That was a relief.
I was beginning to relax. Either that or I was getting used to things. I can’t really say which.
When we came to Redd Road again, it was at the way opposite side of where we encountered the traffic jam. We made our way slowly, on the lookout for any signs of danger.
We were all alone.
It was as if the earlier horror hadn’t known this area existed. There weren’t even any of those deserted cars. It just looked empty.
Like a ghost town.
We drove up a street called Dakota Ridge. This was Georgie’s street. His house was a red brick number at the corner of the first left turn.
We sat in the Jeep with the engine running for a bit while we watched the house and checked up and down the street.
“What if everyone around here is dead?” said Dudley.
“There’s no sign of anything going on over here.” I answered. “Maybe everyone was able to get indoors and safe before…”
Georgie’s windows were all boarded up. It was right in front of my face and I only just now noticed it.
“Look at Georgie’s windows.” I said. “He’s already sealed himself in. He’s safe.”
“Look at the other houses,” said Dudley. “Same thing, it looks like everyone managed to board up their windows before they got hit.”
“Hopefully, those things already passed through here. Everyone was safely boarded up and they just went on by.”
I reversed the Jeep into Georgie’s driveway. We hopped out with all our belongings and went to his front door.
“Georgie…it’s us.” I called out as I banged on his front door.
There was no answer, but I could hear movement from inside.
“Georgie let us in.”
There was still no answer. Yet, I thought I could hear some shushing sounds from somewhere inside the house.
“Georgie, are you guys okay in there?”
No answer, just more shushing noises from inside.
“Just break down the door,” said Dudley. “I can hear him in there.”
“I’ll tell him that.” I said.
“Georgie, we’re getting worried. I’m going to kick down the door and come in.”
No answer.
I gave the door a sharp kick. Nothing that would come close to causing any damage, I just wanted to see if it would cause Georgie to get off his ass and open up.
“Go away,” said Georgie in a muffled voice from behind the wood.
“What do you mean go away?” I shouted. “Open the damn door. We need to get inside.”
“I can only take care of my wife,” said Georgie’s muffled voice once again.
“Are you for real asshole?” shouted Dudley. “Open the fucking door before I rip it off the hinges.”
Then I heard another muffled voice from inside.
“Georgie, open the door. They’re our friends.”
“No Lucy. I’m only taking care of you.”
“Are you serious? Let them in, or I’ll be leaving with them.”
After that, the muffled voices were indiscriminate. What was being said was far beyond me and just between the two of them. I only knew that they were having an argument and it seemed like Georgie was losing.
I went to the front of the yard by the street to keep watch.
It was as still and silent as a ghost town.
I glanced over at the other houses. We were being watched.
I saw that many of the neighbors were staring from their second story windows, safe inside their boarded up homes. As a matter of fact, all the houses in the vicinity seemed to have look outs like this. Excellent, I was right (I normally am). These people boarded up before the danger came through.
That’s if the hell of my neighborhood even came through here at all.
Lucy opened the front door.
“Jax,” she cried out. “Man, am I glad to see you.”
She ran right over, threw her arms around my chest and ended up nearly crushing my ribs in a bear hug. Just when I began to wonder if I’d ever breathe again, she released me and did the same thing to Dudley.
Inside the house, the air conditioner was pumping. It wasn’t the greatest. I hate evaporative coolers so very, very much. Yet, it was a hell of a lot better than the humid, heat from outside.
Georgie was in the next room staring at his feet.
“How ya doin Georgie,” I asked.
“It’s nothing personal guys. I just need to keep my wife safe.”
“Then she shouldn’t be with you ya pussy,” retorted Dudley.
In all honesty, Dudley told it like it was. Georgie wasn’t exactly the toughest cat around. In fact, he seemed to kinda go all to pieces whenever a situation became the slightest bit heated.
Another bit of honesty I can share about Georgie is the attachment he has towards his wife. It borders on psychotic. I have no doubts that he would have left us outside to be eaten if she hadn’t intervened.
Now Lucy…she adored us. She was the type of person that just really cared about other people, especially her friends.
It made for some interesting weekends.
Lucy would want to hang out with everyone and Georgie would want to keep Lucy all to himself. Yeah, those were some good times. The arguments that they’d get into over little things like Lucy having friends…it was simply hilarious. I used to joke that you couldn’t buy that kind of entertainment.
This time, his laugh is genuine, as is the smile on his face. He enjoys the moment for a few minutes, lost in memories of brighter days and better times. Past lives that were forged in laughter instead of tears. I give him his moment.
Where was I? Oh yeah. We were finally inside Georgie’s house.
“What’s going on out there?” asked Lucy.
“I’m not sure.” I answered. “It seems like…like…”
“Zombies,” said Georgie. “I think those things are zombies.”
Stupid Georgie, this was the exact word that Dudley and I had successfully avoided earlier at the river.
