by Lee Ragans
Jake looked at me with worry, and I said, "Take a shotgun and ammo and hide. If you hear yelling, come out shooting at anything that is not us."
"Good plan." Was all he said to me.
Brian stayed at the top of the elevator with a shotgun. I had never seen him fire it, but he seemed to know how to hold it. I put the ladder in place and climbed down. I had a pistol on my side and thought better than the draw it. Those men were dangerous. No need to poke the bear, so to speak. If they wanted in, they would get in and then kill us. Or kill us from a distance and get in.
I lifted the outer latch and slid open the door and stepped into the lobby. The trio was standing there looking helpless and dangerous all at once.
The woman said, "We appreciate the shelter. Not sure how we can pay you back but we have some food to share."
That was a good sign. They wanted to trade I thought to myself
"We can talk about that when we are all safe. Until we get to know each other, I would appreciate it if you drop off all of your weapons when we get inside."
The woman looked at the two men. They did not say anything to each other, but I could tell they communicated.
"We can do that." She said.
I climbed up the ladder and yelled down to the last soldier to close and latch the doors. I realized he had never done it. I was about to explain when he turned on a flashlight and figured it out for himself.
The trio dropped their weapons in a neat stack by the elevator, and I invited them in. The men did not talk. Soldier one kept looking around, soldier two seemed to be looking straight ahead but listening.
The woman stuck out her hand and said, "I am Karen. My boys David and Josh have been traveling a while. We are glad to share what food we have."
I never found out which one was David, and which was Josh. Karen had my attention. Her blouse was open to mid-chest, and she had nothing on underneath. I was caught already looking at her exposed bare chest.
Brian walked away with the shotgun and Vendela came out. Karen let out a sigh and said, "Oh thank gawd. I was afraid I was the only pair of ovaries in Atlanta.”
Vendela chuckled and smiled.
The soldiers did not react. I would have felt better if they laughed. Then I notice a slight smile on the listener.
Karen dropped her backpack and pulled out some canned fruit. Vendela took it and thanked her. We spent a few long seconds staring until I said, "You are our first visitors, so I have no idea what to do next."
The soldiers both smiled then, and I felt better.
Brian had walked off to our common area. He sat by the window facing South and watched.
The three visitors sat together across from Vendela and me. Karen was the first to ask, "Where is your 4th?"
I smiled, "Hiding with a shotgun."
The looker said, "Good idea."
Karen said, "You have to be careful. Why did you let us in?"
I told the truth, "You knew we were here and if I hadn't let you in, you might have broken our defenses to get to safety."
The Listener said, "I like him, honest. Not like in Savannah."
Vendela could not let that pass, "You walked from Savannah?"
Karen replied, "We came through Savannah. We were in Jacksonville originally."
We listened as she told the tale of their trio meeting in Jacksonville at a shelter and leaving before it was overrun by a horde. They drove when they could, but usually just walked.
I got Jake from the hall closet halfway through the tale. Karen had to start over once as Jake started doing pushups and distracted her. The soldiers seem to both nudge her back from distraction like a boyfriend would.
When they were done with their tale of zombie killing and explained the religious cult in Savannah that wanted them to be permanent members. I asked, "So where are you going?"
The looker said, "I have family in Upstate New York. Rumor is they were not hit that bad. Don't believe it, but I need to see for myself."
Karen said, "And we are going along for the ride."
"So, you are not going to find a safe place and wait this out?" Ven asked.
They all laughed, and Karen said, "Wait what out, sweetie? It... is... over."
I think the reality of what was going on hit Vendela for the first time. She sat quietly for the rest of the conversation.
Jake finished his pushups and started doing sit-ups. Karen pointed her thumb to him and asked quietly, "What his deal."
Jake answered for himself before I could, "I am a diabetic. No insulin so I work out 4 times a day. No choice. I exercise, or die."
The soldiers gave a nod of respect as if to punctuate Jakes reply.
Brian called out, "They are here."
We moved to the window to see thousands of zombies pushing down the street and past the building. It took them hours to pass. We could hear them well into the night. None found our lobby.
When we grew bored of watching Vendela said, "Come with me Karen we will make dinner for the boys."
I heard Karen exclaim, "Holy Shit!" as she saw our food stores in the small kitchen, we had set up. I am pretty sure she would have a heart attack if she saw the storeroom.
Over dinner, they asked how we got our water. I smile as Jake said, "from the tap." I added, "The water here is gravity fed from the reservoir. We boil it for drinking, but you can take a cold shower if you want."
I thought our visitors were going to pass out when offered them a cold coke in a can and ice in a glass.
The looker said, "Next thing you are going to say is the toilets work."
