by Kirk Allmond
Vic walked up to the house, removing the gun belt that held his Sig and hatchet, holding it in one hand. He walked straight up to the deck, climbed the stairs as confidently as he could, and held his free hand palm outward.
When he got to the back door, he knocked lightly three times. He thought about that knock all the way through the back yard. Three hard knocks sounds like the police. The "Shave and a Haircut" knock seemed too flip. Vic opted instead for the "Tap, Tap... Tap" knock. Casual, yet firm. A knock that said, "I'm standing outside at dusk, five months into the apocalypse by choice, not because I need anything but because I'm worried about you needing something." At least that's what he hoped it conveyed.
After all that thought, no one came to the door. He heard nothing, which seemed odd. He couldn't help the feeling that something had drawn him there. It felt like there was a reason they came down this road on the way to the train yard. He knocked on the door again, louder this time. Once again, he heard nothing. He checked the knob - it was locked.
"Marshall, I'm going to go around to the front door. Can you swing around and cover me from that angle?" he whispered into the radio.
"Got it, moving already. I spotted a walker down the street. Be careful you don't draw a crowd with that knocking."
Victor leaped off the porch, landing in the soft grass at a dead run. Around the front of the house, he pulled the same routine, walking up with purpose but as non-threatening as possible. He knocked three times and then three times again. Vic was just about to give up when he heard something that sounded like furniture scraping against a hardwood floor.
"I heard something inside. I'm going in."
"Vic, it’s probably a walker. They probably holed up in here as long as they could, something happened, and they turned."
"Maybe. If that turns out to be the case, I'll put them down and see what's in the house that we can use."
He kicked the door as hard as he could, right above the doorknob. The wood creaked loudly but didn't give way
"Dammit, Vic. You're going to wake the whole neighborhood," said Marshall through the radio as he trotted up to the front door. He put one huge palm on the door between the deadbolt and the knob and pushed on the dark brown wooden door. The framing around the door gave way, and the screws ripped out of the doorjamb. Marshall pushed the door open with almost no effort and created a third of the noise Victor caused.
The two brothers entered through the destroyed front door and stepped into the foyer. Victor took a second to get his bearings and let his eyes adjust. Directly in front of him was a stairway. To the left was a formal dining room piled high with trash. To the right was a family room with a big L-shaped couch. The couch was covered in sheets and blankets, and there were pillows on it. He headed up the stairs towards the sound of the noise.
"Check the kitchen," Victor ordered, taking the steps two at a time. He realized what the sound he heard reminded him of, and that meant time was short.
He ducked right into the first bedroom—it was empty. The second bedroom was empty. In the third bedroom, he found what he was hoping he wouldn't. A man dressed in digital camouflage ACUs was swinging by his neck, the rope tied to an eyebolt in the ceiling. There was a chair about a foot from him, his toes were just barely touching the floor, and he was purple.
"Marshall!" Victor yelled desperately. "Get up here!"
Vic wrapped the man in a bear hug and lifted him up, doing his best to remove the strain from his neck. He held him there until Marshall came in and yanked the eyebolt out of the ceiling. They slid the noose over his head while Vic felt around his neck. He really had no idea what he was feeling for, anything that felt different from a normal neck. Once they got him down on the floor, Vic tilted his head back a little, trying to open his airway as much as possible, and then they waited. He was either going to wake up with a hell of a headache or wake up and try to eat them. Or, on the other hand, not wake up at all.
It only took a minute or so for him to come around. "Hold on, son. Try not to move," Victor said to him as he started to get up.
"Where did you come from?" he croaked, his voice raspy and hard to understand.
"I saw your trash pile on the way through this morning, and we stopped by on our way home to see if anyone was still alive in here."
The man looked to be in his early thirties. The little bit of hair he had was sandy blond, although it was hard to tell with his army buzz cut. He had a Sergeant First Class insignia on his arm and the name Shelton on his army combat uniform shirt. He spoke slowly and with great effort.
"Five of us landed at Andrews Air Force Base yesterday. We'd finally managed to repair a plane and fly home from Afghanistan. If you think it’s bad here, you should see D.C. When we hit the tarmac, we all bailed out the back of the plane, letting it run into a huge group of infected who were waiting on the runway. The last I saw, the props were grinding through that herd before the plane smashed into a hangar. I didn't wait around long, though. As soon as I stopped rolling after my jump, I was up and running the other way." Shelton stopped to take a breath. All the talking was physically hard on him.
"During the flight, we'd all decided to split up and get to our families. I ran all night long. I humped about thirty-five miles before stopping to eat and catch a little sleep in an empty auto dealership at oh-five-hundred hours. I killed four or five infected with my knife, dragged 'em outside, and found a secure place to rack up for the night. When I woke up at oh-eight-hundred this morning, I stole a pickup from the lot. That truck ran out of gas about a mile from here, so I ran the rest of the way. When I got here, I found all kinds of signs that my wife and sons had survived, trash outside and all. I ran in the house and found this note from my wife."
Shelton reached into the slanted breast pocket of his ACU shirt and pulled out a folded hand-written letter, which he handed to Vic.
