My Apocalypse (Book 1): The Fall (15 page)

40.

“Would you like some more tea dear?” the old woman asked me. She came into the room, carrying an antique teapot, and sat down on a small couch opposite me and Timothy.

She had almost shot me at first, but thought better of it when she noticed we weren’t, like she called them, “little punks”. Then she had ushered us inside her house, where she had proceeded to lay out a nice spread of tea and small cakes for us.

She was a smaller woman, a little heavy, but lively none the less. I estimated her age at about seventy, but she carried herself like a person almost thirty years younger. The large, double barreled shotgun she had threatened me with was only an arms reach from her, leaning up against the couches arm.

“No thank you, miss?” I said, placing my hand over my cup.

“It’s Mrs., actually,” she said, setting the teapot down. “But you can call me Dottie, everyone does.”

“Okay, Dottie, can I ask you a question?” I looked over at her, and she just tilted her head and smiled, so I went on.

“How is it you’ve survived alone this long? I assume you are, in fact, alone.”

“Oh yes,” she answered, “at least for a little while now. My husband, Gerald, died a few months ago. One of those punk kids attacked him, and he got sick afterwards.”

“Punk kids, what do you mean by that?” Timothy asked, smiling and laughing a little.

“Don’t get flip son,” she said, looking at him. Her look would have made flowers wilt, and it did the same to Timothy.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking away.

“Continue,” I said to her.

“Sorry dear,” she laughed a sound of complete mirth. “Where was I? Oh yes, the kids.

“You know what? When I was young, it was motorcycles and the rock and roll. Then it was hot rods, disco, those wheelie board things, and computers. Here lately it was their pants around their asses and hats turned backwards. Now its vampires, werewolves and zombies with them, I don't know which of it all was the worse.

“I’ll never understand these little fads.”

I looked over at Timothy, and the boy just sat there, mouth agape, shaking his head in disbelief. I didn’t know what to say myself, so I asked the most obvious question.

“You said your husband got attacked?”

“Yep,” she said, taking one of the small cakes off the tray and popping it into her mouth. “He had gone out to the yard shortly after all the military guys left. One of the little assholes was in our yard, and he went to run them off. He told me before I killed him that he had shot the kid twice, and it still kept coming. Bit him on the arm, he did, taking a good chunk out of it. I think the little shit was all hopped up on the marijuana.”

I listened to her story, and it didn’t click at first. When it finally did, I was taking a drink, and I choked, tea flying all over the place. I started coughing, and Timothy began slapping my back, trying to help clear out the liquid.

“Oh my,” the old woman exclaimed, “what a mess. Let me go and grab a towel.”

She got up and headed to the kitchen, but as she did, she grabbed up the shotgun like it was second nature.

“Did she,” I started to say, but I still hadn’t gotten my breath back, so it came out in a choked mess.

“Just say she killed her husband?” Timothy asked me. I nodded. “Yeah, she did, like it was no big deal too.”

Dottie bustled back into the room, and proceeded to clean the table off. She sang softly as she did the work, some little country ditty I couldn’t identify.

“Dottie,” I said as soon as I caught my breath.

“Yes dear,” she said, looking up at me, her eyes full of innocence.

“Umm…” I was trying to figure out how to ask about her husband without being rude.

“Did you kill your husband?” Timothy asked, blunter than I would have been.

“Oh yes.” She said, finishing wiping the table and sitting down. “Shot him with this old shotgun here.”

“What happened?” I asked her; unsure I wanted to hear the answer. I was shocked to hear this little old woman talk about killing her husband so easily.

“Well, like I said a bit ago,” she started, “one of those little punks bit him out there in the back yard. After he shot him, he came in and I cleaned him all up. The next morning, he was running a fever, a really high fever. By that night, he was in bed, moaning and groaning.

“The next morning, I had gone in to take him some food, and he tried to attack me, snarling and growling. Whatever those kids were taking to get them all high must have got into him.

“I couldn’t have him trying to bite me though, so I shot him. Blew his head clean off. Made a hell of a mess, but then again Gerald always had a way of making a mess of things. I had to bury him in the backyard along with the other little bastards.”

“Bury with the others?” I asked, astonished. “You’re kidding right?”

“No my dear,” Dottie said to me, smiling innocently. “I still got the shovel. It’s sitting by the back door, waiting for the next cocksucker that comes along and messes with me.

“Do you young men want anything else to eat?”

I looked at Timothy, and neither of us knew what to say next.

41.

It was a short time later I was standing in Dottie’s kitchen, watching the old woman wash some dishes, when I heard a yell come from the front room.

