Her light splashed across a desk with a big plush chair behind it, several uncomfortable chairs in front of it, computer, lamp, printer, calendar on the wall, several windows, and a couch. There wasn’t a zombie to be seen in this small little space, which from the pictures on the wall and the pictures on the desk was shared by the bosses who ran each shift.
She closed the door, slid the desk in front of it, unshouldered her backpack, and sat down on the couch with a tired thump. She pulled out the chips, water, and turkey jerky, and put the growl in her stomach to sleep.
While she sat there eating her snack, she hoped George wouldn’t worry about her too much, but she knew he would. He was that kind of guy. And she really hoped he wouldn’t come looking for her, but she knew he would. He was also that kind of guy.
“You messed up this time, didn’t you girl?” Dawn asked herself, as she sighed and tried not to worry. Her intentions were good, but her plan was flawed. She knew that now. It would have been best to get George involved, but she didn’t think he would go along with it. That’s why she had struck out on her own, stupid as it may be.
When she was finished eating, she walked over to the window. She opened it, and let a gentle breeze flow into the hot stuffy room. She stood there a moment and just missed things. What she wouldn’t give to have the old days back, so she could go for a good run right now. It was getting to be the perfect time of year for that in North Carolina.
She turned around, grabbed the big plush desk chair (the bosses were living right sitting in this one), and spun it over to the window. She sat down, propped her feet up on the windowsill, and fell asleep with her long blonde hair dangling over the back of it.
+
“What do you mean she left?” George Thompson asked, as he stood there, tired from the supply run, which had started before the light of day. His girlfriend, whom he had protected and helped show how to survive, was gone.
“Dawn must have gone during nap time, George. I fell asleep when the kids did.” Kaley Steep paused, bit her lip. Should she tell him what she had found? Why and when she and the kids really had fallen asleep? She asked herself this, as she looked at him, haggard, worried, and tired. Gone all day, searching for food and supplies for them. He might have been eighteen, but he was starting to look like a chain-smoking, fifty-year-old.
“You mean everyone fell asleep? No one was on guard duty?”
“Even my oldest conked out. He rarely sleeps during the day.” She handed Dawn’s note to him, the one she wrote just before she made her exit. “She said something about the ultimate Thanksgiving feast. Something to get us back to the way we were before,” Kaley replied, trying to comfort the guy, who was a Math Scholar in his life before the zombies, heading onto one of the big schools to be trained to move on to jobs that guaranteed him a comfortable income and life.
Kaley held a desk job while her husband stayed home with the kids. That was her world before it all fell apart. Her husband was gone now, so it was up to this forty-year-old working mom to learn how to survive on her own, to rely on her motherly instincts, to rely on so many things that any single parent would need to keep her children healthy and alive. The kids, fourteen, eight, and four, boy, girl, and girl were depending on her to pull them through; and she had gotten them this far. She hoped this safe place would last, but Dawn might have just upset their little bit of utopia if she went off and got herself killed.
“Stupid girl. Always thinking with her heart and not her mind.”
“She can handle herself, George. You taught her well.”
“Don’t you know I know that, but no one needs to be out there alone. It’s safer in numbers,” George replied, crumpling up the note and tossing it across the room.
“She has to be heading towards Cary. We’ve been all over Apex and Holly Springs. We know what is picked over and what isn’t.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” George replied, starting to pace, trying to get his emotions in check, which was hard to do at his age.
“We can round up some gear and go look for her,” Kaley replied, pushing the secret she held about Dawn deeper into her pocket. She knew now this wasn’t the right time to tell him. Best to let Dawn tell him if she was ever found alive.
“No, you need to stay here. You have your kids to take care of.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” the boy replied, fourteen and raring for a fight. He was at that age where he thought he was invincible.
“I know you can. Not saying you can’t,” George replied, looking down at the kid.
“You just got back from a supply run. You need your rest,” Kaley replied, touching George on the shoulder with a mother’s touch. In that touch was a mother’s love and a mother’s sense of worry.
“She’s out there, though. I can’t rest until I find her. No matter how tired I am, sleep and fatigue will just have to wait until we’re back together,” George replied, as he ran his hands through his long brown hair. He had to think, and think like Dawn. “Okay, Thanksgiving feast. If we were she, where would we go?”
“I know of three grocery stores we haven’t checked,” Kaley replied, looking around the gym, fortified at each door, basketball court silent, bleachers, nets, backboards, and goals collecting dust. “They’re on the way to Cary. I bet she’d start there, close to home base, well, close enough to walk to even though we haven’t tried them yet.”
“Good thinking. There’s also that department store with the big bulls eye on it. Didn’t they have groceries as well?”
“They did, but the big grocery stores would probably be a safer bet. Better chance of finding more stuff,” Kaley replied.
