Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger

by Roberts, Liz

  “Christ. The frick’n kid was shooting off the roof again with that 50 cal rifle again. You know we can’t have loud noises like that, more Zeds will be here in the morning because of that, which means more work fighting them all back. Plus we only have so much ammo for that one gun, what happens when we really need and have no shells? The kid doesn’t think. We have to be three steps ahead of these dead fucks.” Casey was getting irritated now.

  “Slow down Casey, I hear what you’re saying, but the kid is only 19. Man he was in college before this, studying and trying to get laid. The last thing he thought he’d be doing for the rest of his life would be hanging out in Kohl’s department store with a bunch of strangers.” Kurt stated.

  “Look, I’m not the only one in charge to make decisions, there’s three of us remember, but it sure feels like I’m sure as hell the only one enforcing the rules around here lately.” Casey turning now, his shoulders suddenly feeling heavy, quietly he continued.

  “I’m not sure how much more I can take of this. We can’t afford to slip up yet, or be lax, there’s still too many Zeds out there, still so much we need to do. I don’t care how old he is, he’s old enough to follow rules… . . otherwise he can go at it alone.” Casey said more quietly.

  “I know you don’t mean that. Just cut the guys some slack, everyone’s been working so hard, trying to keep up with you and your ideas. Which those are great ideas by the way, but everyone needs a day of rest now and again.” Kurt said putting a calming hand on Casey’s shoulder. Too bad the guy was straight he he’d love to be that shoulder for him to lean on Kurt thought.

  “Fine, then give little Will some new jobs that make him happy and gives him plenty of play time, but keeps him quiet, I don’t want to hear any complaining when the switch is … … … . “ Casey’s speech came to a halt has he saw the car out in the distance speeding up the street towards them.

  “What’s wrong?” Kurt asked worriedly looking at Casey’s face. Some of the other people on the roof noticed it right away too.

  “That’s a car.” He pointed well out into the distance. ”We’ve got to get their attention so they come here.” Kurt got on his radio to the gate crew to let them now about the potential new arrivals, Casey ran over to the edge and unfurled the banner down the side of the building that said SAFE HOUSE in big red letters, with an arrow pointing to what looked like a two car garage door on the far end of the building.

  “Come on, see the sign.” Casey was muttering to himself. The car was racing around a corner, and Casey could almost see the second the people recognized the sign for what it was and popped the curb and started heading through the parking lot towards the side of the building. Plowing zombies over, the car was making its way to them fast. Casey had total faith in the gate crew/door men, they were efficient and fast, they practiced and drilled on their routine half the day, to make sure it was minimal movement, no casualties on our side. As Casey stooped to start bringing the banner back up he was looking out again, across the parking lot, across to the other stores on the other side of the street, and saw the horde of zombies getting closer in the wake of the car that just arrived. The sun was just starting to set and Casey was thinking what a long night this is going to be.

  All of sudden she was drowning. Water up her nose in her mouth, she couldn’t catch a breath. Jill shot up fast, trying to acclimate herself to her surroundings and suddenly tasty the water and wondering how can she get more of it into her mouth fast.

  “Dude you totally scared the hell outta me just now.” Jack exclaimed, while holding a glass with water in it.

  “Where am I?” Jill said all groggy and sleepy.

  Jack blinked “Your in my house remember, you fell through the roof?”

  “That’s right. I remember now.” Jill said as she lay back down with an audible sigh.

  “I put ice on your ankle and elevated it, I figured since you weren’t moving anywhere it was a good time to start to heal you.” Jack said

  “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.” Jill said plainly. Worried she might crack her hardened facade from Jack’s innocent kindness. Not having experienced either in a very long time, kindness and innocence.

  “Yeah I did. You’re dehydrated and injured. What would happen if we had to jet out of here?” Jack said back to her.

  “Well thanks, it’s been a while since anyone has done anything for me. Can I have some more water?”

  “Sure, we’ll have to get some food in you too. Sorry it won’t be much.” Jack said going into the kitchen and taking out some cans. “Were running low on lots of stuff, thankfully you choose this house instead of the neighbors, I’ve already cleaned them out. I’ve got some pancake mix left, does that sound ok?”

  Jill blinked a few times setting the glass down on the table, and then sat up on her arms to look at Jack over the back of the couch. “Pancakes?” she inquired “Pancakes.” She said the word again, almost as in testing the word out. “Are you talking about those beautiful fluffy, golden brown, round things with butter and maple syrup?” Jill’s mouth was watering now just thinking of them.

