How to Start Living (in the Zombie Apocalypse)

by T. L. Walker

  And of course there was no time for mourning. There never is, in the zombie apocalypse. As soon as I was certain that he was gone, I was on my feet, pivoting around to face the front entrance, planting myself in a fighting stance with my knife at the ready. But by now the flow of zeds had slowed to nothing more than a trickle, and I could see Virginia and Mike fighting with Dominic and several other kids from the school to take the last of them down. Not that it mattered – the school was breached, and unless they had some way to board up the broken glass and fix what were likely several downed sections of fence within the next day or two, it would be a while before anyone could live here and feel safe doing so.

  Find Jia, I reminded myself, scanning the bodies littering the ground. Suddenly I saw something moving off to my right, and sure enough, there she was, somehow still alive. The blade of the knife still glinted where it was stuck in the muscle just to the left of her spine, and she was pulling herself along the floor, covered in both human and zed blood. I knew she must have been bitten, but I couldn’t risk her doing any more damage than she already had. For Daniel, I thought as I rushed toward her, though I knew that deep down this was really mostly for me. When I reached her side I planted my boot on her back to stop her, then reached down and pulled her blade out of her hand. When I lifted my leg and nudged her onto her side, I wondered how she’d even still had hold of the knife at all – half of her right cheek was missing and she was coughing up even more blood, her breathing shallow and wet.

  "I’m sorry it had to come to this," I said.

  She spat at me, but there was no strength behind the gesture, and most of the red-tinged saliva just dribbled down her chin."You’re a monster," she replied, glaring up at me with red-rimmed eyes. Maybe she has some human still left in her, too.

  "I do what I have to, to take care of those I love."I bent down, clenching both of her slim wrists in my left hand as I showed her the knife in my right."You can’t survive that bite. Do you want –"

  "Just fucking do it. Even if I didn’t want you to, youwant to."

  I sighed, knowing that in a way she was right – but also knowing that if she didn’t tell me to do it, I wouldn’t be able to whether I wanted it or not."Monika is safe, or at least she was when I last saw her. She’s in a locked room, and I have the master key."

  Jia’s eyes softened, then, and I knew that I’d been right all along – that Monika was her weakness."I don’t want her to see me like this. Just make it quick." I nodded and released her hands, knowing that she couldn’t claw through my jacket. I kept my exposed neck and head as far away from her as possible as I reached around the back of her head, taking care of this teenaged girl who had caused us so much trouble in so little time in the very same way I’d just ended any sort of life – or afterlife – for my friend Daniel just moments before.

  "That was a bad idea," a familiar voice called out.

  What the fuck?

  I didn’t bother trying to pull my blade from the back of Jia’s neck – I left it where it was and in one fluid motion I stood, drawing another knife from my belt, moving faster than I thought was possible as my heart slammed an erratic beat in my chest. I stumbled a bit as I backed away from Jia’s corpse, my eyes finding Bobby. His left arm was pinning Virginia close, his right hand – handcuffs still dangling from that wrist – pressing a knife against her throat.

  His left hand was missing.

  Even from a dozen feet away, I could see that he was weak, barely even able to hold himself up...but at the same time, it doesn’t take much strength to slit someone’s throat. And no one had been watching for him, no one had been thinking to keep an eye on a hallway we’d already cleared. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know how he’d found a way to cut off his own hand, but then, what did it matter? I’d killed his friend, and at the moment he had control over my friend’s survival.

  "She’d been bitten,"I stated."And you were too, remember? It’s over, Bobby." There’s no reason to keep fighting. Let Virginia go.

  He only laughed."It’s not really over, though, is it? There’s life beyond this. For me, anyway. Maybe for this old lady. But not for Jia. You took that away from her."

  It took me a moment to understand that he was talking about turning into a zed, and when I realized this, for a moment I didn’t know what to say. He can’t be serious!

  But looking at his face, I knew that he was. He was desperate, and angry, and now more than ever I wondered if he’d ever been truly sane."Jia didn’t want to be one of them,"I finally replied."She didn’t want...people...to see her like that."

