by J. Rudolph
Eric was a dumpy little man. He was short and balding with pasty skin. He stood behind his mom almost like he was nothing but a servant who needs to be at the beck and call of the employer. I never got the vibe that he was happy. He had lived his entire 42 years as someone that only had value if he made her happy. It was the reason for his being. If he had any aspirations for a different life he had stuffed it deep inside of himself until it could no longer be accessed. It seemed to be upsetting him that his mom was unhappy.
Joey spoke out. "Ma'am... I must start first with a hello. My name is Joey. Joey James. I do not recall having the pleasure of making your acquaintance."
His soft southern drawl, a souvenir of having lived in Alabama the first 16 years of his life seemed to melt her defenses. She stared into his hazel eyes, his shaggy dark blond hair nearly covered them up. He had all the appearances of being a surfer despite not living near the ocean.
"Well hello, young man. I'm Martha Edgecourt. This here is my boy Eric. How do you do?" She glared back towards Trent and me with contempt blazing in her green eyes. Her dark gray hair was secured in her customary tight bun. I had wondered often if she wore a wig as her hair always looked this way. Her reading glasses, blue frames today, were perched on her long hooked nose with a beaded eyeglass chain on them should she need to take them off. She rarely did. I wondered if she was going for the stern school teacher/old librarian look. If so she succeeded admirably.
"Well ma'am, I would expect that these folk here," he gestured to us, "might just be on the right track. We have a blessing being able to get prepared like this. I don't rightly believe a one of us would have been wanting to do any of this with them zombies barreling in on us. We may just be all right because of them." He turned towards us and smiled. Martha had to concede that he might be right. She glowered at us.
Trent grinned at this man. We all had been wanting to put this woman in her place for years as she griped about various minor inconveniences of apartment life as though they were catastrophic occurrences. "Hey. I'm Trent Anglin. This is my wife, Cali, and my son, Drew is the blonde haired kid over there." He pointed to Drew who was playing with a couple other kids. "We were just about to do a supply run. Wanna come along?" He agreed instantly. He said he had to run upstairs for his wallet and was off in a flash.
Daniel was outside with his girls, Tomisha and Dalynn. I asked him if he could keep an eye on Drew while we were gone and he thought there shouldn't be a problem in that. I asked if there was anything he needed. He handed me $20 and said to grab a couple new toys for the girls to make this an adventure. Tomisha was three and Dalynn was a year and a half which was the perfect age to be distracted from the world by a couple new toys. I had to admit to some envy over how nice it would be to be to be that easily distracted. I thought it was a great idea to keep them occupied and had decided to do the same for Drew. I asked him to let us out the gate and re-lock it until we got back. I could see a handgun tucked in his pants. “Just in case.” he said.
I went over to Drew where he was playing. "Hon? Dad and I are going to grab some stuff. Will you hang out here with Daniel and keep an eye on stuff here?" I could see he wasn't thrilled with the idea of staying. His eyes teared up.
"Please mom, no. I want to stay with you." he pleaded. In what I worried was a major mistake and against my better judgment, I gave in.
"Daniel, never mind. We're taking Drew." I called. He gave the thumbs up sign in acknowledgment.
I turned to Drew and said "You have to stay next to me the entire time, understand?" He gave me a nod, as though the thought hadn't occurred to him to do anything else.
Drew went over to Liam, his neighbor and best friend, and asked if they would watch the dog for a while. Tesla seemed to be loving the attention that Liam was pouring on her. Dogs were not allowed on the property, even for a visit, so the novelty of having a dog around was fun.
When we got to the truck to pile in Joey took a gun out from his waistband so it wouldn't get hung up on anything. He saw me look at it with a wary eye and said, “Just in case” like Daniel had. Guns make me nervous. Always have. I tried very hard to put from my mind the fact that we were going on an outing with guns involved. I climbed in the back seat with Drew so Joey could have more leg room.
"So, where to?" Trent asked.
Looting Survival
Joey suggested that we go to the sporting goods store first. I figured a place like that would be picked over already. He brought up a very good point, most people associate those stores with sports like baseball. There is the camping section too. With that, we were off.
As we got closer to the main part of town the more frightening things looked. Cars were abandoned with doors left open much like those cars we had passed on the way back from Trent's mom's house, but a whole lot more. Stores were locked up still. We didn't see any people. We all looked at each other and without saying anything we knew the other was asking what in the hell happened here? Just because Trent and I had seen a preview of this coming attraction the day before didn't make it less intimidating.
Trent took the back roads to get to the sporting goods store. When we pulled into the parking lot it looked like a ghost town. The metal gate in front of the store was down. Trent told us to get out of the truck and stand aside. When we were clear he turned the truck around and backed it in to the front door. The metal of the gate scraped along the concrete screeching loudly. I cringed at the sound. Glass showered down like glitter. When the obstructing barriers were broken he pulled forward just enough to be clear from the door. We went in, each grabbing a cart and headed for the back.
"We aren't shopping," called Trent, "just grab and go on to the next."
