Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (16 page)

They ran around climbing and laughing while Christine and I gathered our things. “I wonder if we could secure part of the area so that it would be safe.”

“What do you mean?

“If we could make our neighborhood safe, or some place in town safe, then expand out a block or so at a time……I don’t know, maybe it makes since to stay.”

“Is that possible?”

“I don’t know, here we are playing in the park. I haven’t seen an infected.”

“You keep saying that they have to be somewhere. I would love to stay and I don’t see how anywhere else will be any better than here and we know our way around.”

“I guess it’s something to think about. If we found others it may be safer…or more dangerous. I’ll look around more tomorrow.”

“OK. I think I just felt a raindrop.”

“Guys, let’s go, rain’s here.”

More clouds had moved in and rain was creeping up on us. As we walked home thunder rolled to the west. When we reached our porch steps lightning flashed and a loud boom shook us.

“That was close.” said Jesse his eyes wide.

“Yeah, like less than a mile.” Caleb added, “I want to get inside.”

The rain started coming down hard as we sealed up the door and put away our things. The rest of the afternoon and evening we spent playing games listening to the rain and occasional thunder, talking about the past few days and what we wanted to do tomorrow. The boys wanted to go back to the playground, they wanted to ride their bikes there and take a soccer ball and “climb that big tree” and find where the lightning struck. They were kids, boys, and they wanted to do boy things. They weren’t thinking about securing the neighborhood or finding other survivors or packing up and leaving. They were excited and happy and that was good to see.

-——————————————

I lay in bed listening. The rain had stopped. It had rained most of the night, hard at times, the wind that came with it woke me often as it rattled screens and shook the house. It was quiet now. I closed my eyes and pictured a bright blue cloudless sky that I thought I’d find outside. The world always seemed fresh and clean after a storm like we just had. That thought made me smile.

It was a happy trip to the kitchen. Yesterday was pleasant, the storm was exciting and I was certain this morning would be wonderful. Coffee in hand I went upstairs to check our surroundings. The sky was vibrant blue, the wind had calmed and the street was full of infected.

I stood watching in dismay. All of our work to clear out the area had been undone in one night. I went and looked out the back, there were more in the alley and the neighbor’s yard and even more visible a street up. I walked to look out the front again anger welling up inside of me with every step. My first reaction was to grab a rifle and just start shooting.

I hadn’t heard Christine come up the stairs but I turned to her when she entered the room. My disappointment and anger must have shown on my face because when she saw me her expression immediately went from a cheerful smile to deep concern.

“Honey what’s wrong?”

“They’re back, more than ever.”

She looked out and gasp.

“But why….?”

“I don’t know, maybe the storm……the thunder could have got them moving or the rain effected them, I’m not sure.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“Don’t know but let’s make sure the boys stay quiet.”

“They will be so disappointed…….”

We stood watching quietly.

“Fifty-nine,” I finally broke the silence, “and eleven out back that I could see.”

“You don’t have to do it today. Maybe they will leave.”

“They haven’t before without some sort of stimulation. I wonder if we put firecrackers in the band shell how many we could draw and from how far away….”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“If we had a long enough fuse we could be far enough away before they went off.”

“Then what, shoot them all?”

“We could but that could take a lot of ammo. We need some sort of bomb or something to take them all out at once. I wonder if they’d drowned. If we lured them into the river….put boom boxes in boats and anchor them in the middle.”

“Wouldn’t the current take them away?”

“Probably.”

We watched them as we sipped our coffee for a quiet minute. “Probably this means we need to start packing and leave. That’s our plan, we need to stick with it.”

“I was really hoping we could stay.”

“I know but it’s the right thing. We, I, was getting too comfortable, forgetting what I believe saved us in the first place. We need to keep listening and doing what we know is right.”

“I know. I just wish the right thing would turn out that we stay.” She turned and walked out of the room. I stood and watched, thinking.

-——————————————

We had a quiet morning reverting to the life we lived the first two days. After lunch it was time to get to work. The first step, get the rear of the house clear so I could get on the roof and snipe the infected in the front. I’d do the normal stroll and shoot but they were too thick and, I’d lost a little confidence, or maybe just gotten wiser. Either way the roof was the place I’d start besides, I had purchased a bolt action 300 ACC Blackout last year and with a suppressor and subsonic rounds it made very little sound. I could clear out the block without disturbing anyone, or any
thing
.

After lunch we quietly opened the door to the rear balcony. From there it was no problem dropping the infected in the back. Once done I went over the railing onto the roof and to the front. Within twenty minutes the street was clear and all the infected I could see around us were on the ground. The rifle was quiet attracting no attention.

Once back inside I met the boys in the hall.

“We didn’t know you were shooting until we saw them falling.” Caleb said.

“Yeah, that one is quieter than any of the others we have.” Jesse chimed in.

“Yeah, it really does a nice job. Did you see any more?”

They shuck their heads.

“Let’s secure the bottom part of the balcony door and leave the top open so we can get some ventilation up here.” I told them.

The entire atmosphere of the area was becoming putrid. The air hung heavy with the stench of rotting meat. The fly and gnat population was exploding as well.

“I have to get those moved this morning. Last night’s storm cleaned things up and I don’t want them laying around too long.” I told Christine sitting down at the kitchen table.

“We’ll all help after breakfast.”

“Caleb and I’ll run up and get the truck now.”

“It won’t take long for me to get breakfast ready.”

“It’ll save time if we go now. It’s already getting hot and humid. The later it gets the harder the job will be.”

“Well, be careful. Come back safe.”

Caleb and I quickly grabbed our gear and started up the street. We could see infected half block away, ones that were out of sight from my rooftop position. We dropped two as we walked. When we reached where they fell we stopped a few feet away.

