Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel (6 page)

O
n Friday (Day 23), the weather continued its
inexorable march towards deep freeze. We didn’t mind too much as we had a constantly
livable temperature in the basement and some electricity to run small heaters.
That and plenty of layers kept us comfortable.

The radio informed us that our troops had
reached Sturgeon Bay. To its northwest, disinfection of Door County was
complete within a high degree of confidence. Between Sturgeon Bay and
Washington Island, refugees from the greater Lake Michigan area could start
settling in.

Ruth Ann brought up an interesting point this
evening.

“I think when the plague is over the country
will be more Republican,” she said.

“Seriously, that’s what you’re thinking about?
Zombies prefer the taste of liberals?” The freakishly tall anorexic blonde occasionally
on Fox News had actually said this early on.

“I am being serious. Look, the higher the
population density like in a city, the higher the death rate. If it is true
that cities lean more Liberal than rural areas, then percentagewise we’re
losing more Democrats than Republicans.”

She continued, “It is going to change Congress
completely! Let’s say New York loses ninety percent of its population but
Wyoming only loses twenty because there is nobody there anyway. Wyoming’s
Congressional delegation is going to be larger relative to New York’s than it
is today.”

It was then I smelled the aroma of Denny and Meg’s
prize winning “herb.”

I hadn’t touched the stuff and wouldn’t be going
to. Like all ‘modern” Presidents, I had tried marijuana in college. In fact, I
tried it really hard. In the end though the stuff just made my skin crawl.

I kept Ruth Ann company but from across the room
so as not to pick up a contact buzz. There was enough skin crawling outside, I
didn’t need any in here too.

I did help Ruth Ann polish off the last of our
Oreos.

N
othing much happened for the next few days. We
did maintenance around the house, watched our surveillance system and spent a
good deal of time on the roof. The greenhouse smelled really “normal”. Nothing
had changed inside that enclosure and that was comforting.

On the radio it was announced that the remains
of the nation of Japan was now sea based. Not much else was said about
conditions around the world.

Ruth Ann observed that either they didn’t know
what was going on (which would be bad) or they didn’t want to tell us (which
would also be bad).

The same could be said about conditions in the
other Administrative Zones. Reports about anywhere except this area were few.
On the plus side, there wouldn’t be any of the rumors like such and such
amusement park in California was still operating causing people to trek across
the country at great risk to themselves for no actual gain.

One ray of sunshine: It was now accepted as fact
that the virus could not live airborne in freezing temperatures. For the
remainder of the winter season, infection could only happen by bite or scratch.

O
n Tuesday (Day 27), it had been a week since we
picked up a signal on our police scanner. We hadn’t been away from our property
in quite a while and cabin fever had definitely set in. We wanted to see what
was going on beyond our own horizon.

We made a plan to visit a nearby medical clinic
to see if there were any supplies we might be able to take. My rationalizations
had progressed to the point that it wasn’t looting unless you were taking
something from an actually living person. This way we could feel good about
ourselves as we committed larceny and also feel good about ourselves for having
killed four men almost two weeks before.

There was an enormous warehouse distribution center
a few miles in the other direction. It would be nice to visit there too but the
risks involved seemed too great for just Ruth Ann and me. The company that
owned it was famous for never having a floor walker around when you needed one
to help you find something. Ruth Ann and I both wondered how many ghouls could
be found walking the warehouse’s aisles now. We weren’t in that dire a need for
the beef jerky that would almost certainly be found there but the building
supplies would have been nice.

The last time either of us had left the
immediate area of the house, Ruth Ann had gone alone to get ammunition. That
was ages ago when there were still living people around. We didn’t want to risk
leaving the house empty back then.

Now, with zombies found right outside, we actually
felt safer both being away. We had a good solid house and watch zombies to keep
people from casually wandering around trying doors. Besides, it would be too
dangerous now for one person to go into a building without someone else
covering them.

