by James, Dylan
His two favorites were, “What do you call something that hesitates for a fraction of a second before jumping in front of a moving car? A smart zombie...”
“Why did a zombie spit out the hand he was chewing on? He realized it was his.”
Kevin’s all time favorite however, was his own joke aimed at me. “What’s the difference between a zombie, and Jack? Jack has a gun.”
I replied to that joke with one of my own. I was quite proud of it, and I almost couldn’t say it with a straight face. “What’s the difference between Kevin and an Infected? Kevin’s more likely to kill one of us.”
The games made time fly by, and soon we neared Washington.
Emily said, “Let’s stop the games guys... Washington is up ahead.”
We were all eager, but also frightened to see what lay in store for us at the Capital. Was it under control? Did they have a quarantine designed to keep people OUT? Were there no Infected at all? I couldn’t wait to see the city.
Soon we approached the outskirts, and Kevin said, “Now guys, whatever happens, I will always love you.”
Emily turned around and smacked Kevin, and he pretended to be hurt and dramatically said, “Ooh my love, your hand burns into my soul, and leaves me devoid of all meaning and purpose in life. Ahhhhh....”
Then he collapsed into his seat and Emily rolled her eyes and said, “Good riddance!”
As we drove into the city, we began to see discouraging signs. Apartment building windows were smashed, doors were hanging off their hinges. We could see a small number of Infected walking through the buildings still, so we assumed there were still people in there to draw such attention. As we continued down the street further, we found a Red Cross building completely devastated. Cars were lodged inside the building, fires were erupting from within, and there were no signs of life. We kept going, the bus now shortly behind us and no doubt witnessing the destruction just as well as we were. To our dismay, as we got closer and closer to the buildings up in front of us we began to see a massive horde of Infected. We came up to them to get a better look, and to our dismay the entire street in front of us was filled with them. Every building in sight was broken down, and crawling with Infected. It seemed like every square inch was an Infected, bumping into each other. And they all seemed to have a central goal in mind: The White House. The gates overlooking the yard had hundreds of Infected pressed up against them, and there were soldiers patrolling the lawn. The gates had fortifications in place, propping them up against the horde, but it looked like they wouldn’t last for long. In fact, it looked like the Infected had already broken through once, and this was an attempt at reclaiming the grounds.
Kevin summed up all our thoughts in one sentence, “Well that SUCKS.”
Suddenly some of the Infected began to notice us, perhaps realizing that we were food.
They began to surge around us, and Emily said, “Umm Jack let’s get out of here!”
I turned the car and hit the gas, smashing into a few Infected already circling us, and running over them to escape. Then I saw the bus behind us, and realized it did not have the mobility we did. It was going to take much longer for them to turn around. I could see Ben frantically turning the wheel and pounding the gas to try and get away before the growing numbers of Infected trapped him. I hoped he would make it in time, and I gunned the gas, shooting out in front of the bus.
Emily turned and said, “Ahh! They’re moving!”
I looked through the rear-view mirror to see several Infected clinging to the sides and back of the bus, as it raced after us.
Kevin said, “Jack, just keep your eyes on the road! Try and find a safe place or a route out of there! I’ll take care of them. Just roll down the back window!”
I rolled down the trunk window, and Kevin and Shawn both prepared their hunting rifles.
They propped them up against the seats for support, but soon exclaimed, “There’s no way we’re going to get a clear shot like this! They’re going to have to do it themselves!”
My eyes frantically searched the surroundings for anywhere, anywhere at all to go. A store in the distance caught my eye for some reason, and I pulled a sharp left turn heading towards it.
Kevin let out an, “Mmpth,” as he was rolled across the truck.
I yelled, “Sorry!”
I risked a quick glance behind me again to see the bus follow us on the sharp turn, looking dangerously close to flipping over. Some of the Infected were gone, and I could see people running around inside the bus. I assumed that somebody, maybe Steve had shot off some of the Infected and now they were trying to do the same to the others. We neared the store, and I shot over the entrance. I could see now what had attracted me to this huge, huge supermarket: there was a giant banner hanging from the roof that said, “Safe Haven for any Survivors.”
I pulled up directly in front of the main entrance, and said, “Emily go see if it’s open!”
She got out quickly, and I could hear the bus screeching over the entrance to the parking lot behind us. I looked back to see all the Infected were gone from the bus, but a huge group of Infected were catching up after chasing us all the way here.
Emily peered inside, and then started banging on the glass and yelling, “Hey! We’re survivors let us in!”
I could see that through the flimsy glass doors somebody had pushed up an insane amount of furniture blocking off the entrance.
Suddenly Emily sprinted towards the truck and jumped in saying, “Somebody saw me! They told me to go to the second entrance. Apparently that’s the way they let people in.”
