We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  I asked, “Jesse? Can I see your arm?”

  With a dazed look in his eyes, he shook his head to indicate ‘No’. Thinking back on it, I think that he was most likely in shock. Probably from the events that had just had happened or from the pain, maybe even a combination of both.

  He was hesitant, but with our mom’s soothing words, he reluctantly extended his shaking right arm. He grimaced in pain as I noticed that his forearm had little gashes in it that formed a teeth pattern. I closed my eyes and lowered my head as I realized that I had been too late to save him.

  I looked up at the worried eyes of the others as I automatically began to rerun the scene over in my head. I wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but I did know that the zombie had either bit down as my bat came racing down towards its head or the momentum from the bat caused it to bite down. I realized that it didn’t matter because Jesse still got bit and it was entirely my fault.

  My mom got over her initial shock and ran over toward my younger brother. She leaned down to examine his arm.

  After a quick inspection, she asked, “Does this place have a clinic?”

  I replied, “It does, but the rest of the building needs to be cleared first.”

  I didn’t have time to act on the matter because the Warehouse door opened. Since I hadn’t heard any gun fire, I expected the worse. My first thought was that I was going to have to make a last stand while everyone else ran for safety. I stood up and got my bat ready.

  Let’s just say that I was more than surprised on who walked in. It seemed that while I had been inside dealing with the three zombies, most of the Council members had arrived and had quickly eliminated the outside threat. To top it all off, they had managed to safely shut down the motion detectors and close the gate. Arthur, Ken, James, and Ruff decided to remain outside to make sure that all of the zombies inside the gate were truly dead.

  I asked Danny and John, “Can you guys search the building for any other zombies while I take Jesse to the clinic?”

  My mom used one of our clean shop rags to try and stop the bleeding that had somehow started to gush from his open wound. I reached down and helped Jesse to his feet. He took a couple of steps before he got light headed and started to fall. I reached over and grabbed his left arm to help him keep his balance. After looking him over once again, we all realized that he had quickly become pale.

  I immediately knew what was happening to him. After what happened to my wife and son, I knew that we were on a time limit and picked Jesse up in my arms. I carried him as fast as I could towards the clinic while the blood continued to flow from his open wound. The clinic was in the central part of the Warehouse and just so happens to be across a forklift traffic roadway next to the break room. The forklift roadway was a road designated for just forklift traffic only to keep people from walking on it before the apocalypse. It was an OSHA safety thing. Safety? Seems so trivial now doesn’t it?

  Luckily, the door to the clinic was unlocked. It used the same type of magnetic keycard as the outside gate, but unfortunately, I had left mine in the SUV. I blamed it on the mass hysteria and zombies.

  Once inside the clinic, I laid Jesse down on the bed while my mom and Mia’s nursing instincts kicked in. Their motions became a blur as they frantically searched for medical supplies such as peroxide and gauze. They were looking for anything that would help clean the wound once they finally got the bleeding to stop. The problem was that they were unsuccessful in stopping the bleeding. His blood had somehow thinned out so much that they couldn’t cauterize the wound. It seemed that no matter what they tried to do, they just couldn’t stop the blood from flowing. At that exact moment, my mom realized that she couldn’t save him.

  The gravity of the situation hit my mom like a brick as she sat down next to her dying son. Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks as she looked over his ever-paling face. She brushed the hair out of his face and tried to talk to him in a calm voice but failed. She couldn’t control her emotions as she lowered her head to his shoulder and finally broke down. Jesse in the meantime had turned a ghostly pale color as he fell into a coma type of state. His breathing had become ghastly shallow.

  Mia became very emotional at the sight of Jesse and walked out. She was pulling her cell phone out of her pocket as she went through the doorway. I wasn’t trying to be nosy, but from what I heard, it sounded like she was repeatedly trying to call her recently married husband, Logan. She wasn’t able to get through because the line was down. She stopped just outside the doorway and put her phone back in her pocket. With tears running down her cheeks, she rushed toward the bathroom.

  I had stayed in the corner of the clinic as I watched helplessly while my mom and Mia tried to save Jesse. Guilt ate at my insides knowing that it was my fault that my mom had lost one of her children. It had hit me so bad that I couldn’t stand there silent anymore.

  I walked over to my brother and knelt next to my mom. I looked at Jesse’s pale face as I fought back my own tears. I leaned forward to whisper in his ear, but my words got caught in my throat. I fought hard to calm myself down. I couldn’t get the words out, so I silently apologized for everything that had happened to him. I stood up and leaned over him. I bent down and kissed his sweat drenched forehead.

  I forced myself to speak, “Jesse. Please forgive me.”

  He didn’t respond, but my attempt to apologize didn’t go unnoticed by my mom. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

  She tried to correct me by saying, “What happened to Jesse wasn’t your fault.”

  But I knew better. I tried to force a smile but failed miserably.

  I started by saying, “Coming to the Warehouse was my idea.”

  Before I could finish, she cut me off. She smiled sadly up at me, “Stop that right. We would all be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

  I reached down and hugged her. I choked up as I whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry.”

