Zombie Lake: Still Alive Book One

by Javan Bonds

  Hammer was somehow able to catch the attention of all party members and lifted a finger to her mouth to remind us not to be loud. Smokes probably needed this reminder, but I’m fairly certain the rest of us realized that there were aggressive, sound sensitive, bloodthirsty monsters that might hide from the sun in easily accessible, enclosed, dark buildings like the one in front of us...which we had volunteered to enter. The Expert took point, dashing and rolling ahead of the company like she was behind enemy lines. She hid behind various pieces of cover on the few yards the journey took from "The Gorgon" to the front door, and it was readable on her face that she felt credited for our unhindered traverse across the asphalt. If I had not seen several zombies in earlier days, I would have a hard time believing this was anything more than a quiet day during a power outage and I once again nearly questioned whether there had actually been some sort of infectious outbreak; there were no bodies strewn across the parking lot, no bloody smears on the glass before us, no signs of catastrophe. While not directly in front of the doors, we were angled at the glass and were able to see through. We could glimpse nothing more than a few sunlit spots under the skylights throughout the store. We noted nothing remarkable. It was almost disappointing to see no bloody stumps or eviscerated organs; not that I really wanted to see horrible death, but it would have made me feel that there really was imminent danger, which would validate our carrying live firearms into a department store.

  At nearly every opportunity, The Oracle reminded us that he was black and that, in typical horror epics, a lone minority in a mostly white group was usually the first victim to fall at the hands of the undead, or the murderous maniac. So I’m sure I wasn’t the only one shocked when he moved to stand directly in front of the glass doors.

  "Shit’s broke." He waved both arms at the sensor and he was clearly trying to be funny, considering Smokes wasn’t stupid enough to believe the doors would open without electricity. But I would not have expected him to stand in the open like that for the sake of a lame joke. Regardless of his incessant warnings of how "the brotha gets eat first," perhaps he was able to see the timing of his own death along with everything else he had prophesied.

  The Oracle remained before the glass, confident, as The Expert abruptly broke from her hushed conversation with The Old Friend and pushed him aside with no announcement, wedging the combat knife that materialized in her hand between the doors to slide them open enough that she squeezed through and finished the job with masculine strength. It was hard to tell if she had done this merely to finish the job quickly or to prove that men were useless and inferior weaklings and that she could do this without us altogether. I’m guessing Sigmund Freud would have diagnosed her with "daddy issues." We followed her into the entrance room where there were several arcade games, a movie dispensing Red Box, and one of those stupid claw machines that is supposed to grab a stuffed animal, but never really does, although it would wind up eating tens of dollars of my hard earned quarters because my stupid Yankee ex-girlfriend begged for a cheaply made teddy bear. I could have just gone in the damn store and bought one for less and not embarrass myself with my inability to capture one with the claw.

  The party had passed through the first set of formerly-automatic doors and were partially through the entry room en route to the second set. I smiled as I realized happily that we had entered the doors on the grocery side of the building. This was one of the older super Walmart centers and had been here around twenty years; I had visited the store so many times in my life that I knew its layout almost as well as I did the house I grew up in, but until now, I had not really paid attention to which of the two sides we had approached. Three days ago, I would have attributed our entry choice to luck. Even though I was certain Hammer knew this Walmart as intimately as I and had simply decided this would be the most prudent path, I was no longer able to credit chance or even personal choice for any predicament, good or bad. I fully believed now that the writing team or the director or ultimately God had already chosen our destiny and that we would have been in the exact spot we were at the exact moment, the place we were supposed to be, regardless of our prior decisions. Once we pried the inner doors open, it was only a few dozen yards to our intended department, and I was sincerely glad we had not entered on the other side because that would have meant passing by a shitload of checkout counters and an untold number of other perfect hiding spots for peevies. This set of doors was no more of an obstacle than the first and once through, The Expert instructed the rest of us to grab one of the waiting buggies, reddening in fear that she had offended our comrade who would have been unable to do so, and then quickly changed her command to encompass only the three of us who were upwardly mobile. As if to set Hammer at ease, Bradley gestured and Mary adeptly retrieved two of the small hand baskets from a stack beside the rows of buggies. He simply hung them from the push handles on either side of the back of his chair, as I’m sure he had done every shopping day of his adult life.

  The four of us pushing buggies remained side-by-side when possible, long guns resting over handles. The Old Friend stayed close behind with his early warning system perched lightly on his shoulder, constantly watching our six. I was stunned that we had encountered absolutely no hostile humans, and it was creepy that I had not actually seen a peevie in almost twenty-four hours. Wow, I just fucking wrote that. It just feels wrong to have to be constantly wary of an enemy that never exposes himself—you can’t be sure if he is simply waiting to strike once you let your guard down or if he moved on or if he ever existed at all. Think of The Village, a thriller where these people live in an isolated little burg, always afraid of these unseen monsters that hang out in the woods nearby. This retarded kid starts killing people; it’s your typical "who’s really the enemy here?" kind of plot. Now, if he hadn’t started raging and the monsters were blue shitters...ok, maybe not the greatest movie ever, but it is a pretty good comparison. And don’t try to tell me I’m the only one who makes up alternate storylines for every movie I’ve seen. In fact, some of my reboots might even be better than the originals, so give me a call, M. Night!

