How to Start Living (in the Zombie Apocalypse)

by T. L. Walker

  "Stop!" Daniel shouted, and I realized that it was him, not some zed, whose hand was wrapped around my bicep. I struggled to my feet, and we continued to stumble backwards until we ran into another car. Once again the zeds were far too close for comfort, but then I had an idea. I stepped to the left, then spun to the right, cracking one of the zeds across the back. It was driven into the side of the car, its head slamming against the window. As it fell to the ground I knew that it wasn’t completely taken care of, but for now it was down for the count, and that had to be what mattered. Thankfully Daniel followed my lead, leaping out of the way just in time so that we were behind the zeds. As much as they’d evolved in however long they’d been reanimated, they were still essentially brain dead – and for the moment, we had the upper hand. I rushed forward, swinging madly, slamming two more of the zeds back into the car and knocking them off their feet, while Daniel stabbed out with his knife, catching a third in the cheek and driving forward until his blade was buried so deep in the zed’s head that I knew it was finished. Daniel pulled back, but not quickly enough.

  "Duck!" I ordered, but he hesitated, and for a moment I thought I would hit him – but then he dove to the ground and my bat connected with the temple of the zed that had almost gotten close enough to bite Daniel.

  We made short work of the ones that were still moving, but I knew that we had to keep going. We’d made quite a bit of noise, and if there was even a single zed around I was certain we’d see it soon if we didn’t make our way directly – and quickly – to the school.

  Act fast.

  *******

  It wasn’t much farther, perhaps a half mile at most, but I set a grueling pace. By the time we stopped short of the chain link fences surrounding our destination, Daniel was panting and even I had to take a moment to catch my breath. We both stepped up to the fence and looked around the schoolyard, then at each other.

  "Looks abandoned," Daniel shrugged.

  "Which seems too good to be true. Should we find the entrance?"

  He nodded his agreement, but just as we turned to do just that, someone called out, "Don’t move!"

  Without even thinking about what I was doing, my hand went to the butt of my gun – but Daniel reached out and stayed me. He jerked his head to the left, then to the right – No – and I followed his gaze.

  There were people standing on the roof of the school – at least three that we could see, the closest being the one who’d spoken to us, while the others were on either corner. Lookouts. And that meant that there was something here to protect…

  "You can leave those guns of yours right there and be on your way. Do that, and we’ll leave you alone. Try anything else, and…well, I wouldn’t try anything else."

  "It’s a kid," Daniel mumbled.

  "That’s rich, coming from you," I whispered.

  "Go on, then. Don’t forget to leave your guns."

  "Just our guns, hmm?" I replied. "What’s so important about them, then?"

  "Oh, we’ve got plenty of other weapons. And a few guns, too." The kid – I could tell, now, that it was a teenage boy – raised his rifle. "Don’t make me use this one."

  "We don’t want any trouble," Daniel informed them. "There’s a group of us, though, and the others will come looking if we don’t return. So I don’t think we’ll leave our guns."

  The boy aimed his rifle at us. "I’m not that great with aim, but I’ll hit you. And then you’ll be injured, and you’ll bleed, and one of them will get you. If you have friends, and they come looking, note that we have a fence, and brick walls, and – "

  "Oh, please," I interrupted. "You won’t use that thing on us. If you do, you’ll attract every zed for miles. May take some of them a while to get here, but do you really want to give up your spot that completely? I’m guessing you haven’t done so yet, or you wouldn’t feel so cozy and safe behind such weak protections as these." I grabbed hold of the old chain link and shook it a bit. I was taking a chance even doing this, knowing that any zeds nearby would hear the rattling – but I had to hope that the kid was bluffing. We had more guns back at the cars, of course, but to give up even two of our supply…well, it would be more of a loss than I cared to think about.

  Daniel was staring at me, wide-eyed. Much as he must agree, I suppose he hadn’t expected me to be so forward, so sure of myself…whereas I just figured that I didn’t have a choice. "What are you doing?" he hissed. I shrugged, but obviously my response had confused – possibly even concerned – the kid with the rifle. I saw him look to his left, at the guard on that corner of the school roof, and then lower his weapon.

