One Hour to Live

by Gary M. Chesla

  Lisa started moving slowly.

  Lisa could see the girls face as she got closer to the girl.

  Tears were running down her face leaving tracks on her face as they ran down her dirty cheeks.

  The girl’s short blonde hair was matted with blood and her eyes were wide with fear.

  “My name is Lisa,” Lisa said as she continued to walk slowly. “What’s your name?”

  Finally, the girl replied, “My name is Sandy.”

  Lisa finished walking over to the girl and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

  The girl winced with pain when Lisa put her hand on the girl’s right shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Lisa said. “What happened to your arm? Did it get injured when we hit you with our car?”

  “No,” Sandy replied. “I ran into the back of your car. It was my fault. I hurt my knee too.”

  Lisa looked down at the girl’s bloody knee.

  Kevin walked up to where the girls were talking.

  “This is Kevin,” Lisa said. “He’s my friend.”

  “Hi!” Sandy said.

  “Hi Sandy,” Kevin smiled then looked at Lisa.

  “Sandy ran into the back of our car and hurt her arm and her knee,” Lisa said.

  “Can I look at your arm?” Kevin asked.

  Sandy nodded.

  Kevin took her hand and stretched out her right arm.

  She made a painful face as Kevin ran his hand down over the length of Sandy’s arm.

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” Kevin said.

  Lisa bent down and pulled open the torn fabric on Sandy’s knee.

  “You’ll live, it just a scrape” Lisa smiled as she looked up at Sandy.

  “What were you doing out here?” Kevin asked. “Do you live around here?”

  Sandy sniffed. “I was trying to go find help for my mom.”

  “Where is your mom?” Lisa asked.

  “Across the street,” Sandy pointed.

  “In the restaurant?” Lisa asked.

  Sandy nodded.

  “What were you doing in there?” Kevin asked.

  “Hiding,” Sandy replied.

  Kevin looked at the Brickyard Café, focusing his gaze on the blood covered jagged edges of glass on the smashed plate glass windows that had made up the front of the café.

  The fresh blood led Kevin to believe that the windows had just been recently broken.

  “How did you and your mother end up in there?” Kevin asked.

  “We live on Front Street across the river in Robinson,” Sandy started. “A couple days ago, all these weird people came into Robinson. Mom said they were zombies.”

  “Your mom was right,” Lisa replied.

  “There’s no such things as zombies,” Sandy said then asked, “Is there?”

  “Whatever they are, they sure look and act like zombies,” Lisa replied.

  “My brother and I were sitting on the porch,” Sandy continued. “These……zombies, they started to come up on our porch. They grabbed my brother Joe. My mom came running out when he started to scream. She pulled Joey away from the guy that had grabbed him and was trying to get him back in the house. When my mom was trying to close the door, that guy bit Joey on the arm again.”

  Lisa looked over at Kevin.

  “So, Joey got bitten twice?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah, but not real bad,” Sandy said. “Mom said it didn’t look bad enough for stitches or anything.”

  “What happened to the zombies?” Lisa asked.

  “They started to break the windows on the porch, so my mom took me and Joey out the back door,” Sandy continued. “We got in the car and drove up the street looking for help. After we drove through Robinson, Mom said we had to get out of there. She stopped at our grandma’s house and Mom ran inside for a second. She came running back out after a minute. She was crying.”

  “What did she do then?” Kevin asked.

  “She came back to the car and slammed the door. Then she started to drive real fast,” Sandy said. “We drove over to Bolivar. Mom ran the car up on a sidewalk and we got a flat tire. Those zombies starting coming again, so we got out of the car and started running. We had to hide in a bunch of different places. They kept finding us.”

  ‘Kevin had a concerned look on his face when he looked at Lisa.

  “Sandy?” Kevin asked. “Is your brother over at the café with your mom?”

  “No,” Sandy replied. “He got real sick. He started to look like those sick people who attacked us. He started making funny noises and he even bit Mom. Mom said he was too sick to travel, so we left him in a room over at the movie theatre. Mom isn’t doing so well. Can we go help her and then go get Joey?”

  “Where in the café is your mom?” Kevin asked.

  “She’s in the freezer in the kitchen,” Sandy replied. “We got chased into the café yesterday. We hid in the kitchen. Last night Mom said she wasn’t feeling very well and was going to go in the freezer. She said something about being afraid she would bite me or something, so she told me to stay in the kitchen and she went in the freezer. When I got awake today, I tried to go in the freezer to check on her but it was locked from the inside. I could hear her moving around but she wouldn’t answer me. So, I ran out to find help and that’s when I ran into your car. Will you help me?”

  “I’ll go check on her,” Kevin said.

  Lisa looked concerned.

  “Why don’t you take Sandy and go wait in the car,” Kevin said.

  “OK?” Lisa replied questioningly.

  “I’ll get the crowbar and get into the freezer,” Kevin said looking at Sandy. “You go with Lisa and go sit in the car.”

  Kevin led the girls back across the street and opened the door for Sandy to get into the back seat.

