The Event: The Beginning (10 page)

              "Let's stay relatively close, I don’t want to be too far away from the group. According to this map I got from the truck stop there are three residential areas, all of them self-contained. Go right out of here and we will hit this one first." I said to Eric. As we pulled out of the lot, we all looked for any movement, whether it be infected or otherwise.

              As we drove down the street towards the entrance of the first neighborhood. It was to the right, and we slowed as we came up to the turn. So far all we had seen was trash. There was no sign of life anywhere so far. We turned in and came up to the first street, which was a T intersection.

              "Ok guys. According to the map, it looks like this place is big square, with offshoots off of it and into it, some connected, some cul-de-sacs, some just dead ends. It's gonna be a little bit of a pain either way we go. So, left or right?" I asked.

              "Flip for it?" Roger suggested. Eric and Jeff agreed to that, so one of them found a coin and we flipped. Heads we went left, tails we went right.

              "Heads it is, we go left.” Eric said, catching it in his palm and slapping it on top of his other hand. So we did, turning left and going to the next corner. We turned right and went to the next intersection. We decided to stop the van there and get out to search some of the houses from the entrance to here.

              "Ok guys, here's how I want to do this. Since there is four of us, let's split it up. We will go back to the entrance and hit each house back to here. Roger and Eric on one team, Jeff and I on the other. We will piggyback houses so we can search faster. Keep your radio on low, and call out if you find anybody.” I said. We then got out of the van and started walking back towards the entrance. There was no sound, and only the barest amount of wind.

              We made it to the first set of houses and split up. Roger and Eric went to the house on the left, Jeff and I took the one on the right. Each team walked up to our respective doors and listened. I put my ear to the door while Jeff looked in the windows. I didn’t hear anything, and so shook my head at him. Most of the blinds were down, so we couldn’t see in either. Trying the knob, we discovered the door was locked. All the windows we tried were also locked, no big surprise there. I pointed to the garage, and Jeff nodded and headed that way, while I went the other direction to try the back yard. I heard him try the door as I made it to the fence, but from the sound of it he didn’t have any luck. The gate at least was unlocked, so I swung it open and stepped into the back yard.

              There was a nice size pool back there, some lawn furniture, and a really nice grill. The shades were all drawn in back also, and when I tried the sliding door it was locked. I was looking at the windows on the second floor when Jeff came around the other corner. He shook his head when I glanced at him, indicating he had no luck yet either.

              "Judgment call. Break the glass and get in through the door, or try the second story windows to see if one is open?" I asked.

              "If we break the glass, it might draw attention here. There is a ladder on the side over here, we could try the upper windows first." He said. I nodded, and he went to get it. We played rock paper scissors to see who climbed the ladder, and he won, so up I went. I placed the ladder under one of the windows and started climbing. Once I got up there I tried the window. Of course, it was locked. I looked down at him, shook my head, and climbed down. Three more windows on this side to try, so I reset the ladder and went back up, grumbling all the way. Jeff just laughed at me and told me to suck it up. Once again, a locked window. Again, I looked down and shook my head. As I turned back around to the window however, this time there was a face staring back at me. An infected face.

              I gasped as it lunged toward me, smacking the glass. I scrambled down the ladder as quick as I could, hearing the growls and screeches from the infected up there. Continued slamming against the window, and now I heard cracking of the glass each time it hit it. Jeff obviously figured out what I saw as I came down the ladder because he had his rifle pointed up there and was speaking into the radio to Roger and Eric. I drew my swords as I hit the ground, expecting any minute for that thing to come flying out of the window.

              Eric and Roger came running through the gate as Jeff and I slowly backed up. I glanced over to them, and as I did I noticed movement in what was probably the dining room area behind the sliding door. Another two seconds and another infected slammed into the back door. The glass shook, and cracked, but held.

              "Jeff, is that gate closed on that far side?" I asked. Once he said it was, I started moving us towards the one I had left open. We only got about five steps or so before the one upstairs came through the window. It hit the ground pretty hard, but started getting back up. The back door shattered then and another came out from there, followed by three more.

              "Run!" I yelled, turning to get to the fence. If we could get to the gate, and shut it, hopefully we could get it locked somehow so they would be trapped back there. Since Eric and Roger had already made it out, I turned so Jeff could go out, then I followed. Eric was behind the gate and he slammed it as soon as I was out.

              "Find something to secure it, quick.” I yelled. Jeff and Roger started looking with me, while Eric held the gate. I heard screeching from the back, and Eric flew backwards and the first infected hit the gate and it flew open. The infected stumbled out, followed by two more, one of which saw me and immediately ran towards me. The other apparently saw Jeff first and turned towards him. I simply held my sword out in front of me and speared it as it ran at me. Jeff fired his rifle and pretty much took the head off the one nearest him. I saw Eric getting up slowly behind the gate and motioned to him to stay there. Jeff then fired into the first one to come out of the gate, which looked to be the one which came out of the upstairs window. The two remaining ones didn’t appear to be that fast, so I told Eric to shut the gate back. I was betting they wouldn’t be strong enough to throw it open again. I heard the latch catch this time as Eric backed up. The two infected made it to the fence, punching it and screaming in frustration, but the gate held. I waved to move on and we abandoned these two houses. I decided to skip the next one as well, and motioned for Roger and Eric to take the next one over. Jeff and I headed for the one after that, and we began the process over again.

