Now, over a century later, it was the visitor center and staff offices of the Piedmont Animal Sanctuary. Each year for Halloween, the park staff decorated the first floor with a macabre collection of ghosts, ghouls and scary music. Vampires and werewolves ushered people out of the creepy waiting area and onto the haunted hayride that included thrills and chills of all kinds. Monsters waited to leap from the shadows to scare small children, give teenage boys a reason to put their arms around their dates and cause the occasional adult heart to skip a beat or two. Giant, hairy spiders sprang from trees and animatronic zombies clawed the earth with their skeletal hands as they tried to rise from the grave in search of brains. Running from the first of October through Halloween, it was a huge tourist draw and every year the park added a few more scares to the delight of visitors.
The second floor was utilized as office space for the park personnel and the third floor had eight spacious rooms that were used mostly for storage. Utilizing much of the original furnishings, it was a step back to a simpler time when gossiping on the telephone party line was the height of societal scandal.
Inside the old house, Cody sat with the stained note in his hands and ignored the other kids. He read it over and over, looking for something he missed. The sentence that said I’ll be right back, everything is fine.
It wasn’t there. The cold, hard, ugly, black truth was all the note held. No happy ending. Just death and sacrifice. A last goodbye that told him to buckle up and take care of things. She’d said it nicely, she’d said it in a mom way, but that’s what she meant. It’s up to you, buddy. It’s your burden now to carry on by yourself. He heard the others talking, heard their voices and the tinny voices coming from six different phones and it registered with him even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it. The zombie outbreak was happening all over. No city, no state, no country was spared from the horror of raging infected sweeping through them. Stay inside, help is on the way, they repeated over and over but they never said who was coming to help. Or when. The weather radio in the kitchen played the same Emergency Broadcast message over and over, the recorded message growing monotonous in its urgency. The world really was falling apart out there. Still fighting back his emotions, he wondered how to deal with what was happening outside the fences and more importantly, how to keep it from getting in. Was he sure it wasn’t airborne? Was it really only spread by a bite? Were some of them already carrying it? There were too many questions, and no answers for any of them.
He looked around at the other kids. Most of them were alternating between phone calls and texts to relatives or redialing 9-1-1. Occasionally someone would get up and wander around the house, peeking through curtains. About an hour ago Swan, the dark haired Indian girl, had gotten through to her mother who was stuck in traffic on the interstate. She frantically tried to fill her in on what happened, tell her she was fine but they all heard her mom start screaming and then there was nothing. She sat on a couch in a daze next to Cody. She had her knees hugged to her chest and rocked slowly back and forth. Dried tear streaks were on her cheeks and everyone talked in whispers. She and Cody knew their parents were gone. The others could hope their families were fine but none of them really believed. They’d seen how fast it happened. How brutal and vicious. The virus had started and spread and killed a hundred people in a matter of minutes. A half hour from start to finish. They hoped but they didn’t believe. She sat beside him staring off into nothing. It was going on early afternoon and the animals had forgotten their fear, come out of hiding and could be heard chittering and cawing or bleating their animal sounds. No else had been able to get a call through, not to 9-1-1, not to family, not to anyone. All circuits were busy the automated voice told them or they just rang until voicemail kicked in. The internet had been slow and sluggish all morning, pages taking forever to load or refresh but now it was quick again. There wasn’t any new content, though. Their Facebook posts reaching out to friends went unanswered. Their Instagram pictures went unnoticed. No one replied to their tweets. Texts messages sent were never seen.
Donny Lin didn’t have a phone and grew restless watching the others. He paced around the house, peeked through every curtain and didn’t see anything unusual aside from the park being completely empty. None of the undead things were inside the fences and he slipped outside to look around. To make sure. As he hurried down the paths, he began to notice a pattern. All of the animals ran towards him and paced along until they were stopped by their barriers. They were nervous, too. They took comfort at the sight of a human, something that had been a constant their whole lives. He realized something else, too. They were probably hungry. He’d noticed that the caretakers usually fed most of them after the park was open so the guests could watch them eat.
When he slipped back into the house an hour later, they jumped from their seats and asked him where he’d been. He should have told them if he was going outside. He wasn’t used to the attention or anyone missing him when he wasn’t around and was a little taken aback. They peppered him with questions and admonishments until Cody finally said, “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He pointed to his mouth and shook his head and they realized they’d never heard him utter a word.
“You can’t speak?” Harper asked “What happened?”
“You didn’t see any zombies out there?” Murray asked.
Donny shrugged, ignored her question, shook his head emphatically at Murray and mimed an animal, pretended like he was eating and pointed outside.
Cody exclaimed and slapped his forehead. “I forgot all about the animals. They haven’t been fed yet. Can you guys help me?”
A chorus of yes’s and okay’s and anything is better than sitting around here answered him as Swan dug an ink pen and a small notebook out of her bag and handed it to the Asian kid.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll show you the storeroom. There are charts on the wall telling who gets what and how much. Who are you guys anyway?” Cody asked. “You all know each other?”
