Before Uncle Jamie could ask us anything about what happened, we heard someone yell from upstairs, “They’re here.”
Uncle Jamie and Sam ran up to see what was happening. Both were ready in case it was a trap. Chase hid in the closet, and I stared at the bloodstain for a few more seconds before mentally getting my shit together and going after my uncle and cousin.
A dozen or so of the creatures surrounded the house. Dana, Wayne, and the man whose name we never heard were out on the lawn, fending them off while Liz stood propped against the railing and firing from the porch. Uncle Jamie and Sam had joined the three in the yard while I went to the opposite end of the porch and began shooting.
The battle seemed to take forever as a half-a-dozen or more joined us before there were no more zombies in our area. In the end, Wayne was dead, and Liz was dying. Uncle Jamie had a slight limp, Sam had ripped jeans, a skinned knee, and a scratch on his forehead, and Dana a bloody nose. The unnamed man and I seemed to be the only ones unhurt.
I hadn’t seen or heard one of the creatures get Liz, but she lay on the ground in front of the porch with most of her leg missing. Three dead zombies lay scattered around her.
“Kill me,” she coughed as Dana approached her, and the woman did as she asked by putting a bullet in her head.
I had to stifle a scream. I didn’t know Liz. However, I’d seen her face and known her name. That made her real to me in a way that many others we’d had to kill hadn’t been.
“Thanks for the help,” the unnamed man said, reaching up to shake my uncle’s hand.
Uncle Jamie took it for a brief second before saying, “You two should probably get going. More are bound to be on their way.”
“What are you guys going to do?” Dana asked.
“Head back into the country. All of the homes that belonged to my family are destroyed now,” Uncle Jamie said, looking at the kicked-in front door of Uncle Carson’s house. “I don’t know where we’re going just yet, but I want to get as far away from the city as possible.”
The two didn’t apologize for demolishing the house, but they did look ashamed of what they did.
“Well, take care. We have to get back to our people,” the man said.
“You should get them out of the city. Find an empty farmhouse and get ready for the winter, and next spring, start planting the fields. You’ll have plenty of food then,” Uncle Jamie said, motioning for Sam and me to go back into the house.
“Do you think that’ll be necessary?” Dana asked. “I mean, won’t the military have this under control by then?”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” my uncle said. “Either way, food delivery has ceased. What you eat from now on, you’ll have to scavenge for or grow. In a few years, ten or more, if enough of us have survived, then something like the old ways might come back. If there isn’t enough of us and we’re scattered all over the planet, you’ll have to learn to fend for yourself.”
“That’s bleak,” the man said.
“That’s life,” Uncle Jamie replied, following me into Uncle Carson’s home.
No one said anything else. Dana and the unnamed man turned and walked away.
“Shouldn’t we invite them to go with us?” I asked, watching the two leave.
“No. They’re too stuck in the old world. That life’s over. We need to find others who understand that,” Uncle Jamie said.
I didn’t think he was right, but I wasn’t about to argue.
Back in the basement, Sam pulled Chase from the closet. He didn’t chastise his younger brother, but I could tell that Sam and Uncle Jamie weren’t happy with the younger boy. I didn’t think he would have been any help in the fight, and they probably didn’t either, which was why they remained quiet.
“Pack your things,” Uncle Jamie said, gathering the remains of our first aid kit.
“We’re leaving?” Chase asked.
“We are. We can’t stay here anymore. It isn’t safe. Hurry and pack your bags,” our uncle replied, and we did as he ordered.
Five minutes later, we exited the house where four zombies met us.
Uncle Jamie, Sam, and I dispatched them. Chase didn’t even raise his spear. We were going to have to do something about the boy before he got himself or us killed.
21.
Three houses up from what used to be Chase and Sam’s home, Uncle Jamie told us to stop and wait at the road while he went around back to grab what he’d gotten from town. When he’d returned to the house and saw the missing front door, he’d stashed the supplies he’d gathered before coming to rescue us. I wanted to be pissed about that. At the same time, I understood why he did it.
When he got back to us, Uncle Jamie was carrying three extra packs. He handed one to me and one to Sam. He didn’t so much as look at Chase. My cousin didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy turning in circles like a frightened rabbit. I feared he would be the next of us to die.
“Let’s go,” Uncle Jamie said, once Sam and I had both of our packs settled.
Carrying two backpacks would be hard and make traveling slow, but I didn’t dare leave any of it behind.
“Where are we going?” I asked, looking at the road in front of us and the darkening sky.
The night was falling. We’d need to find shelter in the next hour or so.
“I honestly have no idea,” Uncle Jamie said in a dejected tone.
“We should have stayed at the house,” Chase said in a shaking voice.
I feared he might be right, though with the house in pieces and zombies flocking to the noise we’d made, I didn’t think we would have lasted much longer there. Out in the open and weighed down, we weren’t any safer.
No one said anything in response.
No one spoke for the next hour or so.
The four of us merely walked. We didn’t have a destination. The only time we turned in any direction was when the road ended or when we needed to avoid a zombie or another human.
