by Jack J. Lee
“Steve, keep that spear near you. Guy’s you’ve got to follow me. We have to make sure we can keep the zombies out of my backyard.”
Fences in my neighborhood have a maximum allowable height of six feet. I knew six feet wasn’t high enough to stop zombies from climbing over. Firewood for my wood stove, a wind turbine, a liquid propane tank and a shed full of supplies were in my backyard. I had to keep the zombies out. The contractor I’d hired installed an expandable fence. The fence had two layers. The outside layer could be raised to a height of ten-and-a-half feet. Once up, the fence was impossible to climb from the outside. On the inside there were ledges every couple feet that could be used to climb up to look over the fence. The fence was heavy. It could only be raised in sections. Twenty different winches were used to elevate the sections. It took close to a minute to raise each section into place. The three of us started turning winches. A few minutes later, Alex came out and began to help.
While we worked, we continued to hear gunshots and screaming all around us. Alex’s face was white; he looked like he was on the verge of panicking. I’m sure I didn’t look much better. I tried to focus on the task of turning each winch as fast as possible. Once a section of fence was up, I locked it into place and then ran to the next winch.
I tried not to think or feel. I was just a machine doing a job. We only had two panels left when Cecilia Swanson, one of my neighbors came over my fence. She was pushed up by someone behind her. Cecilia was tiny, maybe 5’2” and not much over a hundred pounds. She almost flew over the fence landing on her hands and knees in front of me.
An overweight balding guy in his late 30’s started to climb up next. He was grabbed from behind and pulled off the fence. His scream was chilling. I stepped on a ledge on the inner surface of my fence to see what was going on, thinking I could help.
I wish I hadn’t looked. The poor bastard was on the ground. There were so many zombies on top of him I could only see his hands and feet. He was still alive because I could hear him scream and see his fingers twitch. Bright red arterial blood sprayed past the zombies before he stopped moving. This was messed up.
I didn’t realize until I heard Cecilia scream, “Neil! Neil!” that she had climbed up next to me.
The zombies looked up. We had all climbed up on the fence and were in plain sight. “Oh shit, we’ve got to move!”
I jumped down. Cecilia was still frozen in place up on the fence. I didn’t have time to be a gentleman. I grabbed the back of her blouse and pulled her off. Alex and Wayne got to the two winches first and began turning them. The outer two sections of the wall slowly started to elevate. I screamed at Steve to grab the spear and help me keep the zombies off the wall. At least eight or more zombies tried climbing over our fence.
I grabbed my pistol and I shot twice at the zombie closest to me. I missed both times. “Shit!” I can usually hit a tin can from seventy-five feet away. The frigging zombie was just four feet away and I had whiffed twice. I stopped being scared; I got angry. I ran up to the zombie as it was pulling itself up on the fence. I jammed the tip of the suppressor between the zombie’s eyes and fired. It dropped immediately. I could feel myself relax. I stopped trembling. My hands were rock steady as I got into my normal shooting stance, my right hand on the pistol grip, my left cupped below my right. I stopped seeing faces. I only saw targets. I took seven more shots and seven zombies dropped.
My clip was empty. For a moment I forgot which pocket I had put the spare clips in. “Oh shit! What pocket did I use?” Steve stepped up with the spear and started stabbing zombies in the head. In the time that it took for me to find a new clip, Steve nailed three zombies. I yelled “Steve! Duck!” Four more zombies were in the process of climbing the fence. One was about to drop on top of Wayne as he turned his winch. I pulled the trigger. My target’s head jerked back and then it went limp. Its body stayed draped over the fence for just a moment. The zombies on the other side grabbed at it, pulling it off. The zombies were cannibalistic. I could hear them tearing into the ones that Steve and I had killed.
The crowd trying to climb over the fence thinned out for a few seconds. I shot again. The zombie’s head jerked but it didn’t fall. I was close enough to see the mark my bullet made on its forehead. The .22 LR round will glance off a skull if you don’t hit it dead on. I’ve shot a lot of paper targets and tin cans. Before today, I’d never shot at real skulls. I was learning on the job. I fired again. This time the bullet penetrated.