  "Bullshit,"Bobby spat."She didn’t want Monika to see her like that, because Monika is weak. But she also didn’t want to die."

  "She was already mostly there," I said gently, my hands held out in supplication, pointing my weapon at the floor as I moved to take a step toward him.

  "Stop!" he ordered, pressing the knife against Virginia’s throat. She was staring at me, but she wasn’t scared. I think I knew what she meant to do before it happened, but still I hesitated.

  For a moment, I willed this to not be real.

  And then Virginia stomped on Bobby’s foot and quickly pivoted around to her right, releasing herself from his grip as he sliced her throat open with his blade.

  He wasn’t fast enough, though. She’d already been half-turned toward him, and in that moment before she lost control of her body, she jerked her right hand up and Bobby slumped inward as her knife found his lower abdomen. They fell together, and I wasn’t the only one who ran to their aid – out of the corner of my eye I saw Mike diving toward Virginia, while a couple of the kids from the school split off from their huddle against the wall behind Bobby. I dropped my knife and pulled out the pistol that hung at my right hip, pointing it at them as I dropped to my knees beside Virginia and Bobby.

  "Back. The fuck. Off."

  "I’d do what she says," Mike warned them, and after looking from me, to him, and back again, they slunk back to their group, though they didn’t take their eyes off us. I jerked my chin at him, and somehow he knew what I meant. He reached for his own gun and trained it on the group of kids; I kept mine in hand as I pushed Virginia off of Bobby. I was too busy pinning the kid’s arms under my knees to keep an eye on anyone else.

  Suddenly, Virginia reached out and grabbed my wrist."Bring me...zoo...don’t..." She was choking on her own blood, now; there was nothing I could do.

  "I will. You won’t come back."

  "Ethan..."she gasped."Make sure...knows..."

  "That you fought? " I asked, hoping that was what she meant. She was fading too fast to tell me anything else.

  Her chin jerked down to her chest, and I slid my wrist from her grasp to take her hand in mine.

  "You are a warrior, Virginia. You are a friend."

  But in the end, as much as I would like to believe she heard those words, I’ll never really know.

  Bobby was still there, breathing shallowly, not even bothering to struggle against me pinning him to the ground. I still had the gun, but I knew that using it was a bad idea. The noise would only draw whatever zeds were around back to the school, and I had to get Mike out of there, and maybe others as well – at least the people who had helped us.

  Mike seemed to have read my mind."I’ve got it, Charlie," he promised, and I looked up to see that he still had his gun trained on the questionable group of kids.

  I tucked my gun back into its holster and reached for my last knife, the one tucked into my right boot. Bobby wanted to turn, but I couldn’t let that happen – or at least that’s what I told myself, the reason I repeated over and over again in my head as I took my third life that day. And yet it wasn’t the intimate thing that I’d had with my friend or that previous enemy. I felt cold, I didn’t care. I was removing a monster from this world, and all the while I was wondering if I should be removing myself from it, as well. Suddenly I just felt so damn exhausted. It took far too much strength and energy to remove my blade from the base of B
obby’s skull, but I’d tossed away far too many of them in the past few minutes, and I knew better than to leave this place with nothing more than my guns to protect myself. Still, I couldn’t use this same knife to take care of Virginia; after wiping it off on Bobby’s shirt, I tucked it away and searched the floor around me for another one. It didn’t seem to have been used recently, but I wiped it down gently, anyway, with what seemed to be the last clean bit of my shirt.

  And for the second time in just a few minutes, I made sure that someone I cared about wouldn’t turn into a zed. When it was done, I caressed Virginia’s cheek."Thank you," I whispered.

  In the end, there really are no rules.

  Chapter 13

  The Last Lesson

  I clambered to my feet and called for Dominic.

  "Here," he replied from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder at him.

  "I need a shovel and the largest cart you have. Something from the A/V department, maybe? Just be careful – of zeds, and anyone else you might come across."He nodded and rushed off to do my bidding, while I moved to Mike’s side and then turned in a slow circle, addressing the handful of people who were still in the entrance hall."All of you, stand over against that wall."I gestured toward the group of kids that Mike was still holding at gunpoint."We willuse our guns if we have to, but trust me, you don’t want that any more than we do."