“They are dark.” I said examining them as they lay on the ground, “Darker than the others.”

“Their skin looks grey” he responded, “and they’re skinny and they smell bad.”

“Gaunt and Yeah, really bad.”

We stood there looking at them and glancing around the area.

“Let’s go.” I finally said.

We walked on shooting and examining each. They were looking more
dead
than a few days ago. All had greying skin their bone structure was more prominent and their smell was stronger than before.

As we walked we talked about the changes we were noticing, perhaps it was carelessness or confidence or maybe it was just that the thing was out of sight but as we walked and talked an infected standing behind a large tree woke and started toward us.

“There!” I yelled startled and raised my rifle.

It fell before I could get it sighted, Caleb had dropped it quickly.

My yell had attracted three that were standing up the street, they started moving our way.
Phut, phut…..phut….
they all were down within a few steps. I looked around my heart thumping like it hadn’t since my first trip out.

“You’ve gotten quick and accurate.” I said.

“That one scared me.”

“Yeah, I didn’t see it ‘till it started coming at us. Sorry I yelled.”

“It didn’t hurt anything. Did you see how fast that one moved?”

“Yeah, it moved like they were a few days ago.”

“The others were a lot slower.”

We walked to the group of three Caleb had shot.

“That one’s a lot lighter.” he said pointing to the one that had moved faster.

“It’s less gaunt. I wonder if these others have been infected longer and the longer they are the more dead they look and slower they move.”

“Maybe. Wouldn’t that mean this one was just infected?” he said pointing to the quick one.

“I guess. It looks like a chunk is gone from its arm. Maybe it was bitten or something.”

“How long do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know. If these are over a week old then it could be four or five days old. Five or six days is when I can remember seeing a difference but I could be off a few days. I hadn’t really thought about it ‘till today.”

“There could be more people alive……” his voice trailed off.

We stood there looking around at houses wondering which ones might have people in them who were still living.

When we got back to the house with the truck we discussed our findings with Christine and Jesse.

“There could be people still alive and we’ll help them if we find them. For now we have to be aware that any we see that are lighter can move faster.”

Clearing our area and moving the bodies took the rest of the day. By evening we were hot, tired and hungry. We got cleaned up and had a quick dinner. The boys fell asleep before Christine and I had the kitchen cleaned up.

“We can’t stay.” I finally said.

“What about fencing off an area like you said?”

“It would take more than us to be able to make the neighborhood safe and even if we had a wall or something….”

“You keep finding evidence of people, they need help just like we do. We could all work together.”

“We don’t know who those people are. Some may be worse than the infected. Some may not, but you’re talking fencing in streets, that’s not difficult, but houses and yards and the houses need to be cleared out……”

“It doesn’t have to be this neighborhood. It could be somewhere safer.”

“Where? The mall? The Genetti? Bowman Field?” I paused and thought about the baseball field. “That’s something I hadn’t thought of, Bowman Field. It has double fencing around it, gates, cars can be pulled inside, kitchen, the grass area….That would be a good place to hold up for a while but it would still need to be cleared and secured and what if infected started coming and surrounded it. We’d be trapped inside.”

“It’s an idea.”

“We have a few days before our leaving day. I’ll check Bowman out tomorrow.”

I laid in bed thinking about our options. Our house was never intended to be the place we stayed, simply a sanctuary for us until we left. The ballpark had never crossed my mind but now it seemed like a viable option. Still, we had made plans with others to meet and not going meant abandoning them not just the plan. The next two days would have to show us a lot if we were to consider staying, after that we had to get moving.

-——————————————

The morning air was heavy and the sky overcast and getting dark. We had rain coming. Sitting on the front porch with my coffee, AR and note pad I was making a list of options for the day and days leading up to our departure date. I had decided to give today and tomorrow to the notion of staying and the following two days to preparing to leave.

Thus far I had not gone west past Campbell except when I followed the people noise and ran into the infected frenzy. Today’s plan was to head west about three miles to Bowman Field.

Bowman Field is a minor league baseball field. It was renovated a few years ago and had a court yard type concession area in front surrounded by ten food iron fencing, gates and brick pillars. The field was surrounded by a high wooden fence around the outfield and the stands by the infield. Outside was a large field and parking area and, it was next to a park with swimming pool and playground. To the west flowed Lycoming Creek. Overall it was not a bad place to settle. If we had to defend it against human gangs that would be difficult, there was a lot of area to cover and the four of us could not do it well.

“I wonder how hard it would be to burn whole sections of town down.” I said aloud as Christine walked onto the porch.

“What?!!”

“If we set a few houses on fire could we clear out say five blocks square? That would get rid of infected in the houses and open up an area so we could see better.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea. What if there are people hiding? What if it got out of hand and kept going?”

“I’m just looking for solutions. And…I think sections of town could be taken down making it a lot safer.”

“Fire is too unpredictable.”

She went inside, I sat and thought some more. It would be worth a test and we could see how the infected reacted. Would they be drawn to the fire, the light, the smell or notice the smoke. They hadn’t been attracted by the fires we had set.

I went inside.

“I need to get ready, we have rain on the way and I want to get Bowman Field checked out before it comes.” I announced as I entered the kitchen.

Caleb and Jesse were sitting mostly staring into space while Christine fixed them breakfast.

“Where are you going daddy?” asked Caleb.

“I’m going to check out Bowman Field.”

“Can I go?”

I thought for a second, “Yeah, that would be good. Jesse?”

“Is mommy going?” he asked.

“Not if you want to stay. She will if you go. I don’t want any of you guys being alone yet.”

“Would you like to stay home?” Christine asked Jesse caressing his head.

“I’m tired.” he answered.

“That’s good, you guys can look after the house. We will be out most of the day unless it storm’s bad or we run into something really nasty.”