The ZWD Trilogy (Book 1): Zombie World Dominance [The Destruction Begins] (36 page)

“Ahmed,
come around to the front. The ground floor is empty. Then we can look upstairs.
Look over there — it’s an artesian spring, watering the goats. They look
healthy to me.”

“Thank
you, Husayn. Will you please take Tetsuo with you and search the top floor,
including the roof, please. If the house is empty, Tetsuo, I want you to stay
on the roof to stand watch.”

The
two of them quickly cleared the second floor of the house. It was as empty as
the lower one. Tetsuo went to the roof to stand watch. Everyone else was inside
the house. They all smiled as they looked at what they had found.

Maana,
needing a break, walked into the front courtyard to rest a moment. In the
shadows, she leaned against the wall. As she sat, she began looking around the
courtyard. She was wondering what had happened to the people who lived there.
Then she saw something that made her call out.

 “Ahmed,
come out here! Look at this.”

Ahmed
came outside quickly, not knowing why Maana was calling him. Husayn followed
him to the courtyard.

“Maana,
what do you have?”

“Look
at the dried blood there in the corner. Where are the bodies? What could have
happened to them? I have never seen this much blood without bodies being present.
Where did they go?”

“Maana,
this is not the first time we have seen dried pools of blood. We never had the
time to pay attention to them before. I don’t know where the bodies have gone.
Looking at the tracks in the sand, I don’t see any drag marks showing that the
bodies have been taken away, nor are there any animal tracks next to the
blood.”

“Ahmed,
do animals eat the people that the zombies kill?”

“I
don’t know, but if an animal were involved, they would have eaten them here or
they might have dragged them off to eat them elsewhere. I don’t see any sign of
that. The only tracks are the footprints of the people coming from the house.
You can see the zombie tracks coming into the courtyard and then back out.
There are no other tracks than that. The only thing that I can think of is that
people walked out from the house and were killed by the zombies beyond the
courtyard, then the zombies walked away. I don’t understand this. It does not
make any sense to me.”

After
talking about the tracks in the courtyard, everyone went back into the house.
Ahmed wanted to look through the house to see if they had overlooked anything.
They filled their water canisters and searched the house again.

As
they were looking Tetsuo said, “This place is much better than what we have now.
Should we move? There are goats here, and an artesian spring for water. If we tried
to herd the goats back to the other building, it would be noisy, and once we
get there, we don’t have any place to keep them. I think we should consider
moving everyone to this house. We can step up our watch to include a day
watch.”

“That’s
a good idea, Tetsuo. This place will work better for us. The place we have is
smaller than this. Here we will not have to look for water. Before we bring
everyone back, I want someone to cover the blood with dirt. This is something
that we do not need to see every day.

“I
will go back to bring the others here. Tetsuo, I will leave you, Badr and Maana
here to get things ready. I will take Husayn with me to bring the others back
here. We should return within three or four hours. I want one person on watch
on the roof at all times now.”

Ahmed
started out toward the other building, and Husayn followed him. Tetsuo sent
Maana up to stand watch. He had Badr help him to cover the blood in the
courtyard.

Back
at their safe house, Kamal was on watch when he saw part of the foraging team
coming back. He could only see Ahmed and Husayn. Kamal called down to the
people by the gate, “I can see them coming. Unlock the door. There are only two
of them! Ahmed and Husayn. No one else is with them. Something bad has
happened.”

Kamal
called down to Ahmed, “Ahmed, where are the others? Are they dead?”

“Kamal,
get everyone here. Do it now. I have something important to tell everyone.”

Kamal
came running down from his perch on the second story roof, shouting as he ran. “Everyone,
come quickly. Something bad has happened. Ahmed wants to talk to us. Come quickly.”

As
everyone was filing into the dining room, Ahmed walked in, followed by Husayn.
He waited for them to all to calm down before he spoke. “Husayn came with me to
tell you, while we were out, we found a better place to stay. We are moving to
this house now. As soon as everything is packed up, we will lead you there. We
have goats, food, there is even an artesian spring for water. It is a two-story
home; it has three-meter walls around the entire home. The rest of our team is
there waiting for us. They remain there, making sure that no one else comes
along to claim it. Pack up everything now. I want to leave before it gets too
late.”

It
took fifteen minutes to pack up all of their supplies. Ahmed was leading them
back. As they walked, Ahmed thought that it would be good to stay there for a
week or two. They could slow down a bit.

They
could get some rest, get some decent food into them. They could take their time
to think about what their next step should be. They would have time to think
about what their eventual destination should be, but they didn’t have to do it
today. They walked for about ninety minutes to get to the new house. Maana was
on the roof when it came into view.

She
called down to let everyone in the house know they were coming and told them to
unbolt the gate. Tetsuo, Badr and Maana were waiting for them in the courtyard.
Ahmed led the rest of his group into the courtyard. They closed the gate behind
them and bolted it.

“Tetsuo,
my friend, I am so glad to see you. Have you found anything new that we did not
find before?”

“Ahmed,
we found a hidden storage under the floor. There was grain, seeds, and a lot of
dry food there. We’ve pulled it all out of the storage; we were waiting for you
to return before we inventoried all of it. We have a meal ready for everyone,
if you are ready to eat. Other than that, we haven’t seen anyone or anything else
from the rooftop watch.”

“That
is great news, my friend. On our walk over here I have thought on this. What do
you think of staying here for a week or two to rest? In time, we can revisit
our current plan. We can talk more as we eat our meal.”

As
they sat down, it was beginning to get dark outside. After dinner, they went
upstairs to set up the sleeping area; women in one room, men in another.

