Less Traveled

In the movies, farmhouse doomsday lunatics always have a store room or cellar crammed with canned goods and preserving jars filled to the brim with fruit and vegetables brined or sugared into oblivion, their glass jars caloric bombs waiting to be unsealed and lining orderly  if dusty shelves.  The farmhouse I found myself in now had no such stores.  A few items in the sparse pantry were usable, but the house had long since succumbed to the madness of it’s occupant. The shooter, whose screams were mercifully short, had been devoured in moments by the undead horde.  The ghouls had moved on after their meal  following whatever ruined mental compass seemed to propel their aimless shambling between hunts, Finn and I erased from their corroded minds as quickly as we had become the focus of it.  

We had survived, this boy of mine and I, though I couldn’t tell why or to what end.  I had no guesses as to how long we would be able to continue.  There was no sense of victory here, or despair.  All of it seemed to flatten out as the tasks piled up before me.  My wife, asphyxiated in a silo just a few dozen yards from the shattered, blood stained hovel I found myself in; my son, small and hungry and distressingly quiet tied with rags to my chest.  Food, transportation, shelter, all at crisis.  In the years to come, upon reflection, searching for a moment of decision, the closest I would recall was now, swaying with exhaustion and fear in a broken farmhouse amid the vast agricultural wilderness of middle America.  There was no conscious decision to press on.  That was the great revelation.  Survival bypasses the mind.  It’s a catharsis of the body; a stubborn physical refusal to die.  

There was precious little to salvage.  A .308 rifle, covered in gore, cleaned as best I could in a short time, a small ammo can of loose and annoyingly heavy ammunition, a few ancient looking cans of stewed tomatoes, a can of sweetened condensed milk, a passably sharp kitchen knife, and a gallon of water pumped from a decidedly sketchy red water pump found near a wash basin.  I tore sheets from the bed and reslung Finn, tore the rest for rags and diapers and shoved all but the rifle into an old newspaperboy’s sack I found hanging in the garage.  I wet my fingers with the sweetened milk and fed Finn the syrupy goo, hoping it’s calories would get him through the day, wondering abstractly what would get me through.

I walked outside, marveling at the overwhelming liar’s cheerfulness of the afternoon sky, it’s bright light and cloudless sky belying the lurking, lumbering reality on the ground.  It always struck me as incongruous, this difference between the external and internal environment.  I stood for a long moment just outside the battered front door doing nothing but breathing.  This house had been a source only of danger and misery, yet I found myself oddly reluctant to leave it.  Despite its congealing mess upstairs and the appalling lack of even the most remedial resources, it was still a house and therefore a tiny piece of a familiar world, with walls and rooms that made sense.  Walking away from it felt terribly exposed.  There were, of course, no other options.

Shouldering the newspaper bag, checking Finn, and grasping the rifle, I lumbered out into the day, turning down the long grassy drive, listening and watching for any movement, any sign of the undead.  It wasn’t long before the grassy drive forked.  I paused for only a second to decide.  I took the one less traveled by, hoping that would make all the difference.  

Tree House to House

50 yards away.

My savage moment turned into Darwinian Reality TV. Hungry, dehydrated and shaking I somehow mustered up enough energy to burst into a sprint toward my mom and dad’s house from the tree house whose ground was littered with “my” dead. I was in broad daylight now and whimpered like a baby as I ran, hoping to God there was still someone left to run to in that house.

40 yards away.

It occurred to me that pounding on the front door or breaking a window was probably not a good idea. I would have to be more discreet. My eyes search for the old TV antenna attached to the house. I could get to the roof.

30 yards away.

As I pass the neighbors’ house directly across from my Mom and Dad’s I hear a snort and glance over my shoulder to see the blond obese neighbor’s wife (what was her name – Gilda?) in a blue flowered mumu begin to give chase in a rambling, tottering way. Like a deadly, slow-rolling blueberry. Well, more like “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” minus the rolling dollies. Ugh.

20 yards away.

I am almost there. The antenna is there. I am breathless even though I have a huge gain on Fatty Gilda. She is struggling, even in death, to work her body to hustle towards food. A grotesque series of snorts eminates from her taxed and clogged lungs. As co-dependent on food in death as she was in life, her flaw works to my advantage.

10 yards away.

Almost there. I don’t scream or call out. I reach the metal antenna and Fatty is only half way across the yard. I grab one rung. The next rung. The metal is cool under my hands. The next. I reach the wood-shingled roof that offers a soft angle – enough to climb up – to reach the chimney. At the apex I clutch the bricks of the chimney while cautiously and as quietly as possible approaching a window to peak in. Before I draw closer the next window opens: “Sarah!!” The voice I heard calling me to dinner all through my youth. I scramble over and crawl into the house through the window and I fall sobbing into the salvation of my mother’s arms.

Served Cold

The need of the undead is perfect.

I realized this as I ran, as the rage and despair began to filter from my mind, began to drop away with each pounding step of my feet, with each yard that I ran toward the house, toward the gunman, toward the hordes of the undead.

Of course, I was far from perfect, my need, my body, my spirit, even my desire to keep on living was imperfect.

It had to be so. Imperfection, it seemed to me, defined us, marked us as individual, as fully human. It is what separated us from them, from the implacable, horrible perfection of their need. As I ran, as the exertion of exhausted muscles forced once more into strained and improbable service cleared the emotion from my mind, I began to hope that this difference, this imperfect need of mine would save me.

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Finn’s cries acted like a dinner bell to the undead. I made no efforts to comfort or quiet him; no efforts even to avoid his jostling. I wanted his cries, hoarse, terrified, constant. Let Finn use his breath to call them. I needed my own breath right now. Gnarled, weary, bone tired, but no longer carrying the extra weight of a sedentary office lifestyle, I ran toward the gathered undead.

They turned toward me almost immediately. Some of the fresher ones began to run. They came fast and hard, holding nothing back. I turned quickly running parallel now the farmhouse. Like hellish dominoes one by one they turned from the farmhouse as they heard Finn’s cries and began toward me. A pack of the quick ones began to form, nearly twenty strong. Many more of the slower ones staggered, dragged, or crawled behind. The quicker ones were gaining on me now, closing the gap, not having to pace themselves. My lead dwindled. Fifty yards away and gaining with each step, the freshly undead sprinted greedily toward me.

Shots from the nut in the farmhouse broke the afternoon. I dared a glance back and saw one of the undead drop and flail. Another shot kicked up dirt behind me. Clearly the first shot that took down the ghoul a moment ago was a miss by the shooter. I changed direction when I reached the opposite edge of the farmhouse. I now had every ghoul’s attention, and began to run away from the farmhouse, back toward the silo from whence I came. The zombies trailed behind me, stretching back in order of their swiftness. The quickest continued to gain on me, my lead dwindling to less than 25 yards. More shots kicked up dirt behind me, each one getting closer.

As sharply as I could, I changed direction, angling now back from where I came. This was the gamble. Everything rested on this decision. I ran harder now, as fast as I could, running back toward the ghouls, at a slight angle from my original path, back toward the farmhouse.

The ghouls closest on my heels attempted to change direction, to follow like freight cars the engine of their need as if hitched to my trajectory. Others who were further behind and could change direction quicker did so, stumbling into the path of their hungry compatriots, neither party willing to call it, neither able to veer from their need, to avoid each other. They crashed together, stumbling and falling, their once almost orderly procession now in disarray as each of their ruined minds attempted to correct them, to put them on a new course toward the dinner bell. Each of them failing to take heed of obstacles, of each other, a glance back brought some satisfaction that most of them were bumping and colliding, falling into one another. My tactic seemed to have confused the shooter as well. More shots rang out, but the distance between myself and the clouds of kicked-up dirt lengthened. The shooter would have to try again, would have to reorient his aim to my new trajectory and try to dial me in again.

Another course correction now, this one slight and I was heading toward the farmhouse door. Two of the fresh ghouls were hot on my track, but the rest of the brat pack that had been trailing me so closely had lost time, stuck in a sea of reaching arms and flailing limbs. They made no efforts to untangle themselves from each other, merely attempted to push between and through one another, causing more problems for them, giving me more time.

