by Robert Brown
“Everyone needs to grab their guns and head out to help clear the property. I’m not going to close the doors behind us, so I need someone to guard the entrance, and someone to stay in here with the kids.”
Hannah says, “Dad, I want to go.”
“So do I!” says Olivia.
“I would let you, but I need you to stay in here and keep your brother and sisters safe.”
“I don’t think I can go out,” says Karen Chapman before she throws up into a bucket. “I’m just too nauseous from the lack of air and the smell”
Brian also falls to one knee at the entrance. He’s a big guy, so the lack of air probably hit him harder than everyone with smaller lungs. “I can stay with Karen and your kids if you want?” Brian offers.
“Eddie, I need to stay here as well,” Simone says. “Your mom is sixty-seven, and the lack of air hit her hard.”
I walk back to my mom, who is still taking short gasping breaths. “Mama, I have to finish clearing the property. I’ll be back soon.”
She touches my hand and nods.
Walking back to the front I look at Hannah and Olivia, and tell them, “It’s really bad out there. It’s worse than anything we’ve seen before.”
Hannah looks at me, and says, “I can handle it.”
Olivia just says, “I need to learn. Like you keep telling us, this is how the world is now.”
“Okay, you two grab your guns and some magazines, but if it’s too much, then you come back in here.”
I announce to everyone heading out with me, “There will be infected coming over a hill of bodies surrounding the stack of containers that Arthur and his group are on, and there will be crawlers and stragglers everywhere. Don’t go into any buildings alone, and keep looking around so nothing can sneak up on you. Also, everybody watch your step, there are bodies and blood everywhere. If you fall on the wrong thing and get cut, you might get infected.
“I have to clear bodies from the other two root cellars doors. Melissa, are you coming out, or are you staying with Brian, in the container?”
“I’m coming out.”
“Then I would like you to climb on the tractor to shoot for me, so I can focus on clearing bodies. Let’s go.”
The second root cellar shelter is in better shape than the one Simone was in. It is farther away from the stacked container towers where we were shooting from, so it didn’t get completely buried. However, even with the extra distance, there are bodies piled halfway up the entrance. It’s blocked enough to prevent those inside from opening up to get out, but not enough to block the air holes shot into the doors.
“Looks like they had the same idea as you guys did,” I say to Melissa while pointing to the top of the doors. “They shot in some air holes.” Before lowering the scoop, I turn to her, and say, “Melissa, this part gets really bad. You should hop down and keep watch from a distance while I clear these bodies.”
She nods before climbing off of the tractor, with one hand covering her mouth. Brian’s wife is a tough lady and a great shooter. That is why I wanted her watching my back on this thing. Under normal circumstances she would have soldiered on and told me to just get to work, but I can tell she is already getting sick from our short trip over bodies to get here. The same nauseous chill runs through my body as I pick up each scoop of partly frozen cadavers from in front of the doors. At least I don’t throw up this time. The smell and sounds are just as sickening, but now I am prepared for them, which helps a little.
There are occasional gunshots going off by the first shelter I opened up. One or two shots a minute and no new infected showing up from beyond the property. This is the winning stage. All we have to do now is finish off the last of these things and then deal with burning their bodies. With the bulk of the living infected still trapped in the gulley around Arthur’s stacked containers, the only worry at this point is someone getting the disease by being careless or clumsy.
I can’t believe we won. I can’t believe we survived this attack. There were too many, far too many for us to have come out of this alive. But here we are. Melissa and I pull the last few bodies away from the entrance. I open the door and come face to face with Conner, squinting and blinking at the light, but holding his gun ready to fight. His son Jake is next to him, ready for battle as well.
I smile at their enthusiasm and say in a tired yet elated tone, “Most of them are dead guys, but we do still have a bunch left to kill.”
“Is everyone all right?” Samantha asks coming out behind her husband and son. “We heard screaming just when we had to we close the doors yesterday.”
“I think everyone is all right, but I still need to open up the next shelter. Look, it’s pretty bad out here, so keep the kids inside.”
“We didn’t have any kids in this shelter,” Samantha replies.
Rebecca, Jason, and their daughter Rachel come out right behind them and run off in the direction of the third shelter.
“Where is Christopher?” I ask Samantha as I climb onto the tractor. Melissa climbs on next to me.
“Christopher would have been here, but they let him stay with Matt and Heather so he could play with his cousins, since they are all about the same age,” Samantha yells up to me as I get the tractor into first and start moving to catch up to the Andersons.
Samantha grabs hold, steps onto the side of the tractor, and continues filling me in. “They have been freaking out all night while we were in there, worried about their son. If it wasn’t for the bodies piled by the doors, they would have opened them when it was dark to sneak out and check on him.”
“Why didn’t they stay in their shelter with him? Why are they even here without him?” I yell in confusion.
“Remember, Bethany wasn’t feeling well, and Tiffany was taking care of Madison and Olivia for her. So they switched shelters with Bethany and her kids. They let Christopher stay with his cousins.”
