Born In The Apocalypse

by Joseph Talluto

  Chapter 18

  Suddenly, I saw something. I stood up to see better and there was my dad! He was pedaling furiously, and there was three Trippers chasing him, but with every turn of the pedal he got further and further away. I got on my bike and started to ride, and he caught up to me in short order. We rode for a little while, then stopped when it looked like weren’t going to be pursued any further.

  I jumped off my bike and ran over to my dad, throwing my arms around him. He hugged me back, and it was a minute before we spoke.

  “You okay?” I asked, looking him over.

  “Thanks to you,” he said. “Your arrow gave me the seconds I needed. Thanks for not listening.” My dad gave me another hug with his left arm, then let me go. “Come on, we need to put some miles on these bikes. I want to be home before lunch.”

  I could have pedaled all day; I was so happy to have my dad back. Everything seemed to be especially bright this morning for some reason, and I was glad for it. Nothing like a little run in with death to really clarify your vision.

  We rode for a long time, passing by some of the same scenery we had seen on the way out. I was glad to have made this trip with my dad, but at the same time I had to wonder what the point really was. I’m glad my dad had a chance to talk to me, but we could have had a campout back in the yard.

  We were about ten miles from home when we saw a small caravan heading south. It was about ten wagons long, and there were several horses and bikes. My dad waved to one of the men riding alongside, and the man rode over to greet us.

  “Hello! You moving north?” the man said. He was a tall man, made taller in the saddle, and had the weathered look of so many people. His blue eyes were sharp, though, and I could see him taking in my father’s badge, gun, and my bow. His eyes lingered on my dad, but he didn’t say anything.

  My father answered. “No, west. We’re about ten miles from home. What’s wrong?”

  “Tripper wave, said to be bad, coming out of the city. Ask me, every one of those subdivisions should be burned to the ground.” The man spat and looked north. “They’ll be here in a day, maybe less. Two communities already went down. We’re heading to the river.”

  My heart sank. I had seen two Tripper waves in my life, and it was always bad. For whatever reason, the infected sometimes decided to walk in a huge group, and they swept away everything in their path. The only thing you could do was hunker down and hope they passed by. If they found you, they’d tear your house down to get you. Our stone wall kept us safe both times, but it was a near thing.

  “Thanks. I have to get home; my wife is waiting,” Dad said.

  “Good luck, then.” The man turned his horse and rode away, leaving us at the road.

  My dad shook his head. “We have to ride, Josh. We have no choice.”

  I shrugged. What else could I do? We couldn’t stay out here, and if a wave hit our house, mom would probably lose it if we weren’t there.

  We rode as hard as we could without taking breaks, and the miles went past slowly. In the north we could see plumes of smoke rising in the air, and we knew the wave was coming. A half an hour later, we were throwing our bikes into the stable and securing them. Dad’s horse bucked a bit, but she settled when we fed her.

  Inside the house, my mom smiled when she saw us both, and then her smile turned to a frown as she looked at my dad.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Got into it a little with some infected over by the wall. Nothing serious. Josh took one out; I took out another. No big deal.” My dad tried to sound casual, but there was something in his voice that alarmed my mom and me.

  “Let me see your arm,” Mom said.

  “I’m fine. Just a scratch from a branch. No worries, really.”

  “Show me.”

  My dad sighed and rolled up his sleeve on his right arm. On his wrist was a bloody mark, and it was easy to see the semi-circular pattern on the edge. The wound was red and angry looking, and my world turned upside down when I saw it.

  A Tripper wave was coming, and my dad was infected.

  Chapter 19

  I didn’t know what to say or do. I just looked at my dad and his injured arm. My mother put her hands up to her face and just started crying. I felt like doing just that, but I couldn’t get past the feeling of being empty.

  My dad broke the silence. “Look, I’ll be okay for a while. We know it takes a while before the worst of it hits. I’ll get everything as squared away here as I can. Once I’m gone, it’s up to the two of you if you want to stay or go to a larger community. Right now, I’m going to clean this up and get ready for the Tripper wave. Josh, you need to help. Maria? I’ll need some help with this wound.”

  My mom looked up at my dad like he was crazy, but she helped him anyway. She wrapped her arms around his waist and helped him upstairs. I noticed she kept her hands away from his injured arm. I would have, too.

  I shook myself to get moving, and I went out to the garage. I tried to keep myself busy by getting the window covers, but my hands kept slipping and I kept dropping them on the floor. When I went to pick them up, I had a hard time because my hands were shaking so badly.

  Finally, I rounded up as many as I could carry and took them inside the house. They were labeled on the inside, and I placed each one by its appropriate window. After I had gathered each one, I went around and put them over the windows themselves, latching them in place. The covers weren’t anything more than plywood, but they were meant to keep the Trippers from seeing or hearing anything that would get them to attack. I had hoped we wouldn’t need them anymore, but for some reason the damn Trippers kept coming back. I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how we all were going to end up one day, just wandering around in a daze, slowly decaying away until we eventually die. I wish they all would die right now.

