The radio informed us that our troops had reached Sturgeon Bay. To its northwest, disinfection of Door County was complete within a high degree of confidence. Between Sturgeon Bay and Washington Island, refugees from the greater Lake Michigan area could start settling in.
Ruth Ann brought up an interesting point this evening.
“I think when the plague is over the country will be more Republican,” she said.
“Seriously, that’s what you’re thinking about? Zombies prefer the taste of liberals?” The freakishly tall anorexic blonde occasionally on Fox News had actually said this early on.
“I am being serious. Look, the higher the population density like in a city, the higher the death rate. If it is true that cities lean more Liberal than rural areas, then percentagewise we’re losing more Democrats than Republicans.”
She continued, “It is going to change Congress completely! Let’s say New York loses ninety percent of its population but Wyoming only loses twenty because there is nobody there anyway. Wyoming’s Congressional delegation is going to be larger relative to New York’s than it is today.”
It was then I smelled the aroma of Denny and Meg’s prize winning “herb.”
I hadn’t touched the stuff and wouldn’t be going to. Like all ‘modern” Presidents, I had tried marijuana in college. In fact, I tried it really hard. In the end though the stuff just made my skin crawl.
I kept Ruth Ann company but from across the room so as not to pick up a contact buzz. There was enough skin crawling outside, I didn’t need any in here too.
I did help Ruth Ann polish off the last of our Oreos.
Nothing much happened for the next few days. We did maintenance around the house, watched our surveillance system and spent a good deal of time on the roof. The greenhouse smelled really “normal”. Nothing had changed inside that enclosure and that was comforting.
On the radio it was announced that the remains of the nation of Japan was now sea based. Not much else was said about conditions around the world.
Ruth Ann observed that either they didn’t know what was going on (which would be bad) or they didn’t want to tell us (which would also be bad).
The same could be said about conditions in the other Administrative Zones. Reports about anywhere except this area were few. On the plus side, there wouldn’t be any of the rumors like such and such amusement park in California was still operating causing people to trek across the country at great risk to themselves for no actual gain.
One ray of sunshine: It was now accepted as fact that the virus could not live airborne in freezing temperatures. For the remainder of the winter season, infection could only happen by bite or scratch.
On Tuesday (Day 27), it had been a week since we picked up a signal on our police scanner. We hadn’t been away from our property in quite a while and cabin fever had definitely set in. We wanted to see what was going on beyond our own horizon.
We made a plan to visit a nearby medical clinic to see if there were any supplies we might be able to take. My rationalizations had progressed to the point that it wasn’t looting unless you were taking something from an actually living person. This way we could feel good about ourselves as we committed larceny and also feel good about ourselves for having killed four men almost two weeks before.
There was an enormous warehouse distribution center a few miles in the other direction. It would be nice to visit there too but the risks involved seemed too great for just Ruth Ann and me. The company that owned it was famous for never having a floor walker around when you needed one to help you find something. Ruth Ann and I both wondered how many ghouls could be found walking the warehouse’s aisles now. We weren’t in that dire a need for the beef jerky that would almost certainly be found there but the building supplies would have been nice.
The last time either of us had left the immediate area of the house, Ruth Ann had gone alone to get ammunition. That was ages ago when there were still living people around. We didn’t want to risk leaving the house empty back then.
Now, with zombies found right outside, we actually felt safer both being away. We had a good solid house and watch zombies to keep people from casually wandering around trying doors. Besides, it would be too dangerous now for one person to go into a building without someone else covering them.
We packed up the Volvo and watched the cameras for a few minutes. Seeing nothing stirring I lifted the garage door while Ruth Ann pulled the car out. I locked up and we started on our way. We decided to avoid the main road and head to town the back way.
We didn’t get very far before we came upon a two car wreck on 10th street just over a hill. We had been driving slowly so stopping before joining the wreck ourselves wasn’t an issue. I never got why characters in zombie books were always speeding from place to place often getting into wrecks of their own making. With no zombies behind us, the only possible danger was in front. Why hurry into it?
We scanned all around us while Ruth Ann idled. From where we were, it wasn’t clear there was a way through but it was clear there was movement inside one of the cars. To go forward we’d have to get a better look. I pocketed the revolver and took our crowbar. After zipping up to leave the warmth of the car, I stepped outside.
The vehicle closest to us was an empty pickup truck, driver’s side door open. It had partially crossed the yellow line and crashed the driver’s side corner of another pickup. It seemed everybody around here drove pickups. Some pickups were working trucks, hauling what they were intended for. Most though were just shiny toys.
In this case, the proverbial shiny red truck had a dull red to black interior coating of dried blood. With my crowbar ready to jab through a skull, I looked into the open door. Apart from the caked blood there was a tennis shoe, incongruously clean and appropriate for a teenage girl on the floor of the driver’s side but nothing else.
