by Max Danzig
“Keep going,” Rachel yelled her voice hoarse with emotion. “Whatever you do don't stop.”
A single solitary figure stumbled out in front of the SUV. Rather than try to avoid the woman's body, Steve plowed straight into it. The momentum of the truck carried the corpse along for a few feet before it slipped under the front bumper and crushed beneath the wheels. As they left the parking lot and turned onto the road, Peter continued watching the battered body on the ground.
Even with its legs shattered it kept moving. The surging crowd tripped and stumbled over the dead woman, but it continued moving. Oblivious to being trampled it reached out with twisted, broken fingers, dragging itself along the ground, inch by inch by inch.
Chapter 38
Peter didn't know the true meaning of the word fear until they were on their way back to the farm. It was then the reality of their situation came crashing down around him. For the last few days, life felt bearable. They lived in relative comfort for more than a week and the initial shock and desperation subsided and was replaced by a sense of purpose. They had found somewhere safe where they could hide together and sit out the storm that destroyed the rest of the world.
But the bodies in the field and the visit to the supermarket changed everything. Their safety was no longer as secure as they thought, and they found themselves exposed and vulnerable again. As they drove back along roads strewn with rotting human remains and other wrecked remnants of society, Peter wondered what was next. How could things get any worse? The corpses were getting more violent and unpredictable. If they were ready to tear us apart today, what would they be like tomorrow?
Once they made it back to the farm, they unpacked the SUV right away. They threw the boxes and bags into the house. Peter watched Rachel and Steve as they worked and he could see they were as scared as he was. The fear was impossible to hide. Every unexpected movement caused them to freeze and catch their breath and every sudden sound made their hearts miss a collective beat. Even the rustle of the wind through the bushes was no longer just an innocent background noise. Instead, it became a whispered warning and reminder to be on constant guard. A few hours later and they were sitting around the kitchen table.
“So what are we going to do?” Peter asked, not able to just sit there and wait any longer.
Steve shrugged his shoulders and Rachel did the same.
“I don’t know,” Rachel murmured.
Peter thought about their situation continually, but the only idea he could come up with was to lock the doors, hide in the dark, and wait. It wouldn't achieve anything, but it was the best option they had at that moment.
“We'll be all right if we can keep them away from the house,” Rachel said a short while later.
“And how are we going to do that?” Steve asked.
“Build a wall or a fence?” she offered.
They discussed building a barrier earlier, and it still seemed their best option to follow.
“I don't want to go out there again today,” Steve grumbled.
“Neither do I but if we don't do something soon,” Peter said, “then we really will be trapped. We won't be able to risk making a sound.”
“So how are we supposed to build a fence without making any noise?” Rachel asked the valid question to which he didn't have an answer.
“And what are we going to use to build this barrier?” Steve added.
It was another question that Peter couldn't answer.
“I don't know,” he replied. “I suppose we'll just have to use whatever we can find lying around. This is a farm, and there's bound to be plenty of stuff we can use if we look for it...”
Rachel picked up a pen and a scrap of paper from the table. She sketched a simple outline of the house and yard.
“You know,” she said as she sketched, “there's not as much work to do as you might think. Look, we could build something from the wall in front of the house down the length of the yard, then take it straight across to the stream. Then we can use the tractors and the outbuildings as posts for the side yard barrier. In the back, we can set up another barrier along the woods bordering the backyard and take that to the stream as well.”
It took Peter a couple of seconds to understand what she was saying. From her rough sketch, nothing was very clear until she turned it around to show him. As soon as he had his bearings and could associate the drawing with the house, the forest, and the outbuildings, it made sense.
By using the barriers already in place, they could cut down the amount of work they had to do by half. At the moment the ghouls’ movements were still unsteady and uncoordinated. There was no way they'd be able to cross the fast-moving stream. It was only waist deep and about fifteen feet wide, but it was difficult enough for the walkers to keep their balance on dry, solid ground.
“So what do we use to build this fence?” Steve asked again.
He thought for a few seconds.
“It doesn't have to be a fence, does it?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.
“It just has to be a barricade,” explained Peter with a hundred and one ideas flooding into his mind. “All we want to do is stop those things from getting close to the house, right? It doesn't matter how we do it. We could build a fence; dig a trench or just park cars and tractors around the place. That would be enough to keep them out.”
“You're right,” Rachel agreed.
“I also saw a few rolls of wire mesh fencing we can use and just make it sturdy enough between other barriers,” Steve said.
“Okay so the walkers are strong in numbers,” Peter continued, “but individually they're easy to stop. Rachel, I watched you put your shoulder to the body of a man twice your size and you were able to throw him across the room.”
His mind was racing. It all seemed so simple and so obvious. Build a fence down from the side of the house to the bottom of the yard and then across until it meets the stream. Do the same at the back of the house and take the barrier out far enough to enclose the generator shed and the gas tank. Simple. Safe.
