by Steven Pajak
“How many communities are you talking about?” Brian asked.
I could tell that he was as surprised as me that the other communities had aligned so quickly. I could almost hear him thinking we were sadly behind.
“Oh, I think there’s about five as of this morning,” Phil said. “We’ve got you all to the northwest, we have the Gardens to our immediate west, Oak Hills to our south, Crestwood is on our east and then some private homes that are built into that little cul-de-sac to the northeast. They’re not really a community but they’re a pretty tight and they stick together.”
“You’re right in the middle,” Bob observed. “Nice place to be.”
Phil glanced over at him but didn’t say anything.
“We heard there’s been a lot of action at the roadblocks,” I said.
I hitched my bag up onto my shoulder trying to get more comfortable. I’d have to think of some other way to carry extra ammo and small gear when making these local trips.
“Yeah, been pretty constant the last couple of days. Most of them come in from the east, feeding in from Randall Road and down onto Route 20. I imagine most of them are coming from the shopping strips out there. Some might even be coming from our neighboring communities.”
At this point, Phil turned to me and asked, “Anyone in your community infected?”
I shook my head and turned to Brian. He shook his head. Bob looked down at the ground and said nothing and that was probably for the best.
Charlie just shrugged because he had no idea that my wife had turned into a crazy and my brother had to shoot her. Charlie had no idea what was buried in my front rose garden.
“We’ve had a few here,” Phil said. When he didn’t elaborate I was about to ask how many when he said, “We’re here.”
He pointed to our left at a one-story structure, about four thousand square feet. The lawn in front of the building was crammed with people. Some had guns but many didn’t.
Most of the people had formed into smaller groups, probably friends or neighbors. They talked animatedly and we could all feel the excitement in the air.
“That’s a sight,” Charlie said.
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his coat. I just realized Charlie hadn’t brought a firearm with him. He must have given the shotgun back to David before we left.
“That’s nothing,” Phil said. “Inside is probably packed. Stick close to me and we’ll make our way through. We have some space saved for you.”
“VIP,” Bob said and raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s go,” Phil said and started to move forward.
We hit the crowd almost immediately and had to shoulder our way through. Moving through the crowd with firearms and gear was tough going , but everyone was polite and no one became angry when we bumped accidentally.
Although the distance to the front entrance was short, it took us nearly ten minutes to navigate through the crowd and actually enter the structure.
The main doors opened onto a pretty large foyer that spread out to the left and right, about fifty feet across. At the center was a small counter with a computer and phone. On either side of the foyer were crops of chairs and tables with the usual plastic potted plants and trees.
The foyer was as crowded as the lawn out front but in here you could smell perspiration and the murmur of voices rose loudly, making it very difficult to hear what anyone was actually saying unless they were a foot or two in front of you.
“This way!” Phil shouted as we huddled together just inside the doorway.
To the left and right of the center desk were two sets of double doors which led into the main speaking room. Phil led us to the right and as we pushed our way through the doors, the room opened up auditorium style, with rows and rows of chairs from left to right facing a stage. There was a center aisle that separated the walls of chairs.
This room was by far the most packed and most chaotic. People were in the aisles and rows talking and chattering, others were pushing through various groups in an attempt to get a good seat or be near their group.
The din grew louder as voices bounced and echoed off the walls. This place would be a death trap should a fire break out.
I quickly took note of the emergency exits and pointed them out to my group. Brian and Bob nodded in unison. Charlie gave me a brief salute and jammed his hands back into his pockets.
“Amazing,” I said.
Phil stopped and turned to me. “What did you say?”
“I said this is amazing,” I repeated, louder this time.
Phil smiled and nodded his head. “More like crazy if you ask me.”
We continued to wade our way through the crowd and eventually Phil halted us about seven rows from the front. He leaned over to a man at the aisle seat and spoke something into his ear. Whatever it was I couldn’t hear, but the man nodded and stood from his seat. He started to scoot a few men further into the center of the row and left three empty seats at the very end of the aisle.
“Your guys can sit here,” Phil said to Bob. “You come up with me.”
Bob shook his head. “Matt’s in charge now,” he said, patting my shoulder.
“Okay,” Phil said. “The rest of you sit here. Matt, you’re with me.”
The guys crowded into the empty seats with Brian at the row end, Charlie in the middle and Bob squeezing in next to the man who had occupied the row seat only moments ago.
I followed Phil again and he led me to the stage up front. Before we walked on, we stopped at a small table to the left of the stage where a couple of men sat. I recognized Frank immediately and he obviously recognized me.
“Hey, Matt, right?” he asked as he stood and shook my hand.
“Yeah that’s right. How are you Frank?”
“Not too bad, considering.”
Phil leaned in and said, “Matt’s the head man at Randall Oaks. He’s relieved Bob.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “Any reason?”
