Zombie Apocalypse Serial #2

by Ivana E. Tyorbrains

  They did none of that. They just asked me to tune in, and tell my friends.

  I closed the email, feeling confident that I’d done all I could do to protect the world. Planet Gulag would read Frye’s email live on the air, and anyone who wanted to believe it could choose to do so.

  I had bigger things to worry about. Like packing up my house.

  Pots and pans, our best clothes, the complete contents of our pantry, a couple books, our toothbrushes—item by item Sabrina and I packed up our lives, and then we went to bed. The next morning we left in two vehicles: me in the pickup, Sabrina and Cori in the SUV. We drove north to New Braunfels and parked at the convention center for the 12th Annual Rocco & Hatfield Firearms and Hunting Exposition, where I paid a fifty dollar entry fee for the right to do a “private party transfer” of a firearm so I could skip the waiting period. While Sabrina and Cori waited in the parking lot, I bought two Glock G7’s, one Colt A 15, a Thomas & Cookson shotgun, and all the ammo I could find for each.

  For the uninitiated like me, the whole experience was kind of surreal. So many guns, so much ammo, so many people.

  That last one was important. I could have spent the whole day at the gun expo and put together a cache of inestimable value come the apocalypse. This was a gathering of people who would have been ready for the end had it come on their terms. The way Frye described it in his letter, most of these people would become infected and on the path to death before the world ever saw its first zombie. These people, who had tables strewn with tools and supplies for preparing and preserving freshly killed game, who each carried a sidearm on their belt or under their jacket, who probably had spent hundreds of hours doing target practice, who might even have dreamed of preparing themselves for the zombie apocalypse….most all of them were going to get sick and die, and it was big public gatherings like this one that would kill them.

  I got out of there as quickly as I could, loaded up my new finds, and got my family on the road.

  We got on US-285 and headed north. With every small town we passed, I thought about stopping, then thought better of it. Every minute we spent in Texas increased our risk of exposure. “The Plague” as Frye had called it, was brewing somewhere behind us, getting ready to be spread by airplane, if it wasn’t already traveling the globe.

  We didn’t pull off the road until we hit Roswell, New Mexico, which seemed oddly appropriate. Running from zombies, stopping to say hi to the aliens. We parked at Wal-Mart and went shopping.

  That was where we hit our first snag.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” said the girl at the register. “Your credit card isn’t going through.”

  Twenty minutes of computer automated telephone rigmarole later, I finally got through to an actual person, albeit one in India, who confirmed my card had been frozen due to suspicious activity. I went through all the recent purchases on my card with a boy named Ahmed, and approved them all. He promised me the card would be active again “within the next two to three hours.”

  Because I didn’t have two to three hours, and because I had already maxed out my other credit cards, I checked out at Wal-Mart with the debit card, and let me tell you, preparing for the end is a great way to empty your bank account. Four gas cans, a siphoning hose, a spare car battery, five bottles of motor oil, a pile of alkaline batteries and canned food—even the “everyday low prices” of the Roswell Wal-Mart drained two weeks of salary, and Sabrina and I went back out in the world with only a few bucks to our names.

  “Do you think we’re going to feel foolish when all of this is over?” Sabrina asked me as we loaded the truck with our latest finds.

  “I hope so, Babe,” I said. “I hope we feel like the biggest buffoons on the planet.”

  Timothy

  Yvette is a wild woman.

  It took a little bit of flirting to warm her up, but once I got her started, Team Bruce worked its magic and things got nutty.

  I started with compliments on her hair and makeup. Then we got to talking about her kids, her nieces and nephews, and her cousins. I learned that Yvette’s family went through a schism of sorts in the previous generation and half the family ended up in the north of New Mexico and half in the south. This led to a rant about her sister, “That fucking bitch and her peenchay friends from Espanola.”

  I told her that classic joke about putting speed bumps on the edge of Espanola so none of the low riders can get out. She laughed and laughed.

