We Are All Dead

by Jimmy Bird

  My blood began to boil as I recalled what happened. I let the anger slip into my voice as I informed him, “Your people destroyed two escape buses that was carrying innocent women and children, my own children among them.”

  He just looked at me. I know what you’re thinking. Most people would have immediately backed off and apologized but not Robert. No, he had changed since the last time I had seen him. He was no longer the nice, quiet guy. He was harder to read and seemed much more dangerous. I wondered what had happened to him.

  Robert stood there silent, as if he was waiting for me to continue speaking or was in deep thought. I wasn’t sure. He turned slightly towards one of the people behind him and motioned them forward. Almost immediately, a young teenage looking girl carrying a rifle stepped forward to stand in front of him.

  He told her, “Go to the Sanctuary and tell my sister that we’re on Bruce’s trail.”

  He turned to look at me as he continued talking to the girl, “Also let her know that no matter what we find, we will bring whoever is responsible to justice.”

  My eyes widened. He knew about the Sanctuary? What else did he know? My mind raced with questions. How could he know about the Sanctuary? It dawned on me, it was rumored that he used to be one hell of a tracker.

  I wasn’t sure if Danny caught on to Robert’s hidden meaning, but I did. It meant that he knew all about my father-n-law’s land and how many people we had left. How long had he known? It didn’t matter. Our remaining loved ones were in danger, we needed to get to them fast.

  He sent the girl on her errand; two men went with her. He stood up straight as he watched her go. I knew that we needed to do something, anything. It didn’t matter what we did, we were still outnumbered fifty to two. We needed a miracle, or we were as good as dead. A miracle did happen, at least something that resembled a miracle.

  Robert’s face softened up again as he looked over at us, “I believe you about Bruce and Kevin. I figured that they were most likely zombies and will go find out just to be sure. Looks like it’s your lucky day, you’re both free to go.”

  Without being told to, everyone lowered their weapons. Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  He stated, “I followed up on a hunch that if I found you, I would find some news about Bruce and now that I have it, y’all are free to go.”

  Shocked, I asked, “What does that mean?”

  He stated, “You have given me a direction on where to find Bruce.”

  Without another word, he turned around and lifted his right hand over his head. He made the international sign for ‘move out’ by sticking his first finger out and moving his hand around in a circle motion.

  Without so much as making a noise, his troops turned and began to leave. Robert turned around one last time to face us.

  He smiled, “Thanks for your time.”

  Without another word, he turned and began to walk away. He took about five steps, stopped and turned towards us.

  He warned us, “I just got word that a massive zombie horde is headed this way from the south and if you want to survive then you need to leave quickly.”

  Without another word, they left. When he was gone, I turned to look at Danny who had the same confused expression on his face.

  I was about to ask if he caught on to Robert using the term ‘Sanctuary’ but he asked first, “Did you hear that? He knows about the Sanctuary.”

  So, he did notice. I told him, “We don’t have time to search for supplies anymore. We need to hurry back to the Sanctuary and get everyone before that girl gets there.”

  We turned and rushed towards the SUV. We opened the doors and jumped in. Danny turned the ignition and started the SUV just in time. It seemed that Robert had been correct about the zombie horde. They were coming up the street, their numbers were hard to estimate but it looked like an army of the undead.

  Danny shifted it into reverse and pushed on the gas. He backed up far enough to turn around. When we came to a stop, he shifted to drive and pushed on the gas. The wheels chirped as we took off, leaving the massive horde behind us.

  Once we were clear from any immediate danger, I turned towards Danny, “We need to hurry up and get back.”

  He glanced over at me and spoke through clenched teeth, “Yeah, I already know that.”

  To say that there was tension between us would have been an understatement. We knew what had just happened wasn’t either of our faults, but that didn’t change anything. The tension was still there.

  We knew what we needed to do, but it was such a long drive back to the Sanctuary. We couldn’t afford to look for supplies now because time was of the up-most importance.

  Neither one of spoke the whole ride back as Danny did his best to move around obstacles at high speeds and I didn’t want to break his concentration. He was doing one hell of a job, kind of reminded me of an old stunt driver.

  With my father-n-law’s land out in the country, there were only two roads that you could use once you got off the main road. If you were coming from Moore, then it would be the first right after ten miles. The road was paved for over half a mile until you got to a turn. In the middle of the turn, it changed to gravel. If you weren’t careful and going at an excessive rate of speed, then you could lose control and crash. The city had planned to finish paving the road for over a year before the apocalypse, guess they didn’t get around to finishing it. The second option was another dirt and gravel road. We hardly used that one because it was a long and curvy.

  The street my father-n-law lived on was just off the dirt road, I did mention that it was in the country. Years ago, it had been a gravel road, now it was just dirt. You could probably imagine what it’s like when it rained. Less than a block down the dirt road was his driveway. Yep, even more gravel. His driveway is over a block long that curves up a slight angled hill.

  We were hoping that the gravel would give us warning, much like an early warning system. Especially, now that we know Robert’s group is out there.

