Aftershock: A Collection of Survivors Tales (5 page)

I walked over the car Dad slept in. He rolled down the window with a handle or something. I never saw anyone open a window with a car off before. He looked really sick, all sweaty and red. It wasn’t fair. He should have been ok like I was. If I didn’t get ability to stay healthy from him or my Mom, where did it come from? Dad coughed really hard and a bunch of goo came flying out of his mouth.

“You’ve got to go Max.” he said.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You have no choice son. I ain’t gonna get better. I’m going to get sick, then die. After that I’m gonna be a monster. You need to keep going, and I need you not to look back. You’re special boy. Something about you is different. Stay away from the things if you can. Don’t go near cities. Try to stay out of towns too. Kill em if you have to, but don’t go looking for trouble. You’re gonna have to do it on your own. I’m sorry son. I did so much wrong. Not just now, but before. Before all this shit started. I should have been less hard on you. I should have shown you and your mom how much you meant to me. I should have been a better man.”

“Dad, you’re a great man. We knew you loved us. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got mad about Mom.” I started to cry. Screw you if you laugh, my Dad was dying.

“You’ll be ok Max. You’re a smart boy. Rocky’s one helluva dog too. You keep each other safe. I know you’re gonna be a great man one day Max. I wish I could be around to see it. Be good to other people, but be careful too. Don’t let no one walk all over you. And watch out for moaners. I love you son.”

“I’m going to get you a gun and some food. I’ll be right back.” I said, but he motioned for me to stay.

“You need all the guns, and dead men don’t eat kiddo.”

I didn’t want to leave him with nothing. He was just going to sit there and rot away. I didn’t want to have him turn into a monster either. I guess that’s why he shot Mom. He didn’t want to see her that way either. It took me until then to figure that out. That’s when I went back to the truck and got the gun. I was going to be a good man just like my Dad.

“I love you too Dad.” I said as I pulled the trigger. Clean shot, and he was gone.

Rocky and me got in the truck and pulled away. I needed to get as far away from that spot as I could. Now its three weeks later, and all I do is drive. Driving around was fun for a while. Now it’s lame. I need to find a doctor or a scientist or some junk like that. I’ve got the cure in me, and someone will know how to find it. I just gotta find them.

Mother was bitten today. The nice neighbors down the street came out on the lawn while we were looking for food. I walked over to say hello, but Mother screamed at me to STOP! FREEZE! I did as she said because when I do what I’m told I get a Mars bar. I really like Mars bars. They are quite possibly the tastiest thing on Earth. So Mother was running toward me, but I don’t know why. She and Father always said the neighbors were “good” people so why wasn’t I allowed to say hello? I didn’t used to be able to say hello to people. It was scary and it made my head swim. We worked hard so I would be able to say hello to people. Mother and Father both said it was important. But now, Mother was screaming “STOP!” “FREEZE!”. I waved to the Nice Neighbors like she showed me. They didn’t wave back, which Mother says is rude. They started walking toward me, I thought they wanted to say hello which is polite, but Mother screamed even louder. She grabbed me at the same time the Nice Neighbor man did and they played tug of war with me. I did not like that at all. Mother was hurting one arm and the Nice Neighbor man was hurting the other. I tried to get them both to let me go. The Nice Neighbor man let go of me and bit Mother on the hand. She screamed so loud I thought my ears would explode. Father came running out of the house with his gun. Father says I am never allowed to touch his gun. He says it not a toy and I am never to touch it. I don’t touch it because I was told not to and when I do what I am told, I get a Mars bar. I very much like Mars bars. He shot the Nice Neighbor man several times. My ears were ringing so loud I didn’t hear the Nice Neighbor Lady come up behind me. She put her arms around me. I do not like hugs. It is very impolite to invade someone else’s personal space. Personal space is very important. Mother and Father both have tried to hug me and I do not like it at all. The Neighbor Lady tried to give me a kiss. This is beyond rude. The only one who has ever been allowed to give me a kiss is Mother and only on very special occasions. The neighbor lady tried to bite me on top of the head and I squirmed and screamed. I cut my hand on some broken glass once, it felt like that only on top of my head. Father’s gun went off again and the lady fell back into the street. I looked and Mother was crying and Father was crying so I started to cry too because sometimes when a bunch of people are laughing or smiling or shouting, you’re supposed to be doing the same thing. We stood there for a long time, all of us crying. Mother and Father moved close to each other and started talking. Mother said something that made all the color drain from Father’s face. He began shaking his head and crying even harder. I have never seen Father so upset. His face turned all red and he pressed his head into Mother’s chest and sobbed and sobbed. Mother slowly took the gun from Father’s hand. He just kept sobbing and sobbing. Mother turned to look at me. I tried really hard to look into Mother’s eyes, I really, really tried, but I ended up looking at her mouth instead, just like I always do when somebody looks at me in the face. I saw her mouth make the words “I love you William.” I said “I love you to Mother” because that’s the proper thing to say. She bent her head down and said something to Father, and then she kissed him on the head. I think she got confused and thought that Father’s gun was a telephone because she put it against her ear like she was going to make a hello-phone call. Father moaned and cried like something really sad had happened on a television program. I had seen Mother cry like that watching her stories while Father was at work. I was about to tell Father about the two people coming up the street, they were walking funny like they had had too much to drink. Sometimes, Father and his friends would watch football games in the garage and they would drink beers. Father never had too many, he said that getting drunk was not proper. But sometimes his friends would have too many and they would walk around like the people coming up the street now. They swore and yelled and smelled bad too. Just as I was about to tell Mother and Father about the people coming up the street, I heard the loud BOOM of Father’s gun again. Then I heard Father yell louder than I have ever heard him yell before. Only he did not sound mad, at least I do not think he did. It’s kind of hard for me to tell sometimes. Father was crying which I know means sad. The people saw us and started moving closer. I did not want another hug so I called out for Mother and Father to “let’s go in the house.” I was hungry and Mother had promised me a marshmallow sandwich with peanut butter for lunch. Marshmallow sandwiches are almost as delicious as Mars bars. Mother did not answer so I ran over to Father and started tapping him on the shoulder.