  “You’re so cute,” she said. “How did a nice guy like you end up in so much trouble?”

  My weener went to half chub at this question. We were on our way.

  “Well, Yvette, I’m sure they all say this, but in my case it’s true. I’m innocent. I’m the victim here. It’s my brother. That asshole wants my money and he set me up.”

  “Eeee…tell me about it. Fucking family, no?”

  “Fucking family. They’ll rip your heart out and stomp it into a million pieces. And we let them do it because we love them. We fucking love them and they treat us like shit!”

  I was pretending to cry now. Poorly. I’m no actor. But Yvette was buying it.

  “Aye, cavron. Look what they do to us. You and me both.”

  “You and me both,” I whimpered, shaking my head. I put my hands to my eyes and pretended to sob.

  “It’s just total bullshit that your sister moved up north!” I cried out. “Doesn’t she know what family means? Doesn’t she have any loyalty to the people who matter most?”

  Now I was leaning into the bars, pressing my body against them as I wailed, like I might run to Yvette for comfort if only the prison wasn’t holding my back.

  She came to me.

  “It’s okay, Sweetie,” she said.

  She reached through the bars and gave me a hug. I nuzzled my nose into her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her back. She held me for a second, then I pulled up and looked in her eyes. I leaned my face into the nearest window in the grate and kissed her.

  And then it was on like Godzilla Versus King Kong with a gong and a thong. Literally. Yvette was wearing a thong. That is, until she took it off and hung it right over the security camera. And the prison door made a loud gong sound when we got busy, as if Chuck Barry had risen from the grave to comment on our performance.

  We did it through the prison bars. Right there in the sheriff’s office. Pants down. Ten minutes of cold stand-up humping, my schlong turning the iron grate into Socorro’s newest glory hole, and when it was time, Yvette cried out, “Eeeholah!”

  And maybe it was more like five minutes.

  Actually, it was closer to two.

  Or…ninety seconds. What can I say? I had been on the road for two days. Things tend to…build up in there, ya know? And I was excited. I had been waiting for Yvette for some twenty years, and let me tell you, she enjoyed every minute--err..second--of it. When it was over, she had a determined look in her eyes. It was the same look I had seen from Erica. Once I do it with a girl, they will move mountains for me.

  Yvette pulled out her keys and unlocked the door.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’re getting out of here. We can’t waste another minute living our lives like this. Our families put us in our own prisons and it’s time to break free.”

  We got dressed in a hurry. Yvette went commando, leaving her thong hanging over the security camera.

  “This way,” she whispered, pointing down the hall. “There’s a window in the bathroom.”

  Indeed there was. A very small window, high up on the wall. I had to climb onto the sink to open it. I poked my head outside.

  “There’s a Ford Explorer parked right underneath,” I said. “If we land on the roof, it’s not too far of a fall.”

  “That’s right, Vato,” said Yvette. “You know who put that Explorer there?”

  “No, who?”

  “God.”

  A second of silence, then I said, “Yep.”

  I didn’t tell Yvette that God probably wasn’t with us on this one, no
t unless I was his instrument for a new Noah’s Ark of sorts.

  “I’ll go first,” I said.

  The window was too small to turn myself around in. To jump out safely, somehow, I needed to climb through the window feet first. I wasn’t going to be able to do that from the bathroom sink. At least, not without any help.

  “Yvette, come over,” I said. I hopped down to the floor then repositioned myself, crawling onto the sink on all fours in a Spiderman pose.

  “I’m going to reach for the window with my feet,” I said. “I need for you to help me.”

  “Okay,” Yvette said, crawling underneath me. She grabbed my ankles and guided my legs toward the window, getting me in position so I had two feet in the window and two hands on the sink. To help support me, she pressed her shoulder into my stomach.

  “I’m gonna lift you up on three, okay?” she said. “One…two….three.”

