The Complex: (The Reanimates) (7 page)

             
I gave Joey a quick hug and thanked him.

             
When I stretched out on the couch I was comforted by the thought that while it seemed the world had gone to Hell in a hand basket I was very lucky to have these awesome people in my life. With that thought I drifted off to sleep for a bit.

Zombies At The Gate

             
The sun started to set on day two of our new world when I woke up from that nap. Drew and Trent were on the roof over Tyreese's place. They had taken off the sliding closet doors from some of the downstairs apartments to build a temporary look out shelter. They took the old binoculars from our patio to use for keeping an eye on things. The area up there was entirely usable down to a camp toilet that was found. I laughed over that one, imagining someone up there using it when the zombies showed up.

             
We made dinner in the courtyard together and talked about if this turns out to be a long term thing what we'd like to see here. I had the request to turn the unit below me into a clinic for any medical issue. Mercedes thought maybe we should turn one unit into a food distribution area. Eric suggested that we go unit by unit of the abandoned ones and gather up the resources there. We all agreed that was an excellent idea. We were all just about done eating when Tyreese started ringing the alarm bell. Everyone had a wide eyed look of panic for a moment. Someone was screaming.

             
"STOP!" Joey yelled. Everyone stopped moving and went silent. "Ty, what do you see?"

             
"About ten people coming up the road. Look tore up and like they shouldn't be moving at all. Coming from the west."

             
Trent yelled to Daniel "Is that gate locked?"

             
"Sure is."

             
Mercedes said "We need to get these kids out of this. I'll take 'em at my place, not like I can help much any other way"

             
Joey called for anyone with a gun to get them and get to the drive. "You too," he said to me. "Time to learn."

             
I had placed the gun and the bullets into a back pack and put by the door. I ran up the stairs, grabbed it, the keys, and turned the knob lock so nothing would come in and hide. I ran down the stairs and found Trent, Joey, Tyreese, and Daniel. Joey had supplied Trent with a hand gun as well, one that looked like the kind that cops use in the movies. Trent had the benefit of having fired a gun like the one in his hand before so he was able to load it and go. I had never touched one, and my ignorance over gun use was painfully apparent. He showed me how to load the magazine then showed me how to load the chamber. I smiled at the hinge design. I had never seen one like that before even in the movies. Joey showed me how the safety works and said to leave it on until it was time to shoot. We all got into position and waited. It was dark but the timer hadn't yet turned on the parking lot lights.

             
We sat squatting in the shadows for them to come. We heard the shuffling of feet and a low moan. We heard a sniffing sound. Suddenly they rushed the gate pressing on it. Their arms tried to reach through it. Daniel was the first to get into position to fire and shot the one closest to him into the center of his chest. A foul smell poured out of him with the dark fluid that I could only assume was blood in the lack of light. The zombie didn't respond to injury in any way. He just kept reaching. Tyreese's shots had similar results.

             
"The head! You have to hit the head!" Yelled Trent, firing his gun into the head of the one in front of him. It went down and stayed down. I tried lining my shots and missed the first couple times. I was grateful the gate was holding them off while I learned how to get the sights lined up. I cheered when a shot made its mark. Muzzle flashes looked like a strobe light. It took just moments for the cracking sounds of the guns to stop and the zombies were all dead, well all the way dead anyway.

             
The adrenalin rush was amazing. The pile of the dead felt like an accomplishment. I was super Cali in that moment.

             
The bodies that had littered the driveway were stacked in a pile. Joey collected a selection of leaves and sticks from the street gutter and put them against the bodies. He pulled out a lighter and lit the kindling on fire. The bodies caught fire quickly. Rotting flesh on fire was an ungodly smell, but in that moment even with the stink, it smelled like victory, like we had conquered all. As the bodies burned I remembered a story of a town near by that had a place to burn medical waste including amputated limbs. They had the problem with the smell of burning flesh so they devised a solution of throwing in packets of seasoning to make it smell like meat was cooking, not legs. People in the town reported they stopped smelling a bad smell, but one of barbeque. I wondered in that moment if there were any amount of seasoning that could be added to make this less repugnant. Not likely.

             
We walked into the common area of the complex hooting like we had won a war. People ran down from their homes with joy. We just stood up to the monsters and proved this was a doable situation. Drew wrapped his arms around Trent and me.  We all sat and visited for a bit more before we called it a night.

The last thought I had before falling asleep was wondering if the ten zombies from tonight were the same ten that we saw before when we were at the sporting goods store. Could they have followed us? I discarded the thought quickly, there is no way they were. They couldn't be. With that bit of comfort I fell into a deep sleep.

Resource Day

             
The next morning we woke with the dawn. Everyone came into the common area to be with each other. We all felt like we could take on anything, that together we were invincible. Zombie slaying was a great team building exercise. After we ate we came up with the to do lists for the day.