“Father, there are more people coming,” I said, “Can we go inside so Mother can make me my sandwich?”

Father would not get up. I tapped harder. I tried to get Mother to move too, but she just laid there. Her face looked gross. Almost like she had been hit in the face with a cherry pie like on those funny shows on TV. Father says they are funny when they smack each other, but I am not funny when I smack him. I do not understand this, but Father says it is rude to smack someone. Maybe someday I will be on TV. Then it will be funny if I smack someone with a pie.

I just kept tapping Father on the shoulder but he would not move. He just kept crying. I did not want the people to try to touch me. I did not want to talk to anyone today and I wanted my sandwich. I told Father I was going inside and started walking toward the house. I got to the door and turned around. I saw Father get up and start running toward me. The people were trying to grab him; it looked like he did not want a hug either. I asked him about Mother and he just shoved me into the house and slammed the door.

The house rumbled with a sound I thought I would never hear again. I knew it was a plane, and a big one at that, but who was in it? The children panicked and fled behind the furniture. I am pretty sure they thought we were all going to be destroyed by the sound alone. It has been a long time since we heard anything but the sound of the dead trying to get through our defenses. Living this way has made us all a little jumpy to say the least. The rumbling was over fast, and I worked my way to the hole we bored through the roof. This is our safest way to see what is going on in the neighborhood. When we aren’t using it for a lookout, we collect the rain that comes in with the passing storms.

The sky was littered with papers. I don’t know what I expected to see, but it wasn’t that. They rained down like confetti in the sky. Curiosity was killing me, but none of the papers fell within my reach on the roof. I was going to have to venture out into the street if I hoped to get one of them. Yet again I was faced with leaving the kids vulnerable if something happened to me, and what for, a stupid piece of paper. I knew I would have to get to them fast before the wind took them further away, so I started planning my route from the roof. I could see a few of them over in the neighbor’s yard. If they blew away another few were on the street. I’d rather grab from the yard, even with the extra climbing it looked like the fence has deterred the dead from roaming freely back there.

I was so locked in my head in planning I didn’t hear Garett climb up behind me on the roof. He was awestruck at the sight of thousands of papers floating gently to the earth. I could see he had begun to form his own plan on how to get one. That was not an option. He was not going out there to try to retrieve something that we weren’t even sure had any value. We spent a minute silent, just staring at the sight.

“You and your sisters can watch me go from here.”

“We don’t go out alone. You always need someone watching you. You taught me that.”

“Garett, this isn’t up for discussion. On a trip for supplies it makes sense, but this is a one man job.” I could see in his eyes he was about to argue who that man should be. “No Garett, me, not you. I’m going into the Henderson’s backyard to grab one and I am coming back right away. That’s how it is going. You grab a gun and sit up here. You can watch, and help if needed. It should be a quick grab and go. I don’t want to have to worry about you and me, just me. I promise I will make it back. We don’t even know what they say.”