  "Just get out of here!" he finally yelled.

  I gave Daniel a lopsided grin. See?

  "How about this – one of our people needs some medicine. If you have what we need, perhaps we can do a trade?" We’d packed every bit of extra ammunition that we’d found throughout the past few months, and I couldn’t help but think that if some of it was unusable for us, it may fit one of the weapons these people had. If that was the case – and if this school had at least some of the meds we needed – then each of us had possession of something that was almost priceless to the other.

  "If you think we’re letting you in here, you’re fuckin’ crazy, lady."

  "Did I say that? No. We need – well, antibiotics would be best, and a lot of them. I see you’ve got a rifle there, and we have some ammo that we can’t use. Something tells me that would be more than a fair trade…if you can help us out."

  The kid gestured for one of his friends. The other person – it appeared to be a girl – approached him, and they conversed for a few moments, both of them gesturing wildly. Finally the girl shook her head and marched back to her spot on the corner, and the kid yelled, "We aren’t so sure about this, but I’ll check with the others. You’ll wait right there if you want any chance at all getting those meds. Leave, and you damn well better not come back."

  "Understood," I agreed. I turned to Daniel. "I’ll keep an eye on these guys – you put your back to the fence and watch for zeds. We’ve caused quite a ruckus and I’ll be shocked if none of them show up…especially if this takes a while. But we need those antibiotics. And if they didn’t have any at all, they would have told us to go away. Again."

  "I don’t know. I don’t like it. What if there isn’t a single adult in this place?"

  "He went to talk to someone, Daniel. I’ve got to assume – at least for now – that whoever is ‘in charge’ isn’t just another teenager. Anyway, this kid clearly understands that we’re offering them a good deal…and shit, I don’t know, look at Mike. He survived where his family didn’t, and he’s still alive now. Maybe him being with us is a big part of that, but he can certainly take care of himself to some extent. So what’s to say that other kids his age couldn’t do the same?"

  "I’m not saying they couldn’t, but I am saying that I don’t trust them. Teenagers can be pretty damn stupid, in case you don’t remember, and they’re worse when they’re grouped together like this."

  "Bad high school experience, huh?" I felt a swell of empathy for him – while my years in high school hadn’t been horrible from beginning to end, they hadn’t been all that great, either. Certainly not something I’d want to relive. And he was right, when teenagers were grouped together there was bound to be trouble. The question was whether or not the ones holed up in this school had succumbed to that – and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer.

  We took care of a couple zeds while we waited, but finally, about fifteen minutes after the kid had disappeared from the roof, I saw him and another person approaching from the far side of the school. It was an older woman who looked to be in her fifties, and something about her screamed school nurse, probably because of the stern look on her face as she said, "Offering bullets for medicine, are you? To a child?"

  I glanced at the boy, who was maybe a couple of inches taller than me with messy dark hair and the patchy shadow of a beard just barely growing around his jawline
. I couldn’t help but chuckle. "A child? This kid? He tried to force us to throw down our guns, threatened to shoot us…if that still constitutes a child, well…" I shrugged.

  "He’s just following orders. Be glad he came to get me, and not someone else. Thankfully he was either smart enough – or stupid enough – to figure out that I’m the only person who knows exactly what’s in my office." She and the boy looked at each other; he swallowed hard and turned away all too quickly for my liking. What the hell is going on in this place?

  Yet even as I thought that, I understood that I wanted to know even less now than I had before. Just get the meds and get outta here, Charlie. Get Daniel and yourself back to the others and drive away. Find somewhere else to go. Preferably somewhere far from here.

  "All right, let’s pretend I believe that you’re not in charge here. You may know what you have in terms of medicine – we need antibiotics at the very least, by the way – but then how do I know that you have the authority to give me what I need?"

