by Jimmy Bird
After about a week or so, life as we knew, started to slowly return to normal. Well, as normal as we could make it. It was only after that devastating supply run that we were forced to learn from our mistakes. The death of James and the permanent injury to Artie, made us rethink our strategy. As I’ve already stated, we had to learn from our mistakes.
We changed our supply run strategy and rules. We would no longer go out in pairs, we would now have four-man teams. Also, before we even go inside a house, we needed to make sure it was unoccupied and safe. With our new changes, we had great success.
I want to mention that we had successfully raided the surrounding houses for supplies without any accidents. Especially, since my cousin John was leading the way. His knowledge about zombies was second to none or so we thought.
Even though we implemented new changes, we kept some of the old rules. We still made sure that on each run, we would walk if it was close enough and if we found something important then we would come back for a vehicle. Gas as you know was becoming a scarce commodity.
On one run, Ruff, Ken, John, and I was out on our furthest supply run to date (about two miles away) when we came across a clean, undamaged, white, two-story house. It was surrounded by a six-foot-high chain-linked fence with a front gate that looked untouched. The closer we got to the house, the more we noticed that the gate was cracked open, meaning it wasn’t completely closed.
We slowly opened the gate and quietly entered the property. We made it a point to be careful and to keep an eye out for any sign of danger. In our observation, we noticed that the front windows and door seemed untouched. After we were all inside the gate, we made sure that the gate was closed securely behind us. We wanted to make sure that no one or thing could sneak up on us.
With what happened to James and Artie, we made sure that we moved around the outside of the house as quietly as we could so that we wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention. We wanted to make sure that whoever or whatever was inside the house, wouldn’t be alerted to our presence.
We tried to be as observant as possible as we circled the house trying to see through the windows. I want it noted that we didn’t see a vehicle in the driveway or hear any weird noises from inside the house. After feeling that it was okay to proceed, we got our silent weapons out and ready.
We slowly walked up the front porch steps and towards the door. Ruff walked toward a window on the left while Ken approached the one on the right. They each glanced inside the windows without drawing too much attention to themselves. It was only after they nodded that it was all clear, did we proceed.
With my axe in my right hand, I reached out with my left hand and grabbed the doorknob. I held my breath as I tried to turn it and to my surprise it was unlocked. Without saying a word, I glanced around and nodded my head to let them know to have their weapons ready. I wanted them ready to defend themselves when I opened the door. With my own weapon ready in my right hand, I slowly pushed opened the door with my left.
Ruff had his machete while Ken was using a modified gas pipe. He had turned a four-foot-long by an inch-thick pipe into a spear. It was a genius design. John was using a modified version of a knife that he had created (like a machete) while I used an axe that I had found in one of the houses we had searched a few days earlier. It was at that time, we had learned a hard lesson that noise attracted zombies. What we didn’t know was how sensitive their hearing truly was, but we were about to find out.
There I go again, inadvertently rambling on. Sorry, I was about to give away spoilers. What fun would that have been? The answer is none because people like to read things that someone else had written so they could learn. So again, before I say too much, let me get back to the story.
When I opened the door, the stench of death and decay came rushing out of the sealed up houseunto greet us. It caused us to momentary pause, but it wasn’t enough to abort our mission. Like everyone else, we had grown accustomed to the smell.
With the door open and our weapons ready, we screamed out loud to see what was in there. Since noise attracts zombies, we figured that it was the best way to see if any of them were in the house. After all, the tactic had worked for us before. When no zombies appeared before us, we figured that there was no immediate danger. Yet, we remained motionless on the porch just in case.
My cousin must of had other ideas because he decided to bypass all of our recent safety protocols that we had put into place (even a few he had come up with). He barged right into the house as if he owned it. Ruff, Ken, and I remained frozen on the porch as we observed his unusual and erratic behavior. He was usually the cautious one.