              Jeff put his ear up to the door this time, and I tried windows. No luck on my end, but when Jeff tried the knob, it turned. He looked at me, motioned to the door, and I came back and stood next to it. He moved behind the frame, turned the knob, and threw it open. He ducked back as it opened, but nothing came out. We both glanced in quick from our different vantage points. I could see a small entryway with a door leading to a living room, and a staircase leading up. Jeff shook his head, pointed to his eyes with a negative gesture, meaning there was nothing to be seen. I did the same, then darted in. I went for the living room, scanning left to right as I went in, and finding a corner put my back to. I heard Jeff come in behind me and go the opposite way. I looked after I found my room clear and saw he was in the dining room. I pointed to myself, then the back of the house, and he nodded understanding. We then both went our separate ways and started clearing the house. I heard him shut the front door back first so we wouldn't be surprised by anything coming in behind us. I stepped into an office area, neat, and cramped. A quick glance showed nowhere for anyone or anything to hide, so I continued on. Next was a small tiled room leading to the back yard. It had another door that led to the kitchen, which I could see through the window, and one to my back which I presumed led to the hallway with the stairs. I checked the back door, and found it locked. I then turned to what I assumed led to the hallway. It was a sliding door, not hinged, so I slid it back into its recess. Nothing was there except a hallway. I heard movement on my left, but it was Jeff clearing the kitchen. He opened the door and gave me a thumbs up. I motioned down the hallway towards the door, and he followed me down it.

              I passed a door and turned so we were on either side of it again. This time I turned the knob and threw it open. He thrust his gun in, looking left, right, and up, then again gave me the thumbs up to indicate clear. We both went to the bottom of the stairs, and listened for a minute. Surely with what little noise we made, if anyone was up there, they would have heard us.

              Jeff motioned to himself, and I nodded, so he moved in front of me and went up the stairs first. We took each stair slowly, and on the edges, so our weight wouldn't make them creak. It took us about ten minutes to reach the top. There was a short hallway with three doors on one side and two on the other. Jeff took the left side, I took the right. Only two of the doors were shut, which I assumed one was a bathroom, the other most likely a bedroom.

              I ducked into my first room while he did his. It appeared to be a teenage girl’s room, judging from the pictures on the desk and the bra hanging on the closet door. I checked under the bed, then the closet, finding nothing. I stepped back out into the hallway just before Jeff did, and we just gave each other the clear sign and went to our next rooms. This one appeared to be a boy’s room, typically messy with clothes strung out, trash and food remnants left lying about. Again, I found nothing.

              Stepping back into the hallway, I had one door left. Jeff was still in the other room, so I crept up to the last door, turned the knob, and pushed it open. As I thought, it was a bathroom. A quick inspection showed it was empty. I looked out into the back yard as I waited for Jeff to come back out. He flashed me the clear sign as he did, and we began to move back out.

              Eric and Roger radioed their house was clear, and we confirmed ours was too. We repeated the process, leapfrogging houses so we could clear as many as possible as quickly as possible. By the time we had done three houses each, it was pushing noon. Jeff had radioed back to the group and they informed us they had scrounged all the gas they could find, no other supplies could be found, and the watchers and seen several infected milling about. I called it good and we loaded up and headed back.

              Retracing our route out of the neighborhood, we made it back to the main road without incident. Turning left back towards the truck stop however, we saw a large herd of infected standing in the road, not really moving, about halfway between us and the truck stop. Jeff was driving, and looked over at me to see what I wanted to do.

              "Radio to the group, tell them we have company. I don't want any more people coming. Tell them if they are ready, just take off, we can meet them down the road a little and put the cars back on the trailers.” I told him. Eric had the radio so he relayed the information. We waited for a moment to see what the infected would do, and for the group to let us know what they were doing. Dave informed us the group was ready to move, so I had Eric relay that we would meet them five miles down the highway.

              "Wait a few minutes, let the convoy get moving. Then punch it. That way we shouldn't be leading this herd to the group.” I said. "I don’t want to engage them if we can help it."

              We sat and waited, watching the herd mill about. They didn’t seem to have any real direction. A few of them looked in our direction, almost like they were looking at us, but none of them seemed to actually take notice of us. After five minutes or so I signaled Jeff to start moving. He slowly hit the gas, and we started creeping along. Apparently our movement caught their attention. One of them screeched at us and ran towards the car, which got the attention of several more, and started a chain reaction of notice.

              "Punch it man.” I yelled at Jeff, who immediately floored it. We raced towards them as they ran towards us. The first two slammed straight into us, one of which flipped up and over the hood, hitting the windshield and spider webbing it. Jeff kept going, trying to avoid them if possible, or hitting them on one side or another to keep from throwing them into the windshield again.

              "We can't take much more of this in this car.” Jeff told me.

              "I know, just try to get clear of them.” I replied, weighing the options of just running, or trying to stop and fight.

              We cleared the herd finally, but they were still following us. I saw we were about a quarter of a mile from the on ramp to the interstate. I didn’t want to lead this herd to our group, especially if they whole convoy was stopped.

              "Take the highway, or keep going to lose the herd?" Jeff asked.

              "Highway. We should be able to get far enough ahead that the convoy can stop and we can load back up before they catch up." I told him. We kept rolling and took the onramp to the interstate. As fast as we were going we caught up to the convoy quickly. A quick radio message got them to slow down and stop so we could load back onto the trailer. Once it was loaded back up, we got into our respective vehicles and took off again.

              We managed to get to the middle of Nashville, where all the interstates met at, before we had any more issues. A massive pileup and occurred, and there were cars and trucks of all sorts mangled and scattered everywhere. Debris from spilled semi loads, and a flatbed hauling what appeared to be large drainage pipes had over turned and the straps had broken and rolled everywhere.