We Are Still Here

by Jimmy Bird

  What I saw almost made me sick to my stomach. His ankle wasn’t just swollen. It was severely bruised. The ankle had already turned a nasty yellowish green color. Oh man, that wasn’t good news at all. It meant that his ankle was most likely broken.

  I looked up and called out his name, “Seth?”

  No response.

  I tried again, “Seth?”

  Still, no response.

  I looked over at my daughter, “His ankle looks broken. With no doctors around, I’m not sure what we’re going to be able to do.”

  She responded in a serious, grownup type of tone, “Dad, just let me know what you want me to do and I’ll do it. Okay?”

  I was about to inform her that the first thing we needed to do was get Seth back to the car when my sister screamed out. I couldn’t tell if it was a frustrated scream or from pain, but just as quickly as she started, she suddenly stopped. Regardless of why she started screaming and suddenly stopped didn’t change the fact that the sound of her scream caused me to freeze in place. My eyes got wide as I looked over at my daughter. Our eyes locked eyes.

  I took a deep breath and tossed the knife back to her, “Be ready.”

  With concern in her eyes she asked, “Be ready for what?”

  I didn’t answer as I grabbed my machete and stood up.

  She frowned, “Dad? What do I need to be ready for?”

  Without thinking, I turned towards my sister, “I’m not sure yet. I have a bad feeling that somethings wrong and I need you to be ready just in case things are that bad.”

  Fearing the worst, I noticed that my sister was silently rolling around on the ground. Her hands were around her throat, covered in a dark substance. Something was on the ground on the other side of her moving around. It was just out of my line of sight.

  With that ‘bad feeling’ that you get in the pit of your stomach when you feel that something is horribly wrong, I began walking towards her. The closer I got, the worst the feeling felt. Before I knew it, I was running at a full sprint towards her.

  When I was within a few feet, I saw something that caused me to stop dead in my tracks. I stared wide-eyed at my sister as my heart skipped a beat. I stood there dumbfounded as my mind tried to process what my eyes were seeing. I must have had one of those ‘Oh, Shit’ moments because I couldn’t move. I stood frozen on what to do. It all seemed so surreal.

  A few feet away from me, rolling around on the ground was my sister. Her eyes darted around until she noticed me standing there. Her own hands clenched around her throat.

  Blood seeped through her fingers and onto the ground underneath her. I could see torn pieces of flesh sticking out through her fingers. The wound was so massive that her tiny hands just couldn’t cover the wound. It looked like her throat had been ripped out by a wild animal. Like, something with fangy teeth had bit into her throat and quickly pulled back.

  My knees felt like giving out on me as I watched her mouth open and close. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to talk to me or just trying to breath. She stopped squirming around and stared at me. Her eyes were beginning to glaze over. Her mouth kept opening and closing but was slowing down.

  I panicked and didn’t know what to do. I wanted to drop to my knees and hold my dying sister in my arms. I wanted to tell her that I loved her and that everything was going to be okay. But I couldn’t.

  I turned my head to look over at my daughter and passed out nephew. No, I wouldn’t do that. Because, I knew what killed my sister and knew that I could easily get bit myself. If that happened then my daughter and nephew would most likely die, probably sooner than later.

  I couldn’t let that happen. I refused to let that happen. After all, I had made a silent promise to my wife that I would keep our daughter safe.

  For me to keep my daughter safe meant that I would have to kill my own sister. Either, before she changed or after. I wasn’t sure if I was even cold enough to do that to my own sister.

  I glanced back down at my sister and fought back tears. My knees felt even weaker than before. My vision had become blurry.

  I reached down and grabbed the bottom of my shirt. I pulled it up and wiped my forming tears away. I wanted to make sure that I could focus on her face. I wanted, no, I needed to see her face one last time.

  After I wiped my tears away, I felt something grab my right shoe. I jumped a little before looking down to see what it was and what I saw will haunt me for the rest of my days. I know that I say that often, but it’s true.

