Zombpocalypse (Book 1): Contingency

by Mariah Lynde

  Exhaling harshly, I jumped a little when a hand laid on my arm. Turning my head to see Cal staring at me with something close to astonishment, which I could only assume had to do with my little rant a second before. Then again, he could think that he was not stuck in a cellar like room with a mad woman, either way I felt like in some way he expected an answer from me. Sadly, I had no clue what to say so I went with the universal answer to everything, I shrugged.

  “Well, if that doesn’t indicate that we need to start laying out the ground rules, I don’t know what does.” Robbie’s voice pierced the silence and I found myself gradually relaxing a bit as he took the reins. Between dealing with Alec and Cal, my temper was in high gear. There was absolutely no way I could be considered socially amenable at the moment. I knew that I happened to be one step shy of just biting someone’s head off, literally. If this kept up, zombies would have nothing on cannibalistic me.

  “Yeah, we probably need a baseline set of rules to operate under to make all of this feasible.” Ray chimed in meekly, which was almost immediately followed by murmurs of agreement from the others in the call. For myself, I just sat there silently, glaring at the computer screen as if daring any one of them to come at me. Metaphorically speaking, while it would have only been verbally, I found myself raring for a fight.

  Anger, frustration, confusion, and pain had all coalesced into one giant glaring ball of rage that had no true target. So I sat there like a predator in the weeds looking for prey. Much like in the animal kingdom, my victim would likely be unknowing and undeserving, but in the end they’d fall to my attack.

  “Alright, so we’re all agreed on needing a basic set of rules to operate under. I have to ask, what do you think the first rule should be?” Despite the blinding anger that seemed to be clouding my perception, I moved to pull out a small hidden drawer at the side of my desk. Reaching inside to grab a small notepad and a pen, I flopped them down on the desk before pushing the keyboard back towards the screen to give me the room I needed to write comfortably.

  The second that the question left Robbie’s mouth, all the people in the call began to whisper. Murmuring with their significant others or talking to themselves as they debated what they thought was most important. Beside me, Cal’s fingers drummed idly on the arm of my chair and had my eye twitching in time with the even, methodical beat that he produced. Still, without stopping to think, I answered my best friend with an almost knee jerk response.

  “Never go anywhere alone.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as the call went silent again. In less than ten minutes I had reduced the normally busy, jovial atmosphere of our call into complete and utter silence.

  Despite my mood, it had not been my intention to cause the whole of the call to come to a standstill. Admittedly, at this point I couldn’t be sure if no one commented because they saw me as a raving loon or some other reason. Seconds stretched out in silence and that small inherent feeling of discomfort began to settle in.

  Guilt pulled at the back of my mind. I knew that I’d caused this with my rant. That maybe the others were not so inclined to speak after I had torn into Alec. It didn’t matter if I happened to be right, the sad fact was I had openly attacked him in front of everyone. My shoulders slipped forward and I bowed my head, not that such an action could be seen by any of them, but I knew that I had done this. Less than a day into the zombie apocalypse and I had already started fraying the edges of our group.

  “Sorry.” I blurted out. Whether it was an apology for pretty much interjecting a rule without the others having a say or my actions earlier, I couldn’t really tell you. I did know that I held my breath waiting for an answer.

  “For what?” Jay said, this time I could sense a hint of amusement in his voice. My shoulders relaxed, he was still here so maybe that indicated I had not been too far off the mark with what I’d said earlier. You couldn’t be mad with someone for telling the truth, could you? Jay’s next words pretty much comforted me on that fact as he threw in his two cents, “It’s a good rule.”

  No mention of defending Alec or attacking me over it. Just commenting on the rule that I had blurted into the open without anything to act as a warning. Breathing a sigh of relief, I slumped back in my chair again as everything seemed to come to life once more.

  “I definitely agree on this one.” Brandon offered up. “I mean, what better way to make sure we stay alive than to be sure we have someone with us to watch our back?”

  “Pretty much.” Dave spoke evenly. His normally light hearted banter seemingly absent as he mulled over what had been said. “We already know that these…things have been spotted in more than one place. One as far up as here in Canada. So, we have to assume they’re everywhere. If we keep others with us, it’ll be safer in the long run.”

  “Especially this early in the game.” Ray spoke up, while she may have been soft spoken a majority of the time, when she did speak, it normally held a ring of absolute truth. “A lot of people will get themselves stranded or in trouble because they panic and head out alone. Deciding to partner up will help stop us from panicking and focus on singular goals.”

  Several murmurs of assent were given when Ray had finished and already I could see that we were all starting to gravitate towards our one centralized goal. Even if we were all shaken and irate, the problem that loomed before us was something far more devastating. Sadly, we all knew that to survive we had to work together.

  “All valid points.” Robbie interjected, his voice evening out some as everyone seemed to chime back in. “So, should we make this our number one rule for right now?”

  “I think we should.” Alec piped up and that small ticking irritation I had with him made itself known rather quickly. I fought the urge to snap at him by biting into my lower lip hard enough to draw blood while I waited on the others.

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I agree.”

