by Jimmy Bird
I wish I could say that things were better once we got inside, but they weren’t. They weren’t even close. It seemed that the shooting outside had become sporadic.
Once inside, I had expected to see all kinds of movement. I expected to see people rush to help or people standing inside the door, armed, and ready to act. To see people ready to defend their home, if necessary. Instead, we found no one.
When I say no one, I meant NO ONE! It’s hard to explain that feeling of abandonment that we all had. To make matters even worse, we began to argue about our situation. Think about of all the things we had survived and prepared for, just to fall apart as a group. I for one, felt ashamed.
It might not have been so bad if it wasn’t for all the injuries and deaths. Logan took a few minutes to explain to us what had happened to him and where everyone else was. Before he began though, he warned us that we wouldn’t like what he had to say. We insisted that he tell us because not knowing would most likely eat us up inside. He sighed as he reluctantly agreed to tell us.
After taking a deep breath, he began, “After the explosions, I was able to sneak away. I ran into Mia and she bandaged me up. She gave me a rundown on things. Apparently, Cleo and Brian had gathered all the women and children and took them to the escape vehicles. They were trying to take advantage of the time we had provided by keeping the army preoccupied. My mom and niece, Shaelynn, had grabbed my three-year-old twins. My daughter was not with them. It seemed that my five-year-old daughter, JoJo, had freaked out when the shooting started and ran off to find me. No one knew where she had run off too. My nephew, Seth and Danny’s son, Austin volunteered to go find her. They were supposed to grab her and run back to the buses before they left. My mom and Shaelynn figured that as long as they got my twins on the bus and got them to safety, then everything would turn out alright for them. In all the chaos, Ruff’s wife had grabbed their grandson and ran towards the safety of the buses. Becca had helped evacuate the children, including Tracie and her granddaughter. Shevon also helped by getting the rest of the children onto the bus. Mia, however had refused to leave. She didn’t want to risk being separated from her husband again. My sister also refused to leave until her son, Seth and fiance, Bobby were safe. It seemed that they had made the right choice staying behind.”
Logan had a distant look in his eyes, “I’m not sure what happened, but something must have spooked Cleo and Brian because they took off without waiting for the rest of us. Once they were outside the fence, the attackers shot at them with automatic weapons. Even through all the gunfire, the busses almost escaped until Kevin’s army used grenades. After that, they didn’t stand a chance.”
Grenades? It appeared that someone was lying because Kevin told us that only guns were used and that hurting the children was unintentional. It didn’t matter if it was unintentional or not, they were all dead. My Children Were Dead!
Logan must have seen the pain in my eyes because he added, “The news doesn’t get any better either. The back fence was damaged from the grenades.”
He paused for a second as his eyes took on a distant look again. After thinking about it, he admitted, “Actually, it might not be as damaged as I first thought. I should have investigated the area but didn’t want to take the chance of being seen. From what I could see, the fence looked like it was bowed inward, but I’m not sure of its overall condition.”
Silently, if not sarcastically, I thought that things were just getting better and better for us! Without realizing it, my thoughts quickly turned to my family. I was haunted by the thoughts of my wife and children. I was so focused on those thoughts that I honestly forgot where I was. I forgot about everyone around me. I knew they had each lost someone, but at that moment, I didn’t care. I couldn’t help thinking that God had a sick sense of humor.
The pain in my arm was temporary forgotten as the thoughts of my children and wife consumed me. I had lost my wife, my four children, my mom, my brother, my oldest nephew (went missing when the apocalypse started), and niece. Those were just some of the family on my side and I wasn’t even sure about the family on my wife’s side.
I fell to the ground in a heap as suicidal thoughts consumed me. To be honest, I just wanted to die just so I could have a chance to be with my family. You would have to be a cold person not to have similar thoughts. I didn’t even know where the rest of my extended family was or if any of them were still alive. I just had to believe that they were still alive out there, somewhere.
