Dead Outside (Book 1) (11 page)

"Alright
boys, let's get to the safe house, that gunshot will probably attract
more." Sergeant Tony spit off to his side and looked at Private Laud,
"Private, don't make the civilian have to save your ass again."

I
was almost surprised my legs didn’t give out. I stood my ground the whole time,
staring at the barrel of the gun that almost killed me. I didn’t choke up, I
didn’t realize right away, but my gun was aiming back at Private Laud. As soon
as I came to my senses I dropped my gun. As my gun lowered, the image of the
green eyes faded away once again.

Laud’s
face was red, he also dropped his weapon, "You got it Sarg, won't happen
again."

My
hands were still shaking when I reached into my bag for another shell to
replace the one I'd just fired. It wouldn't go in, and I noticed I hadn’t
ejected the last one. I pulled the pump back and forward, the empty shell flung
to my right, and bounced off a car window. I then loaded another shell.

Sergeant
Tony was looking at me with slightly wide eyes, then looked to the other
soldiers, “Let’s move people, we got places to be.”

I
could tell that Laud was reluctant at first, but he saw the corpse behind him
and I could tell he knew I saved Glenn’s life. Whether he was happy about it or
not, he followed orders.

Glenn
looked relieved but a bit shaken up. Nothing like a bullet going past you to
mess your day up. Olson, who saw why I’d fired the shot, was also shaken up,
although a bit less than Glenn.

We
started heading down an exit, and I probably should have been worried, for all
I knew it ended in a huge mob of Zombies, or Ghouls as these guys were calling
them. I guess if they had been here since the beginning that they’d be able to
navigate it safely.

The
end of the exit had several buses lined up making makeshift barriers after the
walls of the exit ended, and clearing a path to a four story apartment
building.

I
knocked on the side of the bus, “Not a bad idea, using vehicles to make walls.”

Olson
nodded, “Anything higher than six feet is enough to keep most of them out. The
concrete barriers were the original plan, but when the shit really started
hitting the fan we had to get creative.”

The
path to the door of the building was clear of zombies, though there were a few
corpses riddling the street. We approached the door to the building where Olson
knocked a few times, then gave some kind of code for whoever was inside.

The
door swung open. From what looked like a regular old door on the outside, was a
reinforced steel door on the inside, being a lot stronger than it seemed to be.
A guy was right inside the door. He wasn’t wearing a military uniform, but had
a pistol holster on his hip. When I walked in he gave me a slightly distrusting
look, but once Laud gave him a reassuring nod and pat on the shoulder, he
lightened up a bit.

“What’d
you guys bring this time?”  he asked Olson, who was now unloading his backpack
into a storage room.

I
stayed in the main hallway with the door in my sights, trying not to seem too
at home.

“We
got mostly canned fruit and beans, not a whole lot left that we’ve found,”
Olson replied. “How you holding up here? You’re heading back to the Tower soon
aren’t you?”

“Three
more days and I’m out of this dump.” He stuck his thumbs in his belt, which
reminded me of something a cop would do, “I’d much rather spend my time chasing
that tail in the Tower than sit here for a week alone.”

He
again gave me a look over, probably ascertaining whether or not I was a threat.
“Who’s the new guy?” he asked Olson.

I
was about to answer for myself, but Olson cut me off. “He just saved Glenn’s
life about twenty minutes ago.”

“The
name’s Sam,” I reached out to shake his hand. He grabbed it with a tight grip,
I squeezed back in return. We locked eyes for a moment, and his demeanor was a
bit friendlier now that he knew I had saved his friend.

“Mike,”
he responded, letting my hand go, “Glenn’s a good friend of mine.” His face
loosened up a bit, “If you did what he says, then you’re alright in my book.
You’ve been on your own since the beginning?”

“Pretty
much,” I answered. “I was in Ohio when it all started, but I waited a couple
weeks for things to die down a bit before I headed out.”

