by Oliver, Nick
I was out of shells and there were still so many, I frantically pulled out the shells in my bandolier, but dropped a few in my haste. Sarah was out as well, she ran against the wall behind us.
Nick dropped his pistol and pulled out his machete, “We don’t have enough ammo, we’re gonna have to take the rest out by hand!”
“There are too many!” Sarah screeched from behind us.
Roxie still had ammo, but after her .22’s tube ran out of rounds it had to be loaded one round at a time. I dropped my shotgun after my last shell and following Nick’s example and drew my machete. I counted the zombies that were still stumbling toward us. There were still ten of them.
“Sarah, Roxie get out of here!” I yelled. The zombies were closing fast, only a few feet in front of us, but they were relatively spaced out. I glanced to Nick and shrugged, asking him if he wanted to attempt it.
Nick didn’t look too enthusiastic, but he nodded in agreement. My ears were ringing too much for me to hear their moans, but I knew they were, their gaping mouths dripping with blood and drool.
My machete sliced the head off the first one I swung at, it’s head bounced on the ground like a slightly deflated basketball, jaws still snapping.
I was about to swing at the second one when it managed to grab my arm. I twisted my arm, trying to keep its head from leaning down to take out a chunk.
My heart was racing as I buried the machete into its skull, as its teeth were only inches from my forearm. Its body collapsed, taking my machete with it. I had to put my foot on its head to pull it out.
Nick in a similar situation, but there were two of them between us closing on me fast. I shoved one away and it tripped over a chair. My machete got stuck into the head of the second one just like before. Before I could pull it free another zombie grabbed me and knocked me to the ground.
I grabbed its neck and one of its arms trying to keep it from getting me, but it was strong, and I was tired from swinging the bat all day. It was about to take a chunk out of my neck when I felt something spray across my face.
For half a second I thought it spit on my, but it’s now lifeless body was limp on mine, and its jaw was no longer snapping.
I turned around and saw Roxie was still in the room, aiming her rifle at the one that was still on top of me. I didn’t have time to think about it, the one I had shoved earlier was now crawling my direction.
I threw the heavy body on top of me to the side and grabbed my machete out of the skull to my right just as I felt something grab my left ankle. I sat up and cut off its left arm at the wrist, but he kept coming, grabbing me with its right.
It snarled with wide cloudy eyes as it pulled in to bite my calf, but I buried the machete so deep in its skull the handle stuck out between the eyes.
I quickly looked around to see if any more were coming for me, but saw none. Nick was on the ground about twenty feet to my right, also sprayed with blood. I got to my feet and wiped the blood and brain matter off my face.
Sarah was sitting by the door, hands around her knees rocking back and forth. I walked over and helped her up. She was petrified, and staring at my like I shouldn’t be alive.
We all stood there silently, ears ringing, staring at the pile of corpses. I reached over and grabbed the .22 rifle from Roxie, and looked at Nick. He nodded.
I took a step toward the kitchen, but Sarah grabbed my arm. I looked back into her eyes, she was shaking her head.
“I have to know,” I told her. She didn’t like it, but she let go of my arm. Nick and I walked up to the walk in freezer doors. I grabbed the latch and pulled it open. In the corner were five small bodies. They couldn’t have been more then ten years old. From the looks of it they were huddled together for warmth, but the freezer had long since shut down.
I took my hat off and looked at Nick, he looked like he was about to throw up, I patted him on the shoulder, and we walked back over to the girls. They both had tears rolling down their cheeks.
I looked at Sarah, “I’ll start digging graves in the courtyard tomorrow,” I said with my voice choking up. “Then we can clean the rest of the school.”
Chapter Seventeen: Day in the Life
5:30 AM, December 8
It’s odd how comfortable a person can get with a situation. Six months ago I was walking down the halls of this school in a polo shirt and slacks on my way to substitute teach. Now I was sitting in the same hallway in a lawn chair, drinking a beer and looking at what I could only estimate as several thousand walking corpses all clawing at the sides of the school trying to eat me alive.
I took a sip of my beer. It was a bit warm, but I didn’t mind. I set it down next to the binoculars and box of ammo on the table set up next to me.
The first few months of living in the school were rough. First thing we did was make sure there were no gaps in our defense. Every nook and cranny was filled with desks, file cabinets, anything to keep those things from getting in.
It took us a couple days just moving the bodies. It took me almost two days to dig the graves we needed for all the uninfected people we found in closets, freezers and bathrooms. I tried to keep it all impersonal, but it was hard. I can still remember some of the faces, most of all the kids in the freezer.
I glanced down at the photo in my hand. The smile on Sarah’s face hadn’t changed, at least not in the face itself. It was the eyes. Her eyes were lit up in the picture, full of life. Now when she smiled there wasn’t a light, there was a pain behind them. I looked at the picture every day, reminding myself it was still her, that she could still have that light behind her eyes again one day.
After finishing the beer I tossed the bottle at the sea of people in front of me. We were pretty thorough in our first go through. We only found two stuck in a closet we missed the second time through the school, and we haven’t seen one inside since.