The other car involved in the collision, another pickup, was an older model that was clearly a working truck. What had formerly been the working man that worked it was still inside seat belted with its windows rolled up. Clearly the temperature swings inside the car had not been kind. The rotted putrid hulk banged on every accessible surface keeping its eyes riveted upon me. With its windows rolled up there was only the dull banging and muffled moaning to be heard even from a dozen feet away.
Fortunately, zombies don’t operate seatbelts or door locks; the ghoul wasn’t going anywhere. I shifted the shiny red truck into neutral. The hardest part of shoving the truck backwards into the ditch on the side of the road was getting it over the road’s crown. That and ignoring the raging zombie behind me. In short order the road was clear. As we drove past I half expected the other truck’s driver to twist his head right around like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. It didn’t happen.
We passed a large dairy building where cows came to get milked. There were no animals in sight. In fact, we hadn’t seen any of the cows, horses, goats or even llamas that we usually saw along the road. On the exterior wall was sloppily painted
“God forgive me”
The screen door and interior door to the nearby house were both busted down.
After the local elementary school there was a dense crop of trees close to the road on either side. Ruth Ann didn’t feel comfortable heading into it. She nosed in, far enough to see another wreck just around the bend in the road.
We backed up and went through the elementary school’s parking lot side stepping the blocked bend in the road. The parking lots of the elementary school, high school and the middle school I was preparing the Raspberry Pi’s for, were in disarray. Things were not looking good.
We turned left to get back to US 12 passing several houses that were boarded up. It was impossible to tell if anyone was inside. One home had burned to the ground. Near it lay decomposing corpses. One was headless, the other missing limbs.
Left again onto 12 we wanted to complete the loop back towards our house by stopping at the medical clinic just east of us.
As we made the turn we saw several statue like ghouls snap their heads in our direction. Immediately they began to move towards us. We easily opened up the distance even going as slowly as we were.
From where we were we could see about a thousand feet down the road in the direction of the clinic and home. We quickly determined we would not be stopping for supplies.
Dozens of walking dead, were in sequence, becoming aware of us and beginning to shuffle towards the Volvo.
“Doug, what do we do?”
“Go slow, don’t panic. Seriously, slow down!” I said urgently.
“What?”
“Slow down! Put the car in low gear – we’ll push through them!”
Our car was of the four-wheel drive variety. I knew from seeing enough deer strikes on the local news that if we panicked and sped up we would disable the car and die.
We saw each and every face that still had one. We saw the missing limbs, the ripped bellies with no intestines to fall through. We saw the gouges, the tears and bites. We heard the screaming, moaning, whines and wails. The pounding on the windows was worst with mangled heads pressed against the glass.
We kept moving at a slow and steady pace. We slowly knocked some over that fell like the last bowling pin to go down on a lucky strike. We drove over them. We dragged some until they wore away on the pavement. We didn’t stop.
We didn’t stop until we got home.
We spent the rest of the day washing the car with a pressure washer and dilute bleach. The car’s finish might suffer from the bleach. Might not. We didn’t know. We didn’t care.
Day 28 is lost to both Ruth Ann and I. All we remember about this day is sleeping a lot and the radio updates which included information that would change our lives forever.
Down in Puerto Rico things had come to a standstill. Now, all efforts were being put into holding the ground already gained (which wasn’t much) while systematically sealing all sewers and storm drains. Too many recurrences of outbreaks were being caused by undead rising from underground tunnels in areas already thought disinfected.
Troops moving southwest in Door County were halted too after isolating the larger town of Algoma.
Much of rural Wisconsin is on well and septic, as we are here at the house. However, even small towns had storm water runoff tunnels and larger towns had sewer systems. Any underground passageway that could not be welded shut had to be blocked by detonation or other immovable means. Potential flooding in the future and even having to find safe alternative means of waste disposal was easily more bearable than undead popping up again today.
Ruth Ann and I were comforted by the subtext. Experience and knowledge was being shared at a national level and tactics continued to evolve and improve.
The big news, what made this day’s update so memorable, is that massive hordes had begun their march out of the greater Chicago-land area. With all food consumed or converted into their own kind, seven million undead split into two groups called Chicago A and B. Four million were headed to Wisconsin.
“What can that possibly look like? How can anything survive?” Ruth Ann said.
“I don’t know. The plague of locusts from the Old Testament? Herds of bison in the early days on the prairie? I don’t know. I hope we don’t find out.”
Go figure it was Halloween night (Thursday Day 29) when we had our first trick-or-treaters. Ruth Ann and I were buttoned up for the night. We were upstairs in the blacked out kitchen. The room was dimly illuminated only by a laptop and a hand cranked LED camp light on its lowest setting. The live security DVR was full screen. Our police scanner was on low volume but was silent as it had been for days.
Since our aborted trip to town, Ruth Ann and I hadn’t ventured outside much and were spooked by any sound or perceived movement. We were just beginning to come back to ourselves putting some grim detachment between us and the things out there.
I was leaning against the counter; Ruth Ann was at the table.
