We Are Still Here

by Jimmy Bird

  I realized that when I was there the first time, I didn’t even think about looking for a door on the side of the building. Now that I think about it, I really didn’t have time to look for one.

  Regardless, there it was, opening behind the small group of zombies. Fortunately for me, over half of the zombies stopped coming towards me and turned their attention towards the noise. I could barely make out the shocked face that stood in the doorway, but the guy looked a lot like Robert.

  I’m not sure if the guy was looking at me or the zombies, but he lifted his gun and began shooting. The gunfire caused the rest of the zombies to stop and turn around. They were attracted to the noise and forgot all about me.

  Seeing my opportunity, I dropped to my knees and began searching for the grenade. It was under the last zombie body on the ground.

  I leaned forward and grabbed it with my right hand. I quickly just stood up and immediately froze when I felt something hard poke me in the back of the head. I didn’t even have to turn around to see what it was because I already knew what it was. It was a gun.

  In a scraggly woman’s voice, I heard, “Drop it.”

  I remained frozen in place. I knew that if I let go of the grenade then I was a dead man.

  She pushed the gun hard against the back of my head as she spoke, “I said drop it or I’ll kill you.”

  Well, I guess I was dead either way. I slowly reached my left hand over to the grenade and used my index finger to grab the pin. Once, I had it firmly in my hands, I slowly turned around to face the woman.

  Confused by my actions, she asked, “What are you doing?”

  While turning around, I replied, “You better be a damn good shot because if you’re not then we’re both dead!”

  She saw the grenade in my hands and began to back up. Her gun was still aimed at my forehead. I noticed that her hands began to shake.

  Wide-eyed, she asked, “What are you going to do with that?”

  I sadistically smiled, “I figured that if I’m going to die then you’re coming with me.”

  She continued to back up. I wasn’t sure if she thought that she could outrun the grenade or me or both.

  The gunfire continued behind me, causing me to think that the Robert look alike was still busy with the zombies.

  Over the gunfire, I heard what sounded like a familiar voice say, “Dee, help us!”

  Followed immediately by, “Look out!”

  My heart stopped as I slightly turned my head, expecting a zombie to be directly behind me. Lucky for me, there wasn’t one. In fact, all the zombies had surrounded the guy and what looked like someone else fighting zombies behind them in the doorway. Who knows, there could have been more people trapped inside. Regardless, it looked like they were fighting a losing battle.

  I heard a scream and a single shot from the direction of the woman, causing me to jump. I turned my head back around, half expecting to find the gun pointed at my head again. It wasn’t.

  What I did see was the woman’s hands slowly drop to her sides, the handgun began to fall from her right hand. The look in her eyes became vacant as a crazy glazed over look appeared. It was as if the life had suddenly been sucked right out of her.

  Her head dropped to her chest and rested on the back end of something that looked like a sword. I stared at it in disbelief. The more I looked at it, the more it looked like a long knife. The tip of a long knife stuck through the center of her chest.

  The tip of the blade began to angle downward as gravity and her weight pulled her to the ground. She slowly slid off the blade to reveal that Seth was standing directly behind her. A look of shock was on his face as he struggled to hold onto the machete handle.

  The familiar man’s voice behind me yelled, “Dee? NO!”

  I turned back around and noticed that the man’s face had become a little clearer. His face turned a reddish color as he continued to fight zombies. Even with long hair and the start of a beard, he looked an awful lot like Robert. While watching him fight, I realized that he was no longer using a gun, but a sword.

  My assumptions that it was Robert was clarified immediately when I heard, “JIMMY! HELP US!”

  For a second, maybe it wasn’t even a second, I thought about running to help him. But something inside me told me not to. Seth began to walk towards Robert, but I quickly put my hand up to stop him.

  No! This man, if you would call him that, and his companion didn’t deserve our help. His kin attacked the Warehouse and killed our family and friends. His people chased us off my father-n-law’s land, forcing us to abandon whatever little things that we had from our old lives. His people attacked us and killed Danny and Austin. No! This man and his companion didn’t deserve our help. They deserved to die!

