Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (9 page)

The three of them went back to our bedroom while I watched for another. They needed to see what they looked like. Perhaps it was best no more came by before dark. They may not have gone to sleep had they seen any.

When the light had faded we covered the windows and went downstairs. Although we were well stocked we started rationing our food and water. We had four months of supplies and believed we could stretch those to eight months if we rationed from the beginning.

Once the kids were asleep I told Christine “The countdown has started. We leave in two weeks.”

“I hope we don’t have to.” was all she said.

-——————————————

The morning light brought a frightening scene,
they
in the street. Two I recognized as neighbors, one other was wearing a police uniform. They were eerily quiet as they stood not acknowledging each other.

I went downstairs and quietly woke everyone up. “They’re in the street.” I whispered, “Come quietly.”

We crept to the second floor pausing at every squeak our old stairs cried. When we reached the window I put my finger to my lips and motioned them to look. Christine was first, her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand to quiet a gasp. Tears started to flow from her eyes as she watched. She took a step back with an expression of pain on her face.

I motioned for Caleb to look and she shook her head. “They have to.” I whispered.

Caleb stepped up on a chair to reach the look-out and just stared. He stepped down and hugged his mom.

Jesse took his turn, his eyes widened as he watched. “I think I see Marty.” he said.

I quickly put my hand up to quiet him. He had an embarrassed look on his face but kept silent. Each watched as long as they needed and when done we crept down to the kitchen. Breakfast would make everyone feel better.

While they prepared something to eat I went around the house checking each side for possible threats. The sides of the house were clear but there were two in the alley behind the house. We went upstairs to eat, this was the first time anyone spoke.

“I saw twenty-six.” Caleb was the first to speak up.

“Me too.” agreed Jesse, “and I saw Marty.”

“That’s too bad.” I said.

“What?” asked Caleb.

“That Marty is infected.” I answered.

“Yeah.” agreed Jesse.

“Those poor people.” Christine was near tears again.

We sat quietly for a moment.

“Get some paper and pencil.” I finally said.

“What kind of paper?” asked Jesse.

“A notepad.” I answered, “We’re gonna list things we noticed about them and things we remember from the TV.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” said Christine.

“Any information we have could save our lives or someone else’s life.” I said, “It’s intel, intelligence, information about your enemy, surroundings, resources, anything that could help you.”

Right then thunder rolled as if on que.

“Like weather.” added Jesse.

“Exactly.” I affirmed.

We had all been so focused that we did not notice the dark clouds moving in. We had a storm coming.

“This will be nice,” I said, “we can see how the water collectors work.

We had run PVC pipe from one of our downspouts under the deck and into the basement feeding two fifty gallon plastic drums that had a hand pump and filter connected to them. It was a good setup we just needed rain to test it out.

“OK, what do we know about them” I asked, “and what are we calling them?”

“People,” said Christine quickly, “they are people.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but they are not people like we are. If we lived during World War II fighting the Germans they were people but we would refer to them as Germans or Nazis or something not just people.”

“They’re zombies.” said Caleb.

“Are they?” I asked, “Aren’t zombies dead, just walking around and attacking
people
. On TV they said these are not dead, they are infected and crazed but still have a pulse.
All
information we need to remember. They are alive, on some level, and so must exist by the laws of a living entity. Remember when I talked about spiritual laws and worldly laws.”

“Yeah.” answered the boys.

“Well, if these are living they must follow certain laws. They must take in fuel, eat and drink, they must get rid of waste, poop and pee, they can be affected by the elements, heat and cold…..understand?”

“Yeah.” they nodded.

“They would get tired.” said Caleb.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “and their strength and endurance would relate to how much fuel they took in and how long they had been doing something.”

For the next three hours we discussed Natural Laws and their effect on living beings. We listed our observations from seeing those in the street and what we remembered from what was reported on TV. When we finished we had an extensive list along with a number of questions we needed answered.

The rest of the day we played games, read and watched outside. Christine kept up school lessons and we made sure that we included exercises every day, lifting weights in the basement, pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups, to keep in shape. We had food and water now who knows about later and keeping active and strong could keep us alive later. We filled our days with activities to ward of boredom. There were two car alarms that broke the silence outside but that was all we heard.

In the afternoon we were playing Clue when gun shots popped off in the distance. We all stopped sat up straight and listened. There was one more then it was done.

“Someone else is alive.” I said.

“Yeah, zombies can’t shoot a gun.” Jesse added.

After a minute we went back to our game. It was somewhat reassuring to thing that others were still alive. It also meant we could have an added threat.

“We have to be just as careful about people as with the zombies,” I said, “you know that don’t you?”

“Yeah.” answered the boys in unison.

“Why?” started Christine, “Maybe there are not as many sick people as we think and there are more like us. Or maybe there are people who aren’t sick who need help.”

“Or people who would try to kill us for our food.” added Caleb.

“All I said was that we had to be careful.” I started to explain, “If we see someone walking down the street we don’t want to run out and give them a sandwich. He could be with a gang that would burn our house down.”

“Or try to take our food.” added Jesse, “Can I have a sandwich?”

“Or shoot your children to get the food.” I said for effect, “You’re hungry?”

“He’s always hungry.” Caleb jabbed.

Christine got a horrified look on her face. “No one’s going to shoot my children. I’ll give them the food….all of it before that happens.”

“The point is, we all have to be careful. It’s important we
think
before we do something. We have to look around and notice if there are more people, sick or not, around before we take action.

“Movies are entertainment” I continued, “but they were written by humans, mostly about humans, portraying human behavior. Think about movies like
The Book of Eli
where the woman pretended to need help to attract someone then guys come out kill the person and take their stuff. That’s a movie but it portrays certain human behavior.”

“They come out and Eli kills them all with his sword!” added Jesse very enthusiastically.

