Running with the Horde (4 page)

Chapter 8

“Alone”

             
Time flows like thick molasses when a person is utterly alone and completely trapped. Loneliness is a wretched devil; it leads to depression so dark and dreary it becomes debilitating.

             
I used to think I was lonely on occasion before the world flipped over on its head. But I was ignorant then, I didn’t know what true loneliness was until that summer.

             
No loved ones or friends to share the moments. No neighbors to give a sleepy morning wave to. Not even a stranger to sit by on the bus to share an unspoken moment of human contact. I would’ve given my eye teeth for someone as innocuous as a bus companion, even if he or she smelled like pee.

             
Cabin fever threatened my sanity as the weeks went by, sleepwalking through my bland routine. I ate from my depleting cache of food and water. Relieved myself in a bucket I would empty into my yard from the upstairs window. And I would watch that awful crowd of zombies slowly disburse day after grueling day.

             
I talked to myself a lot, sang to break up the monotony and would even catch myself humming incessantly. When I started hallucinating, I knew my breaking point was looming on the horizon.

             
I saw my father mostly. I would catch movement from the corner of my eye, turn quickly and he would be there with a taunting expression on his once handsome face. I would find myself instantly transported back in time, hiding as he stalked my rooms and hallways. He would find me as he did then and I would wake up screaming soaked in sweat.

             
One evening, after being chased by my father who wasn’t really there, I stood looking at myself in the bathroom mirror via candlelight. A ridiculously dirty, bearded wild man with unkempt greasy dark hair and bloodshot blues eyes stared back at me. He was grinning a nasty feral grin and I realized something awful was happening. I was seriously losing my shit.

             
In time, Serendipity Lane was quiet and peaceful once again, finally devoid of that awful moaning, finally empty of the undead save for a handful of very dim or gravely wounded zombies.

             
Still I did not leave my house. The constant fear of what was awaiting me outside was keeping me trapped inside my little rat’s nest. But it was getting bad for me in there, that survival instinct was once again rearing its head, insisting on action.

…

              Beyond the soul crushing loneliness and hallucinations, I was also enduring a very serious food situation in that I no longer had any.

             
Hunger was starting to overwhelm my fear of zombies. While initially I had been well stocked due to my father, a grown man still plows through a lot of food just to stay alive over several weeks. I had rationed well from the beginning but even so I had consumed everything. For the past three days I had been on a strict water fast, a crash diet from hell.

             
I was so hungry.

             
As I thought back to my last meal, a can of bean-less chili, I began to salivate heavily until thick drool escaped from my open mouth.

             
Water was not yet a problem. While it had still been running, I had the foresight to fill buckets and anything else I could get my hands on with water. But as I looked at what I had left, it was clear I was running out of time.

             
My life had gone completely off the rails. I adapted my own version of Murphy’s Law as my irrefutable science and my daily mantra. It was simple:
no matter what I do, it will get worse
.

             
It was time to choose; death by starvation or take my chances outside. At the end of the day it’s not really a choice, the survival monster rages,
try or die asshole!

             
It was time to pay a visit to my neighbor’s house.

Chapter 9

“First Undead Blood”

             
The moon was a ghostly golden specter and the air was crisp that late summer night when I left my house for the first time.

             
It felt like a Saturday but I was only guessing. I was well into the evening of my fourth day with no food and very little water so I was a trifle peckish.

             
My black jeans hung loose on my waist and my hoodie fit me like a muumuu. I topped off my cat burglar costume with a dark-knitted stocking cap. I was a bearded merchant marine going on a bank robbing spree. I was going for the ‘shadow of the night’ look and I think I pulled it off.

             
My holstered gun was not quite cinched tight enough on my waist. It keep threatening to flee to my ankles but it felt comforting nonetheless. I was hoping to not have to fire it, I wanted my first time to be special. That isn’t exactly true, I was afraid to fire it.