“And they did this while we were under attack?” I say not understanding how they could all be so careless.
“No, they decided right away when we first came out here yesterday, while we were still setting up for the attack. No one knew it would be such a large group of these things coming here.”
Just like the other shelters, there are bodies littered all over the ground near it. The initial firing line which started at the fence and led to the shelter doors dropped over two thousand bodies between all of the shooters. These shelters, or root cellars as they were originally purposed, were some of the first things placed in the field when we moved here. The stacked containers that I was shooting from were put in six months later when I started letting people rent the property for survival training.
The first shelter that Simone was in is the closest to the stacked containers with an entrance facing west. That is why it got completely buried in bodies from the shooting. As the infected fell dead from our tower defense, they would roll or slide back off the hill they were climbing, and pile up on the entrance ramp going down to the doors, and eventually over the whole shelter.
The second shelter is farther away from the container towers, and the entrance faces south. That combination kept too many falling bodies from reaching the entrance to bury it. The third shelter sits the furthest away from the stacked containers and its entry ramp faces east, the direction we are headed. So while I drive the tractor past Rebecca, Jason and Rachel I know I don’t have to worry about the third container getting buried and I can see there is no huge pile of bodies nearby. As long as they shot holes in the doors, they would have plenty of air if they needed it. They weren’t buried by bodies.
The third shelter is the closest to the fence line, however, which makes them the first group that would have had to secure themselves inside from the onslaught. That is the thought that is making my heart sink and my stomach tighten as I drive closer. When the screaming started yesterday, I was still outside fighting, but it started a short time before Conner and Samantha had to close their shelter doors. The third shelter shoul
d have already been closed up by that time.
Sporadic gunshots continue to ring out in the distance as I drive past the buried shelter and finally the edge of the down ramp comes into view. I drive past the ramp and turn left, stopping the tractor twenty feet away, and look into the dark shelter with its doors propped open.
I watch Samantha step off the tractor. She slowly lets go with her arm floating behind her as if it is still holding on. Melissa leans over the wheel and starts crying. Tears start to stream down my face as well. In three running strides Rebecca will be at the edge of the shelter entrance and will see the emptiness that should contain our friends, family, and her son. Two running strides left and Rebecca sees our reaction, she sees the sadness and loss on our faces. One running stride remaining and Rebecca slows down with a jolt. Her step makes that harder hit of a body still in motion, but trying to stop. She knows what she is going to see. She knows she has to see it but doesn’t want to at the same time.
She screams.
The emotion released in the cry Rebecca lets loose breaks my will. Jason and Rachel fall to the ground with Rebecca as they catch up, holding onto each other, and venting their pain to the sky with their broken sobbing moans. I feel their loss, not just in hearing the pained sobbing, but it is our shared pain. We have all been a close family over these three months, since the first day the disease hit. We haven’t lost a person before today, and now we lost a whole group. We lost several families; Randy and Patricia Langford have lost the most.
The loved ones we lost from this shelter are:
Christopher Anderson, age 8, son of Jason and Rebecca Anderson, and brother of Rachel.
Bethany Murphy, age 29, and her daughters, Madison, age 5, and Olivia, age 3.
Tiffany Langford, age 35, her twins, Steven and Lauren, age 13, and her daughter, Grace, age 9. Wife and children of Joshua Langford, daughter in law and grandchildren of Randy and Patricia Langford—both men are still trapped on the second stacked storage towers.
Matthew Langford, age 37. His wife, Heather Langford, age 34, and their sons, Andrew, age 10, and Anthony, age 8. They are the son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren of Randy and Patricia Langford.
Conner is slowly walking up from the second shelter supporting Patricia Langford as she makes her way to where we are. Patricia is the mother and grandmother of many of the people lost. She was walking confidently behind her daughter Rebecca, but also nearly collapsed when she first heard her daughter scream.
“Does anyone have a flashlight?” I ask as I walk up to the container’s entrance. I pull up the neck of my shirt and wipe the tears from my face with the only unsoiled portion of clothing at my disposal. Conner’s son, Jake, walks up behind me and hands me the light from his pistol.
There is still complete cloud cover blocking out the sun, giving the day a dull gray look. The dark tunnel of the shelter isn’t inviting. I hesitate to walk in for a few seconds. I’m no longer afraid of facing the infected. I have killed enough of them to wash away the remorse over taking a life. I am deathly afraid of walking in there and seeing one of the many people that we all knew and loved turned into one of these things, however.
Still, I take the first step, followed by another and before I realize it, find myself facing the back of the empty storage container. No one is in here. I shake my head clear, thankful that I didn’t have to see any of them, and put them down. Looking at the details of the place now, I see blood everywhere. Not the thicker blackened blood that comes out of those that have been infected for a long while, but bright red that is from the newly bitten. Still, there are no bodies here, even though the story is the same as if there were.
I walk back out and shake my head at anyone that is looking. “No one is inside. No bodies either.”
