We Go On (THE DELL) (2 page)

We had weapons. I cleaned out the Tahoe before we abandoned
it so I had all of our guns and Mark still had his service weapon. Another 40
caliber Glock, but we didn't have any ammo. I still had the aluminum bat and
the machete but trying to swing either one of those in the closed space of an
entryway or hall was not my idea of a good time. If I'd been MacGyver, I could
have come up with something made from a piece of PVC pipe, a thumb tack, and
some peanut butter. Unfortunately, I had to learn it the hard way.

The first house we came to was about half a mile down the
road from where we wrecked. A Toyota van was lying upside down in the front yard.
No tire tracks, no skid marks, no ruts in the grass. Funny, the things you
notice when you’re under stress. The world had just fallen apart and I’m trying
to reconstruct an accident so that what I saw made sense. Like any of the other
shit I'd seen in the last few days made sense.

We sat Mark down beside a tree in the front yard and I gave
the bat to Kat. I figured she'd come closer to using it than the machete. Less
mess, you know. Then I went to check the van for anybody or thing that might be
in it. Empty. That was a good thing, no nasty surprises. Then I went to check
out the house.

This time it didn't turn out as well. I decided to look in
the widows before trying the door. Hey, I said I wasn't stupid but this was an
older house and it had those pull down blinds that older people love and all
the blinds were down. All the way down. That should have been a clue. I'm a
detective and clues are my business but I'd been under a lot of stress and it
didn't register. If I'd thought about the blinds, I'd have concluded an old
person or persons. This means, they were most likely at home instead of out
someplace and I should have approached with more caution. Instead, I marched
right up on the porch and opened the door.

The electricity hadn't gone off yet, that would last about
another week. A light in the hall that led away from the entry showed a human
standing between me and the light. On my side, it was just a dark outline but I
thought it was female from the body shape. So in my best police voice I said,
"Excuse me, Ma'am. I'm a police officer and I need some help." The
dark shape started shambling toward me and when the arms went up, reaching for
me, I freaked.

Now, when people freak out the reactions are all different.
I've always prided myself on being fairly cool under pressure. I've had guns
pointed at me, faced down guys a lot bigger than me and always stayed cool,
calm, and collected. But when that thing reached for me, the fight or flight
response took over and flight won hands down.

I started back pedaling to get away and forgot all about
being four steps up on a porch. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back
with the wind knocked out of me and about a seventy-year-old woman in a purple
flower print Mumu, with bits of her last meal stuck between her impressively
sharp-for-her-age teeth, falling on top of me. I had just enough presences of
mind to reach up for her with my left arm as down she came. My right arm was
trapped under me, holding the machete, of course. Thankfully, I didn't slice
out my own kidney. I had her by the throat with my arm locked so she couldn't
get those teeth into me but our combined weight made it impossible for me to
get my right arm out from under me. I still couldn't breathe, so calling for
help was out. Besides, granny made enough noise for the both of us.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my wife? If I
haven't, I want to point out what a good girl she is. The next thing I knew, I
saw an aluminum bat come swinging out of my line of sight and connected with a
completely satisfying thud to the side of granny's head. The left side of her
face caved in and what was left of her features went slack and she collapsed on
top of me.

I looked up into the beautiful, angelic, smiling face of my
wife.

"Saved your ass again, Scotty," she said.

The only response I could come up with under the
circumstances, and that I was sure wouldn't get me popped with the bat was,
"Thanks."

I rolled granny off and got to my feet with as much dignity
as I could muster, reached down, picked up the machete, and started back up the
steps to the porch. Kat asked if I hadn't learned my lesson the first time and
I pointed out that I was a fast learner. This time, when I got close to the
door, I started banging the side of the machete's blade on the door frame and
yelling like a fool.

The thought was that books and TV always says zombies are
attracted to noise. So, if I make a lot of noise and there’s anyone not quite
dead left in the house, it would come to me where I was now ready for it. After
waiting for what my wife thought was an appropriate amount of time—I thought
the appropriate amount of time was like twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight—Kat
bellowed a “Well?”

I told her I guessed I'd go in and have a look around.

“Don’t get bit,” Kat responded. I didn't say anything this
time, figured it was pointless. I went slowly, checking every corner, stopping,
and listening. Not a peep. In the kitchen I found the remains of granny's last
meal. Pa lay on the floor, or what was left of Pa. The coppery stench of blood
and the dark red smears drying on the otherwise spotless vinyl floor were proof
that the old man had gone out fighting.

