Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel (12 page)

W
e made other needed preparations around the
house, working until noon. I switched on the AM radio for the day’s update. We
listened together as we ate lunch. The thinning operation had gone well.

They estimated ten percent of the Twin Cities
horde had been put down or so severely maimed as to be immobile. It was
difficult for me to comprehend that conventional weapons killed 200,000 formerly
human beings in one night.

In my imagination I could see so many bodies
pressed into the Red Cedar River as to actually block it. The dead coming up
from behind wouldn’t need the I-94 Bridge – they could walk over the bodies of
their comrades. Later, I asked Frank about this and he said only “Yeah, that’s
about right.”

The mega-horde, Chicago B, was near Janesville
Wisconsin. If it turned north, it was possible that Madison, the Berkeley of
the Midwest and ground zero of this whole catastrophe would suffer the
additional ignominy of being trampled under the weight of four million FIPs.

After passing through us, the Twin Cities horde would
be hammered by the military along the Chippewa River just as Chicago B would be
hit along the Rock River.

It struck me how much the dead’s behavior was
that of a flock of birds or herd of beasts. I wondered if they could be
steered. We learned that analysts used the same observation and asked the same
question. They developed techniques giving a limited ability to steer or even
split hordes and we would play a part in it.

There was no opportunity to steer the Twin
Cities horde now though. They were too close and there was not a terrain
feature between them and us that could be used as a wedge. We’d be in the
middle of the TC horde shortly.

The dead wandering around our development
already appeared to be agitated. At first we thought they’d converge on our
house due to the noise we were just making. After watching the cameras for a
few minutes it became clear we were not the dead’s focus. Could they somehow
know that the horde was coming? Probably not because we soon saw a wave of
wildlife hustling through our neighborhood heading away from approaching horde.
The deer, turkeys and other assorted critters that were racing eastward,
excited the dead.

A
round three thirty, the three of us bundled up
and went up to the roof to watch for the arrival of the Twin Cities horde. We
kept low over the wall or out of sight completely using the drainage ports in the
parapet walls. As we looked west signs of the horde were immediately apparent.

Less than a mile west, beyond 20th street, the
woods surrounding the little Elk Creek seemed to shake. Elk Creek wasn’t wide,
deep or swift enough to present an obstacle to the horde. It might even have
been frozen over, I wasn’t about to check.

Dark figures emerged from the tree line. We
could not see I-94 to our south from our roof but we could see the smaller and
closer US-12. It was boiling with shapes.

The first ghouls through the woods were in sorry
shape, even for undead. Through our binoculars I saw tattered burnt clothing on
badly disfigured and charred bodies. Even as far away as they were the noise
they made was terrible to hear. It was a nonstop drone of low frequency growls
punctuated by higher frequency unintelligible screaming. Blind pure unthinking
rage filtered across the distance between us.

As the slow moving train wreck came closer I
could discern many faces completely denuded of skin. I saw ghastly skulls with
bared eyeballs and teeth. Some had remnants of arms hanging uselessly at their
sides. All showed evidence of burns that would have felled any living human.
These ghouls had literally walked through fire and come out the other side but
I doubted they would appear on any self-help infomercials anytime soon.

A seemingly endless stream of dead left the tree
line heading towards us. The open space dwindled moment by moment. We were held
transfixed. Like people on a beach hoping the incoming tide would change its
mind and turn around, we were helpless.

The leading edge of the horde disappeared behind
the trees lining 20th Street. Soon after, the trees began to shake. We saw
younger trees go down as the leading edge plowed over the berm and down into
our own neighborhood beyond the Boetche’s house.

From in front of the unstoppable wave fast
motion caught our attention. A figure ran hard towards Flynn’s. The quickly
moving figure could not be one the dead. He moved far too fast and too “naturally”
be to one of them. In a flash, he disappeared behind what would be to him the
front of Flynn’s house. He must have gained entry because he did not come out
the back.

Suddenly, from the very sliding door we had used
to make our own entry, glass shattered and fell. The man, already bloody, got
one foot onto the deck before arms, too many to count, grabbed at the man and
pulled him back into the house. We could not hear the man’s last screams over
the noise of the horde. The dead were streaming past the Boetche’s and exploded
out of the back of the Flynn’s. So many dead flowed onto the Flynn’s deck that
they knocked themselves over the railings and down the steps. In a crash, the
Flynn’s deck failed completely. Dead continued to stream out of the hole that
had been the sliding door only to drop on their fellows below.

The sound was deafening now. The horde was
here
.
At the foot of
my
house. In a moment, we were surrounded. I had a memory
of some Western I had seen as a child where a cowboy and his leading lady were
surrounded by a stampede of cattle. The cowboy in his impossibly white hat
calmly turned to his woman and told her not to be afraid. Ruth Ann and I now
sat knees to our chests with our backs to the parapet wall. I turned to her and
was more afraid than at any time in my life. I couldn’t tell her not to be
afraid. I couldn’t get a sound to come out.