I smiled, "I would not say they don't." I paused and added, "The sewer system was built for 5 million... gravity fed. Now has less than 10 inhabitants."
Karen said, "If you tell me you have toilet paper, I am going to kiss you." Vendela leaned in closer to me and said, "We do, and he is mine to kiss."
Karen laughed and said, "No threat, I have two that I can barely handle. I don't need another."
Vendela and I looked at each other then back at the smiling trio.
The 3 visitors took an unused room down the hall and agreed to leave their guns in the hallway by the exit.
The next day they helped us make a fuel run and checked out defenses. The zombies had moved on, leaving us none the worse for wear. There were a few extra fingers and feet on the street, but other than that there was no indication they had passed.
Our new friends stayed for a week, resting and enjoying the food. They moved on with the promise to look us up if they passed this way again.
We were certain we would never see them again.
5
Winter was harsh with nothing but a small space heater in each room. We ran the generators more but still had barely put a dent in the fuel trucks supply.
On the harshest winter day, one of our two generators stopped working. They were not designed to run constantly. We had pushed them well beyond their limits.
We took advantage of the coldest days and hunted around in the surrounding buildings. In the cold, we could easily outrun any zombies.
We found more canned food and a large generator from a construction site. We could not move the generator without a truck, but the fuel cans with it made our fuel runs easier.
I had thoughts that we would need to move the generator to us if the other generator failed but had no idea how to move it with just me Jake and Brian. There was a hill that made us pushing it back to the hotel impossible.
Jake had a bad day with blood sugar that would not settle down, and we thought we lost him when he would not wake up for a day. Brian watched over him the entire time he was unconscious.
We were almost out of fuel by the time Jake was strong enough to move around again. That day snow started falling. It almost never snowed in Atlanta. 3 inches of frozen precipitation on the ground made for an exciting fuel run. Three zombies that came after us just fell down and then could not crawl over the ice and snow. We felt safe outside for the first time in a while.
; Climbing back up the ladder and onto our floor Jake and I was laughing. Vendela came out the hallway to see what was so funny and she started coughing in the cold air.
By the next day, she was coughing up green mucus. Infection was as fatal as a zombie bite. We locked eyes, and we both knew she had bronchitis, and it was heading toward pneumonia. The cold air affected her lungs. She smiled and said, "it was a good run."
I kissed her and said, "We are not done yet. You don't get out that easy."
I could not waste any time. Jake was still not strong, so Brian went with me. We took food along with the shotgun in case we were gone for a long time. Once we got outside, I started toward the Publix 2 miles up the road. They had a pharmacy. Maybe something was left.
The trip there was quiet save for the few mostly frozen zombies that saw us but could not move enough to give chase. The Publix looked mostly intact, just had smashed doors.
Brian and I walked in the broken glass and easily dodged the slow almost frozen undead employee on the floor just inside and to the left. I hated the cold, but the below freezing temperatures appeared to be killing them.
Brian watched my back and smashed a zombie in the head that was too close for comfort. I hopped the pharmacy counter and heard the thud of the sledgehammer at the same time my feet hit the ground. The gate if it had been locked was now open. I was happy that we did not have to smash it open, but that meant the stores were picked over.
I found 3 inhalers on the floor and cursed myself for not coming here earlier. It was not her brand, but now, anything was better than nothing. All of the painkillers were gone, as expected. The zpacks were gone, but I found a large bottle overlooked of Cipro. I can only assume that whoever stole all of the zpacks was an idiot, and I was thankful they were. We now had a 500 count bottle of Cipro. It could kill anything bacterial infection we got. I thought for a moment that we should not overuse it and then laughed to myself. We were more likely to die on the walk back than from a superbug that was drug resistant.
I found some multivitamins and several bottles of vitamin C. I loaded all of the other bottles I could find into Brian's backpack. I had no idea what we needed with stool softener, but I was not going to leave it here. We had a wide variety of blood pressure meds, and other things I could not identify, but we had them. Maybe one of them would help Jake.
One more look around and we started out. There was no food left to take, but we were a long way from needing that. Our supply of canned vegetables with rice and flour and we could make almost anything.
I grabbed a handful of magazines on the way out of the door. Maybe Vendela would enjoy a copy of Brides monthly. It was silly, but it felt like something I should not leave behind.
We moved quickly back up the street easily dodge the few half-frozen zombies. I heard a sound from up the cross street and then nothing. It was the sound of a door closing. Zombies did not close doors. There was someone else here.
Brian and I stopped and looked around. We had the feeling we were being watched but could not see anyone. Brian stood up and started walking, “We need to move.” I was never one to argue with his highly focused instincts. We moved on.
