Haven From Hell: Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse

by Won, Mark

  Roger, “If there’s plenty of cars out there then what’s the point of going alone? You should have someone to cover your back.” Like I said before, that Roger is plenty good at Algebra.

  The fact was I didn’t want to risk anybody’s life. It just seemed like a one man job. Besides, who would I take? None of the ladies, of course. All the fathers should stay behind for their wives and kids. I would trust either Hector or Roger with my life, but both had parents to miss them if they died. Hector was way too likely to try and muscle his way through a situation and Roger’s more of an academic sort. Plenty brave but not too good at the hundred yard dash.

  Inspiration struck, “We need everybody here to secure this location. Put on the storm shutters. Figure out how to bar the doors and windows, all that. Plus, we need to do the same with all the neighbors houses. Clear out the corpses. Gather all the food. See what I mean? There just aren’t enough hours in the day! Everybody get to work! ‘We burn daylight!’” With that I managed to pocket Mr. Herst’s keys and was out the door. I don’t think any of the adults were used to pushy kids telling them what to do, so that helped.

  I got out to my dad’s pickup when Anna came bolting out the door toward me. She seemed angry about something. “You were just going to take off?!”

  That had been the idea, “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Make sure you come back, you great overgrown oaf. We need you.”

  “I love you too. How about a smooch for the road?” That’s me: one smooth operator.

  My plan was to drive my dad’s pickup along the farm’s dirt paths and through a couple of back forties until I got to the woody slope leading down to the river. The place where Mr. Herst left the canoes. Once there I made sure to leave the pickup on a few boards I’d brought. No sense getting stuck in the mud on the way back.

  It took three trips crossing the river because I wanted all the canoes with me (there was a rowboat too). Mr. Herst had picked such a good landing that I didn’t even have to take my shoes off to keep my feet dry. The hardest part was hauling all the extra boards up slope on the other side.

  Once I’d reached the top I set down the boards on the dirt where I’d hoped to return, and began hoofing it about a quarter mile to where I’d left my bike. Once I got my bike back under me I headed back the way I’d just been walking, and then I kept going a few miles until I reached Upstream Canoes. I put my bike in the back of Mr Herst’s minivan, and then I took the minivan into town (I know Deercrossing wasn’t actually a town, but that’s what we called it).

  It was pretty bad. Zombies were stumbling around everywhere. Car wrecks on every major street (all four of them). The grocery store had all the glass doors busted out. The Elementary school was on fire. The fire must have started in a nearby house, a smoking ruin, and spread from tree to tree until it reached four other houses and the school. I could tell by how little was left of the original source of the flame.

  I saw all this from the top of and old elm tree, on a hillock, about three quarter miles out (I had remembered Dad’s binoculars). The only sign of hope I saw was that the church looked in pretty good shape. All old stone with a big looking door, slate roof, half rusted iron bars over the window wells (we used to jump on those when we were kids). None of the stained glass was broken. Best of all Reverend Ert was in the old bell tower (another fun place to play when you’re a kid) with Mr. Ottenbocker. Both had rifles and were firing away at the mob below. It was an ironically inspirational sight. The parking lot was full of cars, as was the street out front. There were only eight dead bodies littered about the church. All had head wounds. There were about eighty more zombies shambling about. Although I suspected the gunshots had brought the horrors in closer, they didn’t seem smart enough to try for the church doors as a group. Only a small group of four were pounding away there, but the angle was all wrong for anyone in the bell tower to take a shot at the zombies trying to break in.

  As I watched, I saw the reverend and Mr. Ottenbocker were hitting with every shot and not getting much accomplished. Clearly they didn’t know about needing to whack those things in the head. The firing stopped. At first, I thought it was just a reload break. But when it didn’t start up again I figured they were out of ammunition. Very bad. I needed a plan.

  I managed to climb down without breaking my neck and got a pen and the registration out of the glove box. On it I detailed a complex and several staged program including the state of the bridge, a map of the new route to my house, information regarding the disposition of the canoes, and intelligence pertaining to the need to inflict cranial damage to the enemy. The whole thing took me about fifteen minutes. Then I tied it around a loose rock with some twelve pound test line from my backpack. I double checked my 12 gauge and started driving toward St. Bartholomew’s.