“I’ll find her,” George replied, suiting up with a vest that held a few knifes, a couple of smoke bombs complete with an exploding flash, a couple of bottles of water, a few small snacks, and bullets for the pistol and shotgun. He slipped a pair of sharpened brass knuckles over his left hand, and made sure the shotgun was loaded. He slung the shotgun strap over his head and shoulder so the gun rested nicely across his back. He grabbed his pistol, made sure it was loaded, and then screwed on the silencer.
“George,” the youngest girl replied, tugging on his pants leg. She had really taken a liking to him, treated him like a father figure.
George got down on his knees, mindful of the loaded weapons. “Yes,” he replied, looking into her eyes. What was her life going to be like? He thought. What was it going to amount to once all of this was done, if it ever was going to be done?
“Be careful, and bring Dawn home. Okay?”
“Will do, sweetie,” George replied, rustling her hair. He stood up and looked at Kaley, and then led her over to an exit door. “Okay, stay quiet, stay on guard.”
“We can handle ourselves, George,” Kaley replied, a tad offended at his brashness. She didn’t mind if he wanted to lead, hell of a leader mind you; but she didn’t need to be treated like a child. They had survived without him, so she knew the drill.
“I know you can, and I am sorry if I am overstepping. Just worried about Dawn, and I can’t have you in that worry as well.”
“I understand. Just take care of yourself. Hurry back safe. Okay?”
“Will do.” He looked through the glass set inside the door, and out into the hallway. No zombies or human looter activity going on, still snug as a bug in a rug. George hoped it would stay that way until they got back. He opened the door and stepped out into the dark hallway. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck and be safe.”
“Will do, now lock yourself up tight, night’s coming on pretty fast these days.”
“Bye, George.”
“See you soon.”
She closed and locked the door, and stood there a moment. She slid her hand into her pocket, and removed the secret she had kept from George. It was an empty bottle of sleeping pills.
“Dumb girl,” she replied, thinking of Dawn making them all breakfast that morning just after George had left, scheming and planning w
hile she whistled and worked. “I can’t believe you were so hell bent on getting your feast that you had to sink to this level.”
Outside of the gym door, George was now standing all alone in the gloomy dark of a hallway running to his left and right with empty lockers shut tight in front of him, products of another time and another place. He fastened a strap to his head with a light on it, turned on the yellow beam, and made his way towards the end of the hall. He made a left at the end of the hall and walked by the trophy case full of useless accomplishments. He stopped at the double doors, which led to the world outside, and said a small prayer.
One of these doors was barely hanging on by a hinge, leaning hard about to fall over, the other was warped from top to bottom, as if someone or something had run directly into it. Luckily for them, the zombies had not horded up here in quite a while, and they had managed to keep the undead population down with sporadic cleaning-out parties. It had kept them safe and zombie free, so they hadn’t needed to fortify these doors.
Finished with his prayer, George stepped through the door that was hanging askew–turning the light off on his head when he did (he wouldn’t need the light outside, better to save the batteries for later). He stopped, and stood on the concrete landing for a moment. He breathed in the late afternoon air, let the soreness from this morning’s supply run drift off of him for a bit, and let the heat from the day warm his tired body. He thought about his time at this school, thought about how many times he had stood here in safer days. It made him sad to think he would never have those days again, that his innocence had been shattered the minute one corpse got up and started walking. He pushed the mournful thoughts away, and scanned the area around the school. Several zombies shuffled nearby.
“What was it that Dawn always says?” George asked himself. “Oh yeah,” he replied, aiming, “Go in peace,” and fired.
A clean head shot.
Zombie one down.
Second shot.
Perfect.
Zombie two down.
He hated wasting bullets, but these two shufflers were a little too close to home base for his liking.
George made his way down the steps, across the concrete walkway, past the flag pole with the tattered American flag flying, and down to the spot where buses and cars used to load up in that bygone era of pre-zombie days. He stood for a moment and debated. Department store to the right, grocery stores to the left. He decided to go left, whistling an Eric Church tune (something about that old race track Talladega) to calm his nerves, hoping against hope that Dawn was somewhere safe and sound, reloading his pistol as he walked. Dusk was now gripping the land, night was indeed coming on fast. He hoped Dawn had found a safe place to hide. He hoped that he would find her. He hoped that they would all be back to normal very soon.
+
The former head cheerleader woke up somewhere near the middle part of the night when she heard a rustling at the door. She’d been lost in a deep dream, so she wasn’t sure if the rustling was inside those dream cobwebs or part of the natural world. When she realized it wasn’t part of the dream, she woke up and pulled herself painfully from happiness. You see, in those dreams it was a sunny warm day at the beach. Perfect blue sky, white hot sand, palm trees, crashing surf; but the best part of it, she was back with her family, who she had lost not long ago when they were zombie ambushed.
Dawn sat there a moment, collecting herself, listening to that rustling at the door; whatever was outside this room really wanted to be inside. She looked around and realized, she was sitting in pitch black. The light on top of her head had been on when she fell asleep and had burnt out while she dreamed.
