Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel (11 page)

W
e ate our dinner. Then I read the appropriate
sections of the radio manual. It would be straightforward to give Frank a feed
of still pictures from our security cameras. Best of all, the entire radio is
digital so I could send data and still use the device as a radio at the same
time.

I hooked up the Ethernet port to the house
network and saw it pick up an IP address automatically as I expected. All I had
to do was write some scripts to grab stills from the DVR’s own web server and
scp
them to the radio. A mode on the radio told it to transmit then delete any file
copied to it. I didn’t have to worry about how to send it or where, that was
all pre-programmed in the radio.

I cobbled together the scripts and verified with
Lambeau Field that they were getting two 640 x 400 JPEG images per second. In
total each camera sent one picture every four seconds.

Writing scripts was a welcome diversion. For me
it was a brief return to “normal.”

Later we went to the roof for a few minutes of
chores before dark. I dusted the solar panels to rid them of the dirt kicked up
by the Blackhawk. Ruth Ann policed the area collecting spent cartridges and
other assorted crap. The greenhouse was closed up tight to conserve heat rising
from an opened duct leading up from the basement, a poor man’s geothermal
heating.

We went back downstairs. I checked on Ryan. He
said he was “fine.” I told him he might hear some noise from a military
operation that was expected to begin at any time.

Today’s update broadcast said the next Twin
Cities thinning operation would be this evening. We figured the horde had
reached the Red Cedar River by now and was beginning to bunch up.

Ruth Ann and I went back to the roof to see what
we could. The commencement of the thinning operation announced itself with
distinct sounds of explosions. Unlike the previous night, these could be
readily seen and heard. There were definitely closer.

As a horde comes against a natural obstacle such
as Lake Menomin and the Red Cedar River it starts to bunch up before ultimately
finding a way over or around.

Killing the dead is way more difficult than
killing the living. Except to help increase the rate of decay (a long-term
benefit), an otherwise traumatic injury is as good as a miss. Blowing an arm
off or creating a gaping hole in a zombie’s chest doesn’t even slow him down.
Destroying the brain stem is the only means of putting it down for good. To
kill creatures in large numbers you have to pack them together to get a bigger
bang from your bomb.

As soon as it was concluded that the creatures
rotted over time, the “National Command Authority” determined to limit the
destruction of strategic infrastructure where possible. If the dead could be
reduced in numbers, thinned, so as not to pose an imminent risk to refugee centers
the armed forces used a strategy of defense-in-depth.

There would be no nukes on American soil like in
some of the pre-war fiction books I had read. Major bridges and the like would
be spared unless absolutely necessary. In fact, major bridges were useful in
keeping hordes bunched up longer. Bridges acted as escape valves keeping the
horde on the other side moving forward
slowly
instead of fanning out.
Without the escape valve to funnel a horde in a predictable direction, there
would be no guarantee of keeping it together.

The sounds and glows of explosions and fires
were most intense in the direction of Menominee. We were certain the buildings
on the western bank of the unfrozen Red Cedar River were ablaze. Over the next
few hours explosions and fires ranged further and further to the north and
south of Interstate 94. We thought we heard a steady drone of jet engines that
was quite different from the sound of fighters we had seen at airshows. These
sounded more like jumbo jets. Judging from an enormous spike in explosions and
flames, large amounts of explosives were being dropped west of Menominee WI.

A bridge like the one on Hudson Road might be
sacrificed to keep the horde bunched up longer but the main highway’s bridge
would be left standing. Eventually the horde would cross but not without being
confined as long as possible where bombs and missiles could do the most good.

Nothing could be left alive out there. Unfortunately,
leaving nothing alive was no longer sufficient.

The pounding went on for hours. Ruth Ann and I
stayed on the roof until we were too cold. The wind really picked up and
carried with it the smell of burning wood and a strong scent of something that
was repulsive.

We made sure the house was shut down to its
lowest level of functioning with the new addition of the tactical radio. We
checked on Ryan once more and wished him a good night. He was holding up “fine.”
His voice conveyed no hint of sickness.

It was chilly upstairs at night though with
plenty of blankets and covers we could still make do if we wanted to. We felt a
lot more comfortable upstairs even with the windows blacked out than our first
floor or basement. With a big day tomorrow though, we decided to sleep in the
basement where it was warmer and no sound or vibration could reach us.

A
fter we rose Monday morning (Day 33), we
discussed what we needed to get done for the day. A horde of nearly two million
undead was to pass through our area by late afternoon. The horde would cover a
big area so we had no way of knowing what the density of the dead would be at
our location. From the radio updates and the warnings Frank gave us the day
before, the density would be high enough that just pushing and shoving could
threaten the integrity of our garage door and the heavy-duty super-duper
premium patio door.

“Too bad we don’t have a chainsaw,” I said over
a hot cup of tea.

“Why, do you want to go all “Doom” on the
zombies?”

“As fun as that may sound,” I said
sarcastically, “we could really use one to take down the deck.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to take down just
the stairs?”

