As I looked around at breakfast, I realized that I had never had so many people at my table. We all ate in silence until I brought up the issue of the plumbing and said that Albert and I would take care of it today. Once I started talking, I got on a roll and suggested that we should have some basic communication guidelines and a few rules about noise so we wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention from the undead, or worse. Everyone listened attentively, but no one responded.
Finally, one by one, everyone got up from the table to go back to doing whatever they had done before breakfast. Alison cleared the plates while I got some water out of one of the barrels out back. We washed the dishes together in comfortable silence. It’s funny how complete strangers can become familiar so quickly.
After a while, I went outside to see what Albert was up to. When I opened the garage he was not there. I knew he wasn’t in the house.
I was walking up the driveway when I heard the front gate open. I must have gotten stupid and complacent with our new guests around, because I was unarmed. I was still deciding whether to run or crap myself when Albert came waddling around the corner weighed down with a huge duffle bag over his shoulder. He handed me his Ruger 10/22 as he went by me and, between gasping breaths, told me he was being followed.
Panic seized me when I heard the all-too-familiar moan and then a crash against my front gate. I eased around the corner with the 10/22 at the ready. Three of Them were clawing at the Bougainvillea and trying to reach through it. I froze for a moment and then got my wits about me. It took me five rounds to dispatch them through the fence. I crouched behind the bushes for several minutes waiting, but no others showed up.
I was a little pissed at Albert and stormed into the house ready to light into him. When I got to the living room, I saw the girls going through the contents of his bag. I figured out that Albert had probably been down the street at the neighbor’s house where we had found his clothes. He had raided the wife and daughter’s wardrobe there and brought it for the girls. They were very appreciative. Albert gave me a guilty look when I told him to meet me in the garage when he was done.
When he finally showed up in the garage my adrenaline had settled down and I didn’t have the energy to fight with him. Besides, I wouldn’t have thought to get the clothes. He is certainly a better host than I am. We spent the afternoon building a sound suppression box for the propane generator and running the exhaust out a hole in the back of the garage wall. We now have emergency power if we need it.
Albert and I went up on the roof and he pointed out a motor home sitting in the driveway of a house several doors down. I had seen it there before but never thought much about it. He suggested that we could pull the water pump, power system, and batteries out of it to use for rigging a hot water shower in the house. We could use the generator to keep the batteries charged.
Tonight we made plans to raid the Winnebago and also unscrew a few of the boards on my back fence so we can get through without having to climb over each time. I have some extra hinges so we can rig makeshift doors in several places. I told Albert that we can use the neighbor’s pool water to flush the toilets.
I just realized why I woke up at 2 a.m. this morning. I set the timers on my improvised explosives I left at the biker yard to detonate at that time. I wonder if they worked. Tomorrow I will set up the CB unit Albert appropriated and see if there is any radio chatter about it.
Things are looking up…so how come I feel so much dread?
DAY 26
This morning I got Albert up at 5:30 a.m. so we could get rid of the three corpses out front.
I didn’t want to use the truck so we piled them into my wheelbarrow and quietly hauled them down the street to our unofficial disposal area.
When we rolled into the back yard to dump them in the empty pool with the others the stench brought tears to my eyes. Rats scurried around the putrid remains near the shallow end and crows perched in the trees all around glaring down at us. I’m sure they remember me killing their kin. We are going to have to either find a ton of lye or burn these bodies soon.
On the way back, I spotted a creature crouched down on a lawn across the street. I shot him in the back of the head with no hesitation. We left the wheelbarrow and approached him cautiously. The thing had been feeding on the carcass of a dog. I didn’t feel like going back to dispose of the body so we left him lying there.
I needed a shower but settled for a sponge bath. After breakfast with the girls, Albert and I went to the motor home parked in the driveway several houses down. There were several Infected roaming the neighborhood so we locked ourselves inside the trailer and gutted it from
the inside. It was slow work and we were both dreading having to remove the batteries and water pump that we had to access from the storage area outside the vehicle.
