by Jimmy Bird
That was our Council members in a nutshell. Please be honest. After all that I just told you, would you consider messing with us? I don’t think that many people would, especially in those early months that followed the outbreak. I take that statement back because a group of people did mess with us and they were led by two of our own.
I’m not entirely sure what happened to Kevin and Bruce, but when we had all left that day from work to go collect our families, they were the only ones who didn't return. When they finally did return, they seemed cold. Okay, I’ll be honest with you, they were acting like stone cold killers.
Let me stop right there and before I go any further, I promised you a tale, a tale that I’m going to deliver. Let me see. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was talking about how close our Council members were.
For over two years, we spent the first weekend of every month together as we trained ourselves and our families in the different type of skills that we thought that we would need for the “End of Times.” An example of that training was that we would all go to the gun range and would practice shooting different types of guns that would vary from 9mm hand guns to semi-automatic machine guns. Every six months we would take a break and go camping for a week out in no man’s land, just to make sure that we could survive in the wilderness if we had to. We also learned how to use bow and arrows and the silent but deadly crossbows. From Brian, we learned how to track and hunt. Impressed yet? No? Well, you should be. Oh, and by the way, I’m not going to even mention some of our other skills we learned. Just in case we need to use those skills against someone like you. Sorry, but it's nothing personal.
Going back to what I was just talking about, we became closer as a tight knit group, closer as a family and some of the people around work noticed. You could even say that some people were starting to become envious or suspicious of us, but we didn’t care. We were making sure that we were going to survive the coming apocalypse, no matter what. Again, before you ask, we were positively sure that it was coming. We just didn’t know when or what the “End of Times” would bring. One thing that we knew for sure was that it was just a matter of time.
Not only were our immediate families being prepared, but I had been secretly training my sister (Christina Bird), her three kids (Shane Jr., Seth, and Shaelynn Aaron), my mom (Nancy Bozarth), my sister’s fiancé (Bobby Reed), and my adopted brother (Jesse Bozarth). Again, I want to illustrate that we prepared for two long years and spent the first weekend of every month together to make sure that we were prepared to survive. What we didn’t take into consideration were the actions of other people. The people we came across either wanted to join us or take what we had. It just goes to show that you can’t trust people. Wow, without even thinking about it, I’m getting ahead of myself again. I promise that I’ll explain it all in due time.
Chapter 2 Day 1, “Z” Day
It started off as any other hot day in early summer. The sun was out, and the heat was quickly rising. I was at work in the middle of a twelve-hour shift when I received an urgent text from my wife.
She stated, “The news is reporting that some people on the East Coast were attacking and biting each other.”
I jokingly responded, “What? Like a zombie?”
She responded, “Yes! You need to go look at the news to see for yourself.”
I looked up from my cell phone to my left towards James. He worked next to me, he was literally within arms reach of me. Our desks were separated by no more than an inch.
Wide eyed, I informed him, “My wife just texted me that zombies were attacking the East Coast.”
He looked over at me with a stunned look in his eyes, “Yeah, my oldest son just text him the same thing.”
Without saying a word, we shared one of those looks. You know the type that said we were both thinking the same thing. The look that said that maybe this was it, the beginning of the apocalypse that we had been preparing for.
Before we knew it, word of what had been happening on the East Coast had already spread throughout the Warehouse. On our next break, we meet with the other Council members to discuss our next move. After a few minutes of discussion, it was decided that we would wait to see how the conflict played out. We knew that there was no use getting over excited about it just yet. Especially, since we really didn’t know what was truly happening yet. Besides, it was reported that the military had already been called in to deal with the matter.
By the time I got home from work, the news had reported that the military had everything under control. It seemed that the Council had made the correct call on its decision to wait and see. I’m going to admit something to you, something that I’m not very proud of. I kind of secretly wanted the Zombie Apocalypse to happen. No, it’s not like that. I want it known that I didn’t crave for all the deaths or for the fall of our society. I was just curious to see if all our hard work and training was going to pay off.
The more I thought about the situation on the East Coast, the more I didn’t like the idea of what was happening. I began to have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach about the whole damn thing.
I watched nervously as my family sat down at our dinner table to eat. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was happening on the East Coast wasn’t over just yet. I knew that if I showed my concern then it could affect the rest of my family. I put on my happy face as I sat down with my beautiful wife and four young children for dinner.