  The aisle of spoiled meat almost knocked me down when we entered and only got worse with each step; I shivered at the thought of moving ever closer to the freezers and the intermingling of the two smells. I’ve always felt that I have a pretty strong stomach, but this shit was incredibly intense. It was without question that all of our troops knew the basic layout of this store from experience and we moved to the farthest aisle and would work our way through and back towards the front of the store. The most apparent problem was the rear of the grocery section, which was lined with refrigerators crammed with milk, the side wall was (from back to front) the deli, fresh meat, and fresh vegetables, while ice cream and various other frozen foods were on the first couple of aisles we passed. In other words, we were going to be surrounded by rotten, stinking food until we could not stand it—I hoped Smokes had been working on his cardio because I was going to run through this nightmare. So, the first aisle we would actually shop down contained Coke, chips, and beer. I would not drink that horse piss if I was dying of thirst, but it would be useful to trade and perhaps some of my comrades were beer drinkers—I would get a few thirty packs of beer and maybe a couple of cans of Guinness for any of the other crew members. .

  Did I seriously just say that the beer could be traded? Since the day of the outbreak, I have met a total of four new people and have not had a single reason to struggle to survive. I haven’t been hungry, cold, or desperate in any sense. Why would I need goods to barter with? Am I expecting a fucking trade caravan or a flea market? I had just decided that Smokes was full of shit and there were no survivors or sadistic, mohawked marauders holed up here or anywhere else when Hammer stopped and raised a fist. The entire group stopped in mid-step (or mid-wheel) and waited; she gestured that she heard voices ahead and to her right. I could tell by the look on The Oracle’s face that he had absolutely no clue what any of her gestures meant and probably wond
ered why she wanted him to fist her ear over in front of the pickles.

  I need to remember to go over the meaning of basic hand signals with my large friend later; at least he stopped when the rest of us did. We all listened closely and eventually heard two distinct voices coming from within one of the aisles before us. The high pitched whining of Fat Albert had not alerted them, so apparently a deaf couple had somehow survived and were now out grocery shopping. Scratch that. If they couldn’t hear then they wouldn’t be speaking to one another. Maybe they were just so engaged in their own conversation that they were oblivious to all else. We moved at a snail’s pace, checking for movement before stopping at the next end cap. We realized that unless our hearing-impaired friends were loading up on putrid milk, they had to be down the next aisle...our aisle.

  Thankfully they still had not realized that they had company and spoke without worries. An unintelligible male voice could be heard giving a command followed by a young female voice:”Well I don’t know! I’ll go get some."

  The female’s voice was getting closer; she was obviously going to walk out right in front of us. Gene and Bradley guarded the rear as Hammer, Smokes, and I prepared to defend our front. I put my hand on the barrel of Smokes's rifle—if this survivor turned out not to be hostile, I didn’t want her to be riddled with bullets, and though he gave me a "go to hell" look, he quietly loosened his shoulders before grinning with the knowledge that the two of us would be able to take care of one interloper. The building was bright enough to see from one end of an aisle to the other, but it would not be safe to read under these lighting restraints. The Expert pointed a flashlight at where our new friend would be appearing in seconds. As the individual walked into the washed out gloom, Hammer hit her with the small spotlight. She froze and covered her eyes, yep, just like a deer in the headlights. Blonde hair was pulled back from a young face; she stood just over average height.

  She was still trying to block the light from her eyes as she said, "Don’t shoot!"

  By this time, a request like this really isn’t called for, because if we had planned to shoot she wouldn’t still be alive to ask it.

  This unknown girl looked through her outstretched fingers and squinted, "Who’s there?"

  Hammer readied to answer as a summer from years ago flashed across my mind; holy shit, it was impossible. I knew exactly who this female was. My brain was screaming, but my mouth filtered it to a restrained inquiry: “Sarah?”

  Mo Journal Entry 13

  The love interest really needs no introduction; he or she is instantly and obviously the romantic attraction of the main protagonist. This character may or may not be aware of the feelings of the other and may or may not initially reciprocate those feelings, but the whole audience knows. Regardless of whether the love interest shares the enamourment of and with the main character, they will inevitably end up in a romantic relationship before the series is completed.

  The summer of 2007—just over a year after graduation—was definitely the greatest time of my life. Sure, I went to parties and had some memorable occasions during high school, but nothing compares to that summer. I still worked at the grocery store that had been my place of employment since I was fifteen, and even during that time I worked forty hours a week for little pay, I was somehow able to attend more than one party per week and only remember scattered hours of being at my job. The non-rich kids and people from schools I had never even heard of partied in the cow pasture owned by a guy I barely knew until that summer, Scott "Motherfucking" Chandler. He was tall and lanky and thought of himself as a cowboy; at first glance, most would agree. Note: no one called him "Scott" or even "Scott Chandler" because when intoxicated, he referred to himself in third person always as "Scott Motherfucking Chandler," and yes, I know that adds syllables which defeats the purpose of a nickname, but it just sounded good, and it suited him.

