White Flag of the Dead (7 page)

Putting the hammer in the garage I figured it was about time to give Jake his dinner. I put him in his high chair and fed him his baby food. He looked so small in his big chair, but we had recently moved him out of his bouncy seat, as his legs were hanging off the sides. I put the TV on to see if there was news, and not just more of the same. I managed to catch the President in mid-speech.

“…a crisis which could not have been predicted or prevented. We simply did not know in time to save the millions of infected. We do know that the infection is spread through bites of infected individuals, and fluid transfers as well. You have all heard the reports that individuals infected with the Enillo Virus are dying and coming back to life. I cannot deny this inexplicable phenomenon, and experiments by our scientists bear this to be true. We do know that those returned to life can be stopped by severe trauma to the brain. It is apparent that the virus needs the brain to operate the host, and when that no longer functions, the individual ceases to be a threat. Our scientists also note that because of the length of time between death and reanimation, infected individuals do not possess any intelligence, and are unable to complete simple tasks and complex motor functions. We do know they can climb stairs, but ladders are beyond their capabilities. However, we urge all citizens not to underestimate them. They exist to spread the virus and feed on living flesh. This has been proven time and time again in our experiments. We therefore urge all citizens to go to protection centers set up in each state. National Guard units have been recalled in each state to protect the citizens of each state. State Governors are called upon to pool all necessary resources for the survival of the citizens of their states. Federal help at this time is unavailable. Congress has been released to states with functioning governments to help coordinate rescue and survival efforts. If citizens are able to travel to these centers, they are encouraged to do so for their own safety. We do not know who is capable of hearing this message, but please remember this. If only one American survives, America and what she stands for will not die. May God watch over us and deliver us from what is our darkest hour.”

I gave Jake his fruit and turned off the television. “I don’t think we need to go to a center, little buddy.” I said to Jake as he grinned at me. “I get a bad feeling about things like that, and it sounds more like a situation rife with potential problems. When was the last time the government took over something and didn’t make it worse?”

Jake waved his arm at me, a signal that I wasn’t shoveling the fruit fast enough. He only warns once, then he yells at me. He should be a load of fun when he becomes a toddler. He wasn’t a great conversationalist, but as a listener, he had no peer.

We finished eating, and feeling a few pangs myself, I went to the fridge and made myself a sandwich. I figured the power was probably going to last only a few more days, so I needed to eat the perishables before they went bad and were worthless. The freezer had a decent amount of food, since when I had stocked it I thought two people were going to be eating it. Hopefully it would last.

After a little while it was time for Jake to get his bath and get his jammies on. We went up stairs and I drew his bath. He was big enough to have a bath seat, so after soap and washing, I added some water and let him sit for a while. He enjoyed splashing and feeling the water, and was genuinely happy. I used the time to change into my comfy clothes and take a look at the neighborhood from my windows. I kept the lights off, as I didn’t want to advertise my presence, although it was still light enough outside for it to be difficult to see an interior light.

I saw activity across the street and realized my neighbor Rich and his wife were making a run for it. They had opened the garage door and were throwing what they could into the back of their Tahoe. Rich was standing guard at the door with a scoped rifle in his hands. Not much good in a close fight, but at least it was a gun. His wife Beth was loading the vehicle, and when she was finished, she shouted to him and he jumped into the car. They rolled out quickly and sped off into the evening. I couldn’t figure out why they were moving so fast.

I got the answer a second later, as their two daughters came stumbling out of the house. They were obviously infected, and their parents were running for their lives. The girls started after the car, but stopped after it turned from their sight. They stood there for a few minutes, and then the older one started walking off to the north, following the street. The other one stood in the middle of the street, swaying slightly from side to side. She was dressed in pajamas and was barefoot, her eyes sunken into her head and surrounded by dark circles. She looked around and I saw her eyes drift over to my house. I didn’t move, fairly certain that she couldn’t see me. I remained stock still, wishing with all my might that she would turn away or something would distract her. If I moved and she sensed I was there, she was going to come to the house.

