by Oliver, Nick
“When we were back at the house five months ago you said you didn’t think everything would be alright,” she reminded me. “What’s changed?”
“I remember saying things wouldn’t be the same,” I thought back to the night I arrived.
“You know what I mean,” she sat down in a chair next to the table. “Why do you think it’s going to be okay now?”
“We’ve survived for five months now, the walls and buses are holding, we have enough food and water to last us five more, and if Nick and I go on a few more runs we can make that last even longer.” I squatted down to meet her eye level, “Or maybe I’m just a chronic optimist. Who knows?”
She smiled, “Just talk to him okay? Remind him why he wanted to go out with me in the first place.”
“I will,” I stood back up and stretched. Being up all night on watch was finally catching up to me, “I’m pretty much done here, so I’m gonna go to bed for a few hours. Wake me up for dinner.”
Roxie stood up as well, “Will do. I’ll go see if Sarah needs any help with the garden.”
I went upstairs into my room, and then collapsed into bed. I don’t know how long it took for me to fall asleep, but it wasn’t long,
4:00 PM, December 8
I woke up to find Sarah sitting by the foot of the bed, just watching me sleep. “You know that’s kind of creepy, you just staring at me asleep like that.”
“Who me?” she asked playfully. “It’s only creepy if it’s not your girlfriend.”
“Yeah well, if I have to wake up to anybody’s face I’m glad it’s yours.” I sat up and smiled.
“Aw, thanks,” she leaned in and kissed me for a second then stood up. “Dinner is in five minutes, don’t be late.”
I stood up and stretched again, “I’ll be there in a minute.”
She walked out into the kitchen. My hat was hanging on the wall in front of me, I put it on and followed Sarah into the kitchen. Nick and Roxie were already sitting down. Sarah was putting the pan in the middle of the table, it was filled with beans and rice with what looked like diced tomatoes in it.
“Are the tomatoes from the garden?” I asked sitting down, “Or from a can?”
“Freshly picked from the garden this afternoon, actually,” Sarah answered, scooping her portion onto her plate.
“About time,” Nick complained. “I’ve had it up to here with that canned stuff, it has no taste.”
“So where are we going on our run tomorrow Nick?” I asked to change the subject. We all hated the crappy canned food, but Nick seemed to be the only one who complained about it every day.
“I was thinking that neighborhood behind the Church,” he suggested as he reached over to fill his own plate. “It’s pretty small so we should be able to clean it out in one day, and with all the local residence piling up outside the school here I doubt there will be many unwelcoming homeowners to stop us.”
Roxie glanced over at me, trying to give me a telepathic reminder to talk to Nick while we were out. I nodded to her to show I understood. “Sounds good to me. Maybe we’ll find some more ammo, we don’t have a lot, and with so many of those things outside, I want as much as we can get.”
“Just remember not to waste space on anything frivolous, we need food, water, medical supplies and ammo, that’s it,” Roxie informed us. “It’s dangerous enough out there without you guys goofing off for a TV or something.”
“Don’t forget toilet paper,” Nick reminded her. “I don’t feel like wiping my ass with those brown paper towels the school seems to have an unlimited supply of.”
I took a big bite of the beans, rice and tomato concoction. Sarah was definitely getting better at making this food taste good. “Maybe we’ll find some animals running around out there so we can bring home some meat. I don’t mind the beans but I swear if I wake up to another fart I’m gonna lose my mind.”
Sarah shot me a look, “Oh, like you’ve never cleared a room before.”
“I didn’t mean you,” I lied to cover my own ass. “I can hear and smell Nick’s through the damned door between our rooms.”
Nick didn’t seem too broken up over it, he just shrugged, though Roxie was nodding in solemn agreement.
“Well, Roxie it’s your night for watch,” I reminded her, noticing the calendar we had hanging on the wall next to the table.
“Yeah I know,” she groaned. “And don’t worry, you know I never sleep the night before you guys go on a run anyway.”
We finished dinner then everyone went into the living room. We allowed ourselves to run one of the generators to power the TV one or two nights a week. Nick had brought a few movies with him from his Uncle’s house. It helped us keep our minds off things.
Tonight’s movie was Ghostbusters, one of my personal favorites. Even though we’d all seen it dozens of times, we still enjoyed it. It brought us back a little taste of the old world, and we enjoyed every minute of it.
“What movie should we watch next time?” I asked, putting DVD back in the case.
“How about Night of the Living Dead?” Nick suggested.
“Really?” Roxie shot him a look, “Night of the Living Dead? As if we aren’t already living that movie every day.”
Sarah had a similar look on her face. It was an odd choice yes, but Zombie movies were one of our favorite genres before the real ones woke up and kind of ruined the fantasy of it all.
“So what?” he defended himself, “It would be like research.”
“Dude,” I shook my head. “Give it up, you already lost. We’ll watch it one day without the girls.”
It got dark around 6:30, and we all meandered to bed one at a time except for Roxie, who went to her post. I was the last one up so I went to shut down the generator and make sure Roxie was all set. She was sitting in the chair, knitting a scarf or something. As soon as the hum of its motor died the sounds of a thousand zombie moans filled my ears. The thing that upset me the most was that I was getting used to it.