  I looked over at Seth, “Come on. We need to get moving.”

  I turned around but noticed that he didn’t move. I turned my head slightly and noticed that he was staring at me wide-eyed.

  Impatient, I motioned over to where Robert was and stated, “They don’t deserve our help. They deserve to die!”

  Seth began to plead, “But, Uncle Jimmy.”

  I cut him off, “Seth. This man and his people are responsible for the deaths of our family and friends, including Austin and Danny. He is responsible for Bobby’s injury. No, they don’t deserve our help. They deserve to die!”

  Seth frown, “Uncle Jimmy. You misunderstood me, I wasn’t going to try and help them. I wanted to get in there and kill them.”

  It was my turn to be shocked, “Well, that’s certainly different. Unfortunately, it’s too dangerous to fight our way to them and even if we did. Who was to say they wouldn’t try to kill us? Besides, we can let the zombies kill them.”

  I held up the grenade with my right hand to show Seth, “We’ll just make sure that the zombies are trapped in there with him.”

  A sadistic smile crept over Seth’s face.

  Robert kept screaming, “JIMMY! JIMMY! HELP US!”

  I looked in Robert’s direction, “Robert, don’t worry. I’ll help you alright.”

  I used my left hand to pull the grenade pin. I gently tossed the grenade underhanded towards the crowd of zombies. I watched as it bounced smoothly under their legs, towards Robert. I turned and immediately grabbed Seth by the shoulder. I pulled him along as I started to run.

  While running, he asked, “Are you sure that’ll work?”

  As if to answer Seth’s question, the grenade exploded. It went off in such a force that we could feel the ground shake while we struggled to run. Within seconds, bits of debris came raining down on top of us.

  Out of breath, I gasped, “Yep, I’m pretty sure that it’ll work.”

  When I felt confident enough that the debris was done falling, I slowed down to a jog before finally stopping. I turned to look at my handiwork.

  The ground was littered with body parts and pieces of concrete. The front part of the wall had caved in. Blood stained the outer concrete. I wasn’t sure if any of it was Robert’s, but I knew there was no way he could have survived the explosion. Hell, we didn’t have anything to slow us down and we were hit with debris from the blast. He had been trapped by zombies when I had thrown the grenade. No, there was no way he could have survived.

  I turned and looked at Seth. There were so many questions on why he was here, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He saved my life. I smiled and grabbed his shoulder with my right hand.

  I pulled him towards me as I took a step, “Let’s go before our luck runs out.”

  “Do you really think he’s dead?”

  I slightly turned my head to look back at the debris before turning my head back around, “Yes. Yes, I do. He was already stuck between the proverbial ‘rock and a hard place’ with the zombies. Besides, if he did somehow manage to survive the explosion, he still had to deal with the zombies inside the building. That doesn’t even consider if he was injured in the blast. Also, I blew up two exits. There couldn’t have been that many more.”

&nbs
p; As if on cue, we could hear death type screams coming from somewhere inside the building, I swear that I heard, “Jimmy, I’m going to kill you! You hear me? I’m going to kill you!”

  With all the screaming, it sounded like there were more people than just Robert and the companion I saw. I noticed that Seth kept glancing over his shoulder towards the directions of the screams. I wasn’t sure if he was worried that someone would escape and come after us or if he was just worried about the remaining zombies.

  “We need to hurry because the gunfire and explosions is sure to attract more zombies.”

  We went from walking, to power walking, to eventually jogging. There was no way I was going to flat out sprint, just in case we came across anymore of Robert’s people or zombies. I just didn’t think that I would have the energy to fight.

  We got close to the vehicle that I had just blown up with a grenade. Body parts littered the surrounding area. In fact, there were so many gruesome body parts that it was difficult to tell what had been a human and what had been a zombie.

  We were just beginning to jog past the upside-down SUV when I heard a faint mannish cry for help, “Please. Please help me.”