“Not
bad. We could use someone like you around here,” he pulled a cigar out of his
pocket. “Sure you can’t stay?” he asked as he stuck it in his mouth.

“Sorry,”
I declined. “I got people I need to check on in Grovemont.”

He
nodded, “I can respect that. I got my sister back in the Tower. I had to fight
through the City when this first started to get to her, took three days.”

Glenn
and Olson came back out of the room they were in, with noticeably emptier bags.
Olson had his map out. It was a street map, but it had sections colored in,
lines drawn, and buildings highlighted. He gestured me over and pointed at one
of the highlighted buildings.

“We’re
here, and I think the fastest way out of the city would be here along 408 west.
Unfortunately, one of the overpasses collapsed a few weeks ago in the chaos of
the first few weeks, so you’ll have to get off on an earlier exit. Luckily it’s
just outside the city, so it should be relatively clear thanks to a majority of
the Ghouls being attracted to the Tower downtown. Not that it’s going to be
super easy, that’s where the people in Pine Hills go to get a majority of their
supplies.”

He
looked up and saw the worry in my face, “So you know about Pine Hills’
reputation then?”

I
gave a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, I know about Crime Hills, and after dealing with
some of the people I’ve dealt with the last few weeks, I doubt they’ll be any
friendlier now that the apocalypse has begun.”

“We’ve
had a few run-ins with them ourselves,” Olson admitted. “It’s not an experience
I’d be too excited to repeat.”

“What
are my chances of sneaking by them without noticing?” I asked Olson, while
observing the highlighted region of the map.

“Slim,”
he admitted, “but doable. You shouldn’t attract too much attention since you’re
not in a military uniform, but they might take you out for your supplies. We
just don’t know.”

“Do
you know where their main patrols are?” I asked. For a moment I felt like I was
in some warzone overseas preparing for some mission, but the illusion didn’t
last long. I wasn’t playing a video game, I was literally putting my life on
the line.

“No,
we’ve been too busy setting up safe houses and clearing out as many of the
Ghouls as we could,” he sighed. “We offered them assistance, but they refused
and told us flat out that if we came back we’d be shot on sight.”

The
map we were looking at had an area highlighted crudely with a purple marker.
The area was not too far from downtown. “That’s their borders?” I asked, trying
to get an idea of the area from my memory of driving through it over the last
few years.

“Approximately,”
he admitted. “There’s not exactly a defined wall,” he paused, “yet.”

“I’ll
have to take my chances,” I said bravely, though, it was probably more
stupidity than anything else. “Do you guys have any idea where they patrol?”

Olson
looked down at the map. “No, but we do know the Shelter for the area was the
High School,” he pointed it out on the map. “It’s already highlighted blue.” It
was a small circle in the middle of the purple area, “Of all the shelters put
together, this is one of the few that made it. They figured out how to filter
out the Infected by not letting in those that had been bitten. To be completely
honest, the shelter was put together at the last minute, and it’s probably what
saved them.”

“Low
income. Makes sense the government would want to get the rich people first,” I
shrugged. The government would have been more focused on important cities,
rather than the low income areas. “What are you gonna do?”

“Big
brother doesn’t exactly look after the little guy,” Glenn sighed.

I
nodded in agreement. For a moment, my mind drifted to my Dad, he used to say
that all the time. Oddly enough, I hadn’t thought about my parents in a few
days, and if I wanted to find out about them, I figured now was as best a
chance as any. “Have you guys heard anything about Cleveland, Ohio?”

The
mood of the room changed instantly, everyone was quiet. I tried to make eye
contact with a few of them, but they just looked down, “Well? What’s the news?”

Olson
looked at me first, “It was targeted.”

“Targeted?”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but it sure as hell didn’t sound good.
“What does that mean?”

