I had to burn the bodies. There was no other option. I had to start a funeral pyre to get rid of them. How was I supposed to do that? Bodies take high heat to burn. This was going to be a pain and would leave me exposed to the outside world. I was definitely not going to burn them inside the compound. Shit.
I went back inside and got right on the internet. Thank God it was still up. I knew that wouldn’t last long. Pretty soon the entire country’s infrastructure was going to collapse along with luxuries like the internet.
After an hour of this, I figured out what I needed to do. The problem was that I would need someone to cover me while I did it. I hated to do it, but I needed my wife right now to watch my back. Right now, I wasn’t sure that I trusted her with a gun. She hated the things. Oh well, it sucked to be me right now.
I walked up to my wife. I swallowed my pride. Up to this point, I’ve done everything on my own. I hated telling her I needed her. “Honey, can I ask you for a favor?” I looked sheepish. I hated asking for anything- and she knew it.
“Absolutely, what do you need?” She looked positively angelic which she wasn’t.
“I need you to watch my back. I have to go off the property set up a funeral pyre and burn those things before they start to become diseased, endangering us. I need you outside with me so you can warn me. I’ll put one of the dogs on a leash with you to protect you, but I’ll need you to carry a gun.” I stopped at that. I saw her eyes bug out.
She talked fast. “I can’t carry a gun. I can’t shoot anything. You know that.”
I shook my head. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Everyone can be trained. Up to now, you’ve been spoiled with this sequestered life. You’ve had all the security in the world. Now it’s over. You will shoot these things to protect me, the kids, and yourself. So knock off the moralizing.” I was always pissed off at her antigun moralizing. Now it could be dangerous.
She whined, “But I just can’t.”
I strongly said back, “So in other words you would let me die rather than take responsibility. Is that it?”
She was taken aback by the venom in my voice. “No I won’t let you die. I just can’t fire a gun. I just can’t. It’s wrong.”
I had heard this bullshit all my life from spoiled liberals who had never faced any trauma in their lives. They assumed that everyone in the world had the luxury of living in million dollar homes surrounded by armed cops keeping bad people at bay. It was a load of crap. Everyday, people faced those that meant to do them harm. These liberals couldn’t accept the fact that there were bad people in this world. They thought that everyone was good, but that some were misguided. All liberals had to do was effectively reason with these people, and poof, they would see the errors of their ways- and a rousing chorus of Kumbaya later, they would all be friends. It was the worst form of nonsense. People from the beginning of time had killed one another over money, property, religion, woman, vengeance, insults, jealousy, and even just for fun. And these liberals couldn’t accept this whatsoever. Their naïveté resulted in good honest people being disarmed because the gun was obviously to blame for the world’s ills. Lots of innocent people lost their lives because they couldn’t protect themselves from those willing to do maximum harm to the innocent. I had seen this personally when I was a kid growing up in Chicago and ever since working in hospitals. Good people always lost out to heavily armed bad people. I had enough.
I snapped, “Fine, you just can’t. I’ll protect everybody by myself. I have to go outside the gate now with some heavy equipment to dig a huge ass hole in the ground. It doesn’t matter if it will draw these things to us. I’m sure I’ll be fine with my fairy princess wishful thinking. Don’t bother yourself with me. Oh and if anything does happen to me, go on with your life as if everything was just fine. Just keep the doors locked so that not one of these things comes inside the house and tries to hurt the kids. I’m not sure your ability to reason these things out of trying to eat our family is going to work in this case.”
I walked out. I was supremely pissed. I was doing my fucking damnedest to save my family, and I was dealing with the same liberal douche bag mindset on guns that always pissed me off.
I grabbed the ATV, my 12 gauge and the Sig 5.56. I put it in its case along with six mags. I made sure my pistol was holstered with a lot of ammo too. I hooked up the ATV to the trencher and headed to the front gate. After dragging the equipment outside, I made sure that there were no threats. I went halfway down the hill and dug a big hole that was 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. It was at least 6 feet deep, probably 8 at its deepest. It wasn’t pretty that’s for sure. I left the hole and saw my wife running at me at top speed. I was actually annoyed to see her. It takes a long time to get me to cool down after my temper was triggered.
