by Shane Woods
The groups of running cannibals began sprinting toward the direction of all the commotion. Eventually, the sounds of gunfire and explosions lessened, then lessened even more, and their near-continuous drum beat was replaced by only sporadic fire.
Finally, on what I recalled to be their eighth pass overhead, and towards downtown, the aircraft began to split away from each other, zeroing in on targets as they started to open fire. The massive BRRRRRTTTT of their nose guns, sounding for all to hear like God himself playing with a giant cosmic zipper, filled the air. Massive 30mm rounds from the GAU-8 Avenger cannons laying waste to targets within the downtown area of the city, followed by loud thunderous BOOMS of explosions from ordinance being dropped from their pods on the Warthogs’ wings.
In very little time at all, the clear blue sky was pockmarked with rising columns of black smoke. Downtown must have become no-man’s land in just a matter of moments. The aircraft made another pass, then a third, each pass shaking the entire world with the Hellfire sounds of explosions and plumes of thick, roiling, oily smoke. Then it hit me, what they were doing became very apparent, and I sat down and started laughing.
“What’s funny?” Henry asked.
Through my bursts of laughter, I replied, “We’re fucked. They just said so! We’re done, gotta be, you don’t fire-bomb a city you intend to save. Christ, they swooped in, scorched the earth, and dipped out!”
That realization began to sink in with the others, and in short order, everybody looked like they needed a drink and a vacation. I wonder if there are these monsters in the Caribbean? Christ, I hope not. St. Thomas doesn’t deserve that. Maybe Barbados and Cuba, but please, not the Virgin Islands.
We sat around, talking idly and just passing the time for the rest of the day, each of us with one eye on each other, and one to the outside world, but this time equally as interested in the sky as we were with what was on the ground. They didn’t return for the rest of that day, as we sat long until evening acting like the world hadn’t fallen apart around us in the past week.
The power never came back on after the military had their way with the city. My city. This wasn’t a huge concern, as we barely used any light, and none at night time due to the concerns of being spotted and swarmed. I never had air conditioning in the attic, as it was nowhere near being a finished room, but…
Something was nagging me as we sat watching out of the windows while the girls played. I just couldn’t put a name to it. Then it started to come to me. Like a swirling mist of a thought materializing, right up until you realize there’s a Mack truck hidden behind that fog, and it nails you while you’re not paying attention.
I shot up from my seat on a roll of rugs by the front window.
“Shit!” I nearly shouted.
“What? What’s going on?” I heard from my wife, as Henry ran to my window and began scanning the outside world, returning his gaze to me with a questioning expression.
“The fridge!” I explained, “The fucking fridge, man. Our food. No power. Shit shit shit!” And I ran down the stairs as if the food were on fire, as opposed to on its way to a quicker-than-planned expiration. Henry and Jennifer followed me down, and, right as I reached the fridge, an idea dawned on me.
“Ok, woman, go grab the camp stove from the basement, Henry, get our butcher knives and a bunch of pots and pans and shit, man, we got some cooking and prepping to do!” I directed, and then, on another thought, called down the basement steps to my wife, “Hey grab them Ziploc bags, too, all of them! We got this!”
“Uhmm, Okay,” she replied, then asked, “Do you want the cooler, too?”
“Yeah! Good thinking!” She brought the cooler halfway up, I grabbed it from her and shot a quick “Thanks” as I went back to the kitchen with it and began packing it full of foods from the freezer. Opening the cabinet and grabbing a large handful of grocery bags, I began emptying the refrigerator into those, and making the typical efforts of a man carrying bags of groceries. I will get these all in one trip.
Okay, scratch that, maybe the second trip.
Nope, but the third one is in the bag, no pun intended. Alright, pun intended a little bit.