I went back inside to mine and Sarah’s bedroom. Sarah was already asleep. I wasn’t tired just yet, but with it being so dark it was only a matter of time. I hung my hat up, laid down on the bed, and pulled the photo of me and Sarah out. I glanced over and stared at her for a minute, then back at the picture. She was getting closer every day.
Chapter Eighteen: Food Mission
6:00 AM, December 9
I’d been up for almost an hour. I hated leaving late on a supply run. We could only be out there as long as the sun was up, so why waste good sunlight sleeping?
My truck was still in pieces, so we’d been using one of the new trucks we took from the Ford dealership. I wanted to use mine, but until it was fixed we didn’t really have much of a choice.
The truck’s bed was empty but the extended cab was packed full of empty backpacks and duffle bags for filling up with anything we found inside the houses.
We usually just parked the truck in the middle of a neighborhood and would bring the supplies to it, unless something was too heavy to carry that far, then we’d leave it at the end of the driveway and pick it up before we left.
I checked my .22 rifle to make sure it was loaded, and set it in the truck. I also had the compound bow in there in case there were a few too many of them in the streets, so we could take them out silently. My sidearm was also fully loaded. I didn’t take any chances when we were outside the walls.
Nick wasn’t too far behind me. He came strolling in holding one of the M4 carbines. Nick had handled them while in the police academy, so he was familiar enough with them. “You ready to head out?” he asked.
“I’ve been waiting on you,” I opened the door to my truck. “Open the gate and let’s get out of here.”
I fired up the truck as Nick grabbed the chain that pulls open the roller door in the back. There were three zombies lingering there, I hit the gas and rammed two of them. Nick stepped outside and dropped the door so they couldn’t get in, then hopped in the bed.
The thir
d made a feeble attempt to follow us, but as soon as I hit the gas pedal we were way out of his reach. Most of the zombies were concentrated on the front of the school, but sometimes they would wander around the sides. A decent sized clump of them turned around and followed us down the road leading away from the school, but most of them didn’t even notice.
I stopped at the stop sign at the end of the road so that Nick could get in the cab of the truck. Then even though the neighborhood was to the left, I took a right. We could take a slightly longer route and the ones following us wouldn’t show up when we were leaving, they would be conveniently going in the opposite direction.
12:00 PM, December 9
The once well kept yards of this suburban neighborhood now looked like something you’d see on the Discovery Channel. I half expected to see a herd of gazelles run past being chased by a lion.
A gust of wind made waves in the waist high grass as if it were an ocean. The grass was also starting to grow onto the sidewalks and streets, growing out of cracks in the concrete. I checked to make sure the safety was off on my .22 rifle.
“It’s too quiet out here Nick.” I whispered behind me.
“I know what you mean,” Nick responded with a whisper. “Most are already surrounding the school, but it seems like every time we go out we see less and less of the fuckers.”
There was a rustling in the grass to our left. Nick raised his M4 carbine to his shoulder, and aimed it at a gap in the grass where something must have walked in. I kept an eye on the grass across the street and the street as he took a look. A low moan groaned out of the grass, I heard a rustle then a wet smack.
The moan stopped.
Nick came out wiping the blood and brain matter from the blade of his machete. We tried to refrain from gunfire while gathering supplies. It always seemed to draw more zombies out of the woodwork.
Nick pulled out the map of the neighborhood we were in. There were red X’s on most of the houses.
“You ready?” he asked as we walk up the driveway to the next house.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I responded as we reach the front door. There were small windows on the sides of the door. I hit the window on the left side of the door with the butt of my gun. Nick shined his flashlight in to make sure it was clear before I reached my hand in and unlocked the door.
I backed up and shouldered my rifle. Nick turned the handle and kicked it in. He went in first raising his rifle and going right, I followed and covered left. We checked to make sure there were no zombies in any rooms before checking for supplies.
“Living room clear,” I said before I moved into the kitchen. Nick headed to the back windows to check the backyard. The kitchen itself was a mess, but no bodies. I checked the pantry just to be safe, and then called out, “Kitchen clear.”
“Backyard clear,” I heard him say. We headed to the hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. I kicked in the first door in the hallway, it was a bedroom and there was a small figure on the ground. When it saw me it lunged, reaching for the closest flesh to its dripping jaws. Without hesitation I fired, blowing a hole in the center of its forehead.
I didn’t want to fire, but it was too close for me to safely grab my bat before it would have been on top of me.
Just as I was cursing myself for breaking silence I heard another gunshot from the hallway, followed by, “Okay, house is clear.” Nick leaned in the bedroom, “Let’s move quickly, some of them had to have heard those gunshots. I’ll get the bathroom, and you start in the kitchen.”
“Why do I always get the kitchen?” I asked as I opened the pantry and began filling up my empty duffle bag.
“Because I called bathrooms, you’re just too slow.” I heard him filling his bag with various pill bottles and such, “Maybe next time you’ll call it a little quicker.”