I stood guard while Albert disconnected everything. I had to shoot two undead that were attracted to the noise we were making. We left the bodies where they dropped, and used the wheelbarrow to haul everything we salvaged from the motor home.
While Albert rigged our new shower up, I went to work on the fence. I was just finishing my second makeshift “gate” in the fence when I sensed someone standing behind me. I turned to find Alison watching me with interest.
“Can I speak with you for a minute?” she asked.
It wasn’t a request. Any thoughts that I may have had about her being quiet and meek were dispelled as soon as I looked into her piercing gaze.
“Sure.” I replied, wondering what I was getting into.
Without any preamble she asked me why we had rescued her and the others.
I told her that we had found out that the bikers had captives and that Albert had insisted on rescuing them.
“Your friend pays a lot of attention to Grace.” she said bluntly.
I suddenly got where this conversation was going. I had noticed Albert doting on Grace but hadn’t thought much of it.
I quickly explained about Albert’s little sister, even telling her about Albert taking the patrol car weeks ago to go find her. I recounted most of his story to her, leaving out, of course, Albert’s little love fest and his bout with crabs. I could see Alison’s concern turn to relief as I explained it to her.
“I’m sorry,” she started. “It’s just that…” “You don’t know us.” I finished for her.
She nodded. We talked for over an hour after that. I found out that Alison had been an office manager and worked every year at the local Renaissance Faire. After her roommate had become infected, she volunteered at the hospital until it became overrun with plague victims.
Alison and a few others had been holed up on the top floor of the hospital until the bikers had found them almost two weeks ago. She didn’t know what had happened to the others she was with. I did. The bikers had let them become infected. I didn’t bother to tell her this.
When I told her that I had rigged explosives to the wall of the biker’s compound her eyes narrowed. When I explained that I was planning on going to see what the damage was, she told me she was going with me.
The whole time we talked, she avoided telling me what had happened to her during her captivity, but I got the sense that it was pretty horrible. She helped me finish the gate and we went in to check on Albert.
We now have a hot water shower thanks to Albert’s ingenuity. He attached the hose to a pump that is powered by our generator. We can now draw water from any source. There is a mess of extension cords and hoses going out the bathroom window, and the propane tank and water tank take up half the bathroom, not to mention he drilled holes in my wall to support the tankless water heater, but the comfort of having hot water makes up for it all.
Only Grace and Chloe don’t seem to care. If anything, I think they both prefer not having to bathe at all.
I went to tell Roz, thinking it might cheer her up. I found her in the living room putting my iPod through its paces.
She looked up at me and said, “Your music sucks.”
She turned away, ignoring me. I guess she’s not a big fan of the Tragically Hip.
After dinner, Albert, Alison, and I sat in the living room to talk about our plans for the immediate future. Grace and Chloe went to bed (I guess I’m on the couch alone from now on), and Roz was off sulking in Albert’s room.
Throughout the day, Albert and I had taken turns monitoring the CB radio, hoping to find out what had happened after we left the biker compound. So far, there hasn’t been anything on the air. When I told Albert my plans to drive up to Sylmar in the morning he wasn’t at all interested. Before, I could barely stop him from charging up there and now I couldn’t drag him there to save his life.
We decided that Alison and I would leave in the morning and take the CB with us. We programmed one of the walkie-talkies to channel 14 and have a backup channel to go to if we hear anyone else on that channel. If all goes well, we may stop at a grocery store to forage for any canned goods we can find.
We have what we estimate to be almost five weeks of food and three weeks of water for all of us. The water storage tank in the motor home gave me the idea to check the neighborhood for bottled water. I seem to remember a Sparkletts truck stopping on my street all the time before the plague, but I can’t remember which house. I don’t know what kind of existence this is for us, but for now we are safe.