Trent started on the aisle with propane, stoves, and other meal preparation stuff. He held up a can of beef stew and said that this is what we were going to have for dinner tonight. Joey went to the gun counter. He found the guns to be locked in the safe but ammo was not then migrated to the sleeping bags. I found lanterns, battery powered radios, hand cranked flashlights, and the like. I earned a couple weird looks when I went to where the shoes were next. No, I was not that girl who loves shoes, I was that girl who realized that all terrain footwear could come in handy. I pulled all the boxes of hiking boots down and emptied them in the cart. Not wanting to waste space, I left behind a cardboard mountain of shoe boxes. I really hoped that everyone at the complex was going to be able to find the right size for them. Drew helped by doing the same thing with the kid shoes. We decided that we got enough stuff and that we should get going. On our way to the door Joey spotted that we had all walked right past the archery section. Trent and Joey grabbed everything they could find which included some neat looking crossbows. While they continued to load up I grabbed a couple pink basketballs for Daniel's girls and some baseball bat and ball sets, basket balls, and a couple of the kid sized tennis sets for the kids of the complex to play with. I threw in a couple extra bats thinking they may be handy in self protection. I had put the last of the bats in the cart when I spotted Trent and Joey headed my way.
"Perfect timing guys." I said as they walked towards me. "We just finished here, too."
Trent dropped the tailgate of the truck and we started throwing stuff in. I told Drew to get in the truck as we loaded. We were so focused on the task of getting our stuff in we didn't see him coming.
Drew was banging on the back window of the truck. I looked up at him to see his eyes opened wide in terror. He was frantically pointing to my left. I saw a man shuffling towards us.
I was a nurse. I had been for 12 years. My first thought was he's hurt. Why else was he walking like he was? He was dragging his left foot a bit. He seemed uncoordinated. There was so much dried and drying blood on his torn tee shirt that I couldn't hazard a guess as to the original color and his jeans gave just a hint here and there where the blood hadn't yet reached that they were once a pair of dark blue denim. He was deathly pale. I assumed he had a serious injury. I turned to start walking
to him when it hit me that he was moving like the zombie movie guys moved. I stopped dead in my tracks. The stranger did not.
"T-t-Trent..." I squeaked. "Trent. TRENT!" He looked up at me then looked past me to the stranger.
"Stop right there!" Trent yelled. When the man didn't stop he yelled again. "Stop!"
The man lifted his arms like he was reaching to us and let out a low moan. He started moving faster, the dragging foot sliding along the asphalt. His left shoe fell off as he kept on. As he got closer I noticed his right arm had a deep wound in it. Bone was exposed. The leg that was dragging behind him didn't look right. It looked as though it had been fractured. Joey pulled the gun out of his waistband. I didn't even notice that he had put it back when we got to the store and pointed it at the man.
One Down
"The man said stop" Joey yelled. He didn't stop. Joey looked at Trent and me and said, "Get in the truck." I started towards the drivers side door to climb in the back as Trent closed the tailgate. I heard Joey cock the gun and he issued his last warning. "One more step and I shoot."
True to his word, when the man took the next step Joey fired. The bullet hit his chest. The impact spun the man but he kept coming. He fired again hitting the man again in the chest. He lost his balance and fell but got up again. Joey raised the gun fired again hitting the man in the head. The bullet passed though the nose and exited in a spray of dark blood, brain matter and skull chunks. Drew vomited and I was pretty close myself. The man hit the ground with a sickening slap of flesh against pavement.
Trent started the truck as Joey climbed in. He hit the gas with force and peeled out of the parking lot with a loud squeal of tires. When we got out on the street and Trent looked in the rear view I heard him say, "Oh. Really not good."
We all looked behind us. Just over the hill line we saw ten more of these sluggishly moving people making their way our direction.
He floored the truck to get us out of there.
I shook the entire ride home. Its one thing to read the zombie books and watch zombie movies. Before this we were just playing make believe. It was a game. Now it was real. My stomach turned at the thought. Here I thought the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were bad on my sense of security. My head looped over and over on how to I raise a kid in this world? How is he going to get through this? How am I going to get through this? How are we ever going to sleep again? It was a game! It was a way to pass time, all the when zombie apocalypse comes talks we had. It was never supposed to be real.
No one really had anything to say on the ride home. I wondered if everyone else was pondering their mortality. I wondered if anyone else felt the weight of the world we stumbled into. I looked at Drew who seemed to be considering something heavily. He caught me looking at him. As we neared the apartment complex Drew finally spoke up.
"Mom," he started, "all that stuff we got at the store, did we steal it?"
I started laughing. Here I was worried that his psyche was destroyed having come face to face with a thing that wouldn't die after being shot two times in the chest until the third bullet made his head explode like a watermelon in a Gallagher show. I was worried that he would never feel right again having come face to face with living death.
"Awww hon," I started, "I love you. Let me start by saying I'm not laughing at you. Worrying that we stole something was just the last thing I thought you'd say. I almost forgot we went. What we just did is technically called looting. Most people loot TV's and computers and stuff like that. Something tells me though TV's aren't going to be worth anything soon. What we got is stuff we need in the long term or stuff to trade for other things we might need. If this all blows over I'll work something with the owner to pay for all the stuff. Sound good?"