  A bloody hand had a hold of the front part of my right shoe. I had a bad feeling as I used my eyes to quickly trace the hand back to its body. The zombie was face down but wore a familiar looking shirt that was mostly wet and bloody. I noticed that its right arm was bloody and lifeless by its side. I made a mental note that its legs weren’t moving either.

  I was about to kick the thing’s hand off my shoe whenever the zombie moved its head up to look at me. My heart stopped beating when I saw who it was. I knew exactly why the zombie’s right arm wasn’t moving.

  Guilt washed over me like a tidal wave when I saw Bobby’s bloody face looking at me. He had that distinctive zombie ‘hunger’ look in his eyes. He tried to use his left arm to pull himself to me, but I think that the weight of dragging his motionless body towards me was too much for him.

  I knelt in front and watched him struggle to pull himself towards me. After a few minutes of trying, he released my shoe and tried to reach out to me instead. I knelt there dumbfounded, just out of his reach. I watched in horror as he tried everything, he could to get to me.

  I took a deep breath and raised my machete up. I was determined to end Bobby’s misery when I was bumped into from my left side. It wasn’t a hard hit, but it was so sudden and unexpectedly that it caught me off guard. Luckily, my machete blade was facing upward, otherwise I could have easily impaled myself when I hit the ground.

  I turned my head to see who had hit me and my nightmare had quickly become a reality. Almost standing over me at an angle and on unsteady feet, was my sister. She looked like a child trying to stand on her own for the first time. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, exposing her throat which had a mouth size chunk taken out of it. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she hadn’t focused her attention on me, yet. It seemed that she had unintentionally bumped into me.

  I was so focused on watching my sister that I jumped to my left side when I felt something touch my right arm. I looked over wide-eyed to my right and noticed that Bobby had somehow inched closer to me. I knew that I needed to do something quick or it was going to get messy for me.

  While watching Bobby work hard just to inch closer to me, I noticed movement out the corner of my left eye. I turned my head just in time to see my sister open her mouth into a snarl that exposed her bloody teeth. Her fingers bended in such a way that made her fingers look like claws. With that zombie hungry look in her eyes, she began to lunge downward towards me.

  In the blink of an eye, I tried to quickly work out a plan in my head. Keeping Bobby in mind, I figured that I could roll to my left so that I would stay out of his reach and could move fast enough to stay away from my sister. I figured that if I could roll fast enough, my momentum would allow me to continue rolling until I was up on my feet again. I figured that she would fall directly face first onto the ground. While she was on the ground, I would take the opportunity to pounce on her. With the element of surprise, I was confident that I could easily kill her and Bobby.

  Just like most of my plans recently, this one didn’t go according to plan either. As I began rolling, my feet got tangled up with my sister’s. It not only slowed down my momentum, but it caused her to fall immediately. Only, instead of falling directly on her face at the spot where I had just vacated, she fell on top of me.

  The force of my roll and the way our feet tangled up must have turned her at an angle that caused her to fall directly on me. Lucky for me, I had just rolled a full one hundred and eighty degrees and had just retur
ned to my back.

  I instinctively dropped my machete and lifted my hands up just in time to catch her as she got within arm’s reach. She automatically began bobbing her head towards me as she opened and closed her mouth to bite me. Blood from her open wound on her neck began dropping on my upper body, missing my mouth by mere inches. As she was trying to bite me, she began moving her arms around in such a way that it seemed like she was trying to pry my hands off her in order to grab me. After a few minutes, it seemed like I was fighting a losing battle.

  I’m not sure if it was her wiggling around on top of me or the fact that I was starting to get tired, but it seemed that she was getting a lot heavier. I began straining to hold her up and away from me. I started to grunt the way people used to do when they were pushing themselves during their work outs.

  I was about to try something spontaneous that I hoped would get her off me when Bobby’s bloody head peeked around my sister’s shoulder. The blood from his mouth began dripping on my left cheek. I turned my head because I refused to let the blood get into my mouth. I didn’t want to risk the chance of me getting infected.