A dog barked in the distance, and her head snapped around. She began a slow shuffle towards the sound, moving as if she wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to walk.

I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding, and closed the blinds. I angled them until it was impossible for anyone in the street to see into the house, but light could still get in. I went and got Jake and dressed him, taking him downstairs and we played on the floor for a little while. I tried not to turn any lights on, as I didn’t want anyone to notice us. I wondered who else was doing the same thing, trying to survive by not being noticed.

I decided I needed to barricade the rest of the downstairs windows, just in case, and resolved to take care of it tomorrow. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. Jake started to get a little cranky, so I made him a bottle and he went to sleep grasping my hands and putting his little head on my shoulder. I laid him down as the sun went down, putting the world into darkness. Figuring on tomorrow being a long day, I decided to go to bed myself. Reflecting on what the day had been like, tomorrow was likely to be lively. I wondered about the rest of my neighborhood, who was alive and who wasn’t. These days, it was hard to tell, and you couldn’t exactly stroll up to the door. You ran the risk of getting shot or eaten, neither of which was a fun way to go.

I placed my SIG on my nightstand and drifted off to sleep.

5

The next day was just busy, with me playing with Jake and putting boards up in windows. I tried to leave a little open area at the top, and I left a little two inch space about head high (on the outside) to “repel boarders” as it were. I had enough boards to cover the back windows, and I was thinking about covering the outside of the windows as well when I got a surprise. Without warning, my cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“John?” The voice whispered.

“Mike?” I asked, not believing it could be my brother. I had figured him for lost like Ellie. Relief flooded over me at the sound of his voice. “Where are you?”

Mike sounded panicked. “We’re trapped in our house on the third floor. We held out for a while, but they’re everywhere! I got separated from Nicole and Annie, but I have Logan with me. I think Nicole and Annie are in the basement, but I can’t get to them!”

I tried to calm him down. “Have you spoken to them at all?”

Mike took a deep breath. “We’re talking through a vent. I don’t know how long they’re going to last. They don’t have any food and the zombies know they’re there because Annie keeps crying. I can hear them pounding on the door!”

I thought fast. “Mike, listen to me. Do you have a radio or anything on your floor?”

Mike paused. “Uh, yeah, there’s a little battery-powered one in the bedroom here. Why?”

I explained. “These things are attracted to sound. Turn it on as loud as you can, find some noise on it, and throw it onto the roof of your garage behind your house. You’re going to have to move as fast as you can, and tell Nicole to be ready to move as well. Grab what supplies you can and head out. Do you still have your 9mm?”

Mike grunted. “Stupid thing is on the first floorwith the zombies.”

I rolled my eyes. “Get it if you can. Grab a crowbar and your backpacks and get out. I know you guys have all that camping crap in your house. You gotta move as fast as you can, and don’t stop for anything.”

Mike sounded unsure. “Where can we go? I look out my window and there’s twenty of these things on the street at any given time. I watched a guy get eaten yesterday who tried to make a run for it.”

“You’re smarter than that, bro. Look out your front window. Your escape is right there. Get on the el tracks and you’ll be able to move pretty quickly. These things can’t climb, and you need to get out of the city.” I tried to sound reassuring.

Mike sighed. “Thanks bro. I needed this. Once we’re on the el, then what? We can’t walk to the country.”

I tried not to sound harsh. “The world as we knew it is over. We’re back in the middle ages and there are monsters all around. You gotta get busy living or get busy dying.”

“Wasn’t that from a movie?”

“Makes as much sense now as anything. You need to make a choice. Walk out of the city or try to get to the lake and get a boat. You might be safer on a boat.” I thought that one out and it seemed logical.

Mike sounded skeptical. “How do I get a boat?”

“Get your gun and you’ll get a boat.”

I could almost hear Mike mulling
that
one over. “All right, we’re gonna try to get out of here. I’ll try to call you back once we are out of here and on the el.”

“Keep moving. Don’t stand and fight if you can avoid it. If you have to face one of these things, always aim for the head.” I tried to give as much useful last minute advice as I could.