I rubbed my face and felt the stubble of a beard. It was too hot for me to let it grow out much further. I’d hoped that with it being December now the weather would cool off, but we’d had no such luck.
We kept up with a buddy system for a while, nobody went anywhere alone. The next few weeks we started cleaning everything. There was a lot of bleach in the science department, and in the custodial closets. We used almost all of it cleaning up the various blood stains.
After that we spent almost a month collecting and cataloguing anything we could use and brought it upstairs, from medical supplies, to food, to weapons, there was plenty. The army had even left behind a few Military grade weapons like M4 carbines.
We made our living space on the second floor. It started with just the clean classroom we crashed in those first few weeks, and then expanded as we cleaned the other rooms up.
The first classroom became our living room with couches and chairs from the front office surrounding a desk turned coffee table.
The teacher planning areas in between the classrooms were our makeshift bedrooms, Nick and Roxie had one, and Sarah and I had another.
We made one into a kitchen/hospital room, with shelves and cabinets that used to hold books now packed full with medical supplies and food. We even had a propane stove for cooking from Nick’s uncle George’s house. We originally estimated that we had over a year’s worth of food, but that was just wishful thinking. We were halfway through it after four months.
Once we were relatively settled in there wasn’t much work that needed to be done, other then patrolling the perimeter which we took shifts in pairs to do. We all found something to occupy our minds.
Sarah took care of the food, keeping track of how much we ate, and how much we had left. She took up cooking as her way of keeping herself busy. We all appreciated it, because some of the food the army left wasn’t exactly appetizing.
Roxie took care of the medical supplies, looking after any of us if we got hurt, and making sure we took vitamins that the food didn’t provide. She also took up knitting and crocheting to pass the time, making hats, sweaters, and scarves for all of u
s, though it was still too hot for us to use any of them.
Once we had all the essential supplies upstairs, Nick convinced us to bring some of the workout equipment from the gym upstairs as well. That was how he spent most of his spare time, working out.
I spent my time working on my truck. Even though we were relatively safe I still felt we needed to have an escape vehicle. There were plenty of tools and spare parts lying around in the auto garage, so I had plenty to work with.
I reached down and grabbed another beer from the cooler on my side. It didn’t have ice, but it helped me to pretend it was cold. I took a sip and set it down on the table. The sun was finally coming up, which meant my shift would be over soon.
That was another thing, somebody was always awake at night. It didn’t matter how safe we felt, anything could happen, and we weren’t going to take any chances.
I finished my beer as the sun broke over the horizon. Now that the sun was up I needed to walk the perimeter and make sure nothing broke through in the dark.
Even though Nick and I had familiarized ourselves with the M4 carbines from manuals we found in one of the crates dropped by the army, I preferred to use my .22 rifle. It was probably because I’d been using it since I was barely in middle school.
I grabbed a mirror on a pole we made from brooms and a piece of broken mirror we found in one of the bathrooms. We used it to see the first floor windows and doors to make sure they were still intact. Everything was fine, the window shutters were intact, and so were the doors. The small panes of glass in the doors broke a long time ago. They tried to reach through those same as they had for months now. Luckily the windows on the doors were too small for any of them to squeeze through.
The stairwells were packed so full with desks that they looked like boxes of Legos. I leaned over the railing and saw that nothing was trying to squirm its way through the desks. The doors were still holding at the bottom of the stairwells, so I moved on to check the rest of the perimeter.
It wasn’t as hot as it had been during the summer, but it was still hot as hell. Even though it was December now, I still tried to stay in the shade, and enjoyed every breeze for as long as I could. We didn’t have the gas to run the generators all the time for air conditioning.
The buses were all holding strong. We pushed file cabinets under the buses to fill the space under them. I used to worry about how long they’d hold, because they began to sway as more and more undead began pushing and hitting them all hours of the day, everyday.
I hit the last bus three times with the butt of my rifle, taunting the undead, “Come on you bastards, you gotta work harder than that if you wanna get fed.”
After making sure the last bus was clear I started walking toward the inner north stairwell. I needed to tell everyone else that the coast was clear and to wake them up if they were still asleep.
I took my time walking up the stairs. The days were longer now that we didn’t have much to do. I glanced over at the graves in the courtyard, we had some names to put on the graves, but six or seven of them didn’t have wallets, so we didn’t have anything to write down. I shook it off, the ones that did have names meant nothing to me. I never met them, so their names didn’t mean anything either.
I opened the door to our kitchen. Sarah was already cooking our breakfast. “What’s for breakfast today, Babe?” I asked her as I set the rifle on our gun rack next to the door.
“Powdered eggs and beans” she made it sound more appetizing than it was. “Breakfast of champions.”
My mind groaned in resentment, we’d had the same breakfast for weeks, but my stomach was thankful for a meal that wasn’t made up of maggots and dirt. “Sounds good to me. Are Nick and Roxie awake?”
She stirred the eggs in her pot, “Nick is up but I haven’t seen Roxie yet.”
I let out a sigh, “Alright, I’ll be back.” I walked through mine and Sarah’s bedroom, and opened the door to Roxie and Nick’s room. Roxie was sprawled out on their bed and snoring rather loudly.