  I fought as hard I could to hold the combined weight of both up, but I was getting tired. My arms felt like they were going to give out on me at any moment, but I refused to give up. The thought of my daughter being all alone in the world kept running through my head. It was enough for me to keep fighting.

  My mind raced to find a solution for my problem. How was I going to get both off me without getting bit?

  At the thought of them inadvertently caused another question to come to mind. How would I get them off me? I mean Bobby was in the other direction when my sister had turned and attacked me. Could he had grabbed her leg and used it to pull himself up? Was that why it felt like she was heavier then she was supposed to be at the time? It seemed that all I had was questions.

  My arms began to shake as I strained to hold them both up. My arms felt like they were on fire. I needed a plan and quickly.

  A thought occurred to me. What would happen if I curled my knees up enough to get them under my sister? Would I be able to get enough leverage to push them off me?

  I was getting desperate and was starting to hyperventilate. I knew that I needed to calm myself down because if I didn’t then I was going to die. I turned my head back to face them and immediately regretted it. Staring at the zombie faces of my sister and Bobby weren’t helping me any.

  I closed my eyes to concentrate when I felt something touch my left shoulder. I quickly opened my eyes to find that Bobby’s bloody hand reaching out to me. The sight of his hand almost caused me to jump. Almost.

  With my concentration locked on fighting to hold them off me, I had no time to worry about something as simple as his hand. Just then I felt my sister’s weight begin to shift to my left. I figured that Bobby must have begun crawling up my sister’s back again. With the sudden shift in weight, I began to lose my grip with my left side.

  All I kept thinking was that this was it. I was going to die at the zombie hands of my sister and Bobby. Afterwards, I would most likely turn into a zombie and would go after my own daughter and injured nephew. There was nothing I could do to save myself or my daughter.

  I closed my eyes once again and prayed, but not to God. No, I prayed to my wife. I prayed for forgiveness for failing to protect our daughter. I wanted her to know that I did everything I could to fulfill my promise.

  I was about to ask for her forgiveness and accept my fate when I felt the weight on my left arm shift a little back to my right side. I opened my eyes and noticed that Bobby’s head was almost behind my sister’s. I couldn’t help but wonder. How did that happen?

  Before I knew it, my prayers were answered. Well, sort of.

  I heard my daughter’s strained voice, “Uncle Bobby. Get off my dad!”

  “JoJo?”

  “Dad. Are you alright?”

  I sighed my relief, “So far.”

  I continued to strain to keep my sister up and away from me, “JoJo? Are you alright?”

  I heard her grunt as she replied, “Yeah. I’m trying to get Uncle Bobby off you. He’s heavy.”

  Fear struck me, “JoJo, be careful. That’s not Uncle Bobby anymore.”

  Straining, she replied, “I know. I just don’t know what else to call him.”

  I sighed again, “Yeah. I know you mean.”

  Just then I heard my daughter scream out, followed quickly by something that sounded like skin tearing. NO!

  My immediate thoughts went to my daughter as I spoke, “JoJo?”

  When I didn’t get a response, I screamed out her name, “JOJO!”

  I still didn’t get any kind of response.

  I can’t describe the loss I was feeling at that exact moment. I lost everyone I had ever cared about in less than a few months. My twins, sister, mom, niece, friends, family, and now after all that, my daughter. The only person I had left was Seth and he was most like a goner. His foot was broken and there was nothing I could do about it. I failed to protect them, to protect all of them. I was a failure.

  My arms were getting so tired from the weight of holding my sister’s active zombie body up and away from me. I was ready to give up. With my daughter dead, I had nothing left to live for. It would be so easy to just let go and let my sister eat me, so I could become one of the Dead. Maybe then I be with my family again.

  My sister’s head bobbed side to side as she tried to bend her neck low enough to bite me. Why was I still fighting? Without my daughter, I just didn’t think that I could go on fighting to live anymore.

