Zombie Apocalypse Survivor: The Crawlspace Of Daryl Ingram

by Jason Thornton

zombies wandering above, but they weren’t tearing and pounding anymore.

  It was still light outside when I recovered my will power. In the weak light I crawled back to the crawlspace entrance to my son’s room. I looked up at the trap door and my heart skipped a beat when I realized I was looking at the carpeted side of the door. I worried for a moment that the zombies above would grab at the insulation and pull it up. I’m sure they didn’t have the same aversion to grabbing fiberglass with their bare hands as I did.

  It occurred to me that I was obsessing about something I had no control over. I focused my attention instead upon the mound of material that I had pulled into the crawl space. The first thing I identified was the center leaf from our dining room table. I marveled for a moment as it seemed physically impossible that I could have forced the leaf into the same hole in which I was standing, and also all the way down into the very narrow confines of the crawlspace. There were several pairs of tiny children’s shoes, a wooden basket, a plastic clothes basket (again I wondered how I got it through the hole), several toy cars, some inflatable balls, a toy drill with a red light, two toy guns, two baseball caps and a pair of swim goggles. The final item was my son’s plastic three drawer toy box. It was had broken down into smaller sections, but could be easily reassembled. I brought all of the items back to the blanket and carefully arranged them.

  I lay back down on the blankets again and let my mind wander. My situation was poor. I was trapped. I had no food. I had no water. I was thirsty. As I thought about it more, about my lack of water and my thirst, I became thirstier. Desperation began to overwhelm me as all I could think about was how dry my mouth was. I began scanning the crawlspace in a hopeless attempt to locate anything to alleviate my thirst.

  I didn’t see anything in the murky shadows that would be of use. There was a water facet on the outside of the house, but it was too far away from the vents to reach from inside the crawlspace. I wondered if the garden hose might be within reach of the vents. There was always some water left in the hose after use. I was thinking about looking for the hose when I thought about the facet again. It occurred to me that the home’s water lines ran through the crawl space. There was a shut off located inside the crawlspace near the outside facet.

  I crawled to the center of the house and looked up. I could see the water pipes running from the edge of the house to the various hookups under the kitchen and bathrooms. The water pipes were made out of a new flexible plastic, so I reached up and pulled one down. The line was stiff, but I began bending it back and forth to create a tear for the water to drip out of. Once I opened a small tear in the line I would be able to get a drink of fresh water.

  It took four or five good bends of the pipe before a small hole formed. As soon it split, a torrent of water blasted me in the face. I was thoroughly soaked before I remembered that the water lines were still pressurized. I scrambled towards the shut off valve and shut off the water. The spray from the pipe quickly slowed to a dribble.

  Already soaked and dirty, I crawled back to the break in the water line and drank greedily. The moment the droplets of water hit my mouth I knew just how thirsty I had become. I lay there for ten minutes drinking every drop until the water no longer dripped from the pipe.

  When I was done I placed a drawer from the toy box under the water line and returned to the blankets. I undressed and laid my clothing on top of my growing pile of junk to let them dry.

  Finally I was able to lay still and rest for several hours. When the outside light dimmed and plunged the crawlspace into darkness, I fell asleep.

  I woke up well rested. I could tell it was day by the hazy half light filtering in through the vents. I crawled to the front of the house and looked outside. Destiny and Aaron were gone. So was Dakota. Melissa was still stuck in the bushes outside of her bedroom window. There were also more zombies in the neighborhood. I recognized a few of my neighbors from down the street among the zombies. Most of them I didn’t recognize, possibly because of extreme bloating and deep bruising that had set into their corpses. There were some hideous zombie specimens wandering around. The truly hideous zombies were the relatively fresh ones. They were bloated, leaking vial fluids, and colored every shade of yellow, brown and purple. Just seeing them, you could smell the scent of their rotting flesh.

