The hair on Virginia’s neck prickled. The smell was faint but something or someone had died in here. David’s mag-lite illuminated a lobby area with dead, wilted plants, a row of chairs, and two candy machines. They were looted but candy still lay on the floor. They sorted through and found a few intact goodies. The mag-lite went out and they all froze in place. David shook it and the light flickered back on.
Underneath a desk Moshe found a shopping bag from The Archery Outpost containing a bow and several arrows, still in their plastic packaging. He exclaimed and tore into the package, shrugging the bow onto his shoulder and securing the arrows in the snap-on quiver. Whoever was the intended recipient was probably not counting on getting it anymore.
Two training rooms led off the lobby. In one they found the decomposing body of a woman, propped against a wall. Her wrists were slashed and her blood had pooled and dried on the tiled floor. Her skirt must have hiked up in her death throes and Virginia pulled it back down, re-arranging it more modestly, trying to give her dead body a semblance of dignity.
Suddenly the woman’s eyes opened, milky-white and blind. She hissed and jerked forward, teeth clicking together as she just missed tearing into Virginia’s arm.
Startled, Virginia jumped back and Cam split the woman’s head with his cleaver. She slumped to the floor, this time really dead. Black gobbets of brain matter fell with to the floor with a wet splat.
“What’s the first rule of Zombie Fight Club, sweetheart?” Cam asked, wiping his cleaver on the woman’s skirt.
“I know. It’s just that I know she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see her like- never mind.”
Another staircase took them down a level to a hallway that led to the bank lobby. The area was vast with teller windows, a fountain which now contained only green scum, and deeply-tufted, leather sofas.
It was brighter in here with the last of the daylight. The entire front was of glass with glass revolving doors facing west. Several dead roamed outside.
“I say we stay here but near the back. I don’t want those things to hear us and begin to congregate. We can leave tomorrow the same way we came in or, if we have to, we can shoot out the glass here and run for it. There will be a fire door leading back to the garage stair, too,” said David.
They sat, eating the candy and watching the fading light. The sunset was incredibly vivid. Brian said it was so colorful because of all the smoke in the air.
“Never thought about pollution being pretty before. There’ve been so many fires I wonder if they’ll have an effect on the weather. If it’s smoky or cloudy enough it could block the sun and cool the entire planet down. It happens sometimes after a really big volcano eruption.”
“Mount Tambora did that. After that one blew up, it snowed in July. There were massive crop failures, too,” added Moshe.
“Mates, let’s take it one step at a time. It’s all I can do to handle surviving the living dead; don’t throw climate disaster at me as well. I came to America for the sunshine. Don’t take it away,” Cam pleaded.
“Really? You moved here for the weather? That’s a long way to go for a little sunshine,” David remarked.
“Ah, but you don’t know how the damp and cold freeze the heart out of a man. When the plane left Heathrow it was 8 degrees,” he lamented.
“That’s not that bad. Celsius, right? That’s 43 Fahrenheit,” Brian calculated quickly.
“Sure it is, but that was in July,” Cam said dolorously, shaking his head
“So Cam gets the trophy for greatest distance traveled to experience the apocalypse, American style. Who traveled the least?” asked Virginia.
Mei raised her hand. “Probably me. I’m about 45 minutes up the coast.”
“No, I was closer.” Moshe’s voice was solemn. “My sister and I have savings accounts in this bank. We used to come here with my mom.”
His voice wavered a little as he continued, “We came here and withdrew a bunch of cash once my mom realized what was happening. Then she opened up a safe-deposit box and stuffed little gold and silver ingots in her purse and in our backpacks. I’d never seen those before but they were heavy! I don’t think I really believed what we were hearing but when mom did that, I knew something was up. Mom usually uses her debit card for everything.”
They all sat quietly while the words spilled out of Moshe in a torrent. They had each seen this before, experienced it themselves. This need to recount, to explain, to try to make some sense out of what had happened to them.
