The First 30 Days: A Zombie Novel

by Lora Powell

  My arms felt chilled. I began rubbing my hands over them to try to warm up, but the heavy backpack that I still wore hindered my movements. Shrugging out of it, I fingered the bite mark.

  The rest of our group filtered into the room and before long, everyone seemed to be talking at once. They wanted to know what had happened, and I couldn't really blame them. But the conversation went around me as if I was insulated from anything beyond the torn nylon still in my fingers.

  A ragged stuffed monkey dropped into my lap.

  Rex stood with his nose nearly touching my knee, brown eyes watching my face intently. Reaching out slowly, I rested my free hand on top of his neck.

  When a blanket draped around my shoulders, I looked up. Releasing my grip on the strap, I grabbed Shawn's hand and squeezed it.

  "Thank you."

  * * *

  I had decided to make a conscious effort to not be mad at Carrie.

  We had all been through unspeakable horrors. We weren't all going to react the same way to every situation that arose. I knew that she hadn't been laughing about me nearly getting bitten. Not really. The stress of the situation was enough to make any of us have odd reactions.

  After she had risked her own safety to look for the medicine that Devon needed, I knew that she was a good person.

  But I was still having a hard time being in the same room with her.

  This was my issue, and I was going to have to work it out, but it was going to take longer than one afternoon.

  "I think that we should stay the night. We can reevaluate in the morning." Bill looked around to see if we all agreed.

  No one objected, so I jumped up off of the couch. It was my turn to keep watch, giving me a plausible excuse for a hasty exit.

  Roaming the house slowly, stopping to watch out of every window for a minute or two, took my mind off of the ache in my shoulder. When the fog of shock had finally cleared from my mind, I'd discovered that I must have banged my head when I hit the ground. There was a sore spot on my skull and a dull throbbing headache as proof.

  Following behind me, he hadn't left me out of his sight since we got back, Rex carried his toy. Every time I stopped, he would drop it at my feet and sit. Petting his head lightly while looking out the window was proving therapeutic.

  I was looking out of the window in the upstairs hallway when Shawn found me. He didn't say anything, just leaned up against the wall to wait with me. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say exactly, so I kept quiet.

  The three of us made our way around the house like that for several hours. By the end of my shift I had realized something that, up until then, hadn't occurred to me.

  The world may have effectively come to an end. Civilization had been thrust back hundreds of years, and appeared to be tottering on the brink of complete extinction. But, for the first time in a very long time, I was not alone.

  Later on, when I was sufficiently exhausted that I thought I may be able to actually get some sleep, I dragged my feet back to the bedroom that I had used the night before. But when I cracked open the door, I found Fallon already asleep there. Closing the door, I tried the next room over.

  Maya and Bill were there, and I shut the door quickly, feeling like I'd intruded. The couple seemed to never get any time to themselves, with so many of us all forced together like we were.

  I knew the last bedroom was probably already occupied, and by whom. Carrie was on watch, and I'd passed Devon asleep on the couch in the living room. That only left one person who I hadn't already run across in my search for a place to sleep.

  Hesitating in the hall, I thought about finding someplace else to curl up for the night, but that wasn't really what I wanted to do. I took a deep breath and lightly tapped my knuckles on the door frame.

  "Yeah?" Shawn's voice was groggy.

  "Um, I don't really want to sleep alone, so..." I trailed off. I was already feeling like some sort of idiot for even suggesting that we share a room. I was glad for the darkness to cover the burn I felt spreading across my cheeks.

  Covers rustled in the room. "Come here."

  Crossing to the bed before I could talk myself out of doing it, I climbed under the covers that he was holding up for me. His arms wound around me, pulling me back to rest against his front, and I felt his nose rest lightly against the back of my head.

  After a tense few seconds, I felt myself relax and before long, was sleeping a blessedly dreamless sleep.

  THIRTY-FIVE-DAY 20

  I carried the last of our bags into the garage. Bill and Shawn were already there, trying to figure out the logistics of fitting seven people, a dog, and the small mountain of supplies we had gathered into one van.

  We had rested for long enough that everyone felt like they had at least some of their strength back. Devon's leg wasn't really any better, but at least it wasn't worse, and we knew that we were out of options for trying to treat him here. It was time to move on.

  We were hoping to find a settlement of some sort. There had to be one out there somewhere. It seemed impossible that the only people left alive would be like us, a small group that was barely hanging on by the tips of their fingers. There had to be people out there who were doing better. Maybe they would even have a real doctor, not a girl with limited first aid training and a few years spent observing the veterinarians in an animal clinic.

  "Good riddance to this place," Maya walked into the garage with Devon limping along behind her. She had never gotten rid of her dislike for the creepy little town, not that any of us blamed her. Something about it was just off.

  In the end, the two largest members of our group took the seats up front. Fallon and I sat in the middle, with Rex taking up most of our floor space, even too thin the dog was big. Carrie, Maya, and Devon squished into the back seat. The hatch had barely closed on all of the stuff that we had shoved back there. I was really glad that we had found the keys to the van in the kitchen, instead of having to try to carry all of the heavy bags ourselves.