Introductions were made and when Donny wrote his name on the pad, Swan announced it to everyone.
It didn’t take long to get organized and soon they were loading up the golf carts with buckets and bags. The way the feeders were designed, they didn’t have to enter any of the enclosures or cages to add the food or refill the water troughs. Many of the animals were fairly self-sufficient and didn’t need daily care. The antelopes grazed and drank from the ponds. The chickens and peacocks could fend for themselves and as Cody fed the Jersey cow, he worked on auto pilot, his mind racing and still trying to come to terms with the new world he was living in. It was hard, nearly impossible to imagine, but it was over. The world he knew that morning was gone. They’d heard the news reports, they’d seen the videos. It was all gone. His mom was gone. His friends were gone. There would never be any new episodes of his favorite shows. There wouldn’t be any new video games or superhero movies. There weren’t any more cops or army or president. There weren’t any more people except for maybe small groups like theirs that had been lucky or smart. He pushed the big thoughts out of his head and concentrated on the small thoughts. What were they going to do? Should they try to leave or stay in the park? What were the other kids going to do? How was he going to take care of the animals all by himself if they left? Should he set them all free? He thought about the rest of the animals and which ones would be fine in the hundreds of acres of fenced land. Most of them, he concluded. They only had a few hunters in the park, he would have to keep them penned up, but most of the animals were herbivores or ate insects. They’d be fine turned out to take care of themselves. They’d be easy to hunt, too, if things started getting really bad. He pushed the idea out of his head, he didn’t want to eat animals that were nearly as tame as pets but once he thought it, he couldn’t unthink it. Last resort option he told himself. Things would have to get really, really bad.
They trickled back to the main house as it was getting dark and when Cody walked in, Donny was addi
ng wood to the oversized fireplace in the parlor. Temperatures were falling as the sun started its descent into the western sky and the old house was cooling rapidly. The flames felt good and they seated themselves on the floor to absorb its warmth. The talk was quiet but animated as they shared stories of how they fed “their” animals. Swan said the wolves let her touch them and loved being scratched behind the ears. Murray said he’d gone inside the cage of the monkeys and they had climbed all over him and searched in his pockets looking for treats. The others had similar tales, they all had smiles and Donny was practically beaming. He had pointed to Charon, the black panther on the chart, and made it clear he wanted to feed it. The big predator was gentle as a kitten and Cody figured he’d probably figured that out, had discovered the oversized cat like to have his belly rubbed. It didn’t even occur to him to be alarmed or worried about them getting injured. Otis would never hurt anyone and despite what the grownups were always saying, he didn’t think any of the others would either. Caring for the animals had let them forget their own worries and lives and losses for a while and they were still basking in the simple beauty of it.
Murray finally broke away from the animal talk and declared himself starving to death.
“Got any people food in here?” he asked Cody.
“Let’s finish off whatever is in the fridge before it goes bad.” he said, and they all headed for the kitchen, pushing away any thoughts that they were eating other people’s lunches. People that were dead and running around killing other people.
They ate sitting around the fire and traded for the best sandwiches or bowls of microwaved soup, candy bars and fresh fruits. They talked quietly about the day and what had happened, how the world they knew no longer existed. They were kids, the oldest of them only fourteen. They’d grown up on dystopian video games and apocalyptic TV shows and end of the world movies. They’d seen hundreds of hours of zombie shows. They’d witnessed the screaming undead with their own eyes and they didn’t pretend they hadn’t. In case they forgot, in case they thought they were having a waking dream, all they had to do was walk out to the front entrance. Mr. Baynard was there clawing at the bars, his burnt and melted face not much more than a blackened skull. Others had wandered in during the day and there were probably ten or fifteen of those things pressed against the gate. They knew they were the lucky ones and they didn’t think the families that left was still alive. They knew they were safe where they were at and they knew no one was coming to save them. Cody took a poll just to make it official and no one wanted to leave, even if they could. Their families knew where they were. They would come if they were still alive. The safari was their new home.
“Okay.” he said, “I can show you everything I know about the park tomorrow. We’ll have to figure out what to do with all the animals but I’ve got a few ideas. I think we’ll be okay here, it’s pretty secure and it’s off any main roads. You have to be looking for this place to find it.”
As the fire died down, phone batteries went dead, bellies were full and eyes got heavy, Cody told them there were rooms upstairs they could claim if they wanted. No one did. They pulled cushions off of couches and chairs in the offices and used them for makeshift mattresses as he and Donny went to the gift shop to grab armfuls of Mexican blankets and souvenir cushions they could use as pillows.
Murray claimed the couch and rested the weather radio he’d grabbed from the kitchen on his chest. The parks crew had never changed the frequency but it had a couple of different settings. There were a lot of weather stations from different parts of the country and the emergency channel but it didn’t have regular radio. Vanessa turned off the lights and they listened in the dancing firelight as he scanned through the stations looking for any kind of news. Any voices in the night. He caught the same broadcast warning occasionally distant, echoed and automated. He’d listen for a while before turning the dial but no one ever said anything new. It was all the same warning, nothing was updated. By the time he gave up and turned it off, most of them were fast asleep.