I saw my wife running toward me. She was screaming at me. I guess she was mad too. She finally made it to me and pointed behind me. She punched me in the arm and made me physically look by turning my head. There were a dozen Zombies, all female, within 20 feet of me, and they were moving fast uphill right at us.
I looked down at them and almost burst out laughing at their clothes. They were all frumpy old ladies dressed in long flowery print dresses. I saw support hose on most of them. Unfortunately, they were all spitting and drooling and moving very quickly at us-much faster than they would have during their natural lives. I jumped off the trencher and moved fast to the ATV. I pulled my wife along and forced her to run to the gate.
I grabbed my M2 Benelli shotgun. It was already loaded with number 8 shot. I aimed at the nearest lady’s face, depressed the safety, and pulled the trigger. Her head literally exploded. For a second, I was in shock at the sight. I knew number 8 shot contained over 400 little pellets and was mainly designed for target shooting. I had no idea that it could literally shred a person. I shuddered. I took aim at the four other old lady zombies in her little group. It was hard to miss. The weapon was awesome. I liked the fact that you didn’t have to pump it to load another round too.
I scanned for targets. There were ten more in her group coming at us. I took aim at one more and hit her right on the noggin. The weapon went empty. I hated loading shotguns. I was never fast about it. I grabbed for 6 more rounds and loaded it in haste. I yelped when my thumb got caught in the magazine. I needed to be more careful. It hurt like a bitch.
I took careful aim and fired again and again. I reloaded once more and then finished them off. I reloaded yet again while I looked for more targets. There were no more, thank God.
I looked around. Surrounding me and my equipment were bodies, some with heads, and some without. It was the worst carnage I’d ever seen, and I had caused all of it. I turned away and vomited up my last meal. I couldn’t believe this sheer mass murder that I committed. I had to stop thinking like that. This was a disease. These were just victims that had perished. I had nothing to do with that. I hadn’t caused their deaths- and yes, they were already dead when I was forced to take care of them. I had to keep remembering that, or I was going to go clinically insane for real this time.
I walked back up my driveway and found my wife standing just inside the gate. We just hugged each other. We didn’t say a word for a few minutes. We just stood there holding each other, her looking in, and me looking out into the world pretending not to be vigilant for more threats.
After a few minutes, we disentangled ourselves, and I did another formal search of the area. I saw yet another old lady ambling up the drive. She had to be 90 years old. It was an unbelievable sight. She moved with a waddling gait because of her incredibly stooped shoulders and scoliotic posture. I shook my head because I had to put another one of these things out of its misery.
I looked at my wife who kissed me on my cheek and walked away. I made my way downhill all the way to the bottom. The old Zed snarled at my appearance as I clubbed her on the right temple with my club. It didn’t take much force. I hoped that there were no more of these things. I was sure that there would be.
; I had to set up the pyre now. I brought out multiple wooden pallets that I was saving. I lined the bottom of the pit with them and then soaked them through with kerosene torch fuel. I then had to figure out how to move the bodies. I set up the ATV just on the outskirts of the front gate. I then set out a dozen stakes deep in the ground. I would manipulate the cable around the stakes to be able to pull the bodies into the hole relatively evenly.
Now came the hard part: touching the bodies. I’ve never been squeamish. Every part of me that was nervous about touching dead flesh was beaten out of me in medical school during Gross Anatomy. But this was grosser than anything I had ever done. I was horrified by this.
I did what I always did in bad situations. I shut off my brain and thought of something else. After I donned my protective infectious disease gear that I stole from the hospital, I hooked the cable up to each and every individual body. I used the shovel to scoop the remnants. It took me over an hour. And yes, despite my shutting off my brain, I continued to retch.