My wife Nichole is a 5’1” brunette and my children in order from oldest to youngest. Jimmy Jr was 6, Josephene (JoJo for short) was 5, and my paternal twins Cole and Corbin were 3 (Cole was eight minutes older then Corbin). Just like every evening, we would sit down to eat dinner and talk about the day’s events, whether it was school or work. After dinner, we did our normal routine and sat down to watch a movie.
The next morning when I got up, I didn’t even think to check the news for any updates. I did my usual morning routine. I got up, got dressed, and immediately went to work.
Once at work, the only topic anyone seemed to talk about was the conflict and how it had somehow re-kindled up in the middle of the night. All I kept thinking was "What did I miss by not watching the news that morning?" Even though it was concerning, we continued to go about our normal business day until the upper management (plant manager, head supervisors, HR department, and the head of our safety department) called an emergency meeting in the employee cafeteria right before lunch. The lunch room was also our meeting room.
The lunch room itself had been remodeled close to five years before the office area had. To accommodate the ever-growing number of employees, the company wanted to make it not only bigger, but they wanted to upgrad everything as well. They wanted to put in a full functional working hot bar but couldn’t because it would have taken way too much money just to bring it up to code to pass inspection. Not only that, but it would have taken space away from the cafeteria size and that was something they did not want to do. Hell, they had to take space from another assembly area just to add more square footage. As for the remodel itself, they went with 2 double wide deep refrigerators and added an oven plus a dozen commercial grade microwaves. A soda pop fountain was installed but could only be turned on and off by a maintenance key. That’s not even including the different types of vending machines that were brought in. I want to mention that it also had two wall mounted flat-screens with cable television, so people could watch TV during their breaks.
The manager knew that everyone’s minds were preoccupied with everything that was going on and not on work. To put everyone’s mind at ease, he wanted us to know the latest news report.
He informed us, “There’s really nothing to worry about. The news has reported that the military is in the process of getting everything back under control.”
I had to give him credit, it sounded like he was trying to pass on the information just as soon as he heard it. While in the meeting, several cell phones began going off at once. They were
giving the alert notification that’s programmed in every cell phone, including mine. Before long, everyone’s phones began chiming the alarm. The alert read, “Caution. The conflict had crossed the Mississippi River and is heading west.”
A panic began to echo throughout the room. The manager quickly tried to calm everyone down, “Calm down. Remember, the military is in the process of getting things under control.”
He continued to push for everyone to remain calm. That was until one of the female HR personnel came out of nowhere and quickly walked up to him. She had a concerned look on her face. He stopped talking and bent down so she could whisper something into his ear.
His eyes got wide as he stood up straight and motioned for the other members of management to come towards him. We watched in silenced as they huddled around the plant manager. After a few minutes, they spread back out against the wall.
After a few long seconds, the plant manager spoke, “There’s a change of plans. I want to re-illustrate to not panic, but the Corporate Office in Houston decided that they were going to send us home as a precautionary measure due to the “conflict” headed our way. They’ve decided to close the plant until further notice.”
We all sat there dumbfounded. What did that mean?
Before anyone could ask a question, he spoke up again, “It’s also been decided that we’re going to send you home early. We’ll still pay you for the whole day, but we’ll let you know when we’ll re-open.”
I seemed to have zoned out at the mention of the word “conflict.” Weren’t we just told that it was supposed to have been under control? Who were they kidding? I wasn’t sure what the management had just heard, but it couldn’t have been good.
Without warning, both televisions came on. I guess someone had decided to turn on the TVs to see what exactly was going on. We all watched in stunned silence as it looked like they were both set on the same local news channel. The camera angle looked like it was from a news helicopter.
It was a good thing that the TVs were turned on because the “conflict” seemed to have escalated into an all-out war, with only one side using weapons. From what I could tell, it looked like the weapons weren’t really having any effect anyways. Scratch that, it did look like they had some kind of effect, but not the kind it should have been.
We could see open flesh wounds and blood mist squirting out in all directions. We could even make out what looked like knives sticking out of some of the weaponless bodies, but they just kept marching forward. It did look as if the weaponless people were grabbing and biting those people with weapons.
The news anchors tried to reassure their audience that there was nothing to worry about because the military were working on getting things back under control. As if on cue, a few members of the military started shooting wildly into the crowd that was slowly moving towards them. The news tried convincing us that what we were seeing was the military finally getting the upper hand against the rioters. Rioters? Is that what they were blaming this on?