“I’m not even sure when it all started. I remember my mom turning the television off when we came in the living room a couple of times and not listening to the radio in the car on the way to school. We were only allowed on the internet if we had permission but I got texts from my friends telling me that some kind of flu was killing a lot of people and making other people crazy, but it was on the other side of the country. We thought it was creepy but it was too far away to get scared about. Mom just said to avoid people who looked sick or odd in any way.
Pretty soon we started seeing Closed signs on stores and stuff. Empty Metro buses were parked alongside the roads. Even the homeless were pushing their carts alongside the roads and heading north.
We live, lived, in the Palisades. It’s north of here and we had our own swimming pool and tennis courts. I took lessons but I hate tennis. I’m better at archery, those lessons were fun. We had gates and a security guard, too. The guard didn’t have a gun. I know because I asked to see it once when I was little. He laughed and said the gates would keep the bad guys out.
Hardly anyone was in school that last day. Mom came and picked us up before lunch. I remember there was barely room in the car for us because of all the groceries and bottled water. Everyone we saw looked scared. We heard gunshots on the way home and saw some people lying on the ground. My sister started crying and begged her to stop but Mom just kept driving. We hit something then rolled over what felt like a huge speed bump. Mom cried but she still kept going.
When we got home the gates were open and there was no guard in the little booth. Someone left their car parked in the street and we drove on the grass to get around it. Front doors and garage doors on houses along the street stood open, making them look like someone had broken in. Our house looked the same as it always did and we pulled into the garage and lowered the door. I looked at the front of the car and I’m pretty sure there was blood on the grill and three teeth and some hair stuck in the tire treads. Then Mom turned that little bar that locked the garage doors manually and we went inside.
Sara, that’s my sister, went to her bedroom and came back with her blanket, that disgusting one she’s had ever since she was a baby. She turned the television to the Disney channel first thing but they weren’t showing anything, just a blue screen. She started yelling like she always does and went to find Mom.
I channeled up and down but most other stations weren’t broadcasting either. KSEE was showing the interstates all around the city. The only people moving were the ones on motorcycles or bikes and even they had to stop and walk them around blockages or across the median to keep going. Most of them wore backpacks and were pulling babies in little wagons hooked up to the bikes.
On another channel they were showing the crowds around the hospitals. Hundreds of people were there, waiting in line or sitting on the hoods of their cars in the parking lot. Some bodies were on the pavement, not moving, but you couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive. The news guy kept saying everyone should stay home and not go to the hospitals.
In California we’re always getting ready for an emergency but it’s usually earthquakes, flash floods or fires. We did the usual stuff: filled all the tubs with water, went through our bug-out backpacks, made sure our clothes and good boots were by our beds. This time though, Mom unlocked the chest in her closet and got out three guns and put them on the bed. One was a shotgun and she called one a .22 and the handgun was a Beretta. I didn’t even know we had them. Mom said to be sure Sara didn
’t go near them.
My dad is a doctor so we barely saw him the past few days but that was nothing new. We hardly ever saw him during the school year. Every August, before school starts, we go to Mexico on vacation and Dad plays golf in the morning then we all swim and snorkel in the afternoon. That’s really the only time we see him.
Mom worked from home most of the time. That last day she went into her office and partially shut the door and called Dad. So of course we sat outside in the hall and listened.
Dad said something then Mom said, “Everything’s ready; I loaded the guns. We can come down to the hospital and pick you up there.”
Dad shouted so loud we heard him in the hallway, “The roads are blocked. Have you seen the crowds around the hospital? Don’t come anywhere near here! We’re getting ready to evacuate the uninfected patients up to the top ward. The whole place is infested. Our only shot now is evacuating from the helipad but we’ll be lucky if that happens.”
