Zombie Dawn (10 page)

I immediately thought that the house might be a good base for the Millers and perhaps a couple of reinforcements.  They could defend the house and provide a water supply for the neighborhood.  I had decided to mention it privately to Steve, but Stan and Wes proposed it immediately. 

“Hey, Jack, how about if Steve takes this one,” said Wes.  “Yeah,” added Stan, “We’re gonna need to spread out.  I bet we’ll find a bunch more survivors and we need more space.”

I asked Steve how he felt about it.  He immediately agreed:  “I’d love to move in here with Julie and Jake.  Maybe Mary, Tyler and Cody could come with me.  That way, we’d have enough bodies to guard the house.” 

“That sounds great.  Let’s figure it out at tonight’s meeting.”

That night, we held our regular meeting.  It was already getting kind of old.  I hadn’t signed up for a leadership role and it was a burden to have so many people depending on me, and so much stress.  Things were getting tight at the house and it was time to spread out. 

A few zombies had come through the woods during the day and Mom had decided to watch them carefully rather than shoot them.  She wanted to see what they could do.  So, she sat on a lawn chair in the back yard and watched them paw at the chain link fence.  They pushed on the fence and hit it randomly.  They made no effort to open the latch but hit randomly it a few times.  The odds were that they’d eventually get it open, but only by pure luck.  She put a ladder outside the fence to see if they’d climb it.  All they did was knock it over with no effort to climb up it.  They had eventually wandered off.  Mom refused to shoot them.

We discussed that it was a great idea to study them but that we should end every single one that we could.  Otherwise, we’d have to deal with them later.  Or someone else would.

Mom summed up what we knew so far:  “They can’t climb ladders. They can’t open doors or gates.  They have excellent hearing and smell.  We don’t know about their vision but we think it’s poor.  They move slowly but steadily.  They can’t speak.  Young ones are quicker.”

            Cody had heard a broadcast on the shortwave radio.  A ham operator in Springfield was talking to one up in Gloucester.  Springfield said that the zombies were mobbing up and moving in huge groups.  They were going from building to building and causing tremendous damage.  Apparently, there were quite a few survivors but the number was dropping fast as the zombies swept the area.

Gloucester agreed; Cape Ann was pretty much wiped out after a couple of days of mass zombie attacks.  Gloucester said that zombies couldn’t swim but simply sunk in water.  There was an entire whale watch boat full of zombies grounded on a beach in Rockport.  They couldn’t get out but every once in awhile one would fall over onto the beach or into the ocean.  A few sharks were waiting down there.

Springfield said that he’d heard a story about a zombie in a small river.  It fell in and everyone assumed it had drowned or been swept away.  The next day, it had attacked a survivor wading across the river.  So water did not kill them, but they couldn’t swim.

Mom summarized the new facts as part of our zombie lore:  “They attack in mobs.  They can’t swim but can survive underwater.  They must not need air.”

Chapter Ten:  Mariana

Bobbie told us that she had heard from Mariana.  Town had been almost completely destroyed by a mob that was heading this way down Chestnut Street.  Mariana was alone.  She did not know where Santos was.  She was on the roof of her building.  It was accessed by a ladder, so the zombies couldn’t get to her.  She was out of food and water.  There were no zombies that she could see.

            “Here’s what we need to do,” I decided.  “Stan, Jr. and I will circle around into town on Mechanic Street and see if we can rescue Mariana and maybe find other survivors.  We’ll take the Hummer down the path through the farm and stay away from Chestnut Street.  The rest of you will have to stay here and prepare for a possible mass attack.  We’ll get back as soon as we can.  We’ll have to work all night to get ready and Stan, Jr. and I will leave before dawn.”  Everyone agreed.

            We decided that we’d try to defend just my house so that we could concentrate our firepower.  Everyone would stay absolutely silent and hope that the zombies didn’t discover us.  Stan and Wes would man a listening post at the end of Chestnut Street and return if they saw zombies entering the street.