  “Yeaaah.” Jack said hesitantly, with a confused look on his face.

  “Oh Jack, you’re my hero”. Jill practically swooned as she lay back down and shut her eyes.

  “You don’t understand I haven’t had real food in like seven or eight months. Last thing I ate before I got here was a bag of stale chips from a broken vending machine in a factory I was staying in. I don’t even recall the last time I had real breakfast food. How are you going to make this all?” Suddenly realizing the logistics for cooking and that electricity is required, and also realizing that the TV was on and so were other electrical appliances.

  “Using the stove, how else do people cook?” He again was giving her that confused look.

  “Well I am so down for pancakes. Do you have any coffee too?” She asked hopefully.

  “I’m pretty sure we do, mom loved coffee, I can check the cabinets to see what’s left. I don’t have cream but there’s sugar if you want.” Jake a little upset he couldn’t offer more. He was starting to feel sort of like a man, cooking breakfast for his lady friend. The normalcy made him smile and hum as he mixed batter and cook.

  Full of pancakes with slightly old syrup and hot, sweet black coffee, Jill lay back down on the couch and closed her eyes in contentment. Not realizing Jack was staring at her, his mind wandered with thoughts.

  “So how does this place still have power, I don’t hear any generators.” She asked. He clearly thought that was the last question she’d ever ask, he stared blankly at her for a moment.

  “I have no idea, I guess I never questioned it, but we’ve had electricity since everything began.” Jack explained.

  “Oh can I take a shower? That would be lovely. My bathing usually consists of creaks and/or lakes and ponds depending where I’m holed up at the moment.” Jill went on.

  “Yeah sure, everything is upstairs.” Jack helped her back up the stairs, and started to show her where everything was located for a shower. About an hour later, emerging from a steam filled bathroom Jill came out uncomfortably in a towel, because she just couldn’t put her grubbing clothes back on her clean body.

  “Um, do you have any clothes I could borrow?” She asked a nervous, again reminding her that it had been a long time since she’d been around people. “And where do we sleep?” Jill asked ready to crash for the night.

  “Oh … uh … I’ve been sleeping up in parent’s bed, it’s huh …a California king. You could sleep with me?” Jack said then realized how it sound when he saw the smile creep on to Jill’s face.

  “Wait that’s not what I meant … . .. ” Jack said while blushing.

  “It’s ok Jack, I knew what you were talking about. Don’t worry. I can sleep in one of the other rooms and I’ll be out of your hair in the morning.” Jill said.

  “That’s probably not safe. I’ve got my parents room locked down and rigged up with supplies for a g
rab-n-go in case something bad happens. Why would you leave, you only just got here?” He looked at her quizzically. “There’s sleeping blankets we can use and the bed is so big wouldn’t we wouldn’t even touch each other.” Jack trying to sell his point further about her sharing the room and staying with him was a good idea.

  “Plus, the windows in there are weather proofed and all that, so it keeps the moans out, you can actually sleep. It’s nice”. Jack said looking down at his shoes, which was becoming habit.

  “Ok Jack we can share the bedroom. I just didn’t want to kick you out of the room you had been using.”

  Jack was helping Jill get to the bed, and he went over to his mother’s dresser and began pulling out a number of her pajamas.

  “Jack what are you doing?” She asked chuckling, watching him on whatever mission he had created for himself now.

  “I’m getting you something comfortable to sleep in.” He stated rather impressed by all the options he was able to present to her.

  “Oh that’s nice of you but first that pink thing there in your hand, that’s a Chemise, that’s not really meant to be slept in, if you know what I mean. And those other ones look like some heavy duty snow pants. How about those green silky ones, those look comfy.” Jill finally decided. Jack stepped out into the hall while Jill changed and started climbing under the covers.

  “I’m decent you can come in.”

  It wasn’t yet dark, the sun was just beginning to set, but the day had been long for Jill. A good night’s sleep sounded awesome right about now Jill thought.

  As they both started getting into their sleeping bags and settling down, Jill did notice the silence and how nice it was. She looked over at the door, it looked secure, more brackets with two 2x4’s over it, the windows were down and locked, the curtains drawn. They were so far up that nothing could break them and crawl in. Jill rolled to lie on her back and just there lay in the silence for a moment, soaking everything in.

