by Rosaria, A.
Lauryn joined Brenda and Derrick gathering their stuff and made herself ready to leave. Ralph had only his gun with one remaining cartridge in his ammo pouch, and his knife. He had slept with them on. After his watch, it seemed too great an effort to take them off. His backpack was out there. He was ready to go and waited for the others to finish strapping their backpacks and loading their weapons. Brenda had a handgun. Lauryn her axe. Derrick his shotgun and a knife. He hoped it was enough for the killing that waited for them downstairs.
They gathered at the trap door with Derrick and Ralph in the front. Lauryn and Brenda each to one side. Ralph didn’t hear any sound coming from downstairs. No moans or growls or shuffling steps. Nothing. And nothing from outside. Could it be that the zombies were waiting downstairs in silence, ready to pounce the moment the ladder was lowered? That would be messy.
“Stick together and make every shot count,” Ralph said, knowing that, once the battle started, chaos would set in, and they could all die in the first wave.
Ralph opened the trap door and lowered the ladder. Nothing. The cacophony of moans and growls he expected stayed away.
Everyone looked at each other, startled. There had been zombies inside the house. Ralph had heard them shuffling downstairs during his watch.
“Cover me,” he said as he lowered himself down the ladder. The corridor was empty. The zombies they had downed were gone, and so was Ethan’s corpse. Only a pool of blood marked where he had died.
“Come down. It’s clear.” He walked over to the stairs. Downstairs seemed deserted, the stairs empty. The others joined him, just as baffled as he was.
“Where are they?” Derrick asked.
“I’ve got no idea.”
They slowly descended the stairs with their guns up. Outside, the corpses were gone, every one of them. It was as if it only had been the four of them from the start.
“This can’t be,” Lauryn said. “What’s going on?”
No one answered. Ralph found his backpack, and where the zombies attacked their group, he found two guns and a rifle. The empty rifle he threw back to the ground. There was no point carrying it without ammo for it. He unloaded a handgun, filled one cartridge with bullets, threw one gun away, and gave the loaded one to Lauryn.
He didn’t know where the zombies went or what they had done with the bodies, but right now, Ralph didn’t want to find out. He wanted to be out as fast as possible.
It was around nine. They had three hours before Melissa would call, if she called at all. By the time she did, he wanted to be as close as possible to the place Phil’s group went. The single map they had left showed the place to be about fifteen miles away. They could make it in six hours without stopping, and with rest, seven hours.
By noon, they were halfway there. They had passed the spot they had camped at with Phil’s group. They stopped for rest and sat down in the middle of the road. All around them, they had a clear view of their surroundings, which they surveyed often. Any sighting and they would move out immediately. Ralph planned to wait an hour here, and if they heard nothing from Melissa, they would forget going to the mines and head back to base.
Fifteen minutes in, the sat phone beeped. Ralph took the call. “Melissa, is this you?”
Silence.
“Melissa?”
A young voice came up. “Melissa… she’s dead.”
“Emma? What happened?”
“Please, come get me. I… I’m all alone. They all left.”
“Where are you?”
“The mines.” The girl sobbed. “I hid in the surveyor’s office, in a cabinet. They took them all…and… they… Just come get me. Hurry.”
“Sit tight. We’ll get to you.”
“When?”
“Four hours.”
“Please hurry. They come out when it’s dark.”
“The zombies?”
The battery light flickered; it was running low. They didn’t have much time left to talk or explain things. Later, if he had chance, he would charge the phone with the remaining sunlight. “Stay where you are. We’ll make it in time and get you out.”
“Please hurry.” She sobbed and hung up.
They gathered their things. There was no time to rest any longer; they had to step up to make the remaining eight miles within four hours. Hopefully, the mine wouldn’t be difficult to find.
They pressed on.
In the third hour, Derrick fell. His leg cramped up. They wasted five minutes getting his leg massaged and him up and running. After four hours, they reached more hilly terrain. The mine must be close. They were tired and in need of a rest, but Ralph didn’t want them to rest just yet. He wanted to find the mine and the surveyor’s office. They could rest once the girl was found.
