The First 30 Days: A Zombie Novel

by Lora Powell

  After a long minute of staring, from both sides, the leader slowly began to walk toward the front door. Alarmed, I looked over to my companions. There were four of them, and only three of us. And our weapons consisted of a ball bat and two kitchen knives. If the newcomers wanted to cause us any trouble, we would have difficulty defending ourselves. Sharing a silent glance between us, I knew that the three of us were all thinking the same thing.

  Another look outside told me that we were out of time. The man was nearly to the overhang. No one seemed to know what to do, and panicking a little, I yelled, "Stop!"

  Fallon made a noise that I interpreted as distress, but my yell had the desired effect. The man came to a startled stop. Squinting through the rain, he looked around himself before focusing on the door again. One of the smaller figures came up to stand next to him, and she was finally close enough for me to see that it was a woman.

  There was another long moment of silence while we all stared again. The people outside shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, no doubt soaked and freezing, and probably nervous to be standing out there while we watched them from in here. I started to feel a little bit bad for them.

  They were people, just like us. I couldn't see any weapons, but that didn't mean much with the rain and gloom concealing the details from me. But the fact that there was a woman with the big man made me feel slightly better, even if that thought was a little ridiculous.

  The woman next to the man was the first one to break our stalemate. "We don't want any trouble. We're just looking for a place to get out of the rain."

  None of us knew what to do. I could see it plainly written on their faces. Shawn looked over to me, seemingly asking me what I thought we should do. Then I looked at Fallon. A couple of days ago, we hadn't known her, either. But she hadn't proven dangerous. In fact, she was the one who fixed the broken door. If we hadn't helped her, she would probably be dead by now.

  If we stopped helping each other, humanity was as good as dead. We needed each other more than ever if any of us were going to survive the zombies. "I think we should let them in," I whispered.

  TWENTY-EIGHT-DAY 14

  Fallon shook her head rapidly at my whisper, obviously not agreeing with me. Shawn looked out again, before turning back to face me.

  "Are you sure, Bri?" We were a team, and had learned to trust each other in the short time that we'd known each other. Both of us would probably be dead by now if it wasn't for the other.

  "No," I looked worriedly back outside. The people were still standing there, waiting for our response. "But I don't think we can turn them away."

  "Ok." He raised his voice to be heard over the downpour. "Are you armed?"

  The people looked at each other for a second before the big man answered. "We have two knives, a machete, a hatchet, and a gun."

  The gun, in particular, was what I was most worried about.

  I watched as the two remaining people moved closer. There was another woman, and the rail thin, tall figure seemed to be a teenage boy. They all looked miserable, soaked and exhausted. When I looked back to Shawn, I found him looking at me. He looked concerned, but I knew him. He wasn't likely to leave those people outside.

  "We will open the door if you leave the gun outside." Until I had a chance to get to know them a little, I wasn't crazy about them having a weapon like that.

  Out in the gloom, the burly man looked to the closest woman. They exchanged a few words, before he pulled a small handgun from under his jacket. Holding it up for us to easily see, he took the last steps under the overhang and set the weapon on the floor.

  I jumped down off of my chair and went to the table. Shawn, and a frowning Fallon followed me, and the three of us pulled the table away from the door. Arranging ourselves just inside the door, nerves jangled just under my skin as Shawn began to open the door. It was a risk we were taking, letting the bigger group in.

  The door swung open, revealing the group of people crowded under the overhang just on the other side.

  The man was first. He glanced warily behind himself, before slowly stepping across the threshold. My first impression of him hadn't been wrong. The guy was huge in every way possible. The rain had matted his black hair to his head and he hadn't bothered to zip his jacket back up. He was already soaked clear through anyhow. Brown eyes darted around the cafeteria, taking in the three of us and looking for any hint of danger.

  Behind him, the three others hurried inside, eager to get out of the rain, and probably to get to relative safety indoors. The one woman in particular stayed close to the man. She wasn't all that small, but compared to him, she looked tiny. When she stepped through the door, I noticed the hatchet in her hand that had been hidden by the weather. She clutched the weapon in a shaking hand, her own eyes searching the room.

  The teenager looked like he was ready to drop where he stood. These people all were drawn and unhealthy looking, but the teen was by far the worst. His eyes were sunk back in his skull and a complexion that probably used to be tanned was too white. His clothes bagged on his frame as if he had lost a significant amount of weight. The final woman came up behind him and wrapped a supporting arm around his torso. She was the oldest member of the group. Even soaked from the rain, filthy, and tired, I could clearly see the grey that streaked her hair and the lines that had started to spread on her face.

  "Stop! Are you bit?" Shawn's alarmed question had me searching for whatever he had seen that I had missed.

  There. The leg of the teenager's pants was torn. It was hard to see, but the rain hadn't completely washed away all traces of the blood that had soaked through the material.

  The man raised a placating hand. "It's not a bite. He got cut running from the zombies in that little town yesterday."

