He let me know that he needed things upstairs and suggested the same thing. He and his two friends disappeared around the corner and I watched as their flashlights bounced and swung about as they moved across the store.
I motioned for Albert to stay put and went back to retrieve Alison. She was right where I left her, crouched against a shelf with her Walther P22 ready. I gave her my hand and helped her up.
Her eyes were wet but her jaw was set firmly. “I wasn’t sure what to do. You signaled me to stay put.” she said.
I smiled at her. “You did perfect.” I told her.
She looked past me at the lights receding to the other side of the store. I told her they were fellow shoppers. We moved as a group down the escalators and on to the 1st floor. In the corner were the pharmacy and an optical department.
I went over the pharmacy counter and rummaged through discarded bags of pills, looking for anything useful. If it was something in the penicillin family, or even remotely related to a painkiller, it went in my bag. The selection had already been pretty well picked through but I got enough that it was worth the trouble.
Albert and the girls went into the optical center and looked through the prescriptions ready to be picked up. He came out empty handed except for a sports strap to hold his glasses in place. At some point, we would need to find him a back-up pair of glasses.
Albert and I stood at a discrete distance while the girls went down the feminine products aisle. We filled our bags with toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and razors while we waited. I saw movement to my left and swung my light up. It was one of the Hispanic women. She took something off of a shelf and smiled shyly at me before moving off into the darkness.
I was starting to get uncomfortable, feeling like we had overstayed our welcome. We gathered anything useful as we made our way back upstairs. When we got to the doors we came in from, I half expected our duffle bags to be missing, but they were untouched. I cut the zip tie holding the doors closed and looked back. I didn’t see any signs of our new friends.
We loaded our gear into the back of my vehicle. I secured the doors from the outside with double zip ties. It wouldn’t stop a person with a pair of scissors but it would keep out the undead.
The trip back was uneventful by current standards. Tonight it was like Christmas as we all went through our new stuff. Roz completed the image by doing a reasonable impression of the Grinch. She retreated to her room with her music.
None of us talked about it but I am surprised that there are others like us out there. Part of me wants to search them out but then I remind myself that there are people like Wayne out there too. I don’t know who I am more afraid of; the undead, or the living.
As I sit on the couch writing this, I wonder how we will survive once the local supplies run out.
DAY 31
Albert and I are surrounded and trapped across the street from my house.
It is scary how quick things can turn to shit around here. But I digress, so let me back up a little.
After spending most of the night tossing and turning, I got up early this morning and inventoried our supplies. Our trip yesterday provided us with more comfort items, but didn’t do much to provide for our two most critical items (other than food), which are water, and propane to run our generator and stove. We have two ten-pound propane tanks and two five- gallon canisters along with a sixteen-ounce bottle from my camping supplies. At the rate we are using the propane, it will be gone by next week.
We have enough drinking water for now but it is an ongoing concern. At breakfast, we discussed searching the houses in my neighborhood for supplies. I have been hesitant to do this until now as I didn’t want to face anyone familiar who may be undead, but I cannot afford that sentiment any longer. Even though this may satisfy our immediate needs, I can’t stop thinking about what will happen after that.
While I was on the roof debating which houses we should start with I heard someone coming up the ladder. I was hoping it would be Alison and was disappointed to see Roz stick her head up over the roofline. I motioned her up but she stayed on the ladder looking at me skeptically.
Out of the blue she asked, “So when you die, do you automatically turn into one of those things?”
I was taken aback by the question and told her I didn’t know. She gave me a disappointed look and started to climb back down the ladder.
“You don’t have to think about that stuff. We’re pretty safe here,” I said. I added, “As long as we keep the noise down.”
The last part was a reminder to her about her music.
She stopped and glared at me. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on sticking around here much longer.” she said.
When I took a step toward her so I wouldn’t have to raise my voice, she put up a hand defensively in order to ward me off. I stopped in my tracks, afraid she might fall off the ladder.
“What? Are you going to try to keep me like they did? You’d better not f---ing touch me!” She spat at me accusingly.
I carefully took a step back and squatted into a sitting position. She started to hyperventilate.
I told her nobody was going to keep her against her will and that she was free to do whatever she wanted. I also unnecessarily told her that she was fifteen years too young and not my type. I shouldn’t have added that part but she was starting to piss me off.
She glared at me for a minute and then lowered her eyes, defeated. As I watched her climb down the ladder, I knew I should have tried to talk to her. But at the time, I was thinking more about dropping a brick on her head for being such a brat.
Alison came up onto the roof a few minutes later and looked at me curiously. When I told her what transpired, she nodded quietly, not offering any comment.
It was later in the afternoon when Albert and I raided our first house. I chose the one across the street and down three doors because I thought it might be the one that the Sparklett’s truck had delivered water to back when somebody lived there.
I packed my pry bar, cordless drill, extra ammo, walkie-talkie, duct tape, and as many other items as I could think of in my pack, along with a wadded up large duffle bag for hauling stuff back in.
I left the M-1 carbine and a walkie-talkie (that we had set to a secure channel) with Alison. I felt exposed as we walked out into the street, scanning in every direction. Just as we got to the walkway of our target house, I heard the sound of rushing footsteps behind me.
I spun to see someone come out of a house and race toward us, wailing hungrily as he approached. When the creature was twenty feet away, I fired three carefully aimed rounds. The third one put him down less than ten feet from me.
Adrenaline surged through me. I looked for others but it was just him. I looked at the body closer and realized it was my neighbor, Steve. Or at least it used to be. He was a musician, if I remembered correctly.
My shakes subsided and Albert and I proceeded up the driveway to the back of the house. We looked in each window we passed but couldn’t see through the closed drapes. We cleared the backyard and garage before going to the back door. I opened the screen door and tried the doorknob. Of course, it was locked.
