Dead, We Are

by Jimmy Bird

  She stayed in her hugging position for a few long minutes until she jumped backwards. I noticed her movement out of the corner of my eye causing me to glance backwards out of concern. She looked over at me and our eyes met. She had a look on her face that contained both hope and cautious. In a voice that went from nervousness to that of hope she told me that she had felt his body twitch.

  Without waiting for a response she glanced back towards him as if she was expecting some kind of miracle. She got it, sort of. Jimmy slowly opened his glazed over eyes.

  His gaze appeared to be fixated with the back of my chair. She repeatedly called out his name, but he didn't seem to notice her. She commented that it looked like he was focusing on something, like was trying to figure something out in his head.

  She started calling out his name again and again, but received no response. Without thinking, she leaned forward in front of him in order to break his line of sight. It was her way of forcing him to look at her.

  She did get a reaction from him, it just wasn't the one she was expecting. With lightning fast reflexes he quickly reached out and grabbed her around the neck. He turned his head slightly so he could look into her eyes or so she thought. He slowly pulled her toward him in what looked like an awkward attempt at a hug.

  Understandably my wife had her doubts as she tried to second guess herself on what she should do. At first you could tell from her body language that she had tensed up, but that only lasted for a second or so. After that she relaxed as she allowed herself to be pulled toward him. With tears in my eyes I turned my attention back to driving.

  The next thing I heard was Nichole screaming at the top of her lungs. I quickly glanced into the rearview mirror just in time to see blood spraying from the side of her neck towards the kids in the very back row of seats. I could see my wife fighting to pull herself from Jimmy’s locked grip as blood continued to spray all over the back of the SUV. The kid’s screams became even louder.

  I knew that I couldn’t afford to stop driving to help my wife. I kept glancing backwards as I told her to hold on until we could get to the Warehouse. By that time she had successfully pulled herself free from Jimmy’s grasp.

  With fresh blood running down his chin he began squirming in his seat-belt as he tried to frantically reach out for his momma once again. My guess was that he was attracted to the smell of fresh blood. My kids were now drenched in her blood as they screamed their mom's name.

  We turned onto the street where the gate was located and was greeted with a sight that forced me to slam on my breaks. My sister’s white car was sitting at the gate with about thirty or so zombies surrounding them. I could barely see their frantic faces as the zombies rocked their car back and forth trying to get to them. I tried to get their attention to let them know that I had arrived without drawing some attention of my own car. I figured if I used the horn then I would get surrounded and we would both be stuck.

  Without any success I decided to pick up the phone and try to call my sister. I could only pray that it would work. To my surprise she answered the phone. I told her to back up so I could get to the electronic card reader. She informed me that they couldn’t move because of the things surrounding them.

  I asked if she knew why the zombies were there. She questioned "Zombies?" I told her that yes, I believed that they were actual zombies. She didn't question as she informed me that the group of "zombies" were already at the gate when they arrived. What? What were we going to do? Time was running out.

  That was when an idea popped into my head. It was a crazy idea, but I figured that it was better then doing nothing. I told her that I would run over the group gathered behind her and as soon as I did I needed her to quickly back up. Confused, she asked me why she needed to back up. I told her that I was hoping that the group in front of her would follow the car. That would give me an open shot at the gate and the card reader. Then she could follow me in. I told her to be ready when I moved.

  Without waiting for a reply, I hung up the phone but didn't move. All that kept running through my mind was the ill conceived plan that I just came up with. The plan was crazy, borderline loco. I knew it, hell I think my sister knew it. The more I thought about it, the more I started to second guess it.

  Until I looked behind me at my screaming children, at my wife, the blood she was loosing, and the look on my son's struggling face as he tried to reached out for his momma. All the thinking and second guessing went right out the window. I was in no dream. I knew that there was no do over if this plan failed, but not trying meant that we would die. There was no doubt about it. We would most likely be surrounded by zombies and my wife would most likely turn. When she did, then she would come after us and I wouldn't be able to stop her.

  I turned my head back to look at the mob surrounding my sister's car and thought to myself about the mess we found ourselves in. It started with my oldest son sacrificing himself to save his little sister and now my wife was lying there dying from the hands of that same son. I looked back at my wife and noticed that she was halfway laying and sitting on the bench seat caddy corner to me. She was using her hand to try to stop the bleeding, but it was a failed attempt. She began to cough up blood as she struggled to breath. I reached out and tried to comfort her. I looked into her eyes and saw sadness as well as fear. I automatically knew that she didn’t have long, which meant that neither did we.

  The only thing that I could really do was to make sure that I got the kids someplace safe before she died, before she came back like our son did. I knew that she would want me to do that. I turned back around and faced forward. I made sure that the car was in drive. I held down the brake and gas peddle at the same time so I could power stale. It was a way to warm up the tires so they could get a better grip on the concrete road. That way I didn't have to worry about getting my RPMs or my speed up when I hit the zombies at full speed. All I needed to do was time it right.

