by TW Brown
Doing a quick guess of events, I’d say that it started in the ambulance. People pulled over to help and ended up becoming part of the problem. The folks that lived at the end of the street probably came out as well. That would add to the numbers in a hurry. And if they’d sat up as fast as my sister, then the dozen or so people downstairs had given the numbers another big boost.
I reached back and pulled down the zipper to my dress and shed it in record time. I heard the gauzy fabric rip as I yanked and tugged to have it off me in a hurry. I grabbed my jeans, tennis shoes, and the flannel shirt I’d slipped into this morning before heading over to be squeezed into my wedding gown.
I was about to put on clothing more suited to running for my life when the sound of something at the door caused me to turn around. Standing there was my niece, Caitlyn. She had just turned four. I still remember the amount of crap I’d given Samantha Lynn for getting knocked up at twenty-two. But my niece turned out to be more like me than my sister. That meant she was already a bad ass tomboy. She threw a fit every time they tried to put a dress on that little girl. I’d already found the mini-dirt bike I was going to get her for Christmas this year.
Her chestnut brown hair was almost black with blood. Her left arm was gone…nothing more than an ugly stub of bone jutting from the tattered sleeve of her favorite football jersey. (I’d told her she could wear it under her flower-girl dress.) She stood in the open doorway and stared at me.
I heard my mom try to hold back a sob. I felt sick to my stomach when she cocked her head to one side and then the other as she just stood there staring at me with her goo-filmed eyes full of those hideous black tracers. While she was not making a move towards me, there was still nothing about this thing that resembled my Caty Cat.
She took a step into the room, her head jerking around to look down at Samantha’s corpse. Then she looked back up at me. Her expression never changed. I opened the window and told my mom to crawl out onto the roof. Never taking my eyes off what was left of my niece, I followed. Just as I slipped out, there was some movement out in the hall past the little zombie. In walked three of the adult versions, and they made a beeline for me as soon as their eyes found me.
They pushed past the little one, actually knocking it to the ground. One of the three was what was left of my fiancé. His insides were spilling out from a huge rip in his belly and when he reached out with his hands, I saw fingers missing from both.
I climbed out onto the roof with my mom and slammed the window shut behind us to give me enough time to wiggle into my jeans, throw on the shirt, and slide my feet into the shoes.
I’d come over in my pickup and knew for a fact that they keys were still dangling from the ignition. It took some effort to get my mom to start moving. In the time it took to put on my clothes, she’d just stared at the window. Twisted versions of Paul and Caitlin’s faces stared out at us. He was trying to gnaw on the window to no avail, but she just stared out, her head doing that creepy bird-like twitch.
I had to guide my mom to the tree that grew beside the house. I was worried I might have to shove her off—which might’ve been a mercy considering things—but she started down after just a simple nudge and a few whispered pleas for her to get moving.
Once we were down, I pulled her along to my pickup, shoved her in the front and then climbed in after her. The engine roared to life and I saw figures starting to stumble out the busted in front door as I backed up. I stomped on the gas and got us out of there in a big hurry.
We came home…I lived back in that neighborhood where we ran into each other. I arrived to find the place was already a mess. A bunch of people were already packing up and planning on heading to one of the FEMA shelters. A few chose to stay behind and we got together and closed the gates, parking cars in all the exits and entrances.
Things were okay until some of the idiots made a run and came back with two members bitten but didn’t tell anybody. When they turned and took out their friends and families a few of the remaining families decided to make a run for it, they left one of our entrances open and a bunch of those things got in.
That was the last day I saw any of the others. Unfortunately, by then, the cut on my mom’s hand from the crystal candlestick had become infected. Twice I tried to get her antibiotics. I made runs at that medical center down the hill. I finally came back with a bag of stuff…but I’d never heard my mom say that she was allergic to penicillin.
***
“Time to roll,” Marshawn said, interrupting Alex and causing us both to jump.
She wiped her eyes, got up, grabbed her bag and walked over to where the rest of the group stood. Marshawn watched her go and then turned back to me.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.
“Will the answer to that ever be yes?” I replied as I slung my own pack over my shoulders.
8
Amen
“I found the keys and there is a car in the garage,” Marshawn announced to the group. “Also, I found a few things we should bring with us.”
“Sounds great.” I went over and stood with Michael and Chewie. “Anybody else have input?”
I glanced around at the group and saw confused faces. Tracy finally stepped forward.
“We still don’t really know what the plan is. You say that McIver Park is our goal. Only…well…why? Isn’t there a better choice for a place to call home?” She glanced over at Darya who nodded. Something told me they had been discussing this topic at length.
“The reality is that we will need water. That is our biggest priority when choosing someplace to fortify. Houses are great short-term ideas, but the plumbing is or will be offline. Also, if there are houses, there will eventually be scavengers. We will no doubt have to deal with the living, but finding someplace that will get the least amount of traffic possible is ideal. I can only speak for myself when I say that I want to put down roots and try to rebuild some kind of life.” I looked around at the group for any indication that they might be on the same page. Only Marshawn appeared to be nodding along.