I was almost to the farmhouse, was headed toward the door. I picked up speed again, felt my legs screaming in protest, my lungs burning. Still running, I began to turn, twist my frame even as I ran so that all of the force of my body would concentrate onto my shoulder and hip. As I did so, I angled Finn, still howling in protest, up and back, and crashed into the front door of the farmhouse, the undead only moments behind me.

The impact was sudden, much more jarring than I had expected. My shoulder burst into agony, and then thankfully went numb. The door buckled, exploding into the house and sending wooden shrapnel through the air. I staggered, nearly losing everything, nearly falling, knowing there would be no chance to get up. With a lunge, I regained my balance and ploughed ahead, first sighting the stairs, and plunging recklessly upward. At any moment the gunman could appear, take me out with a quick shot, even the most cursory wound now would be enough to lose the fractional edge I had on the pursuing undead.

At the top of the stairs was a 90 degree bend that led into the hallway. The bend bought me another second, maybe two as the nightmares behind me fought to negotiate past one another. I sprinted forward, guessing that the shooter was in the middle bedroom, shooting from the best angle the house provided, using as a rest the ledge of the the window overlooking the roof that divided the first floor from the second. Another door, this one closed. I skid to a stop, tried the knob, found it unlocked and burst into the room, feeling the fetid breath of the undead just behind me.

I threw myself to the side as hard and fast as I could, clutching Finn like a football, protectively trying to curl and roll as I neared the hardwood floor. The undead were just behind me, and straight ahead of them, an old man, decked in overalls, a stained white tee shirt and brandishing that damn rifle. The first shot missed me by luck or by fate and buried itself in the first pursuing ghoul. The sound of the rifle in that enclosed space was enormous, earth-shatteringly loud. Three more ghouls pushed past the first zombie who was slowed but not stopped by the high powered round. They raced toward the sound of the gunshot, toward the prey immediately before them, forgetting Finn and I, focused now on the incredulous, hateful man in front of them, each of them singular in their focus, perfect in their need. Slinking silently back out of the room, and quietly running to the bedroom at the end of the hallway, I heard the screams of the old man as they tore him apart. That goddamn rifle didn’t go off once.

Archive 7o-553-d >> Entry 10

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Record Logging Protocol : Epsilon
Record # 7o-553-d
Chrono : Suffusion III

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Descriptor :Documentation
Classification : Altercation[violent,zed class(3)]

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Region >> Chicago,greater

Type >> Handwritten
Delivery >> Bound Journal

Primary Principal >> Chris
Primary Assumptions >> Male ; 20-40 ; caucasian ; Native
Secondary Principal >> Jen (alias:"Babe")

Secondary Assumptions >> Female ; 20-40 ;

Involved(primary,shared residence)

Record Source Data>> Copy of original text follows:


Entry #1

I thought I died yesterday.

Which, in a number of ways, has proven to be a liberating experience. A number of my previous audio entries are most likely lost, as the unexpected zombie assault has done a great deal of damage to my digital recorder. I will be hanging on to it, even though I don't expect to have the time or resources in the future to attempt the data recovery. That being said, I will be moving forward with a written journal of my experiences. A major reason, besides the retention of my sanity, is that I have found a profound purpose for my documentation. To explain, allow me to return to my opening statement:

I thought I died yesterday. To be more accurate, I thought that I was going to become a zombie yesterday. I had made the mistake of failing to notice that a window was partially open in the building I was camping in for the night. Unbeknownst to me, my voice must have carried out the window and into the waiting ears of some nearby zombies. While I was recording a particularly amusing haiku related entry, I was rudely interrupted as a zombie crashed through the window I was seated next to, and a mad scramble ensued. I was tossed from my chair, which my assailant was tangled up in for a few moments. I could hear more of them outside the window, so I knew that I would have more to deal with at any moment. My weapons are never far from me for a reason, and I retrieved my drywall hammer as quickly as I could.

A couple of extra pairs of groping hands were reaching inside the window frame as the first one regained its footing and lurched towards me. A wide backhand with the hammer side of the tool struck the ghoul in the temple and showered the room with thick blood, bone remnants, and the remains of an eyeball as its eye-socket exploded. As the zombie dropped, my second opponent fell in through the window in a synchronized crash to the ground. With a swift flip to the axe blade on the back of the hammer, I finished the first one off with a chop that jammed the tool into the base of the creature's skull. This was bad.

A third zombie was crawling through the window and the second one was already past the chair and motoring forward. Lacking any real weapon at the moment, I snatched up a metal trash can and smashed the zombie in the face with it. While not a killing blow, it did knock the beast backward and crashing downward onto the third assailant. I took this opportunity to retrieve the hunting knife and the pry bar from my pack. The pry bar was immediately applied to the skull of the nearest zombie in a downward brain scrambling motion. Not willing to wait its turn, the last of the attackers set on me with all of the speed it could muster. I was forced back against a desk as the creature dug its ragged fingernails into my shoulder and bicep. I turned the tip of the blade upward and jammed it through the underside of its snapping jaw and into the roof of its mouth. This provided an unexpected amount of control over the creature's movement, and I swung it sideways into a wall. A two-handed swing of the pry bar ended the conflict.

I stood there for a few minutes listening for more activity outside the window. Hearing nothing, I began to collect my items in preparation for my exodus. It was that at that moment that my impending doom became apparent. I wasn't wearing the tooth and nail resistant leather jacket or gloves as I normally would while traveling. I was only in a long sleeved shirt, which was torn open in numerous places from shards of broken glass. From the mounting pain and droplets of scarlet blood that ran from underneath the fabric, I could safely assume that my skin had been flayed open during the conflict. I drew back my soaked right sleeve to find my forearm sliced open in a dozen locations and drenched in the deep crimson blood of the undead.

Blood to blood contact.

I knew what that meant for my future: I am going to die.

This is the Day that the Lord Hath Made

I don’t shoot the dead uns, no sir. Leave them dead uns right about alone. I ain’t been setting here, day after day, night after night, reading my bible, without learning a thing or two. No, I been learning all right; learn bout every time I crack this here book. Known this here day was coming since I learned bout reckoning and I tell you I weren’t too tall to my daddy ‘fore I learnt bout reckoning. This here, this is a reckoning, sure as I know it, and I ain’t about to get in the way of no reckoning. I ain’t total sure just yet which of the dark riders this is, could be pestilence, or war, or death, or hell might be God’s way of bringing all them riders together, save time, hell I don’t know. All I know is I ain’t gonna be the one standing in front of my creator telling him bout how I tried to stand in the way of his glorious destruction.
I seen them young folks running toward my homestead this afternoon and I tell you I didn’t like it one bit. I ain’t saying I’m going down there anytime soon, but them that gets stuck out in the flood they didn’t get back into Noah’s boat, and I’m not letting them folks onto my land without a fight, no sir. If the good lord chose to strand them sinners out in that sea of dead, well that smacks of god’s work to me, and I’m not gonna give not one of em no safe haven, no sir, and I don’t care a lick that little miss out there carrying a child or not. The good lord’s already judged them; ain’t for me to make no never mind about that. But they smart enough to try climbing that silo of mine and I ain’t setting here saying I heard the good lord tell me what to do but I didn’t have to think none either; I just took my rifle and set down at the window.
Used to be a good shot when I was a young man, but my hands these days, they ain’t too steady. I don’t think I got them young uns, but I know I hurt the man some. Saw em tumble on into that corn silo. Probably city folk from the sight of em. Don’t know the first thing bout a corn silo and I’d bet my last dollar they’s swallowed right up in there.
Might have made me a mistake shooting at that boy. Seemed right to me though, seemed like the holy spirit were just about guiding me, but now I got them things coming up around the homestead, seems like maybe the sound of that rifle getting em excited, and damned if that boy ain’t coming right down off that silo. Might be going home myself tonight before the sun comes down, but I tell you this here rifle of mine is gonna try like hell to take that boy with me.

The Suffering of Fools

I awoke to the sound of Finn, squalling. We had managed to keep him quiet for so long, to teach him at such a young age to be silent, that his piercing cries sounded almost alien at first. My head pounding I looked toward his cries.