  The noise from squealing the tires started to draw some of the zombies' attention towards me. When I had more than ten of them headed my way I took my foot off the brake. I plowed into them with such force that it was like the SUV was a bowling ball while the zombies were the bowling pins. Once enough of the zombies were on the ground it was like driving over multiple speed bumps going as fast as we could go (I was glad that we were in my wife’s big SUV and not in my low riding Malibu). Blood and body parts flew everywhere, they even hit the windshield. It was a pretty nasty sight that made it difficult to see, even with the wipers on.

  I raced past my sister’s car missing it by mere inches until I was satisfied that she could move and slammed on my brakes. I looked into my rear-view mirror and waited for her to move. I waited for what seemed like an eternity, but was more like a few minutes. She wasn't moving. Why wasn't her car moving?

  I silently urged her to hurry. Ignoring my mirror I turned my head and looked out the rear view window. I could see movement in her car. I focused on the movement and noticed that it looked like someone was trying to signal me. I just couldn't tell what they were trying to say.

  I looked around trying to figure what they were trying to tell me when I realized that my children were still screaming. I quickly and calmly told them to call down. I tried to explain that it was imperative for them to calm down, but it looked like my plea was falling on death ears.

  After a couple of failed attempts to gently calm them down I finally snapped. In my "dad" voice I told them to “STOP SCREAMING!" Almost like a light switch they quit screaming in unison. Their actions caught me off guard because it used to take me at least ten minutes of yelling to get them to stop and listen at home. Maybe it was a sign of things to come.

  Putting all that out of my head I turned back towards my sister's car. After watching their movement inside the car I came to realization that something was wrong with the car. I believed that she had become so frantic with everything going on around her that she somehow flooded the car, causing it to die. I silently cursed under my breath as I p
rayed for her car to start.

  After a few long seconds a miracle happened, her car began to back up. She was lucky because some of the zombies had already started to rise to their knees. If not for the "miracle" we would have both ended up trapped.

  As soon as she had moved out of the way I put it in reverse and gunned it once more. The zombies that I didn’t hit the first time followed after my sister's car. Without waiting for my sister to stop, I plowed right into the zombies that had been following her and stopped.

  I turned the wheel sharply to the right and shifted it into drive. I pulled up to the gate's card reader and lowered the window. In one fluent motion I pulled the card out from my wallet and scanned it. Luckily the card reader was still working.

  I used the window switch to roll up the window as quickly as I could (it didn’t roll up as fast as I would have liked since it was electric, but it was still faster then the gates). As soon as the gates were open enough for my SUV to squeeze past I rushed in. I yelled at the kids to undo their seat-belts as I jumped out of the driver’s side and slammed the door shut behind me. I ran around the front of the SUV (it was the shortest route to my children) to the rear passenger door.

  I made it to the door just as my three remaining children were waiting for me. I opened the door and started to grab the first one whenever I noticed that my wife had stopped breathing. I looked from her to my oldest son who was still fighting to get out of his seatbelt. Something must have gotten his attention because he forgot about his momma and began reaching out towards his siblings.

  As I lowered the first of three to the ground my glaze wondered back toward my wife. The sight of her caused my eyes to start watering. My heart broke even further as I realized that I would no longer be able to tell her that I loved her. To make matters worse she wouldn't get to see our kids grow up. Thinking back on it, seeing how things have progressed I'm not even sure if that was a bad thing.

  I know this sounds kind of cold hearted, but we were now on a time limit. Just as I reached for my second child our time had run out. Her body had already started to twitch. So instead of helping my remaining two kids climb out one at a time I grabbed them both and managed to shut the door in one motion. By the time I finished shutting the door my sister had already raced through the gate.

  Since the Warehouse gates had motion sensors on them for safety purposes the gates wouldn’t shut behind us. That means that the gates won’t shut if it registers movement and we had a lot of movement heading towards us. It seemed that the noise we created had attracted even more zombies. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. They were coming from around the surrounding houses and even the ones that I had run over were now crawling towards us.

  When my sister’s car came to a stop next to mine it literally looked like one of those clown cars from the circus. My sister, Christina (5’3” Caucasian) had jumped out of the driver side and ran toward me. Next her fiance Bobby (5’8” Caucasian) jumped out of the passenger’s side followed immediately by my mom Nancy (5’1” Caucasian) who was a registered nurse, my 14 year old nephew Seth (5’6” half Native-American, half Caucasian), my 12 year old niece Shaelynn (5’3” half Native-American, half Caucasian), my 15 year old adopted brother Jesse (5’8” Caucasian), and my sister’s God-child 18 year old Mia (5’9” Native American who was going to trade school to be a nurse’s assistant).

  I fought back tears as I struggled to pull the Warehouse door key out of my pocket. My emotions were beginning to get the best of me as I shakily handed the door key to my sister. Without saying a word I motioned towards the door. I eventually found my voice as I told her to get everyone safely inside. She looked down at my children as she asked me about Nichole and little Jimmy. My words caught in the back of my throat as my eyes darted toward the SUV. My sister's eyes followed my gaze and immediately understood. Her eyes watered up, but she said nothing as she turned to usher the kids towards the door.