  The woman strode up to the fence, practically pressing herself against it, her nose just inches from mine. "Right now, I have the authority. The one who usually does is out scavenging, or so she calls it, and if we do this quickly we maybe won’t get caught. I can get you some antibiotics, but my stores are limited and you certainly can’t have it all. I’ll throw in a few other things that I think will help, based on the fact that you need antibiotics at all. You give us every bit of ammo you can’t use. If I think it’s enough, we’re done."

  "I don’t know how quickly you expect this to happen. It’s getting late in the day and we have to go back to our…camp…and then come all the way back here." I could only hope that she hadn’t noticed my hesitation as I changed the word ‘cars’ to ‘camp’ at the last moment.

  "’We’? Oh, I don’t think so. One of you stays right here. We’ll help keep watch over that one. The other goes back for the ammunition. I told you, we don’t have very much time."

  "And then what? We travel back to our place in the dark? Lady, do you even know what you’re suggesting? "

  "You listen to me, child. You go now, without your medicine, or we do the trade and you go as soon as it’s over, no matter that it’s light or dark. In my experience, they’re equally dangerous."

  Her eyes were glittering as she stared me down. For a moment I had considered consulting Daniel, but now I was worried that he wouldn’t understand that taking the time to do the trade would be better. And not just because it’s not his loved ones who are sick. The thought popped into my head and was gone just as quickly – or so I wanted to believe. I couldn’t even look at him as I spoke my verdict.

  "Fine. Daniel, you stay. I’m faster." And I have less to lose. I was gone before he could protest, gone as soon as the woman nodded her head in agreement. I heard him shouting my name as I ran, but I forced myself to ignore it. I was the one taking most of the risk, going all the way back to the cars by myself, then having to return to the school alone as well. But if I did it fast enough, if this all went smoothly, maybe we could make it back with the medication before it was completely dark.

  So I ran for Luke, and I ran for Mike, but really – more than anything – I ran for myself. Because I’d left my mother behind, and I didn’t want to lose my friends. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to die, either.

  Because I was selfish.

  And I made it. Passed a few zeds along the way, and forced myself to take several detours in hopes of throwing them off my trail, though of course this added several minutes to my trip back. When I arrived, slightly winded, empty-handed, and alone to boot, the looks on the others’ faces and the questions on their lips were almost more than I could bear.

  "Daniel’s fine. I just need the extra ammo – the stuff we can’t use," was all I said in explanation.

  "Charlie, what – "

  I cut Joey off with a wave of my hand. "There’s no time, Joey. Just help me dig out the shells and bullets we have that won’t fit our guns, as many of them as we can find." I headed around to the back of the truck, Joey on my heels and sputtering protests the whole time. I yanked bag after bag out of the way and finally my fingertips brushed the side of the box that I knew held our found ammo. "Empty one of the backpacks. I need something that’s easy to carry." My brother hesitated for a moment. "Joey!" I snapped, glaring at him. "Do it!"

  It was the work of a few minutes at most, finding what I needed, transferring it to the pack, and strapping that to my back as tightly as possible. I dropped my bat off in my car, noting that both Luke and Mike were passed out, neither of them looking well at all. I’d wanted to say goodbye again, maybe tell them both that I loved them, but I realized that it was probably best that they didn’t know I’d come back only to turn around and leave again. Not now, anyway.

  "Daniel and I will both be back soon." It was the last thing I said before running off again, and deep down I knew that it might be a promise I couldn’t keep. But the words were out of my mouth before I really thought about that, I suppose – and then I was gone, racing back up the road toward the school, my right hand wrapped around one of the backpack straps and my hunting knife clutched in my left hand. I jogged, then I ran, and then I sprinted, hoping that I would be outrunning any zeds that came after me. I simply didn’t have time to stop and fight – and besides, if I dragged a few zeds back to the school with me, so be it. Let them use their damn guns on the real threat.

  The sun was setting already; I swear that I could see it disappearing bit by bit as I ran. By the time I reached the school fence, having to cut several hundred yards to my right to reach Daniel’s side, the sky was more purple than blue.