“It’s the first thing we have seen since the TV and radio went out. It’s gotta be important.”

“Agreed, but I have my plan and that’s the way we are doing it.”

Garett rounded up his sisters and took them to the roof. Once I was sure he was ready with his gun in his hand I began the process of getting outside. It wasn’t an easy task because we had made every entrance and exit secure. Layers of wood had to be pulled off, and when I got back they would have to be put back up. When I stepped out the back door my anxiety level peaked. My heart raced and I broke out in a sweat. Venturing outside was terrifying.

I scouted out the best way to climb over the fence quickly and land without breaking my neck. To be honest with you I’ve never been in “athletic” shape, and weeks of rationing food and water have left me frail. I could hear the moaning and shuffling out in the street. Any noise would make them take interest in what was going on, so I had to be extremely quiet as I hauled myself up over the six foot privacy fence. I piled my picnic table and a chair on my side of the fence. Then I peeked over to see if there were any dangers on the other side.

Glancing up at Garett and giving him the thumbs up I hoisted my rear end up over the fence. I came down on the other side in a crash. My ass hurt, my side hurt and my wrist hurt. Plus the noise I was avoiding making had now been made and a dead thing was scraping at the fence near the front of the house. I knew I had to be quick. Those things use some kind of alert system, when one catches your scent a swarm will form. I looked around the yard, and couldn’t see any of the papers. Maybe it was the pain, or the dead thing clawing but I felt exposed and disoriented. Then I saw it. There was a paper stuck in between the slats of the fence on the other side of the yard. All I had to do was grab it, and get back over the fence.

First things first, I had to set up my way back over that damn fence. I drug a stainless steel grill over to the fence. It was all they had left in the yard. Not really the greatest thing to get you over a fence, but it was the only thing I had to work with. My side was killing me as I pulled the thing over. There was a crack as the dead thing ripped off one of the slats separating him and I. Now I could see the rotting arm pushing through the fence. The moaning sounded like it was in stereo by now. There was at least one more of them, probably more.

I hauled ass across the yard and grabbed the paper from the fence. I shoved it into my shirt, and another arm reached over the fence towards me. I needed to get back into the house, back to safety. Climbing up onto the grill was awkward. It took me a good three tries to get up there. I started to question my ability to get over the fence a second time. I yelled to Garett, who was on the roof looking panicked.

“How many Garett?”

“5!”

That was enough to get my ass in gear. With a burst of energy that can only be brought on by terror, I flung my upper body up enough to basically roll over the top of the fence. As I smashed in to the tower of table and chairs that I had haphazardly assembled, the small herd of the dead pushed their way through the Henderson’s fence. Now they were going to work their way through my fence. I needed to get inside, and get quiet. Garett raised the gun, and I motioned for him not to fire. All it would do is bring more of them towards us. The gunshot would be heard for miles.

I tried to stand, but my ankle had twisted horribly in the fall. Nothing was ever easy these days, stupid bullshit is what it is. I drug myself foot by foot across the yard. The herd was moaning in a frenzy on the other side of my piece of crap fence. I could hear them pulling at the planks to get through, and it was only a matter of time before they did. I didn’t look back, if they were going to eat me then so be it, but I was not going to lose any time looking back to see if it was inevitable. Just a few more feet to go, and I heard the first solid cracking sound. They had broken one of the slats off of the fence.

It took everything in me to get up the steps, and pull the barricade off to get back in to the house. Once in, I nailed and then screwed our layers of wood back up. The noise I was making would only make them follow, but we needed that thick wall between us and them. Garett tapped my shoulder, and I almost bludgeoned him to death with the hammer. He seemed unfazed at the close call he just had, and picked up tools and started helping me. Once we were secure, if you can even be secure, he helped me hobble up the stairs.

My ankle felt like someone was stabbing me in the joint with a hot poker. I asked Garett to grab one of our precious instant cold packs and some ibuprophen before we made our way up to the attic. Once we were there I finally felt safe. The sound of the attic steps being retracted and the hatch closed is the closest thing we have to music these days. Hannah and Zoe slid through the hole in the roof to see how I was. They were nice enough to get me comfortable and medicated before asking about the paper. For that I was extremely grateful.

I pulled the paper out of my shirt. It was a simple black and white flyer. “39.6436°N 74.6474°W. Quarantine will be required upon arrival. Our supplies are limited. It is recommended that you bring all essentials and food, water, medicine and gas. All other supplies are also welcome. We hope to see you soon, and stay safe.” There was a basic map drawn at the bottom of the flyer. I expected more. Maybe some answers, but there were none.

