Only the Light We Make

by James Dean

  “Hopefully, they’ll move on out of here soon. Then we can go,” Ryan said. He was already refilling his empty magazines with one of the ammo boxes from my bag. I nodded and then we came up with a plan to escape. It involved us packing the car full of shit, refueling it with the gas cans, and waiting for the opportune moment to get the hell out of Dodge. For the next three hours we took shifts at the front door. One person would stand guard while the other two packed bugout bags with ammo and food. After the bags were deemed acceptable, we quietly loaded the cop car with our items. We packed our food on the bottom of the trunk, put a blanket over it, and then put our ammo and extra guns on top. To the side of the guns, we put camping items and a first aid kit, as well as those little green propane canisters and a portable barbeque grill. With winter on its way, we grabbed a few coats and extra blankets, and we made sure we had a few pairs of clothes to change in to. I broke away from the packing and went upstairs to take a quick peek out the window.

  And that’s how we got to this point right now. That’s how Spencer Adams couldn’t save his neighborhood.

  Outside, I could see at least eight to nine hundred undead in the front. Russell and Mel’s house was surrounded as well, so I’m guessing they made it inside. That asshole better thank me if we live through this. I began to weigh the severity of the situation and I found myself having a mini panic attack. I have never had so much anxiety before. I mean seriously, this entire situation was fucked and the only thing keeping us alive right now was a pile of dead people who managed to “Tetris” themselves in my doorway when they died. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, man. Ryan, Anna, and I were supposed to live a luxurious post-apocalyptic life together and not have to worry about shit like this. My neighbors were all supposed to be alive and having barbecue’s with us. Russel and Mel were going to eventually turn into cool people, and we’d have them over for dinner someday. I had a plan, and it failed.

  Sigh.

  For the first time since this whole shit started, I cried. I did my best to stop myself, but I just sobbed. I leaned against the wall and then slid down onto my butt. It must had been loud, because Ryan and Anna came rushing up to the room to make sure I was okay. I just sat there and cried and couldn’t talk. It was embarrassing. Anna put her hand on my shoulder in an effort to console me, and I noticed that Ryan was wiping away tears on his face. After a few minutes, I rubbed my eyes and looked up to them.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Spencer. It’s okay,” Anna replied.

  I shook my head. “It’s not okay. I failed at keeping this neighborhood safe. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t fail, man. You did everything you could. We, all of us, did everything we could,” Ryan said, kneeling beside me.

  “Well, that wasn’t enough, because everyone is dead now.”

  “We’re not dead,” said Anna.

  “Yeah, well…”

  Shit, they had me there.

  “But the Smiths are. The Keegan’s are gone too. The Winston’s are getting ate as we speak. Russell and Mel are probably next. Even if they can’t get in here, we have enough food to make it, what, three months max? And then what?”

  “Spencer, you can’t blame yourself for them.”

  “Yeah man, the Smiths killed themselves. The Keegan’s did the same. You couldn’t have stopped any of that.” Ryan said.

  “Then why are we trying if everyone is going to die? What’s the point of going on?” I snapped back at them.

  There was silence. I’ve been the leader of this group since this whole thing started, and I was ready to give up. Anna was the first to speak, saying something to me that brought perspective to our entire situation.

  “Spencer, people are going to die. It’s not called the Zombie Apocalypse because nice things are happening. The reason why we keep going, is because people like you are still out there and others need help. When everything gets under control, and people like you are left in this world to run things—then this has been worth it. People like you are the reason why we keep fighting. It’d be easy for us to just leave and never look back… but what kind of life is that? Miserable, like Russell and Mel’s? Selfish, like the Smiths? Hopeless, like the Keegan’s? I prefer what we’re doing: caring, and being what’s right with the world.”

  I remained silent and took in what she said to me. I never looked at our situation that way. How did I get so lucky to have such wonderful people like these two in my life? I nodded my head and wiped away my tears. Anna leaned down and the three of us hugged. It felt good.

  Nighttime approached and we felt that the house was secure enough for us to sleep in the ammo room. We took turns watching out the window, in hopes that the horde would dissipate and we could escape. It was my shift--sometime around four am--when I saw the stupidest thing ever to happen in my entire life. Across the street, from the second story, Russell opened up his window, lit a Molotov cocktail, and tossed it into the horde.

  “Holy shit!”

  I didn’t mean to yell it, but I did. Ryan and Anna both jumped up from their sleep, confused and ready to shoot something. I got them to the window and we watched the shitshow unfold. Russell would light a Molotov and then throw it out into the group. The group would then see Russell up in his window, and they would start pushing towards his place. Soon, said group (who’s on fire) made it to the walls and the next thing you know, Russell’s house is on fire. We could hear the screams coming from inside the home as Mel and Russell realized their predicament. Another second story window opened and Mel started dumping bottles of water on the flames in a futile effort to put them out.

  Obviously, it didn’t work.

  The cul-de-sac now had a bunch of flaming undead corpses pushing towards their place and that’s when I realized that we had been presented with an opportunity to escape.

  “We got to move, now!” I yelled.