  When Kevin opened Lisa’s door, she whispered, “Be careful.”

  Kevin nodded.

  Kevin held the crowbar in front of him as he walked across the street so Sandy wouldn’t realize what he intended to use it for.

  Kevin hoped he wouldn’t need it for more than prying open the freezer door, but he knew that was only wishful thinking.

  The last few days had taught him to think of the worst-case possibility, then forget about everything else. Things now were like Murphy’s law, if something could go wrong, it did.

  Kevin walked over to the front of the café.

  He looked at the blood on the jagged glass and the piece of light pink cloth hanging from the glass.

  He carefully stepped over the jagged glass and walked into the dining area.

  The tables and chairs were overturned and pushed against the back wall.

  On the wall, a door covered with bloody streak marks stood behind the pile of overturned tables and chairs.

  Kevin cringed at the thought of Sandy, huddled on the other side of the door as the dead pounded against the door and groaned.

  The obstacle course of tables and chairs was probably all that had kept the dead from getting to Sandy.

  She must have been terrified.

  Kevin quietly moved the fallen chairs and tables away from in front of the door.

  When he finally had cleared a path to the door, Kevin pressed his ear to the door and listened.

  Then he slowly opened the door.

  When nothing came rushing out at him, he pushed the door all the way open.

  There was a small window above the sink, letting some light into the otherwise dark kitchen.

  Remembering Mrs. Reynolds, Kevin studied the shadows throughout the kitchen.

  Then he tapped the crowbar against the door frame.

  A scraping noise came from inside the freezer.

  “Ma’am,” Kevin called out.

  The scraping noise continued, then Kevin heard a groan.

  Next, he heard a thump against the freezer door, followed by another as the groaning began to echo against the walls inside the freezer.

  Kevin closed the kitchen door and started walking back to
the front of the store.

  He didn’t know if he was making a mistake, but he didn’t feel like killing Sandy’s mother, if you could call it killing when the person was already dead.

  Sandy didn’t understand, for that fact neither did Kevin, but it was going to be hard enough explaining what had happened to her mother and brother.

  He didn’t need the image of him bashing in her mother’s head on his mind when he talked to Sandy about her mom.

  Besides, Sandy’s zombie mother was safely locked in the freezer where she couldn’t do any harm.

  Kevin walked back to the car and slid the crowbar under his seat.

  He looked in the rearview mirror and saw Sandy looking at him expectantly.

  Before he could say anything, as he sat trying to think of the right words, Sandy asked, “Is my mom a zombie?”

  Lisa put her hand on Kevin’s arm.

  “I was telling Sandy about all the zombies we have seen the last few days and what zombies did,” Lisa said. “I told her about my parents too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kevin said.

  “I understand why my mom left Joey at the movie theatre now,” Sandy said. “And why she locked herself in the freezer.”

  Sandy started to sob.

  Lisa reached back and took Sandy’s hand.

  “You can come with us,” Lisa said softly. “We can take care of each other.”

  Sandy nodded as she continued to cry quietly.

  Kevin looked at Lisa, “Should we take her back to the house?”

  “No,” Lisa whispered, “She can come with us. We’re the only people she knows right now. She’ll feel safer with us than back at the house watching Bill drink beer.”

  Kevin nodded, “I guess it should be OK.”

  “Sandy, sweetie,” Lisa said. “We’re going to go for a ride over to New Florence and Seward. OK?”

  Sandy nodded, “Just don’t get a flat tire.”

  Kevin got an uncomfortable feeling as he looked down at the tire pressure gauge.

  Thankfully it was dark.

  Kevin started the Subaru.

  They drove through Bolivar, finally arriving at the bridge to cross over the Conemaugh river.

  Even for Bolivar, everything looked depressing.

  The tell-tale signs left behind by the dead were everywhere.

  They saw a few zombies staggering along on the side streets, but nothing that posed a serious threat, so Kevin just continued to drive.

  Lisa began to get nervous when they drove past Robinson.

  Dozens of staggering bodies could be seen across the railroad tracks on the streets of Robinson.

  “Why are there so many here?” Lisa asked.

  “The only thing I can think of is because more people lived here than in Bolivar,” Kevin replied. “Those things are probably the people that lived there. They were bitten and have now come back to life as zombies.”

  Lisa sat silent for a minute than asked, “How many people lived there?”

  “A couple hundred, I think,” Kevin replied.

  “How many people lived in New Florence and Seward?” Lisa asked.

  “A couple thousand,” Kevin replied, “And I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lisa replied. “Not this time.”

  Kevin continued to follow Route 259 until he came to Mulligan Hill road.

  He turned right and followed Mulligan Hill road up over the hillside towards New Florence.

  This was a two-mile short cut over the mountain to New Florence.

  During the next mile, they drove by empty pastures. Silhouettes of dark lonely barns and farmhouses dotted the hillside.

  The normal sights of life on the farm, cows, horses, chickens, sheep and goats, farmers plowing their fields or harvesting crops, were glaringly absent.

