I wish I could say it got easier, but I would be lying. It doesn’t get any easier putting the undead down. The truth is you never really forget that they were once human. You never forget that they once had lives and families and were productive human beings in the old days. You just have to put that fact away as you run for your life. You have to put away the feelings of guilt and remorse as you blow holes in their heads to survive. You put the feelings away deep so you don’t hesitate to drop them. If you hesitate, you’re dead.
“No, not really,” I answered. “Sometimes convincing yourself that their just mindless animals helps a little. You do what you can to survive.”
Claire accepted what I said, but I don’t think she was really convinced. “John, can we make it an early day and find a place to rest? I’m a little worn out.”
“Sounds good. We’ll find a place to stay.”
I reloaded my weapons and Claire cleaned her bat. She was careful to wipe all the zombie blood and brain matter off. I also took a wet cloth and wiped off her face and hands. With those tasks complete, we started walking down the road.
We walked for a while and then Claire asked a question. “John, would you mind if I held your hand?” She was still a little pale and shaky from our escape. I was a little shaky as well.
“Would it make you feel better?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
I took her hand in mine. “I don’t mind at all.”
“Thanks. Did I do everything right? I tried to follow all your instructions.” Claire sounded like a little girl all of a sudden.
“You did fine. In fact, you were something else with that bat. I don’t think I have ever seen anything like that before.”
She smiled up at me. “You can thank a couple of years of junior softball for my bat skills. I’m sorry I called you an old man back there. You certainly didn’t deserve it.”
I looked down at her. She seemed so small. ”It’s okay. I am old. Actually, after that little jog for our lives, I feel really old.”
She giggled a bit. It was good to hear her laugh, even if it was just a little bit. We walked, two survivors against the world, until we found a somewhat safe place to stay.
After our escape from Mollie’s Place, it started to rain. It was a cold, biblical rain that fell off and on for three weeks. I swear, I thought I was going to have to find a boat with an outboard motor.
The rain made even simple tasks difficult. Finding food and water, reloading weapons, and dispatching monsters seemed to take much more effort. Sometimes it rained so hard it made walking a pain in the ass, as well. Claire and I would take more frequent breaks to keep as dry as possible.
It also gave Claire a little cold.
She had probably picked it up from some of the undead we encountered; Lord only knows what bacteria the bad guys had on them. In the old days, a common cold was only a nuisance, but in this new world with no doctors or clinics, a cold could be a major disaster. It could develop into bronchitis or any number of things, and then kill you as quick as a zombie.
I was trying to keep her warm and dry, but it was impossible in the driving rain. While my camo jacket and boots were somewhat waterproof, Claire’s denim jacket and jeans often left her looking like a drowned rat. During the worst of the storms, I made her wear an improvised rain poncho that I had fabricated out of a discarded shower curtain liner.
Of course she hated to wear it. The cold had made her a little cranky as well.
In the three weeks since the escape from Mollie’s Place, Claire and I continued to bond and form a pretty good team. At times it almost seemed as if we could read each other’s mind as we scrounged through destroyed stores looking for supplies, tried to find safe places to stay, and knocked out the odd undead monster. Claire had gotten real good with the bat, and I even taught her to fire my semi-automatic rifle. She became quite the little warrior. Sometimes I thought she didn’t have any fear.
Despite all the rain, we continued to walk. We walked until our clothes were so wet they stuck to us like a second skin. We walked until our shoes and socks were soaked. We walked, finding only dead cars, dead towns, and dead people-both on the ground and walking around. We ran when we had to, as well. We kept moving, finding supplies where we could. One singular thought between us, that there had to be a safe place somewhere out in this mess, kept us on our feet and fighting.
And yet we couldn’t find any safety. Claire got sicker, and the rain continued to fall. We hid behind cars as we watched Red-Eyes fight over animals that they had caught, hoping we weren’t next on the menu. Claire and I huddled together in the darkness as she tried to calm her coughing fits so we wouldn’t be discovered. We found more and more suicides on the highways where people had run out of food, ammo, and hope. We found no safety. Claire and I were sick, wet, depressed, and very miserable.
Some three weeks had passed, and we were taking cover in a construction site while the rain poured down. There was even a little hail falling here and there in the mud and gravel. Claire was sitting behind me, huddled over a small fire I built a few hours ago. She was feeling a little better, but her cough persisted. I prayed nothing bad developed from her cold.
