No Hope (Book 1): Seven Days Alone

by Williams, Elton J.

  I grab Jenny by the hand and say, “It’s okay, this is how you do it, you don’t flinch or standstill because of shock you just act”. I take out the hunting knife and putting into her right hand and place my hand on hers, we stab him in his head. I said, “Jenny, you better get used to killing them it’s us or them because you will not survive if you can't protect yourself, you better learn to fight and quick. I could not believe what just happened, he almost got me I turned to the window and see it's almost morning and I went outside to just take a deep breath together myself. I don’t want to seem stressed or frighten, I stretch my arms over my head as I yawn and look to the side where I heard growling wailing noises of the dead that are trying to push through a narrow opening in the fence.

  5 day two: a safe place

  I turned around and hurry back inside telling Eric and Jenny that we need to get out of this office and away from the carwash because the dead could push through that opening in the wall at any time. I say, “Grab your things we need to hurry”. We scramble around grabbing every we can I grab Thor by the leash and put him in the car with some bags Jenny is emptying the office cupboards and taking what food she can find to the car. Eric jumps in with her I turn back went in back to the office to grab some pillows and the blanket and run back out to the car. One of the dead comes through the fence and walks right towards me as I put the blanket and pillows in the car.

  He grabs me by the shirt I push him away and he stumbles, I jump in the car as more of them push through the fence. Jenny shouts, “Drive they coming to us”. Some surround the car and it struggles to crank over I turn the ignition again and the car starts, they grab on to the car as I drive to the gate. “It’s close” shouts Eric. I put the car in reverse and run over two of the dead. Jenny shouts, “Drive through the gate Peter” I drive us through the gate and away from the carwash. “Where are we going now?” Eric asked. Jenny replies, “I know of a place it's a fire department, we can hold out there for a day or two, turn left and go straight up the road and right again you can't miss it”.

  As we drive down the road we can see burning apartments and dead bodies lying in the street and the dead walking following anything that moves cars that has open doors and bags laying on the grounds. Eric shouts, “Look it’s the army” as we drove past some army vehicles and tankers just standing there empty with dead soldiers walking around and some dead policemen. Jenny says, “Take a right just four blocks more”. I replied, “We really on our own, the army and police could not even stop the dead”. We arrive at the fire department, I stop the car we look around to check if it is safe then step out. Jenny says, “There were people here before good people this is the last place me and my friends were together until one of the people got bitten and we had to run”.

  I replied, Hopefully, it's empty and we could stay here a few days”. We walk to the shutter gate of the fire department and it looks like some closed it because there is some blood on the gate it's dried but I can see that there was a struggle going on. Jenny says, “Let's go in”. I replied, “Just be careful because someone might be in here, people are not too friendly since the virus broke out”. We walked in and saw some more blood, I took a knife out of my bag Thor, runs in and starts smelling. I told Jenny and Eric, to stay behind me, we walk in slowly. I said, “Thor, get back here, come on my boy”. He disappears around the corner then we hear a growling wailing sounds. Jenny says, “There is one in here”. I said, “Ssssshhh! keep quiet, I did hear that too there could be more of them”. We go around the corner where Thor disappeared into, the growling gets louder there is a window of an office, I see a shadow walking around and Thor is at the door smelling underneath it. I call him back and he runs back, I guess he wanted to show us what he was smelling. I told Jenny to open the door she opens it and one of the dead comes out growling at us, he walks towards Jenny and she runs back to stand behind me with Eric and Thor sprints to him grabbing him by the arm and pull and pulls until he falls over and I went to him quickly to stab him in the head. He is dead Eric asks, “Is there any more?” I replied, “We have to check around to make sure buddy”.