DAY 27
We decided to take the truck this morning and left my yard through my new “gate” in the back fence.
It worked perfectly until I went to close it from the outside.
I rigged a cross bar on the inside to keep the gate in place, but didn’t think about how to use it from the outside to get back in. I went back into my yard, secured the gate, and climbed back over again. Alison tried as hard as she could to not to smile at my stupidity, but failed miserably. I’ll figure it out later.
We arrived in Sylmar around 6:45 a.m. and parked several blocks from the wrecking yard. It was dangerous to walk so far, but it was quieter. We found a ladder attached to the back wall of a tile store and went up onto the roof. What we saw shocked me.
Most of the trailers and buildings on the east side of the biker compound were burned to the ground. The entire section of the fence between the two spots I placed the explosives was gone. Two huge craters marked where the bombs had detonated. Burnt corpses as well as unburned bodies were scattered all about. A dozen motorcycles lay in twisted heaps. One van was on its side. The rest of the vehicles were gone. The place was abandoned.
We left in silence. Once we got back to the truck, I checked the CB radio, surfing through the channels slowly. When we got the unit, it had been set to channel 9 so that’s the frequency we listened to most. As we sat in the parked truck listening to silence, I noticed that Alison was trembling.
I didn’t know what to say to her so I suggested that we head back. Before I could start the engine, Alison put her face in her hands and began to sob. I sat there like an idiot, not knowing how to comfort her.
“When they caught me, I convinced them that the reason I was at the hospital was because I was HIV positive.” she said suddenly. “It didn’t stop them though. I guess I should be grateful that they at least used condoms when they…” her voice trailed off.
She continued, telling me that Rozalyn had it much worse and that she had been there a week longer. They had found Roz and two of her friends in a mall. They killed one of them when she tried to escape and the other didn’t survive a particularly brutal rape. Roz thought she might be pregnant. She is only fifteen years old.
Grace had arrived a week after Alison. Nothing had happened to her yet but there was one dirt bag that was just getting his courage up. He had just disappeared two days before we rescued them. I suspect that was probably Lou, the dickhead I shot by the dumpsters.
Apparently, Grace didn’t talk about her parents or even ask for them. Alison thinks Grace’s parents may have been abusive. Grace would need some serious therapy someday. Won’t we all.
As she talked it out, Alison composed herself. I finally figured out that I should say something reassuring, and was just about to when the CB came to life.
A gravelly voice with a backwoods twang came over the air. “Goddamnit! We’ve been on this damn roof all f---ing night. We’re coming down to get some f---ing chow an’ sleep. This shit’s a waste o’ time.”
There was a long pause and another voice came back. “You stay put or I’ll put my boot up your ass.”
The first voice came back, this time a little more whiney. “At least send up some f---ing chow.” There was no response to this.
Alison and I stared at each other in silence. It was time to go. Coming here had been a bad idea. I started the truck and as quietly as possible, eased down the alley we were parked in.
Thankfully, Albert had patched the muffler up. We had gone about two blocks when the first voice, the lookout, came back on the air.
“Hey, hey, hey! There’s a f---ing white truck two blocks away heading south down Bradley.” he said, excitedly.
We had been spotted. I gunned the engine.
The second voice came on and said, “I got Boone on it. He’ll catch up an’ follow them until we get the crew after them.”
I stopped listening. Alison turned white but didn’t say anything. There was no way in hell I was going to let her get caught by them again. We passed dozens of undead but we were going too fast for them to be any threat to us. My biggest concern was the bikers. When we had gone about a mile and a half, I turned into a residential neighborhood just north of Burbank and slowed down.
I was just thinking that we had shaken them when I heard the roar of a chopper behind us. I caught sight of a biker in my rear view just as I was turning a corner. I sped up and tried to lose him but he stayed with us, trailing a block away. I was starting to get a little scared until I glanced at Alison. Her hands were shaking but she stared straight ahead with her jaw set firmly.