  I looked warily at the teen. Seeming to sigh, he slowly leaned down and pulled the leg of his pants up. The wound underneath made me cringe. The gash was deep, and ran through the middle of his calf. They hadn't made any effort to treat it, maybe they didn't have any medical supplies to do so, and the skin around the wound was already turning an angry red. Open to contaminants like it was, it was only a matter of time before his leg became seriously infected.

  "I'm Bill." The man told us when he saw that we were placated by seeing the teen's leg. "This is my wife, Maya, Carrie, and Devon." He gestured to the other three. "We've been walking for a while, now. Thanks for letting us in."

  "I'm Shawn. This is Bri and Fallon." He didn't seem to know what else to say and he stopped there.

  I jumped in when the silence threatened to become uncomfortable. "We have some basic medical supplies. I can take a look at your leg, if you want me to." I directed my statement to Devon.

  He smiled weakly at me, "That would be great."

  "Ok. I'll be right back." I hurried into the office with a backward glance at my people. In the supply closet, I pulled out everything that seemed like it would be helpful in treating such a serious wound. I was no doctor, but it looked to me like the teen could have really used a trip to a hospital. I hoped he had had his tetanus shot.

  When I stepped back into the cafeteria, I found everyone sitting around the tables in a wary truce. No one looked comfortable, but at least Shawn and the newcomers were talking. Fallon sat slightly to the side of everyone else and she still didn't look all that happy with how things were working out. I didn't have time to worry about her at the moment. I wanted to get Devon's leg cleaned up the best we could and was eager to get back to Shawn. I didn't like leaving him essentially all alone to deal with the new people.

  "Ok, let's see what we can do with these." I dumped my armload of supplies on the table and scooted a chair closer to the teen. He had used another chair to prop his leg up, and pulled his jeans above the wound again. Up close, the cut didn't look any better. Whatever he had sliced it on, must have been really sharp. There was one deep gash that went right into the muscle of his calf.

  While I went to work on his leg, I listened to the conversation tha
t I had interrupted with my entrance.

  "We ran out of gas a few miles before the exit to that town. We thought that we would probably be able to find some somewhere and carry it back to the car, but as soon as we hit the main street, the zombies started coming from everywhere." Maya shuddered a little in remembrance. "We didn't know which way to go. I thought that it was going to be the end for us, but then we heard someone shouting at us. It was Devon, and he led us away from the zombies, but he got hurt. We ran into the woods and just kept on going."

  "You just met them?" I questioned Devon as I tried to figure out how best to bandage his leg.

  He nodded, "Yeah, yesterday. I was starting to think that I was the only one left alive in the whole town, and then there they were. I'd been hiding in my attic, and then I heard voices. I didn't want to be alone anymore."

  I gave Devon a tight smile of understanding. My few days alone in my bathroom had been one of the worst times in my life. I could only imagine that a couple of weeks, all alone and hiding in an attic, had been brutal for the teen.

  TWENTY-NINE-DAY 14

  The rain finally stopped sometime in the late afternoon. Bill and Maya had been keeping watch out of the windows, and I had to admit that having the extra sets of eyes was a big help. With only three of us, it made the shifts tediously long. But the four new additions had jumped right in with helping out, and I was already noticing the difference.

  With more than twice the people now hiding out in the cafeteria, there was near constant chatter. Someone was always talking to someone else. Even Fallon seemed to be starting to thaw towards them, and she was currently sitting at a table with Devon, the two of them making use of the deck of cards.

  Shawn had been talking with Carrie for a while. I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation from where I was adding drops of bleach to our water supply. More people meant that we would need more of everything, and I wanted to be prepared. We didn't have much, but water was one thing that we did have in abundance. Maya had produced a few cans of fruit from the backpack that she carried, and they had readily shared with us. They seemed like genuinely good people, and after only a few hours with them, I was already glad that we had decided to let them in.

  From what I had been able to gather, they had had a rough road getting this far. Their group was larger when they left their homes in search of a safer place to stay. Their group had consisted of Bill, Maya, Carrie, Carrie's husband, and another man who had also lived on the same street as the rest of them. I didn't have to ask to know that the two men being absent from their group was a bad thing.

  The group had worked their way west in search of a place with less zombies. They had stopped a few times, but it never lasted long before they were overrun and had to leave. When they had run out of gas on the highway, they had planned to siphon a few gallons from a car in town, and continue on their way. But the crowd of undead had foiled their plans, chasing them in the opposite direction of their vehicle, and they met Devon in the process. They had escaped the zombies in the trees, and had been walking since, hoping to find a place to get out of the rain and decide what to do next. Then they had emerged from the woods onto the little back road that led them directly to the camp.

  Shawn relayed the basics of our own story to Carrie, and she made a noise of sympathy when he told her that we lost someone, too. She was disheartened when she found out that we had been running in the opposite direction from her group, and that there was no safer place than this one, as far as we had found.

  Finished with my task with the water, I walked over and pulled out a chair next to Shawn. "The water will be ready in a half an hour."

  Carrie nodded to me, "Thank you. I don't know where we would be if you all hadn't decided to let us in."

