Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel (10 page)

A
s soon as I got upstairs, I brought the drone
back. The phone / decoy kept belting out tunes as the hexacopter bounced to a
landing next to me.

“Is he OK?” Ruth Ann asked as she changed clips.

“He’s inside,” not actually answering the
question. “How many things are left?”

“Look for yourself, they’re right downstairs.”

I looked over the parapet into the snarling
faces of a dozen creatures. The stink, even outdoors was surprisingly bad. Some
were rotted with tattered clothes. Others, like a kid no older than Ryan looked
to be in great shape other than paper-thin ashen skin, broken jagged teeth and
filmy eyes. It wore a University of Minnesota Golden Gophers jacket. Did the
thing walk here from the Twin Cities?

They pounded and kicked the siding and garage
door. They charged the house with all their weight rebounding with no apparent
sense of the impact. A lot of good it would do them.

Ruth Ann handed me the carbine and made sure I
had properly wrapped the sling around my arm. “Safety off?” she said.

“Safety is off.” I flipped the switch, pleased
that I remembered where it was.

“OK then, lean over the side and kill the
fuckers.”

I watched her mouth say those words and pictured
them saying “I love you,” even “I do,” at our wedding. I couldn’t believe I was
hearing “kill the fuckers” come from my wife’s lips. I considered for a moment
that some of the creatures below had no lips at all anymore. They too had said
“I love you” during their own now finished lives.

“Relax Doug. Remember what we worked on. Squeeze
the trigger. Don’t anticipate the recoil. Just let it happen.”

I did as she said. The weapon discharged before
I realized it. If the sling hadn’t been wrapped around my arm I would have
dropped the carbine over the side. A bullet tore through the Gopher’s
outstretched hand and pierced its brain.

“Good. Take your time. Breath. Do the next one.”

I pointed the gun at the next closest monster,
also right below me. This was a big burly man. One of the arms that reached up
for me ended in ripped flesh and two jagged broken bones. As I squeezed the
trigger it was shaking its head like a dog with a chew toy. My shot entered its
temple and came out the other side. In going down, the big guy bowled over two
ghouls next to him. My next shot entered one of the grounded creature’s
forehead just above its nose. Apart from rocking the creature’s head backward there
was no reaction in its face. It didn’t grimace in pain, nor show surprise nor
even close its filmy eyes. It just “stopped.”

Ruth Ann put down her hunting rifle and fired
our revolver. I kept firing as well. Our shots created a syncopated rhythm that
I imagined could have been featured in one of the gangsta rap songs that had
drawn the undead so effectively during our diversion to save Ryan.

Suddenly there was banging from the south side
of the house. I went to it, leaned over the parapet, and was unexpectedly ten
feet closer to two ghouls than I was before. These had climbed our deck and
were pounding on and kicking our sliding glass door. I could see puss and goo
left as ugly streaks and even face prints on the reinforced glass. The
creatures faced straight ahead until I made a tiny noise in moving my rifle
into position. Their hearing was quite intact.

I had been worried about this door as being our
weak link. I realized now the stairs had to go. Maybe the whole deck had to go.
It was not an acceptable risk to permit access to the glass door even if it was
laminated in baseball bat rated plastic. Removing the deck would be for a
different day. Right now I removed the threats on the deck with the carbine.
The last shell ejected differently than the others. I recognized this as being
out of ammo.

Ruth Ann had already used a speed loader and was
on her second set of six shots. When I returned to the front of the house, Ruth
Ann was holstering the revolver.

“Is that all of them?” I asked.

“No, there’s a couple more out front and there
are more heading our way. I want to get some practice with the crossbow.”

Setting up the crossbow to fire was a multistep
process involving feet, bending and cranking. Clearly this weapon could only be
used at a safe distance as reloading is too slow to be useful in close
quarters. The crossbow was so powerful that from our almost straight down
firing angle the first bolt disappeared down the insides of the zombie. It was
as good as lost. I sure wasn’t going to fish it out.

Ruth Ann just shrugged her shoulders and put
down the crossbow. She supervised me reloading the carbine and I took down the
remaining few at the base of the house. This left only those still heading for
us from a distance attracted by the noise.

We crouched down and watched the ghouls heading
towards us. They continued in our direction for a bit but seemed to lose focus
after a while without continued noise and motion. This was the first time we
witnessed what amounts to “undead attention deficit disorder.” Low temperature
slows whatever passes for thought inside their minimally functional brains.

