The Aftermath: Parts I and II (6 page)

When she was done she lay down on the shelf and stretched out with the rifle set up in front of her. She threw one of the rocks, making sure it hit something that would cause a lot of noise. It worked like she had planned, four of them came out and she quickly took them out. She loathed wasting the ammo, but couldn't be certain that she would be covered with less. They needed to be picked out, and it needed to be fast and clean.

She waited a few minutes, counting her breaths, letting stragglers a chance to shuffle out, none did. After a few beats she grabbed another rock, again she made sure it made a lot of noise to draw attention. Once again she counted breaths and waited, nothing. Finally she sat up and straddled the shelf again and took apart her rifle. The pieces went into her backpack and she pulled out her pistol. She kept it close, and her knife in it's holster but unsnapped.

Before she dropped down she threw one more rock. Paranoid. While she waited she made sure everything was packed up and began to look around. If there were anymore they were most likely immobile. From her vantage point she could at least get some supplies, though food seemed unlikely. So many people wasted so much in the early days, again though people didn't really have much foresight.

When she looked back on it, it took far too long for her to start regulating the amount of food she consumed, and to save up. Now though she sat on food, she forced herself to make it last. In all honesty she really needed to find a better solution, she wasn't going to find it here though.

She worked quickly, grabbing everything she could find that was useful. Her pack got re-sorted a few times. She found some gauze, rubbing alcohol, sunscreen, a few bottles of water, and thankfully a few cans of food. She looked into her pack and a few tears escaped her eyes. This was not a haul, this was essentially nothing. Counting everything she had six bottles of water, ten cans of food, and three MREs. It wasn't enough, not when there was no more production, not when it had been over a year since places first got cleaned out. She knew crying wouldn't help her, but still the tears fell. Finally with a sigh she got up.

Once again she looked around, going through every aisle. She wasn't sure if the wasted ammo was worth it. She would need that ammo, but she needed the food. Eventually she gave up and left, it was a large city there should be a few other places to clean out. Maybe her paranoia wasn't an art, maybe it was time to find people, to make sure she wouldn't starve.

But then she had survived this long.

O
ccasionally they found themselves thinking, “Had I known it would have ended up like this I would have given up a long time ago”. It seemed almost unreasonable to survive through everything they had, to fight for so long, just to be taken out by something else. What did it matter that they hardly saw those things anymore? No form of government had really come back despite the world steadily becoming safer. What did it matter that they were the strongest? Not even they could make much more in this life than a small half community of fifteen survivors.

No, had they known that all the surviving and fighting was for this outcome they would have stopped a long time ago.

Yet they couldn't stop now. That seemed to be the thing that truly terrified and astounded them. It would have been one thing to give up during the first outbreak, or even in the year or two that followed. It would have been preferable they all knew it. However, to survive for four years in this hellish world and quit now? That just didn't make any sense. Their nature wouldn't allow them to do something like that.

There was no such thing as scavenging anymore. Food was either collected or spoiled beyond being edible. It wasn't just that it tasted bad, it would be counter productive at this point. Hunting could be done, and it was as often as possible. The risk with hunting though is some animals still carried the infection. Being bitten by one of the massive hordes of undead was no longer much of a risk. They saw a 'zombie', if that's what they should be called, maybe once every month or so. Animals didn't really change much if they had the infection, but they were damn dangerous to eat.

Sometimes it was obvious. Someone would take out a buck and when they went to dress it the organs wouldn't look right, or the smell would be a clear give away. The blood was usually the most telling sign, they would hang it up to bleed it and instead of a red liquid, blobs of nearly solid mud like blood would fall out. They would know that that buck had been dead for awhile.

The scariest times were when an animal had just picked up an infection. Everything would seem fine then the next day some poor person from the group would be sick and showing signs of turning.

Hunting had to happen, and it had to happen often it was just a huge risk. Most people would wait after an animal was brought in until just before the meat went bad. They waited as long as possible to see if someone else died first. They would tell themselves 'someone is more desperate than I am and they will be the 'guinea pig'. Of course most of them were right.

Farming was really the best option. Everyone knew it. Farming was sure to be safe, it would give good food, it was something that they could keep doing. They had tried to farm from very early on as a matter of fact. The problem was the outbreak was more than just an outbreak of illness, it was the complete and total break down of the world. Farming as people knew it before the outbreak was nothing like it was now. People had been spoiled by the ease of getting clean water, power tools, and vehicles. Even the acquisition of land was a different story now.

Since there were few 'zombies' they could leave their little safe haven to farm, but it didn't make the job of finding unbloodied and safe soil much easier. Once a place to grow was discovered the next challenge was how to get water to that place. It was hard, it required many filters, the desperate attempts to understand how to set up wells, and ultimately farms depended mostly on the natural elements to provide water and nutrition. The natural elements in a world that was already being systematically destroyed by humans weren't that reliable.

More crops died than were harvested and finding ways to replenish crops was a struggle. Take away refrigeration and any other form of preservation and simply put the little community was screwed.

Yet they still kept pushing. They wished that they had died long ago but kept pushing to survive now. They farmed as much as they could, hunted often, still scavenged despite knowing it wouldn't be a success, and learned to live in a constant state of hunger. It was safe to say they truly missed the days when man eating monsters were their biggest concern. Hunger didn't take away the constant fear that they had been living with, it was now just displaced on something else.

Conversations were vague, attachment to one another had ceased, it wasn't living in any sense of the word. They wanted the others to die so there would be more food.