             
Today was the day that we were going to put together resources. The plan was that we would go ahead with making resource units that we had talked about a bit the day before. We decided that each resource unit should have someone in charge of it. I was the obvious choice for the medical unit. Mercedes got an overwhelming majority vote on the food unit. Martha insisted on being able to have charge over something so we all decided that she could have personal hygiene sort of stuff like toilet paper and tooth paste and the like. The look on her face was that of triumph because she was in charge. Trent was voted into build. Build was going to be an interesting unit, as it encompassed a lot of projects. Build would take on projects like building more watch towers, securing and developing the protective wall around the complex, and making repairs on the structures. Jody had been a teacher before the birth of her youngest child so she became the teacher, to the chagrin of the kids.  Tyreese's wife, Tanya has a green thumb so she requested that she turn the back area into a garden so there was some sort of sustainability on the complex. Joey and Tyreese were the natural choice for security and weapons. Tyreese was a security guard prior to the world ending, so he had some experience keeping a trained eye on things and Joey had some sort of military experience, though what exactly it was we had no idea. Joey wasn't very communicative about his military background so no one pried. They would work on training everyone on the cross bows and how to stay as safe as possible. They would also be in charge of setting up a watch schedule that everyone would be a part of with the exception of Martha and Mercedes as they were unable to climb the ladder to get to the tower.

             
We already had set up a temporary tower on the north facing building and we decided that it should be made permanent. It would be a simple sun shade style building with the privacy area for the toilet. It had the best view of the street and gate, and had happened to be on the building that Tyreese and his family lived in. Martha was sure to complain that there would be people walking above her all night but that was going to have to be dealt with. We are in a situation where things are going to be weird.

             
There were a couple people left that didn't have a resource unit in their charge. They were paired with a unit that needed help. Daniel and Trent worked well together so he volunteered to work with the build unit. Trent smiled as he remembered how well they worked together on day one when the balconies were secured. Steven joined up with Tanya in gardens. It would afford him the chance to be able to keep his hands occupied and didn't have a lot of social interactions which seemed to suit him. I wondered how he was able to be a drummer and not want to be around people. Wouldn't being in a band make his hiding harder? It occurred to me in that moment though; he hadn't been in a band, he was just a guy playing drums. Tyreese's son DaWayne joined with his dad on security which was perfect for him. DaWayne had played football in school and was going to be getting a full ride scholarship to UCLA before everything fell apart. I know I was a bit intimidated by his size which could be a great quality in security. Tyreese's daughter Trisha joined me in the medical unit. Her mom had mentioned to me that Trisha had seen me in my scrubs and had wondered what it would be like to be a nurse. I guess she was going to be able to find out soon. Eric and Erin couldn't decide what unit fit them the best so for a while they were going to float to each unit until they found one that suited them best.

             
When the last of the breakfast stuff was cleared away we started up a game plan on clearing the abandoned units. Each resource leader took on the task of looking in each unit for the things they needed as they were most likely to recognize what was would be of most use. The assistants would go through and collect linen and bedding. Items specific to a resource unit were placed in front of that unit. General things like bedding were placed in the middle of the common area. We knew there would be a need for the linens, but we weren't just yet sure what it would be. We decided it would just be easiest if we put the apartment below the resource leader as the resource unit. Each leader would be given the key to the unit from the rental office. If anyone needed something the resource leader would be able to grab it for you. It would keep tabs on what was being used and how quickly. Rations would be a new part of our lives.

             
Daniel went down to the rental office next to the mail/laundry room to get the keys to the units and we set off to get the job done. While processing the first couple units I felt a bit guilty about rifling through peoples things to take what we needed. I kept reminding myself that the people were not going to be coming back and there was no point in having stuff spoil when there were so many mouths to feed.

The Next Supply Run

             
Many hours later all the units had been cleared. Muscles that had been long forgotten hurt. Going through the units made us all realize something, we were frighteningly low on food and medications. We were going to have to do another outing and no one seemed to be that keen on the idea.

             
After the last time I didn't want to take Drew with us on the run. I didn't want to be surprised again with a zombie coming upon us. Drew was agreeable with staying behind with Liam this time.

             
We decided to send two teams out this time since two places need to be covered. Daniel, Tyreese and Eric were on the team that was going to the grocery store while Trent, Joey and I were going to go to the pharmacy. The grocery store was a 24 hour store so getting in shouldn't be a trick. The pharmacy though may be another story.

             
"Trent, I'm not sure how we are going to get past the security gates to get the meds..." I said as we were getting dressed.

             
He grinned at me and said, "Oh I have that covered."

             
I looked at him with a bit of confusion. How were we going to pull this off? That smile though told me that I didn't really have much to worry about. Trent was excited about the outing.

             
We went down the stairs and went to the build unit where he put his tools. He came back with a battery powered sabre saw. He checked the battery and said, "Let's roll."

             
We pulled into the pharmacy parking lot. We did double check the doors to make sure they were locked before Trent got too far into his plan. It would have been nice if they had been opened but that was not in the cards. Trent was studying the wall intently. He looked over the parking lot, grinned and walked over to an old mid 70's station wagon that was abandoned. He broke the glass, opened the door, then hot wired the car.

             
“Keep well out of the way.” He called out to us, grinning as he buckled the seat belt. I had an idea that he was about to cause mayhem. He backed up as far as he could to build up speed and clipped the corner of the pharmacy building. I freaked out for a moment and ran over to him. I was sure he had to have hurt himself doing this. When I got there he was laughing like a loon. “I always wanted to do that!” I rolled my eyes. He limped the car out of the rather impressive hole he made, then got in the truck and backed it up to the space.