  It was as if the farmers had deserted their farms and moved on like the miners had done in Bolivar.

  Kevin couldn’t clearly see the sides of the barns or farm houses from the road, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to see the red streaks that covered the walls, or the broken windows, or the staggering bodies inside the buildings.

  They reached the top of the hill and began going down over the other side.

  When they reached the bottom of the hill, they crossed the railroad tracks and turned right on to the small road that led to the bridge. The bridge that crossed the river and entered in to New Florence.

  Kevin stopped next to the river and looked across the two-hundred-foot bridge into New Florence.

  Lisa stared down Ligonier Street, the main street into town.

  “There has to be three hundred zombies over there,” Lisa said.

  “At least,” Kevin replied. “I don’t think we should hang around here long. If all the people that were attacked by the zombies that came through haven’t come back to life yet, it could get real crowded around here.”

  “Do you think they will just stay in town or will they start wandering around?” Lisa asked.

  “From what we’ve seen, I think they will start roaming around,” Kevin replied. “I think that’s why this has spread all the way down here from Boston.”

  Lisa watched the zombies wandering around on Ligonier Street.

  The zombies almost seemed to be going in circles as if not knowing where to go and were constantly changing their direction.

  “Do you think they remember anything?” Lisa asked. “Like who they are or where they are?”

  “Hell if I know,” Kevin replied. “If I were to guess, I guess I would say maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Lisa asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, why are they just hanging around in town?” Kevin asked. “Maybe they can remember a few things or something seems to be familiar about the town, so they just hang around. Maybe some part of their mind works for a while. After a time when the last of their brain cells die or they just get frustrated, then they move on in search of something. Whatever the answer is, I just hope to hell I never personally find out.”

  Sandy sat in the back of the car and listened.

  “Would my mother know who I was if she saw me?” Sandy asked.

  “No,” Lisa replied as she turned to look at Sandy. “We don’t think so. When people are bitten by a zombie they get sick and die. We don’t know how or why their bodies start moving again, but we’ve seen them up close and they are definitely dead. All we know for sure is when they come back to life, all they want to do is kill.”

  “And eat people,” Kevin thought, but he didn’t want to make Sandy feel worse about her mother than she already felt.

  “Seward is only a few miles up the road,” Kevin finally said. “Let’s go take a fast look and then go back home.”

  “Do you think it’s going to be any different?” Lisa asked.

  “Probably not,” Kevin replied. “But being what this means, I just want to go and see for myself and hope we’re wrong.”

  Lisa sat thinking.

  She finally looked over at Kevin and reached out and touched his arm.

  “When we spent the night back at the motel in that bathtub,” Lisa said. “I Just kept thinking if we could get out of there alive that everything would be OK. Even over the last two days, I just felt that we had dodged a bullet and everything was going to go back to normal. This morning I was thinking how much I was going to miss being with you when I had to go back to school.”

  Lisa stared at Kevin, “It wasn’t until just now that it has really sunk in. I realized that I’m not going to be going back to school and things aren’t going to be getting better any time soon. Kevin, how long can this last?”

  “I don’t know,” Kevin replied, “I’m just glad you’re not in Boston.”

  “Yeah,” Lisa smiled, “at least I got to see you again.”

  Kevin smiled and squeezed Lisa’s hand.

  Kevin turned the car around in the middle of the road, drove back across the tracks and turned right on to the old Robindale Road.


  They drove in silence.

  The Conemaugh Generating Station was a mile down the road towards Seward.

  Kevin drove slowly as they passed the plant.

  Hundreds of awkward looking figures, dressed in tattered plant uniforms clawed at the eight-foot high cyclone security fence that surrounded the plant.

  The mob staggered along the fence, reaching towards the Subaru as it drove just beyond their grasp out on the road.

  Sandy bent down low, trying not to look at the gross sight outside the car.

  Kevin and Lisa just silently stared, hoping the fence would hold.

  When they finally drove past the end of the fence, Kevin felt himself start to breathe again.

  “Shit,” Kevin finally said.

  “Can we go back to Bolivar?” Sandy asked.

  “In a bit,” Kevin replied. “We don’t have much further to go.”

  “I don’t like it here,” Sandy said.

  “Neither do we,” Lisa replied. “We won’t be much longer.”

  When they had covered the final mile on the old Robindale Road, Kevin stopped at the intersection and then turned right on Route 56.

  A half mile later, he began to cross the bridge that went over the railroad tracks that ran through Seward.

  Before getting any closer to the main part of Seward, Kevin stopped the car on the bridge.

  “Why are we stopping?” Lisa asked.

  “We should be able to safely get a look at what is going on in Seward from up here,” Kevin replied. “If the town is crawling with zombies, we’ll have time to turn around and go back before they can get close to us.”

  Kevin opened the door and started to get out.

  Lisa turned and looked at Sandy.

  “You wait in the car,” Lisa said. “I’m going to step outside with Kevin. Don’t be afraid, we’ll be right in front of the car. You will be able to see us the whole time.”