Post by Floyd Looney on Nov 13, 2009 13:32:20 GMT -5
“Emory. Wake up Emory”
Her eyes fluttered open and her baby blues were looking up at me.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked, noting the sunlight streaming through the boarded up windows.
“Six or seven hours” I said and her eyes widened but I put my hand up. “I stayed up. You were safe, I didn’t see anything all night”.
We were in an abandoned house with the windows and doors boarded up. It had been cleaned out, some of the walls were busted but it was pretty secure. It had some solar panels on top that powered a water pump from a well under the house. So we had water at least.
She stood up and stretched as I messed with my blanket and pretended not to watch. I think she knows I like her but this is not the time or place to discuss these things. She shut the door when she went into the restroom as I lay down and prepared for a little nap.
A little while later I became aware of her moving around the house, the floorboard creaking gave away her position. She was moving into the front room, a place we avoided at night.
It all started about a year ago. People were losing control of themselves, losing the ability to reason and understand. Society began to crumble as it spread across Los Angeles and then to the entire country and now the whole world. The government had finally given up all pretense of operating seven months ago, the country was nothing but anarchy now.
These zombies were only a part of the problem because there were looters, thieves, cults and everything else one could think of out there. It was a dangerous world out there and one would not survive for long by themselves. That is why me and Emory teamed up, circumstances had thrown us together.
“Jackson get in here, now!”
I roused myself enough to roll over and get onto my knees. I grabbed the shotgun as I stood up and walked into the front room. She was pointing at the front door. Through the boards nailed over it I could see that the door itself was ripped to shreds. It had been whole, mostly, yesterday. I went back to the bedroom and grabbed her .38 and my 30-30 rifle.
“I didn’t hear a thing” I told her and went to inspect the damage through the barricade. Emory unlatched the heavy security shutter we had built covering the window. I could feel fresh air circulate through the room and I stood to follow her. We would hunt food and make sure to defend our perimeter.
When we stepped out onto the wide porch we found there was a dead zombie by the steps, a feral dog was chewing at its neck. She shot the dog. It use to be that she cried after killing something, especially animals, now she didn’t even wince. It has been a hard year.
We would eat the dog if we had to. We’ve done it before.
It would have had to die anyway, it might be carrying an infection. It might spread if it bit someone, nobody really knew how the zombie disease spread.
Soon we spread out and tried to be as quiet as possible walking through the woods that surrounded the abandoned house. There was always the possibility a zombie or an infected animal would be startled by us and charge. Zombies mostly slept during the day, if sleeping was what they did.
She held her pistol with both hands, it seemed to work for her but it reminded me of the old cop shows on TV. I had a rifle with the shotgun sheathed to my right leg, we both had knives. We would make a wide circle around the house looking for anything. We could eat squirrels even though there was a chance of rabies, raccoons were to be considered infected with rabies always.
Ammunition was always low and nobody was producing more these days. Emory had mentioned that her dad had been in the Navy and she had moved around a lot, including Japan. I have seen her do some sort of martial arts moves on a guy once, a looter. He hadn’t seen that coming when he had grabbed her from behind.
I never asked her about it and she never volunteered more.
Usually there would be some chit-chat but we both knew that the zombie by the porch had not been alone, even zombies used the buddy system. Going solo was a death wish. A girl like Emory, okay maybe not exactly like Emory, would be a prize trophy for looters, gangs, cults or just a toy and dinner to zombies.
At this point Emory was in front of me and she put her hand up, palm open. Even a moron would know that means to stop and be silent. The silence was a given, survival very often depended upon it and being quiet becomes a routine or an instinct.
I stand there as Emory quietly moves sideway around this huge tree with branches handing down forming a small tent. She must have seen something under there. I watch but I can’t really see what she was doing and then I hear a crunching sound. She walks back around toward me holding up a freshly killed bird of some kind. Its head was crushed.
