We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  I looked over at my daughter and knew right away that she was alright but when I looked at my son, I knew right away that he was going to die. He was laying on the ground screaming in pain and holding his right arm. I hesitated! I could see blood spraying up from Jimmy’s arm. I had to give my son credit. He tried to use his little left hand to cover his wound and contain the bleeding. He was trying to get up and as a parent I wanted to reach down and help him up, but something in the back of my mind stopped me.

  My mind raced with questions on what I should do. Maybe it was because of all the zombie movies that I had seen. Somehow, I just knew that it was a matter of time before he turned. Did I risk running back inside the house to get a towel to help stop the bleeding? Could I use something like peroxide to clean the wound? Did I risk taking him to the hospital? Was he infected? What was I going to do?

  My indecisiveness faded quickly whenever the two zombies from earlier emerged from the garage doorway behind my kids. With only one thought in my mind, I reached down to gather up my two kids. With my adrenaline pumping, I picked up both kids with ease (they were at the age and size that I could barely pick one of them up at a time).

  With a kid in each arm, I sprinted towards the back of the SUV. Without thinking, I quickly tossed them into the middle seat.

  Without hesitation, I took off my shirt and tossed it to my wife, “Get in the back with them and shut the door. Try to clean and inspect their injuries.”

  I turned to face the new threat. My shirt was the only thing handy that I could possibly think of to possibly stop Jimmy’s arm from bleeding.

  As the first of the two zombies reached out his two arms towards me, I noticed that the zombie that I had just punched in the face was trying to get back up. That was when I saw what the zombie had tripped on, another zombie and she was missing her legs. That made a total of four zombies coming towards us!

  Without hesitation, I kicked the closest zombie on the inside of the right knee forcing it to snap sideways. Like anything else with momentum and without stability in his legs, he fell sideways. I noticed that he was still trying to reach out for me instead of trying to stop his fall. I guess that the other zombie’s reaction to his own self-preservation was a fluke.

  Without waiting to find out the end results, I reached out for the Ford Expedition’s front passenger door handle and stopped. I could hear my wife and kids going frantic behind me. I looked over to see my wife wide-eyed and pointing at something behind me.

  Fearing for my life, I quickly turned my head to see what they had been pointing at. The second zombie had managed to get within a few feet of me. Somehow, he had made his way over the three bodies that were moving around on the ground.

  With my adrenaline still pumping, I quickly pulled the door handle. I opened the door just wide enough to hide behind it and grabbed it by the edge. My plan was to use the door as a kind of battering ram.

  I waited until the zombie got a little closer and forced the door open as hard as I could. I slammed the door directly into the zombie’s chest with so much force that it caused him to stumble backwards. He tripped over the female zombie behind him and right into the zombie that I had punched in the face.

  I felt something touch my ankle, causing me to react by jumping into the passenger seat of the SUV. I quickly pulled the door shut behind me. I crawled as fast as I could over the center console into the driver’s seat. Let me tell you that it wasn’t easy for me, especially since I’m a little over six feet tall.

  After successfully working my way into the seat, I instinctively reached out to turn the car on. To my horror, I realized that the keys weren’t in the ignition. I didn’t know where they were. I started to freak out whenever the zombie that I had hit with the passenger door started to bang on the window. My mind raced as I tried to remember what I had done with the keys.

  I knew I used them to unlock the SUV, but after that it was a blur. The zombie started hitting the window harder and harder causing my kids to scream out in fear even louder than they had been. I believe that my kid’s screams caused the zombie to hit the window even harder.

  My wife was doing her best to doctor Jimmy up and calm the other kids down. You could tell by her tone that she was also trying her best to keep calm.

  She repeatedly told me in that certain tone of hers, “Anytime would be a great time to get us out of here!”

  Anyone who’s married or ever been married knows the tone I’m talking about. For those who don’t know, it’s almost sarcastic with a hint of seriousness behind it.

  In a calm manner, “I don’t remember where I put the keys.”

  With an angrily look in her eyes, she calmly asked, “Did you check your front right pocket?”

  I reached out and felt the shape of a keychain in my pocket. I leaned backwards so I could straighten my legs. That way I could work my right hand into my front pants pocket.

  Without glancing behind me, I asked her, “How did you know?”

  She annoyingly replied, “You always put your keys in that pocket!”

  Oh my God! Did I Really do that? How could I have forgotten that? I fiddled with my keychain searching for the right key. Luckily for us, it didn’t take too long.

  Once I found the correct key, I put it in the ignition switch and tried to turn it. Nothing happened! Why wouldn’t it start? It wouldn’t even properly turn. It was as if the ignition switch had locked itself somehow.

  I silently looked upward towards the Heavens and prayed to God, “Please start the car so we can escape to safety.”

  The only answer I received was more banging on the door window. I looked over and saw that two of the four zombies were now banging on the window with a third zombie with the messed-up knee trying to stand up in front of the car. It looked like we were going to be trapped with no way out.