If they can see or hear you or if close, smell
you, they’ll come after you relentlessly. If another ghoul is lashing out at
something, ghouls nearby will maintain focus and be drawn in. But, if you had a
good place to hide that gave them no further stimulus, the colder it gets the
greater the potential they could lose interest. That does not mean they’ll
wander off. They might enter a low power mode and just stand there. They can
stand still far longer than a trapped person can wait.

Ruth Ann wanted more practice with the crossbow.
She noisily loaded up another bolt and rose slowly above the parapet wall to
take aim. A moment after she fired a creature heading away from us spun
violently to the ground. In the time it took Ruth Ann to crouch back down
behind the wall, the creature got back to his feet and continued walking in
another direction entirely, a crossbow bolt protruding from the back of its
shoulder.

Ruth Ann said, “I would need more practice with
this before I’d really trust it.” as she put down the crossbow. “At distance I’m
not accurate enough with it yet. The feel is between bow and rifle. It’s like
trying to play tennis and then ping pong. It’s too awkward for me.”

“It was pretty exciting close up,” I replied. “Termination
with extreme prejudice.”

“Yeah, that first shot probably stopped
somewhere in the bastard’s leg.”

“You’re more than welcome to look for it.”

“No thanks. Let’s get off the roof and check on
Ryan.”

We gathered our equipment and in two trips had
the roof cleaned up.

“R
yan?” Ruth Ann and I were at the door to the
garage.

“Ryan?” Ruth Ann called again. There was no
answer.

“RYAN?” we both yelled through the door.

“Here, yeah. I’m here.” We heard him come to the
door.

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I had your headphones on. I
never thought I’d see a movie again. Are they gone outside?”

“There are a few left but they lost interest in
us.” I said.

“Yeah they do that in the cold.”

“Ryan, honey?” said Ruth Ann.

“Yes Mrs. Handsman?”

“Ryan, how did you get here?”

“I drove.” Apparently even in the apocalypse you
had to pull teeth to get information out of a teenager.

“We know that. We need to know where you came
from and how you survived to get here.”

“The Brute and I drove from the capital.”

“You drove from Madison?” we were confused.

“No, from Sturgeon Bay. There are a couple of
hundred thousand people in Door County now. It’s the largest settlement in the
Midwest.”

We knew refugees were being collected in the
safety of Door County but two hundred thousand people being the largest
settlement in an area that encompassed Chicago, the Twin Cities and Milwaukee?

“What about the cities? What about the Twin
Cities, Chicago? Is it as bad as the radio says?” Ruth Ann asked.

“Worse, Mrs. Handsman. Cities belong to the
dead. I heard stories of people in tall buildings around the country that
destroyed the stairs below them. They grow food on their rooftops and
balconies. But that’s it. Bigger the city, bigger the horde that’s going to
come out of it once they eaten everything they can find.”

“Who is the Brute? Where is he?” Ruth Ann asked.

“His real name was Bert. He was regular Army. We
drove together. I had my car and he drove his motorcycle. He scouted ahead so
we could avoid getting stuck by wrecks.”

“Where is he now?”

“He got eaten a couple of nights ago. He told me
on the radio he saw some wrecks and was going to check them out. I said “OK”. I
followed behind him. I saw him skid out on some ice and he slid right into a
dozen of those fucks. Excuse me Mrs. Handsman. He never had a chance. It
happened just a few miles from here.”

“Were you using little FRS radios, like
walkie-talkies?” I asked.

“Yeah.” That must have been the “OK” I heard. It
was Ryan’s last words to his partner.

“Mr. Handsman?”

“Listen Ryan it’s the end of the world. You can
call me Doug.”

“OK. Doug?”

“Yes Ryan.”

“Do you have any toilet paper in here?”

Ruth Ann and I looked at each other blankly. We
stocked the garage with a lot of things, but no toilet paper.

“No, we forgot that. There is a box of
paperbacks in there. You can rip out the pages. Start with ‘A Clash of Kings.’
Take out a garbage bag to throw your waste in. You’ll only be in there for a
day.”

We figured we’d let Ryan do his business. We
wanted to know why he left the safety of Door County in the company of a
soldier but that would be another time.

R
uth Ann and I went upstairs. She powered up the
laptop and accessed the surveillance camera DVR. We could see several undead in
the distance scattered in multiple directions. A couple of them were standing
still. Frozen in place, it was as if they were hibernating. More were in
motion. A few were still heading in our direction and some heading away.

The day’s radio update brought detailed information
about the horde that was moving east from the Twin Cities:

‘the central axis of the horde follows
Interstate 94. At noon today, the advancing face of the horde passed near Hammond
and Baldwin Wisconsin. Thinning operations where local terrain is favorable
will continue.