  I hand over the knife to Jenny to protect Eric and herself and I told her to keep Eric, with her. Thor and I go around the fire department to check things out, I hear some noises but it sounds like it's coming from outside. We approach the kitchen and slowly walk to the door and I clinch Thor’s leash so that he does not run off again, he can be hard-headed some times just Like Eric and my eldest brother James you talk to them and they just walk off. I open the door to the kitchen slowly so that it does not make a sound and I put my head inside to look around and see if it is safe. This is odd I tell myself the kitchen looks clean and it is stocked with food Eric and Jenny is going to be so happy when I give them the news about all this food. I see in the corner a big silver bowl and go straight through the cupboards to find Thor something to eat. I open the supply closet’s door and out falls a body! Dressed in firefighting clothes it’s a man it seems like he went in the closet trying to hide and locked himself inside and the door only opens one way, once you inside it locks up the poor soul must have suffocated to death I see no ventilation shaft inside the closet.

  I pull the body aside and open the closet door so it does not close with me inside. I don’t want to end up like him trapped with no air to breathe. I look around and see a bag of dog food and pull it into the kitchen and throw some in the bowl for Thor and I look around for some stuff to use as weapons, you never can have enough weapons in a time like this I say to Thor as I look at him while he is eating the pet food gobbling it up like there is no tomorrow, While he is eating I pick up a meat tenderizer it will be a good weapon to use if those things get to close to me, I can just wack them over the head with this. I walk into the gym area of the fire department and I can see that the firemen all left in a hurry when the outbreak happened.

  I see some bags that have been dropped and I walk over to it to look inside, I pick up the gym bag and unzip it and take the stuff out of the bag as I go through the bag I see a wallet with a drivers license in the front pocket it looks like the body that was in the supply closet at the bottom of the gym bag I see a gun and I check the if it has any bullets still a full clip, I put it back in the gym bag and check the rest of the bags but nothing just a few prescriptions. We can still use these painkillers if and when someone needs them I walk to the locker room and hitting off all the locks that are on the doors I count seventeen locks in total, I went through the lockers looking for guns or anything that can help us or that we can use. Suddenly, I hear some loud growling noise come from the shower area it sounds like a lot of the dead must be in the shower room.

  I look over to the door and feel so relieved to see that it is close but I still need to put something in front of the door to keep it locked and closed. I must go get Jenny and Eric to come help so that the door is secured properly, I went back to Jenny and Eric passing Thor in the kitchen and he is still busy eating. I then pull the man’s body to the locker room and open one of the locker doors and push the body inside the locker and closed it.

  6 a safe place: two

  I stand and think, I just hope Eric or Jenny, don’t come around to the lockers and go through this one, I don’t want to cause a panic. I walk back to the office I see Eric, drawing, and Jenny standing and looking. Jenny says, “Very good”, and the chuckles and smiles. I asked, “What are you guys doing?”. Eric says, “She's teaching me to draw dummy and laughs”. I look at Jenny and say, “I’m happy that you are distracting him from all the things that are going on”. She replies, “What can I say your little brother is quite the charmer and a ladies man”. I started to laugh and said, “We need to go to the kitchen Eric can go draw in the kitchen at the table there is a whole lot of food”.

  We walk to the kitchen and Thor wags his tail when he sees us coming in Eric says, “Wow look at all the food”. Jenny says, “Let me fix up something for you to eat”. Eric sit and draw there and she takes some cerea
l and milk and put it in a bowl for him and said, “You look worried Peter, what’s going on?” I pull her aside while Eric starts to eat and said, “We have a little problem” and take her to the shower area she hears the growls that are coming from behind the shower door and got frightened. I said, “This is a good place to stay at for a couple of days but we need to put something behind that door so that the dead don’t come out, I need your help”. We look around to see what we can use to block off the door. Jenny says, “What about the lockers we can stack all of them against the door and it will keep them in”. I think to myself damn why did she say the lockers, we start pushing the lockers against the shower door and the noises just get louder and louder. She asks, “Why is this last one so heavy did you look what's inside this one? because I can see you already went through all the lockers”. I replied, “Don’t worry about it”, then the locker tips over and craps my arm blood is flowing and the noises just keep on going louder. Jenny says, “Sorry about Peter”. The door of the locker slams open and the man’s hand falls out in sock! She says, “I did not mean to let it slip out of my hands my hand gets sweaty sometimes when I’m nervous”.