“Wake up Drowsy.” I threw a pillow at her. She rolled over and hugged the pillow next to her.
“I’m not Drowsy, I’m Sleeping Beauty.” She groaned, “Go away.”
“No,” I kicked the bed, “Sleeping Beauty couldn’t wake up, Drowsy just slept all the time for no reason,”
“Go away,” she yelled with her face buried into her pillow. Her voice was muffled but she yelled loud enough for me to clearly understand her.
“You know,” I continued to kick the bed. “You’re the one who told us to keep a regular sleep schedule to help alleviate stress.”
“Ugh” she grunted into her pillow, then rolled over and stared at me with fiery eyes. “I’m going to kill you in your face.”
“You can try,” I chuckled, then walked out of their bedroom. I stopped for a second before I shut the door, “Get up and do something productive.”
I didn’t stay long enough for her to respond, I went back out to the kitchen table. Sarah had already put the food in a big bowl in the center of the table.
I scooped my share of it onto a plate and didn’t waste any time eating it. Nick walked in when I was about half done with my plate.
“I thought you said you would let me know when you were done cooking,” he said rather upset as he walked into the kitchen.
I turned around as Sarah shot back, “Well if you were within earshot you would have heard me.”
Nick just shrugged and sat down to fill his plate. He took a bite of the eggs and made a sour face. “How was the Perimeter today?”
“Fine,” I answered, pouring hot sauce on my eggs. I glanced up and saw that Nick’s eyes were red, with dark bags hanging under his eyes. He obviously didn’t get any sleep last night, which would explain why Roxie was still tired. They were probably up arguing again.
Sarah finished eating before us. “I’m going to go water the garden, make sure there is enough left for Roxie to eat too.”
“No problem,” I swallowed the last bit of my eggs. “I’m going down to the garage to work on my truck for a bit.”
Nick and I stood up at the same time. He always went to run around the courtyard after breakfast.
We didn’t say anything walking out the door, down the hall, or even down the stairs. I broke the silence, “So what’s up with you and Roxie man?”
“Just another stupid fight,” he sighed. “She wants to talk about our future, I just… I don’t know man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I stopped walking and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s not like there are a lot of other fish in the sea.”
“So I’m just supposed to marry her on principle?” he shook his head. “That’s not fair, not for me and not for her.”
“Didn’t say it was fair,” I stared him down. “I’m saying it’s right.”
He smirked, shook his head, then turned and ran off, “Have fun working on your truck.”
“This isn’t over!” I yelled at him.
“Yes it is!” I barely heard him as he continued running away. I rolled my eyes. He was always avoiding issues, so I wasn’t surprised.
I took my time walking to the auto garage. I had a lot of time on my hands during the day. Nick and I had gone on about a dozen supply runs, mostly to get food and ammo. We made one trip to the local Ford dealership and drove back two newer Rangers for me to use as spare parts to fix my own Ranger up.
The shop was a mess. My truck was in what seemed like a million pieces. My truck itself was up on a lift, the engine was broken down on one table, and the transmission was on another. One of the other Rangers was parked against the wall with its hood popped open. The other was parked near the gate we used to get in and out at the rear of the auto garage. We were using it for supply runs until my truck was back in working order.
Today I was planning on cleaning the engine compartment out, which was no small feat. There was dirt and grime that had been stuck in the nooks and crannies since the truck first rolled off the li
ne back in ’94.
I had rigged the lift to run off an old generator we’d found, so that I could get the truck off the ground now that the power grid was gone. It was just high enough for me to stand inside the engine compartment without having to crouch.
It didn’t take long for me to hear somebody walking up. I thought it was Nick, but I was surprised to hear Roxie, “Need any help?”
I stood up on the tip of my toes to see her cross armed looking at the pile of tools on the table. “Yeah, can you hand me that can of brake cleaner?”
She held it under the truck for me. “I don’t understand why you need to fix this thing up rather then just use one of the new ones you got from the dealership.”
“Same reason Dad and I would spend every weekend working on it,” I squatted down and walked out. “It’s more about pride. I’ve put my blood sweat and tears into this thing, I’m not just going to kick it to the curb.”
“Someone needs to tell that to Nick,” she picked up a rag and handed it to me. “He doesn’t want to work at our relationship, he thinks it’s a joke.”
I wiped the grease off my hands, “Is it just the commitment? I mean what does a ring on the finger change now anyways?”
“I know!” she sighed. “I just want to know that we’re going to be together the rest of our lives, and given our current situation that may not be for much longer.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I don’t want to get caught in the middle of all this.”
“Can you just talk to him?” she pleaded. “And don’t just threaten him so he’ll do it, actually convince him.”
“Fine, I’ll talk to him when we go on our supply run tomorrow,” I tossed the rag onto the table. “Think you can wait that long?”
She rolled her eyes, “Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t worry,” I put my hand on her shoulder to reassure her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
She didn’t look reassured. She actually looked even more worried, “What’s changed?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, not really sure what she meant. “Changed about what?”