He took the paper and pen from Rachel and drew over her basic markings. Feeling like he was taking over, she stood up and walked away. Sensing the conversation ended Steve also got up from his chair and left the room.
For a short time, his planning and sketching brought a welcome distraction from the nightmares wandering the countryside. With his mind preoccupied, the time passed quickly. Before he knew it, the morning ended, and it was well into the afternoon. Both Rachel and Steve found other ways to occupy themselves and he had been left alone in the kitchen to think and to plan.
Later in the afternoon, he knew exactly what he wanted to do and how to do it, but he wasn't sure what materials there were available to use. On his way outside Peter picked up the rifle from where he left it leaning against a kitchen cabinet.
He didn't see any ghouls in the area. The afternoon was dry, clear and cold. As the last of the summer-like days faded and autumn arrived, the temperature dropped. There was a light breeze rustling through the trees and bushes but otherwise, the world was silent. In the main barn in the side yard, he found timber and several fence posts. He found rolls of barbed wire along with the wire mesh fence Steve had mentioned. While he was there, he looked at the barns themselves. They appeared strong but not indestructible.
The wooden walls and the sheets of corrugated metal on the roof of each of the weather-worn buildings looked like they could be useful. He also discovered several pieces of farm equipment scattered around the property. He didn't know what most of them were used for, but all of it could be used to build the barrier between them and the walking dead population.
Peter walked back towards the farmhouse feeling assured. The terror and gut-wrenching fear of the morning had, for a time at least, subsided, but that peace didn't last long.
As the daylight faded, a single innocent thought wormed its way into his fatigued mind. It destroyed the confidence and sense of purpose he spent the previous ho
urs building up inside him. He thought about a friend from work. For a moment, he pictured her smiling face. The memory of all that he lost and left behind suddenly returned. With this torrent of unexpected memories came an equally abrupt flood of pain and raw emotion. He sat alone on the porch steps of the farmhouse and wept.
He pictured the faces of his family and friends, his colleagues and customers from work. He thought about his neighbors, and even the woman who gave him his coffee at the drive-thru the morning it had all began. As he thought of all of these people, the bitter realization that they were gone forever felt like a knife being driven into his gut.
While everyone he knew either lay rotting on the ground or staggering around for eternity, he had survived. Why him? Why should he have lived while so many others didn’t? He thought about his two brothers, Nate and Andy, and his aunt Nancy. He hadn't seen them for a couple of months, He hoped that they were like him and had survived. The thought of any of them being like those fucking monsters he’d seen this morning was too much to take.
But what could he do? Should he try to get back to New Jersey to see if they were all right? What about his mom? He didn’t like her, but did she deserve to end up a zombie?
Why was he feeling this way? There was nothing he could have done to change any of it. He picked himself up and went indoors. He was filled with a deep hurt he knew would never completely disappear, but he owed it to himself to try to build something from what was left of the world.
Chapter 39
It took the three survivors the entire day to complete the barrier around the house. They had started working right after sunup and didn't stop until the job was done. As the light faded, the work became harder to concentrate on and finish. Steve, Peter, and Rachel struggled to keep focused on the task at hand. It was hard to ignore the mounting fear that the approaching darkness brought. The fear of drawing attention to themselves was constant.
Throughout the day they didn't run the generator. As long as possible they worked in the safety of a shroud of silence. Despite his earlier apathy, Steve worked as hard as the other two to complete the barrier. They took turns standing guard with the rifle, and for Rachel it was the most difficult of the jobs to do. She had never held a loaded firearm in her life. Although Steve showed her how to load, ready and fire the weapon, she doubted she’d be able to use it if the need arose.
Frustrating and contradictory thoughts flooded Rachel's mind. She despised the wandering corpses dragging themselves through the remains of her world. They were now so grotesque and deformed it became impossible for her to comprehend that a short time ago they'd been human beings.
Each of them had names, lives, and identities, but were now dangerous monsters. And yet, if one of them stumbled into her sights, she wondered if she'd be able to pull the trigger and shoot. She wasn't even sure if shooting them would have any effect. They seemed unmindful and impervious to pain. She saw the creatures battered and broken, but they kept moving, mindless of their injuries. No matter what physical damage was inflicted on them, they kept going.
The openness and isolation of the farm played to their favor as they worked. In the long hours spent outside, only a handful of walkers appeared. Whenever they noticed movement in the fields or woods, the three survivors dropped their tools and disappeared into the safety of the farmhouse. They'd wait until the creatures passed or became distracted by another sound and drifted away again.
Peter impressed himself with his ingenuity and adaptability. As he had planned, they used the stream as a natural barrier along one side of the property. They built up the bank on their side with large rocks from an old foundation wall from the back of the property. They used the tall doors from one of the barns and created a strong, padlocked gate across the entrance to the farmyard. Two thick crossbeams provided added strength and security for the hours they spent locked away inside the farmhouse.