  After I put the covers in place, I opened the small window my dad had cut in each one. It was a small square right in the center. It was too small for a Tripper to fit through, but it was big enough to have plenty of angles to shoot them away.

  I didn’t do anything other than close the drapes on the upstairs windows, and I looked in on my dad. He was washing his arm and his wound, cleaning it out as well as he could. It was a nasty bite, but since it had gone through his shirt first, there was a hope he wasn’t too deeply infected. I had heard some people had been bitten and managed to not turn, so if it wasn’t a bad bite maybe my dad would be okay.

  He caught me looking, and he glanced over at my mom who was sitting on the edge of the bed. She was lost in a daze, just looking out the window, not really doing much at all.

  “Hey, Josh! Seems like it wasn’t as deep as I thought. Maybe there’s a chance after all. Help me with the bandage, would you?” My dad tried to sound cheerful and light, but I could hear the strain in his voice.

  “Sure,” I said. I went over to the sink and took the roll of bandages. Dad held the sterile pad over his cut while I wrapped it up a few times. I tied it off and then cut the extra.

  “Good work,” Dad said. “Let’s check the defenses, shall we?”

  “How does it feel, dad?” I asked, my curiosity overcoming my fear for a moment as we worked our way around the rooms and then headed downstairs.

  “Actually, Josh, not that bad. Hurt at first, but now it just stings a little.” He looked at me. “Wouldn’t recommend you go and get your own, though.”

  I smiled, but I knew he was just trying to make me feel better. I didn’t know what I felt. I was scared, worried, and uncertain all at the same time. What if my dad turned? Would I have to kill him? What would my mother do? What would I do? How could I keep up this house? Would we go to a community? I just didn’t know.

  We checked the downstairs preparations, and dad sent me out to collect some extra buckets of water and to make sure the horse was secured in her stall. I gave her an extra helping of hay, and she seemed to be content with the proceedings. I think I was a little jealous of her.

&nb
sp; After that, there was little to do but sit around. We stayed upstairs because the house was very dark on the first floor. The window covers were very effective, and only a little light showed around the portholes. If I stayed down there I could see a little, but it wasn’t easy. I went into my room and started making more arrows. I was nearly out of materials, but I did the best I could with what I had.

  After I had made about two dozen, I pulled a couple of books off the shelf and dove in. They were westerns, naturally, since I was the proud new owner of a Colt. That thought sobered me a bit when I thought about what that Colt had cost me. Or might cost me; we’ll see.

  Chapter 20

  The sun was slipping past the horizon when I looked out the window. That was when I saw the first one. She was young, about my age, and was moving slowly through the trees. Her blonde head swayed a little from side to side, and her arms were out in front a bit to give her a little balance. She was wearing a sweater and some jeans, and I could make out some dark marks on her face. As she got closer, I saw those marks were blood stains. She looked around, scanning for threats, and moved along our western wall. She was about fifty feet from where I was, and I could have easily killed her with an arrow, but I didn’t dare make a sound. Her angry cries would draw everyone around for a mile, and I had enough to worry about.

  I watched her stumble past, and happened to look over at my neighbor’s house. It had been empty for years, and there was nothing of any use in there. The only thing it was good for was firewood. Dad and I had torn up the oak floorboards from the two bedrooms last winter when the snows were really bad.

  After her came two more—young men by the looks of them. One had a knife sticking out of his shoulder, and the other was dragging a broken foot. I remembered the arrow I had put in the chest of another Tripper, and I couldn’t help but wonder why that one died but this one seems to be doing just fine.

  Suddenly, the two stiffened and they stared at the house next door. I looked up and saw that someone was there! There was a person standing in the downstairs window, and with the last sunlight drifting through the building, they were outlined as clear as day. The Trippers began to move up to the house, and whoever was there wasn’t very bright, because they moved quickly to close the curtains.

  That was it. The Trippers howled and rushed the house, one reaching it sooner than the other with the broken foot, but they started to pound on the window they saw the person in. The noise brought back the blonde from before, and there were six more that came over the yard and advanced on the house.

  “Dad!” I whispered, walking away from the window. “Dad!” I went into my parent’s room, and found my dad reading a book.

  “What is it Josh?” He looked up from his reading. I caught the cover and it said ‘Triggernometry’, whatever that might be.

  “Trippers are at the house next door,” I said quietly, even though I wanted to shout it.

  My mother looked up from her work, glanced at my dad and said, “So it begins.”

  “There’s no one there, so no worries Josh. They can’t get over the wall,” he said.

  “But there is someone there! They were in the window, and the Trippers saw them!”

  Dad put the book down and followed me as I ran back to my room. I could hear the banging as the Trippers pounded on the windows and walls of the house next door.

  Dad looked out. “Jesus,” he said.

  And how. I looked out and saw nearly fifty of the infected creatures. They came in all shapes and sizes, and every one was trying to get into the house. If anyone was in there, I hoped they had put themselves into the attic and were being quiet in a corner.

  A crashing of glass, a screech of triumph, and the infected were in. They streamed through the broken window and flooded the house. We watched them as they roamed around the downstairs and figured it was only a matter of time before we saw them upstairs.