Mom said, “Don’t shout at me, Benjamin. (I’d never heard her call him Benjamin before. It was usually just ‘Ben’). We’ll go on foot if we have to-”
Dad yelled something else but I stopped listening because somebody was knocking on the garage doors. More than just knocking, it sounded like someone was trying to knock the house down. I went down to look out the kitchen window but I couldn’t see anything. Sara came halfway down the stairs and sat there, holding her blanket and with her thumb in her mouth like when she was a baby.
Mom came out of the bedroom, carrying one of the guns. I think she’d been crying. She motioned for us to come upstairs and we followed her to the media room that looks out over the garage.
Mrs. Sutton from next door stood in our driveway hitting the garage door with her fist. She didn’t look angry, she just had looked, I guess, dead. Her eyes were white and her face kind of gray. She was wearing her bathrobe and still had one slipper on. All the skin was gone from her legs and you could see the bones.
Sara screamed and Mom put her hand over her mouth and pulled her out of the room. Mrs. Sutton stopped hitting the door and looked up, turning her head jerkily like a bird, as if she were listening. Then she began clawing and pounding on the door, harder than before.
We closed all the blinds and huddled in the living room, watching more news and trying to ignore the hammering on the garage door. The television showed the Tower in London completely surrounded by crowds of infected spilling out into the Thames. They broke through the paling fence and were starting to stack up against the Tower walls. You could see the Tower Bridge and we watched an airplane crash into it and hit the water. The news lady said the whole island of Great Britain was under voluntary quarantine. Ireland, too.
They said they shut down the Chunnel but it didn’t make any difference. The virus was already on the European mainland. Iceland was supposed to be a clean-zone and they had shore patrols out and anti-aircraft guns set up, shooting planes out of the sky if they flew too low.
Mom kept trying to call my dad but the phone circuits were overloaded. She couldn’t get through even to 9-1-1. Sara was on the sofa with her thumb in her mouth and still holding that blanket. It was like she was two again. Mom was in the kitchen, making sandwiches when we heard a gun fire, right outside our house.
The pounding on the garage stopped. Then somebody rang the doorbell.
It was Mr. Becker from down the street. He was trying to look in through the side windows. He didn’t look crazy, just worried, so I opened the door.
Mom kind of lost it when she heard the door open and she came running out from the kitchen holding a gun. Mr. Becker put his hands up even though he had a big rifle over one shoulder, and stood there trying to talk to her. She finally believed him when he said he wasn’t infected and just wanted to be sure we were okay. He said that he was sorry but he had “put Mrs. Sutton down” and didn’t have time to dispose of the body.
They were leaving. He said he and Mrs. Becker were taking their kids and going to a cabin in Montana. A plane was supposed to be waiting for them at the airfield. He wanted to know if we wanted to go with them. He said things were bad and it wasn’t going to get any better. I looked out and saw Justin and Jason looking out the windows of their SUV.
Mom asked how he knew that and that was the first time I heard of “Operation Urban Shield.” Mr. Becker worked for a defense contractor on “logistics and deployment of resources.” He said it was all top secret but that didn’t matter anymore. The city and everyone in it was going to be sealed off. Even now it was risky to leave but a small plane was our best chance to get out.
Mom said we couldn’t leave without Dad and asked if they could wait. He said they couldn’t. Mom thanked him and said goodbye. I don’t know if they made it out or not. The news that night said a number of light aircraft were shot down by “persons unknown.”
That night we all slept in the same room. Mom sat by the window with the shotgun. I don’t think she slept much. I kept waking up and each time she was by the window, looking down.
I think it was the next day I realized we were never going to see my dad again. It was right after that earthquake off the coast, the big one. We didn’t really feel it but we saw pictures of the tsunami on the news. Only the one television station was still broadcasting and they started showing pictures of downtown too. It was on fire. You could see people moving around in the smoke. They were walking; even the ones on fire were just kind of shuffling along. They were zombies! How obvious is that? The news kept calling them victims but- good grief! How stupid do you have to be not to know they were zombies? I never told Mom this but I think I saw Dad in that crowd.