  “You know you can’t stay here much longer.” Jill said out loud.

  “I know. Maybe fate brought you here to help me get out of this place.” Jack said silently. Jill rolled over again and put her arm around Jack in an offer of comfort.

  “Jack we’ll get out of here and find shelter somewhere. There are more survivors out there, I’ve run across people from time to time, most want to keep to themselves. It’s not always good finding survivors though.” She whispered practically in his ear. As they both feel into a deep sleep, something that has eluded Jill for weeks, the groans and moans escalated and grew louder as a beat up, use to be green colored, car went zooming down the road by the house. Taking many zombies with them in their wake has they continued to drive off to an unknown destination in hopes they get away safe and alive.

  “Jill! Jill, wake up! Please wake up!” Jack was exasperated having tried to wake her for a number of minutes now, shaking her shoulder. Jill’s eyes eventually fluttered open and she looked over to see Jack by the window, no, practically hanging out of the window with sunlight streaming in around him.

  She bounds up out of bed and grabs Jack to get him down.

  “What hell are you doing? Are you crazy! Do you want every walking corpse on this place?” she says scared out of her mind.

  “They’re gone, look. Not a single zombie out there. What’s happened, is it a miracle?” He asked turning to look at Jill with lots of hope in his face.

  “Just wait. We have to check stuff out we can’t just go crazy and start playing outdoors again waiting for the ice cream man to come by. We have to be cautious.” Now hesitant as Jill rises to look outside, she gets up on her knees to look out the window, the air was starting to feel warmer, the winter thaw was complete. What month was it she suddenly couldn’t remember? April? May? The sun was out, birds were chirping, the grass was starting to dry out and turn green again. She expected to see a paper boy riding around any minute. CRACK POP! Both Jack and Jill heard the noises and looked at each other.

  “What was that?” He asked

  “Gunfire.” Jill said knowing that gunfire was not a good sound to hear. Sounds drew the creatures, drew them from far and wide. It was like there moans called to each other, since they varied in speed it could be minutes before the get to the source of the noise or show up days later and wreak havoc on the poor souls who were left alive. After a few moments of silence Jill spoke.

  “We’ve got to help.” She said. Where that thought had come from she didn’t know. Jill liked to avoid people now. But she was weirdly drawn to this kid, and helping the mysterious location of the gunfire.

  “What? How the hell are we supposed to do that? Those zombies are gone. Good, let them all keep walking towards the gunfire. You said it’s not always good finding other survivors, how do we even know where to go and that they are even worth helping? ” Jack said firmly. “What if they just want to take what we got?”

  “Listen to me carefully, what do you think will happen once those guns go quiet? That means they either ran out of ammo or their dead. I don’t know why, but I have a gut feeling we need to help. Call it women’s intuition, but we need to do this. You can stay here, that’s fine, but I’m going, I’ll try and come back for you if you want.” Jill got up and started to unbutton her borrowed pajama top, muttering ideas to herself, Jill looks over at Jack to tell him to get a move on if he wants to go, as he stands there just seemingly enjoying the view Jill was presenting. Jill freezes, realizing she’d been undressing in from of him.

  “Were you just going to keep letting me getting undressed and not say anything?” she asked with some shock.

  “I … . .” he started and stopped “I didn’t want to interrupt your train of thought, you had some really good ideas there.” He managed to say. She was still standing there with her top unbutton, he could see her abs, and apparently had no qualms about looking. Jill quickly noticing that Jack was making no movement at all, she pulled her shirt closed, folding her arms across her chest, while staring at Jack.

  “Jack? Focus. Look at me.” She gave the international look/watch sign with her two fingers pointing to her eyes.

  “In the eyes please.” She said like talking to a 3yr old

  “I am. I’m going with you.” He replied with his gaze still sort of meandering.

  “No look at my face, concentrate on the words I’m saying now. We have to help. We’ll get a plan and figure out some sort of diversion.” She said trying to remain calm with him as he still made no movement.

  “JACK GO GET DRESSED!” she shouted after getting no reaction. He was off, sprinting into the door, fumbling with the locks and finally down the hall into his old room. Jill just laughed, she had forgotten what it was like to be around a teenage boy. She thought of her brothers, her sister her parents. No idea if they were alive or dead or the other. Sending up a quick silent prayer for their safety, and to find them, she quickly got back on task and changed into some more borrowed, but clean clothes. She cringed as she slipped her army boot on over her still swollen ankle, it was wrapped with an old ACE bandage. It would have to do. Jill wasn’t sure yet what they were going to do, but they had to act fast and have an escape plan for themselves as well. She could still hear the steady popping of gunfire and saw smoke rising in the distance, it would act as a marker for them and help pin point the others location. Hopefully it would last long enough for Jill and Jack to find them.

