Before I could come up with an answer that wouldn’t scare her to death, I felt her starting to tremble.
“Look,” she said and pointed to the far-off horizon.
I slowly raised my eyes to look up at the distant sky.
I saw dozens of dark smoke trails in the sky, but this time the streaks in the sky were moving in our direction.
I woke from my nightmare when something wet ran over my face.
I opened my eyes to see Wolfe standing over me.
“Sorry buddy,” I said as I started to sit up and wipe the moisture from my face. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I guess I was having another one of my nightmares.”
But as I sat up I noticed the blue sky and the bright sunshine, it was no longer night.
As I reached out to scratch Wolfe behind the ears, I noticed he was staring at me.
At first I smiled because I thought he had got me up because it was time for breakfast and I had slept in.
It wouldn’t be the first time he had decided to remind me it was time to have breakfast.
But as I looked at Wolfe, he turned his head to look out to the west.
I knew Wolfe was trying to tell me something, but as I said, my ability to read minds was even worse than my sense of smell.
When Wolfe bared his teeth, I finally understood what he was trying to tell me.
Wolfe never barked and he seldom whined, but there was one situation where he would bare his teeth.
I knew I had to get up, the undead were here.
I grabbed my bow and crawled over to the rise that had hidden our position from anything west of us.
“Good Boy,” I said as we crawled to the rise.
Wolfe was next to me, crawling on the ground at my right side.
It was our normal observation formation to allow me time to figure out what Wolfe already knew.
I raised my head up over the rise using a small shrub as cover.
Two hundred feet away, coming straight at us were six of the undead staggering through the brush.
I look behind the approaching group to see if there were more coming in from behind them, but the area behind them appeared empty.
“I think there are only six of them,” I whispered and looked at Wolfe. He was panting calmly now and appeared to be waiting for me to tell him the plan.
We had been in this situation more times than I would care to count, most of the times the odds were much worse than they were now.
I considered with only six of them that the odds were in our favor, especially with Wolfe being my right-hand man.
I was tempted to say that Wolfe felt the same way with the calm look he had on his face, but I had to remind myself that I had never seem him with anything other than a calm determined look on his face, no matter what the odds were.
In fact, he probably felt that he could handle this on his own, but he was a team player and I was the team leader.
Probably the only reason that I was the team leader was because Wolfe was impressed with my ability to cook, but I always at least tried to act the part.
“Stay,” I calmly said. “Let’s wait for them to get a little closer.”
Wolfe seemed to understand as he turned to face the undead and rested his nose on his paws.
In the early days I would just stay out of sight when I only saw a few of the undead walk by.
My thinking was that I would just let them walk away.
The undead were dangerous.
They didn’t have to bite you to get you infected.
If you had a cut or a scratch, you could become infected by getting their blood or even their flesh in your wound.
I had figured that it wasn’t worth the risk to go out and confront only a few of them, so I would just let them walk away.
However I soon began to realize that they usually just didn’t walk away, at least not for very long.
The undead seemed to walk in circles.
Why? I have no idea. Maybe they just don’t know where they are going and they end up walking in circles?
I made that mistake back home in Bismarck and I was determined to never make that mistake again.
I let them walk by and felt that I had dodged a bullet.
An hour later they came back, catching me off guard, and they killed my family.
Whether it is just revenge, anger and frustration, or that they really do walk in circles, I make it a point to kill every one of those things that I can.
When it comes to the undead, there is no such thing as a harmless one, they are all ruthless killers.
I crawled back over to my backpack and put my bow on top of my blanket, then I grabbed the branch that I always keep next to me when I go to sleep.
As critical as the bow is to my survival, a good club comes in a close second.
Besides, I only have a few arrows left and I want to save them until I can get somewhere to find more.
When I go hunting I always retrieve my arrows to use them again, but whenever I have to shoot an arrow at one of the undead, I leave that arrow behind.
I’ve always considered arrows covered in the blood of the undead to be too unsafe to ever touch again.
I crawled back over to Wolfe and using the branch, I made a clubbing motion so he would understand what I intended to do.
I knew he would understand, we had done this before.
“Stay,” I said again as I got to my feet as Wolfe continued to stay hidden below the rise.
The undead immediately saw me and began to groan and reach out with their arms as they quickened their pace to come at me.
I took three steps towards them and waited until they were within ninety feet in front of me.
I tightened the grip on my club and said, “Wolfe! Distract!”
A gray streak shot by me as Wolfe ran at the staggering mob of the undead.
