Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger (3 page)

“I’m getting you something comfortable to sleep in.” He stated rather impressed by all the options he was able to present to her.

“Oh that’s nice of you but first that pink thing there in your hand, that’s a Chemise, that’s not really meant to be slept in, if you know what I mean. And those other ones look like some heavy duty snow pants. How about those green silky ones, those look comfy.” Jill finally decided. Jack stepped out into the hall while Jill changed and started climbing under the covers.

“I’m decent you can come in.”

It wasn’t yet dark, the sun was just beginning to set, but the day had been long for Jill. A good night’s sleep sounded awesome right about now Jill thought.

As they both started getting into their sleeping bags and settling down, Jill did notice the silence and how nice it was. She looked over at the door, it looked secure, more brackets with two 2x4’s over it, the windows were down and locked, the curtains drawn. They were so far up that nothing could break them and crawl in. Jill rolled to lie on her back and just there lay in the silence for a moment, soaking everything in.

“You know you can’t stay here much longer.” Jill said out loud.

“I know. Maybe fate brought you here to help me get out of this place.” Jack said silently. Jill rolled over again and put her arm around Jack in an offer of comfort.

“Jack we’ll get out of here and find shelter somewhere. There are more survivors out there, I’ve run across people from time to time, most want to keep to themselves. It’s not always good finding survivors though.” She whispered practically in his ear. As they both feel into a deep sleep, something that has eluded Jill for weeks, the groans and moans escalated and grew louder as a beat up, use to be green colored, car went zooming down the road by the house. Taking many zombies with them in their wake has they continued to drive off to an unknown destination in hopes they get away safe and alive.

“Jill! Jill, wake up! Please wake up!” Jack was exasperated having tried to wake her for a number of minutes now, shaking her shoulder. Jill’s eyes eventually fluttered open and she looked over to see Jack by the window, no, practically hanging out of the window with sunlight streaming in around him.

She bounds up out of bed and grabs Jack to get him down.

“What hell are you doing? Are you crazy! Do you want every walking corpse on this place?” she says scared out of her mind.

“They’re gone, look. Not a single zombie out there. What’s happened, is it a miracle?” He asked turning to look at Jill with lots of hope in his face.

“Just wait. We have to check stuff out we can’t just go crazy and start playing outdoors again waiting for the ice cream man to come by. We have to be cautious.” Now hesitant as Jill rises to look outside, she gets up on her knees to look out the window, the air was starting to feel warmer, the winter thaw was complete. What month was it she suddenly couldn’t remember? April? May? The sun was out, birds were chirping, the grass was starting to dry out and turn green again. She expected to see a paper boy riding around any minute. CRACK POP! Both Jack and Jill heard the noises and looked at each other.

“What was that?” He asked

“Gunfire.” Jill said knowing that gunfire was not a good sound to hear. Sounds drew the creatures, drew them from far and wide. It was like there moans called to each other, since they varied in speed it could be minutes before the get to the source of the noise or show up days later and wreak havoc on the poor souls who were left alive. After a few moments of silence Jill spoke.

“We’ve got to help.” She said. Where that thought had come from she didn’t know. Jill liked to avoid people now. But she was weirdly drawn to this kid, and helping the mysterious location of the gunfire.

“What? How the hell are we supposed to do that? Those zombies are gone. Good, let them all keep walking towards the gunfire. You said it’s not always good finding other survivors, how do we even know where to go and that they are even worth helping? ” Jack said firmly. “What if they just want to take what we got?”

“Listen to me carefully, what do you think will happen once those guns go quiet? That means they either ran out of ammo or their dead. I don’t know why, but I have a gut feeling we need to help. Call it women’s intuition, but we need to do this. You can stay here, that’s fine, but I’m going, I’ll try and come back for you if you want.” Jill got up and started to unbutton her borrowed pajama top, muttering ideas to herself, Jill looks over at Jack to tell him to get a move on if he wants to go, as he stands there just seemingly enjoying the view Jill was presenting. Jill freezes, realizing she’d been undressing in from of him.

“Were you just going to keep letting me getting undressed and not say anything?” she asked with some shock.

“I . . . . .” he started and stopped “I didn’t want to interrupt your train of thought, you had some really good ideas there.” He managed to say. She was still standing there with her top unbutton, he could see her abs, and apparently had no qualms about looking. Jill quickly noticing that Jack was making no movement at all, she pulled her shirt closed, folding her arms across her chest, while staring at Jack.

