Safe Zone

by Chesla, Gary

  They had barely gotten out alive. They decided it was not safe enough to go that far into town again. But the problem was there were fewer places to find food and supplies. It was late summer and fall was around the corner. They had to find enough supplies to stock up if they were going to make it through the winter.

  Today they decided to come in as far as Hillview Avenue, just off the Latrobe-Derry Road that approached Latrobe from the east end of town. They had spotted the little corner deli as they were driving home yesterday from their adventure in Latrobe. Megan smelled, the van smelled and both of them were on edge from their failed attempt to get supplies. They made a mental note of the corner deli to come back today. The area looked pretty deserted, so they decided they would give it a try after getting cleaned up and a good night’s sleep.

  Today they changed their approach. After making sure the store was safe, Megan would gather the food and bring the sacks containing the supplies back to Shaun. Shaun stood by the door and carefully watched the area around the deli and their van. At the first sight of any activity, he and Megan would get out of there fast. They were not going to get taken by surprise again and get trapped inside the deli. They had been careless and sloppy yesterday, if they didn’t start to be more careful, they wouldn’t be around much longer to worry about food.

  If all remained quiet until they gathered all they could carry, they would pile the bags at the door and make one trip to the van when they were ready to leave, so their movements would not alert any of the dead, or the living, that they were there until they were on their way home.

  Since the power had gone out the first week, and all of their flashlight batteries had long since gone dead, all their supply trips had to be made during the day so they would have enough light to see. Besides, at night it was too easy for the dead to sneak up on them unseen. Those things didn’t need sleep and were out there 24 hours a day.

  Megan rounded the corner of the shelves and started down the next aisle. In the early days it looked like people had come into the deli and took all the fancy items. The salmon was gone, but there were a lot of cans of sardines still on the shelf. She scooped up all the sardines and dropped them into her bag. She had never liked sardines, but that was before. Now she was happy to have them and would gladly eat them without complaining.

  She walked further down the aisle. The chili had all been taken, but there were a lot of cans of plain old beans left. Again Megan scooped all the cans of beans into her bag. “Even if I don’t like beans now, they will keep. Unfortunately I’m sure the time will come when I will be happy to eat them.” Megan thought as she dropped the last can into her bag.

  She moved further down the aisle, dragging the bag on the floor behind her as it was getting too heavy for her to carry loaded with all these cans.

  “Yuck, tomatoes!” Megan said as her mouth twisted in a sour grimace as she thought about eating tomatoes. “I don’t think I’ll ever be hungry enough to eat these.”

  But she put them in the bag along with everything else.

  She had finished going down to the end of this aisle, taking everything that could be eaten. She decided it was time to take the bag up to Shaun and get another bag.

  She lifted the bag, but quickly dropped it back to the floor because of how heavy it had become. The cans clanked loudly against the bare wooden floor.

  “Hey Meg, you OK?” Shaun called out from the front of the store as he heard the sound.

  “I’m fine.” She answered, as she decided to leave the bag and walk out to where Shaun was standing.

  She walked around the shelves and came up to the front door where Shaun was intently staring out in front of the store.

  “Shaun, would you go back and carry the bag up here? It’s too heavy for me to lift. Or do you want me to put half the stuff in another bag?” Megan asked.

  “Let me see if I can handle it first.” Shaun replied as he looked back at Megan. “You watch outside until I come back.”

  “You see anything out there?” Megan asked as she came over and studied the street in front of the door.

  “Not yet. So far it’s been quiet.” Shaun answered.

  “Good!” Megan said sounding relieved. “After yesterday I’m feeling a little nervous being out here.”

  “Are you finished back there?” Shaun asked.

  “No. I have to go down one more row. I got a lot of food, but someone else beat us to the good stuff. “Megan replied.

  “What do you mean the good stuff is gone? If we can eat it, it’s good stuff!” Shaun laughed.

  Megan gave him a little grin as she turned back to the door to keep watch.

  Shaun went in the back and returned a minute later carrying the bag. He sat it on the floor next to the other two bags that Megan had collected. “Looks like a lot of good stuff in that last aisle. Go finish up so we can get out of here.” Shaun said as he walked over and stood next to Megan. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  Megan picked up another burlap sack, gave Shaun’s arm an affectionate squeeze and hurried to the back of the deli.

  Shaun looked out the door to see all still looked quiet. His gaze settled on his green van. Shaun’s Roofing and Siding was painted in large yellow and blue letters across the side. He and Megan had been together now for five years. Four years ago they had been married.

  Shaun had started his own roofing and siding business four years ago when the housing market began to come out of the slump it had been in. There was plenty of work as the new housing market started to boom once again.

  His business had been so successful that three years ago they had bought their first house. They had found a good deal on a great brick home on the edge of Derry, a little town a few miles outside of Latrobe. Derry had a population of less than 2000 people. Since the area steel mills had been shut down, the population of Derry had been getting smaller and smaller every year. Over the last few years, Derry’s population had dropped on average about ten percent each year. It was a small peaceful town and was getting smaller and more peaceful each year. If the house would have been in Latrobe or Pittsburgh, the price would have been double what they had paid for it.

