We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  Thoughts of their life together flashed before his eyes. The past, the present, and what could have been their future. He had put off getting married because he was afraid to but not for the reason you might think. He wanted to make sure that she was the one because he had been married once before and it obviously didn’t work out.

  He had gotten his girlfriend at the time pregnant. He had wanted to do the right thing for her and their unborn baby. He wanted to get married before the baby was born. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but like so many other people who had rushed into marriage. It had ended in disaster. So, to avoid another costly mistake, he decided to wait to make sure that she was the one for him. He always knew that she was the one, but now it appeared that he had waited too long to tell her.

  His thoughts were chaotic as his mind tried to make sense of what had happened in the past few hours. He had failed to save his dad, fiancé, and the neighbor’s children. The worst part about it all was that he couldn’t get a hold of his own children. They had so much resentment towards him after what happened between him and their mom that they had moved away. He just wished that he had been there for them more.

  Cleo forced himself to calm down, so he could concentrate on the problem at hand. He figured that his fiancé must have arrived while he was in the bedroom occupied with the kids and was probably attacked just outside of the house. He figured that he had been so focused on his own survival that he had failed to hear her scream for help. His heart dropped once again as he realized that he was all alone.

  He looked around the room at the three children and wondered if he was destined to share their fate. Only the little girl was still moving around but appeared to no longer be a threat. Her arms and legs appeared to be broken. He didn’t think that he had hit her that hard.

  He had been so focused on his own depressing thoughts that he failed to hear the addition of more moaning. What he did hear though was a loud thump at the end of the hallway that snapped him out of his thoughts. He asked himself, what was that?

  He looked through the cracked space again and was immediately amazed on how quickly the house had become crowded with zombies. Fear struck him at the thought of being trapped in his dad’s house. He looked at his fiancé’s face once again and silently told her goodbye for the last time.

  Cleo wanted to make sure that he could stay safe to find a way to escape. He tried to force the door shut as quietly as he could, but one of the door hinges made a loud creaking sound when it was about an inch away from being closed. That was as far as he could shut it. He wanted to punch himself for forgetting that he had kicked the door in. He squeezed his eyes shut as he hoped that none of them had heard the noise. He wasn’t that lucky.

  He could hear footsteps and moaning sounds making their way towards the bedroom. He knew that his time had run out. Thinking quickly, he slammed his shoulder into the door. He knew that he had to get his full body weight in order to force the door to completely shut.

  It seemed that he had shut the door in time because zombies immediately began banging on the door. Cleo began looking around the room whenever he realized that his options of escaping were now limited. He could hear the door hinges start to make creaking sounds and knew that the door would only hold them for a few more minutes.

  Cleo cursed himself for being sentimental just a few minutes earlier. He realized that if he couldn’t find another way out of the bedroom then that mistake would prove to be his undoing. He continued to look around the room for a way to escape.

  His search brought him to the only window in the bedroom, which just happened to have a huge thorn bush directly below it. Because of a childhood incident, he was terrified of climbing through windows. So, to say that it wouldn’t have been his first choice was an understatement, but he knew that it was better than the alternative.

  He kept an eye on the bedroom door as he tried to quietly tiptoe his way over to the window. Once he reached the window, he quietly leaned the shovel against the wall while he peeped through the window. He wanted to make sure that the backyard was clear. He knew that his dad used the backdoor to escape his first encounter, but he didn’t know if his dad had shut the gate behind him.

  When he was satisfied that there wasn’t anything roaming around outside, he unlocked the window latch. He then turned his attention back towards the door as he lifted the window. He was trying to do everything that he could to keep from making a sound. Once the window was high enough for him to squeeze through, he picked up the shovel and lowered it as quietly as he could to the bush outside. Once that was done, he worked up the nerve to climb through the window. He was just starting to climb through whenever the door flew open with a loud crack. Forgetting about his fear, he dove out through the window. He stated that the sheer number of zombies was what forced the door open. Cleo didn’t realize that many zombies had made their way into his dad’s house.

  When he jumped out the window it wasn’t a far drop, but it was right into the large thorn bushes (they ran the length of the wall). His body became scratched up and became even more so as he tried to quickly escape the bushes.

  His plan was to hurry up and quietly hide around the corner of the house before he was spotted. As he fought his way out of the bushes, his thoughts drifted to his father. He would never forget the reason his dad had planted the bushes. His dad’s neighbors’ houses had been broken into and had them planted to try to sway burglars from trying to break into his house. Each of the rear windows had a thorn bush under it.

  He reached back into the bush and pulled ‘his’ shovel out. With a deep breath, he ran towards the gate. He sighed in relief when he found the stockade fence gate still shut and locked. He took a deep breath to calm himself before running to his car. He knew that it was his only chance to escape and that meant running as fast as he could.

  He unlocked the gate latch and waited. When he didn’t hear any moaning on the other side of the gate, he slowly opened it. He tried to be as quiet as he could. He stood still and listened again to make sure that the coast was indeed clear. He took another look around before sprinting towards his car.

