The Complex: (The Reanimates) (9 page)

             
Daniel and Trent looked like they had a heavy heart. "Build team finished a coffin." said Trent. "We also moved the body out of the medical unit to an empty one facing the garden."

             
Tanya came over and said "Garden team has started digging a hole. Will be deep enough in the morning."

             
DaWayne gruffly said in his best imitation of how someone speaks when they don't want to be caught crying "But those TV folks say you gotta burn the bodies. We burned that pile last night that came."

             
"Yeah that's what they said DaWayne. I can't do it. If someone in our family dies, and you are all my family now, we will bury them. If its one of those zombie things let 'em burn. I can't stand the idea of one of ours being treated like garbage." I think I was abundantly clear.

             
I needed to get to Drew and give him a hug. I needed to know and feel that my son was safe. Logically I knew that he was fine. Logically I knew that he was safe. For me, in that moment though, logical thinking had left the building as soon as Eric reanimated. I left the group that had gathered as they made plans for the funeral at dawn and went to the school unit where the kids were playing, hopefully being kept safely unaware of all that had just happened. They heard the gunshot but I hoped they all assumed that there was a zombie on the other side of the wall. When I opened up the door and stepped in, Drew jumped to his feet and wrapped his arms around me in a hug. Tears started to pour out of my eyes as I held him to me.

             
"Let's go home, kiddo." I said to him, with the sound of being very tired not disguised well at all. "Hey Jody?" I called, "I'm taking Drew home. We'll see you tomorrow."

             
We were joined by Trent. We went up our stairs, locked the doors, and just stayed with one another.

             
We were grateful that the electricity still worked as we sat around watching DVD's together and Trent was able to throw a frozen pizza in the oven. It felt like life was almost normal for a bit. It was a moment of freedom from the zombie apocalypse. In that moment people weren't dying. In that moment monsters were not coming. We were a family having an evening in. I wished to all high heaven that this could last forever, that somehow I could bottle this moment where I could hold my son close and put my head in Trent's lap and use it any time I needed it.

             
When darkness fell outside we turned in for the night. We all piled into the king sized bed together not wanting to be apart from the family. It didn't take long to fall asleep, but I woke up several times in the night. My dreams were filled with zombies who wore the faces of people I knew.

The Funeral and the Fight

             
When we woke the next day, no one had a lot to say. We went through our morning routine of getting cleaned up and breakfast then went over to the garden area to see if they needed any help setting up the spot where we were were going to bury Eric. We decided against pulling chairs out for everyone, though Tanya suggested we get one for Martha. We figured that it wouldn't be a very long service.

             
The funeral was a quiet affair. It began midday and Mercedes led the service. She had lovely words to say. I watched Martha sitting silently. She did not cry. She did not move. It was clear that her world was over. I tried to wrap my brain around her loss. I couldn't. I kept my arm around Drew not wanting to ever let him go. As the funeral came to a close the alarm bell rang out loudly in the previous silence.

             
Trent leaned over to me and asked "Is this a part of the plan in the funeral, a send off?"

             
I looked at the faces of everyone and they all had the puzzled look.

             
"I don't think so." I whispered back.

             
Joey got up to investigate. I saw him run off to the watch tower where DaWayne was at. He came running back and said "It's go time.” He sighed and added, under his breath, “Damned zombies, interrupting stuff."

             
"Jody, take the kids to your place and lock up!" Trent yelled. She was up and gathering the kids in a flash.

             
I had taken to carrying my gun with me. It was still weird that I became a gun carrying girl. I was one of those girls that just didn't see the point in having a gun. I see the point now. Heck, I wished that we had some AK-47's when in the world before zombies existed I had adamantly felt that there was no purpose to them.

             
We ran to the main gate since that was where DaWayne was pointing at.

             
We should have gotten there sooner.

             
About 40 zombies were pressing against the gate. The whole thing was shaking against the weight of them trying to push through the gate. They managed to push hard enough that the gate had jumped the track. With each push they moved the gate just a hair more. The bicycle chain was holding together but the other side was not secured by anything other than the chain that ran the gate motor. There was a lot of play in that chain. After one more push the gate moved just enough to start letting them though one at a time. The only positive thing about this was we were able to pick them off as they came through. Joey fired at any that came to the opening. Trent was firing at the ones near the opening. Daniel and I were shooting random ones.

             
Each time a bullet struck them there was a horrible smell of rotting meat. Black congealed fluid poured from their bodies as they lay on the sidewalk missing a large portion of their head. The smell alone made me want to vomit. Adding in the visual of bodies that had been torn into and partly eaten, arms missing from being ripped off, missing strips of face and now, in a pile outside the gate, missing a great deal of the brain, sort of sealed the deal. I turned around and puked. I was not alone, Daniel had lost the content of his stomach as well. Maybe it was the full lighting that made things seem more graphic. Maybe it was that this time we weren't filled with the excitement of our first ever zombie hit. This time it was just gross.

             
"Aren't we a pair?" I said with a chuckle.

             
"What are we going to do with all of them?" Daniel asked.

             
"I think that we should drag them into the middle of the street and torch them." Joey said.