When he reached the front of the mob, he darted off to the left and began to run in circles around the undead.
In the early days, Wolfe would attack the undead, ripping off their arms and legs, but that worried me.
I had never seen an animal become infected and turn in to one of the undead, but I just didn’t want to take that chance with Wolfe. I didn’t want to assume that animals couldn’t become infected.
In fact, I have learned when it comes to the undead that you cannot afford the luxury to assume anything.
On one encounter I noticed that Wolfe running around the undead seemed to confuse and distract them, so I taught Wolfe that just like when we hunted, his job was to circle and herd and to leave the rest to me.
Like I said, he was a fast learner.
In my efforts to train him, I had first instructed him to circle, like when we spotted a rabbit, the rest he kind of figured out on his own.
As Wolfe ran around the undead, some of them tried unsuccessfully to turn and grab him.
I moved in and began to club the others.
I then walked up behind the ones that seemed to be turning in circles, trying to follow Wolfe, and clubbed them too.
It was all over in a few minutes.
“Good Boy,” I said as Wolfe ran over to my side. “Come,” I added and began to walk back to where our blankets laid on the ground.
I opened my backpack and took out a few pieces of dried rabbit meat and handed them to Wolfe.
I tossed a piece into my mouth and began to chew.
I tried to save a few pieces of meat from each kill to eat for breakfast and so we would at least have something to eat in the event that the day’s hunt didn’t turn out too well.
I rolled up Wolfe’s and my blanket and stuffed them into my backpack.
I gave Wolfe another piece of rabbit and patted him on the side and said, “You earned an extra snack today buddy.”
I slung the bow over my left shoulder and used the club as a walking stick.
Then we began another day of walking.
I didn’t know where we were, in fact I figured that places no longer had
names anymore.
There weren’t any states or borders, they no longer existed or had any meaning.
It was just one large empty land.
All I knew was that I was heading west.
I didn’t know how much further west I would go. The weather was warm enough here for me to survive regardless of what the season was now.
I just figured I would know when the time came to stop and stay for a while.
When I found a reason to stop and stay, I would stop.
I really didn’t have any reason to keep moving, but until I found a reason to stop traveling, I guess I would just keep going.
Besides, Wolfe seemed to enjoy our daily routine.
When Wolfe indicated that he didn’t want to keep moving, maybe that would give me a reason to stay in one spot for a while.
But until one of us got tired of traveling, we would just keep going.
Besides, it just didn’t feel safe to stay in one place for very long.
The undead were everywhere, so I found it hard to imagine that we would ever find a place where we could truly feel safe.
Also, I was still searching for some answers.
The answer to my questions were not here and I was beginning to think I would never find the answer I was looking for.
If the answer ever existed, I was sure it had died with the last of mankind.
Wolfe got that look in his eye and excitedly looked to the west.
I knew what that look meant, it was time to go.
We set out on another day with the sun to our backs.
Chapter 3
I don’t know how long I had been asleep when the images of that first day began to run through my mind again.
I knew what was coming but I was helpless to stop it.
Tonight, the visions started where they had stopped when Wolfe woke me up to warn me about the approaching undead.
I hated when the visions came, but I did enjoy the memory of seeing Kelly, Tammy and Jamie one more time.
I was afraid that the day would soon come when I would no longer be able to remember what they had looked like.
The idea of not being able to remember what my wife and kids looked like anymore terrified me more than the nightmares.
When that day would come, I knew that would be the day that the last bit of humanity in me had died.
When in my dream I looked down and saw Kelly’s face, I stopped fighting the dream and for now I let it come.
I looked out the kitchen window and watched as the dark trails of the missiles approached.
I looked down at Kelly, there were so many things I wanted to say, but when I saw her face looking up at me, all I could do was manage a nervous smile.
If this was the last thing I would ever see, I should be grateful.
The look in her eyes spoke more to my soul and answered every question I could have ever asked.
That look told me more than anything she could have said.
As I looked back over my life, all I could think was that I was going to die a happy man, sad but fulfilled after the full and fruitful life we had led.
I took a deep breath as I held her, not knowing if this was going to be my last breath or if I would be given one more before we died.
All the good things that had happened in my life flashed before my eyes.
We both began to tremble as what sounded like thunder rumbled off in the distance.
Large flashes lit up the horizon.
The lights went off and the radio I had been listening to suddenly went silent.
The humming of the refrigerator motor, the clock ticking on the wall, all stopped leaving the house in an eerie silence.
I expected to hear the explosions start to move closer until suddenly everything would begin to disintegrate around us.