Dear Corbin,
The kids and I love you very much. I'm sorry I let you down. We were doing everything you told us, but I was bitten at the market this morning. Dakota blames himself. He was watching my back, but he's only seven. It was my fault. He was bitten on the leg, and I fear he will survive longer than I will. I can't stand for him to see me turn into one of those things, and I can't bear the thought of him being one. When I finish this letter, I'm going to do what I have to do.
Darren didn't make it back to the house. He was dragged into a group of those things. I couldn't find him anywhere.
I have always loved you. I wish that I could have survived longer; I wish you'd been with us instead of off at war. I know you did everything you could to get back here, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I have loved you since the moment I met you and will love you forever.
Find peace in this life, and I'll see you in the next.
Love,
Katy, Dakota, and Darren.
20th October 2011
While Victor was reading, Shelton broke down into tears. He was having some trouble breathing, which made his crying even worse. "I got here as fast as I could. That letter was from two days ago. If only I'd gotten here sooner. If I’d tried harder, I could have made it!"
"Shelton," Victor said, “you did your best. You were in Afghanistan. How could you have gotten here any sooner?"
"I delayed the plane by a week trying to save Lieutenant Michaels. She was my CO. Our AO was 300 klicks north of Kandahar; we dropped in four months before the rest of the world went to shit. I stayed behind for a week before I could convince her to bug out with us. We humped down to Tirin Kot, where we stole an MRAP and a diesel tanker to get back to KAF. If I had left her, I would have been back last week. But I couldn't leave her; I thought I was in love with her. I was going to leave my wife when I rotated back home."
Shelton broke down, sobbing and crying.
"You're the first living people I've seen on this side, and there ain't many left overseas either. We saw one Hajji on a camel in the afghan desert. You're the first humans I've seen outsid
e of my team. We were overrun, and we weren't going to survive long there. The Hajji infected were all around our FOB. If we hadn't bugged when we did, we'd be dead. That was the only way to convince her we should go."
Shelton's aura never changed from greenish blue. There was no swirling, no color slashes, and no nothing. Victor believed him.
"I know you're hurting," Vic said. "But we have a whole place full of people. We have about two hundred survivors, we have women and children, and we could use a good soldier. We have lots of work to do and people that need taking care of."
Victor put his hand on Shelton's chest as he spoke and mentally pushed just a little bit. Victor couldn't describe what he did; it was something like when he took over a zombie but less invasive. Perhaps he let him feel a little of his own emotion as he added, "We need good men. Can you walk? Let’s get out of here. We saw a couple of walkers down the street."
Shelton got to his feet, slowly. His neck was starting to show significant bruising. He had a soldier’s body. He was strong and lean; Victor was certain that was the only way he’d survived his ordeal.
"We have to stop by the basement," Shelton said. "There is a bunch of stuff down there."
When they got to the basement, Victor was stunned. The Tookes had an impressive arsenal at the farm. They did not, however, have heavy weapons. Shelton did. There were crates upon crates of heavy weapons and ammunition.
"Where did you get all this?" Marshall asked.
"When I was in Afghanistan the first time, an old high school buddy of mine was promoted to Colonel and put in charge of the weapons depot at Germantown, Maryland. When the shit first hit the fan, I got a call from the guy; I hadn't talked to him in ten years. He said he needed somewhere to store some hardware. We talked about old times for a bit. I know where three more caches like this are. I think he was planning on using all of this to rebuild the country when the infection died off."
Victor twitched at the mention of the depot at Germantown.
"What was your buddy’s name?" He asked.
"Frye. Josh Frye."
Chapter 7
Chinese Take Out
Renee peeked around a corner as she always did, right as a group of more than a dozen was coming around the corner in the opposite direction. She scooped up Maya and ran as hard as she could down the sidewalk. The zombies behind her were quickly outpaced as she retraced her footsteps, turning left into an alley that had been clear just a minute prior.
“Mommy, we always run. I’m tired of always running,” Maya whispered in her ear.
“I know, baby, but we have to run from the bad people.”
“Why don’t we kill them?”
“There are too many of them. I can’t kill them all and keep you safe. So we run.”
They ran down the alley, checking each door. The little black-haired girl clung to her mother, legs wrapped around her waist. The third door they checked was open; Renee ducked into it and closed it behind her, twisting the deadbolt as the first infected started banging on the door. The thick steel door muffled the noise; the pounding was just a dull thudding.
The two survivors found themselves in the kitchen of what looked like a Chinese restaurant. There was a line of woks sitting on a row of burners. Renee had learned that Chinese restaurants were notorious for using all frozen and fresh foods; they virtually never had any kind of canned food. She checked the shelves for anything they could use, putting two large cans of water chestnuts and a can of bamboo shoots into her backpack. At least it was filling even if it had no nutritional value.
On the prep side of the kitchen, she found a huge chef’s knife, the blade easily a foot long and sharp. She grabbed a towel to wrap the knife in and put that into her bag, keeping the huge knife ready.