  Bobby and I would stay behind and hold the zombies off until everyone else arrived. Seth wanted to stay and help us, but I used a little reverse psychology on him. I informed him that if me and Bobby were to fail in holding off the zombies then it would be up to him and Jesse to protect our family. They were "the" last line of defense.

  With a disappointed look in his eyes he reluctantly agreed as he turned to follow the others. To make sure that he did what he was told I watched him catch up with the others before I turned back towards Bobby. We knew that we needed to hold the zombies off long enough for the rest of the Council members to show up. I silently prayed that it wouldn’t take them too long to get there.

  I glanced back over to make sure that our family had made it to the safety of the Warehouse door. She easily pulled it open without even using the key. She turned back towards us to tell us that the door wasn't even locked. That wasn't possible. It should have been locked by management when they had sent us home.

  I didn't have time to dwell on the matter though as I motioned for them to hurry up and go inside. It was only after I was sure that they were safely inside that I turned my full attention back to the problem at hand. I turned to find that Bobby was already waiting for me with a baseball bat in one hand and a tire iron in the other.

  At least someone was thinking ahead. He asked me which one I wanted. Without thinking about it I reached for the bat. As I grabbed the bat we looked at each other silently. We didn't have to say a word because we knew what the other was thinking. We were determined to stand our ground in order to protect our family at any cost. We turned and stood shoulder to shoulder as the massive horde of zombies made its way toward us.

  Just as soon as they got within arm’s reach we started swinging wildly and as fiercely as we could. We wanted to keep them from getting close enough to bite or scratch us. I don't want to brag but for two versus many we were able to hold our own. We were extremely successful for those first few minutes, but things somehow took a massive turn for the worse.

  With just the two of us, we were easily outnumbered. We tried as hard as we could, but we couldn't control the situation as they began to surround us. We had to back pedal several times in order to keep from being completely surrounded. After about ten minutes of fighting our hopes of surviving were starting to dwindle.

  I risked a glance toward my wife’s SUV and saw Jimmy’s head moving back and forth as he continued to try to free himself from his seatbelt. Just then I saw my wife’s head slowly rise up next to the window as she looked around. I had to look away as the pain of losing them both was too much for me.

  I silently apologized to my wife for failing to protect her and our oldest child. I vowed to her that I wouldn’t lose another one of our children. With a renewed strength to protect our remaining children I fought harder.

  We fought off the zombies for what seemed like an eternity when in fact it was just a matter minutes. With our backs literally up against a wall we fought on. With our chances of surviving still dwindling down I knew that we needed a miracle to happen and fast. Luckily, we got one.

  First, we heard a horn coming from up that street. It was loud enough that some of the zombies turned toward the noise. Bobby and I looked up just long enough to witness a white SUV run into the gathered zombie horde from behind. Ruff stopped just in front of the bottom of the steps that led to the Warehouse door. The zombies turned toward Ruff which gave me and Bobby a chance to catch our breath.

  Ruff and his wife (who was carrying their grandson) got out of the SUV. Without waiting around Ruff's wife ran up the steps towards the safety of the Warehouse door. Ruff came running over to us swinging a machete at anything that wasn't human. He created a nice little path through the undead.

  We didn’t have time to exchange pleasantries as another wave of zombies came at us. We stood shoulder to shoulder to shoulder waiting for the zombies. I looked over at Ruff and Bobby. They were concentrating on the threat approaching us. I realized that our odds of survival just increased by a fraction. It wasn't much, but it was bet
ter then it was. With a renewed hope I looked back towards the zombies and prepared myself for the inevitable.

  We continued to stand our ground, waiting for them to get within arms reach whenever a tanish gold truck plowed into the zombie herd. It pulled up next to Ruff's SUV. Danny jumped out of the driver side popping off rounds at the zombies heads as his daughter and son got out of the passenger side. They immediately ran towards the door. Our odds of surviving just kept increasing.

  Now that there was four of us it looked like we were going to survive whenever we heard screaming coming from inside the Warehouse. I volunteered to go check it out. To my surprise I was encouraged by the others to go find out what was going on.

  They continued to fight off the zombies as I turned to run towards the building. At that exact moment another vehicle arrived causing more zombie bowling pins to go flying. I didn’t have time to observe what had just happened because the screaming from inside increased.

  I frantically raced up the steps two at a time until I reached the door. I hurriedly opened it and took a step inside. The first thing I saw was my nephew Seth lying on the ground fighting to hold up two zombies with a six foot gas pipe bar around their chest. It looked as if he was bench pressing the zombies. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case because they had him pinned to the ground. I heard more screaming to my right and looked over. I noticed that another zombie was making his way to where everyone else had gathered, which included my children. They were a good thirty to forty feet away and looked like they were getting further away.

  I noticed that even though Jesse was scared to death he had picked up another gas pipe and positioned himself so that he was in the zombie’s way. I did a quick calculation and determined that I couldn’t make it to Jesse in time to save both him and Seth. I could only hope that Jesse would be able to hold the zombie off long enough for me to get there.