Outbreak: The Zombie Chronicles

by Mark Clodi;Mike Keleman

  "Okay, Cory, calm down, I have an idea, alright? I know where we can get you new shoes okay? I could use another pair myself, maybe tennis shoes for both of us alright? You seriously won't get in trouble for going into the stores barefoot anymore either, the laws have changed honey and no one is going to care what people have on anymore. We'll stop right up here and get us both some new shoes."

  As she sped past the Ward Road exit she was relived to see that the road looked clear up to the Kipling exit, a few minutes later she was exiting on Kipling and turning left under the highway to go north. Three blocks beyond that she pulled up into a shopping center along the side of the road, there was one super Target store and several smaller strip mall outlets. Amelia eventually stopped outside a "Two For Twenty" shoe store, which might not have the best brands available, but would definitely have shoes for both her and Cory. She could see into the front of the Target store from where she was at and it looked ominous. She was not sure, was that something moving she spied from within the big box store? The "Two for Twenty"'s front door had been forced open, leaving a large swath of glass around the front entrance. Amelia spied a rack full of flip-flops not too far in from the front door, discounted to a mere three for ten dollars, excellent Amelia always liked sales. The lights were on in the place making it a beacon in the surrounding darkness and the place looked empty.

  "Look kiddo we gotta make this quick okay, we get in, we grab some shoes our size and we get out. First thing we do is get to that round rack of flip-flops and you put a pair on, I will carry you over the broken glass by the front door. Got it? Cory. Cory listen, if we see any zombies, any zombies at all, you run back to the car and yell loud enough for me to hear you okay? You got it?"

  "Okay Amelia, I am not a baby! We go get flip-flops first."

  "Okay good and you yell if any zombies come close. Okay do you know what size shoe you wear?"

  "Uh, six?"

  "You don't know huh? No big deal buddy, it is more of a mom thing anyway, I think. We will just try on a couple pair until we get the ones we need. Ready?"

  Cory nodded 'yes' and Amelia stepped outside of the car and waited until he scrambled up into her arms, she hefted him with her left arm and reached in and pulled out her trusty fire-poker, which had served her so well in the hotel. Fully prepared she cast a quick look around and seeing no zombies she trotted into the "Two for Twenty" after scrambling over the broken glass she set Cory down and they both approached the flip-flop rack. Amelia pulled the tags off of a few that looked to be Cory's size and waited while he tried them on, a size three, not that flip-flops were any good judge of size, they still gave her a ball-park to work within. She hustled him down the 'boys' aisle and when they got there she raised her hands in front of her face in a 'shhh'ing motion, they waited and listed. Hearing nothing Amelia whispered, "What kind do you want? Tennis shoes okay? Or hiking shoes, or both."

  Cory pointed out several styles and Amelia threw the boxes onto the floor, three seemed to be spot on for size inside of two minutes they had three pair of shoes picked out for him, a pair of 'swim shoes', tennis shoes and a pair of ankle-high hiking boots. Amelia made Cory put on the tennis shoes and carry the other shoes, insisting he take the flip-flops too. Then they moved over to woman's footwear and Amelia chose a pair style of tennis shoes she wanted, then grabbed her size, a half size smaller and a half size bigger then made for the front door. Along the way they stopped to grab two bags of boys socks and Amelia picked out half a dozen pair of ladies socks as well, she was a bit low on clothing. Amelia always thought it was hilarious that boys bought socks by the bag and girls by the pair. They moved quickly out the front door and Amelia pulled up short seeing two zombies on the passenger's side, across the car from where she and Cory now stood.

  "Cory!" she whispered, "Get low and crawl into the car!" Surprisingly he quickly dropped immediately to his hands and knees favoring his uninjured arm made his way to the vehicle. While he did this Amelia made as if to run around the front of the car, leading the zombies to that side, then feinted and ran towards the back of the car, the zombies, not quite to the front edge of the bumper started moving around to the back end instead to cut Amelia off. Amelia then took six big steps forward and into the car, barely missing Cory's leg as he pulled himself all the way into the passenger's seat. She slammed her door shut, put the keys in the ignition and drove away, catching one zombie on the rear bumper, however even that was not hard enough to made it lose it's balance or fall over. 'That was close!' She thought looking in the rear view mirror.