  Getting dry wasn't easy, and the woman sitting across from me still looked damp. Her long, graying hair was drying in greasy looking strands that lay limply plastered to her skull. The strain and loss of the past couple of weeks had left her with a haunted cast to her features.

  Basically, she looked awful. All four of them did, not that I thought that we looked much better. At least Shawn, Fallon, and I were reasonably rested. I looked to Shawn, "Why don't you and I take the first watch tonight, and let everyone else sleep." I didn't add that they needed it more than we did.

  "That sounds like a plan. Carrie, we've been sleeping in a nurse's office connected to the main office. There's a couch and the floor is carpeted, so it's definitely more comfortable than sleeping anywhere else."

  "This is a camp, right? Aren't there beds somewhere?" Bill had wandered over to our table.

  "Yeah, but they're all in cabins spread out around the area. We've stayed in this building because it's bigger and seems more secure."

  Bill seemed to think before nodding in agreement. "It makes sense for us all to stay together. And this place is better than some of the others we've stayed in lately."

  "Shawn and I are ok with taking the first watch, if you want to try to get some sleep."

  He nodded again, and I could see his frame droop a little with exhaustion. "That would be good, thanks. Would you all be ok with me bringing in my gun? I understand why you wanted it left outside, but I'd feel better if it was back within reach."

  Shawn answered him, "Yeah, go ahead."

  "Alright. I'm gonna go get that, and then if you don't mind, I think Maya and I will try to get some sleep."

  * * *

  After hearing the rain drum on the roof for so long, and hours of talking, the silence of the night seemed somehow ominous. The chirps, croaks, and peeps from the wildlife blended into quiet background noise that I no longer noticed unless I thought about it. Perched on top of my chair once again, I watched through the window for anything that could cause us trouble. So far, the fog that had been slowly building into a white wall was the only thing that had moved out there.

  I yawned and stretched before coming down from the chair. It was deep into the night and almost time for us to wake up Fallon and Bill for their turn. Maya, Carrie, and Devon were all going to get an uninterrupted night's sleep, something that we hadn't been able to do very often with less people.

  I wandered over to where Shawn had been watching out a window towards the other end of the cafeteria. "Hey. It's all quiet out there, but the fog's starting to get really thick."

  He turned around and leaned against the wall next to me. "Yeah. I hope it doesn't last too much longer. I don't like not being able to see out there."

  "First that crazy rain, now this." I shrugged my shoulders slightly. There wasn't anything any of us could do about it anyhow. "The new people seem ok."

  He nodded thoughtfully. "They do. I wonder if they will stay. Having a few more people would make a lot of things easier."

  I was a little surprised by his statement. It never occurred to me that the new group might choose not to stay. Where else did they have to go? I didn't respond as I thought over the possibilities.

  We stayed like that, backs against the wall, in a companionable silence for a few minutes. When I figured that it had been long enough I should check outside again, I pushed off of the wall and walked back to my window.

  Back up on my chair, nothing seemed to have changed. The slow creep of the fog still concealed too much of my view. The moonlight still glinted dully off of the puddles here and there.

  I sighed and settled in for more less than stimulating looking out the window. Being on watch at night was my least favorite job in this new world.

  Suddenly, a deer burst from the hazy underbrush. Running full speed, the animal crossed the open driveway in a few bounds, swerved to miss the jeep, and disappeared into the fog.

  As the deer bounded out of sight, I rested my hand over my now pounding heart and silently laughed at myself for being startled by a deer. But then I realized that the usual night sounds from bugs and small animals had gone completely silent.

  THIRTY-DAY 15

  "Bri," Shawn was already hurrying towards me
in the darkened cafeteria.

  "I saw it." I whispered back, clambering off of the chair.

  "Go wake everyone up. Make sure they stay quiet," he took up a position watching out my window.

  Careful not to bump into anything, I hurried into the office. The door to the next room was open and I could see the shapes of sleeping people on the floor. The room was not that large, and floor space was basically nonexistent with so many bodies stretched out in there.

  I hissed through the doorway, "Get up!"

  It didn't take much to rouse everyone after living on the edge like we had been. My second whispered hiss had everyone coming to attention.

  "What's wrong?" Fallon shoved her hair from her face as she sat up on the couch.

  "I don't know, but something's not right."

  They all struggled to their feet, weapons coming out from where they had stashed them. The new group seemed particularly on edge, reminding me that they had been on the road for a lot longer than I had been.

  Maya began stuffing her backpack with everything she could get her hands on. It took me a second to realize that she was preparing to have to run. It had happened to them before, and I suddenly felt ill prepared if we did have to leave the camp. Grabbing Shawn's backpack from where he had left it on the desk, I started stuffing bottles of water and the last of the food in it.

  Everyone else had crept from the office by the time Maya and I had filled the two bags. Zipping mine closed, I followed Maya through the door.

  The thought of having to leave the camp was terrifying. At first, this place had been creepy, but we had started to settle in here. I knew that being out on the road had to be worse.