13
Day One
Ever since the accident that left him in the wheelchair, Murray had been an early riser. He was embarrassed by the shriveled twigs that were now his legs and being walked in on in the bathroom caused him a great deal of embarrassment. He’d developed the habit of being the first up to tend to his needs in the mornings. He was fully capable of taking care of himself and found it demeaning when someone offered to help him with his toilet duties, even his parents.
He wheeled himself in circles around the lobby, a habit he had when he was anxious or excited. His mind raced, one idea jumbling over another as he intermittently paused to check his phone or scribble in his notebook. This is it. The big one, TEOTWAWKI as the doomsday preppers on TV called it. The End of the World As We Know It. Unable to contain himself any longer, he rolled over and shook Cody.
“Get up man.” he said in a loud whisper, “We got stuff to do. We are running out of time.”
He watched as Cody shook off the fog of sleep. Confused at his surroundings, the boy looked around and his face fell when he saw that nothing had changed from the previous night. So much for it all just being a bad dream. Donny was coming in from outside with an armful of wood and started stoking the fire to burn off the early morning chill.
Cody padded back into the room, having ignored whatever it was that was so important until he could go to the bathroom. Everyone else was stretching and yawning, wrapped in colorful blankets and looking sleepy-eyed. Murray was scribbling furiously in his notebook but when he looked up and saw everyone was mostly awake, he announced loud enough so they all could hear.
“We don’t have long. The power grid is gonna fail, internet and cell phones will probably go first. Are there generators here? How many? How much fuel? What about guns and survival gear?”
Cody shook his head in confusion and some of the others frowned at him, not understanding or maybe not really wanting to understand.
“Listen to me man, I’ve been gaming the apocalypse for years now. These may not be crawling out of the graveyard trying eat your brains type of zombies, but they are zombies. We know this. We gotta get a plan. No one’s coming to save us. They’re either all dead or like those things outside. Which, technically, they’re dead, too, I guess.”
His animated voice snapped them out of their sleep stupor and they listened as he ranted.
“Slow down,” Vanessa said, “and tell us what you are talking about.”
Murray rattled off one thing after another like it was inevitable. Like it was a fact. Like their whole terrible situation wasn’t temporary and things would soon be fixed. It’s not like after a hurricane or earthquake or flood or forest fire. Things were bad then but things got better. Somebody always came to help.
“Nobody is coming!” he exclaimed. “There’s nobody left. That wasn’t fake news last night. You guys gotta see the big picture, man. We don’t have much time before everything shuts down. If we don’t download all the knowledge we’re ever going to need right now, it’ll be lost forever.”
He had their attention then went on to explain, drawing his knowledge from books, movies, video games and the hundreds of internet searches he’d been doing for the last few hours.
“Electricity runs everything.” he said. “Without it, we’re back in the dark ages. We only have a few days at the most before the power grid crashes and the world goes dark.”
“I think you’re getting carried away.” Harper said. “C’mon, Murray. Everybody’s not dead. We can’t be the only survivors. There’re probably whole cities that are safe. This can’t be everywhere.”
“We don’t have time to pretend!” Murray exclaimed. “If I’m wrong, then it’s no big deal, we spent a few hours downloading stuff. We can delete it later. But we need to get everything we can about survival. What kind of plants are edible or medicinal, how to grow crops, smoke and cure meat, first aid, how to build snares and fish traps. The list is endless. We have to
save it offline because in a day or two, everything online, the complete knowledge of everything in the world is going to be lost.”
They were generation Z, they’d never known a world without high speed internet, facetime or instantaneous answers to any question they might have. Most of their skills and talents were rooted in technology and as they listened to Murray talk about planting seeds and learning how to spin cotton into cloth, they hugeness of yesterday settled down on them.
They looked at him like he’d grown an extra head. No one was in a rush to do anything, they still looked shell shocked and unsure.
“I’ll make you a deal.” Murray said. “If you can find one other live person out there, anybody we can talk to on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat…whatever, find one other person and I’ll admit I’m wrong, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.”
“My battery is almost dead.” Swan said. “I can’t waste it on nonsense.”
“They sell chargers in the gift shop.” Cody said. “I’ll get some.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about spinning wool to make clothes.” Harper said. “If everybody is dead, there will be plenty at the mall.”
“Yeah, okay, point taken.” Murray said “But regardless, we’re going to lose the internet soon. Maybe even today and when it goes, so does all of the information. We need to save as much survival stuff as we can.”
Cody returned a few minutes later with a handful of charging cables and one by one they finally had to admit what they already knew in their hearts. They scoured every far corner of the internet they could find, they watched live traffic feeds from a hundred different cities and everywhere it was the same. The undead wandered about unchecked and unchallenged. Donny watched for a while, knew by the looks on their faces what Murray said was true, then went outside to check the fence line. He wanted to double check the spot where he’d slipped under was secure.
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