly, she heard a noise, a loud bump from upstairs. She took her time, working her way up to the second level, not sure what she was going to see, scared of what she would find, but knowing that she had to check.
At the top of the staircase, Cunningham could see down the hallway, noting that each door was closed. Another loud bump startled her, the noise coming from her parent’s room located at the end of the corridor.
Slowly, she moved down the hallway until she was standing next to her mom and dad’s bedroom door. Someone or something was moving around inside the room.
“Daddy? Mama? Hope?”
Suddenly, something big slammed into the flimsy door, cracking it and shaking the frame. Grace gasped and jumped backwards, raising the shotgun. A loud growling and the sound of teeth gnashing carried into the hallway. The police officer knew what those noises meant; she’d heard them continuously over the last several weeks. The only question now was who was growling and gnashing their teeth?
Grace backed down the hallway to give herself some space as someone continued to crash into the hollow wooden door. After the fourth time, the wood began to splinter. As they continued to assail the door, it finally gave way, with the now infected Reverend Samuel Cunningham falling into the corridor. When he saw Grace, he pushed himself to his feet and charged, snarling at his daughter.
Samuel had always been Grace’s role model but she knew instantly that this was not her father. His spirit was already with God. This was just his body, she told herself, as she looked into the red eyes, the blood dripping out of his mouth and coating the white dress shirt he’d had on at the time of his infection.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks as she raised the shotgun. At a distance of ten feet, the blast of 00 buckshot caught Samuel full in the face, almost completely severing his head from his body. Blood and gore splattered the wall as the zombie pastor collapsed to the floor.
Grace instinctively worked the pump-action of the shotgun, ejecting the spent shell and loading a fresh round. Something else was moving in the bedroom. This sounded like someone was sliding over the hardwood floors. Cunningham waited, the sight of her father’s body starting to make her nauseous. Another face appeared in the bedroom doorway. The head was at floor level, though, the body dragging itself along.
“Mama? Is that you?”
The head raised itself and Grace saw that this was, or at least had been, her mother. The woman’s throat had been ripped out and so, minus her voice box, Mrs. Cunningham was unable to growl, her mouth wide in a silent snarl. Her eyes looked right through her first-born as she pulled herself across the floor.
A moment later, Grace saw why her mother couldn’t stand. Her left leg was missing from the knee down. The police officer watched in horror as her beautiful mother came straight towards her, using her arms to pull herself down the hallway, intent on killing and eating her.
“I’ll see you in Heaven, Mama. I love you.” The shotgun roared again.
Grace didn’t want to look in the bedroom. Hope had to be here somewhere. Was she going to have to shoot her sister, also? Suddenly, the sound of growling carried into the house from outside. The sound of my shots, she realized, told them that I’m here. The campus police officer fed two shotgun shells into the bottom of the gun, loading the magazine tube back to capacity.
Cunningham stepped over the bodies and reached her parent’s door. She paused and listened. Nothing. Her nostrils, however, picked up the unmistakable stench of death. A quick peek inside let her know there was nothing standing in the room. Grace stepped in, stopping just inside the door. What was left of her sister was scattered and splattered across the bedroom, her parents having ripped Hope apart and devoured her. The older sister couldn’t hold it in any longer and turning away from the carnage, she vomited onto the bedroom floor.
Grace had locked herself in her basement bedroom, crying for two days and not eating anything, a sense of emptiness growing inside of her. The pack of Zs outside, however, just wouldn’t leave. After shooting her infected father and mother, zombies had tried to get into the house, the noise of their scratching and banging at the door terrifying the young woman.
Cunningham had finally left her bedroom, knowing that she needed to eat something and figure out what she was going to do. A peek out the living room windows revealed over a hundred of the nasty creatures in the street, shuffling in both directions, looking for victims. And those were just the ones that she could see. The good news was that they had lost interest in her house and had moved away from her front door.
Over the next few weeks, she lost any sense of time locked in her home, while hundreds of zombies continued roaming the area. She was glad to be away from the bodies of her poor family, but after a few days, the stench was awful, even in the basement. She would have left, but had no idea where to go, and the zombies would swarm her the minute she stepped outside.
Grace had no idea how her father had gotten infected. She suspected that he’d tried to help someone who already had the virus. That was who he was. Daddy would help anyone at any time, black, white, Hispanic, it didn’t matter.
Cunningham tried to call Jimmy but it wouldn’t go through, so she sent him a text detailing where she was and what she’d been forced to do. Grace had no idea if he was even still alive or if he had received her message. She had really enjoyed talking to him on the phone and even thought she might be falling in love with the handsome federal police officer.