“We don’t really have the tools. I think it will
actually be easier to tear the whole thing down taking the stairs down with
it.”

“Frank did say it would be better to get rid of
the whole thing. He sounded like he knows what he’s talking about.” Ruth Ann
said.

“Plus, getting rid of the deck gives us better
views on cameras one and two. The problem remains, how do we get it down?”

“Ryan has a 4x4. Maybe it has a winch.”

“If he doesn’t have a winch that kind of car
usually has a towing hitch or heavy duty bumpers. We have rope we can tie
around the legs of the deck and drag them out from underneath.” This seemed
like a good solution.

We talked about letting Ryan out of the garage
early. We wanted him to stay in there for a full 24 hours, which would be early
afternoon. However, we needed his help now.

I looked directly into Ruth Ann’s eyes and asked,
“If he looks sick at all, if he’s sweating or has puffy eyes, a runny nose, anything;
we agree we’ll kill him right?”

She looked at me. Then she looked through me.

“Ruth Ann? We can’t take a chance. If he’s sick
we kill him where he stands. OK?”

“And by “we” you mean me again, right?”

I nodded.

W
e didn’t have to rouse Ryan from slumber. He
sounded awake and alert which made us hopeful we would not go near the decision
we had just made. Ruth Ann held the carbine in a ready position.

“Ryan, we have some TP for you. Stand away from
the door and we’ll toss it in.” We discussed not telling Ryan we were checking
him out to determine whether he lived or died. Some things are best left
unsaid. In truth, I wasn’t even holding toilet paper. I was holding the snub-nosed
revolver.

“Tell us when you’re on the other side of the
garage.”

“I’m fine. What’s the big deal?”

“There’s no big deal. We are just being careful
for ourselves, OK. You can understand that, right?”

“Yeah, it’s OK. This was way nicer than what
they do in the camps.”

We heard movement in the garage away from the
door. His voice sounded more distant when he said “Fine. I’m ready.” One more
“fine” out of him I’d have shot Ryan if he was sick or not.

I unbolted the door, carefully listening for
movement while I did so. I turned to Ruth Ann and she nodded. I opened the
door. Ryan was near the garage door across the room from us. He was in the
clean clothes we had put out for him but obviously needed some soap and a
sponge bath. His color was normal. No sweating, no redness in his eyes, no sign
of sickness.

I turned to Ruth Ann who was hidden from Ryan’s view,
nodded, and said it was OK. Ruth Ann stepped to the doorway keeping the carbine
obscured by the wall.

“Actually Ryan,” she said. “We have decided to
end your “quarantine” a little early. We have been in touch with the authorities
in Door County. A Blackhawk landed right outside, you probably heard it. They
gave us a radio. There are almost two million zombies due to walk through here
this afternoon. We could use your help to get ready.”

Ryan’s eyes got big when he heard that. I was
still on guard – as his eyes got big, they were clear and sharp.

“Did you talk to them about me?”

“We told them a neighbor’s son was here. It
sounded like they didn’t want to use names. They said they’d make a note of you
being here.”

I wondered if he was expressing concern for the
horde or that we had talked to Lambeau Field about him. We still didn’t know
why he left there.

“Oh, OK – that’s great. Can I have some real
breakfast? I’m kind of tired of energy bars.”

“Sure. Come on. Do you like tea?” I said as we
moved to let the first person other than Ruth Ann and me into our fortress in
more than a month.

“I’d rather have coffee.”

Damn. Less for me.

W
hile Ryan ate we explained what we had learned
from Frank and the radio update the night before. We checked the cameras and
made our plan.

Ruth Ann would man the roof as top cover with
the long range of her hunting rifle. I’d drive Ryan’s 4x4 while he connected
ropes to the legs of our deck.

“We should unbolt the joists,” Ryan said.

“The what?”

“The deck is probably bolted to the house. We
should remove the bolts first before we try pulling the deck down. If we don’t,
pulling the legs out will just collapse the deck. It won’t pull it away. Do you
have a socket set?”

I turned blankly to Ruth Ann. She was keeper of
the tools in this house.

“Yes, we have a set,” she said.

“Yes, we have a set,” I repeated so as to
maintain the appearance that I knew what I was doing.

“Maybe you should remove the bolts as the first
step. It won’t make much noise. Who knows what you’ll attract when you drive
Ryan’s car over,” Ruth Ann added.

When we were ready to start, Ryan and I opened
the deck door and peered down between the slats to ensure nothing was waiting
for us like under Flynn’s deck. With Ruth Ann providing cover and keeping watch
of the cameras on a tablet, Ryan and I loosened the heavy bolts. Even helping
just this first time, saving Ryan proved worthwhile. I could not have undone
the bolts by myself. The deck wobbled not being attached to the house. Bringing
it down would be easy.

I grabbed the carbine (Ruth Ann felt comfortable
that I was no longer a danger to myself or her). She confirmed the path to Ryan’s
4x4 was clear as far as she could see. I handed Ryan the revolver for his own
defense. He confirmed the weapon’s load, something I still would not have
thought of doing myself. I was getting the sense that the kid had more smarts
about surviving outside the protection of a bunker like ours than either Ruth
Ann or me.