We packed up the Volvo and watched the cameras
for a few minutes. Seeing nothing stirring I lifted the garage door while Ruth
Ann pulled the car out. I locked up and we started on our way. We decided to
avoid the main road and head to town the back way.

We didn’t get very far before we came upon a two
car wreck on 10
^th
street just over a hill. We had been driving
slowly so stopping before joining the wreck ourselves wasn’t an issue. I never
got why characters in zombie books were always speeding from place to place
often getting into wrecks of their own making. With no zombies behind us, the
only possible danger was in front. Why hurry into it?

We scanned all around us while Ruth Ann idled.
From where we were, it wasn’t clear there was a way through but it was clear
there was movement inside one of the cars. To go forward we’d have to get a
better look. I pocketed the revolver and took our crowbar. After zipping up to
leave the warmth of the car, I stepped outside.

The vehicle closest to us was an empty pickup
truck, driver’s side door open. It had partially crossed the yellow line and
crashed the driver’s side corner of another pickup. It seemed everybody around
here drove pickups. Some pickups were working trucks, hauling what they were
intended for. Most though were just shiny toys.

In this case, the proverbial shiny red truck had
a dull red to black interior coating of dried blood. With my crowbar ready to
jab through a skull, I looked into the open door. Apart from the caked blood
there was a tennis shoe, incongruously clean and appropriate for a teenage girl
on the floor of the driver’s side but nothing else.

The other car involved in the collision, another
pickup, was an older model that was clearly a working truck. What had formerly
been the working man that worked it was still inside seat belted with its
windows rolled up. Clearly the temperature swings inside the car had not been
kind. The rotted putrid hulk banged on every accessible surface keeping its
eyes riveted upon me. With its windows rolled up there was only the dull
banging and muffled moaning to be heard even from a dozen feet away.

Fortunately, zombies don’t operate seatbelts or
door locks; the ghoul wasn’t going anywhere. I shifted the shiny red truck into
neutral. The hardest part of shoving the truck backwards into the ditch on the
side of the road was getting it over the road’s crown. That and ignoring the
raging zombie behind me. In short order the road was clear. As we drove past I
half expected the other truck’s driver to twist his head right around like
Linda Blair in the Exorcist. It didn’t happen.

We passed a large dairy building where cows came
to get milked. There were no animals in sight. In fact, we hadn’t seen any of
the cows, horses, goats or even llamas that we usually saw along the road. On
the exterior wall was sloppily painted

“God forgive me”

The screen door and interior door to the nearby
house were both busted down.

After the local elementary school there was a
dense crop of trees close to the road on either side. Ruth Ann didn’t feel comfortable
heading into it. She nosed in, far enough to see another wreck just around the
bend in the road.

We backed up and went through the elementary
school’s parking lot side stepping the blocked bend in the road. The parking
lots of the elementary school, high school and the middle school I was
preparing the Raspberry Pi’s for, were in disarray. Things were not looking
good.

We turned left to get back to US 12 passing
several houses that were boarded up. It was impossible to tell if anyone was
inside. One home had burned to the ground. Near it lay decomposing corpses. One
was headless, the other missing limbs.

Left again onto 12 we wanted to complete the
loop back towards our house by stopping at the medical clinic just east of us.

As we made the turn we saw several statue like
ghouls snap their heads in our direction. Immediately they began to move
towards us. We easily opened up the distance even going as slowly as we were.

From where we were we could see about a thousand
feet down the road in the direction of the clinic and home. We quickly
determined we would not be stopping for supplies.

Dozens of walking dead, were in sequence, becoming
aware of us and beginning to shuffle towards the Volvo.

“Doug, what do we do?”

“Go slow, don’t panic. Seriously, slow down!” I
said urgently.

“What?”

“Slow down! Put the car in low gear – we’ll push
through them!”

Our car was of the four-wheel drive variety. I
knew from seeing enough deer strikes on the local news that if we panicked and
sped up we would disable the car and die.

We saw each and every face that still had one.
We saw the missing limbs, the ripped bellies with no intestines to fall
through. We saw the gouges, the tears and bites. We heard the screaming,
moaning, whines and wails. The pounding on the windows was worst with mangled
heads pressed against the glass.