Making my final trip up to the attic, two full flights of steps, and sweating like Richard Simmons in the 80’s, I placed my final load of cargo in the pile and looked around to the faces of everybody, even the baby, looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Alright, get that stove fired up,” I instructed Jennifer. “Tonight, we eat chicken and fish. I’m going to let the pork and beef thaw, slice it thin, salt the hell out of it, and roast it until it’s jerky. While we wait for the meats to thaw, I’m going to start salting and slow roasting the vegetables. Going to make all this corn crunchy like Corn Nuts, it should keep for a while longer like that, and we can grind some of it into corn meal.”
“Is he for real?” Henry asked Jennifer.
“Do you know how much he’s got locked in that head of his?” she replied, laughing. “If he says it, I’m going to listen.”
“If you say so,” he replied, with a slight shrug.
“Melissa,” I said to my oldest girl, “Dude, run down to the kitchen, fill a grocery bag with spices, and grab the big container of pepper, we’ll need it.”
“Okay,” she replied, with mild enthusiasm, probably simply happy to lend a hand, and disappeared down the steps, returning a few moments later with a bag filled with spice containers, and an econo-sized tin of black pepper in the other hand.
“Why do we need all that pepper?” Henry asked.
“Because,” I replied, “salt preserves, pepper repels bugs and vermin.”
Henry returned to separating the food, now with a thoughtful look on his face as he placed packs of meat here and there to thaw.
We spent the rest of that evening cooking and preparing food, hanging what we’d roasted and dried on cloths and in small sacks made from coffee filters and rubber bands. We cooked a whole bag of salmon fillets, and a couple of packs of seasoned chicken breasts and ate until our bellies were about to burst. Both girls having eaten so much they were fast asleep on their sleeping mats way earlier than they usually would. My wife was reclined back on our pile of blankets, busily writing notes about everything that had happened into her binder. Henry and I were at our respective window seats, a weapon loaded and lain within reach of each of us.
“Shoot brother,” Henry breathed out, loosening his belt, “y’all even eat well at the end of days.”
Chuckling, I replied, “You can do a lot to Germans, dude, but you can’t starve us.”
“I believe that’s right, my friend!” he said, letting out a long sigh. “Hey, let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“I boarded up the first floor. We can block them steps up real nice, why don’t you sleep in your beds?”
“Easy,” I offered, “This is the highest, and most defensible spot in the house. Barring a house fire, this is the smartest place, best view of the neighborhood, and tough to get into, especially with them narrow stairs coming up to here. Plus, it keeps us all accounted for, and in one larger room, instead of spread out in three bedrooms over a whole floor.”
“Makes sense to me,” he replied, “my brother got it all figured out.” As he finished with a smile.
“Yes sir, I’m trying to at least. I’m kind of a rookie at this whole apocalypse thing,” then suggested, “You get some rest, man, I’ll take the first watch.”
“Not about to argue with you there,” as Henry laid down by his window. “I’ll see you in a while.”
“Sleep well, man,” I told him, as he drifted off to sleep in moments, the postprandial somnolence food coma taking him over in apparent waves.
FOUR
The next week, or as best I could tell it was a week, passed by with little to no nuance. It reminded me of my early adulthood, spending time behind bars. Was it two weeks, or had it been three already? Or only one? The only things missing were the sounds of arguing over
the microwave and phones, set to a steady background of loud voices, the slap of cards on the table, and the clink of dominoes. I’d rather this than jail, though. Here, I was with family and a good friend, though the guards were a lot scarier here, and I probably had as much chance here as there for a good solid escape.
At any rate, as best I could figure, it had been another week. Sometime around what I’d assumed to be midnight, I heard something out of place. Straining my ears to listen more closely, I was met with silence for several moments. Just as I was about to relax, I heard it again. It was outside, from right around the back window. Then a third noise there, and I realized I was listening to the sounds of something on, or around, my ladder. We never brought it back in through the window after I’d entered, intending to leave it in case we needed to make a quick escape. I’d seen runners close to it a couple of times, but none of them even acknowledged its existence. Had one of them figured out what it was?
Another noise from below, this one the sounds of weight being applied to the first rung, and I was quickly brought back to the present time. I reached out and shook both Jennifer and Henry awake, motioning to my ears, and then the window.
