Dead, We Are

by Jimmy Bird

  She grabbed their crying grandson and her phone. She tried calling 911, but the line was busy. Before she could hang up the phone their daughter had emerged from the bedroom. She had blood coming from the right side of her face and arm. His wife's nursing instincts kicked in causing her to spring into action. She sat down their grandson in a chair and turned to get some towels when she noticed that their daughter collapsed to the floor.

  Forgetting the towels she ran to her collapsed daughter. She was very weak and had started wheezing. His wife had picked up the phone again to call 911 when their daughter suddenly died. All she got was another busy signal. Her despair quickly turned to anger over what happened to their daughter and for the lack of help from emergency line.

  Just then Ruff's wife heard her grandson cry out and all the built up anger instantly melted away as she got up to comfort him. She picked him up and was going to take him out of the room until she could do something with the body (she didn't want him to see his mom like that). She started to turn to walk away whenever she heard a moaning sound behind her. Unsure of the sound, she stopped and turned towards the noise. She was silently hoping that she had been mistaken about her daughter.

  She was mistaken alright, but not in the good way. Her daughter had bolted upright into a sitting position. Her eyes focused on something in front of her. Shocked, her mother called out her name as she took a step toward her daughter. Luckily, that was as far as she got.

  Her daughter turned her head slightly to look at her mom, but it didn't have that same warm feeling that it usually had. No, it wasn't a warm look at all. She described it as more of a predatory type of look. In fact, she said that it was such a feral look that her first instinct was to run away.

  She didn't though and stood there frozen in place, mesmerized as she watched her daughter slowly rise to her feet. She continued to be frozen in place as her daughter took a step towards them. By the second step her daughter had growled something intangible at her and quickened her pace. Ruff's wife was smart enough to turn around and run to her bedroom. They had been hiding in there ever since.

  After he cleaned up and changed they made sure that they had covered their grandson’s face. They wanted to make sure that he couldn't witness the horror that used to be his mother on the floor. They quietly made their way into the garage and got in his wife's SUV. His was stuck outside with the new zombie "neighbors." With his wife and grandson visibly shaken up Ruff took the initiative by jumping into the driver's seat.

  He started the vehicle before he opened the garage door. As soon as the door opened he saw what waited for them in the rear-view mirror and gunned it. He stated that there must have been twenty or so zombies gathered around his garage by the time he tried to leave. He admitted that luckily only about ten were directly behind his car otherwise he might not have been able to get out. Once he successfully maneuvered outside of his neighborhood he finally noticed the devastation and chaos that had happened since he had been home.

  4 DANNY

  With a saddened and hard look in his eyes Danny informed us that he had lost his wife to the zombies. Only his fourteen year old son Austin and twenty year old daughter Rebecca (Becca) had survived. Much like Ruff’s story Danny's kids had quickly locked themselves into a bathroom, hoping that their dad would show up in time to save them. Their dad did not disappoint them because he had arrived just in the nick of time.

  It started off similar to everyone else's story. People just started to attack other people and those people in turn would attack other people. Becca worked at the Warehouse with us but in a different part of the plant, building small appliances. She had gone home early that day sick when the whole mess started. Becca was staying with her dad and mom while her apartment was being renovated. She had just arrived at the house and started to get her things out of her car when it got crazy. She had placed a few of her items on top of the roof of her car so that her hands would be free to get the rest of her stuff.

  Before she could reach down a second time she saw movement out of the corner of her eyes towards the back of her car. Worried, she quickly stood back up and turned around. Her fear was confirmed when she noticed a couple of psychotic looking homeless guys limping towards her. Feeling a little uncomfortable, she tried to hurry up and grab her stuff. She made a mental note that they had an unusual predatory look in their eyes, something that was only seen in movies. She also noticed that they looked like they were covered in open wounds and blood.

  She assumed that part of her uneasiness was from them staring at her like she was just some piece of meat. To ease some of the tension that she was feeling she tried to talk to them, but they ignored her.

  She tried to keep from freaking out. Usually nobody messed with her. You see she grew up in that neighborhood and everybody knew her dad.

  It was only when the two guys got within five yards that she could actually see their gruesome injuries. It was enough to cause Becca to actually freak out and scream for help. The nightmare got worse as the closest guy reached out toward her. She did the only thing she could think of and jump back into her car. She quickly pulled the door shut behind her.

  She reached into her pants pocket to get her car keys out, but they were missing. She started to freak out! Where were they?

  It didn't take her long to realize where they were. She looked up. Shehad left them on the roof of her car, right next to her cell phone. She was hopelessly stuck.

  The seriousness of her situation hit her hard causing her to start hyperventilating, if that was even possible without ever having a history of doing it. She used her hands to cover her face as if she was a kid trying to hide from a scary monster on the television. She squeezed her eyes shut and had almost convinced herself that it was all a dream. That was until someone banged hard on the window causing her to jump.

  A neighbor had witnessed the weird transaction between Becca and the two guys. Worried about Becca's safety, he decided to find out what was going on. When the neighbor got within a few yards of the car he noticed a few odd things.