“I do not see any signs of any mine,” Derrick said.
“We just keep on the main road and soon we’ll see something.”
The sky was cast with dark clouds covering the sun. It was much darker than it should be at this time a day. They should have two more hours of good daylight, but with the clouds as they were it would be much less than that. They walked a few hundred yards and came upon an intersection. A sign that read coal mine was on the left of the road. They followed a two-lane, paved road, and after about two hundred yards, a gate blocked their way. A signboard at the gate read: PRIVATE ACCESS ROAD. NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY.
“Guess we turn back now,” Lauryn said.
Brenda pushed the gate open. “How about we just go in. They left it unlocked anyway, so there is no one to object.”
“I was joking.”
“I know. So was I.”
“Let’s go,” Ralph said. “Both of your jokes are a fail and not funny.”
It grew darker as they went. The first raindrops fell—one more thing adding to the pile of shit hanging over their heads. “Pick up your pace. We better hurry before we get soaked.”
The others followed suit as he stepped up. They saw the empty lorries parked on the shoulder of the road. Trees blocked their sight, but up ahead, the road made a bend to the left. Around the bend was the mine—a vast space, one big hole with cascading ledges. The equipment stood at the mouth of the mine, deserted. The road turned into a dirt road and veered away from the mining area, leading to a single-story wooden compound. A van was parked in front. It would be a miracle if that thing still ran. The battery would be dead by now, and any gas gone. It would take a mechanic to fix it.
Ralph opened the van’s back door. The hold was empty. “Guess this is the place.”
Brenda tried the door. “It’s locked.”
There were no other buildings around. This must be it, or they had the wrong mine, which would be highly unlikely having two mines so close to each other.
“Emma!”
Ralph walked up to the front door and knocked. “Open up. It’s us.”
He heard noise coming from the inside, a scraping noise, and then the door opened. A dirty face greeted them. “Hurry inside. It’s already dark.”
They had an hour to go before it really got dark, but it was getting there quickly with the help of heavy clouds. The rain started pouring. They hurried inside. Emma slammed the door and pushed a table against it. Ralph doubted it would hold for long against the things they had faced yesterday.
Finally inside, Ralph took the time to take everything in. The reception desk blocked the door. Chairs lined the entrance, and in the back, a door led to another room. Emma stood alone facing them. The girl looked down at her toes. She was covered in dirt, her clothes torn and her blond hair a mess. She finally looked up, showing her bright blue eyes. “I…I…” She looked back down and started to cry. “They are all dead,” she said between sobs.
Lauryn and Brenda took the girl in and led her to a chair, where they sat her down. Lauryn spoke, reassuring her, while Brenda stroked the girl’s hair. Ralph was glad they were there, for he had no idea what to do. He could only think about what was coming and had no need for empathy now.
&n
bsp; “Emma, I know it’s hard, but you have to tell us what happened,” Ralph said.
She looked back up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I told you. They are all dead.”
“How, Emma, how did it happen?”
“They came out of nowhere, and gunned us down. Melissa dragged me in here and we hid. They took everyone and left.”
“Who did this?”
“They just kept shooting.”
“Who?”
“Soldiers in black uniforms.”
Brenda shot Ralph a knowing look. He nodded at her. It must have been the same ones who almost killed him. They had wiped out a whole camp. The same people who chased Sarah and him from their city. The same people who probably nuked it. The same bastards who took Sarah. He felt anger surge up. He wanted to scream and wreck the place. His hands trembled; the whites showed around his knuckles. Why? Why did everything need to turn out like this?
Lauryn put a soothing hand on his shoulder. “What are we going to do now?”
He turned to her. “Barricade this place and survive the night.”