I was keeping watch at the window while we rested out of the rain. The last three weeks had been rough. Claire and I were both worn out. Supplies were getting a little low, and we had met a lot of undead. I reviewed our situation in my mind. We had to find a longer-term place to resupply and rest for a while. I also had to get Claire to a dry place to get rid of her cold before it turned into something worse. A nice, long rest in a safe, dry place would do wonders for both our spirits.
One thing Claire and I hadn’t seen was any living people. We might be the last living, breathing humans on Earth. That thought chilled me worse than the rain.
I saw something moving across the gravel parking lot. A zombie appeared, walking towards our position from across the street. It was a yellow-eyed skeletal one, dressed in a National Guard uniform. I crouched down a little bit and gripped my rifle a little tighter as he crossed into the construction site’s parking lot. I may have to put the poor devil down.
The Guardsman-zombie limped a few yards into the lot and passed a piece of heavy earth-moving equipment. As he stepped into the open, he lifted his head to sniff the air. He stopped in his tracks and than just stood there, trying to catch a scent. The rain always made the zombies act this way. It screwed with their senses, and they usually froze in place, not knowing what to do. Our dead friend in the parking lot might stay like that for days and never find our hiding place.
Claire got up from the fire, and came to the window. “What’s going on, Tiger?” Her voice was still a little nasal because of her stuffed-up nose. I held my finger up to my lips to warn her to be quiet, and pointed at the confused corpse in the parking lot.
“What’s he doing?” she whispered.
“The rain messes with their heads.” I put a old discarded tarp around her shoulders to try and keep her warm. “He may stay like that for days unless something else catches his attention.”
“Creepy. These things always seem to surprise me with the things they do.”
“Yeah. Once I saw a whole group of them standing like that in a thunderstorm. I walked right through them.” I took off my glove and felt Claire’s forehead. It was a little warm, but her fever was a lot better. A few days ago, she was burning up. “How do you feel?”
“A lot better. I think I’m ready to travel. What’s the plan?” We stepped away from the window, back to the fire.
“Well, we have to wait for this rain to stop. Then, I think we have to find a dry place to rest for a while and get rid of your cold.”
Claire coughed for a few minutes. “Sounds good, John. I wish we could have stayed at the store.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “I know …it seemed safe. I guess the dead will always catch up to you no matter how safe it seems. That’s why we keep moving.”
We waited a few hours till the rain slowed to a drizzle. Claire packed up her stuff and took some aspirin and antibiotics from our shrinking supply, and I extinguished the fire. We were ready to hit the road. I opened the door and took a look around. Our friend, the Zombie Guardsman, was still frozen in place in the parking lot. Unfortunately, he was also blocking our exit out to the road. I pulled my handgun, quietly approached the poor ex-soldier, and put a bullet in his rotting head. He fell with a wet thump to the gravel of the lot.
“John, two more in the ditch,” Claire said, pointing at the road.
I took a look. Sure enough, there were two more zombies crawling around in the ditch beside the road. They were also in as bad shape as the one I just smoked. Both of them had on the same tattered uniform of the National Guard, but no helmets. They must have fallen in the ditch, and were now crawling toward me, reaching up and moaning. I dispatched them with two more bullets.
“Awful lot of Guardsmen-turned-zombies walking around,” I said to no one in particular. I turned to Claire just in time to see her taking the bat to a legless zombie, also dressed as a Guardsman. “Is it me, or are there a lot of undead soldiers walking around?” she called to me, after wiping off her bat.
I walked over to check out her recent kill. It was dressed in the same uniform as the other three I had killed. They were all soldiers from the same outfit. “Yeah. Seems a little weird.” I pulled out my binoculars to take a look down the road. I saw two more crumpled zombies up the road behind Claire.
I also spotted a desert-tan pickup wrecked in the ditch. The dead soldiers had come from that direction.
Claire walked up and stood next to me, looking up the road. “What you thinking about, Tiger?”
“I’m thinking about a change in direction.”
She glanced up the road towards the truck. “That way? That’s opposite our direction of travel, isn’t it?”
I carefully stowed the binoculars. “These soldiers came from somewhere. Maybe there’s a command center or a human survival camp up the road. It might be a place to lay low for awhile.”
Claire made a face. “Another one of your gut feelings?”
I gave her a sly smile. “Trust me. You can yell at me if I’m wrong.”
We started to walk into the unknown direction. “Oh, believe me, if we run into anything horrible, you’re going to hear it,” she said, pointing her bat in my direction.
A command center would be a great place to rest for a while. I could nurse my aching joints and back, and Claire could get rid of her cold. There might be food and water if the place wasn’t totally raided or already occupied. There might be working showers as well, unless the tanks were empty. A shower would be nice. Claire and I were getting a little ripe.