I continued the search of the house until I was satisfied it
was empty except for the elderly corpse in the kitchen. The house was clean and
neat with that lived in feel, not the sterile feel I'd noticed in some older
couple's houses. It was a home. They lived here and cared about each other.
Such a shame it ended the way it did. I’m sure he thought she was sick and
tried to take care of her, right up to the time she took a bite out of his arm.

I went back to the kitchen and propped the back door open.
As careful of the blood as I could be, I dragged the old man outside and away
from the house. I went back in and shut and locked the back door, then went out
front where Kat and Mark were waiting. I helped her get Mark into the living
room and onto the couch. She helped him to get comfortable. I told her not to
go into the kitchen, and then I went back out to the front lawn where the old
women still laid. I nudged her with my toe a few times to see if there was any
life left in her. When I was fairly certain she was dead-dead, I dragged her
around to the back and laid her beside her husband.

Poking around in the garage, I found a tarp and used it to
cover up the couple. I weighed it down with some bricks and apologized for not
being able to do more for them. Then I went back to the house and secured the
front door. I found a bucket and mop in a small closet off the kitchen and used
it to clean up most of the blood. The cleaner from under the sink got rid of
most of the smell. I figured that was good enough for now.

It’s here that I experienced another of those learning
points in this new world we found ourselves. Just because a body has been
partially devoured by a zombie and appears dead, doesn't mean it's going to
stay that way. This was also when we found out there’s no rhyme or reason to
how long it takes for a person to come back once infected. Some come back
quick, others take a while.

We stayed in that house two days. We stayed quiet and kept
lights to a minimum. There was plenty of food and I found some 12-gauge shotgun
shells for my shotgun. Now we had some fire power. I'd have felt better with
some 40 cal. for the Glock’s, but that would have to wait. Mark’s leg had
gotten worse and he needed medical care. He was in constant pain and the only
medicine we'd found in the house for pain was aspirin. It helped at first, but
he had rapidly gotten to the point of needing something stronger.

That's why we decided to leave. To try and find a doctor,
nurse, EMT, someone who could tend to Mark’s leg. Kat went upstairs to look for
supplies and I went out to the garage to get the old Buick started that the
couple owned.

Kat and I have discussed it many times over the last four
years. We never heard a thing until Mark started screaming. With Kat upstairs,
I'd had to leave the back door unlocked so I could get back inside. I don't
know if it didn't latch when I went out or whether the old man had enough of
his brain working to know how to open the door, and since zombies have become a
constant part of our lives, I have seen some do things you wouldn't think
possible. Climb short ladders, they can't stay coordinated for long ladders.
Open doors, windows, and figure out simple latches. That's why now, I insist
that everything is locked and guarded.

When Mark started screaming, I dropped what I’d been doing
and ran for the house. As I came through the back door I heard Kat start
screaming. I nearly had a heart attack then. The thought of losing her
overpowered me and I almost froze. I forced myself to continue to the living
room. I saw my wife standing in the doorway from the hall with her hands over
her mouth. Mark had stopped screaming by now and his silence was replaced by a
wet sucking, tearing sound.

As I stepped closer to the couch I saw the old gentleman
that I had laid next to his wife out behind their house, down on his knees,
chewing on Marks throat. Blood pooled on the cushion under Mark’s head and his
eyes were starting to take on that glassy look so commonly associated with the
dying. He was still alive but just barely. I had the shotgun in my hands but I
couldn't take a shot for fear of hitting Mark.

In retrospect it would have been better to take the shot and
end it for both of them. What I did, instead, was yell. The old man raised his
head and turned in my direction. I already had the stock to my shoulder and as
soon as he was clear of Mark, I fired. All I had was bird shot but from that distance
it didn't matter. Pa's head exploded sending gore and blood across the living
room floor and onto the wall. The body seemed to wilt and flopped over onto its
back and lay still.

I ran to Mark wanting to help him but knowing it was already
too late. I knelt in the same place the old man had been a moment earlier and
took Mark’s hand. He turned his head slightly and looked at me. He smiled and
then he died. That was it. A smile, a glance, and then gone. Some great cop I
turned out to be.

I was a detective, I was senior. It had been my
responsibility to keep those two younger officers alive. In three days I'd lost
both of them. How in the hell was I supposed to keep my wife safe when I
couldn't keep two trained police officers alive for more than three days? That
was a bad time for me. If it hadn't been for Kat I'd have sat down right there
and waited. Waited for death, zombies, somebody to come along and tell me what
to do. I don't know but I had a hard time getting up off that floor.

Kat came over and placed her hand on my cheek. When I looked
up at her, she said, "We have to go."

