We took along a crowbar and some duct tape to help with getting inside Flynn’s. We armed ourselves as we did the day before with the exception of Ruth Ann’s hatchet, which was still where she dropped it. We folded up a plastic garbage bag and put it into a backpack along with flashlights and some nitrile gloves. On the way back from Flynn’s we planned to retrieve the hatchet and arrow left between our house and the Boetche’s.
We made it to Boetche’s house without incident. I got a look at the monsters Ruth Ann had dispatched the previous day. Continuing past them quickly was the only thing that saved me from retching from the sight and smell. We hugged the side of the house and stopped to regain our breath. We listened. Hearing nothing we inched to the front corner of the house. Peaking around, we could see the front of Flynn’s house to the north. All was quiet. We stayed there to watch and listen for ten minutes anyway. This sort of slow movement with stops for watching and listening (and sniffing) was recommended in several of the zombie apocalypse survival guides we read. This advice was spot on.
We went back around the rear of the Boetche’s house to head over to the Flynn’s through their backyards. Staying in both house’s backyards minimized the time we’d be exposed to ground we hadn’t watched closely over the past month.
We reached the edge of the tall wild grass opening up to the Flynn house. Their raised deck was ahead of us, entering their second floor. The Flynn’s stored their grill and other fair weather equipment under the deck.
I motioned to Ruth Ann to pause. We crouched down and watched. Something was swaying in the breeze in the shadows under of the deck. Except just then there was no breeze. Ruth Ann readied her bow. We crept closer.
We could see it now. What had apparently been a woman in a smart bloodstained suit rocked slowly back and forth shifting her weight from leg to leg. She had immense ugly slashes across what may once have been an attractive face. It appeared her throat had been ripped out. We heard it rasp, forcing air into its chest in an effort to bellow at us. As it started in our direction it tried to snarl but all that came out was hiss. Ruth Ann put her projectile through the thing’s forehead at its hairline. The force of the impact snapped the top of the creature’s skull clean off. It staggered but didn’t stop. It closed the distance between us quickly again putting to a lie the claim our zombies were “slow.” Ruth Ann notched another arrow and loosed it through the creature’s gaping mouth. It dropped.
“Shot too high,” Ruth Ann whispered. We remained crouched in the tall grass watching and listening for a few minutes. I had to pee. We had used two arrows. On the way back we’d want to retrieve these too.
We left the grass and made our way to the deck and up the stairs. We crouched at the sliding glass patio door and looked inside. Nothing appeared to be amiss. Using the duct tape, I taped a circle larger than the diameter of my fist and forearm near where the lock would be. With Ruth Ann keeping watch behind us, I smashed the glass through the center of the ring of tape using the pointy end of the crowbar. The outer glass broke nicely but the inner glass, without a border reinforced by duct tape made a lot of noise. Fortunately the intact outer glass muffled the sound to the outside of the house. Anything inside would now be aware of us.
Again we waited and listened. Nothing stirred. I gave a last look inside then reached in and undid the lock. I tried the door but it moved only an inch before stopping with a thud. The Flynn’s had placed a wooden strip in the door’s track to prevent what I was trying right now. Given the additional reach advantage of a break in the glass it was easy enough to flip the strip out of the track with the crowbar.
Upon opening the door, it chimed. Somewhere in the house an alarm status panel started beeping. If I didn’t find the panel and disarm the alarm it was likely that a claxon would sound. We had heard the Flynn’s alarm before when they set it off accidentally. It was designed to draw attention to the house, attention we did not want. If it was like our house’s alarm system, I’d have less than 60 seconds to disarm it.
Since I didn’t know their codes, I would have to find their alarm box and disconnect its battery backup. The power grid was gone so the system must be running off its lead acid battery. I bolted into the house to follow the sound. Ruth Ann raced up the deck stairs after me. Later, in the most loving way possible, she chewed me out for running headlong into a space we knew nothing about. I felt flush when I realized I could have been running into the waiting arm or arms of the undead.
Fortunately, the Flynn’s house was truly vacant. I followed the beeping to its source; an alarm panel placed just like ours next to the door between the house and garage. But where was the battery? Unlike Hollywood computer geeks I can’t just tap keys on the panel until I exclaim “I’m in!”
Like our house the laundry room is right next to the garage and, like our house, the alarm cabinet was in the laundry room closet. I opened the cabinet and removed one battery lead. No more beeps. After another moment’s thought, I took the whole battery.
We next secured the deck door behind us and began our search of the house. We knew Flynn’s home office was in the basement. That was our first guess as to where the bow and supplies would be found. This time Ruth Ann took the lead armed with her carbine. I pointed the flashlight from behind her. It would have been nice if we had a weapon mounted light. Put that on the list of “needs.” Our caution proved unnecessary as the basement was clear.
Flynn’s bow, a complicated and scary looking compound thing, was mounted on the wall. Below it, mounted vertically was a T-shaped contraption with a rifle stock. Flynn had a crossbow. All I knew about crossbows is that they looked really cool and that a Pope had outlawed them in the 12th century.