The next operation is scheduled to take
place tonight along the Red Cedar River near Menomonie Wisconsin. All persons
taking shelter in the area closest to the river or Lake Menomin are advised to
relocate away from the waterfront.

All other persons are advised to seek or
remain in the strongest shelter available. Persons camped on open ground or in
woods are advised to flee northeast towards unpopulated areas. Unreinforced
structures can be destroyed. If no suitable shelter can be found, seek high
broken ground that is difficult to climb. Bluffs or promontories facing the
direction of the oncoming horde are best.

Again, unreinforced structures such as
residential buildings may not survive the crushing forces of a passing horde.
You are advised to seek shelter on upper floors of reinforced commercial
structures or apartment buildings. Destroy staircases below you.

If no suitable shelter can be found, seek high
broken ground that is difficult to climb. Bluffs or promontories facing the direction
of the oncoming horde are best.”

“They will be here tomorrow afternoon,” Ruth Ann
said.

“We’re built like a commercial building. In fact,
the house is better than most banks. I think we’ll be OK.”

“Two million of those things. Why don’t they
just bomb them into the stone age?”

“The horde coming towards us isn’t the only one
around. I bet every metropolitan area spawned hordes that big. Or even bigger. The
one out of Chicago is what, four million they said? I doubt we have enough men
left, bombs, bullets, or fuel to kill them all.”

“What are we supposed to do,” Ruth Ann looked
deeply at me.

“Us? We button up tight and keep our heads down.
The rest of the country? I have no idea.”

We spent the rest of the day doing chores around
the house. Prewar chores like doing laundry were changed in that we used a
washboard instead of the washer. We had new chores like refilling ammo clips
and making sure anything with a battery was charged during daylight.

We chatted with Ryan a few times but he evaded
our questions about why he left the safety of Door County. We did get an answer
to something we were curious about. Why didn’t the dead that chased him wander
off once he was out of sight on the garage roof? His answer made perfect sense.

“One of them saw me get on the roof and came
over. Once it started banging, more came. Every one that makes a commotion
attracts more. Once they start banging they keep each other excited. That’s how
the hordes start out,” he said.

A critical mass of zombies creates a sustaining
reaction. We realized that even one sufficiently motivated zombie could
potentially snowball into a horde the size of the one heading straight for us.

R
uth Ann had fixed an early dinner of vegetarian
chili with some re-hydrated beans and herbs from the roof. We were sitting down
when we heard then felt a return of helicopters. It was unexpectedly loud. They
must have been right outside. The security DVR displayed on the laptop on the
table. Camera two showed a Blackhawk settling down near the back of the house.

We ran up to the roof. We arrived in time to see
a crewman in a flight suit and an enormous helmet jump out of the chopper. He
carried a black hard plastic case wrapped in shrink-wrap. In the distance, we
could see the dead starting to converge on the giant green noise machine. We
couldn’t hear shots but every few seconds a corpse would be rocked backwards by
an expert headshot. The crewman ran up our back deck stairs and placed his
package near the heavy-duty door after kicking away the bodies of the dead
zombies. He looked up at us peering down at him and returned the salute I had
given the helicopter crews the night before. Apparently my gesture had made an
impression. Just like that, he was off back to the Blackhawk.

The bird lifted off but stayed low and slow as
it edged away from us. We realized they were leaving a noise trail heading away
from the house to help draw creatures away from where they landed. A few
hundred yards away they zoomed up and were gone.

We came down from the roof to retrieve the case.
The deck door was a mess of streaks. We both put on nitrile gloves, opened the
door and wiped down the case with disinfectant. I don’t care what the radio said;
I wasn’t taking chances with our lives unnecessarily. We cut off the plastic
wrap. A printed label was taped across the case’s latch.

“By opening this case you acknowledge that it and its
contents remain the property of the Department of Homeland Security and will be
returned immediately upon request. Any unauthorized use of this equipment will
be punished to the fullest extent possible under criminal law including but not
limited to five years imprisonment and fines of not more than $250,000.”

It was good to see our government still had its
sense of humor.

We brought the case inside and locked up the
deck door. We opened the case. Inside was a printed sheet on top of an
instruction manual, which in turn rested on a Motorola tactical radio. The
printed sheet said we were call sign “Christmas Tree.” We would be contacted by
“Lambeau Field” at 1800 hours, not too long from now. We were to use preset
one. Preset two, we were instructed, was to be used only in emergencies. I
wondered aloud if being surrounded by two million walking dead qualified as
being worthy of preset two. There was also a power cord and what appeared to be
an optional external antenna. It looked optional because there was an antenna
looking thing already attached to the unit but I couldn’t be sure.