             
Zombies were attracted to noise, everyone knows that. I wasn’t eager to put movie theory to the test so I also brandished a metal baseball bat in case I needed a weapon.

             
I had been watching the front lawn all day and well into the night. I saw no zombies, no people, not even a little animal, just a few leaves falling to the ground and the sound of a gentle but growing breeze blowing through the trees.

             
Serendipity Lane was a creepy graveyard.

             
When dusk was giving in to full darkness, I had finished the last of my water. I broke out a can of soda I had stored away as a last treat before death type of thing. I sipped it slowly, savoring every drop. I hadn’t had anything but water for a long time so the sugar rushed immediately to my head.

             
By the time I was ready to leave I was amped up and very jittery. I did one last wardrobe and equipment check before slowly unlocking the door and easing it open an inch at a time.

             
Sweat escaped from my hat and into my eyes as I stepped quietly out the door and eased it shut behind me. I debated locking it but reasoned I might need to get back inside really fast and would not have time to fish out the key and unlock it again. If something did manage to enter my house while I was out, I would have to deal with it when I returned.

             
The terrain around me seemed clear to my limited vision, aside from my long grass and very weedy landscaping.

             
I moved as stealthily as I could down the steps of my porch and over to my garage door. I sidled down the length of the garage bay with the bat held high and ready like I was anticipating a major league fastball. I made it to the side of my house without incident.

             
The breeze caressed my face like a cooling last embrace as I tried to quiet my frightened panting. I was very scared to look around the corner but I knew it had to be done. My neighbor’s house was just a few tantalizing feet away but it might as well have been on the other side of the county.

             
Craning my neck slowly around the corner, I nearly shit myself to see a group of people standing motionless between the two houses. I jerked my head back and considered running back inside my house. Then my stomach rumbled and I thought again of that can of chili. I was committed, for good or for ill.

             
I peeked around again hoping I had been wrong but no, they were still standing there, motionless and silent. I counted five of them spaced apart with heads up and arms down as though in a weird group trance. Somehow my manic head movements didn’t alert them to my presence. I was confused, I’d witnessed the complete opposite behavior during my weeks of isolation.

             
My inexpert opinion, derived from hundreds of hours of observation from my window, had led me to conclude that zombies were drawn to sound or movement of any kind. I wasn’t sure about smell but I had to assume that would do it as well.

             
Was it possible these weren’t zombies? That notion seemed almost more frightening. I checked a third time and from what I could tell during that one second, it really seemed like they were indeed zombies.

             
They would need to be dealt with quickly and silently. My sour stomach was sending gas bubble messages to my brain that were very clear. I was not the man for the job!

             
“Fuck it,” I said softly to myself and sprinted around the corner.

             
I was on the first zombie in two steps and put everything I had into a full swing at the man’s temple. I had seen my share of horror movies and attacks to the head were always the sure bet. I connected with a force that would have ended any baseball game in a walk-off.  The sickening crunch of crumbling bone sent a jolt through my arms as my strike made a wet sounding thump. He crumpled like a sack of old squashes.

             
A brief moment of alarm coursed through me as the remaining zombies suddenly turned their dead eyes on me. There was no turning back now, I drove the head of the bat up under the chin of the lady-zombie on my left, my blow launching her into the zombie behind her, knocking them both to the ground in a heap. The man to my right got his skull caved in a heartbeat before I put the last one down with a vicious clothesline.

             
I spent a few precious moments smashing away at the three zombies I had knocked down just to make sure they were dead, for real this time.

             
Out of breath and chest heaving, I stopped to examine my handiwork. I had just mangled five people with a bat I’d purchased to use in a softball game for charity. I was never a fan of ironic carnage, now I was living it. Tears and snot were streaming down my face and I realized I was softly keening.

             
The air was coppery and the ground slick in the cool night air. I imagined the scene was a gore-fest but I was too scared to turn on my flashlight. Another odor assaulted my senses, the sickeningly sweet smell of advanced decay.