In the office closet we found three sealed boxes of five crossbow bolts each and one open box missing two bolts. There were also two boxes of a dozen carbon fiber arrows each and some supplies including more than a dozen razor sharp broad heads. We had found what we came for.
We didn’t want to push our luck too much and went back upstairs to head home. On the way we stopped in the kitchen and pantry and found a supply of canned goods and non-perishables large enough to warrant a future trip back even after filling our pack. There was a large jar of instant coffee. I considered leaving it but only for a moment. Unlike before the war, instant coffee was now better than no coffee.
Our backpack full, Ruth Ann made her way down the deck’s stairs and covered me while I closed and flipped the lock on the sliding door. Even with the hole in the door allowing ready access to the lock we knew the dead lacked the thought to make use of it. They’d just go through the door.
On our way back, Ruth Ann put on the nitrile gloves and pulled the arrows she’d expended out from their resting places and picked up her hatchet. It was disgusting but the woman I married was remarkable. We arrived back at our house without event. We left the garbage bag with the contaminated weapons out front. We brought the backpack in but didn’t unpack it. Instead we set out with our ladder to the Boetche’s garage.
We had the IR illuminator to set up along with its improvised power supply. I am sure we looked like idiots carrying a 10-foot ladder with ourselves laden with bows and guns stopping from time to time to look and listen. Fortunately there was no one there to snicker.
It was getting late. I was still on the roof finishing orienting the illuminator towards our house. There was a low beating noise; we froze.
“Doug, get down here we’re leaving now!” barked Ruth Ann.
“Wait, listen. It’s a helicopter!”
Quickly, out of the east three Blackhawk helicopters came zooming low. Two of them had weapons on little wings sprouting from their sides. The third had legs connected to soldiers dangling out of its sides. We were dumbfounded.
My first thought was that I didn’t want them to shoot us like random water buffalo in a rice paddy (great movie). And, I didn’t want to make it look like we were desperately in need of rescue. We had already said no many times to the National Guard.
I did the only neutral thing I could think of.
I stood up straight and saluted.
As the helicopters passed I could see a lot of heads slowly turning to look at us. They may have been as dumbfounded as we were.
As we headed back to our house I said to Ruth Ann, “At least they weren’t black.”
“What?”
“Black helicopters, those were green.”
“So?”
“In the movies bad things always happen when black helicopters are around.”
“I see,” she said.
It was just about dark and we were out of range to connect to the house’s security cameras to help ensure we had no unexpected company. We left the ladder up figuring the undead couldn’t make use of it. This allowed us to get back to the house sooner while there was still light.
That night after buttoning up we had a good dinner including fresh salad from the roof and opened a bottle of wine. We were both overjoyed at seeing functioning troops again and at our success in locating some much needed supplies (bow supplies, food and coffee). I checked the security cameras and was pleased to see the new IR emitter on the Boetche’s garage gave us a nighttime view all the way to their house.
We hadn’t listened to the radio yet today so we tuned in to the update. A horde had finally come out of the Twin Cities. It crossed the river and was headed into Wisconsin rather than away. America’s Dairyland was not catching any breaks. Karma no doubt, since the plague was a Wisconsin export.
The Twin Cities horde was estimated at two million. Add this to Chicago B and hordes in Wisconsin totaled six million walking dead.
The helicopters we saw were heading west to join what the authorities were calling a “thinning operation.”
Dealing with a horde that numbered in the millions, wasn’t as simple as going out there with guns blazing. Terrain had to work in your favor to cause the horde to bunch up. Sort of “would you mind standing closer together please so my weapons will be more effective?”
We were both curious if we could make out anything about where the helicopters were going or what they were up to. We bundled up as it was getting pretty cold at night. Bringing our binoculars we had a seat on the roof and looked west. In the dark under some cloud cover we could see flashes and glows of orange across a broad swath of the horizon. These filled enough of the horizon for us to know it couldn’t be just the three Blackhawks we saw. There were other forces out there acting in concert.
We couldn’t hear anything except the breeze. Using the binoculars didn’t help. We could see only glows. Some changed suddenly brighter or darker others just glowed. We watched for a while but did not make out any details.
The faint sound of the helicopters came upon us. We could see three tiny dark holes moving against the glowing background. When they were no longer backed by the glowing horizon we couldn’t see them at all but we could hear them getting closer. Soon we could see three sets of dim running lights blinking.
When they neared, two kept moving east. One circled slowly around the house.
It was close enough to be really loud. We didn’t dare raise a rifle in their direction so Ruth Ann detached its night scope and raised just that to her eye. I knew that in their night vision gear we were probably the brightest thing for miles around. The helicopter made a complete circuit of the house and continued its way eastward.
Ruth Ann said the helicopter was marked United States Army and was one of the ones with the wings for weapons on its sides. The side doors were closed but Ruth Ann could make out the shape of the pilot examining us. Before they left, the pilot gave her a slow wave.