  After going to just a few weekly parties at Scott Motherfucking Chandler’s, I had learned the name or had become friends with almost every regular attendant. One night someone got the bright idea to invite a large group of unknowns.

  Remember that Tracy Byrd song, “I’m from the Country”? The chorus goes: "Everybody knows everybody; Everybody calls you friend." Well, we treated new faces like we knew them—either that or Scott Motherfucking Chandler would try to kill them with a chainsaw, which he had tried to do several times before. One of these new faces was Sarah Ogle. A cute, skinny blonde...she was a couple of years younger than me, even though she graduated the same year from Guntersville, yet we had never even met before that summer.

  Just to give you a mental image of Sarah: remember that movie The Quiet? Okay, probably not, and there isn’t an IMDb anymore where you can find out about it, so I’ll just tell you that the story was really fucking weird and it was a box office failure. But the chick who has sex with her dad in the movie (told you, fucking weird) was unbelievably gorgeous—at least that’s what I remember—and though Sarah was not a look-alike to that actress, you could put her in the same category of phenomenal hotness—the type of girl who was out of the league of ninety percent of guys.

  I’m not sure how I got the time of day from her, but we immediately became friends. She came over to my house or I went to hers almost every day for months. That entire chapter of my life is something of a blur to me; I don’t remember many specifics, except that unsafe amounts of alcohol were consumed and that I’m pretty sure that I did not once try to "get any" from Sarah. I know, I really don’t understand it either; I’m normally self-centered and shallow, but I simply enjoyed being with her. Maybe that’s why she trusted me, because she was drunk several times. Yes, I secretly regret that missed opportunity every day of my life. Almost anyone would have called Sarah "fucking hot," and by all means I would agree, but I guess I loved her beyond physical appearance. She was my best female friend.

  After that summer and even just recently, we would occasionally see each other. And even though our work schedules never seem to coordinate, we have gone out a few times, but only as friends. I, on the other hand, have been madly in love with her since we met. And, although this is obvious to everyone (including her, I’m sure), I have never been able to bring myself to tell her, nor have I really discussed it with anyone. I have had one serious relationship, which was a horrible mistake, and a few other reasonable facsimiles of girlfriends throughout my life, but I would have dropped any of them instantly if Sarah needed me. A psychiatrist would most likely diagnose me with some sort of repressed obsession if I told him about Sarah. All of those emotions came back the moment I saw her, and my initial instinct was to shut them off.

  "Mo-Mo?" Sarah interrupted my moment of reminiscing, using the pet name she gave me during 2007—a name that I only tolerated from her—and I had to shake myself back into reality before things took a turn.

  I spoke to my companions, "This is Sarah Ogle. She is a close friend of mine and she’s–"

  "Close?" Smokes was sure to add a sarcastic and insinuating tone to his question and I refused to explain myself while The Expert was pointing a rifle at the only person who isn’t blood related to me whom I have ever truly cared for!

  "Captain Sledge," I put all the force I could muster behind this statement, "relax. She’s a friendly.”

  Hammer hesitated before easing and began to lower her rifle. I also relaxed as the tension dissipated from the situation just as barely understandable profanities could be heard as the second figure rounded the corner and stopped stone cold before raising his hands in surrender, dropping his armloads of beer. I was having a hard time believing what I was seeing. There was Walt.

  I met Dean "Walt" Snead during high school, and like most of my friends, he was younger than me. He got his nickname because his drunken slurring of his name sounded like "Disney." Walt was a caricature of a typical hillbilly: short, wiry, prematurely balding, had singlehandedly paid for a private jet for both US Smokeless Tobacco and Budweiser, had a fucked up set of teeth, spoke in a slur that was bar
ely intelligible by anyone, happily dropped out of high school at sixteen, and was damn proud of all of it. Picture Jim Varney as "Ernest" with a legally blind dentist.

  I kind of lost touch with him a few years ago, even though I knew he still lived only a couple miles from me, and just like me, he would never move away. Okay, I realize that I’ve said this several times in this journal, but I have to say it again: What the fuck? This is not close to possible, I know I spent pretty much all my life in this area, but it is beyond coincidental that two people I know fairly well survived a plague that destroyed over ninety-nine percent of the human population of Guntersville and I happened to run across both in the same locale. This is something I would expect to see in a movie; my life was scripted to occur nowhere other than a film set.

  "Walt. What the hell is going on?" I was incredulous. I had to know how these two wound up here at this moment.

  "Mo!" he said. "Mo Collins? "How y’all been, boy?"

  God, Walt is the most unobservant dumbass I had ever met. I merely gave a confirming nod. "Walt," I said.

  He goofily replied, "God damn son, I thought that was you!

  They both appeared unarmed and I gestured once again for Hammer to lower her weapon after she had raised it upon the appearance of a second unknown.

  I was quick to ask, "Are you alone?" I doubted these two would be involved with a crew of murderous vandals, but I really didn’t want one of their stray party members or mine surprising the other and winding up with a bullet wound.