During the apocalypse, a man sees a lot of horrors. This is no great shock, no great revelation. It is one thing to see the myriad dead, even the living dead, but to see the slack and lifeless face of your wife is a much worse kind of tragedy. At once mundane, spouses perish every day, yet so incredibly personal, so incomprehensible, it is as if you are looking at a piece of yourself that has died. I belly-crawled to Finn who was wailing next to Colleen's body, clearly trying to elicit from her some reaction, some reassuring comfort. It was a pitiable sight, and for the first time since this madness had begun, I began to lose hope.

For years, Colleen and I had joked about being "Team Curry," but to us it was no joke. We were a team. For better or worse we had long since hitched our wagons together and had been hell-bent on making our way through our lives together. Her problems, my problems, they were always our problems. Looking at my wife, eyes open, slack and lifeless, I felt a part of me break and fall away. No more Team Curry.

I scooped up Finn, feeling how light and fragile and small he was, held him close and hushed gently into his ear. He calmed down almost at once, having learned, somehow instinctually, that there was precious little comfort left in the world, and to take what he could get. How in the world was I going to feed him? Take care of a baby in a world gone to rut and ruin?

But this was no time for planning, this was a time for survival, and revenge. To be taken by the undead, well, that was the heart of this particular darkness, but to be driven into this damnable silo by a living person, to be nearly shot and killed, to have lost my wife, to have endangered and possibly sentenced my son to death by a living breathing person; there was satisfaction to be had. I found that there was no pleasure to be had in ending the animation of the dead. Their soullesss eyes reflected no change, just a quiet indifference as they skulls were smashed in and their bodies dropped limp to the earth. The living however, I could make the living pay.

I looked around the silo, saw that the silo was about half full of grain. I estimated that distance to the bottom of the silo, and hopefully a door, and even more hopefully, a door that would swing out, was about twenty feet down. I would have to dive down, find the door, then come up and get Finn. Hopefully, the force of the grain expelling from the doorway would push the ghouls back long enough for me to get a running start.

I dove into the grain, pulled against the slick, hard kernels, but got no purchase. In a breath, I could only go about four or five feet before I had to turn back. It was hopeless.

Coming up for air, I looked to find Finn, saw him sleeping, curled up next to Colleen, moving fitfully against her body. I took in great heaving lungfuls of air, and noticed the quiet. The scraping, moaning sound of the pawing undead was, not gone, but faded. Very much faded. Cautiously, I climbed the rebar rings of the silo up the top and peered over the top. The gunshots from before must have attracted the mob of rot and ruin as they now swarmed outside the farmhouse. The vast majority of them were congregated toward the front of the house. Each of them stupidly clawing and grasping forward but none of them had yet breached the front door. I wanted in that house.

I climbed down, pulled the makeshift sling off of Colleen, knealt down and kissed her lightly on her rapidly cooling forehead. I grabbed Finn and put him in the sling, snugging him tightly against my chest, climbed up the rebar rings once more, and heaved myself and Finn up and over the side of the silo.

Cringing, silently cursing my damaged hand, and waiting for the bullet from the farmhouse to crash into my skull, I hurriedly climbed down the silo. I heard a shot ring out, then another, and another. Heart racing, I let go of the silo and fell the last ten feet to the ground, falling hard and not protecting myself with my hands as they were wrapped around Finn. Finn began to scream. The madman in the house put two more bullets into the silo above and the left of where I lay panting. Why would he be shooting at me when his home is surrounded by those creatures? I stood up, crouched low, and began to run toward the house, toward the man with the gun, and toward the hordes of undead, whose attention had now turned in our direction, and toward Finn's cries.

Heightened Senses

This is what I hear and this is what I see.

Swan Song

In recent years, Hollywood directors have shown a great love for using shaky-camera filming in order to provide a realistic depiction of the chaos and frantic nature of war and other life threatening situations. Something always seemed unnatural about that sort of camera work, and Maureen was discovering exactly why she felt that way. If a member of the IATSE was presenting her actions and experiences on screen, the camera would have scanned wildly side to side as she fled from the undead assailant before her. The image would have jerked sharply downward as she stumbled off of the curb and almost tumbled to the ground after her muddy boots failed to assist her in accelerating on the blacktop of the parking lot. After a few sickening jostles to bring the view level again, the screen would swiftly jerk to the right providing a wide scan of the area displaying the wild traffic and panic all around her. It would settle on the zombie, a very short distance behind her, lumbering as quickly as it could after her. With a snap, the camera would be back in front of her, frantically shimmying as she scrambled to fit her key into her car door. The door would swing open just in time to strike her attacker and send it crashing to the pavement. Screams and sirens would cry out sharply and then be swiftly muffled as the door slammed shut next to her.

Perhaps a close-up of the door locks would appear as she smashed her fingers down onto the electronic lock button, sending the set of small silver protrusions, slightly worn on the edges to a copper tone, smashing down into the door frame in order to secure her mobile fortress. The view would shift to look upwards towards her from the passenger seat in order to catch her gasp and shriek as the zombie smashed itself into the driver's side window, causing her to fumble her keys as she rushed to insert them into the ignition. Repeated thumps against the glass would echo off the plastic interior as the camera shook from the abuse the vehicle was taking. Whimpers full of barely intelligible words would escape Maureen's lips as the car's starter jumped to life with a less than confidence building grunt. The audience would now be staring at a wide shot out the front window. The wheels would turn as the four cylinder engine, which would much rather still be asleep, was forced into action by her foot, now captured in a close range floor shot, slamming the gas pedal down to the floor. The camera would slip side to side in a violent drunken manner as she swung the car around every obstacle in her path: human, automobile, and used-to-be-human. Then, perhaps they would close this segment with a wide angle crane-cam shot as she sped around the back side of the store.

Thus, would the director of photography capture the wild nature of a person fleeing for their life.

In reality, it felt nothing like that.

The most alarming difference was the sound. There wasn't much of it at all. The wails of the people, the crashing of the cars, the not so distant sirens of the emergency vehicles traveling in every direction, these things made it to her as if filtered by wads of cotton in her ears. The whole world seemed muffled, with two notable exceptions. The first was her breathing. The sound of her own surging breaths enveloped her. It was as if her inhales and exhales formed the cocoon around her head which dampened all of the other noise besetting her. A sheath which would only be penetrated by the blood soaked creature before her. Its moans and hisses sliced straight into her mind. Even as it followed her, she would swear that she could see the contortions of its face just from the creaking of it gnashing its teeth.

As for the shaky cam, it would be hard to say that the movements of her eyes and head were completely unlike the movements of the cameraman. That may have been the way it happened, but a person's vision is nothing like a camera. All of that visual stimuli had to be processed by Maureen's brain, so the final product was a bit different than what would have appeared on screen.

She floated.

Not literally, of course, but everything she experienced seemed to come at her in one smooth and steady stream. Her stumble from the curb felt less like the erratic flight pattern of a gnat and more akin to the bobbing flow of an old Cadillac with shocks that needed replacing. Her scan of the area revealed nothing but blurred masses of nondescript movement, and even the zombie on her heels appeared as nothing more than a shifting multi-hued blob. The moment it took for her to line her key up with the slot in her car door dragged on with intoxicated swaying, and the door striking the ghoul was barely noticed as she slumped into the worn cloth seat with a forceful expulsion of breath that made her eyes squint and her brow furrow in distress. The zombie's lurch towards the window elicited naught but a moderate lean away from the glass. The vehicle parked in front of her was gone, so she was able to shift into drive and pull straight through. There was no floor shattering stomp upon the pedal, as even in her state of panic, she looked both ways before entering the lane. Which was smart, seeing as how a non-drivable car would have been unbelievably inconvenient at that time. There was no violent swerving back and forth as she avoided the people and undead in her way, because she didn't avoid them. While Maureen didn't aim for them, the glaze which covered everyone in front of her made discerning their state of living difficult.

The greater factor was that she just didn't care.

A person who thinks little of other people, when faced with a life or death situation of mythic proportions, will, apparently, drive through and over whatever human shaped figure happens to be unfortunate enough to be in their path. It was a short drive for her to reach the back lane of the parking lot, and the way was quite clear of other automobiles, since it was in the opposite direction of the entrance. Behind the supermarket was a short driveway into a shipping and distribution complex. Her idea was to slip out the back way, which was a great plan. The wrench in the works appeared as she turned onto the drive and crossed into the neighboring lot. A rather large trailer was flipped onto its side and was completely blocking her only route past the long warehouses to her left and right. It was still possible to spin the car around and try to squeeze out of the supermarket entrance, so she popped the car door open and shook her head to clear the last wisps of fog from her vision.