The number of zombies seemed endless. I fired three more times. “Damn it!” Another bullet ricocheted off a skull. I couldn’t afford to waste bullets. I only had one more clip. Why hadn’t I brought more ammo?
I loaded my last clip. The two remaining fence sections were now higher. The zombs couldn’t climb up as easily. Thank God that they were cannibalistic. Every single one that Steve and I dropped distracted the others. I was able to take more time with my last clip. When I was empty, one last zombie was on top of the fence. The remaining fence sections were completely up.
“Steve, I’m tapped out. You’re going to have to nail it.”
The final zombie dropped like a sack of meat. Alex and Wayne had to jump out of its way when it hit the ground. It was starting to push its upper body off the ground when Steve slammed his spear through the back of the zombies head. It collapsed.
It took awhile to catch my breath; I hadn’t realized before that I had been hyperventilating.
“Hey Steve, crush its head for good luck. I’ve read some research that said if you give a zombie enough time, that it can actually heal itself from a head wound.”
Steve nodded. He pulled up on the spear, flipped it over, and then slammed down with the butt end. A 3 inch deep depression appeared in the zombie’s head.
We headed back into my house leaving the zombie on the ground. With the fence fully extended to ten-and-a-half feet, no zombie was going to climb it. I locked the back door. For the first time since I had killed Mrs. Wilson, I noticed my hangover. I needed another drink. I pulled out a fifth of vodka and some glasses. I poured triples into three glasses. I emptied mine in one gulp. Alex grabbed another and did the same. Cecilia drank like her life depended on it. I looked at Steve and Wayne. I knew Mormons didn’t drink, but this was a special occasion. Steve shook his head. Wayne nodded. I poured him a glass. He tried a swig. Wayne had obviously never tasted hard liquor before. He choked and spewed out the vodka almost as fast as he had poured it into his mouth.
In more normal times, I would have found that funny. I was too tired. I refilled my, Alex’s and Cecilia’s glasses. I emptied the last of the vodka. I grabbed my drink and went into the living room to sit on the couch.
Just then the power went out. Metal shutters covered all of the windows. The room went completely dark. I slowly counted to twenty. As designed, my home generator started up. I figured that the natural gas supply would be more robust than electricity; I was right. If the natural gas supply had been disrupted, I would have had to manually turn the valve on the propane tank to get the generator to work.
I started sipping the vodka. Getting drunk again seemed like a good idea. Everyone else joined me in the living room.
Alex spoke, “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know about you but I’m going to finish this glass and then go back upstairs to my bed and try to sleep for a few more hours.”
Cecilia spoke, “We have to go out there and try to help the people being attacked by zombies!”
There was silence. Everyone looked at me. My house was completely sound proof but I could sense the screams, gunshots, chaos, and destruction outside my walls. I didn’t have to hear it with my ears; I could feel it in my bones.
I put up my hand and started counting, “I took one zombie out with a spear in the front yard. I took 8 out with my first clip, 8 with the second and 10 with my last. Steve took out 4 with his spear. Is that right Steve?”
He nodded.
“We’ve killed 31 zombies in less
than ten minutes. There’s got to be thousands of zombies outside. I know my limits. We were able to avoid being swarmed because we had a fence between the zombies and us. If we go out on the street, we’re dead. Our best bet is to sit tight and hope to God that soon, in the next few hours or days that we get some help from the National Guard.”
Cecilia had tears running down her face. “I have friends out there. We’ve got to help them!”
I shook my head. I wanted to say, ‘Look you crazy bitch, you already got your friend Neil killed. Shut the fuck up before I kick your ass out on the street.’ I didn’t. Instead I said,
“Look, we all want to help, but unless you know how we can go outside and not get overrun I don’t see how we can help anyone.”
Cecilia didn’t say anything after that.
“Alex, I’m wiped, I’m going to bed. Can I leave you in charge?”
