by Joseph Zuko
When’s the baby due? Oh, you’re not pregnant. Sorry.
Excuse me, sir, that’s the lady’s restroom. Oh, pardon me, Ma’am.
Karen handed Leon a fully loaded tool belt. He wrapped it around his body and cinched it down to fit his slim waist.
Karen pointed at five sheets of inch thick plywood that leaned against the garage wall. Next to it stacked on the concrete was a pile of two by fours and two by sixes, “Mama miscalculated when she ordered the lumber for the chicken coop. She ended up buying twice as much wood as she needed and by the time she noticed her mistake it was past the store’s thirty day return policy. She kept it and had planned to build another coop to keep rabbits in.” Karen heard her own voice. It sounded like a computer. Regurgitating facts, but there was no emotion behind what she was saying. She was in shock. No doubt about it.
“We should be able to block up most of the windows with this stuff,” Leon said as he looked over the area. Penny had purchased a bunch of top of the line gear to build that coop outside. She had a battery powered handsaw and drills, plus a box of about a thousand screws.
“They don’t have to look pretty. They just have to be strong enough to keep a gang of the monsters out.” Karen pointed at her wrist. “I’m not going to be much help, but I’ll try.”
Leon pulled off his suit jacket and said affirmatively, “Let’s get to work.”
“Front windows first. There’s the kitchen window and one in each of the two bedrooms. Those three are facing the street and the most likely to be hit.” Karen helped him carry the tools into the kitchen. Then the two of them hauled as much lumber as they could out of the garage.
Leon measured out the window in the kitchen. It was big and would need one full sheet of plywood itself.
“Use a set of the two by fours on each side of the window. If we secure them to the wall it would give us a better place to mount the plywood to.” Karen was already working up another sweat.
“Then we can use the two by sixes to reinforce the plywood.” Leon picked up the drill and climbed up onto the counter. Karen helped hold the chunk of wood in position. Leon stood on Penny’s new granite counters and worked quickly to find a stud in the wall to fasten the two by four to. In only a few minutes he had the anchors in place and the two of them worked the large length of plywood behind the sink’s faucet. Karen handed him screw after screw as he got the big piece up and blocked out the window.
“We need to fill as many containers as we can find with water,” Karen said as she looked around the kitchen.
“The human body needs a gallon of water a day to function correctly. We also need about a gallon a day for food prep and to keep ourselves clean.” Leon rattled off this tidbit of info as he pulled a two by six up onto the counter to start building a frame system to fortify the window barricade.
Karen crunched the numbers in her head. Five humans times two gallons of water each day, minus the fact that the girls didn’t need as much water meant they needed about sixty gallons of water stored just to last about a week.
That’s a shit ton of H2O!
If the water gets shut off we are fucked.
Luckily they lived in the northwest and it rains around forty inches every year. They would need to build a water catching device and figure out how to clean and purify the water.
Leon sunk the last screw into the brace and then gave it a hard push with his hands. The barricade didn’t budge.
“I think this should hold,” he said as he climbed down off the counter. He was pouring sweat now and his shirt had pitted out.
“Good, let’s keep going,” Karen picked up as many tools as she could and headed for the nearest room.
The window in the first room was small and they were able to cut the chunk of plywood in half. Karen kept a lookout as Leon made quick work of the cut. The saw was powerful and ripped right through it in a flash. If there were any remaining infected in the area, Karen hoped they wouldn’t hear the noise and if they did she prayed they would not be able to locate its origin. This room held all of Penny’s sewing projects. She had made dresses for the girls this last Christmas and the machine and fabric was still laid out all over the room. There was bookshelf full of fabrics and patterns that Penny had saved over the years and a worktable with a very fancy sewing machine. Other than those two pieces of furniture the room was bare.
Leon had the braces up and set the frame in half the time as the first window. He gave it the test and it didn’t flex at all.
“Whew,” he exhaled as he flexed his sore fingers.
Karen picked up the tools and moved into the next room. This one was used as an actual spare bedroom with an old queen mattress tucked tight up against the far wall and a nightstand. As she reached for the string to pull the blinds shut Karen checked out the window for any new infected. It was clear. She gave the string a good tug and let the blinds fall. A scream slashed through the air outside. Karen’s fingers separated a set of blinds and she peered out across the street. A young boy, maybe ten, raced for his life from an infected woman. The dead woman chugged hot on the boy’s trail. He headed for the front door of the house directly in front of Penny’s home. His palm struck the wood surface and he pulled at the knob. His voice cried the words, “Please help me! Please open the door!” The second the woman was about to pounce on him he darted under her outstretched arms. In a flash he sprinted for the open gate that led to the house’s backyard.
“Leon!” Karen pulled her gun and blasted out the bedroom door.
What am I doing?
I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. Am I crazy?
Karen knew the answer. No matter how hard she tried to fight it she was compelled to save people. Karen was a blur as she passed the doorway to Penny’s sewing room.
“What’s going on?!” Leon called after her.