We could see a few of the weaponless people at the front of the crowd go down from being shot, but most just kept stumbling towards the shooters. It didn’t look like there was any panic or emotion coming from the weaponless people.
I turned towards the guy sitting next to me and commented, “Is it me or does it look like the weaponless army’s numbers were getting bigger?”
The timing couldn’t have been any better as the helicopter’s camera zoomed out. The sheer number of the weaponless was mesmerizing and did appear to be growing in number. I tried to soak up all the details of the news report that I could.
First, I notice that there was no organization or leadership for the weaponless. It appeared that they just continued to walk towards anything that opposed them and appeared to attack with their mouths, sometimes more than one person attacked. The next thing I noticed was that most appeared to walk with limps, it was as if they were learning to walk for the first time. To make matters worse, the ones doing the biting was acting like they were eating at a smorgasbord as they dropped to their knees and just tore into the person. I couldn’t believe that the news was showing all that detail because it was nasty. I was mesmerized and couldn’t look away.
Wait! What was that? Did I just see that? Was that my imagination or did I just see something off? When I turned my attention to that area on the TV, I didn’t really see anything out of the ordinary. Have you ever experienced something like that? It’s as if you think you see something out of the corner of your eye and immediately turn your attention in that direction to verify that you saw something. I had been so focused on all the action that I thought I saw something different. I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t it all different?
After a few seconds of watching the area on the television, I didn’t notice anything of great importance. Maybe it had been my imagination and my eyes began to wonder back to where the main action was.
No, wait! There it was again. This time I was sure I saw something. My eyes darted back to that location on the television. Apparently, the cameraman saw it too because the camera turned slightly away from all the main action to focus on the area I had just been watching. You could hear the news anchors getting irritated at the guy controlling the helicopter’s camera. They wanted him to turn back to the main action, but the camera never moved. That was when we all saw it.
One of the motionless “dead” bodies started to move. From the camera angle it looked like one of the soldiers that had fallen while fighting the weaponless. The camera was at his back as the soldier slowly stood up on unsteady feet. As the helicopter slowly rotated, we could see that his right arm had a nice chunk of meat missing from the elbow to his wrist. As the helicopter slowly made its way to the front of the soldier, we could see what looked like his guts and intestines hanging out through his ripped shirt. The camera zoomed in a little closer to the soldier’s upper body. That was when it got crazy. Half of the left side of his face was missing. You could easily see his bloody exposed teeth.
The soldier just stood there as the camera zoomed out. His eyes had a glazed over look. It looked like he had zoned out by staring at something in the distance or was in trance as he stood there motionless. He looked like a wax statue, only he had fresh blood all over. The camera must have stayed focus on the motionless soldier for ten minutes or so. Then suddenly, it was like someone flicked their imaginary fingers in front of him. He slowly turned his head towards the action.
Just then more and more of the downed soldiers began to move their limbs. They slowly began to stand, but the camera continued to follow the first soldier as he staggered with a noticeable limp toward the action. His face looked distorted, but it didn’t look like it was from the pain. He kept opening and shutting his mouth, it was as if he was checking to see if it still worked. You could see a trail of blood behind him. I noticed that he was no longer carrying his weapon.
To my surprise, he limped past all the weaponless fighters with his arms outstretched. He reached for a couple of soldiers’ that were using their guns. One of the soldiers immediately turned and fired in the damaged soldier’s direction. You could see the scared look on the soldier’s face as the bullets were having no effect on damaged soldier. Blood sprayed out from where the bullets were hitting the damaged soldier’s body as he continued to limp forward. The only noticeable difference was that every time the soldier was hit with bullets he staggered slightly to the side, but that was about it. He continued his march forward.
We watch in amazement as the damaged soldier took like fifty rounds in the chest and was still standing. Correction, still moving forward. You could see the horror on the soldier’s face as he kept firing his gun with no effect.
When the damaged soldier was within arm’s reach, he grabbed the soldier that had been firing at his left side. You could see the soldier automatically try to pull his arm back, but it looked like it was a lost cause. It was like the damaged soldier had a vice like grip on the other soldier’s arm. To our su
rprise the damaged soldier’s head leaned down toward the arm he had a hold of. From the angle of the camera, it looked like his mouth was opening as he leaned forward.