We had money but we still went hunting to get ammo since stores were not selling it anymore. The government locked down all sales so they could control things better. They were giving less and less every time Zoe did a delivery.
CHAPTER 18
ZOE
I woke up this morning feeling refreshed. It was a cool morning and the breeze coming through my window felt great. I stood up, looked at the calendar and realized that it was already October. October mornings were cool and the evenings were warm. At that moment I realized that it had been over a year since all of the madness began and it didn’t look like it was letting up anytime soon.
I quickly jumped into the shower and headed downstairs for breakfast. Selena was there waiting with coffee and Cream of wheat. She and I were quickly becoming friends. She was a likeable girl. She seemed a bit naïve about the ways of the world but I didn’t hold it against her. Living with this virus running around would change her. And I hoped it wouldn’t be for the worst.
We were all changed in some aspect. There were some like me that it made them stronger. Then there were those like Gabby, it made them weaker. Then there were those like Nick that was nonchalant about it.
Selena asked me if she could start helping at the fence. I told her it wasn’t a good idea. I didn’t tell her why but it was because I was trying to preserve her sweet spirit. I would eventually teach her because she needed to be able to defend herself but that day wasn’t today.
Today Zeke, Chang and I went out to hunt again. It only took us about 10 minutes to take care of the zombies at the fence line. We were a good team and today wasn’t any different than usual.
“Hey, look at the fence,” Chang commented with a look of worry on his face.
I approached him to see that the rod iron was bending in some areas.
“It doesn’t look good. I think they are getting stronger. It seems like every day they are getting faster too. Why do you think they are doing…” Chang was interrupted by Zeke’s loud screams.
“THEY ARE GETTING IN. COME QUICK. I CAN’T HOLD THEM OFF ALONE!!!”
Zeke was at the north end of the fence holding off a plethora of flesh eaters with a random spray of bullets. I couldn’t get a good count but it looked like at least 20 of them were trying to push their way into the fence.
Chang and I ran to his defense. It was hard to get a shot at the walking dead because they were moving so quickly. One zombie near the front was wearing camo. He had a crew cut. He looked like he probably belonged to the army. He was missing a large chunk of skull on the right side of his head and I could clearly see his brain. The lower portion of the same side of his head at his jaw had his flesh missing. I could see every bone and tooth in his jaw. This was one of the goriest zombies I had seen yet.
He moaned and muttered as he attempted to claw his way through the fence. He snapped with his teeth in an attempt to get a meal. He pushed against the fence so hard that it severed his right arm at the shoulder. His bloody arm lay twitching, fingers moving, in the grass at our feet. His arm refused to die. Chang swiftly kicked the arm back through the bars of the fence.
“That was fast Chang!” I exclaimed with pride.
Change went to the area at the fence that was connected to the guard box. He quickly climbed the rod iron to the top and loaded his gun. Chang shot them from a great distance. I had no idea he was such a great shot until at that moment. He managed to get our army zombie first. The shot didn’t kill him at first, only stunned him. He shot another bullet into the demon’s skull and then he finally laid to rest.
Next he dropped the curly blonde one. And then behind that one was a child. There was a child zombie. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The child only looked about Rudy’s age, but much deader. He hesitated before he shot. He sat at the top of the box stunned and amazed. The child approached the box with increasing speed.
The child zombie looked like it was of Asian descent. A huge chunk of flesh was missing out of its neck and his clothes were tattered and torn. This thing was a ghoul and it needed to be taken down, child or not. I could tell at that instance that Chang couldn’t do it. I took the initiative and blasted a bullet in its head for him.
Chang continued to sit there stunned, with his jaw wide open. The gang of demons was headed right for him and he couldn’t move. Zeke and I did everything we could to help him but he didn’t budge.
“CHANG, SHOOT OR GET OFF THE BOX!” I demanded.
“CHANG, THOSE THINGS ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! GET YOUR BUTT DOWN FROM THERE NOW! I’M SERIOUS DUDE, YOU’RE GONNA DIE!!!” Zeke shouted at him.
Chang, coming back to reality, jumped to his feet and smoothly jumped off of the box into the yard with a loud THUD.
He grabbed his gun and helped us pick off the rest of those carnivores.
“D, d, d, did you see what I saw?” Chang stuttered.
“Yeah, I did. That’s so sad. I can’t imagine the fear that child had before turning,” Zeke said sadly.
“Well, let’s go. We’re in the clear now,” I said.
A couple of shook up men and I drove through town. Everything was destroyed. Cars were crashed in the middle of the street, trash was lying everywhere and there were no people to be found. Down the road I spotted some walkers, so we pulled next to them. They walked frantically to us with their arms outstretched, but were quickly met with bullets in their skulls.
We quickly loaded them up in the trailer and kept moving. We headed towards the east side of town. Chang figured there might be a few over there since it was on the outskirts of town. Driving down Date Street was a chore. Just like we had thought, there were more walkers there then in town.