“Jack? Focus. Look at me.” She gave the international look/watch sign with her two fingers pointing to her eyes.

“In the eyes please.” She said like talking to a 3yr old

“I am. I’m going with you.” He replied with his gaze still sort of meandering.

“No look at my face, concentrate on the words I’m saying now. We have to help. We’ll get a plan and figure out some sort of diversion.” She said trying to remain calm with him as he still made no movement.

“JACK GO GET DRESSED!” she shouted after getting no reaction. He was off, sprinting into the door, fumbling with the locks and finally down the hall into his old room. Jill just laughed, she had forgotten what it was like to be around a teenage boy. She thought of her brothers, her sister her parents. No idea if they were alive or dead or the other. Sending up a quick silent prayer for their safety, and to find them, she quickly got back on task and changed into some more borrowed, but clean clothes. She cringed as she slipped her army boot on over her still swollen ankle, it was wrapped with an old ACE bandage. It would have to do. Jill wasn’t sure yet what they were going to do, but they had to act fast and have an escape plan for themselves as well. She could still hear the steady popping of gunfire and saw smoke rising in the distance, it would act as a marker for them and help pin point the others location. Hopefully it would last long enough for Jill and Jack to find them.

“Keep burning them!” Casey shouted into his walkie talkie to the guys down below. The razor wire was holding, but the bodies were piling up quick. Thick black smoke was streaming into the sky where the mass of zombies were being burned. More could be seen off in the distance heading towards, them. They hadn’t had this many zombies around since the beginning. That damn car must have been trailing these Zeds behind them, it was days’ worth of zombies. Soon those Zeds would figure out they could crawl over the bodies and breach there building, it was strange to contemplate that zombies could think, but it seemed they were starting to evolve, almost using a basic cognitive thought. People were up on the roof, using the bows and arrows, rifles, hand guns, Molotov cocktails, garbage, anything to kill or slow down the zombies somehow. Casey had other ideas for counters measures for this new way of zombie thinking, traps, trip line, land mines all stuff laid out in the parking lot and around the areas, but he had been out voted so nothing new was implemented as a precaution if zombies figured out how to climb over the wire. And now Casey was standing on the roof watching as two fire teams were trying to keep the Zeds back. He wasn’t sure their fort, their make shift haven, their new found utopia, could with stand this kind of attack.

“Casey, Casey!!!  Tom came running at full speed up to him.

“We’re not going to be able to control this much longer. We can’t control the mob they are on both sides of the building too, let’s use the explosives, some of the dynamite.” Tom was frantic as Casey grabbed Tom by his arm to keep him still.

“Shut . .  Up. Get the others up here to double up on everything we got, the crossbows, the Molotov’s, fucking rocks if we have them. Get some sticks and poke their eyes out, we have to keep trying.”

Casey said very calmly, it was almost frightening how cool he was. “No explosions! No more extra noise.” Tom just stared for a moment. Then with shaky hands he started calling in the new orders. Extra people were up and in place within seconds. Another maneuver that had been rehearsed and drilled day after day to nauseam was getting people into position and fast. Casey reached over and picked up a cross bow to help, they started tossing cocktails farther out to slow down the 3rd and 4th waves of zombies that seemed to be pouring across the parking lot. The medieval like archers started taking aim and firing, the fire teams were still below torching anything close. Casey was thinking this looked like the world being overwhelmed by the zombies all over again. Screaming ripped through the air loud and long, everyone stepped up to the edge to look down and see a mass of Zeds had breached the fence and grabbed some members of a fire team. This was taking a turn for the worse. The fence was buckling under the weight of the Zeds. Bites, blood, chunks of skin flying up and out, the zombie’s moans of ecstasy were loud after having fasted for so long. Casey couldn’t do more than close his eyes. He pulled out his pistol and shot the men that were once alive in the head to prevent them from turning into the undead. Staring down at the zombies now piling up and over the wire Casey saw the gas tank laying on one of the dead men’s back, he fired one more round and the explosion filled the air. The heat from the fire roared up the side of the building and pushed people back on to their butts. Another scorch mark, another scar on the building, another mistake Casey would take and internalize this, he’d own it. When would this end. All Zeds within a 50yd radius burned, and they burned good. They managed to set some others on fire in the process, but in reality all this did was attract more. Casey, Tom and Kurt were running out of ideas and fast. They were down to they’re last plan, get any and all survivors inside and lock themselves in , Casey hated this idea, because it left no escape. But they were fast becoming choice less, he could hear more screams and cries for help coming from other sides of the buildings. Another soft explosion with soft, faint cries of misery. Everyone was looking at him for the next move, what they do next will be a life or death choice for everyone. Raking his hand through his hair and down his face, dread started to fill Casey’s head. What to do?  That’s when everyone heard the sound. Everything stopped suddenly, humans, zombies, there was 3 or 4 seconds of utter stillness. A tornado siren started going off in the distance, loud and window rattling. No one moved a muscle, no one breathed, and you could hear all the rapid heartbeats and all the questions that began filling people’s heads. The Zeds that were farther out turned and started lumbering off immediately towards the new noise, the ones closest to the building were being quickly and quietly dispatched by arrows and spears. Everyone realized that this was the best opportunity for survival and they took it.