I nodded and dragged myself up right. I told her we couldn't
leave yet and she asked why. I pointed at Mark and told her I had to take care
of him first. I wasn't going to let what had happened to the old man happen to
him. She understood and said she would go back upstairs and finish collecting
supplies. As carefully as I could, I carried Mark outside and laid him close to
the woman from the house. Then, I went back in and brought the man out and laid
him by his wife once more.

I knew what I had to do but I couldn't figure out how to do
it. I couldn't stand to think about bashing Mark’s head in with the bat or
blowing it away with the shotgun. The machete wasn't much better. Everything I
thought of seemed more and more like I was mutilating my friend. I stood there
looking down at his face and just about missed the hand twitching. Then his
eyes opened and my decision was made.

I cleaned the bat and covered Mark with the tarp. He lay
close to the old couple but not touching them. I still felt responsible for his
death but I was glad I could stop the change. At least he wasn’t in pain.

It was just Kat and I now. We loaded all the supplies from
the Tahoe and the house into the Buick and I got it started. We headed south
toward Arkansas. We thought maybe the Ozark Mountains would be a good place to
hold up. Sparsely populated, rugged terrain, plenty of water and game. If we
could get re-supplied on ammo and find a cabin up in the mountains, I believed
we could live indefinitely, never seeing another person, living or dead.

The drive south was quiet. We didn't talk much, each of us
with our own thoughts. Kat and I are both from a small town outside of Nashville,
Tennessee and our parents were still there. We hadn't been able to call them
and they were on our minds. As was our son. Alex had been nineteen and going to
school at Vanderbilt in Nashville. I got to talk to him briefly on Sunday night
and he said he would check on his grandparents. My wife and I both worried
about him and our parents.

Both sets were in their late sixties and, while not feeble,
were not at all prepared for this. Kat's father had been a middle school
principle and my father was in insurance. Both our mothers were housewives and
neither of our fathers had served in the military. My dad had been a hunter
earlier in his life, so I knew there were a few guns at their house. Kat's
parents didn't like guns and didn't own any. Her parents lived in town and mine
lived in a sub-division on the out skirts of Murfreesboro. Alex could get there
in about thirty minutes, depending on traffic. I hoped he'd made it and not
been in Nashville when everything happened. I knew at some point we would have
to discuss trying to find them. I dreaded that conversation. Considering how
well we had done so far, I didn't have much hope, but I wouldn't tell my wife
that.

Our drive took us south on Highway 21 through Hillsboro and
on down to De Soto where we cut across to Highway 67 into Arkansas. There was
little traffic. We saw a few cars moving but they weren’t interested in
stopping for a chat. We saw more wrecked and abandoned vehicles now and lots of
bodies.

In some places, you could tell this had been the last stand
with bodies of the un-dead piled around a group of vehicles. The blood pool and
drag marks told the final outcome. The un-dead were everywhere. We saw them
moving through fields as well as along the road. Sometimes in groups as big
ten, most by themselves. They just wandered in the ever present search for
food. If they were close enough they would reach for the car as we passed. Most
just turned and looked before resuming their slow shuffle toward whatever had
gotten their attention.

We stopped outside the little town of Poplar Bluff and spent
the night in an empty convenience store. I went in and checked to make sure the
place was empty while Kat kept the car running. She parked close to the door in
case I needed to make a hasty get away. Once I was sure it was clear, she shut
it off and came inside. We were tired but first things first. Kat started
collecting food and any of the smaller items that we'd need. Cold medicine,
aspirin, batteries, and the like. I found several one-and- one-half gallon red
plastic fuel containers and carried an arm load out to pumps to fill them. I
put the gas in the trunk while Kat put the food and other items in the back
seat. We went back in and continued to scavenge. I found a Taurus 38 caliber
revolver in a drawer of a desk in the little back office. There was no spare
ammo but the cylinder was full, so we had the six shots from it along with the
shotgun shells I'd taken from the old couple’s house. 

We sat by the counter and ate chips and beef jerky and drank
flavored water drinks. The lights were off and we left them that way. I'd
already checked the back exit and it had an inward opening door with a metal
bar securing it. So we stayed up front sitting on the sleeping bags from the
sporting goods store in St. Louis. As it got dark outside, Kat fell asleep
leaned against my shoulder. I was tired but determined to keep watch. I let her
sleep a couple of hours then woke her to relieve me. I told her to wake me in
an hour and immediately fell asleep.

When she woke me I felt better and let her sleep the rest of
the night. Next morning, as the sun came up, I fixed coffee in the stores maker
and the aroma woke Kat. When I handed her the steaming cup of coffee she smiled
and said thanks. It was the first smile I'd seen from her in several days. That
smile made me feel better than if I'd gotten a full night’s sleep.