“The
city was lost. Contact was lost, and the hordes inside were heading east. In
order to slow the tide, and give people to the east more time to prepare,” he
paused, almost like he was afraid to say what he was about to, “A tactical
bombardment was used to cleanse the area.”

It
felt like my heart stopped. My parents weren’t more than a few miles from
downtown. If there was Carpet Bombing of any significant size, they’d probably
have been hit. “How large was the target area?”

“Large
enough,” he looked like he was the one who pulled the trigger, having to give
me the news. “The city itself was destroyed, including most close suburbs, to
guarantee maximum effectiveness.”

I
had a million questions. Why Cleveland? What about the people? How could they
do this? But I realized none of them really mattered. I knew when I left I’d
never see them again. I just thought they’d have more a chance.

I
could feel my eyes tearing up, but I tried to hide it even though I knew they
could tell, so I changed the subject. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, so I had
to ask, “Before I go, ya’ll wouldn’t happen to have any supplies you could
spare would you? I haven’t exactly been living the high life on the road.”

Laud
nodded, probably feeling sorry for me, but I didn’t care. He went back into
what must have been the storage room. He came back out with an MRE and a gallon
of water. “Sorry we can’t spare any more, but this will at least get you where
you’re going. Instructions for cooking the meal are on the packet if you
haven’t had one before.”

“I
should be able to figure it out. Thanks.” I put them in my backpack and reached
my hand out, “I appreciate the help guys.”

Olson
grabbed my hand first and nodded, “Good luck getting where you’re going, and
sorry about your hometown.”

“Thanks.”
I could hear my voice choking up, so kept my sentences as short as I could.

Glenn
walked around the table and reached his hand up and gripped mine, “I owe you
more then I can ever pay back. Thank you.”

I
looked him in the eye and nodded, “Anytime.”

I
walked toward the door, which Mike opened, “Good luck kid.”

He
obviously wasn’t one for goodbyes, so I just nodded to him, “Good luck to you
guys too, and I hope ya’ll make it through all this.”

He
scoffed, “I ain’t exactly gonna roll over and give up. But I know what you
mean.”

I
walked out the door and saw the Sergeant standing about halfway up the ramp. We
walked down to get to the safe house.

I
walked up to him. He didn’t look at me right away, and he just stared at rising
smoke coming from Pine Hills to the east.

I
was about ten feet away when he spoke. “Ironic.”

“What’s
that?” I asked, curious what he meant.

“A
few weeks ago we considered the people who lived there to need our help to
survive.” He spit off to his side, “Now? Shit, of all the shelters in Florida, they were one of three to survive that I heard of.”

I
was about to ask him about the Shelter that I knew Sarah, Roxie and Nick were
at, but he continued before I could get the words out.

“You
expect people like us to survive, those with necessary skills, but you forget
that the bottom feeders are the ones who are quick to adapt, and now how to
survive on the bare minimum.” He looked over at me, “Eventually we may be
looking to them for help.”

“Sergeant,
I have to ask,” I paused for a second, not quite sure if I was ready for the
answer, “Have you heard about the Grovemont Shelter?”

He
looked down for a moment, and then back up to me. “Yes,” he answered. “It
didn’t make it. It was overrun a few days ago.”

My
heart skipped a beat. Last I heard Sarah, Roxie, and Nick were on their way to
that shelter. I shook it off. They could have gotten away, and I still had to
check it out.

“Sorry
to be the bearer of bad news.” He looked back at me, “I’m sure that wasn’t what
you wanted to hear.”

I
let out a sigh. At least now I knew not to go to the school. They probably went
back to our house, so I’d head there instead. “I appreciate all you’ve done for
me Sergeant. I really do.”

“You’re
a good man Sam. I hope you find what it is you’re looking for.” He pulled out
the chew he had behind his lip and tossed it over the ledge, “And even though I
know you’re never coming back here, you’ve got a place here either way.”