I gathered all the canned foods left in the pantry. There wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for a week’s worth of meals give or take. I checked all the cabinets and found some cereals and oatmeal, along with some dehydrated milk, a lucky score. After checking all the nooks and crannies in the kitchen, I made my way into the bedrooms to find any hidden weapons.
Nick came out of the bathroom. “I got some ibuprofen, cold medicine, vitamins, and five rolls of toilet paper,” he said with a grin.
“Well, don’t get too excited, it’s just toilet paper.” I jested. “I’m going to check the bedrooms, and you go ahead and check the garage for any tools or anything. Who knows maybe you’ll find something useful.”
I went to the master bedroom first. If any of the rooms had a handgun it’d be the parent. I checked closet, then the dresser, but all I found was a small bottle of whiskey, and a box of condoms. I grabbed both.
Nick was in the garage. There were four cases of water stacked up next to a refrigerator, “Should we risk it?”
Opening a fridge now was a gamble. Most of the time it was just a cesspool of spoiled and rotting perishables. We almost never opened fridges inside a kitchen, but in garages, they might be worth it.
I shrugged, “Well I guess we can settle this really quickly.” He sighed and put his fist out, I did the same. “One, two, three, shoot!”
He kept his fist balled, but I made mine into scissors. He laughed, “About time, I thought you were never going to lose.” He then took a few steps back and covered his nose with his hand.
“Shut up,” I scoffed, then pulled a bandana out of my pocket and tied it around my mouth and nose. “Here goes nothing.”
I opened the door to find it full of sodas, beer, and more water bottles. I pulled off the bandana and breathed a sigh of relief. I opened up my duffle bag and began filling it.
“Well hot damn, more skunked beer for us to drink,” he joked, then opened his bag and began filling it up as well.
We picked up all of our heavy bags and left the house, picked clean of anything we might need. Nick went out first. As I followed him out I shut the door behind me.
“I never understood why you felt the need to shut the doors behind us,” he observed as he pulled out the map of the neighborhood and crossed off the house we just cleared.
“Habit, I guess.” I lied, I did it mostly out of respect, but Nick would probably just laugh at me if I admitted that. “Let’s get this shit to the truck and get working on the next house.”
About halfway back to the truck Nick turned his head around and looked at me for a second like he was going to say something, then turned back.
“Please, don’t keep me in suspense,” I said sarcastically, wiping the sweat off my forehead with my shirt sleeve.
He turned back around again and asked me nervously, “Can I ask you a question?”
“No, you can’t drink my whiskey,” I answered sarcastically, hoping this conversation would lead to what Roxie asked me to talk about with him.
He laughed a bit nervously, “No, I mean, can I ask you a serious question?”
“You know you can,” I answered, noticing the truck was just at the end of this street. “What’s on your mind?”
“You mentioned the other day how you didn’t need to worry about Roxie while you were on your way here. What did you mean?” he asked.
I didn’t have to think about my answer because I knew exactly why. “I knew you would be there to get her out of trouble, and to make sure she was okay.”
“I never did understand why you were okay with me dating your little sister,” he said as we reached the truck.
“Do you remember when you came to me and asked my permission to date her?” I asked lifting my heavy duffle bag into the bed of the truck, which was almost half full now.
“Yeah,” he answered nervously, lifting his into the other side of the bed, “I remember it being the scariest day of my life.”
I smirked, remembering the way Nick had nervously approached me. “I know it doesn’t really make sense, me being okay with it. Hell I’d beaten the shit out of several guys who’d gone out with her.”
I h
eard him laugh as I opened the door to grab a few more duffle bags for the next house, “I remember tagging along on a few of those ass kicking extravaganzas.”
“I already knew you two had slept together before that.” I chuckled to myself, imagining the shocked look on his face as I closed the door. I looked over and saw his face wasn’t far off from what I imagined.
“You,” he stammered nervously as we started toward the next house in the neighborhood. “You what?”
“I knew you guys got drunk that night at the party and hooked up,” I revealed, glancing around for any movement.
His face was white, “How did you know?”
“When have you ever been able to keep a secret from me?” I asked him sarcastically.
“That’s true,” he admitted. Half the time he’d slip up and tell me, or it would be all over his face.
“Now before you have a heart attack,” I reassured him, “I want you to know I wasn’t mad at you.”
It took him a moment for him to respond, we arrived at the next house to clear. “Why not? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, but anyone else would have seen that as an act of betrayal.”
“Yeah, I know.” I thought for a moment on exactly how to word the way I felt, “You’re my closest friend in the whole world, I trust you more then anyone else, and I wouldn’t accept anything less for her.”
He sighed away the nervousness in his face, and smiled, “Thanks dude, I don’t know what to say.”
The front door was already slightly ajar. We positioned ourselves the same as the last house. Nick shouldered his rifle and went right. I shouldered mine, followed him in and broke left.
“Living room clear,” I called out, noticing an already dead body on the ground. A screwdriver was sticking out of its temple.
“Bedrooms clear,” I heard Nick call from across the house. The lack of gunfire meant there must not have been any of them inside.
I checked out the kitchen, there was some dried blood on the floor, but no more bodies, “Kitchen clear.”