  I stopped jogging and looked around at the body parts but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing was moving around or trying to get our attention.

  I was about to turn around again when I heard a strained voice, “Please. Can you help me?”

  My eyes followed the voice on where I thought it had come from. It sounded like it was coming from the SUV.

  To be sure, I asked, “Whoever you are, can you repeat yourself? I can’t find you.”

  He began to stutter as he spoke, “CCCan yyyou hhhelp mmme? Ppplease.”

  As I got down on my hands and knees in front of the driver’s side broken window, I told Seth, “Watch my back.”

  I wanted to see who was inside the upside-down SUV. The front part of the interior was severely damaged, most of it looked kind of burnt. I assumed that it was either from the blast or glass or maybe even a combination of both. Sparks from exposed wiring kept going off around the dashboard. I didn’t see anyone in the front seat area. Being upside down, the roof was smashed in. So much that it was touching the top of the seats.

  I thought that maybe it was all in my mind and was about to call it quits when I heard a strained voice whisper, “HHHeelllppp mmmeee.”

  It sounded like it came from the back-seat area. My human instincts to help someone in trouble kicked in and without thinking of my own safety, I began to crawl inside the SUV.

  I was close to halfway inside when I heard Seth, “Uncle Jimmy, you need to hurry.”

  I knew what that meant, “Okay. How far away are they?”

  “About half a football field away.”

  I knew that they moved slow, “Alright. Let me know when they’re close to twenty yards away.”

  Once again, I heard, “PPPllleeeaaassseee hhheeelllppp mmmeee.”

  Without waiting for a response from Seth, I hurried up and crawled the rest of the way in. When my head made it just past the first seat, I cautiously eased my head around the edge to see who was there.

  What I saw caused me to feel bad and sick to my stomach at the same time. Bad because I was the one who caused this guy to be hurt and sick to my stomach on what I was seeing.

  The guy was laying on his back in an unnatural 45-degree angle. He was laying mostly flat on the upside-down roof. It looked like if he wanted to, he could have easily touched his right shoe with his hand, only his right arm was chopped off at the elbow and missing.

  The headrest or top of the seat had cut him practically in half. Only his right-side stomach area was still connected. You could see some of his intestines sticking to the blood-soaked headrest. Blood covered the crushed in roof. Half of his face looked burnt or stained. It was hard to tell, and I wasn’t fixing to get any closer to find out.

  Wide-eyed, he looked at me and stuttered, “III cccaaannn’ttt fffeeeeeelll mmmyyy llleeegggsss ooorrr aaarrrmmm.”

  From his facial expression, it looked like he was going into shock. There was nothing I could do to save him. Well, not entirely. I could ‘mercy’ kill him to end his suffering, but I wasn’t about to do that. No, I wasn’t. Do you want to know why? Because if the guy continued to scream, the dead would hear him and will go after him. It would give us a chance to escape.

  I felt bad for the guy, but this is how the world is now. You must look after yourself, no one else will look after you. It has truly become a ‘survival of the fittest’ type of world. It truly has become the End of Our Humanity.

  The guy pleaded, “PPPllleeeaaassseee. PPPllleeeaaassseee, hhheeelllppp mmmeee.”

  Without saying a word, I began to carefully crawl backwards.

  I yelled out, “Seth, I’m coming out.”

  Seth responded, “Good, the zombies are pretty close.”

  I finished backing out and began to rise to me feet when the guy screamed out.

  He must have realized that I wasn’t going to help him because he screamed, “PPPllleeeaaassseee hhheeelllppp mmmeee!”

  Seth frowned at me, “Are we not going to help him?”

  I turned around and began to walk away, “No. If they hear him scream, their attention will be on him and not on us. It’ll make it that much easier for us to escape.”

  Seth walked up next to me, “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

  I glanced over at my nephew, “Yes. Sadly, this is how the world is now. Only the strong survive and I’m determined to make sure that we are the ones who’s going to survive. You know, we are strong enough to survive, don’t you? Besides, this man is part of the group that murdered our family and friends. He deserves to die!”

