This was as far as he could pull back the string. He angled the bow higher trying to compensate. Finally he let go. He watched the arrow travel through the air. It was flying straight, so he could stop worrying about it going wide and killing the person he wanted to contact. The distance however was short. The arrow dug into the ground about ten feet in front of the tree, about fifteen feet before the tree line in the field.
“Damn!” Tony said to himself. “With all the dead in front of the warehouse, he doubted whoever was out there would dare to venture out into the open to retrieve the food.”
Tony decided against shooting another arrow. He felt the one he did shoot was the best he could do. The distance was just too far for the arrow to travel with the food and note attached.
He picked up the binoculars and watched.
About an hour had passed and Tony was ready to give up.
He would watch again tomorrow. Maybe he would try again tomorrow. The next time he would try it with only one granola bar taped to the arrow. Maybe that would give him the extra ten feet he had needed to reach the tree.
Tony crawled into his sleeping bag and reached under the inflatable raft for his pen and pad.
The raft chirped as he pulled the pad out from underneath it. He made a mental note that when he did venture out from the warehouse not to take an inflatable raft to sleep on. The sleeping bag would be enough. The raft made too much noise.
He began to write his thoughts for the day.
“It is day twenty-two at the warehouse. I had a good day with the pellet gun. I think I eliminated forty of the dead today. Farmer George is still there but I didn’t waste any pellets on him today. I think it is best to use the pellets on the less formidable for now. Today for the first time, I finally spotted another living person. I tried to use the bow and arrow to send them out some granola bars and a note introducing myself. I’m afraid the arrow didn’t go far enough. Hopefully I will see them again tomorrow. It felt so good to know I am not alone in this screwed up world.”
Chapter 4
Tony once again woke up to find the intense heat radiating down on him from the tin roof above.
He slid out of his sleeping bag and into his blue jogging pants. He would wait to put his football jersey on when he went down into the warehouse. The jersey felt good yesterday, but this morning it was just too warm to wear it now. Maybe when he went down to the floor he would go find a cooler t-shirt to wear in this heat.
Tony got up and walked over to the window and looked down. Farmer George staggered through the group wandering around below. He watched as George made his way through the middle of the mob. Smaller zombies were bounced out of his way and often fell to the ground as he passed by them.
Tony had to resist the urge to get one of his weapons and start shooting at George. He had always hated bullies. The way George rambled through the crowd, he reminded Tony of a bully. More evidence that zombies didn’t think. If they had half a brain they would gang up on George.
Tony laughed to himself. “A zombie bully!”
He wondered what George had been like when he was alive. Was he a bully or was he just big. Usually really big guys like George were nice guys. They didn’t have to bully others and the real bullies would never mess with someone that big. George looked like he had been a farmer. Farmers were usually hard working honest men. Maybe Tony had jumped to conclusions about what kind of guy George had been. It really didn’t matter now what kind of man George had been, he was a zombie now. There were no nice zombies. He didn’t know why he was trying analyze George, maybe he was really analyzing himself.
Tony laughed to himself. “I don’t need to analyze myself, I know I’m half crazy.”
Tony laughed out loud. “Really Tony, do you think you are only half crazy? You do realize you are talking to yourself?”
Tony smiled as he walked over and picked up the binoculars. He held them up and looked back out in the direction of where he had seen someone eating berries.
The arrow was still sticking in the dirt near the edge of the clearing.
Tony let the binoculars drop and hang by its strap and rest against his chest.
“Did I really see a hand picking berries yesterday? Maybe I’m totally crazy and not just half crazy.” Tony said silently.
He pulled the binoculars over his head and sat them on the lawn chair he had brought up to his room yesterday.
“Crazy or not, I’m hungry.” He thought.
He walked over, opened the door to the room and stared down into the warehouse.
He started down the metal ladder and walked towards the water buckets when he reached the floor.
After a long drink of water, he headed towards the sporting goods shelves. After looking through numerous plastic bags he found a bag of white Pittsburgh Pirate t-shirts. He tore open the bag and picked out an extra large shirt and pulled it down over his head. After swinging his arms around to judge its fit, he headed back to the food shelves.
He looked over the shelves trying to decide what he would have for breakfast today. Again the vision of the hot breakfasts his mother used to serve him entered his mind.
“What’s wrong with me?” Tony said to himself. “I’ve been here for almost a month and I have spent all this time eating pastries and snacks. I must be crazy!”
Tony ran back to the camping shelf and climbed up the side of the shelf. On the third level he found what he was hoping to find. He picked up a box containing a propane stove, a box of camping pans and a bottle of propane.
