Zombie Apocalypse Survivor: The Crawlspace Of Daryl Ingram

by Jason Thornton

of the pick. It was a nasty wound from which not an ounce of blood flowed free.

  A moment later the hand was followed by a crashing body. It ‘whumped’ straight down into the hole, crashing head first into the ground at my knees. I stared in horror as a zombie wriggled and thrashed. It was upside down and wedged awkwardly by both gravity and the limited size of my tunnel. Its glaring eyes were a mixture of milky fluid, broke and blackened blood vessels, and crusted grime. Those eyes fixed their glare upon me. It groaned.

  I felt my heart contract in fear, a fear as deep and dreadful as it had been with my very first encounter. But something had changed in me. I felt myself quivering with the fear, but my mind and body reacted instead of freezing as it had in the past. I snatched up a heavy twenty five pound pry bar that was lying in the tunnel next to me. It was good for either leveraging engine blocks or busting loose thick ridges of hard pan. With arms toned and strengthened from several weeks of heavy labor, I rammed the pry bar through the zombie’s head.

  The one inch wedge at the head of the pick wasn’t as sharp as the rest of my tools, but it found purchase in the eye socket of the zombie’s face and punctured a deep hole. I remained kneeling on my knees in the tunnel with the pry bar gripped tightly in my hand. The sound of the zombie’s skull fracturing echoed in my head for a drawn out moment. Silence descended and I heard the quiet rasp of my own breathing. Slowly I drew the pry bar free and listened to the sound of metal dragging across smashed bone and gore. The gray flesh of the brain looked curiously fresh. I pulled it all the way free and it ‘thunked’ heavily on the ground. I rubbed the head of the bar through the loose sand to clean it of filth and gore.

  I leaned forward to retrieve my pick from the ground underneath the zombie and saw that he was wearing a pistol belt with a holster. In the holster was a black automatic pistol. Several magazines of ammunition were in separate pouches on the belt. I had no idea what kind of gun it was, but I hadn’t yet found one in my travels. I unfastened the pistol belt and set it in a bucket behind me. Then I reached up and searched his pockets. I removed a set of keys and a wallet. I tossed them into the bucket with the gun.

  The corpse was beginning to leak an evil fluid. It was yellowish and clear, with thicker bits and chunks of a slime and flesh mixed in. I also became aware of the smell. It was the same smell of my first zombie attack. It was also the smell of the homes I avoided. The scent of the zombie dead was so powerful that I only needed to crack the crawlspace door a fraction of an inch to know if a zombie was inside of a home. The smell of death is unmistakable and very strong when confined within the walls of a home.

  I hauled my gear out of the hole. Then I pulled the corpse all the way into the hole by its shirt. I covered it completely with a shallow layer of dirt before exiting the tunnel and filling the tunnel back in. I would dig a new tunnel the following day.

  That night, I ventured upstairs and took long, hot shower. It seemed safe enough to take the risk. The zombies throughout the neighborhood had gathered at the Biehl’s house, which was a full block away. I didn’t sleep in the crawlspace, but rolled out my sleeping bag in the closet about the crawlspace door.

  In the morning I dug a new tunnel as far away from the previous one as I could get. The thought of a corpse buried ten feet away from me as I worked on the new tunnel gave me the creeps. It was worse than contemplating the ranks of living dead already wandering around outside.

  By evening I had tunneled all the way through to the other side. This time, instead of immediately punching through the plastic, I banged on the tunnel walls with the shovel. I listened in silence for any noises. Even the slightest scuff would have caused me to back out of the tunnel and find a new course. There was nothing but silence.

  I used a knife to cut a clean hole in the plastic and was preparing to ascend when I noticed that the crawlspace I was looking into was different. Instead of staring up at fluffy white insulation, the floor girders had been dressed in white Styrofoam. It was also not illuminated by my own flashlight, but another light from within the crawlspace. Bewildered, I wormed myself upward through the hole to see the source of the light.