A light drizzle fell as we walked into the unknown. In the three weeks since Mollie’s place, it had also turned a little chilly. There were some days we could actually see our breath. I didn’t want to think about the days and nights when it started to get really cold. It would suck if we froze to death one night.
“Man, it’s cold. I am going to have to find another jacket or something,” Claire said, starting to shiver.
I put my arm around her, and rubbed her shoulder to try and warm her up. “I know it’s cold, kiddo. Just try not to think about it.
“Okay,” she answered with a miserable tone. “Sometimes I really miss my nice warm bed in the dorm.”
We walked for about another hour or so. The country was really opening up and turning into pastures and farmland. We began to come upon more and more wrecked cars and trucks. Some of the vehicles had bodies in them, but most were abandoned and empty. A few vehicles here and there had emergency or military markings.
“Keep an eye out. I think we’re close to something,” I said to Claire.
We heard the camp first. The dank, cold air carried the low moans and screaming down the road to our ears. It was the sound of the undead. A whole lot of undead.
I got my rifle ready, and Claire took out her bat. We picked our way through the piles of dead cars and trucks looking for the camp. Strangely, there were no zombies on the road, only decaying bodies of soldiers, rescue people, and civilians.
And a whole lot of kids. Claire and I tried to ignore them.
After what seemed like hours walking through the junkyard on the road, we finally came upon a gravel driveway. The gravel had been hastily laid over grass with little concern for aesthetics or drainage. A large gate and a slapped-together guardhouse stood at the entrance. Posted signs gave information about quarantine procedures and security measures. I looked to see where the driveway led. At the bottom of a small hill, about a quarter-mile away was another gate and guardhouse. Beyond that, behind some chain-link fence and some barbed wire, was the camp. It was the source of all the moaning and screaming.
The camp was full of the dead.
I pulled out my binoculars to take a closer look. The zombies were stretched along the fence, trying to tear it down. I stopped counting at about a hundred. Behind them were a few hundred more shambling and crawling around the compound. The good news was the gates and fence enclosures looked intact, so no zombies were escaping. I handed the binoculars to Claire so she could take a look.
“Oh, my God. How horrible is that? It looks like a nightmare down there,” she said in a grim voice.
“Pretty bad. We are definitely not going to check it out. They look pretty hungry. If we get too close, they’d probably tear the place apart trying to chase us down.”
Claire handed the binoculars back and asked, “Is there anything we can do to help them? You know, give them a little peace?”
“Nah, not enough ammunition,” I answered, with a little disgust. “Come on. Let’s move on. Maybe the command post is nearby.”
We turned away from the camp, and walked down the road. Finding camps like these always made me feel a little unsettled. The survival camps were humanity’s last chance. Military units grabbed any survivors they could find and crammed them behind barbed wire and machine guns. One infected human or dog, and the camp was toast. The fences broke down, and hundreds of newly minted zombies poured out looking for food. The camps were truly the beginning of the end. It reminded me of locusts for some reason. Actually, a better analogy would be newborn viruses bursting out of a cell to infect other cells. If there is a nearby command post, I hope it’s a good distance away from this camp. We would get no sleep with all the horrible moaning.
We walked a little more up the road and came upon a crashed helicopter. Claire and I approached carefully with weapons ready. It was a big, twin-rotor job laying on its side in the middle of the road. There was a huge gash torn in its side, and the bodies of its occupants were scattered everywhere.
The reason it crashed was apparent pretty quickly. The pilot had been bitten and was turning or had turned during the flight. Obviously, he lost control and crashed. Now he was still strapped in his pilot seat, straining against the restraints trying to get out. He had a caved-in forehead and was missing part of his lower jaw. He was the only “survivor” of the crash. All of the other crew and passengers were dead.
Claire was the one who put him down. She pulled her .38, and shot him in the back of his head without any hesitation. The horrible gurgling he made stopped, and he slumped down in his seat. It was hard to tell, but he looked kind of young. They were always so young.
I climbed on top of the downed helicopter to take a look around. A long line of wrecked and abandoned cars snaked up the road towards a steel-and-brick building on a small hill. It was a mix of civilian cars, military, and emergency vehicles all tangled together. Another helicopter, this one just parked, was sitting behind the building. I scanned the area with my binoculars. The building was a steel garage like structure with a brick attachment. The brick part of the building looked like living quarters and the garage looked like it might have housed a large vehicle or two. A large sign on the grass had been partially run over by a military truck, but I could just make out the words “Station No. 1” on the piece of sign that was still standing. It must have been a firehouse.