by James Dean
Getting hard to see. Cold too. Why am I so cold? I can see the sun. The sun is warm. Why am I not warm?
"What were you doing to my boy?!" the man yelled at Brandon where he lay on the sand of the playground. The ever-reddening sand.
"I was… helping. I'm sorry."
"He was, Dad. He was swinging with me. His name Is Brandon. We were waiting for you to come," Taylor said, sniffling through a runny nose.
"Yep," Brandon managed. With a better view of the man's face, he could see it warp and twist from rage and paternal instinct to guilt, and shame. Horror was what his face settled on. Horrible was how Brandon felt.
"I thought you were…"
"Nope," Brandon managed.
"Have you been bitten? It doesn't… you'll come back. As one of them. If you die. You'll kill people if you get the chance. I should-"
"Daddy no. He'll be okay. Brandon has a gun. He'll be fine," Taylor said, somehow sure the little pistol in Brandon's waistband would protect the stranger from whatever waited beyond the next minute.
"Okay, good. Look man, you gotta kill yourself if you start feeling strange. Put one in your head. You won't even feel it. We'll send help when we get home. I'm sorry," the father said as he looked around, and took a few steps back. He still held his boy tight.
Brandon sighed and felt the pain grow. The growing cold eclipsed his ability to feel his feet, but he tried to move his legs to stand. He couldn't; he had become too weak.
"Good luck," the father said, and left the park with his son.
Like almost always, Brandon was alone again.
*****
Minutes later a dying Brandon Hughes made the decision that he was--in fact--dying of a gunshot wound to his midsection.
He decided he didn't have long.
He also decided that while he didn't know whether or not he would come back from the dead it didn't make much sense to risk it happening. He didn’t have it in him to put his own gun in his mouth, or under his chin to end it like the man suggested. He couldn’t possibly give in to his older brother's insistence that he would be more likely to die because of his pistol, than he would be likely to use it to defend himself. Nope. His brother being right about that wasn't happening.
So Brandon decided he'd never, ever allow himself to hurt someone. If he couldn't put a bullet in his brain, he had to put himself in a place where he couldn't escape, where he would be no danger to anyone. He couldn't be able to go anywhere.
He looked up to the blood stained sun above, then at Taylor's swing, and reached up to it with both hands.
Neighborhood Watch
Meanwhile in Utah
Part Two
Josh Green
It took four months for everyone in my neighborhood to die. Despite Ryan and I’s best efforts, we just couldn’t keep them all alive. It wasn’t for a complete lack of trying, mind you--people are just hard to manage. You see, we had a plan, a really good plan. It involved us becoming armed, setting up perimeters, and stocking up for the winter. When the plan was implemented and being followed, this neighborhood prospered. Of course, it couldn’t last. And now, because of one bad decision, I am now staring out my second story window at a sea of undead.
I guess there is a bright side to all of this: my friends are still alive. I can hear them downstairs cleaning up spent shell casings and making sure the fortifications are holding. The three of us may be the only people left in Moab right now, which means we’re all by ourselves and going absolutely nowhere. There is no cavalry coming in to save the day.
This sucked.
I started to reflect back to how all of this had started and became disgusted. How in the world did Spencer Adams get to this point? Well, let me tell you.
*****
If you recall, Ryan and I procured a police cruiser on that fateful day we met. In the car, we found ammo for our shotguns and also found a dead guy sitting in the backseat. I guess the officer was in the middle of a prisoner transport when the world went to hell in a handbasket. We were able to break free of the zombies that had circled the vehicle and eventually found a safe place to kick stinky out of the back of the cruiser. Before we went to my place, Ryan insisted that we swing by his home to see if his girlfriend Anna was still alive. With our recent luck at finding ammo, I was more than happy to drive there.
When we got to his apartment complex, we found that the place had a few undead at the base of the exterior stairs. Ryan jumped out with his 12 gauge and started blowing them away left and right while I watched our backs to make sure nothing came in behind us. I asked him if he wanted me to go up with him to his door, but he said that this was something that he had to do himself. I had a sick feeling in my stomach and I expected the worst. Five minutes later, Ryan and his girlfriend emerged from their place and started walking down the stairs.
Finally, something good happened!
Ryan had a huge smile on his face as he introduced us. Her name is Anna and she's twenty five years old. She was much shorter than him, maybe weighed 115 lbs soaking wet, and had long black hair. She kept thanking me over and over again for rescuing her. On “that day,” she rode her bike straight home from work and barred herself in the apartment. She waited for Ryan to come home, and expected the worst. We swapped stories and then got moving. While Ryan and Anna were packing up what they needed from their home, I took the time to clean out the back of the police car. I used a lot of bleach and air freshener, but I got all the nasty out. I threw a few of Ryan’s old blankets on top of the seat and away we went.
We got to my neighborhood around 6:30 in the afternoon. I live in a quiet area that's located outside of town. If you were staring down my street, you would see three homes on the left and right, and when you got to the cul-de-sac part, there were three more homes (left, right, and middle), which totaled nine homes. My house is on the left hand side of the cul-de-sac, and like all the other residences in this area, it’s a two story home with an attached garage. The street was empty of people, both living and dead, so we cruised on up to the garage and then decided we should clear the home (just to be safe).