“Doug!” she said. “Look.” I quickly stepped over to her. The DVR was in its eight camera view. Each side of the house has two opposing cameras. They are oriented so that the walls of the house are just visible to one side with a wide field view of the lawn to the other.
There they were.
A tom turkey and five hens moved with purpose to the northwest. They didn’t stop here and there to feed like I have seen them do when I drove past them a million years ago. I mentioned this to Ruth Ann. She said, “They’re not scanning side to side. They are moving away from something behind them.”
Then we could see a figure slowly walking at the limits of the IR illuminator of camera three (northeast view on the eastern face of the house). With each step it became better lit. Then we could see it in the second northeast view, camera six. Its arms hung loosely at its sides. Its head angled slightly down and was canted at an odd angle. We could see it wore a flannel shirt under an open down vest. Other than not being dressed for the weather and its odd posture and gait we could see nothing amiss. The former person looked fine. I felt let down.
It continued slowly to the northwest. Then a woman came into view heading the same way. It was a mess. Its forehead was caked darkly and its hair was matted on the left side. Its head was turned sharply to the left and up. As it walked closer to camera six, I clicked to make that camera full screen. Its face was oriented square to the lens. Its mouth was open, jaw slack. Dark stains were obvious from its mouth down its chin, torso, sleeves and hands. Its eyes glowed white in the infrared light.
I no longer felt let down.
We sat in stunned silence. We had driven through a mass of undead just the other day but this was different even if much less dangerous. While the corpses we passed in the car and even bumped into were horrible, we were focused purely on escape. Now, watching the undead pass slowly in black and white silence one by one we were focused exclusively on them.
I felt Ruth Ann’s hand take hold of mine. I could feel her pulse, maybe it was mine I don’t know. We just sat there watching as it passed under the view of camera six. With a click of the down arrow, camera five looking northwest showed the man disappearing into the night followed by the woman, its head almost looking back at us.
The cameras had audio too but we could listen to just one at a time. Full screen on camera five we heard just light wind noise. Suddenly there was a low thud, but no source in view. I selected the all-camera view again and saw a big shape getting unsteadily up from the ground on camera six. It had hit the low enclosure that protected the top of our water well. There was movement on all four cameras with easterly views now.
The creatures were heading in the same prevailing direction, trailing the turkeys. I said quietly to Ruth Ann that they looked like they were exhibiting a flocking behavior. I remembered a graphics paper from the late 1980’s describing self-organizing groups of individuals. A demo of the algorithm in the paper was called “Boids.” Individuals in a flock exhibit both attraction to and avoidance of the other individuals.
We actually saw it happen when a child with one arm missing at the shoulder passed in front a man with a gaping hole where his guts should have been. The man slowed slightly. His head tracked the motion of the girl as he plodded in his original direction. As the dead child passed, he picked up his jerky pace again veering to the girl’s direction.
In the infrared light more and more creatures filtered into view. Like coming through fog, at first they were indistinct. Their image grew clearer as they staggered closer. One face was familiar.
The creature was in a ripped nightgown with its mutilated hips and midriff showing. The tears extended upwards showing its rib cage where its right breast had been.
“Doug, is that Charlotte Krause?”
“Who is Charlotte Krause?”
“Babe. Babe Krause. She owns the yarn store. That’s her. I know her.”
Ruth Ann’s eyes narrowed. I could see anger on her face. These fucking things were here at our house. People we know. My ey
es were also fixed upon the screen. I didn’t know Babe Krause personally. Never the less, the corpse walking before us was part of our world.
Can I say the dire peril in which the human kind found itself just “became personal?” It is a cliché, but, yes. I can. Piece by piece the man whose world view was “People suck,” was disappearing. The detached technologist who processed nameless and faceless people as so many ID numbers, who helped create massive systems to buy and sell them down the river without them knowing was suddenly becoming aware of the value of just one soul.
Ruth Ann was always my connection to the human race. She cared. She nurtured. Good thing she shot stuff too or we’d have been screwed from the start.
The point is I assumed she would be more troubled being so much more in tune with human connection. It turns out my wife’s reaction headed in the other direction. As she watched her former friend head hungrily, vacuously and soullessly into the night, she became hardened.
As she grew more determined that we survive, I grew more accepting of the idea of helping others do the same. In a way, as in so many ways, we both grew on this awful night.
Mixed in with the wind noise we could hear many different unintelligible sounds emanating from the creatures. Some were monotonic. Some rose and fell in pitch. Some sounded wet while others rasped dry. There were long gutturals and short chuffs. There was no uniformity except in that none sounded entirely human.
After a while, Ruth Ann turned off the audio. Thankfully we could not hear so few of them through our walls and windows. We watched until we were stiff and our eyes burned. None of the creatures seemed to know we were here.
Our tea had long gone cold and went unfinished. We slept uneasily on our comfortable couches under piles of blankets in our well-appointed living room with a large flock of undead flowing slowly past us. The contrast was uncomfortable.
Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel Page 5