by Gibb, Lew
Finally, the media was warning the public about something that was actually happening, and the all-caps screaming headlines, for once, matched the gravity of the situation. Unfortunately, as the picture from the empty studio testified, the announcement of the apocalypse was being broadcast from an already over-run studio to a population unable to see or benefit from the information. She was probably just as guilty of complacency as the news people. She hadn’t believed Jerry—she suspected he hadn’t even completely believed it himself—when he’d told her the world was about to end. She had made a few half-hearted preparations to appease Jerry and get off the topic of zombies and then gone on with her life.
Rachel tried to imagine where Jerry could be but knew it was a waste of time. He could be anywhere in the metro area, or even a neighboring state. It wasn’t unusual for them to transfer patients to New Mexico or Kansas. Unless the phones started working, there was no way to find him. He would either meet her at home or he wouldn’t. She was so glad they had at least agreed on a way to find each other—if he was still alive. She hoped the dogs were safe but had no way to know about them either. Questions without answers cycled through her head as she stared at the TV.
Sometime later, Rachel tore her eyes from the screen and shook off her trance. She walked over to where she had left her duffel, unzipped it, and pulled out her anti-zombie clothes. Jerry had bought his and hers motorcycle suits from a guy on Craig’s list. The black jacket and pants were made of Kevlar with padded knees and elbows and reflective bands around the arms and down the legs. She felt a little odd wearing it inside, especially with red cowboy boots, but it was reasonably comfortable, and it did make her feel safer. If Kevlar could stop road rash and bullets, it should have no problem with zombie teeth. The knee and elbow pads had to go since they didn’t seem to add anything to the already tooth-proof fabric, and they were uncomfortable. She covered the reflective stripes with duct tape. No sense advertising to the zombies. Jerry made fun of her love of duct tape, but in the catering business you had to be able to improvise. There wasn’t much she couldn’t fix, at least temporarily, with the silver wonder-tape. When she finished her camouflage, Rachel pulled on leather riding gloves with padded knuckles and flexed her fingers. Her knife roll caught her eye.
According to Jerry, blades were better than guns. The long strip of thick vinyl with individual slots for each of her knives would need some modifications. She cut the sections apart and fashioned a pair of holsters using duct tape, then fastened the holsters for her ten-inch chef’s knife and her six-inch utility knife to her belt on opposite hips so she could cross-draw them like a gunfighter. With no room left on her belt, and on the theory that more knives were better than less, the boning knife went inside one of her boots. She caught her reflection in the glass doors of the industrial refrigerator. She looked like something out of one of those apocalypse movies. An Amazon woman in black with weapons everywhere.
She reached across her body and drew the chef’s knife, crouching and pointing it at her reflection. “Back off, assholes!” she yelled. “I’ll dice your fucking livers!”
Rachel smiled and returned the knife to its sheath, wishing she felt as confident as the bad-ass woman on the refrigerator looked. Whether she could bring herself to stab another human, even if they were trying to eat her, remained to be seen. She’d killed ducks and even a deer once as a teenager hunting with her grandfather—a farmer and outdoorsman who really wanted a grandson but had gotten Rachel instead. HE taught her to shoot—so well that when she started biathlon she was already one of the best shooters in her age group. She had loved spending time with him, hiking in the mountains or out in the corn fields, but had given up hunting because killing things had made her uncomfortable. Were her grandparents still alive? They had retired a few years ago, but still lived on their farm in the middle of nowhere. Her granddad still had all his guns and his farmer’s tough-as barbed-wire physique. If anyone could make it, it would be him.
Shaking off thoughts of her grandparents and what might be happening to them—if she couldn’t help Jerry, there was even less she could do for people in Montana—Rachel took inventory of the duffel’s remaining contents. In addition to a rolled-up Therm-a-Rest pad and sleeping bag, she found two complete changes of clothes, including socks and underwear; a water purifier; a first aid kit; a flashlight; some energy bars; three of the controversial MREs—Jerry would for sure have an I told you so for her on that one; a folder with lists of hardware stores and commissary kitchen locations; and a laminated map of the Denver-metro area. Last, she pulled out a pistol case the size and shape of a shoebox. She thumbed the latch folded the top back, revealing a Chocolove Almonds and Sea-Salt bar with a note taped to it sitting on top of her Sig Sauer P226. Beneath the pistol tray were four full magazines and five hundred rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition. Her hands shook and tears brimmed in her eyes as she unfolded the note, wondering if it would be last words she would ever receive from Jerry.
My sweet Rachel,
See, you’re surviving without even thinking about it. ;-)
She couldn’t believe he was joking with her in a note when he couldn’t know if she would even live to read it. She ejected the magazine from her pistol and checked the load while she made a mental note to slug him a good one when—or if—she saw him again.
Sorry to gloat, but I’m also happy, or I will be when we see each other, that you’re still alive. If you haven’t punched me by now, it means you’re not just unloading this bag because you’re tired of lugging it around when there’s no such thing as zombies. It also means I was finally right about something, and somehow we got separated by the apocalypse. I can’t even believe I just wrote that word and I wasn’t joking. But if you’re reading this, it must be true.