He
stuck his hand out. I gripped it tight and shook it, nodding. We didn’t say
anything else. He went toward the safe house, and I went west. Once I knew I
was out of sight, I felt the tears start rolling down my cheeks, but kept
going. Sarah was still out there, somewhere.

Chapter Ten: Home

2:00
PM, July 4

The
road was strangely clear of vehicles after I was about a mile from the city.
There was plenty of debris, but it had been picked clean, there wasn’t a useful
piece of junk within sight.

There
was also a distinct lack of bodies. That made me even more nervous than the
lack of vehicles. Off in the distance I noticed a large black pile. I didn’t
need to get close to figure out what it was. I could see the limbs sticking out
the sides, and this was a pile of bodies burnt to a crisp.

As
I walked passed it I realized how big it really was. There had to be a few
hundred bodies inside the pile. I realized right away that the army couldn’t
have done this, they were on the retreat, and there wouldn’t have been time to
clear the streets like this. It must have been done recently, probably by the
inhabitants of Pine Hills.

I
heard an engine approaching from the south. There was nothing to hide behind
except for the charred pile of bodies, so I dove behind it. The vehicle slowed
down as it got closer. My heart was pounding. I flipped the safety off on my
shotgun. The truck turned as it turned onto the street I was on. I could hear
it going away from me toward the west, where I was heading.

I
peered around the pile and saw a truck with its bed filled with armed men. They
drove all the way to the cars then turned north.

I
waited a few minutes before continuing in case the truck came back. Once I was
sure they weren’t coming back I continued toward the vehicles. After seeing the
truck I kept to the sidewalk, in case they did come back I could run into a
building or something.

I
was about a block away from the cars, which I realized now was more of a wall.
The cars were stacked up, knocked over, in enough ways to make a decently solid
wall, which from the looks of it extended to the south for miles. To the north
I saw the truck parked, and people moving around. I pulled out my binoculars to
get a better look.

They
were obviously building the wall to the north. They must have been at this for
a while, because they knew what they were doing. They’d only just got there a
few minutes ago and they were already pushing more cars toward the wall to be
added.

I
didn’t have a lot of options for getting across the wall, other then over it. I
could go further south, but I didn’t know if there were any patrols that way. I
didn’t want to go far enough north to pass the crew working on the wall. I
might as well go around Lake Apopka, adding another day to my journey. There
was a section with a pickup truck turned on its side that I could easily climb.
The other side of the wall was just as clear as the side I was on. The crew
wasn’t running my direction, so they must not have noticed me.

The
only thing I could think of was that Sergeant Tony was right, these guys did
know what they were doing. This wasn’t the end of the world for them, they were
just adjusting to the circumstances.

As
I made my way toward the rest of the street I saw another pile of bodies, this
one bigger then the last. I couldn’t help but think how this was probably
happening all over the world, the lower classes pushing through this, leaving
the higher classes like they did these piles of corpses.

There
were no cars to be seen, they must all have been put to use in the wall. And
any bodies would have been piled into the burn piles I’d passed.

At
first I wondered why the wall was so widespread when I hadn’t seen a soul since
crossing the wall. But after a few minutes it made sense, the survivors were
probably holed up in larger buildings until the wall was complete. It was for
the future. Once it was done they could safely repopulate the houses and know
their streets were clear.

I
was nearing the edge of the area I’d called Crime Hills for most of my life
when I saw a kid standing in a yard. He couldn’t have been more than eight years
old. At first, my instinct was to raise my shotgun at him, but he was clearly
not dead or anywhere near it, though he looked hungry. He just stared at me
with big green eyes. I blinked a few times expecting the color to change, but
it didn’t.

As
I got closer we just stared at each other. I thought about what I would do if
this kid started yelling, to warn others that I was trespassing, but he didn’t
say a word. I was probably more afraid of him then he was of me as calm as he
looked. His eyes looked at me with a look of relief, not fear.