We kept moving at a slow and steady pace. We
slowly knocked some over that fell like the last bowling pin to go down on a
lucky strike. We drove over them. We dragged some until they wore away on the
pavement. We didn’t stop.

We didn’t stop until we got home.

We spent the rest of the day washing the car with
a pressure washer and dilute bleach. The car’s finish might suffer from the
bleach. Might not. We didn’t know. We didn’t care.

D
ay 28 is lost to both Ruth Ann and I. All we
remember about this day is sleeping a lot and the radio updates which included
information that would change our lives forever.

Down in Puerto Rico things had come to a
standstill. Now, all efforts were being put into holding the ground already
gained (which wasn’t much) while systematically sealing all sewers and storm
drains. Too many recurrences of outbreaks were being caused by undead rising
from underground tunnels in areas already thought disinfected.

Troops moving southwest in Door County were
halted too after isolating the larger town of Algoma.

Much of rural Wisconsin is on well and septic,
as we are here at the house. However, even small towns had storm water runoff
tunnels and larger towns had sewer systems. Any underground passageway that
could not be welded shut had to be blocked by detonation or other immovable
means. Potential flooding in the future and even having to find safe
alternative means of waste disposal was easily more bearable than undead popping
up again today.

Ruth Ann and I were comforted by the subtext.
Experience and knowledge was being shared at a national level and tactics
continued to evolve and improve.

The big news, what made this day’s update so
memorable, is that massive hordes had begun their march out of the greater
Chicago-land area. With all food consumed or converted into their own kind,
seven million undead split into two groups called Chicago A and B. Four million
were headed to Wisconsin.

“What can that possibly look like? How can
anything survive?” Ruth Ann said.

“I don’t know. The plague of locusts from the
Old Testament? Herds of bison in the early days on the prairie? I don’t know. I
hope we don’t find out.”

G
o figure it was Halloween night (Thursday Day
29) when we had our first trick-or-treaters. Ruth Ann and I were buttoned up
for the night. We were upstairs in the blacked out kitchen. The room was dimly
illuminated only by a laptop and a hand cranked LED camp light on its lowest
setting. The live security DVR was full screen. Our police scanner was on low
volume but was silent as it had been for days.

Since our aborted trip to town, Ruth Ann and I
hadn’t ventured outside much and were spooked by any sound or perceived movement.
We were just beginning to come back to ourselves putting some grim detachment
between us and the things out there.

I was leaning against the counter; Ruth Ann was
at the table.

“Doug!” she said. “Look.” I quickly stepped over
to her. The DVR was in its eight camera view. Each side of the house has two
opposing cameras. They are oriented so that the walls of the house are just
visible to one side with a wide field view of the lawn to the other.

There they were.

A tom turkey and five hens moved with purpose to
the northwest. They didn’t stop here and there to feed like I have seen them do
when I drove past them a million years ago. I mentioned this to Ruth Ann. She
said, “They’re not scanning side to side. They are moving away from something
behind them.”

Then we could see a figure slowly walking at the
limits of the IR illuminator of camera three (northeast view on the eastern
face of the house). With each step it became better lit. Then we could see it
in the second northeast view, camera six. Its arms hung loosely at its sides.
Its head angled slightly down and was canted at an odd angle. We could see it
wore a flannel shirt under an open down vest. Other than not being dressed for
the weather and its odd posture and gait we could see nothing amiss. The former
person looked fine. I felt let down.

It continued slowly to the northwest. Then a
woman came into view heading the same way. It was a mess. Its forehead was
caked darkly and its hair was matted on the left side. Its head was turned
sharply to the left and up. As it walked closer to camera six, I clicked to
make that camera full screen. Its face was oriented square to the lens. Its
mouth was open, jaw slack. Dark stains were obvious from its mouth down its
chin, torso, sleeves and hands. Its eyes glowed white in the infrared light.

I no longer felt let down.