Dead, We Are

by Jimmy Bird

  It appeared that someone was lying because Kevin told us that only guns were used and that hurting the children was unintentional. It didn't matter if it was unintentional or not, they were all dead.

  Logan pointed out that the back fence was wide open from the explosions. He paused for a second as his eyes took on a distant look. After thinking about it, he admitted that it might not be as wide open as he first thought. He admitted that he didn't investigate because he didn't want to take the chance of being seen. He did say that the fence looked like it was bowed inward, but he wasn't sure of its overall condition. Silently, if not sarcastically, I thought that things were just getting better and better for us!

  Without realizing it, my thoughts quickly turned to my family. I was haunted by the thoughts of my wife and children. I was so focused on those thoughts that I honestly forgot where I was. I forgot about everyone around me. I knew they had each lost someone, but at that moment, I didn't care. I couldn't help thinking that God had a sick sense of humor.

  The pain in my arm was temporary forgotten as the thoughts of my children and wife consumed me. I had lost my wife, my four children, my mom, my brother, my oldest nephew (went missing when the apocalypse started), and niece. Those were just some of the family on my side and I wasn't even sure about the family on my wife's side.

  I fell to the ground in a heap as suicidal thoughts consumed me. To be honest, I just wanted to die just so I could have a chance to be with my family. You would have to be a cold person not to have similar thoughts. I didn't even know where the rest of my extended family was or if any of them were still alive. I just had to believe they were still alive out there somewhere.

  My mind fought to stay in control of my body. I had lost almost everything that I loved and held dear in the past six months. I wanted to scream my pain away. I wanted to walk up and just hit something. I realized at that exact moment I wanted to "hit" my pain away. Better yet, I wanted to scream out loud as I hit my pain away, maybe hit Kevin or Bruce.

  My head hurt as I tried to shake the cobwebs out. I'm not sure if I blacked out or for how long. All I know is that when I opened my eyes, Logan was in my face. He was trying to be a voice of reason for me. He tried to give me a sense of hope as he told me that my daughter was still alive, they had her in a safe place.

  I didn't respond, I just stared at him. My mind was trying to process what I had just been told. Unfortunately, it wasn't working too well. All I kept thinking was that if my daughter was alive then maybe my twins were too. Maybe it was all a dream. In my mind's eye, I could see my twins running towards me.

  I was brought back from the dream with a slap to my face, literally. I couldn't tell you who hit me, but Logan was still kneeling in front of me. I blinked a couple of times as I focused on Logan's face. When I came to, I looked at him hard and long before I asked him if he meant what he said about my daughter.

  He smiled softly as he confirmed it. He then looked around at the others and apologized for not having better news for them. The others! I had completely forgotten about the others. They must have been hurting as bad as I was.

  I looked over and felt bad for my own selfish feelings. Ruff had lost his wife and grandson. Danny had lost his daughter and son. Bobby lost his daughter (my niece) and son (my nephew Seth). Wait, that wasn't right. If my daughter was alive then that meant Seth and Austin were alive.

  We started the day with over forty people and now by my count, we were down to ten people (including the children). Our odds of survival were not looking good at the moment and seemed to be decreasing by the minute.

  No, stop thinking like that! I was determined to not let that happen. I silently vowed to stop feeling sorry for myself and stood up. WE needed to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, especially if we were going to survive. We needed to be strong for our families. No, we were family. From those of us who had survived and those of us who had passed on. We were still FAMILY.

  With Ruff getting shot multiple times in his right leg, Danny in the upper left shoulder, and Bobby around the left collarbone area, it was decided that Logan and I would go search for a way to get everyone to the clinic. Danny had a huge gash on his forehead, but he was up and alert. He elected to stay behind to guard Ruff and Bobby while we were gone.

  Logan and I decided to use one of our old maintenance trucks. They were the old propane style vehicles that the maintenance department used to transport tools or materials back and forth when they needed to work on the machines. They were about the length of a modified golf cart that were two seaters with long beds.

  The direct path to the old maintenance shop took us by the clinic. Since Mia was still around, we needed her to patch everyone up for the next round. We needed to be ready for whatever the next round brought us.

  Finding the maintenance vehicle was easy, but getting to it was going to be hard. You know when I said that Logan thought that the fence around the storage yard on 27th street was damaged from the blast? Well, it was. In fact, it was more then damaged. We found out that a whole portion of the fence was gone.

  We didn't have time to get my shoulder looked at by Mia and had even less time if we were going to save Bobby. We needed that truck. I pulled my shirt off and used it as a sling to support my right arm.

  We made it through the maze that was our machine shop when we came across our first zombie. It looked strangely familiar and was just standing still, all alone. I was truly surprised that we didn't see more of them around, especially after all of the explosions. Logan and I were in similar situations. We both got shot in the right shoulder and ironically we were both right handed.

  Seeing the first zombie meant that more were sure to come. Fortunately for us, being in the machine shop meant all kinds of goodies that we could use as weapons. Unfortunately for us, we were limited on what tools we could use.