After she tied it to my backpack we continued with our walk. We still had to defend our castle and somewhere in these woods was probably another zombie or two, at least. After a while she whispered to me “Maybe the dead zombie left his group and they didn’t go looking for him”.
That was always a possibility because very little was understood about the zombies and there were no scientific ventures trying to study them. There was no government left, it had given up the pretense of existing just four months after the outbreak. Our civilization had been set back thousands of years, a large percentage of people were dead and the rest were all struggling to survive.
“Jackson” she said abruptly. She indicated an area nearby and I saw some animal bones scattered there, plus piles of leaves and brush. We slowly made our way in that direction, trying to watch our backs and the site at the same time. Soon we were close enough to see legs underneath the pile of brush, apparently a zombie made an effort to hide himself for the day.
This had been a camp site. She leaned over toward me but looking at the zombie camp, her hair brushed my face. Dang. “Can you hit with your rifle from here?” she asked.
This was new. Emory was feeling nervous or something, usually she might suggest we walk up to it yank off its covering and stomp its head in. It could simply be that she was in a hurry to get back to the castle and cook our bird.
It was not that far away, not even twenty yards, I could hit it pretty easily. Even through the brush I could see where its head must be. As I aim I hear some rustling leaves behind me, Emory is already looking that way and holding her gun out in front of her. I steady my breathing and then hold my breath as I squeeze the trigger. I know the sound might have echoed for miles but zombies would never where it came from.
The zombie in the brush rolled, the brush fell apart and he was lying there splayed out with a large hole in the side of his head. I looked behind me to see Emory holding her gun on an old emaciated man who looked half dead already.
The old man turned out to have just run away from a cult of some kind that had been making him take care of mules.
“They have these fortresses, guard towers and all that, former prisons” he told us “They are moving, a caravan with their armed guards keeping an eye on the followers. A bunch of us ran but I think I’m the only one to get away.”
Me and Emory walked a few trees away. “What do we do with him?” she asked.
“I’m more worried about that cult than him” I told her “Maybe we can get more information”
“What for?” she asked, looking into my eyes. I was suddenly uncomfortable. “Your planning something, aren’t you Jackson?”.
I detected a hint of amusement in her voice “We are outnumbered even if we wanted to do something about them. Its just too dangerous and as far I can tell it does not concern us”.
She had a point. A good one, why should we get involved?
We walked to the elderly man, he was looking even worse. Shaking and coughing, leaning up against a tree, he escaped just in time to die a free man it seems. We poured water from a canteen into a old metal cup for him.
“What else can you tell us, like how many of them are there?” I asked. Emory stood apart from us as if she didn’t care, leaning against a tree facing the opposite way.
“The caravan has four wagons, a couple of armed men on horseback and some prisoners being transferred to the larger compound” he told me, he winced and his hand went to his stomach. “They are sending a gift to their highest authority, a girl. Her name is Kathryn I think”.
Emory whirled around upon hearing the name and took a step toward us. “What did she look like? How old is she?”.
The old man was a bit confused about her sudden interest opened and closed his mouth like a fish while he gathered his thoughts. “Probably about eighteen I would say. Dark hair I think” he said with a pause “I only saw her once briefly, noticed her cat bracelet”.
“Oh my God” Emory said, sitting on the ground and putting her hands over her face.
“Emory, what is it?”
“My little sister”
The old man grunted and slouched over, dead. Me and Emory got away from there and back to the house. Nothing was disturbed around the house, we were still safe it seemed.
Emory took the cooking pot from one of the packs in the corner and hung it in the fireplace where she would cook the bird. I was plucking feathers and keeping an eye on her. I knew that we would go looking for the caravan tomorrow. We would see if there was a chance we could rescue her little sister. I assumed Emory would wait until we were eating to bring this up.
The food was done faster than I thought it would be. Emory dumped half the bird on my plate, it smelled very good. “Eat quickly, then gather what we need. We are going to get my sister.”