“Stay behind me,” Renee said as she and Maya walked to the swinging kitchen door and peeked out the window
Inside the restaurant’s dining room were two zombies, a male and a female. The male was wearing a gray business suit, which was still in decent shape, except for the pants, which were entirely missing. The man was naked from the waist down, his pallid, gray ass hanging out below the suit coat, a pair of tighty-whities around one ankle. There was a large chunk of his left thigh missing. No question about how he was infected. The woman was less damaged. She looked almost normal; her color wasn’t as bad as the man’s.
God, it must suck to get bitten while sitting on the toilet, Renee thought.
The female was in a red dress, which was torn across the mid section. The bottom of the dress was held on by a thin piece of piping; what had once been an elegant cocktail dress was now a midriff top and skirt. The “skirt” dipped in the front, showing that the woman hadn’t been wearing panties.
Renee wondered if they’d been on a date. In an instant, she made up a whole story about them. This was their third date, they hadn’t ever been together before, and that night almost five months ago was to be both of their lucky night. He probably had a pack of condoms in his pocket. She had spent hours getting ready.
Both were standing at the window looking out on the street on the far side of the room. Renee snapped back to reality. Thinking of them as people always made it harder to do what she had to do. In an instant, she adjusted them from former almost-lovers to shambling, rotting undead, bent on eating her little girl in front of her eyes. She was reasonably certain that she’d be able to take them out. She knew that going back out into the alley wasn’t an option, and she needed to get out of this restaurant before the group at the back door either broke it down or got tired of pounding and went back to roaming around. Right now, all the few walkers left in the area were conveniently gathered at the back of the restaurant.
“Mymy, I need you to sit way up on this shelf. I have to go take care of some bad people. I’ll be right back, okay, baby? You stay right here,” Renee said as she set the little girl up on the top shelf of the pantry.
Renee pushed the door open cautiously. She’d like the walkers to keep their back to her for as long as possible. Ideally, until she drove the huge knife into the back of their skulls.
She crept quickly and quietly, keeping low, avoiding obstacles in her path. She was about six feet away when the first one turned. Renee jumped forward from her crouched position, driving the knife into the base of the female’s skull. She deftly removed the knife and crouched, swinging the blade horizontally across the back of the thighs of the second. Without hamstrings, its legs buckled. Renee stood up, backing away to give herself some room. She picked up a heavy upholstered chair and lifted it up over her head. She stepped towards the prone zombie, driving one chair leg down through its face, impaling it on the chair’s leg. She wiped the black gore off the knife on the upholstery of the chair and quickly scanned the room for anything else.
Satisfied that there were no more threats in the dining room, she was walking back towards the kitchen when she spotted something that made her heart skip a beat. The entire left side of the room was a fountain. Three very large orange and white koi were swimming in it. Prior to the end of the world, those fish would have been worth several thousand dollars each. Post apocalypse, they were worth eating.
On the backside of the fountain, she found a closet with the cleaning supplies and the fish food. She found a small corner of the fountain and sprinkled some of the food in. The normally docile fish attacked the food with some vigor, reminding Renee of the first week she’d been in the office building, when she’d seen the infected tear into that poor woman’s flesh.
Renee had been so excited to see another living person in the building across the street. She’d waved, and the other woman had waved back. Renee had taken off running down the stairs. At the front door of her building, she’d watched through the glass door in horror as the woman came running out of the building across the street into a group of wandering zombies. They’d torn her apart. Nearly two weeks later, Renee had gone out one night and dragged the few bones and scraps of clothing off to a dumpster.
> While the fish were preoccupied with the food, Renee used her hand to flip them out of the water, leaving each one flopping on the deep red carpet for only a few seconds before cutting their heads off right there on the floor. She grabbed the fish carcasses and carried them back into the kitchen area.
“Maya! We’re having fish sticks tonight!”
The little girl smiled a huge smile and clapped her hands excitedly as Renee set the colorful fish on the counter.
After she lifted the little girl down, she went through the back room of the kitchen. Finding a tub of cleaning wipes with bleach, she wiped down the entire food prep area. While the counter was soaking with bleach, Renee went out to the buffet line and found four cans of Sterno, bringing them back to the kitchen.
On the bottom shelf, she found a large jug of peanut oil, which she poured into one of the woks from the stove. She lit the cans of Sterno with a lighter from her backpack and set the wok directly on top of the cans.
While the oil was heating, she filleted the fish with a freshly disinfected filet knife from the rack, cut them into strips, and rolled the strips in panko breadcrumbs. The large crispy Japanese-style breadcrumbs stuck fairly well to the fish.
“Mymy, I wish we had some eggs! We’ll have to make do without them though. These are going to be so yummy!”
While the freshly-breaded fish sticks rested, Renee pulled a dozen paper towels out of the dispenser above the hand-washing sink and, after throwing the first one away, laid the others out in a pile beside her wok of oil. Another bleach-wipe cleaned the tongs hanging above the stove, and then her oil was ready. She slowly lowered each fish stick, twenty of them in all, into the hot oil and watched them cook. When they were done, she pulled them out of the oil one at a time, salted them lightly while they were still hot, and put the wok back on the stove. She put the lids on the Sterno cans to extinguish the flames and waited for the fish to be cool enough to eat.