  I replied, “It's okay it was a mistake and I can explain about the body, I did not want you and Eric to see a man dead in the kitchen so I pulled him in here and put it in the locker, I found him locked up in the supply closet, he must have run out of breath in there and suffocated to death”. She replies, “Sorry again”, she reaches for my arm and looks at the craps I bent over and put the arm back in the locker and close the door and we push the last locker against the door. Jenny says, “Let me go get a first aid kit I saw one in that office back there”. She walked off to go get the first aid kit and I wipe up the blood from the floor, I can't let Eric see this he will freak out I keep on thinking about an escape route if someone comes to this place and want what we have or the dead brake out of the shower room. We have to make a backup plan I don’t want anyone else to die. “What would my dad do in this situation,” I ask myself. I look around the locker room and I walk back to the kitchen and Eric is full of smiles still eating and Thor is laying next to the bowl on his side wagging his tail as I walk in. “Eric where is Jenny?” I asked. He replies with a mouth full of food “She went to the office a while ago”. I replied. “Well, I’m going to go look for her” and I walked to the office, I see her through the glass of the office reading a piece of paper and the first aid kit is laying on the office table, I go around to the office door and I look again at what she is reading her face looks red with sadness and I see tears running from her cheeks.

  I approach her and asked her “What's going on, why are you crying?” She replies, “This is a letter of the man that locked himself in the closet, he wrote this letter to his wife and kids and he must have written it when the outbreak happened because he is talking about the army barricade that was overrun when the dead attacked them”. I asked her can I take a look and she hands me the letter and I start to read it he wrote: “Dear Sally with a heavy heart I’m writing this letter. We were overrun by the dead, the army barricade did not hold them back and I went to go and hide in the kitchen supply closet until someone comes to rescue us some of my co-workers went to go hide in the shower room with some of the injured people and they locked the door before I could make it to them. I hope someone comes because there is just one oxygen tank that I got from the supply stock room, I can survive for two days with it if I’m lucky and there is no ventilation in the kitchen supply closet so if you find this letter it means I did not make it I hope you and my babies get to safety ..... with love from Danny”.

  I stood with my hand over my face after I read the letter of the dead firefighter feeling so sad for the poor guy and about his family maybe they still waiting on his return, I reach for Jenny and hugged her. She says, “If the army could not hold those things back how are we going to survive and the firefighter guy was a trained professional and he could not get away”. I replied, “That is not going to happen to us because we will not let it, lets go to the kitchen to check if Eric is okay”. We walk to the kitchen and Eric is still busy draw with Thor asleep on the floor. I told Jenny that they look so comfortable here in the fire department and we have food that would last a good few months if we don’t eat too much and draw up a meal plan.

  She says, “Yes, we can but we still have to secure the place better if we going to stick around”. “Then let's start to secure the place better” I replied. Jenny says, “Let's start the way we came in, I saw a padlock in the locker room and it looks strong enough to keep a gate close. I replied, “We need to try to get the gate in front close because someone could just try to get in here and we need to pull up that roof ladder at the side of the building, we don’t want any uninvited guest to arrive while we sleep at night”. Jenny went to go get the padlock in the locker room and I took a chain out of one of the bags Jenny came back with the padlock and key and we went to the front gate. Jenny reaches for the door handle at the entrance of the fire department. I said, “Wait! don’t just open the door, someone could be outside and I don’t want to let the dead see us because we already going to sleep with the ones in the shower room.

  We look through the peephole and don’t see anyone around just a few figures walking in the distance and the flag of the fire department creating a shadow on the ground and walls that almost looks like one of the dead that's moving around outside near the door. I see a few of the walking around against the fence near to the gate we entered, I have a sharp metal spike in my hand it laid on the ground next to the door someone might have dropped it, I can see there was a struggle because of the marks against the walls and inside the door and a blood trail. I hand Jenny the chain and padlock and opened the door and said, “Okay, let's do this quickly”.