He dropped down to the floor and ran back to the food shelves. He connected the propane to the stove. He opened the box of pans and removed a quart pan.
He looked at the stove and shook his head. “Tony you must be brain dead!”
He picked up the pan and walked over to the water buckets and filled the pan half full of water.
Twenty minutes later Tony was enjoying a hot pan of oatmeal. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of using a camping stove before now.
“I guess I have been in survival mode for so long, I forgot all about cooking food. I have spent too many months grabbing anything I could get my hands on and eating it before I had to run for my life. I could have been eating hot meals for weeks.” Tony thought.
After he finished his breakfast, Tony climbed to the top of the food shelves, the shelf where the canned goods were stored. He opened a box labeled Spaghetti-O’s and removed two cans. He smiled. “Dinner!”
Even after just eating breakfast, his mouth watered at the thought of hot Spaghetti-O’s for dinner. He had eaten Spaghetti-O’s at least once a week since he came to the warehouse, but he had always eaten them cold. He could almost imagine how good they were going to smell when he heated them on the stove tonight.
Tony sat the cans by the stove and started to walk back to the sporting goods. “What else have I forgotten about that I could be using.” Tony thought as he looked at all the shelves that lined the warehouse. “There has to be a ton of things I can use to make things easier. I have to start using my head!”
Tony picked up two more boxes of pellets for the pellet gun and another CO2 cartridge.
He chuckled to himself. “At least I’m using a gun to kill the zombies.”
He laughed at the image of him throwing rocks out the office window at the zombies below as the pellet gun, bow and arrows and 22 caliber rifles sat on the shelves in the warehouse. “If the floor of the warehouse had been gravel, that’s probably what I would have done.”
He climbed the rungs back up to his room.
He filled the gun with pellets and sat down on the lawn chair next to the window.
He looked for a target and spotted Farmer George. “Not today George. I’m sure when my brain starts working there will be an easier solution for you.”
Tony spotted an easier target and started. Thup! Thup! Thup!
Fifteen of the dead had fallen before he had to refill the gun with more pellets.
Tony looked at the number of the dead that laid unmoving on the ground below. “This is going better than I had expected. Maybe I’ll be able to go outside in another three or four days at this rate.”
Thup! Thup! Thup!
When Tony had used up the last pellet, he leaned back in the lawn chair and reached for the second box. As he opened the second box he looked out the window and studied the clearing.
He picked up the binoculars and scanned the edge of the clearing. He swept the area a second time. The arrow was gone! He studied the brush to see if he could see any movement. The scene in the binoculars bounced around as his hands shook with excitement. Tony was happy to know he wasn’t crazy, at least crazy for thinking he had seen someone out there yesterday.
Of course he hadn’t seen who took the arrow. It could have been carried off by some animal. Or maybe a zombie got it tangled up in one of its parts that drug along behind it as it moved by the arrow.
“No! It had to be the person I saw out there yesterday!” Tony thought. “Now what?”
Tony ran over to the corner of the room and picked up another arrow and took it back over to his bed and sat down. He pulled the pad out from under his mattress and tore off another page and wrote. “I hope you enjoyed the granola bars. Here is another.” He signed it Tony.
He taped the note and another granola bar to the end of the arrow. He set the arrow on the bow string and focused on the tree near the berry patch as he pulled back on the bow.
He let the arrow fly. Again it didn’t make it to the tree, but it managed to get within five feet of the edge of the clearing. He picked up the binoculars and scanned the area. There was no movement. He watched for almost an hour, but was disappointed when no one tried to reach it.
Tony set the binoculars down and picked up the pellet gun. He kept glancing at the edge of the clearing as he shot again at the zombies below.
The arrow was still there when he finished off the last of the day’s pellets.
He watched the clearing for another twenty minutes before giving up. He had eliminated another thirty or forty zombies with the pellet gun today. He had put a dent in the number of zombies that waited outside the warehouse, but the disappointment of not seeing who took the arrow was all he could think about.
He climbed back down to the floor of the warehouse. There had to be something here to help him make contact with whoever was out there.
He opened a container of beef jerky and ate while he thought. He had an opportunity to make contact with someone, he didn’t want to blow this chance.
He chewed the beef jerky as he climbed the shelves to explore and see what he could find.
The light coming in through the skylights was getting low as Tony finished his dinner. He set the pan in the bucket he had used to clean up so the pan would soak overnight, then began to climb back up to his room for a final look before turning in for the night.
He looked through the binoculars and was disappointed to see the arrow was still in the clearing.
He made another notch on the door to keep track of his time at the warehouse.
He wrote his day’s activity in the pad as the light finally gave out.
Tony slid the pad under his bed and laid back on his mattress.