I nodded, and seeing as there wasn’t time to inform the other group of our plans I just hoped they would follow us. I backed up, and quickly pulled over to the other entrance, the bus right behind me. At this entrance, the glass doors were completely gone, and ripped off. In their place was a large couch with the cushions taken off, and a few things that looked like gun mounts on the side. There were a few people pulling the couch away, and I gently nosed the truck through as the couch was moved. I had no intention of leaving our hard-earned truck out there with the Infected, and I could see that Ben was thinking the same thing. The bus honked a few times loudly, warning everybody to clear out of the way, and I saw incredulous expressions on the people’s faces inside as Ben drove the bus just barely under the frame of the doors and inside. He continued on for a bit to get out of the way, and I pulled the truck into a large square mat which looked like it used to hold clothes racks. The people pushed the couch back into place, and put rifles into place, laying down and taking aim at the approaching zombie horde. I realized that they intended to have a shoot out. I hopped out of the car and immediately noticed that the people in the store were split into two groups. One was off to the side watching impassively, and making no move to help. The other was the group that had let us in, and they were preparing for an epic battle.
I moved over to the group to be stopped by a woman who introduced herself as, “Joe.” I introduced myself in kind, with the word, “Jack.” She said, “I don’t know your story, but I’m glad to see some fresh faces. You guys have any weapons? There’s about to be a showdown with these mutants, and we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”
Guessing she was using the word “mutant” to refer to the Infected, I replied quickly, “Yeah!”
I looked towards the bus to see Ben getting out and yelled, “Ben! Get everybody ready there’s going to be a whole lot of gunfire here in a bit. Get anybody who wants to fight and bring them down here!”
He quickly took in the situation and said, “Alright, I’m on it!”
He disappeared into the bus and relayed the information, and quickly Steve came bounding out with a pistol and some ammunition in hand. Kevin and Shawn set up near the couch with their hunting rifles, and took aim along with Joe’s group. The Infected came over the grass and entered the parking lot, heading straight towards us.
Steve’s voice boomed out confidently, “Make sure you ca
n see their face’s before firing, and aim for the head! With these things, one head shot is worth far more than even a few body shots. Watch out for your fellow shooters!”
Kevin yelled, “Death to the zombies!” and fired off a shot, hitting the first Infected in the head and dropping him to the ground.
As soon as that first shot was fired a multitude of others broke out from all around us, and the Infected started falling left and right. It was obvious that most of the shots did not in fact kill their targets in one hit, and some missed altogether, but we were thinning their ranks fast nonetheless. By the time they had crossed the parking lot and almost reached us, their number had been cut by more than half.
As they rushed towards the couch, Joe shouted, “Back up! Use the combat weapons!”
From out of nowhere her group pulled rakes, brooms, and assorted household items that all had one thing in common: long reach. They held them to the door, pushing against the Infected. The Infected were too stupid to duck around, and even just a rake would hold one off for a few seconds at least. As they started to push past anyways, the firing started up again, this time from the other group who until this point had sat off in the corner. Suddenly three of the Infected broke through, and one raced past us towards a small kid hiding in the background. I had no idea why he went for this kid in particular, but he did, and I was the closest one nearby. I brought my shotgun up and pointed it at the Infected as it flew by, pulling the trigger and blasting a hole in his chest. I then pointed at its head, and blew it to smithereens. I turned to see the battle was over, and that we had won. Immediately the group started pulling out gloves, and dragging the Infected outside. Occasionally they would find one still alive, and a gunshot would ring out.
I walked over to Joe confused, and asked, “I take it you’ve done this kind of thing before?”
She replied with a breezy air, “Oh yeah this happens all the time. We’ve figured out that the mutants tend to stay away when they see a large pile of their dead, at least for a few days anyways, so everytime we have a shoot out like this we drag the bodies out there. Eventually when they start to come around anyways, we burn the bodies.”
I was about to ask how long they’d been there when she cut me off and said, “Listen I don’t need to know your life story and you don’t need to know mine. The past is meaningless now; it’s the future that matters. It’s survival that matters. What are your plans for the future, Jack?”
I sensed she wanted to know what we meant to do here, in her safe haven.
I replied, “We’re not quite sure. We traveled halfway across the country to get here... We were expecting the capital to be safe.”
She clucked her tongue and said, ‘The capital hasn’t been safe for quite some time. The president is all holed up nicely in his little white house, but they aren’t letting anybody in. Anybody at all actually, we even have a senator in my group who was rejected at the White House because he arrived too late.”
Dismayed, I replied, “Well what are your future plans here?”
She said, “I’m not exactly sure at the moment. Somehow I became the representation for my group, and we’re all pretty unsure about what lies ahead in the future. Now, I speak for my group that is. The other people you see over there,” pointing to the group that stood on the sidelines for the whole fight, “that group is determined to make a home right here in this supermarket. They were technically here first, and are led by an extremely rude and stupid man called Donovan. He actually tried to force us to leave a few days ago. If you aren’t one hundred percent on his side, you had better watch out because he is not tolerant of differing opinions than his own.”
I thanked her for the head’s up, and asked, “How long do you think you could stay here in this supermarket? What’s the situation for supplies?”
She laughed and replied, “Well that’s the one good thing about this place. It never seems to run out of stuff we need. I’d estimate for the combined total of some fifty odd people we have here now, we have enough supplies to last months. Feel free to take a small amount if you need them.”