“But McIver?” Darya pressed, joining in the conversation. “That seems a bit random.”
“Here is why it makes sense.” I realized then that I’d gone over this idea all by myself. I hadn’t given any reasons or explanations as to my choice. They were well within their rights to ask. This wasn’t a dictatorship. And certainly people should have a clue as to why I’d made this choice. “It is on the Clackamas River and I think that is our best and least fouled river in the area. There are a few basic amenities that we can use. Wood is going to be our source of heat in the coming months. There is also a small island that I believe we can fortify as a fallback location. And it still keeps us in proximity to residential areas. That will allow us to continue to scavenge goods for the time being until it becomes either too dangerous, or else we tap everything out.”
“But why McIver?” Tracy pressed. “We could go pretty much anyplace and do this. Instead, we are traveling out to Bum-fuck, Egypt. I don’t know why we don’t just find someplace closer.”
“Water.” I did my best not to get agitated. After all, I was basically asking these people to just follow my lead. “We need water to survive. That is one of those things where you don’t realize it until you don’t have any. I always used to talk to friends about how living in the Pacific Northwest would make it easy to survive the zombie apocalypse. Hunting…fishing…and that is great. But without water, we are done. And we need to boil it before drinking.”
“So why not just find someplace on the Willamette?” Darya pressed.
“Too much of the industrial district dumping crap in it for years. Who knows what is lurking in that water,” I said. “Yeah, we could boil the water there too, but it isn't some kind of magic wand. I have no idea what might still exist in the waters of the Willamette.”
There was a moment of quiet where everybody just stood there. Finally, Tracy nodded. “Okay then. I guess you have a plan. W
e’re in, Evan.”
“What about Selina and Carl?” Michael spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “Are we leaving them?”
“No.” I knelt in front of the boy, resisting the urge to tip his chin up so that he was looking me in the eye as I spoke. “But we have to have someplace to bring them back to if this is going to work. So we will just have to hope and pray that they stay safe until we can come help.”
“Will you?” The question came so quick, and was so open ended that I had no idea what he was asking or how to answer.
“Will I what?”
“Will you pray that Jesus will watch over them and make them safe?”
I felt my mouth open, but nothing came out. I don’t think I’d ever actually prayed for anything unless you counted my occasional, but quite loud, vocalizations for my favorite teams to win.
“Sure we will,” Marshawn said, stepping up beside me. “Ladies, care to join us?”
I looked up and saw Tracy shrug. Darya simply walked over and knelt beside Michael. The bigger surprise for me was when Alex knelt beside her. Tracy got down beside me and Marshawn took his place at Michael’s side.
“What do you want us to pray for, Michael?” the big man asked.
“For Selina and Carl and everybody the bad people took to be safe until we can come get them and bring them back to our new home at the park.” Michael’s voice was absolute innocence.
“Okay.” Marshawn gave a raised eyebrow to me as if asking to go ahead. I nodded. “Dear Lord, we ask for you to watch over our friends in our absence. Place your hedge of protection around them and keep Satan’s hand from them. Nourish their hearts, souls, and bodies and guide us to them when the time comes. We ask this in the name of your son Jesus who died for our sins.”
“Amen,” everybody said in fairly close unison once it was clear Marshawn was finished.
“Amen all the way to Heaven,” Michael added in a whisper.
As everybody followed Marshawn inside and started pitching in to get us ready, I couldn’t help but think maybe we were coming together as a group. There was a sense that perhaps we could unify and carve out a life in this living nightmare.
As I helped Marshawn load a very large tool box into the back of the dark green Durango that sat in the garage and had already been turned over to ensure that it started, I could not help but ask, “Were you religious before all of this?”
Marshawn gave a grunt as he shoved the toolbox against one side and then turned to me. “My pops was a preacher. He could lay down the gospel.” A faraway look came to his eyes for a moment, and then he shook his head as if to clear it. “I used to listen to him when I was little and think I was going to follow in his footsteps.”
“But you didn’t.” It wasn’t really a question. Marshawn was a nurse. Was he both?
“I just didn’t feel like I could ever give people what they came away from his sermons with every Sunday. The day he had his heart attack and I visited him in the hospital, I met a guy who was one of the nurses taking care of my dad. I watched him do his thing, and then I saw this sour-faced lady who had the exact same job. I started nursing school two weeks later.” He smiled. “My pops was so proud of me. That was the best part. I’d been worried that he might be disappointed when I didn’t follow in his footsteps.”
With that, we had a few things from the residence that would come in handy as well as anything edible. I was perhaps the most excited to find a medicine cabinet with some A & D ointment, a 1000 count bottle of ibuprofen that hadn’t even been opened, a tube of toothpaste, and a razor with four refill cartridges.
I had to force the garage door open once everybody was in the vehicle, and in a stroke of luck that I would take as a good omen, nothing waited for us on the other side. There were a few zombies in either direction on the street, but nothing that was going to be a problem. I thought I heard a distant bit of noise that might’ve been the megaphone announcer and his school bus, but nothing that would give cause for concern.