My mind fought to stay in control of my body. I had lost almost everything that I loved and held dear in the past six months. I wanted to scream my pain away. I wanted to get up and just hit something. I realized at that exact moment I wanted to ‘hit’ my pain away. Better yet, I wanted to scream out loud as I hit my pain away. No, I wanted to hit Kevin and Bruce!
My head hurt as I tried to shake the cobwebs out. I’m not sure how long I had blacked out or for how long. All I know is that when I opened my eyes, Logan was in my face. He was trying to be a voice of reason for me.
He tried to give me a sense of hope, “Jimmy. Good news. Your daughter’s alive, they have her in a safe place.”
I didn’t respond, I just stared at him. My mind was trying to process what I had just been told. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working too well. All I kept thinking was that if my daughter was alive then maybe my twins were too. Maybe it was all a dream. In my mind’s eye, I could see my twins running towards me.
I was brought back from the dream with a slap to my face. Literally. I couldn’t tell you who hit me, but Logan was still kneeling in front of me. I blinked a couple of times as I focused on Logan’s face.
When I came to, I looked at him long and hard, “What did you say about my daughter?”
He smiled softly, “It’s true. You’re daughter’s safe.”
He then looked around at the others and apologized, “I’m sorry that I don’t have better news for y’all.”
The others! I had completely forgotten about the others. They must have been hurting as bad as I was.
I looked over and felt bad for my own selfish feelings. Ruff had just lost his wife and grandson. Danny had lost his daughter and son. Bobby lost his daughter (my niece) and son (my nephew Seth). Wait! If my daughter was alive then that meant Seth and Austin could be alive as well.
We started the day with over forty people and now by my count, we were down to ten people (including the children, if they were alive). Our odds of survival were not looking good now and seemed to be decreasing by the minute.
No, stop thinking like that Jimmy! I was determined to not let that happen. I silently vowed to stop feeling sorry for myself and stood up. WE needed to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, especially if we were going to survive. We needed to be strong for our families. No, we were family. From those of us who had survived and those of us who had passed on. We were still FAMILY!
With Ruff getting shot multiple times in his right leg, Danny in the upper left shoulder, and Bobby around the left collarbone area, it was decided that Logan and I would go search for a way to get everyone to the clinic. Danny had a huge gash on his forehead, but he was up and alert. He elected to stay behind to guard Ruff and Bobby while we were gone.
Logan and I decided to use one of our old maintenance mini long bed trucks. They were the old propane style vehicles that the maintenance department used to transport tools or materials back and forth when they needed to work on the machines. They had two seats and were about the length of a modified golf cart.
The direct path to the old maintenance shop took us by the clinic. Since Mia was still around, we needed her to patch everyone up for the next round. We needed to be ready for whatever the next round brought us.
Finding the maintenance vehicle was easy but getting to it was going to be hard. You know when I said that Logan thought that the fence around the storage yard on 27th street was damaged from the blast? Well, it was. In fact, it was more than damaged. We found out that a whole portion of
the fence was gone.
We didn’t have time to get my shoulder looked at by Mia and had even less time if we were going to save Bobby. We needed that truck. I pulled my shirt off and used it as a sling to support my right arm.
We made it through the maze that was our old machine shop when we came across our first zombie. It looked strangely familiar and was just standing still, all alone. I was truly surprised that we didn’t see more of them around, especially after all the explosions. Logan and I were in similar situations. We both got shot in the right shoulder and ironically, we were both right handed.
Seeing the first zombie meant that more were sure to come. Fortunately for us, being in the machine shop meant all kinds of goodies that we could use as weapons. Unfortunately for us, we were limited on what tools we could use.
Since we were both right handed, it meant that our strongest hands and arms were out of commission. We were forced to rely on our wits. Truth be told, I had to rely on my wits. When he was training to be a Marine, Logan had to learn to fight with either arm. It meant that I was at a major disadvantage. I think to make me feel better, Logan admitted that he wasn’t as good with his left arm as he was with his right.