We stood there dumbfounded as we tried to figure out what he was doing. We watched him walk down the hall talking to himself as if he didn’t have a care in the world. No, that wasn’t entirely correct. It sounded like he thought that we were walking with him. It was kind of like he knew something that we did not and displayed no signs of being afraid.
He had made it to the end of the long hallway before I quietly called out his name, “John.”
I was trying to avoid drawing too much attention to us just in case those things were in the house somewhere. He ignored me as he kept rambling on.
I told him, “John. Stop talking until we’ve cleared the house.”
He turned around surprised as he noticed for the first time that we weren’t with him. He did something else unexpected and acted like he was trying to prove some point by talking even louder.
He smiled, “Smell that? It smells like something’s decaying in here doesn’t it? Which means?”
He waited for one of us to answer.
When no one spoke, he answered for us, “It means that there’s nothing to be afraid of because there are no zombies in the house.”
The rest of us just stared at him. To be honest with you, we just weren’t as sure as he was.
I glanced toward Ken and Ruff for acknowledgment, but they only shrugged. I glanced back towards my cousin, who had now made it to the end of the hallway. I figured that since he hadn’t led us astray so far in his vast knowledge of the zombies, then he wouldn’t start now.
I took a quiet step inside. Ken and Ruff must have felt the same way because they followed cautiously behind me. My cousin appeared so confident in himself that he continued to talk out loud and turned around to continue walking. Once he reached the end of the hallway, he took a right around a blind corner.
Ken, Ruff, and I had made it halfway down the hallway whenever John screamed out in what sounded like a combination of terror and pain. We forgot all about our own safety and rushed towards the direction the scream came from.
As we turned the corner, we found my cousin lying face down on the floor. It looked like he had unintentionally stepped and tripped on something dead and rotten. We thought it was a dog or something, but upon further examination, it turned out to be a hollowed out headless upper torso. We didn’t see any legs, but the body shape made us think that it had once been a man. Without the head, it was hard to tell.
Displaying our concern, we rushed forward to make sure that he was alright. He appeared to be because he was already pushing himself off the ground.
He slowly rose to his knees, “I’m okay.”
Knowing that he was alright, we kind of changed our attitude from concern to humor. We stood there and laughed as we kind of poked fun at how he had screamed like a girl.
I even told him, “It serves you right, since you acted like a jerk who knew everything.”
John even laughed at the irony of his situation. Since he was already up on all fours, he continued to lift himself up to his feet. He began by putting his right foot underneath him in order use his leg muscles to stand, but he quickly stopped as he screamed out in obvious pain. We immediately stopped laughing and circled around him. The way he screamed out meant that something was seriously wrong. Without hesitation, he turned to a sitting position and reached out towards his right foot.
He claimed, “
I’m not sure what happened, but it feels like I just stepped on a long rusty nail.”
With great effort, he slowly pulled his shoe off. He tried to act tough about the situation, but he still ended up grunting in pain. In the bottom of the shoe’s heel was a red stained pointy thorn sticking up about an inch. When he turned his shoe over the rest of the bloodstained thorn was sticking out from the bottom of his shoe. It looked to be about an inch also. The heel of his shoe was about two inches thick. We estimated that the thorn was around four inches long. It kind of looked like a bone fragment. A bone splinter?
John reached up and grabbed the bloody thorn between his thumb and first finger. He began pulling as hard as he could, but the thorn wouldn’t budge. Instead, it ripped open his thumb and finger. The gash on each appendage look to be about an inch each. Within seconds, it started bleeding uncontrollably. John used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the blood off his hand a couple of times.
He looked up at us, “Don’t worry. It’s just a scratch.”
Before we knew it, his shirt was soaked with blood. The cuts on his fingers and foot were bleeding uncontrollably. His skin was already turning a pale color, we presumed that it was from the loss of blood.