“Are you serious…Jax?” said Lucy in response to the silence coming from Dudley and me. “That can’t be right.”
“It seems right,” said Dudley apologetically. “We’ve seen things.”
“Has it come through here yet?” I asked.
“Nothing serious,” said Georgie. “There were just a few people that ran down the street kinda funny. We were already boarded up when it happened, so none of them stayed.”
He mimics the hard, rage infused face that we saw many times earlier in the day.
“I wonder if it’ll come back this way again.” I said.
“The news said to stay put and board up the windows, but now the stations are all off.”
“What do you mean off?”
“The signal went down earlier,” said Georgie. “No more TV.”
That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound good at all.
“Should we stay here Jax,” asked Lucy. “What if more of those…those…things come this way?”
“I think we should stay for a while at least,” I answered. “Maybe we can figure something out. Maybe help will come.”
“Where’s your kid?” Dudley asked. “Georgie and Lucy had a six year old that normally never left her mother’s side.
“She’s with Georgie’s parents,” answered Lucy. “They already made it out.”
“They’re out of El Paso?” I asked.
“How do you know?” asked Dudley.
“They emailed us,” said Georgie.
“Wait a minute!” I said. “The internet is still working?”
“Yeah,” said Georgie.
Georgie’s computer was on the second floor. I took about three stairs at a time. In the background, I could hear Lucy asking Dudley about my wife and Dudley telling her that he had gotten in late the previous evening and assumed she was asleep…he had no idea where she was at the moment, because he had only woken up when the screaming began.
> With trembling fingers I logged on to my account. There were no new messages, just an old email that I never bothered to delete.
Then it came to me.
Nobody I knew ever emailed me there anyway. They always emailed my Facebook account. As a matter of fact, my wife and I bounced emails back and forth all day long whenever she was at work and by her computer.
I logged into my account. It seemed an eternity before it showed my page. I had new messages. I clicked my inbox. There were two of them, one from my wife and one from my friend Kingsley.
Dudley was suddenly behind me.
I clicked on my wife’s email. I read it, breathed a deep sigh of relief and then reread the damn thing because I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Well?” asked Dudley.
“I’ll read it to you.” I answered. “Dear Jaxon. I love you very much and I am safe. We made it out before the trouble started. I understand what you must do, I’m not sure I believe it, but please be careful.”
“What must you do?”
“Hell if I know. There’s a link to a website here though. It’s called EPUA.com.”
I clicked the website and it took me to a chat room. Dudley and I began to read the messages. They were from the survivors. Hundreds of messages were being added as we read.
“Help us.”
“I am so and so. I made it.”
“They killed my brother.”
“I am at this or that street. Please send help.”
There were also messages from people outside of El Paso.
“Has anyone seen my daughter?”
“Stay safe. Don’t go outside.”
“The military won’t tell us anything.”
“El Paso has been closed off.”
Georgie walked over to us, took a look at the computer screen and began to read the messages as well.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s the best website. EPUA means ‘El Paso Under Attack’; I read on there that all the exits out of town are barricaded by the military. Nobody can get in or out.”
“Then this thing hasn’t spread out of El Paso?” I asked.
“Nope, it’s all been contained. The military was on top of things the minute shit began to happen. At first they were letting people out. Then, when the zombies got to the borders, they closed everything down.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Dudley.
“I’ve been on and off this website all day,” said Georgie. “The website address was the last thing the TV was able to broadcast before the signal was lost.”
“What about the radio?”
“Nothing in El Paso,” said Georgie. “No cell phones (they went down a little bit ago), no land lines and no radio. Some people are thinking that the military did it.”
Cell Phones…I immediately tried my cell phone once again, just to make sure. Sometimes Georgie was totally full of shit. He was right this time however; I no longer even got a signal.
“This is fucked,” complained Dudley. “Does the outside world not know what’s happening to us in here?”
“It’s getting out,” answered Georgie. “But, the military doesn’t want to risk spreading whatever this is outside of the city. That’s why all forms of communication are down. They don’t want any reporters announcing any exits or weak spots along the borders before everything’s sealed up tight, because they don’t want people sneaking in or out. What if the entire country was overrun with this shit?”
“How nice for those of us still here,” I complained. “The fuckers outside of El Paso get to be safe and sound, while those of us that are trapped here get to be eaten by zombies. Why does the internet still work?”
“My guess is that the military needs at least one way to keep updated with whatever is going on inside the city. Or maybe, they couldn’t shut the internet down.”
It made sense I guess, even if it was Georgie logic and it’s easy enough to complain about things. Yet, in the end, I understood. It’s bad enough that it happened in El Paso, but things would be a whole lot worse if it began to spread outside the city. Then it hit me…how did they respond so quickly and close off all the borders before there were any leaks?
The outbreak happened quickly and spread fast…yet, they were still able to contain everything.