  It was twilight, and we were running out of time.

  The nurse now had a large paper bag in her hand, the top rolled down to keep its contents intact – and hidden, I noted with chagrin. The kid was still with her, and Daniel looked none the worse for the wear, so I set my pack on the ground and bent to open it. I held up one of the half-empty boxes of ammunition, label out so they could see it.

  "I’ll give you what you can use, nothing more. You know what kind of guns you have, I take it?"

  The woman and boy exchanged a glance. "Well enough," the kid finally said.

  I rolled my eyes. "You’re agreeing to make this exchange when you clearly don’t have the authority to do so, and on top of that you’re not even certain what kinds of firearms you have?"

  "You are trying my patience, young lady," the nurse snapped. "We are doing you a favor. My guess is that you need this medicine more than we need that ammunition. So show us what you’ve got and we’ll go from there."

  "My name is Charlie, by the way," I heard myself saying. "And this is Daniel." I suppose that part of me hoped that telling these people our names would help our case – and admittedly, I was curious about who they were, as well.

  "Dominic." The kid poked his chest with his thumb, then gestured toward the woman. "And that’s Mrs. Downing."

  "Dominic," the woman snapped, shaking her head at him.

  "Hey, he’s just being polite. I told you our names, after all." I flashed my teeth at Mrs. Downing – baring them more than smiling with them – and she pursed her lips, glowering at me until I sighed and looked away.

  "Go on," she insisted. "Show us what else you have."

  "You too. " I gestured to the paper bag. "Guess I’ll need you to tell me what’s what in terms of the meds you’re giving us."

  "How about one for one? You show her some ammo, she shows you some medicine. We don’t have time for all of this arguing," Daniel pointed out.

  Mrs. Downing’s eyes met mine; we both nodded slowly. "I showed you mine, you show me yours," I said.

  I couldn’t help but glance nervously at the sky every few minutes after that. It seemed that the trade took forever when in all actuality it couldn’t have lasted more than ten minutes – and only that long because Dominic was hemming and hawing over some of the ammunition, while I was asking Mrs. Downing
twenty questions about every medication she showed me. When we were finally done, the bullets and medicine squeezed through the holes in the fence, Mrs. Downing nodded brusquely and backed away. "Watch them go, then come inside. Immediately," she ordered Dominic.

  Be prepared to trade.

  *******

  Once she’d turned her back on us, I leaned in close. "Bit skittish, isn’t she?"

  Dominic’s eyes were wide. "We all are."

  "Clearly. So…who really is in charge, here?"

  He shook his head. "You don’t want to know. And Mrs. Downing is right, you really should go. If they come back, or if they run into you along the way…"

  "Who’s ‘they’?"

  This time it was Dominic who leaned in close. "The leader’s name is Jia. She was a junior here, before all of this went down. There were a lot of us here after hours the day things went to hell, and most of us just…stayed. We thought it would be safe to go home, eventually, but it never was. And then she took over things, and now…we can’t leave. She hunts people down when they try. Makes…examples…of them." He looked downright nauseated, and something about his expression made my stomach turn as well. I took a step back from the fence.

  "Come on, Daniel. We need to go. "

  He leaned in, his mouth right up against my ear. "I don’t know, Charlie. Do we want to leave them here after hearing that?"

  I turned my back on Dominic and started walking away, my steps brisk and determined. Daniel followed after a moment, and when he touched my arm I jerked it away from him, shaking my head. "We’re going," I hissed, breaking into a jog. Thankfully he didn’t continue to protest; I heard him pick up his own pace, and soon we’d left the school behind us.

  There were no streetlights, not anymore, and even if I’d had a flashlight I knew that it would have been stupid to use it. Twilight was fading all too quickly – it seemed as if the whole world was in shadow, with pockets of black where the buildings and cars were located. I couldn’t run as fast as I had earlier – I could only turn my head from side to side, constantly peering into the darkness, watching and listening for zeds and still uncertain as to whether I’d notice them approaching, anyway.