We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  I grabbed my daughter’s hand and basically dragged her while trying to run. We made it to the door just as the fence gave way. I opened the unlocked door and ushered everyone inside.

  Once his son was safely inside, Danny turned to go help Ruff. By that time, Ruff was already surrounded. He kept his body pressed up against the door to keep it from opening while swinging his spear with his one good hand to keep the zombies at bay. You could hear him struggling over the zombie moans.

  I quickly poked my head inside and looked down the walkway towards the office area and clinic. Surprisingly, nothing was there. It meant that all of them must have taken off down the hallway where we had just exited from.

  I told Bobby and my sister, “Take the kids to the safety of our escape vehicles. Boys watch over JoJo and help get everything loaded. I’m going to go help Danny and Ruff.

  I took a step back outside and heard a scream. I looked over and Danny was attacking many zombies that had surrounded Ruff. Sadly, I could no longer see Ruff on the other side of the crowd.

  I ran as fast as I could towards the melee. Once I was within striking distance, I swung my spear hard as I could. I caught one of the female zombies behind the left ear as she started to turn towards me. I stabbed and caught another just under the chin. I pulled the spear out and caught another in the side of its temple. This continued for a few long minutes.

  Without realizing it, we had wiped out twenty or so zombies that had made their way into the parking lot from twenty-ninth street. I bent over to catch my breath and noticed that Danny was doing the same. I heard more moaning coming from the direction of twenty-ninth street. I looked up and saw another ten zombies or so crossing the street with another pack behind them. I looked over and saw that Ruff was still holding the door closed.

  Breathing heavily, I yelled at Ruff, “Hey Brother, it’s time to go.”

  I look down at Danny. He was struggling to catch his breath. I glanced at Ruff to let him know that I needed his help with Danny and noticed that he was still holding the door. Danny’s predicament was understandable. He was an ex-smoker who was forced to quit when the world fell apart. It was probably Emphysema.

  I told Ruff, “Ruff, let the door. Help me Danny so we can make a run for it.”

  He refused, “I can’t do that Bro.”

  “What? Why not?”

  Ruff looked over at us with tears in his eyes. He didn’t say a word as he lifted his right arm, blood was seeping from an open wound near his forearm. I didn’t understand. Where was the blood coming from? Did he get cut or something?

  I began walking towards him, but he held up his hand to stop me. Danny had recovered by that time and walked up next to me. He looked over at Ruff before grabbing my arm.

  With tension in his voice, he told me, “Jimmy! We need to leave!”

  I pulled my arm away as I told him, “We’re not going anywhere without Ruff.”

  I ignored Danny as I began walking towards Ruff again. Ruff tried to tell me to turn around and leave, but I ignored him too. All I remember thinking was that if he would just let go of the door, we could all make a run for it. So, why wasn’t he letting the door go? I got within a few feet when he lifted his spear up in a threatening way towards me.

  I asked him, “Hey Bro, what’s going on?”

  His only response was to look at me with one of those ‘Are you that stupid?’ facial expressions. I frowned as I looked back at him.

  It was only when I got close enough that I realized what was going on, causing me to feel stupid for not seeing it sooner. His skin was already turning a grayish ghoulish color while taking on that sickly look. It looked like he was aging fast.

  My eyes wondered over his body, looking at all the change until they found the source. His arm was still bleeding bad and the spot where the blood was coming from wasn’t a cut mark like I had first assumed. It was more oval shape with gash marks around the edges, they looked like teeth marks. Ruff was infected again and this time there was nothing I could do to save him. Or, was there?

  I told him, “If we hurry, I can cut off the infected part and stop the virus from spreading. I can save you. All you have to do is let go of the door, so we can run.”

  Ruff smiled gently, “Brother, it’s too late to save me, but it’s not too late to save yourselves. You’ve done all you could, now go.”

  He motioned with his head towards the fence and told us, “You’re running our time. You need to go.”