  With surprising strength, Yvette lifted me into the air, pushing my whole body to the window, like I was an old, rolled up carpet on her shoulder and she was about to toss me down a garbage chute. My body went all the way through. Using my fingers to grab onto the ledge, I held myself in place long enough to press against the outside wall with my feet, and then I jumped away from the building and landed hard on the roof of the Explorer.

  “Hey! What’s going on up there?” somebody yelled.

  I looked up to the open window and saw Yvette’s face. Even standing on the sink, she could barely see over the top of the ledge.

  “Timothy! How am I going to get down?” she hissed.

  “Throw me your car keys,” I said. “I’ll get in your cruiser and rescue you on the other side of the building.”

  “The other side? What do you mean?”

  “Just throw me your keys. Trust me.”

  Yvette threw down her keys. I caught them and jumped to the ground.

  “Look out there!” came a voice from the office. “The prisoner! He’s outside!”

  “Which car is yours?” I yelled up to Yvette.

  “Number 122! It’s right over there!”

  She was pointing at a Caprice marked with the Sheriff’s badge just two cars down from me. As I made a run for it, the front door to the office flew open and an army of State Troopers rushed outside.

  “Freeze!” somebody yelled.

  I didn’t freeze. Shots started flying, but they didn’t have a good angle on me. I kept my head low and made it to Yvette’s car. The Troopers were still shooting at me as I backed out of my space and tore out of the driveway.

  As I was leaving, I saw Yvette in the rearview mirror. She was reaching out the second story window, waving at me.

  Caleb

  Thursday we parked at a KOA lot just west of Carson City, and Sabrina and I spent two hours learning how to pitch our new tent. Cori got a kick out of us and our folly as outdoorsmen. It was a good night.

  Friday was another campground, this one in Rock City, Wyoming. We hiked around in the wilderness, we built a campfire, we roasted marshmallows, and I read Cori to sleep with a book she had brought called Invasion of the Brain Sharpeners.

  But on Saturday, Cori asked when we were going home, and announced that she was tired of sleeping in a tent. I arranged with Sabrina for Cori to ride with me for a while. As we drove through the forests of Western Wyoming in my new pickup, Cori and I had a chat about what was about to go down.

  “Cori, there’s a reason we’re camping, and it’s not just for vacation,” I said.

  “I know. It’s good to get into nature,” Cori said. “Mom already had this talk with me.”

  “She’s right, you know. A few more days on this trip, and you’ll find yourself a whole new person. The outdoors is really good for you.”

  “But I like sleeping in my bed. I feel so tired today.”

  “I know you do, Honey. But the amazing thing about your body is that it will adjust. I bet you sleep really well in the tent tonight, and even better tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? How long are we gonna be camping?”

  I took a deep breath. “For a long time. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Something bad is happening in the world. People are getting sick. And we’re going camping to make sure we’re safe.”

  “How did people get sick?”

  “Some bad germs got in the air, and people are spreading them. We don’t want you to get sick, so we’re getting away from the big crowds of people that are always around us in San Antonio. We don’t want you to catch anything.”

  “Oh,” Cori said. I could tell she was taking me seriously. This was good. This talk was going to become an important moment for us. Even though Cori treated me like her real dad, legally, I never was and never could be.

  But legally didn’t mean shit now.

  “What kind of sickness is it?” Cori asked.

  “Right now, it’s an invisible sickness,” I said. “But in a few days, it’s going to feel like the worst flu these poor people ever had.”

  “Are they going to die?” Cori asked.

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I just know that we’re safest if we stay away from other people for a bit.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror and saw an expression of horror on Cori’s face.

  “Cori, I know it’s scary to think about, and it’s okay to cry. But I want you to know something important. Your mother and I love you very much, and we’ll do whatever it takes to protect you. And not everyone is going to get sick. A lot of people are going to be just fine. And when the sickness is over, we’ll stop camping and we’ll get back to our lives.”

  She was sobbing now. Practically hysterical.