  I quickly located the light on the far side of the crawlspace, but it was where the light was mounted that caused me to exclaim out load, “Whoa.” On the far side of the crawlspace was a very steep wooden stair that dropped down to a cement wall into which a heavy metal door was built. The light was mounted to the cement wall. The cement wall formed a well which accommodate both the ladder and door. It was obvious that there was much more to be found beyond the door, based on the variety of pipes rising from the floor beyond the door.

  I was about to investigate when I remembered my first hole I’d built into the crawlspace. It was still open and occupied by the owner of the bunker I was about to investigate. His corpse was stinking terribly. I delayed my investigation of the bunker long enough retrieve my gear and to fill in both of the tunnel holes. I marked the first hole with a surveyor’s stake I found along the wall and said, “Rest in peace Joe. May your sacrifice be my bounty.”

  Crawling to the bunker, I examined the ladder leading to the crawlspace trap door. Joe had added hinges and cross braces to the bottom of the trap door, presumably in an effort to keep zombies out. I looked for the other trap door and found it to be fortified in the same way.

  I returned to the bunker door and climbed down the ladder to look at it. I tried the handle and found it locked. I returned to my gear and pulled out the wallet and keys. I looked in the wallet. The zombie’s name was Joseph Scalian. I said to myself, “That’s funny Joe, because I was already calling you Joe.” I took a few moments trying keys before unlocking the door.

  Unlocked, I opened the door and looked into a short entry way that made a sharp right turn. There was inky blackness beyond. It didn’t help my night vision to have the light mounted just to the right of the door and at eye level. I stepped inside to get past the light’s glare and spotted a light switch just inside the door.

  I flipped the switch and stared at what lay in front of me. A grin spread upon my face. “Oh yeah,” I said, “Joe, you will always be my best friend.” I was staring at what had to be the ultimate personal bunker, ever. For sustenance there were shelves of food and drinks of all kinds. For something to do there were books, a computer, a telephone, and a television set. For my comfort there was a fridge, a stove, a bed, a shower, a pristine toilet, and lots of clean practical clothing. For everything else there were several guns and stacks of ammunition.

  I dragged my gear into the bunker and sealed myself in.

  For several days I studied every book, manual and video stored in the vault. I used the computer to search the Internet for survivors, rescue, or safe places to go. I lavished myself with freshly prepared frozen meats and vegetables grilled to perfection on the stove, I took long hot showers, and I enjoyed hours of sleep upon a real mattress with clean sheets. Joe had even installed a light reflecting tube that brought real sunlight into the bunker. The real light helped to fight off depression caused by the confining limits of the concrete walls.

  I found the Internet to be nearly useless in my first few days in the bunker. Nothing had been updated since I had driven me underground. Before then I already knew everything that there was to know about zombies and how to kill them. That information had been posted long before the infection even reached the American continents. Instead of focusing too much time on the computer, I spent a lot of my time reading Joe’s assortment pamphlets and magazines about the equipment he had stored in the bunker.

  I read in detail about guns. After studying the operation of the guns and practicing the fundamentals of marksmanship, I realized that I had known nothing about the operation of firearms in the past and it scared me. I would not have been able to use the old colt 45 automatic pistol that I’d taken from Joe’s zombie corpse because I didn’t know about the weapons safety that needed to
be switched off before use. Being good at video games was a poor substitute for knowing how to operate and aim firearms. Within a week I was confident that I could safely and effectively operate every rifle and pistol stored in Joe’s bunker.

  After becoming familiar with Joe’s equipment, I returned to searching the Internet. I was bored and had just started reading user comments on the News pages when I discovered something important. Users were posting links in their comments. I started following the links and quickly discovered a network of survivors. Strangely, the number of survivors were both growing and shrinking at the same time. More and more people were discovering the network every day, but an equal number were simply dropping out of contact. I didn’t know if they were losing contact due to failures in the utility grids or if they were falling victim to zombie attacks.

  I narrowed my searches to my local area and discovered several nearby groups. I followed their postings for many weeks as they fought off attacks and relocated. I had a much better idea of life outside of my bunker.

  I decided to stay put after checking out the upstairs of the home. Everything door and window was boarded up