Survivors in a Dead World

by Gary M. Chesla

  If you turned right at the intersection and followed Route 711 South, you again started down a mile long hill and after eight miles you entered the town of Ligonier. Ligonier was one of the larger and more progressive of the small towns in this end of the state.

  The area kids used Fairfield hill to test their bike riding skills. They were always challenging each other to see who could ride their bikes the whole way to the top of the hill without getting off their bikes to push it the final distance to the top. Ricki, in his sixteen years of living here, had only ever heard of one person that had been able to pedal their bike the entire way to the top.

  At least no one had ever been hurt trying to ride their bike to the top of the hill. Over the last few years at least a half dozen kids had been hurt, some seriously, riding their bikes down the hill. It was easy going down the hill, too easy. The hill was steep and the bikes would pick up speed. Before reaching the bottom of the hill, the kids would find themselves going too fast and would lose control and end up in the ditch along the road. They were often scraped up and bleeding with their bikes bent into weird shapes and angles.

  Ricki had a long scare on his right leg to remind him of the last time he rode his bike down over the hill. His black eye and broken right arm had healed years ago.

  Ricki’s accident wasn’t all bad. After his arm had healed he found that he was now able to throw a curve ball. He was the only one on his pony league team that was able to throw a decent curve ball.

  The older kids from area towns would also come here with their cars and challenge each other for bragging rights. Very few cars could make it to the top of the hill and still be going over fifty miles an hour.

  On the other side of the intersection were a few more houses and the local volunteer fire department. At least the spot where the volunteer fire department had been, it had burnt down a few months before the world had gone to hell. The locals were in the process of trying to raise money to build a new fire station when the dead started into the area. A fire station was no longer needed when you didn’t have any firemen left to man the station.

  Ricki paced the hallway. He was pissed after another stressful morning with the “gang”. The “gang” was almost as bad as the dead. Ricki didn’t refer to them as the gang when they were around to hear him, then he referred to them as Jamal, Devon and their man George.

  About a year or so ago when the dead over ran the cities and stated wandering out through the towns, the small area at the top of Fairfield Hill was spared the first wave of the attack. The long steep hills on Route 711 that passed through Fairfield Township kept all but the most determined of the dead from wandering out through this area.

  The first few days after the power had gone out and all forms of communication went dead, not much changed for the twenty families that lived at the top of Fairfield Hill.

  However the forty guests at the Community Center started to get restless. By the start of the second day without power, the center residents had over powered the counselors and began to explore the area. After discovering there wasn’t anything here that interested them they decided it was time to leave and head back to the city.

  The only problem was that they didn’t know when the bus that brought them here was going to come back to get them. That night they decided to send out ten guys to steal enough cars to get them all out of the center and on their way back to the city.

  The gang left the center around 1:00AM in their stolen vehicles and went south on Route 711 towards Ligonier. They were intending to connect up with Route 30 in Ligonier and follow Route 30 back to Pittsburgh and to the PA Turnpike for those that planned on going somewhere else other than Pittsburgh.

  The brief reprieve from the dead that the loose knit group of residents at the top of Fairfield Hill had experienced ended the next morning when three bloody and dented cars pulled back into the Community Center parking lot.

  This was what was left of the ten car caravan of guys that had left in the middle of the night to make their escape.

  They made it as far as Ligonier where they ran into the large hordes of the dead that had over run the town.

  Only three cars were able to get back out of town.

  Unfortunately, of the three car loads that came back to the community center, only Jamal, Devon and two others had not been injured.

  The locals were not happy to see them come back to the center, especially the locals who had discovered that morning that their cars were missing and now saw them dented and bloody in front of the community center.

  The locals would have been even less happy if they would have understood at that point what three car loads of infected people arriving in their midst meant.

  Instead of confronting the thugs, they would have all been better off if they had just sent them on their way.

  Instead, after a brief scuffle, the returning gang members were confined to the community center until the area residents could contact the Pennsylvania State Police to come and deal with these criminals.

  Between the locals that had been injured in the scuffle and the infected locked up in the center, within the next twenty-four hours, Fairfield Hill had become like Ligonier, New Florence and all the other towns and cities in western Pennsylvania. The only people to survive were Ricki Henderson, his brother Denny and three of the guys at the community center.

  Jamal, Devon and George managed to survive by locking themselves in the locker room when the others began to turn and attack each other.

  When the guys standing guard outside the community center went inside to find out what all the yelling and screaming inside the building was about, they couldn’t believe what they found.

  An hour later, a dozen mangles bloody bodies staggered out the door of the community center in search of the living.

  When the center got quiet, Jamal and Devan came out to look around. When they saw the mayhem had moved on, they quickly locked themselves inside the building and tried to decide what the hell had just happened and what they should do next.