  We took the shortest route back to the Sanctuary, which was also the noisiest. We figured that it was the fastest way to get back. It was a good thing too because we could see a small group of people already starting to file in through our secret escape route. We were out of time.

  We pulled into the driveway as Danny pushed on the horn. We pulled up to the house as Bobby emerged with his gun pointed towards us, everyone else was standing at the doorway.

  I told them, “Hurry up and grab your stuff. We need to leave!”

  Confused, Bobby asked, “What’s going on?”

  I told them, “No time to explain. They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’ll explain everything on the way.”

  Bobby started to ask another question, but I cut him off, “We don’t have time. We need to hurry.”

  By the time our group re-emerged with our stuff, we was already out of time. We could see a group of people emerge from the tree line with their guns raised.

  I told Danny, “Get the SUV ready while I help carry our things.”

  We didn’t have time to grab most of our things as we rushed out the door. Once we were all in the car, Danny nailed the gas and accelerated down the driveway. The house began getting smaller and smaller in the rear window. I noticed that the group didn’t try to rush after us or even shoot. Maybe their plan wasn’t to kill us, but to push us off the land. Maybe, they wanted it for themselves. It didn’t matter what they wanted it for because it was now theirs.

  When we were a few miles from the Sanctuary, I relaxed enough to explain what had happened. Danny and I went into detail. We decided that our best bet was to go back to the Warehouse and get whatever supplies that we could find before leaving. With Robert out there, our best bet was to leave the area for good. We needed to find someplace where there wasn’t a lot of zombies, a place where he couldn’t find us.

  After throwing out numerous ideas, we finally decided on the secluded camping parks of Lake Eufaula. My family used to go camping there whe
n me and my sister, were kids. It was a good two hour drive away under normal conditions, so, it would take whoever was following us even longer to reach it. The lake is big enough that no one could find us, if we so choose. I remember as a child, we would always see people renting house style boats to cruise around on the lake. So, theoretically we could use one of those to escape danger. There were also the tourist caves of the notorious female outlaw of legend from the ‘Old West’, Belle Starr, that we could hide in. We could survive.

  The more I thought about it, the more it became clear. We could live there in peace, no more fighting the living to survive. All we had to worry about was surviving the dead.

  Writing all this down and the long drive back to the Warehouse got me tired. It was the first time that I got to relax since we abandoned the Warehouse and before I knew it, I was fighting sleep. All I kept thinking was that that the drive was soothing.

  I woke up to Danny swerving around something in the middle of the road and slamming on the breaks. It was a good thing I was wearing a seat-belt, otherwise, I would have ended up in the floorboard or worse. Trying to quickly get my bearings, I looked around wide eyed, as if I was waking up from a dream. I glanced over at Danny, who was looking in the rearview mirror for something behind us. Everyone was questioning what had just happened. Guess, I wasn’t the only one who fell asleep.

  He looked over at me wide eyed, “Did you see that?”

  I frowned, “See What?”

  He didn’t answer as he looked back into the rearview mirror again. It looked for a moment as if he was beginning to doubt what he saw.

  I asked him, “Danny? What did you see?”

  He looked at me, “I could have sworn I saw a baby crawling on the road!”

  I looked at him, “That was impossible.”

  Danny, “I know. That’s why I asked if you saw it too.”

  I turned my head to look through the rear window and saw nothing. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely convinced he saw anything. I looked over at Danny and noticed his facial expressions.

  I wanted to be supportive, “Hey, we should take a look just to make sure.”

  I opened my door and started lowering my right foot when I felt something grab my shoe. I literally jumped out of my skin as I quickly pulled my leg back up.

  Danny noticed my erratic behavior and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  I told him, “Something just grabbed my foot!”

  Danny slowly opened his door and without moving his lower body, he leaned out to see if he could see anything. He didn’t. He then decided to turn his body in such a way that he laid down on the seat and lowered his upper body so he could see under the SUV frame.

  Luckily, nothing was under his side of the vehicle, but under mine was something else. He saw a small boyish figure grabbing where my shoe had been. It looked like his legs were deformed or undersized. It was as if he had that Muscular Dystrophy disease (MDA or known as Jerry’s Kids). His back we’re missing chunks of flesh, exposing the back of his ribs. Poor little guy didn’t stand a chance when the whole zombie outbreak started.

  We discussed whether to put the little thing out of its misery. It was not an easy decision to make, but we decided that it was for the best. After all, if we were going to do it for Ruff then why couldn’t we do it for this little guy. We figured that Ruff would want us to do it.

  We quickly came up with a plan that involved me using my foot as bait. I was to leave my right foot dangling over the edge of the running board in order to keep the zombie distracted while Danny got out of the truck. He would slowly and deliberately walk over to the passenger side while keeping an eye out for more zombies. Once Danny was within a few feet of me, I would lift my foot away from the little zombie so it would focus solely on him. Danny then would step a few paces backwards allowing the zombie to crawl out from under the SUV. Once the zombie was clear of the SUV, Danny would stab it with his spear.