When I finally finished, I grabbed four more pallets and dozens of logs. I placed them around and on top of the bodies. I soaked through the wood again with kerosene and tried to get as much on the bodies as I could.
Finally done, I lit a match and threw it in. It didn’t work. I tried it again and again with no success. It looked a lot easier in the movies. I had to make a torch and run a line of gasoline from outside the pit to the center. One enormous whoosh later, the fire was burning. I added more wood for good measure and got the hell out of there before the smell of burning flesh made me throw up yet again.
I removed my protective clothing and set them on fire to make sure there were no infectious spots I was dragging into my home. I stood underneath the hose and washed every square inch of my body with soap and bleach until my body was raw. Then I went into the garage and got dressed again.
I looked outside and saw thick black smoke flowing into the sky above my pyre. Thankfully, it was all downwind or I would have made everyone retch from the smell of roasting human flesh. I gagged down my bile at the thought.
Once inside I found my wife sitting in front of the TV with her knees drawn up beneath her. I sat down next to her and watched as she flicked channels quickly from the locals to the national news shows. All they kept repeating over and over was to stay indoors and avoid other people. Surprisingly, no one had any video of Zombies walking around. My wife got annoyed. She knew they were covering this mess up for the government.
I grabbed my laptop and went online. There were literally millions of hits on YouTube and Liveleak alone showing the dead walking. All the major online news services had the story, and it was spreading like wildfire. It was all over the net. I showed it to her, and she got mad then. I just shrugged back at her. The media suppressed news stories all the time to fit their ideological bent. Why wouldn’t they do it now? Hopefully enough people would see the net stories and arm themselves before it was too late.
As we were browsing for more info, ‘Traci with an I’ walked up to us and waited for us to finish impatiently. She was very antsy and was breathing heavily through her mouth while she popped her chewing gum. I thought ‘great, she’s one of those.’ And then not surprisingly, it got worse.
“My boyfriend is such a punk.” She said it in an uneducated fake southern drawl that was found universally in virtually every trailer park in the country. It was the classic sign that all the money we spent on America’s educational system was a complete failure. Then she said it again. “He’s such a friggin punk!” She screeched it out of her mouth. Then she twirled the gum on her tongue and blew a small bubble.
I sighed. I knew the type immediately. I saw these patients all my life every day. She described the guy as a punk, but he was her punk. It didn’t matter that he beat her, cheated on her, or got her pregnant and then refused to support the baby. No, that was beside the point. He was ‘cool’ for some reason, and all the girls wanted him too. He was the guy they were all after, and he had chosen her. I could see her future very quickly. She would have her second kid by nineteen. She would live in a fake mobile home- fake because it never moved and sat on blocks. She would get WIC and Welfare, and one of my pediatric colleagues would be treating the kids with strong behavioral control meds because Daddy hit them or he would drink and end up in jail. And I was stuck with her. I sighed again.
She snorted out, “I have to go and find him!” She literally stamped her dirty bare foot on my hardwood floor when she said it.
I wouldn’t tolerate that behavior from any of my kids at any age, and here I was listening to this bullshit here from a total stranger in my own living room. My wife put her arm on my own knowing that I was about to explode. Jen knew my tolerance of bullshit was virtually nonexistent.
I put on my best fake smile that I reserved for dumbasses. “Honey, it’s much too dangerous to go outside right now. If you look outside the window, I’m burning dozens of bodies. These were the things trying to eat you this morning, remember.” I faked a grim look to her to show that I empathized with what she had to go through in that car.
I saw Traci’s face partially melt at the thought. Then she went upright from her slouch. “That’s why I need you to come with me. You can protect me while I look for him.”
I almost laughed out loud when I saw my wife’s expression. She was about to rip the girl’s face off with her fingernails. Now I put my arm on Jen’s returning the favor. The girl just suggested that I abandon my own family and travel through the countryside to find her ‘punk.’ Yeah, that was going to happen.