  We ran to the gate and a few of the dead approaches, Jenny goes for the one side and me to the other one and we pushed it closed, they pressed against the gate trying to get way in. I shout, “I will hold it and you lock the gate with the padlock”. Jenny puts the chain around the two gates and the dead is pushing against it a flicker of light caught my eye and almost blinds me for a moment. Jenny gets the padlock to close the gate as the dead try to snap at us, she shouts, “Look up there someone is signaling us”. We look up to a rooftop someone is stand/ing there looking like a grim reaper with a black hooded cape and a piece of mirror in his hand, he waves at us and we wave back.

  Jenny says, “If he thinks we are going over there to go get him he is crazy”. The streets are beginning to get filled up with the dead because of the noises the dead are making by the gates, I told Jenny lets head back inside cause we starting to attract more of the dead and that its pointless to just stand wave at someone we don’t even know. We went back in and as. I turn to look the stranger with the cape disappears its almost like he knew we not going to risk our lives to go get him.

  7 day three: the hooded stranger

  As the sun sets and it gets dark Jenny warmed us some can food beans and meatloaf Eric and I are not complaining because it’s the best meal we have eaten in days. I ask, Jenny what she has done before all of this. She replied, “I worked at a diner and went to night school”. Jenny asked, “What about you?” I replied, “I want to become a doctor but I would have settled to become a nurse”. She smiles and says “A nurse that explains why you so kind, there is not a lot of good kind people around I'm happy I met one”.

  Eric goes into one of the rooms the firemen used as a sleeping area and Thor followed behind him jump up the bed and curled at his feet. Jenny sits and smiles at me as I started to blush, she starts to touch my hand and reach over to kiss me but I stopped her and she kisses me on my cheek. Jenny asked, “Peter do you have a girlfriend?” I replied in an awkwardly way, “Yes kind of”. She says, “What do you mean by kind of, you either do or you don’t any girl will be lucky to have a kind-hearted boyfriend like you, so which one is it”. I replied, “I like a girl by the name of Claire we met on the beach when all of this h
appen but I don’t know if she knows that I like her in that kind of way”. Then Jenny reaches over and kissed me and she looks in my eyes and says, “Every woman knows when a man is into her”. I told her well, I’m getting tired and walk off to go and lay on the bed Eric and Thor is fast asleep. She then followed me and as I lay down she gets behind me and starts cuddling me.

  I don’t know much about girls, but I know I’m not the guy for Jenny and I think she feels sorry for me or she is just lonely, all I can do is be a friend to her. My mind is on Claire I hope I see her again as I lay and think, slowly starting to doze off with her arms around me. I wake up to the growls of the dead and I hear some noises but its sounds to faint and far away to make heads or tails about it. I stand up and walk to the kitchen to pick up a glass to get some water, then I fell a small draft running through the kitchen, almost like a window or door that was left open but I see no windows. I start to walk into the locker room area again and look around I have to keep quiet because I don’t want the dead that’s in the shower room to start growling again.

  I look around and notice a piece of wood behind the curtain and I pull it away to get a better look at it, it's a ladder that leads up to the roof through a slightly open window. I started climbing the ladder to the roof open the window and went out onto the roof. I look cautiously around the roof and start to walk to the back of the roof and see a ladder that leads down, to the ground to the firetrucks I look over to the building where that hooded caped guy was standing. He is nowhere to be seen, just some kind of fire on the roof, looks like he made it. I said to myself why would he make a fire on the roof and why was he signaling us in the first place. Maybe he needed our help, I climb back down into the fire department to look for a flashlight, and I got one in the supply closet. I go into the room to check if Jenny and Eric are still sleeping. Thor wakes up and follows me I said, “Go back boy” and he jumps back on the bed, he would make a lot of noise if he hears the growls coming from the shower room. I went back to the roof and I stand there looking over to the next building at the fire, wondering if the guy is still alive and okay.