Anyway, we can’t know what kinds of challenges you’ll face in the journey ahead. Hopefully, it’ll all be butterflies and rainbows. If not… Well, that’s what the nine-millimeter is for. The rest will, hopefully, make your trip a little more comfortable and minimize the need to expose yourself to danger.
Rachel, you are the strongest, most capable woman I have ever met, and I know you’ll make it back to us. For me, surviving anything with you by my side will always be worth it. If there was any way I could be there to help you, I would do it in a heartbeat. Since that doesn’t seem to be an option, I want you to know the dogs and I will be home waiting for you when you make it. I know you can do it.
If I’m the one that’s stuck somewhere else and you beat me home, you know I’ll be doing everything I can to get there. I can’t wait until we’re all together again.
Good luck and stay strong.
Your Greatest Admirer and BFF,
Jerry
Rachel stared at the note for a long time with tears streaming down her face. He really was her biggest fan. Knowing he was waiting gave her the strength she needed to overcome the hopelessness she’d been barely keeping at bay. She was reminded of a bumper sticker she saw once that said, “I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.” She would try to be the woman Jerry and the dogs thought she was even if she didn’t really believe she was that woman.
Jerry had also supplied a holster for the pistol. After loading it with the extra magazines and strapping it on, she repacked everything into a The North Face backpack Jerry had thoughtfully included. It would be more streamlined than the duffel and leave both her hands free.
Then she noticed it was well past ten o’clock, and Lisa had been gone for over two hours. What must be going on in the ERs around the country as they filled up with injured people who then turned into zombies? She shuddered and decided to barricade herself in one of the upstairs rooms until morning. Then she could figure out how to get home.
She needed to do one last thing. Her hair was already up in a ponytail, so she grabbed it with one hand and used the chef’s knife to saw as close to her head as she could get until her hair came free in her hand. That was one of the first things Jerry had told
her when he’d started reading The Zombie Survival Guide—cut your hair so they can’t grab you. She trimmed up the sides and then made another circuit of the house before she headed upstairs, feeling slightly more confident with all her weapons and a knife in her hand as she stopped to listen after each noise. She had to wipe her sweaty palms on her pant legs every few minutes.
She chose the property manager’s office to spend the night because it occupied a former bedroom directly above the front door that had a window over the porch. This provided an escape route if the zombies got inside. She could escape out the window, traverse the rooftop, and climb down the trellis on the side of the porch. She hoped if the time came, she could execute those maneuvers as easily in reality as she could in her head.
Rachel doubted sleep was an option, but there was an overstuffed tan sofa facing the massive oak desk. She spent several minutes pushing the desk against the door. The solid wood behemoth would only move a couple inches at a time, and she had to put her full body weight behind it for each screeching lurch across the polished oak floor. Rachel stopped several times to part the curtains and check the yard, imagining a horde of zombies shambling across the lawn in response to the noise. Not a herd of zombies, she thought, a sad smile crossing her lips at the memory of her argument with Jerry earlier in the week. Had it only been six days before? The discussion about the zombie apocalypse and how to survive it seemed ages ago. What she wouldn’t give to have Jerry by her side now.
Luckily, the yard remained zombie-free, but there were still sirens wailing in the night and more than a few gunshots. It seemed there were still some people alive and fighting back.
Once she had the desk pressed securely against the heavy oak door, she nudged the couch against it and sunk into the dusty, threadbare corduroy cushions like she was melting into them. Now that she was no longer making noise, Rachel could hear every creak and pop of the ancient mansion settling in for the night. Each new noise had her nearly leaping from the couch to check the window for attacking zombies. As the night wore on, the sound of sirens seemed to decrease in opposite proportion to the increasing number of gunshots.
She would need to traverse over thirty-five miles of zombie-infested highway if she wanted to drive home. An image struck her suddenly of Jerry being torn apart by a massive bearded zombie who held one of Jerry’s arms like a turkey leg while Jerry screamed and the dogs cowered in a corner. The thought almost made her abandon caution and run for her van. She had a Mad Max daydream where her van became a massive semi with armor and gun-ports. She drove the big-rig one-handed, smashing cars out of the way and running down hordes of zombies while using her free hand to blast more of them through the side window with a shotgun. Then the memory of the news footage from the highway made her start to hyperventilate.
The lack of oxygen caused by her rapid breathing brought on a light-headed feeling that made her focus on her breathing instead of how to get home or how to find Jerry or how to deal with the attacking zombies. She concentrated on her breathing like she had been taught. She actually smiled, remembering a meditation retreat with her friend Sarah. Just the teacher’s name was enough to bring on a smile. His real name was Garth, but had asked to be called “Swami G.” Why someone who was supposed to be compassionate wanted to sound gangsta-tough was a mystery. She and Sarah had almost been kicked out of class for whispering meditation raps about how Swami G would pop a cap in your ass if you don’t find your happy place, and laughing uncontrollably.