“That part could happen but I think it was more movie than real.” I said.

“I bet Vince could do it,” said Caleb, “he’s a black belt in….what is it?”

“Aikido.” I said.

“Yeah, and he knows how to use swords.” Caleb added enthusiastically.

“Can I have a sandwich?” Jesse asked again.

“You can wait, you’re not starving.” I answered.

Everyone was quiet for a minute. This was the first time we’d mentioned friends or family. We had no idea how any of them were. Christine got up and went into the kitchen. We could hear her crying.

The rest of the day was without event, no more gun fire, no noise at all. Once it got dark we ate dinner and shortly after went to bed. It had been a quiet afternoon, we were all thinking about friends and family. We were emotionally exhausted and just wanted the escape sleep brought.

-——————————————

The next day I woke before light and went to the kitchen to start some coffee. Joey rubbed against my legs, looked up and meowed.

“You want to go out?” I asked him.

We’d set up a hidden cat door in the back door so I let him out. He’d been cooped up with us for long enough. I figured he could out run any zombie and hide if need be. I looked out the windows that faced the back yard and saw no threats and let him out. He usually came to our kitchen window when he wanted in, we’d have to keep an eye out for him now.

I went upstairs to look at the street. There was now enough light that I could see only eight of them on the block. They didn’t move much, they just stood still occasionally meandering in the direction of a movement or sound. Once yesterday a squirrel had darted across the street and those facing it started following. When we heard a car alarm they would start moving in that direction.

They could see and hear, we knew that much, we didn’t know how well though. In some movies the zombies could smell but that was in the movies, this was real. Sometimes in movies they could smell well enough to distinguish the difference between human and zombie. A huge difference I would guess since most zombies in movies were dead. Rotting flesh would stink a great deal after a few days smelling quite different from living flesh. And the flies….what kind of insect population explosion would be seen if there were that many dead people walking around. They’d have a cloud of flies around them and maggots spilling out of them everywhere. Yuck!

I heard Christine stirring in the kitchen so I went to join her.

“There are eight out front.” I said entering the kitchen, “That’s all I’ve seen this morning.”

She said nothing.

“Oh, I let Joey out.”

Horror struck her face. “Are you crazy!? They’ll get him!”

“He’s a cat. He can climb trees and go in small spaces. Like that squirrel, they didn’t get it. Besides, he’s a cat, he needs to run outside.”

“How will we know when he wants in? How will we know if he’s OK? I don’t like it.”

“We’ll watch the back door. If you want I’ll modify the cover on the kitchen window so during the day we can see out the bottom.”

“You won’t go outside will you?”

“To do the window I’ll have to.”

“NO! you’re not going out there.”

“I’ve been thinking about it anyway.”

“WHAT!”

“Quiet.”

“You are thinking about going outside and you want me to be quiet!?”

“Going outside is not attracting them to the house. Loud noises will.”

“Going outside could get you killed!”

“Are you going outside daddy?” Caleb had woke up and come into the kitchen.

“Not right now but maybe in a day or two.”

“I’m not happy with that.” Christine said, “I have to pee-pee but I want to talk about this some more. I don’t like it”

She left the room. Caleb was silent for a while then asked “Why are you going outside?”

“I said I was thinking about it. I let Joey out this morning…..”

“Joey’s out!”

“Yeah, it’s not right keeping him locked up and he can get away so I let him out. I told mommy I’d fix the window so we could see when he wants in, to do that I have to go outside. Then I told her I was thinking about going outside anyway, just to check things out around us.”

“How will we know if Joey is OK?”

“Right now we’ll have to look to see if he wants in.”

Caleb rushed to the window to see out. “He’s there!” he yelled.

“Quiet. Before you let him in look around and see if anyone is around.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

I went and looked, “OK, let him in.”

Caleb picked up the cat and hugged him when he came in. Christine came back at that moment and ran to give them both a hug. That of course spooked Joey who leapt from Caleb’s arms and ran.

“See, he came back just fine.” I needled them both.

“I don’t like him going out and I am definitely against YOU going outside.” said Christine.

“When you go can I go with you?” asked Caleb.

“NO! my baby’s not going out there!” she cried out.

“Let me see how things are first.” I answered.

“No, defiantly not. No one is going outside ever again. Not even Joey.” were her last words. She then went looking for the cat.

Jesse woke up and came into the kitchen. “I’m hungry.” he said.

Caleb and I chuckled. “Some things are still the same.” I said, “Let’s have breakfast.”

“Daddy let Joey out this morning.” Caleb informed Jesse, “And he’s going outside.”

“Joey’s outside?’ Jesse asked somewhat confused.

“No, Joey is in now but Daddy let him out earlier and Daddy is going to go outside.” Caleb said.

“Nobody’s going outside.” Christine said coming back to the kitchen with the cat in her arms.

“Fix us some breakfast guys.” I said as I got more coffee, “I’m going upstairs to look out, let me know when it’s ready.”

I headed upstairs to check outside again, the same eight were out front. There was nothing going on in the back. Caleb had brought up binoculars yesterday, I picked them up and I started looking between houses then in houses. Most windows were covered so seeing inside was not possible and there was nothing looking out of any. I noticed two houses within sight with some ground floor windows covered, not fortified like ours but they looked like someone made a quick attempt to secure them.

Jesse came up to let me know breakfast was ready so we went to the kitchen.

“There are two houses close with some windows boarded up.” I said before my first bite.

“Ya think there’s people in them?” Caleb asked.

“Could be. I figure they had plans to stay why else would they do it.”

“Did you see anyone?’ Christine asked.

“No. I was using the binoculars to check around but saw nobody. There are two zombies in the alley behind the Slope’s. I saw one walking up Cherry. I looked around trying to see in windows but couldn’t see anything.