  “Keep burning them!” Casey shouted into his walkie talkie to the guys down below. The razor wire was holding, but the bodies were piling up quick. Thick black smoke was streaming into the sky where the mass of zombies were being burned. More could be seen off in the distance heading towards, them. They hadn’t had this many zombies around since the beginning. That damn car must have been trailing these Zeds behind them, it was days’ worth of zombies. Soon those Zeds would figure out they could crawl over the bodies and breach there building, it was strange to contemplate that zombies could think, but it seemed they were starting to evolve, almo
st using a basic cognitive thought. People were up on the roof, using the bows and arrows, rifles, hand guns, Molotov cocktails, garbage, anything to kill or slow down the zombies somehow. Casey had other ideas for counters measures for this new way of zombie thinking, traps, trip line, land mines all stuff laid out in the parking lot and around the areas, but he had been out voted so nothing new was implemented as a precaution if zombies figured out how to climb over the wire. And now Casey was standing on the roof watching as two fire teams were trying to keep the Zeds back. He wasn’t sure their fort, their make shift haven, their new found utopia, could with stand this kind of attack.

  “Casey, Casey!!! Tom came running at full speed up to him.

  “We’re not going to be able to control this much longer. We can’t control the mob they are on both sides of the building too, let’s use the explosives, some of the dynamite.” Tom was frantic as Casey grabbed Tom by his arm to keep him still.

  “Shut . . Up. Get the others up here to double up on everything we got, the crossbows, the Molotov’s, fucking rocks if we have them. Get some sticks and poke their eyes out, we have to keep trying.”

  Casey said very calmly, it was almost frightening how cool he was. “No explosions! No more extra noise.” Tom just stared for a moment. Then with shaky hands he started calling in the new orders. Extra people were up and in place within seconds. Another maneuver that had been rehearsed and drilled day after day to nauseam was getting people into position and fast. Casey reached over and picked up a cross bow to help, they started tossing cocktails farther out to slow down the 3rd and 4th waves of zombies that seemed to be pouring across the parking lot. The medieval like archers started taking aim and firing, the fire teams were still below torching anything close. Casey was thinking this looked like the world being overwhelmed by the zombies all over again. Screaming ripped through the air loud and long, everyone stepped up to the edge to look down and see a mass of Zeds had breached the fence and grabbed some members of a fire team. This was taking a turn for the worse. The fence was buckling under the weight of the Zeds. Bites, blood, chunks of skin flying up and out, the zombie’s moans of ecstasy were loud after having fasted for so long. Casey couldn’t do more than close his eyes. He pulled out his pistol and shot the men that were once alive in the head to prevent them from turning into the undead. Staring down at the zombies now piling up and over the wire Casey saw the gas tank laying on one of the dead men’s back, he fired one more round and the explosion filled the air. The heat from the fire roared up the side of the building and pushed people back on to their butts. Another scorch mark, another scar on the building, another mistake Casey would take and internalize this, he’d own it. When would this end. All Zeds within a 50yd radius burned, and they burned good. They managed to set some others on fire in the process, but in reality all this did was attract more. Casey, Tom and Kurt were running out of ideas and fast. They were down to they’re last plan, get any and all survivors inside and lock themselves in , Casey hated this idea, because it left no escape. But they were fast becoming choice less, he could hear more screams and cries for help coming from other sides of the buildings. Another soft explosion with soft, faint cries of misery. Everyone was looking at him for the next move, what they do next will be a life or death choice for everyone. Raking his hand through his hair and down his face, dread started to fill Casey’s head. What to do? That’s when everyone heard the sound. Everything stopped suddenly, humans, zombies, there was 3 or 4 seconds of utter stillness. A tornado siren started going off in the distance, loud and window rattling. No one moved a muscle, no one breathed, and you could hear all the rapid heartbeats and all the questions that began filling people’s heads. The Zeds that were farther out turned and started lumbering off immediately towards the new noise, the ones closest to the building were being quickly and quietly dispatched by arrows and spears. Everyone realized that this was the best opportunity for survival and they took it.