DEAD: Confrontation

by Brown, TW

  He glanced at Valarie and his eyes began to water involuntarily. Images of his little sister flooded his mind before he could slam the lid shut on the box that they were carefully stored in.

  ***

  “Yes, I’ve seen the news, Mom,” Kevin said as he moved from room to room in his home. He was pretty sure that everything he might need had already been packed when he’d first made his ‘bug out’ bags.

  “Don’t get that tone with me Kevin Walter Dreon,” his mother snapped in his ear.

  Great, she’s pulling out the middle name while the whole freaking world is about to come apart, he thought.

  “Mom, I’m not trying to get any tone with you,” Kevin tried to sound contrite. He was never very good at it, especially when he was agitated. “But you need to listen to me. The news is not just over-blowing something. This is not a plot by the crazy liberals to divert the American people from the issues. What you are seeing on television is real. You and Sara need to head to the cabin and stay there.”

  “But zombies, Kevin?” his mother said with practiced skepticism.

  Seriously, was she not watching the same television news stories that had been running on a constant loop the past several hours? Hell, reporters from CNN and Fox News were working together and sharing footage. That had to be a sign of the end of the world.

  The media could call it “Blue Death” or whatever clever little slogan they wanted to use for their banners, but this was going to end bad for humanity. That was something that Kevin was certain of as he glanced at the television to see that CDC doctor, Linda Singh, come on and deny that there was a problem for the hundredth time in the past few hours.

  “I’ll show you adolescent fantasy,” Kevin grumbled.

  “What!” his mother’s voice was shrill in his ear.

  “Nothing, Mom. Just do what I tell you on this one.”

  “Also, your sister is here. Maybe you could talk to her.”

  He recognized the tone. That meant that Sara was having what his mother referred to as “one of her episodes.” The reality was that she simply did not know how to deal with the girl. In fact, it was sort of ironic that Sara and Kevin had bonded so completely after the way he had initially acted when she was brought home.

  “What is she doing?” Kevin asked with genuine concern.

  “Actually…it is what she won’t do. She won’t talk, she won’t eat. And if I try to touch her she throws herself on the floor and holds her breath until she passes out.”

  Kevin tried to keep the smile out of his voice. On his last visit, Sara told him that she saw a boy in a store do that until his mom bought him a toy. Not thinking, he had said, “Well, next time Mom is not listening to you…try it.”

  People tended to think that just because Sara had Down’s that she was stupid. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, what she lacked in her ability with what you might consider “traditional” school learning, she more than made up for in sheer cleverness.

  “Put her on the phone.”

  He heard his mother cover the receiver and call for his sister. There was a pause, then some muffled conversation before he heard her voice in his ear.

  “Kevvy?” She had always had problems with the “in” part of his name for some reason.

  “You okay, Sara?” he asked in a voice that he used on nobody else but his little sister.

  “Mama won’t let me watch the television. She says it is broken, but I hear it every single time I go in my room. I wanna watch my cartoons.”

  “Tell ya what,” Kevin made his voice sound like he was about to deliver a big secret. “I will talk to Mom, but I want you to do me a very big favor.”

  “Okay, Kevvy,” Sara agreed.

  “You and Mom are gonna take a long drive. I want you to be really good for her. And once you get in the car, I want you to stay in there until you get to the lake. Will you do that for me?”

  “But we aren’t going to the lake until you come home to visit.”

  “I know that, but I will meet you there.”

  Kevin felt a twinge of shame. He knew damn well where he was headed, and it wasn’t the lake. He’d been to a few survivalist camps in the past four years. The last one had made the greatest impression. One of the core teachings was that, in the event of a real catastrophe, the worst thing that you could do is go into seclusion with family.

  “Just how do you propose to repopulate when everybody with you is a relative. Also, if you put all the eggs in one basket and that basket falls…what happens to all the eggs inside?” the instructor had barked during the seminar portion of the camp.

  Kevin’s mind was a stickler for logic. Everything that this man said made perfect sense. As painful as it was, he was sending his family to the safest place he could think that they might actually go. Meanwhile, he had other plans.

  “…by telling her that!” Kevin’s mother’s voice was snapping in his ear.

  “Mom, listen,” Kevin took a deep breath before he spoke. “I know that you think I am a bit of a geek. You’re right. But if you are watching the same thing on television that I am, then you can’t deny what your eyes are seeing. I don’t care if you want to believe this or not, but those people on television are zombies. The media can label this any way they like…but it is what it is.”

  “But telling Sara—”

  “Mom, if you stay in that house you will die and Sara will die and the fault will be YOURS!” He’d never actually raised his voice to his mother before. It felt strange. Silence on the line had him wondering if she’d simply hung up.

  “I’ll go, Kevin,” his mother said in a whisper.

  For just a second he felt a surge of something in his heart. He’d stepped in and assumed the man role. His mother had conceded to his request. But something in his mother’s voice was…wrong.