“Maybe we should move to one of the cities,” someone said.

“There are two problems with that. One, the cities have likely been picked clean. Two, while there are few of the 'zombies' around here we don't know what it would be like in the cities,” an answer came.

“Yes but if there are people that have cleared the cities out, they might have found a better way to eat,” a different person argued.

“Then leave,” came a reply. They all knew the unspoken part of the reply, 'if you leave then we can have your food'. Despite the fact that everyone was thinking it, and everyone knew everyone else was thinking it the words were never spoken. It would break the tentative peace of the village.

After that conversation no one had a conversation for at least a week. The only words spoken were names at what their rations were for the day and jobs for the week. More than once someone would wonder if the group would simply forget how to interact with one another using words. The emotional and human part of them would lament over this possibility. A much larger part of them knew that it simply didn't matter.

The village kept functioning though. They found a way. They struggled for it, but they found it.

Finally one day they saw it. A group for three people walking down the road. Three relieved and happy faces looked at what was clearly a safe village. The guards for the village looked through their scopes. The people were fairly healthy, though had clearly been on the road for sometime. They weren't coming from another safe haven looking to combine communities. They were lost and wandering on their own.

“Hopefully they have some food,” a person said.

“And maybe some tips on where to get more.”

“It will give us some meat at least,” someone said sadly.

“Yep, let them in,” came the disgusted reply.

It was certain that in those moments they were all knew they wouldn't have pushed to survive to end up like this. Like this group of three people they had all survived the hordes of undead. Unlike these three people though, this village was willing to replicate those very monsters to survive.

T
ess turned and looked out at the four faces in front of her. They were each picked as part of the voting council for this little town they were building up. William and Edna, an older man and woman. They brought their wisdom and years of experience. William of course also had medical experience and Edna had been married to a politician. It was no secret that she had actually been the real politician in the marriage and her husband had merely been a puppet. Matthew was a middle aged man with a science background. He was very shy which made him an odd choice for a member of the council. When he did speak his opinion was always clear and concise, the fact that it was rare added a certain power to it. Last was Emma, she was pretty young, only about twenty-five. She was in the military, medical discharge, but before that she had been a sharp shooter. Her knowledge was in safety and training.

Tess was really the odd man out. She had been a high school teacher before the outbreak, though given that she was barely thirty-two she hadn't had the job for very long. Many questioned why she got so many votes to be on the council, everyone questioned why the council had put her in charge. That was until they realized that dealing with classrooms full of teenagers wasn't much different than dealing with a group of people with conflicting view points put in a position of authority. Tess in her own right was the perfect tie breaker. Generally the votes came down two to two. Tess was a good listener, strong willed, and calm when pressure hit.

They were in a small house that had been converted into their meeting lodge and another storage facility. Since it was such a small house no one in the town really missed it. They living room had a clear space for the council to have meetings. The rest of the house had various necessities stored all around. Clothes, weapons, ammo, even a bit of food. Since an inventory was taken before and after each council meeting there was little risk of the five of them stealing. Honestly they were all well enough taken care of that the temptation never really crossed their minds, even if there wasn't such a high risk of them being caught.

Tess knew this vote was going to be a hard one. Each of their faces was mostly covered in shadows because they were using candles tonight. It was going to be a long discussion and no one was willing to waste the oil for the lamps, or gas from the generators. The candle light seemed to reflect the somber nature of the discussion they were about to have. Mostly shrouded in darkness no one felt comfortable, this was now their reality.

“We have to decide what to do about this situation,” Tess finally spoke. No one was looking back at her. “It won't be an easy vote, and it's certainly not one that any of us ever wanted to take. Enough people in the town complained about it though so we can no longer ignore it.”

“This isn't what I signed up for,” William said pointedly, still refusing to look up at her.

“No but it is our job,” Tess replied.

The faces didn't respond. Tess sat down in the chair beside her. She didn't want to force them to start talking it was a delicate issue and they needed their time.

“The people that want us to do something aren't wrong. The noise has gotten out of hand, and it has more than once brought the dead to our door,” Edna finally spoke after a tense few minuets. Tess nodded at her to give her thanks for getting the discussion going.

“Look there have always been noise problems, that won't stop if we take care of this one problem. It will however change the town. It will change us,” William retorted.

“Were it winter again I would agree. They would be slowed down and it would be just one or two. It's the middle of summer though, they are more active than ever. And with the days being so long they stay active longer. I can't say for sure that I disagree, but it's worth considering just how many dead the noises bring now. We can barely repair the walls without bringing a whole horde down on our head,” Emma countered.

William interrupted her, “What is your point?!”

“That noise is a bigger problem right now. A rather serious one,” Emma answered, almost in a whisper.

“We can't just approach this as a defense problem!” William snapped.

“But we can't forget the defense aspect of this problem either,” Edna answered.

Tess cleared her throat. “We all realize what the right answer is defense-wise. We also know what the answer is morality-wise. It does us no good to fight about that, we just have to decide which issue is more pressing.”

“Wouldn't the best solution be to find a way to block the sound?” Matthew questioned.

“Of course the entire council would be more than happy to hear a solution of that sort. The problem is we don't know if that solution exists. The problem is in the center of town equal distance from all the walls basically. We have people watching it constantly to make sure the noise stops as quickly as possible. So what is the next step?” Tess posed the question calmly.

None of them answered. Tess was not surprised by this, neither were they honestly. Everyone had been discussing the problems for weeks, if a solution other than this vote were possible they would have come up with it already.