“It’s everywhere,” Murray said holding up his phone. “Des Moines is burning, people are looting and rioting, and the zombies are attacking anything that moves!”
“Zombies?” the younger father said. “Zombies aren’t real; those people are high on something, or sick. That virus has been on the news for a couple of days now.”
Murray looked at him, “Don’t you know what’s happening? This is it, the end of the world as we know it. One of them bites somebody, who bites somebody else and pretty soon we’re all living in sewers and scavenging for cat food! Don’t you watch movies?”
The older man scoffed, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t care. We’re leaving. I’ll run down any of those crazies that get in my way, that’s what a brush guard is for. I’ve got a safe full of guns at the house. Druggies, sick people, the walking dead, I don’t care what you want to call them, if they come around my place, me and my boys are gonna light ‘em up.”
The two boys nodded in agreement, excitement tamping down their fear. Their dad was always talking about being prepared, you never knew when everything could go to hell in a handbasket. He’d mostly meant the government getting out of control, about the Tree of Liberty being watered with the blood of tyrants, but a zombie uprising was just as bad. Maybe worse.
The older man looked at the couple with the two children. “If you want to get out of here, you’re welcome to come with us. Same for all you kids, there’s no room for everyone in my truck but I can come back and get you. We’ll get you back to your parents and in a few days the cops or National Guard will have this under control and it will all blow over.”
The younger couple whispered to each other and both nodded at the older man. “We’re with you.”
Murray wheeled his chair in circles anxiously. “You leave, you die, and if you let those zombies in the gate they’ll kill us. C’mon, look at the news, this is everywhere. The world is dying.”
“Kid, you should lay off the video games. This ain’t nothing but some bad drugs getting passed around and some crazies using the chaos to get a new flat screen and some Air Jordans.”
“Those people aren’t looking for a flat screen.” Murray said and pointed towards the front gate. “I think they’re looking for brains.”
“Come on, let’s go,” the man said and headed for the door, ignoring the kid who obviously watched too many horror movies. Zombies weren’t real.
The other family and their small children fell in line behind him.
Cody stopped pacing and stepped between him and the door. “Please, my mom said...”
“Kid, no offense, but your mom ain’t in charge of us. We’re leaving, we’ve got family to check on so decide right now whether you want me to come back or not but get out of my way.”
“My family is already here.” Cody said lamely and stepped aside. “I have to stay.”
The man looked at the other kids who looked at each other.
“I guess we will, too.” Murray said. “Our parents know where we are. They’ll come get us, right guys?”
There were nods from the others, slow and unsure at first but once they thought about it, it made sense.
“We’ll stay, Mister but thanks for the offer.” Harper said “My dad would be mad if he came for me and I wasn’t here.”
“Makes sense,” the man said. “Lock up behind us.”
They checked to be sure none of the crazies were anywhere around and the families left the house, hurrying to the parking lot while it was still empty. The kids made their way to the living room with the overstuffed furniture and went back to their phones, trying to get in touch with their own families. All but the lean Asian boy, he clung to the shadows. He had nowhere to go and there was no one who cared if he was safe or not.
Cody watched the small group leave, heard their cars start up a few minutes later then slipped out of the door. He scanned the area, listened intently for the keens or screams of the crazy people and looked for any sign of his mom. She was nowhere to be seen. He left the porch and edged towards the snack shack and the front gate. He wanted to make sure they had closed it behind them. Derek’s body was gone and the golf cart was parked haphazardly in front of the nurse’s station. There was a lot of blood staining the cargo hold so it was easy to figure out what she’d done but that didn’t explain why she hadn’t come to the house.
The area around the front entrance and parking lot was empty. The gift shop door stood ajar, a tipped over postcard rack blocking it open. The park was unusually quiet, the only sound was the breeze rustling the leaves and the crackling of flames barely heard from the car fire near the road entrance. No chittering from the monkeys. No cries of the peacocks or bleating of the goats. Even the chickens were quiet. Everything was hiding, being still and silent.
He heard them as they joined him to stare out at the parking lot. An hour ago, there had been a line of happy people waiting to get in, their biggest concern was sunblock and hoping the animals were active so they could get some good pictures. Now there were a half dozen smashed cars and a school bus burning brightly, the parking lot had pools of blood and shredded clothes littering it. Discarded shoes and purses were everywhere. Flies were gathering at the puddles and drinking their fill. They watched in silence for a few moments before the oldest looking girl finally said something.
“I think that’s Mr. Baynard,” she pointed to a form crawling towards them, its lower body broken and burnt but the remnants of a flashy necktie could be still be seen. His head was still smoldering, wisps of smoke curling up from the burnt hair. They watched as he scratched his way toward them, pulling himself slowly along. Something had torn him open. A car bumper or maybe another crazy and his entrails were spilling out, sliding across the asphalt behind him.
“I don’t think its drugs making them crazy. No kind of drug can make you act like that,” a young black girl said and moved in a little closer into the group.
