We Are Still Here

by Jimmy Bird

  The longer I watched it, the more it began to look like a person (I guess you would kind of call it a person). He or she looked skinny and I mean skinny, like they hadn’t eaten in a week. Their eye sockets looked dark and sunk in. clothes were filthy and torn and completely too big. The shirt looked like it went to the person’s knees. While the person was running in our direction, it looked like they were struggling to hold their pants up with their right hand. Their hair was long and matted up with a nasty blondish looking color to it. The hair appeared to move the person’s head from left to right as they ran.

  The person waved their left hand as they called out in a raspy voice, “Help! Help me please! Please help me!”

  I sat there motionless as I watched him or her make their way towards us, screaming for help. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I was mesmerized by whoever it was. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but the person looked vaguely familiar.

  My daughter touched my right shoulder, causing me to slightly jump. I turned my head towards her and quickly asked, “What?”

  Wide-eyed, she asked, “Dad. Are we going to help that person?”

  I looked at her face, “I don’t know. You remember what happened the last time we tried to help someone? It could be another setup.”

  My daughter nodded her head, “Yes dad, I remember. But look at her. She looks way to filthy to be like James.”

  I glanced back at the figure running towards us, “Her? Are you sure it’s a her?”

  My daughter answered, “Yeah. Can’t you tell?”

  I turned towards my daughter, “No.”

  Without waiting for another reply, I turned my head towards the figure again and watched. Sure enough. My daughter was right. It looked like a girl, a familiar looking thinnish girl.

  The closer she got, the more we could tell that it was a girl. The feminine high pitch in her rough voice was noticeable. Again, there was something about her that seemed so familiar. Maybe, it was the voice or the color of her hair.

  When she got close to ten feet from the back of our car, I saw her face for the first time. She looked dead on my cousin’s next to youngest daughter, Makalyn. Makalyn? What’s she doing here? How’s she still alive?

  I turned towards JoJo, “I need you to crawl to the backseat. Hurry!”

  My daughter just looked at me.

  “JoJo. Just do it. That’s our cousin!”

  With a scowl on her face, she reluctantly crawled between the seats to sit next to Seth. Seth was still unconscious.

  I rolled down the rear passenger window just as Makalyn reached the door, “Makalyn. Get in!”

  She froze in place, “How? How do you know my name?”

  I pointed out, “Makalyn, it’s your cousin Jimmy.”

  She frowned, “Jimmy?”

  “Yeah. Your mom’s cousin, Jimmy.”

  Wide-eyed, she suspiciously asked, “Where’s my mom?”

  I looked behind us, “I don’t know. Just get in. We don’t have time for this right now.”

  She opened the passenger backdoor, but JoJo stopped her. With an annoyed tone in her voice, my daughter put her hand up, “What are you doing? Get in the front seat.”

  Makalyn just stared at me daughter like she had just called her an idiot or something.

  “If you’re going to get in then get in. Otherwise, we don’t have time for this.”

  Makalyn looked over her left shoulder and saw that the zombie horde that had been chasing her was almost upon us. She quickly shut the back door and reached for the front passenger door. She pulled on the door handle and opened it. Instantly, the smell of rotten garbage and urine rushed inside the vehicle.

  JoJo wrinkled her nose, “Ugh. What’s that smell?”

  She jumped in and pulled the door shut behind her, “Me! With them chasing me, I didn’t have time to go to the bathroom.”

  Sarcastically, she tried an ill-timed joke, “It’s not like I could tell them to stop so I could go pee.”

  I had to partially hold my breath, “Okay. I’m telling you though that as soon as we get someplace safe, we need to find you some clothes and get you cleaned up.”

  She looked over her shoulder at me, “Deal. Now can we get out of here?”

  I turned the wheel to the right, hoping that we weren’t driving into a dead end. I investigated the rearview mirror. The zombie horde was almost upon us but that wasn’t what bothered me. I saw my daughter’s eyes in the mirror staring at the back of Makalyn’s dirty head. I meant to ask my daughter what was on her mind but decided not to when the first zombie hit the back window of the SUV.

  I pushed down on the gas, surging us forward. I was secretly hoping that it would be a positive metaphor for us. A start of a new chapter. A new start on life. A new hope for the future.

  When we got a few blocks between us and the zombie horde, I turned towards Makalyn, “Makalyn? You want to tell me what happened and why you’re out here all by yourself?”

  She turned her head to look wide-eyed at me, as if I had just asked her to tell me her deepest darkest secrets or something. She didn’t answer me as she turned her head to the right to look out the window. I noticed that the bottom part of her jaw moved around, like she was silently talking to herself.

  I’m not sure what it was. Maybe, it was guilt or something else. Maybe, it was because she was the only family, we had left in the world but something inside told me to talk to her. It felt as if she needed to talk.

  I glanced over at her, “You know Makalyn, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. No pressure or anything. We’re just concerned about you, that’s all.”

  When I didn’t get a response, I probed a little, “Makalyn. Where’s your mom? Dad? Brother and sisters? Where’s your family?”

  Those questions got a response but not the kind I was hoping for. She turned and looked over at me with a glaring look. One of those ‘don’t ever ask me about my family again’ type of looks. Within seconds, her eyes softened a little, just a little.