  As soon as I began honking the horn the shamblers noticed my approach. That was the first time I’d ever blown the horn while driving. I’d never really needed it before. I clipped one with the right side of the fender, stopped on the street near the church doors, poked my dad’s shotgun out the passenger’s side window, and let loose. It was an old timey double barrel, and it made one hell of a mess. I shot that zombie upside its head so bad its useless brains got splattered halfway down the street. Then I took off again, tires squealing, honking the horn the whole way.

  They followed. Not just them, but I thought almost every zombie in town came for me. Maybe a bit more than I’d intended, but I figured it was just as well. I led them a merry chase down the main street for about five hundred yards. I was able to reload while coasting along. The trip took about half an hour, maybe a bit less. Those things were slow as molasses in January. They kept lurching forward and falling on their faces. Then they had to get up again. Pathetic.

  I touched the accelerator and turned left on a dirt driveway, went over land a bit, and got back to the church with all those things still hundreds of yards away. Once I got out of the truck I swung that message rock around my head by the fishing line attached to it, kinda like the sling of David.

  I yelled, “Pick up and read!” and let fly at the bell tower. The fishing line stretched out behind the rock as it flew past the reverend’s head. I sure am glad it missed him. If I’d smacked the pastor in the mouth with a rock I never would have lived it down. Then I got back in my dad’s truck and drove off again.

  Even though the rock had flown past the pastor, I was hopeful one of the men would pull it up by its line and read the note. With that in mind I drove back over to all my new zombie friends and kept honking the horn, leading them away as best as I was able. One thing I forgot to write in the note was how long I planned on keeping the distraction going (that darn concussion, again). I put on my Pied Piper act for an hour then headed back. The return trip took maybe five minutes including turn around time.

  The church parking lot was empty of cars, as was the street out front.

  The town seemed pleasantly empty at first. More on fire, but empty. I had been hoping my noisy driving stunt would clear the enemy out, so that was good. Too bad about the fire though; I could only hope that it would burn itself out before burning the whole town to the ground. I drove around a bit to see whatever was left to see before getting back home.

  I went around a corner and there was Mrs. Ritter with her walker, trying to cross the street, being ‘chased’ by a couple of walking corpses. ‘Followed’ would be a better word for it. Nobody was breaking any land speed records in that race. Both zombies had extensive damage to the chest area. It looked like they’d both been shot about fifty times each. Mrs. Ritter’s house was off to my left and behind her. It looked to have caught on fire recently. For an old bird with a walker she was making it a close race, but she had nowhere to go. Back when her husband passed away she’d decided to give up her car. Mostly her neighbors looked out for her in those days. I guessed it was my turn.

  I gunned the engine and plowed into her pursuers, feeling pretty good about myself until I saw the result. T
he first zombie went flying well enough but the second I just clipped. It went right into Mrs. Ritter and they were both knocked down. By the time I got out of the minivan and over to her, Mrs. Ritter had (somehow) managed to get her walker wrapped around between herself and her pursuer. It was gnawing on the crossbar, trying to toss the walker both ways at once. Stupid! Even an animal could have figured out how to get to her better than that. She couldn’t get up and it wasn’t trying to. All it wanted was to rip her apart, starting with her walker. The metal bent and pieces started flying. I couldn’t get a clear shot so I bashed its skull in from behind with the stock of the shotgun.

  I heard some shuffling movement behind me, and Mrs. Ritter’s eyes got real big. I turned, swinging the barrels around just in time to smack another zombie off its feet. At first I’d thought it was the other zombie that I’d just hit with the car, but no, that one was still crawling toward us. It was a different one; I had no idea where it had come from. Looking around I could see a couple more up the street.

  I leveled the shotgun and blasted the one that I’d just knocked on the ground, then I dropped the shotgun. I said, “I sure hope you’re okay” and picked Mrs. Ritter up. That woman wasn’t even seven stone, soaking wet. Lighter than Louis (that kid could have afforded to miss a meal). I managed to plant her in the passenger side and slam the door when I heard feet slapping the pavement behind me.