“There’s a kid in trouble!” She hit the front door and twisted the lock open. Leon called after her as she exited the front door. She was bathed in the evening sun as she zipped down the driveway. Her skin glowed and her hair fell out of the cheap plastic clip. The child’s bawling echoed out over the fence. Leon left in such a hurry to make sure he kept Karen safe he forgot to grab his axe or Troy’s shotgun. The only weapons on his body was the set of screwdrivers jiggling in the tool belt and the battery powered handsaw. He did his best to catch her, but she was blazing fast across the street.
Karen breached the gate and slowed to make sure she wasn’t running into a hiding horde or into the back of the dead lady. In the center of the yard stood a large maple with a treehouse perched in the thick branches. The ten-year-old was halfway up the tree and hanging on for dear life. The infected woman had her gnarled fingers wrapped around the kid’s sneaker and was trying to wrangle him off of the ladder made of wooden slats.
Karen lined up a shot, but at this distance she didn’t trust her shaky, non-dominant, hand to not hit the kid. She quickly moved in behind the infected not letting the thing see her. Leon joined them in the yard. He searched to make sure there wasn’t any more of the monsters hiding in the bushes or corners. His head moved back and forth so fast that it was about to rip off. Karen was ten feet from the infected and about to fire a round into the back of its head when the boy’s grip failed and he began to fall.
His descent off of the ladder looked like it was happening in slow motion to Karen. The kid’s chin hit three rungs on the way down to the grass. The impact on the rough, wood surface split the skin on his jaw wide open. When his legs hit the ground Karen knew right away what that snapping sound was.
The child howled in agony as he clutched his shin. The little guy’s foot dangled from the broken socket. The infected woman’s full body collapsed and covered the child on the ground. Karen had finally closed the distance to the infected woman and placed the tip of her gun to the back of its skull. Karen squeezed the trigger at the same time the dead woman sank her teeth into the boy’s arm. The bullet destroyed the brain and blood sprayed all over the ch
ild. Her infected teeth were still buried in the kid’s skin.
“Oh my god!” Leon was now standing next to Karen and unable to comprehend just how bad this was. He had not yet seen someone get bit, never witnessed the transformation and was not mentally prepared for what was about to come next. “What do we do?!?” Leon nearly shouted as he ran his hand over his forehead to clear the sweat from his brow.
Karen didn’t know. She had witnessed what happened to Steve in her apartment and now it was about to happen to this kid.
SHIT!
Karen tugged on the dead woman’s shirt and tried to pull her off of the crying child. Its teeth were locked deep into the kid’s flesh. She tried harder to yank the infected off of the boy and he cried even louder.
The boy panicked and called out, “DON’T, IT HURTS!”
“We’ve got to get this thing off you!” Leon said as he lent a helping hand and grabbed the infected by the back of its blood covered hair. He dragged the dead body off of the boy and a chunk of meat from his little arm also came along for the ride too.
Karen almost lost it and fought to keep the little bit of water she had drank.
Leon got the dead body cleared from the boy. “You have to be quiet.” he whispered. Karen knelt in the grass next to the boy and tried to cradle him in her arms.
“Shhh.” She said as she tried her best to calm him, but his injures were too extreme. The hole in his forearm had already turned black and his veins were following suit.
“I can’t believe how fast it moves. We have to get out of here, right?” Leon said as he backed away.
“We have to take care of this first.” Karen’s voice cut with a blackness Leon had never heard before.
“What are you talking about?!”
“He will turn and we have to take care of it!”
The two of them had to yell just to be able to hear each other over the child’s constant shrieks.
“You want to shoot the kid?” Leon was confused.
“No, I don’t want to shoot him!”
The boy’s body shook out of Karen’s arms and he convulsed on the soft grass. Karen hopped up from the ground, like a poisonous snake was chasing after her. She quickly moved to Leon’s side.
They watched as the adolescent turned into a new creature. Shock stretched across Leon’s face as he witnessed the change in the boy’s eyes. In the snap of a finger they went from white to black. The child’s lips pulled tight exposing his new weapons. The boy was missing his two front upper and lower teeth. The gap looked even sharper and more dangerous.
“Leon, please do something. I can’t handle killing my Mama and this child in the same hour.”
Leon saw his opportunity to prove to Karen just how much he cared about her.
This is a good start. He thought.
If I can take care of this for her she’ll see how much I can protect her.
Leon had made his decision. The kid had to go so he could win her affection. It wasn’t ideal. He would have rather got her some flowers and a box of chocolate than kill this infected child, but what are you going to do? The boy’s body had stopped shaking. He was about to come back.
Leon took a large step over to the little infected body. He hovered above the child for a second, “Sorry little guy.” Was all he said before he dropped to his knees and kicked on the saw in his hands. Leon buried all four inches of the circular blade into the child’s face. Blood exploded everywhere.
“Leon? Wait!” Karen couldn’t get the words out fast enough.
He couldn’t hear her. The saw made a horribly disgusting sound as it fought its way through the bone of the infected skull. It was like Leon had cut into a waterline. He was instantly covered in liquid. It took a couple of seconds to force the saw out the top of the child’s skull.
Just like cutting a two by six, he thought.