After making sure the house was empty, we assessed what it would take to fortify the home. We were twenty minutes into it when we heard a knock at the door. I answered it cautiously, and found that a group of my neighbors were standing in the lawn and they looked terrified.
Out of the nine homes on my street, seven were still occupied. There were two people in the Keegan’s place, three people at the Picketts, four people at the Winston’s, five at the Kirks, and two at the Cartwrights. The biggest family on the street was the Smith family. They were a good family, very active in the Mormon Church. The Smiths had six children, the youngest being in his senior year of high school. The three eldest kids were married, and had families of their own. When this went down, they all gathered at their parents place. In the end, the Smith household held twenty-five people, ranging from 6 months to 56 years. It was going to be tough keeping that household stocked with food, but we could figure that out.
Ryan and I decided that we should have a meeting, and that everyone should meet back at my place in an hour. Everyone left and we hurried up and wracked our brains with what would be best to get us all on the same page. Once everyone arrived, Ryan and I laid out our plan to keep the neighborhood safe. First, we had to fortify the homes. Second, we needed to start an armed watch. Third, we needed to conserve supplies. Finally, we needed to go out and gather more items to help us make it through the winter.
There was some conversation between the families, most seeming to get onboard with our plans. Russell Cartwright, my asshole neighbor who lived across the street from me, stood up and put his hands on his hips.
“I don’t really want people walking up and down my street with guns in their hands. It’s not safe,” he said.
“I’m sorry, what?” I was dumbfounded at such a stupid notion, and it showed in my tone.
“I said, I don’t want guns on my street. I live he
re, and I don’t think I should have to be in fear of someone shooting me,” Russell replied.
“Um, you do know that the end of the world is going on, right?” I said.
“If we have guns, we’ll just attract violence. I don’t want them here.” Russell folded his arms and glared at me.
I heard a groan coming from the Pickett family, but I heard an agreeance come from the Smith household. Mrs. Smith was one of those busy bodies who loved to get her nose in everyone’s business and she stood up with him.
“I don’t want my kids anywhere near guns. I think we should put it to a vote,” she said.
Mr. Winston stood up and shook his head. “Of course you want to put it to a vote…you have eighty people living your house, you’d win. I think Spencer is right…we need to fortify and arm ourselves.”
“There’s not eighty people in my house! Besides, majority rules, that’s how the country works,” she yelled back.
“What country!?” someone yelled out from behind her.
A very loud argument broke out. Ryan kept yelling at them to calm down, but he wasn’t loud enough. I finally had to fire a shot off into the air to get them all to shut up. It worked.
“Sorry folks, but it’s too dangerous to walk around out there without a weapon. And with proper training, having guns around won’t be so scary for you. We can make this neighborhood a safe place.”
“Just keep your guns away from my property,” Russell growled as he stood up and walked towards my gate, his wife in tow. I shook my head as he stormed off out of sight, and I turned back towards the group.
“He’ll come around. We’ll start fortifying tomorrow morning. Tonight, nobody goes outside. Curfew is in effect.”
*****
The following morning, we devised a plan to go to some of the unfinished construction sites in the area and pick up some lumber. Ryan, Anna, and myself took Mr. Keegan’s old Dodge pickup truck while the Pickett’s brought their own. I tasked the Smith family with going into the empty homes on the block and seeing if there was any food. The Kirks and Winston’s went to work removing the privacy fence from around the empty homes, so we could use the wood to shore up their windows.
The first week went excellent, and in no time, we had every house fortified with lumber. We nailed and screwed ¾ inch plywood on the insides of every first floor window, and I rigged up a locking system to help reinforce the doors. I literally had to beg Russell and his wife Mel to let me nail wood on their windows and doorways. Mel had the balls to say that she was worried about the resale value, as if all this shit wasn’t even happening in her world.
Once the homes were fortified, we had our next meeting to go over our next phase: arming and setting up a neighborhood watch. The Kirk’s, Winston’s and Pickett’s volunteered immediately. The Keegan’s were too old to patrol, so they were excused. I absolutely could not get the Smiths and the Cartwrights on board, which was irritating. After we set up a patrol schedule, we decided it was time to go on food runs to stock up our pantries. Everyone participated—it was exciting for them to go out and take from other people's houses. I noticed that the Smith household was going through food like crazy, and I had to get on them about conserving. They said they had enough and to not worry about them, and they seemed kinda pissed about it. I told them that we were a team, and they needed to be a part of it. Mr. Smith reluctantly agreed to scale it back a bit, which was a minor victory.
For the first month, everything went great. We lived far enough out in the valley that we weren’t seeing too many zombies around, and all of our food runs were going off without a hitch. Everyone was able to get a generator for their homes, and we were able to syphon a lot of fuel from some of the abandoned cars along the roadways. Our biggest score came after we raided a food delivery service and managed to find tons of dry goods. Also: we found chickens hanging out on a feed lot. I was able to catch ten of them and took them home. I made them a sweet chicken coop and we decided to have a huge party that night to celebrate our good fortunes. But all good things must come to an end.