It didn’t seem right. Yet, now wasn’t the time to ask questions. I had just remembered that Kingsley sent me an email.
I read it out loud for everyone.
“Jax, everyone is dead. I can make it to my car. I’m coming to you.”
“Shit.” I said. We weren’t there and my house wasn’t exactly the nicest and friendliest place to visit by the time we left. I checked when he sent the email. It had had been over an hour ago. There was no way to stop Kingsley from going to my house.
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Georgie.
“Maybe he’ll come here,” said Dudley. “I mean, if he drives up to our house and everything is all gone to shit, he’s not going to get out of the car…the next place he’d stop would be here.”
“That’s true.” I said. “If he can make it to our house at all, Kingsley lives all the way on the North East.”
That means Kingsley has a pretty long drive through all kinds of hell. Nobody spoke for awhile. We all just kinda sat around and stared at our own feet.
“Nothing we can do but wait,” said Georgie.
And wait, is exactly what we did.
For weeks, we simply waited. The rains came at night and deep puddles littered the streets in the morning. It wasn’t an unpleasant wait. We had all the luxuries a normal home provides, but the anxiety was overwhelming.
Another thing I heard about was how difficult the ‘waiting’ was for the survivors. They were isolated for days upon days and in some cases, months upon months just hoping that they wouldn’t be attacked. It must have been terrible.
EPUA gave us nothing new. It was always one of two messages. Trapped people asking for help while being besieged by walking corpses or people hoping to locate a missing friend or loved one…way too many people in need…it was depressing. Yet, we saw nothing in our area. No sign of the zombie hordes that were ravaging the city.
One important fact about Georgie that I should probably mention is his love of guns. Georgie loved a good firearm probably as much as he loved his wife. He collected them, sold them, bought them new, bought them old and traded out the ones he got bored of. In his house, he probably had around forty pistols and rifles.
So, while we waited, we made bullets.
I chose two firearms for myself. A 9mm Glock and a Winchester 30.30, having shot both of these guns in the past, I felt relatively comfortable with them and I was hopefully still a decent shot. Plus, the bullets weren’t gigantic. I didn’t want loaded down with ammo if I had to travel.
Not that this was a problem at the moment. We hadn’t even tried to leave the house. All my gear was packed up and ready to go by the garage door. Georgie gave me a military style belt that I put the Glock, my knife and some ammo pouches on. I also rigged a little ring onto the belt so that I could attach my tomahawk. I kept this little ensemble close by at all times.
One morning, after an incredible breakfast of pancakes and bacon, we decided to pull my Jeep into the garage just in case the house was swarmed and we needed to get out fast.
I went out the front door and walked to the road. Nothing, the coast was perfectly clear. Up the street, down the street and anywhere else I cared to look was devoid of any movement and completely vacant.
The neighbors watched me from their windows as I gave the thumbs up sign to Dudley who then opened the garage door. I hopped into my Jeep, turned the key in the ignition and began to back it inside the garage.
I was reversing up the driveway when I saw the neighbor across the street pointing frantically down the road. I followed his finger and saw Kingsley’s green and battered car veering around like a bat out of hell right towards me.
I was overjoyed to say
the least. Kingsley and I have always been very close. I was able to relax a little bit knowing that he was safe.
I parked the Jeep in the garage and went down to the sidewalk to meet him just as he smacked off his one remaining hubcap against the curb.
He didn’t look good. He looked like he’d been through hell. Dried blood covered his clothes and his face looked like it had aged ten years. We hugged briefly and went inside.
I did not ask Kingsley what happened to him. It wasn’t hard to figure that out just by his appearance. Instead, I respected his privacy and let him shower and change without bombarding him with a hundred questions.
In general, Kingsley is a very quiet, bear of a man that stands just slightly over 6'3". His quietness is often mistaken for menacing, but in all actuality, he’s a very sensitive and gentle person.
“How long have you known him?”
About four years, just long enough for him to know that if he needed or wanted to talk, I would be there for him. I wouldn’t push him. I was just happy that he was with us and safe.
In the end, he was with us for about a week before he said anything.
“Anyone heard anything from Tito?”
“No.” I answered with a shake of my head.
“Hope he’s alright,” said Kingsley. “It’s bad out there.”
Time went by slowly. We were starting to run out of food. So were the neighbors. They were hanging signs in their windows asking for something to eat. Things weren’t horrible yet…at least for us. We still had about three days left of canned food if we rationed everything.
“The supermarket is just down the road.” I said. “We may need to grab some things if this doesn’t end soon.”
“I can’t believe nobody is coming for us,” said Lucy.
“Well, they may not come for us in a long time,” I answered. “So we need to rely on ourselves. Everyone’s running out of food, somebody needs to go. If it’s bad, we can always turn back.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Kingsley in his quiet voice. “I don’t want you wandering off alone. You have a way of getting into trouble even when there aren’t zombies running around.”
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