“Whew, okay. That’s done,” Leon said as he rose to his feet. He found a clean spot on his shoulder and wiped the blood from his face.
“What is wrong with you?”
He was blown away by the look of horror on Karen’s face.
Wasn’t that what she wanted?
I killed the thing!
Damn!
“What?” Leon shrugged his shoulders at her.
“I meant shoot him.”
Leon grimaced. “Oh, sorry.”
She told me to take care of it and I did.
She didn’t say shoot him.
I’m not a mind reader.
He felt a twinge of anger and shame about this whole mess. It was just like what Leon’s father always used to tell him. “Damned if you do. So why do it.”
CHAPTER 5
“AAAAHHHHH!” Jim regained some composure. The monsters at his window looked hungry. They were starving to get a taste of him, just a bite, just a little nibble before the sun set in the sky. “They came out of nowhere!” Jim squealed one octave too high.
“I got ‘em.” Frank grumbled. He double checked to make sure his side was clear then he popped open his door. Frank’s heavy hand dropped onto the metal hood of the PT Cruiser with a loud POP. “Hey, chumps, over here!” He taunted them. He circled the front of the car and waited for them to line up. The zombies headed for the new snack.
A single bullet ripped through the three infected heads and their bodies dropped.
“Okay, it’s safe now.” Frank raised his eyebrows twice at the two in the car, even he was impressed with himself.
Jim exited the vehicle, “Chumps” he exclaimed.
Sara got out on Jim’s side of the car and shared the brief moment of levity between the two men. Out of habit Jim hit the lock/alarm button on his key fob and then slid the keys back into his pocket. He tugged at the metal door at the front of the building.
Locked.
The building was solid brick and the windows were high off the ground. They would need a ladder to get up to them. “Let’s see if there’s another way around back.” He didn’t wait for anyone to answer. He jogged along the front of the building.
Sara kept her bat perched up high above her shoulder. Frank kept pace behind them and watched everyone’s back.
Jim rounded the corner of the building, paused for a moment to check if it was clear and continued on. He could feel his heartrate climbing and the sweat getting ready to flow.
When will I get to take a nice hot shower?
He got to the edge of the building, paused, and peeked around the corner.
Shit! Another five zombies were coming this way. “Some chumps are ahead of us,” Jim ribbed Frank as he readied himself for the fight.
Jim came around the corner with his spear swinging. He lopped the top half of a freak’s head clean off. Sara landed a home run and knocked a beast into the wall. The blades on her bat cut a jagged smile into the face of the zombie. On her second strike she landed the killshot. Its brains erupted out of its cranium and up onto the brick. The tips of her knives sparked as they skipped along the porous surface. Her swing had perfect form on the follow through. Frank finished off the last three with a short burst of hot lead.
Jim glanced over his shoulder to make sure everyone was still clear before he moved on. He stepped over a dead body and trucked the rest of the way to the backdoor. It was locked too, but next to it was a large dumpster.
“We can bust out the window and climb in through here,” Jim said as he lifted himself up onto the dumpster’s lid. “Switch me for your bat.” He held out his spear toward Sara. She switched him quickly. Jim took a second to get his balance on the flexing lid of the container. He swung the bat and the glass exploded into the building. He dragged the slugger over the window’s sill to knock out as many skin cutting shards as possible. After a couple more swipes he had all the big nasty ones out of the way. As Jim turned back to Sara to hand her the bat he noticed a rug on the ground outside the door. “Can you pass me that?” Jim pointed at the ground.
Sara grabbed the rug up by the corner and handed the dirty, dark blue re
ctangle to Jim. He draped it over the sill and started to climb up through the window. He got one leg over and then the next. Jim hung from the sill for a short moment. When he let go he dropped three feet to the tile floor.
Jim pushed down on the door’s handle and let them in. Sara handed him back his spear as he flipped on the light switch by the door frame. The space was white and sterile. They entered a short hallway that fed into a larger warehouse. Jim had never in his life broken the law like he had today. He was not a big speeder and didn’t drink and drive, but today he’d had to do a little looting and now some breaking and entering. It was weirdly exciting. He could see how thieves could get addicted to the thrill.
Frank flipped on a bank of lights.
Row after row, full to the brim with medical supplies, appeared. On the far wall sat a dozen glass doored under counter refrigerators storing little vials of medicine.
“Whoa, that’s a lot of shit to look through.” Sara ran her hand through her thick red hair to brush it out of her eyes.
“Frank, you look for the antibiotics Tina wrote down. Check the fridges. Sara and I will look for the blood transfusion kit and anything else we might need,” Jim said as he unclicked his backpack, he fished out the hammer that his father had given him when he bought his first house, “Here’s the key to the fridges.” Frank nodded, took the hammer from Jim and pulled the list from his front breast pocket. He booked it across the warehouse and squatted down in front of the first fridge and started reading the labels.
Sara and Jim wandered the aisles. They read the labels of all the different medical supplies. Elastic tape, non-adhesive tape, cloth tape, hypoallergenic tape, silk tape, foam tape, paper tape and on and on it went. Jim’s head was swimming from all of the choices.
Which is the correct kind of tape for a gunshot wound?