Z Day is Here (18 page)

So I left the "safety" (if that’s what you
can call it) of the Neon and ran over to a nice brand new Infinity,
where I could see a girl crying. I convinced her to open the door
to let me in. Once inside, I could clearly see that she was in a
total panic. I asked her for her name and told her mine. She told
me her name was Cheri then asked me to kill her. I was shocked! I
asked her to calm down and think about what she had asked. She just
kept saying that she couldn't take the constant moaning anymore.
She said she could hear voices in the moans, voices calling out to
her, telling her to join them.

As she spoke, a cold shiver rose up my spine.
Maybe that’s why the moaning creeped me out so much. Maybe it was
voices I heard in the moans as well. Maybe that’s why the girl ran
out onto the streets in the city. Maybe she heard the voices too.
Hell, maybe I'm just going crazy. Maybe we are all going crazy.

Without warning, she bolted out of the car,
running as fast as she could towards the edge of the parking
garage. I jumped out of the car and ran after her. Ed also jumped
out of the truck he was hiding in. Cheri stood on the edge looking
over at the undead crowded below her. She was sobbing
uncontrollably. Ed quietly called out to her, begging her to step
back from the ledge. She turned to look at us; she was no longer
crying. "I'm sorry. They are telling me to," was all she said
before turning back to face the crowd. Like an Olympic diver doing
a perfect swan dive, she spread out her arms and jumped into the
masses below. I couldn't take a chance on going to the edge to look
and see what had happened, but based on the sounds of the thud of
her body crashing down to the ground and the sounds of skin being
ripped off of muscle, I can only imagine what the last few seconds
of her life was like. I really hope the impact killed her before
the zombies did.

Ed and I slowly walked back to our own
vehicles. As he was walking away, he looked me directly in the eye
and asked if I heard the voices too. "No," I lied. I do hear them.
I hear what Cheri heard.

Another black cloud is moving towards us.

Rain again.

It's been raining all day again. I can't
complain about it this time, though, because the sounds of the
drops on the hood of the car help block out the moaning, plus it
also helps wash away some of the stench in the air. I need
something to block out the moaning and the voices. I swear I can
hear them begging me to join them, to allow them to feast on me. I
think I am going crazy. When I concentrate really hard, all I hear
is moaning; it is when I stop concentrating that I can hear voices
calling out to me. They are like quiet little whispers.

I hope they will be gone soon. I cannot take
much more. All night and so far all day today have been the
constant rumbling of the feet below us, the moaning, and the sounds
of rain. How long have I been awake? Hell, when was the last time I
even closed my eyes for more than two minutes?

It sounds like they are moving away! The
moaning has died down a little. Maybe I will be able to get some
sleep tonight! The "calling out to me" has finished now, thank God.
I hope they will be gone tomorrow, so we can finally figure out
what we are going to do. We cannot survive around here with those
mass migrations coming and going. I think we all know things will
never be the same, but maybe we can find somewhere to live out the
rest of our lives where we won’t have to be on the lookout every
minute.

First though, I have to try to find Darcy.
One way or another, I have to know what happened to her. If we can
leave this area tomorrow, we should be at the base as early as
tomorrow night.

I slept harder than I have ever slept my
entire life. I had strange dreams. When I awoke, I was in my bed.
Darcy was lying snuggled up against me like she had been for the
past few years. I raised my head to look around, disoriented. Where
was I? The sight of my bedroom took me aback. What the hell was
going on? I fell asleep, and I was in a Neon, surrounded by zombies
below me. Now I was lying in my bed, in my room; all was well and
as it should be. The zombies were a nightmare. I breathed in. The
stench was gone. Darcy woke up and asked me if everything was all
right. I smiled and said, “Yes, it is perfect." She ran her hands
through my chest hairs and fell back asleep. I couldn't sleep. I
was given a second chance at life.