  After all the food inside the building was gone, they made the decision to go out and see what it was like outside and to try and find something to eat.

  Each day they would take their stolen car and go out to find food. Each day as they worked up their courage, they attempted to venture further away from the center. After attempting to go down each side of Fairfield Hill, they decided to limit their activities for now to the houses on top of the hill around the community center. As they neared the bottom on each side of the hill, the sight of the roving hordes of the dead made them quickly reverse course and go back to the community center at the top of the hill. They made the decision that for now, they would search and burn the houses closest to their base.

  They had had their fill of the dead after their trip to Ligonier and after what had happened at the community center. These things had somehow spread their condition to their friends, so they decided to stay away from the dead for a while.

  They were sure they wouldn’t have to confine their activities for very long. They would bid their time and wait until these freaks went somewhere else.

  Three weeks later, Ricki and his brother Denny ran into the “gang” when they showed up to loot and burn down his family’s house. Ricki and his brother were barely scraping by at this point. Given the option of joining the “gang” or burning up in his family home, Ricki and Denny reluctantly agreed to join. The gang wasn’t really looking for more members, what they needed was a guide. The gang had no idea where they were or how to get around out here in the sticks. Until the roads were again clear, so they could travel back to familiar turf, having a local as a guide seemed like a good idea.

  They decided to make Ricki the offer to join them. They intended to only keep him around as long as they needed him. When they no longer needed him, they would get rid of the excess baggage. The gang didn’t like Fairfield or the hillbillies that lived here, especially after the way they were treated when they were forced to
come back here after the disaster in Ligonier. The people around here just had no respect for the people that came to the community center. That was why Jamal, Devon and George made it a point to burn down the houses they looted. Since there wasn’t any living people left, burning down their former houses was as close as they could get to revenge.

  Ricki paced the hallway in the second floor of the community center. He had been staying here at the center with his brother and the gang now for about a year. The world had gone to hell and things really hadn’t gotten much better since. He and Denny had survived, but barely.

  Ricki’s family was all small in stature. He was sixteen and his brother was fourteen, but they both looked like they were about ten years old. Being the smallest kids in their class had always been tough. They were used to kids trying to push them around, however they were liked by most of the other kids and never really had any problems and always felt a part of the group.

  They didn’t have that feeling now. They knew Jamal, Devon and George didn’t like them. Ricki and Denny thought things would get better after they joined up with the gang but it hadn’t worked out that way. They soon learned that their role was to show the gang how to get around the area and where to find houses to search for food. Of all the food they found, Ricki and Denny were barely given enough to keep from starving.

  Ricki and Denny knew the area well and considered slipping away in the middle of the night, but as time went on more and more of the dead began to come through the area. Route 711 was too steep and for the most part remained clear. Most of the dead that came through the area followed the gently sloping back roads that came from Ross Mountain Park and other small communities up on the ridge. Ricki decided to try and wait out the dead and just make the best of a bad situation.

  Safety in numbers they reasoned, at least for a while.

  Today the gang took Denny as their guide and left Ricki at the community center to watch their home base. Devon and George were tired of searching the countryside and finding just enough to get by, they wanted to start going into some of the surrounding towns in the hopes of making a bigger score.

  Ligonier of course was considered off limits. Ricki could tell with what had happened in Ligonier before, the memory of the blood bath in Ligonier had the gang afraid to consider going anywhere near Ligonier.

  Ricki said he, from what he understood and had seen when they took him out on supply runs, felt going into any of the towns would be a mistake. He suggested instead that they should go over to the dam at Ross Mountain Park and try fishing.

  They all laughed at Ricki.

  “Why the hell should we go through all the trouble of fishing when we can just take what we need?” Jamal asked.

  No matter how much Ricki argued against going into any of the towns, Jamal and Devon didn’t want to hear it.

  They felt that enough time had gone by that the towns should be clear by now. Besides they were tired of living up here like country bumpkins. It was getting harder to find gas for their car up here on the ridge and they certainly didn’t plan on walking anywhere. There had to be a lot more cars and gas in the towns. They decided tomorrow they were going to go down to New Florence, the closest town to the community center, for their first trip off of the ridge.

  None of them really knew what happened or what was going on, all they knew was that people were dying everywhere. After people died they were coming back as your worst nightmare. The dead were also harder than hell to kill. You could break their legs and arms and they would still keep coming after you. The gang still hadn’t figured out the best way to eliminate the gross creatures. The dead didn’t show any fear and were relentless, but surely they had to die for good sometime. Maybe they were all dying off now. They would never know by staying here in Fairfield.

  The only thing that had kept the gang at the community center was fear, but after surviving for the last year the gang was starting to lose their fear. That and combined with the gangs dislike of the area, Ricki knew that could spell trouble for him and his brother.