I look up at her incredulously and she says “Yes, today. I won’t wait until tomorrow”.
Her eyes fluttered open and her baby blues were looking up at me.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked, noting the sunlight streaming through the boarded up windows.
“Six or seven hours” I said and her eyes widened but I put my hand up. “I stayed up. You were safe, I didn’t see anything all night”.
We were in an abandoned house with the windows and doors boarded up. It had been cleaned out, some of the walls were busted but it was pretty secure. It had some solar panels on top that powered a water pump from a well under the house. So we had water at least.
She stood up and stretched as I messed with my blanket and pretended not to watch. I think she knows I like her but this is not the time or place to discuss these things. She shut the door when she went into the restroom as I lay down and prepared for a little nap.
A little while later I became aware of her moving around the house, the floorboard creaking gave away her position. She was moving into the front room, a place we avoided at night.
It all started about a year ago. People were losing control of themselves, losing the ability to reason and understand. Society began to crumble as it spread across Los Angeles and then to the entire country and now the whole world. The government had finally given up all pretense of operating seven months ago, the country was nothing but anarchy now.
These zombies were only a part of the problem because there were looters, thieves, cults and everything else one could think of out there. It was a dangerous world out there and one would not survive for long by themselves. That is why me and Emory teamed up, circumstances had thrown us together.
“Jackson get in here, now!”
I roused myself enough to roll over and get onto my knees. I grabbed the shotgun as I stood up and walked into the front room. She was pointing at the front door. Through the boards nailed over it I could see that the door itself was ripped to shreds. It had been whole, mostly, yesterday. I went back to the bedroom and grabbed her .38 and my 30-30 rifle.
“I didn’t hear a thing” I told her and went to inspect the damage through the barricade. Emory unlatched the heavy security shutter we had built covering the window. I could feel fresh air circulate through the room and I stood to follow her. We would hunt food and make sure to defend our perimeter.
When we stepped out onto the wide porch we found there was a dead zombie by the steps, a feral dog was chewing at its neck. She shot the dog. It use to be that she cried after killing something, especially animals, now she didn’t even wince. It has been a hard year.
We would eat the dog if we had to. We’ve done it before.
It would have had to die anyway, it might be carrying an infection. It might spread if it bit someone, nobody really knew how the zombie disease spread.
Soon we spread out and tried to be as quiet as possible walking through the woods that surrounded the abandoned house. There was always the possibility a zombie or an infected animal would be startled by us and charge. Zombies mostly slept during the day, if sleeping was what they did.
She held her pistol with both hands, it seemed to work for her but it reminded me of the old cop shows on TV. I had a rifle with the shotgun sheathed to my right leg, we both had knives. We would make a wide circle around the house looking for anything. We could eat squirrels even though there was a chance of rabies, raccoons were to be considered infected with rabies always.
Ammunition was always low and nobody was producing more these days. Emory had mentioned that her dad had been in the Navy and she had moved around a lot, including Japan. I have seen her do some sort of martial arts moves on a guy once, a looter. He hadn’t seen that coming when he had grabbed her from behind.
I never asked her about it and she never volunteered more.
Usually there would be some chit-chat but we both knew that the zombie by the porch had not been alone, even zombies used the buddy system. Going solo was a death wish. A girl like Emory, okay maybe not exactly like Emory, would be a prize trophy for looters, gangs, cults or just a toy and dinner to zombies.
At this point Emory was in front of me and she put her hand up, palm open. Even a moron would know that means to stop and be silent. The silence was a given, survival very often depended upon it and being quiet becomes a routine or an instinct.
I stand there as Emory quietly moves sideway around this huge tree with branches handing down forming a small tent. She must have seen something under there. I watch but I can’t really see what she was doing and then I hear a crunching sound. She walks back around toward me holding up a freshly killed bird of some kind. Its head was crushed.