  The first thing that he noticed was that they were no ordinary homeless guys. In fact they were dressed in nice but torn up clothes. The second thing that he noticed was that they were severely wounded, but showed no signs of it actually affecting them. It was like they were high on drugs or something.

  The neighbor called out to the two guys causing them to shift their attention from Becca to him. It was only when they turned their attention towards him that he realized his mistake. They weren't homeless guys at all. They were something else.

  The two guys turned their full attention from Becca and started walking towards the neighbor. The neighbor tried to turn and run away but couldn't. Four more of the homeless guys had snuck up behind him, trapping him. He turned around once again and found that the other two were right behind him. His head was on a swivel when he realized that he was now trapped between six of them and no way out. The neighbor yelled for Becca's help, but there was nothing she could do.

  Becca watched as the neighbor juked to his left and jumped to his right. He managed to get out of trap. The last Becca saw of him, he was leading the homeless guys away down the street. Becca refused to leave the safety of her car.

  Danny’s wife had heard the commotion outside and when she looked out the window noticed that her daughter was inside her car with a few guys trying to get to her. She knew right away that something wasn't right. No one acted like that in her neighborhood.

  Without hesitation she screamed Becca's name and rushed outside to help her daughter. The problem was that she didn't make it two steps past the porch when someone grabbed her right arm from behind. Before she even turned around to see who it was, she automatically knew that she was in trouble.

  She realized that someone must have been hiding in the blind spot behind the tall bushes located around the corner of her house. She didn't fear for her own safety her only thought was for the safety of her daughter. From our training sessions
she knew that she could free her arm if she spun away in the opposite direction. She tried to do it all in one fluent motion but failed. In fact she didn't even get halfway into her turn because whoever had grabbed her had a death grip on her arm.

  Her arm was now at such an angle that she could barely move. The only thing she could really do was look at her frightened daughter. Becca was screaming and pointing in her direction. Confused, she struggled to turn her head to see what her daughter was trying to tell her.

  Even though she was in pain she managed to see the person who had grabbed her for the first time. She stood there dumbstruck as she watched the guy, whom she had never met, lowered his mouth to her arm. It looked like most of the skin on the left side of his face was missing, exposing his red stained teeth. She didn't know what to think as he opened his mouth and bit down.

  She felt a severe pain that started at her arm and surged throughout her body. The pain seemed to intensify as he pulled his head back, taking a mouth sized chunk of her skin with him. She screamed at the top of her lungs as she struggled to pull her arm free.

  After struggling in his death grip, she succeeded in only turning her body slightly around. When she realized that couldn't break free of his grip she tried hitting him with her left hand. It seemed that no matter how hard she hit him, he wouldn't release her arm. She did, however succeed in forcing him to take a few steps backwards.

  She thought that she was putting up a great fight when the zombie (might as well call him that since we know that is what he is) tripped on something. She struggled to keep her balance but failed. She looked over at her daughter one more time as she fell to the ground. As she went down she must have hit her head on something hard which caused her to pass out.

  Luckily, Austin had been in his bedroom playing video games when he heard the commotion (his room was located near the front porch). At first he thought it might have been some kind of gang fight or something. He got up and slowly walked over to the window to see what all the commotion was. What he witnessed was a horror beyond his wildest imagination.

  Without a second thought he rushed to help his mom and sister. Unfortunately, he found out later that he was too late to help his mom. As he rushed out of his room, he had enough sense to grab an old baseball bat that he kept hidden in his closet.

  By the time Austin made it to the porch, the zombie already had her arm in his mouth. The zombie had just pulled his mouth back from the arm exposing tissue and spraying blood. Furious by what he was seeing Austin jumped off the porch toward the zombie. He had a double grip on the bat and was swinging it downward as hard as he could. The bat connected with the top of the zombie's head. With a loud crunching sound, the zombie and his mother fell to the ground.

  Austin quickly went over to check on his mom just as Becca jumped out of her car and ran over to help (I guess seeing her mom in danger changed her mind about staying in the car). It seemed that when the zombie fell, he had released his grip on her arm. They bent down to examine her wound and noticed that they could see the bone. The zombie must have bit down with such force that he went straight to the bone. That wasn't even the worst part, they had realized that she had stopped breathing.

  Thinking quickly, Becca jumped up and ran towards the house. She knew that she needed to use the home phone to call 911 and their dad. She cleared the porch in one quick leap without breaking her stride. She picked up the phone and quickly realized that her efforts to save her mom just might have been in vain. The phone line was down.

  A new idea popped into her head. What about her cell phone? Was it still on her car roof? She raced back outside to get it and noticed that her brother was standing in a defensive position over their mother's body. He was in a baseball stance. Becca followed his gaze and noticed what he was looking at. The same six zombies that had chased their neighbor away were now making their way towards her brother. They were maybe thirty yards away.

