by Jon Schafer
This is so uncool, he thought.
After calling for the lights to be dimmed, Megan said, “I was going to do a PowerPoint presentation, but I ran out of time. What you are about to see is raw video footage taken from across the United States. Some of it’s from news crews that managed to upload their material before the government could confiscate it, but most of it is from people just like you and me.”
“Where did you get this footage?” one of the council members asked.
Knowing that if she told the truth - how she had hacked into a number of websites –she would get in trouble, Megan replied with a shrug, “I surf the Web a lot and came across them. The first video is of particular interest since it came from a researcher.”
For the next half-hour, the crowd sat in mortified silence as dozens of scenes of blood and gore were projected onto the wall behind where the council sat. Starting with the video shot by Professor Hawkins, the same video that Steve had watched in his apartment on Indian Rocks Beach, and followed by numerous lengths of footage showing the dead coming back to life to feed on the living, it ended with an overhead shot of the streets of Little Rock teeming with thousands of the dead. When the screen faded to black and the lights were turned back up, not a sound could be heard.
Finally, a man in the crowd asked, “Is this for real, or is this some kind of prank you and your friends cooked up to try and scare everyone half to death? Because if it is a joke, it’s not funny in the least.”
“It’s real as it gets,” Megan answered. “I downloaded all of this from reliable sources.”
The council looked at each other in shock. The reports from Austin kept saying that these were isolated incidents and that they were being taken care of, but what if this video proved that to be a lie? A catastrophe of this magnitude was nothing they’d ever had to deal with before, and they had no idea on how to proceed. Most of them had grown up with the threat of nuclear war hanging over them and knew how best to survive it, but these precautions didn’t seem practical in dealing with an invasion of the dead. In the event of a thermonuclear war, you got a store of food and water and went into your basement or storm shelter until the radiation levels fell, but these safeguards didn’t look like they would help in this situation.
Radiation didn’t chase you in groups of hundreds - or thousands - until you were pulled down and torn apart to be eaten alive. Radiation didn’t infect you so that you died and came back to life to eat the living. Radiation didn’t mutate your loved ones into flesh-eating zombies that turned on you and tried to eat you. Radiation didn’t come at you in numbers so large that they overwhelmed any structure they came across.
The dead coming back to eat the living was something totally new and terrifying.
Finally, the chairman cleared his throat and said, “I suggest a fifteen-minute recess before we discuss this enhanced threat.” He banged his gavel and added in a lower voice, “Megan, would you come up here and talk to us, please? And bring your laptop.”
The recess ended up lasting more than an hour while the council sought more information. They viewed numerous official sites that assured them that everything was all right, and the same amount of independent ones reporting the end of the world by the flesh-eating dead. With so much contradictory information, the council ended up splitting into two factions. The smaller one believed it was a hoax perpetrated by the commies, the Arabs or the Chinese, while the larger group was quickly becoming believers in a zombie apocalypse. Coming across a recently updated map from the CDC that showed the extent of the spread of the virus across the United States, one of the naysayers pointed out that only a small part of the country was infected. Gesturing at the black blur that covered most of the country, he then zeroed in on the outlying areas in white.
“Here’s your proof,” he said pompously. “An official government map that shows only a small percentage of our country is infected. All those other videos are staged to try and panic us.”
When Megan scrolled down to the map key, his triumph was short-lived. Black referred to the areas with outbreaks of the HWNW virus, while white showed the areas that had been spared.
So far.
Realizing that evacuation was futile, the council decided unanimously that isolation would be their best defense. When they finally reconvened, a number of recommendations were brought up and passed.
It was decided to mine the bridge that crossed BA Steinhagen Lake to their west. A majority of the span was built on a causeway, but they could set dynamite under the bridge near the western shore and blow it up if they needed to. This would force any of the dead coming from the west to make a huge detour and also give them time to marshal their forces against them. Observation posts would be set up on the eastern shore of the lake to watch for any threat and keep track of it.
Checkpoints would be erected on all of the roads leading in and out of town, and anyone wanting to come into town would have to undergo an examination to make sure they hadn’t been bitten or infected. If they refused, they would be barred entrance. This would be enforced by the local police.
Roving patrols of well-armed citizens would crisscross the fields and back roads that surrounded the city to catch anyone trying to sneak in on foot, and the small airfield to the west of town would be shut down to any incoming traffic. Volunteers would be needed for this duty.
Rick Styles, the leader of one of the local militias, stood up and told the council that he and his men would secure the airstrip to the west of town. The chairman hesitated for a long moment before giving a nod of approval. He knew that even with the townspeople helping, their manpower was pretty slim and they would need whatever resources they could get. Even if it meant recruiting the militia.
Prior to the dead coming back to life to feed on the living, most of these militia groups of ‘Preppers’, as they were called, were looked on with slight amusement since they were always getting ready for the end of the world. While it hadn’t come as they thought it would in a collapse of the monetary system or a civil war, a zombie apocalypse was the next best thing. This was one of the reasons for the chairman’s hesitation. Rick Styles, and the small group of camouflage clothed men and women sitting with him, seemed almost happy at the thought of finally being proven right. A few other groups like his volunteered, so the chief of police told everyone who wanted to commit to being in the Jasper Defense Force to meet in front of Sunshine Groceries at seven AM.