I shrugged. “Bob felt I had a bit more experience. I served in the Army a bit.”
“Good deal,” Frank said. “Good to have you here. Phil did you tell him how things are going to go?”
“I told him a little,” Phil said. “I have to get back to the checkpoint and make sure things are kosher.”
“Thanks, Phil,” Frank said. He turned to me and said, “You’ll sit up there with the other heads of community. My dad, Frank Senior, will introduce each of you, thank you for your alliance and then he’ll give a state of the community address. I’ll need your name, title and a brief description of how things are at your community.”
“You have my name. We haven’t really decided on titles. What are the rest of these guys calling themselves?”
Frank laughed. “Some are calling themselves general or commander of their community.”
“Well, just say ‘Randall Oaks Community Leader’ and we’ll leave it at that.”
“Good enough,” Frank said.
He picked up a pen and jotted that into his notebook.
“What’s been happening in your community? Any infections? Attacks from the infected?”
I considered this for a moment. I was definitely not going to report that my wife was infected. As far as attacks, I didn’t want to report none. After seeing what was going on at the roadblock, I didn’t want them to feel that we had it too easy. I didn’t want us to look untested and weak.
“No infections I’m happy to say. We did have an attack just a bit ago on the way up. One of those crazies was out in the field behind the abandoned barn to the south of our gates. He was dining on someone and we had to put him down.”
Frank smiled. “I forgot you called them that. I like it; ‘crazies’.”
“Seems to fit,” I shrugged, and shifted my bag again.
“Anything else to report?”
“Not at the moment. We’re still getting organized. I’ll have more to report in a few days.”
“Okay. Why don’t you get on up there? Take t
he fifth seat in.”
“Okay.” I shook Frank’s hand again and made my way up onto the stage.
The first three seats were already occupied and I nodded to the men as I passed them. I sat in the fifth seat with another fellow on my left. I gave him a nod and looked out toward the audience trying to find Brian, Bob and Charlie, dizzied by the amount of people out there.
I counted rows and eventually found my group. They were talking animatedly amongst themselves and they blended perfectly with the rest of the people that surrounded them.
From my vantage point on stage, these people looked like frenzied ants moving in and out and around their mound. All the movement of bodies and limbs created an almost sea-like motion that made me a bit queasy.
“Ain’t that a sight?” the gentleman on my left asked.
I turned to look at him. “It certainly is.”
“I’m Jim Brewer from the Gardens,” he said.
Jim was a burly man with a bushy beard and mustache. He wore a khaki colored Cabala’s hat. His hair was long and stringy, his grip strong and firm.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Matt Danzig from Randall Oaks.”
“Hell, we’re practically neighbors,” Jim said and smiled.
Only the small patch of abandoned farm separated our two communities. As a matter of fact, from our front gate, if you looked past the old farm you could see a few of the homes from the Gardens.
I nodded my agreement. “I feel like I’m at an AC/DC concert right now.”
Jim laughed again and clapped one of his meaty hands on my shoulder. “That sounds right.”
The murmur of voices was like the chirping of crickets in my ears. After a while the noise got into your eardrums and grated on your nerves.
Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, an older man in his late fifties or early sixties entered stage left and made his way up to the microphone at the center of the stage.
He stood average height but was slightly overweight. He had a stocky frame; you could see he was strong for a man of his age. I guessed he had probably worked in construction most of his life.
He stepped up and tapped on the microphone. The sound barely carried across the din of the room. He cleared his throat into the microphone with the same result.
With a smile on his face he looked out at the crowd and waited patiently. After a moment the crowd became aware of him and everyone started to shush each other. Eventually the murmur died down and the room was suddenly quiet.
“Thank you,” the man said. He waited a second and continued. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Frank Castellano, Senior. Since I share my name with my son, you all can call me Senior.”
A small cheering section front and center rose up and made some noise as well as some groups interspersed throughout the hall. Obviously Providence residents were here in number to support their leader.
Senior raised his hand and managed to look modest. As the noise level dropped he said, “We have a lot of things to discuss about our current situation, but before I do, I’d like to introduce you to some important folks who are helping keep our borders safe.”
There was a small round of applause that went around the room. Senior raised the piece of paper he held in his hands.
“To our northwest we have Matt Danzig, leader of the Randall Oaks Community.”
I stood up feeling quite self-conscious and raised a hand to the audience. A round of applause went up and I immediately looked over toward my small group. They were all standing and waving their arms.
I sat back down quickly and Jim clapped me on the shoulder.
Senior raised his hands again. “To our west we have Big Jim Brewer, Commander of the Gardens.”
Big Jim stood and posed like Hulk Hogan. The crowd ate it up and it took more than Senior raising his hands for the crowd to get quiet this time. It seemed like a full minute of applause while Big Jim popped another pose.
Finally, Big Jim sat down. He winked at me and said, “Gotta give them a show.”