  One by one everyone sounded off until it was back down to me. Considering it happened to be my own idea about a rule, I knew I couldn’t say no out of spite. I did consider it. The fact that it had been Alec to jump in and say that it should be our first rule after he spent so much time trying to say I was wrong so he could be selfish, left me with the need to hit back.

  However, I chose to do what I always did where he was concerned. I shut my mouth and went along with it just to make things easier.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise.” Grumbling out the words, again, I found myself going still as Cal’s hand moved to rest on my arm.

  As annoyed as I was with him, the action was reassuring. In Robbie’s physical absence from my vicinity sometimes, even with our open line of communication via the internet, it’s hard to really find comfort in much. There was much that could be said in having someone there beside you, offering something as simple as a kind gesture could be very reassuring when you’re having a difficult time.

  The fact the man was even trying to calm or comfort me in some way had my anger quietly abating. Not that it would have taken much, but his actions definitely helped. Giving a soft sigh of resignation, my hand moved to write on the notepad before me.

  The next two hours went by like a blur. Between debates taking place with all the others and trying to manage a makeshift chicken and rice casserole upstairs in the interim, I managed to keep track of the rules that were being proposed one by one. Some passed and some didn’t, but by the time I was carrying two bowls downstairs for my guest and I to eat, it seemed that the conversation had finally wrapped itself up.

  I wrinkled my nose a bit as the rubbery chicken touched my tongue. Cursing myself for overcooking it because I was distracted down here. At some point, I must have made a gagging sound because Robbie almost immediately spoke.

  “Angel? What’s going on?” It was more a command than a question. I almost smirked a little before I pushed the bowl away from me in favor of picking my pen back up.

  “Got distracted, o
vercooked the chicken and it’s a rubbery mass of gross. So… we decide on anything else?” I asked in reply, more than willing to avert the group from the subject of my culinary faux pas.

  “Nope, think that about covers it.” Dave said in a voice that said he was more than a little pleased with himself.

  “Shit, has anyone been writing these down?” Alec groused, sounding more than a little annoyed.

  “Yes, I have.” I answered back, keeping the reply as short as possible so I didn’t have to deal with him anymore than I had to this evening.

  “Alright then, I say we go over the rules as we have them at the moment and then move on to our plans for tomorrow. Sound like a plan to everyone?” Robbie chimed in, likely because he heard the absolute level of annoyance in my voice.

  Robbie’s recommendation was met with a chorus of agreements. Sighing a little as I peered down at the notepad before I drew in a breath. One by one, I read through the list of rules that had been born of hours of discussion and frustration so that others could hear.

  Rule 1: Never go anywhere alone.

  Rule 2: No matter the objective, if it’s too risky to achieve without putting yourself in danger, leave it be and report back to the group.

  Rule 3: If you’re outnumbered by anything (zombie, human, or otherwise) by a ratio of two to one, withdraw from the situation and hunker down until you get an all clear.

  Rule 4: Silence is golden. We do not speak of the plans we make or who we are connected to. This is paramount to acquiring the things we need and staying safe.

  Rule 5: Populated areas such as major cities are to be avoided when at all possible.

  Rule 6: Everyone will check in once a day via messaging, Skype, or phone calls while all utilities remain active.

  Rule 7: Everyone is responsible for acquiring their own equipment to aid in their survival until the rendezvous.

  Rule 8: Everyone will be assigned a subject to research and become proficient in. No exceptions.

  Rule 9: Our lives are not worth the lives of others. Do not put yourself at risk to help a stranger in a fruitless endeavor.

  Rule 10: Anyone who brings in a new person to the group will have to have them approved. Our resources will be limited and everyone has to pull their own weight.

  Rule 11: All rules subject to change based on the severity of the situation we are facing. Any changes made will be done by group consensus.

  Rule 12: These rules will be subject to review once the group has rendezvoused. At that time, the group will convene and decide on baseline rules for the communal area.

  Rule 13: Remaining in contact is imperative to our survival. Everyone will find a way to acquire a satellite radio or CB Radio system so that contact can continue after the loss of utilities.

  Of all the numbers for us to stop on, it had to be unlucky thirteen. A wise woman would have realized this happened to be a sign of just what lay on the road ahead. I did not happen to be that woman and had no clue of just what challenges we would face.

  In that particular moment, as I finished reading the list of rules we’d chartered, I felt a sense of accomplishment. If nothing else, I now had guidelines for the game plan and that more than anything had me slowly calming down so I could be lucid for the next part of the conversation.

  “So, are we all good with these?” I asked softly.

  The others chimed in with their various ways of saying ‘yes’ and I smiled a little to myself as I set the pen down on top of my notepad. It was then Robbie brought us to our next point of order.

  “Well then, it’s time to discuss tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five – The Day After

  Friday dawned with a sense of impending doom that had me staring up at my ceiling for almost an hour before the phone beside me rang. I hadn’t even crawled into bed until three in the morning, but that fact had apparently escaped my mind. Instead of sleeping in to make up for the time I had lost, my brain had automatically clicked on at almost precisely seven o’clock.