She tossed the strap with the light on it and rushed across the room to her bag. While she rummaged in the bag, she realized the rustling sound that woke her up, was the wooden legs of the desk sliding across the floor. The desk was moving away from its protective position, as someone or something slowly entered the room.
Dawn plowed quicker through her bag, rummaging blindly in the dark through everything in it. She found no back up light. She had forgotten the spare, but she didn’t panic. She stayed calm and cool, as she grabbed her pistol, making sure it was cocked and ready, and backed away from the door.
She trained her ears on the spot where the sound was coming from, and aimed in that direction. Her ears would now have to be her eyes, because that’s all she had. She prayed for peace, for security, for steady hands, as the door inched just a notch more open. The hole was now big enough for anything to squeeze through, and she thought she saw hands or arms reaching into the room trying to find leverage to push the door open.
A moment later, a big dark mass leaned in, a shadowy figure.
Dawn aimed for the area she thought was the head, and wrapped her finger around the trigger.
“Go in peace,” she replied, and fired.
The gun didn’t go off.
She was about to check the gun to see why it hadn’t fired when she heard–“Dawn, you in here?”
“George.”
She raced over to him, yanked the desk out of the way, and he slithered into the room. They hugged, embraced, and kissed.
“I’m so glad I found you.”
“How?” She asked, uncocking the gun, putting it away.
“I just went from grocery store to grocery store until I got here.” He paused. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Not bitten or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Pretty stupid. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“Where’s your light?”
“It burned out.”
“Back up?”
“Forgot it.”
“What would have happened if a zombie was coming through that door? What would you have done? Fired blindly into the dark.”
“I had it. I stayed calm and cool like you taught me.”
“What if there were ten more behind it?”
She had no answer, as she bit her lip. Something occurred to her. “What about your light?” She asked.
“I know, I know. I’m not perfect. I also forgot my extra,” George replied. “Look, all I’m trying to get at is that I just want you safe. I can’t lose you. I’ve lost too much already.”
“I’m safe, and you won’t. You’re not the only one who’s lost too much.”
“I know, but, first light, we’re going back. Okay?”
“Not yet,” she replied.
“What do you mean?”
“We have to find a turkey.”
George nearly fell over when she dropped that one on him. “Sweetie, there’s nothing left. I’ve been through all the stores. I’ve been out looking for supplies. Trust me. It’s all gone.”
“We can’t give up like that. We’ve barely been through Cary or Morrisville or areas beyond,” she replied, trying not to think about the sleeping pills or other things she forced herself to do in order to just get here. She wasn’t leaving without that turkey, no matter how much George complained, she would find one even if it killed her.
“Powers been off for a while now? Any meat that is still available is about as rotten as these zombies, maybe more so. Plus, how would you cook it if you did find it? How would we get it back without it spoiling? How would you carry it? I’m sure a turkey big enough to feed six isn’t going to fit in your bag.”
“There’s a place, just up the way. They use to have nothing but fresh meats there. They probably have all we need, and we can deep fry it. All it takes is just a little propane, which we already have. I used to watch my dad do it all the time.”
“And the deep fryer? Where would you find it?”
“I’m sure that fresh place has one.”
“I don’t know, sounds iffy.”
“I just have a hunch, okay? Can you have a little faith? Please. Trust my instincts. I’ve trusted yours enough. If we find nothing, then we go home and make what I found work. Okay?”
“I
just don’t know.”
“Please, George. It’s important to me to give everyone a true Thanksgiving feast. We’ve all earned it, and wouldn’t the kids be grateful? Something to take their minds off things for a bit.”
“Dawn, I know your heart is willing, but I don’t think the world beats the same way.”
She kissed him. “How about we bunk out here for the night? First light make a run for that fresh place. Nothing there, we go home with some turkey jerky. Not the same, but close. Okay,” she replied, hoping that maybe George would just give up and let her have this one.
“Fine. You got a deal,” George replied, as he closed the door, fortified it with the desk, and the couch.
“Thanks. I mean it,” Dawn replied, as she lay down on the fake brown leather couch, and waited for George.
He stripped off his vest and weapons, then snuggled up with her.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms, as the night passed with a cool November breeze slipping in through the open window. Thanksgiving Day was almost upon them.
+
The next morning, Kaley woke up in her sleeping bag, and stretched herself awake.
Shuffling.
Shuffling outside in the hall.
That was what had woken her up.
She slid out of the sleeping bag, and walked over to the door George had left out of yesterday. She looked out the glass window set into the door. It was her worst fear. There was not one, not two, but three zombies walking the hall, and heading in their direction. One of these zombies was a male, dressed like a crossing guard, the other two were women in cafeteria workers uniforms.
Kaley turned away from the door, and looked across the gym to her sleeping kids, tucked away inside their sleeping bags, peaceful dreams inside their heads. She looked from them, to the other door that led into and out of this place. That would be the door she would need to go out of if she wanted to sneak up on these three zombies from behind.
The Mike Beem Chronicles: 6 Tales of Survival, Hope, and The Zombie Apocalypse Page 2