Without a moment’s thought, I turned and rushed toward the area that I assumed was the kitchen. I went looking for paper towels or anything useful that would help stop the bleeding. Ken went looking for a bathroom, hoping to find something in the medicine cabinet. Ruff elected to stay behind with John to make sure that he was alright, even though John refused his help.
I turned the corner that led into the kitchen and found a zombie crawling towards me. I couldn’t help but think that maybe that was why we didn’t see or hear anything inside the house. The zombie looked like a ten-year-old girl. You could literally see the bone on both of her legs just below her knees, both of her feet were missing. Her legs looked as if they had been severely gnawed on. Her upper body looked mostly intact, save for the few missing pieces of flesh. The most disturbing thing about the girl was the flesh missing around the lower part of her right jaw, exposing her teeth. Her arms were the only part of her body that looked normal and in good working condition.
I literally jumped from the sight of her. I had seen zombies before and had even witness own son turning, but the sight of the little zombie girl was something else. I had mixed emotions on what to do.
Without thinking about it, I dropped to my knees and began to cry. I watched the little girl slowly make her way towards me as thoughts of my own son continuously popped into my head. I could still picture the scared look on his face after he got bit. I could still hear his pained scream.
I was brought back to reality when I felt something touch the pants leg around my left knee. I looked down to see a little bloody hand reaching up towards me. Reacting with pure reflexes, I jumped backwards before she could touch me. I crab walked backwards a few feet until I was out of her reach and quickly got to my feet. She began to crawl towards me once again, but I was determined to stay focused on what was in front of me.
I raised my axe, ready to deliver the final strike when Ruff screamed out in pain, “Aargh! John! What are you doing?”
My attention lost focus for a few seconds as I turned my head to listen for more. A second scream came out from another part of the house. It didn’t sound like a pained scream like Ruff’s. I was so focused on the noise on the other side of the house that I jumped when I felt something touched my shoe.
I looked down and noticed the little girl again. I had been so focused on listening that I had completely forgotten about her. I turn my full attention back towards her just as she started to use my pants leg to pull herself towards me. When she got within a foot of my pants, she opened her mouth like she was going to take a bite out of it. I wasn’t going let her get that close.
As she leaned her head toward me, I swung my axe down as hard as I could. The axe struck the topmost center part of her head. She collapsed in front of me, her grip on my pants softened.
Without hesitation, I jumped up and ran towards the living room as fast as I could. I arrived at the same time Ken did. To my surprise, he was covered in blood and was holding a towel.
Wide eyed, “Man! I was just attacked by a zombie in the bathroom.”
Before I could even ask, he confirmed, “Don’t worry. I’m alright. It’s not my blood.”
I replied, “The same thing just happened to me.”
We turned in unison towards Ruff and John. What we witnessed was pure insanity. Ruff’s machete was stuck in the middle of John’s forehead while his left hand was in John’s mouth. John’s skin was an ashy pale color while his eyes had rolled back into his head. Ruff yanked his blade out of John’s forehead just as John’s mouth let go of Ruff’s hand. John’s body collapsed to the ground. Wide-eyed, Ruff looked down at his bleeding hand.
He looked up at us in shock, it was like he noticed us standing there for the first time. Speechless, Ken and I began walking towards him. I must have had one of those crazy look in my eyes because Ruff's attention was focused on me.
He claimed, “Look brother, I only killed John out of self-defense. He had turned into one of those zombie things while you were gone!”
My mind raced with the new information. Ken and I had only been out of the room for maybe ten minutes. It meant that my cousin had died and returned in that short amount of time. I had never heard of the change happening that quick.
My mind raced with questions. Was he bit? How did he turn? Was it from the bone splinter? Was that the missing piece of the puzzle? Was the bone splintered infected? Is that all it takes to become a zombie is have your blood mixed with something infected? Could the double cuts from the bone splinter have caused him to change so quickly? I wasn’t sure.
We cautiously walked up to Ruff. He was holding his bloody left hand and was already looking pale. I looked over at Ken, he had realized the same thing. If John had turned in that short amount of time, then Ruff could to. Ruff knew what we were thinking. He wasn’t stupid.