  No! I refused to believe that as I shook my head defiantly. I looked in the rearview mirror behind me at my screaming children, with the look of fear in their eyes. I looked over at my worried wife as she tried to remain calm and in control in front of our children. I would gladly sacrifice my life to save my family.

  That’s it, that’s what I’ll do. I had made up my mind. I was going to sacrifice myself by fighting off the zombies, so my wife and children could run to safety.

  I started to turn towards my wife to tell her the new plan when I noticed something was off about the keychain. I reached out and pulled the key out of the ignition. I examined it and immediately knew that I had made a mistake.

  In my rush to start the car, I had accidentally grabbed the wrong key. I had grabbed my wife’s company car key which had been a similar make and model. Without saying anything to make myself look stupider then I already felt, I hurried up and grabbed the correct key. I put it in the ignition and turned it. The SUV fired right up.

  Surprised, my wife asked, “How did you get it started?”

  I kind of ignored her question as I shifted it into reverse, “Everyone hold on.”

  I pushed down hard on the gas. It’s hard to describe what happened in the moments that followed, but I’m sure that you could guess. All my kids were still screaming in fear and in Jimmy’s case fear and pain. My wife frantically tried to stop the bleeding on his arm while trying to stay upright as I dodged cars, people, and zombies.

  By the time we made it to the edge of our neighborhood and the nearest main street (which was only about two to three blocks from our house), my son’s health had already started to decline. The first thing that I noticed was that his screaming had stopped. I’m not sure how long it had been since he stopped screaming. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t notice it before.

  In the rearview mirror, I noticed that his skin had turned an unhealthy looking grayish white. His skin took on the decomposing color of someone who had recently died.

  My wife noticed that he was fighting to breath, “His breathing has become extremely shallow!”

  It was as if he had just suddenly become extremely asth
matic. His eyelids were almost closed with the occasional flutter or spasm. It was as if he was fighting with everything, he had just to keep them open.

  Expecting the worse (like I stated we had watched a lot of zombie movies), my wife put a seat-belt on him while she moved the other three to the third row of the SUV and buckled them in. My wife quickly checked over our daughter to make sure that she was okay. JoJo complained that her head was hurting from where her hair had been pulled, but she had no visible bite or scratch marks on her.

  By the time my wife made it back to check on Jimmy, his body had beads of sweat all over it. She slowly reached out and touched his forehead. I glance in the rearview mirror and looked into my wife’s worrisome eyes.

  She stated, “He’s burning up with a fever.”

  I knew that I couldn’t afford to pull the car over to check on him myself, so I had my wife describe everything that was happening to him. With all that was going on, I forced myself to just concentrate on driving back to the Warehouse. I somehow knew that the Warehouse was our best bet for surviving whatever was going on.

  I didn’t know exactly how long we would have cell phone usage and decided to check on as many of the Council members as I could. I called and talked to Ruff.

  Ruff, “I was able to get my wife and grandson out of danger but had lost his daughter.”

  My sister called, “Brother, pulling up to the Warehouse gate now.”

  She paused for a second before becoming kind of frantic. She was trying to talk calmly but ended up speaking hysterically. If it wasn’t for being such a crazy time, it could almost be described as gibberish. Anyways, let’s just say that she was hard to understand.

  It sounded like she said, “Oh my God. We’re surrounded by zombies!”

  But that was impossible. Wasn’t it? How could she already be surrounded by zombies?

  “Stay put and calm. We’re on our way.”

  Next, I called Brian. He answered the phone, but didn’t sound like his usual joyful self, “I’m alright, but I have something important I have to do first. Let the Council know that I’m going to be late getting back to the Warehouse.”

  He sounded distraught over the phone. I was about to ask him what was going on until I remembered the circumstance with Jimmy and decided not to push the subject.

  Instead, I told him, “Okay, but you need to hurry because my sister’s already there and that it sounded like there was some kind of problem.”

  I hadn’t even been off the phone for a minute with Brian whenever Cleo called, “Hey, I’ll be on my way as soon as I find my dad.”

  His voice took on a more serious tone, “I can’t find my fiancé.”

  I felt his pain, “I understand. Jimmy was bitten while trying to save his sister.”

  James called next, “I was able to get to his daughter and her newborn baby out safely but was unable to save his son or my daughter’s fiancé.”

  Baby? I knew his daughter was pregnant, but I didn’t realize that she had been that far along. My head was reeling with questions. I didn’t even know where to begin.

  I started to ask him a question, but he cut me off, “I’ll meet you at the Warehouse.”

  Still to this day I can't even remember the questions that I wanted to ask him.

  Soon after my cousin John called me excited, “My family’s safe. We’re on our way. We should be at there in thirty minutes.”

  I quickly did the calculations in my head and figured that thirty minutes away could easily mean a few hours away, especially on that day.

  I didn’t argue, “Okay. Just hurry.”

  Danny called, “I’m on my way. There was a problem. My wife’s dead! She got was bitten while trying to defend our children.”

  After hearing about his loss, I forced myself to remain calm and said, “I’m almost to the Warehouse. You need to hurry.”