  ***

  Kevin shook his head and cleared it. He glanced over at Valarie again. She was still in what seemed to be a very deep sleep. With all that she and Shari had been forced to endure, he wondered how much sleep the girl had actually gotten in the past several days.

  He was about to risk a peek over the side when he froze. The sounds of countless feet trudging through the snow could be heard. Occasionally he could hear what sounded like a wheezing moan or the strains of a baby cry.

  The zombie mob was passing directly below them! Kevin thought about it for a second and then slithered across the snow-covered road of the overpass. While there would be the possibility that one of the zombies might spot him if he looked at the zombie parade as it trudged past, he seriously doubted that any of them were looking over their shoulders.

  “Dogs don’t look up!” a British-accented voice declared in his head. He hoped that zombies didn’t look back.

  By the time he reached the other side, he was more than just a little uncomfortable. As he’d crawled across on his stomach trying his best to be quiet, he’d managed to scoop what felt like a considerable amount of snow down the front of his pants.

  Having reached the other side, he poked his head up. The wall of undead was spread almost all the way across the highway’s east and west bound lanes. They were already stretched out for what had to be at least a hundred yards going west towards Newark.

  Suddenly, the wall of vehicles across the highway that he and Peter had found made sense. He didn’t know why he hadn’t realized it before. Willa’s group didn’t just have that in place to deter the living; it was a perfect way to divert an oncoming horde of the undead.

  He decided that the only thing he could do now was wait out the passing of this mob. A glance back at Valarie confirmed that she was still out cold (pardon the pun). He would need to see about keeping her warm. He would finally be able to put to use some of the more extreme survivalist training he’d learned. He just hoped that it actually worked for extended periods of time. They were not going to be able to move from this spot for probably the rest of the day.

  He crawled back, wincing as a fresh batch
of snow was scooped down the front of his pants. Deciding that there was no sense in moving her a bit (plus he didn’t want her to wake up for as long as possible, one sound from her would ruin everything they had achieved) he went to work scooping some of the snow out from around a spot in the middle of the road.

  It was exhausting work, and he realized as his stomach began to cramp along with the muscles in his arms, legs, and back, that he was starving. He wished that he had something to remedy that problem, but “wish in one hand and poop in the other…see which one gets full first” is what his dad used to always say.

  Before long, he had an impressive mound of snow. He set to digging at a slight upward angle into the oblong dome that he had created after letting it sit for a bit and firm up.

  Every so often, he would check on the progress of the mob. Around mid-afternoon when he had dug in far enough and hollowed out a little room complete with a “bench” along one wall, he checked and discovered that they were down to just stragglers passing underneath. In between building their little snow dome and checking on zombies, Kevin’s mind had time to wander back again…

  ***

  Kevin turned up his police scanner. It had been a non-stop source of chatter for the past day and a half. Most of it was unremarkable in the first few hours, but it had changed in tone some time yesterday, and now it was like having a horror movie on in the other room and just listening to it play.

  For the past twenty minutes he’d been listening to transmissions between a paramedic team, at least two police officers, and a dispatcher that had been on the job for the past fifteen hours if Kevin’s calculations were correct.

  “…windows of the mobile home show definite signs of an attack,” a female voice reported. She had been the first officer to reach the scene when the paramedics had called for police back up during a call where a husband had called for help when his sick wife had attacked not only him, but the family dog; a Dachshund named Brutus from what Kevin remembered during an earlier part of the audio drama.

  For a moment, he felt just a hint of remorse at finding himself so riveted to what was unfolding on his scanner. He knew that this was real and that those were actually living, breathing people being affected, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “…and the EMT vehicle is open with no sign of the crew.” Now the female officer was approaching the residence. “The front door is shut, but I can hear something on the other side of the door. I believe that we have responders down at my location, please send an EMT team and back up to my location.”

  “Officer Wilson, be advised, do not enter the residence,” the dispatcher warned. “Back up is en route…ETA two minutes.”

  “Copy,” was the only reply.

  “Don’t be stupid, Officer Wilson,” Kevin called out from his hallway as he pulled down a few boxes from the shelf.

  Opening the boxes, Kevin sorted through the notebooks from the various survivalist seminars and camps that he’d attended. He finally found the one he needed and grabbed the checklist.

  He listened for a few more minutes until he heard what was now starting to become the standard conclusion to these ordeals.

  “Unit Seven…Officer Wilson…please respond. Officer Wilson, this is dispatch…please acknowledge…”

  Nothing but static.

  He went to his computer and entered everything on the list and sent it to his three friends, Mike, Cary, and Darrin. He told them all to reply within the next hour confirming which of the listed items that they had currently in their possession. He also set the time for their rendezvous for 4AM at Trashmore Park.

  Going out to the Ford Escort, he loaded in the first of his supplies. “So close to paid off,” he whispered. And now, the credit rating he had been trying to build when he had convinced his mother to co-sign on the loan wouldn’t matter one bit All around the complex, he could hear the echo of the same news reports being played on what sounded like every single apartment in the place.

  “Hey…Cameron?” a voice called with a certain tentativeness.

