Thinking back to the phone call he’d had right before the world turned crazy, Thom realized that maybe he should start depending a little more on himself.
Thom took the hiking bag from the trunk. It had a few things for the weekend camping trip he and Anna were going to go on; a tarp, a mess kit, some freeze-dried food, a Sawyer water filter…things like that. Most importantly, however, it held a nice pair of well-broken-in hiking boots.
Looking down at his feet, he realized the leather loafers were pretty much useless for the journey he needed to make, so he chucked them into the trunk and laced up the boots. Thom wished he’d thought to pack a thick pair of socks to go in them.
What else could he find in the car that might come in handy? Thom lifted the false bottom of the trunk and took out the tire iron, hefted it, and nodded grimly. He didn’t think it would come to that before he got home, but it was always dangerous walking downtown alone at night. It had to be much worse when the criminals were starting to get a sense that the law enforcement wouldn’t be showing up any time soon to rain on their parade.
He walked around to the passenger side, popped the glove box, grabbed a good, old-fashioned laminated road map, and decided it was time to get walking.
The going was slow for quite a few reasons. Fires still flickered here and there from the plane wreckage, and sharp pieces of glass, metal, and fiberglass were waiting to slice through the soles of his boots.
There were people all over the interstate, some walking toward the city, others walking away. Most were in groups of three or four. Carpool buddies would be his initial guess, but he saw a few mothers and fathers with children on their backs as well. Almost all of these small groups were silent as they walked. Thom knew the feeling. You have a plan in mind, and you set to it, he thought. Everything between you and the goal is just a distraction.
“Need to get home and make sure that Anna is safe. I’ll need to find some way to give her a call. Maybe the old man next door still has a landline phone that’ll work,” he said to himself quietly, just wanting to hear something other than the shuffling of the shocked living and the overwhelming silence of the dead around him. “If whatever this is is as big as I’m thinking it might be, I’ll need to get some supplies and go get Anna.
“Goal number two: Make friends. If I’ve learned anything from those zombie shows on TV, it’s that you need friends to survive the end of the world. Skilled friends. Moral friends who won’t eat you when the food runs out. At least not until you’ve died of natural causes,” he added, ticking another item off on his fingers. “Maybe I’ll head to Andrew’s family farm south of Columbia. He said they’d let us in, and I’ve always sort of wanted to live on a farm. A real one, not the cubicle farm I’d been living in for the last 20 years.
“Three: Get a long-term plan going. Plant crops. High calorie stuff like onions, carrots, potatoes, food that will store for the winter. Organize. Rebuild. Be safe.” He sighed. “Wish we’d learned to can like Sarah had been wanting. Just never seemed like we had enough money for a canner and materials. And we had college funds to consider.”
Looking around, Thom noticed something interesting; people had started to form up into groups that, for some reason, reminded him of tribes.
“Office workers with the office workers. Blue collar with blue collar.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “No, it’s more than that,” he said, looking around more intently. Thom spotted a group of businessmen and women sitting next to a car that doubtless cost more than his own salary. They were arguing about who would pay for the damage and exchanging insurance information.
Thomas shook his head and laughed.
“It’s survivors and survivors. Victims and victims. Predators and predators. We’re forming packs whether we realize it or not. I need to stop and think about who I’m going to be. Who I want to be tied to.”
Nearby, a large man and his little girl had started staring at the blood-covered office worker who was talking to himself.
“Sorry guys. Silence is heavy. Just trying to figure all of this out. Where you all headed?”
The intimidatingly large man turned to Thomas, a toddler of about four years of age stoically walking by his side. He was a huge man of African-American descent, easily 6’2”, 250 pounds, and Thom could tell that under the slight spare tire rested quite a bit of muscle. His little girl was beautiful and had a bounce in her step despite all that was happening.
The little girl turned and smiled up at him. “We’re going home, mister. Momma’s home with my little brother, Nathan. He’s one. He just started walking. He can talk some, too, but mostly it’s just ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada.’ He says ‘NANG NANG NANG’ when he’s angry, too.” She stopped for a breath and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Don’t talk to strangers, Juliana,” her father chastised.
He looked over to Thom and smiled. “John Willis.” He extended a meaty hand in Thom’s direction. As Thomas reached to shake it, the man gripped it tightly and pulled Thomas close, bringing their faces inches apart, teeth bared. “Who are you?”
Chapter 7 – New Friends
The knuckles in Thom’s right hand popped under the larger man’s grip, while the knuckles on his left tightened around the mini tire iron. Please, Lord, don’t make me brain this man in front of his daughter, thought Thom.
“Thomas Monroe, but my friends call me Thom.” Thom looked up at him, a full head taller than himself, and his voice squeaked, “Will you be my friend?”
The big man laughed, thankfully—a deep bass belly laugh that got his girl giggling too. Thomas sighed and smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes?”