Ruff, “Y’all need to run for your lives. I don’t think that there’s a lot of time before I turn. Tell me wife and grandson that I love them.”
Ken and I stood there in disbelief. He knew we weren’t going anywhere, didn’t he? Well, if he didn’t then he was fixing to know. We stood there defiantly and refused to leave. There had to be another way to save him. We just hadn’t figured it out yet.
My mind was working in a million different directions until a thought hit me. What if we removed the infected area? What if I amputated his hand? It was a long shot, but I figured that it was worth a try. I mean what harm could it do. Right?
I didn’t let Ken or Ruff know what I was thinking because I didn’t want to scare Ruff.
I used my shirt to clean my axe as I asked, “Hey brother, can you hold out your hand so I can get a better look at the bite?”
As Ruff began to hold out his hand, I calmly asked Ken, “Ken? Can you hand me a towel? I want to clean the bitten area.”
Just as soon as Ruff extended his hand, I grabbed his wrist and quickly repositioned myself. While pretending to look at his wound, I swung my axe downward as hard as I could. It took Ruff’s hand off at the wrist in one clean swipe. Ruff screamed out in pain as he yanked his handless arm back from me.
Ken rushed forward with the towel, “What the HELL are you doing?”
As we wrapped the towel around Ruff’s bleeding stump, I explained, “I’m not entirely sure, but I think that we can save him as long as we get the infected area off him quickly. I believe that it’s the only way.”
Unfortunately, Ruff didn’t hear me. He was already falling backwards, most likely passing out from the pain and shock to his system. I told Ken to find us something to cauterize the wound or Ruff would die from blood loss. I rushed to Ruff’s side while Ken went looking for something that would help us save our friend.
In the meantime, I had grabbed two cushions from the couch to help el
evate Ruff’s head and bleeding arm. Ken quickly returned with an iron that he had found. Because of safety reasons, the iron wasn’t allowed to get above a certain temperature, but that was alright because I had something else in mind.
I took the iron from Ken and rushed towards the kitchen. Since the oven was gas, I was able to turn it on and placed the iron on the stove. I needed to get it hot enough to cauterize Ruff’s wound. I just had to be careful not to melt the plastic.
Ken yelled from the Livingroom, “Jimmy! You need to hurry.”
When I thought that the iron was hot enough, I used a pan holder to grab the handle and rushed back to the living room. It seemed that in those few minutes I was gone, Ruff’s skin had turned an ashy pale color. His eyes were shut, and he was barely breathing. I thought that maybe, I was already too late.
I wasn’t going to give up hope though as I rushed forward. I could see the pained look in his sleeping face.
I looked at Ken, “Get ready to hold Ruff down!”
I reached out for his arm and slowly unwrapped the blood-soaked towel. The blood was still flowing, even more so without the towel. I slowly reached out for the iron next to me and in one fluent motion, I touched the bottom of iron to his exposed wrist.
The smell of burnt flesh reached my nostrils, causing me to gag. I wanted to vomit but restrained myself. I needed to make sure that Ruff’s wound was properly cauterized. I looked up and could tell from the look on Ken’s face that he was also fighting the urge. Less than a second later Ruff woke up screaming. Believe it or not, he started to swing wildly.
I yelled, “Ken! Hold him so I can finish cauterizing the wound!”
Ruff struggled against Ken’s weight for a couple of more seconds before passing out again. We knew that we had to get him back to the Warehouse as quickly as we could. Not only were we vulnerable out in the open, but we needed to get him to our clinic. That way we could have my mom, Mia, and Ruff’s wife could save him. His wife had also been a nurse at one time.
Our priority though was getting him back to the Warehouse. We began by trying to carry him out of the house. His size made it extremely difficult for us. With just two of us left, we would have to carry him and fight off any zombies that we came across.