“Honey, I realize that you probably can’t get a hold of him. He’s probably just as busy as you were dodging those things this morning, don’t you think? And if we go out looking for him, we’re probably just going to get in his way. From the way you’re talking about him, he’s a pretty tough guy, right?”
She nodded vigorously. “He is a real punk, yeah. Nobody messes with him.” She said it with genuine pride.
I nodded back just as strongly. “I bet he is. So it would be foolish of us to get in his way right? He can defend himself against any of those things without a problem.” She nodded. I continued, “I’m sure he’ll be fine and will call us when he’s good and ready. He’s one tough punk, right?”
She said confidently, “Absolutely. He has gone weeks without calling me before. I’ll just wait for his call.” She walked away.
I stood up and went to the fridge for a Diet Coke. I became addicted to them in med school, and I wasn’t going to stop drinking them until the world ran out.
My wife came up behind me and hugged me. “I wanted to strangle her. I really was going to do it.” I knew she meant it without turning around.
I turned and hugged her. “Leave her alone for now. Traci is going to want to go out and find the guy in a couple of days again. Use the same tactics and we’ll keep Traci with an I alive. Challenge her, and she’ll jump the fence and get eaten like her boyfriend.”
My wife looked at me in horror. “Do you really think the guy is dead?”
“Absolutely. The guy is a punk, remember? I guarantee you the idiot and his friends went out to kill Zombies, and the Zeds fought back. A punk doesn’t hide. He confronts anything that threatens him, and he has a lot of fun doing it. Don’t you think based on how she described the guy that he is out laughing with his friends because they can now legally nail people?” I shook my head. “And how long before they in turn get infected? If he isn’t dead, he soon will be.” I whispered to her. “This punk’s death would be the best thing that ever happened to Traci. At least she wouldn’t get knocked up and have to visit the punk in prison for the next ten to twenty years with her kid. She’s much better off.”
My wife shook her head at me in complete disapproval. “You’re such a cynic. You don’t know that’s what’s happening here.” She had heard my rants enough in her life to know that I always looked at the worst case scenario. She did know that I was usually right but refused to admi
t it.
“Trust me, I’ve seen these people in my trauma ward every day since I started med school. I hope you’re right.” I walked away knowing that she was wrong. My stats were better than her hopes. Occasionally, I was wrong about these things and people surprised me. These occurrences were few and far between unfortunately.
I went outside to check my fire. It was still burning brightly. There was no more flammable wood than pallets. It burned very hot and fast. I would keep it going continuously. I wanted to keep the fire stoked for days. I was sure I would need it, and I didn’t want to start over.
I grabbed a dozen very dry logs and a couple of newish wet stumps and put them on my ATV. I drove outside after checking security and threw them all in the pyre. It should do the trick for the next day. I got the Hell out of there as quickly as I could. The smell was atrocious and was beyond anything I’d ever been exposed to in the past. I locked us all in the property, secured the fence and stowed all my equipment. It was getting dark.
I fed the animals again and went inside to eat. My family smelled me immediately and covered their noses. I thought my darling kids were just making fun of me. When my wife did it too, I ran up to the shower after ditching my clothes outside.
As soon as I got in under the spray, I realized what they were experiencing. The smell of burning flesh came off me and caused me to momentarily retch. It reminded me of my gross anatomy days in med school where I smelled of dead body and formaldehyde throughout the semester. I remembered going to bars with my classmates and people giving us a wide berth because of the smell. Yup, I was a stud back then.
I finished up, grabbed a bite to eat, and checked security one more time. I was beat. I couldn’t afford to stay up all night and be exhausted. I needed sleep. I set up a basic lean-to and lay down with the dogs. They seemed to be excited about me sleeping with them. I kept my weapons nearby and hoped that we would be left alone by the Zeds tonight. I was in the mood to relax. I did hope my wife would come and visit me and pay up. Instead, I fell asleep immediately before I could go inside and act on the thought. I was exhausted.
My Last Testament Page 6