Juliana piped up first, hugging Thom’s leg. “’Course we’ll be your friend, Mr. Thom!”
John smiled, watching his daughter with love in his eyes. “All right now, sweetie, we don’t want to hurt the man. Come hold my hand now.” She did as she was told and released her death grip on Thom’s leg, exchanging it for her father’s hand.
“Sorry to put a scare into you just then. Life’s got too few pleasures, and you can make a pretty good judgment of a man based on how he reacts to fear.”
“What do you mean?”
He grinned. “Well, take that iron you got there. I pulled you close like that and got in your face, and your first response wasn’t to bash my brain in. Smart move,” he added, poking a finger his way.
“I thought about it.”
“Also a smart move.”
“Sorry about that.”
“It’s no trouble. I’m guessing you were thinking about my girl here and what it would be like for her to live life seeing some stranger brain her daddy on the highway over a handshake?”
“You’re good.”
“I don’t know a whole lot, but I do know people,” he said, the smile creeping wider on his face.
“You’d bet your life on that? Pretty gutsy. What it I’d swung at you?”
He laughed again. “You were so caught up in being pulled close to my right hand and so focused on what was in your left, you didn’t stop for a second to consider what might have been in mine.” Looking down, Thom noted a pistol in John’s left hand, not aimed at him, thankfully, but he knew that it could have been in an instant. John holstered the weapon, and the untucked corners of his shirt made it all but disappear.
Thomas felt himself get a bit lightheaded. What in the world was he doing trudging blindly along like this? Six hours into the apocalypse, and he’d nearly died twice already.
“I need to sit for a second. You guys go on ahead without me. It was nice meeting you, John.”
John bent down and helped Thom to a sitting position, crouching next to him.
“Sorry about that, Thom. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He reached his hand down, pulled the corner of his shirt away again, and slipped a hand into
the pocket of his well-worn jeans. Retrieving his wallet, he opened it up. Thom’s eyebrows shot up, and his mouth couldn’t help but split into a grin.
“Kansas City Police Department.”
John nodded. “Off duty right now, was taking my girl to the movies when things went bad.”
Eying Thom’s head and seeing the injury clearly for the first time, he asked, “You sure you’re alright? That’s one nasty bump you got there.”
“Souvenir from an airplane that went down in I-35 a few miles back. Piece of concrete got me. I think I’ll be okay.” Thomas smiled, trying to show confidence, but he must have failed because John still looked concerned for his wellbeing.
“How far is home for you two?”
“Not too far now. Should be there in another hour or so,” he grinned. “Slower going with the little one in tow. Carry her most of the time, but when the streets look free of glass and debris, I figure it’s a good time to let her walk a bit. Just glad I didn’t have her little brother along. He’s only a year old.”
Thom laughed, trying to remember when Anna was that age.
“One’s a big year. Start walking, talking…”
“And biting!” Juliana said, chiming in.
They all laughed and continued to talk with one another about life. Thom told them about his Sarah and about how Anna was away at college, and he asked John if he thought this was a localized event. John shrugged.
“Don’t rightly know. I have a hunch, but it’s not something we should talk about in present company,” he said, tilting his head toward his daughter.
John helped Thom to his feet again, and the tribe started walking.
Thom nodded. “I’ve heard about things like this before on the Discovery Channel. Seemed like science fiction.”
John nodded again. “We had a little bit of emergency response training on this sort of thing. Fire’s going to be the first big threat. Between downed planes, transformers catching fire, busted gas mains...definitely the most noticeable thing. Civil unrest will be next. Looting, rioting. Even good folks will start turning in a few days when they start running out of the basics.”
He paused, but kept walking.
“Thom, I don’t want to alarm you, but we’re being followed.”
Instinctually, Thom started to turn his head, but John inhaled sharply, making a sort of tsk sound. “Look straight ahead. There’s a barbershop on the corner there. See the glass windows?”
Thom nodded slightly and kept walking.
“Use the reflection like a side mirror on your car. Just use your peripheral vision and let me know what you see.”
Looking out of the corner of his eyes, he saw, and he counted.
“I see three men. One has a bottle of liquor in his hands. They’re keeping pace with us. About a minute or so behind us.”
“Waiting to choose a good location. Not sure what they want, but I’m guessing it’s not good.”
Thom looked around and noted that they were well and truly entering the downtown area now. Smoke had started to grow a bit heavier, and there were fires in some of the high-rise buildings.
“What’ve you got in that knapsack of yours, Thom?”
Thom gave him a quick rundown and could see the gears turning in John’s head as he ticked off his list of supplies.
With a look of grim determination on his face and steel in his voice, John laid out the plan.
…
As the trio rounded the corner into the alleyway, the creeps must have felt like pretty big men. Thom could imagine the predatory nature cheering inside of them, knowing they had their victims in the perfect location for a mugging, or worse.