Senior spent the next couple of minutes going through the list of men on the stage, pausing for applause in between. It was like a State of the Union address, full of long, forced rounds of applause. After the introductions, Senior got down to business.
“As most of you know, we’ve got a real problem. We’re still not sure what happened out there and why these people have become the way they are. It’s only been a few days since this all started here and there is little news.
“I know there are lots of rumors going around. I’ve heard many of them myself—zombies coming back from the dead, Nazi experiments that started in the forties finally completed and unleashed on the United States, voodoo. All of this is just B.S. and I don’t want to hear talk like this. It just gets people riled up.
“We’ve heard other things, too, that maybe have a bit more merit. We’ve heard that maybe the H1N1 vaccinations were tainted. That may be true, but I’m not buying into rumors that some North Korean dictator or Castro had anything to do with that. Whatever happened at this time is a moot point.
“Those things, those infected, those... ’crazies’ as my son’s friend calls them, are out there and they are coming. It doesn’t matter how they got the way they are. What does matter is that we are prepared to defend ourselves until someone who really knows what’s going on figures out a way to fix the problem.”
The silent room suddenly erupted with applause. I admit, I was caught up in it myself and clapped right along with the rest of them. The room was so packed now with people standing in the aisles and against the back wall and milling in the doorways that the sea of clapping hands made me dizzy again.
“Now, we don’t know how long we’re going to have to ride this thing out. For all we know, this could end tomorrow or it might never end, so we’re going to need to start thinking long term.
“We’re already organizing scavenge parties here at Providence and we’re going to encourage you all to do the same. We need to get out there and start gathering supplies.”
“It ain’t safe out there!” someone in the audience shouted. A murmur rose up but quickly died down.
“That’s obvious,” Senior said and a few of us on stage chuckled. “It’s not safe anywhere. Our roadblocks are probed daily, and we’ve even had some of those things wandering right here in the middle of the community.
“And we’ve had some of our own who were infected and didn’t know about it until they turned. They’ve been hit pretty hard at Oak Hills to our south, probably the biggest wave of the crazies we’ve seen yet.
“The point is, we can’t sit around in the relative safety in our community only to die of starvation, dehydration or infection because we’ve run out of food, water and medicine. What’s the difference? We might as well just walk out there now and let those bastards take us and save us the suffering.”
Shouts of “No!” rose up around the room as well as some other profanities.
“Yeah, I’m not ready to let that happen. I want to live, and I see you all agree. We’ve got to protect ourselves from more than just the likes of those infected bags of flesh out there.
“We’re going to have to work together to survive. We’re going to have to find our weaknesses and strengthen them. We’re going to have to dig down deep where it counts and we’re going to have to rely on every last bit of energy we can muster. It’s going to be hard, but I know you are all up to the challenge!”
The noise in the room became even louder than before. Everyone stood again and hands pounded against each other with great vigor. People were standing on their chairs and waving their arms or throwing fists into the air. I stood, too, clapping until my hands hurt.
Scanning the crowd, I caught movement against the crowd and watched as a man tried to push his way down the aisle on my right. He zigzagged and pushed his way through and he looked like a fish swimming against a strong current. As he struggled through and drew near, I recognized Phil. His face was flush
ed, he was sweating, and he appeared out of breath.
I stopped clapping and tracked his progress. The look on his face told me something was wrong.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a minute, Phil broke through and rushed to the table where Frank sat. He said something that made Frank stand up and at that moment I felt a weight drop in the pit of my stomach.
Frank said something back to Phil and pushed his shoulder. Phil immediately turned and started back the way he’d come, but Frank stopped him, pointed toward a door to his immediate right. Phil nodded and ran. Frank started up the stage steps.
“Okay everyone, okay,” Senior was saying with his hands raised. He was trying to get the crowd to settle. “Let’s get back to business—”
Frank touched his father’s arm and turned him away from the microphone. He whispered something into Senior’s ear that made the old man’s face instantly turn to stone. Senior leaned into his son and said something in return. Frank nodded and turned and walked immediately toward me and Big Jim.
“What’s wrong?” Big Jim asked. He obviously knew something was wrong just as I did.
Frank came to his knee in front of us and the other leaders that sat close to Big Jim and I leaned in to hear.
“We’ve got a problem. Some of the crazies have breached our security and are inside the community.”
“How many?” Big Jim asked.
“Not sure,” Frank said. He paused a moment and continued. “I’m told it could be a group as large as twenty.”
Behind him Senior said, “Everyone please calm down, we have an emergency situation.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Big Jim said, referring to Senior’s remark. “People are going to panic.”
“Yeah, I told him the same thing, but Senior does what he wants,” Frank said.
“We’ve been breached,” Senior said. “There are infected in the community. Don’t panic. Please wait and listen. Do not go out there, everyone just stay calm and stay inside.”