Satisfied that they were doing everything they could, the crowd unanimously agreed to implement the board’s precautions starting the following day. Megan was one of the few dissenters, but her cries that it wouldn’t be enough were lost in the roar of ‘ayes’ and the noise of hundreds of chairs scraping across the floor as people stood up.
The meeting was adjourned.
The townspeople patted each other on the back as they filed out, feeling good about taking action. They discussed other ways of protecting the town and came up with a few useful ideas. Their talk then turned to home defense, but no one thought it would come to that. They knew they would persevere as long as they kept the infection from entering their town.
Although they seemed to have thought of everything, the end didn’t come from the outside as they believed it would, but rather from within. The barricades and patrols did an excellent job of keeping anyone who was infected out, but no one thought to check on the several thousand residents already living in town.
Days later, Jasper, Texas, was nothing but a wasteland populated by the dead.
***
Lena let out a sigh mixed with grief and regret as she looked at the barn that she and her husband had almost finished converting into their home. Leaning on the shovel stuck into the loose dirt covering the body of her best friend, she wiped sweat from her forehead with a blood-soaked bandana tied around the bite on her wrist. Cursing silently as she pushed down on the handle, she chided herself at knowing better than to let Shawna into her house. She had heard about everything that was going
on, but her kindness had overridden her common sense.
As she looked over at a similar mound of dirt that covered the body of her husband, the grief she felt, really a deep feeling of loss, mixed with the regret of making her first, and last, mistake in a time when the dead had come back to life.
She and her husband weren’t ‘Preppers’ like their friend Rick, she told herself. Even if we were, we just weren’t prepared for what came into our house and our lives today. We aren’t end of the world enthusiasts whose every waking moment was filled with what to do if a race war started or the government declared martial law, we only wanted a more simple life for ourselves and our children. That was why we bought the property at the edge of Jasper. I learned to can fruits and vegetables while my love worked in the fields and tended to the two-dozen head of cattle we bought. The kids joined 4H, and everything seemed honky-dory until two days ago, when the reports of a new disease started to appear on the news.
The talking heads said that a virus had broken out in a few major cities. Nothing to worry about, folks, they told everyone. Everything was being dealt with, and you should keep on with your day-to-day lives, they kept repeating. The chances of being infected with this strain of flu were 2,000,000 to 1, they promised.
And at first I believed them, but not anymore. Not after what had happened in my very own living room in my own house that morning
Rage replaced her sorrow as she pushed down into the soft dirt of the grave with her shovel.
“Liars,” she said vehemently as she ground the blade into the dirt, hoping again to cut into the thing that had destroyed her life in only a matter of minutes.
Looking over to where Megan and Ethan stood wide-eyed as they tried to discern this outburst from their mother, her heart melted. She knew that no matter what happened, she had to protect them. She had to get them away from the madness that was taking over the world.
After a few seconds, she steadied her emotions. Once her mind was at somewhat of a more even keel, she realized that she had no way of knowing that Shawna was infected with the H1N1 virus. Despite this, guilt kept creeping in to cloud her thoughts. Trying to shake it off since she knew she had to think clearly now to protect her children, but images from that morning kept blasting into her mind to cloud it. Mental pictures of her friend coming to the door and telling of how her car had broken down outside of town, her friend being invited in by her husband to use the phone since only landlines seemed to be working, and only a few minutes later, watching as Shawna went into convulsions and died before rising up to attack her husband.
Looking down at the shovel, Lena thought disjointedly, you did double duty today.
When Shawna started going into seizures, the first thing that flashed through Lena’s mind was what her daughter had been telling her was happening across the United States. Up until then, she hadn’t really believed her or the news reports, but seeing was believing. While her husband rushed forward to give aid, Lena instead looked around wildly for a weapon. Spying the shovel leaning against the wall in the mud room, she yelled at her husband to get away as she ran to grab it.
But she was too late.
Shawna died, came back to life and sank her teeth into the chest of her rescuer as he tried to give her CPR. In a spray of blood, she tore out a huge chunk of muscle from below his left pec before digging both hands into the wound to open it wide. More blood sprayed across the two combatants as she flipped her victim over and straddled him, alternating her hands between stuffing pieces of flesh into its mouth while digging deeper for more. The thing that had been Shawna ignored the weakening blows from her prey as they bounced harmlessly off its face and body.
With her husband’s screams turning to a gurgling noise when dead fingers punched into his lung, Lena rushed forward and hit Shawna on the side of the head with the flat end of the spade. Black puss mixed with a small amount of blood sprayed across the carpet and wall as the blade connected, sending the zombie rolling across the floor. Stepping between her husband and his attacker, fear ripped through Lena at the thought of going to prison for assault. This was only a fleeting thought, though, as she watched the dead thing shake off the blow and roll into a crouch to attack.
The shovel hadn’t even fazed it.
The dead and the living stared at each other for a second before Shawna let out a high-pitched whining noise.