I thanked her again, heartily this time and left to tell the other’s of our good fortune. We seemed to be on a roller coaster of up’s and downs on this fantastic trip of ours. I found them huddled on a group of bed’s pulled up by the bus, and I told them everything Joe had said.
When I finished, my Mom asked, “Are you serious, they have enough food for months here?”
I replied, “Yep, that’s what she said. I mean it makes sense, this is a pretty huge supermarket.”
Kevin jumped to his feet and said, “Well let’s get something to eat!”
I agreed, and we browsed the food isles happily to pick out our favorite treats we had been missing. I grabbed a bag of specially-flavored chips I used to enjoy occasionally, and savored the taste of that first chip I placed in my mouth. I missed such easy, pleasant things like this. We sat around the bus, talking about all the amazing splendors around us when suddenly the lights flashed and went out.
We looked around confused for a bit, until I heard a voice say in the pitch black, “Aww don’t pay that any attention. It’s just Donovan trying to assert his dominance. He does this every night when he feels it’s time to sleep. I’m Eric by the way, I’m an auto-mechanic, or I was anyways before the whole world went to hell. I was interested in that bus you have, you think in the morning I could take a look at it?”
I was about to reply when Ben’s voice sounded out, “I wish I could see who I was talking too, but of course you can come over. I’ve wanted to make some modifications to the bus; I’d love to have you help me if you’re up for it. Oh and I’m Ben.”
Eric replied, “Sure thing. We’ll get to work in the morning then Ben. Goodnight all.”
We all chorused, “Goodnight.”
Day 13
There was a loud switching sound, and the lights all came on again, waking me up half way through the process. There were loud groans from assorted spots in the store, from everybody being abruptly awoken. Somebody yelled out an obscenity directed at Donovan, and half the store broke into laughter. I stood up and yawned, stretching. People generally avoided each other for the first thirty minutes or so, and actually a large portion completely vanished.
Emily came rushing over from somewhere, yelling, “Guys they have showers!”
We all followed her, disbelieving. My Mom wheeled Lucy after us on her makeshift wheelchair. Where could a supermarket possibly have a shower? She led us to the back room, where they had rigged several showers out of the sprinklers in the area, probably designed to wash the produce the store received on a regular basis. I tentatively felt one of the sprayers and realized to my shock that the water was warm! It wasn’t hot by any means, but it also wasn’t cold.
I met Kevin’s eye, who shrugged and said, “Beats me. Maybe they’re wizards?”
Just then, Joe entered the room and saw us. She came over and said, “Hey, it’s the girls turn to shower first. You’re lucky you arrived on our shower day, we normally try to conserve the water.”
I asked questioningly, “How on Earth do you manage to get the water warm?”
She shrugged and said, “I have no idea. We have an engineer, and a few people that used to work at this store so combined they figured out a way I guess.”
I realized the value that having such people would be in times like these. I hadn’t thought about it before, but most of the people in our group didn’t do anything very useful. We didn’t have any engineers, we didn’t have any doctors; all we really had was Steve, who was great, but not enough for all our situations.
She continued, “So hey, I want to take my shower. You men, shoo. Girls, you can stay.”
Obediently we turned to leave, and went back to the bus to find somebody examining it. He saw us and smiled, and reached his hand forward.
He said, “Hi, I’m Eric from last night.”
I shook his hand, and introduced myself. Ben did likewise, a
nd then asked Eric, “So you’re a mechanic huh? What do you think?”
He glanced towards the bus, and then said, “To be honest, I’ve always wanted to militarize a school bus... Is that just me?”
Ben laughed loudly, and said, “It’s not just you Eric, I’ve been thinking along the same lines lately.”
They went off together, taking Shawn with them and began to talk and make plans about modifying the bus.
I gathered Steve, Kevin, and Ian together and said, “Look, I think we should come up with a plan sooner rather than later. How long are we going to stay here?”
Kevin agreed with me surprisingly, and said, “I second that. We need to make it clear; we’re not staying here. This is more of a temporary residence until we think of something else.”
I said, “Well alright. What do we do from here?”
We sat in silence for a while. Then Ian asked, “Why can’t we stay here? What’s the reasoning behind leaving?”
I replied, “Well from all our experiences so far, staying still and waiting to engage the Infected on their terms never turns out well for us. I think we need to always keep moving. We can look for possible survivors, and pick up supplies and things we need while on the road.”
Steve remained noncommittal, but Ian said, “They have enough supplies here to last for months. On top of that there’s a whole city around us! When supplies start to run down, we can just scavenge more from the houses and stores around us.”
Kevin said, “That’s just what the zombies want us to do! If we stay somewhere like this, they will eventually overrun us! Didn’t you hear about what Joe said? They get attacked all the time. I don’t know about their weapons situation, but eventually they’re going to run out of ammo. Then what? They’re going to be stuck in the store while zombies come in and grab them off the shelves for a snack. No, we need to keep moving. It’s nice; I’ll admit it’s nice. But I don’t think we should stay here waiting for the next attack. Joe said the stack of bodies keeps away the Infected for a few days right?”