  As I stared out through the vent, I noticed movement slightly closer to myself. Just inside the vent, on the cement sill, I saw a small shiny black shape move slightly. Curiously, I inched closer and saw that it was a cricket. Without thinking about my actions, I reached out and snatched it up. It thrashed and kicked inside my fingers. It was plump and healthy.

  I tossed it in my mouth and crunched down. Then I swallowed it. It tasted slightly bitter, slightly grassy, but not too bad.

  I immediately looked for another one, but the ledge was clear of any more insects.

  Just as thirst had overtaken me the day before, suddenly hunger’s grip overtook me. How long had it been since I’d eaten? One day? Two days? Three days? Hours? I noticed my hands were shaking and I felt the weakness that comes with extended hunger. I began stripping rows of insulation from the edges of the foundation so I could check each vent for more insects. Unfortunately, after I was finished I found no more crickets.

  I was rechecking the vents when I looked outside and saw what was just on the other side. There was an abundance of edible weeds and grass. There were also many small rocks that could hide more insects. “Food!”

  I tried pushing on the vents with my bare hands, but found them to be fastened securely. I didn’t have any tools to pry them free either. The vents were fastened to short boards that had been set into the home’s foundation when it was originally poured.

  I thought about it for a minute and decided to try pushing with my feet. I was wearing heavy duty boots that would protect my feet as I pushed. Also the tight quarters of the crawl space would provide good leverage. I turned to my side and placed a foot up against the vent. I began slowly pushing against it. At first my body slid across the plastic, but it stopped as the downward counter-pressure of my efforts locked me in place. I pushed harder and felt the metal of the vent begin to warp under the soul of my boot. I kept pushing and felt the vent break free with a quiet ‘tang’.

  I drew my foot back and looked at my work. The vent was still attached to the wood frame, but there was a large gap through which I could reach. I did just that and greedily reached out to pull in fist-fulls of weeds and grass. I shoved them in my mouth and began chewing. Some of it was bitter and some of it wasn’t, but it was all delicious on an empty stomach. Fortunately my back yard was clear of zombies, so I continued to reach out and forage. Eventually I cleared a foot and half wide area around the vent of grass and weeds. I was satisfied.

  I rested for a while, and then finished opening the rest of the vents to the back yard and sides of the house. As I worked I pulled in a length of hose from the left side of the house, two brooms from next to the back door, a barbecue scraper, two water bowls for the dog which my wife took when she left, and several garden tools from the right side of the house. The garden tools were a small pick-mattock, a hand trowel, a short shovel and several garden pots.

  I rested again and thought about my options with the equipment I had just recovered. The shovel and the small pick would make decent zombie killing tools, but I didn’t think I’d be able to fight off the zombies inside the house and escape outside. If I used the tools to tunnel under the houses foundation, I would be free of the crawlspace, but would also be caught in the open in a neighborhood full of wandering dead without anywhere safe to run. If I just waited for the National Guard to come, the tools might be useful to dig down and some headroom while I waited. I chose the last option. I had water to drink and primitive food to eat. It would only be a matter of time before order was restored in the neighborhood and I was rescued. I planned on staying in a hotel once I was rescued
, while I waited for my home to be repaired and sanitized of Stumpy and his filth. Happy with my decision to remain in place, I took a nap.

  It was dark when I awoke. The only noise was the occasional scuff of a zombie moving on the floor above me and crickets singing outside. I day dreamed about what life would be like after the National Guard came and cleared out all of the zombies. At least three of my neighbors were gone and their homes vacant. I could easily assume ownership of their properties. At the very least I could scavenge their valuables. Both Aaron and Barry had nice trucks and Barry’s home was a mansion compared to mine.

  I was deeply involved in my dream of managing life after the zombies were gone when dawn broke. I moved back to my corner and began the slow process of lowering the floor. It was difficult work since I had to work the shovel while lying on my belly. I also found that the dirt quickly piled up and would have to be moved. I used the small plant pots for buckets and began piling the dirt under the crawlspace entries, just in case the zombies above figured out I was below and how to lift up the trap doors.

  By midday, my hole was three feet wide by