by Morris, SJ
When we got to the top of the stairs, we stopped to listen again, and I heard nothing. I walked up to the first door on the left and knocked softly. There were no sounds aroused by my knock, so I opened the door, slowly. It was a bathroom and the only bad thing about it was that it was decorated in the most disgusting rooster theme I had ever seen. I closed the door behind us, and we went to the next door. I performed the same knock and listen routine, again without evoking an audible response. I opened the door and it appeared to be the room of our teenage-boy zombie. It was blue with posters of rock bands and pretty girls plastered all over the walls.
I checked the closet and under the bed as Kamil and Dana stood by the door. We figured if zombies didn’t like me, why not make me the official zombie room checker? It made sense, but it didn’t make looking under the bed any less frightening. I had always been afraid of what was underneath beds since I was a kid.
My mother allowed me to watch horror movies, starting when I was about eight. There was one movie where a demon arm came out from under the bed and grabbed the girl’s foot and it dragged her away while she screamed.
This scene stuck with me for life.
When I lived by myself, before meeting Jack, I would still try and jump from my bedroom door to the bed at night. Silly right? Yet, here I was, choosing to look for so-called demons under the bed to make sure we were safe.
I was going to have some awful nightmares tonight. Of that, I was certain.
When the room proved to be all clear, we went to the next one, which was an office of sorts. This room was also clear.
Then, there was the last door at the end of the hall. The master bedroom, I surmised. I didn’t even need to knock. As soon as I got to the door, I heard scratching noises coming from the other side.
Although the sounds were different from those we experienced when we met the infected before, to be safe, I asked Kamil and Dana to go back down the hall, by the first door. Once they had put a good distance between themselves and the door, I decided to knock. I wanted to see if whatever was on the other side would get more wound up. I hoped the promise of food would cause it to make a more definitive noise, telling me more about what I was dealing with.
However, when I knocked, the noise stopped altogether. I opened the door slowly, with my gun pointed in front of me this time, since I had no idea what to expect. The door creaked open slowly, and the smell hit me like a ton of bricks.
It was the stench of decay and the signature smell of the infected.
On the bed, there lay the body of a woman in a house dress. She was infected before she died, as far as I could tell, from the black blood stains that surrounded her face and chest that was now blown apart. In the corner of the room, facing the window, was the slumped-over body of a man, who I could tell had sat down in the chair, put the shotgun that was now at his feet, in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He had a bite wound on his arm, and my guess was that his wife was bitten, she had turned and bit him as he tried to help her. He’d already seen what happened to her after being infected, so after he killed her, he turned the gun on himself.
I didn’t see where the son fit into all this but considering the boy was downstairs and these two were closed up in this room together, I was betting the son was the one to bring the Z-Strain into the house. He probably bit his mother, and the husband took her up here to get away from the boy.
I wasn’t sure why I had to have it all make sense or have a story that coincided with what my eyes were seeing, but it’s something my mind just does. I guessed that I was justifying the scene to myself so that I didn’t harp on the tragedy of it all.
I knew I needed to check the closet and what looked to be a bathroom for more infected, but it was difficult to look away from the scene before me. I always tried to put myself in the shoes of others, to try and know how to best approach a situation. Even though there was no need for that with these people now, I was still upset, contemplating this man’s last thoughts in life.
His son had turned rabid and went after his own mother and father. Then, his wife went after him. It was an impossible situation, but in my mind, he made the right choice. I would have done the same, probably.
Just as I was wiping my eyes, coming to terms with the carnage before me, I saw movement in the far corner of the room. Instantly, I pointed my gun in the direction of the movement and stood quietly. There was a pile of blankets in the edge of the room, and they started moving slowly. I stood motionless and silent, waiting for whatever it was to come out.
Kamil whispered from the hallway, asking if everything was okay, and at the sound of his voice, a cat jumped from the pile of blankets and bolted out the door, past me.
“Goddamn, cats!”
I swore they knew how little I thought of them, so they, as a species, had made it their mission to scare the shit out of me at every possible encounter.
Dana screamed as the cat flew out of the room, but I yelled that everything was okay, and she quieted down. However, I made a mental note that I needed to have a talk with her about her screaming. I couldn’t believe she lived this long and hadn’t figured out that it probably wasn’t a good idea to shout all the time.
With the house cleared of infected, we took the extra blankets and pillows from the hall closet and set up camp inside.
I had Kamil and Dana set up in the living room and I was going to take the kitchen since the door could be closed, just in case something happened to my sort of infected body during the night.
Kamil said nothing when I said I was sleeping in the kitchen, but Dana voiced her concerns about splitting up. I eventually convinced her, though, saying that I needed to keep an eye on the back windows, making sure that the infected didn’t find their way to the barn and the horses.
Also, since the infected wanted nothing to do with me, it was best to have me near the windows and doors, instead of one of them, who the infected would possibly smell and come looking for. I didn’t think I was going to get too much sleep anyway, so the kitchen was just fine for me.