Caroline and Rodney Keegan were the first neighbors on our street to die, and seemingly, the thread that unraveled this entire neighborhood. They were good people, and some of Moab’s oldest residents. Every night I came to their house and reassured them that we would be there to take care of them, but they never seemed to be sold on the whole idea. Whenever we did our rounds, you usually could hear Mrs. Keegan crying from one of the back rooms. We had gone a month and a half without a single zombie in our neighborhood, but one morning a few managed to make it onto the street and I had to kill them. Being longtime residents, the Keegan’s knew the people that I shot and were very upset with me. That was when the idea of zombies became real to them, and they closed themselves up to us. Two weeks later, Mr. Keegan finally answered his door and tells me thank you for everything and patted me on the shoulder. At that moment, he seemed very much at peace and I was stoked because it seemed like he was getting with the program.
Later that night, Mr. Keegan--that asshole--decided to hang himself after shooting his wife in the heart. Ryan heard the shot in the middle of the night, but wasn’t sure where it had come from. I wanted to go outside and check on everybody, but the curfew was in effect, and I wasn’t about to break it. As soon as the sun rose in the east over the La Sal Mountains, Ryan and I did a perimeter check and visited all the homes. When we got to the Keegan’s, we heard a loud crash and we decided to breach the place when nobody returned our calls. I kicked open the door and found Mrs. Keegan in a pile of broken bones at the bottom of the stairs. She made biting gestures towards us, so Ryan put a .22 round through her head. We called out for Mr. Keegan, but the only thing we heard in return was a loud thumping noise from upstairs. It was only when we opened his closet did we find him. He had tossed his belt over the top of the door and then hung himself with it from inside. Ryan did a double-tap and we walked out of their bedroom feeling nauseous.
This one hit me pretty hard, but let’s be honest here: if we were taking bets on who would die first, these two would have been at the top of that list. It still makes me mad, because I promised them I would take care of them and they didn’t believe me. They went the suicide route, and now I got to live with it. After inspecting the rest of the home for zombies, we found that Mr. and Mrs. Keegan had written a note and left it on their dinner table. The envelope was addressed to their children so we left it alone and decided to inspect what they had in the place. The Keegan’s death was an awful thing to happen, but there was a silver lining: they had a well-stocked pantry. There was a solid week’s worth the food for each family on the street (including double portions for the Smith family), and we were going to come back later and log it in our books.
Exiting the house, we saw that the whole neighborhood had shown up to investigate the gunfire. After we explained what had happened, fear and panic began to set in. In a complete dick-move, Russell suggested that we had killed the Keegan’s just so we could raid their food pantry. This, of course, didn’t sit well with me—so I promptly got in Russell’s face and called him a few choice (but accurate) names. Russell’s wife started lipping off to me and telling the neighbors that we were holding the street hostage. That’s when Anna got involved—shoving her finger in Mel’s face and almost starting a cat fight.
There were a lot of curse words exchanged, but I got to hand it to Anna—she held her own with that bitch and laid out a pretty good argument as to why they should respect what we are doing. The Smiths were talking amongst each other about what Anna had said, and Russell started catching on that Anna was winning the argument. He started yelling at Ryan to get his woman to calm down, but Ryan told Russell that he wasn’t Anna’s boss and that Anna would decide when she was done. I started to laugh and folded my arms as Russell pulled his wife back towards him and started to walk away.
“I’m sure glad that we could have this conversation, Russell,” I said sarcastically, “I’ll make sure you get your p
ortions still, even though you’re an asshole.”
Did I need to say that? No. But it did feel good throwing it back in his face. He has been nothing but critical of what we have done, and it was time I gave a little back.
Not to be one-upped, Russell called me a sycophant and spit at me.
That…was not a smart thing to do. First of all, a sycophant means I’m somebodies lackey. I’m nobody’s lackey. I slung my gun over my shoulder and stormed right up to him, stopping inches from his face. I told him that if he was going to use big words like that, he better be big enough to back them up. Russell started mocking me, alluring to the fact that since I was bigger than him, that I was nothing more than a high school bully. He also said that my gun was an extension of my penis, and that I kept that cop car around just to satiate my manhood.
Enough was enough.
I threw my shoulder into his chest and sent him sprawling with a powerful bash. Ryan jumped in front of me, in an attempt to calm me down. Of course, Mrs. Smith just had to rush to Russell’s aid and check on him with her eldest son and daughter-in-law in tow.
“See!” he yelled while being helped up. “This is exactly what I mean! You guys are terrorizing this neighborhood with your guns and your cowboy attitudes. If you weren’t here, there would never be another zombie around here because they’d have no reason to be here!”
“You’re a moron, dude! zombies aren’t attracted to guns or negative thoughts! They are attracted to food!” I screamed back at him.
Ryan and Anna were pulling me away from the crowd and pushing me back towards my place. I saw that the Kirk’s had removed themselves from the fold and were already back on their own grass while the Winston’s and a few of the Smith boys were pushing and shoving each other. The Pickett’s were doing their best to calm everyone down, but nobody could hear them over the yelling.