            To prepare the house for defense, I fired up the backhoe and dug a deep trench across the front yard about fifty yards from the house.  It was four or five feet wide and six feet deep and about eighty feet long; that’s all we had time for.  I piled the dirt on the other side of the trench so we had a berm about three feet high there.  We placed buckets partially full of gas every few feet in the trench. 

            Stan set the machine gun up on the berm.  He would man the machine gun, with Steve in charge of reloading.  Stan would carry an M4 to shoot while Steve reloaded.  Julie would carry an M4 and defend Stan and Steve.   They’d fall back to the house if they needed to and defend the front.  We left a couple of deer rifles upstairs for them to use.

We installed two lines of fence posts and chain link fencing that funneled towards the trench.  Wes wired up our 12 Claymores, 6 along each side of the fence.  He’d blow them one by one to kill as many zombies as he could.  I tore down trees with the backhoe to create firing lines toward the trench and used the trees to add to the defensive line.

            Mike and Stan ran strands of wire around the sides and back of the house about 50 yards out.  That was our effective firing range.  They cleared as many trees as they could to create kill zones.  They piled the logs and brush between the remaining trees as a barrier. 

            I dug a second trench across the driveway and around the parking area and extended it outside the fence in the back yard.  This would make it harder for zombies to get at the garage, which was a weak point.

            We decided to put Jake up in a tree in front to control Claymores and to act as a sniper. He had a scoped M4 and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.  We cleared his fire lanes and saw that he could control the front and part of the side yards from his position.   Jake took a dozen grenades up the tree.  His plan was to climb up the tree using a ladder and pull the ladder up after him.  He’d stay there until the end either way.

            Mike was on the roof with the Mini and 1,000 rounds.  We built him a small scaffold around the chimney so that he’d have a secure firing position.  His primary responsibility was the rear and rear side yards.  We put an emergency ladder there so Mike could climb down if he had to.

            Mom and Kate would take the west side of the house, which we figured was safest because of the fall off on that side.  Each had a firing position inside one of the windows on that side on the second floor.  Each had an Ithaca pump and plenty of ammo.  Mom also had Dad’s .30-06 for longer shots.

            Carol, Jamie and Rich Cliff would defend the garage and east side.  They’d start outside from the berm then retreat into the garage as necessary.  They had time to build a low stone wall just outside the garage doors as a fallback position.  Carol and Jamie had shotguns; Rich had my .30-30.  He was on the garage roof and had a good view all around the garage area.

            Bobbie, Tyler, Cody and Jake would defend the back yard using .22’s with support from Rich and Mom.  Sean would monitor the radios.   Marj and Christina would deliver ammo and water to whoever needed it and provide reinforcements as necessary.

            We decided that the basement would be the final defense point.  I removed the stairs and replaced them with a ladder.  We had lots of supplies in the basement and arranged them around the stairs to give us firing positions if anything came down the ladder.   I posted Charlie in the basement with a .22 since he really wasn’t very useful yet.  Eddie stood at the top of the stairs to prevent zombies from getting up.

            We also set up ladders on three trees out beyond my shed.  Anyone who could make it to the ladders might have a chance to get up into the trees and stay safe.  We hung some food and water in each tree.

            We distributed food, water, handguns and ammo to each fighting area and everyone got in a bit of rest. 

            Stan, Jr. and I hopped in the Hummer at 5:00 a.m.  The sun was not up.  The moon had been full that night but had set.

We each had .12 gauges loaded with slugs and .45 handguns.  I wished we had some long rifles but they needed them to defend the house.  We were well supplied with food and water, and Stan Jr. had screwed some pieces of chain link fencing over the windows for extra protection.

            We picked our way along the path through the woods to the farm.  We saw several zombies but did not shoot although we ran two over.  The farmhouse was empty.  We quickly cleared it and took a quick look around.  I was delighted to find lots of supplies but more importantly two scoped deer rifles in .308 and lots of ammo for them.  We took the guns and ammo with us and headed out, winding our way onto Mechanic, which would lead us into town.  Again, few zombies were out and there was no sign of survivors.