  “Location, location, location!” as the saying goes in real estate and in their case it was a plus. A plus in that they were able to buy the house at a really cheap price. It was also a plus now that the dead had taken over the world. It was in a location that the dead had little interest in so far. But Shaun had a feeling that all of that was starting to change. It was a great house and very secure, but as the dead started to come out of the cities and food and supplies were getting harder to find every day, he didn’t know how much longer they would be able to stay there.

  Life had been looking up and he and Megan were excited about what the future would hold for them. That was until about six months ago. They still weren’t clear on what had happened, but they were all too clear on what it meant. Life was not going to be anything like what they had imagined.

  Shaun’s thoughts were interrupted as Megan walked up behind him, dragging another bag full of supplies.

  “You were right. There was a lot of good stuff left in that last aisle.” Megan smiled. “I have a bag full of rice, oatmeal and pasta noodles. I even found a few boxes of those little twisty pasta noodles.”

  “I’m glad you found something you liked.” Shaun laughed. “I wouldn’t want you to feel this was a wasted trip.”

  “Any trip we can get home from is a good trip!” Megan smiled. “So could we please go home now?”

  Shaun took a quick look out the door. “Let’s go home.” He said as he handed Megan the keys to the van. “You take the two lightest bags and go open the side of the van. I’ll carry the rest of the heavy stuff.”

  Shaun grunted as he lifted the heavy bags and nodded to Megan to go.

  Megan took one final look out the door, then started out the door walking as fast as she could with her two bags in tow. When she reached the van, she put the bags down and u
nlocked the side door and slid it back.

  Shaun was right behind her, and quickly crawled into the van with his bags. He sat them down and turned.

  Megan handed him the two bags she had carried out, then hopped up into the van next to him as Shaun slid the door closed.

  They both breathed a sigh of relief to be safely back in the van and off the street.

  They walked to the front of the van and dropped down into their seats.

  Shaun slipped the keys into the ignition. They both smiled as the engine roared to life.

  Shaun pulled out onto the street. In a few minutes he turned left onto Route 217 towards Derry and home.

  Chapter 2

  Shaun drove down Route 217. The engine in his 1998 Ford van purred quietly, despite the 153,000 miles he had accumulated on the old van. When he started his business four years ago, he was driving past Arnold Palmer Motors and spotted the van sitting in the lot behind the building. He needed a vehicle to replace his old Dodge pickup and the van would be perfect for what he was now doing. He stopped and talked to one of the salesmen. The price was better than he had expected. Someone had just traded it in on a new Cadillac SUV and apparently the dealership wasn’t too thrilled about the old van sitting on their lot next to all the shiny new Cadillac sedans and SUVs.

  It had served him well over the last four years. He had considered trading it in about a year ago for a new van. The way his business had grown, he could afford it and he also felt it was time to get something larger.

  He finally decided to hold off a bit longer. The deciding factor was the damn thing was just so dependable. If it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it. New vans were expensive, and his old van ran like it was still new. Megan had also come up with better ways to spend the money he would have spent on the new van, so he decided to make do with the old Ford for a few more years.

  The way the world had gone, he didn’t know how much longer he or anyone would be driving. New tires, gas and parts would soon be a thing of the past. He hoped the van would be dependable and last for just a bit longer.

  As they entered Derry, Route 217 became Fourth Avenue. Shaun looked around at the now mostly abandoned houses. Of the approximately 1900 people that lived here when he moved in, maybe there were a dozen left. Most people had fled when the first wave of the dead came through town. Where they went, he didn’t know. With what little he knew about what had happened to the world, he didn’t know where one could go that would be better than where he was. He and Megan had talked about leaving when it all started.

  But they had decided against it. They didn’t know where they would go. Shaun had taken some of his work supplies and welded bars over the first story windows and made steel bar outer doors to reinforce the doors to the house. With the rest of the house being made of brick, they felt no one would be able to get in at them.

  Recently, about a month ago, he and Megan began to discuss the possibility of moving again. They felt their house was secure enough, but the conditions were changing. The dead were starting to come around more often and in higher numbers. Their biggest worry was not about their house, but about being able to find enough food to survive. The influx of the dead along with the dwindling supply of food, was making their day to day life much more difficult. They could see that a time would come when they would have no choice but to try and go somewhere else if they wanted to survive. Someplace where there was more food, less of the dead and none of the roving gangs of living scum that had recently began to show up around the outskirts of town to rob scavengers of their hard work.

  Shaun and Megan doubted that such a place existed anywhere now days.

  They had talked about going into the cities as the dead moved out. There had to be a lot of food in the cities, ignored by the dead. They had hoped to be able to go in to find out as the dead began to wonder out to the suburbs. Their little excursion into the edges of Latrobe showed them at this point that it wasn’t possible to work this angle yet. It would be even worse in the larger cities. By the time

  enough of the dead had left the cities, if enough of them ever did, Shaun and Megan felt they would have probably starved to death.