As the door swung to its widest, Maureen's ears began to grab onto the unobstructed audio headed her way. Sharp screams and a choir of groans assaulted her. She looked back, with eyes ready to bulge from their sockets, upon the scene she had just exited, and horror began to set in. She slunk backwards, sliding against the cold sheet metal of her car's fender. The chaotic racket around her beat down on her ears, and her eyes squinted as if in response to a massive weight settling on her head.

As she rolled around the corner of her car and took her first few hurried steps towards the toppled trailer, she was overcome with the desire for some cotton.

Kent for a Day, Fool for an Unlifetime

Things were starting to come together, and not a moment too soon.

There hadn't been time yet to complete a head count, but there had to be more than a hundred people bustling about the compound. Kent stood atop the easement belonging to the lumber distribution facility that occupied the space directly across from the Gerber factory he was once employed by, yet still worked at. A strange situation to be sure, but the work that was now being done there was far more important than any task undertaken there previously.

Yesterday, “survival gear” and “gear for survival” would have meant the same thing to him, but not any more. It was easy to see what products fit the new and valid description of survival gear. One needed only to look at which crates sat empty and which hadn't been opened at all.

Kent's eyes caught some movement to his right, prompting him to snap his left hand upward while pressing down with his index finger.

“Got two moaners over in G2.”

As his finger relaxed, the small two way radio in his hand cried with static for a moment before closing the transmission with a click. “Roger that,” the box squawked, “red intercepting.” Kent kept his eyes focused on the intruders as they lumbered towards the center of activity he hovered over. The rumble of an eight cylinder engine being given a healthy amount of gas ricocheted up and out of the alley between the two buildings to his South as a deep red colored Ford pickup truck shot out onto the main roadway. A medieval looking steel contraption thrust from the front of the vehicle and was stained a color which almost matched the truck's paint. The device was once a small snow plow, but it now resembled what would happen if a bus load of swords was dropped into a chicken coop.

The zombie's lack of survival instinct was obvious as they paid no heed to the vehicle roaring their way. Lining up the perfect shot took very little adjustment for the driver, and the undead were scooped up and impaled swiftly. Jaws still snapping at the man piloting the craft, the creatures struggled to break free of the razor wire that was tearing their muscles into useless bloody chunks.

The driver slung his head part of the way out of the window and bellowed, “hit it!”
A slender teenager who had been seated in the bed of the truck popped up and snatched the bright yellow rubber grip at the end of a long rod that jutted upward from the back of the truck. With a sharp tug, a winch groaned to life and began to quickly draw in the length of urethane coated cable which ran over the top of the cab and connected to the wire mesh where the zombies were ensnared. The grinding cries of metal on metal were sharper on the ears than the wire's tiny blades were on the ghouls as it constricted around them. Flesh, sinew and bone were shredded, leaving hunks of diced human and buckets of blood in a wide trail behind the pickup, as if some Lovecraftian slug had slithered its way down the street.

Four hours, Kent thought to himself. These men had four hours to get that truck ready, and they were able to construct that... thing. He couldn't help but smile. If necessity is the mother of invention, desperation gives birth to something much more profound.

“Hey, Kent?”

While not actually a question, the soft request that floated up from his feet certainly sounded like one.

“I think I worked out how to secure the walkways against the expected mob's ebb and flow.”

Seated on the roof next to him was a young man hunched down a bit too close to the screen of a rather expensive looking laptop. His crisp white dress shirt still displayed the lightly starched creases along the sleeves placed there by a dry cleaning shop which was most likely abandoned by now. The bright white was broken up by broad splatters of burgundy dried blood, which actually looked quite good next to the dark chocolate brown of his skin. On the laptop's screen was a web of intersecting lines and figures, which were mostly indecipherable to Kent. The young man wasn't on Kent's list of invitations to the compound, but he was proving to be a critical asset in the construction. Michael was his name, and he had the sort of demeanor that made it seem all too appropriate to use his whole name, rather than truncating it to something like “Mike.” He had arrived carrying his laptop and a crimson coated fire axe not long after they began securing these buildings. Apparently, he followed his college flame to the Northwest with his freshly printed structural engineering degree in hand. While the relationship left him with nothing but an empty apartment to leave his office for, his training was providing him with plenty of new friends.

“If our inventory of the available materials is accurate, we should have the resources necessary to begin constructing the preliminary support structure to allow movement between structures, prior to the final framework being assembled,” Michael was just getting warmed up. Kent squinted slightly as if his eyelashes could somehow decode the drawings that were being explained to him. It wasn't working.

With an uncharacteristically soft press against the overly engrossed man's shoulder, Kent interrupted: “Michael, I believe that you know what you're doing, so I need you to start instructing the crew on what to do, and quickly.” The radio cut him off with a yelp that was partially muffled by the palm of his hand. Once again, Kent brought the box up near his head, “go ahead.”

“The head count is finished, and it looks like we're doing better than expected. But... there's something you need to know.” No closing static jumped from the radio, so Kent knew there was more to be said, even as the silent moment dragged out to the end of his patience.

“Sharon's not here yet.”
Ssshhh-cluck. The connection snapped closed.

Kent was squinting again. This time, it was as his teeth ground down upon each other and his head turned slowly to face the East. His gaze bore down on a destination past these warehouses and parking lots, underneath the highway, through treetops and power lines and two story homes. A solid three mile long staring contest against a sandy colored split-level brick target.

Home.

Smucker's Raspberry Preserves

I awake still lying on the rotten floor of the tree house shrouded in an early morning fog. My arm still throbbing with raccoon bite. The soft moans of the undead below did not go away while I was dreaming of soft Mexican beaches.

Here, the dead do not rest.

Today is the day I will need to get out of here, “here” being this tree house, this situation, this life perhaps? My stomach growls in anger. My thirst is almost unbearable. Void of modesty I drop trow and relieve myself through the cracks in the tree house floor. Any live person who might show up at this moment and happen to see me peeing would bless me with welcome embarrassment. The droplets of urine land on the little boy whose carcass stands swaying and clawing at the tree trunk.

I sit Indian-style on the floorboards for about an hour and near hysteria once again, I put one hand over my eyes as I audibly pray to God for help through cracked sobs. With the other hand I unwittingly grasp for the edge of the tree house floor. The gray dry rotted wood gave up almost immediately and I pulled and jerked the broken off piece and held it in front of my surprised face. A two-footer, sharp on one end and with just a bit of life left in the middle to provide strength. This was the answer. Halting my sobs and prayers, I got up and onto my knees and began madly yanking at the floorboard strips tearing up splinters and stubbing my thumb on a rusty nail. I was clawing for my own salvation. Dead wood for dead heads.

By the time the fog burned off and the morning sun was nearly blinding I had a good-sized pile of spikes for which I was sorting by size and strength. The larger men zombies would need to be taken out first. I gingerly lowered myself, hands sweating, on the shaky wooden tree house ladder with the largest of the makeshift spears. The undead farmer in his overalls moaned loudly and reached his rotting limbs up to reach me. And I’m just barely out of his reach as my hands shake with adrenalin – one clinging to the tree ladder and the other raised above my target. I bring it down with a powerful grunt and plant it through the top of the semi-soft cranium with a "flump". Farmer drops to his knees and then falls over, face down into the soft green grass. The other three are oblivious totheir comrade’s termination and stumble around his second-time corpse, tripping here and there.

With a slightly renewed confidence that this would work, I bared my teeth and hissed. "That's it. Get over here, you fuckers!"

I pull out another stake and took out Neighbor man likewise. The little boy, however, got it through the eye. It went deep enough to short circuit him and disgusting, smelly aqueous humor dripped out of his socket before he hit the ground. That’s all that mattered, his ending. And then the little girl was spiked through her blonde pony-tailed head, no problem. She didn't scream. The blood wasn’t even really blood but clotted and congealed like Smuckers Raspberry Preserves. I should have been throwing up by now. Is this what is called desensitizing? Or just pure survival?