“Get your guns ready,” I whispered, almost inaudibly, nearly mouthing the words, then, “Jennifer, you watch from up here, Henry, come with me, provide cover from the back of the room, something’s coming up the fucking ladder.”
They both nodded, Jennifer taking her place, her Sig Sauer .45, a beautiful Nightmare 1911 model, at the low ready, close enough to the window to watch, but far enough back to be as close to invisible as possible. Henry grabbed his .357 Taurus revolver and followed me down the steps. We reached the closed bedroom door, my twelve-gauge Remington ready, resting on the crook of my arm to keep it aimed into the room as I reached for the door knob, the stock collapsed all the way in to make it as far from unwieldy as I could.
I slowly turned the knob, and shoved the door quickly, bringing the shotgun to my shoulder and scanning the obviously empty room. The only movement being the curtains blowing slowly with the breeze from the open window.
Then, another creak and pop of the ladder as another slow, careful step was taken. I brought the shotgun in as I crouched in a low cover position at the end of my dresser, Henry hugging the open doorway with his massive wheel-gun aimed for the open window.
I could all but physically feel Henry tense up behind me. I turned to him, mouthing return fire only, and he replied with a nearly imperceptible nod, his affirmative response telling me that maybe we wouldn’t shred somebody we knew, or somebody innocent, if it wasn’t a runner. Maybe.
A couple more creaks of the ladder, and I began to make out a form in the moonlit darkness. The top of a head, and a shock of wild, unkempt red hair backlit by silver from our lunar nightlight. Then, the figure rose some more, I could make out a face. Pale skin on a freckled forehead, then the eyes peeked carefully over the edge. It was definitely a man, the eyes showed none of what we came to know as signs of the infected. No blackening of the iris, no bloody tears streaming down the cheeks.
He turned his gaze back to the back yard, then back into the room, apparently missing my still figure, and Henry’s dark complexion, in the unlit darkness of the room. He made another move upward, and, once a full face was visible, I clicked on the 800 lumen Streamlight mounted to my weapon, and issued one clear, but low, order.
“Don’t…fucking…move…” as I rose, the light turning his pupils to mere pinpricks, illuminating ice blue irises, he nearly fell off the ladder in surprise and realization, but regained his balance.
“Henry, watch my ass,” I instructed.
“I got you, neighbor,” he replied.
The face in the window took on a look of pure shock upon finding out there was more than one of us present, and we were obviously armed.
“I…H…I…friendly…” was all the man in the window could stammer out, a low, scratchy voice emanating from his open mouth, as he raised his hand in a placating gesture.
“Who are you?” I shot at him, irritated. “Belay that, we’re going to draw attention. Are you armed?”
“Y...y…yes,” the man replied.
“Pass it butt first through the window, then stand tall enough to show me your waist line,” I instructed, then added a very deliberate, “Slowly, fucker, I don’t know you.”
He nodded, then, with his free hand, very slowly reached into his belt and began moving his weapon toward the window. It crested the bottom of the window sill with all the speed of a July sunrise, and I braced my shotgun under my right shoulder, and snatched the small revolver with my left hand, and tossed it on the floor behind me without breaking eye contact with the man. He then rose a bit higher on the ladder, bringing his waist line in view of the window, twisting one side to the next.
“Get in, feet apart, hands on your head,” I instructed him, as he nodded and climbed in the window.
He stood nearly a full head shorter than myself but was fairly-well built. He stood up straight, palms on top of his head, feet apart, just as instructed.
“Henry, search him,” I ordered, training the barrel of the Remington on the man’s chest, his eyes going just a bit wider.
“Now hold up,” Henry objected, “why I gotta feel up all over this guy, I don’t know him, don’t know where he’s been, either!”
“Because,” I shot back, impatiently, “we have to make sure he ain’t armed, and while your gun will ventilate him, a slug from this will vaporize his ass if he wants to be stupid tonight.”