  Kevin looked around and his eyes tracked up to the fourth floor balcony (the apartment just above his). A dark haired beauty stared down at him with a beer in her hand. She had lived above Kevin for almost five months. He was almost certain that she was a dancer at one of Norfolk’s many go-go bars. She might have said a dozen words to him since she’d moved in.

  “Me?” he asked, trying not to let his eyes pop out of his head. She was wearing nothing more than a bra and G-string.

  “Yes,” the tall, slender young woman replied with a gesture of her hands that obviously was meant to draw his attention to the fact that there was nobody else present.

  “My name is Kevin.”

  “Oh…you sure it’s not Cameron.”

  “I could call my mom and ask, but I’m pretty sure.” He didn’t have time for this and made no attempt to hide his annoyance. She didn’t seem to notice…or care.

  “You been watching the news?”

  “Kinda hard not to…even the Cartoon Network is running this stuff.”

  “So is that doctor lady right…or are those guys saying that this is zombies telling the truth?” She tried to laugh off the last part of her question as if that might persuade Kevin to give her the answer that he was pretty sure she wanted to hear.

  “I wouldn’t stay in the city too long,” Kevin said. “I think that doctor is spewing what she is told to say by the powers-that-be.”

  “Is that what you’re—” she began to ask, but Kevin’s cell rang. The theme from Sesame Street caused him to instantly forget the current conversation.

  “Yes, Sara?” he answered and headed inside to grab his next load. He never noticed the scowl on his upstairs neighbor’s face. She was not used to being ignored…especially by guys.

  “Kevvy, can I bring my Barbie? Mom says to just leave it here and I can play with it when I get back,” his little sister’s voice pleaded.

  “Let me talk to Mom.” Kevin took a deep breath. Were they really haggling over a Barbie doll while the world fell apart?

  There was the sound of shuffling and a few muffled words. He knew that tone in his mother’s voice. She was at her breaking point. Once she reached this degree of frustration, she was almost impossible to talk to.

  “Kevin, if I am going to have to pack every single little thing to keep her entertained…we might as well just stay home,” his mother started in the moment that she came on the phone.

  “Mom, stop.” Kevin put as much authority into his voice as he could. He knew that he was going to need to take charge of the situation right away in order to get his mom to listen and do what needed doing. “It is a doll. It won’t take any room at all and it will keep her quiet.”

  “And then it will be the clothes, and then that gawdawful Dream House. Why did you get her that garbage, Kevin? You know it sets an unrealistic expectation upon girls when they are at an impressionable age.”

  “Mom…STOP!” Kevin barked. “This is not a fucking game. Now get the stuff in the car and you two get moving. This is going to get a helluva lot worse before it gets better, and when it does you guys need to be long gone.”

  There was silence on the line. It was really obvious that his mother was struggling with this. He just needed her to hold it together long enough for the two of them to get to the cabin. If she had a meltdown there, nobody (and hopefully nothing) would be within miles.

  “I saw one of them, Kevin,” his mother whispered. “Missus James…she is in her backyard. At first I thought she was gardening or something, but she was following after that yipping little rodent of a dog that she owns. I was upstairs in my room and looked out the window. She…trapped it…”

  His mother went silent for a second, but he could still hear her breathing. He would let her get this out. Maybe then she would accept the harsh reality.

  “She caught it on the porch and tore it open with her teeth, Kevin. And that little dog yelped and howled…but nobody came. Now…now
they are both out there in the yard! Walking around. That little dog is dragging itself by its front legs.”

  Kevin filed that thought away. He was a little surprised to hear that whatever this was, it was jumping species. Of course this was no ordinary virus or disease, so what he knew from the movies was really just a lot of supposition.

  “Mom, let her bring the Barbie, but you two get out of there within the hour. You hear me?”

  “And when are you going to join us?”

  Kevin had hoped that she wouldn’t actually ask him that question. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he wasn’t coming. She wouldn’t understand.

  “Mom…this is something that I have spent my life preparing for. I can help. I need to be able to do something and make a difference,” he lied.

  “Wait…what? Are you saying that you aren’t coming?” his mother asked, her voice growing just a bit shrill.

  “I said I can’t come right away. Besides, the government might get a handle on this in a few weeks…months at the most—”

  “Months!” his mother exploded. “Kevin, you can’t expect me to just take Sara out into the middle of nowhere without knowing what has happened to you.”

  “Mom…if anybody has a shot at making it through this…I do.” He wasn’t used to bragging, especially to his mother. Talking trash to his friends during one of their marathon Halo sessions was one thing. Real life was an entirely different matter.

  “And what am I supposed to do?” his mother said.

  It took a moment, but he finally realized that his mother was actually asking him. She had no idea what to do. For a moment, he considered scrapping his plan. Actually he had a series of plans. Each one was based on his evaluation of just how serious he believed the situation to be. If he felt there was any chance that things would recover, he planned on fortifying his location and riding it out. The extreme scenario involved a run for a sparsely populated part of the country—he had chosen South Dakota, but that didn’t seem likely at the moment.