I gratefully jumped to the ground, keeping low and hunched over where all four bodies lay scattered, keeping an eye out for any movement. In a moment of dramatic victory and going against my better instincts I felt a rage well up within me. I bent down to the ground and dipped two fingers into a pool of red ooze and then traced a cross on my forehead before breaking into a sprint toward my parents' house.

I think I left myself in that tree house. This was now Me [Version 2.0].

Redenbacher Blues

As a man who grew up in another world, a world where the dead stayed dead and where women and children didn't run through the countryside pursued by ravenous fetid corpses, I have had occasion to wonder what kind of a man I was. Certain other generations were not so much plagued by this question. They were plagued instead with war and famine and challenges of the mind, body, and spirit which I haven't known, and while I am dutifully grateful for the luxuries of being a product of the late twentieth century, I was never able to shake the nagging doubt. I heard stories, read novels, watched movies, all crowded with heroism and altruism, and I wondered, "What kind of man am I?" Would I stand tall in the face of danger, sacrifice myself; would I risk everything for a loved one? A stranger?

I was beginning to find the answers to my question.

When Colleen hit the grain, she and Finn sank with astonishing speed. The grain seemed to open for them, enfold them in countless tiny arms and simply pulled them in.

Another shot, this one so close to my left hand I felt the concrete shatter into stone shrapnel, slicing the top of my hand wide open and spraying my face and neck with tiny stone fragments. The blood from my flayed hand rained down onto the heads of the undead below. Horrifyingly, they opened their mouths and held out ruined blackened tongues to catch the droplets, like some nightmarish child hoping for a snowflake on a winter morning. A third shot, this one just closer still and a little higher up. I managed to avoid further damage, but whoever was shooting at me was clearly zeroing in and fast. Two shots in the seven or so seconds since Colleen and Finn sank below the grain. I leapt over the edge and heard a third shot crash into the concrete just before I hit the grain.

It was corn, popping corn to be exact. Round and hard and nearly uniform, they provided almost no surface tension and opened to accept me as readily as they had swallowed my family moments before.

What surprised me most was the sound, or rather the lack of it. The initial rustle of the myriad corn kernels brushing a slipping past one another was quickly repalced by a near total silence. And the darkness. God, back into the darkness. I felt my mind consulse and shiver at the thought of it. Even now I cannot sleep with the lights off.

Before hitting the grain I had taken a deep breath and I tried the only thing I could think to do. I pushed my arms in front of me and pulled, trying to swim through the slippery beads of corn. Almost immediately I found what I was looking for. I grabbed blindly at the flesh I felt at my fingertips, felt my hands close on arm, gripped and pulled.

There was no movement. Again I pulled, and again nothing. There was nothing for me to leveage the additional weight against. Flailing, desperate, I began in that dark silence to panic. Past the point of reason, I pulled with all of the strength I could still muster and jerked and twisted my body, letting the fear and panic control me. Had I been thinking clearly, I surely would have perished.

In my ridiculous desperate wiggling, my damaged hand struck something solid, sending a lightning bolt of pain shooting down my arm and jolting my oxygen starving brain to awareness. Grasping, I found a metal rod embedded in the wasll of that dark and terrible place and I pulled. I pulled until I felt my arms creaking, pulled until the tendons in my shoulders and back and neck threatened to tear, pulled harder, pulled until I could feel my body threatening to rip itself in half with the effort. I pulled again and again, felt something in my chest tighten suddenly, then give and tear, and I still I pulled. It was no longer black in that space, but a kaleidascope of color, fireworks bursting in my vision as the vessels of my eyes swelled and burst with the effort. Then we were moving, rising and the tension was a little less and just a little less and in a moment my face cleared the surface of the corn. I opened my mouth and eyes, sucked in great burning lungfuls of breath and with a final heave that threatened to pull something deep and permanent loose from its internal mooring I pulled my wife's face from below that hateful crop and into the light of day.

Reaching below, I fished blindly for Finn, found a small, fragile arm and yanked him free, setting him across the surface, glanced briefly at his fitfully rising chest, and passed out.

As for what kind of a man I am, I'm not sure I want to know anymore.

Poor, but not in Spirit.

The cop was right about something’s, wrong about others. The ATV is both good and bad. While it is an “off-road” vehicle, and its speed is fairly good, it was really made to ride on downtown paved streets. The wheels are flat and wide, unlike the normal oversized knobby gripped tires that these vehicles normal sport. This means that getting up on the tracks is tough, and the ride is very bumpy. The suspension was made for speed and maneuverability on pavement, not on unstable ground. I decide that riding on the tracks isn’t my best course of action and ride in between them, on the rock bed that separates the two tracks. The going is slow, but not as dangerous as walking. I see a few creatures here and there, but there are no masses of them until I get to the projects.

The train tracks ride right along some of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago. Large apartments for low income families sprout on one side of the tracks. The bodies of hundreds of undead clamor at the sides of the building and on the windows. Suddenly the risk of being in a poor neighborhood is a benefit. All the windows that line the ground floor for each of these buildings is covered by thick wire or bars, and all the doors are covered with bars as well. These places were made so humans couldn’t get into them, and the zombies are stopped cold. 

On the porches, hundreds of people sit. It is still before noon and the temperature is still rising, it may reach 100 degrees today. With no hope of circulation these people go to the only place that is relatively cool, outside. They look down lazily at the creatures and out at me, seemingly unphased but the horrendousness of it all. I can’t tell what they are thinking exactly. They could be resigned to the fact of death. Having lived in a dangerous neighborhood for so long they might not even be affected by the fact that their apartment is surrounded by creatures that want to kill them; this isn’t much of a change from before there were zombies. In a way they were separated from the world before, segregated to a small community of like incomes and colors, how is this different?

But my cynical side isn’t firing this thought process up. Instead my optimistic side takes hold. Hardship isn’t new to these people. Lean times and mortal danger was already a daily occurrence. This new threat is just another in a long line of threats that they will overcome. 

When some of them notice me they hoot and holler. They yell and wave, some of them laugh, others cry out for some help. I cannot do anything really, but ride by and give them something to mark the day as different from the others. I am going slow when I hear gunfire. I am not sure if it is a gun aimed at me or not, so I hit the throttle, leaving the poor to fight their own fight. If I had to pick a side, I’d say the tenacity of these people will win out.

A little after noon, I get to a point in the train tracks that is going to be a challenge. There is a trestle just outside of a town called Blue Island that crosses a shipping canal. I maneuver the ATV onto the tracks and start to ride over, there are no rocks and the wheels are smallish, so the ATV is bouncing as the wheels fall between the supports of the railroad ties. It is too hard to drive and I am afraid that I will be thrown off into the water below. I get out and try to pull it. It is slow going across the bridge, each tie takes a few seconds, and a lot of effort. 

It isn’t until I get to near the middle when I see them. Some creatures are coming down the tracks from toward Blue Island. I start o furiously pull the ATV when I spin around and see a couple of others ambling toward me from the other way. There are about twenty of them, slowly plodding their way toward me, and I know there is nothing I can do. The way on foot will be too difficult, this machine is really my only chance of survival, but there are too many creatures, and the footing on this bridge is too poor. All the options that I have are quickly running out. The highest probability for survival is the only choice I really take seriously. I jump.

The sound of Silo

At the top of the silo, after hours of running, I leaned over the wall, and peered into a massive pile of grain. Wheat likely, but it was at least 20 feet below.

The undead scratched, grunted, clawed and moaned from below. They weren't getting up, and I sure as hell wasn't getting down. So our choices were grain, suicide, or stand as long as possible on the tiny iron rungs we had been climbing to get to the top.

Tom was talking, but all I could hear were words. I don't know how long since we'd eaten. It had been at least a week since we had any protein. I was hungry, I was thirsty, and I was afraid for Finn. He was sleeping too long now. I never put him down to develop his own mobility skills unless we were sleeping, and my breasts grew more dry with each day. He had eaten all my body had to give him, and I had nothing to nourish myself and make anymore milk. I feared he was starving.

My ears were ringing, my feet and hands bleeding and throbbing, and my vision was swimming. I clung to the wall. Tom stood next to me, still talking, and I still lacked the ability to focus. I just needed to rest.

To dive into the grain was uncertain.... can you drown in grain? It's not solid, so how deep in it would we go, and would be able to swim out? What about my poor, beautiful Finn? And once inside, do we just die? There is no one to come for us, and nowhere else to go.