  Ryan and Anna picked up their guns and ran towards the stairwell. We made it to the garage, locked the door behind us, and climbed inside the car. I turned the key and the engine fired up. I revved it a few times and turned to Ryan, who was in the front seat next to me.

  “You guys are my best friends. If we don’t make it, I want you to know that.”

  “Ditto. Come on, let’s go,” Ryan yelled back at me.

  I put it in drive and floored it. We bashed through the garage door and into the street. Six feet into the trip, I nailed my first zombie and it flipped over the car's roof. I looked up in time to see Russell bail out the top window of his home as the flames grew in size. I’m sure he was ripped to pieces by that horde, but I didn’t need to see it. Even though they were assholes, I’m sad they couldn’t make it. I had hopes they would come around someday. Oh well.

  You reap what you sow.

  I hit a few more zombies as I sped off. I could hear the hands slapping the side of the vehicle, trying to grab the doors. We passed the Smith house, which still smoldered, and turned out onto the main street and saw nothing ahead of us. I had no idea where we were going to go, but I knew that if I had Ryan and Anna with me, it didn’t matter. We were going to be okay.

  ABOUT JOSH GREEN

  Josh Green is a 6th generation Moabite. He is married and has three children. In 2015 he received his Associates of Science from Utah State University. A fan of fantasy and horror novels, Josh likes to spend his free time reading, writing, and exploring Utah’s back country. Most of his works have been published locally, but recently he has branched out into the zombie genre. He has been featured in the anthology “Unhappy Endings: Tales from the world of Adrian’s Undead Diary,” and “Only the Light We Make: Tales from the world of Adrian’s Undead Diary.”

  Zombie Fix

  Phillip Tomasso

  Everyone said it could never happen; that it would never come to this. I guess I was like them, like everyone else and just accepted—believed—the inevitable was impossible. The joke was on us all. Only thing was; no one was laughing, because nothing ab
out the dire situation was funny. Nothing.

  I started a journal with the aspirations of documenting events. The hope was someone might find it one day and the entries would help them make some sense out of the catastrophe as it unfolded, grew and consumed humanity in its entirety.

  Holed up in this place, I quickly ran out of supplies. No food and only limited ammunition. There was running water in the washroom, and kitchenette. That surprised me. I’d affixed a tarp and raggedy bedspread over the windows. Sunlight still crept in, setting a pie slice of light into the main living room. With the back of my hand I could part the blanket and see the street easily enough. I didn’t venture into the one bedroom since nothing blocked the window, so I kept that door shut. The washroom window was frosted so I didn’t need worry about anyone seeing inside there.

  The dilemma was food. I needed to eat, and soon. I felt my energy draining away with nearly every breath I took. I can’t recall when I’d eaten last. Felt like days had passed since I’d even consumed a morsel of anything. Food was not just in short supply, it was nonexistent. The grocery store shelves had been cleaned out by looters long ago. Not pointing fingers. I’d been a looter when the getting was good. That food only lasted so long, even with self-enforced strictly rationed portions in place. It goes. And when it’s gone, that’s that. I thought about exploring other houses next to this one, going door to door or window to window, checking for items in cupboards. That made the most sense. The only problem was the danger in the undertaking of such a mission. I was alone. There was no one to watch my back.

  I don’t believe I was always alone. It felt like I had others, someone who had been with me at one time. The memories, I’m afraid to admit, are foggy and transparent. There were nights when I convinced myself the others I had been with were close to me, special; that I hadn’t just imagined them. A woman, a beautiful woman who if she had a name, it escaped me at the moment. I remember times when I remember her, remember her name, but right now there is nothing—a fleeting image of strawberry red hair and bright green eyes . . . but little else. No name.

  I’m alone and hungry and scared.

  Sitting with my back to the wall against useless heater vents, I shiver. I clapped a hand over my stomach pushing back at insistent rumbles reminding me I need to make decisions about dinner. Or Lunch. Or breakfast. The strung up bedspread is just to my left, and what is beyond is horrific, and unexplainable. It is that unknown beyond keeping me still, stagnant.

  I don’t know how it started. It could have been a virus outbreak or a government experiment gone awry, or some bacteria that washed onto shore during one of the countless hurricanes that pound our coastal regions. Whatever caused it--make no mistake--there was no one prepared for it. No one had a plan in place to stop or contain it. The infection spread through all races, and all ages without prejudice.

  It spread fast and furious.

  If bit by one of the infected, you might as well surrender your very life to suicide. You were as good as dead anyway at that point. The problem wasn’t that the infection killed you. That would have been more normal, and acceptable. The flu did that. Cancer did that. People died every day in a thousand different ways. Sad as it seemed, it was part of life. We all knew that; we all expected death. Hell, the minute we’re born our bodies begin to die. If that isn’t a fucked up thought right there, then I don’t know what is. The point is, it’s the cycle. No one would argue death with you.

  Until now. The dead don’t stay dead, and right there—that’s the problem.