  “Caleb,” she said, between gasps. “Caleb, what if we have it?”

  “You mean the sickness? Don’t worry about that. We don’t.”

  “But how do you know? If it’s an invisible sickness, how do you know?”

  The truth was, I didn’t know. More than once during these long hours on the road I had thought about the gun show in New Braunfels, about the crowds of people out there trading firearms and cash, shaking hands, slapping each other on the shoulder. There were thousands of people at that show. What were the odds that one of them had come into contact with Frye’s “Patient Zero.”

  And since the gun show, even though we’d kept human contact at an absolute minimum, we weren’t entirely isolated. We stopped at gas stations twice a day and filled our cars using pumps other people had touched. Sometimes, if we were really in the middle of nowhere, we went inside the little convenience stores and bought snacks and water. We used the bathrooms. We touched doors and credit card machines and faucet handles and electric hand dryers. We parked at roadside stands in remote areas and bought fresh vegetables and homemade preserves.

  In Steamboat Springs, we ate at The Daisy May Cafe. I knew we shouldn’t have done that, but Sabrina thought the town was “adorable” and begged me to stop for “one last moment of normalcy.” At the restaurant I had rainbow trout, which was a mistake. I’d be eating plenty of rainbow trout in the months to come. I should have gotten a burger. After all, there was fishing equipment in the back of my pickup, but there weren’t any cows.

  “Cori, I just know we’re not sick. I got some information about how the sickness works. The key is to get out of the cities in time, and we did that. We’re safe, Honey. I promise.”

  “What about Grandpa?”

  “We asked your grandpa if he wanted to come with us, but he said no. You know how your grandpa is. He doesn’t want to camp. Don’t you worry about him. Your grandpa is a tough old man who is smart as the dickens. He’ll manage just fine.”

  “You mean he’s just going to stay in his house so he doesn’t get sick?”

  “Yes, Honey. I think that’s what your grandpa’s going to do.”

  “Why couldn’t we do that?”

  “Because your grandpa lives on the beach in a small city, and we live in a neighborhood in a really, really
big city.”

  “But couldn’t we have stayed with Grandpa?”

  “No, we decided it would be better for us in the woods. Don’t fret about this anymore, okay? We’re doing what we need to do to stay safe.”

  We rode for awhile without talking while Cori calmed herself down. After her breathing was back to normal, she said, “Caleb?”

  “Yes, Honey.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “That’s okay, Honey. But, like I said, we’re staying safe.”

  “No, I’m scared because…I already….Caleb, my throat hurts.”

  The words were like a magical curse that left me stunned and unable to speak.

  Relax, Caleb. Frye’s letter said the symptoms start on Monday, didn’t it? Yes, it said, “The plague will sit dormant within its victims until Monday morning.” Today’s only Saturday.

  These thoughts were little comfort. Was it really Saturday? We had been so isolated from the world it was hard to convince myself I knew for sure. Was it possible I’d lost track?

  No, you’re on schedule. You’re journaling the date every morning. You know exactly what day it is.

  But what if Frye was wrong? Or what if, to him, lying dormant merely meant the patients didn’t feel terribly sick. What if a sore throat on Saturday was part of it, with full-blown illness waiting until Monday?

  And how could someone, even a genius like Frye, control the exact day that an illness begins and ends? Aren’t our bodies wired differently? Isn’t it possible that an illness designed to take root and show symptoms on Monday for some people would work its way through others faster? Cori was only nine.

  Only nine, and nine-year-olds get sick way more often than adults. Yes, that’s what is happening here. Cori caught a cold at school before they left. Far and away the most likely explanation. We’ve been careful. In order for the plague to reach us, it would have to travel from the big cities in South Texas all the way to these rural towns, and move more quickly than we did.

  “Honey, you might have a cold, and that’s nothing to worry about. Or, you might not have anything. It might be that I told you about this sickness, and your brain tricked your body into thinking you have a sore throat. Our brains can do that, you know.”