  I knew that I had to do something to keep my mind off everything that had just happened with my wife, my son, and now my brother. I turned and left the clinic. Once outside, I turned towards the break room. Before I could take two steps, I noticed that my nephew Seth was all by himself leaning against the wall to my left. It looked like he was trying to keep himself from crying.

  I walked up to him, “Seth? You alright?”

  He looked up at me as if I had interrupted a deep thought. Shock, he glanced at me as if he just noticed me standing there for the first time. He answered by nodding his head up and down, signaling that everything was okay. I reached out to give him a hug and was welcomed with a hug of my own. He gripped my shoulders tight as we hugged.

  After a few long seconds, we let go of each other and he turned his head away. I could see the tears that he had been trying so hard to control.

  “You know, it’s okay to cry.”

  Before I knew it, I was fighting back tears of my own, “Every man cries every now and then. Especially with as much loss as we had just experienced.

  He finally let down his guard, “It’s not just that. It’s a combination of many things.”

  He stopped talking as he choked up. I stood there silently as I waited for him to continue. I think that he finally caught on that I wasn’t going to interrupt him and continued. He took a deep breath to gather his thoughts and a grip on his emotions before he began. I patiently watched as he looked down at his feet before he looked back up at me.

  He told me, “I know that I’m supposed to be strong for everyone, but I miss my dad and the rest of my family.”

  His eyes started to tear up as he choked on his words. He looked down once again as he tried to control his emotions. I continued to stand there silently and waited for him to continue. After a few long seconds, he blurted out what was truly on his mind.

  Seth stated, “I was able to reach my dad on my cell phone when we pulled up to the gate, but we got disconnected before I could tell my dad where we were. I’m worried about my dad. I heard a horrifying scream
in the background just before we were cut off. I tried calling my dad back, but no luck.”

  Seth became silent once again as he searched for his next words.

  Without looking st me, he stated, “I know that my dad’s not dead. I know it. I can feel it in my heart. I mean, my dad’s the toughest person I know, but after seeing what’s happening to Jesse, I’m kinda having doubts.”

  I didn’t say a word as I reached out toward him again. I hugged him even tighter then the first time.

  I tried to make myself sound reassuring as I whispered in his ear, “I’m sure that your dad’s still alive. Your dad’s tough and won’t stop until he finds you and Shaelynn.”

  Seth seemed to accept what I had told him and pulled away from me. With a new resolve, he wiped his tears away with the back of his hand.

  He asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  I thought about it for a second, “Can you watch over Jesse? I don’t think that he has long to live and you need to make sure that he doesn’t return as a zombie. Nana Jean (my mom) is still with him. It’s one of the most important jobs that we have because if he turned, then it could mean the end of us all.”

  He accepted his new job but was uncomfortable with it. I knew how he felt. Could he kill his Uncle Jesse, or the thing Jesse would become? I’m not sure that I could.

  After talking with Seth, I knew that my own resolve to continue surviving had been restored. I had a job to do. With the parking lot secure, I could finally find out who the zombies found inside the Warehouse were. Two of the zombies looked like neighborhood teenagers, but the other one looked like a familiar office management employee. Unfortunately, I didn’t know his name. I didn’t take the time to get to know everyone who worked in the office area.

  I speculated that the employee was in the middle of locking up the Warehouse whenever the two teenagers arrived at the gate seeking help. I think that they were being chased by a mob of zombies and ran toward the safety of the Warehouse. It could be that they had seen the employee leaving the building and climbed the gate for safety. I believe that seeing the zombies at the gate behind the two teenagers had prompted the employee to allow them inside. I then assumed that one of the teenagers had already been bitten but didn’t turn until they were inside. That would explain why the zombie herd was gathered at the gate when my sister arrived. It would also explain why the three zombies were already inside the Warehouse with the door unlocked.

  It was a good theory, and no one could find any fault with my logic. We decided that we weren’t going to take any chances in anymore surprises from unwanted guest and decided to completely search the Warehouse.

  We paired up and searched the remainder of the building. Luckily, we found nothing else. Our next order of business was to make sure that it was safely secure.

  After hours of work, we finally felt that the Warehouse was secure enough for the night, both the inside and out. Exhausted, we went up to the break room to relax. We sat down to discuss what had happened to each of us after we had left the Warehouse just those few hours before.

  Sadly, I started off by telling them my story of how I had lost my wife, oldest child, and now my fifteen-year-old brother. I fought back tears as my guilt overwhelmed me. I informed them how my six-year-old boy had gotten bit trying to protect his little sister while I was preoccupied with getting my three year old twins into the car instead of protecting my other two children.

  Silently, I blamed myself for Nichole and little Jimmy’s deaths. I knew that if I had only looked to see if there was another zombie when we ran out of the garage then maybe my son and wife would still be alive. As for my younger brother Jesse, I couldn’t help but think that if I had swung the bat at a different angle then maybe he wouldn’t have gotten bit either. It was hard to tell if the zombie had already started to bite down whenever I had swung the bat, but in my mind, I was to be blamed for his death. I knew that there were a lot of what-ifs but I believe that I could have prevented them all.

