Thankfully, the attack didn’t reduce our numbers drastically; nine of us didn’t made it through the night. However, each individual loss carried great weight for us. The death of the red haired woman’s father, the great leader of our company, hit everyone especially hard. It hit the red haired woman and me the hardest of all.
The red haired woman and I secluded ourselves for hours after everything settled down; we hid behind locked doors and calloused hearts. My little girl tried to comfort me, but I couldn’t fully be there to take in her praises. I recall snatches of being called a hero, and of her telling me that she knew the monsters wouldn’t reach her because I’d be standing in the way.
But that’s not what I wanted. In those moments, what I really wanted was to hide myself away in the corners of my mind by placing thoughtful clutter between me and the world. I wanted to disappear into the darkness of myself, losing myself in a perpetual game of hide and seek; except I didn’t want to be found. I wanted to fade out of existence and be forgotten, leaving myself to shiver under the gathering dust that’d find me.
After remaining in that comatose state for hours, I was finally able to carry on with necessary tasks with an unfeeling heart. I felt cold to the world and everyone in it, but I tried to hide underneath hopeful remarks and diligent work.
After taking charge and delegating some tasks to others, I went to find the red haired woman. I went to her room and knocked weakly on her door. She knew it was me before I even said a word through the aged wood. She opened the door slowly, hiding her face in the shadows of the room. I didn’t have to see her to know she looked like hell. The silence between us said it all.
She reached a hand out towards me and let it hang limp in the air. I gently placed my hand in hers; I cringed as her icy skin stole the warmth from my body and let it evaporate into the air around us. I grasped her hand tightly, hoping some sort of life could be kindled between the two of us. She stepped back slowly as I walked into the room.
Upon entering the room, the red haired woman closed the door behind me and locked it. She held my hand tightly as she found a chair and stuck it underneath the doorknob for good measure. Then she led me to the side of her bed and sat me down. I tried to mutter words of consolation as she stood before me, but she placed her finger over her mouth and gently shushed me. She shook her head slightly, letting me know there was no need for words at that point. After that, she gently placed herself in my lap and pulled my arms around her. She curled into a ball within my embrace and let the silence penetrate the room. She looked up at me with desolate eyes and gently whispered, “Just hold me.” Then the red haired woman tucked her head into her chest and began to sob quietly.
I knew I was the only one who understood her devastation, and the dark depths of it. I held her tight against my chest, hearing the lifeless beating of our hearts fill my ears. I looked out into the sky through the window in the room; The world was filled with grey, and it had taken on a disturbing gloom. Everything seemed depressed and broken. As I sat there, I could hear the house groaning in discontent around me. The old wood moaned underneath the clouds, begging for something to alleviate its pain. I felt like hiding inside myself again, but I couldn’t do it alone; I was tied to the red haired woman. We both began to hide together, letting the darkness in our hearts fan the cold flame burning between us.
When we felt we could bear returning to the others downstairs, The red haired woman and I called a meeting. At the meeting, we decided to hold a funeral in honor of those who died the night before. Everyone had a turn to say their goodbyes and give their eulogies. It lasted for about an hour, and the service ended with the burning of the bodies. We burned our dead separately from the dead infected, creating two burning heaps in the center of the courtyard. I watched pillars of smoke reach into the air, creating a bridge from the earth to the heavens.
After the funeral, we called a second meeting in the main entrance of the house. People seemed nervous standing in that space; they looked around in grief at the dried blood streaks covering the house from top to bottom. Everyone huddled close together, inching into themselves to avoid the blood stains covering the ground.
The red haired woman and I called some of the main leaders of our company together and set up a quick plan for what we’d do. Then there was a short greeting by an older man from our group atop the stairs, and the meeting was sent into full swing. We all knew what had to be done: we needed to elect a new leader to give us a purpose and a direction.
The older man announced why we were all together, and who we thought the three candidates for leadership were. It came down to three men: the older man doing the announcing, a younger man who had proved himself worthy through his intelligence, prowess, and countless successful missions, and me. No one objected to the three men presented; they were too busy wanting to escape the crime scene they were trapped in to put up a fight anyway. There wasn’t a huge formality to the decision. We had a vote to ultimately decide who would be our new leader. Surprisingly, it was unanimous.
It was a little slow at first as the hands trickled up, but soon the whole room, even the other candidates, had their hands raised in my favor. The older man found my face in the crowd and called me upstairs to say something to the group. I felt heavy as I left the hands of my little girl and the red haired woman to ascend the stairs. With each step upward, I felt an invisible weight on my shoulders get heavier, digging into my back and pushing down on me.