  We may have gone a little overboard with packing, but as far as we knew, we would be living out of the van for the foreseeable future. To that end, we had gathered gallon jugs of water, all of the canned or boxed food for a several house radius, and a few comfort items such as blankets and hair brushes. We'd even made room for a giant sized bag of dog kibble. Leaving Rex behind wasn't really an option for any of us.

  The sound of the garage door opening must have drawn the zombies. There weren't many of them here, whoever had gone on a spree with a gun had seen to that, but there were a few. Three of them, shambling along and rotting to the point that strips of their flesh were peeling, met the van as Bill drove it out of the driveway. They offered no real threat to us. The doors were all locked and the windows rolled up, but I still flinched when one of them banged on the window by my face. For a second, I thought I felt the stinking, hot breath of the zombie, even though I knew that that was impossible. I rubbed my shoulder reflexively.

  Low growling from my feet pulled me back from my thoughts. Rex had climbed to his feet and was watching the zombie alertly, the hint of sound rumbling from his chest. "It's ok, boy." I patted his back in an effort to keep him quiet. That was going to be the only drawback to having a dog. We'd already talked about it. Sometimes dogs made noise, but noise made at the wrong time could get us all killed. Rex was going to have to learn to be quiet when there was a threat nearby.

  The plan was simple. South seemed like the most likely option for finding a settled group. With no electricity, the north would be a harsh place to try to survive in the winter. If anyone was going to manage to eke out a living in this new world, it would be in the south. A road map found in the glove box had provided our route. We would go back the way we had come, get on the highway, and just keep driving.

  It may have taken us days to walk the distance between the camp and the town, but in what felt like the blink of an eye, I saw the turn off for the camp up ahead. As we drove by, I craned my neck to try to get a view of the pla
ce that, for a short time, I had thought would be home.

  That wooden bridge that I hated flashed by. The brief view I had of it told me that we had made the right choice when we ran. Several zombies ambled across it's surface. Their heads snapped in our direction and I was sure they gave chase, but the trees stole my view.

  We were nearly back to the town just off of the highway when I noticed the thick black smoke trailing high into the sky. I saw the others looking at it too, but no one said anything. I had a feeling we would find out soon enough what was causing it.

  The last time I'd been in the other town, Shawn and I had been searching for supplies to make drinking water. It seemed like much longer than it had actually been since we'd saved Fallon and got the heck out of there. The town looked startlingly different than I remembered it.

  Windows in nearly every building had been broken, doors stood hanging open. There was a car abandoned by the fuel pumps that hadn't been there earlier. And we found the source of the smoke. The row of trailers that were closest to the main road were all on fire.

  A crowd of zombies milled around the burning homes, some getting too close and catching their tattered clothing on fire.

  I looked behind me to check on Devon. This was his home town that had been reduced to chaos. He stared out the window with a frown on his face, but didn't comment.

  We glided back up the on ramp and the miles passed quickly beneath the tires of our confiscated van. Devon and Fallon talked quietly back and forth, but the rest of us didn't really have much to say. The journey ahead would be dangerous, and with no set destination in mind, or even a guarantee that we would find what we were looking for, everyone was troubled.

  The highways were still as silent and empty as they had been when Shawn and I first drove them together. The grass along the side of the road was a little taller, the abandoned vehicles dirtier, but the view was much the same.

  The decision had been made before we pulled out of the garage, that we would try to siphon gas from abandoned cars along the way, instead of trying to get gas at a gas station. It seemed safer to avoid towns that we had no intention of stopping at anyhow, and Maya's group had worked out a system when they were on the road before.

  We had been driving for a couple of hours when Bill announced that we needed to start looking for a likely place to stop. The first car that appeared ahead of us was stopped unceremoniously in the middle of the road. Three of the four doors, and the trunk, all stood open. Bill didn't slow down, just swerved around the car and kept going.

  I wasn't sure why he hadn't stopped. He was the one who had just said we needed gas. Shawn must have been confused too, because he looked curiously over at Bill.

  Bill saw the look. "That one was probably empty. We've found that cars that are left the way that one was, were left like that for a reason. We need a car that looks like it was purposefully parked. Like the driver intended to come back for it."

  Barely a mile up the road, we found what he had been talking about. A beat up looking pick-up truck and an suv were pulled into the grass along the side of the road. Next to the vehicles, a makeshift camp had been set up. But it was obvious that whoever had been there, wasn't coming back.

  The open tent door flapped in the breeze. Belongings were scattered around and tipped over. One door to the truck stood open. I could see blood splattered on the interior, and a large pool had congealed on the ground.

  The fine hairs on my arms started to prickle. Whoever these people had been, they had thought that it was safe to stop here, and paid with their lives. I hoped we weren't going to make the same mistake somewhere along the road.

  THIRTY-SIX-DAY 20

  We stayed in the van for several minutes. Bill had stopped it in the middle of the highway, giving us enough room to be able to look all around the abandoned camp. We needed to be sure that the zombies were gone before we all climbed out of the safety of the van.