We each took turns in the bathroom, getting cleaned up, and we thanked everything holy that the farmhouse water was heated by propane, and they had a well. We all got to take a nice, hot shower. We were short on fresh clothes, but we made do with what we found in the laundry room.
Dana and I were about the same size, and the woman who lived here was a little bigger, so we just needed to tighten our belts a bit. We looked funny, but we now had clean clothes, food, and shelter for the night, so we didn’t care what we looked like.
Chapter 21
The night, thankfully, passed without incident. Well, not a serious incident anyway. That stupid cat thought it would be a good idea, in the middle of the night, to run around the house, scaring the shit out of all of us.
I finally cornered it and Kamil threw a blanket over it. We let him go outside.
I know that could probably be considered rather mean, but he definitely would have died, locked up in the house, and we sure as hell weren’t going to add a cat to our baggage. Being outside was the best chance that damned feline had. Plus, I wanted nothing to do with any cat ever again. This cat was the second strike for me during this whole apocalypse, and I wasn’t going to let there be a third if I could help it.
I had never been a cat person and I certainly wasn’t about to start now. Sorry to all the cat lovers out there.
We each got up with the sun and took turns retaking showers. Who knew when we were going to be able to shower in hot water again? So we took full advantage.
We had a breakfast of canned goods that were in the pantry because there was no reason to use our MREs if we didn’t have to. Additionally, truth be told, I’d eat canned sardines over any MRE, most days.
After breakfast, we gathered up all the batteries, flashlights, lighters, and anything else we thought might be useful on our trip back to the cabin. I found a pen and some paper to write a note that the house had been cleared of infected, there were two dea
d upstairs, and there was food in the pantry with plenty of hot water to wash up.
I didn’t know what date it was, but I figured we were probably still in the month of May. I dated the note May 2016. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer, and I posted the letter to the front door with it. I saw no need for others to not take advantage of what was still in the house. If there were any others around, that was.
We checked the back windows to see if there were any infected outside and when we were satisfied it was clear, we headed to the barn.
I pulled away the wood plank that secured the doors and was greeted by the foul smell of the infected.
I turned to Kamil and Dana, motioning for them to back up. Heeding my warning, they slowly eased away from the barn doors. Dana ran back into the house, but Kamil stayed by my side, pitchfork in hand.
We continued to back up together, slowly, as a low moan came from the inside of the barn. I felt so defeated. All I wanted to do was scream and open fire on whatever was in the barn because it sure as hell wasn’t alive anymore.
Kamil tapped my shoulder and pointed to the open door. Aggravated, I decided to speed this up a little.
“Come on out, assholes! You already ate our horses, so now you can come out, and I can end you!” I yelled.
Kamil hit me in the shoulder as he scolded me, “What the fuck are you doing? Are you crazy?”
Just as he finished his question, one of the infected walked through the barn door. He was bloated and covered in fresh blood, with pieces of flesh hanging from his mouth and hands.
“Give me the pitchfork, please, and go inside with Dana. Make sure she doesn’t start screaming, attracting every infected in the area. I’ll take care of whatever’s in the barn.”
“Are you sure? I can help, you know.”
“I know, but if they don’t like me, then I’m going to use that to make sure you guys are safe. Now, get in the house, please.”
With that, Kamil handed me the pitchfork and turned to walk back to the house.
The movement Kamil made and the sound of our talking had excited the overfed zombie, and he started to shuffle faster in my direction. As he cleared the doorway, into the bright morning sun, another four followed behind him.
They were just as bloated as the first, and this filled me with unadulterated rage. We had saved those horses yesterday, only to lock them in a barn, to be eaten hours later. Flashes of the mutilated sheep popped in my head, then, the bodies of Liam and Ben picked clean to the bone, the little dead infected girl with the unicorn stuffed animal and finally, little Cooper.
Cooper, who I had known for a short time as a scared little boy, was turned into a vicious demon that killed his own mother because of this man-made virus. All I wanted to do was destroy these things that were taking everything from everyone.
I clutched the pitchfork in both my hands and snapped the handle over my knee. I slammed the sharp, end of the broken wood into the first infected. I yanked the wooden stake I had created out of its head before he even hit the ground and jammed the pitchfork end up, into the throat of the next closest infected.
I walked closer to the barn door and the encroaching infected. I slammed the stake into the ear of one and leaned down to grab the pitchfork out of the other. I stood up straight and used the fork like a blade, slicing it across the throat of the next two I could find, almost decapitating them.
I walked further inside the barn and with the sun coming through the broken back door, I saw that there were more infected inside, but they were still gorging themselves on the horses. Therefore, they couldn’t be bothered to notice little old me. Not like they cared for me anymore anyway. I took my time and found another scythe hanging on the barn wall.
After a moment of indecision, I discarded my pitchfork and stake for the newly acquired weapon, and I sliced my way through each and every infected left in the barn. I don’t even recall how many there were, but even when they were gone, I found that I was still furious. I wished there were more of them to kill.