It took them half an hour to gather all the desks and office cabinets from the other rooms into the reception area. With the cabinets, they blocked the two windows. They toppled the desk blocking the front door, and on top, put another desk and against it wedged another. It would give them time, and anyone trying to get in from there would get entangled in the mess and would be easily dispatched. They blocked the door leading to the main building much the same way. The windows were the weak link. The cabinets covering them were not heavy. They filled the lower shelves with anything heavy they found. It would only get them so far. Ralph would rather have wooden planks and nails to board the windows shut.
Going through the offices, he expected to find Melissa’s body, but only found a large pool of blood and a trail leading out a back door. He had waited to ask Emma about Melissa until she regained some composure, which he figured was about now.
“Emma!”
The girl looked up at him wide-eyed, as if caught doing something bad. “Yes?” she said.
“What happened to Melissa?”
It was as if a cloud darkened her face. Tears brimmed her eyes. Ralph was afraid she would break out crying again, but she settled herself.
“They broke in. Melissa pushed me in a cabinet. I didn’t see; she just started screaming and then nothing.”
Emma sobbed, stayed silent for a while, looking off in a distance, and then started talking again. “I heard them eat her.” She shivered.
Lauryn looked at Ralph; her lips formed the words, “Stop.”
“Zombies?”
Emma nodded. “But worse.”
Ralph didn’t have to ask. He knew what she meant.
“They came near midnight. Took us by surprise. They don’t smell or make noise. They just stood there. I… I…” She sobbed. Her hands wrenched in her laps. “I… couldn’t… help her… They killed her… and I…”
He didn’t blame Emma, but he lacked the words to comfort her. It was a shitty thing to happen to someone, and the girl couldn’t help Melissa even if she had tried.
Lauryn hugged Emma and shushed her. Again, he was glad she was there. He loved her for the way she showed empathy to others, so freely, putting aside her own fears and sorrows. However, it also made him feel more like an ass for shunning her for a year.
“Emma, you did well," Ralph said. "There was nothing you could have done. Melissa wanted to keep you safe. Now, we will do that for her.”
Emma calmed down and smiled at him. He hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her. First thing they had to do was survive the night, and then return to base camp in the mountains. A one- or two-day trip. It was hard to believe that, in a few days, they had lost most of their group.
Hours passed without anything happening. Outside stayed silent but for the rain. Most likely, the zombies went somewhere else after having had their fill—at least he hoped that they did.
Derrick and Brenda got the first watch, giving Lauryn and him four hours to sleep, eat, and rest. Emma was sound asleep. The girl had been so scared she couldn’t sleep before, and finally, after feeling safe within the group, she managed to close her eyes. Ralph guessed she was twelve, maybe a little older, but she was a scrawny little thing. To have survived this all, and see your new family ripped apart, must have been a heavy blow. He intended to keep his promise and keep the girl safe, whatever it took.
Lauryn sat in a corner staring at him. He walked over to her.
“I wondered how long it would take for you to come over.”
He sat next to her; she shuffled closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “Will everything turn out all right?”
“I don’t know.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. He sniffed her hair, getting lost in the scent.
“Are you sniffing my hair?”
“Yes.” He kissed her on top of her head. “I like it.”
“They say only a man in love with a woman smells her hair.”
She looked up at him and they kissed. He whispered, “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”
It felt good to be able to admit his love for her. Ralph didn’t worry anymore what others thought about him. He had made a choice, accepted Sarah was dead, and even if by a miracle, she still was alive, he could not turn back now.
“You’re staring. Is something wrong?”
Ralph smiled. “I’m okay. Everything will be okay.”
Thud. Thud. The sound startled them all. Someone or something banged against the wall. A long while passed and then again, thud, thud.
Emma woke up. Thud. Thud. “It’s them!” She started screaming.
“Someone shut her up,” Ralph barked.