The young woman had hoped that they could go on a on a date, which would have, of course, meant meeting her parents. Their first date would have been a dinner with Mama and Daddy. That was one of Daddy’s ground rules: if you want to go out with one of my daughters, you first have to join us for a family dinner. The thought of her parents not meeting Jimmy made her eyes water. The uncertainty of not knowing if he was still alive started her crying all over again.
The water in the house was still running and the campus police officer had wisely filled every co
ntainer that she could find. Mrs. Cunningham always kept a well-stocked pantry, so Grace figured she still had several weeks worth of food. A week after shooting her parents, the power had gone out. Five days after that, the water also stopped flowing.
Grace spent most of her days in her bedroom, trying to read her Bible or pray, wondering if God was even listening, because it sure didn’t seem like it anymore. Cunningham also spent time every day looking out the windows on the first floor of the house, checking to see if the Zs were still around. She estimated that there were over three hundred milling around her’s and her neighbor’s houses. Cunningham had no idea if there were any other survivors in the area, although the presence of so many zombies indicated that there had to be others like herself nearby, desperate to escape.
Grace considered taking a chance and sprinting for the police car parked in the driveway, but there were too many Zs, and she knew that, even if she made it, the Ford Crown Victoria couldn’t plow through them all. For the moment, she would have to stay put, hoping the infected went somewhere else. Eventually, though, she knew that she would have to risk it. I should’ve gotten the address to where Jennifer was going, she thought.
After several weeks of living in uncertainty, she had lost track of time and didn’t even know what day of the week it was. She had just come upstairs from the basement to peer out the windows and to get something to eat. Cunningham estimated that she only had about two week’s worth of water left. The officer had a bandanna wrapped around her face to block out some of the scent from her family’s decomposing bodies. Her watch indicated that it was 1330 hours.
Suddenly, a explosion sounded from up the street. Grace rushed to the front windows and watched the hundreds of bloody, growling zombies rushing in the direction of the loud noise. What should I do? she wondered. Should I use that distraction to leave?
Three minutes later, a light tapping came from the back door, the one that led out onto their large deck. Cunningham cautiously made her way to the rear of the residence, her shotgun up and ready. She heard the doorknob jiggle and then more knocking. Grace quietly pulled the French blind back slightly on the window, letting her see out onto the deck.
It was a black man wearing dark clothing, a helmet on his head, holding an M4 rifle. Grace felt a stab of fear. Who was this and why was he trying to get into her house?
“Grace,” a voice called softly. “If you’re in there, open up. It’s me, Jimmy.”
Cunningham gasped as she fumbled with the door locks. “Jimmy? Is that really you?” she asked as she jerked the door open.
“Were you expecting some other good-looking man to come rescue you?” he said, with a smile.
Grace fell into his arms and started crying. Jimmy pushed the door closed behind him and locked it while continuing to hold the young woman. She held him tightly, sobbing into his chest.
The stench of death hit Jones square in the face. He hadn’t received Cunningham’s last text so had no idea what she’d been through. Fortunately, Grace had given him her home address weeks ago, in the hopes that he could come have dinner with her and her parents when things got back to normal.
After her sobs subsided, Jimmy asked gently, “What’s that smell?”
Cunningham started weeping again. “It’s my family,” she managed to get out. “They’re all upstairs. Dead. I had to shoot my parents.”
Jones held her tightly. “Oh, Grace, I’m so sorry! I wish I could’ve gotten here sooner, but I’m gonna to get you out of here.”
After a few minutes, Grace pulled back wiping her face. “I’d pretty much given up. There are hundreds of those things wandering through the neighborhood. What was that explosion?”
Jimmy gave a slight smile. “I threw a flash bang grenade up the street and hurried over while they were distracted.”
Cunningham took Jones’ hand and led him down to her basement retreat. “My room’s down here and the smell isn’t as bad.”
Centers for Disease Control Compound, East of Atlanta, Thursday, 1600 hours
Jimmy and his three CDC companions sat around the metal table in their “headquarters.” Dr. Martin had allotted the agents two small rooms to use as an office and as a storage area for their equipment. In reality, the men didn’t spend a lot of time in the crowded office. The briefing table served its purpose whenever they needed to meet. At the moment, a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon sat between them, each man holding a tumbler of the whiskey.
“I was saving that bottle for when the baby comes since I don’t have any cigars to give out,” Eddie said. “But, I figure Jimmy and Grace making it back was worthy of a celebration.”