I
wasn’t more then ten feet from him when I stopped, I was just about to ask him
where his parents were, when a woman came running out from behind a house and
grabbed his hand. “What did I tell you about running off like that?” she yelled
at him, completely oblivious of my presence, or so I thought, “The streets
aren’t completely clear yet, you’re lucky this man on patrol found you before a
walker.”

I
let out a sigh of relief, this woman thought I was a patrol here, part of her
community, not some outsider, passing through or trying to invade or anything.

She
looked up at me, and her grimace turned into a smile, “Thanks for watching over
my boy. He still ain’t used to the rules yet. We were gathering supplies from
the next street over when I notice he’d run off.”

I
returned the smile, “No problem. The streets are pretty clear out here now.” I
looked down at the boy, who was still staring at me, “You should probably stay
closer to your mother. You wouldn’t want a walker to grab you when she wasn’t
looking, then she’d never know what happened to you.”

She
looked down at her son, who didn’t say anything at first. She nudged his
shoulder. “When someone gives you advice, what do you do?”

He
looked from his mother to me, “Thank you Sir, I won’t run away anymore.”

“Glad
to hear it.” I patted him on the head, “You guys head on back to your gathering
mission. I have to patrol the rest of this street.”

She
nodded and thanked me again. Once I started back down the street I could hear
her scolding her son again, which brought a smile to my face, not just because
I’d gotten away, but because there was still a sense of normalcy. I used to do
the same thing to my mom when I was younger.

I
guess from all the hype I expected more of a challenge, especially once I
reached the wall on the other side of Pine Hills and hadn’t seen another person
aside from the mother and child, let alone a patrol. It was then and there that
I realized this wasn’t some plot of land being run by a gang vying for territory,
this was land that people had grown up on, and it was people protecting their
homes after their government abandoned them.

I
couldn’t blame them for wanting to go their own way. Hell, the mother thought I
was part of their community even though I wasn’t from there. She just assumed I
was a patrol, not some trespasser. It gave me hope, knowing that even the
roughest areas still had some trust left to give out, even if it was because of
a case of mistaken identity.

I
still kept an eye out for patrols on the other side of the wall. I’d seen the
truck on the Orlando side, and didn’t want to screw up, so I stayed as close to
the storefronts as I could just in case.

I
was getting hungry, so I finally decided to take a break at the local mall,
about a half hours driving time from home, to stop and eat. Luckily the
soldiers gave me an MRE before I left. I found an overturned semi truck in the
parking lot and went into the trailer to stay out of sight. As I was tearing
open the packaging of the meal I remembered the last meal I’d had was the day
before, other than a protein bar for breakfast that morning.

It
wasn’t the most satisfying meal I’d ever had, it was supposed to be a Veggie
Omelet, but it didn’t taste very good, which was probably why the Soldiers were
so willing to part with it. Despite the awful taste, it sure beat the hell out
of all the granola and protein bars I’d been living on for a week. I tried my
best to savor it, but my stomach wouldn’t have any of it. I scarfed it down in
probably five minutes. I was full, but I knew I’d probably be hungry again in a
few hours. I still had a bit of food in my bag. Hopefully there would be
something at home.

As
I put my backpack on and gathered up my other supplies, I couldn’t help but
wonder how well the mall would be as a place to hold up from the walking dead,
but it shook my head right away. It had too many entrances, too many glass
doors and walls for anyone to hold out for any length of time.

The
further I got from Pine Hills the more cars I saw, most of which were in
pileups or just abandoned in parking lots. I’d seen worse on the road since
leaving Ohio, but I was walking down a road I’d driven down almost every day. I
knew every bump, every pothole. It’s one thing to see someone else’s town torn
apart, it’s another thing entirely to see your own.

The
road was too congested to drive a car down, but luckily I saw an abandoned
bicycle chained to a light pole. I looked around and didn’t see anyone, except
for a few zombies stumbling slowly toward me from the south.