I decided to get a four-foot-long gas pipe that was three quarters of an inch in diameter. It was long enough to keep the zombies at bay and light enough so that I wouldn’t hurt my left wrist when swinging it around. Logan decided on a five-foot pipe.
With our weapons in hand, we circled the zombie giving it a wide berth. Our tactic proved to be our first mistake. It was only when we got close enough that we noticed something oddly familiar about it. I couldn’t figure out why it looked familiar until I was standing directly in front of it.
It had either caught my scent or noticed me or maybe, it was both. Regardless, it came at me. I froze in place as my mind raced around trying to find an explanation for what I was seeing. Thankfully, Logan was still alert enough that he caught the creature on the left side of the temple with his weapon as it was walking by. The zombie fell flat on his face.
It was Kevin in zombie form, but that was impossible. Wasn’t it? I mean I watched him get shot. Didn’t I? Yes, I was positive that I saw him get shot. While he was standing in front of me, I could see a hole in the center of his chest. His shirt was stained with blood.
In fact, there was a trail of blood drops that had followed him to that spot where we found him. So, question remained, how did he turn into a zombie? Why did he not have any of the usual zombie bite marks on him?
Snapping out of my initial shock, I slowly walked towards his body and knelt beside him. I took my time as I carefully examined his body.
Logan demanded, “What are you doing?”
I looked up at him, “I witnessed him getting shot and going down. I need to know how he got back up as a zombie. Are there any bite marks?”
I looked back downed and resumed my examination of Kevin’s body. I searched all over but couldn’t find any evidence of a bite or a scratch. I looked all over his exposed flesh once more. Again, I found nothing.
I was ready to give up when a thought occurred to me. Maybe the bite marks were under Kevin’s clothes. It was possible. Especially, if Kevin wasn’t entirely dead when the zombies arrived at the front gate. Yeah, that would explain things nicely.
Kevin was lying flat on his stomach. I was nervous to touch his body. I wasn’t sure why things were different the second time around, but they were. I guess it’s because the first time I was looking for bite marks on his exposed flesh. Basically, I could see them without touching him. Now, I couldn’t.
I gently lifted the tail end of his shirt with two fingers, more accurately my first finger and thumb. I slowly pulled it towards his neck. I managed to only get the shirt halfway up his back when the front of it got stuck under his stomach. For me to continue searching, I was going to have to roll him over onto his back.
Feeling uneasy about the whole situation, I reached up with my left hand and pushed with about half my strength. As you can imagine, he didn’t budge. I laughed at myself for thinking that he would just roll over onto his back for me. I looked over at Logan, who was watching something in the distance.
“Logan? Can you help me roll him over?”
Logan looked down, “We need to hurry. More zombies are coming.”
“How long do we have?”
Logan, “Maybe, five minutes.”
It didn’t leave us a lot of time.
I told Logan, “Hurry up and help me roll him over.”
I scooted over so he could kneel next to me. He plopped down and place his left hand on Kevin’s shoulder while I placed mine on his hip. We counted to three and pulled up. When we had him on his side, we finished pushing him over onto his back. Logan stood back up and grabbed his weapon with his left hand.
He got in a defensive stance, “You need to hurry!”
Without thinking about the uneasiness of touching the bloody body, I quickly grabbed the shirt with my left hand and lifted it towards his head.
There it was, clear as day, a bite simple mark, next to the hole in his chest. Literally, right next to the hole. It wasn’t a very big bite mark, but it was there sure enough. I let out a sigh of relief. I didn’t even want to think about the possibility of him turning without being bitten.
I couldn’t help but think that maybe before Kevin died, he looked at the bullet hole to see how serious his injury was. Maybe, that was when the zombies attack. Maybe, he was able to fight a few of them off and make his way to find a safe place until help could come. Maybe, that’s where he died and his corpse re-animated as a zombie. It didn’t matter too much because he got bit and that was how he turned.