He quickly got up and grabbed his rifle. Brenda went to shush Emma. Lauryn stood next to Ralph, gripping her axe. He hoped it wouldn’t come to a melee, but he feared his hopes and wishes wouldn’t be answered today. A thing crashed against the window, hitting the cabinet blocking the way. Derrick slammed his body against the cabinet to keep it from falling. The other window was attacked. Ralph rushed over and pushed against the cabinet. Another hit. He felt the impact reverberate through his body, and he barely kept the cabinet in place.
Crying, Emma crept to a corner and huddled into a tiny human ball. Brenda stood with her back turned to Emma, facing the room. A look of utter despair washed over her face. She held her gun with both hands, the barrel pointed to the floor. Her eyes switched from the left window to the right. Lauryn stood close behind Ralph, her axe ready to swing at whatever came through the windows.
A loud crash came from behind. Simultaneously, both windows were attacked. Despite Ralph and Derrick’s efforts, the cabinets pushed back. Sarah swung her axe, and an arm fell on the floor. Ralph pushed the cabinet back in place. Derrick pushed the other cabinet, pinning a zombie against the window frame. Brenda took several steps forward, steadied herself, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The zombie’s head splattered open, and the body fell, wedging between the windowsill and cabinet.
Crash. The back door slammed open and the zombies poured in. They didn’t get far. With the speed that the zombies rushed inside, they couldn’t evade the mess of tables and chairs in their way, and they fell, entangled in the furniture. Ralph counted five.
“Lauryn, get them before they get up. You too, Brenda.”
If Ralph and Derrick moved to help, the zombies would get through the windows, and they would be overwhelmed. Lauryn quickly dispatched two zombies, cleaving their heads. Brenda shot one. The remaining two crawled up. One tall one and the other a teenager, both naked. The tall one rushed Brenda and the teenager rushed Lauryn.
Lauryn swung her axe. It ducked under and tackled her. Brenda shot the tall one in its head. It kept coming, growling at her. She shot again. Missed. A third time. Its head snapped back and it dropped, the momentum of its run throwing it forward against Brenda, making her fall and pinning her to the floor.
A zombie crashed against the cabinet, trying to get in. Ralph staggered back. He rammed his shoulder against the cabinet and held on. Another one did the same to Derrick’s side and managed to topple the cabinet. Derrick blasted it out the window with his shotgun.
“Derrick, help Lauryn.”
Derrick looked at Lauryn struggling on the ground with the zombie and back at the window.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll cover it. Help Lauryn.”
Derrick nodded and ran to the zombie on top of Lauryn and bashed its head in with his shotgun’s stock. Ralph pressed his back against the cabinet and aimed his gun at the open window. The zombie thrashed against the cabinet, pushing Ralph back at the same time a zombie tried to climb through the open window. Ralph’s aim was thrown off by the one smashing against the cabinet. His first shot was off. The second shattered the zombie’s collarbone, the third ripped its jaw off, and finally the fourth pierced the eye. It hung limply in the windowsill.
The zombie at his window moved away. Silence returned to the room. They looked at each other, unsure what happened and surprised they survived. Lauryn helped Brenda from under the huge zombie pinning her down. Emma started to cry. No one moved to shush her. Their adrenaline ran high, keeping them alert and listening. Nothing. Not a sound.
“You think they are gone?” Brenda whispered.
“No,” Ralph said.
“We might have gotten most of them,” Derrick said. “Maybe they fled.”
“They are dead and brainless things and would never flee,” Lauryn said.
Ralph agreed with her and so did the others. They were speaking in hushed tones, as if the zombies were listening in on them. They were afraid that any loud sound would alert them. It was stupid really, because Emma was bawling and would attract every zombie a mile around. Ralph doubted the zombies had fled; they were more cunning than the slow ones, but still zombies. They were dead things run by a parasitic virus, without a mind, only instinct.
“Derrick, help me get this up.” Ralph grabbed the side of the cabinet that had fallen. Derrick joined him, and they both lifted it up. Ralph pushed the zombie out the window. It fell on the floor with a loud plop. They pushed the cabinet in place, sealing the room again.