  In a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “My mom? I don’t know where she is.”

  Without warning, anger crept into her voice, “Why don’t YOU tell me where my mom is! Are you seriously asking me that question? Really? Have you seen what’s happened to the world? Why would you ask me such a stupid question?”

  I noticed movement in the rearview mirror. My eyes naturally focused on the movement. At Makalyn’s reaction to my questions, JoJo had pulled out her knife. I know what she was thinking. Our eyes met. I slightly shook my head to indicate ‘No’ to my daughter. I knew that Makalyn was just upset about something. I just didn’t know what it was yet. Besides, I didn’t need JoJo to fly off the handle.

  Out loud, I said, “Whoa Makalyn. Calm down. I’m just curious about what happened to you. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. You can tell us what happened when you’re ready.”

  I wasn’t sure if Makalyn noticed my headshake or if she even cared because she turned her head back towards the window, “Who’s the guy in the backseat?”

  I responded, “That ‘guy’ is your cousin. Your cousin, Christina’s son and my nephew. Seth.”

  She didn’t seem impressed with what I had just told her, “What’s wrong with him?”

  I sighed, “It’s kind of a long story, but the short version is that he broke his ankle. Well, at least that it appears that he broke his ankle.”

  Without looking away from the window, she asked, “How?”

  I glanced over at her again, “We had just tried to go to Lake Eufaula and came across a pileup of abandoned cars blocking the highway.”

  At the mention of Lake Eufaula, Makalyn turned her head slightly towards me again. Just enough to look at me through the corner of her left eye. For some strange reason, it appeared that she was trying to hide the fact that she had turned her head, but it was noticeable.

  In an accusing tone, she asked, “What about Lake Eufaula?”

  That caught her attention,
“Like I said, we’re on our way to Lake Eufaula?”

  She turned towards me, “Are or were?”

  I frowned, “Both.”

  Frustrated, she asked, “What does that mean?”

  I glanced at the road, “Well, it means that we were on our way to Eufaula until we came across a roadblock and had to turn around. We decided to take this road as a means to go around the car pileup and it was a good thing we did. Otherwise, you would most likely be dead. So, you can just quit with the attitude because we saved your life.”

  Her face softened up a little as she turned back towards the window, but her attitude was still there, “Umm. Thank You!”

  I smirked, “I didn’t hear you. What was that?”

  Her voice softened, “Thank you.”

  My smirked turned into a smile, “You’re welcome, cousin.”

  At the mention of cousin, she turned back to face me with tears in her eyes. Her voice barely above a whisper as she managed to speak, “I’m sorry, okay. It’s just that.... I was held prisoner in the El Reno area ever since this mess started. It took me awhile to escape, but once I did, I was able to make my way home to Chandler, only to find that everyone was either, gone or zombies. While traveling home, I wasn’t sure what would be waiting for me. I was hoping to find my family alive, safe and sound. It was that ‘hope’ that kept me alive this past year. It was the only thing that kept me going when everything else seemed lost.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to her. We had all lost loved ones, but some reason a word kept bothering me. I’m not sure why the word ‘prisoner’ stuck in my head, but I didn’t like the sound of it.

  “What do you mean by ‘prisoner’?”

  She didn’t say a word as she turned back towards the window. I waited patiently for her to speak, but nothing came. I glanced into the rearview mirror and noticed that my daughter had relaxed. She put her knife away and looked from Makalyn to me and back again. When she noticed I was watching her, she kind of nodded her head towards Makalyn. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell me, but I took it as a sign to start speaking again.

  I tried to sooth her, “Makalyn, you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to. I want to tell you about what happened to us. You see, your Uncle John and I was members of a survival ‘prep’ group at work called the Council. You knew that we worked together, didn’t you? I mean of course you did because your grandmother and grandfather also worked there. Regardless, we were part of a ‘survival’ group.”

  I grew silent as the thoughts of the past year washed over me. My emotions began to grow, and I knew that I had to keep them in check. Our survival could depend on it.

  She turned her head towards me, silently watching. It was as if she was waiting for me to continue.

  Once I had my emotions in check, I took a deep breath and began again, “When the dead came back to life, our work sent us home ‘until’ further notice. By the time I got home from work, my neighborhood had become a war zone. Cars were turned over and on fire, houses had smoke rising from them, people were chasing each other around, etc. When I pulled up to my house, two guys were trying to break into it my front door. I managed to sneak inside through the garage and get my family. Just like me, the rest of the survivor group, including your uncle, had rushed home to get their families. Our plan was to rush back to the Warehouse. It was our ‘designated’ safe place. But things went wrong when my family tried to leave our house. My daughter was grabbed by one of those people trying to break into my house. While I was trying to get the rest of my kids in the car, Jimmy Jr took it upon himself to save his sister. He ended up getting bit.”