  I felt like hell. Last night after we had doled out assignments for the next day, I’d had to spend the next hour and a half out on my side lawn in the dark with Cal, using plastic bags to scrape up zombie boy. While I suppose I could have left him out there to be found, the last thing I wanted was Teena Hawthorne delaying my day by calling the cops on me.

  It had only been after we double bagged the body that I’d realized we had nowhere to really put it. Because of the curfew we couldn’t walk across the complex and dump him in the garbage dumpster. God knew, with my luck, doing that would probably have me dragged in on homicide charges on Teena’s say so. Any thought of disposal would have to wait until morning so that left us with the problem of where exactly we should put the kid’s remains.

  In the end, we opted to carry him out into the woods behind my duplex. Since he’d come from there with no one noticing him, we figured there’d be little chance anyone would roll through there looking. When we were done, I had left Cal on my sofa with fresh sheets and a pillow while I took my third shower of the day.

  What sleep I had managed to get was plagued with images of Zombie boy and Ms. Gush and Flow from the lobby. At some point it had gotten bad enough that I’d tangled the sheets up around my torso so tightly I couldn’t breathe. All in all, a restless night with very little sleep on the tail end of a day chock full of annoyance had left me drained.

  So, there I remained, lying in my bed and debating the wisdom of even trying to move when the phone on my bedside table began to ring. It was a very tempting thought to let the answering machine pick it up. Unfortunately, I happened to be more than aware if I didn’t answer, Robbie would likely be blowing up every single form of electronic device that I owned to try and get locate me.

  Knowing that I’d much rather deal with him on a happy note, I rolled onto my side and yanked the phone off the cradle.

  “Morning, sweety!” Again, much as I loved him, Robbie was entirely too cheerful for someone experiencing the horror of an impending zombie apocalypse.

  “Morning.” I grumbled as I rolled onto my back. Propping my head on a pillow as I closed my eyes and gave a soft sigh before I continued, “So, what are the chances I’ll actually get back to sleep at this point?”

  “Most likely, nil.” He answered quickly before giving a long suffering huff, “Tell me you didn’t sleep in that god awful chair again.”

  “I did not sleep in that god awful chair again.” The minute the words left my mouth and I heard their bite, I felt a twinge of guilt. Sleep deprivation and stress had me in a foul mood and taking it out on my best friend first thing would not make matters any better. “Ugh, sorry hun. I’m just dead tired. Did you sleep alright?”

  “I did for a while. Then I remembered you never told me what you guys did with the body. You can’t just leave something like that…,” Robbie trailed off, his voice going silent as if he had no idea what to really say.

  “Out.” I finished for him. “Yeah, I realized that about the time we all got off the Skype call. Still thinking of what exactly to do with it, but the spooner and I double bagged him before dragging the body back out into the woods.”

  “Are you sure that’s safe? I mean, won’t somebody go there to look for him?” Robbie’s voice rose an octave. I could understand his discomfort. Leaving a body in the woods of a housing development wasn’t exactly the world’s best idea.

  “Not especially, but I’m betting on luck in some ways. With all this curfew shit, people will be rushing out and running around for supplies. Considering this guy had been dead at least a day when he wandered up into my yard, I’m betting that I have at least today before I really need to start worrying about it.” Yawning a little, I opened my eyes to stare at the stippling of paint on my ceiling.

  “You’re taking a huge risk.” Robbie whispered softly.

  “I know, but I don’t really have a choice. Not if I want to do this right. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like nothing better than to act like a decent
human being and call the cops. Give this guy a name and get him back to his family for a proper burial. But looking at this realistically, the cops already have their hands full handling a situation they don’t have all the information on.

  “If I were to get them involved at this late date, it’d tie me up in knots being down at the precinct while they got to the bottom of things. That’s if they even take me seriously and don’t throw me into the nuthouse for a crazy story about the undead. Like I said, there are far more important things I need to worry about and get done.” For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to be back in my hometown. To be sitting across from Robbie at that very moment while we had this conversation. God knows that would have been so much easier than sitting here confessing my worries to him and knowing neither of us could do jack shit about it.

  “I don’t like the idea of you up there trying to juggle this all by yourself. You know that body being so close to your home could eventually come back to bite you in the ass.” Robbie whispered. I couldn’t help but smile as I realized that even now he did that as if it were some secret that he could keep guarded.

  “I know. It is a huge risk - but it’s a lot better than losing the day or more by tying myself up with law enforcement. Emergency Services is probably still going to be jam packed with calls all day. They’ll be shuffling people into hospitals and creating concentrated areas of possible victims. I have to use as much time as I can possibly manage to get the things I need. I can worry about all the rest of this stuff later.” Even though I was only speaking with him, my voice now held a pleading note. What I happened to be asking for, I couldn’t really tell you.

  “Be careful. Keep in mind you need to be rid of that body as soon as possible. And I do mean sooner rather than later. Especially if you’re right about what is going to happen with all these people packed into the hospitals up there.” Hearing Robbie sigh, I knew he was just as frustrated as I was with everything that was going on. The distance between us may as well have been the whole of the ocean since everything in the world around us was starting to turn chaotic.