  I watched them carefully, taking note of the ones who obeyed immediately and who also moved as far away from their fellow school residents as possible. I’d have to talk to Dominic and Mrs. Downing, but it seemed there were more than a few people still standing who likely hadn’t cared much for Jia or for the people who clearly wanted to protect her and her friends.

  After that, everything was a blur for a while. I gave Mike the master key and told him where to find Mrs. Downing and Monika; he hesitated at first, but I insisted."We need to wrap this up. Fast." He finally agreed, albeit reluctantly, and by the time he returned, following the nurse and the young girl, who both had their hands up in the air like actual prisoners, Dominic had already showed up with a decrepit shovel and a large flat-bottomed cart.

  "All right. I have to trust you guys more than I’d like to just now. Monika, get over there with everyone else. Mike, Dominic, Mrs. Downing, keep an eye on them. This is going to take a while."

  "Where are you going?" Mike asked suspiciously.

  I sighed, hating everything about what I needed to do just now."I’m going to bury Luke here. It’s going to be hard enough to take Virginia and Daniel back...and besides, without Luke, we wouldn’t have been able to rid ourselves of Jia, of the threat she and this place posed. He shouldbe laid to rest here." Like the martyr he had to be.

  Mike obviously didn’t agree with me, but I couldn’t see another way out of this, and Ethan and Lauren deserved to see their loved ones again, to say whatever goodbyes they could.

  To bury them near Joey in what would now be the zoo’s own little graveyard.

  I took the shovel and made my way through the broken front doors of the school. There were landscaped areas on either side of the wide walkway; I turned to look back at the entrance and chose the area on the right, quickly scraping away a wide swath of the loose mulch and then digging into the soft, giving soil underneath.

  It was evening when I started; by the time I’d dug a grave that was just barely deep enough, night had fallen and I knew we were stuck at the school until dawn. The zeds were simply too active at night. I made my way back inside, so sweaty that my skin was streaked not only with dirt, but also with blood that had never really dried. The survivors were still standing in their little groups by the wall with Mike, Dominic, and Mrs. Downing watching them. One of them had found a chair and I assumed they were taking turns sitting down, though I had a feeling it was probably just Dominic and the nurse who were doing so – Mike looked completely exhausted.

  "We’re stuck here for the night,"I murmured. He grimaced and nodded."Let’s move Virginia and Daniel into the room where..."I trailed off, rubbed my temples, and had to take a deep breath before continuing."Where Luke is. We’ll lock ourselves in there. But first we have to take care of the rest of these kids."I turned to the nurse."Are there enough classrooms that I can lock up if we split them into groups of two to three? You and Dominic will stay with us, though. We need to talk."

  Mrs. Downing nodded warily."To be honest, they should stay together,"she whispered, jerking her head toward one cluster of teenagers, the ones who had taken the most offense to me killing Bobby."If we do that, and if you trust me to split the others up, there are enough rooms. But if I were you, I’d keep Monika close."

  I glanced at the tall girl, who was sitting with her back to the wall, staring at Jia’s dead body in the middle of the floor. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she didn’t even glance at us as we made our plans. I nodded."Mike, Dominic, use that cart to get Virginia and Daniel to the room, and then board yourselves in there. Unfortunately, I’ll need the master key for a bit longer, but don’t worry, we’re going to make sure no one else has anything dangerous to use against us.” With that, I beckoned to Mrs. Downing, and the two of us made fast work of taking away the others’ weapons. I passed some of them off to Mike and Dominic before they wheeled the cart away, doing my best to not look at the pile of limp bodies that was made up of my two dead friends. I handed the rest of the weapons and the master key off to Mrs. Downing, who scurried off to dump them in the room where we’d be spending the night. When she returned we herded up the group of kids and moved them in the opposite direction of Mike and Dominic.