  The plan went off without a hitch. It seemed that it was our only plan that ever happened like it was supposed to. We refused to let the kids watch Danny kill the thing and made them look away.

  When we finally arrived back at the Warehouse, we noticed that the outside looked deserted. Unlike the last time we were at the Warehouse, there was no one around. At least, that’s how it appeared on the surface.

  We weren’t going to take any chances as we slowly and cautiously made our way inside. Once inside, we found nothing. Considering what had happened when we were left the Warehouse, I believe we were lucky.

  It was eerily quiet as we made our way through the plant, area by area. We still found nothing, we didn’t even find zombie stragglers. Somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong or that something was about to happen. Maybe, it was because the Warehouse had a creepy and haunted feeling surrounding it.

  It probably didn’t help knowing that the last time we had been this far inside the building, it had been overrun by zombies. Now nothing. Yeah, you heard me right. Nothing. No sign of anything alive or should I say dead. It seemed impossible, considering that we had only been gone for a few short weeks. Was it even possible for a plant this big to be this deserted in that small amount of time? Man, you wouldn’t think so.

  The worst part was that we had no idea where Ruff was or how we were even going to go to find him. When I made the vow to release him, I assumed that he would still be here. I was kind of hoping that he would have been here, waiting for us to come and get him.

  While searching the Warehouse, we decided to grab the rest of our things that we had so quickly abandoned. We were lucky that those things were still here. After we gathered everything that we could, we decided to rest before moving on to our next phase. We sat down in the empty cafeteria and talked.

  We tried to brainstorm on where Ruff could possibly be. It was only mid-day, but it felt so much later. Like I said, we assumed that he would have been here. Questions remained. Where did he go? Did he find his way back home? Did he remember his home? Did he even have memories of his home? Did he have any recollection of who he used to be? Did he go off with the horde of zombies?

  Speaking of zombies. Did zombies have an unspoken bond between them? Did zombies form some type of pack that had no dominant Alpha? Did they function as one collective mind just like some insects do? Do they retain some type of memories? Is that why some of them seem to return home?

  It seemed that all I had was questions. There was still so much we didn’t know about zombies, but there were few things that we did know. So, if you didn’t know these few facts about them then I’ll enlighten you.

  Did you know that zombies have sensitive hearing? They have hearing that is equivalent or better than a dog. They can hear over great distances and have a great sense of direction. They can follow the noise over many miles to its source. They also have an acute sense of smell. I’m not entirely sure if it’s because the living smell different then the dead or if they can smell the blood in our veins like the mythical vampire was supposed to, but they know the difference and can track us. Don’t forget about them seeing movement like the t-rex, any kind of movement and they focus on it as a collective group. There should be no shock that they are extremely hard to kill and have only one true weakness. If you destroy the brain, you can kill them.

  Everybody talked in hush tones, even the children. It was as if we were all afraid to make a sound. Danny got up from the table and looked around the room.

  Once he had completed a circle or should I say an oval, he said, “I need some time to myself.”

  I looked up at him but didn’t question his meaning. I knew what he meant right away. Danny had always been a loner at heart but knew that he needed others in order to survive. Since the apocalypse started, he really didn’t have any alone time, any Danny time. Matter of fact, I don’t even remember him mourning the passing of his wife or daughter. Yes, I knew exactly what he meant. While it’s true that he still had his son, it’s not quite the same.

 
When he walked out of the room, I decided to take advantage of some ‘quiet’ time myself. I had wanted to continue writing our story, a written history of what had happened to us. I didn’t even realize that I wanted to be a writer until I began writing this journal. I know that wrote a little on the way here, but now I wanted to finish it. Now that I have a little ‘free’ time to write, I decided that I wasn’t going to pass it up.

  There’s no real way to sugar coat this and unfortunately for us, it’s the world we live in today. As you know, there are no more guarantees in life that any of us would live to see another day. Now to make things even worse, it isn’t even the zombies that we must worry about, it’s the people. The survivors!

  Don’t get me wrong, the zombies are horrible to deal with and damn near impossible to kill. Plus, I must mention that if you get surrounded by a group of them, then you’re dead. They are killing machines, pure and simple. They don’t think, plan, worry about their own mortality, worry about family, feel pain, etc. They are the perfect killing machines.

  How did they come that way? How did people turn into those things? Could a virus have caused people to turn into them? Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What if it all started out as some secret government experiment? A government that tried to create a perfect soldier, some sort of super soldier and they somehow couldn’t control them, causing the downfall of man. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

  Sorry, I’m kind of a conspiracy theorist. You see, I’ve often wondered how the zombies came to be and thinking back on it, we really didn’t have the time to question these types of things. We were all too busy running for our lives and surviving. We really didn’t care where they originated from. Now that I have some free time on my hands to think about this different kind of stuff, I kind of think about things like that.

  Why can’t we just live in peace? Our society has turned into a down rotten cesspool, where the strong prey upon the weak. The truth is simple, if it looks like you have something that someone else wants then they forcibly take it and will kill you if you try to stop them. How can a person live like that? How could that person live with themselves?