I got out of bed and made a huge breakfast. I
made eggs, grits, bacon, pancakes, and toast. When it was done, I
took Darcy a tray in the bedroom for breakfast in bed. Together, we
ate it all. She kept commenting on how much I had changed overnight
and even joked about aliens stealing the real me. We laughed a lot.
Things were back to normal.

Without warning, the alarm went off. It was
time to go to work. Aggh, at least during the zombie attack, I
didn't have to go to work. I showered and got ready for the day.
When I was leaving, I kissed Darcy like I hadn't done in years.
Again with the alien comments.

Work was...well, work. I fixed computers and
set up networks. I took a long lunch. I also got written up for
something stupid I did weeks ago. I passed by one of the offices; a
goldfish happily swam around in his bowl. People came and went.
Things were normal again.

That night, Darcy and I sat around the house
talking about wedding plans. I wanted to go to Vegas, and she
wanted to go to St. Lucia and get married on the beach. We argued a
little about it and then decided to pick a location in a few weeks.
Darcy cooked her meatloaf that I love. We watched TV and went to
bed early. We fell asleep a couple of hours later. Things were
normal again.

Days turned into weeks that turned into
months. Life was normal. Life was good. I came and went to work;
Darcy and I planned our wedding, detail by detail. I still voted
for Vegas. Every night I kissed Darcy like I hadn't seen her in
years. I vowed to continue until the day I die. Life was normal
again.

Last night I went to sleep like I had done
every day before. I awoke this morning cold. The forgotten stench
of death was in the air once again. I sat up quickly. Alisha and Ed
were standing by the edge of the garage, looking at the area. Cole
was talking to one of the other survivors, another teen; I think
his name is Matthew. Jeremiah and Tonya were arguing with Shaughn.
The sun was coming up. The zombie cloud was on the other side of
the city. I got out of the car, walked to the edge, and took in the
surroundings. Blood covered the ground. Bodies were torn to shreds
and strung around on the ground. Buildings were crumbled, and a
straggling zombie or two picked clean the body of a young black
girl. I blinked a few times and threw up. Things were normal
again.

As we began leaving the parking garage this
morning, we heard a noise from inside a nearby dumpster. Jeremiah
approached it cautiously, weapon in hand, and ready to blast apart
anything that moved. He flung the lid wide open and shoved the
barrel of the gun into the trash. Out of nowhere, a two-by-four
smashed him across the nose, causing blood to fly in every
direction. Mego emerged from the dumpster, holding the other end of
the two-by-four, the board pulled back and ready to strike again
until she saw who we were. She dropped the weapon and ran to help
Jeremiah up. The rest of us followed.

Mego was all too pleased to see the rest of
us. Once our hellos were said, I told her our plan to head to the
military base to get any weapons, supplies, and survivors we can
find. She agreed to go with us because, after all, "The living must
stick together to survive."

We have been walking all day and most of this
evening. We have only encountered a few zombies, and most of them
were completely immobile. There were a few that only had the upper
portion of their bodies, so they were crawling around on the
ground, pulling themselves along. The others we disposed of as
quickly as possible.

Now we are just outside the gates of the
base. The gates have been torn down, and there are bodies
everywhere. Hundreds of zombies, holes blown through their heads,
lying along the ground, along with mutilated soldiers; every one of
them have holes in their heads as well. There must have been one
hell of a fight here. We have decided to approach the base in the
morning so we can see a little better. I hope some people were able
to escape. I hope Darcy was able to escape, if she was even there
to begin with. God help me, I feel terrible, but I don't care
whether or not anyone else made it. I am being so selfish, but with
everything I have been through, I think anyone would be selfish in
a time like this. Tomorrow can't come fast enough.

The base is completely destroyed. Every
building that once stood has been completely demolished. It looks
as if someone hit a self-destruct button, causing the entire base
to explode. Pieces of rubble litter the ground, as does pieces of
body parts. There are a few parts still moving. We saw a leg and a
few hands moving around on the ground. While sifting through a
downed building, we found a decapitated head with most of the face
burned off, yet its eyes still followed us as we passed. Shaughn
bent down to get a closer look at it and almost got bitten as it
snapped its teeth at his face. Laughing, Cole and his new friend
Matthew decided to play soccer with the head. Matthew was the one
to score by kicking the head into the nearest tipped-over trash
can. Both of the teens jumped up and down, waving their arms around
in victory.