  Since we're both right handed, it meant that our strongest hands and arms were out of commission. We were forced to rely on our wits. Actually, truth be told I had to rely on my wits. When he was training to be a Marine, Logan had to learn to fight with either arm. It meant that I was at a major disadvantage. I think to make me feel better, Logan admitted that he wasn't as good with his left arm as he was with his right.

  I decided to get a four foot long gas pipe that was three quarters of an inch in diameter. It was long enough to keep the zombies at bay and light enough so that I wouldn't hurt my left wrist when swinging it around. Logan decided on a five foot pipe.

  With our weapons in hand, we circled the zombie giving it a wide berth. Our tactic proved to be our first mistake. It was only when we got close enough that we noticed something oddly familiar about it. I couldn't figure out why it looked familiar until I was standing directly in front of it.

  It had either caught my scent or noticed me or maybe it was both. Regardless, it came at me. I froze in place as my mind raced around trying to find an explanation for what I was actually seeing. Thankfully, Logan was still alert enough that he caught the creature on the left side of the temple with his weapon as it was walking by. The zombie fell flat on his face.

  It was Kevin in zombie form, but that was impossible. Wasn't it? I mean I watched him get shot. Didn't I? Yes, I was positive that I saw him get shot. While he was standing in front of me, I could see a hole in the center of his chest. His shirt was stained with blood.

  In fact, there was a trail of blood drops that had followed him to that spot where we found him. So question remained, how did he turn into a zombie? Why did he not have any of the usual zombie bite marks on him?

  Snapping out of my initial shock, I slowly walked towards his body and knelt down besides him. I took my time as I examined his body. Logan demanded to know what I was doing. I looked up at him and stated that I witnessed him get shot and go down. I needed to know how he got back up as a zombie. Where were the bite marks?

  I looked back downed and resumed my examination of Kevin's body. I searched all over, but couldn't find any evidence of a bi
te or a scratch. I looked all over his exposed flesh once more. Again, I found nothing.

  I was ready to give up when a thought occurred to me. Maybe the bite marks were under Kevin's clothes. It was possible. Especially, if Kevin wasn't entirely dead when the zombies arrived at the front gate. Yeah, that would explain things nicely.

  Kevin was lying flat on his stomach. I was nervous to touch his body. I wasn't sure why things were different the second time around but they were. I guess it's because the first time I was looking for bite marks on his exposed flesh. Basically, I could see them without touching him. Now, it appeared that I couldn't.

  I gently lifted the tail end of his shirt with two fingers, more accurately my first finger and thumb. I slowly pulled it towards his neck. I managed to only get the shirt halfway up his back when the front of it got stuck under his stomach. For me to continue searching, I was going to have to roll him over onto his back.

  Feeling uneasy about the whole situation, I reached up with my left hand and pushed with about half my strength. As you can imagine, he didn't budge. I laughed at myself for thinking that he would just roll over onto his back for me.

  I looked over at Logan, who was watching something in the distance and asked if he would come help me. Logan looked down and said that we needed to hurry because a few more were coming. I asked him how long we had and he estimated a max of five minutes. It didn't leave us a lot of time.

  I told Logan to hurry up and help me so we could leave. I scooted over so he could kneel down next to me. He dropped right next to me and place his left hand on Kevin's should while I placed mine on his hip. We counted to three and pulled up. When we had him on his side, we finished pushing him over onto his back.

  Logan stood back up and grabbed his weapon with his left hand. He got in a defensive stance and told me to hurry. Without thinking about the uneasiness of touching the bloody body, I quickly grabbed the shirt with my left hand and lifted it towards his head.

  There it was, clear as day, a bite mark next to the hole in his chest. Literally, right next to the hole. It wasn't a very big bite mark, but it was there sure enough.

  I couldn't help but think that maybe before Kevin died, he looked at the bullet hole to see how serious his injury was. Maybe that was when the zombies attack. Maybe he was able to fight a few of them off and make his way to find a safe place until help could come. Maybe that's where he died and his corpse re-animated as a zombie. It didn't matter too much because he got bit and that was how he turned.

  I stood up next to Logan and before I could say a word, we were staring at a few more zombies headed our way. There were five of them coming toward us, led by none other then Bruce. I know what your going to say. What? How can that be? Didn't I see him go down from being shot? Well, I saw Kevin get shot and looked what happened to him.

  At the time, I didn't have the luxury of looking into the details. Even now it's not easy to concentrate on them, but I'll get to that later. For now though, I can give you a couple of my best guesses on what happened to Bruce. It's pretty much the same as Kevin. Bruce could have still been alive when he was bitten by zombies and therefor he turned. It was my best guess. Another guess was that maybe the virus or whatever it is that's turned people into zombies, has mutated into something else. Maybe it's become airborne. Meaning that no matter how you die, you will return as a zombie.

  Regardless on how they turned, they had turned and were now coming for us. I took my weapon and stood next to Logan. I got into a defensive stance and waited for them to get closer. We waited until they were within arms length and started swinging.

  I swung the bar as hard as I could with my left arm as I aimed high towards the front right side of Bruce's temple. His height made it difficult forcing me to swing in a more unnatural upward arch. Unfortunately, I misjudged the angle and the weight of the bar as I hit him in the neck area.