The SUV rolled out and onto the street, I hopped in to join the others. Marshawn took a look when we hit the intersection of whatever side road this was and Highway 212. Once he was confident that the coast was clear, he rolled out, turning left and into the heart of the tiny town of Damascus. We rolled past a Safeway, a gas station, and a Dairy Queen on one side of the highway with a Bi-Mart, some small shops, and a Mickey Dees on the other.
Just as we rolled past the Dairy Queen, Marshawn slammed on the brakes causing everybody to yelp or curse in surprise. Once I managed to untangle myself from Chewie and Michael who had ended up in a jumble at my feet and in my lap, I smacked the back of the driver’s seat.
“What the hell, man?”
Marshawn pointed out the passenger’s side as he cranked the steering wheel over and pulled off the road. At first I didn’t understand, then the small sign jumped out at me.
“Lost most of your stuff back there at the other place.” Marshawn put the SUV in park and turned back to face me. “Not sure when or where we will get another shot like this. Might be worth a quick look.”
I jumped out after reminding Michael and Chewie to stay put and behave. The gravel of the parking lot made a loud crunch as Marshawn and I walked to the small window that looked into the reception area of Village Vet.
I tried the door after we were fairly certain nothing was waiting in the lobby area. It was locked. No big surprise.
Using my elbow, I gave the window a solid shot. It exploded inward with a deafening crash. As soon as it did, the smell of death rolled out to greet us. On the positive side, it wasn’t the telltale smell of undeath.
I climbed in and then unlocked the front door for Marshawn. He hurried in and the two of us started grabbing bags of dry dog food stacked against one wall.
It didn’t take us long, and after the first trip, Alex and Darya both pitched in to help. Tracy stayed put outside the vehicle with a rifle at the ready. As soon as we grabbed what we could, I hopped the counter and took a peek in the back. I quickly located a locker with a notice that it was not to be opened without authorization.
Hurrying out to the vehicle, I found a clawed hammer and rushed back. It was harder than I’d expected and made a great deal of noise in the process. At last, I managed to manhandle the door open. There was a variety of medications, so I searched around until I found a bag and loaded up as much as I could, having no idea if I was even getting anything useful. Still, many of the prescriptions had instructions. I could look through them later and try to make my best guess as to what each might be used for.
Once more, we were on the move. We passed through a very rural area with a good mix of sprawling farms, dilapidated trailers sitting on cinder blocks and a few greenhouse/nursery locations. We noted these as we passed. These would be the kinds of locations we would likely make scavenger runs on once we were settled. These places would help us establish our farms. That was one more lucky break I gave thanks for. Spring was right around the corner. That meant many of these places would probably have a plethora of gardening supplies. A few had large flatbed trucks parked in them that we could hopefully get started and then make bigger runs.
We reached the tee-intersection of SE 232nd Drive. Turning right, we found ourselves on a gently rolling two-lane road. There were certainly more houses along this road, and I noticed everybody sitting up just a little bit straighter as our level of vigilance increased.
“Heads up!” Marshawn hissed as he let off the gas and very gently applied the brakes to bring us to a stop.
Despite seeing nothing up ahead, I knew why he’d stopped. To the left was a parking lot with rows of school buses. Just beyond that lot was an elementary school. I instantly flashed back to the school I’d passed what seemed like an eternity ago. My gaze drifted across the street to what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a fallow field of some sort.
The road we were on was lined with trees, so this had sort of snuck up on us. We could back up, but the
re was no guarantee that we wouldn’t encounter something similar in another direction. Also, just because there was a school did not mean there were child-zombies.
“Well?” Marshawn asked, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror.
“I say we roll through. Doesn’t have to be anything up there,” I replied.
“Of the five elementary schools I have come across, four of them have been like zombie children hives.”
“Then maybe we go really fast,” Darya offered. “The road is empty right now. I haven’t seen the child versions show themselves to be any quicker than the normal ones.”
“She makes a good point.” Alex opened her front passenger door and stood, taking a look ahead with her binoculars. “I say we rocket through. There is movement for sure, but there is also some sort of fence in place. I think we can skirt past without a problem.”
She climbed back in, shut the door, and gave Marshawn a slight nod. He seemed to take that as good enough and stomped on the gas. There was a short chirping squeal as the tires spun a few times before gripping the road, then we were moving.
As we sped past, I had my face pressed to the window. Sure enough, I saw several small figures moving in the shadow of the building. For whatever reason, it seemed that the child versions of the zombies were drawn to schools. That would be good information to store.
We eventually came out onto Highway 224. That would take us towards Estacada. I’d only been there a few times, and not any of those being recent. It had been known as a logging town once-upon-a-time. I also recall it Having a reputation for being a bit of a ‘No Man’s Land’ when it came to the surrounding forests. If you believed the rumors, there had been some large pot growing operations back in the day, and then meth moved in. Honestly, I have no idea as to the truth to any of those stories, but I also knew we would pass through the heart of it on our way.
Maybe I would get an idea as to how possible it would be to make some supply runs to the houses and small shops or stores in the area. We started along the road and had to avoid a few bad accidents on the way.