  I followed Ruff's eyes towards the fence and saw another wave of zombies climbing over the downed fence. Crap! We had run out of time. I turned my head to plead with him one more time, but he cut me off.

  He told me, “Look, I’m getting tired and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the door.”

  I turned to get Danny to help me with Ruff, but he was already staring wide eyed at the new problem that was making its way towards us.

  Ruff yelled out, “Danny!”

  Danny turned his head just enough towards Ruff so he could see him and keep the zombies in his peripheral vision.

  Ruff pleaded, “Danny! You need make Jimmy leave before it’s too late.”

  I shook my head ‘no’ in attempt to protest. I refused to leave a friend, excuse me, a family member behind to face their fate alone. I turned to face the zombie pack that was making their way towards me when I was grabbed from behind.

  “What are you doing? Let Go!”

  Whoever it was had grabbed me in such a way that I couldn’t move, no matter how hard I tried to resist. I couldn’t even move my head, but I could move my eyes. Before long, I realized that I was being dragged backwards by two people. I could hear a frustrated scream coming from somewhere and looked over at Ruff. I noticed that he wasn’t the one screaming.

  I heard the screaming again, followed quickly by someone telling me to be quiet. Why would that person tell me to be quiet? I wasn’t the one screaming. Was I?

  I yelled, “Let me go! I need to help Ruff!”

  I looked back towards Ruff, who lifted his bleeding arm to wave goodbye. I fought and struggled against my captives with everything I had, but my resistance was futile. They had a tight grip on me.

  Ruff said, “Goodbye my friends. Now Hurry!”

  I managed yell out, “Ruff!” one last time before being dragged inside the shipping department.

  I could hear him defiantly scream outside the door as he tried to turn the zombiess attention away from us. The last thing we heard was what sounded like a death scream that ended with a gurgling sound.

  We feared the worst. I stopped fighting and went limp. They loosened their grip but would not let me go. At least, not yet. It didn’t matter because it was enough for me to turn my body. I saw who was dragging me away, who had pulled me away before I could save my friend. I lifted my hands in a surrender gesture to show Danny and Bobby that I would not fight them.

  When they finally let me go, I demanded to know, “Why? Why would y’all not let me save him?”

  Bobby had a sad look on his face, “Because no matter what you tried to do, you would not have been able to save him, and you would have died in the process.”

  No, I refused to believe that. I know that I could have saved him. Couldn’t I? I thought hard on the question. I tried to recall every detail that I could. I know that I saw the changing color of his skin and how sickly he began to look. I remember the blood that flowed from an open oval wound that had gash marks that looked similar to teeth marks. I remember how fast he had aged.

  After thinking about it, I realized that Bobby had been correct. I couldn’t have saved him, no one could. The infection had spread too far. Besides, we no longer had anyone with any kind of medical background. Even if I had somehow cut off the arm, he would have bled out and died anyway. At least this way, he went out on his own terms.

  I can honestly say that without any resentment, he bought us some time. I was usually an upbeat type of person, but the longer we survived, the harder it was becomi
ng. It was getting hard to argue against the common phrase ‘We were screwed’! We were up the proverbial creek without a paddle and to make matters worse, we had to abandon our home.

  I lowered my head in defeat and turned around. I looked at my daughter. We needed to leave before more zombies showed up. I lifted my head and took one step before stopping dead in my tracks. What was my daughter still doing in the Warehouse? She was supposed to be waiting in our escape vehicle, ready to leave. My sister must have seen the angered look on my face because she quickly stepped in front of me.

  She told me, “Before you get mad, there was a reason JoJo’s still inside. Zombies are roaming around outside, especially around the vehicles. That’s the reason Bobby went out to the small parking lot, to get you. That’s the reason he hurt himself to bring you inside. There were too many of the zombies outside of shipping and needed your help.”