Ed has been frantically searching for his
family. There were three fallout shelters located throughout the
city, and we had found two of them. Both shelters were empty. They
had been destroyed from the inside out, like someone set off bombs
inside the shelter, killing everything and everyone inside. The
doors to both shelters were off their hinges. Inside, the lights
were all destroyed, so it was too dark to really see what had
happened, but the rooms were caked in blood. We would not let Ed in
either of the shelters; we didn't think he could handle it, so we
took a picture of his family and entered one at a time, searching
for any signs of them. While searching, I also looked for signs of
Darcy. We found nothing that would lead us to think either of them
had been in there. I don't know what happened in those shelters,
and I don't think I ever will, but whatever it was, by the looks of
it, it was a living hell.

We have made our way to the last area of the
base. We are directly outside the last shelter. From what we can
tell, the doors are still intact and closed tight. We are sitting
outside, trying to figure out what to do. The shelter has a call
box, where we can make contact with anyone on the inside, but no
one is answering. We have thought about blowing open the doors so
we can get inside, but I don't think we have enough explosives to
even do that. Plus we don't want the kind of attention an explosion
like that would make.

It's getting pretty late, so I think we will
set us a camp for the evening. A few people will sleep while the
others look out, then we will swap so we all can at least get a few
hours of sleep. We are also going to continue to call the shelter;
hopefully, someone is inside that can answer us.

The door to the shelter is opening slowly, as
if someone is pulling it open to peek out. I see someone's face.
It's hard to make out, but I think it is a woman. It is a very pale
face, looks to be covered in blood. Alisha is approaching
cautiously. She has a flashlight. She is about to shine it on the
girl’s face so we can see her.

It's Darcy.

Seeing Darcy last night for the first time in
over three months was one of the happiest moments of my existence.
Even covered in blood, she was beautiful. I was completely in shock
to see her peering through the door. I was so happy; this is what I
have dreamed of for so long. We were finally going to be together
again. Things were going to be perfect. However...

When Alisha approached her, she shined the
light directly in Darcy's face. Once I saw it was her, I yelled for
her and began running in that direction. Alisha turned to look at
me; she was smiling at me, knowing how happy I would be. As I got
closer, I saw Alisha turn back to face Darcy. It looked like she
wanted to ask her a question or to say something to her. Before she
got fully turned, Darcy jammed a butcher knife deep into Alisha's
throat, pulled it out, and jammed it in again and again, over and
over, until I got close enough to pry the knife out of her hand.
Darcy looked directly at me. She had no idea who I was. She then
shoved me out of the way and slammed the door shut, locking it and
enclosing herself in the shelter again.

I fell to the ground, grabbed Alisha, and
held her as she died in my arms. I told her it would be okay and
that I was sorry for what happened. Thankfully, she died quickly
without suffering too much. Everyone gathered around us,
simultaneously feeling sad and enraged at what had just happened.
Jeremiah ran to the door and began screaming at Darcy. If he had
the power, he would have ripped the door off its hinges right then
and there. Cole and Matthew grabbed ahold of Mego with a death grip
that no one would be able to pry open. Ed and Shaughn went to go
calm Jeremiah down.

I sat on the ground, wild thoughts racing
through my head. I was covered in the blood of a friend, blood that
my lover had drawn. What went through her head? What was she
thinking? I know she saw me. Maybe she was scared and didn't know
what was going on. I couldn't help but think about her on the other
side of the door. As shocked as I was, my heart pounded more
because she was near me. We have to get inside. I have to know what
is going on. I am scared for her life now, though. Jeremiah wants
her dead. I am not sure about how the others feel. I will not allow
anyone to hurt her. I will do whatever it takes to protect her…even
if it means using the butcher knife myself.