“Since when did you become an expert?” Mike was curious.

“Since Ellie died and I killed two of these things in my back yard yesterday.”

Mike had nothing to say to that. He at least still had his family.

“Good luck, brother.” I said. “Call me when you’re on the move if you can.” I didn’t want to waste his time talking. I also had no idea how the hell he managed to call me, but I was still amazed.

“Talk to you.” Mike said.

And that was it. Mike hung up and I prayed with everything I had that he and his family was going to be safe. If he managed to get his gun and get to the tracks, he had a chance. Not a strong one, but a chance. I went back to my windows and spent the rest of the morning reinforcing the wood that was already there and checking the rest of my defenses. I decided to play a little game with myself. What would I do if the zombies managed to get in here? I figured that the best place to be would be on the second floor, as the basement, although convenient, only left one way out. Deciding this, I went down to the basement and retrieved all my weapons and ammo that were still down there. I brought them upstairs and stashed them in the bedroom. I went back and retrieved my tools and supplies and brought them upstairs as well. I began bringing as much food as I could upstairs, leaving only a little bit downstairs as necessary.

I looked at my stairwell, and figured it was the weak point in my plan. I needed a way to secure the stairs, but I also needed to think about escape. Mike and his family brought that into focus. What if they got in here and I was trapped upstairs? What could I do? I thought for a bit and realized that I needed a ladder. Fortunately, I had an extension ladder in the garage. It was a real trick to maneuver that thing upstairs, but I did it. It was long enough to reach to the roof of my neighbors, so I figured I could go from roof to roof if I needed to.

Getting back to the stairwell, I needed a way to block it. Nothing was jumping out at me so I decided to worry about it later.

I fed Jake and put him down for his nap, and thought I saw movement outside. I went to the window and watched for a bit. Sure enough, something was moving in the field behind the houses. I had three guesses as to what it was and the first two didn’t count.

I went downstairs and picked up the .22. I was curious if a .22 would be effective at all against a zombie’s head, and since there didn’t seem to be any more out there, I figured it would be a good time to see. I went outside to the fence and stood on one of the chairs. I didn’t see anything right away and looked around. For the moment, all I could see were the two corpses I had thrown over the fence the previous day. They didn’t look too good, as the flies had done a number on them.

As I was looking at them, another zombie stumbled into view. It was walking along the ditch, and was hidden from view by one of the trees I had near the fence. It was a young man, about twenty-five as near as I could tell, and he was in rough shape. His clothes were nearly gone, hanging in shreds from his body. Raw wounds covered his torso, and his left leg sported a six inch gash that went completely around it. Maggots covered the wounds, and fell off every time he lurched one way or the other. He hadn’t noticed me yet as I hadn’t moved, and I began to wonder about their sense of sight. If you didn’t attract attention to yourself, and they couldn’t hear you or smell you, it seemed you were just part of the scenery.

I checked the clip and chambered a round, the bolt sounding loud in the stillness. The zombie’s head turned my way, and he groaned when he finally saw me. I lined up the sights on his head as he came closer, and when he was no further than fifteen feet away, at the base of the hill my fence sat on, I fired the round at his head. The shot echoed off the condominiums across the way, and a neat little hole appeared in his forehead. He collapsed without another sound.

“That worked well.” I said to myself as I heard answering groans coming from across the way. Three more zombies came stumbling out from the condo’s parking lot, seeking the source of the noise. I waited until the first one came near and then dropped it with a shot to the head. I was still hidden in the tree branches, so they hadn’t quite zeroed in on where I was. The second was a bit further out, about twenty yards, but I tried it anyway. It too, fell with a round to the head. I wondered what the true effective range was, and tried a shot at about fifty yards. The zombie’s head jerked, but he didn’t go down. I waited for him to get closer, then I hit him again. This time he went down for good. I could see that the first shot had hit him, but the bullet had not penetrated the skull, but traveled around the skull under the skin. Not pretty, but a lesson learned. .22’s were good for close in work, and they had to get hit straight on.