  Whatever gets inside people kills the host, reanimates the corpse and possess it. It takes the body over. These sluggish corpses sprouted up all over the place. At first it was almost comical. News reports aired about hospitals enforcing quarantines in an attempt to isolate and investigate whatever it was behind the…reanimated bodies. I don’t think anyone realized the people being treated had actually died, and had come back. I mean, that’s ludicrous. I think doctors and specialists and the military involved suspected a mere illness. A serious one, no doubt, but still just an illness. I don’t believe for a minute that at the start of it all anyone, considered in their right mind, suggested the idea of zombies.

  I knew it was zombies.

  I didn’t share my opinion with anyone. They’d think I was crazy. I’d get myself arrested under some Medical Hygiene bullshit. I couldn’t have that. What would Bernadette do—

  Bernadette.

  Strawberry blond hair. Bright green eyes.

  Who was she? Who was she. . .to me?

  That woman.

  What woman? What was I just thinking?

  It had to do with food.

  I needed food.

  That didn’t feel right, though. There had been more just now, something else, something I was forgetting, or had forgotten.

  I’d lost my train of thought. With a fist I hit myself in the forehead once, twice and then a third time. It felt like my brain had come loose inside my skull, and was sloshing around between my ears.

  Between my ears . . . I heard it.

  Something boomed, like a roar. Did it happen inside my head, or had the noise come from outside? The piercing sound made me want to press my palms against my ears and scream. But I didn’t. I didn’t want anyone, anything, to hear me.

  Instead, I got up onto my knees and lifted my rifle. I used the barrel to slightly part the bedspread to see what was happening outside.

  It was morning, and they were everywhere; more than I had ever seen gathered in one place at one time. I’d shot some earlier. Or yesterday. Might have been last week. Thought that would take care of them, and hoped it would keep me safe and my location secret.

  The exact opposite happened. More came. And more still.

  I knew immediately what the problem had been. The sound of gunfire. It had to have been like the ringing of a dinner bell for them. I’d inadvertently called them to me. The haven I thought I’d found was now the prison I had no way out of.

  There were just too many of them. A box of shells on the hardwood floor by my legs was all I had left. A stand needed to be made. Food needed to be gathered. Those creatures needed to be killed. A box of shells was not going to kill them all. There might be just enough to shoot my way out of here, to run and find another place as a sanctuary, scarfing up food and other supplies while on the run…

  There was a saying, Live to fight another day. It was a saying or movie title, or a song. It didn’t matter which. The motto provided powerful words to live by.

  Bernadette. That strawberry blond hair. Big blue eyes.

  No.

  That’s not right. She had dark hair, dark eyes. Green hair, red eyes?

  Her name was on the tip of my tongue. Right there. Right. There.

  I emptied the box of shells into my hand, and after ensuring my rifle was loaded, placed the rest into my pocket. It was time to flee.

  I stood up, kept my back to the wall and slid along toward the front entrance.

  I’d count to three, then throw the door open…

  *****

  “Movement. We’ve got movement!” Special Agent Wilson lowered the bullhorn. He used the radio affixed to his shoulder next. “Snipers on the ready.”

  “Door handle’s turning.” Agent Paige had his Glock drawn and stood perched between the open car door and the car.

  The house was surrounded and had been for over thirteen hours. Both a media and police helicopter flew overhead continuously filming and observing the groundwork underway to contain the madman.

  When the door finally opened—moments before a planned breach—a man in jeans and white tank top erupted from the threshold. The rifle he carried in front of him pivoted from left to right before strategically stationed SWAT members opened fire.

  Bullets tore through the man’s chest and exploded out of his back. Blood sprayed the white siding on the house, and front wood door. The man dropped onto the porch. Pooling blood encircled his ripped apart torso.

  “Hol
d!” Wilson held up his hand. “Paige, come with me.”

  The agents walked toward the house, guns still drawn. They approached the suspect cautiously. Paige knelt beside the man and pressed fingers onto his neck, feeling for a pulse. After a moment of nothing, he locked eyes with Wilson and shook his head.

  “He’s gone. Someone notify the M.E.,” Wilson called into the radio.

  There wasn’t any question as to whether the man was dead or not. Someone just needed to verify. EMS would not be called in from their staged area until the scene was secured. A dead body wouldn’t be transported via ambulance, regardless.

  Paige entered the house first and kept his back to the wall, gun extended in both hands in front of him. He scanned the hallway and living room before taking another step. His foot crunched down on something when he entered the living room. He cursed under his breath. He should know better. “Crack pipe.”

  “Drug induced home invasion. Go figure,” Wilson said.

  The living room and kitchenette were cleared next, then the bathroom.

  Two doors remained closed. One was a linen closet filled with towels, clean sheets and toiletries. The other must be a bedroom. Wilson and Paige stood on either side of the door and then entered on three.

  Tied to the bed, arms and legs secured with neckties to the bedposts, lay a naked woman. Her long red hair stuck to blood-soaked skin that was blue and black and splotchy. Wilson looked away from the gaping hole in her gut where shotgun blasts annihilated her stomach and bowels.

  Paige walked out of the room, head down.

  “Ah, shit.” Wilson walked around the bed, grabbing a closer look of the murder scene, and was careful not to step on, or touch anything. Always hoping for the best, police figured the homeowner, Bernadette Carson, might be dead. Neighbors called police when they first heard a series of shots fired the previous night.