After that the news lady started crying. She just sat there and cried on camera. Finally someone pointed the camera at the wall but you could still hear her crying.
Some of my mom’s friends told her that the military was sending in ships to the wharf to take survivors to a secure facility. I know a lot of them packed up and went down there but we never got any more information about it.
Mrs. Sutton’s body was still in our driveway and Mom kept saying she had to do something about it, for health reasons. It had swollen up like a balloon and there was a smell- a pretty bad smell. Mom paced the house, trying to call Dad, then my grandparents, then checking to see if anyone was outside in the street. Sometimes we heard car alarms and saw smoke in the distance but everything was mostly pretty normal except for the dead body in the driveway. A few more of our neighbors left, cars stuffed full of sleeping bags and boxes, driving past our house and slowing down to look at the driveway, then speeding up.
By the third day the electricity was going off and on. Mom cooked all the frozen food and put it in the basement where it was cooler. She kept making us eat even though we weren’t really hungry. She said if we didn’t eat it, it would all be wasted. We were sitting at the kitchen table, eating these huge steaks when weird moans drifted in through the window. Mom looked out then closed it very quietly. We all stood there looking down at the street.
There were five of them, two men, one woman, and two kids. They wandered along the street, looking really dazed. Every now and then they bumped into each other and went staggering off in a different direction for a while then drifted back to the group. The woman was missing an arm but they weren’t all that scary except for their eyes. They were that dead-looking white, like Mrs. Sutton’s.
A cat darted across the road in front of them, hissing as it scrambled up and over our gate leading to the back yard. They turned and staggered over toward our house. The woman tripped over the body in the driveway and couldn’t get back up. The others ignored her and began to bang on the gate.
They stayed there all day. Another one came and joined them. Mom was afraid they would draw even more so she got the shotgun and went outside. She told us not to watch but we did.
The shots exploded their heads and that black mush went everywhere. Soon they were all down and not moving anymore. We went out and the three of us dragged
them over to Mrs. Sutton’s back yard and dumped them in the swimming pool. Mrs. Sutton came apart and we had to drag her in pieces. That part was really bad and Mom couldn’t stop crying. We were fast and I think pretty quiet but I guess the sound of the shots attracted attention.
We had just dumped the last corpse when we heard Sara screaming. Mom ran back to the driveway but she forgot the shotgun and-”
Moshe lowered his head and spoke in a choked voice, “Before Mom could get to her, they got my sister. They pulled her to pieces. She was so small it didn’t take long. I picked up the gun and ran but it was too late. Mom had a really bad bite on her hand. After she shot them she stomped their heads into shards. Then she fell down in the driveway and just screamed.”
His voice was low and fading but he continued, “The next morning, Mom was really sick and throwing up. The wound on her hand turned black and stank even though she kept cleaning it and changing the bandage. She packed everything she could into my pack and made me practice loading and unloading the guns and dry-firing them. Then she made me tie her hands together and lock her in the attic and told me to go find my dad. She made me promise not to stay in the house.”
He finished, “I stayed. I couldn’t tell her I was pretty sure Dad was dead. She was so cold; I gave her all the blankets but she couldn’t stop shivering. I heard her in the attic, moving around a little then everything was quiet. I was sitting at the bottom of the attic stairs and I guess I fell asleep. When I woke up, I heard scratching on the door and then the sounds started. It sounded like she was in so much pain. I almost opened the door before I remembered.”
Everyone was silent. Virginia ached at the look of loss and despair on his face. No child should look like that.
Mei asked gently, “How did you get to the camp?”
“After a few days, I left to try to get downtown just in case my dad was still alive. I mean, I didn’t know for sure that he was- one of them. Cam was out on a raid and he found me.”
“Nearly shot the little bloke. I broke into a chemist’s shop and I was in back, loading up on all the meds and supplies I could find, when this one comes in and starts stuffing his pockets full of sweets and vitamin tablets!” Cam said.
The Living Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Coast Page 15