  We passed by several rooms and had almost reached the end of the corridor when Mrs. Downing finally unlocked a door and pointed at the handful of teenagers who she’d said needed to stay together. I didn’t care for the arrangement, but I had to trust her, had to assume that she was doing this so that they couldn’t try to harm anyone who might be on our side – or who at least hadn’t been on Jia’s side. We then continued around the school and locked the rest of them up in pairs and trios until we’d secured up five classrooms’ worth of people, with only Monika left to us. I was bone-tired, and I knew I would need at least a few hours of sleep, but as usual our work wasn’t done. Thankfully when we reached ‘our’ room and knocked, we heard the scrapes of furniture being moved away from the door almost immediately, and within moments Dominic had cracked it open enough for us to squeeze through one by one. Mrs. Downing went first, then Monika, and finally me. I shut and locked the door behind us – thank God for double-sided locks – and turned to see the rest of them standing in an awkward circle, eying each other uncertainly in the dim light of the camping lamp Mike had brought with him and set on the desk.

  "Mike, get some sleep. Or at least try to,"I corrected myself when he gave me a worried look."Please. I’ll need you to keep watch in a few hours so that I can rest, too." This would be a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, but after everything that had happened, I knew he could handle it. Even now – or maybe especially now.He moved to the back of the room and sat on the floor, propping his backpack in a corner and leaning against it. For the moment he was awake, but he had to be as exhausted as I was, and I hoped he would be able to sleep for at least a little while."All right. The rest of you, take a seat."I waited until they’d dragged some of the awful little school desks into a semicircle, then pulled a desk toward myself as well, never taking my eyes off of them, glancing from Dominic to the nurse to Monika and back as I finally sat down."Mrs. Downing, Dominic, will you want to remain here at the school?"

  "Hell no,"Dominic swore. The nurse glared at him, but he ignored her."This place was a shithole before, and it’s even less safe now."

  I looked at Mrs. Downing. She sighed and shrugged."Dominic, you should watch your language,"she told him."But you’re right."She looked at me."He’s right. We can’t stay here. Problem is, we weren’t trusted to be out and about, so we have no idea where to go."

  "Are there others like you? People who fought aga
inst Jia before, or at least...today, yesterday, whatever." I had no idea what time it was; I’d hated watches before the zombie apocalypse and since it had begun I’d continued to wear one as little as possible.

  "Yes, to both parts. Some of them I’m not completely sure about, mostly because it was only when the tide turned that I noticed they were following mine or Dominic’s lead rather than that of Jia’s people. I’d say they’re just kids, but that’s not really it. They’ve always just...been trying to survive."

  I know that all too well. "After I’ve gotten some sleep and buried Luke, I’ll need you to take me to them." She nodded her agreement, and I finally turned to Monika.

  "You were Jia’s girlfriend,"I stated. She just stared at me defiantly, and finally I shook my head in frustration."I know you talked to Luke at the zoo. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you agreed with what Jia was doing here?"

  The girl’s chin trembled. She looked at Mrs. Downing, then down at the floor."Jia wasn’t a bad person."

  "That’s not what I asked."

  "Fine!"Monika hissed."Fine. No, I didn’t agree with what she’s been doing lately. But it wasn’t like this at first. We had a lot of infighting after we let some outsiders in, and Jia did what she had to do, then. She just..."

  "Continued to act like some combination of dictator and fucking prison warden after?" Dominic interrupted.

  I could see that Mrs. Downing was about to chastise him again, and I shook my head at her."Let Monika tell us her story, Dominic. Trust me, I believe that Jia was horrible, and I need to know why Monika remained by her side."

  "I knew what she was, but I loved her. That’s it. Do what you want with me, but I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t care about her."

  Truth be told, that was probably the best answer I could have asked for...but it also made things that much more difficult."We’re going back to the zoo in the morning. Mrs. Downing, Dominic, you are welcome to join us. We’ll see about the others who seemed to be against Jia first thing in the morning. Monika...well. It’s up to you. You can stay here, but we will leave you with minimal weapons in a place that is no longer protected...and I’ll be taking the master key with me, of course. Or you can come with us, but if you do, it will be as our prisoner, at least until we can determine whether or not it’s safe to let you truly join us. Your choice, but you only have until sunrise to make it."