  Seth agreed, “You’re right Uncle Jimmy. They do deserve to die. It just feels wrong to do that to another human being.”

  Without stopping, I glanced back at the upside-down SUV and at the ever-growing number of zombies that were beginning to surround it. I could barely hear the guy’s screams for help over the moans from the dead, but it was there. I admit that I felt bad for the guy but knew that there was nothing I could do for him now. With a guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach, I turned back around.

  I spoke out loud, “Yeah, I know how you feel. Unfortunately, we don’t have much of a choice. At the Warehouse, we tried to keep our sense of humanity and gladly welcomed people into our home. But it didn’t work out well for us. You see, others wanted what we had and when we refused to give to them, they attacked. Our society has really changed a lot since the days before the Dead came back to life. Like most people, we had to learn to adapt with those changes. It was a hard lesson for us to learn, but we learned it. Like I said before, it’s survival of the fittest now. I know that it seems unfair, but the world as we knew it is over. We are truly at the End of Our Humanity.”

  Chapter 7: Leaving to Survive

  My sister must have been watching us because she pulled into the gate and stopped a few yards from where we were walking. I opened the front passenger door and turned around to look at the devastation.

  It looked like more than a dozen zombies had surrounded the upside-down car with more coming around the edge of the building. The explosions from the grenade must have attracted more attention than I thought. I swear I could still hear the injured guy screaming for help, but I wasn’t entirely sure. You know, it could have easily been my guilt playing tricks on me.

  Just past the car and zombies was the building that I kind of blew up. From this angle, it looked like the blast had done more damage to the building then it did up close. It wasn’t quite as extensive as the OKC bombing from the mid-nineteen nineties, but it was enough to damage two floors. The front of the building looked like a cave in had occurred in an actual cave.

  My sister broke into my thoughts, “Brother, we have company coming our way.”

  I blinked a few times before looking over at her. She was quite adamant that we needed to leave becaus
e we had a lot of zombies coming our way.

  I looked over my left shoulder and saw that the streets were flooded with zombies. Questions began to form. Where did they all come from? Did the sound from the grenades draw them here? Where were they going?

  Even though the answers eluded me, I came to realize that they didn’t really matter. I didn’t plan on being here when they arrived. I took one last look at everything and climbed into the SUV.

  My sister asked, “Is it over?”

  I looked back at the carnage and said, “I think so.”

  From where I sat, it looked like there was no way Robert could have survived the damage. The conversation I had with Seth replayed in my head. I truly believed that our world had become a world where only the strong survive and I was determined to make sure that we would survive. I know that it sounds a bit unfair, but the world as we knew it was over. I glanced over my shoulder at the horde of zombies coming towards us and thought that we were truly at the ‘End of Our Humanity’.

  My sister looked over at me once more before shifting it into drive. Her leg shifted from the brake to the gas and pushed down. Hopefully, it was a sign of better things to come.

  Once we were on the road, my sister stated that we had a problem. We didn’t have enough gas to make it to Eufaula. In fact, she wasn’t sure that we had enough fuel to make it halfway there. We were going to have to stop and look for gas somewhere.

  Upon hearing the news, I silently cursed myself for not siphoning gas out of the SUV before going into the base. We had more than enough gas in it. If only I had been told sooner.

  I demanded to know, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Without saying a word, she pointed at the fuel gauge. It displayed that it was full.

  Frustrated, I commented, “It looks like we have a full tank of gas.”

  “I know.”

  She reached over to an information display just above the radio. She then pushed a button that was marked ‘info’. She scrolled through a series of messages that gave the MPG average, how many miles until the next oil change, average speed, etc., until she got to the number of miles until it needed gas. The number wasn’t very inspiring. 85 miles! The vehicle could go 85 miles until it needed gas and that wouldn’t even get us halfway. Hell, I think the halfway mark was between 100 to 125 miles.