Then everything we were or had ever been would be gone as if we had never existed.
As I squeezed Kelly, I thanked God for all he had given me, even if it was to only last for such a short time.
As we waited for the end to come, the regrets also now began to flood in with the good memories and soon they were all I could think about.
Why didn’t I let Kelly get that new car that she had wanted and needed instead of forcing her to keep driving that crummy old Dodge?
Why didn’t I let Kelly buy those cute outfits for Tammy and Jamie?
The new Livingroom suit? Dance class for the girls? Why did we have to skip visiting Kelly’s parents this summer?
Why didn’t I take the that new job I was offered in Sioux Falls, I would have made twice what I am making now and I could have given my family so much more, things that they deserved to have.
Why didn’t I do more for my family?
Why did I have to deny my family to save for the future, look how that worked out!
“Charlie?” Kelly said, shaking me out of my depressing thoughts.
I opened my eyes and looked down at Kelly.
“I think it stopped,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“The explosions or the thunder, it stopped,” she replied.
I perked up and listened, she was right, all the rumbling we had been hearing off in the distance had stopped.
I looked out the window.
The blue sunny sky was gone as dark clouds rapidly moved across the sky to the point where it looked like night time was approaching or a major thunder storm was moving in.
I could see that the wind had picked up as I saw trash blowing through my back yard.
A loud sound came from the neighbor’s yard when their aluminum shed was blown over. A large sheet of metal bounced across the yard and slammed into the side of their house.
“We’re still alive,” I whispered.
“Why?” Kelly asked.
“Maybe the Russians were only targeting the major urban areas around the country,” I replied. “There isn’t anything of strategic importance here.”
“What about the missile silos?” she asked.
“It would be a waste of their missiles,” I replied. “All of our missiles would have been launched by the time their missiles made it here. It wouldn’t do them any good to blow up corn fields.”
“Does that mean we are going to live?” Kelly asked.
“Maybe,” I replied. “Go wake up the girls and get them down in the basement. I don’t know where the missiles hit, but if we are within three hundred miles of where they exploded, we could still be in danger when the tidal wave of heat and radiation comes through here. Go, I’ll get some food and water.”
Kelly ran for the girl’s room as I grabbed a bag and began tossing bread, crackers, cereal and anything else I could get my hands on. I then filled the water cooler and headed for the basement.
I found Kelly and the girls huddled in the corner by the furnace.
I quickly joined them and got down on my knees and put my arms around the girls.
Tammy and Jamie were scared and confused.
“Why are we hiding in the basement?” they asked.
I couldn’t tell them the truth, so I made up something to try and ease their fears.
“There was a big explosion outside and we need to stay down here until it is over,” I said.
“When will it be over?” Jamie asked.
“Soon,” I said. “Soon.”
We seemed to have survived the initial blast, but what worried me was now the radiation and the nuclear fallout.
“Maybe it would have been better if we had been killed by a direct strike,” I then thought of the horrible burns and agony suffered by the people that lived outside of Hiroshima as those images flashed through my mind.
Then I looked down at my girls.
The survivors in Japan were the ones that had suffered the most. The people in the city that had died immediately were the lucky ones.
I doubted that I could maintain my sanity if I was forced to helplessly watch my family suffer such agonies.
I was beginning to wi
sh that we had all died the fast, painless death we had been worried about only a few minutes ago.
“Do you think there will be more missiles coming?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “They probably unloaded everything they had on us at one time, you can only kill someone once. Besides, I doubt there is anyone left to launch any more missiles.”
We stayed down in the basement for the next three days, not yet sure if we were going to live.
We could hear the winds howling, the windows breaking and the sounds of objects crashing into the house.
The noise stopped after the first day, but when I went up to see what the house was like, it was too dark to see anything outside.
The temperature of the air had increased twenty degrees since we day we came to the basement.
Black ash rained down for the next three days until everything had been covered in the gray-black foul smelling substance.
The first night, the thickness of the air made it difficult to breathe.
The second day we began to feel ill, we were running fevers and felt sick to our stomachs.
If we tried to eat anything, it quickly came back up.
We all just laid on the floor half delirious and drenched in sweat.
On the third day panic began to set in when we found blisters beginning to form on Jamie’s left arm.
Chapter 4
The next morning, I was awakened by a pleasant surprise.
I’m not sure everyone would consider having a dead prairie dog tossed on your chest, right under your nose while you were sleeping a pleasant surprise, but Wolfe thought I would appreciate it and I tried my best not to hurt his feelings.
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