  Bobby willingly hurt himself to save me? Before I could even begin to reply, something began banging on the door that led to the small parking lot. I froze in place as I heard moaning, a lot of moaning. We needed to get out of here. With my spear in hand, I ran towards my daughter with Danny and Bobby hot on my heels.

  I stopped in front of her and asked, “JoJo, are you okay?”

  She looked up at me, “Yes daddy, but I’m scared.”

  I told her, “It’s okay to be scared because I’m scared too.”

  I looked at our small remaining group and asked, “Everyone ready?”

  Before anyone could say anything, the zombies started pouring in through the back door we had just left. How the hell did they get in? Scratch that. It didn’t matter how they got in because we were gone.

  I began pushing on the main parking lot door handle as I told Seth and Austin, “Protect JoJo.”

  With my spear in hand, I jumped down the steps towards the zombies. Danny was right behind me. I knew that if we could catch them off guard then we would have a chance to escape without any more incidents.

  Danny and I took out the first ten zombies without any problems. Lucky for us, most of them were facing the other way. Unfortunately for us, our luck ran out. It seemed that more zombies were within the fence then we initially estimated, a lot more. I didn’t take the time to count them, but it looked more like an angry limping mob of over fifty coming towards us.

  I didn’t get it. We had set up the escape vehicles just weeks before and there weren’t that many at the time. I could only think of two possibilities for what we were seeing. Either, someone was trying to trap us, or we hadn’t cleaned out the area as good as we initially thought. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. At least not in the grand scheme of things because no matter how you looked at it, if we didn’t leave the Warehouse then ‘We Are All Dead’.

  Since we were now down a few more people than originally planned, my sister and Bobby decided to consolidate vehicles. They grabbed everything that they could carry and put it in one vehicle.

  Once the kids were inside, my sister yelled, “Okay. Get in, it’s time to go.”

  Danny and I slowly backpedaled towards the SUV because we wanted to keep our eyes on the immediate threat making their way towards us. We were trying to be as observant and cautious as we could possibly be.

  We had almost made it to the SUV whenever the door we had just came out of burst open. The zombies fell down the steps like dominos. It seemed like the ones in the back were pushing the ones in front. It didn’t stop them from moving when they hit the ground though, they just kept coming.

  Feeling like we had overstayed our welcome, Danny and I jumped into the rear passenger sides of the SUV as it took off. I was surprised to see my sister behind the steering wheel, especially since the start of the apocalypse. If you remember, her car she had gotten surrounded and ever since then she had refused to drive. Now that I think about it, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen her leave the Warehouse grounds. She wouldn’t tell me why and I was pretty sure that it wasn’t the proper time to ask. I personally think that she might have had a panic attack or anxiety when everything happened, but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Whatever her reasoning was, she was now behind the wheel and wasn’t playing around. The main gate was still closed and had stayed shut ever since the battle. Speaking of the battle, you could still see the bodies of the dead ‘reservists’ and our friends spread out everywhere. Their bodies were still in the exact positions where they had died. They looked like they were still decomposing and a little chewed on. It was truly a nasty sight. My sister had stopped at the gate, waiting for one of us to get out and open it.

  I looked back at the mob that was getting closer and told her, “We don’t have the time to open it.”

  She did the next best thing and rammed it. The gate was stronger than I had thought. It bowed in, but the hinges did not break loose.

  I told my sister, “Try backing up and get a good running start.”

  I looked back again at the mob that was getting closer by the second and told her, “You need to hurry.”

  She put it in reverse and quickly backed up around ten feet. It just so happened that it was as far as she could backup because of the mob.

  As soon as the first zombie touched the rear window, I yelled, “Go! Go! Go!”

  She stepped on the gas and hit the gate doing around 30 mph. The gate busted free from the top hinges but did not break completely free from the bottom. The bottom of the gate was still latched on, it’s braces were bent completely over. The front tires went over the bottom the gate with ease, most likely from its momentum. The back tires however, weren’t so lucky. Maybe, it was the weight.