He ignored the groaning coming in through his window. If he would have been concentrating, he would have realized the volume tonight was lower than the past few nights.
He thought of the person that took the arrow as his mind shut down for the day. He wondered who the person was and how they had managed to survive.
Chapter 5
Tony woke up to another hot day.
But he didn’t give it a second thought as he crawled out of bed. He moved to the window and picked up the binoculars to check on the arrow.
The sun was high in the sky, he must have slept longer today than he normally did. The sun usually would have only risen slightly above the trees before the temperature in his room became too uncomfortable for him to sleep any longer. He must have been really tired last night to have slept this long.
He raised the binoculars to his eyes and began to scan the edge of the clearing.
His heart began to race when he didn’t see the arrow.
He smiled to himself as he sat back and thought. “Come on Tony, Think!”
After thinking for a few moments he got up and ran to the door.
After a quick glance around, he climbed down to the floor and ran back to the electronics goods shelves. Something he saw yesterday when he was looking through the things on the shelves popped into his mind. He climbed to the top of the first shelf of electronic items.
His body shook nervously as he looked out over the warehouse. He normally didn’t have a fear of heights, but being on the top of the shelves was a little uncomfortable with nothing to hold on to. Then he spotted the box that he had seen yesterday. He hadn’t paid much attention to the items on the electronic s shelves because there wasn’t any electricity. But as he was thinking about what would help him make contact with someone outside the warehouse it dawned on him, some of these things would work on batteries. He hadn’t bothered with things like flashlights. Flashlights usually caused more harm than they helped.
Zombies were attracted to light. He was able to see well enough in the warehouse during the day. At night it was better to just go to sleep and not rile up the dead by having light shine out the window or through the cracks around the doors.
He had lived for almost a year without the need to use a flashlight, so he hadn’t given them much thought.
But there were other things up here that ran off of battery power that he could use but hadn’t thought about until now.
He spotted the large brown cardboard box that had “Motorola” written on the side. He pulled out his pocket knife and cut a large square hole in the side of the box. He slid out two boxes of walkie-talkies.
He sat the boxes on the edge of the shelf and climbed down to the next shelf, then reached up and brought the two boxes down and sat them on the shelf next to him.
After repeating the process a few more times he was back on the warehouse floor.
He opened the first box and took out one of the units and opened the back to check to see what size of batteries he would need.
“AA batteries. I know where they are.” Tony said before walking to the back of the shelf on the main floor and again. He took out his pocket knife and cut open a box labeled “Energizer”.
He took the batteries back to where he had left the walkie-talkies and put batteries in both of the hand held units.
He turned on the units and set them both to channel 21. He held the transmit button down on one unit and tapped his finger against the front. He smiled as he heard the tapping sound coming from the unit that sat on the floor.
“OK. Now you’re using your head!” Tony said as he put the walkie-talkies in his pocket and raced for the ladder that would take him back to his room.
He sat on his bed. On one arrow he taped a granola bar. One the other arrow he taped the walkie-talkie with a note that said, “If you would like another granola bar, press the large red button on the walkie-talkie and say hello!”
He sent the arrow towards the tree at the end of the clearing. Again it fell short, but he didn’t give it much thought. Whoever was out there had managed to get out this far to retrieve the other arrows.
He took out his binoculars but didn’t expect to see anyone.
Whoever was out there only seemed to come to the edge of the clearing each day around late morning or early afternoon.
He would go about his regular routine and hope to make contact today but really didn’t expect to hear from anyone until tomorrow. The person seemed to have a route they took each day in search of food. They had already passed by him earlier today. After finding the granola bars two days in a row, he was sure they would be back. He knew that’s what he would do. With food so hard to find, if you found somewhere you could get food, you would keep going back until the well ran dry.
He left the walkie-talkie turned on and sat it on the floor by his bed as he filled the pellet gun.
He kept an eye on the clearing as he shot at the zombies below.
The idea of talking to another person after all this time was exciting. He wondered if they had lived in Uniontown before the virus. Maybe they had lived in one of the many small towns that surrounded Uniontown. Tony wondered what it was like outside of Uniontown. Was it as bad as it was in Uniontown or was it better? Other than his three friends, he hadn’t spoken to anyone from outside of town. Without any news reports all he knew about was what he had experienced in his hometown. The reports he had heard before all the TV and radio stations went silent, he assumed it was this bad everywhere. He was interested to find out what others had seen and done. Maybe someone else had discovered a better way to deal with all the dead. He could sure use a few ideas because so far he hadn’t figured out a way to handle them.
If nothing else, it would be nice to just hear another voice to know he wasn’t alone.