  Arthur then called, “Jimmy! I’ve got some good and bad news. I was able to get my kids, but I lost my wife.”

  “Brother. I’m sorry for your loss, but you need to hurry back to the Warehouse. I think we have a situation there.”

  Ken then called, choked up, “I.......I lost everyone in his family!”

  My heart dropped as I tried to comfort him, but he stopped me.

  He responded with a coldness in his voice that I had never heard before, “I’m on my way back.”

  He didn’t say another word and hung up. I silently knew that he was hurting and let it go.

  I tried to call Kevin and Bruce but got no answer. Worried, I then tried to call some of the others to ask them if any of them had heard from Kevin or Bruce, but all I got were busy signals. I was immediately confused. It was as if the phone lines were all tied up at the same time. Before I could dwell on the matter any further, my children’s screams snapped me back to the horror of our current situation.

  By the time I got close to a mile from the Warehouse, little Jimmy had stopped breathing. Let me tell you my emotions were running wild and to be honest with you, I can’t really remember half of them. Especially, since they just kept changing.

  One emotion that I do remember feeling though, one that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings here, but it’s the type of feeling that only a parent who has ever experienced the loss of a child would understand. If you have never experienced that type of loss, then you have truly been one of the lucky ones.

  Let me try to describe that feeling for you just in case you haven’t figured it out yet. It’s the ultimate feeling of loss you could ever feel. It literally feels like a part of your heart has been ripped out of you and there is nothing that you could ever do about it. It feels like part of your soul is gone forever. I mean, come on. No parent should ever outlive their child!

  That was just one of the emotions that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Like I said before, my emotions were running wild that day. Another such emotion was denial. I couldn’t accept the fact that he was possibly dead. I remember that I kept telling myself that he couldn’t be dead, that he was probably just sleeping. With my mind in denial and preoccupied with keeping the rest of my family safe, I don’t think that I fully accepted his death until later. If, I ever did!

  I tried to keep from breaking down while I was driving by focusing on the task at hand. I kept telling myself that I would have time to mourn for him later. Since my wife was back there with him when he died, she understandably couldn’t control her emotions any longer as she broke down. Seeing her break down made it difficult for me not to lose my mind.

  I will say that we were lucky that she had strapped little Jimmy in his seat-belt. As she broke down, she had reached out and hugged him. With her head on his little shoulder, she began to cry uncontrollably. I knew that she too felt that a part of her heart had been ripped out of her.

  I had to give her credit because she didn’t even start crying right away. I’m not sure that if our roles had been reversed and I had been back there with Jimmy that I could have controlled myself. I think that seeing our oldest boy, who had never gotten a chance to experience life, was too much for her. Without warning, she finally lost it and began to start weeping uncontrollably. Her body shook as she cried out in pain. No, he didn’t just die. He was taken from us in the most violent way.

  She stayed in her hugging position for a few long minutes until she jumped backwards. I noticed her movement out of the corner of my eye, causing me to glance backwards out of concern. She looked over at me and our eyes met. She had a look on her face that contained both hope and caution.

  In a voice that went from nervousness to that of hope, “I....I felt his body twitch!”

  Without waiting for a response, she glanced back towards him as if she was expecting miracle. She got it, sort of. Jimmy slowly opened his glazed over eyes.

  His gaze appeared to be fixated with the back of my chair. She repeatedly called out his name, but he didn’t seem to notice her.

  She commented, “It’s we
ird. He looks like he’s concentrating on something. Like he’s trying to figure something out in his head.”

  She started calling out his name again and again but received no response. Without thinking, she leaned forward in front of him to break his line of sight. It was her way of forcing him to look at her.

  She did get a reaction from him, it just wasn’t the one she was expecting. With lightning fast reflexes, he quickly reached out and grabbed her around the neck. He turned his head slightly, so he could look into her eyes or, so she thought. He slowly pulled her toward him in what looked like an awkward attempt at a hug.

  Understandably my wife had her doubts as she tried to second guess herself on what she should do. At first, you could tell from her body language that she had tensed up, but that only lasted for a second or so. After that, she relaxed as she allowed herself to be pulled toward him. With tears in my eyes, I turned my attention back to driving.

  The next thing I heard was Nichole screaming at the top of her lungs. I quickly glanced into the rearview mirror just in time to see blood spraying from the side of her neck and towards the kids in the very back row of seats. I could see my wife fighting to pull herself from Jimmy’s locked grip as blood continued to spray all over the back of the SUV. The kid’s screams became even louder. I knew that I couldn’t afford to stop driving to help my wife.

  I kept glancing backwards, “Nichole, hold on until we can get to the Warehouse!”

  By that time, I had said that she had successfully pulled herself free from little Jimmy’s grasp. With fresh blood running down his chin, he began squirming in his seat-belt as he tried to frantically reach out for his momma once again. My guess was that he was attracted to the smell of fresh blood. My kids were now drenched in her blood as they screamed out for their momma.