The crying just continues. I want to take a break and allow myself and others time to deal with this loss, but I know I can’t, so I call everyone nearby back into action. “There is still a big crowd surrounding Arthur’s stacked containers. We’re going to have to kill them from up high,” I say to whoever is listening.
At this point I feel like giving up. I had that stupid feeling of success just a few minutes ago. Thankful that I survived, grateful that we survived, and now I wonder what have we survived for? A third of our group is gone from one attack when we have lived so well for so long. And the worst part is that we lost a big part of our future. We lost seven of the thirteen children ages 12 and under.
Simone runs toward me around the group of mourners sobbing by the ramp. She is crying also and stops directly in front of me. “Eddie, you need to come quick. Your mother is dying.”
Chapter Eight
Good is Gone
I was numb for the rest of the day. Just like everyone else, I went through the motions necessary to kill off the remaining infected, and get Arthur and his group off of their stacked containers. I was running on empty even before my mom died. Apparently, the prolonged lack of oxygen was too much for her, and her heart must have given out. Once she died, I pretty much shut off all emotions at that point. The tears stopped, my expressions went blank, and I just went through the steps necessary to finish the day.
Once we killed the final infected around the second stacked containers, Arthur and Randy had to help lower Joshua Langford off the containers to us. He is in a shock induced coma or just checked out of the world due to his loss. They all knew before any of us that the people in the third container had been overrun by the infected. Joshua was shooting next to his wife by the third shelter when it fell.
Somehow they got overrun by the infected and weren’t able to shut the shelter doors. Joshua isn’t able to speak yet so we can’t find out exactly what happened, but we know it wasn’t the hinges. I was afraid that the doors on their storage container might have gotten stuck or frozen in place, but when I grabbed them after checking inside for bodies, they swung freely. That was also one of the preparations everyone did while we were setting up for the attack, to check if the doors would move and lock closed.
Arthur told us he originally thought Joshua was dead too, because he wasn’t at their container when they arrived, and the infected were close behind them. They were getting ready to pull up the ladder when he ran through the group of approaching infected and climbed up. He managed to make it through without getting bitten, but once he was safe with the three of them, he just sat down in a catatonic state and has been like that since yesterday.
Joshua just sat looking out into the attacking crowd as his wife and children were put out of their diseased state, along with all the of other infected. Arthur and Randy had to see their infected loved ones who should have been protected in the steel walls underground and put them out of their misery. An act I’m not sure I would have had the strength to do.
We are all gathered in the living room of the main house now. We have cleared the property and all of the buildings of the mobile infected for now. There are some infected still alive, but trapped under too many bodies to move. We’ll deal with them when we clear those specific areas. For now, we have to decide what we’re all going to do.
This gathering isn’t like the first night of the fall. Everyone then was happy to see each other, and while everyone knew there was trouble on the horizon, it wasn’t an immediate threat, more like a distant rumble of trouble that could be ignored. Right now no one wants to meet anyone else’s gaze.
“So what now?” Daniel, the former sheriff’s deputy asks.
I look around the group and see their eyes all gazing back to me. I want my moment to mourn like they do, but it is my property, and I can’t just throw off my responsibility. “We live or we die,” I say plainly. “That has always been our choice,” I continue. “We knew what was going on in the world with this thing and that the odds were always stacked against us. While we weren’t all related to the ones we lost, the close relationships that we have built over the last few months made us all part of each other’s families in a way. And it feels as if all of the children
we’ve lost were my own, as if they were our own.
“A part of me wants to curl up in bed, go to sleep, and never wake up again. But my opportunity to do that passed with this horde. I fought the overwhelming numbers we faced because I want to live. Even with the pain and loss that I feel, I still want to live, and I’m sure everyone here wants to continue living as well.”
It isn’t a cheering or happy moment, but a few people nod almost imperceptibly or purse their lips in a determined agreement with the idea that they want to live as well.
“The next few days will be more difficult, both physically and emotionally than any we have faced in our lives. We have to clear the bodies from the land. Many are already frozen in place with these temperatures which will add an additional problem to the clean-up effort, and if it warms up, they will begin to rot. We won’t be able to stay here if the bodies remain. I can use the tractor to move them into burning piles, but we will have to sort through them all one at a time to look for our missing, so that we can give them proper burials.”
“There must be fifteen thousand bodies out there!” Dianne Blount says.
“I don’t care!” I yell, snapping back at her. “I’m sorry, Dianne.” I take a deep breath with my eyes closed, and continue, “I think we should find the bodies of the missing, but it is a nearly impossible physical task. Can anyone give me suggestions on what we do about the loved ones we lost?”
Patricia Langford stands up with tears streaming down her face. “I’m not going to lose anyone else. I know all of you loved those that were lost, but it was my son and grandchildren that died out there. I raised them and loved them their whole lives. I want to find them to give them our respects, but I do not want to lose anyone else. If we start handling that many bodies, somebody will get infected. There will be a scratch or a cut and we could lose everything. We could lose everyone. I want to give them a proper burial more than anything I’ve ever desired, but I need the rest of my family to survive.”