  I turned about and saw one of them, used to be Mrs. Jenner, running flat out toward me. Then, from about twenty feet away, it jumped and landed right on me. I barely had time to shriek like a scared little girl before it hit me. I fell under it. It was trying to bite me, using its hands to pull itself closer. I was completely surprised. I’d never seen one run, let alone jump. I grabbed it by the neck, squeezed with both hands and started smashing its head into the car door as hard as I could. Mrs. Ritter took that instant to push the door open and started to try and kick it in the head. She missed with her foot and conked me in the mouth. I noticed it had stopped fighting so I threw the bloody mess off me and got up again. I checked and made sure that it was forever dead.

  “Thanks Mrs. Ritter.” I slammed her door shut again.

  Remember those two I said were up the street? The fight must have taken longer than I thought because they were only about ten feet away. I ran for the shotgun. If the brainless things had tried they could have cut me off before I got there. Instead, I picked up the shotgun and blasted the top of one of their heads head off. I had to back away from the other one while I reloaded. The one I’d hit with the car had finally gotten back up and was moving toward me, its legs a broken mess. Then a ground floor window crashed open and out spilled another, then another. And here I’d been thinking that I’d led most of them out of town.

  I fancy I’m a decent shot with a shotgun, but at point blank range you don’t have to be. I managed to make an end of the two from the window and kept backing away from the remaining zombies. That’s when Mrs. Ritter came driving up past me and stopped. She drove like she was going to church. I hustled around to the passenger side and slid in next to her. Another crash of breaking glass and a few more were coming our way.

  Move! Move! Move! We were just sitting there. “You drive really well, Mrs. Ritter. Could you pull up ahead just a bit?”

  She said, “Are you sure you’re in?”

  “I’m all the way in.”

  She took her own sweet time getting it in gear. Her foot came off the break and we started to roll foreword just as a meaty impact struck the minivan in back somewhere. “You’re little Victoria’s boy, aren’t you? Always so mannerly.”

  “Yes ma’am. Thank you ma’am.” Oh, Jesu juva, this trip was going to take forever! She still didn’t have it up to twenty!

  The zombies were becoming more prevalent. I had to suppose that the ones I’d led out of town were just the ones that happened to be outside at the time. Now all the rest seemed to be coming outside, attracted by the commotion. Possibly hopeful they could catch the slowest moving minivan in the history of the automotive industry.

  I also had to wonder how I had been able to hold the Mrs. Jenner ghoul off me. I’d seen those things rip people apart. I’m not that strong. Maybe nobody is. My best guess was that it was some different kind. Easier to kill maybe, but real fast. I looked down at the rips it had made in my coat where it had grabbed and tried to bite me. Not as strong as most of them, not as strong as me, but still stronger than it should’ve been.

  With all the zombies trying to catch up to the mini van, I decided to let Mrs. Ritter keep on driving. I wasn’t sure we’d have time to stop and switch places. All things considered she seemed to be doing all right. Sure, we’d bounce the occasional zombie off the fender but at under twenty miles per hour that wasn’t so bad. I told myself that as long as we didn’t let ourselves get surrounded we would be fine.

  I had just started to give Mrs. Ritter directions, when down a dirt lane Mr. Willcox leaned out from the second story window of his house and began shouting down to us. He needed help, he was out of ammunition, he had a broken ankle, his house was on fire, his house was surrounded by a walking hamburger stand of about forty bullet riddled zombies, and he had a zombie that used to be his wife, Gertrude, inside the house with him. Gertrude was currently trying to pound her way through the bedroom door. Not a good day for Mr. Willcox, but I was starting to think we all had our problems and it was a bad day all around.