I pulled out my pry bar and pried open the door as quietly as possible. It popped open with a loud crack of splitting wood and suddenly an alarm started blaring. Albert and I stared at each other wide eyed.
I quickly moved around the side of the house looking for the source of the noise. I found a horn- shaped speaker up under the eaves. Five rapid shots into the thing silenced it. I looked for Albert but he was nowhere in sight. I wanted to bolt back to the safety of my house but wasn’t going to leave without him.
I went to the back door and looked in. I could hear someone moving inside, as well as what sounded like a herd of buffalo charging toward the house from up the street. I was scared and angry. Albert knew better than to enter a house without properly clearing it, but he was inside now. I went in with him, shutting the screen door and back door and grabbing up a dining room chair sitting nearby. I propped the chair up against the door handle.
The crowd of undead started banging on the front of the house, somehow knowing that we were inside. I dropped my pack and pulled out my drill, fumbling with a handful of two-inch screws. I set the first screw at an angle in the door and drilled it into the frame. As I was driving the third screw in, I heard several creatures coming up the driveway and around back. The sound of one of them hitting the screen door and wrenching its aluminum frame startled me.
My walkie-talkie came to life and I heard Alison’s concerned voice on the other end. I told her I’d get back to her and drilled in four more screws. Numerous hands began pounding on the back door. I went through the house looking for Albert.
I found him sitting propped up against a wall in the hallway. Blood was pouring out of an open gash on top of his head and down onto his face. He mumbled something but I couldn’t hear him over the din of undead moaning and banging on the house.
I scanned the area, looking for what had caused his injury. I saw an open door and edged toward it, twisting on my weapon-mounted light. I shined the light into the darkened room. It was a walk-in closet. An open control box was bolted to the wall there. On the floor a storage trunk sat precariously on its side. I looked up and saw a broken shelf overhead.
I stepped back out of the closet and squatted down to check out Albert’s wound. His eyes were blinking dully. I noticed his glasses were missing. I slapped his face a few times to get him to focus on me. He held up a 6-volt battery that was sitting in his lap.
“The alarm was wired to a backup battery.” he said.
In an instant, I assessed the situation. Albert had pulled the battery out of the control box and somehow the shelf above gave way and released the trunk onto his head.
I found several towels in the bathroom. I rolled one up and applied it to Albert’s head, gently at first, in case his skull had been crushed. When I felt firm resistance I applied more pressure, telling Albert to hold it in place.
I found his glasses on the closet floor, unbroken, and put them in his shirt pocket. I cleared the house quickly. When I got to the last door at the end of the hall, it was locked. I listened through the door for a few seconds but couldn’t hear anything on the other side. I didn’t have time to break it down as I had other concerns. As long as it stayed shut, that was fine with me.
I checked the windows and front door. The windows had security bars on them so I wasn’t overly worried. All of the curtains were drawn closed so at least the undead couldn’t see us. The front door had a small stained glass viewing window, but even if it broke, they wouldn’t be able to fit through it. As long as the screws in the back door held, we were safe for the time being.
I attended to Albert. I went back into the bathroom and found a decent first-aid kit and some hydrogen peroxide. I slowly removed the blood-soaked towel from Albert’s head. The wound wasn’t deep, and while blood still oozed from it, the flow of it was slowing.
I dowsed the cut with peroxide and cleaned up the excess blood with a clean towel. I liberally applied an antibiotic cream to the gash and put a thick sterile gauze pad on it, holding it in place with first aid tape from the kit.
I soaked a towel in water from the toilet tank and wiped Albert’s face and neck clean. He stared at me with a dopey expression while I finished up. I rolled up the wet towel and put it behind his neck.
When I asked him if he knew what had happened to him, he shook his head. I asked him if he knew where he was. He looked around and shook his head. Crap. If we are lucky he will only have a concussion. There is no way we can travel, even just down the street, with him in this kind of shape.
I knew I shouldn’t move him at all, but the noise from the Infected outside was starting to set my teeth on edge. I pushed the trunk out of the way and moved Albert in to the closet, shutting the door behind us. It was much quieter. I propped him against the wall and told him not to fall asleep. He nodded, but his eyes were already drooping.
I was trying to stay calm and confident in front of Albert. I got on the walkie-talkie and called for Alison. I told her to go somewhere private away from the girls and then told her what had happened.
When she asked me what I was going to do, I hesitated before responding. I had been hoping she would have a suggestion. When I realized she was at as much of a loss as I was, I told her we were going to sit tight and hope the undead would get bored and leave. I knew there was no chance of that, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I found a candle, a light blanket, and some couch pillows in the living room and brought them into the closet. I made Albert drink some water from my canteen and fed him a stale candy bar I found in the kitchen just to keep him awake.
The Infected pounded on the house and wailed for hours, but at around 7 p.m. they quieted down a little. I spoke with Alison twice more and told her we were going to stay the night. I told her to keep everyone extra quiet with so many of those things so close.
This journal happened to be in the outer pouch of my backpack so I am writing this by candlelight as I have nothing better to do with my time. About two hours ago, Albert became more coherent and listened attentively while I told him what had happened to him. About Twenty minutes ago, he said his stomach was bothering him and went into the bathroom to deal with it.
I know he is still awake because even in here, I can hear him composing an original tune on the butt trumpet. If those things outside didn’t know we were in here before, they do now.
It’s funny, but this is the first night I have been away from my house in over a year. And I’m only just down the street. Tomorrow we will have to get out of here. While there seems to be plenty of food and water, I do not feel safe.
DAY 32
Between Albert’s chainsaw snoring and the undead outside, I didn’t sleep a wink last night. It was cold and miserable. Alison was relieved to hear from us.