I read the flyer aloud to the children and I could see their excitement. They didn’t understand the logistics of getting to this supposed sanctuary. We were running low on our supplies, but we were fortified. We didn’t know what we were going to meet on the road. There was no guarantee that we would even make it. Fuel was hard to come by, and it wasn’t right around the corner. We would have to find a route that took us as far away from cities as possible, and that would add to our distance. I wondered if it was worth the risk.

“We should leave tomorrow.”

“Not a chance, Garett. My ankle needs a few days’ rest. We need to get a better vehicle for long travel, gather all our supplies and scavenge the area for more. We also have the herd of dead outside scratching their way in to our house right now. We need to give them time to get bored and find another place to get a meal. That’s if we decide to go at all.”

“You’re freakin’ kidding me? You don’t know if you want to go? We have to go! This is our chance to find other people and get the hell out of this attic!”

“I agree that the goal now needs to be to get out of the attic, and find other people. We can’t hide here forever. I understand all of that, but it’s not as simple as it was months ago. We can’t just jump in the car and gas up at a gas station. We can’t shoot through a drive thru if we get hungry. We can’t stay at a hotel overnight. We can’t even drive down the road without getting attacked. That’s reality now, and in order to survive we need to be prepared before we leave. We need to think before we act. You and the girls are all I have left now. I won’t risk your lives by rushing out that door. Help me prepare, all of you. Think of everything we will need. We need to make a list, do it right. It’s our lives on the line.”

The children took in what I said for a minute, but they came around. Zoe was first. She came to me with a pen and notepad. She had already sectioned off pages for each thing I mentioned. There were pages for fuel, food, places to sleep. Hannah curled up under my arm. She whispered that she would do everything she could to help, then drifted off to sleep. The chase she watched from the rooftop must have worn her out. Garett was last to come back, but the most helpful for that exact moment.

“I’m going back on the roof to check the situation. I promise I’ll be quiet. If we aren’t breached then I am going downstairs to get a few days worth of water and food. Then we start planning.”

I thought about pointing out that I was the one in charge, and that he was only a child but that had two issues. One, he wasn’t a child anymore, and two, I needed the help. After he scouted the roof for 15 minutes, he came back down and told me they were clawing at the door but it was only 3 of them now. That was good news. That meant that in the attic we were quiet enough for the dead to get distracted by another meal. Garett snuck downstairs and made three trips bringing up the supplies we needed. His last trip he checked the door I went out of to see if it was holding, and it was. He then grabbed our first aid kit, and some toys for his sisters. He may be mouthy at times, but he has taken over the father role for his sisters, so I let it go. I’m not a mother, never have been, and there are things he thinks of that I would have never entered my mind.

My ankle hurt for a solid week. Bad enough that I laid there with it elevated, and read a book that I had been holding onto for the last five years with every intention of getting to, but never found the time. The children were wonderful. The girls played quietly with the toys that Garett had brought up for them. Garett took care of meals, and watch. He really has grown up since this all began. Before the illness he was a spoiled American kid, just like every other kid his age in this country. He grew into an adult in a few months, right before my eyes. It was like watching grass grow with sped up film.

After a week I began to stretch my legs, and walk on my ankle. We were going to have to scout the neighborhood for a better vehicle and supplies, so I needed my legs to be in tip top condition before we went out there again. During my week of bed rest we compiled a long list of items we believed we needed for the long trip to the address. All of the items listed on the flyers were on there, plus a few of our own. We then debated for several days what kind of car would be best. An RV would be great for comfort, but would burn through gas. A gas efficient car was going to be too small.

In the end we decided on an SUV. The truth of it was we were going to take whatever car we could get moving. Mine was too unreliable, or in other words, was a piece of shit. The girls added a few items to a wish list. These were comfort items that they were hopeful we would find out there, but were not essential to our trip. Garett and I were to scout the neighborhood, and the girls would stay home and go through every nook and cranny in my home looking for things we may need. We had to pack light for people who were leaving forever, but we also had to get everything we may need. It was a horrible pace that we had to maintain. All we needed to do was forget one thing, and we may be dead for it.

Garett and I decided that day trips were going to be our best way to scout. The dead may see us, but we could also see them and that was important to our survival. Daylight would light the homes that we entered. A town without power was darker then darkest nights you could imagine. Come to think of it, nights were beautiful in a way they never were before. All of nature’s beauty was spread out before us due to electricity’s demise. I guess some things were better now that we were all doomed.