The
cooking area was cleaned up, and the sleeping areas were ready for them. After
everyone had settled down, he announced, “I am assuming that with all of the
smiles I see, everyone enjoyed the meal. It has been such a long while since our
last hot food.” He smiled. “I have several ideas that I would like to share
with you all.

“Some
of us talked about this briefly over dinner; I would like to talk about them at
length now. As I have said before, I am not your leader; we do not have a
leader. We are led by majority vote. The first thing that I would like to say
is that this house is a nice place to stay. It is not only secure, but it has a
warm feel to it. There is water; it has food; and right now it is ours. I would
like to stay here for at least a week, perhaps longer.”

He
looked around at the group. “Eight months ago, when we left the station in
Riyadh, we believed that by going to Europe, we would find the answer to the origin
of the zombies. We thought the Europeans would have figured out how to stop the
zombies by the time we got there. Right now I don’t think that the Europeans
know any more than anyone else. From what we have seen, I honestly believe that
this zombie outbreak is unstoppable.

“It is
my opinion, from what we have seen on the various city monitors, while they
were still working, that the zombies have a single task: to kill everyone on
the planet.”

There
was a soft cry from one of the ladies.

“At
that time, there was no sign that they would stop until they killed the last
person alive. Now we know that they seem to have a routine; they come out late
in the afternoon to hunt humans. We also know that they fear fire. These two facts
are basically all we know about them. We have not yet found a reliable way to
kill them. They do not die if they are shot; nothing.”

“Speaking of what we
have seen as we traveled on our journey… there have been many odd things. Most
of them have been easily explained. Others we have been able to attribute to
the zombie outbreak. However, there is one thing that I am having an issue
with. I don’t know what it is about, nor why it is there. I actually began
seeing it long before the zombie crap started. In fact, I have seen it for
several years now. ‘Tagging’ originally started in America. It has made its way
to Saudi Arabia. Most of the ‘tags’ I cannot read, due to the style in which
they are written. Others, though, I can, not that I understand them. There has
been one, however, that is most puzzling. It is written in bold, printed
letters.”

He paused for a moment,
looking puzzled. “The way this ‘tag’ is written is clear, and it is obvious
that the writer wants anyone who sees it to be able to read it. It says
‘
Survive with The Guardians.’
Now,
what does that mean? I don’t know. I don’t know if the ‘survive’ part means now.
Are we to understand that The Guardians will save us from the zombies? If they
are going to save us, then they need to get to work. I thought of it today because
we have been on the run for too long. We’re tired. This place has allowed us to
get some much needed sleep.

“The
other thing that brought it to mind was a different tag that I saw today that said
‘
Bango Skank Welcomes The Crimson King.’
This is even more
mysterious than the other. Who the hell is this Bango character? And what does
he have to do with anything?”

They
looked at each other. Several of them shook their heads.

Gawdat
frowned. “Kind of seems familiar, somehow.”

“Well,”
said Ahmed. “It doesn’t matter. At any rate, I believe we should consider
staying here until the zombie outbreak has come to whatever end it reaches. To
date, we have never had a place so secure as this, nor one so lush with food or
water as this house. I would like everyone to consider this.”

He
went on, “In the morning, after breakfast, we can talk more about this if you
want to. At that time, we will make a decision on making this our permanent home.
If we are not going to stay here long-term, then I would like to stay for at
least two weeks to rest.”

“Ahmed,
this is a lot you have given us to think about,” said Gawdat. “Right now I can
say I am tired of walking, searching for food, and hiding from the zombies. I
do agree that I don’t believe Europe has the answer any more than we do. This
house was a very good find for us, and I welcome the idea of staying here until
something forces us to move or this zombie thing is over. The one thing I wish
we had is a radio to receive any news that is out there. If we had a two-way radio,
we might even be able to talk to other survivors around the world as well.
There should be a couple of them in this town. This is the something that I
think should be a priority. If we do find one, there should be a hand-cranked
power source with it.”

“Gawdat,
I agree. I don’t need to sleep on this. I am ready to voice my opinion. I agree,
and I vote to stay.”

“I
vote with you to stay,” said Gafar.

“I
vote with you as well,” said Tetsuo.

Husayn
stood, saying, “I also vote to stay here!”

“Roya and
myself both vote to stay,” said Abla.

“It
looks like everyone wants to stay,” said Allahohnim. “Ahmed, are you okay with
this? We don’t need to talk to each other or wait until breakfast.”

“I
want to thank all of you. As I look at everyone, I see this is a unanimous
decision. If I am wrong, please let me know. If this is where we stay from this
time forward, we will make this our home until we are forced out,” Gawdat said.

“I
agree with Gawdat. We are news broadcasters! We should know about radios, with
or without transmitters. We not only
should
be in contact with the rest
of the world, but we
must
be. A hand-cranked radio must be at the top of
our list of things to search for. We might have to go out to nearby towns to
find one. Now, with that having been said, we need to get our night watches
setup. We cannot stop doing what we have been doing just because we have a
home. We will need to keep to our schedule. We need to get some sleep. I do
have one more quick request. I think we should have a day watch as well as the
night watch. If this is to be our permanent home, we need to be aware of what
is going on around it at all times.”

The
vote to stay was finished, but the discussion was not over. Small groups broke
off so they could talk about their new place. The general consensus was that
everyone was happy with this house as a semi-permanent place to stay. With the
seeds that they found, they could plant a small garden. They could use the
goats for milk or meat. With luck, they would try to find chickens for eggs and
meat to supplement their diet.