  Tears formed in my eyes and began to roll down my cheek, “I failed to protect my family and my son suffered for it. He saved his sister at the cost of his own life. We were able to escape, but Jimmy died on the way to the Warehouse. It was more then my wife, Nichole could bare. She reached over him and wept. As you can imagine, he didn’t stay dead for long. He began to move, which gave my wife hope. Hell, it gave all of us hope. I remember thinking that maybe he didn’t die after all and that it was a sickly virus that gave people the symptoms of death or something like it. But that wasn’t the case. Without warning, Jimmy bit his mother in the neck. As you can imagine, things quickly turned chaotic. Lucky for us, we had made it to the Warehouse before my wife turned.”

  I took a deep breath, “Every member of the group, except for two, made it back to the Warehouse that day. They had all experienced a similar loss of a loved one. The two members that didn’t show up, we had no clue about them and thought they were dead. My sister and her family also showed up. She even had our mom, Nana Jean, in tow.”

  I continued, “It seemed that all our preparations for the coming zombie apocalypse were for nothing. There’s no easy was to put it, we just weren’t prepared for it. We were so unprepared that we lost members early on, including your uncle. By the time we had a grip on how to survive, the two missing members of the group returned. We were so excited to see them that we thought that our prayers for help were answered, but fate as we all know, is cruel. They were there to take the Warehouse from us. They showed up with a group that consisted of their own family and friends. They attacked and killed most of our group in one swift move as our women and children tried to escape, including my other two sons, my mom, your aunt and her kids, and numerous others from our group. We fought back back as best we could, but we were severely outnumbered. It seemed that the noise from the battle attracted zombies, which attacked those on the outside of our fence. Those of us on the inside of the fence, ran for our lives. The appeared that the two returning members died at the hands of their own family. It was really hard to tell when everything became chaotic.”

  I calmed myself, “Ironically, the two returning members had an even larger group then we originally thought because we came across another large group that had been looking for them. They followed us to our backup safezone and chased us out of there. We finally decided to leave the city and go to Lake Eufaula, but it just wasn’t meant to be yet. With seven of us remaining, we headed out towards the lake but quickly ran into trouble. The group had set up traps to catch us but with the help of a horde of zombies, we escaped. Unfortunately, not before we lost another two members. It was down to five of us until we ran into the pileup just off the highway. There, we lost my sister and her husband. That’s where Seth got hurt.”

  I looked at her sympathetically, “You see Makalyn, you’re not the only one who lost loved ones. I know it sucks not knowing what happened to them, but at least you have hope that they’re still alive out there somewhere.”

  She shook her head, “I don’t think they are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Absentmindedly, she asked, “You remember that my dad was my high school softball coach back then, don’t you?”

  I tried to remember what life was like before the zombie apocalypse, “Yeah. I think that I remember something about it. Didn’t you all win back to back State Championships and was going for your third before the mess went down?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the point. The night before we were to head to the Yukon area for a softball tournament, my dad was attacked by a random fan outside of the restaurant where we traditionally ate dinner the night before each game. Well, at the time we thought it was a random crazed fan. The guy had a reddish stained Chandler softball shirt on and had a crazed look in his eyes. His mouth was partially exposed, showing off stained teeth. The strange thing was that I don’t remember him making a sound. It just seemed like he couldn’t speak. Regardless, he put his hands out in front and rushed towards us. My father, like many of the parents and coaches, got between us and the fan.”

  Tears began to run down her face and her voice became a whisper, “My dad was in front and put his right hand up to stop the fan. The guy slowed down enough to grab my dad’s arm with both of his hands. My dad tried to calm the guy down by talking to him. Without warning, the guy quickly pulled my dad
’s arm up to his mouth and bit down. My dad screamed for help. The other parents and coaches began pulling the guy off my dad. The guy let go of my dad and immediately went for the closest parent. He got the parent around the neck.”

  She took a deep breath, “By that time, the police had shown up with medical personnel. The police managed to pull the guy off the parent and just like before, as soon as the guy was pulled from the parent, he went for the next closest person, a policewoman. Catching the officer by surprise, he easily overpowered her. He bit her hand as she put it up to fend him off. Seeing the fellow officer in trouble the other officers responded by pulling the guy off and slamming him to the ground. The guy didn’t seem phased or anything. Without so much as a sound, he began to lift himself up, all the while trying to bite the officers holding him down.”

  “I heard my mom yell my name and I looked away from what was happening. She motioned for me to come over to her. Being a stubborn teenager, I turned back to see what was going on, but it looked like the police had successfully handcuffed the guy. Thinking that everything was finally over, I ran over to my mom and dad.”

  Makalyn’s bottom lip began to quiver, “When I got there, my mom told me that she was going with my dad to the hospital. She wanted me to take my younger sister home and that they would see us later after the doctor stitched up my dad’s hand. I noticed that my dad’s complexion had changed. Being part Native American, he had naturally darker skin then most people, but he was pale white. My dad spoke up and told me not to worry about him, that he had already talked to the other coaches. They were still planning on having us go to the tournament. My dad and mom……They were supposed to meet us there……... Do you see now? They couldn’t possibly be alive”

  Makalyn stopped talking and closed her eyes. Her body shook as she silently wept. I could see how hard she was fighting back her tears. I glanced at the rearview mirror at my daughter. Her eyes were moist and a reddish color. I couldn’t tell if she about to cy or had just got through crying.