  My mind was made up. I was going to let go of my sister. She could easily put me out of my misery.

  I loosened my arms to allow my sister to drop when she stopped moving. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she went limp. Confused, I asked myself what could have happened to her. Before I could even ask the question out loud her body was slowly being pulled off me.

  Standing over me with her hands on her knees and covered in blood was my daughter. My daughter! JoJo was alive!

  Out of breath, she collapsed next to me on the ground as she asked, “Dad? Are you alright?”

  Relief rushed through me, “Yeah. Are YOU alright?”

  She took a deep breath, “Yeah.”

  I look over at the bodies, “What happened?”

  She looked exhausted, “Well. When I was pulling Uncle Bobby off you, I lost my footing, and fell backwards. He then fell backwards on top of me. I pulled my knife out in time and his head fell directly on top of it. I heard you scream my name but couldn’t respond. I had a hard time breathing because he was crushing me. When I was finally able to push him off me, I had a hard time catching my breath. I saw that you were struggling with Aunt Tina and just kind of reacted.”

  I slowly sat up and could see the tears beginning to form in her eyes. She had killed her aunt, the woman who had been like a mother to her this past year. I reached out and put my right arm around her. Without hesitation, I pulled my daughter close to me.

  For the first time in a long time, my daughter melted into my arms. She accepted my embrace by putting her head on my shoulder. I lowered my head onto her head. She began to sob uncontrollably which in turn caused my own eyes to moisten. We had lost two more people that we had loved, making the grand total of four people. Four people in a matter of a few days. The odds of our survival were getting lower and lower.

  I looked over at the bodies of my sister and Bobby through moistened eyes. A tremendous amount of guilt washed over me. I had failed them, just like I had failed Danny and Austin. I had failed to protect my family.

  My body felt drained of energy. I wanted nothing more than to lay down and rest, to close my eyes and wake up from this never-ending nightmare. As a matter of fact, I was about to do just that when I heard Seth scream from behind us.

  I let go of my daughter’s shoulder and turned one hundred eighty degrees so that I was into a low defensive position, ready to react. I
looked down, hoping that my machete was within arm’s reach and noticed that my daughter was in a similar position. I beamed with pride. She looked like a trapped animal, ready to strike. Her knife was in her right hand, blade pointed forward. I grabbed my machete with my left and quickly shifted it to my dominant right hand.

  I looked up and noticed that Seth was sitting up, pointing at something behind the pile of cars. My eyes followed his hand toward my left and noticed that we had company coming towards us, a lot of company.

  I looked over at my daughter, “We need to go. NOW!”

  I quickly stood up, ready to run to Seth when my daughter said, “Wait. What about Aunt Tina and Uncle Bobby?”

  “What do you mean?”

  My daughter eyes dropped, “We can’t just leave them. We need to bury their bodies.”

  My facial expression softened, “I know how you feel, but we don’t have time to bury them.”

  “What do you mean we don’t have time?”

  Without saying a word, I pointed with my left hand towards the pile cars. She looked over at the horde of zombies making their way towards us and her mouth dropped.

  Frightened, she asked, “Dad? How many do you think are coming this way?”

  I shook my head, “I’m not sure. But from the dust coming up from behind them, it could be in the hundreds, if not in the thousands. Look, I also want to bury your Aunt Tina and Uncle Bobby, but if we don’t leave, we are going to die. Your aunt and uncle wouldn’t want that to happen. They loved you that much.”

  My daughter looked back over at the bodies of her aunt and uncle, “I’m sorry Aunt Tina and Uncle Bobby. I’m sorry that we couldn’t save you. I’m sorry that we don’t have time to bury you. But I promise you that we’ll protect Seth.”

  My jaw dropped. I had never heard my daughter talk like that before. She had a passion in her voice that I had never heard her use. It seemed that my daughter was growing up right in front of me. At that moment, I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.