We wiped down everything in the case with
disinfectant. Looking at the back of the unit there was a receptacle that
matched one end of the other antenna marked “External Antenna (Optional).” That
settled that question.

We plugged in the unit but kept it off as we
were unsure of its power draw (we found that later in the manual). We distractedly
ate our dinner and waited for six PM to arrive. Just before six, we powered the
unit up. A green two line LCD display glowed saying we were on preset one.

At the stroke of 1800 hours the speaker came
alive.

“Lambeau Field calling Christmas Tree. This is
Lambeau Field calling Christmas Tree, over.”

“This is Christmas Tree. Can you hear us… over?”

“Affirmative Christmas Tree. Please state the
last four digits of your social security number.”

Huh?

“Why do you want my social security number?”

I told Ruth Ann that if they asked for a credit
card I was tossing the radio off the deck.

“It is a formality Christmas Tree. We try to
identify and keep track of survivors.”

I gave them the last four digits of my national
ID number.

“Thank you Christmas Tree. Is Mrs. Christmas
Tree also with you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you Christmas Tree. Are you aware of any
other survivors in your area?”

“Yes. We found the son of our neighbors across
the road to the northwest. He is in our garage until we’re sure he isn’t sick.”

“Thank you Christmas Tree. Please hold for your
handler.”

“OK. Can you stop saying thank you all the time?
You sound like a cable company call center.”

“Thank you Christmas Tree. One moment please.”

A new voice came over the speaker.

“Christmas Tree, I will be your contact. You can
call me Frank.”

“Hi, Frank. Sorry about that call center crack.
Mrs. Christmas Tree and I are a little freaked out about the horde coming our
way.”

“That’s partly why we’re reaching out to you
Christmas Tree. What we know of your structure suggests you might survive. We
have some advice for you to increase your chances.”

“We’re listening, Frank.”

“First it is imperative you destroy the stairs
to your deck. Preferably, you should take down the whole thing. I am looking at
photos of your house right now; you cannot risk a horde pressing against a
sliding glass door. Can you do that Christmas Tree?”

“That’s been worrying us too Frank. We’ll find a
way.” Photos of our house?

“Second, it is important that you brace your
garage door. It faces the direction of the horde’s march. The door has
sufficient surface area to permit enough Zeke’s to press against it potentially
causing it to fail.”

I thought about how to do this for a moment but
came up with nothing. Ruth Ann shrugged as well when I shook my head at her.

“We don’t know how we’ll do that Frank.”

“If you have a vehicle inside the garage, back
it up against the inside of the door and engage the parking brake. This will
provide support.”

“That’s a good idea. It sounds like this has
come up before.”

“It has Christmas Tree. You say you found a
survivor, the son of your neighbors to the northwest? Would that be the house whose
roof our folks saw you on the other day?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good to hear. We’ll make a note. Say,
there is something you can do for us Christmas Tree. You have enough IR to be
lit up like, well, a Christmas tree, hence your call sign. We assume you have
cameras?”

“Yes, Frank we have eight.”

“Good. There is a network port on the radio. We
want you to jack us into your cameras. I’m told the procedure is simple for a person
with your background. The manual contains the information you’ll need.”

“I’ll check it out. Say Frank? Don’t you want to
call me Walter?”

We heard a chuckle.

“OK Walter, you know you’re the first person to
pick up on that.”

I looked up at Ruth Ann and told her that if I
can be Cary Grant, she must be Leslie Caron.

“Walter, use preset 2 only for emergencies. If
you need to contact me for more routine business, use present 1, OK?”

“OK, Frank. I’ll probably call you if I get the
cameras connected to confirm you are receiving. Say, are you really at Lambeau
Field? The radio updates haven’t said anything about troops reaching that far.”

“Someday soon, Walter. Someday soon. Lambeau
Field out.”

Ruth Ann turned to me and said, “It’ll be a
sweet day when there are cheese heads back in Lambeau.”

“I bet you and I have moved up a lot on the
season ticket waiting list. Rough way to do it. Wouldn’t it be great if the
first game we played was against the Bears?”

“That would be great. I bet
you
I know
the first thing that every true Packer fan will think when it happens,” Ruth
Ann’s native Wisconsin background was showing.

“What’s that?”

“After further review, the Bears still suck.”