  "Amelia!" shouted Cory, peering out the front windshield.

  Whipping her head around she spotted a mob of zombies coming out of the Target store, some were very fast, others carried bats and sticks, a few even had lamps or other household furnishing to use as impromptu weapons. Amelia swerved the car down a parking lot lane and put the mob of unruly zombies behind her. Turning north back onto Kipling she made her way past the K-mart, the lot there was filled with roving undead, they looked up at the car as it passed, two blocks away, but none of them headed towards her. Amelia kept going into greater suburbia until she reached the cross street that she knew would take her to Max's house. He lived in an established neighborhood, the trees were all fully grown, it looked like a nice place to raise a family. A few more turns and one mistaken drive around the block brought her outside of the house numbers that were printed on the sheet of paper she had taken from the MAC Corporation lobby the day before.

  "This is it buddy, we are here."

  "This is it? I don't see anybody?"

  "Uh, they are probably hiding, we need to go up and tell them we are here."

  "Amelia, the door is open. I don't think anyone is here."

  Sure enough, Amelia examined the house closer and noticed the front door was ajar. This was not good. Max was supposed to BE here, with his wife and kids and they were going to save Amelia and Cory and Diane!

  "Amelia? What's wrong? Why are you crying?" asked Cory.

  Amelia looked at him and smiled through her tears, "Dude, we got those shoes and you are barefoot again?"

  He looked at her a moment and then started scrambling around for his shoes, "Yeah, my mom, she said not to wear sneakers without socks, I took them off to put on my socks and then you started crying and, I am sorry Amelia, I'll put them back on if you will stop crying."

  "No-no Cory I am not crying about your shoes kiddo, it is, this!" she waved at the house, "Max and his family are supposed to be here, it is not supposed to be like this, empty and dead. They were supposed to be here!"

  "Well are you sure they are not here? Maybe they are hiding? We have to go look. Lets go!" with that Cory popped open the passenger's side door and started walking up to the front door, still barefoot Amelia noticed. She called out softly, "Wait for me buddy! I am right behind you!" then grabbed the fire poker and went into Max's house.

  Chapter 43

  Sarah was frantic. It had been more than twenty four hours and she had not heard from Max. The worst part had not been hiding in the attic all day and night nor was it the discomfort of having to stay up in the rafters amongst all the insulation and Christmas decorations, no the worst was simply not knowing what was going on. All day she and the kids had to listen as 'things' happened in the neighborhood around them, could they have helped? If the druggies or terrorists had been stoppable wouldn't the police have been able to bring them to justice by now? Finally on one of her frequent bathroom breaks down the ladder, Sarah had ventured into the garage and gotten a few supplies to make their lives more livable, both on the practical side and on the mental comfort side of things. First she gathered up six of the long boards Max was going to use to make the bookshelves in the basement 'someday', these would spread across the rafters and give them an easier place to perch up in the attic. Secondly she grabbed an extension cord Max used to plug in his tools in the garage, it was a heavy duty model that plugged into one outlet, but had three plug ins for his tools on the o
ther end. Finally she also grabbed his wind up combination light/radio that she and the kids had just given him on the last father's day. In the house she told her daughter to grab a bag and throw in the bread, peanut butter and the six pack of juice. She had her son take up a stack of paper plates and a knife for the peanut butter, as she hustled the kids up into the attic again she pondered getting the gun in the wall safe.

  'No.' Sarah told herself, 'That is not the answer. Besides Max has the only available key.'

  She did, however grab two more bats from Max's collection, she just grabbed the loose ones, what he would call the 'better than average' signed bats, not one of those off of his wall of fame.