“It’s zombies.” Murray said. “There is no other explanation. Prove me wrong.”
No one tried because no one could. He was right. They watched the slow progress in horrified fascination, saw it tried to scream at them but no sound came from the burnt things mouth.
Cody was the first to tear his eyes away from the slow-moving horror.
“I’ve got to find my mom. She will know what to do.”
“We can help,” an Indian girl said. “Do you think we’re safe in here?”
“Should be.” Cody said, “We’re surrounded by fence. Good fences that keep the antelope in so it ought to keep those things out. They don’t seem to be very smart. I don’t think they can climb.”
“Where should we start searching?” the pale boy said and his sister nodded at his words.
Cody bit his lip and looked to the nurse’s station with its gore stained, spider webbed window. At the bloody cart parked in front of it. She should have come to the house unless something was wrong. Unless something had happened to her. Suddenly he felt really glad the kids were with him, he didn’t want to be alone. He was afraid of what he’d find when he looked inside. He pointed, his throat too tight to speak and they understood.
“Um, dude.” Murray said. “We need weapons. I know she’s your mom and all but, you know, maybe she’s not anymore.”
Harper gasped and swatted him for being so insensitive but he didn’t back down.
“Just saying, that’s all,” he defended himself.
“He’s right.” Cody said. “She might not be…”
He swallowed the giant lump in his throat and finished “herself.”
He pulled the door open to the snack shack and handed everyone a long knife or barbeque fork before they made their way over. The office was trashed. Blood, broken bottles, smashed cabinets and spilled desk drawers cluttered the place but no one was inside either living or dead. The quiet Asian boy handed him a note as they turned to leave. It had been laying on the counter and everyone else had overlooked it.
&n
bsp; 12
Cody
Piedmont House was commissioned by Theopolis James Piedmont in 1897. Construction began that spring and the last nail was driven flush in the winter of the same year. Three stories tall with a large open floorplan for entertaining the elite members of society, it featured indoor plumbing and was one of the first houses in the region to have electric power. In addition to having its own telegraph lines, it was also the first to utilize Alexander Graham Bell’s new-fangled device called the telephone. With its lavish design, modern conveniences and the Piedmont flair for aristocracy, it was the envy of north eastern Iowa.
Now, over a century later, it was the visitor center and staff offices of the Piedmont Animal Sanctuary. Each year for Halloween, the park staff decorated the first floor with a macabre collection of ghosts, ghouls and scary music. Vampires and werewolves ushered people out of the creepy waiting area and onto the haunted hayride that included thrills and chills of all kinds. Monsters waited to leap from the shadows to scare small children, give teenage boys a reason to put their arms around their dates and cause the occasional adult heart to skip a beat or two. Giant, hairy spiders sprang from trees and animatronic zombies clawed the earth with their skeletal hands as they tried to rise from the grave in search of brains. Running from the first of October through Halloween, it was a huge tourist draw and every year the park added a few more scares to the delight of visitors.
The second floor was utilized as office space for the park personnel and the third floor had eight spacious rooms that were used mostly for storage. Utilizing much of the original furnishings, it was a step back to a simpler time when gossiping on the telephone party line was the height of societal scandal.
Inside the old house, Cody sat with the stained note in his hands and ignored the other kids. He read it over and over, looking for something he missed. The sentence that said I’ll be right back, everything is fine.
It wasn’t there. The cold, hard, ugly, black truth was all the note held. No happy ending. Just death and sacrifice. A last goodbye that told him to buckle up and take care of things. She’d said it nicely, she’d said it in a mom way, but that’s what she meant. It’s up to you, buddy. It’s your burden now to carry on by yourself. He heard the others talking, heard their voices and the tinny voices coming from six different phones and it registered with him even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it. The zombie outbreak was happening all over. No city, no state, no country was spared from the horror of raging infected sweeping through them. Stay inside, help is on the way, they repeated over and over but they never said who was coming to help. Or when. The weather radio in the kitchen played the same Emergency Broadcast message over and over, the recorded message growing monotonous in its urgency. The world really was falling apart out there. Still fighting back his emotions, he wondered how to deal with what was happening outside the fences and more importantly, how to keep it from getting in. Was he sure it wasn’t airborne? Was it really only spread by a bite? Were some of them already carrying it? There were too many questions, and no answers for any of them.
He looked around at the other kids. Most of them were alternating between phone calls and texts to relatives or redialing 9-1-1. Occasionally someone would get up and wander around the house, peeking through curtains. About an hour ago Swan, the dark haired Indian girl, had gotten through to her mother who was stuck in traffic on the interstate. She frantically tried to fill her in on what happened, tell her she was fine but they all heard her mom start screaming and then there was nothing. She sat on a couch in a daze next to Cody. She had her knees hugged to her chest and rocked slowly back and forth. Dried tear streaks were on her cheeks and everyone talked in whispers. She and Cody knew their parents were gone. The others could hope their families were fine but none of them really believed. They’d seen how fast it happened. How brutal and vicious. The virus had started and spread and killed a hundred people in a matter of minutes. A half hour from start to finish. They hoped but they didn’t believe. She sat beside him staring off into nothing. It was going on early afternoon and the animals had forgotten their fear, come out of hiding and could be heard chittering and cawing or bleating their animal sounds. No else had been able to get a call through, not to 9-1-1, not to family, not to anyone. All circuits were busy the automated voice told them or they just rang until voicemail kicked in. The internet had been slow and sluggish all morning, pages taking forever to load or refresh but now it was quick again. There wasn’t any new content, though. Their Facebook posts reaching out to friends went unanswered. Their Instagram pictures went unnoticed. No one replied to their tweets. Texts messages sent were never seen.