            The town was completely trashed.  Many of the buildings and cars had burned.  There were hundreds of dead bodies in the street, many with neat holes in their foreheads.  At lease someone had resisted.  Crippled zombies moaned and crawled down the alleys and side streets.   

            Bobbie had told me where Mariana was.  We parked the Hummer so it blocked the entry door and crawled out the back window.  The first floor was empty and we headed up an emergency stairwell.  A few dead bodies, human and zombie, but not too bad.  We opened the doors on each floor to check that they worked, listened briefly, and closed them again.  We quickly got up to the roof and saw the ladder.  I called up for Mariana and after a few minutes she called back. She climbed down the ladder and joined us.  She seemed a bit odd but I wrote it off to shock.  We went to her floor, the fourth, to check for her brother Santos.  Santos was pretty well barricaded in the apartment and after a few minutes he came out. 

            I asked Santos why he was separated from Mariana.  His answer was pretty sketchy but I didn’t have time to figure it out.  From Mariana’s reaction, I wondered if he had sent her out of the apartment to draw zombies away from him.  But I really didn't focus on it. 

We quickly loaded them in the Hummer and headed out.  We decided to head back down Chestnut Street to see if anything was heading towards our place.  I made a mental note to find out what had happened back there with Santos.

A few minutes later, I heard Santos screaming in the back seat.  Mariana had turned and was trying to attack him. She was infected.  Luckily, she was belted in and had no idea how to undo the belt.  She was getting close to Santos so we had to pull over, wrap her up in a blanket, undo the belt, and get her out of the Hummer.  Stan, Jr. and I briefly discussed what to do with her and we both knew that according to our rules we’d have to kill her.

Stan, Jr. agreed to do it since I’d known Mariana since she was a little kid.  I started back to the Hummer, when Santos scrambled out, screaming “Leave her alone!”  He’d seen Stan, Jr. pull his .45 and aim it at Mariana.  Santos grabbed Stan, Jr.’s shotgun, which was fully loaded, and fired at Stan Jr.  The slug hit Stan, Jr. in the shoulder and he went down.  I tried to grab Santos but missed, and he kept heading towards Stan, Jr., trying to figure out how to rack the shotgun to chamber another shell.  I knew that I’d have to shoot him if he figured it out, but I was able to tackle him before he could reload. 

When I looked up, Stan Jr. was white as a sheet and Mariana was nowhere to be seen.  I wrapped a bandage around his shoulder and threw him into the Hummer.  Santos was sobbing, screaming for Mariana and that he was sorry.   Clearly, he’d forced her out of the apartment to protect himself.

I thought about ending him for what he’d done but decided to bring him back and let the group decide what to do with him.

I decided to tie Santos’s wrists with zip strips because he was still out of control.  I prepared to drive away.  Just then, we got a call from Wes.  “A huge horde of zombies is moving down Chestnut Street.   A bunch of them went by but a few stumbled into the barricade.  The Civic rolled back a bit and they forced an opening.  Now a bunch of them are coming in.  So far, Dad and I have been able to kill them without shooting, but the gap is getting wider.  What do you think?”

“How many of them walked by before this happened?”

“They were walking by for at least ten minutes before they found the opening.”

“Can you see the end of the horde?”

“No.”

“All right, keep killing them silently for as long as you can then retreat.  Maybe most of it will pass before you have to shoot.  Rig a few trip wires across the street to slow them down.”

“Okay.  Over.”

As I saw it, I had three options.  One was to return to the house and help fight at the house.  I didn’t think one more gun would help enough.  A second was to follow the horde down Chestnut Street and attack from the rear.  I would have done that if Stan and Santos could have helped but again, I was not sure that I could help enough alone.  The third option, which I chose, was to try to flank the horde, come out ahead of it on Chestnut, and make enough noise to draw the horde past my street.