  The other option they had discussed was the possibility of going up into the mountains. They could hunt deer and bear for food in the mountains. They could follow the herds and find enough food so they wouldn’t starve, but they didn’t enjoy the idea of living out their lives as if they were the last two people alive on earth. They wanted to be around other people. Surely there were other people that had managed to forms groups to survive.

  But they hadn’t heard of any such place. Of course in their present situation they didn’t hear much of anything anymore.

  Whatever they did, they had to do it while they still had enough food and gas to make the journey to where ever it was they would go. Both commodities were slowly getting dangerously low and becoming harder and harder each day to replace.

  As they neared their turn onto Ruby Street, which would take them up to their house, Shaun looked at Megan and noticed she was smiling.

  “What are you smiling about?” He asked.

  “I was just thinking that I don’t have to burn my clothes today.” She laughed as she took off her old Pirates baseball cap, letting her shoulder length brown hair fall down around her head.

  “That and you smell a lot better today than you did when we came back yesterday.” Shaun laughed.

  Megan sat back and smiled, she was just happy to be home. Their recent food runs were making her a nervous wreck.

  Two blocks up Ruby Street, Shaun stopped to open the gate he and his neighbor, Doug, had built to block off the road to keep the dead and other undesirables from wondering up the street and closer to their homes. They had attached branches and shrubs to the gate to disguise it so hopefully no one would recognize that it was a gate that went somewhere worth checking out.

  As he approached the gate he stopped the van and looked around to be sure the area was clear. After telling Megan to lock the door behind him, he got out and opened the gate.

  After driving through the gate and securing it back in place, they both breathed easier, glad to be back in familiar surroundings.

  There were six houses on the street on this side of the gate. Four had been abandoned months ago. Only Shaun’s house and his neighbor Doug still lived here. Fields and trees was all that was behind the houses at the end of the street here at the edge of town.

  Shaun and Doug’s were the last two houses on the end of the street. They were the two houses with the rope and pulley system that stretched between the houses from the upstairs windows. Shaun had suggested the pulley system as a way to communicate and share supplies in case of an emergency.

  The gate they constructed had done its intended job. Since putting it up, they had only seen a few of the dead wonder by their house. The groaning and bloody streaks left on the street and houses down on Fourth Avenue reminded them how things were changing outside of their little safe haven.

  Shaun drove up the street, passing the empty houses that had once housed some of his former neighbors. His was the last house on the right side of the street, across from Doug’s house.

  Shaun pulled in front of the attached garage and after opening the bars and garage door, pulled inside and secured the garage.

  For five minutes he and Megan just sat in the van with their heads resting back against the head rest.

  Finally Megan looked over at Shaun. “Shaun, making these supply runs has always bothered me, but this last week has been making me crazy. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.”

  “I know, Meg. It’s starting to get bad around here, but I don’t know what else we can do. I could start going out myself and leave you back here at the house.” Shaun said.

  “No way Shaun! We decided when all of this started that we would always stay together no matter what.” Megan protested. “Have you thought about where else we could go? It has to be better out there somewhere.”
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  “Like we saw down closer to Latrobe, it could also be a lot worse. I wish I knew, but I don’t know what else to do.” Shaun replied.

  Megan reached over and took his hand. “I know. We could have it a lot worse.

  Thinking about leaving is a big gamble. I’m not trying to pressure you into leaving. I’m just so worried about things. I’ve been scared for the last six months, but the last month is freaking me out. You know I’m happy to do whatever you feel is best. I guess all of this is finally just getting to me.”

  “Whatever we do, we will decide together. If we are going to leave, unless we find more gas, we are going to have to decide by next week while we still have enough gas to go somewhere. Just hang in there, maybe we’ll come up with something in the next few days.” Shaun smiled.

  Megan smiled back at Shaun. “I’m sorry I’m complaining. It’s not your fault. Come on, I’ll help you unload the van.”

  They got out of the van and started to carry the bags into the house and down into the basement. Shaun had made a secure concrete storage room in the basement to keep all their supplies. The room could also serve double duty as a last resort as a safe room.

  They had just locked up the last of today’s haul and were coming back upstairs when they heard a tapping at the kitchen door.

  Shaun signaled Megan to be quiet as he walked silently over to the door and looked out the peep hole.

  Shaun looked through the hole and his shoulders relaxed as he opened the door and looked out through the bars.

  “Hey Doug. Come on in.” Shaun smiled at his neighbor.

  “I can’t right now, thanks. If I come in where Lisa can’t see me, I think she will freak out!” Doug laughed.

  “What’s got her all worked up today?” Megan laughed.

  “While you guys were out today, six of those ugly dead bastards walked by our front door. I thought she was going to die when she saw them.” Doug said now sounding more concerned. “After they wondered away I went outside for a quick look around. I heard a low rumbling sound coming from down over the hill. I walked down to the gate to see if I could see where it was coming from. I watched probably two hundred of those things dragging themselves down Fourth Avenue.”