The store had big insulated cups on a shelf under the coffee
maker and after our breakfast of week-old donuts, we filled up two each with
the coffee I'd made and got on the road again. I'd studied a map during the
night, trying to decide on the best route to anyplace. I knew eventually we
would have to try for Nashville but there were a lot of miles between us and
there. Miles filled with all kinds of trouble.

There was the obvious kind, the zombies. My cop mind was
also worried about other kinds of trouble. I knew there were going to be people
out there preying on the survivors. There have always been people that were
pieces of shit and preyed on the suffering of others. I knew they didn't just
get up this morning and decide their old way of life was wrong and now they
were going to help their fellow man. I worried that running into them with
limited ammo might be more dangerous than the groups of un-dead we would surely
encounter.

Memphis was the closest place with a bridge across the
Mississippi, but I felt sure they had been destroyed at the same time as the
ones in St. Louis. Crossing the big river would be a problem. I still thought
that someplace in the Ozarks would be a great first stop. We could hold up,
scavenge supplies, and find ammo for our weapons. A new vehicle had to be
pretty high on our list. The old Buick ran but it wasn't very reliable and
there was no way I'd try a long trip like to Nashville in it.

The route I decided on continued with highway 67 to
Pocahontas, Arkansas. From there, a combination of highways 62 and 115 would
get us west to Smithville. There I decided to go north, staying away from the
bigger towns like Batesville. So, it would be Maxville instead, where we'd pick
up 58 West to Guion. A bridge crossed the White River there and I hoped it
would still be intact. From Guion, we'd continue south and pick up 14 West to
the area of Mountain View. Mountain View sat in the edge of the Ozark National
Forest and I felt sure, with the hunting and fishing there, we'd be able to
find stores that had ammo. It was also a great place to camp and vacation, so I
hoped to find a deserted cabin where we'd be safe.

Before, that trip would have been a one day drive and I'd
have felt good enough after to chase Kat around the cabin. In those first few
days traveling, twenty miles was an epic trip. The further we went the more
abandoned cars, wrecks, and zombies we had to deal with. The creatures were
everywhere now. We'd figured out by slowing down to around ten miles an hour we
could drive through them. It’s too fast for them to get at the doors but slow
enough we didn’t damage the vehicle to the point it wouldn't run. We hadn't
seen any living people yet. My paranoia said that’s a good thing but it
would’ve been swell to have a few more pairs of eyes to help keep watch.

Around noon we were nearing a small town in Arkansas. The
sign on the outskirts said Corning. I knew that Highway 67 turned west here on
its way to Pocahontas. There was a lot of smoke on the horizon. Once I noticed
it, I started looking around and saw smoke all around us. It was like the whole
world was on fire. We didn't know then how right that assessment was.

People, in an attempt to destroy the zombies, had set fires.
While doing the job, it had the nasty side effect of setting everything around
on fire. Imagine twenty or thirty of those things walking around, on fire,
bumping into stuff. The fire destroyed them but not fast. This along with the
fact there wasn’t anybody minding the store in power plants and appliances were
still plugged in and working in the deserted houses. There were a lot of fires
in those first weeks.

The dead owned Corning. We didn't try to stop, just
continued west. The dead owned the world now. The trip to Mountain View took
around three months. We'd stop when we could find some place we trusted.
Sometimes we drove all day. Sometimes we'd spend as much as a week at a place.
During those three months we had our first encounters with the road gangs,
gangs of criminals, murderers, and rapists. The zombies were bad, the road
gangs were worse. They were equal opportunity killers. We saw evidence of their
atrocities in towns and on the side of the roads.

We learned a lot on that trip. We also started collecting
survivors along the way. It wasn't intentional, it just seemed people needed
something to hold onto and we had a plan. Most of the survivors we ran into
those first weeks were just trying to stay alive day to day. They hadn't thought
of a plan. I think they were still under the illusion this wasn't real or would
be over in a few weeks.

By the time we got to Mountain View, we had a group of about
fifty. That number fluctuated as high as fifty-nine but attrition had brought
it lower. There was a lot of combat in those first months. My old Special
Forces training started coming back and I found I remembered a lot of things
I'd forgotten—how to organize, how to lead men and women in combat, how to
plan.

And that's how it happened. I'm in charge of a group of
about two hundred survivors. It's been four years, eight months, and three days
since that Sunday in September. It feels like a lifetime ago. I'm not going to
write about all the things that happened during that time. I just wanted you to
know the history of how we got here.

Here, is a small compound in the edge of Lebanon in middle
Tennessee.