  When I finished speaking, I looked down at my feet, trying to avoid eye contact. After no one spoke, I looked up and noticed that everyone was sympathetic to my story because they all had stories of their own. My story encouraged everyone to share stories of their own. Ruff, who was sitting immediately to my right, started it off.

  Chapter 3 Ruff

  Ronald “Ruff” Ruff had a different story to tell then mine. You see, his home looked practically untouched when he got there. Matter of fact, if it wasn’t for us talking on the phone then he wouldn’t have even known about the zombie infestation. I’m not even sure how that could have been possible except that maybe it was because his housing addition was a little off the beaten path. I’ll push that theory even further by saying that maybe it was because his house just happened to be on the far side of his neighborhood.

  Regardless of the reason, his daughter was supposed to have been over there with his grandson visiting with her mom. After getting off the phone with me, Ruff couldn’t get in touch with his wife or daughter. He was going to tell them to get their stuff ready but had to settle for showing up expectantly. Afterwards, he knew that he couldn’t have timed his arrival to his house any better.

  Before I go any further, let me tell you his detailed story. You see, he left the Warehouse just like everyone else did. After talking with me, he called his home, his wife’s cell phone, and his daughter’s cell phone but received no answer. Worried about the reason for a lack of response, he sped down the highway as fast as he could. It was only when he turned into his housing addition that he allowed himself a glimmer of hope.

  Everything on the main street seemed normal or should I say as normal as it could be during the middle of a work day. That was until he realized that he was mistaken. It wasn’t normal at all. He didn’t notice the normal summer activities such as landscaping people mowing grass or kids playing outside in their yards. Not seeing a single soul around was kind of disturbing, but he figured that since it was mid-day, he suspected that most everyone was most likely hiding from the heat inside their air-conditioned homes.

  By the time he made it to his street both sides of the road were deserted, no signs of people or their cars. He knew that he was right the first time because something was wrong, very wrong. He slowly crept up his street, looking for any sign of danger. He stayed that way until he pulled in front of his driveway and stopped. He waited out in the street because he stated that he had a bad feeling and thought that the feeling he sensed was in a way, immediate danger detector. So, instead of rushing inside, he wanted to look around, searching for the source that caused his uneasiness. Luckily for him, he didn’t find it.

  He suspiciously pulled up into his driveway and slowly got out of his vehicle. He once again looked around, trying to get a feel for any sign of immediate danger but once again none came. He did however still have the sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong and decided to go inside to get his wife, daughter, and grandson before it was too late.

  He slowly made his way towards his front door as he continued to glance behind him, searching for the source of his uneasiness. No matter what he did, he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. By the time he reached the front door, he noticed that it was cracked opened. He automatically knew that he was too late.

  He slowly pushed opened the door and immediately expected danger. Once again, he found nothing. As he ventured into his house, he quietly shut the door behind him. He looked around but saw nothing. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  After standing perfectly still in the entranceway, he realized that it was too quiet. Wait a minute. Where were his two dogs? They were usually kept inside on a hot summer day, which meant that they should have been there to greet him. So, where were they? His bad feeling resurfaced.

  He crept down the entrance hallway until he came across the first spare bedroom, which just happened to be his man cave. As quietly as he could, he opened the
door and poked his head into the room. What he found was something out of a grotesque horror movie. A scene that he said would haunt his dreams for many nights to come.

  It didn’t start that way though. Inside the room were his two dogs and a strange looking woman. They looked like they were covered in something red and seemed to be cuddling with the woman in the far corner of the room. They were wedged between his TV stand and bookcase. He noticed a red puddle underneath all of them. Ruff whistled as quietly as he could as he tried to call his dogs over to him. They didn’t respond or even move. They just laid there motionless.

  He looked around one more time before walking into the room. Once inside, he kept his eyes on the corner while he slowly made his way towards his dogs. He got halfway across the room when something told him to sidestep to the wall on his right. He hurried up and hugged the wall while he held his breath. Nothing happened.

  He asked himself why he was so jumpy. He wasn’t sure why he kept feeling like something bad was going to happen. He just knew that the feeling was getting worse the further he went into his house. He looked over at his two motionless dogs and wondered if they would provide the answer he was so desperately searching for.

  Still hugging the wall, Ruff continued to make his way towards the corner where his dogs were. Once he was within a few feet, he found out why his dogs didn’t respond to his whistling or why they remained motionless. He noticed that the TV stand had a huge red stain on the corner closest to the woman.

  The biggest of his dogs had a huge hole in her right side that exposed part of her rib cage and intestines. Her fur or skin had been torn back. Her face was frozen in a pained angry expression. His little dog was laying underneath the woman. Her neck looked broken with a toothy gash on the side of her neck. Ruff noted that it was way too big to have been from one of his dogs. Her face however had a lot of scratch marks on it. They looked like they could have been caused by his dogs. The back of her head had a huge indentation on it.