I could only drive a few feet at a time before I had to stop and shoot. We gathered a half a trailer full and kept moving. The road turned into Springville Drive and around the curve we could see that the little convenience store on the right side of the road was swarmed with walkers. There were honestly too many for us to handle so we drove past them. I remembered a small school in this area and thought those side streets would be a good place to start looking.
On Crabtree Avenue we pulled over on the street next to the little school. The roads were as dusty as I remembered them to be. I noticed the drag marks in the dirt next to the road and could only assume that walkers were close by. The wind blew and in the distance I could hear the creaking of rusty swings.
I turned around to look behind me and there was a child swinging.
“Hey guys, look! There’s a kid swinging over there!”
“Oh my god, what is it?” Zeke asked with a surprised look on his face.
“It couldn’t be one of them if it’s swinging, can it?” Chang asked. “I mean, they don’t know what they are doing right?”
The only way to know what it was, was to inspect it. I cocked my glock, kept it at my shoulders and approached the object. Zeke and Chang followed me, quickly catching up. The little girl had Dorothy pigtails and a dirty purple dress on. It was swinging with its back to us and there was no way to tell what it was without disrupting it.
My heart was thumping out of my chest. Once we reached it I took one slow step, and then another. Then I said, “ACHEM!” in an attempt to get its attention. The child slowly got off the swing and turned around.
We watched as it slowly turned around. Its face was beyond gruesome. Her eye was hanging there by a thread and her nose had been bitten off. Half of its upper lip was missing and suddenly it hissed at us. It opened its mouth wide and ran at us to take a bite. It was very fast for a child. I took a deep breath, counted to 3 and then blew its head off.
Killing child zombies wasn’t an easy thing. I kept thinking that they were once someone’s baby. That was once someone’s child. It had to have celebrated birthdays, taken their first steps and been loved by somebody.
Chang grabbed the upper part of my arm with
a hard grip.
“Zoe, there’s more! Look over there!” Chang was frightened and we knew that running would probably do us no good. There was a bunch of adolescent zombies running at amazing speeds in our direction and the only option we had was to fight.
The school yard was full of zombie children. The demons approached us with teeth bared and bloody limbs extended at us.
“CHANG, ZEKE, SHOOT AND RUN AT THE SAME TIME! WE ARE OUTNUMBERED AND I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH BULLETS TO KILL THIS MANY RIGHT NOW!” I screeched.
“I only have about 2 shots left in my gun Zoe!” Zeke said in a panic.
“Then you run and we will keep them off of you. GO!” I shouted back at him.
Zeke ran as fast as he could back to the Suburban while Chang and I defended ourselves. We ran while shooting and some managed to catch up with us. A dark haired little girl zombie almost grabbed a hold of Chang’s arm when I turned around and I speedily blew her brains out.
Chang made it to the car before I did. Once we were inside we locked the doors and high tailed it out of there. I had no idea we would be entering zombie school.
The next day we came back but we were armed better. This time we brought Nick, Kyle and Brian. The others came mainly out of curiosity. We were dressed from head to toe out of caution.
We brought semi-automatics and lots of bullets this time just to be safe. As we approached the school grounds we could see the juvenile zombies in the distance. They must have smelled us because they began to come at us and some of them with super speed.
We stood there side by side waiting for them to come at us. We acted as a firing squad when they arrived. Floods of bullets spewed out of our guns. Not a single one of them were left standing. We must have carried over a hundred child zombies to the trailer by the time we were done.
“I just can’t believe this. I didn’t think you were telling the truth when you said there was a zombie school,” Brian commented.
“I wonder what it’s like in the class rooms. Maybe they got infected when they were in school.” Nick added.
“There’s no way. They would have been sick for a few weeks first,” I responded, amazed at his stupidity.
“Well maybe we should check the classrooms just to be safe,” said Brian.
So we did. We approached the first classroom that was facing the street. The door was locked. I didn’t really like the idea of going into a dark classroom looking for zombies. Chang checked the second door and slowly it creaked open.
Chang was face to face with a blockade. “Hey, is there anyone in here?” He asked with a sound of fear in his voice.
Nobody answered but we heard the sounds of whispers. “Hey, if there is someone in here, please let us know. We are armed and would hate to hurt you, ok?”
A child walked into the middle of the room and pleaded, “I’m here. Please don’t hurt me.”
She was about 12 years old and I could tell by looking at her that she was barely alive. Her face was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes.
“What are you doing locked up in here?” I asked.
“I came here to look for my brother and zombies almost got me and my little sister. So I shoved her in this classroom and we put stuff in front of the door so they couldn’t get to us. We haven’t eaten in 3 days except a few snacks that were in here. Can you help us get out and get to some food?” She begged.
“Where is your little sister?” I asked.
“She’s sleeping in the corner of the bathroom with the door locked.”
“Well go get her and we will take you somewhere safe,” I commanded.
Brian whispered in my ear, “Where are we going to take them?”
“Back to the manor. Then we can decide what to do with them once we get there,” I replied.
“Bre is going to want to keep them. You know that right? She feels bad for orphaned children and we both know why,” he stated.