“Eddy!” it was Doc, and the tone in her voice held fear.

I was off in a flash, sprinting through the house. I passed by Samantha, coming down the stairs from the second floor, and waved at her to go back up.

“Stay with Abigail,” I told her.

When I got to the front windows, I immediately saw what Doc was hollering about. There was a small group of people heading towards the house, and even from this distance, I could tell they were armed.

“How many are there?” I asked.

“Twelve by my count,” Timothy said, staring out the window. “All armed too. This isn’t going to be too pretty.”

“Fuck me,” I said, pulling my pistol from its holster.

The first of the people had made it to the large sweeping front porch, starting up the small staircase. I was fairly sure it was a man, but the person’s clothes made it difficult for me to properly identify it. They carried a large rifle slung across their back, and two smaller handguns shoved into their belt. I threw open the front door, taking a position half in and half out from behind the large oak door.

“Stop there,” I said, raising my gun and taking a careful aim. The two guns came naturally into the person’s hands, and they immediately dropped into a defensive crouch. I saw the others behind the leader do the same, or take positions to help better defend them.

“Where’s Dottie?” the man asked instantly. “What have you done with her? Tell me!”

“You first,” I shot back, “explain yourself.”

I heard the metallic click of guns being cocked, both outside and inside. My eyes darted from the leader to the others around the front yard, and I felt my heart beating rapidly. My palms began to sweat, the pistols grip becoming slick.

“I live here you simple fuck,” the leader hollered at me, “now tell me where Dottie is, or we are all going to have a really bad day.”

I felt the cold steel of a guns barrel press against the back of my neck, and I tensed.

“Dear,” I heard Dottie’s sweet voice say, “If you don’t holster that revolver in the next few seconds, I swear to the Almighty that I will blow your dick in the dirt faster than you can breathe.”

I obliged, and then raised my hands above my head. I could hear Doc and Timothy do the same, their guns hitting the floor. I turned and looked at Dottie, and was slightly astonished to see the look of pure determination on her face.

“Dottie,” I started.

“Good boy,” the old woman said to me, shouldering her shotgun and smiling. Her face took on the same soft, innocent features I had seen earlier.

“Now you open that door girl,” she said to Doc, “and tell that good for nothing grandson of mine to get in here.”

I looked over at Doc, whose mouth hung open in amazement, as she turned and did what the old woman told her to. A few minutes later, the house had filled up, and I was being introduced to the old woman’s grandson, Philip.

He was a seemingly jovial man, who had a perpetual smile on his face. The smile got even bigger when he talked of his grandma, whom he seemed to love a lot. He was a bigger man, tall, but not large by weight standards. He held his rifle with the air of a man born into it, rather than trained to use it. I could picture him and his grandfather, or father, or some other unnamed male figure in his life, out on the weekends hunting whatever game was in season.

“I’m sorry I almost shot you,” he told me, shaking my hand, “but I couldn’t be sure as to what you had done with Dottie.”

“I don’t think I could do anything with that woman she didn’t want done.” I told him, and we both got a small chuckle out of it. “But I do apologize for the misunderstanding.”

“So,” he said, “what’s your story?”

I sighed, not really wanting to get into the tale at this moment, but I felt I owed him that much.

I started with when I awoke in the hospital, disoriented and confused. I went into detail of my meeting with Wall and Doc, and all of the other soldiers that had taken up residence on the floor. Day gave way to twilight as I told him of my escape with Alec, the meeting of Abigail, and finally my return home. After that, the story went quickly, and it dawned on me just how much had happened to me in so short of a period of time.

“So wait,” Philip said when I finally finished. “You’ve only been awake now, for what, three days?”

“Give or take a few hours, yeah.” I said, shrugging. “When I hear you say it like that, it’s not so long, not as long as it seemed to me. So now that you know about me, what about you?”

“There’s not that much to tell.” Philip settled back into the recliner he was sitting in, flopping his hands down on the arms. “I grew up here, and then moved away once collage time came about. Always came back every winter and spring though, if for nothing more than to go hunting with my papa.

“I was here, celebrating my grandma’s birthday, when the outbreak started. For awhile, everything went on like nothing was happening. We stayed inside as much as possible, only leaving to get some food here and there out of the fields. Grandpa and I had our occasional fun when the freaks got into the yard. We never killed any of them, at least not until we really discovered what they were.