I did, however, feel some sort of responsibility and honor. I wondered: is this what the red haired woman’s father had felt every second of every day? Is this what holding lives in the balance with every move and decision you make feels like? How would I know what the right thing to do was?
I was so scared to fail them. I was afraid I’d make the decision that would either lead us to safety or have all of us die at the hands of the infected, or worse, each other.
I made it to the top of the stairs and came up to the banister overlooking the crowd. I stared silently at every one of them, hoping that I’d find words to say, but I had none.
After a few minutes of silence, a woman at the edge of the group shouted, “Well, what are you gonna do? Where are we gonna go?” Another few began to question me, wondering what I’d do to ensure our survival. I looked down at the red haired woman; she was holding my little girl tight against her side, looking up at me with fearful eyes as well.
I quickly took everything into account before I’d make a decision. We were running out of supplies, we had drained all of the areas, both near and far, of anything useful, the infected were on the move, inching closer and closer to our necks every day, our group only numbered twenty-two, we’d lost our leader, and the only way to escape this hell, and possibly end up in another one, was through the blockade that’d been set up at the beginning of the infection. The blockade isolated us from the outside world, and what made it worse was that the infected took it over and retained dominion over it. All around, we had no options, and worse of all, no hope.
I stood there frozen for a minute or so, taking all of those factors into account. I knew there was nowhere in our area where the infected couldn’t reach us and that we could find adequate supplies in, but it would be a suicide mission to try to make it through the blockade, which seemed to be endless obstacle that separated us from the rest of civilization. I’d scouted it before with a group in search of supplies, and we almost lost our lives doing it. I remember it well.
It was a secret mission that the red haired woman’s father had sent us on. He lied to everyone else at base, saying that it was just a final search for supplies in an area we’d already stripped clean. I was with a group of seven others, and we were sent to see how bad the blockade had gotten before we tried to go to Tuckerton.
We made it there under the cloak of night, ensuring some chance of passing through unseen by infected. We made it to the base of the blockade’s high walls and threw ourselves over. We landed softly on the other side and ran pas
t a large series of chain linked fences that were laced with barbed wire all around. After these, there was an open space for a mile or so that was filled with decomposing bodies and various military vehicles. It held the memories of a battleground as blood covered the light brown soil and the sides of the vehicles; There was a mix of infected and soldiers’ bodies, each toppled over each other.
I looked to my left and right; the blockade spanned on endlessly in both directions, continuing on out of sight. I imagined that it separated the whole world from us, permanently closing us off from the rest of humanity.
After trekking through that graveyard, there was a high metal wall with various holes in it. I saw some gun nozzles poking out; perhaps it’d been some last line of defense for the humans against the infected. It obviously hadn’t worked. In the middle of the wall were two humongous metal doors that formed an entrance into the dark blockade before us. We turned on some flashlights and hesitantly entered the facility.
Once inside, we could only navigate by the light of our flashlights and the places where moonlight penetrated through tears in the metal frame above us. It was dangerously quiet; the only sounds that echoed through the metal halls were our own footsteps. As we scanned the passing halls, one of my teammates located a map of the facility; it was embedded on the ground of a room connected to a nearby hallway. We took a second to look it over, taking in the enormity of the complex.
In the upper right corner of the map there was a scale of how big the complex was. We estimated that it was six miles across, if one were to run straight through it. I took out a few pieces of paper and a pencil, and used them to embed pieces of the map on each page. I also numbered them to make sure we could replicate the image of the complex accurately.
I noticed there were various side hallways that could also achieve the journey from one side of the facility to the other; it’d just take a longer amount of time. After taking down the images of the map, we moved on through the darkness.
We navigated around various piles of debris, some preventing us from going straight forward. We were forced to use some of the side hallways, and were able to use the map images to keep us from getting lost. After taking a large series of hallways to avoid a pile of destruction on the main path, we ended up back on our original trajectory.
We walked along the steel grating on the floor, being careful not to make too much noise. After quietly moving along for some time, we saw the other side of the blockade far off in the distance. I knew it was the other side because I could see a small slit in the wall from top to bottom, letting me see the full moon outside. We continued towards it, making sure to stay cautious.