  My eyes kept going back to the dry blood that had sprayed the interior of the truck. It looked like someone had been so close to survival, only to have their life snatched away from them at the last second. It was a disconcerting thought.

  Bill was the first to open his door, with the rest of us following him. Maya pulled the length of hose that she had cut back in the garage, and a gas can, from where they had been stored by her feet. She went to work siphoning gas from the pick-up while the rest of us fanned out.

  Rex darted into the tall grass and began vigorously sniffing the area. Keeping one eye on him, I still wasn't sure that he wouldn't run off, I wandered over to the open tent. While we were stopped, it made sense to check for anything we may want to take with us.

  A couple of sleeping bags lay in a heap on the floor of the tent, looking like whoever had been using them had gotten up in a hurry. The empty wrappers from a few candy bars were tossed into a corner. Other than that, the tent was empty. Pulling my head back out of the opening, I looked around to see what the rest of the group was doing.

  While Maya stole the gas, Bill stood watch, making sure that nothing was able to sneak up on her. Devon leaned against the side of the van, keeping his weight off of his injured leg. The others all poked through the scattered belongings left in the grass, but it didn't look like they were finding much of use.

  Rex had wandered close to the tree line that started a dozen yards off of the pavement. His nose to the wind, he was sniffing intently at the breeze. "Rex, come here boy." I called him back to me. If he took off after something, I wouldn't be able to go look for him, and I was already attached to the dog. I didn't want to lose him.

  When he trotted back to my side, I walked nearer to where everyone else had congregated at the back of the abandoned suv. Maya was just finishing pouring the gas into our own tank.

  "We should fill the can back up with whatever is left in this one. Who knows when we'll be able to stop again," Carrie patted the side of the suv as she looked to Maya.

  Maya and Bill walked over and Maya set up to finish taking whatever gas was left in the suv. Looking over the top of the vehicle, Bill wondered out loud, "Do you think we should take the tent?"

  Looking in the direction of the tent, I contemplated the question. Did we need a tent? Or, more accurately, was it safe to use a tent? The previous people who had tried it hadn't fared so well.

  "I think I'd feel safer sleeping in the van."

  Echoes of agreement sounded around me. Those flimsy panels of fabric wouldn't do much to keep out a zombie.

  "Yeah, you're right."

  Muttering about making space for the now half full gas can, Bill went to open the back of the van. Devon hopped to the open door and climbed back into the back seat. I watched him worriedly, and I wasn't the only one.

  We were all staring after the teen when a hair raising snarl from the dog made us look in the direction he was starring.

  A zombie had broken from the tree line and was hobbling toward us as fast as it's mangled body could manage. Even from a bit of a distance, the damage that had been inflicted on it was apparent. Bites to it's face and neck had removed chunks of flesh. One arm had been gnawed until bone showed through. Likewise, the missing muscle that had been removed from it's thigh was deep, and was what was causing the relatively fresh zombie's slower pace.

  Decomposition hadn't had much of a chance to set in yet, and without the damage, this zombie would have still been frightening for it's speed.

  "I got it," Carrie pulled her knife from her belt and walked steadily forward to meet the zombie.

  It was just one zombie, but that didn't mean that more wouldn't come. Grabbing onto Rex's collar to keep the still growling dog from attacking, I watched as Carrie calmly approached the zombie. The creature lurched toward her with mouth open, and she allowed it's own momentum to drive her knife through it's eye. When she bent down to retrieve her knife, I hustled the dog over to the van and put him inside.

  "Watch him, please. I don't want him to run off," I told Devon before sliding the door sh
ut. We were just about ready to leave and having the dog shut in the van would make me feel better.

  I was turning back around when I heard the scream.

  Whirling, I watched in horror as two more zombies charged from the trees. Fast ones.

  Carrie was still mid way between the trees and the vehicles. What was worse, she wasn't alone.

  Somehow, in the scant seconds it had taken me to shut the dog in the van, Maya and Shawn had made it to Carrie's side. I bolted in their direction.

  I wasn't going to make it to my friends before the zombies. And they stood no chance of out running them and making it inside the van. In my peripheral vision, I saw that Bill was also running toward them. We would have to hope that, between the five of us, we could kill two fresh zombies. And that the three of them could manage to not get bit until we got there to help.

  The tall grass impeded me as I tried to make my legs run faster. I had never cursed being shorter than average as much as I was at that moment. Pulling ahead of me, Bill held his own knife out.

  Without conscious thought, I found the machete that I had discovered in the garage and claimed, in my hand. I was nearly to where my friends had turned to face their attackers, when the zombies reached them first.

  Swinging hard with his bat, Shawn attempted to take out the first zombie, but it jerked to the side, and his blow glanced off of it's shoulder instead. The creature kept coming, and with no time to recover, he was unable to stop it from running straight into him. Shawn and the zombie went down in a tangle of limbs, and the tall grass hid them from my frantic sight.

  Just feet away from where Shawn had gone down, Maya was struggling to keep the other zombie at bay, while Carrie attempted to stab it. But the zombie wasn't exactly an easy target as it fought with Maya, and she had to be careful not to hit Maya instead of the zombie. None of Carrie's stabs were having the desired effect.