I
drew my pistol, “Well, whoever left this won’t need it anymore,” I said to
myself, and then shot the lock off.

Whoever
invented the phrase ‘like riding a bike’ was an asshole, because I felt like an
idiot, almost falling over five or six times before I finally got going.

I
was almost out of breath by the time I reached Grovemont. I passed the
community college I was technically still enrolled at, the coffee shop Roxie
worked at, the restaurant Nick used to work at, and then finally I reached the street
we lived on.

I
wasn’t even sure how to express the emotions I was feeling. I didn’t stop but
as I saw the corpse of a neighbor I knew for years rotting next to his mailbox
I felt my eyes water up a bit. I didn’t have time to worry about neighbors who
I only saw when I drove past them every day.

I
reached our house, and noticed immediately that my truck was gone, and then
noticed a few bodies littering the yard. When I got closer I noticed the
windows were boarded up, but had what I assumed was dried blood on them.

The
front door was ajar, which naturally worried me. I pushed the door open to find
the living room a complete disaster. The carpet had muddy footprints all over
the place, the coffee table was knocked over, and the television was smashed. The
walls were smudged with what must have been blood or something.

My
room was the same, everything that had been on my dresser and desk was now on
the floor. I knelt down to pick up a broken picture frame, taking the picture
out. It was a picture of Sarah and me. I had said something funny right before
the picture was taken, and we were both mid-laughter. I reached up and took my
hat off. I was wearing it in the picture. It had a bit of blood splattered
across it now. I tried to wipe it off, but it was dried in now.

My
eyes were watering up again, so I put my hat back on, the picture in my pocket
and left the room. I didn’t need anything else in there, not anymore.

I’m
not sure why, but I closed my door. It was more like I was closing the door on
that chapter of my life. The tears rolled down my cheeks as I went to check the
other rooms in the house.

I
glanced into Nick’s room, saw the same damage, but didn’t go in. The bathroom
was already picked clean of anything useful. I checked the kitchen last, the cabinets
were all open and empty, and not even a granola bar was left.

I
leaned against the counter for a second to collect my thoughts and wipe my face
of the tears that finally stopped flowing, when I noticed a sign magnetized to
the fridge. It took me a second to realize what it was, but when I did I
practically fell over grabbing it off the fridge.

It
said, “Sam, we went to Nick’s Uncle George’s house, down that old dirt road off
highway 27. Don’t go to the school, its overrun.” It was signed by Roxie.

My
heart practically skipped a beat. They were alive, and better yet, they weren’t
far. Nick’s Uncle’s house was only about a forty-five minute drive from here.

It
was about 5:30 and I didn’t have much time before the sun went down. I probably
should have stayed and headed there in the morning, but I couldn’t wait, not
when I was this close.

I
went out the back door, and ran through my backyard to my neighbor’s backyard.
His wife’s van wasn’t in the driveway, so I hoped, rather cold heartedly, that
they’d taken that and left his car in the garage. I went into their screen
room, and looked inside through the sliding glass door. I didn’t see anybody,
so I broke his sliding glass door and stepped inside. Nobody screamed or came
running after I broke in, so I went right toward the garage door. I saw his
keys hanging from a key ring by the door. Luckily the keys to his car were
still there. I grabbed them and went into the garage to find his car still
there.

The
power was out, so I had to manually lift his garage door. The few zombies I’d
seen down the street earlier were getting closer. I hopped in the car and fired
it up. I sped off past the zombies in the street, swerving around them, and
then past my neighbor rotting next to his mailbox.

I
had a twenty minute drive to Nick’s Uncle’s house. I’d ridden along with Nick
and his Dad a few times to the house to pick up and drop off a big trailer his
Uncle had. The main roads were congested, but luckily I knew a back way to get
around most of the congestion. So I started off that way, passing more familiar
sights, hoping that Roxie, Sarah, and Nick made it to the house, and that they
would be there waiting for me when I arrived.