I stood up next to Logan and before I could say a word, we were staring at a few more zombies headed our way. There were five of them coming toward us, led by none other than Bruce. I know what you’re going to say. What? How can that be? Didn’t I see him go down from being shot? Well, I saw Kevin get shot and looked what happened to him.
At the time, I didn’t have the luxury of looking into the details. Even now it’s not easy to concentrate on them, but I’ll get to that later. For now, though, I can give you a couple of my best guesses on what happened to Bruce. It’s pretty much the same as Kevin. Bruce could have still been alive when he was bitten by zombies and therefor, he turned. It was my best guess. Another guess was that maybe the virus or whatever it is that’s turned people into zombies, has mutated into something else. Maybe it’s become airborne. Meaning that no matter how you die, you will return as a zombie. That theory sounds a little far fetched now that I think about it.
Regardless of how they turned, they had turned and were now coming for us. I took my weapon and stood next to Logan. I got into a defensive stance and waited for them to get closer. We waited until they were within arm’s length and started swinging.
I swung the bar as hard as I could with my left arm as I aimed high towards the front right side of Bruce’s temple. His height made it difficult, forcing me to swing in a more unnatural upward arch. Unfortunately, I misjudged the angle and the weight of the bar as I hit him in the neck area.
Bruce normally stood a few inches taller than me, but him turning into a zombie and me being hurt made it difficult to estimate his new height. Though I will say that me hitting him in his neck did give me an advantage. Bruce didn’t go down, but he did stumble to his left a little bit, giving me an open area to attack.
He exposed the left side of his head and I took full advantage of it. I swung the bar over my head into a downward motion, using gravity to help pull my weapon down towards my target. My weapon hit him on the back-right portion of his skull. With a crunching sound, Bruce collapsed to the floor.
I didn’t have time to make sure that he was dead because I had a female zombie dressed in soldier camouflage gear already reaching out towards me. I sidestepped to my right and swing the bar in an upward motion. I connected with the lower right part of her jaw. With a crunch soun
d, she stumbled backwards a couple of steps before falling. I leapt forward and stabbed my weapon into her forehead.
I looked over at Logan to see if he needed any help, but he had already disposed of the rest of them. It was quite an impressive sight. He had taken down four to my two.
I noticed that he was breathing a little heavy and had a strange look in his eyes, “Logan? You alright?”
His eyes seemed to dart around until they focused on me and quickly snapped out of whatever dream he was in.
I repeated my question, “Logan? Are YOU alright?”
He gave me with one of those ‘Are you an idiot?’ type of looks before saying, “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
I didn’t say a word as I just stood there and watched him. I literally couldn’t believe he had just looked at me like that. I was about to ask him another question when he power walked past me. I wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easy whenever his mannerism softened up.
He spoke softly, “We need to hurry so we can get back to the others.”
Crap! I had forgotten all about the others. I turned to follow Logan when I noticed that he was moving his make shift sling over to another area of his arm.
He must have noticed that I was looking at it because he stated, “It must have shifted over during the fighting.”
Without saying a word, I instantly looked at mine and noticed that it had also shifted but not as much as Logan’s had. We made it to the yard and noticed that the fence where the escape route had been located was busted wide open. It was worse than I thought.
On our way to the maintenance truck, I began working on a solution to close the hole in the fence in my head. My biggest idea was to use one of the big maintenance forklifts to put one of our old twenty-foot storage containers in front of the hole. After seeing the size of the hole though, I wasn’t sure if that was even going to be big enough. Our only hope was to close the Warehouse ramp to the yard.
We had made it to the truck when we realized that it didn’t have a propane bottle. No propane meant no fuel. Logan came up with the idea of taking a bottle from one of the big forklifts in the yard. The only problem was that they were near the gapping hole in the fence. I think that we were extremely lucky that the tanks didn’t explode during the attack.