The four friends clinked glasses. Grace was resting in a popup camper that wasn’t being used. It was parked near Eddie and Grace’s RV, and Marshall had directed Jones and Cunningham to their new home. After they got their meager possessions unloaded, Grace told Jimmy that she needed to lay down for a little while. Jones had hugged the young woman and said he would be back to check on her later.
“So, you got to Athens without any problems?” Marshall asked, pouring a little more bourbon into Jones’ glass.
“Yeah, that was the easy part. I didn’t see any Zs until I got within ten miles of there. But once I started seeing ‘em, they were everywhere, big groups of them. A lot of ‘em were still wearing their Bulldog colors. I ain’t no Dawgs fan,” the former University of Alabama track star admitted, “but seeing all those rotting, decaying students and faculty members was sad. Not sad enough to keep me from shooting a bunch of them in the head, but, you know how it is.
“When I was approaching the big interchange, where Highway 78 runs into Highway 441, that was when the excitement started. Every lane and every exit or entry ramp was blocked. Cars and trucks were smashed into each other and the guardrails. Some of them were overturned and others had burned up.
“There were Zs swarming all over the place. I’m guessing that those roads got jammed up back when the virus was released on campus. Maybe some people who hadn’t turned yet got to their cars and tried to flee. Or maybe they were just all scared and trying to get out of the city.
“Of course, when the zombies saw me stop a couple hundred yards back they came running. There was maybe two hundred of ‘em coming from in front of me and another group coming up from behind me. I turned the radio up and put the windows down so they could enjoy some P. Diddy.
“I grabbed my pack, put the van in drive, jumped out, and started running. It hit a few of the suckers and the stereo kept a lot of ‘em interested. Maybe thirty chased me but the woods were really thick and I finally lost them.
“Problem was, now I had to go the last three miles to Grace’s house cross-country on foot. It only took me an hour to drive from here to where I had to dump the vehicle. Then, it took me two days to cover those three miles walking. There were Zs everywhere!
“The worst of it was that last mile. Her parents lived in the middle of this huge residential area near the baseball stadium and the Zs acted like they owned the place. Thankfully, all the houses I came to were empty or just had a zombie or two that I could pop and duck inside until the coast was clear.
“When I got close to Grace’s place, I snuck over to the next block and lobbed a flash bang as far as I could. That distraction gave me enough time to get back to her house and knock on the door. Thankfully, she didn’t shoot me as an intruder.”
Jimmy had finished his bourbon and looked at Eddie, holding his glass up. Marshall poured them all another drink.
Jones paused before continuing, staring into his glass. “Man, Grace had it rough. She had to shoot her mom and dad. The parents had killed her sister, ripped her apart. Grace was trapped in that house for weeks with those smelly bodies decaying upstairs. She was glad to see me but hasn’t said a whole lot about what happened with her family. She’s still in shock.
“We stayed at her place for almost two weeks. I wanted to turn around and leave immediately but there were just too many Zs. The
flash bang I had thrown backfired and brought more of the suckers from the surrounding areas into the neighborhood. After the first week, the pack had shrunk a little but then it started snowing before we could leave. I didn’t want to chance trying to escape on icy roads. The problem was, we were just about out of water and we knew we going to have to make our move. We waited until the first day that the temps were over freezing and the sky was clear.
“I knew it was gonna be run and dive into her police car and haul ass. We loaded up our backpacks with what little food and water was left, jumped into the cruiser and took off. That drive out of there was some scary stuff. It wasn’t quite as bad as that day we got overrun at the Braves stadium, but it sure was close! I kept thinking the Zs would thin out but I was running over them left and right. There were just too many to dodge. The front end of that cop car was taking a beating and I knew it wouldn’t be long before we’d have to ditch it. I was just hoping to get south of the city first. And to make it even more interesting, there were still patches of ice on the road.
“My plan was to get out of Athens and then take back roads. We’d just crossed over Highway 78 when a mob of Zs charged at us from apartments on both sides of the street. Grace started shooting at the closest ones on her side and I was trying to get us around the ones in the street. We had just managed to get past most of them when this fat girl Z jumped right out in front of us. I ran over her, but she got stuck underneath the chassis and that was it for the car.
“Grace was still shooting her shotgun but I couldn’t even look ‘cuz I’ve got about ten nasties right on top of me on my side. So, I’m poppin’ heads with my Glock, Grace is blasting away out her window. After a minute, all the Zs were down. There were some more heading towards us but they were about seventy yards away.
“We grabbed our packs, bailed out and started running. We didn’t slow down for ten minutes. We knew we needed to create some distance. I shot a few stragglers as we ran through a neighborhood and we finally we got to a wooded area where I was hoping we could lose them.”