Of course I had to be the one that botched the mission. As we neared the exit, I heard a slight breath that seemed a little out of place on my far left side. I had everyone turn off their flashlights, and I focused my flashlight in the direction of the sound. I took a quick glance and immediately covered the light in my hand. I saw two infected standing together, crouching as they faced the wall away from us. I prayed that they hadn’t noticed the light that shone on them for a split second. We waited for what seemed like an eternity for any movement or noise; for anything prompting us to run or attack the two infected.
I faced my gun in the direction of the infected, preparing to fire upon them when I’d shine my light again. I turned my flashlight on, hoping they’d remained stationary.
They had, but they weren’t alone that time. The flashlight revealed a group of at least ten infected, all rearing to attack. Their pale flesh contrasted the dried blood covering their bodies. They were disgusting to behold as they heaved silently in the ray of light. The foremost infected let out a shriek that filled the entire facility as I screamed for the group to run.
We made a run for the exit as we fired upon the infected. I heard their hollow footsteps on the steel grating as we ran. I focused my beam of light forward as I fired upon the infected nearby. Painful howls filled the air, reverberating off the metallic walls, signaling we hit them with some our fire.
As we ran, the slit in the metallic exit started closing. It was getting smaller as we neared it, disappearing into nothing. I focused my beam of light at the base of the doors, wondering what was trapping us in.
I was filled with anger as the light revealed an extremely large group of infected shutting the doors. We were so close to the exit that I could see their white demonic eyes looking back at me with satisfaction. I fired a few shots at them as I lashed out angrily with my words. We had to think of something quickly to get out of that situation. There was no way we could fight such an onslaught of infected.
My mind flashed back to the map I’d traced; there were a series of hallways that could take us back to the entrance, if we even had a chance of making it back. We were trapped; we had to try to make it back, or die trying.
I pulled a flash grenade from my pack and tossed it at the infected before me. It went off as my group ducked into the hallway we needed to use to start our journey backwards. We ran through a series of hallways, chased closely behind by the shrill cries of the infected. We ended up in an arms room after another series of hallways; I felt some relief as I grabbed a few grenades and had my teammates grab whatever arms they could carry.
We moved to the far side of the room and stopped. The cries of the infected were beginning to fill the room we were in, and they were getting louder with each passing second. I pulled the pin out of one of the grenades and held the trigger patiently. I waited for a few seconds and then threw it into the middle of the room.
The room started to rumble as the infected got closer. The very bones in my body seemed to rattle at the oncoming crowd. I smiled with contempt when I saw the infected pour into the room. The grenade went off at just the right moment, and I reveled in every second of it. I saw the monsters flying against the walls at the force of the blast; there was complete surprise on every one of their disgusting faces. We entered the hallway back as the room crumbled down behind us, burying those monsters for good.
Using various hallways and passing through other rooms, we gathered a few more supplies as we made our way back to the entrance. After making it back to the main pathway, I saw the entrance to the facility. I shone my flashlight on an extremely large pile of rubble behind us, which formed a wall comprised of cement and steel. I turned to the entrance and strided on confidently.
As we came upon the doors to leave, I turned and saw another group of infected come pouring over the debris’ edge. I grabbed another grenade, pulled the pin out, and threw it at the pile of debris.
We ran out across the battled plain as the explosion went off. We leapt over bodies and dirt, and came to the chain fences as some more infected pursued us. We turned and fired upon them as they funneled into the gates. We killed all of them using our weapons and watched as the bodies piled up.
Then all was silent; I waited to hear more shrill cries fill the air, but none came. We turned back in the direction of the base, making the journey homeward. We traveled back through the night and ended up back at the base just after dawn. As soon as we got back, we debriefed the red haired woman’s father outside of the house, relating everything that happened.
After hearing us out, he scratched the growing white stubble on his chin as he thought on everything he’d heard. After taking some time to think, he told us never to mention the mission to anyone. He asked for the sketches I had, which I gave to him. I saw him look them over, fold them in half, and stuff them into his pocket. He said we’d only use that route if we were beyond ourselves and were desperate enough to use it. Until then, no one could know what’d happened. We all agreed to keep the mission a secret, never speaking of it again.
After remembering all that happened during that operation, and all that happened during the attack last night, I looked into the faces of the seven men that’d gone with me.
The decision seemed unanimous as I looked into each man’s eyes. They nodded approvingly when they
saw what I was thinking. After seeing the unwavering faith in each of their eyes, I knew the next course of action.
I called out for silence and waited to tell the crowd what we were gonna do. When the room became silent, all eyes were on me, anxiously waiting for the final decision. Everyone gasped in complete shock as I said, “It’s settled. We’re going through the blockade.”
Tape #13