  Heading back into the attic she made the kids a modest lunch and then set about arranging the environment to be more usable. She set five of the six shelves up across some of the unoccupied rafters, thankfully Max had put up several boards to hold their holiday decorations and as this was an emergency, she just dumped them in the insulation, making more room for the three of them. With the kids on the new platform she had created she turned back to the other miscellaneous junk stored in their attic. She picked out the fan and one of the old lamps and plugged them into the extension cord before turning to plug the extension cord into the outlet Max had an electrician put in when they re-designed their kitchen two years ago. It had caused an argument at the time, why put an outlet in the attic? However Max had won that one, saying it could be used to run electricity to the outside Christmas lights and if they ever needed a plug in up here for a fan or AC unit they would have one. Sarah was glad now that she had lost that fight, as the much more modest fan than Max had imagined came to life circulating the stale air around them.

  That done she warned the kids to play quietly and started cranking the radio unit the required fifty five times to get the advertised forty five minutes of power. Turning it on she started the slow hunt for news. The radio was not digital, it had no search function and she kept the volume low to keep the kids from hearing any of the bad news that she might catch. It ended up being a search of futility; she found several stations still playing music, with commercials and no disc jockeys, obviously canned stations still running on automatic. Sitting the radio down Sarah crept along the rafters to the front vent that was cut into the outer wall below the roof line, when she looked down she would see a section of her driveway and with a little straining she could make out part of the street too.

  Sarah looked at the vent closely and decided that being able to see out was pretty damn important, so she grabbed one of the wooden vent pieces and started twisting it upwards to make a straight slot instead of a downward pointing vent. That done she could at least have a limited view of the houses and street around her house, better still she could bend the piece back pretty easily too, the nails seemed to yield in the old wood pretty easily. 'Probably dry rot.', she mused, 'I will have to get Max to look into that when this current emergency is over.'

  As Sarah looked out the slot she had made into the street she watched 'One of them' walking or stumbling rather, across the street. This was not working out, she could not stay up in the attic all day and all night, for how long? Days? She called Max. Nothing.

  Part of her died each time she tried to contact him and he did not answer. This time around she was hit with guilt, where was he? Dead? Dying? Obviously this was a major catastrophe, not some run of the mill suicide bombing that had become all too common recently. Oh God! Here she was crying about staying hidden in the attic while her Max was out dying on a street corner somewhere! She shut the cell phone down to save power and went back to the radio. Eventually she found a station that called the terrorists 'Zombies' not, terrorists. It said she had to bash their heads in, just to be sure and that the 'zombies' were pretty much immune to most other damage. As she listened people called in and added their reports to the dj's growing list of 'how to deal with this threat'. Supposedly he, the dj, was the last survivor at his radio station and he seemed to feel it was only a matter of time until he succumbed to the 'horde'. Sarah found the station in poor taste and while she could not bring herself to believe what the man was saying, she did not find any alternative stations to listen to either. Eventually the radio wound down and she chose not to listen anymore.

  Near sundown Sarah hustled the kids downstairs again to use the bathroom and get ready for bed. She scanned the street again carefully and only let the kids use the upstairs bathroom while she stood watch over the hallway and stairs with her trusty baseball bat. No problems. They even ate in the master bedroom instead of in the attic. While they ate Sarah tried the cable channels. This was an eye opener, most channels were off the air and Sarah could not help but think of the old adage, 'Three hundred channels and nothing is on', that stopped when she hit the news channels. Nothing could have prepared her for what she was seeing. New York, Beijing, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Houston, Denver, LA, Seattle, Tokyo, the list of cities scrolled on and on, every place that was anyplace looked to have been hit. Live footage was rampant on some of the channels and what she saw disgusted her. Sarah sent the kids back into the attic at sundown, with instructions to go to sleep if they could. She pulled the heavy drapes tightly closed, kept the bedroom door open and watched until she could stand it no more. Everything was lost, everything. This was the end of civilization; nothing would ever be the same again. People had come to life as flesh eating zombies.