“I couldn’t believe it, that we were living in some cheesy B-rated zombie movie. I tried to convince the old folks to get out of here when the military pulled out, but they wouldn’t have it. They kept saying that they didn’t want to leave their home. Gramps built this house when they got married, neither of them wanted to go.

“I felt foolish when the blockade was over run.

“You wouldn’t have believed it even if you were there yourself. I barely can now, and I saw what happened.

“We were looking out of the front windows one morning, watching the soldiers finishing up their preparations for moving. There was a large group of people lined up waiting to go, all of them waiting to head towards Champaign. That is when it happened: like a wave they came, a hoard of them things, easily a hundred deep. The runners came first, only a couple, and hit the civilians like a ton of bricks. They turn others so fast though, and soon there were a couple dozen of then fast fuckers running about. The rest came shortly after, but by that time, the streets were chaos. People were screaming, trampling over one another to find a safe place, and the military was useless. Most of them actually turned and fled, leaving their belongings behind.

“I didn’t know what to do, and almost caused the death of us all. A woman and her child came up on the porch, screaming at us to let her in. I had my hand on the doorknob when I saw one of those things run up after her.

“I still hear the screams at night sometimes.”

Philip fell quiet for a few minutes, and I thought it best not to press him further until he was ready. We sat there, each lost in our own thoughts, each having lost people dear to us. I finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

“So,” I began, leaning forward closer to him, “have you actually been to Champaign since the outbreak?”

“That’s right,” he replied, my words pulling him from his memories. “Your family is supposed to be there, correct?”

“As far as I know they were supposed to be.” I nodded as I told him.

“Look, Eddy,” he sighed, the sound heavy in the now silent house, “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. To answer your question: No, I have not been there. I have been to the outskirts of the city though, and it isn’t pretty.”

“Don’t spare my feelings man,” I said, staring at him through the one good eye. “I am going to go no matter what you say. I have to find my family, so all that’s left is if I go out there, not really knowing what is before me, or if I go prepared. You decide which.”

Philip looked long and hard at me, and I could see the decision weighing heavily on his mind. Finally, he looked away, shaking his head.

“Against my better judgment,” he said, “I’ll tell you.

“Champaign is a wasteland. Something was there, what I don’t know, but something was that seemed to draw them things there. I’ve said horde before in reference to them, but a more apt term I believe would be “murder”, kind of like they call groups of crows. I say this because whatever they see or cross is gone. Turned or eaten, no matter what, it’ll be gone.

“I’ve watched at least a half dozen murders going towards the city. Some pass by on the highway, some right down on the interstate. They move with single minded purpose, only diverted if some poor soul gets spotted by them. By now I’d have to guess close to five thousand is what I’ve seen pass by heading there. Add to that those that were already in Champaign and it become a place that I don’t ever actually want to go.”

“But you said you have never really been in the city since,” I said to him. “How do you know it is so bad?”

“Because,” he began, “I’ve been within a mile of the place, and you can spit and hit a fucking dead-head without a problem.

“That and I watched them drop the bombs.”

“So,” I said, subdued from his words, “what Doc told me was true. They destroyed the city.”

“Most of it I believe.” Philip reached out and touched my arm. “I think, when all the hoards converged, and the town went into chaos, the government had only one thought in mind: containment. To them that meant destroying the city, and hopefully all the creatures with it.

“But more and more head that way every day almost. Sometimes it’s just one or two at a time, sometimes it’s one of them big murders. So if your people are still alive, their hidden so deep that they are going to be hard to find. Chances are that they’re dead though, and I want you to be aware and prepared for that.”

I sat there, thinking for awhile, not wanting to look at him. Finally I stood up, pointing my finger at him viciously.

“I WON’T accept that.” I told him. “I can not accept that. I would know if they were dead, I’d feel it, I know.”

“Eddy,” he tried to say, but I wouldn’t let him speak.

“I will be leaving tomorrow morning,” I continued, “and don’t try to stop me. Not when I’m so close. But I do have a request of you, as long as you will hear it.”

“I have no authority over you Eddy,” he said to me, smiling, “and I don’t actually think I could stop you if I tried. And yes, I’ll hear you out. What do you need?”

“Keep whatever friends of mine here that want to stay.” I glanced upstairs, thinking of the few people I have come to know as friends in this hellish world. “Don’t turn them away, please. I can’t ask them to follow me on this, not if it’s as bad as you say it is.”

He stood up, holding his hand out to me. I reached to shake it, and he grabbed my forearm like people did way back in the medieval times, pulling me close.

“I couldn’t throw them out if I wanted to,” he said, laughing a little.

“Dottie would kill me.”