We didn’t go hunting on Sunday morning (Day 32), as we had hoped. On checking the cameras, in addition to many agitated dead, we saw something that rocked us back on our heels. There was a person lying propped up on both elbows on the Boetche’s garage roof next to the IR emitter we put up the day before. He had pulled up the ladder we left standing.
We quickly dressed and rushed up to the roof with our binoculars, both the carbine and hunting rifle and Ruth Ann’s bow. Immediately upon opening the roof door we could hear the dead bellowing. We kept out of sight. I poked up just high enough to look through the binoculars. Ruth Ann did the same through the hunting rifle’s scope.
We counted a baker’s dozen dead visible from our vantage point. Presently a fourteenth staggered into view from around the garage. Then a fifteenth appeared. And then still more. The person on the roof was doomed unless we helped.
The dead don’t scream like people. There were almost no consonants in their noises, just long vicious vowels. The din was continuous with each individual pausing only to draw in a resupply of air to immediately force out again in the form of soulless scream. Even though it was cold, no steam came from their exhales. They were just as cold as the air they ejected.
Through our glasses we could see what looked like spit flying. It was probably bits of whatever was in their mouths because we’ve never seen them drink anything but blood. They grabbed at the air but could not gain purchase on the siding. Neither could they reach the garage’s roof gutters. Even if they could they would probably just rip them down rather than be able to use them to climb up.
The person bundled up on the roof was safe for the moment if he could keep himself relatively calm and do nothing stupid. The thought of this reminded me of an old saying of something like “If you can keep your calm while those around you…” go nuts or something. I added silently “you must be on a roof surrounded by zombies.”
“That’s Ryan,” Ruth Ann exclaimed.
“Who?”
“Ryan! Ryan Boetche. He used to mow our lawn for shit’s sake.”
“Oh yeah…”
Ruth Ann was about to shout out to Ryan but I stopped her.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What do you mean “What am I doing?”. That’s our neighbor’s kid. We have to help him.”
“Just invite him in? What if he’s infected? What if he doesn’t know he’s infected?”
“What are you saying? We’re not leaving him out there.”
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying we have to think this through. We have to have a plan. We’re alive because we think. If we want to stay alive we can’t go off halfcocked.”
“We have to let him know help is coming.”
“And, we have to get him in on the plan as soon as we figure one out.” We looked at each other. Then it hit me.
“Do you have your phone?”
“It’s down stairs.”
“Go get it. Get a tablet too. And put a small bottle of water in a plastic grocery bag, we still have some of those right? Who knows when he drank last? And an energy bar. But the bottle has to be small, OK?”
We both moved for the door downstairs.
“OK. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to fly a care basket over to him.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
I rejoined Ruth Ann on the roof. She had what I asked for. I trailed behind me an Ethernet cable and held an old Linksys access point with its power brick. When I had taken the old blue box out of service it was configured as a bridge and none of our security settings had changed. The phone and tablet should simply connect. I plugged in the box and connected the LAN cable. Shielding the box from the sun, I confirmed the status lights looked good.
“Doug, what the hell are you doing?”
“Ryan is safe for the time being. We have to be able to talk to him without attracting the dead’s attention.”
“The phones don’t work.”
“They have WIFI. Remember the email server I set up? If we get him a phone hooked up to our network we can email him.”
“How are you going to get him the phone?”
“I told you, I’m going to fly it to him. Trust me.”
I ducked downstairs again and came back up with my hexacopter and radio controller. If you aren’t familiar with hexac
opters think “personal UAV.”
I set it down.
“Put this, the bottle, a phone and the energy bar in the grocery bag and tie it shut.” I handed her a note folded over with README written on the outside. She did as I asked while I prepped for flight. I took the bag and gave it a quick heft.
“No problem. It weighs less than my camera.”
My hexacopter could carry a payload of a few pounds enough for a small DSLR and lens. I looped the bag’s handles through the hexacopter’s undercarriage and lifted off slowly. The bag remained attached and rose along with the hexacopter.
Ryan saw it immediately and got to his feet. The creatures were so engrossed in howling for Ryan’s blood and banging on the garage that they didn’t notice the hexacopter until it was over them. They reached up for it and bellowed louder but of course couldn’t reach it.
I couldn’t land the hexacopter because of the pitch of the garage roof. I hovered the drone a little above Ryan’s head. He reached up and unhooked that bag carefully. I lifted the drone up higher and started it back to us.
He opened the bag. He read the note first (good boy), took the phone out, looked at it and signaled thumbs up confirming the phone was connected to our WIFI. The trip had taken only a few minutes but the hexacopter’s batteries don’t last long. I needed the thing for step two of my plan. On landing the hexacopter I put its batteries into a rapid power dump and recharge. I could trust them again in forty five minutes.
I tapped out an email:
“Sit tight. We need time to plan. Are you bitten or scratched or sick?”
I read it to Ruth Ann and sent it to the other phone. I told Ruth Ann, “You know we can’t trust his answers. If he’s scared he’ll say anything.”
“I know. We need a way to keep him isolated for a while.”
Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel Page 7