Just after nightfall, we found shelter in an empty co-op. We’d been slowly making our way East and were in rural country. Unconsciously, Uncle Jamie must have had a vague idea of where he wanted to go.
As soon as we’d finished eating supper, Uncle Jamie told us we should get some sleep. None of us were mentally tired enough to do so.
“What was it like in town?” Sam asked, stretching in his sleeping bag.
“Bad, but let’s not talk about that,” Uncle Jamie said, glancing over at Chase, who was watching the land out the large window too intently to hear our conversation.
“It can’t be too bad if those people were willing to go back,” Sam said.
“I don’t think they wanted to go back. I think the two had responsibilities in the city,” I said. “The man said they were trying to lure the creatures into the country. I find it hard to believe they were doing so to take the city back.”
“Willa is probably right,” Uncle Jamie said. “The city is too overrun at the moment for them to reclaim it. But who knows. People are doing the strangest things.”
“Like what?” Sam asked.
“I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation...”
Uncle Jamie looked to Chase again. The boy still wasn’t looking at us.
“I think we need to know if we’re going to be on the move for a while,” Sam said.
I hated agreeing with him.
“Okay. Those creatures have overrun the city, as I said. I saw at least a few thousand zombies. I don’t know where they all came from or why they are there. That many people couldn’t have turned in town at the same time. I think the creatures are drawn to the city. They’re probably flocking to all of the major population areas. Out here, we can almost forget that anything happened, but not there. The town looks just like a scene from an old zombie movie—zombies as far as the eye can see.
“The only good thing is that there are so many zombies that they have a hard time smelling us surrounded by so much decay. Some people took advantage of that. They covered themselves
in dead flesh, and the clothes of zombies and are walking around among the dead.”
“And that works?” Sam asked.
“As far as I could tell,” our uncle said.
“It might be a good idea if we don’t bathe that often then. Just the parts that matter. If we stink as they do, then maybe we can repel them or go unnoticed,” Sam suggested.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that at last, our conversation had gotten Chase’s attention. Good. If he doesn’t fight, maybe he’ll at least go along with the not bathing plan. Not that it would be much different from the way we were currently living. We hadn’t cleaned ourselves that often since leaving Grandma’s house. We hadn’t had access to enough water to fully immerse ourselves in a shower or bath in a long time.
As Sam said, we’d mostly been washing the crucial parts, but when I could, I scrubbed my face, neck, arms, legs, and cleaned my ears. I guess we wouldn’t be doing that much anymore. I’d never been as dirty as I was at the moment, and I couldn’t imagine letting myself get any dirtier.
“Why do you think there are so many in town,” I asked, not wanting to talk about the odd things people were doing anymore.
“I met a few survivors who say the creatures are migrating. First, they moved out of rural areas to the cities to find food, and now that they’ve run out, they’re moving west. At first, in dribs and drabs like we’d seen come to the farm, but the groups are getting bigger. That’s probably why those people were trying to lure more out of the city. With some leaving on their own, they’re probably hoping to hurry the migration along. That isn’t a bad idea in theory. Unfortunately, there are so many and others coming in, that it would take them a year or more to get the creatures out of the city.”
“Why are the zombies moving west?” Sam asked.
“The outbreak started here on the east coast, so I guess they are hoping they’ll find better prey out west.”
“If that’s the case, then we should go east,” I said.
“That’s what I was thinking as well,” Uncle Jamie said, pulling out a map and finding our location. “We don’t have any known family in that direction, so I’m not sure where we should go.”
“Did anyone in town talk about safe places people were going?” I asked.
“Nope. Any that they’d heard of had fallen by the time they found them. Some had even heard of our farm, but I informed them that it had burned to the ground. I don’t know if they believed me, but most seemed to because I didn’t have a reason to lie. I don’t think anywhere is truly safe anymore.”
“Then why do we even bother?” Chase asked, and we all turned to him in shock.
“Because we have to,” I said before anyone else could speak up. “We can’t let the zombies have this world. Not without a fight. We have to live for as long as we can.”
“But we’re all going to die,” Chase argued.
“We were going to die before as well. No one gets out of this world alive,” Sam said.
“But now we’re going to die horribly.”
“The chances of going that way in the old world were high as well. The only difference is that now death is staring us in the face. It’s imminent, whereas then, for most people, it was unknown.”
Sam had a point. It didn’t make Chase or I feel that much better about our situation, but it did put things into perspective some. The fight for survival was just a bit harder these days. That was all.
Without realizing it, the thought calmed me some, and as soon as I lay down, I was asleep. I dreamed of my life in the old world. I dreamed of Daddy taking me to Nashville to see Metallica live in concert, of Mom taking me to get a dress for a school dance, of my friends acting like fools, of the boy I had a crush on, of Grandma making me peach cobbler and ice cream. I even dreamed of failing a test that I knew I should’ve studied more for, and of giving an oral report on my favorite book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
22.