“We would have to take a house vote on it,” I retorted.
She brought her little sister out of the bathroom. She was probably only 10. The younger girl looked as bad as her older sister. Brian and I grabbed the hand of a child and Chang lead us out of there with Nick following.
We were able to get them out of there safely and gave them some snacks that we had stashed in the glove box. The girls devoured the Ho Ho’s in less than a minute. Apparently they were starving.
Bringing them back to the manor was interesting. Mom was the first to greet us of course.
CHAPTER 19
BREANNE
I heard a commotion outside and realized my love had returned from hunting. Excited, I ran out to meet him only to be greeted with two unknown little girls standing with Aunt Brooke.
I sighed, “I’m Bre. Who are you?”
The older of the two answered, “I’m Julia, you can call me Jewels and this is my little sister Megan.”
Both girls were blonde with blue eyes and raggedy straight hair. I could tell by looking at them that they haven’t showered for days.
I approached Zoe with inquisitive eyes. I was usually the one quick to bring a stray home. Of all the time I knew her she wasn’t quick to be sympathetic to people. But, for some reason, she brought these little girls home.
“Hey, so what’s the story?”
“Well they were locked up in the school. They were hungry and needed somewhere to go.”
“Why didn’t you take them home?”
“I don’t think there is anyone there or they would have asked us to take them home,” she retorted.
“Hey girls, let’s go to the kitchen for a snack? Do you like Top ramen?” Aunt Brooke asked the starving little girls. They were gone in an instant.
Brian walked up behind me and turned me around for a kiss. His lips were smooth but cold. He wasn’t in the mood for romance at the moment. The others left us outside to ourselves for a moment and I was able to attempt to get some information out of him.
“Babe, what’s the story with the girls?”
“I honestly don’t know. We found them in a classroom and Zoe insisted we bring them here.”
“Is that bothering you? You seem a little distant.”
“I just don’t know what we are going to do with them if they stay here. We are running out of room and quick. I kinda figured the residents would be a little older than that. We’ve been bringing home a lot of kids lately.”
“Yeah, we aren’t running a day care but Aunt Brooke seems to be doing a lot of the kid detail. I guess if she didn’t mind taking care of them it wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe you guys could make some bunk beds with the wood out there?” I asked him in hopes that he wasn’t going to be an issue with the whole thing.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help. You know that don’t you? I’ll do anything for my baby.” He pulled me into a very reassuring kiss.
We walked hand in hand to the house and into the kitchen where our new arrivals were.
I sat next to the older girl, Jewels, and began to ask her what her story was when Aunt Brooke interrupted me.
“Jewels here was just telling me that her little brother came up missing and she assumed he went to the school. That’s when the zombies cornered them into a classroom.”
“Where were your parents at?” I wearily addressed the girls.
“Our parents turned into one of them,” the younger of the two glumly answered.
“So were you taking care of your brother and sister Jewels?” I sympathetically asked.
“Yeah, we don’t have any other family so I had no other choice. One day my little brother John came up missing and I guessed he went to play at the school since that’s usually where we found him in the past when he pulled his disappearing act. He was only 5 so he didn’t really know he would get hurt leaving the house and we live only a few
houses down from the school.” The child was hardly coherent I assumed from lack of nourishment and sleep.
“Do you girls want to go to sleep for a while? You can take a nap on my bed if you want.”
They were happy to oblige and quickly settled down for a nap. While they were sleeping we had a discussion on whether or not we would keep them. Just like with Selena and Rudy we really had no other option. We couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves. Aunt Brooke promised to be the one to care for them and her declaring that enabled everyone to breathe a little better. The kids quickly got to know each other and seemed to like each other. Now we would have to get used to having two more house guests.
It was a long night on the couch. I gave up my room for the girls until they could get settled elsewhere. I couldn’t quite get to sleep. As I laid there tossing and turning I felt a smooth hand on my face. I looked up, startled, then realized it was the gentle touch of the love of my life.
His hair was a little disheveled but that made him all the more sexy. He was wearing black basketball shorts and he was void of a shirt. I couldn’t stop staring at how amazing the dim light looked on his hairless, perfectly formed abs. He was a vision of perfection.
He came at sat next to me and lightly caressed my nose with his forefinger. He didn’t say a word, only pulled me closer to him. I could feel the skin of his chest against mine and it made me think un-pure thoughts. I turned to face him, staring at his luscious lips. I threw one leg over top of his, jumped on his lap and lowered my face to his for a kiss.
He was such a good kisser. He spun me around and we were laying there, bodies pressed up against each other, in a passionate lip lock. His hands squeezed my hips and it sent shivers down my spine. The moment was quickly getting heated and I could feel him begin to gently pull away from me.
Through his heavy breathing, he managed to get out only two words. “Please wait.”
I laid there breathless, stunned and amazed. I wanted him with every fiber of my being but he didn’t seem to want me. I was confused. He was sending me mixed signals.
“You are gorgeous and amazing and you need to know that I want you BADLY,” He stared into my desperate eyes and emphasized the word badly on purpose.