Henry grudgingly moved forward, leaning in and patting the man down. Pulling one shoulder, he got the man to turn around, and repeated the process, pulling a long fixed-blade hunting knife from the man’s thigh, and another, though much smaller blade, from a sheath on his ankle, and he tossed both blades into the hallway.
“You alone?” I asked the guy as I clicked the light off on my gun.
“No,” he replied. “My wife and our friend are waiting out there. They…. they’re armed, too.”
“Alright, go get them, we’ll watch the area around the house from up here. Bring their weapons, and anything else you have,” I instructed, “then you all can come up.”
“How do I know you won’t just take our things and lock us out?” he questioned.
“Dude,” I said wearily, “we have more firearms and ammo here than we could possibly carry, even if everybody carried a double load. Let me see that pistol, Henry.”
“Oh, here you go,” and he produced the small silver revolver.
“This a fuckin’ .32,” I chuckled. “You couldn’t give it to me, man.”
“Alright,” he said, looking mildly offended, “I’ll go get them.”
He disappeared back out of the window and down the ladder, and I whispered details of what was going on up to my wife, and told her to keep watch for anything suspicious, but not to fire unless somebody draws. She replied in the affirmative, and by the time I got back into the room, the red-haired guy was making his way up the ladder with two large backpacks.
“This it?” I asked him.
“Yeah man it’s all there,” he replied, “And they’re both out there disarmed, waiting.”
“No knives or other bullshit?” I said with a small grin.
“Yeah, no,” he said, chuckling, “Sorry about that.”
“I can’t blame you, I’d have kept a piece or two also, we don’t know each other,” Henry opined.
“Alright, Henry’s going to check you out again,” I told him. “Once you’re good, go wait at the back of this room. We’ll get through this quick as we can.”
The man nodded as he assumed his earlier position, and let Henry pat him down, spun, and did it again, then he moved to the furthest corner of the room. I moved to the window, clicked my tongue a couple of times, and motioned with my arm. Two figures rose from the grass where I’d originally approached the house from and began to make their way across my small back yard to the ladder.
The first to reach the window was a woman, presumably the guy’s wife, her small wiry frame and dark hair appearing at the window and stopping, looking right into the barrel of my shotgun, then over to the red-haired man; he nodded, and she slowly made her way into the room. I held her the same as I held him, at gunpoint, and Henry made the pat-down, but with no words of argument this time. While he was searching the small woman, the other person appeared at the window. A face about the same age as the others, around late twenties, and short cropped dark hair. I held my hand out to halt him.
“Hold up, boss,” I said calmly. “You each are getting searched and kept unarmed until we know who you are, as well your intentions.”
He eyed me suspiciously, and was about to say something, but the first man shook his head and held up a hand, and he remained quiet. Henry finished patting down the girl and motioned for her to go stand with the guy near the corner.
The final piece of their trio got the signal from me and began making his way into the room. Actually, he almost squeezed through the window, as opposed to climbing through. This guy was freaking huge. Standing a head taller than myself, in stark contrast to the first guy’s small size, this one was tall, and looked solid, aside from a healthy beer belly. Short dark hair, and tattoos starting at his jawline and fingertips, disappearing into his striped polo shirt. His dark eyes narrowed, and his eyebrows shot up as if to say ‘Well, I’m here, now what?’.
Henry approached, hesitated, and the first man offered a light-hearted, “He don’t bite.” Henry began going through the motions as I wondered if a shotgun slug would even do the job. The man turned, showing his back, and Henry patted him down once again.
“They all clean, brother,” Henry shared.
“Okay,” I replied, still eyeballing the ink-covered, bipedal behemoth that was blocking the entire window.
“Chris,” the man said, low in pitch and volume. “Chris Simons,” he said, as he shook my hand.
We all made our introductions, Chris Simons, Rich Lester, and Rich’s wife, Carolyn. ‘Doctor. Doctor? Doctor. Doctor. Doctor? Doctor.’