Over the next week or so, Uncle Jamie, Sam, Chase, and I slept wherever we could find a relatively safe place to hide. Most homes were empty but felt too exposed with busted out windows and no doors unless they had finished attics or basements. Barns, storage buildings, and the like were safer bets and smaller areas to defend.
The few people we encountered were friendly enough. They guarded their meager belongings with their life just as we did ours. Fortunately, all were willing to share information they’d heard from other survivors. They told rumors of cures and vaccines. Some swore that the zombies were dying out on their own, though Uncle Jamie figured that those people hadn’t realized that the creatures were migrating west.
What bolstered our spirits were the stories about government facilities where we could go to be safe. Uncle Jamie warned that the possibility of such places still standing was farfetched. We didn’t care. We wanted to see for ourselves. We argued that we had to go somewhere, and a military base was a logical destination.
“The nearest military facilities to our location are the Air National Guard station just south of Memphis and the Memphis MEPS, but we know Memphis is gone. I’m betting everything up I40 north to Nashville has probably fallen to the zombies as well,” Uncle Jamie said, looking over the map he’d spread across the picnic table before us.
“There has to be somewhere we can go,” Chase said, looking over our uncle’s shoulder.
“Not really. We have to assume that those creatures have overrun many bases and quarantine camps. If they hadn’t, more of the survivors we’ve met would be heading to one not speculating about them,” Uncle Jamie said.
“But...” Chase started to argue.
“I’m not saying we aren’t going to find one. I’m just trying to narrow our prospects so that we have a specific destination,” our uncle told the boy.
“There are two Army National Guard stations in middle Tennessee. One of them might be standing and sheltering people,” Sam said, pointing to an area on the map around Pulaski.
“They are far enough away from Huntsville, the nearest large city—so yeah, they might be relatively unscathed,” Uncle Jamie said, scrutinizing the map.
“Is that where we are going?” Chase asked, sounding excited for the first time in months.
“Looks like. We’ll continue along the Mississippi/Tennessee border into Alabama. We’ll cross into Tennessee just before we hit Florence. I heard someone blew up both dams in the area and caused a great deal of flooding, so we might not get far into Alabama. Does that sound like a plan to the rest of you?” he asked.
Sam and I nodded. Chase nearly jumped for joy.
“All right. Get some rest. We have a lot of walking to do,” Uncle Jamie said, folding the map before taking the first watch.
The sun was still out, but setting fast. If we woke at dawn, we could get in a lot of miles the next day.
Two days later, we stumbled upon a massive horde. Chase spotted them and screamed like an idiot, getting the creature’s attention. Sam clamped a hand over his brother’s mouth, but it was too late.
“Where are we going to hide?” I asked no one in particular.
I was swinging my head around me, and all I could see were paper-thin trailers. None of them would hold up to the numbers heading our way.
“The park should have a manager’s office. It should be sturdy enough to withhold the press of them. Look for that,” Uncle Jamie said, grabbing my arm and Sam’s and all but dragging us behind a row of trailers.
Sam held tightly to his brother.
“They’re getting closer,” Chase cried.
“We can fucking hear them. Now shut up,” Sam said.
“There,” Uncle Jamie said, pointing to a small brick building.
How we got lucky enough for the doors to be unlocked, I don’t know, but they were. We barreled straight into the park’s main office and flipped the lock seconds before one of the creatures slammed into the massive metal door.
The inside of the office looked as if someone had recently been taking
shelter inside it. The person had boarded up the windows and brought in two-by-fours that we could slam down over the door as well.
“Thank God for small favors,” Sam said as he and Uncle Jamie secured the two-by-fours.
Behind me, I heard Chase start to gag.
“You better take that shit to the bathroom,” I said, whirling on him.
The last thing we needed was the smell of his vomit luring more of those creatures to us.
Chase clamped his hand over his mouth and spun in circles until he found the bathroom. He bolted to the tiny room, and thankfully, shut the door behind him.
“What?” I said to the stares Sam and Uncle Jamie aimed my way. “We have no way of cleaning it up if he spewed on the floor. Did either one of you want to smell his vomit for however long we are here? This place stinks enough as it is.”
“You didn’t have to be so mean about it,” Sam said, stepping past me to explore the rest of the building.
“Probably not, but he’s going to have to man up, or he’s going to die or get us killed,” I said, moving to a window to see if I could peep through the cracks.
I didn’t know why. I knew those creatures were out there because we could hear them banging on the walls, windows, and doors.
“Someone has pretty well boarded up this place, but we should probably move the furniture in front of any entry points just a precaution,” Sam said.
“Good idea,” Uncle Jamie said, motioning for Sam to help him move a large filing cabinet in front of one of the windows.
I flipped a desk on its side and slid it in front of the side door.
We worked for a good fifteen minutes. Chase didn’t come out of the bathroom until we’d finished.
That entire day we spent checking and double-checking the entry points. The smell of us going to the bathroom, coupled with the scent of food wafting out of the cracks, was keeping the creatures coming. All we could do was pray that they gave up before we ran out of supplies.
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