“Yeah, Mike, get some rest. I’m going to turn on the news and see what’s going on.”
I walked up the stairs to my bedroom. I turned on the shower. I needed to clean off my nervous sweat. I scrubbed my left foot until it was almost raw. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feel of Ms. Wilson’s face on the bottom of my foot. The best relief for hangover headache is alcohol. I let the water run over me until the hot water ran out. I had chugged six shots in just a few minutes; the alcohol starting to take effect. I staggered into bed. I could see why people became alcoholics. I was numb. Right now that was good.
I’ve been preparing for zombies since March. I never thought it would be so hard. I hadn’t known Mrs. Wilson well. She liked to circle the neighborhood on her motorized scooter in the mornings. She usually had a smile and hello whenever she passed by. I hadn’t thought much about how it would feel to take out a zombie. I guess I expected killing zombies to be similar to playing a video game; it wasn’t. I recognized almost all the zombies I shot today. They were neighbors. While I was shooting they had all been just targets. I could see their faces now. I’ve never killed anything before in my life much less people I knew.
I thought about calling my parents. I didn’t have the guts. It would be great if they called me; I’d know that they were ok. I didn’t have what it took right now to try to reach my family and fail. As I fell asleep I prayed, “Please, let it be better when I wake up.”
Chapter 7: Helen Hansen, February 28th, Year 1
It was morning and for the first time in months I felt rested. I had the strangest dream. I opened my eyes, ‘Wait. Oh God! This isn’t my bed. It wasn’t a dream.’
I was in bed with Mark. I had to get out of here. I slipped out of the bed. It was 9:30. I had a meeting scheduled in half an hour. I was almost dressed when Mark woke up. He turned toward me. He didn’t smile; he leered. I responded with a stupid grin, ‘Wait! What was I thinking?’
I scowled. “Mark, stop it!”
He wanted to get breakfast at the Diner. I wanted to say yes. I told him that I was late for a meeting.
As I walked out of Mark’s house, I kept my head high to make eye contact with the people out on the street, to say hello. We had grown to ten thousand people but we were still a very small town. The world as we knew it may have been destroyed by vampires and zombies but human nature hasn’t changed. We had newspapers again and gossip still made up most of the news. Within hours the whole town was going to know that I had spent the night at Mark’s.
I had slept with a man who was the epitome of everything I was against. He was chauvinistic, arrogant, and selfish. I should be filled with regret; I wasn’t. Last night had been incredible.
If Mark hadn’t needed my engineering expertise, this would never have happened. If our city walls had not been built, I would never have been at Mark’s house after dark. Salt Lake City streets are laid out on a grid that’s centered from the Salt Lake City Latter Day Saint Temple; 1700 South is a street that runs east to west that is seventeen city blocks south of the Temple. 700 East runs north and south and is seven city blocks west of the Temple.
We now had 60’ high walls 1.5 miles long on 1700 South, 2700 South, 700 East and 1700 East. Close to eight thousand shipping containers were stacked seven high in the middle of these streets. Containers were scavenged from truck yards, truck stops, the highway, rail stations, and on the railroad. Cranes were use to stack the containers. We ended up with a walled city called Fortress Salt Lake.
Our walls surrounded a section of a major highway, I-80, Sugar House Park, Fairmont Park, and Forest Dale Golf Course. Most of the major roads and all of the major highways were cleared of abandoned and wrecked vehicles so that the containers could be delivered. It made it much easier to travel through the city and also improved morale. Clogged streets had been constant reminders of the destruction that had occurred. Having clear streets again gave us the sense that we were taking our world back from the undead.
The bottom two layers of containers were filled with rocks, gravel, and sand. Steel beams were driven though the lower containers into the streets to lock them in place. The containers were bolted and welded together. The 5 upper containers were used for storage and for housing.