He and I loped out to the southwest side of his
parent’s garage. He readied his car keys and the revolver. He turned the corner
to the front of his house with the revolver raised. Even before taking a step
he fired twice. I stepped around and saw that he had dispatched two rotting
undead.

“This is the fuck that saw me go up the ladder
and started all the banging,” he whispered. He pointed the revolver at the
smaller of the cadavers. It had bloody rotten nubs instead of hands. Whether it
lost its hands when it was initially infected or wore them down banging and
clawing to get Ryan and who knows who else before that we will never know.

I stepped back to where Ruth Ann could see us
and signed her thumbs up to let her know we were OK. We saw that the report of
Ryan’s shots perked up a half dozen undead beyond the Boetche’s house and an
equal number beyond my house. We would be driving away from the first group but
towards the second. As I got into the car with Ryan I heard Ruth Ann’s hunting
rifle begin a one sided conversation.

We arrived at our deck. Ryan vacated the driver’s
seat taking the rope we had left at the base of the deck’s stairs. I got into
the driver’s seat. I caught myself reaching to adjust the mirrors. I laughed.

While Ryan wound rope around both of the outer
deck legs and made the loops fast with some kind of knot, I backed Ryan’s car up
to be in line with the centerline of the deck. Ryan attached the rope to his
trailer hitch and tapped the side of the car twice. I put the car in low gear
and took up the slack slowly.

The deck came away from the house easily. Ruth
Ann shouted that a creature was coming around the south side of our house,
along the path we had just driven. Ryan readied his revolver as the ghoul
appeared. By its clothing, it was a former firefighter. Ryan dispatched him
easily. After we were done with the deck I read his shoulder patch and was sad
to see he was from our own local department. Would I have been less sad if it
were from someone else’s town?

Ruth Ann continued to take out approaching zombies.
Her rate of fire began to ratchet upwards. I knew she would be taking careful
aim and pacing herself. The increased rate of fire did not bode well. I
continued to drag the deck, which had now collapsed, away from the house. Ryan
walked along side. He reached into the car and extracted my carbine. He raised
it to his shoulder and fired across the car parallel to the windshield. The kid
was good with weapons and executed the undead woman with easy grace. He placed
the weapon back in the car then unhooked the rope from the trailer hitch. He
jumped in and I drove us the short distance to the front of my garage.

I had thought about positioning the collapsing
deck over the water well’s head. I was very worried about damage to the water
pump. I decided not to use the collapsed deck as a shield for the pump housing
as the oncoming dead might force the deck against the wellhead doing even more
damage. Besides, I had a different idea about how to protect the wellhead.

Before going outside I had detached the garage
door from its lift chain and undid its hasps. Ryan hopped out of the car and easily
rolled the door upwards. I pulled his 4x4 into our garage alongside our station
wagon. He stepped inside the garage and let the door down. We left the door
unhitched from its lift chain and slid the door’s hasps into place making it
impossible to lift under power or manually.

With hand signals he helped me back his car up
to the left half of the garage door. I made soft contact with the door and then
gave it just a little more pressure. I shut off the 4x4, engaged the parking
break then we repeated the same process with my car.

Both of our must-do jobs were done. Ryan and I
joined Ruth Ann on the roof. I got some more practice with the carbine and Ryan
demonstrated he needed no practice with the hunting rifle.

We weren’t supposed to worry about our front and
back doors. The ghouls wouldn’t actively be trying to break down these doors if
they didn’t know we were inside. Frank told us the dead would not be able to
bring enough bodies to bear on a surface as small as a single door without
being motivated.

Still, the front door at least continued to
worry me. If the creatures succeeded in breaking down the back door they would
enter the garage. They would have to break down another heavy door to gain
access to us. If they got through the front door on the other hand, we’d
instantly lose two floors of the house. We would be either trapped on the roof
or trapped in the basement.

I fetched a fancy webcam out of an office
drawer. It was designed to be a baby monitor so it had sound and two rings of
IR LEDs for night vision built in. I ran an extension cord from a hot socket to
near the front door. I powered up the webcam and placed it on the floor with a
view of the front entryway. A few moments later we had an HD view of the inside
of the front door.

In the garage, Ryan helped me rig an ordinary
cheapo USB webcam up to a Raspberry Pi. We positioned this to give us a view of
anything coming towards the inner door. I wished the neighbor who thought I was
nuts for putting RJ45 network jacks in my garage was here to see me make use of
them. Sure, it took a zombie apocalypse to need it, but still...

After we were done Ruth Ann asked “Doug, what’s
the point of a camera watching the front door? It’s not going to slow them down
if they make it in.”

“They’re not supposed to be motivated enough to
try to bust the door down. But if they do, we’ll have some advance warning.” In
reality, I was only trying to keep busy to hide my nervousness about the
oncoming horde.

Ruth Ann put me in my place with her reply, “You’ll
have really great shots of them coming in if you’re wrong.”