It was time to go inside.

W
e crept down from the roof level to our second
story. The reinforced concrete walls shook. The second floor’s windows backed
by blankets did nothing to lessen the skull-splitting din from outside. Ryan
made his way towards a front-facing window. Ruth Ann stopped him.

“I want to see them,” Ryan shouted.

“We can see them well enough on the cameras,”
she replied and pulled him away from the windows.

Actually, we could see them too well on the
cameras. They were up high but had a direct view. With no intervening wall to
give the impression of separation, the camera views were even more visceral
than being on the roof. Seeing all eight views at once made it brutally clear
how surrounded we truly were. As far as the cameras could see we were in a
crush of grinding death.

There was a steady current of dead impacting our
front and garage doors. From downstairs came the sound of thudding against the
front door synchronized with the images we watched on screen. I was comforted
by the thuds as they weren’t purposeful pounding. Sometimes a particularly loud
bang travelled up the stairs but we could see that this corresponded to a knee
or head that bounced backwards and staggered on.

I had hoped that the density of the dead would
actually work for us, and it was. Individuals didn’t have much time to become
aroused by something particular about the house before they were bumped and
shoved from behind by more dead. As long as we remained hidden and the doors
held, we would probably survive.

However, I did have a significant and justified
concern for our water well. If we were to lose our pump, we would be without
water and therefore in an indefensible fortress. No refuge no matter how secure
can provide safety for more than a few days without water. A house call from
the plumbers would likely be a very long wait.

The well rose above ground in a small knee-high
structure about 15 yards from the house. The dead were banging into the
wellhead even now. As bad as it was outside, we had to go back upstairs to
implement my plan to protect the well enclosure.

“We can’t risk damage to the well,” I said to
mutual agreement. “I want to make an obstacle in front of the well that will
cause them to flow around it.”

“What are you going to use to do that?” said
Ruth Ann.

“Them. He wants to use them,” Ryan caught on
immediately. Ruth Ann looked confused.

“I want to drop some of them with the bow just “upstream”
of the well. I think if we can drop enough of them in the right spot, the rest
will just flow around.”

“Even if they climb over the well it would be
better than constantly kicking it. Enough kicking and that thing will come
apart,” said Ryan. “I could use the crossbow. I always wanted to use a crossbow.”

In the few hours he’d been out of the garage
Ryan alternately annoyed, puzzled, scared and impressed me. This was all in a
day’s Xbox for him.

Ruth Ann agreed with the concept but expressed
concern about drawing attention to ourselves and our sanctuary.

Safeguarding our water supply was worth the
risk. “They won’t be able to process why the zombie in front of them suddenly
fell over. Let’s try some shots and see what happens. If we draw any attention
we’ll figure out something else.”

I had no “something else.” It was either this plan
or nothing.

We had about two hours of daylight left. I
considered passing out foam earplugs but figured it would only make it harder
for us to hear each other while doing little about the sound of the horde. The
sound of the horde permeated our bodies. We would hear it no matter what we
stuck in our ears. I handed Ryan a dozen crossbow bolts and the crossbow making
his day. Ruth Ann took as many arrows as she should carry along with her
recurve bow. I took a freshly charged laptop with which to monitor the cameras.

As bad as the noise was the affront to our ears
was nothing compared to the insult hurled against our noses. Mixed with an overwhelming
rotting smell was the odor of charred flesh. The stench was unbearable.

We crept low to the northeastward facing wall. I
had drawn pictures downstairs of how I hoped to layout bodies in an arc around and
over the wellhead.

Ruth Ann and Ryan loaded their weapons. They
would fire our first salvo together and then drop down behind the shelter of
the parapet wall. Each of us exchanged a nod with the others. Both shooters got
up only as high as needed to clear the wall, aimed and fired. Even standing
next to them, I heard nothing from either weapon.

Nevertheless I tugged on both their jackets. We
would watch the results on camera and not risk any more time above the wall
than necessary. It was impossible to tell what the missiles had hit. There was
a disturbance in the flow near the wellhead with creatures falling over each
other.

There was no reaction that would indicate they
were aware that they had been attacked or where the attack had come from. Ruth
Ann and Ryan repeated the process again, taking a little more time to aim. This
time I saw the missiles reach their terminus in the skulls of two walkers. They
went down immediately adding to the turbulence near the wellhead.

A few yards behind some heads were turning up
and to their right towards the origin of the streaks they must have seen.
Seeing nothing some returned their gaze to what passed for straight ahead
depending upon their disfigurement. A few continued looking in our direction.
In a stroke of good fortune, the ghouls who lingered looking up at us tripped
right over the creatures we had just shot.

Shoot, hide, observe.

We repeated this over and over again until a
mound of three dozen bodies protected the wellhead. The dead flowed around and
over the mound like water around a big rock.

We got off the roof as soon as our task was
done.