Donny Lin didn’t have a phone and grew restless watching the others. He paced around the house, peeked through every curtain and didn’t see anything unusual aside from the park being completely empty. None of the undead things were inside the fences and he slipped outside to look around. To make sure. As he hurried down the paths, he began to notice a pattern. All of the animals ran towards him and paced along until they were stopped by their barriers. They were nervous, too. They took comfort at the sight of a human, something that had been a constant their whole lives. He realized something else, too. They were probably hungry. He’d noticed that the caretakers usually fed most of them after the park was open so the guests could watch them eat.
When he slipped back into the house an hour later, they jumped from their seats and asked him where he’d been. He should have told them if he was going outside. He wasn’t used to the attention or anyone missing him when he wasn’t around and was a little taken aback. They peppered him with questions and admonishments until Cody finally said, “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He pointed to his mouth and shook his head and they realized they’d never heard him utter a word.
“You can’t speak?” Harper asked “What happened?”
“You didn’t see any zombies out there?” Murray asked.
Donny shrugged, ignored her question, shook his head emphatically at Murray and mimed an animal, pretended like he was eating and pointed outside.
Cody exclaimed and slapped his forehead. “I forgot all about the animals. They haven’t been fed yet. Can you guys help me?”
A chorus of yes’s and okay’s and anything is better than sitting around here answered him as Swan dug an ink pen and a small notebook out of her bag and handed it to the Asian kid.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll show you the storeroom. There are charts on the wall telling who gets what and how much. Who are you guys anyway?” Cody asked. “You all know each other?”
Introductions were made and when Donny wrote his name on the pad, Swan announced it to everyone.
It didn’t take long to get organized and soon they were loading up the golf carts with buckets and bags. The way the feeders were designed, they didn’t have to enter any of the enclosures or cages to add the food or refill the water troughs. Many of the animals were fairly self-sufficient and didn’t need daily care. The antelopes grazed and drank from the ponds. The chickens and peacocks could fend for themselves and as Cody fed the Jersey cow, he worked on auto pilot, his mind racing and still trying to come to terms with the new world he was living in. It was hard, nearly impossible to imagine, but it was over. The world he knew that morning was gone. They’d heard the news reports, they’d seen the videos. It was all gone. His mom was gone. His friends were gone. There would never be any new episodes of his favorite shows. There wouldn’t be any new video games or superhero movies. There weren’t any more cops or army or president. There weren’t any more people except for maybe small groups like theirs that had been lucky or smart. He pushed the big thoughts out of his head and concentrated on the small thoughts. What were they going to do? Should they try to leave or stay in the park? What were the other kids going to do? How was he going to take care of the animals all by himself if they left? Should he set them all free? He thought about the rest of the animals and which ones would be fine
in the hundreds of acres of fenced land. Most of them, he concluded. They only had a few hunters in the park, he would have to keep them penned up, but most of the animals were herbivores or ate insects. They’d be fine turned out to take care of themselves. They’d be easy to hunt, too, if things started getting really bad. He pushed the idea out of his head, he didn’t want to eat animals that were nearly as tame as pets but once he thought it, he couldn’t unthink it. Last resort option he told himself. Things would have to get really, really bad.
They trickled back to the main house as it was getting dark and when Cody walked in, Donny was adding wood to the oversized fireplace in the parlor. Temperatures were falling as the sun started its descent into the western sky and the old house was cooling rapidly. The flames felt good and they seated themselves on the floor to absorb its warmth. The talk was quiet but animated as they shared stories of how they fed “their” animals. Swan said the wolves let her touch them and loved being scratched behind the ears. Murray said he’d gone inside the cage of the monkeys and they had climbed all over him and searched in his pockets looking for treats. The others had similar tales, they all had smiles and Donny was practically beaming. He had pointed to Charon, the black panther on the chart, and made it clear he wanted to feed it. The big predator was gentle as a kitten and Cody figured he’d probably figured that out, had discovered the oversized cat like to have his belly rubbed. It didn’t even occur to him to be alarmed or worried about them getting injured. Otis would never hurt anyone and despite what the grownups were always saying, he didn’t think any of the others would either. Caring for the animals had let them forget their own worries and lives and losses for a while and they were still basking in the simple beauty of it.
Murray finally broke away from the animal talk and declared himself starving to death.
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 7