Since late November of last year our population had grown at a rate of a couple of thousand people a month. There were plenty of abandoned homes but it was impossible to get power, water, and heat to these separate single family homes fast enough to keep up with demand. Containers were converted into apartments. The units were 8-and-a-half feet tall and wide and were either 20 or 40 feet long. They were doubled walled, and were easy to insulate with pumped in foam insulation. It was easier to get water, heat, power, and sewage to the container apartments than it was to make thousands of single family homes livable again.
Newcomers were encouraged to homestead empty storage containers. The homesteaders had 3 months to improve the containers with their own sweat equity by installing things like sinks, toilets, and showers. If they did, they were given title to their units.
Most of them didn’t have the cash to buy supplies. They salvaged supplies on their own. The abandoned homes just outside our walls were quickly torn down to the brick walls and foundations. Wood studs, plywood, windows (these could only be installed on the wall facing inside), and doors were all needed. The homesteaders also had to pay taxes, and have at least one adult per family train with the militia a couple of hours a week. Those who fulfilled all the requirements immediately became citizens and got voting rights. Those, who didn’t, lost the right to stay in the containers and never got the right to vote. Our community was too small to tolerate parasites, much less let them vote. It was comforting to know that our fortress had a quickly available defense force living in the walls.
Sugar House became a boom town. Every employer needed help and there were no regulatory obstacles to starting your own business. We had close to a hundred companies that were repairing electrical equipment damaged by the EMP; these companies needed more workers. All the easily salvaged plumbing, mechanical, and electrical supplies in stores and warehouses were already taken. We needed more men and women to go out and get new supplies. Simple things, like toilet paper and sanitary supplies were becoming more and more valuable. Anyone that could walk and talk could start a business or find a job.
The outside walls of the containers were kept smooth and were heavily reinforced. We found through trial and error that a vampire had a maximum vertical leap of a little less than 40 feet. Our walls were too high for the vampire to leap over.
Gates large enough to allow a semitruck to pass through were placed at the end of every major street that passed through our walls. Double sized gates were put up on each end of I-80. These gates were raised by motors and could be dropped into place in seconds by gravity.
A solar chimney was built on top of the Sugarhouse Shopping Center parking lot in the center of the Fortress. Local multilevel office buildings and strip malls were torn apart for the steel beams and glass. We ended up with a 30 acre greenhouse surrounding a 1000 foot high tower made out of steel girders
and sheet metal.
Thirty acres sounds like a lot until you realize that there are 960 acres in 1.5 square miles. We had the room. The green house had a sloping roof that gradually slanted up toward the tower. The greenhouse only had a roof; it didn’t have side walls. At the edges the roof was 3 feet off the ground. The roof slowly angled up until it was 30 feet high at the tower. Sunlight heated the air in the greenhouse. Hot air rose and was funneled by the sloping greenhouse roof to the tower. The tower’s relatively narrow diameter caused the air speed to increase. Turbines were set up in the tower. Excess power during the day were stored in batteries and if the batteries became full, used to compress air into tanks. At night the compressed air was used to turn turbines to generate electricity.
Solar chimneys work on the basis of a temperature difference between the inside and the outside of the greenhouse. The asphalt blacktop of the parking lot helped retain heat. Even at night there was enough of a temperature difference inside the solar chimney to generate some electricity. We were getting up to 150 kilowatts of power at noon on a sunny day from our solar chimney. Before the Outbreak this would have been enough to provide power to about a hundred homes. Electricity was now used to operate strategically essential processes and to light homes and streets.
The EMP of October 9th had destroyed almost every light bulb in the world. As soon as I knew we were going to build a solar chimney, I looked at manufacturing light bulbs. The theory behind a light bulb isn’t hard. It’s a glass shell surrounding a filament attached to a cathode and an anode. Electricity causes the filament to heat up and produce light. Before the Outbreak, incandescent light bulbs used tungsten filament. Tungsten was readily available; there were literally millions of broken light bulbs all around us. The problem with tungsten was that it has a melting point of over 6000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel, granite, even diamonds melt at this temperature. I decided it would take too much work and research to develop the infrastructure to use tungsten filaments.