  Bruce normally stood a few inches taller then me, but him turning into a zombie and me being hurt made it difficult to estimate his new height. Though I will say that me hitting him in his neck did give me an advantage. Bruce didn't go down, but he did stumble to his left a little bit giving me an open area to attack.

  He exposed the left side of his head and I took full advantage of it. I swung the bar over my head into a downward motion using gravity to help pull my weapon down towards my target. My weapon hit him on the back right portion of his skull. With a crunching sound Bruce collapsed to the floor.

  I didn't have time to make sure that he was dead because I had a female zombie dressed in soldier camouflage gear already reaching out towards me. I sidestepped to my right and swing the bar in an upward motion. I connected with the lower right part of her jaw. With a crunch sound she stumbled backwards a couple of steps before falling. I jumped forward and stabbed my weapon into her forehead.

  I looked over at Logan to see if he needed any help, but he had already disposed of the rest of them. It was actually quite an impressive sight. He had taken down four to my two. I asked him if he was alright because I noticed that he was breathing a little heavy and had a strange look in his eyes.

  His eyes seemed to dart around until they focused on me and quickly snapped out of whatever dream he was in. I repeated my question by asking if he was alright. He gave me with one of those "Are you an idiot?" type of looks before saying that he was fine. I didn't say a word as I just stood there and watched him.

  I literally couldn't believe he had just looked at me like that. I was about to ask him another question when he power walked past me. I wasn't about to let him off the hook that easy whenever his mannerism softened up. He spoke softly as he stated that we needed to hurry back to the others.

  Crap! I had forgotten all about the others. I turned to follow Logan when I noticed that he was moving his make shift sling over to another area. He must have noticed that I was looking at it because he stated that it must have shifted over during the fight. Without saying a word, I instantly looked over at mine and noticed that it had also shifted, but not as much as Logan's had.

  We made it to the yard and noticed that the escape route that the buses had used had been busted wide open. We made It was worse then I thought. On our way to the maintenance truck, I began working on a solution to close the hole in the gate in my head. My biggest idea was to use one of the big maintenance forklifts to put one of our old twenty foot storage containers in front of the hole. After seeing the size of the hole though, I wasn't sure if that was even going to be big enough. Our only hope was to close the Warehouse ramp to the yard.

  We had made it to the truck when we realized that it didn't have a propane bottle. No propane meant no fuel. Logan came up with the idea of taking a bottle from one of the big forklifts in the yard. The only problem was that they were near the hole in the fence. I think that we were lucky that the tanks didn't explode during the attack.

  We started to make our way to the nearest lift whenever a couple of average sized zombies made there way through the hole. I told Logan to get the tank while I took care of our "unwanted" guest. Without waiting for a reply from Logan, I raised my weapon and charged.

  Surprising, they went down with ease. I stood over my two prey and felt indestructible whenever Logan whistled at me. I looked up and noticed many, many more zombies coming in through the fence. Judging by the shear number coming in, we were going to die.

  I yelled at Logan to forget the tank. If we hurried, we could run to the safety of the Warehouse and blockade the entrance. It would buy us some time to find another way out. Logan however, saw things differently.

  He stood on the back of the lift and threw the tank towards me. He told me to get out of there because it was my job to save the rest of "our" group. He would stay behind and cover my escape.

  I started to argue with him on his decision, but he cut me off. He took off his sling to reveal a bite mark just below his right elbow. He told me that it was too late for him, but I still had an opportunity to save Bobby and the others.

>   I was about to argue that there must be something that we could do to save him. He didn't even bother to look at me as he told me that I was wasting time. Before he jumped off the lift, he paused for just a second and looked at me with sadness in his eyes. He told me to tell his wife that he loved her and that this was the only way he could save her.

  Without another word he turned back toward the horde of zombies and jumped. He landed into the heart of the horde and ran through them towards the hole in the fence. Whatever his plan was, it seemed to have worked because the were following him back out of the fence.

  I silently said goodbye and turned back toward the truck. I had to focus on the opportunity that Logan had given me, otherwise his sacrifice was for nothing. I just about had the tank connected whenever I felt something touch my leg. Instinctive, I jumped onto the back of the truck and immediately looked down.

  I didn't see anything. I looked back at the big lift and could hear moaning but saw nothing. After a quick three hundred sixty degree turn, I still didn't noticed a thing. I thought that maybe my nerves were just messing with me.

  I started to lower my foot to the ground and felt something grab it. I literally jumped out of my skin that time. I tried lifting my foot back up, but something had a strong grip on my foot. After repeatedly trying pull my foot free, the thing finally lost its grip.

  After my foot was free, I took the opportunity to look over the side of the truck to see what it was that had grabbed my foot. To my surprise it was Bruce, or should I say whatever was left of him. The back of his head was dented in where I had hit it, but I guess I had failed to destroy the brain.

  I watched him struggle to reach me, but I did notice that his legs weren't moving. Maybe, I had destroyed part of the brain after all. Regardless, I had little time to worry about it. I knew that I could finish attaching the propane tank to the truck without getting back down onto the ground.