After she tied it to my backpack we continued with our walk. We still had to defend our castle and somewhere in these woods was probably another zombie or two, at least. After a while she whispered to me “Maybe the dead zombie left his group and they didn’t go looking for him”.
That was always a possibility because very little was understood about the zombies and there were no scientific ventures trying to study them. There was no government left, it had given up the pretense of existing just four months after the outbreak. Our civilization had been set back thousands of years, a large percentage of people were dead and the rest were all struggling to survive.
“Jackson” she said abruptly. She indicated an area nearby and I saw some animal bones scattered there, plus piles of leaves and brush. We slowly made our way in that direction, trying to watch our backs and the site at the same time. Soon we were close enough to see legs underneath the pile of brush, apparently a zombie made an effort to hide himself for the day.
This had been a camp site. She leaned over toward me but looking at the zombie camp, her hair brushed my face. Dang. “Can you hit with your rifle from here?” she asked.
This was new. Emory was feeling nervous or something, usually she might suggest we walk up to it yank off its covering and stomp its head in. It could simply be that she was in a hurry to get back to the castle and cook our bird.
It was not that far away, not even twenty yards, I could hit it pretty easily. Even through the brush I could see where its head must be. As I aim I hear some rustling leaves behind me, Emory is already looking that way and holding her gun out in front of her. I steady my breathing and then hold my breath as I squeeze the trigger. I know the sound might have echoed for miles but zombies would never where it came from.
The zombie in the brush rolled, the brush fell apart and he was lying there splayed out with a large hole in the side of his head. I looked behind me to see Emory holding her gun on an old emaciated man who looked half dead already.
The old man turned out to have just run away from a cult of some kind that had been making him take care of mules.
“They have these fortresses, guard towers and all that, former prisons” he told us “They are moving, a caravan with their armed guards keeping an eye on the followers. A bunch of us ran but I think I’m the only one to get away.”
Me and Emory walked a few trees away. “What do we do with him?” she asked.
“I’m more worried about that cult than him” I told her “Maybe we can get more information”
“What for?” she asked, looking into my eyes. I was suddenly uncomfortable. “Your planning something, aren’t you Jackson?”.
I detected a hint of amusement in her voice “We are outnumbered even if we wanted to do something about them. Its just too dangerous and as far I can tell it does not concern us”.
She had a point. A good one, why should we get involved?
We walked to the elderly man, he was looking even worse. Shaking and coughing, leaning up against a tree, he escaped just in time to die a free man it seems. We poured water from a canteen into a old metal cup for him.
“What else can you tell us, like how many of them are there?” I asked. Emory stood apart from us as if she didn’t care, leaning against a tree facing the opposite way.
“The caravan has four wagons, a couple of armed men on horseback and some prisoners being transferred to the larger compound” he told me, he winced and his hand went to his stomach. “They are sending a gift to their highest authority, a girl. Her name is Kathryn I think”.
Emory whirled around upon hearing the name and took a step toward us. “What did she look like? How old is she?”.
The old man was a bit confused about her sudden interest opened and closed his mouth like a fish while he gathered his thoughts. “Probably about eighteen I would say. Dark hair I think” he said with a pause “I only saw her once briefly, noticed her cat bracelet”.
“Oh my God” Emory said, sitting on the ground and putting her hands over her face.
“Emory, what is it?”
“My little sister”
The old man grunted and slouched over, dead. Me and Emory got away from there and back to the house. Nothing was disturbed around the house, we were still safe it seemed.
Emory took the cooking pot from one of the packs in the corner and hung it in the fireplace where she would cook the bird. I was plucking feathers and keeping an eye on her. I knew that we would go looking for the caravan tomorrow. We would see if there was a chance we could rescue her little sister. I assumed Emory would wait until we were eating to bring this up.
The food was done faster than I thought it would be. Emory dumped half the bird on my plate, it smelled very good. “Eat quickly, then gather what we need. We are going to get my sister.”
I look up at her incredulously and she says “Yes, today. I won’t wait until tomorrow”.