             
If adrenaline was my boat, I was now sinking. I couldn’t stop shaking. They were already dead I repeated to myself. I didn’t kill them; they were already dead.

             
Still, I felt wretched. I felt like a murderer. I glanced around but didn’t see anything. I cleared my face of tears, mucus and blood, took a deep breath and made my way over to my neighbor’s front porch.

Chapter 10

“Dave and Brenda Robertson”

             
Though I’d never been inside any other house on the street but my own, I figured I could navigate inside them easy enough. The design was mostly the same, wide and deep front porch, entryway and then double garage door bays.

             
I moved up the steps as silently as I could and approached what used to be a large picture window. Instead there was only shattered glass, chunks of wood and a foreboding darkness. I wasn’t an expert but it seemed clear there had been a breach here. I wondered if it happened that first fateful day or sometime since.

             
Was it Don or Dave? I could never decide for sure but I figured I’d just go with Dave. I liked that name better, thought it suited him. Dave Robertson and his lovely wife…Brenda.

             
I was such a great neighbor! Based on the condition of their front window, their actual names were no longer relevant anyway.

             
I found a place on the window pane that was mostly free of jagged glass and stepped into what used to be their living room area. The smell was awful, worse than it had been outside by a considerable margin. I made a mental note to put vapor rub under my nose next time I had to go out.

             
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness inside the room but eventually I was able to pick out a chaotic jumble of smashed furniture and other debris.

             
My tiny light illuminated a room full of dried blood and shell casings. In the corner behind an overturned loveseat I saw the remains of a body. Further inspection revealed this to be Brenda. Clearly she had been dead for a long time, a big revolver still clutched in her swollen hand.

             
She had saved the last bullet for herself as evidenced by the hole in her head and the brain matter stuck to the wallpaper behind her. She was missing an arm from the elbow up and her jeans and tee shirt looked shredded. It seems death did not save her body the humiliation of being someone’s last meal I thought glumly.

             
I was busy trying to pry the revolver out of Brenda’s gushy hands when I heard slow footsteps approaching me from behind. I spun around to see Dave slowly two-stepping towards me from across the room.

             
He did not take his own life like Brenda so the zombies took it for him. One dried eyeball hung from his face like a wilted rose on a stem and his right cheek was completely chewed off. It made him seem overly happy to see me. Before he could get too close I readied my bat and whispered to Dave that I was sorry before putting him down in one quick swing.

             
I looked at them both, lying in ruin on the floor of their living room. Both had died but only Dave had turned. I only had a sample size of two but it seemed safe to conclude that if the undead got to someone before he or she died, that person reanimated as a zombie but what the hell did I know.

             
After giving them both a moment of silence I began to search the house. My first objective was to be sure it was clear. This was a tense, exhausting and terror-filled twenty minute affair which included all the closets, the basement and the crawl space under the stairs. It seemed important to be absolutely certain I was alone.

             
I felt like a little boy playing at being on the swat team with my little flashlight and bat but eventually I was satisfied no one else was home. I did not remember the Robertsons having any kids and my search of their house confirmed they had none, living at home anyway.

             
The amount of guilt I felt at having sort of killed six people was overwhelming. There was no way I wanted to add any children to that list, even zombie children.

             
My rumbling stomach reminded me why I had come in the first place. I raced to the kitchen and quickly opened the refrigerator door. This proved to be very foolish when I was overcome with the smell of spoiled food. I slammed the door shut and turned to vomit in the sink.

             
The soda, I’d so delightfully consumed, came back up with acidic force burning my sinuses and giving me one of those eye headaches a person usually gets after eating cold food too fast. After the soda and bile were out, I continued to dry heave into the sink. The smell from the fridge was bad but I think I had over done it from a stress perspective as well and it was catching up to me. I would have given a lot for an ice cold glass of water at that point.

             
When I finally collected myself, I moved on to search the cupboards and pantry and was delighted to find quite a lot of canned goods and even some gallons of water.