Raising the shovel again, Lena swung it back and forth in warning as a string of curses flowed from her mouth. Shawna seemed to back away a step and hesitate, and thinking it was over, Lena hesitated, too, as she thought to talk to her lifelong friend, to try to make some sense out of this madness. She started to ask what was happening, but the words fell on dead ears and only encouraged the thing to attack.
Shawna flailed her arms and charged, leaping forward in a crouch to get inside the swing of the shovel. With a squeal, the dead thing sank its teeth into the bony part of Lena’s wrist.
Shaking off the bite by thrusting forward, Lena pushed her friend back before lifting the shovel over her right shoulder and coming across in a roundhouse swing. The blow connected with her attacker just below the ribcage, the blade sinking halfway into dead flesh as black puss sprayed out from the impact.
The dead and the living stopped, connected only by the shovel buried into the zombie’s side.
In shock, Lena saw that even this didn’t slow Shawna in the least.
Reaching down, the dead woman grabbed the edge of the shovel and wrenched it loose, pulling a length of severed intestine with it. Lunging forward, she gnashed her teeth as she tried to get at the thing that was denying her food. Hearing her daughter call out that she needed to destroy the brain, Lena brought the handle of the shovel across her chest and used it to push Shawna down. Raising her weapon like she was splitting firewood with an axe, she came down with all her might and buried the blade into the top of her friend’s head with a wet thud. The shovel was wrenched from her hands as the thing that had once been living spasmed wildly, shuddered violently as it died its final death.
After watching for a second to make sure Shawna stayed down, Lena then turned her attention to her husband. She saw that he had pulled himself across the floor and propped himself against the side of the couch. What was left of his tattered shirt was covered in blood, but none was coming from the ragged wound in his chest anymore. Megan and Ethan were standing over him, shifting their weight from one foot to the other as they tried to decide how to help him. Suddenly, they both jumped backwards with uttered cries of revulsion.
Lena could see immediately what had startled them.
What had once been her husband had died and come back to life.
Dead eyes set in bluish skin stared out at the world, and when they locked on her two children, Lena could see they looked at the youngsters the same way a starving man would look at Thanksgiving dinner. With a squeal, one of its hands reached out to try and grab at the food in front of it while the other tried to lever it onto its feet.
The instinct to protect her young took over, and Lena didn’t hesitate in the least as she twisted the shovel free from Shawna’s head and used it on her husband’s.
Clearing her mind of the horror as she used the bloody bandana to wipe the sweat away again, Lena studied the two graves again before turning her attention to her children. Megan and Ethan stood a short distance away, unsure of what to do next.
They might not know what to do, Lena thought to herself, but I do.
She told them to go to their rooms and pack some clothes. Not in a suitcase, she warned them, but in one of the backpacks they used to go camping. Once they were gone, she went inside and called the only person that could help them.
An hour later, Rick Styles pulled up in front of the house in his truck. Before his combat-booted feet could hit the dust of the driveway, he stopped. Taking in the two fresh graves, he knew it was worse than Lena had described on the phone. Seeing her and the two kids standing in front of the mounds of fresh earth with heads bow
ed in prayer made him choke up a little, but he pushed it down.
Wanting to give them a few moments, and to distract his mind at the thought of having lost a good friend, he played with the radio, spinning the dial to see if he could pick up anything except the lame-ass reports from the EBS telling everyone that all was well, to boil any water before you drank it and to avoid large crowds.
Yeah, he thought to himself, avoid large crowds of the dead, but that looked like it might be getting harder and harder to do these days.
Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to find Lena and her kids walking toward him. Getting out of his truck, he forced a smile and said, “The cab only seats three, so one of you is going to have to ride in the back.”
“I’m not going,” Lena said.
“But I thought I was picking you all up?” Rick asked.
Holding up her bloody wrist in explanation, Lena said, “I need to talk to you for a minute, Rick.” Turning to her oldest, she said, “Take Ethan and go over by the truck.”
Megan hesitated, but a stern look from her mother got her moving. They had already gone over what needed to be done, but it didn’t make it any easier.
When they were gone, Lena led Rick a short distance away before saying bluntly, “I got bit by Shawna after she died and came back. She killed…” Choking up at the very mention of her dead husband’s name, she shook it off and continued, “I didn’t tell you when I called because I didn’t think you’d come if you knew what really happened. I didn’t believe it before when Megan was going on and on about what she’d been seeing on the Web, but I believe it now. From what we’ve been able to gather from the reports, it means I’m infected.”
“It does,” Rick told her. “We’ve been finding out the same thing in town. If you get bit or get any fluids from one of them on you, you get the disease. You die, and then you come back. I heard from the sheriff that they’ve had quite a few cases today inside the city limits. Seems like people are dying and getting back up and then attacking and eating each other. It’s gotten so bad that the council got together and decided to isolate us as much as possible. They’re planning on blowing up the bridge later this afternoon. I don’t know what good it will do, though, seems like we’ve got quite a few infected people that already snuck in. They might have been away on vacation or whatever and got bit, then came home because that’s where you want to be when you’re hurt.”