Post Raid
Trent pulled into the driveway to the complex. Daniel was standing next to the gate waiting for us. He spun the combination, pulled the chain, and let us through. We pulled into the carport and were greeted by a few people. We got out of the truck without a word. Trent went behind the truck and dropped the tailgate. Those who were near the truck oohed and aahed over the collection of goods.
"Time to get this all unloaded." I said. "We can take it all to the grassy area to divide it all up."
I hung back for a moment to talk to Trent and Joey.
"What do we tell the others about this?" I asked.
"We let them enjoy the moment for now. They should have a fun moment for a little bit." replied Trent. Joey nodded in agreement.
When the truck was emptied we all gathered in the common area.
"Everyone?" I called out, "Time to talk about the division of this. There were only four cross bows. I'd like to see every unit have some sort of protection. Who has a gun in their apartment already?" Joey, Daniel, Tyreese, and Trent raised their hands. “Good. Cool. It almost looks like I planned it that way. I need one person from each gun-less home who wants a cross bow to come forward." Trent handed them out. There were ten stoves so every unit got one leaving a couple as a back up unit or available as a trade item. We continued on through the rest of the supplies making sure every unit got at least one item (or a similar item if there were not enough for the eight units) and the extras went into the back up until we got to the shoes.
"I got as many shoes as I could. I know I don't have any real outdoors shoes and we need to protect ourselves from as many injuries as possible. We got as many sizes as we could. We'll set them up in piles by sizes so everyone can try them on. If there are situations where there are more people needing a size than is available then we'll look into who already has what. And on the note of preventing injuries, I got first aid kits for every home as well.”
To close out the distribution session I asked, “Are there any questions for us?"
"Yeah I got one." Said Mercedes. Mercedes is a 70 year old sweetheart. She was the one who always kept an extra eye on the kids as they played and had a kind word for everyone. If she wasn't sitting on her balcony in her rocking chair she was baking. She would comment on how she didn't move as good as she used to but she refused any help up or down her stairs when she took her walks. Her sons would stop by every week with her groceries and while she never said anything you could tell it bothered her to not be able to do the shopping for herself. Her fried chicken and apple pie was legendary in our complex and the day after her groceries showed up the smell coming from her place could make your mouth water.
I smiled at her with more confidence than I felt and said, "Sure Mercedes. What's on your mind?"
"Did you run into any trouble?"
Asking if we ran into any trouble felt like the understatement of the year. I sighed softly. We had to break the news. I took a deep breath to try to calm the freaked out feeling that was welling up in me. That pretend confidence wavered greatly.
"We did." I pressed my lips together wishing I could give that but everything is cool now smile. It wasn't cool.
"The town has been abandoned. Cars litter the roadway with all the doors left wide open. It looks like a big panic went down. We didn't see another living soul. When we were about to leave there was a man, a reanimated man. We took care of him but as we were leaving we saw several more. They are out there."
Many faces stared at me in shock.
Jody, Liam's mom, spoke up. "Really? You aren't joking?" She looked at me like she was waiting for me to say ha! Got you! I looked down at the ground. I couldn't stand those imploring eyes. She turned to Trent and Joey looking to them to say that what I said was just a joke. It wasn't. I wished beyond all wishing that it was.
"At least we should be safe here," I said. "We have the gates locked. The ones today didn't seem that coordinated so they won't be scaling the wall. We just need to keep it together."
This Mrs. Brightside thing is starting to be exhausting. I felt like having a mini melt down right then and knew that couldn't happen. These people expected me to be the prepared one. Drew needed to see that this was something that could be coped with. My head hurt.
"I need to go in for a bit and zone out. With everything that happened today I need to give my brain a break and hope to get this borderline migraine to settle down. I'll talk more later, Jody, 'kay?"
She grudgingly agreed to my leaving. As I turned to go up the stairs Jody called out.
"Cali! Quick question!" I turned back around.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Is there some sort of signal we should have if it looks like we are about to have a zombie break in or something?"
It was a good question. I guess that zone out really should wait. I turned back towards her and said, "What did you have in mind?"
"Steven plays the drums." said Jody.
I had forgotten that. In a flash I remembered the first time I met Jody McCoy. It was five years ago. Her now six year old was a squirming one year old who was not fond of naps. Jody had knocked on my door saying she was getting a petition together to ban drum play in the complex after Steven moved in. Steven fancied himself the next Lars Ulrich of Metallica fame and so he would practice daily at random times and when he practiced on the set, he practiced loudly. Jody was at her wits end. Her husband had just deployed to Iraq on a two year contract and shortly after arrival her husband died, his convoy had run over an explosive device. It made her suddenly a single mom to three kids and now, to add insult to injury, some new neighbor was making it so the little one would not nap. Jody's fire red hair was a mess and her green eyes flashed as she was talking about getting a petition signed for management to put a halt to the drumming. It worked. I wonder if it was a diversion from the pain of her loss, to have fought so hard against the noise, but it was effective. It seemed that when Jody got her head on something that needed fixing then something was going to get fixed. Steven got a set of drums that plugged into the computer to practice with though sometimes he did still tinker on the full set. No one resented his occasional playing, even Jody.