  A few minutes later, we were right. And a second after that we heard a scream. It was a deep, painful scream, like someone who had just lost a best friend or loved one. Suddenly it was cut off, and there was a frenzy of activity in one of the rooms. I was grateful I couldn’t see into the room.

  Outside, the Trippers who hadn’t gone in were milling about. But they got excited when a boy about my age came tearing out of the broken window. His arms were torn and bitten, and it looked like he had been given a bloody nose. But he was moving, and might have made it if he hadn’t run full tilt into another group of Trippers.

  He yelled as they pounded and tore at him, biting and clawing his flesh away. When he fell to the ground, they fell with him, beating and tearing. His yells turned to screams as they ripped his abdomen open, and ropes of intestines were thrown into the air. He stopped screaming when they tore his heart out.

  I could do nothing but watch. He was already infected, and would have been lost anyway. Being a Tripper was almost the same as being dead. It just took longer for the process to get done.

  My dad looked at me and turned away, saying nothing. We were both probably thinking the same thing. What was going to happen to him? What was going to happen to mom and me? I wished I knew.

  Chapter 21

  During the night, the Trippers were all over the place. They never got inside the walls of our yard, and I could see that Trey’s family was in as decent of shape as we were. The hard part was being quiet all the time and staying away from the windows.

  In the morning, I amused myself by counting the Trippers first and then giving them names. There was Suzy, Frank, and Bill over by the shed, and there was Wendy, Maria, and Gordon hanging out by the old mailbox. There was Brandon by the big tree, and Holly headed over to the creek. There was Jessica along the wall, and inside the yard was my dad.

  I shook my head and looked again. Sure enough, my father was crawling towards the wall with a small rifle in his hands and a box. I recognized the box and the rifle. The rifle was a .22 my dad had found a year ago. It was supposed to be a copy of a more powerful rifle, but it was still fun to shoot. It had a thingy on it that was supposed to make the gun shoot quietly, but it was just for show, as my dad said. But he tinkered with it and found that if he took the fake silent thing off and cut the barrel down, he could attach a big oil filter from a truck. When he fired it like that, it made almost no sound at all. Trouble was, we couldn’t aim it very well. Why my dad had it now was very curious.

  He made it to the wall, and I could see his bright white bandage nearly glowing in the early dawn. He looked up at me and gave me a small wave, then moved over to the wall. He stood up and rested the big filter barrel in a notch of the rocks. His head was clearly visible to the Trippers, but they hadn’t seen him yet. I was nervous as hell, and went so far as to get my bow strung and stand by my window, ready to let fly.

  But Dad seemed to know what he was doing. He made a sound, and the three nearest Trippers moved over to the wall. They made their way to him, and as the first one stuck his face in the notch, my dad shot him between the eyes. The Tripper’s head snapped back, and he fell backwards like a tree. The next one strolled up, stuck his head in, and got nailed for it as well. I couldn’t hear anything from where I was, and by the looks of the inactivity out there, the Trippers were unaware as well.

  Dad managed to kill ten by the fence, and that was the end of the Trippers on that side. He crawled along the wall, then popped his head up to look around, ducking it back down before anyone saw him. He went over to where he saw the nearest Trippers and stuck his rifle over the top. I saw him looking through a hole in the wall, and then he did something to get the Tripper’s attention. Several wandered over, and when they were lined up with his gun, he took them out. Another five added to the score. I was happy he was killing them until I realized I was going to have to help him clean up.

  It went on like this for about an hour. Dad snuck around and killed Trippers as they came to investigate. As long as he kept himself out of sight, they wouldn’t see him as a threat. I wondered if he had wrappe
d his head in tree branches, could he just walk around and shoot them? Something to think about.

  When he finished, he snuck his way back in, and I could hear him fussing about downstairs. In a few minutes, he came into my room.

  “What do you think?” he asked, looking out the window.

  “I’d say you’re about a hundred short, but a good start,” I said. “How’s the arm?”

  Dad looked at his bandage. “Seems okay, a little tight, but that’s about it.”

  We didn’t say anything for a bit. We both knew that was the infection starting, and whether it was the virus or just his body reacting to the bite, we would know in a few days.

  During the next couple of days my dad brought out the case, and we went over my new Colt. I practiced loading and unloading it, and I dry-fired it a few times. My dad taught me how to hold it with both hands, one hand, and how to aim without using the sights. I didn’t get the chance to actually fire it, but it was for the better. If the Trippers got over our wall it would have been the end.

  Trey and I communicated with each other off and on during the wave. We tied notes to our arrows and launched them towards each other’s homes. I had to kneel on the ground and use a slanted hold on the bow, but I managed it all right. Trey had it easy. With a crossbow, all he had to do was lift it and shoot.

  Trey was sad to hear about my dad and jealous about my Colt. But he said he and his family were doing fine. He saw the activity next door, and was sad someone had to die. His dad killed some Trippers like my dad had done, so at least we were accounting for a good number of them.

  Two days later the Trippers wandered off. It wouldn’t be safe to be very far from home for at least another week, so we were going to have to be really careful.