Much of the walls and roofs of the two barns were stripped to use as material to build and reinforce the barrier fence. Now the remains of the outbuildings stood dejected and abandoned. The bones of their empty frames reaching up into the empty air like the ribs of a carcass stripped of its flesh. In other places, the barrier was little more than a collection of carefully placed obstacles. Piles of farm machinery and unneeded bags of chemicals were arranged to strengthen the blockade.
Peter judged the success of each section of the barrier by how easily he could get through or over to the other side. If he had trouble getting through, then the tottering ghouls would have no chance.
As the evening drew to a close and the early dark hours of the next morning approached, Peter stood outside checking and rechecking that the barrier was secure. Everything he could find that they wouldn't need was placed against the fence or used to build it higher. As he worked in isolation, it occurred to him that it was one week to the day since the nightmare had begun. It was the longest seven days of his life. In that time he experienced more pain, fear, frustration and outright terror than he would have ever thought possible. He refused to allow himself to think about what might be waiting for him tomorrow.
Chapter 40
Peter once again busied himself cooking a meal for the three of them. He allowed himself to relax now that there was a decent physical barrier between them and the rest of the world. Each of the survivors had an increasing need to keep themselves occupied. Staying busy helped them forget, almost to the point of denial that the world outside their door had died.
The three of them had been sitting in the kitchen for the better part of two hours before Peter finished and served dinner. It was the longest time they had spent in each other's company since the trip to Newport. The atmosphere was subdued and the conversation sparse. Peter busied himself cooking as usual, and Rachel read a book. Steve just sat looking out the front window, lost in thought.
Earlier, Rachel had discovered a few bottles of wine hidden in a dusty rack. She wasted no time uncorking a bottle of white and pouring out three large glasses, passing one each to Steve and Peter. Steve didn't drink wine but tonight he was ready to make an exception. He wanted to get drunk, pass out and forget about everything for as long as possible. He wasn't even bothered about waking up with a hangover the next morning.
The food was good, perhaps the best meal they'd eaten together. That combined with the wine helped spread a sense of normalcy. It also made them remember everything about the past they had been trying to forget. Fed up with that, Peter decided the best way of dealing with what they had lost was to talk about it.
“So,” he began, chewing on a mouthful of food as he spoke, “Wednesday night. What would you two have been doing on a Wednesday night?”
There was an awkward silence. The same awkward silence that always seemed to descend on any conversation that dared to broach the subject of the way the world used to be before last Monday.
“I would have either been working or having drinks at a dance club with some friends” Rachel replied.
“Drinking in the middle of the week?” Peter asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“What about you, Steve?”
Steve toyed with his food and knocked back a large mouthful of wine.
“I’d either watch TV in my room or with my dad in the living room, or hang out with one of my friends,” he said. “I didn’t drink too often during the week but I’d make up for it on the weekend.”
“So, what about your friends?” Rachel asked him.
There was a long awkward pause and Rachel wondered whether she'd asked the wrong thing. Steve looked down at his food again and swallowed another mouthful of wine, this one emptying the glass. He grabbed hold of the bottle and helped himself to a refill before continuing.
“A bunch of us used to hang out together at a friend’s house. He had the whole finished basement to himself,” Steve said with a distant look in his eyes. “We were part of a crowd. There was always someone there I knew. We'd hang out and drink. I’d stay until three or four in
the morning. I had a girlfriend too, but we broke up a week before everything went to hell. She’s probably gone too.”
When the pain became too much to bear he stopped and drank more wine, and continued… “I was hanging out at a lake house with my friend Mark when it all began, but we didn’t know it at the time. When we were coming home we saw things that made us realize things were royally fucked up. He dropped me off at my house and then took off up the block to his house to check on his family. By the time I eventually went to his house, he had already left. His mom and dad were divorced so I’m guessing he went to his dad’s house in Manchester. I haven’t seen him since. I don’t know what happened to him, his dad or his sister Kayla.”
Steve’s eyes filled with tears as he stared at nothing, lost in the memory.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel mumbled. “I guess I shouldn't have said anything.”
Steve didn't respond.
“Why shouldn't you have said anything?” Peter asked.
“What?”
“Why are you apologizing? And why don't you want to talk about it, Steve?”
Steve looked up and glared at Peter with tears of pain streaking down his face. “I don't want to talk because it fucking hurts too much,” he shouted, almost having to force the words out. “You don't know how it feels.”
“I've lost people too...” Peter said defensively.
“You didn't lose anyone close though did you? I haven’t heard you say anything about family, friends, or even a girlfriend. You’re so detached, so matter of fact about all of this. You have no idea how I feel.”
Peter knew he was right but thought that as a group they wouldn't be able to move forward until they swept away the remains of the past.
Steve was staring into space again.
“I’d give anything to be back at work again,” Rachel sighed. “Stupid isn't it?”