  Becca quickly did the math in her head. She knew that she wouldn't be able to race toward her car, get her phone and help her brother at the same time. The zombies had made their way around the trunk of her car, they were now within twenty yards. Becca knew that time was running out when she made the difficult decision to leave her mother where she was.

  She stayed on the porch and called out to her younger brother, pleading with him to flee to the safety of their house. Austin didn't say a word as he turned and looked at her. The look on his face said it all. He WOULD NOT abandon their mother. Becca tried to reason with her brother by telling him that their mother would have wanted them to survive, no matter what.

  He knew that his sister was right. Their mother would have wanted them to live. It didn't make the decision any easier. He took a few precious seconds to gaze upon his mother's face one more time as he silently told her goodbye.

  Becca once again pleaded for him to hurry. He looked up to see what the rush was and realized that the zombies were now just a few steps away. Without another moment of hesitation he turned to run to the safety of their house, but something grabbed his right foot.

  He glanced down and saw something that would haunt his dreams forever. His mom had that feral, almost hungry animal look in her eyes as she pulled on his foot. No, she wasn't exactly pulling his foot to her as much as she was trying to pull it towards her mouth.

  She opened her mouth and snarled like a caged animal ready to attack. Once his foot was close enough to her mouth she tried to bite down on the tip of his shoe. He knew at that exact moment that this thing holding onto his foot was no longer his mother.

  Without thinking twice Becca rushed to her brother's aide. Austin tried to yank his foot free, but his mother had a good grip on his shoe. While her brother was struggling to pull his foot free (it was only because he refused to use the bat on his mom) Becca yanked the bat out of her brother's hands and started swinging wildly at the approaching zombies. She managed to hit the first zombie with enough force that it knocked it backwards into the others. Like a domino effect they fell down, one into another.

  Seeing their chance to run to safety, Becca turned around to grab her brother and saw something that broke her heart. Her brother was trying to plead with their mom to let his foot go. The only problem was that she wasn't listening.

  Becca looked back and noticed that the zombies were already working on getting up. She knew that their time to escape was narrowing down. Their mother almost had the tip of his shoe in her mouth whenever Becca reached out for her brother's hand. When she had it she pulled as hard as she could.

  The gamble worked as Becca was able to help her brother break free of their mother's grip. Without a moment to spare they ran towards their house. They raced up the steps and through the front door. Once inside they slammed and locked the door behind them.

  They leaned back on the door and took a deep breath. They thought that they were safe inside the house, that was until they heard something brush up against the door. They looked at each other, wide eyed. Austin whispered to Becca "What was that?" Her only response was to shrug, the international symbol for 'I don't know.' In unison they leaned toward the door so they could hear better. When they got their ears within inches of the door, someone or something hit it hard causing them to jump backwards. They stepped back a few steps just as the banging began to increase.

  Just as quickly as the banging started it stopped. Unsure of what was happening, Becca walked up and looked out of the door peep hole. She pulled away in shock, her face pale white. Her brother fought hard to stay quiet and calm as he asked her what she had seen.

  For the first time in her life Becca was truly speechless (believe me when I tell you that it was no small task for her to be quiet) as she shook her head in an attempt to tell him not to ask. Ever the curious one, her brother slowly walked up and leaned toward the peep hole. What he saw would just add to his nightmares.

  Not only did he see the original zombies that tried to get him and his sister outside, but he noticed more zombies had joined them
, which included their mom. He watched her slowly walk up the stairs with a blank look in her eyes and her damaged arm hanging by her side. His thoughts automatically went to his mother and the horrors that she had just endured.

  He watched as they unexpectedly walked right into the door. He watched in amazement as they just kept walking into the door. He was snapped back to reality when he heard a crackling sound come from the door-frame. Him and his sister quickly figured that the combined weight of the zombies on the door would eventually cause it to burst open (most likely sooner rather then later).

  Without waiting around to find out when that would be they began to race towards the safety of their parents bathroom. They agreed that they would wait there until their dad could come and save them. They had faith that he would come for them.

  On their way to their parent's bedroom they remembered that their dad's gun safe was hidden in his closet (all the more reason to stay in their parent's bedroom). Their hopes for surviving quickly increased as they rushed toward the room that held the safe.

  Once inside the room they quickly shut and locked the door. They ran to the safe and realized that the hopes they had just envisioned were now extinguished. It was a combination gun safe and they didn’t have the combination code.

  Perhaps all of their hopes were not completely extinguished after all. They realized that their dad would have written the combination down just in case he forgot. That meant one thing. If they could find something with the combination code on it then they could still use the guns to protect themselves. Pressed for time they started ransacking the room looking for anything that would possibly have the combination written down on it.

  Just as they began to look around they heard something that sounded like the front door slamming down on the floor. They could hear multiple footsteps walking around on the tile floor throughout the house. They knew it meant that they were out of time. Giving up on finding the combination code they quietly moved towards the bathroom. Once they were inside they shut and locked that door as quietly as they could. They talked in hush whispers as they tried to figure out what they were gonna do next.