             
I loved that idea. It felt like we would be making a statement to the zombies that said if you mess with us this is what will happen. I knew that the zombies didn't care. I knew they weren't connected emotionally to one another. It didn't matter. It felt like a statement to me. I went to grab some thick gloves for everyone. When I came back we went to work. The smell was terrible. I had already vomited so nothing came up when my gag reflex was triggered as we kept moving the bodies. On the third body a flicker of recognition hit. "Trent? Isn't this one the one who slammed up against the glass at the pharmacy last night?"

             
Trent let go of the body he was moving to take a look. "Hey Joey! Check this out! Look at him in the face. What do you see?"

             
Joey studied the zombie. “Well, I'll be damned. It has to be the same one from the pharmacy. That is frigging weird.” The recognition of this zombie stuck a chord of fear in me. Could he have followed us?

             
"Are you kidding me?" Daniel dropped the body he started moving, "This is one of the ones that hit us at the grocery."

             
"Do you think this is a fluke?" Trent asked.

             
"No." Joey replied. "They are finding us. This is what happened after the sporting goods store. It looks like once they find fresh meat they can find us."

             
"But how?" Daniel wondered out loud.

"Maybe smell? I haven't got a clue but it seems pretty clear to me that they are indeed finding us." Joey said with a pondering look on his face. "If we can figure that out then maybe we can prevent them from following us in the future."

Barriers

             
"If they can smell us how do we make that stop?" Daniel questioned. “How do we go out there and come back without them following us?”

             
"Why not just stay put for a while? We have supplies right now. We have projects that need done. I for one am not keen on the idea of another person dying in my clinic. Look at the cost of being able to run out to get stuff. Before the risk of being without the supplies was justified. It isn't now." I retorted.

             
We went back to moving all the bodies into the street. Trent pulled a lighter from his pocket, a left over relic he kept from the days we were smokers, and lit a shirt on one of the zombies on fire. I could see his brain at work as he worked on some sort of plan. The zombies caught fire quickly, and just like last time, the smell was unimaginable. This time though we didn't have that sense of elation. This time it felt like the weight of the world was on us and the smell was a hammer driving that point home.

             
"We need to get these barriers doing their jobs properly.” Trent finally said. “If no one was on the roof just now we'd have had zombies running through the complex. I don't need to spell out the could haves here, do I."

             
All our eyes drifted to the gate that had a huge hole. Joey and Trent popped it back on the tracks to temporarily close the gap. Trent turned to me and asked me to get Drew's bike lock. I went to get it with a run. A couple minutes later I handed the bike lock over. Trent fixed the gate by wrapping the additional chain through the wrought iron on the side that got loose. We did not feel safe with such a simple fix. That was a mistake in the first place, to be lulled into a sense of security. Trent pressed his hand on the cinder block wall. He looked it over and said, "This isn't enough. We should all know better. If they get motivated enough they will step on each other to get over. This wall is the only thing that is keeping them out there and the only priority right now. We have food and we have water. We need to get it together, and we need to start now."

             
Daniel nodded and asked, "So what do you need us to do man?"

             
Trent pondered over that for a minute. He started walking along the wall thoughtfully. He looked up at several of the trees.

             
"I have some ideas but I need as many helpers in the mix as possible." Trent said, not really paying attention to our agreement to do what ever he needed. He had that somewhat distant look in his eyes that he got when writing computer programs or plotting how to get the kitchens he built through the door and hung without breaking the cabinets or the house.

             
"Well,” Trent began. "What we have to start by clearing some of these trees. I'm not a fan of the trees in the inner courtyard area. I think we should all be able to see each others patios. It just makes sense safety wise. When we take it down, I need the thicker long branches stripped clean so they can be poles. Ty, can I get you and DaWayne on that? Steven found a chainsaw when we were in the maintenance shed, he used it to trim down the trees away from the wall a couple days ago. It's in the build unit now." Tyreese agreed and went jogging over to DaWayne to let him know what their part of the plan was.

             
"Daniel. We need to go through those empty units again and break down those bookshelves and entertainment centers. We need the wood."

             
For the next couple hours they worked intently on the wood gathering. Others went over to see what they could do to help. With the immediate threat of the zombies taken care of, the kids came out of hiding to help gather more of the heartier sticks. Tyreese asked Trent, "How long do you need these branches to be, man?"

             
Trent looked at the branches and said "The fatter ones need to be at least six feet. More when you can." He thought a bit more. "The thinner ones? Three to four feet ought to do it. On one end of all of them I need a spike carved out. Think of them as spears."

             
Tyreese asked, "So, what? Are the zombies going to turn into vampires next?"

             
"Shall I start calling you Buffy then?" I chimed in.

             
Drew had walked in with armload of sticks at just the right time to hear the words being exchanged about vampires and asked, "Will they be sparkly 'vegetarian' vampires?"

             
We all started laughing. Trent sputtered and tried to protest that it wasn't at all but with each sentence that began with "That's not what" the laughter started over again, including his own. We regained our composure and we all started sharpening the sticks. Trent grabbed a piece of what once was a bookshelf from the pile that Daniel brought out, a hammer and some nails. On the smaller sticks he sawed an angle off the blunt end of one of the sticks and nailed it to the bookshelf board. He did this several times at varied angles. Then he repeated the process on more wood pieces.