  No thoughts of Max entered her mind as she helplessly wondered, "What can I do? What can I do?"

  Chapter 44

  Max was ready to try the light rail tracks. Anything to get home to his wife and kids. Juan and Hank were going to take the doctor and nurse up to the warehouse store where their own family and friends were holed up and form some sort of an enclave to protect themselves. At first they were insistent that Max go with them, but eventually they understood that he had to go find out about his family. As for the warrior kids, they too, had their own way to go and nothing any of the adults could say would deter them. From Max's point of view they kids wanted to do the same thing he did; check on their families, save them if they could. Stewart let Michael keep the revolver Max had taken off the man from the apartment, Tom handed his pistol over to another one of the kids as well. With two guns and their hand to hand weapons the kids at least stood a chance, plus they had experience going for them, they knew what to expect. Max and his group would be leaving first, today in fact to try and make it to Max's house by the evening, the rest, well it was obvious to everyone that the wounded boy, Jacob, was going to die. Nothing the doctor did for him worked. The rest of the group was simply waiting on death to collect yet another soul before they moved on.

  Once Stewart had the car loaded and ready to go, with another spare taken from a compatible car, the two groups looked at each other and said their goodbyes.

  "Hank, Juan, we will try to make our way to your warehouse once we get my wife, we know where you are holed up at." Hank, nodded.

  Juan, answered with his characteristic 'Si', his face full of worry he added, "Vaya con dios." And made a sort of cross in the air over Max.

  Turning to Michael and Whitney, Max said, "You guys stay safe, there is not much I can say to you, just stay safe and keep the kids safe. I know you will so this is useless advice." Max shrugged, "Pointless huh? I wish we could all stay together, we can't though; everything needs to be done right now, so we can salvage what we can." Looking at everyone they were leaving behind Max wondered if he would see any of them again. He had a strong urge to give up going after his family and just join with the group, guilt at that thought forced him to smile and get in the car. As he waved goodbye to the others he thought of something he had heard not too long ago, 'Duty compels'. All the people involved seemed to have a duty of some sort to attend to and they were all doing it until it was proven to each of them that their obligations no longer existed.

  Tom, Stewart and even Steve were going to go with Max, they vowed to see this through to the end, and to the end th
ey would see it.

  "You know," Max began as Stewart drove to the closest light rail station, "I feel like I am making a bad decision here, maybe we should stay?"

  Steve laughed, "Not hardly. You know how pissed off Sarah would be if you did not come to get her? I have had to listen to you vent about her spats of anger the last three years, something like this, well Max, it could destroy a marriage." Tom and Stewart, simply added their "no's" to staying, agreeing that they had to see it through, with Stewart adding, "We can always come back, if this works out it won't be that hard to get back here. Besides I think we might need Hank's help to get those plows at some point anyway. I am more worried about Michael and Whitney."

  Max turned his face to the window and said softly, "Yeah, me too."

  The light rail was a good idea, the group made more progress in an hour than they had the previous day. They came across a problem only a half hour into their trip there were numerous bridges over streams, roads and bike paths, which the car could naviagte, but over the Platte river there was a problem. The bridge was fine, however a light rail car sat upon it, and there were people in the car. It looked like they were human, they had one door forced open and were using it to go in and out as Max watched. They carefully edged along the tracks, thirty feet above the river below and approached the police car. One man approached while three others looked around for zombies and covered him, all the men had rifles. As the man got near the car he called out, "What do you think you are doing?"

  Stewart, who had rolled her window down, called back, "We are trying to get through to the station in Arvada."

  "Power's off, the cars don't move anymore, we pushed this one up here after disabling the brakes. The zombies have a hard time getting to us, we can see the better ones and pick them off, the slower ones tend to fall into the river."

  "Yeah, good thinking, the heat has to be killing you though. We'll go around, take a side street back over to get rail line." said Stewart.