The diversion helped push the negative images to the back of her mind, and Rachel succeeded in calming her thoughts. She focused on nothing but her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Her eyes closed, and she dropped into an uneasy sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sometimes on a really bad trauma call, blood from a lacerated artery would paint the wall of Jerry’s ambulance in an abstract pattern and pool beneath the stretcher before he and Mike got a tourniquet in place or applied a pressure bandage where it was needed. One of the things that surprised him the most was how even after losing enough blood to coat the floor and his boots, a person could still be clinging to life.
Now, the cloying smell of blood and chemicals in the supply closet was robbing Jerry of the ability to compartmentalize. The sound of his friend screaming reverberated in his ears, giving him a headache that felt like a metal band squeezing his skull and forcing his brain out through his ears. On top of that the smell of his friend’s blood was making him nauseous.
Jerry pulled back the sleeve of his jacket and checked the cheap Timex he wore at work for counting heart rates. Ten o’clock. It seemed like only a few minutes ago, they had been getting Brian settled while he and Mike joked about Jerry’s belief in zombies. The real-life apocalypse was proving to be very different than Jerry had imagined.
He was trapped without communication or reliable weapons, and there were at least seven zombies roaming the hallway. Who knew what the conditions were outside. Nothing he and his fellow zombie preppers had envisioned even remotely resembled his current situation. And as horrible as it sounded, Jerry was relieved the zombies had eaten Mike. Just the thought of confronting a zombie version of his partner made his heart speed up and his palms sweat. Jerry wanted to curl into a ball and just check out from the world. He didn’t know how he was going to do what he had to without his support system.
At least he had gotten Rachel to agree on a couple meeting places.
Ever since their first meeting on a blind date—set up by Mike’s mother of all people—he had felt more confident and more capable with Rachel in his life. She said she was impressed with the way Mandy took to him, but he was impressed with how she handled the hundred-pound shepherd and how she didn’t have a problem with being independent or taking charge when things didn’t go the way they’d planned. Like when she’d suggested they take their dogs for a hike rather than the unimaginative dinner-and-a-movie date Jerry had planned. Rachel always made him feel like he could do whatever he needed to or face anything that came his way so long as they were together.
The irony that they had argued about whether Rachel would want to go on during a zombie apocalypse while Jerry was now wondering the same thing made him chuckle. Things seemed a lot different when you were just talking about them.
Then the ceiling light went out.
Absolute darkness enfolded him so he couldn’t even see his hand when he waved it in front of his face. Thoughts of how to light his way out of the closet started popping into his mind. The mop head could possibly be used as a torch, but the thought of asphyxiating himself with smoke made him hesitate. Then he realized he had nothing to light it with. His phone would work for a little while, but he didn’t want to run the battery down if he could avoid it.
The single fluorescent fixture in the ceiling flickered back on and Jerry let out a long sigh. The hospital’s emergency generator must have kicked in. He had no idea how long the gas would hold out, but it wouldn’t ever be long enough if he stayed where he was.
He scanned the entire space in five seconds. Bottles of cleaning fluid and boxes of latex gloves lay scattered around him like he was in the aftermath of a tornado. Nothing looked like a weapon. He wasn’t going anywhere without something besides his radio and his Leatherman to defend himself. He had dropped the zombie with the kitten scrubs by bashing him in the head, but Jerry had no idea if he had killed him. The radio probably wouldn’t take much of that kind of punishment. Was that the only way to kill them? He didn’t have nearly enough information about the zombies’ abilities and weaknesses. The ones that had attacked him and Mike hadn’t been running, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t. They definitely moved faster than typical shambling brain-eaters from most movies and books—not as fast as World War Z zombies, but pretty fast. How smart were they? They hadn’t yet seemed to discover how to operate the closet door’s handle, but one case didn’t prove a rule.
After a lot of thought and way too much time putting his plan into action, he managed
to sharpen one of the mop handles enough for a makeshift spear with his multi-tool. On his first attempt he had set the mop head on a shelf about two feet off the ground and stomped on the handle, but it was too high, and the brittle pine broke in two places. The pair of short pieces each had one long, sharp point that he could use as one-handed stabbing sticks—backup in case the spear broke, which seemed more than likely judging by how easily it had broken. He decided to tape them to his back so he could draw them over his shoulder. If he needed them, it would be in a hurry. They would have to do until he reached the ambulance to get the two real spears he and Bob had stored under the bench seat in back, along with some rope, extra clothes, and emergency food supplies in case they were caught away from their sanctuary. Jerry never imagined he would be the one to use them. It was too bad they hadn’t gotten to the firearms. They had thought they had more time and hadn’t wanted to get into trouble for having firearms in the unit before it was necessary.
It shocked him that the hospital had become overrun with zombies without warning. They’d really screwed up on the pandemic’s timing. Actually, he didn’t know whether the rest of the hospital had zombies. When they’d arrived, he and Mike had entered through a door located around the corner from the actual ER and used the elevator to reach the seventh floor. They never saw the ER or any other part of the hospital for that matter. Maybe his floor was the first to become infested, but if things were moving as fast as they seemed to be, it was highly likely the entire hospital was overrun by now. He and his friends had been far too complacent in thinking they would survive just because they had seen a bunch of movies and done a few preparations.