  I asked Mrs. Ritter if she wouldn’t mind slowly driving by Mr. Willcox’s house. She complied by reducing speed to a nice steady three miles per hour. I took the shotgun and used it for the purpose God intended. We kept driving by and the zombies kept following us. I climbed over the seat and started firing through the back window as fast as I could. I was really starting to get used to reloading that thing in a hurry. I asked Mrs. Ritter, “Could you please accelerate slightly and drive around the block? I know it’s not as safe but Mr. Willcox is running out of time.”

  “Of course, Johnny. Where’s the gas pedal again?” I groaned inwardly until she found it. Then I screamed in terror as we jumped to warp one in about .93 seconds. She rocketed around the last corner on two wheels before sideswiping the house and coming to a screeching crash just below Mr. Wilcox’s second floor window. That fire was covering the roof by now. I had to move fast.

  “Great work, Mrs. Ritter! Real nice placement. Could you budge over please. When I get Mr. Willcox down here maybe he’ll want to drive.” Mostly I just wanted to get her out of the driver’s seat.

  Leaving my Dad’s shotgun behind, I popped open the moon roof and scrabbled onto the roof of the mini van. Next, I jumped up to the window and pulled myself in. The door to the bedroom had been smashed open and zombie Mrs. Willcox was standing on one side of the bed with Mr. Willcox on the other. It grabbed for him and fell face first onto the bed. While it was trying to get up he hobbled around to the other side of the bed, using a Winchester as a walking stick, grabbed its feet, and shoved the zombie foreword onto the floor. Based on the amount of collateral damage it looked like this had been a going on for a while now.

  The smoke was getting thick, and I just knew it wouldn’t bother the monsters any. I moved foreword, pulled out my big skinning knife, the kind with the edged hook on the back, and stabbed it into the back of the zombie’s head. That stopped it.

  Now I could never use that knife to clean a kill again. Which wasn’t so bad really. I had asked for it for Christmas when I was eight. I didn’t know it back then, but a smaller more curved blade was preferable. I had just thought it looked cool. You know how it is when you’re eight. Still, it was good enough for zombie killing.

  Anyway, I apologized,“Sorry about Mrs. Willcox, Mr. Willcox. We gotta go.”

  At first he just stared at what I’d done and I thought things might get weird. Weirder. Then he said, “Right. I’ll need help getting down.” The minivan’s horn started blaring. What now? As if I didn’t know.

  With no time left for niceties I grab
bed Mr. Willcox, lifted him over my shoulder and stumbled over to the window. He dropped his rifle. Coughing and choking the whole way, my own leg trying to give out, I lowered him down by his hands through the moon roof. He was in a lot of pain, even crying out a couple of times. I more or less dropped him through, trusting to his good leg.

  A piece of the ceiling fell in and fire started leaping through the bedroom doorway, so I took that as my sign to do a little leaping of my own. I hit the mini van’s roof hard, my leg gave way, and I fell off onto the street. I must have finally been getting used to that sort of thing because I got right up, got in, and drove off.

  I could see zombies stumbling through the smoke all around us. We had become surrounded. The smoke was pretty thick and I think that might have helped us some by reducing visibility, but I couldn’t be sure. A few were moving closer than the others and one managed to smash its hand through my window. I picked up the pace but the darn thing just wouldn’t let go. I felt the rear bumper get ripped off and realized the main thing keeping us as safe as we were was a general lack of hand holds on the sides of the vehicle.

  The grabby zombie started to pull itself up more level to the window. I heard Mr. Willcox in the back, cursing.

  I said, “Could you please pass that shotgun behind you up here, Mr Willcox?” I began a session of silent prayer.

  I could see my request would never be fulfilled in time. With the pain of his injury, Mr. Willcox was completely out of sorts, and there was a good reason Mrs. Ritter needed that walker. I couldn’t exactly expect her to crawl back there and get the shotgun for me. That damned zombie was starting to paw at me through the window. One good grab would ruin my day.

  We were down the street a ways when I started to slow down some, driving in an arc to my right, praying that might make it loosen it’s grip. Maybe make up for slowing down.

  Mrs. Ritter, in a very concerned tone, “Shouldn’t you be driving faster, Johnny? And please try to stay on the road.” She wasn’t a tall lady. I doubt she saw my trouble. No sense worrying her.