“Do you think there’s a real storm coming?” Tom questioned Casey as he walked over towards him and Kurt.

“Let’s play it that way, just in case. Kill and burn up what’s left of the Zeds and let’s lock stuff down and get the people inside just in case a storm is coming. Keep a few people on watch in case the Zeds change their minds.” Casey said, looking out with confusion and hope. Hope that maybe there were still people alive and confusion as to why they would help. In the months the followed the zombie outbreak society quickly became a game of last man standing, everyone for themselves. That’s what Casey was used to, so why now suddenly did he get the feeling that someone was trying to help and what were the reasons for helping. The three men turned to head back down to the ground floor with the others when another building shaking explosion slammed through the air and the people’s bodies. They could actually feel the building lift slightly, gently, under their feet it swayed. Black smoke bloomed like a mushroom cloud through the sky with the people still watching perplexed.

Jack and Jill had gone 4 blocks without seeing so much as one zombie. A few decaying bodies lying in yards or sitting in a car still, but they were very much decomposed at this point.

There was dead zombie bodies lying around also, intermingled with real people dead bodies. Some houses on the blocks they passed were still neat and tidy looking, aside from not having a mowed lawn and weeds sprouting up through the cement cracks everywhere, it looked as if people still dwelled inside. Other houses though, looked as if they had been the scenes for several last stands, burnt out doorways and picture windows, dried blood that stained the houses, still lingered in areas, bullet holes riddled walls, most having come from inside to the out. One place they passed, not far from Jack’s house actually had arrows stuck into the side of the house, and it made them both think of cowboys and Indians. After a nice leisurely ride in Jack’s mom’s car, which he made sure to run every few days, something his dad had started, he wanted to be prepared. With the garage attached to the house, they never had to go outside, talk about luck. They came upon an elementary school and stopped a block away.

“Are you nuts? A school?!” Jill exclaimed, not comfortable being this close to this death trap, in all her wanderings over the year abroad roaming the zombie-side, she hadn’t found one school that wasn’t a meeting place of sorts for people before this whole thing started. Now schools were just a breeding ground for the undead. Everyone flocked there, as FEMA and Red Cross and other military and emergency personnel told everyone that schools were the happening place to be at that time. Salvation was there and people went. But as always, organization was not a top priority at first and so many infected were let into these places, either they hid their wounds or they were over looked, but it was only a matter of hours before all those places were over run. About half of the schools Jill had come across had been chained or somehow locked from the outside, so that meant someone escaped, but the zombies were just inside, not having any motivation to try the door, and that is where they stayed. Until someone decided to go check something out. Twice Jill had been that dope to go by a school too close, once she was with a young married couple, she had found them hiding in a long abandoned gas station out in the boonies on the west coast. They banned together in search of food and survival. Well the husband had the bright idea they should drive by his old high school, talking about all the amenities this place had back in the day, Jill wasn’t thrilled with this idea, but she wasn’t driving at the moment. Yeah that idea turned bad quick, hubby and his lovely wife ended up taking a slug each in the dome. They begged and pleated with Jill for her not to shoot, but they were already dead, only mere scratches on their arms and legs, but it was still enough. It was on Jill’s top ten list of the hardest things she’s ever had to do to date, and she promised herself no more attachments/friends. She’d try it all alone. Now here she was with Jack, her new friend, sitting a block away from an elementary school. And guess what, a sign was taped on the door, Jill could only imagine what it said. “I’m gonna go check it out you stay here.” Jack said and started getting out of the car.