  He ran blindly around the corner of the house before stopping. His girl’s car was parked at such a weird angle that it had him blocked up against the garage. He cursed out loud as he ran towards her car hoping that she had left her keys in it. By the time he had reached her car, the zombies were starting to pour out of the house. Lucky for him, the door was unlocked, which allowed him to quickly jump in.

  Once he was inside the car, all he had to do was find the keys. He had to slide the seat back because his girl was almost a foot shorter then him. He looked through the windshield and knew that he didn’t have a lot of time. He tried not to draw any unnecessary attention his way while he searched. He knew if they spotted him before he found the keys then he was dead. Finding the keys was his only option to survive, they were his life line.

  After searching everywhere that he could think of to look, he couldn’t find them! They weren’t in the ignition, the center console, on the floorboard, or tucked in the driver side visor. He glanced up and noticed that the zombies had made it halfway between the house and car. His time to escape was almost up. He needed to find the keys or make a run for it. Since he wasn’t exactly the running type, he continued to search.

  Lucky (yes, I know I use that word a lot)! It’s the only word that I could use to describe how he had survived some of the inescapable places that he was in. I guess you could say that he had a guardian angel watching over him. Unfortunately, or ironically it became hard to believe in God, especially after everything that had transpired that day. Before I get off track again, let me get back to my story.

  He eventually found the keys wedged under the seat, truth be told, they were wedged between the seat and the center console. They must have gotten wedged under the seat when he had to move the seat back. He managed to bend his hand at just the right angle so that he could work his fingers under the seat.
Once he had the keys in between his fingers, he fought to pull them out. Let me just say that he pulled the keys out in the nick of time would have been an understatement.

  As soon as he sat up with the keys in his hand, the first zombie reached the car window. He quickly put the correct key into the ignition and started the car. He turned to look over his shoulder to back up and saw his girl staring back at him in the passenger window. He paused as she reached toward the trunk. His heart dropped once again when she began furiously banging on the trunk. He quickly shifted it into reverse and pushed on the gas pedal.

  Chapter 8 Kenneth

  I don’t even know where to start on Kenneth “Ken.” As I’ve said before, Ken was an ex-gang member from Kansas City. In his own words, he informed the Council that all he ever cared about was gang banging. The highlight of his day was to hook up with his girl, get messed up, sell drugs to make money, and go out looking fights. He told us that he even went to jail a few times. He wasn’t ashamed of his past because it was the life that he grew up accustomed to and one that he had enjoyed doing. That was until his girl got pregnant and then everything changed.

  As soon as he found out about the pregnancy, he wanted out of the street life, out of that type of lifestyle. He had quickly made up his mind that he wouldn’t allow his child to grow up in the same type of environment that he grew up in. He worked hard to raise money to move somewhere and ended up choosing Oklahoma. When he got here, he went into Job Core to help him not only get a legitimate job, but to help him learn skills that he didn’t care to learn while he was still gang banging. That was the short version of how he came to the Warehouse and to our little group.

  Since he came to Oklahoma, he now had expanded his family from one daughter to four beautiful daughters. The Council also became his surrogate family. We didn’t judge him on his past mistakes, in fact, we sort of embraced them. We knew that whatever apocalypse came then we would need his toughness and mentality. We just didn't know what kind of apocalypse was going to come or what kind of training we needed at the time. Now that I have given a brief history of Ken, I will begin by telling his story.

  Ken had sat quietly until it was his turn to speak. He told us things that made some of the other hardships seem trivial, not to sound too cold, but some people suffered more losses than others. The horror that he had endured that day would have shut the normal person down. But as you know, these weren’t exactly normal times.

  With sadness in his eyes, he told us that he had lost his world and admitted that the only reason that he came back to the Warehouse was because he had nowhere else to go. He had no one left except for us, his Council family. You see he lost everyone in his immediate family. Yes, I’m talking about his wife and all four of his daughters.

  Ken’s body language told us everything about his current state. You could feel how defeated he was but that was to be expected from the loss he felt. Even though he didn’t say it, you could tell that he really wanted to die, to be with his family. You could see his internal battle with himself. If it would have been normal times, then he would have even been put on a suicide watch. But as I’ve said before, these weren’t normal times and Ken was one tough guy.

  We knew that he was hurting, but we needed him to bounce back quickly. I know what you’re going to say. How could we be so cold? We weren’t being cold, we were being realistic. We knew that for us to survive, we were going to need him, and he was going to need us. He just didn’t know it at the time, none of us did. Before I get off track too far, let me finish his story.

  Ken was extremely loyal to his family and friends. That kind of loyalty did have its drawbacks, but once you were tight with him then that loyalty knew no bounds and that included killing someone if needed. He had told us stories about his old gang banging days which was one of the reasons that we weren't too worried about him committing suicide. His gang mentality was so hard wired into his subconscious that once you became his friend then you were his family for life.