  I guess the way the gate went down caused it’s braces to get wedged under the SUV’s back tires and frame. The front tires of the SUV had hit the braces like a speed bump and popped up a little bit, clearing that part of the gate.

  We were stuck. No, we were screwed. We could hear the rear tires barely touching the metal, but it wasn’t enough to grip.

  I figured that if I got out and pushed hard enough for the tires to get traction then the others could escape to safety. It seemed that Danny was thinking the same thing. We were the only two healthy adults who stood a chance of pushing the SUV to safety. We wouldn’t even consider Seth or Austin for the job. The young ones were our future and whoever went outside to push was pretty much signing their own death warrant.

  Without hesitation, I reached out for the door handle. All the adults seemed to have been thinking the same thing, they knew what I was thinking. It was my turn to sacrifice myself for my family and friends.

  They refused to let me do it. My sister made sure the locks were down so I couldn’t get out. Luckily, I didn’t have to. During the time we took arguing about getting unstuck, the zombie horde had arrived to save the day. No, I’m not joking.

  You see, it happened just like it did with the shipping steps when we were leaving. The first wave of zombies hit the back of the SUV. The zombies in the back pushed the zombies in front. It was almost like a giant zombie mosh pit the way they pushed us forward. They pushed the SUV with enough force that they almost gave us whiplash.

  My sister pushed down on the gas just as soon as it felt like the vehicle contacted the top of the gate. We knew right away that we were no longer stuck on the gate brace. With her foot on the gas pedal, we went from being stuck on the gate to driving on the battle-damaged road. She turned the corner to drive up the street and to our freedom.

  I looked back at all the zombies stumbling over the gate and each other, trying to follow us. I knew that we were lucky just to make it out alive. I followed the river of zombies back to its source. There were more of them inside the Warehouse then I had thought.

  Even when we turned onto twenty-ninth street, I continued watching the Warehouse. Thoughts of what we had tried to accomplish and what had happened kept playing around in my head. We had failed miserably, as a society and as a community.

  Before I realized it, the Warehouse ha
d become smaller and smaller through the rear mirror. After staring at the river of zombies chasing after us, a single zombie caught my attention. He stood out more than the others. I watched as he stumbled out of the small parking lot. I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but the zombie looked a lot like Ruff. Especially, since I could have sworn that I saw his metal hand. Still, it was hard to tell. Maybe, it was because I wanted it to be him, his sacrifice was still fresh in my mind.

  The creature did look a lot like him. Now that I think about it all the zombies began to look familiar. When the zombie was almost out of sight, I made a silent promise that when we made it to our new haven then I would return to take care of him. I refused to leave Ruff in his zombie state.

  With my promise hanging in my thoughts, I turned around to look to the future. I was hoping that I could use it as a metaphor for things to come. Well, I hoped it was a metaphor for positive things to come anyway.

  It was decided that we would go to my father-n-law’s land out in the country in case of an emergency. We nicknamed it The Sanctuary. As I said before, he had twenty acres on the outskirts of Moore, located somewhere between the east part of Moore and the north side of Norman. No, I’m not going to give you the exact address.

  Since we had a smaller number of people now, we figured that it was the safest place to stay. Besides, his land was completely fenced in with barb wire. Anything that tried to get in would cut themselves up. As a bonus, he also had one of those old horse style ranch gates. It was made of heavy-duty steel that was like eight feet long and around six feet tall. Of course, the downside was its size. If you needed to shut the gate quickly, it just wasn’t happening. Overall, I thought our new home would work out nicely. At least, for the moment.

  Chapter 17 Day 255, My Final Entry

  I made good on my promise to return a few weeks later, only it wasn’t exactly how I had planned it. We had attempted a few previous unsuccessful trips that might have affected our current situation. No matter what happened here today, this would be our one and only return to the Warehouse. Again, it was not our choice. Something happened at the Sanctuary and we had to leave rather quickly. We now must leave the city and it looks like the only logical safe place for us is far away from here.