We took a long way around in case we were being watched. I did not like wasting time with night falling, but I wanted to be sure we were not followed. It did not matter in the end. No one followed us. Whoever had closed that door was staying inside.
We got back inside, and Brian locked up while I got the first dose of Cipro into Vendela and gave her an inhaler to use. She was barely conscious. She fell back asleep. Her sleep coughing decreased overnight.
Jake could not find anything he recognized as a diabetes drug, but he took the stool softener. He smiled, "How did you know."
I sat in the dark, just the light from the space heater in the common room and looked out of the windows. We looked south toward downtown all the time. I decided to take a walk to the other end of the floor.
In an unused room, I looked north. Toward the Publix, I could see a light. Just one light in a window on the condos, halfway up the building. I watched for an hour. Brian joined me.
He asked the dark glass window, "How many other people are here."
I replied, "I don't think that many. And that person knows we are here."
"I hope they are nice."
"Me too."
6
The meds worked, and Vendela got better in a week. She took it for 10 days because that is what we always remember docs giving us. She felt well enough to take a walk to the rooftop bar of the W.
We had been up there a few times, but only Jake went up there now. Actually, he just went up the South staircase and down the north as one of his daily workouts. The place still smelled of perfume. That stink had to be embedded in the paint.
Vendela looked longingly at the spa doors saying, "I wish that a cosmetologist had survived." I lightly punched her arm saying, "You are such a nerd. People say, hairdresser, not a cosmetologist."
We opened the door, the lock had been popped long ago. The previous occupants had emptied the spa of anything valuable, just like the bar next door had no alcohol.
I found a set of scissors and trimmers. I had no idea what to do with them but offered them to Vendela. She had given up doing anything with her hair other than trimming her bangs with office scissors and pulling the rest into a ponytail that fell past her shoulders.
She tucked the scissors into her messenger bag. I noticed she started carrying it again. I did not look inside, but I assume she had her inhalers I could hear the bottle of Cipro rattle when she set it down. It was her way of saying we could lose everything else but not the drugs if we had to run.
We went out onto the balcony dance floor, and there were still a few patches of snow in the permanent shady areas from two weeks ago. It was cold but not freezing. Our light jackets were enough to be comfortable for a little while.
The silence is the thing that I remember most of those days. Just silence. There was the wind, but no cars, not people, birds, no dogs. Just silence. We walked to the ledge and looked west Past Georgia Tech and Past Coca-Cola. There was a flash of light. Then another. I said softly, "Gunfire."
It made me feel less alone.
Vendela leaned in closely and put her arm around me and me around her. She asked, "Why did we survive when all those strong people died in the first weeks?"
"I think maybe we were so busy avoiding the world that we did not get caught by it."
She told me how she used to go out with friends, and how she would go to the clubs in Buckhead on the weekends. Then her asthma acted up before the outbreak, and she just stopped working out and started sitting on the couch.
I told her how I was always depressed and never went out, that I never had friends. I spent so much time in my apartment that I sometimes missed work. I lost jobs over forgetting to go out. I was not a shut-in so much as avoiding the world. I would go out at night when there were fewer people. Target at 2 AM was my favorite.
She gave my butt a squeeze and said, "We would have never met before. Now I don't know how I could live without you."
I smiled, "I had to wait for the end of the world to find the perfect girl."
"I am far from perfect."
I think I started to say something like, "you are perfect for me." but I never got it out. She shut me up with a kiss.
We were cold and needed to go in, but we were both still looking west. Waiting for more gunfire. Neither of us sure if silence was a good or a bad thing these days.
7
With Spring came a new problem. The zombies were more active and now seems to be stiffer, but they did not seem to be rotting as much. It was as if they were partially mummified. That makes them a bit faster, but still, nothing that we could not avoid if we paid attention.
Our fuel runs were easier as the weather got nicer. Jake took to doing them by himself. He said he wanted the exercise.
One Tuesday, at least, Brian said it was Tuesday, Jake had been gon
e too long. I yelled for Brian to watch the shaft, I took a shotgun, put on my vest with shotguns shells and grabbed a sledgehammer.
When I got to the point that I could see the fuel truck for myself, the fuel cans were just sitting there. I got closer and could not see blood, that was a good sign. Then I heard the thud of the sledgehammer.
Around the corner, cut off from our view at the W, Jake was swinging away with his hammer killing one zombie after another. It looked like part of the horde which passed months ago was left behind. They thawed out and did not move on.
I had no idea why Jake was that far over in the shade of the overpass fighting zombies. I called out. He raised a free hand for a second in acknowledgment and kept swinging away.