  “Going down off of Fairfield hill is a mistake,” Ricki thought. He had seen the number of the dead that still wandered around down in the valley off the hill. Every week they had driven part way down Fairfield Hill to take a look. Down off the hill was a nightmare compared to the few dozen gross staggering creatures that found their way up here to the community center.

  “Hopefully those dumb bastards will get themselves killed. I’m happy just staying here and being patient until this shit storms dies out. We’ve already lost enough family and friends. We don’t need to go out looking for trouble. There are plenty of ways to survive up here, if you are willing to get off your ass and do a little work,” Ricki thought to himself.

  Motion out on the road caught Ricki’s attention. The bloody and dented blue Chevy Cobalt turned off the road and pulled up to the front of the community center.

  Jamal, Devon and George were back.

  They had been gone for about four hours, leaving Ricki to keep an eye on the center.

  He didn’t mind staying behind, it was better than going out with Jamal.

  Ricki strained to get closer to the window so he could see the car below. He wanted to make sure his brother came back with the others. Jamal always made him or his brother, whichever one they took as their guide, go in to make sure the houses were safe to go into before they went in themselves. If there was going to be any trouble, Ricki or Denny were the ones that would find out first.

  Ricki breathed easier when he saw Denny climb out of the back of the car.

  Ricki ran down the stairs to the first level to open the door.

  If his brother hadn’t come back with the others, Ricki was not going to unlock the door. He would have left them outside with the dead.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to stay locked up in the building for long, other than a few cans of beans there wasn’t much food in the building, but he also knew that the gang wouldn’t have been able to stay out there and wait for him to try and come out.

  When the dead started to wander by, the chicken shits would have taken off. But then how would he be able to get away before the gang came back.

  Fortunately Ricki didn’t have to figure that out right now. Besides he was happy his brother was back.

  Ricki unlocked and opened the door as the others approached.

  He smiled at Denny, “How did things go today?”

  “No food but we saw a shit load of gross looking zombies out there today,” Denny smiled back.

  “Yea and your asshole brother almost led them straight back to the car,” George growled.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Denny replied, “they surprised the hell out of me when they came out of that garage. I had to get out of there fast before they got their slimy hands on me.”

  “You’re supposed to lead them away from the rest of us and then circle back,” Jamal griped. “You’re lucky when we saw you bringing those bastards back towards the car that we didn’t decide to take off and leave your ass there.”

  Denny bite his lip as he looked at Ricki, “I’ll try to remember that next time.”

  Jamal scowled then looked at Ricki, “You know this New Florence pretty well?”

  “Pretty well,” Ricki replied. “I used to play baseball in New Florence.”

  Devon laughed, “You play in the peewee league?”

  This brought more laughter from Jamal and George.

  “I played in the pony league,” Ricki replied.

  “You don’t look like you could hit the ball past the pitcher’s mound,” Jamal laughed.

  “I wasn’t much of a hitter,” Ricki replied, “but I had a good curve ball.”

  George looked at Ricki, “If it wasn’t for all the dead around here, I’d take you out to the ball field and show you what I would do to your dinky little curve ball.”

  “Whenever you think you’re up to it,” Ricki smiled.

  “We don’t have time for this shit,” Jamal
interrupted. “We have a trip to get ready for. George, go find a pencil and a piece of paper. I want you to draw me a map of this New Florence.” Jamal said looking at Ricki.

  “If you’re taking me with you,” Ricki answered, “Why do you need a map?”

  “I want to know what is down there before we go,” Jamal grinned. “In case those gross bastards are still down there, I want to make sure we hit the best places. Draw me a map and put where all the grocery stores and gas stations are. I want to go to those places first. If we don’t run into any trouble then we can go through the rest of the town. But I want to make sure we get food and gas first.”

  “Taking about food,” Ricki replied, “You find anything today?”

  “There ain’t shit out there anymore,” Jamal answered. “That’s why we have to start going into these little towns. All we have left to eat today are those few cans of beans we have upstairs.”

  “We’re down to a quarter tank of gas too,” Devon added. “We better find some gas or we are going to be walking soon.”

  “You should have plenty of gas after you eat those beans,” George laughed.

  “Assholes,” Jamal laughed. “Come on a draw me that map. We better make a list too. There is a lot of shit we need to find.”

  Chapter 4

  Carrie woke up well rested this morning. She hadn’t slept as peacefully in over a year as she had here at the hospital. She had been given her own room when she came here. Her room was the room the farthest away from the stairwell. If any problems developed, if the dead managed to get up here, they would have to go through nine guys to get to her.

  Bob and Tom shared the room next to hers. She guessed it was because in their present situation, they needed her the most because she was the only one that could fly the helicopter. They put her where they could best protect her. Bob was next on the protection list. In order for her to fly the helicopter, it had to run. They needed Bob to make sure it ran.