I can't hold on forever. I can't hold on for an hour. I need to rest. Finn needs food, and things look grim.

Then I heard the boom and whiz of... well.... was it a bullet? Were we being shot at? Fed to the Zombies? I look to the farm house, and see movement behind the partially closed shutters.

People! OH GOD, PEOPLE!

Hillbillies, perhaps, and maybe no better than hippies, but they have a fortified home, and perhaps food and water. It is unclear as to whether we were being shot down, or the zombies were being shot at, but with nothing to lose, I untied Finn from my back and held him toward the house.

I shook him in the air and screamed, 'HELP MY BABY! PLEASE HELP MY BABY! We're thirsty, and we're tired, but PLEASE help my BOY!'.

Tom was yelling as well, but not at them. He was telling me to hide Finn, to protect him. 'He thinks they're shooting at us...' I thought. And I wonder, what difference does it make? Finn is nearly dead, and I can't save him from up here. We don't have long, either. Maybe a gunshot is better than being torn asunder by eternally starving teeth and rotting flesh.

Tom reaches past me to get Finn, and in our struggle, I tumble backwards.... into the silo, still holding an unconscious Finn by his arm... and I feel the wheat move past my body, and Tom's muffled cries from above.

Spearfishing

I awake shivering. It can’t be but maybe 5:00am and the moans from below my treehouse pyre softly rumble into a background noise. There are other noises; the first twitterings of Mourning Doves and an owl hooting in a distant tree.

The throb in my punctured arm is nothing compared to the throb in my head – a dehydration headache perhaps. Or maybe from lack of daily caffeine. I carefully and slowly roll over and look through the cracks in the rotten wood at the nemeses below. The Damned. Nothing changed overnight; still two rotting children, two rotting men – circling the tree, moaning. I need to get out.

My chest tightens signaling a long overdue panic attack. I slowly sit up causing the wood underneath me to groan. My breathing gets quicker and my chest hurts. I close my eyes and try and meditate on The Five Precious Wounds. A little residual Catechesis. It takes me about twenty minutes to calm myself and breathe regularly and by that time the morning light is creeping in to brighten the sky. I put dawn at about 5:50am. I look around to see if there is anything I can use to help myself out of here. Nothing. No hidden Indiana Jones rope tucked away in the corner, no matches, no gun, no miracle, nothing.

My parents’ house is about a football field’s length away. If I start screaming when I think they’ll be awake, I might have a chance to get out my S.O.S. Maybe someone will come running in on a steed of metal to save me.

At about 7:00am when I think my family would be awake I clear my throat and start my screaming:

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPP! I’M IN THE TREEEEEE! HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPP! I’M IN THE TREEEEEE!

I space out my screams so it sounds intentional and not like I am actually being killed. I do this for about an hour and forty-five minutes straight and with every moment of silence that follows I lose more and more hope. My dry throat burns and my vocal cords, strained and abused, refuse me any further service. A raspy cigaretty sexy voice of desperation. I give in to a good five minute crying session. In my fit, my hand claws at the end of a rotten wood floor plank and unconsciously pulls… the edge tears off in a long splintered piece. I hold it up in front of my dirty tear-streaked face and touch the surprisingly dense yet splintery sharp tip. Oak was always reliable, even when dead. Maybe it would work. It could penetrate skull, maybe. I didn’t have a choice now. Do or die. Or both. I hope the internal rot of these freaks has mushened their bones.

Like a madwoman I start ripping at the edge of the rotten floorboards, yanking up yard-stick long pieces to use as weapons, embedding many nasty splinters into my own skin. When I had about six good sized pieces I took my shirt off and wrapped it around the bunch and tied it to my back like a rigged bundle. A she-MacGuyver in a white Wal-Mart bra. The hard part would be gingerly climbing down the makeshift and crumbling ladder to get just within reach to plant the spear-sticks into their rotting heads. To do this without putting myself in jeopardy would be a trick.

My hands were moist with sweat and shaking I lower myself to the first step. Moaning continues below and gradually loudens when the beasts realize I am coming down the ladder. Another step. This one feels a bit more shaky. I pray the nails don’t give up their duties. One more, honey, come on. My chest and stomach scrape desperately against the bark of the oak, sending small dead pieces of wood shrapnel and dust raining down. My hands are not doing me any favors by sweating so profusely. My fear of heights does not help. Then I get to the magic step. It seems firm enough. I trust this piece of wood and it could be my doom, but I balance both feet as I twist my body sideways. My feet are just out of clawing reach and I cling to the trunk with all my shaking might. I reach back into my makeshift shirt-bundle and – OUCH! I stick myself with an end of a spear. Stupid! Ignoring the pain, I manage to grope and grab the first oak spear, balancing and clinging to the tree with one hand like a spider monkey. A scared one. I hover and wait with my spear upraised for the best opportunity to nail the first one through the top of the skull…

Segway

“Which side?” I say to Rick, the police officer of the now defunct Chicago PD. We walk across the top of the roof of the building, dried tar and gravel crunching as we head to the edge. 

“West, by the red line,” he says. He is letting me know where is abandoned vehicle is. Everyone in the building is sure I am insane, leaving the security for the unknown. Their leader, Mike, made a less than convincing plea for me to stay. He asked why I wanted to leave, and the first thing I said was that I needed to make sure my wife was ok. His response was coarse but possibly true, “Look man, she is probably already dead.”

“Let me tell you about my wife,” I say sharply, “If our roles were reversed and she was down here – she’d be fucking home by now.”

Our conversation is thankfully short and his protests are quick. He can tell I won’t change my mind, and the psychological drain I could inflict on the group could be too great for moral so he acquiesces. 

Rick and I peer over the edge of the building and look at the street. From 20 floors up they look like figurines below, placed her by some malevolent child in a sick game. The creatures march no where, all of them circling but at different arcs. It looks like grind of sharks, all clambering on top of one another to get a taste of the latest catch, but in this case there is nothing to grab. They all cycle in toward the buildings, only to be pushed away by the others behind in a never ending cycle.

Rick points, “you see it out over by the corner?”

“That’s a fucking segway.” I say to him, amusement drained from my voice.

He laughs, “man I’m just fucking with you. It’s over there, behind that truck that's embedded in Walgreen’s."

“That’s a quad…”

This time he doesn’t laugh. “Seriously… That’s what you have?" I say, "A 4 wheeler? You realize it has neither roof nor doors.”

“Look. That’s what I got. I know that it isn’t a full car, but it might be better in some respects. If you come to a clog in the road or something, you can always go around.” I start to protest and he holds up his hand, indicating he isn’t done. “It doesn’t use much gas, and that is a police model, it goes about 65 if you need it to.”

I shake my head, “I guess I have no choice.”

“You could always just stay here.”

“Gimme the keys”

-------

The goodbye isn’t long. I gather what I can carry, take both my makeshift machete and a small crowbar they happily give me. Rick is the one who comes to say goodbye last. 

“You should take this.” He says pulling his revolver out of the holster.

“No, I can’t…” I start.

“Look, I won’t need this here. We can handle all this with the makeshift weapons. Besides, I only have 12 rounds. It can get you out of a jam if you need to, but this isn’t anything I can use. And..." He pauses,  "if you feel the change coming on, at least you can end your misery…” The last statement hangs in the air as I quietly take the gun.

We find a spot closest to my destination, that is surrounded by the least ghouls. The guys pike them as I climb down the ladder and I quickly jog through the street. The ghouls are packed into places, and in other parts of the street there are none. The ones nearby start moving toward me, but I am able to maneuver around them and I don’t have to engage.  I arrive at the ATV with some space to spare. They are closing in, but not so fast that I don’t have time to get the key in the ignition. It starts immediately and I put it in gear and drive. I move past the major center of creatures quickly. Keep distance from the packs as I zig zag over streets and sidewalks. 

I know which way I should go and I head that direction. The train tracks lead to near my home. I can follow them and hopefully avoid crowds of creatures. And with this vehicle it might not be that bad of a ride.

I make my way past the buildings and veer off into the grass. The buildings end and the train yard begins. I drive through the surrounding deserted prairie, and head to the tracks. My car awaits at the station, miles from here. My goal is to make it there by nightfall.

Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still

When you have nowhere to go, it takes a hell of a long time to get there. I realized this as I ran, my exhausted lungs ripping oxygen from the air around me and converting it into carbon dioxide, exhaled in ragged but rhythmic bursts. I ran and breathed and dragged my family behind me cruelly, heedless of their cries.

I was callousness embodied. I had to be. I had through my inaction sentenced two boys to die, and so mercy became a liability I could ill afford. The game was changing now. I could feel it in the air that burned in my lungs like the fires of hell that would greet me for what I had become and I didn't care. Colleen couldn't keep up and I couldn't ask her too. She began to cry as I dug my fingers deep into her arm and forced her along, her feet bouncing and jumping against the ground more than actually running. Her cries meant nothing to me.

Having moments ago been reborn into this protective running machine by Finn's cries, the irony of my dispassion was not lost on me, nor did it change anything. Let them cry. Let them scream if it came to that, but even as the lactic acid began to set tiny fires across the internal landscape of my person, I didn't slow. My body had changed since this began. It was leaner now, made of the kind of grit and gristle that has woven together the bodies of working men throughout all time. More than that, my mind had changed, grown harder. There was no more room in it for contemplation of ideals and ideas. It didn't matter that I couldn't run anymore, that I was exhausted, that my family couldn't keep up. That was all hypothetical. That was the world as it should be; the world as a place of sanity and reason. That was no longer my world and so we ran and if anything my pace picked up. I accelerated my stride and although my ravaged unnourished sleep deprived body should have broken down, though I should have collapsed upon the floor of the earth in a heaving desperate pile, I ran. I ran to try and match the hellish determination of those who pursued me and the singularity of my focus consumed me.

Colleen had stopped crying now. I doubted she could spare the breath. Finn took up her slack, ratcheting up his protests. How hungry he must have been, how tired. This new world ill suited to the needs of a child. But if I survived so would he, and so would Colleen. I would leave a thousand boys behind to die screaming if only to ward off the demise of my family for a moment. I realized this and ran faster still, trying to outrun any need for redemption, to outpace the realization of my biological selfishness. It followed me like a shadow. I was an atheist in search of a respite from hell.

I would not find it. I found instead a farmhouse and its outbuildings just over a small hill up ahead. My pursuers were still coming, but I had lengthened our lead, given us a few precious moments to slow as I surveyed the area. The house appeared to be old, but sturdy and in good repair. It seemed the obvious choice until I saw the sun glint from a window and I shook at my near miss. It wouldn't take five minutes for the glass to break, social contracts shattered by undead heads and hands, snapping teeth and desperate hunger. We would have been consumed withing an hour had I not corrected my intial judgment, murdered by my poor decision as much by my poor decision as by the hands of the undead. I changed course in mid stride, almost sending Colleen to the ground, but yanking up on her arm to keep her up. I charged forward toward the massive concrete dominance of a grain silo. Gratified that there were no doors, I skid to a halt at the face of the thing.
Rebar rings circled the structure every three feet or so, creating a widely spaced but not impossible ladder. I had no idea what we would find inside had no idea if the silo would be empty or full or if there was a way to climb back down on the interior wall of the thing. It didn't matter. The house was certain death; the dilapidated barn no better. I looked at Colleen who appeared ready to pass out, then back at our pursuers. A hundred yards behind us the first of the undead was, of course, still running (when did they learn to run like that?) after us, only slightly hindered by a horribly mauled leg that looked as if it might bend entirely in the wrong direction with each ungraceful but effective lurch. I took Finn from Colleen's arms and began to climb. I motioned for her to follow.

Thankfully, it was not just my own body that had hardened during our ordeal, but Colleen's as well. She climbed grimly, but with competence. We made it six rings up, about a third of the way toward the zenith of the six story monolith when the first of the running undead hit the concrete wall at full speed. The sound of bone and flesh impacting the immovable concrete wall was gruesome, but the impact was of no consequence. The thing clambered to its feet as quickly as it was down, moaning through its ruined skull as it reached vainly into the air for the meal it had gamely chased. For the moment at least, it didn't seem able to climb, and without another glance back, Colleen and I struggled upward.

It was, I reflected later, a day for irony. Taking shelter in a grain silo was very nearly like storing ourselves in the refrigerator. Man had poured grain into silos for hundreds of years to store food for later consumption. Now it was we who were the food, climbing desperately into the larder.

Chicago, Where the Weak are Killed and Eaten

The pikes did what they needed them to do. With trial and error we were able to build the scaffold around the bottles of water, seal it off with concrete form boards and kill everything inside in less than two days. With the new strategy, the guys had planned to build the scaffold across the street and possibly take a few buildings back in the vicinity. The claiming of new buildings meant more resources, a bigger spot on multiple roofs for rain collection, and more survivors. Everyone was in favor of it.

I hadn’t slept in a long time. Really slept anyway… Lying still and jumping awake at any creak, moan or whateverthefuck wasn’t really sleeping, that was closing your eyes long enough so you don’t hallucinate. So when I made it across the street, I fell out. There were plenty of people watching as others slept to warn them if anything happened to the defenses, so when I finally did hit the pillow I was out.

I sat awake when I heard the rhythmic thumping. Zombies have no rhythm, their pounding is pure chaos, but this had some organization. When I looked around I saw no one inside, so I trotted out to the scaffold. The thumping was accompanied by a distant voice, it was a helicopter, announcing something.

All the people in the building looked up, and saw the thing hovering in the distance. There were a few murmurs at first, and then when we could tell someone was broadcasting their voice, everyone quieted down. It was hard to hear at first, but eventually we were able to make it out.

“We are moving toward Chicago. Please stay inside. We will be making a sweep of the city in a few days. Please, stay inside until we come into your building. We need your full cooperation. Just hold out for a few more days.”

The voice was shaky and unsure. Weeks ago I would have felt sorry for the person behind it. Now I could feel the anger welling up inside me.

“When we move through the blocks and liberate buildings, we need you to kneel and put your hands on your head to show that you aren’t infected. Anyone who disobeys will be shot.”

How fucking dare you send some snot nosed little kid to talk to us over the broadcast, I thought. His voice gave everything away. He was either scared or poorly trying to deceive. Fucking cock suckers, I thought, getting angrier by the second. I hope his fucking helicopter explodes… no, I quickly changed my mind. I wanted it to crash land with him trapped and on fire, then I wanted him to finish dying by getting eaten alive by these goddamn abominations crawling the streets.

“Please stay inside!” his voice was a shriek now, a begging, pleading weak little shriek. It got higher and higher as it went down the block, and more insecure with each passing moment. It hit a crescendo when a group down the street that didn’t care what the guy was saying ran out onto ground level, disregarding the fact that the street was filled with undead. The ran out, illuminated by the high powered light of the helicopter, waving at the sky like a pack of starving retards trapped on an island.

“No! Stay inside! We can’t pick you up! Go! No! No!” He squealed pathetically as the group was torn apart. The mic went silent quickly thereafter as the helicopter rose in altitude and flew off faster.

I leave tomorrow, I thought. I am not sitting here waiting to see if they are telling the truth. Even if they are, they aren’t going to let me hop a ride out to my house to get my wife. No, there is no choice now. I have to leave.

Lunatic Fringe

The throb in my arm awakens me. It is twilight. I open my eyes and see the sparkling diamond of Venus rising. A slowly moving satellite crosses the sky where the dark blue meets black, far away from this inexplicable chaos. I’m used to seeing airplane contrails scar the sky above this area all the time. Now there are none.

The soft groans of the determined undead drift up to meet my ears as I carefully shift my weight on the rotten boards of the tree house floor. The air is noticeably cooler and a soft summer breeze spitefully rustles my hair.

I peer down between cracks in the tree house floor and see that we have a visitor. Another undead neighbor - looks like Rich Aldanus - round bare gut hanging over his Chicago Bears lounge pants, socklessly shuffles in to join the party, arms raised, clawing ridiculously at the bark of the tree like the others, moaning for blood. Maybe he’s a fresh kill.