However, it didn’t take long for my adrenaline to start to wane, and when it did, my ribs began to throb with pain, quickly bringing me back to reality.
I slowly walked out of the barn. I looked down at myself and saw I was covered in black, infected blood. I did a quick scan of the outside and I didn’t see any more, so I started walking up to the door.
Kamil opened it and immediately brought his arm to his face, trying to shield himself from the smell. He just looked at me. Dana came to the door with a towel, handing it to me so I could wipe off as much muck as possible before going inside.
“The horses, are any of them okay?”
“No, I’m sorry, Dana. They were all killed but there are no more infected in the barn now. I think I’m going to get washed up. We should leave on foot as soon as possible.”
Kamil and Dana stood aside, as I threw the now disgusting towel outside, before walking in, past them. I walked right into the bathroom and took my third shower in the last twelve hours. This time, though, I barely felt the hot water as I cleaned myself. I just felt numb. The only thing I felt was anger and a burning inferno of rage inside of me.
My first priority was to get home to make sure my children and the others were safe, but then I was going to do everything possible to find out why Liam had a map with those locations circled and question marked. I wanted to do this because somehow, I felt finding the answers to the map would lead me closer to the vile pieces of shit that created the Z-Strain virus and started this disaster.
Liam knew my husband, so they could have worked with the same people that knew about the virus at some point. Once I found them, or whoever was left of those who were responsible, they were going to pay dearly for what they had done. I knew, even then that my vow of vengeance seemed like a far-fetched idea, with the world the way it was currently. With no communication capabilities and traveling being extremely difficult, it actually seemed impossible. Yet, I refused to be deterred. I was going to do everything in my power to make those responsible, pay for what they had done, even if it killed me. I didn’t care.
With my newfound ability, I felt, now, more than ever, that I had a duty and a responsibility that was far greater than myself.
With this in mind, I unpacked my leathers and found a t-shirt in the laundry room that smelled as fresh as it could be after sitting for weeks and I got dressed.
I found Dana and Kamil sitting silently in the kitchen. They had all of their bags ready to go by the door, and as soon as I walked in the room, Kamil stood up and grabbed their belongings, eager to leave.
“Ready to go, I guess?” I asked him.
“Yep. You said as soon as possible, so we’re good to go.”
“Look, guys, I’m sorry if I came off a little cold but I just want to be sure all three of us get to the cabin safe and sound. I’m tired of seeing so much worthless death, and it got to me.”
“No need to apologize,” said Dana. “We’ve all been through a lot, and we worked so hard to get the horses safe. Now, to find them dead is a blow to each of us. Like you said, it’s just another loss on a growing list of meaningless deaths. We’ll get through this, though. We’ll make it to your cabin. I just know it.”
I had nothing to say to that. I thought if I did say something, it would just ruin the positive moment, so I just grabbed my pack, and we headed out the door. We walked down the driveway and looked up and down the street to make sure there were no infected, and thankfully, there were none.
We walked for hours until the sun was high in the sky. In that time, we only came across a few infected, here and there, but they were only in groups of two or three.
Fortunately, it seemed the ones we came into contact with were fairly deteriorated and easy enough for me to take out with the pitchfork. The scythe, like my old ax, made too much of a mess, I found.
We had at least one thing going for us today, no newly infected, so far.
We stopped on a small bridge, next to
a sign that said we were only a mile away from Route 206. This put us in good spirits, so we could almost enjoy our lunches.
We sat down on the small bridge, overlooking a creek, and I actually found it genuinely peaceful. The birds were chirping, the wind was blowing softly, and the sun was warm on my skin. In a way, it was like nothing had happened. The serenity that I felt at that moment made it seem as though, somehow, we had all simply awoke from a terrible nightmare. Like the dead didn’t start eating the living, and all was still right in the world.
I guess if you take most of the human population out of the mix, nature can thrive again. Yet, still being centered in our terrible reality, it was hard to see that a world with so much chaos and loss could still be such a beautiful place. It felt like with everything that happened, we should be living in some dirty, Mad Max movie remake, and we weren’t.
It didn’t seem fair, that with all of the death and destruction, blood and gore, that the world still remained such a beautiful place.
We sat down to eat and decided to make it a quick one since we had so much luck not running into a large number of infected yet. We didn’t want to tempt fate. Plus, it was a beautiful warm day. It wasn’t too hot, making for comfortable conditions to compliment all of the walking we were doing.
I grabbed a few granola bars from my bag, as well as my water and sat at the edge of the bridge to eat. Kamil and Dana seemed to be giving me my space earlier but eventually decided to join me at the edge of the bridge. We were eating and chatting quietly when I heard a noise. It sounded like a soft shuffling, coming from under the bridge.
Disillusioned by the peace we had found, at first, I attributed the noise to animals and said nothing. Then, I heard it again. This made me start to listen more carefully.
I quietly whispered, “I think it may be a good idea to hurry up and finish what you’re eating. It sounds like we’re about to have company.”
Dana looked at me with a worried expression, “What is it? Do you hear something?”