Thom could smell the alcohol on their breath before he could see them about to turn the corner. One of them had a now-empty bottle in hand. Another, the smallest man, flicked a wickedly sharp blade from its folding handle, the light from a transformer fire glinting off of its surface. And the biggest guy just cracked his tattooed knuckles. He looked to be the leader, and he stopped the men just short of entering the alley.
Knife turned to Bottle and Knuckles and said something in low tones Thom couldn’t quite make out before shouting, “We know you’re down there, come out and give us your pack and your wallets, and you can get on home.”
Not seeing Thom, John, or Juliana, Knife muttered something to the other two men.
Bottle nodded sloppily, and Knuckles made a sound that could only very loosely be called a laugh. It was like nails on a chalkboard.
Summoning his courage, Thomas stepped out from behind the dumpster, looked up, and yelled, “I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!” Then he turned and ran for his life.
The looks of shock and confusion on their faces lasted only a moment, and Thom prayed that it would be enough for them to escape.
The three drunks, seeing their prey on the run, steamrolled their way down the alley as fast and as far as they could. There was blood in the air, and they wanted a taste.
Thomas turned around just in time to see the lead runner, Knife, hit the fishing line they’d rolled out at chest and knee height; the other two followed a split second later. All three went down in a heap, squirming as the hooks from the trotline buried themselves into cloth and flesh.
John, Thom, and Juliana ran for several minutes before finally feeling secure enough to stop for a breather. Juliana clung to her father’s back, her face beaming pure excitement and joy.
“Best way to win a fight is to avoid a fight. And sometimes the best way to avoid a fight is to run like crazy!” John laughed.
Juliana and Thom followed suit, laughing maniacally for the next few minutes until they were all too tired to continue.
Turning to Thom with a serious expression on his face, John asked, “Did you just quote Monty Python at the bad guys?”
“Holy Grail. First thing that popped into my head.”
The laughing started with renewed vigor.
Wiping the tears from his face, Thom pulled himself back to his feet and began walking again with his new friends.
The crowds had started to disperse in different directions as well, taking different exits as they passed. The tribes still held, but barely. The businesswomen at this point had mostly opted to snap the heels from their shoes and continue on with modified flats. Thom could see them all stop and sit on a curb and tend to broken blisters and torn feet, men and women alike. Saying a silent prayer of thanks for absent-mindedly forgetting his hiking gear in the trunk, Thomas continued on with John and Juliana for a few more blocks.
“This is our stop, Thom,” John said, nodding his head to an older Craftsman style home on the corner. “There anything you need before making the next leg of your trip?”
Thom shook his head.
“At least come up and have my wife take a look at that bump on your noggin. She was a nurse until the kids came along.”
Thom reached up and touched his head gingerly. The bleeding had stopped, and a nice scab had formed, but it was still extremely tender to the touch.
“That’d be great, John. I appreciate it.”
Reaching into the pockets of his jeans, John fished out the keys and unlocked the door. “Honey, we’re home!” he shouted, giving his best Ricky Ricardo impression.
“Glad I’m not the only one that enjoys Dad Jokes,” Thom said, grinning.
“I swear, as soon as my Juliana was born, all of the sudden I had the best sense of humor!”
Both men shared a laugh and headed up the stairs.
The house was beautiful on the inside. Original hardwood floors, crown molding, the works…the house had been painstakingly cared for and brought back from the brink in a time when a lot of owners would have just scrapped it. The home had a beautiful
sort of character. Everything was lit by candle or kerosene lantern. It took Thom back in time a hundred years or more. The windows were covered with layers of thick, black cloth. Blackout curtains.
More than the fixtures, though, the house had a lived-in feel of barely managed chaos that comes with living with small children. Toys were scattered in designated areas and were noticeably absent from others, such as the kitchen. Thom had to smile, thinking back to this time in his life, when Anna was a precocious toddler running around, asking question after question, soaking up every experience, every spoken word, like a sponge.
He realized that if he was going to be living in a world as drastically changed as this one had become, he’d need to be like a child again, eager to learn, asking questions and modeling the behavior of survivors.
They walked into the living room, and Thomas noticed a wood-burning stove in the corner where most homes would have had a television. He sat down on a comfortable couch that was definitely purchased with kids in mind; cushiony, with fabric that masked stains.
As soon as Thom sat down, he regretted it. The weariness of walking such a long distance suddenly caught up with him. With the adrenaline gone, every ache seemed to hit at once. The boots he’d worn had surely been more effective than his office shoes, but the thin dress socks did little to pad against the rubbing against his skin. That, combined with the fact that he wasn’t in the best shape of his life, made it tempting to make this couch Thom’s new permanent residency.
“Juliana, it’s time to go to bed. Brush your teeth like you do when we’re camping. Just a little bit of water from the glass by the sink and spit. Then rinse with another small mouthful. Don’t use the sink, and if you need to go potty, use the old training chair you used to go on, okay? It’s important that we save as much water as we can right now.”
Breakdown: Season One Page 3