T
he noise was driving us nuts. We could choose
to not look at the cameras but we could not avoid the noise while on the second
floor. We collected our weapons, some tech and blankets and headed to the first
floor. On the way past the kitchen table I checked on the tactical radio, it
was still transmitting.

The solid walls of the first floor vibrated just
as much as those of the second. The small non-operating strip windows kept out
more of the sound. With earplugs, it might have been almost livable on this
level. The immediacy of the thudding against the front door, though, made
staying on the first floor impossible. Every bang or scrap against the front
door reminded me, at least, how little a separation there was between the horde
outside and the three of us in here.

We would be heading to the basement in a moment
but I wanted to look for myself to see how well the front door was holding up. I
crept to the door imagining that at any moment it would burst inwards. It was
just getting dark outside and I could see nothing through the blacked out sidelights.
A hand must have slapped the beveled glass. It was then that truly I
appreciated how fragile the sidelights were. The looters had used a baseball
bat on our neighbors’ houses. Continued knees and slaps would be just as
effective here over time. What about a creature with just the right slap
wearing just the right jewelry?

I checked the deadbolt and hasp on the floor. The
upper hasp was locked from visual inspection as I couldn’t bring myself to
stand up to check it. I could feel every bang against the door. The sound of
their moaning just inches from my head made my skin crawl. What I checked
looked good. The baby monitor webcam was in place so I got the hell away from
there.

We headed through the door leading to the
basement.

We turned on some hand cranked LED camp lights
on their lowest settings and continued on into the basement. Ruth Ann was the
last one down and dead bolted the door behind us. At least this door didn’t
have any fucking sidelights.

The good news was that it was quiet. Virtually
no sound reached us through the foundation. The bad news is that should any
entry be made into the house we would be trapped. But who was I kidding?
Millions of cold dead eating machines were walking through our yard. If they
got in the house whether we were here or upstairs we’d soon be one of them.

Cranking up a few more camp lights we started
making ourselves comfortable. We had no cooking equipment set up down here yet
but we could set up an electric hot plate if we needed one (and electricity
held out). There were plenty of non-perishables and dry goods. This is also where
we kept our canned goods. If we were trapped down here, as long as we could
replenish water we could last a long time. Deep down I knew the basement door
would give out long before the food did.

For the next few hours it might have passed for
a sleepover except that the zombie movie we watched was a live video feed.

While I was down here I figured I might as well
do some tidying up while Ruth Ann and Ryan talked. I could hear Ruth Ann edging
around the question we were wanting an answer to since we first discovered
Ryan. Again, he steered the conversation away from the subject. I resolved that
in the morning, if morning came, I would ask the question directly and insist
upon an answer.

It didn’t take me long to check in on our
batteries and power status, all good. I nosed through our long term supplies,
all good there too. I scored a bonus when I ran across a small sample box of cups
for the coffee machine upstairs. The box had long ago expired and many of the
flavors were crap but there were a couple of good ones in there. I would just
need access to a machine two floors up.

Finally, I looked in longingly on my
technological pride and joys sitting idle since the shit hit the fan. The work
I did in Silicon Valley required lots of processing power and tons of storage.
When I “retired” to Wisconsin I saw no reason to be without the toys to which I
had become accustomed. I had a few ideas I was working on. I could have rented
“cloud” services for processing power but this was not just my work. Fiddling
with wires and buttons was my hobby as well. Ruth Ann had her greenhouse; I had
my own farm of sorts.

As such farms went it wasn’t large but for
things one might find in a residential basement, it was huge. Two 12U racks
each sported a dozen servers. Each server was capable of running tens of web
sites each fairly well. Hundreds each, badly. The servers were fed by two 18
terabyte networked attached storage (NAS) arrays. Next to those was my own
small supercomputer. The box held four Tesla K10s that together were many
thousands of very fast computer cores perfect for image processing and parallel
computing.

While I could occasionally fire up one the NAS
devices for fetching this or that such as a ripped movie or book, the servers
were a power impossibility. There was enough horsepower and storage sitting
idle here to run hundreds of web servers. Even if I had the power to run them I
would still be missing the web itself. Still, they looked pretty and I patted
the boxes lovingly.

I came back to the big room and stretched out on
the couch with a few layers on blankets on top. I flipped on my tablet. When it
connected to the house, the status indicator for email showed up. I had been
with Ruth Ann and Ryan all day. They hadn’t sent me anything. I opened up the
email app and found the message was from our modem / router. A modem, or
modulator / demodulator, is the thing that physically connects the network
inside the house (the LAN) to the outside world (the WAN). The modem was on
whether we had Internet service or not as it was also the device that told
packets inside the house how to get from one device to another (routing). The
modem had sent me an email saying that for about a minute early this morning,
it had a connection to the outside world! For a minute, we had Internet
service!

While this was very exciting, I didn’t share the
news as I had no idea what it meant.