I recall hearing a radio program on the topic of stress. The science was that the body’s secondary functions such as growth and reproductive processes halt during extreme times of stress. I thought about how I wouldn’t even need to be on the pill right now to stay unpregnant. After this I realize how much I am missing Cecil. And I begin to weep bitterly, my tears landing on the splintered gray floorboards. I could use his military directions right now. When I had got drunk and puked in the car after my company Christmas party two years ago he held me up, got me in the house, got me undressed and cleaned up, and sternly commanded me to stop crying and keep my head over the toilet bowl. I feel like my head is over a toilet bowl right now. And all this shit is swirling below me, groaning to reclaim my body somehow. I hope Cecil is holding his own against these fuckers wherever he is right now.

The raccoon punctures in my arm stopped bleeding but are looking swollen. I’m sure an infection is well on its way. Great, just what I need.

More stars appear in what’s quickly becoming the night sky. As the colors fade I think of the song Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider how the beginning is echoey and perfect for this picture. I cradle my injury and curl up in a fetal position.

I have to get out of here tomorrow. Come hell or high water.

Not so Precious Moments

There are the stories we tell over a nice meal, stories that bind a diverse people together through the wonder of shared experience. They may be happy stories or sad or funny, but they are told willingly enough, and without anger or resentment. But there are other stories, terrible mournful stories. Stories told in whispers, reluctantly, each word pulled from us like bloody fish hooks, writhing and thrashing to stay buried deep in the hard, desperate parts of us, these are the stories that wound grievously with each telling. This is one of those stories.

We had just come to the light. Can you imagine what the meant to us? Can you? Just to have the light again, to be out of that infernal dark, it was like learning to breathe again just to see. And it wasn't just light, but sunlight, beautiful and bright and hopeful and it was there for the taking. It felt like I was consuming it, that I would devour the suns rays with my voracity. Can you think for one moment what that would have been like?

I didn't even think about it. I'd like to be able to say that I saw those kids down there and decided to do what was right, but it wasn't like that. I just started moving. What else was there to do? Jesus, they were just teenagers. They should have been throwing rocks and getting stoned and finding some girl to let them feel her boobs, but instead there they were, sitting in that goddamn boat as it floated lazily toward the shore. And of course there were dead on the shore, plenty of them. And so what the fuck could I have done? It wasn't the right thing, hell; it was the only thing. So we sat, all of us, in that damn tree and there I was, whittling little spears, a regular Don Quixote, readying the lance to go tilting at undead windmills. I thought I had to

By the time I realized what was happening, it was far too late. You have to know that at least. When we crawled out onto the tree from drainage culvert, I never looked at the tree. I was blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, you know what I mean? I didn't see a tree, I saw freedom, I saw salvation from the hell of that concrete tunnel and the dark. I saw spears to fight the zombies and maybe save the kids in that stupid little boat. What I didn't see was that the tree was dead. Mostly at least. It was leaning against the culvert because it had been struck by lightning. Some of the branches were still green but it was a goner. The trunk was split wide open at the base and it was at a crazy angle to the ground. Hell, thinking back it's likely the only thing holding that damn tree vertical was its leaning against the very culvert we climbed out of. So when it began to fall, slowly at first, I had no idea what was going on. It was like tipping over backward from the top of a ladder, sickening and inevitable, and just slow enough so that you know you're really fucked. It was a big tree. We were very high up.

I remember the landing real well. I was lucky (that's all it was too, don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise) to be on the far side of the initial impact. Couple of them cellar dweller hippie body clone chicks hit the ground first, and the rest of the tree just fell right into them. Weird thing was, no one said anything. Not a word, not an "Oh Shit" or "Fuck." Nothing. We fell silently. It had become our habit in the dark. But our silence didn't mean shit to Zed. They saw and heard that tree falling and they came in as big a rush as I ever seen them. Up until now, we'd only seen the slow ones. These were fast. They were on us before we even knew we'd survived the fall. One poor fucker just laid there, trying to push himself out of from under the tangle of branches that had him pinned even as they descended upon him. It was pointless. I could see even as I scrambled that his legs were shot, but he fought like hell until one of them mercifully bit him in the throat. Finn's screams probably saved my life. Until that moment, I was dumbfounded, pulling myself out of the branches and wondering how the hell we were all going to get out of this one when I heard his panicked cries. I snapped to and looked to find Colleen clutching Finn, looking wild and trying to restrain him with one hand while trying to scramble out of the tangled mess herself. I couldn't believe that she'd managed to hold onto him through the impact with the ground, but there they were, alive. And I guess that's when it happened.

I looked at them, my tired, half crazed wife, my screaming son, and I didn't care anymore about the boys in the boat. They were dead already, they just didn't know it. I think I had wanted to stay and fight before, to make a stand. I was ready at a moment's notice to make every place my feet held soil the goddamn Alamo. Until I heard Finn screaming. I looked back over my shoulder. A couple of the hippy-types had lived through the fall and were extricating themselves from the branches. One was brandishing a flimsy stick as the undead rushed him, tearing it from his hands and tackling him with the weight of the ceaseless hunger. And so we ran.

I grabbed Colleen's arm harder than I would ever have dared before and took off. I didn't care if she couldn't keep up or if I was hurting her. I needed to run, to put distance between my family and that madness. I left those boys on the water and our traveling companions to die. Part of me has been running ever since.

Culvert-land

It has been dark for so long, and we're all mad for the light. How long has it been? A day, a week, a moment.... we're all lost for time at this point, and the darkness has made us hungry like I've never known. Though not for food.

When we catch the first glimmer of sunlight, there is silence, as if no one dare breathe, for fear it will melt away. Like desert travelers in search of water, we are at the end of our tunnels, and our ropes, and fearfully, madly dashing toward the light, which dances with the shadows of leaves and branches, and rustles in a most beautiful, echo-less sound.

Tom is in front, he has lead us here. With few words, and little confidence, he has somehow reassured us that this is the way out. He seems, however, to be showing signs of wear. The wear and the madness of the dark, that we have all felt in the pits of our bellies seems to be growing, expanding, and we're all at the edge of madness as we desperately clamor, stumble, and race toward the edge of the tunnel, and the light outside.

In a moment, I am cast aside with the madness for the light, and I clutch Finn to me, who has been quiet for far too long, and fall hard on my hip. I cry out for Tom, terrified I will be left behind here, in the darkness, forever. The hippies were always a little cracked, but their desperation for the light seems more than ours.. and I wonder if they have EVER seen the light of day. They have lived underground their whole lives... what this must look like to them...

Tom comes back for me, as I am getting up, hip sore and likely to bruise, and he helps me stumble forward toward the end of the tunnel, and the world outside. He makes no sound, and the tension of leading us through these tunnels has left him frayed and tired. It's hard to say at first how far we have to go. The light seems a mirage, that fools us with it's rays, and dancing shadows. It could be 10 feet, or it could be 100. But we trudge on, quickly, and urgently desperate to get out of here.

After a time that feels like hours but it likely moments, I hear the moaning... Tom must too, as he stops dead. Where is it coming from? We look ahead and see that the hippies have reached the edge, and now fearfully grasp the edge of the culvert, looking back at us in overt terror.

As we get closer it is easy to see that we are not at ground level. And the moaning is still audible. Tom has his knife pulled, and is ready to fight, but steps away from the edge, baffled. As I lean over to look down I can see that we are 30 feet off the ground, in a large drain culvert, looking down on a man made lake at some teen boys in a boat who look to be quickly overtaken by 4 or 5 of the undead. Once they are in the water, they will be difficult to fight, as they don't need air like we do. But if the lake is man-made, we can hope it is deep, and that the zeds have forgotten how to swim. The boys look terrified.

For a moment I am sad that these strong young men, who could be so useful to us in surviving, are at their ends. Tom must be thinking the same thing, and he climbs out onto a large tree branch near the culvert, and then summons for us to join him. The hippies are terrified, but he motions for silence, so that we can only trust his guidance, and so as he asks. He has led us this far in safety, and slowly, Sage, Juniper, Corinader, and Hawthorne climb into the tree, and begin down the trunk. Tom begins to whittle makeshift weapons with his knife out of the longer, thinner branches, and it is clear he means for us to fight.

I clutch Finn to my chest, who is now cooing happily in the sun, and hope that for his sake, this is an easy battle. I don't know how much more bloodshed I can bear, but my god, does that sun feel good on my skin.

It seems to warm me from the depths of my soul, and after a few moments, I am renewed, and ready to do what is right.