  Like the rest of us, he tried to rush home to get his family and had to fight traffic the whole way there. He became so agitated that he forgot how many times he nearly pulled over to the shoulder of the road just to fight people. He had to constantly remind himself that they were trying to get home to their loved ones just like he was.

  He noticed that the closer he got to his house, the more chaotic things became. He tried to describe the scene to us by explaining that more than just a few cars were turned over or on fire. He stated that by the time he got within a mile of his house, he had to literally fight his way through a maze of cars and debris.

  When he finally pulled onto his street, his heart dropped. A house on the corner lot had a strange gray truck parked in its living room. The walls around the truck looked stressed, like they were about to come down at any moment. Ken knew the family that had lived there and hoped that they were alright.

  By the time he turned that corner to his street, his hopes of finding his family began to dwindle. His house, which was located at the end of a cul-de-sac, had a twisted car pileup in front of it. The kind that you would only see in a movie. He stated that it looked like there were six unfamiliar cars involved but admitted that he wasn’t entirely sure.

  Located directly behind the cars was his house and the closer he got to it, the better angle he had. He could see random people walking through his front door. He became instantly furious that it looked like people were trying to loot his house and pushed on the accelerator.

  He pulled up next to the pile of cars and reached down under the seat. He pulled out an unmarked pistol that he had secretly stashed there (I guess it’s like the saying ‘old habits die hard’). He slowly opened his car door and got out. With his gun in his right hand, he looked around to see if there were any more intruders walking towards his house. In fact, he began to realize that he didn’t see anyone walking out of his house with his things either.

  Holding the pistol with both hands, Ken got in a defensive position and slowly walked towards his house. He glanced around once more and noticed something out of the corner of his eye. One of the cars involved in the pile of cars belonged to his wife. The passenger door was wide open. That fact changed everything.

  It meant that he was no longer looking at looters in his house, he was looking at a mob. It must have been the mob that he witnessed chasing his wife and kids into the house. He became frantic and his walking speed quickly turned into a jog as he made his way towards his front porch.

  By the time he reached the front porch, he was at a dead run. He didn’t even bother with the steps as he hurdled them. Once he reached the opened front door, he stopped and cautiously slid over to one side of the doorway to keep himself hidden. He told himself that it was just in case he needed to kill a few of the mob members leaving.

  Without daring to move, he stood still and listened. He waited for a sign that his wife and kids were alright, a scream for help perhaps. Unfortunately, all he heard was something that sounded like moaning.

  He peeped around the corner of the door frame and noticed people walking around slowly. Every one of them looked like they had soulless expressions on their faces. He quickly ducked back behind the door-frame. He was afraid that if he looked for more than a few seconds, he risked the chance of being seen.

  Once he was hidden again, he started having a nagging feeling that wouldn’t go away. He just knew in the back of his mind that something wasn’t quite right about the people in his house. They say that sometimes our minds can pick up things, but it takes a few minutes for those images to filter through. Ken knew that he saw something out of the ordinary but just couldn’t put his finger on it. He peered around the door-frame once again, determined to focus on the details.

  His eyes became wide with horror as he noticed that the bodies of the mob members were damaged. All of them were covered in blood and had exposed flesh. He even noticed that some of them were moving with slight limps. He quickly counted six of them in the living r
oom. He knew that he saw more than that enter the house as he hid once again behind the door-frame.

  His rational mind was trying to make sense of what he had just seen and the only explanation that he could come up with was that they must be zombies. If that was indeed the case, then that meant the rest of them must have gone after his wife and kids. He silently cursed himself for not noticing them sooner.

  He knew from our research in movies that while his pistol was a great weapon to use and had it advantages, it also had its major disadvantages. The first and important issue was that it was noisy, which could draw attention to him. The second disadvantage it had was the limited supply of ammo. These were the two most important issues he faced when using his gun. Besides, if he went into the house and started shooting his gun then it could attract more of them from around the neighborhood. He didn’t want that at all.

  He tried to think of a silent weapon to use as he looked around the front yard and noticed a fallen tree branch. It gave him an idea. He realized that he already had a weapon handy and it wasn’t the tree branch. He couldn’t remember the reason, but they had always left an old wooden push broom on the back porch. If he could get to it then he could take the brush part off and use it as a spear.

  He looked around the cul-de-sac once more to make sure that there were no other zombies. Once he was satisfied that it was all clear, he placed the pistol in the back of his belt (the back of his waist) and snuck around to the right side of the house. When he reached the chain-linked fence, he cautiously looked around once again to make sure that it was still clear before he reached out and opened the gate.

  Once inside the backyard, he slowly walked along the house towards the back porch whenever he saw a shadowy figure looking out of a bedroom window in front of him. Not sure who or what it was, Ken froze dead in his tracks. He slightly turned his head so that only his eyes moved. He dared not to make a sound as he looked for whoever was standing at the window, but no one was there. He started second guessing himself and thought that maybe it was his nerves and fear messing with him. That was until he saw a male’s head, someone he didn’t recognize move by the window. He waited until the head passed from sight before he hurried up towards the backside of the house.