             
I tore into the water right away only pausing to rinse out my mouth before drinking my fill. Then the cramps came. I was suddenly very hot and felt cold sweat pop out on my forehead. I ripped off my stocking cap and sat against the wall breathing deeply.

             
The water in my stomach was threatening to make an encore appearance in the sink but in a few moments the cramps subsided as my stomach stretched and I was able to calm down. I had just learned another valuable lesson about what happens when you gorge on an empty stomach.

             
It was time to get moving again. I figured it would take me a few trips to get all the food back to my house so I loaded up my pack with as much as I could carry and made my way back home.

             
I was so happy to find it unmolested I couldn’t stop smiling. Aside from the quasi-killing, I was having a really great night. I was safe and I was going to eat! Even the killing seemed less important as the night continued to play out. But that is the nature of the survival monster, kill or be killed! The only moment I need to worry about is the present moment. Everything else can suck it.

             
I consolidated what would have been five or six trips down to three by bringing extra bags. I didn’t worry about zombies, I didn’t even think about them which could’ve been really stupid but I survived the night.

             
After getting all the food and stuff, I decided to search more carefully for guns or other supplies I might be able to use.

             
In one of the back bedrooms I found the place Dave tried to hold off the zombies. I wondered how he became separated from Brenda during those last frantic moments. Did he watch her kill herself or did that happen later? I tried to imagine the terror and panic they felt but I found I couldn’t. This was a sad testament to the tenuous hold I had on my humanity.

             
There was a shotgun on the floor. It was one of those big bastards that could hold up to five shells. I admired the dull black metal of the barrel and stock before slinging it on my back. It was perfect. I also located a box of shells and a holster for the big revolver I’d taken from Brenda.

             
When I finally unloaded all of the booty from the Robertsons into my house it had to be getting close to midnight and I was very tired. I just wanted to lay on the floor and sleep but first I had to eat.

             
I looked through my newly acquired goods and settled on a can of corn and two cans of chicken. With my can opener in tow I headed out to my porch. I was getting more comfortable being outside but I still brought the shotgun.

             
The food was heavenly, even raw and cold. I can still remember popping the corn kernels between my teeth and how good the juice tasted. As I slowly ate (I’d learned my lesson from my water guzzling fail), I kept coming back to poor old Dave and Brenda. I felt really bad about how they died, the first time I mean.

             
While I’d been snug as a bug inside my house less than fifty feet away, they had been torn apart by former members of their own species.

             
The word coward wormed its way into my head and I couldn’t get it out. I hated to think I was a coward. I tried to justify my failure to protect the Robertsons or any of my other neighbors by being cold and logical. It had truly been an every man for himself situation. I guess if we’d all been better prepared maybe the outcome could’ve been different. I am sure if they were still alive to share their thoughts, they would admit they hadn’t considered that the cannibal rumor had meant flesh-eating zombies any more than I did.

             
It had been rioters and looters, those were the clear and present dangers and, of course, the Sickness. My neighbors would’ve agreed with me. That was a guess though, as I stated earlier, I’d been a drunken asshole most of that time.

             
I still felt like a coward. I should have tried to do something for them.

             
Dave had done his best to include me but for the most part left me alone. They’d respected my privacy in life and donated food and weapons to me in death. For this I could not leave them unburied.

             
I would drag Brenda, Dave and the five zombies I’d put down to my front yard and figure out a way to bury them in the morning. As much as I deeply wished someone else was around to take care of it, I knew it was the right thing to do.

             
I finished every last morsel of my food, cleaned up my mess and retrieved my leather work gloves from the garage.

             
The next hour was pretty awful but I managed to get Dave and Brenda out of their house and my five new friends to the corner of my front yard where they laid in an undignified heap. I left my gloves on top of the pile as I would not be using them again and headed inside. It was very early on the morning of what would be my first full day as a killer and I was really damn tired. I locked my door, changed my clothes and was sleeping as soon as I hit the stinking pillow.